Saw a good article today (from a religious point of view, so most of the BBTF crowd will dismiss it out of hand) saying that secularism, materialism and individualism are the three great scourges of the modern world.

If it ends in "ism" it's probably pretty awful. I think there's a convincing case to be made that those three are the dominant isms of the modern world. Which, if you're a fan of some other world, qualifies them as the great scourges.

I guess I'm saying I'd view them as the great blessings and the great scourges of the modern world. It's probably more accurate to just say they are the great values of the modern world, just like any other era, they're ours for good and for ill.

What, you don't like optimism and pragmatism?

If it ends in "ism" it's probably pretty awful.

Even if it starts with [Option] J?

What, you don't like optimism and pragmatism?

I manage to find the down side of both optimism and pessimism!

EDIT: Just to correct the above, I suppose not all "isms" are equally bad. Post-Structuralism for instance is worse than fascism, communism, and Zwinglism combined.

No support for Onanism?

j-ism?

Judaism, you sick bastard!

Jism, you flippin' morans.

Or, the most diabolical of them all...Jainism.

"I'd rather have my daughter (over 18) "work her way through college" in porn movies for a living than have to clean bathrooms (naturally, he doesn't actually have any children)."

So he'd rather have his child f*ck strangers for the gratification of other strangers, the images of which will be floating around the 'net forever,
than have to be a janitor for a while. Class. Way to protect the heart of your loved ones, guy.

Maybe I'm the only one, but I parsed the statement above as, "I'd rather have my daughter pay for college through porn than never go to college and be stuck in a menial job for the rest of her life."

Maybe I'm the only one, but I parsed the statement above as, "I'd rather have my daughter pay for college through porn than never go to college and be stuck in a menial job for the rest of her life."


But is self respect more valuable than money? Personally, I don't think I could be happy if I didn't respect myself, no matter how much money I made.

(And I'm sure there are plenty of people who could do porn and still respect themselves, and that's cool. I'm just speaking in hypotheticals)

Maybe I'm the only one, but I parsed the statement above as, "I'd rather have my daughter pay for college through porn than never go to college and be stuck in a menial job for the rest of her life."

Your interpretation seems like a more rational postion, but its not what I get from a reading of the statement.

Though I'm speaking as a person who paid his way through college by cleaning toilets, so I may be biased. Working as a janitor at your old high school, now that is a trip.

Vlad's answer is telling. Sad, really. It all depends on how much money they offer you.

Human conciousness cannot be adequately explained as mere electrical/chemical impulses. A computer-brained robot cannot ever be truly self-aware.

Think about it. It can seem self-aware, and fool everybody were it built perfectly, but it can't "know" of its own existense.

I worked as a janitor at college one fine summer. Had to clean some bathrooms. No big deal.

Think about it. It can seem self-aware, and fool everybody were it built perfectly, but it can't "know" of its own existense.

If it were up to people like you the Exocomps would still be our slaves!

We are not merely "electric meat"...as some seem to be arguing.

or in vernacular, "Mench"

It's Mensch. From the German for human being.

It's harder than it looks.

THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!

Pretty sure that's what HE said, not SHE.

Without Puritanism, strip clubs would get a lot less business.

We are not merely "electric meat"...as some seem to be arguing.

I prefer 'Meat Puppet'.

Without Puritanism what the hell would Nathaniel Hawthorne have written about?

In fact, get rid of churches and you would immediately cut the level of sin and vice 50 percent.

Without Puritanism what the hell would Nathaniel Hawthorne written about?

Guts.

But, to exapt Sigmund Freud, we may not be just meat, but first we are meat.

Short answer, pretty much any sexual position or activity as foreplay (that is not harmful or degrading to one of the spouses) is permissible for a married couple, as long as the husband "finishes" in the coital act. The wife can climax before, during or after, or all three, as long as it's within the same "session".

Oh good Lord! It is the church's position that it is immoral for a woman to climax unless her husband climaxes inside of her during the same "session"? Who comes up with this? And more importantly, why?

The RCC is first and foremost a patriarchal institution -- women are completely subordinate to men.

If string-theory physicists postulate the (ridiculous) concept of multi-verses,

And you know this is ridiculous because you are a physicist and actually understand string theory? [It would take a lot of convincing for me to believe that you are capable of doing the math involved).

or because the bible tells you so?

Oh good Lord! It is the church's position that it is immoral for a woman to climax unless her husband climaxes inside of her during the same "session"? Who comes up with this? And more importantly, why?

Because sex is meant to be both uniative (bonding the spouses) and procreative (open to children).

The RCC is first and foremost a patriarchal institution -- women are completely subordinate to men.

########. The Catholic Church's position on sex is much more "pro woman" than the secular view. She can reach climax in multiple ways, multiple times, through any form of stimulation, only the man is restricted. Further, the husband has to accept her completely, and can't reject her fertility, so she can please him with no risk to him of having to support a child.

And you know this is ridiculous because you are a physicist and actually understand string theory? [It would take a lot of convincing for me to believe that you are capable of doing the math involved).

I can do the math, I choose not to waste my time. No math can prove anything we can't perceive and measure with our senses. Math is as useful as geography in perceiving things outside of out material world. Why would something outside of our material world follow the physical and mathematical laws of our universe?

The idea that there are infinite worlds each a tiny bit different from this one, that we have no way of perceiving, is reasonable to you? But the idea of a divinity unlike us is completely out of bounds?

Yeah, that's reasonable logic. It just shows, secularists and "rationalist" have their own preferred fairy tales, much more ridiculous than anything a deist ever thought up.

Oh good Lord! It is the church's position that it is immoral for a woman to climax unless her husband climaxes inside of her during the same "session"? Who comes up with this? And more importantly, why?

Because sex is meant to be both uniative (bonding the spouses) and procreative (open to children).

The Catholic Church's position on sex is much more "pro woman" than the secular view. She can reach climax in multiple ways, multiple times, through any form of stimulation, only the man is restricted.

That's not what you said. You said the wife can only climax if the husbands climaxes inside of her sometime during the session. What if the husband becomes impotent. Is he forbidden from pleasuring his wife forever? What if the husband just isn't "feeling it" that day. Is "any form of stimulation" then right out? Where do we get that from the Bible? There's no seed being spilled.

########. The Catholic Church's position on sex is much more "pro woman" than the secular view. She can reach climax in multiple ways, multiple times, through any form of stimulation, only the man is restricted. Further, the husband has to accept her completely, and can't reject her fertility, so she can please him with no risk to him of having to support a child.

This makes so little sense I have no response.

I'm no humanist. Homo sapiens is a species of planet earth.

I can do the math, I choose not to waste my time. No math can prove anything we can't perceive and measure with our senses. Math is as useful as geography in perceiving things outside of out material world. Why would something outside of our material world follow the physical and mathematical laws of our universe?

This is astoundingly ignorant.

That's not what you said. You said the wife can only climax if the husbands climaxes inside of her sometime during the session. What if the husband becomes impotent. Is he forbidden from pleasuring his wife forever? What if the husband just isn't "feeling it" that day. Is "any form of stimulation" then right out? Where do we get that from the Bible? There's no seed being spilled.

The Catholic Church has never been a Sola Scriptura church. The Church predates the Bible by three centuries.

Again, two tests, uniative, procreative. If the husband isn't "feeling it", wait til tomorrow. If the husband is permanently impotent, yes, their sex life is over. I would think one sided sex is much worse than mutual continence.

This is astoundingly ignorant.

As is asserting there is no possibility of God b/c you can't perceive him. Yet infinite universes you equally can't perceive are eminently possible b/c your secular priests say it's OK to believe that.

You have you own unexamined absolutes, but that's rational to you. You're free to make a god out of our limited perception of mathematical and scientific laws, but, once you move beyond the immediate realm we can perceive and measure, you're operating on faith as much as the most unlearned 1st century deist.

I guess we'll just have to differ on our definitions of ignorance.

I'm no humanist. Homo sapiens is a species of planet earth.

What's next? The "a rat is a dog is a boy" PETA trope?

I'm not a church goer but I find the reflexive fear of anything said and done in the name of religion curious. If more people held the idea that sex was meant to be a bonding experience between two married people rather than just a form of entertainment I think we'd be better off.

More generally most religions espouse ideals and values that are inherently positive. That a few fanatics bastardize those ideals is an error on the part of individuals rather than the message.

If more people held the idea that sex was meant to be a bonding experience between two married people rather than just a form of entertainment I think we'd be better off.

I agree. But then we get ridiculous micro management like a wife can only morally climax if the husband does the same (inside her).

I'm not attacking your religious beliefs, but your lack of understanding of mathematics.

I believe humans are more limited than the either/or of your simple dualism.

"All religions, nearly all philosophies, and even part of science testify to the unwearying, heroic effort of humankind desperately denying its contingency."

I'm not attacking your religious beliefs, but your lack of understanding of mathematics.

I believe humans are more limited than the either/or of your simple dualism.

And I'm saying your understanding of mathematics is very much a religious belief, if you accept multiverses as a rational possibility, but God as completely out of bounds.

If you want to say you don't know, and either is possible, fine. But otherwise, you've make your own god.

"All religions, nearly all philosophies, and even part of science testify to the unwearying, heroic effort of humankind desperately denying its contingency."

100% wrong.

Traditional Christianity absolutely believes that God is totally self-sufficient. He had no need of us, and had no need to create us.

We are completely contingent on His will for our existence, and His Grace for our salvation.

I'm going to help snapper out:

Frank Tipler of Tulane in response to this year's annual question at Edge had this to say about parallel universes:

Parallel Universes

This might be as close to mystical science as we can get right now. Check out at your leisure the other responses of contributors.

More generally most religions espouse ideals and values that are inherently positive. That a few fanatics bastardize those ideals is an error on the part of individuals rather than the message.

I'm no 'new atheist' -- there is value in religion -- but to say that its ideals and values are 'inherently positive' is absurd. Most religion asks us to unthinkingly submit to a higher authority not only beyond question, but beyond human sensibility. Morality itself is a power trip designed to internally subjugate the weak.

I don't fear religion. I fear ignorance masquerading as profound wisdom beyond ordinary human understanding.

Most religion asks us to unthinkingly submit to a higher authority not only beyond question, but beyond human sensibility. Morality itself is a power trip designed to internally subjugate the weak.

Then you haven't engaged Catholic theology and philosophy. It is almost entirely based on logic, and particularly Aristotlean logic. Catholicism completely rejects the idea that God can be capricious and illogical.

or in vernacular, "Mench"

Wait a minute, I'm confused. Kevin is stripping now?

This might be as close to mystical science as we can get right now.

When man rejects God, he has the irresistable need to create a new one.

Whether it be nationalist in the 19th C, or race for the Nazis, or the proletariat for the Communists, or Gaia for the evironmentalists, or science for the rationalist/materialists, it never fails.

I'm agnostic rather than atheist. My objection is to ignorant people claiming knowledge they cannot possibly have. If you were arguing from your personal experience of 'god', I'd have sympathy... plus an honest humility before mathematics.

Strangely enough, I agree that human beings are radically contingent upon the material realm. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Anything that can be bromen down into smaller elements will. Everything you think of as 'yourself' will soon disappear as if it never existed. Only your genes will live on in your descendants. I think we both share this 'belief', which is why the fetus is so very important to you. It's your sole means to immortality.

God has absolutely no use for you.

Vlad's answer is telling. Sad, really. It all depends on how much money they offer you.

I agree that it's both sad and telling, but not in the way that you think.

There are always lots of moral scolds willing to direct paternalistic scorn toward the poor exploited (female) sex worker, but nobody gives a #### about whether or not some old Mexican lady making $2.00 an hour under the table as a maid is being exploited.

Everything you think of as 'yourself' will soon disappear as if it never existed. Only your genes will live on in your descendants. I think we both share this 'belief', which is why the fetus is so very important to you. It's your sole means to immortality.

God has absolutely no use for you.

Nope. Your soul is what matters. Genes are an irrelevancy.

Bacteria have genes. Who cares?

What's next? The "a rat is a dog is a boy" PETA trope

Patently ridiculous, since the clergy never participated in an international rat rape ring.

Then you haven't engaged Catholic theology and philosophy. It is almost entirely based on logic,

That's why the Jews had to wear those yellow stars. Logic.

Mathematics is sublime. I don't understand how someone can so blithely dismiss its wondrous beauty.

The Rat lost tonight. I'm sure we can all agree that is an absolute good.

Bacteria have genes. Who cares?

That fact might one day prolong your life. I kinda feel sorry for you now... if your beliefs weren't so perniciously wrong.

Mathematics is sublime. I don't understand how someone can so blithely dismiss its wondrous beauty.

I don't see it. It's a technology. It solves concrete problems in a concrete world. It doesn't speak to metaphysics, or philosophy.

I'm a quant, an analyst. It's what I do. But I view math as a mason views concrete. It's a tool of the trade, no more.

That fact might one day prolong your life. I kinda feel sorry for you now.

Why? I have no particular fear of death. I fear suffering (I'm not a good enough Christian to be able to fully embrace redemptive suffering), but not death.

Maybe you need to have experienced serious health problems (5 surgeries in 5 years) to understand.

We live in parallel universes.

Why? I have no particular fear of death. I fear suffering

Well you're in luck, I don't see any more Inquisitions on the horizon in our modern secular world. Then again, who would expect one?

No one expects the Spa...oh wait. That was the joke wasn't it.

We are not merely "electric meat"...as some seem to be arguing.

The word in this statement I would object to most strongly is "merely" (though electric meat is a strange strawman in itself).

I really don't want to get into this argument again. It's futile. We all end up like hamster on speed on a wheel. So I limit myself to agreeing with snapper to some extent, to wit:

I pretty much think the same when you say people will try to find a god and a religion. It's probably the way our brain is geared up. That doesn't prove there is one, though. Indeed, more and more, our brains have allowed us to see through that process by which we manufacture a god and a religious view. God and religion was our first way of explaining things, the universe, creation. It's a bankrupt way.

But, yes, most people who say they are an atheist really just mean they've abandoned one god and that god's religion for another. To be a true atheist takes concerted conscious effort and altering mental and behavioral processes. In short, first of all, it's not just denying Jesus or Allah; it means abandoning a way of thinking and of viewing the world. Just switching gods does not make you an atheist, even if your god is the mere Einsteinian laws of the universe. But, that we are so intent on insisting on grafting religious tint and tone to our way of looking at things may simply have to do with the way limitations of our brains and the limitations of expression through language that that brain gives rise to.

So, in a sense, yes, one can at best only be a qualified atheist. Until you make the proffer of your deity and explain why you think he is that, I've got nothing to say. Hey, maybe you have found the right one. So, make it. (Or don't. Rest your case on faith--but, then, you have nothing at all to say--at least in the way of ultimate claims. You can't insist someone play by rules that you refuse to play by. You can't eat your cake and have it, tool.)

However, I can't see how Nazism, Communism, Gaiaism, etc., make the cut as gods or religions.

Fata Morgana is a remarkable film.

As is asserting there is no possibility of God b/c you can't perceive him. Yet infinite universes you equally can't perceive are eminently possible b/c your secular priests say it's OK to believe that.

I would never say that there's no possibility of God in the first place. I would say that there is no way to ever prove that God exists and therefore belief in God is an unsupportable position.

I am an atheist because I believe that there is no God. I don't believe that there's probably no God or that there might not be a God. Furthermore, this is a binary position: belief is something one either has or does not have. You can't "kind of" believe something. If I tell you that I have a dog, either you believe me or you don't. Since it's a pretty non-extraordinary claim that is reasonably connected to everyday reality (we see dog owners all the time), it requires a very low standard of proof: you might simply believe me based on nothing but my word. If you tell me that the Christian God exists, that is an extraordinary claim that does not connect to pretty much anything we encounter in everyday reality, and so it requires an extraordinary standard of proof.

I am an agnostic because I believe the question of God (defined as outside human perception) is inherently unknowable. One might as well ask what the color blue tastes like: color has been defined as a purely visual property and not one that can be tasted. God has been defined as outside human perception and thus can never be perceived.

I am anti-religious because I believe that religion is inherently harmful to humanity. Skepticism is fundamental to learning and progress; religion is diametrically opposed to skepticism. Religion creates social cliques that divide people. Religious people cannot be reasoned with on areas that conflict with their religious beliefs, because they accept an absolute and unquestionable moral authority; there is no room for reasoned disagreement, and all other concerns are subordinate.

These three positions are related but one can differ on any or all of them. I have friends who believe in God yet define the question as unknowable and are anti-religious.

We can experience quantum uncertainty experimentally. Parallel universes are, in essence, a description of all possible events that could follow from a period of quantum uncertainty. They exist in the sense that an undefined variable has an infinite set of values until the moment that it is defined. I believe that there are infinite future universes but only one present and past universe; each moment that passes is the termination of all but one of a set of infinite possibilities, and from that one moment, there is another infinite set of possibilities but a moment away.

I need to read much further in mathematics and physics, but I'm pretty sure time's directionalty isn't singular. At the limits of math, logic fails.

Here's one that puzzles me: "$250 Half-Hour Topless Premier Lounge" in the Private Dances section. Seriously? You pay $250 for a half hour topless dance?

Ummmmmm, do you really think that's all that's going on in the "Private" section?

It's extremely unlikely the club would be openly advertising scarcely veiled prostitution. That's not how it works. I've heard. Some or none of the girls might be offering "extras", but this isn't the way it happens. If you were correct, then everyone going for the $250 dance would be getting sex. It would be as open and obvious as a Nevada brothel. The club in LA would be closed in a week.

No sex in the champagne room.

If that's a reference to the movie Go, what happens in the back in that room ("The girls can touch you, you CANNOT touch the girls") is very, very probably what happens at the Jet Strip.

One of my HS classmates got into this field. She was very much in the strong self-esteem, strong-willed, independent side of things. Never hid her job from anyone, never complained, talked about enjoying it as a fun thing, and then (from what I know) moved on to other (more socially acceptable) business activities.

Yup. I find it offensive that do-gooders would like to take away an extremely lucrative opportunity for many women. Prostitution aside, which I inside is generally a matter of choice for women, how is dancing in a club--unless we're squeamish about bodies--more demeaning to anyone than working in Wal-Mart and being forced to stand at a cash register for 8 hours? For working behind the counter in a perpetually greasy, unhealthy atmosphere while being forced to wear a silly, demeaning costume?

Everyone involved. The women are often being exploited by deed or circumstance and to me there is something rather pitiful about men who have go pay to stare at naked women that are half their age (at best). There is something unsettling to me about sitting with a group of people ogling some stranger.

I went to a bachelor party a couple of years ago and all I could think was the girls dancing were closer in age to my friends daughter than to me and how heartbroken I would be if she ever did that.

I know your intentions are good, but isn't what's really important what SHE feels?

As for the exploitation you mention, please tell me how young women who are not wealthy are also not exploited by employers twice and three times there age, forced into ridiculous, repetitive, demeaning jobs that also pay a pittance. These young women are also forced by circumstance and background into those jobs.

The vast majority of the women dancing have the option of working in grocery stores and big box stores. Ask them why they aren't.

I've been to about a dozen strip clubs in my life, the last one 10 years ago. If there was one near my house I'd probably go once or twice a year. I did get to know some dancers fairly well, and watching beautiful women dancing while wearing nothing or next to nothing as long as they're there voluntarily doesn't strike me as some godawful thing to be doing. One of the women I knew was the kind that men stared at when she was in a down jacket buying cigarettes. There isn't some great wall between work and life. In Canada I talked with one of the dancers in a good club, and the young women who want to dance there have to attend a training school for three months first. Volunatarily. I just think it's a lot different than you think it is. If you drive it underground, you just make it a lot worse. The prostitution in Nevada is a lot better for the women involved than prostitution just about anywhere else. And vastly safer. That said, I wish prostitution did not exist, so I'm not going to get into an involved defense of it.

BTW, I'm always shocked that porn and prostitution and not treated equally by the law.

Me too. Both should, of course, be decriminalized.

I have no problem with it being zoned, though, like anything else.

By the way, the real issue here is the insane decision to ban whatever arrangement the league had to cook burgers and sell them as a way to raise a lot of money. My local little league does that, it's great to have a burger shack on the premises, the prices are reasonable, and they probably make $300 on a twi-light doubleheader. TFA mentions the cost of a building to house the cooking is around $65,000. WTF? Our local Shed Man can sell and deliver something more than adequate for 8 grand. Hookups would run another couple of thousand. A grill and vent would run at most another 5 grand. How on earth are they coming up with this amount?

When man rejects God, he has the irresistable need to create a new one.

that's interesting. I don't feel that need and it's funny that people like you invariably speak in broad generalities. As if the nuances and subtlies of human nature dont exist.

Traditional Christianity absolutely believes that God is totally self-sufficient. He had no need of us, and had no need to create us.

this is like some sort of mental flagellation for those of you are actually willing to believe this stuff, you get it thrown back in your face just for good measure.

Bacteria have genes. Who cares?

A friend of mine is doing her PhD research on the genetic code of some bacteria or another. So I suppose she cares.

I certainly don't.

When man rejects God, he has the irresistable need to create a new one.

Maybe it's just that by nature second guessing myself is one of my greatest hobbies, but if I rejected God and then felt compelled psychologically to create a new one*...I'd think, "hey, if this is a psychological need within me, maybe I created the first God too."

*I do think your assessment in this case is quite accurate (with Sunday's caveat that, as with all human phenomenon it is by no means universal). I just find it curious that it strengthens your faith in God while it weakens mine (like Amores I am an agnostic).

When man rejects God, he has the irresistable need to create a new one.

There's no real thought behind this assertion. "Rejecting" god takes no more involved a process--on an intellectual level--than rejecting the idea that the world is supported by tortoises. I'm assuming by "God" you mean an active agent on the order of the Catholic, Christian, Judaic, or Islamic god.

At an anthropological level, of course, the idea of peoples and their gods is fascinating to study, and the world can't be remotely well understood without a serious exploration of the idea of god, and the uses, and practices and consequences of belief.

I'm not sure what proponents of the idea that we need a God hope to gain by the assertion. It doesn't mean what they think it means, that we have a deep craving for it, and that that's a good thing, and that its absence represents a gaping, spiritual wound. Humans have a strong tendency towards violence; the fact that in the absence of war we still gravitate towards its simulation, things like football, ultimate fighting, and the WWF, doesn't mean war is something desirable, or good.

the fact that in the absence of war we still gravitate towards its simulation, things like football, ultimate fighting, and the WWF

Only one of those things is simulated.

I'm a materialist, and I absolutely agree with Snapper about string theory and the other more mind bending concepts of recent theoretical physics. Other than enjoying Brian Greene's books, most of that work strikes me as journal-filler for tenure requirements. Then again, I'm not nearly as smart as those guys filling those journals...

the fact that in the absence of war we still gravitate towards its simulation, things like football, ultimate fighting, and the WWF

Only one of those things is simulated.

You've been nitpicking a lot lately. Anyway, none of those things are actual war.

You guys do realize that statements like #173 sounds an awful lot like the sportswriters who reject OPS+ because they don't understand how it's calculated, right?

Greg: The Ptolemaic universe is a flawless theoretical model given the knowledge of the time, prefect predicting and explaining the motion of celestial bodies in the siderial sphere. I am fairly confident that abvances in our observable knowledge of quantum physics will force reevaluations of our current theoretical models as well.

You've been nitpicking a lot lately. Anyway, none of those things are actual war.

Oh, it's not just lately. And it was a joke, take a chill pill.

Ah, it was me, then. Moving on:

Good news! The NAACP is now appealing to the United Nations to intervene with regard to the supression of voter rights going on throughout the United States. Someone's making the point that around the world, people have looked to the US and its expansion of civil rights and voters' rights. That's in danger now. Some of the funnier aspects of it all are that the Bush administration found that voter fraud by individuals at polling places constituted something like 0.0004% of all votes cast (compare that with the millions who currently don't have the ID the new bills in 17 states mandate). Second, that in Texas, a gun permit is acceptable, according to the proposed law, but a photo student ID is not. Good times.

As someone said, given that the stakes are so small, and the penalties so high (up to 5 years in prison), voter ID is a solution in search of a problem.

Maybe it's just that by nature second guessing myself is one of my greatest hobbies, but if I rejected God and then felt compelled psychologically to create a new one*...I'd think, "hey, if this is a psychological need within me, maybe I created the first God too."

*I do think your assessment in this case is quite accurate (with Sunday's caveat that, as with all human phenomenon it is by no means universal). I just find it curious that it strengthens your faith in God while it weakens mine (like Amores I am an agnostic).

Well sure, but then you have to ask, why is there a psychological need in the first place?

The idea is that we have that need because we are seeking for something real, and something that we need.

Traditional Christianity absolutely believes that God is totally self-sufficient. He had no need of us, and had no need to create us.



this is like some sort of mental flagellation for those of you are actually willing to believe this stuff, you get it thrown back in your face just for good measure.

You really have no concept of religious faith, do you?

There's no self-flagellation involved. God didn't need us, but still created us, which is a sign of his tremendous love for us.

The recognition that we are fallen creatures make the world much more comprehensible; people in general are a pretty sorry lot. Anger, envy, gluttony, lust, sloth, pride and greed describe the human condition to a tee.

The alternative views 1) man is the center of all things, or 2) man is a materialistic accident, no different from algae, are what make the world incomprehensible.

i don't understand the no birth control thing

if you don't use birth control, you'll get pregnant every year. and please do not hand me the flat out lie about how it is not possible to get pregnant if you are nursing a baby. and please don't hand me the "rhythm method" thingy neither - sperm live a long time, so do eggs and ovulation does not always take place precisely 14 days after the start of your monthly


if you have to have a csection to deliver your baby, you have to get a csection every time after that. exactly how many csections do you think it takes before the muscles of the uterus are too scarred to heal up right and getting pregnant will kill you?

if you can't afford to have 19 and counting kids because not everyone can get paid to be on a reality show, you are both supposed to be celibate from your 20s on?

are you SERIOUS?
are we all supposed to wait until we're in our late 30s to get married so we can limit the number of kids? or is that a problem too?
- and for the "conservatives" - i do NOT get their not wanting the poor, the VERY people they don't want getting medicaid/welfare, to not have access to cheap/free birth control. let alone the end of public schools. what exactly do they think is gonna happen with all those large numbers of unwanted, unemployable, uneducated people?

it's not exactly BITGOD where they can all go to work in the fields/factories and the mortality rate, meaning DEATH rate of pregnancy/labor/delivery is at LEAST 1 in 9 - and that is the death rate of the WOMAN, not the fetus/infant.

as for the female being subservient to the male in christianity
well, yeah. duh
what religion (except for the navajo religion) is the female not subservient?

when you are physically significantly smaller and weaker, you are gonna get (literally) screwed

i don't understand the no birth control thing

It's easy enough to understand if you're not, like, a woman. Duh.

The anti-birth control business, unless you have a very constricted idea of an afterlife which rewards such silliness, is utter madness, especially on a planet with 7 billion people and counting very, very fast. As feminists have said, if men gave birth, the Catholic Church would have a whole lot of things in place that allow for a lot more discretion on the matter of pushing out babies. But, hey, when you absolutely deny women positions of any real power whatever, especially regarding the care and feeding of dogma, it's easy to make up any crazy rules you want. It's as if the recent Congressional hearings on women and birth control could not only keep women from testifying at their precious hearing (which they did), but could go on to shut them up in the public sphere as well. Welcome to the eighteenth century!

The problem is, it's not only madness, but murderous madness. Imagine having a fantastic amount of influence in Africa on matters of prophylaxis and NOT telling folks to use rubbers. How many hundreds of thousands of lives could the Pope have saved? And of course his apologist would like you to believe this is just a consequence of taking the moral high ground. Not his fault that people are having sex outside of marriage. It's as demented as preaching abstinence only education in US high schools if the rate of AIDs infection was one in ten. You and I both know how nutty abstinence-only education is under current circumstances. Add to it the idea of high schoolers dying literally by the thousands, and there you have the Catholic Church in Africa.

It's pointless talking with folks like snapper about this kind of thing. His notes on the Church's (ab)use of Aristotilean logic are merely a diversion. If your precepts and premises are that far off, you of course can "prove" that God is both parsecs wide, and can waltz on the head of a pin.

Well sure, but then you have to ask, why is there a psychological need in the first place?

Yep, you sure do. That applies to all your psychological needs. But:

You look to the internal combustion engine to figure out why a car needs gasoline. You look to the brain and the way it was engineered by evolution and conditions under which it operates and reacts to determine why we began having a need for a god (we didn't always). Note, too, that we (generally speaking) have a need to find god--and a need to question that. Some people are big about seeing how we crave belief, but don't want to acknowledge we also are prone to disbelief--what's being whipsawed into brith? A quest for truth maybe, huh--wherever it leads us.

I'm sorry, but you keep wanting to discuss the issue without a context based in reality. You not only want to build castles in the air--you think them actually inhabitable.

The idea is that we have that need because we are seeking for something real, and something that we need.

Yep, see above, but, also, that's just one thing in dispute.

Remember, just because you want something doesn't mean you should want it.

The NAACP is now appealing to the United Nations to intervene with regard to the supression of voter rights going on throughout the United States.

If they haven't noticed it before, several prominent members of the UN either pay lip service or don't believe in democracy at all, they're right now having a hell of a time to even say that machine gunning unarmed civilians is wrong. But I bet Hu Jintao and Putin has all kinds of tips to share with the US on how to make elections run smoothly.

is utter madness, especially on a planet with 7 billion people and counting very, very fast.

I don't want to get in a debate about birth control, but this point is utter nonsense.

The entire developed world, and China have birth rates far below what is necessary to sustain population, and are facing catastrophe due to rapidly aging populations. The rest of the world is heading there too.

Europe, Japan and the US desperately need more children, not fewer.

@184: You're missing the point. The point is to highlight vote suppression in the US, not to appeal to that angel of world peace, the UN, as though they would or could intercede or bring sanity to Pennsylvania's and Texas's governors' offices.

It's theater, in order to highlight farce.

snapper

the rapidly aging population will die off sooner or later and the entire planet population can at least stabilize

the explosion in chemicals/pollution is not something you can just ignore any more than the fact that there is a limited supply of gas/oil on the planet to power it and getting the last of it out means that you have to use methods that are really bad stuff (see horizontal fracking and deep oil well drilling) and i'm not going near the global warming argument even though i will say that what few fish are left in the ocean are full of mercury and other toxic things that there is no way of getting out. us people have removed most of the fish from the freaking OCEANS in the past FIFTY years.

you don't even HAVE kids and you won't adopt/foster any of the thousands and thousands of unwanted kids out there that you want born. how many more of them do you want?

in fact, i don't know a single person who is anti-abortion/anti-birth control who has adopted/fostered unwanted KIDS, especially kids born in america (note i didn't say a nice new fresh born infant who you can pretend is not related to its DNA parents and is this lump of clay that can be made into anything you want). you notice that santorum hasn't shown how wonderful it is for the "christian" rich to help the poor, unloved, unwanted, by freaking ADOPTING them. i put that in quotes because all i can say about santorum is that if he/wifey-poo are what God wants "christians" to be, then i want no part of THAT religion.

you have NO idea how much money/work it takes to raise even one. especially if you are not well off like you are. i can't imagine having kid after kid - not enough room, unless you like the idea of cramming kids into rooms like the clowns in a small car thingy - and not enough to feed them decently. i don't know where we'd get money for stuff like gas and the electric. i've seen/heard how my ancestors lived, not even a century ago and i don't want to go back there.

of course, then again, i am one of Those People that "the conservatives" - not you - don't like real too much in the first place.

all this political stuff always reminds me of the old aesops fable about the mice who say that their problems with the cat would be solved if a bell "could be put" around the cat's neck.

it would be nice if we could all treat each other with decency and respect but it's not gonna happen. i mean, look - the Old Laws are 5000+ years old and they have to say simple stuff like - don't cheat your family, other people. don't murder other people. don't deliberately humiliate people. don't screw your parents or children. don't screw your veterinarian's Dogz. why would any authority have to say such obvious elementary laws if people weren't like that already.

the trouble is that once you try to legislate morality - not crime, it just turns into yet another fight about how my god is bettern yerrrrrrrr god, i'm right, yer wrong, so yew hafta die/be enslaved, etc

The entire developed world, and China have birth rates far below what is necessary to sustain population, and are facing catastrophe due to rapidly aging populations. The rest of the world is heading there too. Europe, Japan and the US desperately need more children, not fewer.

The reasons an aging population can't be sustained is because it was too high for viability.

Are you actually saying that exponential growth to the point of saturation of resources is the only path humans are allowed? You think populations don't ebb and flow naturally, ONLY grow? Is that too much science?

The entire developed world, and China have birth rates far below what is necessary to sustain population, and are facing catastrophe due to rapidly aging populations. The rest of the world is heading there too.

Anyone interested in reasoning on the issue might enjoy the interesting paper at http://www.bos.frb.org/economic/conf/conf46/conf46d1.pdf that assesses various projections. Snapper would have us jack the world's population to around 18 billion around the middle of the century, rather than the paltry 14.4 billion that fertility rates as of 1998 would generate, or around the 10 billion that very low fertility rates hereafter will result in.

The answer isn't, oh, a maximum wage, or some sort of serious tax rate at the top end that assists in funding age-related security programs. Much better and more practical instead is to more than double the world's population in the next forty years--and the next, consequent doubling that will result in by 2120 or so even if things slow down, to around 30 billion, since there will be an extraordinarily high proportion of people of childbearing age generated in that next wave of births--and we should pursue that course regardless of the additional poverty and misery that will produce? That's the solution to an aging population, to postpone the problem for a while even while vastly increasing the problems we already have?

Anyone who wants to defend the benign nature of organized religion needs only look at snapper's "solution" in order to detect the insanity inherent in "moral" absolutes such as the one forbidding birth control, or in ubiquitous assurances such as the next life is more important than this one. An extra eight billion people by 2050 is one possible consequence of the fairy tale of a heaven in whose light this fleshy life is but a shadow. At least double the number of starving people on the planet. Throw in the additional millions of souls killed in desperate pursuit of ever dwindling resources. But, really, what's a heaven for, if not to soak up like some great, ethereal sponge the ocean of blood an exploding population produces as it devours itself?

Well sure, but then you have to ask, why is there a psychological need in the first place?

The idea is that we have that need because we are seeking for something real, and something that we need.

It seems far more simple to suggest we have this need because we rely on our intelligence for survival rather than our physical assets, and effective use of intelligence requires knowledge. C_n y_u r__d t__s s__t__ce? If you can, it is because your brain filled in the gaps with what you believed to be reasonable estimates of what letters belonged in those blanks. Those letters aren't really there, but without that ability, you would be paralyzed in the face of decisions that had incomplete information.

Of course, we are far from perfect, so we make a lot of faulty assumptions along the way. Check out this picture. Our ability to fill in incomplete information might lead us down the wrong path.

The recognition that we are fallen creatures make the world much more comprehensible; people in general are a pretty sorry lot. Anger, envy, gluttony, lust, sloth, pride and greed describe the human condition to a tee.

The alternative views 1) man is the center of all things, or 2) man is a materialistic accident, no different from algae, are what make the world incomprehensible.

Man is no accident. Natural selection is not a random process: the word "selection" should make that clear. Mutation is random, selection is anything but random.

It seems to me that the world is very comprehensible. We're intelligent animals that are wired biologically to form tribes. I don't see any human behavior that can't be explained with that as a starting point.

Republican governor of Utah does his best to destroy America and the world with sex.

the rapidly aging population will die off sooner or later and the entire planet population can at least stabilize

The planet is not overpopulated. People are net producers not consumers.

Are you actually saying that exponential growth to the point of saturation of resources is the only path humans are allowed? You think populations don't ebb and flow naturally, ONLY grow? Is that too much science?

Growth at a reasonable pace is the only sustainable path. An actual long-term decrease in population will lead to either 1) economic collapse, or 2) neglect and/or extermination of the elderly we can't support.

you don't even HAVE kids and you won't adopt/foster any of the thousands and thousands of unwanted kids out there that you want born. how many more of them do you want?

My wife and I don't have kids through no fault of our own. We would love to have kids, but haven't been able so far.

Why do I deserve to have that thrown in my face?

I believe what I believe because I think it's true. I don't want people to suffer unnecessarily. But, I'm not going to go against what I believe is the truth just so people don't have to suffer. Life involves suffering, and I'm not going to tell people to do something I believe is wrong to avoid suffering..

I'd also note I'm putting my money where my mouth is here. We won't do in vitro, even if that's the only way to have children.

@191: Huh. TFA doesn't do a particularly good job of explaining the good guv's rationale. Seems like it could just as easily justify the reverse.

While the Repubs won big in the off-year elections, I'm wondering what the combination of antisex heavy breathing (I've never seen a group pursue antisex measures with such... lust), antichoice measures introduced in unprecedented numbers, other attacks on womens' rights, the lust for government intervention when it comes to attacking labor and suppressing the vote, and the hearty approval of government intervention when it comes to protecting great wealth will ultimately do to the party's fortunes. The above, along with a 0.5% annual increase in black and brown voters compared to white and, well, voter suppression will only help you for so long. At some point you adapt or you become the next version of the Whigs.

I believe what I believe because I think it's true. I don't want people to suffer unnecessarily. But, I'm not going to go against what I believe is the truth just so people don't have to suffer. Life involves suffering, and I'm not going to tell people to do something I believe is wrong to avoid suffering..

I'd also note I'm putting my money where my mouth is here. We won't do in vitro, even if that's the only way to have children.

Then I hope you are in a celibate relationship, since you apparently can't produce any offspring. Clearly any sexual acts you and your wife engage in are sinful.

If you are however happily sexually active, are not paying for IV, are not paying for the upbringing of the dozen+ kids your activity should have resulted in were it not sinful... well that's kind of the opposite of "putting your money where your mouth is".

My wife and I don't have kids through no fault of our own. We would love to have kids, but haven't been able so far.

Step 1 - Less time on BBTF.

snapper

i am certainly not criticizing you for not reproducing and i am sorry you haven't been able to when it is something you want.

what i AM criticizing you for is your (and maybe your wife's) refusal to adopt or foster some of the thousands of unwanted children you insist get born.

what i AM criticizing you for is your insistence that i have and continue to have, for the next 15-20 years, my husband and i should have a dozen or more kids (assuming that pregnancy didn't kill me) who would be dammed to grow up in terrible poverty with little to no hope for their future. we couldn't afford to even live in THIS area which is hardly a great place - but it's better than where the hopelessly poor live. it isn't YOU who has to suffer this. and it isn't YOU who would have to watch your own children suffer it neither.

and we are already headed toward long term economic collapse. in 50 years, how are we going to feed and provide any sort of energy to the billions who are already here and the billions more arriving every year??? ( i would say that the only good thing from running out of energy sources would be the inability to commit any more wars, but i know that as long as there are fists and objects there won't be any end to wars no matter what euphemism is used)

Loneliness cries deep from my soul,
Keeps trying to tell me about the world growing so cold.
Too many people trying to take from my Earth,
But we can't live without controlling our birth.

Deep inside a voice cries out for you,
It's not alone 'cause, people, I been cryin' too.
If we don't stop what we all see is wrong,
I guarantee you mankind won't live long

I'd also note I'm putting my money where my mouth is here. We won't do in vitro, even if that's the only way to have children.

Would you be opposed to in vitro fertilization if it were a process with one embryo and 100% success rate (no surplus fertilized eggs are created)? Is it a "God doesn't want us to have children if we can't conceive traditionally" thing or a "this process creates and discards life" thing? I'm guessing the latter but I don't want to assume.

Damn, Lisa, you kick ass.

I can do the math, I choose not to waste my time.

Convince me. When and where did you study string theory?

When and where did you study string theory?

If Snapper didn't study String Theory at an accredited university, THERE IS NO GOD.

No pressure, or anything.