Is God Just a Human Invention - Chapter 10 Is Religion Dangerous?

As mentioned previously, I am following a book club type format for this book over on another blog. I was going to just participate over there but I have a lot more to say than I want to shove into their comments, so I figured I'd do a normal long form post over here and then just talk about 1 or 2 main points over there. I'm sticking to my normal format of bold for section heading, regular text for summary, and italics for my commentary.

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Intro


The New Atheists claim that religion is dangerous and produces violence. The authors of the book ask whether the world would be without violence if religion was removed.

Obviously the question is no. We are violent with or without religion. I think the main point is that with religion the violence has a  righteous to it. If people think God is on their side it gives them one more reason not to back down. One more reason not to negotiate or consider the other side's position. 


Details Matter When Examining Religion


Lumping all religion together doesn't really work as there are a lot of differences and those differences matter. A statement such as "All religions are bad for society" is not very meaningful unless you have a specific religion in mind or if you have some aspect of those religions in mind.

I think I basically agree with this. I am aware that there are a lot of religions in the world and I don't know much about them. I do make the claim that religion is bad for society, and when I do I am mostly referring to Christianity and religions similar to it.


Anything with people in it can be manipulated and religion is no exception.

Agreed


Is there anything Jesus taught that necessarily leads to violence?

This is pretty close. But this one is right on the money.


Religion is Not the Problem - People Are


It's not religion that is the problem, but people. People are in power and no matter what they believe there will be violence. Atheism also leads to violence.

The difference is, Christianity is the cause of violence sometimes. Atheism isn't. There is nothing that would make me kill someone which stems from my atheism. Christianity simply can't make the same claim.


Is Atheism Really the Absence of Belief?


Before I read this section I will answer. NO!!! It is the absence of belief IN A GOD


Communism was an atheist ideology. Atheism was a central part of the doctrine and churches were systematically closed down and priests and religious believers were murdered.

Not believing in a God does not make you want to force churches to close down and murder believers. Being an asshole might make you want to kill people and being an atheist might direct that drive, but one doesn't lead to another. I do want churches to shut down, but I would never want it done by force, I want people to decide to stop going and them shut down naturally.


A Universal Problem


Atheists think that if we just educate people more that they will be good. Christians think that people are inherently bad and they need to have god renovate their heart.

Sounds like a pretty accurate summary to me.


Making the Case for Civility


Some people say we should be tolerant and accept anyone's belief. This way of thinking implies that all beliefs are equally valid or true. We don't like this.

I love it when we agree. I hate that crap.


The New Atheists say bad things about Christians. What if someone took what they wrote and ran with it and killed a bunch of Christians?

That would be really bad. I'm honestly not sure how to respond to that. Almost anything you write that is controversial could be taken by some nutjob as a reason to go kill people. At least the Atheists don't say that there is a reward for it. In fact, I have heard many prominent atheists say that violence against religious people is wrong explicitly. 


We want freedom of religion, not freedom from religion.

Agreed. People should be able to exercise any religion they want. But it shouldn't come up in any official capacity in government as that inherently limits people of other religions (or no religion)


Disagreement is Here to Stay


We are going to disagree, we should do so without starting with the assumption that everyone's view is equally valid or by demonizing those who disagree with us.

Could not agree more.



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Note: I am out of town for about a week. There will not be a disruption is posts as I have front-loaded enough content to fill the void while I am gone, however, I will most likely not be responding to any comments until I get back. If any comments do come from me this week please excuse typos as it means I am posting from my phone.

Acts 13

Barnabas and Saul Sent Off


A bunch of prophets and teachers were in the church at Antioch when the holy spirit told them to send off Barnabas and Saul.

Barnabas and Saul on Cyprus


Paul and Barnabas went to Cyprus and came across a false prophet who was a magician. He tried to turn them away from the faith. Paul then used the holy spirit (or the holy spirit worked through him, or something) to temporarily blind the guy. He then believed them.

I can't decide how I feel about this story. I obviously don't like the idea that he has been blinded for not believing, but is it really a terrible thing? I guess it depends on how temporary it is. If he is blinded for 5 minutes it doesn't really bother me at all. If he is blinded for 5 years it is a terrible thing. The story doesn't mention this detail.


Paul and Barnabas at Antioch in Pisidia


Paul and some other disciples went to the synagogue in Antioch and were asked to give the people words of encouragement. The told the story of the Jews leaving Egypt and the story of Jesus. Most people liked it and asked for the story to be told again the following week. Some Jews were jealous and didn't like it but in the end they were kicked out of town.


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Note: I am out of town for about a week. There will not be a disruption is posts as I have front-loaded enough content to fill the void while I am gone, however, I will most likely not be responding to any comments until I get back. If any comments do come from me this week please excuse typos as it means I am posting from my phone.

Acts 12

James Killed and Peter Imprisoned


Herod killed James with the sword. This pleased the Jews so he also arrested Peter. It was around passover, so he was planning on bringing him out to the people afterward. The church prayed to God for Peter's safety.

I'm guessing "bring him out to the people" means that he is going to execute him or something? 


Peter Is Rescued


Peter was being held in prison surrounded by guards. An angel came and helped him break out of jail. He stopped by his friends place to tell them he is okay then he took off, presumably so he wouldn't get them in trouble for harboring a fugitive.

It is interesting to me that the angel breaks Peter out of jail. I would say a message you could get from that is that you should fight against unjust laws. I like it.


The Death of Herod


Herod was giving a speech to the people and they shouted "The voice of a god, and not of a man!" and God struck him down because "he did not give God the glory"

God sure does seem to be a violent fellow. Also, what is up with "The voice of a god"? Are the polytheistic roots of the time showing through here? I looked through other translations and it is the same in all of them as far as I can tell.



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Note: I am out of town for about a week. There will not be a disruption is posts as I have front-loaded enough content to fill the void while I am gone, however, I will most likely not be responding to any comments until I get back. If any comments do come from me this week please excuse typos as it means I am posting from my phone.

Acts 11

Peter Reports to the Church


When Peter gets back everyone is upset with him for sharing the word of God with the Gentiles. But he says that God told him to do it in a vision and everyone is happy with him.

These visions happen a lot in the bible. How could you tell the difference between a vision from God and a regular hallucination? Also, how could you tell if someone was simply lying?


The Church in Antioch


More people were teaching the word of God, many only taught to the Jews, but some also taught to others. One of these places was Antioch where they spoke to the Hellenists.

Acts 10

Peter and Cornelius

Cornelius was a very devout guy. He was visited by an angel and told to send some guys to get Simon who is called Peter. So he sent some guys.

I've never understood the whole "Simon who is called Peter" thing. Why not just say Peter?

Peter's Vision

Peter went to the roof to pray and got hungry. Then he had a vision that a great sheet descended on the earth from heaven with all manner of animal in it. A voice told him to kill and eat, but he said he can't eat some of those things. The voice said it is okay to eat it.

So is this basically throwing away kosher laws? What about the whole "not an iota, not a dot, will pass from the Law until all is accomplished"?

Peter met up with Cornelius' guys and they traveled back to meet Cornelius. When they got there Cornelius asked Peter to share all that he had heard from the lord.

Gentiles Hear the Good News

Peter said that God shows no partiality but is happy with any nation that "fears him and does what is right and acceptable to him"

Maybe this is just on my mind from reading it on other blogs recently, but this sounds a hell of a lot like subjective morality to me.

Peter tells the story of Jesus.

The Holy Spirit Falls on the Gentiles

The holy spirit poured out on everyone who was listening. They crowd was speaking in tongues and Peter said that they should all be baptized.

This sounds really strange to me. Everyone who was listening just gets the holy spirit? They don't have to accept Jesus or form a personal relationship or anything? It's just that anyone who was lucky enough to be there gets it.

The Problem of Pain - Final Thoughts

Last week I finished "The Problem of Pain" by CS Lewis. Overall, I found the book fairly disappointing, especially since so many people recommend CS Lewis to me, I was expecting more. His arguments were covered with logical fallacies. One thing I will say is that he seemed very genuine to me. I don't think he was ever being evasive or anything like I see many apologists do, but his logic was poor. I wasn't expecting to be convinced, but I was hoping for some arguments where I could say "I can see why someone would believe that" or maybe "that makes sense although I disagree with a premise". I saw none of that and am honestly a bit confused as to why so many people keep recommending his books to me. Maybe it is like the bible where people have heard it is good but haven't actually read it themselves.

I decided to take a quick look at what I have written about each chapter and do a very short summary here.

Chapter 1: He starts off saying he used to be an atheist and discussing what his reasons were. He gives a terrible reason why men could not have invented the idea of God and then moves on to the origin of religion. He talks about how morality and the numinous (spirits and such) are related and then explains that Jesus is what makes Christianity special.

Chapter 2: He begins discussing definitions and points out that we often mean different things with the same words. He says that omnipotence should mean anything that is logically possible. He says that sometimes we can't tell what is possible with our limited intelligence, this is a copout. He said that since we are self-aware God must exist, and since there is something other than ourselves God must exist. Both of these are terrible arguments. Then he talks about how 'evil' is in the eye of the beholder, an interesting idea although I would argue it breaks at extremes.

Chapter 3: Lewis claims God's moral judgement is more refined than ours. The goodness of God is love which includes tough love. It is an interesting idea, but again I think it breaks in extremes

Chapter 4: Starts with the idea that people are inherently evil, a doctrine of Christianity that I find disgusting. He talks about how Christianity first preaches the diagnosis and then preaches the cure, have to agree with that. Then he says that in modern times we can trick ourselves into thinking we are moral when we aren't. Then he says that we aren't totally depraved, not sure how he squares this with how the chapter started.

Chapter 5: The fall of man was inevitable due to our evil nature. Also, we are evil because of the fall. Gotta love that circular logic. The apple in genesis was a symbol but really it was disobedience. He cations about the definition of savage and brutal, good idea. There is discussion of early man and the fall, he seems to be trying to square evolution with adam and eve, it's interesting. The chapter ends by pointing out that God saw all of this coming and our current condition isn't punishment.

Chapter 6: Careful of your definition of pain. He claims that any creature should submit to its creator, which I think is nonsense. Pain is how God gets our attention because it is hard to be good when comfortable. He then claims that since fear and pity are worthwhile so is pain. Just seems like a pile of nonsense to me.

Chapter 7: There is an apparent paradox that suffering is good but God instructs us to reduce suffering. Tribulation will never end. It's not all bad, we have isolated happiness. It is a mistake to say 2 minor pains are as bad as a major pain.

Chapter 8: Hell is a detestable doctrine, I totally agree. He tries to defend the idea of hell in a few ways and basically just falls flat.

Chapter 9: If pain is a result of the fall of man then why do animals feel pain? An interesting question is raised, no real answer is given.

Chapter 10: A bit of talk about heaven, no real point as far as I could tell. He asserts that it is real and one of the things about hell is that you realize that you just missed going to heaven. Honestly felt like a lot of rambling to me.

Thanks for reading. Although it was frustrating at times I enjoyed the ride, I hope you did too.

The Extended Mind: Recent Experimental Evidence

Recently in the comments on another blog, there was discussion that science has plenty of evidence that there is an immaterial part of us. I was directed to the following video which describes these things. I am pretty skeptical of the whole thing, but I figured I would give it a look and a fair shake. I think I'll just watch it and comment as I go. Hopefully this will make an interesting blog post, it's an experiment! Let's give it a go.

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I decided to put my overall reactions here and leave my running commentary below. My overall impression is that this guy has some pretty crazy ideas. He thinks that our minds are fields that extend past our skulls and he thinks that there is telepathy for example. All of this sounds pretty out there to me, and for most of what he was talking about there seems to be simpler answers to the questions.

That being said, he also seems to be very good at putting experiments together and it sounds like he has some pretty interesting data. I am intrigued by it and do plan on following up and looking into some of his work.

I'd also like to add that the experiments he described don't prove that these fields are real. His ideas are consistent with the data, which is really interesting. However, it is certainly possible that there is another explanation.

One more thing I will add, this guy seems very genuine. I have seen people peddle these kinds of ideas before who had something to gain and it seemed like they didn't really believe what they were saying. This guy is not trying to take money from anyone (as far as I can tell) and he is really believes what he is saying. He is trying to advance his ideas and is doing a lot of work to gather data to prove his point. You have to respect that.

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2:42 Our minds spread out beyond our brains in a similar manner to the way magnetic fields spread out

3:08 He uses vision as an example and talks about this for a few minutes. One idea is that light bounces off of things, has an effect on the rods and cones in your eyes, and your brain interprets this to create a picture in your brain. If you look at the sky, there is a picture of the sky in your brain, so your mind is as big as the sky. So it must be more than just in your skull. This seems like utter nonsense to me. Why couldn't there just be a smaller representation of the sky in your brain? He is also arguing that your picture of something in your mind is right there with that thing. So if you are looking at someone the representation of that person is not in your skull, your mind is over there where they are.

6:15 Can you affect something simply by looking at it? He argues that you can and cites the common experience of feeling like you are being watched. I would argue that there are other senses involved (subtle sounds and such) rather than psychic phenomena.

8:10 He describes an experiment to test this idea. Two people are back to back and one randomly looks or doesn't look and the blindfolded person has to guess whether they are being looked at. I'd be curious to see the experimental design.

9:10 Another experiment involving closed circuit TV, very interesting.

10:25 "Private detectives know that when they are shadowing people they shouldn't stare at their back because the person is likely to turn around, catch their eye, and blow their cover" Wouldn't an alternate explanation be that if you are not staring and they happen to look back it wouldn't be suspicious?

13:09 "No one has ever seen a thought or an image inside a head...I'm suggesting our minds reach outside our brains" Yeah, no one has ever seen that either.

13:36 This also happens with animals, they can tell they are being looked at, just ask a hunter or a wildlife photographer. The much simpler explanation is that animals have really good senses and they can hear you or smell you. Also, the idea that an animal feels you looking at them, you'd have to compare how often they move for no reason other than staying in one place could be bad for them. I'm imagining an experiment where we have some video cameras on some wildlife and have people look at the animals and see if they move. We can have some people with a live feed and some people watching recordings from earlier and see how they shape up, I'm guessing no difference.

15:40 Flocks of birds and schools of fish move in formation and change it up quickly. He suggests the best explanation is their minds influence one another directly, instead of the birds simply having really good sense and the ability to move very quickly.

21:30 Another common phenomenon is that dogs and cats know when their owners are coming home and are waiting by the window. I remember reading about this a while ago. Someone tried to replicate it and found that the dogs would wait by the window frequently throughout the day. There wasn't a significant difference for when the owner was actually coming home. (Note from later, he claims this was James Randi and that is was BS. This shows how important having a source is)

31:20 Telephone telepathy. This is when you think of someone right before they call. This is so easily explained, usually the people this happens with are people you think about a lot. You remember the hits (when it happens) and forget the misses (when you think of them and they don't call). Also, there are plenty of times they call when you hadn't just thought of them.

33:00 Looks like he addressed this very complaint with an experiment. Interesting. This study actually looks pretty cool, I'd be interested to look at the paper that goes along with it. He describes a few related experiments that all sound very interesting. I am planning on looking into this more closely at some point soon.

48:00 QA starts

49:08 What about the million dollar challenge? He pretty much just attacks James Randi, don't care for that. Although he did address what I said above about the dog experiment, doesn't sound great toward Randi. I wonder what the real truth is there.

58:15 Q: What is you change the order to try to find precog? A: I tried that and it gave chance levels. This is interesting as it might eliminate certain biases in the experiment.

73:30 Q:What factors can affect this stuff?

79:00 He says he has had papers rejected out of hand without being looked at. That is too bad as it seems like he does interesting stuff, but it is not surprising as editors of scientific journals are very short on time. You simply can't examine and find the faults in every paper that sounds like it is from a crank.

1:23:50 It is asked how to measure this field in other ways, he says he has worked on that but it wasn't covered in this talk. I'd like to see some of this, he said there is some on his website, I'm happy about that.