Commenter Archive

Comments by mark*

On “Torture Fatigue

The whole thing is completely unthinkable. I was brought up to understand that the reason the US was a different country, a good country, and successful where others failed was exactly that we did NOT spy on our own citizens, have secret jails, torture prisoners, etc. Those were the things that made us the good country we were. Admittedly, I was taught those things 40 years ago. Now the methods and the justification given for them (national security) are exactly those given by the USSR back in those days.

On “Homer “The Iliad” (2 of 2)

Like our own Arthurian legend (the English-speaking peoples' cultural memory of Roman occupation and its aftermath) the Homeric epics were how a people explained and grappled with their history. It was a grim one: a civilizational collapse near the end of the second millenium BCE, followed by a centuries-long Dark Age that lasted until 800 BCE. The Iliad and Odyssey recount a time when cities were being destroyed by sea-going raiders (Iliad) and civilization's long dark journey afterwards, filled with horror, disease, etc (Odyssey).

On “Right-Wing Political Correctness, Ch. 356

Re: the original post: And the parallels continue: Ideological purity checks were indeed a feature of the Left in the late 60's and 70's - few people remember this, but the phrase 'politically correct' started life as a non-ironic way to describe fellow Lefties of whom one approved. It just seems to be part of the crash'n'burn trajectory - when something terrible (losing power) has happened, folks look for someone to blame, and the opposition party, being a constant, doesn't really suffice.

On “The Meaning of Water and Wine

Well alrighty then! I guess religion will survive, it seems pretty durable.

It's not like I'm pure as the driven snow on this one, either. When someone tells me I've devoted my life to 'believing in nothing', I tend to come back with something about imaginary friends. Sometimes, though, we unbelievers will say these things just in an attempt to get believers to understand how the whole situation seems to us: imagine that most people either believed or professed to believe in a flying spaghetti monster, and felt sorry for you because you didn't. I mean, that's it's like at times, but if you illustrate it that way, people think they're being mocked.

"

Sigh. Yes, I think Dawkins' argument in shorter form is probably "It's all nonsense". And Bob, I hear your frustration with Chris' and my discussion about the nature of fundamentalism: as long as Ol' Oogedy is in there, it's all a bunch of boogedy! But, you know, faith is different things to different people. For all of them, I think, faith arises from need, or maybe instinct would be a better word. Asking them to give it up would be like asking you or me to fall forward without throwing out our hands to stop our fall. If you assume that's true, then you must realize that such a need is going to express itself in as many different ways as there are people. Some are easy to mock, though only an ass would do so. Many are insightful, and some seem so full of wisdom that I'm in awe. All that in spite of the fact that I don't share the need, and at a fundamental level don't 'get' it. I do not believe that there are supernatural beings monitoring our behavior and interceding in events with intentionality. But I'm starting to get that there are a lot of people of faith who don't either. Given that this is such a powerful force in the world, and so important to many people that I love, the right course seems to be to question and learn.

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I'm about fifty pages into Armstrong's The Case for God. She's making the case strongly, though without footnotes, that fundamentalism, and its mirror, modern atheism, are fairly recent appearances on the religion scene. Convincing - I think, though, that their appearance can be most easily explained by the generally higher educational level we enjoy now, and very particularly the material success of the science-driven human infrastructure. We feel like we either have or soon will explain most physical phenomena - that, I would argue, is the recent development that has made some discard the Bible, some to engage it as metaphor, and some to, as Chris said somewhere above, "double down" and announce that every word is literally true, oh YES IT IS!.

I'm not yet sure I'm with Chris in holding that the classical understanding of the Bible was always metaphor-y. It seems more likely to me that people with faith and education have learned to appreciate the Bible as metaphor, and seek to give their approach more weight by holding it to be the real ancient view. The reason the Fundamentalists seem new is that they never would have had to make their case before - there was no need for them to be vocal advocates for the literal truth of the Bible because that literality (?) was a generally accepted fact.

On “Nothing’s ever certain except race and taxes.

ED, what do you make of the amount of Federal support/assistance going to the most conservative regions of the country? I read somewhere that the old South, and some of the more conservative Western states have such high levels of Federal money that they're actually net debtors to the US economy. You're right that conservatives are strongly against Federal aid to minorities and such-like, but are they really against aid per se?

On “The Meaning of Water and Wine

Well, I've got some interesting reading lined up there, thanks. I do enjoy reading Karen Armstrong. So: we now understand 'real' to mean 'yeah, it happened, in a measurable, verifiable, dig-uppable way'. Before folks just accepted that miraculous stuff could happen.

I mean, it has the ring of truth. Think about the world before science came with explanations. Hey, crazy stuff was happening all the time! A big flood would come for no reason, people would get sick for no reason, there was a night sky full of all these lights.... OK, the guy walked on water.... why not? I mean, has our perception of what is meant by 'real' changed, or have we just become more educated? To where we have explanations for so many things that we've developed a need for evidence? In fact, can you see a bit of that progression from the Old to New Testaments? The Old Testament God was quite an imp, and, you know, there were seven headed beasts everywhere. Seven or eight centuries later things were very different - it wasn't this phantasmagorical world, but a recognizable world in which the odd miracle was performed. Could that just be the result of a different calculation of what would be believed by the audience?

"

Of course not, Bob. For that matter, there's no way to prove that all of existence wasn't created a moment ago, complete with false proofs of its prior existence. And yet, even knowing that, I believe things for which there's evidence, and tend to doubt things for which there isn't, and practice you might loosely call 'science'. There's lots of evidence that you can make wine by fermenting grapes. I'm more or less convinced it's true. There's none that water can be turned into wine by an act of will. So I don't believe that - it seems really doubtful to me. Disproven? No. And my mind could be changed!

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hm. The ancient church lived in a world where these kinds of things happened... wait, it's the same world, under the same physical laws, just a bit later. You mean they had a view of reality that accepted such events as being things that happened, right? A commonplace, as common as money is to us, so, no question regarding whether to 'believe' in them? Hm.

You know, I think we might have to agree to disagree on what was the classical view of biblical reality. Unless you can point me to a source - I would like very much to read about how the intended audience of two millennia ago would have received the miracle stories. I would be fascinated to read a scholarly account of how literal interpretations of the Bible are a modern aberration from what was, before that, a widespread understanding of its nature as a collection of useful and instructive, but not necessarily literally true stories.

I hope it's clear that I don't participate here just to be quarrelsome - my family includes a lot of believers, and so this is all of strong interest to me. I really want to understand belief.

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I guess a lot of them do. And another lot of them probably engage in some sophisticated eye-rolling when the faithful are out of earshot. Either way, the teaching of the Church is clear: that sh** happened! Had there been videocams at the time, we'd have youtubes of the stone rolling way. That's Hugh Hewitt's understanding, according to Hugh Hewitt, and he probably speaks for the same 20% of Americans that believe George Bush did a great job. Which leads to why we should care: while humanity is engaged in a struggle to get out of the 21st century in one piece, our leaders are chosen, in part, on the basis of whether they believe the literal truth of what it says in the Bible - had Obama stood up and said, 'you know, those wonderful stories have a lot to teach us, but taking them as literal truth is a big mistake' - he would not be President now. At a time when understanding science may be the only thing that keeps us from going underwater, a large voting bloc believes in imaginary friends that will see them through any catastrophe. It seems to me the Church could do everyone a world of good by coming out and saying, look, folks, we've known since the time of Augustine that all those stories are to be understood as METAPHORS! And if the science says differently, you go with the SCIENCE! (OK maybe we were a little late on the whole Galileo thing. Never mind!)

But we're piling on Chris. Let's let him up for air!

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Chris, not to double-team, and I don't want to piss you off, but I get the impression that for some theologians the collision between objective reality and belief has produced an understanding of the Bible as metaphor. No argument there. It just really seems, though, that the Church teaches the miracles stories as being true, in a sense you may find old-fashioned: that they actually happened, in the same way my teakettle actually boiled. Those reliquaries aren't venerated because they're extremely acute metaphors, right? Nor are the saints canonized for especially revealing metaphors. No, the teaching of the Church is that all that stuff actually, truly, really friggin' HAPPENED: now, if it is actually to be understood as metaphor, then folks who have a molecular belief in water-to-wine are mistaken, period! Not only mistaken factually, but missing the true, real, deep significance that they were intended to get! So I don't see anything wrong, other than the boorishness, with Dawkins' telling them 'oh no it didn't', but I do sort of see something wrong with the Church letting its flock down so spectacularly as to continue to insist in the literal reality of all those stories.

On “Clarification

From what you're saying, the Roman Catholic Church is one in which gay men are predominant, and one that practices discrimination against gays. Knowing this, how could anyone join the organization and take a vow of obedience?

On “on the GDP…

Mark - I heard this yesterday, too - all those automobile purchases were going to happen anyway. I didn't understand. Is it being proposed that there just happened to be a huge spike in auto purchases at the same moment that we had the cash for clunkers program? All that buying was just poised to happen at that moment, and it's a coincidence that it happened at the same time as C4C?

On “The Meaning of Water and Wine

Hey, but cmon that oogedy stuff is not polite. The religious guys are being respectful; lets do the same

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Right, Socrates. And even questioning something got you knitted eyebrows. 'Um, the Pharoah wanted to let them go, and then the Lord changed his mind, and then the same Lord punished his people, over and over......?" The original post, miles above, posited that the Dawkins/Hewitt argument was just plain stupid because all the smart kids know that these things are illustrative metaphors, intended to teach us lessons, but my reply is that the Dawkins/Hewitt argument is only stupid and benighted in a world composed only of the cognoscenti. In, ah, THIS world it is still, all these centuries after Augustine, the most common debate about religion: is all that stuff true? Surely the original poster has noticed that there are school boards attempting to water down the teaching of biology (and even geology in some places) and that there are many Americans who believe the earth is 4000 years old, etc. I'm sorry to have say this, but Dawkins/Hewitts' argument is timely and vital.

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I'm sorry, I know it seems like I'm trying to hijack this post, and after this I'll desist. 1) Is Hewitt the idiot Dawkins thinks he is for believing that the water molecules were changed into wine? Never mind whether Dawkins is an effective proponent of his views, I think we all know the answer to that one. And 2) if the wise elders of the church now believe nothing of the sort (as I read above) and haven't since Augustine, then why haven't they passed this on to their flocks, who, presumably, might benefit?

"

Somehow we've gotten into a fascinating discussion of how properly to understand and approach the bible, one that I've found very interesting. To get back to where we left our heroes - they're debating whether it makes sense to understand the bible as it has been understood for many generations, and is still held to by millions of people. A rough guesstimate would be 20% of Americans, and a higher percentage of the many heavily Catholic countries sharing our hemisphere. Don't shoot me, that's a guess and even if I'm way, way off, it's millions upon millions of people. Now, they think that those water molecules were reformed into something else, let's not kid ourselves: are the leaders of their religion serving them well?

"

Yes, but you do recognize that, in America at least, the question "Do you believe" means "do you believe what is says in the Bible". I think the other commentor is on safe ground assuming that most folks who consider themselves believers, do so on the grounds that they believe what it actually says in the Bible. When in church, I've never noticed any lack of conviction in the pastor's voice when telling us that the water changed into wine, the man rose from the dead, there was a virgin birth, etc., in fact I think the physical reality of these things is absolutely central to the faith, at least as it is preached.

"

OK, the water-into-wine story was a fish in Dawkin's barrel (jug?), used to make a point. And being Dawkins, he was offensive about it. Neither guy covered himself with glory here. But is that story really not representative of faith in general? Think about it:. is faith the ability to believe the unprovable? Maybe Dawkins in a more reflective mood would say that our ability, and even desire, to believe what we're told, in the absence of evidence and/or presence of tons of counter-evidence, is the real problem. Then his picking on a miracle story is kind of an anti-parable: and easily-graspable illustration of the problems created by our capacity to follow without thinking.

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I'm with Jay. Dawkins was arguing not with the real meaning of this story, but with how it is understood by fundies, namely, that some of the water molecules in those jugs were turned into ethanol, sugar, and the other things in wine.

On “Gone to Pot

Greginak's got it. During the campaign, FOX was raising the question of how big a drug dealer Obama had been. He probably sees the issue pretty clearly, and is pretty clearly too smart to go there.

On “atheism and monsters

asb - you can't prove that the virgin birth did not happen, that water wasn't turned into wine, or that nobody walked on water. Nor can you prove that God does not exist - take it from a professional scientist: nonexistence is unprovable. I don't believe in these things, but I don't pretend that my views are provable. They aren't. To your earlier point, ridiculing someone's faith is quite different from Steven Colbert ridiculing some blowhard on his excellent show: people of faith have a strong emotional commitment to their beliefs, and, in general, cannot change them. Such things are not for ridicule. And what would be the point of ridicule, in any case? Do you think you'll talk believers out of their beliefs by making fun of them? I doubt it.

"

Robert 75

Hear hear. Exactly what I was trying to say. Now, what about fr33dom's point - that attempts on the part of some believers to legislate their beliefs onto the rest of us is a kind of disrespect? Obama has said that while it's perfectly desirable for religious people to be informed and driven by their belief, the legislative solutions they propose must take the beliefs of all, including, lately, those of non-believers into account.

"

OK Bob. I could tell I'd ticked you off a little, and didn't mean to.

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