>> ^rottenseed:

The problem with religion, though—as our friend Tim Minchin says—it teaches us to externalize blame. What I mean is, religion paints a very binary portrait of the world—of what's right and wrong. It doesn't teach relativity or tolerance. I think it's ok to assume that if we eliminate religion, the basis for that ignorance will lose power.

See, while I don't agree with everything Hedges said here, I think this is the kind of talk that he's referring to. That statement you made just painted all religions in one broad stroke and set it up as if it is "us," the intelligent and tolerant people, versus "them," the ignorant and intolerant masses. It's that kind of rhetoric that he (and I for that matter) find divisive and counterproductive. Religious people--many of them Christians--who would have agreed with you that it is wrong to deny basic human rights to people (such as the right to marry) on the basis of their sexuality are now painted as your opponents instead.

Furthermore, while certainly some forms of religion as practiced by certain peoples in certain countries at certain times do in fact fit your description of religion quite well, "religion" as a concept does not. There's nothing about religion per se that requires a binary worldview nor does it require a lack of relativity or tolerance. I'd definitely agree with you that some instantiations of religion, though, have turned out that way.

I said it in the Greta Christina Sift that I linked to above, but I'll say it more clearly now: I think attacking "religion" is Don Quixotic. Time is better spent attacking specific features of specific religions in specific contexts that result in suffering, such as the denial of marriage to homosexuals on religions grounds, female genital mutilation, and so forth. These kinds of things anger both theists and atheists and we should all work together to eliminate them rather than squabble with each other over our individual preference to believe or not believe in a particular religion.

Brothers and sisters.

As an atheist, and a fairly outspoken one at that, I don't feel like Hedges trying to mischaracterize myself or my atheism. I feel like he is trying to challenge me, to keep me from being hypocritical and to make sure that my anger is turned only towards those who do harm, regardless of faith.

I think his criticism of Harris and Hitch have more to do with American attitudes on the middle east than atheists attitudes. Most Americans, myself included, know very little about that region, and what little I/we do know is all negative - sexism, genital mutilation, death threats against cartoonists, jihad, terrorism, Islamic fundamentalism, etc. I assume a more realistic picture of the middle east would more closely resemble people of any country. I assume they love their friends and family, that they wish for a better life and a better world for their kids, that they enjoy art and music, that they have skills and hobbies and struggle to make ends meet, that they laugh and joke and mock and criticize the extremists of their country the way we do in ours, that they are frustrated with politics and the power the privileged few lord over them... but portraying humanity of the people in the middle east is something that is simply not done in American media.

I believe that we atheists, who value tolerance, should be making these arguments ourselves, and not trying to brush it under the rug when one of our public figures gets called out. I'm sure if you go through my comments over the years, I've probably made countless fruitless, unproductive and spiteful things about religion. I'm going to make an effort to do and say things differently in the future.

I'm down for coexisting with good people of all walks of life. We all have a common enemy in the powerful individuals who have seized control of our country. I don't want to fight with well intentioned Christians anymore; I want to fight along side them. I want to embrace the social justice that has long been a tradition of both liberalism and Catholicism - among other religions. I want to embrace throwing the money changers out of our democratic temples. I want a society that can be judged on how it treats the least among us. I want to live in a tighter knit, more connected and stronger society; not a selfish, paranoid and weaker one.

I think Hedges sees the problems of our time with remarkable clarity. I'm not threatened by him.

^Hitchen's was a neocon back in the Bush days. Not sure if he is still. Sam Harris made some comments in his debate with Hedges that painted Muslims with a very broad brush, and were arguably racist. I think Sam's comments were more ignorant than actively racist. Most Americans (myself included) lack a real understanding of Islamic culture, so it's easy for us to categorize them as a bunch of crazy fundamentalists that like to mutilate female genitals and will kill you for making cartoons. Hedges made the point that most Muslims are just regular people trying to get by, and that the proportion of angry, violent Islamic fundamentalists was equal to that of angry, violent American fundamentalists. (Mini editorial: I think fundamentalism is a bigger problem than any individual religious or group, be that group Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Conservative, Libertarian, Liberal, Capitalist, Socialist, etc. When you believe your personal philosophy to be the living embodiment of goodness, holiness, liberty or perfection, you lose the ability for critical thought.)

Hedges is to be respected. We could use more like him.

What, do you have an obsession with mutilated animals?

What you're doing is showing your faithiesm

of all choices, atheism requires the greatest faith, as it demands that ones limited store of human knowledge is sufficient to exclude the possibility of God.

francis collins human genome project

The difference between everything you mentioned and God as a concept is that the idea of God has explanatory power. The question of whether the Universe had intelligent causation is a valid question, and from what we know (that space time energy and matter had a finite beginning), the cause of the Universe would be immaterial, spaceless, timeless and transcendent. These perfectly describe attributes of an all powerful God. We also have evidence of design in the Universe and the fine tuning of physical laws. So, to rule God out as an explanation is simply ignorant. Between evolution and special creation, you have virtually exausted the possibilities of how life came to exist.



>> ^Drachen_Jager:
>> ^Morganth:
No, this just illustrates that you do not understand. If there is a god who created the universe, why then would he have to be wholly provable from inside of it? You're actually having to make a number of assumptions about the nature of god to make your claim.
If there is a creator god, we would not relate to him in the way that Hamlet relates to a character in another act of the play, but rather in the way that Hamlet relates to Shakespeare. He could not find him in the highest tower or prove that Shakespeare exists in the lab. Really, the only way Hamlet could ever know that Shakespeare exists is if Shakespeare writes something about himself into the play.
Seriously dude? Hamlet? That's not a person. He's a character in a play, your analogy is utterly useless other than to confuse the gullible.
I make no assumptions about the nature of God, you are the one who makes assumptions about the nature of God. You HAVE to make assumptions about the nature of God to make your argument work. I'm saying there is no God, so there are no necessary assumptions about his nature, since he doesn't HAVE a nature.
There is an infinitum of proposals you cannot prove to be true or false. Unicorns, wizards and dragons ruled the earth 2000 years ago. The Flying Spaghetti Monster created God. All the matching pairs of socks that go missing are stolen by sock-goblins. The proposal that God exists is, therefore only one in an infinity of unprovable junk. Unless you are prepared to believe that UFOs abduct people and mutilate cows and every other stupid theory people throw out there, you have no reason to believe the Universe was created by some kind of sentient being. One is just as likely as the other. If we believed in unprovable junk we'd never get anything done, the scientists would all be bogged down in nonsense and we wouldn't have iPods and personal computers. We'd still be banging rocks together.

>> ^Morganth:

No, this just illustrates that you do not understand. If there is a god who created the universe, why then would he have to be wholly provable from inside of it? You're actually having to make a number of assumptions about the nature of god to make your claim.
If there is a creator god, we would not relate to him in the way that Hamlet relates to a character in another act of the play, but rather in the way that Hamlet relates to Shakespeare. He could not find him in the highest tower or prove that Shakespeare exists in the lab. Really, the only way Hamlet could ever know that Shakespeare exists is if Shakespeare writes something about himself into the play.

Seriously dude? Hamlet? That's not a person. He's a character in a play, your analogy is utterly useless other than to confuse the gullible.

I make no assumptions about the nature of God, you are the one who makes assumptions about the nature of God. You HAVE to make assumptions about the nature of God to make your argument work. I'm saying there is no God, so there are no necessary assumptions about his nature, since he doesn't HAVE a nature.

There is an infinitum of proposals you cannot prove to be true or false. Unicorns, wizards and dragons ruled the earth 2000 years ago. The Flying Spaghetti Monster created God. All the matching pairs of socks that go missing are stolen by sock-goblins. The proposal that God exists is, therefore only one in an infinity of unprovable junk. Unless you are prepared to believe that UFOs abduct people and mutilate cows and every other stupid theory people throw out there, you have no reason to believe the Universe was created by some kind of sentient being. One is just as likely as the other. If we believed in unprovable junk we'd never get anything done, the scientists would all be bogged down in nonsense and we wouldn't have iPods and personal computers. We'd still be banging rocks together.

>> ^Sagemind:

Jaw Drop!
Promote male genital mutilation (cause it's funny?)
Sorry - no upvote from me.
What makes this different from female mutilation? If a joke was ever made that inferred that female genital mutilation was funny, would people laugh?
Edit: I see this is in WTF but my opinion stands.


Apparently it's an ad campaign to get people to neuter their cats and dogs, hope that makes you feel better

>> ^Sagemind:

Jaw Drop!
Promote male genital mutilation (cause it's funny?)
Sorry - no upvote from me.
What makes this different from female mutilation? If a joke was ever made that inferred that female genital mutilation was funny, would people laugh?
Edit: I see this is in WTF but my opinion stands.


Jeez man. Genital mutilation isn't funny. Joking about doing it is, because no one has any intention of doing it. Some gorgeous blonde had a go at your nuts at some point in your life?

*Jaw Drop!
Promote male genital mutilation (cause it's funny?)
Sorry - no upvote from me.

What makes this different from female mutilation? If a joke was ever made that inferred that female genital mutilation was funny, would people laugh?

Edit: I see this is in WTF but my opinion stands.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

Also, just want to throw in that there's nothing wrong with hairy armpits either.

Nothing wrong with shaving though. I also don't have a problem with African lip extenders or Japanese teeth blacking. Shaving is just another cultural body modification custom. Accepted now. Maybe silly later.>> ^krelokk:

>> ^thumpa28:
Looks more like hairy armpit feminist anger to me. Seriously let people believe what they want to, atheists trying to convert are just as annoying as religious zealots trying to convert. Just a different belief system but still BORING.

HAHAH, good job throwing the outdated 'hairy feminist' stereotype at this too. Most feminists aren't 'hairy armpit' stereotypes. Nor is there anything wrong with feminists anyway, like that is some kind of insult. I'm a man, I'm a feminist, I want equality for all the great ladies I know. The best woman I've known have been third wave feminists who understand that the 'hairy armpit' anger crap was used to belittle genuine problems. They still call themselves feminists regardless, knowing that ignorant fools who know nothing about woman's issues will shout 'ohh angry hairy feminists. What the hell is wrong with equality?
Religion damages the people that follow it, they indoctrinate children, mutilate peoples bodies, and kill each other across the planet. I don't really spread my agnosticism, but I have no problem with these people. Atheism isn't really a 'belief' system, it is more of a reality system.

>> ^thumpa28:

Looks more like hairy armpit feminist anger to me. Seriously let people believe what they want to, atheists trying to convert are just as annoying as religious zealots trying to convert. Just a different belief system but still BORING.


HAHAH, good job throwing the outdated 'hairy feminist' stereotype at this too. Most feminists aren't 'hairy armpit' stereotypes. Nor is there anything wrong with feminists anyway, like that is some kind of insult. I'm a man, I'm a feminist, I want equality for all the great ladies I know. The best woman I've known have been third wave feminists who understand that the 'hairy armpit' anger crap was used to belittle genuine problems. They still call themselves feminists regardless, knowing that ignorant fools who know nothing about woman's issues will shout 'ohh angry hairy feminists. What the hell is wrong with equality?

Religion damages the people that follow it, they indoctrinate children, mutilate peoples bodies, and kill each other across the planet. I don't really spread my agnosticism, but I have no problem with these people. Atheism isn't really a 'belief' system, it is more of a reality system.

A. Overly simplistic, and you're confusing to some degree what is Keynesian. A central tenant of Keynesian economics is counter-cyclical budget deficits. When there's a recession, the government should run deficits, and the larger the recession, the larger the corresponding deficit. That's been a non-stop, although admittedly abused, government policy since the Depression. Also, Keynesian economics had components in it for monetary policy as well. Keynes advocated for lower interest rates during times of recession along with increasing the monetary supply. Yes, he did believe that during more severe recessions that monetary measures would not be enough, but he nevertheless advocated for the various monetary policies. These align up with most recessions as far as what the gov't did from the Great Depression on. Just because Keynesian policies disappointed during the 1970's, the ideas were not altogether abandoned ever since. The simple fact of the matter is aside from 2007, there hadn't been a particularly severe recession since the 1970s, so it's reasonable to assume that direct employment wasn't deemed necessary, not that it was seen as bad policy in all cases.

B. It happened to me by the hand of Microsoft. I'm pretty sure they didn't have flunky MBAs. ;-)

C. There are a lot of similar issues involved. My point was only that you can't just tie requirements to it, and that's that. There are a huge myriad of issues that would come hand in hand with stipulations to unemployment. Your idea is still something I'd be onboard with if those devils in the details were addressed. I do see as an example that some people become unemployed because of structural changes to the economy that causes their jobs to never come back. As a case in point, textile factory workers who lose their jobs due to offshoring are suddenly in a position where market forces have no remedy. They lack the skills to get jobs in areas of growth such as more in depth computer skills, and likely lack the financial resources to get the education and training to get said skills because they're unemployed. This is a perfect example in my opinion where the market and free trade fail from time to time, and some force, likely the gov't, needs to step in for the good of everyone. These people would benefit from retraining, so they can get a good job, business owners benefit from increasing numbers of workers who can do the jobs they're needing people to do, and it becomes a win win situation.

D. The last time we tried no deposit insurance, it failed miserably. Banks lent money for people to buy goods and services they couldn't afford, and stocks on the margin. People stuck their money in banks anyway. The only difference is when fear hit the market after the crash, a lot of people, many irrationally, pulled their money from banks, causing a collapse in the banking system, which tanked the entire economy even further.

People lack the time and/or motivation to stay informed on all kinds of issues from local politics, to PTA meetings. I don't see how they could begin to assess what loans their banks were making as far as riskiness. And the typical American when it comes to finances? Yikes! Next to no savings, can't understand how much they should be regularly investing, etc. And it's not just the stupid people. Most Americans don't even know what a mutual fund actually is. How could they possibly make intelligent decisions about the riskiness of their banks' portfolios? I consider myself smarter than the average bear, but even I'd be paralyzed with fear selecting a bank based what little info I could find of their portfolios. Instead, I make sure they're FDIC insured, because that in and of itself entails objective benchmarks to even get that insurance.

And honestly, I don't see many people making decisions about their banks based on rates alone. As a case in point, very few people I know put money in online high yield savings accounts instead of the local credit union, bank, or large megabank, despite the fact that in most cases online savings account providers such as ING Direct pay 2-3 times the interest. I don't believe that's what caused the madness in the banking industry at all. At the very least, there's a massive list of causes well above FDIC insurance, and even if FDIC insurance did play a role in causing the crisis, it also served well in preventing runs on the banks in general that would have compounded the crisis further.

>> ^bmacs27:

@heropsycho
A. Because we've been leaning on monetary policy as our intervention of choice. Direct employment has been called socialism for 30 years. That doesn't suggest a dominant Keynesian ideology. Really it's been this mix of monetarism and supply-side economics which morphed into some mutilated crony-capitalism.
B. I suppose it could happen, but it would take a rough business climate, or some flunky MBAs. In that situation I'd try to increase my business (i.e. make $200,000).
C. That's why we have food stamps. It isn't a perfect solution, but the kid starves if her folks spend the whole check on smokes too. Vices aren't the kind of "demand side" stimulus I'd like to see (one flaw in the Keynesian argument given the current living conditions of the American poor).
D. I really do believe that if the FDIC didn't exist, "the market" would not have allowed deposits to be leveraged by banks investing in exotic financial instruments. Like you said, even the bankers didn't know what the hell they were doing! Without the FDIC people would very quickly ask, "what the hell you doin' with my money?" Rather, since their money is backed by the government they ask, "what sorts of rates are you offering?" It's that pressure from the distorted marketplace that pushed banks into more and more leverage to stay competitive. Those rates were realized by making massively leveraged bets that were only possible by hedging with exotic instruments. Once upon a time people knew their banker. I think that's the best FDIC there could be. There might be some legal patchwork of the Glass-Steagall flavor that might make it work, but chasing down all the unintended consequences would be a challenge. Certainly figuring out how to unwind all the securitized mortgages that already exist makes that sort of policy direction seemingly prohibitive.
F-. Dude, Peter Schiff is a quack.

@heropsycho

A. Because we've been leaning on monetary policy as our intervention of choice. Direct employment has been called socialism for 30 years. That doesn't suggest a dominant Keynesian ideology. Really it's been this mix of monetarism and supply-side economics which morphed into some mutilated crony-capitalism.

B. I suppose it could happen, but it would take a rough business climate, or some flunky MBAs. In that situation I'd try to increase my business (i.e. make $200,000).

C. That's why we have food stamps. It isn't a perfect solution, but the kid starves if her folks spend the whole check on smokes too. Vices aren't the kind of "demand side" stimulus I'd like to see (one flaw in the Keynesian argument given the current living conditions of the American poor).

D. I really do believe that if the FDIC didn't exist, "the market" would not have allowed deposits to be leveraged by banks investing in exotic financial instruments. Like you said, even the bankers didn't know what the hell they were doing! Without the FDIC people would very quickly ask, "what the hell you doin' with my money?" Rather, since their money is backed by the government they ask, "what sorts of rates are you offering?" It's that pressure from the distorted marketplace that pushed banks into more and more leverage to stay competitive. Those rates were realized by making massively leveraged bets that were only possible by hedging with exotic instruments. Once upon a time people knew their banker. I think that's the best FDIC there could be. There might be some legal patchwork of the Glass-Steagall flavor that might make it work, but chasing down all the unintended consequences would be a challenge. Certainly figuring out how to unwind all the securitized mortgages that already exist makes that sort of policy direction seemingly prohibitive.

F-. Dude, Peter Schiff is a quack.

maybe if it is your child who is genitally mutilated you will stop and think about what the reason is for this complete lack of human dignity
>> ^hpqp:

Stay classy. (<-- that's about all the time I feel like wasting on your ignorant drivel)
>> ^CaptainPlanet:

frankly your disgust comes off a bit conceited. Genital mutilation, or the mutilation of genitals, is never ok. as someone who claims to 'oppose' circumcision, how can you look in the mirror and see anything but an ugly face hypocrite? some people are so 'open minded' their brains really do fall out
as per your Brazilian girl, i'm sure she would love for you to tell her it was "elective surgery", bitch-fuck-holeintheass
you also said that you are lazy, which i am inclined to agree with. anyone who can quote laws strictly dictating these disgusting procedures not be administered to anyone under 18 and at the same time intentionally over looks the fact that the woman in question is 16, is a lazy piece of shit and hope you dead

Stay classy. (<-- that's about all the time I feel like wasting on your ignorant drivel)
>> ^CaptainPlanet:


frankly your disgust comes off a bit conceited. Genital mutilation, or the mutilation of genitals, is never ok. as someone who claims to 'oppose' circumcision, how can you look in the mirror and see anything but an ugly face hypocrite? some people are so 'open minded' their brains really do fall out
as per your Brazilian girl, i'm sure she would love for you to tell her it was "elective surgery", bitch-fuck-holeintheass
you also said that you are lazy, which i am inclined to agree with. anyone who can quote laws strictly dictating these disgusting procedures not be administered to anyone under 18 and at the same time intentionally over looks the fact that the woman in question is 16, is a lazy piece of shit and hope you dead