I’m sorry to come off strong and all but as my school we have believers that follow this. I dont mind in what you believe in for all seriousness BUT the pictures, some are a mockery that you are apperntly trying to put on catholics,jews,lutherians,e.t.c. We dont blast on your religion DONT BLAST ON MINE OR OTHERS! You guys want to be taking serious? well then do it proffessional..
-chris
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An elaborate spoof on Intelligent Design, The Gospel of the Flying Spaghetti Monster is neither too elaborate nor too spoofy to succeed in nailing the fallacies of ID. It's even wackier than Jonathan Swift's suggestion that the Irish eat their children as a way to keep them from being a burden, and it may offend just as many people, but Henderson, described elsewhere as a 25-year-old "out-of-work physics major," puts satire to the same serious use that Swift did. Oh, yes, it is very funny. -- Scientific American
@RAmen Dec 31st, 2007 at 8:09 pm
“Don’t they even understand it’s just a joke?”
A joke!?!?
Why you Heathen..you!! ;)
Hi there Everyone,
I see some of you are still around. I recognize Dutchpastaguy, Jean Bart, Wench Nikkiee, my friend Alchemist, and of course Bobby. I was here around last Feburary and wrote some stuff on having an objective morality as an atheist and having good reasons to be moral. After reading it, someone suggested that it needed more depth, a longer article or maybe even a book.
We’ll I’ve started it, but it hasn’t gone as fast as I would like. Part of the reason is that I really don’t have anyone to share it with and so that decreases my motivation. But lately I’ve had another spurt, and so I would like to suggest, humbly, that if anyone is interested such a thing that you look at what I have so far. It would be a great favor to me, but it might also be interesting to you, maybe.
I think I’m about half way done, but I could sure use some constructive criticism. It’s on the website attached to my name.
Hi Alchemist. How you been?
P.S. My Email is billtomlinson@mac.com
The article can be found here: http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA/
I thought we were “doing it professional” and “being taken serious.”
Maybe it’s a hoax! GHASPE!
…
I doubt it, though. The Gospel says otherwise.
RAmen.
@bill t
Welcome back, good to see you post again! I will read your article. As it is lengthy even in its unfinished form it may take a while.
@DutchPastaGuy
Thanks that would be great. Wow, good to see you. Why did this place get moderated. There must have been some nasty stuff going around, huh? Did it have to do with some of those scary posts?
My girlfriend is off rafting the Colorado river for the next 19 days, so I have more of a chance of making some progress on my article. Kind of quiet around here.
Hi bill - good to hear from you - hope you had a nice holiday and Santa brought you your every desire? The miserable sod forgot to send me the Brazilian women’s Beach Volleyball squad - again!
.
Likewise for me - I’ll definitely give it a read too.
.
Ah, the moderation :D Yes, that’s caused a few grumbles from some of the oldies - myself included. It kills the spontaneity and random daftness that really defined this site.
.
Bobby was talking about having moderated/unmoderated versions of the threads, not sure what’s happened to that.
.
All the best for 2008 everyone.
That reply went missing again. Retry.
.
Hi bill - good to hear from you - hope you had a nice holiday and Santa brought you your every desire? The miserable sod forgot to send me the Brazilian women’s Beach Volleyball squad - again!
.
Likewise for me - I’ll definitely give it a read too.
.
Ah, the moderation :D Yes, that’s caused a few grumbles from some of the oldies - myself included. It kills the spontaneity and random daftness that really defined this site.
.
Bobby was talking about having moderated/unmoderated versions of the threads, not sure what’s happened to that.
.
All the best for 2008 everyone.
Hi Alchemist,
Moderation certainly does slow down the flow. I remember times when I would just here for a minute or two waiting for the next response to the last response, so that I could immediately respond. I guess this forces people to get a life outside of CoFSM. Is that a good thing?
@bill
I quickly skimmed through ‘The Moral Atheist’ and one point that I think you missed (perhaps you didn’t and I didn’t see it so my appologies if that is the case) is the old ‘Is X good solely because God says so or does God say that X is good because it actually IS good?’ delemma. If X is only good because God says so than morallity is quite arbitrary in that God is only good because he says he is and if he said that murder was good than it would suddenly be ok to go about killing people. In this case religious folk seem to be in as much trouble as athiests. However, if God says that things are good because they ARE good, then morallity is not arbitrary and is independant of God. This makes it just as accessible to athiests as theists. The only difference is that theists have a celestial parent telling them which things are right and wrong while atheists will have to make use of reason to work out which things are right and wrong. I just thought you might like to address this in your work as I think it is a quite compelling argument for why theists are not morally priveledged.
I thoroughly enjoyed “The Moral Athiest” and I think it is such a great read. I hope that you indeed finish it one day and I will support you by purchasing it to hope to pass on to others. It is a book I think everybody should read, no matter what religion you are from.
RAmen to you! The noodly one has blessed you with this creativity of writing!
@Captain NoBeard Scallywag
Yes you are right that argument has to be presented at some point. I was thinking of using it later, but now I see that it should go in early on, maybe where I refer to the reasons that those who are religious for believing that an atheist cannot have an objective morality. But here’s the main problem I see with your argument. You say
” if God says that things are good because they ARE good, then morallity is not arbitrary and is independant of God. This makes it just as accessible to athiests as theists. ”
The theist could then say yes, god says of those good things that they are good because they are good but, that doesn’t necessarily make it accessible to atheists because only god, for some reason, can see what is truly good. They would have to claim that reason isn’t enough to discover the truth about good and bad. But then I suppose we could respond with “what is the reason that only god could see the good, and that reason isn’t enough?” putting the burden back upon the theist, for there doesn’t seem to be any apriori reason to believe that seeing what is good directly should only be accessible to god. But minimally the theist has to admit that if there is right and wrong, then it is independent of god. I believe most educated theists buy that argument.
Your argument, might provide a reason to suggest that principle #3, “following God’s law, is really redundant” for the theist. But that would mean, I suppose, that in justifying an action the theist wouldn’t just be able to say “just because god said it was right”
Excuse the rambling. It helps to write this out for me to try to get clear on it. You’re right, this is important, and I should figure out how to present it and see what it means to my ideas. Thanks
@Eric
Thanks for looking at it. You think it’s a good read, but sometimes I feel like it might not be organized enough to flow smoothly. Like I’m rambling, like above. I’m thinking of adding more titled sections to each chapter to counter that feel. What do you think about those thoughts?
@Captain NoBeard Scallywag
Thinking some more about the issue. Suppose god is a utilitarian, basically wants to maximize the good in the world, and because he knows everything, he’s done a calculation in complexity theory that shows that if man tries not to eat beans on thursdays, that in the long run things work out a little better. It would be impossible for man to figure this out because it involves highly complex calculations and man is part of the system he’s calculating within.
So god, says “try not to eat beans on Thursdays” (he’s already calculated the effect of his own action of saying that).
Anyway, it would seem that the theist could argue that God knows specific rights and wrongs that we don’t because it involves long term consequence. Just a thought.
Yeah DO IT PROFESSIONAL… start like all other non eastern religions and kill a few million people, followed by a thousand years of murder, persecution, and raping small boys… for Christ sake do it RIGHT!. I mean the ONLY thing I see you are doing correctly with FSM is making some money off of it.
@ Bill
Having more organization won’t hurt you at all (unless each section has 1 sentence. Lol). I agree it could come off as a ramble, but thats the kind of writing it is really (to me). Its like a lecture you would receive at a university. Morality 101.
I noticed two typos, (you put goggle instead of google) but that is easily erased with proper editing and revisions.
One way that I’ve learned to make writing more powerful is to get rid of the first person articles, no I’s and my’s. That could be one way to lose some of the “ramble” feel from it.
Its a great idea and I hope to see it finished some day soon. The title might dissuade some people from buying it, thinking it might be another xtian hatred book, but no need to worry about that too much. I think its a great title for its purposes.
@Captain NoBeard Scallywag
I took and hour walk thinking about your idea and how to fit it in. Man, this is exactly the right idea at exactly the right time. It fits perfectly into the next chapter on what it means to follow God’s law. It also helps incredibly in an argument I now am going to make on why we shouldn’t believe important moral things on faith. Thanks so much. I should have a first draft of chapter 8 written by tomorrow. You’re going to like it. Let me know your real name so I can give you some credit in my article/book/whatever.
The Moral Atheist: http://homepage.mac.com/billtomlinson/TMA
“You guys want to be taking serious? well then do it proffessional..”
.
This just kills me.
okay, you don’t bash my religion
but other Christians do (of course, my real religion is atheism)
so I think I’ll just bash the religion of all the people that bash mine
oh wait, you share that religion, don’t you?
So, you share religions with them, you share religious bashing with them.
Not my fault,
I’m just not gonna take it from the other people who bash mine
catch what I’m saying?
Man, what lag! It’s really not the forum that it was with this moderation thing. I guess the moderator sleeps. After a good 16 hours he should be refreshed enough to deal with a few hours work.
This was such a great place. I’m just wondering what the reason was to introduce a monitor. When I left here there were strange death threats or maybe that was a time I checked in later, I don’t precisely remember. Is that the reason.
Gosh, this was a great place. I guess I shouldn’t try to hold on to the past.
Hi, Everybody…I just sent Bobby a nagging email asking why the moderating is necessary. (I must admit that I haven’t been on-site and reading for quite awhile…when school’s in session, my playtime on the computer is at a premium.) Was there really ugly stuff going on?
Hope everyone, ESPECIALLY WONDERFUL BOBBY WHO WILL ALWAYS BE DEAR TO ME AND WHO HAS A PRETTY FUNNY CHRISTMAS GIFT WAITING HERE FOR WHENEVER HE TIRES OF THAILAND, has a great 2008!
Martha
@Bill
I see your point in that the theist could claim that we require God to let us know what is Good and Evil, but I don’t think this is what most are trying to say when they question the ability of atheists to be moral. Usually they seem to be saying that God is the base of morality and that without some god up in the sky there is no reason why one action should be good and another bad. For example I have heard many Christians say that Muslims are immoral (and vice versa) but I have yet to hear any claim that Muslims have NO GROUNDS for being moral. Theists seem to be saying of atheists, not that their moral structures are FLAWED (as the structures of other theists might be), but that without any god the atheist would have NO BASE for a moral structure. This is the idea that seems to prevail amongst theists who claim that atheists must be amoral and is the primary target of the Is-It-Good-Just-Because-God-Says-So argument.
Now a theist could claim, as you suggested, that only God can have direct knowledge of what is Good and Evil, but I don’t think this helps out much since for any given deity there is huge debate over what He/She says constitutes Good and Evil. For example, say you are a Christian and you want to know if killing your girlfriend is wrong so you consult the Bible. People come up with answers ranging from ‘Not ever’ to ‘Yes, if she is having an affair’ to ‘You are morally obligated to if she is Wiccan’. If imperfect reasoning is a barrier between atheists and morality it seems to be at least equally so for theists.
As for the possibility that God may be utilitarian, I don’t think this would help the theist for several reasons, not least of which is that it can easily be argued that the atheism of at least some individuals has led to increased utility. If then atheism is, in some cases, leading to increased utility, then atheism in those cases is (according to the arbitrary standard of Goodness) the morally correct choice; an uncomfortable stance for many theists. Another problem here is that while human beings may get the calculations wrong (how could we know that beans on a Thursday could lead to such disasterous consequences), we are still engaging with Morality when we try to make these calculations and are still moral people so long as we are TRYING to increase utility. I may inadvertently decrease utility by saving a mean person’s life, but if I was just trying to do good and was not aware how nasty the person was you would not say that I was acting immorally when I saved them.
So yeah, it is not a perfect argument but it certainly does cut off some lines of argument for those who would claim that atheists cannot be moral. I hope you have fun with it and with the rest of your writings!
Ramen