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pc
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Original Post - Nov 22, 2005 - 02:05pm PT
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Listened to a great essay on NPR yesterday by Penn Jillette. If you didn't catch it I recommend it. If possible listen to him read it don't just read it yourself.
pc
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5015557
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pc
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 22, 2005 - 02:31pm PT
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They're both nice essays and, I believe, equally intellectually honest. Jillette's was a personal view and Buckley's an observers view. Both pretty honest and, IMO, true.
pc
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yo
climber
NOT Fresno
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Nov 22, 2005 - 02:41pm PT
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Buckley has rigidity and big, pompous thesaurus words.
Jillette has humor and heart and compassion.
Depends on what you like in your god.
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dirtbag
climber
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Nov 22, 2005 - 02:42pm PT
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I believe in Dog. My Dog is a loving, compassionate Dog.
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Hootervillian
climber
3rd canoe at Bagby, OR
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Nov 22, 2005 - 02:48pm PT
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Jody a 'Buckley Man'.... shocker....
This I believe: that it is intellectually easier to credit a divine intelligence than to submit dumbly to felicitous congeries about nature.
i have to be honest or submit dumbly?, I don't even understand that statment in the context of his article, and I looked-up felicitous congeries.
....little help......
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bulgingpuke
Trad climber
cayucos california
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Nov 22, 2005 - 02:50pm PT
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Why is everyone so impatient? Forget all this God and Evo nonsense and just wait and see. Ahh nevermind I guess I'm just too lazy to care.
Dont Hate me Jody
Dont Hate me God.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Nov 22, 2005 - 02:53pm PT
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No matter what he says Buckley believes he either is god, or is just as good as god until the real thing shows up...
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pc
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 22, 2005 - 03:00pm PT
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DMT, Come one man. Jillette didn't say he has "faith" there's no God. He said 'he believes there's no God', big difference to me. And he chose that word because that's the title of the essay program at NPR.
Doesn't this sum it up well? (Perhaps some words to live by here at ST ;)
Penn says, "Believing there's no God means I can't really be forgiven except by kindness and faulty memories. That's good; it makes me want to be more thoughtful. I have to try to treat people right the first time around."
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BeBe
Sport climber
Phoenix
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Nov 22, 2005 - 03:16pm PT
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Yes. He is absolutely right on.
But in a time of Mad Cow-boy Disease and born-agains, most folks just don't care. They go to church on Sunday and act repentent. Yet their day-to-day actions would make any God sick to his stomach.
Jon Stewart & Jillette Penn in 2008!!!
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
one pass away from the big ditch
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Nov 22, 2005 - 03:52pm PT
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both are filled with assumptions, but the main part of Penn's pint that "skepticism is easy" is correct, assuming one isn't psychologically needy for a god. Which is not to say we aren't stuck with 'faith' in our our language games. The metaphysical terms embedded deep in our language make it near impossible to communicate without colloquially referring to metaphysics (e.g. often 'god' 'causes' 'thoughts'.
One thing is interesting though; faith is precisely that feeling or idea actually felt to be true. In that 'felt' is term that has a tactile connotation could it be that faith or the lack there of is tied to notions of the body?
could be that physically disabling solipsism is depression run amuck, not an intellectually honest position.
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Mungeclimber
Trad climber
one pass away from the big ditch
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Nov 22, 2005 - 03:54pm PT
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oops, freudian slip there 'pint' and 'point'
both are found drinking ales talking philosophy
i see no difference AT ALL there.
:)
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Nov 22, 2005 - 03:58pm PT
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Jody you can't use the term "intellectually honest" in any form of sincere manner when you wish to predetermine something. To be intellectually honest you have to have no personal interest in the outcome beyond its discovery. It's fine if you don't want to agree with what the author of the essay was saying, but don't pretend that you can intellectually rebutt it when you have a very serious interest in there being a god, a specific god with a name and a certain set of beliefs and powers that you believe rules all of our lives.
As far as I can tell they were both personal opinions, stated as such. How either of them is more or less honest can only be answered by the authors, but I think we assume that both wrote their statements in earnest.
So what is the issue Jody? Where do you see the lack of intellectual honesty? In fact would you have even used the word 'intellectual' at all were it not for the fact that Buckley did? From what I have seen on this board your faith has nothing to do with intellect and everything to do with emotion and spirituality. Would you care to make your point because I don't think the rest of us are following.
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pc
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Topic Author's Reply - Nov 22, 2005 - 04:05pm PT
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I'll try but YMMV.
Faith assumes a "leap" in logic at some point to get to a desired "point."
Belief can be the above but can also be something more substantial based on facts. I read Jillette's "belief" to be the latter. (I believe something because it's been proven to me)
Fact for Penn, "Believing there is no God means the suffering I've seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn't caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn't bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.
To me there's no "faith" in thinking that spending more time and money curing cancer will be good for man(woman)kind. He knows it because it's been proven throughout our evolution.
pc
P.S. I'm better at expressing myself through music ;)
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Nov 22, 2005 - 04:07pm PT
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Dingus,
You're simply aping the latest fundamentalist tactic for attacking Atheism - casting it as a "religion". This is just as disingenuous as casting Creationism as "science" under the guise of IE. That the act of "believing" anything makes it "faith-based" and no different and in equal standing with religion by sharing the same foundation of "belief". It is a childish, contrived, and sad argument at best.
That I "believe" there is no Santa Claus is not a matter of "faith", it's a matter that he has never shown up. That I "believe" El Cap does exist is because it did show up. Neither is a matter of faith, but a matter of fact - the fact that one appeared and the other didn't. It's about evidence-based belief systems as opposed to faith-based ones. You can claim and believe anything - producing concrete, repeatable, verifiable evidence proving it is another thing all together. Claiming Atheism is a religion has many benefits for fundamentalists and that they are being effective with this line of rubbish as evidenced by your post is not all that surprising I suppose.
But the burden of proof remains on those claiming the positive (god exists), not those claiming the negative (there is no god). The day god shows up, knocks on my door, appears on CNN, or otherwise puts in an appearance - I'll "believe" - until then there is no god beyond the one created by us to manipulate other human beings and he's right up their with the tooth fairy, the monster under the bed, and WMDs in Iraq.
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Nov 22, 2005 - 04:21pm PT
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Dingus,
Now there is little doubt how your knuckles got calloused or why your ass rides up so high and is a flushed pink all the time, but hey, push up on those pads a bit and I'll stoop down and see what I can manage. It's the least I can do for all your thoughtful contributions elsewhere in this forum.
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Hootervillian
climber
3rd canoe at Bagby, OR
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Nov 22, 2005 - 04:22pm PT
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What's Atheism?
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pc
Trad climber
Seattle, WA
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Nov 22, 2005 - 04:27pm PT
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Why Jody? Because your God is vengeful and will "get us"? You mean to tell me that if we live an honest life, do no harm, raise good kids, but don't believe in God, we'll be in "big trouble" with your God? No thanks. Not for me even if She does show up.
pc
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Loom
climber
167 stinking feet above sea level : (
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Nov 22, 2005 - 04:28pm PT
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You guys that believe there is no global warming, and believe that we can just go on procreating, despoiling, and consuming because God will take care of everything had better be right, because if you aren't . . . : (
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Spinmaster K-Rove
Trad climber
Stuck Under the Kor Roof
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Nov 22, 2005 - 04:34pm PT
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Woot! See there we go. Assumptions all around. I'm not a "Jillete" guy and that's fine if you are't a "Buckley" guy. I certainly assumed that you were trying to cast some doubt on Jillette's essay because you have been so eager to defend the existance of god in the past. I didn't thnk you were necessarily fully on board with Buckley (I assume by too liberal you mean that he didn't scream 'death to the infidels' at the end of his essay), but it seemed pretty clear that you wanted to discredit Jilette or you wouldn't have placed a value judgement on your question.
And Jody, be honest its not that we better believe 'in god' but that we better believe in YOUR god. I'm sure since we are talking intellectually you will be happy to explain how your 'better be right' logic works, say, if god is actually the Jewish version of Yahweh or the Islamic version of Yahweh. You ever think about hedging your bets? Maybe get circumsized just in case?
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healyje
Trad climber
Portland, Oregon
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Nov 22, 2005 - 04:37pm PT
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Dingus,
It's not about Penn's tongue-in-cheek article, or any Atheists' line, it's about science and evidence-based versus faith-based belief. But that Penn chooses to use the words "I believe" to illustrate the consequences that hold from his beliefs is reasonable literary license; to extrapolate that he has jumped from one belief system to the other is not a reasonable conclusion. Again, evidenced-based belief is nothing like faith-based belief. Why today's god and not the Roman's gods? Why not an Amazon tribal god? Why not an alien's god? Where have all the gods gone and why has no god ever appeared in a concrete form and simply communicated with us? How about Letterman or Leno? Oprah? It's amazing what people need to believe...
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