Comments for Outside the Asylum

Comment on It was “No God” day on Twitter! by De-friend the Enemy? « Outside the Asylum

De-friend the Enemy? « Outside the Asylum — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 18:55:06 +0000

[...] place; I just want to have an honest, open discourse (to borrow from a Christian I wrote about in a previous post). I think engaging in and encouraging logical discussion (while it does feel like banging [...]

Comment on Should we tolerate religion? by 1minionsopinion

1minionsopinion — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:56:29 +0000

That tends to be my side of things, too. It’s not the individuals that are the trouble – it’s the institution and all it stands for. I’ve known many faithful people who’d never let their church attendance get in the way of learning new things and I think I’d be a lesser person if I couldn’t count them as friends. I don’t have to agree with their faith to appreciate their humanity.

Karl Marx is recorded as calling religion an opiate. I disagree with him there. If they were all blissed out on poppy product, they wouldn’t be as problematic. Think Soma in Brave New World. Dumb as kites and happy to never question anything.

I’ve been under the long-held assumption that religion developed as a means of controlling populations. When slavery ran rampant, it must have been a relief to die thinking there really was a better place waiting. Religions work best where people are poor, uneducated, and feel lost in a sea of the inexplicable. Religious leaders come by and offer solace, a little food, a little education (of the “Have you met Jesus? You don’t want to go to hell do you? Come meet Jesus” variety) and soon they’re mowed under by a group that claims to know what’s best and takes away all they thought they knew and replaces it with inane rules and gibberish that must be followed or else more despair will be heaped upon them in an afterlife they never knew existed.

I’m not even going to get into the rich and powerful reasons religions gain support.

Comment on Should we tolerate religion? by iquake

iquake — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 22:15:33 +0000

I REALLY appreciate your honest observations and your willingness to be so open about your struggle in coming to terms with or against the validity of religion. I think it is a struggle we all share, religious and non-religious alike. I, too, feel that religion can be an enormous force for good and postive change, but I also know that it can be the very source of evil, hatred and iggnorance. I guess it is not religion that is good or bad any more than science can be good or bad. Perhaps it depends on the person carrying such an awesome responsibility, religious and scientific alike… and I just fyi… I have no clue where to go from here.

Quaker Boy

Comment on Comment Policy by Wolf16

Wolf16 — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 10:43:27 +0000

If people are going to use clumsy dated overused phrases to claim they have some special, magical supernatural power then I think someone has every right to question them on it without being accused of arrogance. ,

Comment on Comment Policy by Faggot49

Faggot49 — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 11:43:06 +0000

They were sentenced to 12 years hard labor. ,

Comment on It was “No God” day on Twitter! by Qrystal

Qrystal — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 18:59:23 +0000

Something occurred to me when I was reading this article: if you replace the word ‘God’ (or words like it) with the word ‘Ignorance’ in most believers’ comments, they tend to make a whole lot more sense.

For example, the one that started it all: “Know Ignorance, know peace. No Ignorance, no peace.”

Also from the above:
” Speaking as I do from the heights of my Ignorancelike wisdom…” [too funny!]
“I pray you accept Ignorance’s saving grace before it is too late.”
“I know the difference Ignorance has made in my life. Why wouldn’t I want to share my joy?” [Heheh: Ignorance is bliss, indeed!]
“I do pray that your heart is opened to Ignorance, not to a controlling religion that will stifle you and suppress your spirit.” [I still can't help but think that religion's control is in that it helps you feel free to ignore rationality.]

In general, most of the responses to your inquiries about rational discussion seemed to be met with comments that amounted to “La-la-la, I can’t hear you, praise Ignorance, you should at least be thankful that I’m wishing that you were as Ignorant as I am!”

Quotes from Elsewhere:
“Believe in Ignorance, and Thou Shalt Be Saved!” [Saved from thinking for oneself, which leads to icky things like worries and fears.]
“Ignorance is Love” [Indeed, I like to think that my love is purposefully ignoring the things that could be annoying... like caring about someone despite their flaws.]
“In Ignorance We Trust” [Ouch! Glad I'm not American!]

Moving further into this idea, instead of thinking of God as some dude who created stuff (neveryoumind who created God, because Ignorance is eternal!), I think everything was born out of Ignorance instead. The universe didn’t know any better when its energy was expanding outwards after the big bang, and quarks, atoms, and eventually stars and planets were forming according to the four fundamental forces and conservation of energy. The universe didn’t do it on purpose, so we can conclude that it was Ignorant.

The evolution from single celled organisms to complex creatures was the result of Ignorant trial and error, otherwise known as natural selection: useful traits were reinforced, and crappy “Oh well, who knew it wouldn’t work?” traits faded away. Sentient beings were more clever than those that weren’t, and so intelligence started to emerge from Ignorance.

Of course it’s more complicated than this, but as an optimist I can’t help but believe we’re reducing Ignorance more and more as our society evolves. This is especially true as we discover more and more about what the universe really is like, and as you pointed out above, this reduces the need to use some God-like entity in our descriptions of how existence came to be!

Though don’t get me wrong: I do see how people can benefit from believing in a purpose, or in being thankful for existence, or in finding hope in one’s own heart (even if that hope is attributed elsewhere). I am not meaning the word Ignorant as an insult, just as the literal translation: not knowing. In this case, it happens to be a choice of not knowing that everything can be as it is without some mysterious Entity being responsible for it.

Would it be blasphemous to atheism if I prayed for these Ignorants, even if I do so godlessly?

Comment on Common Atheist Myths by Aspentroll

Aspentroll — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 18:59:33 +0000

I have seen the above irrational statements made by the fundies for years now.
I can only say that these people are seriously misinformed and led around by their noses by their priests/pastors. This seems to me to be understandable because when your in the business of religion you do not want to lose customers.
Let’ face it, the religions are all big business. Billions of dollars a year are extracted from the gullible. You don’t believe this, then just check out the Vatican and it’s worth. Athough that would be a highly protected secret.
None of the Vatican money ever seems to get back to the poor who so deludedly believe in the myth. In my opinion, Christianity is the greatest fraud ever perpetrated on mankind. What worries me is the gullibility of man.

Comment on Censorship really burns me by Ken Kuhns

Ken Kuhns — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 21:58:32 +0000

It is also worthy to note that you don’t say anything about removing books about creationism or intelligent design from the library – nor do most opponents of ID and creationism.

Comment on National Day of Reason: Why it matters by casita

casita — Fri, 08 May 2009 04:32:06 +0000

I concur.

Comment on Food for thought by arodland

arodland — Sun, 18 Jan 2009 06:59:04 +0000

This is a very Dick Feynman kind of comment. He was always of the belief that to truly understand something makes it _more_ wonderful, more miraculous if you’ll forgive the term, and not less. Some of the lines that House (the show)’s writers give to House (the character) reflect some really great ideas.