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On the first of our week’s podcasts, Abe Greenwald and Noah Rothman debate the millennial generation in response to John Podhoretz’s question about whether millennials are as bad as people say (Noah being one). And then things get wild and philosophical on the question of technological advance and the changes in human destiny before the guys return to White House feuds. Give a listen.
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Atheists are probably one of the only groups of people remaining who it is acceptable for the general public to harbor unthinking or reactive bias against.
The example you give is hardly proof of your thesis: What serial killer do you know, who is a serious believer in God? Isn’t it likely that a believer, who takes God’s commandments seriously, would be the last one to go out and kill people?
That’s not what the imprisonment data says. That also doesn’t account for those who insist that the killing they’re engaging in is God’s will.
I think the larger point is that religious conviction is not a guarantee that people will act appropriately any more than lack thereof is a guarantee of misbehavior. The attitude that so many people have towards atheism is influenced directly by their religion’s explicit preachments that atheists and atheism are evil. The results seem to be just the opposite.
It’s a lot like those who insisted that giving people concealed carry permits would cause a rash of vigilante justice. The truth of the matter is CCW permit holders commit crimes at rates so far below that of even police officers that it’s almost ummeasurable.
In listening to the podcast I am once again reminded about the general lack of biological knowledge that exists in the public at large. Even well educated people such as the host seem to lack basic knowledge and in its place substitute wonder and magic. So I will endeavor to help people understand, how you can edit the genome of an entire organism. It is not a magical and mysterious process. It it completely understandable if you keep in mind one thing. All multi cellular organisms begin their existence as a unicellular organism. In the case of mammals such as our selves this entity is known as the Zygote. Which is the cell resulting from the fusion of the sperm and egg nuclei. At this point in development any alteration to the genome of this single cell will be propagate to all subsequent cells that comprise the organism. Genetic manipulation of mammals is dependent on this fact. Also with bone marrow transplants my understanding was that the procedure first calls for the killing of the host marrow, then donor marrow is given which contains stem cells that propagate in their new host to replace the old dying marrow.
Heads up, the latest generation is being called “iGen” by some folks, since they’ve never known a world without the internet. Also, turns out growing up with smartphones has NOT been good for their development.
EDIT: Just got to the second half of the podcast, turns out John brings up this article. Whoops
Do you think that a STEM degree is possessed by any of the hosts of this show?
Quick check: Noah Rothman – Russia Studies, International Relations
Abe Greenwald – hard to track down
John Podhoretz – Bachelor’s from University of Chicago
I’m willing to cut them some slack here because we operate “inside the bubble” and technobabble is generally beyond the ken of non-technicians.
You are right on the above. Certainly. I might add that gun control is just another way for the left to get control of people. When they say Gun Control, they really mean People control.
As far as the first part goes: I am sorry you are an atheist. I consider it quite illogical, frankly. As a very firm believer, I do not think that there are any preachments that atheists are evil. Maybe the preachment is rather that a lack of believe in God might lead some people to do evil things, because there is no moral restraint. Note that I said Moral Restraint. Note I also wrote that those who take God’s commandments seriously would not commit a killing. It is reputed that people in organized crime, for example, went to church a lot. This does not mean that they took the Commandments seriously.
No preachments?
Really? None? How many gallons of blood has the average Christian donated? I bet I’ve got them beat. There is none who does good? Seriously? What a load of horsehockey the Bible is about atheists.
You expect me to respect a document that calls me corrupt, abominable and incapable of doing good?
Even better: We’re going to hell.
I ask these questions seriously because this is in the Bible. I imagine that there’s going to be some manner of “context” claim or something, but we’re talking about plain language here and I’m not interested in hearing about “allegorical language” in these instances. What allegory was possibly being referred to? Seems pretty straightforward.
Atheists are evil people incapable of doing good and they’re going to hell. Hard to see where that bias comes from when you put it like that…
All right, I think we better quit. You are obviously a very bitter man, and I have no truck with bitterness. People can cherry-pick the Bible all they want and find what they want. Krauthammer is a non-believer. So is George Will. They are, however, respectful men, who do not trash a Book in which people devoutly believe. But you, sir, are bitter and angry, and I think you should take those twin evils and live among like people. I didn’t say or write a word against you or your beliefs. But I guess I should not expect any better from the likes of people who have no respect but for their petty hatreds!
You misunderstand me. I’m not saying that you said this. I’m saying that it’s a thing that is in the Bible, which you stated had no preachments regarding the evils of atheists.
I’m pleased to hear that you join me in condemning those deplorable words which you never said.
Does one really need a STEM degree to be able to understand basic science? At least the general outlines. Not understanding a thing because one is not read up on it does not make that thing mysterious or unknowable. I don’t think there is anything wrong with being impressed by some technological development and ask “how did they do that?”. But to answer that question in the next sentence with “its a mystery we will never know” seems preposterous to me.
You’re inside the bubble, man. General scientific knowledge as you and I understand it is actually a mystery to large numbers of people. This is why 40% of people in this country think the Earth is <10,000 years old.
This is a faulty number. There are not that many Young Earth Creationists in the United States. For a source to explain why, I’ll choose that oh-so-right-leaning-religious-loving publication Slate.
I’ve actually only ever (knowingly) met one YEC in all the years I’ve been on the planet, which is strange per that 4 out of 10 number that is so often bandied about. It reminds me of the oft distorted sexual assault stats that are so cherished by progressives and that portray universities as hotbeds of sexual misconduct on the scale of war torn countries.
But hey.
Numbers are scientific. ;)
Also, no offense meant YECs. As Majestyk has pointed out, only atheists are objects of derision, though that’s kinda funny per what he meant to imply about you in the context of his comment. :D
(I’m not really poking the bear here. Well… maybe a little. The throwing out of the 40% just struck me as funny when I read the thread, and I’m sure people without religion have a sense of humor, right?)
Also, I like “i-gen.” It’s at least as good as “baby boomer.”
http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx
It’s actually worse than that. The issue is that our personal, subjective experience is a pretty faulty indicator of what actually goes on in reality. I do know YECs in the real world, although not in this relative proportion. What goes on outside of major metropolitan areas frequently has no bearing on what goes on anywhere else.
I don’t accept the number of people identified in this poll as holding YE ideology per personal experience, and I have not always hung out in cosmopolitan enclaves. Just call me incredulous, I guess. And this is from a person of faith, though not a literalist or fundamentalist.
Btw, I think you’re wrong as an atheist and condemned to hell if you remain one, but what does that mean? Hell to me as a Catholic is living (or dying) in separation from God. If you don’t even acknowledge God exists, clearly you are separated from Him, so I don’t know why you care.
I don’t put you in a pit of fire either, as I’m not a biblical literalist. But I do believe you will never be as fulfilled as you might have been. Think about Dr. Faustus if you’d like. Or, rather, those around him who reminded him that all of Earth was nothing really.
This does not mean I think you’re evil.
Goodness.
Christians are the most tolerant people on the planet.
Unless they’re Democrats. ;)
I’m certain you don’t. However, I’m equally certain you can see how some people use the Bible as justification to think this of atheists.
Incidentally, what would the purpose of writing that in the Bible even be – understanding of course that the original text wasn’t written for the “Bible” which was a concatenation of a number of documents formalized at the Council of Nicaea?
In some sense it’s simply an echo of the First Commandment, but it’s also just generally kind of nasty, don’t you think?
The Gallup research is in line with the Pew religious landscape survey as well, so I don’t view it as being inaccurate or incredible as far as YEC percentages go. There are a lot of fundamentalist and born again Christians in this country for whom evolution and the notion of an old Earth are direct challenges to the Bible’s claims to inerrancy. That is of course, bananas… but this is America and for one reason or another we’ve not come around to the realization that the enlightenment thinking that brought us the material wealth and global empire that we enjoy does point in a different direction from the Biblical narrative when turned towards natural history.
Okay. Sure. But I’m not sure why this disturbs you so much. While I don’t think you are evil, I don’t think atheism is good. I also think many atheists framed people of faith as evil per their own orthodoxy, which is one reason why some spend an inordinate amount of time trying to remove God from the public square.
Well. I’m not a Biblical scholar, but if one believes that atheists are truly condemned to hellfire and damnation, then you’d want to use language that would show the perils of that path. For example, while I’m not exactly a Trump fan, I get why he’d talk about fire and fury to warn Kim Jong Un to stay in his box.
Here I shrug a bit. If one believes in God, atheists are “darkened in their understanding.” Furthermore, they often want to lead others away from God and constantly attack faith of any kind. From the Christian perspective, that first desire/act alone is inherently evil, and the Bible is thus being honest when heaping condemnation upon such. But the Bible also condemns those who preach a false understanding of God and is none too fond of hypocrites. Also, I am a Catholic, so the Bible is not a literal text. The Bible is making a point in strong language. The Bible also talks about loving atheists, testing one’s own faith, and generally being kind.
Think about it this way.
I recently met a guy who had tattooed the New Deal era Blue Eagle to his arm. Over the course of a conversation about this, I learned he firmly believes that the NRA was just and good, and socialism is the most ethical system within which one can operate. He would have liked a return to the command economy the NRA set up.
Was he evil?
No. Of course not. But his views are wrong and potentially dangerous.
So let’s imagine me writing a text to guide people learning about economics and history: The fool says in his heart, “There is no good in free markets.” Men with blue eagles tattooed on their arms are corrupt, they do abominable deeds, there is none who does good.
That might sound nasty, too, but… Well. It’s really just a word of caution.
I’m not going to defend reactionary atheists, whom I generally dislike. The problem is that the understanding of atheism that most people of faith possess is through the lens of their own religious faith, when the reality is that atheism is nothing like religiosity at all. Certainly not in my experience.
There’s also a fundamental rub between atheists and Christianity – which is inherently evangelical – and atheism, which is a rejection of all supernatural dogmas. So, when you see idiots like Roy Moore who insist upon putting the Decalogue in a courthouse it is quite a bit more than an implication that unless you’re from the Judeo-Christian tradition you might not get a fair shake in that place which is supposed to be free from those sorts of influences. That’s very dangerous in the eyes of people who aren’t Christians. It would be very similar (not exactly similar!) to a Christian seeking justice in an Islamic law court.
Most Christians are obviously entirely benign. But, when you place a person with a very evangelical/fundamentalist bent in a position of power, it has an uncomfortable whiff of “theocrat.”
The problem with this is that it’s so easy to disprove. There are plenty of people whom I disagree with politically whom I don’t suspect of being evil people who would kill you or who are utterly amoral because of their beliefs.
That’s what we’re talking about here: the ascribing of evil, amoral thoughts or deeds to people on the basis of what – not believing in Yahweh? That description covers 5 out of 7 people on the planet. Not just the stray atheists.
You maintain that the poll numbers in Gallup, which put more than 40% of all Americans into the YEC camp are in line with the Pew religious landscape survey.
So let’s think about this a bit more.
According to Pew, only 70% of Americans currently identify as religious, right? Then out of those 70%, only 25.4% are Evangelical Christians. Throw in another .5% for “orthodox Christians,” whatever that means. You’re at 26% of the population. Young Earth beliefs are most likely to be held by evangelicals per their history with fundamentalism than by Christians from other sects, though not every evangelical believes in YEC.
Mainline Protestants and Catholics make up a little more than 35% of the people who identify as Christians. I’ve been both of these faiths. YEC is not a mainline Protestant doctrine, and it is definitely not a Catholic doctrine. Are there any individuals within these groups who believe in YEC? Sure. Okay. But the are a small minority if they are adhering to what their churches actually say about the matter.
(Now, I’ll concede it’s hard to dissect “mainline” protestantism as there are over 3,000 different protestant churches, but I take “mainline” to be large denominations like the Methodists, which I once was, and the Methodists have proactively stated evolution does not contradict faith. Many popes, including the current pope, have weighed in on this matter as well, and “God is not a magician.”)
So we started with 70% of Americans as religious. If I say ALL evangelicals and “orthodox” Christians believe in YEC, which is not true, I think I can say ALL of the mainline Protestants and Catholics do not believe in YEC per the teachings of the churches themselves and reasonably feel that the exchange of YECs in either group will come out in the wash. (Yes. I know that’s not the most scientific way to go about it, but I think it’s reasonable.)
I will even add ALL the other groups of Christians–Mormons, black Protestants, etc.–to the YEC group though I’m pretty sure the Romney family has never preached young earth AND other faiths like Judaism, which I’m also pretty sure doesn’t actually have high numbers of YEC.
We thereby have 35% of religious people believing in YEC.
When we add back in the 30% of Americans who are not religious AT ALL, then that percentage shrinks more per the general population.
So how in the world do we get to 40%+ of ALL Americans being YEC?
Agnostics don’t like carbon dating?
That simply doesn’t make much sense to me.
I think you have to drill a lot deeper into how the polling questions measuring YEC beliefs are constructed.
Um. That’s the point.
But I don’t argue with you when you seem to want more tolerance. Recall this does not mean conceding any belief. It simply means living with other people having ideas with which we disagree.
As the Catholic experience shows, the beliefs of the hierarchy have almost no correlation to the beliefs of the body.
Sure – framing the question correctly is critical, but…
That means less than half of Americans agree that human beings evolved. If human beings didn’t evolve… From where did they come? These sorts of inconsistencies and the fact that you don’t get much, much higher levels of agreement on this sort of fundamental question indicate to me that either people aren’t very bright, (i.e., a pollster calling them up on the phone can lead them around by the nose) they aren’t well educated or they are inculcated with counterfactual claims about the origins of man. Perhaps some combination of the three.
It would seem the Bible calls for the opposite. How are you supposed to coexist and interact with people who are “corrupt, do abominable deeds,” and among whom “there is none who does good”?
It’s an excuse or a justification for doing abominable things to people of different beliefs. Recall that according to the Bible, the Israelites exterminated the Canaanites and various other tribes, dispossessing them of their land on this basis. I think that’s the frame through which such a verse should be viewed. The Israelis clearly didn’t seek tolerance and coexistence with the Canaanites. They wiped them out!
At any rate, I think Christians place an incredible burden on themselves which is difficult to bear when they seek to defend the Old Testament and the horrific stuff that goes on in there. I don’t expect you to do so because I don’t think it can be done.
Christians view the New Testament as the model for life, and Christ was not into stoning one’s enemies but loving them.
This is a long conversation, but if you want me to concede Americans don’t get the best of educations, I can. If you want me to say atheism is rational, I can’t. If you want to say more tolerance is proper, I’m with you. If you want Christians to discard the Bible to get that tolerance, you’re whistling Dixie. If you want to build bridges between groups, I’ll help you hammer. If you want to change my core beliefs in the process, that probably won’t work. If you want to say millennials are awful, we can both do that, but to the podcast, we are better off when we treat people as individuals rather than stereotype groups….