Ateisme

Jeg refererede for en uges tid siden Scott Adams indlæg om ateisme. Jeg syntes faktisk, det var interessant. Jeg tog fejl. Tak ske gud og lov for kloge mennesker. PZ Myers svarer - som sædvanlig uden at lægge fingrene imellem:

You don’t have to be 100% certain to be able to dismiss the rantings of bearded prophets as lacking grounds for concern. We usually develop an intellectual discriminatory filter that allows us to screen out the silly threats from the real ones; religion is a massive perforation in that sensible screen that encourages people to ignore evidence and accept Imaginary Improbabilities as Inarguable Inevitabilities. Rejecting it should be regarded as an important issue of self-defense.

But then, we have churchly institutions that make gullibility a sacrament and worship the holy gaps in our rationality, and urge their believers to widen and deepen their credulity to let the invisible imaginary beings in. We also have a fair number of people, like certain cartoonists, who are simply not smart enough to grasp simple ideas, even if they are uncontaminated by the preachings of a church. (Pharyngula: Scott Adams Wanks Again)

Amen (!).

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If you say you need to be 100% certain, you don’t understand how human brains work. It’s common for the human brain to be certain about things that later turn out to be completely false. It happens all the time, to everyone. If it has ever happened to you, then you know you can’t trust your own powers of certainty. […]

I sometimes call myself an atheist because it’s too hard to explain Spinoza’s version of god. And it’s too hard to explain that agnosticism is the only intellectually defensible position.

Fra endnu et interessant indlæg pÃ¥ Scott Adams’ Dilbert Blog.

Og Spinozas gud: se fx friesian.com eller mange andre steder…

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• Fængselsbure
  Under G8-topmødet blev tilbageholdte aktivister anbragt i “midlertidige massefængsler, der i pÃ¥faldende grad minder om USA’s berygtede fangebure i Guantánamo-lejren”. En skamplet pÃ¥ en skamstøtte (Ritzau i Politiken)
• Marxistisk religionskritik og historiske analyser af hovedreligionerne i en materialesamling fra Tidsskriftscentret pÃ¥ Modkraft.dk.

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Foto: Isak Hoffmeyer

Det lykkedes mig at fÃ¥ billetter til “Ã…h Gud” - Nikolaj Cederholms “intellektuelle standup” (aka foredrag med effekter) inden de sidste billetter var væk (forestillingen er blevet forlænget - køb billetter pÃ¥ bettynansen.dk inden de er væk igen!).

Det kan kun anbefales. Selv for en die-hard ateist som undertegnede var der et par gode pointer at hive med hjem. Men hvis du er af den agnostisk eller blot vane-kristne type, er foredraget et venligt spark i retning af at tage stilling - til fordel for fornuften.

Kritikken af kirke og religionen er mere aktuel end nogensinde før - pÃ¥ et tidspunkt, hvor præster af enhver afskygning har (gen)erobret en plads i den offentlige debat. Og de er er da sært, at stadigt flere medier lader præster udtale sig om ‘rigtigt’ og ‘forkert’ - ikke fordi de har en speciel viden om emnerne, der snakkes om, men fordi de er præster. Præster, som baserer deres viden pÃ¥ en knap to tusinde Ã¥r gammel røverhistorie!

I don’t accept the currently fashionable assertion that any view is automatically as worthy of respect as any equal and opposite view. My view is that the moon is made of rock. If someone says to me “Well, you haven’t been there, have you? You haven’t seen it for yourself, so my view that it is made of Norwegian Beaver Cheese is equally valid� - then I can’t even be bothered to argue. There is such a thing as the burden of proof, and in the case of god, as in the case of the composition of the moon, this has shifted radically. God used to be the best explanation we’d got, and we’ve now got vastly better ones. God is no longer an explanation of anything, but has instead become something that would itself need an insurmountable amount of explaining. So I don’t think that being convinced that there is no god is as irrational or arrogant a point of view as belief that there is. Douglas Adams

… i den humoristiske ende er der forøvrigt nye episoder af Mr. Deity pÃ¥ mrdeity.com. Stor humor!

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