Politically charged Quote of the Day (and ... The Meaning of Life)

[Not Afraid]

A memorable quote

On Wednesday, March 1st, 2006, in Annapolis at a
hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay
marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to
testify. At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs
said:"Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a
woman. What do you have to say about that?"

Raskin replied: "Senator, when you took your oath of
office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold
the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and
swear to uphold the Bible."

Apparently the room erupted into applause.:snap:

[Alex]

I'm not sure if you're just finding it or wanting to call it out. It was posted recently here (http://www.loungeoftomorrow.com/LoT/showpost.php?p=63299&postcount=208). And you can find more information and the accurate quote (though this is pretty correct) here (http://www.snopes.com/politics/quotes/raskin.asp).

It is a great quote and it has been a bounteous month for me in terms of gathering good quotes in support of how atheism affects my outlook. There was this and then Fran Lebowitz's response at a City Arts & Lectures speech to what spirituality means to her (she is strongly atheist) is one I'll be using for a very long time.

[Not Afraid]

Ahhhh, I rarely - or thoroughly - read the polotical threqds so I missed the earlier reference.

[wendybeth]

I'm not an atheist, but I love Fran Lebowitz. :snap:

[Gemini Cricket]

My favorite animal is steak.
~ Fran Lebowitz
:D

I like the quote NA posted. I think I'll send it to Mitt Romney here in Boston. He defaulted into his 'save the children' mode when the subject of gay marriage came up (yet again) yesterday.


As for the subject of atheism. If find it interesting that atheists (and I don't know if I'm one or not) and the pretentiously pious have something in common. There's no room for gray in their thinking. One says, 'There definitely is a God.' One says, 'There definitely isn't a god.'

I'm sure Chris and I could talk about this in person soon... Lisa and I were discussing black and white thinking yesterday. I admit I think that way often, but I'm searching for gray. And not just on my head like Lisa said. :D

[Alex]

As for the subject of atheism. If find it interesting that atheists (and I don't know if I'm one or not) and the pretentiously pious have something in common. There's no room for gray in their thinking. One says, 'There definitely is a God.' One says, 'There definitely isn't a god.'


I don't say this and I'm still an atheist. And if everybody who definitely thinks there is a god is pretentiously pious then there aren't very many unpretentiously pious people in the world.

[€uroMeinke]

I don't think I'm that absolutist as an atheist. It's just my belief that there is no god, and so I live my life and make my decissions based on that belief.

On the other hand, I know many of people who believe in god and have had life tranforming experiences that have contributed to their beliefs. For them, I can certainly understand why they believe what they do, and thus I fully expect them to make decission and act on their lives in accordance to those beliefs, to not do so would be insincere and inauthentic.

But by that same token, for me to be sincere and authentic to myself, I must claim atheism.

[Scrooge McSam]

I read something recently on atheism that I really enjoyed. This is not a direct quote, but as close as I can get without searching for a while to find it.

"We're both atheists, you and I. You consider me an atheist because I don't believe in your god. I consider you an atheist because there are a multitude of gods that you don't believe in. And when you figure out why you don't believe in all those other gods, you'll have figured out why I don't believe in yours".

[Gemini Cricket]

I don't think I'm that absolutist as an atheist.

Absolutist. Good word.
I agree being sincere to yourself is important.

SMcS ~ Cool quote.
:)

[Alex]

Yeah, I'm not an absolutist in the sense that I will readily acknowledge that "god" (as generally defined, though when you push people will define god in some really weird ways) could exist. There is just no rational reason to think so.

But I can understand the impulse in others to choose the other way even if it has no attraction for me.

Scrooge McSam, that quote well expresses an issue I run into in talking about this with people. How do they decide with forms of baseless magical thinking they will buy into.

[SzczerbiakManiac]

I am an atheist. I freely admit that there could be any number of deities, but until I see legitimate evidence supporting their existence, I will remain an atheist.

[Kevy Baby]

I am an atheist. I freely admit that there could be any number of deities, but until I see legitimate evidence supporting their existence, I will remain an atheist.A self fulfilling prophecy if you will.

"I refuse to believe in something that requires faith until I see irrefutable facts."

The whole basis for faith is allowing yourself to know that the spirit is there without needing to have the hard and fast evidence. It is a freeing experience to allow yourself to be all the evidence you need.

[Alex]

Or self-deluding. It exists because I believe it does is also a self-fulfilling prophecy for all the evidence you require.

I believe all kinds of things that require "faith." For example, I believe that Lani would never leave me when every personal experience would tell me otherwise.

I just don't label as true anything that doesn't have evidence.

So let me ask you, Kevy, how you decide which things that require faith are believable? As the old saying goes, don't be so open minded that your brain falls out.

[Alex]

I don't mean that to imply I think you've let your brain fall out. I have no interest in trying to talk anybody out of their faith (until they start making real world testable claims as evidence of it). I don't understand why anybody believes such things but I'm not too hepped up about it.

I'm just curious how you draw a line between believing Item A but not Item B when all that is required of either is faith.

[Kevy Baby]

The best responses I can offer are from my own experience.

I (loosely) practice an earth-based religion (Wicca). I was drawn to this not because of what it offered me, but because the basic tenents of Wicca (the power of the elements: earth, air, fire and water and other aspects) were reflective of experiences that I had already had in my own life. It just was an extension of what I already had in my life, giving a forum for me to expand my own existence.

For example, I had already for years experienced the grounding/centering effects of nature. When I allow myself to tap into the energy that Mother Earth offers, it opens me up and I become more focused and "real." I can find no physical evidence that this energy exists, and I do not believe it exists simply because someone told me it did. I believe it simply because I experience it.

And when I am not in a place (emotionally/spiritually) where I can tap into this energy, it helps me to know simply that it is there. That, to me, is faith.

[Kevy Baby]

I don't mean that to imply I think you've let your brain fall out. I have no interest in trying to talk anybody out of their faith (until they start making real world testable claims as evidence of it). I don't understand why anybody believes such things but I'm not too hepped up about it.Just as my post was not an attack on the poster I quoted, I did not think at all that you were attacking me. I took it simply as a discussion point (I don't even want to use the word "debate").

[Alex]

So it seems to me you don't accept it entirely on faith. You believe you have had experiences with show you that what you have faith in is true. You just can't share this evidence by its very nature.

I have never had any of these experiences. So when you say:

The whole basis for faith is allowing yourself to know that the spirit is there without needing to have the hard and fast evidence. It is a freeing experience to allow yourself to be all the evidence you need.
How do I do that and let in what you believe to be true but keep out the guy on Art Bell who had a dream that convinced him the pyramids were built by an intelligent mermaid-like species that is hiding at the bottom of the deepest parts of the ocean waiting until we're advanced enough to make contact.

To me, without the experiences you've had, they both seem equally likely. To me, the only way to sort through everything is to require some evidence (and yes, to ultimately rely on people I trust to evaluate evidence) and the scientific method for 400 years has proven best (in my view) as discriminating among it all.

So, once I have an experience where God talks to me and laid out the truth of the universe I'm sure I'll believe it. That is the nature of us. But the me-right-now will think the me-when-that-happens is probably delusional unless he can provide evidence.

[Cadaverous Pallor]

How do I do that and let in what you believe to be true but keep out the guy on Art Bell who had a dream that convinced him the pyramids were built by an intelligent mermaid-like species that is hiding at the bottom of the deepest parts of the ocean waiting until we're advanced enough to make contact.

To me, without the experiences you've had, they both seem equally likely. From your point of view, totally. That's why "faith" is a personal thing.

I really dislike the word "faith" these days. Too many connotations. "Faith" used to mean a lot of good things, but these days, it tends to describe a disreguard of facts. Truthiness.

I've had my own spiritual moments, moments of connectivity, when I felt there was more at work here than I could prove even if I used both hands...but I'd never assume that anyone should feel as I do.

I do believe that this is one of those things that you can only find if you want to find it. Of course that proves nothing. It could be that "your mind lets you see what you feel you need to see, whether it exists or not" or "people are only able to see the light when they're ready". I am inclined to believe a mixture of the two. Now there's a working paradox for you.

Besides, I'd be disappointed in Alex if he went and had a religious experience.

[innerSpaceman]

But are your own personal experiences any more of a leap of faith than if you had no such experiences?

Like Kevy, I have been into Wicca, as it is a body of beliefs and expressions that tapped into energies I had most definitely experienced. Yet, I cannot "prove" or demonstrate in any way that those experiences were not themselves delusional.

I know they have not been. But is the faith I have in spiritual energy any more grounded in truth if it's based on my personal experience rather than being based on an idea I drew out of a hat?

[Not Afraid]

What is truth anyways? There's a whole other discussion.

Alex, I think it comes down to this; either you are the higher power in your life or you are not. Personally, I like not having to be the higher power in my own life. The attached religious beliefs are extra spice to the basic tennets of belief or non belief in a higher power.

[innerSpaceman]

^ editor's note: just changed "of" to "or." I mostly leave NA's charming typo style alone, but correct something once in a while to preserve her meaning ... especially when her meaning is so perceptive.

[Gemini Cricket]

troublemaker's note: For fun, I just changed "I" to "robot pirates" in iSm's post. :D
But are your own personal experiences any more of a leap of faith than if you had no such experiences?

Like Kevy, robot pirates have been into Wicca, as it is a body of beliefs and expressions that tapped into energies robot pirates have most definitely experienced. Yet, robot pirates cannot "prove" or demonstrate in any way that those experiences were not themselves delusional.

Robot pirates know they have not been. But is the faith robot pirates have in spiritual energy any more grounded in truth if it's based on my personal experience rather than being based on an idea robot pirates drew out of a hat?

Why did I do that? Because maybe life isn't all about taking everything so seriously. And because it's funny.
:D

[Alex]

But is the faith I have in spiritual energy any more grounded in truth if it's based on my personal experience rather than being based on an idea I drew out of a hat?
From my point of view, no it's not. But from your point of view yes it is, since you probably wouldn't have your faith if you hadn't had what you personally found to be evidence providing experience. Even if it is evidence that, by definition, can not be shared in any way.

But as I've said, as long as people's believes don't intrude on the experienced world then I really don't care what people believe. The only reason I started this tangent is because of Kevy's comment that we should open ourselves up to faith and I'm really curious how one does that without letting in every faith-based idea that exists. It seems the answer is to first decide what you want you're going to believe and then open yourself up to believing that.

For things that stay out of the real world and are inherently untestable ("I believe that there is an afterlife," "I believe that there was a creator who created the big bang and then let it all go from there according to plan," "I believe in reincarnation," "I believe that phantasms from an alternate dimension have created a wormhole that is locked to my brainwaves and they observe everything I do") then I am open to people believing whatever they want unmolested by my debating. Though from my perspective I don't see why what you've chosen to believe about the spiritually connected nature of nature is any less unlikely than what the Scientologists have chosen to believe about the origins of spiritual man.

It is just when the religious "beliefs" intrude into the real world that I start to get my back up. If you belief in the evocative power of prayer, that is a testable hypothesis. Same as if you believe that drawing certain images on the floor and then saying certain words in order will cause fireballs to shoot from your fingertips. If you believe that ancient spirits are telling you truths about the future. And so on. Then I start to wonder if "faith" in the face of evidence isn't just self-delusion. Whereas I tend to think of faith in the absence of any evidence is just wishful thinking.

[wendybeth]

Do you believe in robot pirates?

[Alex]

Of course I do. I've seen them myself on maybe 10% of my trips to Disneyland. I've also seen video evidence of their construction.

[Not Afraid]

I believe in Peanut Butter.

[Gemini Cricket]

Do you believe in life after love?

[innerSpaceman]

...Kevy's comment that we should open ourselves up to faith and I'm really curious how one does that without letting in every faith-based idea that exists. It seems the answer is to first decide what you want you're going to believe and then open yourself up to believing that.
I don't think it's so much first deciding what you are going to believe rather than first deciding what you are not going to outright deny. I think that's an important distinction that is more than semantical.

If, for example, you are an atheist ... but decide to not outright deny the existence of a "higher power" or "god," you may - or may not - over the course of months or years have a series of experiences which leave you in doubt of your atheistic stance. If, however, you steadfastly deny the existence of a higher power and defend your atheism staunchly by viewing all experiences through an atheistically-filtered perception, you will almost certainly not have any experiences which comflict with your comfortably atheistic stance.


I can't speak for Kevy, but that's what I think he meant by opening yourself up. You do not need to decide to affirmatively believe in ghosts, but you must be willing to consider the idea if you become haunted by dead people.

[Alex]

I'm still not seeing a non-semantical difference. Because it seems awfully coincidental that the spirituality you "experienced" matched well with what you were already open to. It's not like you were feeling the world was a connected place but ended up with evidence of a wrathful monotheistic deity determined to keep mankind crushed beneath his bootheel.

But then again, it is hard for me to talk since I've never experienced anything that seemed the slightest bit spiritual or religious or supernatural. If such exist, they apparently have no interest in me. The Fran Lebowitz quote I mentioned earlier (or in another thread) was about how for her "spirituality" just confused her. It is a concept with zero meaning to her. Same for me. I don't deny the existence of a higher power, I've just never seen any reason to suppose one exists.

But I'm still not clear on how you decide which articles of faith are serious and which are simply silly and signs of a delusional mind. Surely you don't believe all things "taken on faith" by all the people of the world are equally valid simply because the people claim to have experienced them in some way?

[innerSpaceman]

it is hard for me to talk since I've never experienced anything that seemed the slightest bit spiritual or religious or supernatural. If such exist, they apparently have no interest in me.
Ah, but is that simply the result of the supernatural vicious circle? Do ghosts leave you a wide berth only because you have no interest in them, while they feel affinity with, and gravite to, people who hold seances?

I don't think you necessarily need to have personal experiences to convince you of faith-based ideas. Outright denial, however, can "push" such things away from your experience, as can plain old disinterest. But it needn't actually "happen" to you.


Example 1 - Ghosts: At one time, I did not particularly believe in ghosts. I thought it was an absurdly silly concept. I still do. Yet, I was not in such steadfast refusal about it that I bent over backwards to avoid ghostly supernaturalisms. Then I lived for a while in a haunted house. Ghosts exist. Either that, or something exists that humans have, throughout history, interpreted (reasonably so, imo) as the spirits of dead people.

If I had been steadfast in my refusal to believe in ghosts, I could have twistedly rationalized my personal haunting experiences to be caused by sunspots. But since I remained open to it ... I more rationally interpreted them to be what people call "ghosts." And have acknowledged that all rational signs pointed to the improbability of dead-people-spirits, absurdly silly as that may be.


Example 2 - Space Aliens: I have pretty much never believed in UFOs or little green men. I think it is an absurdly silly concept. And I have never personally experienced anything to sway me otherwise. Yet, a decent amount of personal research on the subject has convinced me that something legitimately weird is going on vis-a-vis the subject of space aliens, and that mass delusions are not the simple answer. Rather there is something going on that people, reasonably imo, are interpreting as "space aliens."



These are two supernaturalistic belief systems I now buy into; one through personal experience, and one through mere information. In both cases, I let whatever happens in my life determine which stuff I will be open to, and thus may or may not come to believe in or ascribe to. For all I know, stygmata may be a legitimate phenonmen ... but nothing has happened in my life to bring it to my attention. I remain skeptical, but not closed-minded, about it ... and about pretty much all outlandish or supernatural phenomena.

But I don't drive such phenomena away by refusing it or ignoring it.

[Alex]

Yes, but are you sufficiently open to finding suprenatural explanations that you are too quick to overlook natural explanations? Or perhaps fallen into the common form of egoism that because I can't think of a natural explanation there must not be one?

This isn't meant as criticism, but simply as an expression of the gulf between the way you think and the way I think. I read what you just said and it is like a snake eating its tail, it just twists on itself to use itself as evidence of what it postulates. To you (and billions of others, certainly more than think the way I do) it makes perfect sense.

But still the question remains how do you differentiate what you will believe from what you won't? I once thought I saw a chimpanzee dead on the side of the road while driving up to Mt. St. Helens. My friend saw the same thing, but we were driving too fast to stop for a better look. As we talked about it throughout the day it transformed from "was that a monkey?" to "can you believe we saw a monkey?" to developing theories on how a monkey came to be dead by the side of a mountain road in Washington state.

When it was time to return home we had planned to do so by a different route but changed that just so we could go back and take pictures of the monkey. For half a day we had even started to believe that maybe Bigfoot wasn't so far fetched after all and maybe we'd seen a juvenile one. We were going to be rich and famous. My point is that we talked ourselves into believing it. Based on a moment's observation that lasted no more than a second as we drove around a mountain curve at 50 miles an hour we quickly convinced ourselves of a most unlikely answer.

When we got back to the monkey it turned out that it was a dead porcupine. We have no idea how we could ever mistaken it for a chimpanzee or a young bigfoot. But if we had taken our originally planned route, to this day we'd both believe with all our conviction that on May 27, 1994, a bigfoot had died on the side of a road in Washington state.

Another example comes from a cross country trip with a different friend. I was driving from Kansas City to Denver over night on a backroad through flat land. My friend was asleep and eventually I noticed two lights a couple hundred feet in front of us and to the right. These two lights moved in formation and would zip up and down, moving slightly farther forward, or more to the right. They'd suddenly disappear and then a couple miles later just as suddenly reappear. I thought they might be really far away but they always appeared roughly at the same angle in front of us and to the right. I could think of no explanation for this. Was I seeing some kind of UFO? As the miles passed I became sure of it. I woke my friend (it was something like 3 in the morning) and asked him if he saw what I saw. He did. He couldn't explain it either. He took pictures but we knew they wouldn't come out as the lights weren't very bright and everything else was black. We stopped the car a couple times but both times the lights disappeared.

Finally, around 5 a.m. I was too tired to drive and we pulled over to sleep. But I was excited and couldn't sleep. I had seen a UFO (and this is when I was much more willing to accept such things that I'd be now) and quite possibly an alien UFO because why would a terrestrial aircraft have followed us? Then suddenly the lights appear for just a second, moved a little bit and then disappeared. A little while later they did the exact same things. Same location, same movement. A third time, a fourth time. Then I noticed the pattern. The lights were only appearing when another car was driving by on the road. I was confused. I had doubts again.

Slowly the sun came up and revealed what had been going on. About 200 feet off the road, running parallel were electrical and telephone wires. The lights I had been seeing were a reflection of my headlights whenever the angles were just right. And the repeated pattern once we'd stopped was because passing cars hit the same angles and caused the repetition. But for a couple hours I believed I had seen UFOs and I was beginning to convince myself that had to be extra-terrestrial. If I hadn't grown tired of driving I would probably still believe it to this day.

So, again, how much rational examination of events is enough to prevent believing the wrong thing and how much is so much it prevents you from experiencing the intangible?

[Alex]

I'd also add that in both cases I was left feeling kind of foolish. But a common response I see it not a foolish admission of error but an automatic reliance on conspiracy.

When recounting the monkey story to one friend he jokingly suggested that the Forest Service probably found the baby bigfoot and replaced it with a dead porcupine to discredited anybody who saw the bigfoot before they could hide it. He was joking, but if you listen to Art Bell you see this thinking all the time.

Or in the recent stories about "the healing power of prayer" having failed a study. While a positive result would have been touted a negative result produced conspiracy theories to explain away the failure (well God wouldn't let himself been shown through such a study so he just let those people die rather than help).

[innerSpaceman]

Well, when I say I'm open to the supernatural, I didn't exactly mean I'm open to being easily fooled by nonsense! There's a difference, heheheh.

As an example, the kitchen cabinets that flew open with foodstuffs spewing all the way across the room as I watched could have been an earthquake that I didn't feel and that affected nothing else. It could have been earthquakes each of the three times I saw this, and the two times I saw other cabinets open seemingly by themselves (but with no tossing spillage).

The footsteps and voices constantly heard through this apartment could have been sounds from other parts of the villa, moving through the heating vents or something. And the creaks moving up and down the stairs heard plainly emanating from the very wood of the stairs could have been some combination of settling and sound transferrence. Uh-huh.

But the letters E V A being drawn by an invisible finger in a steam-clouded mirror as I looked on in wonder would have been very difficult to rationalize away. And so I didn't.

The case for ghosts was later bolstered when I learned that a previous occupant of the apartment was named "Eva." But that was not necessary for my new belief in "ghosts;" the evidence of my own eyes was enough.


Where to put that threshhold is different for everyone. I can't exactly jeer at lights in the sky freakouts or juevenile bigfoot speed sightings when I myself have taken to "belief" in certain spiritual energies that I have only felt internally.

But of the things I have taken to believing in, nothing has since happened to make me feel the fool or recant my beliefs in many things quite supernatural and metaphysical.

[Alex]

But again, that is my point. You aren't accepting it on faith, your just accepting it on evidence that I can't accept. Democritus's belief in atoms 2,600 years ago was an act of faith. Your belief that what you saw is a ghost is not so much, it is a response to evidence. Evidence I discount as insufficient, but evidence nonetheless. I see this as fundamentally different than "I have faith that god exists because that is the only way the world makes sense to me."

But again, you may not be willing to completely rule out any article of faith but I have to assume you don't consider them all equally worthy of serious consideration. On what basis does that happen? Personal perception and experience is an amazingly frail vessel. Frankly I don't see why anybody would rely on it.

But again, that is just the huge gulf between the way I look at the world around me and the way you (and Kevy and billions of others do). I think you're all wacky and you all think I'm rigid and hollow. Viva le difference and joie au cours de la discussion (if babelfish is to be believed).

[Kevy Baby]

troublemaker's note: For fun, I just changed "I" to "robot pirates" in iSm's post.There is not enough mojo in the world to give GC all the mojo he deserves

[Kevy Baby]

I hate when I pick a fight and then can't participate :)

ISM did a fairly good job of saying a lot of what I would have said. I am far too exhausted to post anything further of relevence.

I actually do feel a bit guilty for bringing this up and then not responding :( I really wish I had the time and energy to participate.

[wendybeth]

But again, that is just the huge gulf between the way I look at the world around me and the way you (and Kevy and billions of others do). I think you're all wacky and you all think I'm rigid and hollow. Viva le difference and joie au cours de la discussion (if babelfish is to be believed).

I don't think you're rigid and hollow at all. Everyone has their own belief (or non-belief) system and if it works for them, fine, so long as it's not infringing upon my beliefs. I don't need you to believe to bolster my faith, and I don't feel compelled to explain why or how I think the way I do.

I do think you're wacky, though.;)

[Tramspotter]

http://i46.photobucket.com/albums/f138/pythonorbit/god.jpg

[Gemini Cricket]

^ Both NA and €uroMeinke do not believe in that picture for two different reasons.
:D

[innerSpaceman]

And Lisa won't even know why she can't believe in it.

Kinda reminds me of how people see owls when they behold something they can't comprehend. The brain plays funny tricks. I wonder what Lisa sees when she gazes at that pic.

[wendybeth]

Probably a really big kitty.