I'm getting nowhere with this religion post. The point I'm trying to make is about my reaction to the ubiquitous argument that I should or shouldn't do X, Y, or Z because God made me. God didn't fucking make me; that's somebody else's belief and while they're entitled to it where their own origins are concerned, they still have no business trying to dictate my behavior (or my belief) based on it. But in my experience many people do just that anyway, based perhaps on a belief that as an atheist I am a blank slate; if I can just be given the information that I'm missing, surely everything will be set right.
We're fine and coherent so far, I think. But Jacob threw me for a loop last night by pointing out that to the people trying to give me this information, it isn't opinion or belief, it's fact. It's no different than me telling them that gravity pulls downward and therefore they shouldn't walk off the edge of a cliff unless they want to fall over it. And here is where I'm having trouble, because I know it fucking well is different but my bloody see-everything-from-all-sides anthropology background is making it impossible for me to formulate a single argument without immediately seeing a counterargument and needing to break off and start addressing that. That's why I say I'm getting nowhere with the post.
So this is what you get.
Posted by dianna at May 26, 2006 10:19 AMYou're not giving me much to work with, here...
*sigh* I completely agree. It's in the First Principles that The Faithful and The Not-So-Much differ, in the Axioms, and any debate/arguement/knock-down drag-out brawl on the subject always comes down to that maddening phrase "It Just Is." On both sides. "God just is!" "Science just is!" "well...well...you're wrong!" etc.
The response that I had been steeping for a fortnight was that in rebuking a battery of proselytizing with Logic, you are simply proselytizing in return. But you kinda covered that angle. Drat.
Posted by: Erik at May 26, 2006 10:40 AMGod created Dianna, therefore, Dianna should not do X.
The best non-sequitur I can conjure up on short notice is, "Therefore Dianna should not do X" would be a great song title.
It's all about internal contradictions folks. Most compelling arguments against this threadbare, barely-coherent argument can be summed up in glib one-liners. I propose the formation of a top-ten list of said glib one-liners for the betterment of mankind.
Posted by: poot at May 26, 2006 02:18 PM"Therefore Dianna" is in pre-production stages as we speak. Anyone here (looks at Erik) who knows of a cheap freeware OS X program for multi-track audio recording should definitely let me know. All my nifty cheap stuff was on Mac Classic and is thus obsolete.
Posted by: poot at May 27, 2006 12:49 PM"cheap freeware" would also be a hot name for a song/band. i don't know of anything off-hand, but i'll ask around.
Posted by: Erik at May 28, 2006 08:25 AMApparently in the time since I completely gave up blogging and the blogosphere a strange coalescence has occurred between previously disconnected networks of friends.
How... unexpected.
Posted by: Chris at May 31, 2006 01:45 AMI don't think the internet really counts as a "coalescence."
P.S. Dude! You're not dead! Bonus!
Posted by: poot at May 31, 2006 03:45 AMOf course I'm not dead, I just got bored to tears of writing about my mundane life. The degree of introspection required by blogging was, quite honestly, more perspective than I could handle.
Skype me sometime, ass.
Posted by: Chris at May 31, 2006 11:50 AMChris, you realize that by not blogging and not being on The AIM, you are, for all intents and purposes, dead, right?
Posted by: Erik at May 31, 2006 06:51 PM