Sam Harris: The God Fraud

Jan 6, 2010 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, Humour, Religious Values, Science Values, Values, War

Sam Harris: The God Fraud

God May Be Dead But Damned if I Am

 

I n her recent outing in Foreign Policy Magazine, noted apologist, Karen Armstrong, says Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins:

  “  … are wrong … about human nature.

Homo sapiens is also Homo religiosus.

As soon as we became recognizably human, men and women started to create religions. We are meaning-seeking creatures.

While dogs, as far as we know, do not worry about the canine condition or agonize about their mortality, humans fall very easily into despair if we don’t find some significance in our lives.

Theological ideas come and go, but the quest for meaning continues.

So God isn’t going anywhere.

And when we treat religion as something to be derided, dismissed, or destroyed, we risk amplifying its worst faults.

Whether we like it or not, God is here to stay, and it’s time we found a way to live with him in a balanced, compassionate manner.

Or in other words, god may be dead but don’t let’s upset the natives – they’ve got guns and bombs and exploding underwear and if you’re unkind to them they might set them off.

So let’s pretend for the sake of a peaceful life that he’s not dead, okay? And after all, the human diddums is fragile and if we tell her there is no objective meaning “out there” diddums might cry.

I don’t know about you but when you read her article do you get the awful feeling of sly inauthenticity and wheedling manipulation all for the sake of her desperation for … what? Her own frantic need for a sense of her own meaning, probably. The fact that people may naturally, in a search for meaning, have conjured up an imaginary friend doesn’t make the imaginary friend either real, or worthy of respect or protection.

If there are no gods then there are no gods – end of story. No point in the prolonging the fantasy. And, by the way, there is no evidence that there is one.

Anyway, we can’t respond to the Armstrong nonsense nearly as neatly as Sam Harris’s reply:

“  In her article (“Think Again: God,” November 2009), Karen Armstrong discovers that Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and I have mistaken “fundamentalism” for the totality of religion. (Sorry about that.) But do Richard and Christopher really hold religion responsible for “all human cruelty”? That is a surprise. I hadn’t realized that they were idiots.

In any case, I am hopeful that Armstrong’s winsome depiction of Islam will shame and enlighten them, as it has me. They will discover that Hassan al-Banna and Tariq Ramadan are paragons of meliorism and wisdom, while we are ignorant bigots who know nothing of theology (of course), politics (Christopher, are you listening?), human nature (what’s to know?), or the proper limits of science (um … narrower?).

[ … ]

But in Kenya elderly men and women are still burned alive for casting malicious spells. In Angola, unlucky boys and girls have been blinded, injected with battery acid, and killed outright in an effort to purge them of demons. In Tanzania, there is a growing criminal trade in the body parts of albino human beings — as it is widely believed that their flesh has magical properties.

I hope that Armstrong will soon apply her capacious understanding of human nature to these phenomena.

[ … ]

People will torture their children with battery acid from time to time anyway — and who among us hasn’t wanted to kill and eat an albino? I sincerely hope that my “new atheist” colleagues are not so naive as to imagine that actual belief in magic might be the issue here.

Read his whole reply here.

[Armstrong’s response to Harris is upsettingly whining, disingenuous, special pleading, illogical and just nonsense. She seems to want a “dialogue” about the existence or not of a god but the existence is not open to question.] 

 

R’Amen (and may his noodley appendage be upon you)

 

 

Lolcats With a Vengeance

Nov 17, 2009 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Global Warming, Immigration, Lifestyle & Life, Media Values, OzPol Values, Racism, Religious Values, Science Values, Terrorism, USPol, Values, War

Lolcats With a Vengeance

Sir Roger is despondent

 

After all the hard work of so many people Australian politics is looking like Howard Lite, iSuck 2.0 déjà vu all over again. Boat people – “Aaaaarrrggghh! Foreigners! Tough on Queue-jumpers [but not on the causes of queue-jumpers]”.

“Let’s pretend to be doing something about climate change. We have to do something. We have to do something. I know! Let’s play tiddlywinks! That’s “something”. Hey, youse guys, the world is going to burn to a cinder unless we do something about it! So what we’re doing is, we’re playing tiddlywinks. If you don’t play tiddlywinks too, the world is going to burn to a cinder.”

“Okay, well, um … wait on … we don’t believe in tiddlywinks but we’ll play if Johnno and Wayne don’t have to play but you promise they will win.”

“But if Johnno and Wayne don’t play the world will burn to a crisp! No-one will win!”

“Okay, well…well…well get fuckin’ stuffed then! Let the world burn for all we fuckin’ care! … Fuckin’ lower class upstarts! Fuckin’ fairy eggheads!”

Palestine.
Israel.
Obama (what a fucking disappointment).
Russia.
Burma.
Sri Lanka.
China,
Tibet.

Fucking arrogant, corrupt and criminally-incompetent Indonesian politicians, bureaucrats, police and judges.

Walls everywhere.
Hatred.
Religious madmen in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Somalia.

And the United States, which is terminally fucked in the collective head.

Democracy movements being crushed everywhere.

Freedoms, rights and privacy being shredded even – especially – by the good old Brits, eh, what?

Stupid global refusal to listen, based on creaking, long-ago-discredited, Industrial-Revolution-era social-political-religious theories that date back – even in their most recent versions – more than 200 years in the West, and on 4000-year-old, crazy, murderous, hate-filled, tribalist, racist, desert-engendered cruel religious fantasies in the rest of the world.

The hopes of “peace and love” from the last five decades crumbling like the naïve hallucinations they so pitiably were.

Young people who will “look after” things in a few years unable to think or care about anything but how some fake and shallow, talentless celebrity flashed her cunt, and what eyeshadow to wear …

And the people who actually care. the people with answers, who could possibly do something about it all, are sneered at and ridiculed.

It’s enough to make you want to just give up and forget it all and look at some funny cat video.

 

‘I’m Sir Roger and I’m Fucked’

Oct 5, 2008 | Arts, Australian Values, Border Security, Capital Punishment, Citizenship, Corruption, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Fame, Freedom of Speech, Global Warming, Humour, Immigration, Indigenous, Legal, Lifestyle & Life, Media Values, OzPol Values, PedoPriests, Racism, Religious Values, Science Values, Terrorism, Uncategorized, USPol, Values, War

‘I’m Sir Roger and I’m Fucked’

 

This is not for you

 

Really. We just want to acknowledge ourselves privately but publicly (it makes sense to us, anyway). It’s not meant to be onanistically self-congratulatory, except in the sense that we have achieved some things and we want to record them.
So this is a stocktake for posterity, if you like, that marks a moment, a milestone.

Yes, ValuesAustralia is two years old. This is our 712th post. Singlehanded, eh, Clubtroppo, Larvatus Prodeo, RoadtoSurfdom etc. etc.? That’s almost one a day. (There used to be a billboard for One A Day vitamin pills at the corner of Victoria Rd and Rowntree Street at Blackwattle Bay in Sydney. There was a picture of a man and a woman. The woman was saying, “I’m Jenny and I give John One A Day.” Soon a graffiti artist had added, “I’m John and I’m fucked!”)

And, yes, we’re just about fucked, ourselves. We’ve got a rotator cuff from all the typing and mouse clicking, especially during October and November last year.

(We went to the radiologist. “What seems to be the problem?” “I’ve got a sore shoulder.” “Hmm…we’ll do an ultrasound and an x-ray…… Hmm…. Hmmmmmm, our expert analysis of the ultrasound and x-ray indicates you have a sore shoulder. You’ll have to stop using it for a while.” “Thanks….What?)

We’ve never paid for any advertising. We’ve never submitted ValuesAustralia to any search engine. Nevertheless, we got ourselves listed on Google within 24 hours of launching the site. We tried to register the site with dmoz.org (The Open Source Directory) – as you do – but it wasn’t taking orders, and by the time it came back on line months later, ValuesAustralia was already magically listed!

We’ve been #1 for “Australian Values” on Google, Yahoo, Live and Ask most of the time for more than a year and a half. We’re #12 for “values” on Google worldwide, out of 314,000,000 results and on google.com.au we’re #2 for “values” out of 307,000,000. We’re #1 on google worldwide and Australia for “Australian political values” out of about 400,000 results.

Our Google Page Rank is 4 (used to be 5 but they changed the algorithm) which is respectable but we’d prefer a 5 or a 6.

We’ve had over 300,000 aggregate visitors and more than 75,000 spam messages (thank you, Akismet).

Earlier this year we were consistently getting more than 1000 visitors a day – over 30,000 a month, which is okay, although nothing like the big guys.

We’ve made friends all over the world and especially in Australia. We are in the top 1% of websites worldwide. We are popular in Saudi Arabia – amongst the top 42,000 favourite sites for Saudis. (That worries us just a bit…Say hullo to Al for us…) We appreciate our readers and those who choose to comment from time to time. We thought a scarcity of comments was a Bad Thing, a Failure, but we noticed that one of the most popular, most entertaining bloggers we know of, Whatever It Is, I’m Against It, doesn’t get heaps, either – a few, but not tens like Possum or hundreds and thousands like William the PollBludger.

In May 2007 ValuesAustralia was picked up by the “Stay In Touch” column at the Sydney Morning Herald, accusing us of “rhetoric”.

One of Sir Roger’s posts was selected by ClubTroppo and On Line Opinion in January 2008 as one of the top 40 posts in Australia for 2007. We’re very proud of that.

But it’s a post we made early in 2007 that we are still most proud of. Ken Parish at ClubTroppo called it

“quite possibly the best piece of passionate, angry polemic I’ve ever read, certainly on a blog. ‘Roger Migently’ is roused to extraordinary heights of eloquence… ”

Yes, Troppo has been good to us and we mourn the passing of Missing Link and Ken’s prolonged work-induced(?) absence. We were also congratulated by Richard Neville (HomePageDaily) and Steven Poole whose Unspeak blog is our benchmark for economy, clarity, style and wit.

We have enjoyed the journey so far and we have no intention at this stage of stopping, although we have slowed down (work, you know).

Bobbo the Clown

Our favourite person in the world, of course, is the clown, Bob Correll (above), Deputy Secretary of DIC, OPM, because he wrote us the letter which inspired our outburst. As we discovered he was (and appears still to be) the person who had taken over departmental responsibility for “Borders, Compliance, Detention and Technology”, or in other words, perhaps, for keeping innocent kiddies locked up in the desert, deporting Australian citizens, supporting the failed state of Nauru, making the lives of genuine refugees a misery, doing it to please the Minister, and all at the touch of a computer key. Previously he had been the driving force behind developing and implementing Job Network, or “how to design exquisite, personalised punishment for people who are already struggling with the stress of being unemployed”. Godluvvya, Bob! How’s the Volvo? How’s the kids? How do you sleep at night?

One of the most satisfying things is how we always beat the Immigration Department on Google.

Our second favourite person is Mick Keelty, just for being such a hopeless buffoon and continually making appalling stuff-ups for us to make fun of. G’bye, Mick.

Anyway, just for the record.

(And a special “hi!” to Lang!)

Happy Saturnalia

Dec 24, 2007 | Arts, Australian Values, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Humour, Lifestyle & Life, OzPol Values, Religious Values, Science Values, Values

Happy Saturnalia

 

Absolute relaxation and unrestrained merriment 

 

 This time of year is a traditional celebration of the birth of an extraordinary man – a long-haired mystic who revealed the secrets of the universe and forever changed the way we see the world. He is one of the most universally revered historical figures of all time.

Yes, 25 December (in the “Old Style“) is the birthday of Sir Isaac Newton.

His birthday was retrospectively celebrated in antiquity by the Romans in the festival of Saturnus, or the Saturnalia

Or perhaps the birthday of Sol Invictus, the unconquered sun. Other cultures also celebrated the winter solstice as Yule, or the birthdays of various gods.

The Romans attributed to the god Saturnus the introduction of agriculture and the arts of civilized life. Falling towards the end of December, at the season when the agricultural labours of the year were fully completed, it was celebrated in ancient times by the rustic population as a sort of joyous harvest-home, and in every age was viewed by all classes of the community as a period of absolute relaxation and unrestrained merriment.

 

During its continuance no public business could be transacted, the law courts were closed, the schools kept holiday, to commence a war was impious, to punish a malefactor involved pollution. Special indulgences were granted to the slaves of each domestic establishment; they were relieved from all ordinary toils, were permitted to wear the pileus, the badge of freedom, were granted full freedom of speech, partook of a banquet attired in the clothes of their masters, and were waited upon by them at table.

 

All ranks devoted themselves to feasting and mirth, presents were exchanged among friends, cerei or wax tapers being the common offering of the more humble to their superiors, and crowds thronged the streets.

Seems oddly familiar…

It was Newton who formalised the importance of gravity in the motion of the planets and his laws remain largely the basis on which today we are able to compute the trajectories and forces to send spacecraft to explore our solar system. (with a little help from Einstein)

One of these craft, Cassini, has been exploring Saturn and its moons and sending back amazing images. Last year it sent back this extraordinary [mosaic] image:

You will be able to notice this:

Interior to the G ring and above the brighter main rings is the pale dot of Earth. Cassini views its point of origin from over a billion kilometers (and close to a billion miles) away in the icy depths of the outer solar system.

 

This image of Saturn is eerily reminiscent of a monument to Newton that was never built.

 

Étienne-Louis Boullée was a visionary French neoclassical architect whose work greatly influenced contemporary architects and is still influential today… His style was most notably exemplified in his proposal for a cenotaph for the English scientist Isaac Newton, which would have taken the form of a sphere 150 m (500 ft) high embedded in a circular base topped with cypress trees. Though the structure was never built, its design was engraved and circulated widely in professional circles.

So Happy Saturnalia to one and all!

And as our special seasonal gift to you, here are two videos to put a smile on the face of you, your friends and family:

 

Germany vs Greece: The Millennial Match

 

 

Women: Know Your Limits

  

 

The Front Fell Off

Nov 16, 2007 | Australian Values, Corruption, Economic Values, Humour, Media Values, OzPol Values, Racism, Science Values, Terrorism, Values

The Front Fell Off

All the sage analysts and opinionators, as well as the “’King Makers‘” – as News Ltd “’journalist’s” like to refer to themselves – seem to be agreed that there is a mood for change in the electorate. They agree that it’s not really about John Howard blowing it, as much as that after twelve years people want a change. It’s not that they dislike Howard, they say, but that they’re bored with him.

Values Australia begs to differ.

We assert that a large percentage of people have actively disliked Howard for most of his twelve years, and particularly in the last six.

It seems to us that Beazley wasn’t it. Nice enough bloke and all but he didn’t have the guts to chest up to Howard. Crean was a joke, frankly. Latham was, well, clearly a fruitcake, they thought. And yet almost anyone would have done, except that they had to be able to be credible enough to manage some pretty important stuff.

So along comes Kevin Rudd at last and everyone holds their breath hoping and praying that ‘Neo’ Rudd is “The One”. And Rudd does stand firm enough and plausible enough, and he has more than held his own against Howard for long enough. The people decided months ago. The election result was decided as soon as Rudd looked safely electable.

The country is already heaving a sigh of relief that it finally looks as if it is about to be able to cut loose John Howard and his corrosive regime.

What we are now seeing of Howard is that he is not after all the political genius he has been reputed to be. We are seeing Howard ‘unplugged’ – unplugged from Arthur Sinodinis who was the real genius.

Howard solo.

So Rudd, in a way, can’t take too much credit for his own success except for being good enough.

Whateverrr.

Anyway, we were just chatting amongst ourself and wondering whether on Sunday morning 25 November, Brian Dawe might interview John Howard about how his Front Fell Off.

He’s done it before.

Well, we dare to hope.

UPDATE

Well, the front really has fallen off. Tony Abbott has revealed all about WorkChoices.

” I accept that certain ‘protections’, in inverted commas, are not what they were, I accept that that has largely gone. I accept that,” he said.

“I accept that the ‘Industrial Relations Commission’ doesn’t have the same power to reach into the nook and crannies of every ‘business’ that it used to have.”

We knew that, actually. That’s one of the reasons why the coalition is so unpopular.

But we do appreciate the birth of a new euphemism.

“The best ‘protection’ for someone who’s unhappy in their current job is the chance of a new one,” said Abbott.

No more ‘down-sizing’, ‘right-sizing’, ‘reorganisation’, ‘rationalisation’, ‘surplus to requirements’, or ‘changes to production’; no more “letting you go, Wayne”.

We now look forward to hearing employers telling their staff, “We’re excited to be able to offer you the chance of a new job, Frank.” Or, “Beryl, we’re happy to say we’ve arranged some excellent job protection for you!”

So John, we’re delighted to announce we’ve arranged the chance of a new job for you. We’re sure you’ll appreciate this is the kind of protection you could only dream of.

In other news…

“Don’t forget to be frightened about those evil sand-niggers!”

On television last night the National Security Hotline commercial was on TV.

8 days away from a ‘federal election’.

Originally badged as “Authorised by the Australian Government Canberra” it is now authorised “M Keelty, Chief Commissioner, Australian Federal Police“.

Can there be any more transparently cynical attempt by Howard to get around the election advertising laws to blow the anti-muslim dogwhistle?

In fact, is it actually legal for them to do this?

And can there any longer possibly be any question that the appalling, scandal-ridden, utterly discredited and totally compromised Keelty is irredeemably politicised – in fact has offered himself up to the political game by his own choice?

Disaster Capitalism

Oct 14, 2007 | Australian Values, Border Security, Capital Punishment, Citizenship, Corruption, Cultural Values, Democracy, Economic Values, Global Warming, Immigration, Legal, Media Values, OzPol Values, Racism, Religious Values, Science Values, Terrorism, Values, War

Disaster Capitalism

 

In other news…

Better the devil you know?

 

Howard’s appeal on 60 Minutes tonight fits right into the well-worn Disaster Strategy.

 

On the one hand:

“you’ve never had it so good”

but on the other:

“these are savage, uncertain and untamed times”.

In other words, you should feel disoriented and anxious and hang on to what you know.

“Love me or loathe me, people know where I stand and what I believe in.”

Quite so, John.

It’s just that we hate what you stand for and despise what you believe in and we don’t want any more of it.