Ingersoll's Vow

Few have expressed the feeling of freedom from that dungeon, which is revealed religion, better than Robert G. Ingersoll. I only ask that while you read this vow of a courageous man, you remember that he lived and died before another great mind would evince the comparatively superior importance of imagination over knowledge; and this individual was talking about actual knowledge not the pretend knowledge of faith when he stated:


"Imagination is more important than knowledge."—Albert Einstein


INGERSOLL'S VOW

Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899) was a famous attorney and orator whose brilliant lectures drew thousands. As a political figure, he came close to achieving the Republican party's nomination for governor of Illinois, but prejudice and intolerance denied him the opportunity because he was an atheist.

When I became convinced that the universe is natural—that all the ghosts and gods are myths, there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world—not even in infinite space.

I was free—free to think, to express my thoughts—free to live to my own ideal—free to use all my faculties, all my senses—free to spread imagination's wings—free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope—free to judge and determine for myself—free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the "inspired" books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past—free from popes and priests—free from all the "called" and "set apart"—free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies—free from the fear of eternal pain—free from the winged monsters of the night—free from devils, ghosts, and gods.

For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of thought—no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings—no chains for my limbs—no lashes for my back—no fires for my flesh—no master's frown or threat—no following another's steps—no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words. I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds.

And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain—for the freedom of labor and thought—to those who proudly mounted scaffold's stairs—to those whose flesh was scarred and torn—to those by fire consumed—to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And then I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.

****

Imagine (a powerful function & freedom of the mind when supported by evidence) what humanity could have achieved by now, if only our minds were free to soar without the shackles of superstition holding us back.


From a time long before I realized just how different I was, for I have always been atheist, I have seen the tragedy that is the change that comes from inculcation into the superstitions. General Robert G. Ingersoll—so much for that lie about atheists in foxholes—here expresses, better than most, the feeling of shedding those shackles, or should I say mind vice (vise works well, too), but in actuality, it is a virus, a cultural meme that both spreads like a virus and acts like a drug.

In Response to Christian Criticism

I seem to have started a running gun fight with Christians at the Wall Street Journal over what is basically a book advertisement blogged in connection to this past Easter. The entry is the typical Lee Strobel spongy assertions based on absolutely no evidence, and, of course, none is provided, nor forthcoming. If one wishes to read all of my comments on that blog text search Beachbum on the threads page, as they are all entered under my name. But I could not get this particular comment to load so I have put it here for those interested. I have also included the comment from William Munney (unaltered, as would be expected) in which my comment is a response.


From William Munney:
1:21 am May 8, 2011

“If people believed as I do, maybe we could finally have peace on Earth. Religions have had thousands of years, thousands of blood-soaked, hate-filled years. Let’s give reason and rationality a chance; superstitions have had theirs and failed miserably.”

Right BB, because atheists and other “rational” people of that kind never hate anyone, right? Apparently you have either not seen or have turned a blind eye to the real hatred(having an opinion opposite to yours is not hatred, much to liberal’s chagrin), in the form of anti-Christian hatred from people who hate you(or try to intimidate you, or discriminate against you, or kill you) just because you believe in Jesus. Just as Jesus said would happen. Why don’t you rally against the real bigots?.

“for as Einstein said, genius is limited, but ignorance is infinite.” Indeed. And maybe you should take a cue from him. Einstein also said: “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

If you have such faith in your atheism, why do you come here to try and persuade others to abandon God, whom you think is nonsense? Just be confident in your religion(which is what atheism is). Your “god” doesn’t ask you to spread it’s gospel to “non-believers” – as Jesus did for Christians – and there is no hope for salvation in your religion, thus no reason to “help” others reach salvation, so why do you come here to try “to pervert the right ways of the Lord”, “oh child of the devil “?

And My Response:

I am truly sorry that you and many like you have been inculcated into the "suffering Christian" mythology. As you put it, "...anti-Christian hatred ... try to intimidate ... discriminate against ... or kill you ... just because you believe in Jesus." This is, in fact, Christian propaganda.

Have Christians been persecuted as a result of their adherence to their particular dogmas and doctrines? Of course, mostly by other Christian sects. Have Christians gone to war over the belief in a particular god or prophet? Again, yes! Only, it was with every other institution of superstitious claims known throughout history, and they persecuted as harshly (even more so, that's why Christianity disseminated) as they were persecuted. Worst of all, Christians have persecuted their own, based on claims of supernatural authority, ie. God(s) commanded it, eg. the Bible says (Exodus 22:18) we should not suffer a witch, (or Sodomites, or Amalekites, ect. ect.) to live.

You see, first and foremost, religions, all religions, are tools of politics and have been since their inception. This is not to say all governments, as should be the case in the US, but it is manipulation through fear, segregation through in-group vs. out-group (ie. racism, nationalism, denominationalism, Christian Supremacy, etc.), as well as most of the other baser emotions such as xenophobia, homophobia, etc. Also, thought control so that, "it doesn't matter what the evidence shows via science, history, anthropology, archaeology, palaeontology, etc.; the (pseudo) facts are as this Evangelist, Politician, Mormon, Creationist, Capitalist, Libertarian, Corporatist, etc., etc., purports," is something other than totally [insert expletive here] laughable. 

Politicians have known for millennia that nothing turns a group into an easily manipulated mob (for fun and profit) like claims of persecution from those belonging to an out-group. (By using fictitious claims of persecution about the Roman Emperor Nero, a Roman Church of some 3 centuries hence was able to simultaneously get Romans to denounce their Roman-ness and embrace Catholicism; thereby, converting Roman citizens into Roman Catholics in short order.) They've also known, for almost as long, that similar claims have worked preemptively to justifying the implementation of policies that lead to atrocities whether those claims are fabricated, exaggerated, or merely elaborated, for the mob mentality is nothing, if not, frenzied impetuousness amplified to the point of mindless violence. Yes, the persecuted Christian is a fabrication.

But, to answer your question: "Why don’t [I] rally against the real bigots?" Considering that a bigot is a person with strong and prejudiced views who will not listen to opinions differing from their own, I can only conclude that—I am, all of them.

From my point of view, a person's opinions should be held up to the light of verifiable knowledge and weighed in the free market of ideas against the evidence and the facts gleaned therefrom. That's what I like about logical thought, it strives to eliminate opinion from the conclusion by putting a high value on evidence. This actually puts a twist on an idiom that is currently circulating in the zeitgeist that "a person is entitled to his own opinion, but he is not entitled to his own facts." In my view a person is entitled to their opinion, or belief, if they can substantially support it with facts based on evidence. Furthermore, because people act on their opinions in ways that affect us all, ie. the political, commercial, environmental, as well as public arena, those opinions, those beliefs, should be scrutinized, debated, in the free market of ideas by people with respect for evidence. Else, a self-proclaimed prophet that believes he can claim several pre-teen and teenaged girls would be free (from jail) to do as he pleased, or maybe, like Mohammad, become the mythological basis for a world religion. Or, how about misquoting famous figures out of context to gain authoritative appeal?

Your quoting of Albert Einstein is nothing short of an appeal to authority made worse by your misapprehension of its meaning as to be, in some way, referring to one of the Abrahamic religions. It was not.

It is from, Science, Philosophy and Religion: A Symposium, published by the Conference on Science, Philosophy and Religion in Their Relation to the Democratic Way of Life, Inc., New York, 1941

And I quote, in part:

"Though religion may be that which determines the goal, it has, nevertheless, learned from science, in the broadest sense, what means will contribute to the attainment of the goals it has set up. But science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion. To this there also belongs the faith in the possibility that the regulations valid for the world of existence are rational, that is, comprehensible to reason. I cannot conceive of a genuine scientist without that profound faith. The situation may be expressed by an image: science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind." — Albert Einstein

So it is that many religiose misinterpret Einstein's famous statement suggesting that Einstein was evincing respect for religious credulity. Science without religion is lame, merely because "science can only be created by those who are thoroughly imbued with the aspiration toward truth and understanding. This source of feeling, however, springs from the sphere of religion." Whereas religion without science is blind because religion has no access to the truth—it was, as Einstein expressed it—nothing other than the "source of feeling" this aspiration toward something greater than itself cannot be generated via the scientific method that is gleaned from the same sphere as religious aspirations. A purely human motivation in my view that when combined with an educated faith in the concept that the natural parameters we currently understand through evidentiary means can very easily be projected over space and time that is currently understood to be exactly like the here and now. This statement both removes any claim to truth from religions, and at the same time, imbues the human psyche with both the origins of higher aspirations, and the foresight to discern and understand truth of our universe.

Nowhere is this sentiment more succinct than in this statement: "It was, of course, a lie what you read about my religious convictions, a lie which is being systematically repeated. I do not believe in a personal God and I have never denied this but have expressed it clearly. If something is in me which can be called religious then it is the unbounded admiration for the structure of the world so far as our science can reveal it."—Albert Einstein

You have obviously garnered your misapprehension of atheism from those of a biased bent on the subject. Understanding that there isn't any evidence supporting anything supernatural, let alone a personal deity, is not even remotely religious. Alas, I understand that your comments are an attempt to elevate your belief system by equating atheism with it; do you not see the logical absurdity? Do you not see that religions have used this same method, either purposefully or unconsciously, with everything that has always been human, natural, even culturally innate? You write of salvation as though it was something "out there" something that is attained from a religion; it is not. Humanity is the guardian of its own authority, creator of its own morality and it has always been so. We are the guardians of our universe. I have no lord, no master and neither should you.

As one with an atheistic view and the education that supports it, I understand that the characters portrayed through the Abrahamic religions, which is how you most likely understand them, are, in reality, literary constructs, which have only survived due to their political usefulness. So, in addition to stopping the manipulation of you by way of your emotions and opinions, through evidentiarily unsupported claims, known as religious dogmas, which I addressed above, there is but one reason why I am here: to help others!

In the spirit of Thomas Jefferson, I am attempting to free our priest-ridden civil government  from the lowest grade of ignorance of which religious leaders will always avail themselves for their own purposes. Thanks.

EOB

Now, if you're not interested in my previous comments, I can understand as I am honestly over-it myself. But, I would recommend reading some of them as I didn't bother responding to the absolutely moronic cracks. Hopefully, they have been, and will be, educational.

Thanks

My Lack of Belief

This latest video from Qualiasoup is very good at explaining the subtle difference between what some people think about beliefs, or the lack thereof.

I ask, "Would you convert for cash Antony Flew?"

The religious are clambering all over each other to hail Antony Flew, the alleged ex-atheist who supposedly "changed his stance on the existence of god" and then wrote a book about it. But wait, with all the new atheist authors out there, eg. Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, Hitchens, et al. how could someone stand stand against that crowd? I thought. Then this idea came to me.

As I read the book that was supposedly Flew’s arguments, I was very interested to find the evidence that changed his mind, of course. His original position was powerful and I was desperately looking for this new evidence, and especially how he was going to rebut his own, earlier arguments. After all, I am convinced few people, who are presently thoughtful atheists, would be easily convinced that there is evidence for a supernatural entity. Atheists rely on evidence. 

But I was sorely disappointed. It was as if Flew, who, as it turned out, was only interviewed for the book, it seems he either forgot his earlier arguments against God,  pretended he didn’t have any, or this was some sort of shady hit and run interview where pointed questions are asked and scientific answers are manipulated to fool the pious and scientifically illiterate. For several hours I pondered over this issue. The book was very short and written by a pan handling Christian apologist with a less than stellar resume named Roy Abraham Varghese. But still, how could someone who was once so sharp and so logical just pretend his earlier arguments didn’t exist? How could he ignore what he had professed, or written earlier in his career? I mean, if he couldn’t really answer his earlier arguments against God, (in the book he omitted discussing most of them at all) how in the world did he change his mind? I have viewed this video of him seemingly incoherently answering an interviewers questions, as if his mental faculties are diminished due to age. What I thought I saw in that interview may have had more to do with my interpretation than with Flew's condition, but I think there is something to the notion that he may be loosing the edge, he is an octogenarian now. Then...

Flew, you sly old dog. I’m on to you. Although, I can understand why you would do it, for you, it makes perfect sense. Since, just bare with me a moment, you know there isn’t some imaginary sky fairy watching you, you really have nothing to worry about as far as retribution in an afterlife. You don’t have to worry if you, dare I say, lie! I can see what would motive someone to this contrivance. Your fame is dying down, the New Atheists are being hailed as the rationalists to reckon with, maybe... stealing your thunder? Damn that Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris, etc. What else can an old man like you bring to the debate? Why would people want to read what you have left to say? If only you could get into that religious book market. But you would need to change your story, then you would have the whole religious community “worshipping” you - "the famous atheist who was smart enough to see the light." Cough! Then, once again, you will become an intellectual hero. Anyway, who cares, which side of a philosophical point is idolizing you, hailing your name, or at least making you famous? Christians, atheists; does it even matter to you? Of course not! If they buy the book, maybe speak your name, you’ll be happy.

So, how could you do this, without demolishing your hard earned reputation in philosophy? Change your story, of course, but how? A death bed conversion would only put your reputation in disrepute, not enough time for a book deal or those insistent interviews. But if you were to, say, convert now - but not a full Christian conversion, no - to a god of the gaps deistic meta physic, that holds to an a priori creator. This doesn't contradict all of your prior work, not all of it. So, that’s what you did, isn't it. But hey, now you’re back in the limelight. Now your name (and book) is back on the world stage. Sure, you had to jump the fence. Tell me, is it easier to play stupid or sophistic?

Undoubtedly you had to go against your own mind, but who cares, right? There’s no punishment waiting for you after you die. But there are those pesky New Atheists out there that have seen this world through similar eyes as yours. We both know this. But hey! Why not, I mean it's not like you are making a difficult life worse for the rest of us? Go ahead, change your tune, become famous again - rake in that cash. I’m sure the income and notoriety will cleanse that taste out of your mouth after your conversion. But what if your family is forced to live in a new age of bigotry, zealotry, or hate mongering that your new found world view heralds, your recent conversion bolstered. What if! Ah, what do you care? Denial, is a great thing. Isn't it?

And as for your new audience, it's great isn't it, they’re willing to believe anything and I mean anything. To them, you will be almost as famous as JC himself, maybe more famous to those clinging to what is left, of a belief in the belief. You should have no problem becoming their poster child, no problem at all. Right, Antony? All you have to do is forget what you professed earlier, which I can attest you have done so well as to have many of your would be ideological compatriots thinking in terms of Alzheimer's, or another dementia, touché. Even in your book, apparently, since you failed to reconcile your own arguments, just as many Christian apologists fail to do.

I understand. The money, the fame, they can drive some to do...  things. And since we both know there’s no evidence supporting a supernatural realm, or anything relating to the supernatural that has ever been verified in the history of mankind, it's safe to logically predict there isn't much of a chance we will find a deistic realm. Let alone, a supernatural realm for some mystic to be keeping score of our lives, so, why the hell not?
Enjoy your money and fame Flew. The turmoil you have left in this revolution is not insurmountable, the turbulence you stir in your wake will only hone my skills of insurrection, so go ahead Flew, forget what you have learned. In the end, I’ll have my dignity. But who knows, I might convert to deism myself, if that is what it takes to stop the bigotry. But seriously, I doubt it. I like fighting toe to toe, way too much Mr. Flew.

And so I did. Finding the work of Richard Carrier, philosopher, historian of science, and writer. I found links to the real story and all the evidence showing that Roy Varghese was more of a conman than I originally thought. Anthony Flew didn't change his position at all. He did what every honest philosopher would do. He left room for intellectual honesty in the lightfootedness of his stance. His mistake was in assuming the forthrightness of his interviewer. Sorry old man, I should have better. You were always quick to accommodate.