The Hazards of Belief

Not quite a hazard of belief, more a hazard for believers' cash:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/5391978.stm

$8.6 million missing over 40 years and it only came to light two years ago? Wow!

God changes opinion on sex, at least in Arizona:

http://www.azcentral.com/community/scottsdale/articles/0930sr-puresex0930boxZ8.html

> $8.6 million missing over 40 years and it only came to light two years ago?

More on that story:

http://www.local6.com/news/10025428/detail.html

he saw himself as the CEO of a multimillion-dollar company who wasn't properly compensated, according to a search warrant.

!

> So what exactly constitutes a theological hypotheis and how does it become
> a theological theory?

How long is a piece of theological string? Ophelia Benson addressed this spaghetti-like topic on her blog a couple of days ago:

http://www.butterfliesandwheels.com/notes.php (search for 'Infallible cannoli')

Okay - you've got your Vatican commission of theologians, thirty of them, and they have been 'examining' limbo. They've been what? What does that mean? How have they been examining limbo? They've been looking at it through a telescope? Through a microscope? Both at once? Both in alternation? Fifteen theologians on the tele and fifteen on the micro, and they combine their findings? Or they X-ray it? Run it through an MRI scan? Shave off bits of it for radio-carbon dating? Or is it that they sit limbo down and ask it a lot of questions? Or do they give it a written exam, with two hours to complete it and proctors walking up and down to prevent cheating? Or what?

Well, apparently none of those, since the pope is going to abolish the concept itself, which would seem to hint that there's nothing physical or material to examine. But then what? What does it mean for theologians to examine limbo? To talk about it, apparently, and decide whether they feel like believing in it or not.

...which I suppose is pretty close to what happened.

> So sad how Ukraine suffered under Atheism.

If you check out the history of this very closely, you'll find that the famine was engineered by Stalin for political reasons.

More generally, I commented upon this class of religious attack upon atheism yesterday in this post, paraphrased as:

There's an interesting disparity here -- in the religious believer's mind, any time that an atheist commits a crime, atheism is somehow to blame. But whenever a believer-in-god commits a crime, it's the person at fault and not the religious system. Failure of people, but never systems? All very Orwellian, isn't it?

More generally, religious morality tends to be directly threat/reward-based, which is pretty primitive really.

> Because of the reference to the priest who embezzled €8.6 million. If my
> assumption (that this example of criminality in indicative of somewider
> context) is incorrect I apologise;

No problem. I posted the article more because it shows up a common discontinuity between the morality spoken about by members of the church, and the morality practised by members of the church. Which isn't to say that all priests have their hands in the till, but just that some inevitably do. The follow-up article in which the priest claimed that he felt that he was a "CEO of a multi-million dollar business", but that he "wasn't being compensated properly" was just more of the same.

> the actions of the Soviet state do not invalidate atheist arguments

In order to prove that this link exists, you will have to demonstrate clear evidence that Stalin engineered the famine because he was an atheist and also that he did it for atheistic reasons. If you can't do that, then you can't say that Stalin did it because he was atheist. Simply saying that X did Y because X is an Z doesn't show anything at all. For example, Stalin probably accepted that gravity exists. Did he engineer the Ukrainian famines because he accepted gravity?

> just as the actions of various religiously based centres of power
> throughout history do not invalidate a belief in God.

I've never said that god doesn't exist, nor will I ever be able to prove that god doesn't exist, despite my own belief that god certainly doesn't exist as described in any religious text that I'm aware of. The core problem is that religious centers of power to not tolerate criticism or change an inevitably become absolutist as time passes. They're just the same, in form (but not in content), as communist centers of power.

> > Difficult to know if you're joking here or not.
> Not that difficult I hope.

I still have no idea. Putting "all-loving" and "burn in hell" in the same sentence is something that I would only ever do with a deep sense of irony. Hence my confusion about whether you meant it seriously or as a joke.

> EDIT: I think you (robindch) are being disingeuous if you are claiming
> that the stupidity of indvidual religious believers is not held to be
> indicative of a wider 'stupidity' regarding religion as a whole.

About that chap who jumped into the lions? I don't regard that as stupidity, but suicidal madness inspired directly by religion. As I said, it's sad. Very, very sad indeed.

> [...] this ill-fated cleric found only a Darwin Award [...]

Excellently predicted in this thread by 5uspect back in August -- behold the power of boards!

BTW, I've never heard of the "Creation Awards" -- I wonder what they could be for? The years' most exotic newly-created species? Impromptu on-the-spot recovery from the goriest death? The arrival, ex nihilo, of a mormon-style gold-plated holybook which subsequently vanishes?

Suggestions please!