Mr. Deity on the Euthyphro Dilemma

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Michael

Mr. Deity is always hilarious and this episode on the Euthyphro Dilemma is no different:

I find this is an argument Christians tend to avoid engaging too much. It’s obvious why: there is no answer which properly jives with the idea of their god. If he can say what is good at a whim, then murder, rape, and everything else under the Sun could become good tomorrow. No Christian really wants to make that argument – it makes their god more of a relativist than they already purport him to be (such as when they claim the OT evil was only meant for the Jews, not every culture). If he just perfectly fits into whatever is good, then goodness is independent of him and we don’t really need any god to know what is good. After all, billions of people have concluded that things like murder, rape, and adultery are not good without knowing anything about any of today’s religions. It’s a rock and hard place for Christian apologists.

I love it.

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Ricky Gervais in New Humanist

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Michael

I’m a big Ricky Gervais fan. He’s a funny guy, especially in his interviews on The Daily Show, and he has produced a lot of good television, too. Now he has an interview with New Humanist:

I never actively try to offend though. That’s churlish, pointless and frankly too easy. But I believe you should say what you mean. Be honest. No one should ever be offended by truth. That way you’ll never have to apologise. I hate it when a comedian says, “Sorry for what I said.” You shouldn’t have said it. You shouldn’t say it if you didn’t mean it and you should never regret anything you meant to do.

I like this quote. Offending others merely for the sake of offending them is a useless endeavor. It doesn’t get anyone anywhere. But causing offense when there is a wider point to be had is useful. In Gervais’ case, he is doing it for the sake of comedy. For others such as Gnu Atheists (of which Gervais is one), the point is often to raise consciousness/awareness. It’s like Kant says about using others as a means. (He is commonly summed up as saying that it’s a bad thing, but that misses a very key part of his philosophy.) What he says is that it is bad to use others merely as a means. Of course we’re using others as a means all the time. It’s when the point is to only use others that we’ve gone awry. The very same goes for causing offense.

But all this aside, I think Gervais may have an even better quote:

I used to believe in God. The Christian one, that is. (There are a few thousand to choose from. But I was born in a country where the dominant religion was Christianity so I believed in that one. Isn’t it weird how that always happens?)

Weird, indeed.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Humor | Tagged: , , | 1 Comment »

If your memory is exhausted or if you have extreme

Posted on September 7, 2011 by Michael

This is more of a formality than anything since I already posted the epicness of day 7, but there was a day 8 on the mountain. We had already descended below 10,000 feet by the end of day 7, so we didn’t have terribly far to go. Of course, going down is tougher in many regards because it really kills the knees, but reciting Mitch Hedberg’s repertoire half the time made things go quite a bit faster.

Here is everyone walking through the rain forest.

And here is goodness.


(Picture by Mike.)

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