Well, even his own employees don’t believe it, but biblical interpreter extraordinaire, and radio host, Harold Camping is convinced the rapture arrives 6am tomorrow morning. That’s apparently 6pm, local time.
Camping’s followers must have a bit of dough, because I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a couple of billboards in Melbourne promoting the event. Maybe he wheedled some cash out of Ron Walker. After all, heaven knows that Walker is a sucker for any fast-talking huckster making dodgy projections about major events.
If you want to stave off the effects, I’d avoid Kiritimati, which, along with a couple of other islands of Kiribati’s archipelago, is at GMT+14. You can postpone your rapture by no less than 26 hours (!) on Howland Island, which offers such delights as the Amelia Earhart beacon, a tropical sun, and a complete lack of fresh water, trees, or human settlement.
But there’s yet more questions. Will the raptured get on their supernatural escalator early if they’re on Daylight Savings time? And are we expected to mind their pets? And are there any Romanians jockeying for the position of UN Secretary-General that we heathens should keen an eye on?
Oh, and if any LP’ers get raptured up, could you ask your omnipotent pal to put together a guest post or two? I’d particularly appreciate one on problem of evil…
Note: it’s apparently 6pm, not 6am. More cycling time 
Thanks tigtog for the correction.
The atheists at
http://eternal-earthbound-pets.com/Home_Page.html will look after your pets after the Rapture, for a small fee. This is one scam where I don’t feel sorry for the “victims”!
Apologies tigtog, I forgot that you posted this link yesterday!
No wuckas, JoeG – it’s relevant on this thread as well!
BTW Rob, most of the stuff I’ve seen has been saying 6pm, not 6am. So enjoy your extra 12 hours of dread, everybody?
The Rapture club is likely to be a small one. Apparently there are on average 2 people who die every second. So it is going to depend on how long the rapture is likely to be if we are to determine what the Rapture uptake rate will be. When you see this Camping guy it is clear that he is at the age where he could fall off his perch at any time, so he could just make his own dead line. That would then beg the question “who is going to climb those heavenly stairs with Camping”.
‘When you see this Camping guy it is clear that he is at the age where he could fall off his perch at any time, so he could just make his own dead line. That would then beg the question “who is going to climb those heavenly stairs with Camping”.’
It’s only worth making the climb if he falls off his perch *and* ascends into the air immediately thereafter. If there is still a body lying around, stinking up the joint, then Sorry, No Rapture For You. I’ll wait and see.
If the Rapture does happen, the rest of us will finally get some peace and quiet down here without the Bible-thumpers. All Hail the Anti-Christ, now let’s go home and watch Doctor Who (which is the only post-6pm thing I care about today).
Darn, and my Kindle arrived just this week! Now I have only 10 hours to read all those classics I never got around to…
I took delivery of the 6 volumes of, “In search of Lost Time” just yesterday. Heh.
[and I feel fine]
It appears that Old Harold had already declared 6 Sept 1994 as Rapture Date Mark I.
That miscalculation caused much inconvenience. For the sake of everyone who has cancelled their newspaper deliveries, I hope Old Harold has got it right this time.
JoeG: Eternal Earth-Bound pets only handle 26 US states, and cater for ungulates in only four of them. They don’t even handle DC. Most scams of this ilk would promise full coverage of the USA, including Guam and Puerto Rico. I suspect they have the facilities, just in case.
At least someone’s made honest cash off Pascal’s Wager.
Undoubtedly before he goes he will leave a sign.
Gone. Camping.
I’ve done the washing up. I was a bit worried I’d miss Dr. Who tonight, but obviously, I won’t.
Most of the people I’ve ever met who probably thought themselves worthy of The Rapture, certainly would be – straight to Hell.
Paul, I thought the deal with the Rapture is that you either get the instant elevator, or you get a few months of End Time unpleasantness to convince you that Yahweh a) exists, and b) it’s not a bad idea to worship Him (perhaps I’m making unwarranted assumptions here, but my guess is that Camping’s God is very much an elderly white male).
In any case, if the months of plague, fire, pestilence etc. persuade you, it’s off to heaven for you. Otherwise, welcome to your new eternal home in the fiery, brimstony pits.
Ah, a merciful God! How nice.
Some bloke has set up some sort of expensive system (from $2 to $499} so you can send messages to those left behind. {at least I think that’s how it works.)Capitalists will do anything to make money.
And Camping et al appear to have gone into hiding. I suppose they intend to return after Rapture Day in clothes that glow in the dark.
Here is a question, if the big guy takes a whole bunch of rapturous goody two shoes, and that leaves a mess of bodies behind, is it part of the punishment that the rest have to clean up the mess?
@BilB, the bodies go along with the souls at Rapture time, is the story. So no mess.
If the bodies go, can they bring a go-bag? What’s in your Rapture go-bag? I’d bring rope, clean socks, extra pair of shoes . . . oh, no, that’s my Left Behind go-bag. Power bars!
Forty-four end of the world prophecies – that failed
Oh, phew, 6pm. That gives me 3.5 hours to be ready for heaven. I assume.
BilB: no pain, no gain. You have to clean up the mess, but on the bright side you get to indulge in some post-rapture looting. Shame the pickings are so much better in the US.
I’d like to mention that Chatham Islands has just crossed the 6PM threshold.
I hate to scoff, but …
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/new-zealand-earthquake-christmas-island-harold-camping-may-21-rapture-doomsday.html
the Rapture is late.
This is just another media beat-up.
Hmmm…. 6.40pm here in NZ now, and still no rapture happening, at least not in our house. Which suggests we must all be sinners. Oh well.
Oh, come now.
God, being an Englishman, would operate on Greenwich Mean Time.
And no riffraff can expect to be raptured.
Those of you who happen to be acquainted with non-riffraff might check on their whereabouts about 12 hours after the date stamp on this comment. If they are missing, you knew some persons who were not riffraff.
Aw. i wasn’t raptured. Not that I mind. I’m not very musical and I don’t like flying so being an angel is not for me.
(Or do I have ato wait another day?)
What news of your cat?
Not raptured. Bugger, that means I have to finish that essay tomorrow. Very disappointed God. You know, promises, promises and all that, be a good boy and say your prayers and you go to heaven (on an escalator no less), blah blah…
Still on most days, heaven is here on earth.
Katz: “God, being an Englishman, would operate on Greenwich Mean Time.”
I think it was Michael Caine’s character in “The Man who would be King” who actually said “Not gods – Englishmen. The next best thing”
I put off doing the weekly wash yesterday for this. Ripped off!
Maybe he got the date wrong?
Apparently it’s not the first time, PB @ 29.
1992, I did have a mate go missing that year, but somehow I don’t think he was the kind to be raptured. I did feel myself dissolving a little last night about 6pm but I put it down to using too much sweet chili sauce on me roast potatoes.
Which got me wondering as to how you’d turn up in the afterlife if you were raptured sitting on the loo.
“Maybe he got the date wrong?”
Paul,
I noticed Groundhog Day was on the box last night.
Be warned: every day is Rapture Day!
Well, it’s all past us now, and we still seem to be stuck with the fundies. Damn!
Seen this?
http://static.loudsauce.com/system/assets/108/large/BillboardPerspective-Exported.jpg?1305657132
That’s gold, jules.
Hiya Brian,
Wasn’t raptured so I may not meet your qualifications, but I’d be happy to try and address your dissatisfactions in the linked Wikipedia article on the Problem of Evil if you could be more specific on where you feel the inadequecies lie.
“Don’t be such a [redacted]! There’s no ghosts, there’s no God, there’s a perfectly rational explanation for any kind of phenomena you might encounter.”
OMG it really happened!
“Aaahhhhhh! Get a priest! Get a vicar! I believe in God!”
Hey you guys I was aked to pass on a message from some random raptured who got her last night. So here we go:
1) Be nice to your Mum
2) Donate to the Aglicans till it hurts. Don’t bother with Catholics or any of those bloody weirdo eastern religions.
3) Never I repeat never support Collingwood
That’s pretty well it. Hope to see you soon.
God
Oh and just one other thing. If someone there could pass on my apologies to Mr Camping. I’m sorry I had to let him down again but I really did think Collingwood were going to lose, so put off the whole Apocalypse thingy. I thought it would be much more entertaining watching the footy.
Anyway if someone there could tell Mr Camping to get back in contact I will see if we can work out another date.
Catch you soon.
God
So God, how come you only took Bill Hunter? All the other parts were cast?
The problem of evil only arises for those who still believe in a benign deity. The rest of us are atheists or satanists.
Get your hand off it Silkworm, or I am going to write your name in my book.
You may have timed your comment to coincide with number 42, but I don’t think you’re really God, “God.” I think you’re just a very naughty boy.
Santa?
God, you appear to be a doG.
Are you yslexicd ?
I may not be omnipotent SG but serendipity is with me. I had not noticed the number 42. Undoubtedly Douglas Adams would also be having a chuckle about Mr Camping’s edicts.
News on Face book, there was a regime change in heaven, detentions centres full to the brim with rapture arrivals. Heaven heaving with riots, tear gas, rubber bullets, water-boarding and bible burnings. Archangels demand for Moses to stop the queue jumpers now. Most disturbingly a news poll has it that Angles call their CEO “God-liar than thou” for stating before the Armageddon Counsel previously that there will be no new rapture arrivals!
Angles, ootz?
non angli sed angeli ?
That’s not some random raptured. That’s tigtog. Derapture her at once!
She is a secret Collingwood supporter. So much for your omniscience.
Also, who are the Aglicans?
The Daily Mash has exclusive coverage of the Rapture as it failed to change England. It is characterized by the usual hard-hitting reporting:
Just curious – I understand that atheist morality is said to be derived from universal social values of empathy and compassion which are in turn evolutionary developments of successful herd/group animal survival strategies.
Sociopathic acts such as murder and maiming of other humans are anti-evolutionary and therefore immoral because they weaken the herd.
But that doesn’t make sociopathic acts wrong or evil, just irrational. So wouldn’t it be more accurate to say that atheists don’t have a system of ethics based on morality, but rather on rational survival strategies ?
Also if maiming/murder is wrong ultimately only because it weakens/lessens the herd then certain types of murder and maiming would be rational and therefore good. Like culling the disabled.
@Giles Anthrax,
you open your summation of your understanding with ethical imperatives of empathy and compassion, and then immediately ditch those values in favour of understanding how they arose evolutionarily, and put evolutionary imperatives first.
May I softly suggest that you’ve just demonstrated exactly how to get it arse about?
giles anthrax, I think I speak on behalf of all atheists here present when I proudly declare that I don’t get my “morality” from universal social values of empathy and compassion.
It comes straight from Satan.
In my case I interpret morality through the apocrypha of Seasons of the Abyss and Ride the Lightning, but other atheists may prefer more run of the mill interpretations of Satan’s will – Pullman, Milton, that sort of thing.
I don’t know where you got this “universal social values” stuff from. It’s all satan.
tigtog,
What are the grounds of atheist morality ?
If it is the universal ethical imperatives of empathy and compassion, tnen from where did the universal ethical imperatives of empathy and compassion arise ?
Atheists don’t believe in morality.
Atheists can observe that certain ethical behaviours have been empirically shown to result in the one life we have to live being longer, healthier, safer and generally more pleasant for the group as a whole than if those ethical behaviours are not followed.
And knock it off with the “universal”. I never used that word. Empathy and compassion arise from rational self-interest of the “if that was happening to me, how would I like people to respond?” variety. Reciprocal kindnesses make life happier for everybody. Surely that’s enough?
You may have received one of these.
People, there has been one HUGE MISTAKE.
http://www.smh.com.au/world/rapture-actually-coming-in-october-says-campling-20110524-1f1ln.html
I’m going out to by a hat immediately. I want to look good.
Do you reckon the old feller will be alive in October?
Don’t rush into the hat, Casey. You’ve got heaps of time, and you wouldn’t want to buy too early then be tempted to wear it before the occasion.
Actually David, I want to put the cat in it. The cat’s coming with me. Did you, like, see dexitroboper’s link? Apparently a giant wolf eats the sun. It would be irresponsible not to take fat Gigi with me. Which reminds me, I need a wiiiiide hat.
Just be careful Casey that someone doesn’t get one exactly the same and like wear it to a rehearsal rapture or something. #injoke
I see your point Mindy. There is only one solution which would ensure that could not happen . Imma wear one of these:
http://cdn.moxiebird.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/05/princess-beatrice-hat-cat.jpg
I wouldn’t trust that hat, Casey. No one guarantees that being raptured is going to be a smooth ride, and I reckon that the cat will fall out. If he’s called Gigi, you should try one of these, he’ll be fine (provided you don’t stop at any stupid birthday parties).
OMFG! That hat is disgorging a cat (possibly from another dimension).
You’re right, Casey – there’s no risk of anyone else choosing one like that.
Where do you buy the T-shirts?
Er, yes sg, it is truly, that is more my style. However, given there’s some rule in the bible about conjuring and necromancy and shit, I think I may well need to be more discreet. Hence the Beatrice diversion. Forsooth, Gigi is rather more undulous that that little grey critter. She will wedge nicely. And, forsoother, God will have seen nuthin like that in all his realm. It’s got novelty value.
Casey, being a witch, wouldn’t you be down here with the rest of us?
As far as I know, Helen, witches are being resurrected too. That’s what I heard at the coven, anyway. Some special contra thing.
Anyway, if I don’t get up there through the front door I can go through the portal of the hat which , which I have been assured, is a gateway to another dimension. Just gotsta wedge the cat out of it first.
Best take a crowbar, then. I’m dubious about the theological validity of your claims, though. I think you’ve underestimated God’s ability to sniff out a witch.
I dunno, sg, He’s already admitted to getting the date muddled upthread a way.
It must be hard to keep dates clear in your head when you’re omniscient.
Particularly if You experience all of space-time at once (or was that Tralfamadoreans?)
sg, I reckon it’s not keeping track of dates and time, it has to be the accounting which is real nightmare for the almighty one…
I like the tidiness of the rapture happening at 6pm local time. Evidently, no unseemly rush at the one universal time. Instead, a clockwork ascension spread over 24 hours.
Interesting sidebar!
A group of folks could stand in a circle around the South Pole. According to Mr Camping’s description of coming events, it would take fully 24 hours between the first and last ascension. Just imagine the disappointment of any who may be rejected. On the plus side, however, the rejected could simply reinsert themselves into the circle and test whether fervent praying and rebirthing might get them airborne at a later time.
“I’m dubious about the theological validity of your claims, though. ”
And yet, sg, it seems you have no problem believing I am a witch and do necromancy. Alrighty.
Let’s just send this thread to Harold Campling. With a note asking exactly when exactly will Justin Bieber shed his human form and begin to feed. Enquiring minds want to know.
I don’t contest your infernal witchiness, Casey, nor God’s ineffable right to rapture any of his followers who’re pure of heart (haha). My issue is with your claim that he’s going to rapture *you*.
And a good thing too. I mean, what fun is there in heaven?
I think I misused “ineffable” then, when I meant to say “incontestable.” No place in Pedant Heaven for me…
Thanks for telling Mr Camping to get back in contact. We have sorted it out now and have agreed on October 21 for the apocalypse. Hope this fits in with you all at LP. Camping wanted it earlier but I said not untll after the footy finals, didnt want any more mix ups.
See you all here on the 22nd. Pack light.
God
The Bieb has stolen the march on Zwilnik? The end of days will have a really naff soundtrack then.
Rapture? Thief in the night? Is anyone else thinking lonely Irish monks, sniggering into their cassock sleeves as they translate? Then again, my theological knowledge begins and ends with The Waterbabies, and of course, Sean Connery.
TT,
Never said you did. Please recheck.
I obtained the concept that atheists believe in the universality of empathy and compassion from a number of atheist web sites I read last night. Such as this one.
Ok so you say that atheist ethics are grounded in rational calculations of the common good defined by health and well-being indicators. As acknowledged by you
The basis for ethical living is a disposable, updateable, rescindable consensus based around the perceived best method of maximizing health and well-being indicators.
But doesn’t that make sociopathic acts merely irrational as opposed to actually wrong or evil ?
It makes them an unacceptable danger to others.
Thank God they got the day wrong – would have not had the rapture of watching the Westcoast Eagles pound the Bulldogs in the house of pain.
Maybe there is a God.
P.S. @Giles Anthrax,
They’re not the pope of me.
More seriously, the alleged universality of empathy and compassion are challenged by the mere existence of sociopaths/psychopaths.
Giles A. sociopathic acts are very often entirely rational from the perspective of the sociopath. They get what they want, without regard to the consequences for others. If they can get away with then they’re on a roll. That is their calculation.
As tigtog points our that’s what makes them an unacceptable danger to others. That is what makes them wrong or, according to your preference of language and judgment, evil.
tigtog@55
Atheists don’t believe in morality.
I’m an athiest and so are billions of others. I don’t think you are qualified to speak for all of us.
Some of us might believe in morality, however we understand it. Some of us might not. What we have in common as athiests is that we wouldn’t accept that morality is dictated by a god , or gods, we don’t believe exist nor by godbotherers and the promoters of religion representing the dictates of their god.
Nor, though, would we accept that another athiest, with their own views and experiences, which are not our own, would have the right to prescribe on our behalf, that we don’t believe in morality.
It is enough for us as athiests that we believe that there is no god (or gods) and live our lives on that premise.
Listen, unless you have read something on a bathroom wall that has not got back to me yet, how dare you. I am so pure of heart. Why take the strange case of GregM up there. I have tried and tried and tried to help him. Offered to bite him. Make him cool like Captain Peroxide . Nothing yet. But the offer stands. You think the heavens don’t see my labours? You wish you had my snow flesh, dude.
Greg, invite me, if you know what’s good for you. You are only deteriorating as the time passes.
@GregM, you’re right that I don’t speak for all atheists (nobody’s the pope of me, and I’m the pope of nobody), and also I was using a very strict definition of “morality”, as meaning rules handed down from a divinity, which by definition no atheist could accept as binding just because a god supposedly said so.
But the word is used more loosely in general to describe societal and personal rules for acceptable and unacceptable behaviour, so I certainly do believe in that sort of consensus social morality and personal moral codes, (e.t.a.) although describing such as ethical guidelines is my preferred terminology.
TT @81,
Just wondering if you would care to address the actual point I made.
I understand you to say that in your conception of atheist ethics, which is explicitly amoral, ethically correct behaviour is judged according to how well it rationally achieves health and well-being goals for the common good.
In that case sociopathic behaviour cannot be assessed as wrong or evil, but merely irrational.
If I further understand you @55, ethics further arise from rational self-interest in avoiding anti-social behaviours directed back at oneself.
So if some bloke should kill a child the your atheist response is ‘That’s irrational. Doesn’t he know that someone could kill his children ?’
@Giles Anthrax, I did address your point, when I responded to your initial claim about “irrational” by correcting it with the word “dangerous”.
I make no value judgements about someone’s behaviour when I describe it as dangerous, merely an empirical assessment of the likely consequences of their behaviour as it affects other people.
People have a mutual interest in feeling safe around each other. Ethical behaviour avoids harming other people so that everybody feels more confident in their personal safety.
Don’t be ridiculous. That was where I was talking about the cognitive origins of empathy and compassion. Your scenario is a community presented with a person of proven dangerous-to-others behaviour. The community’s interest in their mutual safety will lead them to develop guidelines about protecting themselves from dangerous people.
I generally side with GregM on this one, but I must point out gregM that this:
doesn’t work for me simply because people regularly demand to know about atheist morality, and/or accuse us of having none, and/or accuse us of being responsible for the holocaust[1], and/or genuinely ask us how morality can exist outside of religion.
So you end up having to give some kind of explanation, which means it’s generally not “enough for us as atheists.”
In my view morality can derive from a natural sense of what people want and don’t want on a fundamental level, which is broadly similar across cultures and time – and I think most religions make similar basic moral claims because they all derive their morality from that natural sense of what people want. You can see from the diversity of religious and religious sub-groups in the world that social debate about what is and isn’t moral is far more important to the cultural outcomes of our morality than any of the fundamental principles that might underpin it.
—
fn1: granted, not a debate worth bothering with
FFS, Giles, I think you’re taking this too seriously.
It’s a joke, dude.
Caro Ambiguloso@48. Che errore e che bruto. Ma per voi gli rendo i cherubini.
Lunchtime on RN’s ‘the spirit of things’, John Seed promoting Deep Ecology caught my ear:
“…..I see classical economics as being a kind of offshoot of that anthropocentric human-centred point of view that the Judaeo-Christian really developed more than anyone else, and that that economics which disguises itself as a science, I see it as actually being the most pious religion that the world has ever known and it’s completely swamped Christianity and you know, St Nicholas has become Santa Claus, and Christmas after being the solstice and now it’s just become shopping. It doesn’t matter what people believe, this is actually the religion of the world now and that no-one is immune.”
The program was called “I was there at the bigbang”.
Then I had a flash of the past and heard Joni’s voice in ‘Woodstock’
“We are stardust,
Billion year old carbon.
We are golden ….
Caught in the devils’ bargain
And we’ve got to get ourselves back to the garden.
(Or some semblance of a garden.)”
Was not sure wether I have been raptured a day late or if hippy-agedom was playing tricks with me. So I went to water the vegies.
I’ll have to look that up, Rachel Kohn is the best radio interviewer I’ve heard. It sounds as though I agree somewhat with John Seed, without a little of the animist instinct, human religion and human society becomes destructively hubristic.
But Giles the whole point of heaven and hell and karma are to put reward/punishment front and centre of religious ethics too. You don’t kill someone because you’ll go to hell or be reincarnated as something nasty.
I’m on the side of developing empathy/conscience/superego as part of normal development. We’re social, whether it’s because it’s useful or not doesn’t really worry me, I don’t need a utilitarian basis to ethics.
But if you require a rational reward or punishment to behave ethically, whether imposed by other people, God, or Gaia then I’d describe you as dangerous and sociopathic. Atheist or deist, it doesn’t really matter.
I’d also note that religious leadership has often been willing to adjust promised rewards and punishments to allow unethical behaviour against others, it’s in these circumstances humanity is most reliant on real ethics.
God,
On the evidence all this rapture business proves is that both you and Camping are really bad at maths. Does that mean Newton, Einstein and Hawking are wrong?
It may not be the math per se. I expect our new prophet is using a King James bible, rather than the Septuagint, itself only an approximation of anything “original”.
Paul @ 96. I have had some issues with the gentlemen you mention. Still who said numeracy was next godliness, or was that cleanliness?
Look forward to seeing you soon. I am having my doubts about that SG though, looks like a smarty pants, rapture may be denied unless he can show a bit more humility.
God
Fuck off God!
Thanks ootz
but I can’t read Italian. Translation, per favore…
Ambi, my alter-ego reckons “What error, what a brute! But for you I make (change) it cherubs.”
Just use Bablefish , on a Mac put a translation widget on your dashboard, it covers many languages, very handy to have. As my English, my Italian is not that crash hot either, so it may translate a little strange, but you’ll get the gist.
mille grazie, ootzissimo
TT @89
{Resubmission after original response consigned to Moderator’s Pugatory }
Yes, to the extent you haven’t yet been able to state that the
murder of a child is immoral or evil, merely ‘dangerous’. Perhaps
I misunderstand you. The murder of a child is immoral, right ?
Yes. I think you are obscuring the basis of your argument.
Let’s track back a bit. You said:
To which I observed that the basis of the atheist ethic is therefore
rationality as observed by contributing to a set of consensus-derived
performance outcomes.
An ethic submitted to a tigtogian atheist committee for approval would need to demonstrate an empirical rational basis for acceptance. Rationality is the basis. The actual ethics are subject to revision at any time.
So unethical behaviour is defined in terms of its irrationality
not its intrinsic characteristics. Should killing certain segments
of the population improve the common good e.g. by removing defective genes leading to better overall health outcomes, then such killings are ethical.
Which means there is no real concept of right and wrong, merely rationality and irrationality.
Are you proposing a Classical Economics of morality ?
The reduction of empathy and compassion to such an impoverished
formulation robs them of their very humanity.
Empathy and compassion are not subject to a Business Case and ethics are not in thrall to Key Performance Indicators.
That’s it SG your name is going in my book! Enjoy your eternity of damnation. Bloody LP wankers, no appreciation.
Supporting a political party which has a non believer as it’s leader can have consequences you know. That nice Mr Abbott knows how to go about politics, to bad he is still supporting the pretender Pope. I am going to have to sort that out soon, those micks are bit too greedy with the commission they are scamming off me.
Anyway can’t waste my time here, I have a busy day ahead working on my list.
God
“That nice Mr Abbott knows how to go about politics, to bad he is still supporting the pretender Pope.”
God, you idiot, you can’t be a Sydney Anglican Sectarian and God. Make up your mind. Either you are some weedy Anglican still frothing at the mouth about Henry’s Great Matter or you are God. But you can’t be both.
@Giles Anthrax, enjoy constructing your elaborate fantasies about what my fairly simple statements mean deep down really truly you just know it’s so. Also, if you are going to quote me, quote the full sentence, not just a cherry-picked fragment to build your strawman on.
It was said better upthread, but I’ll add my agreement: I don’t need to subject every single scenario to a strict utilitarian analysis. This is your fantasy, not my reality.
It’s enough for me that empathy and compassion are generally experienced by emotionally healthy socially engaged humans. Some science has also been done to show that reciprocal kindness and generosity works to a group’s advantage when analysed objectively, which is intellectually satisfying as a non-believer to know that this fits in with it being a biologically adaptive/selected behaviour, but which doesn’t come to the fore every single time that I apply my ethical principles to making a decision.
P.S. I trashed your previous comment because you are derailing the thread. I don’t know who fished you out and approved this one, but I suggest that you stop derailing the thread now.
yes giles anthrax, and you can stop talking about “the atheist ethic” while you’re at it. There’s no such thing.
Casey, I didn’t realize that Henry had a “Great Matter.” I thought it was middling to small, partly explaining his behaviour. Is inquiring into the size of Royal Matters one of your witchy perogatives, and if so can you tell us more about Willy’s willy?
Judgment Day, the Apocalypse, the Tribulation, whatever you want to call it, let’s examine its Biblical origins.
When “Jesus” described Judgment Day in Mark 13:2, he said, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone shall be left upon another which will not be torn down.” (Mark 13:2) What Jesus was in fact describing was the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple by the Roman general Titus at the end of the Jewish war in 70 CE. That was Judgment Day, and it was for the Jews, not the whole of humanity.
Jesus also said, “When you see these things happening, recognize that He is near, right at the door. Truly I say to you, this generation will not pass away until all these things take place.” (Mark 13:29-30)
In this passage Jesus was effectively saying that he himself was not the true messiah. He was a failed messiah — like the zealot leaders before and after him — who was fated to die at the hands of the Romans. Jesus was effectively naming the Roman general Titus as the true Messiah who would fulfill the biblical prophecies by destroying the temple. In other words Jesus portrayed Titus as the Son of God who would fulfill the prophecy of the Second Coming.
This interpretation is confirmed by the timing. The destruction of the temple by Titus occurred within one generation (forty years) as specified by Jesus.
According to the traditional timeline, Jesus’ temple prophecy is set around 33 CE, but realistically, ruling out magical powers, no one could have foreseen the destruction of the temple 37 years in advance. The passage has the ring of being written after the fact of the temple’s destruction, and back-dated to give the main character the appearance of prescience.
It is my understanding that the gospels were written shortly after the death of Titus in 81 CE (he was Roman emperor for three years) as part of his followers’ attempts to divinize him.
It is not clear who the gospel writers were exactly, but it is evident that they made extensive use of Josephus’ account of the Jewish war and events leading up to the war, and rewrote them to cast them in a prophetic light.
If anyone wants to know more about this theory of the origin of the gospel story, they can google Joe Atwill’s “Roman origins of Christianity” or Cliff Carrington’s “Flavian hypothesis.”
sg
Did so after tigtog’s comment @55. Have since discussed ‘tigtogian atheism’.
TT @108
My comments are not a thread derail. Robert mentioned the Problem Of Evil in his original post. My posts are based on the underlying question “Does the Problem Of Evil exist in atheism”.
As if a thread which is primarily simply a laugh at some cult could really be said to be derailed anyway
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My responses are not fantasies but responses which I consider follow in an uncontroversial fashion from your statements. If my conclusions are incorrect then so be it. You have the opportunity to engage, clarify or not as you see fit.
I do not claim to deep down really truly to just know it’s so. Perhaps this is your ‘fantasy’. In any case your assertion is unwarranted on the evidence.
Tigtog, your overall approach to discussion of how you drive your atheist ethic is indeed simple; but more so vague and incompletely considered, perhaps intentionally as you well perceive its inadequacies and in fact requires additional principles in order to construct a satisfying ethical framework. As you said:
@Giles Anthrax, one can still derail a thread even when one is on-topic. The thread had drifted towards silly fun, and you decided to get all po-faced and preachy. That’s derailing.
You think that truncating my sentence from #89 that read in full as follows:
to what you quoted in #103 as an unqualified
is engaging in an “uncontroversial fashion” with what I actually wrote?
I call it dishonest cherry-picking, and that was the point where I totally lost interest in engaging with you, because you appear to be reading in bad faith.
Does the Problem Of Evil exist in atheism? No. Evil is a problem in theology, because it causes one to question the existence of a benevolent supreme being. To resolve the problem, one must conclude that either a) God is not good; b) God is not all-powerful and all-seeing, or c) God does not exist. If you conclude c), you are entitled to call yourself an atheist.
Of got my eye on you and pen ready silkworm. Option C is a one way ticket to damnation and eternal suffering.
sg, no matter how well I glower, it’s not x ray vision, more’s the pity. The Goddess has seen fit to limit my divinations and so I cannot peer into the royal pants. However, given your deep interest in this matter, I will advise you as soon as possible if anything changes.
You are illiterate.
I blame bloch iPads with auto corrocting.
No giles, you used it at 103.
Casey, are you suggesting that this “Goddess” has some sort of privacy policy? Seems a highly dubious undertaking for any aspiring deity – without omniscience, what’s the point of being deific? And if you can’t engage in dubious voyeurism (at least!) what’s the point in joining a religion? I think you should ask the Goddess to revise her articles of association.
But if you do get any … ah … insights into Willy’s willy, do be sure to publish!
Atheists have not had to depend upon God as the basis for their conceptions of the right or the good since at least Kant. If anybody thinks they can reduce the atheist moral and ethical thought that has emerged since that time to a narrow set of propositions should probably consider the difficulty one would have in finding a simple formula to express 200+ years of Western philosophy.
And yes, I recognise that neither of those sentences quite made sense! Perhaps I’ll try again tomorrow
sg
Yes. That was a summation of prior discussion
I’m with GregM, tigtog. What happened up there? Is heaven a bunch of people singing? Were there videos of casey sniffing King Henry’s undies? Inquiring minds want to know!
Speaking of which, tigtog, it was my certain belief, based upon your sheer niceness, that if anyone got picked up in the Great Gathering it was you, whether you liked it or not.
Then you went MIA on LP for two days right in the middle of the Rapture. I could only draw the conclusion that the Divinity, who I had not previously acknowledged, shared my same opinion of you.
Then at the end of those two days,during which time it became apparent that the Rapture had failed (so much for God’s omnipotence) you reappeared. I could only conclude that having Raptured you as part of His Divine and Masterful Plan but then having seen that Plan go awry He quickly decided to deRapture you and pretend that nothing had happened.
So what really happened?
Did you get up there and point out to Him a few home truths and the errors of His ways so that He abandoned this current Rapture until His followers get a better attitude?
Did you point out to Him that even for athiests like us His Gender Identity is problematic and that He should do a great deal of work on that before He ran His next Rapture, so that it went better than this one?
Tell us all. We want all the goss.
(for those reading along, GregM’s comment should, strictly speaking, come before sg’s; it would have had he originally left it on this thread rather than another)
Funny, I can’t remember anything like that. Maybe She wiped out all our memories?
James Taranto of the Murdoch-owned Wall St Journal has taken Camping’s failure and used it to bash Al Gore, the UN and climate scientists. Here is part of what he said.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304520804576341310352792784.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_MIDDLETopOpinion
I came to this article via Marc Morano’s Climate Depot. First of all, let me state my suspicion that both Morano and Taranto are religious fundamentalists. They see that Camping’s failure to predict the rapture has cast a bad light on the US evangelical movement, which is perhaps the greatest part of the Republican base. Taranto in fact gives himself away as an evangelical by his attack on atheists. His attack on “liberals” can then be read as positioning himself as a conservative, rather than as an evangelical or fundamentalist.
Taranto falls just short of labelling climate science a religion, but he does call it a superstition. However, the last sentence I have quoted is telling.
What Taranto seems to be arguing here is that science has taken over from religion the role of doomsayers, but that this is a bad thing not because science (especially the science of global warming) is a religion, but because it’s the wrong religion. By saying that the decline of religion is a bad thing, he further paints himself as a type of Christian who sees science as a threat to his own religious beliefs.
Gracefully I glide
No care in the world have I
About your Rapture.
(— from Godzilla Haiku)