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October 7th, 2013
12:31 PM ET
Scalia says atheism 'favors the devil's desires'By Daniel Burke, CNN Belief Blog Co-editor Follow @BurkeCNN(CNN) - As the Supreme Court begins its new term Monday, the devil is not on the docket - but the Evil One apparently is on the mind of Justice Antonin Scalia. New York magazine has published a fascinating new interview with Scalia in which the outspoken jurist tackled a number of topics. But none seemed to surprise Scalia's interviewer, Jennifer Senior, more than his views on Satan. The interview was conducted on September 26, the 27th anniversary of Scalia's swearing-in as a justice on the high court. He is one of a record six Catholic justices on the Supreme Court. After Scalia and Senior discussed heaven and hell (he believes in them; she doesn't), the justice said in a stage whisper, "I even believe in the devil." "You do?" Senior replied. "Of course! Yeah, he’s a real person. Hey, come on, that’s standard Catholic doctrine! Every Catholic believes that," Scalia said. Senior asked Scalia if he's seen evidence of Satan's work recently. "You know, it is curious," Scalia answered. "In the Gospels, the devil is doing all sorts of things. He’s making pigs run off cliffs, he’s possessing people and whatnot. And that doesn’t happen very much anymore. ... It’s because he’s smart." MORE FROM CNN: How to argue about religion online Senior asked if it's "frightening" to believe in the devil, which seemed to annoy Scalia. "You’re looking at me as though I’m weird," he answered. "My God! Are you so out of touch with most of America, most of which believes in the devil? I mean, Jesus Christ believed in the devil! It’s in the Gospels! You travel in circles that are so, so removed from mainstream America that you are appalled that anybody would believe in the devil! Most of mankind has believed in the devil, for all of history. Many more intelligent people than you or me have believed in the devil." Scalia, whose son, Paul, is a Catholic priest in Arlington, Virginia, also said Pope Francis is "absolutely" right about the church needing to concentrate more on mercy and outreach than on fighting the culture wars. MORE FROM CNN: American Catholics agree with Pope Francis on ending culture wars "But he hasn’t backed off the view of the church on those issues," Scalia said. "He’s just saying, 'Don’t spend all our time talking about that stuff. Talk about Jesus Christ and evangelize.' I think there’s no indication whatever that he’s changing doctrinally." Finally, Scalia said he has not "softened" his views on homosexuality. "I still think it’s Catholic teaching that it’s wrong. OK? But I don’t hate the people that engage in it. In my legal opinions, all I’ve said is that I don’t think the Constitution requires the people to adopt one view or the other," Scalia said. MORE FROM CNN: Church and state, executive power on Supreme Court docket soundoff (3,730 Responses)« Previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 Next »
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team.  |
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Scalia should be fired for incompetence in logic. It's that simple. What a moron.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: You can know either the position or the momentum of an atomic particle but never both simultaneously. It's impossible. Oh my gosh, science can’t know everything. Science is not all knowing. Heisenberg got the Nobel Prize for this.
Your point being....?
Science never makes the claim of being all-knowing. That kind of arrogance is reserved for religion.
some of us talk like science is our god. if you cant prove it using science they reject it.
What reason would you have to believe something without any science backing it up?
The HUP is being tested currently and may be discarded as not correct.
Fascinating. Can you provide a link to your news report? I would actually like to read it.
lol...if you think scientists are claiming they can know everything you have comletely missed the point.
I am thinking that if we put an Amber Alert out for the devil that Scalia is certain exists and is walking among us, we can catch the sneaky bas – tard.
What do you think of Obama? He believes that Jesus died for your sins and resurrected?
You know I have never heard an athiest speak critically of Obama when he has stated on more than one occasion his belief in God and Christs death for mankind. The atheists seem very selective in who they term uneducated, myth-believing bafoons.
You fit the description well, Rett.
Rett, what is a "bafoon"? And why are Christians so ignorant and stupid, generally?
Maybe he just wants to sound good to the 75% of crazy Christians out there.
He was brought up in a secular home, and I wouldn't doubt that he was just faking it.
Let's way until his terms are over.
There's nothing wrong with holding elected office and harboring irrational beliefs that are based on faith instead of evidence. After all, in a Democracy, the religious should have religious people representing them. However, there IS an issue with harboring irrational beliefs that are based on faith instead of evidence when you are appointed to an office that explicitly requires you to come to decisions based soley on the basis of hard evidence and unyielding logic. The fact that Scalia adamantly thinks- on ZERO evidence- that a "devil person" exists who actively afflicts and wracks the minds of the Americans is very chilling because it suggests that his rational faculties are compromised. This casts considerable doubt as to whether he is capable of doing justice to his most solemn position on the bench.
It doesn't matter that this catastrophic suspension of reason and logic on his part is occurring in his personal life. Logic, reason, and respect for evidence is a skill, not an opinion, and therefore he is inadequately equipped for his post. If someone is bad at arithmetic while assembling a bookshelf at home, they aren't going to suddenly be good at arithmetic when they go to work.
And what's more, Scalia proudly declares that lack of evidence for the devil is, in fact, the strongest evidence! That's like saying that the absence of ninjas in a room is in fact evidence that ninjas are there (since ninjas are too skillful in the arts of stealth to be seen!) Scalia clearly doesn't have a thorough understanding of the nature of facts and evidence.
Great post Dana.
"harboring irrational beliefs that are based on faith instead of evidence."
That is an opinion. It is quite rational to believe in God if you have evidence. Faith is complete trust and confidence in something or someone (God). Not belief with no evidence as you imagine.
You do realize that you just contradicted yourself twice in three sentences, right?
No. God is real. There is evidence for belief in His existence. Just because you can't or won't see the evidence does not make this untrue.
Post by 'AE' contains an instance of the Secret Decoder Ring fallacy.
http://fallacyfiles.org/glossary.html
No secret decoder ring needed.
You can have a great logical mind. Or you can have a more imaginative mind. But both can find God.
agreed. point being. so, i'm thinking show ME the evidence
AGREED
Colin
You do realize that you just contradicted yourself twice in three sentences, right?
AGREED. POINT BEING DODO AIN'T GOD.
Colin
You do realize that you just contradicted yourself twice in three sentences, right?
AGREED. POINT BEING DODO AIN'T GOD.Just the Facts Ma'am...
What reason would you have to believe something without any science backing it up?
HELLO? WHAT ABOUT GOD SCIENCE REFUTE, girlfriend?
And what evidence is there for a god?
curly lived.
ask cheesecake!
What kind of evidence are you looking for?
Something that can only be explained by the existence of a god. So it must not rely on fallacies (arguments from incredulity, circular logic, appeals to emotion, self-fulfilling prophecies, or shifting the burden of proof for example). I've asked this before. No one's ever been able to answer without resorting to fallacies.
Further, it must be verifiable. That means anecdotes are right out.
Are you suggesting then that only avowed athiests are fit to serve in the judiciary? That would have disqualified some of our greatest jurists.
Fortunately, in most areas, the religious can quarantine their irrationality to their particular belief. Only in areas of morality do their superst.itions tend to bleed over into general decision making. HEnce his animosity for gay people.
"harboring irrational beliefs that are based on faith instead of evidence when you are appointed to an office that explicitly requires you to come to decisions based solely on the basis of hard evidence and unyielding logic."
I believe it's worse than that. It's more like hiring employees (Congress, Senate, President are all our employees, they are supposed to work for us and we fire them if they don't) for your FedEx like airline shipping company that applied to your company because they have firm ties with the railroads and want to put the airlines out of the shipping business. Why would anyone hire someone to run their government that believes someday soon they will get whisked away in some rapture leaving the cluster flock behind? What motivates them to work for better governance if they ultimately are wishing their personal God would take over? Same thing applies to the republicans with their desire to shrink the government to the size you can drown it in the bathtub when the rest of us actual want a government that actually works and is accountable and transparent. And to get a government to actually work you have to hire people who believe in it and continue to fix it when things break down, not take it out back like a wounded horse to be put down.
actually I thought i deleted two of those actuallys 😦 ....
Best Post Award 🙂
I hope someone of some importance regarding this un-hinged chap's career reads what you, ever so succinctly, just typed 🙂
Like!
We atheists should take note of this. This guy is one of the most senior jurists i nthe country. If somebody as accopmlished as him can subordinate his common sense to childish, supernatural bullsh.it because it is called "religion," we have a lot of work to do with Joe Average!!
My thoughts exactly. I'm both disturbed and inspired by him outing himself. I mean, on one hand you've got the Judicial equivalent of President professing to the world he believes in fairy tales. On the other hand, we've got all this crazy out on paper for the world to see. Certainly a lot of his decisions make more sense with this in mind. He clearly has trouble distinguishing fantasy from reality.
What do you think of Obama? He believes that Jesus will come again to judge the living and the dead.
Personally, I think Obama is just a delusional for believing in fairy tales.
Thank you. At least you hold people to the same standard.
I'm less concerned he has religious beliefs then that he's using religious beliefs to justify bigotry.
Teach your kids science, they learn how to send astronauts to space. Teach your kids religion, they learn how to blow people's legs off with pressure cooker bombs.
“They say there’s no atheists in foxholes, but there’s probably no atheists in rockets,” said Col. Mike Good (astronaut!)
Religious objects—crosses, Bibles, icons, prayer cards—are among the most common personal items taken into space, according to James Hartsfield (Johnson Space Center spokesperson).
Look, I’m no scientist so when scientists say the speed of light is 299,792,458 m/sec and that the distance from the earth to the moon is on average 384,400 km I take them at their word. The scientist that taught me physics never actually verified these truths himself; someone else told him. I believe scientists when they witness to the things they know, the material world. And I believe in Jesus when He witnesses to the things He knows, the things of God.
"Look, I’m no scientist"
"I've studied science my whole life. I have a doctorate in medical science. "
o.O
Can you disprove an immaterial God using material measurements? Science is only one form of knowledge. It is simply the measurement of material objects interacting with material objects. It will forever be an incomplete form of knowledge. Heisenberg's Principle of Uncertainty proves this. Also, the scientific method itself is built on the limitations of experiments. You cannot have an infinite number of experiments, therefore scientific knowledge can never cross the threshold of absolute knowledge. I love science and think its great. But science will never be able to accurately measure that love.
Science does not lead everyone to atheism.
I've studied science my whole life. I have a doctorate in medical science. And I agree with what you say. I believe in God.
Look Traffic, working the midnight shift at Brooklyn General emptying the garbage bins full of soiled surgical dressings does not make you a doctor, ok.
Funny Colin. Maybe we'll meet someday in the ER. I will be there for you man!
Do you think Colin can recognize the positive contributions people who believe in God add to his life? Or does he simply imagine he generates all those good things?
The burden of proof is not on those who do not believe in a god.
You can't have it both ways. Your god can't both be "immaterial", and yet have the ability to cause material changes in our universe. These affects that he supposedly has on our plane of reality should be detectable, observable, and measurable.
It's convenient to say he transcends science, but the only true way that he can transcend science is by not existing.
The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: You can know either the position or the momentum of an atomic particle but never both simultaneously. It's impossible. Oh my gosh, science can’t know everything. Science is not all knowing. Heisenberg got the Nobel Prize for this.
Who claimed science is all knowing?
and your pathetic book does? LMAO
So... I guess that's no one.
Just saw the report on adult reading, knowledge, intelligence around the world – The US was particularly low scoring. So I guess Scalia is a regular US guy. 😦
Denying evolution is like insisting that the Earth is flat.
Ouch. Suppression of legitimate speech hurts. But not too much.
Again, my opinion of Scalia is that he is more interested in bringing his beliefs to the bench, including his belief in an actual Devil, than in giving the people equal recourse to the law.
Seek help.
Fucktard.
Well, one good thing anyway. They don't do background checks before allowing someone to post.
I can't believe we nominate humans that are this INSANE.
Lol oh boy, if you thought one supreme court justice being a catholic was bad, what will you do when you find out every President since Herbert Hoover (plus all leaders in American business, industry, entertainment, and politics) has attended druidic a mock human sacrifice ritual at Bohemian Grove, lol. Or that America was founded by the ultimate mystical society, the Freemasons.
I honestly can't beleive people are so surprised that American leaders are spiritual and believe in MANY different and whacky forms of spirituality from catholicism to straight up witchcraft. Don't worry though, the rest of the world leaders believe in stuff just as kooky (if not kookier.) It's a whacky world man, no one ever said the world was orderly and logical. Though I personally don't mind, it makes things interesting.
lol, you might be right.
But it's 2013 for Pete's sake!
Lol sadly I am right, part of me wishes I weren't cause besides a concept of evil, most of this stuff is jsut dumb lol. Hey though, I don't make the belief systems, I just research them. Lol it is 2013, what's that have to do with anything? Heck since the New Age spirituality movement of the 60s things have gotten even crazier in the spiritual landscape.
Heck the elites and their not so super secret magical societies aside, the common folk is into some pretty crazy stuff in 2013 lol. Now we got UFO cults, alien worshippers, yoga at all time popularity (yoga is funny enough a hindu practice meant to yoke the soul to the hindu gods), meditation (another hindu and buddhist technique meant to literally open yourself up to spirits lol), reiki, wicca,blatant occult/satanic symbols and messages literally everywhere in mainstream hollywood, scientology, so many UFO sightings that now UFOs cannot even be denied or explained off as military tests (but they still haven't told you what they are yet lol) etc. etc.
Lol, like I said, its a whacky world, especially in Western Civilization. Though like I also said, it makes things interesting, so in a way its quite a fascinating time to be alive.
so many gods, so little time
Sadly, we lost a family cat recently and had one of those "backyard burials". My 6 children all looked up at me with bleary wet eyes and asked the same question. If animals don't have a soul, how will fluffy go to kitty heaven? Why don't we eat her so the protein is not wasted, thus shrinking our footprint and helping the planet?
I assume the children were not old enough to be told about pu$sy heaven, AB.
Girls. Six goddamn girls.
And still you say it's Catholics who hate women. How sad
AB, I understand the conundrum.
BD a person that has six children is not afraid of women. Now an uptight s*xually repressed fellow like yourself is more than likely still afraid of women over that early incident. The RCC is a convenient place for the s*xually confused to hide.
Thanks question mark.
Bill, what in god's name would you have done? Do YOU have six girls??
"How is this for a solution ladies?", I asked. I then set about digging a hole, skinning and wrapping the kitty in banana leaves and cooking her for three hours with hot coals and a banana leaf canopy. She was sumptuous AND we still got to have our funeral. The girls were thrilled (and full!)
We are still having a party in your intestines. Thanks much!
You know, thinking about religion, which lays out how one should live, what one should believe, etc., it makes sense that a lot of people believe. It just makes life easier – do these things and you won't have this set of rewards, but you won't have this other set of problems. Belief really is about not wanting to have turbulence in one's life.
I used to imagine it was like that, too. Turns out I was wrong.
Yeah, you're right, and that's when the next bit of the mechanism comes into play – when things are not going well, you're being tested. Submit, but don't question.
I imagined that, too! And then learned I was wrong about that, too.
I have never understood the whole idea of the devil. Why do Christians believe he wants to lead human beings away from God and into hell? What's in it for him?
I would say vengeance, wrath, misery, perfidy, debasement, perversion.
Sounds like the god of the bible to me. Maybe god's biggest trick is convincing people that he is "good" and the other guy is the devil.
I understand your problem. You can't tell one from the other.
Book of Job
As a lesser Demon BD is an expert on these things.
Sounds more like you are describing the qualities of many of the popes.
The real question is why the Christian church invented the Satan character, and his eternal barbeque. Take a look at the money being raked in every week in those collection plates, and that will give you your first clue.
For example, Mormons, with a wink and a nudge, call tithing "fire insurance".
If you don't believe, and go to church, and share your wealth with us, you'll go to Hell. Pretty good incentive, if you don't have the sophistication to see through the ruse.
Misery loves company
Colin,
He know his time is short and he is mad. He's going to take as many as he can with him. Sound familiar?
Revelation 12
He knows his time is short? Where have I heard that one before?
Oh yeah, a million times from people who insist the world is about to end and they are in every corner instead of the insane asylum.
What is so difficult to understand that the bible is just an ancient book written by ignorant men?
I was refering to these mass killing where the nut kills as many as he can before he dies.
yep, annnnnny time now, jeebus is coming annnny time now
no one ever accused born againers of being rational
Well, the Devil may or may not exist, but I think we can all agree that Scalia is a waste of human skin.
Remind me why this is news? So Scalia believes in the tenets of his faith. So what. Obama believes that Jesus resurrected.
What the believer who says "atheists favors the devil's desires" misses is that we atheists don't believe in Satan any more than we believe in God. Big daddy baddie is every bit as silly and childish as big daddy goodie!
The two characters are both lifted straight out of ancient mythology that we reject.
amen!