The problem is that looking objectively at all the evidence is the same as being blind to it all. There's no difference between the evidence for Christianity, and the evidence we'd expect to see if Christianity is false. After all, we can agree that other religions are false religions, and all of them have testimonials and first person experiences. So if Christianity were false, we'd expect it to have exactly what you claim it has. Being blind and being in a room with absolutely no light at all are very similar experiences.
There's no serious difference between Christianity and what we can agree are false other religions. Which is to say that Christianity has no evidence in its favor and considering things like blood sacrifice, and demigod adventures, the sins of ancestors, and fairy tales which are found in Christianity but should not be found in a true religion. Because they make no sense as a matter of reality, God no more needs a dying and rising savior son to be blood sacrificed to himself for propitiation for the sins of the ancestors than God needs a spaceship made of string cheese, but these are things we should expect of a religion that was invented in a mix of cultures obsessed with primitive blood sacrifice and that was hugely in love with the wacky adventures of the sons of gods.
We have no reason to suppose Christianity is any more true than any of the agreed upon false religions, and we have many reasons to suppose that it was simply invented by people between 1800-2000 years ago or so.
Showing posts with label arguments. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arguments. Show all posts
Saturday, March 31, 2012
Friday, July 15, 2011
On eternal rewards and punishment and meaning.
The more you think about it, if there were an afterlife that is eternal there's no finite crime that could warrant any infinite punishment. Who cares if you get to have your finite life before your infinite life last 15 or 90 years, or how brutal and horrific the transition. Clubbing a person to death, no more or less warrants any party to any infinite reward or punishment, than any other action.
If you really weigh such things you realize that the very prospect offered means that this life is largely pointless and minutia compared to the infinite. Such claims are often is offered by the religious to say that it's super important what we do here because it governs our path in the next infinite life. But, really that makes no sense. It's dictating an illogical system which demands that this life is infinitely important while finitely experienced. There is no good reason to do this. The only reason to suggest a system like this is because the proposition that there is some infinite reward or punishment somewhere is false. If there actually were an infinite punishment or reward the impact of some brief 80-90 years would be 0. As such, any reasonable system would accept this and never dictate the infinite by way of the finite. Whereas if the proposition is false, and this is the only life. Then attempting to give it more value by giving it infinite weight would be a reasonable if poorly executed thing to attempt. Moreso if you tied the rewards and punishments to generally moral comeuppance within this life.
Upon the prospect of eternity, life would be meaningless and as such the sins committed within it would be equally meaningless. If we grant the prospect of heaven and/or hell we must conclude that all people go to the same place regardless of any petty finite crimes or sins. For if everybody went to heaven except for Adolph Hitler who burns in hell, then after a few thousand, million, or billion years all of those people who had a brief nothing of a pre-eternal-life shortened by his actions must agree of the unjust nature of an eternal punishment. Such a system, where Hitler was sentenced to hell, would be hugely unjust and would require the intervention of any slightly compassionate humans.
The only crime in such a universe, would be a crime that causes an infinite punishment. The failure to save a soul, the killing of an unsaved person who might have eventually be saved, or anything that would alter the fate of any soul to hell rather than heaven. But, then this too would collapse. Because this would never happen if this never happened. The Nash Equilibrium of such a system is that everybody should go to heaven, anyway. Because only such a crime as to damn a soul would perhaps warrant such a punishment, and the only way to do that is with an infinite chain of damnation that could never have begun. And in such a case, the only real criminal would be God. -- Where theologically one attempts to place an infinite finger on the scale of importance of life, they only succeed in making the entire system a farce. And the infinite the only thing worthy of measure. If there were such infinite rewards and punishments the only coherent system is a uniform system. But, if there were no such set of rewards and punishments, then making the claim that such a system exists would be logical, reasonable, and likely. For what better to attempt to keep people in line than a stick and carrot. And what better stick or carrot than an infinite stick and infinite carrot. But, if we have infinite carrots laying around, whatever we're trying to achieve is meaningless because some fraction of that infinite would outweigh any finite goals we might have. Heaven and hell make the most sense when they are false propositions. For as a real system, they render the earth largely a pointless pitstop that serves no function and engenders no rewards and punishments regardless of anybody's actions. As a fake system, they make sense to try to solidify religious power and bring people in line with whatever religious or moral behavior you want.
The problem here is that such a system is rife for abuse, it's rife for failure and for primitive notions of morality. Morality gets better all the time, secular ethics which focus on what the best way to live should be and how we can get the best results given an acceptable range of behavior has long outstripped the moral notions within various holy books. The Bible describes what kinds of slaves you should have and how they should be treated, how best to buy women from their fathers, how to sell your children, how to commit genocide, take sex slaves, and when it's acceptable to rape them. The Koran is a small nudge from justifying flying planes into buildings. The Bible easily justifies walking around with signs informing people of God's Hate for various things. The idea of heaven and hell doesn't work as truth, and as a lie to compel adherence it gives a loaded gun to pointless nonsense. While I admit that in a system where there is no form of government outside of the hollow threats of religious comeuppance, it might be preferable to a completely failed state. It's not however the best system or even a coherent system in the end. The likelihood that the system described by beliefs of heaven and hell actually exists, is low because the system places considerable emphasis on our Earthly life, while paradoxically rendering it meaningless. Whereas the likelihood that the system should be presented as true when it's really false, is exactly what we should expect from goat-herding nomads grasping at straws to try and macgyver a system that function as a government without any real government authority. When all you have is hollow threats, go big, or go home.
If heaven and hell are real, the universe is a bizarre paradoxical place that doesn't make sense and is perversely unfair.
If heaven and hell are fake, the universe is exactly what it appears to be. People try to control other people and use threats to do it. And when cooperation is generally useful, such threats can be used cohesively and effectively.
As is often the case, religion makes sense, but only if the things it says aren't true. Because generally there are not only answers to the questions posed, but there are good underlying reasons for the claims. And those claims ultimately make no sense unless those claims are also false.
If you really weigh such things you realize that the very prospect offered means that this life is largely pointless and minutia compared to the infinite. Such claims are often is offered by the religious to say that it's super important what we do here because it governs our path in the next infinite life. But, really that makes no sense. It's dictating an illogical system which demands that this life is infinitely important while finitely experienced. There is no good reason to do this. The only reason to suggest a system like this is because the proposition that there is some infinite reward or punishment somewhere is false. If there actually were an infinite punishment or reward the impact of some brief 80-90 years would be 0. As such, any reasonable system would accept this and never dictate the infinite by way of the finite. Whereas if the proposition is false, and this is the only life. Then attempting to give it more value by giving it infinite weight would be a reasonable if poorly executed thing to attempt. Moreso if you tied the rewards and punishments to generally moral comeuppance within this life.
Upon the prospect of eternity, life would be meaningless and as such the sins committed within it would be equally meaningless. If we grant the prospect of heaven and/or hell we must conclude that all people go to the same place regardless of any petty finite crimes or sins. For if everybody went to heaven except for Adolph Hitler who burns in hell, then after a few thousand, million, or billion years all of those people who had a brief nothing of a pre-eternal-life shortened by his actions must agree of the unjust nature of an eternal punishment. Such a system, where Hitler was sentenced to hell, would be hugely unjust and would require the intervention of any slightly compassionate humans.
The only crime in such a universe, would be a crime that causes an infinite punishment. The failure to save a soul, the killing of an unsaved person who might have eventually be saved, or anything that would alter the fate of any soul to hell rather than heaven. But, then this too would collapse. Because this would never happen if this never happened. The Nash Equilibrium of such a system is that everybody should go to heaven, anyway. Because only such a crime as to damn a soul would perhaps warrant such a punishment, and the only way to do that is with an infinite chain of damnation that could never have begun. And in such a case, the only real criminal would be God. -- Where theologically one attempts to place an infinite finger on the scale of importance of life, they only succeed in making the entire system a farce. And the infinite the only thing worthy of measure. If there were such infinite rewards and punishments the only coherent system is a uniform system. But, if there were no such set of rewards and punishments, then making the claim that such a system exists would be logical, reasonable, and likely. For what better to attempt to keep people in line than a stick and carrot. And what better stick or carrot than an infinite stick and infinite carrot. But, if we have infinite carrots laying around, whatever we're trying to achieve is meaningless because some fraction of that infinite would outweigh any finite goals we might have. Heaven and hell make the most sense when they are false propositions. For as a real system, they render the earth largely a pointless pitstop that serves no function and engenders no rewards and punishments regardless of anybody's actions. As a fake system, they make sense to try to solidify religious power and bring people in line with whatever religious or moral behavior you want.
The problem here is that such a system is rife for abuse, it's rife for failure and for primitive notions of morality. Morality gets better all the time, secular ethics which focus on what the best way to live should be and how we can get the best results given an acceptable range of behavior has long outstripped the moral notions within various holy books. The Bible describes what kinds of slaves you should have and how they should be treated, how best to buy women from their fathers, how to sell your children, how to commit genocide, take sex slaves, and when it's acceptable to rape them. The Koran is a small nudge from justifying flying planes into buildings. The Bible easily justifies walking around with signs informing people of God's Hate for various things. The idea of heaven and hell doesn't work as truth, and as a lie to compel adherence it gives a loaded gun to pointless nonsense. While I admit that in a system where there is no form of government outside of the hollow threats of religious comeuppance, it might be preferable to a completely failed state. It's not however the best system or even a coherent system in the end. The likelihood that the system described by beliefs of heaven and hell actually exists, is low because the system places considerable emphasis on our Earthly life, while paradoxically rendering it meaningless. Whereas the likelihood that the system should be presented as true when it's really false, is exactly what we should expect from goat-herding nomads grasping at straws to try and macgyver a system that function as a government without any real government authority. When all you have is hollow threats, go big, or go home.
If heaven and hell are real, the universe is a bizarre paradoxical place that doesn't make sense and is perversely unfair.
If heaven and hell are fake, the universe is exactly what it appears to be. People try to control other people and use threats to do it. And when cooperation is generally useful, such threats can be used cohesively and effectively.
As is often the case, religion makes sense, but only if the things it says aren't true. Because generally there are not only answers to the questions posed, but there are good underlying reasons for the claims. And those claims ultimately make no sense unless those claims are also false.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
David Hume, I pencil, Markets, and Intelligence.
All these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. The curious adapting of means to ends, throughout all nature, resembles exactly, though it much exceeds, the productions of human contrivance; of human designs, thought, wisdom, and intelligence. Since, therefore, the effects resemble each other, we are led to infer, by all the rules of analogy, that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man...One should logically draw this conclusion. The author of nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man. Somehow about the time Darwin looked behind the curtain and determined that the author of nature is nothing more than compounded dumb luck, blind chance distilled into the miraculous, where life cheats at thermodynamics and only collects on the winning bets and forgets it even made the losing ones. That design is the product evolution by natural selection sufficed to give cause for forgetting these previous conclusions. Why should we accept a logical conclusion of the sort that "the author of nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man"? When we know full well how the author of nature writes? Sure we don't have a flipping clue how the mind of man works, but certainly we can be justified to ignore the logical arguments above out of hand, without explaining it. After all when one considers the amazing nature of human minds, it ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them. And equivalences somehow only go one way, to say that the author of nature is similar to the mind of man, certainly it true but to be disregarded because we now have Darwin to explain the authorship of nature. And why should anybody bother taking that one tiny extra step of saying that perhaps the mind of man is somewhat similar to Darwinian evolution? -- I would argue that they should because it explains the vast majority deep mysteries about intelligence. But that's just me.
There was a somewhat influential essay within Economics, which some are coming to understand is Darwinian in nature, called I Pencil. Which argues, that the markets are such that nobody really knows how to make a pencil. That we cannot fathom how trees are made and so we conclude that it must be God. Only God can make a tree. But, nobody really knows how to make pencils. We know they are wood, graphite and brass (now aluminum for the ferrule) but who knows how to mine graphite, who knows how to make the mining equipment, who knows how to drill for oil to power the equipment, who knows how to make the lighthouse for the shipments of tin, or to power the saws. The division of labor by the markets is so profound that nobody really knows all the steps. You could set no person on a massive island filled with resources for the taking and have them make a pencil, because nobody knows how to do it.
There is a fact still more astounding: the absence of a master mind, of anyone dictating or forcibly directing these countless actions which bring me into being. No trace of such a person can be found. Instead, we find the Invisible Hand at work.
Since only God can make a tree, I insist that only God could make me. Man can no more direct these millions of know-hows to bring me into being than he can put molecules together to create a tree.That evolution plays a distinctive role is nothing new, to economics. It's gaining some steam but isn't a rather widely understood point. Evolution is decentralized and doesn't require that particular part know the whole. It's just not needed. And though, Read here seems to suggest that God is behind the invisible hand rather than the same blind watchmaker behind the tree. And also concludes his essay with a presumption of laissez faire faith.
The lesson I have to teach is this: Leave all creative energies uninhibited. Merely organize society to act in harmony with this lesson. Let society's legal apparatus remove all obstacles the best it can. Permit these creative know-hows freely to flow. Have faith that free men and women will respond to the Invisible Hand. This faith will be confirmed.
Neglecting that the blind watchmaker does better for humans when humans gum up the works. Everything in nature is on a knife's edge. Nature's red in tooth and claw. And filled from the foot fungus to head lice with parasites. We shouldn't have faith in the markets, we should recognize that they are the single most powerful economic tool we have but are far better off domesticated than dominating.
In any event, the invisible hand of the markets, the blind watchmaker, the homunculi that live in the pituitary gland are really just different sides of the same process. A decentralized process that doesn't require knowing anything to know everything, to design without understanding, to arrange without forethought, to create without a creator. Is it any wonder that religious people the world over have been saying intelligence is behind the designs of nature? Darwinian evolution looks exactly like intelligence, because intelligence is likely the same process at its core. Intelligent design is trying to replace the cranes (in the Dennett sense) of evolution with the skyhooks behind intelligence often wrongly attributed to God, but really if one takes the arguments seriously, the universal acid of evolution flows the other way. It doesn't save God from the clutches of evolution, it allows the universal acid of the explanatory power of evolution to explain away that meek idol of that He who made the lamb made thee. It ends up splashing acid in the face of God. Because yes, you can argue for intelligent design in nature, but the intelligence, like all intelligence, is just another face of Darwin. The illusion of design, and the thoughts of intelligence behind nature, which even Darwin noted tend to come and go, are the other side of the same coin.
Within research into intelligence, we haven't produced anything even remotely intelligent and fail to produce anything, there is an utter lack of something we could confuse for intelligence. Within biology we have gobs of intelligence, it's all over the place infecting ever facet of what biologists do, and a seeming effort to call it an illusion of design, a mirage of intelligence. On one side of intelligence, we have no intelligence and deeply want something we could confuse for intelligence and no understandable processes and on the evolution side, we have lots of intelligence and a process we understand and all the while deep in the vaults of human intellectual history we have valid arguments which say these are the same thing. It was a mistake to disregard the equivalence of the Author of Nature with the contrivances of human minds, just because Darwin fully explained nature. We should have, at the time, and in the years since, realized that Darwin also explained human minds. It isn't that intelligence in nature is an illusion or that the design is a mirage, it really is there. It's actually completely really deeply and truly a part of nature. God is the illusion. We see the intelligence in the essence of nature and claim that it must belong to somebody, but that's just not the way it works. You can worship the Author of Nature as God, the Intelligent Designer as a divine being, but really if you look behind the curtain you'll find that you're just worshiping what Darwin so aptly described. But "It's intelligent!" one might insist, rightfully I concede, but that's not a contradiction. Darwin's process is behind that curtain as well. Intelligent Design doesn't save God from evolution, it meekly attempts to call evolution God. Somehow I don't think that even theists who find Paul Tillich's God (a theism as close to atheism as twilight is to night) palatable could manage to swallow that bitter idolatry when properly unmasked.
Properly, the argument for design has been touted as the greatest argument for God ever devised, but really, when you get down to the core, and a dollop of universal acid is splashed on it. We find that much of theological effort, has been, over the years, engaged in worshiping Darwinian Evolution. Insisting on the false distinction that because it's intelligent, it can't be evolution.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Strategy, Epistemology, Argumentation, Dhorpatan and Ignorance.
Behold a terrible argument for the non-existence of God.
The argument is unsupported, circular, fraudulent, false, incorrect, fallacious, and utterly idiotic. On top of this it's part of a terrible strategy apparently in favor of atheism. To be fair, Dhorpatan is a dumbass. He can't even reason himself out of the paperbag called objectivism. And his purpose seems to be to use a bunch of big words and try to confuse the Jesus out of people.
Let's look at the argument in question:
The first point that should be stressed is most of those buzzwords are just made up bullshit. Your first sign should be his inability to use grammar. He randomly capitalizes words like "omnipotent", leaves out other words and possessives etc. But, from a scientific sense, most of this is just gobbledygook. It's akin to post-modernism where the hope is that nobody really understands what was said so people just sit there nodding and not pointing out that the emperor isn't wearing any clothing. Lets confuse the Jesus out of them! To really understand how true this is, we must understand the underlying serious flaws in the argument.
Let's simplify and analyze:
* God is an all powerful, all knowing, incorporeal mind.
* God can't do "X" because God is immaterial.
* No mind can do "Y" BECAUSE immaterial minds lack property "A" BECAUSE "A" is associated with material.
* Therefore God isn't all-powerful.
* Therefore God isn't all-knowing.
* Therefore God doesn't exist.
Ultimately, then the real argument is entirely predicated on premise 2 and premise 3. Why can't immaterial minds do X? Why can't immaterial minds do Y? This are simply asserted without any good reason to accept them and since they pretty much guarantee the conclusion, we are left to ask how these are supported? And moreover how one rules out the other possibilities?
Dhorpatan was kind enough to clue me in:
This argument suggests the inability of immaterial minds to do things by arguing that they don't exist. So the support for the premise on which everything hinges is inability via non-existence. Immaterial minds are contradictory and thus don't exist and thus can't do X and thus aren't all powerful and thus don't exist.
The given support renders everything else moot. All that out of context QM crap is a moot point and irrelevant to the argument. One might as well suggest that because non-existent things can't play baseball they aren't all-powerful and thus do not exist and call it an argument from baseball.
When pressed on the lack of support for the argument further, I was given the delightful insight that:
That's right, any premise used for support do not themselves require support.
So even a causal scratch at the surface of the argument results in pretty serious flaws being uncovered, worse logic, and terrible reasoning.
Apparently being pressed for reasoning rather than being blindly accepted annoyed Dhorpatan some, "I'm growing fairly tired of your stick" he managed to offer between claiming I don't understand logic or was committing fallacies by asking questions. Rather than beat a deadhorse with a shtick, let's sum it up to say he's a terrible anti-apologist and not a logical person. Now, why should we care?
Because his entire strategy is flawed.
Don't get me wrong, I've read a lot of deconversion stories on Ex-Christian.net they are often heartwarming and give you an understanding of the freedom deconverts often feel. However, not once have I seen one where the one key element was having some postmodernist-wanna-be objectivist confuse the Jesus out of them, I've seen people lose their faith after being asked 'why their reasons for believing should suffice for any other purpose.' I've seen people lose their faith when explained what platypuses mean for mammalian evolution (Oh, it's not a refutation for evolution but actually really good evidence).
But, Dhorpatan's strategy? It's probably never going to work. So for the most part because confusing people with fallacious arguments is probably not effective (though it seems delightfully reinforcing amongst theists), we can venture that this strategy probably has no up side (as far as pragmatism is concerned).
I've seen more than a few good Christian responses to Dhorpatan's videos that often portray such arguments as somehow indicative of most atheistic arguments. They usually raise a good point or two and certainly do a lot to let Christians pat themselves on their back and reassure themselves that they are right. And I think even small examples of terrible arguments on the counter-apologetic side is an extremely bad thing.
Bad arguments muddy the water and make it a little hard to judge how overwhelmingly one-sided the actual argument. The arguments for God are always, without exception, tissue-paper thin and riddled with the most obvious and trivial errors. Any debates with regard to logical arguments for God are heavily weighted towards atheists.
Likewise arguments dealing with science are often heavily slanted towards atheism. It has been the case since Darwin that a functional epistemology terminates in atheism. It use to be that rational individuals in the time of Hume would be deists, or in the time of Galen theists. But, since Darwin atheism has been the logical endpoint of a functional epistemology. If you care whether your beliefs are true and you want the most true beliefs and the fewest false beliefs then you're probably going to review the facts and end up being an atheist.
So the logic, reason, and science is all in favor of atheism. However, on the flip side, it is for these reasons that I think a number of atheists are terrible debaters. They have never had to vigorously defend a losing proposition, or fight tooth and nail in favor of a falsehood. Most of the debates one witnesses online and in various forums are such that one poorly educated teenage atheist can seem ninja-like in dismantling the most time honored claims of large groups of religionists. It's not really a challenge and thus many of the arguments are completely terrible. I once witnessed an atheistic argument with ten premises, of which nine were factually false, with three obvious fallacies have a theist respond with a flawed understanding of the second law of thermodynamics (a criticism that wasn't even applicable to the argument). Such things are pathetic, but amazingly common. However, I think the staggering lopsidedness is a great argument in itself, and one of the more compelling ones for atheism. Though, it's screwed when one considers a few bad apples.
What about self policing?
With Dhorpatan's complete failure with regard to logic and rationality, shouldn't this expose some tender tissue to the evisceration of fellow logical atheists who don't want bad arguments in support of good positions. Let's see:
First off Albert Einstein is one of the fathers of Quantum mechanics. Secondly we've scratched the surface. We've looked under the hood. We've thought about the implications, we've built hard drives and innumerable devices based on our understanding of quantum mechanics. It's simply rather alien. A lot of our natural intuitions about how the universe work, break down at the quantum level. We understand exactly what the answers will be, we just aren't exactly sure there's a reason why that's the answer. It's great if you want to build an insanely fast computer. It's not so great if you want to portray the entire universe as Newtonian or relativistic.
This commenter seems amazed for as little as we know about the theory it's already disproving God and Christians might want to give up now. This might be interesting if not for the fact that the entire argument is a complete crock of shit, and QM doesn't matter a jot to the argument.
On this point, I argued with a pretty reasonable Dhorpatan fan for a while concerning this argument and he finally arrived at the conclusion:
Just because something is full of crap, doesn't mean it's pointless? If one accepts that then why not be religious?
---
I think that terrible arguments hurt the cause because terrible arguments on both sides allows for one to offer a tu quoque to suggest that there are bad arguments on both sides of the debate (Dhorpatan is also find taking on the burden of proof for no reason whatsoever). However, on top of that, muddying up the waters ruins the best argument for atheism which is largely a meta-argument: "all the arguments for theism are utter shit and atheists bring up a number of good points." There's something delightfully powerful about having theists always be wrong. Throwing them a bone with terrible arguments is just going to encourage them.
The argument is unsupported, circular, fraudulent, false, incorrect, fallacious, and utterly idiotic. On top of this it's part of a terrible strategy apparently in favor of atheism. To be fair, Dhorpatan is a dumbass. He can't even reason himself out of the paperbag called objectivism. And his purpose seems to be to use a bunch of big words and try to confuse the Jesus out of people.
Let's look at the argument in question:
P1) The Christian God is said [to] exist by definition, as an Omnipotent, Omniscient, Incorporeal mind.
P2) The Christian God cannot prevent Quantum Tunneling, as an immaterial mind lacks the means to instantiate violations of Schrodinger['s] equation and evanescent wave coupling.
P3) No mind can know the exact amount of information loss from a system into the environment through Quantum decoherence, nor instantiate as well as exemplify, the mediated attachment between state crossing relations of the microscopic, and macroscopic "worlds", to prevent thermodynamically irreversible actualization, from Quantum decoherence.
-- Supporting P3) An Incorporeal/Immaterial mind lacks kinetic actuality, as energy is of the material realm.
P4) Thus, the Christian God cannot exist as an Omnipotent entity. (From P2 and P3)
P5) Thus, the Christian God cannot exist as an Omniscient entity. (From P3)
Conclusion) Therefore, the Christian God does not exist. (From P1)
The first point that should be stressed is most of those buzzwords are just made up bullshit. Your first sign should be his inability to use grammar. He randomly capitalizes words like "omnipotent", leaves out other words and possessives etc. But, from a scientific sense, most of this is just gobbledygook. It's akin to post-modernism where the hope is that nobody really understands what was said so people just sit there nodding and not pointing out that the emperor isn't wearing any clothing. Lets confuse the Jesus out of them! To really understand how true this is, we must understand the underlying serious flaws in the argument.
Let's simplify and analyze:
* God is an all powerful, all knowing, incorporeal mind.
* God can't do "X" because God is immaterial.
* No mind can do "Y" BECAUSE immaterial minds lack property "A" BECAUSE "A" is associated with material.
* Therefore God isn't all-powerful.
* Therefore God isn't all-knowing.
* Therefore God doesn't exist.
Ultimately, then the real argument is entirely predicated on premise 2 and premise 3. Why can't immaterial minds do X? Why can't immaterial minds do Y? This are simply asserted without any good reason to accept them and since they pretty much guarantee the conclusion, we are left to ask how these are supported? And moreover how one rules out the other possibilities?
And how are you establishing that there isn't a non-energy of the non-material that doesn't do the same fundamental thing. How are you excluding all the other possibilities in order to make substantive claims about the non-material?
Dhorpatan was kind enough to clue me in:
Hahahaha! An immaterial mind itself is by inherent definition, contradictory, since nothing can exist, by what it's not. Nothing can exist, and not have a compositional identity, as that violates the Law of Identity.
This argument suggests the inability of immaterial minds to do things by arguing that they don't exist. So the support for the premise on which everything hinges is inability via non-existence. Immaterial minds are contradictory and thus don't exist and thus can't do X and thus aren't all powerful and thus don't exist.
The given support renders everything else moot. All that out of context QM crap is a moot point and irrelevant to the argument. One might as well suggest that because non-existent things can't play baseball they aren't all-powerful and thus do not exist and call it an argument from baseball.
When pressed on the lack of support for the argument further, I was given the delightful insight that:
The second and third premises don't require support.
They ARE the support for premises FOUR and
FIVE. Haahahahaha. This is what I've been saying.
That's right, any premise used for support do not themselves require support.
So even a causal scratch at the surface of the argument results in pretty serious flaws being uncovered, worse logic, and terrible reasoning.
Apparently being pressed for reasoning rather than being blindly accepted annoyed Dhorpatan some, "I'm growing fairly tired of your stick" he managed to offer between claiming I don't understand logic or was committing fallacies by asking questions. Rather than beat a deadhorse with a shtick, let's sum it up to say he's a terrible anti-apologist and not a logical person. Now, why should we care?
Because his entire strategy is flawed.
Don't get me wrong, I've read a lot of deconversion stories on Ex-Christian.net they are often heartwarming and give you an understanding of the freedom deconverts often feel. However, not once have I seen one where the one key element was having some postmodernist-wanna-be objectivist confuse the Jesus out of them, I've seen people lose their faith after being asked 'why their reasons for believing should suffice for any other purpose.' I've seen people lose their faith when explained what platypuses mean for mammalian evolution (Oh, it's not a refutation for evolution but actually really good evidence).
But, Dhorpatan's strategy? It's probably never going to work. So for the most part because confusing people with fallacious arguments is probably not effective (though it seems delightfully reinforcing amongst theists), we can venture that this strategy probably has no up side (as far as pragmatism is concerned).
I've seen more than a few good Christian responses to Dhorpatan's videos that often portray such arguments as somehow indicative of most atheistic arguments. They usually raise a good point or two and certainly do a lot to let Christians pat themselves on their back and reassure themselves that they are right. And I think even small examples of terrible arguments on the counter-apologetic side is an extremely bad thing.
Bad arguments muddy the water and make it a little hard to judge how overwhelmingly one-sided the actual argument. The arguments for God are always, without exception, tissue-paper thin and riddled with the most obvious and trivial errors. Any debates with regard to logical arguments for God are heavily weighted towards atheists.
Likewise arguments dealing with science are often heavily slanted towards atheism. It has been the case since Darwin that a functional epistemology terminates in atheism. It use to be that rational individuals in the time of Hume would be deists, or in the time of Galen theists. But, since Darwin atheism has been the logical endpoint of a functional epistemology. If you care whether your beliefs are true and you want the most true beliefs and the fewest false beliefs then you're probably going to review the facts and end up being an atheist.
So the logic, reason, and science is all in favor of atheism. However, on the flip side, it is for these reasons that I think a number of atheists are terrible debaters. They have never had to vigorously defend a losing proposition, or fight tooth and nail in favor of a falsehood. Most of the debates one witnesses online and in various forums are such that one poorly educated teenage atheist can seem ninja-like in dismantling the most time honored claims of large groups of religionists. It's not really a challenge and thus many of the arguments are completely terrible. I once witnessed an atheistic argument with ten premises, of which nine were factually false, with three obvious fallacies have a theist respond with a flawed understanding of the second law of thermodynamics (a criticism that wasn't even applicable to the argument). Such things are pathetic, but amazingly common. However, I think the staggering lopsidedness is a great argument in itself, and one of the more compelling ones for atheism. Though, it's screwed when one considers a few bad apples.
What about self policing?
With Dhorpatan's complete failure with regard to logic and rationality, shouldn't this expose some tender tissue to the evisceration of fellow logical atheists who don't want bad arguments in support of good positions. Let's see:
-.- Do you accually think you understand quantum machanics? I bet if einstein was alive, he would have no clue how to solve or explain quantum machanics properly if he studied it for years...
The point is, we haven't even scratched the surface of this science, which is scary becuase it's already disproving god... This is all theory...
God might not be real after all, you might have to throw in the towel christans. Don't try to explain stuff that not even the best phisicst in the world can't.
First off Albert Einstein is one of the fathers of Quantum mechanics. Secondly we've scratched the surface. We've looked under the hood. We've thought about the implications, we've built hard drives and innumerable devices based on our understanding of quantum mechanics. It's simply rather alien. A lot of our natural intuitions about how the universe work, break down at the quantum level. We understand exactly what the answers will be, we just aren't exactly sure there's a reason why that's the answer. It's great if you want to build an insanely fast computer. It's not so great if you want to portray the entire universe as Newtonian or relativistic.
This commenter seems amazed for as little as we know about the theory it's already disproving God and Christians might want to give up now. This might be interesting if not for the fact that the entire argument is a complete crock of shit, and QM doesn't matter a jot to the argument.
On this point, I argued with a pretty reasonable Dhorpatan fan for a while concerning this argument and he finally arrived at the conclusion:
I think there must be some kind of point in it, but its structure is invalid.
Just because something is full of crap, doesn't mean it's pointless? If one accepts that then why not be religious?
---
I think that terrible arguments hurt the cause because terrible arguments on both sides allows for one to offer a tu quoque to suggest that there are bad arguments on both sides of the debate (Dhorpatan is also find taking on the burden of proof for no reason whatsoever). However, on top of that, muddying up the waters ruins the best argument for atheism which is largely a meta-argument: "all the arguments for theism are utter shit and atheists bring up a number of good points." There's something delightfully powerful about having theists always be wrong. Throwing them a bone with terrible arguments is just going to encourage them.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
Rev. Ebenezer Warren, The Bible and Slavery
http://docsouth.unc.edu/imls/warren/warren.html
"Nellie's mind was not at rest. The Bible certainly did teach that slavery was a perpetual institution. Its chains were forged in heaven, by God himself, and so fastened, that no power could sunder them but His."
It is an often uncomfortable argument that the Bible condones slavery. Many apologetics are offered to this idea, and many of them were addressed at the time. Rev. E.B. Warren here is a prime example, he argues with perfect clarity and good proof text and solid arguments that slavery is approved by the Bible. Indeed, the North was in a theological bind with sub par and bad arguments to mount a Biblical defense of abolitionism.
This has since been flipped such that nobody finds any moral rationalization for slavery. Such has become of many such arguments: they aren't what they intend to be. This was written to convey the idea that the Slavery is moral because it is approved of by the Bible. Today, however, it succeeds in showing that the Bible is immoral.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Argument from Oranges
Oranges are not first cousins to anything but other oranges (as much as the term applies) but they are certainly cousins to our pets as well as ourselves. Almost as good as the argument from bananas.
Sunday, May 4, 2008
Evolution is secular religion, Teach Creationism!
There is a fairly common argument that is consistently launched against the teaching of evolution. Basically the claim is that evolution is either the atheist or Secular Humanist creation story being taught in schools in violation of the first amendment. This is unfair and is nothing more than religious indoctrination and therefore we need to allow equal time for creationism.
There are a number of obvious problems with this,
The legal remedy would not to be to teach creationism, the legal remedy would be to stop teaching evolution. Nobody should reasonably assume that to fight an injustice one needs to allow multiple injustices. This is biased against blacks! Make it biased against Mexicans too! Further, the same argument could be launched against many things in science and education which contradict certain religions or non-religion... that Big Bang Theory seemed pretty silly to Hoyle on the grounds that it was 'religion'. -- We'd need to stop teaching altogether.
There is no violation of the first amendment. Simply because certain groups of atheists and secular humanists believe the scientific truth and belief in the findings of science meshes well with what many atheists believe does not imply violate the Lemon Test as the primary goal of the activity is not to indoctrinate against religion, rather the fact that the universe is 13.73 billion years old and life on this planet arose out of purely naturalistic forces happens to contradict a ludicrous religious belief is a pity for people who want people to believe falsehoods but doesn't have the primary effect of inhibiting religion. The primary effect is teaching truth, the secondary effect is contradicting lies.
Teaching evolution does not violate any prong of the lemon test.
Similarly the sword cuts both ways as the supreme court found in McGowan v. Maryland that blue laws which prohibit stupid things like selling liquor on Sunday are acceptable (sometimes). The law may have been initially religious, but so long as it primarily serves secular purposes and the original religious nature of the law does not make it unconstitutional.
There are a number of obvious problems with this,
The legal remedy would not to be to teach creationism, the legal remedy would be to stop teaching evolution. Nobody should reasonably assume that to fight an injustice one needs to allow multiple injustices. This is biased against blacks! Make it biased against Mexicans too! Further, the same argument could be launched against many things in science and education which contradict certain religions or non-religion... that Big Bang Theory seemed pretty silly to Hoyle on the grounds that it was 'religion'. -- We'd need to stop teaching altogether.
There is no violation of the first amendment. Simply because certain groups of atheists and secular humanists believe the scientific truth and belief in the findings of science meshes well with what many atheists believe does not imply violate the Lemon Test as the primary goal of the activity is not to indoctrinate against religion, rather the fact that the universe is 13.73 billion years old and life on this planet arose out of purely naturalistic forces happens to contradict a ludicrous religious belief is a pity for people who want people to believe falsehoods but doesn't have the primary effect of inhibiting religion. The primary effect is teaching truth, the secondary effect is contradicting lies.
The Court's decision in this case established the "Lemon test", which details the requirements for legislation concerning religion. It consists of three prongs:
1. The government's action must have a secular legislative purpose;
2. The government's action must not have the primary effect of either advancing or inhibiting religion;
3. The government's action must not result in an "excessive government entanglement" with religion.
Teaching evolution does not violate any prong of the lemon test.
Similarly the sword cuts both ways as the supreme court found in McGowan v. Maryland that blue laws which prohibit stupid things like selling liquor on Sunday are acceptable (sometimes). The law may have been initially religious, but so long as it primarily serves secular purposes and the original religious nature of the law does not make it unconstitutional.
Thursday, January 24, 2008
The Monty Hall Riddle and Atheism
The Monty Hall Riddle riddle is presented by Wikipedia thusly,
The solution is counterintuitive but clearly correct.
What does this oddly quirky and counterintuitive problem have to do with atheism?
Picture a thousand doors, one door for each religion as well as atheism (not strictly a religion or strictly excluding religions).
Let's suggest you choose one of these doors on some criteria, for example, your parents chose this same door. Having chosen this door, you can clearly see that the majority of remaining doors contain no prize. You can see the logical and obvious wrongness of many of these remaining doors. You are able to view them with a skeptical eye and reject them for being as absurd (as they clearly are).
Now, if the odds of each door having the prize is taken to be absolutely random. What are the odds that the initial door was the correct door?
-- 1/1000.
Now, you realize that these other doors can't have the prize. Your choices of doors has been reduced to your initial door and atheism. Either your choice has the prize or it doesn't. So what are the odds now? Two doors remain: your religion and atheism. What are the odds that your religion is the correct religion?
-- *STILL* 1/1000.
---- and the odds of atheism is now 999/1000.
The odds seem equal because you are left with two choices and all door were initially equal chances. The odds that you were right initially is 1/1000 and the odds that you were wrong were 999/1000. A critical eye, able to see the wrongness of the other religious doors, doesn't change the 999/1000 odds that you were wrong. Rather those odds are divided up between the remaining one door of atheism.
Had you chosen any other door, you would have quickly been able to dismiss the other religions, just as you are dismissing most of them now. However, the possibility that you should dismiss them all is still available.
Your newly found critical eye for other people's religion does not increase the chance that you are right. The fact that Islam is wrong because you're Christian or Baptists are wrong because you're Methodist does not increase the chances that you are right. Your chance of guessing right is the same before you dismissed other religions as it is after you dismiss them. The possibility that you were wrong is the same before you dismissed the other religions as before you dismiss them. However, that possibility is now divided by the only possibility left: they are all wrong (atheism).
If you take a look at a religionist similarly born into another door-choice using his critical eye on your religion while you are use your critical eye on his religion. You know that his door contains no prize and he is simply wasting his life. Why doesn't he switch over to your door?
-- He doesn't switch because your door is just as absurd as his door.
Now, given the choice do you switch doors?
There is certainly a Pascal's Wager objection here. Even with only a 1/1000 chance, you could make up skewed prizes. If the prize is behind atheism is only that getting to live your own life, happy and content with love, satisfaction, and joy until you die. You could say that your door has the prize: eternal bliss and infinite life.
Further, your door is quite certain that anybody who picks that any other door is going to get tortured forever. Now that poor co-religionist standing next to a clearly bogus door is really making a critical mistake! Honestly, he's going to get tortured forever and his religion is bogus. He really should switch to your door! Why doesn't he?
-- He's thinking the same thing.
Why don't atheists come over to your door?
-- Because, your door has no prize! The only thing that's even possible is living your own life, happy and content with love, satisfaction, and joy until you die.
Why don't people change to your religion? For the same reason you don't change to their religion... there's no prize there!
Sure, your door has some pretty awful threats for the unfaithful, who lack fidelity, the infidels: but that doesn't mean that your door is the correct door.
The fact that there are so many mutually exclusive religions actually increases the chance that atheism is correct. The fact that all those other religious people adhere to wrong religions doesn't increase the chances that your religion is correct.
It isn't an equal choice between your religion and no religion. The choice is slim to none that your religion is the correct religion and you would be well advised to use that critical eye on your own religion.
If you realize the real reason why you reject other people's religions, you will realize the reason I reject yours. As the saying goes, "they can't all be true, but they can all be false."
A thoroughly honest game-show host has placed a car behind one of three doors. There is a goat behind each of the other doors. You have no prior knowledge that allows you to distinguish among the doors. "First you point toward a door," he says. "Then I'll open one of the other doors to reveal a goat. After I've shown you the goat, you make your final choice whether to stick with your initial choice of doors, or to switch to the remaining door. You win whatever is behind the door." You begin by pointing to door number 1. The host shows you that door number 3 has a goat.
Do the player's chances of getting the car increase by switching to Door 2?
The problem as generally intended also assumes that the particular door the host opens conveys no special information about whether the player's initial choice is correct. The simplest way to make this explicit is to add a constraint that the host will open one of the remaining two doors randomly if the player initially picked the car.
The solution is counterintuitive but clearly correct.
Once the host has opened a door, the car must be behind one of the two remaining doors. The player has no way to know which of these doors is the winning door, leading many people to assume that each door has an equal probability and to conclude that switching does not matter (Mueser and Granberg, 1999). This "equal probability" assumption, while being intuitively seductive, is incorrect. The player's chances of winning the car actually double by switching to the door the host offers.
The chance of initially choosing the car is one in three, which is the chance of winning the car by sticking with this choice. By contrast, the chance of initially choosing a door with a goat is two in three, and a player originally choosing a door with a goat wins by switching. In both cases the host must reveal a goat. In the 2/3 case where the player initially chooses a goat, the host must reveal the other goat making the only remaining door the one with the car.
What does this oddly quirky and counterintuitive problem have to do with atheism?
Picture a thousand doors, one door for each religion as well as atheism (not strictly a religion or strictly excluding religions).
Let's suggest you choose one of these doors on some criteria, for example, your parents chose this same door. Having chosen this door, you can clearly see that the majority of remaining doors contain no prize. You can see the logical and obvious wrongness of many of these remaining doors. You are able to view them with a skeptical eye and reject them for being as absurd (as they clearly are).
Now, if the odds of each door having the prize is taken to be absolutely random. What are the odds that the initial door was the correct door?
-- 1/1000.
Now, you realize that these other doors can't have the prize. Your choices of doors has been reduced to your initial door and atheism. Either your choice has the prize or it doesn't. So what are the odds now? Two doors remain: your religion and atheism. What are the odds that your religion is the correct religion?
-- *STILL* 1/1000.
---- and the odds of atheism is now 999/1000.
The odds seem equal because you are left with two choices and all door were initially equal chances. The odds that you were right initially is 1/1000 and the odds that you were wrong were 999/1000. A critical eye, able to see the wrongness of the other religious doors, doesn't change the 999/1000 odds that you were wrong. Rather those odds are divided up between the remaining one door of atheism.
Had you chosen any other door, you would have quickly been able to dismiss the other religions, just as you are dismissing most of them now. However, the possibility that you should dismiss them all is still available.
Your newly found critical eye for other people's religion does not increase the chance that you are right. The fact that Islam is wrong because you're Christian or Baptists are wrong because you're Methodist does not increase the chances that you are right. Your chance of guessing right is the same before you dismissed other religions as it is after you dismiss them. The possibility that you were wrong is the same before you dismissed the other religions as before you dismiss them. However, that possibility is now divided by the only possibility left: they are all wrong (atheism).
If you take a look at a religionist similarly born into another door-choice using his critical eye on your religion while you are use your critical eye on his religion. You know that his door contains no prize and he is simply wasting his life. Why doesn't he switch over to your door?
-- He doesn't switch because your door is just as absurd as his door.
Now, given the choice do you switch doors?
There is certainly a Pascal's Wager objection here. Even with only a 1/1000 chance, you could make up skewed prizes. If the prize is behind atheism is only that getting to live your own life, happy and content with love, satisfaction, and joy until you die. You could say that your door has the prize: eternal bliss and infinite life.
Further, your door is quite certain that anybody who picks that any other door is going to get tortured forever. Now that poor co-religionist standing next to a clearly bogus door is really making a critical mistake! Honestly, he's going to get tortured forever and his religion is bogus. He really should switch to your door! Why doesn't he?
-- He's thinking the same thing.
Why don't atheists come over to your door?
-- Because, your door has no prize! The only thing that's even possible is living your own life, happy and content with love, satisfaction, and joy until you die.
Why don't people change to your religion? For the same reason you don't change to their religion... there's no prize there!
Sure, your door has some pretty awful threats for the unfaithful, who lack fidelity, the infidels: but that doesn't mean that your door is the correct door.
The fact that there are so many mutually exclusive religions actually increases the chance that atheism is correct. The fact that all those other religious people adhere to wrong religions doesn't increase the chances that your religion is correct.
It isn't an equal choice between your religion and no religion. The choice is slim to none that your religion is the correct religion and you would be well advised to use that critical eye on your own religion.
If you realize the real reason why you reject other people's religions, you will realize the reason I reject yours. As the saying goes, "they can't all be true, but they can all be false."
Friday, December 14, 2007
Still more fun with debate.
I can't argue with entertaining. So the votes on my Queen debate oddly have me doing pretty good. Whereas the the argument on Once Saved Always Saved is that much worse. I'm actually close to lose. It's pathetic, he didn't even have an argument. *sigh*
Still. It's a bit like that.
My latest is on Iraq. Apparently I'm a flaming liberal!
To which I responded:
Which I daresay is pretty good... which could mean anything.
Still. It's a bit like that.
My latest is on Iraq. Apparently I'm a flaming liberal!
Considering the interests of the Iraqi people, the U.S. and Allied troops, and the honor and integrity of this great nation, we must stay in Iraq until the job is done.
We may never know if Saddam Hussein actually had W.M.D.'s in Iraq. Reports do show that he had acquired W.M.D.'s and may have filtered them through other countries over the past 20 years. Regardless, Saddam and his government were responsible for the murders of thousands of innocent Iraqi citizens. There were ordered executions of political opponents and advocates of free speech.
I firmly believe that if we pull out of Iraq right now we will lose the integrity and honor that American servicemen and women are fighting for this very hour. We cannot leave the Iraqi's with false hopes. We must defeat the enemy on their ground or we will have to fight that war on our turf, amongst our neighborhoods, and with our children watching it with their own eyes.
To which I responded:
What job? Which job are we doing? Fighting both sides of a civil war? Establishing democracy in a region barely governable by tyrants? Stealing the oil? Getting rid of the WMDs? Attacking them there so they won't swim the Atlantic and attack us here? To replace a dictator who opposed the terrorist with terrorists and funding operations for terrorists?
Most of your arguments are sunk cost arguments. They are the flawed logic that leads people to wrongly refuse to cut their losses. The logic which makes people bet their bottom dollar on bad cards, or support a losing effort simply because we have lost by supporting it. The costs and losses, failures and successes, in the past, are irrelevant to the choice to stay. The question you should be asking yourself isn't how much we've lost for so little and what we can do to make it mean something. You should be asking yourself if, we know today what we know today... would you put the troops on the ground? If Iraq is as war-torn and messed up as today, do we put boots on the ground knowing what we know? There are no weapons of mass destruction, no Saddam, no greetings as liberators. Do you invade a gutted country with little hope for anything? I say the answer is no. Now, the sunk cost fallacy says that each time you weigh the decision, what you've "invested" is irrelevant. The millions of displaced and murdered Iraqis, the couple trillion dollars this war has cost, the thousands of American Soldiers lives, and the international loss of faith are irrelevant, not to mention the bogus reasons for waging the war. The question is, would you put boots on the ground today? If the answer is no, then we shouldn't have boots on the ground. Just as you shouldn't invest another billion dollars in a project which has produced nothing and doesn't show signs of producing something. Just as you shouldn't keep calling to the river with a hand you invested too much with on the flop. You don't throw good resources after bad.
You cut your losses with the situation you have today.
As you brought up some of these pointless notes allow me to address them:
* The only reports showing Saddam Hussein had some W.M.D.s were the once receipts of those weapons we gave them during the Iran-Iraq war. After that point the good intelligence suggested that he wasn't developing them, and it took a considerable amount of cherry picking to invent a story that he had them or was even developing them. We had weapons inspectors on the grounds before Iraq's infrastructure was destroyed. If we actually wanted to look for these phantom weapons that would have been the time to do it. We had the world community ready to pressure the hell of Iraq. We had that threat contained. If that was the intent, deciding to go to war anyway was beyond stupid.
We cannot justify staying in Iraq today because the president mislead the American people. What happened then is a treason, but has nothing to do with the question at hand. Is it worth it to stay, when we look at what we can gain or lose in the future? We know how much we are losing in this war, and we know what we won't lose if we leave.
* As for the question of "IF" he had weapons. The Duelfer couldn't have been any more clear, there were no weapons of mass destructions in Iraq. Just as Iran has, as we learned recently, shut down its program as well. The entire line of debate concerning the completely botched job selling the American people this war doesn't matter. Yes, it was horrible. Yes, it was wrong. No, it doesn't matter.
We cannot justify staying in Iraq today because the president mislead the American people. Presenting phantom "reports" which suggest he magicked away his reportedly massive stockpiles doesn't matter at all. To put this in perspective, imagine if Saddam had massive stockpiles, we found them and we removed them all during the war and we are now in a situation where Iraq is exactly like it is, and we managed to stop a massive threat. This would perhaps justify the invasion in 2003, but it would not justify a continued presence in 2007. Again, that's the sunk cost fallacy. What are we going to gain if we stay there? What are we going to lose?
* As for the claim that the war is justified because Saddam is a bad man, that is also a sunk cost. It doesn't matter. We aren't fighting Saddam anymore, we are watching as millions of Iraqis are murdered and displaced. While we try to secure a small area in order for the Iraqi government to sit around and do nothing.
Sure, Saddam was bad. There are a lot of bad men in the world. However, it doesn't justify staying. It cannot justify staying. If we were still fighting Saddam, that might have been a point to argue. Though, we could have done that with a sniper bullet rather than a full ground war. But we aren't still fighting Saddam.
* The claim that pulling out of Iraq will dishonor the integrity of the troops is laughable. They do what we ask of them, even if we just set them in the middle of a civil war and give them nothing to do. Just as bringing them home will be easily followed.
They have done nothing wrong. They have not been dishonored nor have had their integrity questioned. The Administration is dishonored. The Administration is without integrity. The reason the sunk cost fallacy is so powerful is because of pride. People hate to realize that they lost a lot and gained nothing (less than nothing in this case). Losing a lot more in order to pretend a chance exists that those losses are not in vain is dishonorable and shows an extreme lack of integrity. Declare victory and bring the troops home. They did everything we asked of them, and though those who asked were incompetent it should not, and would not, make the troops look bad.
* The majority of the "enemy" only exists on their turf. We are talking about people who have some stolen Iraqi weapons from depots we left unguarded with perhaps an old Iraqi soldier from Saddam's disbanded army. These aren't the kinds of people who can fly across the Atlantic very easily.
I will however grant you that, of all of your arguments, this is the one and only argument which isn't sunk cost. It is the only argument which doesn't say... we screwed up so bad we must stay. We screwed up so bad that we might as well stay. We screwed up so bad that we will look bad if we don't stay. We gained a small bit for the massive losses and those things justify our staying. We are actually discussing future downside here. We are looking at a consequence of leaving with regard to future events. This weak nothing of a pathetic argument is the only shred of anything which even remotely qualifies as a reason to stay. How sad is that? The only 'real' argument you have is that if we don't have easily available American troops to be murdered by cowardly roadside bombs some poor Iraqi is going to travel five thousand miles to stick out like a sore thumb and try to kill some American here. How about we spend one tiny fraction of what we spent on the Iraq war to make sure people can't do that rather than putting troops in harms way as fodder! If the Iraqis don't have some local Americans to kill they will have to come to our turf where they have no upper hand. That isn't an impressive argument. Moreso when one considers the facts that our boots on the ground in Iraq are breeding more terror. Terrorism numbers have been skyrocketing as a result of our actions. And in the future, looking at the numbers we will have more terror if we stay than if we go.
We will save 8 billion dollars a month, thousands upon thousands of American lives, and prevent terror by leaving. If we stay, we will lose billions, respect, lives, and continue to make Iraq a hotbed of terror.
We should cut our losses. Take our victories, declare victory, come home, throw a parade for the troops and focus our efforts on security. I don't care if doing so will dishonor the Administration for making really bad choices.
Which I daresay is pretty good... which could mean anything.
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
Argument from Desire.
The Argument from Desire, propounded by C.S. Lewis and others is a profoundly important argument for the existence of God. Now, see if you can detect a logical flaw.
If everybody wants something, it exists.
Everybody wants God to exist.
Therefore, God exists.
It seems about as coherent as Lunatic, Liar, or Lord.
Jesus was either a Lunatic, Liar, or Lord.
ARE YOU CALLING JESUS CRAZY!?
ARE YOU CALLING JESUS A FRACKING LIAR!?
Jesus is Lord.
God exists.
If everybody wants something, it exists.
Everybody wants God to exist.
Therefore, God exists.
It seems about as coherent as Lunatic, Liar, or Lord.
Jesus was either a Lunatic, Liar, or Lord.
ARE YOU CALLING JESUS CRAZY!?
ARE YOU CALLING JESUS A FRACKING LIAR!?
Jesus is Lord.
God exists.
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Coming Around...
The more I think about it, the more I tend to agree. We atheists aren't going to stop being atheists but we certainly have given up a lot of argument ground in order to have an argument at all. The religious position has no ground whatsoever so there's no real debate where the debate should actually take place.
Atheist has a lot of baggage for meaning nearly nothing, and in reality the lack of something.
Frankly, Sam's right. Arguing against atheism should be an incoherent concept rather than the best way to defend the faith. If they were asked to put up or shut up rather than allowed to constantly shift the burden of proof by attacking something which means doesn't believe. His wording is a little poor and raises some hackles... but he's right, atheists are in a much stronger position on every issue than we give ourselves credit for.
--- You have no evidence for this God character and it isn't a reasonable thing to believe.
------ We'll you're just an atheist!
What does that actually have to do with it? Why qualify it? Why justify it? Why defend it? Why not observe the truth as Sam put it so well in Letter To A Christian Nation, "Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs."
Religious people have honestly been using their cookie-cutter flawed knockdown arguments even without knowing the arguments presented to attack a 'lack of belief in God'... and their arguments never have the slightest bit to do with presenting evidence for a god or showing that it's the smallest bit rational to believe. -- We need to dam that hole.
Atheist has a lot of baggage for meaning nearly nothing, and in reality the lack of something.
Frankly, Sam's right. Arguing against atheism should be an incoherent concept rather than the best way to defend the faith. If they were asked to put up or shut up rather than allowed to constantly shift the burden of proof by attacking something which means doesn't believe. His wording is a little poor and raises some hackles... but he's right, atheists are in a much stronger position on every issue than we give ourselves credit for.
--- You have no evidence for this God character and it isn't a reasonable thing to believe.
------ We'll you're just an atheist!
What does that actually have to do with it? Why qualify it? Why justify it? Why defend it? Why not observe the truth as Sam put it so well in Letter To A Christian Nation, "Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs."
Religious people have honestly been using their cookie-cutter flawed knockdown arguments even without knowing the arguments presented to attack a 'lack of belief in God'... and their arguments never have the slightest bit to do with presenting evidence for a god or showing that it's the smallest bit rational to believe. -- We need to dam that hole.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Argument from Good.
An all-evil deity wouldn't allow good to exist. If God is all powerful, then he is able to remove all the good. If God is all evil, then he would want to remove all good. Why is there therefore any good in the world if such a deity existed. At most this deity is either impotent or not all-evil... you'll need to settle for a less powerful deity or a little less evil one.
Counterargument: All good in the world is really an attempt to jerk us around and achieve a greater evil. If it was all evil all the time, how would we know how bad we were being screwed over.
Rebuttal: If God were truly all powerful he could achieve this evil without needing to use good to do it.
Counterargument: Good is the result of free will. God is so evil that he trusts a bunch of stupid apes to make their own choices in order to not only have evil result but make it actually their fault. As such, good is just a unintended side effect of free will.
Rebuttal: There are many good things which happen which have nothing to do with free will. For example on Friday the 13th in 2036 an asteroid called Apophis will narrowly miss Earth. This is good, however it isn't good because somebody messed up, nobody's free will played any part in this. In short, ignoring free will... the world could be worse.
Counterargument: This world is minor and temporary. Regardless of what passing good might but in the long run it is moot because you are going to burn forever and ever and ever in hell regardless of what you do. Though, if you do do too much good God may send you to Heaven, this isn't because he's good but because that's what you earned. This in no way implies that God is anything but pure evil.
Rebuttal: Giving a person a life in paradise to live peacefully is the antithesis of omnimalevolence!
Counterargument: All good in the world is really an attempt to jerk us around and achieve a greater evil. If it was all evil all the time, how would we know how bad we were being screwed over.
Rebuttal: If God were truly all powerful he could achieve this evil without needing to use good to do it.
Counterargument: Good is the result of free will. God is so evil that he trusts a bunch of stupid apes to make their own choices in order to not only have evil result but make it actually their fault. As such, good is just a unintended side effect of free will.
Rebuttal: There are many good things which happen which have nothing to do with free will. For example on Friday the 13th in 2036 an asteroid called Apophis will narrowly miss Earth. This is good, however it isn't good because somebody messed up, nobody's free will played any part in this. In short, ignoring free will... the world could be worse.
Counterargument: This world is minor and temporary. Regardless of what passing good might but in the long run it is moot because you are going to burn forever and ever and ever in hell regardless of what you do. Though, if you do do too much good God may send you to Heaven, this isn't because he's good but because that's what you earned. This in no way implies that God is anything but pure evil.
Rebuttal: Giving a person a life in paradise to live peacefully is the antithesis of omnimalevolence!
Sunday, September 16, 2007
On infanticide and turning the other cheak...
Theists tend to want it both ways, I have increasingly come up against the rather stunningly silly argument that you can't judge God. For example, Curious Kitten posted a thread on About Atheism's Forum comparing God to an Abusive Father.
All in all, a great post and interesting take on it. If God, the Father, was a father there would be several Child Protective Services calls needing to be made.
In any event, shortly there after, Sister Hydrogen Bomb of Loving Truth starts in with the that's apples and oranges argument.
After several more rude, ignorant, and condescending posts, drops this little nugget:
I've seen this argument here and there before. The original note was that if God was a father we would judge such an individual as patently immoral. To the counter argument that god isn't a human and comparisons fall short.
Now, what about moral statements, does the reverse hold?
Is it moral for God to love people? Sure, it would be good if humans did it, but what about God? It's comparing apples and oranges. God's love is thusly perfectly amoral. When God commands people to murder gays, that's a fine thing to do and we cannot judge those actions as immoral. When God commands people to turn the other cheek, that's a fine thing to do and we can't judge those actions as moral.
Theists can't eat their cake and have it too. They must either condemn all the evil shit God does in the Bible or they can't prop up things in the Bible as virtuous and moral. You either say the entire bible is good from the genocide, the slavery, and the commandments to murder people for picking up sticks... or you don't get to say anything.
Everything good gets attributed to God, and everything bad... eh shit happens or the devil made shit happen. Double standards make baby Jesus cry! Unless they are in God's favor.
"You are bad. You are so bad that you should be sent far away to a place where you don't get to be around your nice Daddy who loves you. You deserve to be tortured until the end of time, and to be miserable.
"But Daddy is nice. i'm so nice that I'll give you a 'free gift.' I won't let you be tortured by strangers. Remember: You don't deserve to be happy, so I'm a wonderful father to do this for you.
All in all, a great post and interesting take on it. If God, the Father, was a father there would be several Child Protective Services calls needing to be made.
In any event, shortly there after, Sister Hydrogen Bomb of Loving Truth starts in with the that's apples and oranges argument.
A human father, or a sovereign god?
After several more rude, ignorant, and condescending posts, drops this little nugget:
This question makes no sense. God, being God, is outside of our standards.
I've seen this argument here and there before. The original note was that if God was a father we would judge such an individual as patently immoral. To the counter argument that god isn't a human and comparisons fall short.
Now, what about moral statements, does the reverse hold?
Is it moral for God to love people? Sure, it would be good if humans did it, but what about God? It's comparing apples and oranges. God's love is thusly perfectly amoral. When God commands people to murder gays, that's a fine thing to do and we cannot judge those actions as immoral. When God commands people to turn the other cheek, that's a fine thing to do and we can't judge those actions as moral.
Theists can't eat their cake and have it too. They must either condemn all the evil shit God does in the Bible or they can't prop up things in the Bible as virtuous and moral. You either say the entire bible is good from the genocide, the slavery, and the commandments to murder people for picking up sticks... or you don't get to say anything.
Everything good gets attributed to God, and everything bad... eh shit happens or the devil made shit happen. Double standards make baby Jesus cry! Unless they are in God's favor.
Monday, August 6, 2007
Pascal's Wager and the Heaven Lottery.
Pascal's Wager is a common argument, basically its that, from a game theory stance, you should believe in God because if there isn't a God neither belief or non-belief makes a difference, but if there is then belief in that God earns you an eternity in Heaven and non-belief earns you an eternity in Hell. Therefore, you should believe in God.
So first all you need to do is pick the right religion. So you have about one in a million shot (assuming the right religion has been invented yet) and if you manage to choose correctly (though you'll just choose your parents religion / how divine!), all you need to do then is trick God by paying apt enough lipservice.
If you hit the Heaven Lottery and pick the one in a million shot by guessing correct deity to feign belief in, you get to avoid hell! Though, any deity to whom this argument applies is evil. The concept of damning a person solely because of belief is the most abhorrent thing imaginable. Regardless of any good done by Gandhi, he's burning in hell. Norman Borlaug's Nobel Prize for saving the lives of about a billion people won't save him from hellfire and brimstone because he failed to stab true, while blind and in the dark, and feign enough interest to avoid the flames.
You might as well not bother. If there is an evil god who rewards and punishes on beliefs alone. Taking a stab in the dark is sure to fail. However, if there is a good God who rewards good actions, good intentions, goodness in people... then what does it matter what they believe? Furthermore, if there is no God, then you still get rewards as doing good is its own reward. On top of that a good God who rewards people for goodness might take offense to just guessing and feigning belief in whatever random choice you come across.
The only downside of doing good acts is that there might be some evil God ready to damn you for failing to choose it without evidence, among thousands of similar deities, and not also following through with some feigned belief upon threat of eternal punishment. -- In which case, it isn't a downside to your choice it's just a downside to everything.
So first all you need to do is pick the right religion. So you have about one in a million shot (assuming the right religion has been invented yet) and if you manage to choose correctly (though you'll just choose your parents religion / how divine!), all you need to do then is trick God by paying apt enough lipservice.
If you hit the Heaven Lottery and pick the one in a million shot by guessing correct deity to feign belief in, you get to avoid hell! Though, any deity to whom this argument applies is evil. The concept of damning a person solely because of belief is the most abhorrent thing imaginable. Regardless of any good done by Gandhi, he's burning in hell. Norman Borlaug's Nobel Prize for saving the lives of about a billion people won't save him from hellfire and brimstone because he failed to stab true, while blind and in the dark, and feign enough interest to avoid the flames.
You might as well not bother. If there is an evil god who rewards and punishes on beliefs alone. Taking a stab in the dark is sure to fail. However, if there is a good God who rewards good actions, good intentions, goodness in people... then what does it matter what they believe? Furthermore, if there is no God, then you still get rewards as doing good is its own reward. On top of that a good God who rewards people for goodness might take offense to just guessing and feigning belief in whatever random choice you come across.
The only downside of doing good acts is that there might be some evil God ready to damn you for failing to choose it without evidence, among thousands of similar deities, and not also following through with some feigned belief upon threat of eternal punishment. -- In which case, it isn't a downside to your choice it's just a downside to everything.
Friday, August 3, 2007
Something can't come from nothing, unless it's God.
Something can't come from nothing, unless it's God!
Wow, that's always the worst pwnage an atheist can endure. I feel so powerless when theists note that since I don't have the answer to a question, any answer, regardless how far fetched, offered by them is instantly correct. And their answer is always so very simple and so very concise that argument is unneeded, Magic Man done it!
Wow, that's always the worst pwnage an atheist can endure. I feel so powerless when theists note that since I don't have the answer to a question, any answer, regardless how far fetched, offered by them is instantly correct. And their answer is always so very simple and so very concise that argument is unneeded, Magic Man done it!
Wednesday, August 1, 2007
Something can come from nothing.
0 = 1 + -1
Oh, that's amazing. Everybody freak out. Causeless quantum stuff happens all the time. Oy. I've had enough of people stating that something cannot come from nothing, as evidence for the idea that God (who didn't come from nothing, but never came). As if you can't apply the same argument to the universe.
Any loophole big enough to slip your deity through is big enough to slip the universe through, and to top it off we have evidence for the universe.
Oh, that's amazing. Everybody freak out. Causeless quantum stuff happens all the time. Oy. I've had enough of people stating that something cannot come from nothing, as evidence for the idea that God (who didn't come from nothing, but never came). As if you can't apply the same argument to the universe.
Any loophole big enough to slip your deity through is big enough to slip the universe through, and to top it off we have evidence for the universe.
Sunday, July 29, 2007
Christian nation? Why not white nation?
The argument goes that the United States was founded as a Christian Nation, by Christians for Christians and anybody who disagrees can just shut the fuck up. However, a lot of the founding father's were deists. They honestly had to be. They were going against the king, God's chosen ruler, and that's not something good Christians do. It was about half a dozen presidents before we hit a real Christian. However, if the logic still holds here, might I offer a stronger argument?
The United States was founded as a White Nation. All of the founding fathers have been white. All of the presidents have been white. Rather than demanding religious freedom for all religions in the constitution, which goes against the Christian Nation idea, it was rather clearly spelled out that the freedoms only extended to whites.
Why is it that this nation is a Christian nation, but not also an English-Speaking, White, Male nation? Certainly those who demand white supremacy quite often advocate Christian supremacy as well. Everything old is new again.
We are also seeing the exact same arguments recrafted from the ashes of the interracial marriage debates rehashed in the gay marriage debates. Oh, if God wanted the races to marry they would have put them on the same continents, and God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.
It should also be noted, that since God has no logical foundations, one can just trot the character out as a walking fallacy. With a fallacy you can prove everything (which is why they are worthless). With faith, all things are possible. With God, all things are possible. So having your personal fallacy ready and willing, with built in taboo of criticism no less, one can provide an argument for indefensible bigotry.
If there are only religious arguments for something, then there are no good arguments for it.
The United States was founded as a White Nation. All of the founding fathers have been white. All of the presidents have been white. Rather than demanding religious freedom for all religions in the constitution, which goes against the Christian Nation idea, it was rather clearly spelled out that the freedoms only extended to whites.
Why is it that this nation is a Christian nation, but not also an English-Speaking, White, Male nation? Certainly those who demand white supremacy quite often advocate Christian supremacy as well. Everything old is new again.
We are also seeing the exact same arguments recrafted from the ashes of the interracial marriage debates rehashed in the gay marriage debates. Oh, if God wanted the races to marry they would have put them on the same continents, and God made Adam and Eve not Adam and Steve.
It should also be noted, that since God has no logical foundations, one can just trot the character out as a walking fallacy. With a fallacy you can prove everything (which is why they are worthless). With faith, all things are possible. With God, all things are possible. So having your personal fallacy ready and willing, with built in taboo of criticism no less, one can provide an argument for indefensible bigotry.
If there are only religious arguments for something, then there are no good arguments for it.
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Muslim Apologetics
I have a theory that due to the lack of enlightenment thinking Muslim Apologetics are downright absurd. Within the intellectual centers of the west religious arguments evolve to side track the obvious objections to them for example if you look at the first cause argument, you'll notice some subtle difference with the older versions. Anything that exists, has a cause. The universe exists. Ergo, the universe has a cause. That cause is God. This has become "began to exist" rather than exists. And exists has become within spacetime (so that God excluded from spacetime can exist). The principle problem is that the premises are flawed, it commits the fallacy of composition, and any exemption for God could also let the universe slip through.
Also, there are attempts to shift this cause onto an Eternal Cause (this causeless God), a role tailor made for God as a planned loophole in the universe designed to allow God to slip through but ready made to close up and prevent the universe itself from slipping through this absurd hole. And even with proponents capitalizing the job description in deference to the eventual job holder (though they are certainly taking applications, they swear). They still don't answer anything, but it at least takes a couple thoughts to realize this.
It is this sort of evolutionary progress in apologetics which make much of Christian Apologetics in absurd nonsense but evolved beyond the point where a simple belly laugh is a sound refutation. Muslim Apologetics have developed in a bubble. In a sterilized room of faith-belief, and is extremely vulnerable to even the simplest of logics.
It is cold in some places... ergo global warming is a lie!
This is one of the oddest arguments I've seen. And it honestly strikes at the heart of the problem. It's simply exposes the ignorance of the issue itself. It snowed in my area of California for the first time in more than like 20 years last winter. I mean, several inches of snow in Southern California (not in mountains). This is a rather stunning departure from the standard climate. Hm.
1958 video on Global Warming. It's pretty good, the calculations are off by a lot. It would sink most of Florida, but a lot of that flood isn't going to happen.
1958 video on Global Warming. It's pretty good, the calculations are off by a lot. It would sink most of Florida, but a lot of that flood isn't going to happen.
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