I always maintained that one of the suckiest things about atheism was the lack of comeuppance. While Christians can suppose I'm burning in hell when I die. I can't tell them that they'll know nothing after they die and the answers won't be provided for them because they will just die. While there does seem to be a somewhat contrary bit of comeuppance, in denying dooms days. For example a religious group has gotten enough money to advertise their judgment day as May 21st, 2011 and get some billboards up. At the very least in Hollywood where I was yesterday to see them. That's awesome.
Anybody who believes in the Judgment day is an idiot. They are stupid. Even if they believe in perfectly secular ends of the planet they are wrong. Super-volcanoes won't hurt us, large asteroids, and certainly not events from mythology like the Mayan Calendar or return of Jesus. -- Regardless if things like super-volcanoes are real and happen, the lack of comeuppance by snuffing out life before people can say "I told you so" makes things that much easier to say.
Showing posts with label atheism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label atheism. Show all posts
Friday, March 25, 2011
Saturday, July 17, 2010
Cognitive Dissonance, Monty Hall, and the nature of science.
Back in 2007, a study attempted to apply the theory of Cognitive Dissonance to monkeys. It lead to a good number of comments, made the NY Times, and got a good amount of comments on Slashdot.
So a monkey was shown to eat M&Ms pretty much equally and not much care. But, when forced to make a choice between two different M&Ms say red and blue, the rejected M&M when placed against green would be rejected at greater than the expected 1/2 outcome and was rejected closer to 2/3rds of the time. Thus proving the theory that they must have needed to rationalize the rejection and therefore valued the given item less than previously. When offered another choice, they were much less likely to chose that M&M which they rationalized themselves into not wanting anyway. Much like the Aesop Fable of the Fox and the Grapes who after thinking about it and realizing the grapes were unreachable, decided that they were also unripe and bitter.
Why do I bring this silly story up? Well, it has to do with the Monty Hall riddle. By the way, if you noticed the problem with the study, mad kudos to you. If you want, try to stop reading and figure it out (if you're well versed on the Monty Hall Riddle).
Well, it turns out that the odds for the second choice aren't 1/2, they are actually 1/3rds for the rejected and 2/3rds for the other. If there's a preference hierarchy at all there are a total of 6 different ways to rank the M&Ms.
RGB, RBG, BGR, BRG, GRB, GBR
If you are asked which you'd prefer red vs blue and you take the red, there are three possible hierarchies which could exist.
RGB, RBG, GRB - These are the only times that red is better liked than blue. And in these when offered B vs G, we find that 2 rank green > blue:
RGB, GRB. So the odds really are 1/3 that they should accept the rejected M&M if we go by pure raw statistics. The Social Psychologists who ran the experiment as well as the slashdot thread about it, which had highly rated comments about color vision in monkeys and possible flaws in methodology, etc. But, they like generations of social psychologists failed to spot this mistake. However, the flaw in the study was noticed by an economist, Dr. Keith Chen who subsequently published a paper about the flaw and the series of similar flaws that are seen throughout the field of Cognitive Dissonance all the way back to the early studies in the 1950s. And that the paradigm of "Rank, Choice, Rank" is always going to skew things because the choice changes the odds, even without any rationalization at all the first choice means the odds for the second question are different.
In fact, this same research is still going on. Supposing that if you could make the choice arbitrary enough, that it should somehow prove the point, and still it holds that if you use any metric at all (in that you don't simply flip a coin, or that if given the first choice again would more often than not choose the same way), you will find that if given and choice and then made to "chose between the rejected object and a third similar object." -- anything will prefer the third similar object 2/3rds of the time and studies with amazing datapoints like: "Both children and monkeys preferred the third object" are moot and expected by random chance and statistics.
So, an economist without any formal training in Social Psychology, Psychology, Cognitive Dissonance, or the various fields thereof offered a rather stunning rebuttal that properly refuted a fair amount of research from the 1950s to the present, and is undoubtedly correct. An economist offered a scientific refutation and demolished literally thousands of studies as an outsider. Think about this next time you hear anybody claim that atheists should study religion before trying to refute it. Or that science is simply dogmatic. It really is possible for somebody from the sidelines to kick the wall and destroy an entire house of cards. Science loves this! It doesn't matter who you are, you could be a 11 year old girl disproving therapeutic touch, or a balloonist explaining geophysics. The right answer wins. Sometimes it takes a few decades, sometimes it doesn't, but if you have the right answer then everybody else be damned. This is the debunking spirit atheists are accused of applying to religion and being wrong to do so. But, really it doesn't work that way. It doesn't matter how many texts you have on the bristliness of God's beard, if he's fictional then he's fictional.
"Any man more right than his neighbor constitutes a majority of one already." - Henry David Thoreau.
It doesn't take much to overthrow lies, it takes one boy to point and laugh and say that "the Emperor has no clothes". This is the nature of not only science but of truth. Lies cannot take the heat and it only takes a gentle wind to collapse a house of cards, so why should atheists be told to not go around blowing at the cherished beliefs of others? Are we to value the belief as worth more than the truth? In reality this is exactly what we are told. And ultimately this is the bane of skepticism and the birth of dogma. If one believes that wanting something to be true, makes it one iota more likely, then that is the only step you need to take in the wrong direction and suddenly any belief becomes acceptable because we are inclined to accept it. Restricting ones beliefs to those which are true, demands that we discount a lot of nonsense the chief-most being religion.
Those who would give up Essential Truth to purchase a little Temporary Comfort, deserve neither Truth nor Comfort.
Once a monkey was observed to show an equal preference for three colors of M&M’s — say, red, blue and green — he was given a choice between two of them. If he chose red over blue, his preference changed and he downgraded blue. When he was subsequently given a choice between blue and green, it was no longer an even contest — he was now much more likely to reject the blue.
So a monkey was shown to eat M&Ms pretty much equally and not much care. But, when forced to make a choice between two different M&Ms say red and blue, the rejected M&M when placed against green would be rejected at greater than the expected 1/2 outcome and was rejected closer to 2/3rds of the time. Thus proving the theory that they must have needed to rationalize the rejection and therefore valued the given item less than previously. When offered another choice, they were much less likely to chose that M&M which they rationalized themselves into not wanting anyway. Much like the Aesop Fable of the Fox and the Grapes who after thinking about it and realizing the grapes were unreachable, decided that they were also unripe and bitter.
Why do I bring this silly story up? Well, it has to do with the Monty Hall riddle. By the way, if you noticed the problem with the study, mad kudos to you. If you want, try to stop reading and figure it out (if you're well versed on the Monty Hall Riddle).
Well, it turns out that the odds for the second choice aren't 1/2, they are actually 1/3rds for the rejected and 2/3rds for the other. If there's a preference hierarchy at all there are a total of 6 different ways to rank the M&Ms.
RGB, RBG, BGR, BRG, GRB, GBR
If you are asked which you'd prefer red vs blue and you take the red, there are three possible hierarchies which could exist.
RGB, RBG, GRB - These are the only times that red is better liked than blue. And in these when offered B vs G, we find that 2 rank green > blue:
RGB, GRB. So the odds really are 1/3 that they should accept the rejected M&M if we go by pure raw statistics. The Social Psychologists who ran the experiment as well as the slashdot thread about it, which had highly rated comments about color vision in monkeys and possible flaws in methodology, etc. But, they like generations of social psychologists failed to spot this mistake. However, the flaw in the study was noticed by an economist, Dr. Keith Chen who subsequently published a paper about the flaw and the series of similar flaws that are seen throughout the field of Cognitive Dissonance all the way back to the early studies in the 1950s. And that the paradigm of "Rank, Choice, Rank" is always going to skew things because the choice changes the odds, even without any rationalization at all the first choice means the odds for the second question are different.
In fact, this same research is still going on. Supposing that if you could make the choice arbitrary enough, that it should somehow prove the point, and still it holds that if you use any metric at all (in that you don't simply flip a coin, or that if given the first choice again would more often than not choose the same way), you will find that if given and choice and then made to "chose between the rejected object and a third similar object." -- anything will prefer the third similar object 2/3rds of the time and studies with amazing datapoints like: "Both children and monkeys preferred the third object" are moot and expected by random chance and statistics.
So, an economist without any formal training in Social Psychology, Psychology, Cognitive Dissonance, or the various fields thereof offered a rather stunning rebuttal that properly refuted a fair amount of research from the 1950s to the present, and is undoubtedly correct. An economist offered a scientific refutation and demolished literally thousands of studies as an outsider. Think about this next time you hear anybody claim that atheists should study religion before trying to refute it. Or that science is simply dogmatic. It really is possible for somebody from the sidelines to kick the wall and destroy an entire house of cards. Science loves this! It doesn't matter who you are, you could be a 11 year old girl disproving therapeutic touch, or a balloonist explaining geophysics. The right answer wins. Sometimes it takes a few decades, sometimes it doesn't, but if you have the right answer then everybody else be damned. This is the debunking spirit atheists are accused of applying to religion and being wrong to do so. But, really it doesn't work that way. It doesn't matter how many texts you have on the bristliness of God's beard, if he's fictional then he's fictional.
"Any man more right than his neighbor constitutes a majority of one already." - Henry David Thoreau.
It doesn't take much to overthrow lies, it takes one boy to point and laugh and say that "the Emperor has no clothes". This is the nature of not only science but of truth. Lies cannot take the heat and it only takes a gentle wind to collapse a house of cards, so why should atheists be told to not go around blowing at the cherished beliefs of others? Are we to value the belief as worth more than the truth? In reality this is exactly what we are told. And ultimately this is the bane of skepticism and the birth of dogma. If one believes that wanting something to be true, makes it one iota more likely, then that is the only step you need to take in the wrong direction and suddenly any belief becomes acceptable because we are inclined to accept it. Restricting ones beliefs to those which are true, demands that we discount a lot of nonsense the chief-most being religion.
Those who would give up Essential Truth to purchase a little Temporary Comfort, deserve neither Truth nor Comfort.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Friday, December 25, 2009
Nice. Carnival of the Godless 131...
CotG 131: (it mentions me): http://gaytheists.org/?p=821 -- The A in "gay" is fabulous for emphasis (the link seems like a theist site otherwise). For my rather clever work: A modicum of thought. A parable of cards. A look at pascals wager, logic, epistemology, and accepting what you want to be true over what is actually true.
Sunday, December 6, 2009
A modicum of thought. A parable of cards.
Imagine you are a member of a group of about ten people and everybody is given a card which is placed on their head so that they can see the card. These cards are going to have at most one black card and all the rest of the cards are white. The object of the game is to find the black card. When you do, you will be given a trillion dollars. If you choose the wrong card, you're out one dollar. If it's your card, you need to wait until the attending people return.
Now, everybody is been given their card. The big reveal! Everybody sits looking around the room, at everybody else's cards. You notice that everybody else's card is white. So then your card must be the black card! What luck! You barely give up anything if you guess wrong and if you guess right you get a trillion dollars. And you can rule out everybody else's card so, aren't you that much more likely to be correct? I mean they can't rule out the card on their head but you can! Why aren't they choosing your black card then? Shouldn't it be obvious that you're is the correct card? Shouldn't they have chosen by now? Isn't the fact nobody is choosing your card evidence that your card isn't the correct card? Why should it be your card, I mean it's not like you chose it, it was chosen for you. You ponder these doubts for a while, shoving them down each time they rear their head. It's a trillion dollars after all!
Isn't there at least a one in a trillion shot chance that everybody else at the table is blind and can't see a black card plain as day? Then aren't you losing nothing by choosing your own card. I mean, if you chose correctly you get a trillion dollars and if you choose wrongly, you'll have to clock out five minutes later when you go to work next Sunday. I mean, you've got everything to gain and nothing to lose.
One person at the table starts shouting: "None of the cards are black. You would have chosen by now. If somebody had the right card, everybody else would have thrown their cards to the ground by now. We've been sitting at this table for millennium!"
"What a blind moron!", you think to yourself. He doesn't see your card is clearly black.
Another person at the table chimes in, "You're wrong sir, my card is clearly black. I know that it must be the black card because all of your cards are white."
You can see his card is white, but you've liked what he's said to this presumptuous rabblerouser.
"Here-Here!" another man shouts.
"You can't see the black card unless you have the black card!" shouts a third man.
A Hah! That's clearly the case. That explains everything! That's why these people can't see your card is black! You can taste that money now. You didn't hear that as a rule, but it would explain the situation perfectly. I mean, what's the purpose of all of this if none of the cards are black? Wouldn't it be terrible if nobody got the trillion dollars!
Why is this brash, rude, arrogant man doing attacking you. You don't have to take this, you're a flipping trillionaire. Mentally you already have this money spent. This jackass wants to steal your constellation of castles, your bevy of beauties, your silo of gems. This wicked, evil, know-it-all wants to remove from the mouths of the hungry the charitable donations you'll make, he wants people to suffer the diseases you'd cure with that funding, he wants you poor and miserable. He wants to take away your hope. He want's to deprive you of your purpose.
Why is he maligning you in such a terrible way? Why doesn't he see that your card is the correct one and just collect the money? Does he hate your card or the money? Did somebody hurt him? Doesn't he know you can't see the card unless you have the card? What a deluded fool! These other men, though, they have white cards are ripping into this fool for being such a deluded brute who knows nothing of the secret rules of the game... good on them! They maybe wrong and will probably end up without any money if they don't choose your card soon, but they at least know how to put such an intolerant know-it-all in his place.
"Why would you get a trillion dollars for picking a card?", the inept blowhard asks quizzically? "What evidence do we have that there's any money at all!" "Where's the evidence? I mean we're in a pretty run down building, is this the kind of place people have when they trillion dollars laying around?"
"Shut-up", a young woman shouts! "Clearly they saved a lot of money in order to have the trillion dollars to give us, they love us that much."
"Yeah!", the rest agree.
The arrogant man, finally gives up, he throws his white card to the ground and leaves to room to go home and spend time with his family. What a fool, he was a few feet from a trillion dollars. The fool says in his heart, there's no black card. What an idiot!
When you finally get to see your card, what color do you think it'll be? Should you choose your card? I mean it is a trillion dollars after all!
Now, everybody is been given their card. The big reveal! Everybody sits looking around the room, at everybody else's cards. You notice that everybody else's card is white. So then your card must be the black card! What luck! You barely give up anything if you guess wrong and if you guess right you get a trillion dollars. And you can rule out everybody else's card so, aren't you that much more likely to be correct? I mean they can't rule out the card on their head but you can! Why aren't they choosing your black card then? Shouldn't it be obvious that you're is the correct card? Shouldn't they have chosen by now? Isn't the fact nobody is choosing your card evidence that your card isn't the correct card? Why should it be your card, I mean it's not like you chose it, it was chosen for you. You ponder these doubts for a while, shoving them down each time they rear their head. It's a trillion dollars after all!
Isn't there at least a one in a trillion shot chance that everybody else at the table is blind and can't see a black card plain as day? Then aren't you losing nothing by choosing your own card. I mean, if you chose correctly you get a trillion dollars and if you choose wrongly, you'll have to clock out five minutes later when you go to work next Sunday. I mean, you've got everything to gain and nothing to lose.
One person at the table starts shouting: "None of the cards are black. You would have chosen by now. If somebody had the right card, everybody else would have thrown their cards to the ground by now. We've been sitting at this table for millennium!"
"What a blind moron!", you think to yourself. He doesn't see your card is clearly black.
Another person at the table chimes in, "You're wrong sir, my card is clearly black. I know that it must be the black card because all of your cards are white."
You can see his card is white, but you've liked what he's said to this presumptuous rabblerouser.
"Here-Here!" another man shouts.
"You can't see the black card unless you have the black card!" shouts a third man.
A Hah! That's clearly the case. That explains everything! That's why these people can't see your card is black! You can taste that money now. You didn't hear that as a rule, but it would explain the situation perfectly. I mean, what's the purpose of all of this if none of the cards are black? Wouldn't it be terrible if nobody got the trillion dollars!
Why is this brash, rude, arrogant man doing attacking you. You don't have to take this, you're a flipping trillionaire. Mentally you already have this money spent. This jackass wants to steal your constellation of castles, your bevy of beauties, your silo of gems. This wicked, evil, know-it-all wants to remove from the mouths of the hungry the charitable donations you'll make, he wants people to suffer the diseases you'd cure with that funding, he wants you poor and miserable. He wants to take away your hope. He want's to deprive you of your purpose.
Why is he maligning you in such a terrible way? Why doesn't he see that your card is the correct one and just collect the money? Does he hate your card or the money? Did somebody hurt him? Doesn't he know you can't see the card unless you have the card? What a deluded fool! These other men, though, they have white cards are ripping into this fool for being such a deluded brute who knows nothing of the secret rules of the game... good on them! They maybe wrong and will probably end up without any money if they don't choose your card soon, but they at least know how to put such an intolerant know-it-all in his place.
"Why would you get a trillion dollars for picking a card?", the inept blowhard asks quizzically? "What evidence do we have that there's any money at all!" "Where's the evidence? I mean we're in a pretty run down building, is this the kind of place people have when they trillion dollars laying around?"
"Shut-up", a young woman shouts! "Clearly they saved a lot of money in order to have the trillion dollars to give us, they love us that much."
"Yeah!", the rest agree.
The arrogant man, finally gives up, he throws his white card to the ground and leaves to room to go home and spend time with his family. What a fool, he was a few feet from a trillion dollars. The fool says in his heart, there's no black card. What an idiot!
When you finally get to see your card, what color do you think it'll be? Should you choose your card? I mean it is a trillion dollars after all!
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.
Monday, July 20, 2009
Saturday, July 4, 2009
That Mitchell and Webb Look: There is no God.
Somehow it seems like I've foregone blogging altogether and starting posting these skits from That Mitchell and Webb Look. It's not really my intention, but rather just that they are so good.
Saturday, April 25, 2009
Did Darwin Kill God, Part 3: Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda.
Despite the poor handling by Cunningham, the question of whether or not atheism and evolution have any direct or indirect ties is actually a fairly interesting one. On one hand, atheism is simply the non-belief in any gods or gods and the only reason one truly accepts atheism is because theism is not embraced. In this sense atheism certainly doesn't rely on anything other than the failure of theism. Whereas evolution is an astounding and impressive explanation as elegant as it is simple, and as powerful as time allows. It fully explains the location, design, complexity, elegance and beauty of life. It's a complete explanation for one of our greatest questions, but it says nothing about God. -- And in that, it is somewhat atheistic. In the solution to one of the most important questions ever there's no role for gods to play. If we contrast this with Paley's argument which would have been the foremost accepted explanation prior to Darwin we can see a stark contrast between the two. Paley's theory could very well have made deists out of pure rationalists simply by being the most convincing explanation. When we see the amazing designs of nature, Paley was just scratching the surface, and though his claim was, admittedly, an argument from ignorance, what an argument it was. It would seem unfathomable to anybody that you could explain all of life with simple secular terms. That any force, other than an intelligent fathomer, could come up with such amazing and seemingly purposeful designs.
As Richard Dawkins noted in The Blind Watchmaker,
In this same vein, it is my opinion that the way in which it could be said that Darwin Killed God is that he moved the end point of a functional epistemology. If one lived their life based on the evidence and the best reasons they had at hand, prior to Darwin one would have been a rational deist and after Darwin, outright atheism became the natural endpoint to living an evidence driven life.
It has always been the case that there have been scientific ethics and scientific endeavors, since the first of the ancient Greeks questioned the notion of whether or not progress was possible. Whether or not people could understand more of the world than they currently understood. If there exists some way of investigating reality. This is the first scientific conflict with religion.
There has always existed specific scientific virtues of curiosity, empiricism, and progress throughout history. Wherever they are suppressed, science is suppressed. Wherever embraced, science is embraced. When Galen challenged early evolutionists whose theory of transmutation was weak, powerless and wrong, he attacked the ideas with empirical evidence, pushed our understanding of the human body, and yet still concluded that the divine was the most logical conclusions. However, he didn't go beyond his evidence. He didn't propose an infinite God because there were noted limitations within men. He went were the evidence lead him, and the evidence lead him to God.
When ever these virtues are challenged, even by great minds, they end scientific inquiry. Wherever they flourish, science flourishes. Aristotle was a proponent of science in one's own mind. The idea that one could rightly divine by thinking about an issue the correct answer. This idea may seem compelling, but it has always been wrong. It was wrong when Aristotle concluded that objects of different masses fall to Earth at different speeds, it was wrong when Galileo dropped different masses off the Tower of Pisa to see if they did, and it was wrong when the masses struck the ground at the same time. Asking whether or not our beliefs are true, and how we can go about seeing if they are, has always been the scientific way of looking at the world. Wanting the most true beliefs and the fewest false beliefs has always been the core of science and the results of scientific virtues.
Isaac Newton was the greatest scientist to ever live (if this is hyperbole, you'll have to drop a few names). But, he was also a Christian. He wasn't Christian because he was blinded by his faith and wrong about what to believe, he was Christian largely because that is what a rational view of the world would lead on to believe in the 1600s. With no explanation of how life or any part of the universe arises by chance or by simple laws, it would have been absurd for Newton to not conclude theism. That is not to say he wasn't a freethinker. He refused to be ordained as was required by a man of his position because he felt that Trinitarianism was idolatry because the first commandment said that "I am the Lord your God, who delivered you out of Egypt, you shall have no other gods before me" and frankly Jesus didn't deliver the Jewish people out of Egypt so worshiping Jesus is worshiping an idol. And in those places where the scientific ethics failed and religious ethics succeeded they rendered Newton sadly moot. In the end of Principia, Newton concluded that the order of the planets and their interactions between each other must be the result of the hand of God keeping them working. It was another hundred years before Laplace properly explained perturbation theory and did the calculation properly without God ('I have no need for that hypothesis' or so he was rumored to have told Napoleon).
Cunningham cited St. Augustine to make the claim that Christians never really took Genesis as literal. However, what Augustine was really angling at is that they never really took science literally and they shouldn't embarrass themselves in the company of those who do. Augustine wasn't saying that it should be taken as figurative, but that rather it didn't need to reveal scientific facts about the world (which Augustine noted God clearly knew) but that we didn't need to know them. We have no need to be curious about the world because all we need is to be saved and all we need to be saved is the Bible. We don't need to test the world or test God, because we just need to be saved. And even if we could progress in our understanding of the world, it simply isn't necessary to be saved. Augustine wasn't saying that we should throw Genesis out the window and ignore it, he was saying that science is stupid and you don't need it to be saved, so God didn't include it in the Bible. This isn't a hard conclusion to reach, Augustine spelled it out:
This is the division that has always existed between science and religion. Why when we look back through the ages we find many rational and scientifically minded people believing in God in times prior to Darwin and after Darwin we find that these examples cease with a surprising abruptness. Why should Thomas Jefferson, who was perhaps our only scientifically literate president, have said, "He (Calvin) was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be". He derided the newer supernaturalist brands of theology as talks of nothing and to be equivalent to saying that there is no God. Why should Jefferson be a theist when any contemporary individual of such a caliber embrace atheism? I contend that the answer is Darwin.
Cunningham is not only wrong on the obvious points, that Genesis was intended to describe the start of the universe within Christian theology and was clearly believed as mostly literal by a vast majority of Christians throughout the ages. Or that ultradarwinists extremists are trying to use Darwin to argue against God by embracing the Selfish Gene and Memes. Cunningham is also wrong on the core points, there is some respect that we could say that Darwin killed God. We can't accept that literally, as there never was a God to be killed. But, it is safe to say that Darwin made not believing in God the reasonable position to embrace, given a careful and full examination of the evidence. It wasn't until after Darwin and largely because of Darwin that a full embrace of scientific ethics lead to atheism. Darwin moved the endpoint of a functional epistemology from theistic conclusions like those (somewhat non-sequitury) drawn by Paley and others to having no need for God. Darwin made God superfluous. And for a God that does nothing, this is worse than a bullet. A difference, that makes no difference, is no difference. A dead God, or living God, or non-existent God doesn't change a jot or tittle of our existence, and Darwin made all three functionally identical when he explained life itself.
As Richard Dawkins noted in The Blind Watchmaker,
An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: "I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn't a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one." I can't help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.
In this same vein, it is my opinion that the way in which it could be said that Darwin Killed God is that he moved the end point of a functional epistemology. If one lived their life based on the evidence and the best reasons they had at hand, prior to Darwin one would have been a rational deist and after Darwin, outright atheism became the natural endpoint to living an evidence driven life.
It has always been the case that there have been scientific ethics and scientific endeavors, since the first of the ancient Greeks questioned the notion of whether or not progress was possible. Whether or not people could understand more of the world than they currently understood. If there exists some way of investigating reality. This is the first scientific conflict with religion.
There has always existed specific scientific virtues of curiosity, empiricism, and progress throughout history. Wherever they are suppressed, science is suppressed. Wherever embraced, science is embraced. When Galen challenged early evolutionists whose theory of transmutation was weak, powerless and wrong, he attacked the ideas with empirical evidence, pushed our understanding of the human body, and yet still concluded that the divine was the most logical conclusions. However, he didn't go beyond his evidence. He didn't propose an infinite God because there were noted limitations within men. He went were the evidence lead him, and the evidence lead him to God.
When ever these virtues are challenged, even by great minds, they end scientific inquiry. Wherever they flourish, science flourishes. Aristotle was a proponent of science in one's own mind. The idea that one could rightly divine by thinking about an issue the correct answer. This idea may seem compelling, but it has always been wrong. It was wrong when Aristotle concluded that objects of different masses fall to Earth at different speeds, it was wrong when Galileo dropped different masses off the Tower of Pisa to see if they did, and it was wrong when the masses struck the ground at the same time. Asking whether or not our beliefs are true, and how we can go about seeing if they are, has always been the scientific way of looking at the world. Wanting the most true beliefs and the fewest false beliefs has always been the core of science and the results of scientific virtues.
Isaac Newton was the greatest scientist to ever live (if this is hyperbole, you'll have to drop a few names). But, he was also a Christian. He wasn't Christian because he was blinded by his faith and wrong about what to believe, he was Christian largely because that is what a rational view of the world would lead on to believe in the 1600s. With no explanation of how life or any part of the universe arises by chance or by simple laws, it would have been absurd for Newton to not conclude theism. That is not to say he wasn't a freethinker. He refused to be ordained as was required by a man of his position because he felt that Trinitarianism was idolatry because the first commandment said that "I am the Lord your God, who delivered you out of Egypt, you shall have no other gods before me" and frankly Jesus didn't deliver the Jewish people out of Egypt so worshiping Jesus is worshiping an idol. And in those places where the scientific ethics failed and religious ethics succeeded they rendered Newton sadly moot. In the end of Principia, Newton concluded that the order of the planets and their interactions between each other must be the result of the hand of God keeping them working. It was another hundred years before Laplace properly explained perturbation theory and did the calculation properly without God ('I have no need for that hypothesis' or so he was rumored to have told Napoleon).
Cunningham cited St. Augustine to make the claim that Christians never really took Genesis as literal. However, what Augustine was really angling at is that they never really took science literally and they shouldn't embarrass themselves in the company of those who do. Augustine wasn't saying that it should be taken as figurative, but that rather it didn't need to reveal scientific facts about the world (which Augustine noted God clearly knew) but that we didn't need to know them. We have no need to be curious about the world because all we need is to be saved and all we need to be saved is the Bible. We don't need to test the world or test God, because we just need to be saved. And even if we could progress in our understanding of the world, it simply isn't necessary to be saved. Augustine wasn't saying that we should throw Genesis out the window and ignore it, he was saying that science is stupid and you don't need it to be saved, so God didn't include it in the Bible. This isn't a hard conclusion to reach, Augustine spelled it out:
In short, it must be said that our authors knew the truth about the nature of the skies, but it was not the intention of the Spirit of God, who spoke through them, to teach men anything that would not be of use to them for their salvation.
This is the division that has always existed between science and religion. Why when we look back through the ages we find many rational and scientifically minded people believing in God in times prior to Darwin and after Darwin we find that these examples cease with a surprising abruptness. Why should Thomas Jefferson, who was perhaps our only scientifically literate president, have said, "He (Calvin) was indeed an Atheist, which I can never be". He derided the newer supernaturalist brands of theology as talks of nothing and to be equivalent to saying that there is no God. Why should Jefferson be a theist when any contemporary individual of such a caliber embrace atheism? I contend that the answer is Darwin.
Cunningham is not only wrong on the obvious points, that Genesis was intended to describe the start of the universe within Christian theology and was clearly believed as mostly literal by a vast majority of Christians throughout the ages. Or that ultradarwinists extremists are trying to use Darwin to argue against God by embracing the Selfish Gene and Memes. Cunningham is also wrong on the core points, there is some respect that we could say that Darwin killed God. We can't accept that literally, as there never was a God to be killed. But, it is safe to say that Darwin made not believing in God the reasonable position to embrace, given a careful and full examination of the evidence. It wasn't until after Darwin and largely because of Darwin that a full embrace of scientific ethics lead to atheism. Darwin moved the endpoint of a functional epistemology from theistic conclusions like those (somewhat non-sequitury) drawn by Paley and others to having no need for God. Darwin made God superfluous. And for a God that does nothing, this is worse than a bullet. A difference, that makes no difference, is no difference. A dead God, or living God, or non-existent God doesn't change a jot or tittle of our existence, and Darwin made all three functionally identical when he explained life itself.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
The logic of religion...
This has to be one of the best videos to point out how silly theistic logic tends to be.
Saturday, December 20, 2008
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
At Least There's Still No God.
Politics should probably be ignored about now. I'll hope for the best for Al Franken recount and maybe perk my head up for the Martin/Chambliss runoff, and pay some attention to the Merkley count which predictions suggest he's going to win outright as the count more Dem counties and some lesser places calling it for him. And hope for that guy "A SERIES OF TUBES" is running against.
But honestly, I'm pretty well done with following the races. I really should be. Letting my mood rise and fall with the polls is probably not recommendable. And this blog seems a little makeshift with the politics and quirkiness and atheism all gobbly-gooked. I suppose it's written mostly for myself but it seems a bit odd to have "God's Not" not clearly defined. That or perhaps it is. I'm quite happy Obama won just like the 63 million (more than any other presidential race ever) who voted for him and the many more million who are also happy about it.
As for those people who insist that this is the time we really need to hound him to get our agendas fulfilled... eh. If both houses and the presidency can't manage to push a viable agenda to help people then they don't deserve any more help.
There's still hope for a 60 seat majority in the Senate... a very lowly and silly hope. I think I'll crawl back under a rock somewhere and stop paying attention to things. I hope Palin runs and wins the nomination on 2012. That'll make reelecting Obama an easy task. I'm fine with that. And hope I don't fall for paying attention to the 2010 midterms.
There's still no God. At least there's some debate on that issue by people too silly to realize they are talking to themselves.
Enjoy.
But honestly, I'm pretty well done with following the races. I really should be. Letting my mood rise and fall with the polls is probably not recommendable. And this blog seems a little makeshift with the politics and quirkiness and atheism all gobbly-gooked. I suppose it's written mostly for myself but it seems a bit odd to have "God's Not" not clearly defined. That or perhaps it is. I'm quite happy Obama won just like the 63 million (more than any other presidential race ever) who voted for him and the many more million who are also happy about it.
As for those people who insist that this is the time we really need to hound him to get our agendas fulfilled... eh. If both houses and the presidency can't manage to push a viable agenda to help people then they don't deserve any more help.
There's still hope for a 60 seat majority in the Senate... a very lowly and silly hope. I think I'll crawl back under a rock somewhere and stop paying attention to things. I hope Palin runs and wins the nomination on 2012. That'll make reelecting Obama an easy task. I'm fine with that. And hope I don't fall for paying attention to the 2010 midterms.
There's still no God. At least there's some debate on that issue by people too silly to realize they are talking to themselves.
Enjoy.
Monday, April 21, 2008
God doesn't exist! Everything is permitted.
As society decays into a mass of people doing immoral things due to the lack of divine guidance all things will become legal.
As single folks are not going to be able to trump the immoral behavior of other single people, we should form bands in order so that we are the mightiest group.
Now, it stands to reason that there will be other large bands of people and going to war with them would be costly for ourselves and themselves so we should best avoid each other. As hostile actions from my group will cause the other group to respond in kind, hostile actions must be kept to a minimum.
Further, as I don't want to be killed and other people won't want to be killed we should probably avoid the murdering of people. This will also allow for the threat of murder to be more successful. Pirates, for example, would let you go if you surrendered so this sort of kindness without laws has historical parallels.
There's little point in stealing a lot of stuff if I cannot be secure in keeping it. Why steal something that somebody else is going to steal again. At the very least within the group stealing and murder must be abolished. Further, other groups are not to be attacked and merging with other groups or treaties with other groups should be established and maintained.
Without God we'll descend into chaos... and necessarily form the exact same structures we formed before.
As single folks are not going to be able to trump the immoral behavior of other single people, we should form bands in order so that we are the mightiest group.
Now, it stands to reason that there will be other large bands of people and going to war with them would be costly for ourselves and themselves so we should best avoid each other. As hostile actions from my group will cause the other group to respond in kind, hostile actions must be kept to a minimum.
Further, as I don't want to be killed and other people won't want to be killed we should probably avoid the murdering of people. This will also allow for the threat of murder to be more successful. Pirates, for example, would let you go if you surrendered so this sort of kindness without laws has historical parallels.
There's little point in stealing a lot of stuff if I cannot be secure in keeping it. Why steal something that somebody else is going to steal again. At the very least within the group stealing and murder must be abolished. Further, other groups are not to be attacked and merging with other groups or treaties with other groups should be established and maintained.
Without God we'll descend into chaos... and necessarily form the exact same structures we formed before.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Monique Davis apologizes stress caused her anti-atheist bigotry
Well if booze makes Gibson hate Jews, why not?
I'm sure stress can make you lash out at people... but honestly Shermer was there to talk about how the Illinois government can't give a million dollars to a church to build a church.
I'm sure stress can make you lash out at people... but honestly Shermer was there to talk about how the Illinois government can't give a million dollars to a church to build a church.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
Saturday, February 23, 2008
Who's at fault for my atheism?
"it's not my fault tatarize doesn't believe in God."
It's nobody's fault I don't believe in God. Fault isn't the right word as I'm quite happy as an atheist. I wasn't indoctrinated as a child and by the time I learned what religion was my brain was fully functional. Children will believe lies, even absurd lies. At a certain age, though, people will just laugh at silly things. I became an vociferous atheist ten seconds after I first learned about religion, eight seconds after I laughed.
Thursday, February 7, 2008
There is *still* no God.
Just thought my blog was getting to random trivial stuff filled and politics. This is God Snot after all: Ssnot (it's like swounds meaning God's-wounds)! And I figured I would make this public announcement there is still no God.
The Bible is still stupid and still evil. Atheists still say brilliant things. Creationism is still hogwash. People are still not healed by deities. Prayer still does not work. Wrong is still wrong. Earthquakes still happen, still cause suffering, and still have nothing to do with free will. And kissing asses doesn't get you prizes.
The Bible is still stupid and still evil. Atheists still say brilliant things. Creationism is still hogwash. People are still not healed by deities. Prayer still does not work. Wrong is still wrong. Earthquakes still happen, still cause suffering, and still have nothing to do with free will. And kissing asses doesn't get you prizes.
Sunday, January 27, 2008
281 Tricks to Irritate an Atheist.
http://onclepsycho.canalblog.com/archives/2004/06/05/35086.html?
2) Tell them that if there's no God, they might as well go out and kill people.
5) Insist that there is a God, and show them where in the Bible it says so.
8) Make up statistics.
12) Use multiple versions of Pascal's Wager as though you thought them up yourself.
14) Post inane arguments on the Internet, and never follow up on them.
15) Say that seperation of church and state isn't in the Constitution; insist that the Constitution is based on the Ten Commandments.
19) Point out that we all take things on faith.
21) After losing the argument say, "I pity you."
29) When given a Bible verse that looks bad, tell him that's what the verse says, but that's not what it means.
30) Argue that the Bible stories are not myths . . . they're parables. And they're all true!
37) Explain that the lack of proof doesn't mean it didn't happen.
44) Accuse him of being an agnostic, since he isn't 100% positive that God does not exist.
58) Insist that faith is the only logical answer.
59) No matter what he quotes from the Bible, say that it's out of context.
83) Quote Psalm 14:1 to him.
99) State that Christianity has done a lot of good along with all the mass murder.
124) Say that evolution is not proven -- therefore the Bible is correct.
125) Tell him it's his responsibility to prove that God doesn't exist.
143) Show that the Bible must be true because when you take the original Hebrew letters, spread them out and twist them around, you can spell words.
155) Use the word "presupposition" incorrectly, repeatedly.
173) Tell him that everyone has faith in SOMETHING.
219) PUT ALL ARGUMENTS IN CAPITAL LETTERS TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU'RE YELLING AND SCREAMING!
223) Avoid taxes and regulations because you're doing God's work.
244) Grossly misunderstand the word "theory."
256) Ask if he's ever heard of Jesus Christ.
280) When he shows up at your wedding, bearing an expensive gift for you, return the favor by sicing your minister on him after the ceremony.
281) If he has cancer, tell him with a sickeningly sweet smile that you will pray for his recovery, because someone needs to.
281) When ending your conversation with the atheist, promise to read whatever book the atheist may have mentioned, knowing darned well that you yourself never made it through Leviticus.
2) Tell them that if there's no God, they might as well go out and kill people.
5) Insist that there is a God, and show them where in the Bible it says so.
8) Make up statistics.
12) Use multiple versions of Pascal's Wager as though you thought them up yourself.
14) Post inane arguments on the Internet, and never follow up on them.
15) Say that seperation of church and state isn't in the Constitution; insist that the Constitution is based on the Ten Commandments.
19) Point out that we all take things on faith.
21) After losing the argument say, "I pity you."
29) When given a Bible verse that looks bad, tell him that's what the verse says, but that's not what it means.
30) Argue that the Bible stories are not myths . . . they're parables. And they're all true!
37) Explain that the lack of proof doesn't mean it didn't happen.
44) Accuse him of being an agnostic, since he isn't 100% positive that God does not exist.
58) Insist that faith is the only logical answer.
59) No matter what he quotes from the Bible, say that it's out of context.
83) Quote Psalm 14:1 to him.
99) State that Christianity has done a lot of good along with all the mass murder.
124) Say that evolution is not proven -- therefore the Bible is correct.
125) Tell him it's his responsibility to prove that God doesn't exist.
143) Show that the Bible must be true because when you take the original Hebrew letters, spread them out and twist them around, you can spell words.
155) Use the word "presupposition" incorrectly, repeatedly.
173) Tell him that everyone has faith in SOMETHING.
219) PUT ALL ARGUMENTS IN CAPITAL LETTERS TO GIVE THE IMPRESSION THAT YOU'RE YELLING AND SCREAMING!
223) Avoid taxes and regulations because you're doing God's work.
244) Grossly misunderstand the word "theory."
256) Ask if he's ever heard of Jesus Christ.
280) When he shows up at your wedding, bearing an expensive gift for you, return the favor by sicing your minister on him after the ceremony.
281) If he has cancer, tell him with a sickeningly sweet smile that you will pray for his recovery, because someone needs to.
281) When ending your conversation with the atheist, promise to read whatever book the atheist may have mentioned, knowing darned well that you yourself never made it through Leviticus.
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."
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Jesus Glasses.
The context on the Jesus Glasses comment of Dr. Corbett:
"How do you get the peasants to oppose something that is in their best interests? Religion. You have to have something that is irrational to counter that rational approach... [W]hen you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth."
I think taking it out of context to make it seem like "you" and "your" means Christians in the class is disingenuous. In fact, it clearly means, you serfs of the middle-ages.
"How do you get the peasants to oppose something that is in their best interests? Religion. You have to have something that is irrational to counter that rational approach... [W]hen you put on your Jesus glasses, you can't see the truth."
I think taking it out of context to make it seem like "you" and "your" means Christians in the class is disingenuous. In fact, it clearly means, you serfs of the middle-ages.
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