Phrenic Philosophy: a mind unleashed

'Dreamtime' [Trance/Chillout]

2011-03-26T03:58:00.000+13:00

A while ago I got some mixing equipment so I could DJ. It's fun to mix other people's music but any aspiring trance-addict ultimately wants something more: their own songs.

I'm aiming at getting some "real" software to produce my own tracks on but, for now, I decided to try my hand at GarageBand. I figure if I learn a little about composition before I can get better software then I'll be more prepared to learn on the more complex system.

Without further ado, here is my latest (only, and first) song, "Dreamtime."

<p>&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;&amp;amp;lt;br&amp;amp;gt;Dre</p>
Video: Dreamtime by Sacris.

The footage is from a trip I did with my friends, Sharyn and Simona, at Lake Daniels.

I know it's a first attempt but I'm pretty pleased with it. I've learned loads already. I may even go back and remix the same song once I learn more!

Japanese Tsunami filmed from street level

2011-03-16T00:18:00.000+13:00

This utterly astounding video shows what a complete horror it must have been like to live through the recent Japanese earthquake and tsunami.

This brave camera man begins filming on the street and slowly backs up a ramp as the destruction increases. Thank goodness the waters stopped rising eventually (though it didn't stop houses from washing away).

[Video: The tsunami like you've never seen.]

CHCH Quake - ambo officer's perspective

2011-02-25T18:57:00.000+13:00

Danny Watson, from NewsTalk ZB, reads out a moving, grim, and educational letter written by an ambulance officer regarding his time on the day of the recent moment magnitude 6.1 earthquake here in Christchurch.

Listen here (7m 20s).

2011 Christchurch Quake

2011-02-24T00:30:00.000+13:00

On the day of the big quake I shot this little video. Everything was a bit chaotic and at the time I was still struggling to get in contact with my friends and loved ones. I think this helped a bit because it felt like I was getting a message out - even if the video stayed on my phone until today.

When I reflect on how I am safe and most of my friends seem to be safe I still get a little emotional. With so much loss and disorder around me, I'm thankful that I can even say the words, "I'm safe".

Even as I write this message aftershocks still rumble the building around me. My love goes out to the families of Christchurch in the Red Cross shelters, the rooms shared with 12 others, the tents, the last-minute hostel accommodation. I wish peace on those who don't have a home anymore, who saw their world crumble with a mudslide, who struggle with the flooding and the fires. I have no words worthy enough for those who still search for news of their sisters, brothers, children, and friends.

If you are looking for a missing person in Christchurch OR have any information about a person, please use the Google Person Finder.

Please consider donating to the Red Cross 2011 Earthquake Appeal (link is currently broken on my end, but it should hopefully work).

For other ways to help or for more information, start here.

The Wonder of Life.

2011-02-17T17:34:00.000+13:00

Someone once said that the cosmos is full beyond measure of elegant truths. We are surrounded by endless mysteries, beautiful and bizarre, which could take an entire life to explore.

Pick a direction, point, and you will find yourself looking at something of almost endless beauty, depth, and wonder.

A kinesin 'walking' through a cell.

Own own body is a thing of wonder. The human body teems with tens of trillions of cells, some foreign and some native, which weave the life sustaining processes we all depend on. A vast collaborative enterprise, our bodies perform wonders that could boggle the imagination. More than that, each individual cell is like a world unto itself, a tiny universe of molecular machines that shunt, walk, build, and push. If we could take a trip inside our cells we would see them alive with activity. Some of these processes and activities are understood already but many more wait to be explored. In the future, some of us will have their hearts stirred by these tiny worlds living within us and will discover some of these elegant truths about our bodies. They will go on to expand the set of human knowledge even about something as familiar as ourselves.

Tubeworms near a hydrothermal vent.

The world in which we live is also a thing of beauty. Countless species thrive in almost every environment. Around deep sea hydrothermal vents, fissures spouting scalding water and minerals, communities of sea creatures form in the depths. Deep pockets of high salinity create strange, dark underwater 'lakes' with tube-like creatures growing beside them like plants on some alien world.

Shark fins for asian markets.

In the sunlit forests, hills, and plateaus of the world, our more than 8,000 endangered species struggle for survival in a wilderness increasingly threatened by the expansion and market-forces of humanity. But the exotic is never far from home. Step into your back yard and take a handful of soil. In the palm of your hand you could be holding almost 200 species of bacteria all unknown to science. Future generations will need to carry hope with them as they explore a biosphere that is, incredibly, largely undiscovered; hope enough that destructive habits can be changed, hope in the nature of people, hope for our world.

A model of a high energy xray beam.

When our species was younger we looked at the stars and saw things like our fate or warring gods. We imagined that the celestial bodies were some marionette moving on crystal spheres, spinning on perfect geometric shapes, or fixed to vast domes. The sky and all it conjured within us was a source of fascination and a sense of the numinous; it inspired the thoughtful with wonderment, awe, and a connection to something greater than ourselves. The new kind of poet today will know that nothing has changed in the awe that our cosmos can create. Black holes foam with energy as particles spontaneously appear, as if from nowhere, with some being drawn in and the others escaping. Vast beams of high energy particles, powerful enough to destroy worlds, jet across space in distances greater than the breadth of a galaxy.

Our sun next to the largest star.

Ponderous stars hang in our sky, some so large that it would take millennia to fly around. The edge of our universe, so distant that it would take a beam of light 14 billion years to reach, provides its own mysteries to scientists and philosophers alike. There is no shortage of wonders in our cosmos and the doorway to adventure is remarkably easy; a warm jacket, a cloudless night, a telescope, and perhaps the company of friends can begin a lifetime of exploration.

The passionate, the empathetic, and the inquisitive will own the future. Look around you at the marvelous world with its wonders inconceivably great and small. Perhaps you can help teach others to follow this rewarding path of love for life and all that is in it.

--

Want to know more?

A CGI voyage inside a cell

Stephen Fry visits some of our endangered species

The BBC takes an unprecedented film journey around our planet.

E.O. Wilson discusses saving life on earth and the Encyclopedia of Life

The Scale of the Universe - interactive flash

The Anatomy of Pseudoscience

2011-01-30T00:54:00.000+13:00

Call it "Woo"*, pseudoscience, irrationality, or quackery; it has a distinct style.

I was recently inspired to consider pseudoscience again when the news went viral about the changes to the astrology system. Parke Kunkle, who I'm assuming teaches astronomy at Minneapolis Community and Technical College, hit the headlines when he pointed out that our more-than-2000 year old astrology charts required updating in light of the precession of the earth's rotational axis. Basically, due to the earth's wobble, our angle in orbit changes very gradually over time. The result is that the sky we see is a very different sky to the ancient forefathers of astrology and, accordingly, a reading of astrology based on accurate solar and stellar positioning would mean that people actually have very different birth "star signs" than they do on the (conventional western) "tropical astrology" system. It also means that the typical twelve signs of the zodiac should be extended to include at least one long-overlooked one, my own new sign: Ophiuchus.

You can read a good article about the recent astrology news here (Hat tip: Jonathan from Spritzophrenia).
You can also read a very funny take on the whole thing by NZ comedian Raybon Kan here (Hat tip: Mumsy dearest).

When I read the various articles, saw people's panicked responses (especially the people with zodiac tattoos), and heard astrology proponents respond in defence of their methods, I quickly realised that an excellent case study in the anatomy of pseudoscience was forming.

Added Bonus! If you're really dedicated I'll give you a treat at the end in the form of an entertaining and enlightening video.

Dubious or pre-scientific origins.
It doesn't always take much to get a good falsehood or fallacy ingrained in society. Sometimes it just takes time. It may be highly likely that ancient astrologers were simply doing the best science available to them at the time... possibly with a fallacy or two thrown in for good measure (we'll get to that). But why do people take it seriously these days? The Weight of Ages adds a street cred that is hard to fabricate. Astronomy and astrology were quite closely aligned in ancient India (2000 BC), Babylonia (1600 BC), and astrology was also practiced amongst the ancient Greeks (300 BC). It is mentioned in the Rig Veda but, realistically, we can't put a finger on who dreamed up the idea first. With celestial beings, bodies, and forces being seen to control crops and weather, it isn't too hard to imagine the cultural leap taken into the anthropologically significant spheres of Birth and Fate. Even if Astrology could be narrowed down to the origin in one group or person, you will find that the actual details of this original context will have been carefully groomed over time by skilled storytellers who are already committed to making the tale run in their favour.

Conclusion? 'Good' pseudoscience enjoys unquestioned Tradition, opaque origins, and charismatic yet unscrupulous (or naive) founders.

Inability to be explained by clear, up to date science.
Some fringe explanations for natural phenomena are simply not provable in principle. Unfortunately, this makes them either (1) deeply significant or esoteric universal mysteries, or, (2) completely unpractical, purposeless, unscientific nonsense. Caveat emptor.

Another possibility is that a fringe explanation is correct and not yet accepted by the prevailing and relevant community of experts (whether they happen to be Village Elders, Shamans, Physicists, etc). This area is what Michael Shermer calls, 'the borderlands of science' (he even has a book about it). This is good, this is fun, and this is where cool heads prevail and entrenched ideas cause problems. (A fellow blogger, Santi, has two in a series of relevant posts about critical thinking and worldviews here and here.) Plenty of currently accepted knowledge or serious theory started out life in this camp. Good scientists or thinkers aren't afraid of the borderlands. Neither are they afraid of trying running with an idea that may fail in the name of knowledge.

The third option is that some fringe explanations are only difficult to explore in practice. This is the exciting area where innovation and creativity rules. Whole contemporary scientific disciplines have 'bootstrapped' themselves into existence by running with a fantastic idea decades before their core mechanisms were fully understood (consider when DNA, the essential part of heredity, was discovered). This is an area where honesty needs to rule, of course, because "I'll prove it later, honest" can only get you so far.

Conclusion? Good pseudoscience needs moving goalposts, highly creative and adaptable people with the ability to invent ad hoc workarounds, and proponents who lack true investigative rigour. Pseudoscience thrives on mystery and people who feel that "unprovable in principle" isn't a methodological barrier for truth seekers.

"Aries: today you will be asked to choose between Loyalty and Cynicism. Follow your heart."

Refusal to change in light of relevant new facts.
As Shelley Ackerman, from this article, said:

"This [new astronomy information] doesn't change your chart at all. I'm not about to use it ... I've told all of them not to worry about it."

Astrologers didn't change their systems for every new change, she said.

"...when there are new discoveries you don't change the entire system; you just work with it to see if and where it fits into the existing system."

Astrology, like any pseudoscience, doesn't need to change any further than is required to maintain basic relevance in the eyes of society. If people are happy to use a 5,000 year old system devised to discern fate or fortune then why rock the boat? Even better if the entire system can be justified in its immutability; no explanation needed, no update required, no effort gone into creating an accurate synthesis with any future data.

Conclusion? Good pseudoscience tries to find ways to create internally logical systems of thought that don't require support or credibility from any outside sources. Cracks in their defense will let in the light of contradictory evidence and so are quickly patched up by careful and clever sympathisers.

Justified at a crucial point using logical fallacies.
Any explanation requires IF---THEN; information and conclusion; or cause and effect.

There are explanations of a whole host of fallacies available on the internet (try here for a big one, and here for a the 'top 20').

Consider: IF---THEN.

A faulty assumption ('IF') can lead to a logically consistent conclusion ('THEN'). That's not a fallacy, that's just bad data. A fallacy happens when the process of reasoning ('---') is done badly, making the conclusion unjustified. Happily(?), a false assumption can lead to a true conclusion using bad reasoning; in this case an unjustified and accidental answer (even if true).

There are probably a small selection of fallacies or errors largely contributing to the success of astrology:

Selection bias: the information sample used to justify belief is chosen using a bias. So surveys might be taken only amongst astrology proponents. Friends talk only about their horoscopes to sympathetic friends. Websites about astrology form a community of self-selecting, credulous individuals etc.
Observation bias: only those pieces of data that supports your own position are noticed or remembered. "We see what we want to see." This would go down a treat with a sufficiently ambiguous horoscope reading.
Confusing association with causation: Assuming that because two things occurred at the same time they must be related e.g. "my partner left me and our star signs weren't compatible."
Post-hoc ergo propter hoc ('after this, therefore because of this'): This is the act of assuming causation between one initial event and a preceding event, e.g. "my Boss yelled at me on the day that my horoscope cautioned me in the morning paper."
Special pleading / ad-hoc reasoning: The Magic Bullet of any pseudoscience, special pleading sneaks in subtle excuses for why any particular evidence or refutation doesn't happen to threaten the pseudoscientific claim at that time. Rules don't apply here, only boundless creativity!

Conclusion? Good pseudoscience doesn't like well researched evidence, rigorous peer review, and critically aware reasoning. Pseudoscience slips in bad assumptions or twists evidence to fit pre-determined conclusions using creativity, guile, and complexity.

Defended by conspiracy and personal attacks.
Every good organism requires an immune system and pseudoscience is no different.

A key fallacy that often comes into play here is the "ad hominem" attack. That is when somebody breaks the important rule, "play the ball and not the person."
A proponent of pseudoscience may attack the person presenting an idea using personal ammunition rather than addressing whether their ideas are actually correct. The only honest way to show why somebody is wrong would be to show why their evidence is bad, their assumptions are unreasonable, or their reasoning is flawed. The easy option, and the dishonest one, would be to disregard a good idea because it's being presented by an unideal messenger. Of course, everybody on both sides of most major debates would do well to keep this in mind (whether they are scientist/non-scientist or christian/atheist, I think we've probably all seen people do badly in this area).
There a type of ad hominem fallacy worth noting. Known as, "poisoning the well", it is where a pre-emptive ad hominem attack is made against a subject area in order to make conversation emotive and difficult ("only an idiot would think X", or, "Hitler also thought Y").

But as well as personal attacks, pseudoscientists often turn their ad hominems into grand, conspiratorial narratives. Just look at a few easy examples. The 9/11 'Truthers' think that the government is some infinitely capable secretive organisation able to micromanage world politics on a massive scale all while remaining under the radar of competent journalists. The Anti-Vaccine (vaccines cause autism) crowd think that any scientists who tell another story are in the pocket of big pharma. Also, many insular and wacky religious sects tend to suggest that everyone else is being dominated by the forces of Satan. All of these are ways in which ideas can easily be dismissed, regardless of the strength of their evidential support.

Conclusion? Good pseudoscience doesn't want to discuss evidence or progress via a careful, self-critical reasoning process. For pseudoscience to succeed, their proponents need to build up walls of irrelevant personal attacks or create grand conspiracies which create massive cognitive dissonance and allow them to reject any competing opinions outright.

And now, committed reader, since you have got this far I present your prize for 'Most Valuable Phrenist':

[Video: What a year on Earth really looks like!]

As if axial precession wasn't enough, apparently our boring and seemingly static "year" goes all over the show. It just goes to show that the universe really is more complex than our imagination usually gives it credit for. That's one reason why I think the facts are far more entertaining than any pseudoscience we might invent to explain it.

*Coined, I imagine, by the father of the modern skeptic movement, The Amazing James Randi.

Do you know your zodiac sign?

Do you take horoscopes seriously, even a little? On what basis?

Do you think horoscopes are nonsense? Are they harmless or are they a problem?

What do you think of my essentials of pseudoscience? Agree/disagree? Can you think of more?

Presuming nobody is perfect, can you identify any 'woo' in any of your own beliefs? (i.e. not about astrology)

A Wave of Reason

2010-11-23T14:29:00.000+13:00

Here is the latest release from the Symphony of Science music/science project.

[Video: A Wave of Reason]

Human Pride

2010-11-16T14:41:00.000+13:00

Gay, straight, we're all human.

I was reading Jesus Needs New PR and I came across this shirt:

Now, the morons who made this shirt decided to print bible verses on them that called for gays to be put to death. Versus like Lev 20:13, "If a man lay with a male as those who lay with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination and shall surely be put to death."

Read more about it here.

That's an interesting form of straight pride: homicidal, bigoted pride. You go, girl!

That's when I decided to make this image. Hopefully you like it, and feel free to use it personally (though not commercially). I'm considering submitting it to Threadless so it can be (hopefully) voted into existence as a shirt.

If you or anyone that you know are affected by bullying based on your sexual orientation, I suggest that you check out The Trevor Project.

Comments welcome :)

Walking the Journey

2010-11-15T15:36:00.000+13:00

"What do you conclude?", somebody asked me today, "Do you have any religious views yourself?"

I've talked about my ~~annoyance~~ thoughts about this question to people before. I've blogged on the question, "What do I believe?" and discussed my thoughts with Jonathan on labels.

Yes, I replied, I have plenty of religious views. Probably on most things. Pick a topic!

I haven't necessarily come TO any final conclusions that would be fair to offer in lieu of the journey itself being walked. The notion of summarising myself or views in one sentence or label irks me, especially given that a relatively impersonal discussion without a shared history of friendship or trust will tend to favour oversimplistic categorisation rather than demonstrate respect for either of ourselves as complex, dynamic individuals. I'm also aware that it tends to mean that all comments in a discussion are then more likely to be read within the context of the label rather than examined for their own merits.

I am compassionate.
I am arrogant.
I am a brother.
I am devoted to truth.
I am a disappointment.
I am a social worker.
I am curious.
I am a lay theologian.
I am joyful.
I am a friend.
I am humble.
I am a success.
I am a philosopher.
I am a son.
I am contemplative.
I am irritating.
I am a lover of knowledge.
I am humourous.
I am a motorbike enthusiast.
I am encouraging.
I am changing.

(I'm reminded of the literal translation of Exodus 3:14, "I am becoming Who I am becoming")

As I said to the questioner earlier, I really do think that people usually don't know what they are talking about when they discuss metaphysics. I'm not sure whether that only fairly applies to myself, to some others, or to all others. I'm doing my best job at listening to others in order to find out.

Being and Nonsense

2010-11-12T14:35:00.000+13:00

I dislike the ontological argument greatly.

The ontological argument (OA) is, in my opinion, such an example of philosophical obscurantism and wish-fulfillment that I'm actually embarrassed for the famous, historical philosophers who (apparently) took it seriously.

Here are two examples of OAs:

Descartes' OA
1. Whatever I clearly and distinctly perceive to be contained in the idea of something is true of that thing.
2. I clearly and distinctly perceive that necessary existence is contained in the idea of God.
3. Therefore, God exists.

His argument basically says, "Whatever I define is true. I define that God necessarily exists. Therefore, God exists."

That's a FAIL. Do I need to explain why?

Saint Anselm's OA (paraphrase)
1. God is a being that which none greater can be imagined.
2. Existing in reality is better than to only exist in understanding.
3. If God exists only in understanding, He would be less great than one which exists in reality.
4. Since God is the greatest being, therefore God must exist in reality.

Again, I cringe. Kant pointed out that existence is not a trait, and a imaginary tree that is imagined to be identical to an actual tree is not less "great". Even if it were, Kant pointed out, the entire argument is premised on the definition again; if you reject the entire concept then the definition doesn't really matter. As an example, I define a shape called a "Squircle": squircles are square circles. It doesn't matter that I define Squircles to be so... they don't exist.

Here's what I consider to be an even better example of why the ontological argument is stupid.

Iain's OA
1. A "Flarn" is an actual creature that is 100% dog and 100% human.
2. If Flarns were not wholly dogs, then they would not be 100% dog.
3. If Flarns were not wholly human, then they would not be 100% human.
4. If Flarns did not exist, they would not be an actual creature.
5. Therefore, Flarns exist and are 100% dog and 100% human.

As you can see, Flarns help themselves to several necessary properties. Apparently, that's okay when you're making an OA.

Is anyone else embarrassed by Ontological Arguments, too?

What do you think?

Do you know of an ontological argument form that you think is good?

Do you disagree with me and think either of the arguments presented above work?

Is philosophy a helpmate to religion or do you think they are incompatible?

Burying Pascal

2010-11-08T16:03:00.001+13:00

Is it in your best interests to Believe? Pascal's Wager says yes.

Pascal's Wager, given by Blaise Pascal, is an argument designed to convince theological skeptics or agnostics that it is in their best interests to make a good go at belief. The best part about the wager is that it makes no presumption about the evidence for God's existence: it's all about the best bet.

Pascal's Wager (and the maths)
The wager says something like this:

(1) The rational person will want to minimise personal risk and maximise personal gain.
(2) If you believe in God and you are correct, you gain infinite reward; otherwise it is status quo.
(3) If you reject God and you are incorrect, you suffer infinite loss; otherwise it is status quo.
(C) Thus, the rational person should believe in God.

"But," I hear you say, "the chances of God even existing are very improbable." Well, that doesn't matter. The genius of Pascal's argument is such that probabilities are inconsequential. Let me explain. Imagine atheism is more likely (Pa = 0.9) and theism is unlikely (Pt = 0.1). In order to know how we should value (V) both choices we need to look at the rewards (R) inherent to each.

Pa [0.9] x Ra [0 or -∞] = Va of 0 or -∞
Pt [0.1] x Rt [0 or +∞] = Vt of 0 or +∞

So, after you factor in the potential value to yourself, the value of theism is infinitely great whereas the value of taking the atheist position is infinitely bad.

Theism is win-win! If you rule out drawing even (a consequence common to both choices), it looks like the results are heaven or hell. The betting person would surely know which horse to back. Sounds clear cut, right?

Wrong.

There are, of course, the usual criticisms.

i) Religious revelations are inconsistent.
Different religions make different claims about the exact god that requires our worship and, hence, who we need to direct our affections (and our Wager) towards in order to be considered for salvation. This is all fairly beside the point, given that inconsistent revelations don't tell us that we should give up on the wager altogether. The betting man would still bet on some god, even if it wasn't a guaranteed result. You've gotta be in it to win it! Best bet is to choose a jealous god. If you're wrong, maybe the less jealous god would reward your faith anyway.

ii) God may reward honest seeking and thought, even if that means unbelief.
True. That's a perspective offered by Richard Dawkins. I suppose this is some kind of ultimate Scientific Deity, who rewards us because of our smarts and our sincere hearts. Aww. The question is, would this god turn around and punish the faithful who believe through simple faith and not through empiricism? Such a nice god probably wouldn't. Still sounds like belief is a good recipe for success, even if the heathen scientists get a free pass, too.

iii) God may be "Nahweh" (Perverse Master) who rewards unbelief and punishes belief.
This is some kind of Anti-Wager. This God works in reverse to Pascal's assumptions. The problem here is that if you have the chance of Yahweh rewarding the faithful and Nahweh rewarding the infidels then the Wager get's awfully sticky. Of course, you can't actually believe in Nahweh or he would punish you, wouldn't he? Still sounds like belief in some god (other than Nahweh) is the way to go. If you die and find yourself standing before Nahweh you can tell him, "Well, I was an atheist... with respect to you." Many people don't like this idea merely because they view it as an ad hoc manoeuvre by tricksssy philosophers; it lacks a religious tradition to lend it street cred.

iv) "This is mercenary..." etc
O noes! You can't BET on faith! God wants a sincere heart, not a person looking after their own skin. Well, you might argue that Pascal's wager is designed to make people attend church (see the next point). But, at the end of the day, if we find ourselves having to choose between good and bad, it can hardly be smart to select bad. Do the people who use this rebuttal expect the atheist "seekers" to leave church and wallow in their misery, awaiting their doom? Hardly. We make the "best" choice out of various options all the time. Anyone who disagrees should go and burn themselves on the stove out of principle.

v) You can't CHOOSE to believe at will.
What good is it to realise that faith is in your best interests when it is evidence, not will-power, that determines our belief? Well, that is possibly true, but possibly not. In Mark chapter 9, one man asked Jesus to help his unbelief. Some argue that faith is, in fact, a gift from God. I read one person's article where they advocated using Cognitive Dissonance as a means of personal belief modification! But putting that aside, Pascal actually felt that when we enacted religious behaviour we would actually increase our level of personal belief. I guess his plan is to attend religious services, pray, read the holy book of your choice, etc, and eventually you will believe. I don't know of any empirical studies to back his theory up but I would be surprised if it didn't have something to it. I would imagine that you can't be a member of a faith community for long without some of it rubbing off on you.

The Killer Argument
There is, in my opinion, one response that is far more effective. A "killer argument", if you will. Pascal's entire argument relies on the mathematics and not so much general argument or evidence. Therefore, it is worth looking at the argument from a mathematical perspective to see if it holds water.

The strength behind Pascal's advantage is that despite the evidence for God being low (or even excluded from the discussion), the infinite reward makes the value infinite. But this creates a problem. In order for any other competing views to be irrelevant, the chances of them producing any value must be utterly non-existent. To give the clearest example (and there are many others), I will bring in a third competitor to Pascal's Theism and Atheism: Universalism.

Universalism, specifically Universal Reconciliation (salvation) is the doctrine that says that beings will ultimately be reconciled to God. Universalism rejects the notion of hell altogether and some variants allow for a period of purgatory.

Why does this present a problem for Pascal's Wager? Well, in order for it not to break the wager, the chances of Universalism being true must be absolutely, utterly zero. It can't be very low, it can't be negligibly small, it can't even be infinitely small... it must be no possible chance whatsoever.

Remember our maths earlier? I put atheism at 90% chance, theism at 10% chance (just to prove a point. Let's make Universalism, Pu = 0.0000000001.

Pu [Pu = 0.0000000001] x Ru [+∞ for everybody] = Vu = +∞

So it looks like the value of Universalism is the same for Theism. Even if the chances of Universalism being true are less than the chances of Paris Hilton being U.S. President, the value of adhering to the doctrine of Universalism is infinitely great!

Now consider the implications. Pascal's wager is made on the assumption of zero evidence. That means that the "win conditions" are vague. There may be any number of ways that an individual might gain salvation (e.g. by drinking a latte, by worshiping the Flying Spaghetti Monster, by wearing green on mondays, etc) and all will be so patently absurd as to be basically zero chance of being true. But "basically zero" and "no chance" are very different animals when you are dealing with the infinite. If they happen to have an infinite metaphysical payoff (and why not?), then any one of these arbitrary actions gains just as much value as theism does using Pascal's Wager. The only way for theism to maintain its priority in Pascal's Wager is to beg the question and assume that these other options are absolutely impossible. That makes Pascal's Wager circular, broken, and worthless to the individual betting.

Pascal's Wager is now buried. He tried to appeal to the skeptics by providing them with an argument for God that relied on clever maths instead of evidence. Unfortunately, his ultimate tool, infinity, is also his greatest enemy.

Are Miracles proof of God's existence?

2010-11-03T01:48:00.000+13:00

I'm currently marking a collection of essays on - among others - the topic:

Are miracles proof of God’s existence? Give reasons for your answer.

A lot of people are referencing Hume (it was in the reading recommendations) and giving the answer, "Miracles don't exist".

The reason why they came to this conclusion is that Hume provides a fairly thorough discussion of why we may not be able to trust the testimony of the miraculous from others. Any account that tries to provide such an incredible claim as the miraculous must be sufficiently thorough, detailed, well witnessed, and well evidenced... and no written or verbal claims by hearsay or historical record can stand up to skeptical scrutiny to such a high degree. Hume also makes the point that religious testimony is self-defeating because of two reasons: (1) a miracle that apparently violates the laws of physics is remarkable precisely because of the uniformity of our experiences that miracles like that just don't happen, (if they did, they wouldn't be amazing); and, (2) miracles of opposing religions provide contradicting testimony that point towards different gods (the argument being that if e.g. Islamic miracles are true then Christianity can't be correct, and vice versa). And so, the students reasonably conclude, "Miracles don't occur."

In my humble opinion, THAT'S NOT A VALID ANSWER. In fact, that answer is non sequitur.

The question doesn't ask, "Do Miracles occur?". It asks if miracles, for the sake of argument, would be proof of God's existence.

It's a problem I've noticed with discussion about religion in other contexts. People don't simply say, "I don't have sufficient evidence to believe in your proposed god", they tend to lean towards universalising generalisations like, "No evidence exists for your god" or ... "Miracles can't happen".

Now I'm not saying I have ever witnessed a miracle. I don't think I have. I'm not convince many or any have. But that's irrelevant. You can't just make the strong, negative claim of nonexistent-evidence-in-principle when examining the philosophical link between a miracle and a deity. If I sit inside with my curtains drawn, that doesn't mean that the photons shining on my garden aren't caused by the sun. I don't have to see the photons to hypothetically discuss the relationship.

I'll put the essay question into another context.

Would naked photos of your wife sleeping with another man be evidence of her affair? Give reasons for your answer.

Stupid Answer: The naked photos don't exist.

Irrelevant. Nobody said they did. But IF they did, would they be evidence? Yes.

Do miracles occur? Yes, no, maybe. Who cares! (in this case, that is)

So, what do you think?

Are Miracles proof of God's existence? Why? (hint: the answer is not, 'they don't happen')

Is Hume being unfair? Why or why not?

Have you ever witnessed a miracle?

Living compassionately.

2010-10-27T15:43:00.000+13:00

What does it mean to be happy? Can we be happy by ourselves, within ourselves, or is happiness ultimately dependent on community? The ancient greek philosophers praised the quest for eudaimonia, The Good Life, as a virtuous end goal for human thought and action. Is happiness a good personal goal to strive for, or should we look for an alternative "cognitive virtue" like contentment, satisfaction, hope, love, or peace?

Some people try to use 'positive thinking' to gain happiness. But is positive thinking really useful?

I think that positive thinking is only as true as this following quote is,

Most folks are about as happy as they make up their minds to be. ~Abraham Lincoln

The reason why I say that is because sometimes I meet people whose lives are pretty much the same as anyone else and yet they are less content. As you will read in a quote below, the different is not one of material fact but seems to be more one of perspective or imagination. Sometimes I am surprised when I find joy in the smallest of things. It might be a tree (thanks, Leesa, I remember your blog about your friend with the panic attack), it might be the reflection of sunlight on water, it might be a cool breeze, it might be a nice coffee and relaxing music. Sometimes happiness finds me and ambushes me like a bandit, sneaking in to my mind when I am least expecting it. But happiness comes and goes and I think is not a good goal per se. I prefer the idea of contentment which can last whether I am immediately feeling happy or not.

Here are some quotes which you may or may not agree with. For the other side of things, and a recognition of the reality of the negative side of life, please do keep reading.

If only we'd stop trying to be happy we could have a pretty good time. ~Edith Wharton.

Happiness is always a by-product. It is probably a matter of temperament, and for anything I know it may be glandular. But it is not something that can be demanded from life, and if you are not happy you had better stop worrying about it and see what treasures you can pluck from your own brand of unhappiness. ~Robertson Davies.

It's pretty hard to tell what does bring happiness. Poverty and wealth have both failed. ~Frank McKinney "Kin" Hubbard.

The foolish man seeks happiness in the distance; the wise grows it under his feet. ~James Openheim.

Often people attempt to live their lives backwards; they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do more of what they want, so they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want. ~Margaret Young.

Happiness is like a butterfly which, when pursued, is always beyond our grasp, but, if you will sit down quietly, may alight upon you. ~Nathaniel Hawthorne.

We tend to forget that happiness doesn't come as a result of getting something we don't have, but rather of recognizing and appreciating what we do have. ~Frederick Keonig.

Happiness is not an ideal of reason, but of imagination. ~Immanuel Kant.

But, also, I really think that the world would be “A Better Place”(TM) if everybody made it their deep, personal goal to make others in their life happy. Imagine knowing that all of your friends and associates wanted nothing more than your own happiness! Imagine how your friends would feel knowing that you wanted nothing more than to see them content. I think that recipe for society would make a huge difference. Nobody would be alone, everyone would be supported by many.

Here are some final quotes to that effect,

If there were in the world today any large number of people who desired their own happiness more than they desired the unhappiness of others, we could have a paradise in a few years. ~Bertrand Russell.

If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion. ~Dalai Lama.

The best way to cheer yourself up is to try to cheer somebody else up. ~Mark Twain.

Sometimes people just get given the short stick. That is why I think that happiness is not a solo job (even though I'm not advocating unhealthy co-dependency). Too often our happiness is contingent on circumstance or relationships. And sometimes those circumstances or relationships really, really suck. We can’t help that (and I don’t blame the individual or think it is some part of a Grand Plan). What we can do, however, is to be there for each other.

I think we need a little bit of imagination, a little bit of courage, and a little bit of hope. As Mignon McLaughlin said (in the Neurotic’s Notebook), “Hope is the feeling we have that the feeling we have is not permanent”.

When sadness is present, hope can still remain. And how much easier it would be to feel hopeful despite sadness if we also knew we were deeply and completely loved. For that, we need others. We also need to love ourselves. That means people need to care for people and it also means not be too embarrassed to keep the door open for love from others even when, in deep misery, we may (ironically) least feel like it.

Ah, what a great society we would have if even the government made “love” its civic duty.

--

What do you think?

Should we be striving for happiness or some other goal?

What is 'the good life' and is it possible?

Can happiness be achieved by yourself, or is it dependent on others?

Feel free to post any other thoughts.

[This post was originally a comment on Jonathan's blog, Spritzophrenia, where he suggested this could be its own blog post. Read his own thoughts on 'positive thinking' here.]

I think, therefore I am awake.

2010-10-11T15:55:00.001+13:00

Ernest Sosa is the man with the answers, or so he thinks.

Sosa claims to have solved the skeptical problem of dreaming: are we awake or are we dreaming?

The cogito is famous: "I think therefore I am."

The cogito tells us that we are a thinking thing... that we can rely on our conscious self as existing.

Another way of phrasing this type of problem is whether we are dead: "I think therefore I am alive."

But what about dreaming? How can we tell the difference whether we are alive and conscious or simply stuck in a highly realistic and coherent dream? Well, Sosa thinks he has the answer. Sosa believes that one cannot question (let alone affirm) whether one is dreaming while one is within a dream. I'm not convinced. He doesn't have any trouble with lucid dreaming as lucid dreamers know the difference between beliefs within the dream and propositions about actual reality.

However, Sosa says, "If one is only dreaming, then one cannot be pondering any such question as whether one might be only dreaming, and one could not possibly assent to any answer, whether affirmative or negative. Knowing this, how can one sensibly deliberate on whether one might be dreaming? On our conception of dreams, one is automatically, rationally committed to supposing that one is not just dreaming, whenever one inquires at all. It is hard to imagine a better answer to the dream skeptic. ... We can just as well affirm as ." (p.20)

I don't buy it. I'd like to invite Sosa around for dinner and watch The Matrix with him and then see what he says. I think that it is feasible to imagine a possible scenario where one is dreaming and yet believe existential facts about the current (imagined) reality that happen to be false in actuality. I think that Sosa only privileges his solution by assuming that one can't have a sufficiently advanced enough dream-illusion that allows for existential confusion. In this regard, brain-death or unconsciousness are poor analogies for dreaming.
Do you agree with Sosa? Does Sosa provide a convincing argument against Dream Skepticism?

Do you disagree with Sosa? What problems does Sosa fail to answer?
_
Want to read more?
Sosa, Ernest (2007) A Virtue Epistemology. Apt Belief and Reflective Knowledge. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Find it at Better World Books or Google Books.

By my own hand

2010-08-13T01:45:00.000+12:00

I createth thus...

Video: Agnosticism & Labels

2010-08-10T20:17:00.001+12:00

Jonathan from Spritzophrenia and I have begun meeting up recently across Skype. Along with another friend of mine we have some possible future projects in the works but here is a conversation that we had about "Agnoticism and Labels". Think of this as a small Phrenic Philosophy (or Spritzophrenia) teaser topic:

[Video: Jonathan and I discuss Agnosticism and Labels in religious conversation.]

I'm certain that we will do more of these. In the future we may also improve the videos with transcripts or other things. I'm happy to receive any feedback from anyone: what you liked, what you didn't like, and what changes you might like to see happen.
__________

Edit: 12-Aug-2010

Due to some feedback over on Jonathan's blog, I have included the following transcript of our chat.

Transcript of Agnosticism & Labels (J= Jonathan, I = myself)

I don’t know how to characterise you and that’s for you to say.

(Laughs)

But yeah, I fluctuate between being... you know, I’ve had times I’ve been like, “Atheism is the way to go” and times when I’m kind of quite fluffy and spiritual...

Yeah

...although I’ve always had a strong kind of intellectual bent. I’m just trying to find my way through the world, I guess.

Yeah well, I mean, I could definitely describe myself in the same way I think... with the mix. Yeah.

Yeah. The term agnostic suits me quite well.

Mm. It wasn’t that long ago where I thought that... I think I had a fairly poor understanding of it and I just thought that it was kind of the cop out position, you know.

Yes, yes.

(Laughs) But it has actually helped me to do a little bit more philosophy about that kind of thing and, like, even though I don’t really like the works by Immanuel Kant at all. Like I reacted quite strongly against them when I read Kant. But I still think he has a few good points and he taught me to appreciate some of the issues to do with, like, transcendency. The idea of “What is transcendent?” and so on. To see the difficulty in making transcendent claims some of the time, that you have to be pretty sure, you know? So sometimes I think that “I don’t know” is not a cop-out answer, that sometimes I think it’s a valid answer.

Okay, yeah. Yeah, certainly your comment about people thinking that being agnostic is a cop-out position: I used to think that too and now I’m much more comfortable with it being a valid position to have. The problem is that it’s perceived as fence-sitting so you get flack from both sides...

Yeah, yeah.

...People who are strongly committed to a belief system kinda go, “Well come over here and join us”, and the people who are strongly committed to atheism say, “No! Come over here and join us”, so you kind of get flak from both sides which can be a bit uncomfortable.

Yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, I think that what you said is definitely true. But the whole idea of people want to be able to draw a line in the sand, I wonder whether that’s convenient for them rather than fair to the other people. Like, some of the time I think that the labels only serve to, sort of, help the Label-Maker rather than being accurate or generous to the other person that they’re labeling.

Labels are only useful up to a point and I think actually listening to other people, saying, “Okay, you’ve labeled yourself this, so I’ve got a general idea of what you might think” but actually listening {unclear} because, you know, most of us are probably a bit inconsistent. But that is one of the problems with ideas, being that ideas are perfect.

Are your beliefs logically consistent?

2010-08-07T00:52:00.001+12:00

I played a game called Battleground God where you have to answer a series of questions about Religion and God in order to determine how logically consistent your beliefs are.

It's a fun and educational quiz. There are only 15-20 questions. You progress across the "battlefield" and, if you answer badly, the game alerts you that you either have to "bite a bullet" (ignore a contradiction), take a hit (admit a contradictory belief), or sometimes take a direct hit (an obvious and inescapable contradiction).

[My TPM Medal of Distinction for achieving second place]

I survived mostly unscathed. I had only one contradiction, and accepted it, thereby receiving the second highest award: The Medal of Distinction.

The game is clever in that it doesn't force you to answer the questions according to Theism, atheism, or agnosticism, and it isn't concerned with whether you are "right": the only criteria of judgment is logical consistency across all of your own personal beliefs.

I think the idea is fantastic. At the end, the game offers a breakdown of your performance and explains why you may have problems in the answers that you gave.

I won't tell you the details of where I went "wrong" because I think it's more valuable if you take the test without getting any hints from me. I think I agree, my problems arose because of vague terms, but I'm more than willing to "take the hit" and adjust my thoughts accordingly. I learned a valuable lesson indeed.

So how about you? Take the test if you feel like it. How internally consistent are your beliefs?

The Fox News Porn Gaff

2010-08-03T15:23:00.000+12:00

Racism, porn, and bad maths, oh boy!

It appears that Kelli Morgan, a journalist at Fox News, needs a lesson in skepticism and statistics.

[Muslims protesting the West. Fox News disagrees. Who has the high ground?]

She said on her recent article, "No. 1 Nation in Sexy Web Searches? Call it Pornistan",

The Muslim country [of Pakistan], which has banned content on at least 17 websites to block offensive and blasphemous material, is the world's leader in online searches for pornographic material, FoxNews.com has learned.

...

So here's the irony: Google ranks Pakistan No. 1 in the world in searches for pornographic terms, outranking every other country in the world in searches per person for certain sex-related content.

...

The country also is tops -- or has been No. 1 -- in searches for "sex," "camel sex," "rape video," "child sex video" and some other searches that can't be printed here.

It can't be printed there, Kelli, mostly because it's wrong.

I read into more detail about how Google provided the numbers on Google Trends and what I found was that they normalise the data BY REGION. This means that all numbers produced as, as far as I can see, scaled against ALL google searches per region.

That means that a country with a high population and high internet & google use (like the US) will appear to have lower numbers compared to a region like Pakistan with much less google searches.

My numbers MAY be wrong, but here is my attempt.

Pakistan region, "Donkey sex" = 80.
US region, "Donkey sex" = 61.

So the US looks lower? Oh really. What do those numbers actually *mean*?

Well, in order to know how they compare, you have to know what they look like against the regional search volume. The top search term per region is always "100".

I found a useful calibration search: "YouTube". This appears high on both the PK and US top search terms.

US region, "YouTube" = 55.
Pakistan region, "YouTube" = 20.

This means that the US probably searches, on average, 2.75 times more than the Pakistanis do (that is, Pakistan's local maximum of 100 is compared against the U.S. maximum of 275).

When properly scaled against regional output, the results for "Donkey sex" actually look like this (ratio):

US = 33.55
PK = 16

This means that the US actually searches for "Donkey Sex" 2.09 times MORE than Pakistan.

In other words, PK represents 47% the "donkey sex" search volume of the whole USA.
The combined "Donkey Sex" searches of Oregon, Texas, Wisconsin, Arizona, Missouri, Michigan, Washington, & Colorado beat the searches of the country of Pakistan.

While it may be true that dodgy searches represent a greater proportion of web searches performed by Pakistan, the U.S. still appears to be the King of Explicit Porn despite the statistical fumbling of their racist news media.

(No donkeys were harmed in the making of this blog post.)

Oops, my pen slipped.

2010-08-03T13:09:00.000+12:00

[Planet Earth, the distant past.]

"La la la, copying the bible, la la la, making a manuscript, la la la, dipping my quill in the ink well, la la l-" *SPLURGE*

"Oops. I just spilled some ink on the page. Oh well. La la la keeping on making my coping la la la."

[Later]

"Brother Obsequious!"

"Yes?"

"Is this your manuscript?"

"Sure, yep. 1 John 5. Uhuh."

"There's an error here."

"What?! Where?"

"There. Look" *points*

"Oh, no. That's just where I spilled some ink."

"Um. It's in Greek."

"Just a slip."

"It's more than 25 words."

"Nah, just some "gloss". You know Copyist Gloss."

"Copyist Gloss? That's not a real idea."

"Sure it is. Anyway, it's just a mistake."

"This is an entire doctrine."

"No it isn't!"

"It's the doctrine of the Trinity. You put the doctrine of the Trinity into 1 John 5:8."

"What? Let me see that. Hmm, no I don't see it. Anyway, what difference could it make? Who really reads this stuff?"

"Sigh."

"Oh look, the Page has arrived. Quick, we've got to get this manuscript off to the printers!"

"But... you... I... screw it. Moron." *gives it to the Page*

Learn more: [The Johanine Comma][Textus Receptus][The Trinity]

If I Were A Rich Man

2010-08-02T02:10:00.000+12:00

There are several podcasts and groups that I would like to support, if I were rich enough to pay for them.

Of course, I very much doubt that I will ever become a rich man. I can always dream.

Here is my list of people I would like to support. Given that this is a total fantasy list, then I will say that Iain the Multi-Millionaire would like to see these people become "full time" in their work so that they could ignore the other pressing needs of life and simply focus on their work in these areas.

I wonder, what would your list look like?

Science and Skepticism

The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe (website & podcast), by the New England Skeptics' Society [link]

Official description:
"The Skeptics Guide to the Universe is a weekly Science podcast talkshow discussing the latest news and topics from the world of the paranormal, fringe science, and controversial claims from a scientific point of view."

The people:
The SGU are Dr Steven Novella, Bob Novella, Rebecca Watson, Evan Bernstein, & Jay Novella.

Why I appreciate them:
The SGU podcast is educational, fascinating, packed with science news and discoveries, and just a really excellent listen overall. The crew are all very personable and they do a great service to the skeptical community. Podcasts like this provide excellent commentary on bogus beliefs and quack science claims.

Skeptoid (podcast): Critical Analysis of Pop Phenomena, by Brian Dunning [link]

Official description:
"Skeptoid is a weekly science podcast dedicated to furthering knowledge by blasting away the widespread pseudosciences that infect popular culture, and replacing them with way cooler reality.
Each weekly episode focuses on a single phenomenon — an urban legend, a paranormal claim, alternative therapy, or something just plain stupid — that you've heard of, and that you probably believe in. Skeptoid attempts to expose the folly of belief in non-evidence based phenomena, and more importantly, explains the factual scientific reality.
From the sublime to the startling, no topic is sacred, politically incorrect though that may be."

The people:

Skeptoid is hosted and produced by Brian Dunning.

Why I appreciate them:
Skeptoid is a fantastic source material for those who are wondering about a particular claim that might be popularly made or believed. It's short (8-15mins), deliciously sarcastic, well argued, and well supported by evidence. Curious about a bizarre claim that your friend told you about? Stop by and see what Brian uncovers about it; if you're brave enough you might learn something.

Bad Astronomy (website), by Phil Plait [link]

Official description:
"Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He has written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic, and loves fighting misuses of science as well as praising the wonder of real science."

The people:
The 'Bad Astronomer' is Phil Plait.

Why I appreciate them:

Phil Plait is one of the most passionate astronomers that I could name. His work goes beyond his blog and into authorship as well as his up-coming foray into television with his Discovery TV series, "Bad Universe" (click for YouTube sneak peek). Phil originally started debunking famous hoaxes but has moved into general science education. He is an energetic and driven individual who really deserves to go far in this world.

Atheism

The Atheist Experience TV Show (TV & podcast), by the Atheist Community of Austin [link]

Official description:
"The Atheist Experience is a weekly cable access television show in Austin, Texas geared at a non-atheist audience. Every week we field live calls from atheists and believers alike, and you never know what you're going to get! Sometimes it can get quite feisty indeed! You don't want to miss it."

The people:
The AE hosts and co-hosts are Matt Dillahunty, Russell Glasser, Don Baker, Jeff Dee, Tracie Harris, Jen Peeples, and Martin Wagner.

Why I appreciate them:
The AE provides one of the best regular discussion shows that I am aware of featuring a rotating pair of atheist hosts willing to field any and every live caller about any topic on religion and atheism. Their debating and critical thinking skills are, combined, better than any others I have seen. Matt and Russell, and probably others, also do further work in the community such as hosting or attending debates and providing lectures on a range of topics. The are more than willing to discuss anything with any caller whether they simply have a question through to professional apologists wanting to debate a formal topic.

Atheist News (website & podcast), by Joe Prova and "Brother" Richard Haynes [link]

Official description:
"The Atheist News podcast is the official bi-weekly podcast of Atheist Nexus. For an hour, Joe Prova and his co-host, Brother Richard Haynes, serve you up news that is of interest to atheists, humanists, and skeptics spiced with a dash of humor, a pinch of sarcasm, and tonnes and tonnes of incredulity."

The people:

Atheist News is hosted by Joe Prova and Richard Haynes.

Why I appreciate them:
Joe and Brother Richard provide a humorous and sometimes sad glance at the recent news pouring in from the world of wacky religious occurrences. Good for a laugh, always interesting, and presented in a personable manner, this podcast is always fun. Joe and Richard both have their own need for money in their endeavours, so I imagine that a philanthropist would be putting money to an extremely dynamic cause if they supported these two.

American Freethought (website & podcast), by John C. Snider & David Driscoll [link]

Official description:

"The purpose of American Freethought is to serve freethinkers of every stripe: atheists, agnostics, skeptics, secular humanists, brights, rationalists, or whatever else you wish to call yourselves. This publication casts a wide net. In addition to perennial concerns like reason vs. religion and separation of church and state, it will also cover topics that any thoughtful reader should find interesting: science, politics, philosophy, the arts, and social issues.
You will find no agenda beyond promoting reasoned discourse as the best method for understanding reality and deciding how to live. This is not an activist publication per se, nor is it a mouthpiece for any political party or special interest group."

The people:

The contributors are author and activist, John C. Snider, and A.A.I. advocate, David Driscoll.

Why I appreciate them:
As much as I enjoy their content, John and David are in themselves both personable and interesting guys. They provide a friendly approach to the topics, often sharing of their own personal lives as well as discussion both U.S.-relevant and worldwide issues. They do some very interesting interviews with authors and specialists and are both very skilled hosts.

Dogma Free America (podcast), by Rich Orman & assorted co-hosts [link]

Official description:
"From beautiful Aurora, Colorado, this is the Dogma Free America podcast. Your best source of information about religion, crazy dogma, freedom of speech, and the jackass of the week... and, on occasion, a really bad Southern accent."

The people:
This show is hosted by Rich Orman, with co-hosts varying between Flynn Owens, Rob Orman, and Jamye J.

Why I appreciate them:

I enjoy DFA because the hosts are friendly, have witty and often very dry humour, and banter about all sorts of amusing topics. The show provides a light-hearted mockery of all things wacky from the latest news events demonstrating crazy dogma.

Religion

Apologia Podcast (website & podcast), by Dr Zachary Moore & assorted co-hosts [link]

Official description:
"Apologia is a friendly forum for both theists and non-theists to come together in search of some common understanding. Rather than a contentious debate format, Apologia provides a setting in which all participants can discuss without confrontation."

The people:

Apologia is usually hosted by Dr. Zachary Moore, Rev. Kevin Harris, and includes a mix of theist and atheist co-hosts.

Why I appreciate them:
Apologia podcast usually provides an excellent, mutually beneficial, respectful, and non-confrontational discussion between atheists and theists on a range of important topics. A good testament to their positivity is that if, for schedule reasons, the show is hosted only by "one side" the discussion still remains balanced and fair. They tackle and acknowledge the strengths and weaknesses of both sides of the discussion. I wish that more people could talk about issues as fairly, honestly, and comprehensively as these guys do on here.

Music

The Vocal Trance Session, by Sonnydeejay [link]

Description (unofficial): The Vocal Trance sessions is a weekly, 60-90 minute mix of trance music offered free by podcast.

The people:
This show is mixed by an artist, Sonnydeejay, from Brazil.

Why I appreciate them:
The Vocal Trance sessions provide a consistently high quality mix of trance music. The sessions are largely uninterrupted by any DJ talk-overs, are mixed well, and is usually a very excellent track-list. If you enjoy trance, particularly vocal trance, or are wanting to know more about trance then I would not hesitate to recommend this podcast.

Science as "pantheism"?

2010-07-30T20:00:00.000+12:00

Is the scientific worldview pantheistic or, possibly, panentheistic? By "the scientific worldview", I mean the prevailing highly educated, western, scientific story of reality seen in most top-selling cosmology or biology books currently popularising science information.

Pantheism: the belief that identifies God with the universe, or regards the universe as a manifestation of God.

Panentheism: the belief that God is greater than the universe and includes and interpenetrates it.

To kick off the question, here are some videos:

[Video: Neil deGrasse Tyson speaking at Beyond Belief '06]

[Video: Auto-tuned science song, "We Are All Connected", by John Boswell.]

[Video: Auto-tuned science song, "The Poetry of Reality (An Anthem for Science)", by John Boswell.]

To the pantheist, the universe and god are one. To the panentheist, god interpenetrates and abides through out all of the universe. Christianity, understood from one particular school of thought, could arguably be a form of panentheism (Colossians 1:17, "He is before all things, and in him all things hold together").

As you can see in the first video's speech from deGrasse Tyson, the truths of science can inspire a great awe and a passionate sense of wonder as profound as those in any religious prophet. In my experience, it is very common to hear cosmologists and other types of scientists, whether they are religious or not, speak in reverential terms about their love for knowledge and about the numinous experiences that they have while studying reality.

I think that it is entirely possible to have an "atheist spirituality" because, if the atheists are correct, the feelings that atheist scientists have while studying their field literally are no different to those claimed by the religious camp. And, if the atheists are wrong about the nature of a transcendent reality, then I still feel that the experiences that go through the minds of such scientifically enamoured folks are found within a particular orientation towards whatever divinity or transcendency we can touch from within our limited view on reality.
After all, as Francis Bacon believed, "God has, in fact, written two books, not just one. Of course, we are all familiar with the first book he wrote, namely Scripture. But he has written a second book called creation."

However, even given what I just said I do not feel that the scientific experience, however numinous, is in any way making any claims about religious matters (transcendent ones anyway, historical claims are another story). Because science only studies that which is immanent (i.e. our material universe), this is why I don't feel that the scientific worldview is ultimately a religious one.

So no, the scientific worldview isn't pantheism or panentheism, but I would forgive somebody for getting the two confused at a simple glance.

Love God Or Die?

2010-07-27T00:36:00.000+12:00

I originally posted this as a comment on a friend's blog but feel it is worth its own post here.

He recommended watching the Mimi Rogers & David Duchovny movie The Rapture (1991). It was bizarre, somewhat disturbing, but highly worth my time. Here are my thoughts.

[Video: a YouTube mashup of scenes from The Rapture.]

Wow. Okay. Well I just (literally just) finished watching The Rapture.

Uh…

I found the repeated urging to love God to be REALLY sinister. It creeped me out! The whole time there was this urging to love God as though the sword of Damacles was hanging over their heads. God was never seen, only vaguely hinted at. Suffering was clearly present (as was the theme of the movie), but any kind of “humanity” (so to speak) to God was not. It held a very high christology. Too high, IMO, and the notion of “a god who risks” and an incarnate, suffering deity (as found in Christ) was entirely missing.

Scary spokesmen for God, cultish and secretive adherents abounded, murderously insane delusions seemed the order of the day (even on the part of the protagonist), and the main theological message seemed to be “Love God Or Die”. Such a message seems to undermine the very notion of love itself.

If I had a gun, and I was a powerful head of state, and I said to a citizen, “You *must* love me for giving you the precious gift of living within my society (OR I WILL KILL YOU)”, I don’t see how an affirmative response from them would be any kind of true example of love at all. I certainly would never believe that they loved me even if they said that they did. You can’t coerce true love, especially not through violence. Love must be earned, it cannot be forced.

The final scene highlighted this problem especially well. As her child said, “Do you love God for giving you the gift of life?” with the threat of eternal damnation literally looming behind her words. What would they expect the answer to be? The best I could muster in that scenario would be a lie: “Yes. (please don’t hurt me)”

The rules of relationship apply to God just as much as any person. Give me a reason to respect you and I shall respect you. Give me a reason to love you and I shall love you. Try to force me to do either and you will instead force me to do neither.

Religion and Wish-fulfillment

2010-07-21T00:43:00.000+12:00

Wish-fulfillment, or "wishful thinking", is a danger to reasonable religion.

Wikipedia says,

“Wishful thinking is the formation of beliefs and making decisions according to what might be pleasing to imagine instead of by appealing to evidence, rationality or reality.

Studies have consistently shown that holding all else equal, subjects will predict positive outcomes to be more likely than negative outcomes.”

This relates to the common, human optimism bias, and the logical fallacies of false relevance known as the appeal to emotion and the appeal to consequences.

The problem could be summed up as being: “filling gaps in your knowledge with emotionally satisfying answers rather than necessarily true ones”.

As one person said on a podcast that I heard recently, “Science, if it does anything well, is very good at throwing cold water on human self-importance.”

Here are some questions to consider:

Q: Do you feel that not knowing something is a problem?

Q: Would you feel uncomfortable with a worldview that doesn’t provide “all the answers”? Or, rephrased, do you think that if a worldview can’t provide “all the answers” that this is a black mark against it?

For example, some Big Questions(TM) might be:

“Why is there something rather than nothing?”

“What happens after we die?”

“What is ‘The Meaning Of Life’?” (notice the capitals)

If we just don’t know how the universe was formed (or anything "prior" to the Big Bang)... would that be a problem?

If we just don’t know if an afterlife exists or not... would that be a problem?

If we just don’t know how to determine any one absolute Meaning to life... is that a problem?

If the facts available to humanity simply does not allow absolute confidence in any of these questions, if indeed any answers at all, is uncertainty really so terrible?

To provide more examples, there are some other ways in which one might appeal to the argument from emotion or use wishful thinking in religion:

In wanting - and thus believing - in some kind of Ultimate Justice to get payback against evil that prospers in this life.

In wanting - and thus believing - in some kind of Ultimate Comfort because life can be very difficult.

In wanting - and thus believing - in some kind of Ultimate Love because sometimes we feel unloved.

This is not to say that any of these things are untrue, but what it means is that they are not going to be true purely based on your desire for them to be the case. The world does not conform itself to our desires, after all. Wishful thinking says absolutely nothing about the truth or falsity of the issue at hand, it only reveals something about the person doing it. It is irrational to believe something based on nothing (or you could believe anything and everything, arbitrarily) and I think that you owe it to yourself to make your foundations more secure than that.

One perspective is that, by relying on wish fulfillment, you tear down your own self-esteem and place it in the hands of an otherwise unexamined belief set. That’s a risky gambit and it doesn’t guarantee that you will end up holding beliefs that mirror reality.

Ask yourself: If you hold a particular belief, what have you done and how have you investigated it to ensure that your belief is actually true?

For those who are interested in the philosophy of Wishful Thinking and want to be able to spot it, it goes like this:

P1) X is nice/comforting/satisfying.

P2) Belief A doesn’t provide X.

P3) Belief B does provide X.

C) Therefore, on no other basis than P1-3, one ought to believe B.

After careful, honest reflection, do you think that any of your beliefs might be at least partly grounded in wishful thinking?

We get high, the fish die.

2010-07-20T23:59:00.000+12:00

Anti-depression medication can kill marine life.

When humans take medication like prozac they don't absorb it all and a certain amount of it will make its way to the ocean where it has a potentially disastrous effect on marine life. Our sewage systems currently don't filter out such medication from the water, meaning that it can find its way into - among other things - the brains of shrimps. The medication then has an effect on them similar to a natural parasite that influences their brain chemistry and causes the shrimps to swim into lighter and more predatory waters.

Swim to the light, Willy! Swim to the light! Wait... no, don't!

From The Naked Scientists:

Anti-depressants that end up in sewage effluent could have a major impact on marine wildlife, causing shrimp to swim towards instead of away from light. That may not sound important, but it is, because hanging around in well-lit waters make these animals far more likely to be eaten by fish or birds, potentially disrupting entire food webs.

Publishing in the journal Aquatic Toxicology, Yasmin Guler and Alex Ford from the UK’s University of Plymouth, got the idea for this study from a type of parasite that infects shrimps, making them more likely to swim towards light where they are eaten by other animals, that are the next step in the life-cycle of the parasite. The parasites change their host’s swimming behaviour by manipulating levels of serotonin in their brain.

The researchers wondered if the anti-depressant drugs people take to target serotonin levels and control their mood might have a similar affect on other animals.

Read more...

I work part-time in a psychiatric supportive residential accommodation service. I support a responsible application of the medical model of psychiatric treatment. However, I would like to see this human advantage gained without any expense to the beautiful flora and fauna of our lands and oceans.

Note to sewage treatment services: get with the programme.

The Golden Rule(s)

2010-07-17T00:03:00.000+12:00

Christianity’s golden rule isn’t alone. It turns out that most other religions also have rules similar to (and many times predating) Jesus’ own version. They vary between passive or active; positive or prohibitive. But the point is pretty much the same. That’s enough from me.

Religions: have your say!

African Traditional Religions
"One going to take a pointed stick to pinch a baby bird should first try it on himself to feel how it hurts."
Yoruba Proverb (Nigeria)

Buddhism
"Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful."
Udana-Varga 5,1

"Comparing oneself to others in such terms as "Just as I am so are they, just as they are so am I," he should neither kill nor cause others to kill." 
Sutta Nipata 705

"One should seek for others the happiness one desires for himself" 
Buddha (Siddhartha Gautama, c. 563 - c. 483 B.C.)

"The Ariyan disciple thus reflects, Here am I, fond of my life, not wanting to die, fond of pleasure and averse from pain. Suppose someone should rob me of my life... it would not be a thing pleasing and delightful to me. If I, in my turn, should rob of his life one fond of his life, not wanting to die, one fond of pleasure and averse from pain, it would not be a thing pleasing or delightful to him. For a state that is not pleasant or delightful to me must also be to him also; and a state that is not pleasing or delightful to me, how could I inflict that upon another? As a result of such reflection he himself abstains from taking the life of creatures and he encourages others so to abstain, and speaks in praise of so abstaining." 
Samyutta Nikaya v.353

"Never do to other persons what would pain thyself." 
Panchatantra (Buddhist Mythology c. 200 B.C.)  

Christianity
"All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye so to them; for this is the law and the prophets."
Matthew 7:1

"You shall love your neighbor as yourself."
Leviticus 19.18

"Teacher, which is the great commandment in the law?" Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the prophets" 
Matthew 22.36-40  

Confucianism
"Do not do to others what you would not like yourself. Then there will be no resentment against you, either in the family or in the state."
Analects 12:2

"Try your best to treat others as you would wish to be treated yourself, and you will find that this is the shortest way to benevolence."
Mencius VII.A.4

"Tsekung asked, "Is there one word that can serve as a principle of conduct for life?" Confucius replied, "It is the word shu--reciprocity: Do not do to others what you do not want them to do to you."" 
Analects 15.23  

Hinduism
"This is the sum of duty; do naught onto others what you would not have them do unto you."
Mahabharata 5,1517

"One should not behave towards others in a way which is disagreeable to oneself. This is the essence of morality. All other activities are due to selfish desire."
Mahabharata, Anusasana Parva 113.8  

Islam
"No one of you is a believer until he desires for his brother that which he desires for himself."
40 Hadith of an-Nawawi 13

Jainism
"In happiness and suffering, in joy and grief, we should regard all creatures as we regard our own self."

"A man should wander about treating all creatures as he himself would be treated."
Sutrakritanga 1.11.33

"One should treat all beings as he himself would be treated." 
Agamas Sutrakritanga 1.10.13  

Judaism
"What is hateful to you, do not do to your fellowman. This is the entire Law; all the rest is commentary."
Talmud, Shabbat 3id

Sikhism
"As thou deemest thyself, so deem others."

Taoism
"Regard your neighbor’s gain as your gain, and your neighbor’s loss as your own loss."
Tai Shang Kan Yin P'ien

Zoroastrianism
"That nature alone is good which refrains from doing another whatsoever is not good for itself."
Dadisten-I-dinik, 94,5

"Whatever is disagreeable to yourself do not do unto others." 
Shayast-na-Shayast 13:29

Other
"Do not do unto others what angers you if done to you by others."
Socrates 436-338 BCE

"We should behave toward friends as we would wish friends to behave toward us." Aristotle (384-322 B.C.)

"He sought for others the good he desired for himself. Let him pass." Egyptian Book of the Dead (1580-1350 B.C.)

"Do not kill or injure your neighbor, for it is not him that you injure, you injure yourself. But do good to him, therefore add to his days of happiness as you add to your own. Do not wrong or hate your neighbor, for it is not him that you wrong, you wrong yourself. But love him, for Moneto loves him also as he loves you." 
Shawnees Indians

This list was from here; I personally would also add the Wiccan Rede, "Do what you will, so long as it harms none".

Check out the Golden Rule here on Wikipedia too.

Sounds like a good start to Game Theory to me! ;)

Cellular gaming

2010-07-14T13:35:00.002+12:00

CellCraft, where YOU are a cell.

The flash community is a wonderful, expansive, and organic beast.

Today's dose of flash brings us CellCraft, where you build and discover about the life and workings of a cell as you help it go about its business.

[Edit: I have disabled embedding on this game due to its irritating sound, so play it here.]

There have been some incredible offerings in the past, such as a flash showing the scale of the universe from the very largest (outer edges) down to the very small (quantum foam).

In this case, CellCraft seems to be another excellent educational tool for those studying biology as well as to provide to children so that they can absorb the wonders of science in a palatable way. CellCraft explains things as you go as well as provides an inbuilt encyclopedia so you can go back and read about how the cell works.

Good job, CellCraft, you give me another source of hope that facts can be as fun as pseudoscience or occult TV programmes.
___

Other links you might want to check out:
Newgrounds - flash mega site for games, movies, and more.
Armor Games - an excellent "best of" site (a spin-off from Newgrounds?)

Satan redux

2010-07-13T03:10:00.000+12:00

What is Satanism?

Following on from a conversation that I had with my church community the other day ("Can Christians eat Hell Pizza") - as well as a very bizarre blog post I recently found through the Twitterverse - I have been re-examining the philosophy of (LeVayan) Satanism to see what I think about it. That is not to say, "whether I like it", since I largely don't. It is merely as an intellectual curiosity.

Despite its obviously negative traditional theistic roots and the ordinarily bad press that baby eating, goat killing image that some American media sources like to push on Satanism (interestingly, LaVey actually decries and commands against all such things in his Satanic Bible), modern CoS Satanism is an iconoclastic, extreme-libertarian, atheistic, materialist philosophy that views - and revels in - Satan as a symbol of humanity's carnal nature.

CoS Satanism is not without its share of spells and other magical mumbo-jumbo, but their rituals revolve around carnal pleasures rather than anything else traditionally expected. I won't go into any details here but, needless to say, the magic rituals would have more general appeal to a pubescent male than a professional butcher.

I found a couple of interesting journal articles exploring the subject. This quote is from Lewis, J.R. (2001) "Who Serves Satan? A Demographic and Ideological Profile." Marlburg Journal of Religion, 6(2):

The problem with [the stereotypical/uninformed] kind of analysis is that Western society is long past the state in its cultural history where Satan and Satanism can unambiguously be equated with evil. The difficulties inherent in Russell's assertion [that Satan is, by definition, evil] become evident as soon as one entertains its corollary, namely that Christ and Christianity are by definition good. However positively we might regard Christianity, few of us would be willing to characterize the influence of the Christian tradition as an unalloyed good. Although we might wish we could make such simple, straightforward associations, the fact of the matter is that the cultural images of Satanism and Christianity we have inherited are complex and often ambiguous. We do not have to look any further than everyday speech to perceive how thoroughly Satan's sinister associations have been diluted: We live in a world where, without a second thought, we consume Deviled ham and Devil's food, "play Devil's advocate," describe certain locations as "hellholes," go out and have a "Devil of a good time," wake up "feeling like hell," and so forth.

In short, Satan has come to represent much more than the ultimate bad guy. Though Satan and his minions sometimes still play their timeworn roles as representatives of pure evil, our culture has also invested the Devil with many positive, attractive traits. A prime example of this is sex: Because of the Christian Church's traditional negative attitude toward sexuality, the diabolical has come to be associated with sex and sensuality. Satan has also been portrayed as a proud, clever, creative non-conformist willing to question the status quo. In the modern world, all of these characteristics are regarded as positive traits (at least theoretically). It is difficult to understand modern religious Satanism without taking into account of this reevaluation of the Prince of Darkness.

I'm still analysing and processing the topic, so don't expect anything too profound at this time. But I would be interested in hearing your thoughts on the issue of Satanism, Satan (the literal Being), Satan (the symbol), or anything else.

The Ideal Game?

2010-07-11T19:07:00.000+12:00

When geek comics and philosophy collide, the product is a beautiful thing.

Probably without realising it, Tim Buckley at CTRL+ALT+DEL has provided the ideal learning tool for teaching and/or learning about the (Fregean) "classic" Proposition Theory of Meaning. Students, tutors, and teachers take note!

According to Associate Prof. Diane Proudfoot, Frege thought that propositions were neither things of the outer, experiential world nor were they ideas. The thoughts that we have are merely the proposition clothing itself in the material garment of the sentence.

Accordingly, one might have an idea... but you only apprehend a thought. As if our minds were pioneers traveling across the Idea Space of Possible Truths, no idea is created but all are, essentially, "discovered". They are neither spiritual nor unreal, but are abstract entities in some third realm. WooOOoo.

Here is Tim Buckley's version of it: (part 1 of 3)

[ part one | part two | part three ]

Now, I don't know about you, but all of these metaphysical notions of propositions creep me out about as much as the idea of Platonic Forms, but isn't it such good fun?

The Humanity of Love

2010-07-11T08:43:00.000+12:00

I was just listening to a podcast called, Artificial Life, by the guys from Apologia.

I guess in keeping with a previous post on Lesbian Robots, it got me thinking about Robot behaviour and human norms.

In the not too distant future, artificial life (A-Life) will become advanced enough to simulate many aspects of human behaviour. Probably at a time somewhat further than that, their intelligence on a general level will rival our own. Certainly, A-Life will be used to perform many of the menial tasks of daily living. But I think relationships will be deeper than that. People, though certainly not all, will love their A-Life companions... but will they be loved in return?

The first battle will be what does it mean to be intelligent, to be rational, to be "conscious". You will find that philosophers of mind cannot actually define consciousness for humans (even if we have a vaguely understood and incomplete definition within neuroscience), so the great irony will come when some humans attempt to draw the circle of definition to exclude A-Life.

I think the next battles will be more interesting and perhaps more revealing of our own natures.

Will people take A-Lifeforms to church? Will they consider A-Lifers spiritual? Does what we mean by 'spirituality' require reduction to be applicable to A-Life, or can the fully nuanced concept apply to A-Life as much as it does to humans?

Will the very best, rational, and emotionally healthy A-Lifers be considered to be ensouled? What does this mean? (In fact, what does this mean for humans?) Is rationality a sufficient prerequisite for ensoulment? Do you need to have emotions? (and what are they?) Is ensoulment materialistically prejudicial, demanding that only meat-machines make the final cut?

Many people make predictions and guesses about A-Life, how we should relate to it, and how it will relate to humanity. However, I think that many of these predictions are based on an androcentric understanding of what intelligence entails ("Surely they must want this...") rather than an impartial evaluation of the fruits of cognition.

This is your rainbow... on drugs?

2010-07-08T22:12:00.000+12:00

This has got to be the best video of a rainbow ever ... and its now a song!

I want what he is having.

View the unedited footage used to make the song here.

The upcoming season on PP

2010-07-07T17:23:00.000+12:00

Hi folks,

I have a few ideas for a couple of blog series here on PP, initially inspired by recent discussion with Jonathan and Tim (no, Tim, I haven't forgotten that I said I'd blog about it!).

The two series will basically split into two themes: worldviews (for lack of a better word), and sciences.

In "Understanding...", the worldview series, I plan to discuss the following:

Humanism (thanks, Tim)
Skepticism
Agnosticism (inspired by Jonathan)
Atheism or freethinkers
Antitheism

And, possibly, secularism (although I am uncertain). Would you want me to?

The series on the sciences and arts, "Learn about...", will hopefully feature a collection of guest writers. I am not, after all, a raving polymath. I plan to examine:

Philosophy
Ethics
Biology
Political Science
Theology
History or HAPS
Evolutionary science
Medicine

I plan for this sciences series to have a pragmatic flavour, with the eye to explain the discipline and hopefully inspire people through seeing its relevance to the world around us.

In the meantime, and at least after I have blogged about Humanism, I might cover "Why Not Nihilism?"

Do you have any other ideas for either of the series that you would like to see covered? Or, even better, do you feel that you have a specialisation that you might be able to contribute to the second series?

Motivation: Purpose beats Profit

2010-07-04T17:08:00.003+12:00

This is an animated illustration of a talk by Dan Pink on 'The surprising truth about what motivates us".

This resonates with me, personally, but also fits the behavioral and psychological science that I am so fond of and familiar with.

If you are interested in similar issues on choice, cheating, rationality, and preference, then you may want to see some material by Dan Ariely (a behavioural economist) at TED Talks:

On our buggy moral code

Are we in control of our decisions?

Lesbian Robots and Future Morality

2010-03-31T11:38:00.004+13:00

If you're interested, here is a music video for the song All Is Full of Love by Bjork.

[Video: All is full of love, Bjork]

It might be a teeny bit NSFW as it contains "Lesbian Robots", as one person put it, but since they are only seen kissing then it's largely safe viewing in most contexts.

Because of where my head is at the moment, when I saw this it suddenly made me think about human behaviours, dispositions and intuitions, and moral behaviour in light of that.

Why?

Well, why would robots kiss at all? It serves no function, no purpose, in the life of a robot. In fact, presumably a "Lesbian Robot" doesn't really "love" the other robot that it is mechanically entwined with. All of it is an empty shell, replicating the behaviours of the ones who were (indirectly/originally) their creators.

I can imagine that such an automated factory could go on producing robots long after the human race had died out. Would they continue to love and continue to kiss? Would they make more robots in kind with themselves, who in turn keep repeating scores of pointless rituals that echo some long dead, human meaning?

How much of our behaviours are also echoes of our past? How much of our current disposition and our intuitions are shaped by archaic biological and social forces no longer relevant to our modern lives?

How, then, does our resulting moral tendencies and opinions reflect the best correspondence with reality as it can be optimally reached (and how much of it is harmful or confounding echoes)?

Being 'objective' is the golden child in moral discourse, it seems. Surely a truly objective morality would reach beyond our primal proclivities and emotions. Surely a truly objective morality wouldn't look very human at all beyond the necessary attachment to us as moral actors.

I wonder then, what would a transhumanist (post-human) morality look like?

Robot Pirates

2010-03-29T00:58:00.004+13:00

Yo ho ho and a bottle of RAM!

Presenting: Robot Pirates, an excellent and very random flash from Newgrounds.

If the video doesn't load you can view it here.

Arrogance or integrity?

2010-03-20T18:57:00.004+13:00

I hate it when people claim that others are being intellectually arrogant.

This is because it's usually merely the retort of a person who can't defend an idea they believe and have to resort to feeble insults to shore up their defenses.

If wanting good reasons for thinking something makes me "elitist" then so be it.

If putting forward my own ideas in a reasoned argument makes me "arrogant" then I'll own it.

If wanting clear evidence for my significant beliefs about reality makes me "narrow minded" or "skeptical" then I'm very happy to be so.

However, none of the three labels above are actually correct, fair, or reasonable.

My suggestion to others? Don't take yourself too seriously, don't be afraid to say "I don't know", and become your own worst critic. Everything else will come out in the wash.

Here are some quotes from some of history's "narrow-minded":

"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the universe." ~ Albert Einstein.

"Most people would sooner die than think; in fact, they do so." ~ Bertrand Russell.

"I respect faith, but doubt is what gets you an education." ~ Wilson Mizner.

"Skeptical scrutiny is the means, in both science and religion, by which deep thoughts can be winnowed from deep nonsense." ~ Carl Sagan.

"Ignorance is preferable to error; and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing, than he who believes what is wrong." ~ Thomas Jefferson.

Dub FX, street beatboxer

2010-03-19T01:13:00.005+13:00

Hat-tip Eyebrows (twitter: @eyebrows360)

Wow.

This guy is just incredible.

[Video: 'Dub FX' performing his song Made]

Did Paul invent Christianity?

2010-03-17T21:04:00.003+13:00

My new flat and I have a custom in which we discuss a book chapter, article, or some other reading on a monday night. This coming monday we will be discussing the article, "Did Paul Invent Christianity?", written by historian, Paul Barnett, in The Briefing (an evangelical Christian magazine). (The link goes to a website comment about the article, not the article itself.)

I'm going to be fairly blunt about my opinions of the article, as I think it is fairly poorly written and contains too many errors and assertions with not enough supporting evidence. It would not be fair to put all of my comments on it here as you, my blog readers, don't have access to the article to compare against. However, before I sat down to read the article I penned some initial thoughts on the question and I would appreciate any comments...

Did Paul invent Christianity?

Did Paul wholly invent Christianity?

Trivially, no. If we assume that Paul wrote all of the Epistles, you might roughly summarise the New Testament as comprising: the gospels, Acts, the pauline epistles, general epistles, and revelation. Each of these have distinct writers. We see that, prima facie, the strong claim that Paul “invented” Christianity is trivially wrong.

Is there any extra-biblical confirmation for the details of the life of Paul?

No. Paul’s own account of his background is in Galatians (a book that some believe was written and/or altered by Marcion or Marcionites), the book of Acts, with a primary source being his seven epistles.

Is the theology and Christology of Paul different to the Gospels?

Yes. If you had the Gospels alone you wouldn’t derive the message of the Epistles. Also, Paul never directly quotes Jesus nor does he tell any synoptic stories.

Did Paul have theological disagreements with other early Church founders?

Yes, such as Peter. As in Acts, they disagreed over what it meant to be a Christian.

Is Pauline Christianity different to any other early forms of Christianity?

Yes. There were many groups in the early church; among others, there was the (i) “Proto-orthodox” Paulinist Catholic Church, (ii) Petrine Christianity which was in the process of hellenising, (iii) the Ebionites rejected the virgin birth and the pre-existence of Jesus and stressed the humanity of Jesus and the essential oneness of God, (iv) the Docetists believed that Jesus was a heavenly being, (v) the Montanists practiced speaking in tongues, (vi) Marcionites appointed women as bishops and priests, (vii) Carpocratians enjoyed good food and wine and taught that Jesus had a normal parentage. Obviously, modern day orthodoxy says that some of those groups were not truly Christian at all, but this is really begging the question when we are critically discussing the actual foundation of the church and church doctrine itself.

Is the theology and Christology of Paul the same as the orthodox Creeds?

Yes, by a creedal interpretation of the Epistles (ironically/circularly), the Epistles and the creeds affirm the same thing about Christianity. However, the creeds and the creedal interpretation of the Epistles were affirmed afterwards meaning that their synchronicity tells us nothing about the original orthodoxy of the Epistles.

So, did Paul “invent Christianity?”

As mentioned earlier, we see that we have prima facie reasons to think that the strong claim that Paul “invented” Christianity is trivially wrong. However, this doesn’t disprove the more nuanced claim that Paul may have been the latest and greatest influence on the theology of the final New Testament canon. In fact, unless the Pauline epistles are redundant, Paul must provide an influence on NT theology. To explain this point:

(1) Imagine sorting and summarising all of the propositions taught by and about Jesus in the gospels.

(2) Now, imagine sorting and summarising all of the propositions mentioned in the Pauline epistles.

Are those two lists the same? No. In fact, there are a great many propositions in the Gospel list that don’t make it into Paul’s, and there are also plenty of additional propositions in Paul’s list. This means, by definition, that Paul introduced new ideas into the New Testament above and beyond the teachings of Jesus. If this weren’t true then we wouldn’t need the Pauline Epistles at all.

Of course, if you view the final biblical canon as an inspired whole then this isn’t a problem, but this only means that one cannot deny the role that Paul played in shaping the final theology of the New Testament. So did Paul invent Christianity? Not as such, but he was a significant architect.

Gospel of Weakness

2010-03-15T10:01:00.002+13:00

Some say that the gospel is a "gospel of weakness".

Some say that God's power is made perfect in our weakness.

Some say that God works among the poor, the downtrodden, and the vulnerable.

Some say that God resists the proud.

Some say that the gospel is foolishness to the wise.

And so I wonder.

How do we tell the difference between (i) a God who reveals himself to the wounded and (ii) a opportunistic lie that exploits the physically, financially, and emotionally vulnerable more easily?

I'm not making any accusations, but I think that I am asking a very important question that all Christians need to answer. In the same way that a hidden God looks amazingly close to a non-existent God, one needs to be able to distinguish between a social predator (or 'psychic vampire', as some might say) and a God with a heart for the weak.

Is Brian Tamaki being scammed?

2010-03-07T23:47:00.003+13:00

So I went to Big-News and read that Brian Tamaki thinks he is the physical manifestation of God.

See the proof here.

But wait a minute, I thought, the Destiny Church website is blue and not red.

Actually, that picture was taken from http://www.briantamaki.org.nz and not from the Destiny Church website, http://www.destinychurch.org.nz

So is our beloved Bishop being scammed?

A quick WHOIS lookup may help solve this problem.

The WHOIS for DestinyChurch.org.nz is as follows:

registrant_contact_name: DESTINY CHURCHES INTERNATIONAL
registrant_contact_address1: 18 Allright Place
registrant_contact_address2: Mt Wellington
registrant_contact_city: Auckland
registrant_contact_postalcode: 1006
registrant_contact_country: NZ (NEW ZEALAND)
registrant_contact_phone: +64 9 5707150
registrant_contact_fax: +64 9 5707149
registrant_contact_email: rg@destinychurch.org.nz

And when we check the WHOIS for BrianTamaki.org.nz what do we get?

registrant_contact_name: Destiny Church
registrant_contact_address1: 18 Allright Place
registrant_contact_address2: Mt Wellington
registrant_contact_city: Auckland
registrant_contact_country: NZ (NEW ZEALAND)
registrant_contact_phone: +64 9 5707150

Same address, same telephone number, slightly different 'corporation name.

But wait... what is the email address I see here?

registrant_contact_email: kingbriantamaki@gmail.com

LOL... King Brian Tamaki?

Yep. That's our Bishop.

Incredible music of 2009

2010-03-01T19:32:00.004+13:00

I've been looking at DJ midi controller decks and other musically interesting things recently and I came across an amazing video. This is very clever mashup by one extremely talented DJ Earworm.

It is a mashup of 25 of the top songs from 2009.

DJ Earworm is a genius.

Enjoy.

Songlist:

The Black Eyed Peas - BOOM BOOM POW

Lady Gaga - POKER FACE

Lady Gaga Featuring Colby O’Donis - JUST DANCE

The Black Eyed Peas - I GOTTA FEELING

Taylor Swift - LOVE STORY

Flo Rida - RIGHT ROUND

Jason Mraz - I’M YOURS

Beyonce - SINGLE LADIES (PUT A RING ON IT)

Kanye West - HEARTLESS

The All-American Rejects - GIVES YOU HELL

Taylor Swift - YOU BELONG WITH ME

T.I. Featuring Justin Timberlake - DEAD AND GONE

The Fray - YOU FOUND ME

Kings Of Leon - USE SOMEBODY

Keri Hilson Featuring Kanye West & Ne-Yo - KNOCK YOU DOWN

Jamie Foxx Featuring T-Pain - BLAME IT

Pitbull - I KNOW YOU WANT ME (CALLE OCHO)

T.I. Featuring Rihanna - LIVE YOUR LIFE

Soulja Boy Tell ‘em Featuring Sammie - KISS ME THRU THE PHONE

Jay Sean Featuring Lil Wayne - DOWN

Miley Cyrus - THE CLIMB

Drake - BEST I EVER HAD

Kelly Clarkson - MY LIFE WOULD SUCK WITHOUT YOU

Beyonce - HALO

Katy Perry - HOT N COLD

Steve Taylor and one vision of Christian society

2010-02-26T16:17:00.007+13:00

Recently, Steve Taylor (ex-pastor of Opawa Baptist) wrote about the images of church in society, and whether to take Exodus or salt as the dominant metaphor. This is a small response to that and, if you're interested in the whole article, I recommend reading about it here.

Steve wrote:

Exodus is a powerful and repeated Biblical motif.

...

But spatially, Exodus relies on a “going out.” The people are to leave behind what is bad. Contrast the metaphor of exodus with the metaphor of salt and leaven, which work only by staying within. Salt needs meat, leaven needs dough and so the metaphor acts spatially, in a startlingly different way than Exodus. Rather than leave in order to become God’s community, we become God’s community from within, by digging in and staying put, by infiltration, rather than by separation and removal.

...

She describes this as a “stealth operation” that looks for the Kingdom of God in the midst of (Roman) oppression. “It presumes that imperial structures will remain intact so that they can be infiltrated. This is a resistance that exploits the empire; it does not defeat, neutralize, kill, or escape from its host.” (162) She draws both on the parables and on the missionary text that is Luke 10, in which the disciples “indigenize themselves by attaching to the family that employs them.” (163)

This is a pattern of cultural immersion. It’s deliberate.

It’s also a pattern of cultural resistance. Salt not only preserves, it also corrodes. In other words using the metaphor of salt and leaven to understand ourselves as the church, allows “the gospel to be both corrosive and preservative like salt … to be infectious, expansive and profane like leaven.” (155) As a metaphor it still encourages the church as a contrast community, refusing to bless the culture.

...

The kingdom of God is not free-standing. It has to be sought in the middle of something else

...

It strikes me as a fantastically practical, deeply Biblical way for Christians to see ourselves in the world today.

There is another thing which fits the criteria for this imagery.

It moves in and stays within, often times via infiltration.

It resists the body in which it resides, although not too much; it is certainly true that "it does not defeat, neutralize, kill, or escape from its host."

In part, it preserves it's host insofar as it is required for proper functioning.

In part, it corrodes like salt.

In part, it spreads within like leaven.

While it remains, it acts as a contrasting body, refusing to bless its host.

This thing will never be free-standing; it has to be sought in the middle of something else.

This thing I was describing is a parasite.

Perhaps the similarity of the above biblical pattern of Christianity to parasite behaviour exists merely as a product of the natural constraints of any 'organic growth' pattern. Perhaps it exists in part due to intentions (for good or ill) within the architects of religion. This may be a natural model for any counter-cultural social group. This may be the natural structure of most highly successful meme complexes.

One thing that I do know, however, is that I feel slightly uneasy with an understanding of the place of Christianity in society that so readily resembles a parasite. This may require me to make a reappraisal of the merits of parasites, or it may call for a re-examination of the above understanding of Christianity. All the same, it's a topic worth thinking about.

Satisfaction

2010-02-19T13:45:00.003+13:00

Please let it be known:

I LOVE MY LIFE.

That is all.

Islam versus science: a rebuttal

2010-02-19T01:49:00.005+13:00

Muslim *vs* Atheist {Quran *vs* Science}

Claim 1: Atheists “believe in” science and technology.

Wrong. People may recognise the usefulness of technology and appreciate the power of the scientific method, but they do not “believe in” these things. Also, both of these things have nothing to do with religion. Many religious people also like science and technology.

Claim 2: The Quran refers to the “big bang”.

Unclear. As presented here, his argument seems very weak. The verse he states does not seem to unequivocally refer to the big bang at all. He would have to do more work on this point to be convincing.

Claim 3: The Quran recognises that the moon reflects the light of the sun whereas science has only recognised this 100-200 years ago.

Wrong. Anaxagora, a Greek philosopher, believed that the moon reflected the light of the sun in 428BC.

The Arabic world had many very good astronomers, philosophers, and inventors throughout history, so I’m not surprised that this information is written into the Quran.

Claim 4: The Quran identified the “geo-spherical” shape of the earth.

Wrong. The earth is an oblate spheroid whereas an ostrich egg is not. Taken from one angle (i.e. from the side), an ostrich egg may appear to be the same shape as the earth viewed from an isometric perspective. However, if you rotate the ostrich egg you see that it is very different to the shape of the earth. Rotationally, they are not at all the same shape.

Claim 5: The Quran identified that the sun rotates about its own axis.

Unclear. Referring only to the verse given in this video, it does not seem to specify that the sun rotates. The claim is that the sun travels, “in orbit with it’s own motion.” This could just as easily be read as saying that the sun and moon both move. That’s not saying much. If it were to be more clear then perhaps we would expect to read, “...and with the sun rotating about its own axis.” Notice that the verse mentions the sun AND the moon traveling “with its own motion” even though they exhibit completely different types of rotation. I don’t think that this verse is trying to suggest what he thinks it is.

Claim 6: the Quran predicts the expansion of the universe.

Unclear. The verse mentioned seems to suggest that Allah was responsible for creating the heavens and the vastness of space. If the verse said what he suggested I would expect to find something like, “...and We continually expand the boundaries of space even to this day.”

Claim 7: the Quran speaks of the watercycle, which was only discovered otherwise in 1580.

As well as being mentioned in the Quran, the “water cycle” is described in both the Bible (e.g. Job 36:27-29) and in other ancient literature. The complete science of the hydrologic cycle may have been fully understood in 1580 but there have been mechanistic, descriptive understandings of the cycle for millennia.

The multiple verses that he reads out on this point are redundant: nobody denies that the Quran mentions it, but nobody should be surprised either given that knowledge of the water-cycle is so old.

Claim 8: the Quran identified that plants have two sexes.

Human knowledge of horticulture is very old. Cultivation of opium poppies, for example, goes back to the Neolithic age. As an example of gendered plants, the people of eastern Arabia knew how to grow and cultivate Date Palms as early as 6000 BC. Given that 50% of date plants are female, nobody should be surprised that knowledge such as this made it into the Quran. It would be more surprising if it hadn’t.

Claim 9: There are two types of water - sweet and salty - and there is a barrier between them.

I have no idea what he is talking about. I have never heard of sweet and salty water types. Does he mean salt water and fresh water? That’s not a new idea. I don’t know the barrier he refers to either.

Claim 10: Science tells us that the mountains prevent the earth from shaking.

What “science” does he mean by this? The verse that he uses to talk about this says, “Have We not made the earth as a bed, and the mountains as pegs?”

If he claims that science tells us that the mountains peg the earth down, does this mean he will also claim that the earth is a giant bed? This claim seems to be a fairly over-reaching mis-use of what is otherwise poetic metaphor. I don’t see the point of this claim.

Claim 11: Every living thing is created from water.

This is about as true as saying that my cat is made from cat-food. Humans drink water, and my cat eats cat-food. As biological creatures, our bodies absorb the nutrients of what we consume. Again, this claims seems to be an unnecessary and weak point that doesn’t really say much.

Claim 12: The Quran speak of zoology: of the spider, ant, bee

The verse he references seems to mention a spider-web. Does he think nobody knew about spider webs before 1400 years ago?

The verse about the ant really doesn’t say anything zoologically significant at all.

The verse about the bee only says that they make their homes in mountains and trees; this isn’t very rare or amazing knowledge for the time of the Quran.

Claim 13: The Quran speaks of embryology and embryological stages.

This verse he refers to says that man was created from a clot of blood. This isn’t a very clear or accurate description of embryology, as he would have his audience imagine.

The “embryological stages” he mentions is a discussion of man being created from water, clay, and sexual discharge, then being placed in the womb and being made from bone and flesh. Firstly, the initial description is a terrible attempt at describing embryological stages, and the second part of knowledge is not rare or amazing at all. Humans have known the function of wombs for many millennia (when did they ever not know?), and that people are made from flesh and bones is hardly revolutionary or pioneering ideas.

Claim 14: The only person who could have known the above information is the creator, Allah.

Wrong. If you don’t agree then read through claims 1-13 again very carefully. All of his claims are either vague claims, unclear textual usages, or simply regular knowledge that he is trying to make seem impressive.

Prayer versus Science

2010-02-15T17:28:00.006+13:00

Prayer is a difficult subject. Every believer wants to believe in "the power of prayer."

Some YouTubers have suggested that praying to a bottle of milk may be as effective as praying to God. The following is a slightly more sensitive (and less patronising) explanation from one ex-evangelical:

One (now 'notorious') study demonstrated that prayer not only failed to work but also produced a greater negative outcome in the study group (see a NY Times article on it).

I have just spent the weekend at my church camp. The main topic for the camp was about prayer.

I heard the speaker, Marjorie Gibson, a pastor from Auckland's Pakuranga Baptist who was considered to be somewhat of a prayer expert, make various statements about how prayer works. When I heard her say something like, "sometimes God will answer your prayer by giving you more than what you ask for," I could only think about how wide she was casting the PETWHAC net. The more unspecific the prayer, the longer you wait for an answer, and the more nebulous the success conditions, the greater the likelihood that you will think that any given event is a positive hit for the power of prayer... even if it simply isn't.

I thought that the speaker was an amazingly excellent lady, very passionate, and quite genuine. However I also couldn't shake the feeling that her encouraging talks were actually more like group training in anti-critical thinking.

I had the itch to write and clarify my ideas, so I sat down and tried to sort out...

The Difference between Prayer and Science (or critical, evidence-based thinking):

How Prayer Works:

(1) God can act before you pray.

(2) God knows what you need even without you praying the words.

(3) Sometimes if you don’t pray, God won’t act (contradictorily to points 1 & 2 (and possibly omniscience/omnibenevolence))

(4) God won’t always give you what you ask for.

(5) God might give you something different to what you ask for.

(6) God might not answer your prayer (i.e. he might say no).

(7) God might not answer your prayer soon, and may expect you to keep persisting in prayer for a very long time (sometimes indistinguishable from point 6).

(8) God might not give you what you pray for because you’re praying for the wrong thing (which is possible irrelevant according to points 4 & 5).

(9) Sometimes, prayer is about getting on board with what God wants (rather than changing God through prayer).

(10) Many different things can be a prayer; everyone can pray in different ways.

How Science Works:

(1) Derive a prediction from the current theory to be examined.

The prediction must be clear, specific, and unambiguous.

(2) Perform controlled experiment.

(3) Examine results: do they confirm initial prediction?

(4) Confirmed predictions raise the probability of the hypothesis being true.

(5) Modify hypothesis accordingly and make a new prediction.

Prayer in practice:

Structure:

Person prays to God.

Prayer is or isn’t answered.

Content of prayer: variable and unspecific [see 1, 2, 4, 5, 9, and 10]

Duration of experiment: unknowable [see 1, 6, and 7] (from no duration through to more than a lifetime)

Conditions of prayer success: unknowable [see 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10] (it may be exactly what is prayed for, it may be more, and it may be totally different to what is expected).

Conditions of prayer failure: unknowable [see 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, and 8] (since any given prayer may be an experiment of infinite duration, we cannot be sure how long to wait until ending the experiment. Also, the prayer may be answered totally differently to expected meaning that an unrelated event may actually be the success condition).

Science in practice:

Structure:

Scientist makes prediction.

Prediction is or isn’t confirmed via experimentation.

Content of hypothesis or prediction: exact, clear, and specific [see 1].

Duration of experiment: specific and necessary [see 2].

Conditions of prediction success: specific and necessary [see 3, 4, and 5].

Conditions of prediction failure: specific and necessary [see 3, 4, and 5].

The Inconceivable Nature of Nature

2009-10-28T12:36:00.006+13:00

The Symphony of Science series is a project by John Boswell to turn science knowledge into songs using the auto-tune technique.

This is called, "We are all connected" featuring Carl Sagan, Richard Feynman, Neil deGrasse Tyson, and Bill Nye.

It's so, so beautiful. Amazing. It actually brought tears to my eyes.

Our majestic cosmos.

To see another song featuring Carl Sagan & Stephen Hawking, go here.

Guess the theme!

2009-10-24T00:16:00.005+13:00

Here are a series of interesting pictures that I found on the internet.

I'll let you guess the theme (and the moral of the story) by yourself.

Making stuff up, Missler-style!

2009-10-20T19:50:00.004+13:00

You may have all heard about the concept of 'Bible Codes', 'Torah Codes', or 'Koran Codes'.

Well, the fellows down at AE have stirred my statistically critical ire with their post analysing the problems with Bible Codes. I couldn't agree with them more.

I'm particularly annoyed at the way that I swallowed the concept of Bible Codes with total credulity when I was a child, particularly through the teachings of international business man, prophet, and former Branch Chief of the Dept. of Guided Missiles*, Chuck Missler.

Chuck Missler has an entire section of his website dedicated to elucidating the prophetic codes apparently hidden in scripture.

More specifically, the idea is that if one examines the hebrew Torah (the first five books of our 'Bible'), you can find words spelled out by picking a beginning letter and moving along equidistantly to spell out a word. The problem is, the equidistant letter system (ELS) is deeply flawed. For one thing, there are no rules as to how far along you have to move, nor where you must begin. In fact, ELS can pretty much be used to spell out all manner of nonsense.

Here to prove that particular point is Dr James D. Price and his website that uses ELS to produce negative bible codes.

Yes, you heard it correctly. Dr Price uses ELS to produce contradictory statements ("There is no Spirit. There is a Spirit"), anti-biblical messages ("God is not YHWH", "Jesus is not God"), and some just plain funny ones like, "Jehovah is dead" (go, Nietzsche!), and "Satan is Jehovah" (O rly? Srsly?).

Next time somebody tries to foist the totally uncritical and spiritually abusive practice of bible codes on you, or perform retroactive post-dictions of historical world events somehow 'hidden' in scripture, just look at their Bible and tell them: "There are signs. There are no signs."

[* if Missler really knows about this kind of stuff because of his professional career, then either he knows what statistical nonsense he is teaching and is therefore a dishonest liar, or he doesn't realise what he is doing because he has drunk too much of the koolade]

Conservative Bible Project part 2

2009-10-07T12:28:00.006+13:00

I just couldn't resist putting something else up about this Conservative Bible Project going on over at Conservapedia. It's so bad it's almost impossible to call it between Poe's Law and Poe's Corollary, but the weird part is that whether it began as a faked, mocking article or not (C-pedia IS a wiki, after all) it has picked up a life of its own.

Here are some more examples of why Conservo-bible will be better than plain ol' regular bible:

First Example - Liberal Falsehood
The earliest, most authentic manuscripts lack this verse set forth at Luke 23:34:
Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do
not know what they are doing."
Is this a liberal corruption of the original? This does not appear in any other Gospel, and the simple fact is that some of the persecutors of Jesus did know what they were doing. This quotation is a favorite of liberals but should not appear in a conservative Bible.
Second Example - Dishonestly Shrewd
At Luke 16:8, the NIV describes an enigmatic parable in which the "master commended the dishonest manager because he had acted shrewdly." But is "shrewdly", which has connotations of dishonesty, the best term here? Being dishonestly shrewd is not an admirable trait.
The better conservative term, which became available only in 1851, is "resourceful". The manager was praised for being "resourceful", which is very different from dishonesty. Yet not even the ESV, which was published in 2001, contains a single use of the term "resourceful" in its entire translation
of the Bible.
Third Example - Socialism
Socialistic terminology permeates English translations of the Bible, without justification. This improperly encourages the "social
justice" movement among Christians.
For example, the conservative word "volunteer" is mentioned only once in the ESV, yet the socialistic word "comrade" is used three times, "laborer(s)" is used 13 times, "labored" 15 times, and "fellow" (as in "fellow worker") is used 55 times.

You've gotta be kidding me, now the NIV is being Communist for mentioning a laborer in a field? Give me a break.

And none of this horrid mention of "shrewdness", either, we all know that the statistics show that Christians are qualitatively better than all other

social demographics. It just wouldn't do to have such worldly terms for God's people. Jesus didn't REALLY mean it when he commissioned his Disciples in Matthew chapter 10 and said, "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves." Everybody knows that snakes are 'resourceful', not shrewd... just check Genesis chapter 1.

Oh, and of course Conservative Jesus (with a short haircut and a business suit) has a new motto: Father, send them all to Hell for they know exactly what they are doing.

Yep, Conservative Jesus is a Jesus that will make up for all those years of Buddy Jesus.

The Big Book of Multiple Choice

2009-10-06T13:35:00.003+13:00

The lunatics behind the Conservapedia are doing their best work yet:

The Conservative Bible Project.

As if a wikipedia-style website dedicated to the ideology of anti-Obama, anti-gay, anti-liberal, Fox-News style, right-wing, hardline evangelical U.S. Christian conservatism wasn't enough.

The Conservative Bible Project is a way to reclaim the Bible from the claws of the namby-pamby, hippy, marxist, commie, darwinising, liberal, NIV reading heretics.

No more of this 'gender inclusive' stuff, the original hebrew be damned!

Apparently the bulk of the work is going to be done by translating the KJV into modern english. Yeah, there's no way you'd get any translation errors with that. Hebrew and Greek lexicon? What's a lexicon?

They say that as of 2009, none of the existing bibles meet the ten guidelines requires to be a fully conservative translation:

Framework against Liberal Bias: providing a strong framework that enables a thought-for-thought translation without corruption by liberal bias
Not Emasculated: avoiding unisex, "gender inclusive" language, and other modern emasculation of Christianity
Not Dumbed Down: not dumbing down the reading level, or diluting the intellectual force and logic of Christianity; the NIV is written at only the 7th grade level
Utilize Powerful Conservative Terms: using powerful new conservative terms as they develop; defective translations use the word "comrade" three times as often as "volunteer"; similarly, updating words which have a change in meaning, such as "word", "peace", and "miracle".
Combat Harmful Addiction: combating addiction by using modern terms for it, such as "gamble" rather than "cast lots"; using modern political terms, such as "register" rather than "enroll" for the census
Accept the Logic of Hell: applying logic with its full force and effect, as in not denying or downplaying the very real existence of Hell or the Devil.
Express Free Market Parables; explaining the numerous economic parables with their full free-market meaning
Exclude Later-Inserted Liberal Passages: excluding the later-inserted liberal passages that are not authentic, such as the adulteress story
Credit Open-Mindedness of Disciples: crediting open-mindedness, often found in youngsters like the eyewitnesses Mark and John, the authors of two of the Gospels
Prefer Conciseness over Liberal Wordiness: preferring conciseness to the liberal style of high word-to-substance ratio; avoid compound negatives and unnecessary ambiguities; prefer concise, consistent use of the word "Lord" rather than "Jehovah" or "Yahweh" or "Lord God."

Now the Big Book of Multiple Choice has even more choices - now includes Fundiejelical flavour!

If all goes to plan, the Conservative Bible Project will produce a bible that U.S. Conservatives will be PROUD to standardise for use in schools.

Good luck, Comrade.

Poem: Moonlight Sonata

2009-09-16T02:01:00.003+12:00

'Moonlight Sonata'
by Iain McMahon

climbing
peaceful

floating, bobbing, tumbling
down rivers of time

a chime,
a call,
a heartbeat

crystal raindrops dancing
fat tears of joy mingling

a lullaby
laying us to rest

a new dawn
welcoming a new day

_____

*Written for Beethoven's 'Moonlight Sonata', Part I.
(Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 14, Opus 27 No. 2 in C sharp minor, Part I, Adagio sostenuto - attaca)

Haiku: On Bob Wright

2009-09-14T00:48:00.002+12:00

Haiku: On Bob Wright

I opened your book

but stopped at the sentence that

you started with “And...”

Bearing false witness

2009-09-13T18:20:00.004+12:00

In most everyday life, people tend to imagine that a person showing high confidence in a testimony is predictive of high accuracy.

The average juror will believe that high confidence entails high accuracy in a witness' claim.

Research shows us, however that this is not correct. In their journal article, Cognitive Science and the Law, Geoff Loftus and Thomas Busey write that “contrary to common sense, a confident witness need not be an accurate witness.”
In fact, rather than being unsure about an older, correct memory, a person might be more confident of making the wrong claim by constructing a new and FALSE memory out of bits and pieces of other memories or new sense data. How far this can go depends on false memory aids (like photoshopped pictures), biases towards wanting the false memory to be true, and any incorrect 'suggestions' offered by others towards the veracity of the false memory.
I guess the take home message is that just because your friend sounds really passionate and convincing about something that they remember, it doesn't automatically make it true.

How might this affect witness claims in courts of law?

How might this affect memories of childhood (the good or the bad)?

If those don't tickle your fancy, how might this affect claims by witnesses of supernatural events?

Disease has never been more fun!

2009-09-12T22:20:00.006+12:00

Disease has never been more fun!

An ingenious artist, Luke Jerram, has been making glass sculptures of microbiology for his Glass Microbiology project.

[Pictured: A glass sculpture of HIV.]

There is a whole range of diseases, such as smallpox, HIV, swine flu, and more. They're well worth checking out!

The glass sculptures raise one interesting issue: colour. As Jerram points out, pseudocolouring is very common in biomedicine. I watched a TED Talks episode this morning about the same topic. Medical illustrator/animator David Bolinsky takes his audience on a graphically rendered journey into a human cell.

[Picture: Bolinsky's amazing pictures show our cell to
be like a thriving metropolis of molecular machinery.]

Bolinsky's job is to not just make astounding pictures but also animations of the inner workings of our biology.

[Picture: A Kinesin - the FedEx delivery guys of our cells - literally
walking a sack full of fresh, new proteins along a microtubule cable.]

(Hat tip to Carl Zimmer at Loom for the glass microbiology)

Meme: Courage Wolf

2009-09-11T03:14:00.008+12:00

Here's a wicked internet meme called "Courage Wolf."

It's basically an insanely peppy meme, totally positive (essentially), and is a spin-off from the Advice Dog.

While the Advice Dog provides sometimes bad advice, Courage Wolf exhorts the reader to grab life by the cahones and pretty much go hard. You can't read a page of Courage Wolf without feeling pretty freakin' awesome.

Here are some of my own attempts:

Feeling like a Courage Wolf yet?

Humour: Solving the Mind-Body Problem

2009-09-10T16:30:00.002+12:00

New book: The Greatest Show on Earth

2009-09-10T15:05:00.006+12:00

Sorry Franky, it looks like Richard is taking pride of place on my bedside book table for now.

I was perusing the University bookshop and, lo, what did I see? Just as I was leaving, I happened to look up and to my right while passing the nature section and my eyes beheld the glory of Richard Dawkins' The Greatest Show on Earth - the evidence for evolution.

Hooray!

I have be eagerly awaiting this book since I first heard about it through the intert00bz. Also, I knew that it was out in the U.K. and had been lamenting the chances of getting my hands on it any time soon for any reasonable price. Yet there it was!

And now it is miiiine.

[Edit:] the following is a video with Richard explaining his new book:

Graduating: the rare exception?

2009-09-05T00:12:00.003+12:00

I found a government site that provided education statistics on those who have studied and graduated from a tertiary institution over a particular 5 year period.

The site provided a breakdown of the total number of graduates each year as well as the graph below which is a breakdown by % of those who completed their qualification in those 5 years.

I excluded statistics on Certifications of levels 1 through 6 because I was mostly concerned with Bachelors and higher.

I don't know about you, but I find the low rates of graduation slightly shocking. Only Honours and Masters students have a total chance of graduation greater than 50%. Scary. I guess I fail to truly consider the number of students who either burn out or don't manage their course. I spent some time as a computer science drop out so I entirely sympathise.

I should point out that apparently the ungraduated Doctoral students (70% - eep!) were the group most likely to still carry on beyond the 5 year period measured to complete their qualification.

If the site at the top doesn't tickle your fancy with its namby-pamby easy to understand graphs, you can always see the data in harder-to-read raw numbers here.

Zeno's Paradox - Archilles and the Tortoise

2009-09-02T21:54:00.002+12:00

I made this!

What do you think?

Expelled: Christ in the Classroom?

2009-09-01T16:34:00.004+12:00

I've watched the beginning of Ben Stein's movie, Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed.
I plan to finish the rest very soon and I'll give you my thoughts on it then.

Here's an interesting little quote from an interview with Bruce Chapman of the Discovery Institute.

Ben Stein: "When you go around and raise funds, your people are not saying to them, 'By the way we're gonna get all these scientists out of the classroom and put Christ back in the classroom.'"

Bruce Chapman: "Well, I don't know that Christ has ever been in the science classroom. This is not a religious argument, this is something that people- ... we have fellows who are Jewish or Agnostic or various other things. There are Moslem (sic) scientists, there are people of all kinds of backgrounds who agree that Darwin's theory has failed and so why would you bring religion into it? You don't need religion. This is a red herring, Ben. People who don't have an argument are reduced to throwing sand in your eyes."

I question his assertion that it isn't a religious issue. I would be very surprised if (1) the financial supporters of the Discovery Institute weren't religious themselves, and (2) if any freethinker scientists were active members of the Institute and their policies. In his attempt to demonstrate the diversity of their constituents, he reinforced that it was mostly people of religion who are involved (and yes, I notice he mentioned agnostics).

Secondly, I'm not sure what part of Darwin's theory is supposed to have failed. Surely he doesn't mean evolution, when Darwin's contribution was towards the mechanism of evolution, namely evolution by natural selection.
I would be quite surprised if they could provide much of a list of top scientists in relevant fields such as evolutionary molecular biology or zoology who felt that "Darwin's theory has failed". The debates that exist in scientific literature today are about fine details within the theory, not broad facts that the Discovery Institute would hope for.

Beat poem: 'Storm' by Tim Minchin

2009-09-01T13:48:00.003+12:00

Tim Minchin is brilliant. I highly recommend you check out his songs. He's a rock n' roll nerd comic pianist. He's VERY talented on the piano, as well as being a darkly humourous songwriter, lyricist, and poet.

The above video isn't taken from Tim's official YouTube channel, but I did that because this version has subtitles.

New book: The Language of God by Francis Collins

2009-08-28T22:44:00.003+12:00

Just so that I don't miss out on this whole "book" "reading" thing (I'm sure these so called "books" won't last), I have just purchased The Language of God by Francis Collins.

You will already know Frankie from his leadership on the Human Genome Project. He is also Obama's nomination to lead the U.S. National Institutes of Health. He's no slouch!

He was mentioned (and largely rubbished) in Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion, as well as having a minor interview with Bill Maher in the film Religulous.

I thought it was worth giving his book a read myself. Besides, maybe I get to hear all about this famous, trinitarian, frozen waterfall conversion experience. Collins, as a famous scientist AND a devout Christian, argues that faith and science are compatible. I guess that's the theme of this particular book.

Amusingly, he also apparently said that even if you removed all of the paleontological evidence (fossil record etc) for evolution found on earth, the DNA evidence alone would be sufficient to prove that it was a fact. Zing.

Anyways, I'll give it a good read and try to post a review on it in the next month or two. It looks fairly comprehensive in terms of its coverage of different issues and hot topics. Should be fun. Stay tuned.

Sacred cows and society

2009-08-25T15:27:00.004+12:00

I was talking to a new friend, Marc, the other day about the issue of tact when discussing religion with others.

People vary wildly on this topic. Marc said that he preferred to be blunt, open, and go for the jugular wherever possible. He wants to say what he thinks and he doesn't care how much the other person may be offended by what he says.

This approach is one reason why biologist Richard Dawkins is so notorious. This approach gets noticed but it also treads on toes.

I think a large part of me sympathises with this approach. I take this approach with my own thoughts, largely, by attempting to expose my own thinking to as much rigour as I can withstand. At times my ability to do this wanes, but on the whole it is a fairly unyielding level of self-reflection that I hope bears fruit in terms of truth and accuracy of beliefs. I hope... ;)

This topic resurfaced in another email conversation with a friend who wanted to see some "inter-faith" dialogue (so to speak) in a group that we attend, Espresso, while trying not to attack or offend any speakers/participants that we invite along. We stand at relative opposites of the question: I want rigorous and hearty banter (leaning towards the intellectual) while he wants gentle exploring and sharing (leaning towards the emotive).

I'm sure we can get both in general, but I also feel that there is an element of mutual exclusivity to our goals. After all, if your goal is to safely explore an idea in such a way as to avoiding risking any offense whatsoever then surely it would be impossible to hold anyone accountable to the veracity of their claims or stated beliefs? I think of Carl Sagan's example of the Dragon In My Garage. At some point you either have to postpone a verdict until new information surfaces or you have to push the other person to prove their claims.

Any comments are sincerely welcome.

What do I believe?

2009-08-20T12:00:00.004+12:00

“What do I believe?” by Iain McMahon.

When you ask me, “what do you believe?”, I have several things to say.

Do you want the short answer? A sentence to satisfy your curiousity? Some words out of which to fashion a box to put me in? Jargon that places me within one particular dogma or prescribed view? An answer to tell other people about me? Perhaps you want me to implicitly cast a vote for or against your own beliefs?

Your mind and thoughts are your own. I cannot tell you what to think, and simply comparing “positions” or labels for our belief-boxes won’t tell either of us whether the other is justified in thinking as they do. If you want to share a discussion with me, join in the journey of life with me as a friend, and give each other a part of ourselves in honesty then you will get to know what I believe. I won’t summarize, quantify, schematise, or stereotype you, no matter how much more easily I could get my mind around you if I did so. But I will never presume that you are so two-dimensional. In return, and out of respect to me, I would expect that you would return the courtesy.

Initially, I want to know why is it that you ask me this?
I have some Christian friends and they talk to me about life. When I mention that I am unsure about the veracity of certain religious claims they appear interested in discussing it with me. The only difference is, they don’t want me to decide based on reason and evidence, they want me to come to believe whatever happens to be considered “orthodox” enough.
I have some atheist friends and they also talk to me about life. When I mention that I think there could be something to support the veracity of certain religious claims they appear interested in discussing it with me. The only difference is, they don’t want me to come to any pro-christian conclusion, they want me to come to believe whatever happens to be considered “atheist” enough.
Then, after my own heart, there is an author who said this at the beginning of his book,

On this occasion, we are not going to settle for “There, there, it will all come out all right.” Our examination will take a certain amount of nerve. Feelings may get hurt. Writers ... usually steer clear of this apparent clash between science and religion. Fools rush in, Alexander Pope said, where angels fear to tread. Do you want to follow me? Don’t you really want to know what survives this confrontation? What if it turns out that the sweet vision - or a better one - survives intact, strengthened and deepened by the encounter? Wouldn’t it be a shame to forgo the opportunity for a strengthened, renewed creed, settling instead for a fragile, sickbed faith that you mistakenly supposed must not be disturbed?
There is no future in a sacred myth. Why not? Because of our curiosity. Because, as the song reminds us, we want to know why. We may have outgrown the song’s answer, but we will never outgrow the question. Whatever we hold precious, we cannot protect it from our curiosity, because being who we are, one of the things we deem precious is the truth. Our love of truth is surely a central element in the meaning we find in our lives. In any case, the idea that we might preserve meaning by kidding ourselves is a more pessimistic, more nihilistic idea than I for one can stomach. If that were the best that could be done, I would conclude that nothing mattered after all.
This book, then, is for those who agree that the only meaning of life worth caring about is the one that can withstand our best efforts to examine it. Others are advised to close the book now and tiptoe away.

My question is, which of these three are you? Where does your loyalty lie? What is your goal?

Next, you need to remember that I have a long history. I am a person. I have passions, interests, doubts, and curiosities. When you leave me at the end of the day I still exist, thinking, doing, worrying about, and enjoying the various things that I do. Before you knew me this was true and if we go our separate ways I will still go on the same. This being said, it means that my ideas also have a long history. I have studied computer science, psychology, theology, and philosophy. I have spent long hours doing my own personal research and study into biblical studies, biology, sociology, archeology, music, history, criminology, art, cosmology, and a myriad of other things. I have got excited about these ideas. I have loved these ideas. I have cried about these ideas. I have been tormented by these ideas. Whatever you see of me now is only the tiniest tip of a large iceberg that is sunken into the shadowy waters of time.
With this being said, I do the best to seek the truth as much as I am able. I try to learn, seek, understand, and synthesise the best grasp on life and reality as I am capable of. I can’t do this alone, and I can’t summarise this process in a single moment in time. It might be nice or convenient to simply put a label on my thoughts and say, “I am a SOMETHING-ist.” But following -isms is only the lazy way of sitting in pre-agreed and authorised conclusions without doing the dirty work of getting there yourself; people can always thoughtlessly borrow them off each other.

Next, I wonder, what do you think?
Some people ask me because they are truly interested in my perspective for its own sake, others want to be able to form judgments about me (for good or ill), and yet more want to use my long history of searching for truth to provide acknowledgment or condemnation of their own hypotheses about life.
If you use reason as your guide, then be at peace knowing that I am doing my best to find the truth of the matter. If you can lovingly help me along then your opinion is always welcome. If you simply want to know whether my own ideas are approved by the group that you place yourself within then move along; those who use reason (irrespective of their convictions) should recognise the validity of my process, and those who are religious should judge not lest they be judged (and concentrate on working out their own salvation). Lastly, if you want confirmation for your own views then be my guest to join me in the journey but know that at the end of the day we must all stand on our own two feet and take responsibility for our own minds.

And finally, if you ask me because you want something to tell other people about me, you can tell them this: “He is a man who believes that reality is consistent and shared by all people. He loves truth, values reason, and will seek to know as deeply and as widely about the world around him as much as he is able.” If they want to know more, tell them to speak to me personally.

And, as for you, if you want to know what I believe then join the journey with me and we’ll help each other find out about life.

The vegetarian thing

2009-08-19T20:46:00.003+12:00

Okay. So if I were a better man I would be a vegetarian.

I think it is ethical, globally speaking. While I try to eat the vegetarian option on my better days, I won't lie... I cheat. Sometimes, I cheat more than I don't cheat.

This is why I don't call myself a vegetarian. However, when I am choosing my own foor *at home* I often tend towards fish. Now, that's not vegetarianism, but I prefer that some naughty corporation uses the sea to harvest fish for food before we use land for highly inefficient cattle farming etc.

Anyway, before this turns into a rant I'll get to the point.

I *finally* get the vegetarian thing, the thing that vegetarians say about the smell of meat etc.

Instead of fish, these last two nights I've eaten spaghetti bolognaise. Now I am a big Italian fan, but the SMELL. Seriously, when I walk into my room after having eaten it, the room lingers with the stench of fatty meat. Bleuch.

So, I finally get that vegetarian thing.

Inaugural Phil Debate

2009-08-19T10:54:00.002+12:00

Can I hear you say, "woop woop"?

Today is the inaugural Philosophy Department Debate; birthed, organised, and soon-to-be moderated by yours truly.

The debate is primarily under the auspices of the "Philosophy Grad Group" conversations, but I have sneakily put an advertising notice about it in the philosophy lounge. Hopefully grads plus interested undergrads will join in the fun.

I know none of you will be there, but thought you might be able to share my joy in the details of the event.

It'll be 2 vs. 2, and I have lined up lecturers to have the first rumble.
The proposition is, "that consequentialism is the correct moral theory."

Lecturers Doug C and Simon C will argue the affirmative, while Philip C and Carolyn M will argue the negative.
The affirmative will be arguing for utilitarian consequentialism, as I understand, whereas the negative will be arguing for more like Kantian deontology plus similar perspectives.

It's going to last an hour of debating, followed by audience Q&A afterwards.

I'm even going to video it if I can!

Homeopathic A&E

2009-08-16T11:56:00.005+12:00

Hat tip to Damian for finding this.

[Video: That Mitchell and Webb Look - Homeopathic A&E]

I thought it would go well together with the previous post.

Healer, heal me

2009-08-16T00:31:00.004+12:00

According to Stuff, a Christian Faith Healing Clinic has opened up in Linwood, Christchurch.

Known as 'the New Zealand Healing Rooms clinic', they even include a waiting room that leads onto the treatment rooms where two pastors and divine-healing technicians can attempt to heal patients using "aggressive prayer techniques."

No joke. It sounds like Father Ted meets House.

I find this all rather fascinating. Of course, they have their mix of responses: those who think that miracles have occurred and those that feel like they'd cry malpractice... if anyone was actually charging for their services.
I can't feel too angry at them because they ARE apparently telling people to continue regular medical treatment, as they should be! It does make me wonder, however, whether this isn't going to feed into the unhealthy religio-parental dynamics of those who want to find any excuse to use Jesus instead of a pill. That's a fine thing if it's a decision that adults are making for themselves, but when children get involved I feel quite strongly about it.

I also find the Placebo Effect super cool, so thought I would leave you all with a breakdown of the Placebo Effect from a meta-analysis I found in a journal study*:

Condition: Bipolar Mania
Studies: 20
Average rate cured by placebo: 31%
Best placebo effect in any single study: 59%

Condition: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
Studies: 29
Average rate cured by placebo: 20%
Best placebo effect in any single study: 50%

Condition: Colitis
Studies: 110
Average rate cured by placebo: 32%
Best placebo effect in any single study: 76%

Condition: Crohn’s Disease
Studies: 21
Average rate cured by placebo: 18%
Best placebo effect in any single study: 50%

Condition: Depression
Studies: 75
Average rate cured by placebo: 30%
Best placebo effect in any single study: 51%

Condition: Erectile Dysfunction
Studies: 27
Average rate cured by placebo: 25%
Best placebo effect in any single study: 39%

Condition: Irritable Bowel Syndrome
Studies: 45
Average rate cured by placebo: 40%
Best placebo effect in any single study: 71%

Condition: Migraine
Studies: 98
Average rate cured by placebo: 29%
Best placebo effect in any single study: 60%

Condition: Osteoarthritis
Studies: 198
Average rate cured by placebo: 40%
Best placebo effect in any single study: 74%

Condition: Premenopausal Syndrome
Studies: 8
Average rate cured by placebo: 37%
Best placebo effect in any single study: 49%

Condition: Restless Leg Syndrome
Studies: 24
Average rate cured by placebo: 40%
Best placebo effect in any single study: 60%

Shockingly, the list of ailments go well beyond what I would expect to be able to be healed by placebo. Additionally, while the average placebo cure rate is around 30% across the board, several single studies had more than 70% of the placebo group get cured by it!

While looking at this, I found another article discussing the placebo effect and how medical practices and rituals, "serve to alter the meaning of an experience by naming and circumscribing unknown elements of that experience and by enabling patients' belief in a treatment and their expectancy of healing from that treatment." These medical rituals turn Doctors into modern day "physician-priests."
I can't help but wonder, "how can we know whether prayer works at Linwood's Healing Rooms clinic when usually 1/3 of most illnesses (and up to 3/4!!) are already cured by placebo?"

*[Mark, David (2009) The placebo effect quantified: how the placebo became a major player in mainstream and alternative medicine. Nutraceuticals World, 12.6, July-August 2009, p. 54. The meta-analysis from from a collection of British, American and European medical journals]

Thinking about knowing about God

2009-08-13T20:55:00.003+12:00

Some philosophical terms:

a priori
Relating to first-principles theoretical deduction, or being based on foundational definitions. An a priori truth is knowable by reason and consideration alone, without any empirical confirmation.
e.g. "1 + 1 = 2"

a posteriori
Relating to reasoning or knowledge which results from observations or experiences. An a posteriori truth must be sought and found as an after the fact truth.
e.g. "There is a cabbage in that box."

Necessary
Something which is necessary is true as a rule, and the world cannot have been in such a way that it was not true.
e.g. "The morning star is the evening star." (because both are actually Venus)

Contingent
Something which is contingent is true only by happenstance. The world may have been such that this fact had turned out not to be the case.
e.g. "I am wearing a green shirt today."

Now... on to the issue.

Is the existence of God knowable a priori or a posteriori?

If God exists then, presumably, it is necessarily true. That is, if God exists then there can be no way of configuring the cosmos such that God never happened to exist. (It also means that if God doesn't exist then it is necessarily false i.e. it never could have been.)

But is God's existence an a priori fact or an a posteriori one?

I ask this because I think that there are two schools of orthodox thinking that pull differently over this issue in theology and apologetics.
For one, the teleological and cosmological arguments all gain their power from the basis that God is an a priori truth. That is, no matter how the cosmos happened to be, the Creator would always be the logically undeniable foundation of the created order.

The moral argument for God sort of implies both. First there is a moral law giver which in the thinking of those such as C.S. Lewis is some kind of analytic, a priori fact. Whereas William Lane Craig says that we place the final touches on the moral proof for God through appeal to our moral intuitions; supposedly this is sort of an empirical, a posteriori probing by seeing our moral intuitions interact with the world around us.

However the classic, biblical theme of "seek and you shall find" etc is still very much a journey, thus is it an a posteriori notion. This is contrasted with the Pauline "everybody is without excuse" line which says that God is evident in creation, making God seem like a blunt, a priori fact of the world.

If you think that you need the world in order to know God, then I suppose that makes God a posteriori.
However, if you think that you could know God if you were born as a deaf, blind, mute quadraplegic (okay, or maybe just spent your life in a small, windowless room), then that would make God a priori.

A posteriori seems to place God in the world while ruling out God as the logical ground of being, whereas a priori seems to make God the ground of truth and causation while ruling out the necessity of revelation or God's immanence.

Bigger than Jesus?

2009-08-10T17:38:00.003+12:00

A.K.A. YouTube is bigger than sex.

John Lennon once famously said that the Beatles were bigger than Jesus.

Google Trends disagrees! The Beatles are so much smaller in their search rankings than Jesus that when you compare them (Beatles, without the THE, because it is higher without) Jesus gets 2.26 times the score.

You can examine single searches, rank by country, city, and language, or compare up to five search terms against each other.
With that, I set about scatter shooting groups of terms into Google Trends until I found some majorly popular terms. I then tried to rank them against each other, including new equally popular terms as they were thought of or found online. It's hardly exhaustive, but here are some top survivors. These terms are so popular that average searches, when compared against them, pale into nothingness and get excluded by the system (because they're too small).

The smallest relevant unit of measurement that I found was the term "Richard Dawkins." This name dwarfs many other names, including his literary peers, and was a good comparative term for the bottom half of the list. All numerical values written are popularity multipliers to indicate relative traffic and news-source popularity. For this reason, Michael Jackson is on the chart, whereas he was quite stable on a lower score for years earlier; equally, Twitter is now a massive current score although its ranking is low because it is only a couple of years old.

Why do I like this? Basically, because I think that the internet is a microcosm (now becoming a macrocosm, really) of the human psyche. It parallels the desires and needs of humans in a way that sociological analysis of small towns that grow to large towns would have previously been able to show us. With Google Trends we have a mechanism for measuring those concepts that are on the tips of everyone's cortices.

GOOGLE TRENDS LIST

YouTube [1250]
sex [1188]
Google [1050]
TV [968]
Facebook [900]
porn [685]
love [457]
food [250]
war [232]
die [217]
science [144]
death [135]
wine [90]
god [88]
Bush [75]
Jesus [74]
Paris Hilton [70]
Britney Spears [65]
alcohol [62]
evolution [56]
kill [55]
beer [51]
Obama [45]
Michael Jackson [44]
drugs [41]
peace [39]
Beatles [32]
joy [28]
truth [26]
reason [22]
Twitter [18]
philosophy [16]
politics [15]
liquor [13]
vodka [12]
cocaine [12]
rum [9]
whiskey [9]
Christianity [7]
spirits [6]
bombs [5]
patience [4]
the pope [3]
kindness [1]
Richard Dawkins [1] <-- the standard unit used.

Interestingly, pretty much 90% of the searches for things like Rum, Vodka, and Spirits are around december. I imagine that is where most alcohol sales happen, by a large margin. Yet one more reason to boycott the commercialisation of Christmas.

Will the real apologist please stand up?

2009-08-08T15:22:00.003+12:00

I've been wondering who might be the best Christian philosophers or apologists to read these days.

If you can think of anyone who might be worthwhile reading then drop me a comment.

Here are some names that I have decided might be worthwhile checking out:

1. Alvin Plantinga - I currently have Plantinga's "The Analytic Theist. An Alvin Plantinga reader" edited by James Sennett. I'm considering reading his books on Warranted Christianity and also about Naturalism. This current book I have is standard arguments for God plus some general epistemic and theological discussion.

2. William Lane Craig - I have listened to nearly all of his Reasonable Faith podcasts plus I plan to watch as many of his debates as I can. I'm very unimpressed by Craig and I think I can say why (that is, I have proper rebuttals for much of his work). Still, people make so much of a fuss about him that I'll keep my eye open on his work for any new arguments.

3. Gary Habermas - a biblical historian/scholar, his "minimal facts" model proof of Jesus' resurrection is widely lauded. So far I am not impressed. I'll give it a closer examination.

4. J.P. Moreland - apparently he does some good work on human consciousness & god.

5. Paul Copan - never heard of him but one blog I read said he did a good version of the Moral Argument. I'm not sure how he will pull it off if Craig couldn't, but I'll see.

6. Stephen T. David - apparently does good work on some theistic proofs.

7. Norman Geisler - he's so prolific a writer that something of his must be okay. We'll see.

Plantinga on Warrant

2009-08-05T18:00:00.002+12:00

The philosopher Alvin Plantinga has a concept called 'warrant', the method of validating a belief.

I am intending on reading his trilogy on the subject, because I want to make sure that it isn't as illogical as I think it sounds via second hand descriptions.

His warrant for Christian theism is essentially by taking the path of the 'sensus divinitatus', an internal sense of the divine. This is a way that means, if true, the sense itself provides warrant rather than reason etc. It's sort of like saying that one, "just knows," that God exists without any other reason. Supposedly it is as basically true as 1+1=2.

I'm am perfectly open to correction (indeed, I intend to correct myself after reading his books directly) but for now this is the best formulation that I can manage of his idea:

P1: God exists.
P2: God gives people an epistemic sensus divinitatus (sense of the divine).
P3: The sensus divinitatus provides a valid, justificatory alternative to evidence and reason.
P4: Sin can block the sensus divinitatus from working.
P5: Christians are protected from the epistemic effects of sin.

C: Belief in God by Christians is properly basic & warranted, without regard to reason or evidence.

Now, this sounds seriously scary. For one thing, P1 presumes the very thing that it is trying to justify. P2 and P3 are simply stipulations that people have magical non-evidential non-reasons for stating an idea with no other basis than the assertion itself. P4 and P5 is a convenient way of writing off all criticisms or arguments against the assertion in question, and it means that one can simply say that all those who disagree mustn't have properly working brains.

I can make it a lot shorter:

P1: God exists.
C: Therefore people who think God exists are right.

Kripke & personal identity

2009-08-02T23:35:00.003+12:00

I am studying the work of a philosopher called Saul Kripke... his book Naming and Necessity.

Essentially, he disagrees with two philosophers Russell and Frege about their way to identify people. Russell and Frege are descriptivists, saying that a proper noun is essentially the abbreviated symbol for a person's description.

Kripke says that they are wrong. He says that he can imagine other possible worlds where things could have been different and, because we still know we are talking about the same person, this proves that the description could have been different for the person e.g. I could have moved to Japan, therefore living in NZ cannot be an essential piece of my identity. Kripke says that the proper name of a person becomes their 'rigid designator' to allow us to identity them throughout all possible worlds.

Unfortunately, I think that Kripke is totally insane.

To try to make a short version of it, I don't see what other possible worlds have to do with anything.
Imagine you tried to tell me about Bob. Because I don't know Bob, I say, "Who?"
You then describe Bob. This is a description for who Bob is in this world. That is, who Bob actually is.
From then on, whenever you say "Bob", I know who you are talking about.

So I ask Kripke, SO WHAT that other possible worlds have Bobs with other properties? So what that we can imagine if Bob had done something different with his life? No matter how many alternative histories you provide me for Bob, this in no way affects the identity of Bob in reality.
In fact, if I say, "Imagine if Bob had been a fighter pilot."
I can't understand your sentence unless I realise that you are saying, "Imagine if {actual person of description V,W,X,Y,Z} had been {not X}."
In this case, I implicitly understand that you are talking about a person called "Bob", who Bob is by description in this world, and then the appropriate imaginary changes that you are asking me to apply to Bob.
This has everything to do with identity via description and nothing to do with 'rigid designators' that apply across some set of imaginary worlds.

Why? Because IMAGINARY WORLDS AREN'T REAL. Argh!

Jesus in a sumo-suit?

2009-07-22T09:16:00.003+12:00

Allow me to advertise for a local uni club for a moment before I give my thoughts:

If you could ask God one question...

You are invited to a relaxed evening of dinner and discussion. Guest Nick Brennan will speak briefly, and then the evening is yours to ask whatever questions you have about Christianity.

The aim of the evening is to get the issues out on the table, and discuss them honestly. Don't miss this opportunity!

Wednesday 22nd July
5:30pm
The White House - 26a Bowen St

JESUS in the Ring.

So that's the ad. It's on tonight if anyone is interested in attending.

I mentioned to a fellow student that I was considering going to it.
I had been thinking about it, I wasn't sure because I didn't know how "honestly" they intended people to ask "whatever questions" that they wanted. I mean, did the guest speaker expect people to ask Generic Christianity Lite(TM) controversies, where they can get pat Lee Strobelesque answers? Or maybe they'd reply to problematic questions using 'common sense' orthodox assertions with no supporting references to evidence. Perhaps. But they did call it "Jesus in the Ring"... it sure sounds like Jesus is gonna come in fighting! So, I thought, perhaps I should attend and bring along a couple of good questions that have been troubling me since digging under the Strobel-stratum.

I hadn't said any of these thoughts to the student I was talking to. I just said that I might go.

She apologised for not inviting me personally already, she explained, but it was because of a couple of reasons.
"One of the policies of C.U. this year," she continued, "is not to confuse people by giving them too many options."
"Huh?" I ask, "What do you mean?"
Perhaps she meant she didn't want to invite people to too many different types of events.
"Well, we really only want one main speaker doing the talking."
Hmm, I think to myself, so I can come along just as long as I don't talk?
"Ok," I tell her as I pretend to understand, unsure whether I didn't get her meaning or whether to be insulted.
I walk away to some work and she calls after me, "And I was worried that you might say something controversial."

Yes. There we have it. Prepare for Lite(TM).

I think I'll skip Jesus with a Nerf-bat.

Against William Lane Craig's Moral Argument for God

2009-07-18T11:48:00.003+12:00

A Refutation of the Moral Argument for God
(as defended by William Lane Craig)

The Moral Argument, as outlined in Craig’s 18th of June, 2007 podcast, The Existence of God (Moral Argument), is as follows (found here):

1. If God does not exist then objective moral values and duties do not exist.
2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.
Therefore, from 1 & 2, God exists.

There are several possible replies.

Premise 1. If God does not exist then objective moral values and duties do not exist.

This can be rephrased as, “Objective moral values come only from God.”
It depends what we mean as ‘objective’.
We could mean,
(i) not influenced by personal feelings or opinions in representing facts.
(ii) not dependent on a mind for existence; actual.

The key here is that objectivity is the opposite to subjectivity. Objective morals are considered true independent of the relative values of a person. A common understanding pointing to the reality of objective morals is the belief that if all humans ceased to exist then objective moral values would still be true.

This argument presumes that moral values proceed from and are defined by God. God is not presumed to be slavishly subject to a greater, abstract moral law (or else God wouldn’t be the boss), but instead is the one from whom all moral values flow. However, because God is a personal (willful, mindful) agent, and not a platonic abstraction, this means that moral values are not objective even when they are defined by God. Craig tries to refute this notion of the subjectivity of God (especially as detailed in the Euthyphro dilemma) by saying that the divine commands stipulated according to the will of God (something that can be subjective) are in keeping with God's good nature (something that isn't subjective). However, one only needs to ask, "Why is God's nature good? Is it because God says so, or because it mindlessly conforms to a standard greater than God?"

The importance here may be that it is something beyond humans, rather than people themselves, that sets their own moral compass. But this is why lawful institutions and societies create laws; their products stretch beyond the relative moral compass of an individual and even across lifespans. This secular form of “objectivity” doesn’t claim to be metaphysically written into the universe, but it does exist outside the morality of individuals.

To concede the point slightly, there is some advantage to anchoring morality in God. For example, moral values determined by God may be unchanging, if God is unchanging (although the changing moral zeitgeist of the Bible doesn’t demonstrate this well).
What must be accepted by the Theist is that if God did choose to change his mind on what is morally allowed (e.g. to make genocide acceptable) then there is no way believers could complain: what was bad is now good, by definition, with no other justification needed.
If we were to say that “God wouldn’t change his mind and make murder okay, because God is good and murder is wrong,” then we are attempting to hold God to a moral standard beyond or independent to Himself.
If we were to require justifications for any seemingly immoral behaviour permitted by God, for example genocide and wartime sexual slavery in the Bible, then we are implicitly saying that it is the moral justification within us that makes the action good and not that it happens to stem from God.
It is true that God-based subjective morality is the “biggest” source of morals that we could find, but unless we agreed that might made right then this makes little difference. Either way, God-based subjective morality cannot be described as objective.

Premise 2. Objective moral values and duties do exist.

If a person makes a statement, “P,” then, unless they are lying, this is logically the same as saying, “I believe P.”

Therefore Premise 2 can be rephrased, “I believe that objective moral values and duties do exist.”
Already we see the problem. This premise is making an ontological statement, “X does exist,” but cannot be any more certain about this claim than their own epistemic limits (how I know things are true).

William Lane Craig talks frequently about our shared moral intuitions as proving this premise.

This premise wants to be able to assert the following:
(1) I feel certain moral intuitions.
(2) Those moral intuitions come from a source external to myself and other people.
(3) This external moral source is actual, factual, and reliable.
Therefore, my moral intuitions describe something objectively real.

However, assertions 2 and 3 are beliefs that lends weight and credence to the individual’s moral intuitions, they just might be misattributed.
Firstly, moral intuitions may be partly due to the process of socialisation and the internalisation of moral commands present in the individual’s upbringing. If so, they are internal to the individual, although the mechanism on behaviour feels like a pressure external to desire. This does not mean that such morality is wrong, but it does mean that it is not properly objective.
Secondly, the driving force of moral intuitions as a whole may be partly due to the evolutionary history of humans. Some evolutionary psychologists and philosophers believe that language and quality of mind evolved as competition gave way to cooperation between people. It doesn’t take much to see that a group of individuals competing will flourish less overall than if those individuals cooperate for shared benefit. Game theory shows that individuals who have regular contact with others will gain more benefit in the long term by cooperating with rather than betraying their contacts.
The brain and mind, and not just the body, are evolutionary products. If bite, gait, or finger use have clear evolutionary purposes, we also shouldn’t be surprised to think that the cognitive architecture of our brains also contributes towards thoughts, feelings, and behaviours conducive to our survival.

If so, the above argument changes as follows:
(1) I feel certain moral intuitions.
(2) Those moral intuitions are a ‘good trick’ passed down to me through evolutionary history.
(3) These moral intuitions provide directive force for social rules and evolutionarily beneficial behaviour.
Therefore, my moral intuitions describe things culturally mediated and other things that are cognitively embedded.

Conclusion: Therefore, from 1 & 2, God exists.

To restate the moral argument with corrections:
1. If God exists then moral values are subjective and contingent (or abstract and arbitrary).
2. What we feel to be forceful, external objective moral values and duties may come from our own minds.
Therefore, from 1 & 2, it is not clear from the moral argument whether God exists.

Refuting the Fine-Tuning Cosmological Argument for God

2009-07-16T18:51:00.008+12:00

I. Fine-Tuning Argument (as stipulated by Richard Swinburne)

1. The universe is finely tuned for intelligent life.
2. If God existed, he would want to create Intelligent life.
3. The existence of Intelligent life is extremely improbable without God's existence.
4. Intelligent life exists.
5. Intelligent life is good and needs explanation.

Therefore, it is extremely probable (using Bayesian Probability) that God exists.

Swinburne uses Bayesian Probability (Hypothesis h being theism, evidence for theism e being intelligent life, and background knowledge k being facts of our natural universe) to compare to against the hypotheses of a universe suited to intelligent life with no god, as well as against the multiverse hypothesis.
One problem with this is that he presumes intelligent life needs explanation at all, thereby putting it into evidence for theism. A non-teleological explanation would simply say that it isn’t a logical necessity that anything needs explanation, thus denying there is any background information about our world that belongs in any sets of evidence for anything additional to its own existence.

In more detail:

II. My Criticisms of Swinburne

Swinburne sneaks in other arguments:

Argument from Design (teleological argument)
This is the argument that things around us look rich, complex, and in need of a designer. Referring to the various complexities of life, the particular way that human evolution historically occurred, and stating that these coincidences are both necessary and good as a product of cosmic formation, is befuddling the cosmological argument with the intuitions of an argument from design.

Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN)
This is the argument that evolutionary naturalism should find it hard or impossible to produce creatures with true beliefs.
Much like the previous part, to go into detail about the rich mental lives of humans, their purposes, and their beliefs, only stacks Swinburne’s deck using the presupposition that an omni-competent personal deity of an incredible likeness with our own mental lives would need to exist in order to bring about mental lives such as our own. It only confuses the issue at hand, being the cosmological argument.

Kalam Cosmological Argument (argument from first cause)
This is the argument that everything that begins to exist has a cause, the universe began to exist, and therefore the universe has a cause (and that cause is probably God). Swinburne tries to sneak in discussion about a finite age to the universe to conflate statistical intuitions of the Bayesian probability for his cosmological fine-tuning argument with other thoughts about the first cause argument for God. The singularity nicely addresses the first-cause argument, particularly as our intuitions about time and the causal chain may be wrong; science tells us that the universe is around 15 Billion years old but NOT that there is a time t=0 that requires causal explanation (I won't go into further detail here, but it involves the counter-intuitive nature of time as you near the singularity). Also, through modern physics we are aware of examples of paired matter and anti-matter that come into existence without a cause around our universe, the reason why black holes radiate (one half of the pair gets sucked inside, the other half escapes). Therefore not everything that begins to exist has a cause. The universe could be of this same category of things.
Regardless, Swinburne should not conflate these arguments.

Replying to the Fine-Tuning Argument:

1. The universe is finely tuned for intelligent life.
(1) The universe is highly hostile to all forms of life:
The hostile vacuum: Why don’t humans easily send a manned mission to mars and beyond? The cosmic radiation outside our atmosphere is incredibly fatal life as we know it after a relatively short duration of exposure.

The hostile past: The number of species that have ever existed but now have gone extinct is 99% of all life.

The barren whole: Proportion of the cosmos that is non-baryonic: 98%. That is, rather than being amazingly supportive and flourishing with “good” life, the universe is almost completely a barren void.

Our barren planet: the percentage of the earth that is actually biomass is only 0.00000000117%.

(2) In total reverse to Swinburne's above point, it is intelligent life that is finely adapted to the universe:
We fit the universe because we were formed by and within the universe. This is like Douglas Adam's sentient puddle who was amazed at how well he fit his hole. As far as the puddle is concerned, such a shapely fit must only be a miracle. If the laws of nature define our bounds and evolution formed our nature, we shouldn't be amazed at how necessary, desirable, or virtuous we find any of these things to be.
The cosmos bounded our only choice of feasible conditions for life, hence we formed within those guidelines.
Our biological environment literally shaped us to fit it, killing all non-adapted alternatives. It is no surprise that we find it to be so perfectly suited to us.
Lastly, our minds formed within the universe as it is, thereby ensuring that if we were to find anything intelligible then we (as intelligent observers) must find our universe intelligible. The alternative is creatures without working minds who find the universe unintelligible and die.

2. If God existed, he would want to create Intelligent life.
If humans really are the evidentiary product, e, of a personal God, h, then this might be fair. This is, however, an egocentric supposition rather than a necessary fact. As some say, it is no accident that people’s gods look like themselves. It is also no accident here that Swinburne defines himself as the evidence for a omni-Swinburnian god who would want to create things just like Swinburne.
After all, bats exist so why isn’t god a bat? You might argue that bats are more probable than humans. However, Apple iPods also require a cosmos that can support matter and life, human evolution to produce their inventors, and then a complex design tree of technological production plus the correct combination of sociobiological, cultural, economic, and marketing factors to produce them. They are at least as improbable and probably much more improbable than humans, therefore why isn’t god a Cosmic iPod?
Swinburne cannot presuppose that his hypothesis should assume the evidence for his own hypothesis without being circular.

3. The existence of Intelligent life is extremely improbable without God's existence.
This presumes:
(1) The combination of cosmological constants that we observe is the only one capable of sustaining life as we know it.
This isn’t the case: Victor Stenger’s “MonkeyGod” programme focuses on only four cosmological constants and shows that other life-sustaining universes are possible with other permutations of the constants.
Additionally, how many worlds even exist? Just our single cosmos? That would certainly provide the best sense of amazement at our fortuitous set of constants. If so, and if no other worlds can exist, then we have no other alternatives to our life-sustaining cosmos and the fact that we exist isn’t amazing at all. What is simply is what is.
However, it may be that other current cosmological theories are true, such as the oscillating universe, a higher-order multiverse, or “embedded” cosmoses. If so, then it is possible that the chance of a life-sustaining cosmos existing is very high. After all, if I have 99 boxes with dogs and one with a cat, then the chance of choosing a cat is only 1%. But if the number of boxes is infinite, then the number of boxes containing cats also tends towards infinity.
No matter how small the chances of getting a life-sustaining universe are, in a multiverse the chance of one existing is guaranteed.
Swinburne does not know how many possible worlds, if any, exist and therefore he cannot claim to know the relative probability of having a life sustaining universe without god.

(2) Similar to above, this argument assumes that other combinations of cosmological constants are possible.
We have no evidence for this. Cosmological constants may be non-contingent facts. The physical “laws” describing our universe simply mathematically describe what is and what happens, it doesn’t determine that which it describes. Equally, the constants are descriptions of what we observe and some of our values and constants are post-hoc fudged values that make our calculations work.
Simply because we can ascribe a number to a description that we have of our universe, that doesn't mean that it is feasible that this descriptive number value can change. It only means we can imagine it changing. However, just because something is imaginarily conceivable it doesn't mean that it is possible.
Who said the constants can change? Who said they could have been different to what they are now? How were they set in the first place?
To presume that they were ‘finely tuned’ as if by a purposive agent is a circular argument (from a theistic perspective) and an unwarranted presupposition that may actually be entirely imaginary and incoherent.

4. Intelligent life exists.
I wouldn’t argue with this. I would only qualify it with the fact that this need not necessarily be the case (except if we presuppose intelligent observers).

5. Intelligent life is good and needs explanation.
This teleologically presupposes that the big bang and evolution, if played through again, should re-produce humans. Otherwise, it is true that we are a unique fact of historical happenstance (Bayesian background knowledge k), but not evidence for anything (Bayesian evidence e for intelligence-creating theism, h).
If you don’t presuppose that we should exist, then you open yourself up to the fact that “history could have gone differently” and we simply wouldn’t have existed in an alternative situation. This robs the fact of our existence of anything that begs explanation, as we would simply be the one outcome of many possibilities that happened to occur.

A final self-refutation of Swinburne:
(credit for this self-refutation goes to Iron Chariots)
The initial premise of the argument is that in order for life to exist, the universe must have such properties that warrant a designer. However, in this line of reasoning, the designer of those properties would exist in a state where none of these properties were true. Therefore, any properties deemed to require a designer can't be necessary for existence in the first place, as the designer can exist without them. The argument is self-refuting.

Apologising for apologetics

2009-07-13T18:25:00.007+12:00

I've recently churned through ~~many~~ most of William Lane Craig's podcasts from his "Reasonable Faith" series, found here.

While the topics are "hot button" and interesting, I find that Craig's answers range from frustrating to downright sneaky. As I have got specific personal and academic interest in many of Craig's apologetic areas I find that he puts his views across in a way that might mislead those uneducated in these particular topics. I probably plan to do a series on some of his main apologetic arguments. Based on the amount of forehead slapping induced by his material this will probably end up looking like a rebuttal series rather than a friendly review. This is a shame (for his ideological brethren) given that he is rated highly in Christian apologetic circles.

For those unfamiliar with Craig, he particularly likes the Kalam Cosmological Argument (a variant of first cause), followed by the Moral Argument and the Finely-Tuned Constants Argument.
I expect to cover at least those, if not more of his podcasted issues. His moral argument is just awful, his Kalam argument is logically vulnerable, and I'm currently examining the last.

Mental illness and religion

2009-07-06T00:29:00.003+12:00

I work in mental health.

Many mental health workers and some NGO health providers are Christian.

One clinical study showed that the most intractable mental illness with the longest staying category of residents in our mental health service was males with schizophrenia. The most common general diagnosis by number was females with depression and sometimes PTSD or Borderline Personality, however stay was shorter and the recovery rate is higher for these.

So what should Christian mental health providers do with those schizophrenics who have religious delusions? What do we do if our residents are persecuted by their delusional religious beliefs? What do we do if they feel chased by demons? What do we do if they literally fear attack by Satan? What do we do if they think that they have made a detrimental pact with God and fear divine wrath if they break it? What do we do if they think that they are an incarnation of Jesus? What do we do...?

I know what some people do, even I am not innocent of these charges. They avoid the question. They don't challenge their ideas. They postpone confrontation until somebody "qualified" like a Pastor can talk to them (if that ever happens). They nibble around the edges with careful words. They pray with them / at them and hope that they take the hint. They give them Bible verses and inquire gently, which more often than not only implicitly strengthens their dangerous delusion by the unspoken agreement with their underlying religious paradigm.

What they don't say are things like, "that doesn't sound like realistic thinking to me", "I don't think that is right", "those things don't exist," or "I wouldn't worry about that."

They don't tell them that they're talking a load of nonsense.

Why? Because which parts can we criticise?
Oh, yes, Satan exists except he's just not really out to get you... well, perhaps, but only in a general sense.
Yes, the Creator of the Universe thinks that you are special and formed you in your mother's womb but your DNA isn't the divine template for humanity.
Sure, it's historically true that this guy Jesus incarnated as a man who was fully human and fully divine but you're just a regular bloke.
Ancient Israel made lots of promises to God and was punished for not keeping the commandments and the law but your secret pact with God just isn't realistic.

In April, after a tirade of mentally disturbed, religious, anti-atheist, and anti-evolution YouTube posts, Anthony Powell of Michigan randomly took a shotgun to 20-year-old College peer, Asia McGowan, and then killed himself.

What would I have done if Tony had been in my care? What COULD I have done?

"Yes, Tony, I know that it says vessels of wrath... but God actually loves atheists too."
"Yes, Tony, I know that it mentions 6 days and it sounds like Jesus refers to it literally, but it's really all just metaphors."
"No no, Tony, what you're saying doesn't sound like the God that I know. Trust me, your version isn't biblical."

But I know what I would have done. I would have spent the day hanging out with Tony, having some conversations and watching him get more and more annoyed and animated. I would have written an M by Tony's name in a folder, circled it, and then told the Staff on the next shift that "Tony is on Monitor for elevated mood and agitation."
Then I would have gone home and seen him on the evening news.

The Re-unleashing Begins?

2009-06-26T23:44:00.005+12:00

I know, I'm a bad, bad blogger.

But I've been thinking. Specifically, I've done a semester's worth of thinking, reading, philosophising, learning, and generally pondering to interesting effect.

I've still got SO MUCH TO GO. So much to learn. The world is so big and life is so enormously complex and rich. Awesome.

I really should get back to regularly posting here. I've remained busy and silent for long enough. My essays for semester 1 are pretty much complete (one remains), and I have a two or so weeks until next semester. I should try to pen my thoughts down as I learn next semester.

To be honest, I've been hiding. Hiding and hibernating. Just to wet your appetite and ignite your curiousity, here are some of the ideas that I have been contemplating with fervour...

By Topic:

Philosophy, theology, Christianity, atheism, cognitive science, psychology, "neurotheology," biology, evolution & the origin of life, morality & meta-ethics, physical cosmology (origins of the universe, origin and nature of time, the big bang, inflation, and the origins of symmetry/asymmetry), quantum physics, biblical archeology, origins of our existing biblical manuscripts, historicity of and evidence for the events of the New Testament (such as extra-biblical information about the life of Jesus), and, more recently, information on pre-nicene religious texts and beliefs.

Lots of stuff goin' on up in my head.

I have also seen a collection of debates starring Alister McGrath, opposition including but not limited to Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Peter Atkins. They inspired me to start to compile questions that I would like answers to based on McGraths major points of argument. I may possibly get around to discussing them here on the blog. I have simply sorted them into groups, some questions are similar because they come up in multiple debates.

List of questions:

Morality and Meaning:
Does Christianity add and fulfill our longing for what is right/good & correct us when necessary, or does it go too far and add anything positively immoral?
Is there a link between belief in god and violence?
What does research tell us about the empirical effect that religion has on people? (Why would this matter? Does this prove anything?)
Is the damage done by religion typical or fringe? Who are the normal people and who are the fanatics?
Do all worldviews have the same capacity to animate people in morally reprehensible ways? Is there something about human nature that explains this?
Can one have a viable moral system without a transcendent basis?
Is an evolutionary account of morality adequate to do the job?
Does an ‘enlightenment worldview’ lead to intolerance, conflict and violence?
Is postmodernity good?
Can christianity survive postmodernity?

Good Reasons vs Scientific Proofs:
Proving God vs. giving reasons for God. Are ‘reasons’ enough?
Is it wrong to say that the simplest explanation is the best one?
How do we know what God is like?
Can the results of the scientific examinations in the natural sciences be interpreted either to support religion or to support atheism, depending on agenda?
Is it true that, “science, by its legitimate methods, cannot adjudicate the God question”? Does nature in itself and of itself force us to either Christian, agnostic or atheist?
Does science remove the conceptual space for god?
Does science put us in a position where atheism is the best explanation?

Faith and Belief:
Is atheism a faith?
The origins of faith: Can they be explained? Meme theory? Otherwise?
What is belief? Can you choose what you believe?
Is Christianity wish-fulfillment? Is Atheism wish-fulfillment?

Biblical stuff:
Are the scriptures inerrant? Does biblical inerrancy matter?
Does archeology support the OT stories?
Is there proof of Jesus outside scripture?
What historical proof do we have of the resurrection?

If you have any particularly burning interest from any of the above then just leave me a comment and shall proffer my opinion once I think of something clever to say about it.

Over-celebration FAIL

2009-03-23T22:09:00.000+13:00

I love failblog

So good