tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-72000438027111985062024-03-15T02:18:04.561-05:00The Midwest Atheist<center><big>Promoting Positive Atheism, Progressive Liberalism, and Feminism<br>(and other random ramblings)</big></center>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.comBlogger162125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-82536562474248577282012-08-06T14:05:00.002-05:002012-08-06T14:54:31.219-05:00The Midwest Atheist is moving!!!To another URL, that is. I wanted to change up the name a little...in part because I see very few atheist bloggers actually use the term "atheist" in their blog titles. Also, a lot of websites block this URL. It's very strange, and I've never been able to find out why. Anyway, my new blog name is "<a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com">Teeth of the Buzz Saw</a>" which incorporates my last name slightly in the title (and appears to not get blocked). The Midwest Atheist address will remain in tact, primarily for linking purposes (though all posts have been ported over) and so that people who find this link know how to get to the new site..which is going to be much like this old site. But this will be the last post, so please update any RSS feeds you may have.<br />
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- LeoLeo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-85291882643987371832012-08-01T10:58:00.002-05:002012-08-01T10:58:26.189-05:00Why it's good to challenge beliefs<i> This is part one of a three part series on beliefs. This post covers why I find letting people believe what they want is a bad idea.</i><br />
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This is a topic I have tried to write about multiple times, but every time I get long winded. It's hard not to because <b>this <i>should</i> be fucking simple!!!</b> Yet, for whatever reason (we'll get to that in part three), it is not.<br />
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<a name='more'></a> Too many times I hear crap from people (whether it be people I personally know or comments I see on the internet) along the lines of "let people believe what they want to believe" in regards to religion. All that should be required to see the problem with this is a small thought experiment. If I were to believe the following things, would you really let me do so?<ul><li>I believe I am a better driver while intoxicated.</li>
<li>I believe second hand smoke is beneficial to a person's health.</li>
<li>I believe texting while driving is safe.</li>
<li>I believe gay people are an abomination and should be put to death.</li>
<li>I believe we don't need to conserve the earth's resources. God put them there for us to use and Jesus will return to rapture us before or when we run out.</li>
<li>...And so on.</li>
</ul> You should see the issue with many, if not all, of the beliefs I listed. I would hope most of my readers recognize that the first three are completely false; and by "completely" I mean that the exact opposite is true.<br />
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Now some people I have interacted with have been wise enough to at least add the qualifier, "if [those beliefs] don't do any harm," to their suggestions that we allow people to believe what they want. This <i>seems</i> to be a pretty good qualifier, and would pretty much go against all the beliefs I listed as examples. The problem? Now we're in a position of predicting <b><i>all</b></i> of the effects/consequences of a belief. I don't think that's a position we want to be in. Take that first example I listed. That belief is completely false; people are worse drivers while intoxicated. And worse driving should increase the probability of an accident. But what if the person who believes they are a better driver while intoxicated never actually drives intoxicated? Well, then they'll never get in an accident while driving intoxicated. So then that belief doesn't harm anyone. Is it then OK to let that person believe that?<br />
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An example that I feel better exposes this problem deals with prayer. I have been personally told that I shouldn't have criticized a Christian for asking people to pray (or maybe the Christian was just stating that they themselves were praying...either way, this detail isn't critical to my point) because praying doesn't hurt anyone. The truth is that <a href="http://whatstheharm.net/faithhealing.html">prayer can and does hurt people</a>. People have died because they believed prayer — and prayer alone — would cure their or their children's health issues...health issues that are curable or treatable with modern medicine. I'm not talking about people who were on their death beds with no other hope here. And that is the problem with prayer — people may pray instead of taking other action that is proven to be effective.<br />
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But is prayer harmless most of the time? Yeah, probably. Whereas believing one's driving improves with intoxication is probably going to be more problematic. But then this adds on another qualifier. Do we really want to say it's OK to let people believe what they want to believe if those beliefs are harmless most of the time? This still does not resolved the issue of having to forecast the effects of beliefs. <br />
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Again, on the issue of prayer, maybe it is more harmful than even I, a critic of prayer, am aware. As I have demonstrated, a problem with prayer is people not taking action that is known to be effective. In the anecdote where I was told that prayer doesn't do any harm, the prayers were directed toward victims of a natural disaster. Instead of praying, this Christian could have instead donated money to an organization like the Red Cross that deals in recovery efforts. So was hirs praying actually causing harm? I suppose much of it depends on if ze were truly concerned about the well-being of the victims or if hirs prayers were a way to show false concern. If it's the former, then, yeah, believing pray works could very well be preventing ze from taking effective action and is thus harmful in the sense that it could be preventing people from getting help that they need.<br />
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Yet, having to read the mind of the believer to determine hirs sincerity means that I cannot accurately forecast the harm of hirs belief in prayer because, it should go without saying, <b>I cannot read minds!</b> I have an alternative solution — how about if we encourage people to believe what is real instead of believing what they want?<br />
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Yes, there are some challenges and issues even then. First, of course, is the challenge to figure out what is real. An example that is relevant to today is a question of whether or not cellular phones can cause cancer. If they do, and if I believed that, then I perhaps should no longer use a cellular phone. (There would be some risk assessment involved in that decision, but that drifts away from the topic at hand.) As of now, we don't <i>really</i> know. So I could be harming myself from using a cellular phone if it is indeed dangerous to my health. Second, beliefs could be harmful if reality dictates so. Take that fourth example from the list above. What if gays were an abomination and needed to be killed? Then, yeah, beliefs aligned with reality would be harmful to gay people. (Luckily, there is no good reason to believe this is true!) But would it not be at least better if people believed that because it were real as opposed to just believing whatever they want? There is a reason I included that as an example, and that reason is because there are many people out there that actually believe that gays are an abomination! I'm really supposed to just let them believe that? <br />
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Overall, I find that having beliefs that align with reality is for the best. I'll cover more on why this is in part two.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-82157312960135673322012-07-11T07:53:00.001-05:002012-07-11T10:48:42.923-05:00Help me, PZ Myers, and Hemant Mehta Get Tattoos If the Foundation Beyond Belief can get 5,400 people on their international team by this Saturday, raising money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma Society through their Light the Night Walks, Todd Stiefel will get a mohawk and PZ Myers and Hemant Mehta <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/07/10/my-skin-is-at-stake/" target="_blank">will get tattoos</a>!!!<br />
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Now where may you have heard about this Light the Night Walk before??? Hmmmm... OH, ON THE SIDEBAR TO THE RIGHT!!! :)<br />
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Yours truly is already part of this event and I am captaining a team for the local event in Iowa City on October 13th (just three months away). If you happen to live in the Cedar Rapids and Iowa City areas, you may sign up for my team, which also adds you to the Foundation Beyond Belief list.<br />
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And allow me to up the stakes just a bit... If this goal is met <b>OR</b> if people help me reach my fundraising goal of $500 (also by this Saturday), <i><b>I</b></i> will get a tattoo as well!<br />
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UPDATE: For people who donate, I will send you pictures and possibly video of me getting the tattoo.<br />
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Sign up <a href="http://www.lightthenight.org/ia/register/#eventID=8664;teamName=Corridor%20A-Team%20-%20FBB;eventLocation=Kinnick%20Stadium;eventName=Eastern%20IA%20Corridor;action=join_team;view=personalInformation;eventDate=10%2F13%2F2012;teamID=239724">HERE (for signing up on my team)</a> or <a href="http://pages.lightthenight.org/2012/FBB">here for a list of national teams</a> or donate on the right!<br />
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<a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/2012/07/10/help-pz-and-hemant-get-tattoos-for-charity/challenge-500x500/" rel="attachment wp-att-5698"><img src="http://freethoughtblogs.com/greta/files/2012/07/challenge-500x500.jpg" alt="" title="challenge-500x500" class="aligncenter size-full wp-image-5698" height="500" width="500"></a></p>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-25131724307304792112012-07-05T17:52:00.002-05:002012-07-05T17:53:53.739-05:00What kind of atheist am I? <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/07/04/what-kind-of-atheist-are-you/">PZ Myers has an interesting post</a> where he discusses what he sees as the four major categories of atheists. Those categories are as follows:<ul><li>Scientific Atheists</li>
<li>Philosophical Atheists</li>
<li>Political Atheists</li>
<li>Humanists</li>
</ul> PZ points out that the categories are not mutually exclusive, so, with that in mind, where do I fall? Well, a little bit in all four. Of course, I will expand on that...<br />
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I think I am mostly a Scientific Atheist. It is through this category that <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/05/introduction-welcome-who-i-am-and-how-i.html">I discovered I was an atheist</a>. I also struggle with the weakness of such atheists, which is smugness. <br />
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I would say that next I am a Philosophical Atheist. While I'm not all that big on philosophy, I try to be rigorous. I am also at times long-winded. I have had my wife complain at times about me writing a book as a response to someone on Facebook (and not limited to the topic of religion). I tell her I'm that way because I try to be thorough in explaining myself. <br />
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After that, I'd have to say I'm a Humanist. It is this part of me that leads me to speaking out against religion. As PZ said, this is the heart of the atheist movement. It is indeed my motivating factor and it is the factor that leads me to stand up for gay rights amongst other minority rights. I consider this a less significant part because, first, I was basically a humanist before I was much of an atheist and, second, because of the scientific part of me, I feel that I do not have the weaknesses of this group. I would not, for example, at this point in my life* join a progressive church. I may not have much use for the atheist movement if it failed to take up such issues, but I wouldn't go anywhere religious.<br />
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Finally, I am also a Political Atheist. Those who know me, though, may realize that I am fairly involved with politics. Ah, but my political involvement goes well beyond just atheism, and is actually more tied in with my humanism**, which doesn't have to be tied to atheism. That's perhaps the way it <i>should</i> be because we are supposed to have and should have a separation of church and state. In other words, my atheism <i>should</i> be separated from state. The reason it isn't is in reaction to those who don't keep it that way themselves. Additionally, my political involvement existed prior to my atheism. That is much why I consider it my lowest category. It doesn't hurt either that my political views already lined up well with the major political party that does not make a big deal out of religion.<br />
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* <small>I'll be open to the <i><a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/12/possible.html">possibility</a></i> that my mind could change in the future.</small><br />
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** <small>This is perhaps another reason I don't have the weakness of the Humanists. If the atheist movement doesn't fight for humanist issues, I'll fall back to politics before I would a religious institution. (How would it count if I happened to back a political party that promoted religion??? Or am I thinking about this too hard? OK, I'm putting the philosopher back in the box!)</small>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-73292911432168037342012-06-18T17:00:00.002-05:002012-06-18T17:05:25.004-05:00When sticking to talking points is good I've been away from the blog machine for some time, but I had to make some comments on this video below.<br />
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Sometimes I am really annoyed when people stick to their talking points and don't actually answer the interview questions — though, the interviewer wasn't really asking a lot of questions but was instead making statements looking for a response. As <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/06/17/jesse-galef-on-cnn/">Ed Brayton describes it</a>, she was "using the 'some people say (insert something idiotic and crazy)' technique."<br />
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The first incident was when she said, "Some Christians might argue that, because such groups are in high schools, you're sort of indoctrinating young people in a time when it is not proper because they are not old enough to really handle questions like that." Jesse actually had a good response pointing out that, first, they're not actively recruiting students; those who want to join come to them, and, second, there are often Christian groups at these schools, too. I myself would have wanted to be more brutal about that...<br />
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...I mean, seriously?!? Even if it were true that atheists were out to indoctrinate children, has anyone ever heard of a church that doesn't allow in children because "they are not old enough to really handle questions like that"? If there are any, I'd bet there are damn few. And I really hate that sort of hypocrisy. I had a Christian acquaintance from a few years back that accused me of wanting to convert people to my worldview...or some shit like that. Of course, she made it out to be a bad thing that I should feel ashamed about. Yet, did she share these same concerns about Christian missionaries? Probably not (though I would have expected her to lie and claim otherwise if I would have cornered her on this).<br />
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All this is about is Christians being upset that they are getting some competition. And they are <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/wwjtd/2012/06/13/millenials-turning-the-tide-in-the-culture-war/">losing ground to that competition rather quickly</a>. <br />
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It should also be expected that when Christians are essentially called out on their hypocrisy and they don't deny this, they then have to try to find some justification for why it is OK for churches to indoctrinate children. This reporter does just that in her second try when she says, "They say that's dangerous because most religions...help people in their life; it's not a bad thing." Again, Jesse actually responds quite well. He directly avoids addressing the reporter's comments about religion being a good thing and instead focuses on the positives of secular groups.<br />
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The truth, though, is that religion, overall, <i>is</i> a bad thing. Sure, it has it's positives. And that is, of course, what defenders of religion like to focus on. But it has lots of negatives. On that, the defenders of religion try to blame it on bad people misrepresenting religion. I fucking hate that bullshit, too.<br />
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Still, way to go, Jesse, for not taking the bait!<br />Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-85412938827698072932012-05-30T12:22:00.002-05:002012-05-30T12:23:20.426-05:00This is why I speak out against religion. <i>This is a post I started drafting in early May...figured it was about time I finish it.</i><br />
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JT Eberhard <a href="freethoughtblogs.com/wwjtd/2012/05/08/dad-is-getting-my-emails-part-iv/">posted a four-part series</a> of email exchanges between his dad and a Christian from his home town. The Christian made a lot of baseless claims, but also said something I find quite scary (emphasis mine):<blockquote><b>I feel no guilt about potentially damaging the world</b> with this information, because it contains the very power of God to save those that are lost, and offers to believers glory in the Lord. What is wrong with that?</blockquote>I, of course, realize that not all Christians agree with this. However, (1) there are likely many Christians who do and (2) such a statement is actually consistent with not only Christianity but basically any religion that promotes a personal god with a plan for humankind. <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2012/04/this-doesnt-fix-problem.html">In a recent post</a>, I made the point that conservative Christians could argue that, in reference to gay rights, "God's law is higher than, and therefore trumps, human's law." (And <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/wwjtd/2012/05/16/3-2-1-psycho/">they have</a>.) A similar argument can be made here. In this case, it is reaching heaven that is the goal.<br />
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The problems of this are so enormous, it's hard to know where to start except with where it should be most obvious — managing the resources of our planet. Just over a year ago now, I was hosting a party mocking the idea of the rapture. <a href="http://www.motherjones.com/blue-marble/2011/05/world-ending-may-21-rapture">Yet</a>, "41 percent of Americans think Jesus Christ is returning by 2050." Chances are, this guy is part of that 41%. When you put these two concepts together, why would such a person be concerned with global warming? What do they care if we run out of oil? In another 40 years or less, we won't be here anyway, according to these people.<br />
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For anyone who cares about what we leave behind for future generations, religion should concern you.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-19318366039660969842012-05-30T11:18:00.000-05:002012-05-30T11:18:02.753-05:00"I'm again' it!" A few weeks back when there was that <a href="http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2012-05-13/news/bal-in-north-carolina-gay-marriage-vote-a-step-backward-from-progress-20120511_1_gay-marriage-vote-marriage-equality-amendment">win for bigotry in North Carolina</a>, I saw on a comment board somewhere of this argument bigots think is clever about putting gays and lesbians on an island and showing that they'll eventually die out because they can't reproduce. That particular argument is stupid because (1) actually they often <i>can</i> reproduce, so if you put men and women together, even if goes against their sexual preference, they'd probably work it out to reproduce. And (2) why is this relevant? There seems to be two routes this argument is supposed to take: (1) This is supposed to show that homosexuality is "unnatural" and therefore should be condemned and, if that argument doesn't impress, (2) gay people should not be allowed to marry because they can't have children. The argument is horribly flawed. It's an <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_nature#Rational_argument">appeal to nature</a>, which is a fallacious argument and can be seen more clearly when the same argument can be made for people who are infertile or people who are intersex*, <a href="http://therealamybuzalsky.blogspot.com/2011/12/intersexed-but-arent-you-woman.html">like my wife</a>. Are these people "unnatural"? Should they not be allowed to be married? What about adoption? And since when was marriage primarily about procreation?<br />
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This last question is something that I feel was <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/alethianworldview/2012/05/17/defending-bad-definitions/">addressed adequately at Alethian Worldview</a>.<blockquote>...In the first place, unless adoption or premarital sex is involved, there’s going to be at least some portion of the marriage in which there are no children present to be raised. And then they grow up and leave home, so they’re not part of the child-rearing environment anyway. So does the couple still have a marriage? ... Again, you’ve got a definition of marriage that tries to divert attention away from the relationship between the people getting married, and onto some contrived and disingenuous criterion intended to deny equal rights to a certain segment of society. Bad definition.<br />
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(snip)<br />
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...And did you notice? Changing the definition of marriage so that it refers primarily to child-rearing is, ta-da, <em>changing the definition</em> of marriage...</blockquote>That last bit is for those who want to "define" marriage. Interestingly (not really), their reasons for marriage being between a man and a women end up redefining their own definition. That's how bad the argument is. Still, I get quite insulted by these people who suggest marriage is about raising children. What about love? And the argument encounters other problems: Besides people who are intersex or infertile, what about elderly people who marry past their child-bearing years? (Well, I guess that technically makes them infertile, but most people probably don't view it that way.) And, more disturbing, what about teenagers? Is it OK for them to get married as soon as they can start reproducing? Why not? Remember, any reason given for this must be applied to everyone.<br />
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And, finally, there is the pastor in the video below who inspired the title of this post. He's still essentially trying to make the same argument. Except that he seems to think that homosexuals are never born from heterosexuals. So he's got to separate the men from the women to ensure they don't reproduce for the sake of reproduction. Once again, the same argument can be applied to people who are intersex or infertile. So to limit the rights of one of these groups and not the others is discriminatory, plain and simple.<br />
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* <small>I was discussing recently with Amy that it surprises me that the topic of intersex people does not come up seemingly at all in the discussion of gay rights, especially as a counter to these naturalistic arguments. I suppose intersex people are more rare than homosexuals and, from my experience, it seems intersex people tend to not talk much about their condition, leading to people being unaware that they know an intersex person. So this could create an "out of sight, out of mind" problem.</small>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-62996412540858077662012-05-25T07:19:00.000-05:002012-05-30T11:18:38.056-05:00The low-effort thought of John Archer I've been seeing a number of signs and TV ads for John Archer, who is running for Congress in Iowa's 2nd district. With the redistricting, this does <i>not</i> include Linn county, so this will not apply to most of my Rockwell Collins coworkers. But this does include Johnson county, so I do know a few people in that district. So here's the TV ad I've been seeing; let's go through it.<br />
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<blockquote>Some people act like you need a PhD from Harvard to run our government. (0:00 - 0:04)</blockquote> Is that supposed to be a shot at Obama? Does this guy realize that Romney went to Harvard, too? In fact, I think Romney spent more years at Harvard than Obama. In reality, I suspect he knows exactly what he is doing and his goal is for the conservative viewer to think about Obama and forget about Romney. In other words, he's taking advantage of flawed human thinking (or that low-effort thought I referred to in the title). <br />
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<blockquote>Everything I need to know is in the United States Constitution. (0:04-0:07)</blockquote> Ummm...not even a course in economics 101? What he's doing here is again targeting his conservative base (he has a primary to win yet, after all) by throwing out this <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2012/01/buzzwords-of-ignorance-constitution.html">buzzword of ignorance</a>. Need I point out how a lot of conservatives view themselves as fierce defenders of the constitution these days? All a politician needs to do is mention the word and their constituents will automatically get a hard on. (Yet, even the women...it's a metaphor!)<br />
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<blockquote>Respect life, preserve the 2nd Amendment, restore power to the States so that we the people can govern ourselves. (0:10 - 0:17)</blockquote> Translation: "I'm against abortion and contraception, and you can reasonably suspect I'm against women's rights in general. I think white people should have unrestricted access to guns. I want the States to have more power so those good 'ol red states can more easily follow their archaic ways of life — making abortion and contraception illegal, suppressing women and minorities, discriminating against the homos, teaching the Bible as literal Truth™, which then includes teaching creationism instead of evolution and, yes, teaching that the earth is 6000 years old." Note that I suggested that people like him only want to preserve the 2nd Amendment for white people. I would imaging that if I were to speak of someone of Middle Eastern descent wanting to buy a dozen assault rifles, many conservatives would lose their shit. That would <i>not</i> be OK with them. Yet, if a white guy would want that many assault rifles??? Meh.<br />
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<blockquote>And you know what's not in here? That's right — government run health care. (0:17 - 0:22)</blockquote> So what? The implication here, of course*, is that government run health care is unconstitutional. I'm pretty sure the constitution says nothing specifically about Social Security, Medicare, and Medicade, so we can expect Archer to be against these programs as well. The same goes for things like radio, TV, and Internet. Better get rid of the FCC. I don't recall anything in there about environmental protection. Good bye, EPA. Seriously, though, it bothers me a bit because this whole "That's not in the constitution" game is only about opposing things conservatives dislike. There are probably a number of government policies that conservatives like — they probably don't mind the FCC keeping profanity off of the TV — that they don't mind despite being "unconstitutional" based on this false standard of anything that is not explicitly stated in the constitution being unconstitutional.<br />
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On a side note, the book he is holding also includes the Declaration of Independence, according to the cover of the book.<br />
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Overall, I find the video quite cheesy. As I mentioned earlier, he has a primary to win first, so this particular video is likely aimed at conservatives. Yet, I'll give him some credit for doing a decent job of using code words to allude to his positions instead of being straight forward about them, which could likewise hurt his chances in the general election. So, that's why I'm here to help decode Archer's commercial. I see "Tea Party" written all over him.<br />
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Your thoughts?<br />
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* <small>Perhaps I should not say "of course." There is a conservative posting in the comments that either doesn't get the implication or hir's playing dumb. I suspect the later, but maybe they really don't get it.</small>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-73043547660001950962012-05-23T09:00:00.000-05:002012-05-30T11:18:25.591-05:00They never see the irony So there was <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/dispatches/2012/05/22/ms-state-rep-calls-for-killing-gay-people/">a state representative from Mississippi calling for the killing of gay people</a> in the news just the other day...but that's not what I'm really here to talk about. What he said included, "The only opinion that counts is God’s: see Romans 1:26-28 and Leviticus 20:13." Leviticus is the verse that calls for the killing of gay people, which I already knew. I was curious about the Romans verse. <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Romans+1%3A26-28&version=NIV">It states the following:</a><br />
<blockquote><sup>26</sup> Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. <sup>27</sup> In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.<br />
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<sup>28</sup> Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.</blockquote> So I became curious as to the context. Apparently, Paul is telling the Romans how the Big G is taking out his wrath on the nonbelievers...nonbelievers who are supposed to be able to see invisible evidence. <br />
<blockquote><sup>20</sup> For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. </blockquote> This is essentially <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/10/preview-to-idhef-logical-fallacies.html#Ignorance">the argument from ignorance</a>. (<a href="http://www.newser.com/story/109164/bill-oreilly-to-atheists-you-cant-explain-the-tides.html">You can't explain the tides; therefore, God.</a>) Yet, this is still not what I am here to discuss. It is rather the next three verses that I find interesting. (Emphasis mine.) <br />
<blockquote><sup>21</sup> For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. <sup>22</sup> Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools <sup>23</sup> and exchanged the glory of the immortal God <b>for images made to look like a mortal human being</b> and birds and animals and reptiles.</blockquote> That sort of sounds familiar...<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRXz7FOqnkGvvl2xNrFT1ybwKsvz2B_-HeP7Mh5_Lv1nHy8sFtt" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="233" src="https://encrypted-tbn2.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRXz7FOqnkGvvl2xNrFT1ybwKsvz2B_-HeP7Mh5_Lv1nHy8sFtt" width="400" /></a></div><br />
Of course, there are a few differences: (1) Christians didn't "exchange the glory of the immortal God" for this image. Instead, they strangely conflate the two. <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2012/01/sacrifice-what-sacrifice.html">They treat Jesus as both god and mortal human</a>. On the one hand, they try to claim that Jesus "died" for our sins, but then on the other hand they try to claim that Jesus is part of that "immortal God." I'm sorry, but something that is immortal, by definition, cannot die. So either Jesus is (was) mortal and could have died on that cross and then not be part of that "immortal God" or he is immortal and therefore could be part of that "immortal God" but could not die on a cross. It can't be both; that would be a violation of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_excluded_middle">law of excluded middle</a>. And, finally, (2) there are no "birds and animals and reptiles" in the image. The big irony, still, is that the main Christian image is "made to look like a mortal human being."<br />
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Then again, I already knew Christians are pretty oblivious to irony. They are, after all, very good (or bad, depending on perspective) about ignoring <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Matthew%206:5-8&version=NIV">Matthew 6:5-8</a> <blockquote><sup>5</sup> “And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. <sup>6</sup> But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. <sup>7</sup> And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. <sup>8</sup> Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.</blockquote>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-30308651265870844432012-05-21T21:07:00.001-05:002012-08-01T10:47:22.965-05:00"Organized" religion isn't the problem!...Well, it isn't, but not the way some Christians suggest.<br />
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It pleases me — PLEASES, I SAY! — when Christians (typically of the more liberal variety) attempt to claim that religion isn't a problem, it's just that damn <i><b>organized</b></i> religion that's problematic! To which I say, "Bollocks!"<br />
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What can I say? There was a <a href="http://nbcpolitics.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/05/08/11604355-north-carolina-approves-ban-on-same-sex-marriage-by-wide-margin?lite">vote on a ban of gay marriage in North Carolina recently</a> and I found an article about it and in that comment section (it was on MSNBC, but I'm not sure which article or where to find the exact comment now) some Christian was going off about how Christians can't take the moral high-ground because of prior moral failings (agreed), but then seemed to blame this on "organized religion" and had to make it clear he was not an "Atheist" (with a capital "A" because, I suppose, he thinks atheism is <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/10/not-religion.html">a religion</a>). This really causes me to facepalm when I see that there is <a href="http://www.secularcensus.us/analysis/2012-02-17">one survey</a> (how well this was conducted, I do not know) that found about 97% of atheists/humanists support legal gay marriage. (Also, <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/154634/Acceptance-Gay-Lesbian-Relations-New-Normal.aspx">Gallup finds that 89% of non-Christians</a> support gay marriage.) And this guy seemingly wants to distance himself from such a group to make it clear he belongs to the Christian club, or at least a religion. Or maybe he thinks atheists eat babies or are communists who worship government? Most of all, I suspect he's trying to make himself feel superior. It reminds me of the <a href="http://xkcd.com/774/">xkcd comic</a>.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/atheists.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="281" src="http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/atheists.png" width="320" /></a></div> Which brings me right to my biggest point on this issue: there is really no such thing as religion without organization. This commenter goes out of his way to point out he's not an atheist. Why? Seriously, <i>why</i>? As I already suggested, I suspect he's trying to make it clear that he is himself a Christian (without having directly said so). But why is that important? If you think organized religion is so horrible, why imply that you are a member of the group? Perhaps he's afraid of social consequences for denouncing religion. Which brings me to the reality that religion needs organization to survive. I <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/05/introduction-welcome-who-i-am-and-how-i.html">credit the fact that I am an atheist</a> much to not having a religious upbringing. I didn't have to fight off years of people telling me that a god is real. Granted, my parents could have brought up religion in the home more often than they did (which was virtually never), and if they had, I might not be an atheist. <br />
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But what about my children (when Amy and I get around to adopting)? I'm not going to be teaching them religion as literal truth. I doubt Amy would, either. So where could they possibly pick up religion? I mean, without organized religion? Could some friends teach them about religion? Maybe, but those friends might also believe Spiderman is real, too. So when Spiderman becomes fake, so does religion. At best, I would say, they might come up with something of their own, but would they get into anything like Christianity? Probably not.<br />
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I raise this because there have been cases of the children of atheists becoming religion. Some, even pastors (i.e, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Murray">William Murray</a> and <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/atheists-conduct-de-baptisms/story?id=11109379&page=2#.T6rSQcVUWs0">Stephen Kagin</a>). But would this have happened without organized religion? So often I hear stories from atheists who began life as non-religious or not devoutly religious and then got pulled into church or a college prayer group through friends. That's organized religion, even if the organization may be relatively small in comparison to, say, a juggernaut like the Catholic Church. Never have I heard anyone claim that they became religious from a friend <i>merely</i> telling them about Jesus. No, it seems to take some sort of church experience to convert.<br />
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Think about that. If parenting were the primary way to pass on a religious belief and there were no effective conversion methods, specific religions would gradually fade away as parents, such as mine, fail to pass on their beliefs. Now, new religions may — and probably would — spring up from people creating new religions, but even those wouldn't last. About all that might last are the simplest of beliefs. People still believe in astrology, for example, but it is relatively simple. At least it seems to be that way anymore. At one time, I think it used to be quite more complex, by which I mean people spent much more time actually looking at the alignment of the stars and planets because they actually thought that mattered. Today? It wouldn't surprise me if many astrologers know the position of planets, but recognize that all they really do is make up stuff in horoscopes. More importantly, though, there are no scriptures or really any dogma that is tied to such a belief. Just think about that for one, brief minute. What is the Bible, after all? It is an <i>organized</i> collection of stories, poetry, and letters.<br />
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Yet, I can imagine there would be some objections about how that is not what they mean by "organized." Then what do they mean? Why do I get the feeling that their particular brand of Christianity is not organized but everyone else's is???Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-73781194555186058962012-05-03T13:56:00.000-05:002012-05-03T14:00:03.865-05:00Thou art gotta be shitting me! - The Book of Job <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QVgZqnsytJI#!">DarkMatter2525 pulls off another masterpiece!</a> This is just too damn funny! I loved the alternative ending the most. Watch and enjoy!<br />
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<iframe width="640" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/QVgZqnsytJI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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I should also mention <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHPg3kjKBRc">The Goon Bible Project's version</a>. It's quite a classic.<br />
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<iframe width="480" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/jHPg3kjKBRc" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-51974242180649057702012-05-02T11:12:00.000-05:002012-08-05T21:19:18.347-05:00Penn Jillette when his is right. I wrote an <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2012/04/libertarians-and-charity.html">earlier post</a> where I was not pleased with a quote attributed to Penn Jillette. Now I have to turn the tables and post something from Penn that I find to be really great. Below is the video message he presented to the <a href="http://reasonrally.org/">Reason Rally</a> back in March. I'll highlight some of the great parts below.<br />
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/Rudd6Dzp9eI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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<blockquote>It's about time we grabbed the moral high-ground. Many people who are religious—they are sometimes doing their good deeds: their charity, their kindness. Sometimes comes from reward and punishment—going toward reward and away from punishment. I can make the argument—and I have—that the only ones with true morality are us, the atheists. We are doing good because it is good and we are doing right because it is right and not for reward or punishment.<br />
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(snip)<br />
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We are the people who believe in this life. We are the people who believe in morality. If you are doing something for reward or punishment, you do not have morality. Morality must come from inside you—from your mind and from your heart. You can't say "Don't hit your sister and I'll give you an ice cream sandwhich;" "You must not hit your sister because it's wrong to hit your sister."</blockquote> My only thought is this is a bit contradictory to that quote from that earlier post. That quote implied getting "moral credit" and "great joy" from helping people. But aren't these rewards, especially the moral credit? The great joy is something internal, but could I not call that a self-reward? It would seem that either Penn did not say that quote or he is holding contradictory ideas. From my writings, it should be clear that the Penn in the video above is the Penn I agree with.<br />
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UPDATE: I found the <a href="http://articles.cnn.com/2011-08-16/opinion/jillette.atheist.libertarian_1_piers-morgan-friend-minimum-wage/2?_s=PM:OPINION">source of the quote</a> from my earlier post. It appears to be a response to his interview with Piers Morgan back around August of last year, which is actually the interview from which I based some of my thoughts of Penn in that post, particularly with how he used anecdotal evidence during that interview. (I actually <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/08/piers-morgan-is-rude-to-guest-but-its.html">posted the first part of that interview</a> on this blog. The video I embedded is apparently no longer available, but the links to other videos still work.)Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-27978012317417997462012-04-29T08:18:00.000-05:002012-04-30T11:14:46.279-05:00God and I Am Legend I am not one to watch new movies. Actually, I'm not one to watch movies, period. Typically I'll just watch a movie on TV if I've got nothing better to do on a weekend night. Such was the case last night when I watched <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0480249/"><i>I Am Legend</i></a>. <br />
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The movie wasn't too bad, but the whole god part of it all was a bit disappointing. Robert (Will Smith) and Anna get into a conversation about a colony to protect the survivors of the zombie virus. She claims it exists; Robert claims it doesn't. Robert goes on to ask Anna why she thinks it exists. Well, she "just knows." What she should have done is turned the tables and asked him how he knew it didn't exist as Robert was also making a positive claim. Anna apparently isn't that bright, and, when asked again, says "God told me," or some shit like that. She goes on to talk about how the timing of their meeting couldn't have just been a coincidence; therefore, it was part of God's plan. See, Robert had been broadcasting a message to survivors on all AM radio frequencies for years. She only just now heard that message. And the timing was great because Robert had become suicidal, so Anna had to rescue Robert from himself. Well, Robert goes into a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Problem_of_evil">problem of evil</a> speech and yells, "There is no god!" at Anna a couple times.<br />
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Immediately after this, the movie begins to climax. Zombies find Robert's home and attack in droves. They eventually have to flee into the basement, where Robert has a lab where he experiments with potential treatments for the disease. After years of testing, it turns out that his latest treatment is working. So, since zombies are closing in, he draws some of the healing human's blood and gives it to Anna and then hides her and a boy named Ethan in a little alcove. Robert remains outside to kill the zombies (and himself) because he suddenly realizes there is a god and that god's plan was indeed to send Anna to find Robert so he could give her the cure that he has found just in the nick of time. Even though Robert has to die, it's a happy ending because he was an angry atheist who found God!!!<br />
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Except, there seems to be a bit of a problem. That has to deal with why Robert had become suicidal. That happened because his dog, Sam, became infected and he had to kill her. And that happened because Robert got caught in a booby trap. The booby trap involved a manikin. My two main questions are (1) how did Robert just notice this manikin? Was he driving through a neighborhood he had never traveled through before? And (2) how had zombies not even accidentally set off that trap? My assumption is that trap was put there by a human. Based on the story, that manikin would have likely been there for years. I can understand the zombies not falling for a manikin as a trick, but to not even check it out or just wonder by? No, that doesn't seem right. I suppose the other alternative is that the manikin and trap were placed by the zombies, but, while the zombies are not completely stupid, it is suggested in the movie that they may not be all that smart either. At any rate, it seems like God's plan must have then involved Robert getting caught by the trap. Otherwise, Anna wouldn't have had to rescue Robert from depression. In other words, God's plan involved making Robert depressed by making Robert kill his dog. That doesn't sound like a very nice plan.<br />
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I suppose religious apologists could provide two explanations*: (1)Satan! It's typical for the religious to find a scape goat to explain why things go wrong. And (2), this wasn't part of God's plan. It happened because Robert wasn't listening to God. (Maybe this god should have given Robert a reason to listen!) At any rate, God can't lose! And that's one thing I hate about religious people: anything seemingly good gets attributed to a god and anything bad is someone else's fault, and it's all asserted without evidence! It was a disappointing end to the movie.<br />
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* <small>Sure, it's just a movie and a work of fiction, but the "it can't just be coincidence" argument unfortunately reflects real life arguments.</small><br />
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UPDATE: When I originally wrote this, I was at a loss for words on that last point. It's hard to really argue against people who can make up whatever they want. So, I have instead thought of an alternative explanation to hopefully highlight the problem: "Robert could not hear the one true god, Flying Spaghetti Monster, because Robert did not eat pasta, the media through which FSM delivers His message." Maybe that's the problem. Why not? I have just as much evidence for my claim as anyone who would say Satan or ignoring god was the problem (if we are to assume a god exists).Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-46136246334470257672012-04-28T09:18:00.000-05:002012-04-28T09:18:58.274-05:00I wonder if they'd accept my design?<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://cmsimg.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=D2&Date=20120427&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=304270033&Ref=AR&MaxW=640&Border=0&-Choose-Life-license-plates-get-green-light-from-Department-Transportation" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="http://cmsimg.desmoinesregister.com/apps/pbcsi.dll/bilde?Site=D2&Date=20120427&Category=NEWS&ArtNo=304270033&Ref=AR&MaxW=640&Border=0&-Choose-Life-license-plates-get-green-light-from-Department-Transportation" width="320" /></a></div>
So, the <a href="http://www.desmoinesregister.com/article/20120427/NEWS/304270033/-Choose-Life-license-plates-get-green-light-from-Department-Transportation">State of Iowa is allowing license plates with a pro-life message</a>. I'm not sure it's best for the government to allow a politically charged issue to be on the plates, but then that would mean the government should either not allow any activism/specialty plates or they would have to declare what is and is not a politically charged issue. I would also be against the later. This means the state should either allow all or none. (For those who don't live in Iowa, we have <a href="http://www.iowadot.gov/mvd/ovs/plates/plates.htm">many types of activism/specialty plates, including one for bicyclists</a>.)<br />
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I see that Iowa also has a "God Bless America" plate, too. I think it's time to turn things around in the correct direction. But I wonder how they'd react to this idea:<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaoFcpi5fjyVXuZkyzMylKRUlT37GCaHChThGPnc1RZnHfJT24i0v_QEjwIDCURuDH_UbqBSetXMCo-74cq6ErXb9lEv91XvzpTJWi08fyXBUeSnD05nT942f-h_UR2QN2TbnYxVgcEIo/s1600/Iowa_Reason.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="160" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaoFcpi5fjyVXuZkyzMylKRUlT37GCaHChThGPnc1RZnHfJT24i0v_QEjwIDCURuDH_UbqBSetXMCo-74cq6ErXb9lEv91XvzpTJWi08fyXBUeSnD05nT942f-h_UR2QN2TbnYxVgcEIo/s320/Iowa_Reason.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-63640683561031898982012-04-27T16:30:00.000-05:002012-07-24T10:37:17.765-05:00This doesn't fix the problem.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0pjq9FDem1rouf7xo1_400.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://27.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m0pjq9FDem1rouf7xo1_400.jpg" /></a></div> Silly liberal(?) Christians! I was browsing the timeline of a Facebook friend and found this ridiculous image. In searching for the image, I found <a href="http://iamkarijerene.tumblr.com/post/19163431618/cheappoet-jesus-did-i-stutter-yes-thank">a webpage with a likewise silly comment</a>:<br />
<blockquote>YES, THANK YOU! It’s so hard sometimes to tell non-Christians that you’re Christian when you live in a world where “Christian” means Gay-basher and determiner of law. <br />
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My type of Christianity is the kind that LOVES and DOESN’T judge. So two men dig each other. Get over it. So the laws of Christianity don’t govern the whole country. Get over it and read the constitution. <br />
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Jesus was a rad dude, you guys.</blockquote><a name='more'></a> Ohhhhhhkay. But this doesn't fix the problem. First, note that this poster seems to admit that the laws of Christianity could allow discrimination of gays, but that Christians can't do that here in the USA because we have a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution">First Amendment</a> that prohibits religious laws. What if this poster did not live in such a country? What if they lived in Uganda, where there has been a struggle over a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uganda_Anti-Homosexuality_Bill">"kill the gays" bill</a>? Might that be compatible with "the laws of Christianity"? Let me put it this way: If one of your defenses of Christianity involves pointing out that Christians can't have their way because we live in a secular country, that's not an argument in favor of Christianity. That's an argument for secularism. <del>Not only that, it's an admittance that secularism is better than Christianity.</del> Sadly, this Christian likely does not recognize the implication of hir statement.<br />
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Moreover, the conservative Christian has arguments at their disposal that are good counters to this liberal Christian's argument about laws. Their argument could be that God's law is higher than, and therefore trumps, human's law. "So what if the USA has a constitution? God's law is higher. Is the liberal Christian really trying to place man above God?!? That's what those damn atheists do!"<br />
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As for the problem with the image itself, the more liberal Christians can't actually say that there is nothing wrong with being gay or believing in other gods...at least not without abandoning some of the core doctrines of Christianity<sup>1</sup>. (At which point, why would you call yourself something you're not?<sup>2</sup>) The poster I quoted says "Get over it," but could they actually say, "There's nothing wrong with that"? Liberal Christians, at best, can speak about love or not judging, as this poster did. They'll say things like how Christianity teaches to love your neighbor. And from such ideas they derive catchy little phrases like, "Love the sinner; hate the sin." But they can't actually say that homosexual behavior is not a sin. Where would such a notion be supported in the Bible?<br />
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Ideas of not judging might work to counter bullying, but what about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversion_therapy">reparative therapy</a>?<sup>3</sup> That's the "therapy" that tries to "cure the gay." Can liberal Christians really object to such a thing? Well, they can object, but what's their argument against it? They can't really argue that it's being judgmental. I would argue that such therapy is simply trying to help people free themselves from sin. Such therapy is out of love! If the liberal Christian then tries to argue that you should just allow people to sin, then they open up the floodgates. Do we then try to help alcoholics or other drug addicts? Just let them sin! Men who beat their wives? Let them sin! <br />
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<b>UPDATE:</b> I want to add that I have heard arguments from some pastors that helping homosexuals is like helping an alcoholic. Additionally, I do find these to be good arguments...at least if you agree to the premises that both homosexual behavior and drinking are problematic. I don't agree, which is why I ultimately don't find the argument convincing, but what about the liberal Christians? Do they also not agree? <b>/UPDATE</b><br />
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Can the liberal Christian really say that? Take another look at the image. This is encouraging Christians not to judge, but there is still someone who does get to judge—Jesus himself! And what is Jesus going to do with the gays and those who worship other gods? Is Jesus going to send them to hell? If so, how can the liberal Christian just sit by and do nothing while the homosexual dooms themselves to eternal damnation? Think about it—if you saw a deaf person walking along train tracks and a train was approaching from behind, could you just stand and watch the deaf person meet their death? Wouldn't the loving thing be to save them? It would seem, then, that the Christians that are the truly loving Christians are those who want to help gay people with their sin<sup>4</sup> or those who aggressively proselytize to those who believe in other gods. It is the liberal Christians who say "Get over it" that are truly the heartless ones, despite what they claim.<br />
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To be fair to the liberal Christians, they may not believe in a hell that involves eternal torture. They may believe hell is just separation from god or annihilation. Still, if they believe heaven is a better alternative, don't they, out of love, have to help those who might not be going to heaven? Especially those who believe in the wrong god, and maybe even the nonbelievers! (Some Christians believe that all you have to do is believe in Jesus and you'll be saved regardless of your sin. Thus, the gays are safe as long as they are Christians. The non-Christians, however, are still doomed. I know of few Christian denominations, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rob_Bell#Beliefs">Rob Bell's</a> being one of them, that promote an idea of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_reconciliation">universal reconciliation</a>. But I would expect many of these Christians to reject the notion of judgement, so this image doesn't apply to them anyway.) On top of that, it is not even the beliefs on hell of the liberal Christians that matter. It is the views of the conservative Christians (or those who believe in a torturous hell) that do. Before liberal Christians can even suggest that gays or non-Christians be allowed to live as they please, the liberal Christian must first demonstrate that those people aren't going to receive ill-treatment in the afterlife. (Which they can't, because there is no good evidence that such a place exists, let alone the god they believe in.) If you look at that which Rob Bell speaks, he speaks about "Jesus' message of love, peace, forgiveness and joy." However, the believer in hell can point to the many verses that speak of "<a href="http://www.middletownbiblechurch.org/doctrine/hodgesgn.htm">weeping and gnashing of teeth</a>. And then the liberals will argue that doesn't mean what it appears to mean, etc...because that's <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/10/youre-interpreting-it-wrong.html">such a winning argument</a>...or not. (Why couldn't a supposedly all-powerful god deliver a message that wouldn't be up to interpretation? Jesus could just as well have stuttered! Assuming he even existed and said anything at all.)<br />
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Otherwise, what argument does the liberal Christian have against reparative therapy? Homosexuals were born that way?<sup>5</sup> First, that's a secular argument. Show me where the Bible says that! Second, as per the judgement problem, even if gays are born that way, wouldn't it be the duty of Christians to help gays not give in to their natural behavior? Sure, you might not be able to get them to live as though they were heterosexuals, but wouldn't helping them abstain from homosexual behavior be a noble deed?<br />
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As for the topic of worshiping other gods, what liberal Christian (again, except for those that subscribe to universal reconciliation) can object to proselytizing? Proselytizing has to be considered a loving activity if it will help get people in Jesus' good graces.<br />
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In summary, liberal Christians, if they try to make arguments from Christianity against gay-bashing or other discrimination, appear to have little choice but to paint themselves into a corner. Sure, it's not the most visible corner, but a corner nonetheless. The best arguments that they have at their disposal are actually secular arguments, which says more about the superiority of secular morality than it does about Christianity.<br />
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<small>1. Claiming there is nothing wrong with worshiping other gods would be in clear contradiction to the <a href="http://atheism.about.com/od/tencommandments/a/commandment01.htm">First Commandment</a>.</small><br />
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<small>2. This reminds me of some comment I once saw posted on a YouTube video. The comment had something like, "I disagree with most of what the [Catholic] church says, but I'm still a Catholic." Imagine if someone said they disagreed with most of the Democrats' party platform, but said they were still a Democrat. Would that make sense? Yet, the tribal nature of religion is so strong that people can say such things with a straight face.</small><br />
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<small>3. And if you're a liberal Christian that sees nothing wrong with reparative therapy, don't be surprised when non-Christians treat you like a bigoted conservative Christian.</small><br />
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<small>4. It is of my opinion that a lot of conservative Christians are bigots, plain and simple. (Especially those that demand gays be put to death.) However, there very well could be a number who are indeed genuinely concerned about gays going to hell. Or maybe they're even worried about what judgements Jesus may have in store for them if they stand idly by. Take <a href="http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/showtracker/2012/03/kirk-cameron-gay-comments-fox-news-piers-morgan.html">Kirk Cameron</a>, for example. Is he a bigot? I don't think so. I don't think he's very intelligent, but not a bigot.</small><br />
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<small>5. The "born that way" argument also has some theological problems from the Christian standpoint. If their god created humans, then it created them to be gay. And then it condemned gays for being the way it created them to be. This is not the depiction of a loving god. Though, I know...I know...many Christians will blame "original sin" rather than their god.</small><br />
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<b>UPDATE:</b> One thing I forgot to say when I initially posted this is that I find it wrong to believe in gods without evidence. On that, there is no more good evidence for Jesus than any other supernatural god claim. (Perhaps there is more "evidence" but it is of the very shitty variety where it doesn't matter how high you stack it.) Believing in Allah or Baal or Zeus is no more wrong than believing in Jesus.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-21302593665282720322012-04-27T14:26:00.001-05:002012-05-08T15:50:54.122-05:00Doing My Part for the Godless Future - Money<i>This post is in part a response to Hank Fox's <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/bluecollaratheist/2012/04/11/doing-my-part-for-the-godless-future/">Doing My Part for the Godless Future</a>.</i><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj77b-SZU9QvPFuUrDMDR8ySKpkrDL2zfp3iuJ1oVPn2izzJj74mOutIdtc4cA_Zf6Tp_8fK4Ad_pAL1kxYKqLe8ADIaigPNQGxjuz8FrpPOpXqvYm9PqVdDGyKR2Ew3dl6oEv170o-EaY/s1600/Money+001.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="171" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj77b-SZU9QvPFuUrDMDR8ySKpkrDL2zfp3iuJ1oVPn2izzJj74mOutIdtc4cA_Zf6Tp_8fK4Ad_pAL1kxYKqLe8ADIaigPNQGxjuz8FrpPOpXqvYm9PqVdDGyKR2Ew3dl6oEv170o-EaY/s400/Money+001.jpg" width="400" /></a></div> One thing I have decided to start doing is crossing out "IN GOD WE TRUST" on paper money. In the past, I thought the idea was a bit childish. It not only seemed silly to do so, but I feared other people might feel the same way, turning people against atheists. Particularly, my immediate family are the people I tended to think about. They are not very religious, yet they don't seem to be fond—for whatever reason—of atheist activists. I figure marking money will further that divide between me and my family. But then I will see <a href="http://global.christianpost.com/news/atheist-group-demands-pa-school-remove-ten-commandments-monument-72070/">dumb comments like this</a>: <blockquote>If you feel so strong about being an atheist,you should not use money,after all it does say in God we trust on it</blockquote>Such comments demonstrate why having "IN GOD WE TRUST" is a problem. It is a problem I wish to help fix.<br />
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Stories about atheists in religious communities thinking they are alone have also encouraged me. Perhaps there are atheists out there that will feel some relief from knowing other atheists exist if they get a hold on one of my "marked bills." As for my family...screw them! They'll probably never be my allies, but they'll probably never be an enemy, either. Much the same goes for other people who are sitting more in the middle...people who I might call <a href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/accommodationist">"accommodationists."</a> If an atheist crossing out "IN GOD WE TRUST" frustrates you more than all the horrible things religious people do, then fuck you! I would rather mark money if it helps motivate atheists than to not in order to pander to people with such horrible moral priorities.<br />
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UPDATE (08-May-2012): I saw something <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2012/05/06/we-dont-exist/">disturbing on PZ Myers' blog this weekend</a>. Emanuel Cleaver, a U.S. representative from the state of Missouri, <a href="http://www.goddiscussion.com/96308/congressman-urges-respect-for-nonbelievers-but-doesnt-think-atheists-truly-exist-in-america/">said the following recently in an interview</a>: <blockquote>Actually, I don’t believe that there is such thing as an atheist because no respectable atheist would walk around with something in his pocket that said ‘In God We Trust.’</blockquote> Well, I have no paper money that says such a thing (I have not attempted to remove it from coins...that would just be too much work). Suck it, Cleaver! Oh...and thanks for demonstrating my point.<br />Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-52230009532911289772012-04-26T16:28:00.000-05:002012-04-27T08:25:52.898-05:00Soccer Report — Spring, Week #1 Well, the season started out with a disappointing 4-2 loss. On the bright side, it was only the first half that was disastrous for my team as they outscored us 4-0. Much of the problem, I think, was due to the fact that we are a new team. The team consists entirely of people who could not find a team of their own. We are, in other words, a <a href="http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RagtagBunchOfMisfits">ragtag bunch of misfits</a>. There seemed to be some organizational problems in the first half, primarily with defense. I was primarily playing forward or midfield, but saw that the defenders were doing a horrible job marking up. I can recall at least one of those first two goals being the result of a cross to our right side of the field because the right defender moved too much to the middle and let a man go unmarked in his area. I later noticed that substitutions appeared to be causing some trouble...<br />
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<a name='more'></a> I was playing forward when they scored their third goal. I noticed that there were not enough defenders back, so I sprinted to get down field to try to assist. This ended up being necessary, as the last defender got beat, leaving me as the last person who could get between their forward and our goalie. I did make it down in time, however, I made lousy contact with the ball. I was trying to kick it out the back, as I saw that as the best option. I went down from colliding with the attacking forward, but he managed to stay up and go after the ball that was still in play after my failed attempt to kick it out. I did get back up, but I was not really in any condition to get properly set for defending as their forward was threatening to take a shot. So I hustled to get in the way. However, he backed off and then was able to dribble around me and score. I felt a little bad for going as hard at him as I did, but I feel he would have gone threw with that shot had I not. I was also hoping I would maybe have some backup from the defender who had been beat earlier. And he was indeed in the area, just not quite to where he could be effective. So, that was frustrating, but I'm not really blaming myself for that one as (1) it was not my responsibility to even be there and (2) their forward would have likely scored had I not done anything.<br />
After that, I got a hint of what the problem really was. It was to be our ball, but I noticed we had too many people playing forward. I looked back and saw that there was no longer a right defender! (By the way, their forward came down our right side of the field.) I decided I had better play defense then!<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhryBpfe-BrVto80KH5l1QQaCXcIdsgtYLhqTFPjbEfgoIC3zcS_gzhuMYil_2pl_uAHsbRIEjUpjBOvfSMPzziQt0W7LH899yXkfKR47A1SpJf7lqGposDZbQrg500DPho-w4K38zuNC0/s1600/Soccer+-+Getting+Beat.png" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhryBpfe-BrVto80KH5l1QQaCXcIdsgtYLhqTFPjbEfgoIC3zcS_gzhuMYil_2pl_uAHsbRIEjUpjBOvfSMPzziQt0W7LH899yXkfKR47A1SpJf7lqGposDZbQrg500DPho-w4K38zuNC0/s200/Soccer+-+Getting+Beat.png" width="108" /></a> A while later was when I made a mistake for which I do take blame. The middle defender had pushed up further than he probably should have, considering that the forward who had gotten the third goal has pretty good ball-control skills. I ended up being the furthest back defender, and I had to be where I was because I was up to the mid-field line. (Moving up any further would have not caused the forward to be offside as he was on his half of the field.) Their right defender got the ball, and he hit the ball up and crossed it over to the guy I was defending. I got this stupid idea in my head that I could break up the pass. I failed to do so. He managed to play off the first bounce and headed the ball over me. As my momentum was carrying me to the sideline, I had to switch directions. As he was already going the way he wanted to, I had to play catch-up. At this point, there was not a whole lot I could do. I did manage to get back in front of him and made him pull back the ball. The problem was he still had a lot of advantage over me. Again, I had a problem with having to change direction. I grant that perhaps it would have been better if I had looped around instead of trying to cut back. I did some quick drawing in Paint on how I remember the play going down. I drew the opposing player's general path in black and mine in red. At this point, he went to his left, as my momentum had carried me off to his right. I tried cutting back, but then he pulled up again and went around me the other way. I put an alternative in gray. Perhaps instead of trying to cut straight back, I needed to loop backwards a bit, just to create some space and to give me time to be able to react to his moves. By cutting back like I did, I was bound to get beat again. I put myself in a position where if I did not charge hard at the ball, he would have likely moved around further left and still beat me. Yet, by charging in hard, he was able to pull up again and maneuver around my back side. At any rate, my first mistake was playing too aggressively instead of just being sure I stayed in front. After that, my options were limited.<br />
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I apologized to the middle defender for playing too aggressively instead of just trying to get in the way until he could back me up. Shortly after this, it was halftime and things became slightly frustrating. This is because two of my teammates thought they should bring it to my attention that I overplayed the ball. Yeah, thanks, but I knew that already! Not that they knew that I knew, of course, but it's not necessarily pleasing to have other people on your case, even though I'm sure they meant it only as friendly advice, when you are on your own case. Though, the most frustrating part was when one of them suggested I was overreacting to the first move, allowing the forward to juke around me. <i>That</i> was not quite accurate. While I grant I'm a bit rusty when it comes to outdoor soccer, I'm not one to bite hard on a juke move. No, it probably looked that way because I had gotten myself in such a bad position that I had to react to any move because I was unbalanced from having to play catch-up.<br />
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On a bit of a side note, that forward may not fully understand the offside rule. One time, his teammate tried to pass him the ball when he was offside (which was because I noticed I was furthest back defender and moved up to play the ball). I got slightly in the way of the ball, but only just enough to deflect the ball and not actually stop it. He then intercepted the ball and got called. Then he complained to the ref about how it hit my foot. So I went about searching the internet and could not find anything that suggested a deflection off an opponent would nullify the offside rule. Actually, I <a href="http://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-9972.html">found a page confirming that a deflection does not count</a>; it appears I would have had to have control of the ball first, which I did not.<br />
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The second half went better. One of those guys who talked to me at half decided he had better play center defense. This helped maintain some order, though there still seemed to be a number of changes on the outside defender positions. The one slightly scary moment was when he decided to sub out when the other team had the ball on our side of the field! Granted, the ball was out of play at that time, but I didn't know if the sub was going to make it in in time. (I strangely don't even remember who that sub was. Honestly, I remember having different defenders at different times, but I didn't really notice when they went in and out.)<br />
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I played goalie that second half and managed to keep them scoreless! Though the improved defense really helped out. They really only had two reasonable shots on goal. Most of their shots went high over the net. I managed one save that for sure would have otherwise gone in. The forward was to my right and dribbled around the left side of the defender on him. I was <a href="http://www.soccer-training-guide.com/soccer-goalkeeper.html">keeping in mind some tips I read</a> at the time. Before he had gotten around the defender, I had actually moved up a little to put on some pressure, yet stayed back so that I could react to his moves. Once I saw him start to get around the defender, I moved slightly in the left direction toward the far post, realizing he would have a better shot at the far post than the near post. This turned out to be a wise assessment as his shot was going for the wide post, but I managed to dive for the ball and hit it with my left palm. This caused the ball to roll out behind the goal line giving them a corner kick.<br />
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Now on that corner kick, I did not play so well. The kick was plenty high and I may have had an opportunity to punch it out. After all, I can use my hands, giving me more reach than anyone else. Yet, perhaps that screw up in the first half caused me to be cautious. I stayed back, which may have been a worse idea because the person who got his head on the ball had quite the opening. (The other part was that the defense was not marking up correctly. The left midfielder was playing outside of his mark instead of inside.)<br />
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But that was most of the excitement. There was a weird moment when they took a shot that may have been going wide, but I wasn't sure where the far post was, so I pursued and punched the ball away. I thought I saw a white jersey, so I backed off to get back in the net. Then no one came. Not even my defense. I guess I did suggest that the ball was going out. It interestingly stopped rolling pretty much on top of the line. (Actually, the bottom of the ball was outside the line. Does the ball need to cross the line completely to be considered out? Apparently so!) Eventually someone got it. It probably should have been me once I realized no one was actually coming for the ball, because I could have picked it up and cleared the ball more safely than anyone else on my team.<br />
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Other notes are that my punts are quite monstrous. I can really boot the ball that way. My goal kicks still need work. They could use a bit more height yet. And I need to work on my aim. I had a situation where the right midfielder was being left open along the right sideline two goal kicks in a row. The first time I kicked the ball too much in the middle. The next time I over-corrected and kicked it out. <br />
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The last thing I can recall wanting to mention is that I had a moment where I was pleased that I won the psychological game. There is one woman on our team who has never played before. Her ball-control skills are non-existent. I had the ball and saw that she was open down the left sideline. There was also a guy in the middle who has good ball skills, but had a defender monitoring him. I looked and motioned toward the open woman on my team. I had no real intention of throwing to her; I was really hoping to draw defenders to her. It worked. The defender in the middle shifted that way, allowing me to pass to the teammate I really wanted to go to.<br />
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So that's pretty much all I can remember for now. The only other thing to say is that it appears a number of people on my team are not in good shape! I guess that just means I need to improve more! And I will. Amy and I are taking outdoor basic training (<a href="http://www.rockwellcollinsreccenter.com/OBT%20first%20session%202012.pdf">pdf</a>)!!!Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-25196430797647195662012-04-25T16:18:00.000-05:002012-04-25T16:18:28.560-05:00What causes me cognitive dissonance and why I've had a tendancy to avoid Facebook.I wish to be optimistic about the future of the human race, but then I see stupid shit on Facebook that runs counter to that wish. This causes discomfort that I wish to avoid. Instead of giving up my wish, I instead chose to give up on Facebook. It is time to fix that. If I am going to honestly call myself a realist, it is time I give up on that wish.<br />
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There is one more issue worth mentioning. I'm not quite sure if it is an irrational fear of criticism...it may be a little...I think it is more a fear of having to defend myself. I lean more to the later because I did not have near the issue of facing criticism in the past. The fear has come about, I'm quite sure, from past attempts at defending myself where my words would not come out right and I'd feel stupid about what I said later. There might be some cognitive dissonance there as well because I view myself as a smart person, so doing something stupid contradicts that. On the flip side, I feel that I have accepted as fact that I am not good at thinking of quick, witty responses. So that would not be dissonance then. It must then be that fear, though one of the reasons I started this blog was so that I could take my time writing responses so that I could develop better arguing/debating skills. It is time I dropped this fear as well!Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-11880367571764894502012-04-20T11:00:00.000-05:002012-04-22T18:12:37.088-05:00Yet another early sign I was a feminist I don't know what it is, but I feel like talking about feminism suddenly...<br />
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First, a lead-in story... Yesterday at work we had our team meeting. There is about 20 or so people in my team...only two women, and one is currently on maternity leave. The one woman one the team currently at work pointed out that she was the only woman in the room. And, based on the names of the new hires, she's going to be one of only two women. But that segued into me thinking about gender-neutral names. Like Leslie, or Shannon (even if they do tend to be more popular as girl names). I don't think any of the names on that new hire list were gender-neutral...pretty sure they were all males. Anyway, that then segued into this time my father, who is totally <i>not</i> a feminist, seemed to be quite pleased that a man, with one of those gender-neutral names, had applied at was accepted into some program that was for women-only. My father's pleasure seemed to derive from this idea that if women want equality then they shouldn't have such groups. This then got me thinking about other things he has expected out of women, specifically that he thinks women in the military should have to shave their hair just like men. These ideas made some amount of sense to me at the time, but something didn't quite feel right. I was too naive to place a finger on the problem, though.<br />
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Of course, I see the problems now. For that later example, the problem is with those who created the rules about shaving hair in the military, specifically the gender of those people. Yeah, they would have been males. So, my father seemed to think that if women want to be treated as equals to men, they should follow the rules that men put in place. Yeeeeeeahhhhhhh-no! I'm sorry, but perhaps women should at least have an equal role in creating those rules first! For that former example, it's difficult to really know what to say, at least in a way that will make sense to the person who doesn't understand. But a lot of it comes down to not being equal yet and being the underprivileged group. Yes, if women were considered equal to men, then it is true that such groups and programs would not need to exist. But we are not there yet. Far from it. Until women can achieve equality, then women's groups and programs are a necessity to combat inequality. Perhaps the best way to say this is that one cannot fix a problem if they act and behave as though the problem does not exist. Yet, what my father seemed to want is for women to act as though there is no problem, thinking the problem would magically fix itself. Or, it's also quite possible that my father doesn't think there is an actual problem.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-5436355326811250182012-04-19T12:41:00.001-05:002012-04-22T18:12:23.094-05:00An early sign I was a feminist While I have failed to talk about feminism much (I do have a few posts that have stalled out in draft state) on this blog, I do consider myself a feminist. And today I saw <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/blaghag/2012/04/mencallmethings-ratheism-edition">a post from Jen McCreight</a> where she talks about the mean things people unfortunately say about her looks. It is something that a lot of women apparently get. But, for whatever reason, this memory of something my father would occasionally say came to mind. I'm quite sure it was, "<a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=I%20wouldn%27t%20kick%20her%20out%20of%20bed%20for%20eating%20crackers">I wouldn't kick her out of bed for eating crackers.</a>" I remember not being impressed with my father for saying such a thing. That may have been as early as high school. It's possible he said it more often when I was in college. I can't be sure. Either way, I'm glad I came to the conclusion that judging women based on their looks was a bad idea at a fairly young age. (Though, I must be honest and admit I probably concerned myself with looks more than I should have when I was on the dating scene. My wife can testify to this.)Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-91580231285694579922012-04-19T12:20:00.001-05:002012-04-22T18:11:53.910-05:00IDHEF - Chapter 4 Addendum: The Probability of God<i>This is part of my breakdown of the book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321904854&sr=1-1">I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist</a>." Related posts can be found by clicking <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/search/label/IDHEF">here</a>.</i><br />
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One thing I forgot to address in <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2012/04/idhef-chapter-4-divine-design.html">my breakdown of Chapter 4</a> was the probability of God. In that chapter, the authors spoke much of probabilities. The idea is that the probability of things in the universe turning out as they did is <b><i>so improbable</i></b> (because it is so complex, they claim) that some sort of intelligence (God) had to behind it! Even if we <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2012/04/idhef-chapter-4-divine-design.html#p_and_p">ignore the other problems with their probabilities</a>, we still have a problem that they are not bothering to ask about the probability of God. Think about it. If there is something that has the ability to assemble the universe with precision (their claim, not mine), doesn't that thing have to be more complex than the universe? And if it is more complex, shouldn't that make it even more improbable than the universe? If not, I'd still like them to tell me what they think that probability is. (I wonder how many would tell me that's a stupid question or give me a probability of 100%.)<br />
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Even as an engineer who works in the aviation industry (more broadly known as the aerospace industry) where I help to build airplanes, I find it takes more complexity than an airplane to build one. That is because it takes thousands of humans to build an airplane. It takes the physicists to figure out the basic science behind it, it takes material engineers to design the body, it takes lots of other engineers and mechanical operators just to build the machines that are needed to build an airplane, and then, of course, there are all the mechanical, electrical, and software engineers (such as myself) that build the components for inside the airplane. Let's not forget the pilots that then have to learn how to fly the things. As complex as airplanes can be, it takes a large network of human beings to pull off building such things. Is this network really more complex than the airplane itself? Yeah, I'd say so!<br />
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So if you're going to claim that a god must be behind the universe because it is so complex, then I'd suspect that god would be more complex and improbable than the configuration of the universe. And if you're going to claim that the configuration of the universe is so improbable as to be virtually impossible, then the same goes for your god claim. Of course, we know the universe is not impossible because we are here. The same cannot be said for the god claim.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-86587268611627659742012-04-17T11:17:00.000-05:002012-04-17T11:59:08.138-05:00Looking back on the last 4 years Recently I've been catching up with an old friend from work. He had only been here in Iowa for a year, but we got along pretty well during that time. In a recent email exchange, he expressed shock that I am an atheist. The truth is that when we were both in Iowa (which was from June '07 - June '08), I was and wasn't. Yes, I know that's contradictory. Allow me to explain...<br />
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By saying that I was an atheist, I mean that I did not believe in a deity. What I mean by saying that I wasn't an atheist is that I neither fully realized that I was an atheist nor was I very informed on religion. As I discussed in the <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/05/introduction-welcome-who-i-am-and-how-i.html">introduction to this blog site</a>, it wasn't until July of 2008 that I really began reading about religion after I bought a copy of Richard Dawkins' "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-God-Delusion-Richard-Dawkins/dp/0618918248/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1334080087&sr=1-1">The God Delusion</a>." Before that, I knew next to nothing about religion! In that introduction, I mentioned that that I had learned a lot since then, but what I didn't really discuss is how little I knew! I mentioned not knowing who Yahweh was, but I'm not sure how many Christians would actually know that, seeing how (1) Yahweh is typical name for the Old Testament god, which seems to basically be what Christians refer to as "the Father," and (2) Christianity focuses primarily around the mythology of Jesus. But even Jesus was a character I knew little about. My main exposure to Jesus was through the Christmas holiday as a baby in a manger and through churches as a man in his underwear (loin cloth, whatever) pinned to a cross with his head drooping. I had most likely heard of Jesus referred to as "the Son of God" (no idea then that "son" should be capitalized), but knew of none of the trinity stuff about him also being part of the Christian god concept. It probably should have dawned upon me that, as being the son of a god, that he would end up being at least immortal, but it did not.<br />
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Other things of which I was unaware was that Christianity was based off of Judaism. Nor did I know that Islam was also based off of Judaism, as well as incorporating Christian elements, such as Jesus being a prophet. (Though, once again, I'm sometimes unsure of how much actual Christians know of this, especially that about Islam.) I also knew little about why there were different denominations of Christianity. I knew a little bit about Martin Luther, but I don't know if I had realized the whole Protestant movement was tied to him or if I thought it was just the Lutheran church. I knew of the roots of the Anglican church, though. <br />
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I knew of the Noah's Ark story. Or at least a story that resembled that in the Bible, though I think some of the details (including some significant ones) were different. I had heard of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden, and I suppose I realized that there was a story of them being the first humans. While I thought that last part was ridiculous, I had an impression that the Garden of Eden may have been referred to in other places as I knew people (including a project engineer this friend and I once worked for) who thought it may have been a real place. My thinking was likely why would they think this was a real place if it was only talked about in their Bible? (And that if multiple cultures referred to such a place, that would slightly increase the likelihood that some place of significant vegetation had at one time actual existed in the Middle East as opposed to just being made up.) Silly me! It never occurred to me that people would take mythology so seriously. I held what <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/12/14/a-common-atheist-delusion/">PZ Myers has dubbed the "common atheist delusion."</a> I thought "most practitioners of religion are followers of practice, not belief — they go to church for ritual and community, and all the dogma is dispensable." I should have known better because I also knew of people searching for Noah's Ark, though I had likely written those people off as a fringe group of lunatics.<br />
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Hopefully all of that gives you an idea of just how ignorant I was as little as four years ago. How things have changed! And I'm glad they changed. I am a person who likes to understand reality and the world around me—even if that reality provides a depressing outlook for the future of mankind. I'd much rather know and understand that reality, as then I know what I have to work with. To put this into engineering language, one cannot fix a problem until one knows what the problem is. Heck, one cannot fix a problem until they know there is a problem to begin with! And now I see religion as a problem, which I did not four years ago. Now I do, and now I can work on figuring out how I can do my part to fix it.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-60087942265066175762012-04-16T14:11:00.000-05:002012-04-25T09:04:15.036-05:00IDHEF - Chapter 4: Divine Design<i>This is part of my breakdown of the book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321904854&sr=1-1">I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist</a>." Related posts can be found by clicking <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/search/label/IDHEF">here</a>.</i><br />
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Chapter 4 involves the authors trying to show that the universe must be designed. I'm not going to spend as much time going through page by page as I have done in the past because, first, much of the first half of the chapter talks about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apollo_13">Apollo 13</a> mission in order to hammer home their points; second, their arguments tend to have similar flaws, so I can group many of them together; and, third, one section isn't much more than preaching about how awe inspiring the universe is.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgffssfHYhF2-VZTGIun7ylHUHDpWJS8ZcZ_DDS2Jm8Xct9AWnMu-3RPQSGIBhJuioFZlnwUo7SbdykmrWL5FoLkhzYYMButYmpUCjyR7z3DZB8LQEgMgZJMC7HNhViALtLI9QB_B22ILw/s1600/dave-silverman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgffssfHYhF2-VZTGIun7ylHUHDpWJS8ZcZ_DDS2Jm8Xct9AWnMu-3RPQSGIBhJuioFZlnwUo7SbdykmrWL5FoLkhzYYMButYmpUCjyR7z3DZB8LQEgMgZJMC7HNhViALtLI9QB_B22ILw/s200/dave-silverman.jpg" width="200" /></a> But let me start with some objections to their teleological argument. First, they say that the argument itself is evidence. It's high time I get out my Dave Silverman face! <br />
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Arguments do not count as evidence themselves. Rather, arguments need to be supported by evidence to be considered true. (Based on this, I'm having second thoughts on <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2012/04/idhef-chapter-3-in-beginning-there-was.html">Chapter 3</a> as well as later chapters in the book where they claim or imply evidence they don't actually have. If they are counting things that are not evidence as evidence, then no wonder!) Second, they say the universe has "highly complex design" (p95). Now, as this is what they are out to demonstrate in this chapter, I will say no more for now other than that I disagree. Why I disagree will be explained throughout this post.<br />
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<a name='more'></a> The next big thing I want to address is this watchmaker argument. The argument has a flaw and the authors actually give the correct reasoning behind this argument! ...In Chapter 5, about 20 pages later. And they bring it up for other examples, not this watch example. So, let's take a journey into Chapter 5, where on page 117, they talk about the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism">Principle of Uniformity</a>.<br />
<blockquote>We assume that the world worked in the past just like it works today, especially when it comes to causes. If "Take out the garbage—Mom" requires an intelligent cause today, then any similar messages from the past must also require an intelligent cause. Conversely, if natural laws can do the job today, then the Principle of Uniformity would lead us to conclude natural laws could do the job in the past. (p117)</blockquote>While this principle is basically intended for natural processes, the same ideas can be applied to the works of human. This is why if "you're walking along in the woods and you find a diamond-studded Rolex on the ground" (p95) that you are going to think "that some intelligent being made the watch" (p96). It is because you know people make watches (and occasionally lose them), but you don't know of any natural processes that do. Therefore you assume that a person was involved in the process. It has nothing to do with seeing "design" in the watch (which is the point of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watchmaker_analogy">argument</a>, which the authors don't state directly).<br />
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Another thing that the authors do not mention is that this watchmaker argument is often used to show that complex things (like a watch) must be designed. And since the universe is complex, it, too, must be designed. Since the authors are partially making a design argument, though not exactly by means of complexity, I find an idea <a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2011/05/i_am_lectured_in_logic_by_a_ma.php">proposed by PZ Myers</a> worth mentioning.<br />
<blockquote>I have been giving a similar talk lately, and in that I have added another slide that might help clarify the logic he's missing. I show this:<br />
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<div class="center"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2011/05/nike_swoosh.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="nike_swoosh.jpeg" border="0" height="108" src="http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/upload/2011/05/nike_swoosh.jpeg" width="225" /></a></div></div><br />
Recognize it? It's only one of the most well known corporate logos in the world, the Nike swoosh. It's very, very simple, and it's also most definitely <i>designed</i>. No getting around it; a graphic <i>designer</i> sat down and <i>designed</i> that simple swooshing logo.<br />
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Is it clearer now? We have complicated things that are not designed, and we have simple things that are designed. We also have complicated things that are designed, and simple things that are not. The message you should take away from these examples is that <b>complexity and design are independent properties of an object</b>. One does not imply the other. You cannot determine whether something was designed by looking at whether it is complicated or not.</blockquote> To correct PZ, I think it was a 4th grader that created the logo, not really a "graphic designer," but the point that it is designed remains the same. Myers also includes a pile of driftwood in his talk to show something that is complex, but not designed. (That is one of the "complicated things that are not designed" to which he refers.)<br />
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One way in which I put my own personal spin on the argument is to change "watch" to "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Widget_%28economics%29">widget</a>." Or, perhaps even better (though it steps away from using a word beginning with 'w'), we could simply use "unknown object." The idea being that if you stumbled upon something you've never seen before, you may or may not recognize it to be "designed," and thus not necessarily in need of a "designer." Though, I think this is likely to lead people to incorrect conclusions, on which I will elaborate further later in this post.<br />
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<h4><a href="" name="p_and_p">Precision and Probablity</a></h4> You'll notice that this header does not reference any part of Chapter 4. As I said, I'm changing things a bit for this chapter compared to the format I've been using. I wanted to highlight this part because this is where I want to go over some of the repeated flaws in this chapter. I want to first start with a video from YouTuber <a href="http://www.youtube.com/user/DarkAntics">DarkAntics</a>. Please watch the video in its entirety.<br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="360" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/hKPrBV_PCKs" width="640"></iframe><br />
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The point in the video is that arguments about probability, which are found in this chapter, are not all that impressive after an event occurs. The video producer uses a leaf as an example. It was quite improbable for the leaf to fall when and where it did. What was not as improbable was the idea that it would fall sometime and someplace.<br />
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The example I came up with myself for this chapter is with the probabilities of 1,000,000 sided die with values incrementing from 1 to 1,000,000. Let's say you get to roll the die a second time if the first roll lands on a number divisible by 100. What, then, are the odds that the die will land on 335,487 the second roll? Well, there is a 1/100 chance that you will get a second roll and then a 1/1,000,000 chance it will land on that number on that second roll. So the odds are 1/100,000,000. (That's one in one hundred million.) But what if we just want to know the odds of getting a second roll? Then it's a 1/100 chance. Those aren't too bad of odds in comparison. <br />
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This brings me to the first major flaw in this chapter. Some of these anthropic constants are looked at in terms of human life. Take, for example, their comments on the first one, oxygen: "If it were less than 15 percent, human being would suffocate" (p98). That's interesting and all, but why are they concerned about humans specifically? If, say, oxygen levels were 15 percent, could earth support some other type of life form?<br />
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The other problem is that they also look at things specifically with the earth. This is problematic because, remember, they are supposed to be demonstrating their claim as to how precise the <b>universe</b> is. Earth is not the only planet in this universe. In that case, these first five anthropic principles can all be tossed out. Let's say the earth did have an atmosphere that would not support life (1, 2, and 4) or that the gravitational forces were different (3 and 5). Are there other planets in the universe that can support life?<br />
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Let's suppose I had that 1,000,000 sided die and I got to roll it a second time and got 335,487. Would you be impressed if I started making claims that I would not have gotten that 335,487 had the atmosphere or the moon's gravity had been different? I would probably be correct, but what's so special about getting that 335,487? If it would not have been 335,487, it would have been some other number (assuming I still had that second roll). The important part is getting a second roll, not the result.<br />
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One way that my die analogy is flawed is that we aren't necessarily a roll of that die. The point I want to make clear, though, is that we don't know if there is anything particularly special about our planet (and certainly not about ourselves). And suggesting that if things were different on our planet that life could not be supported says absolutely nothing about any other planet in the universe. Likewise, in that video above, if the conditions had been different at the time that leaf fell, it could have landed in a different location. But the important thing is that <i>it still would have landed somewhere</i>. The one exception from these anthropic constants is the case of the 5th constant; a different gravitational force would impact the entire universe. But the authors don't claim it would prevent stars and planets from forming in general; they just say it about the earth. Our universe may have a much different configuration, but would there still be someplace that could support life?<br />
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The second major flaw, as indirectly pointed out in the video above, is the problem of figuring out the probability. This becomes most important when looking at the anthropic principles they do mention that impact the entire universe. (These can be found on pages 105 - 106 and are only #2 and #3; the other eight are earth-centric.) What if I had asked what the probability of rolling a 335,487 ten times in a row was on that die? If you understand probabilities, it is pretty easy to calculate. (It is 1/1,000,000 times itself 10 times, by the way. It's a quite small number. That would be 1 over 10 to the 60th power. Or 1/1E60.) Now what if I asked that, but you didn't know the size of the die? You wouldn't be able to figure it out. You might try guessing, but any error in your guess is going to increase exponentially. Sorry to those who aren't good at math, but the idea is that even small errors can build up rapidly in such calculations. So let me give you an example. Let's say you guessed that the die was 1,010,010 sided. That is 1.001% off. That's not too bad of an error. But then that leads to a probability of hitting 335,487 ten times in a row to 1 over 1.10473 times 10 to the 60th power. Or 1/1.10473E60. The error is now over 10%. If we wanted to know the probability of hitting that 335,487 122 times in a row, then our error gets to be over 237%! That's from starting out with a 1% error. If we had started out with a 2% error, the error would now be about 1020%!<br />
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This brings me to the first point—when this Hugh Ross that is mentioned on page 106 is determining the probability of these constants, he's just guessing. He has no idea what those probabilities really are. When he's looking at things that impact the entire universe, he only has this one universe to look at. As for these constants that are earth-centric, he'd have to know about the properties of other planets in the universe. There is just no way he knows enough to not be making mostly blind guesses. In other words, he's bound to have lots of error, which is the second point—when they are taking into consideration 122 factors for their probability calculations, they are likely to get an enormous amount of error. In other words, there is no reason to think the number they give is even accurate. This holds true even if they are really calculating probability of life anywhere in the universe as opposed to the probability of humans on earth.<br />
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Now the probabilities calculated in the video are likely to be more accurate because they are based on things we know, such as the average length of the fall season and the average winds speeds in that area. There is much less guessing involved in those calculations. But for Hugh Ross's calculations, what is the average rate at which a planet, for example, has 21% oxygen content? We just don't know enough about the rest of our universe to have an accurate number. It is also worth noting that, in the video, if that particular fall season was shorter or longer than average or, likewise, if the wind speeds were faster or slower than usual, error will accumulate in those probabilities. So even when we have good data to work with, probabilities can be, well, problematic!<br />
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This leads me to the third problem, which is that, when they are looking at probabilities, they are operating off of the <i>opinion</i> of a scientist as opposed to something that is demonstrable fact. How many scientists actually agree with Ross on his probabilities? Is it peer reviewed? Probably not! Do I really need to say that the opinion of a single scientist does not count as evidence?<br />
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UPDATE: There is a forth problem that I forgot to address. That is about the probability of God. Though it's a fairly short point, I created a separate post that can be found <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2012/04/idhef-chapter-4-adendum-probability-of.html">here</a>.<br />
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<h4><a href="" name="ics">Inconstant Constants</a></h4> Another thing with all of these anthropic constants is that they aren't all even constant!<br />
<ul><li>Oxygen level — This does fluctuate. It sits around 21% today, but it likely has not always been that way. On another point, if there would be all these fires from having 25% oxygen, those fires would end up lowering those oxygen levels (and likewise increase carbon dioxide levels).</li>
<li>Carbon dioxide and water vapor level — The funny thing is, we have increasing carbon dioxide and are having a problem with a runaway greenhouse effect. That's part of the whole "global warming" problem. On the flip side, it is my understanding that water vapor levels actually went down for a while last decade. So we didn't actually have this runaway greenhouse effect scientists thought we were. Which, I think makes a point as to why these "principles" should be called into question. Many, such as these two, are operating on predicted outcomes if things were different. But many of these aren't, and probably really can't, be tested. And some, like with water vapor, appear to not hold entirely true.</li>
<li>Universe expansion rate — As the authors mentioned in Chapter 3, "astronomers are now finding that the universe's expansion speed is actually accelerating" (p86). In other words, we've learned that the expansion rate is faster than previously thought. This is yet another point that should really bring this whole argument into serious question. This is because scientists used to think the universe was expanding more slowly. And guess what? They weren't worried about the universe "collapsing on itself before any stars had formed" (p105). Obviously not since we are here! And when Hugh Ross calculated his probabilities, was he using the old expansion rate or the new one? As with the last bullet, the point is that there is little reason to think these doomsday-like situations would occur the way they are claimed in the book. That is primarily because these claims are not backed up by any evidence!</li>
<li>23-degree tilt — Actually, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Axial_tilt#Long_term">the degree of tilt does vary slightly</a>. From Wikipedia, it seems the minimum tilt is about 22 degrees and the maximum tilt is about 24.5 degrees, and it takes about 40,000 years for the earth to complete a cycle through this variation. (I've seen numbers close to this cited elsewhere, so I suspect Wikipedia to be reliable here.)</li>
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<h4><a href="" name="summary">In Summary....</a></h4> Overall, the problem with this chapter is that the arguments are primarily speculation over "What if...?" questions. There is no actual evidence to back up the majority of their claims. Perhaps the best way to phrase this, in the spirit of the book's theme, is that they have <i>faith</i> that their answers are correct. Sorry, but I don't have enough faith.<br />
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And now back to our regular programming...<br />
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<h3><a href="" name="proof_for_god">PROOF FOR GOD! HOW DO ATHEISTS RESPOND?</a></h3> I may need to break out my Dave Silverman face again when I did some reading up on <a href="http://www.blogger.com/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle">Fred Hoyle</a>, the former atheist who they say "had his atheism shaken by...the complexity he saw in life" (p106). It sounds perhaps a bit impressive until you read up on Mr. Hoyle. Apparently he had rejected the big bang theory...you know, that one even these authors say there is loads of evidence for. And he did so at least up to 1993, if not up till his death, based on what I see on Wikipedia. It seems he's also part of this group that believes life came to earth via comet. (Where's the evidence for that? And where would these comments have come from?) I think this statement on Wikipedia actually sums up all that needs to be said about Fred Hoyle: "His career was largely dominated by the controversial positions he held on a wide range of scientific issues, often in direct opposition to the opinions and evidence supported by the majority of the scientific community." Is this really the guy these authors want to put on display as a convert? (And not even a convert to Christianity, per se. Just a convert to some sort of theism.)<br />
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This also happens to be the section where they bring up the idea of a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse">multiverse</a> (or should that be "multiverses"?), which I discussed in <a href="http://www.blogger.com/themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2012/04/idhef-chapter-3-in-beginning-there-was.html#empire">my breakdown of Chapter 3</a>. I am totally on board with the authors when they say, "there's no evidence for it" (p107). I said as much before. But then they don't have any evidence, either. They can <i>call</i> what they have "evidence" or "proof of God" as much as they want (and they can use as many examples of scientists saying that as they want), but it doesn't make it true.<br />
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Yet, I find myself compelled to correct them on a few ideas about the multiverse. First, I don't think the idea is that there <i>is</i>* an infinite number of universes, but rather that there is a very large number of them (said to be approaching infinity). Second, as I said last chapter, one of the ideas of the multiverse is to get rid of fine-tuning. You would have universes that are not fine-tuned. I'm not entirely sure why the authors are not getting this as they themselves say, "According to the Multiple Universe Theory**...we just happen to be lucky enough to be in the universe with the right conditions" (p107). But I suspect it is because, third, they seem to be getting things confused with the idea of a <i>parallel</i> universe. That's not <i>quite</i> the same thing as far as I'm aware. (I could see ideas of a multiverse supporting a parallel universe idea, but I don't think it is required.) This becomes apparent when they start making absurd notions about "planes...actually hit the buildings by accident" or "the Holocaust appeared to be murder, but actually the Jews secretly conspired with the Germans and sent themselves to the ovens" (p108). Wow! I don't even know if those who fantasize about the notion of parallel universes would think such things! This leads me to suspect that they are making a deliberate <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/10/preview-to-idhef-logical-fallacies.html#Straw_Man">straw man</a> argument.<br />
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Lastly, they have to repeat this idea of "the implications of design," and how the "Multiple Universe Theory is simply a desperate attempt to avoid" (p108) those implications. And then they use absurdities to make it look like they are right. They use pretty much the flawed watchmaker argument again (only this time it's a spacecraft instead) to drive their point, making anyone sound foolish who denies the argument. On that foolish part, they'd be right! But they'd be right for the reason the argument is flawed, which is that we know and have maybe even seen people build spaceships rather than because we saw "design." (And even if we haven't seen humans build a spaceship, we've probably seen pictures from assembly lines of other types of vehicles like cars and/or airplanes.) This again comes from applying the concepts of the "Principle of Uniformity" that the authors themselves know about since they cite it in the next chapter to the doings of humans. Now, who has ever seen a god build a universe? Is it really all that hard to understand why someone would deny their supposed "extreme evidence" (p108)?<br />
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I find a lot of this actually comes back to the old idea that lightning was supernatural. (I gave this a mention in the <a href="http://www.blogger.com/themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2012/04/idhef-chapter-3-in-beginning-there-was.html#god_astronomers">breakdown of Chapter 3</a>.) It seems that human beings have a tendency to claim things that they know of no natural cause to be the cause of a god. If you could hypothetically bring someone from 2000 years ago to this time period and showed them a spaceship, they would, because of the Principle of Uniformity, not recognize it as a product of nature. But nor would they recognize it as a product of human. I would suspect they would claim a spaceship as being supernatural and a product of a god. (This is one reason why I suspect my own "widget argument" could lead to incorrect conclusions.) Much the same was probably applied to lightning. People probably didn't see it as being a product of natural processes and they knew other people weren't responsible! Therefore, god. Unfortunately, I fear many of the same thought processes go into this idea of the universe. We don't know of any natural processes, and we know humans are not responsible! Therefore, god. The reason then that we have books such as this is likely because people know that would be a lousy argument. (It is in fact an <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/10/preview-to-idhef-logical-fallacies.html#Ignorance">argument from ignorance</a>.) So they need to come up with what they think sound like legitimate arguments to ensure themselves. That's how we get all the "evidence" in this chapter. It's pretty much all guess work, but they try to call it "extreme evidence." And scientists who think the things in this chapter actually are evidence are just fooling themselves.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRIkhbwIB_f5xq30Cn5Vym2NGzOh4oFMBaruqOsWT8WI88HNxWu" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://encrypted-tbn3.google.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcRIkhbwIB_f5xq30Cn5Vym2NGzOh4oFMBaruqOsWT8WI88HNxWu" /></a></div> Here's a modern example that I think really demonstrates my point: Egyptian pyramids. People don't know of any natural processes that would create them, but there are many people who don't think humans could have built them, either. Therefore, <a href="http://www.outerworlds.com/likeness/aliens/aliens.html">aliens</a>! And if you look at the website I linked to, you'll find that some of their "evidence" includes the precision of the design of the pyramids. Sound familiar to anything in this book's 4th chapter?<br />
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<a href="http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/stargate.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://powet.tv/powetblog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/stargate.jpg" width="173" /></a> Now, I'm not trying to suggest that the pyramids were indeed built by humans, nor am I ruling out the possibility of aliens. However, there are additional problems when one suggests aliens: Where are these aliens now and/or where did they come from and how did they build the pyramids? An answer one could be given (for the how) is that the aliens are "unimaginably powerful" (p93). But does that <i>really</i> answer the question? For many people, they'll want to see the aliens. As for the universe, let's see the god!<br />
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* <small>I should make it clear that I use the word "is" rather loosely. Let's be certain we understand that I'm talking about what the idea states, not anything about reality itself.</small><br />
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** <small>I really hate that they call this idea a "theory." It's not, at least not in the scientific sense of the word. The same goes for String Theory. Scientific theories are supported by evidence. Yet, calling these ideas, which are not supported by evidence, "theories" can, I think, really confuse people. And it harms other fields of science that have to deal with political battles over actual evidence-supported theories due to anti-science propaganda that promotes ideas such as "it's just a theory." If actual scientists can't keep away from abusing the term, how can one expect the general public to not do the same?</small><br />
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<h3><a href="" name="conclusion">CONCLUSION</a></h3> As mentioned before, I'm mostly skipping over the preachy section, which leads us to the conclusion. Much of this conclusion is just continuing to repeat (feels like they are beating a dead horse) this idea that the universe is awesome; therefore, design. I'm not trying to make a straw man argument of my own, but that really seems to sum up what they are saying. Why else would this idea of "ordinary" matter? Do I need to remind people to turn to the first page of Chapter 2? (That's page 51, by the way.) Remember that they have a table there and they say that psychological reasons are not good reasons to believe something to be true? Calling the universe "beautiful" (p110) and beating at this idea that it is "anything but ordinary" (p110) seems to me to be pushing a psychological reason to believe the universe is designed. What if the universe were ordinary? What if it were extraordinary? Why does that matter as far as truth goes?<br />
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Psychology seems to be much the idea behind that preachy section, too, including this idea that "the same Creator who names the stars also knows the names of the seven souls we mourn today" (p110). First, as always, where's the evidence for this? Second, it seems to be an attempt to comfort the reader on the topic of death. "Comfort" falls in that psychological category. As the authors suggested then, "comfort is not a test for truth" (p52).<br />
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The authors also successfully deliver a clear <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/10/preview-to-idhef-logical-fallacies.html#Ignorance">argument from ignorance</a> when they say, "There's no plausible explanation for the Anthropic Principle other than a Cosmic Designer" (p111). Even if we didn't know of any other plausible explanation, that doesn't mean the actual explanation just isn't something we haven't thought of yet. Once again—lightning. Before anyone even thought of anything resembling the concept of electricity, people probably thought they had no other plausible explanation for that other than a god. Likewise, not knowing how humans could have built the Egyptian pyramids is not a reason to claim aliens did it.<br />
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Unfortunately, this is one of those chapters that makes me feel like banging my head against the wall. They say something that is true when they talk about "hypothetical theories that are not supported by evidence" (p111), but they don't have evidence for theirs, either. The frustrating part is they actually think they have evidence. But then they pile on claiming that "atheists push a religion of blind faith" (p111). We "push"? Really?!? Lastly, they claim "what we have here is a <i>will</i> problem" (p112) because atheists like myself deny their "impressive evidence" (p112). They can call it "impressive" all they want, but it's not. Nothing in this chapter was impressive. Little in this chapter was what one could call "evidence," and what one could call evidence does nothing to support a god claim.<br />
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I realize this is a harsh way to end the chapter, but I must admit I get a bit frustrated with this sort of thing. It has little to do with the authors of this book. The main problem is I have seen people who I know to be reasonably intelligent do or believe in stupid things. It is quite scarey in many ways. In some ways, it makes me slightly paranoid. Could I fall or have I fallen for bad evidence? It is something that keeps me on my guard. But this makes things much more insulting when people call me closed minded or say I have "a <i>will</i> problem" (p112). Nothing could be further from the truth. Worse, it seems like I'm in a lose-lose situation. If I don't study religion, my laziness is proof I have a will problem. If I do study religion and/or spend hours writing rebuttals to books like this, my devotion to disproving a god is proof I have a will problem because, it would be claimed, that I am really trying to convince myself that there is no god.<br />
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On the flip side, I try not to be insulting of the people who buy into such garbage as was presented in this chapter. This, I find, can be caused by at least three problems: (1) being taught a god exists from a young, impressionable age; (2) a natural inclination to seek for reason and meaning in things, even if there is none to be found; and (3) lack of education on critical thinking (or what qualifies as good evidence), none of which are necessarily the fault of the believer. The exceptions are the likes of the authors of this book, who have likely had the opportunity to correct the third problem, but have not. Is it a will problem? I'd rather not accuse, but I've been prepping for Chapter 5, and I do not like what I see thus far. Stay tuned!Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-86859821596540497122012-04-16T08:07:00.000-05:002012-04-16T08:07:24.352-05:00Libertarians and Charity: A Follow-Up to the Follow-Up In <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2012/04/libertarians-and-charity-follow-up.html">my last post on this topic</a>, I discussed what seemed to be liberal hypocrisy in regards to charity, but there was something that just wasn't setting quite right. It turns out to basically be two thing—local phenomenon and decline in giving with decline in need. If there is less of a need for charity, then it is not surprising that people might give less. If you then combine this idea with an idea that people will react more to their local communities as opposed to national needs, you may get a partial explanation of why liberals donate less.<br />
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Take Mississippi, for example. It is generally a conservative state and is quite religious. Therefore we should expect the people of Mississippi to be quite charitable. But Mississippi also seems to have a lot of societal ills. I think they have a high poverty rate and I am quite sure they have the highest teen pregnancy rate in the nation. So they have a great need for charity. Contrast this with Vermont, which is generally quite liberal. I think Vermont tends to rank fairly well as far as societal health goes. There is then less of a need for charity. So I'm not too worried if people are giving less in Vermont than in Mississippi. Actually, I would expect that!<br />
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But, to be fair, this doesn't completely excuse the issue. There are things like cancer research (like I am helping donate to on the sidebar) that are pretty much a constant across the country. If people in Vermont have less of a local need, then they should probably be compensating that with larger donations to other needs like this. Or, as that <a href="http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/03/conservatives_more_liberal_giv.html">article I had linked to last time addressed</a>, liberals give less blood. There really isn't a good reason for this to be the case. So, there still seems to be some bit of hypocrisy, but it may be less than it appears when looking at it from a high level.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7200043802711198506.post-65415894984910752902012-04-14T07:50:00.005-05:002012-05-01T14:48:29.962-05:00IDHEF - Chapter 3: In the Beginning There Was a Great SURGE<i>This is part of my breakdown of the book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/Dont-Have-Enough-Faith-Atheist/dp/1581345615/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321904854&sr=1-1">I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist</a>." Related posts can be found by clicking <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/search/label/IDHEF">here</a>.</i><br />
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We begin Chapter 3 with a quote from Einstein, one of which the meaning is often debated. From my understanding of Einstein, he occasionally spoke in metaphor. It pains me to say this, as liberal Christians often use this to justify bizarre verses in the Bible, but this quote is probably <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/10/youre-interpreting-it-wrong.html">not meant to be taken literally</a>. In the case of this quote, many have argued that the word "religion" refers to a sense of awe and wonder as opposed to more common definitions of the word which refer to the dogmatic belief in ideas, typically relating to the supernatural. While it's not important to discuss this in the larger context of the book, I find it nonetheless important to raise this point as this quote is often used as an <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/11/another-logical-fallacy-argument-from.html">argument from authority</a> in society. That argument is typically along the lines of "Einstein, who was really smart, thought religion was important; therefore, religion is important"<br />
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<a name='more'></a><h3><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7200043802711198506" name="facts">"IRRITATING" FACTS</a></h3> The chapter starts without an introduction section and dives right into speaking about Einstein's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant">cosmological constant</a>. I am bothered by many parts in this section where they make claims, such as "[Einstein] wanted the universe to be self-existent" (p73). Where do they get this from? Did Einstein personally say this himself in his lifetime? They later quote Eddington, <b><i>not</i></b> Einstein*, where Eddington says that he found "the notion of a beginning of the present order of nature [to be] repugnant" (p67). Did Einstein feel that way, too? My understanding of that era is that scientists generally believed that the universe was static. Why they believed this I do not know. My question, then, is did Einstein <i>want</i> the universe to be static (as the authors claim) <b><i>or</i></b> was he just trying to adapt his equation to the understanding of the universe at the time? While I don't know the answer to this, I do not appreciate the authors jumping to the conclusion of the former without providing adequate (or any, really) supporting evidence.<br />
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There is also a curious bit a few paragraphs in where they claim that "Einstein had divided by zero—something even school children know is a no-no!" (p74). I'm quite sure they are oversimplifying things here. For one, there can be places where equations in physics can break down. It is my understanding that the equation for relativity produces <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravitational_singularity">infinite gravity (and thus infinite density) at the center of a black hole</a>. Does infinite gravity make sense? Or is this a flaw in the equation? It's most likely the later. My question in regards to the book is for what situation was this divide-by-zero error discovered? I doubt that the equation produced such an error for all inputs.<br />
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Otherwise, the authors are correct in that it was Edwin Hubble who discovered that the universe is expanding. This did result in the removal of the cosmological constant. However, what the authors do not tell us is about the discovery in 1998 that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accelerating_universe">expansion of the universe is accelerating</a>. This has renewed interest in the need for a cosmological constant. This constant would account for <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dark_energy">dark energy</a>. This book has a copyright of 2004, so I grant the science would have been much more new at that time than now in 2012. (The <a href="http://www.nasm.si.edu/">Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum</a> doesn't even discuss dark energy yet as of March 23, 2012 in their exhibit on cosmology.) (Actually, there is a reference to the idea that the acceleration of the expansion of the universe is increasing on page 86. What is thought to be the cause of this is called dark energy, but this book makes no direct reference.)<br />
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Lastly, I must once again point out that there are people who would argue that Einstein would occasionally speak in metaphor. This time they are quoting Einstein as wanting "to know how God created the world" (p74). Though they acknowledge that Einstein himself claimed to be a pantheist, they also say that this quote better describes a theistic God. Sure, it does if you take the quote literally. But if "thoughts" is just a metaphor for, say, the process that created the universe (if there is such a thing), then it does indeed support pantheism.<br />
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* <small>To be clear, the authors do correctly attribute the quote to Eddington, so I'm not highlighting that to point out any factual error. Rather, I want to point out that they seem to be using this Eddington quote to support their thoughts on Einstein. If they want to support their thoughts on Einstein, then they should really quote Einstein himself.</small><br />
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<h3><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7200043802711198506" name="cosmological_argument">THE COSMOLOGICAL ARGUMENT—THE BEGINNING OF THE END FOR ATHEISM</a></h3> In this section, the authors provide their logic for why the universe must have a cause. I don't really have any big objections to the logic itself. My objections begin with how they go about supporting their logic, beginning with the "Law of Causality." Now, I'm not exactly a scientist; my degree is categorized as a Bachelor of Science, but my field of study is engineering. Yet, I would have thought I would have heard of this law if it is supposedly so critical to science. When I performed a <a href="https://www.google.com/search?q=law+of+causality&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a">Google search</a> on the term, I got a couple results from Wikipedia at the top, but they were not exact matches. The third result was an exact match, and it <a href="http://www.thoughtfulchristianity.net/?p=4754">led to a Christian website</a>. Now, I'll admit, in the top Wikipedia result, which is about causality, it had a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causality#Science">section on science</a> that states, "Causality is a basic assumption of science. Within the scientific method, scientists set up experiments to determine causality in the physical world. Embedded within the scientific method and experiments is a hypothesis or several hypotheses about causal relationships. The scientific method is used to test the hypotheses." That's fair. I'm not trying to deny that the idea of causality isn't very important; what I'm trying to point out is that no scientist, from what I can tell, claims it to be a "law."<br />
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What bothers me more than them citing a law that isn't is the amount of certainty they are applying to this idea. They claim it is "well established and undeniable" (p75). How do they justify this? They say, "If there's one thing we've observed about the universe, it's that things don't happen without a cause" (p75). Let's say for a moment that this were true, have they observed every happening in the universe? Recall what they said about gravity in Chapter 2: "Are you absolutely, 100 percent certain that gravity makes all objects drop? No, because you haven't observed all objects being dropped" (p64). I agree with what they said there, but now they seem to be reversing course here in Chapter 3, implying that it is absurd to deny this "Law of Causality." To be fair, they maybe would have said it absurd to deny gravity. The point, though, is that, based on what they said in Chapter 2, they should have no problem if someone were to at least say we can't be 100% sure about causality.<br />
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One other point that needs to be addressed with causes is that there can be non-deterministic causes. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radioactive_decay">Radioactive decay</a>, for example, is a process that is random. "According to <a href="http://www.blogger.com/wiki/Quantum_mechanics" title="Quantum mechanics">quantum theory</a>, it is impossible to predict when a given atom will decay." Now, there is probably some sort of cause for this, and I've seen <a href="http://askville.amazon.com/radioactive-decay/AnswerViewer.do?requestId=428547">some people describe it</a> as "the tension between the attractive, short-range nuclear force, and the repulsive, long-range electrostatic force." At any rate, I find the authors' implications regarding their "Law of Causality" to be exaggerated.<br />
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<h3><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7200043802711198506" name="surge">IN THE BEGINNING THERE WAS A GREAT <b>SURGE</b></a></h3><h4><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7200043802711198506" name="2nd_law">S—The Second Law of Thermodynamics</a></h4> The first piece of evidence the authors present is the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_law_of_thermodynamics">First Law of Thermodynamics</a>, and they do a poor job explaining their analogies for this law, though they do present a reasonable definition. As they say, "the total amount of energy in the universe is constant" (p76). They then go on to say that the universe has only a finite amount of energy, which is also true, but then they use an analogy comparing this to gasoline in a car. It could have been a reasonable analogy, but the problem is they compare this to a car <i>consuming</i> gasoline. (They cite the Second Law of Thermodynamics here, though they have yet to explain what that law states—we'll get to this in a little bit.) With the way they set up the analogy, this implies that the universe is consuming energy. That's not true and goes against the First Law, which, as they said, states that the energy in the universe is constant. (They also refer to energy being "used up" at the end of the section (p78).) What they should have said is that the energy in the gasoline becomes distributed when it burns. Running a car doesn't cause energy to disappear, rather the energy is converted into heat. (This is much the reason why an engine gets hot when running.) Likewise, when you run a flashlight, the energy stored in the battery is converted into light and heat (you'll likely notice that the bulb in the flashlight gets hot after some time).<br />
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The <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_law_of_thermodynamics">Second Law of Thermodynamics</a> represents the concept of the energy from gasoline or a battery dispersing. The authors are correct when they say that "nature <b>tends</b> to bring things to disorder" (77). But the word "tends" is a key word. In other words, things don't always work this way. It is possible to have a local gain in order (loss of entropy) if the system as a whole loses order (gains entropy). They are also correct that it is through the Second Law of Thermodynamics that things fall apart. Blaming dresser disease on this is probably a little extreme, though, as there are probably other factors that go into that (such as gravity).<br />
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For the rest of the section, I am first disappointed in their anecdotal story about a physics professor. (Recall I <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/12/idhef-chapter-1-can-we-handle-truth.html#can_truth_known">complained about anecdotes in the review of Chapter 1</a>.) I'm really skeptical about this event ever happening. (May I just add, though, that a theory is the product of a human mind, which is in turn the product of a brain, which is material. Overall, the statement appears to be a <a href="http://editthis.info/logic/Informal_Fallacies#Category_Error">category error</a>. That's all I'll say as I don't want to distract much from the important parts of the book.) And then they quote Arthur Eddington again. This time the quote shows Eddington speaking strongly in support of the Second Law. But, if you recall from just a few pages ago, Eddington had called "the notion of a beginning...repugnant" (p73). It would seem, then, that Eddington didn't find the Second Law to be a convincing reason to believe the universe had a beginning. I just find this ironic because, in this later Eddington quote, the authors italicize this part where he says if a theory goes against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, "there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation" (p78). What does this say about Eddington himself? It would seem that he had humiliating theories of his own, at least as implied by the book's authors.<br />
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<h4><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7200043802711198506" name="universe_expanding">U—The Universe Is Expanding</a></h4> I want to start this section by pointing out a really good statement made by the authors. They say, "Good scientific theories are those that are able to predict phenomena that have not yet been observed" (p79). This is true! But I know of places later in the book where the authors promote a "theory" that fails to do this. It will be important when we get to that point to refer back to this page.<br />
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Getting back to the topic at hand, in the third paragraph of this section, the authors claim "that the universe did not emerge from existing material but from noting" (79). Where is there evidence for this? I'm fine with them saying that there was no "before" without time (or saying there was no space), but could the matter that is in the universe have existed in a timeless state? Maybe not, but I think it is difficult to say for sure that it didn't.<br />
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After this, they go on to speak of "atheistic" explanations. <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/11/idhef-introduction.html#Faith">Yet again</a>, I find myself needing to point out that atheism makes no claims; it is merely a rejection of god claims. For this reason, the idea that the universe began from noting does not "give atheists a lot of trouble" (p79). The authors, in order to demonstrate just how much trouble they think this causes, bring up another anecdote involving <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Atkins">Peter Atkins</a>. Not knowing who that is, I Googled his name and found out he is a chemist. Do these authors really think a chemist is going to be a good source on the topic of the origin of the universe? Is it because they think atheists are supposed to have a position on these things? At the end of this section, they quote some author who says, "An atheist must believe that the matter of the universe came from nothing and by nothing" (p81). Oh?!? "Must" I? You want to know what I believe about the origins of the universe? Nothing! (Pun not intended.) I just don't know enough about the topic to form a believe one way or the other. And that's OK...or at least it <i>should</i> be. Unfortunately, there are many theists that don't appreciate atheists providing an answer of "I don't know."<br />
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The above is not to say that I don't find there to be interesting ideas about the universe. I'd even say Atkin's idea is an interesting one. Apparently the authors "can't imagine how mere mathematical points and time could actually cause the universe" (p81). I feel a bit sorry that they have such poor imaginations. Out of all seriousness, I don't find Atkin's idea promising...but still interesting. If you want to hear some really interesting ideas, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lawrence_Krauss">Lawrence Krauss</a> has a really good presentation on "A Universe From Nothing." I've embedded the video down in the <a href="#supplemental">supplemental</a> section. (And now <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Universe-Nothing-There-Something-Rather/dp/145162445X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1331904906&sr=8-1">available as a book</a>.) Speaking of which, if the authors really care what "nothing" means, then maybe instead of quoting long-dead Greek philosophers like Aristotle, perhaps they should be asking a physicist (such as Lawrence Krauss). If they did that, though, they'd find out that physicists do not define nothing as "literally '<i>no thing</i>'" (p81). As Lawrence Krauss himself said on March 25, 2012 at the American Atheists national convention, (paraphrasing) "'Nothing' no longer means what it used to."<br />
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Having now brought up Lawrence Krauss and the insistence I often see from Christians in demanding someone have a position, I want to make this crystal clear—as interesting as I find Krauss' ideas, I <i>do not believe</i> in those ideas. It would be a lie if I said I don't find them deserving of more study, but is it understandable how this is different than me saying that I believe in those ideas?<br />
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<h4><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7200043802711198506" name="galaxy_seeds">G—Great Galaxy Seeds</a></h4> I'm skipping over the section of radiation as I have nothing to comment. As for galaxy seeds, this is an area I am not too familiar with...nor COBE for that matter. I am, however, quite skeptical of what they say four paragraphs in: <br />
<blockquote>COBE not only found the ripples, but scientists were amazed at their precision. The ripples show that the explosion and expansion of the universe was <b>precisely tweaked</b> to cause just enough matter to congregate to allow galaxy formation, but not enough to cause the universe to collapse back on itself. (p83)</blockquote>Emphasis mine. There are two reasons why I find this statement bogus. First, I did some searching on the subject and could find no websites that suggested anything remotely similar. Rather, it seems these "galaxy seeds" are more like markers in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) that signal the early formation of galaxies, which just confirmed some ideas on how galaxies form. I saw nothing that suggested anything about amazing precision. (I did find a nice, simple-to-understand article on the CMB, though, via <a href="http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=first-light-findings-reve">Scientific American</a>.) The second reason I find it bogus is that, even if I grant the authors this notion of precision, it should not have come as a surprise or something to cause amazement. If such precision is truly necessary, then that should have been the expected result. Why? Because we exist. If things would have been off one way, our galaxy would not have formed and we wouldn't be here talking about it. Likewise if the universe had collapsed on itself. Now, as an engineer, I admit it is indeed great when observations match the predictions, but if they don't, that typically means the engineer, or scientist in the case of cosmology, made a mistake. Restating this, if there wouldn't have been this "precision" (again, granting the authors that they are correct on this), then that would have just meant that cosmologists were wrong on their predictions.<br />
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<h4><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7200043802711198506" name="general_relativity">E—Einstein's Theory of General Relativity</a></h4> There is not much to say on this section. Again, I am not much of an expert on the subject of relativity. One thing I question is the claim that it "demands an absolute beginning for time, space, and matter" (p84). As far as I know, the theory just describes how time, space, and matter* interact with each other. I know of no suggestion that it demands a beginning for such things! And, recall, Einstein originally had his cosmological constant to keep the universe eternal. It would seem Einstein did not, at least initially, believe his ideas demanded such a thing. Oh, and I'm not sure how you verify a theory to five decimal places, either. Theories are not mathematical equations. Perhaps they are talking about the equations (typically called "laws") that are encompassed by the theory.<br />
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* <small>Actually, I don't think relativity even discusses matter specifically, but rather the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass-energy">mass-energy</a> of matter (amongst other things). I suspect most people are familiar with the equation "E=mc<sup>2</sup>" even if they don't understand it. That seems to have more relevance to relativity than matter itself.</small><br />
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<h3><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7200043802711198506" name="god_astronomers">GOD AND THE ASTRONOMERS</a></h3> I am fighting off with some frustrations with the way the authors handle this section. If you recall, earlier in the chapter, they claimed things Einstein said about his god concept sounded like they described a theistic god (p74). They didn't seem to be taking Einstein at his word that he was a pantheist. Now, however, when they talk about Robert Jastrow, they seem perfectly fine at taking him for his word that he's an agnostic, though, based on the quotes they present, the man does not sound like one. Worse, they use this claim to give the impression that Jastrow is objective because he supposedly "has no religious axe to grind" (84). But is Jastrow really an agnostic? As the <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/12/idhef-chapter-1-can-we-handle-truth.html#can_truth_known">authors had pointed out in Chapter 1</a>, an agnostic is basically someone who "says 'I don't know whether there is a God'" (p43). An agnostic can also be a person who claims that the existence of a god is unknowable, but Jastrow does not fit into these descriptions. He is quoted as saying that "supernatural forces" are "scientifically proven fact" (p85). Sure, he doesn't say that these forces he believes are proven are the result of a god, per se, but he does speak of "an act of creation" (p85). That sounds like the general idea of a god to me! And much unlike anything someone who is supposedly an agnostic should be saying! Now, Jastrow may not subscribe to any of the monotheistic religions, but not being part of a religion does not keep one from being a theist, nor does it make one an agnostic.<br />
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The next head scratcher is the idea that "all of nature [was] created at the Big Bang" (p85) or that "there was no natural world or natural law prior to the Big Bang" (p85). How can they be so sure? Sure, all of nature <i>as we currently know it</i> exists in this universe. Maybe there is something outside our universe that could be considered "nature" that we have yet to discover (if even possible, but that's beside the point)? More importantly, where is their evidence? This is, after all, supposed to be a book that provides evidence for the existence of the Christian god concept. The whole idea seems to be based on two ideas—that the universe had a beginning and the old idea that "something cannot come from nothing." The flaw is that the second part, as I discussed earlier, is in question. I'll credit <a href="http://www.atheist-experience.com/people/tracie_harris/">Tracie Harris</a> with the question of how do you examine nothing? In other words, how can one say something cannot come from nothing until you have nothing to examine? And how would you even examine nothing?<br />
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Another way to look at this is through the overused example of lightning. Once upon a time, humans thought lightning was supernatural. But our ancestors learned more about nature, and now we know better. Claiming lightning was supernatural is what is known as an <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/10/preview-to-idhef-logical-fallacies.html#Ignorance">argument from ignorance</a>. It is called such because it makes a claim based on what we don't know (our ignorance). For this case, it would be claiming lightning is supernatural from not knowing the natural causes of lightning. Latter in the book (I don't remember where, exactly), I know the authors,too, explicitly use lightning as an example of an argument from ignorance, but claim that this is not what they are doing. But that is indeed what they are doing! They are trying to make it look like it's not by claiming that all of nature exists in this universe. Again, I do not find them justified in making such a claim. And what's to say that people who claimed lightning was supernatural thought they knew all there was to know about nature? This is going to sound philosophical, but just because you think you know (all of nature) doesn't mean you actually know. Based on the way we are still discovering things about the universe, like dark matter and dark energy, I lean on the side that these authors are overzealous about their claims.<br />
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Additionally, they are essentially defining "supernatural" by what it is not (nature). (They say "outside of nature" (p85), but I argue that is equivalent to saying "not nature.") Remember the problem in <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2012/03/idhef-chapter-2-why-should-anyone.html#burned">my breakdown of Chapter 2</a> about defining something by what it is not? Remember the example I gave of defining a basketball as "not a cube"? That tells you nothing about what it is. So, even if I were to grant the authors for a moment that the universe was not brought into existence through natural causes, this tells me <b><i>nothing</i></b> about what this "supernatural" is.<br />
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Lastly...the Bible. I really find it difficult how people can claim with a straight face, like Robert Jastrow, that "the astronomical evidence leads to a biblical view of the origin of the world" (p84). Though at least he has the decency to say, "the details differ" (p84). Yeah, the details differ...by a <b><i>LOT</i></b>! Lets just take a little look at <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%201&version=NIV">Genesis 1</a> (my comments are in <span style="color: purple;">purple</span>): <br />
<blockquote>1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. <span style="color: purple;">[What exactly are the "heavens"? I suppose one could equate this as being the universe. But what about the earth? Our planet was not there in the "beginning;" it took about 9 billion years after the Big Bang for the earth to form.]</span> 2 Now the earth was formless and empty, <span style="color: purple;">[Oh, so <i>maybe</i> this could be viewed as saying the matter that eventually becomes earth was created at that time...]</span> darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters. <span style="color: purple;">[...but that can't work because there wouldn't have been water in the beginning.]</span><br />
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3 And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light. <span style="color: purple;">[So the light comes <i>after</i> the earth? That is backwards with cosmology. Stars form before their planets.]</span> 4 God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness. <span style="color: purple;">[How, exactly, does one "separate" the light from the darkness? Isn't the darkness just a lack of light?]</span> 5 God called the light “day,” and the darkness he called “night.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the first day.<br />
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6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day. <span style="color: purple;">[Did you catch that? Above the sky, which is a "vault," is water. That's why the sky is blue; it's from the water that you can see on the other side of the "vault."]</span> <br />
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9 And God said, “Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.” And it was so. 10 God called the dry ground “land,” and the gathered waters he called “seas.” And God saw that it was good.<br />
11 Then God said, “Let the land produce vegetation: seed-bearing plants and trees on the land that bear fruit with seed in it, according to their various kinds.” And it was so. 12 The land produced vegetation: plants bearing seed according to their kinds and trees bearing fruit with seed in it according to their kinds. And God saw that it was good. 13 And there was evening, and there was morning—the third day.<br />
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14 And God said, “Let there be lights in the vault of the sky to separate the day from the night, and let them serve as signs to mark sacred times, and days and years, 15 and let them be lights in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth.” And it was so. 16 God made two great lights—the greater light to govern the day and the lesser light to govern the night. He also made the stars. <span style="color: purple;">[This first "light" we typically call the sun. The second "light" is the moon. Oh, and notice the sun is formed after plants are put on earth. What did the plants use for photosynthesis until this point? Or did they use the "light" from the 3rd verse...the light that was already separated from night, but apparently has no source. Or perhaps that was light that God needed in order to see what he was doing, but didn't shine on the earth? Or perhaps the problem is that light was not in the sky, so the water above the sky was blocking that light from reaching earth? But then we are back to the problem of plants before light. Oh, and of course, note that the sun, moon, and stars are literally <i>in</i> the sky.]</span> 17 God set them in the vault of the sky to give light on the earth, 18 to govern the day and the night, and to separate light from darkness. And God saw that it was good. 19 And there was evening, and there was morning—the fourth day. </blockquote>It seems the main point that the religious people cling to is the first three words of the book, which are "In the beginning," in regards to tying Genesis to the Big Bang. I'm sorry, but this is just absurd! I was talking to my wife about this a long while ago and she said, "Lots of things have a beginning." Indeed! It doesn't require any divine knowledge to claim something has a beginning. So Genesis is just not impressive, especially with how many things it gets wrong. Less than 70% is typically a failing grade. (At this point, religious people tend to brush these errors aside claiming that "it's a metaphor!" Yeah, it's a metaphor, alright! A metaphor for "ignorant goat herders*" who just happened to get one thing right out of chance. Interestingly enough, "God" is never "a metaphor" to these people.) I've attached a comedy video (Mr. Deity and the Days) to the <a href="#supplemental">supplemental</a> that makes fun of the Genesis creation story. It covers a lot of the ideas I presented here and then some.<br />
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Overall, the largest problem with this section is it is largely an <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/11/another-logical-fallacy-argument-from.html">argument from authority</a>, quoting scientists on their personal opinions, and, like with Jastrow, making a point of them not being "Bible-thumpers" (p85), rather than citing professionally peer reviewed papers. Sorry, but personal opinions of scientists do not count as evidence.<br />
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* <small>Additionally, the first chapter of Genesis may originate with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/En%C3%BBma_Eli%C5%A1#Relationship_with_the_Bible">Enûma Eliš</a>, so it's possibly an adapted story from Babylonian mythology. So maybe we should be worshipping those gods instead? This was also covered in the video from the supplemental section of <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/11/idhef-introduction.html#Supplemental">my breakdown of the Introduction</a>.</small><br />
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<h3><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7200043802711198506" name="empire">THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (BUT FIZZLES OUT)</a></h3> I don't have a lot to say about this section, at least not much against what they say. First, once again, they misrepresent the Second Law of Thermodynamics when talking about the cosmic rebound theory. Once again, energy is not "lost" in the way they imply. Energy disperses. That is why a dropped ball will eventually stop bouncing. The energy disperses out of the ball. However, the universe would be different. Recall what they said about the First Law of Thermodynamics? They said, "the total amount of energy in the universe is constant" (p76). The amount of energy in a ball is not. Their analogy is flawed. Second, once again, there is no "Law of Causality." And, again, it is true that "science is a search for causes" (p87), but calling this a "law" goes overboard.<br />
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What I would like to add is that they (conveniently?) overlook the idea of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiverse">a multiverse</a>*. It's an idea that's not backed up by evidence, but it includes the idea that there is a natural process that creates universes. The idea that there are multiple verses comes about to address ideas like those that the authors presented when talking about galaxy seeds in that the conditions of this verse are what are needed to have one that can support galaxies and even life. Under the multiverse idea, there could be verses that expand too quickly to form galaxies. Or others may not expand fast enough and collapse in on themselves. Of course this is all just an idea that has no evidential support. I don't, and won't, believe this idea until that happens. <br />
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* <small>Actually, when I was reviewing for Chapter 4, I found a mention to this idea there. It does fit into the ideas presented in Chapter 4, but I still think it deserve mention in this chapter.</small> <br />
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<h3><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7200043802711198506" name="religion_of_science">THE RELIGION OF SCIENCE</a></h3> Jastrow. Again. What can I really say that I haven't already? Once again the authors are making it a point to call this guy an "agnostic." Yet, this agnostic that should be taking a position of "don't know" or "can't know" as per the definition of "agnostic" is speaking of "theological implications" (88). "<a href="http://thinkexist.com/quotation/if_it_walks_like_a_duck-quacks_like_a_duck-looks/169094.html">If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, it must be a duck.</a>" This man speaks like a theist, not an agnostic.<br />
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But enough of this as whether or not Jastrow is an agnostic is not relevant. It is his words alone that we must ultimately examine. And his words are flawed, particularly when he says, "The world had a beginning under conditions in which the known laws of physics are not valid, and as a product of <b>forces or circumstances we cannot discover</b>" (p89). Emphasis mine. Now, this is the one place where he does actually sound like an agnostic. But this idea contradicts the earlier quotes of him suggesting there are "theological implications" (88). This is because these "forces or circumstances" that "cannot [be discovered]" would include a god concept (or the "supernatural")! Though, like when Einstein talked about "God," he seems to have meant the word in a way that does not match most people's definition of the word. Perhaps what Jastrow means by "theological" is not what most typically think of the word? But even in this block quote, Jastrow goes on to talk about "implications" again. So can we know (discover) or not? Or is he saying that the implications of "forces or circumstances we cannot discover" is an implication of a god? Then, once again, he's not an agnostic. Also, this is then an <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/10/preview-to-idhef-logical-fallacies.html#Ignorance">argument from ignorance</a> in the form of "We cannot discover the forces or circumstances that created the universe; therefore, God."<br />
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There is an additional problem in what Jastrow says about scientists "refusing to speculate" (p89). The last section talked about three different speculations, and I added a forth to the discussion. So who's refusing to speculate? Or is the complaint aimed specifically at the idea that these speculations don't include the supernatural or a god? If so, then Jastrow is simply expressing personal disappointment that other scientists don't see things his way. When he talks about scientists "[losing] control," I get the impression he is projecting (talking about himself).<br />
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Perhaps the biggest blunder in this section is the discussion of "meaningless phrases" (p88 and p89). They apply this to the ideas of "'mathematical points' and 'positive and negative energy'" (p88), but fail to apply it to their own ideas of the "supernatural" or, as they call it in this section, the "Eternal Cause" (p89). That is somehow meaningful? I can agree to the point that it does seem likely that, if the universe has a cause, that cause would be outside of space-time (and, yes, even matter). But that cause could be just about anything! It's much like that basketball that is not a cube. What is this "Eternal Cause," <i>exactly</i>? And how is that meaningful?<br />
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<h3><a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7200043802711198506" name="big_bang_wrong">WHAT IF THE BIG BANG THEORY IS WRONG?</a></h3> There are only a couple thing to say about this section. First, I am a bit amused that they would quote George Will when speaking of a "theistic worldview" (p90). <a href="http://www.celebatheists.com/wiki/George_F_Will">George Will is an atheist</a>. (He calls himself an "agnostic," but it appears he is basing that off of a more strict definition of "atheist" similar to that used in this book. Using the looser definition that most atheists use, he would fall in that definition.)<br />
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The second part is that they poorly describe infinity when they say, "something that is infinite has no end" (91). That is not true. The line they present in Fig. 3.3 is an infinite line. And it has an end. Where the authors go wrong is that it takes two ends for a one-dimensional object finite. Having one end (as is the case in the example) or no end at all will make it infinite. They are correct, though, when they suggest that there is no way to get to today. This is because, since we are going from left to right, there is no end point (don't let that term fool you; the term "<a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/end">end</a>" means a "terminal point" as opposed to a "completion point" for this context) from which to start.<br />
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<h3><a name="made_god">WHO MADE GOD?</a></h3> The first flaw of this section should be obvious at this point. Once again they are talking about this "Law of Causality" that doesn't exist. And since it doesn't exist, they can pretty much say whatever they want about it, including that "atheists contention misunderstands [it]" (p92) or "it says that everything <i>that comes to be</i> needs a cause" (p92). Yet, this is far from the worst this section has to offer.<br />
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The main issues here are all the assertions, such as "God did not come to be. No one made God" (p92). Evidence, please? I can accept the notion that "something outside the universe is eternal" (p93), but why assert that this is "God" (or being eternal is a characteristic of a god)? (And why is "God" a he when it would be a sexless thing?) Maybe there is a god and it is <b>not</b> eternal, but was created by something else that is eternal? (Though, I must admit, I don't know why one would call that a god.) The other thing is that perhaps there are things outside the universe that we cannot even conceive. Maybe there is such a thing as time outside our universe that is distinct from the time inside our universe? They also assert that "there are only two possibilities for anything exists" (93). Maybe. Maybe not. Maybe there is some third possibility of which we just can't conceive?<br />
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Another issue with their assertions is that, in the last section, the authors talked about how an infinite series is "purely theoretical" (p91). Yet, now they are going to claim that this thing they are calling the "First Cause" is "infinite" (p93). What does that mean? Infinite how? Yes, yes, I see that they say "without limits" (p93), but I still don't really understand what that means. The same goes for "unimaginably powerful" (p93). And, once again, evidence, please? Yes, I see they claim to have drawn this from evidence, but drawing things from evidence is not evidence itself; it is merely speculation.<br />
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I actually think I need to take a moment to explain a bit about how science works. Most people should have learned this in middle school, so my explanation may sound like I am addressing a child. I am not trying to insult anyone's intelligence. So, in science, you start out by collecting data. This data can also be referred to as "facts" or "evidence." After collecting data, one usually draws conclusions from said data. These conclusions are known as "hypotheses" (I called it "speculation" in the last paragraph). After forming a hypothesis, tests are to be conducted to obtain more data to affirm the hypothesis. Sometimes the tests are designed to look for things that the hypothesis predicts. After <i>much</i> rigorous testing, a hypothesis, if always confirmed and never disconfirmed by said testing, can be boosted up to the level of theory. The big bang theory started out as a hypothesis. That hypothesis predicted things like cosmic background radiation. Later, that radiation (as the book discusses) was found (even though by accident), confirming the hypothesis (not sure if it was considered a "theory" or not at that time).<br />
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The point of the last paragraph is that even if they are drawing from the evidence, that makes their god claim merely a hypothesis. They still need to go out and test that hypothesis. But they are not doing that. They are instead skipping this and trying to claim that their hypothesis is correct because it makes more sense. Well, I have something to say about that in the next paragraph (as well as in the breakdown of Chapter 4).<br />
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While writing this, I began thinking about something I heard is in the book "<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Men-Who-Stare-Goats/dp/0743241924">The Men Who Stare at Goats</a>" (which was also made into a <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1234548/">movie starring George Clooney</a>). I heard there is a part where one of the main characters thinks to himself that he is mostly empty space and that a wall is mostly empty space; therefore, he should be able to run through walls. Of course he can't, but the idea that is important here is the fact that we are indeed mostly empty space! Now, imagine suggesting to someone 150 years ago that people and walls (and matter in general) are mostly empty space. They'd probably think you were crazy! Heck, if I were a betting man, I'd bet a lot of people today would think that notion to be crazy. But it's true! We are mostly empty space! We know this now because of improvements in science that led to the ability to observe and learn about the atoms that make up our bodies. The whole point of this is that likely no one would have ever thought we were mostly empty space until we had some direct evidence. And until we have some direct evidence of what is outside our universe (if that's even possible), I'm not going to buy into these ideas that this is what the "First Cause" has to be. Just like the book's character draws the wrong conclusion from the evidence of us being mostly space, these authors could be doing the same. This, too, is why hypotheses need to be tested. The character's hypothesis is that he can go through walls. My understanding of the book/movie is that the character tests his hypothesis and...well, I'm sure you can guess the outcome. So these authors have presented us with what they think the "First Cause" is. OK, great! Now, design some tests so that this can be confirmed. Until it is confirmed, it's just speculation. And it is certainly <i>not</i> evidence!<br />
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Having said all that, there is one piece in their claims that I feel shows the whole thing to not be thoroughly thought through. It is this idea that the "First Cause" must be personal in order to make a choice, and specifically this idea of choice (or decision). How are choices made? My understanding of choices involve cause and effect. In computer software, for example, there has to be some cause that leads a program to make a procedural call that will make a decision. There also needs to be inputs so that the procedure has data with which to make a decision. Much the same seems to be true for humans. Something causes us to have the need to make a decision and various inputs will be used to make a decision. For example, let's say you are driving and you see a vehicle off to your side run a red light and they are going to cross paths with you. This situation is going to cause you to make a choice. Do you try to speed up and get through the intersection before they do or do you determine stopping would be the wiser choice? Do you need to swerve out of the way? That's going to be determined based on inputs like how fast the other vehicle is going, how close they are, etc. The overall point is I find that a choice is "something that comes to be." But the authors say this decision is the "First Cause." In other words, they have to be suggesting that this choice is not caused. I do not understand what a choice is without a cause. Based on my understanding of choice, this "First Cause" either cannot be the first cause or it cannot be personal (the event would have to be "random," if that even makes sense in a timeless domain). Until they can justify a choice without a cause, I cannot accept their last premise. And I don't know if they can justify that, because even they say "an impersonal force has no ability to <b>make</b> choices" (p93). Emphasis mine. Even they appear to understand that choices are made. (Or, to be fair, are restricted by the English language.) In other words, they "[come] to be" (p92). Therefore, according to their own Law of Causality, this choice needs a cause. Seeing how their characteristics are either incomplete or wrong, this is a strong case against the god they are trying to prove as they go on to claim these characteristics exactly match "[those] theists ascribe to God" (93).<br />
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<h3><a name="conclusion">CONCLUSION: IF THERE IS NO GOD, WHY IS THERE SOMETHING RATHER THAN NOTHING?</a></h3> This section is a summary of what I don't like about apologists. They are "surprised" when an atheist will say that topic of the origin of the universe (or, in this case, specifically the idea of something coming from nothing) is "a <i>really</i> good question" (p94). It is a good question! Where they upset me most is when they suggest that it "is a question that we all have to answer" (p94). No! I've <a href="#universe_expanding">discussed this earlier in this chapter breakdown</a> as well as in <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/11/idhef-introduction.html">my breakdown of the Introduction</a>. "I don't know" is an acceptable answer. One way I've heard this presented (once again I recall the source being <a href="http://www.atheist-experience.com/people/tracie_harris/">Tracie Harris</a>) is asking the question of if one believes the number of blades of grass in their yard (assuming they have a yard with grass, of course) is an odd or even number. Now, if we take this apologist approach to questions, you have to answer!!! And that answer had better be either "Even" or "Odd." You'd better not say you can't know one way or the other! The reality is that you would have no way to know one way or the other. "I don't know" (or "That's a <i>really</i> good question") is a reasonable answer to this question. That's the answer I give, too. I don't have a belief on how the universe came to be. I don't believe a god did it, nor do I believe natural causes did it. My position is that I do not know.<br />
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<a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2012/04/defeatedbythor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="280" src="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/files/2012/04/defeatedbythor.jpg" width="280" /></a> What bothers me most about their question is with the qualifier they attach to the question. That qualifier is "if there is no god". This makes it a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loaded_question">loaded question</a>. By asking the question in such a manner, they are asking for a disproof of god. That's not how reasoning works. Perhaps the problem becomes more clear if I change the qualifier: "If there is no Flying Spaghetti Monster, why is there something rather than nothing?" Or, "If there is no Invisible Pink Unicorn, why is there something rather than nothing." (Or, similarly, "If <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yggdrasil">Yggdrasil</a> doesn't hold up the worlds, what prevents them from falling into the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginnungagap">Ginnungagap</a>?") It is interesting to ponder why there is something rather than nothing, but the qualifier is a rhetorical trick to shift the burden of proof onto the nonbeliever. The question that believers must answer is how did their god they claim exists bring about something from nothing? Do you think answers like, "It's eternal, infinite, and unimaginably powerful!" are reasonable?<br />
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So the first step for apologists is to make their claim the default. (They give the impression it is you who needs to disprove god.) The second step is then to make you feel like you need to take a position. (Otherwise, they'll act like their god must exist since you can't disprove it.) The third step is to limit your options. In this section, they say "either <i>no one</i> created something out of nothing, or else <i>someone</i> created something out of nothing" (p93). But who says there was nothing before? Or what is nothing? Again, I'll refer you to the Lawrence Krauss video in the <a href="#supplemental">supplemental material</a> section. These may not truly be the only two options. Finally, the forth step is to make the options that are not theistic sound silly. In this case, they keep it simple by just asking "Which view is more reasonable?" (p93). Note that <b>they don't ask which view is more supported by evidence!</b> No, instead they quote song lyrics! And, go figure, they end by quoting the supposed agnostic Robert Jastrow again suggesting that theologians have been right all along.<br />
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By the way, which of the following views is more reasonable? (1) That we are <i>not</i> made up of mostly empty space or (2) that we <i>are</i> made up of mostly empty space? I'm not wanting to inform your choice, but it's the first one, isn't it? Now which one is supported by evidence? That would be the second one. The point is that I don't care which one of their premises sounds more "reasonable." Where's the evidence, for either side? Something appearing "reasonable" does not count as evidence, nor does it make something true. It is when there is evidence to support an idea that it becomes reasonable. Otherwise then we'd have conflicting evidence as to the composition of empty space in our bodies. (I <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/11/problem-of-common-sense-another-preview.html">wrote a post as a preview to this book</a> for cases just like this that gives yet another example of the failings of human reason.) While I'm at it, perhaps I should just leave you with this thought that if you can't believe that your body is mostly empty space, "<i>then you don't have enough faith to be an atheist!</i>*" (p93).<br />
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* <small>I fear I may have to elaborate more on why I used that phrase there. If you've been paying attention, the first problem is that atheists don't make positive claims. I don't believe something can come from nothing. But nor do I believe something can come from someone. Neither idea has any evidential support.</small><br />
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<h3><a name="supplemental">Supplemental Material</a></h3><br />
Lawrence Krauss - A Universe from Nothing<br />
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Mr. Deity and the Days<br />
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Here's <a href="http://www.reasons.org/videos/through-the-lens-astronomy-the-bible-and-the-big-bang">a link to a video</a> (sorry, couldn't see a way to embed) that looks at how the big bang supposedly fits in with the Bible. There are some things I find worth noting:<br />
<ul><li>The producer warns us to not "get caught up in the details." Yeah, I wonder why.</li>
<li>To no surprise, he says the "heavens and the earth" could be translated into "universe."</li>
<li>He points to some verse in Isaiah about God "stretching out the heavens" as being connected to the expansion of the universe. Yet, what does "spreads out the earth" mean?<br />
Another thing to note is that "heaven" and "earth" are found by themselves. This suggests to me that there could have been separate Hebrew words for those term. So why didn't Genesis 1 just use that word that meant "heaven" instead of the one that meant both "heaven and earth." And I suppose whatever Hebrew term is used in Isaiah that translates to "heaven" can also be translated into "universe"? This, of course, is a reason I'm not supposed to get caught up in the details.</li>
<li>The example from Psalms seems even worse. Again, don't get caught up in the details. Just look at the word "stretches." Never mind that the expansion of the universe is nothing like a tent. Don't get caught up in the details.</li>
<li>It is also important to point out that there are <b>many</b> places in the Bible that refers to the "heavens" that sound <i>nothing</i> like the "universe." The Noah's Arc story (see <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%206-9&version=NIV">Genesis 6-9</a>) has many such examples, where life on earth is said to be "under" the heavens (which would seem to align with the idea of the heavens being like a tent). This story also speaks of the heavens having "floodgates." (See: <a href="http://themidwestatheist.blogspot.com/2011/10/preview-to-idhef-logical-fallacies.html#ConfirmationBias">Confirmation Bias</a>)</li>
<li>His example for "constant laws" is so mind-numbingly stupid, I'm not sure what to say. Are we really supposed to be surprised that people from over 2000 years ago would notice that there were consistencies with how the world works??? How dumb do they think our ancestors were that they would need divine inspiration to figure this out???</li>
<li>Then (surprise!) after having told you at the beginning to not get caught up in the details, we are told how "accurately He described the universe...in his scriptures." But doesn't this "accuracy" depend on those details we were not supposed to get caught up on?</li>
</ul>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0