1. My life under a fatwa

Comment #91657 by Elentar on November 28, 2007 at 10:22 pm

Vinelectric: Muslims are trying to kill her. Moderate Muslims who try to defend her also risk being killed. That is the relevant fact. This is inexcusable. You do not address this fact, and it is not acceptable to murder someone because you don't agree with them. You studiously avoid mentioning this. When you address it, we may start considering what you have to say.

The demographic argument: Demographics is destiny--except that there has never been a demographic prediction that has been consequently verified. All have been argued after the fact, and would have been stunning surprises 25 years prior. Europe's native population will not peak till 2050 (no, the Muslim population will NOT reach 50% by 2050.) Europe is actually vastly overcrowded anyway. In any case, the Muslim population is mostly uneducated, disenfranchised, poor, politically uninvolved--in short, irrelevant. These people don't even vote in elections, much less run. Please explain to me how a marginally small uneducated welfare class who doesn't vote and exerts no cultural or economic influence is supposed to take over Europe within 50 years.

It is far more likely that Europe will revert to its old ways and expel the Muslims en masse. Europe's conception of multiculturalism is often blamed on Trudeau's conception in Canada, but the Canadian version, much like the American version, was principled multicuturalism. The nation is united by principle, not by ethnic identity, as in Europe. European multiculturalism consists of pockets of ethnicity in cultural bubbles. The underlying principle is racism, masked by political correctness. Only when Europe starts to demand the same standards of its immigrants as it does of its natives will this racism disappear. As it is, it seems, one cannot expect the same performance of the lesser races, poor darlings, as one can of the white race--because, we, after all, control their destiny. It's all about us, don't you see? But I suspect we will see the return of the jackboot first. Odd, isn't it, how the dogmas of the left will support the return of the fascist right.

2. Arguments From Design, First Cause, Something Rather Than Nothing, Fundamental Constants

Comment #84829 by Elentar on November 3, 2007 at 7:34 pm

There are many possible answers to the Fine Tuning argument, multiple universes being one of them. Some have some science behind them, some are pure science fiction without a shred of evidence. The theistic explanation falls into the latter category. Since theists would like to broaden our range of answers to include those that we cannot conceive, there could be an almost infinite range of possible answers. The theistic explanation is but one tiny dot in this constellation of possibilities, and a suspiciously anthropocentric one at that.

I think, when considered this way, the Fine Tuning argument is incredibly weak.

Furthermore, let's imagine that something did create the universe. Since that something set the laws and the constants, it would not function according to any of those, or by any principle that we could fathom. More likely, assuming it was acting on something like conscious volition (and what would that be for a being outside space and time?) it would have just wanted to create something interesting. But what would it consider interesting? We are talking about an entity so orthogonal to our own categories of thought that it would be working from an utterly alien aesthetic. Maybe the occasional blue planet added just the right pixel of color to the mandela it was making. Would the momentary flicker of our presence on a tiny blue dot be of any interest to it at all?

This is not the Creator of religion, not the God of Jesus, Moses, Mohammed, Vishnu, or any other religion. There is no argument for religion here.

3. Was religion beneficial to the development of society? Is it now?

Comment #84827 by Elentar on November 3, 2007 at 7:00 pm

I suspect that relgion evolved originally as a form of shiboleth--an expensive display which indicated tribal loyalty--intended to root out or fend off defectors (in the sense of the term used in economic games like the prisoner's dilemma.) The expense of the display served two purposes: a show of fitness, and a show of dedication, at first to the tribe, and eventually, to tribal leaders. The sacrifice entailed was meant to demonstrate a willingness to place tribal values above personal gain.

This also explains the bizarre attitude of religion to women and female sexuality. Impregnating a female of another tribe is another way of gaining reproductive access to that tribe, since the expense of raising the child falls on the woman (and her tribe, if the father abandons her) much more than the man. Controlling female sexuality, and bartering females as a way of cementing alliances, becomes another way of securing points of entry into the tribe.

The problem is that it never worked very well, and has long since outlived its usefulness. Tribalism creates flashpoints between tribes, which is quite dangerous in a global village. The shibboleth is too easy to fake; in many religions it now amounts to no more than a profession of faith. And the persistant misogynistic attitudes are obsolete in an age of birth control and safe abortion.

4. The Transcendental Argument for God

Comment #84824 by Elentar on November 3, 2007 at 6:22 pm

My impression of Jade's argument on IIDB is that it is similar in structure to Plato's argument in the Euthyphro, in which Plato argues that what is good is not so because the gods demand it, but the gods demand it because it is good. This is my own variation on it:

1) The theistic God has a Presence (existence), Form (nature), and Context (connections with other things). Therefore it falls within the scope of Metaphysical Naturalism.
2) This means that theists must assume the tenants of Metaphysical Naturalism to believe in God. Metaphysical Naturalism is not founded on belief in God. Theists apply the same conceptual framework to their God as they do to the world. The conceptual framework comes first.
4) Induction works because of the regularity and consistency of the universe. Things which are alike behave in like manner, and, after some study, we understand why they behave that way.
4) We can understand the universe not because it was designed for us, but because we were designed by it. Evolution favoured only a type of rationality that worked in this universe.
5) Morality evolved the same way, reflecting the social and emotional realities of living as human beings.

The really interesting part is where he talks at the end about presuppositionalism. The TAG is more complex than stated to be; it does not merely presuppose the existence of God, but claims that YOU need to presuppose the existence of God just to argue, or you have no basis for believing in rationality. The argument against the TAG is to found reason in Metaphysical Naturalism, making God superfluous.

I was expecting his opponent to drag in a variant of the Fine Tuning argument; why is the universe regular and consistent (the opponent quit after the first round.) The answer is that the universe would be unstable if this were so, and probably would have collapsed in the first instant of the Big Bang. There are many possible explanations for this, some of which have some well reasoned arguments to back them up, and some of which are mere conjecture. Theism falls in the latter category. Add to this the range of explanations that we have not guessed or can not imagine, and the theistic explanation is but a very small dot in a vast constellation of possibilities.

5. Atheists don't believe in anything

Comment #84821 by Elentar on November 3, 2007 at 6:03 pm

This argument is what I call "The Last Dogma", because it often persists in former believers after they have walked away from religion. The anything here is anything moral. The claim is that loss of belief leads to nihilism--as Dostoyevsky put it, "Without God, everything is permissable." This is a very pernicious doctrine, because it amounts to a kind of moral brinksmanship.

Former believers of strict faiths sometimes run amok after leaving their religions because of this. They actually persist in the opinion that there can be no morality without faith. But in fact, they have never exercised the capacity for independent moral judgement. They acted by rote, rather than by the study of action and consequence--never understanding that one could work out right and wrong for oneself. The still, quiet voice of conscience was drowned out long ago by the rantings of a bellicose preacher.

The sad thing is that in communities where religion--and this doctrine--predominate, the religion really does become necessary to hold destructive behaviour in check. The capacity for independent ethical consideration is so atrophied that they need to be told what to do.

6. Science owes its origins to Christianity or Religion

Comment #84818 by Elentar on November 3, 2007 at 5:40 pm

If science survived at all through the Dark Ages, it was because some of the early Church leaders were schooled in Greek Philosophy, and didn't want to give up their right to think. Augustine, for example, argued against the literal interpretation of Genesis, and believed that where religion contradicted science religion must give way. So they invented the doctrine of Natural Law, through which one could understand God by understanding nature. This didn't do much good, though, until the Church lost its stranglehold through the Reformation, and people got well and truly sick of the religious wars. Descartes fled to Holland and then Sweden. Newton lived under the protection of that great libertine king Charles II.

Medieval theology took the form of "Faith justified by reason." They started with their conclusions and argued backward. Not exactly the scientific method.

No dogma has ever been fully compatible with science. Some may be content to use technological innovations--although the church argued that such provided unfair advantages and were to be discouraged. Christianity was notorious; only Islam, after the fall of the Caliphate, proved to be worse.

7. That's not MY God or Religion you're criticising

Comment #84781 by Elentar on November 3, 2007 at 2:39 pm

The most common form of this argument is bait-and switch deism. In this argument, the theist argues for the existence of an entity above space and time who is incomprehensible to us, in an attempt to get us to answer that, yes, such a being is possible, and would lie outside of the realm of science.

But this is only the vaguest and most nebulous conception of a Deistic God, and this is almost never what they believe in. This is not the God of the Bible, or the Torah, or the Koran, or any other religion. There is just not enough there to form a religion around, which is why deists usually hang out with atheists. You can't even call this entity God, or even say that it exists in the usual sense.

What they are trying to do is get your agreement to the existence of something without defining what it is. Get them to say what their God is. Of course, for any written argument, you can't do this, and they can always play this card. If their argument is presented in an article, or a formal debate, it will usually take the form of this bait-and-switch: first eliciting agreement on the part of the listener or reader that some X exists, and then slowly backfilling the definition of X.

8. Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, and they were terrible! Answer that!

Comment #81567 by Elentar on October 24, 2007 at 11:00 pm

Atticus nailed it. Naziism, Communism, Maoism, Stalinism, etc. were all dogmas. We are opposed to dogmas, because they are assaults on truth. If communism were still around, we would be focussing our attention on that, but it isn't, so we aren't. Conspiracy theories, pseudo-science, psychic charlatans, and superstition are all on our hit list. Religion is the largest wholesale distributor of dogma, pseudo-science, and superstition, so it's at the top of our list.

9. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79289 by Elentar on October 16, 2007 at 6:02 pm

I caught McGrath here and on Big Ideas on TV Ontario, talking about The God Delusion. He was incredibly evasive on both occasions--in fact, on TVO, he didn't even address Dawkins' main argument (the Ultimate 747, an expansion on Russell's teapot), and here he kept wasting time and wandering off on tangents.

McGrath practices what I call bait-and-switch Deism: fall back to non-supernatural arguments, try to get people to sign on to those, and then advance back to the personal God when you think the coast is clear. Hitchens stuck to his point, and McGrath avoided it like the plague.

But worst of all, McGrath is a post-modernist, a school I consider utterly morally and intellectually bankrupt and completely discredited. Post-modernism is becoming rather fashionable amongst believers nowadays, owing to its position of moral and epistemological relativism. The moral relativism is useful for their God vs. nihlism false dichotomy, while the epistemological relativism is useful in their wars on science.

10. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #70755 by Elentar on September 16, 2007 at 8:56 pm

J. J. Ramsey. "You appear to have made the mistake of assuming that Haidt is talking about what should be the foundations of morality, rather than describing how human beings happen to work out morality in practice, for good or ill."

True, but he eventually lumps all five in together under the same heading, when they have clearly very different characteristics, and ends his argument in a way that seems to affirm the validity of these three primitive emotions as genuine foundations of morality (attributing to them in a post hoc manner higher levels of charity, and ascribing wisdom to the whole package.) In treating them all as equally primitive emotions, he places tribe/authority/purity on the same footing as principles which are explicitly laid forth as philosophical foundations of morality--and, having done this, then steps back and withholds judgement. The principles of care and justice really are superior to these primitive heuristics--I suspect that even very conservative people would admit this. This, I think, is why Harris accuses him of moral relativism.

11. A Response to Jonathan Haidt

Comment #70692 by Elentar on September 16, 2007 at 4:00 pm

Neither Harris nor Myers hit the main problem with Haidt's argument (though Harris may have come close): Ingroup/loyalty, authority/respect, and purity/sanctity are not actually 'moral' modules at all, but instinctive heuristics which are rationalized after the fact as being moral judgements. Haidt's article hinges on this misclassification.

To see the difference between these and harm/care and fairness/justice, ask yourself: can ever be too considerate, too just, or too fair? The answer is that you can't--the upper limits of these traits are not set by morality itself, but by human limitations. The same cannot be said for the other three; any of these in excess will lead to disaster, to extremes that anyone will be forced to admit are just plain evil. You can be far too loyal, too tribal, too subservient, too respectful, and too obsessed with purity--indeed, this reads like a litany of the sins of bloody tyrants and their complicit followers throughout history.

Haidt has made the mistake of taking at face value the claim, made by those motivated by these categorizations, that they are indeed 'moral'. In fact, they are primitive, pre-rational, tribal emotions, radically different in kind from genuinely moral judgments, because they predate reflective human morality altogether. This distinction goes back even farther than the modern era; Christianity was recognized as an advance in moral understanding in its day precisely because Jesus was depicted as routinely violating these principles in favour of caring and justice.

Ironically, Christians motivated by such primitive classifications are not only pre-modern, they are actually pre-Christian.

12. Richard Dawkins Replies to David Sloan Wilson

Comment #56904 by Elentar on July 17, 2007 at 7:19 pm

From my own blog, on Wilson:

Sanctity [the belief that religious leaders are above reproach because God keeps them honest] lays at the very root of problems which occur when politics are mixed with religion. David Sloan Wilson, objecting to Dawkins characterization of religion, talks about the Jains. The impoverished ascetics go from household to household begging--but in households which do not adhere to the customs and ethics of Jainism, the ascetic will refuse the food--a strong rebuke and embarassment to the members of the household. This, Wilson argues, serves as a strong policing mechanism for the members of the community. But take note--the ascetics are dirt poor! This simple fact, this lack of political and economic power, makes the role of the ascetic completely unappealing to the sociopath, who is, after all, out for personal gain. The police are themselves policed by the extreme sacrifices demanded of them.

Contrast this with Christian and Islamic religious leaders. Bishops live in a palace, sit on a throne, wear a ring and robe of office, and are, in all respects, nobility--the last nobility left in many Western countries. Televangelists and the leaders of Mega-Churches control pools of wealth in the millions, are afforded expenses and large homes, and wield great political power. Imams pass laws and often control the government, and draw upon the wealth of the Mosque. All of these people are in a position which would make the unscrupulous drool.

Like the Jain ascetics, Jesus and his followers lived hand to mouth. So too did the Cathar ascetics. Indeed, Jesus' career was so disastrous to his own personal fortune that Christians felt compelled to put a happy ending on it. Yet we instinctively understand that where the lure of wealth and power is, we are likely to find people of questionable motives--or we would know this if we are not blinded by faith. Even if the ascetics get it wrong (and there is no guarantee that they don't), we understand that the mistake is an honest one. Wilson takes issue with Dawkins for dismissing all religion--and yet, the overwhelmingly predominant form of religion which is now rising in the West holds the impoverished in contempt and believes that God will shower you with wealth if you pay proper obeisance. In the Muslim world, religion is politics. Like so many of religion's defenders, Wilson has mistaken a small proportion of believers as a representative sample. But they aren't, and I suspect that they never were.

13. For Muslim Extremists, Religion Matters

Comment #56438 by Elentar on July 15, 2007 at 6:21 pm

Regarding Dhimmis: The Dhimmi tax was the basis of the Caliphate wealth, so much so that it was forbidden to convert those of other faiths. You also could not own a Muslim as a slave, so many personal fortunes, again, were dependent upon the existence of non-Muslims. Clearly, this was a society governed primarily by economic concerns, not by religious concerns.

And something you should keep in mind regarding the preservation of ancient knowledge amongst Muslims: Europe at the time was largely temperate rain forest. A book in this climate began to rot before the ink was even dry. It took a dedicated effort to copy and recopy books faithfully in order for them not to be lost. The only thing required to preserve a book in the arid climates of the Middle East was that you not deliberately destroy it. All you had to do was put it in a jar and leave it alone. Nevertheless, many books were lost in the Middle East--including all of the original versions of the Koran (see Hitchens about this.)

14. Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Comment #53396 by Elentar on July 1, 2007 at 8:23 am

'Clockiness' here is just a simple analogy for the real world requirements to eat, mate, and reproduce, standing in for the complex requirements of the environment. In this case, clockiness stands in for real world adaptive fitness, which would be a monster to model on a computer, and which would give rise to an entire host of misunderstandings, questions about assumptions, etc. Simplicity is clarity here. The complexity that some of you are asking for would obscure the result.

15. Messiah

Comment #52707 by Elentar on June 27, 2007 at 9:20 pm

The Amazing Kreskin used to do the same act, and prefaced each show with a notice that the tricks were done solely through stage magic. He too came to dispute the belief in hypnosis, and claimed that his stage subjects did what they did out of desire to please the crowd.

JazzX et al: Real people in real situations all look like bad actors. Actors look more real in front of a camera, because the performance is rehearsed and abbreviated. This is why very dumb actors come off looking brilliant and accomplished in front of the camera. This is also why the cult of celebrity expects miraculous things out of merely pretty people. If you have the two confused, it's because you watch too much television.

Brown's 'psychology' amounts to neuro-linguistic programming and cold reading, simple tricks of reading and mirroring body language. It takes about a year to learn, and requires no deep understanding of human psychology. It is, however, remarkably effective, and more than a few unscrupulous practitioners have used it to found cults. This is the whole point of the program--what he does is easy, and requires no extraordinary talent.

16. Journey Into Islam

Comment #52607 by Elentar on June 27, 2007 at 1:04 pm

Moderate believers are actually fairly irrelevant to the spread or control of extremism. Religion has no method--unlike science, there is no way to win an argument. Indeed, religion can actually disable rationality entirely. You can't even engage in a rational argument with a fanatic. If there were actually a way to win religious arguments, there wouldn't be dozens of religions and thousands of sects.

That being the case, holders of different religious beliefs must either agree to disagree, or impose their beliefs by force. The deciding factor between these two options is whether the religion has enough power. Bush's greatest mistake wasn't in any offense to Muslims, but in attempting an intervention that he did not have the political support to succeed in, thus making the West appear weak. The Islamicists now think they are on a winning streak, and won't stop until they suffer a crushing defeat. Whether this comes in the form of a military defeat, or a more likely political, economic, and social collapse brought on by primitive ideology doesn't really matter--but you can't be this backward in the 21st century and expect to get away with it for long.

17. In Saudi Arabia, a view from behind the veil

Comment #48595 by Elentar on June 8, 2007 at 1:39 pm

I suspect that the true measure of civilization for any society is its treatment of women. The main distinction between men and women is simply that men have greater upper body strength. The oppression of women is therefore symptomatic of a broader brutality in the society, a sign that might has been allowed to make right. I really have no respect for cultures that treat their women as chattel, nor do I think those societies deserve any respect.

18. God grief

Comment #42797 by Elentar on May 19, 2007 at 4:43 pm

Understanding natural catastrophes will make them much less terrifying, since it will make you much more able to avoid them or cope with them when they do happen. Knowing what to expect, how to prepare, and how to ride it out, makes all the difference. Of course, the knowledge needs to be applied, rather than ignored, as it was in New Orleans.

In the absence of evidence for a belief, the only thing that need be explained is the belief itself. This is what Hitchens does--he demonstrates the very human origins of these faiths. And his argument is not with the Bible as literature, but with the Bible as Hallowed Scripture. If a Shakespearian play were to be found in every hotel room, and was held up to be beyond question, Hitchens' critique would be applied to it too. But everyone knows that Shakespeare was just a very good writer, and we appreciate him as such. If the Bible were to share the shelf as an equal with the Illiad and the Odyssey, we would regard it as indispensible to classical education--not as a dangerous source of primitive dogma.

19. Richard Dawkins at The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival

Comment #42648 by Elentar on May 18, 2007 at 10:22 pm

Two comments:

1) There are naive atheists, and naive believers. Naive atheists are prone to becoming believers, because they haven't thought about it much, and are somewhat overawed by simple rhetorical tricks. Naive believers tend to get stunned out of their beliefs when they encounter a more informed analysis of their religion--Catholic universities have been shown to be the best at breaking fundies out of their beliefs. Those who switch sides tend to be more militant--but atheists have the better part of the deal, because they end up with a consistent world view. Believers work mainly from confirmation bias. McGrath's conversion would mean something only if he had been an informed and committed atheist.

2) McGrath does the usual bait and switch, taking the mild and meek Jesus, and immediately expanding that vision to include all of religion. But this is just one view of Jesus, and it does not apply to most religions. I suspect that Jesus was about to move from evangelism to a militant phase, and was only prevented from taking up arms by his death. Mohammed made this transition when going from Mecca to Medina, and survived to wage war in the name of his faith. The pacifism of Christianity probably owes more to Jesus' early death than anything else--and the best part of Christianity is that it incorporated Hellenistic elements early on, via Paul, the Gospel of John, and Augustine. This left Christianity open to the Greek tradition, and allowed Christian philosophers to dig themselves out of irrationalism by appealing to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. So McGrath's appeal to the pacifist figure of Christ relies on an accident, and the best part of Christianity probably had nothing to do with Christ himself.

20. World's most prominent atheist takes on the Biblical God (and other topics)

Comment #40192 by Elentar on May 13, 2007 at 6:18 pm

Voltaire's last words on religion are a lot more entertaining. A priest burst in and said "Have you renounced Satan and all his works?" Voltaire answered "My good man, now is not the time to be making enemies."

21. The Courtier's Reply

Comment #14985 by Elentar on December 27, 2006 at 8:41 pm

Excellent! Now, I hope that some of the people in the forums will notice this and stop complaining that I don't understand their theology. I do understand their theology; I just don't care. I've run into more versions of the Courtier's Reply on the forums here than you can imagine--and they just can't seem to grasp what's wrong with their argument.