tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11875722891518367312024-03-13T12:58:26.497-04:00The Imaginary PhilosophyReligion: an imagined explanation of reality and life, accepted as true.
Stelene's First Law of the Supernatural: One finds, the more and more one examines the supernatural, the less and less there is to the supernatural.Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.comBlogger24125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-39602747349855777672010-06-23T17:49:00.002-04:002010-06-23T18:06:07.311-04:00A Question About AgnosticismAn <a href="http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/agnosticism.html">agnostic</a> about the existence of God says that he cannot know whether or not there is a God, so it is sensible to withhold judgment on the question. Assuming one is agnostic regarding God, yet does not believe that entities like space aliens, ghosts, leprechauns, fairies, etc., exist, then the question arises of why disbelieve in the latter and not the former? If the agnostic answer is that space aliens et al are clearly man-made fictions, then well and good. (Putting aside for argument's sake that examining the origins of religion also show it as a similar man-made fiction) I wonder if there is another factor at work in not disbelieving in God.<br />
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Note that space aliens, ghosts, leprechauns, fairies, and the like are of little importance to men. They interfere in our affairs for good or bad, but only to a limited extent. Not so God. God made the world, gives to life morals and meaning, and provides an afterlife for us. Unlike the leprechaun and his counterparts, God is of utmost importance to men. God, if real, is fundamental to the universe and our lives. <br />
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Is the agnostic's hesitance to disbelieve in God due to the fundamental importance attached to God?<br />
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God's importance is of a <em>philosophical</em> nature. To disbelieve in leprechauns is to - at no great cost - exclude them as a reason for one's good or bad luck or just as a curious creature from one's understanding of reality. Is the philosophical importance attached to God an impediment to disbelief for an agnostic who does not believe there are leprechauns? The existence of leprechauns is intellectually easy to dismiss. Perhaps for some the existence of God is not so intellectually easy to dismiss solely because fundamental intellectual matters are by definition attached to His existence and with that comes the unpleasant realization that <em>these important matters would be dismissed with Him</em> - which is nihilism; but not being nihilists, they settle on agnosticism. In other words, the <em>importance</em> of an alleged supernatural being is related to withholding disbelief in it. "Afterall, God is important, so <em>maybe</em> He exists." Is it rational to hold that one unimportant supernatural being does not exist but an important one may or may not exist? <br />
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I raise this question because I often sense this is implicitly in what agnostics argue. Then again, maybe it is just me reading too much into their positions. I don't know. <br />
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If one is agnostically stopping short of disbelief in God as a result of this supernatural being's importance, here is a thought experiment that might clarify. Imagine a leprechaun, not as a mere mischevious and secretive magical creature, but instead imagine the leprechaun is the creator of the universe, giver of life and morals. Then the leprechaun becomes God. <br />
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Is withholding judgment on the existence of <em>that</em> God rational? Hardly. Same for any God, goblin, or ghost. The point is, the importance or non-importance to mankind of any supernatural beings <em>is not important</em> in reasoning to the conclusion that there are no such beings.Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-71095289156270396112010-04-20T11:09:00.004-04:002010-06-06T12:47:32.727-04:00Newest Old Book Round UpSpring is here and that means library book sales begin! This is an important part in giving oneself a good education! You can study what you want; you can discover forgotten, excellent scholarship of decades ago; and a few bucks go a long way. Library sales are a lot of fun because I never know what I'll find among the boxes and boxes of donated, used, out-of-print books that sell for dirt cheap. Well, that used to be so. Lately, however, I've acquired so many books this way that I can no longer leave a sale with boxes or bags full of books and instead I leave with just a few or, rarely, only an armful at most. This is for two reasons. First, I have pretty much got enough good books on subjects that interest me that I really do not need a whole lot more any time soon. Second, many books at any sale are - ones I already have! There's no more for me to get! Wow! <br />
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Some of the best finds for me are books by those I consider philosophical opponents. It's important to know what statists, religionists and others believe and are up to. The best way is to get their writings, especially the ones out of print. There are a lot of these philosophical opponents and they wrote a lot of books - and I'm collecting them! Those books have had their impact on their time which in turn influenced what is happening today and what will happen in the future. They are worth knowing about in understanding the battle of ideas going on.<br />
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Here is what I acquired from a library sale this weekend. I thought I will share my finds in case anybody might be interested in any of them.<br />
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On religion: <br />
<strong>Religion In America: An historical account of the development of American religious life</strong> (2nd ed.) by Winthrop S. Hudson (1973). This 400+ page book starts with the Puritans and ends with black theology. That's hardly what I would call progress. Anyway, I expect it should be good. <br />
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Also I obtained Vol. 3 of Mircea Eliade's <strong>A</strong> <strong>History of Religious Ideas</strong> (1985). This volume is "From Muhammad to the Age of Reforms" and I suspect this might be a textbook, but it looks like good overview of the subject matter. Old textbooks tend to be of better scholarly quality than today's, I believe. <br />
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On philosophy:<br />
I found one book on philosophy that looks very insightful, Nicolas Berdyaev's <strong>The Origin of Russian Communism</strong>. This is a 1966 edition, the original published in 1937. It is a short book, but the chapter titles look like it should be an interesting read. Some chapters are "The Russian idea of religion and the Russian state", "Russian socialism and nihilism", "Russian 19th century literature and its predictions", and "Communism and Christianity." I intend to read this soon and I would not be surprised if it is worth reviewing. <br />
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In history: <br />
<strong>A History of the Weimar Republic Vol. 2: From the Lacarno Conference to Hitler's Seizure of Power</strong> by Erich Eyeck (1967). I do not know much about Weimar Germany but I know enough about it to understand that there are important lessons to be learned from it. From the blurbs on the back cover I gather that Eyck was an expert authority on the subject and his book is first-rate. If so, I have to track down a copy of Volume 1.<br />
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<strong>The Movement: A History of the American New Left, 1959-1972</strong> by Irwin Unger (1974). I knew I found a dandy when I saw that title! I am reading it now and it is very informative and revealing. This one will be in my next book review. <br />
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Turning to what is a more positive subject compared with religionists, communists, and New Leftists is Peter Gay's <strong>Voltaire's Politics: The Poet as Realist</strong> (1965). I read Gay's excellent two volume <strong>The Enlightenment: An Interpretation</strong> so I knew had to grab this. This is a history of Voltaire's political and social thinking, not presented merely in itself, but how his experiences and events shaped it. I expect I'll be enjoying and learning a lot from this book when I get to it.<br />
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Economics:<br />
John K. Galbraith's<strong> The New Industrial State</strong> (1967). I know that Galbraith is a "big name" in economics and this is an important book. Being a free-marketeer I am not likely to agree with this book, but I am curious about what Galbraith's ideas were and what their impact was.<br />
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Lastly, environmentalism: <br />
<strong>The Ages of Gaia : A Biography of Our Living Earth</strong> by James Lovelock (1988). I think to be in a frame of mind suitable to reading a biography of the organism that we are parasites on Gaia, a.k.a. "the earth" I should first consume ample quantities of Killian's Red. Good thing this book is on the short side! <br />
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So those are my library's new additions. <br />
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And come to think of it, it is just as well that I am not buying as many books as I used to. My book cases are way overcrowded!Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-38760736530572315362010-04-02T00:44:00.006-04:002010-04-02T00:58:18.625-04:00Davenport, Iowa: How Not to Eliminate ChristianityI am an atheist and I find this outrageous. <br />
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A so-called "Civil Rights Commission" of Davenport, Iowa <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/iowa-town-renames-good-friday/story?id=10233061">recommended that Good Friday should be renamed "Spring Holiday"</a> and City Administrator Craig Malin made the change official. Malin bypassed city council approval which is necessary for such a change. There was uproar from residents and the city council did not take lightly to being bypassed so it undid the name change. <br />
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<blockquote><em>The Civil Rights Commission said it recommended changing the name to better reflect the city's diversity and maintain a separation of church and state when it came to official municipal holidays. </em></blockquote><blockquote><em>"We merely made a recommendation that the name be changed to something other than Good Friday," said Tim Hart, the commission's chairman. "Our Constitution calls for separation of church and state. Davenport touts itself as a diverse city and given all the different types of religious and ethnic backgrounds we represent, we suggested the change."</em></blockquote><blockquote><blockquote><em>********************* </em></blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><em>Hart said the commission had no plans to change the name of Easter Sunday, because it fell on a weekend and government offices were already closed. The commission, he said, discussed changing Christmas, but decided enough other religions celebrate Christmas too. Hart, however, could not name one.</em></blockquote>The Constitution does not call for church-state separation, as valid and important a principle as that is. It is consistent with the Constitution and certainly implicit. This politically correct "Civil Rights Commission" of leftist thought-police is part of the state - so what is it doing interfering in religion by renaming a religious holiday for its own political agenda of “reflecting the city‘s diversity”? Is that church-state separation, Mr. Hart? Merely recognizing what Christians call their holiday is not state support of their religion. <br />
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The Civil Rights Commission’s attempted name change is simply a thinly-disguised means to smuggle in their meaning to someone else's holiday, which is ironic because that is what Christians have done. When Christianity was the official religion of the Roman Empire the pagan holidays were forbidden but when the pagans persisted in celebrating Saturnalia the religious authorities renamed it “Christmas” and changed its meaning to suit themselves. What the Davenport Civil Rights Commission did is essentially the same thing. <br />
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Imagine if this commission tried renaming a Muslim holiday with a similar justification! Of course, they would not dare think that, but according to their own logic, why not? Why just single out Christianity? How does eliminating the name of this - and only this - Christian holiday reflect diversity? “Spring Holiday” reflects nothing because it is a term so vague it is meaningless. Davenport is "diverse." So what? Given that we should be color-blind, well then who cares? What does “diversity” accomplish - other than providing self-important leftist busy-bodies with a justification to pat themselves on their backs? <br />
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They considered renaming Christmas but because other religions celebrate it, they did not? <br />
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That is an early April Fool’s joke, right Mr. Hart? <br />
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The absurdity of that statement aside, Hart is saying that “diversity” means multiple religions celebrating the same holiday; one religion having an exclusive holiday is not “diversity.” Furthermore, if, for argument’s sake, it is true that “enough other religions celebrate Christmas too,” the church-state separation Hart is so concerned with that justified changing “Good Friday” to “Spring Holiday” is suddenly irrelevant! Why?<br />
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The thinly hidden agenda of these PC leftists is to stamp out Christianity. Trying to end Christianity is fine - but not through the deception of acting like that is not the goal, using improper means to do so, and when caught, offering pathetically lame excuses by donning a self-righteous "tolerance" facade. If Hart and his counterparts were held to their own standards they would be sent to "Christianity-sensitivity training." <br />
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Notice how these leftists have no substantive argument that justifies what they did. What Hart said is foolishness. Christianity should be ended, but that means through successfully arguing against it with reason and intellectual honesty. People in their own minds need to be rationally convinced that it is false and harmful and therefore to be abandoned, as other superstitions have been refuted and abandoned. <br />
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Secularists like Hart are clearly intellectually impotent and dishonest if this is all they can resort to against Christianity - a religion as irrational as any, if not more so. It is precisely people like him using this sort of tactic against religion that gives secularism a bad name. <br />
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On a final note:<br />
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<div><blockquote><em>City employees, beginning with local police, feared the name change would violate their union contracts with the city, which specifies Good Friday as an official municipal holiday. Employees that work city holidays are paid time and a half.</em></blockquote>I have long said that Christianity is only good for curse words and paid holidays. <br />
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</div><div></div><div>Enjoy your day if off today - goddammit! <br />
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</div><div></div><div></div>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-62499868212868002812009-06-04T14:32:00.005-04:002010-01-03T13:40:02.895-05:00Theologians from Space<span style="font-family:arial;">From </span><a href="http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage/news/ufos/2462720/Twenty-UFOs-fly-in-formation.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">this story</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> about the flight of a group of objects that are unidentified is an insightful tidbit of how alike are those who believe in the sci-fi paranormal with those who believe in God:<br /><br /><em>The eerie extra-terrestrial crafts were hovering in the night sky over the town moving in different directions before eventually shooting straight up into the atmosphere. </em><br /><em>**********</em><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Phil Hoyle, from UK-based UFO Investigation Unit, said <strong>the way the UFOs had moved</strong> <strong>indicated a form of intelligence</strong>.<br />He said: "If these objects were circling one another you would have to rule out that they were fireworks.<br />"If they were dodging and darting around each other <strong>it would indicate intelligent movement</strong>."</em><br /><br />So not only does the "intelligent design" argument work to offer proof of God's existence, it offers proof of... space aliens! How scientific! (Nevermind that objects darting around each other could be caused by non-intelligent movement.)<br /><br />Actually, a 'space alien' use of the I.D. argument would be a pretty good <em>reductio ad absurdum</em> of the Christian position - problem is, the "UFOlogists" applied it to their "field"!<br /><br />Then again, this should not be surprising. That a religious believer can look at the universe and take the identity and cause-effect that inheres in it as proof that it is a "design" which implies an "intelligent designer" of a supernatural nature, and that someone like Mr. Hoyle can see unidentified lights moving in the night sky and can assert their movement is "intelligent," eloquently demonstrates how similar these two mentalities are. Neither has independent proof of their various "intelligent designers." Both argue for their "intelligent designers" from ignorance - they do not know how to explain the phenomena they are concerned with so they posit other-worldly "intelligent designers" as the answer. Both concoct untestable but impressive-sounding rationalizations to believe what they want to believe.<br /><br />If Mr. Hoyle was alive before men developed knowledge to build fuel-propelled, electronically-lighted aircraft and saw objects in the night sky (like some natural phenomena appears in our day and then gets reported as "UFO's") would he say, "They are angels, proof of God!"?<br /><br />Most probably.</span><span style="font-family:trebuchet ms;"> </span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-26940005262912574852009-04-06T23:47:00.003-04:002009-04-08T22:28:03.107-04:00The Audacity of Independence<span style="font-family:arial;">My other philosophical and intellectual interests are about defending individualism and freedom from some of the more noxious forms of altruist-collectivist-statism, which in many ways are just secular offshoots of religion. Now with this administration and congress individualism, freedom, and the Constitution are endangered as never before by the collectivists. We've got our work cut out defending them, so to that end I've just started another blog, </span><a href="http://kafirtom.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family:arial;">The Audacity of Independence</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. Check it out.</span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-1239710574450864982009-03-25T20:58:00.025-04:002009-04-26T11:10:04.998-04:00Old, Obscure, Great Books: Review No. 2<span style="font-family:arial;">Here is a brief review of an old, out-of-print book by a scholar of long ago, just one of many, many great, old books I have acquired that do not deserve to be forgotten. I started these reviews because I am sure there are other bibliophiles out there who can enjoy learning from them as much as I have.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I believe that the inexpensive old books I have discovered in used book stores and library sales are, in both the subject matter itself and in how it is presented, superior to what scholars and intellectuals publish today. Old books offer a dirt cheap way to give oneself a great education. I have learned from old books so much important material that, if I read only newer books, I would hardly be aware of, if at all; material that is essential to a good education.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">For instance, it was mainly not through my formal education, but through my self-education that I came to see how history is often distorted and misrepresented by people and groups who have certain social/cultural/political agendas, such as Christians responding to the new rise of atheism by claiming that atheism leads to totalitarianism and mass-slaughter as in Soviet Russia. Well, here is one book that thoroughly and comprehensively looks at Russia's path to communism - and it is a history that does not quite corroborate what the Christians like to assert about the matter.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>Road to Revolution: A Century of Russian Radicalism,</em> by Avrahm Yarmolinsky; Collier Books, 1971; 349 pp.</strong> </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />The road to Lenin’s communist Russia of 1917 actually began in 1790 when Alexander Radischev’s book, <em>A Journey from Petersburg to Moscow</em>, was published. “While informed with the spirit of Western Enlightenment, the book [A Journey] is deeply rooted in the native soil. Never before had the seamy side of Russian life been so boldly exposed” including “that the gaudy façade of Catherine’s rule conceals a corrupt and cruelly oppressive regime” (13).</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Radischev was an official in the Russian government. As a teenager he was sent to Germany to study and he eagerly absorbed the ideas of the Enlightenment‘s thinkers, especially the French <em>philosophes</em>. Radischev, though part of the nobility, was an egalitarian democrat who wanted the serfs emancipated and he saw industrialism as evil. He believed it was for the future generations to make his vision of Russia a reality.<br /><br />It is not known why the official censor let the book slip by and be published but the consequences of his neglect were tremendous and far-reaching for his country. Radischev was sentenced to Siberia but the ideas of revolution were planted.<br /><br />The explosive nature of Radischev’s book is evident by seeing the historical setting it was in, which was that of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution. In Russia, Catherine II “opened schools, encouraged book publishing, sponsored a periodical press, though only as long as the satire in which it indulged remained innocuous. A peasant uprising at home and the turn events were taking in France helped put an end to her flirtation with liberalism. The regime which started out as enlightened despotism ended as despotism <em>tout court</em>. But she could not wholly undo, what was, in part, the work of her own hands“ (18-19). After the French king was executed Catherine wanted everything French “exterminated.”<br /><br />Western liberal ideas were penetrating Russia, especially in its army after the war with Napoleon. Yarmolinsky tells how in 1820 that “the French ambassador wrote that he could not think without horror of what would happen to Europe if forty million Russians, still half savage and brutalized by slavery, conceived a desire for freedom and proceeded to shake off their chains. True, the dangerous notion hadn’t yet entered the heads of the lower orders, but it was already inflaming the well-born” (31).<br /><br />Secret societies began forming, mostly of military officers. These societies were born of disapproval with sundry political and military matters and were the forerunners of the later communist/anarchist terrorist and revolutionary groups.<br /><br />A group of insurgent army officers who planned to overthrow the czar in December, 1825 (the “Decembrists“) composed a tract called <em>The Orthodox Catechism</em>. The text is vaguely reminiscent of America’s Declaration of Independence but is heavily religious and collectivist. In it all Russia’s misfortunes are attributed to its government so the authors call for the formation of a republic because that is the form of government consistent with divine law. They assert that Jesus Christ must reign on earth as he does in Heaven; and the death of the czar is a sign from God for the Russians to free themselves from their slavery. The establishing of a new government is the army’s responsibility.<br /><br />At the same time, among the Russian intellectuals two schools of thought about Russia’s direction developed, the Westernists and the Slavophiles.<br /><br />The Westernists thought that Russia would progress similarly as the Western Europeans had. They strongly favored institutional reform as a means of progress. Vissarion Belinsky was the most prominent of them. He called the Orthodox Church a “toady to despotism” that was “foreign to Christ, who was the first to teach mankind the principles of liberty, equality, and fraternity” (72). </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />The Slavophiles “were romantic doctrinaires who found in German philosophy sanction for their distrust of the intellect, their religiosity, their traditionalism. They believed that Russia possessed a culture distinct from and superior to that of the West” (69). They were populists in claiming that the Russian peasantry embodied the Orthodox faith and its sense of equality and brotherhood. Slavophiles held the lofty conviction that Russia could achieve no less than her own and the world’s salvation.<br /><br />Alexander Herzen, who was prominent among the revolutionaries’ thinkers, was in the Westernist camp, envisaged a secular Armageddon in Europe that would bring in a new socialist society consisting of a centralized state, order (instead of freedom), and collectivism.<br /><br />Nikolay Chernyshevsky was also one of the most important thinkers among the revolutionaries. He advocated enlightened self-interest, which meant identifying one’s happiness with the happiness of all. Man is the plaything of circumstances so his society is morally responsible for what he becomes. He also loathed laissez-faire and wanted to see the people living in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phalanstery">phalansteries</a> similar to those dreamt of by Fourier. After the publication in 1863 of Chernyshevsky’s fictional story, <em>What’s to be Done?,</em> about the heroically selfless “new men” of the future communism, his influence on radicals and revolutionaries - including on Lenin and the Bolsheviks in the next century - became tremendous.<br /><br />Of the many terrorist groups in <strong>Road to Revolution</strong>, one was especially fanatical: “Half a dozen of the more audacious spirits discussed at length a plan for forming a terrorist band. They called it Hell. Each member of this secrecy-shrouded body was to be a dedicated and doomed man. He had to give up his friends, his family, his personal life, his very name” (137). </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Dmitry Karakozov was a youth who was considered for the group and was fascinated by the possibility of daring action and self-immolation. “The cause of the common people was his ruling passion” (138). He tried to assassinate the czar but his pistol shot missed. This episode ended in much delicious irony.<br /><br />That the czar’s life was saved was taken as proof of divine favor falling on him and the Russian people believed Karakozov was an angry serf-owner seeking revenge. Even a joint resolution in the U.S. Congress congratulating the czar for surviving the assassination attempt condemned his would-be assassin as an “enemy of emancipation.” Karakozov’s comrades were arrested and while in jail he vainly wrote to the czar pleading for his life to be spared. “On 3 September, two days after the verdict had been pronounced, Karakozov was hanged by one of the peasant’s for whom he wished to lay down his life” (141).<br /><br />Like many of the early groups of Russian terrorists and revolutionaries, the Karakozov episode shows how they were often amateurishly inept to the point of hilarity. Often they were more dangerous to themselves than to their intended targets, and their many attempts to “rouse the masses” to revolt simply fell flat.<br /><br />Yarmolinsky’s history of Russian radicalism ends in the 1890’s with the emergence of the major Marxist political parties.<br /><br />Of nearly all the Russian revolutionaries, from the intellectuals down to the terrorists, three characteristics of them are salient.<br /><br />First is how they saw their revolution in religious terms.<br /><br />A few brief but very interesting examples from the book are representative of the communist revolutionaries' religious mentalities. In the early 1830’s when they were university students, Alexander Herzen and Nikolay Ogarev were seduced by the ideas of French socialist thinkers Saint-Simon and Fourier (whose socialist ideas were inspired by and meant to replace Christianity). They swore on the Bible “to dedicate their lives to the people and the cause of liberty ‘upon the basis of socialism‘” by forming a secret society (67). There was Vera Figner with her “ideal of the prophets and martyrs of the socialist evangel” (180). Michael Bakunin’s followers held “a dream of freedom and equality on earth which was a substitute for a lost faith in heaven” (184). In the 1870’s were one group of revolutionary propagandists who pored over the <em>New Testament</em> and “dreamed of a new faith that would at once steel the intellectuals with fresh courage and enlist the religious sentiment of the masses on the side of revolution.” They believed “a revolutionary was most effective when he <em>suffered</em> for the cause“(187). Yarmolinsky quotes one terrorist after an assassination: “Let my blood, too, be the seed of Socialism, just as the blood of the early martyrs was the seed of the Christian Church” (257).<br /><br />Secondly, just like contemporary terrorists they were fanatical nihilists who reveled in death, destruction, and martyrdom. For instance one revolutionary pamphlet stated, “We must devote ourselves wholly to destruction, constant, ceaseless, relentless, until there is nothing left of existing institutions.” And here is another especially evil quote from the terrorists’ literature: “We prize thought only in so far as it can serve the great cause of radical and ubiquitous destruction” (152). Then there is Sergey Nechayev’s infamous, <em>The Catechism of the Revolutionary</em>, which describes the revolutionary as a “doomed man” who has, literally, only one interest: revolution, so he can “destroy this vile order.” Some of this rhetoric, also like statements of terrorists since then, is undoubtedly hyperbolic bravado and propaganda - but it expresses some amount of profoundly held conviction, nonetheless.<br /><br />Thirdly, they were <a href="http://aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/secondhanders.html">second-handers</a>, some of them abjectly so. Nechayev was a basket-case of second-handedness.<br /><br />In order to be seen as a hero by his comrades he faked his imprisonment, faked his escape from his faked imprisonment, and even faked being killed by the police. “His ascetic habits - he lived on bread and milk, and slept on bare boards, at least while staying at the homes of his followers - could not but make an impression. Those he did not fascinate he ruled by fear…He arrogated to himself the right to destroy those who did not see eye to eye with him” (157).<br /><br />One cell member was disobedient to Nechayev and doubted the existence of a mysterious, secret “Central Committee” Nechayev claimed he attended and would then give them orders from (he was, indeed, its only member). Nechayev and three other cell members murdered him. “For years the cry to kill the people’s enemies had repeatedly been raised by the handful of would-be liberators. The only victim turned out to be one of their own small number who had aroused the leader’s hostility” (159).<br /><br />Nechayev was eventually arrested and was to be sentenced to Siberia, but his pseudo-heroics only made things worse for himself. During his sentencing he shouted, “Down with the Czar!” and “Long live the free Russian people!” and similar insults to the authorities. “As a result, the Emperor changed the court sentence to solitary incarceration for life in the Fortress of Peter and Paul” (165).<br /><br /><strong>Road to Revolution</strong> is a very interesting, informative, and readable book on the Russian revolutionaries before Lenin, from their intellectual theories and religious inspirations to their bloody actions. For anyone wanting to learn about this subject, Yarmolinsky’s book is required reading. More important, considering how often Christians attempt to tie atheism, rationality, and secularism to the totalitarian bloodbath of communism, Yarmolinsky’s book is an effective (although unintended by him) debunking of that assertion. Russian communism and its horrors were, to a very large extent, clearly consequences of irrationalism and secularizing the Christian religion.<br /><br /><a href="http://tomstelene.blogspot.com/2009/01/old-obscure-great-books-review-no-1.html">Old, Obscure, Great Books: Review No. 1</a> </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-17796696636983226972009-03-11T22:17:00.029-04:002009-04-26T11:33:38.265-04:00"Jesus, Interrupted", Reviewed<span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them)</em></strong>, by Bart D. Ehrman; Harper One; 2009; 292 pp.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In any legitimate field of human study, be it physics of the material world or psychology of the mind’s world, there is something as a subject of study that can be pointed to, so to say, that is independent of the person studying it. Even if a physicist’s, or psychologist’s, or economist’s, or philosopher’s theory or idea is dead wrong there is at least something in reality we all (at least in principle, if not in actual practice) can experience, have access to, observe for ourselves, be aware of perceptually or conceptually, directly or indirectly. If so, we can see how his theory or idea is dead wrong and therefore, correct it. For example, anyone can, in principle, look to economic reality and see how the economics of Karl Marx were dead wrong. The subject matter is there to be seen and understood - or even misunderstood again, but <em>it is there and independent of the mind</em>. It is no profound observation to state that men will always find more to learn about the subject matter of physics, economics, psychology, etc. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />There is one subject of a long and tremendous amount of “studying” to which, the above, however, does not apply. That is religion.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Go to the origins of any religion or religious concept and what one will find is the historical and cultural context of the person(s) who originated that particular religious idea. One can certainly see how it satisfied their specific religious, political, or cultural need, question, or concern of that time in that place - but of the actual religious (i.e., supernatural) being, entity, process, etc., one will find utterly and absolutely nothing in reality that the mind can be connected to or be aware of perceptually or conceptually, directly or indirectly. Nothing. One can see that it was an arbitrary assertion pulled out of thin air by the originator of some god, messiah, other-worldly realm, revelation, or whatever because it suited some need. That’s it; find an exception to this in religion’s long history. Instead of finding any subject matter that is external to the mind and in principle accessible by others there is in religion a pathetic and shabby substitute: those others who believe and act as if the religious concept is a proven fact. Their “authority” said so, so it is true. That does not place us any closer in reality to the actual subject matter of any religious idea. It only places us that many minds removed from the mind that religious idea originated in. The subject matter of religion is based solely on someone’s say-so, not anything in reality independent of his say-so.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I learned this based on much studying of religion. At first religion may be seen as having a formidable appearance to penetrate that maybe, at bottom, has something to it somehow. Afterall it has existed for so long with so many adherents and defenders. There is so much of religion all around us with so much built upon it including entire civilizations, and yet eventually I found how arbitrarily man-made it is. Religion, however dominant and far-reaching it may be, ultimately, rests on nothing in reality apart from beliefs in the minds of men. That is the nature of the subject matter of religious beliefs - they are beliefs that are not legitimately derived from reality but are applied to reality. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This taught me a principle that I have come to consider a universal “law,” which is that <em><span style="color:#3333ff;">one will find, the more and more one studies religion, the less and less there is to religion</span></em>. Perhaps we should call this “The First Law of Religion.”<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The eminent biblical scholar, Bart Ehrman, has an interesting and revealing new book, <strong><em>Jesus, Interrupted: Revealing the Hidden Contradictions in the Bible (And Why We Don’t Know About Them)</em></strong> - and it substantially backs up the First Law of Religion.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><strong><em>Jesus, Interrupted</em></strong> is about Jesus, the New Testament, and the development of Christianity. What is in the book, Ehrman states, is actually nothing new - to scholars, or those who have attended a seminary, that is. There is, though, plenty in the book that would be new to the man “on the street and in the pew,” like that the Bible actually contains forgeries and most of the New Testament authors are really unknown, and that Jesus saw himself as a Jewish apocalyptic prophet, not as God’s offspring, and plenty more like that - facts that challenge the version of Christianity most people accept. Ehrman’s thesis is that the Bible is a very human book and the Christianity we have inherited is very human-made. Prof. Ehrman, who was an evangelical Christian who turned agnostic, does not, however, intend to attack the Christian faith as such. He does intend to “let the cat out of the bag” as he puts it, about what scholars, theologians, and pastors have known for two or three centuries about the Bible and early Christian history but have kept from the public for whatever reasons. What Ehrman does is show the layman how to look at the Bible from the “historic-critical” approach apart from the usual “devotional” approach and explain what scholars using the historic-critical approach have learned about the Bible.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The way to find the contradictions, discrepancies, and other problems in the Bible is to use “horizontal” reading, which Ehrman distinguishes from “vertical reading.” Vertical reading means to start reading the gospels with Matthew, reading it from beginning to end, then on to the next gospel from beginning to end, and so on. Read that way they pretty much seem alike. “In a horizontal reading you read a story in one of the gospels, and then read the same story as told by another gospel, as if they were written in columns next to each other. And you compare the stories carefully, in detail. Reading the Gospels horizontally reveals all sorts of differences and discrepancies” (21). Horizontal reading clearly shows the discrepancies between the four gospels on the matters of Jesus’ birth, his ministry, what he taught, his death, etc. that a vertical reading might overlook.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In the first third of the book Ehrman goes over the inconsistencies on the more important matters in the four gospels and Paul's writings. From this the overall lesson is that “each author of the bible needs to be allowed to have his own say, since in many instances what one author has to say on a subject is not what another says. Sometimes the differences are a matter of stress and emphasis; sometimes they are discrepancies in different narratives or between different writers’ thoughts; and sometimes these discrepancies are quite large, affecting not only the small details of the text but the very big issues that these authors were addressing” (99).The contradictions are much to an atheist’s delight and even amusement, so I shall not divulge the details here like a “spoiler.” The point is, the material is all pretty shocking and is great intellectual ammo to use against Christians - right out of their own book!<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ehrman draws three conclusions from the horizontal reading of the gospels and Paul’s letters. The first is the belief in biblical inerrancy is simply not true. Secondly, the reader should “let each author speak for himself and not pretend that he is saying the same thing as another”(60). Thirdly, that there are discrepancies means that we “can’t read these books as disinterested historical accounts. None of them is that”(60).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ehrman moves on to biblical authorship, a subject that will be very surprising to many. “Though it is evidently not the sort of thing pastors normally tell their congregations, for over a century there has been a broad consensus among scholars that many of the books of the New Testament were not written by the people whose names are attached to them. So if that is the case, who <em>did</em> write them?” (102)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Most New Testament books fall into three groups. Misattributed writings is the first group, which includes the four gospels. They were actually written anonymously. Then there are homonymous writings. These have the same name on them as someone famous, but are not written by that famous person. The book of James was written by someone named James, but not James, the brother of Jesus, as the church fathers assumed. Lastly are the pseudepigraphic writings which are forgeries written under someone else’s name, like many of the letters attributed to Paul. They were written by later followers using his name and thus giving his authority to their writings.<br /><br />After spending a fascinating chapter on who did and did not write the New Testament texts, Ehrman moves on to the center of it all, Jesus. This is even more fascinating and revealing. A careful analysis of what the biblical authors say about Jesus placed in the context of history at that time brings conclusions as convincing as they are startling; and that are quite different from how Christians now view Jesus. Again, this is so good that I do not want to spoil this chapter for any readers so I will only pull this quote from the chapter: “For over a century now… the majority of scholars in Europe and North America have understood Jesus as a Jewish apocalyptic prophet”(156). Based on the evidence they do not believe that Jesus saw himself as the son of God, but merely another prophet. Like Ehrman said, he’s letting the cat out of the bag - and it is one big cat.<br /><br />The next cat to leap out of the bag is how the New Testament canon was formed. "The problem in the development in the canon of scripture was that each and every one of the competitive groups of Christians - each of them insisting they were right, each trying to win converts - had sacred books that authorized their points of view. And most of these books claimed to be written by apostles. Who was right? The canon that emerged from these debates represented the books favored by the group that ended up winning. It did not happen overnight. In fact, it took centuries”(191).<br /><br />Ehrman surveys some of the major Christian sects and how they differed and argued with each other, and as the centuries went by the Christianity that finally won out was far removed from the original Christian beliefs. “The group that won out did not represent the teachings of Jesus or of his apostles. For example, none of the apostles claimed that Jesus was ‘fully God and fully man‘… as the fourth-century Nicene Creed maintained”(215).<br /><br />Ehrman concludes the book by considering the question of how biblical scholarship may impact a believer’s faith. It is an interesting chapter and Ehrman explains the role it played in his loss of faith, which was important but not decisive. He does not see his book with its historic-critical approach as an attack on Christianity - nor he says, do many Christians. Instead, what biblical scholars have learned has given some Christians a better historical understanding of their religion. As impressed as I am with Ehrman’s knowledge and analysis of early Christianity I find that I cannot agree much with him philosophically. That Christians, be they biblical scholars (most are Christian) or their students, can retain their faith anyhow in light of what biblical criticism has revealed only demonstrates what faith really means: holding a belief despite lack of evidence and contrary to reason.</span> <span style="font-family:arial;">Ehrman's book and others like it are, by their nature, regardless of their intent, overwhelming attacks on Christianity simply by virtue of reporting and explaining the facts and realities that Christian beliefs fly in the face of. If I were a Christian, learning what is in books like <strong><em>Jesus, Interrupted</em></strong> would end my faith. For me they would be painfully clear in explaining how man-made religion is.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Examining the Bible and early Christianity like any other area of study as done in <strong><em>Jesus, Interrupted</em></strong> shows us, as Ehrman intends to show us, they are very man-made. We have this holy book that has been of foremost importance in Western civilization, yet the original texts that comprise it are lost, the surviving texts are copies that are from centuries later and are all different; also there is the problem of forgeries and later additions and omissions to the biblical texts; much of the history in it is inaccurate; and beliefs about God, Jesus, heaven and hell, etc., are known to be very man-made. Ehrman does a great job of explaining all that and more. <strong><em>Jesus, Interrupted</em></strong> offers one a thorough look into the origins and history of the most significant Christian beliefs - and the bottom line is there is not much there, just the say-so of the religion’s originators. </span><span style="font-family:arial;">"The Bible is not a unity, it is a massive plurality. God did not write the Bible, people did“(279).</span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com14tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-84736810991744509482009-03-08T18:07:00.002-04:002009-03-08T18:09:43.565-04:00Pawlenty: Gov't Is Not Protected from People of Faith<span style="font-family:arial;">In <a href="http://www.onenewsnow.com/Politics/Default.aspx?id=432132">this</a> brief story, Gov. Tim Pawlenty is quoted at the Conservative Political Action Conference:<br />“<em>It all starts with acknowledging that God is our Creator and it is from God that we receive our values and principles.”Pawlenty noted that the freedom of religion protections in the U.S. Constitution were “designed to protect people of faith from government not government from people of faith.”</em><br /><br />This is troubling because, obviously, if people of faith govern according to God-given values and principles then the people being governed are subjected to and not protected from a government of faith. If government is not protected from people of faith, government is not protected from faith.<br /><br />Re-writing Pawlenty’s statement as separate sentences helps uncover what he may really mean:<br />(1) Religious protections in the Constitution were designed to protect people of faith from government.<br />(2) Religious protections in the Constitution were not designed to protect government from people of faith.<br /><br />Is Pawlenty using “protection” in the same way? We cannot tell because he does not specify the “what“ that needs and does not need the protecting from. Pawlenty, however, seems to imply in (1) that people of faith are protected from being persecuted by government for their faith. We will assume that is his meaning.<br /><br />What about (2) though? He is religious so why would he say that government does not have “protection from” people like him? Is it that they are benign to government and therefore the idea of “protection” from people of faith is not a real concern? Or, does he mean that those who want the protection of church-state separation have no constitutional ground to stand on? That is more likely the case.<br /><br />Considering that in his quoted statement Pawlenty emphasizes (2), that government is not protected from people of faith, only implies we should have government according to faith.<br /><br />Pawlenty’s statement is a sophistry that is <em>intended to imply</em> that there is no church-state separation. He will not say so explicitly for obvious reasons.<br /><br />It is both immoral and contrary to individual liberty for religious believers to use government - which is essentially coercion institutionalized - to make laws and policies that intervene in the lives of the governed which are based on “values and principles” that are “God-given,” meaning: non-demonstrable, non-provable, non-valid; in short, imaginary. In a free country under a constitution that is built on principles of political science which are derived from experience in reality, those with imaginary beliefs should keep them to themselves where politics is concerned.<br /><br />Lastly, a question for Pawlenty is, do people without faith deserve protection from a government of people of faith?<br /><br />I think I can predict the answer.</span><br /></span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-45098496984556955332009-02-11T22:27:00.004-05:002009-02-12T10:54:09.716-05:00Christianity Is Not Great, Pt. 2<span style="font-family:arial;"><em><strong>What's So Great about Christianity?</strong></em> by Dinesh D'Souza; Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; 2008; 348pp.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong>Part 1: The Future of Christianity </strong></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Ch.1 The Twilight of Atheism: The Global Triumph of Christianity</em> </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Dinesh D‘Souza begins his popular apologia by taking a big-picture view of religion and secularism that convinces him it is time to declare that “God has come back to life,” and “Nietzsche is dead“(3).<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">If true, that is not good for the future if one is secular-minded - the resurrection of God; that is; Nietzsche’s death - that is a benefit to rational secularists. And <em>that </em>should be very much to the dismay of the resurrected God.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Nonetheless, as D’Souza explains in his big-picture view, around the world religion has an active role to play in people’s lives, partly due to the failures of secularism. The “secular thesis” formulated in the early 20th century held that reason, science, progress, and modernization will lead to a more secular West and entire world. Secularization, however, is failing to meet important needs, needs which (supposedly) only religion can fulfill. Secularism is not important to the long-term big picture because its leading of civilization to inevitable progress has been shown to be untrue in many ways, from totalitarian regimes to the inner emptiness felt in people. D’Souza further shows that the future belongs to religion for reasons like religious societies having high birth rates, interest in “traditional religion” is on the rise, religions are spreading to new territory because of globalization, etc.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">D’Souza tries to separate the resurgence of religion from the rise in religious militancy. He does this by making a distinction between fundamentalism and militancy. According to some analysts, the growth of religion around the world is largely a growth of religious fundamentalism, but this is an incorrect analysis by D’Souza‘s reading. After pointing out that the term, “fundamentalism,” originally identified certain Protestant groups in America who read the Bible literally, he writes, “[f]undamentalism is a meaningless term outside this context”(4). What is described as an increase in fundamentalism is really an increase in “traditional religion.” He states, “the growth of religious militancy and the growth of religion are very different”(4).<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Anyone else notice a glaring omission on D’Souza’s part? He has no explanation why the literal reading of holy texts in other religions is not also “fundamentalism.” That is a perfectly legitimate concept that need not be confined to describing some American Protestants. So, by D’Souza’s definition, Islamic fundamentalists, for instance, do not exist after all…yet they do exist.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">D’Souza argues that secularism has been tried and its deficiencies have contributed to a global resurgence of what he calls, “traditional religion,” which he defines as “religion as it has been understood and practiced over the centuries”(5).<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;">This is not a good definition because there is, for the most, part, no monolithic way that religions has been practiced over the centuries. Some religions standstill for centuries; many change fairly often, producing offshoots that may or may not last. Nonetheless, D’Souza believes “traditional religions” - whatever that means - are growing and are going to significantly shape this century.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The convergence of religion and secularism is being best handled by oriental peoples. D’Souza seems to approve of how Asians want “Western” prosperity and technology and to also retain their traditional religions and way of life. Their slogan is “modernization without Westernization”(8).<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">That may be the goal of many in Asia but it is not that simple.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;">Prosperity and technology are not products of other-worldly mysticism and tribal tradition. Prosperity and technology are possible to minds that are reality-oriented and rational, meaning, fundamentally secular. In the 19th and early 20th centuries in Europe we find two precedents of this phenomena of countries wanting to have Western-like prosperity and technology without changing their other-worldly and tribal mindsets, deliberately rejecting in philosophical terms reason and the mind’s adherence to reality. Those countries were Germany and Russia, the two countries that supposedly embodied the worst of secularism. Asian countries along with any sympathizers in the West who call for “modernization without Westernization” would do well to learn from the examples of Germany and Russia. But that is a subject to visit later.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">“Western” is a type of culture and society, one significant aspect of it is its grounding in reality-oriented, rational thinking. That can and should be a trait of any and all cultures. Prosperity as such is not merely a cultural trait, nor is technology, like some tradition is. Prosperity and technology are the effects of deeper causes. This is a point that seems to be lost on D’Souza as much as it was lost on the Germans and Russians back then - and I do not know if it is lost on any of the Asians now. If Asians want modernization without Westernization, that is fine as long as they understand and are ready to commit themselves to being rational and reality-oriented, regardless of how that conflicts with and undermines their inherited traditions and religions - that is modernization, period. That is what their slogan actually means, whether they realize it or not. Much of what is “traditional” in a society that has not advanced itself toward a rational orientation to the world is darn well going to be lost to modernization. That is a good thing.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The major mistake D’Souza makes is failing to realize the triumph of religion in this century is no more inevitable than secularism’s triumph or decline. Long-term factors and trends cannot be discounted in predicting the future, but there is an equally important variable factor to understand as well: the human mind. Men can choose to think and live either religiously or secularly because men have free will. If men choose to abandon living by their minds, they doom themselves to the living death of religion. If they choose to live by reason they will be secular and progress will be inevitable - as long as the choice to be rational and worldly is committed to. Lack of that commitment to reason has been the problem of Western secularism.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Actually, if D’Souza’s projection of the future is right it makes the case for the importance of another Enlightenment - a new Enlightenment that learns from the first one’s mistakes - before human civilization is again swallowed up by that great obstructer of life and progress: religion; like it was in the world before the Enlightenment. Those who do not learn from history…</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Next post: <em>Ch. 2</em> <em>Survival of the Sacred: Why Religion Is Winning</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="http://tomstelene.blogspot.com/2009/02/christianity-is-not-great-pt1.html">Christianity Is Not Great, Pt. 1</a></span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-91089510698346870422009-02-07T12:59:00.008-05:002009-02-13T16:42:51.116-05:00The Christian Sick "Moral Teaching" of the Day<span style="font-family:arial;">Just a little while ago I got in my truck and because there is nothing else on the radio, turned on the local Christian AM station and heard host Chuck Bentley on his show "Moneylife" talking about the topic of suffering in the context of job loss and hard financial times. (I should point out that I missed some of the minor details in the following because I had to pay attention to traffic.) So Bentley read from the Bible a letter by Paul about the sufferings and persecutions he went through as he spread the Christian religion to others. Bentley's point was that this was important because Paul's example showed other Christians how to "suffer well" when they have to. I think, okay, fine, when times are tough one has to cope with it, perhaps to the point of finding strength within oneself one did not even know was there. What does anyone need a guy on the radio to point that out for? Well, it got better... or should I say, worse? This is religion after all.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Bentley then related a story about an older man who lost his job and the pastor went to see him. The older man said that as he lost his job he had no fear or worry because he "knew" that God was there watching him and this is part of God's plan so it will all work out in the end, or something like that. So here Bentley gets to his point: God has us suffer so we can be an example to others of how to suffer well.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Beliefs like that are imaginary rationalizations to help religious believers cope. This gives them a positive attitude, no doubt, so they can persevere. Meaning, as well, is projected on their suffering so it seems more than just a loss without reason. But more important, what does that rationalization really mean? Would one do to one's own children what God did to His "children" - make them suffer so they are good examples to their siblings of how to suffer well?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Imagine your child comes to you all distraught with a tale of how his life is suddenly turned upside-down in some way and you say to your child, "I love you and I know you are strong and can suffer well until you make things right again. By the way, I am responsible for turning your life upside-down. I did it so that you can serve an example to your brothers and the other children of how to suffer well. Be comforted by that until you make things right again."</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Should the response to that parent be heaping on him praise and love - or is it perhaps time to call social services (to say nothing of a psychotherapist)? </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">I do not think I need to articulate just how irrational and immoral that parent is. It should be pretty evident. If, however, God does that same thing it demonstrates how wise and wonderful He is and how good it is to believe in Him.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">I do not know who is more morally and psychologically depraved: a God who acts like that or Chuck Bentley who praises and worships that God.</span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-75248089790505405842009-02-04T20:48:00.007-05:002009-02-11T22:35:42.183-05:00Christianity Is Not Great, Pt.1<span style="font-family:arial;">Dinesh D’Souza is one of the most prominent intellectual defenders of religion against the new surge of outspoken atheism D’Souza’s book, <strong><em>What’s So Great about Christianity?</em></strong>, is intended to provide Christians with the knowledge and understanding to effectively answer attacks by atheists on their religion. The book’s scope is fairly broad and includes topics like “intelligent design,” religion and atheism in political theory, and defending faith as reasonable. In these topics D’Souza gives me so much to strongly disagree with that I shall write a series of posts arguing against his book, chapter by chapter.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>What's So Great about Christianity?</em></strong> by Dinesh D'Souza; Tyndale House Publishers, Inc.; 2008; 348pp.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>Preface: A Challenge to Believers - and Unbelievers</em> </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Here, D’Souza’s point is that Christians should understand and be ready to defend their faith. Many Christians are not able to do this, though they should be. “Without realizing it Christians have become postmodernists of a sort: they live by the gospel of the two truths. There is religious truth, reserved for Sundays and days of worship, and there is secular truth, which applies the rest of the time” (xiv).</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />He next points out that according to the Bible, Christians should not be of the world with its “distorted priorities,” but they have a mission to be fully engaged in it (xiv).</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">By what standard are the world’s priorities considered distorted? What distorts them? If the world’s nature is what it is, then how are priorities in it “distorted”? If the standard is something in the world, that in turn implies they can be non-distorted; or are they “distorted” according to a standard not of this world? If so, how is that that standard even known?<br /><br />People can have distorted priorities in this world and they can have non-distorted priorities. People are not infallible and can have mistaken or irrational priorities, or they can have correct, rational priorities. In time the consequences of their priorities will indicate whether they are distorted or not; and if they are, then it is up to the individual to recognize that his priorities are distorted and to figure out what to do about it. Such is life. Is D’Souza conflating these possibilities in an undifferentiated concept of the world having, by its nature, “distorted priorities”?<br /><br />The “easy” alternative, however, is taken by religionists in their expecting - or inventing - automatic, infallible, authoritative priorities in the forms of scripture, commandments, dogmas, etc., to simply obey and always believe no matter what. The real distorter of anything in the world is belief in the supernatural. Having otherworldly notions and applying them to life distorts it.<br /><br />D’Souza continues. He sees the atheists as no longer content with being tolerated (when atheists have been tolerated in America, he neglects to mention) but are now intent on “taking over the public square” and evicting Christians from it. They want to make religion disappear altogether (xv). As if Christians do not now or never had wanted to make atheism disappear!<br /><br />D'Souza writes that most people "sense there is something out there that provides a grounding and an ultimate explanation for their deepest questions, yet that something eludes them. They feel the need for a higher sense of purpose in their lives, but they are unsure where to find it." (xvi).<br /><br />Yes, Dinesh, most thinking people do need a grounding for their deepest questions and they also need a clearly defined higher purpose for their lives. That is exactly what <em><a href="http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/philosophy.html">philosophy</a></em> is supposed to do. A rational, reality-based philosophy like <a href="http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/objectivism.html">Objectivism</a> achieves that; an imaginary philosophy like the Christian religion only pretends to achieve that.<br /><br />D'Souza goes on to say that the atheists have not been adequately rebutted and his book will do that. "Their arguments have gone largely unanswered." From D'Souza they will feel "the horse kick of a vigorous traditional Christianity."<br /><br />I agree that their arguments have been unanswered. Even considering all the philosophical flaws in the arguments of the "new" atheists they can effectively attack religion, at least up to a point, because religion is, ultimately, void of intellectual substance. I will hold D'Souza to being different and actually delivering a "vigorous horse kick" to my atheism, unlike his fellow Christians. All the credit to him if he does!<br /><br />After outlining his books agenda, D'Souza then concludes the <em>preface</em> by addressing atheists and their beliefs as he sees them, but it is in a way that I think is over-generalizing: "You have been engaged in the pursuit of happiness for a fairly long time; ever wonder why you haven't found it? How long do you intend to continue this joyless search for joy? Older societies had much less and felt abundant; why do you, in the midst of plenty, continue to feel scarcity pressing down upon you" (xvii)?<br /><br />Maybe that is true of some atheists on the nihilistic left - I would not doubt that. I am sure it is certainly not true of Objectivists, who are atheists. It is not true of me as an Objectivist. D'Souza is mistaken in lumping all atheists together. "Atheism" is merely a negative concept. People can be atheists for many different reasons and have very different philosophies. One should therefore be cautious about generalizing about those who simply lack a specific belief.<br /><br />As to the old, religious societies that had less but <em>felt</em> abundance, I reply that because they <em>felt</em> something does not mean they were right or that what they "felt" was real beyond the feeling. Of course, what he is hinting at is "feeling" the Holy Spirit or some such otherworldly being. I do not know, but I will bet that D'Souza - and this goes for many religious believers - cannot even conceive how an atheist can legitimately and genuinely "feel" an "inner abundance" (to use his terms). Here is a very sad consequence of holding a <a href="http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/soulbodydichotomy.html">mind-body dichotomy</a>. Such religious pre-conceptions are why that kind of an atheist is unthinkable, even <em>undiscoverable</em>, by their minds. (Then again, maybe not. Some Christians are discovering, after the initial conceptual shock, that one can be an atheist and actually be moral!)<br /><br />So, in sum, the agenda for <strong><em>What's So Great about Christianity?</em></strong> is to educate and motivate the believers to challenge the atheists.<br /><br /><a href="http://tomstelene.blogspot.com/2009/02/christianity-is-not-great-pt-2.html">Christianity Is Not Great, Pt. 2</a></span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-24145692015580341492009-02-02T19:14:00.002-05:002009-02-02T19:29:03.635-05:00"Fairly Distributing Pain" - Human Flourishing According to Christianity<span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>The purpose of morality is to teach you, not to suffer and die, but to enjoy yourself and live.</em> -Ayn Rand</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Surreal - and absurd - describes this <strong><span style="font-family:arial;">OneNewsNow</span></strong> story by Pete Chagnon on Christians contemplating the subject of human flourishing:<br /></span><a href="http://www.onenewsnow.com/Church/Default.aspx?id=377054"><span style="font-family:arial;">'Human flourishing' -- biblical? or humanistic?</span></a><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>InterVarsity's "Following Christ 2008" conference was held in Chicago on December 27-31. The conference, with the theme of "Human Flourishing," featured a bevy of speakers and was open for students, professors, faculty, and professionals.</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>**********</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>"And the idea is that God has designed us in a certain way, and Jesus Christ was human flourishing epitomized -- the perfect example of human flourishing," [Gordon Govier] notes. "And all that he did was in service to God and reflected God as the creator, and we're able to do that in our professional lives that we have and the careers that we choose."</em><br /><em><br /></em>Jesus "epitomized" human flourishing?<br /><br />According to these Christians, human flourishing means not independently pursuing one’s goals and values and not making oneself better at it and for it, but denying that and pursuing the interests of God instead. One chooses to be as much of a means to God’s ends as is possible. To call that “flourishing” is monstrous. It is a vicious deformation of human life and its potential. Adding insult to this injury is the notion that this God who is omnipotent and benevolent, yet is dependent on humans fully devoting their lives to serving Him. How “glorious” and “moral” would the Christians consider a man who demanded others devote their lives to serving him (i.e., a cult)? When God does or demands this, it is good; but that same thing done or demanded by a man is not good. Back to Socrates’ question: is something good because God commands it or does God command it because it is good?<br /><br />Granting for argument's sake that is true that Jesus flourished, there is then the not so small matter of him being God with Godly knowledge and powers, knowledge and powers that humans attempting to flourish, lack. So, Christians, how does God in human form epitomize human flourishing?<br /><br />Putting that awkward question aside because attempting to answer it will only offer unproveable assertions and rationalizations of the supernatural persuasion, there arises a question whose answer can be safely limited to its own subject matter, that being the (supposed) life of Jesus. He could barely support himself by spreading his teachings, which attracted only a handful of followers and ultimately got him executed like a criminal at age 33. By what estimation is that a life "epitomizing" human flourishing?<br /><br />I would hate to see what Govier regards as human failing.<br /><br />Actually, there is a historical example of a man imitating Christ, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_of_Assisi"><span style="font-family:arial;">St. Francis</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. He renounced wealth, property, work so he could imitate Jesus. He “married” his “lady poverty” and lived with his followers as a wandering ascetic, dressed in rags and singing to birds. Did that constitute human flourishing? After all, he was living as Christ-like as a man can.<br /></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>"All that Jesus did was in service to God."</em> Why would an omnipotent God need mere mortal men to serve Him? Wait...but isn't Jesus...God himself? If Jesus is to be our model, this needs clarifying - do we serve God or ourselves? Do we accept altruism or egoism? We, unlike Jesus, are not part-God, and therefore unable to override nature's laws to selflessly serve ourselves... And, yet, even with that advantage he failed…Okay, this nonsense is not worth thinking about further.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />We are next informed from this highly learned conference on human flourishing that the spread of pain is insufficient:<br /><em>According to The Associated Press, key speakers at the conference questioned whether pain from the economic downturn is being fairly distributed...</em><br /><em></em><br />To righteously advocate sadism, leave to religion.<br /><br />Why is this sadistic Christian’s evil and irrational idea that somebody in government should be overseeing that “pain is fairly distributed” even being considered at a conference?<br /><br />Who exactly "distributes" pain and by what means? If one person is feeling the consequences of his unsound financial practices the “pain” he feels is the effect. No-one “distributes” that pain to him - other than himself. Why should others who are not involved with his unsound financial practices share in the “pain”? Simply because they have the capacity to, financially, is the implication. That would be “fairness,” which is altruist-speak for “equality.” The bad thing about the downturn, according to the sadistic Christians, is that there is not enough people feeling the right amount of pain according to their ability to bear pain. Nevermind that they may well not deserve this pain The altruist morality implicit in what the sadistic Christians asked is only about giving and receiving undeservedly.<br /><br />In this, the Christians subject us to more of their tortuously irrational thinking: pain is not good, but somehow it is good for it to be evenly “distributed,” implying that it is something to work for - instead of eliminating the cause of the pain.<br /><br /><em>...while two other speakers suggested that a restructuring of the world financial system is needed. Although Govier says his organization has no stance on the issue, he encouraged students and faculty to look to scripture for answers.</em><br /><em><br />"There's a lot of things in God's Word about justice and being fair and taking care of the poor," he points out. "Those are all issues that world leaders today should be thinking about."</em><br /><br />Did Govier never hear of the welfare state, international aid, and the federal laws and programs designed to privilege the poor in buying homes that caused this economic downturn and pain in the first place? We do not need to look to ancient, irrelevant scripture for answers, “answers” that that if we heeded would make things worse - we need to look to reality for answers (a mental endeavor quite alien to the religious mind) starting with accepting the reality of the folly and harm of government aid to the poor at the expense of others - and the need to end it. That is the needed “restructuring of the world financial system.”<br /><br /><em>"A document on InterVarsity's website discusses the concept of human flourishing in detail. However, the document concludes that studying the concept may leave one with more questions than answers."</em><br /><br />Meaning, studying the concept from the standpoint of believing Christianity leaves one with more questions than answers. What a surprise.<br /><br /><em>T.A. McMahon, executive director of </em></span><a href="http://www.thebereancall.org/"><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>The Berean Call</em></span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>, "As far as I'm concerned, human flourishing is not a goal that the Bible teaches. It is primarily a humanistic objective," he contends. "For the Christian, fruitfulness is a byproduct of completely submitting one's life to Christ, denying self, taking up one's cross and following him, doing things his way according to his Word -- and that's not a program academia has been interested in."</em></span><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Wrong. Academia does not deserve that much credit - it is interested in that program, albeit by substituting society for Christ.<br /><br />Besides, why would a good God inspire a book that teaches his creatures how to live successfully and flourish in the world He made for them? A trivial concern like that is obviously beneath such greatness and glory that is Him.<br /><br />Human flourishing pertains to improving human life and that is not a concern of Christians, their Bible, or their God. Flourishing is what ethics is ultimately about and the Christian religion has no realistic guidance to offer in the matter, indeed, Christianity would end human flourishing as it has in the past (see the thousand years of the Dark and Middle Ages). Christians always loudly claim that we need God for morality, yet the above mix of depravity and imagination is what they call "morality": that we should model our lives on the most glorified of history's countless failed messiahs as how to flourish.<br /><br />Sorry Christians, but I take life and ideas more seriously than that.<br /><br />Lastly, and off on a tangent, we should not overlook this amusing tidbit from the story: <em>McMahon also admitted he is troubled by some of the speakers featured at the conference. "Dr. Francis Collins -- who headed up the [Human] Genome Project -- he professes to be a Christian, but he also believes in evolution," he explains...<br /></em>(lol!)</span><br /></span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-46110812583764552832009-01-28T22:19:00.010-05:002009-04-26T11:04:35.172-04:00How Religion Insults Us and We Don't Even Know It<span style="font-family:arial;">Never before did I feel so much resentment and contempt as I watched and listened to</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> the little old man explaining to us kids of seven or eight years old how some biblical figure - I've long forgotten who - came to believe in God and did whatever he did because of his belief and that this should matter to us in our lives; that it should matter to me. Who is this strange man to tell me that I should believe or do something because some ancient sheep-herder in a far-away desert did so? Why should I care about this, I thought. What kind of guidance is that from an adult to a curious and wondering little kid who has to learn about life? I looked around the small classroom at the other kids' faces to see how they reacted to this. Do any of them think and feel as I do? Most seemed interested; some did not seem to care. I spent most of his little lecture staring at the desktop and wishing I could go home so I could then stop feeling all this contempt for someone. I thought Christianity's control over people's lives is repulsive and wasteful, as the lecture of the little old man made even clearer to me. Instead, after he finished some minutes later, we were taken to another room in the Catholic church to listen to another "teacher." </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">"Do any of them think and feel as I do?" I think that was a fascinating question I asked myself then, and it is a good question to re-ask today when there is a resurgence of religious belief. When confronted with a similar circumstance, does anybody now think and feel as I then did?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">It is not that one has nothing to learn from the lives of others or should not have role models. One should learn from people who do great things and live great lives, be they statesmen. businessmen, scientists, composers, or one's parents.One's <em>life on earth has a nature</em> - and the nature of the lives on earth of biblical figures (real or imagined) <em>are constraints and impediments</em> <em>to learning what that nature is and fulfilling it</em>. Look at what religion teaches: one should imitate Jesus, emulate the faith of Job and Abraham, live like Daniel and Esther, etc. In Islam, the Muslims' ideal is to live and be like Mohammad. Their lives based on imaginary supernaturalism are not relevant to realistic matters of being all one can: creating, discovering, producing, leading, etc. (Biblical figures did much of those kinds of things, right?) Such are the things one must do with one's life to live it well. That is the reality we are in. Mimicking a biblical figure is not a plausible substitute.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">What about the matter of how does one - especially as a child - best develop and become one's true and real self? Religion is no help there. Why were those other kids in the classroom not also insulted by the little old Catholic man imploring them to "be like somebody else" - which, at that young age I realized, means to surrender one's mind to that somebody else - a somebody else who lived long ago, who believed in a God who is as real as a comic book character? Just because this little old man and others like him merely say so. How, when they have their lives ahead of them to form, did they not take offense at such a cheap and phony substitute for genuine, intelligent, adult guidance?<br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">People are often confronted by religionists saying, "you should live like/think like/be like/do like so-and-so in the Bible," and that is something with philosophic-like importance to one's life and outlook on it. The bad thing is, that really means one <em>should not</em> look at reality for oneself, think for oneself, act for oneself, <em>be</em> oneself. Instead, says the religionist, be Abraham; be Jesus. Neglect your mind, neglect the requirements of your life in reality, look to what they did and be a <a href="http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/secondhanders.html">second-hander</a> imitating ancient, superstitious peasants. You are better off that way.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Why are people not immensely insulted by such exhortations, especially adults who are better able to think about such matters than are little kids? Is it because most people have a mystical metaphysics to begin with? Are their minds that lacking in independence? Do they care that little about what they, as individuals, are? Or is it something else?</span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-13408625217726326022009-01-13T18:19:00.008-05:002009-01-13T19:37:44.196-05:00Back to the Middle Ages<span style="font-family:arial;">(Just to preface</span><span style="font-family:arial;">: although undoubtedly worthy of it, I did not learn of this story from <a href="http://www.coasttocoastam.com/">Coast to Coast AM</a>. Perhaps it will be featured there soon.)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In what can be termed a 'little Inquisition' for the 21s century - and an eloquent demonstration of why religion is the imaginary philosophy - the </span><span style="font-family:arial;"><a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/vaticancityandholysee/4223793/Pope-orders-bishops-to-root-out-false-claims-of-visions.html">Pope orders bishops to root out false claims of visions</a>. </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>In some cases exorcists will be used to determine if a credible apparition is of divine origin or whether it is demonic.</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em><br />The guidelines will come in a "vademecum", or handbook, which is in its final stages and will be published soon by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>When a claim of heavenly apparitions occurs, the local bishop will need to set up a commission of psychiatrists, psychologists, theologians and priests who will investigate the claims systematically.</em></span><br /><em><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">[Why go to all that bother when <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Randi">James Randi</a> can do it?]</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em><br /></em></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em></em></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>The first step will be to impose silence on the alleged visionaries and if they refuse to obey then this will be taken as a sign that their claims are false.</em></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em><br /></em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">[What if the alleged visionary is actually Christ in his second coming - do they expect him to be silent as they say? If not, <em>his</em> claim is false? That would be an embarrassing situation, to say the least.]</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">The visionaries will next be visited by psychiatrists, either atheists or Catholics, to certify their mental health and to verify whether they are suffering from conditions of a hysterical or hallucinatory character or from delusions of leadership.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">The third step will be to investigate the person's level of education and to determine if they have had access to material that could be used to falsely support their claims.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><em><span style="font-family:Arial;">The new document will also instruct the bishops to see if the visionaries and their associates stand to gain financially from making their claims.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span></em><span style="font-family:Arial;"><em>The content of any heavenly messages will also be scrutinised to see if it is harmony </em>[sic]<em> with the teachings of the Church.</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">None of their methods for determining the truth or falseness of a vision has the slightest thing to do with anything objective in reality (other than the subject's mental health, but they would do well to question their own for engaging in such investigations in the first place), regardless of how "systematically" they follow their procedures, but has everything to do with someone's mere say-so, from "Wizard Joe" (a.k.a. Pope Benedict XVI) to bishops, to psychologists, to theologians, to demonologists, and finally to the words of ancient, ignorant peasants that comprise the scriptures that this pathetic charade is based on.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">It would be amusing to watch Wizard Joe's mystical experts in their futile labor to distinguish "true" from "false" visions; claims which by their nature are neither true nor false, for they are <a href="http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/arbitrary.html">arbitrary</a> and unrelated to reality. Actually, their new Inquisition's arbitrarily made-up methods will likely give them, the authorities, the power trip of arbitrarily deciding what are "true" and "false" visions.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">So goes the story of religion.</span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-65841520080671914462009-01-12T23:00:00.009-05:002009-02-09T20:58:22.321-05:00A Conservative Christian Evicts Facts from His Argument<span style="font-family:arial;">In </span><a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/KenConnor/2009/01/11/evicting_god_from_the_public_square"><span style="font-family:arial;">Evicting God from the Public Square</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> Ken Connor writes against atheist Michael Newdow's lawsuit to get the phrase of "so help me God" removed from the upcoming presidential inauguration. The details of the matter aside, Connor concludes his column:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Newdow and company believe that man is the measure, that man is the center of the universe, and that the rights we enjoy come from government, not from God. They are certainly entitled to their own opinions, but, to paraphrase Daniel Patrick Moynihan, they are not entitled to their own facts. The fact is that American political history is inextricably bound up with religious tradition. All the denials in the world won't negate that fact.</em> </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The religionists' disparaging of atheists as arrogant for holding "man as the measure of all things" has been made irrelevant <a href="http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/measurement.html">by Ayn Rand</a>:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>...Protagoras’ old dictum may be given a new meaning, the opposite of the one he intended: “Man is the measure of all things.” Man is the measure, epistemologically—not metaphysically. In regard to human knowledge, man has to be the measure, since he has to bring all things into the realm of the humanly knowable.</em></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Attacking mens' arrogance, be it real or imagined, in that saying misses the point about the human mind's relationship to reality, a real relationship that prevents the mind from forming the mythical ideas of religion.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">If anything, Ken Connor, like any religionist believing in the primacy of consciousness over reality, is trying to have his own facts.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Firstly, as for facts, God is definitely no fact; God and the supernatural are not within the realm of the humanly knowable. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Secondly, rights come from neither government nor God - <a href="http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/individualrights.html">rights are in human nature</a>, and that is a fact. How is this assertion, that man's rights emanate from a supernatural cosmic consciousness, a "fact"?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Thirdly, that tradition, as conservatives believe, must be obeyed forever certainly is no fact; obedience to tradition is only <a href="http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/secondhanders.html">second-handedness</a> to ancestors and inherited, imaginary beliefs. Or, put another way, we can rephrase one of Connor's sentences and turn it against his position: "all the tradition in the world does not make it right." It is time to abandon these backwards religious beliefs in our politics, traditional or not. Ironically, for conservatives like Connor, religious tradition is the center of the universe and measure of all things, which, not so incidentally, reduces to: man as the center of the universe.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Connor's argument is intellectually empty, as can be demonstrated by a hypothetical counter-claim: what if there was no religious tradition in American political history, and a Christian sues so that the words, "so help me God," are included in the oath of office? Would conservative Christian Connor appeal to the sacred, infallible, authority of tradition then? How important would the facts of political tradition not being bound to religion be to him in that case?</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">Our Founding Fathers built a political system based on human nature and experience, in other words, based on observable, knowable, reality. Political science was a new field of study then - and that is what it was, <em>a science</em>. Rand may have restated Protagoras' old dictum, but the idea of her restatement - of bringing all things into the realm of the humanly knowable - was what characterized that period. The Founders (and other intellectuals of that era) studied the types of governments and laws Western man has lived under since antiquity and from that knowledge they established a government best suited to man's nature as a free and rational being. I am inclined to think this is ultimately why they established a government separate from religion: the "truth" of religious beliefs are not demonstrable nor provable when law and government are scientifically studied for their proper application in the real world (other than learning how the experience of theocracy, the divine right of kings and such are dangerous to liberty) so they are left out of the political realm. I do not know if our Founders explicitly viewed religion and government in that way, but it is certainly consistent with the intellectual atmosphere of their age and which they were products of.</span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-7806283504837901582009-01-05T09:19:00.007-05:002009-02-09T21:01:44.194-05:00D'Souza's Absentee Answer<span style="font-family:arial;">In the opening of Dinesh D'Souza's column, <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/DineshDSouza/2008/07/21/an_absentee_god">An Absentee God?</a>, his admission of being baffled by a debating opponent caught my interest by making me admire his intellectual honesty and determination to find an answer eventually, even if I would disagree with him. As it turned out, however, D'Souza would have been better off not attempting to answer his opponent, whose position he probably helped.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>In my debate with atheist Christopher Hitchens... he raised a point that I did not know how to answer... Hitchens' argument bothered me.</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Here's what Hitchens said. Homo sapiens has been on the planet for a long time, let's say 100,000 years. Apparently for 95,000 years God sat idly by, watching and perhaps enjoying man's horrible condition. After all, cave-man's plight was a miserable one: infant mortality, brutal massacres, horrible toothaches, and an early death. Evidently God didn't really care.</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Then, a few thousand years ago, God said, "It's time to get involved." Even so God did not intervene in one of the civilized parts of the world. He didn't bother with China or Egypt or India. Rather, he decided to get his message to a group of nomadic people in the middle of nowhere. It took another thousand years or more for this message to get to places like India and China.</em></span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>Here is the thrust of Hitchens' point: God seems to have been napping for 98 percent of human history, finally getting his act together only for the most recent 2 percent? What kind of a bizarre God acts like this?</em></span><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;">*********************</span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;"><em><span style="font-family:arial;">[Erik] Kreps noters</span></em></span><span style="font-family:arial;"> [sic] <em>that it is not the number of years but the levels of human population that are the issue here. The Population Reference Bureau estimates that the number of people who have ever been born is approximately 105 billion. Of this number, about 2 percent were born in the 100,000 years before Christ came to earth.</em></span></p><p><em><span style="font-family:arial;">"So in a sense," Kreps notes, "God's timing couldn't have been more perfect. If He'd come earlier in human history, how reliable would the records of his relationship with man be? But He showed up just before the exponential explosion in the world's population, so even though 98 percent of humanity's timeline had passed, only 2 percent of humanity had previously been born, so 98 percent of us have walked the earth since the Redemption."</span></em></p><span style="font-family:arial;">*********************<br /></span><br /><em><span style="font-family:arial;">Suddenly savage man gives way to historical man. Suddenly the naked ape gets his act together. We see civilizations sprouting in Egypt, Mesopotamia, India, China, and elsewhere. Suddenly there are wheels and agriculture and art and culture. Soon we have dramatic plays and philosophy and an explosion of inventions and novel forms of government and social organization.</span></em><br /><br /><em><span style="font-family:arial;">So how did Homo sapiens, heretofore such a slacker, suddenly get so smart? Scholars have made strenuous efforts to account for this but no one has offered a persuasive account. If we compare man's trajectory on earth to an airplane, we see a long, long stretch of the airplane faltering on the ground, and then suddenly, a few thousand years ago, takeoff!</span></em><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /><em><span style="font-family:arial;">Well, there is one obvious way to account for this historical miracle. It seems as if some transcendent being or force reached down and breathed some kind of a spirit or soul into man, because after accomplishing virtually nothing for 98 percent of our existence, we have in the past 2 percent of human history produced everything from the pyramids to Proust, from Socrates to computer software.</span></em><br /><br /><em><span style="font-family:arial;">So paradoxically Hitchens' argument becomes a boomerang. Hitchens has raised a problem that atheism cannot easily explain and one that seems better accounted for by biblical account of creation.</span></em><br /><br />Excuse me? If atheism cannot easily explain something - man's recent progress - then the Bible easily explains it? That is a convincing answer? Perhaps for a Christian who reasons in circles, not for an atheist, though. The simplicity of "God caused it" is not a persuasive account, just an easy, imaginary answer.<br /><br />Actually, D'Souza does not answer Hitchens question, but does answer a question that Hitchens did not ask.The question was not, why was there no progress for so long in mankind's span on earth? That, D'Souza answered. Nor was it, what happened when and after God finally intervened? D'Souza answered that also. The question, however, was <em>why</em> did God wait so long to intervene in man's life on earth and only in ancient Israel? That, D'Souza has not offered any answer to. One can say at its best D'Souza's answer is a lame excuse for God's intervention when it was - that only a small fraction of men missed out on it, but in the larger picture it was for the good of the greater amount of men - whatever the reason was for it not happening sooner.<br /><br />What D'Souza thinks is an answer is flawed, anyhow.<br /><br />Hitchens often asks this question and uses the 100,000 year figure of man's existence as a minimum that anybody has to accept, based on the science. This excludes the science-rejecting Biblical literalists who claim the earth itself is only 5,000 or so years old. Hitchens actually accepts the science that man has been around for much, much longer than 100,000 years. So what happens to D'Souza and Kreps' arithmetic based on science that man has been around for 500,000 years, say? Then how do they explain God's timing?<br /><br />If they can say God's timing was nearly "perfect," with two percent of all men missing out on it, can D'Souza also claim with consistency that <a href="http://townhall.com/columnists/DineshDSouza/2008/11/24/when_science_points_to_god">an intelligent designer made the universe</a>? If He made a universe of fine-tuned, irreducible complexity, that same intelligent designer's intervention in man's existence failed by two percent. Two percent should fall well outside the quality specifications tolerance of such a supremely intelligent designer.<br /><br />Furthermore, D'Souza does not answer Hitchens as to why God allowed 1,000 years to pass before His Word spread across the earth after Its arrival.<br /><br />Man suddenly developing knowledge is a "historical miracle"? If a miracle is a violation of natural law, how does the correct use of the human mind qualify as one? "Because after accomplishing virtually nothing for 98 percent of our existence, we have in the past 2 percent of human history produced everything from the pyramids to Proust, from Socrates to computer software." (Never mind the dearth of knowledge in subsequent religious societies.) D'Souza offers that non-answer to Hitchens' question of "what kind of a bizarre God acts like this?" If anything, he elaborates on it! By D'Souza's admission, 98% of human existence passed by on a primitive level before God intervenes with the gift of knowledge. (Wait - isn't there a story about God and a <em>forbidden</em> tree?) </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What D'Souza's "answer" consists of is merely recasting Hitchens' very question as a statement, albeit in Christian terms: "it is a miracle according to the biblical account of creation," and he is satisfied that he refuted Hitchens.<br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-family:arial;">D'Souza and Kreps think they nailed Hitchens: <em>"God's timing couldn't have been more perfect. If He'd come earlier in human history, how reliable would the records of his relationship with man be? But He showed up just before the exponential explosion in the world's population."</em> Besides the fact that biblical scholarship has proved that the records of God's relationship with man are indeed unreliable despite God's intention, why would an omnipotent, omniscient, intelligent designer allow His intervention into man's existence and its timing be dependent on man's circumstances? If He is responsible for the sudden surge in man's knowledge at this specific point in time, He could have made that happen sooner, like at the beginning of man's existence. Is that expecting too much from a fine-tuning, intelligent designer?</span> Why would He do otherwise - which is what Hitchens' was asking!<br /><br />Hitchens is not the one who threw a boomerang at himself, D'Souza.</span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-2140012015738486402009-01-05T08:29:00.000-05:002009-01-05T05:19:47.305-05:00How Science Emerged In a World of Faith: Reviewing "The Scientists"<span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of its Greatest Inventors</em></strong>, by John Gribbin (Random House, NY, 2006)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">How science began is fascinating and there is much to learn from it - much more than just the science, there is the struggle, conflict, drama, danger, failure, triumph, and heroism that are inherent in the scientific pursuit - especially so in its originating struggle in a deeply religious, ignorant, superstitious, dictatorial, medieval Christendom. A very interesting and enlightening account of this history is in John Gribbin's book, <strong><em>The Scientists: A History of Science Told Through the Lives of Its Greates Inventors</em></strong>,</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Gribbin begins his history of the scientists in the medieval period and goes up through to contemporary science. It is a book for the educated layman, but having a decent background in history and philosophy is a great asset to bring to one's reading of this book as that sheds more relevant light on this subject than what happens to be within the author’s scope.<br /><br />When science began it was not merely new knowledge; it was a new way of thinking and observing the world, indeed, a revolutionary way of thinking and observing. We take it for granted. At one time it was so revolutionary that it was dangerous for the early scientists because this new thinking led to discoveries threatening to the Church's version of the universe. A salient point I learned from reading Gribbin's dramatic history is that science had to be established from scratch by itself in an intellectual climate of a contrary nature. Like a frail infant, early science could have perished through its own weaknesses and feeble health - or it could have easily been killed by its stronger, experienced enemies, namely tradition, theology, or the Papacy. Fortunately, it managed to not succumb to either. If the scientists somehow failed then, medieval Christendom could have lasted far longer than it did. There lies the exciting drama of the history of science: so much was at stake. The discovery and use of scientific thinking took much time and application for the sciences as we now recognize them to be first of all, defined, and secondly, to be so situated as to be able to progress. The ceaseless labor of some scientists pointed the way forward into new areas to be discovered by their successors - without any guarantee that they would venture in those directions.<br /><br />Furthermore, as Gribbin takes his reader to the initial understandings of vast areas of the natural world newly opened by a then-different method of thinking, the questions force themselves upon the reader as they more intensely must have upon the scientists: how to proceed successfully?; to what will this lead?; can it even be done at all?<br /><br />All that we now possess of science and technology and take for granted - this was not inevitably to be ours; it could have been otherwise.<br /><br />What the medievals believed about the world and the universe was preposterous, to be blunt. The earth was centered and encased in a large invisible sphere with the stars suspended from its ceiling and the planets were pushed around by angels. They seriously believed it. Why? It made perfect theological sense based on The Bible, of course.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Some brief examples from astronomy's development especially illustrate the revolutionary and struggling nature of scientific thinking.<br /><br />Nicolaus Copernicus (1473-1543) was an example of the mix between the dominant mysticism and the nascent science. He believed the heretical view that the earth revolved around the sun, but in a manner that was neat and tidy, or, "perfectly." Copernicus "wanted a model in which everything moved around a single centre at an unvarying rate, and he wanted this for aesthetic reasons (11)." Planetary rotations of perfect circles around the sun do not exist, but he wanted them to in conformity with theology, so he fit his data and their explanations into that model.<br /><br />Martin Luther, his contemporary, was quite upset with this new thinking. He "objected to the Copernican model, thundering that the Bible tells us that it was the Sun, not the earth, that Joshua commanded to stand still (13)."<br /><br />After Copernicus came Tycho Brahe. He took on the decades-long task of observing the planets to correct the tables of planetary motions. His discovery of a supernova was the beginning of the end of the theological dogma that the heavens are eternally perfect. Tycho was "the first astronomer to imagine the planets hanging unsupported in empty space (46)."<br /><br />The first true scientist was Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), who wrote, "In disputes about natural phenomena one must not begin with the authority of scriptural passages, but with sensory experience and necessary demonstrations (92)." In the end, he was placed under house arrest by the Inquisition for his heretical teachings that the sun is the center of the solar system.<br /><br />Besides the heavens being totally misunderstood so was man's body and the earth under his feet. Inquiry and understanding of the physical world was virtually nil, as shown by the examples of the birth of two other areas of science.<br /><br />Until the Renaissance, the accepted authority on human anatomy was Galen (Claudius Galenus) from the 2nd century. "Galen's work was regarded as the last word in human anatomy until well into the sixteenth century," (p.21). Andraes Vesalius (1514-1564), was the scientist who concluded that Galen must have done little dissecting of humans, and was therefore very wrong about human anatomy, so Vesalius took the initiative and produced an accurate book on the human anatomy, the Fabrica. In it, Gribbin writes, Vesalius "stressed the importance of accepting the evidence of your own eyes, rather than believing implicitly the words handed down from past generations - the ancients were not infallible." (25)<br /><br />A contemporary of Vesalius was William Gilbert. After concluding that alchemy was a fantasy, Gilbert began studying magnetism and electricity, and like the instance of Vesalius and anatomy, this was "a feature of the world which had remained essentially neglected since the investigations (or rather, speculations) of the Greek philosophers some 2000 years earlier. (69)"<br /><br />Fourteen centuries passed before man seriously studied his own anatomy; and even longer until magnetism and electricity were studied. They were known to exist but were not understood - other than superficially and superstitiously; that was sufficient in Christendom.<br /><br />Scientists were not immune to making the error of accepting assertions based on authority, be it theological, the ancients - or one of their own even. Rene Descartes (1596-1650), a mathematician, scientist and philosopher, could not bear the thought of a vacuum and argued against it. His influence was so strong that the further investigations into the nature of the vacuum ceased for about a century.<br /><br />What Gribbin captures for his reader about the first few centuries of science's development is a two-fold joy and thrill. It is the joy and thrill of discovering something about nature for the very first time and realizing that right there is a valuable new path to travel upward. Secondly, it is also the joy and thrill of also discovering for the first time how the human mind can know reality, that its cognitive ability is metaphysically efficacious. The implication is that man need not tremble before an unknowable universe, nor be forever enslaved to the authority of other men; but that he is in a knowable universe that he can master and the proper use of his mind creates his independence, which is his proper, natural state.<br /><br />The scientists in the course of their pursuits were to varying degrees burdened with unscientific thinking that retarded their scientific progress. The scientist’s mind, insofar as it was scientific, (it was also partly a product of the dominant non-scientific mentality) was dramatically different than the prevailing mentality and psychology. Pseudo-science, religious dogma, superstitious psychology and beliefs were everywhere. Developing, refining, and integrating the proper inductive, scientific methods had to be discovered in the face of various obstacles and even opposition - and it took centuries. It was a change of mind for an entire civilization that began with a few brave, independent, intensely curious individual minds.<br /><br />The type of thinking the early scientists did, in its immaturity, that produced its first results was demonstrably far superior to the dominant alternative type of thinking based on mysticism, appeal to scripture, religious authority, and its false, groundless assertions about the nature of the world. The religious response against the scientists was all assertions, rationalizations, arrogant intimidation - and no substance. (Its essence has not changed, incidentally. Although what it claims as its special knowledge has been reduced proportionally to science's growth.) The religious way of "knowing" would be hysterically laughable were it not so destructive.<br /><br />The most salient lesson from <strong><em>The Scientists</em></strong> that remains relevant is of the actual interplay of reason and faith, that they are fundamentally incompatible. They were so in science's beginnings and remain so today in the "intelligent design" and evolution controversies.<br /><br />Another striking lesson to apply from Gribbin's book is how the Islamic world is still in the philosophical and psychological state that medieval Christendom was in. There are few indications that Islam will go through any Renaissance or Enlightenment soon, however. Muslims certainly want the products of the types of minds that made the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the scientific revolution - without changing to that type of mind, retaining their backwards, religious-type minds and ways.<br /><br />Also, the West, especially America, is experiencing a resurgence of religion. How this will play out remains to be seen, but as long as science is at its best - without seriously flawed premises and methods - it will again soundly defeat religion.<br /><br />All the technology we now have and take for granted springs ultimately from the efforts of the minds of a relatively small handful of men who, daring to think differently from their social environment of arrogant and ignorant Christian superstitions, desired to discover and know the nature of this universe mankind is in and put that knowledge to practical use, thereby elevating the quality of man’s life.<br /><br />The least we could do for the scientists is understand their struggles and their triumphs - and give them a silent, solemn “thank you.”</span><br /></span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-14654393436867719162009-01-05T08:21:00.002-05:002009-01-17T21:53:59.567-05:00ID: A Con of an Argument<span style="font-family:arial;">The Intelligent Design argument has taken a good beating (<a href="http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4516">here</a>, <a href="http://capmag.com/article.asp?ID=4216">here</a>, and <a href="http://superstition.blogspot.com/2005/05/intelligent-design-has-missing-link.html">here</a> Objectivists effectively shoot down ID), but because its proponents have faith, reason is hardly going to impress them. I have some questions I would love to have an ID’er answer for me; questions that </span><a href="http://www.thejesusmyth.com/philosophy/you-wouldnt-know-divinity-if-you-saw-it"><span style="font-family:arial;">this</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> thought-provoking TJM post points toward. It is best to set the stage before I pose my questions; questions that would probably put an end to ID if they were asked.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The ID’ers argue that there is so much irreducible complexity in the natural world - analogous to a man-made watch’s complexity - that it had to be the result of an intelligent designer; that random chance could not produce it.<br /><br />In both its agenda and its form, that so-called argument just riles me.<br /><br />This argument is a thinly-disguised attempt by religionists to hijack science in order to put their religious beliefs on a par with scientific knowledge. My intelligence is insulted by their belief they think they can getaway with this. Throughout man’s history the purely and strictly religious mentality has been an enemy of science and now that science has brought men such tremendous knowledge and progress in just a few centuries - far more knowledge and progress than millennia of ignorance and stagnation that unchallenged religion imposed on men - the religionists want to benefit from science like a parasite on its host. There is no valid argument for God’s existence in philosophy’s history and science has obliterated the religious account of the world - but, suddenly, amidst all this rolling back of religious belief, the ID’ers claim that nature’s constitution, uncovered by science, indicates design by an intelligence (the God for which there is no proof). If that does not appear to be a desperate, last-ditch defense, I do not know what does - yet they expect to be taken with sober, scientific seriousness.<br /><br />My foot.<br /><br />The design argument's conclusion does not explain anything because - aside from, being untestable - it is not and cannot be put in the form of an abstract, universal law, that needs no further explanation. It is not irreducible in that sense; instead it actually raises more questions that, to be answered, need such an abstract, irreducibly universal law(s).<br /><br /><strong>My Questions for ID'ers</strong><br /></span><p><span style="font-family:arial;">ID'ers conclude - by scientific observation - that our universe is the product of an intelligent designer. That implies other scientific facts, if not laws, that they must know in order to say that. So,</span></p><ol><li><span style="font-family:arial;">If the designer, by definition, has a consciousness, then how do you know that consciousness can create existence ex nihilo? On what scientific observation or demonstration can you warrant that belief? </span></li><li><span style="font-family:arial;">If science shows that nature has specific identity, lawful orderliness, and predictability, then what justifies your claim that there is too much complexity to be the result of 'random chance'? Where is this 'random chance' at work?</span></li><li><span style="font-family:arial;">If the universe was created by an intelligent designer - who, presumably, has the ability to make anything in any way - would it not make sense for that designer to make a universe simple in design?</span></li><li><em><strong><span style="font-family:arial;">If the universe is so complex in its structure that there must be a designer, then for that to be true it implies that a universe that is simple in its structure would be undesigned. How do you know that?</span></strong></em></li></ol><p><span style="font-family:arial;">When I hear the ID advocates, I cannot help but think of my last question - that is why ID riles me. <em>Have they been to a simplistically designed universe and proved that it could not have been created by some mysterious, intelligent designer?</em> Their claim implies this necessarily, and it is entirely arbitrary. Here is the condition their belief depends on: a universe of simple design must be undesigned. But, on the other hand, by virtue of their own argument, without a designer, there would be natural randomness, and chaos - and that would make for a highly complex, not simple, universe! </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">"Intelligent design" is not an argument as much as it is a con-job.<br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">It seems that with those above questions ID is reduced back to the same old God and the same old God questions without any scientific camoflage - perhaps the religionists need another two-thousand years to try to think up some answers and proofs?</span></p>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-72701432417752545742009-01-05T08:19:00.001-05:002009-02-09T21:05:52.620-05:00An Atheist Challenge to Theists<span style="font-family:arial;">Long ago, Dionysius of Halicarnassus said “history is philosophy teaching by examples.” So what are some important lessons for us to learn?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In the 21st century we can look back on man’s history and how he thought and lived; how he has used his mind and to what ends. We can study the history of man’s mind to find out what ways of thinking and what systems of ideas cause what kinds of effects for man’s life on this earth.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Historically, we can identify essential societal and political essentials for man’s flourishing, like individual political freedom, material and economic prosperity, growing scientific and general knowledge, peace, freedom, and progress. They are necessarily good for man. Can they be caused by any type of mentality with any type of world-view? - and not just some of those components, but all? For human life to be at its best those are its requirements.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Religion has had more than enough time and chances to prove how wonderful and good it claims itself to be for our lives. It has, instead, time and again proved how false and destructive it is - and we, today, have not learned that.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">How come all the countless predominantly religious societies, cultures, civilizations lack individual political freedom, material and economic prosperity, growing scientific and general knowledge, peace, freedom, and progress? Predominantly religious civilizations are characterized by backwardness, poverty, ignorance, superstition, collectivism, dictatorship, war - the exact opposite of what the nature of man’s life on earth requires; or, exactly what destroys man's life. Religion is competent at perpetuating - for millennia - those destroyers of man’s life.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">If theists have been, for millennia and the world over, living according to what God wants them to do and be, why were all their civilizations disasters unsuitable to man's existence?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The major historical periods that have brought those necessary essentials for man’s life and progress held in common one common characteristic: they were based on independent, reality-oriented, rational minds. These historical periods were of classical Greece, the Renaissance, and the Enlightenment. Each period was brief in the overall course of history, lasting a few centuries at most, and yet these brief time frames brought about rapid growth in knowledge of the world and of man himself. Indeed, the concept "progress" as we understand it did not even exist until the height of the 18th century Enlightenment. Before then under all the centuries of rule by Christianity there was no way for man to form the concept of "progress."</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Sudden, dramatic leaps forward in knowledge, of opening new areas of knowledge, and of making progress by applying that knowledge are the historical exception to man’s stagnating under religion (and its usual corollaries: tribalism or collectivism). To the extent he frees himself from religion and thinks for himself, these exceptional periods show how much potential man has.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Theists have a vision of their religious utopia on earth that, at least, does not much tolerate ideas and ways of infidels, secularists, and atheists to have any influence. Yet, with so much history behind us, based on what historical examples do theists think they can have their religious utopia on earth and simultaneously have the necessary essentials of a proper human civilization: individual political freedom, material and economic prosperity, growing scientific and general knowledge, peace, freedom, progress? Where and when has faith, theocracy, dogma, created a society that was not a disaster, but a wonderful place for humans to live in, a religious paradise? </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Show us.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I say you cannot because the religious mentality and philosophy are destructive because they are contrary to what man’s life on earth requires. (Disaster likewise results even when your religious ideas are secularized as 20th century socialism and communism demonstrated. For elaboration see <a href="http://tomstelene.blogspot.com/2008/12/communism-was-not-secularism.html">this post</a>.) Historical examples are settled and done, detached from current controversies so I challenge theists to answer these questions:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">1.When has religion proved science to be wrong?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2.When has science’s conformity to religious dogmas regarding nature and man caused science to be fruitful and forward-moving?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">3.When has faith caused a growing body of knowledge?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">4.When has a country’s consistent and total adherence to and enforcement of religious dogma caused peace domestically? Internationally?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">5.When has obedience to religious commands, rules, and practices caused material and economic prosperity?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">6.When has a totally religious society been moral?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">7.When has theocracy been compatible with liberty?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">8.When have - assuming they could be answered positively - nos.1-7 existed together at one time in one society/country/civilization? </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">If theism is true then the proof must be in its results - likewise if it is false. Considering theism’s millennia-long domination of societies and civilizations, assessing it for its truth or falsity is sensible because so much - indeed, everything - is at stake. If theism can make for a proper and successful life on earth for man, then so be it. Then theist arguments have at least that much merit and are to be seriously considered. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This atheist thinks it is time for theists to prove - a reasonable, minimal expectation in the 21st century - that their vision of a society dominated by God and religion is an objectively good option for us. If not, then it is time for them to quietly go away once and for all, letting the rest of us pursue learning how to make the best of living on earth and achieving it.</span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-70490317324100427862009-01-05T08:15:00.003-05:002009-02-04T15:11:48.717-05:00Prager Smears Secularism<span style="font-family:arial;">Dennis Prager’s column, </span><a href="http://dennisprager.townhall.com/columnists/DennisPrager/2008/08/19/if_there_is_no_god?page=full&comments=true"><span style="font-family:arial;">If There Is No God</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">, lists fourteen supposedly harmful consequences following from atheism and secularism. Here is one:<br /><em>7. Without God, people in the West often become less, not more, rational. It was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed in the utterly irrational doctrine of Marxism....Religious people in Judeo-Christian countries largely confine their irrational beliefs to religious beliefs (theology), while the secular, without religion to enable the non-rational to express itself, end up applying their irrational beliefs to society, where such irrationalities do immense harm.</em><br /><br />Prager’s motto is “clarity over agreement” - but one would not know that based on this column. Just that excerpt has so much so wrong that needs clarification. Undoing Prager’s mischaracterizations requires expending a substantial amount of electronic ink which is why this post is on only the above paragraph. The same can be said for the rest of his column as well (which Armchair Intellectual philosophically </span><a href="http://armchairintellectual.blogspot.com/2008/08/if-there-is-no-god-part-i.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">rebutted</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> in four parts).<br /><br />Right off the bat, Prager's first sentence is simply untrue: "Without God, people in the West often become less, not more, rational."<br /><br />Westerners have not been made more rational by religion. When Christianity ascended in the late Roman Empire it was openly hostile to reason. Many Church Fathers stamped out Greek philosophy and science, i.e. reason, and succeeded so well the “Dark Ages” is the name of the period they had created after Rome fell to the barbarians. Christian Europe was hardly rational. Philosophy, which relies on the use of reason, was the mere handmaid to Christian theology. This was the land of belief in an earth-centered, three-tiered universe, </span><span style="font-family:arial;">astrology</span><span style="font-family:arial;">, numerology, magic, </span><span style="font-family:arial;">witchcraft</span><span style="font-family:arial;">, alchemy, recurring end-times hysteria, and countless other superstitions. The non-rational definitely expressed itself to the detriment of society. People in the West embraced faith, turned a blind eye toward reason, and for centuries there was scant progress in any area of human endeavor. Discovery of the ancient Greek texts that contained reason, philosophy, and worldly knowledge saved Europe from the darkness of Christian theology, mysticism, superstition, and dogmas. The subsequent Renaissance and Enlightenment broke Christianity’s monopoly on men’s minds, opening the way to the modern secular world. What period in the West’s history Prager is referring to is beyond me.<br /><br />His second sentence is more truthful by itself: "It was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed in the utterly irrational doctrine of Marxism." It is not fully true because there were Marxist theists (i.e. Liberation Theology). In the context of his column's argument, however, Prager is evading an important fact, one that helps in refuting it.<br /><br />I will provide it - for the sake of clarity, Mr. Prager.<br /><br />Prager neglects to tell his readers just who many of those secular irrationalists were and more important, where Marxism came from. He failed to explain how Marxism is modeled to a large extent on Judeo-Christian religion. (Prager is himself a Jew and an intellectual, so one would reasonably expect hm to know of the Judeo-Christian influence on Marxism.)<br /><br />In his<strong><em> Philosophy of Religion (third ed.)</em></strong>, John Hicks writes: "Jews mean by 'the Messiah' a nondivine being who will restore Israel as an earthly community and usher in the consummation of history" (109). If we merely change a few nouns in that sentence we get Marxism: "Marxists mean by 'the proletariat' an economic class that will restore mankind to a "fully human" community and usher in the consummation of history." Karl Marx (who was raised </span><span style="font-family:arial;">Jewish</span><span style="font-family:arial;">) secularized this important idea in the </span><span style="font-family:arial;">Jewish</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> world-view, the messiah myth, which was appealing to secular Jews (among others, of course). It is the common denominator of Judaism and Marxism.<br /><br />Furthermore, Marxism's history has no shortage of prominent Jews, from leaders of communist parties and organizations to intellectuals. Actually, according to J.L. Talmon in <strong><em>Political Messianism - The Romantic Phase</em></strong>, "Jews have played a prominent and conspicous part in extreme radical and revolutionary movements in modern times" that began with the philosophy of a socialist predecessor of Marx, </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claude_Henri_de_Rouvroy,_Comte_de_Saint-Simon"><span style="font-family:arial;">Saint-Simon</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> (77). Talmon further writes, "In the case of spiritual and idealistic sublimation, the age long Jewish tradition of solidarity and of imaginative compassion with the sufferings of others was able to find a kindred disposition in socialism, and Jews threw themselves into its arms enthusiastically and lovingly" (81). Secularized Jewish irrationalism began with Saint-Simonianism, and Marx's ideas fueled it even more.<br /><br />In that context does Prager's claim, "it was largely the secular, not the religious, who believed in the utterly irrational doctrine of Marxism," still stand? If Prager clarified that the irrationalism he refers to is that of secularized religion, he would not have a false straw-man of "secular irrationalism" to knock down in his case against secularism.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;">So for clarity's sake, Mr. Prager, you should distinguish between secularism and secularized religion. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br /></span><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><span style="font-family:arial;">On to Prager's last sentence: "Religious people in Judeo-Christian countries largely confine their irrational beliefs to religious beliefs (theology), while the secular, without religion to enable the non-rational to express itself, end up applying their irrational beliefs to society, where such irrationalities do immense harm."</span><br /><br /><p><span style="font-family:arial;">If irrational beliefs are confined to religion, religion is <em>not</em> confined to itself - it is indeed applied to society with immense harm. Examples are many and for all to see.<br /><br />The irrationality of <a href="http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/subjectivism.html">subjectivism</a> is assumed by Prager to be innate and not to be examined, questioned, or purged from the mind. It is accepted as a law of nature that man has an irrational side needing expression. Besides the implication it has that a man's thinking cannot by nature be wholly objective, this is also the basis in man's nature of man's belief in God, the Kantian-like premise that we may not be able to prove there is a God, but man's belief in God is inherent in his nature - so he would do well to assume that a God created him with this belief in Him.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Prager gives us a choice: we naturally have an irrational side, so we either channel it to society - which is harmful, or channel it to harmless religious beliefs! That’s it, pick one or the other! </span></p><p><span style="font-family:arial;">And why - for clarity's sake, Mr. Prager - is it not possible for rational beliefs to be formed regarding society; that it is not possible for man to use his mind's method of knowing reality - his reason - to live with his fellow men?</span></p><span style="font-family:arial;">Ultimately, what is intellectually and morally scandalous - and Prager's column is just another instance of it - is that religionists continually use atheism and secularism as such as scapegoats for the harm (pseudo)secular ideas like Marxism do, ideas that would not be, were it not for theology in the first place.</span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-33836575600130859442009-01-05T08:13:00.004-05:002009-04-02T23:58:27.437-04:00Communism Was Not Secularism<span style="font-family:arial;">Secularism's future will likely consist of a long intellectual and cultural battle until it wins the day at last. One major intellectual battle waiting to be fought is for the<em> real</em> secularists to repair the bad reputation their cause has. We are told how the 20th century was one of secularism that inevitably led to totalitarianism, warfare, gulags, genocide, and pogroms. Much of the bad reputation derives therefrom. Blaming secularism for those horrors is misplacing the blame, though. Anti-secularists fail to see under the surface of allegedly “secular” totalitarianism. Beneath that surface is religion. From </span><a href="http://www.smh.com.au/news/book-reviews/comrades-a-world-history-of-communism/2007/08/24/1187462503318.html"><span style="font-family:arial;">this review</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> of "Comrades" by Robert Service:<br /><em>"But Hitchens makes the excellent point that Stalin was able to, indeed set out to, exploit the massive reservoir of credulity created by centuries of tsarist rule and sullen acquiescence to the Russian Orthodox Church, when he says: "Communist absolutists did not so much negate religion, in societies that they well understood were saturated with faith and superstition, as seek to replace it."</em><br /><br /><em>British historian Robert Service, in Comrades: a world history of communism, goes further. For Service, communism is a religion, a "secular credo" complete with millenarian overtones (apocalypse followed by paradise), an emphasis on scriptural exegesis (each communist party "was a synod of hair-splitting political discussion") and a theory of historical inevitability that looks suspiciously like a doctrine of predestination. Marx and Engels, Service suggests, enthusiastically encouraged devotion, with the consequence that they were "treated as prophets whose every word had to be treasured".</em><br /><br /><em>They were "infallible progenitors of an omniscient world view" and "remained unconsciously influenced by religious ideas about the perfect future society and the salvation of humanity".</em><br /><br /></span><em><span style="font-family:arial;">To suggest that communism is religious in character is not an original point but it is a hugely important one, for it gives the lie to the view that communism, for all its attendant evils and failures, was essentially a rational experiment that the human race was bound to make - that it grew out of the Enlightenment, as opposed to fascism and Nazism, both of which were deeply irrational." </span><blockquote></blockquote></em><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Hitchens is correct as far as he goes about the Russians' credulity; credulity that is found in any backwards, predominantly religious country. Under the tsars and Orthodox Church, Moscow was asserted to be the "Third Rome" and "Holy Russia's" destiny was nothing less than redeeming mankind. That was the self-image of a country where most people lived under the harsh, impoverished, quasi-communistic system of serfdom until well into the nineteenth century.<br /><br />Meanwhile, Western Europe progressed quickly with its Renaissance, scientific revolution, and Enlightenment, none of which substantially penetrated Russia - Russian intellectuals were against Western thought.<br /><br />Looking back at the big-picture, it is therefore bizarre that Karl Marx believed Russia would be among the last nations to become communist - there must be fully industrialized capitalism before there is communism, he believed. (Later on Russian communists got Marx to make an official doctrinal exception for their country.)<br /><br />Communism took its deepest roots where religion was especially strong: countries like Russia (as well as other eastern European countries).<br /><br />Some communist countries, especially Russia, went headlong toward massive-scale modernizing and industrializing; modernizing and industrializing they did not learn first-hand how to create but rather begged, copied, and stole from those who did learn them first-hand. These were countries that were historically dominated by religious and tribal beliefs of mysticism, millenariaism, self-sacrifice, collectivism, conformity, and authoritarianism. They were impoverished, backwards, and stagnant. They did not grow themselves into an intellectual and cultural period of reason and science, such as western Europe's scientific revolution and Enlightenment, which led to rational, scientific, independent-minds; increasing knowledge of man and the world; progress; and liberty. In comparison, and not so incidentally, those countries that originated and/or were most influenced by the secularism of scientific revolution and Enlightenment (e.g., Great Britian, France, Holland, America) were much less vulnerable to the influence and spread of communism.<br /><br />The Russian people were living for centuries under religious-induced collectivism, mysticism, ignorance, authoritarianism, and millenarian expectations, and suddenly had their religion taken away and replaced with Marxist-Leninist communism. What was not taken away, however, were those ideas and mindsets <em>that were integral to their religion</em>. Only those ideas' contents and contexts were changed from religious to secular. No more was Holy Russia going to redeem mankind and messianically usher in the millennium of a reign of heaven on earth. Instead, the proletariat was the messianic force that would overthrow the existing order and usher in a workers' paradise. And more: with that substitution these people obtained possession of the products of reason and science without being rational and scientific. They kept their collective, messianic mission of transforming the world, a religious, pre-modern mission they can undertake armed with modern weapons produced by modern industry. That backwards people with a strong tradition of religious superstition would go about executing their "mission" by grabbing absolute power and committing wholesale bloodshed should not be surprising. As 20th century communism's history demonstrated, the Marxist methodology of "dialectical materialist" thinking and its alleged ability to create a "scientific" socialism were as delusional and as destructive as relying on religious mystical revelation or theology as a method for creating a society.<br /><br />How is secularism to blame for the horrors of communism, and religion is not only off the hook, but touted as the antidote?<br /><br />That is why secular offshoots of religion should be opposed and distinguished from <em>real secularism</em>. Understanding what is good for human life on this earth and what that requires necessarily means using reason as the means to that end; resorting to mysticism as a method of knowing precludes any characterization of that endeavor as "secular." It becomes religious. Likewise does introducing into secularism's inquiry a concept, or ideas that cannot be derived from rationally understanding the world, like the idea of, say, "messianism." It comes from religion. That idea, however, even if given secular content or context remains a religious idea.<br /><br />Robert Service's analysis of Marxism is dead-on. Marxist communism was the offspring of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Communism was not essentially secularism. Communism was essentially secularized religion.<br /><br />Atheism and secularism were part of Marxist communism as a means of applying to society and government what otherwise were religious ideas. Religious ideas divorced from their supernaturalism cannot be made to work in this world any more than if they retained their supernaturalism. That is the lesson to be learned from the bloody "experiment" of communism.<br /><br />Secularism will make significant headway when it distinguishes itself from and successfully opposes secularized religious ideas. The religious have used their own secularized offshoots, like communism, to justify denouncing secularism as a failure. We should not be tolerating this.<br /><br />HT to </span><a href="http://dailyatheist.blogspot.com/"><span style="font-family:arial;">Daily Atheist</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;"> for the above review.</span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-13269853604507153482009-01-05T08:11:00.002-05:002009-01-13T00:32:46.739-05:00"Jihad": The Real Definition<span style="font-family:arial;">I read <strong><em>Taking Back Islam</em></strong>, edited by Michael Wolfe, mainly written by Muslims and intended for a lay audience (as opposed to an academic audience) - and it is a whitewashing of Islam. (I bought it only because it was 3 or 4 bucks in a </span><span style="font-family:arial;">discount store</span><span style="font-family:arial;">.) In the book several, predictable, references to Islam's allegedly peaceful nature are made, including the oft-asserted notion that 'jihad' means struggle, not necessarily 'holy war.' For example, I was quite disgusted by Shaykh Ahmed Abdur Rashid's article, "Six Myths About Islam," especially where he writes (p.44):<br /><em>"Myth #5: Jihad refers to military confrontations..."</em><br /><em>"We all know that the word jihad does not refer primarily to 'holy war.' Jihad literally means to strive or struggle."</em><br /><br />From studying Islam, I know, historically and doctrinally, that is not true. But what about the word's literal meaning? How does that relate to 'jihad', the doctrine? In other words,does the doctrine accurately follow from the word?<br /><br />The assertion that 'jihad', the word itself - doctrine aside - means 'effort' or 'to struggle' <strong>is a lie</strong>. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I will prove that is a lie by the best proof there is; a proof the Islamists and their sympathizers are not counting on and cannot refute if they wanted to.<br /><br />After reading my fill of pro-Islamist propaganda and disinformation in this "Winner of the Wilbur Award for Best Religion Book of 2003" (which I subsequently threw in the trash) I decided to find out the real meaning of 'jihad' by the best way there is: I consulted my Arabic-English dictionary by Maan Z. Madina (Pocket Book, 1973). That is a little something the Islamists do not expect!<br /><br />Arabic, for an English speaker, is like a language from another planet - the Islamists are aware of this language barrier and are exploiting it by planting disinformation about Arabic words and concepts in the minds of non-Arabic speakers. They, however, will not pull the wool over my eyes because I am learning their language.<br /><br />Very briefly setting some context for the non-Arabic speaker: Arabic words are based on a root of consonants arranged in a pattern; adding letters to the initial root and changing the vowels changes the pattern and the word's meaning, as the words below illustrate. "Jihad' is a transliteration, so I figured out the Arabic-letter root and pattern and then looked it up and from there found 'jihad.' FYI, while looking at the Arabic words below: Arabic reads right to left and has short vowel markings which are generally not shown in print, so I cannot type them in, but they are shown in dictionaries.<br /><br />From aforementioned Arabic dictionary (p.131):<br /><em><span style="font-size:180%;">جهد</span> to strive, endeavor, exert oneself, labor; to overwork, fatigue, exhaust</em><br /><br />Two points to make:<br />1)Those three letters are the basic root. Adding to it more letters and shifting the vowels makes words that have broadly related, yet specifically different meanings.<br />2)There is that definition we constantly hear - and that the Shaykh used. Well and good. Guess what? That word is not pronounced 'jihad.' It is pronounced 'jahada.' Hmmm.... now that's interesting....<br /><br />In the next column, same page, we have the Form III pattern. When a word is fromed by this patern, according to Mary Bateson's <strong><em>Arabic Language Handbook</em></strong> (p.33), it means "to endeavor to do something" or "to direct an action or quality toward someone." That in mind, here is the entry from Madina's dictionary:<em><span style="font-size:180%;">جهاد</span></em></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em> </em></span><span style="font-family:arial;"><em>fight(ing); jihad, holy war</em><br /><br />There is the same root in Form III pattern now with a different (unseen) short vowel and an added long vowel. Guess how that word is pronounced? - 'jihad.' How about that - even the transliteration is in the definition! That sure answers the question: does the jihad doctrine accurately follow from the word itself?!<br /><br />Notice also that the use of the Form III pattern itself also contradicts the assertions that "jihad" means "inner struggle" because when a word is put in this pattern its meaning regards action directed "externally" toward something outside the doer.<br /><br />The Arabic word for 'striving' and the Arabic word for 'fighting'/'holy war'' have a common consonantal root, which hardly makes them synonymous. That, however is exactly what the likes of Shaykh Rashid - to English-speakers - pretend is the case."Jihad does not mean holy war," is the myth. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Besides, even if these liars could make a semi-credible case that "jihad" does not mean "holy war," then the question to ask them is simply: then what in Arabic does mean "holy war"? Afterall, are we to believe that a religion that has a history of military conquest has no such concept?<br /><br />So Shaykh Rashid, how do you and your ilk explain a 'myth' of a definition being in an Arabic dictionary? Perhaps agents of the "Zionist-Crusader conspiracy" put it there?<br /><br />In conclusion, anyone who says 'jihad' means 'effort' or 'striving' and not 'holy war' either, a) is full of shit; or, b) believed someone </span><span style="font-family:arial;">who is</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> full of shit. Right, Shaykh Rashid?</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ain't infidels a bitch?! :)<br /><br />P.S. - Not so incidentally, they pull this same deceptive trick when they say 'Islam' means 'peace.' 'Salam' means 'peace'; 'Islam' means 'submission'; again, the words have the same consonantal root, that's all.</span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-4203281561389128882009-01-05T08:08:00.004-05:002009-04-05T12:46:59.102-04:00Old, Obscure, Great Books - Review No.1<span style="font-family:arial;">If anyone wants a good education, I say a significant portion of that would come from old books. I have accumulated quite a wonderful - and large - collection of them. I have learned so much from the scholars of decades ago; learning that would be almost impossible were I to read books solely by today's scholars, who tend to be concerned with trivia and are not all that scholarly (though there are some exceptions). As one way to help save those wonderful old books from a much undeserved oblivion, I am, starting with this post, selecting a few for brief reviews. I am sure there are, besides me, plenty of others out there who would find them to be of value.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Shortly after returning to college to major in philosophy my intellectual curiosity grew quickly - and in many directions. What I was learning in college just was not enough for me. I had all sorts of questions about things, especially how ideas influenced Western history from its literature to its politics. I quickly saw that I had my own studying to do outside of college and that my work was cut out for me. As a student, I was quickly disabused of the notion that my professors would be of some help in guiding me toward the matters I was interested in that went beyond classroom material. Disappointed, also, with the books I found in the latest Ivy League book catalogs and with what was in the book stores, I came to the conclusion that old books might be what I need.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I shortly found that to be the correct conclusion. </span><br /><br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgLiby7ACNv_LpJCLkjE26TaC4KsCbHZ848yaAlRg8u_7tNOLGOlWV_wa6gbUbbw14L7mV07A0IuUami08ucuiTe5NQ62twaUUtQHtIsS5S1WiXM1ok4HSHZHQdlXb5iF5McsT48h0qKLc/s1600-h/HPIM0070+q.bmp"></a><span style="font-family:arial;">Learning how to find good, old books was a bit difficult at first, as was identifying exactly what I was interested in. I was going in blind to new territory and found my way as I went and learned to use these old scholars as my guides until I could find my way through all this new, strange, complex, and wonderful "intellectual territory" on my own. I was enthused that with the right old books I could give myself an excellent education - and it would be dirt cheap! </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Anyhow, here is my first semi-random round-up of such gems. As far as I know, these books are long out of print - unfortunately; but there are copies out there to be found. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>Nationalism: Its Meaning & History (revised ed.)</em></strong>, by Hans Kohn; Anvil, 1965; 191 pp.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is a great little overview of nationalism from its 18th century origins to its 20th century manifestations. The first half of the book is Kohn's very concise and, at the same time, thorough, history of modern nationalism the world over. The second half of the book consists of short, primary source excerpts on nationalism from the writings of Machiavelli, Hegel, Mazzini, Napoleon, Dostoevsky, Renan, Nehru, Wagner, Mussolini, and others.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Kohn explains how the Enlightenment's nationalism that was of a benevolent, cultural nature was changed through a succession of historical events and the rise of new ideas, in to the collectivistic and militaristic nationalism of the last century - which still lingers in some ways. One of the most significant factors in this transformation was the French Revolution. The climate of ideas in revolutionary France led to a religious-like worship of the nation. "In all the communities in France an altar of the fatherland was erected with the inscription: 'The citizen is born, lives, and dies for the fatherland.' Before it the population assembled with patriotic songs, took an oath to uphold national unity and to obey and to protect the supreme law giver, the sovereign people" (p.25). </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Especially significant in fostering the new conception of the nation was education: "The French Revolution established the first comprehensive system of national education to raise virtuous and patriotic citizens. Education was for the first time regarded as a duty and chief interest of the nation...[to] realize the unity of the fatherland and the union of its citizens" (p.26). </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">When nationalism spread from the West to the third-world it was easily adapted despite the vast cultural differences between the two. Kohn shows why this is so without, for whatever reason, explicitly naming it: third-world cultures were predominantly religious, therefore a religion of the nation was easily accepted. This, as Kohn does point out, was then used to assert independence from the West.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>Dictatorship: Its History & Theory</em>, by Alfred Cobban; Charles Scribner's Sons, 1939; 352 pp.</strong> </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It is with the 16th century political philosophy of Jean Bodin that Cobban begins his history of dictatorship that culminates in - well, the year he wrote this book says it. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Bodin gave a secular justification for the state, one aspect of which was deriving sovereignty from the will of society instead of the will of God. This was a preliminary step toward ending the notion of the divine right of kings which had long been the basis of governments. Cobban takes the reader through the history of philosophical and political developments that incrementally led to modern totalitarianism: the 18th century's "Enlightened despots"; the political philosophy of Hobbes, Spinoza, Rousseau, Sieyes; the French Revolution's terrorism and "dictatorship of liberty." This period climaxes in Napoleon. With his ascendancy "arose, in the modern world, the idea that one man might himself represent the will of the people, and be invested with all the authority of the most despotic ruler in the name of democracy. The idea of sovereignty, freed from all restraints, and transferred to the people, had at last given birth to the first modern dictatorship" (p.86). </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">After Napoleon the stage is largely set for Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini and their lesser copies. In the paving of the way for them Cobban traces the development of nationalism and the impact of thinkers like Fichte, Hegel, and Marx. The idea of natural law, important in Enlightenment political philosophy of liberalism, is ended, Cobban argues, by the German Romanticists. The circle is closed, so to say, when Lenin's power-grab in Russia is modeled on the French Revolution.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In his summary of dictatorship, Cobban observes: "This is a return to government by faith: nationalism is the new religion, and the dictator is Pope and Emperor rolled into one"(p.283). And "there is a real spiritual principle in modern dictatorship, which makes it more than a mere technique of government. The new totalitarian dictatorship is powerful not because it rules men's bodies, but because it controls their minds. Its essential aim is, as we have suggested above, the identification of Church and State" (p.284). </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The book also has an appendix on Greek, Roman, and medieval Italian dictatorships. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>Encyclopedia of Religion</em></strong>, edited by Vergilius Ferm; Littlefield, Adams, & Co., 1959; 844pp. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It is very simple to review this book: it has big pages with small print, so there are lots of entries! Just about any religious figure or concept is included. It is a great reference book on religion.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>The Pursuit of the Millennium: Revolutionary Millenarians and Mystical Anarchists of the Middle Ages (revised & expanded ed.)</em>, by Norman Cohn; Oxford University Press, 1970; 412 pp.</strong> </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Bluntly, the reader of this book is in for a wild trip! The subject matter - medieval end-of-the-world movements - is as creepy as it is comical, but Norman Cohn is very much the serious scholar who actually broke open a new area of study with this book's first edition. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Cohn's focus is on what he termed "revolutionary millenarianism" and "mystical anarchism" in western Europe between the 11th and 16th centuries, and in the ending of the book he briefly draws parallels between them and the 20th century's revolutionary communist movements. Of these Christian revolutionaries and anarchists, Cohn examines their histories, their doctrines and the ideas that originated them, the problems they caused for religious authorities, and their influence on theologians.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Cohn sets the larger context of medieval messianic cults in its distant origins: ancient Jewish and Christian apocalyptic writings and how they influenced the Church Founders. Apocalyptic writings merged in the Christian mind with the ancient pagan notions of a long-lost state of nature, and the yearning to return to it, resulting in the vision of an end of the world and a new millennium. In history this idea has had formidable power. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Between the early Christian centuries and the 11th century there were who knows how many messiahs, and Cohn gives some examples of them before they became more prolific in the centuries his book concentrates on. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">After not many tales of messiahs one can see a familiar pattern which is universally applicable: a self-proclaimed messiah gathers a following, even if it remains small, claims to have supernatural powers and witnesses claim likewise. Next he promises them some version of a new, heavenly world and they come to heads with the authorities who kill the messiah and many of his followers. Bewildered survivors nonetheless believe their messiah will return in the future to triumph in bringing in the millennium. "So it came about that multitudes of people acted out with fierce energy a shared phantasy, which, though delusional, yet brought them such intense emotional relief that they could live only through it, and were perfectly willing both to kill and to die for it. This phenomenon was to recur many times, in various parts of western and central Europe, between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries" (p.88). Every generation of medieval Christians experienced this; sometimes it was on a small-scale, sometimes it was on a large scale.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There were also the "mystical anarchists," the "amoral supermen" of the Free Spirit and similar sects (Cohn compares them to Nietzsche's notion of the "superman") who claimed to be one with God, who is good and divine, and therefore, they were above all morality. They were already saved so they could do anything they pleased - and they did, as Cohn chronicles for us.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Another religious angle some medievals took on the world's imminent end was premised on self-punishment. They believed that if they beat their bodies to bloody pulps, the punishment in the afterlife would not be as severe. This culminated in mass - and public - self-flagellating processions that would usher in the Second Coming. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Cohn concludes, "The old religious idiom has been replaced by a secular one, and this tends to obscure what otherwise would be obvious. For it is the simple truth that, stripped of their original supernatural sanction, revolutionary millenarianism and mystical anarchism are with us still" (p.286). </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><strong><em>The Pursuit of the Millennium</em></strong> is an in-depth look at those who took Christianity seriously and to its logical conclusion - over and over and over again, despite the horrific results of so doing. It is a history demonstrating how faith, if strongly held, is immune to reality.</span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"><a href="http://tomstelene.blogspot.com/2009/03/old-obscure-great-books-review-no-2.html">Old, Obscure, Great Books: Review No.2</a></span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1187572289151836731.post-27662374091378647392009-01-05T08:04:00.000-05:002009-01-05T05:18:07.309-05:00What I Learned in Church - as an Adult<span style="font-family:arial;">As I am studying religion - its history, psychology, philosophy, etc. - I wondered, should I at least go to a church service just as an observer, especially if I live next to one? What would it be like? That is not an appealing thought on one level, but is a good question, nonetheless. Why are people attracted to it? How would I, from my standpoint, react to it? I have not been to mass in - I don’t know - 28 years or more, and I decided that as an educated, rational adult I should go just to observe out of curiosity. What can I learn from going to church - not about God, but about believers in God? </span><br /><span style="font-family:Arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As a little kid I went to mass sometimes with my friend, whose mother was a regular churchgoer. I was raised Catholic, but got off lightly - just having to attend Sunday school and do communion was the extent of it for me. I have some memories of what mass was like and how it bored me. What would I think of mass now as an educated, rational, independent-minded, atheist adult - distant, fuzzy memories and fuzzy memories of my reaction to it, aside?<br /><br />There is a Catholic church and school right next to the apartment complex I live in and every Sunday morning its sizable parking lot is packed with cars that even overflow out to nearby streets. What is the appeal? A charismatic priest who gives great sermons? What? As best I can remember, mass is dull.<br /><br />I walked over for the 9:30 service. I made it clear in my mind that I will not kneel to pray, stand to sing, or anything else. I will just sit politely and watch and listen. I am going as an observer, not as a participant. </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"></span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I went in and as I was walking across the lobby, a lady ahead of me entered the room of worship through the big wood doors and reached her finger into the holy water holder on the wall - and my forgotten childhood memories of seeing people do that suddenly came to the fore of my mind. “Oh wow, I forgot about that (jaw drops)…it’s ridiculous!” Then I looked at her and was dumbfounded by her superstitious silliness. “You actually believe putting your finger in the water is significant?” I asked her in my mind. That foolish little action instantly and powerfully made it clear to me what a different world I entered. My emotional state darkened. The thought "just leave" crossed my mind but I resolved to proceed in to this remnant of the Dark Ages.<br /><br />I walked in and I made a left to the end of the pews and went a few rows and sat down. Then I remembered the “peace be with you” hand-shaking thing they do. I do not object to that in itself because it is not appealing to the supernatural. Problem is, I would feel like a phony doing it because I am not here to participate - period. Simple solution to this problem: sit where there is nobody with arm's reach!<br /><br />More people filed in and some seated themselves around me here and there, but some of them in the pews in front of me blocked my view of the altar and the green-cloaked wizard when the mass began. Attendance was modest and consisted of mostly old folks (an indication that it is early in the morning). I looked next to me and in the middle of my pew was nobody. And nobody in the pews in front of and behind it, so I slid down to see better - and solve the matter of how to avoid the “peace to you” hand-shaking!<br /><br />So the mass started with all rising to pray and/or sing - except me. Then there more prayers and bible-snippet-quoting as they are going through their rituals.<br /><br />I was primarily waiting for the green-cloaked wizard to deliver a how-important-God-is-for-one’s-life sermon so I could critique it - as an educated, philosophical-minded adult. In other words, I wanted to hear what was the what, how, and why of him telling his faithful to believe what they do.<br /><br />Finally he starts talking and it seems like this might be what I have been forcing myself to patiently wait for, so I ratchet up my attention a bit. He talks about how his friend saw the opening Olympic ceremony in China and how magnificent it was and the only other sight he beheld he can compare its magnificence to was the Grand Canyon. Okay, I think, this might be some kind of analogy he is going to make about beholding God’s or Big J’s magnificence. He then shifted his talk back to the Bible or something - I forget what exactly - and what, if anything, the two subjects had to do with each other was completely lost on me. Needless to say, I was hardly impressed.<br /><br />Next a woman spends several minutes talking about her group’s Catholic charity work in South America, and after that, more rituals of praying, singing, Bible-reading, communion, and somewhere in there, passing the collection baskets.<br /><br />I did not wear my watch so I had no sense of time during this boring ordeal, but by the nature of the rituals I sensed they were wrapping up mass. While I waited for this to end I watched the flock do what they do and I thought about what I experienced - and what they experienced.<br /><br />First off, there was virtually no substance to the mass, that paltry substance being the inane “morals of the story” from their few brief Bible readings.What was the most salient about aspect of the mass is its psychological nature. The faithful flock was there to worship their God so they were in a </span><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suggestion"><span style="font-family:arial;">suggestible frame of mind</span></a><span style="font-family:arial;">. As mass proceeds they become more suggestible by relaxing (part of being bored), by praying (which is really self-suggestion), by monotonous singing, by losing sense of oneself in the group, etc.<br /><br />While I was watching them partake in their final rituals I was aware of what, generally speaking, was happening psychologically: they created a groupthink delusion that they were “close to God” or however one wants to phrase it.<br /><br />I found it to be very disturbing, surreal - and pathetic. They seemed alien to me. As mass ended, I had an intense sense of urgency to get away from these delusional fools. I was maybe the third person out the door. “Put distance between them and me,” I thought, “and fast.” I thought that seriously, not sarcastically.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />Stepping outside was such a relief, but the impact of what I experienced was still with me. It made me so glad to be an atheist, to have my mind be mine.<br /><br />Back in the real world I thought about what happened in the church. Those people go there every Sunday and do their silly, meaningless rituals while finding it all to be somehow serious and spiritual - and they get all dressed up for it, to boot! What going to mass amounts to is going to the priest and his assistants, allowing them to plant their suggestions in one's mind, and then paying them for it. When next week comes, go back for more. It is cooperation with one's mind controllers. That is the reality of what mass is, and if I tried expining any of that to them... well, nevermind.<br /><br />That is what I learned in church - as an educated, rational, adult.</span><br /><br /></span>Tom Stelenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13460571529579448952noreply@blogger.com1