tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33621655447129558922024-03-13T03:47:16.982-05:00Teeth of the Buzz Saw<center><big>A place for rational thoughts and random ramblings.</big></center>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.comBlogger258125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-5544938668136105932022-01-20T20:14:00.002-06:002022-01-20T20:18:20.076-06:00On the Florida "Individual Freedom" billHoly crap, Batman, I'm publishing a blog post! Truth be told, I published this all on Facebook, but wanted to have another copy of what I wrote. This may be how I typically use this blog going forward.<p>
I have decided to torture myself and go over this Florida <a href="https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2022/148/BillText/Filed/HTML">"Individual Freedom" bill</a>. The phrases "wolf in sheep's clothing" and "strawman" come to mind. It also seems very much like a bill that has already been signed here in Iowa that didn't get near the national attention, perhaps because Iowa has a much smaller population and because the bill here was limited, as far as I am aware, to education. <p>
Right at the top of the changes we see very much the sheep's clothing. Here, it looks to be banning the promotion of white supremacy (or any type of supremacy) and seems very much a good thing: "Members of one race, color, sex, or national origin are morally superior to members of another race, color, sex, or national origin."<p>
It seems to be a few sections down that is getting attention that is very much the wolf: "An individual should feel discomfort, guilt, anguish, or any other form of psychological distress on account of his or her race, color, sex, or national origin." It's not too hard to see how this is problematic. In fact, later sections of the bill make it fairly clear how this is problematic. The concern would be that teaching about how white people committed genocide in these lands as well as held slaves could make a white person "feel discomfort on account of [their] race."<p>
The next section is very much a wolf in sheep's clothing in itself: "Such virtues as merit, excellence, hard work, fairness, neutrality, objectivity, and racial colorblindness are racist or sexist, or were created by members of a particular race, color, sex, or national origin to oppress members of another race, color, sex, or national origin." A problem is that most, if not all of these, are promoted by white supremacists. Here's an example of why this is: Discrimination against black people has led to them having less generational wealth. This, in turn, makes it harder for them to access important things like education. That, then, leads to them having less merit. So of course white supremacists love the idea of merit! It then let's them say, "No, I'm not discriminating based on race! It just so happened that all the white people I hired had more merit! I'm being fair and objective!!!" This is very much why progressives such as myself find the idea of colorblindness problematic. Colorblindness seems to suggest that we should ignore that a person of color had to overcome more obstacles than a white person because of racial discrimination when, no, we should absolutely be considering such obstacles!<p>
Sections further down get into the strawmen, or misrepresentations, that I recall being in the Iowa bill. That they are misrepresentations make them problematic because the expectation is that laws like this may be enforced against the ideas they are misrepresenting. Does that make sense? Maybe a simpler way would be to say that the law says it is against A, which is a misrepresentation of B. The concern is it will then be applied against B. Continuing with the wolf in sheep's clothing theme, A also isn't really that objectionable...which would suggest that the misrepresentation is intentional. And that is also why people would be concerned that such laws will be practically applied to B.<p>
So let's get into the first example: "No individual is inherently racist, sexist, or oppressive, whether consciously or unconsciously, solely by virtue of his or her race or sex." On the surface, this sounds fine. But how would a statement like "White people tend to have biases X, Y, and Z" be treated? Note that it says "tend to, " and not "inherently," but would it be viewed as essentially saying such biases are inherent and thus be illegal? This is the concern. How loosely is the word "inherently" going to be applied?<p>
The next example states "An individual, by virtue of his or her race or sex, does not bear responsibility for actions committed in the past by other members of the same race or sex." Once again, this sounds fine on the surface. A problem I have with many people is that they also feel they bear no responsibility for correcting the lingering consequences (such as the lower generational wealth black people have that I mentioned earlier) for those actions made by other people. Would this law take issue with me if I were a teacher suggesting that a white person, having been a benefactor of actions of other white people, do something to correct such imbalances? The way it is written very much suggests that it would be problematic. This section, then, is much more wolf with very little sheep's clothing covering it.<p>
There is then another section about making people feel uncomfortable. And, with that, I think I've covered the most concerning pieces of the bill. One last side note, though: I notice they use "his or her" a lot in this bill. Go figure that they cannot be bothered to acknowledge gender nonconforming individuals -- in a bill that's supposed to be against discrimination -- by using "their."<p>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-65262233036344303732020-02-03T12:37:00.003-06:002020-02-03T12:37:46.506-06:00Why I am supporting Warren over Sanders, othersWith Iowa caucuses toady and since I am a somewhat active member in my local Democratic party, I am well past due documenting why I will be caucusing for Elizabeth Warren. (Better late than never?) While my political ideology aligns more with Sanders than Warren, I view getting progressive legislation passed to be more important. Being ideologically "pure," so to speak, doesn't mean much if they are ineffective as President. Jimmy Carter comes to mind as an example of someone who I would seem to align with well politically, but their ineffectiveness as President may have set back more progressive politics. (Worse, Carter proudly identifying as an Evangelical Christian, despite having little in common with them politically, may have inadvertently helped their rise to political power.) Consequently, this post is going to be much more about why I am <i>not</i> supporting Sanders than it is about why I am supporting Warren.<br />
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Sanders, for much of his career, has not been a member of the Democratic party, preferring instead to be a principled outsider, though he caucuses with Democrats in Congress. While there are reasons to admire him for doing that, my concern is that he doesn't have enough allies in Congress to pass legislation. Since we live in a country still resembling something like a democracy and since we should be striving to restore our democracy and not resort to executive orders to push a progressive agenda, the next President will need every ally they can get. <br />
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I was reminded recently as well that Sanders has only managed to get seven bills passed. <a href="https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/bernard_sanders/400357">That appears to be a fact</a> and that really doesn't seem like much, especially when two were for the naming of post offices and another for designating Vermont Bicentennial Day. The website I link does provide somewhat of a defense of Sanders and I do generally agree, so I'll quote them here:<br />
<blockquote>Does 7 not sound like a lot? Very few bills are ever enacted — most legislators sponsor only a handful that are signed into law. But there are other legislative activities that we don’t track that are also important, including offering amendments, committee work and oversight of the other branches, and constituent services.</blockquote><br />
Warren, on the other hand, managed to <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_Financial_Protection_Bureau#History">proposed and established a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau</a> <i>while she was a Harvard professor!</i> She helped to create an important bureau without even being in office! She has also, unlike Sanders, expressed a willingness to work with Democrats. I recognize this is a point of frustration for many so-called progressives (I'll abbreviate as SCP for short from now on) as they are tired of the "old guard" of politicians and, because Warren is willing to work with them, some SCP's view Warren as a fraud and an operative of that old guard. While I sympathize with these concerns, I believe it is the political reality we live in.<br />
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This brings me to the "political revolution" Sanders was promoting four years ago. It's not coming. I don't know what more there is to say, other than to make clear that I believe Sanders needs it to happen to be effective. While I do not believe Sanders himself is using the "political revolution" rhetoric much this year, he did put out a campaign ad recently called "Transform This Country." <br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="270" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/xpPwllkVaGg" width="480"></iframe><br />
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I generally like the ad. It has a nice message about fighting for people you don't know as much as you would for yourself. But, there's a conditional in Sanders' speech: "If you and millions of others are prepared to [fight for people you don't know], not only will we win this election, but together we will transform this country." I'm just not convinced that will happen. Good luck finding millions of people willing to do that! Sure, I have no doubt Sanders can find millions of people willing to vote for him, but that is not equivalent.<br />
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While this has to do less with the election itself, I must acknowledge and discuss issues I see with a number of Sanders' supporters. Earlier, I mentioned so-called progressives. Allow me to elaborate on that at this time. I am concerned that there are many who claim to be progressive but that their claims are bogus and are more about making themselves feel superior to others. In other words, I worry they are self-righteous. These are people I might also call Bernie Bros as they seem to be not only predominantly male, but white as well. The Bernie Bro seems to be mostly focused on economic issues, healthcare being the big one, but don't seem to be overly worried about other issues such as criminal justice reform. I'm not sure if I've seen anyone better exemplify the Bernie Bro mentality than Krystal Ball who hosts The Hill's <i>Rising</i>. She is critical of everyone to the right of Sanders, implying that they are immoral if they don't support Medicare for all, but will also bash SJW's (social justice warriors). It may seem odd for someone to question the morality of those who don't support better health care and then turn around and criticize those who have concerns regarding issues relating to racial discrimination or women's rights or transgender rights, etc, etc. But I think it goes to show that these Bernie Bros have a very narrow policy focus. That would be fine so long as they wouldn't be moralizing toward others.<br />
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The reason I bring this up is because I am concerned that, if Sanders were to be the nominee, they'll scare people away from voting for Sanders. No, this isn't exactly an "electability" argument. I do think Sanders is electable, but I am concerned about some of his supporters screwing up. I found <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/12/krystal-ball-rising-the-hill-msnbc">a quote from Krystal Ball</a> that seems quite lacking in self awareness. She says, "No one is going to vote for a party who looks down their nose at them." Yet, she seems unconcerned about the impacts of looking her nose down on others. Really, I suspect the problem is she doesn't realize she's doing that. I don't think many of the Bernie Bros do. That quote, though, is why I find these supporters concerning. I agree with what she says there. So I hope the Bernie Bros like her come to their senses. <br />
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When it comes to Warren supporters, however, I have not noticed a superior attitude that could turn off voters. Granted, since I align more politically with Sanders, I am likely exposed to his supporters social circles more. So I acknowledge this could be an issue of sampling bias. Yet, I still have to make my decisions on what I know and not what I don't know. That I have not encountered many toxic Warren supporters is another reason I have for supporting her. While looking at supporters of candidates may not seem all important, I think it is because it is the supporters of the candidate in the primaries who will likely become the bulk of the volunteers that will be out canvassing for the general elections if their candidate becomes the nominee for the general election.<br />
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Now I'd like to quickly cover notes on other candidates.<br />
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While I am concerned about Sanders not having allies in the Democratic party, I have no issue with candidates who have no Republican allies. In fact, given how Republicans blockaded legislation under Obama (and are now doing the same against the House) and are protecting the criminal President in office now, I find it naive to even consider working with Republicans. Forget them. Sure, we'll need to retake the Senate, but that will be a much easier task than getting a sufficient number of Sanders allies into office. And so I am basically dismissing Biden and Klobuchar for being candidates who want to reach across the aisle. (I'll add that, of the two, I am more favorable of Klobuchar.)<br />
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Buttigieg still seems a mystery to me. It's not really clear to me what people see in him. I'm not the first to say that he seems out trying to appease as many groups as he can where one minute he's trying to portray himself as progressive but the next he's either criticizing progressives for wanting to fight hard or making right-wing talking points. There are also concerns that, while mayor of South Bend, he had the <a href="https://tyt.com/stories/4vZLCHuQrYE4uKagy0oyMA/22kkCiHxZkbeKfsQZwkvIm">black police chief fired due to pressure from his donors</a>. Whether or not Buttigieg was actually influenced by his donors is not clear, but it seems that big money donors believe Buttigieg can be bought and that's a scary thought. Also, I have found his "Medicare for all who want it" plan to be a joke. Primarily, he says he's going to fund it by repealing the Trump tax cuts. That's a problem as those tax cuts were not offset themselves. Therefore, they can't be used to pay for anything. They have to be repealed to keep us from going further into the red as it is.<br />
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Yang is perhaps the only other candidate worth mentioning due to his popularity with more active party members. While I am supportive of the idea of his Freedom Dividend, he seems quite naive when it comes to politics and even philosophy. One big concern I have is he has talked about <i>not</i> prosecuting people from the Trump administration, suggesting we need to look forward, much like Obama did when he took office in regards to the Bush administration. The problem with this is that, if there are no consequences for committing a crime, then there is no deterrent from committing more in the future. (Note too that they never talk about looking forward when it comes to every other criminal currently in jail!) Another one of his bigger proposals is "human-centered capitalism" where we are to look more at indications of well-being more than GDP. While that's not a terrible idea on the surface, I have no clue how he plans to actually implement such an idea. He says, for example, he wants to "reward people and organizations who drive significant social value." It's not clear, though, how he'd go about identifying these people and organizations nor how he would reward them. It would be interesting if the reward were monetary considering he wants to get away from that type of capitalism.<br />
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I'd like to add that it is prior experience from that atheist movement that leads me to distrust some people calling themselves progressive. Back 10 years ago or so, it felt like one of the top critiques of religion was the treatment of women, particularly under Islam. But then 9 years ago atheist women began to object more strongly to the way atheist men were treating them and many atheist men basically told these women to <a href="https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=stfu">STFU</a>. Perhaps the most disruptive came from Richard Dawkins where he <a href="https://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2018/06/28/dawkins-and-dear-muslima/">pretended to write to a Muslim woman</a>, mocking and minimizing the problems American women deal with because those problems aren't as bad as those faced by Muslim women. It was not only a childish thing of Dawkins to do, but rather hypocritical considering his name had risen in popularity for criticizing religion mainly in some of the least religious countries in the world. But Dawkins reaction and similar reactions of many other atheist men revealed that their criticisms of religion was more about being self-righteous and, particularly in the criticisms of Islam, racist. It revealed that their claims of better morality were bogus. The atheist movement slowly collapsed into irrelevance after this.<br />
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I'll also note that, here in Cedar Rapids, I gave up on the atheist movement around August of 2014, I believe, where white male atheists were expressing a desire to be welcome in the Republican party and wishing it weren't so dominated by Evangelical Christians. I found it disturbing that the racism and the sexism of the party did not seem to bother them. From then, I saw them as privileged white guys who were whiny that they didn't have even <i>more</i> privilege. When I listen to these white Bernie Bros who seem mostly focused on economic issues, I cannot help but hear people of privilege wanting more privilege for themselves and not necessarily for others.<br />
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Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-4595146088697331022016-08-09T07:05:00.000-05:002016-08-09T07:05:12.838-05:00A weird encounter with Jehovah's WitnessesOn a recent Saturday, some Jehovah's Witnesses came by my house and the discussion I had seemed rather odd. For starters, it looked like at least four people came, but two people just sat in the vehicle they came in the entire time. I didn't ask about that, so perhaps they were just rotating? I've gone door-to-door for political canvasing; it's not something I find enjoyable, so I could see taking a break if I were with a larger group.<br />
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As for the two people I did talk with, Cliff and Joanne (I believe were their names), Cliff did most of the talking. And I wouldn't call what he did much more than talk. He never really made a case for anything he was saying. Rather, his talking-points were the types of points that may cause people to cave into their ignorance. Basically, he was asking questions about how something may have came to be, with the idea being that, because I don't have an answer, I should then assume a god is responsible. I'm wiser than that, so his talking points did not move me at all.<br />
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For some examples, the very first "point" he tried to make related to this idea that the Bible is still a best-seller, despite all the attacks that have been made against it. He asked if I thought something might be behind this. The idea here is that there is supposedly no way the Bible could have survived through history if it was not, at the very least, divinely inspired. (Some may go further and claim that a god has been protecting the Bible.) Next he went to verses in Revelation about Armageddon. He was suggesting that the verse was talking about our present day and asked how the author could have known this was going to happen. For kicks, here are the two verses, <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Revelation+16%3A13-14&version=NIV">Revelation 16:13-14</a>: "Then I saw three impure spirits that looked like frogs; they came out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast and out of the mouth of the false prophet. They are demonic spirits that perform signs, and they go out to the kings of the whole world, to gather them for the battle on the great day of God Almighty." Your guess is probably as good as mine as to how that is supposed to relate to the present day.<br />
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Other talking-points he raised related to biology and cosmology. I can't even remember the stupid questions he asked, but what he was going for was trying to get me to think that there is no way the world could have come about naturally and, therefore, I should believe a supernatural being is responsible. I, of course, understand how bogus such thinking is and did not cave in.<br />
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This may have made the conversation weird. I wonder if I threw him off by not accepting his sales pitches, which left him struggling to decide which pitch to go to next. That said, I doubt he actually had any sort of argument and that's what I'm really interested in. This is where I failed in the conversation. If he wasn't going to present an argument by himself, I should have found a way to request that he present one. Also, there was one point where he asked if I believe everything I was taught in school. He, to little surprise, was out to get me to doubt the teachings of evolution. This was an opportunity for me to ask him how he goes about determining what is true and what is not. What is his methodology? Why should anyone believe that his methodology is actually reliable? I wonder if he actually had any methodology. If there is a next time, I'll have to do a better job on this.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-89325207695156043882016-08-02T07:35:00.000-05:002016-08-02T07:35:38.556-05:00Open Letter to the Democratic PartyDear Democratic Party,<br />
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What happened with <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/2016/07/democratic-national-convention-starts-under-the-cloud-of-leaked-emails/">Wasserman Schultz and the DNC</a> is a bit concerning. Clinton nominating Kaine as her VP is concerning. Clinton <a href="http://observer.com/2016/07/clinton-rewards-wasserman-schultzs-shady-behavior-with-new-job/">hiring Wasserman Schultz as an honorary chair</a> is especially concerning.<br />
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I am a Sanders supporter and was a Sanders delegate to the Linn County Convention. Over these past few months, when it was clear Sanders was not going to be the nominee, there had been calls for Sanders to drop out and endorse Clinton for the sake of party unity. I am willing to support Clinton, but I know of others that are not. Certainly you are aware of the "Bernie or bust" crowd. And I'll agree with <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2016/07/25/if-you-feel-it-it-is-true/">Sarah Silverman that they are "being ridiculous"</a> (warning: autoplay video).<br />
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My concern is when can we expect Clinton and her supporters to make consolidations for party unity? The issue I have is that it feels* like a one-way street. It feels like it is always progressives or those who are more grassroots making the sacrifices and never those who might be described as neoliberal (or even neoconservative) or part of the establishment.<br />
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I have encountered Clinton supporters who have shown a total disregard for progressives. When progressives threaten not to vote for Clinton, the attitude is "Good riddance." I can somewhat understand the attitude from a mathematical perspective. It's not like those people are going to go vote for whoever the Republican nominee was going to be (that we now know to be Trump). Losing progressives only costs one votes. It makes more sense, then, to go for those in the middle. If you lose their vote, they may go vote for Trump. That costs two votes - the one Clinton loses plus the one Trump gains. It would seem to make sense, then, to go for those middle voters.<br />
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But it is then disingenuous to ask for party unity and then forget about the progressives when it comes to the general election. And, unfortunately, I saw some condescending attitudes from Democrats at the convention, one of which was from Elijah Cummings. (Though, to be fair, I heard his speech was disrupted, so he could have been a bit bitter over that, and understandably so.) The attitude is that progressives should be happy as the party platform is, so I have heard (yeah, I should probably read the platform sometime), quite progressive and they (we) got Wasserman Shultz's head served on a platter. Metaphorically, of course.<br />
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On that last point, Wasserman Shultz needed to go a long time ago. This email leak wasn't the first time it has been suggested Wasserman Shultz and the DNC were playing favorites. It was believed months ago the <a href="http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2016/jan/20/debbie-wasserman-schultz/democratic-debates-maximize-exposure-debbie-wasser/">debate schedule was set up to give Clinton an edge</a> by reducing Sanders' exposure to the public. No, this email link was just more evidence of the DNC giving progressives the middle finger.<br />
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Again, I can agree that some people have gone a bit over-the-top on this, going as far as to suggest that the DNC engaged in illegal activity. The reality is it was probably largely people being driven by their internal biases that led to this problem, but I don't think the frustration that we are observing are over the emails. I cannot even say that the emails are some sort of "smoking gun" as the emails, from what I have read, seem rather tame. No, the problem is with business as usual and the problem doesn't magically disappear just because we get tossed a few bones. For people like Elijah Cummings to suggest that we should be happy with these bones is insulting.<br />
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The tone-deafness may be what is most disappointing. Here, WikiLeaks' <a href="http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/exclusive-wikileaks-julian-assange-releasing-dnc-emails-ousted-debbie-wasserman">Julian Assange states the problem</a> more elegantly than I ever could: <blockquote>It is important for there to be examples of accountability. The resignation was an example of that. Now, of course, Hillary Clinton has tried to immediately produce a counter-example by putting out a statement, within hours, saying that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a great friend, and she’s incorporating her into her campaign, she’s going to be pushing for her re-election to the Congress. So that’s a very interesting signaling by Hillary Clinton that if you act in a corrupt way that benefits Hillary Clinton, you will be taken care of. Why does she need to put that out? Certainly, it’s not a signal that helps with the public at all. It’s not a signal that helps with unity at the DNC, at the convention. It’s a signal to Hillary Clinton partisans to keep on going on, you’ll be taken care of. But it’s a very destructive signal for a future presidency, because it’s—effectively, it’s expanding the Overton window of corruption. It doesn’t really matter what you do, how you behave; as long as that is going to benefit Hillary Clinton, you’ll be protected.</blockquote><br />
This, of course, won't bother loyal Clinton supporters a bit. But I think the Democratic party needs to do better. Blind loyalty is part of why the threat of a Trump presidency is still a concern, both on the side of Republicans who will vote for the Republican candidate no matter what and on the side of the Democrats, who scare off less partisan voters with their lack of criticism of Clinton.** I will agree that these couple of email "scandals" are not actually scandals. At the same time, there needs to be the recognition that there was incompetence at play here. Admit the mistakes and learn from them. But one can't learn from mistakes they won't admit they made. Also, please stop claiming that Clinton is the most qualified candidate ever. I will agree she is perhaps one of the most <i>experienced</i> candidate, but experience does not equate with being qualified. Let's not forget that <a href="https://www.fbi.gov/news/pressrel/press-releases/statement-by-fbi-director-james-b-comey-on-the-investigation-of-secretary-hillary-clinton2019s-use-of-a-personal-e-mail-system">FBI director James Comey described the email behavior as "extremely careless."</a> I realize that emails is a small part of a President's duties,*** but if Clinton is one of the most qualified candidates ever, this tells me we seriously need to find better qualified candidates!<br />
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With all this said, I really just want Democrats to represent the values they claim to represent. When an organization like the DNC claims to be impartial and its not, that causes mistrust. When a political party demands that its progressive members sacrifice for party unity, but the neoliberals seldom have to sacrifice (And when their "great" sacrifice is a more progressive party platform? Shouldn't that be a good thing?), that creates mistrust.<br />
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Finally, going back to the search for voters in the "middle," I would like the party to make a decision. With the Republican party self-destructing, it may be that some day, the Democrats could become the dominant party. I know...I know. Republicans control much of our government; that seems a bit odd based on how disorganized they are. Still, there seems an opportunity for the Democrats to pick up people who are dissatisfied with the party. This means the Democratic party could move further to the right, distancing itself further from the progressives in the party. The decision I would like the party to make is on which way it wants to move. Is it going to move further right? I get the sense the party is hesitant to move left, so should we progressives just leave the party now?<br />
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* <small>Yes, I realize that <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/singham/2016/07/25/if-you-feel-it-it-is-true/">feelings were brought up at the RNC a lot</a> and that what we feel isn't necessarily true. But, when we are talking about bringing a party together, feelings matter.</small><br />
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** <small>Yes, I also realize there is a lot of sexism directed at Clinton and a lot of people who won't vote for Clinton largely because she is a woman. But I am concerned some brush off some of these issues as being non-issues because they think it is just the sexist crowd that wants them to be issues.</small><br />
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*** <small>I sometimes think I myself should get involved with politics, but I know one of my major weaknesses is my communication skills. The point is I do recognize it is hard to have all the necessary qualifications, but can we please recognize Clinton has both strengths and weaknesses?</small>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-13347599935274150292016-04-27T18:19:00.001-05:002016-04-27T18:20:59.772-05:00Leasons Learned from the IFC: Why Christians strawman atheistsBefore I go over any deeper thoughts on the "<a href="http://www.newcovenantbible.org/Arena/default.aspx?page=4794&eventId=6224">Intelligent Faith Conference</a>," I want to go over a lesson I learned about conservative Christians and apologists that I <i>should</i> have realized quite some time ago. I have been bothered by the way Christian apologists will make claims about what atheists believe. It was quite common throughout the book, "I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist," (IDHEF for short from now on) which <a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/search/label/IDHEF">I have blogged about</a>. I <i>had</i> thought the reason was largely to make atheists seem silly in order to make their beliefs seem more reasonable in comparison. I now have slightly different thoughts.<br />
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First, let's go back to March 2010 when I attended a conference in Des Moines with my now-wife, Amy. I had attended a session with a doctor who was giving a presentation on the brain. I no longer remember the full details of the presentation (I do remember they had brought an actual brain in a vat) nor do I remember why they brought this up, but they said that everyone, including atheists, have faith. (Their example of atheists having faith, for reference, is that we have faith that our car brakes will work.) At the time, I wasn't all that familiar with Christian apologetics nor logical fallacies, so I was not able to recognize they were committing an <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equivocation">equivocation error</a>, but, later on, the question I had was why was it so important for them to believe that atheists have faith?<br />
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Sometime in between then and now, I would learn about cognitive dissonance theory. For the purpose of this blog post, I'll share a few paragraphs on the topic from <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/cognitive-dissonance.html">Simply Psychology</a>:<br />
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<blockquote>According to Festinger, we hold many cognitions about the world and ourselves; when they clash, a discrepancy is evoked, resulting in a state of tension known as cognitive dissonance. As the experience of dissonance is unpleasant, we are motivated to reduce or eliminate it, and achieve consonance (i.e. agreement).<br />
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Cognitive dissonance was first investigated by Leon Festinger, arising out of a participant observation study of a cult which believed that the earth was going to be destroyed by a flood, and what happened to its members — particularly the really committed ones who had given up their homes and jobs to work for the cult — when the flood did not happen.<br />
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While fringe members were more inclined to recognize that they had made fools of themselves and to "put it down to experience", committed members were more likely to re-interpret the evidence to show that they were right all along (the earth was not destroyed because of the faithfulness of the cult members).</blockquote><br />
The one big takeaway from cognitive dissonance theory is that those with strongly held beliefs have a very difficult time letting go of those beliefs when they come in conflict with observed reality and that it tends to be easier to seek out information or reasons, regardless of their truth value, to reduce dissonance. Or, as the Simply Psychology article states, "One of the points that dissonance theorists are fond of making is that people will go to all sorts of lengths to reduce dissonance."<br />
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I have also read that Festinger had observed that the cult members also began "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/When_Prophecy_Fails">an enthusiastic effort at proselytizing to seek social support and lessen the pain of disconfirmation</a>." The idea here would seem to be that people feel more comfortable in their beliefs if they think others share in that belief. (This is also backed up by other psychological studies, like the <a href="http://www.simplypsychology.org/asch-conformity.html">Asch conformity studies</a>.)<br />
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This brings us back to the doctor I met six years ago. I have since come to the realization that the doctor was out to convince themself that everybody believes things off of faith to gain social support for some belief that they have that they are uncomfortable with. I will also note that I recall them asking the audience if they (we) agreed. I see this as serving as further evidence that they were indeed out for social support. I have since seen claims about atheists having faith to serve essentially the same purpose.<br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii6OuxATMZ3L2X82PKTRTq4GFMediMn2NHy8a0fLTjtw6rzVThqKyWJXicJ6ZsgnAv8cht2Z2PWAsWBUlvsJ2BWho6-oG94YRnRa-yMPcCDKkM3QBGifRm-BE6vhEzhvj0N419Kl0PJSA/s1600/big+lebowski.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEii6OuxATMZ3L2X82PKTRTq4GFMediMn2NHy8a0fLTjtw6rzVThqKyWJXicJ6ZsgnAv8cht2Z2PWAsWBUlvsJ2BWho6-oG94YRnRa-yMPcCDKkM3QBGifRm-BE6vhEzhvj0N419Kl0PJSA/s200/big+lebowski.jpg" width="193" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Yeah? Well, you know, that's<br />
just like, your OPINION, man.</td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br />
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Fast-forward to the present day, I was seeing my coworker make rather similar claims. When talking about the supposed resurrection of Jesus, they made some remark that everything that's written down is essentially just opinion. It was rather clear where this was going. I'll just go ahead and be blunt that there isn't any really good evidence that a resurrection happened. (As I said in <a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2016/04/first-thoughts-on-first-day-of.html">my post on initial thoughts</a>, the person, Gary Habermas, who was presented as a supposed expert on this subject, made an argument from ignorance at the end of the presentation. If they had good evidence, there should be no need for them to engage in fallacious reasoning.) My suspicion is that my coworker realizes this as well. But, as they are a believer, this would cause cognitive dissonance. So what would be a way to reduce that conflict? Proclaim that everybody believes for bad reasons, just like that doctor and others do when they proclaim that everyone believes things on faith!<br />
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It was not this interaction that led to my light-bulb moment, but this interaction did help bring to the front of my mind the thought of such experiences with believers where they try to present some sort of "everybody does this" argument to justify their behavior. It was a couple other interactions that led to my new realization.<br />
<ul><li>On the Friday night of the event, my coworker introduced me to their friend, James, and we talked a bit about the second presentation by J. Warner Wallace, the crime-scene investigator. Their presentation roughly mirrored chapters 3 through 6 of IDHEF, so I was familiar with the arguments. I talked with James about the science behind the origins of the universe and how I find it irrational to jump to the conclusion of god because one does not find any naturalistic explanations satisfactory. Why can't one just say, "I don't know"? They did find that to be interesting, but then they went on to assist that one does need to come to a conclusion, to which I responded with a pointed "Why?!?" They seemed to think one would need to come to a conclusion in order to make decisions and, unfortunately, that is where that part of the conversation ended. (I will agree somewhat that there are indeed many moments in life where we do need to make decisions on a limited amount of information. As an engineer, I have to do so as a regular part of my job. But what decisions would I need to make based on the origins of the universe?<sup>1</sup>) James looked as if he'd never actually had this suggested before. It was a telling moment.</li>
<li>During Saturday discussions with my coworker, they made some claims along the lines that I "have a perspective" and that they "have a perspective" as well as I "have a worldview" just like everyone else does. I was also accused of <a href="https://www.patreon.com/posts/4917146">borrowing from their worldview</a>, a claim which could use further discussion in a separate post.</li>
</ul><br />
It was upon reflection of these events that I realized this is actually more of the "everyone does it" rationalizing, like it is with the "even atheists have faith" claims. I'm thinking that part of the reason I had missed this before is because I had not been the intended audience. It is one thing to read in a book, like IDHEF, passages that make bogus claims about what atheists believe and that we have "worldviews" just like Christians, etc. In such cases, I am not the intended audience. But in these interactions with James and my coworker, I was now the main audience. It is perhaps the reason why I remember what that doctor said those six years ago; they weren't necessarily speaking to an audience of believers. When they called out atheists, there very well could have been (and was at least one) atheists in the room with them. It is more obvious in such a context that social reinforcement is part of the goal. Another reason may be that, because the beliefs are different, I was missing the point of atheists supposedly believing things <i>in the same way</i> that Christians do.<br />
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One other thing my coworker said to help drive this home was that their Christian worldview comes first and foremost for them. I cannot say the same. From my personal notes on IDHEF, I have the following written down:<br />
<blockquote>Another issue in this framework of presenting ideas as needing more "faith" than others is that they completely ignore conviction and importance of the belief. I’m an atheist, but I don’t have any particular attachment to the big bang theory. I largely go along with the idea of the big bang because that is what the scientific consensus is. But my world isn’t going to be shaken one bit if scientists come out tomorrow and say that this was a completely incorrect idea. <i>[Adding: I likely wouldn't even be shaken if scientists came out and said, "Yep, there is an intelligent designer behind the universe." I'd be surprised, and a bit skeptical, but not necessarily shaken.]</i> The theory of evolution, for example, isn’t dependent on the big bang theory (and, in fact, the theory of evolution was formed first). Nor do my views on morality depend on evolution. Can the same be said about theists who believe a god brought about the universe?</blockquote><br />
That final question was a bit rhetorical as I have already suspected the answer is often "No." But I am no longer sure those authors are actually ignoring this. Based on these interactions I had with James and my coworker, they may very well believe atheists hold the same level of conviction. I've taken issue with the way IDHEF portrays there needing to be a lot of faith to believe in, for example, the multiverse theory because I don't know any atheists who actually believe in the multiverse theory in the same way theists believe in a god that created the universe. Instead, the multiverse is little more than an interesting concept that would need more investigation, which, with current technology, is impossible and so it should remain as no more than an interesting concept until it is actually possible to investigate. Another way to phrase this is I found their comparisons of belief between atheists and Christians<sup>2</sup> to be apples to oranges, but they were treating them as apples to apples. It now appears that they make the apples to apples comparisons out of that need to believe that "everyone does it" so that they can battle their cognitive dissonance. That is what I have learned is likely the primary purpose of straw-manning atheists. That said, the idea of trying to make atheists look silly still seems to be secondary. I saw this with J. Warner Wallace's presentation as well as in IDHEF. Part of their shtick is to proclaim that atheists have virtually no evidence for such beliefs (which is true) while they at least have <i>some</i> evidence.<sup>3</sup><br />
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With that, my response to these theists and Christians could simply be, "No, I don't do what you think I do. I don't believe the way you think I believe. I don't think the way you think I think." I realize, though, it would take a lot of work to get them to accept this. Again, it appears they believe these things about atheist beliefs out of necessity for battling their own cognitive dissonance. It won't be easy for them to let go.<br />
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<sup>1</sup> One possibility that I could see being argued is <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal's_Wager">Pascal's Wager</a>. For those unfamiliar with the wager, the gist of it is that it is supposedly better to believe in God than not because, if God exists, then you could be punished for not believing. If God doesn't exist, then it doesn't matter anyway. The problem with the wager is that it assumes that if a god exists, it will be the Christian god, which is why I capitalized the "g" earlier. The wager fails to consider the possibility of a god that might punish people for wrongly believing in the Christian god. The wager also fails to consider the possibility of a god that would punish people for believing on a wager, and so forth. In short, it is an argument that essentially assumes the conclusion, making it circular and fallacious.<br />
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<sup>2</sup> I'm talking about only the Christians who, like my coworker, take their beliefs really seriously. There are many Christians who clearly do not take their beliefs anywhere near as seriously (and thus don't have near the cognitive dissonance to tackle).<br />
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<sup>3</sup> On more of a side note, their so-called "evidence" tends to be little more than philosophical arguments for which they haven't or can't verify as being true. For example, "Design only comes from an intelligence." Part of the response here would be, "As far as you know," as well as "Can you prove that?" or "Where is your verification for that claim?" Likewise, it could be asked, "Where is your verification that this is actually design?" The reality is their "evidence" relies heavily on assumptions. But, here too, one can expect the theist or Christian to proclaim that atheists also have assumptions (a common one is that there is no such thing as the supernatural), so we go right back to the bogus "everyone does it" claims.<br />
Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-53689366897299910442016-04-09T08:16:00.000-05:002016-04-09T08:16:02.717-05:00First thoughts on the first day of the "Intelligent Faith Conference"This weekend there is an "<a href="http://www.newcovenantbible.org/Arena/default.aspx?page=4794&eventId=6224">Intelligent Faith Conference</a>" here in Cedar Rapids. A Christian coworker invited me to go, so I have thus far attended the Friday night session. Here, I am posting my first thoughts. I plan to go into further detail later on, which will likely involve repeating some of the thoughts here.<br />
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My first thought as far as Friday night goes is that I noticed a bit of a theme of each presentation containing some sort of "argument from ignorance." The latter two presentation really relied on the fallacious argument, while the first presentation really only implied such an argument as part of a side argument.<br />
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The argument from ignorance can be summed up as "I can't think of any other possible explanation, so this explanation I can think of must be true." This reasoning is fallacious as the truth could be with an explanation that just hasn't been thought of.<br />
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In the first presentation, the argument from ignorance appears in a story of a skeptic who refuses to watch a video of a woman being miraculously cured because the skeptic <i>will</i> just come up with a natural explanation. This was used as evidence that skeptics are really predisposed to not believing in god. Well, the problem here is that the skeptic doesn't even need to come up with a natural explanation. Even if the skeptic cannot come up with any explanation does not mean they have to accept the supernatural explanation. (If there is any reason to not bother watching the video, it would be because it would unlikely be any sort of "proof" for that supernatural explanation.) Yet, I got the impression from the presenter that the skeptic <i>should</i> accept the supernatural explanation. That would, however, be fallacious.<br />
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On that note, much of that first presentation was just a collection of stories where it was claimed that a supernatural event happened and these claims were accepted uncritically when it should be <a href="http://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/fish+story">well known</a> that humans have a tendency to exaggerate. It was not a good way to start a conference that is supposed to be about discussing why Christianity is a rational worldview.<br />
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The second presentation was essentially centered around the argument from ignorance. That presenter was offering a process-of-elimination approach to concluding that there is a god, using the fact that such an approach is useful in his line of work as a cold-case detective. The problem here is that such an approach works when the list of possibilities is contained, as it seems to be with detective work, but not so well when that list is not. By a contained list, I mean that we know, or can be reasonably sure we know, that we have the full list of possibilities. In such a case, if all but one possibility have been eliminated, we can be reasonably sure the remaining possibility is correct. When we don't have a contained list and don't know all the possibilities, then using such reasoning becomes the fallacious argument from ignorance. The presenter tries to make his position seem reasonable by making a point that he's using the same skill set with his religious beliefs as he does with his job. The failure here is in failing to ask the question as to whether or not it is reasonable to actually do this and I would say the answer to that question is "No, it is not reasonable."<br />
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The third presentation didn't really hit the argument from ignorance until we got near the end. This presentation was about the resurrection and it was largely about how scholars largely agree to a set of 12 facts. I'll have to go over the facts later (I only captured 8 of them at the event, but I suspect I can find the other 4 on the presenter's website), but it ended up boiling down to a "I'm going to believe that there was a resurrection until someone can present me with a reasonable alternate explanation." Skimming over the 8 facts that I had captured, none of them come close to conclusively demonstrating a resurrection happened. What had started out as a somewhat interesting presentation came crashing down at the end with rather obvious (well, at least to me) fallacious reasoning.<br />
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In summary, if these are their best examples of "intelligent faith," it's going to be the poor reasoning skills of humans that keeps Christianity alive.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-63836800502895688922015-12-27T08:40:00.002-06:002016-01-01T19:57:50.189-06:00The disingenuous Christian "Die for a lie" argument/questionI was working on a review for the book <i>I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist</i> (to be referred to as IDHEF from now on) and they pulled the "Die for a lie" argument in Chapter 9. In the book, they ask, “Why would the Jews [particularly the twelve apostles] who converted to Christianity risk persecution, death and perhaps eternal damnation to start something that wasn’t true? (p. 234)” I do think it is an interesting question to ponder, but they, of course, aren't actually interested in pondering the question. The point of the question is for the reader to jump to the conclusion that they would <i>not</i> have done so. The reader would certainly do no such thing! Therefore, it would seem reasonable to conclude that neither would the apostles. Therefore, Christianity must be true!<br />
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It really shouldn't take too much serious thought to realize how wrong this argument is. <a href="http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Would_someone_die_for_what_they_knew_was_a_lie%3F">Other blogs and websites</a> make references to the 9/11 hijackers, Jonestown, or Heaven's Gate, but one of the better counter-examples, in my opinion, is Mormonism. Early Mormons would have been in a similar position to what is claimed of the apostles: they personally knew their prophet and they were persecuted and even killed for their beliefs.<br />
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So would those who ask such a question agree that we should probably be Mormons then? Most likely not. This is because there are assumptions or other beliefs that are baked into the argument/question. One of the first time I ever heard this question (about dying for a lie) was from <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ydPJTPoHl8s">a video of Lee Strobel addressing such counter-arguments</a>. Strobel acknowledges that people will die for things they sincerely believe to be true, but he won't admit that people will die for something they believe to be false. That's fair. He goes on to say he was told what the difference between these other cases and Jesus's disciples is that they were in a position to <i>know</i> that Jesus rose from the dead as opposed to merely believing it. In the case of Mormons, they would not have personally seen Joseph Smith use his supposed seer stone to write the Book of Mormon.<br />
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The problem with what Strobel says, though, is that he doesn't know that the apostles were in such a position. No, he merely <i>believes</i> this. A very similar problem can be found in IDHEF. There, they make certain claims about the apostles in the form of a question, asking, "Why would they, almost immediately, stop observing the Sabbath, circumcision, the Laws of Moses, the centrality of the temple, the priestly system, and other Old Testament teachings? (p. 234)" What they don't do is make any effort to establish these claims as facts. In other words, is it really true that the apostles did all of these things?* Where are they even getting the idea that this may be true? (And how would they respond to someone claiming the first Mormons abandoned a bunch of their prior beliefs?) It better not be from the apostles themselves! The same goes for Strobel's belief that the apostles were in that unique position. Does he believe that because the apostles said they were?<br />
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This is what makes the argument/question disingenuous. This logic essentially breaks down to "It's true because it says it's true." I would hope most people would recognize the silliness of such an argument. What can make arguments like this tricky, though, is that the real argument is buried in a foundation of assumptions. This can fool a lot of people as the presented argument seems reasonable and many won't think twice about the foundation.<br />
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In conclusion, the "Die for a lie" argument/question is not at all convincing. The argument itself has little bite as there are people from other religions that certainly cannot be dying for the truth because of the contradictory claims made. What would give the argument its bite is in other details of the story on which it is founded. However, I have never seen that foundation to have the support it needs, leading me to reject the argument.<br />
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* <small>I would note, too, that Paul and even Christians today <a href="http://www.catholic.com/magazine/articles/why-we-are-not-bound-by-everything-in-the-old-law">have written about</a> why Christians don't need to follow Old Testament law (a.k.a, the "Laws of Moses"). This suggests that there were early converts who did not, as the authors of IDHEF claim, stop following these laws "almost immediately." Or maybe they use the phrase "almost immediately" in a way I would not. "Almost immediately," in my mind, means a matter of days or maybe even a few weeks. If they mean it to mean 20-30 years, then I find their description to be dishonest.<br />
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Update 1/1/16: I also remembered that <a href="http://biblehub.com/matthew/5-18.htm">Matthew 5:18 (NIV) reads</a>, "For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth disappear, not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law until everything is accomplished." Note that the IDHEF authors believe that the Gospel of Matthew was actually written by Matthew, so I would find it really interesting if Matthew actually did "almost immediately" stop observing the Old Testament laws. Why would he have done so when he recorded Jesus telling people the law wasn't changing? This just makes the claim even more dubious. (I believe I've brought it up on this blog before, but it's also scary the way Christians can justify this verse. The most common justification I've heard basically boils down to "It's OK to break the law now.")</small>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-16633078538435186602015-08-29T09:38:00.001-05:002015-08-29T09:38:19.757-05:00The Religious Morality That Isn't<a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2015/06/buying-morality-pitch-failure-of.html">In a recent post</a>, I discussed how some religious people buy into what they are sold in church about needing a god for morality without giving it much thought. There are more problems with this than those arguments about how we arrive at our moral structures. It should come as no surprise that if they're not thinking about the how, they're not putting much thought into their moral system itself. As with the how, this means a sizable portion comes from being told by some sort of authority figure what is good and bad.<br />
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I had a discussion with a religious coworker last year on the topic of the why question of morality. They seem to be a good example of someone just gobbling up what the religious authorities told them without much question. A good indication of this was that they went straight to the topic of murder, which, as I stated last post, is a very cliche topic for the religious to bring up.<br />
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But a really funny thing also happened later in the discussion. One tactic religious apologists like to use is to make it seem like the world would just be a chaotic place if morality were at all relative. We were unable to finish this part of the conversation, but my coworker presented a hypothetical where I had a dictatorship, but then my son* takes over and changes a bunch of the rules. Again, since we didn't finish, it wasn't clear where they were going with this, but I suspect it was to present such a system as undesirable because of how it can change on little more than a whim. I hope some of the concern was how it is based on the authority of a human, but I have doubts on that.<br />
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There were a few things I found intriguing about this. One is how such people seem to be oblivious to the fact that the are trying to make logical arguments for a morality that they imply one cannot make a logical argument for (because their god puts it in our hearts, or whatever). That lack of awareness has both funny and sad aspects to it.<br />
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The second thing that I noticed right away is that they were presenting more of a hybrid relative morality. I thought they were trying to discuss relative morality, but that was not what was presented. With relative morality, morality would be relative to those within this hypothetical dictatorship, meaning those under the rule of the dictator need not agree with said dictator.<br />
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What was most intriguing, though, took me quite some time -- months, perhaps -- to notice: They were describing something rather similar to religious morality, much like the morality they subscribe to, particularly in regards to the authority part of it.<br />
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This got me to thinking how religious morality actually works. Through this process, I realized that a lot of the morality comes from an authority figure in the church, but I know from stories from pastors who lost their religion that the morality cannot be changed on a whim. I ended up figuring out why this is. While it is a church leader that has to dictate the morality, the morality is not associated with the church leader but rather a person or persons that are long dead, if they even existed at all. In the case of Christianity, this would be Jesus or God. With Islam, it is much the same where it is associated with Allah or maybe even Mohammed. Such a structure can even be found in non-deistic religions. Karl Marx being associated with Marxism would be one example. Or, in the USA, one can find a sort of State religion that worships the Founding Fathers.<br />
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All of these systems have the issue that one need not think about what they are doing. They just do what they believe their moral guide wants them to do. It's a scary system. One only needs to look at ISIS to see why this doesn't work. If my coworker's focus was on the idea of morality changing on a whim, their concerns seem to be not in the proper place. The authoritarian system is <i>way</i> more problematic. There could be a system of morality that gets everything wrong but never changes. I would hope my coworker would be more concerned about that system, but then they'd have to reject their own morality, which is why I suspect the focus was indeed on the idea of morality changing on a whim. I'm thoroughly unimpressed.<br />
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* Of course it had to be a son in this hypothetical! The regressive moral standards my coworker likely has may not allow for a woman dictator.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-63346933679492638702015-07-29T11:07:00.001-05:002015-07-29T11:07:58.136-05:00The irrationality of "That's different" or "That's an exception," etc. Plus, more on biology!It would seem a point made in my post on <a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2015/07/bigotry-pathogenic-meme.html">transgender bigotry</a> needs to be repeated because old habits need to be broken and, hopefully, the way to break them is to send the constant reminder that one is engaging in the habit. From that post, I said the following:<blockquote>As I had said to my friend, if someone makes the claim that all swans are white and I then show them a black (or, really, any non-white color would do) swan, it is illogical for that person to stick to their claim. The claim has been falsified; they need to back down from the claim. The same holds true here. If the claim is that all people with an XY chromosome are male, then those questions I raised above need to be addressed. This, though, may actually explain why McHugh does not clearly define what he means by "biological sex." It's hard to falsify a non-specific claim.</blockquote><br />
This friend, however, in a discussion regarding same-sex marriage, told my wife, who is intersex, and I that our situation is "different." This statement has a similar problem as McHugh's claims: Different from what, exactly? What is the claim being made that this is different from?<br />
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Unfortunately, these statements of "That's different" or "That's an exception" are all too common. I recently saw <a href="http://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/a-quick-logic-lesson/">a blog post</a> that put this in a slightly different perspective: <blockquote>Confirmation bias is the tendency to seek out, perceive, accept, and remember information that confirms beliefs we already hold, coupled with the tendency to miss, ignore, forget, or explain away information that contradicts our beliefs.<br />
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How many times have you either said yourself or heard someone else say, “well, that’s an exception?” Is it, or is it just data? By calling an example an “exception” you are assuming that there is a rule it violates. This is a way of dismissing information that contradicts your beliefs.</blockquote><br />
As with my swan example, the idea here that people try to cling to their claims in the face of contradictory information is the same. To put it simply, if someone says there is an exception to the rule, then the rule isn't a rule. Period. It may be a tendency (or trend) at best, but not a rule. I think that is what my friend was meaning when they said "different." But, if the case is that they were saying that our case still fits the rule, then what's the rule?<br />
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Frankly, I became much more of an advocate of gay rights upon meeting Amy and it's largely because that helped me learn that the typical rules people spout about XY chromosomes make someone male were bunk. I hope my friend can someday realize the same. Granted, though, I didn't have the extra challenge I suspect my friend has of ditching the belief that this rule is imposed by some supposedly perfect deity, meaning the rule would be perfect by extension. <br />
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I was half-way through writing this when I realized McHugh's error isn't exactly confirmation bias when I realized he isn't exactly trying to apply a rule. Rather, he's saying the rule is through biology. I.e, the rule is whatever biology determines it to be. He does not need to define this rule because it's not his job to define it. This is instead an argument from ignorance, which can be seen where he says, "No evidence supports the claim that people such as Bruce Jenner have a biological source for their transgender assumptions." I noted in my post that just because evidence has not been found does not mean evidence does not exist. The swan example still applies, but would need to be twisted just slightly to fit. Instead, one might say, "All swans are white as no evidence supports the claim that non-white swans exist." When stated in such a way, I hope the logical error becomes more apparent: that no non-white swans are known to exist is not support for a claim that all swans are white. Similarly, that no biological source is known is not support for a claim that no biological source exists. As noted in that previous post, though, that claim of "no evidence" is hogwash. Yeah, sure, there's no direct evidence to show what, exactly, may cause transgenderism in humans, but there is evidence that gender is not a binary. In humans, the existence of disorders of sexual development and intersex people demonstrates this. And here's a new one I learned about in other animals: Apparently, <a href="http://www.techtimes.com/articles/65400/20150701/temperature-determines-sex-of-australian-bearded-dragon.htm">temperature impacts the sex of bearded dragons</a>. Hotter temperatures tend to cause bearded dragons that are genetically male to be female instead.<br />
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This also made me remember <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epigenetics">epigenetics</a>. This is, from what I hear from biologists, getting to be a big field of study. This field studies how environment impacts the expression of genetics. The aforementioned impact of temperature on bearded dragon may be an example of this, though it seems the environment may actually impact their genetics and not just the expression.<br />
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The larger point, though, is that there is a lot that we humans don't know yet about biology. So, for one to argue that transgenderism can't be biological because "no evidence" exists is highly irrational and shows their ignorance of biology.<br />
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Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-23119712035089839762015-07-04T16:29:00.001-05:002015-07-06T09:39:11.047-05:00Bigotry: A Pathogenic MemeTwo weeks ago my wife was upset by a post <a href="http://www.thepublicdiscourse.com/2015/06/15145/">claiming transgenderism is nothing more than a meme</a>. Given that I've had some conflict with my own family on this topic, I've avoided tackling the article, waiting these two weeks to even read the piece. I figured it would be riddled with logical errors and it turns out it is. Also to little surprise is that it is riddled with bigotry. What I failed to expect, but should have, where tricks, for lack of a better word, to make one's claim seem more certain than they actually are.<br />
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Perhaps I should start with these tricks. Mainly, this is about the author boasting about how they care about "reality" and/or "truth" and then proceeding to make dubious claims. What concerns me about this is I worry that readers may become less skeptical about the claims being made. If the author cares about reality/truth so much, then certainly the claims they are making are likely to be true, right? <br />
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Wrong. It could well be the case that the author is arrogant. They are so sure of themselves that they twist facts, perhaps unconsciously, to fit their conclusion. As I read this post, I see signs of potential arrogance. McHugh brings up an analogy to The Emperor's New Clothes and then states, "I am ever trying to be the boy among the bystanders who points to what’s real. I do so not only because truth matters, but also because overlooked amid the hoopla—enhanced now by Bruce Jenner’s celebrity and Annie Leibovitz’s photography—stand many victims." He doesn't directly say this, but this analogy would imply that everyone knows that transgenderism isn't real, but people just won't say so. Now not only am I going to be even more skeptical of his claims, but I'm finding this guy to be a bit of an asshole.<br />
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It is of little surprise that, after he says all of this, he makes perhaps the most critical claim in the entire article: <blockquote>The most thorough follow-up of sex-reassigned people—extending over thirty years and conducted in Sweden, <b>where the culture is strongly supportive of the transgendered</b>—documents their lifelong mental unrest. (Emphasis mine.)</blockquote><br />
This is a big claim for those who follow psychological views regarding transgenderism. The <a href="http://www.apa.org/topics/lgbt/transgender.aspx">American Psychological Association, for example, states</a>, "Many other obstacles may lead to distress, including a lack of acceptance within society, direct or indirect experiences with discrimination, or assault." McHugh is suggesting that this is incorrect; social acceptance is not, in fact, a factor. McHugh, then, is dismissing these alternative explanations through this claim. <br />
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My friend who indirectly brought this article to my attention had quoted Christopher Hitchens in a comment on the article. Well, there is another Hitchens' quote that is appropriate for this situation: "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitchens%27s_razor">What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.</a>" McHugh, as one can note, did not provide any evidence for this claim. No, instead, he had spent the previous three paragraphs setting himself up as a bearer of truth. On top of this, he perhaps expects us to have a view of Sweden as being a country that is more accepting than ours. While I would agree with such a sentiment, is Sweden as accepting as McHugh claims? And, remember, we can't just look at Sweden today, but we have to look at it in <a href="http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0016885">the time-frame of this study he cites, which started back in 1973</a>. Given that he provided no evidence to back this claim, I would have to, as per Hitchens' Razor as quoted, dismiss the claim.<br />
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In addition to this, there was a similar claim made earlier in the article that I had overlooked upon my first reading: <blockquote>Publicity...has promoted the idea that one’s biological sex is a choice, leading to widespread cultural acceptance of the concept. And, that idea, quickly accepted in the 1980s...</blockquote><br />
Hold on...what?!? Gay rights are only now just becoming accepted (as in like only the past 5 years). Transgender rights are most certainly not to the same level of acceptance. Additionally, as my wife had noted in a Facebook comment on this article, those who are intersex have been, and still are, struggling for acceptance. In other words, this claim is just utter bullshit! Or, as McHugh might say, "nakedly false." If he is so delusional to believe transgenderism was accepted here, in the United States, in the 1980's, there is no way I can take his similar claim about Sweden seriously without evidence.<br />
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Getting back on topic, much of this article is riddled with claims that McHugh fails to back up. About the only claim he does back up is about this study that he cites from Sweden regarding a 20% increase in suicide rates amongst sex-reassigned transgendered individuals. I did my due diligence and followed that link. What I noted is that remarks made in the link don't fully match up with what McHugh says in his article. According to McHugh, "Ten to fifteen years after surgical reassignment, the suicide rate of those who had undergone sex-reassignment surgery rose to twenty times that of comparable peers." There are a few issues with this statement. For one, what is a "comparable peer"? Is it someone who claims to be transgender but does not undergo sex-reassignment surgery? From what is written in the study, it would seem the answer is "No." The conclusion states, "Persons with transsexualism, after sex reassignment, have considerably higher risks for mortality, suicidal behaviour, and psychiatric morbidity than the <b>general population</b>." The emphasis there is mine. So this comparison is <b>not</b> against other transgender individual. Given that McHugh fails to back up his claim about Sweden being "strongly supportive," this claim is unimpressive.<br />
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Additionally, the authors of the study do not appear to agree with McHugh's position. As they state, "Our findings suggest that sex reassignment, <b>although alleviating gender dysphoria</b>, may not suffice as treatment for transsexualism, and should inspire improved psychiatric and somatic care after sex reassignment for this patient group." Once again, the emphasis here is mine. They note that the sex reassignment has benefits. This should raise the question of why would this be if, as McHugh claims, transgenderism is "nakedly false"?<br />
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McHugh also makes misleading claims. At one point he states, "Although much is made of a rare “intersex” individual, no evidence supports the claim that people such as Bruce Jenner have a biological source for their transgender assumptions." Even if this were true, this does not support his conclusion. Absence of evidence, in this case, is not evidence of absence. Meaning, just because people have not been able to find such evidence does not mean such evidence does not exist. It could be the case that we just have not found such evidence yet. <br />
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In addition to that error, the claim is actually largely false. While I can agree that no evidence has been found for a <i>specific</i> source, it is incorrect to say that no evidence exists. As an <a href="http://www.nature.com/news/sex-redefined-1.16943">article from Nature states</a>, "Some researchers now say that as many as 1 person in 100 has some form of [Disorder of Sex Development]." This does not seem rare to me. The article continues: <blockquote>New technologies in DNA sequencing and cell biology are revealing that almost everyone is, to varying degrees, a patchwork of genetically distinct cells, some with a sex that might not match that of the rest of their body. Some studies even suggest that the sex of each cell drives its behaviour, through a complicated network of molecular interactions. “I think there's much greater diversity within male or female, and there is certainly an area of overlap where some people can't easily define themselves within the binary structure,” says John Achermann, who studies sex development and endocrinology at University College London's Institute of Child Health.</blockquote><br />
I'd add to this that, <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2015/02/18/the-idea-of-two-sexes-is-simplistic-biologists-now-think-there-is-a-wider-spectrum-than-that/">according to PZ Myers</a>, a biology professor at the University of Minnesota - Morris, in regards to said Nature argument, "My only quibble would be with that “now”. You’d have to define “now” as a window of time that encompasses the entirety of my training and work in developmental biology, and I’m getting to be kind of an old guy. Differences in sex development (DSDs) are common knowledge, and rather routine."<br />
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I'll repeat: DSDs are routine, not rare (though I will note that not all DSDs would be labeled as intersex conditions). It would seem, then, that McHugh is rather ignorant about biology. But even if DSDs were rare, there are implications that McHugh does not bother addressing. As he said, "much is made of a rare “intersex” individual." There is a reason for that. (By the way, what is up with his use of quotations around the word "intersex"?) Take my wife as an example. She has <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_androgen_insensitivity_syndrome">complete androgen insensitivity syndrome (CAIS)</a>. Essentially, she has an XY chromosome pair, but her cells are unable to respond to androgens, so she developed a female body. But what effect does that have on her brain? This is a question McHugh needs to address, but does not. Does McHugh think my wife has mental issues because she identifies as female though she has XY chromosomes? Does McHugh think androgens are responsible for why someone has a "male" brain?<br />
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Actually, thinking about this question myself, this is a hugely important question. I note that McHugh does not actually make clear what he thinks makes a man a man and a woman a woman. He merely speaks of "biological sex" but does not define this phrase. This is not only problematic, but hypocritical given his objection to there supposedly being "no evidence" for a biological source for transgenderism. What is his evidence for a biological source for gender? XY chromosome? Then he needs to explain how intersex people fit into his model; he can't be dismissing them as "rare." As I said, there is a reason why intersex individuals are brought into these discussions; they do not fit into the binary model of sexuality, which should be a clue to people like McHugh that there model may be wrong.<br />
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As I had said to my friend, if someone makes the claim that all swans are white and I then show them a black (or, really, any non-white color would do) swan, it is illogical for that person to stick to their claim. The claim has been falsified; they need to back down from the claim. The same holds true here. If the claim is that all people with an XY chromosome are male, then those questions I raised above need to be addressed. This, though, may actually explain why McHugh does not clearly define what he means by "biological sex." It's hard to falsify a non-specific claim.<br />
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In the end, I find McHugh to just be a bigot. He doesn't actually make a good case for his position. Rather, his case seems to be largely based on cultural ideas around sex, which is why I find that it is actually McHugh who is victim to "a pathogenic meme."Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-89150001700624828122015-06-29T09:10:00.003-05:002015-06-29T09:10:45.021-05:00Arrogance called out in SCOTUS dissents vs. ChristiansSomething occurred to me <a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2015/06/arrogant-pro-lgbt-christians.html">regarding my last post</a>: Some of the Supreme Court justices on the losing side of gay marriage accused their fellow justices of arrogance much like I did with liberal Christians. They accused them of having special insight that no one had had for thousands of years prior, much the same as I did with liberal Christians. I disagreed with those in the dissent for committing an argument from tradition. Yet, I still think I'm correct in calling out Christian arrogance. Here's the difference: With Christians, they are claiming that wisdom was bestowed upon some humans by Jesus nearly 2000 years ago, but it is only just now that humans are figuring out that wisdom. In the other case, there is no such claim; it is a case of humans figuring out their own wisdom, which is a process that takes time. Plus, we can see the gains in wisdom over the course of time, whether it be creating a democracy in an age dominated by monarchies, ending slavery, allowing non-landowners and eventually women to vote, etc. There's no special insight here. It is, as Martin Luther King, Jr. described it, the long moral arc of the universe bending toward justice.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-82052282075273076092015-06-27T16:53:00.001-05:002015-06-27T16:53:17.324-05:00Arrogant pro-LGBT ChristiansThese may be some of the most obnoxious Christians one can encounter. They actually hold OK views in regards to humanity, but it seems like they want to credit Christianity for it. They'll go about calling themselves "true Christians." It is so terribly arrogant. Just think about some of the implications:<br />
<ul><li>Most Christians throughout history have not been "true Christians." And it is in only recent history -- we're talking only 20 years here -- that the percentage of "true Christians" has risen, and risen quickly.</li>
<li>No Pope has ever been a "true Christian." <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/religion/children-need-heterosexual-parents-says-pope-after-gay-pride-march/2015/06/15/2e7867aa-1384-11e5-8457-4b431bf7ed4c_story.html">Not even the current one</a> that people like to believe is progressive.<br />
</ul>Sorry, but I find it really hard to believe that after nearly 2000 years Christians would only just now be reaching a tipping point of the majority discovering the "true" message of Jesus. Not buying it. As far as I can tell, the change in attitude is all thanks to the LGBT community refusing to put up with discrimination. Christianity played no part in this. Yet, these Christians act like it somehow did. It's frustrating because it's been Christianity that has provided the most resistance to change and it will likely be Christianity (and other religions) that provide the most resistance to changing future injustices. These liberal Christians are doing the world no favors by trying to keep their mythology alive.<br />
Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-67356465461221115072015-06-11T08:05:00.000-05:002015-06-24T13:10:34.613-05:00Buying the Morality Pitch - The Failure of the Religiously Indoctrinated to Think Through MoralityI saw an article about <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/2015/05/duggar-family-member-all-science-points-to-creationism-being-true/">Jason Lisle</a>, a doctor of some sorts, speaking with Ben Seewald (husband of Jessa Duggar) claiming atheists really don't exist because, essentially, some book says there is sufficient evidence for the existence of god. Yeah, the book was, of course, the Bible. If the circular reasoning wasn't bad enough, they continued to provide a cliche morality argument as a reason atheists don't exist. The argument is rather simplistic and goes something like the following: "God is necessary for there to be a difference between right and wrong. Atheists believe there is a right and wrong. Therefore, atheists really believe god exists." They do have arguments for why they think a god in necessary, but they're not all that great of arguments.<br />
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This all just got me to thinking how often I hear morality used as an assertion for the existence of god...people flat out saying that I'm wrong because of this. (Or people saying that religion is required for morality.) But, really, morality, at a basic level, is actually quite simple...if one would bother to put thought into it. So whenever I hear some Christian bring up morality and making claims such as this, I'm often at a loss for what to say because they essentially lead me to suspect that they've just gobbled up what their pastor has told them at church without giving it a second thought. Is it really worth my time to engage? Because their minds seem rather closed off to the topic.<br />
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Also, they seem to be really selective in their examples. By which I mean they select examples that would seem to prove their point while avoiding often numerous examples that don't. Jason Lisle uses an example of baking powder, saying, "What one chemical accident does to another is morally irrelevant. I mean when baking soda and vinegar react and they fizz up...that's just what they do. You don' get mad at the baking soda." The idea here being that without a god and us just being a chemical "accident,"* it doesn't make sense to get mad at an accident. <br />
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Except we do. I can quickly think of numerous counter examples: People getting upset at a tornado ripping up their town. People getting upset at a rain storm(s) for causing flooding. People getting upset with tectonic plates for causing earthquakes. Etc, etc, etc. Sure, they're not upset with those things in the same way they'd be upset with people, but that has to do more with the difference in the sentience of the thing they are mad at. The point here is that people <i>do</i> get upset over chemical accidents. (It is also worth pointing out that people speak of "Mother Nature" as though nature were sentient.)<br />
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I find it rather obvious why Lisle does not use those examples. He's saying since getting mad at chemical reactions is not rational that a god is necessary to create a moral standard in order for us to be mad at other human beings. Now, here's the question he doesn't want you to ask: "Why would god set up a moral standard in such a way that we'd get mad at inanimate objects?"<br />
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Any answer I can think of is not satisfactory. They can't say that this is not part of the moral standard created by their god and is just something that humans do because that would shoot down that premise that it is impossible without the involvement of a god to get mad at a chemical reaction. Another option I could see is to say that this god's moral standard is not perfect. I shouldn't need to state why that answer is problematic.<br />
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What I really want to talk about, though (which was only given a very brief mention in the linked video), is how they tend to bring up murder as their key example. The idea seems to be that since virtually every culture has prohibitions against murder that there must be a universal standard.<br />
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It always seems a bit silly to me because it should be blatantly obvious that there are numerous issues in which humans do <i>not</i> agree. A few excuses are made for this. For some, they try to claim that there only appears to be a difference, but if you take a closer look, there is no difference at all. One example of this I found in the book <i>I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist</i> was about Hindus not killing cows. It isn't that Hindus have a different morality, see! It's because Hindus believe their grandmothers get reincarnated as cows and they don't believe in killing their grandmothers, just like you and me! I just find that jaw-droppingly stupid. (For one, while I'm not an expert on Hindu religion, I don't believe that's quite how it works. I had always thought the belief in reincarnation also included what they considered "lesser" animals that they have no problem killing.) A second example, also from that book, used the killing of so-called "witches." They excused that claiming that people thought these "witches" had killed people. That would imply they think capital punishment is acceptable. That, then, is problematic because they then need to explain why people disagree on capital punishment.<br />
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Getting back to murder, it's just not true that this is universal in quite the way that they claim. Most cultures are absolutely fine with murdering people they deem to be enemies. Oh, but I suppose that goes back to the idea of capital punishment. I'm going to suspect that they don't call that "murder;" that's just "killing." "Murder," you see, is an <i>unjustified</i> killing, but all these other forms are totally justified. Or so they would claim. I'm darn near rolling my eyes just writing this over how weaselly Christians can be about their claims. It's not only that their claims are silly, but they are a bit frightening as well when I think at how easily they can find justifications for killing people...and then turn around making these claims that one needs religion to be moral. <br />
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Yet, as I have suggested, figuring out murder isn't all that hard. We can work it out with only just a few premises:<br />
1. I don't have a desire to die anytime soon.<br />
2. The family members of a person who is murdered often wish to seek revenge, often in a form of "an eye for an eye" type of revenge.<br />
From here, we can then figure out that if I were to kill someone, then others would want to kill me. I don't want that happening because I don't want to die anytime soon. So, if I don't want that to happen, what should I not do? Right! I shouldn't murder!!! Pretty frickin simple.<br />
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What would probably happen now is the Christian will engage in a tactic called "shifting the goal posts." They'll likely now assert that it is because of their god that I have that desire not to die and/or it is because of their god that people seek revenge. At such a point, I'm most certainly done engaging. If a person comes to me with a claim and I show their claim to be bogus, they don't get to readjust their claim. If that was really their argument, they should have started there in the first place. That they didn't says to me that they are just trying to fit their god into the equation anyway that they can. Much like I said near the beginning of this post, it shows that they are beholden to the idea of a god and are not actually open minded. I'm not interested in carrying on such dishonest discussion.<br />
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* I also <i>love</i> how they use loaded terminology to make their points. Go ahead and look up "accident" in a dictionary. While you can probably find some definitions that fit what he's trying to describe, the more common definitions of "accident" refer to an event being unfortunate. That, though, seems to be the point of using such language...get your audience to react with a "I'm not an accident!!!" emotional response as opposed to a rational response.<br />
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I also want to bring up another odd argument Christians will sometimes use, which is to compare morality to math. I suppose the idea here is that they would think most people would agree that math is universal. Therefore, if they can make morality seem much like math, then one would have to agree that morality is universal, too. This comes from C. S. Lewis's <i>Mere Christianity</i> where he is quoted as follows: "Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might just as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five." <br />
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In order to be making such a comparison, though, he would need to think that a god is necessary for two plus two to equal four. Seriously? He thought it takes a god for two sets of two objects to produce four objects? That's just mind boggling. What that says to me is that this person is so predisposed to the existence of god that they may be beyond the capability to be reasoned out of that belief. (It also suggests that they think that anything universal must come from a god. Yet, they don't really bother proving that premise, which is largely why such arguments don't phase me. In order to be comparing morality to math to show that morality comes from a god, they also need to demonstrate that math comes from a god.)<br />
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On a side note, C. S. Lewis is said to have been an atheist at some point of his life, so one might argue that he wasn't predisposed to the existence of god. I disagree. While I'll accept this claim that he was an atheist, he has also been said to have been "mad at God for not existing." It would seem to me that he was an atheist predisposed to believing in a god, even if he couldn't actually convince himself at the time. In short, one need not actually believe in the thing they are predisposed to believing.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-85528989536215123332015-01-27T07:02:00.000-06:002015-01-27T07:02:58.086-06:00Liberal Tribalism Regarding the Pope?First, a quick announcement that I'm hoping to pick up the pace on this blog a bit. I have ideas for another two or three blog posts and just need to dedicate some time to actually writing them!!!<br />
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For today, though, I just want to keep one that's short and quick about something that's been on my mind a bit. Once again, it involves the Pope. I guess it's been about <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/piers-morgan-accuses-pope-francis-of-endorsing-violence-against-critics-of-religion/">two weeks since the Pope said</a> the following:<br />
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<blockquote>If my good friend Dr. [Alberto] Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, then a punch awaits him. It’s normal. One cannot provoke. One cannot insult the faith of others. One cannot make fun of faith.</blockquote><br />
I saw <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/piers-morgan-accuses-pope-francis-of-endorsing-violence-against-critics-of-religion/">a post on RawStory with Piers Morgan criticizing the Pope</a>, accusing the Pope of endorsing violence against critics of religion. I agree with Morgan. Yet, the strangest thing happened in the comment section. RawStory is a liberal website, so the commenters are generally liberal. And what I saw was potential liberals both defending the Pope with comments along the lines of "That's not what he was saying!" and fun poked at Morgan with comments in the theme of "Is Morgan auditioning for a job at Fox News?"<br />
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One thing I noticed here recently is that Bill Donohue of the Catholic League had <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2015/01/catholic-league-chief-charlie-hebdo-editor-got-himself-murdered-by-being-a-narcissist/">said something similar the week before</a> when he said, "Killing in response to insult, no matter how gross, must be unequivocally condemned. That is why what happened in Paris cannot be tolerated. But neither should we tolerate the kind of intolerance that provoked this violent reaction."<br />
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Actually, unlike the Pope, he actually said killing is not an appropriate response, something the Pope failed to do. Yet, Donohue got skewered by liberals, as he should have. (I'll note, though, that Donohue said other things suggesting that those who were murdered at Charlie Hebdo kind of had it coming, which would seem to contradict his condemnation of killing in response to insult.) So what's going on here that the Pope gets defenders while Donohue gets skewered? I fear there is some tribalism here. Donohue is known to be a conservative, so he's not part of the liberal tribe and is fair game. There are many liberals who (<a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2014/10/no-pope-is-not-progressive.html">falsely</a>) believe that the Pope is liberal. So it would seem some liberals are willing to rally around him and protect him when he reveals his true colors. This concerns me.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-25424489084834763192014-10-29T07:59:00.000-05:002014-10-29T07:59:17.875-05:00No, the Pope is not progressiveOy, more people are drooling over the Pope again over nothing. So, the news this time is that the <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/10/god-is-not-a-magician-pope-says-christians-should-believe-in-evolution-and-big-bang/comments/#disqus">Pope has said Christians should believe in evolution and the big bang</a>. <br />
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First, this isn't really news. This has been the Catholic position for some time. The big bang idea was originally proposed by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georges_Lema%C3%AEtre">Georges Lemaître</a>, who, besides being a physicist, was also a Catholic priest. So I think the Catholic Church has been behind this idea from near its inception. I didn't know when, exactly, the church got on board with evolution, but I was able to find <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catholic_Church_and_evolution">a Wikipedia article</a> on it. It looks like the church has generally been OK with evolution since 1950.<br />
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But this leads to a very important point: What the Catholic church is OK with isn't exactly evolution. Per the Wikipedia article: "Catholicism holds that God initiated and continued the process of his evolutionary creation, that Adam and Eve were real people ...and affirms that all humans, whether specially created or evolved, have and have always had specially created souls for each individual." The actual theory of evolution, however, does not have Adam and Eve as real people.<br />
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Similarly, look at what the Pope actually had to say about evolution: "He created human beings and let them develop according to the internal laws that he gave to each one so they would reach their fulfillment." Whatever he's talking about here, this is not evolution. This actually sounds a lot like what creationists promote. I've <a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2013/03/idhef-chapter-6-new-life-forms-from-goo.html#micro_vs_macro">written about it</a> in regards to the book, <i>I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist</i>. It's this idea that "micro"evolution is real, but "macro"evolution is not. Typically, by this they mean to say, in short, changes can occur within a species (a common example are all the different breeds of dogs), but one species cannot become a new species. This sounds to be what the Pope is promoting, though he is awfully vague about it. (As the Wikipedia article indicates, it would seem the Catholic Church <i>has</i> been vague about it ever since 1950.)<br />
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I am completely unimpressed. This just looks like marketing to me because, first and foremost, when I look at the actual product being sold, it's not what was being advertised. Two, there is a market to be had by appealing to science. When you look at other religions, a lot of them tend to be blatantly anti-science. So who's to cater to the pro-science crowd? Enter the Catholic Church!!! Three, look at all the people who get all excited about this. Certainly the Catholic Church realizes that people get excited about such announcements. So why not keep doing it?<br />
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The last thing I have to cover is regarding the title of this post. I do get really irritated when people try to claim that the Pope is progressive. I think a lot of people are making errors in their judgement. Primarily, I think people are comparing him to other religious leaders. Considering how <b>re</b>gressive a lot of other religious leaders are, this is not a good basis for comparison. It's setting a lower standard. So, sure, on that lower standard, you could call the Pope progressive. But how about if we try to compare him against the larger population? Take, for example, the way people get excited when he says something positive about the LGBT community. Well, he's still opposed to gays getting married to each other. Compare that then to the USA population where now the majority is in favor of such unions. He's on the wrong side of this issue yet. How is that progressive??? Worse, as I often point out, he is part of an organization that claims to get moral authority straight from a god. The Catholic Church should be set to a higher standard. Instead, they get praised for being slightly worse than average. We really need to stop it with this crap. The Pope is not anywhere near being progressive. Stop pretending otherwise.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-22112229193356846332014-08-11T07:06:00.001-05:002015-01-07T23:10:25.760-06:00"Socially liberal" a disguise for white male privilege?In regards to politics, there have been some atheists who describe themselves as "socially liberal, but economically conservative." I've had some concerns as to what that means. It seems there are a lot of atheists who are on board with LGBT rights, but other social issues (women's rights, racism, and income inequality, as some examples) seem to be less important. It has me a bit concerned, then, that these people have come to think that being on board with LGBT rights is all they need to be "socially liberal." Worse, they seem to be wearing this as though it were some sort of badge of honor. <i>That</i> is perhaps what bothers me most! They seem to flaunt being ahead of the curve on LGBT issues to show that atheists can be moral. But, I'm sorry, if one wants to show the morality of atheists, they're going to have to do better than that.<br />
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A recent post on <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/2014/07/why-are-lgbt-rights-thriving-while-choice-suffers/">Daylight Atheism about LGBT rights thriving while women's choice suffers</a> got me thinking that this may be more about white male privilege than LGBT rights. In that post, Adam Lee had linked to a <a href="http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/06/ten-reason-women-are-losing-while-gays-keep-winning.html">Daily Beast post on the same subject</a>. There, the author points out that LGBT rights are not near as big of a threat to male privilege (no reference to skin color in that article) as women's rights. A commenter on the Daylight Atheism post went a step furhter, pointing out that the LGBT community includes white men. The thought here being that these men are privileged in nearly every way possible, particularly those who are wealthy. The one area holding them back is sexual orientation. Get rid of that as an area of privilege, and they'll have more of it.<br />
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Given that being "economically conservative" these days primarily translates* into "fuck the poor," I can't help but have the concern that the "socially liberal" aspect basically stops at white gay guys. (Women and people of color are then, sadly, only getting benefits here as a matter of consequence.) There are a lot of atheists who are misogynists, so that makes it hard to be optimistic, even though these atheists tend to be more reasonable about women's issues.<br />
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* For those not in the know, the claim is typically that being "economically conservative" means being against big government spending. However, few of the people who label themselves as such seem to have any problem with military spending. The spending items that get the biggest focus seem to be those that assist the poor, programs that are often referred to as "welfare."<br />
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Well...this is interesting. I had basically written this post by Friday when I attended the local atheist social. One person there used damn near those exact words. What timing!<br />
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I wasn't able to get in a word — I'm just not aggressive enough to cut off any other speakers — but where the conversation led interested me a bit. Actually, it seemed like more disappointment. A couple others, all white dudes, seemed to be in generally agreement, with one putting it that "[the Republicans] left us." I find that rather interesting. The religious right probably began gaining influence in that party way back in the 1950's with McCarthyism and the Red Scare. Democrats who didn't like civil rights for African Americans switched their party affiliation back in the 1960's. Regan was endorsing the Evangelicals back in 1980. A couple of these men can't be much older than me. So what are they talking about? That train left the station a <i>looooong</i> time ago. It's way past time to be thinking about getting on board.<br />
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Then again, that's what scares me. The attitude suggests that that train they're concerned about didn't leave all that long ago. So, if the GOP was just a bit more atheist and science friendly, they'd be back on board? But that would still leave a party that's racist.<br />
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I guess what I'm ultimately getting at is that there is a reason the Republican left these white dudes. It embraced the Evangelicals for a reason. I propose that reason to be that it is a tribalistic party. It doesn't care about people in general; it cares about only certain people that it considers its tribe. Now, since it doesn't have a mind of its own, that means the tribe itself gets to define who is in the tribe. And atheists have been kicked out almost entirely.<br />
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But when I hear these attitudes, I can't help but hear people who want to be admitted back into the club for their own benefit, and people who don't mind a club that is still going to be pretty exclusionary to other people. Fuck that. I want nothing to do with people like this.<br />
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What I want even less a part in is a community of atheists who put on a facade of being inclusive because they support the LGBT community.<br />
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Lastly, I saw last week <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/08/05/young-ca-libertarians-looking-to-expand-to-other-states-amid-clashes-with-tea-partiers/">an article about California libertarians</a>. Not necessarily atheists, but these are again people who are claiming to be "socially liberal." A part of that article raised my eyebrows where it said, "Despite personal politics that might seem more in tune with Democrats...these millennials say they are more comfortable with Republicans’ emphasis on freedom than Democrats’ penchant for regulation." So...they don't like having environmental protections in place? (Maybe those aren't the regulations they mean, but this is a problem with painting with a broad brush.) Once again, this seems little more than a "fuck the poor" message. The areas discussed that could be considered socially liberal were pot legalization and LGBT rights; areas that benefit those who are already privileged. Once again, that these also benefit those of less privilege seems more of a consequence than the goal.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-34918276375345857392014-08-04T11:25:00.000-05:002014-08-04T11:25:26.057-05:00Why beliefs matter, quite simply.I can't believe this didn't come to me sooner. I suppose, in my shock in the naivete of those who would promote the idea that it's not a big deal what people believe, my mind engaged in education mode. But I know many of these people I encounter don't really need an education. I know they're not actually as naive as they appear.<br />
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So, why do beliefs matter? Well, if one were to want to build a better airplane, beliefs about physics matter. The more accurately one understands physics, the more likely they will be able to build that better airplane. The same goes for other subject matters as well. In short, the better one understands reality, the more likely they will be able to build that better airplane.<br />
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What if instead we're trying to build is a better world? (Or a better society? Or however you wish to phrase this?) Why wouldn't the same rules apply? I see no reason why they would not. So, once again, the better understanding one has of reality, the more likely they will succeed at building that better world.<br />
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So if you still think that it's fine for people to believe what they want to believe, then I am left to assume one of two things:<br />
a) You disagree with my assessment above that a better understanding of reality improves the odds of one being successful at engineering. If that's the case, I'd love to hear why.<br />
b) You're not interested in building a better world. Well, that's your prerogative, not mine. That is probably all that needs to be said about this.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-2525425886622613302014-06-02T09:51:00.002-05:002014-06-02T09:51:26.324-05:00The blog is still ongoing! Just not as frequently.It has now been two months since my last post. I have not completely forgotten about this blog, but this blog was started for a purpose. That purpose was to help me formulate my thoughts into arguments. This was to serve as practice for engaging people in other places, whether that be on online comment boards, Facebook, or even face-to-face with someone. I feel that this blog has helped serve that purpose and I have been focusing more on putting these skills to use and less focus on the blog. Actually, I've been getting sloppy on my blog posts because I have not committed the time necessary to put together a good argument.<br />
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Still, even professionals need to practice their skills. I'll come back and visit this blog for practice and I do want to finish going over the book "I Don't Have Enough Faith to Be an Atheist." I do want to thank those few who have subscribed to this blog and I do ask that you stay subscribed. There will be more posts, though they may indeed be months in between.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-13785124585004126652014-04-02T08:52:00.001-05:002014-04-02T08:54:37.501-05:00Not sure what Bible this Catholic priest reads...Short post today. Regular FOX News contributer Father Johnathan Morris was on that station recently to talk about the new movie, Noah. I just want to cover the bits that caught my attention. First, the video, <a href="http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/03/30/priest-tells-fox-news-noah-movie-left-out-god-and-will-pay-for-it-dearly/">via the RawStory</a>:<br />
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<blockquote>“It’s a classic case of the book is much better than the movie.”</blockquote><br />
Oh, man! The book sucks. So...the movie must be horrible!<br />
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<blockquote>It’s also escapism from the true story, from what’s in the Bible.”</blockquote><br />
Ha! If you call a "tail" a "leg," then does a dog have five legs?<br />
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<blockquote>“God comes across as this enigmatic, impersonal force that tells you to do crazy things.”</blockquote><br />
Well, I'll admit that Yahweh does appear to be a bit more personal in the book. But the "tells you to do crazy things" is totally on character.<br />
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<blockquote>“[In the movie, Noah] is borderline schizophrenic...The real story is unbelievably inspiring. [Noah] was a great father...”</blockquote><br />
Well, it's nearly unbelievable how people find that story to be inspiring. Inspiring how? That's a question I'd like to ask as I have doubts I'd get a clear answer. As for Noah being a great father, I wonder what Morrison basis this on. The Bible says pretty much jack about Noah's fathering abilities. There are at best two places. <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%206&version=NIV">Genesis 6</a>:9 includes a part that says, "Noah was a righteous man, blameless among the people of his time." Does that mean he was a good father? Maybe. But <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis%209&version=NIV">Genesis 9</a> contains a part where Noah condemns his son, Ham, into slavery for essentially getting a laugh at finding Noah passed out drunk and naked. That's what a "good father" does? Please!<br />
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<blockquote>“Just wrong starting point. Didn't start from the point of view of faith.”</blockquote><br />
This, I think, is where Morrison gets the crazy ideas that Noah was a good father and that the story is inspiring. What Morrison is really saying here, then, is that the movie needed to start from the point of view that the story is actually a good story as opposed to what the story <i>actually</i> says. In other words, the movie needed to start from what Christians imagine the story to be.<br />
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Otherwise, I have not seen the movie yet. Not sure if I'm going to anytime soon or not.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-83538274278051556072014-03-20T14:43:00.000-05:002014-03-20T14:45:41.734-05:00Investigating Theology on Tap - ConceptionWell, this is one I've been rather lazy about posting. This event happened over a year ago and I'm finally posting it now. This is from a group that is apparently for young, adult Catholics to get together in a drinking establishment to discuss theology. I was interested in the lecture on contraception, figuring it might be both entertaining and painful all at the same time. I was not disappointed. As a result of my lack of disappointment, I was unable to resist the urge to take unnecessary jabs at Catholics.<br />
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I recorded the event with my little mp3 player and have tried to clean up the audio a bit so that I can reference and quote parts of the discussion in my analysis. (The quality isn't great, sorry...and there's also sounds of notes scribbling in there — notes I no longer have any idea where they are.) You'll notice I made it into a "video;" I thought that would be the easiest way to share. But there's nothing useful to see in the video.<br />
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Right of the bat, she did a good job explaining why this is an issue of the Catholic Church — They need babies to indoctrinate! (Otherwise, who would believe their bullshit? Well...maybe a few people...there is indication this speaker may have been a convert, as she says her first Catholic wedding was her own. If so, she's swallowed the bullshit well! But I digress.) Sure, she didn't <i>quite</i> say it that way, but she did say that they need them "to confirm."<br />
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The next bit went into the supposed sacrifice of Jesus. I've posted on this before <a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2012/01/sacrifice-what-sacrifice.html">here</a> and <a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2014/03/christian-inconsistencies-on-treatment.html">here</a>; I have nothing more to add from what these posts already say.<br />
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Then there's a little bit regarding the really messed up idea of a marriage being consummated when the couple first has sex after marriage. I'm guessing they're not, to do it "correctly," supposed to have sex any time before that. I really don't know what to say about this. I just find it really bizarre and, in some ways, disturbing how so many humans cling on to and blindly follow tradition.<br />
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Now we get into the meat of the conversation (around 9:30 in the audio), which revolved around <a href="http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/encyclicals/documents/hf_p-vi_enc_25071968_humanae-vitae_en.html">predictions Pope Paul VI had made back in 1968</a>. The prediction is as follows:<blockquote>17. Responsible men can become more deeply convinced of the truth of the doctrine laid down by the Church on this issue if they reflect on the consequences of methods and plans for artificial birth control. Let them first consider how easily this course of action could open wide the way for marital infidelity and a general lowering of moral standards. Not much experience is needed to be fully aware of human weakness and to understand that human beings—and especially the young, who are so exposed to temptation—need incentives to keep the moral law, and it is an evil thing to make it easy for them to break that law. Another effect that gives cause for alarm is that a man who grows accustomed to the use of contraceptive methods may forget the reverence due to a woman, and, disregarding her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection.<br />
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Finally, careful consideration should be given to the danger of this power passing into the hands of those public authorities who care little for the precepts of the moral law. Who will blame a government which in its attempt to resolve the problems affecting an entire country resorts to the same measures as are regarded as lawful by married people in the solution of a particular family difficulty? Who will prevent public authorities from favoring those contraceptive methods which they consider more effective? Should they regard this as necessary, they may even impose their use on everyone. It could well happen, therefore, that when people, either individually or in family or social life, experience the inherent difficulties of the divine law and are determined to avoid them, they may give into the hands of public authorities the power to intervene in the most personal and intimate responsibility of husband and wife. </blockquote><br />
There's some really horrible stuff in there, but I don't think I'll go into it to much in this post except where I find it necessary and instead focus on the points made at the talk. Note: I'm analyzing these based on the numbering she gave them. Due to audience questions, she actually discussed #4 first, but I'm still going over it last.<br />
<ol><li>Decline in Morality (14:30) — This is a place where I should have asked for examples since it was only discussed for 30 seconds. It seemed like some people there just accepted this. (Which is not at all surprising. It's not just Catholics that push this idea. Many churches want their members to believe things are getting worse because they can then use it as propaganda to keep people in the church under the premise that their morality will also decline unless they stay in church.) So what are the declines in morality? Is it in part because the gays are getting married? <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=6jrngYNGNeE">Oh, the horrors!</a> (sarcasm) Yeah, if you've been raised Christian and have been told that this is morally wrong, I can see how you could think morality is on the decline. When you're like me, however, and weren't raised to believe one way or another and actually have you use your brain and rationality to come to a conclusion on the issue, you see nothing morally wrong about it. But what about issues I have at least <i>some</i> agreement with Catholics, such as abortion? I've heard that <a href="http://www.chicagomag.com/Chicago-Magazine/The-312/February-2013/Why-Are-Teen-Birth-Rates-On-the-Decline/">abortion rates for teens</a> are down. It wouldn't be overly surprising if this is true for adults as well. In short, I only see a possibility of moral decline from a Christian/Catholic perspective<small>(1)</small> as people are behaving more and more in a manner in which the Catholic church disapproves. Then again, this is the prediction being made as this idea of moral decline is tied in to what the Vatican claims to be moral or not (this is what is referred to above as either the "moral law" or "divine law").<br />
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But I must point out that not all accepted this fully. However, this led down a path where more discussion should have taken place. I'll quote the conversation.<blockquote>Presenter: Do you think that we've seen a general lowering of moral standards throughout society? >pause< I see some heads nodding.<br />
Man from audience (Jack): Yes. >General laughter< Not necessarily 100% contributable (sic) to that, but a factor.</blockquote>Uhh...OK. Well, then what percentage is attributable? Is it mostly attributable? Only slightly attributable? I'll at least give the man credit for the recognition that there is no way contraception could be fully to blame. Certainly not for things like gay marriage!<br />
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<li>Infidelity (14:58) — This really depends on how you define "<a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/infidelity">infidelity</a>." One way to define it is "marital unfaithfulness." This definition doesn't make sense given that the evidence provided that this is true is that people cohabitate more often. You can't have "marital unfaithfulness" if you aren't married! So might another definition apply? Another way to define the word is simply as "disloyalty." This, however, can be a very broad definition. Does it count as "disloyalty" if you're unwilling to make a life long commitment to someone? I don't think so, thus I do not find this to be true even from the Catholic perspective. But what I do find, again, is people behaving in a manner of which the Catholic church disapproves. (I.e, not getting married straight away, or not giving themselves "fully," or whatever things she claims need to exist in a marriage, according to Catholics.) Again, that was essentially the prediction. (There also seems to be an expectation that non-Catholics follow the rules of Catholics. Catholics seem to be a bunch of control freaks.)<br />
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<li>Less Respect for Women (15:42) — This one was bizarre. So bizarre that I'm going to need to quote (the best I can) the speaker word for word.<blockquote>This one's a little more controversial. Some people think this is true and others don't. Have you seen a lessening of respect for women by men? <pause> I see some heads nodding. <pause> Well, it's hard to say, 'cuz we fell like, OK, women are more equal now. But what I think what happens is because of that sort of equality women are more like men when [women] take the pill. In other words, [women] can't get pregnant and a man can't get pregnant, so when a couple contracepts, you know, a woman is more like a man, but in that way we kind of degrade the dignity of that woman. You say, you know, being a woman — there is something inherently bad about being a woman or bad about a woman's fertility or bad about the ability, you know, carry life within you. I think that it becomes fear — again that fear comes into it. And that becomes, I think, chance for men to sort of degrade women. </blockquote>There is only one appropriate reaction to this...<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://atheistdave.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/dave-silverman.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="146" src="http://atheistdave.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/dave-silverman.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>So, alright, I can see how if you think women have a roll in which it is their duty to fulfill — in this case, having babies — and you believe society in general is now signaling to women that it is OK to not fulfill this roll how you could find this "degrading." I have three points to make on this. <br />
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First, this reminds me of a Muslim coworker I once had back in the days when I was naive about religion. He claimed that women were respected in Islam because women are made head of the household. The main problem<small>(2)</small> — which I failed to fully recognize myself at the time — is that women may not <i>want</i> to be head of the household. If you were to suggest to women that they can have jobs outside the house, is it "degrading" because that might suggest that there is something "inherently bad" about heading up the house? Only, I think, if you have the belief that that is where women belong. As I don't have that belief, I don't find such notions to be "degrading." Likewise, since I don't have the preexisting belief that women are supposed to be baby factories, I don't find it "degrading" to tell women that they don't have to have children if they chose not to. Now, I do realize that some may think this <a href="http://www.fallacyfiles.org/wanalogy.html">analogy is a bit weak</a> because childbearing is a biological function whereas heading up a house is not (or, if it is, it is not obviously so). But I do not find such an objection all too relevant because to suggest that women <i>must</i> bear children <a href="http://www.fallacyfiles.org/adnature.html">because it is natural</a> to do so is a logical fallacy. What is relevant is the question of whether or not the woman herself wants children. As far as I can tell, women are generally deciding for themselves (and not being pressured, intimidated, etc, into such decisions) to not have children. What I see — yet again! — are women who are deciding to live their lives in ways the Catholic church disapproves and this is being called "disrespectful" of woman.<br />
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My second point is that this is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tilting_at_windmills">tilting at windmills</a>. As I have sat writing and pondering about this, I have even come to realize that things have gotten <i>better</i> since these predictions would have been made in the 1960's. Back then, women could — and my understanding is they often <i>would</i> — lose their jobs if they got pregnant. If they didn't lose their job right away, they'd probably lose them while being gone on maternity. But today? We <a href="http://www.eeoc.gov/laws/statutes/pregnancy.cfm">have laws now</a> that protect against this. My manager, for example, was on maternity leave herself last year. Her job was still available for her when she got back. That's not to say things are perfect now; that certainly would not be true. (Some employers, <a href="http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2013/03/05/christian-hypocrisyno-surprise-at-all/">such as San Diego <i>Christian</i> College</a>, for example, may try to find loopholes around such laws or other legal ways to discriminate.) But to suggest that things are worse today is ahistorical. <br />
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My third point is that this seems quite hypocritical of the speaker to suggest — I know! A hypocritical Catholic! Hard to believe! (Sarcasm) — Part of her talk was about the type of family planning on which she counsels. From what I gathered, she helps people learn the signs of fertility so that they can abstain from sex when the wife is fertile. How does this not imply that being a woman is inherently bad<small>(3)</small> but using contraception does? I imagine the excuses could include the idea that, as was said by the presenter, this is only to be done if the couple has "serious" reasons for not having children. They may also try to claim that they want women to have children as soon as it is practical. But, for this excuse, people who use birth control could say the same thing! I don't worry too much about this third point, though. They can use as many excuses as they want. I reject their premise that women have a duty<small>(4)</small> to push out babies.<br />
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<small>Side note: I have come to learn quite recently that praising women for supposedly having good characteristics that men do not is known as <a href="http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/psysociety/2013/04/02/benevolent-sexism/">benevolent sexism</a>. This is a really bad form of sexism as "women who [are] exposed to benevolent sexism [are] more likely to think that there are many advantages to being a woman and [are] also more likely to engage in system justification, a process by which people justify the status quo and believe that there are no longer problems facing disadvantaged groups in modern day society." In other words, it is sexism that leads to complacency. So don't be fooled when these Muslims or Catholics, etc, twist things around to make it appear that it is they who have a positive attitude toward women. They are still putting women into gender rolls, which is sexist. </small><br />
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To be totally fair, I do need to take a look at this in reference to what Paul VI said. I assume this "loss of respect for women" idea revolves around this part of the quote: "[A man may] disregard her physical and emotional equilibrium, reduce her to being a mere instrument for the satisfaction of his own desires, no longer considering her as his partner whom he should surround with care and affection." What I gather from that is he is saying that men will be able to have sex with their wives whenever they want, as opposed to avoiding sex when she is fertile. This doesn't make things any better as this is horribly sexist. <br />
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First, it basically implies that men are all sex-craved lunatics that turn into some sort of Mr. Hyde<small>(5)</small> whenever the opportunity for sex presents itself. This also implies that these men then must somehow be a respectable Dr. Jekyll otherwise. This is insulting, but not really surprising as it is not a new idea. After all, there is a reason religions like Christianity and, notoriously, Islam often expect women to cover themselves — it is so men don't fall into temptation. <br />
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Think I may be a bit over the top on this point? Well, then I suggest reading what <a href="http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive//ldn/2008/jul/08072506">this Christian-themed article</a> has to say! <blockquote>Archbishop Chaput of Denver...wrote that, rather than freeing women, "Contraception has released males - to a historically unprecedented degree - from responsibility for their sexual aggression."</blockquote><br />
Second, such framing also implies that women don't want sex themselves, or at least not to the extent that men supposedly do. This is similarly insulting to women.<br />
</li>
<br \>
<li>Government Control of Fertility (12:45) — This point, much like the first, seemed like one that people there may have just accepted as true without much evidence. Because China. Seriously, that was the primary example. (To be fair, this example was provided by the audience. The presenter, however, did not discard it as a bad example; in fact, she accepted it as "the big one.") One country out of hundreds has some strict controls related to reproduction, so therefore this point is true. Ridiculous. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias">Confirmation bias</a> at its worst! Moreover, China's rules have no connection to birth control. As with the first point, the idea, as presented, was that these events are supposed to be a direct result of contraception use. Contraception may make it easier for the Chinese people to follow the one-child rule, but the rule is not because of contraception. Nor is the rule forcing people to use contraception. The other example did actually have a connection to contraception, which was about Israel allegedly <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/01/28/ethiopian-women-israel-birth-control-shots_n_2567016.html">forcefully giving birth control shots to Ethiopian women</a>. It's a tragic story, I admit, but an example here and there goes nowhere toward proving that this prediction is even useful. This event would appear to more be a result of racism, where contraception is being used as a tool to subdue the persecuted ethnic group.<br />
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Another part of this whole point that bothers me is how much the Catholic Church likes to control fertility. Not only does the church have <a href="http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-25/catholic-church-apologises-over-forced-adoptions/2808672">a history of abducting children</a>, they've put up this big fight against the government mandating that employers pay for their employees' contraception. They try to hide under the guise of "religious freedom," but this is bullshit. The government is not forcing them to use it. They just have to allow their employees, who, as it needs to be pointed out, may not be Catholic, or may even be Catholics who don't agree with the church on contraception. To just give an example of why the religious freedom argument shouldn't be given as much flexibility as it has been on this issue, imagine having a Jehovah's Witness organization as an employer. They don't believe in allowing blood transfusions. So is it OK if the health insurance that they provide their employees not cover this? How would you feel if you needed one? (Worse, what if the only hospital in town was run by Jehovah's Witnesses and it didn't perform blood transfusions?) This isn't about religious "freedom"...except for the "freedom" to impose one's beliefs on other people. But I guess...it's OK when a church does it because it's not a government institution.<br />
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Oh, and then there are all the times throughout the past couple of decades of the Vatican fighting against UN resolutions to protect women's rights because — horror of horrors! — such protections apparently might make access to contraception and — worst horrors of all!!! — abortion easier. (See links <a href="http://www.rappler.com/world/specials/44820-un-womens-rights-resolution-passed-despite-backlash">here (Nov 2013)</a>, <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/03/13/us-women-un-rights-idUSBRE92C1EN20130313">here (March 2013)</a>, <a href="http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/06/21/503478/assault-on-womens-reproductive-rights-and-gender-equality-at-rio20/">here (June 2012)</a>, and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/1994/06/15/world/vatican-fights-un-draft-on-women-s-rights.html">here (June 1994)</a>.) Bonus (not related to fertility, though, but relates to the respect for women prediction from earlier): Here's an article that claims <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/10/27/7-ridiculous-restrictions-on-womens-rights-around-the-world">women living in Vatican City aren't allowed to vote</a>.<br />
</li>
</ol><br \><br />
Looking at these predictions overall, they aren't really that impressive. As an example, here's a prediction I'm going to make: It's going to rain somewhere in the world today. Here's another: The sun will rise tomorrow morning in the east (except, perhaps, for places near the north or south poles). These predictions go not only for the day I post this, but for any day that someone reads this. When these comes true, can I be regarded as some great predictor of events? I hope not! The point that I'm trying to make is that it is not surprising that the world ain't perfect. Making a prediction about some potential imperfection isn't anything special. Worse, three of these are predictions of events that were already occurring by 1968! I'm quite sure that people were already moving away from the Catholic Church's "moral law" by that time. So to predict that this would continue happening in the future? Not impressive. Likewise, predicting that countries would control reproduction was also not impressive. There were numerous countries, for example, that had <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compulsory_sterilization">sterilization programs</a> in the early 20th century, with the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics_in_the_United_States">United States perhaps being the first country to enact such programs</a> as far back as 1907. Again, this amounts to being a prediction that events that had already occurred or were still occurring would continue to occur in the future. Those are some bold predictions! (sarcasm) Now if someone were to predict global flooding, and it came true? <i>That</i> would be interesting! That does not happen regularly. Or ever. But if your prediction is merely that floods will occur in the future? Yawn.<br />
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The "logic" that I have seen used here and in other articles I researched (the main resources I have linked below) is also unimpressive. The primary error is incorrect use of derivatives <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Material_conditional">implication logic</a>. This typically takes the form of "if p, then q." The error is then saying, "q. Therefore, p." This is not necessarily correct. Allow me to demonstrate. If my dog eats my homework (p), then I will not have homework to hand in (q). I do not have homework to hand in (q), therefore my dog ate my homework (p). For this example, it should be obvious that there are more likely reason that I wouldn't have homework to hand in, with perhaps the most likely reason being that I simply didn't do it. It is this type of logical error that I see quite clearly in the example of China — there is no obvious link between their one child policy and contraception. Similarly, there are no clear links between what the Catholics view as declining morality and contraception. This error in reasoning is also known as incorrectly thinking <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation">correlation implies causation</a>.<br />
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Otherwise, the rest of the talk, which I probably just could have cut out, is about natural family planning. I have no comment to add to that discussion.<br />
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(1) <small>Christian morality is actually relative morality (despite claims otherwise) because morality, <a href="http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morality">as simply defined</a>, is "a doctrine or system of moral conduct." This supposed "moral decline" is based on the Catholic system. Now, they themselves don't view it as relative because they've got it in their heads that this system comes from on-high. It should go without saying that I find that to be bullshit. Additionally, when you examine many of the Catholic doctrine from a rational perspective (a perspective that does not include a god), many of these doctrines have very weak support. And you can see this in some of the references I have added. Perhaps my favorite is claiming an increase in porn is an example of the horrors contraception use has led to. I don't know how to explain this to these Catholics other than to simply say that a lot of people no longer think pornography is inherently some horrible thing. Yes, often women and men can be treated horribly within the industry. But to blame this on porn itself is more irrational thinking that correlation implies causation. (After all, women (and sometimes men) are often treated horribly in other industries, such as the computer programming industry. So is this industry inherently horrible, too?) Until you can actually demonstrate that porn is the cause, I and a lot of other people are going to just point and laugh at you for your irrational beliefs.</small><br />
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(2) <small>The second problem, based on my understanding, is that this really isn't even true. It's only true when no other man — which includes teenagers that our culture would consider to still be boys — is in the house.</small><br />
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(3) <small>My guess at this has been that this is some sort of compromise position taken by the church. I suspect that they realize they can't completely stop people from having sex for purposes other than reproduction, so this is their compromise — have people engage in a form of birth control that likely has a high rate of failure (<a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/fb_contr_use.html">looks like it is 24%</a>, or about 1 in 4 fail). (On a side note, it's not very popular. It's <a href="http://www.guttmacher.org/pubs/Religion-and-Contraceptive-Use.pdf">something like only 2% of Catholics (PFD)</a> that actually use this method.)</small><br />
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(4) <small>It may also be worth pointing out that the Catholic church does not allow women into the priesthood. (I don't remember — nor do I really care — what excuse they use for this.) Also, I was recently reminded of how <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/world/europe/25iht-abuse25.html?_r=3&">women were used as slave labor</a> in Ireland in the last century because they broke the sex rules of Catholic Ireland. It blows my mind to hear Catholics supposedly concerned about respect for women given their history. Pot, meet kettle. (Except the kettle is a figment of pot's imagination.)</small><br />
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(5) <small>This is a rather odd contradiction that has existed in Christianity and Islam for <i>years</i>! I can't help but be a bit puzzled how the idea has survived. On one hand, men are implied to be these monsters that completely lack self-control. Yet, they are also implied to be the ones who need to run society. Because they're more responsible than women...or something? My best guess is a lot of the men don't care that there is a contradiction. They probably recognize that the idea of them being monsters is nothing more than an excuse to keep women "in their place." It is then up to the women to recognize there is a contradiction. And I think a lot of women do recognize this, but the problem is they aren't the ones in power, so their ain't a whole hell of a lot they can do about their situation. I'm generalizing here a bit, but that is, in a nutshell, how I think this contradiction has been able to survive — those who can actually change things benefit from the contradiction, so there's no motive to get rid of it.</small><br />
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<hr \><br />
References:<br />
<a href="http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/archive//ldn/2008/jul/08072506">“Heaps of Empirical Evidence” Vindicate Pope Paul VI’s Dire Warnings 40 Years Ago About Contraceptives -- LifeSiteNews</a><br />
<a href="http://www.firstthings.com/article/2008/07/002-the-vindication-of-ihumanae-vitaei-28">The Vindication of Humanae Vitae -- First Things</a><br />
<a href="http://catholicdefense.blogspot.com/2012/01/prophetic-pope-paul-vi-and-consequences.html">The Prophetic Pope Paul VI, and the Consequences of Contraception -- Shameless Popery</a><br />
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<a href="http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/12/05/3025781/pregnancy-birth-abortion-teens/">This is just a cool link</a> that shows that abortion rates have actually been declining. I don't expect many Catholics to accept it, though, because the chart in the link, I am sure, is not counting birth control use in the statistics. A lot of Christians on the right promote this idea that birth control causes abortion. There's no science to back this up, but it's not like they care. It doesn't take a genius to realize the reason they promote this idea is so that they can label statistics like this as "misleading" in order to maintain their beliefs. We <a href="http://advancedlifeskills.com/blog/how-your-beliefs-create-your-reality-part-3/">humans tend to do stuff like that</a>.<br />
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<hr \><br />
Here's some 2014 "prophecies" from SomeGreyBloke that I feel are quite on par with those from Paul VI. Oh, look! Posting this seems to fulfill #12.<br />
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<iframe width="560" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/Bt_AMQSB3o4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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One final note. Peter Seegar recently died as of this posting. I never listened to his music and I doubt I had even heard of him (except, perhaps, in passing), but I was linked to this song below about female engineers.<br />
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<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/cgzl1Sai4Y0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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It made me think about how there were a couple of female engineers present at that theology event. One I darn well know is a devout believer. (The other, I have come to learn, is no longer Catholic, if she ever was.) And it makes me sad. It has been through the work of men and women who fought against sexism in society that they are able to have the jobs that they do. Yet, here they are, at this event that is doing the opposite by promoting sexism and bashing those who have fought against sexism as being "disrespectful" of women. I can't help but wonder why this is. I figure most likely they're simply not thinking it through. It's the problem of taking things for granted. These women didn't have to fight institutional sexism; some of the big battles were fought many years ago. This video, for example, was taken in the 70's, before either of these women were born. These women, to use biblical phrasing, are reaping what they didn't sow. Which is fine; I'm sure many of those who did the sowing did what they did so that feature generations could reap the rewards. What is sad is the lack of recognition. What is even sadder is the allegiance to those who had opposed, and are still opposing, the sowing.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-62742968014204769702014-03-20T12:52:00.001-05:002014-03-20T12:52:43.934-05:00Christian Inconsistencies on the Treatment of DeathThis is something that has caught me off guard a few times. Even though I've recognized these inconsistencies a number of years ago, it is something I tend to forget in discussions with Christians.<br />
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For a good example, one of the big advertising points of Christianity is that their god is awesome and loving because he (in this case, Jesus) sacrificed his life for us. I have <a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2012/01/sacrifice-what-sacrifice.html">written about this before</a>, but I made a mistake in that post and I've made the mistake in online discussions with Christians. First, here's some of the text in question:<br />
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<blockquote>If Jesus were just a man, then sure, that would be quite a noble deed to give up your life and pay for our sins so that others can benefit...<br />
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...However, when we go back to Christian theology*, Jesus is more than just human. If Jesus is really God (or a part of God), then what is death to something that is part of the creator of death? It should be no big deal. </blockquote><br />
The mistake is in that first sentence. I was looking at death from the perspective that there is no afterlife. Christians, however, supposedly do believe in an afterlife.* So never mind the part about how death should be no big deal to an eternal god; death should be no big deal for humans!<br />
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Yet, Christians treat death as a big deal. Really, this pitch about Jesus making this supposedly great sacrifice relies on death being a big deal. If some event or action is not a big deal, then it can't really count as a sacrifice. This should be quite obvious, but I feel the need for a quick example anyway. If I donate $5 to charity, that's not a big deal. $5 isn't very much. If I were to give $5,000 to charity, however, that's a much bigger deal for someone with my income! It's a bigger deal and is thus a bigger sacrifice. So if death is just an event along the way to an afterlife that is supposedly better than this life, then it isn't really a sacrifice.<br />
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But I don't find that Christians fully believe in an afterlife like they claim. It was about 4 years ago now that I had brought this up to some Christians on Facebook. There was a story in the news I had found interesting. Best I can remember, it was about a man who was essentially dying from cancer. The cancer had already caused a bunch of throat damage to where he could no longer talk and had to eat through a tube. He had found some group, apparently without the approval of his wife, to assist him with suicide. In the news article, his Christian widow was very upset that this group was "playing God." It prompted me to ask why Christians make such a big deal out of death if it's just a stop along the way?<br />
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Well, I don't recall getting any good answers. I may have gotten a couple responses criticizing me for asking the question in the first place (but I really need to dig through my Facebook archives to verify this). The one answer I'm pretty sure I do remember was one that was not at all helpful. It unfortunately left me too dumbfounded at the time to respond. The answer was essentially that Christians view life as precious. There are two problems with that; the first being that I had already reached that conclusion, though it is perhaps my mistake for not being more explicit. The second problem is that it didn't even address the question. OK, so Christians find this life precious. So what? As far as I can tell, they also claim the afterlife to be essentially precious. Was this Christian suggesting the afterlife is not actually that great of a thing? Because if this life is precious and the afterlife is also precious, then there's not really any stark contrast here and we're right back to the idea that death is just a stop along the way. Worse, the impression I get is that the afterlife is <i>more</i> precious than this life. It does not make sense, then, to cling to this precious life when there is an even more precious afterlife waiting.<br />
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Again, I find the real answer to be that Christians don't actually believe in it as they claim. They <i>want</i> to believe it, but there is a lack of evidence for the afterlife that they have to deal with. Seriously, what is the evidence for an afterlife other than an old book claiming that it does? (Which isn't very good evidence.) Maybe some so-called "psychics" here and there claiming to talk to the dead? Maybe a few people here and there claiming to see the ghosts of their dead relatives? I'm not convinced that these really count for much, either. I suspect a lot of people claim to believe in these stories because, again, they <i>want</i> to believe. It's the old canard of "actions speak louder than words." If people really believe this stuff, then why all the hardship around death?<br />
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This is something I would like to see a good answer for. I don't expect there is one, so surprise me! Why do Christians make such a big deal out of death?<br />
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* <small>One potential catch Christians would perhaps call me out on is that people may not have been going to an afterlife <i>until</i> Jesus's sacrifice. This, though, does not at all negate the inconsistent attitude Christians have toward death <i>today</i>.</small>Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-12552000179678566802014-03-19T06:35:00.000-05:002014-03-19T06:35:28.001-05:00Protecting Religious Beliefs - The Potential Double StandardAlright, I thought I was maybe done with posts on beliefs, but I find I have one more in me...<br />
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One of the posts I was drafting on this topic back in 2012 was going to be on "Engineering With Bad Beliefs." The gist of it was going to be that if an engineer does not understand how the world works, they are likely to make a shitty product. I really should not need to say more.<br />
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It was thinking about this same idea lately that I realized there is a double standard, which is perhaps what bothers me most about such discussions. And it's not limited to just engineering; this can go for many jobs out there, particularly jobs that wouldn't just hire anyone off the street. I.e, jobs that require a certain level of education. That education is required to help an employer determine if one has the understanding to do the job. Most people would not suggest to an employer that they hire just anyone, no matter what that person understands about the job.<br />
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In regards to religion and other beliefs (like <a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2013/12/how-do-you-determine-if-someones.html">Phil Robertson's homophobia</a> or <a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2014/01/putting-it-in-terms-of-race.html">George Zimmerman's racism</a>), I'm trying to apply a similar concept. If a person is going to make decisions around some topic, they should have a good understanding of the way things are. And I have no problem releasing criticism against those who don't seem to have a good understanding.<br />
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So what I want to know from those who think I should not criticize is for you to tell me why I should handle such beliefs differently? Because all I've ever heard is people simply telling me that I should, but they don't tell me <i><b>why</b></i> I should. If someone tells me I should do something without a reason and I disagree, I'm going to keep disagreeing until I'm given a reason to change my mind. I won't change my mind because someone tells me I should. That would be silly. So, please, tell me why.<br />
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<hr \><br />
Now, someone might point out that Robertson's homophobia or Zimmerman's racism isn't necessarily critical to their jobs (though I would say racism is not a good characteristic in a neighborhood watchman). OK, but at best this says that my reasoning above in regards to jobs doesn't apply. I already know this. It does not say that my position is wrong. It does not say that a position of letting them believe what they want is right. So such an objection does not address my question.<br />
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The way that I am looking at it is that I am going to be consistent unless given a reason otherwise. Yes, the reasons for requiring certain knowledge and beliefs don't apply in general quite the same way as they do for a job. But I have to apply some sort of rule. So why not continue to apply the same rule?Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-37937805862681540122014-03-18T06:44:00.001-05:002014-03-18T06:44:48.357-05:00Religion - Doing none of the work, taking all the credit.The title of a recent TYT video struck a bad nerve with me. It says, "<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WhnM05w7DyM">Carrie Underwood Uses Religion To DEFEND Marriage Equality</a>". The all-caps probably didn't help matters any.<br />
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One thing that popped out at me that I think needs to be clear is she does not support marriage equality because of religion. From the description: <blockquote>"As a married person myself, I don't know what it's like to be told I can't marry somebody I love, and want to marry," she said. "I can't imagine how that must feel. I definitely think we should all have the right to love, and love publicly, the people that we want to love."</blockquote><br />
There is nothing about religion in those remarks.<br />
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I had to go straight to <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/carrie-underwood-us-country-queen-speaks-out-for-gay-marriage--but-how-will-conservative-fans-take-it-7831956.html">The Independent</a> article to which they linked to actually find where the religious part supposedly comes in.<br />
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<blockquote>She said, however, that her liberal attitude towards same-sex marriage <b>comes because of her Christian values, rather than in spite of them</b>. Though raised a Baptist, a church that tends to oppose homosexuality, Underwood and her husband Mike Fisher, a professional ice-hockey player, now worship in a non-denominational congregation.<br />
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"Our church is gay friendly," she said. "Above all, God wanted us to love others. It's not about setting rules, or [saying] 'everyone has to be like me'. No. We're all different. That's what makes us special. We have to love each other and get on with each other. It's not up to me to judge anybody."</blockquote><br />
Emphasis mine. She <i>says</i> that, but her other quote says otherwise. There's that phrase, "Actions speak louder than words." I find that sometimes some words speak louder than other words, too. I find that people are more honest about what they believe when they speak outside the context of religion. <br />
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There are giveaways in the later quotes. For instance, this silly idea that <a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2014/03/more-on-judgements.html">we are not to judge</a>. It's not well thought-out. I find it difficult, though not impossible, for a person to be in favor of marriage equality over such a poorly thought-out premise. The other part is that she and her husband go to a non-denominational church. This may indicate there were things about the Baptist church she didn't find appealing, so she found a church that was more appealing. If so, this means she's finding a church that fits in with her preexisting views as opposed to forming her views around her church. Since the views came before the church, the church cannot be the reason for the views. Things that are causes must come first. That's not to say her views on gay marriage worked out the same way, but it does make me more suspicious since Baptist churches do not have a reputation for being pro-LGBT.<br />
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The last giveaway is that her logic doesn't really work out from a purely religious standpoint. She says, "We have to love each other and get on with each other." How does she go from there to (paraphrasing) "therefore I support marriage equality"? How does she know that supporting marriage equality is the loving thing to do? Maybe opposing it is the thing to do? That's where the first quote block comes in. That is her <i>actual</i> reasoning for her support.<br />
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The religious component, then, is just telling her that she should be a loving person. When you think about it, that seems a bit scary. She seriously needs religion to tell her to "love each other"?!? So, if she weren't religious, she'd be a hateful person instead? Actually, I doubt it. So, really, religion doesn't seem to play a part in her position whatsoever. What I think is really going on here is that she's trying to find ways to make her religion compatible with her marriage equality views.<br />
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Putting this particular case aside, I see things like this quite often. I find it to be rather disappointing. Too often I hear people claim they hold a position because of their religion...and then they proceed to give non-religious (secular) reasons for their position. I remember a similar instance when the NAACP came out in favor of gay marriage. Their president (?), when asked a question on how he thought members of faith would take this, said that their decision was because of faith. And then he <i>immediately</i> started talking about justice and fairness. It was obvious to me that the decision had nothing to with faith.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-21275783408550912972014-03-03T18:10:00.000-06:002014-03-03T18:10:31.409-06:00More on judgementsIn an earlier post, I griped about <a href="http://teethofthebuzzsaw.blogspot.com/2014/01/the-meaning-of-verb-judge.html">the way the verb "to judge" is abused by Christians</a>. But I wasn't fully done, yet. This time, it's not so much about the definition as opposed to what they say we should do.<br />
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Which is basically that we should not judge. I assume that they again mean the word in the sense of "to condemn" and are not including positive judgements. Even then, this is a huge problem. Should we let all criminals out of prison, then? And abolish the court system? You know what we call the person who sits at the head of a courtroom? We call them a judge. You know why we call them that? Because they hand out judgements!<br />
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This idea is just simply insane. Since I don't think most Christians are actually insane, I am led to conclude that they are just parroting an idea that they think sounds nice without actually thinking about what it means. (That is, after all, essentially what "to parrot" means.) But if there are any Christians who have given this at least some thought, I am rather curious as to how they might rationalize this belief.<br />
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I encountered a Christian not too long ago that was more precise and said, "by any measure this world has chosen to judge." I wonder, then, if an excuse would be to claim that courts are divinely appointed, as claimed in <a href="http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=rom+13%3A1&version=NIV">Romans 13:1</a>. That judge is then doing God's work, so that's OK?<br />
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On that, I do have some questions for Christians who make claims that we are not to judge:<br />
<ul><li>What do you really mean when you say that? Do you really mean everyone, or is it OK to judge against those who are suspected of committing crimes?</li>
<li>I hear this a lot lately in regards to gay rights. For those Christians who (a) support gay rights and (b) do think it is OK to judge against those who are suspected of committing crimes, how would you respond if being gay were considered a crime? Might the claim be that the law is unjust? On what basis do you make that claim?</li>
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I would probably have other questions, but those are at least my starter questions to help me wrap my head around things.Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3362165544712955892.post-11568784498294483592014-01-31T17:19:00.001-06:002014-02-10T11:59:50.758-06:00Consequences In Action<i>Updated below to make the point more generic, as was my original intent.</i><br />
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I mainly want to go over an example of consequences for beliefs that I totally meant to go over before...but forgot. I was reminded today after encountering a commenter on a YouTube video spouting this idea about leaving people alone if they are not "forcing" their beliefs on you.<br />
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George Zimmerman, for all we can tell, believed that <del>Trayvon Martin was</del> <i>black kids in hoodies are</i> a threat to his neighborhood. How'd that turn out <i>for Trayvon Martin</i>?<br />
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That, in a nutshell, is why I can't just let people believe what they want to believe. Was George Zimmerman forcing his beliefs on me? I would think the answer here is clearly "No." How about on Martin? Does killing a kid count as "forcing" beliefs on to someone? Just asking.<br />
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So, yeah, beliefs inform actions and actions have consequences. Need I really say this again?Leo Buzalskyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12416366036913091849noreply@blogger.com0