Karma noun often capitalized : the force generated by a person's actions held in Hinduism and Buddhism to perpetuate transmigration and in its ethical consequences to determine the nature of the person's next existence
I hear lots of people say things like "Karma's a bitch" when people who do bad things then have some calamity befall them. There is this sort of persistent blending that equates the Bible teaching anything done will paid back seven fold, the old saw of "What goes around comes around, and Karma as though Karma has a place is the Christian vocabulary.
The problem is that Karma (according to the Hindus and Buddhists) is the force which transmigrates the soul. In other it doesn't kick in until after reincarnation.
Or reintarnation if you are coming back as a red neck.
>pause for writer's laughter<
I know this is not original to me but its a funny joke.
So when the person who flips over an innocuous comment, say... oh i don't know, wrecks his car on the way home. It does not mean that Karma has gotten even with him. It means that something he did in his past life is now catching up with him.
Freaking only guarantees he will come back as a deer tick in is next life.
Or ya know an actor.
So anyway I just wanted to drop you all a quick little note to improve religious vocabulary and I hoped this helps.
Have a nice day.
But remember if you do it is because you were a good butterfly in your last life.
C'mon cow....
Wednesday, November 30, 2011
Saturday, October 15, 2011
So maybe I will vote... for Obama
I have, for a while now, maintained my steadfast refusal to vote because I think it is an exercise in futility. I have, along with George Carlin, held that if the people voting are selfish and self centered then it is a cinch that those who hold office will be only the ones who will pander to the selfish and self centered. Such people are unworthy to hold office in and thus I had decided to not vote anymore. But I have changed my mind.
The reason why is Rick Perry.
Now anyone who knows me knows that I have a special disliking for the esteemed governor of Texas; a disliking I feel that is well founded and sensible, but it is his decision to run for president which has brought me out of my slough of indifference. It is not that I think I have to vote against him, since it is now apparent that he has no chance to actually gain the nomination, it is rather the reason why he failed to gain the nomination. You see things were going just swimmingly for Governor Good-hair until it came out that he was opposed to the immigration laws in Arizona and Georgia and (gasp) felt that children who grew up in Texas and knew no home other than Texas and thought of themselves as Americans should be allowed to go to college in Texas even if they are brown and spoke Spanish before they learned English. When this came to light he promptly fell from leading the polls to a distant third and his chance of securing the nomination seems to be a distant memory.
The reason why? The TEA party.
The TEA party is running things on the elephant side of the aisle and the shibboleth among that group is immigration law. Make no mistake, I do not mean the common sense sort of measures which hopefully would stem the flow of drugs into our country as well as requiring that those who seek employment here be legal to do so. No. I am talking about the immigration laws in Georgia and Arizona which give the police the right to consider a criminal anyone who might be here illegally. Far apart from acting to deny education, healthcare and tax paying jobs to these people and thus securing for the companies who employ them a slave labor force (which I do think is the corporate impetus behind the bill) I find most reprehensible the allowance in the law which criminalizes all non-anglo people and makes them subject to whim of the police.
And make no mistake, criminalizing non-anglos is the result of these laws. After all if a policeman in San Francisco was searching for illegals there is a greater than zero chance that he would be looking for Asian or Latino people, but he almost certainly would not be searching for Anglos. The same is true in New York, but in Georgia and Arizona, the searching will be almost exclusively for Latinos.
"So what is the problem?" says the TEA Partier, "Aren't the people who are in this country illegally committing a crime?"
Well the answer of course is yes, but the thing is that these laws do not target crime, they target a people group. Since the enforcement of these laws will be centered on skin color rather than deeds the laws are inherently racist. Such laws are evil things and must be resisted by any and all thinking people. After all to target a people group with a law in such a fashion as to criminalize them all is exactly the sort of tactics the Nazis used. Don't blush and say I am over the line here; read your history and see for yourself. This is precisely the sort of thing the Nazis did before they started rounding up the Jews for the ghetto and then later for the camps.
We must be above this.
Another similarity between 1930's Germany and America today is that the dominant religious groups in these states are allowing themselves to be seen hand in hand with candidates who espouse this view. The people who should be complaining loudest about these tactics are placidly going arm in arm with these candidates for the sake of defeating Obama and presumably Roe V. Wade, and that is really the excuse for the church's coddling of the racists; abortion.
But let us have some truth about abortion.
I was born in 1973. Abortion was legal before Roe, but was federalized by Roe in 1972. In my life the presidents who have overseen Roe have been Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan (twice), Bush I, Clinton (twice), Bush II (twice) and Obama. That means of the eleven different possible men to hold the office in my life, it has been held by a Republican seven times. Seven times has a Republican had the bully pulpit to speak loudly against abortion, appoint judges and, in a real sense if not necessarily a Constitutional one, direct the legislative course of the country, and yet abortion remains legal. Furthermore both houses of Congress were controlled by Republicans for twelve years and six of those were with a Republican president in office, and yet abortion remains legal.
"Well Democrats have stood in the way of reform" says the TEA Partier.
Maybe, but I can't help but notice that every time a Republican wants to cut taxes or drop bombs on someone he is able to find the political will to make it happen. And strangely, this same political will has never been mustered in the cause to overturn Roe. Perhaps the reason why is that the political will to overturn Roe does not actually exist, and instead the continuation of the wedge issue is what matters and those who profit from the anger don't actually give a damn about abortion at all.
And therefore I think a person who cares about this country and really thinks that its moral compass will determine its fate far more than its foreign or monetary policies has to ask themselves where the threat to freedom lies. Is it found in those who have a misguided idea about the best way to care for our poor and dispossessed or is it found in those who desire to criminalize people based on their skin color? A people group, incidentally, who would be extremely unlikely to maintain the power structure in states like Georgia and Arizona where a large Latino population endangers the Republican hold on those states. A people group who would be unlikely, if they were empowered by the vote, to maintain the status quo for the Anglos in those states. It seems to me that the TEA party, rather than examining its own policies, have instead decided to legislate away this threat by the marginalizing of this group to insure that they never become a political threat.
Such a ploy is wicked and must be stood against.
For this reason I have changed my mind. I will vote after all. I hope you will too.
The reason why is Rick Perry.
Now anyone who knows me knows that I have a special disliking for the esteemed governor of Texas; a disliking I feel that is well founded and sensible, but it is his decision to run for president which has brought me out of my slough of indifference. It is not that I think I have to vote against him, since it is now apparent that he has no chance to actually gain the nomination, it is rather the reason why he failed to gain the nomination. You see things were going just swimmingly for Governor Good-hair until it came out that he was opposed to the immigration laws in Arizona and Georgia and (gasp) felt that children who grew up in Texas and knew no home other than Texas and thought of themselves as Americans should be allowed to go to college in Texas even if they are brown and spoke Spanish before they learned English. When this came to light he promptly fell from leading the polls to a distant third and his chance of securing the nomination seems to be a distant memory.
The reason why? The TEA party.
The TEA party is running things on the elephant side of the aisle and the shibboleth among that group is immigration law. Make no mistake, I do not mean the common sense sort of measures which hopefully would stem the flow of drugs into our country as well as requiring that those who seek employment here be legal to do so. No. I am talking about the immigration laws in Georgia and Arizona which give the police the right to consider a criminal anyone who might be here illegally. Far apart from acting to deny education, healthcare and tax paying jobs to these people and thus securing for the companies who employ them a slave labor force (which I do think is the corporate impetus behind the bill) I find most reprehensible the allowance in the law which criminalizes all non-anglo people and makes them subject to whim of the police.
And make no mistake, criminalizing non-anglos is the result of these laws. After all if a policeman in San Francisco was searching for illegals there is a greater than zero chance that he would be looking for Asian or Latino people, but he almost certainly would not be searching for Anglos. The same is true in New York, but in Georgia and Arizona, the searching will be almost exclusively for Latinos.
"So what is the problem?" says the TEA Partier, "Aren't the people who are in this country illegally committing a crime?"
Well the answer of course is yes, but the thing is that these laws do not target crime, they target a people group. Since the enforcement of these laws will be centered on skin color rather than deeds the laws are inherently racist. Such laws are evil things and must be resisted by any and all thinking people. After all to target a people group with a law in such a fashion as to criminalize them all is exactly the sort of tactics the Nazis used. Don't blush and say I am over the line here; read your history and see for yourself. This is precisely the sort of thing the Nazis did before they started rounding up the Jews for the ghetto and then later for the camps.
We must be above this.
Another similarity between 1930's Germany and America today is that the dominant religious groups in these states are allowing themselves to be seen hand in hand with candidates who espouse this view. The people who should be complaining loudest about these tactics are placidly going arm in arm with these candidates for the sake of defeating Obama and presumably Roe V. Wade, and that is really the excuse for the church's coddling of the racists; abortion.
But let us have some truth about abortion.
I was born in 1973. Abortion was legal before Roe, but was federalized by Roe in 1972. In my life the presidents who have overseen Roe have been Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan (twice), Bush I, Clinton (twice), Bush II (twice) and Obama. That means of the eleven different possible men to hold the office in my life, it has been held by a Republican seven times. Seven times has a Republican had the bully pulpit to speak loudly against abortion, appoint judges and, in a real sense if not necessarily a Constitutional one, direct the legislative course of the country, and yet abortion remains legal. Furthermore both houses of Congress were controlled by Republicans for twelve years and six of those were with a Republican president in office, and yet abortion remains legal.
"Well Democrats have stood in the way of reform" says the TEA Partier.
Maybe, but I can't help but notice that every time a Republican wants to cut taxes or drop bombs on someone he is able to find the political will to make it happen. And strangely, this same political will has never been mustered in the cause to overturn Roe. Perhaps the reason why is that the political will to overturn Roe does not actually exist, and instead the continuation of the wedge issue is what matters and those who profit from the anger don't actually give a damn about abortion at all.
And therefore I think a person who cares about this country and really thinks that its moral compass will determine its fate far more than its foreign or monetary policies has to ask themselves where the threat to freedom lies. Is it found in those who have a misguided idea about the best way to care for our poor and dispossessed or is it found in those who desire to criminalize people based on their skin color? A people group, incidentally, who would be extremely unlikely to maintain the power structure in states like Georgia and Arizona where a large Latino population endangers the Republican hold on those states. A people group who would be unlikely, if they were empowered by the vote, to maintain the status quo for the Anglos in those states. It seems to me that the TEA party, rather than examining its own policies, have instead decided to legislate away this threat by the marginalizing of this group to insure that they never become a political threat.
Such a ploy is wicked and must be stood against.
For this reason I have changed my mind. I will vote after all. I hope you will too.
Friday, October 7, 2011
Who the TEA partiers Really Are
So I heard this morning that Rick Perry has fallen back in the presidential race because he felt that it was wrong to not allow children who 1.grew up in Texas 2.speak only English 3.identify themselves as Americans and 4.desire to go to college here to attend simply because their parents crossed the border illegally when they were very small. An event btw which many of them have no memory of at all.
SO...
Governor Rick (in perhaps his one moment of clarity) figured that these kids might as well be Americans and if they qualify for school and aid to go then why not let them good.
Well that's all fine and good unless you are a TEA partier and the unspoken plank of your presidential candidate is "BRUTALIZE THE MOTHER!@#$%^& BROWN PEOPLE" which is why Rick, having been asked about his support of this at a debate, is now trailing Mitt Romney.
Gosh I'm glad we have people like the TEA partiers out there protecting our liberty.
Just thinking.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
The Difference Between the First Amendment and Free Speech
The First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
There are some folks upset that Hank Williams got fired from ESPN for saying this...
(Obama playing golf with Boehner (republican speaker of the house) would... "be like Hitler playing golf with Netanyahu. They're the enemy!"
A host asked: "Who's the enemy?"
Williams then went on to say: "Are you kiddin? Obama! Biden! The three stooges!"
Apart from the general stupidity of this statement (I would have gone with Ahmadinejad to at least be current) as well as proof positive of what a truly silly sporting event politics has become (DAH DAH that's I don't vote anymore) there is now this foot stomping outrage that ESPN has somehow violated the First Amendment by firing him for this.
The problem is that the amendment never once mentions ESPN or any private corporation for that matter. I work for a large communications company which has us sign a paper warning us that if we disparage the company on Facebook for example we can be fired. What Hank Williams did was say something so incredibly stupid that his employer decided they could not have him or his bad singing be part of their product anymore so they fired him. In so doing they neither violated the First Amendment or his right to free speech.
The reason why is simple.
Go to work tomorrow and call your boss !@#$)(*&^%$$%^&*(*&^%$# and find out in short order just how far your free speech rights extend. Furthermore walk into a crowded movie theatre and scream "fire" and find out whether or not the State can punish you for certain kinds of speech.
The thing I find most striking is that because there are a large number of people who agree with what Hank said there are now folks complaining he has been done wrong without actually bothering to look at what he did. And since the other team wants to defend their star quarterback (sorry president) they will call for his blood even if they only have the foggiest notion of who he is and third hand knowledge of what he said. But since we now play politics instead of govern ourselves that is to be expected. After all if anything is permissible so long as it happens to agree with my opinion then to be surprised by this is dumber than comparing Obama to Hitler and calling him the enemy.
Saturday, August 13, 2011
Top Ten Creationist Arguments
So my buddy Todd posted this video on facebook (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SSxgnu3Hww8) watch it if you want but I will outline it here. The idea is that there are ten arguments made against atheism and this video is supposed to refute them, in fact on Todd's post it even went so far as to suggest using these counter arguments. I asked Todd if he wanted a reply but he made no answer, of course this is not surprising as he is not on Facebook real often so he probably has not seen it yet. However I have thought about it for a couple of days and decided to reply because I think it is important not only for non-believers but for those who would use these arguments in the way they are presented here.
The top ten are:
1. Carbon Dating
2. Proving evolution
3. Monkeys
4. Human eye
5. Atheism religion
6. Scientist X
7. Chance
8. Christian Nation
9. Thermodynamics
10. Hitler
We'll do them in order but first two definitions.
Ad hominem; an argument which appeals to feelings or prejudices rather than logic usually by attacking an opponent's character rather than his contention.
Straw man argument; a weak or imaginary argument set up to be easily refuted.
The first argument presented in the video is that Christians complain that carbon dating is inaccurate and therefore an unreliable way to date the Earth. The video rightly points out that carbon dating is not the means which is used to try and determine the age of the Earth and that we can be sure that the Earth is something like 4.5 billion years old. The straw man argument here is that all Creationists/Christians believe in a six day creation. The ad hominem is that since all Christians believe in the six day creation they therefore cannot take part in Science which is why they say silly things like, "Carbon dating is used to measure the age of the Earth." Of course I have heard some folks say this arguing against atheism and it always makes me cringe because I do not think the Bible teaches six day creation.
The word used for day in Genesis is "yom" (day) as in "Yom Kippur" (the day of atonement), but the word does not mean necessarily a 24 hour period. Rather it means a period of time which can mean anything from an hour, day, year, time, lifetime, period of time; the word is used in many different ways. I think here the intention of the author is not to explain the Earth was made in six twenty-four days but rather that God (YHWH) made the universe and everything in it. Why do I think this? Simple, the Torah was not written for skeptical 21st century scientists but rather to a group of people who had just left Egypt for the desert. They had been a culture for 400 years which taught the universe was birthed by the great celestial cow (btw did anyone notice the first idol they made was a calf? That was not coincidence) and Moses is writing to tell them that the Egyptian gods are no gods at all. Rather the universe and everything in it was made by the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and this God had sent Moses to them to lead them to Canaan. Therefore the creation account in Genesis is not, was not intended to be, and should never be thought of as an exhaustive scientific treatment on Creation. Rather it is a social/political document intended to serve as the foundation for the body politic of Israel. Which is exactly what it did. So to say that "All Christians believe in a six day Creation and the carbon dating is how we measure the Earth's age," is demonstrably false and as such point one is invalid.
Two. When it comes to proving evolution the majority report among the scientific community is that evolution is how all life came to be. However it is by no means the exclusive report. In fact as more study is done more people are becoming persuaded of the intelligent design model of the universe. However the video declares that evolution is settled proven science, but doesn't actually say why. So to argue this way is to say, "Evolution is settled science and therefore it does not need to be defended beyond the assertion that it is settled science." This is roughly akin to saying, "I know there is a God because the Bible tells me so and the Bible is the word of God." Another definition? Circular argument; an argument which assumes the truth of the conclusion and uses the conclusion to prove the assertion. And so goes step two.
The third is "Christians ask if we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys?" and then says "This is like saying if we came from England then why is there still England?" The problem is that this equivocates on what the phrase "came from" means. Equivocate; to change the definition of a word or phrase to suit one's argument. No one seriously believes that when we leave our homes for work or play that our home spontaneously ceases to exist until we return, and yet that is exactly the ad hominem which is used against the Creationists on this point. Also to evolve from one sort of creature over hundreds of thousands or millions of years is different than sailing across the ocean. Furthermore the whole idea of natural selection is that when a favorable adaptation comes along the species which adapts better to environmental pressures is able to supersede the non-adapted species and therefore is able to better breed/hunt/compete often resulting in extinction of the other. So the definition of "came from" is changed and thus the argument against the Creationist argument falls on its head. Furthermore no one is saying that we evolved from chimps, rather that we and chimps would share a common ancestor. An ancestor btw which is conspicuously absent from the fossil record.
The fourth point focuses on the human eye, but it centers around the idea of irreducible complexity. Darwinian Evolution argues that complex systems build slowly over time passing from one state of usefulness to the next until a fully formed eye for example is formed. Now it is important to remember that natural selection tells us that mutations which are not beneficial pass away because other members of a specie are able to use different mutations to their advantage and so cause those without the mutation to become extinct. The problem for the eye is that eyes are not good for much except for seeing. So if an eye has to develop over time a filled sack, a lens, an iris, rods, cones and an optic nerve then all of these things would have to form at the same time and rate because an eye is not much good without them. Thus the eye is irreducibly complex. The video however just points out that not everything which detects light uses an eye which apart from being startling startling example of the obvious says nothing whatever to gainsay the irreducible complexity of the eye itself. Of course then it complains that the human eye is somewhat lacking when compared to eyes of octopi, but of course this also says nothing about the irreducible complexity of the eye. It just says the narrator would have done it differently.
Next the video denies that atheism is not a religion because atheists do not believe in God. However religion is not a belief in God only, but psychologically it is a worldview which explains the universe around us, how we fit into it and where we come from. This is called a heuristic device and there is a wonderful book called Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths by Paul Veyne which explores this in depth. For this point of view, that religion is a heuristic device, atheism absolutely is a religion and science is its dogma.
Then we are told that the vast majority of scientists do not believe in God and the video, without actually saying so, hints that those who do are a little weird citing Newton and alchemy as an example. Of course no one's belief in God makes God real anymore than unbelief makes God real so to cite the argument of "Scientist X is a theist" in reverse as a means to disprove the existence of God is to commit the same logical error about which the video complains. Furthermore I think that our narrator would not desire to set aside the findings of the human genome project because its director is a theist, even if that did make him weird, so the argument is a little hypocritical.
Next the video tells us that Creationists complain that chance is the driving force behind natural selection and that can't be so. Then the video tells us that it is not chance, but rather chance plus lots and lots of time. Here's the thing. There is no such thing as chance as a causative force. Chance cannot cause anything to happen because there is no such thing as chance. Chance is the measure of human ignorance of the odds. For example if you play poker you are not playing a game of chance. You do not get your cards by chance, you get them by the order in which they were shuffled divided by the number of players and in relation to your position to the dealer. Since chance, at best, is a short hand phrase for mathematical probability it therefore cannot do anything because it has no being, will or power and thus cannot cause anything to happen. So the narrator is saying that nothing plus lots and lots of time causes everything. Do I really need to say more?
America's not a Christian nation, neither are it documents Christian and many of its founders were not Christian, however since this is really just a restating of the "Scientist X" argument it holds no water either and for the same reason no matter which way you argue it.
The four laws of thermodynamics are;
Zeroth's Law "If system A are in thermal equilibrium with system C then they are also in thermal equilibrium with each other."
1) Increase in energy in an internal system = heat supplied + work
2) When two systems are near but separate and are allowed to interact with each other they will reach thermal equilibrium. The total entropy of the two systems will be less than or equal to the final combination
3) The entropy of a perfect Crystal at absolute zero is zero.
There took about ten second to find them on wikipedia. However since the process of entropy causes complex systems break down as they achieve equilibrium with the surrounding space it is fair to say that entropy destroys it does not build. So while it is true of closed systems, it still applies to things like the sun and earth because entropy tells us that eventually these systems will reach 0 energy no matter how complex they are now. In other words entropy does not build even if liberally salted with chance and time.
Finally the Hitler argument. This is the third stating of "Scientist X" argument, but whatever. For the narrator to complain that Creationists say that Hitler was an atheist and then argue that he was Catholic is dishonesty at its absolute finest. Furthermore Hitler's greatest intellectual influence was Nietzsche who absolutely was an atheist. Nietzsche further taught that since there was no God there was foundation for truth or morality and that life was meaningless. Therefore the existential hero was "das uber mensch" (the super man) who strove for power and meaning in the here and now even though ultimately these things did not exist. Hitler embraced this philosophy we know because he handed out copies of Thus Spake Zarathustra to his cronies who would one day form the leadership elite of the Nazi Party. We also know these men were deeply influenced by it because the existing writings of Goebbels, Himmler, Hess, Goering, etc tell us plainly that they were. Seeing as how Nietzsche was an avowed atheist and the fundamental underpinning philosophy of the Nazi movement was Nietzschean in its orientation it seems strange to object to the claim that Hitler was an atheist.
However it it is neither a proof for or against the existence of God whether Hitler was an atheist or not. So the point is moot.
There are a lot of people who will say very silly things to try and prove the existence of God, but to broad brush all Christians with these strokes is not to argue against the existence of God at all, but rather to argue against the silly arguments of some Christians. In other words the thinking atheist would appear to be nothing of the sort.
The top ten are:
1. Carbon Dating
2. Proving evolution
3. Monkeys
4. Human eye
5. Atheism religion
6. Scientist X
7. Chance
8. Christian Nation
9. Thermodynamics
10. Hitler
We'll do them in order but first two definitions.
Ad hominem; an argument which appeals to feelings or prejudices rather than logic usually by attacking an opponent's character rather than his contention.
Straw man argument; a weak or imaginary argument set up to be easily refuted.
The first argument presented in the video is that Christians complain that carbon dating is inaccurate and therefore an unreliable way to date the Earth. The video rightly points out that carbon dating is not the means which is used to try and determine the age of the Earth and that we can be sure that the Earth is something like 4.5 billion years old. The straw man argument here is that all Creationists/Christians believe in a six day creation. The ad hominem is that since all Christians believe in the six day creation they therefore cannot take part in Science which is why they say silly things like, "Carbon dating is used to measure the age of the Earth." Of course I have heard some folks say this arguing against atheism and it always makes me cringe because I do not think the Bible teaches six day creation.
The word used for day in Genesis is "yom" (day) as in "Yom Kippur" (the day of atonement), but the word does not mean necessarily a 24 hour period. Rather it means a period of time which can mean anything from an hour, day, year, time, lifetime, period of time; the word is used in many different ways. I think here the intention of the author is not to explain the Earth was made in six twenty-four days but rather that God (YHWH) made the universe and everything in it. Why do I think this? Simple, the Torah was not written for skeptical 21st century scientists but rather to a group of people who had just left Egypt for the desert. They had been a culture for 400 years which taught the universe was birthed by the great celestial cow (btw did anyone notice the first idol they made was a calf? That was not coincidence) and Moses is writing to tell them that the Egyptian gods are no gods at all. Rather the universe and everything in it was made by the God of Abraham Isaac and Jacob and this God had sent Moses to them to lead them to Canaan. Therefore the creation account in Genesis is not, was not intended to be, and should never be thought of as an exhaustive scientific treatment on Creation. Rather it is a social/political document intended to serve as the foundation for the body politic of Israel. Which is exactly what it did. So to say that "All Christians believe in a six day Creation and the carbon dating is how we measure the Earth's age," is demonstrably false and as such point one is invalid.
Two. When it comes to proving evolution the majority report among the scientific community is that evolution is how all life came to be. However it is by no means the exclusive report. In fact as more study is done more people are becoming persuaded of the intelligent design model of the universe. However the video declares that evolution is settled proven science, but doesn't actually say why. So to argue this way is to say, "Evolution is settled science and therefore it does not need to be defended beyond the assertion that it is settled science." This is roughly akin to saying, "I know there is a God because the Bible tells me so and the Bible is the word of God." Another definition? Circular argument; an argument which assumes the truth of the conclusion and uses the conclusion to prove the assertion. And so goes step two.
The third is "Christians ask if we evolved from monkeys why are there still monkeys?" and then says "This is like saying if we came from England then why is there still England?" The problem is that this equivocates on what the phrase "came from" means. Equivocate; to change the definition of a word or phrase to suit one's argument. No one seriously believes that when we leave our homes for work or play that our home spontaneously ceases to exist until we return, and yet that is exactly the ad hominem which is used against the Creationists on this point. Also to evolve from one sort of creature over hundreds of thousands or millions of years is different than sailing across the ocean. Furthermore the whole idea of natural selection is that when a favorable adaptation comes along the species which adapts better to environmental pressures is able to supersede the non-adapted species and therefore is able to better breed/hunt/compete often resulting in extinction of the other. So the definition of "came from" is changed and thus the argument against the Creationist argument falls on its head. Furthermore no one is saying that we evolved from chimps, rather that we and chimps would share a common ancestor. An ancestor btw which is conspicuously absent from the fossil record.
The fourth point focuses on the human eye, but it centers around the idea of irreducible complexity. Darwinian Evolution argues that complex systems build slowly over time passing from one state of usefulness to the next until a fully formed eye for example is formed. Now it is important to remember that natural selection tells us that mutations which are not beneficial pass away because other members of a specie are able to use different mutations to their advantage and so cause those without the mutation to become extinct. The problem for the eye is that eyes are not good for much except for seeing. So if an eye has to develop over time a filled sack, a lens, an iris, rods, cones and an optic nerve then all of these things would have to form at the same time and rate because an eye is not much good without them. Thus the eye is irreducibly complex. The video however just points out that not everything which detects light uses an eye which apart from being startling startling example of the obvious says nothing whatever to gainsay the irreducible complexity of the eye itself. Of course then it complains that the human eye is somewhat lacking when compared to eyes of octopi, but of course this also says nothing about the irreducible complexity of the eye. It just says the narrator would have done it differently.
Next the video denies that atheism is not a religion because atheists do not believe in God. However religion is not a belief in God only, but psychologically it is a worldview which explains the universe around us, how we fit into it and where we come from. This is called a heuristic device and there is a wonderful book called Did the Greeks Believe in Their Myths by Paul Veyne which explores this in depth. For this point of view, that religion is a heuristic device, atheism absolutely is a religion and science is its dogma.
Then we are told that the vast majority of scientists do not believe in God and the video, without actually saying so, hints that those who do are a little weird citing Newton and alchemy as an example. Of course no one's belief in God makes God real anymore than unbelief makes God real so to cite the argument of "Scientist X is a theist" in reverse as a means to disprove the existence of God is to commit the same logical error about which the video complains. Furthermore I think that our narrator would not desire to set aside the findings of the human genome project because its director is a theist, even if that did make him weird, so the argument is a little hypocritical.
Next the video tells us that Creationists complain that chance is the driving force behind natural selection and that can't be so. Then the video tells us that it is not chance, but rather chance plus lots and lots of time. Here's the thing. There is no such thing as chance as a causative force. Chance cannot cause anything to happen because there is no such thing as chance. Chance is the measure of human ignorance of the odds. For example if you play poker you are not playing a game of chance. You do not get your cards by chance, you get them by the order in which they were shuffled divided by the number of players and in relation to your position to the dealer. Since chance, at best, is a short hand phrase for mathematical probability it therefore cannot do anything because it has no being, will or power and thus cannot cause anything to happen. So the narrator is saying that nothing plus lots and lots of time causes everything. Do I really need to say more?
America's not a Christian nation, neither are it documents Christian and many of its founders were not Christian, however since this is really just a restating of the "Scientist X" argument it holds no water either and for the same reason no matter which way you argue it.
The four laws of thermodynamics are;
Zeroth's Law "If system A are in thermal equilibrium with system C then they are also in thermal equilibrium with each other."
1) Increase in energy in an internal system = heat supplied + work
2) When two systems are near but separate and are allowed to interact with each other they will reach thermal equilibrium. The total entropy of the two systems will be less than or equal to the final combination
3) The entropy of a perfect Crystal at absolute zero is zero.
There took about ten second to find them on wikipedia. However since the process of entropy causes complex systems break down as they achieve equilibrium with the surrounding space it is fair to say that entropy destroys it does not build. So while it is true of closed systems, it still applies to things like the sun and earth because entropy tells us that eventually these systems will reach 0 energy no matter how complex they are now. In other words entropy does not build even if liberally salted with chance and time.
Finally the Hitler argument. This is the third stating of "Scientist X" argument, but whatever. For the narrator to complain that Creationists say that Hitler was an atheist and then argue that he was Catholic is dishonesty at its absolute finest. Furthermore Hitler's greatest intellectual influence was Nietzsche who absolutely was an atheist. Nietzsche further taught that since there was no God there was foundation for truth or morality and that life was meaningless. Therefore the existential hero was "das uber mensch" (the super man) who strove for power and meaning in the here and now even though ultimately these things did not exist. Hitler embraced this philosophy we know because he handed out copies of Thus Spake Zarathustra to his cronies who would one day form the leadership elite of the Nazi Party. We also know these men were deeply influenced by it because the existing writings of Goebbels, Himmler, Hess, Goering, etc tell us plainly that they were. Seeing as how Nietzsche was an avowed atheist and the fundamental underpinning philosophy of the Nazi movement was Nietzschean in its orientation it seems strange to object to the claim that Hitler was an atheist.
However it it is neither a proof for or against the existence of God whether Hitler was an atheist or not. So the point is moot.
There are a lot of people who will say very silly things to try and prove the existence of God, but to broad brush all Christians with these strokes is not to argue against the existence of God at all, but rather to argue against the silly arguments of some Christians. In other words the thinking atheist would appear to be nothing of the sort.
Friday, August 12, 2011
Rick Perry? For Real! Rick Perry?!
There is a very fundamental distinction between an error and a lie.
When George W. Bush told us that he believed that there were wmd in Iraq and that he sent men men there because of it I believe him. I believe him because I think Bush is a conscionable man. I believe he saw what he wanted to see, heard what he wanted to hear and surrounded himself with yes men and consequently committed a gaff of epic proportions in nearly every way, but I don't think he lied.
lie (v); to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive.
To lie is to say something that you know to be untrue for express purpose of subverting the truth. To err is to believe one thing to be true and misjudge or act upon bad information resulting in a mistake. Another fine example would be the democrats believing that after Bush fatigue had settled in that the election of Obama was a mandate to federalize healthcare with the blessing of the American people. You see that was a mistake.
However...
Rick Perry ran for re-election saying that his leadership had led to a balanced budget. Of course as soon as he was re-elected he promptly announced that in fact the state was 15B in debt and he planned to pay for it by closing schools and cutting off finding for police, firemen, etc. Now you see that's a lie.
Some Perry moments of amazing leadership...
Taking the stage and hinting that Texas would secede if healthcare legislation passed.
Declaring that Texas would take no filthy lucre from the federalies while actually taking the federal money and using to disguise the budget shortfall in Texas during his re-election campaign.
Disgracing Kay Bailey Hutchinson by calling her a big spending Washington insider who was soft on abortion, and then (as soon as he had won the primary) asking her to stay in Washington because Texas needed leadership like hers on the national stage.
Planning to use imminent domain to seize millions of acres of private land to build a toll highway from Mexico to Kansas City so Wal Mart can circumvent child labor laws.
Contracting the construction of said road to a Spanish contracter and thus cutting the local boys out of the loop.
Declaring that we need to punish those horrible criminal illegal aliens all the while declaring that we must roll back regulations on the companies who hire them.
Ordering the state's attorney general to sue the EPA when the agency threatened to cut off highway funding because Texas air was so bad.
Complaining about filthy federal money while suing the feds to keep it coming.
Ordering the attorney general to counter sue the plaintiffs on behalf of energy companies when lawsuits were brought against gas drilling firms because of an outrageous spike in child lukemia in neighborhoods near drilling sites.
I gotta tell you folks, if Perry is the nominee for the Republicans...
I'm voting for Obama.
When George W. Bush told us that he believed that there were wmd in Iraq and that he sent men men there because of it I believe him. I believe him because I think Bush is a conscionable man. I believe he saw what he wanted to see, heard what he wanted to hear and surrounded himself with yes men and consequently committed a gaff of epic proportions in nearly every way, but I don't think he lied.
lie (v); to make an untrue statement with intent to deceive.
To lie is to say something that you know to be untrue for express purpose of subverting the truth. To err is to believe one thing to be true and misjudge or act upon bad information resulting in a mistake. Another fine example would be the democrats believing that after Bush fatigue had settled in that the election of Obama was a mandate to federalize healthcare with the blessing of the American people. You see that was a mistake.
However...
Rick Perry ran for re-election saying that his leadership had led to a balanced budget. Of course as soon as he was re-elected he promptly announced that in fact the state was 15B in debt and he planned to pay for it by closing schools and cutting off finding for police, firemen, etc. Now you see that's a lie.
Some Perry moments of amazing leadership...
Taking the stage and hinting that Texas would secede if healthcare legislation passed.
Declaring that Texas would take no filthy lucre from the federalies while actually taking the federal money and using to disguise the budget shortfall in Texas during his re-election campaign.
Disgracing Kay Bailey Hutchinson by calling her a big spending Washington insider who was soft on abortion, and then (as soon as he had won the primary) asking her to stay in Washington because Texas needed leadership like hers on the national stage.
Planning to use imminent domain to seize millions of acres of private land to build a toll highway from Mexico to Kansas City so Wal Mart can circumvent child labor laws.
Contracting the construction of said road to a Spanish contracter and thus cutting the local boys out of the loop.
Declaring that we need to punish those horrible criminal illegal aliens all the while declaring that we must roll back regulations on the companies who hire them.
Ordering the state's attorney general to sue the EPA when the agency threatened to cut off highway funding because Texas air was so bad.
Complaining about filthy federal money while suing the feds to keep it coming.
Ordering the attorney general to counter sue the plaintiffs on behalf of energy companies when lawsuits were brought against gas drilling firms because of an outrageous spike in child lukemia in neighborhoods near drilling sites.
I gotta tell you folks, if Perry is the nominee for the Republicans...
I'm voting for Obama.
Wednesday, August 10, 2011
The jobs are not coming back, but we are not doomed.
I want to tell you a story about Laura. Laura went to work for telecommunications company x in 1978. Her job at tcx was to file paperwork to reflect record changes from hands who were working in the field. She and 5-10 others had this job at the office covering the area where she worked. As time passed her job was centralized to cover a larger area, then a state and as technology and computers advanced she covered more and more.
Laura no longer works at tcx though not for any blame to anyone. However the job she did still exists. Only now it is done in one office for the entire nation. There is no longer paperwork to be filed it is all handled by computers. The techs in the field do not rely on calling a person to reflect changes anymore rather this is handled by the tech working on his own computer which he carried with him. So a job which used to be handled by a few employees at the hundreds/thousands of offices around the nation is now handled at one office.
Is this because tcx is evil and wants to be rid of employees? No. It is because technology and computer advancements allow tcx to provide an ever expanding base of services to more and more people for less money. Which is what the consumers want.
Point?
I was listening to NPR today and there was a panel of guests who were trying to explain how this program or tax plan would create jobs or the removal of that program and rolling back of those taxes would create jobs, and it struck me that these people are wrong. All seemed to agree that the problem worldwide is chronically high unemployment, but their great ways to solve the problem are empty because they are based on assumptions which were true thirty years ago. There are some who complain that our problem is that we have shipped manufacturing overseas and have driven farmers out of business and have become a service economy which is not rebuilding its infrastructure etc etc. These are all true in my opinion. However even if we did all of these things unemployment would still be 10% and growing ever higher.
The reason why is that even if we were to reopen steel mills in Pennsylvania the unemployed would not be rehired. The work which used to be done by men operating cranes would now be done by computer programed cranes which would do the work more safely, more efficiently and cheaper. If foreign automaker 'Y' were to come here and buy and retool every plant which has been closed by Detroit's "Big Three", the retooling would make obsolete many of the jobs the unemployed autoworkers would be hoping to fill. The same is true of road construction, office jobs such as record keeping etc, large scale manufacturing of any sort on and on. We The People demand goods and services at such a cheap rate that they must be manufactured by cheap labor elsewhere to accomodate us. The net result of this is that the wage structure for American workers deteriorates year after year. At some point it will be low enough that manufacturing will return to our shores, but when it does the jobs will go to high tech engineers and not wrench tuners.
In other words even if the tax thing does this and the manufacturing thing does that and the government program does the other thing the jobs will still not come back because the middle class blue collar worker is obsolete. His job is done faster, cheaper and better by a machine, and the buying public will not tolerate him anymore. Consequently the long hoped for return of good paying jobs that will allow a man to feed his family are not coming. The hope is based on a vapor and a dream that died when I was still a child.
However hope is not lost. The answer lies not in large scale government/industry programs but in self reliance and local economy. A group of people who are determined to grow their own food and trade for goods and services with the people who are their neighbors have no need for the pie in the sky age to come when everything will revert to 1965. A family that makes it own clothes, grows its own food, tends keeps and sells its animals to its neighbors does not have to worry if the government shutdown is going to prevent the food stamp or social security check from coming. Of course this will mean a great rethink on the American Dream, but hopefully enough people will realize that the dream has died and a new one must take its place. I think it can, but not if we insist on long gone models which are failing everywhere in the Western World.
So yeah I had this happy thought today and wanted to share it with you. I really do think it can be a happy thought if we will just learn to change our way of thinking.
Have a nice day.
Laura no longer works at tcx though not for any blame to anyone. However the job she did still exists. Only now it is done in one office for the entire nation. There is no longer paperwork to be filed it is all handled by computers. The techs in the field do not rely on calling a person to reflect changes anymore rather this is handled by the tech working on his own computer which he carried with him. So a job which used to be handled by a few employees at the hundreds/thousands of offices around the nation is now handled at one office.
Is this because tcx is evil and wants to be rid of employees? No. It is because technology and computer advancements allow tcx to provide an ever expanding base of services to more and more people for less money. Which is what the consumers want.
Point?
I was listening to NPR today and there was a panel of guests who were trying to explain how this program or tax plan would create jobs or the removal of that program and rolling back of those taxes would create jobs, and it struck me that these people are wrong. All seemed to agree that the problem worldwide is chronically high unemployment, but their great ways to solve the problem are empty because they are based on assumptions which were true thirty years ago. There are some who complain that our problem is that we have shipped manufacturing overseas and have driven farmers out of business and have become a service economy which is not rebuilding its infrastructure etc etc. These are all true in my opinion. However even if we did all of these things unemployment would still be 10% and growing ever higher.
The reason why is that even if we were to reopen steel mills in Pennsylvania the unemployed would not be rehired. The work which used to be done by men operating cranes would now be done by computer programed cranes which would do the work more safely, more efficiently and cheaper. If foreign automaker 'Y' were to come here and buy and retool every plant which has been closed by Detroit's "Big Three", the retooling would make obsolete many of the jobs the unemployed autoworkers would be hoping to fill. The same is true of road construction, office jobs such as record keeping etc, large scale manufacturing of any sort on and on. We The People demand goods and services at such a cheap rate that they must be manufactured by cheap labor elsewhere to accomodate us. The net result of this is that the wage structure for American workers deteriorates year after year. At some point it will be low enough that manufacturing will return to our shores, but when it does the jobs will go to high tech engineers and not wrench tuners.
In other words even if the tax thing does this and the manufacturing thing does that and the government program does the other thing the jobs will still not come back because the middle class blue collar worker is obsolete. His job is done faster, cheaper and better by a machine, and the buying public will not tolerate him anymore. Consequently the long hoped for return of good paying jobs that will allow a man to feed his family are not coming. The hope is based on a vapor and a dream that died when I was still a child.
However hope is not lost. The answer lies not in large scale government/industry programs but in self reliance and local economy. A group of people who are determined to grow their own food and trade for goods and services with the people who are their neighbors have no need for the pie in the sky age to come when everything will revert to 1965. A family that makes it own clothes, grows its own food, tends keeps and sells its animals to its neighbors does not have to worry if the government shutdown is going to prevent the food stamp or social security check from coming. Of course this will mean a great rethink on the American Dream, but hopefully enough people will realize that the dream has died and a new one must take its place. I think it can, but not if we insist on long gone models which are failing everywhere in the Western World.
So yeah I had this happy thought today and wanted to share it with you. I really do think it can be a happy thought if we will just learn to change our way of thinking.
Have a nice day.
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