My own 35 undeniable truths of life.
When I was in my first year of college, I took a class in Rhetoric and Communication. One day we were given an assignment to "defend an unpopular position." Not just a "Coke vs. Pepsi" type debate, mind you, but something with real teeth. We had to give a five minute speech before class, complete with illustrations of the problem and our proposed — albeit unpopular — solution.
My guess, in hindsight, was that our instructor was looking for a "raise taxes by 10% type position," but I thought that was pretty dull stuff for a group of college freshmen who had no concept of working for a living, and would probably have supported a 50% tax increase if it was on people who lived in nice houses and drove big cars. So instead, I decided to get creative.
I'd had a few intellectual run-ins in this class with a guy by the name of Henry Wong, who happened to break his arm the week of the assignment. So, when it was my turn to give my speech, I launched into a passionate pitch to have everyone join me in "beating up Henry Wong." I argued that not only was he defenseless in his present condition and thus couldn't fight back, minimizing any physical harm to people who followed my prescription, I pointed out that Henry, although technically a "minority," wasn't black or Hispanic, so there was no additional downside to picking on him because of his race.
Now before any Liberals looking in get their PC panties in a wad, Henry took it all in good fun, even scrunching up as I spoke to make himself look even more diminutive than he already was. My teacher though, a black female, was horrified by my speech and threatened to go to the school administration over my behavior.
As an eighteen-year-old kid I was first shocked, then scared, and then after an administrator started laughing about what I did (this after all was the 1970s, when people were still permitted to have a sense of humor), a little pissed off at being called a racist. Not pissed off at the school, or even at my misguided, hyper-sensitive instructor, since I thought she was an intellectual light-weight anyway. But pissed off at the idiocy and double standards that I was slowly becoming aware of. If Henry used me as a prop for a "let's beat up the only Conservative in the class" speech, somehow I don't think there would have been the same degree of outrage on the part of our instructor.
I learned that day that in the mind of a Liberal, an action is not the determining factor in judging one's behavior. It's one's motives, which are divined in some mystical way by looking at the paleness of a person's skin. The more pale the presumed perpetrator, the more purposeful the malicious intent is assumed to be. Identical language is not identical either. Insert or add a preposition into a sentence, and you're instantly transformed from John Wayne into John Wayne Gacy, from expressing a neutral thought, to spewing hate-filled rhetoric.
Think I'm exaggerating? Only in a world of political correctness gone mad is it racist to call someone a "colored person," but enlightened to refer to them as a "person of color." This is why, henceforward, I will no longer use my favorite phrase to identify dangerous or idiotic people, but instead refer to them as "holes of ass."
It is because of this insanity disguised as rational thought that I've assembled over the years a number of words to live by; thoughts or phrases that capture the essence of life today in the United States of Liberal Utopia. Some of these words and phrases you've seen from me before. Others I'm sharing with you for the first time. Each, I believe, captures an undeniable truth about the world today, and can serve as a quick, handy guide for those wishing to navigate the waters of Liberal Lunacy that has transformed social, economic, and political dialogue and interaction in this country.
1. People who publicly and repeatedly profess their love for humanity are usually the most self-centered, self-absorbed humans on the planet.
2. If "world consensus" is the source of human morality, as many Moral Relativists believe, then the United Nations is the fountainhead of all that is good and decent in the world.
3. Animals do not have "rights", souls, or feelings the way people do, despite what some people earnestly believe. Rather, what they do have is instinct and basic animal intelligence, as well as an owner with an overactive imagination.
4. When beautiful people think they're ugly, we call this low self-esteem. When ugly people think they're beautiful, we call them drunk, deluded, or very rich.
5. Asking the humorless to recognize humor is like asking the turgid to think. It can be done, but always painfully.
6. You can compromise with your spouse. Sometimes, you can compromise with your neighbor. And occasionally, you can compromise with your boss (if you still have the negatives from last year's Christmas party). But you can't compromise with evil.
7. Wishing for a better world won't make it happen. But a couple of tons of bunker-busting bombs dropped on the right target will.
8. You can lead a person to knowledge, but you can't make them think.
9. Supporting 9 out of the first 10 Amendments to the Constitution is not enough.
10. Consistency is the hobgoblin of Liberal Minds.
11. The more highly educated a person is, the more likely he is to say something incredibly stupid. (Present company included; my ideas should always be subject to test and debate before one accepts them.)
12. It's a good thing to forgive your enemies; but wait until they ask for it. Until then, keep shooting.
13. Killing civilians during war, and targeting them specifically, is not the same thing.
14. Believing in God, and following a religion, is not the same thing.
15. Nothing quite focuses the mind like the government offering to help you.
16. Terrorists fervently believe they are doing the right thing, and/or their behavior should somehow be excused. So do psychopaths and criminals.
17. Irony is lost on the ironic. More irony is lost on the truly moronic.
18. Why is a person who's half black and half white always identified as "black," if race doesn't matter to the people making these judgments?
19. The difference between believing that the government is there to help you, and believing that Santa Clause will bring you presents, is that Santa doesn't have the power to tax your income.
20. If you can't pronounce it, don't eat it. Or vote for it.
21. Spending your way out of debt is like lying your way into the truth.
22. Ideas are stupid, not people. But truly stupid people will fail to see this distinction.
23. Gross stupidity is a designation that must be earned by a person, not simply assigned out of frustration.
24. Something can still be stupid, no matter how honestly you believe it.
25. In a debate, the people you speak directly to will never change their minds, no matter what you say. Your real focus is the people listening to the conversation who have nothing invested in either position, and will decide which of you makes the better case.
26. I can urge others not to do something wrong, even if I haven't led a perfect life. Hypocrisy does not obviate morality, since whether I act morally or not doesn't excuse your bad behavior.
27. To a Conservative, "rich" is that condition which highly motivated people work hard to attain. To a Liberal, "rich" is someone who makes more money than you do, and this isn't fair.
28. If the Constitution is a "living document" that protects human rights, why does it allow women to arbitrarily kill so many innocent babies?
29. There is no problem in the Middle East that cannot be solved with a twenty-megaton thermonuclear explosion, as long as it's properly focused.
30. Emoting is not the same thing as thinking.
31. Believing something strongly is not the same thing as analyzing it, just as endlessly repeating this belief is not an answer to any questions raised about that belief.
32. I can still defend your right to free speech while encouraging everyone to ignore the insanity of what you're saying.
33. It's okay to mock, insult and/or denigrate Christians and the Christian faith, but not Muslims and their faith, because unlike the "Religion of Peace," Christians don't kill you if you eat pork, let women drive or vote, or draw an irreverent cartoon about their religion.
34. Those who can, do. Those who can't, teach. Those who do neither hold elective office — and consistently lecture us all on what we need to do.
And finally, no list would be complete without the singular notion I formed in that Rhetoric and Communications class back in the 1970s, and still carry with me to this day.
35. The fundamental dividing point in life is not whether someone is young or old, male or female, black or white, or even Liberal or Conservative. Rather, as we form judgments about other people with whom we have contact, it involves an answer to a simple question. "Is that person an a**hole?"
Feel free to add some of your own to this list. Unfortunately, in the hopie changie world in which we now live, it's only going to get more Orwellian.
A few more…
1. The amount of public indignation displayed by any politician is directly proportional to his/her involvement in creating the original problem.
2. Deficit spending is the ultimate transgression of any republican administration; and the ultimate virtue of any democratic one
3. Budget cuts in Washington are actually only nominal decreases in the annual anticipated rise of departmental spending; with the exception of the Department of Defense.
4. Charity is a virtue practiced by the devout, and a compulsory quality legislated by secular progressives.
5. For liberals; the value of a conflict is indirectly proportional to the immediate security interests of the United States.
6. Progressives believe that military coffins returning to the United States should be filmed and widely broadcast, but sonograms of babies in the womb should never be displayed during abortion counseling.
7. Liberals believe that nothing is truly worth fighting for; which explains their attitude toward self defense.
8. Conservatives believe all persons are equal; liberals believe all persons are the same.
9. Liberals believe that Guantanamo Bay detainees should be released into cities in the United States; just not their city.
10. A person’s political affiliation may be reliably determined by how they regard the following statement; “The ends justify the means.”
29 is pretty over-the-top all by itself. Combine it with 13, and, well… yikes.
But at least we can reassure ourselves by combining 29 with 24.
For Raymond, there’s always # 7, 12, 14, occasionally 23, and of course #5. #35 is a given.
Actually, Dr. Jackson, I was expecting you to reply with #17. Oh, well.
(Someday we’ll have to really address #14. I’m not sure how you can be said to “believe” in something if you don’t believe it has any specific properties.)
Raymond. Re-read #5, with a dash of 31. And never assume anything about me when it comes to you, unless it involves 32.
By the way, not to divert the conversation, but what exactly are the “specific properties” of dark matter? All I want is an answer to this specific question raised in comment #4. I don’t want theories, assumptions, beliefs, opinions, just a listing of it’s “specific properties”. Otherwise, I guess I can’t believe it exists.
How about:
1) Governments cannot be compassionate. Spending other peoples’ money, no matter how noble the intent, is theft.
2) Everybody has a religion.
3) The “experts” are almost always wrong.
4) It isn’t possible for everything to be relative.
MM: Actually, I have to disagree with your #1. The government can spend my tax money on defense, as one example, without it being “theft”. If you substitute “redistributing” for “spending”, I agree.
As for your other three, they are correct as far as they go. But they need to go a bit further.
2) Everybody has a religion, especially the irreligious. They just call it by a different name.
3) No two experts will have the same three opinions on the same subject.
4) It isn’t possible for everything to be relative, relatively speaking.
Dr. Jackson – ‘It has been noted that the names “dark matter” and “dark energy” serve mainly as expressions of human ignorance, much like the marking of early maps with “terra incognita.”‘
People don’t actually believe in ‘dark matter’, precisely because it’s list of proposed properties mostly consists of things it isn’t, such as “nonbaryonic”. ‘Dark matter’ is hypothesized as a possible explanation for certain phenomena like the the observed rotation rates of galaxies, but there are other possibilities, too. (Compare this to the lumineferous aether.)
Phil,
I like your clarifications.
But regarding my number 1, compassion was the context, so defense, etc, is constitutionally permitted spending, and not part of the “government compassion” category.
Thought of another one:
“It is not fiscal conservatism to want a balanced budget, if the means is increased taxes.”
>People don’t actually believe in ‘dark matter’
Hmmm. Here’s what NASA (which I assume, has “people”, even ‘scientist people’ in it), says about this “expression of human ignorance” http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/science/know_l1/dark_matter.html
“This invisible stuff is called, ‘dark matter’.”
Now maybe it’s just me, but I’m willing to bet NASA and other scientists “believe” in dark matter. I’ll further go out on a limb and say that these same people/scientists, when saying that “this invisible stuff is called ‘dark matter’,” do not believe they are simply expressing “human ignorance”. What they are doing is positing a theory about the universe that does not have “specific properties” that can be enumerated. They are expressing their belief that there is indeed “invisible stuff” which they have named “dark matter”.
In short, they “believe” in something even if they cannot list any “specific properties”.
Curiously, people who express their belief in an “invisible Creator” by calling it “God” follow a similar reasoning process. The difference is, they are not seeking a scientific validation of their beliefs. Rather, they are following in Albert Einstein’s reasoning that God exists independent of scientific verification, and that man can understand some (but not all) of what God does and how he does it through the scientific method.
Remember my Words of Wisdom #14 Believing in God, and following a religion, is not the same thing.
This is why I — who am not a scientist — can clearly understand that it’s possible to accept the existence of dark matter as a working theory of the universe without first demanding that one enumerate its specific properties before believing in it. And why Raymond — whose physical and metaphysical beliefs are allegedly grounded in the scientific method — has to argue that “People don’t actually believe in ‘dark matter’ …”, and that discussing “dark matter” is a sign of “human ignorance”, in order to make his point.
In short, it’s why Raymond is not troubled by #10 (Consistency is the hobgoblin of Liberal Minds).
And, when I react to what he says, I’m always mindful of #25 (In a debate, the people you speak directly to will never change their minds, no matter what you say. Your real focus is the people listening to the conversation who have nothing invested in either position, and will decide which of you makes the better case.)
Another:
“You can’t call yourself a Catholic if you don’t believe Catholicism.”
Couple more:
-Pleonasm is often mistaken for profundity.
-Good intentions are not the same as good ideas.
-A consensus of idiots has no more validity than an individual idiot.
-No matter how bad things are, they can always get worse. Or be made worse.
-Those having power ought to be mistrusted (borrowed from James Madison)
-If the rest of the world didn’t suck, our forebears would still be there.
Dr. Jackson – It’s true you’re “not a scientist”, so it’s not surprising you don’t understand the place of the dark matter hypothesis in science. Check the links to “other possibilities” in comment 9. Some hypothesize that gravity works in a different way over large distances, or that QM effects on spacetime act like gravity over large scales. None of them have been ruled out yet.
Even then, the hypothesis of dark matter is not without any specific properties. The simple fact that it must not interact electromagnetically puts some strong limits on what kind of composition it might have, what kind of “invisible stuff” it could be – as noted in the first link in comment 9. I’ve talked about how science handled neutrinos before – one of the key points is that science doesn’t leave things without specific properties. Specific properties are immediately proposed and tested.
Which is an illustration of a more essential point. Nobody believes in ‘dark matter without specific properties’ – they can’t, really. People propose all kinds of specific properties for dark matter – look up MACHOs, WIMPs, “hot dark matter”, “warm dark matter”, and “cold dark matter”, etc. It’s this sort of thing which is “believed in” – and not even in the colloquial way, but as a scientific hypothesis. (Once any of them reach the status of “theory”, then we can talk about people “believing in” dark matter – but by that point it’ll have all kinds of specific properties, like neutrinos today.)
As Kant pointed out, “existence is not a predicate”, it’s not a property something has. You can’t talk about something just “existing” without it existing as something, with properties. Otherwise, it’s just a placeholder for “here be dragons”.
This is a great example of what it means to debate Raymond. Here’s his challenge in comment #4, in its entirety:
“Someday we’ll have to really address [Believing in God, and following a religion, is not the same thing.] I’m not sure how you can be said to “believe” in something if you don’t believe it has any specific properties.”
Okay, so I asked, “what exactly are the ‘specific properties’ of dark matter? All I want is an answer to this specific question raised in [raymond's] comment #4. I don’t want theories, assumptions, beliefs, opinions, just a listing of it’s ‘specific properties’”.
And what is the list of specific properties Raymond produces?
1. “… the names ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ serve mainly as expressions of human ignorance …” And besides,
2. “People don’t actually believe in ‘dark matter’, precisely because it’s list of proposed properties mostly consists of things it isn’t …”
Okay, so the answer is, as I said, what these people who “don’t actually believe in ‘dark matter’” are doing is positing a theory about the universe that does not have “specific properties” that can be enumerated. They are expressing their belief that there is indeed “invisible stuff” which they have named “dark matter”.
In short, they “believe” in something even if they cannot list any “specific properties”.
Raymond’s original challenge has been met, and answered. I’ve shown him how you can be said to “believe” in something if you don’t believe it has any specific properties.
Saying that dark matter is a list of “things it isn’t” isn’t listing its properties. If that’s the level of proof needed, I can provide evidence for the existence of God by saying God isn’t man, the earth, a tree, etc.
Moreover, saying that dark matter actually does have properties [contradicting the statement that it’s properties can’t be listed], isn’t proof if the so-called properties are inconclusive, inconsistent, just a bunch of ideas people have, etc [“People propose all kinds of specific properties for dark matter - look up MACHOs, WIMPs, "hot dark matter", "warm dark matter", and "cold dark matter", etc. It's this sort of thing which is "believed in" - and not even in the colloquial way, but as a scientific hypothesis.”]
The fact is, once again, in his haste to show his superior wisdom, Raymond shoots off his mouth and makes a foolish statement that “I’m not sure how you can be said to ‘believe’ in something if you don’t believe it has any specific properties.”]
Remember, Raymond used the term “specific properties”.
To get out of this silly position, he lists concepts, theories, and competing explanations as presumed examples of “specific properties.”
Well, if this is the definition of a “specific property”, then using Raymond’s criterion I can assign belief-status to lots of things … like evidence for the existence of God. Like dark matter God is invisible, and there are a lot of theories about Him. People propose all kinds of specific properties for God, just like they do dark matter.
Since it’s the “proposing” of the properties that seems to count before Raymond says we can “believe” in something, then why should we believe in Dark Matter and not God?
Again, invoking WTLB #24, for those of you looking in, this is why so many of my other WTLB’s involve assessments of stupidity on the part of people making their arguments.
If you shoot off your mouth and make a silly statement, like comment #4 above, either retract it or just end your defense of it. Prolonging the discussion by doubling down on the original stupidity only lessens whatever credibility you have.
Oops, that should have been WTLB #25, not 24. Although #24 does apply here.
The real issue is the way Raymond had moved from tying beliefs to “specific properties”, to just talking about “properties” in general. And, when discussing “properties”, to offer theories, conjecture, ideas, etc. as evidence of “properties”.
So, we go from Raymond saying you can’t believe in God if you can’t assign God any “specific properties”, to saying you can believe in something called dark matter if you can assign it theoretical, hypothetical properties. You just call these theoretical, hypothetical properties “specific properties”, even though you can’t necessarily list them, get agreement on what they are, have some of them be contradictory, or only describe them by what they “aren’t”.
This is beginning to sound like an entry level Logic class. Phil is the professor and Raymond the freshman unable to understand the logical fallicy construct. Here is the simple example found in many textbooks:
Raymond likes peanuts and Elephants like peanuts therefore Raymond is an Elephant.
Mickey: Well put.
You can always tell when an original argument is in trouble when certain words start getting omitted (“specific properties” becomes “properties”), and when words themselves are re-defined (“properties” becomes “theories”, etc.).
When a person has to go to all this trouble, it’s best to just re-think their original position, than to strain the logic of things by saying that theories have to have some properties to be visualized as theories, so the word “properties’ is used in connection with theories, so theories are properties, and specific theories are therefore specific properties, so you can’t believe in anything unless it has specific properties … unless of course you’re talking about a belief in God.
Of course, I may be wrong about Raymond’s logic when he says “I’m not sure how you can be said to ‘believe’ in something if you don’t believe it has any specific properties.”
Instead of focusing on “specific properties”, maybe Raymond intended that we focus on the word “believe”.
In this case, the key is to “believe” that dark matter has specific properties (or just plain old fashioned properties, or theories which are said to be “properties”, etc.), so you can be “said to ‘believe’ in something”.
Therefore, if you “believe” in something, it can be definitely said that you believe in something. Raymond isn’t dealing with whether a belief is valid or real, but only stating that to believe in something, you first must possess “belief”.
This makes more sense than the specific theoretical non-specific properties of dark matter that are necessary to believe in dark matter (but not God). But, as a general rule, establishing a belief in something as a necessary condition for believing in something doesn’t do much to further an analysis.
Dr. Jackson – You haven’t shown me a person who “believes” in dark matter in the sense you use for “believing” in God, let alone someone who “believes” in ‘dark matter without specific properties’. You haven’t listed even one. Do I really have to point out the difference – even in colloquial English, let alone in science – between (note: your words) “positing a theory” and “expressing their belief”? Do you really conflate the two?
“Dark matter” is a hypothesis that – since by assuming our current understanding of gravity is correct, and assuming our estimates of the mass and behavior of some types of galactic clusters are correct, there’s more gravity than can be accounted for – the simplest assumption (note how many times I’ve had to use variations on the word “assume” already) is that there’s mass there that isn’t directly observed, only interacts with matter via gravity, and has a particular distribution. It’s entirely possible to posit instead that our current understanding of gravity is incorrect, etc., and a fair number of physicists and cosmologists do.
Now, there are people who tentatively ‘believe’ in dark matter – in the sense of, say, neutralinos or sterile neutrinos or even more exotic supersymmetric particles. But those have proposed, testable properties, which they immediately go about trying to test. (Note that I didn’t even say that ‘dark matter doesn’t have properties’. What I said was… gee, not hard to find, it’s right there in comment #9… “it’s[sic] list of proposed properties mostly consists of things it isn’t” (emphasis added).) But even there, it’s a highly speculative form of “belief”.
Why should we “believe in Dark Matter and not God”? Well, dark matter’s already pinned down a lot more than “God” is, in that it has to have mass, interact only in certain ways, and be distributed in a particular fashion. But if you want to “believe” in God the way astronomers and cosmologists “believe” in dark matter – a hypothetical phenomenon that accounts for some puzzling behavior, though only one hypothesis among several, and which needs a lot more study to be really confident about – well, okay, but I haven’t run into anyone who “believes” in God in that sense.
You’re the one who makes a distinction between believing in the existence of God(s), and believing in specific properties about God(s) – “religion” as you term it. But as I’ve pointed out, no one believes in God without any properties attached. Certainly you don’t.
Raymond, let’s do this again
Here’s your original statement: “I’m not sure how you can be said to ‘believe’ in something if you don’t believe it has any specific properties.”
Okay, so I asked, “what exactly are the ‘specific properties’ of dark matter? All I want is an answer to this specific question raised in [Raymond's] comment #4. I don’t want theories, assumptions, beliefs, opinions, just a listing of it’s ‘specific properties’”.
And what is the list of specific properties Raymond produces?
1. “… the names ‘dark matter’ and ‘dark energy’ serve mainly as expressions of human ignorance …” And besides,
2. “People don’t actually believe in ‘dark matter’, precisely because it’s list of proposed properties mostly consists of things it isn’t …”
Okay, what these people who “don’t actually believe in ‘dark matter’” are doing is positing a theory about the universe that does not have “specific properties” that can be enumerated. They are expressing their belief that there is indeed “invisible stuff” which they have named “dark matter”.
In short, they “believe” in something even if they cannot list any “specific properties”.
Redefining “specific properties” in the original sentence you gave us [“I'm not sure how you can be said to ‘believe’ in something if you don't believe it has any specific properties.”] as theories, ideas, hypotheses, etc. — some of which are contradictory, and all of which deal with “invisible stuff” — opens the door to defining other theories, beliefs, hypotheses, etc. about other invisible things as “specific properties”.
The fact is, you made an inane observation that you cannot defend without arbitrarily redefining key words in your original statement. “Specific properties” is not a listing of what things “aren’t”, any more than a theory is a specific property.
You made a dumb statement. Admit it. (It’s okay, everyone already knows it.).
You’re not going to get let off the hook by adding new conditions after the fact, like we have to “’believe’ in God the way astronomers and cosmologists ‘believe’ in dark matter”. Your statement was, I again remind you, “I’m not sure how you can be said to ‘believe’ in something if you don’t believe it has any specific properties.”
You never said anything about different types of beliefs (faith, reason, logic, science, philosophy, etc.) You simply said that a belief in something is impossible unless it has “specific properties”.
I never said that believing in dark matter was identical to believing in God. I said quite clearly that “Raymond’s original challenge has been met, and answered. I’ve shown him how you can be said to ‘believe’ in something if you don’t believe it has any specific properties. Saying that dark matter is a list of ‘things it isn’t’ isn’t listing its properties. If that’s the level of proof needed, I can provide evidence for the existence of God by saying God isn’t man, the earth, a tree, etc.”
Dissemble all you want, but I will return you every time to what you originally said until you retract that statement.
As for the additional subject of “beliefs” you now want to discuss over and above your original assertion that belief in something is impossible without specific properties, after wading through your tortured efforts to distance yourself from your original statement, all I can say is a man has got to believe in something.
I believe I’ll have another beer.
I’m refreshed by many of your statements, and agree with the truth and relevancy of most them.
However, I find that when you ask most people what ‘liberal’ or ‘conservative’ means, they usually go to “Democrat” or “Republican”, or pro-life/pro-choice, or some other arbitrary assignment of personal beliefs and values that happens to fall in line with others.
As you are a self-proclaimed man of intelligence, which I also like to consider myself from time to time, I’ll put forth this question and probably get a more well-thought out answer than I’ve yet to receive from my friends and family from both ‘sides’:
Do you think that more people would be forced to educate themselves, think for themselves, and vote with reason, logic and conviction if such labels like ‘liberal’ and ‘conservative’ (which are little more than rally banners for likes of Limbaugh and Franken, who desire nothing more than money as they drive the nation to polar conflict) were taken out of the equation?
Don’t know why you are wasting your time, Phil. Mr. Ingles has demonstrated quite conclusively in other threads that once challenged and pinned down, he simple changes the terms or attempt to move in another direction. This is a pretty common technique amongst those who fancy themselves a “thinkers” governed by “reason” and “science.”
Your mistake, Phil, is assuming that Mr. Ingles wants to increase understanding. However, he wants the opposite, he wants to so complete obscure the issues and complicate the discourse that you will throw up your hands and cry uncle. Ergo, you couldn’t keep up with him intellectually, so he won.
I would suggest that if you wqant to follow his descent into splitting hairs on the definitions of words, that you write fewer words. Sentences with a single rejoinder would be best.
“…a man has got to believe in something…” See post seven, rule 2 by yours truly.
MM: You are exactly correct about Raymond’s strategy of debate. My main purpose in these exchanges is embodied in WTLB # 25. “In a debate, the people you speak directly to will never change their minds, no matter what you say. Your real focus is the people listening to the conversation who have nothing invested in either position, and will decide which of you makes the better case.”
My previous exchanges with Raymond, actually, was the inspiration for this.
Whardison
Labels are irrelevant. The only time people will be forced to educate themselves and “think”, in the way you’ve used this term, is when their own narrow self interests are threatened. You’ll find the logic of this in my essay http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2009/03/13/what%e2%80%99s-really-going-on/ “
Just as a point of clarification, my presumed “self-proclaimed man of intelligence” status is backed up by a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago.
I apologize if I sounded sarcastic or cynical regarding you being a man of intelligence. I understand that it’s the default voice of the internet, but my intent wasn’t to offend. I was simply illustrating that I haven’t read enough of your work to know whether or not it’s true and only have your word (or self-proclamation) to go by.
Labels are quite relevant, I’ve found. Take two men with ideas to expand governmental powers through policy and spend the nation out of a recession. People who agree with those ideas would vote for both of them, and those who disagree with those ideas would vote against them.
Until you unveil that one is George W. Bush and the other Barack Obama. Each firmly entrenched in labels like Conservative, Liberal, Democrat and Republican. Each with their own set of supporters who are growing to hate one another thanks to the prodding of almost every political media outlet.
When labels are attached, rhetoric is started and simply calling somebody a Republican or a Liberal is enough to smear them with a color of paint and sway opinion regarding them or their ideas.
whardison: No offense taken. I thought it was a pretty funny comment, thus my response.
As I read your original question, my answer still stands. People will not fundamentally change their behavior until their personal situation is impacted, or there is a shared national tragedy (another 9/11). Until then, the mind isn’t properly focused.
Regarding labels — people, by nature, label things. You can’t remove labels from the equation, so what you need to do is re-orient the way people think about the things they naturally label. It’s the crux of my WTLB #35, which I explained in more detail in
http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/09/02/off-to-the-races-the-perplexing-politics-of-political-correctness/
When I hear someone describe me as a “neo-con” without having the slightest idea what that actually means (it just sounds “harsh”), or throw around words like Marxist or “Jeffersonian Republican” with absolutely no idea what they are talking about, I think back to the glory days of American history when sanitation engineers were garbage men, para-professionals were hired help, and racists were people who judged other people by the color of their skin. Today, those who don’t immediately separate human beings on the basis of skin color, sex and religion are called “racists,” while those who categorize every person by their race/sex/religion/gender preference are said to be the enlightened ones.
As a public service to those who feel the need to categorize and classify their fellow human beings, but who want to avoid being Borked or Macacaed by the guardians of political correctness, I offer you a substitute way of viewing the world. It’s one that has served me well, and has allowed me to develop genuine friendships with many people from a wide variety of divergent backgrounds.
It all boils down to a simple formula. When we meet someone for the first time, we tend to put that person into a category (young/old, black/white, attractive/ugly, educated/uneducated, etc.) so we can have an initial frame of reference. We use that frame of reference to then begin a longer-term (and more precise) evaluation of them. The trick is to put each person in the proper fundamental category so that all of our subsequent evaluations are meaningful.
Now, most people divide up the world incorrectly. They want to hire someone “young,” marry someone “beautiful,” only listen to someone “from the right school,” and so forth. Thus, for example, by focusing only on a young person for a new hire, they miss interviewing older, potentially better candidates. Not only do they limit the pool of people they could hire/marry/take advice from, etc., they maximize contact with someone who could potentially injure them or lead them astray.
I’ve avoided this by focusing on the proper fundamental question when I first meet a person. I still see the same young/old, pretty/ugly, etc. attributes as everyone else, but I base my initial judgment of their worth on another variable, the fundamental one. I ask myself the simple question: Is this person an a**hole?
A black a**hole will screw you differently than a white one, a pretty one differently than an ugly one, and so on and so forth. But the net effect is that you will always get screwed. By dividing up the world properly, I limit the opportunity for people to do injury to me while, at the same time, broadening the possibility of having contact with positive, productive people.
It’s a formula that works every time it’s tried. I highly recommend it to liberals who feel a genetic need to categorize and classify, and to conservatives who are tired of getting Borked by people you thought were your friends.
It will also have the additional salutary benefit of removing any and all PC considerations from your daily life, because in the final analysis I don’t really care about a person’s color, sex or other qualities. What I really want to know is the answer to that single, simple question. Understanding it tells me everything I need to know
whardison, I think labels are only important to the self-righteous and hypocritical. For example, opponents of gay marriage are called hateful and evil by mobs who scream obscenities while foaming at the mouth. These kinds of people will see conservative or liberal and think evil or ally, respectively. Even if a label didn’t exist, these people are ignorant and would not search for truth on their own if it smacked them in the face with a tire iron. Like PEJ said, unless something personally affects them, and usually to the extreme, the mentality is lockstep with the party/cause, no matter how inane things get.
Dr. Jackson – Sure, let’s recap. I say that you can’t believe in something without believing it has specific properties. You ask what the specific properties of dark matter are. I state that, because ‘dark matter’ has no specific properties besides mass and location, nobody believes in it… and you claim I’m being inconsistent. Oy.
Again you equate positing (“proposing for consideration”) a theory with expressing a belief that the theory is true. Imagine a murder investigation with multiple suspects. If the detectives, early in the investigation, posit a theory that a particular suspect did it, does that automatically mean they actively believe that person committed the crime? Or does it simply mean they are proposing a candidate for further consideration and analysis? That, to the extent that it’s an ‘expression of belief’ at all, it’s an expression of the belief that the theory might account for the facts?
“Dark matter” isn’t even a specific hypothesis, it’s a name for a class of hypotheses… all of which are (as you note) speculative, many of which are contradictory, none of which have been confirmed. Which is why – as I said – nobody believes in “dark matter without specific properties”. Instead you take it as if I had said the exact opposite, that people do believe in that, and accuse me of being inconsistent. Certainly the hallucinatory Ray Ingles you’re arguing with is, but I haven’t been with what I’ve actually, y’know, written here.
>I state that, because ‘dark matter’ has no specific properties besides mass and location, nobody believes in it… and you claim I’m being inconsistent.
*** What mass (other than ‘everything we can’t otherwise measure’)? What location (other than ‘everywhere regular matter isn’t’?)
Let’s go back to your original statement “I’m not sure how you can be said to ‘believe’ in something if you don’t believe it has any specific properties.”
Okay, what exactly are the “specific properties” of dark matter? Saying that some undefined mass and unidentified location is a “specific property” is pure, dissembling bullsh*t, and you know it.
This isn’t what you intended when you challenged the notion about “believing in God”. God exists (has “mass”) that we can’t measure, and cannot be precisely located. If you accept that non-specific mass and an undetermined location is a sufficient “specific” property for discussing the hypothetical existence of dark matter, then it should be sufficient evidence for the existence of God … which you reject.
Further, you don’t help your case by saying that “’Dark matter’” isn’t even a specific hypothesis, it’s a name for a class of hypotheses… all of which are (as you note) speculative, many of which are contradictory, none of which have been confirmed. Which is why – as I said – nobody believes in “’dark matter without specific properties’”.
Substitute “God” for dark matter: “God … is a name for a class of hypotheses [also known as religions] … all of which are speculative, many of which are contradictory, none of which have been confirmed. “ God’s “specific properties” are that He is hypothesized to exist, even though he cannot be measured or located.
Raymond, you made a stupid statement when you said that “I’m not sure how you can be said to ‘believe’ in something if you don’t believe it has any specific properties.” The only way you can get out of it is to define undetermined mass and unknown location as “specific” properties. Had you simply said “properties”, the statement would have been acceptable. But doing this would allow for conjecture and hypotheses about something (i.e. God) to serve as a legitimate foundation for belief.
You want to have it both ways. You want to deny the existence of God because God is invisible, and he cannot be measured or located. But you’ll allow for the possibility that dark matter (a generic term, like “God”) can be real because it has specific properties which … are only theoretical, at times inconsistent and contradictory, and cannot be measured or located, other than to say it’s everywhere everything else isn’t so the physics and astronomical equations balance.
This is your typical way of dissembling when you’ve made a stupid comment. You try to redefine terms after the fact, with no consistency with your previous pronouncements on the same subject. And when you create your new definitional terms and logic systems, you only apply them to what you want to believe, and not other issues that fall under the same topic.
I remind you that you are the one who challenged me to tell you “how you can be said to ‘believe’ in something if you don’t believe it has any specific properties.” I haven’t had to omit words (like going from “specific properties” to just plain properties), or redefine common sense (where “specific” now means unidentifiable mass and location) to make my case.
This is why, y’know, people tend to treat your comments as a joke at best, and a self-serving exercise in doublespeak at worst.
Raymond: Just to be really, really, really clear for you, a “specific property” is not some abstract, undermined, hypothetical, theoretical, unknown label.
The “specific properties” of aluminum is not that “it exists”. It’s an atomic weight, tensel strength, melting point, etc.
You made a dumb comment by stating that only things with “specific” properties can be believed. Dissembling about what the definition of “specific” is to rescue your original statement, so that specific becomes hypothetical, contradictory, and unknown, etc., is pure intellectual dishonesty.
Dr. Jackson – Okay, what exactly are the “specific properties” of dark matter? Saying that some undefined mass and unidentified location is a “specific property” is pure, dissembling bullsh*t, and you know it.
Yup. That’s bullsh*t, you’re right. Or it would be… if it were an undefined (quantity of) mass at an unidentified location. However, it’s actually this much, here. Maybe this is specific enough?
You can see why many cosmologists think it’s likely that the answer to the puzzle lies somewhere in the class of dark matter hypotheses… but that’s not the same as believing the puzzle’s solved, and as I noted, other possibilities exist.
(BTW – what’s the difference between a “property” and a “specific property”. Can you provide an example of an “unspecific property”? I may actually be guilty of pleonasm there (I don’t learn new words very often anymore, Mr. Mulligan – thanks!).)
And here’s where you dissemble. The only property of God is that “He is hypothesized to exist”? You immediately slip in a personal pronoun – that automatically implies personhood, consciousness. Heck, it even implies a masculine gender, otherwise you’d have used “it”, or at least “It”. In your particular case, there’s also the property that “He” created the universe, and installed a moral code in people. All of these are properties – and not unspecific ones.
A vague notion of “some sort of something exists somewhere” can’t be believed in. You can’t even talk about such a vague something whose only property is that it “exists”. It has to exist as something before you can even begin to say that you actually believe or don’t believe in it. Otherwise, you just get the question, “believe in what?”
According to your lights – and correct me if I’m wrong here – the simple notion that “God exists” is not a religion. “Religions” are about specific properties of God. The problem is you can’t talk about a God without it being a religion – there’s no way to just imagine a God with no properties at all, just “some sort of something that exists somewhere”. Any belief in God is a religion, because it automatically must include properties – and you’re no exception. That’s what I’m getting at.
Man, I wish IC allowed a preview button. Too easy to mis-close a tag. Ah, well.
Raymond, I’d send you a link to a theoretical picture of God to match your theoretical picture of dark matter, but irony is lost on the ironic.
And since I don’t dispute that dark matter can be a real thing, knowing that it has a statistical probability that it might exist isn’t an issue for me either.
The use of the word “specific” is, though. I’m surprised that you are confused about the difference between a “property” and a “specific property”, and need to have someone provide you with an example of a non-specific property (I never used the phrase “unspecific”; that you again deliberately re-writing what was said to make — or avoid making — a point).
So here goes. Saying that aluminum is a solid at room temperature (vs. a liquid or gas), is describing a property of aluminum.
Saying that aluminum has a standard atomic weight of 26.9815386(13) g•mol−1, and a boiling point of 2792 K, is a specific property. This distinguishes it from gold, for example, which has a different specific set of properties.
Is this really all that hard to understand? I don’t think so — unless you’re trying hard to be ignorant.
As for “dissembling” by using “He” to discuss God, I can live with this incredible intellectually damning condemnation. I’ve also used the term “mankind” to describe people on the planet, even though over half are actually women. And I even called my sanitation retrieval specialist a “garbageman” last week. So I’m guilty of numerous Raymond-identified dissemblings, none of which are actual dishonest ways of expressing my thoughts, the way one might act if they were to arbitrarily redefine words like “specific” to mean nothing of the sort.
But, what I haven’t done is claim — to use your summary in comment 29 — that something that is speculative, which many of the theories about are contradictory, and which none of which have been confirmed, and which can only be said to have some undefinable mass and some undefinable location is a “specific” property.
What I have done is illustrate how the logic you use to define “specific” properties can be turned against your own arguments about a lack of evidence for God’s existence.
You made a stupid statement when you said that “I’m not sure how you can be said to ‘believe’ in something if you don’t believe it has any specific properties.” The only way you can get out of it is to define undetermined mass and unknown location as “specific” properties.
Substitute “God” for dark matter and in your own words “God … is a name for a class of hypotheses [also known as religions] … all of which are speculative, many of which are contradictory, none of which have been confirmed. “ God’s “specific properties” are that He is hypothesized to exist, even though he cannot be measured or located.
Everybody knows that you’ve dug yourself into an intellectual hole by making your original statement. As I wrote once before, doubling down on stupidity is not the way to make a cogent argument.
Raymond:
I realize that my last post may not have convinced you of the error of your ways, so let me make a specific argument employing your terms:
You are “wrong.”
That should satisfy any need you have for specificity as you define the term, and thus be sufficient to change your position.
Dr. Jackson – As you yourself concede, you can’t have an “unspecific property”. All properties are ‘specific’, in the sense we’re worried about, though some are more specific than others. (As you note, ‘solid at room temperature’ is less specific than ‘boils at 2792K’ – but that doesn’t mean that ‘solid at room temperature’ is not specific at all.)
Since the word is such a stumbling block, let’s give it up. For the sake of the argument, let’s assume I was wrong to use it. (Certainly it gave you a delaying tactic, at least.) Here we go, let’s rephrase:
I’m not sure how you can be said to “believe” in something if you don’t believe it has any properties.
According to your lights – and correct me if I’m wrong here – the simple notion that “God exists” is not a religion. “Religions” are about putative properties of God. The problem is you can’t talk about a God without it being a religion – there’s no way to just imagine a God with no properties at all, just “some sort of something that exists somewhere”. Any belief in God is a religion by your lights, because it automatically must include properties – and you’re no exception. That’s what I’m getting at.
Raymond, here again is your “specific” refutation to your definition of “specific”: You are wrong.
As for the re-write of your original comment as “I’m not sure how you can be said to ‘believe’ in something if you don’t believe it has any properties”, you’ll get no argument from me. I told you before that’s the only thing that makes any sense. Now you can get down to arguing about what constitutes a “property”. If positing the existence of something invisible and not able to be located is a “property”, then God has “properties”.
As for your statement that “The problem is you can’t talk about a God without it being a religion – there’s no way to just imagine a God with no properties at all, just ‘some sort of something that exists somewhere’,” [like dark matter?] , this again is the crux of all your biased-based confusion.
Religions do in fact assign properties to God. That’s why they’re called religions.
But, people have believed in God before religions were founded. And some people believe in God today without any religion as a reference point. I know people who affiliate with no religions, and in fact reject all religions, but still believe in God.
The fact that you can’t imagine God without it being a religion is a personal limitation at best, and a personal bias at worst. The fact that I use a conventional term (He) to describe God, or even use the word “God” to describe God, is not an endorsement of religion (a specific religion, or just religions in general). It’s a simple way to communicate. You know, like using the term “dark matter” which isn’t really “dark” or “matter”, but a way to talk about all that invisible stuff scientists hypothesize about.
God is what God is independent of what you, I, or any religion think He is. [Oops, there I went again, dissembling by referring to as God “He” in a colloquial sense]. Given the limitations of human language in comprehending “God”, and believing that Einstein wasn’t a fool for believing in God, I’ve tried to summarize it this way before. God is the creator of the Universe. As God, He/She/It or-whatever-you-want-to-call-God always existed. [God is the only thing that has always existed; thus making God God]. God isn’t subject to the laws of nature; God created the laws of nature.
I don’t care, and frankly haven’t thought much about since I left grade school, whether God looks like a human being, is an ethereal force, or is something I can’t even begin to comprehend.
What I do know is that every effort you make to deny the existence of God is tied into your circular reasoning that God is religion (because you say it is), so if what a religion says about God (His alleged “properties”) is not 100% true, then you can conclude there is no real evidence for God’s existence.
Dr. Jackson – I know people who affiliate with no religions, and in fact reject all religions, but still believe in God.
Believe in what? Do they assign properties like “always existed” and “isn’t subject to the laws of nature”? Then they’ve got a religion. It might be an unusually vague and idiosyncratic one, and not one with an established church. But it’s a religion, because those are – inevitably – religious doctrines, by your own definition of religion… being statements about properties of ‘God’.
That doesn’t mean those statements are wrong… but does mean they aren’t special, privileged, unquestionable non-religious statements.
Again, I’ve been very clear that I’m going by what I’ve been able to glean of your definition of “religion” – ‘propositions about putative properties of God’. If I’ve misunderstood your definition, you’ve been singularly unwilling to correct that. Can you actually come out and put forth a different definition of “religion”, or do you acknowledge that I have it right?
Raymond. If you define any belief that God exists and created the universe as a belief in religion, then in that world of logic, believing in God is always an expression of religion.
If you refuse to accept that someone can think about or discuss the belief that God exists without making this a religion, then you’ve proved your own circular reasoning.
To you, God is religion because, to you, religion is God. God is religion because religion has properties. Talking about God means that He has properties. Since both God and religion have properties, God is religion.
Fortunately, Raymond’s logic has already been proven false. All terrorists may be Muslims, but not all Muslims are terrorists.
I said before that a man has got to believe in something. If I believe I’ll have another beer, does this mean that I believe in Bacchus?
Only in Raymond’s world.
Phil,
Without religion, there is no God. Mr. Ingles seems to think that God is a human invention expressed via religion.
Since God doesn’t exist, all there is re: God, is religion.
You’re assuming that God exists apart from descriptions of Him.
It also helps a little bit to misdefine religion as the belief in God. However, religion does not require a god. Atheism is a religion, because it makes statements about God.
Going back to post 7: “Everybody has a religion.”
Dr. Jackson – Define “religion”. Come on, how hard can it be? You know you want to…
MM: Raymond posed a dishonest question when he asked me “define” religion. He allegedly critiqued my essay http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2006/08/25/what-kind-of-car-would-jesus-drive-to-take-his-girlfriend-to-an-abortion-clinic/ where I discussed this at length, but virtually none of his analysis acknowledged anything I said. Instead, he simply repeated his circular reasoning that God is religion because Religion is God.
This is some of what I’ve said previously on the subject:
Focusing on “God,” is not the same thing as referring to “religion” or “religious tenets” like the Ten Commandments. They are related, but not identical concepts, and may be viewed very differently depending upon the nature of the society and culture it operates in, not to mention the specific beliefs of the religion itself.
… I’m convinced that most atheists arrive at the conclusion that there is no God by confusing the concept of God with the practice of a specific religion. If you don’t believe in the Holy Trinity, or that Jesus was the literal Son of God, then God literally doesn’t exist. If all this Messiah business and the prohibition against eating pork is a bit too much for you to swallow, then God must not exist. Or perhaps you think that Allah isn’t everything he’s cracked up to be? Then you hope to God that you’re living in the U.S.A. instead of the Middle East so you can become an atheist, instead of becoming dead.
But like the previous illustrations of hypocrisy and morality, we’ve got to keep our eye on the prize instead of being dazzled by all the twinkling lights. In the final analysis it doesn’t make any difference if we “guessed” right about Jesus, Allah, Yahweh, the chubby little oriental guy the Dali Lama worships, or his lady friend with those waving arms and hands over there in India. God either exists or he doesn’t, regardless of whether any individual religion got the details right or wrong. The fact that the vast majority of Americans think that “alienation” is a foreign country does not mean that Karl Marx never existed, or that he starred in a movie with James Caan a few years back. The same is true of science and God. The fact that science is improving our understanding of how things work on earth and throughout the universe doesn’t mean that “figuring something out” must automatically translate into “God doesn’t exist.”
In this respect, I’ve always marveled at the people on both sides of the question who reject or reinforce their belief in God based on the debate over human evolution. Let’s say scientists in 2006 revamp a theory they used to explain the mechanics of evolution in 1976, which modified a theory from 1946, which replaced a theory from 1926, and so on, and so on. Science “really doesn’t know,” so the Biblical story of Creation must be literally true; or at the very least, while plants and animals evolved over time, man was somehow exempt from these same natural forces. On the other side are those individuals who, having discovered the secrets of DNA, understood the dynamics of plate tectonics, and have seen evidence of what they believe is physical change in the human species over time, automatically must deny the existence of God. If man can understand it and, in certain cases replicate it, then that’s all there is to it.
I find both extremes equally ridiculous. I know next to nothing about cars. However, if I came across a disassembled one and, with some trial and error, was able to piece it together so as to understand the fundamental relationships of its constituent parts, it wouldn’t deny the existence of General Motors. So I figured it out? And even though I still don’t know what that little piece over there really does, I can start the thing and make it run. I can even make predictions about its operation and functioning that are proven true, like an empty gas tank mean ‘it won’t go no mo.’ We call this knowledge. The fact that I understand something doesn’t make me its creator. It just makes me wiser.
Where atheist-scientists really get hung up is over the notion of random vs. purposeful actions. God doesn’t exist because, having figured out how things work to a certain extent, we can see that one cause produces another effect. There is no magical interference by an other-world entity, just random actions occurring within specifically defined laws of nature.14 Leaving aside the question for a moment of who, exactly, created those natural laws, the fact that I see something as random doesn’t necessarily mean that it is random.
Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I built a perpetual motion pool table sitting on top of a recurring earthquake fault. The colliding balls go bouncing around this table in a complex, but somewhat predictable manner that, with patience and the help of a supercomputer, can be discerned. But every time the table randomly shakes it upsets the old pattern and a new one emerges that has to be reanalyzed to be understood. Since we don’t know when the random shaking will occur, we can’t really make anything other than some precise short-term predictions and a few general long-term ones. In short, we understand the actions of these balls through the laws of nature that operate in a random environment, limiting overall predictability while still allowing fact-based conclusions to be drawn. This is the world without God; lawful, predictable and explainable to a point, but ultimately random.
Except for one tiny detail that wasn’t explained. Who set the balls in motion? Why can’t God create a universe with immutable laws of physics, start things in motion, then sit back and not interfere?15 To some people, the progress of the universe may seem random. Maybe it really is after things got started. Then again, maybe it is developing according to a pre-set plan our human minds are incapable of grasping.
I’m sure if you asked a two-year old to explain why daddy does the things he does, they’d either not understand at all, or think daddy’s actions are arbitrary or random. “Hmmm, daddy dresses with this funny thing around his neck Monday through Friday, but not Saturday or Sunday. But now he wears an open shirt every day (summer casual). Now he’s back to the thing around his neck, but not on Fridays (Friday casual), but not this Friday (a board meeting so he’s in a suit), and he’s not wearing one on Monday (a holiday). And now he wears them every Monday through Friday even in the summer (new management), but now he’s not wearing it at all (a vacation), and now he’s wearing one on Sunday (a funeral).” Would the child see a pattern, or understand any of the underlying dynamics of the father’s actions? No. The actions would appear to be completely random, just like it does to a human being who tries to think exactly like God. There are some things you can “get,” and other things your human mind will never be able to truly understand.
For those of you who really want to explore this topic, I strongly suggest a book by my fiction-writing partner Roy Abraham Varghese. In The Wonder of the World, Roy shows how the notion of an infinitely intelligent mind grounding the universe is not only compatible with, but presupposed by science. Consequently, you don’t have to reject the existence of God because you reject a literal belief in a Garden of Eden or other so-called “creationist” dogma. (As you read Roy’s brilliant work on this and other subjects, though, keep in mind that the only thing he and I collaborate on are works of fiction. What I write here expresses my thoughts, not his, and may or may dovetail exactly with his understanding and analyses in every respect, and in every detail.)
I, personally, have always found the Bible to be a didactic rather than historical instrument. That is, it teaches universal lessons as opposed to providing a literal, historic record of every event it addresses. There’s nothing wrong with believing that the Bible or any other Holy Scripture is literally true, and there’s nothing wrong with believing that it’s a divinely-inspired metaphor for how to live your life. It’s only when we get caught up in the side-debate of literal vs. symbolic that we lose sight of the prize — that at its core the Bible, Torah or Koran is supposed to be telling us something fundamental about how to live our lives.
By this I mean, if your focus is primarily on finding the actual remnants of Noah’s Ark to prove it was a historic fact, rather than trying to understand what the message the Noah’s Ark story is attempting to convey, you risk missing the broader picture. Thus, for me, the question isn’t how much of the world was actually inundated with water; which day the rain started and stopped; or how did all those animals really get onto the ark? Even if I answer every one of these questions to my complete and utter satisfaction, it doesn’t tell me everything I need to know. There’s still the question of how do we live our lives in relation to ourselves, our family, our friends, our community, the rest of the world, and to God — who gives us all the moral basis for making these decisions.
Which brings us back to the point that moral judgments of right or wrong do not come from man. They come from God.
12. Which came first — the Deity or the Religion?
We need to once again separate a discussion of religion from a discussion of God. Religion fills in the details of life. It gives us rules about eating pork and shellfish, abstaining from meat on Fridays, baptism, circumcision, marriage, divorce, lending money, spending money, and a whole host of other issues. Some of these rules and regulations dovetail from one religion to another. Jews and Christians share some of the same Bible, for example. And Abraham and Jesus are seen as great prophets by Muslims. Buddhists believe in doing good works for the poor just as Western and Middle Eastern religions do. Does it really matter whether my day of worship is Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, if the common theme across these religions is setting aside time to give homage to God? Even those who believe in an ethereal spirit that sweeps through the trees and lakes and brings us into harmony with the universe have their ceremonies and rituals, so there’s got to be more at work here in the perpetuation of religion than fat cat priests, rabbis and mullahs promoting their own interests by deceiving a gullible public. …
raymond: Here is the clift notes version, since I know you’ve still never read my original article which you claimed to critique.
God is that which created the universe. Religion fills in the details of life [that men create to worship and respect God]. It gives us rules about eating pork and shellfish, abstaining from meat on Fridays, baptism, circumcision, marriage, divorce, lending money, spending money, and a whole host of other issues.
P
Based on my experiences over the years in “debriefings” with some self-proclaimed “compassionate” a$$holes after some heated arguments, I would sum up their defense of their respective approach in such arguments along some or all of the following lines:
I (the a$$hole) was not arguing; just making some obvious points, stating some basic, ordinary, fundamental observations; you (Inwood) were contentious; your cohort(s) was quarreling.
I was resolute; you were inflexible; your cohort was pig-headed.
I relied on good sources, you relied on dreck, your cohort relied on nothing.
I had obviously read, & showed myself aware of, many sources, I contained multitudes, you were patently unaware of all the evidence available, your cohort winged it.
I relied on X, a certified expert, you relied on Y, a disreputable expert, your cohort relied on his intuition.
I was civil because I did not call anyone names like “stupid” like you or your cohort did; I just noted that the your position & that of your cohort did not take into account all the best ideas I’d used to arrive at my position, which description was true, for goodness sake, & I simply described your ideas & those of your cohort as insufficiently formed, which they were, for goodness sake & “the honest errors of minds led astray by preconceived jealousies and fears”.
Inwood. You pegged that one! All you left out was “ignore what I said three posts ago if I need to make a different point in this comment”.
Dr. Jackson – I never claimed to critique your entire original article. I only addressed one part of it – the argument that the ‘moral sense’ had to be “installed” by God. Perhaps you didn’t read what I wrote?
You can define “God” as “that which created the universe”. So far, so good. (As I’ve noted elsewhere, it’s not clear the universe actually was created, but no sense opening that can of worms again.)
But traits such as “this cause was intelligent”, “this cause cares about human morality”, and “this cause is not subject to natural law” go well beyond just “something created the universe, we’ll call it ‘God’”. Those are the kind of “details” that religions talk about, and beliefs that I think you’d have to concede are ‘religious’ – like pantheism and deism – include only some or none of the traits you listed in bold in comment #37.
For example, you like to quote Einstein. He disagreed rather explicitly with the whole “this cause cares about human morality” bit: “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with the fates and actions of human beings.” “Morality is of the highest importance — but for us, not for God.” Was he a fool?
Raymond. The whole “What kind of car” article was a discussion of how I arrived at my conclusions. You can’t take a couple of paragraphs, like you did, and ‘analyze’ my position.
In responding to you I showed you the courtesy you never showed me. I read every word, and reacted to everything you said — not just a few cherry picked passages. http://www.intellectualconservative.com/2007/07/13/the-true-nature-of-human-morality-a-response-to-the-critique-%e2%80%9cuniversal-morality-and-the-morality-of-the-universe%e2%80%9d/
This is what distinguishes your ‘scholarship’, if I can use the term loosely, from mine. And it’s why I kept pointing out in your ‘analysis’ that you were assigning things to me I never said, and debating points I never made.
It also explains your habit of making leaps between what someone says (“Einstein believed in God”), with at a specific belief set about God that I didn’t propose or specifically embrace, and then tying that belief set (because it has the word “morality” in it) to my conclusions about morality (which you never actually read except for a couple of excerpts), because we use the same word (though define it differently).
This is sophomoric, and transparent to everyone, which is why the criticism of your dissembling is so constant by myself and others.
Attributes of God (morality, power, etc) are not necessarily indicative of religion. We can discuss God apart from religion, because religion is a system of beliefs and practices regarding God. People are “religous” when they adhere to these beliefs and practice the religous system.
God is apart from what people do and say regarding him.
MM: You can make life easier by following Raymond’s analytical method as I intend to do from now on.
When he says something, read part of it. Fill in the rest with assumptions about what he might have said if you actually continued reading his comments. Then, look for someone else who said something with similar sounding words, and assign that to Raymond.
React to that, and tell him how wrong his thinking is. And if he challenges your conclusions built on this house of cards, redefine some of the terms and try to change the subject.
Of course, doing this will make you look like a fool. But it does save a lot of wasted time actually debating a real position.
Dr. Jackson – You also thoroughly misunderstood one of the words in my response – “vanishingly” – and from that concluded that I was arguing the exact opposite of what I’d stated. Another example of turning my point on its head: I didn’t argue that God was unknowable, and therefore couldn’t be adduced as an explanation – I argued that if God was adduced as an explanation, there was no point in assuming that It was unknowable. I never once talked about God using “other men to give us moral and religious codes to live by”. Etc., etc.
Come to think of it… I guess that really did set a tone for the rest of our discussions. I guess you always argued against what you wished I’d said instead of what I actually wrote.
And then you always dodge any attempt to address your positions. You spend a huge amount of time arguing that ‘God’ “instills” or “installs” morality in humans “at conception”… and now you say you didn’t “propose or specifically embrace” that “belief”.