Means & Ends

More Muslim Mendacity

2011-03-27T04:22:00.000-07:00

••••
Well, for reasons mentioned at the end of the last post at my other blog, I wasn’t planning on posting at this blog anytime soon, but another case of Muslim mendacity has moved me. I mentioned two other cases in earlier posts in this blog, here and here. The background for the present case is the following.

Earlier this week, I read a long article in the 20 March 2011 magazine section of The New York Times about the American Muslim Yasir Qadhi. Qadhi was educated in Saudi Arabia and America, is now working on his doctorate in Islamic studies at Yale University, teaches in the Religious Studies Department of Rhodes College in Memphis, and is Dean of Academic Affairs of the AlMaghrib Institute, where he claims he has taught his interpretations of “Orthodox” (Sunni) Islam to “close to 16,000 [American] students.”

Somewhat intrigued about Qadhi, I went to his website (referenced in the Times article), read a fair amount, and eventually at his website, found his post entitled “Reflection on the New York Times Article”. As you can determine if you look about 1/3 the way down through the Comment Section for Qadhi’s post (specifically, at the “time stamp” of “March 22 at 9:39 AM”), I added the following comment:

Nick McConnell
March 22, 2011 • 9:39 AM

Yasir: Of course I’m not a Muslim, and although I, too, don’t like labels, yet when pushed, I usually say I’m a Humanist or a scientific humanist. I found the referenced NYT article interesting and followed its links to your website, where I’ve been reading for the past many hours.

What I find stunning is this: you are obviously an intelligent person and very competent at conveying your ideas, but what astounding errors you have made! Yet, what you are displaying (and living!) certainly isn’t unique. I have given several examples at my website in a chapter entitled “Reason vs. Reality”, here I’ll just mention two examples.

1. It can be argued that Aristotle was the most brilliant person who ever lived, but surely we can at least agree that he was brilliant. Yet, if you’ll read his (logical) argument “justifying” slavery, surely you’ll also agree that his conclusion was totally wrong.

2. Many people argue that Augustine was brilliant; I would at least agree (and expect that you, too, would agree) that he had an enormous influence on a huge number of people. But again, if you’ll read his (logical) argument “justifying” slavery, surely you’ll also agree that his conclusion was totally wrong.

For both, their arguments were logically sound (although Aristotle’s argument by analogy weakened his argument); their errors were in their premises. I find your arguments to be similarly logically sound (as are most arguments I’ve read by various Muslims “scholars”), but your (and their) conclusions are astoundingly weak, again because of premises.

In particular, your basic premise (similar to Aristotle’s and Augustine’s) is that a creator god exists. Do you know nothing about the past few hundred years of scientific advances? The idea that some god created the universe and people has been totally debunked: the universe almost certainly was initiated by a symmetry-breaking quantum-like fluctuation in a total void, and after the Big Bang, the formation of elementary particles, stars, etc., auto-catalytic chemical reactions led to life, which eventually evolved to humans. If you will study science, you’ll realize that your premises should be abandoned, and with your brilliant mind, I hope you’ll then join us Humanists in trying to reduce violence and bring more peace and prosperity to all humans.

Unsurprisingly, Yasir (Qadhi) didn’t respond, but as readers can check by reading the first set of responses that followed, my comment obviously stimulated a number of his followers. I responded to them through most of the rest of the morning (see the comments through to the one from “Anum” on March 22 at 2:05 PM), but then, the moderator blocked my response to Anum! Finally, after getting through to Anum via the second set of comments (which I’ll get to, shortly), the moderator let me respond to Anum (see my response at March 23 at 4:56 AM). The punch-counterpunch continued – although another block by the moderator occurred (cf. my comments on March 22 at 6:31 PM and then on March 23 at 6:26 AM). Then, however, the moderator “called the match”, by closing all comments!

To verify that last statement, you need to scroll to near the end of the comments, to the post by Siraaj (on March 23 at 2:12 PM), where Siraaj states not only that, “I’m locking discussion on this thread”, but adds:

PS – discussion not directly relevant to the discussion at hand will likely be removed soon, so don’t be surprised posts on handshaking, humanism, and other unrelated tangents are removed.

For the reader’s information, I should add that mine were the only comments dealing with “humanism”; therefore, to me, the moderator’s statement really meant: “Your comments will likely be removed.”

Well, okay, it’s their website, they can post what they want. Such censorship, however, isn’t consistent with Qadhi’s stated desire (contained in his “closing comments” at the end of the Comments Section, posted on March 25 at 9:33 AM):

I believe that we need to allow people to express their opinions.

Anyway, I decided to proceed with the current post, not to call attention to Muslims who are afraid of opposing ideas, but to mention the mendacity of (as a minimum) the Muslim moderator(s) at MuslimMatters.org.

Thus, returning to the earlier comments, notice that, after my response on March 23 at 6:26 AM and after the comments were allegedly closed by Siraaj on the same day (March 23 at 2:12 PM), yet “out of the blue”, the following comment appeared, 3 (three!) days later!

Saad

March 26, 2011 • 3:15 AM

Peace Nick,

As a physicist myself at Cornell (yes, we produced both Hans Bethe and Feynman), I find that your arguments lack merit.

Before the development of QM, most physicists were at least deists. That is because pre-QM physics was heavily built on two main paradigms namely those of determinism and causality. After QM, only causality has remained. Incidentally, these physicists believed that God did not interfere with the universe because everything was pre-determined. Nowadays, they don’t know how to account for a non-determinist, causal universe.

The funny thing abt having a causal universe is that it necessarily implies some element of noncausality. Either there is some noncausal interference, read the universe pops out of nothing, or the universe has to exist forever. It really is that simple. Btw, noncausal means outside of the boundary of time and space.

Either way, you run into a problem of infinites. Either the universe exists for infinite or you have a creator who is infinite, etc. Your choice.

Talk about dirty dealings! I expect that Muslims at MuslimMatters.org went searching for “an expert”, to try to find someone to deal me a “knockout punch”. But be that as it may be, ‘lo and behold, with the above post-closure addition, the Comment Section was open again (complete with “Reply Buttons”)! So, I composed the following response to Saad:

Hello, Saad, and peace to you – and to everyone!

Yes, I know Cornell well: I got my Ph.D. there, more than 40 years ago, met both Bethe and Feynman, and studied under other famous physicists, including Tom Gold, Ed Salpeter, Philip Morrison, and Dick Sibly – although, it was such a long time ago, I might have forgotten how to spell Dick's surname…

As for your "finding" that my "arguments lack merit", I trust that you won't be surprised that I come to a similar conclusion about the arguments that you present in your comment! Possibly the cause is simply the (understandable) brevity of your note, but possibly it's because you haven't given my arguments sufficient consideration. For example, I wonder if you at least glanced at the first chapter and the chapters in Part 4 of my book, especially the chapter dealing with uncertainties.

With respect to your first assessment, that "before the development of QM, most physicists were at least deists", several responses seem appropriate: 1) I made a similar comment in one of my earlier responses, and included the names of theists such as Newton, Maxwell, and Planck, 2) Let's not fall into the logical fallacy (argumentum ad populum) of judging the "truth" of a statement by how many people accept it, since by that criterion, it would have been "true" that the Earth was flat, and 3) Also, let's not fall into the logical fallacy of appealing to inappropriate authorities (argumentum ad verecundiam), since as I already mentioned in an earlier comment, most physicists don't spend time considering "the god idea".

Turning now to your more relevant points, you first state: "That [to wit: that most pre-QM physicists were at least deists] is because pre-QM physics was heavily built on two main paradigms, namely, those of determinism and causality." Of course I agree with your statement that pre-QM was based on those two paradigms, and I agree with your further point that one of their reasons for rejecting the idea of an anthropomorphic god was their commitment to causality. Einstein said it well in his book The World As I See It:

We thus arrive at a conception of the relation of science to religion very different from the usual one. When one views the matter historically one is inclined to look upon science and religion as irreconcilable antagonists, and for a very obvious reason. The man who is thoroughly convinced of the universal operation of the law of causation cannot for a moment entertain the idea of a being who interferes in the course of events – that is, if he takes the hypothesis of causality really seriously. He has no use for the religion of fear and equally little for social or moral religion. A God who rewards and punishes is inconceivable to him for the simple reason that a man's actions are determined by necessity, external and internal, so that in God's eyes he cannot be responsible, any more than an inanimate object is responsible for the motions it goes through. Hence science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear and punishment and hope of reward after death.

But now, turning to your next point, "After QM, only causality has remained", I find that statement to be doubly troubling.

On the one hand, although the implication that QM has eliminated determinism is of course correct in the sense that only probabilities can be predicted, yet consistent with Popper's idea (which goes all the way back to Xenophanes and which is the basis of all science) that, in open systems, only the probability that some claim is true can be ascertained, then one could easily argue that determinism is still "alive and well" – it's just that we now have a better idea of what "determinism" means! In that regard, and as a challenge to Feynman's familiar line "if you think you understand QM, you don't understand QM", I'd encourage you to Google John Cramer's "Transactional Interpretation" of QM: generalizing the Feynman-Wheeler description of EM, it appears that he's resolved quantum entanglement by keeping the advanced-wave solution to the Schrödinger equation – and by assuming it deterministically describes what simultaneously evolves in the negative-energy background of space, where time runs in the opposite direction!

And on the other hand, your explicit claim that "only causality has remained" can be challenged, even for classical systems. That is, even for most macroscopic nonlinear systems (i.e., most systems!), causality has been lost. I have heard Ilya Prigogine argue this point well – and talked to him about it. As you no doubt know, it's based on Ed Lorenz's discovery that uncertainties in initial conditions (no matter how small – even if they are only quantum mechanical!) will overwhelmingly dominate a nonlinear system's evolution: a butterfly in Brazil can indeed cause a tornado in Texas. Thus, you should reconsider your claim that "causality has remained."

You further state: "Nowadays, they [physicists] don't know how to account for a non-deterministic, causal universe." If you are saying that we haven't yet merged QM and General Relativity, then perhaps you're correct (i.e., if String Theory isn't correct), but more generally, I expect that (for example) Alan Guth, Roger Penrose, and Victor Stenger would disagree with you that we "don't know how to account for a non-deterministic, casual universe."

I'll illustrate my meaning by responding to the choice you offer re. infinities. My first response is, "Thanks anyway, but no thanks!" Second, I'd say that, in reality, I reject all infinities, since never has any infinity been examined experimentally, only theoretically. Now, to illustrate an alternative to your options, consider the following.

I trust that we can agree with Emmy Noether that 'time' has no meaning in the absence of energy; therefore, there was no 'before', "before" the Big Bang. Further, let's suppose that Einstein was correct when he said that "the universe [is] matter expanding into nothing that is something", and let's imagine an original "total nothingness", for which 'time' has no meaning. If such a nothing "explored" fluctuations (i.e., if it adopted some "generalized" quantum mechanical behavior), then after some 10^10^10^10... fluctuations (in no time, since there was no energy – and further, fluctuations that occurred "nowhere", since again relying on Noether's theorem, there was no momentum), one such fluctuation (otherwise always in perfect balance, e.g., "positive" and "negative" amounts of energy, fenergy, henergy, genergy or whatever) presumably broke a symmetry, leading to the Big Bang.

Such a scenario has no need for the choice of infinities that you offer; in other words, what appears most reasonable to me is that the universe did indeed "pop out of nothing". That's totally consistent with the well-known result (e.g., see Krauss' video, "A Universe from Nothing", already referenced) that still in our universe the total electrical charge, momentum, and energy (including the negative energy of space) all sum to zero.

By the way, I wonder if you see that the concept of "total nothingness" appears to be amenable to experimental exploration: given that an anti-particle is a hole in space, then upon looking at that hole, one is actually looking at total nothingness! And since anti-particles behave quantum mechanically, it suggests to me that "total nothingness" does obey quantum mechanics (or some more-generalized form of QM, yet to be discovered).

Upon submitting the above, the automated response appeared: “Your comment is awaiting moderation.” Well, I waited and waited (and am still waiting!); the result: zip! Not only was my comment not approved, but now, all comments are once-again closed. So, all good-little-Muslims who read the comments can rest assured that the nasty Humanist, who attempted to tell the Emperor he has no clothes, has been “bested” by a good Muslim physicist at Cornell. Not only is it censorship (inconsistent with Qhadi’s, “I believe that we need to allow people to express their opinions”); it’s intellectually dishonest: they're not interested in considering new concepts; instead, they desperately intend to defend their delusions.

Similar happened with the second half of the thread, which the reader can find immediately below the comment from Saad. Notice, first, that the next comment (from Asiah) was on March 22 (four days earlier) at 12:27 PM. As you can see, I went through a similar set of sparring matches (after getting through a moderator’s interference!) until March 23 at 9:37 AM. Then, Umar planted what he no doubt considered to be a knockout blow:

Umar

March 23, 2011 • 10:19 AM

Nick said: “Well, if you’re going to assume that your creator god always existed, then why not, instead, assume that the universe always existed. Then, you have no need of your assumption that some god created the universe.”

If the universe was eternal (always existed), then it would take an infinite amount of time to get to where we are now, and so we would never actually get here. If you keep going back in time forever, you would never reach the end, according to that viewpoint. Therefore, if you go back forever and then try to come forward in time forever, you would never actually reach the point in time we are now. But we are at this point!

Therefore the universe had a beginning. According to you, some quantum events may have taken place and bubble theory etc, but if nothing was there to begin with. I mean nothing, no matter, or no antimatter whatever, then nothing would come out of it. If something was there to begin with, that something would have been there for an “infinite” amount of time, and if it this is the case:

a. it would never get to where we are now, because an infinite amount of time exists between then and now like I explained above

b. how would that something get there in the first place

c. what would cause that state to spontaneously change with absolutely no intervention.

You cite the nuclear reactors in Japan, exploding despite no overall momentum to begin with, but if you look at it more deeply, this change in state is caused by uncontrolled nuclear fission, due to the non functioning of the control rod. i.e. sub atomic particles interacting in a certain way. And even these were heated under extremely high temperatures, in the presence of certain elements: cause and effect!

I ask you, why do you assume the universe always existed, just as you assume that God didn’t create the universe? Did it create itself? Then what gave it the ability to create something from nothing?

In conclusion, it seems to me that you have placed yourself in a self-defeating position, because to claim something comes from nothing and that causality is not true at the quantum level would be tantamount to saying that your post was not written by you, rather it spontaneously appeared into existence without any cause, and came into being from nothing!

But we all know out of nothing, nothing comes. This is why you seem to have contradicted yourself by saying it was all possible because of “symmetry-breaking quantum-like fluctuation.” Then I would like to kindly ask you, where did a “symmetry-breaking quantum-like fluctuation” come from? If you respond “from nothing”, well, I would kindly like to reply, “so did your post. It came from nothing. Perhaps there is no Nick on the other side”…. that is the logic you are trying to preach!! Please re-evaluate your stance.

Sorry guys for responding going off topic by responding to Nick. I was actually much more interested in Sh. Yasir Qadhi’s posts, and responses to questions (getting emails for each post), and reading them with silent interest. Lol ha, exactly like he said above: “from the silent majority.”….but the illogical statement of Nick provoked me to answer back.

Salam

Of course I attempted to respond to Umar's mistakes and his misrepresentations of what I had written, but before I could, Siraaj posted (on March 23 at 2:12 PM) his statement: “I’m locking discussion on this thread.” How convenient for him and Qadhi’s deluded followers!

But then, three days later, when the thread was apparently re-opened to slip in the Cornell fellow’s (student’s?) comment, all the “Reply Buttons” were again active! So, I took the opportunity to submit the following response to Umar:

Umar, now that the moderator has finally permitted me to respond to your comment (subject to "moderation"), I'll try to do so.

In response and in general, I'll say that, before attempting to ridicule other people and before claiming that they're illogical, you'd be well advised to get their positions clear in your own mind. That way, you have a better chance to avoid looking ridiculous and being illogical, yourself. As cases in point:

1. I didn't (and don't) assume that the universe as we know it (i.e., the separation of energy into positive and negative components, the latter contained in space or "the vacuum") always existed. If you'll re-read my post that you quoted, you'll see that I was simply responding to the claim that god always existed. What I was doing was trying to demonstrate how such an idea could easily be shaved with Occam's razor. Instead, as you apparently later realized, I accept the evidence that our universe had a beginning.

2. Your old argument dealing with infinite time ignores modern ideas about time. If you will check out the ideas developed, e.g., by Feynman, Wheeler, and Cramer (e.g., see the PPT presentation entitled "The Quantum Handshake" that you can find here) perhaps you'll see how, as Einstein said, time is just an illusion: the only existence is "now". Certainly, we're familiar with time proceeding in a positive direction from "now", but in the negative energy of space, time seems to proceed in the opposite direction. Meanwhile, at the boundary of "positive and negative existences", light experiences no time: for light, it's always "now". This interpretation of time seems to resolve long-standing dilemmas of quantum mechanics, such as "quantum entanglement".

3. With respect to your attempt to ridicule the "something from nothing" concept, I recommend that you first read especially pp. 4-14 of the reference already provided. In particular, with N = Nothing = zero and S = Something, then Something can easily be created from Nothing via the reaction N → S + (-S), i.e., the creation of something and its negative.

4. With respect to your quandary about what "nothing" is, I'd recommend that you read my blog post entitled "God is Total Nothingness!" and then re-read the referenced pp. 4-14 to see that, in fact, we do have some experience with "total nothingness", namely, whereas antiparticles are holes in space, and space is otherwise totally filled with negative energy; therefore, a hole in space (i.e., an antiparticle) is "total nothingness".

This time what happened? Same thing: first “your comments are awaiting moderation”, and then, nothing – except, once again, all “Reply Buttons” went dead.

In summary, then, as far as the invitation from Qadhi for “dialogue” and his statement “I believe that we need to allow people to express their opinions”, they and the MuslimMatters.org website are shams. Arrangements were obviously made for the two sets of comments to end with one Muslim saying that my physics was wrong and another ridiculing my logic. And since I wasn’t permitted to respond, no doubt all Qadhi’s good-little-Muslim followers can now take comfort with the thought (just as they undoubtedly thought all along) that they were right and the interloper is wrong. It’s still another case of deceitful, clerical shepherds leading fearful, ignorant sheep to be fleeced (in clerical con games) or slaughtered (in clerical “holy wars”).

Of course, in the overall scheme of things, the experiences described above are insignificant. Evidence can be gathered, however, to support the assessment that, although it was only a couple of snowflakes, they fell on a mountainous glacier of Muslim mendacity.

To begin to assess that claim, I encourage readers to go to websites such as JihadWatch.org, FaithFreedom.org, and the webpage with the sarcastic title “The Religion of Peace”. At such sites, peruse the literally tens of thousands of other examples. From such examples, maybe you’ll agree that the term “Muslim mendacity” is highly appropriate, given the list of synonyms for the adjective ‘mendacious’ given in the Oxford American Writer’s Thesaurus:

lying, untruthful, dishonest, deceitful, false, dissembling, insincere, disingenuous, hypocritical, fraudulent, double-dealing, two-faced, two-timing, duplicitous, perjured…

In Arabic, such mendacity is called taqiyya, and as I described in another post, it’s sanctioned (even promoted!) in the Qur’an and Islam’s “traditional literature” (the Hadiths).

From this experience, from my other experiences described in earlier posts in this blog, and from the three-part analysis that I posted at my other blog (entitled “The Pathetic Muhammad”, “Five Structural Errors in Islam”, and “Five Foundational Evils of Islam”), I find myself in substantial agreement with the following comment on the original article in The New York Times posted by Mohammed Guggen of Seattle on 19 March 2011 at 8:10 PM:

I found Mr. Qadhi very wishy-washy in his philosophy on jihad. Between the lines, I found Mr. Qadhi counseling fellow moslems to engage in low jihad in the US ... lie low for now, make incremental gains like getting sharia laws enacted state by state, work for the caliphate to be established and then go all-out on a major jihad/terror in the US.

Sad thing is that if you go to [the] website www.muslimmatters.org most of the comments by his former and current students vehemently disagree with him calling him opportunistic, traitor to the islamic cause, etc. BTW, the website is heavily censored. [Italics added]

As a non-practicing moslem for couple of years now, I believe that the free nations of the world must organize a United Front of Victims of Jihad against the Axis of Jihad: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Pakistan.

The Axis of Jihad nations must be expelled from the community of nations and all international organizations until they are demilitarized, secularized, and democratized.

The United States, and all free nations, must strictly control immigration from the Islamic world. United State Code Title 8, Chapter 12, Subchapter II, Part II, § 1182, “Inadmissible Aliens,” forbids “any immigrant who is or has been a member of or affiliated with the Communist or any other totalitarian party (or subdivision or affiliate thereof), domestic or foreign.”

A “totalitarian party” is defined in the code:

“An organization which advocates the establishment in the United States of a totalitarian dictatorship or totalitarianism. The terms ‘totalitarian dictatorship’ and ‘totalitarianism’ mean and refer to systems of government not representative in fact, characterized by… the existence of a single political party, organized on a dictatorial basis, with so close an identity between such party and its policies and the governmental policies of the country in which it exists, that the party and the government constitute an indistinguishable unit.”

As the section above on Islamic constitutions proves beyond any doubt, Islam inarguably is a totalitarian political party at its core. Everywhere it gains power, its “policies and governmental policies” are exclusively and only Islamic dogma, and “the party” – Islam – “and the government constitute an indistinguishable unit,” because Islam commands that Islam and government be one and the same.

Only liberal, pluralistic, and secular democracies are the hope for the Middle East and for all of humanity. No government with the supremacist totalitarianism of Islam and Sharia as its overarching constitutional law can be admitted to the community of nations or to any organization of nations that honors the freedoms and rights of Man.

Free nations must officially declare Islam to be a de jure state, and treat it as such, and treat every one of adherents as citizens of the transnational Islamic state.

Saudi Arabia must pay for exporting imperialist Wahhabi doctrine and terror. Nations of the United Front of Victims of Jihad must bill Saudi Arabia for all of the damage, destruction, and deaths caused by Saudi machinations and money.

Nations of the United Front of Victims of Jihad must support democratic movements and current revolutions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, Yemen, Bahrain, and everywhere in the Islamic world. The hope is that Man’s longing for freedom will triumph in those countries, and that their people will get up off their knees and throw off the archaic yokes of slavery that Islam has put on the necks of their ancestors and on their own necks. If Islamic fundamentalists come to power instead, those Islamic countries must be isolated from the rest of humanity by permanent embargoes.

If and when secularist governments come to power, and expunge Islamic doctrine from their constitutions and laws, then, and only then, should those nations be selectively supported by progressive and free governments worldwide and invited back into the community of nations – on probation.

And notice who wrote the above: a (courageous) ex-Muslim. Welcome to freedom, Mohammed Guggen of Seattle: “Live long and prosper”.

www.zenofzero.net

All Clerics are Terrorists

2010-12-23T03:08:00.000-08:00

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I’ve been aware for a long time that all clerics are terrorists; this month, I saw it again.

A decade-or-so ago, I saw that my then daughter-in-law had been terrorized – by her parents, under the direction of their clerics. Ever since she was a baby, she had been thoroughly indoctrinated in Mormonism (as have my grandchildren), but otherwise, she was (and probably still is) a wonderful woman and mother.

My wife and I were attempting to convince her not to proceed with divorcing our son, if for no other reason than for the sake of our grandchildren. After being entrapped in Mormonism for more than a decade, our son had finally broken free, apparently after realizing that the Mormon’s Book of Abraham is a complete fake (and therefore, so is the Book of Mormon).

Addressing our son’s rejection of Mormonism, my wife said to our then daughter-in-law (something close to) “it doesn’t really matter”, to which she responded (something close to): “It matters for the fate of our immortal souls!” In particular, with respect to her own “immortal soul”, we later learned that her mother had told her that our son “was no longer of any use” to her, because no longer being a Mormon, he’d be unable to “whisper her secret name to her” (i.e., the password that she’d need to enter heaven).

Of course, I then tried to convince her that all talk about gods, devils, immortal souls, heaven, hell, etc. was nonsense, but you can imagine how far I got with that. The final communication relayed to me was: “She hates you.” Well, I certainly don’t hate her. I am, however, extremely sorry for her (and for our grandchildren) that she’s been terrorized.

Similar is apparently true for the majority of Americans. A 2007 survey of 35,000 Americans by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that 74% of the surveyed Americans believe in heaven [84% of all Protestants, 82% of all Catholics, 95% of all Mormons, and 85% of all (American) Muslims – but probably close to 100% of all Muslims living in Islamic countries]. The survey also found that 59% of all Americans believe in hell [73% of Protestants, 60% of all Catholics, 59% of all Mormons, and 80% of all (American) Muslims, although again, probably close to 100% of all Muslims living in Islamic countries]. And though one should question the accuracy of the survey results (because the report also states that 12% of all atheists believe in heaven and 10% of them believe in hell!), yet the survey does suggest the horrible extent to which clerics have mentally corrupted – and terrorized – so many Americans.

Anyway, polls and ancient personal history aside, this month I encountered another example of clerical terrorism. At an Islamic Forum (a different forum from the one mentioned in the previous post), I was reading posts in a thread entitled “Atheism – A Religion which Denies Being a Religion”. In this thread, a tirade by a Muslim writing under the name “Orthodox” reminded me of what Robert Ingersoll wrote:

Only the very ignorant are perfectly satisfied that they know. To the common man the great problems are easy. He has no trouble in accounting for the universe. He can tell you the origin and destiny of man and the why and wherefore of things. As a rule, he is a believer in special providence, and is egotistic enough to suppose that everything that happens in the universe happens in reference to him…

After “Orthodox” had finished (with copious quotes from Islamic “sacred literature”, apparently thinking that they bolstered her arguments), a seemingly more knowledgeable Muslim posting under the name “Rahimi” made some errors, so I decided to try to correct him as follows (post #54):

Rahimi, I noticed two of your fundamental statements in Post #44 that are at least misleading. Your statement that goes beyond ‘misleading’ to ‘incorrect’, is:

…we don’t find systems, laws, precision, order etc arise from chaos and disorder.

To see that your claim (that order can’t be derived from chaos) is incorrect, I suggest that you read Nobel laureate Ilya Prigogine’s book “Order out of Chaos” or his book “From Being to Becoming”. The essence is that entropy of a particular system can decrease if the system can “feed” on some gradient (e.g., in chemical or gravitational potential). Such is almost certainly how life began on Earth.

Your statement that’s misleading was stated in conjunction with your claim that our universe couldn’t have come from nothing:

It is an established scientific fact that something cannot arise from nothing.

In contrast to your claim, there are two major reasons to assume that our universe did, in fact, come from nothing.

One reason is because, consistent with Coulomb’s first principle of electrostatics, Newton’s principle of momentum (modified by Einstein), and the first principle of thermodynamics, the total electrical charge, momentum, and energy now in our universe sum to exactly zero. That is, what appears to have happened is that the pre-Big Bang “nothingness” split into positive and negative “somethings” (e.g., the positive energy that congealed into mass and its motion is exactly balanced by the negative energy that fills what we call “space” or “the vacuum”). Stated mathematically, it’s easy to get Something (S) from Nothing ( N = 0 ):

N = 0 = S + ( – S) .

And the second reason that we can conclude that our universe came from separating “nothing” into positive and negative “somethings” is that the concept is also consistent with available data, as reviewed by Lawrence Krauss in his video that you can find on YouTube entitled “A Universe from Nothing”…

Well, as the interested reader can verify and as even I expected, my post caused Rahimi quite a few problems. In particular, though, in direct response to my comment,

…if you can follow everything [Lawrence] Krauss says, then immediately you’ll say goodbye to Zarathustra’s model of the universe and all the silly religions that have followed from it…

he responded (Post #66), with the following comment, containing ideas completely unrelated to the discussion, but nonetheless, very revealing:

And of course there are murderers and killers who try to justify their crimes by subscribing to falsehood such as ‘the survival of the fittest’, ‘war on terror’ and other craps. These are the people who wronged themselves and their final abode and destination is the fire of jahanam (Hell)..

Amazing! Up to this point in the thread, the focus was on science. All of sudden, he jumped to morality and “the final adobe… Hell.” Startled, I responded (Post #69):

Ah, maybe now I understand: the real terrorists got to you – those who capture people’s imaginations with the horrors of a fictitious hell. They control people with fear, and not just fear of dying (which is instinctive) but with fear of eternal torture. Succumbing to such fears, people can no longer think for themselves. They become mental slaves.

That is, just when it appeared that Rahimi might be understanding at-least-a-little of what scientific investigations are suggesting about the origin of the universe (I assume he at least started to look at Krauss’ video “A Universe from Nothing”), he retreated back into his shell, apparently “shell shocked” by his religion’s warnings about hell – which then led me to this post.

As I already mentioned, I’ve known about clerical terrorism for a long time, but it impresses (and saddens) me when I encounter it again. Further, as “Catherine” said in the comments section of the New York Times report of the debate between Rabbi David Wolpe and Christopher Hitchens, I’ve learned through sad experiences:

It’s hopeless to argue against religion because the religious don’t have to stick to reason which should rule a civil debate. They can always defer to blind, senseless faith. It’s like trying to play Chess against someone who insists on playing Dungeons and Dragons.

In fact, it’s even worse: religious people are trapped in those mental dungeons – and they truly fear those imaginary dragons!

Maybe to see better what moved me to write this post, suppose the leader of a street gang said to you:

Look: my two big brothers used to be in the Mafia. My friends are their friends; my enemies are their enemies.

You treat me right, you do what I say, and you’ll be okay. One of my brothers is like God: I got money; he’ll make sure you get money. I got things; you’ll get things. I got friends; you’ll get friends.

Otherwise – well, let me put it this way. My other brother is a real devil: he gets a kick out of digging people’s eyes out with his knife. I dunno why. Maybe he likes to hear people beg to be killed.

So anyway, there you go. It’s your choice. You got free will. Choose.

Or suppose a member of an organized crime syndicate said to you (as owner of a small business):

Nice little business you got here, but what you need is insurance, so nobody will come in and rob the place, smash the joint, rough-up your customers, and maybe even kill somebody. Lucky for you, me and my boys are in the insurance business. You just give us 10% of your take, and we’ll make sure that you and your business come to no harm. Otherwise, well, ya never can tell what might happen. But it’s your choice. You got free will. Choose.

If such happened to you or to someone you cared about, then in free countries, you should inform the police and expect the perpetrators to be prosecuted under laws such as the U.S.’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, which includes fines and punishments for “extortion, blackmail, and terrorism.”

In the same way, I suggest that, in a sane world, all clerics of all the Abrahamic religions should be similarly charged with extortion, blackmail, and terrorism. As Joseph Lewis said:

Let me tell you that religion is the cruelest fraud ever perpetrated upon the human race. It is the last of the great scheme of thievery that man must legally prohibit so as to protect himself from the charlatans who prey upon the ignorance and fears of the people. The penalty for this type of extortion should be as severe as it is of other forms of dishonesty.

But it’s unlikely that we can make much progress in such an approach (e.g., using the RICO Act), because with their extortion and blackmail, the damnable clerics have terrorized people, police, prosecutors, and politicians so badly that they can’t think straight. Examples include “Rahimi”, “Orthodox”, “Yahya” (mentioned in the previous post), and my former daughter-in-law. And the damndest thing is that clerics (with the help of previously indoctrinated parents) don’t stimulate people’s fear and greed using real threats and bribes (as do leaders of street gangs, protection rackets, and other organized crime syndicates): they terrorize people using only imaginary bribes and threats! What a racket.

Look at it still another way. After the 9/11 terrorist attacks, President G.W. Bush declared a “War on Terror”. Of course he “miss-spoke” again: war can’t be waged against terrorism; terrorism is a tactic. What he meant to declare (I assume) was a war against terrorists. Much more significantly, however, is that he misidentified the terrorists.

The terrorists aren’t the would-be bin Ladens of the world: they’re the terrorized. Terrorized by thoughts of eternal torture in hell, they greedily grab empty promises of eternal paradise in heaven, provided they become martyrs in some jihad. Thereby, the bin Ladens of the world are just automatons and drones that the real terrorists use to wage war.

The real terrorists are the clerics of the world. Their terrorist manuals are ridiculously called “holy books” and “sacred literature”. They terrorize people with data-less, idiotic ideas about gods, devils, immortal souls, heaven, hell, and so on. The worst (especially now in Islam) is their concoction and promotion of the terrors of hell. As Ingersoll wrote more than a century ago:

If there is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to every good man and woman and child. It has filled the good with horror and with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. It has wrung the hearts of the tender; it has furrowed the cheeks of the good. This doctrine never should be preached again. What right have you, sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel to stand at the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the future with horror and with fear? I do not believe this doctrine, neither do you. If you did, you could not sleep one moment. Any man who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has the heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena…

To stop such terrorism, to help people break free from clerical enslavement of their thoughts, to help them think for themselves and, therefore, to hold beliefs only as strongly as evidence warrants, education is key.

Each of us must do what we can to educate people – especially children – about how knowledge of the world is gained (not by “revelation” but by the scientific method) and about at least some of the knowledge already so gained. Once people learn that the most certain knowledge that humans have been able to gain, even more certain than the knowledge that we exist (for we may all be just simulations in a humongous computer game) is that there are no gods or devils (and never were any), then the extortion, blackmail, and terrorism of all clerical con games will be obvious to everyone – and the damn clerics of the world can be prosecuted for being the despicable parasites that they are.

www.zenofzero.net
••••

Some Experiences at the Islamic Board Forum

2010-11-24T05:09:00.000-08:00

••••
Preface: I wrote most of the following two or three years ago, intending to post it at my other blog. [To be more precise, the date on the final save of the document (labeled here as “1. Potential Post”) was 2008/01/02.] Subsequently, however and for reasons mentioned in the text, I decided not to post it.

This week, I had additional experiences at the same Islamic Board Forum (see “2. Update”, near the end of this post), which some readers might find entertaining – and maybe even educational. Therefore, I decided to put the two pieces together and post them here.

1. Potential Post
As readers can partially confirm by going to the Islamic Board Forum and searching for all posts by “zoro”, I have been posting at this particular Muslim forum for about a year. I wrote that you could “partially confirm” that statement, because I submitted approximately twice as many as the ~100 posts revealed in the search. The others were deleted (I assume by various “moderators” at the forum) – and all were deleted (save one post) without any explanation provided!

If you do conduct such a search, you can confirm that my current status is “Account Disabled”. [Update: that was two years ago; I was banned for some (forgotten) number of months.] “Account Disabled” is the Board’s way of publicly advertising that I’ve received a personal notice that I’ve been “Banned”. Again, I was given no reason for my expulsion; in fact, the notice that appears when I try to login [two years ago] explicitly states: “Banned. Reason: No Reason Given.” Perhaps some readers might be interested in explanations – maybe out of curiosity, maybe to learn, and maybe to save yourselves fruitless effort.

In general, my interactions at the forum were “interesting”. I interacted with some people whom it would be easy to call friends, including the Muslim “Woodrow” [see, however, “2. Update”], “Trumble” (a very impressive Buddhist), “Grace Seeker” (a friendly Christian), and others, as well as several intelligent and well informed secular humanists. The Muslim “Purest Ambrosia”, however, was something else. If you should be inclined to join this forum, watch out for her: it’s not ambrosia she’s peddling; it’s pure poison. [See “2. Update”: she’s now changed her moniker to “The vale’s lily”.] In addition, there were (unfortunately) many Muslims with whom I interacted who are so ill informed that they left me stunned: it was like trying to communicate with children in the midst of their “terrible twos”.

But preliminaries aside, let me show you a few examples of my posts that were deleted – and I wrote it that way, because typically the post would appear for a short duration (I’m not sure how long), but then, when I checked back at the forum (typically within a day), they were gone. From these examples, you can gain some appreciation for what to expect Muslims won’t tolerate – at least the Muslims in charge of this forum, which Google reports to be one of the two most popular, English-language, Muslim internet forums.

If you’re interested in posting at the “Comparative Religion Section" at the forum, make sure that you never criticize Islam, the Qur’an, or Muhammad, and don’t proselytize for any other religion; then, your proposed posts will normally not be deleted. But I’ve had some posts deleted even in the Comparative Religion Section [Also, see “2. Update”], one with the astounding criticism: “We don’t need discussions of other philosophies here.” With that attitude, the Muslim world will never emerge from its clerically imposed Dark Ages.

Where I started getting into major troubles with what I call Muslim clerics was in the “Learn About Islam” Section of the forum. For most of the year that I was posting on the forum, I ignored that section. One day, however, I had a look at a thread started by “madeenahsh” entitled “The 3 Required Characteristics for Seeking Knowledge”. If you look at the Original Post (OP) of the thread, you’ll see that “madeenahsh” quoted some Islamic article that describes a ludicrous way for youngsters to gain “knowledge” – by which Muslim typically mean (and “madeenahsh” and the original author of the article definitely meant) knowledge about Islam. So, I responded to such nonsense with the following (subsequently-deleted) post, in which the quotations are from the article posted by “madeenahsh”.

madeenahsh:

I think that the article that you quote is inadequate, because (to begin) it inadequately addresses two fundamental questions, namely, 1) What knowledge is sought? and 2) What is meant by ‘knowledge’?

With respect to the first question, consider some examples. Is ‘knowledge’ sought about: How to start a fire without a match? How to get a wheel to turn on an axle? How to irrigate crops? How to breed cattle? How to read and write? How to build an airplane? How to build a computer? How to…

In particular, if anyone seeks knowledge about how to write an article about “The 3 Required Characteristics for Seeking Knowledge”, then that person would be well advised to learn that the first step is to clearly describe the purpose of acquiring such knowledge – followed closely by what the author also failed to do, namely, define what’s meant by ‘knowledge’.

What’s commonly meant by ‘knowledge’ is that one possesses a succinct hypothesis about some process that summarizes a substantial quantity of reliable information, that has predictive capability and whose predictions have been validated in a substantial number of experimental tests, and that normally doesn’t conflict with other well-established hypotheses (or “principles”). Such is the knowledge about how to start a fire without a match, how to get a wheel to turn on an axle, how to irrigate crops, and so on.

If the author had addressed those first two questions (what knowledge is sought and what is knowledge), then many “required characteristics for seeking knowledge” would follow – and not necessarily those that the author listed:

1) In some cases the student should “adhere to the method of education that those people of knowledge before us adhered to” (insofar as they used the scientific method), but the variety of ways that people have made great discoveries (from Galileo in a church being so bored with a sermon that he started timing a swinging chandelier using his pulse rate, to Newton’s lying on the grass and seeing an apple fall, and from Schrödinger’s panic about what to present in a lecture, to Feynman’s playing his bongo drums) suggests that the student could be well advised to “follow her own fancy!”

2) The suggestion that “he should be prepared to sacrifice all of his time to seeking knowledge” is extremely ill advised. As the Seven Sages said: “Moderation in all things.” Thus, experience has shown that it’s much more productive if a student takes time for rest and relaxation – to let her right brain (synthesis capability) make sense of what her left-brain has analyzed.

As for “the correct way for seeking knowledge”, I disagree with the first two of the “characteristics” listed. Instead, they should be replaced by:

1. Make sure you know what problem it is that you’re trying to solve.

2. Proceed to try to solve the problem at a rate that’s right for you.

I would agree, however, with the third point listed:

3. Be persistent.

I doubt that many people in the free world would take offense to my post (above) – or even pay much attention to it, since it’s so obvious. The Muslim moderator, however, quickly deleted it.

I then moved on to a second thread started by “madeenahsh”, this one entitled “About Knowledge – Beneficial Read!” In this thread I posted the following – and it, too, was rather quickly deleted:

madeenahsh:

I’m disappointed that, in your post, you use so many words without defining them, including ‘knowledge’, ‘good’, ‘comprehension’, ‘religion’, ‘virtue’, ‘understanding’, ‘righteous’, ‘validity’, ‘learning’, ‘sciences’, ‘faith’, ‘certainty’, ‘evidence’, ‘wisdom’, ‘believe’, and ‘truth’.

Furthermore (and more significantly), the meanings that you appear to attribute to such words are inconsistent with their modern meanings. Instead, they are meanings that were commonly used by theologians and “scholastics” of a thousand-and-more years ago, whose ideas have long since been thrown into the trashcan of human mistakes.

Almost 2500 years ago, Socrates said: “There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.” Agreeing with him (although I’d prefer if he had said “There is only one good, willingness to learn, and one evil, refusal”), I would suggest that you are potentially promoting much evil by ignoring (or refusing to learn) at least a little of the vast increase in knowledge that has developed during the past thousand-or-so years, ever since Muslims further developed the scientific method, beyond what Hippocrates outlined.

As Hippocrates (one of Socrates’ contemporaries) said: “There are in fact two things, science and opinion; the former beget knowledge; the latter, ignorance.”

What you have posted displays just opinions.

I admit that the above post of mine was a bit more “testy”, but as you can check, the OP was sooooo stupid!

Next, I moved on to the thread started by “Al Habeshi” entitled “Students of Knowledge… Sites and Time Tables”. You’ll need to look at the proposed “Sites and Time Tables” to get an appreciation for just how dumb they are. But details aside, my now deleted post was the following:

Al Habeshi:

Your recommendations for gaining knowledge blatantly conflict with the recommendations of the Arab Human Development Report entitled “Building a Knowledge Society”, which was co-sponsored by the Regional Bureau for Arab States, the UN Development Program, and the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development and which was prepared by 40 distinguished Arab scholars, along with 30 advisers and peer reviewers.

In case you haven’t read the report, its English version is at

http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/UNDP/EnglishVersion/Ar-Human-Dev-2003.pdf

and its Arabic version is at

http://www.palestineremembered.com/download/UNDP/ArabicVersion/Ar-Human-Dev-2003-ArabicVersion.pdf .

If you’ve already read the report, then I think that it’s incumbent upon you to explain why you are proposing to continue methods that have caused and continue to cause so much harm to the mental development of Muslim children.

2. Update
I’m not sure, now, why I didn’t finish the above and then post it on my other blog, but perhaps it was because I became too angry: so many of my posts were deleted, and not only was I getting madder and madder at having wasted so much time (only to have the posts deleted at the forum), I then found that I was wasting even more of my time creating the post for my blog!

In any case, this week I decided to see what was going on at the Islamic Board Forum. I saw that “Woodrow” was still there, as a moderator, but he seems to have become less friendly (see below). Perhaps the cause was that, a year-or-so ago, I had seen how members of the Richard Dawkins (RD) Forum had raked him over the coals. There, he had initiated a thread that basically stated: “I don’t believe atheists exist”. The rather amazing result of that encounter was that, even after his idea was thoroughly ridiculed, he wasn’t humiliated. He was like a little child sassing back: “I can believe whatever I want!” (Which is correct, of course – at least in the free world – but people should expect to be ridiculed for holding ridiculous beliefs.) Incidentally, after his ideas were ridiculed, he seemed to have withdrawn from the RD Forum.

Anyway, at the Islamic Board’s Forum a few days ago, I posted some comments in the thread Pascal’s Wager. A seemingly intelligent Muslim by the name of Yahya Sulaiman had posted the following:

Pascal’s Wager is every bit as intellectually dishonest as people on the other side of the argument saying that they don’t believe in religion because of how it “inhibits your freedom” or exists for some sort of purported purpose, etc. – and for the very same reason: the only consideration that should ever go into any decision whether or not to believe something is whether or not that something strikes you as true. Period. Truth trumps. (That’s my motto, actually.)

To that post, I made the following comment:

Well, Yahya, I expect that most people maintain a similar motto, but for it to be valuable, an answer (or answers) is needed to the challenging question: How do you determine if some claimed “truth” is true? If you are interested in my (long) response to that challenging question, I’ve posted it (written as letters to my oldest grandchild) at http://zenofzero.net/docs/T1_Truth_&_Knowledge.pdf and at http://zenofzero.net/docs/T2_Truth_&_Understanding.pdf .

To my question “How do you determine if some claimed ‘truth’ is true?”, Yahya responded:

As best you can as a fallible creature, using your rational (and maybe your intuitive) faculties to your utmost. Really, any way would be preferable to whether or not you think believing in something to be advantageous. That’s just hideous.

To which I replied:

Oh, I agree: the proof-by-pleasure logical fallacy can lead to hideous consequences. Yet, as I describe in detail in the references already given, it’s profitable to examine details about how to “[use] your rational (and maybe your intuitive) faculties to your utmost.” One finds, for example, that it’s only in “closed systems” (such as games, mathematics, etc.) that “truth” can be determined; in “open systems”, in contrast (e.g., in reality), the most that can be determined (using the scientific method and Bayes’ theorem) is the probability that some claim is true.

Then came two posts by “the vale’s lily” (formerly “Purest Ambrosia”), the more complete of which is the following. [And it might be interesting to notice that it’s her post number 7,034. Can you imagine it: over 7,000 posts in ~4.5 years, which means an average of more than 4 posts per day, every single day?!]

Please if I may give you a brief introduction – Zoro has in the past tried to indoctrinate folks here into his new cult appropriately entitled ‘Zen of Zero’ and I think outside of himself and his oldest daughter that is exactly how many cult members he has.. It is a sort of poetic ‘physics’ and I use the term physics loosely. Once he starts indoctrinating err ‘‘challenging’’ you and per above with his religious pamphlet I believe he has already enclosed it for your perusal and you decide not to succumb to the powers of his miltonic mind he’ll unleash a barrage of his followers on you, since his granddaughter isn’t here, that will leave only his person – of course for which he was banned before.. I understand that by now you’d want to offer me one of your famous chill pills but I think I owe it at least to the new comers to what lies ahead..

A lovely lady – to whom, of course, I didn’t respond. But I did continue to try to communicate with Yahya, who wrote:

What does any of it have to do with whether anything is an open or closed system??

My response was:

It’s an important distinction emphasized by Karl Popper.

For closed systems (such as all games), truth can be ascertained. For example, in the game of baseball, it’s “true” that “three strikes and you’re out” (according to the rules of the game). Similarly, in pure mathematics (according to the rules of the game), it’s “true” that 1 + 1 = 2.

For open systems, however (e.g., the human body, legal systems, and all natural systems), we can never be certain that we possess “the truth”; at best, we can determine only the probability that some claim is true (or, similarly, false).

Einstein made the distinction referring to mathematics as follows:

As far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; and as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality.

Thus, for example, if 1 molecule (or mole) of carbon dioxide (CO2) reacts with 1 molecule (or mole) of water (H2O), the result is one molecule (or mole) of carbonic acid (H2CO3), i.e., 1 + 1 = 1. Similarly, if two pieces of putty or two black holes merge, then 1 + 1 = 1.

The philosophical consequences of such ideas to religion are significant: insofar as they are closed systems (defined by their scriptures), then religious “truths” can be ascertained, but insofar as they are open systems, at best only the probability of the truths of their claims can be determined. For example, if Christianity is treated as a closed system, then the “truth” that Jesus is the son of God can be determined from the New Testament. But in reality, the best that we can do is examine the evidence and, from the evidence, estimate the probability that such a claim is true.

Similarly for the “truth claims” of all religions - thus returning to my original question: How do you determine if some claimed “truth” is true?

After which, the moderator (Woodrow) quickly added:

I believe the topic has been covered the best it can be here. THREAD CLOSED.

Well, with “thread closed” (but not “case closed”!), a day-or-so later I moved on to another thread; this one entitled “To Atheists”. As interested readers can determine, the thread led to some intelligent comments from “titus”, “gator”, “lynx” and others (particularly about whether Allah was playing a game by testing us), plus some belligerent, ignorant comments by (the same) Yahya Sulaiman (and others). So, silly me, I thought I’d enter the fray with a little fun, posting the following:

Well, I have some good news and some bad news.

Maybe better: I have what some people will consider to be good news, but which others will consider to be bad news.

The good news (at least for some people) is this: I can confirm that God exists! Also, I’m able to confirm that God IS testing people: God isn’t just playing games! For some people, however – in fact, for literally billions of people – the bad news is that God’s test is not what they think it is.

The other day, God let me in on the skinny:

She said that it’s not all fun and games running the universe. She asked if I had any idea how hard it was to keep all the physical constants in the universe sufficiently “fine tuned” to permit life to continue, to ensure that pesky old dark energy didn’t blow the universe apart, to ensure that Black Holes didn’t gobble up every galaxy and then merge, returning the universe to its original state of total nothingness, and so on.

I admitted that I didn’t fully appreciate the difficulties.

She said that She wanted some help, especially since the rate of expansion of the universe is increasing and dark energy is getting even darker. So, She’s testing people.

She said She’s looking for a few diligent and intelligent people who hold beliefs only as strongly as relevant evidence warrants. To that end, She sent down a bunch of confusing messages in various “holy books”. The test is: those who believe what’s in such books, basing their beliefs on their own wishful thinking, on what other people say, etc. (rather than basing their beliefs on evidence) fail the test.

That’s her way to winnow the wheat from the chaff. The chaff, She discards (the elementary particles of which they were made, however, She reuses). Those who pass the test become candidates to help Her.

By the way, She specifically warned me not to tell anyone about the details of Her test, but shucks, who’s afraid of

Then what? My post appeared, but by the time I took a break for breakfast, it was gone – along with Woodrow’s:

This has gone a step to [sic] far. THREAD CLOSED.

I also received a message from Woodrow “explaining” the reason for deleting my post: “Not funny and very offensive to theists.”

What a sorry excuse for a forum moderator! Moderators at other forums are normally assigned the tasks of keeping the discussion on topic and not too heated (e.g., prohibiting direct and explicit insults to other posters). But in this case (in a thread entitled “To Atheists”, no less!), my post was claimed to be “offensive to theists”. It seems not only that in a thread “To Atheists” are atheists not permitted to express opinions but also that it’s offensive for theists to think that atheists might be right – or offensive even for theists to think!

Meanwhile, it must be perplexing to all other posters in the thread to have the moderator state, “This has gone a step to [sic] far”, since now, there’s no indication of what was “to [sic] far” (i.e., my post). Simultaneously, it’s hilarious and ridiculous!

Actually, though, I wouldn’t be surprised if there were more to the whole affair – and it’s not so humorous. Thus, I wouldn’t be surprised if moderators on this Islamic forum are charged with forbidding any ideas that might shake any Muslims’ (blind) faith in Allah, Muhammad, and the Qur’an. And I expect that, if the moderators don’t adequately censor “offensive ideas”, then the sponsors (hosting the website), who are probably clerics in Saudi Arabia well funded with petro-dollars, will shut them down.

For me, the moral of this post is not to waste any more of my time trying to communicate with Muslims at the Islamic Board’s Forum. I’ll leave it to readers to identify other possible morals, e.g., dealing with censorship, the thin skins of so many Muslims, their fear of new ideas, the evils of holding beliefs more strongly than is justified by relevant evidence, and so on.

Meanwhile, on a happier note, this Thanksgiving (tomorrow) I plan to give sincere thanks to those to whom we are indebted for our freedoms. In that respect, I invite you to again read what Robert Ingersoll wrote (which I’ve quoted many times, but never enough):

When I became convinced that the Universe is natural – that all the ghosts and gods are myths – there entered into my brain, into my soul, into every drop of my blood, the sense, the feeling, the joy of freedom. The walls of my prison crumbled and fell, the dungeon was flooded with light, and all the bolts, and bars, and manacles became dust. I was no longer a servant, a serf, or a slave. There was for me no master in all the wide world – not even in infinite space.

I was free: free to think, to express my thoughts – free to live to my own ideal – free to live for myself and those I loved – free to use all my faculties, all my senses – free to spread imagination’s wings – free to investigate, to guess and dream and hope – free to judge and determine for myself – free to reject all ignorant and cruel creeds, all the “inspired” books that savages have produced, and all the barbarous legends of the past – free from popes and priests – free from all the “called” and “set apart” – free from sanctified mistakes and holy lies – free from the fear of eternal pain – free from the winged monsters of night – free from devils, ghosts, and gods.

For the first time I was free. There were no prohibited places in all the realms of my thought – no air, no space, where fancy could not spread her painted wings – no chains for my limbs – no lashes for my back – no fires for my flesh – no master’s frown or threat – no following another’s steps – no need to bow, or cringe, or crawl, or utter lying words.

I was free. I stood erect and fearlessly, joyously, faced all worlds. And then my heart was filled with gratitude, with thankfulness, and went out in love to all the heroes, the thinkers who gave their lives for the liberty of hand and brain, for the freedom of labor and thought – to those who fell on the fierce fields of war – to those who died in dungeons bound with chains – to those who proudly mounted scaffold’s stairs – to those whose bones were crushed, whose flesh was scarred and torn – to those by fire consumed – to all the wise, the good, the brave of every land, whose thoughts and deeds have given freedom to the sons of men. And I vowed to grasp the torch that they had held, and hold it high, that light might conquer darkness still.

www.zenofzero.net
••••

Stop Clerical Graft!

2010-10-31T16:53:00.000-07:00

••••

Refuse to Pay

A wise man once said, a long time ago,
“All people by nature desire to know”;
Yet, more should be said, for progress to grow:
All claims to be knowledge – what tests say it’s so?

What truth in the claims of creationists
At odds with ideas from top scientists?
What rule proves the “truth” that God even exists?
Did unstable “nothing” yield all that persists?

And what of the claims about heaven and hell?
They seem to be stories that children would tell.
The stories of Gabriel, Emmanuel…
All play on emotions – like detrital smell!

Emotions are certainly helpful to use,
But who doesn’t know how emotions abuse?
A feeling can be a confusing sad ruse
And yet be adopted as trustworthy news!

Emotions can’t answer: 2 added to 2?
But logic can frequently show us what’s true;
Yet, logic is under some huge constraints too,
For logic can’t find information that’s new.

With logic you test what you might just assume;
But logic can’t even begin to illume
The premisses hidden in nothing but fume –
From which any “truth” can be forced to exhume!

Emotion and logic possess their own blight.
There’s only way to get truth in the light.
The method (by which science earned all its might):
Guess, test, and assess if predictions are right!

Please try it yourself: you say there’s a god?
Predict what would happen. I dare you. I prod!
You’ll find as I did, something really quite odd:
That truth in such tests is ridden roughshod!

All clerical "truths" are nothing but lies:
The “proofs” that they claim are what logic denies;
They choose only “truths” that emotionalize;
In turn, each “truth’s” source is what fools fantasize.

No evidence backs any clerical claims,
But lots of it shows all clerics’ true aims:
Exactly reverse from what each one proclaims,
They run the world’s oldest and richest con games!

They tell you: “Your role is only to serve
A powerful god who will always observe;
At death, he’ll pass judgment on what you deserve;
So, do what we say – and your soul we’ll preserve!”

Far better, know nothing, as Josh Billings said,
Than know what ain’t so. But people so dread
The con artists’ claims about after they’re dead,
They give up their life and seek death now instead.

Enough with the clerics and games that they play;
We’ll never make progress by going that way.
The “truths” clerics claim just lead people astray;
Stop clerical graft by refusing to pay!

www.zenofzero.net
••••

On Where to Build the Ground-Zero, Multifaith Center

2010-09-19T16:28:00.000-07:00

–––––
In his 7 September 2010 op-ed article in The New York Times, the Islamic cleric who seeks to build a “community center in Lower Manhattan” (originally called the Cordoba House and commonly called “the Ground-Zero Mosque”), Feisal Abdul Rauf, states:

My life’s work has been focused on building bridges between religious groups and never has that been as important as it is now.

His description of the new “bridge” he proposes includes:

Above all, the project will amplify the multifaith approach that the Cordoba Initiative has deployed in concrete ways for years… Our initiative is intended to cultivate understanding among all religions and cultures.

Our broader mission – to strengthen relations between the Western and Muslim worlds and to help counter radical ideology – lies not in skirting the margins of issues that have polarized relations within the Muslim world and between non-Muslims and Muslims. It lies in confronting them as a joint multifaith, multinational effort.

In an 8 September 2010 interview with Soledad O’Brien, Rauf added:

You must remember, Soledad, and Americans must remember, that what we do is watched all over the world… If you don’t do this right, anger will explode in the Muslim world. If this is not handled correctly, this crisis could become much bigger than the Danish cartoon crisis, which resulted in attacks on Danish embassies in various parts of the Muslim world.

So, thereby, Rauf threatens us with Muslim madness: if we in the West don’t behave “correctly”, if Muslims don’t get what they want, then once again, psychologically immature Muslim maniacs will throw temper tantrums.

Well, Mr. Bridge Builder, I have a suggestion for you:

• Whereas, in general, Western tolerance is already exemplary;

• Whereas we in the West (who have freedoms of speech and of the press) are already able to learn as much about other cultures as we desire;

• Whereas we in the West are beginning to understand, quite well, thank you very much, some of the errors and evils of Islam, including its blatant intolerance of unbelievers in Islamic balderdash (e.g., the Koran’s injunction for Muslims to “kill the infidels”);

• Whereas you claim that your goal is to “cultivate understanding” in a “multifaith, multinational effort”, “to strengthen relations between the Western and Muslim worlds”; and

• Whereas the King of Saudi Arabia, the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques”, has been promoting “interfaith dialogue” and surely would provide you with financial support to build your “multifaith center” ($100 million being mere pocket-change for him);

Therefore, I strongly recommend that you don’t try to build your “interfaith center” anywhere near where Muslim maniacs murdered thousands of innocent civilians – including anywhere in New York City, in America, or in the West – but instead, build it where it’s obviously so sorely needed: at the Ground Zero of Intolerance, Mecca.

Stated differently, if you truly want to “promote tolerance” and “counter radical ideology”, then I recommend that you stop “skirting the margins of issues that have polarized relations within the Muslim world and between non-Muslims and Muslims”, and instead, put all your efforts into trying to show Muslims how civilized people live.

www.zenofzero.net

September 11th: Discard a “holy book” Day

2010-09-16T15:01:00.000-07:00

––––
In the U.S., we have ten legal Federal holidays (from New Year’s Day and Martin Luther King Day to Veteran’s Day and Thanksgiving Day). We call them ‘holidays’ (a word derived from Old English hāligdæg meaning “holy day”, in turn from Dutch and German heilig, meaning ‘holy’ or ‘sacred’), but the religious connotation for such days is generally gone – except insofar as the word ‘holy’ is derived from the Greek word meaning ‘separated’, and on such days, most of us separate ourselves from work! Also, both officially and unofficially, we generally recognize many other special days – and even weeks and months (e.g., Groundhog Day, Children’s Book Week, and Native Heritage Month).

The purpose of this post is to recommend that September 11th (or 9/11) be adopted as Discard a “holy book” Day. Here, by ‘discard’, I don’t necessarily mean burn, bury, or do similar to your “holy book”. For example, you may want to recycle it or trade it in for a better book. Yet, if you own a “holy book” and there’s no concern about air pollution, then if you’re so inclined, burning it would be good.

I should also admit that I’m generally opposed to destroying things. In some cases, however, e.g., in the case of bedbugs, black-widow spiders, and bacteria causing diseases from botulism to bubonic plague, destruction seems desirable – and without doubt, the world is certainly plagued with “holy books”, witness:

• Estimates are available that there are approximately 7.5 billion Bibles in the world. Since 1908, the Gideons alone, have distributed “close to 1.5 billion” Bibles. Last year, the Gideons distributed 26,000 Bibles in Chattanooga, TN, alone (population of ~ 500,000).

• Approximately 800 million copies of the Koran have been sold; I couldn’t find an estimate for how many copies of the Koran have been given away, but last year, “about 18,000 to 20,000 copies” of the Koran were hung on doorknobs in Dearborn, MI, alone (population ~90,000), and “from July 2007 to May 2008, 70,000 [copies of the Koran]… were distributed in Chicago and 30,000 in Houston.”

• Even the relatively minor Mormon cult (membership claimed to be about 10 million) has printed more than 100 million copies of their Book of Mormon and distributed them around the world.

Thus, even without inquiring of Google how many other “holy books” have been printed, it seems obvious that the world is infected with “holy books.”

Meanwhile, of course it’s silly to call any book ‘holy’ – in my dictionary’s sense of “dedicated or consecrated to God”, because the most certain knowledge that humans have been able to gain (even more certain than the knowledge that we exist!) is that no god exists or has ever existed. More realistically, “holy books” are “dedicated and consecrated” to the clerics who peddle them in their con games for their own profit, in lieu of working for a living.

Further, the reasoning of one of the most influential founders of the American government, Thomas Paine (1737-1809), in his 1794 book The Age of Reason should have put the silliness to rest, once-and-for-all, that “holy books” are “revelations” from God. An illustration of Paine’s reasoning is given in the following quotation – for which I’ve taken the liberty to update some of its punctuation and spelling and I’ve added a few consistent changes and comments in brackets [such as these].

Every… [organized, revealed] religion has established itself by pretending some special mission from God, communicated to certain individuals: the Jews have their Moses; the Christians [have] their Jesus Christ… the [Muslims] have their Muhammad [and, after Paine wrote this, the Mormons had the Rigdon-Smith conspiracy]… Each of those [religions rely on]… certain books, which they call revelation, or the word of God: the Jews say that their word of God was given by God to Moses, face to face; the Christians say that their word of God came by divine inspiration; and the [Muslims] say that their word of God was brought by an angel from Heaven [just as the Mormons claim, for their Book of Mormon]. Each of those [religions] accuse the other of unbelief; and for my own part, I disbelieve them all.

As it is necessary to affix right ideas to words, I will, before I proceed further into the subject, offer some other observations on the word ‘revelation’. Revelation, when applied to religion, means something communicated immediately from God to man. No one will deny or dispute the power of the Almighty to make such a communication, if He pleases [if he were to exist!]. But admitting, for the sake of [argument], that something has been revealed to a certain person, and not revealed to any other person, it is revelation to that [first] person only. When he tells it to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, and so on, it ceases to be a revelation to all those persons. It is revelation to the first person only, and hearsay to every other, and consequently they are not obliged to believe it.

It is a contradiction in terms and ideas to call anything a revelation that comes to us at second-hand, either verbally or in writing. Revelation is necessarily limited to the first communication – after this, it is only an account of something which that person says was a revelation made to him; and though he may find himself obliged to believe it, it cannot be incumbent on me to believe it in the same manner; for it was not a revelation made to me, and I have only his word for it that it was made to him.

When Moses told the children of Israel that he received the two tables of the Commandments from the hands of God, they were not obliged to believe him, because they had no other authority for it than his telling them so; and I have no other authority for it than some “historian” telling me so. The commandments carry no internal evidence of divinity with them; they contain some good moral precepts, such as any man qualified to be a lawgiver, or a legislator, could produce himself, without having recourse to supernatural intervention. [Paine adds the footnote: “It is, however, necessary to except the declaration which says that God visits the sins of the fathers upon the children; it is contrary to every principle of moral justice.”]

When I am told that the Quran was written in Heaven and brought to Muhammad by an angel, the account comes too near the same kind of hearsay evidence and second-hand authority as the former [and similarly for the Book of Mormon]. I did not see the angel myself, and, therefore, I have a right not to believe it.

When also I am told that a woman called the Virgin Mary, said, or gave out, that she was with child without any cohabitation with a man, and that her betrothed husband, Joseph, said that an angel told him so, I have a right to believe them or not. Such a circumstance requires much stronger evidence than their bare word for it. But we have not even this – for neither Joseph nor Mary wrote any such matter themselves; it is only reported by others that they said so. It is hearsay upon hearsay, and I do not choose to rest my belief upon such evidence…

The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been the most destructive to the peace of man since man began to exist. Among the most detestable villains in history, you could not find one worse than Moses, who gave an order to butcher the boys, to massacre the mothers and then rape the daughters. One of the most horrible atrocities found in the literature of any nation. I would not dishonor my Creator’s name by attaching it to this filthy book…

The study of theology… is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authority; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion… All national institutions of churches, whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, appear to me no other than human inventions, set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit…

Of all the tyrannies that affect mankind, tyranny in religion is the worst; every other species of tyranny is limited to the world we live in; but this attempts to stride beyond the grave, and seeks to pursue us into eternity.

In reality, it’s been well known for more than a century that the “revelations” recorded in all “holy books” are just records of ignorant speculations by primitive people. Some examples of such assessments are the following:

All men have heard of the Mormon Bible, but few except the “elect” have seen it, or, at least, taken the trouble to read it. I brought away a copy from Salt Lake. The book is a curiosity to me, it is such a pretentious affair, and yet so “slow”, so sleepy, such an insipid mess of inspiration. It is chloroform in print. [Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain; 1835–1910)]

I studied the Koran a great deal ... I came away from that study with the conviction that by and large there have been few religions in the world as deadly to men as that of Muhammad. [Alexis De Tocqueville (1805–59)]

Having thus given a cursory view of the Qur’an I lay it before the sensible persons, with the purpose that they should know what kind of book the Qur’an is. If they ask me, I have no hesitation to say that it cannot be work either of God or of a learned man, nor can it be a book of knowledge. The Qur’an is the result of ignorance, the source of animalization of humans… a fruitful cause of destroying peace, an incentive to war, a propagator of hostility amongst men and a promoter of suffering in society. [Dayananda Saraswati (1824–83)]

A God who could make good children as easily as bad, yet preferred to make bad ones; who could have made every one of them happy, yet never made a single happy one; who made them prize their bitter life, yet stingily cut it short; who gave his angels eternal happiness unearned, yet required his other children to earn it; who gave his angels painless lives, yet cursed his other children with biting miseries and maladies of mind and body; who mouths justice, and invented hell – mouths mercy, and invented hell – mouths Golden Rules and forgiveness multiplied by seventy times seven, and invented hell; who mouths morals to other people, and has none himself; who frowns upon crimes, yet commits them all; who created man without invitation, then tries to shuffle the responsibility for man’s acts upon man, instead of honorably placing it where it belongs, upon himself; and finally, with altogether divine obtuseness, invites his poor abused slave to worship him! [Mark Twain (1835–1910)]

This Bible bears every evidence of being a book like every other book, conceived by man, written by man, altered by man, translated by man, printed by man, but – and this is where it differs from every other book – the Bible is swallowed by man. And it has disagreed with him; [but] man has not digested it properly through lack of sufficient dissection of its parts. It has been taken with a spiritual sauce that has disguised its real flavor. Anything in the Bible, no matter how raw, is taken as God’s food. It is used to demonstrate problems of diet which do not provide a balanced ration; it is accepted by the gullible though contradicted by the revelations of Geology, Astronomy, Anthropology, Zoology, and Biology. Taken as prescribed by the doctors of divinity, the Bible is a poisonous book. [William Floyd, 1871–1943]

The longer we live the more are we convinced that no adult person would accept the Bible as a divine work if he had not been taught the dogma of the Bible’s divinity when a child. Let the matured mind come to the perusal of the Bible without the religious prejudice in favor of its divine character, and it would reject the book as unworthy the consideration of the intelligent, educated mind. Let the refined sense, which all education in art, manners and social morals seeks to cultivate, begin to read the Bible, without the religious prejudice in favor of its sacred character, and before a dozen pages had been read, it would close the volume with disgust and hide it out of sight, or burn it as soon as possible.

The Bible’s divinity rests upon the mental and moral corruption of the young. Were children not taught that this book was sacred, men and women would look upon it as unholy. Do people realize what harm they are doing to the mind of the child when they teach it to accept the Bible as God’s word? They are telling the child that falsehood is sacred; that ignorance is holy; that foul stories are pure; that vile words are clean, in the mouth of God. Fathers and mothers would not tell their children what they, and what priests and ministers, tell them God wrote or inspired man to write.

What is needed today is to tell the truth about the Bible. Tell men and women that ignorant, uncultured, unrefined men wrote it hundreds of years ago, and that it is unfit in its present shape to put into the hands of a child that a mother wishes to grow up honest, true and pure. Liberals should not allow their children to touch the Bible. They should keep it from them until they are old enough to know that no book was ever written by a god, and then, if they read the Bible, they would see its true character. We must guard the minds of our children from Christian influences. We pity the child that is taught that the Bible is the word of God, but we despise the man that teaches this falsehood. [Lemuel K. Washburn (1846–1927)]

If a man would follow, today, the teachings of the Old Testament, he would be a criminal. If he would follow strictly the teachings of the New, he would be insane…

The real oppressor, enslaver, and corrupter of the people is the Bible. That book is the chain that binds, the dungeon that holds the clergy. That book spreads the pall of superstition over the colleges and schools. That book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest investigation a crime. That book fills the world with bigotry, hypocrisy and fear.

The book, called the Bible, is filled with passages equally horrible, unjust and atrocious. This is the book to be read in schools in order to make our children loving, kind and gentle! This is the book they wish to be recognized in our Constitution as the source of all authority and justice!

How long, O how long will mankind worship a book? How long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? How long, O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death? [Robert G. Ingersoll (1833–1899)]

In the subsequent century and more, even more damning assessments have been made of all “holy books”, but I’ll leave it to readers to explore such assessments on their own. For reasons detailed elsewhere, my own summaries are: as bad as the Bible is (and similarly, the Book of Mormon), the Koran is that much worse.

Here, I’ll end this post just with the serious recommendation that it would be good if everyone in the world would commemorate one of the innumerable hideous consequences of permitting “holy books” to pollute the world by denoting 9/11 as Discard a “holy book” Day – and do so!

Although, come to think of it, if you would prefer not to restrict yourself to discarding “holy books” only on September 11th, then I certainly wouldn’t try to deter you. In my view, the more “holy books” trashed, the better.

www.zenofzero.net
–––––––––––––––

A Monument to Folly

2010-08-05T13:57:00.000-07:00

•••
Yesterday, an ignorant and therefore dangerous editorial about the proposed “Ground-Zero Mosque” was published in The New York Times. Below, I’ve reproduced the first part of the editorial, with comments inserted.

August 4, 2010
A Monument to Tolerance

It has been disturbing to hear and read the vitriol and outright bigotry surrounding the building of a mosque two blocks from the site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. So it was inspiring when New York City’s Landmarks Preservation Commission voted 9 to 0 on Tuesday to reaffirm one of the basic tenets of democracy: religious tolerance.

What a horrible paragraph! First, it’s flat-out wrong to claim that the Commission’s vote dealt with “religious tolerance”; in reality, it voted on the only measure that it could, i.e., the proposal to identify the current building as a “landmark site”. Thereby, claiming that such a vote was for “religious tolerance” is a red herring. And as for describing opposition to the Mosque as “vitriol and outright bigotry”, such as statement is, itself, nothing but “vitriol and outright bigotry”.

Instead of caving in to the angry voices – many but not all of them self-promoting Republican politicians – commissioners paved the way for construction of the mosque and Islamic center. It was not just the right thing to do, it was the only thing to do.

What astoundingly biased writing! Instead of writing “Instead of caving in to the angry voices”, how about writing: “Instead of being responsive to the majority of New Yorkers”? As for “self-promoting Republican politicians”, are we to expect that they would promote Democrats? Don’t politicians generally promote themselves and their party? And as for “it was the only thing to do”, No! Just as the original American patriots did, the commissioners could have violated the law to defend our freedoms. That would have been “inspiring”.

The attacks of Sept. 11 were not a religious event. They were mass murder. The American response, as President Obama and President George W. Bush before him have said many times, was not a war against Islam.

For a change, the editorial's writer got something correct – but what’s stated is correct for multiple, incorrect reasons! First, it’s correct to say that “the attacks of Sept. 11 were not a religious event”, but not because Islamists didn’t consider the attacks a religious event. Instead, “the attacks… were not a religious event”, because Islam is not a religion: Islam uses the trappings of religion to promote the political goal of world domination – just as the Nazis did (recall, “Gott mit uns”). Second, yes, it’s correct to say that the attacks were “mass murder”, but by associating the second sentence with the first, the writer misleads the reader: if the writer were knowledgeable and honest, the two sentences would have led the reader to conclude, correctly, that just as the Nazis did, Islamists engage in “mass murder” in pursuit of their supremacist goal. And yes, the third sentence in the above paragraph does describe “the American response”, but the writer fails to mention how seriously in error the American response has been: Americans have failed to recognize that the threat of Islam is essentially the same as were the threats from Nazism and Communism.

It was not surprising that Republican ideologues like Newt Gingrich and Sarah Palin came out against the mosque. A Congressional candidate in North Carolina has found it to be a good way to get attention and, yes, stoke prejudice against Muslims. We expect this sort of behavior from these kinds of Republicans. They have been shamelessly playing the politics of fear since 9/11.

Talk about shameless! I’m not a Republican, but I don’t consider attempts to alert the public to the dangers of Islam to be “playing the politics of fear”; instead, I consider ignoring the dangers of Islam to be playing the politics of burying one’s head in the sand while wearing rose-colored glasses. Has the writer read the Koran? If not, here’s a brief summary: similar to Hitler’s Mein Kampf, the Koran describes Muhammad’s plan for how his henchmen can rule the world.

Some of the families of the victims of the attacks, who deserve our respect and sympathy, are uneasy about the mosque. But it would be a greater disservice to the memories of their loved ones to give into the very fear that the terrorists wanted to create and, thus, to abandon the principles of freedom and tolerance.

But it would be not nearly so great a “disservice” (to both the victims and their families) as for the ignorant journalist who wrote the editorial to suggest that opposing another Islamic mosque abandons “the principles of freedom”! Instead, banning all Mosques in America (just as meeting places for Nazis and Communists were banned) would be a beachhead in defense of freedom, because if Muslims succeed in their plans, then American freedoms will vanish as fast as the Islamists can scream “Allah Akbar”.

The rest of the editorial is just twaddle, suggesting that neither the authors of a statement by the Anti-Defamation League (a statement criticized in the editorial) nor Mayor Bloomberg (with his statement that the proposed mosque is “as important a test of separation of church and state as any we may see in our lifetime”) understand Islam. When are such ignorant people going to learn something about what they’re apparently so eager to talk about and defend? For example, in Islam there’s no such thing as separation of religion and state. Again, Islam is not a religion: it’s a political ideology that uses the trappings of religion to further its political agenda – and fool the ignorant.

In summary, the proposed mosque wouldn’t be (as stated in the editorial’s heading) “a monument to [American] tolerance”. Instead, it would be a monument to American folly and to Islamic deceit (i.e., taqiyya).

www.zenofzero.net
•••

An Open Letter to Bill Gates and Warren Buffett

2010-06-28T10:36:00.000-07:00

Gentlemen: Thank you for your philanthropy and for your recent initiative to stimulate other billionaires to pledge support for what they consider to be worthy causes. In this letter, I hope to convey some ideas about the term “worthy causes” and to provide some examples for your further consideration – examples for which (I hasten to add, in an attempt to keep your attention) I have zero financial and only philanthropic interest.

That the meaning of “worthy causes” deserves further consideration can be illustrated with the banner and frequently repeated slogan at the website of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation: “All Lives Have Equal Value”. Of course it’s common to try to summarize any organization’s mission in a short, memorable slogan, but surely the Foundation’s choice is not optimal: it’s not generally accepted as correct (e.g., the majority of people would probably maintain that a murderer’s life has less value than the life of the murderer’s victim) and it’s ambiguous (e.g., one can immediately ask, “Value for what?”).

I expect that the idea contained in the Foundation’s Guiding Principle #14 is closer to the intended meaning of the Foundation’s goal, namely, “To increase opportunity and equity for those most in need.” This statement too, however, seems deficient, since as Communism demonstrated, ‘need’ is a nebulous term: are those “in need” most in need of food, health, education, money, intelligence, ambition, determination, perseverance, a sound morality, “street smarts”, or what?

The first point I would therefore suggest for your consideration is that, whereas words such as ‘worthy’, ‘value’ and ‘need’ have meaning only relative to some objective, then before rationally engaging in any philanthropic activity (literally meaning “[activity showing] love of humanity”), the critical first step is to establish objectives. Once objectives are defined, than any activity’s value or worthiness can be judged relative to the chosen objectives.

Now, granted that some people may respond that any act showing love of humanity is philanthropic; love is valuable; therefore, all philanthropic activities are of value. Such an opinion demonstrates some logic, but it suffers from three major inadequacies: 1) It neglects to address the question “why is love valuable?”, 2) It provides no practical guidance for how to show “love of humanity” (one could, for example, publish a poem that conveys one’s love for humanity), and 3) For philanthropic people or foundations with finite budgets, it provides no practical guidance for determining what philanthropy contains the most value for the investment?

The guests at your first dinner meeting obviously had already attempted to address such problems for themselves, and the report of the resulting discussion describes the expected philanthropic topics: “education, again and again; culture; hospitals and health; the environment; public policy; the poor generally.” Listing such topics, however, does little to gain traction answering questions about how to proceed.

To gain some traction, a first step is to assign a meaning to ‘value’ relative to a more concrete and practical objective. One possible objective can be derived by modifying the Gates’ Foundation Guiding Principle #14. For example, perhaps Guiding Principle #14 should be changed from “to increase opportunity and equity for those most in need” to the shorter statement: “to increase human opportunities.” Such a statement, however, admittedly seems too general, especially when funds are limited.

I therefore suggest that, to gain substantially more traction, it’s necessary to start from some fundamentals. Consequently, I request your additional forbearance while I first review some fundamentals. After doing so, I’ll apply the results to suggest solutions to the problem at hand.

The basic question is: What’s the purpose? The more general and fundamental question is: What’s the purpose of life? Fortunately, a simple and obviously correct (even if somewhat tautological) answer is: the purpose of life is to live.

More complicated is to identify the prime purpose of humans, where by “prime purpose” is meant (as in systems theory) the goal (or set of goals) for which all other (then, lower-priority) goals would be sacrificed to achieve the prime goal (or goals). Identifying our prime goals may seem to be complicated, but in the end (as I’ve analyzed elsewhere), the result is rather simple and obvious. Thus, all humans pursue an interdependent trio of survival (or “thrival”) goals: of themselves, their families (whatever they recognize as the extent of their “families”), and their values.

As might be expected and as I’ve also analyzed still elsewhere, defining, understanding, and identifying the origins of the values held by a particular person or group of people can be fairly complicated. For rational agnostic or secular or scientific humanists such as yourselves, however, it’s a relatively easy task and the results are rather obvious. For example, recognizing all humans to be members of the same “human family”, we value that which (in the more general version of the Foundation’s Guiding Principle #14) “increases human opportunities.”

Other summaries with similar meaning, however, can be more transparent. For example, as Robert Ingersoll said in his last public address (in 1899):

Man has a little intelligence, and he should use it. Intelligence is the only lever capable of raising mankind.

Thus, consistent with Ingersoll’s assessment and with the principle “to increase human opportunities”, other statements of the goal could be “to help solve human problems more intelligently”, “to help intelligence go on”, and similar, where ‘intelligence’ can be displayed in the full range of human accomplishments, from poetry to physics, from cooking to computing, from dancing to diplomacy, and so on.

With such statements of the overall goal in mind, one can now rationally address the question: What projects would be most worthwhile (relative to the adopted goal) and be most efficaciously undertaken by philanthropic individuals or foundations with large (but finite) financial resources? In addressing that question, it’s essential (of course) to account for other ongoing philanthropic and governmental activities, since duplication of effort certainly isn’t efficacious. It’s also important to realize that most governments are constrained from undertaking many worthwhile activities.

As a result of such considerations, one set of philanthropic activities commonly pursued deals with human health. Thus, just as health is fundamental for individuals and their families to thrive, it’s common for philanthropic organizations to consider ways to help more humans live more healthful lives – or even to help them to just survive. Whether or not such activities are efficacious, however, leads to many questions, such as the following:

• In view of the enormous ongoing investments in improving human health (by other NGOs, industries, and governmental organizations, including the WHO), what new philanthropic activity would be efficaciously undertaken?

• What are root causes of specific hindrances to human health; in particular, is the root cause of the poor health of so many of the world’s poor simply that there are too many people straining limited natural resources?

• In such cases and in the long run, would short-term amelioration of a specific hindrance to human health actually lead to even greater human misery, e.g., resulting from even more population pressures on limited natural resources?

Such questions then commonly lead to considerations of ways that philanthropic organizations might assist humanity to engage in sustainable development, which as you know, is a huge subject area. In this letter, therefore, I’ll necessarily treat the subject superficially.

The basic difficulty inhibiting sustainable development is, of course, too many people consuming too much of the world’s finite resources. In theory, a solution is for people to voluntarily restrict consumption, but indications are that, instead, many more people (e.g., in China, India, and “the Muslim world”) understandably seek to emulate “the good life” of people in the West. In the relatively near future, therefore, stresses on the world’s ecosystems are more likely to dramatically increase than decrease. Consequently, most researchers who have studied existing and future problems dealing with sustainable development have concluded that, if the problems can be solved (which is by no means certain), then during this century, it’s urgent that the world’s human population be reduced by approximately an order of magnitude and then stabilize.

An obvious need therefore exists for efficacious activities to promote birth control. As you undoubtedly know, however, many obstacles inhibit developing sound family-planning policies. Given the irrational but powerful influences of religious groups (especially Catholic and most Muslim clerics), most governments are unable to undertake the needed actions. In addition, few philanthropic organizations seem willing to endure the passions with which such policies are attacked (by clerics, their followers, and others). Nonetheless, I urge you to consider ways to stimulate humane methods for decreasing the world’s population, e.g., with worldwide distribution of free birth-control devices and methods. The cost of a successful program would probably be tens of billions of dollars; the consequences will almost certainly be worth hundreds of trillions of dollars.

In addition, though, because of objections that will be raised against promoting and assisting birth control, there is an associated critical need to undertake appropriate educational activities. To outline this educational need, perhaps it would be useful to broach the subject more broadly.

Thus, if the goal of helping intelligence expand is to be advanced, then no doubt you agree that people’s minds must be capable of critical thought and, therefore, free of dogma. At present, however, dogma (particularly religious dogma) is rampant, especially in countries contaminated by the Catholic Church and by Islam. Therefore, a most important undertaking by enlightened philanthropic organizations is to help “the masses” in such countries to (in the words of Antisthenes) “unlearn the evil”. Their own governments of course refuse to do so (or refuse even to recognize the problem), and the U.S. government, for example, apparently finds it too “politically sensitive” to meaningfully try.

The best way to bring the ideas of the Enlightenment to “the masses” is, of course, to use the mass media. Elsewhere (e.g., here and here) I’ve provided a few ideas about how to do so; Hugh Fitzgerald has provided some ideas about how to try to enlighten Muslims still shrouded in Islam’s version of the Dark Ages; many more ideas should be explored – and the best of them implemented. The hardware costs of, for example, creating a resulting worldwide television network devoted to “enlightening the masses” would probably be only a few billion, but the operating costs (for producing quality programs and broadcasting them in local languages) would probably be additional billions per year.

I hope you’ll consider adopting as top priorities the above-outlined, coupled activities. In my view they sum to a “virtuous circle of philanthropy”, consisting of improved human health from sustainable development via family planning and using mass media for enlightening education. In addition, though, and with ‘value’ continuing to be measured with respect to the goal of helping intelligence to go on and to expand (or some statement with similar meaning), then many other activities would benefit from philanthropic support. Below, I’ll mention a few.

For example, it’s understandably difficult for even the most intelligent humans to obtain financial support to study, in Donald Rumsfeld’s words, “unknown unknowns”, especially those unknowns that have the potential to terminate life on Earth. Western governments are investing in studies to eliminate the possibilities of an asteroid devastating life on Earth and of humans being eliminated by a “super bug” (both being “somewhat-known unknowns”), but imaginative studies associated with the Fermi paradox (i.e., the question: if life is common in the universe, then why has no other life form contacted us?) deserve more financial support, as do studies that attempt to identify other “unknown unknowns”.

One partially-known unknown (which requires substantial study and is related to both the Fermi paradox and to current social conditions) is related to the possibility of a future technological catastrophe. History has shown that every technological advance (from farming to industrial manufacturing) has led to social upheavals, including revolutions, but many more and more penetrating social and psychological studies are needed that attempt to extrapolate to consequences of widespread use of advanced artificial intelligence, artificial organs, genetic manipulation, nanotechnology, etc.

Special studies are needed, also, to examine the consequences of deterioration of the gene pool (e.g., via medical “advances”) and of the reality that workers with the least appreciation of leisure time are usually the ones who acquire most leisure from technological advances. To illustrate, I’d guess that, currently in the U.S., there are somewhere around 10 million unemployed who “don’t know what to do with themselves”, whereas I wonder if, during the past decade, you’ve had a single day when you felt you had nothing to do.

If intelligent life is to continue and to expand, formal education is certainly critical, but whereas essentially all governments invest in such education, philanthropic activities should be targeted precisely. In the West, for example, and particularly in the U.S. (in contrast, for example, with the case of India and Pakistan), it’s questionable if any philanthropic organization should attempt to improve the quality of formal education. In general in the West, education tools and methods are adequate; in contrast, what’s seriously deficient (in an atrociously many students) is eagerness to learn.

Psychological and sociological studies of the nature and cause of the lack of interest and ambition in western school children might usefully be funded by philanthropic organizations. Elsewhere (e.g., start here) I’ve suggested some governmental actions that might someday be possible, e.g., redefining educational funding to base it on student achievement. But from personal experiences, I found that the backbreaking job of picking crops in the searing summer heat was a powerful incentive to study harder.

In the U.S., therefore, perhaps no solution will be found until competition from other nations results in still further (and significant) deterioration in the quality of life of the majority of Americans. Yet, it would be at least interesting to determine results from a philanthropic organization’s funding the arrangement, implementation, and evaluation of summer-work programs even for elementary school children (e.g., renovating blighted urban areas), to determine if physical labor might teach youngsters some of the advantages of more eagerly pursuing their education.

Potentially of more value would be targeted philanthropic educational activities in other countries (particularly in Central and South America, Africa, some Asian countries, and most Muslim nations). If every child in such countries could read English and had Internet access, literally thousands of future Einsteins, Gandhis, and Shakespeares would probably emerge. The costs would again be tens of billions of dollars, but again the consequences could be worth trillions. Again, however, it would be necessary to overcome entrenched religious ideas and associated power structures; therefore, the above-outlined activities to “enlighten the masses” may need to precede attempts to provide every child in the world with knowledgeable access to Internet resources. And I would add even the obvious remark that it’s especially important to improve (or in some cases, to initiate) the education of girls throughout the world, since they are the primary future bearers and healers of any culture.

Admittedly there are many other projects that I hope would be funded by philanthropic organizations. For example, I would go so far as to say that no organization should portray itself as a lover of humanity that doesn’t devote a meaningful fraction of its resources to the arts, nature, science, mathematics, interpersonal relations, or to whatever its founders consider to be beautiful. But in spite of this letter’s shortcomings, I hope that you find some of the ideas mentioned in it to be useful, and in any case, I convey my best wishes for success in your philanthropic endeavors.

cc. George Soros, Ted Turner

PS.
By the way, I notice that, this week, a Pakistan court has ordered the blocking of many Internet sites, including www.islam-exposed.org, www.jihadwatch.org, www.skepticsannotatedbible.com, ww.middle-east-info.org, www.faithfreedom.org, www.thereligionofpeace.com, www.abrahamic-faith.com, www.muhammadlied.com, www.prophetofdoom.net, www.worldthreats.com, www.voiceofbelievers.com, and www.walidshoebat.com. I would hope that some philanthropic foundation (e.g., the Gates Foundation) would relatively quickly fund methods to circumvent and prevent such despicable blocking of paths to enlightenment.

www.zenofzero.net

Jesus said…“if you pray, you will be condemned.”

2010-05-09T04:59:00.000-07:00

Twenty-two years ago today, on 9 May 1988, President Reagan signed Public Law 100-307. It states:

The President shall issue each year a proclamation designating the first Thursday in May as a National Day of Prayer on which the people of the United States may turn to God in prayer and mediation at churches, in groups, and as individuals.

I don’t think that it’s such a bad law – provided, of course, that the people are discouraged from praying to God on all other days of the year! That is, although prayer is flagrantly immoral and terribly demeaning, I don’t expect that too much harm would be done if – not more than once per year – people demean themselves and behave immorally. It would be like a once-per-year drinking binge, whose hangover might prevent recurrence during the rest of the year.

But Judge Barbara B. Crabb disagrees: last month, she ruled the “National-Day-of-Prayer” law to be unconstitutional. So, apparently in her opinion, even on a single day per year, people shouldn’t “turn to God in prayer…” In her judgment she states:

It bears emphasizing that a conclusion that the establishment clause prohibits the government from endorsing a religious exercise is not a judgment on the value of prayer or the millions of Americans who believe in its power. No one can doubt the important role that prayer plays in the spiritual life of a believer. In the best of times, people may pray as a way of expressing joy and thanks; during times of grief, many find that prayer provides comfort. Others may pray to give praise, seek forgiveness, ask for guidance or find the truth… However, recognizing the importance of prayer to many people does not mean that the government may enact a statute in support of it, any more than the government may encourage citizens to fast during the month of Ramadan, attend a synagogue, purify themselves in a sweat lodge or practice rune magic…

Judge Crabb makes many good points in her ruling (which, unfortunately, is being appealed). For example, in the quotation above, she raises the question about “the value of prayer.” Some might think that, in her position as a member of the judiciary, she shouldn’t address such a question, but I disagree: whereas praying attempts to corrupt natural justice, personal justice, and interpersonal justice, it would be highly appropriate for a member of the judiciary to rule on “the value of prayer”.

Elsewhere, I’ve already explored how prayer corrupts natural, personal, and interpersonal justice, as well as how it demeans the supplicant and is immoral. Here, therefore, I’ll present only some summary opinions of others:

Prayer is like a pump in an empty well, it makes lots of noise, but brings no water. [Lemuel Washburn]

Praying is like a rocking chair – it’ll give you something to do, but it won’t get you anywhere. [Gypsy Rose Lee]

To think that the ruler of the universe will run to my assistance and bend the laws of nature for me is the height of arrogance. [Dan Barker]

Whatever a man prays for, he prays for a miracle. Every prayer reduces itself to this: “Great God, grant that twice two be not four.” [Ivan Turgenev]

Prayers never bring anything… They may bring solace to the sap, the bigot, the ignorant, the aboriginal, and the lazy – but to the enlightened it is the same as asking Santa Claus to bring you something for Xmas. [W.C. Fields]

Over the years I realized the god I prayed to was the god I invented. When I was talking to him, I was talking to myself. He had no understanding or qualities that I did not have. When I realized god was an extension of my imagination, I stopped praying to him. [Howard Kreisner]

To pray for anything, which we can obtain by the due application of our natural powers, and neglect the means of procuring it, is impertinence and laziness in the abstract… for example, to pray for more wisdom, understanding, grace, or faith; for a more robust constitution, handsomer figure, or more of a gigantic size, would be the same as telling God that we are dissatisfied with our inferiority in the order of being; that neither our souls nor bodies suit us; that he has been too sparing of his beneficence; that we want more wisdom, and organs better fitted for show, agility, and superiority… “Whosoever lacketh wisdom,” instead of “asking it of God,” let him improve what he has… this is all the possible way of gaining in wisdom and knowledge… But it is too common for great faith and little knowledge to unite in the same person; such persons are beyond the reach of argument… The only way to procure food, raiment, or the necessaries or conveniences of life, is by natural means; we do not get them by wishing or praying for, but by actual exertion; and the only way to obtain virtue or morality is to practice and habituate ourselves to it, and not to pray to God for it… This is all the religion which reason knows or can ever approve of. [Ethan Allen]

The first and most forthright count in the accusation against prayer is that it is infinitely degrading to the human ego. As it springs out of the ego’s profound sense of his inferior and dependent status, out of the recognition of his base and helpless nature in relation to the power prayed to, these basic assumptions in the case and the posture and habit of mind bent to conformity with them inevitably tend to strengthen and more deeply ingrain on the subconscious life of the individual so conditioned the dominant obsession of one’s lowness and unworthiness. The “prayer consciousness” thus endlessly renews and sharpens the self-infliction of a most injurious psychological trauma upon the human psyche. In the simplest form of statement prayer thus constantly beats down the human spirit. It throws over it a heavy pall of depression, of negative cast of consciousness, of self-accusation, and self-depreciation…

The deleterious influence of prayer reaches perhaps its climactic point of disservice in its disastrous inhibition of man’s impulse to overt action in all contingencies in which resolute action is crucial. It strikes at man’s truest interests when it persuades him to pray instead of acting. When prayer steps in to paralyze the spirit of resolute self-exertion and causes him to stand as an impotent beggar when prompt action alone will save, it is of all things most damaging… It is the contention here that the prayer habit, leading men to substitute prayer for needed action, is the cause of untold evil, wreckage, defeat, and tragedy in the run of history. Prayer puts a specious value on cowardice, or offers a tempting resort to it. And mankind suffers the consequences of its failure to act. [Alvin Kuhn]

The above quotations contain substantial wisdom. Yet, given that there are so many Christians in the U.S. who disagree with Judge Crabb’s decision, perhaps it would be more efficacious to call their attention to their Christ’s assessment of prayer as given in the Gospel of Thomas, v.14:

Jesus said… “if you pray, you will be condemned…”

His statement might have been closer to the truth, however, if he had said: “If you pray, you condemn yourself.”

www.zenofzero.net

On Bailing Out Believers Banned from Paradise

2010-04-12T04:22:00.000-07:00

Well, I’m sorry if it’s depressing, but all believers in the Abrahamic god (i.e., all religious Jews, Christians, Muslims, Mormons, etc.) are banned from eternal life. That is, although they apparently wish otherwise, all evidence points to the inescapable conclusion that, rather than being awarded eternal life in paradise, the fate of “true believers” is the same as for the rest of us: this one life is all that anyone gets; when people die, they’re dead; “dust to dust” (Genesis 3, 19). Fortunately for them, however, a way has been found to bail them out of their predicament of being banned from paradise. Below, I’ll outline first the problem and then the solution.

The source of their problem is described in their tale about Adam and Eve. Thus, after Adam and Eve ate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge (of good and evil), that is, after they developed capabilities to make their own moral judgments, their god made it perfectly clear (Genesis 3, 22–24):

He [God] said: “The man has become like one of us [gods], knowing good and evil; what if he now reaches out his hand and takes fruit from the Tree of Life also, eats it, and lives for ever?” So the Lord God drove him [Adam, along with Eve] out of the Garden of Eden to till the ground from which he had been taken. He cast him out, and to the east of the Garden of Eden he stationed the cherubim and a sword whirling and flashing to guard the way to the Tree of Life.

So, not only are believers in the Abrahamic god banned from eternal life in paradise, their god even established a security patrol, “the cherubim”, with “a sword whirling and flashing”, to prevent their attempts to thwart his ban.

For reasonable people, that’s the end of the dream of eternal life in paradise: this life is all we get; so, let’s make the best of it. Clerics saw, however, that many people (maybe most people) weren’t reasonable: they still sought eternal life in paradise, even though their god expressly prohibited it. Thereby, clerics of various persuasions saw potentials for lucrative con games – substantially compounding problems for “true believers”.

For example, Jewish clerics (following examples set by earlier Egyptian, Persian, and Indian priests) were the first in the Abrahamic religions to concoct a scheme to leech off the people, in spite of the clear communication from their god (or from earlier Jewish clerics) that the people had developed their own sense of morality and, therefore, the people had no need for any “moral commandments” (either from any god or any cleric). Yet, relying on the premiss that many (most?) people are unreasonable, the Jewish clerics concocted a host of “commandments” claiming that the commandments were direct from their god! But that’s silly: according to the above quotation from Genesis 3, 22–24, their god already recognized that humans had “become like one of us, knowing good and evil.” What craziness, then, for the clerics to claim that humans needed clerical help in defining morality – morality which just happened to include the requirement that the people were to pay the clerics for running their con game.

Next came the Christian clerics. Thus, seeing and no doubt envying the success of the Jewish clerics’ con game, Christian clerics decided to try to cash in on the people’s gullibility. In reality, though, the Christian clerics at first encountered substantial difficulties, because the Jewish clerics had already set prices (collection fees) on almost every “sin” imaginable: in total, there are (I think) 613 “commandments” in the Old Testament! Eventually, however, an insane fellow named Saul (later called “Saint” Paul) identified a new “sin”, allegedly committed by everyone and therefore a real money maker: “original sin”. According to “Saint” Paul’s crazy scheme:

1) The Abrahamic god either lied or changed his mind (even though he expressly stated that he never does either, e.g., see Numbers 23, 19; 1 Samuel 15, 29; Psalm 110, 4; Hebrews 7, 21);

2) Their god’s revised plan (according to Paul) was to kill his innocent son, Jesus, to atone for the sin of all humans (a sin allegedly derived simply from our being the progeny of Adam and Eve, who disobeyed their god and ate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge); and

3) Simultaneously, thereby, the Christian clerics claim that their god has no conception of justice (since they claim that he would sacrifice the innocent Jesus for the sins of the guilty, would punish innocent children for the alleged sins of their ancestors, and would judge Adam and Eve as guilty of disobeying his order when, before they gained knowledge of good and evil, it was impossible for them to know it was “good” to obey his order).

Now, admittedly, the above-outlined Christian scheme may seem bizarre. Consequently, to provide evidence that I’m not fabricating it, what follows is Paul’s own description of his scheme, starting in the New Testament at Romans 5, 12 [and to which I’ve added some notes in brackets].

Mark what follows [says Paul, and I’ll add: for it’s the mark of a man gone mad]. It was through one man [Adam, of Adam and Eve fame] that sin entered the world [Riiiiiiight], and through sin, death [Thus, in Paul’s deranged mind, death is not the natural course of all life, for the benefit of genetic survival (that is, through experience, DNA molecules found it to be efficacious to use only temporary hosts, with finite lifetimes, thereby providing more opportunities to adapt to changing environmental and biological conditions); instead, according to Paul, death is a punishment for sin], and thus death pervaded the whole human race, inasmuch as all men have sinned [and inasmuch as possibly no one, in the history of the world, has ever promoted such a stupid idea. How could Paul not have noticed that plants and animals also die? Or did he think that they “sinned” too? Every little bunny rabbit is a sinner? Daffodils sin?].

For sin was already in the world before there was law [viz., the Law of Moses – but, what a stupid statement! On the one hand, the “law” of causality was in existence, as were “laws” to promote the survival of each species’ genes, long before humans came on the scene, and on the other hand, how could anyone possibly break a law (i.e., “sinned”) if the law didn’t exist?!], though in the absence of law no reckoning is kept of sin. [Well, then, if it’s not “reckoned”, how is sin described? Further, in the absence of the “law” of causality, all is chaos!]

But death held sway from Adam to Moses, even over those who had not sinned as Adam did, by disobeying a direct command. [So, “the good” is to obey! – even though Adam didn’t know what ‘good’ meant!! Thus, even if people were so naïve as to buy into the silly story about Adam and Eve (fabricated thousands of years before Paul by people who were even more naïve), surely they could see that Adam didn’t sin, because he wasn’t permitted to know the difference between right and wrong. Therefore, Adam couldn’t know that it was ‘right’ to obey and ‘wrong’ to disobey! God might as well have told two bunny rabbits not to eat clover and not to have sex. For Paul (or God) to then claim that the bunny rabbits ‘sinned’ (because they ate clover and had sex) is crazy!]

But God’s act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing [I should certainly hope so, because Adam did nothing wrong!]. For if the wrongdoing of that one man brought death upon so many [It didn’t! How could anyone be so stupid as to claim that all people die because Adam ate an apple!], its effect [i.e., I guess, the effect of his “wrongdoing”] is vastly exceeded by the grace of God and the gift that came to so many by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ. [That is, God had Jesus killed to “atone” for Adam’s having eaten the apple! But how about, instead, if God had first told poor old Adam how to distinguish right from wrong and that he was supposed to obey?!]

And again, the gift of God [viz., eternal life] is not to be compared in its effect with that one man’s [viz., Adam’s] sin; for the judicial action, following upon the one offence, issued in a verdict of condemnation [Paul always wanted to be a lawyer, doncha know!], but the act of grace, following upon so many misdeeds [hello?], issued in a verdict of acquittal. [A lawyer gone mad!] For if by the wrong doing of that one man [Adam] death established its reign [it didn’t], through a single sinner, much more shall these who receive in far greater measure God’s grace, and his gift of righteousness, live and reign [in?] the one man, Jesus Christ. [Here’s a guy, Paul, fascinated by Roman law and perplexed by the question: “Why did Jesus die?” So, he invented a story – which is totally bizarre!]

It follows, then [in the twisted legal mind of “Saint” Paul, because for sane people, nothing could follow from this craziness – except, one would hope, incarceration of Paul in an institute for the insane!], that as the issue of one misdeed was condemnation for all men [in Paul’s astoundingly warped sense of justice! Can anyone with a functioning brain believe this crap? My great, great, great… grandfather ate an apple, so I’m guilty (and so is everyone else) and my sentence is the death penalty! What better word than ‘bonkers’?!], so the issue of one just act is acquittal and life for all men. [What sort of justice is this? Supposing, just for the sake of argument, that Paul’s insane ideas aren’t crazy; then how, pray tell, is it “just” to kill a totally innocent person, Jesus, for the “sins” of the “guilty”?!]. For as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners [That is, everyone’s a sinner, and subject to “the death penalty”, because Adam ate an apple!], so through the obedience of the one man [Jesus: obedient because he let his father kill him!] the many will be made righteous. [Thus, the only way that Paul saw to get out of his craziness was to double it!!]

Law intruded into this process to multiply law-breaking [that is, I guess, the Law of Moses introduced more ways to sin – as if the purpose of laws is to break them!]. But where sin was thus multiplied, grace immeasurably exceeded it [so it was “grace” for Jesus to let his father kill him!!], in order that, as sin established its reign by way of death, so God’s grace [viz., killing his son] might establish its reign in righteousness, and issue in eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Christian clerics then claimed that if people would just believe Paul’s craziness (and the associated inconsistencies, injustices, and immoralities of their god), then the people would be permitted to live forever in paradise (even though it was expressly against their god’s will) – provided, of course, that the people pay the new breed of Christian clerics for running their new con game

Subsequently, Muslim clerics decided to concoct their own con game. Perhaps they were perplexed by the complexity of the Jewish clerics’ scheme and were intrigued by the Christian clerics’ application of the principle, “less is more.” I suspect, however, that the Muslim clerics were most impressed by the power, prestige, and profit that could be gained from the people's gullibility. In any event, the Muslim clerics concocted a still-simpler con, claiming that their god didn’t forbid Adam and Eve to learn about morality (by eating from the Tree of Knowledge) but instead said (Koran 7, 19):

O Adam! Dwell you and your wife in the garden; so eat from where you desire, but do not go near this tree, for then you will be of the unjust.

According to my dictionary, ‘unjust’ means “not based on or behaving according to what is morally right and fair.” The Muslim clerics then claimed (and still claim) that by eating the fruit of the tree, Adam and Eve immediately became immoral:

…so when they tasted of the tree, their evil inclinations became manifest to them, and they both began to cover themselves with the leaves of the garden.

But that’s crazy! If Adam and Eve didn’t realize what was ‘evil’ until they “tasted of the tree” (i.e., if it was only after they ate fruit from the Tree of Knowledge that “evil inclinations became manifest to them”), then necessarily, prior to eating the fruit, they couldn’t have known what was ‘good’: it’s impossible to distinguish anything if no contrast is available! Consequently, Adam and Eve couldn’t have known that it was ‘good’ to do what their god said (and ‘evil’ to do otherwise), because without their knowing ‘evil’, it was impossible for them to know what was ‘good’. It then follows, logically, that their god is either unjust (punishing people without first letting them know the difference between ‘good’ and ‘evil’) or their god doesn’t exist.

But like all clerics before them, Muslim clerics counted on people being illogical. As a result and continuing to develop their con game, they promoted even more illogic and new ‘evils’ as ‘good’! Thus, they promoted (even demanded, under penalty of death): 1) That people believe that the clerics’ god existed (in spite of zero evidence to support the claim), 2) That people believe that their god was just (in spite of obvious evidence to the contrary), and 3) That people abandon their own judgments, replacing them with the clerics’ judgments – which just happened to include the judgment that the Muslim clerics should be paid plenty for running their con game!

As a result of such skullduggery by clerics of the Abrahamic religions, believers (in such nonsense) have been trapped in some truly “unholy” conundrums and irreverent predicaments. For example, the clerics permitted (in fact, even encouraged) their followers to believe that they could achieve eternal life in paradise (in spite of their god’s expressed ruling to the contrary), but by seeking such, the people violated their god’s expressed will! Thereby, followers of the Abrahamic clerics were (and still are) trapped in a terrible predicament: by opposing his ruling on their fate (“dust to dust”), they thereby break the first and claimed-to-be the most important of their god’s alleged commandments, i.e., to love and obey him. If they really did believe that their god exists, one would think that “true believers” would change their ways: they should immediately stop believing that they have any opportunity for eternal life in paradise, for fear of invoking their god’s wrath for their irreverence toward him!

Fortunately, help is available to bail out believers banned from paradise. All they need to is to return to the state that their ancestors allegedly achieved during their previous tenure in paradise, i.e., the ability to make their own moral judgments.

For those who wish to change their ways but are worried that they may no longer have the ability to define morality by themselves, I’d encourage them not to worry: it’s all rather obvious. For example, the highest personal morality is just to always use your brain as best you can; in a word, Evaluate! In other words, trust your own judgment; in more words, hold beliefs only as strongly as relevant evidence warrants.

As for interpersonal morality, many people have analyzed the problem and provided succinct summaries. A few illustrations, most with links to where further descriptions are available, are the following.

• Remember that, “what goes around, comes around.”

• “Love one another – within limits”, e.g., sometimes it’s necessary to do onto others, before they do it unto you!

• “Be kind – but with keenness”, e.g., sometimes it’s kindest to be cruel.

• Recognize that, everyone has an equal right to claim one’s own existence.

• “You ought to do what you would most want to do if you were reasoning correctly and aware of all the facts.” [Richard Carrier, Sense & Goodness Without God.]

• “Any kind of thing is bad if it, or the pursuit of it, increases the misery of living things upon the whole… Anything is good if the pursuit of it pleases somebody and does not increase misery…" [Richard Robinson, An Atheist’s Value (1964).]

Moreover, as the Oxford philosopher Richard Robinson (1902–1996) also described in his 1964 book An Atheist’s Values, humans esteem more than just our moral values. For example, we have practical desires for truth (or reliable knowledge) and aesthetic desires for beauty, and we have learned that it’s moral to pursue them (since, on the whole, they decrease misery and increase pleasure):

There is a great good for which the best one-word name is ‘Truth’ or ‘Knowledge’… The contemplation of Beauty, and especially the Beauty of nature, is an immense solace and joy, calming and cheering. It is shareable by all…

The morality of pursuing truth or knowledge, and the importance of holding our beliefs only as strongly as relevant evidence warrants, were described well in the 1879 essay The Ethics of Belief by the mathematical physicist William Kingdon Clifford (1845–1879, who introduced the idea that energy and matter are different types of curvature of space, an idea developed about 30 years later by Einstein in his General Theory of Relativity):

Belief, that sacred faculty which prompts the decisions of our will, and knits into harmonious working all the compacted energies of our being, is ours not for ourselves, but for humanity. It is rightly used on truths which have been established by long experience and waiting toil, and which have stood in the fierce light of free and fearless questioning. Then, it helps to bind men together and to strengthen and direct their common action. It is desecrated when given to unproved and unquestioned statements, for the solace and private pleasure of the believer; to add a tinsel splendor to the plain straight road of our life and display a bright mirage beyond it; or even to drown the common sorrows of our kind by a self-deception which allows them not only to cast down, but also to degrade us. Whoso would deserve well of his fellows in this matter will guard the purity of his belief with a very fanaticism of jealous care, lest at any time it should rest on an unworthy object, and catch a stain which can never be wiped away…

Every time we let ourselves believe for unworthy reasons, we weaken our powers of self-control, of doubting, of judicially and fairly weighing evidence. We all suffer severely enough from the maintenance and support of false beliefs and the fatally wrong actions which they lead to, and the evil born when one such belief is entertained is great and wide. But a greater and wider evil arises when the credulous character is maintained and supported, when a habit of believing for unworthy reasons is fostered and made permanent.

If I steal money from any person, there may be no harm done by the mere transfer of possession; he may not feel the loss, or it may prevent him from using the money badly. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself dishonest. What hurts society is not that it should lose its property, but that it should become a den of thieves; for then it must cease to be society. This is why we ought not to do evil that good may come; for at any rate this great evil has come, that we have done evil and are made wicked thereby.

In like manner, if I let myself believe anything on insufficient evidence, there may be no great harm done by the mere belief; it may be true after all, or I may never have occasion to exhibit it in outward acts. But I cannot help doing this great wrong towards Man, that I make myself credulous. The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things, though that is great enough; but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them; for then it must sink back into savagery.

The harm which is done by credulity in a man is not confined to the fostering of a credulous character in others, and consequent support of false beliefs. Habitual want of care about what I believe leads to habitual want of care in others about the truth of what is told to me. Men speak the truth to one another when each reveres the truth in his own mind and in the other’s mind; but how shall my friend revere the truth in my mind when I myself am careless about it, when I believe things because I want to believe them, and because they are comforting and pleasant? Will he not learn to cry, “Peace,” to me, when there is no peace? By such a course I shall surround myself with a thick atmosphere of falsehood and fraud, and in that I must live. It may matter little to me, in my cloud-castle of sweet illusions and darling lies; but it matters much to Man that I have made my neighbors ready to deceive. The credulous man is father to the liar and the cheat; he lives in the bosom of this his family, and it is no marvel if he should become even as they are. So closely are our duties knit together, that whoso shall keep the whole law, and yet offend in one point, he is guilty of all…

If a man, holding a belief which he was taught in childhood or persuaded of afterwards, keeps down and pushes away any doubts which arise about it in his mind, purposely avoids the reading of books and the company of men that call in question or discuss it, and regards as impious those questions which cannot easily be asked without disturbing it – the life of that man is one long sin against mankind…

To sum up:

• We may believe what goes beyond our experience, only when it is inferred from that experience by the assumption that what we do not know is like what we know.

• We may believe the statement of another person, when there is reasonable ground for supposing that he knows the matter of which he speaks, and that he is speaking the truth so far as he knows it.

• It is wrong in all cases to believe on insufficient evidence; and where it is presumption to doubt and to investigate, there it is worse than presumption to believe.

Consistent with Clifford’s evaluation, Robinson’s summary is also penetrating:

Religion is more of an evil than a good because it is gravely inimical to truth and reason… [Religious] Faith is a great vice, an example of obstinately refusing to listen to reason, something irrational and undesirable, a form of self-hypnotism… It follows that, far from its being wicked to undermine [religious] faith, it is a duty to do so. We ought to do what we can towards eradicating the evil habit of believing without regard to evidence…

In sum, then, religious people who have bought into clerical con games are engaged in horrible immoralities, including:

• The immorality to believe in the existence of any god (in the absence of any evidence),

• The immorality of believing that their alleged god is moral or just (when the evidence presented in their own “holy books” strongly suggests otherwise), and

• The immorality of yielding their own judgments (e.g., about morality) to anyone – and especially to any group of blatantly immoral, con-artist clerics.

Yet, although believers in the Abrahamic god have been highly immoral, hope for them is still available. To extricate themselves from their clerics’ con games, a first useful step might be for them to see that their imagined god is immoral, perhaps necessarily so. Thus, as Robinson points out:

There may be another harmful aspect to the capture of morality by religion. It may be that the gods are inevitably immoral, that is, that any god that ever has been or will be conceived acts immorally in some ways. We can, of course, all easily see that other people’s gods are immoral. Zeus behaved immorally; so did Moloch; and so on. I suggest that you will find that your own god is immoral too, if you can bring yourself to apply to him the moral standards that you apply to men. Surely it is immoral to condemn people to everlasting fire, or to blame them for the sins of their ancestors. Surely it is immoral to be omnipotent and yet allow the vast and continuing miseries of living things, or to demand that people believe without regard to evidence. All such conventional phrases as “God’s ways are inscrutable” are in use partly because they help to prevent us from seeing the immorality of the god we have conceived.

Now it seems likely that this immorality of all the gods so far invented is not an accident, but a necessary consequence of the religious impulse. It is probably connected with the element of worship in religion. One cannot abase oneself before a perfectly moral person, because a perfectly moral person treats one as an equal and as having a right to one’s way of life.

But beyond recognizing the likelihood that gods are necessarily immoral, people who seek to break free from their childhood indoctrination in the god idea will need to develop the courage to be honest with themselves, and thereby, acquire nobility. To help them find such courage and honesty, Robinson relays still more (in the conclusion of his book), even showing theists the way to arrive at a real paradise:

Cheerfulness is part of courage, and courage is an essential part of the right attitude. Let us not tell ourselves a comforting tale of a father in heaven because we are afraid to be alone, but bravely and cheerfully face whatever appears to be the truth.

The theist sometimes rebukes the pleasure-seeker by saying: “We were not put here to enjoy ourselves; man has a sterner and nobler purpose than that.” The atheist’s conception of man is, however, still sterner and nobler than that of the theist. According to the theist we were put here by an all-powerful and all-benevolent god who will give us eternal victory and happiness if we only obey him. According to the atheist our situation is far sterner than that. There is no one to look after us but ourselves, and we shall certainly be defeated.

As our situation is far sterner than the theist dares to think, so our possible attitude towards it is far nobler than he conceives. When we contemplate the friendless position of man in the universe (as it is right sometimes to do), our attitude should be the tragic poet’s affirmation of man’s ideals of behavior. Our dignity, and our finest occupation, is to assert and maintain our own self-chosen goods as long as we can, those great goods of beauty and truth and virtue. And among the virtues it is proper to mention in this connection above all the virtues of courage and love.

There is no person in this universe to love us except ourselves; therefore let us love one another. The human race is alone; but individual men need not be alone, because we have each other. We are brothers without a father; let us all the more for that behave brotherly to each other. The finest achievement for humanity is to recognize our predicament, including our insecurity and our coming extinction, and to maintain our cheerfulness and love and decency in spite of it, to prosecute our ideals in spite of it. We have good things to contemplate and high things to do. Let us do them.

As well, as Edward Fitzgerald (1809–83) wrote in his version of the Rubaiyat by the great Persian mathematician, astronomer, and poet Omar Khayyam (1048–1131):

A Book of Verses underneath the Bough,
A Jug of Wine, a Loaf of Bread – and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
O, Wilderness were Paradise enow!

Some for the Glories of This World; and some
Sigh for the Prophet's Paradise to come;
Ah, take the Cash, and let the Credit go,
Nor heed the rumble of a distant Drum!

…

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust unto Dust, and under Dust to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer, and – sans End!

www.zenofzero.net

One Nation, Divided by God, With Liberty and Justice for the Majority

2010-03-12T07:30:00.000-08:00

For those who for years have followed Michael Newdow’s heroic attempts to bring some legal relief to America’s atheists, fighting against the ignorance and arrogance of America’s religious majority, and for those who were stunned by the duplicity and obfuscation of the majority (two-to-one) opinion in yesterday’s ruling by the Ninth Circuit Appellate Court, there’s something to cheer, namely, the minority opinion written by Judge Stephen Roy Reinhardt. It’s here, starting on p. 3930. His dissenting opinion is long (136 pages; two-thirds of the entire, 201-page report!), but it’s brilliant. Illustrative is his following introductory statement:

I. The Majority’s Fundamental Errors

A reader of the majority opinion, if unfamiliar with the facts of this case and the law that intermediate courts are bound to apply to those facts, would be left with a number of misconceptions about both. It might be helpful to identify the most fundamental of those misconceptions at the outset, prior to engaging in the more detailed examination of the facts and the law that follows. Although the majority’s reasoning is far from clear, its conclusion that the state-directed, teacher-led, daily recitation of the “under God” version of the Pledge in public schools complies with the Establishment Clause appears to result from at least seven major errors in its legal analysis.

First, this case involves only the phrase “under God” as recited by young children as part of a state-directed, teacher-led, daily program in public schools. Only those two words are at issue. The plaintiffs in this case do not ask us to “strike down the Pledge” or to prohibit its recitation, as the majority claims. Rather, they ask only that the two words be stricken and that the state-directed, teacher-led, daily recitation return to the original, purely secular Pledge of Allegiance that schoolchildren had recited long before Congress enacted it into law in 1942, and long before Congress added the religious phrase at issue here by statutory amendment in 1954.

Second, the majority asserts that “under God” as that term appears in the amendment to the Pledge is not a religious phrase, and was not inserted in the Pledge for a religious purpose. Instead, the majority argues that “under God” is simply “a reference to the historical and political underpinnings of our nation,” that its purpose is to remind us that ours is a “limited government” and, thus, that the term as adopted by Congress has a predominantly secular meaning and purpose. There is simply no basis in fact or law for so absurd an assertion. If the plain meaning of the words “under God” were not enough to demonstrate beyond any doubt that the majority’s contention borders on the irrational, and that the term is predominantly, if not entirely, religious in both meaning and purpose, the overwhelmingly religious intent of the legislators who added the phrase to the Pledge, as shown by the unanimous statements to that effect in the Congressional Record, would remove any possible doubt from the mind of any objective person.

Third, the majority states that in order to determine the constitutionality of the amendment adding the phrase “under God” to the Pledge, we must examine the Pledge as a whole and not the amendment. Well-established controlling Supreme Court law is squarely to the contrary. See Wallace v. Jaffree, 472 U.S. 38 (1985). Wallace makes it clear, beyond dispute, that it is the amendment and its language, not the Pledge in its entirety, that courts must examine when, as here, it is the amendment, not the Pledge as a whole, that is the subject of the claim of unconstitutionality. The majority’s error in this respect causes it to analyze the legal issues improperly throughout its opinion. Examining the wrong issue inevitably leads the majority to reach the wrong result.

Fourth, the amendment to the Pledge that added the phrase “under God” was, contrary to the majority’s contention, adopted in 1954, not in 2002. Congress’s reaffirmation of the “under God” amendment in response to this court’s Newdow I decision is of no legal consequence. Congress could not and did not change the meaning and purpose of the 1954 amendment in 2002 and did not purport to do so. It simply proclaimed that we [The Ninth Circuit Court] were wrong in our legal ruling and that we erred in our constitutional analysis of the First Amendment issue. Although the 2002 Congress did not purport to suggest a different purpose for Congress’s 1954 action than did the earlier Congress, even had it sought to add a secular purpose, such as to remind us of our nation’s “limited government” or “historical principles of governance,” doing so would not have changed the overwhelmingly predominant religious meaning and purpose of the amendment. See McCreary County v. ACLU of Ky., 545 U.S. 844 (2005). Nor, certainly, would it have changed the effect of the amendment upon the schoolchildren who are subjected to the state-directed, teacher-led, daily recitations of the Pledge.

Fifth, the majority suggests that the School District’s policy is constitutional because under that policy only “willing” students recite the Pledge. The majority does not and cannot make that argument explicitly, however, because it is well established that the Constitution forbids governmental coercion, and not just compulsion, of religious belief. The majority acknowledges at a later point in its opinion that public schoolchildren are “coerced to participate” in the state-directed, teacher-led recitation of the “under God” version of the Pledge, but then excuses that coercion on other grounds that are as fallacious as its initial argument.

Sixth, the majority repeatedly asserts that under the coercion test only “religious exercises” may be deemed unconstitutional. The majority’s “religious exercise” limitation conflicts with the express holding of Lee v. Weisman, 505 U.S. 577, 587 (1992), as well as the Supreme Court’s decisions in Stone v. Graham, 449 U.S. 39 (1980) (per curiam), and Edwards v. Aguillard, 482 U.S. 578 (1987). Coercion is prohibited with respect to participation in religious activities as well as other efforts to support or promote religion. Moreover, the majority errs in its contention that because the Pledge constitutes a patriotic rather than a religious exercise, the religious component does not fail the coercion test. A religious component included in a secular exercise, whether or not a patriotic one, is subject to the same coercion rules as is any other religious practice to which public school students are subjected. Further, the majority’s assertion that the coerced recitation of the Pledge does not require “a personal affirmation… that the speaker believes in God” is not only contradicted within the majority opinion itself, but is foreclosed by the Supreme Court’s explicit statement that the Pledge “requires affirmation of a belief.” W. Va. State Bd. of Educ. v. Barnette, 319 U.S. 624, 633 (1943). In any event, it is self-evident that one cannot profess to believe that our nation is “under God” without professing to believe that God exists.

Seventh, the majority appears at several points in its opinion to imply that the use of the term “under God” in the Pledge may be justified by the doctrine of ceremonial deism. The theory of ceremonial deism has never been approved by the Supreme Court for use in Establishment Clause cases in general; the Court has, however, expressly disapproved the use of that doctrine to justify state-sponsored religious practices in the public schools. Lee, 505 U.S. at 596-97. The majority’s suggestion that the doctrine may be applicable here is clearly erroneous.

If the majority made only one or two of the seven fundamental errors described above, its conclusion that the state-directed, teacher-led, daily recitation of the “under God” version of the Pledge is constitutional could not stand. With all seven errors, the majority sets an all-time record for failure to conform to any part of any of the three tests governing compliance with the Establishment Clause. Unless and until those tests are reversed or repudiated by the Supreme Court, an appellate court is not free to disregard the law and the Constitution in the manner that the two judges in the majority have in the case before us.

Judge Reinhardt’s conclusion stirs me to want him on the Supreme Court:

I end where I began. Today’s majority opinion will undoubtedly be celebrated by a large number of Americans as a repudiation of activist, liberal, Godless judging. That is its great appeal; it reaches the result favored by a substantial majority of our fellow countrymen and thereby avoids the political outcry that would follow were we to reach the constitutionally required result. Nevertheless, by reaching the result the majority does, we have failed in our constitutional duty as a court. Jan Roe and her child turned to the federal judiciary in the hope that we would vindicate their constitutional rights. There was a time when their faith in us might have been well placed. I can only hope that such a time will return someday.

As a judge of an intermediate appellate court, I would hold that our decision is controlled by the binding Supreme Court precedents governing this case. We are required to follow those precedents regardless of what we believe the law should be or what we think that the Supreme Court may hold in the future. Were today’s majority to examine the amended Pledge as applied “through the unsentimental eye of our settled doctrine, it would have to strike it down as a clear violation of the Establishment Clause.” Marsh v. Chambers, 463 U.S. 783, 796 (1983) (Brennan, J., dissenting). Following settled precedents, I conclude that the state-directed, teacher-led daily recitation in public schools of the amended “under God” version of the Pledge of Allegiance, unlike the recitation of the historic secular version, without the two added words, contravenes the rules and principles set forth in Lemon v. Kurtzman, Santa Fe v. Doe, and Lee v. Weisman. Accordingly, we are, in my view, required to hold that the amendment, as applied, violates the Establishment Clause of the United States Constitution. I should add that I firmly believe that the existing Supreme Court cases and doctrine reflect the true purpose and values of the Establishment Clause and of our Constitution as a whole, and that the holding that we should, but do not, reach best ensures the rights and liberties of the schoolchildren of this country. Finally, I firmly believe that any retreat from the existing Supreme Court doctrine and cases would constitute a most unfortunate diminution of the freedom of all our citizens.

Had my views prevailed here, our decision would not preclude daily recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance by public schoolchildren. To the contrary, public schoolchildren would be free to recite the Pledge as it stood for more than sixty years, a patriotic Pledge with which many of us grew up – a patriotic Pledge that is fully consistent with the Establishment Clause. All that would be required would be the deletion of the two words added by an amendment designed to promote religion and to indoctrinate schoolchildren with a religious belief. As has long been agreed in this nation, the teaching of religious views is the function of the family and the Church, not the State and the public school system.

As a judge of this court, I deeply regret the majority’s decision to ignore the Pledge’s history, the clear intent and purpose of Congress in amending the Pledge, the numerous Supreme Court precedents that render the school district’s course of conduct unconstitutional as applied, and the very real constitutional injury suffered by Jan Roe and her child, and others like them throughout this nation.

Accordingly, I dissent.

www.zenofzero.net

God is Total Nothingness!

2010-02-01T04:47:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago, I posted the following "rant" at the Richard Dawkins Forum in a thread entitled Kalam & The Nature of "Nothing". Perhaps it would be useful if I repost it here, with a couple of editorial changes.

******

It sure can be frustrating trying to communicate with some logicians and most religionists. Sometimes I want to grab them by their linguistic lapels and shake them until they beg for mercy: "Stop, please, I promise that, never again, will I get hung-up on words."

Karl Popper said it well:

In science, we take care that the statements we make should never depend upon the meaning of our terms. Even where the terms are defined, we never try to derive any information from the definition, or to base any argument upon it. This is why our terms make so little trouble. We do not overburden them. We try to attach to them as little weight as possible. We do not take their “meaning” too seriously. We are always conscious that our terms are a little vague (since we have learnt to use them only in practical applications) and we reach precision not by reducing their penumbra of vagueness, but rather by keeping well within it, by carefully phrasing our sentences in such a way that the possible shades of meaning do not matter. This is how we avoid quarrelling about words… Our “scientific knowledge”, in the sense in which this term may be properly used, remains entirely unaffected if we eliminate all definitions; the only effect is upon our language, which would lose, not precision, but merely brevity…

A case in point is the hang-up, illustrated in this thread, with words such as "nothing' and "existence'. How many times, I wonder, must we suffer through such word games as "nothing can't exist" and "something can't come from nothing".

Maybe the points listed below will help eliminate some of the useless scholasticism. Elsewhere I provide more details.

1. Evidence suggests that 'existence' isn't a scalar, with normalized values usually taken as 1 (a representative for 'something') and 0 (for 'nothing'). Instead, 'existence' appears to be at least a vector (with normalized values of at least 1, 0, and -1). To describe spin, however, 'existence' would seem to need to be at least a second-order tensor, and to describe electrical charge, color charge, charm, etc., then the order of the existence tensor would seem to need to be still higher.

2. If for simplicity 'existence' is considered to be only a vector (i.e., a first-order tensor), then it's easy to see how something can come into existence from nothing: 0 = 1 - 1 (i.e., 'nothing' can be separated into identical positive and negative 'somethings').

3. That seems to be how our universe came into existence: "the original nothingness" split into equal and opposite amounts of energy (with most of the positive energy having subsequently condensed into mass and with the negative energy remaining as what we call 'space' or "the vacuum").

4. Yet, in our universe, in total, almost certainly there's still nothing: the total electric charge is almost certainly zero (from the first principle of electrostatics), the total momentum is almost certainly zero (from the second principle of mechanics), and the total energy is almost certainly zero (from the first principle of thermodynamics). [I would be glad to discuss the possibility that the total entropy is also zero, but only with Ph.D. physicists who are willing to entertain the possibility (as suggested by Feynman and John Cramer) that, in space, time goes in the negative direction (in the sense of hosting retarded waves), because I'd like to learn knowledgeable opinions about the possibility that the entropy of space is negative (and increasingly so, as our universe expands).]

5. Therefore, it appears to be incorrect that "something can't come from nothing." Also, it appears to be necessary to correctly interpret "nothing can come from nothing." Thus, our universe (i.e., nothing) apparently did come from nothing (the "original total nothingness") – and similarly, other 'verses' (other nothings), i.e., multiverses, have probably come from the same "original total nothingness".

6. But then, of course, there's the obvious and intriguing question: What is "the original total nothingness"? In response, there seems to be a hint: space is brim full with negative energy, and if a hole appears in space, it's called an antiparticle. So, if you look into a hole in space (i.e., at an antiparticle), then you've got a "peep hole" through which to look at "total nothingness".

7. For those who don't like the term "total nothingness", fine: call it something else. How about "the quintessence" or how about "split-been soup"? It doesn't matter what words are used. What's important is that it seems to be quantum mechanical (since antiparticles are); therefore, it seems likely that the split-been soup fluctuates (and apparently can have unstable fluctuations, creating verses such as our own).

8. So, how might our universe have been formed? Well, to try to describe that, we need some new expressions to mean "before the Big Bang" (since time has no meaning without energy) and "outside our universe" (since location has no meaning without momentum). How about using phrases such as "for-be the Big Bang", "at-side our universe", and so on? Then, discussions with logicians and religionists about how our universe might have formed could be more productive.

9. Thus, in the beg-nining, for-be the Big Bang, there was split-been soup, eve-dair. Soured by inactivity, it started to bubble or fluctuate. Still nothing significant happened, however (still stuck at zero), until one of the 10^10^10…-or-so bubbles (apparently a fluctuation in what we call 'energy') misfired, breaking a symmetry. With that, all hell broke lose (i.e., "inflation" or the Big Bang), splitting the split-been soup into two "beings", i.e., into positive and negative tensor existence states. Thereby, with positive energy available, time began. Subsequently, the negative energy remained as space (or "the vacuum") and some of the positive energy condensed into matter, which in time evolved – eventually leading to humans.

10. And thus, as should be clear to all humans (even to logicians and religionists), God is soured, bubbling, occasionally misfiring, split-been soup at-side our universe, eve-dair – or in other words, total nothingness.

www.zenofzero.net

On Reducing the Rancor

2010-01-11T06:18:00.000-08:00

The rancor between theists and atheists might be reduced if, rather than emphasizing their differences, commonalities were stressed. Usually, however, differences are emphasized.

Such differences are already apparent in the usual definitions. Thus,

• A theist is a person who believes in the existence of some god, with the word ‘theist’ derived from the Greek word theos meaning ‘god’,

• An atheist is one who has concluded that there is insufficient evidence to justify a belief in god, with the word ‘atheist’ derived by negating the word ‘theist’ with the Greek prefix a- , and

• An agnostic is one who maintains that he doesn’t know (e.g., about the existence of any god), with the word ‘agnostic’ (viz., ‘unknown’) derived by negating (again with the Greek prefix a- ) the Greek word for ‘known’ (gnōstos).

Meanwhile, an obvious commonality among theists, agnostics, and atheists is apparent by focusing on the concept of ‘belief’.

One way to express belief – in fact, the way to express belief precisely – is to express it as a probability. For example, you might say that you ‘believe’ that the Sun will rise tomorrow, or you might say something similar to: “My estimate is that there’s a 99.999999% chance that the Sun will rise tomorrow” (or whatever numerical value you might assign to the probability that the Sun will rise tomorrow). Similarly, a theist might say, “I think that there’s a 99.999999% chance that God exists”, whereas an atheist might respond, “Well, I think that there’s only a 0.000001% chance that God exists.”

A commonality among theists and atheists is then apparent: by whatever means they’ve used, both have reached some opinion about the probability of some god’s existence. Such opinions are held more-or-less strongly, depending on each person’s experiences.

Among different individuals, there’s normally quite a large variation in such probability estimates. For example, a particular theist might hold that there’s a 90% chance that some god exists – while simultaneously leaving a 10% chance that the god doesn’t exist (since the sum of the probabilities for two mutually exclusive possibility must sum to unity or 100%). Similarly, a particular atheist might maintain that there’s only a 10% chance that some god exists – while, for the same reason, simultaneously leaving a 90% chance that the god doesn’t exist.

In general, an atheist is one who has concluded that the probability that some god exists is in the range from just over 0% to just under 50%, while a theist is one who has concluded that the probability that the god exists is in the range from just over 50% to just under 100%.

The specific value of 50% (for the chance that some god exists) is claimed by the agnostic. That is, an agnostic claims no knowledge of whether some god exists or doesn’t exist, and therefore, just as when one doesn’t know whether the toss of a fair coin will yield ‘heads’ or ‘tails’, specifying a probability of 50% (or odds of 50-50) is equivalent to saying: “I don’t know.”

Meanwhile, the values of exactly 0% and exactly 100% must be excluded because of the nature of reality. That is, no realistic atheist will say that there’s exactly zero chance of any god existing and no realistic theist will say that there’s exactly a 100% chance of any god existing, because, in reality, we can’t be certain of anything: for all we know, none of us may exist; we all may be just simulations in some humongous computer game!

Stated differently, certainty is available only in closed systems (e.g., games), whereas in reality, we all must live with uncertainty. For example, in the game of poker, you can be certain that a flush beats a straight, but in life, you’ll never know all the cards that you’ll be dealt.

I then wonder if the rancor between theists and atheists could be reduced if all would see that their differences are just a matter of degree. Again, atheists have concluded that the probability that some god exists is in the range from just over 0% to just under 50%, agnostics choose the value of 50%, and theists have concluded that the probability is somewhere between just more than 50% to just under 100%. Consequently, fundamentally, the differences are derived from different estimates for a particular probability.

Maybe the rancor would be reduced if, rather than people proclaiming and promoting their estimates for the probability of any god’s existence, we’d all focus on explaining to those who are interested how we reached our individual estimates. Maybe, if we all work at it, we would conclude that all such estimates are approximate and should be flexible. As a minimum, surely we can all agree that those who advocate or engage in the killing of people whose estimates for such probabilities differ from theirs thereby commit a crime against humanity and should be constrained.

www.zenofzero.net

On Voting Tests

2009-12-23T04:49:00.000-08:00

What I advocate, here, is this: Whereas (for obvious reasons) people are required to demonstrate competence in driving before being permitted to drive automobiles on public roads, therefore (similarly) before people are permitted to become engaged in democratic governance, they should be required to pass relevant competency tests. Stated negatively, just as incompetents aren’t permitted to drive on public roads, they shouldn’t be permitted to participate in public referendums or elections.

Almost 2400 years ago, Aristotle saw a root problem with democracies:

In a democracy the poor will have more power than the rich, because there are more of them, and the will of the majority is supreme.

An additional root problem with democracy is, as Churchill said:

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

Henry Mencken added what seems to be an especially poignant description of the American form of democracy:

Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses.

In fact, sometime I think that the U.S. is hell-bent on attempting to validate Aristotle’s prediction:

Republics decline into democracies and democracies degenerate into despotisms.

But setting aside such negative assessments and predictions, consider Churchill’s famous statement:

It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried.

Consider, also, George Bernard Shaw’s assessment:

Democracy substitutes election by the incompetent many for appointment by the corrupt few.

What I would ask the reader to consider is the possibility of maintaining democracies (i.e., “people rule”) but remedying the problem of “election by the incompetent many” by specifying which of the people are permitted to participate in governing their nation.

Perhaps readers will agree that a superficial reason why “democracy is the worst form of government” is because of the Tragedy of the Commons. That is, people (either individually or in groups) as well as corporations conclude that it’s to their immediate advantage to take what they can, while they can, from “the commons” (resulting, e.g., in resource depletion, pollution, climate change, and of course, both individual and corporate welfare, e.g., in the form of tax benefits).

The cause of the Tragedy of the Commons is, of course, that advantages of robbing the commons are focused (on individuals or on corporations that exploit the commons) while disadvantages are diffuse. For example, although an individual fisherman may realize that fishery stocks are being irreversibly depleted, yet he has economic incentives to focus on catching what fish he can, to try to earn enough money to get through the year. Similarly, corporations will seek exemptions from specific labor and environmental restrictions, so they can be successful against domestic and foreign competitors.

Equally obvious is that the solution to the Tragedy of Commons is to establish relevant laws (restricting use of specific commons). As James Bovard said:

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.

Legislators have learned, however, that if they want to be re-elected, promulgating such laws in a representative democracy requires approval by the electorate – who in turn must be convinced that protecting specific commons is to their advantage. I therefore suggest that it’s “superficial” to claim that the Tragedy of the Commons is the reason why “democracy is the worst form of government”. Instead, I suggest that the real reason (and the real tragedy) is that, in so many instances, the electorate (“the incompetent many”) is either uniformed or misinformed.

Thomas Jefferson saw the problem and proposed his famous solution:

I know no safe depository of the ultimate powers of the society but the people themselves; and if we think them not enlightened enough to exercise their control with a wholesome discretion, the remedy is not to take it from them, but to inform their discretion.

It’s easy to agree with Jefferson’s solution in principle, but in practice, huge difficulties have arisen and continue to arise.

Some of the difficulties in applying Jefferson’s solution can be traced to Aristotle’s assessment:

All men by nature desire knowledge.

Support for Aristotle's assessment might now be put this way: as a general rule, knowledge increases our chance of survival; therefore, our desire for knowledge is now part of our nature, “programmed into our genes”.

It doesn’t necessarily follow, however, that the knowledge (which we’ve been “programmed” to seek) need be correct. In the long run, genetic advantages usually accrue if the knowledge is correct, but for short durations, individuals apparently are satisfied more with possessing almost any knowledge (even if it’s incorrect!) than with confirmation that their “knowledge” is valid. Stated differently, it seems that, more than they desire accurate information, many and perhaps most people desire certainty. As a result, many people (perhaps the majority) are prone to adopting any of a huge number of “conspiracy theories” (especially if such theories are promoted with certainty) as well as similar, wild (and usually simplistic) speculations.

Practical difficulties with Jefferson’s proposal are then apparent. Thus, when Jefferson suggests that “we inform [the people’s] discretion”, two immediate questions are: 1) Who will do the informing? and 2) Are the people sufficiently intelligent and educated to discern which “information” is valid and which is bogus? For example, although scientists are currently trying to inform people (for their benefits) that the current rate of consumption of the Earth’s resources is unsustainable, that greenhouse gases will cause global warming, and that no gods exist or have ever existed (the latter to try to convince people to base their opinions on evidence rather than data-less speculations, thereby to try to convince people to tackle our problems more intelligently); yet at the same time (and for their own benefits), corporations promote more consumption of their goods and services, fossil-fuel industries promote the idea that anthropogenic global warming is a hoax, and organized religions promote the wild speculations that their gods exist.

Of course, Jefferson also saw that the root problem was a poorly informed (or misinformed) public:

If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be.

Throughout his life, therefore, he worked to improve public education:

I think by far the most important bill in our whole code is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people… Preach… a crusade against ignorance; establish and improve the law for educating the common people. Let our countrymen know… that the tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests, and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance.

But although Jefferson was prepared to wrestle with securing legislative approval for universal education, he encountered another problem for which he was apparently unprepared, namely, the unwillingness of some parents to have their children educated. About this problem, Jefferson wrote:

In the constitution of Spain… there was a principle entirely new to me… that no person born after that day should ever acquire the rights of citizenship until he could read and write. It is impossible sufficiently to estimate the wisdom of this provision. Of all those which have been thought of for securing fidelity in the administration of the government, constant reliance to the principles of the constitution, and progressive amendments with the progressive advances of the human mind or changes in human affairs, it is the most effectual…

Is it a right or a duty in society to take care of their infant members in opposition to the will of the parent? How far does this right and duty extend? – to guard the life of the infant, his property, his instruction, his morals? The Roman father was supreme in all these: we draw a line, but where? – public sentiment does not seem to have traced it precisely… It is better to tolerate the rare instance of a parent refusing to let his child be educated, than to shock the common feelings and ideas by the forcible… education of the infant against the will of the father…

What is proposed… is to remove the objection of expense, by offering education gratis, and to strengthen parental excitement by the disfranchisement of his child while uneducated. Society has certainly a right to disavow him whom they offer, and are permitted to qualify for the duties of a citizen. If we do not force instruction, let us at least strengthen the motives to receive it when offered.

As far as I know, such a proposal for “disfranchisement… while uneducated” was never enacted (at least, not in the U.S.). Yet, given what is currently occurring in many of the world’s democracies (perhaps especially in the U.S.), with too many youngsters not diligently pursuing their education and with so many “special interests” skillfully using the mass media and modern marketing-techniques to promote their own interests (and their lies!), and given that the only bulwark against such propaganda is informed and critical thoughts of the people, I therefore think that, to revitalize democracies, it’s time to resurrect Jefferson’s proposal, “trace it precisely”, and gain voter approval to implement it.

Specifically, I recommend initiatives that culminate in national laws requiring that, before becoming engaged in politics at any level of government (and either as a voter or as a candidate for office), all youngsters be first required to pass a nation-wide, standard examination, demonstrating general knowledge as well as critical- (or evaluative-) thinking capabilities.

And I’ll add that gaining support for such initiatives in many western nations (possibly requiring constitutional amendments) may be easier than might first be thought, since so many current voters seem discouraged both with the high-rate of school dropouts and with the poor quality of the education at so many public schools, maybe especially in the U.S. and the U.K. In other nations, different root problems must be overcome. In Pakistan, India, and Indonesia, for example, the cause of the “incompetent many” seems to be the criminal failure of leaders to invest in quality, public education. In addition, essentially all of us in other nations could learn from what seems to be occurring in Japan, S. Korea, and Taiwan, where followers of traditions established by Confucius and the Buddha have already adopted Aristotle’s wise prescription:

Those who educate children well are more to be honored than they who produce them; for these only gave them life; those, the art of living well.

www.zenofzero.net

Catholic Pedophiles

2009-11-26T07:10:00.000-08:00

Ah, there it is.

With the latest report of sexual abuse by Catholic priests and its cover-up by the Catholic hierarchy, now I understand why the Catholic Church is so opposed to abortion: sanctity of human life be damned; what they want is more fodder for their pedophiles.

Damn them all to the Hell they concocted.

www.zenofzero.net

Shut up and grow up, or throw up and get off

2009-10-10T14:20:00.000-07:00

It would be humorous if the consequences weren’t so horrendous: grownups living their lives as if they were characters in some comic book.

Oh sure, probably most of us did similar when we were kids. I remember the many times that I’d head to the beach with my towel tied on like a cape, pretending to be Superman, able to leap over tall buildings (or at least, over the trunks of fallen trees) in a single bound.

Other times, when we went riding after catching the “wild” horses (actually, they were tame horses that had been set free), I was the Lone Ranger. Sometimes, though, my big brother chose to be the Lone Ranger; then, I had to be Tonto: “Me, kemo sahbee.” Come to think about it, I don’t think I ever knew that “kemo sahbee” meant “faithful scout”. But I digress.

I imagine that girls played out their fantasy roles, too, but in the “good old days”, I wasn’t interested in mere girls. My but how we grow beyond our childish ideas. Well, at least some of us do. For contrast, consider religious people.

Can you imagine it? More than half the people in the world are living their lives like we did when we were kids. They “think” that the characters in their “holy books” are real, as real as we imagined were Superman, the Lone Ranger, Batman and Robin… The religious assume roles as kemo sahbees for Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, Ezra, Jesus, Muhammad, Joseph Smith, and all their other “super heros”. But think, too, about this: their “holy books” aren’t comic books, they’re horror books.

What’s worse, believe it or not, it’s not just pretend for them: it’s their version of reality! Thus, extremist Jews occupy Israel with the fervor of Joshua, fundamentalist Christians watch the daily news with bated breath for signs of the Second Coming, most Mormons really are convinced that Utah is the new Zion, and crazy Muslims tie explosives around their waists, drive explosive-laden trucks into barricades and markets, or fly airplanes into buildings, eagerly dying for their Jihad, convinced in their craziness that they’ll get instant access to paradise. They’re all bonkers.

It reminds me of something else. When we were kids, a traveling circus would come to town every year, with its wild ride called Round the World. It spun the “carriages” so fast that they’d swing out horizontally; so, sitting in them, forced into your seat by the centrifugal force, you’d be sitting with your face toward the ground – viewing the former contents of a lot of upset stomachs!

Some kids would scream so much, scared out of their wits (afraid of dying, I guess), that the operator would stop the contraption to let them off. We who still possessed the contents of our stomachs would taunt the sissies: “Shut up and grow up, or throw up and get off!” A similar taunt seems appropriate for all religious people in the world:

“Shut up and grow up, or throw up and get off.”

www.zenofzero.net

Even Ahmadinejad gets something right…

2009-09-25T08:49:00.000-07:00

I’m pleased to report that, in his 23 September 2009 speech to the UN’s General Assembly, President Ahmadinejad of Iran made at least one sensible statement:

It seems that the roots of problems [in the world] lie in the way one views and perceives the world and humankind…

But even with that statement, he demonstrates his shallow thinking: if he would dig deeper, he’d find that the root problem is failure of the majority of people to answer correctly the fundamental, epistemological question: “How can knowledge of the world be obtained?”

As far as humans have been able to determine, the best answer to that question is to use the scientific method (which is as old as humanity): “guess, test, and reassess”. Instead and in horrible contrast, Ahmadinejad (similar to all theists) “thinks” that knowledge of reality can be obtained simply by wishful thinking. Thereby, they fall for the “proof-by-pleasure logical fallacy”: if it feels good, it’s true.

As a result, Ahmadinejad advocates some bizarre, feel-good “truths”, which he shared with the world in his UN speech as follows:

• “God Almighty purposefully created the world.” [Really? What evidence supports such a notion? How can the idea be tested? And even before that: is it logical? For example, how could an omnipotent being have a “purpose”? Are you sure that your god would take kindly to your suggestion that He has an unfulfilled desire?!]

• “All existence including power, knowledge, and wealth come from Him.” [Really? What data support such a claim? How can it be experimentally verified? And even if it were so (although, of course, it’s not!), then why do you keep vilifying the Jews – since it follows that their considerable knowledge, wealth, and even power was given to them by Him?! So, should you continue to defy your omnipotent god’s will?!]

• “God created the world for humans and humans for Himself.” [Oh, do tell. Yet, in contrast to your claim, all evidence points to the conclusion that humans created gods for themselves!]

• “God has created man for eternity…” [Really? Or is it, perchance, that primitive people (similar to you) were (and still are) afraid of death; so, they concocted myths about the illogical, oxymoronic idea of “life after death”?]

• “God has obligated humans to live divinely and socially…” [Really? If so, then why do so many people (such as yourself) ignore the obligation of their omnipotent creator god?]

• “True freedom and obedience to God are in balance…” [Yah, just like a slave is free – provided he does exactly as his master demands. As Mikhail Bakunin wrote in God and the State in 1874:

A jealous lover of human liberty, deeming it the absolute condition of all that we admire and respect in humanity, I reverse the phrase of Voltaire and say, “If God really existed, it would be necessary to abolish him.”

• “Obeisance to God means the acceptance of absolute truth, the absolute light, and the absolute beauty.” [Ain’t that cute? Never mind that “absolute truth” is restricted to closed systems (whereas reality is an open system), never mind that the phrase “absolute light” is meaningless (unless, of course, you can produce some non-absolute light), and never mind that “beauty is in the eye of the beholder.” If Ahmadinejad says it’s so, then by God, himself, it must be so!]

• “God is omniscient and knows all that is revealed or kept secret…” [Not that there’s any evidence to support such a claim, but first, pray tell: is the second clause really necessary? What do you think ‘omniscient’ means? And second: how could anything be both omnipotent and omniscient? Being omniscient, He would know everything that is, ever has been, or ever could be; but then, He would be powerless to have new thoughts; therefore, He wouldn’t be omnipotent!]

• “He is kind and merciful.” [Except, of course, toward those of us who think that He’s a concoction of primitive people, promoted by parasitic clerics and prolonged by power mongers (such as yourself), since they claim that, right up there with killing us, He gets his kicks out of torturing us for eternity in Hell.]

• “All creatures are humble before Him and resign to His will.” [So it follows (so it seems) that we who consider him the figment of primitive people’s imaginations, the sting of con-artist, clerical parasites, and the tool of power mongers (such as yourself) aren’t ‘creatures’. Okay, I’ll buy that one: we’re better described as scientific humanists; but then, that makes all theists “creatures”. Hmmm. If you want some friendly advice, Ahmadinejad, I’m not sure that your fellow unscientific antihumans will appreciate your depiction of them as “creatures”. But if you insist…]

• “God is alive and is the Creator of the universe and all life.” [Damn! And there I was thinking that the universe was formed by a symmetry-breaking quantum fluctuation in the original total void. Silly me.]

• “Humans need to know God in order to realize a prosperous society in this world as well as to strive for a beautiful eternal life…” [And where did you say you put the evidence that supports such crazy ideas? Oh, never mind. A more important question is: how soon will you be willing check out the quality of your “eternal life”?]

And then, just great: Ahmadinejad tells us the “the Promised One” is coming and we’ll all live “under the rule of the righteous and perfect human being”, no doubt in an Iranian-style theocracy. But tell us, Ahmadinejad, what makes you think we want to be ruled by other than ourselves? Have you ever heard of the idea of a “democracy”, in which people rule themselves? No? I didn’t think so. It seems that you’re more into stuffing ballot boxes with “Yes-votes” for yourself.

In sum, Ahmadinejad, ideas about gods are as crazy as the idea of letting a madman like you possess a nuclear bomb. Still, I congratulate you on your sensible statement:

… the roots of problems [in the world] lie in the way one views and perceives the world and humankind…

I also agree with your

A global community filled with justice, friendship, brotherhood and welfare is at hand…

and your

Great developments in favor of humankind as well as its true and real rights are on the way. A golden and brilliant future is awaiting mankind.

A major inhibition, however, constraining humanity from realizing such possibilities, is the nonsensical and damnable “god idea”. Yet, progress is being made debunking wild speculations about gods, which are used as tools to manipulate the masses by parasitic clerics of the world and by power-mongers such as you.

www.zenofzero.net

God Doesn't Have a Purpose!

2009-08-20T03:57:00.000-07:00

Re. the possibility that an omnipotent God could have a purpose, perhaps the following would be of some interest. The quotations are from an exchange I had, first in response to “jd” and then to “hackenslash”, at the Richard Dawkins Forum.

jd: It would still be perfectly within the abilities of an omnipotent creator to cover up his tracks.

zoro: No it wouldn't, would it? To do so, he'd need to have a purpose, but an omnipotent anything couldn't have a purpose, since that would mean he had an unfulfilled desire, i.e., that he wasn't omnipotent.

hackenslash: Zoro: This is gold. Excellent argument, excellently explained.

zoro: Well, thank you, but of course it's not mine; it's a very old argument; I don't know who deserves credit for it. Sorry.

hackenslash: Who cares? It's a good argument. What's the point of omnipotence if everything is the way you want it, and if it isn't, how can you be omnipotent? Solid stuff.

zoro: Come to think of it, it probably can be traced back to Aristotle. It's why he concluded that God would necessarily spend eternity just contemplating his navel – or in his words [Metaphysics (viz., "Beyond Physics" = "Beyond Nature" = "Supernatural"), Part 9]:

"The nature of the divine thought involves certain problems; for while thought is held to be the most divine of things observed by us, the question how it must be situated in order to have that character involves difficulties. For if it [God] thinks of nothing, what is there here of dignity? It is just like one who sleeps. And if it [God] thinks, but this depends on something else, then (since that which is its substance is not the act of thinking, but a potency) it cannot be the best substance; for it is through thinking that its value belongs to it. Further, whether its substance is the faculty of thought or the act of thinking, what does it [God] think of? Either of itself or of something else; and if of something else, either of the same thing always or of something different. Does it matter, then, or not, whether it [God] thinks of the good or of any chance thing? Are there not some things about which it is incredible that it [God] should think? Evidently, then, it [God] thinks of that which is most divine and precious, and it [God] does not change; for change would be change for the worse, and this would be already a movement. First, then, if 'thought' is not the act of thinking but a potency, it would be reasonable to suppose that the continuity of its thinking is wearisome to it. Secondly, there would evidently be something else more precious than thought, viz. that which is thought of. For both thinking and the act of thought will belong even to one who thinks of the worst thing in the world, so that if this ought to be avoided (and it ought, for there are even some things which it is better not to see than to see), the act of thinking cannot be the best of things. Therefore it must be of itself that the divine thought thinks (since it is the most excellent of things), and its thinking is a thinking on thinking."

For obvious reasons, Jewish, Christian Muslim, Mormon… clerics didn't and don't like Aristotle's god: they accepted his idea that God was "the prime mover" (I guess that none of them had ever experienced a soap bubble bursting!), but they couldn't accept his idea that God would necessarily spend eternity contemplating his own navel. It's hard to run a con game with that tag line! And so now, as one of a terrible number of atrocious examples, we have the con artist Rick Warren fleecing people out of more than $100 million (and Obama had him deliver his woo at the Inauguration!), peddling the proposition: The omnipotent God has a purpose for your life. Duh. Would that Muslim maniacs would give it a thought.
www.zenofzero.net

Means to the Ends of Gods

2009-07-01T06:05:00.000-07:00

I recently posted the following in a thread at the Richard Dawkins Forum. Perhaps the ideas would be of interest to others.

Philosopher Jagger,

Thank you. Yes, I think we're close, and I'm about ready to call it quits on this thread, but I think that the following is sufficiently important to solving practical problems associated with eliminating the God meme and establishing an objective, rational moral code to warrant my adding it as a postscript. For it, I'll accept risks of oversimplification in exchange for simplicity. I provide more details and admit some of the complications in three chapters starting here. Upon trying to reduce those chapters (and more) to their essence, I'd exaggerate as follows.

If you went to America's Bible Belt, to any Muslim country, or to any similar, backward area of the world and told them that God was a delusion, you'd quite likely be putting your life in jeopardy.

If, as an alternative, you went to them and told them that you could provide them with an objective, rational moral code, you'd likely be rejected (possibly bodily and forcefully).

If, instead, you tried to convince them of the virtues of critical thinking, for its usefulness in studying literature, history, politics, etc. and its essential role in science, you'd probably be considered to be a radical, revisionist, revolutionist, and similar, and be rebuffed.

If, as a final foolish alternative, you proposed that the only sound epistemology is the scientific method, then you'd probably be judged to be another, ignorable, babbling philosopher.

If, however, you pointed out to them that the world is in the midst of a knowledge revolution, that the future will belong to those who are at the forefront of science, that from science flows security and economic strength (including jobs), etc., then almost certainly you'd be more than welcome, invited to help in the design and implementation of science curricula in their schools, etc.

Then, in time, as their youngsters learn science, they'll necessarily learn about the scientific method, begin to determine what it means "to know", slowly become proficient in critical thinking, eventually establish an objective, rational moral code, and finally dump all silly idea of gods in the trash can of human mistakes. QED.

www.zenofzero.net

Modifying Ends

2009-06-22T17:22:00.000-07:00

Of course I agree with the old adage: “the ends don’t justify the means.” Pity that the rulers in Iran – and for that matter, all Islamic clerics – and for that matter, all clerics – didn’t appreciate that wisdom.

The wisdom, obviously, is that the means are ends in themselves. It’s therefore necessary to evaluate which is more important: the end that would be pursued by the chosen means or the means, themselves.

But I didn’t see how the ends could be competently manipulated.

A great example was recently given in a posting of an old, 1987 article in The Boston Globe written by Alfie Kohn and entitled “Creativity and intrinsic interest diminish if [a] task is done for gain”:

There is an old joke that nicely illustrates the principle. An elderly man, harassed by the taunts of neighborhood children, finally devises a scheme. He offered to pay each child a dollar if they would all return Tuesday and yell their insults again. They did so eagerly and received the money, but he told them he could only pay 25 cents on Wednesday. When they returned, insulted him again and collected their quarters, he informed them that Thursday’s rate would be just a penny. “Forget it,” they said — and never taunted him again.

Now, if only all the mullahs in Iran (and Saudi Arabia and…) could be made to realize that ruling people isn’t all that it was cracked up to be.

www.zenofzero.net

A Brave Muslim Intellectual vs. Cowardly Islamic Clerics

2009-04-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

Read the first report copied below (from ArabNews.com) and weep in despair for Muslim children because of cowardly Islamic clerics; read the second (from the Middle East Media Research Institute) to regain some hope, courtesty brave Muslim intellectuals such as Ibrahim Al-Buleihi.

1. Scholars hotly debate treatment of apostates
Badea Abu Al-Naja
Arab News; April 30, 2009

SHARJAH: In a session here on religious freedom, Muslim scholars from around the world yesterday debated how apostates should be treated according to Islamic law.

More than 200 delegates representing 60 countries are discussing diverse issues in the light of Shariah at the ongoing International Islamic Fiqh Conference hosted by Sharjah ruler Sheikh Sultan bin Mohammed Al-Qassimi.

The event at the Zahra Hall Auditorium at the University of Sharjah has been organized by the International Islamic Fiqh Academy (IIFA), an offshoot of the Jeddah-based Organization of the Islamic Conference.

While several scholars demanded a review of the punishment for apostates in the light of the changing modern values, others refuted their argument saying the original Islamic texts call for harsh punishments.

“Religious freedom is a right that should be guaranteed to every human being. We have come here to present and discuss different viewpoints and we should do it in order to reach the right solution,” said Mahmoud Zaqzouq, Egypt’s minister of endowments.

Some participants doubted the validity of texts quoted in support of the beheading of apostates. On the other hand, several others were adamant in their refusal to the demand for a lighter approach toward apostates in the name of freedom of religion.

“The view that Islamic scholars of the past had different views on how to punish apostates is incorrect. They only disagreed on how soon apostates should be executed; should it be done in three days, one week or few months. The waiting time is left to the discretion of the ruler,” said Muhammad Al-Nujaimi, a professor at the Higher Institute of Law in Riyadh.

Referring to criticisms from international human rights organizations, he said: “These groups will never stop attacking Islam even if we were to agree to all their demands. Their lack of sincerity is clear from their attitude to the atrocities committed by the Israeli government in occupied Palestinian territories. We will never allow others to dictate our religion to us.”

Abdul Salam Al-Ebadi, secretary-general of the IIFA, said the topic of religious freedom was given priority in yesterday’s deliberations because several countries, particularly the ministries of Islamic Affairs and Foreign Affairs in OIC member countries, demanded a clarification on the correct stand toward apostates. He said a six-member committee of scholars has been entrusted with the task of studying the issue and submitting recommendations. OIC Secretary-General Ekmeleddin Ihsanoglu and IIFA Chairman Saleh Bin-Humaid, who is also chairman of Saudi Arabia’s Supreme Judicial Council, are participating in the forum.

2. Saudi Intellectual: Western Civilization Has Liberated Mankind
The Middle East Media Research Insititue (MEMRI)
April 29, 2009; No. 2332

In an interview published April 23, 2009 in the Saudi Daily 'Okaz, reformist thinker Ibrahim Al-Buleihi expressed his admiration for Western civilization. The interview was posted on the same day on the Elaph website. Al-Buleihi calls on the Arabs to acknowledge the greatness of Western civilization, and to admit the deficiencies of their own culture. He states that such self-criticism is a precondition to any change for the better. Ibrahim Al-Buleihi is a member of the Saudi Shura Council. [Note: the notes in brackets in what follows were added by the translator.]

Following are excerpts from the interview:

'Okaz {Interviewer}: "I begin with the crucial issue which distinguishes your thought and which your opponents always raise against you - namely, your being completely dazzled by the West, while you completely belittle Arabic thought. Truly, this is the most outstanding feature of your writings. There is also extreme self-flagellation which many see [in your writings]. What is the cause of this?"

Buleihi: "My attitude towards Western civilization is an attitude based on obvious facts and great accomplishments; here is a reality full of wonderful and amazing things. [Recognizing] this doesn't mean that I am blindly fascinated. This is the very opposite of the attitude of those who deny and ignore the bright lights of Western civilization. Just look around… and you will notice that everything beautiful in our life has been produced by Western civilization: even the pen that you are holding in your hand, the recording instrument in front of you, the light in this room, and the journal in which you work, and many innumerable amenities, which are like miracles for the ancient civilizations.… If it were not for the accomplishments of the West, our lives would have been barren. I only look objectively and value justly what I see and express it honestly. Whoever does not admire great beauty is a person who lacks sensitivity, taste, and observation. Western civilization has reached the summit of science and technology. It has achieved knowledge, skills, and new discoveries, as no previous civilization before it. The accomplishments of Western civilization cover all areas of life: methods of organization, politics, ethics, economics, and human rights. It is our obligation to acknowledge its amazing excellence. Indeed, this is a civilization that deserves admiration. … The horrible backwardness in which some nations live is the inevitable result of their refusal to accept this [abundance of Western ideas and visions] while taking refuge in denial and arrogance."

'Okaz: "Sir, you can admire this civilization as much as you want, but not at the expense of others, especially our own civilization."

Buleihi: "My admiration for the West is not at the expense of others; rather, it is an invitation to those others to acknowledge their illusions and go beyond their inferiority and liberate themselves from backwardness. [Those others] should admit their shortcomings, and make an effort to overcome them; they should stop denying the truth and closing their eyes to the multitude of wonderful achievements. They should be fair towards those nations that achieved prosperity for themselves but did not monopolize it for themselves and instead allowed the whole world to share the results of this progress, so that other nations of the whole world now enjoy these achievements. Furthermore, Western civilization has given to the world knowledge and skills which made it possible for them, the non-Western nations, to compete with it in production and share markets with it. Criticizing one's own deficiencies is a precondition to inducing oneself to change for the better. Conversely, to glorify one's backward apathetic self is to establish and fortify backwardness, to strengthen the shackles of apathy, and to eradicate the capabilities of excellence. Backwardness is a shameful reality, which we should resent and from which we must liberate ourselves."

'Okaz: "This may be so, and I'm with you in this demand but, sir, would you summarize for us the reason for your admiration of Western culture, so that we can have a basis for discussion?"

Buleihi: "There is no one reason, there are a thousand reasons, which all induce me to admire the West and emphasize its absolute excellence in all matters of life. Western civilization is the only civilization that liberated man from his illusions and shackles; it recognized his individuality and provided him with capabilities and opportunities to cultivate himself and realize his aspirations. [Western civilization] humanized political authority and established mechanisms to guarantee relative equality and relative justice and to prevent injustice and to alleviate aggression. This does not mean that this is a flawless civilization; indeed, it is full of deficiencies. Yet it is the greatest which man has achieved throughout history. [Before the advent of Western civilization,] humanity was in the shackles of tyranny, impotence, poverty, injustice, disease, and wretchedness.

"It is an extraordinary civilization, and it is not an extension of any ancient civilization, with the exception of Greek civilization, which is the source of contemporary civilization. I have completed a book on this great extraordinary civilizational leap, titled The Qualitative Changes in Human Civilization. Western civilization is its own product and it is not indebted to any previous civilization except for the Greek one … It has revived the Greek achievements in the fields of philosophy, science, literature, politics, society, human dignity, and veneration of reason, while recognizing its shortcomings and illusions and stressing its continuous need for criticism, review and correction."

'Okaz: "In your words here, you completely wipe out all the endeavors and creativity of previous civilizations such as the Islamic one, by stating that the West not indebted to it."

Buleihi: "Indeed, it is not, nor is it indebted to any other previous civilization. Western civilization has its foundation in Greece in the sixth and fifth centuries BC; then it stopped in the Middle Ages, but resumed its progress in modern times, when its benefits have come to include all nations. It is really extraordinary in every meaning of the word - excellence, uniqueness, and novelty… It has components and qualities which distinguish it from all previous and subsequent civilizations. It is the product of philosophical thinking invented by the Greeks. The Europeans have based themselves on this kind of thinking, especially on its critical aspect, which developed the capability of producing objective knowledge that is always open to review, correction and progress…"

'Okaz: "Some Western thinkers wrote that Western civilization is an extension of previous civilizations. How can you, a Muslim Arab, deny this?"

Buleihi: "When we review the names of Muslim philosophers and scholars whose contribution to the West is pointed out by Western writers, such as Ibn Rushd, Ibn Al-Haitham, Ibn Sina, Al-Farbi, Al-Razi, Al-Khwarizmi, and their likes, we find that all of them were disciples of the Greek culture and they were individuals who were outside the [Islamic] mainstream. They were and continue to be unrecognized in our culture. We even burned their books, harassed them, [and] warned against them, and we continue to look at them with suspicion and aversion. How can we then take pride in people from whom we kept our distance and whose thought we rejected?...

"As for the question of cultural development, there are two approaches. According to one approach, civilization is the product of a cumulative process. However, this approach is contradicted by the facts of history. According to the other approach, a quantitative change does not become a qualitative one, except through an extraordinary leap. This is the correct compelling approach, which I adopt. Quantity cannot possibly turn into quality spontaneously. …

"The only civilization which possesses the ingredients of perpetual progress is Western civilization, with its Greek foundation and its amazing contemporary formation. … Western civilization believes that it is impossible to possess absolute truth and that human perfection is impossible, so man must strive to achieve it while recognizing that it is impossible to reach. Thus it is the only civilization which is constantly growing and constantly reviewing and correcting itself and achieving continuous discoveries. …"

'Okaz: "Let me ask you about your complete fascination with Western civilization."

Buleihi: "The light of this civilization is very bright and only a blind person can be oblivious to its brightness. Anyone who is capable of sight and insight is inevitably fascinated by it… We should give credit where credit is due. Has any previous civilization dreamt of the astounding revelations and exact silences and complex technologies [achieved by Western civilization]? Have previous generations imagined the possibility of opening the human chest or head and conducting intricate surgeries on the heart and brain? Could they imagine the deep understanding of the living cell and the way it is formed…. Did they imagine airplanes, cars, telephones, and innumerable accomplishments of this civilization? Would you want us to go back to writing on parchment and papyrus and using wooden sticks for pens, and riding donkeys? …

'Okaz: "Sorry, no one has asked you to return to the era of donkeys, but it is necessary to pass historical judgment in a fair and balanced way. You are saying that you want 'to give credit where credit is due,' but, in fact, you deny any credit to whatever existed before Western civilization, and while everybody recognizes that human achievements are cumulative in nature, you negate that axiomatic rule when you speak about Western accomplishments."

Buleihi: "Humanity lived thousands of years ruminating on the same ideas and living in the same conditions, using the same tools and instruments. It could have continued forever in this way if it were not for the emergence of philosophical thinking in Greece in the sixth and fifth centuries BC. Civilizational progress at its current level cannot be achieved by accumulation; rather, it is the outcome of great revolutions in the fields of thought, science, politics, society, and labor. …

"What pushes man out of his routine is the struggle of ideas, the freedom of choice, and equal opportunity. The best proof of this is that many peoples today live in the depth of backwardness, despite the availability of science, technology, and ideas. They witness the examples of prosperity, and despite this, these backwards peoples are unable to abandon their trenches and free themselves from their shackles. In other words, they are unable to emulate those who are prosperous and they are completely unable to invent and initiate."

'Okaz: "There is a crucial question in our debate: do you understand by civilization only its material aspect?"

Buleihi: "The most important achievement of Western civilization is the humanization of political authority, dividing it into separate powers, and establishing and keeping a balance between the separate powers. Western civilization has given priority to the individual and subordinated its institutions, laws, and procedures to this principle, whereas in the old civilizations the individual was a cog in a machine."

'Okaz: "A cog in a machine? Do you believe that this is true also of Islamic civilization?"

Buleihi: "We sharply distinguish between Islam in itself and what people do in its name. The great principles of Islam and its sublime doctrines that emphasize and uphold human value and dignity have not had a chance throughout history to establish themselves. Ever since the end of the period of the rightly-guided Caliphs, man's individuality was eradicated in Arab history and his value has been linked to his political, religious, regional, or tribal affiliation… The only civilization which acknowledges and respects man as an individual is Western civilization… Behavior in any field is not the outcome of teachings, as such, but rather of practice and actual experience...."

'Okaz: "Has this been the case throughout all of Arab history, in your opinion?"

Buleihi: "Yes, all of Arab history can be characterized in this gloomy way, except for the period of the rightly-guided Caliphs and discrete periods such as the reign of Omar ibn 'Abd Al-'Aziz. One should not confuse the sublime principles and doctrines of Islam with its history, which is full of mistakes, transgression, and tragedies. When the Abbasids overcame the Umayyads, they covered the bodies of the dead with rugs and held a feast over the bodies in a display of vengeance. When [Caliph] Al-Ma'mun defeated his brother Al-Amin, he flayed him like a lamb. This scene recurs throughout our history. Political power is the pivotal value in Arab culture. In our age, there have been recurrent military coups in the Arab world, in a struggle for power, but not in an attempt to bring about a change for the better. Each successive regime is worse than its predecessor."

'Okaz: "Mr. Buleihi, haven't you read in the history of your people about hundreds of scholars who had significance and impact and whose lives are studied to this day, even though they possessed no power, tribe, or religious affiliation, and who are valued for their scholarship?"

Buleihi: "This is a general statement which is not backed by fact. Arab history, with the exception of the period of the rightly-guided Caliphs, was dominated by politics. When the Fatimids took over Egypt and North Africa, these areas became Shiite, and when Salah Al-Din Al-Ayyubi [i.e. Saladin] put an end to the Fatimids, he drove out everything that had any relation to Shiism. The same happened when the Safavids converted Iran to Shiism, which then led the Ottomans to act the same way [in imposing Sunnism]. Thus Arab history, or Islamic history, in the wider sense, is the outcome of political ups and downs…."

'Okaz: "Let me pause here for a moment. You are reducing Islamic history just to political history. Even Islamic political history for all its tragedies, is not as bad as you described it. You also overlook the scientific and cultural aspects of Islamic history, which created a great civilization even while Europe suffered under the rule of feudalism, the Church, ignorance, and backwardness."

Buleihi: "We have inherited certain clichés about our history and the history of other nations without reading our history critically and without reading the history of others fairly and objectively. The luminous Greek civilization emerged in the sixth century BC and reached the peak of its flourishing in the fifth century BC. In other words, Greek civilization emerged many generations before the Islamic one, and Greek philosophy was the source from which Muslim philosophers derived their philosophy. Those individuals in whom we sometimes take pride, such as Ibn Rushd, Ibn Al-Haytham, Al-Razi, Al-Qindi, Al-Khawarizmi, and Al-Farabi were all pupils of Greek thought. As for our civilization, it is a religious one, concerned with religious law, totally absorbed in the details of what Muslims should do and shouldn't do in his relations with Allah and in his relations with others. This is a huge task worthy of admiration, because religion is the pivot of life. We must however recognize that our achievements are all confined to this great area. Let us not claim then that the West has borrowed from us its secular lights. Our culture has been and continues to be absorbed with questions of the forbidden and the permitted and belief and disbelief, because it is a religious civilization…”

'Okaz: "They [the Muslims] learned from the Greek civilization and this is not a fault, this is the way young civilizations are, they learn from previous civilizations and build upon them. Is it expected that they should have abolished the achievements of the Greeks and started from zero?"

Buleihi: "I am not against learning [from others]. What I wanted to clarify is that these [achievements] are not of our own making, and those exceptional individuals were not the product of Arab culture, but rather Greek culture. They are outside our cultural mainstream and we treated them as though they were foreign elements. Therefore we don't deserve to take pride in them, since we rejected them and fought their ideas. Conversely, when Europe learned from them it benefited from a body of knowledge which was originally its own because they were an extension of Greek culture, which is the source of the whole of Western civilization."

www.zenofzero.net

On Hopes and Fears

2009-03-18T06:13:00.000-07:00

Elsewhere I explored a method for quantitatively evaluating hopes. Below, I’ll briefly review the method, next suggest that a similar method is available to evaluate fears, and then, demonstrate how hopes and fears can be linked.

Starting with hopes, the principal meaning for ‘hope’ given in Webster’s New World Dictionary is: “a feeling that what is wanted will happen; desire accompanied by expectation.” Equivalently, therefore, ‘hope’ is what mathematicians call “expected value”, philosophers and economists call “utility”, engineers call “risk”, and gamblers call “payback”. Thereby, ‘hope’ can be estimated quantitatively: if some value (e.g., a monetary value) can be placed on what’s desired, then ‘hope’ is the assigned value multiplied by the probability that what’s desired can be achieved.

It might be useful to illustrate the method with a couple of examples.

For the first example, suppose you assign the value of “having a good day” to be $100. Further, suppose you estimate that the probability that you’ll have a good day, today, to be quite large, namely, 90%. Then a quantitative evaluation of your hope that today will be a good day is the expected value = (value) x (probability of its being achieved) = $100 x 90% = $90; i.e., you have quite a large hope that today will be a good day.

As another example, suppose that you assign the value of your life to be $1 billion, that you have cancer, and that the best information available suggests that there’s only 1 chance in a million that the therapy will be successful. Then the hope that you’ll assign to your recovery has a value of only $10^9 x 10^(-6) = $1,000.

Now, consider fears. Webster’s prime definition of ‘fear’ is

a feeling of anxiety and agitation caused by the presence or nearness of danger, evil, pain, etc; timidity; dread; terror; fright; apprehension…

The Oxford-American Dictionary gives for ‘fear’:

an unpleasant emotion caused by the belief that someone or something is dangerous, likely to cause pain, or a threat…
(archaic) a mixed feeling of dread and reverence
(fear for) a feeling of anxiety concerning the outcome of something or the safety and well-being of someone
the likelihood of something unwelcome happening…

A definition of ‘fear’ that I think improves those definitions and that reveals the symmetry (or anti-symmetry) of hope and fear is the following:

fear is a feeling that what isn’t wanted (i.e., what's dreaded) will happen; dread accompanied by expectation.

If that proposed definition of ‘fear’ is accepted and if values and probabilities can be estimated, then as in the case of hope, fear can be evaluated quantitatively.

To illustrate, consider examples similar to those used above.

For the first example, suppose you continue to assign the value of “having a good day” to be $100. Further, suppose you estimate that there’s a 10% probability that, today, you’ll have a bad day. Then a quantitative evaluation of your fear that today will be a bad day is the expected value = (value of a good day) x (probability of not having a good day) = $100 x 10% = $10; i.e., you’ll have only a relatively small fear that you’ll have a bad day today.

As a second example, consider again the case that you have life-threatening cancer. Suppose that you continue to assign the value of your life to be $1 billion and that there’s only 1 chance in a million that the therapy will be successful, i.e., that the probability of your dying is 0.999999 . Then the fear that you’ll die can be quantitatively evaluated as (value of life) x (probability of dying) = $10^9 x (0.999999) = $999,999,000, i.e., your fear of dying is very large.

If the above, proposed definition of ‘fear’ is accepted, then at least in simple cases and for a single event (or possession or similar), a link becomes apparent between fear and hope and with the assigned value of the event. Mathematically, the relationship can be seen starting from the following steps:

(i) Hope = Value x (probability of realizing that value), and

(ii) Fear = Value x (probability of failing to realize that value).

Now and for what follows, consider those relatively simple events (or possessions or similar) for which the value either materializes or doesn’t materialize, i.e., ignore “partial realizations”. In such cases, from the definition of ‘probability’:

(iii) Probability of realization = [ 1 – (probability of failure of realization)].

So, substituting the definition (iii) into either (i) or (ii), e.g., into (i):

(iv) Hope = Value x (probability of realizing that value)

= Value [ 1 – (probability of failing to realize that value)]

= Value – Value x (probability of failing to realize the value)

= Value – Fear, or

(v) Hope + Fear = Value .

In words, the result is that, for a rational person, the sum of the magnitudes of one’s ‘hope’ and ‘fear’ associated with a single event (or possession or similar) must be the total value placed on the event. Therefore, in that sense and for such cases, hope and fear are complementary. The result is a quantitative restatement of Spinoza's qualitative assessment:

There can be no hope without fear, and no fear without hope.

As an illustration, consider again the hope that you’ll have a good day. Above, I estimated this hope to be (value = $100) x (probability of having a good day = 90%) = $90. Elsewhere above, I also evaluated the magnitude of the fear that you would have a bad day to be (value of good day = $100) x [probability of having a bad day = (1 – probability of having a good day) = 10%] = $10. Thus, consistent with result given by Equation (v), above, your hope of having a good day (= $90) plus the magnitude of your fear of not having a good day (=$10) sum to the value you placed on having a good day (i.e., $100).

More complicated illustrations deal with the fear of Hell, the hope of not going to Hell, the hope of Heaven, and the fear of not going to Heaven. As a first step, consider fear of Hell. For this case, suppose that the value I place on my not going to Hell was the huge sum $10^(100) and suppose I put the probability of my going to Hell (based on the likelihood of such a clerical concoction actually existing) to be 10^(-500). Then the magnitude of my fear of going to hell would be $10^(100) x 10^(-500) = $10^(-400) = 0.000000 (continue on for a total of about 400 zeros)…1 ¢; i.e., not worth a second thought. The other fears and hopes associated with Heaven and Hell are similarly not worth a second (or a second’s) thought.

Thus in practice, obviously the key steps in realistically evaluating hopes and fears are to define realistic values for what is desired or dreaded, respectively, and to obtain realistic estimates for the probabilities that what’s wanted (hoped) and what’s dreaded (feared) will be realized. In contrast, those people who chase the will-o’-the-wisp of Heaven or tremor at the thought of Hell are like children of the age of “the terrible twos”: adamant about knowing what they like and dislike but incapable of realistic evaluations of associated probabilities; they’re driven by emotion untempered by reason.

Undoubtedly, much of the blame belongs to the clerics of the world. Either they’re too ignorant to evaluate relevant probabilities or, similar to all con-artists, for their own profit they purposefully ignore relevant probabilities and promote resulting, unrealistic hopes and fears. In the end, though, adults who are taken-in by such snake-oil salesmen must accept responsibilities for their own lives: as all con-artists know, you can’t cheat an honest man. Yet, pity the poor children of the world (especially in Muslim countries): before they’re able to realistically evaluate probabilities on their own, they’re indoctrinated with an absurd hope of Heaven and a horrible fear of Hell.

Surely to any loving god (if only there were one!) a special place in Hell is reserved for clerics who concocted and promote the hideous idea of Hell. As Robert Ingersoll said:

All the meanness, all the revenge, all the selfishness, all the cruelty, all the hatred, all the infamy of which the heart of man is capable, grew, blossomed and bore fruit in this one word, Hell.

Before 2000 BCE Ptah-Hotep admonished against it: “Let no man inspire men with fear…” Four thousand years later Ingersoll added:

Fear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear believes – courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays – courage stands erect and thinks. Fear retreats – courage advances. Fear is barbarism – courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in devils and in ghosts. Fear is religion – courage is science.

As science continues to progress, I expect that (within a century or so) humanity will be able to purge itself of essentially all ideas about any supernatural Heaven and Hell. More quantitatively, since I place the value of purging humanity of such ludicrous ideas to be very large, say $10^(15), then even if the probability of it occurring within a century is only one in a million, then the value of my associated hope for humanity is $10^15 x 10^(-6) = $10^9 = one billion dollars – which, for me, reflects quite a bit of hope! And I admit to being an optimist, i.e., to focus on the hope that humanity will succeed in ridding itself of all organized religions rather than on the fear that it won’t.

www.zenofzero.net

On Making Morality Mundane

2009-01-18T04:56:00.000-08:00

Recently, for my other blog, I wanted a more-concise description of morality than the multi-chapter description in my on-line book. The result is given below, along with suggestions about how progress might be made toward the goal of wider agreement on what’s moral and what isn’t. I start with some definitions.

According to the Oxford American Dictionary, the morality of any act is “the extent to which an action is right or wrong.” In turn, that definition obviously requires definitions for ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ – topics that I’ll get to, shortly. Here, though, I don’t want to participate in (or contribute to) arguments about distinctions among the words ‘morality’, ‘ethics’, ‘customs’, and ‘laws’. Instead, I’ll simply explain my planned use of those words, in which my emphasis is on distinguishing who decides what’s “right or wrong”.

Thus, by ‘morality’ I’ll generally mean that individuals decide what’s “right or wrong”. By ‘ethics’ I’ll generally mean that some limited group (e.g., a professional society) makes the decision (e.g., on an “ethical code” for lawyers). By ‘customs’ I’ll mean that the majority of some community has made the decision about “right or wrong” (e.g., about what clothing or what sexual activity is appropriate). And by ‘laws’ I’ll mean that some government authority has decided what’s “right or wrong” – and has the power to enforce its decision. Of these four concepts (morals, ethics, customs, and laws), I consider morality to be fundamental, because once a “sufficient number” of individuals agree on “the extent to which an action is right or wrong”, then ethics, customs, and laws usually follow – albeit, sometimes slowly.

Distinguishing who decides what’s right vs. wrong can eliminate some confusion. For example, the act of kicking a boulder would probably be judged as immoral (i.e., dumb) by the person with the resulting sore toe, but as far as I know, such an act isn’t unethical or illegal and isn’t customary (except, perhaps, for little boys). Driving a truck on the wrong side of the road is, however, immoral (dumb), unethical (I expect that any professional trucker’s association would agree), uncustomary, and illegal.

But more significant (than distinguishing among the words ‘moral’, ‘ethics’, ‘customs’, and ‘laws’) is the judgment about the “rightness” or “wrongness” of any act. If desired, such judgments can be assigned a numerical value on a scale running from, say, –10 to +10, with the value –10 assigned to an act judged to be “horrible” or “evil” or even “satanic” and with the value +10 for an act judged to be “perfect” or even “godly”. In reality, however, such values have nothing to do with any devils or gods – which is rather convenient, given that such “supernatural beings” don’t exist (claims by all clerics to the contrary notwithstanding). Instead, the source of all judgments about such values is experience.

Thus, experience has shown that it’s important for humans (and animals!) to have the ability to judge what’s right vs. wrong (and all shades in between). Unfortunately, though, such judgments are often contentious. In turn, such contentions arise in proportion to disagreements about goals or purposes. That is, moral values (as with any values) can be judged only with respect to some objective or purpose – and similarly for ethical values, customs, and laws. Consequently, to judge “the extent to which an action is right or wrong”, we must first judge the extent to which the PURPOSE of the action is right or wrong.

That result can seem to be a “show stopper”: what criteria are to be used to judge the extent to which a purpose is right or wrong? It is, however, not so much a show stopper as a “divider”, since different people, groups, and societies not only choose different purposes but also, of course, claim that their purposes are “right”. For example, many scientific humanists claim that the prime purpose of humans should be to help solve our problems more intelligently (or words to that effect), while “unscientific antihumans” (i.e., theists) claim that the prime goal is serve their god. As another example, Zionists maintain that their prime goal is to ensure that Israel continues to exist, while Islamic jihadis maintain that one of their prime goals is to “eliminate the Zionist enemy”. With such different purposes, different morals, ethics, customs, and laws usually follow.

To illustrate further, consider another extreme. Thus, if the prime goal of a Muslim extremist is to spread Islam throughout the world, so that everyone will parrot “there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his messenger”, then slitting the throat of another “unbeliever” will score very high (maybe a +8) on such an idiot’s “morality scale”. Further, and as unbelievable as it may seem to enlightened humans, killing apostates is customary, ethical (e.g., for the police), and lawful in many Islamic countries.

In contrast, for those of us whose prime goal is to understand and who have concluded that beliefs should be held only as strongly as relevant evidence warrants, then on our “morality scale”, the act of highest moral value (scoring a +10) is to use our brains as best we can, which includes evaluating all relevant and reliable data. Therefore, upon finding no data that support the contention that any god exists (let alone Allah, i.e., “the god”) and finding suggestions (e.g., in the Koran) that Muhammad was “mad” (as judged by some who knew him), we scientific humanists judge the acts of Islamic terrorists to be the epitome of evil (i.e., scoring a –10). For the same reasons, we abhor the custom of killing apostates, we seek to make the act illegal worldwide, and we consider any policeman who enforces such a law or any lawyer who defends it to be unethical.

To reduce such contentions, it would appear to be useful to attempt to identify common purposes that all humans pursue. Stated differently, to reach agreements about morality (“the extent to which an act is right or wrong”), it would appear to be necessary to agree, first, on what purposes or goals are right or wrong, or more generally, to agree on priorities for human goals. At the outset, however, the possibility for such an agreement (on priorities for human goals) seems remote. No agreement seems possible, for example, between religious extremists and “unbelievers” (in their fairy tales), whom religious fanatics want to kill. Similarly, no agreement seems possible between Israel and Iran (whose president seeks Israel’s destruction). Nonetheless, there are reasons to have some hope for humanity.

To participate in such hope, consider first the obvious fact that all humans pursue a huge variety of goals, and we adjust our goals as conditions warrant. Yet, simultaneously, Nature has “programmed” all humans (and, in fact, all life) with the same prime goal (i.e., that goal for which all other goals would be sacrificed), namely, for life to continue. Those species not so programmed are now extinct. Unfortunately, however, Nature’s method for achieving the prime goal (of having life continue) contains features that individuals find either confusing or undesirable – and even more unfortunately, some unscrupulous people (namely, clerics) have found ways to capitalize on both the confusion and the undesirability.

Specifically, Nature found (by experience) that, faced with changing physical and biological environments, the most efficacious way for life to continue was to provide life (i.e., self replicating, information-laden molecules) only with temporary hosts (individuals with finite lifetimes) and to rely on random mutations (e.g., occurring during sexual reproduction) to provide new hosts more fit for survival in modified environments. Most individuals are apparently quite satisfied with the sexual aspects of Nature’s method (although Catholic priests may be exceptions), but simultaneously and understandably, most individuals are dissatisfied with Nature’s method of discarding used hosts (especially, their own deaths).

Thereby, Nature obviously squeezes individuals in a powerful mental vice. On one side of the vice, Nature requires individuals to avoid death, to strive to survive, to thrive, to reproduce, and to help their offspring do similar. But meanwhile, on the other side of the vice, individuals feel the impenetrable crush of their inevitable death. Being placed in such a vice, many individuals understandably seek escape – and not just temporary escape (e.g., via medical assistance) but also permanent escape (e.g., via mental aberrations available in most organized religions). Thus, primitive people imagined that they could live forever – and to this day, primitive people still cling to such a delusion (available and foundational in, e.g., Hinduism, some sects of Judaism, all Christians sects including Mormonism, and all Islamic sects).

If participation in the “life-after-death” delusion were the only aberration of religion, then possibly it wouldn’t cause much harm. Most unfortunately, however, clerics throughout the world have caused (and continue to cause) enormous harm – not only by parasitically peddling the delusion that people can avoid death (an activity comparable to selling snake-oil medicine or other illegal drugs) but also by simultaneously maintaining that the delusional goal of eternal life is the basis of morality.

Granted, the clerics’ logic may appear to be sound: if morality (“the extent to which an action is right or wrong”) can be judged only with respect to some objective and if the prime objective is to attain eternal life, then morality should be evaluated with respect to the goal of attaining eternal life. But though the logic appears sound (sufficiently sound to convince the majority of humans alive today!), yet the conclusion is totally unreliable, since it’s based on the purely speculative premiss that life can continue past death – a premiss not only supported by zero evidence but also patently absurd (“life after death” being an oxymoron).

Throughout history, the tragic mistake of linking morality to such supernatural silliness has had enormous and enormously horrible consequences, from breaking families apart (as Jesus advocated) to the Christian Inquisition, and from religious wars to Islam’s current Dark Ages. As Arthur C. Clarke summarized:

The greatest tragedy in mankind’s entire history may be the hijacking of morality by religion.

To recover from this tragedy some obvious options are available. One option, described by Freud in his 1932 book Moses and Monotheism, is (essentially) to wait for humanity to “grow up” and discard its religious delusions. He wrote:

While the different religions wrangle with one another as to which of them is in possession of the truth, in our view the truth of religion may be altogether disregarded. Religion is an attempt to get control over the sensory world, in which we are placed, by means of the wish-world, which we have developed inside us as a result of biological and psychological necessities. But it cannot achieve its end. Its doctrines carry with them the stamp of the times in which they originated, the ignorant childhood days of the human race. Its consolations deserve no trust.

Experience teaches us that the world is not a nursery. The ethical commands, to which religion seeks to lend its weight, require some other foundations instead, for human society cannot do without them, and it is dangerous to link up obedience to them with religious belief. If one attempts to assign to religion its place in man’s evolution, it seems not so much to be a lasting acquisition, as a parallel to the neurosis which the civilized individual must pass through on his way from childhood to maturity.

One of Freud’s friends, Einstein, made a more progressive suggestion:

The foundation of morality should not be made dependent on myth nor tied to any authority lest doubt about the myth or about the legitimacy of the authority imperil the foundation of sound judgment and action… A man’s ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death.

Subsequently, and extremely fortunately for humanity, the internet has been developed, and with its worldwide use, potentials have vastly improved for enlightening all people, stimulating them to reject the supernatural silliness of all organized religions as the basis for morality and to adopt the solid foundation that has always been (and continues to be) readily available.

To see this “solid foundation for morality” more clearly, consider again the obvious fact that, as with any value, moral value (“the extent to which an action is right or wrong”) can be judged only with respect to some objective. In addition, consider again the obvious fact that the prime objective of all life is to continue living. Therefore, the obvious sound basis for morality for any life form is, was, and always will be the extent to which any act promotes its survival.

All life knows that the basis of its morality is for it to continue living – although it stretches the meaning of the word ‘know’ to say that vegetation “knows” what it’s doing; instead, its behavior is genetically “programmed”. Similarly, from programming in their DNA, all animals instinctively know that “the good” is to survive. For social animals, experience has given survival advantages to genes that programmed behavior that most humans describe as “moral”. Thus, as Michael Shermer wrote in his 2004 book The Science of Good and Evil (pp. 31–32):

The following characteristics appear to be shared by humans and other mammals, including and especially the apes, monkeys, dolphins, and whales: attachment and bonding, cooperation and mutual aid, sympathy and empathy, direct and indirect reciprocity, altruism and reciprocal altruism, conflict resolution and peace making, deception and deception detection, community concern and caring about what others think about you, and awareness of and response to the social rules of the group…

For humans, however, with our greater mental awareness (especially of the future and of possible consequences of our actions), many of our moral choices require more thought than just relying on our genetic programming (i.e., relying solely on our instincts). Thereby, in particular circumstances, humans can find it difficult to identify and choose the most moral act. Consequently, many humans (apparently the majority of humans), finding it difficult to decide for themselves, seek “moral absolutes”, applicable for all circumstances, commonly hawked by their local clerics.

Yet, all the gibberish promoted by clerics notwithstanding, only one “moral absolute” appears to be available for all circumstances. It’s simply this: to ascertain “the extent to which an action is right or wrong”, we should always use our brains as best we can – which of course includes evaluating all relevant and reliable data, seeking advice from contemporaries and wisdom from the past, and attempting to foresee possible consequences of our actions.

That the desire to continue living is the basis of morality is, admittedly, a mundane result (using the word ‘mundane’ both in the sense of being ‘obvious’ and in the sense of being “earthly, rather than spiritual”). It also seems mundane to conclude that the only known moral absolute for humans is for us always to use our brains as best we can. Nonetheless, those mundane results are extremely important.

They lead, for example, to the obvious conclusion that wrestling the specification of morality from the clerics of the world, returning it to the people, explaining to them that the prime goal against which morality is to be judged is simply the goal of trying to solve human problems more intelligently (or words to that effect), and thereby making morality mundane, worldwide, would be highly moral. On my moral scale, I put it at a +9.

www.zenofzero.net

Greetings of the Season

2008-12-25T02:49:00.000-08:00

Joyful greetings of the season are available, but to receive them, it’s first necessary to “get real”. In particular, as a start, there’s need to appreciate the obvious fact that it’s extremely difficult to rid the world of people’s ideas about gods. Root problems include: 1) half the people in the world have below-average intelligence, 2) maybe more than one half are mentally lazy, and 3) almost everyone seems to want something for less than its value – and if possible, for essentially nothing.

Aware of those characteristics of people, the clerics of the world’s monotheistic religions (ever eager to capitalize on the people’s ignorance, gullibility, and greed) concocted and now operate extremely effective scams, whose executions proceed through a number of critical phases. First, the clerics promote a worldview that’s simple enough for a child to understand (“God made the world and everything in it”, “God gave the breath of life to man”, and so on). Second, when something is too complicated to explain with such banality, the clerics terminate inquiry with triteness such as, “That’s just the way God made it”, “God works in mysterious ways”, “Only God knows”, etc. Third, the clerics offer fantastic paybacks for “believers” in their platitudes (eternal happiness in Heaven for Christians, 72 sex-starved virgins in Paradise for sexually frustrated Muslim males, their own godship for believing Mormon males, etc.). And fourth, to top it off, the clerics sell such nonsense for the price of just carrying their useless (and in many cases, worse-than-useless) carcasses.

Somerset Maugham saw the result clearly and summarized it realistically for the case of Christianity:

I couldn’t but surmise that the devil, looking at the cruel wars that Christianity has occasioned, the persecutions, the tortures Christian has inflicted on Christian, the unkindness, the hypocrisy, the intolerance, must consider the balance sheet with complacency. And when he remembers that it [Christianity] has laid upon mankind the bitter burden of the sense of sin that has darkened the beauty of the starry night and cast a baleful shadow on the passing pleasures of a world to be enjoyed, he must chuckle as he murmurs: give the devil his due.

Similar could be said about all the Abrahamic religions (Judaism, Christianity, Islam, Mormonism…), with in every case, the “devils” of course being the clerics themselves.

Now, certainly it would be great if we could rid the world of all god ideas by throwing all the snake-oil-selling clerics in prison, but it’s highly doubtful that we could gain the people’s permission to do so. Too many people are too dumb, too lazy, or have been too brainwashed when they were children to reject the clerics’ con, and especially when hope for a better life fades (in poor countries, when injustices are perceived, during tough economic times, as population exceeds the carrying capacity of the environment, etc.), people then tend to cling even more tenaciously to the hope of better times in a fictitious “afterlife”.

Besides, we should recognize that religions can have some desirable attributes. One was pointed out by Kurt Vonnegut:

The acceptance of a creed, any creed, entitles the acceptor to membership in the sort of artificial extended family we call a congregation. It is a way to fight loneliness. Any time I see a person fleeing from reason and into religion, I think to myself, “There goes a person who simply cannot stand being so goddamned lonely anymore.”

As well, we should remember the assessment by the Greek historian Polybius (c.200–118 BCE):

Since the masses of the people are inconstant, full of unruly desires, passionate and reckless of consequence, they must be filled with fears to keep them in order. The ancients did well, therefore, to invent gods, and the belief in punishment after death.

That is, religions can be useful for, if not controlling, then at least steering “the rabble”. Of course, such “controlling” and “steering” can be dangerous when in the hands of clueless clerics and power-mongering politicians (e.g., today, in Iran, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia), but if the majority of the people democratically control religion (with constitutional protection of the rights of minorities – specifically, freedom of and FROM religion), then it would seem possible that personal and social benefits of religion could be maximized, while minimizing its undesirable features.

I suggest, therefore, that an optimum case might be realized if we were to concoct a more appropriate new god. [That all gods have been human concoctions is too obvious to belabor; that the current, principal god (Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, or “just plain God”) is undesirable is also too obvious to belabor – although I have done it elsewhere.] As a case in point, the creation of his holiness, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, is stimulating, but I suspect most people would find him inappropriate, incapable of mustering the desired, worldwide acceptance. I therefore propose that efforts be made to promote, worldwide, as the new, dominant god, none other than good old Santa Claus himself.

Now, before immediately rejecting my proposal as more supernatural silliness, I hope readers will consider some of the advantages of adopting Santa as the world’s principal god:

He’s already widely known.
People “own” Santa Claus; not priests.
Already there is a repertoire of Santa Claus “hymns”.
The theme of most such hymns is “so be good for goodness' sake”.
Kids enjoy the Santa Claus myth, and people whose intellectual capabilities exceed that of a six-year old easily abandon the myth.
Save for violations of a few, minor, aerodynamic constraints during flight (for, after all, he is a god!), Santa doesn’t violate major scientific results in astronomy, archeology, biology, geology, medicine, physics, etc.
Santa carries with him no social baggage dealing with sexuality, slavery, women’s rights, governmental policies, “just wars”, etc.
Santa’s always happy! He spreads good cheer. He doesn’t have the “attitude problems” of other gods whose names could be mentioned.
For many of us in “the developed world”, his weight won’t embarrass us.

In addition, it should be emphasized that Santa’s principal role is to deliver presents, given in love by one person to another. So, since most people agree that it would be desirable to have a god of love, surely Santa is a prime candidate.

Think of it. With Santa as God, then when people say, “God be with you” (or “Good-bye”), then we’d know it meant “Santa be with you.” Similarly, “God bless you”, “In God we trust”, “under God”, and so on, would of course be referring to Santa, to which surely no one would object. Our God (Santa) would have had nothing to do with creating the universe (i.e., he wouldn’t be identified as the first symmetry-breaking fluctuation in the original void), no one would suggest that he was involved in the “intelligent design” of life, and so on. Our God’s sole role would be to spread love, joy, and happiness among all people – and especially to all children – worldwide.

To critics who might complain that we’d just be substituting one delusion for another, I’d agree. But then: 1) obviously many people want (maybe even “need”) their delusions, 2) there are delusions – and then, there are delusions, and 3) think of the improvements in the suggested Santa delusion over currently available options. For example, besides Santa’s potential for spreading good cheer, all “holy books” and “sacred scripture” currently dealing with available god delusions (with all their horrors, including brutality, incest, rape, racism, intolerance, etc., and hideous statements such as “kill the infidels”) could be trashed (where they belong), to be replaced with simple, happy ditties about red-nosed reindeer, admonishments not to “pout”, and a moral code no more complicated than “be good for goodness' sake.” Furthermore, surely those in need of a god delusion would be pleased with the concept that their god (Santa) isn’t “transcendental”, outside space and time, but instead, lives happily with his wife and helpers at the North Pole.

I’d point out, further, that besides being realistic, we should be practical. Let's not forget that creating a popular god isn’t so simple as it might seem. Ezra, Paul, Muhammad, Sidney Rigdon, et al., for example, went to substantial efforts to create their gods out of thin air. Yet, in the case of Santa, we’re almost there: already he’s one the most popular (if not the most popular!) supernatural beings ever concocted. And besides, good old Nick is a likeable old fellow! I’d bet Ezra, Paul, Muhammad, Sidney Rigdon, et al. would give their right arms if their gods possessed Santa’s image!

That’s not to say that some “make over” of Santa’s image wouldn’t be helpful, and if we do so, we should be wary of potentials for developments of “sectarian divisions”. But I expect that movie and TV studios of the world could accomplish the make-over tasks fairly easily, and in truth, I’m not overly concerned about any sectarian divisions that might develop. What I’m thinking about, for example, is that some new movie about Santa (maybe created by former members of Judaism) might emphasize that humanity’s role is to help Santa in this life, whereas a movie about Santa produced by former Christians, Muslims, or Mormons might emphasize that our goal is to be “good little Santa’s helpers” in this life, in order to continue to be Santa’s helpers (spreading love and good cheer) for eternity. But I’d have the reader consider the possibility that such sectarian divisions wouldn’t lead to sectarian strife – provided that fanciful rewards aren't conditional upon belief in them (as is currently the case in all the damnable Abrahamic religions).

Nonetheless, I admit that some precautions seem appropriate and some regulations may be necessary. For example, 1) All governments of the world would need to adhere to a strict policy of separation of Santa and State (at least insofar as dictating any official, governmental position on Santa’s necromancy), 2) The establishment of a Santa priesthood should be strongly discouraged (e.g., with tax rates in excess of 99%), and 3) Any suggestions of “eternal punishment” for those who fail to spread Santa’s love and cheerfulness would need to be strongly discouraged (e.g., via propaganda campaigns); instead, emphasis should be on the suggestion that the only punishment for not spreading Santa’s love and cheerfulness would be less cheer and less love for the violator. In that regard, Somerset Maugham’s statement could be an effective slogan: “The important thing [is] to love rather than be loved.”

And for those skeptics, nay sayers, and “bah humbuggers” who might complain that having only one “Santa’s day” per year for spreading love and good cheer would be too restrictive, I’d encourage them to “think bigger”. Sure, we could continue to emphasize one day per year (there’s more historical justification for identifying December 25 as the birthday for Kris Kringle than there is for Horus, Mithra, or Jesus), but I see no reason why “the spirit of Santa” couldn’t be extended, in a huge variety of ways, to include every day of the year: happy Santa Day – every day!

As for a slogan for the overall Santa campaign, I’d suggest:

SANTA CLAUS IS GOD. GOD IS SANTA!

Happy Santa Claus day everyone! May Santa’s spirit be with you all year: mingle and tingle with the spirit of Kris Kringle!

www.zenofzero.net

Barbarians Within & Without

2008-12-06T05:01:00.000-08:00

With the Mumbai murders added to the atrocities committed by Muslim terrorists during the past decade (in Bali, Lisbon, London, New York, Tel Aviv…), questions are again raised about how to eliminate terrorism “inspired” by religion.

Such barbarism is as old as religion. Even ignoring the religiously inspired barbarism of the Ancient Akkadians, Egyptians, Assyrians, and Hebrews, Christians terrorizing Jews continued for the worst part of 2,000 years, Muslims terrorizing Jews has continued for almost 1400 years, it was centuries before the terrors of the Christian Inquisition subsided, and today, Islamic terrorists continue to murder Christian, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, and of course, the horrible “atheists” (or better, “scientific humanists”).

It could be stopped. It would be relatively easy to strike sufficient terror into the terrorists for them to abandon their barbarism. Unfortunately, though, the barbarians are both within and without the gates to enlightenment.

My rough estimate is that, if the people of the world (e.g., through their representatives at the UN) would permit us, then we scientific humanists could eliminate all Islamic terrorism within a decade at a cost of less than 10 million dollars per year ($10 million, not $10 billion, per year) – without using any military hardware, without destroying any property, and without any deaths. Unfortunately, however, the people are unlikely to grant their permission, especially since the clerics of the world (the herders of sheep) would rise up (for a change, united) in opposition to the means used to achieve the end of Islamic terrorism.

Theoretically, it would be easy to terrorize the Muslim terrorists, to stop their Islamic madness. Their Achilles heel is exactly the same as the source of their madness, which has continued for more than a thousand years. The source of their madness is their claim to love death.

Such madness of Muslim maniacs became apparent in the Battle of Qadisiyya in 663, when the commander of the invading Muslims sent the following message to the defending Persians:

You… should convert to Islam, and then you will be safe, for if you don’t, you should know that I have come to you with an army of men that love death, as you love life.

Similar idiocy continues today. For example, the “will” one of the Madrid bombers contains the message:

Many people take life as a path to death. I have chosen death as a path to life.

The same claim that they love death has been made by Chechen terrorists, Hezbollah leaders, and members of bin Laden’s Al Qaeda.

Humans can’t reason with such beasts, but we can terrorize them, because within the DNA of every living being is the desire to survive; those life forms that didn’t have the “programming” to seek their own survival are extinct. The minds of the terrorists have been warped by their clerics to “think” that they can live forever – even, live forever in paradise – if they’re killed as jihadis. But beneath their clerical indoctrination resides (not totally dormant) the jihadis’ fear that their indoctrination may be a lie; that their death will be their end.

To terrorize the terrorists, therefore, we need to hit their Achilles heels with arrows of truth. Thus, to get the Muslim terrorists to smarten up, we should (with a ~$10 million per year campaign) flood the air and airwaves of Islamic countries with "slogans of truth", such as the following, with the content of each message and the total number of messages sufficient so that at least one arrow will hit each target.

• There are no gods and there never were.

• More certain than the knowledge that we exist is the knowledge that no god exists or has ever existed.

• Smarten up, people: God is just make believe.

• Like all gods, Allah is a figment of overactive imaginations.

• Your religious leaders are just using you, to benefit themselves.

• If you think that you’ll live forever, then you’ve been duped by religious con artists.

• Your parents told you that Allah exists, but they, too, were duped by their parents and by religious con artists.

• Come on, people, get real: all the talk about God or Allah is just that – just talk. In reality, there are no gods and there never were.

• All religions are just make believe.

• When you die, you’re dead – and that’s the end of you.

• In logic, believing that something is true because the belief brings pleasure is called “The Proof by Pleasure Fallacy”; in religion, the same fallacy is called ‘faith’.

• Don’t “believe” anything; instead, evaluate the evidence and then estimate the probability that it’s true. There is zero evidence that any god exists or has ever existed.

• Believe in yourself! Have faith in the scientific method! People who do so are called “scientific humanists”; people who don’t should be called not “theists” but “unscientific antihumans”.

• The universe seems to have created itself via a symmetry-breaking fluctuation in a total void, leading to the Big Bang and the eventual production of stars, planets, and an autocatalytic, self-replicating molecule, from which humans eventually evolved.

• Think about it: “Religion is considered by fools as true, by scientists as false, by leaders as useful, and by clerics as a meal ticket.”

• Think about it: “Religion is the science of children; science is the religion of adults.”

And so on, sufficient to purge the stupid ideas of god and eternal life from every indoctrinated mind.

But most unfortunately, almost certainly the campaign won’t be conducted, because there are barbarians both within and without the gates to enlightenment. In the US, for example, not only would the military-industrial complex resist the plan (because of the loss of contracts to build more tanks and planes and ships) but also, members of Congress wouldn’t approve of a campaign against God; they’d consider it (rightly so) as political suicide. Further, imagine the reaction of clerics throughout the world to any campaign that would discredit their con games. And of course the majority of people throughout the world wouldn’t approve of such a campaign: half of them obviously have below-average intelligence and more than half would be unwilling to give up their crazy, egotistical hope that they’ll live forever.

So, given that there are barbarians both within and without, what are scientific humanists to do? Sorry to leave the reader with some “downers”, but I don’t see any other realistic alternatives:

• Continue to kill Muslim terrorists (although it’s essentially hopeless, since they’ll just keep on popping up like weeds).

• Terminate Muslim immigration to the West (although it will have limited effect, since those already here are breeding like rabbits and the Islamic terrorists have demonstrated that they can penetrate national boundaries).

• Evict from Western countries not only Muslims who preach or practice hate but also those Muslims who fail to demonstrate allegiance, first, to their adopted countries.

• Financially and in other ways, assist those brave Muslims in Islamic countries who are trying to enlighten people in their own countries.

• Continue with campaigns to eliminate religions in Western countries – for example, support all programs that ridicule organized religions.

• Do whatever you can to stop the funding of Islamic terrorists via Arab petro-dollars – for example, support programs to develop automobiles that run on other than gasoline and support programs to increase electric power generation from nuclear and other, non-Arab fuels.

• To alert Muslim leaders to become aware of potential consequences of terrorist attacks using weapons of mass destruction, promote a campaign to have the US Congress: 1) withdraw from the portion of the Geneva Convention dealing with destroying “objects of cultural heritage” and 2) instruct the President to request (in the event of another major terrorist attack on the US) Congressional approval to obliterate Mecca.

And another action that individual scientific humanists might want to try, although I admit that, personally, I’ve found it to be frustrating: sign up at any of many internet “religious forums”, both Christian and Islamic (which can be easily found using an internet search engine), and then, when it’s appropriate, add derisive comments about the silly idea of god. You’ll get the expected responses, but when a pebble is thrown into the pond, the ripples expand, and who knows whom you might be able to stimulate to start thinking for themselves.

www.zenofzero.net

On Bailing Out Detroit

2008-11-18T04:29:00.000-08:00

There’s wisdom in the familiar line “It’s hard to drain a swamp when you’re up to your ass in alligators”, but then, that’s precisely when some leadership is needed.

Currently, there's no doubt that the American economy is swamped with alligators. It’s also clear that essentially all of our so-called leaders in industry, congress, and the administration are up to their asses in economic alligators. Essentially all of these leaders, however, seem most intent on protecting their asses, apparently having forgotten about the need to drain the swamp.

In particular, in the case of the American automotive industry, the swamp is polluted with foreign oil, the cost of which (controlled by the OPEC cartel) is drowning our economy. Meanwhile, because of our sick economic conditions and the sick leadership in our automotive industry, American car manufacturers are begging for financial bailouts. And unfortunately, politicians (most intent on protecting jobs so that they’ll have a better chance of being re-elected) may bail out Detroit, leaving the rest of the country in an oily swamp filled with alligators.

Isn’t there at least one leader among them who would say the obvious and who would start draining the swamp?

Obviously what’s needed is a Manhattan-style project to redefine, redesign, and retool our entire automotive industry, to drain our country’s dependence on foreign oil.

Don’t bail out Detroit; rebuild it.

As a country, let’s set the achievable goal that, in five years, not a single automobile rolling-off American assembly lines will be powered by petroleum products and, instead, will be powered by batteries, natural gas, liquefied coal and oil shale, and even hydrogen. Simultaneously, we’ll need to build an infrastructure to dispense the alternative fuels and a sufficient number of nuclear reactors to supply the additional electricity (to charge the batteries, liquefy the coal and oil shale, and produce hydrogen).

And I’d add that, for those few Americans unwilling to trade-in their gas-guzzlers for vehicles running on alternative fuels, then to show them that there's no hard feelings, we could offer to trade them their Bibles for copies of the Koran.