Monthly Archive for December, 2011
What was that? Less that 4 hours away? Any 'respect' he may have gained for managing to keep his Poe persona (poe-sona?) up for so long will surely evaporate away if he just keeps on going as if nothing happened!
Before today one had to accept that, no matter how obscene what he said was, Keith managed to stay in character 100% of the time, never once dropping the act. But today....well, today it's game over. The ONLY way forward seems to me to be if he reveals himself to be a big name comedian setting up some show or other, or trying to make a point about how people react to online lunatics....
But my gut feeling is that he's either a no-body who set up a poe account that span out of control, or he's genuinely insane.
EDIT: in light of the following, I'm going with 'Poe', and also feel confident in saying that @LoveGod50 is just a Keith sockpuppet
At a very high level of abstraction, Sabin
Atheists can use old theological arguments, such as the Cosmological Argument, for their own non-theistic purposes. The Cosmological Argument reasons from the dependencies among things in nature to the existence of some ultimate independent thing. Over the years, there have been many versions of that argument. Aquinas famously gave three versions (the first three Ways in the Summa Theologica, Part 1, Q. 2, Art. 3). Although theists want the Cosmological Argument to conclude with the existence of the theistic deity (typically, with the existence of the Christian God), the argument does not go to that conclusion. On the contrary, the ultimate independent thing lacks the essential features of any theistic deity. The Cosmological Argument is therefore an atheological argument.
Although there are many versions of the Cosmological Argument, they all share a common form. The common form looks something like this: (1) Some objects depend on other objects. (2) There are many descending dependency chains (chains in which x0 depends on x1, x1 depends on x2, and so on). (3) Dependency chains have no loops of any length (not even length 0). (4) Dependency chains cannot be infinitely descending. (5) Therefore, every descending dependency chain bottoms out in some independent object. (6) All dependency chains bottom out in the same independent object. (7) There exists a single independent object on which all other objects depend.
Since the independent object does not depend on anything, it exists necessarily. And, since it is at the extreme bottom of a series, it is ultimate, it is original. Since any whole depends on its parts, it does not have any parts – it is simple. It does not have any intelligence or psychology; it is not a person. Nor does it transcend nature; on the contrary, it is within nature – it is immanent. The independent object is not any theistic deity and it is certainly not the Christian God. It is merely an ontologically original object.
One common objection to the Cosmological Argument aims to refute the premise (4) that dependency chains cannot be infinitely descending. However, more sophisticated versions of the Cosmological Argument work with infinitely descending chains. Such versions have been developed by Leibniz (1697) and Meyer (1987). Leibniz shows how an infinite regression of causes nevertheless requires some ultimate sufficient reason:
Let us suppose a book entitled The Elements of Geometry to have existed eternally, one edition having always been copied from the preceding: it is evident then that, although you can account for the present copy by a reference to the past copy which it reproduces, yet, however far back you go in this series of reproductions, you can never arrive at a complete explanation, since you always will have to ask why at all times these books have existed, that is, why there have been any books at all and why this book in particular. (Leibniz, 1988: 84-86)
According to Leibniz, even if nature has existed forever into the past, it is still possible to ask the Metaphysical Question: why is there something rather than nothing? Even if nature contains infinitely descending dependency chains, Leibniz argues that they must bottom out, in the limit, in some original independent object. Any ontological regression converges in the limit to an original object. This original object contains the ultimate sufficient reason for all things. Within this original object, being-itself is equivalent to the Principle of Sufficient Reason (the PSR). The success of science empirically justifies the thesis that existence is rational. If existence is rational, then being-itself is equivalent to the PSR.
The PSR says that for any proposition P, if P, then there is some reason for P (see Kane, 1986: 123-125). Kane shows that the PSR has been used in scientific reasoning, so that there is scientific justification for the PSR (1976; 1986). Although the PSR may appear to have no creative power, that appearance is incorrect. The natural creative power of the PSR is manifest in the fact that the PSR entails the Principle of Plenitude (the PP). The PP says that for any proposition P, if there is no reason for not P, then P. There are two main lines of support for the PP. The first line comes from its use in current physics. Current physics uses Gell-Mann’s totalitarian principle: “Everything which is not forbidden is compulsory” (Kane, 1986: 130). But the totalitarian principle is equivalent to the PP. Hence all the scientific justification for the totalitarian principle flows to the PP.
Within the nature of the original object, being-itself is equivalent to the Principle of Sufficient Reason, which expresses itself as (which entails) the Principle of Plenitude. The PSR is natura naturans unmanifest, while the PP is the original manifestation of natura naturans. Leibniz formulates the PP like this: “Everything possible demands that it should exist, and hence will exist unless something else prevents it” (Rescher, 1991
The Principle of Plenitude: For every thing, for every potentiality of that thing, if there is no reason to prevent the actualization of that potentiality, then that potentiality will be actualized.
If the earlier analysis of the Wiccan ultimate deity is correct, then the original object is the original self-manifestation of that ultimate deity. It is the ontologically initial appearance of natural creative power. The essence of the original object is the PSR; and this essence entails the PP, which in turn entails the existence of the original object. For the original object is possible; and since there is nothing on which its existence depends, there is nothing that can prevent it from existing; its demand for existence is satisfied by itself. Within the original object, essence and existence coincide. However, the original object is not any theistic deity, and it is certainly not the Christian God. Theism incorrectly projects personality into the orginal object, and that projection is idolatrous.
On this atheological analysis, the Principle of Plenitude is the original manifestation of natural creative power. This manifestation has an if-then structure: if the antecedent, then the consequent. Natural creative power is the force which moves truth from the antecedent to the consequent. But the antecedent involves reason while the consequent involves will. The if-then structure of natural creative power binds reason and will together into an ontologically productive unity. If the Wiccan god symbolizes will, and the goddes symbolizes reason, then the goddess symbolizes the antecedent of the PP while the god symbolizes the consequent of the PP. The love between the god and goddess symbolizes the Principle of Plenitude itself. Thus the sexually productive interaction of the god and goddess symbolizes the ontological effectiveness of the Principle of Plenitude. It symbolizes the power of the Principle of Plenitude to generate nature. Of course, this means only that the god and goddess are symbols for abstract principles. It would be idolatrous to identify the will with the god or reason with the goddess, or to project a male person into the consequent of the PP or a female person into the antecedent.
An atheist must reject as idolatrous every attempt to project human persons or psychological elements into natura naturans. If Wiccans say that there are people (namely, a male person and a female person) operative within the nature of the original object, then they are theistic, they are idolatrous, and atheists must reject that idolatry. However, since Wicca explicitly permits the interpretation of the god and goddess as merely mythological symbols, it seems that Wiccans can avoid that idolatry. If so, then an atheistic Wicca is possible.
On exactly this point it is valuable to contrast Wicca with Christianity. The Christian Godhead may indeed be some abstract object similar to being-itself. However, as the result of Biblical pressures, Christian theologians immediately project persons into their godhead. They project the three persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit into the godhead. These are three hypostases – they are three personal reifications of the impersonal. The belief that the Bible is divine revelation compels Christians to make these reifications. Within Christianity, abstract thought cannot overcome the concrete imagery of the Biblical text. To say that the Biblical text is merely metaphorical is to say that Jesus is not Christ. And that, of course, is impossible for any Christian. If this analysis is correct, then idolatry is built right into Christianity. The only way to avoid idolatrous projection is atheism. An atheistic Christianity is absurd; an atheistic Wicca is a real possibility.
Some (but not all) posts in this series:
The Wiccan Deity: An Initial Philosophical Analysis
The Wiccan Deity: Related Concepts in Philosophy
Nine Theses on Wicca and Atheism
Atheism and the Sacred: Natural Creative Power
Criticizing Wicca: Rationality
The Wiccan God and Goddess: Reality and Mythology
Criticizing Wicca: God and Goddess
Wiccan Theology and Sexual Equality
Revelation versus Manifestation
References
Cunningham, S. (1988) Wicca: A Guide for the Solitary Practitioner
Kane, R. (1976) Nature, plenitude and sufficient reason. American Philosophical Quarterly 13, 23-31
Kane, R. (1986) Principles of reason. Erkenntnis 24, 115 – 136.
Leibniz, G. W. (1697/1988) On the ultimate origination of the universe. In P. Schrecher & A. Schrecker (1988) Leibniz: Monadology and Other Essays. New York: Macmillan Publishing, 84-94.
Meyer, R. (1987) God exists! Nous 21, 345-361.
Rescher, N. (1991) G. W. Leibniz’s Monadology: An Edition for Students
Sabin, T. (2011) Wicca for Beginners: Fundamentals of Philosophy & Practice
When you consider all the contributions people have given to the Foundation Beyond Belief via widgets, our website, and checks in the mail, we’re not far from reaching our goal of $15,000.
That’s really close to securing a quarter of the modest funding we need for 2012, which has me dancing in my jammies. If we end up raising the additional $2,450 in the next 11 hours, I may just have to sing in them.
Make him sing in them. Please. It’ll be hilarious 
We have some big plans for next year that I can’t wait to share with you, but we need to make sure our own organization is sustainable so we can keep everything rolling. If you have some change lying around or a sudden swelling of goodwill, please consider helping us out!
The reason I am an Atheist is a very simple one: It is very important to me that the things I believe, are true. I accept that it’s logically impossible to prove a negative, but considering that in the entire history of humanity, nobody has ever found any good evidence for the existence of supernatural entities of any kind – and it’s certainly not for want of looking! – it seems reasonable to be just as certain that there really are no gods, as that there really is no ether and no phlogiston.
How I got here is a long story. Ironically enough, the seeds for my escape from religion were planted by the church I attended as a child. My family went to a Mennonite Brethren church, which was composed mostly of families like mine – Mennonites whose parents or grandparents had pursued an education and become city folk – as well as people of other ethnicities who had joined over the years. What we had in common with the Colony Mennonites was eating and singing, and a commitment to non-violence and social justice. A common theme of lessons and sermons was, “The Truth Will Set You Free.” Of course, the main “truth” they were talking about was salvation, but it also came up in the context of social justice, for example fighting prejudice, or using science to fight hunger and disease. The result of all this was that I was a very idealistic little girl.
Of course, I didn’t stay a little girl, and the idealism got squashed pretty hard. My church, and my extended family, either took a pretty hard swing to the right, or maybe they were always there and I hadn’t realized it. The messages changed, from “God is Love” and “We are called to a ministry of serving the poor and the sick and the oppressed,” to “Hell is awful and the Rapture could be any second” and “You are personally responsible for every sinner who goes to hell because you didn’t witness to them.” The graphic descriptions of the torment of hellfire and the horrors of the Tribulation were more than I could handle, and I often woke up from nightmares. To compound my terror, this particular brand of Evangelicalism makes one testable prediction: if you pray to accept Jesus as your personal saviour blah blah blah, then something (though it’s never described eactly what) is supposed to happen. A feeling of inner peace or connection with God or love or something. You’re supposed to Just Know you’re Saved. I prayed and prayed for years, with increasing desperation, and nothing happened. I never felt Saved. Clearly there was something wrong with me. I didn’t dare talk to anybody about it.
At the same time, other discourse in the church was giving me some ideas about why God might not want me. In the 1990s, in a church that considered itself radically progressive, there was a heated and divisive debate going on about whether women could be ordained as pastors. When it came down to a vote, the decision was the Bible said no, so that was that. There was plenty of anti-gay rhetoric going on as well. Plus a developing streak of dogmatism that frowned on asking questions and came with a goodly dose of anti-intellectualism on top. I came to believe that my existence was a massive case of entrapment: if God made me, and he hates queers and uppity women and people who can’t seem to stop asking “why”, then he deliberately made something he hates and I would be going to hell unless I somehow managed to not be what God made me as. What a setup!
I spent a few years as a straw atheist: I believed in God and was deeply afraid, and I hated him. I sat down to really read the Bible, to see if God really was the monster I’d come to believe in or if my church had gotten it wrong. Of course, what I learned was that if my church had gotten it wrong, it was by painting a far too rosy picture.
As I grew up, I got access to more and more books, and then the Internet, and learned about how the Bible actually came to be what it is today, and it looked less and less like the Divinely Inspired, Unerring Word of God, and more and more like a collection of confabulations selected to support a particular ideology.
I majored in psychology when I went to university, and we talked a lot about epistemology and the philosophy of science, and I learned about Karl Popper and the idea of falsifiability. Something clicked. I decided that if there was no scenario in which any possible outcome could prove there was no god, then God, for all practical purposes in this life, is irrelevant. I decided to live my life now, according to who I feel I am and what I believe is right and wrong, regardless of afterlife consequences. After all, it’s noble to stand up for what you believe is right, even at great personal cost. I’d take my martyrdom in the afterlife – but that’s another thing that’s impossible to make falsifiable predictions about.
Though I didn’t become a neuroscientist, I did take a lot of neuroscience courses towards my degree, and that sent mind-body dualism to the intellectual rubbish heap. If my mind is a function of my body, then it dies with my body and there’s nothing left to burn for eternity, so I have nothing to fear. The truth had set me free.
I haven’t escaped unscathed though. My depression probably also has genetic roots because it’s all over my family, but subjecting a child to that level of fear, accompanied with a heaping dose of self-loathing, can’t have improved matters. I have to really fight against thoughts like “I’m a depraved sinner who deserves to die.” I still have nightmares though they’re decreasing, and I have to be careful about stories featuring end of the world scenarios – I wasn’t old enough to see Terminator when it first came out, but I tried to watch it a couple years ago and had a panic attack during the opening credits and nightmares and flashbacks for a good week after. And I’m still angry – not at God but at the people who force the poison of religion on children’s minds.
Tricia
Canada
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the year ends in athens soon.
my heartfelt wishes for a wonderful new year to you all.
oh -- and free calendars!
Happy New Year, thanks for reading.
Whatever has happened, we'll all remember Keith as the Poe who made it to the Daily Mail.
EDIT: He's posted one, presumably final, tweet -
If that isn't the work of a Poe, I don't know what is.
This year for the holidays, like many of you, I have been reveling with friends and family. I hope you’ve had a fun time. I know I have.
I was asked the following question this year, for the first time in my life:
“If you don’t believe in Jesus, why are you celebrating Christmas? Jesus is the only reason for Christmas, right?”
Well, according to this commercial that has been playing incessantly around here, that would be right.
I was kind of taken aback, so I responded, “Well, I don’t necessarily believe that it was right that the Europeans came and took native land and slaughtered the Native Americans, but I still celebrate Thanksgiving.”
Then I added, “To me, it’s about family and generosity.”
But that got me thinking. What is Christmas? Why are Santa Claus, reindeer, carols, mistletoe, and sparkly trees superimposed on a day that, according to its name, should be wholly religious? If it is only about Christ, then why don’t American Christians simply go to church, pray to baby Jesus, and leave it at that? Why do they drape their houses with thousands of colored lights? Why do they hang stockings in front of their fireplaces? Why do Americans spend thousands of dollars on Blue Ray players and iPads, and scramble to get the last Tickle Me Elmo for their bratty kids to believe was left by an obese home intruder? What the hell do those things have to do with Jesus Christ?
Jesus didn’t even watch Sesame Street.
I had vaguely heard some of the things about the Pagan roots of Christmas and the “real” date of birth of Christ, if he had actually existed as a human at all, but I didn’t know how it all played out, exactly.
So I began reading. I make no promises that the internet didn’t lead me astray, but this is what I learned, in a snarky nutshell.
The holidays around the solstice go back all the way to ancient Babylon, and likely back to caveman days. It was when the sun began its “rebirth” during the winter, and since these people were at risk to starve any second because they had to eat bark and shit, they were obviously happy that winter was on its way out. This time of year was the “birthday” of many gods, Attis, Frey, Thor, Dionysus, Osiris, Adonis, Mithra, Tammuz, Cernunnos, etc.
So when the Roman emperor, Constantine, had a hallucination after gorging on wild boar that he would win a battle if he carried a Christian cross into war, (and he did win), he realized he needed to hold off feeding Christians to lions. But he didn’t stop there. Like many newly converted holy rollers, he just couldn’t handle it that the people of the Roman Empire also hadn’t heard the Good News. So, instead of getting on his bike and riding door-to-door to hand out pamphlets, he proclaimed himself the first Christian emperor of Rome, and soon after his death, Christianity was named the official religion of the Roman Empire. The greatest Christian Nation of all time! Take that, America!
The Christian church in the fourth century got all insecure when people continued holding their Pagan parties during Saturnalia and worshiping their awesome sun god, Mithra. They just kept on lighting trees and garland with candles, drunkenly dancing and singing in the streets naked (caroling), setting logs on fire (Yule), exchanging gifts, kissing under mistletoe for good luck with fertility, holding human sacrifices, eating human-shaped crackers (gingerbread men), pillaging and raping, etc. So the church said, “Okay, you dirty heathens, if we let you keep celebrating your Pagan stuff, will you convert and follow Jesus Christ as your savior?” Since December 25th was the last day of Saturnalia, Pope Julius made this the day Jesus was born.
So I guess it worked, because, I mean, here we are, right?
Well, Christmas didn’t really always get the free pass it gets today. Talk about a War on Christmas, Fox News, Oliver Cromwell’s Puritans in the British Isles and America outlawed it in the 1600’s. They thought it was, as it actually is, just too Pagan. Back then, if you were caught celebrating Christmas, you would be jailed for heresy. In America, in fact, if you didn’t go to work on Christmas in the late 1800’s, you’d get fired. Such Scrooges!
Santa, you ask? Oh that’s easy. Basically, he was a Greek saint and bishop of Myra (now part of modern-day Turkey) named Nikolaos [Thanks for the correction, Infidel753] who was known for his generosity and who later lost his temper at the Council of Nicea. He was later worshiped by a cult of sailors, and they moved his bones to Italy. The cult members ousted an existing grandmother deity who gave gifts to children in their socks. Then the St. Nicholas cult got adopted by the Saxons, and they dropped his Mediterranean good looks and metamorphosed him with their god, Woden, who had a long white beard and flew around on a horse. Then the Catholic church bribed the Nicholas cult and converted them to thinking he would distribute his gifts on, you guessed it, December 25th. Lots of different cultures developed their own versions of the saintly Father Christmas gift giver. Then the guy who wrote the Legend of Sleepy Hollow slapped together a satire about a guy with a long white beard who flew around on a horse giving gifts, and then another guy read that and wrote the poem, “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas.” He added reindeer and changed Santa to a pervert who came down your chimney in the middle of the night. Then Harper’s Weekly started showing Santa in cartoons to sell magazines, and added elves, the North Pole, and the “naughty or nice” list, for the joyful manipulation of children.
And who gave us the most modern image we have of St. Nick with the big belly, rosy cheeks, and fuzzy red robes?
Coca-cola. In the 1930’s. To sell soda.
And the moral of the story, American Christians, is this:
You are sun worshiping, polytheistic, hedonistic, commercialized Pagans! Can we all get along now?
Happy New Year, heathens. Here’s to 2012, and the coming apocalypse!
I very much like this insightful post; it points out that the big theological question of the ancient world was “where does the sun go at night?“, and that it was answered only relatively recently in human history — and answered with such resounding certainty that the question seems trivial to everyone now.
And how was it answered?
I think it’s an awkward fact for theology that, as far as I can see, a lot of theological issues have been conclusively solved, but all of them were solved outside the field. I don’t see this changing – one of the vibrant issues across a number of academic disciplines, including theology, is the very broad area of ‘consciousness’. I very strongly suspect we’ll see key breakthroughs in my lifetime, a real shift of understanding about what constitutes awareness, consciousness, intelligence, how these things can originate, how to define them and so on – but these breakthroughs will almost certainly come from the computer science departments, from the evolutionary biologists. It’s hard to see how they might even come from a theology department.
We’re just waiting for the theological corpse to rot away now. I don’t expect to see religion go away in my lifetime, but I don’t think it’s too much to hope that theology will get the disrespect and contempt it deserves.
I have some concerns about the Disneyfication of the classic pulp novel, A Princess of Mars; I’m sure Disney wouldn’t have much trouble with Burroughs’ casual racism, and I see they have an out for the violence — green blood everywhere is OK — but I doubt the casual nudity will make it to the screen. One really good thing, though: those are truly excellent CGI Barsoomians.
And it’s being released for my birthday! How sweet!
(Episode CCLXXXVI: Escape from Wisconsin!)
And the devil that deceived them was cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet are, and shall be tormented day and night for ever and ever. - Revelation 20:10
If the Devil is thrown into the Lake of Fire, and defeated forever, who runs Hell for eternity afterwards?
I mention this because my venture into politics of late is a bit like teaching, but without the captive audience. However, my efforts at persuading people to my political views have not quite reached the level of my ability to successfully teach biology. On the contrary, I may have done the opposite, turned people off my politics. Like my previous teaching example the fault or obligation is mine. How do I know how well I've done? Judging from the reactions of my own friends and family, I doubt I've persuaded any of them, though I'm still trying. Of course I don't know for certain about any other people I've encountered, I can't ask them, but I can look at three sets of previous election results, and they are not encouraging.
As a teacher I adapted (different ways of teaching) to my accommodate students, but my political persuasion techniques leave much to be desired. I have used just one technique so far, the debate. Debates rarely persuade, rather, the opponents "butt heads" intellectually, and the goal is to win, not to discover the truth. When I don't win, I just debate harder, I become more aggressive and argumentative. Who does that persuade? Not many.
Voters, the people I'm trying to persuade these days are very conservative, and I mean that in the original sense of the word, not the current meaningless political usage. Dramatic change, the kind libertarians advocate, is just not on. Successful persuasion requires getting people to come along with you voluntarily, steering their thinking, sort of like teaching. That means getting in tune with people, not shocking them with libertarian bravado. I'm as guilty as any one of doing that. So, where to get help?
Over the years, libertarians have created a variety of different organizations each with its own niche (many you will find on this page). Some organizations specialize in economics, others in politics, still others in education. With the advent of the internet, access, popularity, and usage of these organizations has multiplied. One them, The Advocates for Self Government is concerned with the best practices for communicating the ideas of liberty. Many of you may be aware of the Nolan Chart which is at the centre of the World's Smallest Political Quiz, that is one of their tools. The Advocates have taken on the niche of persuasion by selling books, tapes and CDs, plus providing training. Over recent weeks I've been listening (mostly while driving) to a CD set titled The Essence of Political Persuasion and I've learned a great deal about using language to sell liberty, I recommend it. In it, there are several techniques, easily learned with practice, that can help anyone vary their own particular attempts at persuasion.
Its very difficult to sell the idea of liberty to people who are constantly told and who already believe that they have freedom. Governments routinely use their powers to usurp more and more of our personal responsibility, that's how they continue to grow. They have grown so large, and we are so inured to their presence now, that some freedoms are even considered to be destructive to our best interests. For example, as John Stossel suggested in a recent article that applies just as much to Canadians as Americans:
"Lots of Americans oppose free trade and free markets. It takes some knowledge to realize that the seeming chaos masks underlying order. The benefits of freedom are not intuitive, and when you go against people's intuition, they get upset.
The benefits of freedom are largely "unseen," as the 19th century French liberal Frederic Bastiat put it. He meant that rising living standards and labor-saving inventions don't appear to flow from freedom. But they do.
It's one of the ironies of life that people need not understand freedom for it to work, and because of this, there is the perennial danger that they will give it up without realizing the disastrous consequences that follow."
So this year I am determined to learn some new tricks of persuasion, and use them so that I can become as good a politician as I think I once was a teacher.
To all reading this, I wish you a Happy, Healthy, Prosperous 2012.
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