Author Archive for Bruce

Enough of the meta-analysis

All this posting in relation to the Atheist Convention in Melbourne is finally getting to me. There’s only so much you can do when you aren’t there – I’m limited to meta-analysis, picking apart terms and form of argument of people actually in attendance.

The flip side is that not being there, I’m relatively free from group polarizing effects. But that’s not good enough, really. Will have to wait from some empirical content before continuing. I haven’t found any suitable YouTube videos yet.

What I did see on YouTube, a couple of weeks ago thanks to Shane, was a nice clip from our childhoods. So without much ado, I’ll just post it so you can have a break from my usual waffle.

If this doesn’t make you feel guilty for laughing at Ronnie James Dio, then you have no heart.

~ Bruce


A time and a place for ridicule

There’s a time and a place for ridicule, and it spans public debate.

If you’ve wondered why vocalise atheists ridicule so much, here’s why.

Broadly speaking, they have a problem with the way things are being run. The necessitates criticism. Such criticism necessarily involves refutation and all refutation in essence involves pointing out the ridiculous. Which is what ridicule is – pointing out that something is ridiculous.

You can’t avoid it, other than to shut up and not complain – which is then necessarily what people ask for when they ask for ridicule in the public domain to stop.

The only time that ridicule is problematic is when the refutation that it comes from is for some reason invalid. Any further problem, such as tone and tact, aren’t a problem with ridicule per se.

All ridiculous ideas are deserving of ridicule – this is self-evident. All ridiculous behaviours are deserving of ridicule. The only difficulties involve questions of degree, context, who by and consequence.

You wouldn’t tell someone who’s life immediately depended on them believing in God, that there was no God and why. As Daniel Dennett says “Stop that crow!” – a reference to a thought experiment in which the crows prematurely told Dumbo that the feather he was given wasn’t magic. (Without which he would have failed to fly and have plummeted to his death.)

That’s not an appropriate time for ridicule.

Context can be messy. Does it need saying now? Will you bore the pants off of your audience? Or part of your audience? Is there some other positive content you would be better off investing your time in? Have you been putting off ridiculing what you should have been ridiculing years ago?

And the question of “who by?”, in the case of religion is probably best answered in a Jeffersonian light; acknowledging that there isn’t a right of inquiry into privately held beliefs (although in this setting, ridicule of one’s own ideas is still a good idea in general – critical thinking), but that public manifestations of faith are fair game for criticism by anyone. We all have an interest in the public sphere, and hence we all have a right to criticise. The idea that a group should stop what other people get to take for granted, is to argue for a stratified social structure.

And no caste of ideas deserves preference over another either – politics, menus, religion, musical taste or whatever.

There is of course, as case to be made for measured tone.

Religious homophobia is a repugnant thing. People who can’t disentangle their religious prejudice from matters of equality, behave in a repugnant fashion. It’s not some huge breach of required tolerance to call religious homophobia a stinking pile of shit, nor its practitioners ethically stunted bigots. It’s not beyond the pale.

It’s no more unacceptable to find the concept of the crucifixion of Christ obscene, than it is to be offended by the killing of cattle for meat.

It’s perfectly within the bounds of civil discourse to complain that the prejudicial view that science can’t inform our view of human nature, makes Francis Collins an inappropriate candidate for the head of the NIH – which funds research into matters of human nature. NIH Grant HD-18381 supported research that went into Steven Pinker’s ‘The Stuff of Thought’ – which surprise, surprise, draws conclusions about aspects of human nature. Work on psychopathy also, inevitably, draws conclusions about aspects of human nature as well.

But after making criticisms of Collins, Jerry Coyne, PZ Myers and Sam Harris were roasted by many, including Ken Miller, of prejudice against Collins for being a Christian. Which is silly considering that some of the silly ideological views of Stephen Jay Gould are also prejudicial of the mentioned works; if an atheist in this respect Gouldian were proposed as the head of the NIH, you can be damn sure those evil atheists would be ridiculing their ideas as well. (It was Gould’s ideological intrusions on science that cause much, if not most of his rivalry with Richard Dawkins).

Calling Ken Miller a “fuckwit” for example (not that I would), would be going far, far too far. Fortunately nobody who’s anybody, did. Calling his allegations dishonest and wrong however, would not be beyond the pale. And this is ridicule – Miller’s accusations were ridiculous.

Considering the very real consequences of this particular debate, and the level of acceptance of Ken Miller’s false account of the affair, and similar false allegations of bigotry against Christians, conduct like this deserves repeated ridicule. In other words it needs to be pointed out that the idea is ridiculous, as is the behaviour, and a certain about of rhetoric and criticism of character is not beyond the pale.

In relation to criticism of the public face of religion, The Global Atheist Convention in Melbourne is a suitable setting. Nobody in attendance is about to jump off a bridge, the audience isn’t likely to get bored (although apparently Tamas Pataki made a pretence at inclusiveness that didn’t go down well – not to mention he mangled the definition of atheism),

Yes, it can potentially get a bit boring. Yes, it can be poorly delivered. Yes, it can be done to the exclusion of better talking points. Yes, careless rhetoric can contribute to group polarisation. But none of this makes ridicule a bad thing in and of itself, nor does it automatically support claims by those with a vested interest, that a group of critics should steer their conversation in a certain way.

Critique of critique needs to be a bit more specific; what signs were there that boredom was a problem? How else could the same point have been couched? What was missed out on in lieu of ridicule? How was the group polarised and is this specific polarisation a problem? Why?

Something that tires me more than the most boring, pointless, repetitive ridicule is the seemingly endless repetition of calls for ridicule to end as if it’s an a priori truth that ridicule is a bad thing. It’s not!

~ Bruce


Standard talking points…

The people over at ABC’s religion website have a blog running to cover the Atheist Convention called Questions of Faith. If I’m too scary, bigoted and angry for your tastes, you can head over there and talk shop with the nice people.

There was a post by one Chris Mulherin that got up my nose somewhat, over here. Here’s something I posted in the comments thread (albeit corrected for a couple of mistakes I’m slapping myself for at the moment).

Chris, before you start throwing the ‘New Atheism’ term around, you may just wish to know that the term first gained prominence in 1986 (hardly new), and was like now, used to smear atheists who spoke out of turn, alleging intolerance (where none was demonstrated), declaring dubious, totalitarian motives and so on. The author of the book first publicising the term, ‘The New Atheism’, Robert A. Morey, went on to brag about his advice to the Bush administration that they should nuke Mecca and Medina – and he was serious.

The contemporary usage of the term doesn’t seem to vary much in recent times either, as Tina Beattie’s ‘The New Atheists’ (2007) demonstrates – Just read the claim she makes about Daniel Dennett trying to keep the religious out of discussion of religion – by way of misquoting the opening chapters of his book ‘Breaking The Spell’. (Ostentatious in that properly quoted, she’d be forced to admit the contrary – that Dennett is engaging and encouraging religious people to participate in an exploration of religion as a natural phenomena). At least she isn’t asking anyone to nuke people, which I guess is something.

Madeleine Bunting used the term in a controversial article in The Guardian, where she used Sam Harris as an example of a ‘New Atheist’, misquoting his ethical speculations on torture and ethnic profiling to make it look like he supported torture and ethnic profiling. This rubbish is par for the course with critics of the so-called ‘New Atheism’.

And Chris, Dawkins is skeptical of the term ‘New Atheist’ himself, calling it ’so-called’ on several occasions. He did not, as you wrongly claim, use it to deliberately do anything – it’s not his device at all.

Here’s a hint for your stay at the convention – people at the convention will probably tend not to like being called a ‘New Atheist’, except perhaps ironically, subversively or tongue-in-cheek by in-group members. Think of it as kind of like another ‘N’ word that you probably wouldn’t want to yell out in Harlem, except not quite so extreme.

Furthermore, in future could you please give us some meaningful examples of where ‘…proponents of the new atheism often seem to turn to ridicule and belittling of those who they disagree with rather than respecting them’? And no, I don’t mean ridiculing ideas – a reductio ad absurdum does that necessarily, and we wouldn’t equate that with a lack of respect.

(And I don’t mean friendly jabs either.)

The atheist as angry, disrespectful and intolerant is a stereotype, so you’re going to have to be more specific and give specific examples if you want to come across as trustworthy, much less avoid propagating animus.

And for pity’s sake, when you talk about being throw to the lions when you’ve been invited by a bunch of friendly people, it makes you look like the kind of person who feels guilty for crossing the street to avoid someone who’s black – something that can be avoided by throwing out prejudicial assumptions and not crossing the street in the first place.

I’d wish you luck at the convention if I were a wish-thinker, so I’ll just hope you take some of this on-board instead.

(Me, Over Here, 2010)

Apparently Chris thinks that ‘New Atheism’ is a term that Richard Dawkins uses to activate and polarise the troops. Yeah, I know. Next “White Trash” will be a phrase that poor, white folk use to agitate themselves into class warfare against the fair and proper middle and upper class. Go figure.

There are other goodies I didn’t address. There’s the whole shifting the burden of proof, atheists being believers in the same sense as believers, atheist fundamentalism and other talking points that have been put to rest long ago. 1980s apologetics tropes that were the playthings of people on alt.atheism in the 1990s. You get the idea.

At least he didn’t call Dawkins a social Darwinist.

They’re getting less comments on their blog than I am, which is saying something, so why don’t you go and participate. Apparently Margaret is complaining about a lot of derision at the convention – no quotes of course – so continue to play nice (as I know you already do).

~ Bruce


And while I’m on the topic of compromised criticism…

… Don’t call me a “Dawkins fan” either.

I like his writing on evolutionary biology quite a lot; par for the course considering the ecology component of my science degree. I like his rebuttals of creationism. Again, par for the course.

I didn’t think ‘The God Delusion’ was a bad book at all, and I think that if you account for what I think is a flaw in his defining of religion (thankfully excluding “Einsteinian religion”, but not some other forms that he also doesn’t talk about in the book), a lot of the perceived slights and oversimplifications go away. That being said, I wasn’t more informed in my atheism as a result of reading it – others may have been.

I don’t know what I think of Richard Dawkins as a person, at least in as far as the possibility of me liking him. I haven’t met him yet, and even if I had, it wouldn’t have been enough for me to draw particularly meaningful conclusions.

I suspect I may like him if I were given the chance, but this is hardly fandom for pity’s sake. I’m not sure I’d like him, I’m not sure he’d like me and I’m not sure I’d actually care.

I avoid the whole “never meet your heros” dilemma by not having them in the first place.

Some other things he’s said about religion have been sublime criticism, and other things I think have tended towards the crap end of the spectrum. Maybe I’ll change my mind. Maybe I won’t.

On average, I think he’s above average when writing about atheism. And if you think I’m treading on Dawkins’ territory in passing this judgement – I’ve never been religious and without coercion, I knew I was an atheist by around age 8. I’m well within my own turf here, thanks. Nobody owns atheism anyway.

I’ve The God Delusion three times so far. “BUT THAT MAKES YOU A FAN!”

No it bloody well does not.

I’m going to read it a fourth, and possibly a fifth time over the next year, and with good reason. I think it was back in 2007 that both AV and myself mused that the response to The God Delusion was more informative (to us) than the book itself. This has been my position from the start and it’s my position now. The truth be told, I’m not entirely looking forward to these re-readings – I’ve got other things I could be reading for the first time.

Moreover, while I’m very interested in Dawkins’ writing on evolutionary biology, I’m also very interested in the reader response to his writing on religion. In order to do this I need to be very familiar with his writing about and views on religion.

I’ve got the essays, the articles and the books. I’ve watched the documentaries, lectures, seminars, interviews and debates. But this does not make me a fan.

The book I’m writing relies in good part upon my being able to accurately critique reader response – or put another way, to accurately be able to identify the religious memes that misrepresent atheists – including prominent atheists which naturally includes Richard Dawkins.

How on Earth am I supposed to do this without being familiar with the material that initiates the response?

So for people with preconceptions about Dawkins that I just happen to challenge; my extensive reading of Dawkins does not make me a fan, it just makes me harder working on the topic than you are.

Get over it. You’re going to have to find something else, something valid and altogether more honest, to dismiss my critique of your preconceptions.

Do you have any idea how silly people look to me when they accuse me of being a “Dawkins fan”?

~ Bruce


Membership disclosure, free-thought whingeing and a blatant plug

Given that I’m likely to give some commentary on the media response to the ‘Rise of Atheism’ convention (and in some ways I’ve already done that in the last two posts) I should make a disclosure.

I’ve been a member of The Atheist Foundation of Australia since January of this year (the crowd getting this convention together alongside Atheist Alliance International). And while we’re on the topic, I’ve had another affiliation change since leaving the ALP last year (over Conroy’s duplicitous and underhanded pushing of his ludicrous Internet Filter). Nothing political. I’ve just joined the SA Writers’ Centre.

So yes, I’ve joined two disparate herds of cats this year. No political parties. Nothing with a central dogma.

At the very least, I haven’t signed up to anything that would obligate me not to bag the ‘Rise of Atheism’ convention. It’s a free-thought organisation and I’m a free-thinker.

Free-thought whingeing

For example, I think ‘Rise of Atheism’, as conference title go, is a pretty crass and poorly thought out piece of triumphal wank. I think ‘Global Atheist Convention 2010′ is good enough on its own, and frankly, better on its own period. It draws unfavourable comparisons to B-Movie titles. ‘Global Atheist Convention 2011: Return of The Thing That Wouldn’t Die After Being Killed, After Being Given A Proper Burial, After Being Killed Twice Before, After Becoming Undead, After Being Killed By An Angry Mob The First Time Around – The Prequel’, isn’t a title I’d look forward to.

Don’t get the impression that I wouldn’t have liked to have been free to go along. I’m particularly interested in what Leslie Cannold, Russell Blackford, A.C. Grayling, Tamas Pataki, Taslima Nasrin, Peter Singer and Kylie Sturgess have to say, and wouldn’t have minded catching Julian Morrow and Craig Reucassel, but there are others that I’ve heard enough of for my own good, and others who I think don’t necessarily warrant a hearing.

As much of a mouthpiece as Dan Barker is, and high as his IQ may be, I think his greatest contribution is either in giving others a voice, or in telling us tales of life-as-a-Christian which would be better told by the more disadvantaged ex-Christian. The voice he can buy with the royalties he makes off of the material he created to indoctrinate children in the ways of evangelical Christianity, are privilege enough without giving him an additional soapbox. Freedom of Religion Foundation not withstanding.

And Catherine Deveny? She doesn’t have anything new or particularly bright to bring to the discussion – anecdotes of recent disillusionment going out cheap by the dozen. She’s there as a comedian, which is problematic considering that she’s not particularly good at it. Sure, she shouldn’t be outcast on the grounds of prejudice, but that doesn’t mean she should be sought out to begin with. Getting to speak at this convention is a privilege that warrants merit.

You can be confident that my independence of thought, as a freethinker, is not compromised by my affiliation. Not that being a member of the ALP ever stopped me from expressing my opinions either.

And now there’s that plug to consider.

Blatant plug

For $30, as a non-member you can obtain a subscription to ‘The Australian Atheist’ from The Atheist Foundation of Australia. Or of course, you can join for one year for $25 ($15 student/pensioner/unwaged) and sign up for electronic versions to be emailed to you, but then you’d have to sign off as accepting the constitution. In either case, you can look here for more details.

What reason would you possibly have for doing that? Well the next issue has me in it for one! (Cue embarrassing silence).

Okay. Well it’s an exclusive article I’ve written for ‘The Australian Atheist’ that I’ll never blog-post, nor will I consider seeing it published anywhere else before AA has squeezed it for all it’s worth.

(Just don’t tell them the article isn’t about atheism or religion – I kind of snuck it past them. Sshhh!)

~ Bruce


Compare and contrast

Provocateur #1

Provocateur #2

I suspect Mr Hitchens will be turning down that sandwich. *Shudder*

~ Bruce


Qanda – Dawkins, tolerance and secularism

First of all, let’s get the elephant out of the room. That moment.

I’ll paraphrase because it’s so soon afterward, and checking would cause a few logistical problems. That and my memory is still up to the task.

Sometimes I cringe at some of the things Dawkins says. Dan Dennett cringes at some of the things Dawkins says (religious memes = disease). And Hitchens cringes at some of the things Dennett says (“Brights”). And so on and so forth. Contrary to some of the stereotypes being peddled, this kind of disagreement is normal amongst “New Atheists”.

So with this in mind, a part of me cringes each time that Dawkins talks about “The Christian Positiontm“, or “if you are a…” then you believe X. It’s especially problematic when talking about the whole birth, death and resurrection business. If only because there are so many Christian takes on the position, and so many Christian takes on how to approach the issue.

I like clarity of terms more than most, but I don’t believe in reducing accuracy and/or precision in the name of clarity. There’s nothing “The” about “The Christian Positiontm” in relation to the birth, death and resurrection of Christ.

But this, while relevant, is just a pet peeve of mine, so I’ll get to the meat of it.

The charge levelled against Dawkins by other panelists wasn’t a lack of accuracy, but a lack of respect for other people’s beliefs – first by Julie Bishop, and then by Tony Burke, with the added charge of intolerance – which Dawkins didn’t get to respond to.

Given that Tony Jones, after re-affirming Dawkins’ above point, was spared a dressing down from Burke, this point isn’t what caused the inflammation. (Or maybe it’s not the point at all, but the person making it that matters – Tony Burke seemed unduly intimidated by Dawkins in the lead-up).

It was the “you can keep it!” phrase – in response to the value of the tale of the resurrection. It’s this I presume that Tony Burke called “ridicule”.

Okay, fine. It’s ridicule. (I think one could mount a defence that is isn’t, but that’d sidetrack this post).

So what? The tale of the resurrection has been proselytized in one form or another for 1800 years. You can’t reasonably expect that something that’s been so in people’s face for so long is beyond scrutiny, rejection or ridicule. There is nothing inherently wrong with ridiculing religious ideas.

And lets not forget that Dawkins was being questioned. There is something about the way his rejection was handled by Bishop and Burke that seems disturbingly similar to a spurned lover. Or disturbingly close to particular Orwellian interpretations of “secular” and “freedom” (HT: Liam Fox).

Australia (along with Canada) only just rejected the notion of the defamation of religion that was peddled at Durban-II, by boycotting the whole anti-Semitic farce. You should expect when you start defending ideas against defamation instead of protecting people, thereby trivialising actual intolerance, you’re going to leave yourself open to the adherents of actual intolerance.

Dawkins rejection of an idea was directed at the idea, not a group of people and not an individual. It’s not intolerance in any meaningful sense. Burke and Bishop need to stop pretending that disagreement on religion that’s in the public arena, is in any way significantly different from disagreement on points of politics.

But that’s just Qanda giving you your 8 cents worth.

More serious is a problem put to me by Dr. Jason Wilson. And in writing the book I’m trying to write at the moment, it’s something I’m going to have to address, albeit in more detail in the book than I will here.

“I guess my point is that it seems like a calculated attempt to limit the range of legitimate belief… that would seem to be the opposite of functional secularism – which is secure in Australia, and embraced by most religious ppl. You see what I’m saying? That open hostility to faith positions might weaken a particular form of secularism?”

(Jason Wilson, 2010)

I didn’t catch the start of Qanda, and thanks to a domestic communications monopoly, Jason missed out on a first viewing. I can’t confirm or deny from what I saw that Dawkins had called religious people deluded, although Jason was under the impression he had (or may have). After some semantic discussion, Jason his point down to the above.

I wouldn’t agree that there was a “calculated attempt”, on several grounds. First, it would be in stark contradiction to the dribs and drabs of Dawkins’ civics that you can pick up here and there. Second, it would be in explicit contradiction to the very permissive secular liberalism that the team of Dawkins and A.C. Grayling to to a public debate recently. And third, Dawkins is no political mastermind and Dawkins knows it – which is why premeditation is unlikely (and explains some of the obvious political mistakes Dawkins didn’t see coming from a mile away).

I don’t know how familiar Jason is with Dawkins et. el., but I’d like to think that after investigation, Jason would agree with me on this.

All the same, this doesn’t rule out the possibility that Dawkins’ rhetoric could inadvertently “limit the range of legitimate belief”. I’m not sure this is a problem either.

First of all, we don’t regard paedophilia and ritual homicide as legitimate beliefs, which tells us at least that we are willing to limit the range of legitimate belief if it robs people of their liberty – i.e. we are intolerant of intolerance. I’ll assume that Jason means the limiting of positions of belief ranging from apparently pointless but harmless, to defensible.

I think that according to what I can grasp of his tweeted logic, Jason may be forced to admit that there is a capacity for the likes of GrodsCorp, New Matilda and fake Twitter accounts do much the same with the range of legitimate belief – albeit at the differing levels of influence. In light of Jason’s notion above, I’m curious on his view in general of Scott Bridge’s comments on Fielding’s Pentecostalism over the years, or perhaps Ben Pobjie’s satire of Scientology.

The point I’m making isn’t intended to tie Jason to the “intolerance” of GrodsCorp, New Matilda and the fake Twitter accounts that he has an interest in. Rather, I suspect that Jason accepts that the satire and criticism put out by these authors are made in general in good faith. With allowances for acceptable human error of course.

I’d extend this to Dawkins, and the other “New Atheists” including Christopher Hitchens – the recognition of good faith in general, with allowances for acceptable human error.

I used to rail against Christopher Hitchens in stereotypical form. Only a couple of times in blogging but more often in real life. And I have to confess that this was undertaken in bad faith. I still have disagreements with many of Hitchens’ opinions – mostly involving the Iraq War and some of his more poorly thought out rhetoric. But, this narrative of Hitchens being a genocidal lap-dog of the neo-conservatives under the Bush administration, I’ve come to the conclusion, is phony.

The more you delve into the context of the man’s life, the more you find alternative motivations as more credible. And the more you delve into what he was actually writing during the years following 9/11, the more the lap-dog narrative finds explicit contradiction – his Slate article about Daniel Pipes in August of 2003 is particularly challenging to the myth. Lap-dogs for neo-cons don’t write off the likes of Daniel Pipes while at the same time talking up the likes of Edward Said. But Hitchens did – well after switching to an interventionist view of foreign policy. (Something Hitchens had adopted prior to 9/11 – from which he then criticised the Bush administration).

Hitchens is a more complicated individual, with more complicated ideas than may first be apparent. The myth surrounding him is misleading.

Tony Burke received Dawkins in prejudicial, bad faith similar to the way I once received Hitchens. And this I guess is my point.

Criticism and ridicule of an idea may push it outside the legitimate. But not accepting criticism in good faith (even if it’s made by way of ridicule from occasionally tetchy academics) has the effect of putting a range of criticisms outside “the range of legitimate belief” as well. The very notion that people should automatically respect ideas does just that – explicitly.

In good faith, I find racism and a host of other stupid notions to be stupid. I’m not going to respect them because some racist individual is made to feel uncomfortable. I’m not having my belief that racism is stupid (and I don’t mean just wrong – I mean stupid – let me emphasise my lack of respect for the idea) pushed outside “the range of legitimate belief” via a mandate of respect.

In good faith, I find team sports to be stupid – not just wrong but stupid. They’re training for the outgroup biases that are intrinsic to the game – team versus team and the assignment of superfluous gender roles. I’m not going to have my beliefs about team sports being stupid pushed outside “the range of legitimate belief” via some policy of mandatory respect. Maybe I’m wrong – I’ll gladly cede that a counter argument may be defensible, but I’m still going to call team sports a stupid idea in the meantime.

Criticism in good faith, even if wrong, isn’t the problem. It’s criticism in bad faith, and receiving criticism in bad faith that are the problems.

The problem isn’t the rhetoric of Richard Dawkins, or Christopher Hitchens, or Scott Bridges or Ben Pobjie, when made in good faith, that’s the kind of problem. If you want an example of critics who operate in bad faith, look to anti-liberal Geert Wilders*, or bogan-basher Catherine Deveny**. (I suspect that someone’s going to be unhappy with the comparison’s I’ve just made, but there you go.)

People need to get over their hurt feelings over the idea that someone may disagree with them – even think their ideas crazy. When there is public discussion, people need to get over the fact that their cherished ideas are open to ridicule if found ridiculous by others with an equal say in the public sphere. Qanda is such a public forum.

It’s attacking people for their ideas, and attacking people for their criticisms that’s intolerant. Alan Jones does it when he attacks people of Middle Eastern decent. And people do it each time they make a bogey-man out of Dawkins and/or the “New Atheists”.

What a liberal, secular society needs more of is not a notion of sacred ideas. What it needs is a greater acceptance of robust disagreement, criticism and ridicule of ideas***, and for people to find it in themselves to maintain good relations in spite of what ever hurt feelings this may cause.

I think the absurdity of all this boils down to one simple question; what needs your respect more, an idea or a person?

~ Bruce

P.S. It’s 3:40am. I’ll edit this rambling mess tomorrow.

* If you want “calculated attempts”, Wilders is your man. Makes my flesh crawl.

** I make no representation about Deveny’s criticism of religion, because after reading her classist vitriol attacking the disadvantaged and working class, I’m not sufficiently confident in her ability to consider her worthy of consideration.

*** Indeed, the reductio ad absurdum is an excellent tool for whittling away at bad ideas in good faith, but always has the effect of producing something that can be construed as ridicule of the idea it critiques. Are we to just throw it out because of the offence it may cause, in spite of the good advice it gives?


Decisions made

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve been pondering decisions that have to be made in relation to writing this, my first attempt at a book.

Not the least of these decisions has been the issue of applying for a grant.

I’ve decided not to apply. I like the freedom this allows. For example…

The book isn’t a work of theology, but one of cultural criticism. Theology books aren’t eligible for the grant, and if the book was misconstrued as theology, which I think it could, I’d have problems if working under such an arrangement. The grant could be spiked, or my creative direction could be compromised.

And what if I changed my mind and side-stepped for a chapter, or a section, to criticise a piece of theology?

I don’t want that hanging over my head. I don’t want these kinds of constraints.

All the same, I intend to join the ASA, which is something that popped up during the process of looking into grants applications. There’s supposed to be an emerging writer’s initiative of some sort. I’m taking that much away from my investigations.

Decision #1 – “Forget the grant” – made.

The reality that this book, if it’s published, is going to piss people off is sinking in. It should be obvious really.

I’m aiming to challenge commonly held stereotypes, which some people seem to have a lot of emotional investment in. People will bristle.

Further to this, there is an idea that I will be pushing in the book – that atheists are just as entitled to have their fallibility and idiosyncrasies realised as anyone else. This raises an avenue for criticism.

Atheists calling theists “stupid” – it happens. There are instances where this is defensible, just as there are situations when calling an atheist “stupid” are defensible, but in general it’s not a good thing.

The question relevant to my point though, is do atheists actually have a propensity for this kind of behaviour, more so than theists? If not, it’s just a sub-set of a more general problem and there’s no good reason for singling atheists out. If not, “Or when the ‘nones’ – those who are anti-theist – [say] ‘You’re stupid‘”, is just an example of a stereotype. I’ll have to email Prof. Bouma to see what research he’s used to demonstrate (not speculate) that atheists actually excel in this behaviour.

On a more inter-personal level, confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance make things difficult when discussing these matters – especially with those that have a self-image of tolerance, but an easily demonstrable behaviour of prejudicial reasoning and atheophobia. The mental gymnastics and defensiveness are really difficult to put up with. Everything you say is parsed so as to be as possibly offensive as it could ever be, and often beyond.

If you make someone feel stupid, they’ll look for some way of accusing you for abusing them as stupid – my most favourite being the pretence that calling one of their ideas ludicrous or silly, necessarily infers that you’re calling them ludicrous or silly. Which is a stupid idea because smart people can believe stupid things.

It’s not that they’re necessarily nurturing their atheophobia (although that’s a possibility). It’s that they’re nurturing a self-image of being a tolerant person and being forced to realise their own animus towards godless people would shatter that self-image in a none to flattering manner. Hence criticisms made in good faith by atheists, of ideas put into the public square, become contorted into visions of hateful vilification by the overly defensive theist, and their assorted atheist and agnostic enablers. Whether or not these criticisms are correct is beside the point – criticisms made in good faith, but ultimately wrong, still don’t constitute vilification.

Entertaining this brutal dishonesty by being extra-nice is too great an imposture, even if this dishonesty is all too human. An obligation to entertain this necessarily presupposes the notion that atheists have a lesser status in society – having to do more to achieve the same level of participation in the public realm. I have no intention of entertaining the notion of second class citizenry.

Furthermore, this state of affairs robs the atheist of more general equality in communication.

I call my friends’ ideas stupid with great regularity. I call my friends stupid; “you silly plonka”; “you great galoot”; “MORON!”. It’s all done with a smile and a wink of course, and it takes someone somehow divorced from empathy not to realise this.

I could call Neil a “Godbotherer” and I rather doubt that he’d take offence – he’d know the spirit in which the comment was made. My closer friends are the same and the nature of these exchanges is mutual. It’s not abuse. Why shouldn’t one aspire for public discussion to be so candid and friendly?

This is relevant because I intend to write the book in a candid, familiarly tone so as to get closer to the reader. I’m not trying to establish a professional rapport with them – I don’t need that kind of clinical detachment.

Not that I’m going to call the reader a “galoot” or “MORON!”, if this thing does get published, then I’m resigned to the expectation that my idiosyncrasies are going to be taken the wrong way by people with an interest in doing so. But I’m not going to neuter myself because that’d undermine an important part of the message – atheists are just as entitled to have their fallibility and idiosyncrasies realised as anyone else.

It’s often pushed as a matter of practical politics amongst skeptics that you have to be extra nice when being contentious. This may be true with homeopathy, moon landing hoaxes and creationism, but when the matter being debated involves the equality of acceptable communication, I see the maintenance of such an inequality as counter-productive.

I’m not naive to realpolitik, I’m just not going to do it.

A community’s unwillingness to see atheist candour in the same familiarly manner as it would the candour of believers, is to deny atheists the same opportunity for familiarly relationships in the community. It’s prejudicial, based on a double standard and it’s inherently discriminatory. I’m not going to entertain it. I’m not going to wait for a climate of equality to be wilful, I’m going to be wilful for a climate of equality.

Further to this, I think readers that don’t need to be mollycoddled could rightly be offended if I served my arguments like a spoonfuls of baby food. “Look! Here comes the criticism plane! Open up! Vroooom!” That’s tantamount to calling the reader stupid!

Decision #2 – “No wrapping the reader in cotton wool” – made.

While considering whether to go ahead with a grant application, I was operating in accordance with the guideline that work on a project should not begin until a grant has been approved. All the same I wrote two test chapters for the book based on a tentative structure. While some of the content of these chapters are still usable, I’ve decided that the original direction was too technical.

Yes, I will still have technical content and technical terms, and statistics and whatnot. But the book is ultimately a polemic for a recognition of the way atheists are misrepresented, how this is taken for granted, and for this to change. It’s an appeal, not a technical manual and as such the form needs to be changed.

I’ll be using more rhetoric. I’ll use pop-culture references. I’ll be more personal. And with a mind not to violate the purpose of the book, I’ll try to have a bit of fun. It’s a bit of a  sombre topic, so some light-hearted literary therapy is well advised.

And I’m happy with this new direction.

Decision #3 – “More prose, less technical” – made.

The understanding that this book project should commence until the grant has been approved was taken on board in light of a certain fact – that approvals wouldn’t be announced until well into the latter half of the year. Now that I’m not going to apply, the waiting time has hit zero. I’m officially starting on writing the book now – and yes writing; there’ll be more research to be done, that’s for sure, but a lot of it I’ve already got done – thanks to writing this blog for a few years. (There’s more data here at the back-end than I’ve referenced in the past few years).

Decision #4 – “Get started” – made.

Which leaves the issue of the fate of this blog. I had tentatively made plans for this blog to this year write a long series of blog posts based on an informal course of suggested readings.

That plan looks to be out the window.

I’d aimed to have had that finished by the time that grant approvals were announced. I can’t do that and write a book at the same time.

I still intend to blog away. However blogging would not only be steered away from the previous plan, but would also undoubtedly shift towards content more closely related to the book – both topically and on the matter of writing in general.

What’s more, I’ve already got a private, locked blog that I was going to launch after I’d put this one on mothballs towards the end of this year. Should I speed up the process and transition to the newer blog sooner?

The newer blog is to have an increased emphasis on my writing aspirations and projects-in-the-pipeline; a kind of open writer’s journal with a healthy smattering of topical posts. Aspiring writer blogs do have a hint of desperation about them, but that could actually be part of the charm, I think. With my first few tentative steps into the broad community of writers, I’ve seen how they huddle together in solidarity. The struggles, the open, candid expression of hopes and anxieties is attractive and interesting in a very human kind of way.

The cliché of the struggling writer, when realised via blogging may be a disgrace, but it’s a glorious disgrace.

The question is how soon I want to foul myself in public. (Some would say I’ve done that already).

Decision #5 – “Move on to the next blog” – undecided.

~ Bruce

(Image Source: Chris Wightman)


Religious self-identification versus recognition of religion

Anyone who really knows me, or at least knows how I think on the matter, knows that I don’t rush to override other people’s self-identification.

“Muslim? You’re not a Muslim! Where’s your beard?”

Self-identification is something that is an important part of everyone’s psychological make-up. A human without a concept of self, even if a selfless member of a collective, is missing something.

As an atheist, it’s particularly annoying when someone (in disingenuous, self-serving fashion) tells me that I’m really a religious person who is in a state of rebellion. Naturally following upon this that I need to submit to God’s will, which strangely enough involves me doing exactly what the religious person wants me to do.

The religious people who make this kind of argument, at least those making it to my face, never do so in good faith. I’d be much happier if they’d just cut to the chase.

“There probably is a God, so start worrying and get on with doing what I tell you to!”

I’m not in the habit of going around telling people that they aren’t a “True Christian”, or a “True Muslim” or a “True” whatever else, at the very least because it often involves the No True Scotsman fallacy. Furthermore, I don’t do it because I know that in addition to being a bit logically flaky, it pisses me off so it’s likely to piss others off. I can appreciate something truthful and honest pissing people off, and I don’t care too much about that, but when it’s poorly thought out argumentation that offends, then I’m prone to take issue. I assume other reasonable people do the same.

Even further still, there’s the matter of what is essential to being Christian et. al. – you can draw the line anywhere, and people often do so for the sake of convenience. But what is essential to a True Christian? Belief in a literal Christ? Belief in the message of Christ, if Christ is only metaphorical? Depending how you define Christianity, you can exclude all sorts of people from being True Christians.

If you believe that St Peter was the recipient of divine revelation, and that the acceptance of this divine mandate defines Christianity, then Eastern Christians – the first Christians – aren’t True Christians. If you believe that St Peter had no divine mandate, and that this is essential to Christianity, then Western Christianity is an oxymoron. Both outcomes are absurd.

It’s clear that one can pick and chose with the greatest of ease, the essential qualities of any group in order to generate a convenient definition of group members. It follows that as absurd as these definitions may be, they do allow people to be selective with their samples. And when equivocation on these definitions occur, it allows people to apply conclusions derived from one population, to be applied surreptitiously to another – even if unintentionally.

(And don’t get me started on skin colour and race – I’ll get back to that in good time.)

The alternative, is not to engage in essentialism in the first place. Instead to just assume that any given cultural identity has inherent diversity, and that membership is something negotiated between self-identification and general group-acceptance. A role in which out-group members have little, if any, say.

Still, being able to self-identify is one thing. Having your own group-identity deferred to in a civil sense is another. And having other individuals accept the definitions of your own identity in is another again.

I think it fair enough to expect society and other individuals not to run rough-shod over your cultural membership/identification, but after some preponderance on the matter, I’ve come to the conclusion that this is different from expecting other individuals to accept your identity. After all I can’t just call myself Catholic, get my friends to accept that I’m Catholic, then rock up to a Catholic church and expect to be given communion. That would be an imposture upon the Catholic church – a coercion of its clergy. I’m entitled to no such thing.

(I’m unsure as to why I’d want a Catholic communion – to have communion with the Catholics in attendance who are my fellow human beings?)

So while not forcing my definition of “Christian”, what I accept as Christian is as I’ve detailed above; no essential qualities, just self-identification and a reasonable level (allowing for a degree of dissent) of group-acceptance amongst one of the denominations. This by-and-large leaves me deferring to Christian self-identification, and leaves me out of politics such as “Catholics aren’t real Christians”.

However…

I don’t see defining Christianity as a question of religiosity. I see defining Christianity as a question of culture. A very messy question.

Religiosity is another thing altogether. It’s an acceptance of a particular ontological persuasion. So the question in my mind is not “do you identify as religious?”, but “do you accept the ontological acceptance of a deity with an interest in human affairs?”

If you identify as religious, and you don’t accept the ontology of an interested deity, then I won’t accept your religiosity. You can self-identify as much as you like, and I won’t stop you. I won’t try to push to have culture exclude your perspective. But I won’t, I can’t, see you as religious.

I can’t see “religiously deistic” as anything other than an oxymoron.

I can’t even see the census question of selecting a religion as meaningful. “Are you religious?”, with “Yes” or “No” as answers, perhaps with another question for the tradition(s) one identifies as belonging to*.

And I see religious and theistic as synonymous. So when John Shelby Spong calls his approach “non-theistic”, I call it non-religious and atheistic.

Importantly, I still defer to Spong’s self-identification as Christian. I don’t think “atheist Christian” is oxymoronic. Dawkins refers to himself as a culturally Christian atheist with a fondness for the Church of England – in this respect I don’t actually see him as that different to Spong, although what they both take from the culture probably differs considerably.

Religious identity is something that I can no longer personally accept in deference to self-identification. I have an objective test for that – which is I think acceptable, considering that were are dealing with a priori concepts.

There is a meaningful consequence to this.

When I critique religion, I’m not going to be talking about the recognition of a deistic intelligence, or a metaphorical god, or The-Universe-renamed-as-God or God-infintely-beyond-any-term-we-can-apply-to-it. I’m talking about the observance of old-grey-beard-and-genocide.

There’s a penchant for some people to complain that “My God isn’t like that! You’re not addressing me! You’re attributing the wrong belief to me!”

This is true of responses to Dawkins’ writing, where over and over and over (ad nauseum), people self-identifying as religious complain that Dawkins is dealing with a caricature of religion as a strawman tactic against actual religion.

Of course, he’s doing nothing of the sort. Dear aggrieved; he’s not talking about your “God” because your “God”, being metaphorical, disinterested, beyond-ontological-comprehension, or whatever, is not an object of religious worship. Why would Dawkins consider your perspective as representative of religion if he couldn’t in good faith, define it as religious? That’d be dishonest!

Consider the following, typical complaint.

“Professor Dawkins is a good scientist but a poor theologian. His book quotes exclusively the views of fundamentalist preachers, many from the United States.

He ignores the significant range of alternative theological perspectives that understand God not in terms of “old man in the sky” caricatures but in such concepts as spirit, life, love, and mystery – concepts that have an ancient pedigree, being found, for example, in Celtic expressions of religion and many others.”**

(Richard Randerson, 2010)

But if you can’t define “spirit, life, love, and mystery” (and all the other empirical things re-branded as God) as theistic, one can’t claim that Dawkins “ignores the significant range of alternative theological perspectives…” (emphasis added), because these perspectives are in these terms, not theological. Or in other words, not-religious.

I’ve put my cards on table in this post. Although I don’t think that Dawkins did quite a good enough job of defining religion in The God Delusion (2006) and I think this may be a problem for some readers. However, for the book reviewers, and theologians and assorted critics who make a living out of their opinion, there is a responsibility to go deeper when critiquing Dawkins’ views.

A careful consideration by critics should at least speculate on what Dawkins means by “religious” and how that influences the examples he selects. An ideal consideration would look at his past works to try to elucidate further.

I’d recommend that the critics read Dawkins’ essay, ‘The Great Convergence’, wherein Dawkins addresses what he sees as “neo-deistic pseudo-religion”, and goes on to ask…

“But if ‘religion’ is allowed such a flabbily elastic definition, what word is left for real religion, religion as the ordinary person in the pew or on the prayer-mat understands it today; religion, indeed, as any intellectual would have understood it in previous centuries, when intellectuals were religious like everybody else?”

(Richard Dawkins, ‘The Creat Convergence’ in A Devil’s Chaplain, 2003, formerly ‘Snake Oil and Holy Water’ in Forbes, 1999)

The quote is in relation to the scientific awe of scientists like Goodenough, Davies, Hawking, Sagan, and atheist priests like Don Cupitt, being redefined as a religious experience. I would argue that this extends to any experience that Dawkins would define as natural; emotional spirit, life, love and mystery. I would argue that Randerson’s “alternative theological perspectives” would not in fact qualify as religious for Dawkins (I missed the opportunity to ask him in person this morning – although it seems like a bit of a Dorothy Dixer).

Dawkins isn’t ridiculing these perspectives by way of caricature, because he’s not pretending to represent them at all. Frankly, it looks increasingly egocentric each time that I see people complaining that “Dawkins isn’t addressing my beliefs”; he’s not talking about you at all buddy.

Now I’ve been mulling this over for quite a while. At first, in 2006, I simply didn’t accept Dawkins’ terms, and perhaps in some very specific cases, I still don’t.

I still accept that there is a diversity of religious belief, and that it ultimately needs to be addressed as a natural phenomena in full recognition of that diversity. But in my opinion, this diversity is over-inflated by the critics who add the views of ersatz religion, the views of spiritual-but-not-religious life stances – human experiences we have been told time and time again that you can’t have without God.

Perhaps if The West were more accepting of the notion that you can be good without God, there would be more recognition that there was no God in these good experiences.

At any rate, I’ve made my position clear. Take it or leave it, I’m not coercing you. Just as I won’t be coerced into accepting others’ terms; I’ll either take or leave them as well.

Self-identified-religious people…

If I don’t recognise you as religious, try not to take offence. Even if I don’t think  much of your ideas, I don’t think any less of them because I don’t think them religious. And much less do I think that it reflects on your character.

Perhaps you should indulge me, and others like me, in the same way that I tolerate the people who compliment me that I’m “doing God’s work” whenever I do something charitable.

Perhaps you should view my including you in the club-of-the-Godless as a welcome sign to my in-group; take it that I’m not going to discriminate against you just because you’re culturally Muslim, or culturally Christian, or culturally whatever. (Not that’d I’d discriminate against the religiously Muslim, Christian or whatever, either – it’s just an added guarantee).

Those are the terms of my perspective, so please include them in any consideration of my views on religion!

~ Bruce

Update: I read The God Delusion three times between 2006 and 2008. I’ve just checked some of the above against a reading of the relevant part and it seems to me my issue with the way Dawkins defines religion is overstated. Dawkins seems to have defined religion quite clearly. The change from my prior position not withstanding, could it be a reader-effect due to having more contextual understanding than I did in 2008?

* Perhaps this could put to rest the dubious practice of the state denying religious status to religions based on their numbers – granting tax breaks and consideration to the big ones, while discriminating against the small.

** It has to be said that while Randerson’s triumphalism is unfounded, his civics on the matter of the New Zealand atheist bus campaign is to be commended.


10 questions every creationist must answer…

… before pestering scientists and other non-creationists with their lists of questions.

1. Does the person you are about to ask about evolution have better things to do with their time than listen to your questions?

Seriously. If you’re reading this, you’ve probably met them over the net. Which means that you don’t really know how busy their offline lives are.

The same goes for other social settings. Are they present to discuss evolution versus creationism, or is it someone’s birthday? Is it a family get-together.

Unless they’ve signed on to some forum to address creationism, you should consider that it’s probably an imposture for them to have your ideas foist upon them.

2. Do you think you are creeping them out?

Biologists like Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers get death threats in the mail from creationists. Creationists once lied in order to get access to Richard Dawkins’ home. Not his work – his home.

The converse isn’t true. You don’t see biologists sending death threats and sneaking into creationist’s homes under false pretences. Creationists have therefore earned a reputation as being a bit creepy.

You may not be approaching Dawkins or Myers, but the person you have decided to have a chat with could very well find your creationism creepy. Watch your behaviour.

3. Do you expect your ideas to be given “equal time” and if so, have you done as much work with evolution?

Seriously. If you expect your critique of evolution to be given equal time, make sure that you’ve put in as much work on the topic as the person you’ve approached. And I mean on the topic. Exclusively reading the likes of Ken Ham does not qualify. I mean text-book biology.

Rote recitation of other people’s critiques of evolution is neither a familiarity with, nor an understanding of, evolution.

There is only one exception to this rule.

4. Do you really have evidence that really is mutually exclusive with evolution?

One needn’t understand the fine details of a theory in order to reject the lot. I don’t need to know what a certain alignment of Venus spells for my neighbour’s dog in order to reject astrology, and I’m not going to read as much astrology as an astrologer before I reject it.

What evidence do you have that is mutually exclusive with evolution? Do you actually have a knock-out punch, or are you just flailing around trying to score a random, lucky hit for The Lord?

Please note. This is not the same as an absence of evidence where it isn’t clear how something could have evolved.

It is unclear how remains could retain soft tissue for millions of years. This would have implications for evolution if it turned out that dinosaurs were more recent, but there is no positive evidence in this find that says such a thing. It just raises ambiguity for geology at this point. It’s a gap in knowledge. The only controversy this generates at this point is in relation to the understanding of how some fossils form.

The fact that creationists weren’t able to gain access to the tissue in question, which they whined about for a while, also is not evidence. No access to materials = no ability for direct analysis = limited conclusions.

This is negative evidence – a gap in knowledge. We’re talking evidence. Positive evidence.

Like a rabbit fossil in Devonian rock. Or human footprints fossilised in Jurassic deposits. And have you checked to make sure this evidence is credible?

5. Have you critically analysed your own ideas?

This is your job. Not somebody else’s. If the person you are approaching is able to find basic errors that you could have found yourself, if only you’d applied yourself, then they aren’t going to be happy. Unless they want to laugh at you of course. They may got pleasure out of that.

All the same, presenting your ideas (or ideas you are copying from some pamphlet that you trust implicitly) without vetting them first is lazy. It’s rude. It’s a waste of other people’s time and an abuse of their good faith in entertaining you in the first place.

Furthermore, have you asked yourself questions like “with all the money they attract, why don’t the creationist think tank do field research?”, don’t bother trying to proselytize to other people. If you are going to be so careless, then at least don’t be careless at other people’s expense.

6. Is the “evolutionist” likely to have heard it before?

A lot of what passes for creationist thought isn’t new. After being exposed to this stuff in the 1990s, and arguing against it on the Internet ever since, I’ve long since stopped seeing genuinely new material. Just a lot of mutton dressed up as lamb.

If the “evolutionist” is likely to have heard it before, they aren’t going to be amused by hearing it again. Just because I haven’t written about every creationist argument I’ve seen, doesn’t mean that I haven’t seen a lot – it just means that I’m sick of rubbish about polonium halos and divinely rigged decay rates, misinterpretation of carbon-14 contamination, and misinformation about “polystrate” trees.

I’m sick of reading creationists making arguments based on misunderstandings about allopatric speciation, when they claim that according to evolution, suddenly one species gives birth to a member of another! Gah! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG! WRONG!

If the “evolutionist” isn’t likely to have heard it before, and you know other “evolutionists” have and have had reason to reject it, then you’re just being misleading.

7. Are you preparing to move the goal posts?

Irreducible complexity – the idea that the component parts of a functional protein can not evolve, because incomplete, a species can gain no evolutionary benefit from the incomplete version.

This is “negative evidence” again, not actual evidence, but we’ll put that problem to one side for a moment. We’ll also put aside the fact that the component parts of any given feature may in turn have a function we aren’t aware of (something that was found out in relation to one of Behe’s favourite examples - the bacterial flagellum).

The human nervous system is typically the system deigned too complex – for obvious ideological reasons (“God gave us consciousness!”). If component parts of the human nervous system were found in another species, would you abandon your position? It is alleged by ID proponents that these features are irreducibly complex; such a discovery (a reduction of the irreducibly complex) should then be impossible.

Consider the sea sponge. The most primitive of animals, having neither organs nor a central nervous system.

If genetically speaking, the sea sponge had anything resembling these more modern features, they’d have to be in some reduced form. Sadly for the ID camp, DNA coding for much of the component features of the nervous system – specifically the genes encoding for much of the proteins used in synapses. Notably, the sea sponge has a feature that incorporates these proteins and it’s only a matter of time before this structure is given a thorough investigation.

Now, if you are willing to hold that the proteins in the synapses that have component ancestors, you can’t also hold that the feature as it is in the synapse of a modern animal is irreducibly complex. The same is true of the bacterial flagellum – it’s component parts are known to exist and to have functions of their own.

“But we don’t know about the evolutionary origins of proteins! Therefore they’re irreducibly complex!” Yeah, until we find out about them as well…

Examples were picked. Examples were debunked. The original position held that irreducible complexity was pervasive.

To switch to other examples, or to revise the scope of ID to try to keep it in the game, is to change the terms of the debate. It’s to move the goal posts during game play. It’s flatly dishonest.

Now you can’t expect people to spend their time on your queries if you’re not being honest, can you? So don’t be.

8. Have you made a serious effort to develop your primary reasoning skills?

For a start, I’ve never met a creationist that didn’t either have a failure of primary reasoning when it came to evolution, or a general, all-pervading lack of primary reasoning skills.

But even if this is meaningless, even if creationists aren’t worse off than the general population – the development of primary reasoning skills in primary and high school isn’t something that’s necessarily sufficient to make you a critical thinker (the reason for Matthew Lipman’s efforts).

I’ve been told that my primary reasoning skills are pretty good. At the time, I found the logic component of my discrete mathematics course to be easy – and I seemed to be naturally a lot better at it than the others in my lecture, and the lecturer himself (I was however, crap at calculus). That being said, I made, and I’ve continued to make serious efforts to develop my primary reasoning skills since back in the day. And I look back on my prior reasoning and I find it wanting – at some points even embarrassing.

The lesson in this is that no matter if you have a recognised talent, or a disadvantage, there is always room for improvement. There will be even more room for improvement if you don’t make an effort!

So have you made a serious effort to develop your primary reasoning skills?

I’d suggest that if you haven’t, you aren’t in a fit state to be trying to debate anyone, much less to lead them to truth. If your arguments are getting shot down time and time again for logical fallacies, odds on you need to work on your primary reasoning skills.

No amount of “I’m not as smart or educated as you, but…” is going to make foisting the product of poor reasoning onto anyone truthful, nor will it make you meek. There’s nothing meek about preaching to people who have put more effort into their thinking than you.

9. Are you trying to reconcile the evidence with your idea of God?

If you are trying to make the facts reconcile with some pre-conceived notion, you’ve already lost. And I don’t mean the debate – I mean you’re at a loss for believing what you believe. If your notion of a God was such a well thought out concept, it wouldn’t need to be reconciled. The idea’s obviously a poor one if you need to undertake mental gymnastics.

Can you really expect a conversation with someone if you bring this rubbish to the table? A rabbit in the Devonian would compel any “evolutionist” to at least seriously doubt evolution. If you aren’t prepared to seriously doubt your notion of God in light of evidence, then that’s a bit one-sided isn’t it?

People will just call you dogmatic, and probably think you’re a bit silly. And nobody wants to debate with that.

10. Are you writing one of those “10 questions every evolutionist must answer!” pieces?

If you’ve failed to properly address any of the above, odds on you aren’t going to be taken seriously. If you have failed to properly address any of the above, you shouldn’t be taken seriously.

If you’ve failed the above you’ve demonstrated an inability to engage and most probably, a lack of good faith towards your prospective interlocutors.

Seriously, consider getting your act together before you publish any more garbage, thanks.

~ Bruce

Photo source: User:Jynus, Wikimedia Commons.


False mnemonic identified

My old economics teacher at High School had a reoccurring* error that plagued their writing at University. Specifically, whenever they though “union”, they wrote “onion”.

I’ve identified as similar thing happening with my use of the word “dearth”. Specifically, that where I’ve intended to use the word to indicate a lack, I’ve written it as if it means “plenty”. Usually though the omission of a negative – e.g. “no dearth” meaning “no shortage” becomes “dearth”.

I was only aware of having done this once, but reading back through my blog after catching myself almost doing it again, I found a total of three instances. Argh!

There is a silver lining on this cloud though. Upon catching myself I became explicitly aware of the steps my mind went through in recalling the definition of dearth on-the-fly.

If you asked me flat-out what “dearth” meant, I’d tell you that it meant a lack, or a shortage or a scarcity or whatnot. But when I’m tack-tack-tacking away on the keyboard, my thought process is a little different. When this word comes along in this context, I go through a mnemonic – and a false one at that.

Here’s how it works.

  1. Dearth.
  2. David Dearth.
  3. There’s no shortage of David Dearth.
  4. No shortage = plenty.

Given that I used to be into bodybuilding in the 90s, and probably will get back into it at some point, whenever I hear “dearth” I probably think of the ironically named bodybuilder. Or at least I probably, often go through this false mnemonic.

Now the problem is, if I remember this mnemonic explicitly, will it reinforce the problem or make it go away?

Maybe if I just remember “David Dearth is ironic”, it’ll be alright.

I wonder what was going though my (conservative) economics teacher’s mind. Unions make me cry?

~ Bruce

* Should be “recurring” as pointed out in the comments a while back. I’ve left it for the ironic value. Oddly enough, neither the spell-checker in my browser, nor in WordPress, is detecting the error. Curious if this is the same for other WordPress bloggers.


Good writer, bad writer…

Recently I’ve been invited to consider a solution to a dilemma I may be facing when it comes to the writing style I choose to develop.

You know the argument that goes on between parents – especially separated parents – “why do I have to be the bad one?”

That’s pretty much my take on the situation.

Like a lot of people from a similar background, I’ve got a bit more than your average dark streak running through me. But I’m dealing with it and most of it is behind me. Well behind me. Over and out.

This darkness used to hang over my writing like a shroud, provoking various responses.

Throughout the nineties, and into the first couple of years of the “noughties”, my writing variously impressed, or upset people. My efforts were variously called “interesting”, “corrupting” and “disturbing”.

That’s with an exception of course. A glaring exception. The same dark streak that was tainting all of this was a bit destructive to my writing, by way of stress and anxiety. My capacity to write was largely compromised – variously being called “crap”, “garbage” and “unreadable”.

The quality of my prose suffered immensely, and then there was the poor editing. Oh boy! My writing took a nose-dive, headlong and full speed into the concrete. Splat!

At the lowest ebb, my writing read like an angry, disjointed flame-mail. Intentional hyperbole just came across as crazy speak. Black humor just came across as unnerving. Ribald just came across as lecherous.

A criminologists’ wet dream, or nightmare (or both – why do psychologists study psychology, again?) Albeit, I don’t have a criminal record. Not even a fine. And even at my worst I’ve always cared a lot about people’s well-being. Even if I’ve faltered at conveying my intentions.

At my darkest, I was never a risk to anyone who wasn’t a much bigger risk to everyone else around us. And I’ve been around some pretty high-risk individuals, let me tell you.

Through my broken writing I frightened a few of the people around me. And I scared more of them and frightened them worse than I was aware of at the time. I was even called “intimidating”, which was never the intention.

1998-2001 was the worst of it by far. I take a torch to everything I wrote in the period – emails, letters, essays; you name it, it was shit. The language centre of my brain fell out and died in a ditch. You should see the correspondence involving conflict resolution with neighbours. I’m glad you can’t.

And oh how I’ll never write bloody poetry again! (Truth be told, I should have learned this in 1992 when I was first complimented as being “corrupting”).

While this dark streak could confer a certain character to my writing, in large doses it was an unmitigated disaster. Like an acid that was made too strong, it just corroded through everything, ruining prose, deforming turn-of-phrase, and allowing the gaps to be filled with all manner of wrong impressions.

I had so much of this darkness running through my mind in the nineties that it was a forgone conclusion. My writing was a loss.

It took a lot of effort to get over it all. And a lot of effort not to fall back into it when my Father passed away in 2003. But at last it’s all over.

So you can probably appreciate that I don’t want to go through it again!

My writing has improved and is still improving. My state of mind is more enjoyable than it has been in a very, very long time. I’ve found an unprecedented inner calm.

All the same, and this is the problem, it seems sometimes that my writing has been permanently tainted. Even when not writing angry, upon later reflection my prose can come across as such. Even with clear recall of the mood I was in when I wrote it. With my writing finally coming back together again, it’s still haunted by my acerbic shadow.

Which brings me back to the point of being invited to consider a solution.

I posed my situation – the angry writing from a place of deep calm – to a nice lady from Arts SA.

First she suggested that this anger came from a deep, dark place that I wasn’t aware of.

I don’t think this is even remotely tenable because I’ve become quite well acquainted with that side of my mind, thank you very much! I’d know it if it was in the game again. My “problem” is more of an after-effect; a ghost.

I explained this briefly, to which she casually responded “use it”.

Gah! Does she really know what she’s asking of me? Why do I have to be the bad one?

Of course, I don’t always write angry from a place of calm, and when writing analytic prose, I make efforts to avoid, or at least moderate it. It can be quite unhelpful, this phantom mean streak. Even when the people who’s cherished ideas you are critiquing, don’t take things the wrong way.

So what if people don’t get you! Who cares if they take it the wrong way!”

It matters if you’re writing analytic prose! Coming across the wrong way when writing critique, while sometimes the result of willing misunderstanding on the part of the reader, is about as bad as not having your side of a debate understood by the voting party. It’s not the same as fiction being interpreted a thousand and one different ways; except for when deliberately giving your readers a bit of interpretive exercise, you need clarity and precision; no deliberate overstatement; no sarcasm; no in-jokes or overly arcane subtext that could easily be seen as something bad when taken out of context.

And almost certainly no gory metaphors or puns!

But moreover, I’ve found calm through a great deal of difficulty and it’s this calm that’s enabled me to write again. I’m concerned that allowing the dark streak to run rampant with my prose will erode it away again. And perhaps rob me of my newfound calm.

At least I’d like the chance to write in this climate for a bit longer before risking it. Maybe gaining a bit of control over the dark side of my use of language before having to consider using it on a more regular basis.

I’d like to be the good one for once. Not the scary one. Not the evil-disturbing-angry-dangerous one.

I may have come across as a bit of an angry guy, even a crazy guy, but I’m still a good guy underneath all of it. And most everyone else amongst writers seems to get to be a “good one” most of the time anyway – both in terms of that afforded by a safe and sheltered life that I never had, and just in the way their language comes across.

Why do I have to be the bad one? Why can’t I be the good one for once?

~ Bruce


Oh and I’m a bit busy…

I’ve been away from the blogosphere a bit because Uncle Sean has me working on something. I’ll be back to regular scheduled blogging, which is to say totally disorganised, by Thursday.

Even if I do post a post before then.

~ Bruce


Developments

Dawkins is in Adelaide for Writers’ Week, and the Town Hall is already booked out (and has been for a while). Oh well. Them’s the breaks.

I look forward to all the books written by all those in attendance. Writers’. Week.

Pigs at a bloody trough.

Now that I’ve got that out of the system… :D

In other news, while applying for a literature grant in May isn’t off the cards, I’m thinking that the hoops an emerging writer has to go through to apply are more important than the actual grant. I’m going to dive through those hoops even if I don’t apply. Or at least, if I apply and don’t get approved, or I am approved and I don’t accept, the hoops (such as joining the Australian Society of Authors) will still be a wanted part of the process.

This grant business, if accepted, would grant me a bit of independence from the usual things I’m dependent on, but at the same time robbing me of institutional independence – from the Australia Council for The Arts in particular.

I’m getting this sinking feeling that most of the people applying for literature grants aren’t starving artists. Or at least, aren’t at any serious risk of poverty – either having safe middle class parents to fall back on if they are young, or a house bought and paid for if they are older.

There’s obviously time for me to mull this over, but if the grants process advantages those already in a position of relative privilege, I’m not sure I’d want to have anything to do with the Australia Council. In any capacity.

In fact the idea of established-versus-emerging writer as part of the grants process is a bit telling, especially when projected financial income generated by a project is also a criteria*. Established writers who can’t honestly say they will sell well are handicapped in obtaining grants. Which leaves established writers who can make sales versus emerging writers.

Why are established writers who are able to sell books, applying for a grant in the first place? At least with an emerging writer who expects acceptable book sales (or the equivalent as per the application criteria), aren’t necessarily advantaged.

It’s not relevant to the current project, but privilege-v-disadvantage is a theme I’d likely want to touch on in future, so I find the prospect of associating with such a process by having the Australian Council for The Arts logo on the book (as per conditions) to be a bit prejudicial.

I’m not sure I’d want to compromise my values like this in order to detach myself from the usual low-income, working class dependencies.

Still, I haven’t finished looking into things. My concerns may turn out to be unwarranted. Then there’d just be the more generic concerns of acceptance or rejection of my grant application.

~ Bruce

* Yes, yes, revenue generation in terms of book sales does not equal artistic or intellectual merit. It’s the council’s criteria.


Firefox Tab Purge #2

Okay. It’s yet again time to trim back the tabs on my browser.

It’s looking like a long list, so I’ll get to it.

Censorship, cybersafety and the Internet Filter

Read a takedown of polls surrounding Conroy’s intended Internet Filter at MKG – ‘Hungry Beast: 80% of Australians Want Mandatory Internet Censorship? Really?

Larry Magid explains why he thinks that the current approach to online safety is misguided (in a rare good post at HuffPo) – ‘We Need to Rethink Online Safety‘ (Thanks to Mark Newton for this link.)

The Pirate Party Australia publishes a letter from their Finnish counterparts, on what their experience in Internet Filtering has been like – ‘A Message From Finland’ (Again, thanks to Mark Newton.)

More on the RC rating for videos depicting female ejaculation here at Hungry Beast in ‘Your Orgasm Is Classified‘, and apparently, on a related note, Barnaby Joyce and Guy Barnett are big-tit men, pushing a similar ban on the depiction of small breasts as detailed in ‘Australia Bans Small Breasts‘. What about small cocks? Guys?

More recently, Senator Conroy’s proposed Internet filter has received more criticism, this time being unanimously, and unequivocally opposed by the Computer Research and Education Association (CORE) – ‘Filter unanimously opposed by Australasian Computer science academics‘.

Further to this, Electronic Frontiers Australia has set up a petition to oppose Senator Conroy’s Internet filtration plans. There is code there for bloggers and webmasters to add a button and link to the petition, which I’ll have to do in short order.

Those Ugandan Gay Genocide Laws

Over at Waking Up Now, in response to US President Obama’s (rather late) criticism of Uganda’s proposed anti-gay laws, read about how the wording of the legislation allows the friends of gay people to be executed as well – ‘Uganda’s Kill-the-Straight-Friends-of-Gays Bill

Religion

In an astounding act of religious discrimination, Cherie Booth QC, wife of former UK Prime Minister and alleged war-criminal Tony Blair, has decided to hand down a lenient sentence to a man found guilty of breaking another’s jaw, because he was religious and therefore could be expected to “…know this is not acceptable behaviour.” I guess without God, anything is permitted? Give me a break – ‘Complaint after Cherie Booth spares religious man from jail

Commenting on the necessary logical implication, and thus precedent set by this discriminatory sentencing, AC Grayling writes for RichardDawkins.net – ‘A religious but not righteous Judge: Cherie Blair

Courtesy of Rod Benson’s twitter account, I was directed to this article in the UK’s Tele – ‘Atheists ‘just as moral as churchgoers’‘, which I’ve seen around the tubes has caused a bit of anger amongst a few atheists (I’m looking at someone from the Think Atheist crew). First of all let me say it wasn’t a population study. Second, it was about the psychology of ethical reasoning, not the sociology of organised religion. Nor did the article pretend to be any more than that. Existing studies showing atheists to outperform the religious in moral behaviour are by and large correlatory (and correlation isn’t causation – Dawkins warns against this The God Delusion), and subject to influence from other variables (education, other socio-economic factors).

Keeping these things in mind, a null hypothesis of no difference between religious and non-religious morality, in a psychological study showing the religious weren’t overly influenced by religious dogma, isn’t something to get in a stink about. In context (which for once the tele seems to have actually managed) it’s nothing for atheists to feel cheated by, and indeed it challenges common bigoted stereotypes about atheists.

If you are up for some extended video viewing, the IQ squared debates have been published online with more regularity/accessibility of late. I recommend the ‘Atheism is the new fundamentalism debate‘ with Richard Dawkins and AC Grayling pairing off against Richard Harries and Charles Moore. (Given past discussions, I think this would be good viewing for Bron!)

Science

Some time back, there was a brief flare up about the firing of Susan Greenfield from her directorial role at The Royal Institution. After reading some of the bad science she had put out in public, and considering Greenfield’s misguided development that brought about a massive state of debt for the Institution, and vastly overpriced drinks at its new and largely unwanted bar, I really can’t see Greenfield’s complaint of discrimination holding up. For more on the junk science, Susan Blackmore writes ‘Goodbye to a not-so-good scientist‘.

Politics

Paul Sims writes for The New Humanist, that Geert Wilders is not champion of free speech, owing to his own censorious policies. ‘Geert Wilders: martyr of truth?‘ For those atheists opposed to religious censorship and blasphemy laws, this is a must read. And a good read for anyone else. A pity that Pat Condell couldn’t get this through his thick head.

Nature

If you like a good bit of ethology twee, and it doesn’t make you anthropomorphise when you shouldn’t (i.e. when doing ethology), here’s some kitties and a chimp – ‘A Mom is a Mom no matter what the species‘ – I don’t know about the title though. Makes my contrarian mind dredge up images of black widows and mantises.

Blogosphere

I’ll have to make a few additions to my blogroll. Torque Control, PodBlack Cat, Hope For Pandora, Unreasonable Faith, Atheist Revolution, Stupid Evil Bastard, Skepchick and The New Humanist Blog will join the blogroll soon. And if Beep Beep It’s Me gets back up and active again, after her 2 year-plus hiatus, I’ll put her back on as well! (Again, welcome back!)

A couple of bloggers I’d like to see return to the ’sphere are Arthur Vandelay of Five Public Opinions, and Don Quixote of Silently Speaking. Art’s been out of the game since April of last year, and DQ has been AWOL since July of 2006. I miss these guys. DQ was my first regular commenter back in the second half of 2005 on Bruce’s Rave and Rant. I was reading Five Public Opinions for almost as long. Some good stuff if you look back through the archives.

~ Bruce


Oh, and on a related bugbear…

…It’s not a proof, it’s a refutation!

In general, I find the refutation of the occasional religious idea to be more rewarding than proofs against whole swathes of religions assumptions. Particularly as such refutations may have practical merit when they defend worthwhile ideas against bad ones – for example, defending medicine against faith healing. Very. Practical!

Furthermore, in addition to these practical up-shots, you don’t actually have to go spending as much energy, leaving more over FOR YOU TO HAVE A LIFE!

And at the very least, if you are dealing with religious people, a refutation is something you are more likely to have a reasonable discussion about. The religious having their own refutations of particular religious ideas.

As long as I’m not told that I need to be invited to offer a refutation of a religious idea aired in public, and as long as people stop calling refutations I may voice, attempted proofs against God, then I think I’ll be happy. Probably.

~ Bruce


God = Singularity? Good luck with that

There has been an argument in theological/cosmological circles for a while now that I’ve seen from time to time but haven’t addressed, surrounding the existence of a singularity at the beginning of the Universe. Why?

For some reason that I honestly can’t fathom beyond some possible act of desperation, from time to time I’ve seen the singularity being called “God”. I want to have this post in place for the next time I see an example because I think it’s a really problematic argument.

Personally, I think that Coca Cola would make a better deity; the drink not the corporation. It has about the same capacity to give moral and spiritual guidance as a singularity, but with the added benefit of empirical evidence to buttress any ontological assertions. Although maybe a Coke bottle isn’t enough to hang The Infinite off of.

Yes, yes. Very clever. Grow up. Etc. Blah, blah, blah… It’s a reductio. Give a counter argument to show why it’s invalid, or live with it. I suspect most readers here will do the latter.

In case some of you reading this don’t know, there is no empirical evidence that singularities actually exist. They are simply inferred by our current, limited understanding of the Universe. Particularly the general theory of relativity.

Singularities are inferred in general in two (or more) places – in black holes and at the beginning of the Universe (and at the end in some inflationary models, and at the bounce points of some rebounding Universe models).

Get enough mass in a small enough area, and gravitational collapse will, according to the general theory of relativity, become intractable – down to a single, finite point of infinite density and zero width, height or depth. Time comes to an end (or a boundary) as well.

Why is this a problem? Why are singularities a bad thing to hang God (or anything else) off of?

General relativity, a theory which makes a host of testable predictions (including black holes),  provides an extremely accurate account of the way gravity works in the Universe. Quantum mechanics, which deals with the very small in a similarly successful way, doesn’t deal with gravity at all (at least not yet); gravity which is a very weak force, at the scale of the extremely small, isn’t particularly amenable to study. It’s like trying to study the smallest volume of the most diffuse gas – you don’t have enough to work with.

There is of course one glaring exception where gravity is significant on a quantum scale – the alleged singularity, or at least, the confined conditions at the heart of a runaway gravitational collapse. So what if it’s a weak force? Under these conditions you’ve got a lot of it, so much so that in a black hole, it should dominate the other, stronger forces.

The singularity should ideally be the place for general relativity and quantum mechanics to cross over. Indeed, necessarily if the two theories were to maintain logical self-consistency; by definition, both theories have the singularity within their domain and hence both need to explain it seamlessly.

But this isn’t the case. The situation is far from ideal. All those infinites get in the way of being able to tie one theory to the other. The math doesn’t work. The two theories as they stand, are irreconcilable. One or both has to change. And that’s before considering the fact that quantum mechanics normally deals with matter, while general relativity deals with space-time.

Hence the singularity isn’t something that can be reasonably asserted as actually existing. The singularity is a mathematical product of our current deficient understanding of the Universe, at precisely the point that our understanding fails. The part of theory that predicts singularities is the part that is broken. The singularity isn’t a thing, it’s a place-holder for a gap in our knowlege.

I use the word “gap” advisedly. As in “God of the gaps“.

Although maybe it’s even worse than that.

Traditionally, a God-of-the-gaps argument states that “where there is a gap in human scientific knowledge, God did it”. But this singularity mumbo-jumbo is different. This is a case of “there is a gap in human scientific knowledge, and God is it”.

God of the gaps theology traditionally reduce God’s role in the Universe as human understanding advances. God’s agency being squeezed out like the cream in a Monte Carlo.

However, if the singularity is ever done away with, if a theory of quantum gravity is developed that reconciles general relativity with quantum mechanics and doesn’t posit a singularity as a mathematical product, then that gap is gone. But instead of God’s agency being the cream in the Monte Carlo being squeezed out, it’s God itself.

It should be obvious that the rejection of the concept of the cosmological singularity is a possible, reasonable outcome of honest scientific conduct. Or even just a part of responsible speculation in an attempt to develop the first hint of a solution to a very difficult scientific problem.

The Hartle-Hawking theory is just such a speculation (see Hawking’s A Brief History of Time for an in-depth explanation). At least in as far as the Big Bang is concerned. By applying the Heisenberg Uncertainty principle to space-time, specifically to the state of a given dimension (uncertainty of space-or-time) – Hartle and Hawking demonstrated in theory that it is possible that space time as we know it emerged from a region of uncertain space-time on the Planck scale.

Which is to say a region of space-time that is very, very small, but not infinitesimal.

Singularities are discrete, infinitesimal points (or rings in the case of a rotating black hole) of infinite density and zero volume, but when space-time is itself subject to the Uncertainty Principle as in the Hartle-Hawking theory, there aren’t any discrete, singular points in space-time in order for singularities to be possible. I’ll avoid using the phrase “impossible initial conditions” because even “initial” is in this scheme is by definition impossible.

At such a small scale, according to the Hartle-Hawking theory, quantum effects would hold sway allowing for time to emerge from a fourth dimension of space, and thus allowing the Universe as we know it to follow.

Still, it’s a speculative theory; testable predictions haven’t emerged from it.

It is useful speculation all the same, because it provides logical refutation against assumptions held to be a priori truths that restrict the way the Universe is theorised about. For example, the assumption that a finite Universe must have a beginning (a reoccurring theme in cosmological arguments for the existence of God) is ruined by the logical possibility of the Hartle-Hawking theory.

It may not cure our ignorance about what may actually lay at the heart of a black hole, but what this reasonable speculation and speculation like it does tell us, is that the singularity (and the “first cause” in general) is an ambiguous and unsafe place to park your cherished ideas!

Maybe somebody should put up a sign.

~ Bruce

Afterword: Aside from being a pre-prepared rebuttal, I’m writing this in anticipation of singularity-dogma, and the casting of singularity-rebuttals as alleged atheist propaganda, rather than responsible inquiry.


Damn…

I wanted to post something, or indeed a few things today. But lo and behold I was caught up in a small family crisis.

Arrgghhh…

Oddly enough (or not) I may be involved in the kicking of some moderate (or faux-moderate) Christian arse before this is over. Someone’s done gone done something wrong, with pious motivations. Wrong enough that I can’t exclude the possibility that the Police will get involved – which as a witness, and relative of the offending party, will be really inconvenient for me.

Not an Army of God kind of illegality – we aren’t talking jail terms – but the kind of social conduct that I can’t see a Christian outside of the Army of God being willing to defend. I can’t think of any fundamentalists in my own social network that would even be willing to try to defend it in some kind of thought experiment, much less the real thing and much less by more liberal Christians.

There may be clergy involved behind said motivations. I hope not. I hope it’s all just a misunderstanding, because it all has the potential to create a lot of bad blood.

There has been a lot of good faith invested in religious people, by a number of interested atheists, thus far in the enterprise in question. And a certain amount has been received in return (if seemingly smaller). I’m not looking forward to whatever conflict this is all leading to, no matter how small the role of religion may ultimately turn out to be.

This isn’t a “merely” academic matter – there are real people with real consequences. It’s not a thought experiment.

At any rate, the boot will be landing on some Christian posterior in the near future, even if it’s not me delivering the kick. I just don’t know who exactly, or what theology precisely, lead to this mess I’ve got involved in, and to what extent precisely other factors were influential – the primacy of religious motivation will be hard to deny, and a significant-but-not-primary role in motivation much more so.

I’d like Jesus to start sending me a thank you basket (no fish – vegetarian) for each time I help to clean up this kind of mess. It’s not the first time. He’d better if he expects me to save his arse again.

~ Bruce