Category: Uncategorized

One doesn’t expect the average Internet commenter to rise to the level of published and popular authors such as Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins, however low that might be. But this should adequately demonstrate how ineptly the average champions of reason wield that in which they believe:

“We atheists simply say, “There is yet no evidence for a god, so I do not believe in one.” – tcw.

Of course, there is as little evidence for any aspect of morality, so why does tcw believe in them? Where are the scientific experiments proving that lying to another individual is wrong? What is the empirical evidence for “right”.

“One idea I have is that causing unecessary suffering to another person is immoral. This is not something I gleened from the bible. So you are correct. This idea does sound good enough to me that I really spend very little time questioning it. What’s your point?” – anonymous

The point is that a) his notion of causing suffering being immoral has a less rational basis than a belief in God, b) no one whose beliefs are unquestioned and based only on what sounds good can claim to be a rational being.

I’ve yet to see any rational reason to believe there is a god. And tell me, what tools of science would I use to “learn about god”? – anonymous

If “this idea sounds good” is enough to provide the basis for his moral beliefs, one wonders why he requires science for a belief in God. And one must ask, what tools of science would anyone use to learn about right and wrong.

As Equus Pallidus demonstrated rather nicely, the reason the common atheist is always on the attack is that he simply has no defense for his own beliefs. They run from scientific and reasonable discussions of their own “moralities” even faster than illiterate Bible-thumping Creationists because they know there simply is no there there. So, instead of answering the simplest questions, they are always forced to point and say “yeah, well, what about dinosaurs?”.

This wouldn’t be so ridiculous if it weren’t a hypocritical betrayal of everything they claim to value. These atheists would do well to learn that talking incessantly about science and logic is not the same thing as actually putting them to work on one’s behalf. And it is foolish to attack the faith of others when one’s own beliefs are supported by a demonstrably shakier foundation.

One may well be dissatisfied when the question “why” is answered “because God said so in this here book”. But that is still a much more logically sound and universally applicable reply than “well, it sounds good to me”.

Since we’re getting closer to sending THE WRATH OF ANGELS to the printer, I thought those of you who haven’t felt the urge to pick up a copy of either of the first two Eternal Warriors novels might like to have the opportunity to read them. They’re in my preferred .pdb format, so you’ll want to download Palm’s free eReader if you don’t have it on your computer or telephone already.

THE WAR IN HEAVEN

THE WORLD IN SHADOW

Feel free to let me know what you think of them, for good or ill. I’ll post a few of the more substantive reviews here, should anyone happen to write any.

13 Mafia family heads arrested
Italian police arrested at least 45 people in dawn raids aimed at thwarting an all-out Mafia war of succession after the capture in April of Bernardo Provenzano, the “boss of bosses”.

Police said that the suspects, including the heads of 13 Mafia families in Sicily, made up a support network that had allowed Provenzano to stay on the run for 43 years. In all, 52 arrest warrants were issued and some were still being served last night.

Francesco Caruso, the Palermo police chief, said: “Through wiretaps, we found out that winds of war were blowing in Palermo that could have started a new Mafia war, and so we moved in.”
– June 21, 2006

Prodi steps in as Mafia war rages out of control

By yesterday, as Romano Prodi, the Italian Prime Minister, met local leaders in Naples to discuss how to tackle the apparently unstoppable wave of mob killings, rain had washed away most of the blood on the steps.

The violence, which has claimed a life a day over the past week, has led government ministers to talk of bringing in the Army to restore order. Yesterday Signor Prodi said that the deployment of troops was “not excluded”, but for the time being the solution lay in supplying 1,300 extra police and in “relaunching the economy in the South”….

Police in Naples say that the violence has spiralled out of control, paradoxically, because of their success in putting traditional Camorra bosses behind bars.

The Mafia power structure that once held communities in sway has disintegrated, with trigger-happy younger mafiosi feuding for control of individual clans and the cocaine and heroin trade. There have been 75 murders this year, 12 in the past ten days.
– November 2, 2006

There is no paradox, and the Naples dilemma applies to the Middle East as well. One can take out the evil strong man, but there is never going to be a shortage of ruthless and evil men who are eager to replace him. But this isn’t necessarily a bad thing in all circumstances, especially if your primary concern happens to be keeping the bad guys occupied somewhere other than in the United States.

In fact, stability in the Middle East is the very last thing that is needed in a period of resurgent expansionist Islam. I find it amazing how government authorities will so often dedicate themselves to actions that are bound to cause the very results they are supposed to prevent. And yet somehow, this never seems to slow down the “we have to do something” crowd.

At least, I think that’s what DS is trying to do:

I read your article, and would like to respond. I refuse, however, to address the many ad hominem attacks.

Fair enough. The correct thing to do is to address the substantive attacks, which determines whether the ad hominum ones are merited.

After painting a clichéd portrait of an Islamic bus bomber, he writes: ”Why is it so easy, then, so trivially easy – you-could-almost- bet-your- life-on-it easy – to guess the young man’s religion?”
–
What’s chliche about an islamic suicide bomber?

Many, if not most, suicide bombers have not been Islamic. And yet Harris assumes the basic stereotype as fact, probably due to the mass of recent media coverage of Islamic suicide bombers. When Islamic suicide bombers are showing up in Halloween costumes and Volkswagen ads, it’s a cliché.

Having already rejected Pascal’s Wager…
–
Being a logical fallacy, are you saying he should accept it?

No, merely pointing out that he’s prone to putting himself on the wrong side of costly bets.

…since he has apparently never heard of the Tamil Tigers, ”an adamantly secular group with Hindu roots” that University of Chicago professor Edward Pape, the author of “Dying to Win: The Strategic Logic of Suicide Terrorism,” describes as ”the leading purveyors of suicide attacks over the last two decades.”
–
You are referring to Robert Pape. Do you have valid statistics on the number of deaths? Are you aware of the reason for their choice of violence? Furthermore, could you explain, by definition, how the TT are “adamantly secular?” And finally, please explain Pape’s claim that “there is little connection between suicide terrorism and islamic fundamentalism, or(sic) any one of the world’s religions?”

Any claims of inaccuracy in Pape’s book should be taken up with Pape, not me. If you have evidence to demonstrate his book is incorrect, feel free to publicly demonstrate it as I have with Harris, the onus is on you. Yes, I am aware of the reason for their choice of violence. The Tamil Tigers are adamantly secular due to a) their Marxist philosophy and b) their opposition to the caste-system that is intimately linked to the lingering Hindu religious influence in Sri Lanka. Pape makes the claim because he has had no trouble documenting many irreligious suicide bombers and because he has determined that the primary purpose of suicide bombers is entirely secular; to drive an occupying military power out of the land it occupies. Without military occupation, there is very little suicide terrorism regardless of how much religious fundamentalism abounds.

It is interesting to note that in keeping with Pape’s assertion, Islamic bombings in the West have not been suicide attacks, whereas occupied Iraq has seen many.

it is the chemical, biological and nuclear products of Reason encapsulated in the methodology of science that pose the actual danger.
–
Of course it is, and it has nothing to do with the insane people that get their hands on them, right? Tell me, the next time you need medication, surgery, antibiotics or perhaps a vaccination, will you deem those as “products of Reason encapsulated in the methodology of science that pose the actual danger?”

Was Truman insane? Were the generals of WWI religious fanatics? Did they use the atomic and chemical products of Reason for religious purposes? It is as fair to criticize all science for the many evils it produces as it is to blame all religious people for the actions of a few killers. Furthermore, DS’ implication that there is no danger associated with medication, surgery and so forth is hilarious, as even if one omits abortion, doctors kill far more people than murderers and terrorists combined. Medical errors are the sixth leading cause of death in the USA, whereas religious fanaticism would rank somewhere below drowning in buckets.

And when one considers that an estimated 89.2 percent of all the wars in history were fought for reasons unrelated to religion….
–
And you got that statistic from whom? Pat Robertson? So there were no Crusades, Inquisitions, Holocausts, killing tens of millions of human beings – SLOWLY BURNING THEM, so they had a chance to reconsider their disbelief. Shall I continue?

Here DS reveals his own vast historical ignorance. I got that statistic by reviewing the 489 wars listed in the Wikipedia.* 53 had religious causes; one obtains that number if each of the 10 Crusades is counted separately. (489-53)/489 = 89.2 percent. The inquisitions weren’t wars and only killed some 5,000 people in 300 years. The Holocaust was not religiously motivated nor was it a war.

While DS does us the service of demonstrating what sort of ignorant buffoon is impressed by Sam Harris, he should only continue if he wishes to embarrass himself further.

*I’m not the only one to reach this conclusion. Another guy with a fairly serious interest in the vicissitudes of history writes in his FAQ:

“Q: Is religion responsible for more more violent deaths than any other cause?

A: No, of course not — unless you define religion so broadly as to be meaningless. Just take the four deadliest events of the 20th Century — Two World Wars, Red China and the Soviet Union — no religious motivation there, unless you consider every belief system to be a religion.

Q: So, what you’re saying is that religion has never killed anyone.

A: Arrgh… You all-or-nothing people drive me crazy. There are many documented examples where members of one religion try to exterminate the members of another religion. Causation is always complex, but if the only difference between two warring groups is religion, then that certainly sounds like a religious conflict to me. Is it the number one cause of mass homicide in human history? No. Of the 22 worst episodes of mass killing, maybe four were primarily religious. Is that a lot? Well, it’s more than the number of wars fought over soccer, or sex (The Trojan and Sabine Wars don’t even make the list.), but less than the number fought over land, money, glory or prestige.

In my Index, I list 41 religious conflicts…. Make of that what you will.”

And actually, if you look at his list of worst episodes, (which isn’t limited to war), only two of them, #17 and #21, appear to have been religious in nature. Astute readers will note that neither the Crusades nor the Inquisition even make the list.

LP tries to change the subject:

You state “an estimated 89.2 percent of all the wars in history were fought for reasons unrelated to religion.” Of course religion not only is at the root of many wars, but just as importantly, religion is what galvanizes the masses to fight wars –God is on our side etc. etc.–Stalin and Hitler exploited religion in such a way.

You can disagree with Harris, Dawkins and Dennett but to attack them as clowns is to undermine your otherwise silly argument.

As for your supernatural beliefs –prove them. Take your best argument for god(s) and plug in ANY entity (pink unicorns, Santa or the tooth fairy –you name it) and your argument will be just as persuasive and wrong.

As I stated, religion is actually at the root of very few wars in recorded history. Take Islam out of the equation and you’re left with a few more wars than the number caused by international soccer. (Seriously.) If you wish to take exception to my statement, I encourage you to examine the evidence of the 500 wars I reviewed and make your case against it. Furthermore, religion is not what “galvanizes the masses”, nationalism is. If that were true, conscription and pay would be unnecessary, as evidenced by the Crusades, where the martial motivations were often genuinely religious.

It’s not a question of disagreeing with the three clowns – you’d probably be surprised how much I tend to agree with Dawkins on various subjects – only pointing out their obvious factual and logical errors in their respective cases against religion in general and the Christian God in particular.

I have no need to prove my supernatural beliefs to LP or anyone else. Yes, the burden is on me if I wish to convince them to accept my beliefs, but that is not my purpose in writing these columns. My purpose is merely to demonstrate the way in which Harris, Dawkins and Dennet all fall very short of their stated goals.

The womyn are hysterical over this one:

Feminist blogs are all posting on this alarming development—an appellate court in Maryland has declared that their law in unambigious and once a woman gives consent to have sex, she can’t withdraw it. Which of course makes one wonder: If you’re having sex with someone and you tell them to stop and they force you to continue, what makes them if not a rapist? The opinion has the background as to why once consent is given, it can’t be withdrawn.

Because, of course, it’s terrible Patriarchal oppression to expect a woman to be responsible for any decision she has made. If a woman can’t change her mind about anything, at any time, she’s being abused. And yet, a man is expected to continue to financially support a woman even after he – or she – has decided to no longer be married to her.

It really shouldn’t be hard for womyn to understand why so many men regard them as quasi-children unworthy of any respect. If you can’t be held responsible for anything and can’t even manage to provide yourself with food, shelter and clothing, you’re not only not an equal, you’re not even an adult.

UPDATE – on a tangential note, JR points us to the latest outrage that has strong, independent Canadian feminists swooning on their fainting couches:

Feminists like Black and Alphabet demand equal treatment with men — until the going gets tough. And then they fall back and demand to be treated like “ladies” again. Too frail and vulnerable, and ultimately just “too good,” by virtue of being female, to be called bad names.

Equality can be a bitch.

And here I thought the whole notion of uncontrollable sexual urges was the foundational premise of the anti-abstinence, sex ed crew, to say nothing of the homophiliacs:

…coming soon after several particularly nasty cases of gang rape by young Muslim men in Australia, the sheikh’s sermon seemed to be absolving the attackers from responsibility.

In the Sydney case to which he was referring, the 18-year-old victim was raped 25 times by up to 14 men. She hadn’t been walking, skimpily dressed, down a dark alley at 3am. She had been sitting on a train, wearing her best suit for a job interview and reading The Great Gatsby. Yet the rapists still called her a “slut” and an “Aussie pig”.

Of course only a minuscule fraction of Muslim men are rapists; the rest are upright, law-abiding citizens. But the premise of the dress code is still that men’s impulses cannot be controlled unless women hide themselves. Why should not Muslim men start to take more responsibility for their sexual desires, rather than expecting women to dress absurdly modestly, lest the sight of a bare arm or even a lock of hair should lead them to uncontrollable sexual urges?

Actually, the Muslim position isn’t indefensible. The unfortunate young woman’s respectable attire notwithstanding, there’s about a one-in-two chance she was a slut anyhow. Certainly a significant percentage of 18 year-old women in the United States are promiscuous, a fact for which I was was very grateful as an 18 year-old man.

Now, I don’t believe that rape is an appropriate response to an attractive slut, especially when buying her a drink or two will usually suffice to convince her to give you what you’d otherwise be taking by force. But since alchohol is out for Muslims and the victim is losing nothing that she hasn’t presumably lost already, (virginity, dignity, etc), there is a certain alien logic to their perspective.

Although it’s perhaps not quite as alien as most of us in the West would like it to be. After all, we are informed that abstinence is not an option for controlling sexually-transmitted diseases or banning homosexuality since no one is capable of controlling their urges to have sex. But if the sexual urge is irresistable, how could the consent of the other party possibly be a factor that enters into one’s consideration? If sex is inevitable, then so is rape, unless, of course, you seriously believe that rape is primarily about eating disorders or whatever irrelevant nonsense the feminists are pushing these days.

In any event, as Spacebunny points out, it’s incredible that this is what is upsetting Westerners most about Muslims these days. Never mind the teenage beheadings….

From the Washington Times:

The Intercollegiate Studies Institute recently tested 14,000 freshmen and seniors at 50 colleges with 60 questions on American history, government, market economies and U.S. foreign policy. The average “civic literacy” score for seniors was 53.2 percent, for freshman 54.7 percent. Failing grades all. The longer a student attends class, the dumber he gets. Students at the elite schools fared worse than students at some church and land-grant schools. The Ivy League school whose students ranked highest were those at Princeton, at No. 18. Harvard’s students were 25th. The lowest scores were posted at such bastions of higher learning as Cornell, University of California at Berkeley and Johns Hopkins. Go figure, as some unhappy parents will no doubt do.

As I previously wrote, do not attend college with the idea of pursuing an education, because that’s no longer the purpose of a university. The purpose of a university is to extract maximum cash from the student and anyone else willing to contribute on his behalf, including the government, in return for The Ticket. That’s the deal.

It is ironic that the supposed devotees of Science and Reason can’t recognize that most college students aren’t learning anything, despite this empirical, scientific evidence which proves it. It’s only anecdotal evidence, of course, but I’ve known this since I met a girl with an economics degree who had never heard of Keynes.

Praise for Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris:

I can’t sign my name to this blurb. As a New York Times best selling author of books about business, my career will evaporate if I endorse a book that challenges the deeply held superstitions and bigotry of the masses. That’s exactly why you should (no, you must) read this angry and honest book right away. As long as science and rational thought are under attack by the misguided yet pious majority, our nation is in jeopardy. I’m scared. You should be too. Please buy two, one for you and one for a friend you care about.

— Unsigned, New York Times best selling author

He’s scared, all right. I can’t say I blame him for being an utter coward, though. I’d be terrified to admit that I praised anything written by Sam Harris.

Of course, Sam “I travel with bodyguards to protect me from Christian suicide bombers” Harris is a real profile in atheist courage himself.

Charles Stross points us to an English teacher’s review of Dickens, among others:

“I found this book difficult to follow and hard to hold my interest. I am an English teacher so I don’t think it’s me. I was revved about the book and started it immediately unpon receipt. I didn’t even finish it–which is something I can say about few books…”

Cthulhu wept.