Tag: atheism

Mailvox: the hypocrisy of the anti-scientist

One can’t truly appreciate how effectively Dominic has argued the atheist case without comparing it to the conventional talking points usually presented by the average atheist:

Yeah, heaven forbid that we actually learn from our mistakes! Tell me vox, if you have such distrust of our present snapshot, how about you jump off your roof to test it?

But you won’t. And I’ll tell you why. While you know it can be wrong, and certainly is at some points, the chance that it’s wrong regarding your fall is abysmally low. So low that you won’t stake your life on it.

You similarly will not trust historical evidence that says humans flew , for you know well that the chance of them lying as opposed to science being wrong on the subject is really, really huge.

When someone testifies to you that he has seen a dragon in your backyard, you will, like a true hypocrite, impose upon the scientific principles of biology and non-observation of dragons despite the fact that you know full well it can be wrong.

And I’ll tell you why. You know it can be wrong, but you’re pretty sure it isn’t. When we bet, we bet on good odds, not bad ones. There’s the difference between probable and plausible that you’re unable to grasp. There’s a chance that your car will crash, your aeroplane will be hijacked by Islamic fundamentalists, you’ll be mugged while walking, etc. Does that prevent you from going out ?

You just happen to forget this game of odds when it suits you. It’s called hypocrisy, and you play this game well.

The amusing thing about the average atheist is the way they illogically attempt to simultaneously deny the relevance of historical and testimonial evidence while appealing to it under the misapprehension that it is science. I don’t refrain from jumping off my roof because science has confirmed that the effect of Earth gravity will draw me to the ground at 9.8 m/s and I have performed a rapid calculation involving my mass, the distance of the fall from the roof, and reached a conclusion that I will not jump. Instead, I rely upon the testimonial evidence of others, which simply states “don’t jump off the roof or you will hurt yourself.”

The amusing thing about this atheist’s example of flight is that scientists of the early 20th century refused to believe the historical evidence that the Wright Brothers had, in fact, flown, in part due to their reliance upon the scientific consensus of the time which insisted that heavier-than-air flight was impossible. In fact, Lord Kelvin, the leading scientist and President of the Royal Society of England, in 1895 stated unequivocally that “Heavier than air flying machines are impossible”.

If someone testifies that he has seen a dragon in my backyard, I may or may not believe him depending upon his historical record of truthfulness. Science won’t enter into it at all. I have already seen far too many things take place that I previously thought to be impossible to place more confidence in “the scientific principles of biology and non-observation of dragons” than in the truthfulness of an individual known to have been reliably truthful in the past.

The problem with atheists who make a fetish of science is that they simply don’t understand that science is not a universal tool ideal for all purposes, but is rather more akin to a hammer. A hammer works very well for driving nails and rather less well for cutting down trees. But preferring the use of a saw when the task at hand involves cutting down a tree does not make one intrinsically anti-hammer, nor does it make one hesitate before picking up a hammer to drive a nail.

Scientific evidence and historical evidence are complimentary, not intrinsically adversarial. They may overlap at times, they may conflict at others, but in no case are they the same thing and both types of evidence are capable of being wholly unreliable if applied in an inappropriate manner. It is far from hypocrisy to recognize the limits to a type of knowledge and restrict one’s use of it to the situations when it is relevant, especially since doing otherwise is misguided at best and quite possibly delusional.

TIA: it is science

Okay, you can all stop sending this to me now. Look, I don’t think anyone should have been terribly shocked by news of the scientific link between atheism and autism which supports my original hypothesis from four years ago:

People with ‘mild’ forms of autism are more likely to be atheists, according to a controversial new study – and more likely to shun organised religion in general. The study, which looked at posts on autism forums, focused on people with high-functioning autism such as Asperger’s. The study, from University of Boston, speculates that common autistic spectrum behaviours such as ‘a preference for logical beliefs’ and a distrust of metaphor and figures of speech, could be responsible.

The amusing thing about the vehement reaction by many atheists to my description of their observable tendency towards socially autistic behavior is that it was not only based on my personal observations over the years, but also by the Asperger’s Quotient results proudly reported by dozens of the Internet’s most militant atheists. But the link should have always been obvious because it is logically inevitable. Even if one believes that a god is nothing but a social construct, it should not be hard to grasp that a degree of social dysfunction would tend to inhibit one’s understanding of those constructs.

Now, obviously god-blindness will take a variety of forms, just as color-blindness does. My belated discovery of my own very mild color-blindness has, in some ways, helped me understand what Brent Rasmussen once described as a missing sense more than my longtime agnosticism ever did. You can explain it to me all you like, you can walk me slowly and patiently through all the lines on the image, but I am still not going to see it. Even if I trust that it is there, I simply cannot see it and no amount of desire allows me to detect it. It is perhaps worth recalling that just as my color-blindness is totally undetectable by others whereas the total or red-green versions are readily observable to anyone paying attention to the individual’s behavior, god-blindness is not going to automatically translate into full blown New Atheist social autism.

What is slightly misleading about the article’s description of these socially autistic individuals is that what is described as a “preference for logical beliefs” should actually be phrased as a “preference for beliefs that appear to be logical”. For, as we have repeatedly seen, socially dysfunctional atheists tend to be extraordinarily illogical, to such an extent that they will deny the existence of straightforward dictionary definitions in use for hundreds of years in order to cling to their pseudo-logic.

It’s not so much logic as static rules that appeal to them. Where the cognitive deficiency is revealed is in their inability to understand that the decision tree they have adopted with quasi-religious fervor is insufficiently dynamic. I suspect it is somehow related to their concomitant emotional immaturity, as I see a similar problem with static decision trees all the time in children’s soccer.

For example, you might tell a young defender to closely mark #12 because he is the most dangerous striker on the other team. Then you will watch in disbelief as that defender obediently stays wide and out of the play at #12’s side instead of moving into the center and attacking the other striker who has the ball and is heading for a shot on goal. What the young defender doesn’t understand that the order to mark the one player is a conditional one and that the order should no longer be considered in effect once a greater danger to the goal presents itself. So, it’s necessary to keep building more and more complex decision trees as the player develops until the light bulb goes off, the logical bases underlying all the various trees are finally understood, and the defender can begin thinking and analyzing the situations for himself rather than simply attempting to identify which branch of the decision tree applies to the present situation.

An inability or dislike for processing dynamic if-then situations has nothing to do with logic per se, it is simply a need for clear-cut rules that remove any necessity for active thinking. To the socially autistic, both “Science” and “Reason” are perceived as The Legitimate Rulegivers and they represent far more than the simple tools they are to the neurotypical. Of course, it is more than a little ironic that those who claim to be freethinkers and paragons of logic are actually exhibiting illogical behavior that is fundamentally based on an aversion to thinking.

A new secular calendar

Why one wonders, does the Common Era just happen to start at the same time as Anno Domini? What is this “common era” of which they speak?

The BBC has been accused of ‘absurd political correctness’ after dropping the terms BC and AD in case they offend non-Christians. The Corporation has replaced the familiar Anno Domini (the year of Our Lord) and Before Christ with the obscure terms Common Era and Before Common Era.

I find it hard to get too worked up about this sort of thing. It’s not new for the enemies of Christianity and it won’t last. Common Era and Before Common Era have been bubbling around the more absurd peripheries for a while, but they are going to last in the mainstream about as long as Thermidor and Fructidor did. And even if I wasn’t a Christian, I would think it was the height of lame faddery to ditch a tradition of more than one thousand years for no valid reason.

The dishonest atheist

This statement by Cabal demonstrates why one always has to assume, until it is demonstrated otherwise, that an atheist is a lying snake who will deceitfully redefine the language to suit his arguments at need.

Darwinism…a meaningless expression that only exists in creationist literature.

It doesn’t surprise me that some atheists, particularly the militant and evangelical ones, should practice their own form of Taqiyya. They reject the source of morality, after all, so they have no rationale for behaving in a truthful, moral manner. But what astonishes me time and time again is that they should choose to tell such stupid, easily exposed lies over and over again.

From the Oxford English Dictionary:

Darwinism
Pronunciation:/ˈdɑːwɪnɪz(ə)m/
noun

the theory of the evolution of species by natural selection advanced by Charles Darwin.

Derivatives

Darwinist
noun & adjective

No doubt we’ll soon be hearing new fictions about how the Oxford English Dictionary is creationist literature. And then I’ll have to point out that “Darwinism” is also in the Collins, Merrian-Webster, and World Heritage dictionaries as well.

Dar·win·ism

noun
the Darwinian theory that species originate by descent, with variation, from parent forms, through the natural selection of those individuals best adapted for the reproductive success of their kind.
Origin:
1855–60; Darwin + -ism

The PZ Myers Memorial Debate update I

While I can’t say many of the atheists who have been demanding that I make a positive case for the existence of gods for literally years have exactly covered themselves with glory in their willingness to step into the intellectual Octagon and take their chances, I have to give due credit to Gay Germ, Mark DiStefano, Roffle, and Thrasymachus, who, unlike the rest of their fellow non-believers, were willing to publicly defend the atheist position.

However, since Dominic Saltarelli did not hesitate to step up to the plate, and because he is known and respected as an intelligent commenter who originally hails from richarddawkins.net, I have decided to accept his challenge as the atheist champion. Just to make it interesting, Dominic and I have decided that the first round will be in English, the second round in Italian, and the third round in Latin.

The first PZ Myers Memorial Debate features Dominic Saltarelli vs Vox Day and concerns the evidence and logic for the existence or nonexistence of gods.

Now, as to the judges, we appear to be rather light on agnostics, which I suppose isn’t all that surprising because agnostics are naturally less interested in the subject and can’t be bothered with it. Here are the proposed judges, and I invite the relevant groups to discuss them. Please do not suggest any new names now, as everyone has had sufficient time to come forward.

Christian: Markku, Ms Pilgrim, cl, Stilicho, Josh, Gene, Gregory, Salt.

Agnostic: Crowhill, Alexamenos

Atheist: Mark Di Stefano, Thrasymachus, Roffle, ScottScheule

Now is the time to for discussion among the three groups in order to settle upon a judge who is deemed to be representative, impartial, and intelligent. I have no preference on either the agnostic or atheist judges, but for the Christian judge, I suggest that cl might be ideal because he is not a reader of this blog. However, I leave that for the Christians here to decide. After the three judges are selected, I will ask Dominic if he has any objection to any of them, and then we can move onto a discussion on how the scoring will be done. After that, Dominic and I will send our first round submissions, (which will consist of an initial statement and a response to the other’s statement), to the judges; the following day all four pieces will be posted here for general perusal. The judges will be expected to post their scores, along with any relevant comments supporting those scores, within two days of receiving the submissions.

E se non è gia tutto chiaro, la cosa delle lingue era solo un scherzo. Naturalmente faremmo tutto il dibattimento in latina, come i clàssici.

WND column

The Christian Nation

“While I was in America, a witness, who happened to be called at the assizes of the county of Chester (state of New York), declared that he did not believe in the existence of God or in the immortality of the soul. The judge refused to admit his evidence, on the ground that the witness had destroyed beforehand all the confidence of the court in what he was about to say. The newspapers related the fact without any farther comment. The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other; and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live.”
– Alexis de Tocqueville, “American Institutions and Their Influence,” 1851

One of the repetitive themes that developed in The Irrational Atheist over the course of its writing is the profound historical unreliability of atheists. Atheists, particularly the aggressive variety, tend to repeat the same talking points over and over with such assurance that the average historically illiterate individual, regardless of his religious faith, has a tendency to accept them at face value. But this is foolish, as historical arguments presented by atheists almost invariably rely upon taking one small piece of historical evidence and twisting it beyond all recognition while simultaneously ignoring the larger part of the historical record.

Running, running

After having already announced he will no longer debate Creationists, apparently PZ Myers felt it necessary to explain, yet again, why he will not be debating me at any point now or in the future:

Who is Vox Day? He’s a recipient of wingnut welfare, a pretentious nobody who had a rich and rotten crook for a father and who writes cheesy fantasy novels in between penning cheesy political discourse. I’m not some bigshot in my field, but I can recognize an ambitious nobody with nothing to offer, so no, I won’t ever be debating that clown.

What an astonishing surprise! I find it totally indicative of his characteristic laziness with regards to facts that Paul Zachary should assert I am a recipient of “wingnut welfare”, as if that was relevant anyhow. First, it is public knowledge that I had a record contract, a music publishing contract, a book contract, a national syndication contract, and three different million dollar game contracts before I turned 28. None of these had anything to do with Daddy’s computer graphics hardware company, which I left after two years of working there after college. I never needed any welfare, and unlike Paul Zachary, I never lived off the taxpayer either.

Those who like to imagine my father’s investment in WND had anything to do with my column being published there are clearly finding it convenient to forget that I was nationally syndicated by the syndicate arm of the San Francisco Chronicle, that bastion of wingnuttery, five years before I wrote my first column for WND.

What the butterfly collector is too stubborn to accept is that his continued evasion of my two challenges on the existence of gods and evolution will always haunt his intellectual credibility as a would-be spokesman for atheism and scientific materialism. I have heard from numerous atheists who find his intellectual cowardice to be more than a little troubling given his usual tendency to create conflict rather than to avoid it. And he has handed an out to every single individual he ever hopes to challenge in the future. Why should they debate a nobody like him, a clown who isn’t even a bigshot in his own field?

As for the PZ Myers Memorial Debate, we are still in search of an atheist to champion the argument that the logic and evidence for the nonexistence of gods is stronger than the logic and evidence for the existence of gods. It is certainly informative to see how many atheists do not appear to believe they are able to effectively make this case; in light of this, many Christians may find this to be a useful tactical approach when confronted by aggressive atheists in the future. This tends to confirm my previous observations that while atheists like to challenge the beliefs of others, they are very ill-prepared, and in many cases downright unwilling, to defend their own. So, if you want to shut them up, simply go on the attack. They’ll run away with alacrity.

When the criticism of my WND columns on Pharyngula was first brought to my attention, I referred to Paul Zachary as Pharyngurl because I genuinely thought he was a woman on the basis of the arguments he was presenting. Years later, it is highly amusing indeed to see that he still runs like a girl.

The PZ Myers Memorial Debate

Since we have learned that the Fowl Atheist, Paul Zachary, has given up the art of debating Creationists, (and no doubt numerous Christians will have to remind him of this when he calls into a radio show and attempts to ambush them), it appears we shall have to find another atheist with whom to debate the topic I suggested three years ago. Hence this announcement of the first PZ Myers Memorial Debate, dedicated to the short-lived, but inglorious debating career of our favorite community college butterfly collector. I’m sure we all recall how beautifully he ran; Paul Zachary’s reaction to a challenge reminded me of Usain Bolt’s to the sound of a starter’s pistol.

Of course, a debate requires an opponent, so I’m interested to know if there is an atheist who would like to contest the assertion that there is not only substantial evidence for the existence of gods, but that the logic and the evidence in support of the existence of gods is superior to the logic and the evidence for the nonexistence of them.

This will be a written debate. Each party will simultaneously submit an initial statement of no more than 1,500 words for the other party to critique, and both parties will have one week to respond to the other’s initial statement with a critique of no more than 2,000 words. Whoever the judges determine to have won the first round will have the choice between writing the next post or replying to the first-round loser’s next post. There will be five rounds, after which one side or the other may concede or simply withdraw, or continue if both parties wish. The second to fifth rounds will be limited to 3,000 words.

If you happen to be interested in opposing the assertion, please put your name forward along with any credentials you might deem relevant. I’m also interested in three judges, one Christian, one agnostic, and one atheist, so please put your name forward if you would like to be a judge and believe you are impartial enough to focus on the quality of the arguments. If multiple atheists wish to debate, I will post their names and encourage a discussion among them in order to allow them to select the strongest candidate.

I’m also interested in hearing recommendations on a scoring system. I was thinking of having the judges each award up to 5 points on each exchange, but perhaps someone will have a better idea.

Anyhow, it would be impossible to put up a worse showing than the Fowl Atheist, so if you’re interested, do let me know.

Darwinist demands Darwinian litmus test

In other news, Roger Clemens today announced that “throwing like a girl” should disqualify a politician from the presidency.

A politician’s attitude to evolution is perhaps not directly important in itself. It can have unfortunate consequences on education and science policy but, compared to Perry’s and the Tea Party’s pronouncements on other topics such as economics, taxation, history and sexual politics, their ignorance of evolutionary science might be overlooked. Except that a politician’s attitude to evolution, however peripheral it might seem, is a surprisingly apposite litmus test of more general inadequacy. This is because unlike, say, string theory where scientific opinion is genuinely divided, there is about the fact of evolution no doubt at all. Evolution is a fact, as securely established as any in science, and he who denies it betrays woeful ignorance and lack of education, which likely extends to other fields as well. Evolution is not some recondite backwater of science, ignorance of which would be pardonable. It is the stunningly simple but elegant explanation of our very existence and the existence of every living creature on the planet. Thanks to Darwin, we now understand why we are here and why we are the way we are. You cannot be ignorant of evolution and be a cultivated and adequate citizen of today.

Richard Dawkins again demonstrates that he is an unmitigated moron. Perry may be an “uneducated ignoramus”, but Dawkins is nothing more than an educated one. But what is always amusing is his narcissistic myopia. The entire world is in the midst of an economic meltdown that threatens the global financial system, so naturally he is very, very concerned that the next U.S. president must be a True Believer in the Cult of Darwin.

If Dawkins actually cared about science, he would be enthusiastically supporting a snake-handling fundamentalist who believed the world was created exactly 6,000 years ago so long as said Creationist was cognizant of economic reality, which none of the current presidential candidates except Ron Paul happen to be. The ongoing Great Depression 2.0 will do far more damage to science than an outright ban on the teaching of evolution in the public schools ever could.

The fact is that neither the president nor anyone else actually needs to know a damn thing about evolution or the intrinsically unscientific principle – it is based on logic, not science – that is “natural selection”. Even biologists who are performing cutting edge work in genetic science don’t necessarily need to know anything about either. Almost no one does.

Moreover, Dawkins is a liar. He lies, and he knows he lies, when he says: “Evolution is a fact, as securely established as any in science.” Let’s see the scientific experiment that demonstrates that “fact”, then see it replicated three more times for good measure. Other scientists can manage this effortlessly, so why can’t Mr. Dawkins? Because, obviously, evolution is not a fact – which Dawkins admits in his most recent book – nor is it anywhere nearly as securely established as a plethora of scientific hypotheses. And that is a fact. An actual, verifiable one.

The Cult of Darwin must be getting desperate indeed if they are resorting to attempting to pass off outright lies in this manner. Moreover, three years after getting spanked on his embrace of the stupid Red State argument, Dawkins still clearly knows nothing about the American political system. It is not the Republican Party that depends upon the uneducated vote, but the Democratic Party, as CNN exit polls have shown after the 2008, 2004, and 2000 presidential elections.

“Voters with postgraduate schooling were only 25 percent more likely to vote for the Democratic Party presidential candidate in 2004 while those who did not complete high school were 90 percent more likely to identify themselves as Democrats. Since there are 75 percent more Americans who never completed high school (16.4 percent of adults over twenty-five) than possess an advanced degree (9.4 percent), this means that despite their reputation for being the party of the most highly educated, a Democrat is nevertheless more than twice as likely to be someone who has dropped out of high school than an individual with a master’s degree.”
– The Irrational Atheist, pp 18-19

Dawkins concludes: “The ‘evolution question’ deserves a prominent place in the list of questions put to candidates in interviews and public debates during the course of the coming election.”

Absolutely it does. I would LOVE to see it given a prominent place in the debates. Because wouldn’t it be amusing to see the look on Dawkins’s face when all the Democrats he admires stand up and deny evolution in perfect lockstep with all the Republican candidates! And it would be an excellent method of keeping those potentially deadly atheist utopians out of high office.

The myth of the atheist martyr

Although the movie has apparently come and gone without so much as registering a blip with anyone, Armarium Magnum’s detailed demolition of the Hypatia legend is still worth reading.

While Sagan is the best known propagator of the idea that Hypatia was a martyr for science, he was simply following a venerable polemical tradition that has its origin in Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire:

“A rumor was spread among the Christians, that the daughter of Theon was the only obstacle to the reconciliation of the prefect and the archbishop; and that obstacle was speedily removed. On a fatal day, in the holy season of Lent, Hypatia was torn from her chariot, stripped naked, dragged to the church, and inhumanly butchered by the hands of Peter the Reader and a troop of savage and merciless fanatics: her flesh was scraped from her bones with sharp oyster-shells and her quivering limbs were delivered to the flames.”

Like Gibbon, Sagan links the story of the murder of Hypatia with the idea that the Great Library of Alexandria was torched by another Christian mob. In fact, Sagan presents the two events as though they were subsequent, stating “[the Library’s] last remnants were destroyed soon after Hypatia’s death” (p. 366) and that “when the mob came …. to burn the Library down there was nobody to stop them.” (p. 365)

In the hands of Sagan and others both the story of Hypatia’s murder and the Library’s destruction are a cautionary tale of what can happen if we let down our guards and allow mobs of fanatics to destroy the champions and repositories of reason.

This is certainly a powerful parable. Unfortunately, it doesn’t correspond very closely with actual history.

It is interesting how often atheists accuse Christians of believing fairy tales, considering how they are obviously prone to concocting their own. Is it projection or merely an ironic coincidence? And this is also a useful reminder that a lack of belief in God is not necessarily tantamount to believing unquestioningly in science while remaining completely innocent of history.