Tag: mailvox

Mailvox: the autoneurotic atheist

EC wonders who is reading whom:

I love the blog and your book TIA; TIA is actually the best polemic I’ve ever read. Anyway, I saw that Edward Feser recently posted a blog article in which he says that the New Atheists engage in “mutual mental onanism”. That’s pretty close to your “atheist circle jerk”. So, who owes whom a royalty check here?

I think it is readily apparent that the use of the similar phrase – and it says much about the difference between Mr. Feser and me, mostly to his advantage, that he prefers the relatively genteel description “mutual mental onanism” to “bukkakelypse” – is nothing more than straightforward observation. It is simply an obvious metaphor for the autoneurotic activities of the leading New Atheists. The only significant difference between Mr. Feser’s independent observations and my own is my preference for the vulgate. It’s interesting to note that he also pins down the intrinsic anti-intellectualism of the Fowl Atheist’s misguided foray into philosophy.

“[T]hat Dawkins’ arguments are directed at ludicrous straw men has been demonstrated time and again (for example, here). Yet he resolutely declines to answer those who have exposed the numerous errors and fallacies in his writings — dismissing them as “fleas,” without explaining how exactly they have got his arguments wrong — or, in general, to debate anyone with expertise in the philosophy of religion. Meanwhile, the even more vitriolic P. Z. Myers’ main claim to New Atheist fame is his “Courtier’s reply” dodge, a shamelessly question-begging rationalization for remaining ignorant of what the other side actually says. New Atheists will ridicule their opponents, but actually read only each others’ work. Hence Christopher Hitchens derives his main arguments from Dawkins, Lawrence Krauss learns everything he needs to know from Hitchens, and Dawkins has his confidence in the atheist worldview bolstered from reading Krauss. And now this mutual mental onanism will be expanded across the National Mall. Somewhere Joycelyn Elders is smiling.”

Mailvox: Why they hate

Feminists absolutely hate this blog, although not for the reasons they claim. It’s not because I hate women, because I don’t, or because I openly display contempt for women, although I do. It’s not because I’m afraid of strong independent women, because I don’t fear unicorns either, or because I don’t believe in sexual equality, even though I don’t.

The real reason they hate this blog, and fear it, is because they understand on some level that it is convincing. A ruthless commitment to logic and truth tends to be persuasive over time because the human mind can only stand so much cognitive dissonance before it either begins to break down or accept the observable truth. And there is nothing that feminists fear so much as women being exposed to the unvarnished truth and seeing through the vast accumulation of the Sisterhood’s many lies.

SarahsDaughter comments:

The worst challenge to our marriage occurred three years ago. Looking back at it, I am so disappointed in myself that leaving him entered my mind. And again I was reminded that my replacement was out there. They (the replacements) are quite eager to proclaim their availability. In a desire to fix our problems, I went to a psychologist. He completely agreed with me, offered no valuable advice, and creeped me out. My husband suggested I start reading this crazy, misogynist (my words, at first) blog (VP). Really, I’d like to tell you that my faith, relationship with God, profound books, and wisdom made the difference in how I deal with conflict. I’d be lying. It was because of men and women on VP speaking of logic and shaming the irrational nature of women that I began a journey to root out feminism in my thoughts and truly understand and accept the vows I made before God.

While I don’t write this blog for anyone but myself, I’m always pleased to hear that others consider it to be in some way beneficial to themselves as well, particularly when it helps them break out of the intellectual chains that have been holding them mentally captive. We all have them. We are unthinking Republicans who believe God blesses the USA despite its corporate abjuration of Him, we are equalitarians who believe in many equalities that have never been observed in the wild or in captivity. We are science fetishists who have never noticed that there is no method in the peer reviewed madness. We are progressives against progress, feminists without femininity and Christians who believe Christ sins for us.

But whatever the chains are, they can be broken.

I am under no illusion that I am always correct. But the challenges that others offer, particularly the serious and intelligent challenges, help me continually refine and strengthen my positions, which is why I particularly appreciate those critics who are able to force me to rethink my assumptions as well as my conclusions. And as for the anklebiters and those who harbor vehement hate for the blog, I would only be concerned if such intellectual cripples admired it.

Mailvox: omniderigistes

CM has two questions:

I find your anti-omni* arguments very compelling. It’s completely counter to everything I’ve been taught (Baptist upbringing, elder in the Reformed church, currently in Missouri-Synod Lutheran church).

Couple of simple questions for clarification:

1. I believe that God created time, and therefore must exist apart from it. So even if he’s _not_ omnipresent, he could insert himself into any location and any time whenever he wishes, making himself functionally omnipresent. Do you hold that God is a slave to an “external force” of time? If he is, wouldn’t that mean that he’s not the “ultimate force”?

2. If God is not omniscient, how does prophecy enter into your world-view? If you believe that it’s possible, how can God know what’s going to happen if he doesn’t “know all” at some level?

CM is making the same mistake in confusing capacity with action that Richard Dawkins makes in The God Delusion and which we see with regularity from Team Calvin. The fact that God “could insert himself into any location and any time whenever he wishes” doesn’t make him “functionally omnipresent”, but rather “potentially omnipresent”. This is the same difference and distinction that I draw between omniscience and voliscience, between God knowing everything at all times and God knowing whatever He decides He wants to know. As for the question, no, I don’t consider God to be a slave to the external force of time. For more thoughts on this, see the chapter on God as Game Designer in The Irrational Atheist.

As for prophecy, this is pretty simple. The fact that you don’t know everything doesn’t mean you don’t know something in advance, especially if you are the one who is arranging to make it happen. There is absolutely no need for omniscience to support the concept of accurate Divinely-inspired prophecy.

Mailvox: convinced by the consequences

No doubt many readers will be amused by the eventual outcome of YM’s experience in attempting to discuss a basic political principle with his mother:

My father arrived home from a business trip last night. Upon hearing what happened, he ungrounded me, and suggested to my mother that punishing a child for thought crime would only drive him further into misogyny. Then he took me aside and said “While you may be right about Santa Claus being not being real, you have to accept that a 6-year old will throw a tantrum at you when you tell him that.”

The funny thing is, I never actually told her women shouldn’t vote, only that it was an interesting idea, yet she still reacted like a child. Given my mother’s irrational response, I am now firmly on your side. I had seen this sort of behavior before, but mostly from younger, feminist women. I never thought in a million years that my evangelical, allegedly traditionalist mother would act the same way. You are right about learning a valuable lesson on women.

Ironic, and yet hardly surprising. YM is not only fortunate in having a strong male father in his life, but he is aware of it. Notice too that he didn’t react with outrage to his unfair and absurd grounding, but simply waited calmly for his father to rectify the situation. This is the way things are supposed to be.

As I have pointed out many times before, those who are capable of intellectually defending their position will do so calmly. Those who can’t always try to shut down the conversation one way or another. While the pro-suffrage side did have some effective hypothetical arguments in the early part of the 20th century, the subsequent 90 years of negative consequences have sufficed to destroy them utterly.

It’s interesting to note how female solipsism can trump a mother’s instinct to defend her son, which nevertheless is capable of detaching a woman from Team Woman at times.

Mailvox: try again, George

Unsurprisingly, yet another atheist demonstrates that he doesn’t know what “evidence” is.

“You have repeatedly asserted that voting is equivalent to liberty, now please either offer your evidence in support of the assertion or retract the claim.”

If there is no connection between liberty and voting, then how could women voting have negatively effected the amount of liberty in the country.

Furthermore it has been demonstrated throughout history that only way to undermine authoritarianism, to assure that the people and not the very few, define liberties is to assure that government is the result of the consent of the governed. The only way to assure all are able to consent is through democracy of one form or another.

You fail to understand the dynamics of basic political science. I believe your misogyny gets in the way in this case.

My purported misogyny and/or failure to understand the dynamics of basic political science are wholly irrelevant here. And even if we ignore its obvious flaws, it is imposible to deny that the logic presented by George here is not evidence.

So, I repeat the demand: You have repeatedly asserted that voting is equivalent to liberty, now please either offer your evidence in support of the assertion or retract the claim.”

Mailvox: seriously, don’t do this

Ken makes what I regard to be an inexcusable blunder:

I haven’t looked as closely at the numbers as you have but if you subtract the female vote entirely, is it possible that the Nazis simply would have come to power earlier because prior to ’32 the women were voting for parties other than the NASDAP?

Nothing against Ken, but I really dislike this sort of thing. Trying to come up with alternative explanations when you haven’t even bothered to look at the data is the hallmark of the idealogue, the anti-intellectual. It is neither discourse nor analysis, it is almost always mere excuse-making.

In this case, the answer is simple. No, because a) they weren’t even close and b) the dominant SPD was heavily supported by men. In 1928, the NSDAP was only the ninth-largest party in the Reichstag with 2.6% of the vote. Although they improved significantly in 1930, coming in second with 18.3% of the vote, they were still too far behind the dominant SPD with 24.5%, moreover, if Ken had paid more attention to what was already mentioned he would have realized that the SPD would have benefited even more than the NSDAP from the absence of the female vote, which tended to go to the Catholic parties prior to 1932.

In 1931, the NSDAP launched its campaign to win over female voters. A year later, in the first 1932 election, it won 37.3% of the vote to the second-place SPD’s 21.6%.

There is certainly nothing wrong with coming up with an unusual or alternative hypotheses, but one should always check them against the readily available data before offering suggestions, especially when one is proposing them in contradiction to another’s informed conclusions.

Mailvox: suffering suffrage

YM is provided with a compelling argument against the wisdom of granting women the right to vote:

I am a very big fan of your blog and your unique brand of Christian libertarianism. I mentioned to my mother your position on women and the vote. She asked me what I thought and I said that you presented some compelling arguments and I was unsure of my position. She then grounded me and refuses to let me leave the house until I apologize to her and tell her that I believe that women should have the right to vote. I have tried having discussion with her, but she immediately starts comparing me to Hitler.

The punchline? He’s 37. Actually, I have no idea how old he is, but at least he is being provided an informative lesson in female nature, female solipsism, and the authoritarian instincts of women. The Hitler comparison is particularly ironic, given that both the National Socialists and the Fascists were staunch supporters of women’s suffrage and the German party was, in fact, dependent upon it for their 1933 rise to power. It was literally the first plank in “The Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle”, published in The People of Italy on June 6, 1919 by Benito Mussolini.

“Italians! Here is the program of a genuinely Italian movement. It is revolutionary because it is anti-dogmatic, strongly innovative and against prejudice.

For the political problem: We demand:

a) Universal suffrage polled on a regional basis, with proportional representation and voting and electoral office eligibility for women.”

It’s worth noting that the Fascist demand for proportional political female representation is significantly more “progressive” than anything American feminists have ever demanded. Anyhow, I would never recommend apologizing to anyone for accused thought-crimes or submitting to exercises in forced re-education. One is required to honor one’s mother, not submit to her lunatic demands for pious expressions of political correctness.

Mailvox: of bovine flatulence

I found this attempt to criticize the blog to be more than a little amusing, particularly in light of some recent discussions:

The whole website is one giant Straw Man. He makes entirely false claims of what secularists believe and then demolishes those, rather than bothering to listen to what they are actually saying. It’s rather like my saying “all conservatives believe that the moon is made of blue cheese” then producing proof that it isn’t. Any moron can do that – your man is a pompous buffoon, with grandiose overblown views of his own intellectual prowess.

The site is also littered with factual errors. For instance in the piece about the CERN experiments , he firstly demonstrates a complete miss-understanding of scientific method, before completely miss-understanding the relevance of the possible faulty connector. (In fact if the connector does prove to be faulty that would make the neutrinos faster, rather than slower as he seems to think.) There are other possible sources of error in the experiment, but the connector isn’t the issue that would bring the speed below light speed.

So in summary, it’s the perfect website for the modern conservative American. It has an overblown sense of its own importance and intellectual capabilities, and busies itself debates points that its opponents haven’t actually made. It’s like a blog version of Rush Limbaugh.

First, I should like to invite Purple Cow to “make entirely true claims of what secularists believe” so that he need not fear I am attacking any straw men in lieu of the correct targets. This is, of course, a blatant falsehood, and more than that, it is one habitually thrown out by many members of the godless Left whenever they wish to avoid having the errors in their arguments exposed in public. Longtime readers will recall that a number of TIA critics tried to make precisely the same Appeal to Nonexistent Strawmen despite the fact that I was directly addressing explicit arguments, complete with quotes, citations, and page numbers, that had been presented by the various individuals being criticized. This is the customary process:

1. Secularist 1 presents argument.
2. I demolish S1’s argument.
3. I later make reference to S1’s argument in rhetorical form.
4. Secularist 2 claims I am attacking secularist strawmen.
5. I invite S2 to present his argument.

6a. *crickets*
6b. S2 presents the same argument as S1.

I further note that this sort of response is precisely why I continue to publicly drive home the undeniable statistical probability of my superior intelligence, because the likes of the Purple Cow almost inevitably attempt to challenge it on the basis of absolutely nothing but an unconvincing pose of self-appointed intellectual superiority. This example is particularly amusing, because Purple Cow clearly didn’t even understand the rather important distinction between what I wrote about the CERN experiment and what I quoted ScienceInsider writing about it. [Hint: if it’s blue text in a white box, then I probably didn’t write it.] Purple Cow’s complaints about the “miss-understanding” of the scientific method and the “miss-understanding” of “the relevance of the possible faulty connector” simply don’t apply to me because I never said anything about either.

Moreover, Purple Cow clearly failed to understand that my point about the intrinsic unreliability of science and its consequent poor utility as a means of providing technocratic guidance to political governance, (and, of course, its ultimate reliance on the IT department), is valid regardless of what the effect of the faulty connector might have on the experiment. Purple Cow is yet another excellent example of the mid-wit who erroneously assumes that because he is more intelligent than the average 100-IQ individual, he therefore must have correctly grasped that which is clearly and incontrovertibly over his head.

I should also like to point out that contra the oft-heard Appeal to Nonexistent Strawmen, this is one of the only blogs of which I am aware in which contrary arguments presented by critics are published in full, unedited. So, I think it is not only false, but wildly dishonest, to claim that I avoid, in any way, the best arguments possessed by those who disagree with me.

Mailvox: the purpose

Smiley asks about the meaning of it all:

What is your goal when you discuss something with someone here? For them to admit that they are significantly less intelligent than yourself?

As some already answered, the fundamental reason this blog exists is to amuse myself. But my primary goals when discussing something with someone here are to a) force myself to articulate my thoughts in a manner that others can understand, b) unearth any flaws in my reasoning and expose any errors in my information and my assumptions, and c) reach the most logically sound conclusions on the basis of the most solid evidence available.

None of this has anything directly to do with making people admit that they are less intelligent. That is completely unnecessary, as it is already statistically inevitable in the overwhelming majority of cases. As always, it is wise to have a look at the numbers before leaping to groundless conclusions. Sitemeter reports 7,876 average daily visitors here this morning. Even if we allow for this blog’s particular appeal for those possessing above-average intelligence, let us say three times more, this means that there are most likely between 10 and 20 people here who are either at or above my level. And, so long as no spatial reasoning is involved, there are likely even fewer at or above my functional level.

I don’t walk people into traps and show them to be incorrect and/or relatively unintelligent in order to get my intellectual rocks off, I do it because they are annoying me by wasting my time and everyone else’s with their stupid and obviously fallacious arguments. I find such arguments to be petty and irritating, and the only reason I address them at all is because so many other people readily fall for such nonsense unless they are conclusively shown how intrinsically nonsensical it is. With a few masochistic exceptions, most people have the good sense to learn to shut up and think twice before mindlessly yapping away again once they have had their noses rubbed in their own intellectual excrement.

Serious questions are completely fine. Admissions that one doesn’t understand something and would like a detailed explanation are fine too. But if you are going to challenge me and claim that you are correct, you had damn well better be ready with a solid and defensible case. I’ve been writing columns for 10 years and blog posts for 8 years with the knowledge that hundreds, if not thousands, of people would be going over them with a fine-toothed comb in search of any error, however minor, that they can exploit in order to discredit me and my conclusions. So, in addition to the advantage of raw cognitive firepower, I also have considerable experience in structuring arguments as well as anticipating how people will attempt to disprove or otherwise discredit an argument.

Now, I love it when someone surprises me with something clever that I hadn’t previously considered. It doesn’t bother me in the slightest to be shown to be incorrect and I have openly changed my opinion on far too many things for anyone to credibly claim it does. I used to believe in the drug war, I used to believe that women should have the right to vote, I used to believe there was solid evidence for evolution by natural selection, I used to believe in monetarist economics, I used to believe in free trade, I used to believe Socrates was a great philosopher, I used to believe the USA was the freest nation on Earth, I used to believe the North was right, I used to believe that the Bible was a load of feel-good nonsense designed to serve as an intellectual crutch for those too psychologically weak to face up to the nihilistic reality of the universe.

Of course, I believed all those things for the same reason I believed the crust was the best part of the bread. Someone told me once and I never thought the matter through for myself. So, I recognize when someone is not expressing the fruit of their own intellectual labor, but is merely parroting what they have been told by someone else, because I have been there and I have done that.

Pity the poor cam whores

Either Andon failed Reading Comprehension 101 or we are facing an imminent Internet tragedy:

jumping from high places – always fatal. injecting kids with vaccines – almost never fatal. comparison warranted.

The central problem with this critique is that the comparison that was made was not between jumping from high places and being vaccinated, but rather between being filmed and being vaccinated. Still, I should be truly fascinated if Andon genuinely wishes to argue that being filmed by a web cam is intrinsically more deadly than being injected with poison. Perhaps, I can only imagine, he subscribes to the notion of the camera stealing one’s soul?

And yes, as always, these are real critics and genuine attempts to “correct” my reasoning.