Tag: mailvox

Mailvox: Hollywood history

Hitler was not the German National Socialist Workers Party. Nor was the converse true. Imprecision in language often leads to needless confusion, which is why DJ felt it necessary to ask for clarification regarding an apparent historical contradiction:

In your book The Irrational Atheist, you mentioned that Hitler received 95% of the vote at one time. On Bill Maher’s show Mr Reiner mentioned that he never received 33% of the vote, which is correct?

In general, if there is a discrepancy between something I have written and something that a Hollywood figure assserts on Bill Maher’s show, I suggest it is entirely safe to assume that the Hollywood figure is incorrect. It never hurts to check, of course, but seriously…. In this particular case, Mr. Reiner happens to be wrong, and wrong on no less than three levels. The Weimar Republic was a parliamentary system, not a presidential one, so the German electorate was not voting for Hitler in the national elections to which Mr. Reiner is clearly referring; they were voting for National Socialist parliamentarians. That’s a mere technicality and would not normally justify comment except that Mr. Reiner’s statement is more than a little misleading given the American context of his remarks; keep in mind that Margaret Thatcher, (or more precisely, the parliamentarians of the Conservative Party, a group which included Mrs. Thatcher), only won 35.8% of the vote in the 1979 UK election.

Moreover, the statement also happens to be factually wrong. The National Socialists won 43.9% of the popular vote in the March 5, 1933 election, taking 288 of the 647 seats (44.5%) in the Reichstag. And that 1933 election was actually the third straight one in which the National Socialists won more than 33% of the popular vote, as they had won 37.3% and 33.1% in the previous two national elections. There was nothing democratically illegitimate about the National Socialists; the hitherto dominant Social Democrats (SDP) never controlled more than the 39% of the parliamentary seats that they won at the peak of their electoral strength in 1919.

As for my statement, I was not referring to the general elections, but rather to the four post-1933 national plebiscites that retroactively combined the offices of Reich Chancellor and Reich President and transferred the joint authority of the combined office to Adolf Hitler, approved the Austrian Anschluss, undsoweiter.

“What’s staggering about Hitler’s democratic appeal is not that he managed to win an average of 95.9 percent of the vote in the four plebiscites, but that he did so with 95.5 percent of the registered voters showing up to vote. That’s a serious democratic mandate!”
– The Irrational Atheist, p. 188

Mailvox: the student exhibits mastery

A sends in an after-action report of an encounter with a self-styled champion of evolutionary psychology:

Evolutionary Psychology has always been a thorn in my side, and while I agree with the fundamentals of Game, I’ve never thought of it as any proof positive that EP as a whole was viable. I’m admittedly not an expert on the subject — both my degrees are in the field of humanities — so I always find myself drawn to your blog when EP (or any evolutionary field for that matter) is the topic of conversation.

I typically don’t post to forums, including Vox Popoli, as I see my time quickly get sucked away by the activity, but recently at another forum I found myself compelled to post because I so strongly disagreed with the statements of another poster who is an adamant supporter of both TENS and EP. When it came to EP, rather than get sucked into an assumptive argument, I took a page out the VP book and just flat-out questioned the science behind evo-psych, including its ability to make measurable predictions, etc. His response managed to simultaneously be laughably predictable and surprising to me. As to my challenges to EP, this is all he could muster:

“I didn’t expect you to be credulous towards my claims, and unfortunately I don’t have carefully compiled case studies to present…Psychology is enormously complex, and it would be unrealistic to expect the sort of definite predictions that can be made of simple systems…this comment of yours is analogous to saying that because a meteorologist’s predictions are only accurate 50% of the time, meteorology is not science. You have a right to such an opinion, but while holding such an opinion, it would be unlikely that you would develop much understanding of the science of meteorology.”

This retreat was of course entirely expected, but the part that threw me for a loop is what he continually fell back on as his defense — a claim that my discourse with him was entirely predicted by him based on evo-psych:

“However, I have discussed the pattern of events occurring in our dialog on this forum in the past, and anyone who paid attention can observe for themselves whether things play out as I’ve described. My response to you was more for the purpose of illustrating the pattern to long time readers here, than for the purpose of persuading you that I’m correct.”

In summation, his attempted defense was that our discourse was not one of simple and genuine disagreement, but rather a challenge for pack dominance. That he could not back up these assumptive claims or his ex post facto prediction seems typical of the dogged defenders of EP. Previously, I would have engaged in a discussion of the minutiae of social behaviors, but this time I went directly to the foundation of these pet theories and happily watched as he engaged in foolish hand-waving. I just wanted to drop you this email to say thanks to you and the Ilk for providing me with a vital technique for taking guys like this to the woodshed.

I was greatly pleased to be apprised of this fine example of foundational sapping put into action. While I am often disappointed by the poor quality of argumentation exhibited by commenters on this blog who, despite literal years of examples having been set before them, still a) rely upon emotional rhetoric, b) attempt illegitimate logical shortcuts, c) fail to comprehend the argument they are criticizing, and d) inappropriately apply otherwise effective techniques, so it is a real pleasure to read a correct and competent application of one of my favorite techniques.

Foundational sapping is extremely effective because it simultaneously attacks both the argument and the individual presenting it without utilizing any unfair ad hominem or committing any other logical fallacies. And because it is based on the sound principle of MPAI, it is applicable in most circumstances. Not all, but most. Very few individuals actually know anywhere nearly as much as they pretend to know, and intelligent, educated people are far more prone to engage in intellectual bluffing than most because a) they have a larger knowledge base from which to bluff, and b) they are often quick enough to latch on to a hint and use it to conceal their lack of relevant knowledge. But despite their pretensions, they usually provide indications that they don’t have a firm grasp on their subject; in the first quote, for example, note the ungrammatical use of the word “credulous”. Lofty language used improperly is a strong sign of an intellectual charlatan.

This is why I constantly stress the importance of asking questions in debate. (Granted, I don’t do it often in the comments, but that’s because I have set the stage with my post and will usually recognize when a predictable counter-argument is being made. Most of my questions are intended to confirm that someone is making an expected counter-argument.) While the conventional Socratic method is less effective than most people seem to imagine, mostly due to its common use of false constructions to which the interlocutor is required to agree, its focus on the use of questions to pin down the interlocutor’s precise position renders it an important part of one’s intellectual arsenal.

Some readers will have noticed that those who consider themselves to be defenders of “science and reason” not only dislike asking questions, but in some cases even claim they have no need to know, let alone understand, what their interlocutor is saying. (Look up the borderline retarded Courtier’s Reply, by way of example.) This is why they either avoid debates or get repeatedly trounced by every half-competent opponent; an unwillingness to understand the argument made by the other side is almost perfectly synonymous with making a commitment to lose the debate.

Foundational sapping requires not only understanding the argument being made, but more importantly, understanding the basic assumptions that support it. As A discovered with the would-be champion of evolutionary psychology, very few individuals possess even a rudimentary comprehension of the basic assumptions that provide the foundations of their argument, so the easiest and most reasonable way to defeat the argument as well as incidentally destroy the credibility of the individual presenting it is to ask questions that concern those foundations. And when the interlocutor rapidly retreats into hand-waving and strange self-laudatory pronouncements, you will know that not only have you won the encounter, but that the interlocutor knows it as well. As does everyone witnessing it.

Of course, the converse side of utilizing this method of debate is the awareness of how easily it can be turned against you if you are foolish enough to take untenable positions with the notion of bluffing your way through. I don’t recommend doing so; the ability to say “I don’t know” is not an admission of weakness or stupidity, but rather an important sign of intellectual integrity and intelligence. On a tangential note, argumentative bluffers always suspect everyone else is bluffing too; they invariably interpret a failure or refusal to initially provide supporting evidence is certain proof of an inability to do so. Baiting and trapping this sort of individual is so easy that a child could do it.

The best thing is that on those rare occasions when you find yourself in a discussion with someone who actually knows what they are talking about, you will usually learn something that is either interesting or useful. Even if you end up getting your head metaphorically handed to you, the experience will allow you to make more effective arguments in the future. One should not enter into argumentative discussions with a “win or lose’ mentality, but rather a “win or learn” one. There is no shame in being bested by someone of superior intelligence or information, the only shame is in the inability to either admit that one has been bested or learn from the experience.

And the Internets trembled

The Dread Ilk are breeding! The Mad Aussie writes from Down Under:

Just wanted to let you know personally that Sarah [aka Crystal Lake] and I got engaged on Sunday. Rest assured I did it with class, style, and of course, some wine glasses filled with piss…. I don’t have a clue right now how it’s going to unfold yet, I hear Sarah’s mum has ideas, so I’ll give it time. Anyway, there you go, the ilk, your blog, the world, the way, the light, this beer, Bane rolling his eyes.

Congratulations to both Jamie and Sarah. I wish them a happy, fruitful and life-long marriage.

Mailvox: the difference between pico and nano

One would require the ability to detect interest measured in these units in order to discern my level of interest in what apparently has been an unhappy atheist outing on a television show. Nevertheless, DoCD writes:

I know you don’t write much about popular culture but have you caught any of the general atheist reaction to last night’s episode of Glee? Most of the observant ones are annoyed that their worldview wasn’t fairly and objectively represented and was defined by two prototypical angry atheists, one of whom ended up asking their sister to pray for them by the end of the episode, and another who is angry that he’s the subject of ridicule because of his sexuality and because of his mother’s death.

I watched the episode with my girlfriend — try not to judge — and I think the episode was pretty fair, even though I had to stomach through ridiculous lines of dialogue about the spaghetti monster and Russell’s teapot. I think the “religious side” ultimately won out, but I don’t think the atheists were presented nearly as unfairly as they seem to claim. In fact, most atheists I know arrived at their worldview due to an emotional reaction, not an intellectual one, but seek intellectual arguments to justify their atheism.

I’m not really sure what they expected to see, guest appearances by Dawkins and Hitchens mebbe? A soda cracker being defiled? I suppose the fact that the creator of the show is a former Catholic who still goes to church and is openly gay might be swaying their perceptions, but the truth is that I just don’t get what they’re whining about.

Now, I have seen part of one episode of a show in which twenty-somethings attempting to look like high school students dressed up like Lady Gaga in order to perform an improbably professional cover of an exceedingly banal pop song. It struck me as MTV meets the Donny and Marie show; no doubt it will be popular with the vacuous set. Needless to say, it takes considerably more than that to draw my attention away from my technotopian existence, so no, I was not aware of this dramatic little – if you will excuse it – tempest in Mr. Russell’s teapot. But KE enlightened me when he sent subsequent email.

“My wife revealed to me that the TV show Glee had an episode dealing with atheism this week, where the two characters were (this is what made me laugh since the stereotype fit perfectly), a self-righteous, uncaring, feminist coach and a flamboyant, gay kid.”

Because the New Atheists are explicitly working off the lavender model as per Richard Dawkins’s strategery, it shouldn’t be surprising that they are upset that they are not being given the conventional Saint Gay treatment on television, where every stand-in for the community is happy, healthy, handsome, popular, and behaves in a manner almost exactly opposite to the way the vast majority of the represented community is known to behave.

Anyhow, there is little of interest on the religion/atheism front these days; as I expected, the New Atheists are already a spent intellectual force. The only real point of interest in that area for me at the moment is to learn how heavily Sam Harris leaned on Marc Hauser’s fraudulent morality research in what is sure to be a philosophical trainwreck of a book on science-based morality. While I am well-disposed to skeptics and contrarians in general, it is unfortunate that Sam hasn’t yet learned that taking contrary positions to established and easily verifiable facts instead of consensus opinion founded on false assumptions is a sure means of rendering your arguments not only ridiculous, but ineffectual. So, without further ado, I shall return with some relief to Cicero, Divine Right, and the technotopia.

Mailvox: the homophobia hypothesis

CM was one of the few first-time emailers to write in regarding the Clementi suicide who managed to remain coherent, civil, and emotionally continent in objection to my post on the subject:

My evangelical brother told me about your blogging on the Clementi suicide. He directed me to it because he thought I had made a few observations consonant (the kid had a false sense of security, believing that official bureaucratic pronouncements matched sentiments on the ground; online coming-out is too easy and lowers the threshold for the kind of cussedness that being openly gay requires) with yours. While he cautioned that I’d still disagree with “half of it”, I wasn’t prepared to read such low snark—nor to be so misunderstood.

Poor Tyler Clementi got in over his head by bringing a man home to his dorm before developing a thicker skin. When faced with bureaucratic indifference, some revulsion or amused contempt from his dorm-mates, and possibly hostility, blame or hysteria from his lover and/or parents, he couldn’t take it. A dutiful kid, he probably naively expected support rather than to have his sense of violation compounded. It was not because he felt shame at being identified as gay or despaired over his “evil” act of sexual discovery.

You really ought to go over to Salon and read the far more thoughtful, nuanced responses to this article. They far surpass the article itself, your blog item, and the comments at your blog.

As his was a reasonable email, I did as requested and found myself actually laughing out loud at the article, although in CM’s defense, it must be noted that he was recommending the responses to the Salon article and not the article itself. The writer’s attempt to blame a gay conversion therapist and James Dobson as well as the ever notorious “society” is more than a little amusing; apparently the Boston Red Sox and Clementi himself are about the only ones whose hands are not dripping with Clementi’s blood. To quote the author: “The guilty parties are everywhere”!

That’s helpful. It would appear someone needs to let Mr. Fenton know that the man committed suicide and by definition, he is the only individual who can possibly be held directly responsible for the action. But on to those surpassing comments….

“A couple of Asian Americans college students at an Ivy League with regular tolerance campaigns hardly seem like the types to be in lockstep with the conservative Christian agenda.”

“In other words, the writer would like to see large swaths of people jailed, not becuase of their involvement in any particular crime, but because they hold beliefs that the writer opposes. Thanks for the clarification, L.M. Fenton. It is always good to know exactly where your political opponents stand. Understanding that that the left-wing and the homosexual rights community wants to criminalize their opposition for holding fast to their public views is helpful to this debate.”

“I disagree with focusing on the pranksters for the sole or even bulk of the blame. Only weak people jump from bridges and weak child jumpers belong to the ones who raised them.”

“Indeed, these are not Christo-fascist redneck southerners here, but two highly educated privileged young people at an elite liberal college, and on top of that, neither of the are white and likely neither are Christian. Most people of Indian descent are Hindu or Muslim and most people of Asian descent Buddhist or Muslim; heck, they could be atheists or agnostics for all we know. But I’ll bet neither of them are Pentecostal Christian Conservatives and I’ll bet neither Ravi nor Wei would have the faintest idea who James Dobson is. Unfortunately, like the Phoebe Prince incident, it may turn out that Mr. Clementi was already depressed and unhappy and even suicidal BEFORE this incident took place. It wouldn’t make it right — it was absolutely deplorable, ugly behavior — but it might explain why he killed himself instead of (say) beating the crap out of Mr. Ravi.”

These comments may be more thoughtful than a blog post which I admittedly scribbled in minutes, but I really don’t see much difference between what I wrote and most of the comments that don’t echo the “we are all guilty” theme. I certainly can’t say that I disagree with any of the ones quoted above. Moreover, it is worth pointing out that the “homophobia kills homosexuals” hypothesis is both logically unsound and empirically incorrect. Unlike most of my hysterical critics, I happen to be somewhat familiar with recent research into suicide statistics as part of the process of responding to Richard Dawkins’s claims about the psychological damage of being raised Catholic while writing The Irrational Atheist.

The orientationally-challenged argue thusly. Or more accurately, they would argue thusly if they had the emotional continence to actually present their argument in a rational manner:

1. Homosexuality is psychologically healthy and is not shameful. Therefore, homosexuals do not kill themselves out of shame of their sexual predilection.
2. However, homosexuals are known to kill themselves at higher rates than psychologically normal individuals do.
3. Therefore, there must be some external force that supersedes their psychological normality and causes some of them to kill themselves.
4. Society, particularly Christian society, rejects homosexuals.
5. Therefore, it is the social rejection of society, especially Christian society, which is serves as that external force causing otherwise psychological healthy homosexuals to kill themselves out of shame, guilt, fear, and/or social rejection.

The logical structure of this argument is sound enough. And yet, the argument also happens to be completely wrong. If it were true, then we should be able to observe the following material consequences as a matter of course.

1. Tolerant societies that have adopted social measures such as homogamy and orientational equality laws will have lower male suicide rates, especially among the orientationally challenged, than less tolerant societies.

2. Religious societies where the orientationally challenged are most rejected will have the highest male suicide rates, especially among the orientationally challenged.

3. Male Suicide rates will have fallen over time as societies have grown more socially progressive and tolerant of the orientationally-challenged. These declines will be most marked in the most tolerant societies.

Now let’s look at the facts. We will define a tolerant society where homogamy or civil unions are recognized; here are six tolerant societies: Belgium, Austria, Switzerland, France, Sweden, the Netherlands. Next we will define moderate religious society, where homosexuality is generally considered to be wrong, but not illegal: Ireland, USA, Italy, Mexico, Honduras, Paraguay. And finally, we will define an intolerant society as one where homosexuality is illegal: Saudi Arabia, Algeria, Libya, Cameroon, Kenya, Uganda.

According to the World Health Organization, the average male suicide rate for tolerant secular societies is 21.6 per 100,000. The average male suicide rate for moderate religious societies is 9.6 per 100,000. And the average male suicide rate for intolerant societies is unknown because as it turns out, none of them publicly report suicide rates. However, in searching for these unreported rates, I did find a study that reported primary indicators of high societal suicide rates that can be used to estimate them; perhaps one day I’ll see about doing so for these countries.

One of the only countries where the specific issue has been studied is in the heavily secular and tolerant country of Norway where 20% of gay men between the ages of 16-24 attempt suicide at least once. It would appear highly unreasonable to attempt to blame either James Dobson or intolerant Southern Baptists for the self-destructive actions of young gay atheist Norwegians.

So it is clear that the first logical conclusion of the homophobia hypothesis is false. The second conclusion is unclear, but the available evidence suggests it is false. As for the third conclusion, it is also false since suicide rates are trending upward rather than falling, especially among young men.

a) “In 21 of the 30 countries in the World Health Organization (WHO) European region, suicide rates in males aged 15-19 rose between 1979 and 1996.”

b) “Canadian suicide rates greatly increased in the 1960s and 1970s and, while they have levelled out in the 1980s, they are still at the highest level in Canadian history. Between 1960 and 1978, the overall suicide rate rose from 7.6 per 100,000 population to 14.8, according to Statistics Canada figures.”

c) “Each year, almost 5,000 young people, ages 15 to 24, kill themselves [in the United States]. The rate of suicide for this age group has nearly tripled since 1960, making it the third leading cause of death in adolescents and the second leading cause of death among college age youth.”

Although the case against it is not yet absolutely conclusive, there is definitely sufficient evidence to conclude that the “homophobic society causes suicide” argument is false. The homophobia hypothesis empirically fails, and logic points to false assumptions being made the first and fifth points. This conclusion is supported by the fact that, far from being a causal factor in suicide, religion tends to be the strongest inhibiting factor known to social science. “Numerous studies have found a statistical relationship between normative religious beliefs (as indicated by church attendance, church membership, or religious sanctions against suicide) and national or regional suicide rates (e.g., Huang, 1996; Kelleher, Chambers, Corcoran, Williamson, & Keeley, 1998; Neeleman, Halpern, Leon, & Lewis, 1997). Across different regions of the United States, higher levels of Catholic Church membership are associated with lower suicide rates (Burr, McCall, & Powell-Griner, 1994). The Ukraine’s western provinces, where more people attend church, have lower suicide rates than its eastern provinces, where fewer people attend church (Kondrichin & Lester, 2002). Nations that publish relatively more religious books tend to have lower suicide rates (Cutright & Fernquist, 2001; Fernquist, 2003a).”

In addition to their flaming hysteria, one of the most amusing things about the homocritics was their frequent reference to my supposed “ignorance” when it is completely clear that they don’t know even the most basic facts about suicide or its causal factors. Even so, does the failure of the homophobia hypothesis mean that my idea about the dichotomy between shame over one’s orientation and gay rights propaganda creating a psychological disturbance encouraging one to commit suicide is correct? No, of course not. In fact, I have come across an alternative thesis that I consider to potentially present a stronger logic. But more on that in a future post.

Mailvox: an atheist on the religion survey

S contemplates the Pew quiz:

I read with considerable interest your post earlier today about the Pew religious knowledge quiz. I took the test and was surprised to discover that even though I’m an atheist (and am apparently rather unusual in professing that I don’t really hate religion and have no particular desire to destroy the concept of God), I scored 73%. So, not great, but not bad either. By way of background, I’ve got an undergraduate degree in Maths and Economics, and a Master’s in financial Mathematics. I seemed to do pretty well compared to both believers and non-believers from all backgrounds.

The reason I write today about this is that I just finished watching Bill Maher “debating” Bill O’Reilly on the Factor tonight after taking that quiz and was appalled by the immaturity and folly of a supposedly “enlightened” atheist. Now I’m not a big fan of O’Reilly’s, but I was stunned to see just how utterly ignorant a militant atheist like Bill Maher is about Christianity, which he apparently hates with a vengeance. He seems to think that the Bible is the literal word of God, when even an atheist like me understands that this is not the way the Bible is written, nor is it the way the Bible is canonically interpreted. He thinks that Christian scripture and law is derived from the Old Testament- he quoted from Deuteronomy stating the Mosaic law that he who breaks the Sabbath shall be killed, even though the actual quote is from Exodus, and Maher quoted it out of context. He seems to believe that Christianity and science are incompatible, but I’ve accepted for a long time now that the Enlightenment simply could not have happened without Judeo-Christian tradition, law, and science.

Vox, I doubt you and I will ever agree about the existence or nature of God. However, I find myself strongly agreeing with you about these pinheads (to coin a phrase) who call themselves atheists but who are little more than “social autists” with little understanding of what they criticise. And even where we inevitably disagree, I suspect that our disagreements will generally be far more genial and fair-minded than anything that atheists like Bill Maher are capable of. Thanks for the great writing; I certainly look forward to reading a lot more of it to come.

S understands, in a way that many do not, that I have absolutely no problem with atheists qua atheists. I was, after all, agnostic for a long time and I still find myself generally more comfortable in secular intellectual culture than in American evangelical culture. For example, if you peruse my reading list for 2010, you will look in vain for the religious self-help books and rehashed theological fiction that make up the vast majority of CBA publishing today. I’d much rather kick back in the Comfy Chair and read Balzac or Procopius than anything that is likely to appear in a Northwestern Bookstore.

The fact is that I neither despise nor pity those who don’t believe in God. My opinion about them is similar to what it would be of those who don’t believe in gravity because they cannot see it. (See the actual force, not its effects.) Because the effects of rejecting God are both clearly delineated and observable, I simply find it a little strange that some people cannot see those effects and on that basis deny the existence of the causal factor. But that doesn’t bother or upset me, it merely causes me to mentally shrug my shoulders and think, “well, good luck with that”.

On the other hand, having a very small degree of orange-green color blindness, I can completely understand the bewildered feeling of an individual who simply does not see the big orange letter on the green background to which another individual is pointing, wondering what on Earth he could possibly be seeing.

The atheists with whom I do have a problem, and for whom I regularly demonstrate a great deal of contempt, are the liars, the cheats, the deceivers, and the malicious. If one genuinely believes that religion is a crutch for the weak and psychologically needed, what does it say about those who are so eager to kick that crutch out from under those who clearly need its support? And, as an armchair intellectual, I find their willful ignorance of history, religion, and philosophy to be as astonishing as it is irksome. Intelligent? I don’t even consider them to be educated. To claim that religion either causes war or is an important strategic element of war is to be every bit as ignorant as the apocryphal Flat Earth proponents so often cited; the significant difference being that the Religion Causes War Society not only exists but is even willing to expound their ludicrous and historically illiterate arguments in public.

Anyhow, I very much welcome atheists of S’s stripe here. I don’t expect anyone to agree with me all the time about anything; my best and oldest friend has made a habit of playing Devil’s Advocate in our conversations for more than three decades. The reason I value the questions and the doubts of intelligent atheists who are more interested in rational debate than in exhibiting their psychological issues is because they help keep the Christians and other theists from lapsing into intellectual sloth and thereby prevent this blog from devolving into the sort of circle jerk that has rendered the New Atheism so toothless.

But speaking of the quiz, it is worth pointing out, as Bethyada noted yesterday, that the Pew Forum ignored its own definitions of “atheist” and “agnostic” in reporting the results. Whereas self-identified atheists and agnostics scored 20.9, the Pew Forum defined an atheist as “someone who does not believe in God” and an agnostic as “someone who is unsure that God exists”. Therefore, the “nothing in particular” crowd should have been included in the “atheists and agnostics” group – supporting the case made in TIA, these Low Church Atheists outnumber the self-identified High Church ones by a factor of 4.5 – which reduces the atheist and agnostic score to 17.4, below that of white evangelicals at 17.6.

Mailvox: religious ignorance

Much has been made of the fact that atheists and agnostics scored the highest on the Pew Forum’s recent quiz on the world’s religions. I’ve certainly received a lot of emails about it from atheists and Christians alike. But what hasn’t been pointed out is that they still only answered 65 percent of the questions correctly. This may help explain the dichotomy we often see here between the atheist’s belief that he knows a lot about religion and his demonstrated ignorance of the tenets of a particular religion. The fact that an atheist happens to have heard of Vajrayana Buddhism or Divine Command theory, usually through a second-hand reference, will set him well ahead of the average religious individual. But it doesn’t actually mean that he knows anything about any specific religion or that his knowledge is likely to compare favorably with that of a religious adherent who happens to take his religion seriously.

Furthermore, logic suggests that someone who subscribes to no religion is far more likely to be familiar with the competing tenets of the various religions than any one adherent is to be familiar with the others. This perspective is supported by the fact that both Jews and Mormons outscored atheists and agnostics when the questions related to Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism were left out of the equation and that Mormons and evangelicals scored much better than anyone – 86 percent and 73 percent respectively – on questions related to the Bible.

So, my conclusion is that atheists should try to keep in mind that while they know more about religion in general than most evangelicals do, they don’t know as much about the Bible or Christianity. And Christians should remember that knowing a lot about Christianity is not synonymous with knowing a lot about religion.

So, if you’re interested, take the short version of the quiz yourself and report on how you did. Here is my score, which apparently would have had me in the top .02 percent: “You answered 15 out of 15 questions correctly for a score of 100%.”

Mailvox: the police respond

EJ replies to my column on America’s devolution into a police state:

I just read your article in World Net Daily. I was somewhat surprised by your article. I have been employed by a state law enforcement agency in California for 22 years. I was a deputy with the Orange County Sheriff’s Dept., before my current position. I have a bachelor’s degree from a state university in California. My father retired from this department after serving 27 years. My brother is also an officer with this department.

Having worked and socialized around officers and deputies throughout my life, I have determined that these are some of the finest people I have met. I am a christian and am a deacon in my church. Certainly I see a rougher crowd in church than the people I work around. I have never felt bad about arresting criminals. I didn’t go into this line of work for the authority I would receive. In college, I struggled to determine whether I would rather be a teacher at a high school, or a law enforcement officer. I finally chose law enforcement.

I too believe in the 2nd Amendment. I believe without the second, all other amendments (freedoms) would soon be lost. I am an NRA member. I don’t know what happened to the gentleman in Las Vegas. You don’t either. But some of your rhetoric sounds like far left revolutionary propaganda. Currently I reside in far northeast California. I cite motorists everyday for traffic violations. I have never considered myself a tax collector for the state. I give as many verbal warnings as I do citations. I don’t do this for the money, and having watched media report only stories for which they make money, I suspect they are more interested in making money than my department.

I am a conservative and receive respect for my position from other conservatives. Liberals (far left) usually look at me with disdain. I guess I am just surprised at your attack on me and others in law enforcement. When I was growing up, my father taught me to protect those weaker than I. I have taught my son the same values. Recently my 17 year old son told me he will not be attending college as I hoped, but will be joining the United States Marine Corp to defend his country. I’m sure you feel the same disregard for the military as you do law enforcement.

I think it’s safe to assume EJ is unfamiliar with my attitude towards teachers, at least the unionized public school variety. As for his email, he sounds like a nice, normal, largely clueless man who is paying less attention to the observable reality around him than he is to a romanticized version of it. For example, it is irrelevant that he does not consider himself a tax collector for the state, because that is in fact what he is. Due to what appears to be his kind and positive nature, he may be a bad and inefficient tax collector, but that is a question of job performance rather than the nature of the job.

It is interesting to see how he attempts to defend the police by conflating them with the military. This is common practice among the police; they have a severe inferiority complex and for obvious reason. There is nothing “far left” about my criticism of the police, and what is particularly troubling about this email is that EJ clearly believes it is “far left revolutionary propaganda” to insist that police officers guilty of murdering an innocent man in public should be punished for their crimes and that it is an intrinsic conflict of interest for the police to investigate alleged crimes committed by the police.

Mailvox: Monday column

TA writes in response to today’s column on Police State America:

I had a chief of police as a neighbor while growing up. He pistol whipped a black kid once. And I had a neighbor that became a cop and a friend that became a cop in spite of his criminal record and both of them were cowards. I have said for many years that 25% of any police force should be in prison, 25% should be under psychoanalysis regularly and 50% should get better pay.

We would get fewer nuts on the force if we drafted our police forces instead of hiring them. Only management that doesn’t come into contact with the public on a regular basis should be career personnel. And as you said, cops should not be allowed to investigate cops. Because they have been indoctrinated into an “us against them mentality” ‘them’ being the public and ‘us’ being every cop a self appointed heroic martyr who is the law instead of an enforcer of the law.

These three cockroaches will get theirs some day and of coarse be amazed at the injustice of it all.

I don’t think a police draft is the answer, but it’s true, there probably would be fewer issues with psychologically disturbed individuals seeking employment.

Mailvox: defending free trade

EJ takes exception to my previous post critiquing Ricardian comparative advantage:

I have to disagree with you regarding free trade.

You write: “This example assumes that there is something that the old man can do that is of value to the young man. But that’s not necessarily true. What if instead of 2 people, there are 20 and all the old man can usefully do is gather 5 coconuts a day when two young girls with no other useful skills can gather 100, more than the castaway society needs, in the same time? Yes, total production will increase +5, but so what? No one is going to give him anything for his worthless coconuts because there is already a coconut glut thanks to the highly productive young girls. Austrian-savvy individuals should be able to see the seeds of an Austrian critique of Ricardo here.”

Your example fails to take into account that there are always other needs to be satisfied, needs which require other goods beside coconuts. Either the old man or the young girls can, for instance, gather berries, help build a hut, etc. Ricardo is right in that, by shifting the old man’s production into that which he does comparatively best, society benefits. The only time this isn’t true is if every need has already been satisfied and there is absolutely no other task that the old man can do. Your assumption strikes me as an unwarranted; it is certainly not true that all needs have been met in the world we live in.

Ricardo’s discovery has astounding consequences for libertarians. I’ve noticed in your writings that your libertarianism seems to stem from an understanding that men is fallen, and that, therefore, it makes little sense to allow a fallen man to lord it over his fellow creatures. This was largely my take, too, but thanks to Voxiversity, I’ve been reading my Rothbard. Since voluntary exchange benefits both parties, free trade between two people is a good which should be extended as far and wide as possible.

This is not to say tariffs are always wrong. As Ilana Mercer pointed out in last week’s column, a revenue tariff on all goods would be a reasonable way to fund a minimal state. But free trade itself remains sound.

There are two significant errors here that render EJ’s criticism invalid. The first flaw is this erroneous simplification. “The only time this isn’t true is if every need has already been satisfied and there is absolutely no other task that the old man can do.”

The proper formulation would have been as follows: “It isn’t true whenever there is no other need that the old man is not only capable of satisfying, but willing to satisfy in return for the compensation that he is offered in return.” It is irrelevant to argue that all needs have not been met in the world; the old man on his desert island has no ability to meet the needs of a hungry child in Somalia and the meager compensation he is offered for collecting sea shells may be insufficient to move him to collect them.

Furthermore, there may be no demand for the services he can supply. The bankruptcy of Say’s Law can be seen in the way the old man’s ability to donate sperm to his nubile female castaways in no way creates any demand for the product. In much the same way, the international market for American workers whose only skills concern filling out paperwork for regulatory compliance and creating Powerpoint demonstrations is extremely limited.

The second and much more serious error is in the statement that “voluntary exchange benefits both parties”. This is both logically and empirically false because it posits a non-existent human rationalism without temporal limits. While it is true that value is subjective, thereby allowing the possibility to defend totally irrational actions as at least nominally rational, this still doesn’t avoid the problem of how the subjective values that the Misean acting man assigns are necessarily momentary in nature. What the acting man defines as a beneficial exchange at one moment he may very well not define as beneficial in the very next moment for a wide variety of reasons. And it is this fatal flaw in the logical foundation that causes the entire edifice in support of free trade to collapse.