No one has ever told me that I do not take Scripture and Christianity seriously. Likewise, no one has ever told me that I am not truly devoted to rationality. I live out both rationalism and Christianity in a way that not even my enemies can legitimately criticize. Still, this does not mean that they understand the complexity of living out both of them, the nuance being of a kind that puzzles many.
A great deal of Christianity might prove false in the end, and, unlike many I know, I openly admit this and embrace this truth. I am not one of the Christians who will partner with almost anyone as long as the gospel is preached, nor am I someone who pretends like faith and logic are somehow reconcilable [1] or believes in a thing that has not been established in full. The farthest I can get to verifying Christianity is acknowledging the incontrovertible proof of an uncaused cause and then accumulating evidence that the uncaused cause has a particular nature, ultimately making a broad evidential case that Christianity seems probable [2].
Thus far I have found no conceptual disparities between Christianity and logic. That is, nothing in Christian metaphysics or doctrine is logically impossible, and here I refer to actual Christian doctrine and not the unbiblical bullshit that so many Christians believe about ethics, epistemology, or other miscellaneous subjects. I certainly do not mean that logic can prove every aspect of Christianity. Yet I do not want anyone making the mistake of believing that I would ever side with the Bible over logic, should I ever detect an actual contradiction between the two. If they are both true, neither can be "more true" than the other, since although one truth can be more important than another, both can only be equally true. But only one of them is necessarily true in its entirety. Christianity is not self-evident, but logic is.
Logic cannot be false or anything short of universal [3]; to the extent that something is not fully established by logic, it could turn out to be false in the end. No amount of faith--whether by faith one means trust in what the evidence points to or blind belief--can change this immutable reality. The minds of the unintelligent cannot grasp the nuance in a worldview like mine, with the amalgam of a pure rationalism, probabilistic commitment on the level of behaviors, and simultaneous skepticism of all that logic cannot prove in full.
I have committed to living in accordance with Christian values because the evidence supports Christianity: 1) parts of Christianity acknowledging necessary truths, the existence of a material world, the existence of an uncaused cause, and the distinction between mind and body cannot be false, 2) Christianity is internally consistent, 3) external evidence supports it, and 4) no external evidence contradicts it. But I certainly do not believe Christianity is true in full, only that it seems probable. I have also also struggled with legitimate skepticism, the doubting of anything that is not logically provable, to the point of seriously questioning the use of not killing myself. Many will not acknowledge that person can cling to perfect rationalism, skepticism of all that could be false, and Christian probabilism all at once.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-object-and-method-of-faith.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/metaphysics-and-absolute-certainty.html
[3]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-impossibility-of-irrationalism.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-impossibility-of-absolutely-nothing.html
Sunday, April 29, 2018
Saturday, April 28, 2018
Movie Review--Avengers: Infinity War
"When I'm done half of humanity will still be alive."
--Thanos, Avengers: Infinity War
". . . you kill and torture and you call it mercy."
--Gamora, Avengers: Infinity War
Thanos said, "Let there be death." And it was very good.
Infinity War stands as one of the most anticipated films in all of cinema history up to this point, with good reason--more than 15 prior movies have thoroughly prepared the cosmic stage for the villain Thanos to visit the earth with a clear objective, one both benevolent and malevolent all at once. Many of the heroes who rally to fight him have appeared in their own solo films, or more than one in several cases. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has, oftentimes, unfortunately, been a hub for gratuitous jokes, minimal stakes, and emotional shallowness (though there are definitely exceptions, like with The Incredible Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Black Panther). Films like Age of Ultron teased dark drama but then bombarded viewers with generic, out of place jokes, removing the tension from what could have been stories with gravity.
Thankfully, Infinity War finally offers fairly consistent solemnity, despite having some stupid jokes of the typical contemporary MCU kind.
Production Values
As a movie like this requires in order to effectively convey the story, the visuals and acting generally are at peak quality. The amount of spectacular CGI in this movie allows for the massive scope of the events to be well-realized onscreen. When it comes to the acting, almost the entire (large) cast offers excellent performances. Chris Hemsworth, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Holland, Zoe Saldana, and Josh Brolin all get scenes with significantly more emotionality than is typical in the MCU. Considering that the MCU has lately devolved, for the most part, into a relentless comedy where almost any character could make the same joke without seeming out of character at all, it was a very good move to emphasize for once that these superheroes do not need to have interchangeable personalities. And it was a relief to find that the great multitude of characters is actually balanced rather well for its size. The magnitude of the story could not have been conveyed as well without the quality acting or the fairly competent juggling of so many protagonists.
Story
SPOILERS are mentioned here, so read at your own risk!
Thanos, native of the planet Titan, has finally embarked on his journey to purge half of all life from the universe. Intercepting Thor's ship of Asgardians as they leave the former realm of Asgard, Thanos and his assistants quickly kill almost all of the passengers, ultimately planning to come to the earth to retrieve the infinity stones on the planet. These stones, of which there are six in total, were formed at the Big Bang, each governing an aspect of reality. After his lieutenants arrive on earth, the plethora of heroes soon splits up, with some (Strange, Stark, and Parker) heading to Titan, some (Thor, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot) pursuing their own objectives, and some (Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, the Winter Soldier) protecting Vision in Wakanda so that his infinity stone eludes Thanos' helpers. Thanos reluctantly kills his adopted daughter Gamora on a region (planet?) called Vormir and consequently accesses the soul stone. Vision's stone, though, remains out of his hands, safe for now.
The handful of heroes on Titan succeeds in apprehending Thanos, yet Peter Quill, aka Starlord of the Guardians of the Galaxy (who is a fucking irrational, insecure moron in this movie) accidentally but stupidly ensures that the plan fails. Strange soon gives Thanos his time stone, having already used it to see more than 14 million possible futures--with only one resulting in the thwarting of Thanos. The Titan teleports to Wakanda, where his minions have thus far failed to extract the stone from Vision's forehead, and he easily overpowers multiple Avengers in basic displays of power, which is now beyond the ability of even the collective Avengers to conquer.
Scarlet Witch kills Vision by destroying the stone, yet the effort proves pointless. In possession of the time stone, Thanos is able to simply rewind time and take the last stone from Vision, killing him in the process--and yet Strange tells Tony that there was no other way. It is implied but never stated that only handing over the time stone could lead to the single observed future where Thanos is eventually defeated. Possessing all six infinity stones, Thanos randomly dispenses genocide on half of humanity (and on other species maybe?), including many beloved MCU characters, with Thanos himself retreating back to another planet where the sun rises, a smile on his face. He has succeeded.
Intellectual Content
The MCU has long faced a paucity of villains with either onscreen development or significant ethical motivations. Kaecilius from Doctor Strange has benevolent intentions (fighting the Ancient One's hypocrisy in order to obtain eternal life for humanity), yet he unfortunately only unpacks them in one somewhat brief scene. Erik Killmonger from Black Panther towers above all the preceding villains, with his rightful condemnation of past injustices and yet his fallacious and immoral reaction to them. Thankfully, Thanos receives more opportunities to reveal and explain his motives than Kaecilius, which combine a sort of altruism with a mostly impersonal willingness to massacre half of all life in the universe. The altruism lies in the fact that Thanos only wants to ensure that the finite resources of the universe will not be depleted by galactic overpopulation. On a smaller scale, his past attempts to solve resource issues led to him having half of the dominant species on a planet rounded up and killed at random. Gamora outlived many of her own kind when they were exterminated in this way. Thanos, though, insists that now the inhabitants of the planet have enough food and that the planetary crisis has been averted. The problem Thanos seeks to rectify is massive--yet it may only be a perceived problem, I must say, since we see no evidence at all that all life in the universe truly is at risk because of overpopulation and overall resource scarcity.
One can commit horrendous atrocities with the best of intentions. Motives are morally significant, but they do not dictate the morality of an act all by themselves. A great evil is still a great evil even if engaged in with the most positive motives possible. Thanos exemplifies the extraordinary utilitarian lengths a being might go to in order to achieve a morally catastrophic end with the wellbeing of others in mind, all along the entirety of the road to that end. There has yet to be a Marvel movie since Doctor Strange that has the same intellectual richness, with the film exploring metaphysics, mind-body dualism, the multiverse, epistemological assumptions, and the need for humility when faced with the cosmos. Hopefully one will emerge among the next cycle of MCU movies. Still, Infinity War does provide a layered villain, which certainly can provide something to think about.
Also, Thanos makes a relatively common but absolutely idiotic mistake in reasoning: once he has a good number of the infinity stones, he talks of how he can manipulate reality into whatever he wants it to become. Yet it is utterly, inescapably impossible for logical contradictions to be realized. Logic remains necessary, universal, and inviolable regardless of the will of any being, even any possible deity. But characters in entertainment continue to make asinine claims that ignore or deny this.
Conclusion
Although it does not have as much of a consistently serious tone as The Incredible Hulk, Infinity War certainly contains several scenes of intimacy and legitimate emotional gravity--without which the retarded sort of humor so common in many recent MCU entries could have proven overpowering when it appears. Characters beloved by some viewers actually die. I hope to God that Marvel doesn't try to have its cake and eat it too by portraying the cataclysmic events of Infinity War and then just resurrecting all of the deceased heroes in the sequel. Not only is the MCU extremely crowded as it is, but the stakes would also seem diminished if a simple time rewind or other ability brings all of the dead back to life. Solemnness is what the MCU needs now. May whatever resolution awaits in the next installment not erase or trivialize the seriousness of Infinity War.
The haunting, fitting nature of the last shot need not be undermined.
Content:
1. Violence: As one might expect, Infinity War is full of displays of physical force, yet light on actual graphic content. Nothing shown is particularly bloody or brutal.
2. Profanity: Mild profanity gets used throughout.
--Thanos, Avengers: Infinity War
". . . you kill and torture and you call it mercy."
--Gamora, Avengers: Infinity War
Thanos said, "Let there be death." And it was very good.
Infinity War stands as one of the most anticipated films in all of cinema history up to this point, with good reason--more than 15 prior movies have thoroughly prepared the cosmic stage for the villain Thanos to visit the earth with a clear objective, one both benevolent and malevolent all at once. Many of the heroes who rally to fight him have appeared in their own solo films, or more than one in several cases. The Marvel Cinematic Universe has, oftentimes, unfortunately, been a hub for gratuitous jokes, minimal stakes, and emotional shallowness (though there are definitely exceptions, like with The Incredible Hulk, Doctor Strange, and Black Panther). Films like Age of Ultron teased dark drama but then bombarded viewers with generic, out of place jokes, removing the tension from what could have been stories with gravity.
Thankfully, Infinity War finally offers fairly consistent solemnity, despite having some stupid jokes of the typical contemporary MCU kind.
As a movie like this requires in order to effectively convey the story, the visuals and acting generally are at peak quality. The amount of spectacular CGI in this movie allows for the massive scope of the events to be well-realized onscreen. When it comes to the acting, almost the entire (large) cast offers excellent performances. Chris Hemsworth, Elizabeth Olsen, Paul Bettany, Robert Downey Jr., Tom Holland, Zoe Saldana, and Josh Brolin all get scenes with significantly more emotionality than is typical in the MCU. Considering that the MCU has lately devolved, for the most part, into a relentless comedy where almost any character could make the same joke without seeming out of character at all, it was a very good move to emphasize for once that these superheroes do not need to have interchangeable personalities. And it was a relief to find that the great multitude of characters is actually balanced rather well for its size. The magnitude of the story could not have been conveyed as well without the quality acting or the fairly competent juggling of so many protagonists.
Story
Thanos, native of the planet Titan, has finally embarked on his journey to purge half of all life from the universe. Intercepting Thor's ship of Asgardians as they leave the former realm of Asgard, Thanos and his assistants quickly kill almost all of the passengers, ultimately planning to come to the earth to retrieve the infinity stones on the planet. These stones, of which there are six in total, were formed at the Big Bang, each governing an aspect of reality. After his lieutenants arrive on earth, the plethora of heroes soon splits up, with some (Strange, Stark, and Parker) heading to Titan, some (Thor, Rocket Raccoon, and Groot) pursuing their own objectives, and some (Black Widow, Scarlet Witch, the Winter Soldier) protecting Vision in Wakanda so that his infinity stone eludes Thanos' helpers. Thanos reluctantly kills his adopted daughter Gamora on a region (planet?) called Vormir and consequently accesses the soul stone. Vision's stone, though, remains out of his hands, safe for now.
The handful of heroes on Titan succeeds in apprehending Thanos, yet Peter Quill, aka Starlord of the Guardians of the Galaxy (who is a fucking irrational, insecure moron in this movie) accidentally but stupidly ensures that the plan fails. Strange soon gives Thanos his time stone, having already used it to see more than 14 million possible futures--with only one resulting in the thwarting of Thanos. The Titan teleports to Wakanda, where his minions have thus far failed to extract the stone from Vision's forehead, and he easily overpowers multiple Avengers in basic displays of power, which is now beyond the ability of even the collective Avengers to conquer.
Scarlet Witch kills Vision by destroying the stone, yet the effort proves pointless. In possession of the time stone, Thanos is able to simply rewind time and take the last stone from Vision, killing him in the process--and yet Strange tells Tony that there was no other way. It is implied but never stated that only handing over the time stone could lead to the single observed future where Thanos is eventually defeated. Possessing all six infinity stones, Thanos randomly dispenses genocide on half of humanity (and on other species maybe?), including many beloved MCU characters, with Thanos himself retreating back to another planet where the sun rises, a smile on his face. He has succeeded.
Intellectual Content
The MCU has long faced a paucity of villains with either onscreen development or significant ethical motivations. Kaecilius from Doctor Strange has benevolent intentions (fighting the Ancient One's hypocrisy in order to obtain eternal life for humanity), yet he unfortunately only unpacks them in one somewhat brief scene. Erik Killmonger from Black Panther towers above all the preceding villains, with his rightful condemnation of past injustices and yet his fallacious and immoral reaction to them. Thankfully, Thanos receives more opportunities to reveal and explain his motives than Kaecilius, which combine a sort of altruism with a mostly impersonal willingness to massacre half of all life in the universe. The altruism lies in the fact that Thanos only wants to ensure that the finite resources of the universe will not be depleted by galactic overpopulation. On a smaller scale, his past attempts to solve resource issues led to him having half of the dominant species on a planet rounded up and killed at random. Gamora outlived many of her own kind when they were exterminated in this way. Thanos, though, insists that now the inhabitants of the planet have enough food and that the planetary crisis has been averted. The problem Thanos seeks to rectify is massive--yet it may only be a perceived problem, I must say, since we see no evidence at all that all life in the universe truly is at risk because of overpopulation and overall resource scarcity.
One can commit horrendous atrocities with the best of intentions. Motives are morally significant, but they do not dictate the morality of an act all by themselves. A great evil is still a great evil even if engaged in with the most positive motives possible. Thanos exemplifies the extraordinary utilitarian lengths a being might go to in order to achieve a morally catastrophic end with the wellbeing of others in mind, all along the entirety of the road to that end. There has yet to be a Marvel movie since Doctor Strange that has the same intellectual richness, with the film exploring metaphysics, mind-body dualism, the multiverse, epistemological assumptions, and the need for humility when faced with the cosmos. Hopefully one will emerge among the next cycle of MCU movies. Still, Infinity War does provide a layered villain, which certainly can provide something to think about.
Also, Thanos makes a relatively common but absolutely idiotic mistake in reasoning: once he has a good number of the infinity stones, he talks of how he can manipulate reality into whatever he wants it to become. Yet it is utterly, inescapably impossible for logical contradictions to be realized. Logic remains necessary, universal, and inviolable regardless of the will of any being, even any possible deity. But characters in entertainment continue to make asinine claims that ignore or deny this.
Conclusion
Although it does not have as much of a consistently serious tone as The Incredible Hulk, Infinity War certainly contains several scenes of intimacy and legitimate emotional gravity--without which the retarded sort of humor so common in many recent MCU entries could have proven overpowering when it appears. Characters beloved by some viewers actually die. I hope to God that Marvel doesn't try to have its cake and eat it too by portraying the cataclysmic events of Infinity War and then just resurrecting all of the deceased heroes in the sequel. Not only is the MCU extremely crowded as it is, but the stakes would also seem diminished if a simple time rewind or other ability brings all of the dead back to life. Solemnness is what the MCU needs now. May whatever resolution awaits in the next installment not erase or trivialize the seriousness of Infinity War.
The haunting, fitting nature of the last shot need not be undermined.
1. Violence: As one might expect, Infinity War is full of displays of physical force, yet light on actual graphic content. Nothing shown is particularly bloody or brutal.
2. Profanity: Mild profanity gets used throughout.
Friday, April 27, 2018
The Great Man Leadership Theory
Once used as not only a leadership theory but also a broader historical-anthropological model, the great man theory of leadership attempts to reduce all leadership talents down to one source of origin. According to this framework, some people enter the world in possession ready for leadership, having greatness already within them in the form of inborn traits. On this model these traits are viewed as the sole way that great leaders can have their talents.
This concept was initially called the great man theory because of cultural constructs viewing leadership as a male behavior, though someone could change the title to great person theory and retain the theory while extending it to both men and women. Even without the original sexist overtones, however, it remains an asinine theory. This residual stupidity of the idea, even in its non-sexist form, lies in the fact that instead of acknowledging that inborn traits do not account for all leadership ability while still focusing on them, the great person theory treats these traits as if they can never be obtained for the first time throughout one's life experiences. Focusing on something is very different than denying that anything at all besides that thing can account for some truth.
The great man/person theory is undermined by its position that leaders do not develop skills over time, but instead can only be born with the traits that enable quality leadership. While a person could certainly be born with specific traits that facilitate leadership--like intelligence, friendliness, or communicative ability--this certainly does not mean that no one can be born without them and acquire and develop them over time. Personality has two ways of coming about. The first is through natural predisposition, which the great person theory holds up as the exclusive way leadership skills appear, and the other is through the events of one's life. Either avenue can prove instrumental in the leadership talent of an individual. Some people might rely on only one for their skills, but some could also benefit from both. Only out of ignorance or stupidity would someone insist that only one or the other can be responsible for producing great leaders.
Whether in the church, the business world, politics, or society at large, people need not think that they will never be fit for leading others because they did not happen to have certain traits from birth. Human personality can be significantly shaped by experiences, and this means that even people who are in no way fit to lead can grow beyond their current states. People do not have to feel confined with whatever traits they have at the present moment. They can develop new skills, enhance existing ones, and come to a greater understanding of skills they do possess due to inborn personality characteristics. Natural talents and acquired skills can both account for the success of a leader.
This concept was initially called the great man theory because of cultural constructs viewing leadership as a male behavior, though someone could change the title to great person theory and retain the theory while extending it to both men and women. Even without the original sexist overtones, however, it remains an asinine theory. This residual stupidity of the idea, even in its non-sexist form, lies in the fact that instead of acknowledging that inborn traits do not account for all leadership ability while still focusing on them, the great person theory treats these traits as if they can never be obtained for the first time throughout one's life experiences. Focusing on something is very different than denying that anything at all besides that thing can account for some truth.
The great man/person theory is undermined by its position that leaders do not develop skills over time, but instead can only be born with the traits that enable quality leadership. While a person could certainly be born with specific traits that facilitate leadership--like intelligence, friendliness, or communicative ability--this certainly does not mean that no one can be born without them and acquire and develop them over time. Personality has two ways of coming about. The first is through natural predisposition, which the great person theory holds up as the exclusive way leadership skills appear, and the other is through the events of one's life. Either avenue can prove instrumental in the leadership talent of an individual. Some people might rely on only one for their skills, but some could also benefit from both. Only out of ignorance or stupidity would someone insist that only one or the other can be responsible for producing great leaders.
Whether in the church, the business world, politics, or society at large, people need not think that they will never be fit for leading others because they did not happen to have certain traits from birth. Human personality can be significantly shaped by experiences, and this means that even people who are in no way fit to lead can grow beyond their current states. People do not have to feel confined with whatever traits they have at the present moment. They can develop new skills, enhance existing ones, and come to a greater understanding of skills they do possess due to inborn personality characteristics. Natural talents and acquired skills can both account for the success of a leader.
Thursday, April 26, 2018
A Lie About Family
In a marriage that did not begin due to coercion or purely by the arrangements of some third party, the partners had a choice about the very existence of the relationship--the relationship literally wouldn't exist without the consent of each party. Contrary to this, a baby cannot choose what parents it is born to or what siblings it might have. I had no choice in being a member of my family, and I certainly dislike a great many of my family members. Now, some people would perhaps say that this dislike is somehow a major offense, which they might claim is the case because one owes a certain degree of special love to family members simply because they are family (I mean parents and siblings; I already addressed how choice changes the dynamics of spousal relationships).
Yes, the Bible does teach that a parent has an obligation to provide for his or her family as needed (1 Timothy 5:8), and certain offenses committed against parents by their own children are prescribed harsher penalties in Mosaic Law (compare Exodus 21:18-19 to 21:15). But it does not follow at all that a child has a moral obligation to love his or her parents more than close friends, or that a person has a moral obligation to love his or her siblings any more than he or she is obligated to love all people, even if the love of that broad obligation is only generic and impersonal. This is true even if the parents or siblings are not morally and spiritually abominable, but is especially true in cases where they are.
Even the command to honor one's parents does not require having a heightened level of personal affection for them; it only requires that one honors them, which in no way means to submit to any fallacies or sinful commands of theirs. A person's parents can be neglectful, abusive, and irrational, and they never deserve more love than a non-family member just because it came about that he or she was born to that set of parents without a choice in the matter. Children cannot come into existence without their parents, so parents do owe their children efforts to ensure their material wellbeing, as 1 Timothy 5:8 clearly describes. But no verse in the Bible comes anywhere near teaching that all immediate family members--whether they are one's siblings or parents--deserve some kind of special degree of love by nature of me happening to be born in a certain family. They don't.
Family members (again, in the non-spousal sense) are just humans one happens to share a biological connection with, and thus have no additional value whatsoever because of this connection. Morally inferior people deserve to be treated as the morally inferior beings that they are [1] whether or not they are family members, even parents. Unsound minds deserve to be treated as unsound minds whether or not those minds are those of family members. Family, unfortunately, can be one of the most draining sources of gratuitous stupidity and ideological garbage. Most of my family members, at the very least, certainly have been. I don't want other people to needlessly feel obligated to love those who do not deserve love of a deeper kind. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar and a sophist, and Christians who say otherwise after having this error exposed are inept moral theologians in addition to the other things.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/people-are-not-morally-equal.html
Yes, the Bible does teach that a parent has an obligation to provide for his or her family as needed (1 Timothy 5:8), and certain offenses committed against parents by their own children are prescribed harsher penalties in Mosaic Law (compare Exodus 21:18-19 to 21:15). But it does not follow at all that a child has a moral obligation to love his or her parents more than close friends, or that a person has a moral obligation to love his or her siblings any more than he or she is obligated to love all people, even if the love of that broad obligation is only generic and impersonal. This is true even if the parents or siblings are not morally and spiritually abominable, but is especially true in cases where they are.
Even the command to honor one's parents does not require having a heightened level of personal affection for them; it only requires that one honors them, which in no way means to submit to any fallacies or sinful commands of theirs. A person's parents can be neglectful, abusive, and irrational, and they never deserve more love than a non-family member just because it came about that he or she was born to that set of parents without a choice in the matter. Children cannot come into existence without their parents, so parents do owe their children efforts to ensure their material wellbeing, as 1 Timothy 5:8 clearly describes. But no verse in the Bible comes anywhere near teaching that all immediate family members--whether they are one's siblings or parents--deserve some kind of special degree of love by nature of me happening to be born in a certain family. They don't.
Family members (again, in the non-spousal sense) are just humans one happens to share a biological connection with, and thus have no additional value whatsoever because of this connection. Morally inferior people deserve to be treated as the morally inferior beings that they are [1] whether or not they are family members, even parents. Unsound minds deserve to be treated as unsound minds whether or not those minds are those of family members. Family, unfortunately, can be one of the most draining sources of gratuitous stupidity and ideological garbage. Most of my family members, at the very least, certainly have been. I don't want other people to needlessly feel obligated to love those who do not deserve love of a deeper kind. Anyone who says otherwise is a liar and a sophist, and Christians who say otherwise after having this error exposed are inept moral theologians in addition to the other things.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/people-are-not-morally-equal.html
On Justified True Belief
Justified true belief, a common epistemological concept, is the idea that a belief counts as knowledge if it is justified by evidence and is actually true. Depending on what is meant by justified, there might be no problem at all with this epistemology. In practice, however, this idea is sometimes heralded as confirmation that absolute certainty is not necessary for knowledge, as appropriate "justification" is sufficient. According to this inherently irrational position one does not actually have to know something in order to know it! It is amusing to me that those who subscribe to the this understanding of "justified true belief" often have quite conflicting standards for what exactly constitutes justification.
How much evidence means something is "known" (known besides the fact that there is evidence)? This is because other than absolute certainty [1] there is no such thing as a non-arbitrary, objective point past which a belief is known to be true, though there is a multitude of conflicting lines past which various people might feel subjectively persuaded. But persuasion is not proof, and belief is not knowledge. Knowledge is awareness that something is true. I cannot be aware that something is true simply because there is evidence for that thing, since mere evidence does not amount to proof of anything except that the evidence exists.
It is impossible for one to know something short of having absolute certainty about the issue in question. Although some people, including many Christian apologists--who are often just irrational sophists, whether or not they know it--will pretend like absolute certainty is not a requirement for knowledge, without absolute certainty one cannot know something, because having absolute certainty is the only way to know that something cannot possibly be false! And if a belief can be false, then the conclusion is not known to be true, meaning the belief by its very nature cannot qualify as actual knowledge. This is extremely simple.
But I cannot prove that I have existed longer than several moments at most, or that other minds exist, or that I am not a brain in a vat. What is the solution? It is devilishly simple: revise beliefs until they can be proven with perfect logicality. "That waterfall is beautiful" becomes "I think that waterfall is beautiful according to my subjective perceptions." "Jesus rose from the dead" becomes "There is significant evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, although I cannot prove this." "The sun will rise tomorrow" becomes "It seems that the sun will rise tomorrow because it has before and I have no reason to suspect it will not." I could continue to provide examples, yet I have already established my point.
One does not need absolute certainty that something is true to have absolute certainty that something is or seems to be probable, and, though anything short of absolute certainty can never justify belief in something itself, absolute certainty is not required to have a basis for committing to act as if something is true--not because it is known or because belief is justified, but because there is evidence for it. This is a key distinction that many apologists gloss over entirely, preferring to argue for the utter impossibility of faith being epistemically warranted [2].
Sometimes it is admittedly difficult to articulate the nuances of these truths to other people, yet it is something I have become fairly adept at doing (partly thanks to blogging, which necessitates that I be as clear, specific, and concise as I can be for the sake of effectiveness). Yet logic cannot be false and these truths are what logic illuminates about probability, evidence, knowledge, and belief.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/metaphysics-and-absolute-certainty.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/not-everything-can-be-illusion.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-impossibility-of-total-skepticism.html
[2]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-object-and-method-of-faith.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-impossibility-of-faith-in-reason.html
How much evidence means something is "known" (known besides the fact that there is evidence)? This is because other than absolute certainty [1] there is no such thing as a non-arbitrary, objective point past which a belief is known to be true, though there is a multitude of conflicting lines past which various people might feel subjectively persuaded. But persuasion is not proof, and belief is not knowledge. Knowledge is awareness that something is true. I cannot be aware that something is true simply because there is evidence for that thing, since mere evidence does not amount to proof of anything except that the evidence exists.
It is impossible for one to know something short of having absolute certainty about the issue in question. Although some people, including many Christian apologists--who are often just irrational sophists, whether or not they know it--will pretend like absolute certainty is not a requirement for knowledge, without absolute certainty one cannot know something, because having absolute certainty is the only way to know that something cannot possibly be false! And if a belief can be false, then the conclusion is not known to be true, meaning the belief by its very nature cannot qualify as actual knowledge. This is extremely simple.
But I cannot prove that I have existed longer than several moments at most, or that other minds exist, or that I am not a brain in a vat. What is the solution? It is devilishly simple: revise beliefs until they can be proven with perfect logicality. "That waterfall is beautiful" becomes "I think that waterfall is beautiful according to my subjective perceptions." "Jesus rose from the dead" becomes "There is significant evidence that Jesus rose from the dead, although I cannot prove this." "The sun will rise tomorrow" becomes "It seems that the sun will rise tomorrow because it has before and I have no reason to suspect it will not." I could continue to provide examples, yet I have already established my point.
One does not need absolute certainty that something is true to have absolute certainty that something is or seems to be probable, and, though anything short of absolute certainty can never justify belief in something itself, absolute certainty is not required to have a basis for committing to act as if something is true--not because it is known or because belief is justified, but because there is evidence for it. This is a key distinction that many apologists gloss over entirely, preferring to argue for the utter impossibility of faith being epistemically warranted [2].
Sometimes it is admittedly difficult to articulate the nuances of these truths to other people, yet it is something I have become fairly adept at doing (partly thanks to blogging, which necessitates that I be as clear, specific, and concise as I can be for the sake of effectiveness). Yet logic cannot be false and these truths are what logic illuminates about probability, evidence, knowledge, and belief.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/metaphysics-and-absolute-certainty.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/not-everything-can-be-illusion.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-impossibility-of-total-skepticism.html
[2]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/the-object-and-method-of-faith.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/07/the-impossibility-of-faith-in-reason.html
Tuesday, April 24, 2018
Philosophical Zombies
Someone recently joked with me about being a telepath. Amused, I asked what I was thinking at that time. "Something logical," I was told. Ha! She knew me at least that well! This answer was too general, and anyone who regularly spends time around me could at least guess this safely. I pressed for more detail. As all evidence available suggested would happen, she did not actually correctly describe my then-present thoughts, content with her assertion that I was thinking something "logical."
Since I am not a telepath (unless there are no other minds, of course), I have to rely on facial expressions, behaviors, and verbal communication to inform me of the mental states of others. But do any of these things actually demonstrate that there is even a single consciousness (mind) outside of my own?
Not at all. Every person and animal I see might be a philosophical zombie.
 |
| In popular culture, zombies are reanimated corpses, with entertainment sometimes portraying masses of zombies as wandering around in apocalyptic or post-apocalyptic situations (The Walking Dead, Call of Duty: Black Ops III). In phenomenology and philosophy, "zombie" can refer to a being that seems to have its own consciousness when it actually has no interior mental life. |
A philosophical zombie is a thing that seems to be animated by its own consciousness, when, in actuality, it has no mind, no consciousness; it is only a physical shell devoid of inner life. Philosophical zombies, of course, by their very nature could never be demonstrated to exist or not exist by a creature with my limitations, since the same limitations prevent me from establishing either possibility as true. Thus the idea of such an entity is something that is useful for epistemological and metaphysical considerations.
The notion of a philosophical zombie can be used as a hypothetical concept that establishes 1) the immateriality of consciousness (which can be proven in other ways) and 2) the inability of a person (with my limitations, at least) to prove that other minds actually exist. The former follows necessarily from the fact that a body can be imagined without consciousness, and vice versa, and the latter follows from the fact that all people and animals besides me might be philosophical zombies. Perhaps some of them are, or all of them, or none of them at all, but I am utterly unable to actually discover which of these possible options is the case.
As a mental exercise, thinking about philosophical zombies (also called p-zombies sometimes) can set our limitations before us and draw us into a rich contemplation about the nature of consciousness. Since neither of these outcomes is unprofitable, reflecting on p-zombies can be both enjoyable and educational. I cannot be a p-zombie, however--my own consciousness is infallibly certain. I can only legitimately doubt the minds of others.
Monday, April 23, 2018
Female Use Of Pornography
I had the pleasure of recently discussing with a female friend why gender stereotypes are inherently fallacious and unbiblical, with it following that there is no basis for gender roles in society. In part of the conversation we discussed ways that these stereotypes can hurt people very deeply, and how one of the areas where they can wound is sexuality. My friend did not hesitate to tell me that both men and women alike have told her of past struggles with pornography and that women can have their struggles compounded by beliefs about nonphysical gender differences.
Unfortunately, stereotypes embraced by the church at large can greatly amplify the difficulty in women admitting a pornography addiction to others, since they might not be believed or rightly understood--or might be treated as especially vile. I will clarify as I have before that pornography is a specific subset of erotic media [1], so here I am certainly not implying that of all erotic media is sinful (because it is not); pornography is immoral, but this does not indict all of erotic media. The point is that the denial or trivialization of female sexuality is not only illogical, contrary to reality, and wholly contra-Biblical, but also very dangerous in that it can deprive women of encouragement to honestly admit struggles with lust (fucking Genesis 39 acknowledges this pretty early on) or pornography.
By extension, women can also feel incredibly confused or even ashamed of themselves for experiencing sexual feelings that others might tell them aren't there or aren't actually that potent. There is no justification for irrationality as it is, but some fallacies and errors can have drastic consequences. It is simultaneously infuriating and saddening to me that many Christians I know defend, proclaim, and even seemingly cherish asinine beliefs about gender on one hand and then are shocked when reality defies their pathetic, untrue constructs.
Imagine men being told that only women struggle with drug addiction or selfishness, only to find that they, too, can fight these sins because personality traits have nothing to do with gender. Imagine women being told that they aren't ever tempted to lie or steal. Double standards and gender-based generalizations are stupid, untrue, and unbiblical in those cases, and they are also stupid, untrue, and unbiblical in the case of any sin related to sexuality. Only when the church as a whole exchanges error for truth and reason for fallacies will future damage such beliefs can cause be prevented.
Logic, people. It is very damn helpful.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-truth-about-erotic-media-part-1.html
Unfortunately, stereotypes embraced by the church at large can greatly amplify the difficulty in women admitting a pornography addiction to others, since they might not be believed or rightly understood--or might be treated as especially vile. I will clarify as I have before that pornography is a specific subset of erotic media [1], so here I am certainly not implying that of all erotic media is sinful (because it is not); pornography is immoral, but this does not indict all of erotic media. The point is that the denial or trivialization of female sexuality is not only illogical, contrary to reality, and wholly contra-Biblical, but also very dangerous in that it can deprive women of encouragement to honestly admit struggles with lust (fucking Genesis 39 acknowledges this pretty early on) or pornography.
By extension, women can also feel incredibly confused or even ashamed of themselves for experiencing sexual feelings that others might tell them aren't there or aren't actually that potent. There is no justification for irrationality as it is, but some fallacies and errors can have drastic consequences. It is simultaneously infuriating and saddening to me that many Christians I know defend, proclaim, and even seemingly cherish asinine beliefs about gender on one hand and then are shocked when reality defies their pathetic, untrue constructs.
Imagine men being told that only women struggle with drug addiction or selfishness, only to find that they, too, can fight these sins because personality traits have nothing to do with gender. Imagine women being told that they aren't ever tempted to lie or steal. Double standards and gender-based generalizations are stupid, untrue, and unbiblical in those cases, and they are also stupid, untrue, and unbiblical in the case of any sin related to sexuality. Only when the church as a whole exchanges error for truth and reason for fallacies will future damage such beliefs can cause be prevented.
Logic, people. It is very damn helpful.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/the-truth-about-erotic-media-part-1.html
The Light Of The Seven
In Game of Thrones, the Seven is a deity followed by adherents of the religion called the Faith of the Seven. I, as I have done with other aspects of the show, wish to dissect the epistemological and metaphysical concepts involved in the religion. The Seven is worshipped in buildings called septas, presided over by septons and septas (male and female clergy members respectively). Conceptually, the ideas in the religion are actually derived loosely from Christianity and Catholicism.
Author George R.R. Martin intriguingly modeled the Seven after a version of Christian Trinitarianism [1] that resembles modalism, a take on the Trinity where the three different divine figures in Christianity are described as three different aspects of the same being, like a person wearing three different sets of clothing is just the same person with three distinct outward appearances (as an aside, the Bible teaches neither modalism nor the popular conception of the Trinity [2], despite the latter having deeply infiltrated evangelical theology). In Game of Thrones the Seven are referred to both as a collective entity or as if they are seven different deities, depending on the context and speaker, though the religion itself describes the Seven as a single deity. The Seven thus avoids the kind of objections that can be legitimately raised against contemporary Trinitarianism.
Does the Seven have reality on its side? Is it real in Game of Thrones? A faction called the Faith Militant certainly acts like it, the Faith Militant being a forceful branch of the Faith of the Seven that actively punishes people for miscellaneous actions that the religion condemns as sins, such as Cersei's adulterous incest [3]. There is no evidence whatsoever mentioned in the series for the existence of the Seven in-universe, and thus there is no basis for the Faith Militant to impose their values on others.
This means that the most that followers of the Faith of the Seven can appeal to are private convictions, subjective inner feelings of spiritual confirmation, traditions, and social support--they cannot actually demonstrate that the religion is true as an overall system, whatever their level of zealousness or commitment. There is also no basis for the secular people of King's Landing (the city holding the Iron Throne that the War of the Five Kings is fought over) to object to the Faith Militant's behaviors, since, like the followers of the Seven, all they can appeal to also reduces down to subjective pangs of conscience, tradition, or consensus.
However, there is evidence, but certainly not proof, that a deity called the Lord of Light exists in the Game of Thrones reality (I have written about this before [4]). A rival religion seems to have the epistemic advantage over the religion associated with the Seven. Since the evidence for the Lord of Light--also called R'hllor--surpasses the evidence for the Seven, R'hllor is the deity with, at the very least, a seemingly higher probability of existing.
The light of the Seven, however bright its followers believe it to be, is epistemologically dim at best. Even if it was a true religion in-universe, some of its subscribers or supporters simply use it to obtain political or social power for themselves (like Cersei for a time, before the Faith Militant turned against her). As with actual religions that operate in the real world, the Faith of the Seven can be hijacked for reasons that are tangential to the core doctrines of the religion. When the crown and the clergy clash civilians must take shelter from the two institutions intended to protect them from harm.
[1]. http://ew.com/article/2015/05/24/game-thrones-george-rr-martin-religion/
[2]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-refutation-of-trinitarianism-part-1.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-refutation-of-trinitarianism-part-2.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/a-refutation-of-trinitarianism-part-3.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/cerseis-punishment-and-hosea-23.html
[4]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/moral-skepticism-in-westeros-revisited.html
Author George R.R. Martin intriguingly modeled the Seven after a version of Christian Trinitarianism [1] that resembles modalism, a take on the Trinity where the three different divine figures in Christianity are described as three different aspects of the same being, like a person wearing three different sets of clothing is just the same person with three distinct outward appearances (as an aside, the Bible teaches neither modalism nor the popular conception of the Trinity [2], despite the latter having deeply infiltrated evangelical theology). In Game of Thrones the Seven are referred to both as a collective entity or as if they are seven different deities, depending on the context and speaker, though the religion itself describes the Seven as a single deity. The Seven thus avoids the kind of objections that can be legitimately raised against contemporary Trinitarianism.
Does the Seven have reality on its side? Is it real in Game of Thrones? A faction called the Faith Militant certainly acts like it, the Faith Militant being a forceful branch of the Faith of the Seven that actively punishes people for miscellaneous actions that the religion condemns as sins, such as Cersei's adulterous incest [3]. There is no evidence whatsoever mentioned in the series for the existence of the Seven in-universe, and thus there is no basis for the Faith Militant to impose their values on others.
This means that the most that followers of the Faith of the Seven can appeal to are private convictions, subjective inner feelings of spiritual confirmation, traditions, and social support--they cannot actually demonstrate that the religion is true as an overall system, whatever their level of zealousness or commitment. There is also no basis for the secular people of King's Landing (the city holding the Iron Throne that the War of the Five Kings is fought over) to object to the Faith Militant's behaviors, since, like the followers of the Seven, all they can appeal to also reduces down to subjective pangs of conscience, tradition, or consensus.
However, there is evidence, but certainly not proof, that a deity called the Lord of Light exists in the Game of Thrones reality (I have written about this before [4]). A rival religion seems to have the epistemic advantage over the religion associated with the Seven. Since the evidence for the Lord of Light--also called R'hllor--surpasses the evidence for the Seven, R'hllor is the deity with, at the very least, a seemingly higher probability of existing.
The light of the Seven, however bright its followers believe it to be, is epistemologically dim at best. Even if it was a true religion in-universe, some of its subscribers or supporters simply use it to obtain political or social power for themselves (like Cersei for a time, before the Faith Militant turned against her). As with actual religions that operate in the real world, the Faith of the Seven can be hijacked for reasons that are tangential to the core doctrines of the religion. When the crown and the clergy clash civilians must take shelter from the two institutions intended to protect them from harm.
[1]. http://ew.com/article/2015/05/24/game-thrones-george-rr-martin-religion/
[2]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/a-refutation-of-trinitarianism-part-1.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/09/a-refutation-of-trinitarianism-part-2.html
C. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/a-refutation-of-trinitarianism-part-3.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/cerseis-punishment-and-hosea-23.html
[4]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/moral-skepticism-in-westeros-revisited.html
Sunday, April 22, 2018
Protecting Psychology From Psychologists
Many people seem to experience the temptation to say or believe that what is true of one person must be true of another. This is indeed the case if one refers to extremely specific things about human nature. All humans, for instance, are conscious minds in mammalian bodies, or else they would not be human. Yet that all humans have minds does not mean that their mental traits (personalities) are the same, just as the fact that all humans have bodies does not mean that they all have the same physical strength or skin color, or that they all choose to partake in the same activities with their bodies. There is an enormous spectrum of human desires, motivations, and behavioral traits that are not uniform across time or geography.
Sometimes I hear psychology get criticized for the extrapolations of some psychologists, so I want to make clear what truth these criticisms might possess. Psychology itself is the study of the human mind, personalities, and behaviors, a thing quite valuable in the pursuit of knowledge. Individual psychologists, however, might make rather drastic mistakes in reasoning, especially if they belong to faulty schools of psychology (deterministic forms of behaviorism, for example). I clarify that only some psychologists are guilty of these fallacies to emphasize that I am not committing the same error of generalization in pointing to it! They might assume that what is true of one person's motivations must likewise be true in the case of another person's motivations, or that some invisible and thus unverifiable part of human consciousness (the subconscious) controls human thought and behavior, or they might embrace some other stupidity. But idiotic beliefs or erroneous conclusions of some psychologists do not make the entirety of psychology illegitimate.
No fallacy has been committed in the careful observation of a particular individual or the classification of various personalities or mental disorders. If a psychologist extrapolates from one person to another regarding personality, this is where he or she has lapsed into error (i.e. "This woman is like this, therefore women have a tendency to . . .", "Joseph likes this, therefore this study shows that men like . . ."). This indicates nothing problematic with psychology itself as a discipline, only with the conclusions held by a particular psychologist. Because of bullshit fallacies and extrapolations one might see a "new study" get replaced by a newer study, and that study contested by a newer one, with the information from one conflicting with the other(s), until only rational people can see that it is not psychology itself that is the problem, but the absurd sub-ideologies that people might bring into psychology that are the problem.
Some people I know are quick to dismiss the majority of psychology as a discipline because of the stupidity of some historical and contemporary psychologists--yet we must be careful to not indict a discipline when it is only some of the participants who are wrong. Just as an unintelligent theologian does not render all of theology false, or an assumptive physicist does not mean the entire discipline of physics is useless, the irrationality of some psychologists does not discredit the whole of psychology.
I certainly detest it when a psychologist or study extrapolates from one person to another--or contrives asinine theories of mental metaphysics (like the subconscious in the Freudian sense) or views cultural conditioning as an inescapable force. Yet, reason distinguishes between the stupidity of a person and the usefulness or legitimacy of a discipline in itself. I simply want to make it clear that psychology itself, as a mixture of general philosophy, phenomenology, and science (in some cases), is not inherently built on fabrications or assumptions. Sometimes psychology must be protected from psychologists.
Sometimes I hear psychology get criticized for the extrapolations of some psychologists, so I want to make clear what truth these criticisms might possess. Psychology itself is the study of the human mind, personalities, and behaviors, a thing quite valuable in the pursuit of knowledge. Individual psychologists, however, might make rather drastic mistakes in reasoning, especially if they belong to faulty schools of psychology (deterministic forms of behaviorism, for example). I clarify that only some psychologists are guilty of these fallacies to emphasize that I am not committing the same error of generalization in pointing to it! They might assume that what is true of one person's motivations must likewise be true in the case of another person's motivations, or that some invisible and thus unverifiable part of human consciousness (the subconscious) controls human thought and behavior, or they might embrace some other stupidity. But idiotic beliefs or erroneous conclusions of some psychologists do not make the entirety of psychology illegitimate.
No fallacy has been committed in the careful observation of a particular individual or the classification of various personalities or mental disorders. If a psychologist extrapolates from one person to another regarding personality, this is where he or she has lapsed into error (i.e. "This woman is like this, therefore women have a tendency to . . .", "Joseph likes this, therefore this study shows that men like . . ."). This indicates nothing problematic with psychology itself as a discipline, only with the conclusions held by a particular psychologist. Because of bullshit fallacies and extrapolations one might see a "new study" get replaced by a newer study, and that study contested by a newer one, with the information from one conflicting with the other(s), until only rational people can see that it is not psychology itself that is the problem, but the absurd sub-ideologies that people might bring into psychology that are the problem.
Some people I know are quick to dismiss the majority of psychology as a discipline because of the stupidity of some historical and contemporary psychologists--yet we must be careful to not indict a discipline when it is only some of the participants who are wrong. Just as an unintelligent theologian does not render all of theology false, or an assumptive physicist does not mean the entire discipline of physics is useless, the irrationality of some psychologists does not discredit the whole of psychology.
I certainly detest it when a psychologist or study extrapolates from one person to another--or contrives asinine theories of mental metaphysics (like the subconscious in the Freudian sense) or views cultural conditioning as an inescapable force. Yet, reason distinguishes between the stupidity of a person and the usefulness or legitimacy of a discipline in itself. I simply want to make it clear that psychology itself, as a mixture of general philosophy, phenomenology, and science (in some cases), is not inherently built on fabrications or assumptions. Sometimes psychology must be protected from psychologists.
Eternal Fire: A Common Assumption
Biblical descriptions of the fires of hell are often misunderstood, with the adjective attached to the fire frequently being cited as a reference to the duration of a person's punishment in hell. This is a case of an easily identifiable confusion resulting in grossly heretical claims about the nature of God, hell, and justice. How exactly does this confusion arise?
Jesus does describe hellfire as being eternal (Mathew 18:8, 25:41). This cannot be legitimately denied by exegetes. One must be careful not to draw unlinked conclusions from this fact, though. For instance, the duration of the flames themselves, which is clearly defined as perpetual, tells us nothing at all about the fate of things thrown inside them. These verses pose absolutely no threat to the doctrine of annihilationism, since it does not follow from the fire itself being eternal that anything placed in the fire will burn eternally without ceasing to exist. Just because the fire itself exists forever does not mean that unsaved humans will last forever in the fire.
The confusion of eternal conscious torment (for all unsaved humans, I must clarify [1]) comes about when people read that hellfire is called eternal and then assume that "eternal" must also refer to the suffering of any being that enters hell. This is both logically and textually an unsound conclusion, yet it is such a simple one that a person could go years without noticing it due to its commonality. That something is entrenched so deeply in Christian subcultures does not make it true.
Since these verses (and similar ones about eternal fire or eternal destruction) are basically all that supporters of eternal conscious torment for humans have to rely upon to start making a Biblical argument, the very foundations of their claims are fatally flawed at the outset, for the fire's eternality does not even come close to establishing their other ideas--like the inherent immortality of the human soul or the inherent justice of eternal conscious torment. Putting annihilationism in its rightful place as the acknowledged Biblical position on hell is the duty of any sound Christian thinker.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/revelation-20-and-annihilationism.html
Jesus does describe hellfire as being eternal (Mathew 18:8, 25:41). This cannot be legitimately denied by exegetes. One must be careful not to draw unlinked conclusions from this fact, though. For instance, the duration of the flames themselves, which is clearly defined as perpetual, tells us nothing at all about the fate of things thrown inside them. These verses pose absolutely no threat to the doctrine of annihilationism, since it does not follow from the fire itself being eternal that anything placed in the fire will burn eternally without ceasing to exist. Just because the fire itself exists forever does not mean that unsaved humans will last forever in the fire.
The confusion of eternal conscious torment (for all unsaved humans, I must clarify [1]) comes about when people read that hellfire is called eternal and then assume that "eternal" must also refer to the suffering of any being that enters hell. This is both logically and textually an unsound conclusion, yet it is such a simple one that a person could go years without noticing it due to its commonality. That something is entrenched so deeply in Christian subcultures does not make it true.
Since these verses (and similar ones about eternal fire or eternal destruction) are basically all that supporters of eternal conscious torment for humans have to rely upon to start making a Biblical argument, the very foundations of their claims are fatally flawed at the outset, for the fire's eternality does not even come close to establishing their other ideas--like the inherent immortality of the human soul or the inherent justice of eternal conscious torment. Putting annihilationism in its rightful place as the acknowledged Biblical position on hell is the duty of any sound Christian thinker.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/revelation-20-and-annihilationism.html
Uttering Names Of Other Gods
I was told several days ago that a certain verse of the Bible, Exodus 23:13, condemns the very mention of a pagan god or goddess by human beings. Here I will refute this understanding of the verse, demonstrating that it cannot mean this because of what other passages state. I will first present the verse below:
Exodus 23:13--"Be careful to do everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips."
First of all, in context, this verse seems to be warning against uttering the names of other gods in the sense of calling upon them for aid or treating them as real entities. This is established by the use of the word "invoke" in Exodus 23:13, which means to call upon something. Certainly this would amount to a dilution of commitment to God, since, in order to seek the power of some pagan deity, one must either treat Yahweh as if he does not have the ability to act or seek another deity despite acknowledging Yahweh's sufficiency.
Secondly, and far more significantly, the Bible itself mentions the names of other deities like Baal (Numbers 25:3-5, Deuteronomy 4:3-4), Molech (Leviticus 20:1-5, 1 Kings 11:7), Ashtoreth (1 Kings 11:5)--should we not read these passages aloud? Moses, who received the Law from Yahweh, mentions the name of Baal in Numbers 25:3-5 on God's behalf. God also clearly speaks the names of other deities throughout Scripture (for instance, see Leviticus 20:2-5 again), meaning that if it truly is sinful to utter the names of other gods or goddesses, then God himself sins by doing this, and yet God cannot sin (James 1:13). So it cannot be inherently sinful to simply refer by name to false deities like Baal, Ares, Odin, Zeus, or Molech. What is certainly sinful is to call upon these deities as if they have legitimate existence or authority, as if they can come to one's aid or uproot Yahweh's power.
Also, the translation of Exodus 23:13 is questioned by some, with the claim arising that the verse does not condemn forming the sounds of names but remembering other deities with reverence. This, if true, means that these arguments of mine are not even necessary to show that it is a misinterpretation to universally condemn human reference to gods besides Yahweh. However, I do not often seek out proofs beyond purely logic-based ones whenever I do not need to, since no additional inquiry is necessary if logic alone establishes or disproves a position. Thus even if the verse has not been mistranslated, all of my previous points hold by necessity and my conclusion is still correct.
Does someone sin when he or she refers to pagan gods and goddesses? Not necessarily! The answer strictly hinges on the intent behind the words, for merely acknowledging a name does not mean that one actually believes in a deity or betrays God. Since this is the case, and since God himself mentions names of pagan deities, one can objectively refute the claim that saying a name is sinful in itself, without even consulting the original Hebrew wording.
Exodus 23:13--"Be careful to do everything I have said to you. Do not invoke the names of other gods; do not let them be heard on your lips."
First of all, in context, this verse seems to be warning against uttering the names of other gods in the sense of calling upon them for aid or treating them as real entities. This is established by the use of the word "invoke" in Exodus 23:13, which means to call upon something. Certainly this would amount to a dilution of commitment to God, since, in order to seek the power of some pagan deity, one must either treat Yahweh as if he does not have the ability to act or seek another deity despite acknowledging Yahweh's sufficiency.
 |
| Poseidon. |
Secondly, and far more significantly, the Bible itself mentions the names of other deities like Baal (Numbers 25:3-5, Deuteronomy 4:3-4), Molech (Leviticus 20:1-5, 1 Kings 11:7), Ashtoreth (1 Kings 11:5)--should we not read these passages aloud? Moses, who received the Law from Yahweh, mentions the name of Baal in Numbers 25:3-5 on God's behalf. God also clearly speaks the names of other deities throughout Scripture (for instance, see Leviticus 20:2-5 again), meaning that if it truly is sinful to utter the names of other gods or goddesses, then God himself sins by doing this, and yet God cannot sin (James 1:13). So it cannot be inherently sinful to simply refer by name to false deities like Baal, Ares, Odin, Zeus, or Molech. What is certainly sinful is to call upon these deities as if they have legitimate existence or authority, as if they can come to one's aid or uproot Yahweh's power.
Also, the translation of Exodus 23:13 is questioned by some, with the claim arising that the verse does not condemn forming the sounds of names but remembering other deities with reverence. This, if true, means that these arguments of mine are not even necessary to show that it is a misinterpretation to universally condemn human reference to gods besides Yahweh. However, I do not often seek out proofs beyond purely logic-based ones whenever I do not need to, since no additional inquiry is necessary if logic alone establishes or disproves a position. Thus even if the verse has not been mistranslated, all of my previous points hold by necessity and my conclusion is still correct.
 |
| Ishtar. |
Does someone sin when he or she refers to pagan gods and goddesses? Not necessarily! The answer strictly hinges on the intent behind the words, for merely acknowledging a name does not mean that one actually believes in a deity or betrays God. Since this is the case, and since God himself mentions names of pagan deities, one can objectively refute the claim that saying a name is sinful in itself, without even consulting the original Hebrew wording.
 |
| Athena. |
Saturday, April 21, 2018
Another Error Of William Lane Craig
"I cannot think of any other belief which we have that is so fundamental and so powerfully warranted as the belief that time is real . . ."
--William Lane Craig [1]
Once again, William Lane Craig has disappointed me with his laughably inept summary of some aspect of reality. In a 2014 article that I recently found, Craig literally says that time is the most certain and foundational thing we can know of. It is astonishing to me that a professional philosopher would say that about anything other than logic and consciousness, since they alone constitute the very core of reality, as logic governs the absolute foundations of everything and there is no knowledge without a consciousness.
Truth and logic exist even in the total absence of time, matter, and conscious minds [2]--they cannot be false and cannot not exist, and nothing short of absolute certainty is what they impart. Yes, I have absolute certainty that the present moment exists and I cannot be mistaken about this, yet the existence of time is not at the foundation of necessary truths and knowledge of time is certainly not at the absolute core of epistemology and metaphysics.
There are necessary truths that are self-evident, but the existence of the past is not among them (and Craig seems to be arguing that the past, as well as the present, is obvious and at the foundation of knowledge and reality). Craig argues that because we have "temporal experience" that we are automatically justified in believing that the past exists as it appears to us, saying that "It follows from the above argument that we are prima facie justified in holding our belief in the objective reality of the distinction between past, present, and future." The existence of the present moment is self-evident in the sense that to doubt the present moment I have to exist in it, rendering any objection to the present moment self-defeating, as there cannot not be a "right now" by the nature of the way reality is [3]. But the existence of the present moment is still not as foundational as the laws of logic, the existence of truth, or the self-evidence of my own consciousness, which are all at the absolute core of my knowledge. And the past is not affirmed simply by establishing the present.
I know that the past exists because by the time I have focused on or reflected on the present moment, the present has elapsed and the moment I started focusing on has left and gone into the past. At the very least, the past has existed for a moment. This is in no way a prima facie assumed belief, as it is one that is logically demonstrable, and thus cannot be false. If I did not have this basis rooted in logic, I would have no justification for believing in the past at all, contrary to what Craig claims.
No one is prima facie justified in believing in anything, since the absence of a "defeater," as Craig sometimes calls it (meaning a refutation of something), does not establish the veracity of a claim. Prima facie means something is held to be true, i.e. believed, until disproven. However, an inability to disprove something does not prove that it is true, and there is an enormous difference between calling something seemingly probable and calling it true.
Craig has a habit of accepting certain things as true simply because he acknowledges he can't prove them false (the presence of the Holy Spirit [4], the correctness of his moral feelings, the accuracy of his sensory perceptions, etc). But I cannot prove that I should not kill every living being I come across--so should I therefore believe that I should kill every living being I can? This does not follow at all! This is one of the most asinine arguments one could ever make for anything. It is intellectually honest and rational to admit that one cannot know something if that thing truly cannot be known, and this might mean that a claim has to be rephrased so that it becomes defensible. I hope that someone does not need to even identify the stupidity of prima facie beliefs to see that knowledge and the existence of time are not at the absolute foundation of epistemology and reality--they are very foundational, but cannot be at the very foundations of them.
[1]. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/the-reality-of-time
[2]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-impossibility-of-absolutely-nothing.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-immateriality-of-logic.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/metaphysics-and-absolute-certainty.html
[4]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/04/william-lane-craigs-foundational.html
--William Lane Craig [1]
Once again, William Lane Craig has disappointed me with his laughably inept summary of some aspect of reality. In a 2014 article that I recently found, Craig literally says that time is the most certain and foundational thing we can know of. It is astonishing to me that a professional philosopher would say that about anything other than logic and consciousness, since they alone constitute the very core of reality, as logic governs the absolute foundations of everything and there is no knowledge without a consciousness.
Truth and logic exist even in the total absence of time, matter, and conscious minds [2]--they cannot be false and cannot not exist, and nothing short of absolute certainty is what they impart. Yes, I have absolute certainty that the present moment exists and I cannot be mistaken about this, yet the existence of time is not at the foundation of necessary truths and knowledge of time is certainly not at the absolute core of epistemology and metaphysics.
There are necessary truths that are self-evident, but the existence of the past is not among them (and Craig seems to be arguing that the past, as well as the present, is obvious and at the foundation of knowledge and reality). Craig argues that because we have "temporal experience" that we are automatically justified in believing that the past exists as it appears to us, saying that "It follows from the above argument that we are prima facie justified in holding our belief in the objective reality of the distinction between past, present, and future." The existence of the present moment is self-evident in the sense that to doubt the present moment I have to exist in it, rendering any objection to the present moment self-defeating, as there cannot not be a "right now" by the nature of the way reality is [3]. But the existence of the present moment is still not as foundational as the laws of logic, the existence of truth, or the self-evidence of my own consciousness, which are all at the absolute core of my knowledge. And the past is not affirmed simply by establishing the present.
I know that the past exists because by the time I have focused on or reflected on the present moment, the present has elapsed and the moment I started focusing on has left and gone into the past. At the very least, the past has existed for a moment. This is in no way a prima facie assumed belief, as it is one that is logically demonstrable, and thus cannot be false. If I did not have this basis rooted in logic, I would have no justification for believing in the past at all, contrary to what Craig claims.
No one is prima facie justified in believing in anything, since the absence of a "defeater," as Craig sometimes calls it (meaning a refutation of something), does not establish the veracity of a claim. Prima facie means something is held to be true, i.e. believed, until disproven. However, an inability to disprove something does not prove that it is true, and there is an enormous difference between calling something seemingly probable and calling it true.
Craig has a habit of accepting certain things as true simply because he acknowledges he can't prove them false (the presence of the Holy Spirit [4], the correctness of his moral feelings, the accuracy of his sensory perceptions, etc). But I cannot prove that I should not kill every living being I come across--so should I therefore believe that I should kill every living being I can? This does not follow at all! This is one of the most asinine arguments one could ever make for anything. It is intellectually honest and rational to admit that one cannot know something if that thing truly cannot be known, and this might mean that a claim has to be rephrased so that it becomes defensible. I hope that someone does not need to even identify the stupidity of prima facie beliefs to see that knowledge and the existence of time are not at the absolute foundation of epistemology and reality--they are very foundational, but cannot be at the very foundations of them.
[1]. https://www.reasonablefaith.org/writings/question-answer/the-reality-of-time
[2]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-impossibility-of-absolutely-nothing.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/10/the-immateriality-of-logic.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/12/metaphysics-and-absolute-certainty.html
[4]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/04/william-lane-craigs-foundational.html
Friday, April 20, 2018
Profanity And Intelligence
Have you ever heard someone say that using profanity shows a lack of intelligence? Ironically, believing that whether or not someone uses profanity has anything at all to do with his or her intelligence is actually a mark of stupidity. If someone truly holds that it follows necessarily from a person using profanity--whatever the amount of profanity or the exact words used--that the person is somehow unable to find more "sophisticated" words or that the person is unintelligent or unimaginative, then the person holding that belief relies on serious errors in reasoning.
I use profanity because I feel like using it and because it's not sinful [1], not because there are not other words I could substitute for profanity, and certainly not because I am unintelligent. I have no obligation to not do something that is not sinful (though I do abstain from using profanity in the presence of someone who asks me to do so out of love for that person), so there is no obligation for me to submit my preferences to besides not intentionally trying to offend people. But some might mistake my habit of using profanity for evidence that I do not know what else to say, when, in fact, I am well aware of multiple ways to state what is on my mind without using profanity at all. But, even if, hypothetically, someone truly does not know how to articulate something without profanity, this still says nothing about his or her intelligence, because intelligence is the extent to which someone grasps logic, not how well they communicate with others.
The other issue, which might surface in conversation with some people, is that whether or not profanity signifies unintelligence has absolutely nothing to do with any alleged moral hazards of using profanity. If someone actually uses the mythical profanity-unintelligence connection as a moral argument against use of profanity, he or she is arguing from a nonexistent connection to an ungrounded moral conclusion. It can grow quite tiring to have people make assumptions about your intelligence based upon the arbitrary linguistic terms you use, which amount to simply making sounds in a different way, but it is hilarious to me when people think that a correlation with unintelligence (in this case it might be viewed more as an act of unintelligence than a sign of low general intelligence) clearly makes something intrinsically wrong. That does not automatically follow, and is completely a separate issue (making the claim a red herring at best).
The most intelligent people I know use profanity. Some of the least intelligent people I know do not use profanity, or at least not around me. I don't even need to survey those around me to know that intelligence has nothing to do with profanity whatsoever, since logic reveals that a perfectly intelligent person could use heavy profanity frequently and that an extremely unintelligent person might not ever use profanity. Nothing about one's intelligence follows from whether or not one uses profanity, regardless of how "offensive" the words might be--and whether or not someone is offended by a word is entirely subjective.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-delusion-of-inverse-morality.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-fallacies-of-anti-profanity.html
I use profanity because I feel like using it and because it's not sinful [1], not because there are not other words I could substitute for profanity, and certainly not because I am unintelligent. I have no obligation to not do something that is not sinful (though I do abstain from using profanity in the presence of someone who asks me to do so out of love for that person), so there is no obligation for me to submit my preferences to besides not intentionally trying to offend people. But some might mistake my habit of using profanity for evidence that I do not know what else to say, when, in fact, I am well aware of multiple ways to state what is on my mind without using profanity at all. But, even if, hypothetically, someone truly does not know how to articulate something without profanity, this still says nothing about his or her intelligence, because intelligence is the extent to which someone grasps logic, not how well they communicate with others.
The other issue, which might surface in conversation with some people, is that whether or not profanity signifies unintelligence has absolutely nothing to do with any alleged moral hazards of using profanity. If someone actually uses the mythical profanity-unintelligence connection as a moral argument against use of profanity, he or she is arguing from a nonexistent connection to an ungrounded moral conclusion. It can grow quite tiring to have people make assumptions about your intelligence based upon the arbitrary linguistic terms you use, which amount to simply making sounds in a different way, but it is hilarious to me when people think that a correlation with unintelligence (in this case it might be viewed more as an act of unintelligence than a sign of low general intelligence) clearly makes something intrinsically wrong. That does not automatically follow, and is completely a separate issue (making the claim a red herring at best).
The most intelligent people I know use profanity. Some of the least intelligent people I know do not use profanity, or at least not around me. I don't even need to survey those around me to know that intelligence has nothing to do with profanity whatsoever, since logic reveals that a perfectly intelligent person could use heavy profanity frequently and that an extremely unintelligent person might not ever use profanity. Nothing about one's intelligence follows from whether or not one uses profanity, regardless of how "offensive" the words might be--and whether or not someone is offended by a word is entirely subjective.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/05/the-delusion-of-inverse-morality.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-fallacies-of-anti-profanity.html
Thursday, April 19, 2018
Intentional Irrationality
The vast majority of people I have met in my life are, when it comes to matters of importance, at best sheep--not only sheep, but also, in their own ways, social lemmings and intellectual insects. But a lion has no reason to care about the petty concerns of sheep. Likewise, a thorough rationalist has no reason to concern himself or herself with appeasing those who choose to remain in stupidity.
On the Christian worldview exercise of rationality is an objective moral obligation (Proverbs 19:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:21, 1 Peter 3:15), and people who intentionally refuse to do good are necessarily inferior beings to those who do intentionally do the right thing. "If people act in a morally wrong way without concern for their errors, then they choose to pursue a path that is morally inferior to the alternative pathway towards moral correctness . . . But if some courses of action and motivations are better than others, then it follows that those who actively seek the morally lesser ones are inferior to those who seek the opposite, since they intentionally choose the actions that are inferior" [1]. It follows, then, that on the Christian worldview those who refuse to exercise reason--instead clinging to errors, assumptions, and fallacies--have a lesser value than those who earnestly pursue reason and righteousness. They have chosen to align themselves with what is morally lesser and thus they themselves are lesser.
The belief of some that all ignorant people should be corrected gently is an asinine one. Some ignorance is self-imposed, and some ignorance is the result of other factors (geographical or technological limitations). There is no sin in the latter, yet the former is Biblically inexcusable, and yet so many Christians choose to live in an intellectual stupor, exchanging knowledge for assumptions, truth for error, and verification for ignorance.
A lion does not need to tread lightly lest it offend lambs, and rationalists need not worry themselves with the lesser concerns of the intellectually and morally inferior, for truth, and not other people, is the great prize of discovering reality. Though sadism and malice are inherently wrong, rational people are not Biblically obligated to treat the morally inferior as complete equals, which would be an inherently unjust thing.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/people-are-not-morally-equal.html
On the Christian worldview exercise of rationality is an objective moral obligation (Proverbs 19:2, 1 Thessalonians 5:21, 1 Peter 3:15), and people who intentionally refuse to do good are necessarily inferior beings to those who do intentionally do the right thing. "If people act in a morally wrong way without concern for their errors, then they choose to pursue a path that is morally inferior to the alternative pathway towards moral correctness . . . But if some courses of action and motivations are better than others, then it follows that those who actively seek the morally lesser ones are inferior to those who seek the opposite, since they intentionally choose the actions that are inferior" [1]. It follows, then, that on the Christian worldview those who refuse to exercise reason--instead clinging to errors, assumptions, and fallacies--have a lesser value than those who earnestly pursue reason and righteousness. They have chosen to align themselves with what is morally lesser and thus they themselves are lesser.
The belief of some that all ignorant people should be corrected gently is an asinine one. Some ignorance is self-imposed, and some ignorance is the result of other factors (geographical or technological limitations). There is no sin in the latter, yet the former is Biblically inexcusable, and yet so many Christians choose to live in an intellectual stupor, exchanging knowledge for assumptions, truth for error, and verification for ignorance.
A lion does not need to tread lightly lest it offend lambs, and rationalists need not worry themselves with the lesser concerns of the intellectually and morally inferior, for truth, and not other people, is the great prize of discovering reality. Though sadism and malice are inherently wrong, rational people are not Biblically obligated to treat the morally inferior as complete equals, which would be an inherently unjust thing.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/people-are-not-morally-equal.html
The Sins Of The Pharisees
The word Pharisee is some times thrown at someone as if it invalidates their arguments. I have been called a Pharisee several times in my life (along with several other titles intended to negatively describe me), and I scoff at the ignorance and stupidity of those who charged me with such a name, for what they meant by the term only showed that they understood neither me nor what a Pharisee is. It needs to be clarified that the Pharisees were a group of religious leaders around the time of Jesus, and thus the errors of one Pharisee does not indict the entire group. Although they are, for some reason, sometimes described as all being against Jesus' teachings, not all of them were ideological opponents of Jesus (like Nicodemus in John 3:1-21 and 19:38-39). The broad characterization of every Pharisee as an enemy of Christ is an oversimplification, a fallacious construction of shallow minds.
When "Pharisee" is used as an accusation, it usually is a charge that one has a high regard for Mosaic Law or Biblical commands in general, or perhaps that one carefully observes the exact commands of God. The modern evangelical attempt to distance themselves from Mosaic Law can sometimes motivate such accusations. Yet the problem of the Pharisees is not that they obeyed God, it is that they did not. In Matthew 15:3-9, Jesus harshly criticizes the Pharisees for not obeying God's laws and for instead honoring their own unbiblical constructs. In John 7:19 Jesus charges a crowd of Jews near the temple (meaning Pharisees were very possibly among them) with the offense of not keeping God's laws. Jesus never condemned people for actually living as God demands; he opposed doing the right thing for the sake of personal gain or public reputation. He condemned selective, insincere upholding of Mosaic Law, not the Law itself (Matthew 5:17-19).
The Pharisees Jesus rebuked may have strictly observed (at least when others were watching) their own arbitrary, non-obligatory, extra-Biblical rules, but the idea that the Pharisees Jesus sparred with obeyed Mosaic Law as a whole is untrue, and, ironically, if they did obey Mosaic Law they would not have added their subjective preferences alongside the commands of Yahweh (Deuteronomy 4:2). If a self-proclaimed Christian calls you a Pharisee for simply living as God demands, then that person is unintelligent, uneducated, or both stupid and uneducated.
When "Pharisee" is used as an accusation, it usually is a charge that one has a high regard for Mosaic Law or Biblical commands in general, or perhaps that one carefully observes the exact commands of God. The modern evangelical attempt to distance themselves from Mosaic Law can sometimes motivate such accusations. Yet the problem of the Pharisees is not that they obeyed God, it is that they did not. In Matthew 15:3-9, Jesus harshly criticizes the Pharisees for not obeying God's laws and for instead honoring their own unbiblical constructs. In John 7:19 Jesus charges a crowd of Jews near the temple (meaning Pharisees were very possibly among them) with the offense of not keeping God's laws. Jesus never condemned people for actually living as God demands; he opposed doing the right thing for the sake of personal gain or public reputation. He condemned selective, insincere upholding of Mosaic Law, not the Law itself (Matthew 5:17-19).
The Pharisees Jesus rebuked may have strictly observed (at least when others were watching) their own arbitrary, non-obligatory, extra-Biblical rules, but the idea that the Pharisees Jesus sparred with obeyed Mosaic Law as a whole is untrue, and, ironically, if they did obey Mosaic Law they would not have added their subjective preferences alongside the commands of Yahweh (Deuteronomy 4:2). If a self-proclaimed Christian calls you a Pharisee for simply living as God demands, then that person is unintelligent, uneducated, or both stupid and uneducated.
Christian Socialism
"A socialist Christian is more dangerous than a socialist atheist” (67), says a character in Brothers Karamazov. When distinguished from communism as a separate (if not related) ideology in modern times, socialism usually refers to an ideology of involuntary wealth redistribution that is not maintained with the same degree of political force as statist communism. A socialist Christian could be more dangerous than a socialist atheist because he or she might believe that God endorses some case of involuntary wealth redistribution. When a person thinks that God allows—or perhaps even demands—some abomination, misguided religious zeal can motivate great atrocities. Is there such a thing as Christian socialism/communism?
Christian socialists or communists might appeal to the behaviors of the early church in the book of Acts, claiming Biblical affirmation of wealth redistribution. The actual contents of Acts, though, neither prescribe any form of socialism/communism nor describe nonconsensual redistribution of resources. Acts 2:44-45 recounts how early Christians voluntarily shared wealth: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” This is remarkably different than more recent socialism and communism—when a faction seeks to reorganize the resources of another group by taking that group’s resources, something quite contrary to the love-based actions of the early Christians occurs.
If a socialistic idea goes beyond the version of property redistribution in Acts 2, it cannot legitimately be held up as a Christian concept. Other parts of the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, very forcefully acknowledge a right to private property. Scripture even permits people to kill thieves who invade their homes at night, saying that in these incidents “the defender is not guilty of bloodshed” (Exodus 22:2). The early church in no way practiced a form of wealth redistribution that deprived people of private property without their consent. In Acts, the communism/socialism in the church was a voluntary system, founded on the mutual love shared by Christians who regarded each other as brothers and sisters. To isolate a communistic or socialistic atmosphere from this ideological framework can quickly prove disastrous. Divorced from uncoerced love, wealth redistribution will be fueled by egoism, covetousness, and a dehumanizing tendency to view others as means towards a self-focused (or state-focused) end.
Yes, there is such a thing as Christian socialism/communism, and it is described in Acts—but it is not obligatory for Christians and it does not deprive anyone of belongings against that person’s will. No one had to surrender personal ownership of items. Acts never prescribes this or credits God with commanding it. It was a collective decision made out of genuine affection for fellow Christians, not a forced resource pooling in the name of God. This crucial factor separates the actions of the early church from numerous other socialistic practices throughout history.
A Christian who mistakenly holds that God demands or encourages a different kind of socialism/communism, though, can be a very dangerous person indeed. When an atheist is a socialist of any sort, he or she is not misrepresenting the nature of God. Such a person does not think himself or herself theologically obligated to redistribute the property of others. A Christian, though, might stubbornly resist all correction, embracing the idea that God wants or commands this redistribution. This can prove dangerous indeed.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Brothers Karamazov. Trans. Pevear, Richard, and Volokhonsky, Larissa. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1990. Print.
Christian socialists or communists might appeal to the behaviors of the early church in the book of Acts, claiming Biblical affirmation of wealth redistribution. The actual contents of Acts, though, neither prescribe any form of socialism/communism nor describe nonconsensual redistribution of resources. Acts 2:44-45 recounts how early Christians voluntarily shared wealth: “All the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need.” This is remarkably different than more recent socialism and communism—when a faction seeks to reorganize the resources of another group by taking that group’s resources, something quite contrary to the love-based actions of the early Christians occurs.
If a socialistic idea goes beyond the version of property redistribution in Acts 2, it cannot legitimately be held up as a Christian concept. Other parts of the Bible, particularly in the Old Testament, very forcefully acknowledge a right to private property. Scripture even permits people to kill thieves who invade their homes at night, saying that in these incidents “the defender is not guilty of bloodshed” (Exodus 22:2). The early church in no way practiced a form of wealth redistribution that deprived people of private property without their consent. In Acts, the communism/socialism in the church was a voluntary system, founded on the mutual love shared by Christians who regarded each other as brothers and sisters. To isolate a communistic or socialistic atmosphere from this ideological framework can quickly prove disastrous. Divorced from uncoerced love, wealth redistribution will be fueled by egoism, covetousness, and a dehumanizing tendency to view others as means towards a self-focused (or state-focused) end.
Yes, there is such a thing as Christian socialism/communism, and it is described in Acts—but it is not obligatory for Christians and it does not deprive anyone of belongings against that person’s will. No one had to surrender personal ownership of items. Acts never prescribes this or credits God with commanding it. It was a collective decision made out of genuine affection for fellow Christians, not a forced resource pooling in the name of God. This crucial factor separates the actions of the early church from numerous other socialistic practices throughout history.
A Christian who mistakenly holds that God demands or encourages a different kind of socialism/communism, though, can be a very dangerous person indeed. When an atheist is a socialist of any sort, he or she is not misrepresenting the nature of God. Such a person does not think himself or herself theologically obligated to redistribute the property of others. A Christian, though, might stubbornly resist all correction, embracing the idea that God wants or commands this redistribution. This can prove dangerous indeed.
Dostoevsky, Fyodor. Brothers Karamazov. Trans. Pevear, Richard, and Volokhonsky, Larissa. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 1990. Print.
Tuesday, April 17, 2018
The Will To Power In Westeros
"You really think a crown gives you power?"
--Tywin Lannister, Game of Thrones (season three, episode ten)
I saw only tonight that today is seven years to the day that Game of Thrones first aired. Because this time of significance will soon pass, I wanted to write about something in honor of the show's seven year anniversary: power, which (politically) is the strength of a leader. In Game of Thrones, a world is portrayed where many figures will do practically anything, irrespective of the violence or selfishness involved, in order to establish or preserve their own authority and societal dominance. The nature of power, the ways that it can be obtained, and the ways it can be maintained are explored from the first season onward, the characters revealing their conflicting worldviews as the series unfolds. Whether or not this was specifically intended, the many ideologies and perspectives clearly affirm the basic components of postmodernism [1].
Game of Thrones expertly depicts what human behavior can easily reduce down to in the absence of verifiable divine revelation and moral concerns, with many simply doing what is right in their own eyes or setting moral questions aside almost entirely. There are certainly characters who live for more than personal power, like Ned and Robb Stark, but they are relatively few and far between, and their enemies often destroy them as wolves might devour sheep. A plethora of characters each have their own respective philosophy of power, with one holding that knowledge is power (Littlefinger), another insisting through a display of force that power is power (Cersei), another scoffing at the idea that a crown actually gives its wearer power (Tywin), and so on.
Indeed, as Nietzsche might expect, many characters are willing to risk their safety and lives for the sakes of their wills to power. Desire for power is one of the main drives of a large number of characters. However, the truth is that people are individual beings and that there is not necessarily any single primary motivation that all people share--not a desire for power, not a desire for spirituality, not a desire for sociality, not a desire for knowledge. There are still some, as Littlefinger puts it, who cling to illusions like the gods and love instead of climbing the ladder of chaos that will reward the one who climbs it with control [2]. Many characters, whether they consciously subscribe to Littlefinger's Nietzschean worldview or not, do attempt to manipulate chaos around them into a tool that can grant them an advantage over others. But some do not. Power, even in Westeros, is not coveted by all.
In a political climate like that of Westeros (and the nearby continent of Essos), it is not merely formal political structures that are used to demonstrate power. Sex, like other activities, becomes an expression of power in nonconsensual acts where one will is forced on another, with characters like Ramsay Snow particularly using it for this purpose. When power is held up as the chief end of human existence, it is not surprising when anything that can be wielded in the name of power is used as a weapon in the hands of tyrannical egoists.
Power might even be the objective of the most enigmatic faction on the show. As far as I recall, in the seven current seasons little to nothing is revealed about the motivations of the White Walkers. Despite the magnitude of the threat that they pose, and despite how their masses of wights come nearer to King's Landing with each season of the show, there has not been any significant elaboration on their background. Yes, a flashback shows that the race called the Children of the Forest created them somehow. Yes, viewers hear about a terrible winter years ago accompanied by a White Walker invasion. Yet we have heard nothing about why they want to kill humans.
Perhaps the show will unveil some grand reason why the Night King and his White Walker lieutenants seek to extinguish human life on Westeros, adding more corpses to their army of undead--but perhaps the Walkers are simply the show's ultimate expression of the will to power that already underlays so many political schemes in Westeros. The Night King might ultimately desire to simply kill the living because he can, or because he wants to become the lord of Westeros. He might just be nothing more than someone who lusts after control over a legion of reanimated dead who serve him without question, unsatisfied until all of Westeros' inhabitants have joined his army. He might rather rule over the corpses of others than have no power at all.
Power divorced from rationality and righteousness is wielded according to the arbitrary whims of the person who holds it--and Game of Thrones is unflinchingly honest in showing just how irrational and amoral rulers who administer power with selfishness can be. When people live according to what is right in their own eyes and pursue power above all else, then the grievous suffering of others is often not far behind.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/winter-is-coming-realism-of-westeros.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/chaos-is-ladder.html
--Tywin Lannister, Game of Thrones (season three, episode ten)
I saw only tonight that today is seven years to the day that Game of Thrones first aired. Because this time of significance will soon pass, I wanted to write about something in honor of the show's seven year anniversary: power, which (politically) is the strength of a leader. In Game of Thrones, a world is portrayed where many figures will do practically anything, irrespective of the violence or selfishness involved, in order to establish or preserve their own authority and societal dominance. The nature of power, the ways that it can be obtained, and the ways it can be maintained are explored from the first season onward, the characters revealing their conflicting worldviews as the series unfolds. Whether or not this was specifically intended, the many ideologies and perspectives clearly affirm the basic components of postmodernism [1].
Game of Thrones expertly depicts what human behavior can easily reduce down to in the absence of verifiable divine revelation and moral concerns, with many simply doing what is right in their own eyes or setting moral questions aside almost entirely. There are certainly characters who live for more than personal power, like Ned and Robb Stark, but they are relatively few and far between, and their enemies often destroy them as wolves might devour sheep. A plethora of characters each have their own respective philosophy of power, with one holding that knowledge is power (Littlefinger), another insisting through a display of force that power is power (Cersei), another scoffing at the idea that a crown actually gives its wearer power (Tywin), and so on.
Indeed, as Nietzsche might expect, many characters are willing to risk their safety and lives for the sakes of their wills to power. Desire for power is one of the main drives of a large number of characters. However, the truth is that people are individual beings and that there is not necessarily any single primary motivation that all people share--not a desire for power, not a desire for spirituality, not a desire for sociality, not a desire for knowledge. There are still some, as Littlefinger puts it, who cling to illusions like the gods and love instead of climbing the ladder of chaos that will reward the one who climbs it with control [2]. Many characters, whether they consciously subscribe to Littlefinger's Nietzschean worldview or not, do attempt to manipulate chaos around them into a tool that can grant them an advantage over others. But some do not. Power, even in Westeros, is not coveted by all.
In a political climate like that of Westeros (and the nearby continent of Essos), it is not merely formal political structures that are used to demonstrate power. Sex, like other activities, becomes an expression of power in nonconsensual acts where one will is forced on another, with characters like Ramsay Snow particularly using it for this purpose. When power is held up as the chief end of human existence, it is not surprising when anything that can be wielded in the name of power is used as a weapon in the hands of tyrannical egoists.
Power might even be the objective of the most enigmatic faction on the show. As far as I recall, in the seven current seasons little to nothing is revealed about the motivations of the White Walkers. Despite the magnitude of the threat that they pose, and despite how their masses of wights come nearer to King's Landing with each season of the show, there has not been any significant elaboration on their background. Yes, a flashback shows that the race called the Children of the Forest created them somehow. Yes, viewers hear about a terrible winter years ago accompanied by a White Walker invasion. Yet we have heard nothing about why they want to kill humans.
Perhaps the show will unveil some grand reason why the Night King and his White Walker lieutenants seek to extinguish human life on Westeros, adding more corpses to their army of undead--but perhaps the Walkers are simply the show's ultimate expression of the will to power that already underlays so many political schemes in Westeros. The Night King might ultimately desire to simply kill the living because he can, or because he wants to become the lord of Westeros. He might just be nothing more than someone who lusts after control over a legion of reanimated dead who serve him without question, unsatisfied until all of Westeros' inhabitants have joined his army. He might rather rule over the corpses of others than have no power at all.
Power divorced from rationality and righteousness is wielded according to the arbitrary whims of the person who holds it--and Game of Thrones is unflinchingly honest in showing just how irrational and amoral rulers who administer power with selfishness can be. When people live according to what is right in their own eyes and pursue power above all else, then the grievous suffering of others is often not far behind.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/winter-is-coming-realism-of-westeros.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/chaos-is-ladder.html
Monday, April 16, 2018
The Allure Of Sin
There is a reason why the book of James demands that we must obey Scripture and not merely read it (James 1:22), as if merely reading about righteousness would infuse our lifestyles with it. The unfortunate truth is that someone will not do the right thing just because he or she knows what the right thing is. Knowledge does not guarantee action, and without action knowledge has not produced change where it is needed. The point of knowledge is to learn about reality, and education can illuminate an area where a person does not live according to reality, with the realm of ethics being a crucial example.
In one sense, some people might have a far more difficult time succumbing to evil if they understood its depravity. Recognizing evil for what it is can certainly bring an attitude of revulsion towards sin. But nothing about having moral knowledge necessitates that one will act righteously--this is the nature of fallen human behavior. An evil thing is in itself objectively repulsive, damnable, and depraved, but this does not erase the allure that sin might have for a person. For some people, the evil of a thing might even be part of the allure. A thing can be harmful and vile even if one finds comfort in it.
The idea that everyone would do the right thing if they only knew what set of actions is morally obligatory reeks of errors. The assumption here is not only irrational, but it is also highly destructive--when people think that moral knowledge is all they need to be good, they can overlook or justify evils of their choice, misjudging their actions to be good because they truly (but perhaps mistakenly) believe they have right moral knowledge. But even rational metaphysics and valid epistemology alone cannot make someone do the right thing. To live rightly requires a decision of the will, not merely a recognition of the intellect.
Of course, apart from the intellect and divine revelation one cannot have moral knowledge to begin with [1], so it is untrue to pretend like one can intentionally do the right thing without the guidance of the intellect or moral revelation from God; otherwise at best one could do the right thing by accident. Yet even perfect knowledge of God's moral revelation, on its own, is insufficient for living out a righteous life, since knowledge can be compartmentalized away from actual behavior. Irrational and selfish people have the power to ignore what they do know in favor of their own delusions and preferences. The solution, alongside practice of thorough rationality, is an orienting of the will towards what is good. A person is not bound to make a choice that he or she does not want to, and thus the will might need to be redirected to desire what is right and true. It follows that people need to not merely know something is sinful, but to also to come to despise it and see through any subjective allure that it may have.
[1]. Divine revelation is inescapably necessary for moral knowledge, with conscience at best amounting to a subjective and arbitrary tool, but understanding divine revelation is utterly impossible without the light of reason:
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html
In one sense, some people might have a far more difficult time succumbing to evil if they understood its depravity. Recognizing evil for what it is can certainly bring an attitude of revulsion towards sin. But nothing about having moral knowledge necessitates that one will act righteously--this is the nature of fallen human behavior. An evil thing is in itself objectively repulsive, damnable, and depraved, but this does not erase the allure that sin might have for a person. For some people, the evil of a thing might even be part of the allure. A thing can be harmful and vile even if one finds comfort in it.
The idea that everyone would do the right thing if they only knew what set of actions is morally obligatory reeks of errors. The assumption here is not only irrational, but it is also highly destructive--when people think that moral knowledge is all they need to be good, they can overlook or justify evils of their choice, misjudging their actions to be good because they truly (but perhaps mistakenly) believe they have right moral knowledge. But even rational metaphysics and valid epistemology alone cannot make someone do the right thing. To live rightly requires a decision of the will, not merely a recognition of the intellect.
Of course, apart from the intellect and divine revelation one cannot have moral knowledge to begin with [1], so it is untrue to pretend like one can intentionally do the right thing without the guidance of the intellect or moral revelation from God; otherwise at best one could do the right thing by accident. Yet even perfect knowledge of God's moral revelation, on its own, is insufficient for living out a righteous life, since knowledge can be compartmentalized away from actual behavior. Irrational and selfish people have the power to ignore what they do know in favor of their own delusions and preferences. The solution, alongside practice of thorough rationality, is an orienting of the will towards what is good. A person is not bound to make a choice that he or she does not want to, and thus the will might need to be redirected to desire what is right and true. It follows that people need to not merely know something is sinful, but to also to come to despise it and see through any subjective allure that it may have.
[1]. Divine revelation is inescapably necessary for moral knowledge, with conscience at best amounting to a subjective and arbitrary tool, but understanding divine revelation is utterly impossible without the light of reason:
https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-nature-of-conscience.html
Sunday, April 15, 2018
On Profits Of Stories
There is much possible profit that a person can obtain from creating or consuming stories. Stories can establish or preserve a sense of identity, grapple with powerful concepts, and reveal us to ourselves in ways we might otherwise overlook. The fact that Jesus used stories regularly to communicate spiritual and ethical truths should not be quickly dismissed by Christians. Entertainment can be used for escapism, but escape is far from the only use of entertainment (and not even entertainment can allow a total escape from reality [1]).
One profit of stories is the ability to place oneself on a mental level in a different context. Entertainment can give us a chance to have experiences of sorts that we otherwise would not have (and in some cases could not have). I am not living in the first century AD, yet I can watch or read attempts to portray what it was like to live at that time. I can in a muted way experience the brutality of wars that elapsed before I was born. I can visit nonexistent realms and see fictional realizations of worlds that, though logically possible, were never actualized by God or by human behavior. I can, as a result of stories, come to appreciate both history and pure fiction for the way that they can illuminate ideas and enable me to indirectly live as another person.
Yet stories in entertainment can also give us characters that we can relate to precisely because of some similarities in our experiences. At its most personally powerful this can result in moments of deep introspection or catharsis. For instance, when I first saw the movie Logan, I was starting to emerge from a period of deep existential depression. During the preceding months, I had confronted theistic absurdism and my epistemic limitations in a way that made me unsure if I wanted to live or die. I was desperate to know of any objective meaning that exists, and yet entirely unwilling to believe in the unproven and in doing so substitute knowledge for assumptions.
Because of the long months of suffering I had just endured, and because of my struggle with the consideration of suicide, I could relate to the depiction of Wolverine in the film--a character so pained by loss that he thinks about killing himself. I could deeply connect with the fierce yet exhausted way that he lived because of my then-recent emotional agony. I was intensely frustrated with the stupidity and shallowness of people around me and, though I so thoroughly wanted to find objective meaning, I had indeed given serious thought to killing myself. The character of Logan was one I could identify with in part because of my experiences.
In other cases, I might feel connected with a character at a specific moment, as opposed to all throughout a story. Sometimes it might be very difficult to articulate this sense of identifying with a fictional being, yet this does not cheapen the direct experience in any way. An inability to articulate something does not necessarily weaken the impact of the concept or experience. Sometimes this can even amplify the personal impact. Entertainment can provide stimuli for deep journeys of the intellect and the emotions, and this quality of story is something far from irrelevant to the pursuit of truth. Even self-revelation unveils a part of reality.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/escapism-never-full-escape.html
One profit of stories is the ability to place oneself on a mental level in a different context. Entertainment can give us a chance to have experiences of sorts that we otherwise would not have (and in some cases could not have). I am not living in the first century AD, yet I can watch or read attempts to portray what it was like to live at that time. I can in a muted way experience the brutality of wars that elapsed before I was born. I can visit nonexistent realms and see fictional realizations of worlds that, though logically possible, were never actualized by God or by human behavior. I can, as a result of stories, come to appreciate both history and pure fiction for the way that they can illuminate ideas and enable me to indirectly live as another person.
Yet stories in entertainment can also give us characters that we can relate to precisely because of some similarities in our experiences. At its most personally powerful this can result in moments of deep introspection or catharsis. For instance, when I first saw the movie Logan, I was starting to emerge from a period of deep existential depression. During the preceding months, I had confronted theistic absurdism and my epistemic limitations in a way that made me unsure if I wanted to live or die. I was desperate to know of any objective meaning that exists, and yet entirely unwilling to believe in the unproven and in doing so substitute knowledge for assumptions.
Because of the long months of suffering I had just endured, and because of my struggle with the consideration of suicide, I could relate to the depiction of Wolverine in the film--a character so pained by loss that he thinks about killing himself. I could deeply connect with the fierce yet exhausted way that he lived because of my then-recent emotional agony. I was intensely frustrated with the stupidity and shallowness of people around me and, though I so thoroughly wanted to find objective meaning, I had indeed given serious thought to killing myself. The character of Logan was one I could identify with in part because of my experiences.
In other cases, I might feel connected with a character at a specific moment, as opposed to all throughout a story. Sometimes it might be very difficult to articulate this sense of identifying with a fictional being, yet this does not cheapen the direct experience in any way. An inability to articulate something does not necessarily weaken the impact of the concept or experience. Sometimes this can even amplify the personal impact. Entertainment can provide stimuli for deep journeys of the intellect and the emotions, and this quality of story is something far from irrelevant to the pursuit of truth. Even self-revelation unveils a part of reality.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/02/escapism-never-full-escape.html
The Folly Of Naive Realism
Many people, it appears, are naive realists unless at some point they begin to think critically and only accept as true things which are rationally demonstrable. What is naive realism? It is the belief--by its very nature an assumed belief--that the external world [1] really is as it appears to be. For instance, a naive realist named Susan will think that because she perceives a tree in front of her the tree must exist (i.e. it is not an illusion). This is why it is called naive. It is not a rational, provable belief in any way.
A great example of someone supportive of this ideology is G.E. Moore, who mistakenly thought he could prove the external world simply by holding up his two hands. Many people, if asked, might offer similar "proofs" of the reliability of their senses. But, unfortunately, both naive realists and skeptics so often fail to understand the most basic truths about the external world and perceptions of external objects.
It is true that logic cuts deeply and fatally into naive realism, exposing the leap between perceiving an external object and the external object actually existing as perceived [2]. My senses are utterly unreliable in the sense that they cannot verify if my sensory perceptions connect with the actual material world, although there is no proof that my senses are unreliable in the sense of totally deceiving me about the appearance of the external world. Any being with my limitations that pretends to know anything about a particular external object beyond the fact that it is being immediately perceived is an irrational thinker. I despise this fact, but it remains a fact despite my discontentment. I cannot know if the iPad I am writing this post with is a part of the actual external world. And I do not pretend to know what I cannot verify.
Still, there are at least a handful of truths about the external world that I know for sure. First of all, there is some sort of external world made of physical matter, and I know this for sure [3], although whether or not it would exist apart from my mind, if my consciousness ceased to exist, is unknown [4]. I cannot experience physical sensations without actually having a physical body, so the fact that I do experience physical sensations means that I really do have a body (though I do not know its actual appearance). Likewise, I know for sure that I do encounter some sort of physical stimuli beyond my body--again, because of my sense of touch. I really am contacting something.
Secondly, I have specific perceptions of specific external objects. I cannot perceive something that I am not perceiving, so the fact that I have specific perceptions of the external world cannot be illusory (even if they do not conform to the way the external world actually is). Thirdly, logic governs the entirety of whatever external world exists. Nothing can not be what it is, and thus, even if there is an unbridgeable distance between me perceiving specific objects and knowing if those objects exist, I know that nothing in the external world is logically impossible.
Though naive realism is nonsense as an epistemological thesis, denial of the external world is also nonsense and is objectively false, meaning that total skepticism about the external world is also an incorrect position, for in proving that an external world exists I also disprove total skepticism about the external world. The stupidity of beings similar to myself who actually believe that there is no external world is incredibly thorough, but this fact does not liberate me from skepticism about the accuracy of my sense perceptions. Naive realism is a metaphysical framework held by persons who either assume in ignorance or are aware of their limitations and yet choose to believe in the unknown anyway. I have long refused to be either kind of person.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/defining-external-world.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-reliability-of-senses.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-external-world.html
[4]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-relationship-between-idealism-and.html
A great example of someone supportive of this ideology is G.E. Moore, who mistakenly thought he could prove the external world simply by holding up his two hands. Many people, if asked, might offer similar "proofs" of the reliability of their senses. But, unfortunately, both naive realists and skeptics so often fail to understand the most basic truths about the external world and perceptions of external objects.
It is true that logic cuts deeply and fatally into naive realism, exposing the leap between perceiving an external object and the external object actually existing as perceived [2]. My senses are utterly unreliable in the sense that they cannot verify if my sensory perceptions connect with the actual material world, although there is no proof that my senses are unreliable in the sense of totally deceiving me about the appearance of the external world. Any being with my limitations that pretends to know anything about a particular external object beyond the fact that it is being immediately perceived is an irrational thinker. I despise this fact, but it remains a fact despite my discontentment. I cannot know if the iPad I am writing this post with is a part of the actual external world. And I do not pretend to know what I cannot verify.
Still, there are at least a handful of truths about the external world that I know for sure. First of all, there is some sort of external world made of physical matter, and I know this for sure [3], although whether or not it would exist apart from my mind, if my consciousness ceased to exist, is unknown [4]. I cannot experience physical sensations without actually having a physical body, so the fact that I do experience physical sensations means that I really do have a body (though I do not know its actual appearance). Likewise, I know for sure that I do encounter some sort of physical stimuli beyond my body--again, because of my sense of touch. I really am contacting something.
 |
| I cannot know if a stimuli in the external world has the exact appearance I perceive, but I know both that there is an external world and that I have specific perceptions of objects within it. |
Secondly, I have specific perceptions of specific external objects. I cannot perceive something that I am not perceiving, so the fact that I have specific perceptions of the external world cannot be illusory (even if they do not conform to the way the external world actually is). Thirdly, logic governs the entirety of whatever external world exists. Nothing can not be what it is, and thus, even if there is an unbridgeable distance between me perceiving specific objects and knowing if those objects exist, I know that nothing in the external world is logically impossible.
Though naive realism is nonsense as an epistemological thesis, denial of the external world is also nonsense and is objectively false, meaning that total skepticism about the external world is also an incorrect position, for in proving that an external world exists I also disprove total skepticism about the external world. The stupidity of beings similar to myself who actually believe that there is no external world is incredibly thorough, but this fact does not liberate me from skepticism about the accuracy of my sense perceptions. Naive realism is a metaphysical framework held by persons who either assume in ignorance or are aware of their limitations and yet choose to believe in the unknown anyway. I have long refused to be either kind of person.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/03/defining-external-world.html
[2]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/04/the-reliability-of-senses.html
[3]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-external-world.html
[4]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-relationship-between-idealism-and.html
The Man Who Passes The Sentence
"The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword."
--Ned Stark, Game of Thrones (season one, episode one)
In the first episode of Game of Thrones, a lord named Ned Stark is informed that a deserter has been apprehended in his territory. Ned leaves his fortified home, travels to the captured deserter, and prepares to behead him. After killing him, he walks over to one of his sons and asks if it is understood why he had to kill him. The son says that it is because the man was a deserter, but Ned asks again if it is understood why he had to kill him. Ned articulates his belief that whoever sentences another person to death should be the one to actually make the killing move. His son Robb Stark also abides by this principle, passing a sentence on a murderer and executing him (season three, episode five)--even though the man had murdered captive Lannister children, Robb refused to overlook consistent justice.
Ned's words seem intended to force the seriousness of execution to the minds of those who would have others executed. He takes no outward pleasure in carrying out what he thinks is justice, but he does resolutely live by his own values. In the book A Game of Thrones (according to the Internet, as I have not read it), however, the quote is longer, containing additional sentences: “The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.”
The book's version of Ned elaborates on this more, more powerfully conveying the heart of this stance. When rulers are distant from the results of their commands, they might view executions flippantly, apathetically, or sadistically. Ned's principle is supposed to highlight the gravity of taking a life--regardless of who that life belongs to. It can be far easier to sentence someone to death from afar when one does not have to watch the death up close, and even watching can be far easier than actually administering the execution. When people demand for death without realizing what exactly they call for, they can easily lose comprehension of what death is. Death might then be viewed without solemnity.
Biblically, it is not the ruler of a nation who should always be executioner; in some cases it is the people as a whole (like with stoning). And whether or not an executioner can firmly look into the eyes of a victim has nothing to do with whether or not that person deserves to die. Still, Ned's emphasis on the gravity of killing, even killing for the sake of justice, is something that overlaps with Biblical ethics. The termination of any human life is not something that should be demanded without awareness of the solemn nature of such a thing. If undeserved, then a tragedy has occurred. If deserved, then sadness over the moral condition of the offender is at least part of the Biblical response (Ezekiel 33:11).
Justice should be sobering even as it might bring a sense of elation. Every legitimate execution is a reminder of the brokenness of present human life.
--Ned Stark, Game of Thrones (season one, episode one)
In the first episode of Game of Thrones, a lord named Ned Stark is informed that a deserter has been apprehended in his territory. Ned leaves his fortified home, travels to the captured deserter, and prepares to behead him. After killing him, he walks over to one of his sons and asks if it is understood why he had to kill him. The son says that it is because the man was a deserter, but Ned asks again if it is understood why he had to kill him. Ned articulates his belief that whoever sentences another person to death should be the one to actually make the killing move. His son Robb Stark also abides by this principle, passing a sentence on a murderer and executing him (season three, episode five)--even though the man had murdered captive Lannister children, Robb refused to overlook consistent justice.
Ned's words seem intended to force the seriousness of execution to the minds of those who would have others executed. He takes no outward pleasure in carrying out what he thinks is justice, but he does resolutely live by his own values. In the book A Game of Thrones (according to the Internet, as I have not read it), however, the quote is longer, containing additional sentences: “The man who passes the sentence should swing the sword. If you would take a man's life, you owe it to him to look into his eyes and hear his final words. And if you cannot bear to do that, then perhaps the man does not deserve to die.”
The book's version of Ned elaborates on this more, more powerfully conveying the heart of this stance. When rulers are distant from the results of their commands, they might view executions flippantly, apathetically, or sadistically. Ned's principle is supposed to highlight the gravity of taking a life--regardless of who that life belongs to. It can be far easier to sentence someone to death from afar when one does not have to watch the death up close, and even watching can be far easier than actually administering the execution. When people demand for death without realizing what exactly they call for, they can easily lose comprehension of what death is. Death might then be viewed without solemnity.
Biblically, it is not the ruler of a nation who should always be executioner; in some cases it is the people as a whole (like with stoning). And whether or not an executioner can firmly look into the eyes of a victim has nothing to do with whether or not that person deserves to die. Still, Ned's emphasis on the gravity of killing, even killing for the sake of justice, is something that overlaps with Biblical ethics. The termination of any human life is not something that should be demanded without awareness of the solemn nature of such a thing. If undeserved, then a tragedy has occurred. If deserved, then sadness over the moral condition of the offender is at least part of the Biblical response (Ezekiel 33:11).
Justice should be sobering even as it might bring a sense of elation. Every legitimate execution is a reminder of the brokenness of present human life.
Saturday, April 14, 2018
William Lane Craig's Foundational Assumption
William Lane Craig, though often held up as an undefeated Christian apologist, does not even attempt to conceal the fact that the core of his religious worldview is rooted not in logic or in evidence, but in private experiences of the heart. He appeals to the "inner witness" of the Holy Spirit, which he has called "self-authenticating." See this video here for an example: https://youtu.be/cC3q3qYIhdI. In this video, Craig answers a question about how he knows that the Holy Spirit is present with him. And his answer is thoroughly illogical. If you haven't watched the video, viewing it before reading this post further will let you see what parts of his answer I am specifically referring to in my dissection.
First of all, skepticism about the inner witness of the Holy Spirit is not refuted at all by simply asking the same questions Craig was asked about the accuracy of sense perceptions. Second, Craig's answer implies that if I am a brain in a vat then I am deceived into merely "perceiving" an external world--but an external world still exists if I am a brain in a vat, as matter would still exist. There would be a brain my consciousness resides in, and also a vat! In fact, the existence of an external world of some kind is something I know with absolute certainty [1]. I don't have to know that I am perceiving the external world as it actually appears to know that an external world exists. Third, Craig holds that "in the absence of any defeater" for the position that our immediate sensory experiences are reliable, we are somehow justified in simply assuming the reliability of our sensory perceptions. This is not true, for it does not follow from sensory skepticism.
Then there is the fact that the followers of any religion--any religion whatsoever--could claim that an inner sense of the divine validates their own religion. Craig has said at miscellaneous times, rather openly, that he would believe in Christianity even if all external evidence for Christianity did not exist or was unknown to him. At its core, his worldview rests on an assumption. He assumes that his introspective experiences confirm the existence of God in a way that actually negates the need for logical proof or evidence beyond the experiences. Likewise, when Craig talks about moral knowledge he assumes that the existence of his conscience somehow means that morality exists or that he is, at the very least, justified in believing in morality. Conscience is a purely subjective thing, and moral truths, by their very nature, cannot be self-evident. Conscience can only prove that conscience exists.
As newer videos and articles evidence, Craig has not changed these positions in recent times. There was a point in my earlier life where I deeply respected many Christian apologists. Now, I recognize the fallacies and errors that thoroughly permeate some of their epistemologies. Some of the most blatant errors on the part of contemporary apologists show themselves in the beliefs these apologists have about ethical knowledge, the veracity of logic, and their assumption that it is rational to believe in things without absolute certainty. It is rational to believe, short of absolute certainty, only that something seems probable if there is evidence for it, but this is something very different.
The difference between me and some other apologists is that I am not a Christian for reasons that do not pertain to evidence. I am only a Christian because of the evidence, and I would abandon Christianity at the first legitimate contradiction or impossibility found within it. If I was born into an era or geographical region that isolated me from the evidence I would not be a Christian (though I could still know through logic that an uncaused cause exists). People like Craig may not like or understand this, but their fallacies and assumptions do not belong to me as well. I care nothing for subjective inner comfort if it means I must sacrifice logicality and truth.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-external-world.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/closing-my-eyes.html
First of all, skepticism about the inner witness of the Holy Spirit is not refuted at all by simply asking the same questions Craig was asked about the accuracy of sense perceptions. Second, Craig's answer implies that if I am a brain in a vat then I am deceived into merely "perceiving" an external world--but an external world still exists if I am a brain in a vat, as matter would still exist. There would be a brain my consciousness resides in, and also a vat! In fact, the existence of an external world of some kind is something I know with absolute certainty [1]. I don't have to know that I am perceiving the external world as it actually appears to know that an external world exists. Third, Craig holds that "in the absence of any defeater" for the position that our immediate sensory experiences are reliable, we are somehow justified in simply assuming the reliability of our sensory perceptions. This is not true, for it does not follow from sensory skepticism.
Then there is the fact that the followers of any religion--any religion whatsoever--could claim that an inner sense of the divine validates their own religion. Craig has said at miscellaneous times, rather openly, that he would believe in Christianity even if all external evidence for Christianity did not exist or was unknown to him. At its core, his worldview rests on an assumption. He assumes that his introspective experiences confirm the existence of God in a way that actually negates the need for logical proof or evidence beyond the experiences. Likewise, when Craig talks about moral knowledge he assumes that the existence of his conscience somehow means that morality exists or that he is, at the very least, justified in believing in morality. Conscience is a purely subjective thing, and moral truths, by their very nature, cannot be self-evident. Conscience can only prove that conscience exists.
As newer videos and articles evidence, Craig has not changed these positions in recent times. There was a point in my earlier life where I deeply respected many Christian apologists. Now, I recognize the fallacies and errors that thoroughly permeate some of their epistemologies. Some of the most blatant errors on the part of contemporary apologists show themselves in the beliefs these apologists have about ethical knowledge, the veracity of logic, and their assumption that it is rational to believe in things without absolute certainty. It is rational to believe, short of absolute certainty, only that something seems probable if there is evidence for it, but this is something very different.
The difference between me and some other apologists is that I am not a Christian for reasons that do not pertain to evidence. I am only a Christian because of the evidence, and I would abandon Christianity at the first legitimate contradiction or impossibility found within it. If I was born into an era or geographical region that isolated me from the evidence I would not be a Christian (though I could still know through logic that an uncaused cause exists). People like Craig may not like or understand this, but their fallacies and assumptions do not belong to me as well. I care nothing for subjective inner comfort if it means I must sacrifice logicality and truth.
[1]. See here:
A. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/08/the-external-world.html
B. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2017/11/closing-my-eyes.html
Thursday, April 12, 2018
Specificity In Language
Over time careless use of language can reinforce belief in false ideas. When numerous people in a society use language inconsistently, or without conceptual accuracy, the quality of public intellectual discourse will suffer. In particular, the uneducated and shallow thinkers might be easily disoriented. It is unfortunate that many people, in my experience, are often not very careful in the selection of their words, and thus may not even know what themselves mean by certain words that they are using. What are some examples of the confusion that can result? Two specific examples come to my mind.
Since I recently wrote on how several things (logic, truth, and space) exist in the absence of any matter and minds, I will use a related example. Say I were to show someone a picture that is entirely black, and he or she tells me that there is "nothing" in the picture. Is this accurate? Not at all, since there is still space, logic, etc. No objects is not the same as nothing. Misunderstanding of this matter can lead to false statements about reality prior to the Big Bang irrespective of whether or not God exists.
Another example is the way that people sometimes speak as if the brain is somehow separate from the body. So many times I have heard people distinguish brains from bodies, as if brains were not merely parts of bodies [1]! One is just a component of the other. This kind of imprecise or inaccurate language can lead to entirely gratuitous confusion about the distinction between consciousness, the brain, and other body parts. The confusion could be avoided if people merely used language precisely and consistently.
At this point in my life, I find it easy to speak concisely and specifically the vast majority of the time. This is because I've practiced doing so for a long time. Even if clarity of speech is not a normal part of someone's lifestyle, it is not as if it is impossible to include it. When most people do not include it in their lives the public sphere becomes contaminated with ideological murkiness--or at least murkiness of communication when it comes to ideas, even if not concerning the ideas themselves.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-language-of-substance-dualism.html
Since I recently wrote on how several things (logic, truth, and space) exist in the absence of any matter and minds, I will use a related example. Say I were to show someone a picture that is entirely black, and he or she tells me that there is "nothing" in the picture. Is this accurate? Not at all, since there is still space, logic, etc. No objects is not the same as nothing. Misunderstanding of this matter can lead to false statements about reality prior to the Big Bang irrespective of whether or not God exists.
Another example is the way that people sometimes speak as if the brain is somehow separate from the body. So many times I have heard people distinguish brains from bodies, as if brains were not merely parts of bodies [1]! One is just a component of the other. This kind of imprecise or inaccurate language can lead to entirely gratuitous confusion about the distinction between consciousness, the brain, and other body parts. The confusion could be avoided if people merely used language precisely and consistently.
At this point in my life, I find it easy to speak concisely and specifically the vast majority of the time. This is because I've practiced doing so for a long time. Even if clarity of speech is not a normal part of someone's lifestyle, it is not as if it is impossible to include it. When most people do not include it in their lives the public sphere becomes contaminated with ideological murkiness--or at least murkiness of communication when it comes to ideas, even if not concerning the ideas themselves.
[1]. https://thechristianrationalist.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-language-of-substance-dualism.html
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