201. My life under a fatwa

Comment #91529 by Spinoza on November 28, 2007 at 1:57 pm

and I'm tired of being educated about muslim this and islam that - I don't even wanna hear about it- I just wish it would go AWAY

That is as abhorrent as their view that everyone else should just convert or go away.

Why is it that the public intellectual atheists all advocate teaching world religion in a historical context, and reading the scriptures of religions as works of literature... But the "fans" of these intellectuals don't seem to get it. Wise-up people, advocating self-imposed ignorance is NOT a good way to go about "being" an atheist.

202. Turkey probes atheist's 'God' book

Comment #91526 by Spinoza on November 28, 2007 at 1:49 pm

A probe was launched into "The God Delusion" after one reader complained that passages in the book were an assault on "sacred values," Karaaslan said.

Sounds like The South in America...

There was an episode of the Simpsons last year where Kent Brockman swore because Homer spilled coffee on his leg... and the only person who cared was Ned Flanders, BECAUSE HE WAS LOOKING FOR SOMETHING TO COMPLAIN ABOUT!!!! Kent loses his job and starts posting anti-censorship rants on Youtube.

... Perfect example.

So insane.

This world royally pisses me off so much sometimes.

If you don't like what someone says about your religion, YOU write a book or a letter to the editor DENOUNCING them and backup your position. Don't fucking ban it or sue them!!! AHHHHHHHH!

Say what you want about North American and European Christians... at least they have the decency to fight back with some semblance of intellect (ignore their flagrant fallacy-mongering...) rather than demanding political action.

203. Turkey probes atheist's 'God' book

Comment #91523 by Spinoza on November 28, 2007 at 1:46 pm

pov1400, does that mean the EU should kick France out?

204. Turkey probes atheist's 'God' book

Comment #91460 by Spinoza on November 28, 2007 at 11:18 am

Quine, I guess it depends on how he does it...

It might be CONSTRUED as an insult if he says "Haha you got cancer, you cigarette smoking retard!"

or "Your parents are idiots, they let you eat paint chips and now you're dying."

... however, If the translation was careful, there probably shouldn't be a problem...

205. My life under a fatwa

Comment #91268 by Spinoza on November 27, 2007 at 9:25 pm

it is that Muslims still insist that Muhammad is the greatest and most perfect example of a person in the history of the world.

Not all of them will say that, at least not in so many words... intellectual Muslims, like intellectual Christians... will dance around it.

Religions make people double-talk. They speak in contradictions, often without thinking twice...

I have called friends of mine on this MANY times, to the point where they will finally admit it... but of course, rather than conceding my point, they will retract and say "well, there is probably a way for it to make sense but I'm just not doing a good job."

It's very easy to avoid criticism that way.

Let's not make it EVEN easier for them, by saying things that are so easily denied.

206. My life under a fatwa

Comment #91240 by Spinoza on November 27, 2007 at 6:21 pm

Right... the criticism of Islam (and Catholicism!!!) should be that it takes medieval values to be perfect and immutable... when experience has shown us clearly otherwise.

It's not a "Hey Islam is disgusting because Muhammed was a rapist!"...

That doesn't even make any sense...

Islam is disgusting because women STILL haven't been given very many (if any) rights.

Muslims will argue with you and say that the Surah (Surah 4 if I recall correctly) on Women dictates that women are "equal" to men, because if a man divorces his wife, she gets half his stuff (money and property).

But they always ignore the fact that it's the man who gets to do the divorcing... and a woman who has been divorced is not likely to ever be married again.


... and then there's this:

34. Men are the protectors and maintainers of women, because Allah has given the one more (strength) than the other, and because they support them from their means. Therefore the righteous women are devoutly obedient, and guard in (the husband's) absence what Allah would have them guard. As to those women on whose part ye fear disloyalty and ill-conduct, admonish them (first), (Next), refuse to share their beds, (And last) beat them (lightly); but if they return to obedience, seek not against them Means (of annoyance): For Allah is Most High, great (above you all).

...

128. If a wife fears cruelty or desertion on her husband's part, there is no blame on them if they arrange an amicable settlement between themselves; and such settlement is best; even though men's souls are swayed by greed. But if ye do good and practise self-restraint, Allah is well-acquainted with all that ye do.

The epitome of backwards-talking contradiction laden gibberish.

207. My life under a fatwa

Comment #91232 by Spinoza on November 27, 2007 at 5:55 pm

Why the obsession with Aisha???

A LOT of cultures, and A LOT of people, for A LOT of the history of mankind have married young girls.

In fact, my great-grandmother was married at 12 or 13 (to an older man, obviously).

It seems quite anachronistic to read the story of Muhammed and Aisha as a story of INTENTIONAL child abuse or rape.

Religion is awful and false enough without us having to read things into it that either aren't there, or would take ridiculous amounts of work to establish (which is just to say, it's a bit silly to try and claim Aisha was raped and that THIS, of all reasons, is why Islam is reprehensible).

Islam is reprehensible in the here and now, not because of some story about the marriage of a man to a child (which went on not just in the Arab tribal world, but in China, and in Europe, and in the indigenous worlds of North America...) but because it has not changed since then.

(and before you jump on me... let me remind you, I'm an atheist... just playing devil's advocate because I see serious errors in the way people at this website deal with religion).

In fact, as much as I find religion sickening, childish, stupid, false, and dangerous... I find the lack of knowledge of religion and world history, and the attitude espoused by some people on this website quite stupid.

Obviously there is a difference, an ignorant atheist will (probably) not commit murder in the name of atheism (except by proxy, as a soldier?)... but the attitude is not dissimilar. And I don't like it.

Please grow up, some of you.

208. Sunday School for Atheists

Comment #90625 by Spinoza on November 25, 2007 at 9:38 pm

Most non-religious people are idiots... Just like the rest of the population.

*sighs*

209. Are Scientists Playing God? It Depends on Your Religion

Comment #90539 by Spinoza on November 25, 2007 at 1:05 pm

"Many Europeans, as well as leftists in America," Dr. Silver says, "have rejected the traditional Christian God and replaced it with a post-Christian goddess of Mother Nature and a modified Christian eschatology. It isn't a coherent belief system. It might or might not incorporate New Age thinking. But deep down, there's a view that humans shouldn't be tampering with the natural world."

Absolutely 100% true!

And it annoys me to no end.

210. Stem cell breakthrough

Comment #90460 by Spinoza on November 25, 2007 at 8:17 am

I discussed this with a religious friend on my radio show the other day.

Essentially what it boils down to is this:

It's a great breakthrough, sure, but it has nothing whatsoever to do with the morality of aborted-fetus-stem-cells.

Fetal-stem-cells are still as morally okay to use as they always have been and should be (since the fetuses are ALREADY DEAD...).

This just gives researches a possible way around dumb laws that are hampering progress. Which is good...

211. Frequently Asked Questions about the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust

Comment #89624 by Spinoza on November 21, 2007 at 9:24 am

That episode of South Park seems pretty salient right about now... :(

212. Frequently Asked Questions about the Ayaan Hirsi Ali Security Trust

Comment #89481 by Spinoza on November 20, 2007 at 11:18 pm

When I was in Holland last summer, I mentioned Ayaan to some people just to see what the Dutch think of her, and they were ANGRY. In general she is not well liked by anyone there (seemingly regardless of religion). The reason they gave me was that the Dutch government should not have been using tax-payer money to protect her, especially since she was no longer a member of the government there, nor residing in Holland.

They also did not like that she was so outspoken.

Several Muslim friends of mine who call themselves liberal, or libertarian even, have expressed disdain for her, because they think she has oversimplified the problems faced by women in African-Arab countries... Specifically, they claim that female genital mutilation is not in the Quran, nor in the Hadith, but is, rather, an Arabism that came with the Muslim Arabs to Africa. They don't like it either, but they themselves do not consider it Islam's problem. I have told them that this is to confuse the problem. Of course it doesn't SAY anything about it in the holy books of Islam, but it is the problem of MUSLIMS because Muslims, regardless of why, are the ones doing it.

This seemed to make headway... but at the same time, they were not convinced that fighting religion was the way to get abuse of women to stop (obviously, because they are religious).

In any case... it was certainly interesting to note the opinion of the Dutch towards Ayaan.

To me she seems very nice, obviously intelligent, and passionate... But like Peter Singer's appeals for us to give 25% of our money away to charity... I just personally don't think it's a good way of going about things.

I hope Ayaan stays safe, but I would much rather that the American government offer her protection gratis, or that some wealthy patron or two take on her cause.

As a student, I cannot even afford $10.

Sorry Ayaan.

213. URGENT APPEAL: Please Help Protect Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #88696 by Spinoza on November 18, 2007 at 3:18 pm

Am I the only one who finds it odd that there are options for $20,000 one-time, or $1000 monthly donations to that trust?

Maybe Ayaan would be more comfortable (and cheaper to protect) up here in Canada?

214. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #88075 by Spinoza on November 14, 2007 at 1:57 pm

Indeed. Dennett is one of my favourite philosophers... He and I agree on a great many things (see: Self as a Centre of Gravity, his anti-qualia stance, his eliminative materialism)...

But his work really has nothing at all to do with the disagreement PeterK and I were having.

My point was SOLELY that his argument purposely sets up a straw-man... I'm sorry, but theism isn't THAT stupid, it may be WRONG in the end, but the arguments are often difficult to refute, and setting up straw-men is the wrong way to go about vindicating atheism.

I will reiterate, theists distinguish all CREATED objects from God... No theist means, when they say "God created the Universe" that God created ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING.

What they mean is, quite obviously, God created everything BUT HIMSELF.

He is the PRIMA CAUSA, according to tradition.

This is not ONLY, as someone has suggested, merely deism. This is Theism.

Deists certainly do have a conception of God as prima causa, but they have certain distinguishing features which abrogate them from Theism.

It is a weak, foolish, silly attempt at a refutation to say that the God of theists can't exist because of a claim that they don't make...

The way to go about refuting God-claims is to find direct contradictions in their STRONGEST formulations... You cannot JUST use empirical data... that won't work...

Yes, empirical data can stand as a premise in your refutation, but you cannot say "Consciousness requires an animal brain, therefore God isn't conscious, therefore God doesn't exist."

That's silly... What theists mean by "consciousness" is NOT the limited subjective perspective brains give us...

In fact, a careful theist won't even say that God is CONSCIOUS... the argument is more nuanced than that.

There is nothing illogical about a possible being that KNOWS everything (omniscience).

That is to say, as an atheist, it probably is NOMOLOGICALLY impossible (that is, scientifically)...

But from a mathematical/logical perspective, it's EASY to conceive of such a being.

You just take the infinite set of facts, and take it that for each fact, x knows it simply in virtue of its being a fact...

In fact, Dennett's position on mind-states actually makes it EASIER to understand this.

Dennett thinks that your thermostat has mind states. Specifically, it "knows" when to turn on and off.

This is primitive, certainly... but if you imagine God as referring to a sort of INFINITE thermostat, whose mind states just happen to be supervenient on every fact... then you've got an omniscient being.

... And yes, I am playing devil's advocate here... as a philosopher, I have to admit that the above is logically valid... I don't, in actual fact, believe that such a being EXISTS (this is the nomological or scientific bit), but there is nothing in this picture which is A PRIORI logically impossible or contradictory.

HOWEVER, a posteriori, there are a great many problems with this conception... and THAT is where one can "disprove" very specific conceptions of God.

The problem of evil is still the best way. By far.

As soon as you bring up the strongest version of the problem of evil, what you've actually done, logically speaking, is reduce the POSSIBLE nature of God from the THREE Omnis (Omnipotence, Omniscience and Omnibenevolence) to only one (it could be any of the three...) and as soon as you've done that, all you have to do is say "But what kind of God is that?!" ... and the answer is "Not a very good one..." In fact, via Ockham's Razor, a God which has only one of those three traits is in effect entirely superfluous.

So... yeah... that's my ... story. LOL

215. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87879 by Spinoza on November 13, 2007 at 1:14 pm

Baeoz, ahem, yes, thank for the correction... what I should have said was that an idiot is a person lacking INTELLIGENCE, not knowledge. In my haste I conflated idiot with ignorant. That is a subtle distinction though.. and it could be argued that all idiots are ignorant, whereas not all ignoramuses are idiots.

The reason I originally described certain atheists as idiots (rather than as ignorant) is that they really do seem to be lacking intelligence... they think the things they are saying are these brilliant logical points (they sound like Beavis and Butthead "Heh heh heh, hey Beavis, if like, um, God, created, like um, everything, then um, like, doesn't that mean that God can't exist?, 'cause, um, like, that would mean not everything was created, heh heh...").

It's idiotic... and it annoys me about as much as religious idiocy.

216. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87845 by Spinoza on November 13, 2007 at 10:37 am

Several things:

1. I am not only tired of idiot atheists, I am, in this thread, tired of trying to explain basic errors in logic and thinking to them.

2. My capitalization of certain words has been mistaken for being "pissed off" and "childish". However, this is far from the case. My capitalization was a quick way of emphasizing the fact that the sentences were conditionals.

It is quite devious and childish to take this and run with it, declaring me as having "lost the argument", without actually EVER (<- emphasis) dealing with the criticisms I put forward (which STILL [<- emphasis] haven't been understood).

3. Voltaire's brilliant Candide, one of my favourite books of all time, is a DIRECT (<- emphasis) response to Leibniz's notion of "Best Possible World".

4. A claim like the following, from an atheist:

"He CAN'T exist under these conditions. This is the wall. It stops here. This is the end."

When presented with a counterfactual claim (a "what if?", or conditional), is NOT an answer, it is a diversion.

You cannot assert the above quoted phrase as a solution to a counterfactual claim because the whole POINT of the counterfactual is to take it for granted that IF there were X, then Y is how things would be (as in "IF there were a God, THEN IF God were a conscious entity THEN IF consciousness requires an object THEN prior to creation, God could at least be conscious of himself).

There is NOTHING illogical about this, it's a perfectly logical argument based on the counterfactual "IF God exists".

You cannot disprove a counterfactual by denying the assumption.

That's called the fallacy of denying the antecedent.

It is a fallacy because the conditional is not TWO-WAY.

With one-way conditionals (IF X, THEN Y), if you deny X to get the denial of Y, you are arguing fallaciously because it doesn't follow from the denial of X that Y is not the case.

For example consider the following:

If it is raining, then the ground is wet.
It is not raining.
Therefore the ground is not wet.

But it just so happens that the ground IS wet, because someone was draining their swimming pool.

That is why it is a fallacy.

And that is the error being made by atheists like PeterK, and is why if you want to argue AGAINST theism (notice, I did not say argue FOR atheism), you should probably learn some informal logic.

... now I think that suffices to show that, far from "losing the argument"... I have been right all along.


... keeping in mind that I am an atheist.

Oh, and in PeterK's last post, you'll notice that while claiming victory, he decided to start dropping insults that have nothing to do with anything.

... my claim of "idiot atheists" is just a factual claim, yes, it has negative connotations, but that's because being an idiot (lacking knowledge) IS a bad thing.

But it is relevant, unlike ... being a dork?

Let's make this as clear as possible. PeterK thinks he is clever for saying this:

If the term "all that exists" is included in the initial argument, that means ALL that exists. Easy to do. That includes any degree or idea of what existence is, even though you may not know what it is. You don't have to. Now say this to a theist and yes, they will more than likely make references to how tasty the taco dip is.

And I have, several times now, explained that this is by and large, a STRAW MAN. It is a straw man, because no theist says that. He is defining the theist argument as weaker than it is. This is the very definition of straw man.

Now, I'm an atheist, and I think the theist's arguments are wrong... but in this particular case, there isn't actually anything wrong with the ACTUAL argument...

The theist says "God is an eternally existent being.", if they then say "God created everything in the universe." You are straw-manning them if you take "everything" in this context to mean "absolutely everything". There is this thing called the Principle of Charity, which says that when you interpret your interlocutor's argument, you use the strongest possible interpretation of their words, and when you set about to knock their argument down, THAT is what you knock down, the STRONGEST form, not the weakest.

In the STRONGEST formulation, the theistic argument does NOT make the obviously contradictory (even to theists) claim that "God created ALL, and therefore God can't exist because God would be something, but if God created ALL then he couldn't have been around to create anything." That's just a dumb way of understanding the argument. And a fallacious way of getting rid of the theist argument to boot.

217. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87685 by Spinoza on November 12, 2007 at 8:52 pm

Spinoza--
Who is the confused one here? If there WERE a God?..There can't BE a God--if his existence precedes all that exists, and theists do postulate God created all. I've never heard of a theist positing the idea that there was all this stuff laying around and God rearranged it into something he wanted to--no HE created existence. My argument is simply that to be conscious, there must first exist something to be conscious OF. But God cannot exist as a conscious entity, let alone be consciousof himself if there ain't nothin else around.
There is no strawman here. There is no confusion here. The beauty in the simplicicity of this argument is what seems to throw the detractors into a tither

You ARE confused. You fail to understand the idea of a conditional.

Even after I have corrected your idiotic straw-man, you come out with this:

"if his existence precedes all that exists, and theists do postulate God created all. I've never heard of a theist positing the idea that there was all this stuff laying around and God rearranged it into something he wanted to--no HE created existence."

But again, you're confusing what the theists say.

No theist is going to say what you want them to say which is that "God precedes all that exists. But God exists."

That is CLEARLY, even to theists, contradictory, and you are a fool if you think that they think this is a worthy argument against them. (and it isn't one... any HONEST atheist can see what I have pointed out).

They will just say "No, God precedes HIS CREATION."

Simple as that. You royally straw-manned the theist argument.

Secondly, you say this: "But God cannot exist as a conscious entity, let alone be consciousof himself if there ain't nothin else around."

I already answered this. It's called a CONDITIONAL.

You are constructing one here. You are saying:

(~S -> ~C) (if there's no stuff then there's no consciousness).

But you just made this up out of thin air. It's OBVIOUSLY true... but no one thinks that there can be consciousness without SOMETHING (God IS, after all, a kind of something, at the very least, a concept). Least of all theists.

Theists think that God is eternal, and is a thing.
Therefore, for theists, there is SOMETHING prior to creation (by which they mean the creation of EVERYTHING BUT GOD, you idiot, which YES, is problematic, but not for your stupid reason).

Now comes the conditionals for theism:

IF there is a God, then IF God is conscious AND there is nothing in existence EXCEPT God, then GOD can still be CONSCIOUS OF HIMSELF (that is, intrinsically self-reflective).

And indeed, THAT IS HOW THEISTS TALK.

For an intellectually rigorous (but ultimately unsatisfactory) discussion of this, check out Leibniz's Theodicy, where he discusses HIS solution to the Problem of Evil, which is that prior to Creation, God, because he's all-knowing and all-Good, picked the BEST of all possible worlds (the most harmonious), and created that one.

This IMPLIES consciousness of POSSIBLES prior to the creation of the actual.

This may confuse an intellectual peon such as yourself, and it happens to bother me quite a bit too (for other reasons), but it IS logically possible.

Your argument does NOTHING for the atheist cause... it just makes us look collectively retarded.

That is all.

218. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87661 by Spinoza on November 12, 2007 at 6:18 pm

And Bonzai, I think you have several fundamental misunderstandings of philosophy... not that I'm going to change your mind (it probably just isn't for you), but you're either merely unaware of what philosophers do (because you have only taken an intro course (or courses)?) or you have been misled.

One need only look to Russell, Wittgenstein, Frege, Carnap, Kripke, Turing, Harman, Ryle... and hundreds of others, many still living... to see what philosophers have done for 20th and 21st century "wisdom".

219. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87660 by Spinoza on November 12, 2007 at 6:14 pm

PeterK, I'm sorry, but you're confused.

there is nothing to to conscious OF if existence has not yet been created. When I refer to 'existence'-- I include all that exists..everything..describing various degrees and levels and definitions of existence don't getcha off the hook.

No theist means that. You have constructed a terrible straw-man for their position.

This is why I said I am tired of idiotic atheists, they think they're smarter than they are...

You can't tell theists what they believe (changing it in the process) and then disprove THAT.

Theists believe God is an eternally existing BEING, hence, has existence (excluding obscurantist interpretations), and intelligence, and causal power. Etc.

You have only shown how stupid atheism can make itself look if it is naive.

I specifically stipulated that if there WERE a God, that God could conduct an internal dialogue with itself...

You can't weasel out of that argument by saying that if there were a God it would have nothing to be conscious of... that's a different scenario than the one you asked us to consider.

220. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87555 by Spinoza on November 12, 2007 at 12:52 pm

As the famous saying goes, Bonzai:

"One man's modus ponens is another man's modus tollens."

I didn't, however, mention formal logic, specifically because modern, post-Fregean logic is a very specialized tool for academic philosophers and mathematicians to do analysis of the structure of argumentation.

It is INCREDIBLY useful in that context, but means next to nothing to the man in the street.

HOWEVER, INFORMAL LOGIC, the study of fallacy and rhetoric, and of critical thinking (CT) is invaluable to ANYONE. Period.

It certainly behooves a man to learn to recognize quickly the side-stepping and rhetorical fallaciousness of political and theological spin.

And YES, the man in the street can LEARN by himself to recognize this in a more raw, un-specified form, but he himself may be prone to the fallacies himself, lest he learn as many of them as he can.

Self-deception is a wonderful attribute we humans have garnered from our evolutionary voyage.

Oh, and just as an example, I can tell you EXACTLY why Paley's argument for design fails:

Paley argues along the following lines:

We KNOW any watch we find had a designer because it functions teleologically, we can "SEE" its purpose and the intricacy of its design and functions.

Likewise (argues Paley), we can KNOW that any living creature we find had a designer because it TOO (seems to) function teleologically, since living things are roughly analogous to automatons like watches (or computers and robots to take a modern example), except INFINITELY more complicated, and therefore the designer must have been INFINITELY more intelligent than we humans (!).

This is UTTERLY convincing for loads of people... they think "it just MAKES SENSE." But that's what fallacies DO!!! They are so-called BECAUSE they are convincing bits of rhetoric that needed to be described and categories IN ORDER that we more easily recognize them.

The fallacy involved in Paley's horrible argument is slightly convoluted, but is ESSENTIALLY a fallacy of composition that says "If X is designed and Y appears to be just like X in a relevant way, then Y is designed too."

The error is a jump in logic from the knowledge of a designer of watches to the knowledge of a designer of ANYTHING ELSE.

It also does this kind of jump from "human intelligence designs small trinkets" to "big trinket requires much greater than human intelligence."

And informal logic will give you a means to once-and-for-all PROVE that this is fallacious.

Oh, and Zaphod, I enjoy it too. I want my atheist brethren to have access to the justification I have for the position.

221. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87529 by Spinoza on November 12, 2007 at 11:30 am

Some of these responses are funny.

Dawkins is penultimate because Spinoza and Hobbes are Ultimate. :)

... or rather, the Ultimate depends on who you are talking to...

I was simply expressing annoyance or frustration with the lack of intelligence among many atheists (and expressed my desire that they themselves can rectify this).

Also, Dawkins-worship needs to go away.

Yeah, you know what I'm talking about... Youtube Atheists...

222. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87344 by Spinoza on November 11, 2007 at 11:40 pm

Baeoz, you may want to read something like The Cambridge Companion To Spinoza, or Steven Nadler's biography of Spinoza first, before you try to tackle either the TTP or The Ethics.

You need to get a sense of why they called the man "That God-Intoxicated Atheist"... he denied atheism vehemently for his whole life, but his followers were vilified for centuries after...

He uses the word "God" constantly, which, to the uneducated Atheist might be an immediate turn-off. Not only that, but his works are DIFFICULT. Much more so than Descartes.

I would suggest, if you want to dive straight in, to read the Theological-Political Treatise first, before you try his magnum opus (written in the style of Euclid's Elements). But even that might put you off, since he spends a long time explicating how we ought to read scripture.

But if you stick it out, you will soon realize why the book had to be published anonymously, and why it caused a massive uproar.

Also, we philosophers, at least, some of us, think that Descartes may have INTENTIONALLY written some of his philosophy to fail, but written in such a way as to placate the religious powers of the time... Also, keep in mind, the guy DISCOVERED NERVES. He was the first one to figure them out. He thought they transmitted "animal spirits"... he can be forgiven for thinking the mind communicates with the body through the pineal gland. The danger the uneducated mind has when reading historical philosophy is reading it anachronistically, and assuming that it must be stupid because we know better now. But this is certainly far from the case.

And anyway, Spinoza's God IS Einstein's God, and you'll just have to get used to him using the term. He meant it as "Deus sive Natura" ("God, or rather, Nature").

As for the argument that philosophy is not worth reading because you "don't have the time"... That's your opinion, but it's not an uncommon one. It has been the cry of the plebeians for 3500 years now, and we philosophers, quite frankly, are used to it. The very FIRST Western philosopher known to us, Thales, showed us all the value of philosophy from the very first moments of its existence, in the face of scorn and disrepute. He made $$$ by buying all the oil-presses in Athens and loaning them back out at a huge premium, having used "Natural Philosophy" (as Science was called back then) to predict a record olive crop, well in advance.

And even today, philosophers are quite useful, contrary to popular opinion. Just go watch the Beyond Belief 2006 videos again, and you'll see what philosophers are capable of :)

223. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87336 by Spinoza on November 11, 2007 at 10:00 pm

As a further point, and to play DEVIL'S ADVOCATE (hehe):

PeterK asked me about this: (I think he thinks I'm a theist?):

The notion of a transcendent conciousness (ie God) that creates or brings into existence--well all that exists-- could not possibly exist, simply because to "be conscious" would require something to be conscious OF ( existence ). If there is nothing --because nothing has yet been created--there can be no consciousness anywhere, not by nobody, not no how. And this includes any Allah, Jahweh, Zeus, Jupiter.

Now would this not constitute as proof that a creator-God-thingy-dingy could not possibly exist?
What IS the problem here?

Well, (as I said, devil's advocate) erm, by definition, a transcendent God is still a kind of "thing", just not the kind of "thing" that needed to be created, so before Creation, a transcendent God (were one to exist) could still be conscious of itself (hence, stage an internal dialogue), and thus, there is no contradiction.

There are, however, much weirder problems for transcendent gods... but we needn't discuss them here.

224. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87335 by Spinoza on November 11, 2007 at 9:53 pm

Hehe, Zaphod THANK YOU! You got both the Ad Hominem definition correct (and my lack of its use!), AND called me on the strangeness of my being a fan of RATM.

I am not a fan of their politics, but damn if their first album wasn't a helluva piece of musical genius. (With Maynard and Stephen Perkins on Know Your Enemy, you can't make a better song!)

And I think the lyrics fit.

To Oxytocin, you may or may not be right, but I have a suspicion that your broad-brush is slightly unfair (and insulting).

To BAEOZ, Spinoza developed his system out of the Cartesian system, he reduced Descartes dualism to a substance Monism with two knowable attributes corresponding to Descartes two substances (thus solving Descartes' problem of interaction between mind and body).

Leibniz came along later in the Rationalist tradition and did all kinds of crazy stuff. I suspect, academically speaking, that he was a closet Spinozist (but not really a closet athiest, he was too much of a pietist for that).

Yet, in his writings, you find attempts to solve the logistical problems of theism.

I recommend reading Leibniz's Theodicy for a valiant effort at thwarting the problem of evil. It is NOT easy to pin Leibniz (the polymath genius that he was) down on this issue, as his argument SEEMS prima facie logically consistent. But there IS something quite fishy about it. (He says that there is evil because God picked the most harmonious world freely, out of moral-perfection, and thus when we sin (i.e. commit evil) we do so contingently, and therefore it could have been otherwise... and so is consistent with God's properties... it's a really difficult formulation of Theodicy to rebuke... not that it's impossible... I once gave it a go, but I'd have to go back and rework some things to make it stronger).

In any case, my point was that there is value in acknowledging the justificatory status of atheism, and theism. And that this status comes in degrees on both sides, regardless of the ultimately correct conclusion.

We can criticize theistic arguments on the justificatory structure, and so too can they of us. And that is how you can win a debate without being right. Or at least, without even considering whether you are right or not.

The atheist need only show that no theistic argument succeeds to be vindicated, since he can then say "I'm just waiting for the right argument before I believe." (following William Clifford's Ethics of Belief).

225. Dr Bari: Government stoking Muslim tension

Comment #87320 by Spinoza on November 11, 2007 at 7:55 pm

"We never called the IRA Catholic terrorists."

Didn't we?

226. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87316 by Spinoza on November 11, 2007 at 7:44 pm

Baeoz, it's not about being happy, or clever, or "learned", it's about justification.

Truth is one thing, justification is another.

If a legion of atheists rises up, and only one in 50 of them has any semblance of the justificatory structure of their beliefs (liberal estimate, real number may be much much less, given my experience with atheist groups and this website), then WE (as a group) are no better than the theists, most of whom who only remain so because they are too lazy or jaded to think critically and carefully.

I am not annoyed because I think those whom I referred to as "idiot atheists" are INCAPABLE of becoming justified, it is, rather, that they don't seem to care.

You OUGHT to care.

The answer to "Why are you an atheist?" is not "Because there isn't a God.", the answer ought to be that you were persuaded by good argument (very specific ones) to reject beliefs that have weak or nil justification.

God-belief DOES have weak justification, and the atheists, in virtue of identifying themselves that way, have a duty to both explicate the weak justification for God-belief AND understand what they are logically entitled to conclude from that basis.

Dawkins is well within his boundaries, and his comments about Einstein belie his deep understanding of the problem.

I am worried about the developing and rampant cult-of-personality surrounding "The New Atheists".

To quote some revolutionaries (whom I actually disagree with largely, but who got it right when they said:)

Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!
Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up!

How long? Not long, cause what you reap is what you sow

227. Allan Gregg interviews Richard Dawkins

Comment #87296 by Spinoza on November 11, 2007 at 5:18 pm

I am so tired of idiot atheists.

Those of you on this site who idolize Prof. Dawkins to the point of sexual desire, you DO do atheism a disservice by not educating yourself on just why Dawkins omits the things you wonder why he omits.

He is following a LONG tradition of intelligent atheism, one in which he is penultimate, but rests upon solid foundations he must utilize, or risk crumbling. (like a bridge).

Please atheists, learn some philosophy, some very very basic philosophy, or shut up.

(I await the expected lambasting I am going to incur).

228. Georgia plans service to pray for rain

Comment #86623 by Spinoza on November 9, 2007 at 6:14 pm

I see someone's been watching our videos...

Wasn't it just recently that that guy sang the song "Nothing Fails Like Prayer" (Freedom From Religion foundation?), where one of the lyrics goes "Better to check the report, before you pray for rain..."

OR something like that... kinda uncanny that this guy actually DID IT.

229. Pope's 'morning after pill' speech criticized

Comment #83906 by Spinoza on October 31, 2007 at 3:43 pm

Yeah that and I'm pretty sure it's not atheists who are obsessed with sex. Atheism just happens to be an effective way of liberating women and men from religious anti-sexuality...

What would be REALLY weird is an atheist who thinks female sexuality and homosexuality are immoral.

There's gotta be at least one 0_o

230. Internet used to target extremism

Comment #83890 by Spinoza on October 31, 2007 at 2:49 pm

I don't think that's fair Geoff.

I think this sort of thing is a very good idea... it has nothing to do with whether atheism is true, or whether religion is violent (two separate claims)... but with what sort of pragmatic applications can be developed to help combat extremism... and this IS one idea that may work.

We can't just ridicule or whine about every little initiative that has religion involved in it... that would be entirely unproductive...

I see nothing wrong with this at all!

231. What's the evolutionary advantage of offering your place to an old woman on a bus?

Comment #83010 by Spinoza on October 28, 2007 at 1:56 pm

A well functioning, moral, and courteous society is the ultimate evolutionary adaptation.

Q.E.D.

232. AAI 07

Comment #82818 by Spinoza on October 27, 2007 at 9:36 pm

Bloody brilliant talk. In all honesty, this talk ranks among the BEST EVER given on the subject. Perhaps it was because he has the same accent as my grandfather, and the same way of spinning a yarn... But I found myself saying "Wow, this guy has it exactly right... and notices the areas of weakness I've repeatedly noticed in the talks of the myriad other public atheists... and isn't afraid to point them all out."

Just brilliant.

And as for the arguments about libertarianism vs. socialism... well... I'll stay out of it, but will just briefly mention that the statistics seem to favour mild democratic social(istic) capitalism.

That is to say, the Scandinavian welfare states, and perhaps Canada.

233. '55 'Origin of Life' Paper Is Retracted

Comment #82557 by Spinoza on October 26, 2007 at 5:30 pm

Bravo, and kindest regards, Dr. Jacobson! (if you do indeed happen to Google your name again and run across this page)...

Absolutely brilliant.

234. Atheists don't believe in anything

Comment #82505 by Spinoza on October 26, 2007 at 1:45 pm

If you don't believe in God, you must not believe in anything.

Spinoza's answer:

I believe in everything but God.

Q.E.D.

235. Science and Religion BOTH make faith claims

Comment #82417 by Spinoza on October 26, 2007 at 9:04 am

Um, Mewtwo_X. That is false.

An axiom is just an unargued foundational assumption.

There are loads of theologians who use axioms in their arguments... (i.e. the axiom that there has to be a solution to an infinite regress.... which I think is false, but anyway... it's one that is used).

Using axioms doesn't have anything to do with this topic.

The answer to this topic is simple:

1. BAEOZ is sort of right. There are several meanings to the word "faith". Religious FAITH can mean EITHER "the leap of faith" (which was NOT first used by Kierkegaard, but by Jacobi) away from the problems of philosophical dogmatism (that is, Spinozism), or "THE faith", meaning "the acts of worship". The latter does not REQUIRE faith in the former sense... one could be an atheist and still act religiously.

2. By definition Science does not operate on faith, or make claims which rest on faith... but the very opposite... The scientist operates under the assumption that everything he is saying is falsifiable. (at least, since Popper).

The way religion uses "faith" is as a method of arriving at a solution without doing the work.

E.g.

An example of faith: The Crucifixion and miracle of the Resurrection of Christ are the gift of salvation for all those who accept it.

There is no way of PROVING that one's "soul" is "saved" merely by "accepting" Christ (as Saviour).

It is BY DEFINITION an article of faith... and is so central to Christianity that if you don't believe in it, you aren't a Christian.

On the other hand, let's use evolution as the example. The Scientist is not told "accept what we tell you as fact, or you cannot call yourself a scientist", and it isn't a case that evolution is "unprovable". On the contrary, the evidence can be arranged into a solid deductive proof for the evolution of life on Earth by natural selection (etc.)

This proof is not a guarantor of ABSOLUTE truth, which is to say, it is not meant to be assented to "in faith", but is meant to be subjected to rigorous testing, analysis, and the evidence.

It just so happens that certain scientific propositions are so well supported that the likelihood of their being disproved is near zero... but, of course, it is not QUITE zero.

And that is the difference.

236. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #82411 by Spinoza on October 26, 2007 at 8:48 am

Oh, and just so y'all know. Both of them got Spinoza's ontology wrong. LOL.

237. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #82409 by Spinoza on October 26, 2007 at 8:46 am

Comment #81513 by oxytocin:

Spinoza,
xianity may have done well in Fiji, but the same effect could have been achieved by sending in the police. Again, secular people could do the same thing that any theist could do. That xians show some form of human decency is something they do despite their barbarism, not because of it.

Absolutely right, but that is not what the point was. The point the man was making was that Christians, acting Christian (converting...) did it. (you may want to say, knee-jerk, "So What!"... but that doesn't really suffice... and just for posterity, I am an atheist, but I think it is only fair to acknowledge valid points).

The claim that sending in POLICE would work is a bit absurd. That's an empirical claim, not one that can be assented to a priori.

Though it is true (and blatantly obvious) that any act of GOODNESS the religious can do can be accomplished by secular people... in this particular case, it should be noted that the evil act of "brainwashing" was probably a much easier way to get the Fijians to stop eating themselves... whether we want to admit it our not... secular policing and scapegoating and the like may or may not have worked...

But, the only thing the Fijian comment shows is that Christianity succeeded in doing SOMETHING good in this case, however INADVERTENTLY (they weren't going to Fiji to stop Fijians from eating each other, but to "save their souls" and colonize...), something that secular work would perhaps have a harder time doing, and indeed, didn't do (whatever this means).

It is a very small, very weak point of concession, but it is one, nonetheless.

238. You can't be moral without God!

Comment #81517 by Spinoza on October 24, 2007 at 9:23 pm

Baeoz, either it works or nothing does, and if nothing does, then why is this thread here?

... The atheist's goal should not be to "convince" others at whatever cost, but to get things right...

And Plato's Euthyphro IS the answer to this question. 2500 years ago he solved the problem. If the theists don't understand it, there's not anything else which can be said.

239. You can't prove that you love someone, so don't expect proof of God

Comment #81510 by Spinoza on October 24, 2007 at 9:14 pm

Love is an empirical measurement of personal value and sacrifice.

Be careful not to define yourself into a hole.

All the theist has to do here is deny your definition of love and you're sunk.

Stick to logical arguments that avoid strict definitions of terms, especially empirically.

240. Pascal's Wager

Comment #81509 by Spinoza on October 24, 2007 at 9:12 pm

You guys would make awful philosophers.

There is a reason philosophy is HARD. You have to come up with awesome analogies like mine that show the idiocy outright and clear as day.

241. You can't prove that you love someone, so don't expect proof of God

Comment #81489 by Spinoza on October 24, 2007 at 8:27 pm

This question originates in William James' "The Will To Believe."

You can CERTAINLY PROVE that SOMEONE loves YOU. (which is the actual problem, not that YOU love someone, since everyone knows when they love someone... since if you don't know if you love someone, then you don't).

William James gave the speech "The Will To Believe" as a response to William Clifford's "The Ethics of Belief", wherein it was argued that: "It is wrong always, everywhere, and for everyone to believe ANYTHING without sufficient evidence."

James' response (the pragmatist that he was) was to find examples of things we WANT to believe, but for which we have no evidence, but which BECOME TRUE AFTER we start believing in them, rather than being true a priori.

Love is his strongest example. And if fails prima facie.

I know my girlfriend loves me because she gives me lots and lots of hints. (EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE!!!)

If I was a philosophical skeptic, I would ask myself "Yeah, but how do I REALLY know she loves me, since she could just be ACTING, and the phenomenological state of ACTING would appear to me the same as the TRUE state."

But I'm not a skeptic, and anyway, the skeptic about love is just being silly, for reasons elucidated by NUMEROUS philosophers with regard to the Brain In A Vat scenario (see: Hilary Putnam, G.E. Moore, etc).

So there.

I'm going to answer every single one of these debate points with my awesome Philosopher Powers. :)

... I have been annoyed and disappointed by public atheists' rebuttals to these questions in the past, because philosophers answered all of them LONG ago.

242. Pascal's Wager

Comment #81487 by Spinoza on October 24, 2007 at 8:21 pm

If you don't believe in Phlogiston, you will be eternally pestered by ravenous rhinoceroses.

Therefore it's better to convince yourself to believe in Phlogiston, since if you're wrong, nothing bad happens, but if you don't believe in Phlogiston and you're wrong... you will suffer eternal rhino-damnation.

Q.E.D.

243. You can't be moral without God!

Comment #81485 by Spinoza on October 24, 2007 at 8:19 pm

Euthyphro.

Q.E.D.

244. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D'Souza

Comment #81362 by Spinoza on October 24, 2007 at 4:14 pm

Unfortunately, I have to say that there were several points that can charitably be given to D'Souza... though by proxy of the hard to understand Tongan man who asked the question about the cannibals of Fiji.

He had a valid point. The question is "Is Christianity the Problem?"... well, of course, Christianity HAS problems, and blind faith, dogmatism, gibberish, bad metaphysics, etc, are among them.

But in that particular case, I think the descendants of Fiji's cannibals are grateful for being provided with an escape from what would have been a WORSE religious morality.

Hitch's rebuttal to this claim was surprisingly weak and uncharitable... and for him to be consistent, he should have acknowledged that in that particular case, Christianity DID do something good. Namely, it stopped people from eating each other.

But, he should have argued, that does not excuse the myriad wrongs Christianity has with itself, NOR the fact that Christianity is ultimately a lie.

Just disappointed about that one particular point, and D'Souza did a much better job here than he did against Shermer (who was less formidable).

I should add, this criticism is on top of the fact that I wanted to punch Dinesh in the nose several times throughout that debate.

245. Richard Dawkins receives the Deschner Prize

Comment #78786 by Spinoza on October 14, 2007 at 11:40 pm

Good catch Quine!

246. Richard Dawkins receives the Deschner Prize

Comment #78782 by Spinoza on October 14, 2007 at 11:20 pm

Quine, well, ignorance is the antithesis of true acquiescence of spirit! ;-)

247. Richard Dawkins receives the Deschner Prize

Comment #78748 by Spinoza on October 14, 2007 at 5:21 pm

An honour.

Do not wear that name in vain, Professor Dawkins.

Bruno would be proud.

Regards and congrats.

248. Ayaan Hirsi Ali at AAI 07

Comment #78620 by Spinoza on October 13, 2007 at 10:38 pm

Ugh, Quine, that link is awful (there are some wacked out Spinoza sites that totally misunderstand him and have hard-to-follow versions of his works (probably with lots of typos and bad translations too).

This one is better: http://www.philosophyarchive.com/text.php?era=1600-1699&author=Spinoza&text=A%20Theologico-Political%20Treatise

Though it too has an idiosyncratic style of display and margin.

I actually, rather, recommend getting a PROPER, MODERN translation off Amazon... relatively cheaply... The Curley translation is the best, second best (and my favourite) is the Shirley translation.

Elwes is a bit dated, which is why you find his free on the internet.

249. Ayaan Hirsi Ali at AAI 07

Comment #78614 by Spinoza on October 13, 2007 at 9:39 pm

The Theoligico Political Treatise of my namesake philosopher is quite possibly the most brilliant dethroning ever manifested upon this earth.

If you are to read Infidel, I urge you also to read Spinoza's TTP.

You will not be disappointed.

250. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #78612 by Spinoza on October 13, 2007 at 9:07 pm

"The religious believer says that moral integrity, self-introspection, honesty and trust are styles of living that connect with the character of an eternal and free agency, the agency most religions call God. Agree or disagree, but I would say to critics, at least grasp that that is being talked about. Often the atheist seems to be talking about something else."

I'm an atheist, and a philosopher, and a writer, and I'm not talking about something else, I'm talking about that "character of eternal and free agency"... it doesn't exist.

Except insofar as it is natural... and that ain't your God, sir. That's MY God. The natural universe.

Deus sive Natura. :)