http://www.dbskeptic.com Skepticism. Critical thinking. Podcast. Community. Sat, 14 Aug 2010 01:54:54 +0000 en-us hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Digital Bits Skeptic brings skepticism and critical thinking to a world of new age, religion and credulous pop culture. Andy Kaiser clean Andy Kaiser skeptic@dbskeptic.com skeptic@dbskeptic.com (Andy Kaiser) 2009 Skepticism and critical thinking in a world of new age, religion and credulous pop culture skeptic, skepticism, critical thinking, new age, religion, pop culture, skeptical articles, critical thinking articles, philosophy http://www.dbskeptic.com/images/dbskeptic-logo-144.jpg http://www.dbskeptic.com/category/philosophy/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/08/13/the-veil-of-ignorance-dont-confuse-tools-with-the-buildings-they-create/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/08/13/the-veil-of-ignorance-dont-confuse-tools-with-the-buildings-they-create/#comments Sat, 14 Aug 2010 01:54:54 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=2052 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2010/08/13/the-veil-of-ignorance-dont-confuse-tools-with-the-buildings-they-create/feed/ 1 Navin Kumar By Navin Kumar Article ID: 1413 - The "veil of ignorance" is a thought experiment: Imagine you have to design a society. You have to decide if slavery will be permitted or not. Are women supposed to stay at home? Are they allowed to work? By Navin Kumar Article ID: 1413 The "veil of ignorance" is a thought experiment: Imagine you have to design a society. You have to decide if slavery will be permitted or not. Are women supposed to stay at home? Are they allowed to work? Or must they do a bit of both? How high are income taxes? How are they applied? After you design your society, you become one of the positions in that society. Here’s the kicker: you aren’t allowed to choose your position. You get one at random. So you could end up male or female, rich or poor, black or white, slave or owner, scientist or secretary. Since you don’t know what position you will occupy, you are said to be designing this society from behind a ‘veil of ignorance’. How would you design such a society? What would it look like? You could end up as a coal miner or a CEO. Will the CEO be heavily taxed to subsidize the coal miner’s healthcare? Most people are risk-averse: they would rather have a million dollars guaranteed rather than a 50% chance of having 2 million dollars and a 50% chance of having nothing. This is fairly logical: with the first million you will buy what’s important: a house, a decent car, a retirement fund, et cetera. The second million will get you a fancier car, a holiday house and maybe some nice suits but the happiness (in economic terms, the utility) you get out of the second million is less than the happiness you get out of the first million. (Mathematically, let’s say the first million gets you a utility of 50, while the second million gets you a utility of 40. If you just take the million your utility is 50. Winning gives you a utility of 90, while losing gets you zero. Therefore, if you take the gamble, you have an expected utility of (.5 x 90) + (.5 x 0) = 45. Thus taking the gamble will, on average, give a lower overall utility and less happiness.) John Rawls, the philosopher who invented the concept of the veil of ignorance, concluded that because people are risk-averse, they would construct a society where everyone is equal rather than one where there are rich as well as poor people. Since this is the kind of society that we would choose if we didn’t know our positions, this is the kind of society which we must try to create in the real world. Right? To use the example above, you’d want to hedge your bets and tax the CEO if you weren’t sure if you’d become him. Rawls took this idea one step further. He argued that people would want a society where there is equality of outcome: everyone ends up in the same place, regardless of intelligence, talent or strength, because even these things are randomly distributed at birth. You might be born stupid, weak or talentless. Wouldn’t you want to hedge your bets against that affecting you? This equality of outcome hasn’t really caught on in a big way. Even egalitarians accept you’d need some degree of inequality to convince people to put in a decade of work to become a doctor instead of a jazz musician. Even so, Rawls’ conclusions about an equal society being a just one are very influential. These conclusions have been subject to a variety of criticisms. Are people really that risk-averse? What about those thousands of ‘actors’ who end up doing bit roles for tiny amounts of money their entire lives so they have a one-in-ten-thousand shot at becoming Tom Cruise? And how do you decide the best ratio of security versus liberty? Let’s focus on one criticism, that of Rawls’ society where a fixed amount of wealth must be distributed. Everything else being equal, a person would prefer a society where incomes were $10, $4 and $4 to one where the distributions were $3, $3, $3 because in the first example all incomes are higher in all cases. To simplify the analysis, assume that all people are risk-averse, and we’ll use the Veil of Ignorance as our tool of choice. But rather than designing a society, let’s say that the person behind the Veil is designing a civilization. Andy Kaiser clean 8:34 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/12/20/advanced-apologizing-proof-of-the-existence-of-god/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/12/20/advanced-apologizing-proof-of-the-existence-of-god/#comments Mon, 21 Dec 2009 03:07:44 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1733 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/12/20/advanced-apologizing-proof-of-the-existence-of-god/feed/ 12 Nicholas Covington By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1349 - Let's examine the evidence for a god's existence. Some arguments are well-known and very well covered, like the Problem of Evil, the First Cause Argument, the Argument from Design. Instead, By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1349 Let's examine the evidence for a god's existence. Some arguments are well-known and very well covered, like the Problem of Evil, the First Cause Argument, the Argument from Design. Instead, let's look at four lesser-known, overlooked oddities. Welcome to the strange world of religious apologizing. 1) "The common consent to God" Catholic theologian Peter Kreeft offers the following argument for God’s existence: [1] A belief in God—that Being to whom reverence and worship are properly due—is common to almost all people of every era. Either the vast majority of people have been wrong about this most profound element of their lives, or they have not. It is most plausible to believe that they have not. Therefore, it is most plausible to believe that God exists. As Kreeft says, “the majority is not infallible.” Big groups of people can make mistakes. He concedes this point, citing the fact that once upon a time most of the world believed the sun revolved around the Earth, rather than the Earth revolving around the sun. However, people back in those days could directly experience the sun and Earth. But in the case of God, what exactly is it that people experience and possibly misinterpret? This argument fails to convince me. For one thing, “belief in God” is not common to people of every era. Today, at least one third of the world’s population does not subscribe to any of the major monotheistic faiths. [2] It is my understanding that before the rise of Christianity (which covers almost all of human history), almost everyone was polytheistic or engaged in some form of nature worship. If Kreeft is right about the majority being an indicator of truth, he can't also argue for the existence of God (with a capital 'G'). His argument, if correct, actually supports polytheism! Another big problem is when Kreeft attempted to refute the “majority is not infallible” objection. Kreeft admitted that ancient people misinterpreted their experiences and so came to believe that the sun revolved around the earth. Apply this to present day religion: A religious worldview could simply be the result of misinterpreting reality. Animism (personifying nature) seems to grow out of falsely attributing human characteristics to impersonal things (like regarding the moon as an "Earth Mother"). Polytheism appears to have grown out of animism, since the gods of ancient polytheistic religions were originally often just aspects of nature. We human beings, in our modern monotheistic societies, still personify inanimate objects. This supports my theory that religion is based on a fundamental misinterpretation of reality. Have you ever seen someone get angry at their car because it won’t start? Have you ever seen someone plead with or threaten a faulty computer? Think about what this person was doing: She was personifying inanimate objects. How rational is it to get angry at something with no will of its own, an object utterly incapable of being persuaded by curses or violence? It isn't rational. It makes no sense, unless this person believes, even subconsciously, that the inanimate object is actually animate. 2) "The singularity argument against God" The "Big Bang singularity" is the moment, after we extrapolate backwards in time, when we see that the Big Bang was infinitely dense, infinitely hot and was so tiny it consumed no space at all. The singularity is a cosmic "division by zero" error, where physics and general relativity break down. Philosopher Quentin Smith [3] says that the Big Bang singularity was a lawless, chaotic, and unpredictable state. In principle, it is impossible to predict whether such a thing could ever evolve life. Smith argues that God would not create the universe this way: a life-creating God would not leave open the possibility of a lifeless universe. There's a flaw here. Since God is omnipotent, He could have created the Big Bang, Andy Kaiser clean 11:55 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/10/18/what-is-faith/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/10/18/what-is-faith/#comments Sun, 18 Oct 2009 18:55:09 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1579 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/10/18/what-is-faith/feed/ 11 Jeff Kilroy by Jeff Kilroy Article ID: 1341 - I attempt to have rational arguments with theists about their beliefs. I really do. Unfortunately, it seems that every time I present an argument that almost makes me shout “Checkmate!”, by Jeff Kilroy Article ID: 1341 I attempt to have rational arguments with theists about their beliefs. I really do. Unfortunately, it seems that every time I present an argument that almost makes me shout “Checkmate!”, I get the dismissive reply of “You just need faith,” or “This is just MY faith”. In most religions and even some pseudo-scientific circles, faith is touted as a necessity or virtue. But is faith really a good thing to possess? Better yet, do we really know what faith is? One of the more commonly used definitions comes from Merriam-Webster: faith is a "Firm belief in something for which there is no proof". That doesn't sound so great to me. I decided to post on a few religious forums and see what faith was all about.  My question to the readers was pretty simple. I wanted to know how they would define faith as well as why they felt that it was good to have. Unfortunately, the responses were not as captivating as I hoped they would be. I received generic responses that really were non-answers more than anything else. Some explained their relationship with God, which really had nothing to do with my question. The primary stance was that faith is simply one’s trust in something. We need it because we don’t always have proof. The problem is that whatever is taken on faith must have some faint evidence or reason to begin with. This often comes from your surroundings (including parents, culture and friends), otherwise the person with faith in Jesus Christ should also have faith in Muhammad, Zeus, and unicorns.  There has to be a reason why one obtains a particular faith in the first place. That faith is not a belief in something without evidence, but rather belief in something with some bit of evidence. And even with "evidence", it's still not enough to convince another, otherwise the believer wouldn't need to mention faith in the first place. The amount of evidence required in order to believe a claim should depend on the initial believability of the claim. For example, I walk into a grocery store and notice the man behind the counter has a nametag on his shirt reading, "Hello, my name is Bill". I would not need any more evidence to be convinced his name is Bill. This would be perfectly fine to assume since the evidence is sufficient in comparison to the claim. Since I may never see Bill again, I am not terribly worried about getting his name wrong. Next, I lean over and say, “Hi, Bill!” as he rings up my items. What if he corrects me? What if he explains that he had accidentally switched nametags with another employee, and then rushes over to the "real" Bill to get the correct nametag? Would I reject his claim of not being named Bill? Of course not. While the excuse is a bit odd, I have witnessed enough evidence to change my previous assertion. This is where faith is different from the normal way we reason. When someone has faith in something, they have an unjustified alliance with an idea.  While it could be said that we all have this to a degree, that we will continually qualify something as true until we receive a specific amount of evidence to oppose that assumption, the main distinction is with the amount of evidence required by a belief. If you have strong faith in an idea, you're saying, "It will be very hard or impossible for me to change my mind." This is a problem. When a person is closed to critical analysis of their own ideas, it's tough to trust the other choices they've made in their life. I feel everyone has the right to believe whatever that want, no matter how crazy I think they are. I would never want to take that freedom away from someone. I would, however, encourage those with supposed "strong faith" to evaluate their stance from an unbiased perspective. Get some opposing ideas and truly consider them. We must all realize how our own beliefs affect our everyday choices - large and small. The more we can be rational with our ideas and justify our beliefs, Andy Kaiser clean 6:28 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/05/17/the-meaning-of-life-and-podcasting/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/05/17/the-meaning-of-life-and-podcasting/#comments Sun, 17 May 2009 17:29:42 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=1039 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/05/17/the-meaning-of-life-and-podcasting/feed/ 11 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1321 - I have no idea how I first started listening to the deò's Shadow podcast. But there I was. A skeptic. A secular humanist. An atheist. And I was listening to and enjoying a podcast that targeted pagans. Pagans! By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1321 I have no idea how I first started listening to the deò's Shadow podcast. But there I was. A skeptic. A secular humanist. An atheist. And I was listening to and enjoying a podcast that targeted pagans. Pagans! Nature-communing, naked-fire-dancing, tarot-card-reading, Winter Solstice-celebrating pagans! Many pagans believe in multiple gods and the supernatural. Many secular humanists don't. On paper, I'm the opposite of a pagan. But I listened. I listened to this podcast that lectured in depth about things I thought were nonsense. But that was okay. I liked deò's Shadow for two reasons. First, the hosts (husband and wife team deò and Mandy) were talented and charismatic. Second, the show was (for lack of a better description) kinda skeptical. Yes, they focused heavily on pagan-centric stuff that rubbed my hackles in a way I didn't want rubbed. But they also supported issues important to skeptics. Some you may know, like Kirk Cameron's odd assumption that the physical design of the banana proves the existence of God. Or a criticism of "The Secret", an Oprah-advertized self-help guide that's just cuckoo. Or how to profess a liberal belief system in a land populated by fundamentalists. As the podcasts went on, many topics and conversations crossed from pagan ley lines into skeptical latitudes. In fact, the second-to-last podcast of deò's Shadow was titled "Skepticism, Science and Scientology". A short time later, the podcast stopped. No more episodes. With a bit of research, I found why. deò and Mandy said: "Making deòs Shadow was usually a joy, and as the show grew more popular, we had many opportunities for new experiences which helped us to grow as people. One of the interesting side-effects of such growth is that one can end up growing out of that which induces the growth. We've moved on from Paganism and are now practicing atheists." Cool. Good for them, you know? Not because they came over to a philosophy I support, but that they were willing to significantly change their lives based on what they believed, even though it would mean the loss of some very important things. That conversion took intelligence, research, and self-confidence. It was a thinking change. I respect that, whether you're moving to my philosophy or away from it. This next sentence might sound like a violent derailing of the topic, but trust me: Let me tell you about my philosophy of life. Andy's meaning of life Everyone asks, "Why are we here? What's the point of life?" No one really knows for sure, so we have to make an intelligent guess as to the answer. Here's what I've come up with so far: Produce, create and use what ability you have to improve the world and the lives of those around you. Leave something good behind. Help others. Teach others. Raise good kids. Or, say, as a completely random example, try to produce a critical-thinking podcast to the best of one's ability. Someday I'll die. When I'm gone, I want something left. Yes, my genes will be around in my children, my family and friends will have memories and stories. But I'm talking more. I'm also talking about the horrible alternative of having done nothing at all. If I do nothing, I've rejected our evolutionary imperitive to further the species. Or in a more personal take, I've wasted the biggest opportunity any of us ever gets. This concept is best explained in one of my favorite books, "The Circus of Dr. Lao", by Charles Finney. In the book, a woman thinks it would be fun to go to a fortune teller and have him predict her future. Little does she know, the fortune teller is gifted - and cursed - because his fortunes and predictions are always 100% accurate. This is what he tells her: "Tomorrow will be like today, and the day after tomorrow will be like the day before yesterday. I see your remaining days each as quiet, tedious collections of hours. You will not travel anywhere. You will think no new thoughts. Andy Kaiser clean 11:33 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/03/15/a-critical-examination-of-the-kalam-cosmological-argument/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/03/15/a-critical-examination-of-the-kalam-cosmological-argument/#comments Mon, 16 Mar 2009 01:48:56 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=872 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2009/03/15/a-critical-examination-of-the-kalam-cosmological-argument/feed/ 12 Nicholas Covington By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1312 - The Kalam Cosmological Argument was popularized by the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig, and it has become the most widely discussed argument for God's existence in contemporary philosophy[1]. By Nicholas Covington Article ID: 1312 The Kalam Cosmological Argument was popularized by the Christian philosopher William Lane Craig, and it has become the most widely discussed argument for God's existence in contemporary philosophy[1]. These th... Andy Kaiser clean 10:06 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/12/22/in-defense-of-murderous-humans-animals-at-steak/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/12/22/in-defense-of-murderous-humans-animals-at-steak/#comments Mon, 22 Dec 2008 06:28:33 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=530 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/12/22/in-defense-of-murderous-humans-animals-at-steak/feed/ 6 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1265 - "Puppies." Even the word is cute. With just a few very oddball exceptions, you'd agree with me that puppies are adorable. But at what point do people stop using the term "man's best friend", By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1265 "Puppies." Even the word is cute. With just a few very oddball exceptions, you'd agree with me that puppies are adorable. But at what point do people stop using the term "man's best friend", and start saying "pass the salt"? I'm talking about the inherent differences between humans and every other animal on the planet. After all, as the smart, tool-using, big-brained creatures we are, do we not have an imperative to nurture and care for all the other animals on the planet? No. Not when animal rights are compared to humankind's safety, science or even hunger. In my own country - the United States - eating dog meat is considered taboo. We're just too emotionally close to our pets. Elsewhere, dogs are eaten and bred as a food supply: this occurs in China, Indonesia, Korea and Vietnam. Other countries eat dog meat more covertly, in more remote locations, or are used as a food supply in times of famine. These countries include France, Germany, India, Nigeria, the Philippines, Switzerland, and near the Arctic and Antarctic. In times of desperation, the competition for life becomes a free-for-all. Stories like Jack London's "To Build a Fire" are understandable - if a man is freezing to death, of course he'll kill his trusty dog for its body heat. If a man is starving, he'll feed himself with whatever's available. This desire for life is so strong it's even visible between humans. For those who have sung and danced through the black comedy, "Cannibal: The Musical" or the 1993 movie "Alive", we know that people in extreme situations will ignore the most fundamental of taboos to stay living. Life or death situations are pretty easy to argue. But throw in some ambiguity and it gets tricky. When immediate death isn't part of the equation, at what point is it morally acceptable to kill an animal? I argue that it's allowed under these two situations: 1) It's morally acceptable for humans to eat most animals. We are omnivores. We are designed to eat meat, and we get certain nutrition from meat we can't easily get from other sources. 2) It's morally acceptable for humans to perform research and testing on animals if that effort has a chance of saving or improving human lives. Animal testing to further our scientific knowledge is an imperative. We would advance slower or not at all without animal testing, because the alternative with today's technology would be to test on humans. Even as I write these words, I don't like them. I believe they are true, but I don't enjoy having to pick what is clearly a lesser of two evils. However, I'm confident in the above because of this premise: All else being equal, any human life is worth more than any animal life. This idea may in fact be at the core of every animal rights issue. If someone has to suffer and die so that humans don't have to, then the animal must take this terrible burden. Why? Because someone has to - we don't yet have the technology to do otherwise. If we are altruistic to animals, humanity would suffer. In a rather brutal summary of the above themes, we end with this quote by comedian Nick Dipaolo: "If hooking a car battery up to a monkey's brain will help find the cure for AIDS and save somebody's life, I have two things to say... the red is positive and the black is negative." Andy Kaiser clean 5:58 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/12/08/funny-underused-crude-knowledge-a-vulgar-examination-of-profanity/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/12/08/funny-underused-crude-knowledge-a-vulgar-examination-of-profanity/#comments Mon, 08 Dec 2008 05:35:04 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=507 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/12/08/funny-underused-crude-knowledge-a-vulgar-examination-of-profanity/feed/ 8 M Parrott By M Parrott Article ID: 1263 - [An editor's note to parents and teachers: This article contains words considered offensive to a large portion of the sixteenth century English-speaking world. Proceed with caution.] - Profanity is an interesting subject, By M Parrott Article ID: 1263 [An editor's note to parents and teachers: This article contains words considered offensive to a large portion of the sixteenth century English-speaking world. Proceed with caution.] Profanity is an interesting subject, particularly in today's over-sensitive culture. Some say that profanity is a big problem. They claim it can ruin a child's upbringing and destroy innocence and purity. You know what I say to these people? "Balderdash! Piffle! Poppycock and poop!" Profanities are just words. A phonetic collection meant to communicate a recognizable concept. Just like what you read now is no more than a collection of squiggles to create "letters". These so called "letters" create words. But what are they really? Nothing. Just something made up by humanity by the very first communications major. It's also a philosophy thing. With the same reasoning, we can deduce that a chair is not a chair, but a series of electrons, protons and neutrons that form something we recognise as a chair. So how is profanity any different? Some linguists theorise vulgar words have harsher sounds. For example the letters "ck" in - well, you know, the really bad one - make the word harsh and abrupt. By this theory we should also be offended by the word "duck". But this is far from the case! You never overhear anyone saying, "So the guy says, ‘duck her? I hardly know her!'" No, it just doesn't happen (unless you live in some weird area with an even weirder sense of humour). So the phoenetics idea too is bunkum. Perhaps a word can be judged by its meaning. This is another theory for why profanities are classed as profanity. Since sexuality is often shameful, words with sexual meanings are classed as profane. That's utter bosh and most certainly tosh! They're just synonyms. One terrible word means nothing more than sex. Another one means no more than poop. Yet they're so offensive! Does this make sense? How can one word's meaning be so offensive while non-offensive synonyms mean the exact same thing? Some words change levels of offensiveness over time. "Humbug" is a prime example. Ehrich Weiss (also known as Harry Houdini) used to label so-called "psychics" as "humbugers" because this word was shocking and offensive at the time. It's very similar in intention to a certain TV show starring Penn and Teller whose name we will abbreviate to "B.S.". So what has changed since the era of "humbugers"? I'll tell you: Pipsqueak! Nada! If profanity like "humbug" is so offensive, why does it change in meaning a century later, while the truly offensive words never change? Those seem to be a permanent fixture of the English language, whereas mere profanity changes along with a culture. Have you ever been called a "ninnyhammer"? A "blaggard"? Or (my personal favourite) "wanksplash"? I think not. These are all era-dependant. Take today's profanity: I give it at most 150 years, after which these terrible words will sound as silly as today's "humbug". Look to the teachings of the great George Carlin. Examine closely his "seven dirty words" (which, perhaps ironically, won't be quoted on this family-friendly site). Carlin's list is already changing: would you really classify numbers two and seven as profanity (you know the words: **** and ****)? ...Apparently the Digital Bits Skeptic decency filter does, but I don't, and I think many would agree with me. And Carlin's list is only thirty-six years old. Why, if these words were so offensive, are they quickly becoming non-offensive? George Carlin did teach us that these "profanities" are no more than words. But they are useful words - They truly punctuate your point. A quick experiment for you: Say the sentence, "That's awful." Now throw in an expletive of your choice. Isn't that so much better? Here's some food for thought: do you honestly really care about such words? Do you truly despise profanity? What is it about an individual word that offends you so much? Andy Kaiser clean 7:15 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/30/party-politics-and-the-false-dilemma-logical-fallacy/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/30/party-politics-and-the-false-dilemma-logical-fallacy/#comments Mon, 01 Dec 2008 03:40:39 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=499 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/30/party-politics-and-the-false-dilemma-logical-fallacy/feed/ 10 Joshua Walker By Joshua Walker Article ID: 1262 - I'm an American. Just a few weeks ago, the United States elected a new President for 2009. This is the first election that I decided to forgo party politics - I voted for the person I think was best for the job. By Joshua Walker Article ID: 1262 I'm an American. Just a few weeks ago, the United States elected a new President for 2009. This is the first election that I decided to forgo party politics - I voted for the person I think was best for the job. I voted based upon my political principles, instead of just voting "against" the "other guy". During this process, I've grown angrier and more frustrated at the "false dilemma" logical fallacy that is so prevalent in American politics. What is a false dilemma? A false dilemma is a logical fallacy where someone states that "either X is true or Y is true". The problem is that X and Y might both be false or both true.  In fact, there might be claims A, B, L, and Z that are also true and related to the topic.  Now, it is possible that X and Y might be the only options and that if one is true the other is false; we should, however, be very careful with such claims and determine if X and Y are really the only options. Republican or Democrat: You decide I am constantly astounded by those who claim a differing political ideology, such as Libertarianism or Constitutionalism, yet always vote for the two major parties.  The Republicans are usually considered conservatives and the Democrats are usually considered liberals, but even those ideologies have splintered into sub-ideologies, such as the neo-conservatives and neo-liberals.  Sometimes these new ideologies are directly contrary to their parent.  Yet even with these ever-evolving political philosophies, the individual is expected to sacrifice their ideals to the current party puppet- ...I mean party "candidate". Americans are constantly flooded with propaganda telling them that there are only two choices and that the third parties have no chance at winning an election.  This becomes its own self-fulfilling prophecy.  If a man thinks he's going to die tomorrow, he'll find a way to make it happen, or die trying.  If a majority believes that voting for a third party candidate is useless, then the prophecy will fulfill itself.  If we all want change, but choose to vote for party sycophants simply because we are told to do so, then we are merely puppets and not free people. The example of false dilemma propaganda that inspired me to write this article came from this news article at Yahoo.com.  It begins by quoting a person saying that voting third party would be throwing their vote away.  Since this person is - of course - just like us, then we also should not throw our vote away on a third party.  Or is that more than a quote, and a recommendation from the article's author?  Later in the article, an "expert" is brought in to tell us that none of the third party candidates "resonate" with the American people, even though people constantly complain about the poor choice of candidates and the "vote for the lesser evil" strategy.  There are figures and statistics dissuading us from opposing the political power structure because no third party candidate has ever won high political office. Unfortunately, repeating this fact helps to ensure continued failure of the third party candidates. The major parties place themselves on opposite sides of every issue, even though many political positions have more than two sides.  Take, for example, the abortion debate.  You are either pro-life or pro-abortion.  Taking a position that the federal government has no authority in this issue and that it should be left to the states is never considered.  Consider the ANWR drilling controversy.  You're either for or against it.  You can't say that it's irrelevant because the government has banned alternative fuel options for years and more drilling is only a band-aid on an amputation.  The issues are always turned into yes or no options. This lets the parties take opposite sides and argue pointlessly, while ignoring any inconvenient facts. Take responsibility and free your mind Logical fallacies are dangerous. Andy Kaiser clean 7:42 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/23/a-skeptical-analysis-of-there-are-no-atheists-in-foxholes/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/23/a-skeptical-analysis-of-there-are-no-atheists-in-foxholes/#comments Mon, 24 Nov 2008 04:54:40 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=492 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/23/a-skeptical-analysis-of-there-are-no-atheists-in-foxholes/feed/ 27 Navin Kumar By Navin Kumar Article ID: 1261 - The phrase "there are no atheists in foxholes" has been around for a long time. It's used with phrases like "there are no atheists in a crashing plane" or "there are no libertarians during a financial crisis". By Navin Kumar Article ID: 1261 The phrase "there are no atheists in foxholes" has been around for a long time. It's used with phrases like "there are no atheists in a crashing plane" or "there are no libertarians during a financial crisis". It's a way of saying that even those who claim to be very principled forget their principles during an emergency. More narrowly, it's a way of asserting that atheists do actually believe in God and are simply in denial. This supposes that during times of great stress - like when you've just parachuted into Landmine County - religious belief rises to the surface and blasts away all "pretensions". What's the rebuttal to "there are no atheists in foxholes"? There is no logical rebuttal to this claim. Why? Because it's not an argument. "There are no atheists in foxholes" is an assertion. It's like saying "X is equal to 6.78". It's either true or it isn't. But in the interests of being thorough, let's give the phrase more dignity than it deserves and raise it to the level of a theory. If a person presents such a theory, he is expected to present some kind of empirical data or experiment to back it up. In this case, there is no empirical evidence. A possible experiment could involve recording the religious orientation of outgoing soldiers, and then asking the returning atheists a question like the following: While in your foxhole, did you ever have a moment when you decided that God exists? a) Yes. b) No. c) I was too busy trying not to get decapitated to think about it. No one has ever conducted this kind of survey. If someone claims "there are no atheists in foxholes", the only proper retort to this bigoted sentence is "Yes, there are." If it's such faulty reasoning, why do people claim there are no atheists in foxholes? Theists believe that atheists live in denial because a theist's belief in God is based largely on faith, rather than reasoning or empirical evidence. They feel God's presence, and can't understand how others don't. So they conclude that other people do in fact feel him but are lying due to some ulterior motive. Psychologists call this "projection" (although the term may not be technically right: projection deals with unwanted qualities and most theists would reject the idea of theism being unwanted). A selfish person sees everyone else as being selfish. A liar sees dishonesty everywhere. And a religious person cannot believe other people can be so spiritually blind. They assume that everyone is the same as them, despite what others claim. With this understanding, it's easier to see how so many people can believe an assertion without evidence. Of course, the atheist-in-foxholes phrase is irrelevant to the question of whether a god exists or not. If there are atheists in foxholes, a theist could argue that it's just an example of divinely-created free will. On the other hand, simply beliving in something doesn't make it true. Do wars convert warriors into believers? Yes, but not the way theists intend. Anecdotal evidence (which, it should be warned, is unreliable) suggests that battlefield conversions do happen, but in the opposite direction: faced with the horror of war, soldiers start to wonder if a kind, benevolent, all-powerful God would allow something like this to happen. Specifically, "either there is no God, or He's a bastard". Andrew Cline - in his blog "About.com Guide to Atheism since 1998" - received a letter from a US Marine who said: "Not that this would be admitted or last after combat is over, but even the marines praying every night when we were in the rear weren't pleading for god's help in combat. They were acting just like atheists, ducking and covering, shooting back; trying to save themselves. Never once did I see someone stop and pray for help. They use religion to get them through day to day, but when it hits the fan so to speak, they don't take chances relying on god." Andy Kaiser clean 10:25 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/17/more-original-versions-of-classic-fairy-tales/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/17/more-original-versions-of-classic-fairy-tales/#comments Mon, 17 Nov 2008 06:59:08 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=477 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/17/more-original-versions-of-classic-fairy-tales/feed/ 30 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1260 - [This article is a companion piece to "Original meanings of classic fairy tales".] - Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he live, or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread. By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1260 [This article is a companion piece to "Original meanings of classic fairy tales".] Fee! Fie! Foe! Fum! I smell the blood of an Englishman. Be he live, or be he dead, I'll grind his bones to make my bread. It's a cool speech. But when you think about its literal meaning and the murderous intent of the giant ogre in "Jack and the Beanstalk", you know - even as a child - that some fairy tales have strong undercurrents of gore and violence. You can confirm this by examining classic fairy tales and learning their original versions. Many of today's fairy tales have been retooled to save our children from terrible stuff like blood, guts, sex, and unplanned pregnancies. Unfortunately, that means the original lessons of many fairy tales have been mangled or lost entirely. Parents and teachers, this is a warning. Here be sex, gore, and worse: the potential destruction of fun childhood bedtime stories. The original story of Jack and the Beanstalk and Jack and His Bargains An interesting aspect of this story is that Jack's adventure with the beanstalk was not his only tale. There were many stories in what is called the "Jack cycle". "Jack and the Beanstalk" just happens to be the most popular one. One example from the Jack cycle is called "Jack and his Bargains". This story starts with Jack and his father, and can be thought of as a sequel to Jack and the Beanstalk. Jack is asked to sell the family cows for money. And like the Beanstalk story, he doesn't, but instead trades the cows for magical items. In this case, the items are a magical stick (which physically beats anyone once Jack activates it by saying, "up stick and at it"), a singing bee, and a fiddle which plays beautiful music. Jack uses these items to impress a local princess, after which they get married and have "baskets full of children". On to the beanstalk: in "Jack and the Beanstalk", Jack sells the family cow for magic seeds, as the cow (named "Milky White") no longer gives milk. These seeds are planted, and a giant beanstalk grows out of the ground and high into the sky. Jack climbs the beanstalk. At the top, nestled in the clouds, is a giant castle. A huge ogre lives in the castle. The ogre gives us the memorable line of "Fee! Fi! Fo! Fum!" Jack makes three trips, and each trip has a similar plot: he hides from the giant (twice in the giant ogre's oven, and once in a cooking pot), and steals the ogre's possessions (a bag of gold, a hen that lays golden eggs, and a golden harp). An fun twist is that the ogre is married. The ogress actually helps Jack hide from her husband, and she and Jack get along great together when the ogre isn't around. As Jack escapes after his third theft, the golden harp in his hands comes alive and starts screaming for help. The ogre chases after Jack. Jack descends the beanstalk with the ogre close above him. He calls for his mother to cut down the beanstalk with an axe. The mother gets the axe, but freezes - she can't do it. Jack drops to the ground, frantically chops down the beanstalk, and the ogre dies from the fall. I end up feeling sorry for the ogre husband and wife. They seem to have lived a pretty good life in the clouds, in their own castle, along with some pretty cool magical gadgets. And here comes Jack to ruin it all, with no moral justification for his repeated burglaries and his final murder of the ogre. The morals of the original Jack and the Beanstalk: Grow up and stop being an infant. You must be able to independently strike out alone to provide for a family. The killing of the giant by destroying the beanstalk is a nicely phallic representation of the need to supersede male influence, taking control of one's own life and rejecting superstition and magic. The original story of Beauty and the Beast The father is rich. There is no mother. The father has three sons and three daughters. The youngest daughter, the most attractive, Andy Kaiser clean 25:17 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/10/the-god-confusion/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/10/the-god-confusion/#comments Mon, 10 Nov 2008 05:35:53 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=466 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/11/10/the-god-confusion/feed/ 13 Science Reason & Rationality by Science, Reason & Rationality Article ID: 1259 "It is said that men may not be the dreams of the Gods, but rather that the Gods are the dreams of men." ~ Carl Sagan - Hello. My name is God, and I am an atheist. by Science, Reason & Rationality Article ID: 1259 "It is said that men may not be the dreams of the Gods, but rather that the Gods are the dreams of men." ~ Carl Sagan Hello. My name is God, and I am an atheist. I don't believe in gods because there are no gods who created me and there's no one else here to compare myself to. I just have always existed. I didn't evolve from anything. I am now just as I always have been, and will always be that it in the future. Messes with your head, doesn't it? Think of how I feel! But, what if there is a god who created me? I don't see any other gods here except me, so why should I believe in another god? How about faith? Can faith establish that there is another god? No way! That's just being silly. Even if I do have a creator, who created that god? No, that's a faulty line of reasoning. I am the one and only. There is no other god but me. Right? Before I could know of another god, there must first be hard evidence and genuine scientific proof. That's not going to happen, because I am God, I'd know of such things. Okay, just me then. Now that I've got that question solved, what am I going to do now? There's a lot of black empty space out here and I'm getting really bored! I gotta do something. Maybe I should create a "Big Boom" or a "Big Bam" or some kind of huge explosion and see what happens. [A gigantic, mind-numbing, multiverse-shaking explosion ensues...] ...Okay, so I guess that was more of a "Big Bang". Not bad, not bad at all. I'm an instant artist! Look at these beautiful stars, planets, and galaxies. I'm impressed. I'm the greatest thing in this whole universe. But then, I'm the only one here, so I'm greatest by default. I suppose I could create other gods, and challenge them so that I can see for myself if I am indeed the greatest. On second thought, that may be a bad idea. What if they beat me? Or form evil alliances against me and revolt? That'll be embarrassing. And what if they ask me who created me? Since I am the one who created them, they might think there must be some other god who created me. They'll stop worshipping me, and look for other gods. Not acceptable. Moreover, they're not gonna believe me if I said I just came into being out of nothing. Still, I could force them to believe whatever I want them to believe. Or I could punish the non-believers. I'll have to give this some thought. [Some time later...] I'm bored. I've created everything I wanted to create. Am I going to be the only one admiring my own work?  That would be lame. ...I know! What if, instead of creating new gods, I create some tiny little creatures on one or more of these planets? They won't be as powerful as a god, so they won't be a threat to me. I'll design them unable to see me, but they can see all my genius works. They can admire my work and praise me for it. It'll be fun seeing them trying to figure out what the heck is going on. I can see it now: some will claim that they know me and have spoken to me or I have spoken to them, and they'll use my name to start a religion. Soon, there will be a whole bunch of them and they'll be killing each other to prove which Me is the one and only "true" Me. And I'll never speak to any one of them. Anything they think is my voice will be misinterpretation or self-delusion. This will be good entertainment. Should keep my boredom away. I get to be movie director. Producer too. And the whole special effects production crew. To paraphrase someone I'm about to create, "it's good to be the god!" Okay, got a little sidetracked there. Back to the plan. Those "religion" businessmen will use really effective marketing strategies in order to control others, making people behave with a predetermined right and wrong. All in my name, of course. That'll cause problems, but those are their problems, not mine. I just want an audience. Now, what will my creatures look like? I can't make them all look exactly like me. Andy Kaiser clean 10:31 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/10/27/original-versions-of-classic-fairy-tales/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/10/27/original-versions-of-classic-fairy-tales/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 05:39:27 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=412 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/10/27/original-versions-of-classic-fairy-tales/feed/ 23 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1257 - [This article is a companion piece to "More original meanings of classic fairy tales".] "Oh Grandmother, what big ears you have!" "All the better to hear you with, my dear." "Oh Grandmother, what big eyes you have! By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1257 [This article is a companion piece to "More original meanings of classic fairy tales".] "Oh Grandmother, what big ears you have!" "All the better to hear you with, my dear." "Oh Grandmother, what big eyes you have!" "All the better to see you with, my dear." "Oh Grandmother, what big hands you have!" "All the better to grab you with, my dear." "Oh Grandmother, what big teeth you have!" "All the better to eat you with, my dear." Thus begins the true terror of Little Red Riding Hood. Do you know what happens in the original story? Find out, and this Halloween you may think twice when you see certain costumes. This Digital Bits Skeptic article keeps to the usual credo of skepticism and critical thinking. But since it's a Halloween special, it also gets pretty creepy. A quick alert to parents and teachers - this article doesn't have forbidden words, but revealing the dark nature of beloved childrens' fairy tales may be too much for young kids. It's almost Halloween. In less than five days, young children will dress up, put on makeup or a mask, and knock on strangers' doors, expecting oodles of free candy. And they get it. The kids are happy, the strangers are happy, everyone wins except dental insurance companies. When I was younger, the cool costumes were made from anyone from the Star Wars movies. I too donned the smelly, sweaty plastic mask, and trick-or-treated as Darth Vader. Being probably three feet tall made me a much less imposing figure. My friends all did the same. Movies and TV shows dictated our choices. A costumed resurgence occurred at the time Disney started remaking classic fairy tales, like The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast, and rereleasing older movies like Cinderella and Snow White. The Little Mermaid was big. Girls everywhere dressed up like Ariel and knew line-by-line the story of unrequited love eventually rewarded. Yet, this isn't the original story. Did you know that the original Little Mermaid story by Hans Christian Anderson ended with the Little Mermaid's death? She essentially committed suicide because she was unwilling to kill the prince, who was already married to someone else. It's not quite the happy Disney ending. Yet, I remember being a kid, being somehow more satisfied when I heard the "real" endings of fairy tales. It's like watching the TV-edited version of an R-rated movie. The R-rated version is invariably better, and was the director's original intent. Even though the original fairy tale storylines deal with nasty issues, they are truer than hiding behind a Disney-esque ending. They reflect the original violent themes of some fairy tales: that the world is a dangerous place, certain behavior is tolerated and some isn't, and some people are here to protect you, and some will hurt you. For those who really like to dig deep, fairy tales also involve heavy symbolism and psychology. The Hansel and Gretel story is an examination of children's emotional growth and eventual rejection of parental supervision. Many tales (like Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel, and Sleeping Beauty) have a heavily sexual tone, and explore sexual awakening and desire. Now that we've mentioned sex and violence, let's get to it and find about the original versions of classic fairy tales. The original story of The Three Little Pigs The Three Little Pigs is sanitized for today's children by telling the violence-packed story without the violence. We're left with a cautionary tale that shows how being smart is a good thing. The original has lost a lot. The original Three Little Pigs is a lot longer, as the Big Bad Wolf doesn't stick with blowing down houses. He does do that to get the first two little pigs. Those unfortunate morsels are quickly terrorized and eaten. The third pig - the smart one - is the holdout. Unable to blow down the third pig's house, the wolf tries guile. He tries to tempt the pig out of the house, Andy Kaiser clean 15:13 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/10/04/religulous-review-bill-mahers-brutal-and-intelligent-take-on-religion/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/10/04/religulous-review-bill-mahers-brutal-and-intelligent-take-on-religion/#comments Sat, 04 Oct 2008 08:56:40 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=320 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/10/04/religulous-review-bill-mahers-brutal-and-intelligent-take-on-religion/feed/ 16 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1252 - Before we get to the good stuff, you should know that this review of Religulous contains spoilers. The spoilers give away the main topics addressed by Bill Maher. If you don't want to know them yet, By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1252 Before we get to the good stuff, you should know that this review of Religulous contains spoilers. The spoilers give away the main topics addressed by Bill Maher. If you don't want to know them yet, go see the movie first. If you're considering seeing the movie and want more information, or you want someone else's take on it, keep reading. Special thanks goes to the Center for Inquiry's Michigan chapter, who brought Religulous to West Michigan. Without their efforts, I may not have seen this movie. Religulous begins with Bill Maher talking about the Bible's Book of Revelations, a terrifying, end-of-the-world scenario preached by Biblical literalists. We get a lot of humor, and Religulous stays funny throughout much of its running time. Maher intersperses witty remarks with political and religious commentary, much like his stand-up act. But here you realize he's making a very directed, laser-focused point: religion is bad. Some quotes from him include: "[Religion is] selling an invisible product." "It's just so shamelessly invented." After his entertaining intro, we get to the main focus of the movie. Here, Bill takes on various aspects of religion, with both interviews and informal talks directly to the camera. While I don't have all the topics listed here, these are the majority, and are what Religulous spends the most time discussing: Pascal's Wager This concept says, "You should worship God, because what if you're wrong. If God exists, and you worship him, then you're safe. If He exists and you don't worship him, you've just written a one-way ticket to an everlasting pitchfork-infested sauna." There are many problems with Pascal's Wager. How do you know which God is the right one? So many religions have so many conflicting tenants, you can't know which one is true. What if God doesn't exist, and you waste your whole life worshipping a nonexistent being? Or worse, what if you've spent your life subjugating and abusing others based on religious-driven morals? Pascal's Wager is one of those questions that at first sounds witty and interesting, until you examine it logically and realize it's flawed logic. Biblical Inaccuracies The Catholic Bible is huge. From Old Testament to New, it's jammed packed with stories, morals, punishments and contradictions. Religulous spends time addressing many of these. Instead of listing them here (as even the Internet has a limited amount of space), I'll instead recommend a book: A great source of Biblical inaccuracies, problems, contradictions and abuses can be found in the book, Ken's Guide to the Bible. It's best to read Ken's Guide with an actual Bible nearby. Otherwise, you may not believe some of what you read - there are a lot of horrible things in the Bible that rarely get mentioned in Sunday's sermon. TV Preachers TV preachers bring in massive amounts of money. It's easy - they ask their viewers for contributions, and the checks and credit card numbers come pouring in. This seems like a violation of Jesus' teachings, who seemingly was a man teaching simple living and criticizing the rich. How can a television preacher reconcile his incredible material wealth while still claiming to live by Jesus' example? The Church and Homosexuality You might not know the Westboro Baptist Church by name, but you've probably heard about them. These are the people who loudly protest funerals of soldiers and other high-profile deaths. They're known for their motto, "God hates fags". Religulous uses them and others to expose the beliefs and teachings of the Catholic Church on how homosexuality is a conscious choice and a sin. Particularly interesting is a conversation Bill has with the head of Exchange Ministries, a religious non-profit specializing in converting gays away from homosexuality. Miracles Bill addresses the stupidity of various kinds of miracles. There are the obvious, in your face miracles, Andy Kaiser clean 21:11 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/09/26/five-atheist-logic-tests-and-how-to-pass-them-a-skeptical-response-to-how-to-make-an-atheist-backslide/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/09/26/five-atheist-logic-tests-and-how-to-pass-them-a-skeptical-response-to-how-to-make-an-atheist-backslide/#comments Sat, 27 Sep 2008 04:05:40 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=241 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/09/26/five-atheist-logic-tests-and-how-to-pass-them-a-skeptical-response-to-how-to-make-an-atheist-backslide/feed/ 122 Navin Kumar By Navin Kumar Article ID: 1250 - Theists have been doing their best to try and trip atheists with 'logic' for a long time. (These attempts are respectable when they don't contain raving about sin and hellfire). By Navin Kumar Article ID: 1250 Theists have been doing their best to try and trip atheists with 'logic' for a long time. (These attempts are respectable when they don't contain raving about sin and hellfire). Digital Bits Skeptic stumbled upon a webpage adapted from a booklet titled "How to make an atheist backslide" - which turns arguments against atheist theory into loaded, presumptuous 'tests'. Here is a test-by-test takedown of all these tests (except test six, which isn't really an argument and isn't worth dignifying). 1) The Coca-Cola can and designer of the banana Although a good deal more coherent than the other 'tests', this test simply serves to highlight how ignorant anti-evolutionists are of the theory. It assumes that the only alternative to creationism is a chaotic system of random events and outcomes. This is not evolution. Evolution is the opposite of pure chance. The tester points out that a Coca-Cola can is perfectly suited for use by human beings. So clearly, it must have a maker. In the same way, a banana is perfectly 'designed' for human beings, as illustrated by the following points: It's shaped to fit in the human hand It has a non-slip surface It has outward indicators of inward content: Green - too early Yellow - just right Black - too late It has a tab for the removal of the wrapper It's perforated on the wrapper The wrapper is bio-degradable It's shaped for the human mouth Has a point at top for ease of mouth entry It's pleasing to the taste buds It's curved towards the face to make the eating process easy The test claims that because of its human-specific attributes, the banana must have a designer. It concludes by saying, "To say that the banana happened by accident is even more unintelligent than to say that no one designed the Coca Cola can." Evolution - when defined by the tester as random cause and results - cannot explain this. Properly-defined evolution can. Human beings evolved and learned to use fruits a source of sustenance, while plants evolved to use animals as a medium to spread their seeds. Plants must send their offspring far away in order to prevent population from building excessively in an area which would result in resource depletion. Plants have different ways of propagating their seeds: daffodils use the wind; coconuts use the ocean. Many fruits - like the apple or the banana - use animal carriers: the animals eat the fruit and spread the seeds (by throwing them away or through their feces). A plant that successfully gets animals to eat its fruit has a better chance of replicating than a plant that produces tasteless, hard-to-eat fruit. Take banana-proof number three: "It has outward indicators of inward content: Green - too early / Yellow - just right / Black - too late." An animal is more likely to pick and eat a fruit if it can be assured that the fruit isn't unripe or rotten. A plant loses out if an animal starts spreading its seeds before they're ready to be spread. So a plant that provides an outward indicator of the state of its fruit is more likely to replicate itself than a plant that doesn't: this one loses most of its reproductive energy in unripe seeds. So a strain of ripeness-hiding plants would die out, while the plants showing their ripeness would successfully pass on genes to their offspring. Now, here's your Digital Bits Skeptic Bonus Throwback Question: A coconut is delicious - yet it's so hard to open and eat. Why is this? The case is understandable from the coconut's point of view: a coconut doesn't depend on animals for replication and so has an interest in actively discouraging animals with a tough shell. So why are coconut milk and flesh so tasty? Is it because an organism, like man, is more likely to survive if it recognizes edible matter? Or is the coconut God's way of rewarding humanity for the eventual invention of the machete? 2) The "impossible" complexity of the eye Andy Kaiser clean 13:09 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/09/06/the-future-of-skepticism/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/09/06/the-future-of-skepticism/#comments Sat, 06 Sep 2008 18:16:21 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=155 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/09/06/the-future-of-skepticism/feed/ 6 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1247 - Things are getting worse. - Across the world, we've got so-called complementary and alternative medicine infiltrating legitimate healthcare and medical treatments. The United States government seems more interested in ... By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1247 Things are getting worse. Across the world, we've got so-called complementary and alternative medicine infiltrating legitimate healthcare and medical treatments. The United States government seems more interested in supporting Christianity than supporting religious choice. There are attacks on preventative sciences, like Jenny McCarthy and others insisting their understanding of vaccination technology trumps that of any medical doctor. While I could argue that skepticism is making progress in places, like against the fringe beliefs of cryptozoology, astrology and Intelligent Design, it's even easier to argue that we're losing the battle. Logic and common sense are failing and falling, supported by the beliefs of a credulous society. We are losing. What's a skeptic to do? I fully expect that things will get worse. Yet, despite this gloomy outlook, I'm not worried. Let's do a little scrying of our own, a little fortune-telling and future-prediction. The difference between this and reading tea-leaves is that mine is an educated guess based on probabilities and human nature. Think about a possible future for healthcare. Let's assume the worst for the skeptical community. Let's assume we live in a world where people believe vaccinations cause autism and don't actually protect against disease. What will happen? As fewer people become immunized, herd immunity will break down. Entire communities will again become susceptible. We will see outbreaks and epidemics of preventable diseases like measles, mumps and rubella. We'll see previously-eradicated diseases like polio and leprosy resurface and spread through populations. Many people will get sick. Many people will die. The human response will be to analyze and respond. Doctors and biologists and groups like the Center for Disease Control will again stress the importance of immunizations. This goes far beyond the current polite and low-publicity efforts. We'll get massive ad campaigns, increased TV coverage and a flood of data supporting and explaining the science behind immunizations. The information has always been out there for those interested in finding it, but in this Sick New World, immunization science will be shoved down our throats. People will immunize because they actually understand the process, the risks, and the benefits. This scenario specifically addresses the anti-vaccination problem. But the long-term results are applicable across the board, from alternative-medicine to Scientology. If left unchecked, eventually enough people will get abused, hurt and killed. There will be an inevitable backlash as people come to their senses. As skeptics and critical thinkers, our job is to make sure this imagined world, if it does come to pass, passes quickly. If we can prevent it from happening, even better. If we can't prevent it, nature will do the job for us, though the results will be horrifying and deadly. Our job as skeptics will be to ensure this happens sooner rather than later. Our first obligation is to take care of our family, friends and those closest to us. Then work to educate the wider community and the world at large. The above example addresses healthcare. But a lack of critical thinking causes plenty of other problems in our society. Scammers will always be around unless we increase people's exposure to critical thinking. There will always be people trying to take advantage of others, and there will always be people ready to believe lies. We can lessen the damage with education and activism. Religion is another issue. At its best, it's a good cause that exists for the wrong reasons. At its worst, we get intolerance, persecution and death. Contributing to religion's existence are blind belief in tradition, reliance on unjustified moral laws, and the very human trait of being scared of the dark. Critical thinking and a desire for knowledge can help define what religion really is, Andy Kaiser clean http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/09/01/skepticism-is-a-virtue-the-religious-dont-know-what-theyre-missing/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/09/01/skepticism-is-a-virtue-the-religious-dont-know-what-theyre-missing/#comments Tue, 02 Sep 2008 01:42:27 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=142 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/09/01/skepticism-is-a-virtue-the-religious-dont-know-what-theyre-missing/feed/ 6 Amr Hima By Amr Hima Article ID: 1246 - Many people question religious truth differently than most religious philosophers. These philosophers treat the question not with curiosity, but by totally neglecting the value of truth and claiming that their beliefs mak... By Amr Hima Article ID: 1246 Many people question religious truth differently than most religious philosophers. These philosophers treat the question not with curiosity, but by totally neglecting the value of truth and claiming that their beliefs make their lives better or their belief makes them happier. This is a response to that claim, I will try to show how false religious beliefs can harm us and why they should be abandoned. Here's a list of what religious people might be missing. Religion removes freedom It is better to die for oneself than to live for someone else. A virtue in religions is living according to a law (in Christianity this is the Ten Commandments). Living for God and according to his laws should be considered a vice because people enslave themselves to this tyrant they call "God". While God's laws themselves differ, the problems aren't with them. Sometimes they can be real virtues, but the problem with these laws is that they come from outside, from "above", which supposedly doesn't belong to humanity. How can we be free if we live according to God's law? A religious man does not kill because he sees killing as wrong, but because God tells him not to. A religious man is spiritually subverted. Religion in this sense is infantile, it keeps humans from growing and being independent, it keeps them from being free. A skeptic on the other hand acts according to his or her own will; they know they are alone in this world without an imaginary invisible father image. Our dependence created God, and as we grow God should die and cease to exist, religious people refuse to grow for it is easier to be passive, and they create a comfortable prison. A skeptic breaks these walls of lies with logical thinking and skepticism and lives free and from my own experience this is a much better life. A life of mysteries is essential Among its many descriptions, life is a mystery, to live it and not wonder about it is not to live it fully. Not only do religions impose on us laws of right and wrong and good and evil, they also impose on us answers that get us nowhere. Someone once said "if the history of science taught us something, it is that we get nowhere by calling our ignorance 'God'". How are we here? God created us. Then who created God? Don't ask. Why are we here? To be slaves to God and do what he tells us to do. How did the world come into existence? God created it. How did God come into existence? Don't ask. The arguments for the existence of God are just to show that the world needs a cause, a designer and a sustainer. Why doesn't God need those? Don't ask. Why not try to explain things naturally? Why not seek the reason and not assume it? Thanks to science, we have come to know a lot, and there's much more to be uncovered. The more we explore and learn, the more we find out there's nothing but the laws of nature affecting this universe. God's role is getting smaller and smaller. None of this would have been known if we had been contented with the answers given by religion. As a Monty Python-created Nietzsche would have said, God is "almost dead". But even now, there's what Richard Dawkins called "the worship of gaps", just look for anything we don't know about and fill the gap with God. Why not really enjoy the gap as a mystery? I can't imagine how life would be if we knew everything, it would be boring, but it's even worse when we believe false beliefs. Why would people rather have assumptions than real knowledge? Not only that, they reject knowledge when it disturbs their assumptions, such as rejecting the theory of evolution even though it answers questions we've been striving to know. Given two choices, it's a much better life to wonder about the truth than to hold and defend false beliefs. This world is here and now. The afterlife is not. To live for another world is to betray our world. It is such a waste of life to live while waiting for another life to occur, Andy Kaiser clean http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/07/07/if-you-cant-prove-god-doesnt-exist-why-not-believe/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/07/07/if-you-cant-prove-god-doesnt-exist-why-not-believe/#comments Tue, 08 Jul 2008 03:31:25 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=97 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/07/07/if-you-cant-prove-god-doesnt-exist-why-not-believe/feed/ 17 David Annis By David Annis Article ID: 1237 - If you can't disprove the existence of God, why not believe in Him?  This is a question often posed to atheists by believers.  The basic answer is that there are a lot of improbable things that I can't disprove, By David Annis Article ID: 1237 If you can't disprove the existence of God, why not believe in Him?  This is a question often posed to atheists by believers.  The basic answer is that there are a lot of improbable things that I can't disprove, but believing in them leads to a distorted view of the world.  These range from things that nobody else believes, such as the belief that there is an invisible snorg (an alien from outer space) sitting on my shoulder, to things that many believe - as an example, pick the mythology of any religion. Bertrand Russell gave a rather famous example of an idea that can not be disproved which nobody would seriously ask an atheist to believe called Russell's Teapot or the Celestial Teapot.  Here's his original description: "If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time." Many believers counter Russell's argument with a list of good things that religion encourages: charity, forgiveness, and social order to name a few.  So, unlike the teapot or the snorg, they argue that religious belief is a positive and therefore should be encouraged.  There is an element of truth to that argument, but religion has also been used to justify war, the Inquisition, the suppression of ideas (think of Galileo), and slavery.  Who can ever really know if religion does more harm than good? Expanding on Russell's idea, Richard Dawkins used the teapot analogy and listed a host of problems caused by religious belief in his book A Devil's Chaplain: Reflections on Hope, Lies, Science, and Love. The list - amusing though not comprehensive - can be found here. I believe that both Dawkins and most believers neglect the most fundamental problem with belief in religious tenets that can't be disproved; the loss of intellectual curiosity and honesty.  Faith - which is belief even in the face of evidence that your belief may be wrong - is used as a crutch for those who do not want to do the hard work of thinking through tough moral and intellectual issues.  This includes opposing scientific inquiry from heliocentrism to stem cell research. I recently experienced an example of the closed-minded approach to the world engendered by religion.  A fundamentalist Christian friend wore a pro-life t-shirt to our house and I challenged her to tell me just how much she did to protect human life.  The list was impressive.  She had protested for Terri Schiavo and at clinics, sent money to various groups, and so on.  I then asked her how many people died because of inadequate health insurance, smoking, and pollution.  She didn't know.  "Why," I asked, "do you only protest for those who can no longer think or have never been able to think - the quality that makes us most human - when the same level of effort could save many more who are living, thinking human beings?" Her response: "I never thought about it." Andy Kaiser clean http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/06/18/pascals-wager-gambling-with-an-immoral-god/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/06/18/pascals-wager-gambling-with-an-immoral-god/#comments Thu, 19 Jun 2008 02:41:42 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/?p=90 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/06/18/pascals-wager-gambling-with-an-immoral-god/feed/ 7 David Annis By David Annis Article ID: 1232 - The French philosopher Blaise Pascal made a famous argument, today called "Pascal's Wager". It says: A person cannot prove God's existence through reason. Since by believing in God you have nothing to lose - and potent... By David Annis Article ID: 1232 The French philosopher Blaise Pascal made a famous argument, today called "Pascal's Wager". It says: A person cannot prove God's existence through reason. Since by believing in God you have nothing to lose - and potentially everything to gain - you should behave and believe as if that God exists. Nevertheless, I'm wagering against the existence of the God of evangelical Christianity, and here's why. The God of evangelical Christianity is allegedly omniscient, omnibenevolent, and omnipotent.  We are supposed to believe that this God fathered a human child with a woman who was already engaged to a carpenter in Bethlehem about 2000 years ago. So, if I lose nothing by believing this story, why do I choose not to? First, the logic is wrong.  If the only choices were believing in Christ or not believing in Christ the argument might hold, but those are not the only choices. Perhaps by believing in Christ and not believing in Allah or some other god, I'm still condemning myself to eternal damnation. Perhaps - for some perverse reason beyond my comprehension - there's a God who rewards atheists and punishes believers.  Making an informed wager means having a realistic set of odds that each god exists and knowing how jealous each god is. Many religions have a concept of an afterlife where you're rewarded based on what you did while alive. The problem is that there are different requirements for different religions. In some you must be baptized (some religions, such as Mormonism, allow you to be baptized after death) in others you must confess your sins to a priest, in some you must accept that Mohamed is the prophet. You can't believe everything and fulfill all of the requirements. Wagering that the Christian god exists might lull me into a false sense of security, believing that I'll go to heaven. That may result in my behaving a little more badly and therefore being reincarnated as an untouchable in India. However, there is an even stronger argument against wagering with Pascal. An omnibenevolent God would not create a world in which thinking moral beings are presented with religious choices given such flimsy evidence to support them, and they are then punished for picking the wrong set of beliefs. If God knows what is in my mind, then he knows that I try to behave morally. Were he omnibenevolent and omnipotent, he would need to provide unambiguous evidence, such as mile high burning letters in the night sky saying, "You must be a Roman Catholic for salvation".  To do less implies an arbitrary capriciousness that at best is a serious moral lapse on the part of God. Some Christians might argue that I am not being punished for my actions, but for the original sin of Adam and Eve eating the apple in the Garden of Eden. Holding me accountable for the sins of my most distant ancestors is not omnibenevolent or moral. It's less. Andy Kaiser clean http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/04/21/religious-revelations-are-delusions/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/04/21/religious-revelations-are-delusions/#comments Tue, 22 Apr 2008 04:38:35 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/04/21/religious-revelations-are-delusions/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/04/21/religious-revelations-are-delusions/feed/ 8 Science Reason & Rationality By Science, Reason & Rationality Article ID: 1221 - Have you ever wondered why only a select few get a "revelation" from God, a ghost, an alien or an angel, and the rest of us do not? Why is it these entities choose just a select few out of billions to... By Science, Reason & Rationality Article ID: 1221 Have you ever wondered why only a select few get a "revelation" from God, a ghost, an alien or an angel, and the rest of us do not? Why is it these entities choose just a select few out of billions to receive such "revelations"? Why were you not included? Was it because you weren't at the right place at the right time? Was it because you and the rest of us are not good or special or "holy" enough? What other excuses will you give in order to rationalize an irrational claim? Now that you are done rationalizing, how do you know who is telling the truth and who isn't? Do you know who is deluded and who isn't? Do you know that your current nonhuman Master, whoever that is, is real? Are they real because someone you love and respect said it was, and so you automatically believe? Is this enough for you to make such a judgment? Do you know for sure if Moses, Jesus, Muhammad, all other religious icons, and the Earthly representatives of such characters are telling you the truth and nothing but the truth? How do you know those Earthly representatives aren't victims of delusion, or victims of some other master of deception? Or perhaps, you do think they're deluded, all except one. You think that one is the truth, and so deserves your utmost trust through unquestionable faith. But again, how do you know that your choice of religion is the right one? Is it because someone you love and respect said it was, and so you unquestioningly believe? Is this enough for you to make such a decision? If your answer is "yes", then I don't see you as a very good judge. Anyone with good manipulative skills can easily dupe and take advantage of you. If you belong to a religion, you've probably noticed by now your religion has a gathering place like a synagogue, a church, a mosque, a temple or whatever they are called. These places have a religious book, scripture, or a supernatural "revelation" of some kind. These were written by someone in somewhere at some time, and this is also known as the "Word of God." The Jews say that their "Word of God" was given by God to Moses almost face to face; the Christians say that their "Word of God" came by "divine inspiration"; the Muslims say that their "Word of God" was brought by an angel from heaven, and so on. Each of these religions accuses other religions as being false and deluded. The fact of the matter is, all religions that are formed through such so-called "revelations" are false and deluded. "I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." ~ Stephen F. Roberts So, how do we safeguard ourselves from becoming a victim of religious, supernatural and paranormal delusion? It's quite simple. It doesn't matter where a certain claim of "revelation" is coming from. It can be from any Tom, Dick and Harry or from any Moses, Jesus and Muhammad, or from any religious, supernatural or paranormal source. The formula to use is the same for all. When someone claims a "revelation" has been revealed to them, but not revealed to any other person, then it is a "revelation" limited to that single person. When he tells this to a second person, a second to a third, a third to a fourth, a fourth to a fifth and so on, it's no longer a "revelation" to any of those persons. It is a "revelation" to the first person only, and second-hand information or hearsay to every other. Therefore, you are not under any obligation to believe it. Such "revelations" are more likely to be delusion or deception. You can read more about this at this link: Faith versus the Scientific Method If you still insist on believing in such "revelations", you're believing in someone else's account. All you have is their word and no real evidence. Faith-based and emotion-driven thinking does not make something true, even if you know, Andy Kaiser clean http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/04/15/allegance-and-flag-burning/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/04/15/allegance-and-flag-burning/#comments Tue, 15 Apr 2008 06:09:44 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/04/15/allegance-and-flag-burning/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/04/15/allegance-and-flag-burning/feed/ 2 M Parrott by M Parrott Article ID: 1219 "On my honour, I promise that I will do my best, to do my duty to God and to the Queen" - Boy Scout promise, United Kingdom "I ... swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen... by M Parrott Article ID: 1219 "On my honour, I promise that I will do my best, to do my duty to God and to the Queen" - Boy Scout promise, United Kingdom "I ... swear by Almighty God that I will be faithful and bear true allegiance to Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth, her heirs and successors, according to law. So help me God." - Oath of Allegiance for MPs on induction to British parliament "I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic, for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all." - Pledge of Allegiance, United States Each one of these promises allegiance to the state or head of state. That's the first problem with allegiance: who you promise your allegiance to. Allegiance in itself is not necessarily a bad thing. Allegiance has brought about civil war, parliamentary change and many other things. But the problem comes when you swear allegiance - unchangeable allegiance. What if that system or person becomes corrupt? Then you have a dilemma. What do you do? You stop your allegiance. But you've sworn unchangeable allegiance, so how is it that you can now break your oath? Because you know they're wrong. You know that the allegiance is not to the person, or the government, but to the idea. That makes the difference. Why swear allegiance to a person or governmental system when in actual fact you are only attached to their ideas, and ideas change? Imagine this scenario: you've just sworn allegiance to your government and they decide they want to kill half of your country. Do you stick to that allegiance? NO! Allegiance is made for two reasons. One, personal gain, often found in business. Two, societal gain. If that person or system changes so it no longer benefits you, you'll no longer stand by that allegiance. Maybe it's better to have allegiance to an idea, or better yet, people. This brings us to patriotism. Patriotism seemingly flows from the British media's mainstream attention of the supposed patriotic American society. This is from the fear created by supposed foreign threats (even though 7/7 had British bombers). British patriots want an oath of allegiance sworn on the British flag, similar to that of the pledge of allegiance in the USA. This would entail unquestionable following of any government policy or whatever the government decided upon. "Unquestioning"? Doesn't that seem a bit stupid to you? To blindly follow your government, without doubt, is stupid. It defies the freedoms your country is based upon. America is based upon the liberty won when the Founding Fathers questioned the rule of the British. Modern England is based upon Oliver Cromwell and others questioning the prerogative of Charles I and rebelling, later chopping off Charles's head. The basis of Western society (not just America and Britain) is questioning your government. To say you shouldn't question your government is stupid. What about having allegiance to an item, or a symbol? See the video below where Penn & Teller do an act in their show where they burn an American flag. Penn says a very important thing: "What if we were to burn the flag not in disgust, not in protest of anything, but in celebration of the very freedoms that flag symbolizes." Allegiance to a symbol is stupid. Allegiance should be given to what that symbol represents, the freedoms and the rights. The freedoms and rights are given to you so you can burn that flag. Andy Kaiser clean http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/04/04/christopher-hitchens-debates-peter-hitchens/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/04/04/christopher-hitchens-debates-peter-hitchens/#comments Fri, 04 Apr 2008 05:16:41 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/04/04/christopher-hitchens-debates-peter-hitchens/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/04/04/christopher-hitchens-debates-peter-hitchens/feed/ 23 Andy Kaiser by Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1218 - [The Hitchens vs. Hitchens video is available. Scroll down to find it.] - Watching a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens is fascinating on so many levels. They are both very good speakers and debaters, by Andy Kaiser Article ID: 1218 [The Hitchens vs. Hitchens video is available. Scroll down to find it.] Watching a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens is fascinating on so many levels. They are both very good speakers and debaters, so the oratory mastery is impressive on its own, and the technique is fun to watch.  The topics discussed are easily inflammatory: just ask anyone, "How do you feel about the Iraq war?" Or, "How does God affect your life?" You'll receive very heartfelt responses. Finally, as you may assume upon reading their last names, Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens are indeed related. They're brothers. What's interesting about their relationship is that it's not what you'd expect. Or, at least not what I expected upon seeing them debate for the first time. To specify: 1) this was the first time I'd seen either one debate any one else, and 2) this was the first time Peter and Christopher have publicly debated each other in the United States. Let me set your expectations with a little third-party information. What would you expect if you saw the following ads about the debate: "One-on-one for the first time ever, brothers will clash" - From Grand Valley State University's ad. (GVSU was the host for the debate.) "Hitchens Brothers: Anatomy of a Row" - An article from The Independent You may think this sets expectations for a heated - perhaps angry and shouting - debate. After  attending the debate itself, I'm glad to report that there was no bloodshed, no torn clothes, nor any physical violence. While the debate did at times involve angry, emotional words, the outcome was on a balanced give-and-take debate. Christopher Hitchens and Peter Hitchens have a history of being alienated for years, with only a recent reconciliation. That behavior, at least, met my expectations. The brothers are both excellent and well-focused speakers. There was no camaraderie during the debate, no emotional winks towards the other. No sign of a brotherly relationship. There was, actually, more signs of antagonism, more "polite impoliteness"  than usual. Since I haven't seen either Hitchens debate until now, I was unable to tell if that was just the way they normally carry their debates, or if - being related - they were pushing each others' emotional buttons. Christopher seemed to be the better composed of the two. If he was aggravated by any part of the debate, he rarely showed it, whereas Peter became exasperated at a few points. When the moderator asked him for comment after a particularly heated exchange, he gestured dismissively and exclaimed, "Why? It's futile!" (To Peter's credit, Christopher had evaded Peter's direct question, was talking over Peter at that point, and the moderator hadn't done anything.) That's not to dismiss Peter Hitchens' debate skills or the presentation of his content. He was the right-leaning conservative in this debate. Based on audience responses to debate points (clapping and cheering), I'd say the strong majority - perhaps eighty percent - were liberal (and perhaps atheist), like Christopher. Far less were conservative (and perhaps religious), like Peter. The forum was a college-sponsored event, and GVSU students were given many free tickets. The audience makeup ranged from young college age on up. College students certainly didn't dominate, though. It was a good mixture of ages. When I arrived at the venue - a large, ornate Catholic church, one of many beautiful buildings in downtown Grand Rapids, Michigan - I heard from an event coordinator that they were booked up way beyond expectations. There were over 1100 people attending.  Many were Christopher Hitchens fans. A college student setting behind me excitedly told her seatmate, "I heard about this an hour ago, but when I heard Christopher Hitchens was here I had to be here too!" So Christopher Hitchens had more fans. He had his books available for purchase, and autographs afterward. Andy Kaiser clean http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/31/punk-skepticism-a-perfect-mix-of-skeptic-and-rebel/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/31/punk-skepticism-a-perfect-mix-of-skeptic-and-rebel/#comments Tue, 01 Apr 2008 01:16:06 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/31/punk-skepticism-a-perfect-mix-of-skeptic-and-rebel/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/31/punk-skepticism-a-perfect-mix-of-skeptic-and-rebel/feed/ 2 Anonymous by Anonymous Article ID: 1215 - Skepticism is a philosophical commitment to doubt. However, to doubt without end is of no use. - Committed skeptics include Harry Houdini, Penn and Teller, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, James Randi, Christopher Hitchens, by Anonymous Article ID: 1215 Skepticism is a philosophical commitment to doubt. However, to doubt without end is of no use. Committed skeptics include Harry Houdini, Penn and Teller, Carl Sagan, Isaac Asimov, James Randi, Christopher Hitchens, and many other intellectual giants. My doubts began not with the profound words of astronomers, nor by studying stage magic. My doubts began with rage. Holy rage which drives teenagers to truancy and smoking. In my case, it drew me to countless mohawks and hair colors. It drew me to body piercing and tattoos, it drew me to loud defiant music like the Dead Kennedys, Slayer, Marilyn Manson, Black Flag, The Misfits, Danzig, and later to industrial music. I doubted society and its presumptions. I saw through the lies school told me. I saw that teachers who were teaching me didn't give a damn about what they taught. I saw through the pretend benevolence of authority figures, especially the police and school administration. I saw through the ridiculous exaggerations of Reagan's "Just Say No!" campaign. I saw through the lies of commercialism, and was painfully aware that if I was spending money, someone had engineered my purchase through advertising. I saw through conventional religion. Even my attempts to be a Christian later in life were rife with heresies and ideas that conflicted with the status quo. But I still fell for a lot of crap. I fell for alternative medicine, the new age movement, ridiculous theories about JFK's assassination, and finally Christianity. Why was I so gullible when I was so committed to rebellion? Indeed, there is no greater rebel than the skeptic. So why are youth movements like punk, goth, industrial, hip-hop, and metal so devoid of skeptics? I guess that we felt so judged by the world, we wanted to be open minded. We heard nonsense not from our enemies in uniforms and ties, but from our friends. It was our friends forecasting horoscopes, it was our friends doing the tarot reading, it was our friends with the hip young bible study. So we bought it. At least I did. I think that a time of a new era in punk must arise. Perhaps a few co-conspirators could engineer it. The era of the skeptical punk, the dangerous angry youth who is as perceptive in seeing a fraud as she is in seeing the world as a conformist facade. That she - this heroic uber-mensch, punk skeptic - will demand scientific evidence for all claims that are not readily self-evident! When she is born, then revolution could be the next step. The passion of punk with the mind of the skeptic would be an unstoppable revolt against the easy victimhood that the public falls into due to its own inertia. If I had something to pray for, I would pray for this. But since prayer is little more than talking to oneself I can instead act. The punk skeptic is here in me. Am I alone? Andy Kaiser clean http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/25/faith-versus-the-scientific-method/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/25/faith-versus-the-scientific-method/#comments Tue, 25 Mar 2008 23:51:53 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/25/faith-versus-the-scientific-method/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/25/faith-versus-the-scientific-method/feed/ 6 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/02/religion-is-a-path-to-hell-on-earth/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/02/religion-is-a-path-to-hell-on-earth/#comments Sun, 02 Mar 2008 15:28:36 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/02/religion-is-a-path-to-hell-on-earth/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/03/02/religion-is-a-path-to-hell-on-earth/feed/ 46 http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/02/18/book-review-of-the-secret-by-rhonda-byrne-a-skeptical-review-of-a-subjective-reality/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/02/18/book-review-of-the-secret-by-rhonda-byrne-a-skeptical-review-of-a-subjective-reality/#comments Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:54:18 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/02/18/book-review-of-the-secret-by-rhonda-byrne-a-skeptical-review-of-a-subjective-reality/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2008/02/18/book-review-of-the-secret-by-rhonda-byrne-a-skeptical-review-of-a-subjective-reality/feed/ 10 Andy Kaiser By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 124 - Let's get this part out of the way now: - What is The Secret? What is Rhonda Byrne's philosophy? What is the Law of Attraction? - It's defined many times, in many different ways, by many different people in the book. By Andy Kaiser Article ID: 124 Let's get this part out of the way now: What is The Secret? What is Rhonda Byrne's philosophy? What is the Law of Attraction? It's defined many times, in many different ways, by many different people in the book... Andy Kaiser clean http://www.dbskeptic.com/2007/10/16/whats-the-harm-in-believing-reasons-for-skeptical-thought-and-critical-thinking/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2007/10/16/whats-the-harm-in-believing-reasons-for-skeptical-thought-and-critical-thinking/#comments Tue, 16 Oct 2007 13:53:21 +0000 Andy Kaiser http://www.dbskeptic.com/2007/10/16/whats-the-harm-in-believing-reasons-for-skeptical-thought-and-critical-thinking/ http://www.dbskeptic.com/2007/10/16/whats-the-harm-in-believing-reasons-for-skeptical-thought-and-critical-thinking/feed/ 2