Mr Fundie and the Logic of Circles and Spirals

I was walking across campus today when I ran into a swarm of Fundie Christians (I might be getting the technical term wrong here; it could be something like plague or nest or hive--I'm really not good with the terms for groups of bugs). Their approach was to hand out pamphets bearing the cover "I used to be a drug addict" and tell passer-bys "Jesus loves you". Normally I lack the inclination to argue with these people, but their intellectually dishonest marketing (and the fact that I had time before my next class, and was not hurrying) prompted me to engage, rather than flippantly flip them off.

So I argued with Mr Fundie. Mr Fundie who used to be a drug addict and drink a lot but has been sober for five years because he found god and Jesus loves him and he loves Jesus. We went through the usual loops of illogic and fallacious reasoning, but I noticed one fallacy that I hadn't really thought about before: the confusion of circular reasoning and recursive reasoning. Unfortunately, he ignored my attempt to explain the difference (to be fair, I wasn't doing my best at explaining).

The specific form of this was Mr Fundie arguing that fossil dating using circular logic. Paraphrased somewhat, "they know how old fossils are from the layer they're in, and they know how old the layers are from where the fossils are--that's circular reasoning!" Well, no. Not at all. It's recursive reasoning.

The analogy I thought of 90 minutes too late was circles and spirals. Traversing along a circle does not approach any one point; it repeats. Traversing a spiral tends towards one point: the origin of the spiral. Circular logic is obviously the circle; it repeats the exact points ad infinitum. Recursive logic is like the spiral. There are similar points made, but they are not the same, and there is a basis for the rest of it at the origin. (Spirals could be looked at to go in the opposite direction, towards infinity, which, in this analogy, would be infinite recursion.)

Looking at the details of the logic (or lack thereof) behind both is much more enlightening that flawed analogies. Circular logic asserts the following: A is true because B. B is true because A. Therefore A ((inclusive) or B).* In symbols, B->A. A->B. Therefore, A (or B). This is blatantly invalid reasoning. It is interesting to note, however, that the premises of a circular argument form a biconditional, A<->B. The Qur'an is completely and literally true iff Allah exists. A lot of these religious arguments make equivalent statements. So by the logic of the fundie, if their god existing and their holy book having every word be literally true are equivalent, then to disprove their god, it is sufficient to show their holy book is flawed, which is usually incredibly easy to do (unfortunately, at this point, they reject their previous logic, but it's still amusing).

Recursive logic is different. We have something like the following: A1->B1. B1->A2. A2->B2. B2->A3. A3->B3. A1. Therefore, B3. We have a set of similar arguments (A1, A2 and A3, and B1, B2, and B3) that point to each other in a nonclosed manner, and a base case. Valid reasoning. A1 may be similar to A3, or a subproblem, or a different instance of the same general idea, but it's not circular.

Let us return to Mr Fundies hang up with this. For his claim to be true, scientific methods would have to be claiming something like the following: We know Fossil A is X years old because it is in Layer P. We know Layer P is X years old, because it contains Fossil A, which is X years old.* Fortunately, this is not what is being claimed.

What is being said is something more like this (with numbers pulled out of my ass for illustrative purposes). Fossil A is in Layer 0A, which we currently don't know the age of (sedimentary rock, which lends itself well to the creation of fossils, does not lend itself well to direct dating). Layer 1A, which is rock we can measure the age of, is about 4 million years old. Layer -1A, below Layer 0A, is about 5 million years old. From this we conclude Fossil A is about 4-5 million years old.

In another part of the world, we find Fossil B, which from the same species of Fossil A. As we know Fossil A is about 4-5 million years old, Fossil B much be about the same age. Fossil B is in Layer 0B. Above Layer 0B are Layers 1B, which we can't directly measure the age of, and 2B, which is about 3 million years old. As Layer 0B is about 4-5 million years old, and Layer 2B is about 3 million years old, Layer 1B is somewhere between 3 million years old and 4-5 million years old.

And so forth.

Fossils being used to show the age of geologic layers and geologic layers being used to show the age of fossils is circular logic if and only if the a fossil is being used to show the age of a layer, which is then being used to show the age of that same fossil. And even if there existed some instances of this happening, it would have to be the only method of dating used. Otherwise, the most that could be shown is that one (or more) specific instance of a dating method used on one fossil was invalid, while everything else is fine.

*Of course, circular logic can and often does involve more steps, but for the point of illustration I'm sticking with two. "A->B. B->C. C->D. D->E. E->F. F->G. G->H. H->I. I->J. J->K. K->A. Therefore A." is just as invalid, but it takes too long to write more than once.

Old overdressed man who lives in a palace discovers how to cure global warming

Pope Benedict 16* has found the fix for global warming**. Can you guess what it is?


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The solution is Jesus! If you guessed correctly, give yourself a pat on the back.

Experiencing the shared responsibility for creation (Cf. 51), the Church is not only committed to the promotion of the defense of the earth, of water and of air, given by the Creator to everyone, but above all is committed to protect man from the destruction of himself. In fact, "when 'human ecology' is respected in society, environmental ecology also benefits" (ibid). Is it not true that inconsiderate use of creation begins where God is marginalized or also where is existence is denied? If the human creature's relationship with the Creator weakens, matter is reduced to egoistic possession, man becomes the "final authority," and the objective of existence is reduced to a feverish race to possess the most possible.

So if we all accept Jesus the Christ as our personal LORD and savior, we would magically use natural resources more carefully? We wouldn't do the opposite?

We don't have to protect the environment, the Second Coming is at hand

It would appear that James Watt, a fundamentalist Christian and Reagan's Secretary of the Interior would disagree.

Religious disagreements aside, this is simply another instance of the meme that one can't be good without god. Not surprising to hear it coming from the pope. He seems to really like it. Still an annoying, bothersome, dangerous idea though.

*Roman numerals are a tool of the feudalistic oppressors.

**In the interest of full disclosure, his speech never mentions the phrases "global warming" or "climate change", but talking about protecting the environment of course includes combating global warming. I could've replaced "global warming" in my post title with "damages to the environment and ecology", but I figured the title was long enough.

I found a book

I was at a thrift store the other day, and, as is my custom when in any kind of thrift store or pawn shop, I checked out what books they had. This was one of those times that paid off.

I found, for a price of 2.5 USD, a copy of Euclid's Elements in excellent condition. It looked like it had just sat on someone's shelf untouched until they cleared out all their books. One of the most important things ever to be written in the history of humanity, for $2.50. I bought it, and then had a nerdgasm. You should all be jealous of me (unless you have a better copy of Elements, in which case, I am jealous of you).

Transcendental Brilliance

You, gentle reader, should go see Quentin Tarantino's newest film, Inglourious Basterds, at the first feasible opportunity. It's Tarantino, starring Brad Pitt, with Nazis and WWII done right. Go see it.

A transcendental new religious paradigm!

Ivan Petrella proposes a new religious paradigm, which supersedes all the current ideas and conflicts of the current religious paradigms. Let's take a look. First, the header:

Everyone has it wrong regarding politics and religion: the Christian Right, Atheists, and even the Progressive Religious community. The author proposes a daring alternative.

It's been my experience that in general, any "third-way" ideas that say everyone else is wrong and we need to go off in a completely different direction are bad ideas. They usually fail to solve most of the problems about the issue, and aren't even useful as compromises. However, while I've found this is a strong connection, it is not sufficient to reject this alternative (and besides, the author probably didn't even write that header; that could very easily be some editor misrepresenting stuff to generate more interest). Let's continue on.

A month after Barack Obama’s presidential win, I found myself at a table with progressive Christian leaders; including figures from Obama’s religious outreach and transition teams, as well as some of the East Coast’s most important theologians, seminary presidents, and faith consultants. Our task: To determine how religion could continue to best serve progressive politics.

I'm even more leery. He's at a meeting with Christians, where no other religions are mentioned, implying he is also Christian (a quick google search tells me he's a liberation theologian, which is a subset of Christianity). I'm suspicious that he's going to have a strong bias towards religion in general, and Christianity in specific.

Also, note that in this meeting of progressive religious leaders, important theologians, seminary presidents, and faith consultants that everyone is Christian. This will be important later.

I’ve come to believe that progressive religion isn’t good enough for our nation. Instead, we need a shift in paradigm. We need to become progressive about religion. But what does that mean? It doesn’t mean atheism or secularization. It doesn’t mean progressive Christianity or progressive religion of any one tradition. None of these options are progressive enough.

"Progressive about religion"--what does that mean, besides being a rhetorical trick? "We should make progress about religion"? This is a meaningless statement unless we define what we mean by progress here. He doesn't mean the secularization of society (which is how I would define progress in this instance) and he's not referring to any one "progressive" religion. What is he talking about?

Being progressive about religion means moving from a multi-religious nation toward a nation of multi-religious individuals. Let me explain.

Explaining would be good.

The United States lives two religious realities: In our makeup as a people, we’re at the forefront of religious development. But we’re at the tail end when it comes to how our politics handles religion.

We’re at the forefront because we’re the most religious people among the rich industrial nations. We’re also the world’s most religiously diverse nation, with a dizzying array of Christianities, more Muslims than Episcopalians or Presbyterians, more Jews than Israel, and thriving communities of Buddhists, Hindus, Sikhs, Wiccans, Santeros, and others.

Remember earlier where told you to remember that the meeting of religious leaders that sparked this article was exclusively Christian? We're a religiously diverse nation but... all the important religious leaders are Christian. True diversity is not only the existence of a variety of different groups (religions here), but also there being no monopoly on power or influence by one group. There has to be a diversity in authority as well.

If a bunch of (only) white political leaders got together to pat each other on the back and tell each other how racially diverse we are as a nation, it'd be right to point out that the fact their group was all white is indicative that we're not as diverse as they're claiming. It doesn't matter what percentage or number of people are not white, if only white people have influence or authority, we're not a racially diverse nation. Even having completely equal civil rights for people of all races is not sufficient to be a racially diverse nation.

This undermines Petrella's point that the USA is "at the forefront of religious development". In addition, except for a diversity of different sects of Christianity, the USA does not have even the existence of large diverse religions. Wikipedia tells me about 78% of Americans are Christian. Of the remaining 22%, 16% are nonreligious--that leaves about 6% of the population belonging to a non-Christian religion. Some diversity.

We’re at the tail end, however, because our religious diversity vanishes when it comes in contact with our political culture and process. We’ve become a country that actually requires its politicians to take openly Christian positions if they are to be successful, a country that sets up what I call “Christian litmus tests” for candidates running for office, a country that is unwilling to accept an agnostic, atheist, or non-Christian president.

Despite his previous point being completely wrong, Petrella is right about this. Not only is America predominantly Christian, but it is nearly required to be a Christian to have any sort of (secular) political power.

We need to find, in the chasm between our makeup and our politics, a different way to think about religion, as well as a different way of being religious—for us and for the world.

There is no chasm; the supermajority of the USA is Christian, our politics and policy are dominated by Christianity. This is not contradictory.

The Christian Right is an obvious obstacle to the emergence of a new way of thinking about religion and being religious. Less obvious is the fact that both progressive Christianity and the new atheism are obstacles as well. They too contribute to the ruling fundamentalism.

How? The Christian right develops religious arguments against gay rights, reproductive rights, social security, and other topics. In response, progressive Christians develop opposing religious arguments. The end result is to make our political culture even more religious, and to legitimize a preeminent role for argument from Christian principles. Now both the Republican and the Democratic Parties stress religion; now both the right and the left speak in Christian terms.

I agree with this. If our goal is the separation of politics and religion (which, despite earlier saying that secularization was not progressive enough, this appears to be Petrella's goal), then countering religion in politics with more religion is hurting us. There's a cliche about fighting fire with fire that's appropriate here. For most progressive issues, progressive Christians are better than fundamental Christians, but for the issue of separation of church and state, both are bad.

Atheism is no help either. In a world that’s becoming more religious rather than less, atheism can’t be the answer. Advocates of atheism remain tied to the discredited secularization thesis, making them a minority condemned to insignificance except within circles ever more out of touch with global reality. In addition, their strident tone feeds the culture wars and strengthens the right’s belief that Christianity is under siege.

I see Petrella has been reading Mooney and Kirshenbaum. The thesis that atheists, especially "militant" atheists, are to blame for the conflict between fundamental Christianity and secularism has been debunked all over the blogosphere, so I'll dispense with arguing why atheists' "strident tone" is not a legitimate criticism.

I want to see a citation for the claim the world's getting more religious, because everything I've seen, both statistical and anecdotal, says otherwise. Again, Petrella criticizes secularization, despite apparently arguing for its goals. He says it has been "discredited", but there's no evidence of this. Looking at long term trends, the world and the USA have gotten more secular (religion's stranglehold on politics and society has weakened over time). Yes, if we look at only the last few years, it would appear as if secularization has failed (only in the US and a few other countries (e.g. Iran); much of Europe, for example, has become more secular), but that is as stupid and fallacious as arguing there is no global warming as it's hotter now than it was exactly one year ago.

From progressive Christians, I’d rescue the commitment to progressive understandings of faith and politics. But I’d reject their reliance on the Bible and Jesus. Here they are no different from the religious right, picking and choosing what suits them while ignoring what doesn’t.

I'm just quoting this to point out when the author does this himself later.

Instead, being progressive about religion should mean taking the logic of religious diversity to its ultimate conclusion and fostering the conditions to create multi-religious individuals.

What’s involved? The United States is currently a multi-religious nation, and a nation that individuals of a variety of religions peacefully co-exist within. But we’re rarely multi-religious individuals: individuals who belong to more than one religion.

There's an obvious reason for this: most religions are necessarily exclusive. You can't simultaneously believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ and not. You can't believe in the Abrahamic religions' view of the afterlife while also believing in reincarnation. If we're looking at metaphysical claims, religions have a hard enough time stayng internally consistant on this, opening Pandora's box and mixing and matching metaphysical claims from multiple religions is going to lead to a massive tangle of nonsense.

You could mix and match morals that different religions espouse without running into contradictions, but morality is not necessarily part of religion, even though religion likes to claim to have a monopoly on it. Morality, though often closely connected to religion, is distinct.

Moreover, if everyone from the right to the left of the religious-political spectrum is picking and choosing some parts of Christianity while ignoring and rejecting others, why stay within one religion in the process?

See above about picking and choosing. What Petrella proposes is simply a more extreme form of it. Contrary to what he claims, I don't think this proposed paradigm is novel in any way. We already pick and choose from different religions, we've done it for centuries. For example, early Christianity adopted a lot of pagan holidaysand ideologies. The only difference between that and Petrella's proposal is that Petrella is focused slightly more on individuals; however, people have chosen their religions on their own since the beginnings of religiously plural societies.

To practice more than one religion (or better yet, to build a religious life with elements from different religions) is to tear down the walls between faiths that makes fundamentalism possible.

I agree that individuals who get their religious views from multiple sources, who tear down the walls between faiths, will be drastically less likely to be fundamentalists. However, some people doing this will not cause all people to do this; others will still be fundamentalists, despite some being multi-religious.

This idea fails all around. As it's not actually a new idea, merely an extension of the current norms, and is based on multiple flawed premises, this is unsurprising. It fails to reduce the power and influence of fundamentalism. The target audience to become multi-religious are those who are currently progressive religionists. The fundamentalists are going to continue to be fundamentalists.

It fails to stop or reverse the growing influence of religion in American politics and society. Petrella criticizes progressive Christianity as responding to religious arguments for political/social issues with more religious arguments. Multi-religiousness does the same thing, except, at best, that its religious arguments will be slightly less based on Christianity. This wouldn't do anything about the "fundamentalist takeover of our political process". It will perform no better in that regard than progressive Christianity.

This, if it was widespread, would probably reduce the impact of "Christian litmus tests" for public office. However, as the people who would adopt multi-religiousness are the generally the types who are already willing to vote for non-Christians, the impact here is limited.

The only way this paradigm would have a significant impact is if it were widespread. If enough people were multi-religious, then, yeah, fundamentalism would be weaker. This would require a movement from fundamental Christianity to multi-religion, not just progressive Christianity to multi-religion. However, this is just saying "if fewer people were fundamentalists, then there'd be less fundamentalism", which is trivial.

Even at it's most optimal, this paradigm still fails on the issue of rights for nonreligious and atheistic people. It doesn't matter how accepting we are of religions and how protected our freedom of religion is, if we don't also accept those not of any religion and have freedom from religion, we're still discriminating, just to a smaller group.

It also fails to do anything about the major criticism of "progressive" religion by atheists: that all religions put faith as a virtue, which acts as a smokescreen and protects and supports fundamentalist (and other dangerous forms of) religion. Arguably, it even makes it worse. As long as we accept "I have faith X is true, and I don't have to provide any support for this, even in the face of opposing evidence, no matter how strong" as valid, fundamentalism will still exist and thrive--expanding what we allow this argument from faith to cover does nothing to help. If we want to remove fundamentalism, we have to attack its root. We won't do anything by pussyfooting about the issue, dealing with irrelevant elements of religion while ignoring the source of the problem. We have to attack the virtufication of faith (which necessarily includes attacking most religion, including Petrella's proposed multi-religion), to drive out fundamentalism. Anything else is, to borrow the words of Stephen Colbert, rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.

Change in religiosity and college major

An interesting study is out which shows a correlation between change in religiosity and college major.

The study used two criteria for religiosity: attendance at religious meetings and the importance the student placed on religion in their life.

The study found that students who majored in the humanities and social sciences, in general, became less religious, while those who majored in education and business became more religious. Those who majored in biology or the physical sciences had a negligible change in their religiosity.

This study is interesting because it measured the change in people's religious observance, rather than looking at their religious observance. It's the first derivative.

I think this is interesting because it shows a correlation between exposure to and study of ideas in the humanities/social sciences (primarily post-modernism) and declining rates of church attendance, whereas there exists no such correlation for exposure to ideas from the hard sciences. However, majoring in the physical sciences did lead to students placing less importance on religion, even if they still attend at the same rate (majoring in the humanities/social sciences also led to religion being less important to students).

I'd like to see some follow-up studies to see the relationship between major and how vocal one is on religious issues (i.e. most vocal atheists are scientists or scientifically minded; why this apparent disconnect?). It would also be interesting to see how these trends continue in grad school.

Of course, we're also left with the question of what's wrong with business and education?

I also hate appeals to common sense

I was going to do a detailed review on Glen Beck's Common Sense, but after I'd written several paragraphs of it I noticed that it could be summed it in one paragraph. I'll be doing that instead. (For more details on Beck's book, see my previous post.)

Glen Beck constantly and fallaciously appeals to common sense, the "Laws of Nature", which he never even attempts to define or explain, and an imaginary majority of Americans who he thinks agree with him, despite not showing any evidence of this. As might be expected when not providing any backing for his opinions besides saying "common sense supports this", Beck contradicts himself many times, making it very transparent that he's either a complete and utter moron, or writing this as a propaganda job to get people to support his brand of conservative politics, against their own self-interest (or both). He hypocritically criticizes those he disagrees with for using methods he then turns around and uses himself. The only use I can see for this book is as a sort of idiot test: if someone says they liked it and agree with it, they are an idiot.

I hate Glen Beck

I got access to a copy of Glen Beck's most recent book, Glen Beck's Common Sense (don't worry, he didn't get any money off of me--I borrowed it), and out of a feeling of intellectual masochism, I decided to read it. However, I took notes so that no one else would have to endure the agony of listening to Beck masturbate to his fanciful view of the USA's founders. (If I have fewer notes on later chapters, it's because the book is mind-numbingly repetitive and I didn't feel any need to mention every time he appealed to common sense, or mentioned some imaginary "Laws of Nature" and such.)

I'm writing up an actual review of the book and plan on posting that; it should be more useful than a stream of consciousness.

A Note From The Author

Beck thinks that Common Sense (the Paine one) was full of "extraordinarily logical, straightforward, indisputable arguments". It was a propaganda pamphlet, using mostly emotional appeals and arguments by pathos. Don't get me wrong, Thomas Paine was great, but Common Sense is nowhere near the epitome of sound logical argument (I personally think it's actually kind of shit; Paine's other works are good though, and you should read them). Although, the fact that Beck finds it so extraordinarily logical and indisputable says a lot about him.

"The abuses being perpetrated by our government are just as obvious now as they were [in 1776]." Obvious? Some examples of this "obvious" abuse would be enlightening. Not all (or for that matter, any) truths are self-evident.

We shouldn't use violence to "fix" these "problems". This is good, but I lack confidence in Beck's commitment to this.

Beck appropriates Martin Luther King; in good news, he quotes a bit of King that argues against Beck's support for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The appeal to common sense. How fallacious. I'm starting to worry that he'll never actually explain anything, just say "do what I say, because it's obvious common sense says you should".

Introduction

"I think I know who you are." Uh... no, you don't. And your next few paragraphs describing the imaginary me prove you don't.

These paragraphs also are revealing of who he thinks his target audience is: middle America.

"You have children." None that I know of!

SCHOOLS ARE BAD AND CORRUPT YOUR CHILDREN! TEH EVIL LIBERALS ARE TEACHING THEM LIES LIKE EVOLUTION!

"You don't hate people who are different than you, but [you actually do, you just don't admit it to yourself]" ("you don't want to be called a racist, bigot, or homophobe if you stand by your values and principles").

I don't think Glenn Beck understands what logic is.

"You're not an activist. You don't make signs or chant: 'U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!'" ...whiskey tango foxtrot? That's what being an activist is all about?

The fastest way to be called a crazy danger is to quote the Founders? I'm going to call [citation needed] on that.

Chapter 1

"Most Americans remain convinced that the country is on the wrong track." One, [citation needed]. Two, argumentum ad populum is a fallacy. Three, that doesn't imply that your ideas are the solution to our problems.

"But just because you may not know exactly what your *gut* is saying." Where's Colbert when you need him?

Glen Beck, do you jack off to an artist's rendering of common sense at night? Or do you just like to repeat that mantra for nonsexual purposes?

Goddammit. This hypothetical gut feeling we have is god telling us that America's going to hell in a hand-basket? Can we please avoid the (unsubstantiated) metaphysical claims? I don't think that the man who wrote The Age of Reason would like them.

"Indoctrination masked as education." I understand that Beck's "common sense" and "gut" tell him that education is brainwashing, but I really wish he'd at least explain himself a little. Because while I think there are legitimately things in USAian education that are misguided or wrong (e.g. teaching about Christopher Columbus as a great hero, rather than a genocidal slaver), I have a feeling that I'm thinking of different things that Beck.

"Rid ourselves of the poison of those who are proven to have broken the law." This coming from Glen Beck scares me, despite his previous claim to believe that violence is not part of the solution.

Common Sense showed the British government was "out of step with the Laws of Nature"? Like, gravity didn't work? No conservation of energy?

Unholy Cthulhu, now he's being a CAPS LOCK troll.

He earlier said that action was needed, that it was morally impermissible to be neutral, now he's saying that "inaction is often the best course of action". Granted, the former was for individuals, and the latter for the government, but it's still a bit contradictory.

"The progessive principle of natural selection." Social Darwinism apologeticism much?

"Laws of common sense"? Now this is just getting absurd.

Referring to the above comment on Beck waffling between the need for action/inaction: "granted, the former was for individuals, and the latter for the government". He just said that "the laws of common sense" don't change by scale, explicitly mentioning parallels between the average American and the government. So this goes from somewhat contradictory to outright contradiction.

Now Beck is reminding us that he's Mormon by repeating some quasi-political social advice about debt the Mormon religious leaders like to spout.

Switching from the gold standard to the debt standard? Beck took/takes Ron Paul seriously?

"Compassion and capitalism go hand in hand." Hahahahahaha. Hahahaha. Hahahahaha. Hahaha. Ha. Hahahahahaha.

People still take the concept of the American Dream seriously?

Beck earlier said that wealthy elites caused these problems, leading to Middle America being forced to suffer the consequences. Now he's saying that we shouldn't tax the wealthy more, as hardship and pain should be distributed to all. Huh. I wonder how many of his (presumably middle/lower class) readers notice he went from blaming someone else for their problems to telling them they should help pay the consequences for it.

He gives a list of basic questions to ask neighobrs to "wake" them which include

• Something about how we need to build a border fence to keep out immigrants.
• Something about how America is a "melting pot", yet people insist that people from differnt cultures should be able to "retain their distinct languages, identities, and practices". In case it's not clear, Beck is not for people being allowed those.
• "Why are those who respectfully question the science behind global warming mocked and condemned?"

"The next time an 'emergencey' comes along... there will be many voices on all sides shouting directions. Many of those voices will be wrong--and some will even knowingly be wrong." Oh the irony.

Don't Panic. Has Beck been reading some Douglas Adams?

"You cannot take away freedom to protect it." *cough* Patriot Act *cough*

I propose a drinking game for reading this book: any time Beck says "common sense", you drink a shot. Doing this, you'll be shitty by the end of the first chapter.

Chapter 2

"Money. The real opiate of the masses." How quaint. He's referencing Marx.

"[Our leaders] convinced us to defeat... imperialism." Does Beck not notice that the USA is a major imperialist nation now? Or, more succiently, No John, you are the imperialists!

Socialism? No, anything but that! Aaaah!

Beck needs to learn about scientific notation. I understand that writing out all those zeros makes numbers like 11 trillion look massive, but 1.1x10^13 or 11 trillion is much easier to read.

Also, the the national debt is nothing new. Alexander Hamilton (one of the Founders, so by Beck's logic, he's automatically right about everything forever) actually advocated it as a useful tool for foreign policy.

The debt is nothing new. The USA being in debt does not correlate to future generations being forced to work "hundred-hour weeks" to pay off that debt. We'll probably just continue our policy of going into debt to pay off the debt. I'm not saying anything about the wisdom of this, but Beck's scenario is an outright lie.

"Add in our national debt and interest payments and you'll easily exceed the capability of most calculators." Oh my gods! Aaaah! If it exceeds the capability of my diddly little desk calculator, how will I, your average Glen Beck fan, do the math? I can't add on my own!

Not just term limits on elected officials, term limits on everyone! Every government employee, ranging from the clerk at the DMV to the public kindergarten teacher, must have term limits!

More anti-intellectualism! Right out of the blue! Those damn dirty "Ivy Leagures" had better get their hands off me!

Attention Glen Beck. When the government prints money, it is, by definition, *not* counterfeiting.

Since this has been mentioned several times the book, I feel I must ask something: Glen Beck, what are the "Laws of Nature"? Before you appeal to them, you should define them, so there's something more than you making up shit to fit your views.

Chapter 3

Beck waffles on taxes some more. Which is it, should everyone pay taxes in equal rates, or should the wealthier pay higher rates?

"Common sense tells us they are one and the same: Time is money." Common sense is now cheesy aphorisms? I never knew.

Why is it that only conservatives push the "America is a *republic*, not a *democracy*" stick?

No, apparently common sense is "what Glen Beck feels without any backing whatsoever". No other explanation makes sense.

Chapter 4

Glen Beck is complaining about Congress getting rid of the secret ballot for union votes as if it were something being forced on us from above without our consent. Perhaps he should read some stuff from union and labor groups, who largely support the removal of the secret ballot.

"Common sense tells us those two things cannot possible go together--yet it happened." Hey, look, Beck's admitting that common sense is fallible.

9/11! Beck channels the spirit of Rudy Guilliani!

"[California's budget increased significantly recently,] yet they still won't do the common sense things to get back on track, like lifting restrictions on offshore oil drilling." Common sense really is Beck's way of slipping in random shit in irrelevant places without needing to justify it.

Chapter 5

Beck is saying that "Progressivism" has infected all our government (and bureaucracy, and lobbying groups, and corporations). I wish that we'd get a chance to vote for one progressive more than once in a while, let alone have both major party's choices be progressives.

"The Progressives view the Constitution as a living organism that evolves with time and changes depending on circumstances." The Constitution was designed to be a living document, capable of change.

Beck is criticizing progressives for saying that change would require sacrifice. Blatant hypocrisy.

Now he's spreading lies and misunderstandings about global warming.

Beck says that we should avoid "feel-good" policies that are bad when you *think* about them. More blatant hypocrisy, unless he thinks that thinking is appealing to one's gut, whereas feeling is using one's brain.

More bad logic. Glen beck is saying that because Argument A (anything to do with the greater good) was used to argue for Policy B (WWII Japanese internment camps), and Policy B was bad, that therefore Argument A is bad and any policy that uses Argument A as support is also bad.

Now he's defending terrorists.

"Logic tells us that..." He just came incredibly close to saying "Logic dictates". He really does think logic is what Mr Spock uses on Star Trek. Idiot...

Yay! Bernie Sanders! Woo! Granted, Beck was riffing on him, but Glen Beck not liking you is a good thing!

I don't think Beck knows anything about the public education system.

Dude, the UN is not out to steal everyone's children. And children having rights (such as the right to birth control without their parents' knowledge) is a good thing. Sure, it'd be nice if everyone grew up in a family where they could share such things with their parents without fear of negative consequences, but this is not how reality is. Considering there are people who physically and/or emotionally abuse or neglect their children who have sex, consider having an abortion, etc., we need these safeguards in place. By arguing against children having privacy from their parents in certain areas, Beck is arguing for something that leads to child abuse; whether he intends it or not, he is pro domestic violence.

Now he's saying that "secularism" is trying to destroy religion, which is the only bastion of morality and goodness in the country. I'm not at all surprised he's saying this, but it's still insulting, bigoted, idiotic, and wrong and usually. Someone should tell Beck that Paine was anti-religion.

Okay, Beck, we need to talk. When you quote the Founders, you quote mine them to find a quote that supports your point. You don't pull out a Jefferson quote about how morals aren't exclusive to religion. That directly contradicts what you just said.

Chapter 6

"There will be temporal as well as eternal consequences for each of us should be abandon our post and let liberty's light slip away into the darkness." I think he just said those who don't support him are going to hell.

Woo, a short chapter!

However, he apparently needs something to fill the space, so he's shilling for his 9/12 project thingy. Judging by what I can see of it here, it's shit.

A list of additional reading! 40% of the 10 books he mentions were authored (or they were one of multiple authors) by W. Cleon Skousen, whoever that is. I wonder if he paid for the advertising.

Hey, he includes the full text of Thomas Paine's Common Sense (not the cheap Glen Beck knock-off).

Thomas Paine is a much better writer than Glen Beck/Glen Beck's ghostwriter.

He also doesn't use the phrase "common sense" every other paragraph.

Hey, he includes a list of sources at the end! However, since he doesn't reference which cited data or statistics corresponds to which source, one would have to check through all the few dozen sources he mentions to find each citation. That makes this almost useless!

Microsoft caught lying (again)

Microsoft has been claiming for a while that netbooks running some form of Linux have a return rate approximately four times that of netbooks running Windows. They then state that this is proof consumers prefer Windows.

The kicker is that this is an outright lie. As Todd Finch, one of Dell's senior marketing managers pointed out, the rate of return for the two are approximately the same. It's one thing for Microsoft to spread FUD (fear, uncertainty, doubt) by twisting the truth, but in this case they completely they went beyond that, snapping the facts in half in order to get out their propaganda.

The major question is, if consumers returning netbooks with one OS at a higher rate than netbooks with another OS implies that the latter OS is superior, what does the fact that Microsoft had to resort to dishonesty to get "evidence" for the popularity of their product say?

The argument from design

I was reading through Richard Dawkins's The God Delusion the other day when I came to the section in chapter 3 about the teleological argument. Dawkins mentions that Darwin's introduction of the theory of evolution defeated that argument, but the argument is invalid anyways, even if we don't know anything about evolution (something which Dawkins does not mention here).

The argument from design, as explained by Dawkins is his book is

Things in the world, especially living things, look as though they have been designed. Nothing that we know looks designed unless it is designed. Therefore there must have been a designer, and we call him God.

This is a subtle case of circular reasoning. The statement "Nothing that we know looks designed unless it is designed" is equivalent to "All things we know of that look designed are designed". However, strictly speaking, unless we've already presumed the existence of a deity, we don't know if living things are designed. We can say they look designed (and that is arguably false), but we have no evidence that they actually are designed. This argument sets out to prove that living things are designed (and therefore god exists), but subtly assumes it.

Of course, evolution does do a very good job of showing that things that look designed can exist without a designer, but that only strengthens the case against this argument, it isn't required to disprove it.

Update: Everything is socialism now!

It's true! After all, banning text messaging while driving is socialism.

Dictator governments like China and Iran clamp down on people by restricting their use of communication technologies.

Well, most governments, even those that are nominally democratic, like to restrict the use of communication technology, at least somewhat. China and Iran are certainly worse than many other nations in this, but it is a matter of magnitude, not of direction. That aside, this point is essentially true. (Also, Iran's not a dictatorship--it's an oligarchy.)

If Ohio bans text messaging while driving, it’s the same thing.

No. The bans on communication nations like China put up are fundamentally different than a ban on text messaging while driving. The Great Firewall of China affects (or, rather is supposed to affect, but often fails) all people there, all the time. A ban on sending SMSes while driving a car does nothing of the sort. It's only targeted towards people in one very specific situation, where it has been shown to negatively affect safety. People can still text message as much as they want, saying whatever they want, they just can't do it in one circumstance, and the time cost of being able to legally text message again would be the time it takes to pull over to the side of the road. No harm is being done to anyone's right to speech or information.

China's and Iran's censorship uses technology to back up the law (i.e. they try to prevent people from accessing certain information by using more than just legal threats/punishments). However, the proposed Ohio ban would only use the force of law. They aren't going to modify the cell phone infrastructure to not allow one to send text messages while driving a car (if such a thing is even remotely feasible, which I doubt).

Are we headed to all-out socialism?

This is just ridiculous. Socialism is primarily an economic movement/ideology. It doesn't have anything to do traffic laws. Contrary to what many in modern America would have us think, socialism is not equivalent to government doing something--anything, for some people.

There are some legitimate arguments against this proposed ban, but none of them are based on comparing it to authoritarian censorship policies a la China or calling it socialism. However, doing so does lead to some amusing idiocy.

Update on Iowa bus ads

The Iowa bus ads ("Don't believe in god? You're not alone.") will be going back up. A victory for free and equitable speech.

"The Des Moines region and the state of Iowa (are) developing a positive reputation as a place that accepts diversity, new ideas and is civil in its discourse of even the most controversial of topics - for example same-sex marriages. ... It is altogether appropriate for our policies to keep pace with this progress," Miller wrote in the e-mail.

And here we have an excellent argument for progressiveness in general. By being more open to some ideas/diversity, it's easier to become open to others.

Helpful advice

Here, have some helpful advice about what to do if your children don't make the same choices as you do! Helpful advice from a Mormon perspective!

[Vickey Pahnke] Taylor said when children fall away from the gospel, parents are prone to accept all the blame.

"Parents of wayward children commonly agonize over questions like, 'what did I do wrong?' or 'how have I failed?'" Taylor said. "The most common first reactions are guilt, anger, depression, hurt or the impression that our teachings have been for naught. The feelings of failure may become a wall in the path of our own progression."

In other words, "If you make a large part of your life about indoctrinating your children into your beliefs, if they reject that indoctrination, you'll feel guilty and sad. Also, this emotional response is bad of you and keeps you from Jesus, (but we still want you to keep trying to indoctrinate those kids!)."

Parents must take care of themselves and seek peace in their own lives, she said.
...
"Refuse to be drawn into the daily drama that accompanies the angry or defiant family member, and actively seek for peace," she said.

Taylor said one of the ways to achieve peace daily is a spiritual focus.
...
"When we come to terms with the fact that we are not in charge," she said, "that we can control nothing our family member does, but we can control our own actions and reactions, a new sense of reliance upon the Lord blossoms within us."

"We may have lost them, but we'll take this opportunity to try to strengthen our hold on you. Focus on religious stuff (us!) and rely more on god (also us!), rather than thinking for yourself. And don't talk to them or try to do anything about whatever they may be feeling; that might, you know, lead to you considering their point of view to have some merit. Only listen to us!"

To illustrate this point, Taylor shared a story about by an old Cherokee man who tells his grandson about the inner battle each person fights.

In the story, the man says the battle is between two inner wolves. One wolf, akin to the natural man, is anger, envy, jealousy, sorrow and so forth. The other wolf is every good sentiment.

The grandson then queries, "which wolf win?" and the old man replies, "the one you feed."

"Here, have a vastly oversimplified metaphor that not only tries to dumb-down emotions into a good-evil (false) dichotomy, but also tells you that it is bad to feel sad. (And please don't note that the four emotions given as being part of the "natural man" are all emotions attributed to god/Jesus in the bible.)"

"At times of despair over our children's spiritual well-being, we are better served by sharpening our own spiritual tools and working on our own testimonies in order to better help our defiant family members," she said.

"Again, the best thing to do when you are sad is to become even more indoctrinated. That'll help stop your children from rejecting that same indoctrination. And it gets us more souls! More tasty, delicious souls... Mmm, souls."

The job description of parents includes advising and loving children, not saving them, Taylor said.

"We become overwhelmed when we spin our wheels in a helpless plan to rescue and save our wayward child," she said. "That is our Savior's job. Our dilemma grows when we blur the line of the job description."

"You have no power. We have all the power."

Parents' hope that a child feels the redemptive powers of the Savior is not a passive hope; they should be actively involved in the process, Taylor said.

"But we still want you to actively meddle in their lives, as we don't respect their right as autonomous beings to make their own choices."

Quoting President Gordon B. Hinckley, Taylor said, "I hope you go on praying for them, and I don't hesitate to promise that if you do, the Lord will touch their hearts and bring them back to you with love and respect and appreciation."
...
Prayer, combined with the other principles mentioned, will pay eternal dividends, Taylor said, but it will all happen in the Lord's time.
...
"Charity never faileth," she said, "but it just doesn't come with a predetermined timetable."

"Pray, while we cover all our bases here. If for whatever reason they get re-indoctrinated into our cult church again, then it was the magical power of prayer, and you should strengthen your reliance on us. If not, then we'll just keep you hopeful up to the day you die, meanwhile getting you to rely more and more on our 'support'. Everyone wins!"

Introduction

(I should probably do one of those introductory post thingies...)

Salutations, gentle reader. I'm Jordan Licht, this is my weblog. The title for it comes from a Nietzsche quote. I'm an undergrad in the western US studying math and computer science. Most everything else of relevance about me can be answered by the fact that I have a blog or by looking at what I choose to blog about.

If you want to contact me outside of this blog, I can be reached at jordanlicht{"at" symbol}gmail{decimal point}com.

Iowa governer is "disturbed"

Apparently, Iowa governor Chet Culver thinks that his personal feelings (and the personal feelings of those who called into to complain about this) are more important than others' right to free speech. What horrible ghastly thing could've upset this man to this extent? Bus ads. Bus ads which read "Don't believe in god? You are not alone." Oh, the humanity!

According to Culver, "[he] was disturbed personally...by the advertisement, [he] can understand why other Iowans were also disturbed by the message that it sent." He is disturbed at an ad stating that there exist people who don't believe in god? Not an ad saying that people should not believe in god, but an ad saying that some people do not belive in god. I'm not sure whether he is disturbed by the existence of atheists, or the public acknowledgement of the existence of atheists, but either way, this is a strange, bigoted even, thing to get offended over.

Erik Prince's Crusade

Remember Blackwater (or Xe, as they prefer to be called now--to avoid the deservedly negative connotation that Blackwater has)? The mercenary group that massacred 17 innocent Iraqi civilians in 2007? The people that were involved in nearly 200 (known) cases of "escalation of force" in an approximately two year period (and lied constantly about it)?

They are corrupt from the top down.

Two former Blackwater employees have made statements against Blackwater Worldwide and its founder Erik Prince, accusing the security company and its former CEO of murder and other serious crimes in Iraq, according to court documents filed this week.

The fish rots from the head, as they say.

"First, he views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe. ... Second, Mr. Prince is motivated by greed," says John Doe No. 2 [one of the anonymous employees]. "He sought every opportunity to deploy men to Iraq in order to earn more money from the United States government."

They've also tried to cover it up. (Read the full article; there's a lot that Blackwater has been doing.)

Doe #2 alleges in a sworn declaration that, based on information provided to him by former colleagues, "it appears that Mr. Prince and his employees murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities about the ongoing criminal conduct."

This is fucking unexcusable. These goons should never have been hired, let alone given the autonomy and authority that the Bush regime provided them. They break the law, murder innocents, smuggle weaponry, and not only do they encourage this behavior from the highest levels of the company, but they also cover it up by destroying evidence and silencing anyone who would speak against it. If it wasn't already abundantly clear that hiring private mercenary corporations to fight wars and placing them outside the rule of law is a bad idea, this is damning evidence to the contrary.

Now, it is true that there is currently not enough evidence to convict Prince and Blackwater of these crimes. However, given the other evidence and allegations against Blackwater in the past, there needs to be an immediate large-scale investigation into the company by the federal government. If (hopefully when) they find the evidence of these new allegations, they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. War crimes are not something that should be ignored.

Secularism is a "threat to democracy"?

According to some, yes.

Civil liberties and human rights which we have taken for granted for a generation are at risk from the rise of secularism, according to a new report from the Jubilee Centre, a leading Christian think-tank.

"Democracies cannot shake off their Christian past without shaking off the liberties which flowed from it," warns the report’s author Dr Philip Sampson.

I will admit that Christianity is a part of democracy's history, but to imply that the two are inseparable is wrong. Democracy is usually credited with originating from Ancient Greece, approximately 500 BCE (well before the origins of Christianity). In addition, numerous other indigenous groups independently created their own forms of democracy, before any contact was made with any form of Christianity (the Iroquois, ganas in Ancient India, etc.). Plainly, Christianity is not a requirement for democracy.

True, much of the philosophical foundation for modern democracy comes from the West (which is also where Christianity comes from), but it is significant when the majority of this groundwork was laid: the Age of Reason and Age of Enlightenment, when the power of religion declined. Hobbes, Locke, Paine, Jefferson, and de Tocqueville, to name a few, came from this tradition of reason over revelation. Their arguments for democracy were not based in religious teaching, but in logic and empiricism. (This is not to say that everyone from that era who promoted democracy was areligious, but much of the philosophy behind democracy from then was secular.)*

This report then continues to make the common criticism that secularism is just another religion. This has been debunked in many places, such as here.

If a view differs from the secular consensus, it is "ill-considered" and "prejudiced", and should not be entertained. Where would this have left the abolitionists or the civil rights movement?

Ask Thomas Jefferson (deist), John Quincy Adams (Unitarian), Ernistine Rose (atheist), Elizur Wright (atheist), or Mark Twain (not sure, but he was outspokenly anti-religion). If that won't do it for you, ask Lenni Brenner (atheist), or A. Philip Randolph (atheist).*

In the Jubilee Centre report, Dr Sampson argues for the disestablishment of a ‘secular’ religion and the opening of the public sphere to a prophetic Christian understanding of tolerance towards all religions, including that of ‘secularism’.

We should show tolerance for all religions by making society more Christian? That's frankly idiotic. Ignoring the fact that Christianity is not nearly as tolerant as is being claimed, placing one religion above others is not a good way to show "tolerance". Making some groups second class citizens is the antithesis of tolerance. I'm not sure whether or not I hope Sampson (the author of this) actually believes this. On one hand, if he does, it shows a failure of thinking; on the other hand, if he doesn't, it shows malice. I'm not sure which is worse.

On a side note, I find it alternatively humorous and depressing that the website I found this on bills itself as a place for "stories to lift your spirits". Are poor thinking and inequality supposed to be inspiring?

*Although, as this report insists that secularism is a form of religion, maybe it's trying to claim that everything (good--the "bad" stuff obviously is from elsewhere) from secular origins actually comes from religion?