Geek Singularity

In Response to Maethelwine

2006-01-14T12:35:00.000-05:00

In a recent blog posting by the Martian Anthropologist entitled Religion: A Force For Good?, I posted a response which elicited a response from Maethelwine. In order to not hijack the thread, I am crossposting my response to my blog here in hopes of engaging in a substantive debate on the points discussed herein.

Maethelwine wrote:

Singularity, my statement about lack was in reference to a quote in Martian’s sidebar. Read it. You claim never to have seen a relationship between religion and increased levels of happiness “even remotely substantiated.” Look harder. A few seconds with Google will direct you to more studies on precisely that relationship than you’ll be able to read in a month. Many of them are not available on line except as a précis, but if you care to read them the journal numbers are provided and any interlibrary loan program can probably get you a copy. You are free to dispute the findings, of course, and I encourage you to examine the structure of the various studies and see if you can find fault with them. If necessary, repeat the studies with your own methodologies and sampling strategies. That would be great. You are not, however, free to hop on line and suggest that such research doesn’t exist without having gone through the very minimal effort of checking.

In your first paragraph addressing me, you make two assumptions both of which are incorrect. First, you assume, for some reason, I am not aware of the context of your comment contain in Martian’s blog. You are wrong. Martian’s blog entry was quite clear as to the context of your comment. Reviewing my response I do not see where I provided in any implicit or explicit indication that would lead a reasonable person to conclude I was not aware of this context. Second, you assume I was not aware of and/or had not evaluated in depth the numerous studies conducted by various parties concluding religious practice has some social or other benefit. Again, you are wrong. The latter error could be assigned to a lack of diligence on your part. However, the former error smells of primitive debate techniques. Attempting to assume an immediate air of instruction and superiority through such short imperative statements as “Read it.” and “Look harder” is a sophomoric debate technique that might serve you well in other situations or with other people but not with me. Conclusions born from this discussion should be the product of the substance of our positions not the intellectual equivalent of dirty tricks. If you want to set up straw men to knock down you can do that on your own without wasting my time or that of others.

I’ll direct you to two that caught my eye. In an issue of the Journal of Gerontology from 2000, a team from Duke University reports a 6.3 year study of a random sampling of 3,851 community dwelling adults between the ages of 64 and 101. Private (not group) religious activities, as well as a wide variety of health variables and socio-demographic factors were assessed at baseline. In the 6.3 year follow-up, 1,177 of the subjects died. Persons with no disabilities, and little or no private religious activity (specified as prayer, meditation or bible study) were 63% more likely to die during that period. Even after controlling for health behaviors and social support factors, both markedly worse in non-religious subjects, a lack of private religious activity predicted a 47% greater risk of mortality. That’s a huge margin. You could whittle that down by half and still have a stunning disparity.

I was already aware of the Duke University study and many other similar studies. My primary objection to the conclusions of the Duke University study relate to characterization. Researchers must be extremely careful when characterizing their conclusions to discern what the experimental results indicate and what they do not indicate. The Duke University study focused on a single state condition (religious activity or no religious activity). The researchers collected their data in this fashion and through that lense they interpreted the data. However, what the researchers have shown is elderly people that engage in social activities survive longer than those who live a sedentary or inactive lifestyle. This is hardly a remarkable conclusion and has nothing to do with religion. This same conclusion has been substantiated by other researchers (e.g., Dr. Thomas Oxman at Dartmouth Medical School) when comparing elderly people engaged in organized secular activities such as senior citizen groups, historical societies, local governments or employment to those who are sedentary or otherwise living unengaged lifestyles. The Duke Researchers could have committed a similar characterization error by concluding that, because the subjects in their study were predominantly Christians, Christian religious activity conferred health benefits. To my knowledge, the Duke researchers nor any other researchers have been able to show a significant difference between elderly people conducting religious activities versus though conducting secular activities.

As an aside, in a 2001 update to the Duke study, the researchers noted that those subjects who engaged in religious activity on a daily basis were more likely to suffer from physical ailment and disability than those who engaged in religious activity weekly. Does this finding mean religion is harmful in this context? Unlikely. The more likely explanation is people are more prone to engage in religious activities on a more frequent basis as their health declines. These are dangers of engaging in scientific inquiry with an agenda or an a priori conclusion. A scientific conclusion, like a judicial conclusion, is something that is a the product of scientific inquiry not something that survives it.

We are left with an understanding that elderly people that engage in active lifestyles are more likely to survive to a period X years in the future than those who lead sedentary lifestyles. The active lifestyle is the critical factor, not religious activity. My assertion remains unrefuted: “I submit religion does not produce any meaningful benefit that could not otherwise be recognized through nonreligious means.”

Last point, regarding the “greatest social plague on a global basis.” Off the top of my head, Singularity old pal, look up Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement, the work of the black churches in the civil rights movement, Liberation Theologians and their work in Latin America, the persistent and faithful (i.e. they’re there even when the TV cameras aren’t) presence of Trotsky’s Quaker-Papist rabble in the anti-death penalty and peace movements, the role of religion in the work of Mahatma (Great Soul) Gandhi, and the way the Salvation Army put FEMA to shame in the aftermath of Katrina. Just for some examples of the way the Plague has spread over the last 80 years or so.

You conflate religious belief and benevolence irresponsibly. Can you illustrate that but for their religious beliefs these acts or movements of benevolence would not have occurred? What of the acts of benevolence that have no religious component? The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation seek to have a net beneficial impact on the global population that would eclipse that of any others – perhaps even collectively. What we have are examples of religious people that were/are very benevolent and secular programs that were/are very benevolent. We also have many religious people that are not benevolent at all. We have many nonreligious people that are not benevolent at all. You have yet to show that religion was the crucial factor in the expression of benevolence. This threshold is the easier one to achieve, that of gross benevolence. Even were you to meet this threshold you would then be faced by the more grisly question of net benevolence. Fortunately for both of us, I doubt you will ever meet the initial threshold and thus spare us from comparing lives saved and lives discarded in the name of religion.

Or, alternately, don’t. You’ve already suggested that Mother Theresa would have done great things anyway, because she was such a sweetheart, while those poor luckless boys who flew airplanes into the Twin Towers would be home watching re-runs of Everybody Loves Raymond if it hadn’t been for the Plague.

How many atheist/agnostic suicide bombers can you list?

Because if religion is a little bad, it’s all bad. That’s the most inelegant, absolutist pair of assertions I’ve seen in months, possibly years.

As I mentioned before, setting up straw men to knock down is a bit like boxing quadraplegics. Sure you might get the KO but what has been won? My point is religion at its best contributes no incremental benefit to society and at its worst is an arbiter of extreme costs. Inelegance is generalizing a position to discard it rather than deal with its substance.

Religion can play no meaningful role in the work of a Catholic nun being streamlined for sainthood, whereas groups of young, alienated men never cause problems for anyone unless there’s a fatwa being circulated. For heaven’s sake. Could you try to be just a tiny bit more judicious? And since we’ve made such a banquet out of personal experience today, perhaps you could go to India, meet people who worked alongside Mother Theresa for years and continue the work, talk to them as I have done, and ask them how significant they think religion was for her. Let us know if you think they came across as sincere, or as plague rats.

Eloquence is often used to obfuscate a position bereft of substance. I can see no more apt an example of this than your point here. I have already dispensed with the notion people must be religious to be benevolent or that that there is even a tenuous relationship between religion and benevolence. Are you religious? Why have you not replicated the good works of Mother Theresa? Perhaps its because Mother Theresa was simply a person of much more substantial hue than yourself, willing and capable to muster the wherewithal to engage in the works that have brought her acclaim. You do Mother Theresa a disservice by attributing her benevolence and fortitude to religious beguilement. You call for me to be judicious? I am incredulous. And my point remains concerning the 9/11 attackers. Are you saying these men would still have committed the acts they committed if they were agnostics or atheists? I find it quite feasible that a Mother Theresa could exist without religion. I find it quite implausible that the 9/11 attackers taking part in a jihad could exist without religion.

I invite you to respond to my blog posting regarding the arbitrary nature of faith also.

Learned Hand

2005-12-22T15:02:00.000-05:00

Recently, I was working on a very lengthy tax opinion for one of my clients. As I sifted through the nether regions of court cases from the early 1900s to articulate various legal arguments, I revisited a few court cases that are seminal cases in many ways in tax law. I won't bore you with the technical details around the tax law. However, the opinions in these cases were authored by Judge Learned Hand (yes, that was his name). Judge Hand was a remarkable person - an eloquent orator, inspiring wordsmith and formidable intellect. I marveled at how inspiring he could render passages about the byzantine tax issues he addressed in these cases.

As impressive as his quotations were about tax law, I wondered if he had produced any work or quotables outside of the judiciary. I did some impromptu searching on the internet and quickly located two quotations from Judge Hand. I found these quotations particularly compelling and thought I'd share them with you.

In 1944, as the United States was locked in the throes of World War II, "a vast 'I Am an American Day” ceremony was held in Central Park, New York City, on May 21. Many thousands of people were present, including a large number of new citizens. Learned Hand’s brief address was so eloquent and so moving that the text immediately became the object of wide demand. It was quickly printed and reprinted and also put into anthologies. The impact was so great that the speaker was invited to address a similar gathering the next year. '

At the event, Judge Learned Hand made the following speech:

We have gathered here to affirm a faith, a faith in a common purpose, a common conviction, a common devotion. Some of us have chosen America as the land of our adoption; the rest have come from those who did the same. For this reason we have some right to consider ourselves a picked group, a group of those who had the courage to break from the past and brave the dangers and the loneliness of a strange land.

What was the object that nerved us, or those who went before us, to this choice? We sought liberty; freedom from oppression, freedom from want, freedom to be ourselves. This we then sought. This we now believe that we are by way of winning.

What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. No constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there, it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it.

And what is this liberty which must lie in the hearts of men and women? It is not of the ruthless, the unbridled will. It is not freedom to do as one likes. That is the denial of liberty, and leads straight to its overthrow. A society in which men recognize no check upon their freedom, soon becomes a society where freedom is the possession of only a savage few; as we have learned to our sorrow.

What then is the spirit of liberty? I cannot define it; I can only tell you my own faith. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which is not too sure that it is right. The spirit of liberty is the spirit which weighs their interests alongside its own without bias. The spirit of liberty remembers that not even a sparrow falls to earth unheeded. The spirit of liberty is the spirit of Him who, near two thousand years ago, taught mankind that lesson it has never learned, but has never quite forgotten; that there may be a kingdom where the least shall be heard and considered side by side with the greatest.

And now in that spirit, that spirit of an America which has never been, and which may never be; nay which never will be, expect as the conscience and the courage of Americans create it; yet in the spirit of that America which lies hidden in some form in the aspirations of us all; in the spirit of that America for which our young men are at this moment fighting and dying; in that spirit of liberty and of America I ask you to rise with me to pledge our faith in the glorious destiny of our beloved country.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands - one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

A separate quote, from an address to Yale law graduates in 1931, was equally impressive:

Our dangers, as it seems to me, are not from the outrageous but from the conforming; not from those who rarely and under the lurid glare of obloquy upset our moral complaisance, or shock us with unaccustomed conduct, but from those, the mass of us, who take their virtues and their tastes, like their shirts and their furniture, from the limited patterns which the market offers.

The Future is Listening

2005-12-09T22:17:00.000-05:00

I replicate here a piece written by Eric Zorn in The Chicago Tribune. I think the piece speaks for itself.

Marriage Issue Just As Plain As Black & White

Statement No. 1: Same-sex marriage must be forbidden, said the Republican Senator from Wisconsin,"simply because natural instinct revolts as it is wrong."

No. 2. An organization opposed to gay marriage claimed legalizing them would result in "a degraded and ignoble population incapable of moral and intellectual development," and rested this belief on the "natural superiority with which God [has] ennobled heterosexuals."

No. 3. "I believe that the tendency to classify all persons who oppose gay marriage as 'prejudiced' is in itself a prejudice." grumped a noted psychologist. "Nothing of any significance is gained by such a marriage."

No. 4. A U.S. Representative from Georgia declared that allowing gay marriages "necessarily involves [the] degradation" of conventional marriage, an institution that "deserves admiration rather than execration."

No. 5. "The next step will be that lesbians will demand a law allowing them without restraint...[to] have free and unrestrained social intercourse with your unmarried sons and daughters," warned a Kentucky Congressman. "It is bound to come to that. There is no disguising the fact. And the sooner the alarm is given and the people take heed, the better it will be for our civilization."

No. 6. "When people of the same sex marry, they cannot possibly have any progeny," wrote an appeals judge in a Missouri case. "And such a fact sufficiently justifies those laws which forbid their marriages."

No. 7. Same-sex marriages are "abominable," according to Virginia law. If allowed, they would "pollute" America.

No. 8. In denying the appeal of a same-sex couple that had tried unsuccessfully to marry, a Georgia court wrote that such unions are "not only unnatural, but...always productive of deplorable results," such as increased effeminate behavior in the population. "They are productive of evil and evil only, without any corresponding good...[in accordance with] the God of nature."

No. 9. A gay marriage ban is not discriminatory," reasoned a Republican Congressman from Illinois, because it "applies equally to men and women."

No. 10. Attorneys for the State of Tennessee argued that such unions should be illegal because they are "distasteful to our people and unfit to produce the human race...." The state supreme court agreed, declaring gay marriages would be "a calamity full of saddest and gloomiest portent to the generations that are to come after us."

No. 11. Lawyers for California insisted that a ban of same-sex marriage is necessary to prevent "traditional marriage from being contaminated by the recognition of relationships that are physically and mentally inferior...[and entered into by] the dregs of society.

No. 12. "The law concerning marriages is to be construed and understood in relation to those persons only to whom that law relates," thundered a Virginia judge in response to a challenge to the state's non-recognition of same-sex unions. "And not," he continued, "to a class of persons clearly not within the idea of the legislature when contemplating the subject of marriage."

To sum up: Legal recognition of such marriages would offend tradition, God, the sensibilities of the majority and the natural order while threatening the conventional marriage, children and the future of our civilization.

The quotes are culled from a Boston University Law Review article and a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, although I did take the minor liberty of changing the subject of the strangled rage, fear and righteous indignation.

Everywhere I quoted the speakers' references to same-sex marriage, homosexuality and heterosexuality, they were actually referring to interracial marriage and their views of black people, white people and the proper interaction thereof. And, yes, that includes statement No. 6, which in its original form articulated the old white supremacist belief that offspring of whites and blacks were--like mules that resulted when horses mated with donkeys--sterile.

The quotes date from 1823 to 1964 and, while ridiculous to us in 1996, they had sufficient appeal and staying power that 15 states still criminalized black-white marriage until the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned those laws in the appropriately named 1967 case Loving vs. Virginia.

Those whose unaltered words today resemble statements 1 through 12 above, take note. The stench is familiar. The future is listening.

The Ignorance of Intelligent Design

2005-11-05T23:06:00.000-05:00

Intelligent design advocates assert certain features of the natural world are so complex they must have an explanation aside from biological evolution or cosmology. Even if we all agree this assertion is correct we still have no basis to conclude supernatural agents such as the Christian God or any other god exists. But the real absurdity of the intelligent design position is not they make a leap from their intelligent design assertions to conclude God exists. Rather, after beating on their chests stating all these features of the universe exhibit "specified complexity" or "irreducible complexity" and thus must have some preternatural cause, they subsequently beat on their chests that this preternatural cause, i.e., God, which purportedly exhibits more complexity than anything in the universe, has no prior cause or need for explanation.

Judging a Judge

2005-10-19T09:10:00.000-05:00

President Bush's nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court of the United States has generated significant controversy on a variety of fronts. The fundamental question before Congress is whether Harriet Miers, or any nominee for the Supreme Court, is qualified for the position. This should be the end of the inquiry. Whether a nominee's views are in agreement with your own should not be a factor in determining whether a nominee is qualified.

The Constitution imposes no qualifcation requirements that a nominee must meet in order to be nominated by the Supreme Court. Technically, a nominee does not have to be a certain age or even be a citizen of the United States or even have any expertise in constitutional law or law in general. As a practical matter, Presidents nominate United States citizens old enough to accumulate a reasonable amount of legal experience.

As a United States citizen, I think there is only one real qualification we should be concerned with in evaluating a nominee. Will the person command the respect of his or her fellow justices if they were to sit on the Supreme Court? If there are concerns that a person will not command such respect then we should be very concerned whether the person would be an effective justice on the Supreme Court. Four attributes would seem to be necessary for a person to command such respect: (1) intellect, (2) legal scholarship, (3) temperament, and (4) ideological flexibility.

A Supreme Court justice must be armed with the intellect and legal scholarship to parse complex facts and legal issues and engage in effective discussion and debate with fellow justices. If a justice is unable to formulate cogent arguments then his or her viewpoint will be discounted or disregarded. Not all attorneys are created equal. I have sat in plenty of meetings where some participants are simply not able to keep up with others due to their inability to keep up intellectually. They struggle to discern relevant issues, subtleties of the discussion, and ultimately have diminished effectiveness as a contributor to the meeting. This would be an unacceptable situation in the Supreme Court where the Constitution requires nine viewpoints to be considered.

Temperament is important in garnering and maintaining respect. The Supreme Court is a very Machiavellian salon. Justices curry the favor of other justices to win them to their view. While one would hope that ultimately the legal merits of a viewpoint would be the only attribute evaluated by the court, the intimacy of the process by which the court operates requires Supreme Court justices to be of a calm and judicial temperament to foster an effective working environment.

Most importantly, the Supreme Court is no place for ideologues. A Supreme Court justice must have ideological flexibility to evaluate facts, analyze legal principles, and conclude on the basis of these factors - not an ideology. Justices often may appear fiercely ideological but even in Justice Scalia's case one could argue his viewpoints are progeny of his originalist philosophy in interpreting the Constitution. One can question whether the ideology came first or the legal philosophy or vice versa. The point here is justices should not be rigidly settled in their views such that they cannot parse relevant facts and statutes with genuinue endeavor. A judicial conclusion is a product of a consideration of the facts and application of the legal authorities not something that is formed ipso facto and manages to survive a consideration of the facts and application of the legal authorities.

The law is not perfect. The process determining the composition of the Supreme Court is not perfect. In fact, there are very few aspects of the processes we rely upon to populate many of the roles in government that are perfect. Arguably, some are just plain troubling. However, as the supreme arbiter of the law, the Supreme Court must be composed of nine people with the intellectual capacity, legal scholarship, judicial temperament, and ideological flexibility to perform the function established by the Constitution. Stray even a little from that state and the Supreme Court, the Constitution and the law are diminished greatly.

The Singularity Is Near

2005-09-15T18:06:00.000-05:00

Ray Kurzweil's new book, The Singularity Is Near, will be published September 26, 2005. This is a must read book for everyone. Go here to learn more.

The Unreasonable and Arbitrary Nature of Religious Faith

2005-09-13T15:37:00.000-05:00

Debates between religious and nonreligious people frequently devolve into unfocused quid pro quo, philosophical impasse, or charged invective. What I hope to do here is lay out my reasons for being nonreligious. I invite all, both religious and nonreligious, to respond to my comments here. I am always searching for ways to develop my perspective further or change it altogether if confronted with compelling arguments or evidence. I have a very open mind. However, I have thought very deeply about the claims of various religions and have found them wanting. I have developed what I perceive to be a robust though albeit simple view of the problems of religion.

The Dividing Concept: Faith
The fundamental concept that divides religious people and nonreligious people is that of "faith". We need to understand the nature of faith before we can discuss it and understand why it is at the center of the division.

The Old Testament contains the following definition of faith:

Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. Hebrews 11:1

Richard Dawkins, an esteemed scientist, author and skeptic, has had the following to say about faith:

Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to evade the need to think and evaluate evidence. Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because of, the lack of evidence.

One definition for faith contained in The American Heritage Dictionary is:

Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.

Admittedly, these perspectives are very different yet all have a common theme: faith is belief in the absence of evidence or reason.

Perceiving the Universe: The Rigorous Evaluation of Fact Claims
Before I go further, its important to talk about how we approach and experience the universe in general. How comes it that we believe in anything? What process do we undertake, whether consciously or not, to arrive at a belief? For that matter, what is a belief? A belief is a conclusion about a specific fact claim, i.e., whether the fact claim is true or false. A fact claim is an assertion about some aspect of the universe. For example, consider the following fact claims:

Fact Claim 1: “George W. Bush exists.”
Fact Claim 2: “Purple gnomes live in the Sahara Desert.”

Generally, a person will adopt, consciously and/or unconsciously, a set of criteria to evaluate whether a fact claim is true or false. The person judges a specific fact claim using these criteria and references his empirical knowledge to assess the fact claim. Through such a process, the person arrives at a conclusion concerning whether the fact claim is true or false. This conclusion represents the belief of the person with respect to the fact claim. Alternatively, the person may ascertain that insufficient evidence is available to judge the fact claim conclusively as true or false. Further, the process of fact claim evaluation may be an ongoing or dynamic process where new information is garnered that requires reassessment of a particular conclusion as to truth or lack thereof or inconclusiveness.

Lets revisit our fact claim examples. For the first fact claim, most people, religious and nonreligious alike, would believe the fact claim to be true. Even if the person in question had never met George W. Bush in person, there is a significant amount of comfort to be found in the substantial corroborative evidence present that he does exist. Of course, there is the philosophical menagerie of “Does he really exist?”, “Do we really exist?”, etc. However, in relative terms, most people are likely as certain of the veracity of the first fact claim as any other fact claim that might be offered.

The second fact claim offers a more difficult assertion to conclude as true. While the Sahara Desert may not have likely have been surveyed so completely as to state in absolute terms that purple gnomes do not inhabit that region, there is no empirical evidence that such entities exist any place on Earth much less the Sahara Desert. At best, a person may conclude that the veracity of the second fact claim is not determinable armed with current knowledge. More likely, a person would conclude that the second fact claim is false because they would consider it absurd.

In evaluating the second fact claim, it is important to note that concluding that belief that the second fact claim is false is not necessarily the same as proving that purple gnomes do not exist. Generally, it is not possible to prove the non-existence of a certain thing or entity. However, certain entities or things may be proposed with such attributes or properties that are inconsistent or unverified and lacking in corroborative data to conclude (not prove) that fact claims asserting their existence are likely false leading to the belief that the fact claim is not true or at best unsettled and not warranting affirmative belief.

The Departure From Rigor In Favor of Faith
Let us examine another fact claim.

Fact Claim 3: “God exists.”

I am willing to wager that most, if not all, Christian theists would conclude that Fact Claim 1 is true and that Fact Claim 2 is false or at best inconclusive. Further, I assert that most atheists and agnostics would reach similar conclusions regarding Fact Claims 1 and 2. The reason for similarity in the conclusions of these varied groups of people rests in the likelihood that these people undertook similar processes of rational reflection on the available evidence to render a conclusion about each claim.

Thus, Christian theists are not unlike others in that they employ the process described above for evaluating most fact claims. However, when confronted with Fact Claim 3 Christian theists inexplicably abandon the process described above, one they deemed reliable enough for all other fact claims. Fact Claim 3 is accorded, without any justification, special treatment in the mind of a Christian theist. Christian theists appear to abandon the process described above and opt for a separate single criterion – faith. While the process described above requires a careful, methodic process of discretion, knowledge gathering and analysis, “faith” involves accepting a fact claim as true (and thus resulting in belief in the fact claim benefiting from “faith”) without or even in direct opposition to available evidence and the results of the belief process described above. Faith leads the person to conclude on truth based not on the objective of evaluating truth but rather based on other considerations such as social acceptance, feeling secure, meaning in life, security, fear of the unknown, need for explanation, etc.

While the “faith process” for evaluating fact claims is fraught with problems in its own right, the focus of this piece is whether this process, however problematic, is employed arbitrarily or not. Fact Claim 3 is concluded to be true by Christian theists by virtue of faith. Yet, this same faith criterion is not applied to fact claims such as “Zeus exists”, “Odin exists”, “Ra exists”, “Allah exists”, “ exists”, “Purple gnomes live in the Sahara Desert.” On what basis can one justify two sets of standards for evaluating fact claims?

While it is certainly questionable that religious fact claims such as “God exists”, “Zeus exists”, etc. should be accorded a special faith-based evaluation process, it is completely illogical that some religious claims would be judged by the faith-based process while other religious claims would be concluded to be false under the more rigorous process described above.

What gives rise to this inclination to employ the faith process and apply it only to the fact claim that God exists while not employing to other deities and supernatural fables? One word: Environment. In the United States and most Western nations, we are exposed to notions that certain fact claims are true and encouraged not to question these conclusions. Fact claims such as “God exists”, “The Bible is true”, etc.

The Arbitrary Nature of Faith
I submit that the departure employed by theists from the more rigorous evaluation process for a faith process only for certain religious fact claims but not others is completely and absolutely arbitrary because the source of this departure is, in fact, arbitrary. Convincing evidence exists of the arbitrary nature of the faith process and its dubious conclusions. Look at the United States. We have various groups that believe different religious fact claims are true. This belief is the product of the faith process coupled with environment. A boy raised in a Jewish household is likely to apply the faith process to the standard complex of Jewish fact claims (“God exists”, “Jesus was not a supernatural entity”, “The Torah is true”, “The New Testament is false.”, etc.) A boy raised in a Catholic household is likely to apply the faith process to the standard complex of Catholic fact claims. A boy raised in an Islamic household – well, you get the point. The diversity of religious belief is a testament to the arbitrary nature of faith.

On September 11...

2005-09-11T10:26:00.000-05:00

2001, terrorist attacks in New York City and Arlington, Virginia killed over 3,000 people. This is the event many people are focused on today. But what else has happened on September 11?

1998, Kenneth Starr sends his report to Congress accusing President Bill Clinton of 11 impeachable offenses.

1990, President George H.W. Bush delivers a nationally-televised speech threatening to use U.S. military force to remove Iraqi forces that had recently invaded Kuwait.

1297, the Scots (led by William Wallace) and English met at the Battle of Stirling.

While the events of September 11, 2001 were tragic, their scale is dwarfed by the staggering problem of world poverty. While figures vary on this point, the lowest credible estimate (by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations) of children that die each year from hunger is approximately 6 million. Some estimates are twice this amount. According to this estimate, on average, more children die every five hours from hunger than died in the September 11, 2001 events. That tragedy is happening every single day. It happened on September 11, 2001, September 10, 2001, yesterday, today, and it will happen tomorrow. The tens of millions of children that died during the 1990s from hunger could have been all saved by spending equal to a fraction of the amount approved for Katrina relief.

America as well as most of Western world loves the spectacle. September 11, 2001 was quite the spectacle, as were the images we saw from New Orleans. The spectacle draws us in to these tragedies. Either our charitable responses to these events are genuine and we have blinded ourselves to the larger tragedies transpiring every day or our charitable responses are a charade - self-indulgent exercises designed to make ourselves feel better about one another. Whenever I see the smugly resolute teenagers talking to the media about their ephemeral responses to a high school shooting and righteous indignation to the idea of senseless death, I wish a reporter would ask them about the 500 children that died during their interview. We are beautiful and grotesque in so many ways.

Polyhistor Want a Cracker?

2005-08-11T20:11:00.000-05:00

I've been extremely busy with work, life, etc. but have been lamenting the lack of attention I've paid to my embryonic blog. I really need to get my Geek on and start posting or the 4 people that have viewed my profile won't bother to keep checking this barren patch of the internet much longer. Count the fact that I suspect 3 of those profile views were me and the situation is really dire.

I fancy myself a polyhistor, meaning I've spent enough time thinking about or researching various fields enough to be generally knowledgeable about them. I probably don't rise to the level of specialist in any of the fields except for my profession, i.e., tax law, but I think I've thought deeply enough about various subjects to have something interesting to say.

I must confess I am hoping this blog will help me clarify my views on various subjects. I wouldn't go so far to call myself intellectually lazy but I don't think as deeply about subjects as I could unless motivated to do so because I'm going to post something on the topic or debate it with someone on a message board. More often than not, when I have discussed or debated an issue on a message board I learn more about my own views on a subject than anything else. In some cases, the conviction I have about the view I had when I set out to engage in the discussion deepens and in other cases I find myself discarding my original view in favor of another view or in order to return to a state of uncertainty.

So what can you expect to read about in the coming weeks? Well, I have no set agenda in mind. Let me list some of the topics that interest me and that I suspect I will likely post about over time.

Religion/Science: I am an avid proponent of the scientific method. Though I grew up in a Southern Baptist home I have long since discarded religious beliefs. My view on the theistic question is best described as "implicit atheism" or "weak atheism". I have encountered no evidence leading me to believe God or "gods" exist. I have not encountered evidence leading me to believe conclusively such theistic agents do not exist either. I believe it may be possible to conclude whether theistic claims are true or not so I do not consider myself an agnostic. I'll likely post from time to time describing my thinking in this area.

Socioeconomics: This is an unsettled area for me in that I believe capitalism is a vibrant economic philosophy but the potential effects of it in its purest forms are often disturbing. I'll explore this here in hope of figuring out where I am on the question of the need to award merit while protecting the mundane.

Singularity/Future Studies: I am an avid futurist. Scientific and technological progress has thrust humanity through various paradigm shifts over the past few centuries. But the most dramatic paradigm shifts are still in the making. The potential of molecular nanotechnology, advances in artificial intelligence and the lengthening of human lifespans may redefine the human experience in ways most people may not be aware. However, there are the vast potential of technology to redefine the human experience must be accounted for in the context of the vast potential for that same technology to be misused as well as the vast potential for humans to reject technological and scientific progress that seems "unnatural". With this topic, I'll likely spend some time divulging my knowledge in this area because I think its an area people just aren't aware of.

NBA: Not so noble an interest as what you've read so far, I admit. But its actually far worse than you might suspect. Not only do I follow every personnel move with fanatic interest but I constantly analyze the statistics captured by today's boxscores to evaluate players, teams and the financial logic of the NBA's collective bargaining agreement. Yes, its insanity squared to most people - I agree. But this place isn't called "Geek Singularity" for nothing.

Music: I don't know where I'll be going with this topic. I have what I suppose are somewhat strange tastes in music. My tastes are necessarily strange taken individually but as a collective they are strange bedfellows I think. As an aside, one of the most redeeming aspects of the internet is finding people that have tastes or interests similar to your own. Some people take pride in being unique ("Why yes I do fancy playing Black Sabbath backwards while inserting samples of Tangerine Dream and I'm quite unique in that regard.") but there is a certain feeling of satisfaction I get when I encounter a person or a group with similar interests as my own in a particular area. That fleeting moment of connection is quite gratifying. But I disgress. Music is a big part of my life in a small kind of way. I spend all the time I can listening to music. I work extremely well when listening to music (I'm listening to Vangelis' Alexander soundtrack while I'm writing this in fact). I am an untrained musician (this means my technique is screwed up but I still manage to make some resembling music emanate from the instrument I'm playing). I seem to have a natural ability to compose music though I haven't done much with it. I'm rambling here but the point is I'm sure I'll be posting about music from time to time.

Fantasy/Science Fiction: I am an avid fan of fantasy and science fiction. I played D&D. I watch various fantasy and science fiction movies over and over again. If something cool is happening in terms of computer games, books or movies on this front I'll likely post about it here from time to time.

Politics: I am more conservative on fiscal issues and more liberal on social issues. I am not sure what the makes me however I have strong views on various political issues and from time to time will post here to discuss a particular issue that is in the public discourse and some that aren't.

There are other areas of interest for me but I suspect these are the primary ones I'll be posting about here. I doubt anyone wants to hear my tax law thinking. That is an area where I am a specialist and I don't want to scare everyone off with impossibly arcane rambling about the loopholes and insanity hidden deep within the Internal Revenue Code.

I am very interested in discussing topics with others so if you see something you agree with or you think is the stupidest thing you've ever heard please post a comment.

Nothing to see here... at least not yet

2005-08-06T13:15:00.000-05:00

Just popping my blog cherry with this post. I'll be tinkering around with the layout and figuring out exactly what I'm going to do with this over the next few days. Stay tuned.