I mean both my immediate, and my extended family. My grandparents were Catholics, the kind that listened to the “Every sperm is sacred rule”, so they had 9 kids- all of my aunts and uncles are married, all but one pair of them have kids. I have something to the effect of 30 cousins, plus my brother and sister.

All of them (except my sister, and perhaps one or two of my cousins by the one remaining catholic uncle) are creationists, most are young-earth creationists, one likes Kent “I-don’t-pay-taxes” Hovind. My cousin, who we’ll call Mike, so as to protect his privacy (I have no cousins named Mike), had Expelled on his computer. Thats the level at which my family’s views differ from my own.

I spent most of this afternoon in Hanover, MA. At my Aunt and Uncle Hovind-fan’s house. I love my family, but sometimes I feel so alienated from them — I really feel like the black sheep. I guess the point of this is to allow me some reprieve from the incredible sadness I feel because I don’t think like them — the sadness I feel because they can’t see the beauty… not without hiding it behind their religion. People oftentimes wonder how I, as an atheist, can see any point in living — since there is nothing, no one, to live for. The unstated major premise of course is that the only thing worth living for is one’s religious beliefs or one’s diety. I don’t live for those things — I didn’t even when I was a christian. I wonder sometimes if people really think like that — if they really think the only reason worth living is for this invisible man. I try to imagine the way in which my brain was twisted to believe such a thing. I don’t mean to say that you must be twisted or deranged or something to believe these ideas, I mean that I cannot physically remember how to cause my brain to accept these old ideas which I now find demonstrably untrue. Sometimes my family tries to convince me that my position is incorrect, and I should come back to the “fold”, as it were. I always get the same feeling, and I imagine they get the same, I always feel as if they are bumbling through the hallways of cognition — eyes closed even though the lights are on — trying to find a way to me, to pull me back. I feel that I have opened my eyes — at first blinded, but slowly adjusting to the light. A searing, painful, beautiful light which simultaneously begs me to stare and orders me to look away. It’s as if I’ve been focused so intently on this tiny little world, only to be yanked back by common sense to see the whole starry cosmos sitting — silently — before me. I think that they feel the same way — but I can’t find a way to remember how it felt when I did what they do to me, to others.

This blog post is, as you may have noticed, markedly different from my usual fare — if not in the flowery language which I so dearly love, then certainly in the tone. I know that I usually write very technically, but I felt retrospective this 2:30am, and as such I decided to write. I think the point of it is partially for solace, I don’t like being the black sheep, and partially as a plea for a kind of — a kind of new family. Not a replacement for the old, but an addition to the previous 50-or-so brood. One thing I miss about being a christian is the constant reminder that ” we are family”. Atheists, Nonbelievers, etc sadly lack this feature, I think. It’s been said before, and now again, we are not good networkers, we are individualistic, mostly — our beliefs belie our nature. I wish though, that sometimes, sometimes I had a familial relationship with other likeminded folk. I talk to a few nonbelievers on occasion, but it’s never been a familial or friendly relationship, it feels more like being with a comrade-at-arms, than with a close cousin.

I suppose it really boils down to a fundamental sadness — like that feeling you get at first after realizing that Santa wasn’t real, or that Barney the Dinosaur couldn’t be incanted by dancing around a stuffed facsimile. It was that dread feeling of “Nothing is the same anymore, I can never go back”. At first, you are sad, or even scared — depending on the context, but soon — soon you realize that you have embarked on a brave new adventure. A world which those you left behind cannot see. They are still bumbling in the dark, blind to the great white light of possibility. Perhaps I’m being fantastical, perhaps not, but where my family may see god, I see opportunity to learn. Their minds stop short at deity, my mind dares to drive past it. I don’t mean to sound smug, but it feels to me like they are limited, and I hate limitations — on anyone. Limitations, constaints, rules. I hate rules! I seek to break them whenever I can, the rules are a lie! But they are beholden by them, I just — I feel so much I cannot organize it into a coherent notion. It’s anger and sadness and disapointment and excitement and perhaps a sprinkling of fear. I want them to see what I can see — I want them to feel the wonder that I feel. When I look at the world I see machines and mechanisms and myriad moving parts — all they get to see is the hand of an invisible deity. They can never see the beauty and the wonder of the nothing-at-all, and not because it is impossible for them, but because they have their hands over their eyes. To see the universe — working and moving and bending through time and space, and then to willingly cover your eyes? I cannot comprehend it.

I just want them to see it, I just want someone to see it.

I vividly remember the first time I saw a bird, and understood what it was. It was a yellow finch, a small little yellow thing which fluttered around a birdfeeder in fall at the Old Country Gift Barn in Mendon, I sat there and stared as it flew. A flash of yellow and it was gone, off to a high tree 10– 20 feet away. I was stunned, I didn’t realize something could be that beautiful, that vibrant. I didn’t realize until then that it flew– the thing flew. I was quite young, maybe 5 or 6. I understood that birds could fly, but I never really grasped the concept. When I finally got it, I jumped up, I told the first person I saw, “They fly!” I shouted, to my poor mothers chagrin, “They fly!” I finally realized what the idea meant, I finally realized that things could fly.

I vividly remember the first time I truly understood evolution and physics and cosmology and all those things, I remember, to myself, whispering, “Beautiful.” It was the same sense of wonderment and understanding I had when I was six, and I saw the birds fly. All I want is for my family to have that feeling.

I’m sure by now my paragraphs have become more like the lunatical ramblings of a manic-depressive martian robot, and so I’ll stop, I don’t know who may read this- but I only ask you this, try to understand one thing. They fly.

Let’s start at the beginning.

It’s true, I’ve never taken a “real” IQ test. I have read _quite_ a bit about them though. I’ve cited some links which are representative of the materials I’ve read, there is more- and if you feel that those sources are somehow biased, I am very open to being presented with new evidence.

First, for those not aware, I just want to summarize the history and original purpose of the Stanford-Binet IQ Test and the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, another important intelligence test which is based on an earlier test due to Wechsler-Bellevue[7]. Note that I’ve cited the Wikipedia entries for these ([2,7,8]) as being relatively representative, I’ve read other materia that. To be frank, I don’t want to bother finding, this is just a silly internet argument after all. One that does come immediately to mind is Stephen Jay Gould’s The Mismeasure of a Man.

The Stanford-Binet (SB) IQ test was the first intelligent test devised, it started with the psychologist Alfred Binet — after being commissioned by the French government — attempting to develop a method for identifying children with low intellectual ability or intellectual defect for placement in special schools[8]. Binet himself noted that this test should be used for the sole purpose of identifying such children[1] and was not to be used as “a general device for ranking all pupils according to mental worth”[1*]
Binet recognized that intelligence could not be describe by a single number, that theissue was fundamentally more complicated than that. The test (and associated Simon-Binet scale) he created was for the purpose of categorizing children.[1,2(Criticism,Binet)].

The latter test (the Weschler Adult Intelligence Scale/WAIS) was, as mentioned, derived from an earlier test[7]. Weschler defined intelligence as, “The global capacity of a person to act purposefully, to think rationally, and to deal effectively with his/her environment.”[7*]

A note of pedantics here, This is not what I would consider the colloquial definition of intelligence. Most associate intelligence with education, I want to make clear, they are, at least as far as the WAIS is concerned, different. Further, I would like to note that this is not a particularly precise definition- it encompasses all action, rational or irrational, as long as it is purposeful, but what do we mean by purposeful? Do we mean simply one whose actions are “under control” in a physiological sense? If so, then that would seem to imply that someone with a Motor-control disease, like Parkinson’s Disease, would be unintelligent- at least in that regard. If it means to that actions are well-thought out and rational, than isn’t the definition redundant? As the next criteria is the ability to think rationally? What does it mean to deal effectively with ones environment? What does it mean to deal effectively with anything? Again, I think the only logical conclusion is that the definition is equivalent to saying “Intelligence
is the ability of one to think rationally.” Which, I might note, is not a particularly bad definition, except that it is fairly narrow, and really attempting to test only logical ability. An important note for later.

The WAIS consists of 14 subtests and results in 3 scores. A verbal IQ, a performance IQ, and a composite, or “full-scale” IQ.[7]

Now let’s take a look at the subtests of the WAIS. It should be noted that, between the two tests, I find the WAIS to be better overall, but still lacking.

* Information subtest
This tests, for lack of a better term, social trivia. The example given in [7] is “Who is the president of Russia?” I argue that this is not a test of intelligence by the definition given, or more accurately by the constructed result — namely that intelligence is equivalent to the ability to be rational. This does not test my rational reasoning skills, my logical capabilities
or otherwise.

* Comprehension subtest

Similarly, this tests ones social “awareness” or “common sense”[6]. Again, I argue that this does not fit the definition, and is superfluous.

* Vocabulary subtest

A quick note- while I find that this too also fails to meet the definition- it is important to realize that the WAIS is an english-based test, non-english speaking minorities will naturally score lower here. Of course, one could simply translate the test, and we will assume that such would happen in the event of administration of such a test.

Now, I could go through every subtest, but it will be significantly quicker to simply state those I think do fit the definition. You may retort here, “This is a strawman, you’ve simply constructed an easily defeatable WAIS test.” But- I argue (obviously) that I haven’t. My argument is thus, the operational definition for the WAIS test is shoddy and redundant. I attempt to eliminate the redundancy, out shakes the parts of the test which follow only from the redundancy, and we are left with what remains.

Here is my list of “qualified” (in the sense that they contribute to a measurement of intelligence by its definition) subtests:

* Similarities, but only to an extent where the questions are fundamentally noncultural. Eg asking a someone who has never seen an apple or pear what the difference between the two is will obviously lead to a poor score. Not because the person is unintelligent, but rather because they have no cultural knowledge of _your_ culture, rather than having no knowledge of _any_ culture.

* Arithmetic, assuming it involves basic proof-esque questions. Eg “Find the error in this chain of reasoning” or “complete the argument.”

That’s it. Two out of the 14 tests really seem to fit the bill at all. So I’m forced to ask, How are either of these

a) Representative of the intelligence of the entire person?
b) How do either of these give any kind of implication on Vocabularial Intelligence?

Perhaps you can clear that up for me.

Before we get to the SB-IQ test, lets talk generally about some criticism of the _idea_ of an “Intelligence quotient”

First, we have to ask ourselves, “Is intelligence static?” That is, can you become smarter over time, or are some people naturally more intelligent and others not so. I’d argue that, depending on how you define intelligence, you can get any answer you like. Therein lies my greatest issue with IQ and intelligence psychometry in general, Either the definition they give is uselessly narrow- like the reduced WAIS definition above- or they are uselessly broad, and generally thereby redundant, like the original WAIS definition. If perhaps we were able to nail down a satisfying “Just right” definition, I would be more apt to accept these tests. But personally, I think the river is too wide to cross when it comes to intelligence.

Binet, as we have seen above and in [1], thought that his test and similarly intelligence as a whole was a non-fixed quantity. That is, your intelligence could fluctuate over time. Looking at the SB-IQ test itself lends why that might be true. Specifically the SBIQ Test covers (generalized slightly for space):

* Verbal Comprehension and Vocabulary
* Spatial / Visual Reasoning (Paperfolding problems, Mental Shape Rotation, etc.)
* Math/Arithmetic
* Memory
[from 9]

Now- let’s examine each. The first- Verbal skills- gets better as you get older. Certainly a 10yo child speaks with better vocabulary than a 5yo child, and similarly a 15yo better than a 10yo, and so on. Our vocabularies grow as the result of social interation. Similarly our Mathematical and Memory related abilities grow with age as well. We know from Psychology[10] that even the most basic kinds of memory
like Object-permanence don’t start until around 2yo. And similarly concrete reasoning skills only start around 7-8. It takes us till 11-12 to get to the point where abstract reasoning is possible[10] I would similarly argue that Spatial and Visual reasoning grows with age as well.

So- There you have it, that more or less sums up the research I’ve done modulo the time I’m willing to commit here. I just want to cover one other topic for another commenter. Specifically about Class/Income and IQ. Since these replies are fundamentally connected, I don’t want to separate them, so for the remainder of this post, I am addressing user:thaumaturgy, and not user:contrarian.

First of all, this is a very common issue, and has historically been a source of great debate (_viz_ [11]), I would argue that access to knowledge is a integral part of both of the most common IQ tests (WAIS and SBIQ, and WISC (in effect, WAIS for kids) too) and fundamentally controls the result. As you can see above, the better part of these tests boils down to education. I score highly on math tests because I have studied it intensely- I learned how to do speed arithmetic and learned how to speed-read and comprehend. Therefore I score highly on those sections of the test. Speaking in a general sense, the question boils down to- are these IQ tests testing how educated you are, or are they testing how many tricks you’ve learned to beat them. I would — as you may imagine — argue the latter. If a child is born to a lower-class family, does not have access to good education, does not have time to sit and study in the library, he will score — in general — lower on the SBIQ or WAIS. On the other hand, a child who was born to a middle-upper class family, had access to good education, access to the internet, access to a library and time to make use of these things will score better. IQ tests measure education, class influences heavily on education, vis a vis, class heavily influences IQ. If you feel that this is a poor argument, you are entitled. Perhaps I cannot see the fallacy I’m making, but it seems to me that the question that IQ purports to answer is “Are you intelligent” and a necessary followup question is “Is this nature or nurture”. My response is that IQ does not answer the question it purports two- but I still answer the latter as “both.” There is obviously going to be some element of nature involved in intelligence. Nature has a nasty habit of getting into everything- regardless of whether we think it should or not, but also I think it’s obvious that nurture, and specifically class-status, similarly influences your ability to be educated, and thereby your IQ scores.

* I lifted the quote directly from this article. I trust it can be independently sourced to
be from Binet.

[1] http://www.audiblox2000.com/dyslexia_dyslexic/dyslexia014.htm
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IQ
[3] http://www.lehigh.edu/~amsp/2007/12/gladwell-problems-with-iq-tests.html
[4] http://www.buzzle.com/editorials/3-30-2005-67806.asp
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence
[6] http://www.personality-and-aptitude-career-tests.com/about-iq-tests.html
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wechsler_Adult_Intelligence_Scale
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford-Binet_IQ_test
[9] http://www.answers.com/topic/stanford-binet-test
[10] The exact reference escapes me, but it’s in the Development section (Ch. 3) of _Invitation to Psychology_
by Wade and Tavris, 4th edition, 2008
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_intelligence

I was walking toward the campus center of my school, to grab a coke, when two nice college age gentlemen (Joe and Tika, I don’t think they’ll mind me using their first names) asked if I had a moment. At first I thought, I would say no and call it a day, but then I decided that I should at least hear them out. Little did I know that they weren’t just hunting for blood for the upcoming blood drive, no they wanted something else, my soul.

Well, it started out with them inviting me to their bible study. I said, politely, that I wasn’t particularly interested. When they asked why, I answered. “I’m an atheist”

You could practically hear them thinking, “Oh shit, we’ve got a live one.” Immediately the questions started. They were, to their credit, among the politest witnesses (Joe especially, Tika had some of that zealousness on him) I’ve talked with in a while. They asked everything from why I don’t believe in God (not just a god, of course, but theirs specifically). I gave a standard reply, “I look at the world, and see nothing that is inherently unexplainable or in need of the invocation of a deity. It’s not so much that I don’t believe in god, I just don’t care, he isn’t a useful construct.” Apparently, this was a new reply for them, as they immediately moved away from questions about it. They asked about whether I thought there was life after death, I quoted one of my favorite Betrand Russel quotes, “I believe that when I die, I shall rot, and nothing of my ego will survive.” All in all, it was pretty fun.

Tika was fairly agressive, made a number of arguments including the argument from design, the Kalam Cosmological argument, and etc. He also laid this nugget. “God is not logical, you cannot use logic.” I responded (in retrospect, somewhat poorly) by concentrating on Joe’s questions.

While Tika stuck me as a more– let’s say, “flamboyant” type, lots of energy, passionate about his beliefs. Joe was – what his, or my former, pastor might call the “John” to Tika’s “Peter.” That is, while Peter would go out on a soap box and preach to the masses, John would work quietly, one by one, talking to individuals in a private way. I was a “John” back in my day, so it makes sense that I’d identify with Joe a bit more.

The arguments, not to insult the two would-be prophets, were wholly unconvincing. Lots of ethereal talk about Faith and such. I did some “reverse witnessing” of a sort- asked them some tough questions about what they believed. One of the most interesting ones, which we again, quickly moved off of — They have the Gish Gallop down pretty good — was the idea of the “source” of morality and ethics. I contend that they are fundamentally an evolutionary advantage, particularly a socio-evolutionary advantage, in that altruism allows stronger societies to form, and a stronger society will in turn benefit every member of said society. They argued that their had to be a divine origin, since every law needed a lawgiver. In this case, the equivocation fallacy (while present) is somewhat hard to see, so I offered the following question. “What if God wrote in the bible that you were to murder all muslims on sight, no questions asked, just shoot them in the head and kill them. Would that be morally acceptable?”

Usually, this garners a head-scratch and blank-stare…

Joe said, “Yes”, and moved on to a new topic.

Wisely so- because I would have tore in on that one.

In any case, I don’t intend to make fun of these guys, they were nice people. I had an interesting conversation about how science really works, how we explain things like abiogenesis and evolution and the big bang. I even provided them with some ammo- making sure they understood the difference between a scientific theory and a colloquial theory, and that evolution and abiogenesis are different. They were willing to talk about their beliefs in a (somewhat) critical way. I think I may have even given them some really tough questions to think about. The point is that these are (more or less) the kinds of christians I don’t mind talking to. They are fairly rational, they aren’t zealots, they aren’t hyper-fundie-jerry-falwell wannabes. They’re just people with some ideas I don’t particularly agree with. It’s no different than differing political views.

So, I suppose I just want to encourage any reader, if you run into christians, talk with them, if they’re crazy fundies, do as you will, they don’t deserve your respect or your time.

But if they’re like Joe or Tika, talk to them a bit, lay out a few positions, give them something to think about. Talk to them about their view of fundamentalism, chances are they don’t even realize things can get that bad. If you convince enough of the moderates and the liberals to not accept the fundies anymore, then they’ll go away…

And I’d really like the fundies to go away.

Heres my situation, I transferred last year from one school (WPI) to another, cheaper school (WSC)[1]. In doing so, two things happened.

1. I had to redo a fair deal of work. Many credits didn’t transfer, weren’t applicable, or became electives due to requirement differences
2. I suffered a bit of a blow to my now fragile GPA, I’ve had 10 classes so far, and due to the rapid change of material and teaching style, as well as the new stresses and frustrations of repeating much of what I already knew, or taking classes I had no interest in, I did not do very well in most of them. My GPA is a pitiful 2.6… (I got a fuckload of C’s.)

Now, fortunately, I have good grades in my Core courses, most of the outliers (Philosophy excepted, I am stunningly good at that, it seems) are the ones that caused the brunt of the average-destruction. My hope is to pull these grades up with all my vigor. I have calculated that — in the 10-12 classes I have left, I need to get consisent B’s and B+’s to recover to a “safe” 3.2 or so (what I had when I left WPI). The various websites I’ve read say that this is a good average, and combined with me doing un-fucking-believable on the GRE’s, I should be able to get into a decent grad school.

I’ll try to keep Lowlymath.net[2] updated with my adventures in grad school application, and hopefully it will be a resource to anyone else hunting for graduate education.

No little thing like a bad GPA will keep me down, if necessary, I’ll take every math class WSC, WPI, and the rest of the consortium[3] offers to pull up my grade! Someday you’ll all be able to say “Whatsup Doc?” to me, and I will be quite pleased about it!

/Joe

[1] Thats Worcester Polytechnical Institute and Worcester State College, respectively.

[2] I’m actually posting to both blogs at once right now, so the Lowlymath Readers can just mentally replace “Lowlymath.net” with “this blog”

[3] The Consortium is a group of 6 schools which allow for “easy” crossregistration of classes and (supposedly) “easy” transfers between institutions. Though the latter is somewhat of a misrepresentation, given my experience.

I consider myself a weak antitheist, I think that there are some limited aspects of religion that are broken, namely fundamentalism, evangelicalism, hyper/neoconservativism (more of a political doctrine, but it’s prevalent in religious settings), tribalism/xenophobia (a symptom of some of the above), etc.

This also means that I think there are bits of religion which are good. Religion provides a frame-of-reference for us to connect with other people, it provides a social setting which has ritual- which in turn provides structure and predictablility to the lives of people who need it, it provides- even if nothing else- interesting stories and ideas that represent bronze/iron age thinking. I don’t dream of a world without religion, I dream of a world without stupid religion.

Many people, on the other hand, are much more extreme, feeling that religion is uniformly bad. This is strong antitheism. I won’t comment much on it, because I believe it is possible to be a strong antitheist without being a fundamentalist antitheist.

Oh dear, I used that nasty term “fundamentalist” to describe nonreligious types. Fear not, I’m well prepared for the inevitable shitstorm of hatemail.

Heres my problem with Fundamentalist Antitheism, besides it’s status as being as narrow minded and utterly silly as Fundamentalist Theism; I think that it’s also utterly ineffective, and actually counterproductive to both the atheist and weak antitheist goals, not unlike how fundamentalist theism is counterproductive to liberal theist’s goals.

Let me say this quickly, so there is no confusion, I do not support any legal or social benefits that are afforded to the religious any more than I support legal or social benefits for the non-religious. If an organization is doing real charitable work, then it is eligible for legal benefits, and social respect, no matter their stance on religion.

Heres why I think the extreme antitheist view is counterproductive. Consider the following hypothetical, I am trying to get an oil company to donate money to an environmental project. I think the oil companies are horrible, horrific, evil entities out to destroy the planet. Do I approach the company by saying “I think you people are stupid, misguided morons, so give me some money for my project?” Of course not, I butter them up, I shmooze, I finagle, I figure out a play up how it will be good for PR, etc. Moreover, I wouldn’t go to the hardest-hardline oil mogul, I’d find someone who’s already somewhat sympathetic to the cause. Every organization has someone who is least indoctrinated. This is not dissimilar from arguing against fundamentalism, we shouldn’t antagonize the people who are most capable of helping us. We shouldn’t yell at the liberals and the moderates, they’re the ones most amenable to rational thinking. If we make our case against fundamentalism to them, It’s generally well recieved, at least, with the liberals I know. Moderates too, they may be less inclined to do something about the “weak” fundamentalists, those who are closer to their own beliefs than the “strong” fundamentalist, those who have drank the proverbial kool-aid, as it were.

The reason I’m in favor of appealing to moderates and liberals is this. Part of the fundamentalist dogma is that every atheist, every dissenter, everyone who is not a fundie is a liar, and of satan. Put simply:

Anything you say or do will fall on deaf ears.

They are the quintessential true-believers, and some- only some- are beyond hope. Because most fundamentalists are not fundies. Most fundamentalists are simply followers, they do what their told by their preists and pastors, and think that that makes them right. If you want to end fundamentalism, you need to get those people to follow something else. A follower will always follow, it’s part of their nature, the issue is, they have a shitty leader. People like John Hagee or Pat Robertson are beyond hope, many pastors and preists who are fundamentalistic in nature are beyond hope- but their followers are most often normal people, who are all quite capable of rational thought, and just need to be told to think critically about what they believe. Most of the people I knew as a fundamentalist are like this.

So, how do we convince these closet moderates to come out? Simple, get the moderates and the liberals to make it unnacceptable in the respective religious circle to be a fundamentalist. This is what we need to aim for, the most powerful force in the religious social world is loud liberal, if the sentiment of the liberal relgious world becomes “We won’t tolerate this anymore.” and the liberal religous world actually follows through, then you will see the following happen. The core fundamentalist, puritanical, hyperconservative, xenophobic groups- eg the WBC, etc- will splinter off and be social outcasts, and die off within a generation or two, and the majority of the religious world will be a bunch of rational moderates and liberals. I would happily take a world full of clear-thinking moderates or liberals than a world which tolerates extremism. It would work simply because the other religious people would have some standing to say that the fundies are not to be tolerated, it would work because the people who were saying “this is wrong” would be saying it in the same language, mindset, and social world as the people who they were saying it to.

It’s not dissimilar from how one fights extreme patriarchy. In america, the method was “Be a strong woman, be loud, and demand equality”, and because of the kind of patriarchy that was in america- a weaker kind, more amenable to change- this worked. I know it seems blasphemous to feminists, but the only reason you have the rights you have (which you definitely deserved and should have been yours from the start) is because the patriarchy capitulated to you. That is, you convinced the men to give up the power they had. Now, this works in the weak patriarchy of america, but it doesn’t work in the extreme patriarchy of somewhere like the middle east. Consider what being a strong woman means there, it means that if you speak up, if you become a strong woman, you get killed. It means that demanding equality is demanding your own death writ. It’s horrible, I hate it, you hate it, I’d daresay all rational people hate it, but it’s the truth of the matter. It’s because the patriarchy declares you have no rights, no say, no standing. If you speak, they ignore you, if you continue, if you annoy them, they “solve” the problem, in the worst way possible.

So, we are left with two basic plans of action, one, all the women rise up and fight (physically) all the men, and there is a massive civil war, lots of people die, and generally shit hits the fan. No one wants that. The other option, is for the feminists of this country to use the patriarchy they have, to get the patriarchy they want. What I mean is, you know how to fight for your rights, and how to get what you want in a weak patriarchy, and you have a weak patriarchy handy, doesn’t it make sense to have the weak patriarchies of the world get together and say, “Enough.” The men have standing, the women do not, so- use the men. It’s the right tool for the job, and I like to think that the men of this country are evolved enough mentally to see that it’s a worthwhile cause. The analogy is this, the feminists are like the weak antitheists, the weak patriarchy is like the liberal and moderately religious groups, and the extreme patriarchy is the extreme fundamentalists. The same tactics ought to work on both sides.

Even if you are and extreme antitheist, it behooves you to carry out the weak antitheist plan first. After the real problem of extremism is solved, then you have a group of (hopefully) highly rational, clear thinking people to have a real argument with. Why wouldn’t you want that? The options I see are these; Either, you don’t really want to have a good argument, because you’re not sure how you could win it, you’re much more comfortable making the “lol, ur dumb” style argument which seems so prevalent. Or you’ve never thought about it in these terms. In the former case, you’re as bad as the people you purport to fight, not wanting a real solution, because you like the problem too much. In the latter case, then hopefully you find this idea, at the very least, a good starting point to getting to a better, saner world. There may be other cases, I freely admit, this is likely a false dichotomy, but I’m hard pressed to find them.

In any case, I just want to end by saying this. I dislike the term “weak antitheism”, it’s too easily confused with being against all religion, which I am not. I much prefer the following, (technically more general) term, “antistupidism”, that is.

Stupid is Stupid, no matter who’s spouting it, and stupidness cannot be tolerated in a modern, enlightened world.

Thats about how I feel right now. It’s interesting- I’m rarely this emotional about anything, I’m simply not this kind of person, but here I find myself fire-filled and furious as such. My rationality tells me not to write anything right now, as it will likely not only be crappy, but devisive and hurtful.

I’ve decided to do what the religiots do, ignore reason, forget rationality, and go with my gut.

One should be, and this one is, amazed at how incredibly annoying it is when people cannot see simple points for what they are. I made a comment, about a common myth, something which I hear alot, and to be honest, it doesn’t piss me off that much. It’s the “Phi in the pyramids” myth, that is, that different famous structures are somehow perfectly aligned to due north, or are built with the ratio phi in mind, typically the example is the pyramids or the parthenon. This is a trivial thing- but it misrepresents why we do mathematics. There is so many more interesting, equally simple, and ultimately correct ideas people can latch onto in math. How about the sheer simplicity that is the Pythagorean Theorem? The complex elegances mingled with the tremendous triviality in Euler’s formula. It reminds me of how people vehemently deny the beauty of evolution, replacing it instead with trivial idiocy like Creationism. It simply boggles me. The fact is, if you measure the pyramids, they are woefully not phi-like in any way. They are not aligned perfectly north, they are aligned more or less that way, but it is no feat of mathematics, it is some simple astronomy. There is nothing special about these structures mathematically. They are just pretty, grand, or austere. Marcus Livio wrote an excellent book, I believe it was called “The Golden Ratio” or some such. Fantastic book.

That is not what I’m angry about, what I’m angry about is that I mention this, and am promptly scolded by my mathematically illiterate sister for whining. You’re damn right I’m whining, I take pride in my profession, she claims that I don’t expect the same treatment when I comment on religion, since I haven’t studied it professionally — utterly false — of course I expect rebuke from the professionals of religion, I’m not a professional, and if I’m wrong and feigning to be correct, then sure, I expect rebuke. The difference here, I wasn’t wrong, the people were pushing a myth, they took the ideas unskeptically, they purport to be scientists. Science implies Skepticism, you cannot avoid it, it’s part of the process.

My response was simple, “Apples and Oranges”, You simply cannot compare an idea like mathematics, where absolute truth is the norm, provability is the norm; to an idea like religion or philosophy, where absolutes are found few and far between. That is to say, in a logical system, something proven is proven forever.

Every system has foundations, in math, we have axioms, in religion, one has fundamental tenets — God exists, The Bible is an inspired book, etc. The difference is, in math, we derive provable truths from the axioms, I do not form an opinion, perform a loose interpretation of bits of some math text, and claim that I have proven it true eternally — that would be religion.

The fact is, theology is a subjective science, anyone can have an opinion, and as such I do.

The fact is, Math is objective, your opinion has absolutely no bearing on the truth or falsity of any proposition.

It is provability versus spirituality.

So yes, I have opinions on your subjective bits of nonsense, just like I have conjectures in mathematics. The difference is, in religion, I can support any subjective opinion on my faith, and I win the arguement, in math, my conjecture lay naked at the steel of logic, it will either parry or perish, there is no faith.

So, I conclude, my mathematical knowledge trumps yours, and my religious opinions also are immune to any kind of attack, since I have faith in them, there, I win, you lose, you’re going to hell.

Now do you see why Atheists don’t tolerate that kind of logic? You moronic religious fuckwits?

Everyone should watch this show, Hold off on buying episodes till they air a few more, but I guarantee, if this is going to be the road the show takes, I’ll be buying a full season.

Fan-frigging-tastic.

On another note, hopefully I’ll start being able to do some more blogging, I’ve been working on some videos, I’ve put a few up on the tubes. In any case, check it out, subscribe if you like, hopefully I’ll be internet-famous someday, like thunderfoot or edwardcurrent.

Oh, one more tube related thing. In case you people feel that I hate all religious people, you should check out DonExodus2 on the tubes, he’s a PhD biologist, anticreationist christian.

If all Christians were like DonExodus, I would be out of a job.

What follows is the single most brilliant bit of logic ever. I simply must explain it.

The argument from the prophets is as follows:

Premises

1. Their arguments for their respective faiths have been shown invalid by logic. That is, Faith is shown invalid by Logic, because Faith based beliefs are circular. (”I believe this because it’s true, it’s true because I believe it”)
2. Logic is based on faith in the belief that logical principles are valid.
3. Circular arguments are Logically invalid.

Conclusion

• Since Logic is based on faith, it too is a circular argument, because Faith based beliefs are circular.

Error

• You cannot use logic to disprove the validity of logic, because insodoing, you disprove the validity of your own proof.

Thats right, they showed readily that if logic were based on faith, that logic would be a circular, invalid arguement. The problem was that, in order to show that circular argument is invalid, you must use logic. However, if logic itself is invalid, then circular arguments are okay, which means Logic as a belief system is okay, but we’ve previously shown that logic as a belief system isn’t okay, since it denys a circular argument.

This is a stronger result than it may seem, it states that the rules of logic cannot be shown to be invalid. Because insodoing you must use logic, and if you were to complete your proof, then your proof would immediately be invalid.

There exists no logical proof that logic is invalid.

This is why we, as rationalists, rely on logic so heavily, we know — in fact, we can prove, that logic cannot be proven false by logical means. Logic doesn’t just not require faith, it logically can’t admit faith on any level, since doing so would be admitting a contradiction in logic, which is illogical.

Logic is so much fun.

As always, dear readers, I bring to you the most complicated controversys ever contrived by humankind, today we talk about death, and what happens after it.

Death, the absence of brain activity, life, and in general, a none-to-wished thing which will inevitably get every last one of us in it’s grubby paws. Many people fear death, they don’t know what to expect, they don’t know what happens. This, I think, comes out of peoples inability to grasp a fundamental truth, that the world is more than the sum of our experience. Further, I think people fail to realize that they fail to grasp this truth. When you are not reading this post, reader, it still exists. When we are not speaking to one another, we both still continue. Life does not stop simply because one of us has left the room. Nor does it stop for the rest of us after you have died.

No sir, it only stops for you.

This of course is the well known standard-atheist belief. Since atheism is defined as the opposite of religion, and the complement of the beliefs of religion is a wide — indeed infinite — field, it is near certain this is not universal belief amongst atheists, and thats okay.

Let me, before continuing, state for the record, if you are of any religion, or nonreligion, or whathaveyou, do not assume I immediately hate you. Nor should you assume that my indictments of yours, or others religion is intended as an attack on you personally. This, and these statements are exclusively directed at those members of any religion or nonreligion, from Atheists and Animists to Zoroastrians and Zeus-worshippers, who are so dogmatic about their views that they will not even address the views of others as valid beliefs. You are entitled to believe what you will, with the sole caveat that you allow me the same right. I should not have to deal with Jehovah’s Witness’ coming to my door at 8:30 in the morning as I’m sitting to my morning coffee, reading the news headlines and trying desparately to wake myself from the 3 and 1/2 hours of sleep I got last night. Nor should they have to deal with me doing the same.

Dogmaticism is stupid, so if you aren’t dogmatic about your beliefs, then enjoy the gloriously wordy fun I’ll be creating at the expense of the dogmaticists.

I’ve digressed quite off point, let’s reset. Where do you want to go today? What do religions believe about life after death? Are we reincarnated? Rejuvinated? Resurrected? Reborn? Reused? Recycled? Are we greeted at the great gates of god, or perhaps gods and goddesses? Are we incinerated in a hellish fire for all forevers and more? This is an open thread. I’d like to know what you believe.

Personally, I don’t think anything will happen, to quote Betrand Russell, “I believe that when I die, I shall rot, and nothing of my ego shall survive…” Though I should think that– if I could pick my own post-mortem adventure, I might like to try reincarnation. I rather like the concept of Karma, a cosmic tally system would do us some good- I think, I don’t know what I’d return as, I hope something nice, ideally a person. I’d like to try learning another science — maybe biology.

In any my curiosity was sparked today, and I began to wonder, so tell me, Where do you want to go today?

[1] Including such “naughty” things as satanism or wicca, which are religions of their own merit, that are similarly rejected by the mainstream religions as things atheists might do. I state for the record that, I at least, don’t think those religions are any more or less ridiculous than Catholocism, Protestantism, or any other religious idea. It’s all dogma, it’s all equally silly. Though I will state that at least the non-mainstream religions aren’t composed of idiots and Pat Robertson. Actually, to be honest, I should recuse myself from judgements of the aforementioned “naughty” things, as I have only sparsely studied them. Though I am fairly sure my conclusion would not be fair off from “silly”.

Logic is not omnipotent, we know this because it’s not even powerful enough to work on anything but itself, without a few simple assumptions. We’ve made those few simple assumption earlier, and were able to see that those 3 assumptions were all it took to strip god of almost all his supposed abilities.

We’ve seen that God is, at best, not much smarter than a PhD, and certainly not omniscient.

We’ve seen that God is definitely not everywhere at once, and we’re about as omnipresent as he is.

We’ve seen that omnibenevolent deity is really hard to talk about, but unlikely at best.

Now we ask a famous question of our aforementions sky-buddy. If you exist, and are omnipotent, can you create a force so strong, you can’t resist it?

There have been many people who have asked this question, the usual response from a pro-omnipotence arguer is one of the following:

• “The question is fallacious, God exists outside of our understanding, and so do his powers.”
• “The question is fallacious, God wouldn’t do that, so the question is immaterial.”
• “We cannot understand how God could do this, because our brains our finite, and his is infinite.”
• “He could create a force irresistable to himself at the present, but as soon as he created it, he would be able to resist it.”

I think it is clear to see, the question posed — if shown not to be fallacious or have an explaination — is more than enough to demonstrate god’s lack of omnipotence. So instead, I will offer the following. I will debunk each of these responses, and offer a challenge — I will do my best to debunk any reasoned, rational response to anyone so inclined to give one to this question. You can leave it in the comments, I’ll collect them, and write a post in the near future containing my arguements against them. I’m fairly confident that Omnipotence is impossible, but I’m not so confident in my ability to debunk explainations of what we’ll call the “Omnipotence Problem.” I promise I’ll do my best to debunk them, and any that I cannot debunk, I’ll leave to other readers to debunk, it’ll be like a game.

So we’ll take the first two responses out in one fell swoop. We’ve assumed at the outset that if God interacts with our world, he must interact according to physical laws and physical comprehension. That is, even the infinite must act finite when interacting with the finite inhabitants of the finite but unbounded universe. Further, we assumed that the Novikov self-consistency principle (NSCP), did not apply for our purposes. Granted, these seem like copouts, and in a way they are. I’m not averse to arguing in the presence of the NSCP at a later date, but for now, it just makes things sticky. On the other hand the “Axiom of Fair play” is something I think is a fundamental truth of the universe, as a being that did not follow such a rule could largely screw around with the physical laws of the universe, cause mass confusion, and in general, mess up the cosmos. I should think that any deity would be averse to doing that, so I’m willing to stand with that belief. If there is substantial interest in me arguing w/o the NSCP, I’ll write another post, but for now, we can consider the first response bunk via the Fair-play axiom, and the second because even if God chose not to, would he still have the capability to do so?[1]

The third response also falls under the Axiom of fair-play, since we’re talking about a physical, real force. Often the omnipotence problem is stated as “Can God create a rock he cannot move.” This wording helps to show the inherent physicality of the objects we’re dealing with. The reason I did not state the problem this way is simple, the response to the modified statement is “God wouldn’t move the rock directly, he would simply move the universe around it.” This statement fails because it assumes we could tell whether the rock or the universe is being moved. Technically, when I move my computer from my living room to my bedroom to the kitchen or wherever, I could claim that in reality, I am moving the entire universe around me, and the appearence is that I am moving my computer. If there is no reference to determine who is moving what (eg, an outside observer with some kind of background reference), then my claim is completely valid. An analogy is to imagine yourself in the middle of the galactic void, all around you is darkness, you turn on your handy flashlight on your space suit and notice a small rock floating near you. You notice the rock is moving from left to right. You raise your flashlight to see to the left of the rock, and see a giant asteroid you are moving towards. However, I’m an outside observer looking on your position, and I notice that, in reality, the asteroid is moving toward you, and you were moving past the small rock. The question is — whose interpretation is correct? The short answer is, according to relativity, both of our observations are valid, because neither of us have a valid frame of reference to base a consistent view of what is going on. So, to say that “God moves the universe around the rock” is equivalent to saying “God moves the rock”, because we have no frame of reference. Furthermore, the responder assumes the universe can be moved, which is not known a priori. In any case, this response is broken on the grounds that we assume god is acting in a physical, finite way, so we should be able to understand what he’s doing. This response is also at the heart of the “God of the Gaps” argument, which is “We don’t understand how it’s done, so God in his infinite power must be doing it.”

The final response is probably the most interesting, in that it presents God with a fundamentally different kind of omnipotence. Up till now we’ve assumed omnipotence to mean “actual infinite power”, this response weakens that to be “potential infinite power”[2]. In that, God could create something at time t, which is immovable, but at the same time, Gods power at time t must grow to be able to move the object he just created. The problem with this is that, since god’s power is growing at the same time he creates the object, then isn’t it true that the object was never really immovable, which means god never really created the immovable object. The answer is to say that one or the other must have it’s power diminished or increased at time t+dt where dt is an “infintessimal” amount of time[3], if the force is created and loses power after some finite, but very small amount of time, then God was not omnipotent for that amount of time- and I would argue that leaves room to ask if he could create an object which never diminishes in power, and is more powerful than himself. Which I would then argue constitutes a question which potential omnipotence can’t solve. I would further argue similarly for the other case, when god’s power grows to beat the newly created force. I would ask, “Can you create a force which is not only stronger than you, but grows in power fast than you can?” which again leads to the paradox.

Alright, consider this thread open for business, if you have a potential solution to the omnipotence problem, or find a flaw in my reasoning, please let me know, I’ll try to keep an eye on the thread and answer the questions/debunk reasons. Please keep it civil and as well reasoned as possible.

Also, as mentioned, if I can’t figure it out, I’ll leave it here, and occasionally toss them in thier own thread. We’ll call it “Unresolved Mysteries.”

/Joe

[1] A preview of the argument against the NSCP, the questions that the NSCP is normally applied to are not questions about whether someone did or did not do something illogical, the NSCP says as long as someone doesn’t do anything illogical, they’re okay. So in reality, the NSCP doesn’t particularly apply to my question of whether God is capable of something. It would be like me asking whether if you could go back in time and kill your grandfather, and you responding “I wouldn’t do that, so it doesn’t matter.” We’re working under the assumption that all this is possible, what are the consequences of such a thing happening, the validity of the hypothesis is irrellevant, we’re asking what the possibility is. You’re response is to challenge the assumption by saying “I wouldn’t do that.” Here, we ask whether god has the capability to resist an irresistable force he created, whether he would or wouldn’t is irrelavent, because if he doesn’t have the capability, he is not omnipotent, and if he does, he is not omnipotent. This hearkens back to Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem, in that we’re asking a question in a Hofstadter-esque “Strange Loop”.

[2] I’m implicitly assuming you know what the difference between actual and potential infinities are, in case you don’t, I’ll explain them quickly. A potential infinity is best described as being fundamentally unbounded, for instance, I could present you with a computer program that displays an infinite list of primes, but at any given point in time, only contains a finite number of prime numbers (in fact, I do similar things like this all the time in lazy languages like Haskell). This program has the potential to have an infinite number of primes, but never does, in reality, it’s calculating each new prime as it comes up. Actual infinity, on the other hand, is actually having an infinite number of something, that is, my prime-program, if it were “actually infinite” would have to store an infinite amount of data (the locations of all the primes on the number line). We can see that this is inherently impossible in this case. Summarily, Actual-Infinite means actually having an infinite number of things, and Potential-Infinite means having the ability to produce an unbounded number of things.

[3] technically infintessimals are bad math, but if we understand the notation x+dy to mean the limit (y -> 0) of (x + y), then we should be okay mathematicially.

Sources include: wikipedia, freethoughtpedia, ironchariots wiki, etc. Look up articles on Omnipotence and thier subarticles. I read most of them.