The Warfare Is Mental

How Would I Present Desirism?

May 10, 2011

When considering a redesign for some client’s website, I often ask, “How would I have coded this thing?” A while back, I got to thinking about desirism in the same way.

This is no offense to Alonzo, but in my honest opinion, he presents desirism ambiguously, from key tenets right down to the original name, desire utilitarianism. I may be way off here, but I get the feeling Alonzo doesn’t want the heavy burden that typically falls to those making moral claims, and that this may influence him to equivocate on select terms. Most discouraging is that regarding conventional definitions, he claims “moral terms are being used in substantially the same way that moral terms had been used.”

Evidence For Osama Bin Laden?

May 9, 2011

Anybody up for discussing Osama bin Laden? In particular, I’m interested in the epistemological considerations. Who believes that the U.S. killed him on Mayday? Who believes he was actually killed much earlier? Who believes he’s still alive? Who believes he never existed at all? Is it just a coincidence that Benazir Bhutto was assassinated just after declaring that bin Laden was murdered? Most importantly, does Osama bin Laden use Just For Men? If not, how do we explain this?

Except for that last one, of course, I see a direct correlation between these questions and questions relating to the historicity of Jesus Christ. Many who doubt the existence of Jesus Christ seem to blindly accept the existence of Osama bin Laden. These questions seem interesting to me, as I am quite skeptical of the whole thing [bin Laden, that is]. How would we know? It seems really tempting to refer to the who-knows-how-many syndicated news reports citing Pentagon documents that identify Osama bin Laden as the leader of al-Queda, but is that really justification for believing he exists? We know from history that powerful propaganda machines can blind entire nations for their nefarious purposes.

Distant Healing: Anomalous Mental Phenomena VI

May 7, 2011

One of the things that annoys me about humans is that many of us look for evidential loopholes to avoid unwelcome conclusions. It reminds me of the lawyer who’s able to get an otherwise solid case thrown out of court because the cops didn’t have a search warrant. Of course, I’m human, which means there’s a good chance I’ve done this, too, so please don’t read this as some sort of “holier than thou” thumbing of the nose.

Lately, one of our resident skeptics has taken to taunting me:

…I suspect that you are minimizing the importance of relying upon quality evidence with minimal bias and confounding factors, because all of your evidence is likely tainted by these elements. [dguller]

Oh really now? A bit strange coming from someone who admittedly doesn’t have any idea about paranormal energy, methinks, but that’s beside the point. Despite the fact that this claim is false–and note that dguller failed to include any evidence which would sustain the charge of minimizing the importance of quality evidence, which means that according to his own standards, we should assign his claim a “very low likelihood” of being true–today, I’ll present a study that controlled for bias and confounding factors: a randomized double-blind study published in Western Journal of Medicine [v.169(6); Dec 1998], demonstrating the medical and psychological benefits of distant healing (DH) in a population with advanced AIDS.

The New Moral Crusaders?

May 5, 2011

Episode 14 of Luke and Alonzo’s oddly named Morality in the Real World is up, and despite its length, I don’t think it said much. Sure, it’s important and commendable to distinguish between the facts of reality vs. the words we use, but they could have accomplished that in a few short sentences. In the positive, the student is starting to surpass–or at least show genuine skepticism towards–the teacher. I find that very encouraging. Though one could argue that it has simply transferred to Yudkowsky, Luke’s infatuation with Alonzo Fyfe seems to be waning. If you haven’t familiarized yourself with the episode, I suggest doing so, else my post might not make as much sense as it could.

On “Beneficial Lies”

May 2, 2011

I don’t believe what I’m about to say in the following thought example, but suppose that news of bin Laden’s death restores the economy to as good a state as it’s ever been in. Then suppose that his “death” was actually a lie concocted by economists and politicians because they knew–with reasonable certainty based on seemingly airtight calculations–that this lie would spur economic growth. Now, if there was an instance where desirism’s broad “people generally” statement can be made confidently, this is it. Certainly, “people generally” have reason to promote that which spurs economic growth, right?

When History Is Art: The “True” Meaning Of Easter

April 24, 2011

I’ve never been a huge fan of holidays, at least not throughout my adult life. I mean, what kid doesn’t love them? You get time off from school, people often give you gifts, and sometimes you even get to dress up funny or scary and collect free candy. But as an adult, and a “religious” adult in particular, I find myself increasingly less enthused with them.

Christmas was the first to go on my “I so love holidays” list, for reasons I’d rather not digress into. In my experience, every argument given to support observance of holidays can be given in support of living holy everyday. Sure, holidays are good because we get to see friends and family, or because they prompt us to more deeply consider our convictions, or because some of us spend them giving to the poor, but people ought to have these things at heart every single day.

Objective Morality: Clarifying The Questions

April 18, 2011

Today I’d like to examine three different questions that come up in discussions over so-called “objective” morality, and I’d like to argue that two of them are essentially worthless in terms of answering what most people seem to perceive as the core question.

Materialism Is A Misnomer

April 17, 2011

Pardon me for asking a silly question, but here I go anyways: If you made salad dressing that was one part vinegar and 10,000,000,000,000 parts olive oil, would it be accurate in any sense of that word to label your dressing as vinegar-based? I’m going to bet that any reasonable person would say no.

Yet, physicists estimate that the atomic material/non-material ratio is akin to a single grain of sand in St. Peter’s Basilica [approximately 163,000 square feet]. So then, why do so many “materialists” assert that “material” explanations can account for all known phenomena when what they call “matter” is actually something like 99.9999999999999% immaterial?

Am I missing something?

Where Is Sheol? Jesus & His Kingdom, III

April 13, 2011

This is the third installment of my review on Mike Gantt’s Jesus and His Kingdom: The Biblical Case for Everyone Going to Heaven.

I’d like to note that thus far, I haven’t actually responded to universalism in this series, at all. Like any worthwhile writer, Mike has simply been laying the groundwork for his case–laying more bricks for our wall of understanding, as he eloquently put it–and I think he’s doing an excellent job. So, please don’t be let down if some or all of today’s post is hardly related to universalism. I assure you we’ll get there. I have faith that Mike will explain the “who-what-when-where-why” of his beliefs as the chapters proceed.

Mysterious Ways

April 12, 2011

I imagine most anybody familiar with (a)theist discussion has encountered a believer whom, when backed into a corner about, say, the unimpressive findings of various prayer studies, resorts to the rejoinder that “God works in mysterious ways.” Personally, I don’t endorse that as a legitimate response to the unimpressive findings of various prayer studies, but that’s not what I’d like to talk about today.

I’d like to talk about the viciousness with which atheists often handle the “mysterious ways” response, then suggest that atheists are often just as guilty of the essentially the same “mysterious ways” rejoinder themselves.

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