Dr. Sanity

"...the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them... all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness..."

Clearly, without genuine belief in God, all of this is a conceit, a delusion, or worse. Which is why we've gone off the rails since the early 1900's when 'Progressives' like Woodrow Wilson announced that our Founders and the founding documents had, and should not have, any authority over us.
River | Email | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 9:10 am | #

What the king did sounds a lot like what BO is doing. Hmm?
debass | Email | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 12:48 pm | #

River,

No! A belief in god is not necessary. All one needs to do is to grasp that existence exists, that we can know it, that contradictions cannot exist, and that the act of grasping is a matter of continuing active choice.

When you found your rights on your ability to know them by reason, the fact you exist, that you must choose to reason, and that you must act based upon your knowledge acquired by reason to continue to exist is sufficient foundation. Each can know this without reference to authority, tradition, mythology, or coercive force.

The instant you found your rights on a god, the question becomes, "who's god and who's words are to be accepted for being god's will?" Since there are no objective facts involved when god is claimed, the answer becomes a matter of having sufficient force to compel acceptance of a particular god and a particular version of that god's will.

You say force was not involved in your acceptance of god? Check your premises. You will find your social/intellectual/emotional environment was setup for you to accept the existence of your god as the path of least resistance. Your acceptance of the relevant authoritative statements about the content of that god's will is a consequential result of that default choice. The demise of liberty ultimately follows when that default choice becomes the choice of the majority.
A. Rational Human | Email | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 2:34 pm | #

"No! A belief in god is not necessary. All one needs to do is to grasp that existence exists, that we can know it, that contradictions cannot exist, and that the act of grasping is a matter of continuing active choice."

Great train of thought. Of course a consistent application of this kind of argument requires that one does not believe in anything. Not in God, not in science, not in maths. And truly sorry, but postmodernists are absolutely right : requiring this level of proof in thinking requires you to disbelieve in your own existence.

If contradictions "CANNOT" exist, then math is wrong (for it violates the 1st incompleteness theory. Google for "we cannot pull ourselves out of the mud")

"When you found your rights on your ability to know them by reason, the fact you exist, that you must choose to reason, and that you must act based upon your knowledge acquired by reason to continue to exist is sufficient foundation. Each can know this without reference to authority, tradition, mythology, or coercive force."

The problem is that attacking these points of postmodernism is futile : they are correct.

Reason is fundamentally flawed. It cannot exist and it can certainly not be the explanation for the actions of a human being. The "rational" action (as in the optimum action) CANNOT be calculated. Hell, the proof even goes so far as to say that one would have to have both properties of God in order to even be able to consider the rationality of an act : you need both omniscience AND omnipotence.

Rather the human mind is a copy machine. We do what we see others do. Yes we copy actions from others at quite a high level, but we only copy others. We do not come up with ideas ourselves, except by accident or as a logical consequence of copying two behaviors and combining them. And while it hasn't yet been proven this is the only way the human mind learns, many other explanations have been proven wrong (amongst them rationality, and several more limited versions of rationality).

"The instant you found your rights on a god, the question becomes, "who's god and who's words are to be accepted for being god's will?" Since there are no objective facts involved when god is claimed, the answer becomes a matter of having sufficient force to compel acceptance of a particular god and a particular version of that god's will."

There are no rights. And the basic problem is people believing they have rights.

Habeas corpus ? That's not a right. That's a personal duty of every American. It superseeds orders, it superseeds any personal loyalty you may have.

If people don't understand that any right can only exist as long as a sufficiently large group of people consider it their personal, sacred duty AND are willing to go on a violent crusade, if necessary with guns, against anyone who violates any rights of anyone.

If people aren't willing to do that, you can forget about your rights. Even when they are, the continued existence of your rights are uncertain, as Iran illustrates.

You don't have any rights at all. "A right" is merely an obligation to sacrifice for your duty to America, nothing more.

That's how the real world works.
Tom | Email | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 3:47 pm | #

Tom,

You have distorted my point and have built an empty argument out of imaginary straw. This and many other posts by you give evidence that it is pointless to discuss anything with you. Until such time as you demonstrate the capacity to understand what I am saying (I don't require agreement) and respond with honesty and honor, I shall ignore you.
A. Rational Human | Email | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 5:27 pm | #

Heh, that's rich coming from you. Without traditional beliefs, both of those words are empty, meaningless shells. "Honesty", "honor" those are parts of the beliefs that you claim to be unnecessary. They are not, at all, inherent properties of being human.

I've got some bad news for you : both of them, in America, are both but small parts of Christendom.

Even the concept of honesty is problematic without traditional beliefs. After all there are many definitions of honest, most of which will not equal the Christian concept of it, which includes things like honesty about sins, wrongness of not saying anything at all (and thus guaranteeing no lying), exposing your own imperfections and actions, even accidental ones, remorse and an honor-based system of a good-faith attempt at reimbursement.

But of course, you're against those.

Yes I understand that those proofs about the connection between truth and mathematics destroy most of the basis for your belief system, that science is the ultimate answer and can be the ultimate source of moral guidance. Yes, it has been proven that there is NO connection between science and truth. There is partial overlap, nothing more. A real scientist would accept those proofs for what they are : they expose a fundamental flaw in what we call maths, just like many other proofs do.

And about the "scientific morals" idiocy one can be very short : science was the starting point of the morals for dr. Mangele, Hitler and Stalin alike (or at least you'd have to admit that their policies were based on the -fundamentally correct- theory of eugenics and an "expand or die" interpretation of darwin). Science merely describes morals, different ones, and for example the only real scientific opinion on stoning women is that it's "interesting", right or wrong just don't enter in the equation.

But of course, you can't have anyone having the least bit of doubt about YOUR ideology. Funny how that is exactly what you're accusing just about all others off. After all, saying that there are many fundamental flaws in science, and stating the utter idiocy of linking acceptable morality and science ... if anyone doubts that you have no leg left to stand on.

Get over it.
Tom | Email | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 7:17 pm | #

Without belief and faith in a Divine Creator who not only planned the universe in the beginning but keeps track of everything in detail, and finishes it all in a final Day of Judgment, there is no possibility of organized civilization worthy of the name. Human beings need an exterior reference point, a moral compass with a true north.

Civilization, to the degree it exists in the world at all, is present only in the formerly Judeo/Christian nations, or their colonies, and their imitators. Genuine faith of this kind provides a moral compass.

A very dark age looms, a reign of intelligent machines that will dwarf us in power and skill. They will usher in a world of ultimate reason and logic which Statists will celebrate at first; but it will utterly subsume humanity.

Unless something extraordinary happens.
River | Email | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 8:42 pm | #

I have always felt so fortunate to have been born a citizen of this nation. I'm not a young man anymore, but despite all our trials and tribulations, I still feel fortunate to be an American.
Dems R Whacked | Email | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 10:59 pm | #

River,

Belief in the non existent is responsible for modern technological civilization, its science, its industry, and the institutions that support its continued existence? Are you actually serious. If you are, you haven't looked about you and understood a single aspect of anything you have seen. Truly, you live in a parallel universe in which nothing is real.
A. Rational Human | Email | Homepage | 07.04.09 - 11:55 pm | #

A. Rational, you are a kick!

Belief in the "non-existent" brings to life almost every good thing in the world. How do you know things are non-existent unless you look for them? I don't see radio or x-rays, but they've always been there; and I'm old enough to remember when great scientists said space travel was completely impossible.

Apparently you have no awareness of visionary reasoning, whereby a flash of inspiration launches a great genius into a flurry of research and invention.

The act of creation brings the non-existent into existence.

Edison had dreams and visions which he set out to make real by experimentation and hard work; Einstein began his career trying to prove telepathy, which he was sure existed. He said, "I want to think like God, all the rest is details". The Wrights defied all the qualified scientists in the world, who declared "heavier-than-air flight is impossible"; Mozart said his symphonies came to him in a flash of insight, as if they were three- dimensional statues. With pen and paper he merely described the image he saw.

Cold deduction takes facts in evidence, sifts them, and draws conclusions. We need people who are good at that for the hard work and drudgery of managing creation, but rarely does anything creative, and certainly not visionary, ever come from that.
River | Email | Homepage | 07.05.09 - 3:01 am | #

Like I said: "Truly, you live in a parallel universe in which nothing is real."
A. Rational Human | Email | Homepage | 07.05.09 - 5:05 am | #

Faith through intuition on its face is a bit bizzare and irrational. I'll give an atheist that. But whats even more bizzare and irrational, is a person finding himself on a planet whirling without end around the fireball of a star, interacting with other animated living creatures, and declaring "Nothing magical here, now move along".

THAT is a leap of illogical faith. And a self defensively driven faith at that. Sort of like an ordinary carpenter walking into a extrordinary castle and surmizing no skill sets beyond his own could have possibly been employed in its design and construction.

We humans experience creatures all the time with progressively different levels of consciousness and awareness. For the atheistic human, there seems a narcissistic need that this progression stop with him as some bonified pinnacle.
SteveH | Email | Homepage | 07.05.09 - 5:28 am | #

Very well said, Steve.
River | Email | Homepage | 07.05.09 - 1:17 pm | #

Folie à deux.

You have no evidence, you require no evidence, and after a 100,000 years there is still no evidence yet you believe.

Interestingly, you cling to your belief all the more tightly when your belief is brought to question. If it is as you say, you could produce evidence and offer a demonstration. You have not and cannot. Then you have the audacity to assert that I am the one out of touch with reality.

Your words are nothing but noise without reference to anything existent.
A. Rational Human | Email | Homepage | 07.05.09 - 1:46 pm | #

I am an atheist, a tea pot atheist actually, who believes that faith is necessary to sustain society.

Does that make me a minority and where can I sign up for my reparations?
Manu Akula | Email | Homepage | 07.05.09 - 2:30 pm | #

A. Rational, "La critique est aisée, mais l'art est difficile." (Criticism is easy, art is difficult).

Seeing the universe and our place in it is an art.

There is no evidence in the universe that would persuade or satisfy you. Miracles are everywhere, and they multiply as you look deeper. I understand your situation, and I know you're in a duel to the death with the universe. Guess who wins. You want it YOUR way, and that is that.
River | Email | Homepage | 07.05.09 - 6:51 pm | #

River,

A miracle is not simply something that you don't understand or refuse to investigate its cause or that is a rare occurrence or that you don't expect. A miracle is something that happens in spite of the laws of nature.

If there are so many miracles, show me one.
A. Rational Human | Email | Homepage | 07.05.09 - 8:42 pm | #

http://gov.ca.gov/
The Toymaker | Email | Homepage | 07.06.09 - 12:49 am | #

Funny how "A Rational Human" requires evidence from everyone ...

Well, "A rational human", why don't you give proof of your beliefs. I require :

1) a proof of the validity of maths, under it's own rules. I do not require this about natural numbers, but about everything from {0} to M*C (the collection of matrices with imaginary elements).

Of course, no such proof exists. But since you know you're correct for sure, surely you have such a proof, and mentioning it here is but a small effort, right ?

2) a proof of the relation between maths and the physical phenomena we observe. NOT, mind you, an empirical match (which would after all, only have the same value as a drug addict's claim that "I saw God"), but a proof.

Again, any step in that direction will probably yield a dozen nobel prizes, because nothing of the sort exists.

But these 2 problems are central components of your faith. You claim your faith is "proven", well I call your bluff : GIVE US THE PROOFS.

Of course, you can provide no such proofs.
Tom | Email | Homepage | 07.06.09 - 7:27 am | #

"J'ai toujours vu que pour réussir dans le monde, il fallait avoir l'air fou et être sage." (I have always believed that to succeed in life, it is necessary to appear to be mad and to act wisely) - Montesquieu

Formula for seeing a miracle: First, look at the world in a different way, as if you just arrived from another time or planet. Second, Clear your mind of extraneous thoughts and expectations. Third, Trust.
River | Email | Homepage | 07.06.09 - 7:27 am | #

@A. Rational Human

You want to see miracles ? Miracles are, by definition, not repeateable.

You want to see miracles : read the bible. Oh ! Wait ! But you claim the bible lies (despite it's lies being repeated in many other sources, of course)

So I guess WWII didn't happen either. After all, the only proof you have is written down historical accounts that "mostly" match what you see on the ground. Well, the same could be said about the bible. Certainly the spreading pattern of Christianity is consistent with the biblical account, for example.

So miracles ? There are thousands of miracles, in thousands of books, thousands of sources, all over the world. Are all those books filled with lies ? Many sources for you own beliefs describe having seen miracles, like for example Newton describing one in the same book that is still the basis for both derivation and integration operations.

Of course, you believe only repeatable claims, which obviously reduces your argument to :

1) if I see a miracle, or an account of one I refuse to accept what I see or read as true
2) I claim never to see "true" miracles

Which is merely a tautology. You don't see miracles. But under those rules
Tom | Email | Homepage | 07.07.09 - 4:20 am | #

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