As I See Faith and Reason Part 2

To carry on from Part 1 of this I think we have come to the place where we have contrasted reason and revelation. The first is a process by which, beginning with statements we hold to be more or less true, we look around for things which we find are related in some manner, usually in such a way that the truth of the beginning premise forces us to conclude that whatever follows is also true. We, “build” upon the original beliefs assuming our building follows some internal logic. Usually experience gives us this sense of logic and if we do not have the experience we question the logic. For instance, suppose I said I was feeling sleepy. You respond with “go to bed.” The beginning statement, “I’m sleepy” is taken to be an accurate description of my current feelings. You respond reasonably with “go to bed.” Most people sense the internal “logic” of this pair and see the response as reasonable. But the actual logic leaves a lot implied, for instance, the belief that being sleepy is a problem to be solved. It is not that we stop and actually discuss if it’s a problem so much as we assume that it is. And unless there are other unspoken things we perceive which would preclude my going to bed, the suggested solution appears a reasonable one. And finally, given that I have stated I am sleepy, that being sleepy is a problem and problems should be solved, if you suggest that I “go to bed.” -- you are assuming I too believe that the problem can be solved by sleeping and that the problem should be solve.

In this little example a number of things can be seen about reason. First, that in any response to life we assume a lot. In the above case, my statement that “I’m sleepy,” elicited a response: “Go to bed.” The assumptions which made the response appear reasonable were unstated and to the degree I sense their presence I would not have a problem seeing the response as reasonable. However, if I did not hold to the set of assumptions in which the response was resting I might very well think the response unreasonable. What is reasonable is socially constructed within a context. And in most cases we do little to examine the “reasonableness” of our statements. But when we do we find that we are no longer speaking of what is reasonable, but of the process itself.

The process of reasoning involves a number of things. Language, logic, evidence, and propriety, to name a few. If I make a political statement to you and you disagree, depending on the situation, you might respond by attacking the terms I use, the evidence I provide, the logic I use, or the appropriateness of my even making the argument. All of these can be seen as reasonable responses to my statements, depending on how you view my political statement. On the other hand, if you strongly disagree with my position you might very well respond to my response by saying it is an unreasonable response! In other words, it is generally not the logic of what a person says that determines if their communication is reasonable, but the group or individual to whom the speaker is speaking. For this reason the most persuasive person is the one the audience is already predisposed to believe – so long as he or she does not stray too far from the audiences assumptions. And when the speaker does succeed in moving the audience in attention, affirmation and/or action, the three “A’s” of persuasion, he or she generally does so by structuring the communication in such a way that the audience believes the “new” belief is consistent with their basic assumptions. For this reason most good arguments begin with what the audience believes and shows them how that belief leads to the new construct. It is this process of revealing the new construct as just an outgrowth of this or that premise which provides the logic of the argument. And logic is primarily a system of classification.

Classifying things is a primary duty of any language. Things which look, sound, feel, tastes, and smell alike are generally thought to be more alike. As far back as Aristotle, at least, people have thought that our thinking process involved the physical universe around us in a sort of mental classification of things. If two things appear to be of the same class we tend to believe they are more the same thing than if they don’t appear alike. This similarity based process allows us to see overlapping categories in such a way that the two overlapping categories are often seen in a cause-effect relationship. In other words, we often believe that because two things are alike in some manner one has caused the other. In our example above we see that the statement “I am sleepy” is taken as a true reflection of my current state. Because the person to whom I am speaking has categorized me as a normal human being and it is normal for normal human beings to make the statement “I am sleepy” he or she is not surprised or doubtful about my statement. The class of things, “human” can be found in a larger class of things which can get “sleepy.” In some ways we sense that being human must cause the being sleepy because our understanding of the two terms is that one, “humanness” naturally leads to the other, “sleepiness.”

This is reason, normally unexpressed and unexamined. As stated above, unless you find other reasons to object to my unexpressed assumptions, you perceive my speech as reasonable. In fact, so much of what we communicate to each other based on unstated assumptions it is difficult to believe than any communicative act is fully reasoned. Which, when it comes to faith, means that it is doubtful any belief system is based on anything other than faith. Faith in our own reasoning processes, if nothing else.

So you have reason and faith. Reason alone is based not upon logic, but upon unspoken assumptions of the most basic kind. If I claim, for instance, to have walked on water, you might very well doubt my sanity. But for what reason? Because you have never witnessed a person who can walk on water? Because you do not believe a person can walk on water? Because, to you, walking on water smacks of superstition and religious mythology? Because you can’t walk on water? All of these are, maybe, good reasons, but they are conclusions to a large group of unstated assumptions about my claim and the universe in general. That’s the problem with being “reasonable” it’s only reasonable to those who already believe whatever it is you want them to be reasonable about.

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As I See Faith and Reason, Part I

It is an astounding thing to consider the weakness of reason. From Aristotle’s observations to modern neurophysiolgist we have come to understand that there are limits to what we can conceive and thus to where reason itself can take us. The question emerging in the West over the last three hundred years is not whether we should have faith, but if reason can give us a faith which is unbounded by culture and thus a faith for all and all time.

What has emerged in this long road out of the quiet faith of the West into the post-modern age is a general consensus that the tools of faith are not to be found in obedience and allegiance alone, but in freedom itself – and in particular the freedom of the individual purchase his or her faith from the marketplace of ideas. For it is a cardinal tenant of our post-modern society that whatever a person thinks it is his or her right to think it. At the core is not reason, but the individual. For it can be said that Decartes’ “I think, therefore I am” is the founding stone of our beliefs about what faith is and how it is we are to faith-full.

The metaphoric marketplace of ideas assumes an economic structure to faith. Those who are of the belief that all ideas are equal believe that from the smorgasbord or ideas one should be able to simply choose what he or she believes. Underlying this view are two assumptions: 1) that ideas can be examined and purchased; and 2) that reason is sufficient to at least allow us to distinguish a good idea from a bad.

On the other hand, others view faith as a measure of allegiance to not a concept of the divine, but to the divine itself. In this view the Divine can be known and thus a feast of concepts and/or ideas outside what the Divine has provided is sacrilegious, foolish, and dangerous. Reason alone, in this view, is insufficient to produce true faith.

So these two views of faith are each an answer to the question of reason. The question is this: “Can reason lead us to faith?” Or, to put it another way, “why is there revelation?” For if reason is sufficient to lead us to faith then why is there a need for revelation? And if reason falls short then we either live without faith or turn to revelation.

Plato, nearly 2500 years ago came to a similar impasse. In “The Phaedrus,” Socrates runs through two attempts to define love, before he is driven to found the enterprise, not on reason, but on mythology. And today Goedel has shown that no mathematical system can be complete enough to prove its own axioms, a general principle which has been used to suggest that logic itself must start with something outside itself. In other words, logic has its limits.

In the end then, every person must live their lives asking not whether they should have faith, but if reason itself should be used to determine faith – and in particular whether revelation ultimateloy must take a backseat to reason or reason, at some point and in some way, a backseat to faith. It is not a quetion of faith or reason, but which gets "top billing" in the heart of a man.

As I See American Religion

I was speaking to one of my friends today. We were having breakfast as we do every Wednesday morning, and the subject of materialism came up. Materialism, for those of you who may not know, is both a formal philosophical position and a practical attitude. Philosophers who are materialists hold that the only thing which exists is the material world of space, time, matter and energy. The opposite of this are the spiritualists who either believe that the material world is a hallucination and all that exists is a spiritual realm or that both the material and the spiritual realms exist, but that, in general, the spiritual is to be preferred over the material. These are philosophically formal positions but there exists, in addition, a practical and religious element to materialist. In fact, I would argue that almost all people on earth are practicing materialists.

What is the materialist religion? Like most religions it has the usual “sacred” texts, “sacred” people, and “sacred” places. In materialism the “sacred text” are the contracts upon which society rests. As the saying goes, “if it’s not in writing it’s not worth the paper it should have been written on.” Economics dominates the sacred text of these contracts and the faith one has in the contracts, and the quality of the contracts determines how high one rises in the hierarchy of the religion. Interpreters of the text are lawyers. They are the theologians, constantly splitting hairs over mundane topics, often using archaic and technical terminology. They bless any union and negotiate any divide. They write the texts, interpret the texts, and destroy the texts, as they see fit. But they are not the only “sacred people” of the materialist religion.

Along with the legal high priests there are those who handle the worth of the individual, helping he or she to move up, or sometimes down, the religious hierarchy. They are, of course, “financial advisors,” materialist pastors who, along with the materialist theologians, lay claim to the magic of increasing your worth for a few pennies a day from their temples of stone.

And where are those temples of stone? Look at just about any bank of notable worth, look at its main building and see the heavy stone pillars. Pillars of the church of the materialist they are. Go into the bank and sit down on the heavenly seats, see the gold, the inlaid wood. Opulence like not other buildings on earth, except perhaps the office of Merrill Lynch and all those who believe they can bring you security trough a balanced portfolio and wise investing. Offerings taken by the transaction.

And if you think all this just looks like a church, consider just how sacred the subject of your worth. It’s measured in nickels and dimes but only by those who strictly “need to know.” To everybody else you can look like you too are a pillar of conspicuous capitalism. Only your bank needs to know.

And which is the more polite question: “What is your sexual orientation” or “How much do you make?” We have no problem encouraging person to “come out of the closet” but try having a group of men openly discuss how much they make and how much debt they have, and you will get no takers. It’s too personal. Faith is like that.

And, as if you really needed more, ask yourself this: why exactly can an American dollar buy a dozen eggs (more or less). I mean, think of it. It’s just paper. Why can’t I take a nice piece of copy paper and write a note for my grocer stating that I will bring him a half pound of butter (butter is currently two dollars a pound around here), or better yet, why doesn’t the grocer just take my half pound of butter in exchange for the eggs? Certainly if you or I was stranded on a desert island we would want the butter and/or eggs over ten thousand of those pieces of paper called dollar bills. The value of the dollar bill – the confidence we place it it when we take it in exchange for those eggs, is a purely faith act. We have faith in “the Almighty Dollar” as the saying goes.

So we have faith, we have priests, we have pastors, we have temples, and we hold the measure of our souls, our worth, is something that only a few are qualified to access. But There is more.

Not only do we have these things, we also have sin. Sin, in our materialist culture, is anything which causes physical, psychological or social pain. It is not the act, but the effect of the act. Which, of course, means that the worst thing you can do to a child is cause pain – as in “spanking.” And as for prisoners, you can isolate them, refuse them entertainment, and treat them like scum, but heaven forbid if you try to actually physically punish them.

These are some of the hallmarks of the materialist religion. Someday I’ll expand on this theme and how I claim at another time.

As I See Freedom and Destiny Part 1

I have never understood the term “free will.” Not because I don’t understand each of the words, “free” means unobstructed and thus uncontrolled by outside forces or influences, and “will” means the operation of choice. See how easy that was? But “the unobstructed and thus uncontrolled by outside forces or influences operation of choice?” What in the dickens does that mean?

Okay, it’s a straw man. I lay out my own definitions and then put them together to show that they are confusing. Yet, at the same time I can’t be too far off, can I? I mean, doesn’t “free” mean something like I have described? And doesn’t “will” concern itself with choice? So “free will” is an obstructed and uninfluenced choice. But wait. Some of you are squirming. I can tell. You don’t like the term “uninfluenced.” And to some degree neither do I. The problem is once you allow influence to, well, influence choice you have to answer the question of how much the choice was influenced. For instance, suppose I walked into a bar, held up a gun and said to the bartender, “give me all your cash.” Would the bartender do it? Would you? Probably. The presence of the gun influences the bartender. Of course you could argue that it obstructs the bartenders’ range of choices by implying something bad might happen if he didn’t stuff the money in the bag, pronto. But either way you are measuring the influence of the gun on the choice the bartender makes. So the question is not if influence is restrictive of freedom, but if influence is sufficient to deny freedom. Or the flip side is, of course, if I chose A rather than B to what degree am I to blame for choosing A?

What degree indeed. I mean if A is chocolate I have no degree of responsibility whatsoever, period. I’m like Pavlovs’ dog. Ring the chocolate bell and I indulge. Of course, there may be influences that cause me to choose to ignore the chocolate. Like my spouse, who frowns on being married to a 400 pound gorilla. Or my kids who really do want me to live long enough to baby sit their kids. But all these influences are outside of me. I do not control them, they influence me. For good or ill I choose under the influence of my immediate surroundings.

Now those influences are divided into a couple of groups. Environment, (like is my spouse looking?) and genetics (I am convinced I have a genetic disposition toward chocolate). Neither of these classes of influence are within my ability to fully control. So to the degree a choice is made under the influence of these two uncontrollable influences, I am not responsible.

But wait. I do have a choice. I could refrain from eating that chocolate bar. Really, I could….not. Not unless some other set of influences are stronger. Let us suppose that my family is nowhere around. I see a piece of chocolate cake. Do I take it? What exactly is the process I go through in deciding?

If you are like me you do exactly what I do, you rationalize after you decide. You seldom weigh the genetic (I love the taste of chocolate) and the environmental (my spouse will find out) before you actually choose. Instead you just go with your sense of propriety. It is only in complex decisions that your mind actually engages. Then you might consider physical, emotional, (which are largely a product of genetics), philosophical and rational evidences. But even then the ultimate decision is made at a moment in time, under the immediate thoughts, perceptions, feelings and sensibilities. And logic, which is a metaphoric enterprise, seldom has much to do with it. It is not a rational choice most of the time, it is a sensed choice. And you go with it. In short, the choices you make are not at all choices, but pathways. You see a route, it appeals to you over the other paths you could take, and you take it. But you take it based upon your genetic makeup, your perceptions of what you could do, the immediate state of your emotions and your immediate perceptions of the situation, all of which you have little control. Decisions, and thus choice, are largely a response to things outside your control and to the degree that response is shaped by those things you cannot be said to be free.

All this has gotten me to the place of seeing free will as not free at all. Just because we cannot see to any real degree why a person makes a choice does not mean a choice was not made. But the outcome, the path selected, was largely predetermined by the complex of uncontrollable influences surrounding the person at the time of the choice.

I touched on another way of looking at it above. I said, and rightfully I believe, that for a choice to be truly a free choice it must be outside the undue influence of the un-chosen things surrounding it. In other words, if it is influenced in any significant way by the things surrounding it then it can be said that the chooser is a machine preprogrammed to respond to the inputs. This largely accounts for the choices we make. However, they are still choices. Alternatives are presented. They are real alternative paths we could take – meaning that we, as moral agents, are not physically restrained from taking those paths. However, given the inputs and processes we have been given the actual path we choose is predetermined. Having said that another way of looking at it is to say that if those influenced did not determine the outcome what did? There is nothing left to measure. And if there is nothing left to which we can point as the predictor of a choice being made, then there is no cause for the choice. Every choice is caused. It is made within a context of inputs and processes. But if you have freed the moral agent from making choices via the influence of external causes then you are left with a choice without cause.

Now a choice which is without cause is an “uncaused cause.” The choice causes a change in our state and the state of our surroundings. Thus, it causes something. But it has, itself, no cause. It is an “uncaused cause.” The phrase, “uncaused cause” is Aristotle’s definition of god. God, to Aristotle, was the uncaused cause. God started everything. God was the prime mover. To give people truly “free” will is to make them the uncaused cause of their own destiny’s. It is to make them their own god.

Another problem, related to this, is theological. If God gives us a truly free will, as described above, then He cannot know, via prediction, what we will choose until we choose it. He cannot do so because there is no mechanism by which our choice can be predicted. This leads us to the point of saying that God must “wait and see” what the outcome will be, or look into the future.

Now if God looked into the future and saw the choices we made, but could not unduly influence them (because that would mean the choice would not be “free”) then the outcome of history is not in God’s hands, but in ours. If we choose to support God, he wins. If not, He doesn’t. In this all of His creation is under our control, not His. This makes us gods, or at least gods of our own destiny. It is my opinion that this is exactly what Eve was doing when she “freely” selected the fruit.

As I See Political War and Discussion

In my last post I suspect I was a bit less civil that I desire to be. While I did not call Ms. Coulter any names, I was a bit rough on her motives. I suggested that she only desired to “rally the troops” and suggested that her logic and ability to sustain an in depth argument were weaker than one would expect from such a nationally known figure. I regret the tone of the article, though I believe the critique stands. The question is: how much charity is one compelled to give to those who oppose your point of view? I mean, aren’t they the enemy? Isn’t this a war? And if so, can one imagine being on a battle field where the enemy soldier yells, “sorry” every time he or she fires his or her gun? Wars are not polite or charitable affairs. Should politics be any different that a war?

The last ten years or so our nation has been engaged in what has been called a “culture war.” Conservatives have generally prevailed over liberals but liberals too have scored their victories. The problem I have with it all is that it has become a war of attrition. Few, if any, actually pay attention to the other side, taking seriously their point of view. Few are persuaded they are wrong and even fewer seem to make the attempt to persuade. “They’re close minded and will not listen to reason” is the cry of both sides about the other. And with the multiplying of screaming voices reason gets drowned out altogether. And if this is a war of attrition, there is little hope of it ever stopping.

Let’s look at things from the liberals side for a change. A liberal is one who believes in the great ideas of the Renaissance. The power of human intellect and the assumption of the intrinsic worth of each person are powerful ideas. And from them modern culture evolved with its emphasis on freedom, democracy and technology. It was, no short not a bad place to start. In fact, ask the average conservative if he or she believes people have intrinsic worth and you will probably get an affirmation. Ask them if man is capable of bringing heaven to earth and you get a less robust agreement. Which is one of the basic distinctions between a conservative and a liberal.

In a liberal’s mind the place of truth is tenuous not because they do not believe in truth but because they do not believe that truth can be fully known or communicated. To a liberal person what truth we hold to be “self-evident” is “self-evident” only to those in the particular social group that accepts that truth. It is not that truth is relative but that our knowledge of truth is not certain. Since, along with the impossibility of full knowledge, liberals also believe it is impossible to get “ought” from “is.” This is a philosophical distinction which underlies their aversion to any moral absolutes. For a moral absolute to be stated as a moral absolute the speaker must themselves be of the mind that it is absolute. To a liberal the absolute statements possible are in the physical realm. Everything else is restricted to “tradition,” “cultural norms,” and “brain-washing.” In other words, it is not that moral absolutes do not exist, it’s that they can not be known absolutely. Or at least absolutely enough to justify preaching them to others.

Thus it is that a liberal is not godless, as Ms. Coulter’s latest foray into political analysis would have us believe, but that they have visceral reaction to anyone claiming they know absolutely. And, by the way, this is not an irrational position.

The conservative, on the other hand, gets his or her philosophical underpinnings from the Reformation. And in many ways the Reformation was a return to the early Christian era when it was felt that God had, “in these last days” revealed himself. Thus, with revelation in hand, the conservatives believe truth and moral absolutes can be known and can therefore be preached. More than that, they believe that they must preach the moral absolutes if they are to save society. Now to get myself in real trouble…

Over the years I have come to see that there are four groups of people in this country. There are those who believe that one can know things to the degree that they are worth fighting over, there are those who believe that things are never so uncertain as when you think they are certain, there are those who generally support conservative political agendas and those who support liberal political agendas. The first group tend to be conservative though there are many liberals who fit into this camp as well. The second group tends to be liberal though there are those of us in the conservative camp who fit here. The third group, the conservatives cause group, tend to group with those who believe in certainty and there are liberals cause group who tend to attract those who do not believe in certainty. In any case, wars are generally fought by those who are willing to do battle and those willing to do battle are generally those who have been brainwashed or are certain of their position. For this reason the extremes of either party tend to dominate the discussion. They also tend to overstate their case, pick selective evidence, emphasize whatever supports their point of view, minimize any contrary evidence, and in general spend more time rallying the troops than entering into a rational dialogue with their enemy. But that is war, its dirty, hard hitting, fast paced, and deadly. Just like politics today. But does it have to be war?

How does one go about changing a war into a discussion? Most of those engaged in the war have long ago concluded that their enemies are a bunch of irrational, ignorant, self-centered, power hungry, baby killing, reprobates. They have only done what is done in war – demonized and dehumanized the enemy. Thus, if there is ever to be a civil discussion those in the middle, those who are not so convinced that they are right that they demonize those who are on the other side, must reassert themselves and engage. And they must take on the “demonizers” on both sides of the of the political spectrum, forcing them to actually make arguments that persuade.

Of course this does mean that those of us who make the attempt will probably be demonized by both ends of the political spectrum. The liberals will think we have not gone far enough because we insist that truth can be known enough to require its preaching. And those on the right will think we have compromised because we would dare to recognize the truth that we are just finite individuals who, in spite of what some might think, speak to God often but probably hear Him seldom.

As I See Ann Coulter's "Treason" Part 1

In the fury of the last week’s ballyhoo over Ann Coulter’s “Godless” and its strongly worded attacks I decided that it would be a good thing if I read Ms. Coulter. Well, actually it was my office mate who thought it would be a good thing. So he, being the nice guy that he is, has lent me Treason. I shall peruse the volume over the next week or so and let you know what I think but for now one thing has already struck me as somewhat difficult to take.

On page nine Ms. Coulter writes, in response to Whittaker Chambers famous declaration that Communism was “the vision of man without God” that:

“Liberals chose Man. Conservatives choose God. The struggle between the two great faiths was the subtext of every great political conflict in America in the second half of the twentieth century. It was this conflict that fueled the Chambers-Hiss hearings, “McCarthyism,” Vietnam, Watergate, and the elites’ abiding hatred of Ronald Regan.”

This is heady stuff. And all this time I thought the struggle was between God and the devil! I sort of thing the devil might be a wee bit mad about be usurped. Oh well, win some, lose some, I guess.

It’s not that I don’t think the Liberals chose man, it’s just I don’t think the Conservatives actually choose God at all. I believe the ascendancy of the neo-conservatives was not at all the result of some deep felt conversion to the Almighty but was in fact a capitulation in style to the New Left.

“Let us return to the bygone days of yesteryear” as the saying goes. Back then, right after WWII it was quite fashionable to believe that we were on the cusp of making “the world [truly] safe for democracy.” We had just whipped the Nazi’s and booted the Japanese back to their little islands. We were the richest, most productive, most prosperous country on earth and we had full employment. The only cloud on our horizon were those evil Communists who didn’t believe in God at all. More importantly, they were, according to reliable sources I carry right here in my brief case, infiltrating who desks in our state department, our armies, our navies, and our nurseries! They were the new enemy and they had to be stopped. Senator Joe told us so and he had that durn briefcase of documents to prove it! But wait…if he had a whole briefcase of documents how come them Commies were still deeply planted in every branch of government? How come nobody did nothing bout it? Hmmm… could this be a left wing radical conspiracy to make America Communist? Stay tune next week for our exciting conclusion…

If all this sounds a bit odd to you, it should. Senator McCarthy and his style of evidence was well analyzed in an article by Richard Hofstader over thirty years ago. In the article, “The Paranoid Style in Public Address” In it he says, in part,

"American politics has often been an arena for angry minds. In recent years we have seen angry minds at work mainly among extreme right-wingers, who have now demonstrated in the Goldwater movement how much political leverage can be got out of the animosities and passions of a small minority. But behind this I believe there is a style of mind that is far from new and that is not necessarily right-wind. I call it the paranoid style simply because no other word adequately evokes the sense of heated exaggeration, suspiciousness, and conspiratorial fantasy that I have in mind. . . . [T]he idea of the paranoid style as a force in politics would have little contemporary relevance or historical value if it were applied only to men with profoundly disturbed minds. It is the use of paranoid modes of expression by more or less normal people that makes the phenomenon significant. Of course this term is pejorative, and it is meant to be; the paranoid style has a greater affinity for bad causes than good. But nothing really prevents a sound program or demand from being advocated in the paranoid style. Style has more to do with the way in which ideas are believed than with the truth or falsity of their content. I am interested here in getting at our political psychology through our political rhetoric. The paranoid style is an old and recurrent phenomenon in our public life which has been frequently linked with movements of suspicious discontent."

The anger, the paranoia, the blind forwardness of the bull in the China shop is what destroys political debate and persuasion. If the bull would just stand still we could lead him out and save the china too. But no, he is blind out of fear and frustration. And he is not a tame bull.

When Ms. Coulter writes that the Liberals have chosen man and the Conservatives God it strikes me as way too much an oversimplification. And then to claim that all the great conflicts of the last fifty years have had the “subtext” of God verses Man? A bit of a stretch.

But what intrigues me is not her conclusions, but her style. She blasts you with quote after quote, much as Senator McCarthy did in the early 1950’s and then draws the big conclusion. Never mind that the quotes don’t exactly match or even support the conclusion. She is a woman who knows and all of us should just bow to her intellect. I think the emperor has no cloths.

I would like to ask Ms. Coulter for her evidence of the “subtext” she sees in the the named events. How did the Conservatives’ belief in God inform their rhetoric. Did they quote chapter and verse in arguing for Vietnam? Did they sing religious songs at the edge of Communist rallies? Were, exactly, did they evoke the name of God as a justifier of America? And don’t give me banal claims that “In God We Trust” is on all our money so of course the Conservatives choose God over man. Liberals have wallets too.

So she blasts you with the quotes, draws unwarranted conclusions as if she has proved the case. Take, for instance the very next page. Here she says, in discussing what is commonly thought about “McCarthyism”

“While reacting with unblinking ennui to Soviet spies in high government office, Democrats engaged in drama queen theatrics over “McCarthyism.” The myth of McCarthyism is the greatest Orwellian fraud or our times. The portrayal of Senator Joe McCarthy as a wild-eyed demagogue destroying innocent lives is sheer liberal hobgoblinism.. Liberals weren’t cowering in fear during the McCarthy era. They were systematically undermining the nations ability to defend itself while waging a bellicose campaign of lies to blacken McCarthy’s name. Everything you think you know about McCarthy is a hegemonic lie. Liberals denounced McCarthy because they were afraid of getting caught, so they fought back like animals to hide their own collaboration with a regime as evil as the Nazis’. They scream about the dark night of fascism under McCarthy to prevent Americans from ever noticing that liberals sabotaged their own country. As Whittaker Chambers said: ‘Innocence seldom utters outraged shrieks. Guilt does.’”

First of all, while I would not dare to denigrate the scholarship of Ms. Coulter’s view, I would point out that she is simply repeating what Mr. McCarthy said in his own defense. He claimed the same things in 1952 and the country didn’t believe him. Of course to Ms. Coulter the “MSM” (Main Stream Media) is to blame for that. But that very media is not so dominant now so let’s examine the evidence for the defense. Oops… uh, I know, its in her briefcase. Just like McCarthy she carries a whole lot of flashy paper full of quotes but little beyond a great big game of “he says” and “she says.” If Ms. Coulter wants to make the claim fine, if she wants me to believe it she has to do a whole lot more work.

Of course maybe she doesn’t care if she persuades or not. All she appears to care about is rallying the troops by character assignation of her supposed enemies. If so, I can only say it is a cheap shot and succeeds only with those who are generally to ill informed and intellectually undisciplined to recognize an ad hominem attack from a real analysis of the issues and are already primed to believe any evil thing Ms. Coulter or her friends want to spit out. Too bad some of that spit lands on the truth.

But maybe I’m over-reacting. It certainly wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe, as I continue to wade through this book, I’ll reach enlightenment. Maybe I too will find the goddess of the book like so many of her followers. Maybe, but I doubt it.

And doubt is a good thing.

As I See Evolution

The following definition of a theory comes a posting I was reading on another site. I should have lifted where it came from but thought I was going to post to that thread. Instead I offer this here.

One definition of a theory is:

“A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena”

If this definition is true of a scientific theory then:

1) It is true that evolutionary theory is “a set of statements and principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena”
2) It is not true that the theory has been “repeatedly tested”
3) And while it is true that it has been “widely accepted”
4) It is not true that it “can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.”

Thus, evolutionary theory fails on two points:
1) Repeatable testing
2) Predictions about natural phenomena

To which I would add that it fails because it based upon an untested (and perhaps un-testable) metaphysical assumption.

Please allow me to explain.

Evolutionary theory cannot be repeatedly tested because it is a theory of history, not science. It attempts not to tell us what could have happened, but what actually happened. To test a scientific theory one must set do a set of experiments where a significant set of variables are controlled or at least accounted for statistically. Since the planet is singular you cannot perform the necessary experiment. Yes, you could create virtual planets with virtual environments in some super large scale simulation, but no matter what you accomplished you are still left with the fact that you did not observe this, quite real, planet. And it is the history of the biological diversity of this planet which evolutionary theory claims to explain.

Yet, even if you show that this planets current biological diversity could have been the result of evolutionary processes, you have still failed to prove that it actually was the result of evolutionary theory. The central problem is not that you cannot come up with an explanation, or that the explanation makes sense, it is that you are trying to ask science to answer a question about a particular event. Yes, science can form theories about particular events, but only if the class of events to which the particular belongs has enough members to provide sufficient data for analysis. It’s like going out for ice cream. If I’ve never had ice cream and upon tasting it for the first time I decide that I hate it, what are the chances that I got a bad scoop? You or I cannot say until we have gone to a sufficient number of ice cream parlors and surveyed their ice cream (by the way, if anyone wants to do this experiment, count me in!). Failing to have a sufficiently large pool of observations leads to poor science, not reliable science. This, of course, does not disprove evolutionary theory – it only undermines it as a scientific theory. And that’s not its only failing.

Evolutionary theory also fails because it is unlikely the predictions of evolutionary theory will ever be testable. Think for a moment of the amount of time evolutionary theory requires for new species to arise. It is highly unlikely that any record of our own theories will be around when the first observable change in species occurs – thus, as a macro theory it cannot be tested for practical reasons.

Of course, one could simply say that we can test the macro theory by simply confirming a series of micro theory predictions. I predict that a certain species will develop the ability to resist a particular chemical over a given number of generations and viola, that is exactly what happens via natural selection. But just how far can the changes in a species go and is it possible for there to be macro evolution within a species to the point that they develop large scale physiological changes? To the point that the new organisms are so genetically different from their ancestors that they cannot interbreed with them? Current evolutionary theory predicts this to be so. But again, the amount of time this takes makes it practically un-testable. A scientific theory which cannot be practically tested cannot be more than a theory without a leap of faith. Those who take that leap do so, not because of the reliability of evolutionary theory, but because of a metaphysical commitment modern science has made.

We live, I believe you will all agree, within a physical universe. We can touch, smell, see, taste, and hear things. These things we generally believe to exist. And, in general, we believe that each thing we touch, smell, see, taste and hear, was caused by something which preceded it. For every phenomenon, we generally believe there is a cause. The question is: are there causes “outside” the physical universe? How you answer that question determines if you line up with modern science or early science. For modern scientist treat all phenomena as within a closed universe. And if the universe is closed then all that is within the closed universe can be explained by processes within that universe. If you were to show a modern scientist a “miracle” (here we just assume a “miracle” could happen), no matter how much evidence you present he or she is bound, as a modern scientist, to explain the “miracle” was a result of natural processes. To do so in any other way would be to admit an “open universe,” and thus not be science at all. (This, by the way, is why so many Evolutionists say Creationism and Intelligent Design are not scientific theories at all). No matter how complex, illogical, irrational, improbable, or un-testable the theory explaining the “miracle” might be, the modern scientist is bound to prefer that theory over anything which “opens” the universe.

Early science had made no such commitment. Early science, and here we are speaking of Francis Bacon and his colleagues of the fourteenth, fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries, believed they were going to show just how God Himself ordered the universe. The history of the change is quite fascinating and you can read about it by reading the notes of the French and English academies of science – the change is slow but discernable. Early science thought the universe open and could continence Creationism, modern science cannot. However, modern science fails to make their metaphysical assumptions known and discounts its “enemies” unfairly.

So all in all, evolutionary theory fails not because it is unreasonable theory, but because it is a poor scientific theory. It is a poor scientific theory because it begins with an implied and untested assumption – the universe is closed. It is a poor scientific theory because it attempts to answer a question outside its applicable field – an historical rather than a scientific question. And it poor scientific theory practically because it is un-testable as a macro theory.

I can honestly say that I can predict where people will come down on this debate based upon two things: are they a believer in an open universe?; and, do they believe there is room in science for an open universe? Those who both questions affirmatively will probably be Creationists or Intelligent Design theorists, those who affirm the first but not the second will be theistic evolutionists, and those who deny both will be, what I call, material evolutionist.

Sometimes the best answer to a question is “I don’t know.”

As I See Racial Profiling

“Racial profiling” is an unfortunate, but necessary tool of law enforcement, a fact too many white, middle-class Americans fail to grasp, but a tool with which, I believe, most minorities in this country will have not problem.

Think about it. Suppose you are Arab. You are American. You love your country and understand that, because you look like an Arab, you will probably be pulled over more often than the Japanese looking guy next door. What would you like to see happen: A) the authorities scrupulously avoid “racial profiling” and pull over just as many white guys, percentage wise, as Arab looking guys, thereby increasing the likelihood that some terrorist infiltrates our country and sets off some bomb; or B) the authorities inconvenience you repeatedly because they consider your “race” more likely to attempt to set off a bomb and in the process thwart a terrorist attack? I’m willing to bet the average Arab, Mexican, or even Black, provided they were US citizens, they loved their country, and they were convinced that a particular type of skin color was more likely to blow people up, would choose B. Why? Because I am not a racist. I am not a racist because I am convinced that the average non-white person in America is just as patriotic and willing to sacrifice for this country as I am. I am not a racist because I believe that not all minorities automatically reject the idea of profiling, racial or otherwise. I am not a racist because I do not believe I have to defend those poor minorities from the evil hand of the racist government (those poor minorities who are too poor, too ignorant, too backwards to defend themselves). I am not a racist because I do not believe that every person who has a different skin color than me is to be given a free pass, as if there is no possibility that they would ever do anything dishonest, and even if they did, that he or she would be justified in doing so. I am not a racist because I believe that the minorities in this country are willing to sacrifice for the better of the whole, even if that sacrifice falls disproportionately upon them. And I have good evidence that such is the case.

Remember WWII? What did the Japanese do when they went to internment camps? Did they rebel? Did the spend the next fifty years claiming they couldn’t get ahead because “the man” had it in for them? No, the went quietly and when it was over they went back to work rebuilding what they had lost and then some. And the Blacks? What did they do in WWII? Did they run for the hills and claim that America wasn’t there country? No, they signed up in force, they fought beside their American brothers and sisters, and they died beside them. And when it was all over they returned to their country even though it was still full of bigotry and hatred, and they continue to server their country. The story was, and is the same, for every minority in this country. Not a one has ever failed us, and I doubt very much they ever will. So if we ask them to submit to “racial profiling” because it helps keep their country safe, I’m willing to bet they will, no questions asked.

As I See Iraq

I was reading the Sheppard Express, our local left wing rag and came across an interview with some poor guy whose son has been killed in Iraq. This guy is out to get the troops pulled out and so I thought I’d respond. Here’s my response.

What always amazes me when groups like Military Families Speak Out spring up in opposition to a war the US is fighting is the total disregard they have for realpolitik. The fact is, no matter how we got there and no matter for what reasons the current war was launched, the fact is we are in this war and a price must be paid. We either remove our troops and allow the Iraqi people to settle it in the streets and thus end the shedding of American blood in Iraq or we carry on, doing the best we can. If we do the first though I am not convinced that it will lead to saving American lives and it certainly will not help Americas image world wide.

If we leave there will almost certainly be four outcomes:

1) we will show the world that we don’t have the moral or military stomach to follow through on the jobs we start (wrong or right);
2) we will show the world that we really don’t care about the Iraqi people and would prefer tens and even hundreds of thousands of them die in a bloody civil war rather than a few thousand of our own – I guess the ratio is currently abut 20 Iraqis to each American soldier);
3) we will show the world that we do not have the military or political savvy to stand up to rouge states (involved in terrorism or not); and,
4) we will free those Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq to sneak across our Mexican borders to do what they do best – kill innocent bystanders – this time American innocent bystanders.

Of course you could argue that this is painting the picture in the bleakest of terms. It is possible, I suppose, that the current insurrectionist, seeing America pull out, will lay down their guns and negotiate a peaceful settlement with their Iraqi brethren with whom they have fought for hundreds of years. It is possible, but not bloody likely.

And you could argue that we care enough about the Iraqi people to leave them alone to decide how to settle the matter themselves. But once those same Iraqi people start seeing rivers of blood in the streets do you really think they will appreciate the sentiment? Do you really think they would rather trade tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of deaths, a devastated infrastructure, and continual warfare between various factions rather than have American troops keeping the peace.

Yes, you could argue that we shouldn’t be policing the world, that it’s not our job. That we should pull out immediately because we got in there for the wrong reasons. I love this. If I broke into you house and destroyed your living room furniture would you be satisfied if I just said, “sorry, I’ll leave now and you can take care of this mess?” I think not. It is an ancient rule in most cultures that if you break it you pay for it. Anything else is wrong and as our mothers taught us, “two wrongs don’t make a right.”

And yes, you could argue that those Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq will either not be able to get into the US, nor will they be able to pull off a large scale attack against us. If you believe that you aren’t paying attention. Our southern border is open, open, open. Six million “undocumented” people prove it. (The other six million are hear on “self-extended visa’s.”) And if they get here do you really think that all the stadiums, all the power plants, all the chemical factories, all the bridges, all the railroads, all the pipe lines, all the food warehouses, all the water supplies, and all the other possible targets aren’t vulnerable?

In conventional warfare your home turf is where you are strongest. But no general wants to be fighting on his or her own turf. It shows you are losing the war. No, if you want to battle you want to battle away from your base. This means higher casualties on the field and lower civilian casualties.

But wait, you of course remind me of the thousands and thousands of Iraqi innocent who have been slaughtered in all this. Excellent point, and I applaud you for realizing that not just Americans die. Oh, darn, I just looked at the pie charts of who is killing all those innocents. Oops, it almost all the insurgents. How can that be? Why would they target innocent people? The pie chart I’m looking at shows the total number of Iraqi dead (about 20,000), of whom less than 1,000 are known to have been killed as “collateral damage” and fewer than 100 as possibly targeted. Now let’s see, to be fair lets suppose the insurgents intended to kill only ½ of those they have actually killed. 10,000 to 100 seems a pretty clear picture of who is are the murderers.

But why are they doing this? Maybe they really hate America and as soon as we leave they will give their current and long term enemies the “high-five”, lay down their arms and live happily ever after. No, I don’t think so. Iraq has never been free because they have spent the last few hundred years ingaged in inter-tribal and inter-faith warfare. Nobody has given them a controlled opportunity to try out real self-rule. Maybe you think the transition to self rule should be nice and peaceful but if you think that you have put on cultural blinders. The Iraqi people have never had self rule and seldom in the course of human events has self rule come without the shedding of blood. The question we face to day is whose blood should it be, those who “pushed” the Iraqi toward self rule by removing the tyrant who was killing them at the rate of 2500 per month, or tens and perhaps hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqi people whose first taste of self rule will be rivers of blood in the streets?

Now back to those who have lost the will to fight because they see American bodies, some of whom are their own sons and daughters. It would be a sad day indeed if because I disagreed with them they decided my disagreement was due to insensitivity alone. Insensitivity does cause people to discount the feelings of others, but not always. And feelings are important in any complex decision, but not the only thing to be considered. The practical matter is that we owe it to the Iraqi people to continue attempting to keep the lid on civil war until they can deal with the situation in their own unique manner. By keeping the lid on the insurrection, a situation we caused, we give them time to rebuild their infrastructure, establish their government, train their own armies, and in general move toward a better life than they ever had under Hussein. That will cost a lot of money, and sadly, more American and Iraqi lives. It is only a really selfish person who thinks that freedom is just for them and is unwilling to sacrifice for the freedom of others. As long as our brothers are in the chains of tyrannical bondage we are all slaves. That is what many, and perhaps even most, of the soldiers in Iraq believe and even if our leaders are engaged in the war for other, more selfish goals, it still does not negate that the death of our American soldiers is giving them a chance at self rule.

As I See the History of Political Debate

Ann Coulter quotes some media head as claiming that the:

"explosion in our media, our deafening national noise level and our changing mores have made this a much different era in America than the one our parents grew up in."

Maybe, but I doubt it. I remember when my parents were in their thirties and Kennedy and Nixon were going at it. True the debate was more or less civil, but the media was not. Think of the Mushroom Cloud commercials of LBJ. If you tried to run something that offensive today it would be pulled immediately.

Actually dirty politics, especially in campaigns, has been around as long as our nation. Remember the duel between Aaron Burr and, I believe, Alexander Hamilton. It was over a political feud where one’s reputation had been severely damaged by the other. The claim had something to do with a women and sex (sounds familiar doesn’t it?).

And things only got worse. The rumor mill, the gossip column, the innuendo, the “yellow journalism” of the last two hundred and thirty years or so was just as bad and just as mean spirited as today. But then they often didn’t have laws against saying your opponent was gay unless you could prove it. Today even the most outrageous commentator can call names but they had better be generic rather than specific. You can call a guy a crook metaphorically but you can’t accuse him of stealing anything in particular unless you have proof. In the past you could get away with this and a lot more. So we have quite a tradition of dirty politics.

Does this mean we should continue in this tradition? That depends. Do you want to be a Conservative who believes that truth can be known and communicated or a Liberal who believes that since truth can’t be known or communicated, power is all that matters? I fear most conservative minded people are conservative in name only. At the core of their political focus is to defend their fellow conservatives, no matter how insensitive or even stupid they are, rather than agree with a liberal over anything. They see everything as a battle of good verses evil as if God Himself was the Chairman of the Republican Party and personally speaks to each of his talk-show, book writing, tv evangelist commentators personally. The only difference between a Conservative of this ilk and a Liberal of just about any ilk is that Conservatives treat their talking heads as gods while Liberals think there are no gods but themselves.

Of course there is no limit to the amount of trash talk coming out of both sides. We “Dis and Dat” each other to death and have all the documentation to prove it. We quote in and out of context and cry like h* if the opposition does the same. Why? Because we are too busy defending a “political correctness” or our own.

Try this experiment. Pick a subject and bone up on it. Create a credible case for something like, raising the minimum wage. Then present it to your conservative friends, you know, the ones who believe what you believe. See how they react. If you aren’t a pariah in ten second, flat, you will at least be highly suspect. Not because you have a mind, but because you used it for something besides echoing the party line.

Echoing the party line is of course, good for rallying the troops, making a name for yourself, and, if your as good as, say Ann Coulter, making a whole lot of dough. But if you spend all your time rallying the troops and none of your time recruiting from the vast majority who have not chosen a side you are sure to one day wake up to a vastly shrunken army. We need thinkers, not screamers. And I’m sure we have them, somewhere. Unfortunately, I can’t hear the thinking over the chaos of the screaming.