D’Souza vs. Dennett

I’ve listened to this debate about Christianity vs. Atheism.  The specific topic was supposed to be “Is God a man-made invention”, but I didn’t really get a good answer to that question from listening to it.

Here are my impressions:

1. This is not the first D’Souza debate I’ve listened to and in both cases he gets really excited about a half-point he makes about how the universe must be exactly as tuned as it is or else we wouldn’t exist.  He talks about the mass of a proton and gravity, etc. etc., and evidently concludes that therefore, a God with us in mind must be pulling the strings.  I was shocked that his Harvard Ph.D. opponent didn’t derail that entire line of reasoning (on which Dinesh spent several minutes) by pointing out the circularity of the argument.  If you are trying to suggest that God eixsts, you can’t prove it with an argument that assumes God exists.  More simply put, while it is true that if the universe were any different we wouldn’t exist, it only proves a creator if you assume that human beings are the reason the universe exists in the first place.  Sure, if you believe that the universe exists to serve human kind and give us a place to exist, it’s not much of a leap to believe in God.  but if you don’t, as Dennett doesn’t, such an argument would fall on deaf ears.  Come on Dinesh, you can do better.
2. Atheists spend a lot of time defending the concept that if God is dead, anything is permissible.  In other words, they have to prove that man is an equal source of morality as God.  This simply is not true.  Every human being fears death.  It is one of the many things about our existence that we simply cannot know.  And that scares us.  I believe in God not because of evidence one way or another, but rather because I am a cautious person.  Let’s suppose that God does not exist.  In that case, it really doesn’t matter what I do until I die.  I should spend my days smoking crack, enjoying as much hedonistic pleasure as I can possibly derive, at the expense of myself and everyone else.  Why should I bother doing anything?  There are no consequences except that I blink out of existence and rot in the ground.  Right?  If this were true, wouldn’t fatalism be far more widespread than it is?  Sure, if you want to take the Darwinism angle, which atheists absolutely love, they’ll tell you that instinctually we have drives to reproduce, blah blah blah, and that gives us false optimism about our fates so we have the drive to do reproductive things.  Sure, that’s valid.  Let’s assume that God does exist, but I believe that he doesn’t.  I’ve just wasted my life, and probably hurt a whole lot of other people along the way.  Am I going to burn in Hell?  Such a fear has motivated millions of people throughout history.  Well, I err on the side of caution on this one.  I’m going to assume that when I die, I’ll be held accountable for what I’ve done on Earth.  If I’m wrong, then I blink out of existence and what, I missed out on smoking crack?  No skin off my back; I’ll be dead.  But if I’m right, I won’t have anything to answer for because I lived my life responsibly.  Morality for the sake of morality doesn’t drive 99% of humans the same way it doesn’t drive 99% of monkeys, but fear in God will drive at least some of those people (and maybe those monkeys), which is enough to make the world you live in better than it otherwise would be.
3. Someone asked “who created the creator” and Dinesh gave a good answer.  He was trying to say, albeit in a somewhat conviluted way, that our entire notion of existence vs. nonexistence is a concept that God “created” as it were.  Our understanding of creation was in fact a creation of God.  To ask “who created God” doesn’t make sense, because the concept of creation is (possibly) unique to God’s creation.  The analogy I would have used would have been to ask how you would describe a sphere to a circle, or a cube to a rectangle.  The rectangle couldn’t possibly comprehend a 3rd dimension in the same way we can’t really comprehend a 4th (although we like to imagine that we can).  God is outside of our existence, so to ask what came before or after him will only make sense if we are ever allowed to exist in the same frame that God exists, which many theologians suggest is what the afterlife actually is.  We transcend God’s created universe and return to God’s level of existence.
4. Some balding boomer professor got on the microphone and started basically mocking Christianity, which got a rise a bit out of the audience.  I’m so sick of these assholes.  He’s the reason debates like this interest me.  I like to see them derailed.  I took a 100 level history course at UMCP that answered every single one of his questions: “how do you move from there is a God to all of the beliefs of Christianity, such as the story of Jesus, etc, etc.” in a very historical, intellectual way that would have satisfied even someone hell-bent on mocking it.  Christianity is a philosophy and part of why it is so compelling is because it is explained through myths, allegories, and stories.  And they’re really good stories.  People have been questioning whether or not these stories are true for thousands of years – ever since they came around.  And guess what?  It doesn’t matter.  So this dumbass boomer professor just doesn’t get it.  He missed the point entirely, which is probably why he’s gone through life a total asshole.
5. This douchebag thought he was too cool for school when he made another totally unoriginal point in his question.  “Well if every religion has different sets of things you must do or else you’ll go to hell, doesn’t one need to be either an agnostic or an atheist?  LOL!”  The shit-eating grin on his face as he dropped this bomb on Dinesh and the almost-giddy inflexion he spouted as he thought to himself, “I’ve got him now… aren’t I clever?!  I bet he’s never thought of this one before!” was enough to inspire me to screenshot it so I could publicly mock this kid.  He also sounds like a total homo.  Dinesh totally owned him: you’re suggesting that since these religions have different demands and, according to you, they can’t all be right, rather than choose one of them, you’ll choose none of them.  Good job Dinesh.
6. Another kid said, “oh, well, since God is outside our realm of existence it’s too easy to use him as a fallback on every thing.  God works in mysterious ways?  Give me a break!”  I said it more eloquently than he did.  That’s the point.  If you understand why Christianity gained so much steam in the era it did (Rome), you’ll know that it is because God is intangible and impossible to rationalize that he is God.  The Romans gave up their very tangible gods from their day who they very sincerely believed lived on Mt. Olympous and threw lightning bolts and seduced women in the form of white bulls.  Those gods obeyed the same kind of physical laws of mankind, they just had magical powers.  In this frame of thinking, all you would need is a time machine and an iPod and you’d be declared a god in pagan Rome.  If, however, men from the future came to us today with equally amazing technology, Christians would never think of him as God because God “doesn’t exist in the same universe that we do.”  I think Tertulian said it best: “God is at once Father, Son, and Holy Spirit not because it is possible or logical but exactly the opposite – God is one being and three beings because it can’t be explained.”  Christianity is about faith – believing something even in light of a total lack of evidence which academic types like Dennett use to demean it but the truth is, they just don’t understand why faith is appealing.  It goes against everything they learn and all the tools they use to do their jobs every day.  When your God is science, of course you don’t believe  in Christ.
7. Dennett called religion as a “nurse crop” – meaning that religion is a baseline for teaching us how to be moral but now we’ve progressed to the point where we don’t need it anymore.  In other words, he tipped his hand in a major way.  There it is – he’s a progressive, which is why he’s an atheist.  He believes that we must progress, which means abandoning the past for the sake of progressing.  And I think in this case, the argument against “progressivism” is never clearer than now.  Sure, religion paved the way for moral society, but let’s do away with it.  I’m going to reap the benefits of all that religion has done to build our civilization while simultaneously waging a crusade against it simply because it’s what people used to do and if we do it their way we haven’t progressed.  Dinesh calls Dennett on his bullshit.  Good work.
8. Dennett is asked: “Sir, what if you’re wrong?”  He didn’t answer, except to say that the religions community instructs its members never to ask that question and he wishes they would, but he didn’t answer it.  The girl tried to persist but the moderator wouldn’t let her.  It’s too hard for Dennett (or anyone else) to say, “well, if I’m wrong, I’ll see you in hell.”  I think he’d have garnered some respect and credibility if he had courage behind is conviction.  But the truth of the matter is that he is so convinced that he refuses to accept the fact that he might be wrong.  So right is he, and so impossible will it ever be to prove him a liar, that he doesn’t need to answer that question.  I suppose questions that can never be settled are very safe positions upon which to base your career as a published and tenured professor.

Stylistically, Dennett came off as a condescending, pompous academic, and Dinesh sounded like he was speaking at a church revival.  He really sounded like an evangelical.  I had to turn the volume down because he was yelling.  Had he hollered “Praise Jesus!” after every point, I doubt any eyes would have batted.  He calmed down considerably during the Q&A but you could definitely tell when he’s getting fired up.

Winner: D’Souza, again.  He always wins these debates not because he’s a great debater (although he is), but because the other side’s position is just so weak.  Religion offers the good, the bad, and the ugly.  The question you should ask yourself is whether the good is worth the bad and the ugly.  Atheism, however, offers nothing.  Nothing good, anyway.  Which one are you going to choose?

If you can’t take the heat, stay out of the kitchen

A somewhat riveting conversation insued following Irina’s post about the lack of masculinity displayed by American men these days.

I suggested that the feminists reap what they sowed, illustrated by sharing an anecdote about how I was chewed out as a child for suggesting that women were not strong enough to troll through the jungle carrying heavy packs.

I wasn’t particularly surprised to get one of those Rosie Riveter responses from a lady cadet.  I also wasn’t surprised by the content of the response.  “Yes we can, blah blah blah.  I swim faster than boys lol!”

It’s amazing to me how human beings are so capable of selectively choosing what to believe.  Even when we’re swimming in a sea of evidence to the contrary, we are still capable of believing something completely false.  I believe this is a survival mechanism.

Look, if human beings had the tendency to analyze their own capabilities objectively, we would be demotivated or depressed most of the time.  If we had an ability to objectively categorize our weaknesses, we’d never get anything done.

I believe army girl’s arguments are a classic example of selectively filtering out truth to keep herself motivated to continue whatever pursuits she has laid out for herself.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, except when she attempts to disagree with me when I state a prevailing and undisputed truth.

I was right when I was 12 and I’m still right.

“Marine men must do 20 pull-ups, 100 sit-ups and run three miles in 18 minutes. Women Marines must hold the flexed-arm hang for 70 seconds, do 100 sit-ups and run three miles in 21 minutes.”

In other words, they don’t have to do a single pull-up.  I’m not even going to bother going on.  I’m not even going to bother entertaining a debate about the issue.  Even female soldiers, who I think we should all agree are in the top echelon of physical prowess among females second only to professional athletes or fitness trainers, are not required to be able to perform basic strength exercises because they simply can’t do it.  There’s no one to blame.  There’s no reason to get your panties in a bunch.  We are biological entities and we are what we are.

If patriarchal man-domination of the army is to blame, go ahead and hold yourself to the same standards the men do, ala GI Jane.  Maybe Ms. Blog Commenter really can stand up to a man physically.  But I betcha 95% of the girls in the military can’t.  So they fail their physical requirements exams and then sue the army because it’s not EEO.

Haven’t we heard this all before?

This is all distraction from the issue Irina is illustrating and the point I tried to raise.  People read a comment like the one I posted and their knee-jerk reaction is “omg, he hates womyn!!11  he wants them to be little slaves and have no rights!”  Not at all.

I picked that anecdote specifically because it highlights a concept that, based on at least two of the responses posted in direct response to my comment, a good portion of the population is incapable of grasping.  The question of whether women should serve in the military is not a matter of whether they have the right to, it’s whether a woman who can’t meet the military’s physical requirements should be entitled to a separate set of rules which enable to her to pass where she’d otherwise fail.  More to the point, it illustrates a very basic concept that people will claim they understand in one breath and violate in their arguments in the next.

Are women equal to men?  It depends on the method of comparison.

Legally?  Absolutely.  Politically?  Absolutely.  Physically?  Give me a break.

Most adult men can severely injure a woman simply by slugging her in the face.  Most adult men can also hold a woman by her forehead as she swings at the air.  I’m a slightly overweight software developer.  I’m not sure if I could do a pullup and I doubt I could run a mile under 10:00.  But I’d still be able to seriously injure a girl who meets all the army’s physical requirements unless she knows kung-fu, simply by the fact that I weigh twice as much as she does, I’m 6 inches taller than she is, and the sheer kinetic force of my unathletic fist will be enough to break the jaw of a girl who can do a 70 second flexed arm hang.  These are simple biological facts that can’t be ignored, unless you’re a girl trying to join the army or you’re a lawyer suing a government for aleged sexist bias.

Equal rights does not mean equal, and it certainly doesn’t mean same.  Most feminists are too dimwitted (or are unwilling) to reach this conclusion.  So you end up with bitchy liberal teacher like Goebbels suggesting that I live in a cave because I pointed out the fact that most women can’t carry 80 pounds on their backs, and if we attempted to draft women (which is what the discussion was about), too many of them would fail the physical fitness requirements to make it worth the Army’s time.

All of this aside, the line in Lady Cadet’s comment that caught my eye was this one:

“Learn some military history before you get your knickers in a twist about women fighting. “

I will ask only one question to illustrate what a ridiculous statement this is:

In all the history of “fighting” that has taken place in the world, of all the battles, all of the wars, and even of all the petty conflicts in which human begins have engaged since the dawn of time, what percent of the combatants would you say had vaginas?

I wouldn’t expect Lady Cadet to be able to venture any kind of guess that is even remotely accurate.  But all of the examples she listed were modern conflicts, like World War II, in which women were afforded the ability to partake only because men invented killing machines that eliminate a woman’s physical disadvantages, for example, fire arms with triggers.  If a woman can bend her finger she can kill.

But in the grander scheme of things – namely, biology, which is the underlying subject in Irina’s post, to which I was responding – these technological luxuries that blur gender lines even in very manly pursuits like killing each other are all that – luxuries.  The baseline human existence doesn’t include technology, and the baseline human existence is the core from which feelings of attraction emanate.  A girl isn’t attracted to a guy’s Blackberry because of the Blackberry.  She’s attracted to the symbol of wealth – and provisioning – that the Blackberry indicates.  In another place or time she would have just as easily been attracted to a seashell necklace for the same reason.  The ability for females to serve in war is no different.  Possible, because of technology, but impossible at the human level.  Mano a mano, mujer doesn’t stand a chance.

“U.S. female military personnel serve in most areas of the armed forces but are not allowed on submarines and are “precluded from units that engage the enemy on the ground with weapons or that are exposed to hostile fire and have a high possibility of direct physical contact with the enemy.”

Oh, I see.  Women can serve in the army, they just can’t serve in any position in which they are actually engaging the enemy directly.

What was it that you were saying about women and fighting?

I would ask Lady Cadet what it is that she does in the army but it might cause her to lose self esteem when she admits that she does some bit job that a man would normally do only after being seriously injured or if he were physically deformed.

Sitting behind a desk in a well-protected base filling out paperwork in which you have a low possibility of direct physical contact with the enemy doesn’t sound like fighting to me, it sounds like being a secretary.

QED, woman.

This Woman Should Burn in Hell

On the airwaves this week are two crime stories: a crazy gunman in Omaha who shot something like 19 people, and this woman.

Of the two, I am vastly more appalled by that crazy bitch.  What an evil, evil thing to do.

If you don’t feel like reading the article, this woman, whose name I will repeat because it deserves to be defamed as much as possible (Lori Drew), apparently had nothing better to do than to invent the persona of a hip attractive 13 year-old boy who she proceeded to use to psychologically torture an innocent 13 year-old girl who lived on her street.  Why?  We’ll never know.

This woman – a 40 year-old mother of two, no less – e-dated Megan Meier through MySpace.com, for no other reason than to eventually break the girl’s heart by e-dumping her using very nasty language.

She ended the conversation with, “the world would be better off without you.”  20 minutes later Megan hung herself in her closet.

Now she’s whining because her community is shunning her.  In my opinion, this woman got off easy.

I’m not a father yet, but I’m old enough to know without question that had Lori Drew done this to my daughter, no force on heaven or earth would have stopped me from slaughtering this woman.  Note to future crazy 40 year-old women who think it might be a good idea to drive my 13 year-old daughter to suicide: I will choke the life out of you with my bare hands.  You’ve been warned.

Before I go any further, let me ask you what you suppose would have happened if Lori Drew was instead Larry Drew, a 40 year-old father of two who did exactly what Lori Drew did, except he has a penis. 

The news isn’t particularly clear about why Lori Drew is not being prosecuted for this attrocity.  I’ve been watching a lot of Law and Order re-runs and I can say with certainty that if Jack McCoy were district attorney, he would have charged her with depraved indifference.  Does he have evidence?  Not really.  Does he have a jury willing to convict?  Maybe, maybe not.

But I’ll bet you if Larry Drew were on trial, the jurors wouldn’t think twice about stringing this guy up by his balls, evidence or no.

The crazy kid in Omaha was just that: crazy.  From what I understand he has been under treatment for various psychological problems.  He’s only 19.  Maybe he’s schizophrenic and the voices were telling him to go get the gun and shoot people.

This woman was calculating, malicious, and wound up killing an innocent 13 year-old girl.  She formed intent, she executed her ghastly agenda, and Megan is dead because of it.  I hope there’s a special place in hell for women like Lori Drew.

I’m not a court of law.  Lori, you might be innocent.  No hard feelings if you are.  But if you aren’t, I’d strongly recommend atoning in whatever way you possibly can before you finally meet your maker.  I’ve heard Satan is unfriendly.