Random 2:30 A.M. Post

I must be really tired. I'm all depressed and moody. I'm never this way... Anyway, on the upside, I'm finding some awesome songs, like this one. It's called Porcelain by a band called Cauterize, who broke up. Even though I learned it so far after the fact, it kinda made me said, they made good music.



All I'm doing nowadays is whining because my life isn't going the way I want it to. I'm being self-centered and arrogant. "She must be with me because I am so much better then him."

 Doesn't matter what you think, my gigantic friend, she's calling the shots here. You can whine about it in your blog, where she'll most likely read it, and feel bad for making you feel this way. Doesn't matter how you feel, or what you think, or even what you do, her Facebook page still has his face on it, his hands still hold her heart, however unqualified YOU think they might be, and YOU get to sit and whine about how pathetic you are. He gets the most amazing girl in the world, she gets return on her emotional investment. It's win-win. When all you've ever done is lose, another loss should be par for the course.

But it's not. I can't just give up on her. She's my everything. I define myself by what she thinks of me. I just happened to lose the greatest cosmic lottery of all time, and she loved him first... I can't compete. I met her once, it's been less then 36 hours, and I still miss her. And I know she'll read this, and she'll be sad because she's playing havoc with my heart. I am nothing but a drain on her. Maybe I should just leave her alone... that'd solve all of her problems. Maybe not mine, but hey, she's the one that matters.

Loving someone hurts you both eventually.

Today...

was, quite possibly, the best day of my life. This is what I have been waiting for since the Skype call... I'm coming down off an emotional high like you cannot believe, and I might be high on life for a while yet. I am more in love then when I left my house this morning... To talk with her in person, to lay in the grass next to her, to be able to feel her, touch her, know that she is real and not just a dream, or a fantasy... That is what I have wanted for the longest time.

She is so beautiful... her eyes are so... magnetic, I guess is the word. Her touch was electrifying. Her voice is so melodic, and I found myself hanging on every syllable that came from those lips...

I'd do anything for her... I'd give anything to hold her... and all I can do is hope that someday I can...

I'M SO EXCITED

That I just can't hide it! She's coming to Tonasket! I get to see her tomorrow! :D I have no idea what's gonna go down, but with me and Rowan together, it can't be too good! XD Check back here for all the action!

SCHOOL!

I just checked out my locker for my senior year yesterday... It's really a head rush. When you go into High School freshman year, it seems like you will never get out. And when you are finally on your last year, about to graduate, it's just like WOW.

We just switched form a five-block day to a seven-period day, and my schedule is

First: Horticulture
Second: Trig/Pre Calc
Third: A.P. English 12
Fourth: Lifetime Sports
Fifth: Current World Problems (CWP)/Government
Sixth: Traditional Art A

And advisory fits in there somewhere, and it's period 7 (0 on the scheduling website)

So I will have a lot of homework from A.P. English and Trig, and maybe my history class, and the other three were to plug periods, and I needed an Ag class to do FFA, and apparently Horticulture is agriculture. Huh.

ANYWHOOZLES, we start on the 31st. By that day next year, I plan to be moving into my apartment in Seattle and getting ready to get my degree in doing what I love. So wish me luck.

Stay Nerdy All

Intellectual fun 3

In Alexander Schmemann’s critique of secularism, he remarked, “It is not the immorality of the crimes of man that reveal him as a fallen being; it is his ‘positive ideal’—religious or secular—and his satisfaction with this ideal.” A common criminal knows that he is a criminal and doesn’t try to rationalize his crimes or cast himself as a benefactor of humanity. But an ideologue, who knows what’s best for humanity and cannot find satisfaction until everyone is on board with his “positive ideal” – with his ideology – such a man can rationalize anything and is truly dangerous.

So, a militant Christian? We knew that already.

Schmemann’s insight captures what’s right and what’s wrong with Christopher Hitchens’ case against religion. Religion can be a problem, yes. Religious people, confident that theirs is the only way to build a better world, have felt it their moral duty to coerce, torture, and kill others. Hitchens sees this clearly. But secularism can be as guilty as religion in this respect. Secularists, confident that theirs is the only way to build a better world, have likewise felt it their moral duty to coerce, torture, and kill others.

No, wrong. Secularists see no reason to coerce, torture, or kill. Sorry, bud.

Nevertheless, Hitchens refuses to admit any parity between religious and secular evil. Recount atrocities committed by religious people, and Hitchens is delighted – yet another nail in the coffin of religion. But mention a person, community, or movement whose atrocities flow from their secular ideals, and Hitchens changes the subject. And to what subject does he change it? Why to religion, of course.

No such thing as evil, just things our society and humanity dictates are bad or counterproductive to our continued propagation. Also, I have never heard of any secular movement with any sort of atrocities. Give me some examples?

For instance, mention Stalin and the millions he killed, and Hitchens will tell you how Stalin started out as a seminarian for the Orthodox priesthood and how Russian Orthodox believers presently make icons of Stalin (complete with halo). Mention the Nazis, the holocaust, and Hitler (Hitler, by the way, likened Christianity to small pox), and Hitchens will regale you with how many SS were churchgoers. Mention North Korea and its crazy communist dictators, and Hitchens will inform you that North Korea is the closest thing he can imagine to the Christian heaven, complete with a holy trinity comprising Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and Kim Jong-un.

Guess what? This is a perfectly honest tactic, because these are all true!

Changing the subject in this way, however, doesn’t change the fact that secularism can be just as ideologically driven as religion. The irony is that Hitchens’ own atheist crusade is itself ideologically driven. The subtitle of Hitchens’ book reads How Religion Poisons Everything. Gripped by the idea that religion poisons everything, he cannot allow that religious people, precisely because of their religion, might do good. Hitchens takes this idea to ridiculous extremes in his attack on Mother Teresa. In his 1994 BBC documentary Hell’s Angel, in his 1995 book The Missionary Position, and briefly in God Is Not Great, Hitchens portrays her as a self-serving hypocrite.

I seem to doubt he ever really says that religious people can't do good. Given your track record, I'd say how about we ignore anything you have to say about what HE said, and let HIM say it.

In the audience today is my good friend Mary Poplin, a professor at Claremont. She was in Calcutta with Mother Teresa when Hitchens came out with his book against her. Recently, Poplin published Finding Calcutta, in which she recounts her time with Mother Teresa. Poplin writes:

“Hitchens also accused Mother [Teresa] of receiving the best in health care when it was not available to the poor. However, I took an offer to her from a colleague’s brother, who was involved in developing a new pacemaker, to replace her old pacemaker with the new and improved one. She said she could not accept it, but she would accept it for the poor. She [also] refused another medical offer … When I called and repeated these offers upon her becoming more ill a few months after I left, she again refused and asked for prayers instead. My impression is that she mostly received good health care when she was too ill to fight it.”

I still don't see how this ties to Atheism in general. This might just be HITCHENS'S view. Ever think of that? Also, this isn't an argument, this is an ad hominem attack.

So there you have it. His entire argument for the entire debate. I think we can declare Hitchens the victor, even though we haven't heard or seen his arguments, just because his opponent failed so spectacularly. If I find some more stuff, I'll post it and pwn it.

Stay Nerdy All!

Intellectual fun 2

The Goodness of God

Last time up, I argued that God exists. The next order of business is to establish God’s goodness. It’s here that Hitchens mounts his loudest attack against religious people and against God himself. His motto in such attacks is heads-I-win-tails-you-lose. Thus, if religious people behave badly, that counts against God. On the other hand, if they behave well, that means nothing because non-religious people can also behave well.

Yep. God says to act good, but I have no God, and I act good.

In establishing God’s goodness, let’s therefore first level the playing field. The sixth century Christian philosopher Boethius helps us here. In his Consolation of Philosophy, Boethius states the following paradox: “If God exists, whence evil? But whence good, if God does not exist?” Boethius contrasts the problem that evil poses for  theism with the problem that good poses for atheism. The problem of good does not receive nearly as much attention as the problem of evil, but it is the more basic problem. That’s because evil always presupposes a good that has been subverted. All our words for evil make this plain: the New Testament word for sin (Greek hamartia) presupposes a target that’s been missed; deviation presupposes a way (Latin via) from which we’ve departed; injustice presupposes justice; etc.

There is no such thing as good or evil, at least objectively. There is what our culture or basic humanity deems to be evil. Also brings up a paradox I'm not willing to go into, Does God command something because it is good, or are God's commands good because they are commanded by God?

So let’s ask, who’s got the worse problem, the theist or the atheist? Start with the theist. God is the source of all being and purpose. Given God’s existence, what sense does it make to deny God’s goodness? None. Indeed, denying God’s goodness is logically and rationally incoherent – it’s absurd. To see this, consider what it would mean to assert that God is not good. Presumably this would mean that God violated some moral standard. Whose moral standard? One devised by Christopher Hitchens? God owes Hitchens nothing.

Wow, assume much? I have purpose and being and there is no God, so... You lose. 

To say that God is not good must therefore mean that God has violated an objective moral standard. But since God is the source of all being and purpose, any such objective moral standard cannot reside outside God. If it did, how could it be objective, much less command God’s obedience? Such a standard must therefore derive from God himself. But in that case, how can God violate it? God is the standard.

Does God command things because they are good, or are God's commands good because they are commanded by God?

God’s goodness follows as a matter of definition once God’s existence is taken for granted. This may seem like a cheat, but it’s not. The problem of evil still confronts theists, though not as a logical or philosophical problem, but instead as a psychological and existential one. The problem of evil can therefore be reformulated as the following argument:

Premise 1: Since God is good, he wants to destroy evil.

Premise 2: Since God is all-powerful, he can destroy evil.

Premise 3: Evil is not yet destroyed.

Conclusion: Therefore God will eventually destroy evil.

He knows everything, why did He let evil exist at all?

As time-bound creatures, our problem here is with the word “eventually.” We want to see evil destroyed right now. And because we don’t see it destroyed right now, and thus experience the suffering that evil invariably inflicts, we are tempted to doubt God’s existence and goodness. Our challenge, therefore, is to continue trusting God until evil is destroyed. Hitchens’ long litany of evils, especially those committed in the name of religion, is designed to derail our trust in God’s goodness by getting us to think that if God were really good, he would have taken care of evil by now.

He would have. Simple as that. he would have not let evil come into being at all.

God’s goodness in face of the world’s evil is, as Boethius noted, a problem. It’s not an insuperable problem, but neither is it a trivial one. By contrast, the problem of good in the face of God’s non-existence (the other half of Boethius’s paradox) is, I submit, insuperable.

No objective morality. No God. You lose.

The problem of good as it faces the atheist is this: nature, which is nuts-and-bolts reality for the atheist, has no values and thus can offer no grounding for good and evil. As nineteenth century freethinker Robert Green Ingersoll used to say, “In nature there are neither rewards nor punishments. There are consequences.” More recently, Richard Dawkins made the same point: “The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference.”

AND IT DOES. YOU ASSUME GOD EXISTS. IF HE DOESN'T, YOUR ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

Values, on the atheist view, are subjective and contingent. They reflect inclinations to behave and feel in certain ways given the conditions of survival and reproduction under which our ancestors evolved and the social conditions under which we’ve been reared. Hitchens speaks of moral values as being innate and waxes indignant when they are violated.  But on atheist principles, what is the force of morality and what justifies such indignation?

You just said it, you ignorant, arrogant asshole.

Hitchens, for instance, is incensed with religious communities that practice female genital mutilation. So am I.  But without an objective moral standard, which atheism cannot deliver, Hitchens himself is at bottom a complicated piece of matter that evolutionary and social conditioning have inclined to react in certain ways to certain behaviors – in particular, he reacts quite negatively to female genital mutilation.

Yep. Exactly.

The religious communities that engage in this practice, however, are quite content to continue it. Moreover, on atheistic principles, they have the better argument, for they are surviving and reproducing quite nicely, indeed, outreproducing the secular West. On atheist principles, morality is, as Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson note, “an illusion fobbed off by our genes to get us to cooperate.” This statement by Ruse and Wilson is very widely quoted, but too often the punch line gets omitted, which is this: “[Morality] is illusory inasmuch as it persuades us that it has an objective reference.”

So, you just said that morality is entirely subjective. Thank you for agreeing with me.

That’s the kicker. Christopher Hitchens is morally earnest. So is the female genital mutilation community. Try to convince either that they’re wrong, and get into the fight of your life. But their passionate moral convictions, on atheist principles, merely show that they’ve fooled themselves into thinking that morality is objective and thus universally binding. No, on atheist principles, all that’s going on is one group of material objects (Enlightenment rationalists like Christopher Hitchens) inclined to one set of behaviors, and another group of material objects (female genital mutilators) inclined to another set of behaviors.

Yep.

Just to be clear, I’m not saying that atheists can’t act morally or have moral knowledge. But when I ascribe virtue to an atheist, it’s as a theist who sees the atheist as conforming to objective moral values. The atheist, by contrast, has no such basis for morality. And yet all moral judgments require a basis for morality, some standard of right and wrong. So the atheist is cheating whenever he makes a moral judgment, acting as though it has an objective reference, when in fact none exists.

But perhaps such cheating is inconsequential. The American pragmatist philosopher C. S. Peirce held that for a difference to be a difference it has to make a difference. Christopher Hitchens claims that atheists can behave just as morally as theists (in fact, he claims they will behave better than theists because religion poisons everything). At the end of his book, he therefore poses the following question: “Name an ethical statement or action, made or performed by a person of faith, that could not have been made or performed by a nonbeliever. I have since asked this question at every stop and haven’t had a reply yet.”  

But Hitchens has posed the wrong question. Since God exists and has created us, we all have moral knowledge built into us by God and thus are capable of performing the same ethical actions. Hitchens’ question therefore answers itself. A far more interesting question would have been this: “Given a moral action, what is the profile of those who engage or refrain from engaging in it, and do religious as well as anti-religious factors play a significant role?”

Consider eugenics, euthanasia, and abortion. Those who oppose these actions are largely people of faith. They see humanity as made in God’s image and therefore human life as sacred. Accordingly, it would be a profanation for them to engage in eugenics, euthanasia, or abortion. Conversely, those who embrace these actions are largely anti-religious secularists. They see humans as evolved mammals, pieces of complicated matter in motion, with no transcendent value. Obviously, then, theism and atheism have profoundly different moral consequences. Here is a difference that makes a difference. At the heart of this difference is the existence and goodness of God.

YOU ASSUME GOD EXISTS. SINCE YOU HAVE YET TO PROVE IT, I DISMISS THIS ENTIRE PAPER AS INVALID.

Just having some intellectual fun

So there's this ID (Intelligent Design) supporter, and he debated Christopher Hitchens. He wrote out his opening arguments, this one trying to prove the existence of God. I have not seen Mr. Hitchens's rebuttals, nor have i watched the debate. I would just like to try and refute some of it myself, for fun. This is gonna be long, so if you don't wanna read it, you don't have to, I won't be offended.

Does a Good God Exist? – A Debate with Christopher Hitchens

William A. Dembski

The Existence of God

Good morning and thanks for this opportunity to debate the existence and goodness of God. I’ll start by addressing God’s existence and then turn to God’s goodness. God’s existence is the weightier question – once that’s settled, God’s goodness follows straightforwardly.

Not necessarily. Just because you can prove He exists, doesn't mean you can prove he is not a douche.

Although I could rehearse standard arguments for God’s existence, I want in this debate to take a different tack. Christopher Hitchens disbelieves in God’s existence. Why? Lack of evidence and evils perpetrated in the name of religion, he says. Yet his book God Is Not Great reveals a more basic reason. Hitchens, as a scientific reductionist, believes science has given us new knowledge that destroys religious faith. What is this new knowledge? According to Hitchens, it is Darwinian evolution.

Actually, Darwinian evolution died out a while ago. He had no idea what DNA, genes, or even CELLS were when he wrote his theory. We use a modern theory of evolution, because we now understand the mechanisms by which traits are passed on. Even so, it does destroy religious faith, because the Bible clearly says God CREATED the animals and man within a few days.

You may ask what a chapter on evolution is doing in a book defending atheism. (Not really, no.) At the end of that chapter, Hitchens explains: “We no longer have any need of a god to explain what is no longer mysterious.” Let this sink in. Religion, according to Hitchens, renders biological origins mysterious. But now that Darwin has come and shown how natural selection explains biological origins, all is clear. Fellow atheist Richard Dawkins puts it more memorably: “Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist.”

No, religion does not render biological origins mysterious, the religious story was created by more primitive men to explain how there is such diversity in the world. It does not "render" origins mysterious, its reason for existence was BECAUSE biological origins were mysterious.

It’s no coincidence that Richard Dawkins, the world’s best known atheist, is also an evolutionary biologist. Atheists, like everyone else, need a creation story. Without God in the picture, something like Darwinian evolution has to be true. And so Hitchens, though a humanities guy, lectures his readers on proofs of evolution. Let’s look at a few of these proofs as he gives them.

See, now here, you are committing academic dishonesty. "Atheists... need a CREATION story." No, we need an explanation as to how we got here, without resorting to myths or supernatural intervention. We are here. There has to be a mechanism, duh. But we weren't created. Hence, it is not a creation story.

(1) “Junk DNA.” If Darwin got it right, then our genes are cobbled together over a long evolutionary history, accumulating lots of useless DNA (junk) because it’s easier for natural selection to keep copying such junk rather than edit it out. This sounds plausible, but it is subject to experimental test. In fact, recent findings show that much of this so-called junk DNA regulates gene expression. This is true even of repetitive DNA, the quintessential DNA junk. A forthcoming book titled The Myth of Junk DNA details these findings.

*BUZZER* Wrong. It is not "easier" to copy it then to edit it out, if there is no pressure to remove it, it won't be removed. Notice his use of the word "much." Not all. Hence, the hypothesis (not sure whether or not it's a theory) is still very plausible. Oh boy, there's a book coming out that explains it all?! Are its findings peer-reviewed and published in any scientific journal?!!! Oh, no? Huh. Not worth my time then.

(2) “The Cambrian explosion.” This refers to a narrow slice of the fossil record in which all the main animal body plans appear suddenly without precursors. The Cambrian explosion was a mystery in Darwin’s day and remains a mystery to this day. Paleontologist Peter Ward writes about the Cambrian explosion:

“The seemingly sudden appearance of skeletonized life has been one of the most perplexing puzzles of the fossil record. How is it that animals as complex as trilobites and brachiopods could spring forth so suddenly, completely formed, without a trace of their ancestors in the underlying strata? If ever there was evidence suggesting Divine Creation, surely the Precambrian and Cambrian transition, known from numerous localities across the face of the earth, is it.”

Ward, like Hitchens, is an atheist, so he tries to soften this statement later. But the mystery remains. For more on the Cambrian explosion, see my book The Design of Life.

Ok, you got me, it's a mystery. Also, look, more intellectual dishonesty, by quote mining. *Yawn* Can we get a new tactic, please? Be original. And also, again, are your findings peer-reviewed? No? Not worth my time.

(3) “The inverted retina.” Vertebrate eyes have nerve cells in front of the light-sensitive retinal cells. This means that light first has to pass through a barrier before being detected. This seems counterintuitive, but there are good functional reasons for it. A visual system needs three things: speed, resolution, and above all sensitivity – if the eye isn’t sensing light, it’s useless. Now, it turns out that light-sensitive cells are the most oxygen-greedy cells, and they get their oxygen from blood. The sensitivity here is truly astounding – some frog eyes can sense the smallest unit of light (the photon). Positioning the nerves in front of the light-sensitive retinal cells ensures maximal blood supply to the retina and thus maximal sensitivity.

Can't argue with you there, but you bring up an interesting point. We are God's favorite creatures, right? I mean, we are in His image, after all. Why can't WE sense the photon? That would sure as hell be pretty useful. Why is a frog better then us?

But the story gets better. In 2007 it was reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that Müller glial cells act as optical fibers conveying light to the retina. As the abstract to this article notes,

“Their parallel array in the retina is reminiscent of fiberoptic plates used for low-distortion image transfer. Thus, Müller cells seem to mediate the image transfer through the vertebrate retina with minimal distortion and low loss. This finding elucidates a fundamental feature of the inverted retina as an optical system and ascribes a new function to glial cells.”

So the vertebrate eye is much more sophisticated than Darwinists, on their low view of design, suspected. And thanks to these Müller glial cells, the eye’s resolution is magnificent.

I don't see what you are getting at here. This is how the eye works, GOD DID IT EVOLUTION SUCKS! What the hell, man?

The problems with Hitchens’ proofs of evolution don’t end here. All his proofs are easily deconstructed (I’m happy to do so during the Q&A – I have his book with me). Hitchens is obsessed with the human eye (the same eye that has allowed him to read and educate himself as an atheist). Observing different types of eyes in nature, he repeats the chestnut that natural selection gradually turned a light-sensitive spot into a full-fledged camera eye. No mention that eyes have to be built in embryological development or that eyes are only as good as their associated neural processing. No details about the genetic changes that would be needed to effect such a transformation.

Do you know why he used human eyes to educate himself? BECAUSE HE WAS BORN WITH THEM. Hell, if he or I had the choice of better eyes, I'm PRETTY sure we would both take it. And as for his "no mentions," he was trying to be brief. There are scientific books three times as long as his book, and they kind of scratch the surface of how the rest of it works. Go read one of them, I'm sure HE has.

To really make the case, Hitchens cites Dan Nilsson and Susanne Pelger’s mathematical model of eye evolution, which he claims shows that eyes could evolve in a geological instant. Let me tell you a secret about mathematical models and computer simulations – unless you tether them to real observable processes, you can use them to prove anything, in which case they prove nothing. The model of Nilsson and Pelger, which Hitchens praises loudly, is of this sort. I can write a computer simulation that evolves Richard Nixon into Christopher Hitchens (that’s a scary thought). Such simulations prove nothing.

I need to turn off my INTELLECTUAL DISHONESTY ALERT alarm, it's going crazier with every new paragraph. Ok, show us how putting pairs of people together, and the resulting genetic modifications, could someday produce someone who looks EXACTLY like Hitchens. I anticipate it greatly.

I know what you’re all thinking. Since the evidence for evolution is so underwhelming and since Hitchens has hitched his wagon to evolution, shouldn’t he now be ready to abandon evolution and reconsider theism? Yet this is precisely what he will not do. His atheism demands a materialistic form of evolution, and there’s only one going theory of it, namely Darwinism. The alternative, which places us here as the result of design, is for him unthinkable.

No, the evidence for evolution is OVERWHELMING, and the evidence for YOUR position is NON-EXISTENT. Atheism demands a NATURAL, PROVABLE theory, and the only thing that has any basis in fact is EVOLUTION. Quit calling it Darwinism, I shot that down a while ago. And no, it isn't unthinkable, you just haven't given us ANY real evidence for your position, therefore we stay intellectually honest to ourselves and refuse to entertain it until you provide such evidence.

In regarding design as unthinkable, Hitchens puts himself in an atheist straitjacket. For the atheist, we must be here as the result of a blind, purposeless evolutionary process – there are no other options. Atheism demands evolution. For the theist, on the other hand, it’s possible that God used an evolutionary process to deposit us here; but it’s also possible that God deposited us here in ways that make his design evident. Either of these are live options for the theist, and the theist can consider them fairly. Atheism, however, cannot live without Darwin.

Guess what, that is EXACTLY what happened. Sorry to make you think you're not special in some grand, Godly plan, but you aren't. Also, Atheism could live without Darwin, we would just have to work harder at INTELLECTUALLY disproving God, instead of scientifically. Also, you don't consider both options fairly, because you are basically saying either "God loves us and made us exactly like him," (which feels better) or "God put a bacteria on the Earth and over BILLIONS of years, it became us (Which is actually supported by some evidence, but makes you MUCH less special.) We all know which one YOU'RE choosing.

Hitchens needs evolution to be true. His treatment of it is therefore calm and deferential (albeit mistaken). By contrast, his treatment of theology and biblical studies is boorish and obtuse. For instance, Hitchens dismisses Israel’s time in Egypt and Sinai as myths lacking all archeological evidence. Yet that evidence is readily available. Take, for instance, James Hoffmeier’s books on the topic, published by that flaming fundamentalist publisher … Oxford University Press. Or consider Hitchens’ view of Jesus. There is, according to him, “little or no evidence for the life of Jesus.” Come again? It’s one thing to deny the miracles attributed to Jesus. But to say, as Hitchens does, that Jesus is “not a historical figure” is contrarian silliness.

Oh, so a guy published a book, oops, we were wrong, sorry. And also, I will say what countless Atheists have said before, "THE ONLY EVIDENCE THAT JESUS ACTUALLY EXISTED IS IN THE BIBLE AND THE BIBLE CANNOT BE USED AS EVIDENCE SINCE IT HAS BEEN PROVEN TO BE WRONG MULTIPLE TIMES ON A MULTITUDE OF SUBJECTS."

For all his talk about freedom of inquiry and Enlightenment rationality, Hitchens exhibits a very selective concern for truth. What seems to matter most to him is not whether a claim is true but whether it makes a good stick to beat religion. Deny that Jesus was real? If it helps advance the atheist agenda, go for it, especially since it’s easy to get away with in an age of theological illiteracy.

No, he follows the evidence, which is what any logical person would do. Also, say Jesus exists? If it helps advance the Christian agenda, go for it, especially since it's easy to get away with when the majority of people were indoctrinated with it when they were young.

Whenever Hitchens invokes science against religion, one gets the impression that a juggernaut is rushing forward, crushing everything in its path. Science advances, religion retreats. This is wishful thinking. The fact is, as any historian of science understands, science is not a cumulative enterprise, so reversals, retractions, and revolutions play as much a role in science as insights, illuminations, and intellectual breakthroughs. Thus, new scientific advances, far from undercutting religion, can in fact overturn antitheistic conclusions derived from prior scientific mistakes.

We all understand that, bud. And yes, they could, in fact, overturn antitheistic conclusions, but guess what? They haven't yet.

Chemical evolution is a case in point. Chemical evolution attempts to describe how non-living chemicals arranged themselves into first life. Atheism requires that chemicals have this ability. Darwin attempted to strengthen the atheists’ hand by arguing that first life was so simple that it required no designer. Darwin’s argument (made in a letter to Joseph Hooker) has since shown itself to be a failed argument from ignorance. Precisely because of what Darwin didn’t know about the complexity of the cell, microscopy being quite limited in the mid 1800s, he thought the cell was so simple that it could easily self-assemble from ordinary non-living matter.

Wrong. That's abiogenesis, not any sort of evolution. Quit beating on Darwin, he's dead, and yes, he was ignorant, but guess what? He gave us the idea, and we use a lot of his points, but we don't use Darwin anymore.

The revolution in molecular biology of the last fifty years has given the lie to this misconception. We now know that every cell (and all life is composed of cells) is a vastly complicated assembly of interconnected technologies that argue for intelligent design. We need to be engineers to understand what’s inside the cell, and the level of engineering we find there far exceeds anything humans have invented. If you want to see what I’m talking about, call up YouTube on your PDA and punch in “inner life of the cell.”

So now he's saying that just because something is complicated, it argues for intelligent design? Oh, okay. We know how the eye evolved, hat shot you down a while back, so no, we could easily argue the evolution of the cell.

I just mentioned what for Hitchens is a dirty word – “intelligent design.” For Hitchens, intelligent design, or ID, is just rebranded creationism. It is religion and not science. But in fact, intelligent design covers a broad range of special sciences, including forensic science, archeology, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (or SETI). Intelligent design, by definition, is the study of patterns in nature best explained as the product of intelligence. It is a basic feature of human rationality to identify the products of intelligence and distinguish them from the products of natural forces. Many special sciences capitalize on this distinction.

It IS just rebranded creationism. Exactly, Humans tend to think that because something is complicated, it is the result of intelligence. Humans also used to think that demons caused fevers. Can you REALLY trust human instincts?

In 1998, I published a statistical monograph with Cambridge University Press titled The Design Inference. In it I laid out a probabilistic method for drawing this distinction between design and accident. Essentially, this method triangulates on design by identifying independently given patterns, known as specifications, that are complex in the sense of being hard to reproduce by chance. Accordingly, the method identifies what has come to be called specified complexity. In The Design Inference I showed how this method applies outside biology. In subsequent work, when my colleagues and I started applying this method of design detection specifically to biology, we found that Darwinian evolution came up short and that ample evidence supported design. For a nice summary, see Stephen Meyer’sSignature in the Cell.

Is it peer-reviewed? Is it published in a scientific journal?

Just as getting from Darwinian evolution to atheism is not a big stretch, so getting from design in biology to theism is not a big stretch. Are we therefore ready to agree that God exists now that we’ve seen Hitchens’ proofs of evolution fail, the intelligent design alternative succeeds, that his critiques of theology are self-serving? By itself, my argument establishes a designer behind the universe (a Kantian architect, if you will). For the purposes of this debate, however, I think we’re ready to close escrow.

No, I'm not, because all of those statements are false. And please, do close, I'm tired of your intellectual dishonesty, strawmans, logical fallacies, and all-around ignorance.

Note that the full positive case for God’s existence can and should be fleshed out. Typically, such a case flows from critical reflection on the big questions of life: Why is there something rather than nothing? Where did we come from? Where are we going? Why should we take morality seriously? Why is the world comprehensible to our minds? Why does mathematics, presumably a human invention, have such a precise purchase on physical reality? Each of these questions can, in my view, be answered better within a theistic than atheistic worldview. Thank you.

No, it can't. No, it doesn't. No one cares about your opinions, we have already seen how bullshit they are. I can't believe you would think you had won anything with how badly I have pwned you.

Quote of the Day and explanation

"I no longer knew if Coma White was real or just a side effect" 

-Hidden quote in the lyrics booklet for Marilyn Manson's album "Mechanical Animals" (or so a website says, I don't own the album [yet] so I wouldn't know)

This one requires explanation, and I know it does, because I saw this one WAY back when, and until I understood the concept behind it, I just thought it was a bit of theatrics, a little mystery to intrigue you into listening to the album a little closer. That was before I knew that Mechanical Animals was a concept album, and actually part of a metaphorical/allegorical autobiographical series of concept albums. (Points if you can count the number of AL's in that sentence!)

Anyway, now to why this quote resonates with me so much.

In the continuity of Mechanical Animals, Coma White is a girl, seen while on drugs, that is the main character's (Omega, with a long E) love interest. But, if you really listen to it, and the singer himself has said this, she is a personification of an ideal of perfection, an unobtainable entity that you always pine for and want to make real and tangible, but is always just out of reach.

We all use some sort of drug, sex, drugs, TV, God, and that makes us happy. But this happiness is fleeting, temporary. We believe it liberates us, but it really makes us numb. Mechanical. It takes us to a point where we NEED these things. And we are all trying to get to be this intangible state of perfection, and we keep thinking we're getting close, but really we never will be, and, in actuality, are being taken farther and farther away from it, because our happiness is induced, and temporary, while the need for our "hit" makes us automatons. We are all Mechanical Animals, searching for our Coma White.

PRETTY deep shit, yo. Pass the bong.

RANT on Themes in Artistic Works

I started watching a new anime today called "Hell Girl" and I really liked it. The basic story is someone is doing horrible things to these people (one person stalked an underage girl and sent her weird gifts, and ended up killing her father for getting in his way, one person killed a person's best friend, and blamed him for it, thereby ruining his life.) So, at midnight, you can load a website where you send their name to the aforementioned Hell Girl, named Ai, and she takes their soul to Hell, after what appears to be an attempt to get them to confess their sins, (whether or not this would save them is unclear, no one has confessed thus far.) but on the condition that you accept her deal, which is if you send them to Hell immediately, you damn your own soul to Hell upon your death.  It doesn't matter what they did. I really find this morality interesting, in that, yes, they are horrible bastards, and they deserve every bit of Hell that's coming to them, but can you really damn them without paying the same price?

It started me thinking about why I like the shows, music, movies, etc. I do. I found it has to do with one main thing. THEMES.

Fullmetal Alchemist's main themes are "What is humanity?" the cycle of nature and its irreversability, and sacrifice vs. gain.

Death Note: Absolute power corrupts absolutely, good vs. evil, and the certainty of death.

Hell Girl: Morality.

And those are just animes. What about movies?

Dead Poet's Society: Creativity, and what happens when a creative soul is forced to conform.

Songs?

Her Ghost in the Fog by Cradle of Filth: true love, religious hypocrisy, and vengeance.
Coheed and Cambria's entire discography: Good vs. evil, destiny and its unavoidability, and liberation.
Kamelot's Ariel Saga: Deals with the devil, ultimate truth, and the overcoming of adversity.

Books?

The World According to Garp: The nature of nihilism and the certainty of death.
A Clockwork Orange: True morality, the nature of evil, and forced conformity.

There are other things that make things good, like good writing, composition, and acting, but, in general, I tend to enjoy things that have deep and/or strong themes driving them, even if they aren't totally obvious. Just my little rant.

Self musings

Somehow, I have both HIGH self-esteem and LOW self-esteem. 

Here's what I mean: I will make a complete and total fool out of myself, will just bust loose and have fun, because I could care less what people think of me. On the other hand, I think that I look horrible, on my best days, I'm semi-good looking, but missing all the little things (I have yet to figure out EXACTLY what those are.) that would make me attractive, and on bad days, I'm a fat, ugly nerd with no fashion sense. 

I went to Buckle yesterday, and bought a black Roar button-up shirt with tons of embroidery, with designs in the fabric, slimming, all that good shit, and a black t-shirt from Hot Topic with Al's bloodseal from Fullmetal Alchemist on it in red, and black jeans coming soon. Total Cost: about 200 bucks, give-or-take 20. Ok, I think I look pretty damn good in this get-up. But I've been wondering: Do I think I'm sexy because I honestly think so? Or do I think I look sexy because expensive clothes are automatically good looking?

Also, I am the most arrogant, narcissistic prick you are likely to meet. I am always right, it is always about me, and I have never lost. Everybody must love me, for I am lord of wit and God of charm. However, I immediately jump to the most INSANE conclusions simply based on scant evidence. You don't contact me for two days, and it can't be your phone is broken or something dumb like that, it's I pissed you off and you are now ignoring me. I need no approval from anyone, but yet, I do. I probably shouldn't be admitting this, but once you jump through all the hoops and red tape and make to my inner circle (all of whom have done so so far, I can count on one hand.), you have almost complete control over my emotions, self-esteem, everything. Every little thing you do has an effect on me, somehow, good or bad.

I'm fucked up, insecure, negative, and emotional

I won't be lying when I say I'm F.I.N.E.

I usually hate posting two posts in less then 24 hours, but...

I found this song, and I HAD to post it. It's from a band called I Set My Friends On Fire. It's lyrics are strange, weird, but oddly... insightful, I guess. I really don't know. I thought this song was actually fairly decent.

WARNING: If your volume is above 25%, turn it down to about there, and should you decide it needs to be louder, go up from there. This ALMOST blew out my eardrums over my headphones at 50% MASTER volume. Also, the style of this is a combination Grindcore/crunkcore/screamo/dischord. I add a disclaimer, I wouldn't normally like songs like this, and it's possible I won't once I get my quota of sleep.

REPEAT WARNING: If you enjoy your hearing and/or speakers, turn your shit DOWN.

But anyway, finally here is "But The Nuns Are Watching" by I Set My Friends On Fire.

This is SO True...

This is what I have always been told, and how I see guys act all the time... It's hilarious. But the end kind of gives me hope, because they stop being douches and become nice guys, and the girls love 'em!



Lyrics:

Nice guys finish last
That's why
I'll treat you like trash
It's not what I really want to do
But you only date bad guys
so
I'll give it my best try to
Treat you the way you want me to.

I never open a door, or pull out a chair
You can tell me how your day was, but I don't really care
And if you ever get cold, you'll just have to hack it
Cuz I'd be cold too, if I lent you my jacket
Like WHOA (whoa), you ain't sittin' up front
Front is for the homies, you can sit the trunk
I never answer my phone, whenever you call it
When the waiter brings the bill, I never reach for my wallet


Nice guys finish last
That's why
I'll treat you like trash
It's not what I really want to do
But you only date bad guys
so
I'll give it my best try to
Treat you the way you want me to.

And I'ma beat you in every competition
Goin' out with the girls, you better get my permission
Wait, no, I take that back, you can't go
"House" is on tonight, and that's my favorite show
"Do I look fat in this dress?" Hell yeah, ya do.
Wait, let me speak your language, cows go "Moo!"


Nice guys finish last
That's why
I'll treat you like trash
It's not what I really want to do
But you only date bad guys
so
I'll give it my best try to
Treat you the way you want me to.

But, behind the scenes, she means the world to me
I wanna tell her that she's beautiful, and tell her that she's loved
Let her run when she's scared, show her how much I care
But, that won't win her heart
Becauuuusssssseeeeeeeee


Nice guys finish last
That's why
I'll treat you like trash
It's not what I really want to do
But you only date bad guys
so
I'll give it my best try to
Treat you the way you want me to.
HOE!

So, as you see, the end becomes ironic. Hence, my hope, that maybe, someday, this nice guy will come in the top 5 at least once.

Bleed

Heroin against water, Heroin won
I guess she's happy she found the one
He stuck in his needle, created a need
cut open her heart and watched her bleed
Didn't realize at all what he had
Decided to run with the newest of fads
Left her with me, so I would hope she would stay
then offered her fix and snatched her away
Leaving me stranded and all alone
on an ocean of love with a sinking boat
Leaving me nothing to patch the hole in my heart
Taking all meaning away from my art
Forcing her to live with loving me
I really don't like him, I hope that he sees
That while he created, and now exploits a need
It hurts ME to see her bleed.

My parents

Forced me to get a shit job. I worked an average of 11 hours a day for 2 straight weeks. As soon as I was done, I had to drive an average of 8-9 hours a day cross-country. I get back, and they want me to go back to the job I hate, don't need and didn't want in the first place. Why? "We're footing all your bills, it's time you start footing some of your own." HELLO? Anything I want or have wanted extra besides the bare minimum I have been buying for myself for years now. Video games? My money. Movies? My money. My soon-to-be-yearly trip to Vancouver? My money. iTunes? My money. Cd's? My money. What do they pay for? Electricity, water, and my phone, which is part of my mom's plan anyway. All three of those, my sister uses also. They also pay her an allowance more often then I. Maybe she should foot her bills? I am off school, I want a fucking vacation, not a job. They have really been pissing me off recently. They act like they're treating me like an adult, but they are really treating me like I'm two.

My parents fucking irk me.

Delimma

Ok, over the last little while, I have been coming to terms with the fact that the girl I love is now OFFICIALLY in a relationship with someone, who just so happens to not be me. I think I have managed to fit it into my head that there is now this new wall. And I mean, it's everything she wants, so I, wanting her to have nothing less then everything, must be some semblance of happy for her, and I am. I could not be any happier for anybody then I am for her at this point in time. But that happiness is tempered with the desire to continue HER happiness, however I can. That starts with me. I am, I think, her biggest obstacle in continuing this relationship with the other guy. So I have been trying to figure out how to still be able to talk to her as just a very good friend.

I have yet to figure out how.
I mean, I love her. I do. But I obviously can't say it to her anymore, because she has someone else to do that now. I can't plan for any future with her, because now my chances of even BEING in that future just dropped dramatically. I mean, she was, still is, really, my everything. But what can I do? I have managed, again, to end up in a position that causes most everyone involved some sort of pain, and I have no one to blame, but myself. I have managed, without meaning to, become nothing but a hinderance to myself and the ones I care about.

How do I get myself into this? Love bites.

My Father

My father. He is a Republican. He is also an idiot. He always makes everything a black and white issue. Like today, I brought up national healthcare. It almost IMMEDIATELY became us against them. It's that way with ANY issue, political, moral, or otherwise. Capitalism vs. Socialism. Good Christian Americans vs. Immoral Atheists, Muslims, and/or Commies. Pro-life vs. Child murdering pigs. I have never ONCE EVER heard him consider even the LIGHTEST shade of grey.

I am a first Generation open-minded Atheist democrat. Yay for the educational system.