Welcome to TWIM's homepage, a work in progress presenting various selections from the blog. (LAST UPDATED 02-02-2010)
Do you ever stop in the middle of your day and wonder who or what we are? Where we came from? Where we’re going? Whether there’s some kind of afterlife or reason why we’re here at all, instead of nothing? If you answered "yes" to any of those questions, we've got that much in common already.
Though much of what we discuss here revolves around religion, consciousness, philosophy, epistemology, logic, science, and accountability in the blogosphere, the primary reason I started blogging was to practice. By trade, I'm a writer. That means books, screenplays, teleplays, articles, episodes, web content, contract work, code, or whatever else comes down the tube. Since it is a form of writing that almost requires basic coding skills, blogging is great practice for my livelihood.
A second reason I got into blogging was to test beliefs and ideas: primarily my own, but also those of anyone willing to put them out there. Ours is a crazy world with all sorts of plot twists and turns, and many salesmen of truth. Crooks and suckers are taking and getting taken as we speak. When it comes to (a)theism, it isn’t exactly laundry detergent the Bible's selling. The Bible claims to be God’s revealed word to humanity; that’s a pretty high-stakes claim if you ask me. Actually debating these things affords a way to test one's ideas that simply isn't possible via any other method. Hands down, the blogosphere is a great place to test beliefs and ideas, and to hone one's skills as a debater.
That being said, I want to stress that TWIM isn't just a soapbox for my beliefs. My primary focus is writing and exploring creativity wherever it leads. For the past two years, it's been religion, consciousness, philosophy, epistemology, logic, science, and accountability in the blogosphere, but I draw from other inspirations, too. For example, Illusions Writers Face I and II, Time For Some Change, What's Your Boiling Point, Timmy's Last Nightmare, On Making A Living, Twenty Bucks & A Full Tank Of Gas, Why Campaign Commercials Should Be Regulated, Order & Liberty and Are You An Alligator are each posts that have nothing to do with (a)theism. Thinking too deep too much can be unhealthy, and people need to laugh to relieve the pressures of life. Sometimes I review kids' books like Scuffy the Tugboat. Sometimes I do sarcastic rants about the Joys of Public Assistance. Sometimes I post random photos or links to videos of skateboarding dogs. I try to keep an open mind and follow the muse wherever it leads. Who knows? You might just show up here one day and catch me writing relationship advice or tech articles.
As far as religion is concerned, I'm not an atheist, and would describe myself simply as someone who accepts the Bible. I guess technically this makes me some kind of Christian, but I'm often reluctant to label my beliefs because different people tend to interpret the same things differently. Bertrand Russell touched on this in his essay Why I Am Not A Christian, specifically people's ambiguous and conflicting definitions of the word Christian, which often means something entirely different from one person to the next. It's a scene we see all too often in online discussion: believer A shows up on atheist website B and leaves some comment C that falls somewhere between Cro-magnon man and Stephen Hawking on the intelligence scale. Atheist commenters D - Z then proceed to challenge believer A anywhere from Bill Cosby to Sam Kinison on the respect scale, each according to their own ideas of what A’s belief system actually entails. A few iterations later, the whole thread's a mess and everybody's either insulting or talking past each other.
The virtue of critical thought must replace the vice of thoughtless criticism if we are to succeed in establishing a society of reason, and I guess I'm really looking for what you might call a balance of reason in a world of unreasonable extremes. If you are a believer or at all open to God, I encourage you to not just roll over when some smarty-pants atheist or skeptic unleashes their insults and supposed 'debunking' of your open-mindedness. If you are an atheist, skeptic, or rationalist, I encourage you to entertain the possibility of faith that respects science and reason. You can have faith without becoming an unintellectual, anti-science, reason-fearing proselyte.
I present the following outline to help explain why I'm not an atheist, and if you'll allow me to be so bold, I might even suggest An Important Point In My Religious History as a good place to start.
Introduction: The Epistemic Ground On Which I Stand
In my experience, (a)theist discussion has often revolved around questions of evidence and justification. Most atheists I've come across consider theism unjustified in all forms, and it's common to hear such people assert what they perceive as an objective "lack of evidence" for theistic claims. Generally, I object to all variants of the "lack of evidence" argument primarily because the "lack" reflected in such arguments is an attribute of the agent making them. That some atheist lacks evidence for theism says nothing other than that some atheist lacks evidence for theism. Epistemology could be wittily described as the branch of knowledge that studies knowledge, and I offer the following posts so you might get a better sense of the epistemic ground on which I stand.
iA. MiracleQuest — An ongoing series exploring the degree of reliability we can reasonably attribute to miracle claims. I am currently of the position that it is impossible to prove whether a particular deity was the source of any unexplained event. I say the best a believer can hope for is the skeptic's concession that a given event cannot be explained and may or may not be consistent with theistic claims. As with ontological arguments, I cannot conceive of a fact that would be sufficient to prove that a particular deity effected a particular healing. Even if such an event were personally witnessed, skeptic could always appeal to neurological misfire as the source of the odd intrusion into reality.
How Would You Define A Miracle? — Are any skeptics or atheists willing to accept one or more isolated events as sufficient? There are at least two positions, those who would accept even one sufficiently corroborated miracle, and those who would only accept repeatable miracles. Do you fall into either one of these positions? Something else? How would you specifically define a miracle, and would an isolated instance persuade you to recant or at least honestly doubt your atheism, or would you need something more?
How Would You Define A Miracle, Redux How do we reasonably discern between the natural and the supernatural? I believe we need to trash both terms and start again. Humans used to think lightning and fire were supernatural. To say that something is "clearly contrary to the laws of nature" is not meaningful in assessments of causality. To continue the Waldo analogy, (a)theists can agree as to what Waldo looks like such that we can identify him in a crowd. What we need is a definition of miracle that shares this luxury.
iB. Reason vs. Apologetics: Proof of God's Existence — The atheist blogger jim offers a thought experiment titled Proof of God's Existence to explore the epistemic parameters of what he calls "common sense inquiry."
Proof of God's Existence, I: Trip to the Hypothetical Fish Farm — I introduce jim's series and identify a key epistemic strategy that often plagues (a)theist discussion: as Descartes realized, a sufficiently talented philosopher can justifiedly deny anything except the existence of his or her own mind. We need some way to circumvent human stubbornness.
Proof of God's Existence, II: When Is Belief Justified? — jim appears to be offering a two-tier criteria for justified belief in any given witness testimony: 1) if nothing in our dealings with the witness(es) would lead us to believe they're trying to deceive us, and 2) if we cannot establish a plausible motive explaining why the witness(es) would deceive us, then belief in their testimony is justified.
Proof of God's Existence, III: Why Is That? — I argue that feelings are ontologically distinct from beliefs and do not require justification. The question of why one experiences a given feeling or phenomenon bypasses bickering about justification and gets directly to discussing reality as it is.
Proof of God's Existence, IV: When Is Belief Justified, Redux — We revisit the concept of justified belief, culminating in a provisional definition of, "conservatively-stated beliefs or conclusions that correspond to face value observation and are not sufficiently challenged by anomalous data."
Proof of God's Existence, V: Conservatively Stated Belief — When is suspicion justified? The problem is that nothing requires malicious behavior to appear abnormal, nor does anything require innocent behavior to appear mundane. It remains entirely possible that Mary and Mr. Garcia are conspiring in real estate fraud, and if they were intelligent conspirators, we would expect them to portray an image of "business as usual" to the neighborhood.
Proof of God's Existence, VI: Carol Should Have Partied! — I agree with jim that "psychological reasons" and "ignorance" often impede commonsense inquiry. Where I disagree is with jim's implicit assumption that all theists necessarily reject commonsense inquiry for some reason or another. I counter that scientists are not necessarily immune from epistemological laxity either, and provide a few examples.
Proof of God's Existence, 7: What Is Evidence? — As with many words in the English language, there are several valid meanings of the word evidence, each distinct and relevant to (a)theist discussion. If (a)theists want to get anywhere in their discussions, I say they're obligated to start from common ground.
Asteroids, Cathode Rays & Requisite Knowledge, I — Scientists confirmed the existence of asteroids in the early nineteenth century. If we limit ourselves strictly to the body of data Aristotle had access to in his time, could we have justifiedly believed in the existence of asteroids? If Aristotle were to challenge our assertion of asteroids, what would we have been able to show him as our evidence?
Asteroids, Cathode Rays & Requisite Knowledge, II — We consider the epistemic considerations implicit in providing a meaningful definition of what constitutes valid evidence in the context of real-world scientific application: would you say there was ever any evidence for cathode rays? Or, would you say there was always just evidence for electrons that was being misinterpreted?
Thoughts on the Nature of Evidence — Genuine or conclusive evidence lends well to incontrovertible conclusions. On the contrary, inconclusive evidence cannot reliably sustain incontrovertible conclusions. Several pieces of inconclusive evidence pointing to a conclusion carry greater weight than just one piece.
iC. Getting Science Right — I agree with atheists that many theists show general disdain for sound scientific principle and I cannot help but to refer them to St. Augustine in response: "It is a disgraceful and dangerous thing to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn... If they find a Christian mistaken in a field which they themselves know well and hear him maintaining his foolish opinions, how are they going to believe in the matters concerning the resurrection of the dead, the hope of eternal life and the kingdom of heaven?"
Accordingly, I present the following posts to demonstrate that aside from being a lifelong fan of science, I care enough about my work to earnestly study the subjects that often make appearances in (a)theist discussion.
Popsicles & Sound Science — Stephen J. Gould once commented that orthodoxy can color our interpretation of the facts, and many people subconsciously interpret evidence to prove their desired conclusion. As opposed to conducting research in search of premeditated conclusions, we should make impartial decisions based on the sum total of pertinent evidence.
On Falsifiability: What Exactly Is Pseudoscience Anyways? — In general, any statement can fall into three categories: a statement which is falsifiable, but has not yet been falsified; a statement which is falsifiable, and has been shown to be false; or a statement which is not falsifiable. Empirical data produced by experiment or observation are prerequisite to science. Testability involves falsifiability which requires logical counterexamples.
The Big Bang — Cosmologists of previous centuries understandably supposed that the universe was static, timeless or self-sustaining, and these are all valid hypotheses considering the evidence of the times. From a religious standpoint, there is nothing in scripture which contradicts the idea that all the matter in the universe was once at an ultra-dense, ultra-hot singularity that defies the laws the physics.
Are We Alone In The Universe? — In general, I take a non-committal stance on the question of extraterrestrial life. Like nearly every other question entangled in religion and metaphysics, the question of humanity's role in the universe is inevitably muddied by pop culture, mass ignorance of science and ulterior motive. Part of our belief in aliens and extraterrestrials that does not stem from Hollywood might stem from liberal interpretations of evolutionary theory.
On Homology — Darwin argued that similarities in physical, external parts of different organisms were arrived at through similar embryonic processes, but creatures displaying similarities in skeletal structure do not necessarily keep to their similarities at a genetic level. To me, this suggests that what Darwin viewed as "absolute" homology may be at least partially superficial.
False Arguments #23 & #24: The Sufficiency Of Microevolution Tropes — The creationist or believer who maintains that "macroevolution" is impossible or unproven shows an ignorance of science paralleled only by the atheist or skeptic who maintains that such is untrue because "macroevolution" is just cumulative "microevolution". These are what I call the sufficiency of microevolution tropes, and both of them distort scientific observations.
False Argument #14: Microevolution And Macroevolution Are Creationist Fabrications — That creationists invented these terms to maintain an appearance of scientific validity is simply a baseless claim. The moral of the story is that you never know what new batch of misinformation is on display in the blogosphere, even when it comes from an intellectual giant.
False Argument #3: Appendix Doesn't Seem To Serve A Function — Miller and Levine's statement that the appendix "does not seem to serve a function in digestion today" is an inaccurate and misleading claim. Isaac Asimov's claim that the appendix is useless amounts to words of science fiction. The appendix is a useful feature of human physiology.
Theism: A Foundation Supported By Logic
IA. Aristotle's Argument From Kinesis — Proffers causal infinite regress, self-contained cause or an eternal, unmoved mover in response to the question of why there is something rather than nothing. The Introduction discusses these three options and encourages the reader to side with one or offer alternatives. Presuming the reader is unable to or offer alternatives, Part II argues that a conscious, purposeful Creator is the most parsimonious explanation for explaining the existence of matter, energy, space, time.
IB. Syllogisms — These syllogisms attempt to establish shared premises from which I argue the philosophical superiority of theism.
The Argument From Computer Programming
The Argument From The Superiority Of Knowable Claims
The Spiritual: A Necessary Construct If Theism Is To Survive
The idea that existence transcends or one day will transcend physical barriers underpins theistic religion, and one can very plainly see that without this "other world," the vast majority of the world's religions reduce to myth and metaphor at best. If consciousness is always the result of biology then there are no spiritual beings at all. Life reduces to an arbitrary dance of molecular activity follow by permanent atomic dispersal, and thoughts, emotions and feelings are the mere results of brain activity. There is no free will, and all our decisions become akin to something like unexplainably well-timed forethoughts. This, in essence, are the core principles of what I refer to as cerebro-centric hypothesis (CCH) of consciousness, in which the brain is given ultimate priority as the causal explanation of mind.
IIA. Anomalous Phenomena — At the end of my day, I'm not the least bit interested in securing
acceptance from skeptics. I'm interested in explaining reality as it is, and I offer the following posts as support for modifying conventional theories in both the subjective context of consciousness and the objective world of MEST and whatever else exists. I believe we're within reason to cite anomalous data as valid objections to conventional theories. After all, that's how detectives and scientists work, right? Why is it crucial for investigators to prove Suspect A wasn't where he said he was at the time of the murder? Proving anomalies between reality and what the interrogated says is how good detectives work and when it comes to critical thinking in general, asking the right questions is key. My personal Golden Rule is to avoid the drawing of unwarranted conclusions, and equally avoid the denying of warranted ones.
Anomalous Mental Phenomena I: The Strange Case of Ingo Swann
Anomalous Mental Phenomena II: A Precognitive Reality
Anomalous Mental Phenomena III: Simultaneous Dreaming
Anomalous Mental Phenomena IV: Veridical Dreaming
The Non-Existent Upstairs Neighbors
IIB. Debating Consciousness — I argue the inability of the CCH to explain the full range of observed mental phenomena, and also argue for the superiority of a model of consciousness better described as a spiritual, waveform or holographic that operates relatively irrespective of physical and temporal constraints.
Competing Models Of Consciousness
Emendations Re: Competing Models Of Consciousness
Phenomena / Consciousness Chart
More Attempts At Defining Consciousness
The Tripartite Model Of Consciousness
Meeting Common Objections To Biblical Theism
IIIA. Evil? What Problem? — Also referred to as the Question of Suffering or Epicurean Dilemma, the Problem of Evil is an axiom in philosophical and religious circles which claims the fact of evil existing in our world is incompatible with God as described by most Christians: a God that is at least all-powerful, all-loving and all-knowing, also described as omnipotent, omnibenevolent and omniscient (o^3 or o^4 if omnibenevolence is also considered).
PE/QS vs. O^3 God, I — We introduce the argument and explore the various presuppositions often brought to the table.
PE/QS vs. O^3 God, II: Biblically Justify The O^4 Claim — We address the quality of omnipresence, where as in Pt. I it was overlooked. Such accounts for the '0^3 / 0^4' discrepancy in case you were wondering. Here we rethink the basis for the 0^4 claim by evaluating it against the Bible.
PE/QS vs. O^3 God, III: Did I Violate Omni-Benevolence? — We use an example from everyday life as a thought experiment to determine whether the allowance of suffering for any duration for any reason is a violation of omnibenevolence.
IIIB. Salient Points From Scripture — The following posts attempt to establish clear Biblical goalposts, definitions and criteria pertinent to common (a)theist arguments:
The Masoretic-Greek Hypothesis: Introduction — We start as close to the actual events and oral traditions as possible in attempt to deduce key undercurrents of monotheism, then apply our collective powers of reason to ascertain the set of reasonably permissible predictions.
The Masoretic-Greek Hypothesis: Strategy — The intent is to establish the set of bare-bones, rudimentary statements that a significant majority of monotheists are likely to accept. In this manner - beginning and proceeding by agreement - we can start with the basics then gradually evaluate more nuanced statements, allowing us to effectively construct a meaningful and versatile Biblical hypothesis. With the definition of God temporarily aside, I offer "God exists and created the universe for some purpose" as the first logically required premise of the major monotheist traditions.
The MGH Revisited — With the definition of spiritual temporarily aside, I offer "the spiritual realm exists" as the second logically required premise of the major monotheist traditions.
Reason, Intellect, Religion, & Belief — The Bible tells us in plain language that all the intellect and reason a person can summon cannot effect salvation. If that premise is true, then nothing a person can initiate can ever restore themselves or another to a right relationship with God.
IIIC. Philosophical Arguments Against Atheism — I offer the following philosophical arguments as warrant for the philosophical superiority of theism over materialist atheism:
Why Believe In What Can Only Prove False?
Deep South Tragedy: An Analogy For Humanist Ethics
Other Pertinent Posts
The following posts are each pertinent to our ongoing discussion but have yet to be added to the outline:
Inherit The Wind: A Primer For Intellectual Polarization
On Full Disclosure & Knee-Jerk Reactions
On The Doctrines Of Freedom & Individualism
On The Argument From Scientific Foreknowledge
The Triumph Of Natural Explanations
Hello Intuition, Meet Empiricism
Assessing The Value Of Religion
False Argument #12: Atheism Is Scientifically Tenable
Atheism & Theism: Both Logically Flawed
Public Challenge To Atheists: Present Your Best Evidence For God
False Argument #22: The Unicorns, Leprechauns & Flying Spaghetti Monster Trope
False Argument #30, Or, MiracleQuest Continues: The Case Of Kayla Knight, Pt. I
Death And Blind Faith In Everyday Life
