Separation

I keep reading silly comments from atheists about getting the Church out of schools. But the thing they can't get away from is that the Church (in one of its annoying, glorious, strange or otherwise entertaining manifestations) set up those schools in the first place. It is of course true that there are many schools set up by non-Church organisations or the state itself; so why can't the atheists just stop going to Oxbridge and mission schools and parochial schools and suchlike?

It irritates the heck out of me. No sense of history, no sense of gratitude at all.

And yes, those atheists who want to launch diatribes about the evils of historical religion may do so too. I'm not denying that even the Buddhists have fought vicious wars. But at least get it right; deny the WHOLE package and stick to your God-damned (at least that is one of the things some atheists stress) atheist principles by avoiding everything the Church (and her children) has ever done for humanity.

Atheism as a Subset of Religion

Of course, the previous post was also connected to other curious arguments I've been having of late. There are a lot of math and science majors out there with funny ideas.

In one of those arguments, I said that atheism is a subset of religion. A famous atheistic pseudo-argument or joke goes like this: "A monotheist claims that Occam's Razor must reduce the total divinity of a viable religion to one. An atheist merely reduces this number by one."

As an admirer (though not adherent) of Bertrand Russell, I can only say that just as the null set is a subset of all sets, so atheism must be a subset of theism. Since theism is a subset of religion, it follows that atheism must be a subset of religion.

However, many atheists contend that atheism is the logical complement of religion, i.e. not-religion. That's plainly not true — atheism is the '0' to monotheism's '1', you might say, but that doesn't mean 0 and 1 are not both values. Neither belief can be proven uncontroversially to be true, and any 'falsification' argument fails simply because of the fundamental asymmetry between 'yes' and 'no'; 'no' is not 'not-yes'.

So, yes, all these controversies are in the end to be avoided. They waste a lot of effort, as the Good Book says.

Absolutes

Sometimes, there are absolute positions. Sometimes, we have continua or spectra. It's good to see which model works best.

Take, for example, the conceptual leap from 0 to 1. If you were thinking in binary, this is a huge difference. But if you're not, it isn't.

Atheists think of themselves as very different from theists. But the difference is only one small axiom: either you have free will or you don't. By all naturalistic accounts, you cannot have free will, no matter how many intellectual contortions you perform — or what kind. And if you don't have free will, you cannot and should not be held to account for anything. And that includes being an atheist, which then becomes meaningless.

That only leaves supernatural accounts. Now, you need to decide in the realm of positive numbers — any number greater than zero. For some people, any non-zero number will do, including complex numbers.

At this point, some people may receive the epiphany that to hold an inflexibly 'zero' position is the easiest to conceptualise and the hardest to defend. Why should there be a universe at all? Why not nothing, if simplicity and parsimony are universal principles?

These are fun things to think about, to be sure.

Ockhamite Monotheism, or Why I Am A Monotheist

In a frequently-read previous post, I established a simple argument for why I am not an atheist given my beliefs. It isn't a new argument, but it's one that is supported by the converse reasoning of Joel Marks.

His side, of course, is that since God doesn't exist, he should be amoral. It is the same argument, but with a different choice — in my previous post, I said that since I would like to believe in morality, at least one god must exist.

To take that idea one step further, I call upon my interlocutors once again. Most of the friendly discussions I've had with the non-religious, agnostic, or atheistic people I know invoke William of Ockham. That worthy's philosophical principle of reductionism, also known as Ockham's Razor, insists that we should not accept plurality where a reduced set is possible, or that we should not multiply entities beyond necessity. It is a principle used by scientists ever since Newton started pretending to be one.

While it is not necessarily axiomatic, consistent application of Ockham's Razor shows better results in most domains. Hence, if one is going to be a theist, then one should be a monotheist, since any system invoking gods is probably best with one God. The only flaw is that human god-systems tend to be unimaginative — they mostly posit contradictory gods and powers (hence the theomachies and titanomachies of mythology) without allowing for a God capable of complex thinking, behaviour and exercise of will. That's because it seems easier to have gods handle separate domains, something like a celestial bureaucracy or equivalent.

Indirectly, this assumes that consistency must be a virtue derived from perfection, with the ultimate consistency being complete homogeneity. An inconsistent God would, by this argument, have to be more than one god.

Such an assumption seems spurious, since a perfect God or a perfect universe would then be a singularity. This in turn would conflict with other concepts of perfection (such as the idea that a being with the property of existence is of a higher order of perfection than one that doesn't exist, non-existence implying imperfection). It would also conflict with the idea that a god must exert powers, since there would be no differential across which to demonstrate any properties whatsoever, let alone powers.

The point really is that no matter what philosophical and theological convolutions we go through, if we want to be theists, it makes most sense to be monotheists. And creative ones at that.

Talking of Hawking

Tonight, I am in a somewhat Shakespearean mood:

KING HENRY VI
Why, how now, uncle Gloucester!
GLOUCESTER
Talking of hawking; nothing else, my lord.

(From Henry VI Part II, Act 2 Scene 1, a rather apposite passage.)

The discussion on this page has been on my old neighbour's somewhat indiscreet (perhaps deliberately so?) comment on the necessity of God as far as the existence of this universe is concerned. The comments in particular are amusing grist for the student of epistemology. Some outright howlers have been perpetrated, along with ancient chestnuts so hoary as to be dangerous conkers.

Take for example the following supposedly logical argument for the danger of being a theist, presented by a commenter called 'Natman':

1. If you believe in a single God, you will have to choose one out of infinite possible varieties.
   
2. If any percent of the possible gods will punish you eternally, then there are an infinite number of hypothetical gods who, if they exist, would punish you for eternity.
   
3. If there is only one god, then your chance of worshipping it, and not a nonexistent entity instead, is one out of infinity.
   
4. Therefore you will almost surely fail to pick up the correct "One True God".
   
5. So if a god does exist, the chance of you going to any variety of heaven is infinitesimal, regardless of whether you are religious or not.
   

What do you think of this reasoning? Personally, I think that my argument for not being an atheist is better, and certainly more entertaining. In my next post, I will probably discuss why I find Natman's 'logic' so funny, and will link that to why 'integrated programmes' are also very amusing. Cheers!

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Update: I've put some responses to Natman's argument in the comments section. Those are better there than in a separate post of their own.

Postmodernism and the Void

It's fascinating to watch the blind watchmakers at work. Everyday, I see people, I read people, I hear people say very proudly how good it would be if people would just accept that there is no God.

The thing about this is that we think there's meaning. That bugs me. If thinking that meaning must exist is just a random chemical phenomenon, then intellectually speaking, I shouldn't be irritated about my thinking, which is a concerted process that will achieve nothing. Yes, it's like spontaneous order-generation, which happens in limited anti-entropic circumstances. But it's not meaning, it's just a complex process issuing from simple rules, like a Mandelbrot set.

If there's nothing that thinking is for, then why do we say suicide is a crime, or that democracy is good, or that ice-cream is wonderful, or any of a multiplicity of sensations and experiences, catalogued, filed, named, defined, outlined, silhouetted, engraved... Why?

Why bother to write something extolling atheism of all things? It's like saying, "(meaningless term denoting individuality, 'I') (meaningless state of meaningless activity, 'am writing') (meaningless identifier implying meaning despite entire argument of meaninglessness, 'a book') (meaningless preposition implying relationship, likewise a meaningless concept, 'about') (meaningless string of meaninglessness words all of which contain too many concepts, which are of course meaningless too, 'why you shouldn't believe in God')."

I mean, what is it to an atheist that he should write any books? Why not let the rest of us get on with our sequence of pseudorandom events? After all, what can be done about the fact that there is no script, no plan, no director or producer to this appalling film? Why go around yelling?

Postmodernism is a void. It says nothing useful, but argues a lot. It is like something so black that you see everything and nothing in it, all at once. And it goes nicely together with atheism, which in effect is the same thing.

Labour Day (Redux)

A year ago, I wrote something about labour and surcease from it. It has always seemed to me that the end of labour is the fit ending to any endeavour.

For rest, the 'ground state' of being, is the baseline from which all things are measured. An object at rest remains at rest; an object in motion cannot be said to be in motion unless compared to an object at rest. If two or more objects are in motion, define one to be at rest, and the system remains unchanged as long as you haven't already defined the space they are in.

It is altogether fitting and beautiful that Labour Day should be made a day of rest, a day on which things normally in motion realise that without a resting state, their motion is in vain. It is like atheism; how can it be defined without the idea of God? And if it were to be defined as the lack of God, how sad should it be that it must be defined as an absence of essence, rather than an essence itself?

Rest defines the universe of motion and action, just as God defines the Universe. To say that there is no God is an assertion of faith equivalent to saying that things move without something to measure their movement by. To say that an atheist believes in one less God than a theist is to deny the difference between one and zero, and to say that all other numbers partake of the same essence that is 'one'. For 'one' is the first of something that is not nothing; of 'one' all other numbers are made, and their identity sustained. This is not true of any other number for that kind of process.

And so, we rest our case, and case our rest.

Why I Am Not An Atheist

As Trivandrum proposes, I should set forth Terms and Definitions, and Argument related thereto, and thus develop a Position on which I take my Stand. So here is that Stand, and may You who read enjoy It.

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Terms and Definitions

• A God is a Thing which exercises Powers which are beyond Human Analysis, practically, theoretically, or rationally, with respect to the Limits of those Powers in Terms of Origin, Manifestation, Aspect, Occasion, Quantity, Quality or Perceptibility, and with no Likelihood or Chance of Human Analysis.
  
• An Atheist, in simple Form, is One who does not believe in Gods, in any Kind, Quantity, or Equivalent.
  
• An Atheist, in active Form, is One who explicitly rejects the Belief that there are Gods, in any Kind, Quantity or Equivalent.
  

I am not an Atheist in either simple or active Sense. If the Reader wishes to take Issue with any other Term defined in this Section or other Sections in this Post, please do so Elsewhere.

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Argument

• Let Us assume that Humans are Moral Animals, which I am personally inclined to believe. If this is a Failing on My Part, so be It.
  
• This Morality has a Nature that is either relative or absolute. If the Nature is relative, It can only be seen to exist if measured by a Yardstick. If It is Absolute, then It has no Exceptions and hence partakes of the Quality of Natural Law.
  
• If the Nature of Morality is relative, the Yardstick (or at least the System of Measurement) must be Absolute if the Analysis of Morality is to have Meaning. Without Yardstick, or Benchmark, or Touchstone, the Idea of Morality is defunct as We cannot then say, "This is a Good Thing," or, "This is a Bad Thing."
  
• If the Nature of Morality is an Absolute, then We need no Yardstick, or Benchmark, or Touchstone, but merely Observation and Hypothesis Testing as is the Way of Natural Law. We need but create a Scale of Units such as proposed in the Philosophy of Utilitarianism.
  
• From Evidence of the Empirical Kind, that is, from History and hence the Observations of Humanity, We can see that the Nature of Morality is not yet to be claimed an Absolute, for It has heretofore not been resolved by any Human Agency into a System adherent to a Scale of Units.
  
• Hence Morality is likely relative and requires a Yardstick.
  
• The Yardstick cannot be Human, for this is an Empirical Finding that Humans disagree on Morality.
  
• The Yardstick cannot be a Natural Law or Anything that proceeds from Natural Law, as this is Our Observation as well.
  
• Hence the Yardstick must be beyond Human Analysis.
  
• Hence It is a God (at least one). (Alternatively, Humans are not Moral Animals.)
  
• In Fact, the Only Plausible Alternative to the Existence of Godhood is to apply This Reasoning to all such Qualities. Then the Universe must be purely quantitative and subject to Rational Laws alone.
  
• If the Universe is so, then It is a Deterministic Universe.
  
• Hence all Human Actions have no Attached Moral Responsibility or Choice or any Such.
  
• Hence it is a Meaningless Thing for Me to have done This Post. (Or for You to be reading It.)
  

And yet, to paraphrase Galileo Galilei, still I have posted.

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Conclusion

• This Post has Meaning, or It has not. (Unless Meaning has no Meaning.)
  
• If It has Meaning, then at least one God exists.
  
• If It has no Meaning, then We do not know from It whether God exists or not.
  
• But We do know that if It has no Meaning, and You have been reading It, then You have either been conned, or there is no God and the Act of Reading does not matter.
  
• Regardless then, it leads Us to conclude that reading Richard Dawkins (or any Explicitly Atheist Statement of Unbelief in Gods) is meaningless.
  

I would rather believe that this Post has Meaning. If You disagree, then for Your Disagreement to be meaningful, at least one God must also exist.

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I rest my Case. And drink my Coffee.

Famous Dictators I Have Known

Years ago, when I first looked at the local history syllabus after a long while, I was somewhat surprised.

Modern history, apparently, began in 1939. Any prologue to that had to do with the rise of Hitler, the rise of Stalin, or the rise of Mao; Churchill and Roosevelt were parodied and/or left out as key figures of the period. If you fast-forwarded 20 years, you were exposed to the far more benignly-represented rise of Lee Kuan Yew, Singapore's strongman and unabashedly hard-hitting political leader. It does make you realise that Singapore is as much a dictatorship as Richard Dawkins is an atheist; to classify them as members of their respective (prospective) classes would be to take away the inherent power of their class definitions.

To call Singapore a dictatorship is to forget that the government has brought a fair amount of peace and prosperity; unhappiness has come in the wake of the latter, as the large middle-class finds itself much poorer than the top 1%. With ancestors who mostly came to Singapore to make money, everyone has a fine-tuned monetary instinct. This causes economic unhappiness to be the main unpleasantness here.

To call Singapore a dictatorship is to forget that the governing party has been returned to power voluntarily by the people. Of course, the fact that the opposition is fractious (and fairly often staffed by odd clowns at critical times in the national narrative) tends to help. It is certainly nowhere near the kind of police state that the former USSR was so good at maintaining.

No, Singapore is as much a dictatorship as Dawkins is an atheist. But wait a minute, you say, isn't Dawkins an atheist?

Well, yes, sort of. An atheist doesn't believe in god or God, singular, distributed, parallel or multiple. But Dawkins is a prostituted atheist; he loves to talk, make money, sell his own brand and ram it down other people's throats. Instead of merely not believing in god (God, sing., dist., para., or mult.) he believes he should make other people not believe, and it has become a religion to him. It is a game, an entertainment, and he isn't doing it as a charitable service or philosophical discourse.

It's a fad these days to do all that. You can see it by walking around some place like Borders and looking at the book displays. Meanwhile, God continues to work in mysterious ways, as the Hierophant points out.

You might wonder why I launched into this post. Well, it's yet another one of those mysterious things. I was musing on how a lot of very reactionary students in one particular educational institution were aggrandizing their current regime with labels like 'Stalinist' or 'Hitlerian' (contradictory in most ways except authoritarianism, I suppose). I don't think they're right. I would choose a lesser dictator, a man of many dimensions and talents who always thought he was an aesthete, an almost-religious and accomplished man... one like Nicolae Ceauşescu, perhaps.