Interesting Article on "Radical" Atheism

According to an article in today's Wall Street, new atheism á la Dawkins, et al., fails to hold water when compared to the "purer" forms of Epicurian atheism.

Such questions -- toward which the mind naturally wanders, though it is susceptible to ambush by the crude scientism of which Mr. Hitchens occasionally avails himself -- include: Where did the universe come from, and is it governed by purpose?

Instead of announcing their faithful disbelief in a higher order as a way of obtaining reason, they fitfully attack institutions, touting hyperboles about what religion actually teaches, and falling back to their beloved when the arguments get too philosophical.

In making his case that reason must regard faith as an enemy to be wiped out, Mr. Hitchens declares Socrates's teaching that knowledge consists in knowing one's ignorance to be "the definition of an educated person." And yet Mr. Hitchens shows no awareness that his atheism, far from resulting from skeptical inquiry, is the rigidly dogmatic premise from which his inquiries proceed, and that it colors all his observations and determines his conclusions.

I can say it not better than Mr. Berkowitz (George Mason University). You owe it to yourself to ponder his article and form your own opinion.

An All-too-typical Assault on IP

A classic assault on law, using flawed logic and hoity-toity assertions. I'm beginning to grow tired of thinking-games and baseless declarations; perhaps I'll adopt a more scientific approach in my own philosophy.

Last Thought for the Evening

CS Lewis writes in "Mere Christianity" his thoughts and rationales for growing in his faith after being a proclaimed atheist. My understanding of his writings:

As humans we judge what is right-or-wrong based on our morals. Morals vary widely individually but from culture to culture, "moral threads" or "truths" constantly reoccur. So we judge, with our rational mind, consequences and morality or a decision. And those without faith still label that which is right, right and that which is wrong, wrong. But those with faith find a reason why they do that.

By what standard does man judge something moral? Something that must be above morality, something that must be above right-and-wrong, a universal truth. Something super-real. The apple is not judged red because red is an inherent property of the apple. Red is a, albeit arbitrary, fact, and exists outside the realm of the apple.

Something judged as (im)moral must be judged by something outside its own realm.

Brain Damage Rationalizes Morals?

A short excerpt:

"Philosophers have a name for this calculating logic: utilitarianism. They've been debating it for 200 years. Some says it's sensible; others say it's ruthless. Lately, however, the debate has been overrun by neuroscience. According to the neuroscientists, philosophers on both sides are wrong, because morality doesn't come from God or transcendent reason. It comes from the brain.

Three years ago in the journal Neuron, the neuroscientists illustrated their point. Using brain scans, they showed that utilitarian decisions involved "increased activity in brain regions associated with cognitive control." From this and other data, they surmised that the moral debate "reflects an underlying tension between competing subsystems in the brain." On one side are "the social-emotional responses that we've inherited from our primate ancestors." On the other side is a utilitarian calculus "made possible by the more recently evolved structures in the frontal lobes." The war of ideas is a war of neurons."

Whirlwind synopsis:

A social-emotional being has everything needed, then chooses rationality as a substitute for providence, leading to the evolution of a utilitarian part of our brain that removes moral considerations from decisions. Normal people have both... people like Paul, who struggled. Why would something evolve unless it was need for survival; if we weren't created with a rational organ, we didn't need it; something in our environment changed. A Fallen World creates a socio-economic system whereby those that are dumb (lack common sense) but emotionally and morally sound die. Natural selection a la brain. Those that can think rationally flourish. Rationality is the byproduct of a Fallen World where pure morality is a liability (see post on science). Rationality is the Knowledge of Good and Evil, as opposed to experiencing the former by default.

A long-winded, arrogant and smarter-than-thou rant:
So morality doesn't come from God? And we inherited social-emotional responses from distant ancestors, compared with more recently-evolved utilitarian frontal lobes? So taking that to be true, as I've never been one to dispute good science I know nothing about...

As my faith leads me to believe, our distant ancestors lived in harmony with God. They needed nothing more than their providence, and sought nothing more than God... eeeeeexcept for that whole fall thing.

Jive-check to this point: Social-emotional beings? Check. Reasoning? Not yet.

So the creation is fallen... its made imperfect by the presence of a being antithetical to the perfect nature of God. Our earliest ancestors buy into this... they decide God's providence isn't enough, so they seek knowledge (read: rationality). God? He's pissed. Revokes providence. Now humans form societies because they can't do as well on their own. They rebuild wealth, enjoying the fruits of their own success (read: they become secular humanists).

Jive-check: Social-emotional? Check. Reasoning? It appears so.

Flash forward thousands of years into the future. Now they don't know if God exists. But where does moral behavior come from? The brain! Aha, so moral behavior is a vestige of ancient ancestors more closely connected with God. Uh-oh... that means we must have been that way by default.

Thinking of Aristotle... and Darwin?

Listening to NPR and at the moment an interview with the author of The God Delusion. He makes good points, but fails to recognize the value of philosophy on western thought. In fact, I'm not sure what philosophy he subscribes too.

He makes the following comment (paraphrased) "The only answer up until this point was that everything was so elaborate and magnificent that it must have been designed by some Creator."

Aristotle came to this conclusion as well, he as a man of science for his times. By studying the order of things in nature, particularly details such as the order of teeth in a lions mouth, he reasoned that since everything is the way it is, it is that way because it cannot be what it is not.

Simply put, the lion whose teeth are out of order will die of malnutrition. This may seem to support Darwinism at first...

BUT--

What right do Darwinians have in claiming that the lion's teeth were wrong in the first place, and then evolved into their correct order? To put it another way, what right does anyone have to say that nature is inherently chaotic?

The fact that it favors chaos tells me that anything appearing with natural order must have received that ordered form independently. Whether its a Designer, Prime Mover, Allah, Yahweh, Jehovah, or your God, science simply cannot "disprove" that which scientists themselves marvel at.

From Epiphany to Paradox

We're a social animal. That means we more or less operate in societies. It increases our wealth and well-being, diversity of diet and thought, exchange of ideas. Societies facilitate the most tremendous gift we have, when viewed secularly--communication.

Yet we toil against one another. Our greed hides in social interaction only to remanifest itself in national identities. Nations, economically speaking, are macroed micros. Its a collective, in a mild sense, and acts as one.

Our cooperative societies form anti-cooperative nations.

We are simultaneously the most cooperative and self-destructive animal on the planet.

An Open Question

Why is it that narcissistic secular hedonist feel the need to mock the Holy Bible? I ask this not out of frustration, but out of sheer sadness.

Are they really that ignorant? Do they mock the works of Plato, Aristotle, and (what we know of) Socrates? Or is it just contemporary transcendental contemplation they make their target?

There is something to be gained from the contemplation of that beyond ourselves. Some of the aforementioned ignoramuses may, in fact, find themselves terribly clever and witty. It's a shame the greatest gift of intelligence should go to such a waste.

"I should've been a philosopher..."

Note on Economic Fame

What does it take to make a good economist? Or at least a famous one?

Great economic insight, sometimes at par with contemporaries, sometimes exceptional ability... and one crack-pot theory to set yourself apart from the pack.

Seriously, Rothbard has a knack for explaining things with exquisite analogies. But his stance on currency? *Gag*

And Friedman, so wise, so omniscient in the field. Heralder and harbinger of the greatest truths of 20th century economics, and all at least 10 years before we all started believing him. But his stance on the Fed? I mean, he had to have read SOMETHING good about it!

Keynes gave me reason to participate in the electoral process. He showed that governments do matter, as the largest consumer in an economy. But I just can't touch EVERY market failure as a justification of his theories. There is a natural limit to how much government one can stand. Someone ask Pinochet... oh, never mind.

Oh, and Nash? Well, I guess you can be right about EVERYTHING. But not everyone has his unique grasp on reality.