Questions for Atheists

OK, the Discovery Institute (those are the guys that are trying to push ID) posted a quiz, lets see what my answers are.

1) Why is there anything?

I don't know. However, I suspect that for there to be nothing, there would have had to be precisely nothing. Exactly zero anything. If there had been even 1x10^1000 of anything, effects would have accumulated. However, this is just a suspicion, and I claim no knowledge.

2) What caused the Universe?

The universe is it's own cause, I suspect. It is the only thing that makes sense, and it has the advantage of not falling to to the infinite regression problem. many people claim God did not need a cause outside of himself, but why did he not? The answer is usually something like "Because he is God!" which is not an answer. I can say that the universe did not need a first cause outside of itself, and defend it by saying 'Because it is the universe!" I think it is obvious that my response would not have been an answer.

3) Why is there regularity (Law) in nature?

I suspect that if any universe had come into being without regularity of physical law, it would have not come to anything. We might be the billionth universe, but only the first to get it right. Remember, time may be a quality of the universe and may have come into being with the universe. If there was no time, or an infinite amount of time before the universe, there could have been billions of failed (or successful and now long dead) universes before this one.

4) Of the Four Causes in nature proposed by Aristotle (material, formal, efficient, and final), which of them are real? Do final causes exist?

I had to read up to see what this question meant.
a) Material causes exist. If you have a trombone, brass has to exist.
b) Efficient causes exist. For something to fall down, you need gravity.
c) Final causes do not exist, that is, things are not meant for anything except when a person makes them for that purpose. Even then, they are not meant for anything except in that person's mind. The intended purpose of a thing is not a quality of that thing. It is a quality of the mind that is thinking about that thing, and thoughts are extremely mutable. Thoughts do not create reality.
A butter-knife, which (we would assume) has the final cause of spreading butter, can turn a screw. I doubt anyone would assign to a butter-knife the final cause of "turning screws".
d) Formal causes only exist in that things happen to be suited for their tasks by how they are structured. A pile of rocks can serve as a landmark, even if it was not meant to be one. We would not use a butter knife to turn screws if it did not happen to work fairly well in a pinch.

5) Why do we have subjective experience, and not merely objective existence?

Because we have brains that interpret sensory information imperfectly based on limited information.

6) Why is the human mind intentional, in the technical philosophical sense of aboutness, which is the referral to something besides itself? How can mental states be about something?

I am not a philosopher, I am an accountant. I think this question is asking, "How can the mind have goals?" Well, if it did not have goals, it would never do anything. Other than that, ask a psychologist.

7) Does Moral Law exist in itself, or is it an artifact of nature (natural selection, etc.)

Absolute moral law does not exist. It is all situational. I have never seen a convincing example of absolute morality. "Killing is wrong" except sometimes it is OK, such as in self-defense or in punishments for certain crimes. "Theft is wrong" unless it is to feed the hungry (see Robin Hood). "Lying is wrong", unless you are hiding Jews from the Nazi's. This list is endless. Just read the Old Testament. "Thou shall not kill", except all the times God (or the priesthood How do you know the priests just aren't claiming God said something?) says it is OK.

8) Why is there evil?

Because people often want things that other people are not willing to give them. When their desire for the thing overpowers the desire to not hurt people, they commit evil. However, evil is not a substance, it is a adjective and it is subjective. What is evil to one is good to another. A better question is "Why is there good?" The answer is, without good, we would have all died out. Humans do not survive well in isolation. To survive in a society, people must treat each other with a certain amount of kindness. Any society without goodness dies out quickly. Hence all the societies that survived had some sort of goodness.

I am sure most folks without a philosophical education could do better. You don't get any points for answering "It is that way because I (or my invisible/absent friend) says so." I don't claim to know the answers to any of these questions. These are my suspicions about what might be the answers. Unlike some people, I do not make up an answer and then declare it THE TRUTH. Really, I don't know the answers, and neither do you.

Alchoholic In-laws suck ass

So today, at a labor Day picnic, my drunk-ass alcoholic father-in-law decided to pick a fight with me.
We were a the dinner table, and he says "Someone should say grace." Then he looked at me with a smirk and says "How about you?"
I replied "No. I don't pray."
He came back with "Why?" and I said "Because I am an atheist. It would be hypocritical and disrespectful to the others for me to pray."
He starting in on me about being an atheist, talking about how he believed in Jesus and he was saved and he needed to make sure we know and just wouldn't let up. He kept challenging me, right there at the table, to defend my position. It finally got to the point, after I left the table, where his son had to get up and yell at him to cut it out. The whole time, sneering, drunk off his ass, and being a prick, he was lecturing me about being a Christian.
I do not think I will be attending any family functions where he is present from now on. What an asshole.

My review of The Bible

I won a contest over at Friendly Atheist for this review of The Bible.

Random Press’s latest release, “The Holy Bible”($29.95), is not worth your time. The book is a mishmash of ancient myths thrown together in a barely coherent attempt to form some sort of narrative. The author, who remains nameless, has decided to attempt to write an epistemological novel, similar to Brahm Stoker’s “Dracula”, in that it is made up of letters and other writings from people in the fictional world. This worked for Stoker, but here, it is chaos.

It is no wonder the author published anonymously. The book desperately needs an editor, as it seems like, at times, like a first draft. The narrative is sketchy and full of plot holes. The author has repeated the same story several times with different details, and overall, has failed to get his point across to the audience.This is one of the downfalls of the modern digital publishing age where anyone can produce a book.

In truth, it seems he author has tried to do for “The Lord of the Rings” what “Wicked” did for the “Wizard of Oz”. The book makes the most sense when read as the story of Sauron from his followers’ point of view. His constant commands in the early part of the novel to invade and wipe out all those who are not his chosen, his appearances in different forms (from human-like to a flaming shrub) and his insistence on ignorance and obedience in his followers matches perfectly with the dark lord of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth. The names have been changed, I’m sure, because Tolkien’s estate would have never granted publishing rights to this hack. Where Tolkien created a consistent and massive back-story for his novels, the author here has not gone through the trouble. I doubt this book will ever be taken seriously, and will slip into obscurity soon.
If you like this sort of writing, I would recommend The Silmarillion over this any day. Tolkien’s deities are kind-hearted and just, if a bit naive, and the creation story is a lovely symphony, not the lazy “Fiat Lux” that begins this waste of paper and ink. Even last year’s “Quran” is a more coherent read.
1.5 stars.

Open letter to a talk show

I sent this letter to the Rob Arnie and Dawn show:
Dear Rob, Arnie, and Dawn,In regards to your comments about deism, agnosticism, and atheism, I have a couple of comments.Agnosticism is the position that the existence or non-existence of God is unknowable. Agnostics hold that both sides of the argument are unprovable and therefore they try to stay out of the argument. This is silly. Take a side. Atheism wins.It all comes down to so-called "first causes".
Theists (such as Dawn and Osama Bin Laden) claim that a powerful being made the universe (the first cause) and continues to tinker with it on a regular basis by answering prayers and raining his wrath on the west. This is silly and contrary to observable fact. If God happens to be falsifying the facts to make the world appear that he does not exist, he is doing a good job and should get a gold medal in Olympic hide-and-seek and probably wants us to not believe in him (and he is a dick).
Deists, like you, claim the universe was made by some powerful being or force (the first cause) and that he did it correctly and has no need to tinker with it through answered prayer or vengeance on the unfaithful. This is the position held by many of the founding fathers (those who were not theists) although at the time they would probably have been labeled atheists. This argument usually takes the form: Complex and wonderful things had to have been made by something more complex and wonderful, such as God. This is illogical. If Complex things need a creator, then so did God, and so did God's creator, and so did God's God's creator and so on.
Atheism is basically the position that the Universe is it's own first cause. If God could have come from nothing or from himself (which is what deists and theists usually claim when pressed) then complex things can indeed come from nothing or from themselves. If complex things can come from nothing or themselves, why pretend there is another invisible and unknowable complex thing (God) behind the obvious complex thing (the universe). The fact that the universe is amazing and complex does not mean anyone was behind it. We will probably never have all the answers, but that does not mean we should start making stuff up.
There may be a God, and there may be a teapot orbiting near Jupiter, but without any evidence that holds up to actual scrutiny, there is no reason to believe in God or the teapot. Simply having strong feelings that there must be a Jovian teapot (or a God) is not sufficient proof for such an amazing claim. Show me the teapot, and I will believe in it (and the photos better not be faked).
Some atheists are very hard on religion. Much of the time that is because their friends or family will not leave them the hell alone about it (like mine). Sometime it is because they are still trying to shake the early childhood indoctrination they received (me too). Often it is because religious fundamentalists are trying to enforce their religions on them in one form or another (Intelligent Design in public school science classes). Sometimes it is because they like to argue (that's me, but I am getting more mellow as I age). Sometimes they think religion is actually bad for the world (9/11) and are trying to fight against it.
I think religion is like morphine. If you need morphine for the pain you feel, please take it, but stop trying to convince me that I need to get hooked as well.