Think evolution is a crock?

Take your kids here:

http://homepage.mac.com/onegoodmove/movies/bm051305unlearning.html

Me gusta satire.

Chas, Nate and Tim's shift in topic

For those of you who haven't been keeping up with the comments to my last post, starting with a comment from Chas, the conversation has shifted, via Tim and Nate, from same-sex marriage to an attempt to find the system that would best yeild a happy society. Since the scope of this conversation is wider reaching and, I think, gobs more important-- I felt like a post devoted solely to this topic is a splendid idea.

To recap-- Correct me if I’m wrong-- (you can still read Chas, Tim and Nate's own words under the comments section of the last post)

It seems there is a general consensus between nate and tim that what we are searching for is a system that has the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people—although, nate is still unsure as to whether it is better to have (a) 100 people with a happiness state of zero [net of zero] or (b) 99 people with a happiness state of -1 and one ridiculously happy person with a happiness state of 100 [net of positive one].

It has also been agreed that, as a base, one person's happiness state should not physically impede the happiness state of another person; that is, there should exist protection to keep people from gaining happiness at the expense of other persons physical (and arguably emotional) pain.

Nate’s definition of what we’re searching for:
“Given that we both respect each other's desires to obtain states, what is the set of mutual status states that minimizes our mutual interference with each other's desired states?”

I guess the big question I have for both of you and everyone is whether we should prefer the happiest (net) society or a society with equal possibility for happiness—This relates to the scenario that Nate brought up about a net happiness of 0 possibly being better than 1.

To bring this back to same-sex marriage—it seems completely likely that the pleasure that conservatives get from keeping their word “marriage” from the sinful clutches of homosexuals would amount to a higher net happiness than if we allowed homosexuals to marry. Considering the population of homosexuals (and those who support gay marriage) is so small the average amount of happiness gained by homosexuals (and those who support gay rights) would have to be considerably higher than the average happiness lost by those in the majority who oppose gay marriage.

I guess I’m not really bringing anything new to the conversation—I just can't figure it out. If we go for the greatest happiness while still maintaining equality it seems like we're shafting society-- because there could potentially be a happier society. If we don't maintain equality then we're shafting minorities-- because they could potentially be happier. So which is it? Somebody solve it for me.

Same-sex Marriage

The 14th amendment states:
"No state shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any state deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Some people will argue that the current laws on same-sex marriages do protect people equally since heterosexual persons cannot marry people of the same sex either. This was a popular argument when interracial marriages were not legal. People argued that white people cannot marry people of a different race either; thus, the laws are not discriminatory. However, in the court case Loving v. Virginia they declared that the Equal Protection Clause of the constitution does not refer to the mere equal application of a law—they stated that a law that is discriminatory, even if it discriminates equally, violates the Equal Protection Clause of our constitution.

Therefore, if I can show that our current laws discriminate against homosexual couples then it should be agreed that those laws are unconstutional. Here is a short list of benefits that heterosexual couples are given by the state that are denied to homosexual couples:

-Spouses are allowed to make medical decisions in the case that their husband or wife is incompetent or disabled and they are allowed to visit their partner in the hospital.

-Married persons are allowed to make unlimited transfers and gifts to each other without paying taxes.

-Spouses are given the automatic right to inherit without a will; the inheritance is also non-taxable.

-Married people receive Social Security and veteran benefit payments upon the death of a spouse.

-Criminal penalties are imposed on spouses who abandon a child or a spouse.

By not offering the same benefits to homosexual couples that are offered to same-sex couples-- the laws are obviously discriminatory. Our government, through its laws, is saying that heterosexual relationships are the preferred type of relationship-- it is not the job of our government to decide what type of lifestyles are preferred and then to discriminate against the ones that are not preferred.

Even if you think that homosexuality is "wrong" you cannot deny them equal protection of the law.

Why do you still think that same-sex marriage should be banned?

Why do I care?

Why do I care whether or not people believe in God?

Since we live in a representative democracy what you believe effects the system. People that share similar viewpoints of the majority get elected. Thus, when you believe in God you affect my world and the world of other people that don't agree with you.

Exactly how does someone's belief in God affect me? (the following can and probably will be devoted whole posts)

1) Due to the fact that the bible says that the earth was created in 6 days-- some people are trying to get the "divine creator" theory taught in science classes even though there is no scientific evidence to back it up.

2) Because the bible says (in often very vague terms) that homosexuality is wrong-- our society has decided that it is ok to deny homosexuals equal protection under the law by denying them the right to civilly marry each other. (I think this will be the subject of the next post)

3) People are fighting to remove the use of contraceptives from sex-education programs because the bible in some vague manner leads them to believe that contraception is wrong.

4) Non-believers cannot get elected to office-- which means that illogical beliefs are getting more airtime than logical ones (since i've shown that there is no logical reason to believe a God exists).

5) Many believers think that non-believers are "bad people".

6) I can't buy liquor on Sundays for some reason.

7) Non-believers cannot pledge their allegiance to our country like everyone else without saying something that goes directly against their beliefs.

Plus I think that believing in things without proof is a dangerous habit to be getting into. If you believe in God without proof-- why not believe that Iraq has WMD's or that social security is going to go broke in 7 years without proof? This habit can lead to many other things that could potentially affect the lives of everyone. Be careful where your faith lies.

(Obviously the things listed are not meant to describe every believer.)

A problem I have with Christianity:

If God created Humans-- then he created us with rational thinking brains.
Using my rational thinking brain I cannot prove or disprove the existence of God.
God is willing to send me to hell for all of eternity because I do not believe in him.

It seems to me that the failing is not mine... it seems as though God should make himself a little more apparent. The fact that he is willing to send me to hell for all of eternity because I don't believe in him makes me glad that I don't worship him. What kind of monster would send anybody to hell for all of eternity because they didn't believe in him? Especially when it could have been avoided if God only had the gumption to show himself in a little more apparent way. We spend around 80 years on this earth... I can't imagine anything that would warrant an eternity in hell... that's a ridiculous punishment.

Faith

"I believe it because god just can not be described, understood, or defined by logic."-Nico
"God was never about logic or reason, although some people think that their belief is based on reason and logic."-Om

This paragraph will not be an argument against faith-- instead it will be a journey down a hypothetical path. Assume, hypothetically, that I am inventing a religion. I have everything I need to start a religion-- I've invented a God, I've invented a book written by my God, I've written down moral laws that I think are awesome, I have ways followers should worship God, I've designated a specific day of the week that should be devoted only to the worship of my god... the only thing I don't have is any kind of proof that my God exists. What can I possibly do? I know what I could do.... I could write it into the text of my book that followers of my God should not try to prove his existence and instead should just believe in him blindly without any evidence or proof. Wait... nobody would fall for that... unless I came up with a different, more romantic name for "believing in something blindly without any evidence or proof"... I could call it... "faith"...Problem solved.

The first problem I have with faith is this... how do you decide what to have faith in?

You could have faith in anything... a flying orange rhino, a 3 inch tall inside-out giraffe, Buddha or Jesus. How do you decide? You must use logic and reason. If you're trying to decide which religion you think is correct you are using logic and reason... but if you're using logic and reason you should see that there is no logic or reason behind believing in God. So ultimately in the search for which religion is right you are searching for the most logical of the illogical. Which I suppose is good enough for some people-- but sounds ridiculous to me.

The second problem I have with faith can be expressed in the form of this simple argument:
1) We should act in accordance to logic and reason.
2) The absence of logic and reason is in the definition of "Faith".
3) We should not have faith.

The typical counter-argument attempts to show that I, the non-believer, have faith in a lot of things in the world-- thus, for me to say that one should not have faith is to make a hypocrite out of myself. Thomas almost made this argument when he said:

"Reason itself is a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all."

However, he made a mistake in choosing reason...In the definition of the word reason there is nothing having to do with the relation of ideas to the real world. We can certainly use reason without needing to know anything for certain about the real world. It's really one of the few things we do know for sure... this is Descartes 101: I can doubt everything away (it is possible that we live in something like the matrix where what we sense is not real) except for two things: (1) myself as a rational, thinking being and (2) doubt. I cannot doubt my mind or doubt away because to do that would be inherently contradictory; To doubt reason is to partake in reasoning.

Had Thomas not used reason and instead used something in the real world-- he would have been using a very common theist argument... something similar to these:

How do you know that you have a brain? You've never seen it or touched it... you have no experience of it at all. Thus, if you believe that you have a brain then you must have faith that you have a brain. If you have faith in your brain why not have faith in God?

or

When you experience something you have no proof that your experience coincides with the actual world. To trust your experiences is to have faith in them. If you have faith in your experiences then why not have faith in God?

These arguments assume that I believe that I have a brain and assume that I trust my experiences... However, I do not think we can know anything about the world with certainty... therefore, I would say that I don't know that I have a brain and I don't trust my experiences. Whether or not the world I live in really exists as I experience it is something I'll never know-- but I do know that for now I am stuck experiencing the world as it is. So how do I function in the world that I can never be sure even exists? I use probability based on experience. I have seen evidence that shows how humans function and that shows that humans need a brain to function... so it is possible that the evidence I saw was bogus and humans really don't have brains-- but the number of people that would have to be involved to make that lie happen is so astronomical that the probability of me finding a brain if I cut my head open is extremely large. Granted I do not know for sure.

Many people will try to tie this to religious faith. Even if you think by acting with regard to probabilities that I am having some kind of faith it still would not give any justification to having faith in God. Faith in God is not based on experience, logic, reason or probability unlike my use of probability in regard to my brain or gravity. Some of you will say "Of course faith in God is not based on experience, logic, reason or probability... if it was based on those things it would not be faith!"-- precisely... and that is why when I base choices on the probability of me having a brain or of gravity working tomorrow I am not exhibiting anything like faith in God.

As can be seen by our hypothetical journey-- it's easy to see why creators of religions would want faith to be an integral part of their religion... there's really no way to argue against it. Faith is defined as "Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence"-- so to argue that it is illogical to have faith sounds silly since the concept of illogicality is contained within the definition of faith.

"Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence"-- when read alone it sounds as though this sentence is a definition of a fallacy of argumentation... not a definition of a belief that people would want or be proud of having.