Stefan Molyneux on property rights.

Normaly I avoid doing critiques of video’s these day, but I ended up doing this one anyway, and am sharing it here. The orignal video can be found here https://youtu.be/nFcaanYaFKU , but I am not a supporter of Stefan Molyneux and I don’t really think he offer anything of real value, your better of reading “Understanding Power” by Noam Chomsky, or “Neo-liberalism a Breif History” by David Harely.

My first listen of Molyneux’s video on property rights had me really wondering what he was saying. It was vague enough that I could impose various interpretations. Having since rewatched it I find that first inerpritation was a bit too harsh, but he does rely heavily on assertion of his position as fact, rather than sound logical reasoning.

He begins by saying not only that property rights are the basis of all morality and ethics, a dubious claim at best, and then that property rights are all about self ownership and owning the effects of one’s own actions, a far more defensible position. While self determination (Being able to make choices free of compulsion) and personal autonomy (the freedom to live one’s own life and make moral and personal choices, affecting the self, interdependently should you wish it.) are quite powerful foundation to build morality, self ownership as property rights as Molyneux describes isn’t in my view so robust a foundation as he claims, and is certainly not foundational to all of ethics.

He then goes into a garbage can analogy, which amounts to the idea that actions are more important than ownership in determining who is responsible for product. The example being if you knock over someone else garbage can the mess you made is yours even if the can and the garbage belongs to another. He does mention there can be blameless situations, but Stephan does not explain how his model would deal with such instances. As an aside would it also then be the case that if you sneak into a person’s workshop and build a new contraction that while he would own the parts you would own the machine, just as you would the mess?

Moving on according to Molyneux that full personal ownership in the first Criterion of property rights, and therefore morality, as such co-owner ship is not morally relevant in Molyneux system of morality presented here. Again another glaring problem as there are clearly plenty of instances where co-ownership is just as relevant as sole ownership, really any time something is co owned it only seems to make the morality more complex, rather then some how making it irrelevant. My guess would be that he seems to be shooting himself in the foot to try to avoid a loose association with “socialism.”

He then goes on to an aside where he discusses that because we are hard-wired into our own nervous system, or more correctly in my mind, we are our own nervous system and our body is controlled by nervous system, and because no one else can take control of our nervous system, we have full and unquestionable ownership of ourselves, to use terms he uses later in the video, you have a natural enclosure on the “property rights” of your own body. In essence not one can question your ownership because they couldn’t have any kind of claim like you do. The one problem this is when you ask, what happens as Neuroscience improves into the future and we not only can remote control insects like we can now but can remote control or even remotely program other human beings? Does that mean we can now lose our autonomy because other people can access our nervous system and control our bodies? I’d say that given Molyneux’s description of property rights, that if you ever take ownership of a body early before they really have a chance to be considered an independent person enough, or someone gives it to you voluntarily, then yes you can lose self ownership and essentially lose your standing as a moral agent. This to me seems to be a problematic outcome of the theory proposed by Molyneux. Even if this sort of loss of personal ownership is not relevant right at this moment in time since science has yet to progress to that stage, I have not yet ruled out other way in which you might lose your personal ownership, and since there appears at least one I would not be surprised if there was more.

He then makes the point that coercion is different from choice, and makes the point that culpability falls upon the one doing the coercion, or the instigator in cases where someone is forced into an action such as self defence. nothing wrong here.

Stefan’s next major claim is the idea that property rights is not what you grab but when you create, that almost certainly is simply not true, simply because of historical facts. Basically all wealth has been at least indirectly created upon the results of violence and if you don’t respect that historical context, at least in passing, I’m going to find you position on ethics dubious. Another problem with this and the counter argument that comes along with it is the notion that the first people to an uncontested piece of land are just grabbing that land, and while yes it is true that to maintain and say that you do own that land you have to build and essentially take over that land, you can in theory hold far far more land and even build things on it then you can actually personally use especially if your main focus is to keep others from using that land. This is why the distinction of of private property and person personal property is important because it seems it can be unethical for someone to simply grab a huge hunk of land they can’t use if there are other people need it, but Molyneux’s position doesn’t actually allow for that kind of distinction. 

Next Stefan says that what creates that property right in the first place in the example of land is when you actually “enclose” your ownership over that land once you can get other people to accept that you own that land. the problem here being there is simply a tyranny of the powerful written directly into the theory, However, confusingly he then implies that this is just like self owner ship, but if so then if someone in the future where to ever enclose the rights of someone else body with a general agreement, or do so while the person was unable to respond, such as an infant, this implies that you could at least in theory, deny someone self ownership, and remove them from the morality question altogether.

I think the main flaw in the Stephen Molyneux argument is the fact that he is trying to do too much with a single concept. He’s attempting to wrap up the ideas of personal and bodily autonomy, additionally he’s trying to wrap in all of property rights, providing no distinction between personal and private property. By doing this he creates a bunch of what I think are unsavoury consequences including not only that you could theoretically lose your bodily autonomy if someone were to “enclose” their own rights around your bodily autonomy, but indeed it doesn’t prevent people from enclosing their rights around practically any property is as long as they have a general agreement from the relevant persons. While this doesn’t necessarily have to be bad it doesn’t preclude imperialism for example. an imperialist could easily use the logic to justify taking land from people they being irrelevant savages, particularly since he denies co-ownership as relevant moral form of ownership, so he immediately gives away this big chunk that basically justifies the seizure of land from many Native American tribes who lacked complete personal ownership over the land.

In conclusion I find that Stefan Molyneux philosophical position is rather shaky, and not only has he competely failed to show that property rights as he’s described them are foundational to all ethics, but I think I’ve pointed out where his conception of property rights as this bundled concept gives up a lot in order to condense personal autonomy, private property, and personal property into a single concept. Removing any protections or distictions between moral agents and inanimate objects.

Withteeth 

Thoughts on Identity Politics.

Greeting all Withteeth here,

Long time no write! Today I want to talk about a lil’ol thing called Identity Politics‎. I’m no expert on this topic, but I do have quite a few years steeped in it’s topics and outcomes, good and bad, so I want to share my thoughts. As is always advisable bring some salt to the table and feel free to raise your objections!

Identity Politics, by my understanding, is most fundamentally a collection of shorthands for various type of individuals and group that allow for quick and concise descriptions and cues for numerous kind of people. From issue like Gender or sexual orientations, ethnicity, psychological descriptions such as ADHD, and Depression, and some times expands to include other descriptors more commonly things like introvert and extrovert, and more rarely briggs-myrer test results, INJP or the like‎. This is by no means a full list, just some common examples.

Though categorization is only the identity side of of identity politics. And as those on either the far left and right will tell you, and what may surprize you is there is a great deal of derision from both sides. Those complaints that to main stances. Identity politcs is political correctness run amock! Or Idenity Politics is divisive and needlesly splitting people apart.

Now I think when people say political correctness is running amock, or “I’m just teeling it as it is.” I mostly hear “I wanna be a jerk to people, without Soical consequences.” Occasionally I’ll hear a meaningful point, but Normally when I encounter it it’s used as a distraction or excuse for holding a unplesant veiw about some other group the person doesn’t belong too.

The argument from divisiveness, however really has some soild truth to it. Where ever you attempt to catigorize, you make seemingly neat division in a messy and complex world. By it’s very nature the identity part of idpol is dividing people. I have seen folk rise to defend, and attack solely based on these division, and use them as a method to strip legitimasy from one group. perhaps the best example is that of Bi sexual erasure in the LGBTQA community where Gay and Lesbian people will attack and condem Bi sexual people of having heterosexual relationships and ostracizing them for this perceived betrayal.

This obviously not cool, but if people who should know better use identity politics to hurt people who only want similar recognition they themselves have won, why do I think identity politics are ultimately a positive force?

One: awareness building. Yes having aware of a group and for a time make them a target, but I think we have seen enough through history that staying hidden is a terrible stratagy for long term survival in a human population. Unless of course you have the power already to maintain your secrecy. The best way to make sure someone isn’t going to ostrisize and single out a group of people is to make sure they know about those people, and have a direct and meaningful relationship with at least one member of that group. That way you can easy attain empathy for another. The end goal of any awarenessraising move in my opinion has to be normalization, and acceptance, and I think for the fault of identity politics it has help raised awareness about dozens of minority group who face real threats from scoiety at large, and in part has been key in pushing LGBTQA issues, and have and effect on ‘race’ issues although I am regertiable less informed on the effect of identity politics on Person of colour.

Two: this real problem with divisiveness is a lack of intersectional understanding. Intesectionality is hard. Really hard. People who claim to be intersectional feminist can and often still preptuate harmful ideas and will sometimes ignore other people’s lived experiences if they haven’t directly experinced them first hand.

What makes intersectionality so hard is that it requires empathy for others, and a deep understanding of the experinced and conditions which affects a given group of people. You basically need to have the basics of economic theory, a good grounding is the relevant history, and know a lot about the social sciences to really start making a crack at competent intersectional thought. You can have a good grasp of the categories of indetity politics but have no idea of the kind of power structures which affect how people interact, live their day to day lives, and how they affect individual and group opportunities and access. 

To really appreciate and utilize intentional though, and therefor use indentity politics for good you need to be curious , and have a real desire to learn about people, and critcally you need to be willing and actively want to push yourself to try to understand experinces that might be radically different from your own.

So to wrap this post up, my thought on Identity politics can be summed up as follows. Idtity politics on a practical level is little more then a list of labels and desripitions for indivials and groups to indetify themselves. Unless you are actively applying intersectional thought to these catigorization, there no reseason that people won’t use that lables as a tool to harm as much as help. Due to that I’m wary of agree with just anyone pushing idenitity politics, but I still think that it does more good then harm and the use of idenitity politicswill contiune to give power and reconition to unserved and unrepresented group in our societies. We as agroup just need to become better at applying intersectionality to issues of privledge and access.

Leave your thoughts in the comments below!

Withteeth

I’m At a Loss

I’ve been finding it difficult to come up with ideas for blog posts, which is why this blog hasn’t been very active lately. As such, I’d like to leave it up to the readers: what would you like us to write about? Would you like to know something specific about our atheism? Do you have an argument that you’d like us to address? Would you like us to discuss a particular book? Do you have any questions about Philosophy, Biology, or History? Would you like to know our stance on a particular feminist issue? Is there something else you’d like us to write on? Let us know in the comment section.

The Problem With Biblical Inerrancy

As many of you know, last summer I began to look into theology. Now that I’m no longer in school, I have gotten back into it. This had led me to think about the idea that the Bible is inerrant. As an atheist, I obviously don’t believe that this is true, but most Christians do believe that the Bible is inerrant. This is incredibly problematic.

When I talk to Christians about their belief in God, or my non-belief, the Bible inevitably comes up. I don’t believe in God because I see no evidence to suggest that God exists. I want evidence before I’m willing to commit to a belief. Christians, however, often believe that they have the evidence. The problem is this evidence is not convincing to a non-Christian. Why? Because it tends to presuppose the inerrancy of the Bible. This is also a major problem with the theology I have read. If you already accept that the Bible is inerrant, then I’m sure the arguments presented are fairly convincing. But, if you already accept that the Bible is inerrant, then you are probably already a Christian and you probably don’t need the arguments to convince you of anything. But for someone who does not accept the Bible as inerrant, the conversation quickly becomes frustrating and circular because a major presupposition is being ignored that prevents the conversation fro getting anywhere.

As I’ve said in other posts, if you want to provide evidence to support the Bible (assuming your goal is to convince them that you are correct) to someone who does not accept the Bible, then you cannot use the Bible as your evidence. The Bible cannot be evidence of the Bible. Why? Because someone who is not a Christian does not agree with your premise that the Bible is inerrant, therefore, using the Bible to prove the Bible is no different that using Harry Potter to prove Harry Potter. You as a Christian may disagree with this, but you do not need to be convinced of your own beliefs. This means one of two things: either the Christian needs to be willing to put aside their belief that the Bible is inerrant for the sake of the conversation, or a discussion about Biblical inerrancy needs to be had before the conversation can go any deeper. This is the only way I can see the conversation not turning into a frustrating mess where neither party understands the other.

I bring this up because a lot of the Christians who have commented on earlier posts seem to be unwilling or unable to grasp the idea that we do not accept the Bible as inerrant. We have ended up getting into a number of circular arguments because, when we say that the Bible is not evidence, or even that we do not see any evidence to support the Bible, we either have people throwing Bible verses at us, or we have people saying that we’re wrong because the Bible without getting any deeper than that. I honestly don’t know what anybody could possibly hope to get out of that other than simply shutting down any possibility for further discussion. As such, we ask that you take this into consideration before making such comments in the future.

I’m So Tired of These So-Called Skeptics

I can’t help but think that there needs to be a test before one can call themself a skeptic. It’s amazing how many people call themselves skeptics while having no critical thinking skills once so ever. This is the biggest reason I don’t really identify as a skeptic.

Today I received a reply to a comment I wrote on YouTube. The person considered themself a skeptic, but they couldn’t be bothered to supply any evidence to support their claim that masculinity and femininity are biological despite the fact that different cultures around the world hold to different ideas about what is masculine and what is feminine. Skeptics are supposed to be critical of all claims, and they are supposed to look at the evidence before they decide what is true, but so few actually do that. So many skeptics ignore the evidence and determine what they believe to be true on what society accepts, or who they hero-worship, or what they simply feel to be right. But that isn’t being skeptical.

Skepticism is a fine line to walk. It isn’t easy. But it also isn’t that difficult. Somebody says the sky is blue? Look up. Does the sky look blue? If yes, then do you have any reason to believe you are being deceived? No? Then the sky is blue. Obviously not everything is this simple, but it follows the same pattern. Someone says god exists? Can you see god? No? Then what other ways can we know something using our senses? Can we feel god? No? Can we smell god? No? Can we taste god? No? Can we hear god? No? Then how else can we find out if this claim is true? What evidence does the person making the claim have to offer? Can that evidence be verified? If not, then what does this say about the claim? If you can’t verify something using your own senses, and the evidence offered by the person making the claim isn’t verifiable, then the person’s claim can be dismissed.

But skeptics don’t generally have an issue applying this method to gods. It’s other things, more mundane things that skeptics want to be true, where they have difficulty applying their skepticism. But applying skepticism to one area does not a skeptic make. So where do skeptics fail?

Skeptics fail at applying skepticism to claims about sex and gender. It’s widely accepted that men are stronger than women. But how do we know if this is true? Can you see a man lift something that a woman can’t? Probably. But this is one man and one woman. So how do you turn the “this man can lift something that that woman can’t” claim into a “men are stronger than women” claim? First you need a lot of men and a lot of women. Then you need to compensate for weight difference. What do the results show? Obviously the average person doesn’t have time to do all of these experiments to determine what they should believe. Luckily scientists have done much of the research for us. So what have scientists found when they have done these studies? Are there studies that contradict each other? Does one debunk the other one? Are there meta-studies that explain why one is more accurate than the other? And are you sure your sources are good (ie. can you follow the source back to original research?)? Once you’ve done all that, you can be reasonably sure that your belief is accurate. However, to be a good skeptic, you can not say that you are a 100% certain that your belief is true. There is always a chance that you are wrong, and a true skeptic understands this. The problem with most so-called skeptics is they do not understand this.

So do you need to use the process given above to determine if your believes are true if you want to be a good skeptic? Yes. But it is not as daunting as it sounds. We all do the process to a certain degree, but most people don’t look at both sides of an argument, and they aren’t often open to changing their mind. The research doesn’t have to be done all at once. It can be done over the course of months or years, but both sides need to be considered, and you need to be open to changing your mind. That’s how we learn and grow.

So please, if you call yourself a skeptic, please make sure that you are as willing to apply your skepticism equally to all of your beliefs. And please make sure that you are willing to accept that you might be wrong. Because as soon as you say “I know x for certain” you cease being a skeptic. And as soon as you fail to apply the rigorous research needed to accept a belief you cease to be a good skeptic.

That’s Not A Real Feminist Issue

I see this comment made a lot in the comment sections of feminist pages. If a woman says that she was blamed for an accident because she’s a woman and the man who hit her was in the military, people will say “That’s not a feminist issue, it’s an issue with military power.” Yes, it is an issue with military power. People act as if people in the military can do no wrong. People in the military do have privileges that the rest of us don’t have (though I’ll happily keep my lack of military privilege in exchange for not having PTSD). But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t also a feminist issue. People don’t automatically assume that the bad driver ahead of them is male. They don’t tell women “you drive like a man” in a mocking tone when they mean “you’re a bad driver.” The perception that women are bad drivers because they are women is a feminist issue because the assumption is sexist and leads people to treat women differently than they treat men.

Likewise, other “not real issues” are in fact real issues, and they really are important if we want to create a world that is equal for everybody. Men taking up to much space is a real issue. Why? Because your dick does not need so much room that you get to take up two seats worth of space while I’m forced to squeeze into half a seat. I used to ride the train for an hour to school and an hour back home again 5 days a week for two years and yes, I did experience this issue. Transit seats are already too close together. On a full train, I’m already forced to sit of stand shoulder to shoulder with strangers. When I have some asshole sitting next to me putting his leg over the line dividing his seat from mine, that’s infringing on my space. And it’s something men do. Don’t believe me? Go take a ride on a bus or a train and look around. Most of the women will have their legs crossed and their arms resting over their laps. Why? Because women are taught from a young age that this is polite and this is how ladies sit. The men, however, will often have their legs spread out crossing the line dividing their seat from another, regardless of whether or not someone else is sitting in the seat. Men and women also behave differently regarding where they put their bags and how they talk to their friends on transit. Women put their bags on their lap unless they are too big. Men almost always put their bags between their legs, which is often in the way of people getting on and off. Men shout over top of people to continue talking to their friends, but women generally stop talking if they are separated from their friends in the train or bus. So why is this a feminist issue? Because it’s a matter of entitlement. Men feel entitled to the space even if they are negatively affecting someone else to use it. Women feel as though they must make themselves small so as to have as little effect on others as possible. This is how we are raised, and it is a problem. Men shouldn’t feel entitled to the space other people are in, and women shouldn’t feel as though they should disappear in order to make room for others.

Are these minor issues? Yes, but that doesn’t mean they have no roll to play in larger issues. The same issues that lead grown men to not realise how much space they are actually taking also play a role in the “boys will be boys” attitude that people use to ignore a boy’s aggression and in the belief that men can’t control themselves when women dress provocatively. It’s all the same issue of “men are aggressive wild beasts that need to be tamed” that hurt both men and women. And the military privilege is much the same. Women in the military are treated like infiltrators who shouldn’t be there. The privilege is mostly enjoyed by men because they fit the strong warrior trope that all men are supposed to fit (even if they actually don’t). So yes, these are real feminist issues. They are feminist issues because they are yet more privileges that men get to enjoy that are denied to women. They are feminist issues because they help create a world of inequality. And they are feminist issues because size doesn’t matter when it comes to inequality. If something is unequal, it’s unequal. It doesn’t matter if it’s just a little bit unequal. And it doesn’t matter if other people have it worse elsewhere. African women being raped because they want to go to university doesn’t mean that the inequality I face here doesn’t exist or doesn’t matter. My inequality is still inequality. To say otherwise is to allow systematic inequality to persist. And small issues add up to create major issues. Personally, I’d rather deal with them while they are small.

Oh, and I can oppose that rape of African women, and other major inequalities faced by women, at the same time as I oppose the minor issues. So why would I have to pick one or the other? To say I should ignore minor inequalities because they are small is beyond ignorant. So, before you use the “that’s not real feminism” line, actually think about the issue. Think about what the person is saying about it, listen to their reasoning, and think about how that issue can play into other issues. And stop telling me that my experiences and my issues don’t matter.

We Seem to Have Disappeared…

Withteeth and I haven’t been posting very regularly lately, but we do have a good reason. Our conference took place on Saturday, so a lot of our time went into that. Right now we are still in the process of recovering from the insanity.

However, we haven’t forgotten about the blog. Right now we are working on a large series. The series will go as follows: First we will do an atheism 101 where we will do a comprehensive overview of everything atheism that we deem important. This is meant to create an understanding between ourselves and our readers, as well as to educate theists about the topics of atheism that they might find the most confusing, and to give new atheists or those questioning their theism the resources necessary to make an informed decision about their stance and the words needed to express their views to others. Then we will do a Philosophy 101. This series will cover a vast array of topics in philosophy that will help our readers understand where we are coming from when we discuss philosophical ideas and how your ideas can best be expressed to us. Basically, this will be another way to eliminate miscommunication between ourselves and our readers. Then we will each do two separate 101’s: History and Biology. I will be discussing what history is, why it’s important, and what historians do in order to create an understanding of how historians come to the conclusion that certain events happened a certain way. Withteeth will be discussing Biology in an attempt to express why we do not accept creationism as well as to create a mutual understanding of what certain terms mean. Then we will collaborate once again on a couple more 101’s. First we will do a Feminism 101. Again, this will be to educate our readers about certain terms and to eliminate any misunderstandings about what certain terms mean. It will also be a way to express why we are feminists and why we find MRAs and Anti-Feminists problematic. We will finish the 101 series with an LGBT 101. Again, the point will be to create a mutual understanding of terms.

Given the topics we have chosen to discuss, a number of our posts will basically be repeats of old posts, however, we feel it is important to go through those topics again. We have two reasons for doing this series: first, it ensures that we can cover those topics that we have been meaning to get to but have not yet discussed, and second, it will help us create blog posts that we can refer back to when people ask us questions or make comments that we have dealt with multiple times in the past.

This is going to be a long series. the atheism one is already over 200 pages long. As such, it will likely take us the rest of the school year to complete this series. When we’ve finished this series, I will deal with all the books that I’ve put aside. This is meant to be a foundation, so hopefully the book discussions will add to these 101s.

Logical Fallacies: Some links to help use overcome our greatest obstacle. Ourselves.

While Hessian continues to write posts on a variety of different arguments she comes across it’s imporant to once again remind everyone about those terrors of logic we all must contend with. Logical Fallicies.

Humans are not naturally include to be rational. We mostly make use of heuristics in our thinking rather then pure logical rationals. A heuristic, in the sense I’m using it here, is a cognitive short cut use to solve problems. These can take forms of, rules of thumb, educated guesses, a “common” sense statement or rule. Heuristics have there place due to them often be relatively accurate compared to guessing at random, but exceedingly fast when compared to a formal system of logic. This optimization towards speed is where the problem lies. When using heuristics we are bound to make mistakes, and while we might generally be able to use heuristic effectively, when we get into difficult cases they often send us spiraling into logical dead ends or mistakenly lead on a wild goose chases. This dependance and affinity towards heuristics is largely why we make logical fallacies, and why understanding them, and logic in general, is so important.

I shall focus on a couple key fallacies which I have been seeing regularly in the comments, as well posting links to useful sources to learn more about fallacies.

The Argument from ignorance: This has been the fallacy I’ve been noticing on this blog lately so I think it is the one fallacy that need to be addressed. The basics of this fallacious argument goes as follow. I don’t know what x is, or how x works, because of that it must be y, or is being done by z. This is exemplified when someone claims an unidentified object in the sky must have been a alien craft, when in fact they have no idea what the UFO was.

The most common form I’ve seen of the argument from ignorance in general is the argument for a deity due to the complexity of life. That argument can usually be condensed as follows.

I look at this flower or at the movements of this majestic animal, and I just know (my) God must exist. Now this can break down in to the following formal argument*.

P1: Living organisms are extremely complex.

P2: The Extreme complexity of life can not be explained by natural means.

P3: The only thing which can bring about things unnaturally is my deity.

C: Living organism were brought about by my deity.

*To be clear this does not represent all arguments of this type, there are others, and some are stronger, but as I will mention later on. This is the formalized version of arguments I have regularly encountered.

Funny enough this has several of the fallacies I wish to discuss. Like you might imagine is this an argument from ignorance because the second premise generally come from ideas such as. “I couldn’t imagine such complexity with out it coming from god,” or “It make no sense for complexity to come from “nothing”.” Because they do not know the answer they assume that their deity (and not some other deity) must have done it. Even though they have no idea why life is as complex as it is they appeal to their ignorance and just assume it must have been their god. Which bring us to the second fallacy.

Begging the question: Begging the question is when you assume the conclusion in to the premises instead of deriving, or in the case of induction, supporting the conclusion with premises.

In the example above the argument just assume that this person’s god exists and it could only be their god that did it. This may seem like I’m making a strawman of my opponent, but I have illegitimately ran into this argument dozens of times, over and over again. They have sew the success for there argument into the premises in a way which is whole unsupported. So while if you grant the premises the argument works, but why would you grant this premises to anyone? Would you let a person of a different faith claim it was their god(s) who made all life and that their god(s) exists? If not, and your trying to use this argument, then your making the fallacy of special pleading.

Though in simplest terms begging the question is a kind of circular reasoning where in you guarantee the conclusion with out adequately justifying those premises which give that guarantee.

Black and white fallacy: Also know as a false dilemma. This goes hand in hand with what I’ve already be writing.  This is where you argue that there are only two options when in fact there are many. The above argument does not technically make a black and while fallacy, but it is an easy fallacy to explain. “Your with us or against us!” A common use of the black and white fallacy. People often try to limit the options to them verse us, good verse bad. Except it’s rare where you a trapped with a true dichotomy. In the common case of “Your with us or against us!” it is often the case that a person is neither. I could be with you or against you, but I could be against both parties, or have a mix of positions from both, or only like some of the argument from one! Suddenly I tuned a situation from 2 limited options to 5 much open positions.

This reminds me of a joke I some times tell amongst other feminist “All Dichotomies are false Dichotomies! Even this one!”

The final fallacy is one that is rampant through out the internet and that’s the  good old Ad hominium. I won’t spend too much time on this one, but but a common mistake people make is think that an Ad hominium is just an insult. An Ad hominium is when you call into question a trait, action, or belief of a person which has nothing to do with the argument at hand. Then the one making the Ad hominium use that perceived flaw as a counter argument to their claim. Even though that character flaw has not bearing on the argument in question!

What isn’t an Ad hominium is when you call into question a trait which does relate to the argument at hand. Perhaps your arguing against a known lair. When the known lair makes an unsupported claim you can call into question their honesty without committing an Ad hominium. However, if they then substantiate their claim to an acceptable level. Then you can no longer use their dishonesty as an argument, without making the Ad hominium fallacy, until they again make a claim that they could again be reasonably be lying about.

Before we get into the links it is important to reiterate that there a several names for the some fallacies. For example The Black and white Fallacy is the same basic idea as the false dilemma fallacy, and the Argument from ignorance is also called an appeal to ignorance.

The first link I’d like to share is “The Illustrated Book of Bad Arguments” It’s cute and that probably why I’m linking to it first. I don’t like all of the examples, but it does the job of running through a good number of logical fallacies in a memorable manner.

https://bookofbadarguments.com/

Next is a link to the poster “thou shalt not commit logical fallacies!” It’s a fun one with an interactive poster on the website. It’s also where I got two of the images for this post.

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/

And finally for those of you whom are include to watch you tube videos here is a playlist by PBS idea channel about logical fallacies.

I suggest looking into more on logical fallacy if you get through all of those, but the above links are an excellent starting place.

Edit: Here is another link provided by clubschadenfreude

It gives a few more special cases not discussed in the other links as well as more examples.

http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

The Moral Argument Against God

Withteeth and I were not expecting the response that we got to the last post I wrote, so I thought I’d write a similar post using the Moral Argument Against God found here: http://infidels.org/library/modern/raymond_bradley/moral.html.

Here is the argument:
Premise 1: It is morally wrong to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing.
Premise 2: It is morally wrong to provide one’s troops with young women captives with the prospect of their being used as sex-slaves.
Premise 3: It is morally wrong to make people cannibalize their friends and family.
Premise 4: It is morally wrong to practise human sacrifice, by burning or otherwise.
Premise 5: It is morally wrong to torture people endlessly for their beliefs.
Conclusion: God violates of our moral principles.
The author of the page given above did their own discussion of this argument, so you can click the link if you would like to read theirs. I will write my own discussion of the argument here. This argument is meant to show that God, namely the God of the Bible, is not a moral agent. It is not meant to disprove God.
The first premise states that it is morally wrong to deliberately and mercilessly slaughter men, women, and children who are innocent of any serious wrongdoing. I don’t think this is something many people would disagree with. I think that it can be assumed to be true. However, what is “serious wrongdoing?” Given what I was told when I was doing my review of the Bible, it seems as though believers either assume that the people the Israelites slaughtered couldn’t be innocent, or that it was all the Israelites’ fault that the slaughter happened and not God’s. I find the second line of reasoning dishonest because the Bible credits God with ordering the Israelites to commit the slaughters. As such, you either have to ignore what the Bible says, or accept that the Bible has problems. The second option is more commonly accepted than the first, but I’ve seen the first occur too. However, the argument that those the Israelites murdered couldn’t be innocent is a problem for this premise. The Bible doesn’t actually say what the people did to deserve slaughter, it just said that they did bad things. Really, it could be anything. And it’s hard to imagine a two year old doing anything so bad that they deserve to be slaughtered. But it is possible to define “serious wrongdoing” in a way that excuses the slaughter committed by the Israelites: “serious wrongdoing” is committing any act that God deems wrong. By this definition, a two year old can commit serious wrongdoing simply by being born into a group that won’t teach them to worship the God of the Bible.
Premise two states that it is morally wrong to provide sex-slaves for men. Again, I doubt many people would disagree with this, so I think this premise would be said t be true. In the Bible, God tells Moses to kill all the men and boys, but allow the female virgins to live so that they could be used as sex-slaves (Numbers 31). This one is a bit harder to get out of, because God very clearly orders Moses to keep the girls alive to be raped. I’ve seen this passage excused as being “taken out of context,” however, the meaning in this passage is very clear. If the Bible is the word of God, or even it merely portrays events accurately, then God ordered girls to be captured for the purposes of being used as sex-slaves. One would have to say that the Bible is wrong in order to get around this premise.
Premise three states that it is morally wrong to make people cannibalize their friends and family. Another true premise. I can’t imagine that very many people would assume that this is moral either. But in Jeremiah 19:9 God says “I will make them eat the flesh of their sons and daughters, and they will eat one another’s flesh because their enemies will press the siege so hard against them to destroy them.” Once again, ignoring God’s word or dismissing the Bible as wrong is the only real way around this. I’ve heard people say that God is merely warning people of the consequences of their actions, but, if this is what God meant, one must wonder why God said “I will make.” If God is not making them eat people, why is he saying he is? Why not just say “You will”? This is not a misinterpretation, and saying it is is merely an excuse to avoid dealing with the problem.
The fourth premise states that it is morally wrong to practice human sacrificing. Again, I doubt very many people would disagree with this. However, it ignores the fact that, in certain cultures, people chose to be sacrificed. I think it can be said that sacrificing someone against their will is wrong, but I’m not sure it is so cut and dry in the case of those who chose to be sacrificed. But this isn’t really an issue with the God of the Bible, since God seems to just demand that specific people be sacrificed to him.
Premise five states that it is morally wrong to torture people endlessly for their beliefs. Since this is in obvious reference to hell, which is accepted as just by many people, I’m not sure how many people would actually accept this premise. I believe it is true. I don’t think it is ever okay to torture someone, and I don’t think physical torment should ever be used as a punishment. But it is often justified either because “it’s God’s will,” which, for some reason, means “don’t question it,” or because humans are fallen, which, for some reason, means the actions of someone who lived at least 4000 years ago makes me deserving of eternal punishment regardless of what I do. Of course, there are a lot of people who will say “but God doesn’t send us there any more” or “hell wasn’t built for us,” but that still means that God did in fact build a place for the intended purpose of torturing a living, sentient being for eternity.
The conclusion is that God violates our moral principles. He does things that we determine to be immoral. What’s more, he does things that he has told us are immoral (ie. Killing). This is often excused with “everything God does is moral” or “God’s actions cannot be understood but humans.” But this is another cop-out. If humans can’t understand God’s actions, then how do we know the things he tells us to do are moral? How do we know God isn’t just testing us and we actually aren’t supposed to do what we are told to do? How is it even useful to say “we can’t understand”? “Everything God does is moral” is even more problematic. If everything God does is moral, then it is moral to commit murder and genocide because God did it. So, if genocide and murder are now moral, why shouldn’t humans do it? As such, I can only conclude that this is a valid argument.

Are We Actually Speaking the Same Language?

A few years ago I took a class on the Old Testament. In the class there were about 4 Jewish students, 3 Muslim students, 10 Christian students, and me. As the class was meant to be taken from an academic standpoint, it was not about whether what we read was true, but rather what the Old Testament can tell us about the people of the time. However, it seemed as though my classmates weren’t interested in anything other than having their beliefs confirmed, so they talked a lot about their faith and their thoughts from their religious perspectives. As I listened to their interpretations of the reading that we had all done, I couldn’t help but feel as though we were not, in fact, reading the same book. In many ways, it was like were weren’t even speaking the same language.

In the years since that class, that thought process has only been confirmed. When I talk to theists, especially when discussing religious texts, it’s like we’re not speaking the same language. I can’t help but think that this is what has caused a good deal of miscommunication between theists and non-theists. When we speak, we use different words, or we use the same words differently. When we discuss scripture or holy writ, the non-theist (or nonbeliever) does not interpret it the same way that the believer does. We see it differently. This makes it very difficult to come to an understanding. It leads to frustration and anger. And I think that it is important to try and realize that this miscommunication is occurring in order to prevent that frustration and anger. Unfortunately, I’m not quite sure how to avoid this miscommunication because it is not always obvious when a word is being used differently.

Some of the words that I’ve noticed as being used differently:

Faith:
To a non-theist, this means belief without evidence.
Theists, in my experience, use this word differently depending on a number of factors, but two interpretations that I’ve noticed are trust and their relationship with their deity.

Belief:
A lot of non-theists don’t like this word. Many feel that it implies faith. To me, a belief is just something that one holds true whether it is or not.
I’ve noticed that a lot of theists use this to mean truth.

Truth:
When non-theists say something is true, we mean that it is supported by evidence.
Theists tend to have two interpretations of this word. The first is the capital-T truth, which seems to me to mean the words written in their particular holy book. The second is small-t truth, which seems to be defined as true facts.

Christian:
When a non-theist says this, we generally mean someone who identifies as a Christian.
When a Christian says this, they can mean a number of things. They can agree with the non-theist, they can mean someone who has been saved, and they can even mean someone from their denomination only. It can be difficult to determine what is meant when someone says this.

Atheist:
When an atheist says this, they mean someone who believes that gods don’t exist.
When a theist says this, they often mean someone who asserts that there are no gods, or they may try to differentiate between the above claim and not believing in any gods.

Scripture:
When I hear a Christian say this I hear “the Bible,” but it seems that they often mean “the Gospels.” I’m not really to sure about other religions , but I generally just take “scripture” to mean “holy book.”

Worldview:
When non-theists say this, we generally mean a series of beliefs that inform a person’s view of the world.
When theists use worldview, it seems as though they often mean a single belief, or a few beliefs, where religion is concerned, and only where religion is concerned.

Evidence:
When non-theists say “give me evidence,” we mean tangible evidence. We mean “give me something I can see, touch, and accept.” We want something that will convince us, which means that we need to be able to confirm it.
Theists tend to use “evidence” more loosely. They often conflate personal experience with evidence, and they often try to show their holy book to be true using that holy book.

Argument:
This one I think is generally a matter of whether or not one has had philosophical training, but there is still some difference between theists and non-theists.
Non-theists tend to mean a series of claims meant to support a conclusion.
Theists often mean getting into a shouting match.

This is not an all inclusive list, but it includes the words that I have noticed getting used differently the most. And it includes some of the most common usages that I have noticed. Also, while I say theist vs. non-theist, I’ve noticed this mostly between members of the Abrahamic religions and atheists/agnostics (I don’t have much dealings with people within the Eastern religions, and I haven’t noticed Pagan’s using words that I use differently. Well, not enough to comment on anyway).

What other words get used differently between theists and non-theists? What do these words mean to you?