"Only a Sith deals in absolutes" - Obi-Wan Kenobi
Disagree?
Deepdiscounts.com apparently mailed some copies of the final Harry Potter book early and then realized their mistake. Once they realized that they can't read a calendar they released an appeal to their customers,
We are also making a direct appeal to the Harry Potter fans who bought their books from DeepDiscount.com and may receive copies early requesting that they keep the packages hidden until midnight on July 21
Since attending an Easter Sunday service at WCC I've had this quote stuck in my head, "I don't have enough faith to say that it all just happened...that we're just here." This isn't the exact quote but this is the sentiment of what Denny Wilson said during that Easter Service; that he doesn't have enough faith to say that we are just here. That, in effect, it takes less faith to make the claim "there is a God" than it takes to not make that claim. There exists a book cleverly titled, I Don't Have Enough Faith to be an Atheist written by Norman L. Geisler and Frank Turek which, presumably, devotes many pages to supporting the title of the book.
Now, I don't know what is wrong with these people. And it could be the case that a sensible explanation of what is wrong with them will fail to fully explain their bizarre claims. But I would like to know what they think they are saying. So, let us attempt to puzzle our way through it.
First, empirically verifiable claims do not require faith. To see a cat on a mat and state, "The cat is on the mat." in no way involves faith. Now, if one reads Descartes' Meditations incorrectly one could arrive at the conclusion that all claims are faith claims, that one can know only cogito. But even if one has incorrectly read the Meditations and acts on the assumption that all claims are faith claims this still does not explain the situation, as all claims would be faith claims and, surely, all faith claims would require equal faith under the world view of the misread Descartes. If everything is in doubt, surely no thing is in more doubt than any other. So this does not explain the absurd notion.
What of this idea of "enough"? This seems to suggest that belief in God requires X faith and not having belief requires some quantity of faith > X
Let me make an aside at this point. It is impossible to prove a universal negative. So, it cannot be the case that their argument is that a universal negative claim requires more faith than their particular positive claim, as no one in their right mind would make a universal negative claim and suppose it to be true.
What we seem to have, at this point, is the following set of thoughts:
X faith is required to make the claim, “There exists a God.”
Y faith is required to make the claim, “You have supplied insufficient proof in your attempt to support your claim.”
And Y > X.
Now, as was already said, empirical observations do not require faith. So it cannot be the case that any faith is required to make the Y faith claim. So, somehow, these people seem to maintain the world view that 0 is greater than a positive number.
But perhaps we have misunderstood their argument. What if they have not misread Descartes but do maintain that the claim of a non-believer requires faith. But then, faith in what? Faith is maintained for something, for some end or some belief. So, would it be faith in a non-claim? This cannot be the case if the non-claim is supported by empirical observation, as empirical observation requires no faith. So, then, in what does the non-believer have faith?
Why, in their non-belief, of course. While empirical observations in and of themselves require no faith, one must have faith when basing one’s judgment on empirical observations. Except, again, that is the misread Descartes’ argument, the notion that faith is required to get to any sort of concept or idea.
I think, probably, that their argument is the misunderstood Descartes’ argument in miniature, that in saying, “There is no proof for this, therefore it is either not true or cannot be known to be true” one somehow invokes faith and utilizes faith.
Which, again, doesn’t make any sense.
Olivia Wilde, Kal Penn, Peter Jacobson and Anne Dudek are the new victims.
Olivia Wilde is a hottie, with very little acting ability thus far, so that worries me.
Kal Penn, better known as Kumar, worries me also. Probably picked up for comedic value, I can only hope otherwise
Peter Jacobson, fresh off some role in Transformers that I don't remember, IMDB is no help on this one
and lastly
Anne Dudek, a perennial bit character now in some form of recurring role.
I can only hope this doesn't pan out how I expect.
Sony is releasing a new, slimmer version of the PSP so that it can "compete with Nintendo's DS". The features of this new model?
- Slimmer design due to a new LCD screen
- Increased battery life due to the new LCD screen
- "faster load times"
- 8GB of Internal Flash Memory
- New Buttons
So, when presented with the opportunity to revamp the PSP and fix the problems the guys at Sony decided that the biggest problem was the size and screen, probably because those were the things fixed by Nintendo in the DS Lite. Unfortunately for Sony the PSP and DS do not have the same problems.
The PSP's main problem is that it exemplifies John Stewart's critique of camera phones, "You just get a crappy camera and a crappy phone." Sure, the PSP can play games, play mp3s, play video, and allow the user to browse the internet. The problem is that it doesn't do any of these things WELL. It can't replace your DS for gameplay, it can't replace your iPod for mp3s or movies, and it can't replace your handheld for web browsing purposes. It's a hodgepodge of half-assed technology encased in a super-smudgeable shell.
That is the PSP’s problem; the problem they did not fix. It’s not the size or the screen or the buttons. The problem is that it’s trying to do too many contradictory things. One can make a portable MP3 player, a portable movie player, a portable gaming platform, and a portable web browser. But the requirements for all of these things are not harmonious. A portable web browser requires a keyboard. Let’s just dismiss any notion to the contrary right now. One cannot enjoyably browse the internet with an analog stick and an X button. A portable mp3 player requires storage and some means by which it can play continually with minimal user input. A portable movie player requires good speakers, a good screen, and some form of media which can hold the movies. And a portable gaming platform needs to do what the DS does. What the PSP attempts to do is balance out the needs of each individual system and it fails. An iPod is a better MP3 player and video player. A smart phone is a better web browser. A DS is a better portable gaming platform.
All of these problems are compounded, I think, by the numerous products that do what they promise. Blackberries function. iPhones and iPods function. The DS does what it says it will do. So when there exist products like iPhones within the same realm in which Sony says, “We’ll make the PSP slimmer!” this, I think, is an admission of defeat and incompetence by Sony.
They obviously do not know what they are doing and it would be best if they just stopped.
Since I first became aware of his existence I was certain that Richard Dawkins was an idiot, or at least a very irate and confused person. Initially I thought this because his idea of "conversing" with religous people involved him yelling at them and telling them they were stupid. Then after watching interviews with him and seeing his written works about religion I began to understand that he fundamentally misunderstood religion, shown through his trite and sophmoric arguments which were below even the standards of a basic Intro to Theology class. I thought, however, that maybe his work in other fields would be impressive and that his performance in the religious sphere resulted from his misunderstanding of religion, and not some flaw on his own part.
Then I read about memes.
A meme is "a unit of cultural transmission, or a unit of imitation". Dawkins argued that a meme "propagates from one mind to another analogously to the way in which a gene propagates from one organism to another as a unit of genetic information and of biological evolution." So, when I post, "ceiling cat is watching you masturbate" the "ceiling cat" meme replicates itself into your consciousness from my own (by way of the tubal interwebs) and then from your mind the celing cat meme can replicated again into the mind of another and this way the ceiling cat meme can "survive".
Forgetting for a moment that this is an entirely idiotic and flawed way of talking about ceiling cat jokes, what interests me is how this relates to the idea of God.
The notion of God exists as a means of explaining some of the things which we observe in the world. If a person is sick and they get better in a manner which cannot be explained we say, "God did it." because it serves as an explanation which fits with our chosen world view. Or, if there are other means by which something can be explained one may still choose to say, "God did it" if that fits better with their own world view. The idea of God gives an origin and explanation for a thing which happens in the world.
Now, how is the idea of memes not this exact same situation? We have a situation in which one person says, "ceiling cat is watching you masturbate" and then someone else who hears that says, "ceiling cat is watching you masturbate" to another person. And then Dawkins jumps from this thing that happens to the idea of some thingness, "meme", which explains the thing happening.
Now, arguably, any explanation or name or word will fit that same pattern. But if there is some flaw in utilizing a means of explanation which cannot be supported empirically (god) how is there not some flaw in utilizing a means of explanation which cannot be supported empirically (meme)? If it is problematic for an individual to go beyond empirical evidence in their positing that "god exists" is it not equally problematic to go beyond empirical evidence and posit that there exists this thing, "meme" that exists beyond yet also as part of the phrase, "Ceiling cat is watching you masturbate"? Do not both of these actions (claiming "God" and claiming "meme") attach onto empirical reality some other layer, some depth, some greater degree of explanation which only exists in-so-far as we say it does?
I think they do.
So, remember, Richard,
