Author: James

In his book God is Not Great, Christoper Hitchens makes excellent arguments against God.

One of Hitchens‘ first arguments deals with Laplace, who, when asked where God stood in his cosmology, simply said there was no place for God, and in fact, no need. The simple fact is, if we attempt to explain the universe in terms of a creation of God, we must first demonstrate that there is or was actually a God to create it.

Hitchens then goes into the arguments known as Occam’s Razor, or Ockham’s razor, developed by one William of Ockham. Ockham developed what was recognized as a “principle of economy”, stated simply as “Do not multiply entities beyond necessity”.

If you watched the movie “Contact” the idea of Occam’s Razor was employed quite often. If two or more competing theories attempt to explain a theory of existence, the one that explains the most with the least effort and unnecessary detail will probably be the truth. (I quote from memory. I’m sure there are better explanations).

To quote from Hitchens‘ book, “Ockham stated that it cannot be strictly proved that god, if defined as a being who possesses the qualities of supremacy, perfection, uniqueness, and infinity, even exists at all….’It is difficult or impossible(wrote Ockham) to prove against the philosophers that there cannot be an infinite regress in causes of the same kind, of which one can exist without the other’. Thus the postulate of a designer or creator only raises the unanswerable question of who designed the designer or created the creator”.

Stated in a popular fashion by such people as physicist Paul Davies, “it’s turtles all the way down”. I hope you’re familiar with that story.

I like Hitchens‘ statement just a paragraph later: “If one must have faith in order to believe something, or believe in something, then the likelihood of that something having any truth or value is considerably diminished.”

So, if I tell you “there is a God”, the only possible “explanation” can come up with is that it was “revealed”.

Big problem: how does one prove a revelation? Only one way it can be done, and that is to prove it by some method that demonstrates beyond any doubt, by reason, logic, or physical demonstration. But that presents a further problem: if I can prove it by reason, logic, or demonstration of physical example, I don’t need a revelation! it would be a fact of existence!

Ockham, therefore, has left us with the realization that existence, and the reason we discover within existence, simply cannot rely on revelation, since the very process of explaining the revelation makes it unnecessary in the first place.

However, this leaves us right in the same position as I mentioned earlier: I will add a qualifying statement to it. If there is a God, any facts of evidence we present to demonstrate existence could not depend on unproven revelations, since the very proof of itself would be contained with no necessity for such a revelation. It would simple “follow” from the proofs inherent in the explanation.

So, if there is a God, it would stand to reason that such a God would either exist within the proofs stated by reason, or that “God” cannot exist within those proofs, leaving us with exactly the same statement made by the apostle Paul in Romans 8:7: the natural mind is enmity against God, and cannot be subject to “his” laws.

And that places us on a par with Occam’s razor, since the results achieved IF the mind is enmity against God, will produce no evidence of God, and further would produce no decision procedure by which we may demonstrate any relationship to God.

And that is precisely what Paul said in Romans 9:16-22. Further, if we try to apply definitions of “God” in any human sense, both Occam’s Razor and Romans 8:7 would lead logically to the same results: a multiplication of entities trying to define “God” outside the power of human reason.

But Ockham says that such multiplication of entities is unnecessary, and would prove absolutely nothing. Therefore, with both Paul’s statement and with Occam’s Razor, we are left with one unavoidable conclusion: there is no need to follow or believe in any religion that claims to represent God. That is just what Jesus said in Matthew 24:23.

Prove me wrong.

Comments

I suppose there are those of you who think I must be intimidated by your constant, useless, and meaningless ad hominem attempts to “put me down”.

I didn’t suggest this to James, he suggested it to me. I started this out only with the intention of expressing ideas, and it turned into pretty much an insult match. I personally like insult matches.

A bit of my background. As you already know I spent time in the marines. Not being particularly impressed by authority, I spent probably as much time in jail as in regular service. I stood two Company Office Hours, Two Battalion Office Hours, was sentenced to two months Correctional Custody, and stood a Special Court Martial, which I won on my own defense.

The reason I was court martialed is that the marines sentenced me to two months Correctional Custody, which would make most any civilian jail today look like time spent in Paris Hilton(the building).

Since they took my money I said “no pay, no play. I’m going home”.

I spent eight months of freedom before the FBI convinced me to return, and then faced court martial for desertion.

As a result of my defense, I not only won the court martial, but the marines apologized and promoted me meritoriously. To my knowledge, that has never been done in the history of the marine corps.

During my time waiting for court martial, I quite literally had to “watch my back”. At one point, five marines gathered, and tried to “adjust my attitude”. They caught me on a good day , but not for them. At that time, I was deadlifting 500 lbs, squatting 600, bench pressing over 300, and I ran 8 miles a day for good measure. It wasn’t much of a problem for me to throw two average marines like a baseball. When those five marines came at me, and of course not realizing the fed up state of mind I was in, to paraphrase Clint Eastwood, they “made my day”.

You think your puny garbage bothers me? I’ve had REAL harassment from experts.

You think I’m crazy? I’m an ex-marine. Of course I’m crazy.

A side story of interest. After i won my court martial, I was assigned a room in the 22 area at Camp Pendleton, Ca. We were given rooms much like an average motel room, and three marines lived in each room. Me, I like to make things shine. Spit and polish really suits my nature. On Thursdays, we had to ‘field day” our rooms for inspection Friday. If we failed that inspection, we spent the weekend doing it all over again, until the inspector got bored from watching.

I hand buffed the tile floors in my room, every single square, until it shone like crystal. If an inspector opened the door and looked in my room, he saw that almost crystalline reflection of my room perfectly in the floor.

People talked about my floor. People came to look at my floor. Inspectors used my floor as an example of what floors should look like.

And then one day the company sergeant, who was responsible for inspecting rooms, decided he wanted my floor. I was ordered to move out. As the sergeant moved in , I told him, “You know, sergeant, that i won that court martial. Nobody in the history of the marines has ever done that.
You really should re-consider, sergeant, because somebody up there really likes me”.

Of course I was joking. The sergeant smirked and said “Yeah, right”.

That night, after the sergeant and i got re-settled in our new rooms, a toad strangling rain came. It poured torrents almost all night, in Southern California, where everyone who lived there back in the 70’s knows, as the old song said “It never rains in Southern California”.

I had been moved to the front of the building, where the rain simply drained away. I was high and dry. But in my old room, on the back side of the building, rain and slime and mud ran under the threshold guard of the Sergeant’s door, and he awakened that morning to about two inches of mud and slime and ooze all over his floor.

I walked by and saw him sweeping the filth off the floor, and I said “Sergeant, I told you somebody up there likes me!”.

He grinned sheepishly and said “I’m startin‘ to believe it”.

That’s a true story. Am I threatening you with “God”? Of course not. Just wanted you hecklers out there to know, unless James decides to cut me off, I’m looking forward to March even more than you!

Comments

The general reaction to my essays are about the usual, and generally what I expected from ex-WCG members.

Except for “Bykker Bob” and “Questeruk“, the usual response is merely a form of ad himinem that demonstrates nothing at all. My response is merely to demonstrate the childish attempts to refute me(not the message, but me).

James, of course, is trying to show me not to “insult” the members of this body, when in fact I have offered no insults. I have merely offered a logical proposition constantly which none of you have even managed to begin to challenge. Simple premise, simple statement.

I’m not concerned with whether you hate me or like me, since what I am or am not, is irrelevant to any pursuit of truth, just as it is irrelevant whether Paul or Simon Magus wrote the things attributed to Paul.

The question is, is the statement true within itself, or is it not true within itself, regardless of the character or nature of the person who wrote it.

I have argued, and with good reason, that there is no way Paul could have started Christianity as we know it today, simply because the logic of Romans 8:7, 8:29-30, and 9:16-22, not to mention Ephesians 2:8-10, and 1 Corinthians 1:27-29, and a host of other scriptures I can explore to prove my point.

And of course, there is the old saw “you can prove anything by the bible”, which is exactly the point. There exists no human authority structure that can ever claim truthfully to represent God, and that is the whole point of the book.

This conclusion must really bother you folks, because there’s no way to argue around it, and that in itself just tickles me no end. I have provided an unassailable argument, and the very best that you can manage is various forms of ad hominem.

“Ex-Android” claims to represent the logic of Ayn Rand, with whom I am very familiar, and offers nothing more against my statement than “This is so because i say it is so”.

Guess what, “Ex”, that’s religion. It is a statement of dogmatic faith. If you accept it and cannot prove it, or if you accept it because someone else said it must be so, then you are merely following human arguments about truth, which is no more than following human arguments about God.

In fact, by your response, you merely attempt to declare that i cannot possibly be any smarter than you, and your knowledge therefore must be the final word. You can’t prove that of course, but why not find reasons to condemn me and show my failings rather than face the discipline of logical discourse?

One of the more interesting aspects of the ad hominem attack is that, by attacking ans showing the flaws of the messenger while ignoring the message, you merely attempt to reduce all people to “equality” by showing that the people themselves are irremediably spoiled, and therefore not to be heard.

That, essentially, is the definition of religion. What is the religious concept of christian “sin” if not the attempt to say that all human ‘souls” are so spoiled that individual knowledge is not to be heard, but the judgement of the collective must be superior?

You can be atheist or theist, and you can be subject to that very flaw of reasoning. In fact, it was Ayn Rand herself who pointed out the logical flaw of using “psychology” to demonstrate the depravity of an individual who dared challenge the status quo. The are no heroes, says the psychologizers, since all humans are forever incomplete and incurably spoiled in their attempts to succeed as individuals.

Ayn Rand called such psychological moralizers and ad hominem spoilers “second-handers“.

“The second hander acts, but the source of his actions is scattered in every other living person”.

The ex-WCG members, having no guidelines to show them there is a God, now collectively gather among themselves, and find their “truth” by agreeing with one another that there can be no God. How do you know? You don’t, any more than I know that there can be a God.

So, in true second-hand fashion, you agree among yourselves that anything that smacks of “God” cannot possibly be true. Why? because another group of second handers with no ability to think for themselves agree that there must be a God who is reflected n their second hand collective thoughts.

And so you have the two collectives, the two groups of second-handers that never step out to think or create or reason for themselves, but find their solace in the collective. True Believers that there is no God to combat the True Believers that there is a God.

proof for either side? None at all.

From Ayn Rand: “Notice how they(second handers) will accept anything except a man who stands alone. There’s a special insidious kind of hatred for him. The forgive criminals, they admire dictators. Crime and violence are a tie. A form of mutual dependence. They’ve got to force their miserable little personalities on every single person they meet….Notice the malignant kind of resentment against any idea that propounds independence. Notice the malice toward an independent man.”

And what have I said? I have said there is no human authority structure to represent God or truth. None can. I have said there is no reason to follow any human, since no human can know the truth in any absolute sense. I have shown the full consistency between that statement and the statements of both Jesus and Paul, with no one to prove otherwise.

James says he gets emails from people saying “WTF?”. Has anyone, as an individual, challenged my thinking or shown the flaw? No, you have resorted to the arguments of the collectivist and second hander, the psychology and ad hominem of the collectivist. The mentality of the group.

Ex-Anrdoid, you want to show the truth of Ayn Rand to me? Show me you can grasp the range and application of her thoughts.

Retired prof, don’t hide be hid the facade of “nice’. Show me the flaw in my reason. I don’t think you can.

I’m accused of playing games, when all I’ve done is to repeat a simple argument and a simple conclusion over and over, with no one even trying to challenge it. Your response is collectivist and “democratic”. It is ‘democratic” because you must insist that no individual can ever ho;p to show intelligence that rises above your own, and that no individual can ever claim the right to rise above the collectivism of mobocracy. Reduce everything to the lowest possible common denominator. Find the new priesthood of the deniers and expert demoralizers. Find the leaders whom you can hide behind to justify your anguish and hate, but never step outside as an individual to think, to question. No, can’t do that. Must reduce every single human to the collective of the group. Nonbe higher than the group. None higher than your hatred.

And what have you hated? A man named HWA. Were you warned in advance? Yes, about two thousand years in advance. Jesus said it. Don’t follow any man saying “here is Christ”. Paul said it There exists no decision procedure by which any person can get from here to God by his own power. You were warned, I was warned, but you see, this educational system in which we live, this ‘world” in which we exist, must derive its power from our acceptance of non-existence, acceptance that no man can ever rise above the group and say “I am!” .

I stand alone, proudly, defiantly, and I challenge all of you and all who read: Prove me wrong!

Comments