Cicero's dialogue on Natural Religion

De Natura Deorum This bit, from the introduction by H. Rackham, pp. viii-ix, sounds like what I've heard of Gnosticism:

Stoic Theology.—The Stoics, on the contrary, held that the universe is controlled by God, and in the last resort is God. The sole ultimate reality is the divine Mind, which expresses itself in the world-process. But only matter exists, for only matter can act and be acted upon; mind therefore is matter in its subtlest form, Fire or Breath or Aether. The primal fiery Spirit creates out of itself the world that we know, persists in it as its heat or soul or 'tension,' is the cause of all movement and all life, and ultimately by a universal conflagration will reabsorb the world into itself. But there will be no pause: at once the process will begin again, unity will again pluralize itself, and all will repeat the same course as before. Existence goes on for ever in endlessly recurring cycles, following a fixed law or formula (Aoyos – [actually those are supposed to be the greek characters for ‘logos’]); this law is Fate or Providence, ordained by God: the Stoics even said that the 'Logos' is God. And the universe is perfectly good: badness is only apparent, evil only means the necessary imperfection of the parts viewed separately from the whole.

The Stoic system then was determinist: but in it nevertheless they found room for freedom of the will. Man's acts like all other occurrences are the necessary effects of causes; yet man's will is free, for it rests with him either willingly to obey necessity, the divine ordinance, or to submit to it with reluctance. His happiness lies in using his divine intellect to understand the laws of the world, and in submitting his will thereto.

Helpful Hints for Young Athletes

For those who want to be stronger, faster and higher flying than I ever got to be, I have two helpful hints: 1. Gymnastics/acrobatics and powerlifting don't mix. Not well, anyway. If you're going to switch back and forth, make sure you're sufficiently recovered and mind your form. 2. Make sure your bowels are clear before doing any heavy lifting. No, I never messed myself during any athletic endeavor (though I've heard stories), but a full bowel has - more than a few times - acted like my enemy's buddy getting down on all-fours behind me as hostilities escalated in front. Heavy lifting with a full bowel puts excessive strain on the spine, is what I'm saying.

WOD: indefeasible

I'll just have to send you here.

Robert Ingersoll may well be the most inspirational writer I've ever read.

Quote from "Heretics and Heresies":

The real Bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor apostles, nor evangelists, nor of Christs. Every man who finds a fact, adds, as it were, a word to this great book. It is not attested by prophecy, by miracles or signs. It makes no appeal to faith, to ignorance, to credulity or fear. It has no punishment for unbelief, and no reward for hypocrisy. It appeals to man in the name of demonstration. It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. It does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be true. It challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. The earth, with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of its truth.

A quote from Rober Ingersoll

[Science] found the world at the mercy of disease and famine; men trying to read their fates in the stars, and to tell their fortunes by signs and wonders; generals thinking to conquer their enemies by making the sign of the cross, or by telling a rosary. It found all history full of petty and ridiculous falsehood, and the Almighty was supposed to spend most of his time turning sticks into snakes, drowning boys for swimming on Sunday, and killing little children for the purpose of converting their parents. It found the earth filled with slaves and tyrants, the people in all countries downtrodden, half naked, half starved, without hope, and without reason in the world. Such was the condition of man when the morning of science dawned upon his brain, and before he had heard the sublime declaration that the universe is governed by law. For the change that has taken place we are indebted solely to science--the only lever capable of raising mankind. Abject faith is barbarism; reason is civilization. To obey is slavish; to act from a sense of obligation perceived by the reason, is noble. Ignorance worships mystery; Reason explains it: the one grovels, the other soars.

John W. Loftus

From Why I Became an Atheist... uh, I... Oh, here it is.  I had printed out a page from the free pdf on his webpage.  It's on page 9-10:

William Lane Craig explains geographical religious diversity by arguing, in his own words, “it is possible that God has created a world having an optimal balance between saved and lost and that God has so providentially ordered the world that those who fail to hear the gospel and be saved would not have freely responded affirmatively to it even if they had heard it.” Craig argues that if this scenario is even “possible,” “it proves that it is entirely consistent to affirm that God is all-powerful and all-loving and yet that some people never hear the gospel and are lost.” [5] Notice him retreating to what is merely “possible?” He’s trying to explain the evidence of global religious diversity away. The probability that not one of the billions of people who have not heard the gospel would respond if they did hear the gospel can probably be calculated, if missionaries kept records of their efforts. To claim what he does against the overwhelming evidence of missionary efforts belies the facts. Contrary to Craig, when we look at the billions of people who have never been given a chance to be “saved” because of “when and where they were born,” his scenario seems extremely implausible, to say the least.

Here he is on Hell and Psychology (p. 33),

I read Four Views on Hell, ed. William Crockett, and came away thinking “conditional immortality” was the preferred option (defended by Clark Pinnock). This is an important conclusion when it comes to rethinking my faith—for otherwise my questions would have been hamstrung by a fear of everlasting punishment in hell if I got it wrong. The loss of the fear of an eternal conscious punishment allowed me to pursue my doubts. Another key assumption is that faith has nothing to fear from the truth—so I pursued my questions with intensity. [I have since come to deny the existence of such a hell—conditional or metaphorical. It just doesn’t square with what Freud has taught us about the depths of our subconscious motivations. Because of Freud we now know that people do bad deeds because of faulty thinking patterns and experiences that happened even before the age of accountability—we know this!

Prior to Freud actions were judged prima facie as indicative of people’s conscious deliberate attempt to be bad. We also know that once we understand these subconscious motivations and background experiences that we can find a love for people who commit evil deeds. Since God understands all of these hidden motives, past experiences, and faulty thinking patterns, then he completely understands why people do what they do. Hence, in a post-Freudian world, we can no longer talk about a wrathful vengeful God who seeks our destruction because we disobey our parents, shoplift a tool, or tell a lie to escape a confrontation (I use these easy examples here because examples like Jeffrey Dahmer, Hitler, Stalin, are harder for us to comprehend—but only to us, not to God, who understands all, and cannot help but love all, since religious traditions abound in teaching us that God is love.)].

Oh, btw, the pdf is an abridged version of the book for sale on Amazon.

The is from the Mises Institute's _The_Turgot_Collection_

The PDF, page 473, which the introduction to the chapter "To Voltaire" in the Correspondence section.  Tell me this doesn't sound like someone we know.

Turgot corresponded with many of leading thinkers of the Enlightenment, including Voltaire, Condorcet, and Hume, and these letters disclose important aspects of his thought. He strongly condemns the French utilitarian philosopher Helvétius for reducing all human motives to self-interest. To the contrary, human beings display strong sympathy for others. Although morality helps people achieve happiness, it must be based on justice, not a narrow conception of self-interest. Turgot left no doubt about the contents of morality founded on this basis. It requires equal rights for everyone. He warns against confusing this conception with rule by the majority, which can, in his view, lead to a destruction of liberty worse, because less easily changed, than despotism. A prime mistake in thinking about morality is to suppose that nations have interests apart from the individuals who live in them. If one correctly considers the interests of individuals, it is clear that absolute freedom of commerce and avoidance of war are required.

UPB confusion

It seems to me that the majority of objections to Universally Preferable Behavior that I've seen, stem from a belief that morality MUST have a crapload of baggage attached. People can't believe that it's really just "Don't hit, don't steal, use your words." Universalized. Force may be used to stop hitting and stealing, and failing to persuade people to help you is, de facto, ostracism.

Defensive force must be proportional, which, I'm afraid, can only be defined by experiment.

Richard Carrier's responses upon rereading the Bible as an adult

From his autobiographical essay, From Taoist to Infidel,

I could go on at length about the many horrible passages that praise the immoral, the cruel, as the height of righteous goodness. It does no good to try in desperation to make excuses for it. A good and wise man's message would not need excuses. It follows that the Bible was written neither by the wise nor the good. And the New Testament was only marginally better, though it too had its inexcusable features, from commands to hate (Luke 14:26) to arrogantly sexist teachings about women (1 Timothy 2:12), from Jesus saying he "came not to bring peace, but the sword," setting even families against each other (Matthew 10:34-36), to making blasphemy the worst possible crime, even worse than murder or child molesting (Matthew 12:31-32). It, too, supported slavery rather than condemning it (Luke 12:47, 1 Timothy 6:1-2). Worse, its entire message is not "be good and go to heaven," itself a naive and childish concern (the good are good because they care, not because they want a reward), but "believe or be damned" (Mark 16:16, Matthew 10:33), a fundamentally wicked doctrine. The good judge others by their character, not their beliefs, and punish deeds, not thoughts, and punish only to teach, not to torture. But none of this moral truth is in the Bible, and the New Testament had none of the humanistic wisdom of the Tao Te Ching which spoke to all ages, but instead drones on about subjection to kings and acceptance of slavery, while having no knowledge of the needs of a democratic society, of the benefits of science, or the proper uses of technology. It even promotes superstition instead of science, with all its talk about demonic possession and faith healing and speaking in tongues, and assertions that believers will be immune to poison (Mark 16:17-18). It is plagued with a general obscurity and ambiguity, and illogicality, which I had already noted as a child, and though I did understand more and saw it as less confused than I once had, the improvement was minimal and not encouraging. It still taught a morality that is unlivable, and above all contained not a hint of humor or a mature acceptance of sexuality or anything distinctly and naturally human at all.

Cool, the links transferred over.

Where've you been all my life?

I've never heard of Dave Hitt before.  I'm impressed.

r · b>c: Nature Says: Keep Your Family Close.

The Altruism Equation, by Lee Alan Dugatkin

r = genetic related-ness
b = benefit
c = cost

That's the rule William Hamilton figured out in 1964 to explain altruistic behavior.  It's been tested and upheld in many experiments and studies since.

Humans, of course, have Reason and can overcome genetic heritage, but I think we're generally foolish to try.  That is, we should not try to overcome our tendency to love our family (unless they prove themselves unlovable), nor should we expect altruistic acts of others outside of their families.

Quicky thoughts.  I can't imagine I'll stop thinking about this, so you can expect more on it when I have time.

One thought right now: families are natural - institutions aren't.  I see a use for this knowledge in the Homeschooling movement.

Note to self: check out Alan Watts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BE5M8743a1s

An Objectivist take on Dawkins

Richard Dawkins trapped in Ill-Information of Economic and Political Memes

The author needs to reread her writings before she posts them.  The thoughts are brilliant - the execution leaves something to be desired (though I've seen much worse).

In 2001, Richard Dawkins was invited to express his ideas for Foundation for the Future. In his speech, Dawkins acknowledged that one effective way to abort any global crisis and tragedy of commons is to respect property rights of individuals and individuals should not only get all benefits of their property, they should also be responsible for the costs and losses; he suggested that recognition of property right as a natural right can be said as one of the reason for success of human species. Obviously, he was supporting the libertarian idea of individual rights and free market⁴ . At that point, it seemed that Richard Dawkins has clearly overcome the economic meme of socialism and cultural meme of altruism as a supreme good. However, he was still confused with the illogical information he attained through irrational memes as in 2008, he suddenly changed his view and in the documentary, “The genius of Charles Darwin,” he mentioned that “paying taxes” is an example of human altruism and it is good⁵

It was pretty clear at that instance that Richard Dawkins not only failed to refine the illogical economic information he had attained through irrational memes, he also failed to refine the illogical and ill-philosophical information he attained through those irrational memes.

And

In his documentary, Nice Guys Finish First, Richard Dawkins successfully explained that co-operation offers better chance than selfishness with the help of the computer program ‘Tit for Tat’ whose basic four conditions were mentioned by Richard Dawkins as¹³

1)Unless provoked, the agent will always cooperate.
2)If provoked, the agent will retaliate.
3)The agent is quick to forgive.
4)The agent must have a good chance of competing against the opponent more than once.

A close analysis will establish that the program Tit for Tat exactly establishes the libertarian theory and principle of Non-Aggression Principle. Non-Aggression Principle¹⁴ is the base of Libertarianism which suggests that kindness, charity, co-operation, compassion, and forgiveness are essential characteristics of a libertarian. However, Non-aggression principle also asserts that if provoked or attacked, or aggressed, the individual will retaliate and may counter-attack. The idea of free market libertarianism is essentially based on the condition that unless provoked, a free market producer, supplier, consumer, will cooperate with each other and the whole society. This is the reason why Anarcho-capitalists suggest that there is no need of monopoly over initiation of force because initiation of force is strictly immoral and unacceptable.

Honesty.

It almost literally kills me when I feel the need to keep secrets.  Or find out that I have been feeling that need and acting on it.

On that, here's a quote from the great co-discoverer of Marginal Utility, William Stanley Jevons,

It would not be easy to say offhand whether every action which is not honest is dishonest, or whether there may not be actions of an intermediate character. The rule is that wherever the question is one of degree or quantity a medium is possible, and the subject belongs rather to the science of quantity than to simple logic; where the question is one of the presence or absence of a quality, there cannot be more than two alternatives…

That's from Elementary Lessons in Logic.  The best way to get it is google it.  The Mises Institute has it as a free PDF.  The quote is from page 24.

So here's where I'm at:

Brutal honesty requires me not to accept belief in things for which there is no, or insufficient, evidence.  So, I don't accept fallacious arguments for anything supernatural, nor have I ever seen non-fallacious arguments for them.  What I'd like to be the case has no bearing on what is real.

So they call me an atheist.

I don't respect claims to authority by those who haven't demonstrated their expertise, whether they be teachers, presidents, kings, UN Secretary Generals, any member of any hierarchy (bureaucrats, middle-managers, etc), police, soldiers, prophets, priests or parents.  Or siblings.

Respect at a job requires competence at that job.  Competence (or even brilliance or genius) at one job, does not imply competence at anything else.  Newbs who won't train must be fired.

Most of those jobs above are too broad in their attempted scope to allow for any training whatsoever.  The jobs for which training is actually possible are the ones that are actually useful and their current organization in hierarchies must be reorganized so as to remove control from power and glory grubbers who lie about the value of their contributions.

The basic principle of that reorganization is the Non-Aggression Principle.

So they call me and anarchist and anti-family.  I'll wear the first two labels, atheist and anarchist, with some degree of pride, though they're not perfectly accurate.  I don't like agnostic, because it gives the illusion of respect to theists.  Faith is not respectable whether it's in God, government, ghosts, ufos or Dialectical Materialism.

Gotta go.

Your child is not yours

He (or she) is a rental. 

Her permanent owner is her future self.

There will be stiff penalties to pay if you don't return your child to his future self in good order.

Actually, it's more like a stock holder. 

Remember the Parable of the Talents.

H/T Stefan Molyneux on the question of whether (note spelling - not weather) your children are your property.

Ides of March, People!

Have you stabbed your local dictator yet?  Time's a-wastin'!

(Seriously, though, don't stab anyone I wouldn't stab.  WWAtOWD?)

Update: Time is celebrating with me!

I have to apologize.

Stef just reminded me that a couple of my favorite authors are also self-published.  Stef himself and Larkin Rose both are but they write so well you couldn't tell that no huge organizations were backing them.

Sorry, I put a political post on the other blog.

In my defense, there is a work of art there.

I need a link to it, don't I?

Peter Gerlach

I'm going to be spending a lot of time on this guy's materials.  He's an Internal Family Systems therapist (with an Engineering and Business background before he decided to take therapy and then become a therapist).  He has about 170 videos on YouTube.

I've been looking at a lot of self-published works lately

And I've got to tell you: you're English sucks, you people!  Take a friggin' remedial class.  Or get someone who actually understands the language to do a serious rewrite.

I have defended the occasional ending of a sentence with a preposition, but please don't do it in every sentence!  Have you ever heard of "unnecessary use of the passive voice?"  It's effin' obnoxious!

And some of you need to get out a G*** D*** dictionary and look up the words you use.  Make sure it's a big one, with multiple definitions and examples of the proper usage of each.  You need to do it because you suck and I love you and want you to stop sucking.

Look.  For a reasable fee, I can fix your s*** - those of you who have a good story to tell.  All the stories I'm talking about were great stories, but I just hit the last frickin' straw with this junk here.

Could you possibly try to make it look like a professional was involved?

Alan Caruba

Link

Jews are closely identified with Hollywood, but some ugly things have been occurring there of late. There was the latest anti-Semitic outburst attributed to actor Mel Gibson whose previous 2005 arrest for DUI revealed a deeply felt hatred of Jews.

This was followed by a July 25 report on NewsBusters.org concerning an interview by director, Oliver Stone, with the London Sunday Times in which he railed against the “powerful lobby” of Jews in America. Stone’s upcoming Showtime documentary series, the “Secret History of America”, reportedly puts Hitler and Communist dictator Joseph Stalin “in context.”

How one concludes that either of these two monsters can be justified or excused of their crimes against humanity in any fashion defies the imagination and is deeply offensive. Stone, like so many Hollywood liberals is particularly fond of dictators of every description. Nothing good can come of his re-writing history to suggest that the mastermind of the Nazi Holocaust was simply a tool of German, British, and American “industrialists.”

Stone who has associated himself with Cuba’s Fidel Castro and Venezuela’s dictator, Hugo Chavez, has apparently never met a despot with whom he could not break bread.

I have an idea for a book.  This article looks promising for my research.  This point is off my topic, but interesting.

John Taylor Gatto

Link

"You aren’t compelled to loan your car to anyone who wants it, but you are compelled to surrender your school-age child to strangers who process children for a livelihood, even though one in every nine schoolchildren is terrified of physical harm happening to them in school, terrified with good cause; about thirty-three are murdered there every year. From 1992 through 1999, 262 children were murdered in school in the United States. Your great-great-grandmother didn’t have to surrender her children. What happened?"

Maybe that's too generic for you.  This section starts with this anecdote:

Our problem in understanding forced schooling stems from an inconvenient fact: that the wrong it does from a human perspective is right from a systems perspective. You can see this in the case of six-year-old Bianca, who came to my attention because an assistant principal screamed at her in front of an assembly, "BIANCA, YOU ANIMAL, SHUT UP!" Like the wail of a banshee, this sang the school doom of Bianca. Even though her body continued to shuffle around, the voodoo had poisoned her.

William Lloyd Garrison igniting the Abolitionist fire:

Were the American Colonization Society bending its energies directly to the immediate abolition of slavery ; seeking to enlighten and consolidate public opinion, on this momentous subject ; faithfully exposing the awful guilt of the owners of slaves ; manfully contending for the bestowal of equal rights upon our free colored population in this their native land ; assiduously endeavoring to uproot the prejudices of society ; and holding no fellowship with oppressors ; my opposition to it would cease. It might continue, without censure, to bestow its charities upon such as spontaneously desire to remove to Africa, whether animated by religious considerations, or the hope of bettering their temporal condition. But, alas ! its governing spirit and purpose are of an opposite character.

The popularity of the Society is not attributable to its merits, but exclusively to its congeniality with those unchristian prejudices which have so long been cherished against a sable complexion. It is agreeable to slaveholders, because it is striving to remove a class of persons who they fear may stir up their slaves to rebellion. All who avow undying hostility to the people of color are in favor of it ; all who shrink from acknowledging them as brethren and friends, or who make them a distinct and inferior caste, or who deny the possibility of elevating them in the scale of improvement here, most heartily embrace it.

The first several sentences sound like Stefan Molyneux talking about anyone who averts their eyes to breaches of the Non-Aggression Principle.

Here's another good point:

The argument, that the difference of complexion between our forefathers and the aborigines (which is not a distinctive feature between the settlers at Liberia and the natives) was the real cause of this deadly enmity, is more specious than solid. Conduct, not color, secures friendship or excites antipathy, as it happens to be just or unjust. The venerated William Penn and his pacific followers furnish a case in point.

17,200 Miles? That's cutting it pretty close.

http://www.space.com/19637-asteroid-s-alarmingly-close-flight-path-depicted-in-animation.html

Murder

You know, it's a funny thing...  I've never had a problem that could be solved by a government hit team.  Or any other hit team or even a DIY murder.

For about 45 years of my life I was happy to see the Troops go into action, but I never really understood how that could be the correct response to any given event.

Military action doesn't have a better success rate than any other government program.  It was the right answer to the Barbary Pirates, but...  Well, I can't think of another action that couldn't have been resolved better another way.

Christians are still, apparently, waiting for the Holy Spirit to hand out His Fruit.

Whoa!

Supertree Grove

Alan Gottlieb, Second Amendment Foundation

"These anti-gun politicians were not elected to positions of royalty," Gottlieb said. "They are citizens, with no more rights than any other citizen. They were elected to serve the public, not treat the public like serfs. If they want us to put our safety at risk, they should drop the pretense and give up their guns and guards before daring to suggest that anyone else do the same."

Don't go to war.

Article: Moral Injury:

...[N]ew ideas are vying for legitimacy, a whole new theory of war’s worst ravages. It’s called “moral injury,” and it comes from clinicians who spend their days speaking with soldiers who have been in battle. These veterans rarely mention fear. Instead they talk about loss or shame, guilt or regret. They had tried to be heroes, to protect the weak, save their buddies, take the hill. But then they mistakenly killed civilians, forced themselves to drive past wounded children, sometimes missed their moment of truth. Even after the Battle of Fallujah, in 2004, where William Nash served as a combat psychiatrist, fear wasn’t a factor. “Survivor’s guilt, moral injury, feeling betrayed by leaders,” says Nash, the lead author of the current Navy and Marine doctrine on stress control, “That’s what I saw every day.”

Here's a Wonder of the World

The new Genghis Khan Statue in Mongolia.  I don't know how I never heard of it.  It was completed in 2008.

Definitely on the list of things I want to see.  Put it on my bucket list (whoever's doing that for me).

No, I don't honor the murdering scumbag as such, and don't think anyone should obey a leader to the point of being a murderer for him - or a thief or a rapist, which his soldiers were all of - but...  It's a cool statue.