Ontological, Schmontological!

Well, the final presidential debate is over, and not a moment too soon. I'm so tired of stump speeches, negative campaigning, and cliché pandering I could almost go vote for Ron Paul ... almost. If all else fails, we can just get Joe the Plumber to run our country.

At the very least it would be nice to listen to a real debate. If I wanted to hear weak arguments employing poor logic that is essentially lost in semantics or word play, I'd go listen to a religious believer or deist try to convince me of god's existence using a classic ontological argument.

So, why is the ontological argument so silly? For starters, it's essentially a tautology - an argument that takes as a premise its own conclusion. Let's examine one of the more classic interpretations:

1) By definition, God is perfect and thus greater than anything a human being could imagine.
2) If you can imagine something, it would be 'better' or 'more perfect' if that imaginary thing were actually real.
3) Therefore God must exist.

Confused yet? It's saying that if you try and imagine a 'God', he's probably perfect (meaning lots of fun things like awesome, good, the best). The twist (and assumption) is that if you can imagine something incredibly crazy cool, wouldn't it be that much COOLER if what you imagine actually came true?! If 'God' is perfect, and a perfect real thing is better than a perfect imaginary thing, then by the definition that perfect is more perfect in reality 'God' must be real.

This is as much word play as it is anything else. The base assumption that something perfect is 'more perfect' if it is actually real rather than imaginary seems to us (in modern days) a very unwarranted assumption. I reckon that many years ago it did not seem so odd.

More importantly, if we were to apply this logic to other ideas many people would find it laughable. Take Santa Claus for example (SPOILER ALERT!). Santa Claus is a fictitious character (hope you knew that already) that is a part of many cultures - at least, most of you who read this will think that. But I'm sure someone out there will claim that, in fact, Kris Kringle is as real as you and me, and he has amazing powers at Christmas time. You might say that that someone out there is crazy. Until that someone looks you in the eye and says "Santa Claus is perfect/the best/awesome at delivering gifts to everyone at Christmas time." By the logic laid forth above, Santa Claus must be real since the mere construction of the belief in this kind of perfection dictates its reality ... by definition! We have our tautology and with that, we can begin to imagine all sorts of crazy things into existence. Go ahead, try it! I've always wanted a pink-eared, fuzzy-bottomed, lion-tailed, ostrich-winged goldfish as a pet.

If you want a really great explanation/discussion of this ancient play on words, visit the skeptics guide to the universe and download podcast #80.

Now, if only I could find a politician who could even explain what the ontological argument IS, much less refute it, I would at least feel comforted knowing the intellectual capacity of the person running my government is better than a bush. If I cannot have a more skeptical candidate, at least I can have HOPE.

Fake Religion Fakery

Twenty-one days until the presidential election, and both campaigns are out in full force. Currently the news looks disheartening for McCain as he's seen a big drop in poll numbers recently:


Social conservatives don't like the fact that they are about to lose their hold on the American government and have been showing their distaste accordingly:

The incompetence is running amok this election year ... though I'm not inclined to believe it's ignorance any more. Citizens motivated enough towards political activism (in this case organizing, making posters, and protesting) generally check their facts before writing on the white board. Even a cursory glance at the news online or on television would indicate the fallacies of this protest poster. This sort of display is less an example of ignorance to the facts as much as it is intellectually dishonest about the facts ... a much more dangerous sin.

I believe FiveThirtyEight.com said it best, "Just to be clear, we at FiveThirtyEight are against Muslim-murdering Presidential Christian babies !FOR! Ohio." And I here at 'A Journey to Reason' blogspot am against intellectual dishonesty and the propagation of false ideas.

The marriage of Hitchens and ... Obama?

Worlds colliding for me today - Christopher Hitchens, one of my idols for critical thinking and independent inquiry, has just today endorsed the Obama-Biden ticket. While I agree with Hitchens in many realms, politics is not usually one of them as he considers himself a neo-conservative. One thing is for sure though; I may not agree with him, but his positions are very well thought out, intellectually honest, and defended with great vigor. I'm pleased to see that he is now supporting a candidate that I also believe to be the best choice.

His characterization of the McCain campaign's current predicament and national spotlight attention is quite keen:

Last week's so-called town-hall event showed Sen. John McCain to be someone suffering from an increasingly obvious and embarrassing deficit, both cognitive and physical. And the only public events that have so far featured his absurd choice of running mate have shown her to be a deceiving and unscrupulous woman utterly unversed in any of the needful political discourses but easily trained to utter preposterous lies and to appeal to the basest element of her audience.

Mr. Hitchens does not coat any argument with even the slightest bit of sugar. Here's what he has to say about Palin:

I wrote not long ago that it was not right to condescend to her just because of her provincial roots or her piety, let alone her slight flirtatiousness, but really her conduct since then has been a national disgrace. It turns out that none of her early claims to political courage was founded in fact, and it further turns out that some of the untested rumors about her—her vindictiveness in local quarrels, her bizarre religious and political affiliations—were very well-founded, indeed.

His arguments are pointed and frankly undeniable in most cases. The point with which I disagree is that he wishes the election could end post-haste as to save them more disgrace. I openly admit that I'd like to see this part of the campaign drag on - it's time for dirty campaign rhetoric to be exposed as the filthy manipulation that it is. With enough media attention to the non-sequiters and attack ads that McCain-Palin have hurled, I hope we could shore up enough embarrassment to last us at least two more elections in the future - maybe more.

The constant fear-mongering that is put out by the republican party must come to an end. Only when people realize that voting out of fear is not the best method to choose wisely will we be able to clearly rationalize a path into the future.

As for now - let the topsy-turvey worlds unite ... Christopher Hitchens for Obama!

Sarah Palin and the Dinosaurs

Well it's almost upon us ... the 2008 US presidential election is a mere 3 weeks or so away, and I can't wait for it to finish. It has been very exciting to follow, and at times, excruciating. For an update on where things stand, check out this awesome website where statistics are done right.

Sarah Palin (the current governor of Alaska) is McCain's pick for VP - and it's turning out to be the worst decision he ever made. In combination with the tanking economy, the McCain-Palin poll numbers have dropped to the point that some pundits are already calling the election for Obama-Biden. Only time will tell.

But why has McCain's pick not solidified a base and increased his numbers? Perhaps, in part, because middle america is worn out of religious fundamentalism that Bush has thrust upon us. Palin believes abortion should be illegal (including cases of rape and incest), beleves women should pay for their own rape kits, thinks creationism should be taught alongside evolution in the science classroom, believes that Iraq is a task from god, "tolerates" homosexuals and the choice they make, and believes in exorcisms (as she has had one herself) and speaking in tongues. This is just a sampling of the radical religious views Palin chooses to embrace.

Her lone media interview (with Katie Couric) was nearly unbearable - just to watch it I had to sit with my finger on the ON/OFF button because I just couldn't stand to hear her answers out of sheer embarrassment for her. How, in any way, did McCain think she was ready to be VP? One good thing that comes from this, is that she is a very inexperienced, fundamentally religious woman who has been thrust into the spotlight where she must answer to the scrutiny of the general public and mass media. Her fundamentally religious perspectives that are internally inconsistent are exposed in the national limelight. There have been times, that watching her answer a question with some religious rhetoric, she fumbles and almost seems to want to take it back, or change her answer - you can see her almost as if she realizes how stupid it sounds and she's about to change her view. Instead she continues to rattle it off, even though it just sounds utterly ridiculous.

This lame attempt to get peoples' votes by appealing to their religious/superstitious side is the case-in-point of how RELIGION is a very dangerous system. Most intelligent people I argue with about religion continue to rebut by saying, "But Matthew, who cares? At the end of the day, it's just a belief. Why do you care so much about what someone believes?" And my continual response is that it lays a foundation for someone to take absolute advantage of you. It never stops at 'just a belief in god.' There's always something attached - god thinks abortion is wrong, god created the world (he did not 'evolve' it), god guides our moral compass to attack other countries, god did not create marriage for homosexuals ... etc. Sarah Palin is using a dogma of superstition to connect with people and win their votes. It's despicable.

Of course she claims that her judgment is clear and that she is completely qualified to be not just the VP, but the Prez herself should John McCain pass away in office (which isn't hard to imagine seeing he's already 72 years old). Why should we questions her judgment? Aside from the fact that she says her foreign policy experience is sound because Alaska is right next to Russia on a map - the woman believes that dinosaurs lived with humans ... something science says couldn't have happened because we're separated by about 65,000,000 years of evolution.

Just remember - when you walk into the voting booth this November, ask yourself W.W.T.R.D.? (What Would Tyrannosaurus Rex Do?)