On One of Life's Least Interesting Subjects Or, the Problem of the Hiddeness of God

Has anyone really seen God? I'm not talking about seeing the face of the Virgin Mary on the side of aluminum siding, or hearing a voice in your head tell you to wait before stepping into the crosswalk moments before a car speeds through the intersection , nor am I talking about any sort of metaphorical experience ( a "closer to God" sort of moment), but has anyone really felt like God had revealed himself to us? As a steadfast empiricist, I would (for the sake of consistency) have to say that neither I or anyone else has seen God, and that fact counts as evidence against the existence of one such being identified as the "Creator". But, does the fact that you cannot see God mean that we are justified in saying that he does not exist? The fact that we cannot see or feel God in a strict, material sense leads many of us to say that we cannot -- with any definitive proof -- claim that God exists. Are we justified in believing in something that we cannot offer proof that it exists? Would we believe in any other claim about ourselves or the physical world if the proof of its truth continually and consistently eluded us? We wouldn't put faith in any "truth" about the physical world is we said that the proof of it's truth was hidden. For instance, say I tell you that I could create physical matter from mere thought. I think of a ball, I say, and one appears. Well, the first thing that you might ask, is to prove my claim. But I then tell you that I can't quite explain or even prove that I can. The fact that you saw a ball when you walked into my living room is my proof. (ok, bad analogy, but the idea is, is that if I said that I can do something, you'd be inclined to ask for proof). I can't get by saying that the process is hidden. Or worse yet, I can't say that it's not actually me but an elf that does it, and I can't tell you where he is right now. He's hiding, I say. Well, that's the way that some feel about God. His hiding from us complicates that whole believing in him thing. We might, if we were funny enough, say that God seems to us like a bit of a prankster. That is, he always seems to be hiding when we need him most. Who among us hasn't looked to the heavens and asked the Creator to strike either ourselves ir someone else down at a moment of pain or distress? But, empirical or unfunny, borderline blasphemous comments aside, we really do want to believe that we are under the watchful eye of a benevolent creator who loves us and wants us to know that he is present in our lives. But how are we to know that he is there? Biblical accounts aside, we often find ourselves calling out to a God that is not present (at least physically) in our lives. God, for the most part, and on many occasions, remains enigmatic to us, something that is hidden from our view. Ok. But is that really a problem? I was in my philosophy of religion class one afternoon, barely paying attention, when this subject came up. I think the professor was saying something along the lines of he wouldn't put faith in a marriage if he had never seen the woman he was married to ( I don't know, some guys would call that kind of marriage heaven). I think that the idea was, if you never see your wife, then you're not really married. You can't even say that you know that she positively exists. But, as so many of our examples (or "thought experiments" for the uninitiated), his example was dealing with physical objects. So, of course if I make a claim about some object in the physical world, we'd eventually have to pony up some evidence that it exists. Or else we'd assume that your "wife" is as likely to be a balding, overweight self-employed guy living on the East Shore of New Jersey, as she is likely to exist at all. But, God, if this is new to anyone, is not a physical object. Rules concerning HIS existence operate, by nature, outside of the rules concerning the physical world. Even Hume admits to that. I remember saying in class that I felt, and still do, that philosophers do not belong in the business of religion. My professor said that, given my lack of knowledge in the subject, that I was in no position to make that judgement. But, his phd aside, I still holdfast to my claim. I feel that, in matters of God and our belief (or lack of) in his existence, we should, indeed, must from time to time shrug off our philosophic coats, and try to understand God as he wants us to come to know him -- by faith. Whether we "see" God is a matter best handled by the heart and not by the intellect. Any evidence we offer, whether we are engaged in fierce philosophic debate or quiet contemplation, is, at best, anecdotal. Our evidence is and will always remain the Virgin in the sheeting, or the feeling of love we feel when we are in church, or the voice in our head telling us to stay on the curb for another half second. Our evidence that God exists is based on what we personally see, or hear, or feel -- what we've heard and what we believe to be true. And evidence of this type, as we know, cannot be verified no matter what well-formed argument that we construct. Which is why I maintained then and now that the philosopher, so long as he maintains that he can offer proof for the existence of God via an argument, will never find the proof that he wants to find. Arguments are constructed for a standard of proof that is dictated by men. And of course we know that God is notorious for not adhering to the standards of man. The plain truth is, is that, despite all of the best defenses and logically correct arguments, we can neither reason ourselves into finding God, nor can we demand that God reveal himself to ease our doubts. If we want to find God, we must remember the lessons that we were taught in Sunday school. We must remind ourselves that God is found in all creation. He tells us that we, human beings, are reflections of Him ( we are proof of God, the Father's existence just as we are proof of the existence of our own parents, even after their deaths. The fact that a parent may be dead does not serve as a negation of the proof of their existence -- especially if you are alive and well and saying to me that you indeed have parents). God tells us that to find him, all we need to do is call upon him. We may recall that God does not "prove" himself to us though spectacular displays ( i.e. God does not do parlor tricks), but through the fact of existence itself. A believer claims that his own existence justifies a belief in God. The atheist counters that no evidence short of an appearance by God himself, gives proof that miracles or other so-called evidence draws back the curtain to reveal a hidden God. But then, by holding each position, we land right back at the position where we started: each camp entrenched on either side, claiming that the other is "epistemically challenged". However (or unfortunately, if you look at it another way) our lack of definite evidence leaves us to rely on what we know -- faith. Perhaps it is faith that allows those who see God to see him. Those who do not have faith simply will not see. We know, as sinners, that it is us who must prove ourselves to God, and that our failure to see him is a sign of our separation from God rather than proof of God's hiding from us. So, we ask, is the hiddeness of God a problem? My answer is no. A believe has no problem finding God. And, if you ask him how he knows how a God that hides from him exists, he will tell you that the point of his faith is not to see God, but to seek God. Those who do not see God merely refuse to see in the face of overwhelming evidence of the existence of an almighty Creator. All we are left to do, the believer may say, is say that those who want philosophic proof may find themselves forever lost in a torrential sea of probability and valid but unsound arguments. What we must do, he may tell us, is to deal with those who do not see as graciously as possible and that we should not hold their epistemic defectiveness against them. Eventually, our believer friend may say, the lost may simply quiet themselves and stop demanding answers. When they learn to be quiet, the answers -- better yet -- the proof may come. Which, by the way, is a better way of answering the question than any argument involving possible worlds or a derivation.

Group Solipsism

Oprah's # 2 thing that she knows for sure: You define your own life, don't let other people write your script. I used to think that this idea was existentialist, and at it's face (excuse me, prima facie) it appears to be so. Telling a person to "define your own life" is straight out of the existentialist handbook. (By the way, there actually is one: The Ultimate Guide To Navelgazing and Self-Overexamination. I think it's available on Amazon or something like that. Maybe not). Existentialist philosophy says that the meaning and purpose of life is defined by the individual. We have no innate nature that determines what or perhaps more importantly, who we become- which fits perfectly with the last half of the statement, " don't let other people write your script". Existentialism, like Oprah, is all about how we relate to the world. Oprah's #1 thing she knows for sure " what you put out comes back all the time, no matter what", certainly addresses the fact that we operate in a world with others, for and with whom our actions will be held in to account. And, like Heidegger, Oprah believes that the way that we live authentically is manifested in the way that we deal with the situations that we are "thrown" ( to use Heidegger's term) into. The way that we act in a given situation, both believe, is reflective of who we truly are. So far, the philosophy of Ms. Winfrey seems to tell us nothing that we haven't heard before. It may come out of the mouth of Deepak Chopra or Dr. Phil ( and you can absolutely trust that either of them has read Heidegger or Sartre, among others), but on it's face, Oprah is giving us early 20th century French philosophy.And this totally falls in line with any other talk/advice show host that has taken a whack at the self-improvement tree of knowledge. And that's what I thought while I started watching Oprah's "best life ever". I thought that she was purely, albeit a little mixed up, chatting the existentialist rag -- until I thought a little harder about what she was saying. The first lightbulb ( I suppose Oprah would call it an "a-ha" moment) went off while I was watching Oprah's show about weight. All the time she was speaking, she was singularly focused on herself. Nothing new, afterall it was Oprah. I know that existentialism, by its design, focuses attention, perhaps too much attention, on the self. After all, it's all about figuring out how you, the individual, relates to the world. But then, I really started to pay attention: it wasn't just ordinary self-centeredness; there was something else at work in what she was saying. The something else was revealed when Oprah said that we need to put ourselves back on out to-do list. It seems that we haven't been self-centered enough. we've been spending too much time doing nice things for other people, and that is wrong. We need to reclaim the focus of our attention. We need to be at the top of the list. So, I thought, I'm at the center of the universe, and no one is going to define my life for me. I thought that defining something, especially when one is defining a life, is an act of invention or creation. It clicked: I create my life. I CREATE MY LIFE. It was if there were a flash of light and the sky suddenly parted. All my definitions are self-created. And, it seems, no one else can write the definitions for me. I am more than mastering my own life, if I follow Oprah, I am creating my own reality. I thought, this is amazing. Oprah is saying so much more to us than pop-psych clap trap that you can get any afternoon listening to Dr. Laura. Oprah is laying down some serious metaphysics. So, once more I thought about Oprah's #2 thing she knows for sure: "You define your own life, don't let other people write your script" I thought, that I would, break the statement in half and look at the two parts of Oprah's #2 statement separately. I thought, what if the second half of the statement " don't let other people write your script" wasn't just encouraging existentialist authenticity, but instead a statement about the states of other people's minds? What do I know about other people's minds, I thought. The answer: nothing. I can't even be sure if other minds exist. Maybe this is what is motivating what Oprah is saying to us, I thought. I don't know what intentions others have for me, so I cannot allow them to set my agenda. And if I cannot be sure of the existence of other minds, I surely cannot allow them to determine what is the best course for my life. I must be in control of what goes on in my own life because I only know what I think is good for myself. Likewise, I must be in control because I can only know myself so far as I know that I exist. So then, I looked at the first half: " You define your own life". I was reminded of something that I had heard that drifted along the same lines. Not to long ago, a Bush Administration staffer announced that the Bush Administration created it's own reality. Meaning, that if the president said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, then by golly, they did, even if your "reality" contradicted theirs. (this may be a slight distortion of the real meaning of that statement, but this distortion fits the point that I am trying to make, so bear with me). Well, I think that I wouldn't be wrong if I assumed that, as far as Ms. Oprah defines it, that "define" and "create" are similar in this context. I define who and what I am. If everyone else thinks that I am a dork, so long as I do not share the same sentiment, I am not. I must remember that I refuse to let anyone else define my life -- all evidence to the contrary. If I take Oprah's advice (to the extreme), so long as my "life" is defined by me, then that life -- at least my sentiments and beliefs about that life -- is true, meaning that life is my authentic or "real" life. And, being the empiricist that I am, my beliefs about the world are my basis for what I hold is true about the world. If I see the bullet to the heart kill the fisherman, than I believe that the bullet to the heart killed the fisherman. And it is true, because I cannot let others define it for me, because I cannot be sure of their intentions for me. I am the only mind that I can know, or at the very least, I am the only mind that I can trust. So, if my mind is the only mind that I can trust, and that mind is the mind that defines, or creates my life , and my life (or beliefs about) is a reflection of an overall "reality", then I define reality. Wow. But it's not just that, it goes further. If everyone who follows Oprah's advise will also define their own lives, the result is the creation millions of separate "realities" -- each for every Oprah viewer. If this is the case, then Oprah isn't advocating existentialism, but group solipsism! Each of us exists in a self-defined universe of one. As crazy as it may seem, I believe that this is what Oprah is truly getting to. We not only create our own perspective on what we believe is real or true, we create our own universe -- a separate entity wherein we reside, creating and changing its own separate reality as we see fit. ( so, if I say that someone is on a different world than I am, this statement may be more than mere metaphor, but a statement of fact. Stew on that for awhile). I know that there are some non-adventurous philosophers who would say that Oprah and her ilk are damaging the philosophic enterprise by allowing people like me to take what she says and distort the bejeezus out of it. I will not disagree. On the othre hand, I would also assume that there is some posmodernist who welcomes the destroyers and distorters of philosophy and welcome the opportunity of finding a new way of beating a dead horse. As disfond as I am about fence-riding, I think that there is room here to split the difference. I think that it is, at least, worth the effort to look at what our popular culture is doing to the theories that philosophers hold so near and dear to their hearts. We must remember that philosophic ideas are out there, and that it would do philosophers a little good to roll around with those who may be more clever at peddling distorted philosophical theories than they are at peddling the correct ones. But for now it seems, the media reigns, Oprah is more popular than Swinburne, and so we stand on the precipice of a new view: Oprarian philosophy. I'm not sure where Oprarian philosophy will get us, but I'm sure if it gets us to somewhere where we don't want to go, we can simply choose to redefine it, our lives and the whole universe, and start over again. Maybe by then, some talk show host will have succesfully distorted Kant.

I Truly Hate the Well Intentioned

I usually try to stay away from political discussions. That's an odd thing, considering that I not only have a degree in political science (which, does not in any way qualify me to speak with authority about anything), but I truly get off watching politics and the political process. As a matter of fact, I've made it my habit to avoid any serious discussion about anything that I love or enjoy doing. I suppose there's some head shrinker's couch waiting for me somewhere. But what's got me, is the fact that everyone else seems to have an opinion about what's going on out there in Washington, and are freely expressing themselves -- for better or for worse -- all over talk radio, web logs, and at bus stops. I'm the weirdo who dodges political conversations (for god knows what real reason). Which , by the way, is why I haven't really said anything about our new Commander-in-Chief. If asked my opinion, I give my standard agnostic "we'll have to see". Meanwhile, I'm screaming a mile a minute inside my head all sorts of madness about Right-wing conspiracies, failed economic policies, and whether Plato had the right idea when he said that the rulers should lie to the public. As so many of my thoughts are motivated by conversations, I was thinking about how I felt -- not about whether I think that Obama will solve our economic troubles ( it sounds so trivial to call an impending global depression "troubles"), but about the man himself. A few days ago, I was watching "the View". Ann Coulter was on (god knows why) expressing her confusion over half-black notables who, despite being abandoned by their black fathers, seem to claim their black heritage while also abandoning their white parentage. I'm not going to say anything about Ann Coulter here, as there are lany people who rattle on about her in a negative manner. But, she did give a little food for thought. The food for me, it seems, wasn't why halfsies only claim one side, but the idea of half-whatevers at all. I thought of an email I sent to a friend not too long ago that brought up the topic of race mixing. Let me say now that I'm not against the mixing of races. I don't care who anyone marries as long as they are past the age of consent and the marriage wasn't some sort of forced marriage deal. That said, there are times when the well-intentioned can say things that... well, make you stop wondering why there are Ann Coulter's out there. A few months back, when the primaries were going on, I had a discussion with two other people about, which was at that time, the Obama candidacy. Ever the pessimist, I said that I was worried that some yahoo out there might want or attempt to do "something" to prevent Obama from taking the presidency. My conversation mates and I lamented the fact the the thought that someone may be so disturbed by having a black president to take up violent action had crossed each of our minds -- a sign that we are not as far from racism as we may like to think that we are. Somewhere, and I forget who, someone mentioned something about Obama's half white parentage. Now that I think about it, I think I mentioned the fact that hating Obama because he is black is sort of stupid because he isn't a fully black person. (I know, liberal drivel about we're all mixed anyway, blah, blah, blah...). I mentioned that I have several "goobacks" in my own family. ("gooback" is a term from the show South Park. It was used to describe people from the future who had interbred racially to the point that everyone had a tannish hue to their skin). Now, I consider myself a liberal. I'm into acceptance, not tolerance. I have no problem with the fact that my brother has chosen to create his own colony of goobacks, and as an American keenly aware of our past, I know that my own bloodline isn't "pure". But, there's a sentiment that I just cannot stand, and I heard it out of the mouth of one of my conversation mates. It's this: WE SHOULD ALL INTERBREED SO THAT WE GET SO MIXED UP RACIALLY THAT THERE WOULD BE NO WAY TO DISTINGUISH ONE RACE FROM ANOTHER AND SO WE'D END RACISM. Huh? You know, I've only heard this sentiment from the mouths of people who, although they express this truly endearing sentiment, never seem to live by the statement themselves.Or, worse yet, are the most racially isolated people that one would find. Now, I'm not saying that my conversation mate fits into either one of these categories, but from what I've seen, I wouldn't be at all surprised if they did. It's not even that the idea is wrong-headded or immoral. It's a perfectly good solution for a problem. In the absence of specific breeds, we can't discriminate against something that does not exist. I wanted, at that time, to ask that person who suggested that we all interbreed ( as that individual was a different race than I) if that person wanted to get down an start muddying up our gene pools right then and there. But, what overrode my sense of taking that person seriously was my disgust at what they had said. Sure, the sentiment seems like it's from someone who is anti-racist. But that's just it -- it's a sentimental, but ultimately meaningless statement. It's empty in the face that it's just not practicable. Unless you have some sort of forced reproduction program, my email friend wrote to me, people won't voluntarily interbreed with anyone. What about those who are "pure" ? Will they become some sort of social outcasts? Will they be illegal? There's this Dr. Seuss story called "the Sneetches". There are two groups of sneetches, one who have stars on their stomachs, and those who do not. The ones with "stars on thars" are the superior sneetches and those who do not are inferior. As with life, those who do not have want, and those who do have don't want the have-nots to have what they have. It all goes to shit when this dude comes around with a machine that can put stars on the non-starred sneetches. Pretty soon, no one can tell who is who. In the end, they realize that the stars don't matter. Unfortunately, people don't learn like Dr. Seuss characters do. Given a world of sameness, the inventive human will always find something. If not your race, then it's your height, or weight, or you're too cute, or not cute enough -- always something. That's why I found my conversation mate's remark so offputting. It's a cya thing to say. The worst of political correctness. Saying that we should breed out race sounds like you're one of the ones who isn't secretly carrying a confederate flag in his pocket, but, in turn, it reeks of the worst ersatz naivete well-meaning liberals often express. The kind that solves the problem by ignoring the problem. Instead of really confronting the reason behind something like racism, the response is to pretty up the situation by suggesting some kind of well-meaning, but unobtainable solution, that could happen, if people would only enlighten themselves or, more to the point, reject conservativism and become pacifica-listening progressives. I think I'm done with this one.

Peter Singer wants me to eat people (One small man's moral obligation to end the suffering of others may indeed be the tastiest solution yet)

I have nothing but bad experiences in Clairmont. Case in point: I was doing this whole philosophy thing. I had somehow been swindled it to it, and had been regretting it ever since. But, as I am as stupid as I am stubborn, I hadn't chucked it in and gone on my merry way. Which, is as it (now) seems, would have been the better way to go. In addition to being stupid and stubborn, I have this tendency, from time to time, to slide into a severe case of assholism. I tend to do and say things that, in fact, belie my true intentions -- which was how I had gotten myself in to the business of philosophy in the first place. I, for some reason, had decided to let other people think that I actually cared, or care, about what's going on in the world outside of my neighborhood. Don't get me wrong, I'm actually a very compassionate person -- but in a very kind of abstract way. I care in the same way that a greeting card wishes that you recover from your cancer. Sure, the sentiment is there, but it lacks substance. Anyway, I was knee-deep in an assholic fit, meaning that I was really in for convincing people that I was one of those types who cared so compassionately about those who are less fortunate than I. And, it so happened that Peter Singer was to give a speech about moral obligations (or something like that) to the underdeveloped world. And, it was in Clairmont. Great. So... I go, along with a couple of friends, to see Singer speak. Truth be told, I was looking more for a reason to be out of the house than to see some philosopher drone on about why I should feel guilty about living in the best damn country in the whole world ( if you don't get the sarcasm here, I feel sorry for you). So, we went, and settled down to hear Mr. Singer explain how we (and really, we are morally obligated to do so) can help others who are living in desperate poverty around the globe. Now, I'm no stranger to the occasional conspiracy theory, and Mr. Singer plays a role in them, particularly those dealing with concepts like population control and eugenics. And frankly, it's not difficult, when you read Singer's work, to see where someone might interpret his views as such. I'll say that, after watching a few clips of Singer speak on YouTube, that it's pretty easy to make a connection between Singer's philosophy and the New World Order's ultimate plan for humanity. During his talk, Singer said that our problems (hunger and severe poverty in the underdeveloped world) are not matters of politics or ethics, but technical. It's a matter of figuring out the right solution. For Singer, it's removing the incentive for greed. Greed, according to Singer, leads to hoarding, and hoarding leads to dependence of others for others to meet their needs. So, for example, if the guy who lives on the coast puts up a big fence around his property, which includes the shoreline, and because of that fact he is the only one who catches fish, and he choses not to share them, and the only food for miles is fish, then I will enevitably depend on him for my food. Singer's solution is to get rid of the monetary system and religion. That, according to Singer, will be the trick to feeding the world. All we have to do is do it. (it's so simple, right?). But, as I was listening, I began to hear the words of Johnathan Swift inside my noggin. What Singer was offering us was a proposal, correct? And if just removing religion and money will start the ethics ball rolling, why end there? I mean, if the solution isn't moral or political but technical, wouldn't getting rid of the have-not's be an even better solution? Techincally speaking, of course. During the summer, my house is floodded with ants. Those nasty black ones that stink when you smash 'em. So, after having box after delicious box of Fruit Loops succumb to the black menace, we decided to nip the problem at the source. I can't remember exactly what it was that we used (it was hazardous to humans and domestic animals, that much I remember), but the problem soon abated. Now I can eat Fruit Loops. We solved the problem by getting rid of what was taking something away from us -- and more specifically-- from me (something, I might add, that I had earned and bought with my own money). But, the ants served no purpose to me other than not being a pest. What if they weren't so unuseful? What if, even in their demise, the ants could serve a purpose? And that is exactly what third world people can do! The way to get rid of greed (because getting rid of god is so much more difficult) is to lop it off at the source. But greed is only manifested at the expense of someone else. That is, it's difficult to be really greedy if everyone is getting the exact same amount of stuff. If I got five lap dances and the guy next to me got five lap dances, then the other guy would be just as happy as I ( assuming that the quality of the talent was equal). And if we both got six, well, you can say that we were equally greedy, but neither would feel deprived of anything except for maybe a few bills. It's only after I'm invited to the champange room that the situation becomes unequal and charges of not fairity are leveled against me. Why? Because I got more than I deserved to get. So, what about food? What about water, or money, or whatever natural or unnatural resource we have or can get? Well, technically speaking, there wouldn't be a problem over lap dances if I were the only gentleman in the club. If the other people who would look at what I've got and get jealous were not there, there would be no greed. And if there is no greed, there is no problem. So... when it comes to the underdeveloped world, I say that we stop looking at Swift as satire and seriously take the Swift-Singer proposal as real, workable policy. We should get rid of the underdeveloped world. But you see, people are not ants. They actually can serve a purpose after you've ridded yourself of them. I was watching the miniseries "V" awhile back, and Marc Singer (hey! coincidence?) was in the mothership with "Martin" amid the bodies of thousands of people wrapped up and ready to ship to the visitors' homeworld. The reason why they were doing so, Martin explains, is that their planet was in need of several precious resources. In addition to needing warriors for their great leader's wars, they also needed water and food -- which was where the people come in. They didn't consider the political or moral implications if their problem, they simply went for the easiest technical solution, which was to head for the planet with six billion food packets ready to be crated up and shipped home. The real bonus is, is if we replace our food with people, we can save all that corn that we won't be eating for biofuels! I had heard that Singer is a utilitarian, and that a problem with utilitarianism is the fact that sometimes the theory bears out wacky outcomes, like proposing that we eat those who are less fortunate. I say, that's a problem only if we are looking at the problem morally. It's the ethics that bind us to outcomes that we may not want. But Singer himself said that the solution isn't ethical, but technical. And technics need not tie itself to morality. If we want to actually solve our problems, maybe we need to grow beyond our primitive need to check to see if everything we do is alright with some father in the sky. After all, Singer himself said that a way to solve the world's problems is to get rid of religion. So, no sky father, no moral cop looking over our shoulders. (I know there's a quote that goes something along the lines of without god, all things are permitted, or something like that). So, following Singer's guidelines, it seems that really the way to solve the problem technically, is to 1) get rid of the problem, and 2) eat the problem, thus solving our own problems with factory farming and e-coli outbreaks as a result of animal waste run-off. I have a feeling that our animal friends at PETA will not object to this solution, as no animals will abused in the eating of people. So there. I can say, with absolutely no reservations or sense of irony, that Peter Singer wants me to eat the underdeveloped world. I'll take mine with ranch dressing, if you don't mind.

I have a bone to pick with you, Alvin Plantinga

Ok. So today I'm out for a walk, doing as I always do, which is relive old philosophy classes inside my head. Quite pathetic. Well, while on this particular outing, I started thinking first, about my general anger towards philosopy in general, and second, about my still fuming hostility towards a certain class that I sat in on last summer. Being that I am an atheist, I have a fondness towards those who believe in god (albeit foolishly) and, even more so, those who take all that believing in a supreme deity seriously enough to write about their belief. What's even more amazing than that is the fact that they encourage others to believe, and others actually do so. So, as I walked down the street, I thought about last summer's philosophy of religion class. Now, there are exactly two things that I have something of a dislike for -- one, bees, and two, the city of Clairmont, Califorina. I can't exactly explain what it is that unnerves me about the environs, but there's something that makes me cringe whenever I'm there. Maybe it's the fact that the people who attend the college(s) there look like "college people". They look exactly like what college people would look like if someone were casting a TV show about a liberalesque college hamlet filled with people that you'd only meet in a TV show about a liberalesque college hamlet. As I am a natural-born cynic and anti-collegian, the whole scene unnerves me greatly. But, that's where the class was held, and if I wanted to learn anything about god, that's where I'd have to be. Wait -- let me clear up this one thing first. I wasn't there because I actually wanted to be there. I was there for a friend, who, so to not be taking an independent study class alone, wanted me to tag along. I did, but soon realized that I could have stayed home, since the class consisted not only of my friend and I but also of two other people, not including the professor. But, dispite my cynicism, I am a loyal friend, and I accompanied my buddy (albeit begrudgingly) to Clairmont for talk of God. Well, if anything, what the atheist hates more than belief in general, are those who write about why we should believe. Most atheists, fortunately for them, are only aware of those who tend to garner the spotlight, that is, the usual round of televangelists and religious "motivational speakers". They don't have to deal with those who, in addition to calling themselves intellectuals, also call themselves believers. Unfortunately, I was one of those unfortunate lot who had made the mistake of thinking that philsophy was a have for the fallen like myself. How wrong I was. The philosopher on the summer's agenda: Alvin Plantinga. I had been exposed to Plantinga the previous spring, during another philosophy of religion class. Try as one might, I was never swayed by Plantinga's position on the problem of evil. And, I spent a lot of time being made to feel like disagreeing with Plantinga was some sort of philosophic blasphemy -- which is kind of funny when you think of it considering the fact that the man writes about god. At least I found it slightly amusing. Anyway, there I was again, reading Plantinga in Clarmont -- seething. I know that from time to time we encounter an idea, be it philosophical or not, that we just have to yell 'that's complete crap!' even if we can offer no better position to the one to which we object. Well, I encountered one such idea: sensus divinitatis or divine sense. This, in my nutshell, is the idea that we somehow have warranted belief in god because god somehow afflicts our brains directly. Whatever. I didn't believe it then, and I don't now. You see, I learned several things during that class. One thing I learned is that it is useless to argue against an agnostic philosophy professor. I mentioned on several occasions, that we could just as easily explain our god experiences by pointing to a physiological cause. That is, if we could prove that we can create the divine sense by way of artificallly stimulating specific areas of the brain, then we can say that perhaps it is not god that touches our brain, but a particular sensation caused by particular chemical and/or electronic reactions going on inside of our brains. I wasn't claiming to have come up with some sort of Plantinga-busting argument, or at the very least coming up with anything original. My idea truly was not -- I had fully copped it from an article that I read in Time magazine. Still, I had the feeling that no matter what I said, even if that included god himself explaining how he wasn't touching our brains, but that what we experienced as "Him" was in fact a mere chemical process, I wasn't going to get far with pushing my point of view into the realm of equal consideration. Which brings me to today's walk outside. I was thinking: maybe I was going about what I thought all wrong. I was focusing on causes and effects and not on the beliefs themselves. Here's what I mean: I was confusing what I thought because I wasn't thinking clearly about what I was thinking. (And as a fan of Orwell and Wittgenstein, this is the wrong thing to do). I was casually using words interchangably when I shoud have been focusing on them for precision. What I was doing was using the words "belief" and "hope" as the same. They are not. I can hope for a great many things, but every hope isn't, and indeed shouldn't be necessarily tied to any particular belief. Such is the case when I think about god. I was about 23 when I "outed" myself as an atheist. (I believe that there are Three Closets: One: outing oneself as a homosexual. Two: outing oneself as a "bear". And, Three: Coming out as an atheist. I can only imagine the torment of atheist gay bears out there). And it took even more years before I really felt any comfortability saying it to people other than friends and family. I had said that I didn't believe in god while somehow secretly smuggling the hope that there is. So, whenever I would think about what I "believed", I always ended up in some dreadful agnostic position, which was exactly where I didn't want to be. I even started qualifying my statements, like saying that I lived "atheistically" meaning that I reserved the right to claim that god exists, while simultaneously verbally denying his existence and living as if he did not exist. My spiritual life became a weird celestial contradiction: I believed and yet did not believe in god. But the contradiction wasn't real, as much as it was a product of sloppy thinking. My backdoor hope was muddying up the waters because I had mislabeled it as a belief. Now, I suppose that I could ask if sentiments (that is some sort of emotional feeling) qualify as beliefs. I'm not sure whether I want to venture a guess on that subject. But, what is clear to me now is that what I felt in my head (and I am using the word 'felt' intentionally), was not the hand of god rapping at my brain, it was the hope that, when I die, I'm not wrong after all. I want there to be a god. I sincerely do. But, all that I believe tells me that he does not exist. ( I am fond of saying that I had a long conversation with god during which he revealed to me that he does not exist). I don't know where exactly my thoughts fit in to what I was reading during the summer, or whether some philsopher much brighter than I has already trotted this one out, and it's already been rendered to the philosophic dustbin. All I do know is that I now know that what I thought was my feeling of god was neither a simple firing of a dendrite nor was it god himself letting me, for a split second, experience the awsomeness of what he is. It was ... well, I'm not sure exactly what to say that it was. It is my hope, (there it goes again) however, that whatever it is that is actually going on in my brain, that it does not ever lead me to sit in on another philosophy of religion class in Clairmont again. Cheers!

Two Words: Coleman Francis

I like bad movies. No, that's an understatement. I like shitty movies. Real crap. Now, there are people that will name all sorts of supposedly bad movie directors: John Waters, Renny Harlin, Ed Wood... but absolutely no one ever made such magnificent turds as the late Coleman Francis. If I were a meaner-spirited person, I would say that it's a good thing that Coleman Francis is no longer among the living. I might say that it's a good thing that god decided to end his life so that he is no longer able to force his cinematic swill onto the movie-going public. I might have said that, if I were that kind of person. Like many horrible movie watchers, like myself, I saw my first Coleman Francis movie on Mystery Science Theater 3000. The movie was "Red Zone Cuba". If there is some dictionary that has moving images along with the definitions, the word "unwatchable" would be accompanied by this movie. There are almost no words to describe what this movie does to me. It's kind of like when there's an accident right in fromt of you and the only thing you can think is to stare wide-eyed making all sorts of monosylabic sounds and giggles. There are so many things wrong with this movie that you can't name just one thing. First off is the plot itself. Three middle aged men somehow get hornswaggled into volunteering to invade Cuba with a force of, if this movie is historically accurate, about six men. Six equally physically not-adept men. Equally so, it's amazing how someone could take one of history's most politically stirring events, the Cuban Missile crisis, and turn it into a film that watching it ranks only slightly preferable to a swift knee to the groin. There are no words to describe the absolute pain this film will inflict on you. I thought, since I have made it my business to think of all things philosophically, how either this movie, or its creator can be analyzed through the philosophic lens. Kant said that we have certain moral duties not only to others, but to ourselves as well. One of his duties to self is to not let our talents rust. If we have a certain ability to do something, it is wrong to not do it. So, if I had an ability to run as fast as the wind, I would be doing myself a moral disservice to not use my talent to do something. (what that something is, I have no idea). Ok, so let's say that our dear departed Mr. Francis thought that he had a talent for filmmaking. So, if he didn't make "The Beast Of Yucca Flats" he would have actually been committing a moral wrong by not doing so. Ok, so according to the Kantian, he's in the clear. But, is it possible that doing your Kantian moral duty is so dreadfully wrong according to another moral theory? Not only wrong, but impermissible? That making shitty movies is a moral threat to everyone? What would the utilitarian say? Ok, so let's say that Coleman Francis releases his movie. And it's dreadful. People actually experience unhappiness when they see this film -- and not the good unhappiness like after seeing "Sophie's Choice", or after listening to a good Cure cd, but real unhappiness. In fact, you can say that it's unhappiness bordering on pain. Physical pain. So, if we're following Bentham, we need only to consider the amount of pleasure we are losing whenever we see a Coleman Francis film. We discover that we would be happier if we don't see movies like "Red Zone Cuba". The best thing to do, we may say, is to stop the production of bad movies. After devising an actual method of determining what a truly awful movie is, we decide to implement the stop crappy movies program. No more bad movies means more happiness for all. But is this right? Even though I'm happier that I won't ever have to see another Roland Emmerich movie again there is still something nagging at my conscience. I'm suddenly thinking about my happiness coming at someone else's expense. Somehow I feel that I am denying someone their happiness. And worse yet, I'm suddenly hearing Kant yelling imperfect duties to self in my head. So, are we doing something wrong when we tell people that the visualization of their talent isn't so good for the rest of us? Should we continue to let a bad filmmaker like Coleman Francis make his art if not for his own happiness but because he has moral obligations to himself that demand that he continue to make rotten movies? This question, of course, goes beyond Coleman Francis and his movies. Is it possible that our duty according to a moral theory -- and not even a competing theory -- end up not being the right thing to do? And what if it's not a matter of moral wrongs, but a matter of someone who just isn't as talented as they might think that they are? Should we encourage him to let his talents rust for the sake of the net happiness of all or does the Kantian view of "talent" have anything to do with quality at all? I don't watch "American Idol" (no one does, right?), but I realize that there are at least a couple pf people who aren't plants put there to sing badly for our entertainment. Some people actually think that they have a real gift for singing. So, they go on the show, just to have their dream crushed by the acid tongue of Simon Cowell. And so, after a public lashing, they decide to give up their dream of a life on the stage. We might think, hurray! score one for the utilitarian. NO crappy music. But, did Kant tell us that we had to be good at that talent? Is it a matter of only putting the things that we are good at to use, or is it the idea that we should pursue what we may feel is a calling? Maybe if the no-talent on "American Idol" wasn't humiliated on national television, they would have pursued a career singing to the homeless at soup kitchens, which would have in turn, lifted the spirits of some homeless people, who, although the voice wasn't the best voice, it was a voice of someone who cared enough to get up and try to lighten a few spirits. Perhaps the real moral wrong was Simon's cruel comments, which in the long run, caused less happiness overall (the problem with utilitarianism is that it's horrible at predicting long-range goods and harms). My god, where was I? Was I anywhere? My point is, if I had one, is that Coleman Francis is a bad filmmaker. And that after I watch his movies, I really do feel real pain (usually in my gut), but the fact that watching his films has enabled me to write this one entry has, in some way, benefitted me. And because I am continuing to think philosophically about life and stuff, I am benefitting my fellow man (it's a stretch, but it sounds nice). The films of Coleman Francis and all who follow his lead are the silver lining on this cinematic storm cloud. A storm cloud with a top end made of poo.

On Being Sci-bi: Star Wars, Star Trek and Why Being and Unfeeling Android is Better Than Being a Neurotic 'Droid

I was listening to NPR today. There was this philosopher guy who wrote a book about dolphins and why we should be concerned about them. It reminded me of a class that I had awhile back about moral status. We read some Peter Singer. My opinions about Singer aside, I appreciated his efforts to get us to realize that we humans aren't the only life on this planet. But, as a human, I still have that problem with taking any life that doesn't look human seriously. I don't go around smashing hamsters or nailing dogs to walls, but I am willing to admit that I suffer from the all-too-common humans first syndrome. As well as having a fondness for philosophy, I also have a fondness for science fiction. Some people are squarely in a particular camp, meaning that they prefer to watch "Star Trek" or that they prefer the lightsaber-wielding jedi of George Lucas' "Star Wars" saga, or even, god forbid, they like "Farscape". I haven't been one to so narrowly squeeze myself into one category of fan over another, as I have realized that there is some amount of tension between fans of any given particular science fiction program. I hadn't really had a name for what a person like me is ( except for maybe uberdork), until I listened one morning to a radio show where another multiple program watcher called himself "sci-bi". Being sci-bi meant that he was not going to be labeled. He was not going to be cornered into claiming allegiance to Roddenberry or to Lucas. He was free to appreciate both or either if he so choosed. Which brings me back to the point of all of this. I had this class on moral status. We were discussing the question, "what is a person?". The question, it seems, isn't as easily answered as we may have thought. If I was to give the standard response, I would say that a person is a human, short and simple. But, it seems, the philosopher is supposed to say that that speciesist response is no longer viable in light of the data that "proves" that we humans aren't the only intelligent life on the planet. (there's all this stuff about what constitutes "morally relevant" characteristics that determine whether a being is morally considerable. we can suppose that these same criteria can also be used to determine whether a being is a "person"). Since I am a fan of science fiction, and I also know that Gene Roddenberry was a nut about putting philosophy in to his "Star Trek" plotlines, I immedaitely recognized that my favorite incarnation of "Star Trek" (TNG, or the Next Generation for those who aren't in the know) had a plot dealing with that very issue: what is a person? Giddy with pop culture-infused zeal, I email my professor, explaining an episode of a TV show that would perfectly depict the conflict of personhood -- especially when we consider the personhood of non-humans. I volunteered the episode "Measure of a Man". Now, I could get into all sorts of really geekified backstory here, but suffice to say that the episode did fit into the class discussion. But then, that got me thinking... As far as science fiction goes, Roddenberry's characters are more "real", meaning they are future people who reflect who we are now. We are supposed to be philosophically challenged or enlightened by them and their actions. We see the people that we are to become when we look into "Star Trek" and the near-utopic future it presents to us. I guess, in the long run, that's the difference between a philosopher and a storyteller. Being that I am sci-bi, I also appreciate the work of George Lucas' "Star Wars". Truth be told, I know more about these characters than I know about my own family. I can trace the geneology of the Solo twins more readily than I can trace my own heritage. Seriously. Whereas Roddenberry shows us what we might become, Lucas shows us what we want to be. He shows us heroes and villains that find redemption through the love of our sons. Lucas' focus is on the mythology of mankind. The story where the people come first. Which is where I am focused now. I have a sort-of sci-crush on the character "Data" on "Star Trek". Now, my thing is not on Brent Spiner, the actor who plays "Data", but the character himself (itself?). I think that the point lof the android character is so that he's a mirror to our own humanity. Because he's emotionless and always trying to be more human, he reflects our constant struggle to improve ourselves. whatever. Captain Picard advocated on Data's side when Starfleet wanted to dismantle him and use him for research arguing that Data was a mere machine and was not a person. Picard argued, successfully, that Data possessed the same qualities that we humans say defines us as human, namely, we are self aware, we are sentient, and we are conscious of ourselves and our surroundings. And I guess the philosopher in me would agree wholeheartedly that, despite the fact that Data was not human, he was a person who is entitled to all the rights and privileges that all humans are entitled to. So far, so good. But then I was hit by a sudden apprehension -- what about poor C-3PO? If he were the subject of a question of personhood, and if he were in Roddenberry's universe, he would certainly meet Data's personhood test. Anyone familiar with 3PO knows that he doesn't want to die ( he is horrified by being shot in The Empire Strikes Back, and later in the film tells Chewbacca that he doesn't want to die), he is aware of himself, as we see that he constantly bemoans his "lot in life", and he, unlike Data, is emotional. C-3PO can be best described as a "nervous wreck". But yet, in George Lucas' universe, any resemblance to humans will do you absolutely no good if you're a droid. You will be used, abused, dismantled, sold without your consent, given away to Jabba the Hutt without any consideration of how you might feel about the deal, and if you know too much, your memory will be wiped. It doesn't seem to matter to either George Lucas or his characters whether a droid expresses fear or dread at being condemed to the spice mines of Kessel -- they ain't human. And that, to the "Star Wars" universe, seems to make all the difference. So what does this mean? I guess I could say that George Lucas' movies reflect the old-world mentality that told us that animals didn't have souls and that they only made noises when you cut them open because that noise was like the pings and prangs of the springs of a clock when it is taken apart. I could say that we should be more like Captain Picard -- ready to defend our non-human friends when their lives are on the line -- for only the fact that they are people too. Or, I guess the better way to see all of this is to stop looking at it all so seriously, and just enjoy the flashing lights and the soaring music.