Philosophy | The Armchair Antichrist

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Intellectual Quote Mining

On March 2, 2010, In Funny Stuff, Religious Stupidity, By The Armchair Antichrist

Since right wing religious nuts like to quote mine so much I decided to help them out. While reading my philosophy textbook I came across a sentence in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1884 by Karl Marx which would make a great mined quote for their agenda.

Communism thus begins with atheism, but atheism is at the beginning still far from being communism since it is mostly an abstraction.

They could easily take that and change it into:

Communism begins with atheism.

With this quote I would imagine they would make it look like godlessness leads to communism which they believe to be a totalitarian baby skull factory. And the best part is them attributing it to Marx who they believe to be the God of communism. So since Marx believes this it must be true that all communists are atheists and all atheists become communists.

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Tagged with: agenda • Atheism • atheist • communism • communist • god • godless • karl marx • Philosophy • quote mine • religious • right wing • totalitarian

A Defence of New Atheism

On February 28, 2010, In Misconceptions About Atheism, Religious Arguments, By The Armchair Antichrist

New atheism isn’t actually anything new at all. Intellectual atheist thought in the Western world can be traced back to pre-Socratic Greek philosophy. What’s new is the attitude. It is the stance that all matters of discussion are at the same level. Nothing is given preferential treatment or respect including religion. This philosophical viewpoint is called freethought.

Unsurprisingly, some religious people don’t like this new attitude that atheists are adopting. They want the beliefs that they consider sacred and holy to be respected by everyone. And one of the methods they use to try to counter new atheism is by creating labels to demonize atheists. The ‘new’ atheists are called militant even though they maybe considered militant only in their words. Some of the religious even feign persecution when in reality they represent the vast majority of the population and suffer no threat from atheists.

But, the religious are not the only ones to be blamed. There are atheists, some trying to feel more unique and others too resistant to social change who try to distance themselves from new atheism. Particularly, they denounce Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and other atheists leading the charge as too aggressive and as hindrances to fruitful discussion. These atheists have fallen blindly into the trap set by the religious. They have embraced the labels that were created by the religious to demonize new atheism.

The four horsemen of atheism and other prominent atheists have actually opened the door for discussion by destroying the stigma that made discussion of religion taboo. And in doing so they have given atheists a new found voice. Instead of being denounced they should be applauded for all they have done to advance social change.

Think about the labels: dogmatic, militant, fundamentalist and so on that have been given to atheists by the religious. These are only projections of all the faults they find in their religion. It is best to ignore these labels and not be distracted by them. We need to focus on the arguments (as in premises and conclusions) that make debate and discussion meaningful. Playing into the emotional games of the religious will go nowhere.

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Tagged with: Atheism • atheist • dawkins • freethought • fundamentalist • hitchens • militant • Philosophy • pre socratic • Religion • religious

Religion and Psychology

On January 28, 2010, In Debates, Religion, Science, By The Armchair Antichrist

I have noticed that professionals in the field of psychology have become more active in the ‘atheist movement’. In my first year at university it was a psychology professor who represented the atheist side in a God debate organized by Campus for Christ. And in my current second year the atheist side was again represented by a psychology professor who is a professor from the university too.

Perhaps it is because they understand the underlying cognitive biases that contribute to religiosity such as confirmation bias which plays a strong role in religious belief. They probably also see the emotional benefits of having religious beliefs and the benefits that come from being part of a religious community. I know some of you religious folk are going to scream “GENETIC FALLACY!” But, that is only true if it was the ONLY reason someone gives for why people believe in God or are in a particular religion.

While I would prefer to have philosophy professors in God debates, I find psychology professors just as capable because of their strong background in science. Furthermore, I hope the psychology of religious belief is expanded and more thoroughly researched so that it one day becomes a regular part of psychology (i.e. a branch of abnormal psychology).

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Tagged with: atheist • campus • christ • cognitive bias • confirmation bias • genetic fallacy • god debate • movement • Philosophy • professor • psychology • Religion • religiosity • religious belief

Time and Time Again

On January 19, 2010, In Cosmology, Science, By The Armchair Antichrist

In a previous philosophy class and in a philosophy class I’m currently in I have encountered people who believe that time is not real. They say it is just something man made. It is merely the measurement of motion. I guess they mean it in the way for example, how 32 768 oscillations of a quartz crystal amounts to one second. But, that is not time similar to how the height of the mercury in a thermometer is not temperature.

Their view of time would necessarily be an absolute one. If time was just an arbitrary measurement it would be the same for everybody and in all parts of the universe. And it would run at the same rate for everyone and in all parts of the universe. To still believe in absolute time in a post-Einsteinian world is unacceptable. If Einstein did not unquestionably show that time is relative to the observer, I don’t know who did.

So, just like how a thermometer measures the average kinetic energy of gas in a certain spot, a clock measures the passage of time in a certain spot. If you were to bring a clock close to a strong gravitational well like a black hole, it would measure time much slower relative to one far away. And if a clock were sped up to close to the speed of light it would also measure time much slower relative to one moving much slower. These effects occur with non-relativistic speeds and with weaker gravitational wells (e.g. Earth) too; they are just too small to be perceptible to us.

Time is just as much a dimension as space is. And everything exists in time as in space. So, just like how space exists even though you may not be inhabiting it at the time, all of time exists which you only experience moment by moment. But, time that you have just experienced does not stop existing. The past, present, and future all exist simultaneously. Time is real. Deal with it.

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Tagged with: absolute • black hole • dimension • einstein • gravitational well • Philosophy • relativistic • space • time

Why So Serious?

On January 6, 2010, In Mind and Soul, Religious Stupidity, University, By The Armchair Antichrist

Today, in one of my philosophy classes we came across Hume’s disbelief in the concept of an enduring self and the soul. Apparently, the soul is one of those topics which are very near and dear to the religious because the person sitting next to me got somewhat agitated over what the professor said.

He told the professor that Hume seemed to just ‘blow over’ the topic without giving any reasons for his position. And after the professor tried to show him Hume’s rationale he responded about not having ‘proof of memories’ or something of that sort. But, after the professor explained Hume’s position with more detail the agitated student had little else to say and backed down.

So, this person basically hijacked the class for a brief while because he was all butthurt over Hume not believing in the soul. This was not the professor saying that the soul is something you can’t believe in, but just explaining how Hume rationalized his disbelief of the soul. All this could have been avoided if he actually attended the previous lecture during which this topic was thoroughly discussed.

Interestingly, the professor did not understand why this particular student was so distressed by this topic. But, it was obvious that he had a religious agenda. His loud and arrogant voice, fallacy ridden reasoning, and anxiety over a topic important to religion all pointed towards him being a fundamentalist.

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Tagged with: enduring self • fundamentalist • hume • lecture • Philosophy • professor • Religion • religious • soul

What is God?

On September 27, 2009, In Arguments against God, Nature of God, Philosophy, By The Armchair Antichrist

Throughout the history of humanity the term God has been tossed around very carelessly. Even today we do not have an accurate ontology for the thing that is called God. All the major religions have only succeeded in describing attributes of what their God would have. But, in philosophy it is useless to try to argue that something exists if you can’t even properly describe what it is. Some theists believe that it is beyond our human comprehension to understand such a being. In that case, it is not logical to try to reason its existence.

For example, God in the Abrahamic religions is considered to be all-powerful. But, how could you be ever sure that a being is all-powerful? At the most you could only know that a being is very powerful, but not all-powerful. Furthermore, some theists claim that God exists in a plane of existence that transcends our own time and space. But, it just might be that there is another plane of existence that transcends the one that God exists in. You could never be able to reason that the plane of existence that God exists in is the ultimate plane of existence.

This point is clearly demonstrated in the short story Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions by Edwin Abbott. In it, a 3-dimensional sphere takes a square out of his usual 2-D environment into the one that transcends it, the 3-D world that we all know and love. The square who before was only aware of his 2-D world became aware of the possibility of multiple dimensions each transcending the one before it.

So, in any case theists are still free to argue that their God exists, but from the examples I have shown I believe that it is impossible to have real knowledge of the existence of an infinite and all-powerful God.

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