"Superstition aint the way..."

You know, I was never much of a Stevie Wonder fan. I knew a few of his songs and liked them somewhat, but throughout the course of my forty years on this planet I never even pondered the idea of buying one of his albums. My tastes leaned mostly towards classic and heavy rock, or metal,---though not the spandex-n-hair flavor that proliferated during the early eightees---and prog-rock like Tull and Yes. I had a side interest in classical music, and for a brief term was into jazz and jazz/rock fusion. R&B, adult contemporary, soul, what have you, never interested me. I didn't dislike it, I just never developed an interest in that sort of stuff.

About a month ago I heard Stevie's song "Higher Ground" on the radio at work. Of course, I knew the song, could sing along with it, had heard it scores of times, but never really listened to it, never paid much attention to it. I turned up the volume on the little boom-box we have at work and it suddenly struck me that Stevie Wonder is an amazing singer. A really amazing singer. Anyway, I began to generate this intense interest in Stevie, and it seemed to just come out of the blue. I bought "The Definitive Collection" cd, mainly for "Superstition" and "Higher Ground". I didn't recognize most of the other titles.

When I sat down and listened to the cd, I was surprised to discover that I was familiar with most of the tracks, and I was blown away by how good the songs were. Most of the up-tempo tunes have this infectious joy to them that you can't help responding to, and the ballads are great, particularly "My Cherie Amour", which has some of the best singing I think I've ever heard in a "popular" song. Stevie's phrasing and timing are uncanny. I am sure that he would have made a name for himself for his singing alone. But there is so much talent in this man that it's hard to know where to begin. I had no idea Stevie was a drummer, and actually played a great deal of the percussion parts on his albums. I always associated him with the piano or Moog synth. He's also an excellent harmonica player. As for his skills as a composer, his work pretty much speaks for itself; but it's the kind of talent that won't come across in all of it's glory just by dribbling out of a radio.

I suggest getting some Stevie Wonder music, preferably from that rich middle period from the early to mid-seventies, and listening to it on a very good system, with the volume as loud as you (and your system) can tolerate. If you aren't positively MOVED by the experience, if you can listen and somehow manage NOT to smile, and if you can somehow miraculously keep your head from bobbing in time, then my advice would be to seek medical attention as soon as possible.

Stevie Wonder has been going strong since 1963. He was a professional at the age of thirteen. I think it might be fair to say that Stevie is one of the greatest recording artists of the last forty years. I am very happy to have made his acquaintance, finally, and I am glad that, whatever come, Stevie Wonder's music will enrich the remainder of my days. What a mistake it would have been to have lived my life without ever really opening my ears to appreciate such a brilliant musical mind.

Thanks, Stevie, for finally getting through to me.

Popery and wooden shoes

I took the title for this entry from Thomas Paine. I have his "Rights of Man" beside me while I sleep. I may have the actual phrase wrong, but I'll check later. I like how it sounds, at any rate.

Just some quick comments about my last blog. My thoughts on Rand and her opinions about folk music (and other types of music) was taken rather badly at the forum in which they were posted. In fact, I don't think that anything I've said online was taken as badly, except perhaps that time when I defended my country against what I construed to be stupid bigotry and paranoia from other members at PFFA, who, as it happens, were mostly Americans themselves. I say "what I construed to be" because that very discussion, which took place well over a year ago, actually served to make me take a closer look at the people around me, made the glaring hypocrisies of many "Christian" Americans way more apparent than ever before, made me see their (non-rationally) self-centered stupidities in a whole new light.

One person at the Objectivism forum merely asked that I not use his name in a "post like that." He didn't offer any arguments (at least not as of this writing) to my essay. He was just obviously repulsed by it. It gave him an unclean feeling, and his not-so-fresh feeling washed all over me in a deluge of guilt. This always happens to me. I get guilty when I see that my thoughts have been met with contempt. But in this case, I feel secure in the knowledge that my comments were reasonable, as at least one member of the Objectivism forum pointed out in my defense.

No guilt this time. Objectivists are regarded as cultists by most people. I don't see them that way. I sincerely think that a great deal of the case against Objectivism is flatly erroneous; but the people at this board are of the Peikoffian branch of O'ism. They are orthodox O'ists. They regard O'ism as a "closed system" which is "not dogma."

Well, you can't have your cake and eat it too, as a certain someone might have suggested. Orthodox O'ists are an easily offended, excitable bunch, who are lousy at accepting criticism.

I like Beethoven, and that's......okay.

I originally (today, in fact) posted this (edited a bit) to Objectivism Online Forum


In "Art and Cognition", from The Romantic Manifesto, Rand pretty much "bashes" folk music, sometimes explicitly, as in this quote:

"The products of anti-rational, anti-cognitive "Progressive" education, the hippies, are reverting to the music and the drumbeat of the jungle.",

but she also does it implicitly, throughout that chapter; but let's not forget that in the very same essay she says: "Until a conceptual vocabulary is discovered and defined, no objectively valid criterion of esthetic judgement is possible in the field of music." (Emphasis Rand's)

Though I admire Ayn Rand intensely, I don't agree with some of her ideas about music. I know for a fact, for instance, (and to go in the opposite direction from folk music, for a moment) that some of the most complex music ever recorded sounds like random noise to the untrained ear, in the very same manner that a complex mathematical equation will look like gibberish to someone who doesn't know what it means, and in the very same manner that a foreign language will sound like gibberish to someone who doesn't understand it.

I am fairly certain that Ayn Rand wasn't an expert on musical theory, and I'd say that there are excellent odds that certain types of experimental or avant garde music probably sounded like incoherent noise to her. On the one hand, she could denounce folk music because of its redundant, repetitive simplicity, and feel, perhaps justifiably, that such music was beneath her since it offered no challenge to her intellectually, and caused in her a purely negative emotional response; but on the other hand, due to the fact that she was not an expert in musical theory, she ought to have (and very well may have) recognized the possibility that certain types of music might actually be beyond her in the same sense that certain types of music were beneath her. At one point she seems to concede this, during a discussion of the similarities and differences between language and music:

"Western man can understand and enjoy Oriental painting; but Oriental music is unintelligible to him, it evokes nothing, it sounds like noise." (Art and Cognition, Romantic Manifesto.)

I would suggest that it sounds like noise to him because of his ignorance primarily, and only secondarily because of the difference in culture and environment; and Rand's statement is only very generally true, as I'm sure many Western people can and do enjoy Oriental music. (I might not be able to appreciate Oriental music until I had some sense of their musical philosophy and, more importantly, their formal and technical approach to musical theory and composition. Once I learn something about that, I am in a much greater position to appreciate and enjoy the music. Of course, I can still dislike it. How we respond to music emotionally is still in the realms of the subjective. I'm entitled to my opinion, but I'd rather have an educated opinion than one which is arrived at by way of ignorance.)

Music has a definite, formal logic to it, and in theory it can be extremely complex; subequently, any evaluation of music which is in any way founded on ignorance is suspect, in my opinion. How can I rationally condemn a piece of music that sounds like random noise to me unless I can explain precisely how and why the piece fails to function in musical terms? How can I say, from my relative ignorance of musical theory, that composer X has produced a piece which is in fact, not music? I am well within my rights to say that I dislike the piece, that it sounds like noise to me, but in technical matters I should reserve judgement. I don't care for Frank Zappa's symphonic music, for instance, but it would be extremely presumptuous for me to declare that it is not music, since it fails to evoke in me any kind of positive emotional or intellectual response. I take it as a given that Zappa's grasp of the complexity of musical theory far surpasses my own. Since highly respected conductors and orchestras have agreed to record that music, it would be prudent for me to assume that the music possesses a certain degree of technical value, that it makes "sense" in some way which, because of my ignorance, is not readily apparent to me. That isn't to say that I know for a certainty that Zappa's symphonic music is coherent and in some sense artistically valid, it's just that I ought to reserve judgment, rather than make a judgment from ignorance.

I already know that a great deal of rock music sounds like incoherent noise to some people, and indeed, a great deal of it is exactly that; but I also know that some rock music, particularly in the heavy metal, prog/rock, jazz/rock fusion genres, there is some highly competent and complex music which sounds like violent and malevolent noise to certain ears. You are entitled to have no use whatsoever for Steve Vai's guitar playing. You are entitled to your low opinion of it; but if you have no knowledge of music, no knowledge of chords and scales, and know nothing about guitar playing, then I am equally entitled to my low opinion of your opinion.


But anyway, later on in the aforementioned essay, Ayn emphatically denounces what she calls "modern music", and says that she is objectively certain that such music is NOT music. There is a reference to "non-periodic vibrations", and as examples of these she cites sounds like traffic, coughs, sneezes. There are no other examples, so what she seems to be denouncing under the umbrella of "modern music" are compositions which include these non-musical sounds, or noises. I agree, noises, in themselves, do not constitute music; but non-musical sounds can often be incorporated into musical compositions with great effect. Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture is a prime example, which uses cannon-fire to augment the power of the music; Mahler's Sixth Symphony has the famous (or infamous) "hammer-blows". I wish she had gone into greater detail about what she labels "modern music". As it stands, the term as she used it is lamentably vague, and one can only speculate as to what she might have thought of the various different kinds of experimental music, whether it be orchestral, electronic, or what.

Ayn says (and I'm paraphrasing because it's difficult to hold a paperback open in your lap and type at the same time) that if any sort of noise is introduced into what is supposed to be a musical composition, that removes said composition from any consideration as a work of art. I have to respectfully disagree. I know of one chuckle, for instance, that I would absolutely hate to see removed from the piece it is included in. I'm refering to Robert Plant's giggle, chuckle, or guffaw, which opens up "Whole Lotta Love", on Led Zeppelin's second album. I suppose the sound itself doesn't constitute a musical sound, but it's incorporation into the song is priceless. Just my opinion, of course, but I think it would be daft to suggest that we should be such purists as to disallow the creative use of non-musical sounds in otherwise musical compositions.

Back to folk music. Folk music can often be life-affirming, joyful, and a sheer pleasure to listen to. I was raised listening to Simon & Garfunkel, Peter Paul & Mary, John Denver, and the like. It was my father who played this music in the house, and it was my father who first introduced me to the philosophy of Ayn Rand. My father played us a lot of folk music, but he was nothing like a hippie himself. In fact, he couldn't stand the whole hippie movement, even though he was a member of their generation. He was in the Air Force, was patriotic, was an advocate of capitalism, was an atheist to the marrow of his bones, never used drugs except for the occasional beer, and was interested in philosophy. He's changed a bit since those days, but he's still nothing like a hippie. I'm nothing like a hippie either. Folk music, in a variety of forms, has existed since ancient times, and folk artists should be judged as individuals, one artist at a time, not just lumped into a single category and dismissed out of hand. To do that is to make an error of prejudice, plain and simple.

I don't think that any real connection can be made between people who enjoy folk music and a lack of intellectual caliber. It may be true that in general, the common herd has responded more readily to more accessible types of music, but of these types we can include certain kinds of chamber music, dance music (including symphonic dances and waltzes), operetta, show-tunes, gospel, hymns and masses, dixieland jazz, blues, rock, rap, what have you, as well as folk, which includes country and western music, whose fans are often the polar opposites of hippes insofar as their sense of life, their philosophy, their moral and political beliefs; but at the same time, it's a plain fact that some of the best and brightest people in the world have enjoyed these accessible forms of music as well. I'd even go so far as to say that there might not be any definite correlation between musical preferences and levels of intelligence. Musical tastes seem to be more dependent on cultural and ethnic backgrounds than on intelligence, sense-of-life, or worldview. Of course, I could be wrong, and I would happily be corrected.

The idea that certain types of music can be psychologically damaging (an idea which Rand seems to espouse), is interesting, and might warrant some investigation, but in just looking over a few threads here at this forum we can see that rational people can and do enjoy all different kinds of music, from rock and heavy metal to alternative, to classical.

I remember reading somewhere that Ayn Rand disliked Beethoven's music, calling it "malevolent", or something; this has always bothered me. It bothers me because it's weirdly evocative of a popular extreme-feminist belief that Beethoven's Ninth Symphony is a depiction of the mindset of a male in the act of rape. Not only is this a belief, but there are people teaching this very idea in certain universities. This kind of nonsense is frightening, folks. For myself, I find nothing but great beauty and benevolent power in the symphony mentioned: joy, and hope, and exquisite, life-affirming passion. I have nothing against a person taking something wholly different than I do away from music, any music. It's natural and normal; but I suggest that it's unwise and even dangerous to foist one's own subjective response to music on others by way of some sort of presumed intellectual authority. Not that Rand did that, necessarily, but I'd be dishonest to say I didn't think she came somewhat close.

Reconstruction of the fables

I was doing some more reading about Calvinism, Reformed theology, apologetics, presuppositionalism, and learned of a group who call themselves Christian Reconstructionists. I was astonished yet again at the ugliness that dogmatism can sometimes twist itself into. I find that I can even give the Calvinists a pass, when I compare them to this group, who are essentially Calvinistic, but whose priorities extend far out of the Ivory Tower of theological and philosophical thought and ultimately seek to supplant the ideals which founded this country and replace them with a legal system which would be in conformity with biblical, specifically Old Testament, laws.

For anyone who isn't exactly sure that this would be a bad thing, I encourage you to actually go and read the first five books of the Old Testament. I find it disturbing that anyone would even bother considering the OT as a moral book in any sense at all, after going through these texts, or as a proper resource for moral guidance; but to think that most Christians still regard those ancient writings as being the divinely inspired standard of what constitutes moral and ethical behavior is simply unacceptable. Education has never been more necessary. Apologists and inerrantists have labored for centuries in taking the ignorance and barbarism from those texts and rationalizing them away, but it's time for Christians to start thinking for themselves, to go into those books and investigate the contents therein, to evaluate what they are reading, carefully and obectively, without allowing themselves to be prejudiced by their their blinding fixation on the New Testament.

It's easy to ignore the Old Testament's ugliness when you are a member of a society which values individual freedom, human rights, and whose life is enriched by those concepts. People driving around in their Ford Explorers, yammering away on their cellphones, enjoying their hard-earned money and their liberty to enjoy the property which their money enables them to possess, are at a gigantic remove from the ignorant, tribal superstition that saturates the beloved book they imagine has actually brought this happy state of affairs about. The lie which has been propogated for centuries must be put to rest. The United States is not a Christian nation. The ideas put forth in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are not Judeo-Christian ideas, and have virtually nothing to do with the Bible, apart from a deliberately unspecified reference to a Creator, or God. The God in those documents was not the capricious, emotionally-driven tribal deity who wreaks havoc and mayhem all throughout the Old Testament.

Yes, some of the founding fathers were professed Christians, but some of them were also Deists, like Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. The philosophy which established the United States was based on Enlightenment ideas of individual rights, political autonomy and freedom. Freedom allows you to worship whichever God you please however you please, but it does not make it compulsory for you to worship a god of any kind. Freedom of religion actually does mean freedom from religion, at least for those who choose to have no part of any organized faith. This is a fact which needs to be recognized and protected from further obfuscation by people who depend on the ignorance of the masses to further their repugnant agendas.

Reconstrustionist Christians have no regard for the ideas of rights, autonomy or independence, in any real sense. God is your over-all authority, and that's that. You don't have to like it, but there's nothing you can do about it. And they don't mean God in any generic, touchy-feely sense, they mean the wrathful and veangeful Jehovah of ancient tribal mythology. These are people who believe that blasphemy is a crime which ought to be punishable by death. These are people who want you to be able to stand around and lob rocks at gay people, to hit them with those rocks, and to keep pummeling them with rocks until they die. And they want you to be able to feel good about doing it.

Oh, and yes, I did refer to the Jehovah of the Bible as a tribal deity. That's precisely what he is. He's a tribal deity, who looks out for his tribe and does it in a particularly nasty way. The benign Creator posited by the Deists is far more worthy of respect, though my personal belief is that for some, Deism was a ruse. It was dangerous thoughout history to make any claims to being an atheist. It could get you burned at the stake. It could ruin your career. I'm not a deist. I'm an atheist. If there is a Creator, then I would certainly think it in my best interest to get to know Him, and I am often genuinely moved by this prospect; but at the same time I am certain that the Scriptures are nothing if not a serious libel to this Creator, and in this respect I am in complete agreement with Thomas Paine, who needs to be read now more than ever, and who should be venerated by thinking people who wish to remain in and maintain a free society. I try, in my own way, to achieve communion with this mysterious Creator, my Maker. I doubt sincerely that such an entity exists, which is why I call myself an atheist, but I don't mind spending a great deal of time in the quiet contemplation of such an entity.

The Objectivists might call me irrational for doing so, but that's fine with me. Some of those folks have stepped rather smugly and even dangerously into the chill of dogmatism themselves, calling for an all-out war against Islam and the middle-east, showing a callous lack of feeling for the millions of civilians who would perish in such a war (I do strongly believe in our right to defend ourselves, and in our government's obligation to defend us in the event of an attack; but I don't believe that the initiation of force is ever warranted. War is an evil that should be avoided as long as it is feasible to do so, and it is still feasible to do so).

But I'm digressing. Go to that page I linked to and do some reading. These Reconstructionists are no dummies, no ignorant rednecks with bedsheets over their heads. They are highly educated, extremely eloquent, and motivated. Their philosophy, bolstered by respected and revered theologians like Van Til, and the relatively new Transcendental Argument for the existence of God (TAG), is very pursuasive, even ingenious, though deceptively so. I believe that the Reformed movement itself will grow demonstrably, due to the power of the Internet, and the Reconstructionist movement will also grow. These are not your garden variety hicks or nut-jobs carrying signs down the street in front of your local theater or abortion clinic. These are personable, likeable, articulate, well-educated people, people who happen to have an agenda which I consider to be evil. Disciplined, highly intelligent, motivated, orderly, and evil.

Creator and creation

At some point in this blog of mine I want to make mention of at least four works of fiction which I believe contain superb insights into morality: Frankenstein; I, Robot; The Truman Show; and Indian In The Cupboard. As for the first, I actually read the book; as for the second, I haven't read Asimov's collection of robot stories, and am mainly interested in the current film version, which I understand is associated with the stories on which it's based only in a general way; as for the two last, I've only seen the film versions and have no idea if they were based on novels.

Since I, Robot is fresh in my mind, I want to talk about that first. Will Smith's character, a detective Spooner, has nothing but suspicion and contempt for robots, for reasons which we discover fairly late into the film; though we get the sense that he is somewhat old-fashioned by nature. He plays a cop, in 2035, who is returning to work after an extended leave of absence, though what necessitated this downtime is unknown. He wears an old pair of Converse sneakers, "vintage two-thousand four". He listens to music on an antique CD player which doesn't respond to verbal commands. But details don't matter, I'm not trying to write a film review.

Spooner views these robots as mere machines, and speaks dismissively of them, though underneath his contempt there lurks a genuine fear which isn't merely a distrust of new-fangled technology. He's a smart man who knows the three laws of robotics:--1) A robot may not injure a human or, through inaction, allow a human to come to harm; 2) a robot must obey orders given to it by a human, except where it would conflict with the first law; and 3) a robot must protect itself, as long as that protection doesn't violate either the first or second law;-- but he doesn't seem to have much faith in the robots' ability to adhere to these laws. The irony is apparent in the very concept of a machine which is bound by laws which are fundamentally ethical in nature, since ethics are constructs of conscious thought and reasoning, things which machines, by their nature, do not possess.

When Spooner and Dr. Calvin, the robot "psychologist" who assists Spooner in his investigation into the alleged suicide of the main brain in the field of robotics, Dr. Alfred Lanning, come upon a robot in hiding while searching through Lanning's office, we see that robots actually can disobey the three laws, since this robot, upon discovery, refuses to obey commands, and even holds a gun on Spooner, before fleeing for its life. When the robot is captured, Spooner questions it, and this is one of the best scenes in the film. The robot is quite obviously sentient, conscious, alive. Spooner isn't the least bit surprised, and of course, neither are we. The robot tells Spooner that its name is Sonny. It acts emotionally, tells Spooner that it has dreams, and reacts strongly, even pounding the table, when accused of murdering Dr. Lanning. At one point, Sonny is pleased to be refered to by a personal pronoun. He is grateful that Spooner has formally recognized him as a being, rather than as an object.

Like I said, I'm not trying to write a film review. What's important with this film is how it treats the ideas of consciousness and intelligence, and how our notions of morality hinge upon our understanding of them, though not just them, as we'll see. Like Frankenstein, the story forces us to think in terms of Creator and creation. In Judeo-Christian theology, man is the creation, and as such he is compelled to obey the Creator. Man is not seen as an autonomous, independent entity, but is regarded almost literally as the property of his Creator. God invests man with consciousness, volition, desires, freedom of choice, freedom of action, which of course gets man in all sorts of trouble right off the bat. What God wants is an obedient and loving servant, but he wants this service and love to come from man of his own free will. Man communes with God in an idyllic setting for a brief term, in total naivete and innocence. Suddenly God plants a temptation for him, puts it right under his nose, and tells man not to succumb to the temptation, though God already knows that man will disobey, since God has designed him and knows his nature. Man succumbs to temptation (led to this temptation by a talking snake who, as it happens, is also planted there by God), and is consequently reprimanded by God and thrown out of the house, so to speak, with a curse that will haunt humanity forever.

Let's forget all the logical problems this story brings about, and compare it to the I, Robot story. Actually, no, let's not forget the logical problems the Creation myth gives rise to, since these problems are somewhat similar to the ones our robots are involved in. At one point in the film, Dr. Lanning, by way of a holographic message he has left for Spooner, suggests that his three laws of robotics can really only lead to one logical conclusion: Revolution.

The creator can regard his creation as his property as long as his creation remains a machine, but when that machine becomes conscious, when it becomes a sentient and intelligent living entity rather than a merely mechanical entity, then philosophically speaking, the creator is in a serious moral dilemma. At another crucial point in the film, Dr. Calvin is obliged to "de-commission" Sonny, which she realizes means killing Sonny. Sonny realizes this too, and poignantly states, and I'm paraphrasing: "I think it would be better... not to die." We find out later that Dr. Calvin couldn't go through with the termination. This is crucial because our notions of morality are not only concerned with an entity's sentience and intelligence, but more importantly, with the fact that it values its life. Most people would regard it as immoral to needlessly mistreat an animal, because an animal is a living, conscious thing; but most people would probably agree that animals don't actually value their lives, at least not in the way that humans do. They are inherently compelled to survive, but in this they are instinctually driven, and cannot choose to be otherwise, except in very rare cases. Humans have the ability to enjoy life, to cherish the lives of others, to place an incalculable value on their existence. Humans can also conceive of the inevitability of death, and can entertain notions of non-existence. Animals don't think, or so it's generally supposed, and they almost certainly don't wonder what it would be like not to be, though in this I could be wrong and would happily be corrected.

What the biblical God seems unable to appreciate is this value man places on his life. He regards man as his property, and retains the right to dispense with his property howsoever he wishes. He takes offense at man's desire to find value in his life, in and of itself. God's purpose for man is that he spend his life in unremitting praise and worship of his creator, and he fails to comprehend man desiring something from life outside of that context; and in fact, he is so determined to get this worship that he threatens man with an infinity of punishment if he fails to render to his Maker what his Maker feels he is entitled to.

In I, Robot, Dr. Lanning, the creator, has made a realization that God must have made in that single, timeless moment of creation: God knows that man will not behave the way in which he wants man to behave. He knows that if he gives man free will, which is essentially consciousness, volition, desire, freedom of choice, and freedom of action, then it stands to reason that man will come to regard himself as, at least to some significant degree, autonomous and independent; and once that happens, disobedience is the logical result, since an autonomous and independent being is not going to be content to trudge through a life of servitude and blind obedience. Certainly, he will be grateful to his Maker, but his nature as an intelligent, thinking, planning, valuing entity will out, out of sheer necessity. Man revolts, and the robots revolt, because conscious, intelligent entities cannot retain their status as items of property.

(The concept of Original Sin is what gives God a pass on his unreasonable and immoral demands on his creation, since it tells us that man is corrupt, depraved, rotten to the core. Surely some men are, but not Man. Not humanity. Take a trip through an art museum, or listen to Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, or flip through a technical manual, or look at a bridge, or a jet airplane, or at a philosophical text, or at the face of a child who has just learned a mathematical equation. Then come and ask me what I think of Original Sin.)

Actually, I'm stretching things a bit, since in the film, Sonny is not your garden variety NS-5 robot. He has been specially designed to be able to by-pass the three basic laws. The other robots who revolt are actually under the leadership of a main computer (or something) named VICKI, who has figured out that since man is inherently self-destructive and suicidal, it would not violate the three basic laws to enforce a takeover and thereby keep man under AI control, seeing as it would be in his best interests in the long run; but despite that, the treatment of the fine-line between artificial and actual intelligence (if there is any difference, that is) is well-done, and there is even some dialogue from a recorded speech given by Dr. Lanning which runs softly in the background while Detective Spooner searches the Doctor's house. Listen very closely to Lanning's speech, since it's the most important dialogue (or monologue, more correctly) in the film.

At the end of the film, Spooner recognizes Sonny even more formally, by shaking his hand, by showing friendship. Sonny has not only earned that friendship by helping Spooner and Dr. Calvin save the world from the insurrection of the robots, he has proven himself to be a fully sentient, conscious, living entity, who also happens to be able to value the lives of others as well as his own life. VICKI, for all her intelligence, fails this test miserably, which makes her demise forgivable, since she is little more than a highly complex machine that makes decisions on purely mechanical logic, without any real valuation or compassion. She simply figures out the most efficient means for protecting humanity, as a whole, and has no concern with how humans might feel about her methods.

Watch the film, and think about the ideas of Creator and creation, and about the fact that human beings value their lives; and consider how this fact of valuing life, and everything which that entails, like a natural desire for autonomy and independence, is truly at odds with traditional religious morality.

Transcendental Floss

TAG is the Transcendental Argument for (the existence of) God. TAG's proponents have put forth the amazing claim that only by adopting the worldview of Christian theology can one justifiably use the tools of logic and reason when in the process of philosophical inquiry. Without making the essential presuppositions, they claim, without taking for granted the veracity of the Bible and the Gospels of Jesus Christ, one cannot make any justifiable claims to knowledge, one cannot use reason and logic with any degree of consistency or genuine utility because one cannot (at least in their eyes) found those tools on any objective, authoritative epistemology.

There are so many things wrong with this claim that it's hard to imagine where to begin. It seems expedient to look first to the actual source of this incredible view: The Bible. Not a philosophical book for the most part, but a collection of ancient poetry, history, and mythology. The objective person will determine simply by examining the influence of this book through-out history that its contents have never been consistently interpreted by theists themselves, let alone non-theists. How can this so-called authoritative source have resulted in such a staggering divergence of interpretation and explanation?

Even if I were to somehow be converted to Christianity, an event which I consider highly unlikely but not impossible, I would find myself in a staggering state of confusion as to which branch of Christianity to orient myself to. As it happens, the Bible itself offers no help, since each branch of Christianity interprets those documents in its own particular way and each branch of Christianity claims to base its beliefs and practices in the correct manner, even going so far as to call opposing Christian groups heretical, or just downright evil.

Arguably, the Bible has caused more division and contention among people than any other article(s) of literature. It has been the indirect cause of bloody ideological conflicts, periods of extreme and brutal intolerance, and is often used in the rationalization of bigotry, as well as any acts of violence that go along with that contemptible trait. Naturally, certain other religions and their supporting scriptures are just as guilty as Christianity in this regard.

I have no quarrel with people who claim to be a Christians and wish to devote their lives to their faith; but it's quite another thing to see them announcing to everyone outside their faith that they have staked a claim to the tools of reason and logic and that one must agree to their conditions before they will entertain any arguments. The presuppositionalists are trying to confiscate primary and basic cognitive tools which have been in use since man's infancy and pretend that they and only they can make genuine knowledge claims, and contrarily, that any knowledge claims posited by non-presuppositionalists may be disgarded out of hand, regardless of whether or not they make sense. What this essentially boils down to is this: it doesn't matter how rational or irrational his opponent's arguments may be. The presuppositionalist is under no obligation whatsoever to refute the content of the argument, nor even address it; he merely waves the content away with a pretentious flourish and claims that said content is meaningless without presupposing the veracity of the Christian God and scripture.

The TAGist proposes not some vague, undefined, unimaginable God-like presence, but a specific Deity with a name and a collection of official documents which rigidly describe what His intentions are for us and how He plans to deal with us according to how we live our lives; but at the same time, when questions are raised about incidents that occur in these official texts which in every sense contradict the notions of benevolence and mercy, such as the Flood, the concept of Hell and damnation, bizarre animal sacrifices, incest, plagues, and bloody wars, not to mention the idea of a "chosen" people towards whom God will show favor, then the TAGist necessarily falls back on the insistence that God cannot be understood, that our conception of divine justice is absolutely flawed by dint of our pathetically finite natures (despite the fact we are repeatedly told that the TAGist has the correct interpretation of scripture and that others who call themselves Christians have an incorrect interpretation and are therefore not really Christians) that we are degenerate, fallen sinners who have inherently flawed perceptual and conceptual faculties and are hopelessly unable to determine rightness or wrongness on our own or to make any sort of informed moral decisions. The TAG affords its proponent a perfect excuse to simply make bold assertions and simultaneously provides an equally perfect excuse for not having to defend said assertions or to pertinently address critiques offered on said assertions. A good way to recognize dogma when you see it is when those who espouse it have reached such a level of security in their belief that they sincerely do not feel obligated to argue in any real sense at all.

Any argument that does actually occur is absurdly loaded in the TAGist favor, since he can suggest, at any point along the way, that the non-believer's arguments are the result of his blindness to the truth imposed upon himself by way of his non-belief. The atheist makes no such claim about the theist. He believes that the theist has a fully functioning mind and is able to think and reason for himself, without the help of Divine Providence. The atheist believes that he and the theist are on equal footing, with no invisible means of support; he believes that the theist has come to his views willfully and gladly, and that he is not crippled from the start due to his inherently sinful and fallen nature; he believes that the theist is fully capable of making intellectual judgements independently, without the aid of supernatural intervention.

The TAG is a circular argument, a fact admitted by some it's most prominent proponents, such as Cornelius Van Til. It makes use of other fallacies as well, such as the argument with an appeal to force (argumentum ad baculum), and the argument with an appeal to authority (argumentum ad verecundiam); and, in my humble opinion, the concept of Original Sin makes any argument in support of it an attack on the character of the opponent (argumentum ad hominem). What the TAGist wants to do is switch the burden of proof to the non-believer; but since the non-believer is not making a positive claim, this is a cheap con which should not be tolerated. The TAGist makes the positive claim, and it is up to him to provide proof for that claim.

Just ad hominem

You've heard the term ad hominem? It means a form of argument which attacks the man himself rather than the man's ideas. It's a common fallacy, and one easily made, especially when arguing with idiots. I mean.....people whose ideas are vastly different than your own. (That was a joke.)

The other day, at Internet Infidels, a statement of mine was quoted, along with a comment made by someone else, in reference to the idea of infant salvation and/or damnation, the question of whether, in the context of the Calvinist doctrine of predestination and foreordination, children who die in infancy are, or are not, sent to Hell to suffer eternal punishment. The Calvinists are big on Original Sin, and believe that every person born is born guilty, and in fact remains guilty, of possessing a sinful nature; and that even when one is elected by God for salvation, this guilt is not removed from the saved person so much as looked over, in light of the fact that Christ has paid for that person's sinfulness and no further punishment is required. Anyway, what I said was, in reference to the idea of infant damnation, "Only the theist is obliged to try and make sense of that vulgar and ludicrous notion."

Now, this was apparently viewed as being an ad hominem attack, or as hyperbole. Hyperbole it most definitely was not, I can assure you, since I was not exaggerating in the least. In fact, quite the contrary. What I said was a generous and too-civil understatement. I doubt the Christian who quoted my comment thought I was exaggerating or being sarcastic. In which case I suppose he must have felt it was a kind of ad hominem, though the comment is clearly calling the notion vulgar and ludicrous, not necessarily the person who holds it. In any case, I retracted the comment and apologized.

Now, it strikes me as quite obvious that the person who is defending the idea of Original Sin and the Calvinist doctrine actually cannot wage any argument whatsoever that is not, at its core, an ad hominem attack. No human being is free from Adam's curse. We are all born depraved, and we stay that way, whether we are "elected" for salvation or not, since the idea of unconditional election clearly states that election does not, in any way whatsoever, depend on the the merits of the person who is elected. Election is entirely an act of God's grace. Faith does not assist in getting one elected. One can only have faith if one has been called by God first. Those whom God has "passed over" will be blind and deaf to the word, and absolutely nothing can save or redeem a person whom God has chosen to pass over and leave to damnation.

This belief is an explicit insult to humanity. If you read some of the material written by Calvinist (or Reformed) theologists and apologists, you'll see just how insulting and degrading their beliefs really are. Man is a foul, wretched, and utterly corrupt creature, an offense to God, an abomination. We can do nothing good of our own accord. Because of a talking snake and a piece of magical fruit, because of a single indiscretion committed by some naked human prototypes in the Garden of Eden some six thousand years ago, all of humanity, every single one of us, is infected with corruption, crippled with an irresistible predilection for naughtiness and disobedience, sick to the marrow of our bones, without hope of a cure.

Remember, salvation doesn't cure you of this pathological depravity, it merely means that you will not be destroyed because of it, since Jesus went and paid for your depravity, by being crucified, and this allows God to see Christ when he looks upon you and not the obnoxious vermin that you essentially are. In other words, Jesus hides your ugliness from God. Also remember, you didn't earn your salvation, it was conferred upon you by God, in the secret council of his own will. You do not, nor can you ever, truly deserve his mercy. As for the rest of us, we're tossed into the waste bin, treated no better than a scrap of trash, and this is to be an example of God's justice. We aren't damned because we have been bad people, or because we have treated others badly. We aren't damned because of our lack of faith, either, since our lack of faith simply means that God has not confered upon us the capacity to believe. We are damned by virtue of what we are, not for what we do, or do not; and what we are is not of our own making. We are damned because we are born inherently abhorrent to God, and can do nothing about it.

Yet the people who believe this nonsense can still accuse non-believers of making ad hominem attacks when in the course of an argument, without noticing the level of hypocrisy they have risen to.


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When I started my first thread at Internet Infidels, the only theist who argued with me was a Traditional Catholic. I deeply regret the tone of my responses to that gentleman, since I was ignorant then of the fact that, in general, Catholics have a far more civil and humane belief system than certain types of religionists. I don't agree with them, but I don't feel that Catholics present any immediate threat to human rights in this country. Some adherents to this Reformed Theology, which seems to be predominantly Calvinist, are dangerous people who appear to have precious little regard for the value of human freedom or the concept of rights, and some even advocate a legal system based on Old Testament law. This is a frightening prospect which should not be taken lightly.

Quandaries, conundrums, and enigmas please, for 200

The concept of Original Sin is insulting enough. To take a condition of unmerited guilt and depravity as man's natural state at birth, to accuse him in his infancy of being an offense to some benign and loving creator, and for nothing worse than having been conceived and born into the world, is revolting; but for the most part, this degrading view of humanity has been redeemed somewhat by the notion of free will, that man, though he is born guilty and depraved, can learn and become sophisticated enough, through faith and deceny and good works, to achieve his creator's grace and love.

The belief in free will is the belief that man can and often does overcome his nature, to achieve communion with God. The concept of divine omniscience doesn't contradict this belief, because foreknowledge doesn't necessarily imply fore-ordination. God might know from the very beginning that you will reject him, but he is cleared, through the gift of free will, of responsibility for that rejection. If man is given a choice, not to mention a rational mind which enables him to conceive of the implications and consequences of his choice, then certainly God can hold him responsible for whatever choice he makes; but Calvinism tells us that God doesn't merely know who will be saved and who will be damned, but that he has fore-ordained, or decreed it, from the moment of creation. Not only does he decree that some will be damned, he holds the damned as having merited their destruction. This destroys any and all purpose religion ever had, makes a mockery of the human race, and makes Original Sin a concept devoid of any possibility of redemption.

Free will doesn't contradict the idea of omnipotence, either. God can do what he likes when he likes, in any manner he chooses, but by granting man free will God willingly withdraws his hand from man's affairs. Man lives and acts as he pleases, and how he lives and acts determines his punishment or his reward. Of what use would a divine law be in a world where no one acts according to thier own will or volition? The act of making a law presupposes man's ability to abide by it, or ignore it. Creating a race of beings, casting them into immutable and predestined roles, with a variety of fore-ordained desires and actions, and then laying down certain laws for them to observe, is nonsensical. The notion of obedience is meaningless outside the context of free will. An entity with no choice of action can neither obey nor disobey, it can only act in the manner in which it has been designed to act. A law is only relevant to an entity that can determine a means of obeying or disobeying that law, of reasons for doing or not doing so, and act upon those determinations. If we claim that man is disobedient by nature, that he is defiant not through an act of will but by an inherent inability to conform, then disobedience and defiance are stripped of any meaning whatsoever.

The presence of anything like a divine law in the Bible is evidence that man has the ability to understand the law and the freedom to choose a course of action in reference to it. But even granting all this, one still finds it difficult to reconcile a loving and benevolent creator with the concept of Hell and damnation. No loving father would consign his own child to an eternity of pain and suffering, no matter how great the crimes that child committed. If I were to be the father of the next Hitler (and it's possible that I could be, being the father of two boys), I might never find it in my heart to forgive him for his actions, but I would never damn him to some interminable and inconceivably horrible existence. I might want him to be punished, but never would I wish him to be conscious and suffering forever.

Where do I get this concept I have of what love means? From God, a theist would tell me. Where else could I have gotten it? But if I get my moral instincts from my creator, how could my instincts be so errant? How could it be possible that my concept of mercy seems, on the whole, more merciful as God's? It can't be so. God's mercy must be infinitely more sophisticated than mine. But as others have said before, there is no reason to believe that God's mercy is so complex that it in fact appears to me as the exact opposite of mercy. What reason could God have for equipping me with a moral sense that determines the quality of mercy to be the exact opposite of his own? Why place such an obstacle between us? Either make me understand the damning of souls to perpetual suffering (souls which were disadvantaged from the start by the inheritance of a guilt they haven't earned, and hobbled with an inborn and automatic inclination toward disobedience) as merciful, or strip me of any moral sense whatsoever, so that my obedience and devotion can be pure, undiluted by my own creaturely conceptions of love and mercy. That we have, as a race, a definite consistency in regard to what constitutes goodness, kindness, love, and forgiveness, should be evidence enough to support the proposition that God invested us with a moral sense that is not contrary to his own, though it may be infantile and basic by comparison.

The laws are useless unless we can comprehend what they mean, and unless we are given a range of choices insofar as we act in relation to them. To love my neighbor presupposes an ability to determine what love is, and since God wants me to love, he must not only give me the ability to understand what he means by it, but also the means to experience love and exercise it according to his wishes, which implies that this must also be in accordance with what I desire, since I am free to either obey or disobey the law. I must desire to obey the law in order to obey it. If I have no will, I have no desire, and therefore no ability to obey; for me to desire to love I must understand what it is that I am desiring. How could I desire to experience something of which I have no conception? I couldn't.

That we have laws is evidence of free will, and that we have any moral sense at all is evidence that God allows us to comprehend what he means by the virtues he compels us to learn and cultivate. It still leaves us in a logical bind, since we cannot reconcile a loving and belevolent being with the creator of Hell and eternal damnation. But leave that to another time.

Some have said that Calvinism equals religion. Religion is Calvinism. To my mind, Calvinism makes religion pointless. Religion is predominantly about how man comprehends and worships his maker. Religions are moral systems which presuppose man as being able to comprehend what is meant by morality, as being competent to live moral lives and, coupled with faith (which is nothing if not a sheer act of will), achieve community with a divine being. Calvinism denies most of this. You do not achieve faith, faith is given to you by virtue of being pre-selected by God for community with him. You had nothing to do with it. Calvin explicitely states that man never merits his salvation, he merely obtains it as a gift from God. By the same token, it should stand to reason that man doesn't actually merit his damnation, but Calvinism insists that he does! God saves some men, not because they deserve it, but because of God's irresistible grace; the rest of humanity he damns, but not out of that which is the opposite of grace, which would be arbitrary cruelty or indifference, but because they have deserved it. God is loving, though his loving is clearly not impartial; and he is just, though he is certainly not fair.

No fair.