Why Richard Dawkins isn't a "secular fundamentalist."

I didn’t particularly want this. I didn’t want to argue because I’m a nice guy and I didn’t want to wind up in a situation where I was forced to publicly disgrace someone, but John seems intent on courting disaster. I shall oblige him that much.

Alright, let us begin. To start, I think I should clarify that I’m not in particular a partisan for Dawkins; I haven’t read any of his books yet, though I have seen some lectures and read some articles. Of the Big Four among “atheist” thinkers, I’m most a fan of Sam Harris. It’s his line of thinking I will be drawing on the most here- anyone familiar with Sam will recognize his ideas throughout. I also know he does a much better job than I do of demolishing the intellectual foundations of theism. If anyone is interested in what they read here, I’ll leave a list of books, articles and YouTube stuff worth checking out. Still, a personal debate requires a personal touch, and I will make sure to leave one (in the form a hand print on John’s face- metaphorically speaking).

Now let’s get into it.

My starting point is this: There is no evidence to suggest there is a God. We may want to believe there is a God, we may fall back on that when we can’t explain something (however temporarily), and we may think believing in God is a necessary precursor to morality and is therefore a good thing (it isn’t), but there is not a single iota of evidence anywhere that suggests there is a God. The modern religious have long since stopped even trying to argue this point, they know they can’t. They have now retreated to the argument that just because there’s no evidence to support a God, there’s no evidence to reject a God, and that there’s nothing wrong with believing in God without evidence, anyway. This is not actually true, either.

I am called an atheist, but I think the term is a misnomer. I am a rational person. That’s it, nothing more to it. I am a reasonable, rational human being, and I think that any claim made with no evidence can be dismissed with no evidence.

I am going to base my argument around responding to the accusation that Richard Dawkins is a “secular fundamentalist”- that he is somehow, in his devotion to reason, just as guilty of dogmatic thinking as the Bin Laden’s of the world. I think this is a rather silly claim to make. Let me show you why.

John accuses Dawkins of being a “secular fundamentalist.”

The essential point John makes here is one made against atheists all the time: namely that atheism is just as dogmatic and intransigent as religious faith, it is, in fact, just another religion. Think about how the religious accuse science of being “arrogant,” and again, of accusing a science and rationality oriented view of being equally dogmatic and faith-based as religion. This is false; it’s not even hard to show why.

Let me pause first to point out that there are three arguments for religion.

1) A specific religion is literally True.

a. I think we can dismiss this one out of hand, don’t you? Even if we knew for a fact that one religion was true, which we don’t, they all claim a sole monopoly on truth. Any logical religious person should consider his or herself damned strictly as a matter of probability.

2) Religion is useful.

a. This claim is usually made in reference to religion’s function as our great moral teacher. It’s also false.

3) Even if religion is bad, atheism is worse.

a. This argument also completely falls apart once it’s examined.

Keep these three categories in mind as we move on, and whenever you hear a similar debate in the future.

Science is not dogmatism, it is not based on faith. Science can’t be faith-based or “arrogant” like religion, because the fundamental nature of science is only to say something is true when it has been proven true. That’s it. If you claim something, back it up. That’s all there is to a rational lifestyle.

You say people can fly by flapping their wings? Prove it.

You’re telling me there’s a gold brick the size of a house in your possession? Show me.

Native Americans have reddish skin because God cursed them and made them that way? Something claimed with no evidence can be dismissed with no evidence.

Science refuses to answer a question, yes or no, until the evidence decisively favors one or the other response. What, exactly, is dogmatic about that? Where is the fundamentalism in asking authority to justify itself? I am often amused when the religious accuse atheism of being responsible for the crimes of Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. Do you really think an excess of reason and rationality was the problem in the USSR? Are you honestly going to argue that the problem in Nazi Germany was an overly skeptical stance towards authority? Don’t embarrass yourself.

But, more generally, religion is a system built on preserving its own interpretation of the Truth, a truth that happens to be patently false. Everyone in the religious establishment is working to preserve the lie. Scientists, on the other hand, have a little thing called peer-review. Politely put, they critique each other and look for errors, although I hear they are really devoted to tearing into each other’s research. This is not an environment conducive to maintaining institutional falsehoods. Anyway, while rationality refuses to guess, religion asks you to answer the question- without any evidence at all. What’s worse, it saddles that answer with all of its rules, regulations, and commandments to certain styles of behavior- many of them flagrantly bigoted and immoral.

The religious make the mistake of arguing that our beliefs are a matter of personal choice. They aren’t. If I want you to believe something, I will present you with evidence and you will helplessly believe me, because you will be carried along by the logic that is proof. There won’t be any choice about it. I want you to believe that I stole your shoes. Want proof? Here’s a streaming video of me stealing your shoes.

Lacking the ability to defend the factual integrity of their claims, the religious fall back on all sorts of logical tricks. But it’s easy to see how specious and empty these arguments are, just put them in any other possible context.

I believe there is a 90 pound diamond buried in my yard.

- I cannot prove it, but it’s not like you arrogant scientists can prove it’s not there.

- My sense of morality is based on believing a 90 pound diamond is in my yard.

- There is evidence that the diamond is there, it’s just intangible. I sort of feel like the diamond is there.

- It’s not that I’ve failed to support the diamond, it’s that you’ve failed to imagine it.

Grandiose, unsupported statements like this disqualify a person from taking any responsible position in our society- Unless it’s about religion. Change the topic to religion, and suddenly the door is flung open to all sorts of absurdities. Change the topic to religion, and suddenly you can find a 21 year old film student decrying Richard Dawkins’ deplorable ignorance. How silly.

Ultimately, however, the belief in God is not the problem. It is religion’s belief that it knows the Mind of God. It’s not so much that people believing in a vague notion of an insubstantial force of goodness holding the universe together is a bad thing, more that the belief obligates people to set aside hours of their day for rituals, to give their money to the Church, to mutilate their sons and daughters (especially their daughters), to cover up and otherwise sequester their women, and to actively seek out global domination. If you think religions don’t have a will to dominate, pick up a Koran some time. Or a Bible.

[But Dave, there are some good moral lessons in the Bible!! LOL!!!]

I agree, like any man-made work of literature, there are some interesting stories in the Bible, and some valuable moral lessons. And like any other work of man, there are also some horrible things in there, as well. As someone who denies the divinity of this book, I am free to pick and choose which lessons I take with me, like this:

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.”

- Jesus Christ, Luke 6:31

and those which I leave behind, like this:

'I tell you that to everyone who has, more will be given, but as for the one who has nothing, even what he has will be taken away. But those enemies of mine who did not want me to be king over them- bring them here and kill them in front of me."

- Jesus Christ, Luke 19

The religious are not free to pick and choose. Either the Bible is the perfect, unalterable word of God or it isn’t. The holy books themselves claim utter perfection, and a monopoly on truth. Either you are a real Christian or a real Muslim and you believe it, or you are a lapsed Christian, or an apostate Muslim- you are a modern, reasonable person who (at least subconsciously) realizes their own freedom away from false claims of divine truth and are just unwilling to leave behind the tangential benefits of religion, such as community building and holidays. All you have to do is accept that all these nice things can be found anywhere; they can be found without faith.

So, where are we? We’ve discussed Theist Argument 1, a religion might really be true, and dismissed it. Argument 3, atheism is worse than religion, has been dealt with, and along the way we’ve discussed why religious belief can’t hide behind the shield of simply being harmless. As for argument 2, religion is useful even if it’s based on nothing, it has been addressed. But I want to make a final point about why I am opposed to religion’s stranglehold on moral authority.

By making its unsupportable claims about God and the afterlife, etc, religion divorces the concept of morality from the concepts of human happiness and suffering. If a person truly believes that they have an eternal soul, and that this soul lives on for eternity after death, and that this eternity will either be one of bliss in Heaven or suffering in Hell depending on their actions in relation to the Church’s teachings in life- these are beliefs that have a pretty profound impact on a person’s view of morality. If it is possible for me to say something to your child that is so damning that it risks their eternal soul, then it’s not just their life that is at stake but rather an eternity of suffering that hangs in the balance. The crimes that condemn a person to hell range from abortion to calling God the wrong name. People vote based on these beliefs. People legislate based on these beliefs. The integrity of our division of church and state will always be at risk as long as people believe their child can learn things in school that will risk their souls. The Church’s repressive teachings regarding human sexuality matter. And anybody who has heard the term “suicide bombing” is educated enough to know that the nature of a person’s beliefs regarding the afterlife and the metaphysics of martyrdom do matter to the rest of us. Especially if those beliefs are based on NOTHING.

Now then, let’s address some of John’s specific points.

If Dawkins isn't a politician, why does he write books called The God Delusion? He is clearly concerned with the fate of humanity, and he actively cultivates a strong following, so he is necessarily a politician.

Wow. John’ starts off strong with this doozy of an argument. Yes, Dawkins did write a book (with a title!) and he does have opinions. He even might have a following. I guess that makes him a politician, just like Clark’s Professor Peet, and Angelina Jolie. I’m going to dignify John’s “point” with a response, but this does not bode well for the quality of what is to follow. Anyhow, the thing about Dawkins is that, just like Professor Peet he writes books and go on the lecture circuit, but also like Peet, he has no ambition to power. He has never run for office, nor expressed an interest to do so. I’m sure he appreciates that his ideas are influential, but that doesn’t make him a politician. (Frankly Dawkins would probably find government work tedious if not downright distasteful).

I admire his social advocacy; I deplore his ignorance.

That’s sort of the problem in a nutshell right here, isn’t it? It’s ironic that the religious make a major point of calling the nonreligious ignorant, and conversely arrogant regarding their beliefs. It would be laughable it weren’t so grossly misguided.

Think about the claims about specific, highly involved sciences that are routinely made by the religious community: “Gosh, Dr. Paleontologist, you sure seem to have an awful lot of bones over there, but you obviously haven’t done your reading- everyone knows the Earth is only 6,000 years old! And that God made the Earth in six days!” or “Gee Mr. Hawking, you seem pretty sure about your theory of the universe, and you have some nifty charts, but that’s not what the Bible says is true. I don’t understand how you could be so ignorant.” Christ.

There are more authoritative sources than biologists to determine whether or not God exists, [Are you suggesting the Bible? Again, this line of thinking would be funny if it wasn’t so scary to think that a seemingly ordinary person we habitually spend time with could actually believe this.] and whether or not the factuality of the existence of a God is truly consequential. Even though this isn't an atheist's responsibility, if you could prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that a God does not exist, how many minds would you really change? I'm confident that many religious folk have faiths so strong (and in some cases, stubborn) that they would continue to follow their rituals and largely ignore your proof.

I think this is a good time to mention this:

I had hoped that I showed it wasn’t so much that I lacked the intellectual capacity for religion so much as I do not require the intellectual crutch of a religion telling me what I should be believe (and, incidentally, controlling all the rest of my behavior as well). Religion has no monopoly on spirituality, nor does it require a belief in god to experience transcendent states of consciousness. Sam's favorite example here is Buddhism, and I’m happy to say I’ve been able to explore some of what he is talking about myself here. Buddhist teachings revolve around meditation. Meditation looks like a breathing exercise, but it's actually a mental discipline exercise. Meditation is a practice designed to focus one's consciousness on the exact present moment, free of the distractions of random thoughts (eg, What should eat for lunch today? Does Janice think I’m hot? That’s a good idea for a movie. I love Tim Burton). We all have thoughts that constantly arise, uncontrolled, from our minds. These random thoughts distract us from the simple act of experiencing our lives in the present moment to the fullest capacity. In a sense, meditation is an attempt to become more alive than average for a human being. Having meditated, I’ve caught moments of clarity through the practice, and it is almost euphoric. You really do feel connected to the whole of existence in an intangible, compelling way. You feel good about yourself, and about everything around you, which makes you (at least in that moment) a far more kind, compassionate, and frankly deeper person. and There’s no need to believe in god to explore this spirituality. And no dietary restrictions, either. And women may participate as equals. Whoa.
As for John, his argument seems to be "You just don't get it, bro. You and Dawkins may say some things, and I might not be able to respond with anything meaningful, but you Just. Don’t. Get it. Nyah nyah nyah."
Oh well, can't argue with nothing.

Would that make them ignorant? Many religious people are already plenty ignorant.

I agree.

However, I'm also certain that a particularly educated, practiced, and insightful group of religious thinkers can and have already addressed the factuality of the existence of God, and, in simple terms, scientific evidence may simply not be required for their faiths to be valid. There are clearly limits to every field of study, and religion and biology are both obviously limited fields.

This is the point, right there, isn’t it? Yes, evolutionary biology is a limited field, as is religion. But biology limits itself to making claims only about biology, and even then limits itself to making claims only about what it can conclusively prove. Religion makes claims about every facet of our entire lives, and considers the burden of proof tantamount to heresy (and occasionally punishable by death). And religion doesn’t stop there. Not only does it makes claims about the whole of existence with no way of backing it up, but it expects, or demands, the rest of us to bend to accommodate it.

Examples: According to the Bible, male homosexuality is an abomination (Yes, the Christian God does, in fact, hate fags). This unfounded opinion occasionally has social and political consequences.

We can’t exercise our freedom of expression to draw a picture of Mohammad, because he is a holy man and it is forbidden, apparently for everyone. Case closed.

- The West is so imperialist and hateful to Muslims it voluntarily censored itself so as not to sully the image of the man who said this:

o “The time will not come until Muslims will fight the Jews (and kill them); until the Jews hide behind rocks and trees, which will cry: O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, come on and kill him! This will not apply to the Gharqad, which is a Jewish tree.”[1]

Dawkins's choice to not believe in a God is not the issue; rather, he is apparently unable to gather the intangible evidence that inspires one to build a strong, healthy faith, which is necessarily tempered by reason and skepticism, and thus he is unable to imagine any compelling reason for him to believe in a God. If my belief in God is a failure to reason, his disbelief in God is a failure to imagine. I would never ban atheism, but Dawkins all but demands the burning of all holy texts and is guilty of the same crime against humanity so many religious fundamentalists commit: hate.

Dawkins is a lot things, but he isn’t a hater. (Christopher Hitchens might be, but he’s never said anything even as bad as The Prophet, has he?) There’s nothing very emotional or vindictive about what Dawkins says at all. Frankly, everyone reading this sentence knows what it’s like to be an atheist like me or Dawkins. This is because everyone is an atheist when it comes to Zeus. Ask yourself, do you believe in Zeus? Why not? What’s wrong with believing in Zeus, and what’s wrong with orienting one’s life around Zeus’ commandments? Does anyone have a problem with their children being forced to perform rituals to Apollo in school? It’s a simple question. It isn’t as if some theologian in the 3^rd Century conclusively proved that Zeus wasn’t real, but the One God is. There’s nothing hateful about applying the same standards of judgment to Yahweh in addition to Athena.

The “all but” is important here- it’s a trick like the phrase “some people say” on Fox News. Dawkins doesn’t demand the burning of holy texts at all. It’s not really rational to call for the destruction of knowledge and art, that’s religion’s bag. Nothing would be gained by burning all our Bibles, and it would be a great loss to the world if all the nice mosques we built over the centuries were destroyed. That’s not a very rational way to behave. But, lacking an understanding of rationality, the religious simply tar the rest of us with examples of how they would behave. “Hate.” Ha.

(When it comes to me, the only hate I have is the hate I reserve for the endless onslaught of Ron Paul spam clogging my email, and now my Wall, as well. As for Dawkins, he claims to be a fan of plenty of religiously-themed and generated art. Just because it’s based on a grandiose claim doesn’t mean it isn’t pretty).

This is why Dawkins is a secular fundamentalist. Some Christians think raising children in any religion other than their own is tantamount to child abuse; Dawkins thinks similarly of all religion. These two ideas reek of the other's ideological fascism.
Compassionate, democratic dialogue requires the ability to imagine, at least for an instant, that your opponent is actually right. Dawkins cannot do this. Christopher Hitchens can't either; conveniently, his brother Peter Hitchens is quite adept at refuting his brother and problematizing Dawkins's ideology. I can provide you sources which will further illustrate my point; if you enjoy listening to British brothers fight, check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AZGWMC7DZQ0

Again, there is no “ideology” in question. There is no atheism. Only rational discussion. And I’m familiar with the Hitchens brothers; don’t think I’m the one who needs to do more reading.

A belief in the supposition that religion is the root of all evil requires that one not distinguish between politics and religion whatsoever. It requires that one also believe that religion and politics are fundamentally linked; however, this is fallacious. It was not any Church that create the atomic bomb, it was not any Church that invaded Iraq.

I agree with your contention that a society founded on religion would be incapable of pursuing such an intellectually rigorous field as nuclear physics.

But this is a good time to point out that no one has ever said violent conflict will die out with religion. Only one major source of violent conflict will die out with religion. To argue that there is no point in outgrowing religious faith simply because other sources of conflict exist is a total nonstarter. Take it in another context: “There’s no point in curing your cancer- something else is just going to kill you anyway.” Not to compare religion to cancer or anything, but the logical principle is the same. Oh, and by the way, our enemies in World War II, the Japanese, were motivated by an extreme religious ideology.

And “fallacious”? Nice SAT word.

It was not any Church that started WWI, or WWII, and it was not any Church that started the war in Vietnam. It was not any Church that caused the tragedies at Abu Ghraib, nor was it any Church that created an environment in which Blackwater could thrive.

Your statement that events such as World War II and the Iraq war are somehow free of religious influence is very daring. I don’t even have time to get in to everything that’s wrong with this, but suffice to say that I don’t think anyone will believe that religion is somehow free of the oceans of blood on its hands.

For all his talk of God, George Bush acts more like an atheist concerned only with material success than he does a Christian concerned with serving God. So do many Christians. Bush himself has mocked the beliefs of his religious base.

Your desperation is really starting to show.

So while we live in a Western society that is largely secular in our government, we still cause a lot of the grief politicized zealots caused back in the day of the Crusades. I am an advocate for separation of Church and State, but also for freedom to, of and from religion. I am not so convinced that Dawkins, nor many other fundamentalists from different dispositions, are as concerned as I am about freedom.

Freedom indeed. This from a person who argued his heart out to defend the Confederacy and its “right” to enslave a race of people. The only thing noteworthy about these arguments is your own awe inspiring talent for self delusion.

I’m done here. This is twice now we’ve argued about something, and twice now that I’ve completely wrecked you. Feel free to bring it on again, but only if you’re a glutton for more pain.

- Eli Larson

Further Reading.

To anyone interested in what we’ve been discussing here, I recommend this stuff:

Sam Harris, The End of Faith and Letter to a Christian Nation

- this is a great primer video that makes all my arguments better than I can:

- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J3YOIImOoYM

Christopher Hitchens, God is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything

Daniel Dennet, Breaking the Spell

Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Infidel

Irshad Manji, The Trouble with Islam

God, The Bible

God, The Koran

Soygal Rinphoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying

Sakyong Mipham, Turning the Mind into an Ally

And, finally, though I have not read this book personally, perhaps you will all join me in ordering it so we can discuss its contents a little better

Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

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[1] Anyone wondering where I found this quote of the Prophet Mohammad; it is available in the Hamas Founding Charter, article 7: “The Universality of Hamas.” Israelis are wary of Hamas for some reason.

Freaky Democracy

Might a democracy be incapable of planning for the future? Or, at the very least, might a democracy be less inclined to plan for the future than a dictatorship? In the democratic United States, we typically elect our leaders every two, four or six years. In a dictatorship like China, leaders are not elected; they remain in power for as long as they maintain that power. This may lead to a situation in which dictators like the Chinese are at a great advantage over democracies like America when it comes to long term planning.

Here’s the thing: Imagine Christmas. Every year, shoppers arrive at the mall with a variety of products to spend their money on. Based on a cost benefit analysis, the shopper will eventually spend his or her money on the product that appeals to them the most. This seems simple enough.

Likewise, when Election Day arrives, voters are given the option between voting for- or spending their votes on- a variety of products. The products are the candidates themselves. In order to sell themselves to the voters, politicians must use advertising to appeal to them more than their opponent does, much in the same way products are sold in the free market. Politicians do this by making promises to the voters: “Vote for me and I promise I will use my power to accomplish X, Y and Z.” Hopefully, the voters will decide that their vote will be spent to maximum effect if it gets them X, Y and Z (rather than the D, Q and R promised by a rival politician).

What we see, then, is that if we apply the principles of the market to politics, the primary job of the politician is not to accomplish anything at all. The primary job of a politician is to win elections. The reason why the system works at all is because in order to be elected, a politician must promise to do things; and in order to be reelected, a politician must have accomplishments to point to as evidence of his or her worthiness. It is this cycle of elections and promises that ultimately prevents us from planning for the future in any meaningful way.

In a system where elections are held every four years, the politician is forced to accomplish tasks that benefit the electorate so that he can sell himself during the next cycle. This might seem like a perfectly viable system, but unfortunately, it forces politicians to focus their energies on projects that pay dividends within the timeframe dictated by their election cycle. There is no incentive for a politician to invest his energy in a project that will pay off twenty years down the road. Therefore, American officials have no direct interest in what happens in twenty years, since their political life-spans are measured in much shorter increments.

Take the following example: An American President makes a televised speech in which he tells the country of a fantastic new plan for the country that will fix many severe problems. There is only one problem: the plan calls for raising taxes. While taxes will be high for a brief period, and the economy might suffer somewhat, enormous benefits can be expected ten years later when the plan finally comes to fruition. I do not need to tell you what will most likely happen to this President. Imagine, too, what will happen to his great, long term plan after he is booted out of office. It will be dismantled by another politician who was smart enough to promise the voters results they could appreciate in time to vote the next time around. Politicians in a democracy are only capable of seeing as far as the next election.

Imagine now the perspective of the dictator. A strongman who rules his country with an iron first can afford to take his time. This is not to say that a strongman cares nothing about selling himself to the people- keeping dissent down and staying popular is still an incentive. However, lacking elections, the dictator is not bound by a strict set of deadlines in the same way an American senator is. Chinese officials can institute plans that pay no dividends until ten or twenty years in the future, since a Chinese official can reasonably assume that he will still be in power twenty years later to reap the rewards of such forward thinking. Could you imagine an American leader instituting a plan that would pay off for his successor?

This line of thought should in no way be taken as a repudiation of democracy, or as a promotion of dictatorship. Instead, it should be taken as a warning to democracies out there in the world that when it comes to long-term planning, it might be a good idea to recognize that they are playing at a disadvantage. If they don’t, dictatorships might use that advantage in such a way as to make democracy all the more uncommon in the world.

The God Dimension.

Here is the gist of the matter. Life in this world serves a higher purpose; no doubt it is not easy to guess what that purpose is, but it certainly signifies a perfecting of man’s nature…over each one of us there watches a benevolent Providence which is only seemingly stern and which will not suffer us to become a plaything of the over-mighty and pitiless forces of nature. Death itself is not extinction, is not a return to inorganic lifelessness, but the beginning of a new kind of existence which lies on the path of development to something higher…In the end all good is rewarded and all evil punished, if not actually in the form of life then in the later existences that begin after death.

- Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion

In this quotation from The Future of an Illusion, Sigmund Freud begins making his case that all of our religious beliefs originate from our collective fear of death. It can certainly be argued that religion serves a plethora of other purposes apart from reassuring us about the future after life. Still, one of its primary functions is to comfort us that there is, indeed, something over the horizon and that we need not worry about death as an eternity of nonbeing. The big problem with this reassurance is that it comes to us with absolutely no evidence supporting its veracity. There is nothing supporting the truth of the afterlife apart from a book that just “says so.” Add in religion’s insistence on ridiculous, arbitrary rules and tendency towards bigotry and violence, and I find myself more inclined to take my chances with death as a mystery. Not everyone feels this way, however, and I can appreciate the freezing terror that comes from contemplating an eternity of nothingness. But, if the fear of death is really the siren call luring so many otherwise reasonable people to a life of religious devotion, it would be useful to point out that one need not necessarily believe in God in order to believe in immortality.

I believe in infinity. What I mean by this is that I do not recognize the universe as having either a beginning or an end; it has always been, and always will be. I recognize the Big Bang as the start of the universe as we know it- given that there is evidence to support this claim- though I do not consider it “The Beginning.” After all, what came before the beginning? What started it? Rather than pinning the answer to all of those questions on “God”, I prefer to consider infinity a sufficient answer in itself; nothing ever began nor will it ever end. In the case of the Big Bang, everything in the universe exploded outwards from a tiny point encompassing all matter. Before then, everything was simply a part of this point. If, as some theorize, the universe will begin to reverse the outward trend and implode back in on itself, this does not represent “The End”, but simply a new phase of being. After all, what comes after the end?

The universe cannot just stop; to imagine that it does is to apply the human concept of death to the whole of existence. Also, to assume a beginning of everything practically necessitates a Creator of some kind (hence God and religion), which further necessitates a creator of The Creator. Instead, it seems simpler (and therefore more logical) to posit that the universe simply exists forever, in one form or another. Accepting then, that the universe is itself eternal, we can assume that within the context of infinity, all possibilities are realized.

To quote Fight Club, “Given a long enough timeline, everyone’s chances of survival revert to zero.” To put it another way, given a long enough timeline, everyone's chances of death approach 100 percent. Likewise, given a long enough timeline, the odds of anything approach one hundred percent. Are the odds of your dead body, long since decomposed, reanimating itself favorable? No. How about over a hundred years? A hundred million years? Or over a hundred trillion? The odds are still not great, but not to worry, you have all of eternity to await circumstances in which the odds are good you might live again. And if death really is nonbeing, you can take solace in the fact that the passage of so much time will seem to you like nothing more than a nap. This same logic applies to any vision of life after death, or any idea period, that you can imagine.

For a more elaborate explanation of my personal view on the nature of the universe- and, incidentally, for the origin of this blog’s name- click on the following link and watch the 10 minute video “Imagining the Tenth Dimension.” It’s pretty interesting:

http://www.tenthdimension.com/medialinks.php

Given this view of the universe, as a tenth dimension encompassing all possibilities, I take solace in the possibility that some part of me will continue to live, or live again, in some form or another, no matter what. The odds are just too good that, even after “death” I will experience more. And so will you. And we don’t need God to believe in that. To quote Dr. Manhattan: “It never ends.”

A Greener, Meaner Military.

The U.S. military is the most powerful fighting force on the planet. Despite all our setbacks in Iraq and elsewhere, most Americans remain confident that our military is strong and capable. Even the nature of our problems represent a backhanded compliment; the heavy use of IED’s, guerilla tactics and other forms of terrorism simply reinforces the impression that no one is actually willing to stand up and face us; no one can. Machinery, especially technologically sophisticated machinery, is what makes the real difference between our military and the militaries of other countries. We produce the jet fighters, the tanks, the submarines and the rest of the high tech equipment that supports your average foot soldier. Given that a great deal of our advantage in war is based on our possession of powerful fighting vehicles, I am troubled by a minor design flaw inherent to almost all of them. Specifically, I am concerned about the fact that almost every fighting vehicle in the American arsenal depends on oil for fuel, and that eventually we will be faced with the time consuming and expensive proposition of replacing every single one of our oil-based machines.

I understand that the exhaustion of global oil supplies is still some way in the future. However, as supplies dwindle, the American military dependence on it will assert itself more and more as a vulnerability. If American fighting vehicles are dependent on oil to function, that makes the American military almost entirely dependent on oil as well. Not only does this make our armed forces vulnerable to energy-based attacks (such as oil embargos), but it also means that, eventually, almost every high tech vehicle in our painfully expensive military will eventually need to be retrofitted or replaced once we have exhausted our planet’s available oil resources.

What will we do, then, when that time comes? Even before we run out of oil completely, shortages and interruptions in supply will likely become a defining feature of our future. On top of the inevitable rise in gas prices and fuel rationing for the sake of the military, we will run out eventually. Are we just expecting to replace everything? Even assuming that we will have invented some new method of powering our vehicles, the expense of refitting the entire military apparatus will be prohibitive. Consider the following American military machines and their price tags:

- M1 Abrams tank; perhaps the most recognizable symbol of American military might, the M1 costs between 2.4 and 4 million dollars per unit; and every M1 tank requires 11 gallons of gas to simply start the ignition, every time.

- M2/M3 Bradley; each of these 3.2 million dollar infantry fighting vehicles runs off a diesel engine.

- F-16 Fighter; the jet fighter has an internal fuel capacity of 7 thousand pounds of jet fuel; with the ability to increase that to 12 thousand by carrying extra fuel tanks. Each plane costs between 14.5 and 18 million dollars.

Only our navy seems prepared for the next generation of mechanized warfare; all of our aircraft carriers and submarines run off of nuclear reactors. However, every single plane on our carriers and every cruise missile on our subs would be nothing more than scrap metal without the tons upon tons of oil required to fuel them.

Eventually, the American military will have to be completely retrofitted, if not outright renewed and replaced. When that time comes, all militaries around the world will be effectively reset back to zero; every country will be in a race to rebuild their capabilities from scratch. By the time that happens, many predict that America’s economic primacy will have waned compared to up and coming powers like India, South Korea and China. We have an opportunity to get a jump on our rivals now, while we are still the biggest and the strongest. Why not take advantage of our current dominance so as to place ourselves in a prime position to maintain a military-technological advantage for generations to come?

On the Ethics of Tase-ing.

I’m sure everyone else is just as tired of the Florida University “taser” controversy as I am, but regardless I still feel it is necessary to voice my own opinion on the matter. For those who have lived under a rock for the past few weeks, a Florida University student named Andrew Meyer disrupted an on-campus Q&A session with John Kerry, refused to be led out, and got shocked with a taser for his troubles. The question has since become, who should be punished? The police, for tase-ing someone when it wasn’t called for? Or Mr. Meyer, for provoking them? Open-minded as I am, I am fully capable of seeing both sides of the issue; and my own feelings on the matter are aptly mixed. The split in my mind is one between my personal reaction to the situation and my logical understanding of its overall meaning. To start with how I, as an individual felt; personally, I was glad that guy was shocked. I think he acted like a royal jackass and he got what was coming to him. Back when I was in college, I crossed paths with people like Mr. Meyer from time to time; people who treat the world like a private audience for their comically overwrought, hyper-liberal crusade. Who hasn’t wished they had a taser handy in a situation like that? It irritates me to no end that this event has become a big deal for some of my more leftist friends. Mr. Meyer’s actions played into all the red-state stereotypes of the disrespectful, ivory tower, rabble rousing, college-kid liberal; why are you spilling so much ink in his defense?
What irritates me even more is the accusations I hear that a shock with a taser is such a traumatizing experience. First they describe in horrific detail how a taser works: by shooting out two metal barbs that pierce your flesh and send waves of electrical energy along trailing wires that cause unspeakable pain and paralyze the body by overwhelming the central nervous system. I admit that does sound unpleasant. However it misrepresents the situation, since that only describes one mode of the taser. The police, using a standard-issue X26-model taser, used a secondary mode called “drive mode” which mode is performed by physically pressing the Taser to the subject, and “causes significant localized pain…but leaves the central nervous system unaffected.”[1] Anyone who’s seen Batman Returns will be familiar with this mode of shock. Following this refutation, comes the inevitable “how would you like it if you were shocked like that?” Fortunately (or unfortunately) for me, I can respond to this as well: I have been shocked in my life, rather severely at that. As a kid I once went swimming at a friend’s house, and while attempting to get a soda was dismayed to learn (one might say “shocked”) that their refrigerator had short circuited and was killing me. Enough electricity was passing through me that my central nervous system was affected, the right side of my body was completely paralyzed and I remained frozen to the door handle for about a minute before I was freed by my quick-thinking mother, wielding a plastic piece of lawn furniture. Don’t get me wrong, the experience sucked (and I could have died), but I didn’t walk away crying “Ow, ow, owie” either. Actually, I felt rather exhilarated, but I that may have just been a side affect of all the electricity passing so close to my heart.
On the flip side, I have the ability to separate my personal sense of schadenfreude from my logical understanding that the police overreacted. They did not overreact by much, but ultimately they did not need to hurt the guy- and they did anyway. As disruptive as he was- and anyone who has seen an unedited cut of the video should agree he was very disruptive- Mr. Meyer was held down by six burly police officers before he was shocked. At that point, he was leaving no matter what. I’ve seen fewer than six bouncers toss unruly patrons bodily from bars in New York; there is no reason why the same could not have worked here without bringing a taser into the equation. I will also point out that the X26 has a third mode called “spark display” which simply demonstrates that the taser is ready to go.[2] That would have been enough. The police do not have the freedom to indulge their anger like that. While on a personal level, my base emotions were gleefully in favor of seeing a loudmouth jerk get what he deserved; my higher brain was just as quick to note that the definition of “loudmouth jerk” is open to debate- It has applied to me on more than one occasion. As much as Mr. Meyer deserved what he got, it would be even worse if the precedent set in his case gave police the freedom to tase anyone who pissed them off. In my opinion, justice would be served best by taking no sides in the matter: Punish everyone.

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[1] Las Vegas PD Directive No. PO-43-04

[2] Ibid

The Islamic Cold War

Most people these days seem pretty worked up about Iran’s nascent nuclear program. In all the hysteria about a fanatically Muslim country getting its hands on a bomb, it seems to have been ignored that a Muslim country just as fanatical (and in many ways less stable) already has the bomb, namely Pakistan. The fact that there is already an Islamic bomb is a problem on its own; the it becomes a nightmare scenario when examined in the context of Pakistan’s extreme volatility. Even disregarding the severe tensions between Pakistan and India, the possibility of two nuclear armed Islamic countries may actually increases the likelihood of nuclear violence on its own. Those with the most to fear are not we here in the West, but those living in Muslim nations; the advent of a Shia bomb in Iran could very well lead to an Islamic Cold War.

Pakistan is a particularly unstable country. Since independence from Britain in 1947, Pakistan’s government has been overthrown or otherwise changed numerous times: by a coup in 1956, by a resumption of civilian rule in 1972, by a coup in 1977, resumption of civilian rule in 1988, and by a coup in 1999. Economically, as well, Pakistan suffers from chronic instability; a recent survey in The Economist listed Pakistan as the most unstable of 20 different emerging world economies. Additionally, Pakistan is fractured by old tribal loyalties, political divisions, and almost a dozen languages. Entire provinces of the country are controlled primarily by tribal warlords and Islamist insurgent groups, rather than the central government. Despite winning reelection, pro West President Pervez Musharraf, has been forced to deal with widespread discontent and opposition to his rule; and his reelection bid has yet to be confirmed by the courts. As a country, Pakistan can be best described as schizophrenic. It is a jambalaya of disparate forces barely held together and constantly vying for control of the whole; including its nuclear arsenal.

The greatest unifying force in Pakistan is Islam, and this Islamic nature creates unique problems. Pakistan was first conceived of as an Islamic counterpart to India. In 1977, Zia al- Haq overthrew the civilian government of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, whom he later executed. As a method of strengthening his grip on power and justifying his rule, al-Haq instituted a far-reaching program of “Islamification.” This program only deepened the already fervent devotion to Islam among Pakistan’s population. Among the reforms, al-Haq instituted shariah law, further contributing to the instability of Pakistan’s legal system. Even worse, Pakistan’s Islamic shift occurred just in time to influence the course of another Islamic, Central Asian country, Afghanistan. Control of the Khyber Pass gave Pakistan control over almost all of the aid- American and Muslim- flowing into Afghanistan. That, combined with its interest in promoting its own agenda there, practically ensured that a pro-Pakistani regime took control after the Soviets withdrew, namely the Taliban. Pakistan was one of only three nations in the world to even recognize the Taliban regime at all. The unfortunate reality of this relationship, however, is that it worked both ways. Just as Pakistan sent munitions over the border into Afghanistan, so too did Islamists pour over the border back, where they found refuge and welcome amongst like-minded Pakistanis. In his book Taliban, Ahmed Rashid puts it like this:

The Taliban's influence in its neighbour Pakistan was deep. Its "unprecedented access" among Pakistan's lobbies and interest groups enabled it "to play off one lobby against another and extend their influence in Pakistan even further. At times they would defy" even the powerful ISI [Pakistan’s secret police].

The political and military power of Islamist movements in Pakistan is so strong that the ostensibly pro-Western central government has been forced into on-again off-again truces with them, essentially ceding control of entire regions of the country to Islamist insurgents. The overwhelmingly Muslim nature of Pakistan, combined with its shaky central control and history of coups, raises the concern that Islamist groups could seize control of the country, or at least portions of it. What would this mean for the rest of the world?

If die-hard Islamists gain nuclear capabilities, the likelihood of nuclear conflict increases exponentially. In an article written for the New York Times Magazine, Noah Feldman explains how the culture of suicide bombing so prevalent in Islamism eliminates the greatest obstacle to nuclear aggression, mutual assured destruction. He writes:

What makes suicide bombing especially relevant to the nuclear question is that, by design, it unsettles the theory of deterrence. When the suicide bomber dies in an attack, he means to send the message “You cannot stop me, because I am already willing to die.” To make the challenge to deterrence even more stark, a suicide bomber who blows up a market or a funeral gathering in Iraq or Afghanistan is willing to kill innocent bystanders, including fellow Muslims. According to the prevailing ideology of suicide bombing, these victims are subjected to an involuntary martyrdom that is no less glorious for being unintentional. – New York Times Magazine, 10/29/06

This line of reasoning puts Pakistan’s possession of nuclear weapons into sharp perspective. The scenario deteriorates further, however, in the event of an Iranian bomb. Though they are both Muslim, the risk of conflict between these two countries is great. Contrary to popular belief, Islamist terror actually tends to be aimed inward. Three times as many Iraqis have been killed by suicide bombing in the past three years than have Israelis in the past 10- and most of this violence has been over Shia-Sunni tensions. Sunni Pakistan already has a bomb. What can we expect when Shia Iran gets its own?

Most likely we will see an Intra-Muslim Cold War, with Shia Iran facing Sunni-Pakistan, and a nuclear arms race among the remaining Sunni-Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. As the danger of Muslim on Muslim violence increases, a possible catalyst to turn this cold war hot exists in Afghanistan. The Taliban was not just fanatically anti-Western; it is equally anti-Shia. Just as Western-style haircuts were forbidden in Afghanistan, so too were chadors and other clothing in the Iranian style. The Taliban was so extreme in its Sunni fundamentalism that Iran even considered invading the country itself. Even if a shooting war never does erupt, both Iran and Pakistan show a strong tendency towards acting through proxies- such as Hezbollah or the Taliban and Kashmiri militants, respectively- who might somehow find themselves in possession of some nuclear materials. Even one corrupt official in the right place, and no shortage exists in either country, could spell the difference between security and proliferation; Dr. Abdul Khan provides a disturbing example.

Iran is working towards a nuclear bomb; that much is certain. However I disagree with the consensus that nuclear Iran poses the greatest threat to the West. I agree that nuclear conflict becomes nearly inevitable, but I believe that the mushroom clouds will most likely rise in the Islamic world itself. Pakistan is a nuclear armed country, deeply Muslim and in parts fanatically so, surrounded by enemies, with poor central control and a history of instability; and worst of all, with a history of supporting the types of groups and regimes we fear the most. Pakistan is at best an accident waiting to happen. Combine this terrifying situation with a radically Shiite Republic wielding atomic bombs, and nuclear conflict seems almost inevitable.