Is the US a Rogue State? [Tyrants R US, WTC= Inside]

Massimo's Skeptic Web

V. Foreign policy: Is the US a rogue state?

The United States is without a doubt one of the best places in the world where to live, and I am grateful I am here. It is a fairly liberal democratic republic which -- even though by no means a perfect type of government -- seems to be the best that humankind has been able to engineer so far. This said, let me make a case for the idea that the United States is, in fact, a “rogue” state and that it — therefore — cannot rationally use the label on other nations as an excuse to attack them, as it happened with Iraq in 2003. Let’s start from the basics: the Oxford dictionary defines rogue (first meaning) as: “Dishonest or unprincipled person; mischievous child.” I assume we can transfer this definition to the level of state, though that raises interesting philosophical questions about the “character” of a nation -- which we will need to set aside for now.

Here, then, is my evidence for the conclusion that the US is the mother of all modern rogue states. First, arguing for a pre-emptive strike against another sovereign nation is in direct violation of the United Nations charter, and therefore puts the US outside of the international community. To vow to abide by a certain code of conduct and then refuse to do so when it is inconvenient for one’s self interest surely qualifies as “mischievous” behavior.

Second, the US has consistently avoided joining the international community in a number of treaties that have — ironically — seen it side with “rogue” states such as Libya, Iran, and Iraq (in other words, seen from outside, America looks a lot like part of the “axis of evil”). Examples include: back-pedaling on the Kyoto accord on the environment; refusing to join the anti-land mine treaty; refusing to join and actively sabotaging the international tribunal. It is “dishonest” and “unprincipled” to ask for other people to respect international law and then arrogate for one self the right to violate it.

Third, before the onset of the second Iraq war, the US allocated funds to train anti-Iraqi militias recruited among the many dissenting minorities harassed by Saddam Hussein. How, exactly, is this not equivalent to setting up a terrorist training camp? Is it just because these people will be doing the dirty work for and not against the US? Because we are right and they are wrong? I am reminded of a Star Trek—Next Generation episode (one of the highest sources of my enlightenment), in which an otherwise seldom judgmental Captain Picard is reproaching a defecting Romulan general for his past military actions against the Federation. The general reminds Picard that one people’s butcher is another people’s hero. What should distinguish the US as a liberal democracy are not only its principles, but the way they are defended. If the end justifies the means -- Machiavelli-style -- then the US is moving perilously close to the sort of behavior that it condemns in others.

Which brings me to the fourth point: surely the 2003 aggression of Iraq cannot seriously be framed as a defense of democracy. Doing so would be another example of dishonesty and lack of principles. If the US is really interested in democracy, why on earth did it decide to attack puny Iraq while at the same time give permanent most favorite nation status to, say, China? Have we forgotten Tien An Mein? Do we really think that the Chinese leaders threat their people better than Hussein did his? And don’t we know for sure that the Chinese (or the North Koreans, or the Pakistani) do have plenty of weapons of mass destruction, while the ones that were allegedly all over Iraq have never been found? I am not, of course, suggesting that the US declare war to China, North Korea or Pakistan -- just that it be a bit more consistent (principled, not rogue) in its foreign policy.

Now, being a rogue state in the sense in which the US surely is can, and has been, defended on rational principles. Robert Kaplan, for example, has written a book entitled Warrior Politics: Why Leadership Demands a Pagan Ethos, in which he makes the argument that the US, as the only superpower in the world, should behave outside of international law. Indeed, Kaplan criticizes most American politicians for being held back (ironically, I would add) by their Christian ethos. In fact, he claims that they should explictly embrace Machiavelli’s “pagan” attitude, and do what needs to be done.

Kaplan’s dichotomy is, I think, the real conundrum that the US has to resolve during the 21st century. Do the United States of America want to be seen by the rest of the world as a principled nation, fighting fairly for what it sees is right, or as a Machiavellian entity willing to lie and cheat to get whatever it feels is due it? The American people should think about it really hard, because this will determine how history will see the US and, more importantly, is already affecting the lives of millions of people on this planet.

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http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/6-20-03/discussion.cgi.52.html
And this is where we begin to "close the circle" of our close-knit pre-9/11 propaganda clique. Returning again to the above-mentioned Dan Eggen and Vernon Loeb Post article of September 12, we're offered - in a powerful little side-bar - more critical evidence implicating bin Laden for the attacks the day before. This time, the bombshell is offered by Palestinian journalist Jamal Ismail, Abu Dhabi Television's bureau chief in Islamabad. According to Ismail, a bin Laden aide called him "early Wednesday on a satellite telephone from a hide-out in Afghanistan," praising the attack yet denying any responsibility for it. As it turns out, Ismail was also among the select few to conduct his very own bin Laden interview, published by Newsweek in its April 1, 1999 issue. Here is how Newsweek described Ismail's good fortune: "Palestinian journalist Jamal Ismail's mobile phone rang just before prayers on December 18. 'Peace be upon you, ' said the voice on the line. 'You may not recognize me, but I know you.' " And thus was Jamal Ismail invited on his own mud-soaked incursion to the bin Laden [bat]cave.

Searching deeper, I found an interesting obscure article penned by respected Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufszai in The News Jang, and dated May 3, 2000. It details the detention of two men of Kurdish origin, accused by the Taliban of spying for American and Israeli intelligence. As Yusufszai relates it, he spoke to the only journalists allowed by the Taliban to interview the detained men - Jamal Ismail and his cameraman. Apparently, Ismail had a special relationship with the Taliban, allowing him this rare privilege above other journalists. And, as we shall shortly see, so does Yusufszai. One wonders who debriefs them at the end of a workday. But more interestingly, by May 5, as reported by Kathy Gannon for the Associated Press, the story acquires - as they say - "new legs." Not only are the basic elements of the Yusufszai story mentioned, but the article leads off with the bombshell that one of the detained men revealed that he was recruited by the United States to find Osama bin Laden. It finishes with a little coda implicating bin Laden in the 1998 embassy bombings. Thus, in the space of two days, Yusufszai's Pakistani "spy" article sprouts a bin Laden addition when fertilized by the American Associated Press - and nicely provides a plausible explanation as to why a Kurd would be prowling around Afghanistan on behalf of the United States.

Yusufszai, incidentally, moonlighted as an ABC News producer, charged with guiding ABC News correspondent

• Yusufszai, incidentally, moonlighted (Cont'd) — Chaim Kupferberg, Thu Jun 19 19:48
• And, as we so often find with events surrounding 9/11 — Chaim Kupferberg, Thu Jun 19 19:51

And this is where we begin to "close the circle" of our close-knit pre-9/11 propaganda clique. Returning again to the above-mentioned Dan Eggen and Vernon Loeb Post article of September 12, we're offered - in a powerful little side-bar - more critical evidence implicating bin Laden for the attacks the day before. This time, the bombshell is offered by Palestinian journalist Jamal Ismail, Abu Dhabi Television's bureau chief in Islamabad. According to Ismail, a bin Laden aide called him "early Wednesday on a satellite telephone from a hide-out in Afghanistan," praising the attack yet denying any responsibility for it. As it turns out, Ismail was also among the select few to conduct his very own bin Laden interview, published by Newsweek in its April 1, 1999 issue. Here is how Newsweek described Ismail's good fortune: "Palestinian journalist Jamal Ismail's mobile phone rang just before prayers on December 18. 'Peace be upon you, ' said the voice on the line. 'You may not recognize me, but I know you.' " And thus was Jamal Ismail invited on his own mud-soaked incursion to the bin Laden [bat]cave.

Searching deeper, I found an interesting obscure article penned by respected Pakistani journalist Rahimullah Yusufszai in The News Jang, and dated May 3, 2000. It details the detention of two men of Kurdish origin, accused by the Taliban of spying for American and Israeli intelligence. As Yusufszai relates it, he spoke to the only journalists allowed by the Taliban to interview the detained men - Jamal Ismail and his cameraman. Apparently, Ismail had a special relationship with the Taliban, allowing him this rare privilege above other journalists. And, as we shall shortly see, so does Yusufszai. One wonders who debriefs them at the end of a workday. But more interestingly, by May 5, as reported by Kathy Gannon for the Associated Press, the story acquires - as they say - "new legs." Not only are the basic elements of the Yusufszai story mentioned, but the article leads off with the bombshell that one of the detained men revealed that he was recruited by the United States to find Osama bin Laden. It finishes with a little coda implicating bin Laden in the 1998 embassy bombings. Thus, in the space of two days, Yusufszai's Pakistani "spy" article sprouts a bin Laden addition when fertilized by the American Associated Press - and nicely provides a plausible explanation as to why a Kurd would be prowling around Afghanistan on behalf of the United States.

Yusufszai, incidentally, moonlighted as an ABC News producer, charged with guiding ABC News correspondent

• Yusufszai, incidentally, moonlighted (Cont'd) — Chaim Kupferberg, Thu Jun 19 19:48
• And, as we so often find with events surrounding 9/11 — Chaim Kupferberg, Thu Jun 19 19:51
• ========================================
• http://www.apfn.net/messageboard/6-20-03/discussion.cgi.51.html
• Aftermath News
  9/11 Families: Bush has smothered all investigation
  Thu Jun 19 19:28:05 2003
  208.152.73.8
  
  9/11 Families: Bush has smothered all investigation
  
  It should now be obvious to all, that the Bush cabal has something to hide and is doing everything in its mighty powers to keep the lid on the truth. For those who have bothered to study the entire stinking mess over the past 21 months, we are just asking the families, "What took you so long to figure out that the government doesn't want you to know the truth?"
  
  Of course, if we put ourselves in their shoes, we would want to think that the government is not so corrupt and foul. We would like to think that there was some shred of hope that they are here to help and that we might get some answers on why our loved ones had to die on September 11th.
  
  But the horrible truth that few can bear to face is this:
  
  Bush & Co not only had prior knowledge, they not only allowed the attacks to take place, they actually planned and executed them as a military psychological operation. Then they proceeded to use 9/11 as a pretext for perpetual war, for plunder and power, mass murder and the incremental institution of a global government police state system, known as the New World Order which the entire world is now busily adopting. Yes, most people, laboring under the Big Lie, are even helping to build their own prison system in which they themselves will be the inmates.
  
  And of course the Bush criminal syndicate and their allies have diligently convered up every detail about 9/11 and their real motives and agendas and they have refused to admit anything but the cover-story that there were "failures" and that they just need more power and funding and that we all just need to give up all our rights and everything will then MIGHT get better...
  
  Most importantly, we need to make this distinction:
  
  Its not merely about hiding a "political embarrassment for failures". There was no failure involved at all. None! Instead, for them, it was a stunning success. A coup. An incredible boon. Bush's popularity skyrocketed. Their entire plan came off beautifully and the American people, really most of the world, took the bait hook, line and sinker, including the surviving family members.
  
  When the families finally realize this glaring fact, that the globalists carried out the attacks to serve their agenda, then maybe we will get some action on the perpetrators. As long as they remain in the dark, nothing can be done to serve justice on Bush, his co-conspirators and his masonic masters who are the real orchestrators of that terror-filled event.
  
  PW
  --------------------
  Bush's 9/11 coverup?
  Family members of victims of the terror attacks say the White House has smothered every attempt to get to the bottom of the outrageous intelligence failures that took place on its watch.
  http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2003/06/18/911/index_np.html
  
  -----------------------------
  
  911 Exposed! Because truth is that this government enjoys murdering Americans.
  Americans
  http://www.911exposed.com/ - 626 B

The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult by Murray N. Rothbard

The Sociology of the Ayn Rand Cult by Murray N. Rothbard

The Exoteric and the Esoteric

Every religious cult has two sets of differing and distinctive creeds: the exoteric and the esoteric. The exoteric creed is the official, public doctrine, the creed which attracts the acolyte in the first place and brings him into the movement as a rank-and-file member. The quite different creed is the unknown, hidden agenda, a creed which is only known to its full extent by the top leadership, the "high priests" of the cult. The latter are the keepers of the Mysteries of the cult.

But cults become particularly fascinating when the esoteric and exoteric creeds are not only different, but totally and glaringly in mutual contradiction. The havoc that this fundamental contradiction plays in the minds and lives of the disciples may readily be imagined. Thus, the various Marxist-Leninists cults officially and publicly extol Reason and Science, and denounce all religion, and yet the members are mystically attracted to the cult and its alleged infallibility.

Thus, Alfred G. Meyer writes of Leninist views on party infallibility:

Lenin seems to have believed that the party, as organized consciousness, consciousness as a decision-making machinery, had superior reasoning power. Indeed, in time this collective body took on an aura of infallibility, which was later elevated to a dogma, and a member’s loyalty was tested, in part, by his acceptance of it. It became part of the communist confession of faith to proclaim that the party was never wrong.... The party itself never makes mistakes.¹

If the glaring inner contradictions of the Leninist cults make them intriguing objects of study, still more so is the Ayn Rand cult, which, while in some sense is still faintly alive, flourished for just ten years in the 1960s; more specifically, from the founding of the Nathaniel Branden lecture series in early 1958 to the Rand-Branden split ten years later. For not only was the Rand cult explicitly atheist, anti-religious, and an extoller of Reason; it also promoted slavish dependence on the guru in the name of independence; adoration and obedience to the leader in the name of every person’s individuality; and blind emotion and faith in the guru in the name of Reason.

Virtually every one of its members entered the cult through reading Rand’s lengthy novel Atlas Shrugged, which appeared in late 1957, a few months before the organized cult came into being. Entering the movement through a novel meant that despite repeated obeisances to Reason, febrile emotion was the driving force behind the acolyte’s conversion. Soon, he found that the Randian ideology sketched out in Atlas was supplemented by a few non-fiction essays, and, in particular, by a regular monthly magazine, The Objectivist Newsletter (later, The Objectivist).

The Index of Permitted Books

Since every cult is grounded on a faith in the infallibility of the guru, it becomes necessary to keep its disciples in ignorance of contradictory infidel writings which may wean cult members away from the fold. The Catholic Church maintained an Index of Prohibited Books; more sweeping was the ancient Muslim cry: "Burn all books, for all truth is in the Koran!" But cults, which attempt to mold every member into a rigidly integrated world view, must go further. Just as Communists are often instructed not to read anti-Communist literature, the Rand cult went further to disseminate what was virtually an Index of Permitted Books. Since most neophyte Randians were both young and relatively ignorant, a careful channeling of their reading insured that they would remain ignorant of non- or anti-Randian ideas or arguments permanently (except as they were taken up briefly, brusquely, and in a highly distorted and hectoring fashion in Randian publications).

The philosophical rationale for keeping Rand cultists in blissful ignorance was the Randian theory of "not giving your sanction to the Enemy." Reading the Enemy (which, with a few carefully selected exceptions, meant all non- or anti-Randians) meant "giving him your moral sanction," which was strictly forbidden as irrational. In a few selected cases, limited exceptions were made for leading cult members who could prove that they had to read certain Enemy works in order to refute them. This book-banning reached its apogee after the titanic Rand-Branden split in late 1968, a split which was the moral equivalent in miniature of, say, a split between Marx and Lenin, or between Jesus and St. Paul. In a development eerily reminiscent of the organized hatred directed against the arch-heretic Emanuel Goldstein in Orwell’s 1984, Rand cultists were required to sign a loyalty oath to Rand; essential to the loyalty oath was a declaration that the signer would henceforth never read any future works of the apostate and arch-heretic Branden. After the split, any Rand cultist seen carrying a book or writing by Branden was promptly excommunicated. Close relatives of Branden were expected to – and did – break with him completely.

Interestingly enough for a movement which proclaimed its devotion to the individual exertion of reason, to curiosity, and to the question "Why?" cultists were required to swear their unquestioning belief that Rand was right and Branden wrong, even though they were not permitted to learn the facts behind the split. In fact, the mere failure to take a stand, the mere attempt to find the facts, or the statement that one could not take a stand on such a grave matter without knowledge of the facts was sufficient for instant expulsion. For such an attitude was conclusive proof of the defective "loyalty" of the disciple to his guru, Ayn Rand.
---------------------
The logic seemed impeccable, but what if, as so often happens, one didn’t like, even couldn’t stand, these people? Under Randian theory, emotions are always the consequence of ideas, and incorrect emotions the consequence of wrong ideas, so that therefore, personal dislike of other (and especially of leading) Randians must be due to a grave canker of irrationality which either had to be kept concealed or else confessed to the leaders. Any such confession meant a harrowing process of ideological and psychological purification, supposedly ending in one’s success at achieving rationality, independence, and self-esteem and therefore an unquestioning and blind devotion to Ayn Rand.
--------------------

Excommunications and Purges

We have already mentioned the excommunications and "purges" in the Randian movement. Often, the excommunications – especially of important Randians – proceeded in a ritual manner. The errant member was peremptorily ordered to appear at a "trial" to hear charges against him. If he refused to appear – as he would if he had any shred of self-respect left – then the trial would continue in absentia, with all the members present taking turns in denouncing the expelled member, reading charges against him (again in a manner eerily reminiscent of 1984). When his inevitable conviction was sealed, someone – generally his closest friend – wrote the excommunicate, a bitter, febrile, and portentous letter, damning the apostate forevermore and excluding him forever from the Elysian fields of reason and reality. Having his closest friend take the leading part in the heresy proceeding was of course important as a way of forcing the friend to demonstrate his own loyalty to Rand, thereby clearing himself of any lingering taint by association. It is reported that when Branden was expelled, one of his closest former friends in New York sent him a letter proclaiming that the only moral thing he could do at that point was to commit suicide – a strange position for an allegedly pro-life, pro-individual-purpose philosophy to take.
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We conclude our analysis of the Rand cult with the observation that here was an extreme example of contradiction between the exoteric and the esoteric creed. That in the name of individuality, reason, and liberty, the Rand cult in effect preached something totally different. The Rand cult was concerned not with every man’s individuality, but only with Rand’s individuality, not with everyone’s right reason but only with Rand’s reason. The only individuality that flowered to the extent of blotting out all others, was Ayn Rand’s herself; everyone else was to become a cipher subject to Rand’s mind and will.

Nikolai Bukharin’s famous denuciation of the Stalin cult, masked during the Russia of the 1930’s as a critique of the Jesuit order, does not seem very overdrawn as a portrayal of the Randian reality:

It has been correctly said that there isn’t a meanness in the world which would not find for itself and ideological justification. The king of the Jesuits, Loyola, developed a theory of subordination, of "cadaver discipline," every member of the order was supposed to obey his superior "like a corpse which could be turned in all directions, like a stick which follows every movement, like a ball of wax which could be changed and extended in all directions"... This corpse is characterized by three degrees of perfection: subordination by action, subordination of the will, subordination of the intellect. When the last degree is reached, when the man substitutes naked subordination for intellect, renouncing all his convictions, then you have a hundred percent Jesuit.³

It has been remarked that a curious contradiction existed with the strategic perspective of the Randian movement. For, on the one hand, disciples were not allowed to read or talk to other persons who might be quite close to them as libertarians or Objectivists. Within the broad rationalist or libertarian movement, the Randians took a 100% pure, ultra-sectarian stance. And yet, in the larger political world, the Randian strategy shifted drastically, and Rand and her disciples were willing to endorse and work with politicians who might only be one millimeter more conservative than their opponents. In the larger world, concern with purity or principles seemed to be totally abandoned. Hence, Rand’s whole-hearted endorsement of Goldwater, Nixon, and Ford, and even of Senators Henry Jackson and Daniel P. Moynihan.
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#8 Force and Coercion - Why the initiation of force is evil - It renders a man's mind useless.

Force and Coercion - Why the initiation of force is evil - It renders a man's mind useless.

In a political context, freedom has only one meaning -- freedom from the initiation of force by other men.

Only by the initiation of force can a man be: prevented from speaking, or robbed of his possessions, or brutally murdered. Only by the initiation of force can a man's rights be violated. Only the initiation of force against a man can stop his mind, thus rendering it useless as a means of survival.

It is for this reason -- that force renders a man's mind useless -- that every man has the right to self-defense -- the right to use force to retaliate against those who first start the use of force, but never may one morally initiate it.

The use of force, in and of itself, is not evil; but, to initiate (start) force is evil. To use force in retaliation -- in self- defense against those who initiate it -- is not a moral option, but a moral requirement. A moral man has nothing to gain when a man tries to kill him, but he has much to lose if he does not defend himself. For this reason it is right, just, and proper to use force in retaliation and self-defense. Contrary to the vile doctrines of the pacifists, force used in self-defense is a species of the good.


Government has a monopoly on the use of physical force
Government is an agency which has a monopoly on the use of physical force.

This legal power -- to use physical force -- only may be used for one purpose: to retaliate against those who initiate force, according to objectively defined laws.

Never is this power to be used to initiate force, but government is only permitted to retaliate and defend against those who initiate force

A rule not of men, but a rule of objective laws

To ensure that no despot -- whether that despot be a single dictator, a political pressure-group, or a befuddled "democratic" majority of the moment -- may usurp the powers of government, and turn its machinery upon any of its citizens, each and every aspect of government action is codified, and carried out, according to objectively defined laws.

In a free society each and every man lives under a rule of law, as opposed to a whim-ridden rule of men. The rule of law has only one proper purpose: to protect the rights of the smallest minority that has ever existed -- the individual.

Such a body of integrated, codified, and non-contradictory laws form objective legislation, which hold a man innocent until he can be proven guilty, as opposed to a library of irrational regulations which hold a man guilty until he can somehow prove himself innocent, to the gratification of some misanthrope able to gain a foothold in public office.

The supreme legal document of a proper society is the constitution -- a citizen's protection against both private criminals and public officials who seek to imitate the criminal's methods.

The purpose of the constitution is not to grant unlimited power to government, or to limit the rights of an individual, but to limit the power of government to its only valid purpose: the protection of individual rights. In other words, a citizen is free to do whatever he is not explicitly forbidden (under a proper legal system the only act forbidden is the violation of the rights); whereas, a state official is only allowed to carry out what is explicitly permitted.

Force and Coercion - Why the initiation of force is evil - It renders a man's mind useless.

Force and Coercion - Why the initiation of force is evil - It renders a man's mind useless.

In a political context, freedom has only one meaning -- freedom from the initiation of force by other men.

Only by the initiation of force can a man be: prevented from speaking, or robbed of his possessions, or brutally murdered. Only by the initiation of force can a man's rights be violated. Only the initiation of force against a man can stop his mind, thus rendering it useless as a means of survival.

It is for this reason -- that force renders a man's mind useless -- that every man has the right to self-defense -- the right to use force to retaliate against those who first start the use of force, but never may one morally initiate it.

The use of force, in and of itself, is not evil; but, to initiate (start) force is evil. To use force in retaliation -- in self- defense against those who initiate it -- is not a moral option, but a moral requirement. A moral man has nothing to gain when a man tries to kill him, but he has much to lose if he does not defend himself. For this reason it is right, just, and proper to use force in retaliation and self-defense. Contrary to the vile doctrines of the pacifists, force used in self-defense is a species of the good.

Can God Exist? - Objectivism Online Forum

Can God Exist? - Objectivism Online Forum

This was written a few months ago to the WhyIslam.org Forum, but may be of interest to your readers.

If There Were a God.

The Muslim's make much of Allah, as the one and only God. The Jew's have Jehovah, the God of Abraham, the God of the Ancients. Then comes Jesus and Christianity with their True God. These religion's, and most others, agree on there being but One God, and, given His unique position it seems logical that they all are right on that one point. There can be only one God, in that more than one would confuse the issue, no end.

So, what must be the attributes of this one God? First, He must be Omnipotent and, so, be able to create the Universe and all that there is out of nothing. Second, He must be Omniscient, knowing all that there is to know. Third, He must be Eternal and be aware of all that ever was, and all that is, and all that ever will be. (Time does not exist for Him.) Fourth, He must be Infinite, hovering over all that we can see in the Heavens, to infinity in whatever direction we choose to gaze. Fifth, He must have always existed, being exempt from having had to be created (of necessity, the one exception). Finally, He must have been terribly lonely and quite desperate to have brought into being such a motley assembly of creatures that Man has turned out to be.

For what reason would God have created Man and then set him one against another? A quick review might start with the spread of Islam, in the Centuries following the Prophet Mohammed, from Spain to the Philippines, by bloody conquest, with the cry being "Kill the Infidel". Then there was the "Kill for Christ" cry of the Crusades, again a period of bloody conquest, an activity accompanying the thousand year Dark Ages, when Christianity was in charge. This was followed, despite the so-called "Enlightenment", by a series of more secular Wars, such as our Wars against England, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War's I and II, the Korean War, the obscenity of the Viet Nam War, and, now, our grotesque War against Iraq and the Terrorists.

One might be forgiven for asking, "Why would an all-knowing God have created Man with such a penchant for murder?" He obviously knew, as He was putting together the Plan for Man, that these creatures would immediately become engaged in killing one another, culminating with the current irrationality of a Muslim World of one billion souls being given the responsibility, via the Jihad of the Prophet, of killing the remaining nine billion residents of Earth, unless they embrace Islam! Something's amiss.

There is another thing common to all religions---they are, without exception, the product of an exercise of Faith in the Unknowable. Thus they are, of necessity, built on the ideas of their originators, with the various Rules and Regulations being written down by a succession of Priests, each supposedly in response to instructions received during a personal visit by God, or, at least, by a Prophet of His. Unavoidably, however, there were Rules put into the various Holy Books that were more calculated by the priests to enhance their power over their followers than to express the Will of God; Rules that an Almighty God would seemingly not need, nor be too interested in.

No self-respecting God would possibly have created the mess we see around us. To impute to Him such an Effect is to bring Him down to the level of man, and to insult the very concept of God. Could it be that we are all the unwitting victims of a collective hoax, started by the witch doctors of pre-history and continued through the ages by the various priests that followed, as a pretty good scam? The logic of this answer is pretty obvious. Only those programmed from birth could be sufficiently gullible to accept such fantasies, most without so much as a raised eyebrow, and to even give their lives for it.



QUOTE(Felipe @ Apr 6 2005, 10:48 AM) *

I remember discovered the full epistemological reasoning for the answer to this question being an interesting exercise. So, I ask, can God exist?


Felipe:

This was written a few months ago to the WhyIslam.org Forum, but may be of interest to your readers.

If There Were a God.

The Muslim's make much of Allah, as the one and only God. The Jew's have Jehovah, the God of Abraham, the God of the Ancients. Then comes Jesus and Christianity with their True God. These religion's, and most others, agree on there being but One God, and, given His unique position it seems logical that they all are right on that one point. There can be only one God, in that more than one would confuse the issue, no end.

So, what must be the attributes of this one God? First, He must be Omnipotent and, so, be able to create the Universe and all that there is out of nothing. Second, He must be Omniscient, knowing all that there is to know. Third, He must be Eternal and be aware of all that ever was, and all that is, and all that ever will be. (Time does not exist for Him.) Fourth, He must be Infinite, hovering over all that we can see in the Heavens, to infinity in whatever direction we choose to gaze. Fifth, He must have always existed, being exempt from having had to be created (of necessity, the one exception). Finally, He must have been terribly lonely and quite desperate to have brought into being such a motley assembly of creatures that Man has turned out to be.

For what reason would God have created Man and then set him one against another? A quick review might start with the spread of Islam, in the Centuries following the Prophet Mohammed, from Spain to the Philippines, by bloody conquest, with the cry being "Kill the Infidel". Then there was the "Kill for Christ" cry of the Crusades, again a period of bloody conquest, an activity accompanying the thousand year Dark Ages, when Christianity was in charge. This was followed, despite the so-called "Enlightenment", by a series of more secular Wars, such as our Wars against England, the Civil War, the Spanish American War, World War's I and II, the Korean War, the obscenity of the Viet Nam War, and, now, our grotesque War against Iraq and the Terrorists.

One might be forgiven for asking, "Why would an all-knowing God have created Man with such a penchant for murder?" He obviously knew, as He was putting together the Plan for Man, that these creatures would immediately become engaged in killing one another, culminating with the current irrationality of a Muslim World of one billion souls being given the responsibility, via the Jihad of the Prophet, of killing the remaining nine billion residents of Earth, unless they embrace Islam! Something's amiss.

There is another thing common to all religions---they are, without exception, the product of an exercise of Faith in the Unknowable. Thus they are, of necessity, built on the ideas of their originators, with the various Rules and Regulations being written down by a succession of Priests, each supposedly in response to instructions received during a personal visit by God, or, at least, by a Prophet of His. Unavoidably, however, there were Rules put into the various Holy Books that were more calculated by the priests to enhance their power over their followers than to express the Will of God; Rules that an Almighty God would seemingly not need, nor be too interested in.

No self-respecting God would possibly have created the mess we see around us. To impute to Him such an Effect is to bring Him down to the level of man, and to insult the very concept of God. Could it be that we are all the unwitting victims of a collective hoax, started by the witch doctors of pre-history and continued through the ages by the various priests that followed, as a pretty good scam? The logic of this answer is pretty obvious. Only those programmed from birth could be sufficiently gullible to accept such fantasies, most without so much as a raised eyebrow, and to even give their lives for it.

James B. Wright May, 2004
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B.Royce
God exists---in the mind of each believer. God is a believer's capacity for wishful thinking when he implicitly regards it as having power over existence and calls it God. A fairy is a believer's capacity for wishful thinking when he implicitly regards it as having power over a limited aspect of existence and calls it a fairy.

Discussion or debate about gods and/or fairies based on accepting the believer's assertion that the figments of his imagination exist anywhere else but in his own mind is not only a waste of a rational man's time, but grants the believer a level of seriousness he does not deserve.
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AisA:
If one finds a god, must that god have a creator as well? According to this logic, the answer should be yes. There could never be a "first" anything, because it would have had to have been preceeded by something else. What existed before god? Who or what created god?
-----
So, where is your evidence that there exists a place not bound by physics? What evidence do you have a non-physical plane? What evidence do you have to support that some being exists in it? Stating that the universe, which exist in a physical plane, must have been created by a being that exists outside of the physical plane does not make it so. Particularly when you use an analogy of a being that does exist in a physical plane, a watchmaker, creating something else that exists in a physical plane, a watch.
--------Pity for the guilty is treason to the innocent. - Ayn Rand
============

Functional structure does not imply a designer. The idea (I won't say concept because I'm not comfortable I would use that word properly) "design" makes sense only in contrast with that occurring naturally. You look at a watch and know it is designed because you know that gears and bands and glass faces don't occur naturally. Also, as RC already discussed, the God/design issue is twofold: either

1. everything has a designer, which applies to God's God's God ad infinitum, or

2. something(s) exists which does not have a designer, in which case why would you be uncomfortable with the idea that nature (which you know exists) has just always existed in some physical form, but comfortable applying that same idea to "God" (which you do not know exists--at least, not without some serious epistemological funny business)?
--// Matt Stein
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-banned-
God is like a black hole. We cannot observe a black hole directly. As a singularity, there is no possible physical device, according to our current understanding of physics, that would allow us to observe it directly. In the sense that it is without dimension, it is like God. Nonetheless, scientists assert the existence of black holes based on their effects. Likewise, I assert the existence of God based on God's effects. God cannot be directly perceived, but God's influence can be. Where is your evidence for Ayn Rand? Can you point to her? No, she is dead. Only her writings and images remain, in other words, effects of her existence. The universe is God's Atlas Shrugged. Its existence necessitates its author.

Why must all universes have the same logic? Not to mention the fact that I never posited a non-physical universe. In fact, I said the opposite, that god exists without dimension. God does not require a medium. As far as I know, this universe is the only one there is.

Thus the proof of god is in the necessity of god. I am proposing that reality as we know it could not exist without the intervention
======
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One difference is that you can't present evidence based on the effect of god. Supposing that black holes really do exist, then we would be able to do things that experimentally test the existence of such a thing, which is impossible with god.

There are a lot of problems in your "definition" of god. I take it that what you mean is that there exists a being, which has those properties that you gave, and the purpose of giving a definition is to identify that being as opposed to, say, me. I am quite puzzled at the idea that "god" is bound by time -- that isn't something that I've ever heard a god-believer say. I don't know what you mean by "bound by space". I'm not bound by space, either; do you mean that god's extent is universal (i.e. that his physical presence encompasses all locations where there is matter)? You are also claiming that god cannot be physically detected, which means that he does not interact with the physical universe (not to imply that there is any other kind). Now if you are just saying that he cannot be seen, because he does not absorb any visible light wavelengths, then all you need to do is get a UV light or whatever. The problem is that if god is exlcuded from the universe, then he can't have any effect on the universe, so you could not even have indirect evidence that it exists. Like a black hole, you could push a star into it and watch it disappear, spewing off x-rays.

As for your specific evidence, structure does not not exist. The universe exists, and it has a definite nature, which we can grasp in terms of the concept "structure". The alternative would be that the universe has no nature, that it is all random chaos, that there is no existence, and thus no universe. Objectivism holds that the fact of existence is axiomatic; it would be nonsensical to deny existence. The fact of existence need not be explained by anything else, i.e. god cannot be axiomatic. God is totally unnecessary to explain the fact that existence has a nature -- without a nature, you have no existence.

Simply positing a dichotomy between the physical universe and a parallel non-physical universe does not make the argument. You claim that all things in the physical universe require a cause and yet you don't require that of the non-physical universe. Why? Simple consistency demands that you impose the same requirement on all universes that you are positing. In addition to positing god, you also require another arbitrary evity, the non-physical universe. The burden of proof on you grows, since now you also have to prove that there exists a non-physical universe. Even if you could prove that, you would still have to prove that there is a god in that universe.-

&& Okay, gotcha. Here's paid put to that argument. The disproof of god is in the superfluity of god. I am proposing that reality as it exists (which we understand in part) could easily exist without any intervention. && //Dave Odden

====================

Free Will via Objectivists

Hal
post Yesterday, 12:17 PM

Statements which seem self-evident often turn out to be wrong. It was once self-evident that life couldnt emerge from non-life. It was self-evident that the statement "event A occured before event B" couldnt literally be both true and false for different people. It was self-evident that a moving object required a constant input of force to keep it going. It was self-evident that objects stayed the same length no matter how fast they were moving relative to the observer. It was self-evident that time travel into the future was impossible. It was self-evident that the entirity of our visual fields are in colour. It was self-evident that all physical objects had to have mass. It was self-evident that space had to be Euclidean. It was self-evident that space and time were infinitely divisible. Yet all of these things are wrong.

I think the free-will theory is true. But its not impossible that it will turn out to be incorrect, just like everything mentioned above. You are of course correct that predicting human behavior from a reductionist point of view is far beyond anything people are able to do just now. But assuming that mental states and brain states are correlated, and that particles in the brain obey the same deterministic physical laws as particles anywhere else in the universe, there doesnt seem to be a place for genuine free will.
---[[Well, I suppose a proper definition of time-travel is appropriate, since its a pretty vague concept. But I simply meant the time dilation allowed by special relativity; that (eg) if someone gets into a spaceship and flies away from earth at a fast enough speed, before returning, then he may have aged only 5 years while 100 years have passed on earth. For all intents and purposes, he has travelled 95 years into the future.
This sort of thing has been demonstrated experimentally, albeit on a far smaller scale (eg clocks 'losing' a few nanoseconds when flown round earth in high speed planes).--]]]


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AisA Michael Smith
Yes, one can say precisely that with respect to the axioms of Objectivism. Any notion that something exists besides existence is false and should be rejected immediately. Any notion that a thing can be what it is and not be what it is, at the same time and in the same respect, is likewise false and should be rejected immediately. Any notion that consciousness is an awareness of something other than that which exists is likewise false and should be rejected immediately. Do you disagree?

I think the problem lies in the definition of "self-evident". Objectivism's definition would be: that which can be grasped by direct perception. Many of the things you listed as "self-evident" would not qualify under that definition.

By the way, I would like to hear what makes you think time travel is a possibility.=====
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JMeganSnow
I didn't say it is true because it is self-evident, I said it is axiomatic because it is self-evident; since the fact is directly perceivable though introspection, i.e. you can observe your consciousness in the process of making choices, it is not deduced or induced through reason; there is nothing prior to it that you observe and then abstract in order to derive that you have reason. It's as obvious as a thunderstorm.

In order to be accepted as true it still needs to be validated, self-evidency is not sufficent demonstration for that, as demonstrated by the numerous people who still refuse to believe it.

Free will can never be contradicted by later findings in neuroscience, because the existence of the scientific method, hence neuroscience, depends on an epistemology of reason, and reason depends on volition. Without a volitional consciousness reason would be neither necessary nor possible.

So, a neuroscientist concluding that volition was only an illusion would, in effect, be declaring that he had used volition to discover that it didn't exist in the first place.

Oh, and I'm "travelling" through time as we speak, otherwise it should be rather difficult for me to type this message, much less post it. --------------------my blog: http://www.literatrix.blogspot.com

---[[Yes there is. If I were to say that by observing reality and taking measurements I was able to scientifically conclude that nothing actually exists you'd declare I was insane. What precisely was I observing and measuring? Observing and measuring both assume that something exists that can be observed and measured!

Ditto with volition. Reason, which is the process of integrating and processing the evidence of your senses by means of forming abstractions, that is to say concepts and propositions, does not operate automatically. It is a volitional process. The proof is dramatically obvious: people can be wrong. If determinism was correct the same inputs would always unerringly produce the same outputs, like a computer. The scientific method requires the use of reason, it requires you to exercise your volition. It would not matter whether a neuroscientist could "explain" how he "deterministically" arrived at his conclusions: the fact would be that he had exercised his volition in the process of reasoning and that his conclusions were false. Period end of story.

A typical cop-out of this is to claim that people are too complex for anyone to ever have precisely the same inputs/outputs, so that explains all the variation. But what is the result of a statement of this kind? That neuroscience is inherently bogus because it is not possible to understand the subject of its study!

The truth is that you can know everything there is to know about the brain, how it works, etc, and people will still have free will; they will not be fully and unerringly predictable. You can predict how certain people will act IF they are VOLITIONALLY rational and objective because their motivations will conform with reality. But you will never be able to predict irrational people. Try it. It's amazingly frustrating.

For instance, psychoanalysts for years have been claiming to "explain" that your actions were the result of some sort of conflict between the mystic entitites known as your id, ego, and superego and that you had no control whatsoever. The fact that they could "explain" the origins of your actions had no bearing on the truth of their assertions.

If you are like I was when confronting this problem, oh, about two years ago (jeez! Was it only that long?!) your problem is not that you feel volition is true but are forced to accept determinism on the bulk of the evidence, the problem is that you are afraid that volition is true and are clinging to determinsm so that you won't have to assert your certainty and, most of all, your responsibility in the face of many people who disagree with you. I sincerely doubt that you know any more about neuroscience than I do, but if you are going to claim that you cannot observe volition in action when you sit at your desk and think "Okay, now I'm going to pick up the mouse", and then do it, and then "and now I'm not going to pick up the mouse" and then do that, then no one can help you.

As for "illusory" volition, which has been discussed before, what, exactly, would be the nature of an "illusory" volition that acted in all respects exactly like volition? It would be volition, that's what. As the less-philosophical say, "if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck" (and possesses all the other attributes of a duck) then on what basis can you claim that it's an illusory duck? It's a duck! In this context the term "illusory" is rendered completely meaningless: its purpose is not to convey information but to cause you to doubt your own certainty.--]]]

===================

It would not matter whether a neuroscientist could "explain" how he "deterministically" arrived at his conclusions: the fact would be that he had exercised his volition in the process of reasoning and that his conclusions were false. Period end of story.


No. You just stick to your free-will story. If he can explain the principles of how this actually works and can predict outcomes again and again, then he has a strong case. I am the first one to admit that this is not possible right now. My problem is that I find it impossible that something else but determinism or pure chance can exist. Especially the claim that only humans have volition is very weird. Animals have brains, too. They live in the same universe according to the same physical laws. So humans must somehow have a magic part in their brain that creates volition. Otherwise they, just as animals, are determined. For the same reason.
=========================

You will remain uncomfortable for as long as you continue to try to fit reality to theory. When you decide to fit theory to reality, you will realize that all you know about physics is not all there is to know about physics, and that somehow volition is possible, as it must be since you observe it every conscious moment of your life.

mrocktor


It's this somehow that screws it up for me. If I just stick to the somehow even if all I know about physics tells me exactly the opposite, I'm no better than the guy talking to god in his spare time. All he has is a somehow and no argument can reach him. I need a reason, you know. And I don't have one. In addition to that I doubt that I will find it.

If physics is wrong, where is that and why? / Felix

======================
RationalEgoistSG
QUOTE
"If you wonder why I am so particular about protecting the integrity of the term 'Objectivism,' my reason is that 'Objectivism' is the name I have given to my philosophy--therefore, anyone using that name for some philosophical hodgepodge of his own, without my knowledge or consent, is guilty of the fraudulent presumption of trying to put thoughts into my brain (or of trying to pass his thinking off as mine--an attempt which fails, for obvious reasons). I chose the name 'Objectivism' at a time when my philosophy was beginning to be known and some people were starting to call themselves 'Randists.' I am much too conceited to allow such a use of my name. . . .

"What is the proper policy on this issue? If you agree with some tenets of Objectivism, but disagree with others, do not call yourself an Objectivist; give proper authorship credit for the parts you agree with--and then indulge in any flights of fancy you wish, on your own.”


Those of us who take ideas seriously ask that you please not violate the law of identity by calling yourself an Objectivist when you are clearly not.

==================
http://www.nathanielbranden.net/ess/ess05.html

Who is an Objectivist?
by Nathaniel Branden, Ph.D. .../...
I might mention, in conclusion, that the fact that I wrote my first articles on psychology in an Objectivist publication, and the material was offered to the world as an aspect of "Objectivism" made it possible, years later, when I had become persona non grata, for Leonard Peikoff and his followers to talk about "The Objectivist Theory of Self-Esteem" and to use my theory of social metaphysics as if these ideas had originated in the mind of Ayn Rand. The truth is, there is no Objectivist theory of self-esteem. In her whole life, Ayn Rand wrote maybe no more than 7 or 8 sentences on the subject. I have written volumes. But that is a story for another day.
==============
bbrown
Hmm, I wonder what could possibly be the motive for doing this? Why on earth would feminists, anarchists, moral relativists, etc. want to turn "Objectivism" into a non-objective term, so to speak?
I'd say that it's definitely a package deal. What are they trying to gain? The prestige of a coherent philosophy while undercutting it with their bastardizations. That's the best case, I think. At worst, they're actively trying to subvert it.

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Hello, I am the former webmaster of The Aggiew Review. I am just dropping by to see what's new ...and I think I found out.

I am truly impressed -- No, not with how much more superior the web site is compared to when I did it (because that was a joke), but I am truely impressed with the chief editor's passive compliance for allowing the "objective" views of the current webmaster to be integrated with the religious views the Aggie Review traditionally supports for the mere sake of filling up emptiness with seemingly parallel content; and for that matter, that the webmaster, who supports a "strict" view of objectivism, would even choose to do this, knowing perfectly well that to support objectivism in its purest form would mean that he must reject all forms of religion as being irrational mysticism! In doing so you are mixing oil and water and the summation of this web site represents the worldview of nothing at all.

You cannot without injustice to yourself and to the people you wish to influence assert any definition of what is a true objectivist without the qualification that by your own deed you do not adhere to it, else neither one of the so called doctrines you support -- either by deliberate intention or by mere association -- condone your actions.

Either Or. Don't play games to uphold your quest in furthering the status of your social and intellectual profile. If you're serious about what you believe then you will drop one or the other, otherwise you are a counterfeit to yourself, to this journal, to your readers and to the opposing doctrines you represent. If A is A, and no contradictions exist, then I suggest checking your premises, I guarantee that you will find errors in your thinking and the representation of it on this web site.
David Leo Veksler
My Blog | Cafepress
I need no warrant for being, and no word of sanction upon my being. I am the warrant and the sanction.-- Ayn Rand
=====================

you would realize that God was judging the earth and was in total control of those he wanted to save and there is nothing on this earth that can override his precepts.

Funny how this omniscient and omnipotent God has to jump through such hoops to get things done. Reminds me of the movies where the bad guy doesn't shoot the good guy, but instead ties him to a railroad track or puts him into a cage with a swarn of killer bees, of some such. Entertaining yarn! It is scary to think that there are those who take this seriously and that these people live among us, rather than in some undiscovered jungle!

Seeking morality? Take the door labeled "Practical"

"I'm an Atheist, but I disagree with the Objectivist idea that "God" is contradictory because he exists, by definition, outside of reality. I've never heard a theist say they believe that God exists outside of reality

Theist's expand reality to include a reality in which a god can exist in. He's not here on Earth, he's not in space somewhere. He's in Heaven. where is this Heaven? It's somewhere else. Where? Just somewhere else. ===================

Well, I cannot know what is meant by "God", as there is no proof that God exists.
Something has to be perceived, real, before it can be defined.
I guess I just answered my own question. The existence of "God" would matter to me, depending on the nature of that existence.

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ann r kay
The only sovereign you can allow to rule you is reason. -Terry Goodkind

Teachers who offer you the ultimate answers do not possess the ultimate answers, for if they did, they would know that the ultimate answers cannot be given, they can only be received. -Tom Robbins
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Nxixcxk
Chains are a more honest form of slavery than the specious liberty enjoyed by our countryment.--Edward Cline, Sparrowhawk, book 1

A boy adopts a hero for two reason: because a hero capivates his soul and serves as a projection of his innermost self; and because a hero seems to have solved many problems that may worry a boy, or at least demonstrates the capacity to solve them.--Edward Cline, Sparrowhawk, book 2

One should be gentle with the ignorant, for they are the chosen of God. -Mark Twain
==============
God: A perfect being conceived as the creator of the universe, and worshipped in monotheistic religions.

Such a God cannot exist because the universe, as such, cannot be created in the physical realm. The universe is not an existent to be created. It is a name for the collection of all existents--like society is a name for a collection of people. To say that God created the universe is to say that he created every single thing that exists. Did he create your toothbrush?

Theists need to pinpoint exactly what God created. If a serious theist takes up this challenge, he might begin by putting forward the belief that God created the Earth or the Sun or Man. And in these cases he would need to provide some evidence before any rational thinker could take his claim half-way seriously. And if his God truly loves him and answers his prayers, I'm sure locating some evidence won't be too difficult.
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It is inherent in the notion that god created reality. If he created it, he must exist outside or independent of reality.
-------------
We already argued this exact subject with him in excrutiating detail about two weeks ago in the Atheist thread. april 6 2005
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DavidOdden
The specific arguments to be brought to bear on the matter depends on what you are talking about. For example, there is the matter of his mailing address. Under one version of god, he is totally outside the universe. Given the normal use of "universe", that refers to "all that exists" from which we can learn that god is outside of "what exists", thus he does not exist. Naturally, the clever way to weasel out of this is to claim that he lives in an alternative dimension other than the standard 4 that we inhabit, and when they say god created the universe, they mean that he created the 4 dimensions that we have access to but not the one that he occupies. That one, apparently, must have been created by god's auntie or someone other than god. Either that, or we have to assume that god's dimension somehow didn't have to be created, but our dimensions did (this is on the assumption that we somehow need the existence of god to explain how the universe, i.e. our dimensions, got created).

There are various standard contradiction problems, for instance that his omnipotence is limited so that he is incapable of creating a non-prime number so huge that he cannot factor it, or a stone so heavy that he cannot lift it, or a hole so small that he cannot pass through it. Also by assumption, he cannot withdraw from any part of the universe (given the axiom of omnipresence) -- I on the other hand can withdraw from Sunday school and do something better with my time, so I have powers that are beyond god.

He is completely anomalous, physically, in terms of anything known to exist. He has no specific properties (for example, mass, energy, extent, spin, charge, velocity). It's hard to think of anything that is known to exist, and which is so anomalous. Perhaps one of those god-believing types would like to make some specific proposals to put some meat on the bones of god, but I'm pretty sure that they reject the conclusion that he has zero mass and they reject the conclusion that he has an infinite mass and they reject the idea that he has some specific intermediate mass. We know that massless entities exist (for example, photons), but they are not totally propertyless.

I think if somebody were to say that god weight 2 million pounds, has a chitinous exoskeleton and 90 arms, and lives a trillion miles from earth on the planet Zahadun, the matter would be simpler -- it would be a simple go-look issue. As I understand it, all of the evasions about god's properties is exactly because they want to be sure nobody can determine whether he exists.
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Felipe
You can point to the law of identity and say an entity without identity is a contradiction. A proof along those lines is definitive, and it wouldn't be proving a negative, just showing what can (and thus what cannot) exist.

Punch line: the identity of a postulated "entity" consisting of "infinite" qualities and/or "infinite" qualities does not, and cannot, qualify as a valid identity. Thus the postulated entity belonging to this kind of identity does not, and cannot, exist.

Now, do I need to read Aquinas to learn the Church's postulated identity of "God?" I think not. God, as postulated in most manifestations of mysticism, possesses an identity characterized by infinite qualities and/or infinite quantities.

Now, how in God's name (pun intended) could one use reason to arrive at the conclusion that such an entity exists?
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Well, typically theists will offer some kind of definition of God. It is the definition that you can attack as being contrary to the facts of reality. You are not actually disproving a nonexistent God. You are pointing to the arbitrary and contradictory nature of their definition as such.

If, for example, someone says that God is the creator of the universe, then you have a definition there to work with, and you can logically attack the definition, exposing its disconnect from reality--its fantasy.

If someone says that God is a tree, then God is a tree. Woo hoo! You have a new name for a tree. But if God is a supernatural tree, then you have another fantastic definition that can be attacked as contrary to the facts.

If you can't even get a proper definition out of someone, then they have no ideas that you should be afraid of. Ignore them.

--------------------
Visit my Web site: MisterSwig.com.
===============
Post #30

"Objectivism correctly holds that Existence is primary, not Consciousness.

The concept of God is part of the contrary view that Consciousness is primary. In particular, it is God's Consciousness which is held to be primary.

Thus God should be defined as a Mind which makes existence exist by imagining it or by being aware of it. In other words, God creates things by thinking of them. If He ceased to think of them, then they would no longer exist.

So reality is like a kind of game of solitaire that God is playing with Himself

The definition of God which I gave in my last message was partly inspired by descriptions of the Hindu god Brahma.

Since "Existence exists" is an axiom. It is redundant to suppose that Brahma has created Existence. So Occam's razor suggests that the we dispense with the idea of Brahma.

Furthermore, Brahma is a psychological projection of the mental state of a new-born child before he becomes aware that objects continue to exist even when he cannot see them.

I was hoping that one of you could find a way to disprove the existence of Brahma.

I do not think that the usual arguments against God based on attacking His omnipotence or omniscience will work.

Brahma is omnipotent in the sense that He does everything which is done and no force can stop Him from doing what He wants to do with Existence. However, He cannot or would not do anything to limit His own power and He does not create logical contradictions. So his omnipotence is limited in that sense.

Also He is omniscient with respect to Existence (in the present and the past). But there may be things which he does not know about Himself and about what He will do with Existence in the future. So the arguments that omniscience is self-contradictory do not apply.

If we define a miracle as an exception to the usual rules which Brahma applies to the game of Existence, then I think that He would not make miracles because that would be cheating.

Brahma is certainly good because Existence is good. But he is not omnibenevolent. He can and does create things which are evil and which He knows will be evil.
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TomL
"Existence exists" doesn't mean what you think it means. It means existence has always existed and always will. It was never created; there has never been a time of non-existence, from which it must have been created. Ever. The universe is eternal, in both directions of time.

Also, Occam's Razor is false. To understand why, get Induction in Physics and Philosophy (I was there in both '02 and '03 ) or wait for the upcoming book.

One cannot "disprove" the existence of anything. You can only prove a positive, not a negative. You cannot "prove" that 1+1 != 3, you can only "validate" it. Please do equivocate "proof" with "validation", they are not the same thing.

Much as you'd like to to think that there is such a thing as "limited omnipotence" and "limited omniscience", you're only kidding yourself. What exactly does that mean? In any sense you care to define it, I have both of those properties. Any limits placed on "omnipotence" means that in some way, one is impotent. Any limits placed on "omniscience" mean that in some way, one is ignorant, which are precisely the conditions that "omnipotence" and "omniscience" are devised to reject. It is a sad contradiction you are trying to assert as true, and you can't get away with it here.
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iris :
You said "The universe is eternal, in both directions of time.".

Brahma is not supposed to have created the Universe at one time only. Rather He is creating (or re-creating) it continuously, because it could not exist for an instant without Him.

It seems plausible to me that the Universe began with the Big Bang about 14,000,000,000 years ago. Why is that not possible?

You said "Also, Occam's Razor is false.".

Yes. It is merely a heuristic, not a universal truth. That is why I said "suggests".

The assumption that "1 + 1 = 3" leads to a contradiction which destroys the mathematical system containing it. If that is not proof that it is absurd, then what is absurdity?

What do you consider to be the difference between proof and validation?

"omni" means "all", not "infinite to the point of contradiction".

Brahma (if He existed) has all power, because He does everything that is done.

Brahma has all knowledge (of the present and past of Existence) because they only occurred in His mind.
===================
TomL
You misunderstand the concept "creation". One does not create something "continuously". The act of creating has a definite beginning and ending, and the product, i.e. the "creation" does not exist until the process of creation is completed. A bridge is not a bridge until you've finished building it. A book is not a book until the last page is written. And existence is not existence until it.. exists.

Even if there was a "big bang" event some large number of years ago, that doesn't mean that whatever existed at that time didn't exist. It means it existed in some other form. Nothingness cannot explode into somethingness.

Regardless of the absurdity of the equation "1+1=3", it still does not constitute a proof that "1+1 != 3". (!= meaning "does not equal). A proof requires that the conclusion be reduced through means of differentiation/integration to the perceptual level. You cannot reduce something which is false -- when you try, you wind up with something that cannot be perceived. It's like trying to prove that there is not purple-stripped radishes somewhere in Andromeda reading debating Platonic ethics. You simply can't see everything in Andromeda, so you can't prove they aren't there.

On the other hand, we can validate it by means of what we do know. We know that radishes do not debate, for one. And we know that Plato never went to Andromeda. These do not constitute proof, because for that you need direct perception.

There is no such supposed thing as "infinite to the point of contradiction" as apart from "all". Yes, "omni" means "all", which means that "omnipotence" means "all-powerful" which means "one who can do anything whatsoever". Omniscience means "all knowing" which means "one who knows everything". There is no other purpose for the terms. Anything less is not "omni".
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iris
Felipe:
Yes, there may have been something before the Big Bang, perhaps including other such explosions. In fact, I think that that is the most likely possibility.

But one should understand that the only law of physics which forbids creating something from nothing is conservation of energy.

Under present circumstances, the new matter would have positive energy as compared with the zero energy of the pre-existing void. This process is forbidden because it increases the total energy, violating the conservation law.

But it may be that the Universe as a whole has zero energy, since the positive energy of the matter and various force-fields could be canceled out by the one kind of energy which can be negative which is gravitational potential energy.

If that is the case, then the Universe could have appeared from nothing without violating conservation of energy or any other law of physics.
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Hal
The question of whether God "could" exist isnt so much a metaphysical question as it is a linguistic question concerning our concept of God - it is asking whether the standard "God constructions" are actually coherent. The idea of unicorns makes sense in a way that the idea of square circles doesnt, even though neither exists. In a sense, we are asking whether God is more like a unicorn, or a square circle. This will depend entirely on which idea of God you're using - the Greek and Norse gods certainly make sense, whereas the standard Christian one doesnt.
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Layache
He's not talking about two opposite sides of the universe, but a single event that creates positive and negative energy at the same time. It is known that an electron can be "created" if a positron also pops into existence at the same time. They are perfect opposites and balance each other out: COE is not violated. In most cases the two particles will attract each other and mutually destroy each other right after they appear, but in the case of this happening on the event horizon of a black hole; one of the particles may get sucked in while the other is free to go about its merry way.
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iris: .../...
I hate to disagree with someone who is taking my side, but real (not virtual) positrons have positive energy just like real electrons. So creating a real electron-positron pair requires some energy input.

The Hawking radiation from a black hole is supposed to be caused by the creation of a pair of particles where the real particle escapes carrying positive energy and its VIRTUAL anti-particle falls into the black hole carrying negative energy. This is only possible because the virtual particle would be annihilated very quickly when it hits the central singularity of the black hole. It is an example of quantum mechanical tunneling (like radioactive decay).
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AsiA I suggest you go here and read posts 150 through 159.
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AsiA
Creation ex nihilo -- meaning something from nothing -- would violate the law of causality, which states that the actions possible to any entity are determined by its identity, i.e. by the kind of entity it is. That which does not exist possesses no identity and hence is capable of no action. Non-existence is not capable of transforming itself into existence.


Given that space is a relation between entities rather than an existing 'substance', why does the increasing of space between entities necessitate creation ex nihlio?

Hal, I recommend you advance this question to Stephen Speicher in his forum.
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jrs:
Hawking radiation is produced by the zero-point fluctuations of the vacuum around a black hole. I suppose that one could argue about whether such fluctuations exist or merely subsist. But they have an identity -- they are represented by Feynman diagrams and they have predictable effects which have been measured.

QUOTE(Cole @ Post #61)

Doesn't the standard quantum mechanics explanation for the results of the double-slit experiment require that photons (or whatever is being discussed) travel as both a particle and a wave?

The way I usually describe it is that photons propagate (move) as waves, but interact as particles. But this is a simplification.

Actually, neither classical particles nor classical waves exist at all. Rather there is one kind of entity. Classical particles are an idealization of what entities act like in one kind of limiting case. Classical waves are an idealization of what entities act like in another kind of limiting case.

Particle-like actions are the result of a "collapse of the wave function", i.e. the breakdown of entanglement (interference) due to interactions with things outside the system being studied.

Wave-like actions occur when the system remains isolated or when so much of the system is participating in the motion that external interactions are insufficient to break the entanglement.
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I asked a friend who is an astronomer to recommend a website dealing with the expansion of the Universe and related matters. He suggested this one:
http://www.astro.ucla.edu/~wright/cosmolog...html#BBevidence
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I think that the question "Can god exist?" is one of those questions which implies something false is true, no matter what one answers. Whatever I answer - yes or no - I am accepting this implication. The implication is that "god" is a term which is clearly defined, that it refers to an existent which man has recognized, studied and named properly.

This isn't true. God is purely fictional, and if it can exist, then it is as a figment of one's imagination, a product of fear, or as a character in a lousy book or movie. God is not clearly defined. Everyone can think of it what he will. I prefer not to.

">Voldemort himself created his worst enemy, just as tyrants everywhere do! Have you any idea how much tyrants fear the people they oppress? All of them realise that, one day, amongst their many victims, there is sure to be one who rises against them and strikes back!
Dumbledore in Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

[I fear a] cage. To stay behind bars until use and old age accept them. And all chance of valor has gone beyond recall or desire.
Eowyn in The Lord of the Rings

With the first link the chain is forged. The first speech censured, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably.
Captain Jean-Luc Picard quoting Judge Aaron Satie in Star Trek: The Next Generation

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