Local Interest: Library Volunteers Must Piss in Cup

Vurrry Insurresting. If you've never visited Levy County, you aren't missing much. But, now the county has become an object of derision for its stupid new policy.

Levy Country Libraries now requires piss tests of its volunteers to have the, uh, "privilege" of donating their time to reshelve books and collect microfiche. The average-aged volunteer is Social Security eligible. There used to be 55 volunteers, now there are 2. Part of the reason is the cost and travel required to take the test -- they had to drive here to Gainesville. Part of the other reason just must be the ridiculous quantities of illegal substances these old coots were ingesting. Gotta make sure grandma isn't cracked out, or else she might screw up the shelving categories, right?

WTF?!?!?

Bill Maher writes about this on the HuffPo.

New Rule: We Don't Need Drug Tests for Librarians

They can't have very nice lives - librarians. It's like being a teacher, only without the opportunities for dating, because the only kids you meet are the nerds. So the last thing America's shsssshing minority needs is the indignity of a urine test. But that's just what we're doing. I'm not sure this is the best use of our time.

The last time a librarian did something really stupid and reckless on drugs was when Laura married George.

Last year, Florida's Levy County introduced drug testing for library volunteers. Whose average age is between 60 and 85. The volunteers were required to drive to another city - Gainesville - and urinate in a cup "within hearing distance" of a laboratory monitor. That'll teach 'em for offering to work for free. "Okay, grandma, now get pissing. And I'd better hear a nice even unbroken stream."

And then something weird happened. Inexplicably, the number of volunteers dropped from 55 to two. It's almost like they didn't enjoy being degraded. And they call themselves the greatest generation.

I know what you're thinking. If Aunt Iris has nothing to hide, she can get a little of her own urine on her hands and prove she's not strung out on junk. Then we can feel safe, and she can go back to mis-shelving the Readers Digests. But then a second thought occurs to you, later, when you really, really think about it. And that thought is this: What the fu*& is wrong with us? Are we high?

They're not flying planes. They're showing the homeless how to use the microfiche readers. For free. The only people who profit from this are the stockholders of the drug testing company, who stood to make $33 a head, money the library would have otherwise just wasted on books.

A spokesman for the libraries said she wouldn't make the volunteers drive to Gainesville for their cavity searches anymore. And she also thought the problem wasn't the drug test itself, but the method they used. That's why they're looking into switching from urine tests to mouth swabs. The same method used by the Florida Department of Corrections.

Bill Maher is the host of HBO's "Real Time with Bill Maher" which airs every Friday at 11PM.

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Technorati tags: Humor

Political Google Bomb

I'm Googlebombing the important races.

See here for why, and here for his House list. See here for JG's Senate list. Jump on the bandwagon, if you want the Dems to win. They're the lesser of two evils, in my book.

Senate:

• WA-Sen: Mike McGavick


• VA-Sen: George Allen


• TN-Sen: Bob Corker


• RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee


• MT-Sen: Conrad Burns


• MO-Sen: Jim Talent


• MD-Sen: Michael Steele


• AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl

House:

• AZ-Sen: Jon Kyl


• AZ-01: Rick Renzi


• AZ-05: J.D. Hayworth


• CA-04: John Doolittle


• CA-11: Richard Pombo


• CA-50: Brian Bilbray


• CO-04: Marilyn Musgrave


• CO-05: Doug Lamborn


• CO-07: Rick O'Donnell


• CT-04: Christopher Shays


• FL-13: Vernon Buchanan


• FL-16: Joe Negron


• FL-22: Clay Shaw


• ID-01: Bill Sali


• IL-06: Peter Roskam


• IL-10: Mark Kirk


• IL-14: Dennis Hastert


• IN-02: Chris Chocola


• IN-08: John Hostettler


• IA-01: Mike Whalen


• KS-02: Jim Ryun


• KY-03: Anne Northup


• KY-04: Geoff Davis


• MD-Sen: Michael Steele


• MN-01: Gil Gutknecht


• MN-06: Michele Bachmann


• MO-Sen: Jim Talent


• MT-Sen: Conrad Burns


• NV-03: Jon Porter


• NH-02: Charlie Bass


• NJ-07: Mike Ferguson


• NM-01: Heather Wilson


• NY-03: Peter King


• NY-20: John Sweeney


• NY-26: Tom Reynolds


• NY-29: Randy Kuhl


• NC-08: Robin Hayes


• NC-11: Charles Taylor


• OH-01: Steve Chabot


• OH-02: Jean Schmidt


• OH-15: Deborah Pryce


• OH-18: Joy Padgett


• PA-04: Melissa Hart


• PA-07: Curt Weldon


• PA-08: Mike Fitzpatrick


• PA-10: Don Sherwood


• RI-Sen: Lincoln Chafee


• TN-Sen: Bob Corker


• VA-Sen: George Allen


• VA-10: Frank Wolf


• WA-Sen: Mike McGavick


• WA-08: Dave Reichert

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Technorati tags: Politics

Dawkins Needs to Shut Up Sometimes

Recently criticizing the shallow critiques allotted to religion in the works of Harris and Dawkins, I felt a bit of catharsis. I aired my major grievance against Dawkins. I have always respected his philosophy towards science, and the care with which he probes evolution. I own many of the man's books. But now, he has said something just plain stupid and awful to Emily Hourican in The Dubliner:

The Catholic Church also has an extraordinarily retrogressive stance on everything to do with reproduction. Any sort of new technology which makes life easier for women without causing any suffering is likely to be opposed by the Catholic Church. Regarding the accusations of sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests, deplorable and disgusting as those abuses are, they are not so harmful to the children as the grievous mental harm in bringing up the child Catholic in the first place. I had a letter from a woman in America in her forties, who said that when she was a child of about seven, brought up a Catholic, two things happened to her: one was that she was sexually abused by her parish priest. The second thing was that a great friend of hers at school died, and she had nightmares because she thought her friend was going to hell because she wasn't Catholic. For her there was no question that the greatest child abuse of those two was the abuse of being taught about hell. Being fondled by the priest was negligible in comparison. And I think that's a fairly common experience. I can't speak about the really grave sexual abuse that obviously happens sometimes, which actually causes violent physical pain to the altar boy or whoever it is, but I suspect that most of the sexual abuse priests are accused of is comparatively mild - a little bit of fondling perhaps, and a young child might scarcely notice that. The damage, if there is damage, is going to be mental damage anyway, not physical damage. Being taught about hell - being taught that if you sin you will go to everlasting damnation, and really believing that - is going to be a harder piece of child abuse than the comparatively mild sexual abuse. [emphasis mine]

Wrong, Richard. So wrong. So stupid. Just keep your mouth shut sometimes, when you feel it meandering towards an area so outside your experience and expertise.

You're no longer making an intelligent critique of religion. You're ranting. You're preaching. You're baldly asserting things without any scientific backing whatsoever. You're acting like something I detest -- someone who rails against an ideology (usually atheism), without evidential support, by drawing huge non sequiturs. [HT: Hallq]
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Technorati tags: God, Religion

How Many ID-iots Does it Take to...?

An old net-acquaintance of mine, Robert O'Brien, once attended UF. He got an MS in Mathematics, so far as I can tell, is now teaching math at Cal State U - Chico, and he also received the distinction of having a popular blogger's "idiot of the month award" named after him. Robert alerted me, via his blog, that a math professor here at UF had signed Intelligent Design's ID-iotic pledge of allegiance sheet (my serious analysis here) to "dissent from Darwinism"; and so I decided to do a cursory search of the newest version of the document, revised June '06, to find out how many persons here at UF, and at VT (my "nourishing mother"), were logged on to their program. Sadly...a few:

In no particular order --

UF
1. Dr. George R. Lebo, Retired Assoc. Prof. of Astronomy -- this guy went to Wheaton for undergrad, so no great surprise there.
2. Prof. James E. Keesling, Mathematics -- he's the past president of the Christian Faculty Fellowship, and guess who else shows up at that page? Dr. Lebo.

VT
1. Dr. Malcolm A. Cutchins, Retired [Emeritus] Prof. of Engineering Mechanics (at Auburn) -- he got his Ph.D. at VT and invoked VT on the ID-iot list, so, I had to lump him in here...
2. Dr. David M. Howell, unknown employment status -- he got his Ph.D. at VT, published a paper with Dr. White (I knew him), but I can't find out anything else about the guy.
3. Prof. Jonathan D. Eisenback, Plant Pathology and Weed Science -- interestingly, the guy went to Bryan college, the site of the famous Dayton Scopes Trial.
4. Prof. Richard J. Neves, Fisheries and Wildlife Science -- mussels expert, went to UMass.

So that's what a cursory search for the terms "Florida" and "Virginia" yield within the newest version of the ID-iotic pledge. I'm actually going to write all of these guys and ask them what they think of my analysis of the statement that they signed -- that it is crafted so as to be deceptive. Perhaps one or two of them will agree and tell me they're going to write and ask to be taken off of it. As a side note, I did find one dead guy on the list -- David C. Chapman. I wrote and asked the DI about this, and Logan Gage kindly informed me that he was not added poshumously, so at least they aren't that low and dirty.

I will update if the "dissenters" write me back...hopefully they will see the light of day on this thing.
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Technorati tags: Intelligent Design, Evolution, Creationism

Secular Scorecards

A lot of things inform our decisions as voters. As atheists, agnostics, skeptics and freethinkers, one of those particularly relevant issues is how we are treated (or mistreated) solely on the basis of our (lack of) beliefs. Therefore, I thought it germane, considering the upcoming election, to give the "skinny" on how Florida's Congressional officials have done with their "secular scorecard".

The Secular Coalition for America has set up two things of note (yes, I'm late on this):

1) A $1,000 challenge to find the "highest-ranking elected official" who is nontheistic -- if you find the highest-ranking official, you win the $1,000
2) A "secular scorecard" for each member of Congress. They took 10 key votes concerning the Separation of Church and State, and religious freedom, and used them as a "measuring stick" to judge the Congressional official by. For more on the methodology, see HERE. See the results below the fold for Florida in detail (the table may be hard to view, so here is the House in .pdf; Senate in .pdf):

FLORIDA HOUSE	Party	RC24	RC46	RC48	RC204	RC283	RC492	RC378	RC385	RC386	RC388	Score
Bilirakis, M, 9th	R	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
Boyd, A, 2nd	D	-	+	+	+	+	+	-	-	-	+	60
Brown, C, 3rd	D	-	+	+	+	nv	+	+	+	-	+	70
Brown-Waite, V, 5th	R	-	-	-	+	-	-	-	-	-	+	20
Crenshaw, A, 4th	R	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
Davis, J, 11th	D	-	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	-	+	80
Diaz-Balart, L, 21st	R	-	-	-	-	-	-	+	-	-	-	10
Diaz-Balart, M, 25th	R	-	-	-	-	-	-	+	-	-	-	10
Feeney, T, 24th	R	nv	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
Foley, M, 16th	R	-	-	-	+	-	-	+	-	-	+	30
Harris, K, 13th	R	-	nv	nv	-	nv	-	-	-	-	-	0
Hastings, A, 23rd	D	-	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	-	+	80
Keller, R, 8th	R	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
Mack, C, 14th	R	-	-	-	+	-	-	-	-	-	+	20
Meek, K, 17th	D	-	+	+	+	+	+	+	+	-	+	80
Mica, J, 7th	R	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
Miller, J, 1st	R	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
Putnam, A, 12th	R	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
Ros-Lehtinen, I, 18th	R	nv	-	-	-	-	-	+	-	-	-	10
Shaw Jr, E, 22nd	R	-	-	-	+	-	-	-	-	-	+	20
Stearns, C, 6th	R	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
Wasserman Schultz, D, 20th	D	-	+	+	+	nv	+	+	+	+	+	80
Weldon, D, 15th	R	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
Wexler, R, 19th	D	-	+	+	+	nv	+	+	+	+	+	80
Young, C, 10th	R	-	-	-	+	-	-	-	-	-	-	10
FLORIDA SENATE	Party	RC24	RC46	RC48	RC204	RC283	RC492	RC378	RC385	RC386	RC388	Score
Martinez, M	R	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	-	0
Nelson, B	D	-	+	-	+	-	+	-	+	+	+	60

Note that the House winners here are split almost evenly down party lines: (D) Allen Boyd, Corrine Brown, Jim Davis (running for governor), Alcee Hastings, Kendrick Meek, and Debbie Shultz and Rob Wexler. Boyd was lowest with 60, followed by Brown with 70. All the other Dems got 80.

Contrariwise, the highest-scoring House Republican, with a score of 30, was...Mark Foley...

In the Senate, clearly Bill Nelson stomps Mel Martinez, 60 to 0.

Everyone has different priorities, but I thought it useful to present this information, just to factor it in to your personal equation, to help inform your decision. Also remember PERA, and join this Facebook group if you oppose it, as 160 others do, so far.

Why Do Atheists Care About Religion?

Atheists are often asked one (or both) of the following:

1) Why do you care about religion so much, if you don't believe? [this usually in response to the effort of the non-believer to point out flaws in religion]
2) Isn't atheism itself a religion?

As an example of question (1), see here.
As an answer to (1), see here, and here.

As an example of (2), see here and here.
As an answer to (2), see here and here.

One of the larger questions concerning (2) is the issue of legal protections conferred by the 1st Amendment. If atheists can be "protected" by the 1A, then people immediately consider atheism itself a religion -- but it is not. Instead, it is a position concerning religious beliefs. And it is for that reason alone that the 1A provides protection for atheists generally: because of the requisite protection of freedom of speech and expression, even and especially where they concern religious beliefs.

D1: 1b (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural (2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance (Merriam-Webster)

The definition issue is "how do we define a religion?" If that definition includes any concept of the divine, or supernaturalism, then we immediately dismiss (2) as a viable question. Traditionally, the element of the supernatural is what separates religion from "all other beliefs". And this is why atheism is not a religion. Unless, that is, you consider it logical to say that not collecting stamps is a hobby... (Randi)

But, when people hold to claim (2), they typically define it as the first example did above:

D2: A person's religion is the sum total of his beliefs about God and the supernatural.

Of course, in this sense (D2), atheism is a religion, but is religion just a total of beliefs, or does it not specifically require a belief in particular things, and/or practices that reinforce said belief (eg prayer, worship, Scripture reading, meditation, etc.)? Generally the courts hold to the loose definition given here (D2) in order to protect people's beliefs, but hold to the stricter definition (D1) when actually dealing with sorting out religious sponsorship in government -- obviously, we can't separate beliefs from our government's activity and legislation, but we can separate specific religious beliefs. Courts err on the side of liberty in protecting the citizens in both respects.
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Technorati tags: Religion

Delusions of Delusion

I am no friend of religion. That should come as no surprise to anyone with even a passing familiarity with me or my writing. That said, I feel no regret or compunction in admitting that Taner Edis is saying something I've felt about Sam Harris and Richard Dawkins for a while now (and expressed in my restraint to endorse the latter's new book):

If you want to understand something about real varieties of Islam, not the phantom "Islam" that comes out of a contextless reading of the Quran, there's no alternative to doing some serious studying. I don't mean spending half a lifetime on it—there are a good number of scholars whose job it is to study Islam. They're not all apologists, and they generally have interesting things to say. Read a book or two, and I don't just mean Islam-bashing books. It is, after all, possible to be a critic of Islam without frothing at the mouth in the process.

Indeed, that's part of what's disappointing about garbage like what Sam Harris puts out. He writes as if there is no scholarly work being done on the Quran or Islam at all. He doesn't have to agree with it, but even if he thinks current scholarship about Islam is too apologetic in nature, he has the burden of arguing against academic views. There is no excuse for ignoring it and charging in with quotations from the Quran. As a result, Harris looks like a fool to anyone who has a serious, scholarly interest in Islam. And to the extent that skeptics of religion endorse such rants against an "Islam" very few Muslims would recognize as their religion, we collectively look like morons with an axe to grind.

Although Taner is specifically incensed against Harris' shallow treatment of Islam, I feel the same way about a lot of things I see coming out against Christianity. Honestly, I see in retrospect that a some of my earliest examinations of Christian beliefs were more superficial as these new ones by Harris and Dawkins. An extremely long review by Steve Hays of the Triablogue does root out some of the shallowness with which Dawkins dismisses Christian apologia.

Understand that I actually have the desire to know what is true, to the best of my own abilities. I do not want to prop up shallow scarecrow/strawman claims of Christianity (or any other religion) in order to display my prowess at knocking them down. That's part of why I linked to James Lazarus' post earlier: I agree with him that some of those arguments deserve a deeper look, and a second consideration.

However, C1; the claim that "religious language is meaningless," (I would prefer incoherent/unintelligible/non-veridical), I think remains as a solid argument. I also think that this claim ties in more directly to Dawkins' arguments, and would have buttressed them to make them more solid.

One of Dawkins' major arguments in the book is that it is more rational to believe that complex things come from stepwise, gradual change over time, guided by nautral laws, than to believe that the most complex thing we know of (God) just plain old exists and always has. Now, the reason I say that James' C1 analysis would be of much help here is that the standard definition of God, and the questions of ontology and existence, require a serious look.

James first delves into an analysis of C1 from the perspective of positivism -- the position that dismisses all claims of knowledge which have no basis in either: i) an analytical approach, or ii) observation/empiricism. James immediately deals with the most important rejoinder to positivism, its apparent intrinsic self-refutation -- how can we know the statement, "All reliable knowledge comes via empiricism, observation, or analysis"? Does that, itself, meet its own standard? Of more importance to C1 -- is it not at least theoretically possible for religious claims to be observed and verified? James' conclusion here is, "yes". I agree. Certainly if God wanted to prove itself to us, and decided to spend a few years down here on earth performing obvious miracles, confirming Its own power and goodness, and defying the laws of nature, then the proposition, "God exists," would principally be confirmed according to the demands of positivism.

James next examines the prong of the argument which, I will attempt to show, is not so easy to dismiss:

Smith argues, as Augustinian theologians have in the past, that we cannot describe God in positive language. We can only say what God is not, rather than what God is. However, at the same time, we could only say what God is not if we first had some sort of notion from the beginning about what God actually is. So the attempt to describe God and his characteristics in purely negative terms would collapse into the project of describing God and his characteristics in positive terms, which, according to Smith, is not something that we can do. The conclusion that would purportedly follow from this is that we cannot meaningfully refer to a “God” in our language at all.

James next presents an alternative to the claims of Smith -- some positive definitions of God, as well as some limits to God:

[Smith] could have just as easily described omnipotence as “being able to do whatever it is that is logically possible to do”, which is clearly a positive description. Furthermore, the positive description that I’ve just given is much more in accord with what believers typically believe about the nature of God, in comparison with the definition that Smith gives us. So, from this end, Smith's argument has problems...

The classical view of God as literally infinite in character is no longer accepted by almost all theologians (was it ever predominant, really?), and furthermore the Bible itself describes limits to God's character. For instance, according to the Bible, God cannot lie (Titus 1:2, Hebrews 6:18). Now, Smith might argue that this is simply incoherent. However, it would only be incoherent if we already accepted Smith’s rather shallow analysis of the way in which believers speak and conceive of God. Since they clearly do not speak and conceive of God in the way that Smith lays out, all of his arguments, including this one, fail.

Now we're getting somewhere. What James has done here is attempt to show that the formulations of C1 which depend upon Smith, or at least the way that James has described Smith (I must admit that although I possess the text in question, I have not yet been able to read it), are not wholly sound. I will actually grant him the benefit of the doubt (wrt presenting Smith and analyzing Smith accurately). Given that, I have to agree with him.

However, I do think that a strong case can be made that many aspects of the Christian religion are the equivalent of "square circles", rendering belief in these attributes of God illogical. When theists try to squeeze in some sort of notion that God exists "outside of time and space", for example, but is somehow able to manipulate/create them, we start to get to the crux of where my argument begins, and where it bifurcates from that of Smith. I will get into this more deeply in a future post.

Christianity has gone through numerous revisions and evolution over the past 2000 years, and some very great minds have tackled age-old objections to, and problems with, the faith. When we approach some of the most sacred and orthodox of Christian beliefs, such as prayer, the goodness of God, etc., with the care they require, we are not deluding ourselves into thinking that we've dealt with the best version of their arguments. Believers and unbelievers alike deserve the respect of giving our best shot at evaluating arguments for and against faith in God.

Now, what we ought to separate are serious philosophical investigations from cultural pleas. I think that Dawkins' latest work falls into the latter category, as do the works of Harris. I think there is a place for this sort of thing, and a need for it, and when attempting to influence culture (these men obviously have, for better or worse, as their works skyrocket up the bestseller list), we all recognize the painful truth that works on these subjects must be "dumbed down" to be read widely. In that sense, I understand why Dawkins and Harris write as they do -- they want to influence the masses, and recognize the folly of using a book with extensive footnotes and philosophical verbiage.

But mere cultural competition is something I hope that all persons, of faith or without it, come to detest. I hope that human culture evolves to a level of complexity that books on the subject of religion do their subject justice, and that they can be well and widely-received.

And that's why I said I wasn't going to buy Dawkins' book a while back, not that I don't appreciate the effort.
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Technorati tags: Religion

Uberkuh on Deism

Uberkuh has made an interesting argument concerning Deism and its logical grounding. I responded in his comments section, and wanted to paste the response below. It should be noted first and foremost that I have no particular grievance with a deistic concept of our universe a priori. There are metaphysical considerations, such as the TAG, to consider, and, to the contrariwise, the contingent metaphysical subjectivity of the universe, given deism were true. If someone can make a logically-sound argument that requires I accept an impersonal, unknown deity as a conclusion to the argument, I would give it serious consideration. I do not think deism is stupid, per se. Everything that follows is pasted from the comment, with some links added:

Qualifier: When we make a positive claim, we are expected to have some sort of evidence/knowledge to substantiate and justify the claim.

Do you agree with that qualifier, or not?

It seems that in the case of a Deistic god, given your last few sentences, you may be saying that:

i) information establishes a god

ii) the nature of the big bang/origin of our universe establishes a god

There are atheists out there (I think especially of Francois Tremblay) who would likely tear into these with vigor, dropping epithets like "jackass" and "moron" along the way, to show you that you are wrong. I will not. For one thing, I do think that these two things are interesting (esp ii), but I don't think they work because of how I set up the "qualifier".

I think that both (i) and (ii) are more arguments from ignorance than positive claims, with the possible exception of (i):

Moreover and to be precise, given that space and time are interdependent, neither space nor time would exist in any form without some level of difference both within and between them. Something cannot come from nothing. That is, difference cannot arise from sameness. Difference must come from something different.

Now, I would only say that the premises here are not supported, but merely stated, yet I think I can still follow your argument. Let us consider something preliminary -- the age of the universe and time. [I should also point out that "something cannot come from nothing" applies to a god as well]

When we refer to 13.7 B years, we are actually discussing measurements made on the CMB radiation, recent ones, that basically give us the span of events between the universe's initial expansion and heat and now. That does not mean, however, that there were no events before this, not exactly.

It is only if one assumes that:

iii) space/time/matter all came into existence with the BB

that this holds. I think that assumption is poor for the reason of conservation. The singularity is like peering into complete ignorance, and so trying to claim (iii) is very very difficult [even though I am aware that many scientists do]. All we know is that the universe as it is now came from a very small and very hot state 14 Bya. Certainly, time did not exist in the same way that it does now, and it is likely that matter and energy were not as they are now. However, this does not imply that we can conclude that the expansion was the first event involving the singularity, or (iii). The cyclic universe is gaining academic respect.

Our current universe may not undergo contraction, since it appears to be expanding at an accelerating rate. This does not imply, though, that the singularity was not a sort of "equilibrium" state beyond which we cannot peer, which was the result of an infinite number of cycles and fluxes (net E = 0), that gave rise to this particular universe with its particular fundamental constants.

In short, I would say that (i) is more interesting than (ii) for these reasons -- we cannot establish (iii). Also, this is a sort of defeater for (i), if you consider that the flux between matter and energy has been eternally established. Constant change between states of order and disorder, the latter correlated to "free energy/heat" and the former correlated to "cold matter" seems to be the basis for (i). Being able to differentiate between these states is possible for us, and we know that the 2LoT gives us pause for thought -- but, if the universe is infinite in size, and if the net effect of gravity/attraction of matter will cancel out and equal the net effect of expansion of matter/heat, then we can see that the highly disordered state of the universe as it exists now can continue to collapse into a highly ordered state (leading to another singularity?).

Conclusion: It seems we have very little solid ground upon which to say that we have a knowledge claim, or evidence, that requires (i) or (ii) to be true. Reasonable explanations exist which undercut our confidence in (i) and (ii), and both are almost exactly arguments from ignorance. The ignorance is, "Why are things as they are? What was the earliest state of our universe like? Is our univese infinite in scope wrt time and size?" No one really knows these things.

While I have no personal aversion to the idea of some sort of god, and thus no real motivator to try to destroy any possibility thereof, it just seems the hypothesis is without evidence. As such, I will maintain the same position of skepticism towards god that I hold towards supersymmetry and loop quantum gravity and etc. -- I will wait until we know a little something more, and then re-evaluate my position of unbelief. I have no persuasive grounds upon which to accept claims of the truth of these propositions, nor upon which to prove them false. I can only show that a position of skepticism, witholding belief, is rational and reasonable.
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Technorati tags: God

Nice Resource on Debate re God's Existence

Philoso?hy Talk has a nice episode centered on the God debate. They interview Prof. Walter Sinnott-Armstrong (Phil) of Dartmouth, then go out on the streets of Berkeley to talk to people about their beliefs. Here is the audio file (Real Player). [HT: Uberkuh]
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Technorati tags: God

30 Days: Atheist/Xian Update

Remember the 30 Days episode 3 I mentioned? Jon Voisey of The Angry Astronomer blog has some inside information about what happened off-camera. He and Brenda Frei, the atheist on the show, are both in the Society for Open Minded Atheists and Agnostics (SOMA) in Lawrence, Kansas, and he has the scoop. (HT: UTI)

[Brenda] had the 30 Days film crew constantly in her face. Of them, the field producer was reportedly the hardest to deal with. Towards the end of the filming, the field producer revealed that she was a Christian “because she liked opening presents at Christmas.”

What can one say to such unadulterated nonsense?
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Technorati tags: God