Whooah! Didn’t my article “Christianity vs Bacteria,”
stir the pot! And, that’s my job here, as resident metaphysical toilet cleaner. As a lawyer I am naturally disliked by all at this site, so I draw the straw to tackle difficult questions.
I think it is worth exploring the Christian issue at a site where most people believe that some type of collapse/breakdown is coming or happening, although we differ in our theories of the causes and consequences. I see a complete racial/ethnic/economic/environmental/peak everything kinda endgame approaching. Thus, if the fundamentalist Christians, who seem to have flocked to this site, are right, we should not really be materialistic survivalists, getting ready for a final battle, but should devote the rest of our lives to prayer, and accept that this world is finished, but heaven awaits.
1. THE QUESTION OF REASON
My personal belief is that there is no evidence to support the fundamentalist Christian world view. The weight of the last two centuries of theology and archaeology count strongly against this world view, and I will devote the rest of my free time to attacking this world view and the bastard liberal one which it gave birth to. The point is that no evidence, no argument, and no events would convince them, because they will always add one more unjustified ad hoc hypothesis to their position. Christianity, like most religions, is irrational, or arational.
So, suppose that there was an argument X which prima facie did raise troubles. The fundamentalists would simply ignore it or wave it away, saying things like it is hard to get anywhere if you assume that God thinks like you do. There goes all of theology, and the idea from Genesis that man was made in God’s image, and thus man’s reason is an imperfect sample of the divine. What else does man have to reason with, but, by definition, man’s reason? The same thing unfortunately could be applied to faith as well, for who says that faith is immune to the same sort of dismissal? Maybe God’s faith is radically different to ours, and He is more like Cromm, wanting men to be independent warriors, rather than to look for help from a great daddy in the sky? That goes for Odinism as well Eirik.
In any case, wiping away reason because of uncomfortable arguments, a strategy known as Christian fideism:
leads to a relativism problem, because there is nothing that the fundamentalist could say to an unconverted person who was balancing up adopting either Islam or Christianity. It is all just faith, entirely arational and ad hoc., totally arbitrary.
2. THE CRACKER AD HOMINEM ATTACK
Since the time of Aristotle, and through to the Christian logicians such as Thomas Aquinas, William of Ockham and Duns Scotus, there has been a respect for reason. Most Christian theologians of the past would have been appalled at the general dismissal of arguments made by the fundamentalist Christian of today, and they never made personal attacks, like the commentator “Cracker” does against me. As logicians, they knew that it was a fallacy of reason to attack the man and not the argument:
Before I began writing anti-Christian articles, I dealt with manosphere material based on my practice as a criminal/family lawyer. At this site, and others, like the great Return of Kings, Matt Forney etc. site, I used stories based on my largely male clients. I was not comfortable writing: “my client did X,” so I made their tales of woe into my own persona, because this is after all literature, not a true confession site. It is about learning the hard lessons of life. Anyway, this Cracker guy has apparently been posting really nasty personal attacks, that have been moderated, bless you James/Lynn even before my recent turn to fire on Christianity, and I must admit that this attack has peaked my interest in Christian irrationality, if not pathology.
His posts that have not been moderated say things like this:
“you are a silly man. you delve into subjects that you have little or no understanding of and then offer your half-baked, ignorant opinion anyway. the only part of this that you are qualified to comment on is about getting done over. on that you are an expert seeing how you like to whine about how women and your own children kick you around like a half-flat soccer ball. stick to that and be seen as an expert or keep commenting on the Bible and be shown as a fool.”
This was posted at 3.43 am, which says something about sleep patterns, and one could speculate about this, but I am not interested in personally attacking anyone. Shit mate, we are in different hemispheres of this fucking planet! Anyway, I am not married, and don’t have children, so your basic premise is fucked. (After doing family law in my post-graduation days, I was quickly poisoned against marriage, and have kept all my assets. I treat women like cars, regularly trading them in.) Crack mate, you are just going to have to reset your attacks to take account of the new reality, as painful as it will be for you at 3 am in the morning.
Our friend Cracker’s attack is a classic ad hominem. Unlike other critics, such as Bob, who is a really good opponent and deserves respect for his fine intellect, and Sam J, who always has some brilliant satire to throw at things, this guy makes personally nasty comments, and the same ones over and over, hoping that I might “crack.” As a criminal lawyer, dealing all day with people who prey on others, or who are victims of predation, that does not personally bother me at all. I have no desire to “convince’ Cracker of anything, but his remarks well illustrate the problem of reason in fundamentalist Christianity.
To take his reply apart: how do you know what my qualifications are? In fact I have LL.B and have philosophy and biology as my majors in a double degree. I did an Honors degree in law and biology on the limits of forensic evidence in modern evidence theory (lack of science behind fingerprints etc.), and obtained a first, from a top 1 percent university. I doubt whether any Christian here has a degree in theology, or even one from a Bible college, yet, they are ok about talking about Christianity. But, I don’t hold lack of education against people and have the respect to take their comments seriously.
Further, what is unusual about the Cracker critique is that for a fundamentalist he is surprisingly lacking in Biblical references. I am really disappointed in his response, which lets the Christian team down. Why is there no talk about Hell and brimstone? Why does someone who claims to live just like Jesus not try and save my soul? Instead, Cracker just wants me to perish. Would Jesus be happy with that? And, why the name of the bones of the saints (sorry, wrong sect) are people like this at this site instead of attending Bible study lessons, or peacefully sleeping with their wife/ wives? You tell me.
Finally, this site does not have some “qualification” barrier, where people need a certain education level to be able to post. Apparently all James wants is interesting stuff that people read. And, given that Christians are prepared to dump reason when it suits them, why should anyone therefore care about being a “fool”? If you dump reason, then anything goes.
Probably being a fool and a clown is a good thing, so long as it gets hits. No hits, and its shits.
3. ON BACTERIA AND BIOLOGICAL ORDER
The issue raised in my paper is not the classic atheist evolutionist critique of Christianity. That line goes that evolution can explain the emergence of biological order by the Neo-Darwinist hypothesis of random mutations and natural selection. This position is accepted as an article of religious faith in biology departments in universities and any criticisms by students usually leads to a failed grade. I agree with the Creation scientists and intelligent design theorists that Neo-Darwinism cannot explain the emergence of biological complexity, or even the material origin of life. That seems to be a really big concession to Christianity. But, all this shows is that there must be an alternative explanation of the world we experience. It alone no more proves the truth of Christianity over any other religion with a creation myth, such as Islam. It is also possible that given the multiverse hypothesis of quantum mechanics and string theory, that there could have been science experiments conducted on Earth by cosmic “students” (Galactus) from another universe, who flunked out, and abandoned this world. There are an infinity of hypotheses consistency with the evidence of the world, because, as the philosophers say, there is an underdetermination of theory by data: the Duhem-Quine thesis:
The problem which I think sinks Christianity is that the biological and physical world as understood by modern science (forgetting evolution), does not conform to the Genesis story as these champions think:
There has never been given any remotely plausible reason why after the Fall , the entire physical and metaphysical structure of the world would suddenly change, so that the second law of thermodynamics would kick in, and we would see our bodies not being made in the image of God, but of bacteria, which transfer genes in an orderly way, so that our very bodies are ecosystems rather than isolated entities (genetic contamination thesis).
The world of quantum mechanics, forming the fundamental structure of reality is totally alien to the Old Testament metaphysics. Particles that are simultaneously waves, non-linear effects, and splitting universes with the collapse of the wave packet. This is a universe which borders on the incomprehensible, but not in a divine way, but an absurd way. No God of the logos would create in this way, but to suppose that the Fall suddenly changed the good world of pre-Fall Genesis to the quantum world, is just not credible. It would be “over the top” evil.
Worse still , neurobiology chsallenges the idea that classic freewill exists:
This is a kicker, which has not had much theological discussion, because if the experiments are correct (of course there is debate about this), then the Christian would have to suppose, that at the Fall, beings who committed an act of disobedience before eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil (and hence were by definition, morally innocent), set in motion the elimination of freewill by ontologically changing human neurobiology, so that freewill no longer existed and the universe, at a macroscopic level (but not at the quantum level, which was absurdly indeterminate). Hence freewill eliminated freewill, undermining the Christian solution to the problem of evil. Now there is a freewill vs determinism problem for you to chew on! Something to think about at 3 a.m:
In the end though, not much matters. The Christians will never stop believing, and I don’t care. Live and let live, I say. But, for the unconverted, facing the chaos that is coming, I believe that a racially alien, universalist, egalitarian mind virus is the last thing a survivalists needs, any more than adopting the liberal SJWism, which Christianity gave us.
Turd America
V'z fher lbh'yy nterr gung jr fubhyq yrnir perqragvnyf bhg bs guvf. Guveq jbeyqref nccrny gb gurve perqragvnyf. Gurl trg CuQf sebz pbeehcg havirefvgvrf nsgre purngvat ba rknzf gura eha nebhaq ohyyvat crbcyr bhg bs pbairefngvbaf jvgu gurve perqragvnyf. Gubhtu V nz pbasvqrag bs orggre guvatf va lbhe pnfr, ab bar pnerf jung lbhe qrterrf ner va.
Jr pna gel gb nqqerff fbzr bs lbhe cbvagf, ohg lbh'yy svaq tbbq erfcbafrf va Xraargu Fnzcyrf' obbxf. Jvyyvnz Ynar Penvt unf qribgrq na ragver jrofvgr gb qrsraqvat gur ernfbanoyrarff bs Puevfgvnavgl:
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Cnhy npghnyyl fnvq gung vs bhe snvgu vfa'g gehr/ernfbanoyr, jr ner gb or cvgvrq nobir nyy zra. Fb V qba'g gnxr nalguvat ba snvgu hayrff vg'f ernfbanoyr. GUrer vf n gjvfg: Puevfgvnavgl qbrf abg rknyg zna'f ernfba nobir gur Ovoyr fvapr zna'f vagryyrpg vf pbeehcg. Gur bayl vasnyyvoyr ehyr bs snvgu naq cenpgvpr vf gur Ovoyr, juvpu jr oryvrir gb or gur vareenag Jbeq bs Tbq orpnhfr bs vgf frys-pbafvfgrapl, pbagvahvgl, naq rkcynangbel cbjre. Ernq Xraargu Fnzcyrf' obbxf ("Jvgubhg n Qbhog") vs lbh jnag n orggre qrsrafr bs guvf vqrn.
"Urapr serrjvyy ryvzvangrq serrjvyy, haqrezvavat gur Puevfgvna fbyhgvba gb gur ceboyrz bs rivy. Abj gurer vf n serrjvyy if qrgrezvavfz ceboyrz sbe lbh gb purj ba! Fbzrguvat gb guvax nobhg ng 3 n.z:"
Ernq Yhgure'f "Obaqntr bs gur Jvyy." Be, gur GY; QE irefvba:
jjj.ersbezrq.bet/qbphzragf/jps_jvgu_cebbsf/pu_IV.ugzy
jjj.ersbezrq.bet/qbphzragf/jps_jvgu_cebbsf/pu_VK.ugzy
"Gurer unf arire orra tvira nal erzbgryl cynhfvoyr ernfba jul nsgre gur Snyy , gur ragver culfvpny naq zrgnculfvpny fgehpgher bs gur jbeyq jbhyq fhqqrayl punatr, fb gung gur frpbaq ynj bs gurezbqlanzvpf jbhyq xvpx va, naq jr jbhyq frr bhe obqvrf abg orvat znqr va gur vzntr bs Tbq, ohg bs onpgrevn, juvpu genafsre trarf va na beqreyl jnl, fb gung bhe irel obqvrf ner rpbflfgrzf engure guna vfbyngrq ragvgvrf (trargvp pbagnzvangvba gurfvf)."
Ab bar vf nethvat gung gur culfvpny jbeyq punatrq be gung gur 2aq ynj bs gurezb fhqqrayl xvpxrq va. V nyfb qba'g unir n ceboyrz jvgu onpgrevn nygrevat bhe trargvp fgehpgher be rkvfgvat flzovbgvpnyyl nf va gur pnfr bs thg syben. Zrgnculfvpnyyl, cbfg-rkvyvp Zna vf abj haqre gur Phefr. Angher abj unezf hf naq bhe obqvrf qrpnl culfvpnyyl, jr qvr, naq bhe fbhyf tb gb rvgure urnira be uryy. Fbzr bs lbhe tbbq dhrfgvbaf ner abg nafjrenoyr va guvf sbezng.
Urer vf n tbbq rkcynangvba bs gur Vzntb Qrv:
jjj.yvtbavre.bet/yrnea/negvpyrf/vzntb-qrv
"Gur jbeyq bs dhnaghz zrpunavpf, sbezvat gur shaqnzragny fgehpgher bs ernyvgl vf gbgnyyl nyvra gb gur Byq Grfgnzrag zrgnculfvpf. Cnegvpyrf gung ner fvzhygnarbhfyl jnirf, aba-yvarne rssrpgf, naq fcyvggvat havirefrf jvgu gur pbyyncfr bs gur jnir cnpxrg. Guvf vf n havirefr juvpu obeqref ba gur vapbzcerurafvoyr, ohg abg va n qvivar jnl, ohg na nofheq jnl. Ab Tbq bs gur ybtbf jbhyq perngr va guvf jnl, ohg gb fhccbfr gung gur Snyy fhqqrayl punatrq gur tbbq jbeyq bs cer-Snyy Trarfvf gb gur dhnaghz jbeyq, vf whfg abg perqvoyr. Vg jbhyq or “bire gur gbc” rivy."
Urapr Rvafgrva'f "Tbq qbrf abg cynl qvpr jvgu gur havirefr." Dhnaghz zrpunavpf vf n jnl bs zbqryvat ngbzf naq raretl hfvat cebonovyvgl qvfgevohgvbaf. Jvgu nal zbqry, gurer ner obhaqnel pbaqvgvbaf naq hapregnvagl. Va snpg, zbqryf (cebonovyvgl ynjf) ner na rkcerffvba bs hapregnvagl. Dhnaghz zrpunavpf urycrq hf zbir gur onyy sbejneq va ryrpgebavpf ohg gurer vf zhpu jr qba'g xabj nobhg ubj znggre naq raretl ner betnavmrq. Rirelguvat sbe juvpu jr unir n zbqry be cebonovyvgl ynj vf shyyl qrgrezvavfgvp vs rirelguvat vf xabja nobhg vg. Vs jr xarj rirelguvat nobhg rirelguvat ng gur dhnaghz yriry, jr jbhyqa'g unir gb hfr jnir shapgvbaf gb qrfpevor jurer, fnl, ryrpgebaf ner YVXRYL gb or ohg pybfr-sbez rkcerffvbaf bs jurer gurl NER.
"...Christianity, like most religions, is irrational, or arational..."
Maybe so but it does explain the existence of God and our place via him. We are here so it's as good as an explanation as we're going to get unless there's some great enlightenment. Evolution doesn't explain the great gaps in species. It has a lot of flaws. I don't like to discuss this much because it's fruitless. I don't see anyone getting to the real answer to all this anytime soon.
I personally believe in God due some personal experiences which I don't want to get into as, while it impressed me greatly, it would probably not make any sense to others. As for being a Christian. I was raised as one but the closest I can come to actually being part of a sect is the Cathars which believe that the old testament is the ravings of demons following Satan. The Cathars, making good sense, were of course promptly killed down to the last Man, Women and Child by the Pope and bunch of (converted, wink, wink), Jews.
And that's all I have to say about that.
I might add that it's no surprise that lawyers don't believe in religion because as a general rule lawyers don't believe in anything. They certainly don't believe in the courts or justice or any such nonsense as that or that;s my experience. I took a class in, I forget what it was called, legal aspects of something, and that Professor was about the most cynical person I've ever known. Way worse than me.
I was in an airport one time and this young Man was beaming. I didn't ask him what for but he couldn't help himself and volunteered that he just passed the bar. My only thought was,"another mouth to feed".
take a breath, jonny. don't take my responses so personnel. I'm not being mean to YOU, I'm responding to the fictional character who's identity you assume when you relate the experiences of others as your own and I'm not really trying to be mean, he just says such foolish stuff that sometimes I forget to play nice. now, go to your safe space, curl up, squeeze some playdo and do not think about the mean old fundamentalist that has you so shook-up. you'll be okay, just remember, it's not you.
At the risk of upsetting you, would you mind defining what a "fundamentalist " is ? I've heard it used as a descriptor and also as a slur so your definition would be appreciated. Also, just for the record, not all believers are "fundamentalists". Finally, I don't try and "save your soul" because that is God's to do, not mine; .."salvation belongeth unto the Lord.."(Ps. 3:8) God has to open your eyes to the truth and He does that as He pleases. Cry out to Him if you want salvation, I can do nothing for you in that department, mate.
CE's speaking in tongues will confound Mr. Saxon.
An experiment to refute free will qualifies as a performative contradiction.
In any case, even a cursory glance at the wiki article shows the research to be on *self-awareness* rather than free will or intention:
"With contemporary brain scanning technology, other scientists in 2008 were able to predict with 60% accuracy whether subjects would press a button with their left or right hand up to 10 seconds before the subject became aware of having made that choice."
"This approach allowed to investigate any potential long-term determinants of human intentions that preceded the conscious intention far beyond the few hundred milliseconds observed over the SMA"
tinyurl.com/yabbhrbx
"Baltimore's Violence Guy" repeatedly shows that body posturing and demeanor may telegraph violence before it occurs; it may well be *unpremeditated* violence, not rationalized or even *recognized* by the would-be aggressor. Deescalation, a process dealt with repeatedly by this blog, hinges on bringing that unconscious impulse into the sphere of rational, considered thought, that a cost/benefit analysis be performed.
Heuristics are what makes life livable, but periodically Man bites Dog! and we see the limits to probabilistic modeling of behavior.
"liberal SJWism, which Christianity gave us."
This fails even the correlation=causation fallacy. The latter predates the former by arguably 1800 years (I maintain the watershed to be the French Revolution, the decisive victory of the Nation-State over the Church).
"Christianity, like most religions, is irrational, or arational."
All religions necessarily speak to the limits of human knowledge and reasoning; dogma is always religious, even when it pretends to be otherwise. Empirically, every culture exhibits a characteristic religion with non-belief either proscribed or marginalized (non-believers who who pay lip-service to a faith still perpetuate it). Anthropologically, there must be something innately satisfying about religious belief.
Fundamentalism is but one interpretation of Christianity. Some see the scriptures as allegorical rather than literal.
"Racially alien" is incontrovertibly wrong. For the last two millennia, Christianity has been the religion of Caucasian man, with genetic repercussions to boot (reduced endogamy vis-à-vis the other monotheistic cults). "Racially alien" criticism only makes sense with respect to the Old Testament, the story of the Jews' compact with God. The New Testament wouldn't be *new* if it didn't refer to something other than racially-defined covenant. Universalist, in other words, like Islam.
I can think of no reason why Christianity would be associated with "egalitarian", outside of the Christian Liberation heresy (Latin American Jesus as Marxist). Everywhere hierarchy is acknowledged as a given in the human order.
To your point, Islam or Christianity? (Judaism excluded, being a racial/religious synthesis), you may be interested in this podcast. "Distributist" makes an interesting argument for why Islam may be a better religion to preserve the European man over the next several hundred years. I disagree, because of the feedback loop with matrimonial practices I mentioned before (relative exogamy of Christianity versus the polygamy/endogamy of Islam), but it's an interesting debate, even for a lover of Christendom like myself.
therightstuff.biz/2018/02/10/rebel-yell-20180202-305-distributist-todd-lewis-alt-right-criticism
For what it's worth, I despair of the state of many Christian churches and their mammon-loving leaders. Like Mr. Saxon, I fear that we - Western men - are to be confronted by a cataclysmic set of circumstances for which are woefully unprepared.
Father Joseph Ratzinger's gloomy vision of the Church back in '69 seems prescient. Essentially the institution will face ruination before any rebirth is conceivable.
aleteia.org/2016/06/13/when-cardinal-joseph-ratzinger-predicted-the-future-of-the-church
You'd have to do a lot more than stir a pot or be a lawyer to make me dislike you. Stirring the pot can be good, and I equate lawyers with plumbers. It's good to have a pro when you're in the shit. If only lawyers wouldn't run for office! I was raised in a Christian environment, but never fit in because I kept sniggering at awkward times. Jesus always seemed a bit left to me, but I respect the family. It only matters to me.
I don't begrudge atheists their religion, bein' Amurican 'n all. I just think it must be frustrating trying to rebut spiritual stuff with facts and logic. It's two different languages, and no translator. Perhaps it's why you sometimes seem cranky. Ach, well, joy to your life.
A lot of Jews hate Christianity. The good news is the goyim are waking up and hating you kikes back.