Kevin DeGraaf’s Blog

Theists are more than welcome to engage me in discussion, but let’s review some basic ground rules of rational debate:

• Be organized. Arrange your thoughts in a structured, coherent manner. Address one topic at a time, gradually building toward a conclusion.
• Be concise. Thoroughly develop your ideas and explain your points, but don’t ramble on endlessly.
• Support your assertions. Factual claims need to be backed up with evidence.  It is not acceptable to quote from “holy” books in ways that assume that these texts are reliable sources.  For example, to a Christian who would support his position with the Bible: would you, as a non-Muslim, accept the truth claims made by the Koran as evidence?  Obviously not, so why would you expect a non-Christian to accept the claims of the Bible?
• Understand the opposing position. Between the Internet and dead-tree publications, there is a staggering amount of information available about any conceivable subject, including atheism. Arguing from a flawed understanding of atheism is not conducive to a productive discussion and is inexcusable.  (I strongly recommend reading Ebon Musings).
• Be open-minded. Follow the evidence wherever it leads. If your position fails to withstand rational analysis, be prepared to discard it.  I went through this transformation (deconversion) and, while it was not pleasant, I can assure you that the clear air of rationalism is vastly preferable to the hopelessly illogical morass of theism.

I would now like to direct your attention to a comment whose author has demonstrated epic failure to grasp these basic, intuitive principles.  At 4,118 words (the equivalent of eleven double-spaced printed pages), this jumbled mess of craziness falls far short of being worthy of a line-by-line rebuttal.  I invite the author to revise his “essay” according to the above principles and re-submit it for consideration.

However, having briefly skimmed it, I do feel the need to address some of the commenter’s more egregious statements:

It has been brought to my attention and concern that you feel you have renounced Christ and his gift to all who believe.

I do not “feel” that I have renounced Christianity. I have renounced it.  Period.  This is a matter of public record and has been made abundantly clear, on this blog and elsewhere.  (Feel free to select the “Religion” tag and read my history of posts along these lines.)

I will first address your skepticism with the knowledge and grace given to me through Christ before I bring in the calvary in the form of John Calvin, Thomas Aquinas, William Law, and many other devout in the Christian faith.

You meant “cavalry”. “Calvary” is, according to your mythology, the place where the founder of your cult died.

God never expected his children to follow his will without conflict and question. It is quite the opposite, the Lord our God invites us to question his ways so that we may better understand him.

Really?  Your “holy” book seems to disagree.

O’ how we live in such an unbelieving world that demands answers and rejects faith!

You say that like it’s a bad thing.

You seem to reject the notion of faith and place folly on those who hold it true. I rebuke such a foolish and worldly statement.

Again, please work on your reading comprehension skills.  (See, two can play at the rudeness game.)  I don’t “seem to reject the notion of faith” — I do, explicitly and without equivocation, reject the idea that “faith” is a virtue.  Faith is a cop-out, a construct invented by theists to excuse the fact that their beliefs are not supported by evidence and do not cohere with reality. Feel free to take your “rebuke” and perform any number of anatomically improbable procedures with it.

Full trust in science is full trust in our senses. As humans however we are fallible. Our senses thus can be fallible. In other words by your own logic once again this is proven unsound. To have faith in science which is based on even small occasional fallible senses is unsound and foolishness.

First, the notion of having “faith in science” is absurd.  Science is accepted as a useful tool because it is coherent, logical, evidence-based and productive — at no point does blind belief have anything to do with it.

Second, given that human minds are fallible and can make mistakes, how do you know that theism (either in general, or your specific type) is correct?  Science is all about rigorous testing, evaluation and verification, and is thus self-correcting even when carried out by human minds that are vulnerable to making mistakes.  Religion offers no such mechanism.  You believe that the Bible is perfectly correct, but as a fallible human, how can you be sure of that?  Aren’t you just trusting your own mind?  Please see this post.

There are truths of moral action that are held as good for the common people around the whole world since the beginning of time. Everyone knows that it is better to tell the truth and not lie or not to steal. However, if this is governed by chemical reactions why would that be my ultimate reason for not doing so.

The argument from common morality?  Yawn.  Morality does not come from a deity; it is a product of secular reasoning.

If you posit that there is a God who is the source of all morality, you run into Euthypro’s Dilemma: “Does God approve of something because it is good, or is it good because God approves of it? If the former is the case, then there is an objective standard of morality outside of God, and we can simply bypass God and appeal to this standard directly. But if the latter is the case, then good and evil would be entirely determined by God’s whims, and there would be no genuine objective morality, and thus no moral order, at all. In this respect, the moral argument is self-defeating.” (Source.)

Please don’t just copy-and-paste long-discredited apologetic arguments.  It’s boring and a waste of everyone’s time.

Whether senses are used or not all thoughts, feelings, and experiences are verified by the mind. Such a dreadful waste if it were to be thrown away at the end of our time.

Yes, it is a terrible waste that humans die, that our bodies turn to dust, that our knowledge is erased, and that our relationships end.  However, reality is not controlled by our desires — wishing for something doesn’t make it so.  The fact that human lives end, and the unpleasantness of that simple truth, does not make belief in a magic afterlife at all reasonable.

Religion exists around the world since the beginning of time and the afterlife holds true to them all. How could this be unless God has made this idea innate to them? People hope that they wont waste away after death and for good reason; its because they wont. There mind wont let them think that and if they do it is because they fall into denial from truth.

There is a perfectly reasonable naturalistic explanation: humans tend to be gullible, not rational.  The promise of a pleasant afterlife was invented by religion as a way to comfort people who are scared of death.

Grace and peace to you from God our father and the Lord Jesus Christ. [...] Praise be to God and his overflowing mercies.

This is a discussion, not a sermon.  Interspersing benedictions makes you sound even sillier than you otherwise would.

“Whatever is moved is moved by another. It is evident to sense that something is moved, for example, the sun. Therefore, is is moved by some other mover. And either that mover is moved or not. If it is moved, the thesis is proved that it is necessary to hold that there is something moving that is immobile. This is God.”

Once again, recycling tired apologetics will get you nowhere.  The argument from design is asinine on its face.  Who or what created God?  How can you claim that the universe couldn’t “just exist”, and then argue with a straight face that it was magically poofed into existence by a God who “just exists”? That doesn’t solve the problem; it just pushes it back one step and introduces an unnecessary entity, violating Occam’s Razor (the principle of parsimony).

It is foolish to demand acts of God and proof of his existence for he is made known to all.

What’s foolish is to claim that there is sufficient proof of the existence of any god.  Your “proof” is evidence of nothing more than the gullibility of delusional human beings.

I voted this morning in Ypsilanti Township, Washtenaw County, Michigan.  The precinct in question used a Diebold voting machine (and we all know that Diebold isn’t just “in the tank” for Republicans; they actually built the damn tank).

When I approached the machine with my Obama/Biden ballot, the LCD readout indicated “TOT COUNT: 403″.  Four hundred three is a reasonable number of total ballots counted, since I voted around 10:15 AM in a small precinct.

I inserted my ballot, which the machine promptly accepted.  I watched the display, and “TOT COUNT” stayed at 403.  I waited ten seconds or so, and it still didn’t increment to 404.  I brought this to the attention of the elderly “inspector”, who dismissed my concern and assured me that my ballot had been counted.

I hope I’m wrong, and that “TOT COUNT” doesn’t mean what I think it means, and that my vote for the Democratic presidential ticket (and a slew of Libertarian candidates for other offices) wasn’t cheerfully delivered to the bit-bucket.

One of the theists with whom I frequently spar recently wrote the following. The reply that follows is the comment that I left on her post.

Do we truly live in a world that does not need God? Do we have the bird’s eye view of all things to know that there is nothing that transcends nature?

Can you point out any instances in which an atheist of the freethought variety has claimed that we definitively know that there is no supernatural realm? Or is this just another one of your straw men?

I’m guessing that it’s the latter: that you are either ignorant of the freethought atheist position or are purposely misrepresenting it.

The proposition that there is a supernatural realm is not supported by any reliable evidence, and thus we reject it on a provisional basis. If acceptable evidence were to turn up, we’d be happy to re-examine this (or any) claim.

So far, all of the purported “evidence” presented by theists (when they aren’t trumpeting the virtues of blind faith) has not been convincing: subjective personal testimonies, flawed philosophical arguments, vague prophecies, pseudo-scientific nonsense like creationism and biblical numerology, etc.

To explain the available data, there is only one explanation that is coherent and parsimonious: there is no supernatural realm, or if there is, it has no effect upon the natural realm and is therefore meaningless.

I found myself in a gun-control debate earlier today.

Alex Weaver:

So far as I can tell, keeping and bearing arms in civil life is a means for certain kinds of people to assuage deep and overwhelming emotional insecurities, not a rational response to any threat faced by our present society.

My response:

That’s quite the stereotype. Would you happen to have any evidence demonstrating that law-abiding firearms owners must have such insecurities?

[Another commenter] is correct to point out that concealed carry is useless against car-bombing and other such indirect methods of attack, but you (Alex) went far beyond that to decry defensive weapons use entirely (including a potent dose of ad hominem for good measure).

Are you prepared to back up the assertion that, facing an assailant who is armed with a gun, a knife, a baseball bat, or even just muscular strength and who is intent on committing murder, rape, and/or the infliction of serious bodily injury, it is irrational for innocent parties to have available a reliable method available to deter said attacker?

I’m no “gun nut” (although I suspect you would disagree). I fully support reasonable efforts to block the sale of firearms to those who are morally deficient and/or mentally unstable, and to dramatically strengthen the training, skill, and background check requirements for concealed carry permits. However, I cannot comprehend the reasoning of the ultra-dogmatic anti-gun position.

Criminal defense aside, suppose the government’s recent headlong plunge into tyranny continues unabated. Would this not constitute an ever-growing threat toward rational, liberal society? Are you so steeped in anti-firearm sentiment that you would deny everyone the means to throw off another repressive government, should that become necessary? (If you contend that small arms are insufficient to resist a modern superpower army, please direct your attention to Iraq.)

Alex Weaver:

Kevin, none of what you posted has any coherent relationship to either my actual position or my statements. Observing that the comments of Christopher here and in other threads, and of most others I’ve encountered who share his views, appear to reflect an intense emotional “need” to possess weapons in general and firearms in particular which is entirely divorced from the level of actual risk of the person in question facing any of the scenarios you describe, but which may be highly relevant to the level of threat posed to other citizens in connection with the gratification of said “need,” and is not even an anti-gun position, let alone “ultra-dogmatic.”

What I posted has a very straightforward, coherent relationship to Alex’s attack on gun owners. He made two assertions: (1) that gun ownership is a method for assuaging emotional insecurities, and (2) that gun ownership is not a rational response to any modern threat. I requested evidence for the first assertion, since the burden of proof is on the accuser, and provided two strong rebuttal examples to the second assertion (defense against criminals and defense against tyranny).

If Alex had claimed that a subset of gun owners, in his experience, exhibit emotional immaturity, I would not have objected, but there was no such disclaimer. If he had claimed that, for any given person living in a modern society, the level of risk of an attack in which a defensive firearm could prove useful was rather low, I likewise would not have objected, and that likewise was not even remotely made clear.

The statement that “bearing arms is [...] not a rational response”, without appropriate qualification, is dogmatic. I will be more than happy to consider retracting my assertion of Alex’s ultra-dogmatism pending further clarification toward that end.

I have no idea whether Alex will follow me over here, but he (or anyone) is free to jump into this discussion at any time.

The righty-tighties are up in arms over Planned Parenthood’s tax-exempt status:

A Minnesota conservative is calling for an end to the tax-exempt status and public financing of the country’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood. According to Planned Parenthood’s latest annual report, the organization received more than $1 billion from revenues — nearly one-third of that figure came from “government grants and contracts.”

“Planned Parenthood brings in over a billion dollars in revenues, pays no taxes, and sits at the end of the year fat and happy with $115 million in the bank and brazenly works to go after affluent women rather than helping out poor women [...]“, said Bachmann.

Bachmann was one of several Republican lawmakers who denounced the abortion provider during a recent one-hour pro-life Special Order on the House floor called by Congressman Chris Smith (R-New Jersey). “We didn’t have one Democrat come to the floor and call on Planned Parenthood to either live up to their non-profit status or renounce that status, be truthful with the American people, and start paying taxes and not be eligible for any more taxpayer subsidies,” she argues. “As a matter of fact, in Houston, Planned Parenthood announced that they will be building a 75,000-square-foot building. How could that be possible — a 75,000-square-foot building?” Bachmann questions.

She states that, as a former tax lawyer, it has become clear to her that Planned Parenthood no longer fits the mold of a 501(c)3 non-profit and should be paying taxes. And Bachmann questions whether Planned Parenthood really uses public funds to help its efforts for “voter identification and community education” on family-planning issues.

To sum up, a Christian conservative is complaining that Planned Parenthood:

• Receives hundreds of millions of dollars in “government grants and contracts”.
• Brings in billions of dollars, pays no taxes, and sits “fat and happy” with cash in the bank.
• Utilizes large buildings.
• Is not held to its 501(c)(3) obligations.
• Is given a free pass by a major political party.
• Should start paying taxes on its donations and property.

Does that remind you of anything? How about, say, Christianity, which:

• Receives billions of dollars in government grants and contracts.
• Brings in billions of dollars, pays no taxes, and sits “fat and happy” with cash in the bank.
• Utilizes large buildings.
• Is not held to its 501(c)(3) obligations.
• Is given a free pass by a major political party.
• Should start paying taxes on its donations and property.

(When a Republican Senator dared to break ranks and investigate the activities of some ludicrously wealthy tax-exempt “ministries”, the Radical Right chose to retaliate instead of comply. How Christian of them.)

I’m willing to have a reasonable discussion about the role that Planned Parenthood should have in our society, especially concerning public funding, but the Radical Right should attend to the plank in its eye before whining gratuitously about specks elsewhere, mmmkay?

Here’s my comment on Crackergate (background, fight, fight, fight, whine, blah, whine, blah, blah, blah, whine, blah, blah, blah, whine, conclusion):

I applaud PZ’s actions. He has taken a lot of flack over this, even from within the freethought community. I want to make my stance perfectly clear: sending death threats over the alleged mistreatment of a magic voodoo cracker is insane… “words fail me” insane. Intentionally disrespecting this retarded belief is exactly the right thing to do.

Customer (Kevin DeGraaf) 07/29/2008 10:10 AM

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Richard Dawkins wrote The Emptiness of Theology back in 1993.

What has theology ever said that is of the smallest use to anybody? When has theology ever said anything that is demonstrably true and is not obvious? I have listened to theologians, read them, debated against them. I have never heard any of them ever say anything of the smallest use, anything that was not either platitudinously obvious or downright false. [...] If all the achievements of theologians were wiped out tomorrow, would anyone notice the smallest difference? [...] The achievements of theologians don’t do anything, don’t affect anything, don’t mean anything. What makes anyone think that “theology” is a subject at all?

(Emphasis mine.)

Even though I’ve long since rejected theistic faith and religion, I still receive The Banner, the magazine of the Christian Reformed Church denomination (because my former church hasn’t gotten around to purging my name from its membership list).

In last month’s issue, the “humor” page contained a horrifying “joke”:

When we called to talk with our grandchildren, Kimeisha was pouting. “Don’t feel sorry for her,” said her mother. “She just punched her brother in the stomach.” So I changed the subject and asked Kimeisha what she had learned in Sunday school that day. She began to tell me the story of Noah and how all the bad people died in the flood. Suddenly she said, “Just a minute, Grandma, I have to go tell my brother I’m sorry.”

This is funny?!?

Think about this for a second. A credulous child was brainwashed into believing that there is a vengeful deity who threw a temper tantrum and, in a single act of gratuitous violence, wiped out the Earth’s population (save one family), and as as result, lives in fear of a similar fate befalling her.

If a human parent threatened his/her child with death for being disobedient, causing that child to live in fear of such a punishment, any rational person would call that child abuse. How is teaching the flood story any different? Even if we grant that the rainbow promise negates the implicit threat, that obviously didn’t make much of an impression on this child — which, of course, was the desired outcome.

This is sickening enough on its own, but presented as humor, it’s downright repulsive. Of course, this isn’t surprising given that the same religion teaches that outsiders will be tortured forever…

I just received my new phone, a Treo 680, and am testing how well its browser interoperates with Wordpress.

Update: it works pretty well.