Author: Db0

Dr. Horrible

Db0

Alright, I finally succumbed to the promotion to see the Dr. Horrible and let me tell you. I’m glad I did. Once again Joss does not let you down.

In truth I was initially turned off when watching the first few minutes of Act 1 as it seemed to me that it was going to be all monologue but after today I took the time to watch it in full, that turned out to be false.

The musical is great, and I loved the whole superhero setting making fun of classic comics where the bad guys always seem to be able to go free after their mischiefs. The humor was also great.

Anyway, I hope to see more of these in the future although I really do hope that instead of continuing the story of Dr.Horrible and Hammer, Joss creates a totally new 3-part storyline and promotes it in the same way as Dr.Horrible.

I want to see different characters. I want to see Different storylines and most importantly, I want to see more Firefly cast taking roles in them 😀

PS: I can’t believe he is still working with Fox for his new series after THEY CANCELED FIREFLY! Argh!

Scour

Db0

Scour LogoI just found a new search site (launched two days ago) which seems promising. The name is Scour and it it is a  search aggregator for Google, Yahoo and MSN which pays you for searching.

The way it works is that you earn points for searching, voting and commenting on the results and thus you help improve them. Once you earn enough points, you can use them to get a gift certificate. I won’t go into details but suffice to say that it’s an interesting concept. Since it aggregates the most popular searches, doesn’t bother you with adds and might even give you a small bonus for doing what you’re already doing, why not use it?

The page provides a small toolbar to use it but since I hate installing stuff for searching, and I also hate installing toolbars, I discovered the Firefox search engine. Why they don’t have a firefox plugin or something, I don’t know…

In any case, If you like the concept, you can register and start earning those points. Even if you don’t use them, you have nothing to lose and two months from now you may find out that you’re eligible for a gift 🙂

Found via LifeHacker

Political Orientation of the Freethinker

Db04 Comments
light spell
CC - photo credit: pbo31

Soon after I implemented the member pages in the ACP I noticed something interesting. It seems that most people who are irreligious, atheist or generally freethinkers have a tendency to orientate to the left libertarian quadrant of the political compass. This was further solidified when Waldheri, who noticing the same trend, inquired on it at the Atheist Nexus fora.

The results were impressive. From out of the 20 people who took the test, 80% were in the left-libertarian quadrant, with a lot of them being on the far left/libertarian end, three were in the right and just one firmly in the middle. All of them were in the libertarian quadrant.

To me this is quite…invigorating (for lack of a better word). It means that most atheists are indeed free spirits and have an intense dislike for authority. I cannot claim to know the reasons but it seems to me that this is quite probably because we are always at odds with the authority of organised religion and have realised that authority is always at odds with freethought.

Even though libertarianism was a bit to be expected, the amount of socialist-leaning freethinkers is the real news in this case. I am immensely happy that most of us realise the inherent superiority of socialistic principles over the “free market” and that contrary to the Objectivist claims of growing popularity, the economic leanings of most Atheists are to the left[1. This also explains why the Libertarian party of the US is so weak. Many Atheist must be turned off by the far-right political leanings it has, even though it is libertarian].

I guess that is another reason for U.S. Atheists to be disheartened, since they are living in a country where there is no left & right but rather right & extreme right. 😛

So I’ve been thinking. If so many of us are in that quadrant, shouldn’t we have an appropriate name? Unfortunately “libertarian” has been hijacked by the right-libertarians and generally when one hears that, they immediately imagine laisez-faire capitalism.

We have the other terms for our disposal of course: Libertarian Socialist, Anarcho-Communist etc, but due to the McCarthyist propaganda the immediate negative connotations (especially for US Americans) are too large. Furthermore, these are all two-word descriptions and I’d really like to see a description that is distinguishable and easily digestable.

Personally, I believe that Communist is the most appropriate term but due to people being in the habit of confusing Communism with Stalinism or Maoism, that would probably do more harm than good (I’m also curious to see how many of the people who took the test realised how close they are to true Communism – No that’s not a “True Scotsman” fallacy).

I’m afraid that at this point I don’t have any suggestion for a better name but I’ll keep you posted if I think of anything.

Most importantly however, this is the first actual common point a majority of atheists seem to have. If indeed there are many of us like this, this could be a way to deal with the “Herding Cats” problem that seems to be plaguing us. An actual political focal point that is absolutely different than all the other political movements out there could be what we need to start having a common voice heard.

In any case, I’d love to hear what the rest of you opine on this subject? Do you think/believe/agree that most of the Freethinkers are leftist libertarian? Do you have a good idea for a left libertarian political label that rolls of the tongue? Finally, can we use this as a way to organise and form the political muscle that is needed?

Religion Awards Coup

Db04 Comments

In the last few days I’ve been trying to raise awareness in the Atheosphere, to the fact that the Bloggers Choice Awards are in progress and more specifically, that we do not have any Atheist or irreligious presence. Indeed, last year, all the top positions of the “Best Religion Blog” category where taken over by Christians and this year seems to be turning out very much the same.

Thus I took it upon myself to attempt and remedy that.

Initially I nominated some of my favorite Atheism blogs but even though I tried to notify the people running them in order to place some banner or inform their readers, I was largely ignored. I even tried emailing Pharyngula, who apparently loves crashing polls, to let his readers know. But there was no response…

Nevertheless, I then had a better idea: This year, not only should we attempt to get an Atheist Blog to the top of the Best Religion Blog category, but we should do it in the most extravagant way possible. To this end, I nominated The Antichristian Phenomenon as I don’t think there’s a better way to be more “in your face” than this 😉

The ACP is, of course, not the only blog I’ve nominated and ever since I’ve started writing about this, many others have joined me and nominated their own choices. This does not hurt as at all since you are allowed to vote as many times as you wish.

Below you will find a list of all the relevant blogs that are currently nominated along with possibly other links of interest. If you don’t want to visit all of these one by one, just head over to my profile and you’ll see them listed in an easy-to-vote format.

Currently the ACP is the one leading in the Religion category and it’s my personal choice for the top, just because of the LULZ that will ensue. However I do not mind if some of the more heavyweight ones surpass it. I’ve voted all of them up in any case. Unfortunately we still have too few votes. To achieve the top we need at least 250 votes and we have only managed to gather 20 by now.

If you like this idea and want to help further than that, then there is another way: Spread the word.
Currently I’m pretty much the only one pushing for this and I just don’t see any excitement. I am aware of the “Herding Cats” problem plaguing the “Atheist movement” but seriously, this is ridiculous. We can’t even waste 5 minutes doing a symbolic action?

Anyway, the best way to spread the word would be, of course, blogging 🙂 Currently only the Psychodiva has made a small mention of this but I’m certain that if people larger than me talk about it, it will trigger the necessary reaction.

Another way would be to mention it in your own groups. I’v already posted this in The ACP Forum and the newly fledged Atheist Nexus. If you’re at any other place with Atheist presence, consider making a post similar to these and if you have more rights, sending a simple PM to all members to let them know.

Lastly, if you are a nominee, consider placing the Brag code widgets in your sidebars to let your visitors know to lend you a leg up.

Let the Religion Awards Coup begin!

Yay! More Randians come out of the woodwork.

Db0

OK I admit that I’m starting to make it a habit of toying around with Objectivists. For me it’s impossible not to be playful when my “opponents” take themselves so fucking seriously. Plus, they seem to get riled up for no apparent reason, other than, you know, being debated, which further provokes me to make fun of them. And finally, I just can’t seem to be able to avoid them!

This episode, started in a post of the Atheist Blogger who had just discovered Ayn Rand from one video where she had a chance to skewer some theistic thinkings. Since it was at one of the finer moments, Adrian was honestly impressed, which is why I felt I had to jump in and inoculate him, before this horrid philosophy ruined yet another decent person. I was once again in a playful mood.

Which is why, when as expected, Objectivist apologists descended upon up us, (to call us irrational or something) many lulz ensued. However when the last of them posted a huge comment, starting with “All of this is directed at Db0“, I just knew I was in for the epic one. 😀
In all honesty, I could just post the comment here by itself, without any commentary, and it wouldn’t miss much of its hilarity. But of course I know you don’t want to miss my sharp (as a spoon) wit, so without further ado, I present you: Jongalt (LULZ who iz Jon Galt?!).

Ayn rand philosophy:
My philosophy, in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute.

?Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged 35th anniversary edition[4]

Dear Jon, this is just a fancy quote. not a philosophy. It is so vague as to to be meaningless.

Religion:————–
a strong belief in a supernatural power or powers that control human destiny; “he lost his faith but not his morality”
an institution to express belief in a divine power; “he was raised in the Baptist religion”; “a member of his own faith contradicted him”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn
Nope. Dont see it there….lets try cult

Are you going to quote definitions on me for everything? *Looks down* Oh, I guess you will *groan*
I guess that you are not aware that you can be perfectly fallacious with definitions? In any case, be aware that religion does not mandate fate of deities. One can very well be an atheist and still be religious.

.
———————-
CULT:
followers of an exclusive system of religious beliefs and practices
fad: an interest followed with exaggerated zeal; “he always follows the latest fads”; “it was all the rage that season”
followers of an unorthodox, extremist, or false religion or sect who often live outside of conventional society under the direction of a charismatic leader
a religion or sect that is generally considered to be unorthodox, extremist, or false; “it was a satanic cult”
a system of religious beliefs and rituals; “devoted to the cultus of the Blessed Virgin”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Hmmmmm, i guess it could be a “sect”, but that would be by virtue of teh fact that it is in opposition to exstablished systems. If thats teh case i can live with that fact, I enjoy living in reality, whether you seem to think it doesnt exist or not.

You’re kidding me? Your definition just proves how it is a cult. Need more evidence? here!

You say that ATHEISM is not a philosophy:

Oh Gawds! I don’t believe you’re seriously going to attempt and define atheism as a philosophy…

philosophy
doctrine: a belief (or system of beliefs) accepted as authoritative by some group or school
the rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics
any personal belief about how to live or how to deal with a situation; “self-indulgence was his only philosophy”; “my father’s philosophy of child-rearing was to let mother do it”
wordnet.princeton.edu/perl/webwn

Whoa, I guess it is. Maybe you want to back peddle a bit? That might be prudent at this time.

Gee, yathink?
Dear Jon, maybe you should have looked up the definition of Atheism instead. if you did, you would have noticed that other than the non-belief in deities, Atheism promotes no beliefs and neither the “rational investigation of questions about existence and knowledge and ethics“. Indeed one can very well be an Atheist and have absolutely no reason to do investigate questions about existence or knowledge.
True, atheists are very likely to also philosophise due to their inquisitive nature, but it is by no means mandatory to be considered one. All you need to do is not to believe in Gods. Fullstop.

Dbo. As Rand has stated and reality dictates, WORDS HAVE A SPECIFIC MEANING.

Don’t you really hate it when people try to defend their positions with…their position? I know I do.
Jon, unless you didn’t realize it, I don’t really care what Rand states and I laugh at your attempt to tell me what reality defines.

Just because you choose to make them mean something else doesnt mean that reality follows. I guess, you could petition webster, britannica and numerous other private companies to add in there:
“Any system by which men come to conclusions using reason and choose to live life according to reality.”

Lolwut?

Anyway about your words argument, just look at the history of the word “Gay”. ‘Nuff said.

Your angry because you cant have your OWN system without contradictions and be allowed to go about your business. Thats fine i guess, until those contradictions are imposed on other people. That is all Rand would argue, besides obviously, you being an irrational person.

Who’s angry? WHO’S FUCKING ANGRY!!
Ahem…
Nah, not me.

Anywayz, who says my system has contradictions? Fuck, you don’t even know what my system is, how can you tell if it has contradictions? Projecting much?

Although I would argue that your in that wagon, since i assume your an atheist and since you reject the idea of a supreme being are therefore living according to reality using a rational system to determine if the claim has any Epitomological value…are you?

Your problem is that you use reason (which is the means to knowledge) to say that epistomology has nothing to do with reason and i quote

——————-
“Epistemology is about knowledge, not a life system as Objectivism tries to be. Modern epistemology is Science, not Objectivism. On not-so-epistemological issues, like morality, Objectivism falls flat on its face.”

MODERN EPISTOMOLOGY: What an unnessesary addition. Epistomology was the pursuit of knowledge 8000 years ago exactly like it is today. Just because our understanding of things changed doesnt mean that our means of doing it has also. IE reason.

Errr, yes it has. It’s called The Scientific Method and it’s been in use only in recent centuries. Yes, reason plays a big role but there are some other things in play.

As for objectivism not being science? LOL

Oh Gawds. I dare not read further…

science:
systematically acquired knowledge that is verifiable.
oregonstate.edu/instruct/anth370/gloss.html

Ill gladly state positions held by objectivists and
verify them for you. heres one.

Reality exists. Simple to prove, I need you to hold your breath and under no cirrcumstances try and breath. Reality will shortly exert itself over you.
if you dont like that please walk to the nearest mountain and attempt to deny that gravity will yank you to the ground at (9.8 m/s/s (please see newtons law of gravity, which by your standard doesnt exist since knowldge changes day to day I guess, or its just not “modern”).

Gee, you’re a proper nuclear scientist you are.
So, just because one of the positions held by Objectivism is true, then the whole philosophy is? I guess then Christianity is true because, hey it’s not good to steal…
Btw, did anyone ever tell you that as an axiom this is as basic as they go? I could practically base anything on it.

Morality is not based on EPISTOMOLOGY?!
Next time you goto a store try and walk out with not paying the groceries instead, since your morality doesnt require knowledge you should be fine.
Although i warn you, try and remember that you, at one time, were probably told or show that if you do this you will be punished….

Go kill a man: Im sure since you have no knowledge that this is a terrible thing you will be fine. And the knowledge of this has changed since yestarday apparently

Do not feed your child: Since morailty isnt based on knowledge this is fine, how could you know that your child would die?

What!? Can you even separate “knowledge” from the “pursuit of knowledge”. Fuck man, many theists manage to stay relatively moral even when not using epistemology at all. They just have their morals hammered on them as children and don’t bother to ever revise them.

Look, there are moral systems that are attempting an epistemological take on morality, but Objectivism is certainly not one of them.

Here ill help you out once agian. Here is something no other philosopher ever told me and you probably need to hear.

1.)Check your premise. A=A
2.)Reality exists. (You can’t eat your cake and have it to)

NoOoOoooo! I’m meeeeelting….

Oh wait, no I’m not.

However the lame quotes are really killing me. You forgot Man qua man (qua man qua man…ad infinitum)

I also remember feeling like a jack ass when her philosophy made me reject a good portion of another woman I respected prior to her Madalyn Murray O’Hair, the specific book i speak of was called “All the questions you ever wanted to ask an American atheist, with all the answers.”
I vaguely remember trying to go back and read that after aquainting myself with Rands philosophy and realizesing that Mrs.O’hair only had one thing right:
A god doesnt exist. Or at the very least is not within our capablity of Knowing, and further speculation is irellevant, its like looking for unicorns on mars, why assume first when we should go and see then determine it? Any ways, what did she use to determine this? The exact same thing Rand uses to build her understanding of the world, and her system, that you use 1/2 the time, and every person I would hope in this forum uses to formulate answers:
Reason.

Yes yes, everyone uses reason to some degree. It’s only that you Objectivists, like Theists, can’t seem to be able to use reason to look at your own philosophy. It’s called introspection and because of your dogmatic and cyclical view on reason (Objectivism flows from reason and the only reasonable thing is Objectivism, hence if you criticize Objectivism, you’re not reasonable etc..), you have a very effective way of both mentally lobotomising yourselves and ignoring critical arguments.

And with this, the LULZ are over I’m afraid. All said, this little comment did give me something to write on a slow day and I’m certain it might keep me busy in the days to come.

Be sure to visit the original thread where Mark C is in the process of beating him into a pulp as well. I only hope more of these Objectivists come here to stun me with their amazing quotes from Rand.

Now that I said quotes; has any Objectivist after Rand actually made any new quotes? Are they too unworthy to be mentioned or is it that the rest of the cult is going to just dismember the heretic who dares to consider herself quote worthy? Just curious…

Definition of Agnosticism

Db03 Comments

So my recent verbal spar with the Socratic Gadfly moves on. It seems that due to the linkbacks I made to Austin Cline and Adrian Hayter, they were apparently curious enough to see what the post was about and ended up defending my position on Gadfly’s blog (appreciated).
This in turn triggered him to contact me via email and also write about it on his second blog.

During our email conversations, Gadfly did have a more amiable attitude (albeit a bit condescending occasionaly) and we managed to have some progress in finding out exactly what the gist of our disagreement is. In turns out that it is a simple definition issue on the word “Agnosticism” and I will attempt in this post to explain.

Now, I guess the secod post of his was written while tempers were still high and this is why the language is still a bit strong.  Since I have been unbanninated already, I think there’s no point in feeding the flames any more so I’ll keep a more respectful tone.

Gadfly maintains that Agnosticism cannot be logicaly combined with theism. Indeed, by looking at some of the analogies he made on email:

“Agnostic theism” is like “Democratic Republicanism” and “theistic agnosticism” is like “Republican Democratism.” (Allow the neologism for the noun parallel.)

It is obvious that for him an agnostic theist is an oxymoron.

As I mentioned in the previous post. The etymological meaning of the word is “Without Knowledge”. Agnosticism however does not define what you do not have any knowledge about but it is commonly understood that it is about deities. One could very well argue that he is agnostic about abiogenesis or the creation of the universe and that would be a perfectly acceptable phrase.

As pertaining to theism however, agnosticism can easily take one of two common definitions.

  • One can be agnostic about the existence of god(s). This classifies them as Agnostic Atheists. The defining quote would be “I don’t know if gods exist“
  • One can be agnostic about the nature of god(s). This classifies them as Agnostic Theists and the defining quote would be “I don’t know what or which gods exist“.

The difference is small but significant. On both of these definitions, one could even apply various scales of knowledge. Thus an agnostic atheists can verge closer to atheism with “I don’t know if gods exist but there is no reason to believe that they do” and an agnostic theist can approach a religion “I believe the Christian god exists but I don’t know his exact nature (and thus follow no denomination)” – an Agnostic Christian (The group I think most liberal Christians really belong to).

Due to the open nature of the word “Agnostic”, many people default it to either of the two cases described above. In my personal experience, I’ve had far more people who thought of “Agnostic Theist” when hearing “Agnostic” – which is, incidentally, why I started calling myself simply Atheist in the end. This is also why in the article that triggered this approximately half the agnostics go either way.

And this is where I believe Gadfly is wrong. He defaults to “Agnostic Atheist” but he then takes it a step further and asserts that his take on it is the correct one (and gets annoyed that others use it differently).
This is what I have been trying to explain via email but we seem to have reached the “Agree to dissagree” point.

The thing is, at the end of the day, what matters is that we know what we are talking about. It does not matter a bit if we call someone as “Agnostic Atheist”, “Agnostic”, “Fideist” or even “Purple Banana” as long as we are understanding the same thing. It is a fact that just “Agnostic” can mean different things to different people. And by definition, these people are correct.

All we can do when uncertain is simply ask: “Theistic or Atheistic?”. It’s certainly no reason to get upset about.