Month: December 2014

Pointless Existence

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I’ll just start with my thesis: the only rational and consistent outlook of materialist atheism (hereafter referred to simply as atheism for brevity) is that life is pointless. Believing otherwise inevitably involves some degree of delusion or distraction.

I suppose them fightin’ words need support. First, I would point out the following. I will die. You will die. Everyone we know, helped, or hurt will die. Everything we ever accomplished will disappear. The earth will cease to support life. The sun will go supernova. And eventually the ultimate heat death of the universe will occur, beyond which nothing will ever occur again (at least in this universe, but let’s leave out multiverse theory). In that context, how can anything matter?

The most common response I hear is that you create your own purpose, sometimes followed by quotes from existentialist philosophers. Within an atheistic point of view, that sounds like the equivalent of saying ‘I will believe in stories that give my life purpose or distract me from my inevitable and permanent non-existence,’ which should appear disturbingly similar to the purpose of religion as understood by many atheists.

Furthermore, saying you create your own purpose seems like saying that Sisyphus would’ve had a purpose if the gods had attached a rolling-counter to his boulder to keep him occupied. SMBC wrote a comic to that effect.

meaning of life 2

Sisyphus could have attached any personal purpose imaginable to his existence, and we would still say his existence is pointless because it has no final point or purpose. The boulder goes up the hill, and then it goes down, leaving Sisyphus with a net nothing. We expect to meet the same fate under an atheistic point of view. We spend our existence pushing our boulder of accomplishments up the hill of life, and whether in a few decades, a century, or a millennium, that boulder will come right back to where it started. We will be forgotten, and everything and everyone we influenced will cease to exist. We ultimately did it all for no objective purpose.

The next response is usually that my opinion doesn’t really count since I’m not an atheist. I would bring up that I was an atheist, and this question mattered to me, but I think it’s more effective to point that this isn’t my opinion originally. It’s the opinion of many atheist and agnostic thinkers throughout history. For example, the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy notes about Albert Camus that:

Camus sees this question of suicide as a natural response to an underlying premise, namely that life is absurd in a variety of ways. As we have seen, both the presence and absence of life (i.e., death) give rise to the condition: it is absurd to continually seek meaning in life when there is none, and it is absurd to hope for some form of continued existence after death given that the latter results in our extinction.

Leo Tolstoy searched for meaning in life and ultimately found none within a material framework, bringing him to the edge of suicide before his conversion to Christianity. He wrote in his book Confessions:

I sought in all the sciences, but far from finding what I wanted, became convinced that all who like myself had sought in knowledge for the meaning of life had found nothing. And not only had they found nothing, but they had plainly acknowledged that the very thing which made me despair–namely the senselessness of life–is the one indubitable thing man can know.

…

My question–that which at the age of fifty brought me to the verge of suicide–was the simplest of questions, lying in the soul of every man from the foolish child to the wisest elder: it was a question without an answer to which one cannot live, as I had found by experience. It was: “What will come of what I am doing today or shall do tomorrow? What will come of my whole life?”

Differently expressed, the question is: “Why should I live, why wish for anything, or do anything?” It can also be expressed thus: “Is there any meaning in my life that the inevitable death awaiting me does not destroy?”

Somerset Maugham, a famous 20th century writer and agnostic, stated:

If one puts aside the existence of God and the survival after life as too doubtful . . . one has to make up one’s mind as to the use of life. If death ends it all, if I have neither to hope for good nor to fear evil, I must ask myself what I am here for, and how in these circumstances I must conduct myself. Now the answer is plain, but so unpalatable that most will not face it. There is no meaning for life, and life has no meaning.

Personally, my favorite answer comes from Hume. In the face of life’s inevitable end, Hume recommended the very modern solution of distraction:

Where am I, or what? From what causes do I derive my existence, and to what condition shall I return? … I am confounded with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself in the most deplorable condition imaginable, environed with the deepest darkness, and utterly deprived of the use of every member and faculty.

Most fortunately it happens, that since Reason is incapable of dispelling these clouds, Nature herself suffices to that purpose, and cures me of this philosophical melancholy and delirium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by some avocation, and lively impression of my senses, which obliterate all these chimeras. I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse, and am merry with my friends. And when, after three or four hours’ amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any farther.

Which I would wager is the most common answer today. I suppose every person feels like they live in an age of unparalleled distraction, but I truly believe that the amount of distraction available to human beings today is greater than almost any period of history. In that context, nobody really needs to bother with whether life has meaning or not.

meaning of life

A brave new world indeed.

Mostly, I write this post as a call for consistency and rationality. I came of age in an atheism that espoused facing the truth, no matter how bleak. Here is the truth. Under an atheistic point of view, life has no objective meaning, so the the options are making up your own (unprovable) story, finding sufficient distraction until you die, or nihilism. Or as my friend Reece succinctly put it:

In my mind, there are really only two kinds of atheists.  There is make-believe pretend atheism, and then there is nihilism.

Ultimately, we won’t know until we’re dead who is right. However, we can know in this life who lives consistently with what they believe.

Why I Like Oaths

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Solemn oaths today seem to strike people as some combination of quaint, naive, and constricting. They’re the kind of thing for a person long on overactive imagination and short on worldly experience. But personally, I like them very much. I find them to be an excellent vehicle for holding myself accountable. I also like them because I think there’s something inherently weaselly about human nature. If we don’t swear to something, we’re more likely later to revise our personal narrative to fit what we ended up doing. True, one can always re-interpret the oath, but that act should be, to a a person at very least trying to be honest, a sign he or she has gone astray.

Most importantly, I like that a good oath has specific points you can either uphold or fail to uphold, and again to anyone at least trying to uphold their word, success or failure will be apparent. For example, I’m very fond of the oath of the Knights of the Round Table from Le Morte D’Arthur (updated from Middle English to modern English):

This is the oath of a Knight of King Arth[u]r’s Round Table and should be for all of us to take to heart. I will develop my life for the greater good. I will place character above riches, and concern for others above personal wealth, I will never boast, but cherish humility instead, I will speak the truth at all times, and forever keep my word, I will defend those who cannot defend themselves, I will honor and respect women, and refute sexism in all its guises, I will uphold justice by being fair to all, I will be faithful in love and loyal in friendship, I will abhor scandals and gossip-neither partake nor delight in them, I will be generous to the poor and to those who need help, I will forgive when asked, that my own mistakes will be forgiven, I will live my life with courtesy and honor from this day forward.

So I can ask myself: Have I developed my life for the greater good, or have I spent my time playing video games and drinking beer? Have I placed character and charity above riches, or have I sought wealth before character and concern for others?  Do I say or think unfair things about women? Do I boast? Do I gossip? Do I forgive?

That’s a really hard list. Beer and distraction are way more fun than personal improvement. Money buys me beer and makes me feel comfortable. Sexist thoughts and comments about women are tempting. And it feels like a week let alone a day doesn’t go by without some temptation to boasting or gossiping. But I really, really like trying to hold myself to this standard because it makes me aware of the things I do that might not be right or just and would go unnoticed by myself if I didn’t actively pay attention.

The Beatitudes aren’t really an oath, but they’re similarly structured in a way that you can evaluate yourself:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 Blessed are they who mourn,
    for they will be comforted.
5 Blessed are the meek,
    for they will inherit the land.
6 Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
    for they will be satisfied.
7 Blessed are the merciful,
    for they will be shown mercy.
8 Blessed are the clean of heart,
    for they will see God.
9 Blessed are the peacemakers,
    for they will be called children of God.
10 Blessed are they who are persecuted for the sake of righteousness,
    for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

11 Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you [falsely] because of me. 12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward will be great in heaven. Thus they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

The wording isn’t entirely concrete, but I think it’s clear enough. Have I been poor in spirit? Meek? Merciful? Clean of heart? Have I sought peace and reconciliation wherever possible? These are prime metrics by which I may judge whether I have walked rightly or not if I have the integrity to evaluate myself impartially, and again, they ask a great amount. Being meek and clean of heart is a continuous struggle. Peace and reconciliation are often far from our thoughts.

Lastly, I like oaths because they are a commitment to faithfulness and call to action. I took an oath upon my confirmation in the Catholic Church at 23:

For “by the sacrament of Confirmation, [the baptized] are more perfectly bound to the Church and are enriched with a special strength of the Holy Spirit. Hence they are, as true witnesses of Christ, more strictly obliged to spread and defend the faith by word and deed.”

I have given God my word that I will uphold and defend the faith by word and deed. If I go back on that word, I will know that I am a liar and traitor for all of my life.

betrayers and mutineers

And that fact applies to everything I do. When I fail to live as Christ taught, in the Beatitudes and elsewhere, I fail to live by my oath. I bring disrepute upon the Church and the greater Christian communion. The only answer then, if I am to be faithful to my word, is to continually bring my life closer to the life of Him whom I have sworn to serve.

How to Respond to Terrorism with Love

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Earlier this morning, a tense standoff in Australia ended in gunfire. A single hostage-taker initially held 17 hostages, of whom 12 had been released. When police heard gunfire inside the building, they responded immediately. The hostage taker and two hostages are dead. Three people are injured, including one police officer. All this info comes from an ABC News article, which also includes an apparent connection to radical Islam:

Two people inside the cafe were seen holding up a flag with Arabic writing on it that has been used by extremists in the past — raising fears that a terror attack was unfolding in Australia’s largest city.

Also this morning, I found an article with the headline: Australians Just Showed the World Exactly How to Respond to Terrorism With #IllRideWithYou. The article describes the origins of the #IllRideWithYou hashtag in which Australians are volunteering to accompany Muslims who wish to wear their religious clothes (e.g. hijab) on public transportation but are afraid of animosity or retaliation in the wake of the hostage crisis. The pictures–and the sentiment behind them–are noble and touching.

2014-12-15 I'll Walk With You
Read the bottom one first.

I agree with the idea of #IllRideWithYou. Even if you take–simply for the sake of argument–the strong and controversial position that the scripture or theology of Islam tend towards violence, it does not follow that all Muslims are violent. So, even in this extreme case, the correct response to peaceful, law-abiding Muslims is support and compassion.

But I do not agree with the headline. This is not the one true correct way to respond to terrorism. There are two correct responses. #IllRideWithYou is one half. Here’s what the other half looks like:

2014-1215-AP-Australia-Police-Operation

That photo[ref]from coverage at USA Today[/ref] shows one of the hostages running into the arms of a police officer moments after escaping the chocolate store through a side entrance. As lovely, as beautiful, and as necessary as the compassionate outreach of Australian commuters may be, none of that was what you would have been praying for if you were a hostage or had a family member held hostage in that store. There is also bravery and even love in the willingness to use violence–and be subject to the threat of violence–in lawful defense of the innocent.

A courageous and just society needs both of these responses. Not just one or the other.

This fits very nicely with Walker’s post from earlier today. He pointed out an article by Hernando de Soto in the WSJ arguing that–in the long run–you overcome terrorism not just with dronestrikes but also with economic development that gives people a better life.[ref]Walker and I wrote about this connection between love and economics for the journal SquareTwo: “No Poor Among Them”: Global Poverty, Free Markets, and the “Fourfold” Mission[/ref] As coldly calculating as the discipline of economics and the emphasis on free markets may appear, a focus on economic liberty and investment and development is really nothing but a sincere and informed desire for other humans to prosper and draw closer to us in webs of trade, communication, mutual interest, and interdependence.

Love of fellow man doesn’t always look like what we expect it to. Sometimes it comes in the form of sympathetic hashtags. Sometimes it wears body armor and wields automatic weapons. And sometimes it spouts statistics, theories, and economic jargon. We need to broaden our concept of what it means to love if we are to love as expansively as these dark times require of us.

 

The Capitalist Cure for Terrorism

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As the U.S. moves into a new theater of the war on terror, it will miss its best chance to beat back Islamic State and other radical groups in the Middle East if it doesn’t deploy a crucial but little-used weapon: an aggressive agenda for economic empowerment. Right now, all we hear about are airstrikes and military maneuvers—which is to be expected when facing down thugs bent on mayhem and destruction.

But if the goal is not only to degrade what President Barack Obama rightly calls Islamic State’s “network of death” but to make it impossible for radical leaders to recruit terrorists in the first place, the West must learn a simple lesson: Economic hope is the only way to win the battle for the constituencies on which terrorist groups feed.

So begins Hernando de Soto’s WSJ piece on economic freedom as a way to combat terrorism. He tells the fascinating story of his home country Peru and how it defeated the terrorist group Shining Path through a “new, more accessible legal framework in which to run businesses, make contracts and borrow—spurring an unprecedented rise in living standards.”

Worth the read.

Inequality in Non-Cognitive Traits

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A recent publication by the Chicago Fed looks at skill gaps in numeracy, literacy, problem-solving, and non-cognitive skills and their relation to income mobility. Perhaps surprisingly (perhaps not), the author found

that inequality in an index of “non-cognitive skills” explains as much or more of the variation in intergenerational mobility than inequality in traditional measures of cognitive skills such as numeracy, literacy, and problem solving. An emerging line of research has argued that personality traits such as perseverance and grit play an important role in socioeconomic success. These results are consistent with the idea that the large gaps in skills in the U.S. population are part of what is driving both higher inequality and lower intergenerational mobility.

Check it out.

Alternatives to Torture

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Intelligence agencies are not filled with moral philosophers by any means. Cheating and deception kind of go with the territory. The recent report on the CIA’s use of terror has raised two questions. First, is torture moral. Second, is torture effective. The first question is very easy to answer. Torture is not moral. The second question, to my mind, has more far-reaching implications. Basically, if torture is not effective, then one has cruelly abused another human being for nothing. It can be defended neither on moral grounds, nor on those derived from expediency. If a deed is ugly but must be done, that is one thing. If it is ugly and pointless, then it is completely reprehensible. Ultimately, the goal of an interrogation is to gain correct and useful information. This might seem counterintuitive when dealing with terrorists, but treating the person under interrogation softly and kindly will actually lead to better results than anything extracted by torture. There is an interesting article on two of the most successful interrogators of the Second World War. Hans Joachim Scharff and Sherwood Ford Moran came from different backgrounds, were on different sides, and faced different conditions for interrogation. Neither ever resorted to torture or other forms of coercion. Scharff created an easy-going atmosphere for captured aviators when they were expecting to be brutally tortured. Scharff cared for his prisoners’ well-being, and upheld an illusion of knowing everything, so none of his prisoners thought that they had given away important information even when they had. Moran, too, genuinely cared for the well-being of his Japanese prisoners. If they were hungry, they got fed well. If they were wounded, they got good medical treatment. Because of this, they saw Moran as someone who cared, rather than a personal enemy Moran needed to be direct with his questions because he was on the front lines, but having lived in Japan as a missionary, he knew Japan and the Japanese intimately. When he couldn’t make a prisoner relax enough to talk, he would use the Japanese concept of honor to make the prisoner feel ashamed for his behavior. Both Scharff and Moran were able to piece together the big picture out of seemingly small, inconsequential details. Modern interrogators will face different circumstances, but employing a similar approach they can get good results without the need for torture. Treat your prisoners as human beings, understand their culture and language, and get them talking. Simple enough, really.

Learning from history what works—and what does not—can make a world of difference in terms of future interrogation practices.

Sauron and the Metaphysical Moscow

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A friend of mine from Moscow has been posting for several days about a cool event scheduled for December 11th. The Eye of Sauron was going to appear on a tower in the Moscow-City business center. It would have been huge, and very prominent. Well, Svecheniye- the art group behind the project- have just announced that they are scrapping the whole thing. They stated that there was nothing political or religious about their Eye of Sauron project, but they received intensely adverse reactions. While the Russian article I read did not specify who pressured Svecheniye, it seemed pretty obvious. Several news articles have been more explicit.  The Russian Orthodox Church strenuously objected to prominently displaying a “demonic symbol of the triumph of evil” in Moscow because it would bring disasters upon the city. For the Russian Orthodox Church, Moscow is a profoundly holy city, the Third Rome. As an Estonian scholar noted, it is crucial to that church’s self-identity.

Moscow is not only the most important city but it is chosen by God and in a way set apart from other places on the earth. Moscow has a special religious function. It is the Christian centre. It is in some way closer to God. But that is not all… Moscow is the Third Rome and “the third stands, and there will never be a fourth.“ Moscow is the last Rome. Moscow was the centre of history and therefore its fulfilment. This means that Russia had to preserve its rich store of faith in purity in the last phase before the end of the world. And this fact puts a heavy responsibility on the shoulders of the Russians.

With this kind of metaphysics, the Tolkien fans never stood a chance. Never mind that Sauron symbolizes the hubris and ultimate futility of evil, not its triumph. The political power of the Russian Orthodox Church means that it can win these battles quite easily.

Hypersensitivity and Trolls: A Codependent Dysfunction

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2014-12-08 Troll-No-PowersHypersensitivity is a pernicious way to win a debate: if you can brand an argument as offensive/harmful, then you never have to respond it. Trolling is a destructive response to that tactic: provoking more and more outrage undermines the credibility of your opponent. These are, I think, the twin central dysfunctions of political debate today, and that’s what I decided to write about for Times and Seasons this morning.

Household Demographics

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I’ve relied on economist Mark Perry before regarding inequality and demographics. Not much has changed since last year. As Perry summarizes,

Specifically, high-income households have a greater average number of income-earners than households in lower-income quintiles, and individuals in high income households are far more likely than individuals in low-income households to be well-educated, married, working full-time, and in their prime earning years. In contrast, individuals in lower-income households are far more likely than their counterparts in higher-income households to be less-educated, working part-time, either very young (under 35 years) or very old (over 65 years), and living in single-parent households.

The good news is that the key demographic factors that explain differences in household income are not fixed over our lifetimes and are largely under our control (e.g. staying in school and graduating, getting and staying married, etc.), which means that individuals and households are not destined to remain in a single income quintile forever. Fortunately, studies that track people over time indicate that individuals and households move up and down the income quintiles over their lifetimes, as the key demographic variables highlighted above change…

See Perry’s post for a more in-depth look at the numbers.

 

Moral Foundations and Irritating Social Liberals

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2014-12-04 no-relation

Believe it or not, I am not the one irritating anyone this time. Nope, it’s Damon Linker, who is himself a social liberal. But he frustrated his compatriots with a recent article about moral libertarianism. Linker traced the origins of moral libertarianism to Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy claim, in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, that “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, of the mystery of human life.” As Linker writes:

Justice Antonin Scalia recognized immediately that such a libertarian principle created serious problems for morals legislation of any kind. In his Casey dissent, he pointed out that the principle would seem to make laws against bigamy unconstitutional.

Scalia has been proved right again and again as morality-based laws have fallen beneath the scythe of Kennedy’s moral libertarianism which boils down to one simple precept: if it’s not hurting anyone then it should be legal. Sound familiar? It should. Because it’s becoming the dominant moral-legal view of our entire society, which is Linker’s whole point. And then Linker did the truly unthinkable: he suggested that this brave new future of maximal moral permissiveness might not be 100% good. That’s where he angered his fellow social liberals, and it prompted today’s article: No, I’m not the Rick Santorum of punditry.[ref]Hence the pic above, which comes from this article.[/ref]

To his credit, Linker doesn’t back down.

As social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has shown (and as I’ve written about before), liberals tend to focus on two aspects of moral experience: care for and avoidance of harm toward others, and a concern for egalitarian fairness and hostility to cheating. As for more hierarchical or aspirational moral ideals — loyalty/betrayal, authority/subversion, and sanctity/degradation — those matter much less to liberals. Conservatives, by contrast, express concern about all five moral categories, with religiously oriented conservatives placing special emphasis on striving for moral sanctity or purity.[ref]Haidt has revised his theory to include 6 foundations, but the basic observation is correct.[/ref]

When I write about our moral qualms (or rather, our increasing lack of moral qualms) about homosexuality, polyandry, porn, consensual brother-sister incest, and bestiality, I’m focusing on a dimension of morality that liberals are both relatively uninterested in and often positively uncomfortable with… I sound an awful lot like a conservative… But the suspicion that I’m covertly on the religious right’s payroll goes beyond my mere discussion of such topics… I may strive for a dispassionate tone in my writing about moral trends, but it’s possible to detect a degree of discomfort as well. When I ask what my readers would do if their daughters began to work in porn, or raise the question of whether there are any legal grounds for outlawing consensual brother-sister incest, or wonder if it’s okay for a human being to engage in sexual relations with a horse, I sometimes sound troubled, disturbed, agitated.

Am I?

Yes. And you know what else? I suspect that many liberals are, too, though they’re loathe to admit it in public, and perhaps, in many cases, even to themselves.

It’s great that an outspoken liberal like Linker is willing to point this out. But it’s also sad that he’s one of the very few willing to do so, and will be largely ignored. That’s true despite the fact that, like Linker, I believe that “many liberals” privately share his concerns. But, unlike Linker, they have neither the inclination nor the shield to be willing to speak up about their concerns.[ref]When you write a book like The Theocons: Secular America Under Siege you buy yourself some wiggle room.[/ref] So: good for Linker. But my applause is significantly dampened by the ominously rigid ideological conformity on such an important issue. When everyone knows something is wrong and almost no one is brave enough to say so, you start to see the real power of the New Intolerance.