dwnomad

My college buddy Jered, who’ve I’ve spent several posts on responding to, in one of the comments he recently left used the appeal to consequences logical fallacy. These are often rooted in eschatology, his in the Adventist variety. Before I jump into it, let’s look at the more standard one.

If you reject God you’ll burn in hell for all eternity. This is clearly fallacious because it provides no evidence for either the consequence or the conclusion. Someone who doesn’t believe in God would also not believe in a hell, so the statement is at best meaningless and at worst insulting and infuriating.

Adventists don’t believe in a hell of eternal torment and suffering. Instead they believe that when you die you rot in the ground until one of two resurrections, if you’re in the second one you then face judgment and annihilation. So from that mindset if I’m right I’ll rot in the ground once and if I’m wrong I’ll rot in the ground twice. Since that’s not a very significant consequence to appeal to, Adventists also have to appeal to emotion, namely pride. Jered said it well, so I’ll just quote him:

I know you don’t believe this scenario. However, in the event that this scenario happens, think about how your chosen worldview sets you up for the fall. Since empirical evidence–the sight of your eyes, etc., is what you will always go with, there’s nothing to keep you from being broadsided by the overwhelming deception that will sweep this planet. You can’t deny that there is both incredible good and evil here on Earth. When the Arch-Enemy makes his appearance, masquerading as God, (in whatever forms different people believe to be God, naturally) you will go for it, because he will have power to do incredible ‘emprical’ (sp) things. Healing, bringing down fire, etc. etc.

This tactic’s only chance of working is by suggesting you might be wrong and that empiricism is the very thing that would cause even greater deception. That appeals to nothing but pride and in a very insulting way. Skeptics aren’t afraid of being wrong, at least not good skeptics anyway. By being wrong you have the chance to learn from your mistake and to be more right. That should be what every skeptic always hopes for, always becoming less wrong about things.

Only one non-hypothetical assertion is made in this statement, and that is “that there is both incredible good and evil here on Earth.” However, due to the vagueness of the statement I have to disagree with it. Those aren’t random forces floating around the ether (or even an ether to begin with) and there’s no evidence that there are unseen agents behind them. What we do have evidence for is that there are people who are generally ethical, people who are ethically dubious, and there are people who are clearly unethical. The only time there is great good or great evil is when there is a great person (as in a lot of power) who is either good or evil.

Aside from that, if the “Arch-Enemy” were to appear, I would be quite curious as to how he conjured his tricks. My assumption would likely be that he was an alien from another world with highly advanced technology since in sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic and advanced technology is significantly more probable than than said magic.

As much fun as this exercise is, there is no evidence that this scenario would ever happen. It is nothing more than an appeal to consequences and a logical fallacy.

Oh, and what if religion is the overwhelming deception that has already swept the planet?

It was a slow week for news, but here’s what we’ve got:

The European Space Agency has made contact with the Russian Phobos-Grunt Mars probe. Unfortunately the window to get to Mars has passed, so even if they can salvage the mission it would have to be sent to something like a near earth asteroid. (New Scientist) In the meantime the Russian president is threatening heavy finds or criminal penalties for this and other recent failures. (Fox News)

The US Navy has now successfully launched a F-35C using the new EMALS magnetic catapult. This is the system that is being designed for the USS Gerald R. Ford and the Ford class of carriers and will replace the steam catapult that’s been standard for 50 years. (CNET News)

A new archaeological find in East Timor includes tuna, a deep sea dweller, and a fish hook created out of a shell. The oldest bones are 42,000 years old and the hook is from between 16,000 and 23,000 years ago. Before this the earliest evidence of human deep sea fishing and the use of hooks or speaks was from 12,000 years ago. (New Scientist)

The American Curiosity Mars rover will be using a nuclear generator, developed by the Idaho National Laboratory, instead of the more traditional solar. This is due to the large size of the rover and the desire to have more continuous power for more flexible use of the rover. The article also has a pretty cool description of how it works. (CNET News)

A contact lens has been tested on a rabbit that contained a one pixel display and a 5mm long antenna. Unfortunately when the lens was in place in the eye, and impacted by fluids, the range for the remote power source dropped from one meter to 2 centimeters. As awesome as this technology is it’s making my eyes itch. (New Scientist)

This story is just too good to pass up. The Mullets are in trouble.

Samuel Mullet Sr., the leader of a conservative Amish sect in Ohio, and six of his followers have been arrested by the FBI. They kept their own members inline by beating members, forcing them to sleep in the chicken coop, and sexual “cleansing” rituals. As far as the other Amish who took a less orthodox approach they have been shaving off their beards.

As Amish men are required to stop shaving once they get married, to be shaved would be a horrific dishonor, so in response the seven men, four of which are have the last name of Mullet, are being charged with hate crimes.

As someone who appreciates facial hair and has had a beard from time to time I find the idea of being forced to have one offensive, but it’s not anywhere near as bad as having one forcibly removing it. I also find it quite ironic that the Mullets are giving people dishonorable hair cuts…

(Thanks to Wesley for the link)

Seventy-seven-year-old William Casey, a former Catholic priest has been convicted of raping an alter boy, something he did to the poor young man for two years. He’s been sentenced to 35-40 years and will likely be spending the rest of his life behind bars. Now, if only they could lock up all the current pedophile priests.

(Thanks to Wesley for the link)

In the finest tradition of the Roman Catholic Church,* it’s come out that they’ve been in the porn business, well sort of. This was in Germany and they owned a publisher who’s catalog included 2500 erotic novels. It may be surprising, but there’s no reason to suspect that there was anything inappropriate about the stories, you know, nothing a Catholic priest would find interesting.

They’ve yanked the spicy titles and now seek to distance themselves as quickly as possible by selling their entire 100% stake in the company.

Assuming there’s any validity to this purely fabricated and awesome graph, I would assume the reasons it starts ticking up for nerds are becoming free from religion, discovering Linux, making more money than the jocks that used to bully them, and finally reaching the point where women like dating nice guys and men aren’t afraid of women who can kick their ass at video games.

(Via SMBC)

This video is from “All in the Family,” a sitcom from the 1970s. It predates me, enough so that I think this clip is the most of it I’ve seen. I’m sure just about all of us can relate to at least part of this…

Isn’t family wonderful?

(Via Greta Christina)

There are many things to be thankful for this year. I’m thank my parents for lovingly accept their children in spite of us being wayward in their eyes. I want to thank the awesome atheist/skeptic/humanist community I’ve found here in Boise for welcoming me. Thank you, my awesome (although quiet) blog readers for giving me an audience for whom to write this blog. And last but not least, I am glad that I’m free to enjoy a glass of Champagne and a fine cigar today.

This is some pretty awesome science in action. The presence of salt changes the freezing point of water, so it would be no wonder that when it starts to freeze that it would create regions of differing salinity.

You can read more about this video and how they filmed it here.

(Thanks to ~pickles for the link.)

The Fellowship of Freethought in Dallas interviewed people at Skepticon about what their thankful for check out the video:

Now I hate to be buzz kill, but I have to ask, thankful to who or what?

PZ Myers hit the nail on the head by objecting to the question. He’s glad he has a good life and that’s probably the most honest and accurate answer out there. Passive language implies that a divine force is behind it. The traditional language of Thanksgiving similarly implies the divine. For a believer to say “I’m thankful for my family” that really means “I thank God for putting me in my family.” For an atheist to say the same would mean what?

A few people, including David Silverman got the language right or at least close enough.

Since we’ll probably all be asked what we’re thankful for tomorrow here’s how atheists can more accurately and better express their thanksgiving sentiments:

Instead of “I’m thankful for my friends and family,” say “I thank my friends and family for being so loving, supportive, etc.”

Instead of “I’m thankful for science,” say “I want to thank scientists for the discoveries they bring us.”

Instead of “I’m thankful for the groups that protect the separation of church and state,” say “I want to thank the activists that are fighting to keep church and state separate, oh, and while we’re at we should all join their organizations or send them money.”

Thanks to Dr. Zach for the link.