Heaving Dead Cats » knowledge

Answering Paul’s Questions

Neece — Wed, 23 Dec 2009 02:34:55 +0000

A person named Paul commented on HDC on GMNightmare’s deconversion story and I thought they were interesting questions. Both Johnny and GMNightmare already gave long answers, also worth noting, instead of letting it get lost in comments. And I added my 2 cents on at the bottom.

Here is Paul’s comment:

I have a couple of questions that I would like answered, and you seem like the type to answer questions. First of all, what are your thoughts on supernatural phenomena (weird stuff people claim happens, i.e., someone’s ear being cut off, and growing back on)? Is it all just a big hoax?

Secondly, I know that evolution details how the earth came to it’s present state, and the big bang, (do they still call it that?) started all that, but what could have caused the big bang? And how did whatever caused the big bang come into existence? As far as I know, science clearly states that nothing can be infinite, and all things have an end and a beginning. So, if nothing is infinite, than how did the universe get started? Wouldn’t something had to have caused time to exist first, something that wasn’t governed by time, and so couldn’t even be described by adjectives like infinite?

I just have these questions, and no one can really answer them, except with some lame thing like “It just goes on and on”. And what does happen when we die? I know our bodies clearly decompose, we can see that much easily.

But what about our consciousness? It seems to me that consciousness is somewhat of a mystery in and of itself. Scientists can make a body, and they can put blood and oxygen in it, but yet they can’t make it live? So, if a consciousness isn’t something like a body, something that decomposes, what happens when the consciousness dies? Does it really just cease to exist? I can’t even imagine not existing. It just seems so foreign, to not exist.

Lastly, I don’t really get the term “gnostic atheist”. From what I’ve read, gnostics claim to “know” something, that other people don’t. So, if you’re a gnostic atheist, does that just mean that you “know” hands down, that there is not, and has never been, any kind of god?

First, here is Johnny’s reply:

I’m sure GMN will have a response; but I just feel the desire to chime in.

First of all, what are your thoughts on supernatural phenomena (weird stuff people claim happens, i.e., someone’s ear being cut off, and growing back on)? Is it all just a big hoax?

Do you have an actual documented example of something you would consider supernatural phenomena? Unless there is documented studies, physical evidence, or repeatable through scientific testing – its pretty much a big hoax.

Secondly, I know that evolution details how the earth came to it’s present state, and the big bang, (do they still call it that?) started all that, but what could have caused the big bang?

Huge misconception here. Evolution DOES NOT explain the Big Bang and/or Abiogenesis — here’s a post with three short videos to help understand the difference.

And how did whatever caused the big bang come into existence? As far as I know, science clearly states that nothing can be infinite, and all things have an end and a beginning. So, if nothing is infinite, than how did the universe get started? Wouldn’t something had to have caused time to exist first, something that wasn’t governed by time, and so couldn’t even be described by adjectives like infinite?

Science does not know all the details of the Big Bang and the singularity; but we know more and more all the time. Instead of assigning supernatural properties to it, science continues to seek answers; science knows it doesn’t have all the answers, but is doing everything possible to answer as many questions as it can.

And what does happen when we die? I know our bodies clearly decompose, we can see that much easily. But what about our consciousness?

We don’t know. But all evidence indicates that nothing happens. Consciousness ceases to exist when the brain dies. We have no evidence of something ‘on the other side’ – no one has come back to tell us or prove to us that ‘the other side’ exists. Thus the easiest, and most logical explanation is that there is no ‘other side.’

And here is GMNightmare’s reply:

Ah, now that is a respectful post. Thank you. I’ve actually been meaning to rewrite my article to make it a little less aggressive and explain some more, so answering your questions will help guide that.

Q.1) Supernatural phenomena

I’ll cover aspects of ghosts and such first. Most of these, mysterious circumstances are just that, mysterious. People are quick to jump to conclusions, that this weird thing they couldn’t explain must be a ghost. Quite often than not, it’s just their mind jumping to conclusions, natural instincts (*mind speak* hey hey, I heard a noise, something might be there that could eat us and it’s dark and I can’t see very well, run!) If you don’t know what caused it, you can’t then claim it to be a ghost did it. I mean, it was just claimed you don’t know!

And now we’ll cover medical miracles. I have never seen evidence of one. Many people like to claim, oh, they survived a deadly disease it’s a miracle, but that makes no sense. Some people do make it past deadly diseases, by coincidence or luck. There are always survivors, people do survive cancer naturally to a small percentage. Being in that small percentage is nothing magical.

And what about all the people who didn’t? Does god just choose who he wants to save from illness if this is what really happened? Here’s the real question in regard to this: why won’t god heal amputees? There has never been a case of an amputee being healed, now that would be a real miracle. There is a whole website completely devoted to that question, just type it into google.

Q.2) Evolution

I want to quickly say something over this, just in case we have a misconception here. Evolution only says what is happening to life, it doesn’t explain how life originated. Abiogenesis and other theories like that cover how life originated from chemical cocktails.

Now I’m going to jumble up your questions a bit to make them easier to answer, they build upon one another.

Q.3) “Science cleary states that nothing can be infinite, and all things have a beginning”

I’m sorry to say, but science does not say that. Okay, I’m not really sorry, but nowhere does science actually say that. Now I’m going to cover some advanced thinking here, so try to stay with me here:

Space is infinite? No. Although it’s commonly said to, what is space? Nothing. Space = nothing, you can’t have infinite of something that doesn’t exist. And this brings us to what is really said:
There is a finite amount of energy in the universe. There is a finite amount of stuff, in an unbound container. god breaks this, as god isn’t nothing, he must be stuff, and it’s claimed he is everywhere in the unbound container.

Yeah, that unbound container can be a tricky concept. But truthfully, we really don’t know if it’s unbound or not, because we haven’t been there… Does space somehow bend back into itself? We really don’t know. Yeah, it can be hard to fathom that space can just continue on forever, but it’s ridiculous to say that some magical being exists everywhere (doesn’t that just make it worse?)

And, energy does not have a beginning. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed. This is one of the primary laws of the universe. It may change forms, but it’ll always be there and can be assumed following all evidence always has. Now we’re going to use this in the following questions…

Q.4) Causer of the Big Bang

The cause of the Big Bang was a bunch of energy, compressed greatly. The energy then went kabooie and expanded out. That’s what caused it, the energy that as I had said, is naturally believed to have always existed and always will.

Beyond that, we do not really know. Using the above knowledge, we could say it has just always liked to repeat the course, but can we ever be 100% sure? Not really.

But remember what I said about supernatural occurrences with ghosts? Claiming we don’t know, then saying god did it… it was just claimed you don’t know!

Q.5) Time

Time doesn’t actually exist how you think of it. Time is only a measurement, an illusion because you remember what actions you’ve previously taken. It measures decay… and it’s completely arbitrary (IE, you could consider 2.5 seconds to be 1 second). It’s relative, due to decay being affected by the speed of particles.

There was no start of time, time doesn’t really exist. Just like a gallon doesn’t really exist, it’s nothing more than a tool to help manage our life and share information.

So we may like to measure our lives in our notion of time. And for us, yes, we have a beginning and end. But as I said earlier, pure energy does not have those constraints. So if you were looking for something not constrained by “time” as it where, energy is it.

Q.6) Consciousness

Very much controlled by physical reactions in the brain. I give you diseases like alzheimers. Physical damage damages our consciousness, it is very much tied down. And yes, we’ve as a species developed some marvelous consciousnesses, and we still have very much to learn about.

But as I like to keep saying, claiming knowledge because we lack knowledge… is baseless. Creating life took billions upon billions of years, it’s completely understandable that we can’t replicate it in a lab over an incredibly short period of time when we don’t even know that much about it!

Q.7) Existing

Of course you can’t imagine not existing, your existing. It’s rather a little silly, not that I haven’t tried mind you. Just think about before you were born. Boom, there you go. You know you didn’t exist before you were born, no pain or hardships right? Besides, existing forever would get really boring after a trillion years or so. Hell, some can’t even last 100 without killing themselves off.

Q.8) Gnostic atheism

“So, if you’re a gnostic atheist, does that just mean that you “know” hands down, that there is not, and has never been, any kind of god?”

Yes. And I quote from my article:

This brings us to the question, what is knowledge? Knowing does not mean truth; it means you regard it as true. Knowing is paradoxical in its nature, how can anything be known with exact certainty? It can’t, but for the sake of progress we have to start at some point.

I’ve argued against countless excuses for god. I’ve found fundamental flaws against any kind of omni-ability. I’ve argued against not only the existence but the uselessness of a creator. Essentially, I’ve argued if god cannot be known in this reality then god has no basis in this reality. I’ve even argued the word classification of the word god even.

All and all, perhaps it’s just more honest. I have found flaws and argued against all types of gods, how much more must it take to know? I’ve argued against the whole notion, reason, and existence of god… why can I not be certain there is no god?

The moment you define the term god, is the moment I’ll pick it apart.

And then there was little ol’ Neece. I think I want to say a few words on these questions too:

1. Supernatural phenomena: There is zero evidence of any kind of supernatural of any sort in the known universe. Everything that we have observed scientifically in this world is completely natural. That’s not to say that people don’t have weird experiences that they can’t explain given the little bit of data they’ve got from an event. But no one has ever grown back an ear that has been cut off, or a limb. As GMN says, go to the website Why Won’t God Heal Amputees? God doesn’t because he doesn’t exist and humans have never evolved the ability to regenerate limbs. It’s usually safe to rule out anecdotal evidence as simply a story; even if the person telling it believes it, it doesn’t make it factual. It’s also the case that the human mind fills in the gaps as it processes huge amounts of data at any given instant. This leads to pareidolia which can lead to thinking you’ve seen or heard something that really wasn’t there.

2. I think the guys covered the Big Bang pretty well. I think at this point the main theory is that the Big Bang started as a Singularity where all matter was compressed into a teeny little speck and then expanded rapidly outward. Of course, they are still studying and gathering more data in the cosmos to verify this theory. But no one knows what happened before the Big Bang. Still, that doesn’t mean that someday we might not know. And it certainly doesn’t mean that anything supernatural caused it. That would be falling on the fallacy of the god of the gaps. The great thing about science is that they keep asking questions and looking for answers. It is a never-ending quest. Scientists don’t just throw up their hands and give up when things get tough and say well, then god did it. So far all the answers are completely natural. I can’t stress that enough.

And no, science never said that nothing is infinite. In fact, I would remind you that matter can never be destroyed. It just gets converted to energy. And time is just a concept that we use to make our lives easier. It’s very real to us, but don’t forget the theory of relativity.

3. What happens when we die? We die. Our consciousness dies with the death of our brain. There is no evidence of life after death. It’s all completely anecdotal. While it may seem frightening, you didn’t exist for billions of years before you were born. So when you die, you will again cease to exist. It’s really not much of a mystery. It just seems strange because we have so many myths that cling to the idea of life or lives after death. Again, there is no evidence that our consciousness is eternal. You’ve got one precious life. Make the most of it here and now!

4. I would also call myself a gnostic atheist. I think it’s pretty clear that we live in a completely natural universe. I am confident that there are no gods or supernatural beings or phenomena in the world.

The Greatest Destruction of Knowledge

Johnny — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 23:41:34 +0000

Cyril of Alexandria was born around 376CE and rose to power as the Pope of Alexandria during the peak of the Roman Empire’s rule there. He is credited with leading the charge against Nestorius in the First Council of Ephesus, where the divinity and caricature of Jesus Christ were debated. The Roman Catholic church eventually bestowed sainthood upon him, counting him among the ‘Church Fathers’ and ‘Doctors of the Church’, and also titling him as a Pillar of Faith and Seal of all the Fathers.

History might credit him with a much darker deed though, not surprisingly one the church usually fails to mention or attempts to brush under the rug. Although not official of course, some have referred to him as the patron saint of arsonists. His leadership possibly brought about what is probably the single most destructive annihilation of knowledge in human history.

The Great Library of Alexandria is thought to have been founded around the beginning of the third century BCE. A museum, a research institute, and a library, it was the first of its kind. Besides attempting to collect all the world’s knowledge, it housed a number of esteemed scholars; and boasted the latest works in mathematics, astronomy, physics, natural sciences and other subjects. It was at the Library of Alexandria that the scientific method was first conceptualized and utilized.

There are several descriptions of the destruction of the Library of Alexandria, all from different periods in time. First in 48BCE by Julius Caesar, then by the attack of Aurelian in the third century CE, by the decree of Theopilus (Cyril’s uncle) in 391CE, by the mob incited by Cyril’s followers around 416CE, and finally by the Muslim conquests around 642CE. Its probable that all of these caused damage to the library in some form or another; but historians have been as-yet unable to say when its complete destruction came about. When it was destroyed though, one of the greatest repositories of knowledge was lost to humankind; somewhere between 600,000 and 1 million volumes of knowledge were lost, many of them forever.

The hypothesis that Cyril’s followers destroyed the library stems from stories of the murder of Hypatia. Hypatia of Alexandria was a Greek scholar who taught philosophy and astronomy at the library, as well as being a notable contributor in the field of mathematics. And a woman; something completely unheard of at the time. Hypatia came into conflict with Cyril, first because of her friendship to Orestes (the prefect of Alexandria, and stanch resistor of Cyril’s agenda for a church-ruled government); and secondly because of the church’s view of many sciences being heretical or associated with paganism. Hypatia was murdered in 415 at the hands of a Christian mob led by Cyril’s assistant, after being incited by Cyril to oppose Orestes and his allies. Without her leadership to defend the library, it was only a matter of time before Cyril was able to convince and incite his followers that the libraries association with paganism and heresies deemed it an enemy of the church and a target for destruction.

Here is an excerpt from Cosmos where Carl Sagan talks about the Library of Alexandria:

If a story has conflict (especially religious or political), with a fight, a murder, and little intrigue… You know Hollywood is going to take a crack at ruining it. And this story is no exception of course. Agora has already been released in a few locations in Europe; but oddly has no US release date. The movie sets the time in 391CE, with the main character as Hypatia; but also including Theophilus, Cyril, Orestes, and a Muslim invasion. So I would speculate that Hollywood is blending three of the destruction stories.

A last little side note: Some historians speculate that the library may have contained actual writings of Jesus (instead of all the third-hand stories). A little conspiracy theory, I know; but if Jesus existed and he did write, how different might that writing be than what the Catholic church collected and distributed?

Information pulled from here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

FREE Scanning Electron Micrographs of Just About Anything

Johnny — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 22:35:45 +0000

An interesting offer from ASPEX
November 10, 2009 2:54 PM – by PZ Myers

I had my doubts about this; I got an offer from ASPEX corporation to let people get free scanning electron micrographs of just about anything. They make a desktop SEM (Scanning Electron Micrograph), and all you have to do is fill out a form and mail it in with your sample of a dead bug or a microchip or bacon, and presto, within a few weeks they’ll have it scanned in and the image available on their website.

I asked them if they knew how many readers I have, and they said no problem, they can handle it.

Huh.

Well, you heard them. Scavenge your trash cans, dig into your local sources of vermin and oddments, and send them in. I’m thinking this could be really fun for any school teachers out there — you could have the whole class looking for interesting specimens to zoom in on. You can see their current galleries for ideas.

Follow the instructions here to get your dead bugs and rotten food scanned for free.

If you do send something in to get scanned be sure to note that you found them via PZ; and be sure to come back here and share your scan with the rest of us!

Random Thoughts On The Nature Of Things

Neece — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 19:01:14 +0000

Hello everyone,

First, I am now a Google Waver! Find me at zeneece@googlewave.com. I started my first public wave for atheists: Atheists Unite!

Secondly, I must confess my ignorance on a certain matter that has been bouncing around my brain for some time. I have asked my genius husband Butch and he didn’t have an answer, which made me feel better.

I’ll start with an example:

I always thought aspirin was found in the bark of white willows, and then was made in the lab. But the history seems to be entirely in the laboratory, according to Wikipedia. Also there does seem to be a connection between white willow bark and eventually aspirin.

Needless to say these days, aspirin is made strictly in the lab/factory. My question is, if things are made strictly from chemicals, where do the chemicals themselves come from? And a followup question would be, wouldn’t that make everything natural, at some point? Doesn’t everything eventually lead back to nature?

Another example:

Black Gold, petroleum, crude oil. It’s considered this unnatural thing. But didn’t it come from rotting vegetation and other natural organic matter?

When does something natural become something synthetic?

Why are natural things considered superior to synthetic things nowadays? Is there some proof that it’s true? Or is it marketing/propaganda?

I’m not trying to start anything, or as the Brits would say, I’m not trying to have a go at synthetics. I really just want to understand. If the red food dye and flavoring in my drink stick mix is synthetic, where did the chemicals that make it up come from?

I would love your feedback and thoughts on this. But please, I took chemistry in high school which was over 20 years ago (egads, that made me feel old), so keep it simple.

Thanks friends!

Should Religion Be Taught To Minors?

Neece — Sun, 11 Oct 2009 05:49:13 +0000

I don’t have children, but this issue is still very important to me because I care about kids being indoctrinated and screwed up by their parents and role models.

But as an atheist, freethinker, or skeptic, what do you teach kids about religion? Maybe because I’m removed from the issue it seems rather easy to me. Teach them the same thing about christianity, islam, judaism and all the other active religions that I was taught about Greek Mythology.

I think religion plays such a huge role in the world today, you can’t ignore it. But you don’t have to believe it to share it with young people any more than my teachers believed Zeus threw lightning bolts at people when he was mad at them. I don’t feel religion is helpful in any respect except as a cultural phenomenon. The big three certainly don’t have good moral values. So don’t try to raise an atheist. Try to raise a child to make their own decisions given all the information.

Kids need to learn two things, above all else. They need to learn critical thinking, how to think for themselves. And they need to understand basic morals and ethics. The school system doesn’t teach either of these things. And really, it’s more of an issue that parents should want to handle themselves.

Here’s the thing, though. If you are a parent you might never have been taught critical thinking. So guess what? You need to learn it too! I only learned to think critically a few years ago, so even old dogs can learn to think for themselves. It takes practice and diligence, but it isn’t an insurmountable task.

I’ll share what I know in a future post. In the meantime, read what Michael Shermer has to say about skepticism, which is closely related to critical thinking.

Objective Versus Subjective

Johnny — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 18:41:27 +0000

I’m seeing this video being repeatedly posted on Facebook as it chains its way though the theist world. From what I’ve gathered from the YouTube mirroring, this is a TV commercial running in the Republic of Macedonia. The campaign is apparently something like “Knowledge Is Power.” And this part of the campaign is apparently sub-headlined “Religion is knowledge, too. Bringing religion back to school.“

On several Facebook posts by friends or family, I’ve pointed out that its not a “true story” as claimed. Even pointing out the Snopes article which says that not only did Einstein not do this, but the whole story is an urban legend. The unanimous response so far has been “So what? Its a good story; and even if Einstein didn’t say it, its still the truth.”

The title and the argument of the commercial don’t really coincide. The title asks “does God exist?” while the argument presented is that “if God exists, then he is evil.”

The problem with the argument is that it is comparing objective information with subjective information (apples-to-oranges).

Cold may not exist because it is actually the lack of heat; but heat also really does not exist. Heat is the measurement of temperature. Temperature can be measured with scientific instruments to precise specifics. Multiple scientists from varying cultures with different instruments would measure the same temperature. Darkness actually being a lack of light, but still describing something that is scientifically measureable. Again even with variations in equipment, personnel, and their personal experiences, scientists would reach the same conclusion when measuring the same thing. Thus, they are objective.

Evil, being described as the absence of good is very subjective. Two people raised in different parts of the same state would classify the same deed at different levels of evil. Expand the potential for difference in ‘measuring’ evil (or absence of good) if your sample audience is from completely different cultures or times in history. The ‘measure’ of the absence of good is subjective to the era, the country, the nationality, the culture, the personal faith, the personal experience, and the acceptance of society norms for each individual. Thus, this measurement is subjective.

I also think that the dishonesty of the video creator claiming Einstein had this argument with a professor is poor form. And really goes even further to discredit the argument. But when has ‘Lying for Jesus’ ever been a true ethical struggle for most Christians.

And of course bringing religion into school curriculum is always a bad idea.

Vaccines In The News Again

Johnny — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 17:39:08 +0000

The HPV vaccine has jumped into the news again as the UK reports their first death following a vaccination.

The US (and western world in general) has already been struggling with vaccines, and this could make things more difficult in the UK. With all the claims of vaccines linked to autism, Jenny McCarthy’s wild-ass claims, and Muslims stopping the distribution of the polio vaccination — there’s a lot of pseudoscience, superstition, and urban legends up against vaccines.

Then there is the religious angle against the HPV vaccine. Because the human papillomavirus is a sexually transmitted disease, the abstinence-only proponents think giving a girl this vaccine gives her the go-ahead to be promiscuous.

It will be interesting to see what kind of media attention resurfaces from this; but I can already see the email or Facebook posts flying around again, claiming how bad this vaccine is, and possibly how bad all vaccines are. So in an attempt to arm you with knowledge before you even get that email or see someone post it on Facebook, here are some facts for you to counter with.

As of 01 June 2009, over 25 million doses had been administered in the US. Of those, 14,072 (0.05%) reported side effects; meaning 99.95% were free of side effects.
Of those with side effects, 13,087 (93%) were non-serious (like fainting, pain and swelling at the injection site, headache, nausea, and fever); all common side effects of any injection.
Of those with side effects, 985 (7%) were serious, and of them 43 deaths were reported. This means of the 25 million vaccinated, 0.00172% died after receiving the vaccination (not necessarily because of the vaccination).
Approximately 20 million Americans are currently infected with HPV, and another 6.2 million people become newly infected each year.
At least 50% of sexually active men and women acquire genital HPV infection at some point in their lives.
The American Cancer Society estimates 11,070 women diagnosed with cervical cancer in the U.S. in 2008.
HPV-related cancers (estimates from 2008):
- 3,460 women diagnosed with vulvar cancer
- 2,210 women diagnosed with vaginal and other female genital cancers
- 1,250 men diagnosed with penile and other male genital cancers
- 3,050 women and 2,020 men diagnosed with anal cancer
According to a 2002 study, approximately 4500 deaths per year in the US, and over 200,000 deaths world wide are results of or linked to a form of cervical cancer.

In the US the CDC and the FDA continue to recommend the Gardasil vaccination, because it does prevent 4 types of HPV; and because the risk of adverse side effects is very low.

“As of June 1, 2009, there have been 43 U.S. reports of death among females who have received the vaccine. Twenty six of these reports have been confirmed, 9 are still under investigation, and 8 remain unconfirmed due to no identifiable patient information in the report such as a name and contact information to confirm the report. Confirmed reports are those that scientists have followed up on and have verified the claim. In the 26 reports confirmed, there was no unusual pattern or clustering to the deaths that would suggest that they were caused by the vaccine.”

Besides the links above, I also pulled information from here, here, and here.

What do you think? Any thoughts? Personal stories? Rants?

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