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The “Triumph” of Our Era: Institutionalized Death

It is  Pro-Life Sunday (which I tend to think of as every Sunday, but that is beside the point).

As such, I will post again on that massacre of our day, abortion. I have written about it in the past. I’ve presented arguments against it here, and I attacked the institutionalized death again here. In this post, I will continue to make philosophical and scientific arguments against the institution of death.

It seems that arguments in the Pro-Choice camp are continually pushed back. I will examine this in detail in a moment, but for now let me sum up what I’m saying.

1. Some argued that the fetus was not a human. That has been obviously and scientifically refuted.

2. They retreated and then argued that the fetus is part of the woman. This has also been completely destroyed by scientific and common-sensical arguments.

3. Some then denied that the fetus was not a person and as such did not have the rights of other persons. This ridiculous claim is a slippery slope that, once started down, cannot be recouped.

4. Finally, the extremists argue that one’s right to one’s body justifies infanticide.

I’m not outlining every argument made by the pro-choice side, but rather showing how much they have been forced to retreat. It went from “a fetus is not a human” => “a fetus is part of the woman” => “a fetus is not a person” => “Okay, the fetus is a human person, but my rights trump the rights of it because it is inside me”

What a society we have become when we attempt to justify killing those whom we acknowledge are the same as us in every way, but unborn! This is the “triumph” of our era: institutionalized death.

First, there was the argument that the fetus was not a human. I don’t think I need to dwell on this point much at all. Clearly, the fetus is human. It is not a whale fetus, it is not a cat, it is not a unicorn, it is a human. It is biologically a human in every way. To deny that the fetus is human is to acknowledge that one has given up any attempt at rational inquiry into truth, as this is a simple fact.

Then, the argument became that the fetus was thus a part of the mother. Just as one had an arm, a leg, or an appendix, the fetus was a part of the body of the mother. This can be refuted in a way that is almost identical. The arm, leg, or appendix are made up of cells that are genetically coded by the mother’s DNA. The fetus, however, has a unique genetic code, often a different blood type, and 50% of the time is even a different gender than the mother. Thus, it is clearly not just some part of the mother that can be cast off. But here’s what makes this argument really strange to me. Even if the fetus were classified as part of the mother, does that mean that one is allowed to do whatever one wants with “it?” Do people routinely cut off their legs or arms, rip out a kidney, or do some other kind of self-mutilation? Obviously not. So what makes the fetus different? This argument is extremely confusing to me to begin with, but the fact that is entirely based on falsehoods means I don’t see a need to delve into it further.

The next stage of argumentation was then that a fetus is obviously human but not a person. While this claim may seem completely ludicrous, it is one that is used very often in debate on the abortion issue. The challenge I lay before one making this argument is to come up with an argument that does not exclude infants, young children, the elderly (senile), people with comas (that they are likely to recover from), etc. from being persons as well. If we are to play with the definition of who a person is, we must acknowledge the ramifications of such foul play and the potential for exclusion from basic rights that it can bring to all of us. And of course this is not to mention the obvious similarities in trying to strip personhood from the fetus with the Nazi efforts to strip personhood from various portions of the population.

A recent and disturbing trend in such argumentation that I have seen, however, is to acknowledge all of these points and still be pro-choice. Someone posting on another blog I was reading stated that they did agree that the fetus was a human person with such rights, but “If the entire human race is inside my womb, I am allowed to commit genocide.” Really? Are you? Is genocide now permissible for the sake of convenience? There really doesn’t seem to be a response to this argument, as the person making such an argument has shown that they literally have no qualms about killing at will. How long before being inside someone isn’t the only way this argument can be applied? Babies rely on their mothers for nourishment and care, so they clearly could be murdered as well, for it is not my duty (on such a view) to care for someone who is not me! This is morally disgusting.

I would like to cover a few other points before I close. There are a few more common arguments that I find equally ridiculous in their attempts to justify Institutionalized Death.

1) It is unfair to bring unwanted babies into the world.

2) It is unfair to bring babies into situations that are not beneficial to them

The first argument basically claims that it is not fair to children to be born to families that do not want them. What the person making such an argument seems fully willing to ignore is that it seems a lot more unfair to kill children who are unwanted! It’s striking that once the baby is born, if the mother doesn’t want it, and say, kills it, we charge her with murder. If she abandons it, we charge her with abandonment, etc. Not being wanted does not strip someone of their rights.

The second argument is often made with such claims that it is unfair to have children born into poverty, etc. I ask in response, “What right do we have to judge the quality of someone’s life before they live it?” In America, particularly, it seems that being born into poverty isn’t such a terrible thing, considering poverty here is rich in most other places. But not only that, I must press home the question, who are we to judge whether someone should live or die based on a guess that they will live in poverty (or some other situation). It seems obvious that a great many people in poverty are quite happy (and one needs only to read the tabloids to see how happy the rich are). There is no guarantee that someone born into poverty (or another situation) will always be there, and there is no way to objectively judge how much they will or will not enjoy their life. So what right do we have to kill people because we may think their lives aren’t worth living?

There are, as always, more points to cover, but I will save those for another post. I challenge anyone who is pro-choice to come here and present their arguments to me without being ad hominem in their attempts to refute me. I challenge anyone who is pro-choice to attempt to justify their position while maintaining some kind of civility. I challenge them to think about their position, and the ramifications that the arguments they make carry.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

What a Surprise! Christianity defamed, Islam respected. And, guess what, the Bible likely older than the “experts” thought

Alright, school has started again. I managed to crank out at least a few things over break, and I have a number of 1/4-1/2 completed articles that I’ll hopefully finish some time, but for now back to easy posts, like random news stories.

Before we get into that though, go to Google (or your Google search bar) and [note: some curse words and offensive language will show if you follow these instructions, if you would not like to be subjected to that, simply read my article as I’ll describe it] type in “Christianity is…” and check out the suggested searches. Wow, those are some strong terms! “Christianity is b*******” is the first suggestion. Others include “Christianity is not a religion” [what?] and “Christianity is a lie.” That’s some strong stuff. Not very respectful of Christianity, obviously. But now try that same thing for “Islam is” and look at the suggestions. Oh wait, there are none. It’s perfectly fine to defame, attack, insult, and otherwise attack Christianity, but try to talk about Islam and you’ll come up empty. We should certainly not insult Islam. We wouldn’t dare to insult the religion of “peace.”

Google, of course, says it’s a database problem. How convenient. Check out this news story for more annoying facts (and a proof pic, if they ever “fix” the “database problem”).

So, as usual, insulting and attacking Christianity is accepted, but we dare not attack or insult Islam. Why is that?

But I digress. Another news story I found interesting was the discovery of some shards of pottery that suggest the Bible was perhaps written earlier than the “experts” thought! What a surprise! Current “scholarship” attempts to suggest the Hebrew Scriptures were not as old as tradition holds (usually dating them around 6th or 7th century B.C. (that’s Before Christ, by the way), but this evidence shows that, shock of all shocks, Hebrew writing existed longer before than was thought possible (this is, of course, not to mention that it is likely the Hebrew Scriptures were written in an even more ancient form of Hebrew script, but the “experts” are so “spot on” at all times it’s hard not to trust them [massive sarcasm]). The archaeological, historical, philosophical, experiential, and other evidences for theism and Christianity continue to increase in number and veracity. Not that this is surprising to anyone but the so-called experts (note that I’m not trying to insult genuine Biblical scholarship, only the radical, relativistic, super-critical scholarship that the media and anti-theists tend to try to cling to).

Well, back to school work.

Edit 1/17- Another news story on the Bible being older (same thing).

Religious Experience: Evidence for Beliefs About God

I think that perhaps one of the most often dismissed evidences for the existence of God is Religious Experience–that is, an experience that someone takes to be an experience of God of the supernatural. I have experienced more than one such experience, and this claim is of course met with ridicule or at least massive skepticism by non-theists, and surprisingly enough even by many Christians. Why is this? I personally think that it is due to 1) on the side of the Christian or theist who doubts it, the granting of a kind of empirical belief that such things should be viewed quite skeptically and only believed in light of massive evidence and 2) on the side of the non-theist, an obvious presupposition that such things are obviously false and explainable naturalistically.

So, is there really a case for believing that Religious Experience can give any grounds for belief in (here I’ll more be arguing for beliefs about) God at all? I believe there is a rather strong case. I’ve argued elsewhere that such an experience can grant at least some amount of warrant for belief in God. But I believe that there is more to be said.

First we must discuss sense perception. What does it mean when someone senses something (here “sense” meaning using one of the five senses to ascertain knowledge of something)? There are a number of explanations, but I believe the most obvious one is simply that (in the case of sight) someone (x) sees something (y). Thus, I believe there is a kind of immediacy to sense perception. (Just a side note–this doesn’t go against my beliefs in a kind of Theistic Idealism, as my form of idealism involves a “real world” in the sense of Husserl’s “empty x” that we can perceive.) Now of course sense perception can be wrong, but the main idea is that when x sees y, it is just the case that x sees y, not the case that, say, x believes that x sees y or something even more drawn out.

But then what exactly is our justification for believing that sense perception has warrant? There really is no non-circular way to justify a belief based on a sense perception. Yet we continually believe that we are reliable when we form beliefs based on perceptions. The most common argument for the validation of sense perception in epistemic warrant is to say that our beliefs are justified because sense perception continues to feed us valid data (i.e. we are justified for believing that we are being appeared to “redly” because it is most often the case that when we believe we are being appeared to “redly” we are, in fact, being appeared to “redly”). But of course such a kind of justification is quite circular. It basically boils down to saying that our beliefs formed because of sense perception are valid because sense perception confirms such beliefs. So why do we trust our sense perceptions? It seems as though we have a few alternatives here (not trying to be comprehensive, merely illustrative): 1) we can simply not trust our sense perceptions, or 2) we can agree that it is possible for some system of epistemic justification to validate itself through repeated confirmation (as in the case of being appeared to “redly”). But if 2) is the case, as it almost certainly is, then we must be consistent with ourselves on this regard (this argument is based off Alston’s, cited below).

So then let us return to religious experience. Beliefs from religious experiences are, it seems, justified epistemically in the same way. The subject forms a belief based on the confirmation of that belief within the system. Let us say that some subject has a religious experience in which they believe that God is presenting himself as good. The subject then justifies this belief on the basis that they believe they are being appeared to “goodly” by God and that this is backed up by other experience (perhaps the belief that God continually sustains all things). While this may be circular in nature, one cannot object to the circularity unless they wish to subject sense perception to the same objection. Either both must be rejected, or neither. And if neither is rejected, then it is possible to have justification for a belief about God based on a religious experience.

There is more to say, of course. I mentioned above that I believe it is the case that when x sees y, x simply sees y. That can be applied to religious experience, especially those varieties of religious experience in which the subject claims to have a kind of sense perception of God (like “I saw a great light…” or something of the sort). Thus, when it is the case that the subject, x, experiences in a religious experience some sensation, y, it is simply the case that x experiences y, without any intermediaries.

Here now I’ll turn to a very commonly raised objection to religious experience. It may be claimed that when one experiences such a perception, they are subjected to a kind of euphoric state, either by drugs, by their own control over their brains (they want so badly to experience the religious that they cause it, unknowingly, to happen), or some other factor. These experiences can then be boiled down to a kind of reduction to brain waves, chemicals in the brain, etc. And because these experiences can be explained naturalistically, they are invalid for epistemic justification.

I believe this claim is utterly false. Again we can point to sense perception as being subjected to the same kind of reduction. If religious experience is merely the matter of neurons firing in the brain (among other things), then so is sense perception and indeed all knowledge in itself. But then we must reject everything that we perceive by our senses! For if we are to be consistent in our claim that if something can be reduced to natural causes, it has no epistemic warrant, then yes, religious experience could possibly be reduced to simply brain activity, but so could the existence of things outside of our heads, for we could observe brain activity happening when we observe things and form beliefs about them. Thus, for the sake of consistency, we would need to reject the reality of objects outside of our heads! This is of course not something that someone who raises such an objection is willing to do, but if they want to raise such an objection, their own beliefs are subject to the exact same scrutiny, and it will turn out to be the case that there is no such thing as a belief at all, if indeed all things are just brain activity (a hypothesis I utterly disagree with).

So it seems to me that it is indeed the case that people can form beliefs based on religious experience. I will write more in the future about whether these experiences can have any kind of warrant for those who did not experience the same thing, the problem of religious diversity in regards to claims of religious experience, and more on the concept of warrant with religious experience. For now, however, I’ll leave this as it stands. People can indeed be justified in believing something based on religious experience, if one wants to object in any of the ways outlined above, they simply must be consistent and reject sense perception, material objects, and the like.

Sources:

Alston, William P. Perceiving God: The Epistemology of Religious Experience. Cornell University Press, 1991.

Kwan, Kai-Man. “The Argument from Religious Experience.” The Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology. Blackwell, 2009.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

Naturalism and Groundless Truth

I’ve been reflecting on the concept of “Warrant” a lot as I’m reading through Alvin Plantinga’s trilogy on Warrant (including the books Warrant: The Current Debate, Warrant and Proper Function, and Warranted Christian Belief). Just how is it that we can claim that someone is justified or warranted in believing something? This got me thinking on naturalism. I remember an example someone quoted as being Plantingian in origin (edit: I’ve finally figured out where I originally read it: it’s found in a similar form in Warrant and Proper Function), but I’d like to use my own version of what I remember from his example. I do not believe that, on naturalism in particular, but atheism in general, there can be any grounds for believing that we as humans have the cognitive means by which we can discover truth. Further, on naturalism specifically and atheism in general, there is no reason to suppose that what we regard as “truth” is in fact truth.

I think perhaps the best way to argue this would be by using an example (and it is in this example that I borrow from Plantinga… I think. It has been heavily modified by myself into a form that doesn’t resemble the original form that I remember all that much). Let us consider the case of Tim the Tiger Lover and Suzy the Warrior.

Tim the Tiger Lover has formed false beliefs that a) wild tigers are warm and cuddly and b) the best way to pet them is to sneak away from them silently. Suzy the Warrior has formed the beliefs that a) wild tigers are ferocious critters and b) they must be killed to insure the survival of mankind.

Tim and Suzy are walking through the jungle one day, when they spot in the distance a tiger. Now, Tim immediately begins joyfully sneaking away, believing that he will soon be petting that warm, cuddly tiger. Suzy dashes forward to attempt to strangle the beast with her bare hands. Suzy dies, though it seems clear that her beliefs were at least partially true (wild tigers are indeed ferocious). Tim, however, succeeds in escaping and surviving, despite this not actually being his goal.

Now, on naturalism, it seems quite obvious that Tim has succeeded. He has survived, and will thus pass his genes on to the next generation. Indeed, it seems quite likely he will pass along his false beliefs as well. For let us modify the scenario only slightly and say that it was quite dark. While Suzy was being torn to bits by the tiger, Tim happened upon a tiger cub or some other beast he took to be a tiger cub. He immediately, happily danced with it and cuddled it for a while before sneaking away to go home, having quite happily reinforced his false beliefs. So Tim, with his false beliefs enforced by some data that they are in fact true (after all, he sneaked away quietly from the tiger and managed to pet tigers), also manages to survive, and therefore pass along his genes and his false beliefs.

But this means that, on naturalism, Tim has succeeded! His genes have been passed on, and he has, in a way, won the race for survival by having done so. But if this is the case, then why should we not suppose that there are any number of these cases in fact? For there is no reason to suppose that, granting atheistic naturalism, this case and many hundreds, thousands, millions etc. of others should not be actual. Indeed, there seems to be no non-question-begging way for naturalism to claim that evolution in particular or naturalism in general is truth-oriented or truth-seeking.

Why should we then, on naturalism or atheism, suppose that we even have the cognitive capability to learn truth or discover it? The most common answer that has been given is that it is to our evolutionary advantage to know truth and use it. But this, as seen in the case above, does not seem to be true all the time, and there really is no reason to suppose it must be true any of the time. I’ll grant that we must at least learn some truths if evolution is true in order to survive, but why suppose that our species is necessarily truth-seeking? It seems clear to me that there is no reason to suppose this, and thus there is no reason to think that, granting naturalism and atheism, we should think that we know the truth or indeed can know it! For our evolutionary past could be  utterly filled to the brim with Tim the Tiger Seekers! There are any number of beliefs that we hold now, from our evolutionary forefathers, that are in fact utterly false! But we have no reason to know that or even be able to discover that, especially if they are falsely confirmed!

So if naturalism and atheism are indeed true, then there is no reason at all to suppose that anything we know constitutes true knowledge or true beliefs. There is no ground for truth in naturalism, and indeed I believe there is sufficient reason to think that naturalism would likely have us forming all kinds of false beliefs, without ever finding out otherwise. Sure, we may eventually eliminate some of them, but only while we are forming more false beliefs in the meantime!

Thus, I find this another reason to reject naturalism, which I’ve already discussed as being unintelligible and undermining things it should hold most dear.