Rape Baby Morality

Rick Santorum is quite the news maker and I love and hate the guy. It would be hard for me to find anyone I disagreed with more than Rick, but he talks honestly, forgoing the usual political speech that clouds what someones true view are. He even backs up what he believes with why he believes it rather than say something vague. I think he at least deserves credit for that. 


Yet, pretty much everything he says makes me shake my head, and if I had the chance to talk to him I don't think we could really have a conversation. There is a fundamental disconnect about such basic beliefs that we would end up talking past each other. This can be shown in two stances we take on what should happen in the awful situation when a woman is raped and becomes pregnant. 


Rick's view is that even a mother who is raped should have to carry their birth to term because every baby is a gift from God, or as he says himself, "The right approach is to accept this horribly created - in the sense of rape - but nevertheless a gift in a very broken way, the gift of human life, and accept what God has given to you." I think it would also be fair to attach the co-belief that God is infallible. 

There is really a blend of two arguments being put forth. The first one has the logic that (main argument) every birth is a gift from god, (unstated support) god doesn't make mistakes, so (conclusion) a person must accept what god gives them.


The second argument only makes a brief appearance when he talks about the gift being a human life. It first states that at the moment of inception a human life is created and it goes unstated that a human life should be kept alive. 

From one short quote two arguments are presented, although they are both only presented in a semi-complete fashion 


Now I'd argue that birth is a biological process with no special meaning, that natural processes are separate from moral ones, so a persons decision to continue with a pregnancy is their moral choice and independent of any consideration of nature/god. 


Looking at the two views you can see how even two reasonable people could come to talk with the best intentions of working something out and just run into road blocks. Santorum's belief that each birth has a divine hand is incommensurable with the understanding of birth as only a biological process.  


I think Ricks second view does leave some room for talking thought because the question remains whether all murder is wrong, so perhaps if the unborn fetus itself raped it's mother than it could be capitally punished.  There may be no clear solution, but there is room to talking and maybe even having some progress. 


The point is to recognize what people are really saying in their arguments and not all the time are even reasonable people going to get anywhere when they talk. It also shows how one belief can affect numerous other beliefs you hold, but maybe I'll post about that later.


Thanks for reading,
-the moral skeptic

Anton's Syndrome and Religion

I just learned of a new and interesting rare problem that a few people suffer from and think that it applies well to religious people and specifically how they prefer to answer one type of question. The idea to write this came from David Eagleman's book Incognito, so I'll just plug it for a second. It's a book that expands on the idea of how the mind constructs reality and the importance of the subconscious, so if I haven't jaded you from the subject it's worth a look at.

Anton's syndrome or Anton-Babinski syndrome is a problem that happens when there is damage to the occipital lobe. It causes a person to become completely blind, but the sufferers don't immediately report any problem at all. Not all that interesting so far. What is interesting is that this blindness is also coupled with two other symptoms, the lack of awareness of the blindness and the creation of the objects around them through the mind only.

All this means that the person will be completely blind, but will still think that they can see. Their condition is only exposed when someone else notices that what they say or how they act, turns out to be independent of the visual reality around them. A doctor will put up there hand and ask how many fingers they are holding up and the person will reply '3' when the doctor never lifted their hand in the first place, they will walk straight into walls and trip over anything put in front of them. What they are seeing is a complete fabrication generated by their mind and a fabrication that is independent of sensory information from the eyes. People with Anton's syndrome are living in completely in a visual world of their own creation.

This is what I feel like happens to an ultra-religious person and explains a nonsensical answer that is commonly given to a simple question. The questions of, 'Where is god?' or 'Where is the proof for god?' is commonly answered with the statement that "God is all around you." or "I see God in the leaves, the tide, and the stars....I see God in everything."

Now I have looked at many leafs and still have yet to find the God part of the leaf. These people are seeing what is an Anton's Syndrome like connection. There is something that makes it evident that God is a part of that thing that they are seeing, a part of the mind is coloring the view of what they are seeing. These people too are living in a world of there own creation that has no connection with reality, tripping over God and not noticing that the doctor's arm had never moved.

Now, it may be fair to criticize this view and say the people that are making these comments are making a metaphorical statement and surely some people are. It is always the charitable thing to take the strongest or most logical sense of what someone is saying. Yet, I don't think that the people making those kinds of blanket statements are always describing something metaphorically, they could be seeing the fingerprint of God on everything and must be taken literally when they say, "Yes, I see God in nature and not just his handiwork."

Perhaps, like in left temporal lobe epilepsy, there is a physiological mistake being made and people really are 'seeing something', but whether the connection is real or not Anton's syndrome provides an interesting way to interpret literally seeing God in the world.  

Then again they would probably use Anton's syndrome to deconstruct what I'm saying in the same way, I once was blind but now can see seems to imply exactly that.

The only problem with that is, I've never heard anyone say that they 'See evolution in the leaves' or 'The big bang in the rocks', although you could say that you hear evidence of the big bang in the cosmic background radiation.  You can't really see a process in a picture, in the same way you can apparently see God.

In one world I can point to the leafs and say "There are some leaves." and there can be an agreement, in the other you can look at leaves and say "I see God.", but you can't see it, and they tell you to look harder still, yet how hard must one look to see that emperor doesn't have any clothes?

Thanks for reading,
-the moral skeptic

A Showcase of Egoism

Thanks for those who commented on my last post. I'm taking a step back from the outside world, and I'm going to talk about a personal pet peeve, two types of statements that get under my skin. I'll try to convey what those statements are, and why they bother me and try propose a solution. Now, to anticipate future criticism, I know these statements are often used unthinkingly, and I don't expect to run into them any less often. I'll probably have settle for just being able to vent and maybe it might make you think the next time you hear one muttered. 

The first type of statement I've often seen talked about before, but I'm going to take it in a different direction than skeptics usually take it.

1. The arrogance of cause and effect - The example I will use could be picked from the hundreds I've doubtlessly heard throughout my years, but one sticks out as it is the one I heard most recently and was the inspiration for this post.

A lady told me that everything happened for a reason, as is often the beginning or end to a wild claim being made, and proceeded to tell me that not having room in a vehicle to take someone on a ride happened because that person would later become sick. Now this seemingly everyday chance occurrence may seem pretty trivial, but to her it was proof of everything happening for a reason. (Now it may look like I'm being ungenerous and blowing her statement's intention out of proportion, which is true in a way, but she makes these types of statements numerous times a day as a proof of life's plan. This was truly how the statement was meant to be interrupted)

Now when most skeptics or atheists look at that kind of statement they charge the person with making the error in assumption that the universe works according to a plan, which is a very good way of dealing with the question if you are talking to someone who wants to look at the comment logically. There is no evidence to the universal planning, or if it is a plan it has been so insidiously created that it doesn't look like a plan at all, good people get hurt and die, people are born with all sort of different ailments and even our existence seems to come from a number of steps built on chance.

As. someone I'm proud to share my name with, Stephen J. Gould would say, “History includes too much chaos, or extremely sensitive dependence on minute and unmeasurable differences in initial conditions, leading to massively divergent outcomes based on tiny and unknowable disparities in starting points. And history includes too much contingency, or shaping of present results by long chains of unpredictable antecedent states, rather than immediate determination by timeless laws of nature. Homo sapiens did not appear on the earth, just a geologic second ago, because evolutionary theory predicts such an outcome based on themes of progress and increasing neural complexity. Humans arose, rather, as a fortuitous and contingent outcome of thousands of linked events, any one of which could have occurred differently and sent history on an alternative pathway that would not have led to consciousness.”

Yet, I don't think that, that type of comment, as intelligible as it is, would do a lick of good for anyone who was willing to make a comment about life having a plan. They have seen the plan in everything around them, so I'd argue with them on there own grounds, and accept their view of a plan.

Even if life does have a plan and everything happens for a reason to fulfill that plan, how could it be that anyone would be so arrogant as to say that, "This is what the divine plan is and this is the absolute reason this particular thing happened!" after all, God is said to work in mysterious ways. I don't think that anyone would stand up and claim that, they indeed know the plan for life, and if they do good for them. They weren't worth arguing with in the first place.

It does avoid the root of the problem, a lack of critical thinking, but it will at least start the person on the path of thinking about how hard it might be to determine the reasons for somethings cause.

2. The self-centered universe - While my first peeve surrounded the issue of someone having the arrogance to claim that they know what I can only describe as 'god's mind', the second issue is one where people clearly don't see the forest for the trees. 

This happens when people say something to the effect of, "Thank god for helping me win", or "Thank god they are alright." Now the second one may seem like a non-issue except, again, for the problem of knowing it was indeed God that saved them, but it has another huge issue when used in times of a tragedy.

Recently, for anyone who is allergic to any news, there was an 9.0 magnitude earthquake that moved Japan two feet lower towards sea level, and expected to have a death toll of more than 10 000. A couple of relatives of mine were actually visiting Japan at the time, which caused a fair bit of anxiety and also a comment that I still regret hearing. It was the comment stated above, "Thank god they are alright."

Now obviously this was good news to receive, but given the situation I think the sentiment could have been far better expressed with different words. To attribute those two individuals safety to God and then not have anything to say about God's designing a world that causes such destruction, or his/her/it's inability to save those other 10 000 people, to which there was no relation, is simply to show a complete disregard to the devastation of others, whether it was intended that way or not.

If God is to bestowed thanks for helping save some people in that type of situation God should also be responsible for the blame of not helping the thousands of others, this isn't a dog that could only drag one family to shore, it's a omnipotent being that created the world after all. To 'Thank God' in that situation is to show a perplexing double standard that I can't even began to understand, and an egoism that I would never want to condone. There seems to be an implicit understanding behind the statement that they were worthy of God's help while the thousands of others weren't.

Now  I know that this is a common term and I often fail to even catch myself from saying 'god dammit', but I do think that even as so it does show both an egoism and ignorance to the plight of others.

I'm in no way endorsing any kind of limit on free speech to solve any problem that slightly bothers someone, but I do think that if those types of statements were really thought about they would be made a heck of a lot less often.

Thanks for reading,
-the moral skeptic

Belief in God Compared to Ethical Beliefs

I'll have to apologize for this post taking longer than it should have as I was facing a number of problems. My internet has been his and miss, with more misses than hits over the past few days and I've been busy doing a few other things. Anyway, I'm sure this post will be enough to remedy those in need of a good skeptical healing.

Previously, I compared the belief in God to personal taste and concluded that the two beliefs weren't alike, but it got me to thinking that perhaps belief in God arises like a belief in what is ethical. I got this idea through contemplating David Hume's understanding of morality.

To give brief outline of Hume's Ethics I'll quote a few lines from A Treatise of Human Nature.

"For before reason can perceive this turpitude, the turpitude must exist; and consequently is independent of the decisions of our reason, and is their object more properly than their effect." Hume then uses this to show that if reason isn't a part of morality and it is something natural. Than it is present in the actions of animals and they should be held in account to the same moral standard as people. Hume does this through saying, "Their want of sufficient degree of reason may hinder them from perceiving the duties and obligations of morality, but can never hinder the duties from existing; since they must exist in order to their being perceiv'd."

Then comes Hume second part, which is more applicable to the notion of God. His idea is that morality doesn't exist in actions or acts, but in the viewers mind.

Hume states that, "Take any action allow'd to be vicious: Willful murder, for instance. Examine it in all lights, and see if you can find that matter of fact, or real existence, which you call vice. In which-ever way you take it, you find only certain passions, motives, volitions, and thoughts. There is no other matter of fact in the case. the vice entirely escapes you, as long as you consider the object. You can never find it, till you turn your reflexion into your own breast, and find a sentiment of disapprobation, which arises in you, towards the action."

No matter where you look for he moral part of an action, it can never be found, and it is only when  you look internally at yourself that morality begins to appear. 

"So that when you pronounce any action or character to be vicious, you mean nothing, but that from the constitution of your nature you have a feeling or sentiment of blame from the contemplation of it. Vice and virtue, therefore, may be compar'd to sounds, colours, heat and cold, which, according to modern philosophy, are not qualities in objects, but perceptions in the mind."

Morality then is a perception of the mind, which Hume will call a sentiment. 

"It maintains that morality is determined by sentiment. It defines virtue to be whatever mental actions or qualities fives to a spectator the pleasing sentiment of approbation; and vice the contrary."

This is more like how people understand God. They look at different complexities and come to an understanding that is based on sentiment and exists solely in the view of the spectator. So when a person looks at the sky, stars, or ocean and get a feeling that God did this, it is based on personal sentiment.

While this is all hearsay because I can't demonstrate that this is how people come to an understanding of how God works, it works functionally. Just as Hume showed with morals, God can't be found in any individual thing. A person instead needs to look inside themselves to finally understand where God is.

Take, for instance, someone who looks at the the ocean and sees God in it. In what part of the ocean are they seeing the god part? Where is god among the ocean is God? God is only found in the minds perception of the ocean. 

So while God didn't create and cannot be found in the ocean, the mind of the person can still none-the-less attribute it's occurrence as proof of God's handiwork. This in no way proves that God created the ocean. It is as much proof as someone having the perception that homosexuality is wrong proves that homosexuality is actually wrong. It is a completely circular understanding. It is so far removed from proof or even evidence that it doesn't even impact how plausible God is.

This analogy works in another way as well, it shows the black and white nature of both decisions. When someone finds an action to be moral or immoral in their mind, there is no room for any gray area; An action is either viewed as immoral or moral. This is the same with the view of God. No one expresses the view that there is a 50% chance that god is responsible for the creation of the earth. There is a great confidence in the answer when it is given.

So there you have it, the best analogy for the belief in God is comparing it to Hume's description of Ethics.

Thanks for reading,
-the moral skeptic

Comparing God and Taste

First off let me apologize for my last post. It was something I felt compelled to write about, but I think it fell below the standard that I try to maintain. There are some redeeming qualities about the post and the comparison between denialism and skepticism will be a future full length post. Anyway, onwards and upwards.

I talked before how it is useless to make arguments about taste. No one ever changes their opinion, the forms of the argument are fallacy filled appeals with nothing real to appeal to, and despite what people think the matter really isn't important for the most part anyway. Now I was thinking of how the argument for God's existence is similar enough to provide a comparison about it. In this comparison I will forgo any claims of evidence of proof of God's existence (the design of the universe, the first cause and arguments like this) and limit the talk on the claims are unverifiable by their nature.

Arguments about taste and arguments about Gods existence can be categorized as the same through the types of appeals they make, appeals devoid scientific evidence. People can support why they like a certain movie like Crash, with an appeal to the awards it won and the critical acclaim that it received. They can also point to its popularity and appeal to people who have taste that I respect (i.e. Roger Ebert liked the movie you should too).

The problem is that despite all that I still think the movie was hallow and reduced the characters motivations to purely racial interactions. I was horrified when it won best picture, and further horrified when they showed it in a political science class I was taking. Taste just appeals to how one person feels or how many people feel about the subject and this is the same, for the most part, with the appeals claiming God's existence.

This similarity can be shown in the way people justify their belief in God.  Proponents of Gods existence note that 92% of Americans have a belief in God, and that respected scientists from Copernicus to Einstein believed in god. They are supporting their views in the same way that they support the issues of taste by using appeals to popularity or authority.

So, God is a matter of taste? Well no. The problem with putting belief in God in the realm of a taste decision is where taste and the belief in God differ. The difference is that in arguments of taste there are a few accepted points that necessitate the argument, the main one being that the there is something to like or dislike that is agreed upon by both parties.

When someone of inferior intelligence says that Crash was a good movie and I say that they are sorrily mistaken, and both us agree that Crash exists. Further we agree that the movie we are both taking about is the same movie. Of course I may be referring to the 1996 film Crash, but if I am then we really aren't arguing with each other, we are instead having a misunderstanding.


When someone says that they believe in God (whatever they think that is), there is a contention to be had  with the subject matter before any issue of support can be brought up. To talk about appeals is to skip the level of agreement about the existence of the subject.

So when someone says, "I believe in God and it is my choice." they are not saying anything like, "I like the band Primus." They are making a statement of belief, but that statement isn't akin personal taste. It is more like an appeal to the existence of extraterrestrials, bigfoot, or the Easter bunny, because the subjects existence isn't already agreed upon.

When someone says, "I like Crash" I dislike their taste, but really can't criticize them too much about it. They just enjoyed the film and that's fine, although  I think there are good reasons for not liking it as well. When someone says something that isn't built on any foundation and the subjects existence can't be shown then there is a real reason to say that the belief is unfounded. You are no longer questioning a persons taste, you are rather looking into their logic for believing in something and their ability to weight evidence. I think a good future post will be a comparison between ethical beliefs and beliefs in God done in this same sort of manner.

Thanks for reading,
-the moral skeptic