It’s well worth mentioning that Plantinga’s argument is 18 years old or so, and it has failed to convince any naturalist in the mainstream groups of naturalists (Dennett et al). Unusual, considering that it is supposedly such a powerful argument in it’s explanatory content. Nonetheless, having watched this series of videos, it has become clear to me that Plantinga’s EAAN (Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism) as just as flawed as other theological musings such as the slippery old Cosmological Argument.

Critique of Alvin Plantinga’s “Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism” – Link:http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p … C36901BCEE

Before we can even begin to account the myriad flaws and fallacies of the EAAN’s reasoning and supporting arguments, it is already plain to see that the argument is unworkable. Plantinga is a strong advocate of Theistic Evolution and argues that if God created Man “In his own Image”, by means of biological evolution, then our cognitive faculties would be reliably tuned to truth. However if naturalistic (i.e., non-theistic) evolution is true our faculties would be unreliably tuned to “mere survival”. I find EAAN to be incoherent.

Plantinga argues that evolutionary naturalism is unjustifiable because our accumulated mountains of evidence for it (as well as our cognitive processes for testing/assessing this evidence) would not be trustworthy in the absence of God, the source of absolute truth. He then argues that traditional theism is more defensible on the grounds that our minds were designed by God. His argument falls apart because it intrinsically begs the question. If Plantinga conceded that this rather small point of his was indefensible, then the entire argument would fall flat on it’s face. Now, I will try to squeeze in some of my more detailed thoughts on the actual videos.

Part 1

03:15 (3 minutes and 15 seconds)

:

“And then when I use the word ‘naturalism’, what I really mean is … the belief that there’s no such person as God, or anything like God”

Here it would be well worth noting that Plantinga is making an implicit reference to Positive or “Strong” Atheism rather than naturalism. Positive Atheism being, as everyone knows, taking an epistemically positive stance in the form of atheism, with the positive assertion that a God or gods do not exist. Therefore, it seems reasonable to assume that Plantinga misunderstands both atheism as it is most commonly understood, as well as misrepresenting naturalism. Naturalism could be better defined as empirical-ism, meaning that it only accepts things on the basis of material, tangible evidence, and all evidence is still subject to be changed, or to be shown false. God, the supernatural “realm” in general, and so forth, all fall into the class of ideas and entities that are wholly unknown given naturalism. Vague, untestable, and unfalsifiable, and thus not subject to naturalistic modes of inquiry.

03:24 (3 minutes and 24 seconds)

:

“Naturalism is stronger than atheism. Naturalism entails atheism … but atheism doesn’t entail naturalism; you can be an atheist without rising to the heights of – or sinking to the depths of (whatever you think is appropriate) – naturalism…”

Here he goes again with his broad and unqualified statements about what “naturalism” means. One is tempted to think that this is a deliberate falsification, and not a mistake. It would have been more technically accurate and indeed, honest – if Plantinga had mentioned that “naturalism” in the context of theistic/antitheistic arguments, exists as two differing stances. One is an epistemological position, while the other is an ontological position. Namely: Metaphysical Naturalism, and Methodological Naturalism.

Methodological Naturalism:

“Methodological naturalism (‘MN’) is the commitment of scientific investigation in practice to studying only naturalistic causes and explanations. Boudry et al. observe, though, that there are really two types of MN:

Intrinsic methodological naturalism (IMN) is the a priori philosophical commitment to not even consider supernatural explanations (see the authors’ definition of “supernatural” below). As Boudry et al. state in a forthcoming paper, under IMN ‘science is simply not equipped to deal with the supernatural and therefore has no authority on the issue.’ This is the view expressed by people like Eugenie Scott, Kenneth Miller, and Rob Pennock. It also appears to be the official position of the National Center for Science Education and the semi-official position of the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the National Academy of Sciences.

Provisional (or pragmatic) methodological naturalism (PMN),’a provisory and empirically grounded commitment to naturalistic causes and explanations, which in principle is revocable by extraordinary empirical evidence.’ As the authors note:

According to this conception, MN did not drop from thin air, but is just the best methodological guideline that emerged from the history of science (Shanks 2004; Coyne 2009; Edis 2006), in particular the pattern of consistent success of naturalistic explanations. Appeals to the supernatural have consistently proven to be premature, and science has never made headway by pursuing them. The rationale for PMN thus excludes IMN: if supernatural explanations are rejected because they have failed in the past, this entails that, at least in some sense, they might have succeeded. The fact that they didn’t is of high interest and shows that science does have a bearing on the question of the supernatural.”

Source: http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com … ernatural/

Metaphysical Naturalism as detailed by Wikipedia:
“Metaphysical naturalism. also called ontological naturalism and philosophical naturalism, is a philosophical worldview and belief system that holds that there is nothing but natural elements, principles, and relations of the kind studied by the natural sciences, i.e., those required to understand our physical environment by mathematical modeling. It is occasionally referred to as philosophical naturalism, or just naturalism. Methodological naturalism however, refers exclusively to the methodology of science, for which metaphysical naturalism provides only one possible ontological foundation.
Metaphysical naturalism holds that all properties related to consciousness and the mind are reducible to, or supervene upon, nature. Broadly, the corresponding theological perspective is religious naturalism or spiritual naturalism. More specifically, it rejects the supernatural concepts and explanations that are part of many religions.”

The latter, (Metaphysical Naturalism), is an ontological position, and deals with reality rather than with descriptions of reality, as does the former. Metaphysical, or Philosophical, or more appropriately Ontological Naturalism, deals with the nature of reality, and can be thought of as an extension to Methodological Naturalism. Essentially, it takes Methodological Naturalism, an essential bedrock axiom of scientific inquiry, and extrapolates it positively, to evoke belief in the non-existence of the supernatural. Or rather, that we live in a mechanistically physical reality governed by natural laws. It can be thought of in the same way that Strong Atheism is an epistemologically burdened claim, pertaining to the non-existence of God. But that’s another topic (again).

And contrary to Plantinga’s oversimplification; the naturalistic stance on the existence of God is far more of a vague one. MethodologicalNaturalism (explicitly) – does not directly deny the existence of one or more gods, like Metaphysical adaptations of naturalism do (implicitly). Methodological Naturalism, a key to scientific discovery; merely withholds judgment on the existence or non-existence of a class of “things” of which god(s) are only a part of. Namely, the group that includes the supernatural, and transcendental entities… Supernaturalism in Science should be out-ruled in principle, anyways. As such then, the Atheist vs. Theist debate in this context, and the relevance of the position of the atheist, is not so much the simple statement that there are no gods (which I believe to be an accurate statement), but rather, it is more of a pragmatic sentiment on the knowability or unkowability of the existence of God, in which case, we may as well reject the notion of gods in principle, until physical proof of it’s (or “their”, if we were to include polytheistic religions); existence.

I needn’t mention Plantinga’s later statement about the beliefs of Hegel, as I do not dispute them. The next sentence is a brief statement about the natural evolution of conscious living beings, and it’s place as part of Metaphysical Naturalism, simplistically defined, that is, as well as it’s technical relevance to the ins and outs of the rest of his argument. He also presents a brief summary of the structure of his argument(s).

04:22 (4 minutes and 22 seconds)

… “Evolution is often thought of as kind of a pillar in the temple of naturalism, if indeed naturalism has a temple. But… I want to argue that they don’t fit together. I want to argue that … one can’t sensibly be both a naturalist, and… accept… evolution (as evolution is ordinarily thought of), and that they conflict with each other. They go against each other. The conjunction of the two – naturalism and evolution – I want to argue … shoots itself in the foot! Or as a more complex, learned sounding way of putting it: is self-referentially incoherent. “

I wondered whilst listening to this when he would get to the point, instead of tautologically repeating the same line four or five times! 

Of course, Plantinga himself has in fact shot himself in the foot as well. As I said, the argument has certainly not convinced me, and it has yet to convince any serious naturalist in the thinking world, or anyone on this forum for that matter. Additionally, it’s good to see Plantinga showing his Platonic Colours again, to some degree.  Plantinga has previously made apparent his Platonic Idealism, meaning that he believes that ideas represent some kind of absolute reality, and we can see examples of this cropping up all over his argument if you look hard enough, as in his Reformed Epistemology.

06:20 (6 minutes and 20 seconds)

“So according to theism; belief in God, we human beings have been created by a wholly good, all powerful, and all knowing being, namely God, who has … created us in his own Image, made us like him… who has aims and intentions – he intends certain things – and can act in such a way to accomplish those aims. That’s part of what it is to be a person …”

I trust you will all see the conflict of definitions here, as Plantinga struggles to keep his terms straight. He starts off by using the generic and unqualified term “theism”, a label which does NOT only apply to the Abrahamic Versions of god(s), but applies moreover, to any ’God’, or gods! And then he proceeds to ”qualify” that statement with what is clearly a description of the far more specific – namely – the Judeo-Christian Monotheistic God, and even goes on to allude to the Judeo-Christian myths and mythologies about the creation of the world and universe, such as God creating man in his own image. He also assumes that this God is personal. And so, it ultimately becomes clear that although he uses the very broad term “theism”, what he is really talking about is the Christian God. It seems very strange to me that a sophisticated philosopher such as Alvin Plantinga could confuse his terms in such a bizarre way. It is not the first time he has done this, and we’re not even through with the 1st vide ( represented by*Part 1* – in huge bold green).

09:09 (9 minutes and 9 seconds)

“In brief here’s how my argument will go …

I’ll argue that … if naturalism and evolution were both true, if that conjunction – that pair of propositions – were both correct … then it would be improbable that our cognitive faculties – memory etc. – are in fact reliable …”

This is a truism! The overwhelming majority of naturalists accept this, and so do I! It is not merely “improbable”. It’s a fact. It is empirically verifiable, and well documented, that all of those cognitive functions are highly unreliable! How reliable were the inductive assumptions of old worldy (lol) religions about their gods and deities? How accurate were the Romans and Greeks’ perceptions on such things, with their dozens of gods?? The god of war, the god of fire, the god of… sewage.  Or the Aztecs who had little objections to cutting peoples’ hearts whilst still alive, and sacrificing their parts to their gods? Not to mention the fact that the people were generally acquiescent to this rather obscure fact.

Here is one, rather random example of how our cognitive faculties can fail us: the McGurk Effect. A mysterious perceptual illusion that takes place because your senses, namely vision and hearing, conflict. This is an example of one of the flaws of our cognitions and precognitions.
It seems almost as though Plantinga is trying to assert that our everyday thinking and cognition about the world and universe is reliable and truthful. “Sadly” depending on your perspective, all of the available evidence seems to favour the opposite conclusion: that it’s unreliable, and based on limited perceptual knowledge. Heck, human beings can only ever understand their surroundings to the extent that they can ask “what am I doing now?” — by which time “now” is long, long gone. 

If Plantinga is attempting to argue that human cognition is somehow perfectly reliable from his viewpoint, and there is no good reason to believe that it is, and good reasons to believe that it isn’t…. then his entire argument will collapse. Rather, the question here is whether or not certain cognitive faculties would be favoured by evolution via natural selection, and which of those faculties can be counted on to produce truthful perceptions of the world.

Next will be the final point I deal with in this video.. but there’s still 5 more….

09:36 (9 minutes and 36 seconds)

“Well once you see that … then once you accept [both] naturalism and evolution, then you now have a defeater for that proposition. For this proposition that your cognitive faculties are reliable…a reason to give that proposition up… a reason not to believe it. And once you have a defeater for that proposition – that your cognitive faculties are reliable, then you also have a defeater for any proposition that you take to be produced by your cognitive faculties…. [ ... ] so then you also have a defeater for naturalism and evolution itself. “

1. If we had to reject all of our belief simply because they might be wrong, then Plantinga’s religious beliefs stand to the same principle as the evolutionary naturalist. Assuming that Plantinga’s reasoning is correct. Unfortunately, it’s not …

2. It is not simply evolution that allows for the possibility of error.

Plantinga seems to be highlighting the fact that has been growing in my mind for quite a while. That all of our faculties, and all knowledge is but axiomatic in it’s nature, no matter how certain we are. Science operates on the possibility of error, as does much else.

Plus, Plantinga also seems to be committing to an implicit fallacy of equivocation, by assuming that all of our cognitive faculties as he puts it, are equal and equally worth mentioning. They are not. It’s pretty evident that some of these functions have been honed to a sharper degree by natural selective pressures, such as vision. In humans, we have full colour vision, and forward-facing eyes, probably one of the most advanced visual systems in the living world. Our olfactory cognition however, is seriously weak compared to other animals such as dogs and cats, as is our hearing, the senses that are usually most acutely tuned in most placental mammals other than primates.

And as for religious beliefs. . .

For an explanation of the cognitions that may lead to religion, I present for your approval, a video made by Dr. Andy. Thomson. According to Thomson, a robust and comprehensive account of religious thinking and beliefs can be arrived at in terms of our species’ biological evolution. God does not exist in our experience; we ascribe an interpretation to our intuitions, but these intuitions are byproducts of brain functioning that can be understood in evolutionary terms. Dr. Thomson: “Religious beliefs are just the extraordinary use of everyday cognitions, everyday adaptations: social cognitions, agency detection, precautionary reasoning. Religious beliefs are a byproduct of cognitive mechanisms designed [by evolution] for other purposes.”

Dr. Andy Thomson: Why We Believe in Gods

I post this as an example of how religion, may in fact have been “designed”, or created as an artifact of evolution, as an adaptation. Thomson provides robust evidence that religious belief is the result of cognitive mechanisms used in unusual ways, and even presents evidence that religious beliefs and/or misassumptions are present even in newborns.  Fascinating indeed …

Part 2

Plantinga now proceeds to quote Thomas Aquinas on the nature of God and it’s “relationships” with human cognitions.

00:14 (0 minutes and 14 seconds)

“Since human beings are said to be in the image of god in virtue of their having a nature that includes an intellect … they’re in the image of God because they’ve got an intellect – they can understand and know – such a nature, one with an intellect, is one most in the image of God in being able most to imitate God. So he thinks of this err … ability to “know” on our part is perhaps the most important aspect of the image of God, in human beings…”

Now I will dissect the flaws in Plantinga’s “Reformed Epistemology”, and discuss the axiomatic nature of knowledge. Plantinga almost appears to argue that our experience of the world is somehow supernatural, and citation is needed there, methinks.

01:21 (1 minute and 21 seconds)

“Most of us would think [ ... ] that at least a function of our cognitive faculties would be to provide us with true beliefs. That’s what they’re for. And we would normally think that when they’re functioning properly, when there’s no dys/mal – function, that for the most part, that’s what they do … Of course it’s true that err… let’s say err… if there are five different witnesses to an auto[mobile] accident, you might get five different stories. But there will be an underlying level of agreement … “

Is it not dangerous to simply assume that your beliefs are reliable from the outset, when you have no reliable means of demonstrating this? Also note how Plantinga simply assumes that his beliefs about the world/universe are true, and then qualifies his statement with the spurious phrase “for the most part”…. It turns out that he cannot claim to know absolute certainty, anymore than methodological naturalists. It seems that Plantinga is no longer talking about his naive notions of objective truths and realities, but is instead simply stating that apparently: Evolutionary Naturalism has a lesser probability of truth than Evolutionary Supernaturalism (in his view).

02:40 (2 minutes and 40 seconds)

“There would be agreement that there are indeed such things as automobiles… that [beings] use them to accomplish their purposes, which in the case of automobiles – normally – involves going somewhere… That automobiles won’t work well on the surface of the moon or the bottom of the ocean, that if you drop one out of a helicopter it will ordinarily fall down, rather than ascend… and so on…”

According to gravity, a car, not like objects such as sheets of paper, or parachutes, will fall through the air, like humans, at around 30-35 ft, per second per second. Once dropped, the car’s speed terminally accelerates to the point of terminal velocity wherein the medium (air) with which the car is traveling through, prevents further acceleration under gravity. Thus, all of Plantinga’s examples of these “truths” of the world and universe are pragmatic facts about reality, rather than philosophical musings.

Whether or not cars can drive on the moon or underwater is a semantical conundrum about how to define “car”. For example, do Lunar-rovers count as “cars”??

The same is true of cars driving underwater, since some of them can. It is also worthy of note, the kind of truth we are discussing here. It is truth about physical objects and entities such as cars, and alike. This kind of truth, as I briefly mentioned in the introduction can be labeled as empirical, and rational.

This is empirical knowledge because it is knowledge that comes to us through the senses, and as I have said in the past, I subscribe to the view that all is mere conjecture if it is not applicable via empiricism. There is still no one single ”truth”, though, (in spite of the method by which we acquire “truths”).

I like how William S. Burroughs puts it in his essay “On Coincidence” in ‘The Adding Machine’: “Truth is used to vitalize a statement rather than devitalize it. Truth implies more than a simple statement of fact.”

Aside from the inductive nature of experience (which some Popperians ignore); we have a curious tendency of by-passing perspectivisms, which bundle their own truths in them. Surely, this deferring of perspective has a pragmatic function, but no more than the practical concrete representations of abstract or ideal mathematical shapes.

Every thing experiential is valuative and evaluative and generates differences, such that they may be comparable but not identical. In other words, the most that can be enjoyed is equivalence alone about pertinent facts. Even more, as a consequent, truths are paradigmatic and their constituent elements cannot be separated from the system in which it is contextualized, not unlike a field. Hence, a positivist’s referent is qualitatively not the same as an idealist’s, nor naturalists’ from supernaturalists’, nor a blind person’s from a schizophrenic’s, nor mine from yours, and so forth.

All that can be arrived at is the set of interacting truths, manifested as claims about perception communicatively, to produce yet another amalgam of truths, ad infinitum. This is not a classical dialectic being spoken of here, since there is not teleological point to it (only teleological paths within it.)
Empirical and Rational observation is our most finely tuned faculty, and is at the root of both science, and scientific naturalism. 

03:05 (3 minutes and 5 seconds)

“So our assumption is that when our faculties are functioning properly, though not always, such as when they’re are wokring at the very limit of their ability such as in contemporary physics and cosmology for example, that – for the most part – they will produce truth when they’re functioning properly … “

If it is really the case that our cognitive faculties as Plantinga says, were designed by the creator of the universe, ‘God’, to produce truth, then why do our cognitive faculties all have such a well established founding for error, at least so it would seem? I mentioned the McGurk effect earlier, but there is also the Monkey Business Illusion, visual trickery and many others. Plus: the Homo S Sapiens’ history of scientific error??

03:24 (3 minutes and 24 seconds)

“But isn’t there a problem here for the naturalist? Or at any rate, for the naturalist who thinks that we’ve arrived on the scene after some billions of years of evolution, by way of natural selection, genetic drift, and other blind processes [ ... ] working on sources of variation like random genetic mutation, [ ... ] if that’s the way you think of it then shouldn’t it come as somewhat of a surprise that the cognitive faculties are in fact reliable?”

Isn’t there a problem here for the supernaturalist who falsely asserts that our cognitions are reliable and truthful? Plus, we have still yet to establish what Plantinga means here by “truth”. .. ???
If it is Plantinga’s contention that our cognitive faculties are god-given functions, and were designed by him, to, as I said earlier, produce truth, then why is it so evident, to repeat myself, that our ancestors made such a volume of mistakes, and so on? Our cognitive faculties are rarely if ever fully reliable. And also, Plantinga seems to argue that if both evolution(ism) and natural(ism) were both true, then the probability of reliable cognitive functions coming about are low. Apparently though, it IS low, since humans are only one species in the history of life. And also, the only example of a finely tuned cognition that he has given us so far, is our perceptual observations of cars.

06:15 (6 minutes and 15 seconds)

“If Darwinism is correct, if Evolution is correct, or if the conjunction of evolution and naturalism were correct, then the ultimate purpose of our cognitive faculties would surely be survival … or perhaps survival by way of reproductive age, or to maximize reproductive fitness. So if they have a purpose then that’s what it is. Their purpose ISN’T to provide us with true beliefs, it’s to maximize fitness. …”

Yes. Our cognitive faculties only exist at all because of their predictive power. For example, eyes and the visual system is something that is said to have evolved independently among animals some 40 times throughout Earth’s history, as have many of the other senses, even though the eyes are probably the most pronounced one. And what is more, there are oceangoing invertebrates such as octopus and squid that have eyes on a par with the sharpness of our own. Or nautilus, with it’s sophisticated pinhole camera eye, as Dawkins phrased it so succinctly.

Evolution did NOT give us cognitive faculties to arrive at the most probable truths, nor is evolution a process with purpose or intent. It just plows on. “It” gave us cognitive faculties for survival purposes, as Plantinga has already said. And given the fact that not only can we only expect a certain number of our beliefs to be accurate and subject to revisions at any time, and there are far more ways to be incorrect in one’s beliefs than to be correct, how does Plantinga recognize the false points of his beliefs, if he believes that his cognitive faculties were designed by the all knowing creator of the universe to generate truth(s)? How could such cognitions ever be proven false, if Plantinga’s reasoning is sound?

Nevertheless, I am not alluding to post-modern theories of truths with my claims, but rather, I am simply stating that there are truths to be found using the vagaries of our perceptions, but it will not be the kind of truth that Plantinga would accept with his puerile clinging to certainty and security. All he is doing here is assuming the truth of his beliefs with no form of evidence, and his actual beliefs in question are meanwhile vague and immeasurable by any empirical means. While we can be very sure that cars and tables and chairs and such, exist, and that all of these objects have the properties that we commonly associate with them despite that we can only ever arrive at them through our limited perceptions. But; since are perceptions are highly unreliable, this is a very tentative form of ‘truth’, no matter how much you guys might protest! 

We do not know that our current model of the world and universe and its formation, is really accurate in an absolutist or 100% certainty form. But the reason for that is because knowledge is axiomatic, and this is the way science now works, as a discipline and practice, through the principle of falsifiability, brought about by Karl Popper et al. Methodological Naturalism is simply pragmatic in it’s assumptions. It does not have to be certain in the same way that religious beliefs always have to. It only has to assume that it’s current picture, such as in scientific discovery, is more accurate, and more factual than any previous model.

I will skip the entire 3rd video, since he seems to spend the whole vid making baseless probability calculations, and quote-mining. So here’s the 4th video debunked.

Part 4 (skipped 3rd vid)

05:47 (5 minutes and 47 seconds)

“By virtue of their content as well as their neurophysiological properties; and are also adaptive [to survive]. What then is the probability here of this possibility that their cognitive faculties are reliable? Well here I have to say, not as high as you might think. Beliefs don’t causally effect behaviours just by themselves, it’s beliefs and desires, and other factors that do so together. [ ... ] So, Imagine that Paul is a prehistoric hominid, and the emergencies of survival cause him to display tiger-avoidance behaviour. [ ... ] There would be many behaviours that [may be] appropriate, fleeing for example. Or climbing a steep face – assuming that tigers aren’t that great at rock-climbing … or crawling into a hole too small to admit the tiger [if] it is a large tiger. Or leaping into a handy lake. Now … when I wrote this I was under the impression that tigers, like house cats, don’t like water. [ ... ] But in fact that turns out to be false. “

In this particular example, Alvin Plantinga admits that by not realizing on his part, that tigers can swim, and in fact, thrive in lakes and rivers, because of bizarre reasoning, assuming that tigers behave in a similar fashion to that of cats that are domesticated, and then changed his belief to the correct stance, after having learned more about it, Plantinga has now highlighted the flaws in this argument against naturalism. Naturalistic Evolution did not simply give us false or failing beliefs and desires. It gave us beliefs that most appropriately matched with the observed empirical data as you might call it, for our survival. And this IS important! And this is exactly why our cognitions may have been at least in some sense geared towards “truth” to a revisable degree, is exactly because of these survival advantages that come attached to discovering these “truths”, by virtue of our highly complex cerebral cortexes also “designed” by evolution. Plantinga’s beliefs about tigers not liking water may very well have got him brutally killed, if the situation occurred when he was faced with a tiger.

Plantinga’s tiger-illustration actually hits the nail quite well. He admits that his logically fallacious reasoning lead him to the erroneous conclusion as he later found out, that tigers are like other cats that he was familiar with. And at some time later, someone or other may have demonstrated to him that tiger in fact DO live in waters, such as rivers, and as such, Plantinga’s belief-forming mechanisms were shown to be false, and he had to change them in accordance with the empirically observed facts.

This illustrates the fact that beliefs are malleable and can change as new evidence comes along. And it’s that new evidence that matters, too. That is to elucidate the fact that beliefs are based on evidence, and few things are simply “self-evident”, as proposed by Evidentialist Foundationalism, in philosophy. Beliefs are not things that we merely accept because of the “fact” (LOL) that they were designed by god or gods to produce truths about the world, but we accept our beliefs based on empirically or rationally based justification for those beliefs, relating to the universe that we can observe. This also goes to demonstrate the rather glaringly obvious fact that the naturalistic world and universe is the first axiom of logic in regards to uncovering truths in reality, rather than God-given precepts, as Plantinga believes.

In his tiger illustration, Plantinga lists 3 possibilities of how a pre homo s. sapiens like hominid that he called “Paul”, could end up trying to run away from a tiger. His 1st possibility is that he would for some reason like to be eaten, but when faced with a tiger, giving in to his instincts, presumably runs away hoping for a better prospect, if he isn’t killed. The 2nd example, is that Paul may be led to believe that the tiger is in fact a large and friendly cat, which he wants to stroke … but apparently also believes that the “best” way in which to pet it is to run from it. The 3rd point is one we would all obviously concur with, from both our instincts and our educated standpoint as humans. That Paul believes that the tiger could damage or kill him, and he runs to prevent that from happening.

• 1.) So there is thus a conundrum in expaining how Paul’s false belief could naturally arise by evolution, if both evolution and theism are true. Given the fact that God could have designed the beliefs to ensure that they matched with reality. If Paul wants to be eaten by a Tiger, but then runs hoping for a better prospect, how is it possible for Paul to determine the prospects, in Plantinga’s mind?Whatever the causal reasons are for this avoidance-of-tigers behaviour, Plantinga cannot adequately explain how it could be inferred from observation, OR how it could be acquired as a new belief from experience or cognition, by virtue of our “unreliable”, according to Plantinga, Cognitive Faculties.  This, if true, can only be, under Plantinga’s Reformed Epistemology, a ”properly basic” belief about reality, and thus his argument is ultimately self-refuting to Plantinga’s broader epistemological positions, if this argument is truly taken to its inevitable conclusions.
• 2.) In the second example of Paul with his bizarre desire to cuddle and to pet the tiger, there is the same logical problem as before, but with added connotations. There are plenty of people who do in fact rather like the idea of cuddling up to a tiger, and some have in the past with relatively no injury. So what would stop a prehuman hominid like Paul from realizing this point?
• 3.) Finally is the false assumption that running away from a tiger is somehow a good or productive means of avoiding a tiger, when it is not., given the fact that tigers can run in excess of 35 mph, while the fastest humans humans can only run a 25 mph or so. And the fastest of tigers may average at 50 mph. As such, it would be more productive to use tools and weapons to fight the tiger, and shift your chances of survival a little.Thus, it seems that Plantinga can only use examples that never actually evolved, in order to prove his case. Plantinga in the 5th video then presents a hideous number of bizarre examples that are not really worth addressing. He spends his time endlessly repeating himself. BUT:Part 6 (skipped 5th vid)02:33 (2 minutes and 33 seconds)
  “The traditional theist on the other hand has no reason to doubt that his faculties are reliable, or that it is the purpose of our cognitive system to produce true beliefs. “

This is nothing short of a spectacular article of faith! Again, he is using the generic and unqualified term “theism”, and is not clear on what he means when uses the word “God”. It seems that he means the Judeo-Christian philosophy. But …. his term ‘theist’ applies to anyone who believes in God or gods. How does he know that a Demonic God could not exist and deliberately make our cognitive faculties Unreliable? Who is to make that judgement, and what is it’s significance if it is true? His whole argument would collapse, and so it seems that his entire argument is based on fundamentally flawed use of terms, and falls flat on it’s face on it’s first premise, that our faculties are reliable and truthful. Thus this argument is invalid, and is not a compelling argument against Evolutionary Naturalism. Thanks for reading.

Out-sources:

“Evolutionary argument against naturalism: An argument proposed by Alvin Plantinga (henceforth EAAN), which purports to show that metaphysical naturalism is self-defeating and hence cannot be rationally accepted. In addition, Plantinga argues that theism does not face self-defeat in the same way that naturalism does. In what follows, I shall descrive EAAN and outline some of the main objections to it.
To begin with, let ‘N’ stand for metaphysical naturalism, the claim that there is no God and nothing like God; let ‘E’ stand for the view that human cognitive faculties have evolved by way of the mechanisms that are studied by contemporary evolutionary theory; and let ‘R’ stand for the claim that the beliefs produced by those cognitive faculties are for the most part true.
EAAN has three stages, each of which involves defending a certain premise:

(1) P(R/N&E) is either low or inscrutable (meaning that we cannot determine whether it is low or high). Call this the Probability Thesis.

(2) Anyone who accepts N and E and the Probability Thesis has a defeater for R. This is the Defeater Thesis.

(3) Anyone who has a defeater for R has an undefeated defeater for each of his beliefs.

From these premises, it follows that anyone who accepts N and E and the Probability Thesis has an undefeated defeater for each of his beliefs, including his belief in metaphysical naturalism. But one who is a naturalist must accept E (it is, says Plantinga, the only option for the naturalist when it comes to explaining the diversity of life). Hence, naturalism is self-defeating. Let us see how these three premises are defended.
Plantinga defends the Probability Thesis by inviting us to consider the case of a hypothetical population of creatures on a planet a lot like earth, formed by blind, undirected evolution, and to assume that naturalism is true. What is P(R/N&E) specified, not to us, but to them? Plantinga notes that, when we consider this hypothetical population, there are four possibilities:

P1: There is no causal connection between belief and behavior.

P2: Beliefs are the effects of behavior but are not among the causes of behavior.

P3: Beliefs do causally affect behavior, but not by virtue of their content.

P4: Beliefs do causally affect behavior in virtue of their content.

Plantinga then says that, since these four possibilities are jointly exhaustive and mutually exclusive, the probability we want to assess, namely P(R/N&E), is given by the following weighted average:

P(R/N&E)
=
P(R/N&E&P1)P(P1/N&E)
+P(R/N&E&P2)P(P2/N&E)
+P(R/N&E&P3)P(P3/N&E)
+P(R/N&E&P4)P(P4/N&E).

The Probability Thesis is then justified by estimating this weighted average. P(R/N&E&Pi) is estimated as low for i = 1, 2, 3, because in these cases beliefs will be invisible to natural selection and so there will be no selection pressure towards their being mostly true. It seems, initially, as though P(R/N&E&P4) is going to be very high, but Plantinga contests this estimate by presenting examples of beliefs which are false but which, when combined with strange desires, lead to felicitous action. In the latter case, Plantinga concludes that the probability will be at best moderately high, not very much more than a half.
It now remains to estimate the probabilities of the form P(Pi/N&E), for i = 1, 2, 3, 4. Here, Plantinga thinks that, because of the enormous difficulties that naturalists (almost all of whom are at present materialists) face in avoiding P3, P(P3/N&E) is very high. Now, P1, P2, P3, and P4 are mutually exclusive and jointly exhaustive, and their respective probabilities sum to 1. Thus, each of P1, P2, and P4 must be estimated as having low probability on N&E. Plantinga claims that a reasonable estimate of the probabilities leads to an estimate of P(R/N&E) as being somewhat less than a half.
Plantinga grants, however, that estimating probabilities in this sort of context is a dubious business. So he concedes that it would be proper to take the relevant probabilities to be inscrutable to us, leading to the conclusion that P(R/N&E) is inscrutable to us. In this way, Plantinga arrives at his conclusion that P(R/N&E) is either low or inscrutable.
In his self-profile in this volume, Plantinga has given a new argument for the Probability Thesis, which does not consider different possibilities for the relation between belief and action, and which supports the stronger conclusion that P(R/N&E) is low (rather than the conclusion that it is low or inscrutable).
The Defeater Thesis is defended by appealing to hypothetical cases that, it is claimed, are clearly analogous to the case of the naturalist in EAAN. Since, in these cases, the subject has a defeater for R, the same is true of the naturalist who accepts the Probability Thesis. Two hypothetical cases that have tended to predominate in discussions of EAAN are The Case of the Cartesian Demon and The Case of the Drug XX. The former is described below, and a version of the latter is described in Plantinga’s self-profile in this volume.

The Case of the Cartesian Demon
Suppose a man comes to believe that he is the creation of a demon that, as imagined by Descartes, is immensely knowledgeable. Suppose that he also comes to believe that this demon is not particularly concerned with making his creations cognitively reliable, and on at least some occasions has been quite pleased to make them unreliable, and moreover has made them unreliable in such a way that they continue to think of themselves as paragons of reliability, being unable to detect the cognitive disaster that has befallen them. Thinking about this, the man comes to the conclusion that P(R/D) is low or inscrutable, where R is specified to himself, and D is the proposition that the man has been created by the demon. Then the man has a defeater for R.
Plantinga defends the third premise by arguing that, if the naturalist has a defeater for R, this generates a defeater for the rest of his beliefs as well. The reason is that all of the naturalist’s beliefs are products of his cognitive faculties, which constitute their source. Once the reliability of that source comes into question, so do the beliefs generated by the source. Moreover, the defeater for R that the naturalist acquires cannot itself be defeated, since everything that could be a defeater-defeater is itself subject to defeat. To support this, Plantinga says that to rely on one’s cognitive faculties to form a defeater-defeater of the defeater one has for R would be like trusting a man to tell you he is not a liar when you have already been given excellent reasons to doubt his honesty.
Let us now consider some objections to EAAN. Most of the controversy regarding the argument has focused on the Defeater Thesis. There has been one main worry that critics have had about this claim. The objections to it that we shall describe are manifestations of this worry, which can be expressed as follows: what exactly is the connection between the naturalist’s acceptance of the Probability Thesis on the one hand, and her acquisition of a defeater for R on the other? One of the most natural expressions of this worry is the Perspiration Objection

The Perspiration Objection
The probability that the function of perspiration is to cool the body given (just) N&E is also low. But surely it would be absurd to claim that this gives the naturalist a defeater for this belief. Thus, it is also absurd to claim that the naturalist has a defeater for R in virtue of accepting the Probability Thesis.
There is no defeater in the perspiration case because the naturalist has other evidence for his beliefs about the function of perspiration, beyond just N&E. So could not the naturalist appeal to other evidence for his beliefs about R? This thought leads naturally to the Total Evidence Objection for EAAN.

The Total Evidence Objection
The naturalist has many other beliefs besides N&E. The probability of R relative to N&E conjoined with these other beliefs is quite high. Thus, the naturalist need not have a defeater for R in virtue of accepting the Probability Thesis.
Many philosophers (including Plantinga) hold that, in addition to propositional evidence, beliefs can also be warranted in virtue of non-propositional evidence. This leads to yet another objection, due to Michael Bergmann, which we can call the Non-propositional Evidence Objection.

The Non-propositional Evidence Objection
Even if R has low probability on all the available propositional evidence, the naturalist could still have non-propositional evidence for R which makes it rational to continue to hold on to R. Hence, the naturalist need not have a defeater for R merely in virtue of accepting the Probability Thesis.
These objections comprise just a small sample of the arguments against EAAN that have appeared in the published literature on the argument. Many of these, along with Plantinga’s responses to them, are articulated and discussed in Beilby (2002 [Naturalism Defeated? Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument]).”

(“Evolutionary argument against naturalism,” by Omar Mirza. In A Companion to Epistemology, 2nd ed., edited by Jonathan Dancy, Ernest Sosa, and Matthias Steup, 351-354. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010.)

As for the technical term “defeater” –

“Following Pollock (1986), we can distinguish between undercutting and rebutting defeaters. Intuitively, where E is evidence for H, an undercutting defeater is evidence which undermines the evidential connection between E and H. Thus, evidence which suggests that you are a pathological liar constitutes an undercutting defeater for your testimony: although your testimony would ordinarily afford excellent reason for me to believe that your name is Fritz, evidence that you are a pathological liar tends to sever the evidential connection between your testimony and that to which you testify. In contrast, a rebutting defeater is evidence which prevents E from justifying belief in H by supporting not-H in a more direct way. Thus, credible testimony from another source that your name is not Fritz but rather Leopold constitutes a rebutting defeater for your original testimony. It is something of an open question how deeply the distinction between ‘undermining’ and ‘rebutting’ defeaters cuts.

Significantly, defeating evidence can itself be defeated by yet further evidence: at a still later point in time, I might acquire evidence E″ which suggests that you are not a pathological liar after all, the evidence to that effect having been an artifice of your sworn enemy. In these circumstances, my initial justification for believing that your name is Fritz afforded by the original evidence E is restored. In principle, there is no limit to the complexity of the relations of defeat that might obtain between the members of a given body of evidence. Such complexity is one source of our fallibility in responding to evidence in the appropriate way. ”

(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/evidence)

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/reasoning-defeasible

Of course, Plantinga did not need to reveal his bizarre ignorance of philosophy, metaphysics, biology, and Palaeoanthropology, by using his equally bizarre tiger examples. There are excellent examples of definitively false beliefs that have lead to better outcomes than ones that are “true”, to whatever standard. Take the placebo effect. Its not just a change of perception, it has measurable effects. Of course, Plantinga is not going to use real-world examples in his lecture, because his own beliefs are not based on anything real, and needs his Christian beliefs to appear at least somewhat more likely to be true at the end of his lecture. As I said, what kind of evil and disingenuous being would create us to have false beliefs? Then again, how could we disprove such a notion…? But if we don’t look at the examples of genuinely beneficial false beliefs that actually exist, and judge their value, we will fail to understand how false beliefs themselves can evolve. Plantinga sets himself up to fail in understanding false beliefs, and does so via a very selective attempt at looking at all the available evidence. Beliefs are part of an evolutionarily unique way of avoiding becoming trapped with mere instinctual mechanisms. Thus we need to examine not only whether or not the conclusions themselves are sound, but whether the method by which we arrive at them is also sound, be they mathematics, logic, deduction, induction, empiricism, abstraction, metaphysics, etc. What we’ve done with our scientific models is to produce a predictive instrument designed to weed out false theories and apprehensions, and it is through this method that it can be seen that Plantinga’s arguments can be seen to be invalid. That is why he want’s to destroy naturalism, even at the methodical level …

1) Hitler is Anti-christian.

2) Abortion in America is really akin to the Holocaust.

The second argument is really little more than the application of godwins law into a debate, furthermore the connection between abortion doctors in America today and the Nazis in the 1930′s and 1940′s is more silly and superficial than what Ray and his fellow religious propagandists make it out to be. Yes it is true that the Nazis used forced abortions upon women deemed “unAryan” (women who were Jewish or Slavic, etc.) in order to decrease their number as part of their eugenic policies, however for healthy Women of the Volksgemeinschaft it was a different story, because for them abortions were banned. Indeed in 1936, Heinrich Himmler created a Reich Central Office just for the purpose “for the Combating of Homosexuality and Abortion”! You know those two things Ray and his fellow religious fundamentalists don’t like. Being sarcastic here like i sometimes am, Does this mean that by ray’s logic he may be *shock horror* akin to a Nazi? In the real world, of course he isn’t!

But for the purposes of this, im going to attempt to rebut his other argument, that Hitler was no Christian.

Let’s begin with an observation about this video, and that simply is, is that ray does what he typically does i guess, which is to reveal his calibre of intelect by interviewing some “greasy Highschool students” as Thunderf00t put it in the Ray Comfort edition of his “WDPLAC” series and being amused when they fail to give a good answer. “Do you know who hitler was?” .”Do you know who hitler was?”, “No?”, “No?”

To paraphrase Tf00t again: “Bravo Ray we can debunk Mathematics by this method too can’t we?”

in addition to the “greasy Highschool students” we are also introduced to a a Neo-nazi that goes by the name of “steve”, who as you can see in the film has some very nasty things to say about Christianity. If you are going to pretend that all Neo-nazis are just like steve, you will be mistaken, Meet “Father” Angelo Idi.

 He works in the parish of St. Francis, in Vigevano, Italy. Apparantly He once saw off a charity box thief with a truncheon And really wishes for you to care about, in his words “how good a priest I am.” If i were to take away the image and present to you only the information already given (without sources). Idi would probably Sound like someone not too far removed from the Priests who works in your local area wouldn’t he? The Thing is of course, i suspect he is very far removed from the priests in your area. As you can see from the image, Idi is a Neo-Nazi and a Christian. He says he is ”proud” of his “right wing beliefs” And even in his part of the world as the Austrian Times expose reveals, He is not alone. Let’s continue with Ray comfort himself!

“Adolf Hilter hated Christianity, he called it a disease and one point said ‘the heaviest blow which ever stuck humanity was Christianity’ and adding ‘it was the invention of the Jew.’

Are we sure that’s a genuine remark there? Ray’s source although he doesn’t cite it is the Trevor-roper translation of the Table-talks, the one that, as i have explained elsewhere, it just so happens to be full of Mistranslations, see the “German Studies Review, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Oct., 2003), pp. 561-576” for more details. 

“Hitler keineswegs areligiös war,” or  ”Hitler was by no means unreligious” was the conclusion Werner Jochmann gave after surveying Hitler’s remarks on religion in their actual German. Why? well could it be because we can find quotations like this:

“Ich bin auf Grund höherer Gewalt da, wenn ich zu etwas nötig bin. Abgesehen davon, dass sie mir zu grausam ist, die seligmachende Kirche! Ich habe noch nie Gefallen gefunden daran, andere zu schinden, wenn ich auch weiβ, dass es ohne Gewalt nicht möglich ist, sich in der Welt zu behaupten. Es wird nur dem das Leben gegeben, der am stärksten darum ficht. Das Gesetz des Lebens heißt: Verteidige dich!

Die Zeit, inder wir leben, ist die Erscheinung des Zusammenbruchs dieser Sache. Es kann 100 oder 200 Jahre noch dauern. Es tut mir leid, dass ich wie Moses das gelobte Land nur aus der Ferne sehen kann. Wir wachsen in eine sonnige, wirklich tolerante Weltanschauung hinein: Der Mensch soll in der Lage sein, die ihm von Gott gegebenen Fähigkeiten zu entwickeln. Wir müssen nur verhindern, dass eine neue, noch gröβere Lüge entsteht: die Jüdisch-Bolschewistische Welt. Sie muss ich zerbrechen.”

or this:

“Christus war ein Arier. Aber Paulus hat seine Lehre benutzt, die Unterwelt zu mobilisieren und einen Vorbolschewismus zu organisieren. Mit dessen Einbruch geht Die schöne Klarheit der antiken Welt verloren. Was ist das für ein Gott, der nur Wohlgefallen hat, wenn die Menschen sich vor ihm kasteien?”

or even Hitler’s remark with regards to the position of Man in nature:

“Das, was der Mensch vor dem Tier voraushat, der vielleicht wunderbarste Beweis fur die Überlegenheit des Menschen, ist, dass er begriffen hat, dass es eine Schöpferkraft geben muss!”

None of these quotes reveal a “disease of Christianity” that Hitler wishes to get rid of but rather the expediency of his own warped, and im sorry ray, “Christian” ideology. As far as the German is concerned, hitler makes it clear all the way through that he believes in God, Christ, the immortality of the soul, and divine providence. His so-called attacks on Christianity are really falsely translated Hitler attacks on what he sees as false dogmas and the sort of critiques of the Roman Catholic Church you might otherwise expect from a bigoted protestant. Continuing to pwn Comfort some more with his source, despite the faulty translations we see in the Trevor-Roper talks, we can if we look hard enough still see amazingly some glimmers of the Christian Hitler actually was.

“What a queer sort of Christianity they practise down there [in Spain]! We must recognise, of course, that, amongst us, Christianity is coloured by Germanism. All the same, its doctrine signifies: “Pray and work!”"

Hitler on the Ten Commandments, have this quote in mind for a later Comfort claim:

“The Ten Commandments are a code of living to which there’s no refutation. These precepts correspond to irrefragable needs of the human soul; they’re inspired by the best religious spirit, and the Churches here support themselves on a solid foundation.”

It would appear that this is Hitler’s reaction to an FDR suggestion that Hitler might be Anti-christian:

“What repulsive hypocrisy that arrant Freemason, Roosevelt, displays when he speaks of Christianity ! All the Churches should rise up against him—for he acts on principles diametrically opposed to those of the religion of which he boasts.”

And my favourite; Hitler comparing Nazi religious policy to Soviet religious policy:

“It’s senseless to encourage man in the idea that he’s a king of creation, as the scientist of the past century tried to make him believe. … The Russians were entitled to attack their priests, but they had no right to assail the idea of a supreme force. It’s a fact that we’re feeble creatures, and that a creative force exists. To seek to deny it is folly. In that case, it’s better to believe something false than not to believe anything at all. Who’s that little Bolshevik professor who claims to triumph over creation? People like that, we’ll break them. Whether we rely on the catechism or on philosophy, we have possibilities in reserve, whilst they, with their purely materialistic conceptions, can only devour one another.”

Let’s continue down with what else Comfort claims:

He killed and imprisoned genuine pastors and replaced them with his own Nazi pastors.

Yes true. but there is a difference between being Anti-clerical, and being Anti-christian.

he also replaced the Cross with swastika. Printed over a thousand copies of his own twisted Bible.

I could find nowhere directly that said that the Nazis removed crosses or bibles from churches, but conversely I could find nothing that said they didn’t. But this later case is obvious to me, as why would anyone need to say they left the crosses and bibles in the churches? The positive claim of change has to be proven not the negative. But still I was wondering where this claim came about. So i did a little bit of research and from what i can gather the claim appears to have come partly from William Shirer in his book “The rise and fall of the third reich”, although Shirer not being immortal was wrong in this case, or at least inarticulate about it. In his work he talks about the Reich Church and that there was a set of 30 points put up by Rosenberg that made such demands (p213). As a source he uses: Stewart W. Herman Jr’s 1943 book “It’s your Soul We Want”. Now this is where it gets interesting, Herman was a Lutheran pastor who left Germany and fought in the allied armies so right there it seemed a little tainted. And but again Herman uses Rosenberg’s points. What none of this tells you is that Rosenberg’s paganism was rejected by Hitler and many Nazis.

“[which is why] Significantly …. [Rosenberg's book "Der Mythus"] was published as a private work, never becoming an official guide to Nazi thinking, as Mein Kampf was. It never received the official stamp of the NSDAP, nor did the party’s official publisher publish it … The party in fact largely ignored it, as Rosenberg himself would later discover. Over 700 pages long, it was easily the most abstruse book ever written by a Nazi. In keeping with their own religious views, party leaders like Hitler and Goebbels heaped enormous scorn upon it. According to one biographer [Reinhard Bollmus], “Hitler completely rejected… the mysticism with which Rosenberg, in his main work…attempted to give a religious intensity to a racist interpretation of history”" – Richard Steigman-Gall, “The Holy Reich”, p92-93

And Rosenberg had nothing to do with the actual formation of the Reich Church. Herman, from what I can get of his book, is using a pamphlet Rosenberg wrote called the “Protestantische Rompilger” which is an addendum to his “Der Mythus” book that Hitler rejected. Anyway, this was not a publication of policy, it was only Rosenberg’s personal work and wishes, and not published by the party publisher, and Hitler had already rejected Rosenberg’s ideas anyway. And if this were truly Nazi policy than why such a source as this? There would have been a policy statement or order put out by a formal agency, but we only have Rosenbergs pamphlets and works. I at the moment have no claims from others that Crosses were non present, amusingly i would like to point out on a side that the very symbol of the “Deutsche Christen” movement is a Christian Cross with a swastika on it.

Also from Stiegman-gall and others are the statements that the Church downplayed the Jewish parts of the bible (old testament) not that the Bible was banned, just that certain parts were downplayed. And even as early as the turn of the century there were plenty Christian sects that wished to extricate the Old Testament from the ‘Christian’ bible, it was not a particularly uniquely Nazi idea. Indeed as far as i am aware it was even shared by the Kaiser in exile! (perhaps one could note how similar the Kaiser’s ideas were as presented here to Hitler’s own ideology?)

“In the mid-1920S, Wilhelm called for the formation of a ‘Christian International’ to launch the ‘Kampf’ against the Verjudung’ of Germany; after the ‘purification’ of the Fatherland, the struggle would have to be continued against ‘das Judentum’ in the whole world.” He demanded that the Bible be re-written to eliminate most of the Old Testament, so leaving only genuinely Christian elements, which he claimed were Zoroastrian and therefore ‘Aryan’ in origin and ‘not Semitic-Jewish’ at all. ‘Let us free ourselves from the Judentum with its Jawe!’, he cried in one of his last letters to Chamberlain.” And just as the Jews were not our religious forebears’, so of course Jesus was ‘not a Jew’, but a Gallilean, a man, he liked to believe, ‘of exceptional beauty, tall and slim, with a noble face inspiring respect and love; his hair blond shading into chestnut brown, his arms and hands noble and exquisitely formed’.” – source (pdf).

But even this wouldn’t be banning the bible, and evidently the Reich Church didn’t even go that far and only tended to ignore the parts in the Old Testament it didn’t like, (Also not unusual in Christianity, when has any Christian or indeed Ray followed or preached all in Leviticus?) So I have to call bullshit to his claim.  The Rosenberg list was only Rosenberg’s own personal wish list, and not policy, no matter what Shirer wrote (and his sourcing here does not stand up to scrutiny, he never went to any primary source and took the word of someone with an axe to grind). also i could say that what has just been said about the Kaiser (especially if you read that document) renders this line by Comfort:

“He rewrote the Ten Commandments and then created his own Aryan anti-Sematic non-Jewish Jesus”

as meaningless! i guess it’s just part of his no true scotsman fallacy. He continues about how Hitler violated the 10 commandments, but the question i would then ask is How many times has ray violated the idea of “thou shall not lie” which he regards as a sin? He and his buddy Kirk Cameron certainly lied about Darwin in that special intro to the “Origin of species” didn’t he?

Ray then proceds to Quoting or quotemining Hitler; This is what he uses.

“The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but not human. They cannot be human in the sense of being made in the image of God…” – citing a “May 1923 speech in Munich”

We can see here what Ray omits out.

“The Jews are undoubtedly a race, but not human. They cannot be human in the sense of being made in the image of God, the Eternal. The Jews are the image of the devil. Jewry means the racial tuberculosis of the nations” – Hitler, quoted in Joachim C. Fest, “Hitler”, p212.

The jews are the image of the devil? Where do you think we might have heard that line before? Oh yes, it was a product of Christian Anti semitism indeed!

“A line of anti-Semitic descent from Martin Luther to Adolf Hitler is easy to draw. Both Luther and Hitler were obsessed by a demonologized universe inhabited by Jews. ‘Know, Christian,’ wrote Luther, ‘that next to the devil thou hast no enemy more cruel, more venomous and violent than a true Jew .’ Hitler himself, in that early dialogue with Dietrich Eckhart, asserted that the later Luther – that is, the violently anti-Semitic Luther – was the genuine Luther. Luther’s protective authority was invoked by the Nazis when they came to power, and his anti-Semitic writings enjoyed a revival of popularity. To be sure, the similarities of Luther’s anti-Jewish exhortations with modern racial anti-Semitism and even with Hitler’s racial policies are not merely coincidental. They all derive from a common historic tradition of Jew-hatred, whose provenance can be traced back to Haman’s advice to Ahasuerus. But modern German anti-Semitism had more recent roots than Luther and grew out of a different soil – not that German anti-Semitism was new; it drew part of its sustenance from Christian anti-Semitism, whose foundation had been laid by the Catholic Church and upon which Luther built. It was equally a product of German nationalism. Modern German anti-Semitism was the bastard child of the union of Christian anti-Semitism with German nationalism.” – Lucy Dawidowicz, “The war against the jews”, p23.

And i can guess you can tell Ray is being deliberately dishonest with his portraryl of Hitler by quoting  a Hitler quote gleaned from a piece of fiction and passing it off as non-fictional fact, Perhaps someone ought to tell him to look up the very term “novel”. This is what he quotes:

“history will recognize our movement as a great battle for humanity’s liberation, a liberation from the curse of Mt. Sinai…[God is] a tyrant who orders one to do the very things one doesn’t like.” Source taken from The Ten Commandments: Ten Short Novels of Hitler’s War Against the Moral Code by Armin L.. Robinson (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1943), xiii.

and it’s fictional nature is exactly why i personally have not seen it anywhere in any of the major histories of Nazi Germany that i have read. 

Im going to conclude, Here in this post i did not even bother with answering his trick Moral questions (which in my head i wonder to what extent they could satisfy J.S Mill’s utilitarian ethics. J.S Mill being an atheist which i find amusing in this context.) designed to convince the credulous, instead i’ve gone after his portraryl of Hitler. Ray to me seems to have violated “thou shall not lie” yet again.

But in Short, He’s all my Nightmares wrapped up in one disgusting cowardly person who’se level of insanity approaches and possibly exceeds that of a “Nephilimfree” or “VenomFangX”

What does one do when approached by such characters like Nephy or OFU? What do you do when someone simply dismisses all the Documentation and evidence i have provided to support my side as nothing more than “Zionist Propaganda”?

What does one do with someone who has an unhealthy obsession with the hair shaven from the victims before they went into the Gas Chambers. I explained Via quoting some Nazi Docs that the hair shaven off was used in the Textiles industry. One of those Docs mentions a usage of hair in the manufacturing of hair-yarn socks for U-boat crews. He picked that line up and tried to bastardize my broader point by now he’s demanding examples of, In his words “Jew Hair Socks”. What am i to do?

Well it turns out that i dont think there is not alot i can do. No matter how much evidence one puts forward to support my case, No matter how long and detailed my arguments are. [Im one of those rare people that doesn't see the 500 character limit on youtube as a limit.] It’s going to be ignored or distorted anyways, The best thing to do is argue not for the sake of winning my opponent over [I clearly do not think i can] but better to get the truth to a potential third party who may read the lies and distortions given by such loons. That is what i believe the essence of the public sphere and debate is. Winning others over.

There is a reason why i ask “what can i do?” here, on a Forum designed to promote Critical Thinking and whose members alot of them specialise in the rebuttial of creationist claims. It is because i believe Holocaust denial and Creationism have their similarities. Yes i know With one, are denying something which i, Like any other decent person considers to be a well demonstrated and well proven fact of Nature. With the other, You’re denying something which I any other decent person considers to be a well demonstrated and well proven fact of History. Both employ similar methods of denial. Ranging From Quote-mines to inserting things which really aren’t, and so on! Gleaning your info from ideological Hacks which is what both do doesn’t do you any favours

But is this superficial? Im hoping it isn’t. I have plenty of experience debating Beck-heads as anyone on the chat will verify. But my experience of debating pure fundamentalists like OFU is minimal. If anyone experienced with debating creationists can help me out with these questions, They are more than welcome, especialy as with regards to how to engage idiots like OFU

I have lived through a decade of Ground Zero controversy. From the moment the dust settled, individuals and groups with political agendas descended on the wounded carcass of lower Manhattan, cutting out and dishing up great slabs of suffering to serve at the gluttonous feast of their ambitions.

“All of Ground Zero should be declared hallowed ground”, “The memorial in light should remain until the towers are rebuilt”, “it should be called the Freedom Tower”, “THIS tower design is a better memorial than that one”, “A design contest will show the true spirit of American freedom”, “The stairway to heaven can’t be moved, it would be disrespectful!”, “The beams that form a cross cannot be moved, God placed them there!”

It has gone on and on, year after year.

Politicians and activists stand in the shadow of the ruins, strike noble stances, bow their heads sorrowfully and then declare; “Vote for me! Support me!”

This is what angered me so much about Thunderf00t’s video. It was clearly yet another attempt to ride the emotional tide of Ground Zero.  The great Thunderf00t, long known as a scion of education, reason and logic on YouTube, had spoken out on the issue and had not addressed any of the real facts, had not applied his supposed keen, razor sharp intellect to the falsehoods and bigotry flying about; instead he had created a video that in my opinion, was total, absolute shit.  Like many others before him he had gone the base, common route of indulging himself in fallacy and hate at the expense of reason; at the expense of the people who call that neighborhood… “home”.

I won’t bother to repeat here any of the facts that destroy the many fallacious arguments against the Park 51 Center. But suffice it to say; there has not been a single “factual” argument put forward that has not turned out to be a lie – and in each case it was a lie that could be traced back to some Republican/neo-con right wing source.

I will address one argument that I keep hearing raised time and again.

“Why don’t they just place the Center somewhere else?”

This appeal to emotion, to supposed sensibility and rationality, is one of the most insidious arguments put forward. It totally ignores fact and reality, attempting to portray the opposing side as inconsiderate and unreasonable.

The Downtown Muslim community has existed since before the building of the World Trade Center. Since that time, it has grown. After 9/11, when businesses and families fled Downtown and moved elsewhere, the Muslim Community continued to grow. They are a part of Downtown. They live there, shop there, own businesses there, send their children to local schools. And they already have a mosque right there, a couple of blocks away, that has been there for years. It is now, however, too small for their community, insufficient for their needs in many ways, and needs to be replaced.

So I ask back to those who raise this question;

In a time when economic hardship is the norm, why should they NOT have their Center located where they live and work instead of at another location where the trip would cost them a few hundred dollars a month in transportation expenses not to mention an hour’s time round trip?

Why should they have to raise the additional funds to purchase a building at greater cost when they already have one?

Why should you, who have no connection to the area, with your offended sensibilities, based on your irrational emotional response, dictate how these people live their lives?
And why should the entire neighborhood, Muslim and non-Muslim, be denied the much-needed business and income that will result from the existence of the new community center?

September 11th has passed. On September 12th the politicians, the activists, the bloggers, the news sources put away their fiery rhetoric, set aside their somber expressions, wiped away their crocodile tears and for another ten months Ground Zero will be forgotten.  The tourists will still come in droves to view the site where one of the greatest tragedies in American history took place. But just blocks away, streets that were once teeming with pedestrians now contain only a ghost of that once busy traffic.  Businesses will continue to struggle. Some will survive. Others will not. Life in Downtown Manhattan will continue – Until next year, when some new controversy will be fabricated and the whole circus will begin again.

Someday, the Two Towers will stand again. But we must ask ourselves now;

“What do we want these Towers to mean?”

Do we wish them to be a symbol of the freedom and equality that we have always been told embody the American spirit?

Or do we wish to build an icon to the fear, bigotry and hatred that now dominate the American landscape?

This is TheTruePooka, writing to you from Hell’s Kitchen, NYC. And Remember; if you find these words upsetting; Pet the Cat.

He has been a controversial character since he first came onto the YT scene.

Originally preaching a message generated by an internal Christ that was clearly representative of his internal demons he was ridiculed and loathed by many.

Recently he announced his deconversion from Christianity to Atheism. Just the other day he posted a video.

To the dismay of many, atheist and theist alike; he stated his intentions to become a Mormon.

We tend to forget that there is a person behind the YouTube facade. Their hopes, failures, dreams; what they suffer is often not dissimilar to our own trials and wants.

I have never done a video involving Jordon.

I instantly recognized him for what he was. A person whose internal pain and conflict caused him to lash out at those around him in a horrific fashion. I see no point in debating the psychically crippled.

In those few months where he questioned his beliefs and contemplated a life as a non-theist he seems to have achieved a measure of calm and a grace of character that will hopefully remain and sustain him.

I understand the need for a show of strength and unquestioning resolve in the fight for Atheists’ Rights against the dominant forces of Theism in the world today.

But sometimes disengaging from the battle and seeking a more modest approach is the wiser course.

Sometimes it is necessary to look past the surface into the deeper waters where the similarity of our experiences reflect back.

Because that recognition will go much further towards achieving the bedrock of a mutual respect and coexistence regardless of differences of belief.

For the moment, consider how fortunate Jordan is.

He has the opportunity to reach out at any moment of the day, and connect with people of radically different beliefs.

People who will happily share their views, opinions and friendship with him.

In time, hopefully he will develop the strength of character and confidence in self to recognize that he can stand firm in his beliefs, even if he must stand alone.

This is TheTruePooka, writing to you from Hell’s Kitchen, NYC.

And I find it especially fitting considering the content of this blog that I remind everyone;
If you find these words upsetting…

PettheCat.

http://www.youtube.com/user/TheTruePooka

In the mean time, I have been blessed with a topic that’s perfect for a blog post; too big for a rant on Facebook, and too opinionated and irrelevant for a YouTube video. That topic is of course Thunderf00t’s videos about Park51. I will also be focussing on my role as a subscriber and commenter, as I have apparently become central to a debate about miscommunication.

Before getting started, I should note that I see Park51 as a complete non-issue blown up out of all proportion for the sake of sensationalism. Many of my favourite commentators on religious and rights issues have left me disappointed with the use of “they have the right but…” arguments, where what follows the “but” has been universally superfluous or just plain incorrect. False attribution, red herrings and appeals to emotion are popping up all over the place and making a mockery of the actual debate.

But of course, we all think in chorus, this is the Internet!

Naturally most of us are not surprised by this sort of controversy; we’re used to it. What really troubles me, however, is a surge in two particularly ugly types of blemishes peppering (what I hope you’ll excuse me for calling) the “home side”. They are sloppy communication and knee-jerk reactions. I’ll start with the former.

On August 29th, Thunderf00t posted his first video on the subject, ‘Tolerance’ and the ‘Ground Zero Mosque’. Shortly after it was posted I found it in my subscriptions feed, and clicked through. The video is under four minutes long and during my first play I was only half listening as I sometimes do. When it was finished I felt somewhat confused as to what point my friend was trying to make. I assumed I’d missed something due to being distracted, and as it’s only a short video, I watched it through again with my full attention. My confusion remained. What was this video saying?

It had the characteristics of another “they have the right but…” argument. But what?, I wondered. What I interpreted was something of a mixed message. It can best be stated as:

The organisers of Park51 have the right to build it but they are hypocrites and shouldn’t go through with it because [insert false analogy]

I don’t want to dwell on the analogy here. Suffice to say that besides planes being flown into things, Thunderf00t’s hypothetical really isn’t a good parallel to the events of 2001 and Park51. In fact, almost every analogy I’ve heard on all sides of this issue has been a lousy one. Can’t we just skip the analogies and discuss the real scenario?

In my state of confusion I felt compelled to comment. I had to know what Thunderf00t’s video was advocating. I assumed it was advocating one thing or another (perhaps foolishly) else I saw no point in him making it. I was not willing to believe that Thunderf00t would really suggest limiting anyone’s rights, or that the promoters of Park51 should be guilted out of their rights by association with Saudi Arabia. With ignorance and incredulity, I posted the most succinct, yes-or-no question I could think of:

Are you advocating sinking to the level of the Saudi government?

In my professional development, I’ve had the truly fulfilling experience of educating children. They really do ask the best questions (Could we use Pluto to plug a black hole? Has a penguin ever been hit by a meteorite? Could aliens already be living on Earth, but be too small to see?) but every now and then some poor youth will be unwilling to pose a question because they’re worried it’s “stupid”.

“There’s no such thing as a stupid question,” I tell them, “only a stupid answer.”

This has become one of my mottos in life. Even as a cold, cynical adult, fully aware of the sort of dishonest, loaded tripe and trickery that comes from people like ShockofGod, I still believe that no honest question should be dismissed as stupid. The whole reason for asking an honest question is to overcome a state of ignorance, so questions are very noble things indeed. It was with honesty that I approached Thunderf00t with my question, confident that I would receive a clear response of the form: “No. What I advocate is…”

I was afforded no such response, though my comment would achieve great infamy thanks to Thunderf00t taking the liberty to feature it under a somewhat baffling sentence. I’ll get to that in time, but I’d like to make a note about knee-jerk reactions first.

I decided to take a night’s sleep before writing this post. One of my rational heroes, Sam Harris, has often demonstrated the value of collecting one’s thoughts for some time before making any kind of response. Actually, I disagree with Harris quite strongly on the subject at hand here, but I applaud his patience. The trouble with knee-jerk reactions is that they often result in misunderstandings. Consider this comment left on my channel:

The irony of this rash criticism is that I have been misinterpreted as having misinterpreted another. Since what could be called my interpretation of the video was a contradiction, I posed a question for clarification, expecting the answer to remove any doubt:-

• “Yes” – Thunderf00t advocates that American Muslims receive a taste of the medicine dished out by Saudi Muslims against non-Muslim ideologies.
• “No” – Thunderf00t advocates entirely fair treatment of American Muslims as citizens of the US, but American Muslims are hypocrites for pleading tolerance with the creation of Park51, because Saudi Muslims are intolerant to non-Muslim ideologies.

I fully expected the answer to be no, but I had to be sure, at which point I would have moved on to my major grievance with the hypocrisy allegation. At no point did I accuse Thunderf00t of anything, or put words in his mouth with my question, and I resent the allegation that I did. Some of the more obscene PMs sent to my inbox are nudging me to amend my motto, “…but if you ask a question on a Thunderf00t comment wall, you are guaranteed to be misinterpreted and probably insulted”. I’ll have to think of something punchier. Since Thunderf00t did not respond in the comments, I never did express my disagreement with him.

Enter DLandonCole. By happenstance, I stumbled upon his video response, Tolerance and the Ground Zero Mosque: a reply to Thunderf00t. As I was still scratching my head over the original video, I hoped another user might clear it up for me. I clicked through, and after a couple of minutes I found myself watching a very well thought-out and mature response by a stranger, raising several objections that hadn’t even entered my mind. Immediately I commented and subscribed, and shortly afterwards I linked Thunderf00t privately to the video, suggesting he take a look at it and make a response. In my opinion, criticisms such as these are the ones which really deserve responses and drive the discussion in a productive direction.

If someone criticised me in this manner, I would be inspired to question my own arguments, especially since maturity and research are uncommon among my typical opponents. Geocentrists such as Malcolm Bowden have completely missed the point, accused me of lying and continued their anti-scientific rant against me. William Lane Craig fanboys have attempted to refute me with, you guessed it, more clips of Craig. On the other side, the atheist user ShredderIsAlive has combined immaturity, lack of research and quote-mining with an unhealthy refusal to retract factually incorrect statements and called it a response. If DLandonCole took issue with one of my videos or opinions the same way he approached Thunderfoot, I’d see it as a breath of fresh air and well worth addressing.

Perhaps then the reader will understand my puzzlement when ‘Tolerance’ and the “Ground Zero Mosque’ -Part 2 surfaced, devoid of any mention of DLandonCole’s challenging video. Instead, Thunderf00t focussed on a few clips of other users apparently misrepresenting him, comparing their words with quotes from his original video. I get the impression I have been lumped in under the same accusation, but I’m not too concerned. Those who do their homework and follow my online ramblings will arrive at this post and learn of the intentions behind my comment; the opinions of those who don’t do their research are of no interest to me. I also don’t have much to say regarding the use of the specific clips for the sake of making a specific point. FSAthe1st has mirrored my feelings on that topic in his video, On the subject of Thunderf00t and Park51.

In his follow-up video, Thunderf00t admitted that poor communication on his part was responsible for the confusion. I agree and I respect that confession. However using my comment and name as a qualifier only confuses me — personally — further. What is so special about “folk like AndromedasWake” that prompts a clarification? What about the thousands of other users who felt short-changed on any coherent point? Would the second video have been made if I hadn’t been confused by- or just hadn’t seen the first? I don’t deserve any special treatment.

I’m left with a new question; one which I won’t be so foolish as to expect a direct answer to. If I had asked a similar question on one of Thunderf00t’s poorly worded Draw Muhammad Day videos, would he have produced a clarification in my honour? If the recent event is a concrete example, then I think being portrayed as an idiot to 100,000 subscribers is a small price to pay for making sure that those same subscribers get a message free of what could potentially be seen as bigotry or contradictory ideals.

For those on YouTube who are unaware of the users mentioned in this post, I highly recommend subscribing to DLandonCole, FSAthe1st and of course, Thunderf00t.

Content owners who file copyright infringement notifications under the DMCA do so under penalty of perjury. When we receive a DMCA notification, we remove the posted video, send email to your registered address, and provide notice in your account. Sometimes individuals abuse the process, or are simply mistaken, because determining copyright ownership can be tricky. If you believe your content was misidentified as infringing or is a fair use, you may file a DMCA counter-notification.

“Woah! Slow the fork down! What does that mean?”

It means that when you try to get someone’s opinion removed, instead of constructing a mature response, said opinion will come back with force. There is no bullet to the head of popular internet content. It appears, it thrives, and if it suspiciously disappears, memefication occurs. Yes. Memefication.

If you strike me down, I shall become more powerful than you can possibly imagine

Many moons ago, a YouTube user named DannyMendlow posted a comical advertisement parody entitled “Religion!”. You can tell where this is going, can’t you? The video became hugely popular, making Pharyngula and other blogs if I recall correctly. I can’t remember exactly how long ago it was originally posted, but I’m willing to wager that it was quite some time as I’ve seen this video all over the place.

I’m sure most of you are familiar with Digg. It’s a website designed to direct people to popular internet content. By Digging something, you increase its ranking on Digg, increasing the likelihood that it will be brought to the attention of the Digg massive.

DannyMendlow’s video was Dugg (Digged?) to the extent that it reached the front page. Let me make this abundantly clear: that means the video in question was well liked by a large number of people, who felt that others should see it. By some magic shortly after its arrival on the front of Digg, the video was pulled by YouTube as being ‘inappropriate’. Stupidity abounds at the YouTube HQ (which I have on good authority is manned by a crack team of ducks) because the only thing inappropriate about the video is that it’s so depressingly true. Yesterday, DannyMendlow reposted the video for the first time, and in my opinion it deserves support. I urge you to head over and favourite/rate/comment the original. Oh, and why not Digg it too? Enjoy…

The initial debate subject was Creation and Evolution. Of course, that’s not actually a debate, it’s just the teams. The debate requires a proposition (for example, “Is the Catholic Church a force for good in the world?”) for which one party can argue in favour, and one against. Without such a statement, NephilimFree’s proposal was akin to establishing a game called Chelsea and Manchester United, and then refusing to further specify what game they are actually playing. Without establishing that they are playing football (or soccer to my American friends) we have no rules in place to determine how the game can actually be won or lost. Likewise, Creation and Evolution (and the long list of other subjects NephilimFree listed he wanted to discuss) is not a debate; it’s just two nouns.

For a couple of days a debate question was established and agreed upon by both parties, as was the issue with moderators. It was shortly after that NephilimFree insisted on returning to his original proposition (despite being thoroughly educated about why it was not a debate) and began accusing DonExodus2 of backing out. I wish to make my it clear that from my position as a third person, it is NephilimFree who I think is being unreasonable, and rejecting previously accepted terms without giving good reasons.

Due to the conflict of understanding, the debate as originally planned will certainly not be going ahead, but perhaps that’s a good thing after all. On Friday, Thunderf00t posted a video detailing the first ever League of Reason Show. It’s an idea that myself and others have been considering for a long time, and since NephilimFree won’t be showing up to BlogTV (by his own admission) we have a good excuse to kick it off this weekend.

The format is quite simple; we will be using Skype and BlogTV to broadcast a group discussion, and taking questions live from creationists, or those of a theistic position who feel they can back up their claims. In order to do this, we have created a LoR Skype account (LeagueOfReason) which must be added before a question can be submitted, and a new BlogTV channel.

The show will last 2 hours, giving everyone time to pop over to watch The Atheist Experience on ustream. We won’t deny that our show is flagrantly derivative of their own, we just hope there’s room for one more. To further rip them off, we will also be uploading clips to our YouTube channel and they should be available on Monday for most people. We are not yet sure how regularly this show will take place, but dependent on the turnout, we would like to make it a weekly affair.

The show starts at 3pm EST, which is 8pm BST. This is 7pm GMT, but remember to take Summer Time into account. In any case, I recommend turning up early of course, and I hope to see you all there in the chat!

But that aside I still think that something like this needed to happen and as if to prove the point Pakistan has decided to ban access to facebook and much of youtube and flickr in order to stop its countrymen from being offended by stick figures labelled Mohammed.

“Before shutting down (YouTube), we did try just to block particular URLs or links, and access to 450 links on the internet were stopped,” said PTA spokesman Khurram Ali Mehran.

“But the blasphemous content kept appearing so we ordered a total shut down.”

But why on earth would they need to do this? I mean what is so bad about people being offended? Well though I disagree with their actions I can’t help but think that they had a point, it’s just that their reasoning behind the site blocking just proves the very point the whole event was trying to make.

Government officials say they are acting pre-emptively to prevent a repeat of the 2006 cartoon riots that caused destruction of property and caused five deaths. But it was unclear whether the measures would satisfy the court or prevent disturbances.

Even after Facebook was banned yesterday, Islamist groups took to the streets, mounting minor protests. More are feared following weekly prayers tomorrow.

Yup, they decided to block the sites because they had reason to believe that looking at a few pictures of some bearded guy called Mohammed would result in rioting and possible death. Though I have no doubt that this is just an excuse to limit free speech and freedom of expression it is hard not to wonder what I would have done if I had been in the same situation, knowing that people would probably die because a percentage of the population would react to the cartoons in a completely over the top and out of proportion way. I’m not defending them, far from it, I just wonder what their alternative could have been?

Of course not everyone has such altruistic motivations. Some were more worried about hurt feelings.

“Such malicious and insulting attacks hurt the sentiments of Muslims around the world and cannot be accepted under the garb of freedom of expression,” Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit said about the page.

I’m sorry but this is exactly what freedom of expression is all about and do you not think that when people are threatened with death for drawing cartoons that that constitutes “malicious and insulting attacks” to a much higher degree than this does? So if it is something you feel comfortable with then get out your pen and draw yourself a picture of Mohammed. Yes it will insult people, but maybe it will show them that they are foolish for getting insulted in the first place and that it is their reactions that are ultimately responsible for ours.

Ps. Apologies for this post having no real sense of direction and for not making much sense. I wanted to comment on this issue but it has been a very long day and clearly my brain is not functioning correctly. I can’t even work out what point I was trying to make here.

Unfortunately I have now revised my opinion, I think it is now correct to refer to atheist fundamentalism. It might not be strictly accurate, all the above applies, but I do think it is descriptive. I say this in light of a video I have just watched from Coughlan666. I’m not generally a Coughlan fan, his videos are not my cup of tea and I am not subbed to him. In fact I stumbled across his blogtv on one occasion and got booted out by him. So, credentials established, I’m not a Coughlan groupie.

In the video Coughlan reads out a number of messages he has received from atheists since he posted this video attacking Pat Condell, and quite frankly it’s disgusting. I’ll just quote a couple:

“Who the fuck is this junkie piece of shit, fuck off and die”
“You need help, you backstabbing piece of shit c**t”
“I’m from the UK, and one day I’ll find ya, and when I do I’ll slit your throat. Fuck off and die.”

Death threats? Backstabbing? These messages and threats show several things clearly. They show devotion towards youtube users, thunderf00t and Pat in this particular case. that looks very much like religious devotion to various godheads. They show a complete inability to empathise with another point of view. They show total disregard for another persons opinion and they show a complete inability to think rationally. They scream out lack of tolerance. Disagreement is fine, free speech is actively encouraged. But death threats because you don’t agree?

Incidentally, Pat has been on the receiving end of similar treatment since his video saying he was voting for UKIP. Indeed that was the reason Coughlan made his vid in the first place. Here’s Pat on the subject , so this isn’t all one way traffic. It seems that many commenters can’t deal with the fact that you might happen to disagree with them, but disagreement is not the subject here. Devotion to users is.

The devotion is not directed to the points those users raise, not to particular subjects or to particular videos, but rather to the users themselves. And the one thing that seems to unite these commenters is atheism. Atheism might be a lack of a position, but these people are united by that atheism. When/if fundamentalist behaviour emerges from that group I feel it is correct to call it atheist fundamentalism. The atheists making threats against the likes of Coughlan are guilty of the same crimes that they laud Thunderf00t and Pat Condell for fighting against.

There seems to be a notion amongst some that atheism implies rationality. We know that theism is irrational, but some commit a logical fallacy of presuming that the rejection of one irrational belief makes one a rational person. It does not, much as the holding of one irrational belief does not make one irrational.

I’ve never been a fan of the “atheist community”, a collection of individuals founded on a lack of belief. A much better notion would be the critical thinking community and indeed that is how I would refer to the League of Reason. If this episode is to teach us one thing I would argue it should be that the conclusions someone reaches, important though they may be, are only as valid as the process that the person went through in order to arrive at the position. Atheism might be the only rational position to hold, but you can hold the position for irrational reasons and it does not preclude you from being irrational and intolerant on all other issues. Atheism can, then, be irrational.

I must ask how one arrives at the conclusion that a death threat is an appropriate response towards someone who made a video, rude though it may have been, to disagree with a fellow video bloggers content? Which part of that can be considered reasonable behaviour? Do these people think themselves rational and reasonable? What do they hope to achieve, and how do they differ from fundamentalists of any other persuasion?

In my dealings with theists my ultimate goal is usually to free them from the stigma of religion, to free their minds from the controlling influence that is the doctrine of their own brand of faith. I have long been of the opinion that the best way to do this is to teach critical thinking. Rather than demonstrating the absurdity of the positions religion takes, I prefer to help the person come to that conclusion themself by getting them to address their own beliefs in an unbiased way. These events have only strengthened my conviction that this is the correct approach. The messages sent by atheists here shows clearly that atheism is by no means a guarantee of rationality and is evidently not a sign of tolerance. Atheism might be the rational position, but you do not have to be rational to be atheist. Teach rationality, teach critical thinking, teach tolerance.

I once read that the best advert for your own way of life is yourself. Live the way you would wish others to be. The backlash towards Coughlan for his video here has highlighted that a good number of atheists are not even close to critical thinkers, and has strengthened my view that a “conversion” to atheism should never be the goal when discussing religion with theists. A far more appropriate goal would be critical thinking, with atheism an emergent property.

Fortunately, anything relating to WLC – the lord of untruth – is worth a gander. I, along with Theo Warner and AndromedasWake and others, have recently been the bemused victims of our very own Craig fantroll; I would link but the nugatory traffic that such an action would result in seems too generous.”Victim” is, of course, subjective. Being a victim implies some sort of damage or loss, and I can detect neither, though in reality I say this only to numb the hurts. The trolling typically takes the form of either a) a short out of context clip of a video titled to inspire ridicule or b) a marginally longer but still often out of context clip of a video conjoined with a longer clip of William Craig apparently schooling us. I’m informed that Theo is reduced to a shambling mass of jelly by this stern treatment; AndromedasWake has resorted to watching videos of cats falling into boxes in order to counteract the vicious pwn, and as for myself . . . well, I’m eating a lot of chocolate and weeping into net curtains. We are pain.

WLC has his own website on which he answers questions from people – a mix of skeptics, fence-sitters and fans. This would seem a noble endeavour but for the fact that he selects the messages he replies to, and doesn’t record a public backlog of all questions he receives. Clearly I find this suspicious, since we’re left with the false conclusion that WLC can handle all comers as opposed to simply cherry picking the questions he’s capable of answering (and capable of winning.)

I sent him a message a while back. Was it answered? Was it beans. At least, not as far as I can see.

It’s worth revisiting, now that the League’s finest are being accused of lying about William Craig, some of his less worthwhile strategies. Encapsulated herein, I give you my letter. Enjoy, or not, I’m honestly unconcerned. It was written concerning his debate with Antony Flew, which became the subject for my 5-part video series “Refuting William Lane Craig’s Proofs For God.”

In response to your debate with Flew:

I’m not particularly offering refutation to your proofs, as that would take some time – in addition to being something I’ve detailed in a video series. You’ve stated that even evidence against Christianity would not personally controvert your witness of the holy spirit, which suggests a mentality both unwilling and unable to relinquish faith on ANY rational basis. So probably on a hiding to nothing there.

No, my questions are more concerned with your debating etiquette itself. So!

a) You open proceedings with this statement: “In order to determine rationally whether or not God exists, we must conduct our enquiry according to the basic rules of logic.” How do you reconcile this statement with your assertions relating to, for example, morality – in which the basis for your “proof” derives from what you personally feel in your heart? The foundation of your evidence for objective morality is nothing more than an emotional assertion – divorced completely from the basic rules of logic, and the reality of the nuanced moral climates that can be found all over the world.

In addition, your final statement that we can know God exists “wholly apart from arguments simply by immediately experiencing him” . . . how can you open a statement with a call to logic and end it by bypassing logic altogether in favour of an experiential witnessing?

b) follows on from a). If you are willing to promote arguments based on experience, based on personal witnessing of the holy spirit and emotional reactions, how willing are you to accept identical arguments from followers of other religions? And, if you are as unwilling to accept the notion of other deities or supernatural entities as would be logically acceptable to surmise, on what basis do you reject Islamic arguments (for example) that mirror your own experiential proofs?

When you are happy to ignore any evidence that goes against your position, base your personal faith on experience, you need to have excellent reasons for not considering every other experiential argument for, well, anything. I suppose the most important and oft-asked question is “How can you KNOW God is true, aside from evidence, through witnessing the holy spirit when there are plenty of people who, upon experiencing similar things, would be either dismissed by you or labelled as delusional/insane?” And can you see the problem with attempting to combine experiential faith with logic?

Yours etc, Blue Dexter (Youtube user Th1sWasATriumph)

While I had anticipated support and thanks from my fellow rationalists, I was surprised to see support from creationists too. It seems that FVH is a common ground for both sides: rationalists can use it as a resource for material to debunk (though, sadly, I have yet to see it used this way), and creationists have a source of entertainment.

So why do I spend my time and hard drive space on the opponents to rationality, freethinking, and science? The answer is simple: as long as FundieVideoHell exists, they cannot (or rather, shouldn’t) claim they are being censored by us. Well, at least they cannot claim all atheists are censoring them.

Now, I have, so far, done this entirely on my own resources. I enjoy finding out what is new and happening from the other side. But when I came across the brochure for the “2010 Creation Supercamp,” which is only a few hours drive away, I realized something. Something that deeply frightened me: I wanted to go to this conference. I want to film creationist conferences. But I also don’t want to be an e-begger like VenomFangX.

So I was wondering, should I start a PayPal so that I can take donations from those who are willing to support FundieVideoHell? And would you (the lucky readers) be able to spread the word about FVH? I think there may be creationists out there who would help support the spread of their message, both by word-of-mouth and monetarily.

Anyway all I really wanted to do with this post is draw some attention to a couple of criminally undersubscribed Youtube channels that I think you should all check out. First up we have:

Ainulindale21 – Ainulindale21 is fairly new to Youtube and has only uploaded two videos so far but is already well on his way to being one of my favourite channels. His videos are funny, entertaining, educational and informative. I mean what more do you want. So far he has been targeting Youtube’s creepest cretard NephilimFree and has made the startling, though somewhat obvious now I think about it, observation that the guy looks rather like a potato. I look forward to more from his googley-eyed talking heads in the future.

k87jury – Announcing himself as “The Creationist Slayer” k87jury targets many of the less well known creationists on Youtube and does a great job of tearing down their arguments. He may not be to everyones taste but I really enjoy k87jury’s blunt, no nonsense approach to arguments and the way he gives stupid arguments all the “respect” they deserve.

Well, that is all I wanted to say. Not a very interesting post but then what do expect from a guy who can’t actually lift his head off of his pillow without feeling like he is going to throw up?

What should it tell me? You, and other theists, need to realise that when we put up good arguments against you guys and they are deleted, or ignored and the topic gets changed, or bulldozed right through with your fingers in your ears, – what else can we draw from that other than that you have no sensible refutation? And that we’re correct in our assertions? Seriously, it’s like getting an ‘A’ on a term paper.

I’ll tell you again – you have no idea of what an atheist is. You think you’ve been misrepresented by Antybu’s videos? Watch your own, and like I say – listen to what you say after the words “Atheists are…”. How many times do you need to be told? – what you say after those words is almost always WRONG. Yet you somehow ignore correction and soldier on.

You do not know what an atheist is, or how we atheists think, or do, or care about, or want. You have no idea about me, my girlfriend, her parents, the guy who works at the 7-11 store near my house, or the guy who drove my bus home yesterday. The only thing that you DO know about me and other atheists is that we are not convinced of the existence of Yahweh or any of the other deities history has noted. And you think it’s ok to make things up about us based on that? Slander us for not being convinced by what to you is sufficient evidence for Yahweh if you want, but do NOT make up lies about us as you please.

You’re not remarkable in that you do make up rubbish about us, what is remarkable about you is that you are completely impervious to correction. You are not only ignorant, but willfully so. And that, if there was such a thing as sin, would certainly be high amongst them.

If you don’t want me to pwn you on your own comments page, so much that you had to delete my last comment, then you’d better block me, because I will continue to call you on your willful misrepresentations and slanderous lies as long as you keep making them. In fact I made a thinly-veiled response video to you, but didn’t mention you by name so as to avoid giving you any undeserved publicity amongst my 17,000 subs, and the 20,000 views the video had within the first three days. I’ve linked to it at the bottom of this message. I thoroughly take your worldview and assertions to task – you’ll enjoy it, it will give you something new to utterly ignore. Just be sure to put your fingers in your ears and start saying “LA LA LA LA LA LA LA” before the page opens.

Shame on you, Brock, for remaining willfully ignorant about who and what atheists are. The corrections that fill your video comments contain an awful, awful lot that you could learn from- in that they’re written by atheists, telling you what atheists actually think! And you completely ignore them!!!
Like I say – these videos that you’ve had made against you are nothing more than you reaping what you’ve been sowing. I could not imagine a better case of poetic justice.

NSC

* Forty-two, innit!

As an administrator and founder of this website, I wish to set the record straight regarding two allegations made by shanedk during his video. I have no intention of throwing fuel on the fire of internet drama, so I’ll keep this brief and to the point. The accusations to which I am referring can be found in a single quote from shanedk’s video:

“Most extreme of all of them was this idiot, MasterGhostKnight, who posted a pathetic attempt at a rebuttal under the auspices of the completely misnamed ‘League of Reason’.”

(Emphasis mine.)

Let me make it abundantly clear that including the League of Reason logo in your Youtube video does not endow you with automatic help, support or protection from this site or its contributing bloggers. As such, MasterGhostKnight did not post his video under the auspices of the League of Reason. In actuality, he posted a video with the logo attached. And that’s it. Anyone is free to include the logo in their video, as it is intended merely to advertise the site to a wider audience. Indeed, a fundamentalist creationist can freely use the logo, as ultimately, visitors will see that the content provided by the contributors satisfies the site’s mission statement, as it stands on the ‘About Us‘ page:

“Together we endeavour to protect and promote the voice of reason, and we welcome you to join us.”

I maintain that the site’s contributors have done just this. We also protect the free speech of their readers with a commenting system and message board with extensive forum categories. MasterGhostKnight is not a contributor. He is not listed as a contributor. Even if he was, videos made by him would not automatically reflect LoR policy. The fact is, the site does not have an official policy. The closest we come to having such a thing is the collective opinion of the contributors, but as many of them specialise in one field or another, I would likely be best suited to speak for them regarding these two videos (the topics being physics, astronomy and the detection of extra-terrestrial life). As such, I’m dismayed that shanedk did not contact me for an ‘official opinion’ (as he knows I administrate the site) before accusing it – and by proxy me – of supporting MasterGhostKnight’s bogus claims.

In his video, shanedk also accuses the site of being completely misnamed. Once again, I maintain that our contributors are strong proponents of reason. Their readers need not be to participate in the forums. By extension, one could suggest that the Richard Dawkins network message board is completely misnamed if any of the posters disagree with his beliefs and opinions, or to take it further if a single user is not called Richard Dawkins. This is clearly ridiculous. Our forum provides a facility for a wide variety of people with a wide variety of opinions to discuss and debate any topic they like. They are not required to do anything other than obey the forum rules, which permit the most zealous of unreasonable folk to make their case, provided it is not copypasta spam.

I suspect many of our regulars will be aware of what I have said above, and If you are a new visitor, having just left shanedk’s channel, I hope you will see the error of his comments about this site, in what is otherwise an informative and well-made video.

So, what exactly is TubeGuardian, and how does one acquire and use it?

TubeGuardian is software designed to determine and counteract votebot attacks. It can be downloaded right here at the League of Reason. Instructions for use will be posted in the forum entry for this blog post. If you do not know what votebots are, please see CosmicSporks excellent series of blog posts on the topic here. There are three main functions that TubeGuardian executes: gathering statistical information on videos, determining whether a video is under attack, and quickly disabling ratings on videos it determines are under attack. Let’s take each of those functions one at a time and dig a little deeper into how they work.

1. Gathering statistical information.

By far, this is the most simple task that TubeGuardian performs because Google/YouTube have been kind enough to provide what is called an “API.” API means application programming interface, and that’s just fancy computer geekese for a set of functions that YouTube allows programmers to use through their special controlled interface (The Google/YouTube API is named GData API, and one can read about it in more detail here). A common question I get in this regard is: why does YouTube give out a means for collecting their valuable data? The answer to that question lies in the value of the data itself. In the absence of an officially sanctioned means of access (GData API) developers will find a different means for acquiring what information they desire. In the case of YouTube, the acquisition of data would come from a technique called “scraping.” Scraping is when an application loads a web page meant for a person, and “scrapes” the data that they are interested in off of the page. This is bad news for Google/YouTube because they have to pay for each and every byte they send you through the interwebs, and they pay a pretty penny to make sure that the average user has a great, lag free, experience with their website. Programs that “scrape” data do so at superhuman speeds, and they eat up the bandwidth Google/YouTube purchased with the intention of making real people happy with the service they provide. So, in short – Google provides their API so that programmers wont scrape data from their pages meant for real people. Furthermore, Stephanie Liu, a Google developer, stated in a correspondence with me:

Also, please don’t scrape — it’s against the ToS and makes kittens cry.

So, TubeGuardian happily complies with YouTube TOS in collecting data! Though, I still maintain, as stated to Ms. Liu that: “I appreciate it; however, I hate kittens.”

I’m a dog guy *shrugs*.

2. Determining when a video is being attacked.

The second task entrusted to TubeGuardian is probably the most important to the end user, and is by far the most controversial aspect of the application. Many have asked: can’t this be used to illegitimately keep ones ratings high? I’ll save that discussion for another blog post; for now, I shall concentrate only on what is instead of what might be. TubeGuardian currently only uses one method for detection pending some better tests and results with further methodology. The basic premise of the detection is that votebot attacks will represent statistical outliers in the full data-set of ratings for a video. The program accomplishes this by looking at ratings as they come in, and determining what the average new rating for a video is during any given time period. We must take an average because, in most cases, updates to ratings received and the current average ratings come separately. TubeGuardian might see 10 ratings come in before it sees the actual average rating for a video update. This leaves us no mathematical means for determining what each individual rating was, instead we must determine what the average was over all of the ratings received between updates to the overall rating. Confused? Me too! Here is some of the math behind this process:

A[0] = Initial average rating

A[1] = Updated average rating

N[0] = Initial number of ratings

N[1] = Updated number of ratings

Given these variable, the Average New Rating for this interval would be:

( A[1]*N[1] – A[0]*N[0] ) / ( N[1] – N[0] )

I’ll leave it to the mathletes out there to reason out how this works, but for everyone else just trust me on this one . The main complaint with this methodology, and the reason for the limited controversy surrounding possible abuse of the application is that TubeGuardian does not automatically determine what range of ratings would be considered statistical outliers. That determination is left up to the user by allowing them to set both the interval of votes the program will look at, and the minimum average new rating the user expects to see. Again, I will discuss the issue of potential abuse in another blog post: stay tuned. For now, let’s take a quick look at what an attack looks like to TubeGuardian as opposed to regular data:

3. Quick disabling of video ratings.

This function is rather self explanatory, but I must take a moment to highlight this functionality because it is this part of the program that makes releasing source code dangerous. I believe, looking at the logs of votebot attacks, that most votebot developers are amateurs at best. If I had to risk a guess, I would say that they are only capable (in most cases) of having 2-5 accounts logged in, and acting, at the same time. Without going into detail, the original methodology for enabling/disabling videos that TubeGuardian used suffered the same sorts of limitations. These limitations were forced by the use of an embedded browser that has to do all of the normal things web browsers do: download a webpage’s source code (HTML), find all of the fancy multimedia that the HTML points to (no, the multimedia is NOT embedded within the HTML), and download and display all of the aforementioned multimedia. These tasks are quite resource intensive as anyone who has run multiple browsers can attest; as such, I decided in developing TubeGuardian to take this method to the next level by eliminating the browsers, and the need to take up unnecessary bandwidth and clock cycles. Achieving this task means that TubeGuardian is not limited in the same ways as the common votebot, and it also means that if the amateur morally challenged developers creating such software would gain immense capability by attaining the code TubeGuardian uses to accomplish the ability to disable ratings. Furthermore, the speed gains these developers would achieve would make feasible the idea of massively collecting YouTube account names and spamming YouTube message boxes. So, although what is known in the computer science world as “security by obscurity,” is widely frowned upon; in this case I see it as completely justified if only to slow the development of malicious software.

Now that you have a basic understanding of the functions that TubeGuardian performs, let’s move on to the big question: have we won? The short answer is no. Although TubeGuardian addresses one of the specific tools of censorship unscrupulous users employ, it will never be capable of removing the motivation and complete tool set available for stifling freedom. We must remember that there will always be legitimate claims that lead to censorship, and that this fact is inherent in the service that YouTube provides. The only true answer to censorship is an organized, unified, and active community continuously feeding the tree of freedom with the proverbial blood of those that wish to destroy it. We must continue in our efforts to come together under the common flag of free knowledge and continued progress in defending freedom. This is the purpose of the League of Reason, and this is our mantra: attempt to silence one, and all will rise in opposition!

Please be sure to visit the forum thread on for this blog post for specific instructions on how to setup and use TubeGuardian – proudly hosted right here at the League of Reason. You can also view a demonstration of the use of TubeGuardian right here!

I feel quite special. Votebotted and DMCA’d – I’m apparently a threat, and if I’m a threat then I’m sure as hell doing something right. 

However, JiLAdren has managed to get the video he tried to censor seen by (over the next few days) thousands of people. He’s exposed me to a wide audience just begging to denounce him as a homophobic coward. 

Which brings me to my main point – dprjones provided swift legal advice, AndromedasWake recorded a new intro and mirrored my original video, and people are already starting to mirror it themselves. It’s immensely gratifying. To everyone who’s already mirrored, and to anyone that does, or might, or even thinks about it – thanks. And that goes double to AW and dpr.

You could even pre-emptively mirror my new video on JiLAdren . . . I’m sure he’ll DMCA it in short order, and in any case then you’d have the full set lying in your videos. 

League of Reason AWAAAAAYYYYY!

In the war against censorship, one of our forum members and Youtuber joshTheGoods is taking matters into his own hands, and I have to say I feel much safer at night knowing that at least one sensible codemonkey is working on the software weapons we need.

Josh posted the video embedded below on his channel today, demonstrating an early build of TubeGuardian, an innovative background application that monitors your Youtube channel statistics (or anyone else’s, for that matter) and if given access to your account, will sense when videos are targeted by votebots, and automatically react to protect them. This does not involving counterbotting – which would only be stooping to the level of those free speech-hating cowards – but rather the act of defending your videos by disabling ratings. Check out the video for the full lowdown from Josh himself. It’s set to play in HD, so be sure to embiggen it with the fullscreen function for maximum effect.

Since I began writing this post, it appears the above video was itself votebotted! A nice demonstration of the effectiveness of TubeGuardian, which disabled ratings after just five 1-star votes. Note that it is not the number of ratings that triggers TubeGuardian‘s defence programme, but rather a suspiciously high number of ratings when compared to views.

As Josh mentioned in the video, he is open to suggestions as the software is in development, so if you have any, or can offer any help, please send him a PM on Youtube. If anyone can port the software to OS X, I’d certainly appreciate it (and let’s not forget our friends on Linux). Once it reaches a stable release, we will be sure to host the install files officially here at League of Reason.

In the meantime, check out joshTheGoods’ channel and subscribe to him for video updates about TubeGuardian.