Broken Wheel

"Our Great War is a spiritual war. Our Great Depression is our lives."
Chuck Palahniuk

About two weeks ago, my knee betrayed me. I have no job, and I have no dependable schedule, so I am clothed in the evils of idleness. I do nothing all day which acts as evidence that I have existed that day. I make sandwiches, I ride my bike, I watch and listen to podcast debates, and I do one-legged pushups on the floor of a cramped bedroom. In the case that I had entered a time machine and I was concerned about irreversibly altering the future by polluting the past, this is the sort of life I would have to life in order to make sure that I affect nothing. Twelve days whipped by like the leaves of a flipbook, and I have made nothing with them. I hope that I do not have to experience this fate, but if it happens that I am one day lain in bed and around me are gathered the people I love, it is possible that I will look back on days like these have been and think to myself, there is no limit to what I would give to have those days back for the doing. I should crumple up the time I waste and shoot it at the wire basket next to my desk, like so much paper that is issued from the hands of writers who are obsessed with--and constantly motivated by--attempting to produce things of merit. I am often one of these; I have not been, recently, and my mood has soured noteably as a consequence.

For the emotional price I have paid by way of this lassitude, I have accrued quite a bit intellectually. I have watched or listened to something north of 20 debates and lectures, mostly revolving around the topics of religion, international human rights policy, or freedom of speech and press. I wish I could record the massive amount of thinking that I've done about these topics as a result of the impressive discourse, but sometimes the density of the material, combined with my poor organizational skills when I'm so furious with ideas, makes it impossible to summon order, especially among the interlacing topics. Here is a very brief list of the blogs which could come as a result of my only best use of time during my convalesence. My hope is that I will be able to turn this attrocious negative into something of a positive and productive experience, although my mood tonight, which is typical of how it has been most of the week, usually fosters either vitriol which I am sad to have thought or slop which I am embarrassed to have written. Intellectually and emotionally, then, it is obvious that I have good reason to resolve both my attitude and my body, but both of them are slow-going and neither mechanism cares much about my preference for not being ill.

1. Something comprehensive about my view on the role of religion in the world. This will easily be several essays, both perscriptive and descriptive. Specific topics needs to include dogmatism of any kind, the role and import of conversation, and the stricture that religion places around the neck of the global struggle to establish and ensure human rights. In each of these instances, I'm not sure that I can manage to reduce away the terrible fear I have about the way in which history will judge the time in which I lived.

2. Something about the terrible legacy of quarreling and antagonism beset upon us by the last administration, and the events that took place in its duration. I cannot listen to a single news telecast or talking heads show anymore without wondering what percentage of the truth I'm hearing. I very regularly hear two people say opposite things about the same event or person, so I believe there is one of two things happening. Either one or both of the people is wrong, or one or both of the people is lying. In either case, the quality and quantity of information to which I have access is depressing; the horrid clumsiness of intellectual pursuit confounds me every single day of my too short life. Should I have to constantly figure out whether or not I am receiving the truth, and how much of it? How can there be partisan news? Why can I not rely on something to just relate one small set of facts in a row? Nothing could be goddamned easier than this, and none of you will do it: you must taint everything. Well this is the world we have, because of it.

3. A short story I am working on about a man whose birth date had been confused.

4. A social contract theory for backpackers.

5. There is a Tennessee Williams quote that goes like this: "Why do I write? Because I found life to be unsatisfactory." So, something about that.

6. One of my primary historical interests, and political interests for that matter, is revolution. I have begun working on a short essay, informed by the ideology present in the entry about Dublin, that revolution must be non-violent in order to be successful.


Oh, to be able to travel again.

On the Practical Irrelevance of the God Question

One of my principle interests in philosophy, besides logic and ethics, is the very human struggle with ontology. There is no need to delineate the tremendous bulk of speculation about the manner and conditions of our existence, which can be plainly identified in even the oldest texts and oral traditions. I can see the way in which this question of our origin is an enticing one, a useful one to answer, and even a challenge to the brilliant minds which, should they conclude something fantastic about ontology, would be immortalized in the sparse canon of genius. But along with the limitless inquiry has come an equally immeasurable amount of disagreement, which has over the past several thousand years bordered on vitriolic. This is intolerable.

I have heard a dozen or more debates which feature paramount scholars of both sides: one who scoffs at the idea of the existence of a deity, against one who proclaims that at least One must exist. I openly admit that while I am decidedly a resident in the former camp, I have been impressed, on rare occasion, by the argumentation style--and, every once in a while, the content--of the faithful. Most often, debates of this manner seem to generate questions about the origin of the universe, each side asking the other how it is that they conceive of that pivotal moment, and demanding that his opponent prove the case or face falsification; the religious man questions the atheist's lack of a conclusive evidence and classifies his dismissal of divine influence as its own sort of leap of faith, whereas the atheist disregards the religious man's devotion as blind, unsubstantiated, or hypocritical. And reliably so. I do not recall seeing a debate over this issue in which these roles were not filled, and although the rhetorical style sometimes morphs and the quips are nuanced, the skeleton is recognizable. I therefore aim to break with the tradition a bit, to borrow a strain from Cartesian soliloquy, and to pose to the pious man the following thought experiment.

Let us presume that you are correct, and that some divine entity is responsible for authoring and generating the universe, or life on the Earth, or life in general, or any other iteration of "existence" that you wish to assert. I still perceive an extraordinary leap in the suggestion that the Being/s that governed this creation is caring, in two senses of the word. First, it seems to me that it is equally likely, considering the evidence of the whole of recorded human history and present condition, that the divine is a twisted and vindictive Thing, and not a loving or nurturing one at all. Second, it seems far more likely still that even if this creating Entity is omniscient and omnipotent, It is very likely apathetic to the result. In other words, I have no problem with conceding that some Designer created everything in existence, because I have no evidence which demonstrates that it either must be so or that it cannot have been so. I concede the point, in order to support an argument that it is entirely irrelevant whether or not we were created or we happened by chance, because this resolution does not answer the actual question behind this point of contention: how does this distinction matter, if it does at all?

I have labored over the issuance of my atheistic proclivity, and while I stand firmly by it, I actually believe that it is a case no more worth arguing from an evidential perspective, than is the case forwarded by the theists. Neither one of us has any irrefutable evidence that the other will agree is cogent and applicable, so I will let it alone as an argument and instead keep it simply as a stance. But just as life sometimes opens a window when it closes a door, so to say, I too will subvert my humble concession by posing what seems to be an even more daunting challenge: demonstrate, you believers in the unsubstantiated, that It is a Being that we should be glad to have around. It seems incomparably clear that this is an impossible task, so let me suggest this resolution: given that we can extract morality from some other construct, and given that we can still discover brilliant meaning in our lives without the divine to justify it, let the argument instead revolve around the consideration paid to religion in social movements, with specific reference to the extension of civil rights and liberties, for this is one truly measurable way in which deity does govern us, whether It exists or not.

I will concede that one explanation for the origin of the universe might be that some omnipotent being influenced it, to whatever degree. But imagine that you were certain that this is how things happened, that it were somehow provable and verifyable, and that there was nonetheless no holy writ to influence your perception of this being. I wonder if there would be any evidence prove that the diety was a good one, or if there might be evidence to suggest that wickedness or that indifference are at least equally likely. In other words, even with the certain knowledge of the existence of a First Mover, I do not see any evidence to support any inclination whatsoever to worship it any more than fear it, to love it any more than bemoan it. How, I wonder, can you men of faith bear to say that you will think, act, speak, or vote a certain way, which is in keeping with your holy text, when you cannot demonstrate that the holy text reflects a divinity that cares about what you do or that you do at all, to say nothing of whether or not a loving divinity would favor your particular mindset? How can you further suggest that acting in a way that is in keeping with a so-called holy writ, which is in some cases a centuries-old copiously-translated highly-edited text, resembles anything like what it is to act the way that the divine would wish, having already made the tremendous assumption that one exists? How can you know that you have the right god/s, how can you know that you have the right guidelines, and how can you know that you are reading them the correct way? 

And ultimately, what if there is no Creator, Governor, Mover? Surely we must take this to mean nothing, in the end, because the alternative would be that we all give up the lives we have so welcomed until now; this is no alternative at all. These are the important questions, I think--the ones which reflect the human decisions and understandings, not the sanctified ones. I assert that these are the meaningful intellectual pursuits in part because, as they are designed to be posited to other humans, they are answerable, even--and especially--with the admission of ignorance. Furthermore, I believe that these are the important questions to ask because the answers to them reveal the way that we each apply whatever opinion we have about holy writ, divine existence, and the ontological question. It is the application which is truly important, not just our respective opinions, or just the actual fact of the matter, because it is not some objective Truth which governs the way we act: at least, this must be true, or else this entire debate is moot in the first place. And what use can there be for debate answers which have no hope for verification; much better to concede one side or the other and to reorient the questioning, especially since the outcome of either answer to the God question is necessarily the same.

A Tense Reflection on Theism

I have learned in the course of my study in philosophy about the construct that we call Knowledge. This is not to say that I have acquired knowledge, necessarily, which is itself somehow true--but that is another point entirely. Rather, I have learned about the manner and nature of knowledge, about its basic makeup. We say that knowledge seems to be the product of three components, although there is quite a lot of well-respected interlocutory about including a fourth. The three pillars, for now, are: belief, truthhood, and justification.

To illustrate the meaning of each of these is a necessary part of understanding the way in which they fit together. First, in order to say, "I knew that," it is obvious that the speaker would have had to have believed in the thing in the first place. It would be senseless to say that I knew the sun would rise today, if I did not believe in that statement in the first place. The second tenet is truth of the statement, for it is impossible to say that you know something which is false. We call this situation simple belief, as it is clearly a misnomer to identify something as knowledge if it actually does not exist; this is a major point of contention for many people, if I assert that they can have an opinion about anything, but that some opinions are just wrong. This statement is based on the disconnect between belief and knowledge, which centers upon the degree of truth present in the evidence: I could not rightly say, "See, I knew the sun was going to rise today!" if it turns out that the sun did not actually do this. Finally, justification is needed in order to validate any belief because we call it knowledge. In the sun example, we might use as justification the evidence that the sun has always risen, and this is in fact what we call daytime; therefore, if the sun rises, it must be day. Ipso facto, it is semantically impossible to be wrong about the sun rising "today", because every time the sun rises, it is day. I also have no reason to believe that the sun would not rise--and I have total reason to believe that it will--because that is the only option that anyone has ever been aware of: it is, for all intents, impossible to imagine a situation in which the sun simply did not rise, and to expect that it will is entirely reliable. Thus justified in my belief, which has indeed turned out to be true, I can satisfactorily say that "I knew the sun would rise today."

By now, I have come to measure all of the statements which hold a claim to knowledge by the rubric of the epistemological triumvirate delineated above. This is why, when claims about plain belief are accepted by others as actual truths during a conversation--or worse, during discourse--I shudder at the blight of intellectualism.

Based on this metric, I cannot classify myself as an atheist. This is manifest in the polarized language of that system of thought: there is no god is a system of thought whose truth or falsity is necessarily and irreversibly undefinable. I can neither classify myself as a a theist, because I do not believe that there is a god, so this claim would fall short on the belief component, in addition to provability. Before I relegate myself to the mired and uninteresting camp of agnosticism--of which we are all necessarily members, incidentally--I offer one parting shot at the theists. I am a man of logic, and a firm believer in its principles as tools for the acquisition of knowledge. So I will be hoisted by my own principles, and lay off of the claim that there is no god. But I am also, at my core, a pragmatist. Let me end this analysis with a thought, then, and one which many thinkers before me have shared: while I do not know one way or the other, I so strongly suspect that a god does not exist that I have come to believe that pursuit of such a thing, or devotion to it in any baseless regard, are each a proper waste of time.