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The Ontological Argument

The ontological argument is the most philosophical of the arguments for the existence of God. It was formulated by the Christian Anselm (1033-1109) and taken up by the French philosopher Descartes (1596-1650). Its basic assertion is that God is a being greater than which cannot be conceived; a perfect, complete being that lacks no attributes. This is a being that exists in the mind.

But a being that exists in reality is greater than one that exists in the mind, and since God is a being greater than which cannot be conceived, he must exist in reality, therefore he exists. Further, since we are able to conceive of such a being, and cannot have a conception of a non-existent being, then this, too, proves he must exist: lacking no attributes, he is bound to have the attribute of existence.

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The Arguments to Design

Arguments for or to design are based on the belief that a supernatural, conscious and intelligent "Designer" must exist because the universe exhibits such careful planning, its whole design being beyond the possibilities of chance. It is thus an argument that posits design as that which underpins the universe.

The idea stems from ancient Greek philosophical thought, from an Aristotelian belief in an abstract, intelligent force or principle that informed all things but which did not affect them. The thought was taken up by Thomas Aquinas, the thirteenth-century Roman Catholic Dominican monk and theologian, whose theological ideas and proofs for the existence of God were to become the foundation of Roman Catholic theology in the late nineteenth century.

One may find it difficult to completely miss a giant cross in the middle of a college campus, I found it impossible. Far be it for me to sensor another or ridicule them in public for the right to state how much they love the object their messiah was killed upon. So I sat and read my book (a book about Nietzsche, whose famous saying was echoing across my brain. "I have killed all the gods for my immortality") and watched the amusing sight. Looking at this contradiction of logic, celebrating the death and not the life of the supposed greatest teacher to live, I got to thinking about the god they proclaim.

Or so those who tote the ideas of intelligent design, such as David Warren of the Ottawa citizen, would have you believe . He recently wrote an article called The Limits of Atheism in which he describes what he thinks is a century long conspiracy among atheistic materialism. The conspiracy is deeper than he thinks, It is mostly prevalent among scientists. Apparently that is not who should be telling us things about science, I had no idea.

The intelligent design "debate" has been going on since the theory of evolution was proposed. It was originally under the name of creationism, which was unapologetically religious and unequivocally unscientific. In the 90's the advocates of Creationism reclaimed the idea under the name Intelligent Design which was suppose to be scientific. The theory goes like this, the design of life can be explained in no other way than a deity or in other words natural selection cannot explain how life came to be as it is today. For centuries Darwin's theory was without a means to explain genetic traits and therefore not well excepted. Then in the 1900's when Mendel's genetic research was discovered which allowed purposed genetic heredity. The theory was further supported by the discovery of DNA in 1940 and its structural discovery in 1953. The invention of the mass spectrometer in 1940 and the discovery about its use in radiometric dating in 1950 gave an evolutionary time line to know how gradual the change. Over the last fifty years science has only agreed more and more with the theory of evolution. What was it that exactly said in David Warren's article that so offends one who believes in science?

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Cosmological arguments for the existence of God

Cosmological arguments for the existence of God are based on the premise that every effect must have a cause, but to avoid infinite regress there must be a first cause: something that started it all. Put in another and more sophisticated way, often called the Contingency Argument: everything in existence depends on something else for its existence, but nothing has a reason for its existence contained within it. So the world itself must depend on something else for its existence, a "something else" that must have existence in itself, otherwise that would also have to be caused by something else, ad infinitum.

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Great philosopher, analytical mind, and ardent pacifist, this describes a famous atheist by the name of Bertrand Russell. He is known for his analytical style of philosophy. I will begin by taking a journey through the life of this great man. To begin this tale we will have to go back to the 18th of may 1872 when Bertrand Arthur William Russell was born. His young life was full of distress when his sister, mother, father and grandfather died within four years of each other. It is said by Russell that in those early years mathematics had kept him from suicide. He then went to school and received degrees in both mathematics and philosophy. In 1950 he received the Nobel price for literature. During world war one he was a pacifist. He wrote and taught philosophy and mathematics until 1970 when he at the age of 98 died. These are just trivial facts, the real importance comes from his contributions to philosophy.

So I am sitting in the office where I work listening to music and waiting for something to do and I thought instead of doing something overly productive in this down time I would blog. Blog about what you may ask? Patriotism. Gasp, but your a liberal what can you possibly have to say about patriotism. The same thing that every American who wants the best for the nation of America.

First and foremost I would like to point out a difference that not many see between the nation of America and the government of America. That being the government of America are those who run this country, the bureaucrat and the politician. I am unconcerned with the well being of the bureaucrat as it is more efficient for him to remain employed than unemployed. If bureaucrats are good at one thing it is efficiency. As far as the politician goes if he is at all worth his salt he can find popularity and some employ outside of the government system. Now the nation of America are the people in it and the culture of. These are the people who should be the focus and concern of a true patriot.

First, I'd like to direct you Richard Dawkins' review of Christopher Hitchens' book "god is not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything".

My favorite part of the review is as follows:

"If you are a religious apologist invited to debate with Christopher Hitchens, decline. His witty repartee, his ready-access store of historical quotations, his bookish eloquence, his effortless flow of well-formed words, beautifully spoken in that formidable Richard Burton voice (the whole performance not dulled by other equally formidable Richard Burton habits), would threaten your arguments even if you had good ones to deploy. A string of reverends and “theologians” ruefully discovered this during Hitchens’s barnstorming book tour around the United States."

You can find the review HERE!

Hello, my fellow heathens. For the rest of the month I will be posting on a regular three a week schedule, I may continue this trend next month, we'll see how it goes. So on every Sunday, Wednesday, and Friday the newest editions will be up. Some of you may have noticed the counters at the bottom recently, with that I've been keeping track of how many and what days readers have been loging in to read the newsletter, and the aforementioned days seem to be the most popular, counts on Friday and Sunday being especially high. However, the reason for the newly placed regularity is two-fold. The other reason is to better manage my time, since I will be going on vacation from the 19th to the 28th, and there is much to do in the interum in preparation. In the time I will be gone, there will be no newsletter posts (I'm sure you can all manage, lol) so I encourage you all to browse through the previous editions, as I'm sure there are many of you who haven't seen them all. While I'm gone, any questions, contributions, or comments you have will be fielded by my good friend and helper Adrian (a.k.a. Skeptictank, a.k.a. Freudian slip n' slide). Regulars to the chat room are probably familiar with him already.

Thanks for reading, if you have any comments or suggestions you can reach me directly HERE. Or on Myspace HERE.
Stay rational,
Jack
and the RRS MI team

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THE RATIONAL RESPONSE SQUAD IS SICKENING! WAHHHH

Do you folks know what a defense mechanism is? Those versed in psychology will know well, however just for kicks we thought we'd do as we were told.

This bulletin is made to alert you to a disgusting and INFURIATING GROUP called the RADICAL RESPONSE SQUAD!!! THEY CAN PROVE CHRISTIANITY IS BULLSHIT! WE MUST SPILL THE BLOOD OF JESUS (wtf is that?) ON OUR KIDS SO THEY KNOW!

We shit you not.... this is what we deal with on a daily basis....

PASS IT ON!!! THIS IS DISGUSTING!

This moron passed it on... you should too!

Oh... also tonight on that disgusting and infuriating show the Radical Response Squad, they'll host a guy named Sexo Grammaticus who actually has sex!!!! ARGH!! Here is some of his material.

You can see this disgusting and vile show that you need to let everyone know about here...

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Healthy Addict leading the charge

Ashley (a.k.a. Healthy Addict) of RRS Ohio is leading a project to debunk the claims put forth by the Creation Museum in Kentucky. Several other local affiliate heads have signed on to help her in scientificaly refuting each and every claim put forth by the "Museum". The cooperative affiliate heads are, Zombie of RRS Ontario, Bumbklaatt of RRS Colorado, Lunar Shadow of RRS Northern California, Voiderest of RRS Texas, Will Power of RRS Alabama, and myself, Jack of RRS Michigan. This project is still in it's infancy, so more news as it developes. If you would like to assist us in our efforts, contact one of us, Voiderest and myself are regulars here on this site, and the others can be found in the affiliate section HERE , or by clicking their names above. The ultimate goal is to have the resulting material presentable and coherent in a format for tours of the "Museum" for children, to point out to them why all the claims put forth by AIG are horribly inaccurate in any kind of scientific context.

Discrimintory Policy at major college challenged by RRS MSCD

POLICY ISSUE UPDATE-1

In the last essay, we examined the different types of evidence, and the relative weight that each type carries in a debate. Now, we will turn to the question of how we shall evaluate these types of evidence for validity and accuracy. In critical thinking, there are three important ways in which we must examine evidence. First, we must test our own evidence as objectively as possible. The desired outcome, after all, is truth. In trying to answer any question, we should divorce ourselves from the notion that winning means anything. Truth means everything, and winning is only good if your proposition happens to be the correct one!