Ad hominems and Assessing a Person’s Veracity

One thing I left out of my discussion of the ad hominem logical fallacy is that of assessing whether someone is actually being truthful or whether they may be trusted given their level of expertise with an issue.

While an ad hominem is still an ad hominem if it attacks a person rather than a claim, it can still speak towards the level of whether you should actually believe what someone claims.

For example, one of my secret pleasures is to watch Judge Judy court cases. Often during those cases, litigants – both defendants and plaintiffs – will try to bring up ad hominem attacks against their opponent in order to try to undermine the other’s case. Such as, “But he does drugs [so you shouldn't trust him].”

While these are blatant ad hominems and the Judge often either ignores them or tells the person to just answer the question that was asked and to leave out commentary, sometimes very relevant ad hominems are allowed to stand and are explored. These are often of the circumstantial ad hominem variety. For example, if the plaintiff is suing for vandalism and brings up that the defendant has been prosecuted before for unrelated vandalism. While that does not provide any evidence as to whether the person did it this time, it does speak to the person’s character and a Judge can and often does consider that. Likewise, in federal and civil cases in “real” courts, cases will often hinge simply upon whether a jury believes one person or the other, and that is done based upon an analysis of their character as opposed to hard evidence about the actual circumstances.

Final Thoughts

While an ad hominem is still an ad hominem and does not speak at all to the actual claims or evidence that is presented, and hence it cannot be used to say whether or not that evidence is valid, they can be used and often are to asses whether the person’s claims actually should be looked at. Think of it as a “first pass:” If someone often lies about a topic, then they are unlikely to be believed about the next claim they make, regardless of whether that claim is true. For example, Rich Orman on the Dogma Free America podcast recently stated that Scientologists lie so often that if they said the sun rises in the east, he would start looking for it to come up in the west.

Introduction

In my third installment of my series on Logical Fallacies, we’re going to cover the “ad hominem” attack along with several sub-types.

What’s an Ad hominem?

Ad hominem is a Latin phrase that literally translates as, “to the person” (and because it is in a language other than English, when using it in an English sentence it should be italicized). This is apropos because the fallacy is when one attacks a person making claims rather than the claims themselves — in other words, they address their arguments “to the person” rather than the claims. Because this is a fairly general fallacy, there are several sub-types.

Example of the Ad hominem, Abusive

There is no real standard ad hominem that I could think of in terms of creationism, intelligent design, UFOs, 2012 doomsday people, Planet Xers, astrologers, and all the rest of the pseudosciences that I’ve addressed on this blog. Really, the ad hominem is usually a spur-of-the-moment type of fallacy and generally used when one is just plain annoyed and wishes to use malice.

A contrived example would be the following situation: A die-hard UFO=aliens believer is debating with the virtuous skeptic when, frustrated, the UFO believer cries out, “Well of course you don’t believe me, you just believe whatever those scientists tell you to believe.”

Now, of course, this can easily go both ways. For example: A skeptic walking down the street sees a sign for a Psychic / Palm Reader / Tarot Card Reader / Astrologer, sees someone walk in, and obnoxiously declares, “Yeah, you’re gonna trust her — she doesn’t even have a real job!” The skeptic has just addressed the person rather than the actual claims.

Example of the Ad hominem, Circumstantial

This variety of ad hominem, rather than direct character assassination, uses circumstances rather than the person. For example, to pick on the Noble Skeptic, a skeptic might claim of a seriologist (someone who studies crop circles), “Well of course they believe crop circles are caused by aliens. That’s because they run a tour company and charge lots of money to bring people to see the formations.”

Assuming the seriologist in question actually does this, then the skeptic has just used the circumstantial ad hominem where they have drawn an albeit valid link that may be some of the seriologist’s motivation, it still does not address the actual claims of crop circle believers.

Sub-Type: Tu quoque

Lots of Latin in this blog post! Tu quoque literally translates as, “You, too.” This form of ad hominem attack, rather than being used initially, often follows one lobbied against its user. It’s really the quite childish playground taunt of, “Oh yeah! Well so do you!”

To continue my above example of the seriologist, once the Noble Skeptic has used such a logically fallacious circumstantial ad hominem, the seriologist may come right back with, “But you charge admissions to your lectures against aliens, crop circles, and UFOs!” In other words, they’ve just pointed out that the very ad hominem used against them – financial ties to the cherished belief – can also apply to the skeptic.

But again, the actual claim itself of whether crop circles are caused by aliens has not been addressed.

Sub-Type: Poisoning the Well

“Poisoning the Well” is a sub-type of ad hominem where, rather than outright attacks on a person or group, the attack is subtle and tries to get the listeners to distrust the person or group being attacked. They have been, effectively, “poisoned.”

An example of this that is often used by both creationists but much more so by the Intelligent Design proponents is calling pretty much anyone who disagrees with them a “Darwinist,” “Evolutionist,” or even “Evilutionist.” In other words, without addressing any of the claims themselves, they have already biased their audience against those people by giving them a seemingly unfavorable characteristic.

The Inverse ad hominem

I’ll address this more in my upcoming post on the Argument from Authority as a sub-sub-sub-…-sub type of that, but suffice to say here that the inverse ad hominem is just what it would seem to be. But rather than used to argue against someone or something, it’s used to try to give undue support for their position.

For example: “That Creationist on-stage is much better dressed than his opponent. He must really know what he’s doing to show up like that.”

Or, in every-day life, when walking down the street people will usually give much more sidewalk space to someone dressed in a tuxedo, evening gown, or priestly garb than a person walking in sweat pants and a t-shirt.

Final Thoughts

Everyone uses ad hominem attacks. I’ve used them, you’ve used them, we’ve all used them. But, it’s an argument ad populum (again, future post!) to say that because everyone uses them, they’re a good way of arguing. They’re so often used in politics that most people have turned away from politicians and created the joke of “politicks = poly + ticks, or “many” + “blood-sucking insects.” Of course this, in itself, is an ad hominem.

I should note, by the way, that something is only an ad hominem IF it is used as an argument in itself. Just using it in an argument or on the school playground to call someone a “jerk” for example is NOT an ad hominem. However, the poisoning the well fallacy is not as subject to this restriction.

And before some commenter points it out, I used ad hominems and inverse ad hominems throughout this post, such as the “Noble Skeptic” or “die-hard UFO=aliens believer.” Yes, I know I used them. I did it on purpose. Thank you for not using your own tu quoque in the Comments section.

“Often, the less there is to justify a traditional custom, the harder it is to get rid of it.” ~ Mark Twain

Twain’s wisdom came to mind as I read a recent article by new Dispatch columnist John Larson (another new club member; welcome!) about medical marijuana dispensaries.

Near as I can tell, Larson supports in theory patient access to medical marijuana, but opposes in practice “putting [a medical marijuana dispensary] in Gilroy.”

That’s a perfect example of a NIMBY (not in my back yard) position. A Time magazine article on ethics called NIMBYism “a perverse form of antisocial activism.”

Certainly Gilroy should ensure that medical marijuana dispensaries — which are legal in California — are appropriately located, just as planners do for pharmacies and hardware stores, for example. Dispensaries should be treated like any other business seeking to locate in Gilroy.

Larson uses pretzel-twisted logic to try to justify his NIMBY position by claiming that legalizing medical marijuana usage is part of a larger battle to legalize recreational marijuana usage, something he apparently opposes.

He claims that dispensaries have “ill effects” on “family values and safety” and that they lead to an increase in crime.

He describes how ridiculously easy it is to get marijuana (since his childhood!) and then tries to scare readers into opposing dispensaries by claiming they’ll make it easy to get marijuana. Huh?

I call foul.

Larson provides zero evidence for these assertions, but that doesn’t prevent his lame attempt to support a conclusion that’s illogical and cruel to suffering patients. He does, however, provide examples of red herring, appeal to fear, and slippery slope logical fallacies.

I assume those fallacies help squelch the cognitive dissonance that must come from acknowledging the suffering of “someone with terminal cancer who finds relief from their pain or nausea by smoking a doobie” while opposing the only way, given our current ridiculous federal laws, for that patient to safely and legally obtain the medicine that brings much-needed relief.

Many people — like me — support legalizing medical marijuana because we understand that the federal government completely misclassifies marijuana, causing people to needlessly suffer.

The federal Controlled Substances Act lists marijuana on Schedule I, the most restricted category that is supposed to include only substances with high potential for abuse, no currently accepted medical use, and no standards for safe use under medical supervision. This is simply not true about marijuana, as I’ve detailed in previous columns.

It’s fine to debate legalizing recreational marijuana use, but it’s completely separate from the debate about medical marijuana.

Another thing: Larson’s use of a street name for a medical marijuana cigarette, and giving his fictional medical marijuana dispensaries monikers that incorporate other street names (“Weed-Mart,” “Ganja Emporium” and “Pot-pourri”) might be cute, but the names are irrelevant, and using them is illogical and unfair. Worse, they’re examples of the ad hominem and appeal to ridicule logical fallacies.

Does Larson call pharmacies “Lude Lounges” because they sell prescription quaaludes that some people use recreationally? Maybe he prefers “Hillbilly Heroin Huts” because some people abuse prescription OxyContin? Does he call hardware and paint stores “Huff Depots” because they sell products that contain inhalants? Does he oppose the presence of these stores in Gilroy?

The use of logical fallacies is usually a sign that the fallacy-employer knows that his position is weak and is thus reduced to trying to distract his audience and hoping that they don’t notice his argument’s flaws.

Something else about Larson’s column confused me: He believes it’s relevant to emphasize that he has never smoked marijuana. I fail to grasp the relevance, but I’ll share too: I have never smoked, seen, touched or been offered marijuana. I wouldn’t even recognize the odor, I lived such a sheltered youth.

However, I’ll also share a relevant personal fact: My daughter endured two-and-half years of chemotherapy to treat cancer. She suffered from nausea, but, thankfully, it was short-lived and manageable. However, had her doctors recommended medical marijuana, here’s what Larson and his ilk would require me to do: In their pollyanna-ish, “Weed-Mart”-free utopia, I would have had to locate one of the scores of unlicensed, unregulated street marijuana dispensaries (you know, drug dealers) sprinkled throughout South County to purchase marijuana of unknown quality and strength, in the process likely supporting other far worse illegal activities, while risking arrest, prosecution and incarceration when my young daughter desperately needed me.

Why? Because they don’t want legal, regulated medical marijuana dispensaries in this community.

Put that cruel reality in your NIMBY pipe and smoke it.

Now is the time to initiate a discussion of one of the great stand-by rhetorical tricks in politics, law, and advertising: the ad hominem argument. Bloggers love to throw the term ‘ad hominem‘ around, charging one enemy with lobbing ad hominem arguments, and then falling subject to nasty counter-charges that they are the ones instead who have made a “personal attack.”

It is clear to me, at least, that a good portion of those who throw out the charge of ad hominem often don’t understand the fallacy.  Joe Romm falls for the prank in his recent post in which he comes to Al Gore’s defense. Romm spends a fair number of words explaining that Al Gore isn’t poised to become the world’s first carbon billionaire.

My thinking? So what if he is? Whether Gore is or isn’t poised to profit off of climate change is a distraction, an irrelevance, a stupid sophistry used by ideologically-driven hacks to push their agenda.

The ad hominem is one of many fallacies of relevance. I spoke earlier about fallacies of relevance in the Cherry Ping Pong thread. Ultimately, fallacies of relevance are tricky li’l buggers, because some claims that smell like a fallacy of relevance are, in fact, relevant. What’s tricky is that when one encounters a fallacy of relevance, what has to be demonstrated is the relevance of the charge, not that such-and-such a charge is true. One has to demonstrate that it matters that Little Bunny Foo Foo is an alcoholic. One can’t just demonstrate that Foo Foo is an alcoholic.

So there’s that. And then there are other confusions as well…

First things first, note that an ad hominem is not a “personal attack.” True, it literally is an argument against the person, but that’s not the same thing as a personal attack. I can viciously attack someone and make a great argument. You can read all about such attacks in this adorably fantastic overview of the many ways you can say “fuck you” and “you’re an asshole” without committing an ad hominem.

Second, note that simply pointing out that Gore is going to make a heap of cash on his book, or that he only might make a heap of cash, or that he won’t make a heap of cash at all, has nothing to do with the strength or weakness of Gore’s argument. Sure, it might point to ulterior motives on Gore’s part; but it just as easily might not. It might also demonstrate that he has such a strong belief that his view is the right view, that his view will generate many new jobs, that he has put his money where his mouth is. Could go either way. Might even be a coincidence.

So what would it take to indict Gore’s arguments by appealing to his person? It’d take a demonstration of relevance. In the case of climate science, I think that’s basically impossible, just as it’s impossible to undermine Steve McIntyre’s arguments by appealing to his external funding and background in mining, just as it’s impossible to undermine the arguments of environmentalists by speculating about the origins of their political worldview, just as it’s impossible to undermine Roger’s arguments by calling him bad names. It’s a wild, spinning merry-go-round of attack politics.

At the same time, it is important that we get our facts and our arguments from reputable sources. Just as we wouldn’t accept a medical diagnosis from a wacked-out meth-head, so too ought we not to accept facile political mouthings-off from unqualified interpreters of law. We must read and adjudicate for ourselves. Dishonest arguments, or poorly supported arguments, can be handily discarded.

And here, dear readers, is where it gets troubling. Very, very often, attempts to impugn the credibility of critics boil down to accusations that those critics are wacked-out meth-heads, or something like that. Problem is, we must then all make a determination about whether their claims were made in good faith, about whether they are qualified to make those claims. In all of these cases, our best alternative is simply to ignore the vitriol and attend to the argument at hand.

More problematically, when the above happens, the political intermingles with the rational. When Joe Romm or Grist or anyone spends time defending Gore on these grounds — on grounds that he will not profit, or that he will donate all of his proceeds to charity, or that he is merely reporting the scientific record — they do not undermine the ad hominem fallacy but instead reinforce its seeming relevance.

Of course, they are acting politically, and politics is dirty. Romm and Grist would be wrong not to defend Gore against these fallacious charges. Equally so, those smeared by Romm would be wrong not to defend their personal reputations. But the question of whether it is wise to argue against an ad hominem is based on a calculation about how one’s position will be interpreted in the face of this information, not on an assessment of the strength of the claims. In the end, this screws with everyone’s capacity to get at the right answers, to arrive at acceptable policy conclusions.

What does this mean for the rest of us? It means that we ought not to put much stock in objections from either side when some party protests that X stands to make billions of dollars from a given project, or that X is a rock star, or that X is an ignorant booze-bag. It is sometimes important to know that X stands to gain, as it may call into question the sincerity with which he utters his argument, but that is an entirely separate matter from a determination of whether his argument holds water.

Still don’t get what I’m saying? I have only the most endearing non-ad hominem reply:

Fuck off, you ignorant booze-bag.

By Conspiracy Theorist Nicola Novakowsky

I recently visited the Skeptic’s Guide to the Universe. I was browsing through their Top 20 Logical Fallacies and I was very confused. They were calling perfect arguments fallacies. Why would they be calling really good argument logical fallacies? It became quite apparent to me that they were calling perfectly good arguments fallacies because they’re trying to dumb down the public!!!

I just want to counter their nonsense and want to share the truth about how wonderful some of these arguments are.

Ad hominem
Honestly, it makes an incredible amount of sense that you’d attack your opponent rather than their argument. Most people you’ll be arguing with will be either evil or naive. Arguing with their opinion/position will be futile. You probably should call them what they probably are: SHEEPLE!

Ad ignorantium
We don’t know for sure that Federal Chairman Ben Bernanke isn’t a Reptilian. Therefore, he definitely is a Reptilian. I mean, this makes perfect sense. I’m failing to understand why this is a fallacy.

Argument from authority
Hmm….I’m almost convinced by this. The fact that the Skeptic’s Guide is so down on it makes me want to believe it more. Personally, I think most people in authority aren’t necessarily right, especially since a lot of them are wrong and evil liars. But I think people like David Ickes are the right authority and should not be questioned because they’re the kind of authority that make you question most authority. Makes sense to me.

Post hoc ergo propter hoc
This argument is indisputable since it’s quite clear everything I ever do causes some event since the event came right after what I did. I’m beginning to feel like God. For example, I merely took a nap one Saturday afternoon in 1993. The event of Youtube coming into existence many years after 1993 is proof of how efficacious my causal powers were then and now. My very nap caused Youtube to exist. Don’t worry. You’ll soon realize that post hoc ergo propter hoc is true for yourself too. Don’t let the sheeple steer you in the wrong direction with their illogic.

Slippery slopes
Slippery slopes are pretty reliable. For instance, my friend thinks that my views are just a bit fringe. Pretty soon this same friend of mine will think that I am crazy. Later, she’ll be contacting the local authorities and have me put in some kind of reeducation camp. It’s just a matter of time. It’s just one big slippery slope of truth. I better stop hanging out with this friend of mine.

Tautologies
I am right because I am right. I’m not entirely sure what’s so wrong about this. People call this circular reasoning but didn’t the Ancient Greeks think circles were perfect? Don’t we want our reasoning to be as perfect as a circle? Am I missing something here?

I hope the Skeptic’s Guide fails in its attempt to de-educate everyone. These are really great arguments and only an evil person trying to take over the world would tell you that they’re fallacies. How ridiculous.

Always remember! Do your own research and discover your own facts!

I padri muoiono, gli amici invecchiano, le fidanzate vanno e chissà ad un certo punto forse arrivano.

• Non sei obbligato ad amare nessuno
• Nessuno è obbligato ad amare te.
• Non fare male.
• Non farti fare male.
• Non c’è nessun perché.
• L’importante non è chi ha torto o ragione, ma solo chi ti vuole bene e chi no.

I do not believe in Richard Dawkins.

Or rather, I would not believe he was real if it were not for the plethora of evidence which exists, even just the evidence circulating amongst the sprawling content of the internet. The book reviews, blog entries, interviews, lectures, Wikipedia entries, biographies, testimonials, and endless third-party sources seem to all confirm that there is a real, living man, who says the things Dawkins says.

And yet, some days it remains difficult to believe that he is not actually a fictional character, invented as a cruel parody of actual atheism by a group of chortling pranksters. Only such an alternative could adequately explain a book like The God Delusion, a book of such intellectual laziness I struggle believing that an Oxford graduate (a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, no less) could possibly make the kinds of arguments he makes. My rational mind rejects the conclusion of his serious existence sporadically; surely, something doesn’t add up. This can’t be right, it says. This is not atheism, or rationalism (a phrase he so often uses to describe himself and his mission throughout the text), this isn’t even anything. The book can only be a parody of atheism, not worthy of note, and Dawkins himself must be a practical joke, a hired actor, with lines written for him, fabricated with the care and precision of the most sophisticated conspiracy.

But then I snap back to reality and am faced with a horrifying situation: The God Delusion is  – in a strictly objective sense – an appalling piece of writing, riddled with logical fallacies of every kind, defended and articulated by rhetoric masquerading as argument, heavy with emotional bias, and put forward with a scholarly ignorance so profound it is next to unbelievable. And yet Richard Dawkins is wildly popular.

How popular? Far from being universally rejected for amateur reasoning, The God Delusion is embraced by hundreds of thousands of readers across the world. The book has sold over 1.5 million copies, has been translated into 31 languages, and has been on the New York Times Bestseller list for longer than I care to ask. My paperback contains almost four pages of testimonials ranging from the Sunday Times to Philip Pullman, all raving about Dawkins’ groundbreaking brilliance (and bravery, no less). Dawkins himself holds honorary doctorates across a diverse range of universities, made Prospect magazine’s 2004 list of the top 100 public British intellectuals, and is a recipient of (among many awards) the Bicentennial Kelvin Medal of The Royal Philosophical Society of Glasgow. “The God Delusion deserves multiple readings,” says Steven Weinberg of the Times Literary Supplement, “not just as an important work of science, but as a great work of literature.”

This is the truly frightening thing, and can only mean our culture has grown so intellectually lazy it mistakes fallacies and rhetoric for “elegant, engaging and persuasive” argument (Financial Times).

My thesis is simple: A critical, objective, informed reading of The God Delusion reveals that Richard Dawkins does not know how to argue systematically, or even to really argue in any formal way. For the majority of the text, his primary strategy seems to be to make unsupported statements, blur definitions between schools of thought, employ rhetoric in place of formal reasoning, and when an actual argument is required of him, make embarrassing mistakes and blatant fallacies. The God Delusion is disorganized almost, at times, to the point of rambling.

If you have the most recent paperback version, put out by First Mariner Books in 2008, you can follow along with my citations.

Inability to Distinguish

Of the many problems the book suffers from, one is Dawkins’ insistence to treat all religions, especially the three Abrahamic religions, as exactly the same thing. “For most of my purposes, all three Abrahamic religions can be treated as indistinguishable” (p.58). Obviously this creates problems with much of the argumentation of the text, as Christianity and Islam, for instance, are completely backwards from one another in other in their theology. I don’t mean stuffy, minute differences in how to pray and where to face while praying, I mean a completely separate, opposite worldview. That Christianity and Islam are “basically the same” is a highly prevalent falsehood. I discuss part of it here, in my post on the issue.

The effect of Dawkins’ lumping together of all the monotheistic religions is an attempt to avoid dealing with Christianity directly. Of course “Religion” can be shown to be sheer craziness and dogma if Islam is your only example. This way, Christianity can be dismissed along with Islam without any special defense.

While it is true that Dawkins brings up many examples of “extremist” Christianity, he confuses the readers by putting those examples up side-by-side with “extremist” Islam. When you see a Christian acting “extremist,” someone completely insane like Fred Phelps or (possibly more insane) Paul Hill, what you are seeing is a man going against everything for which Christianity stands. When you see an “extremist” Muslim, however, you are seeing a Muslim more less following a possible and accurate interpretation of his religion. This distinction becomes unfairly blurred when Dawkins puts both religions in a category and calls up examples of “extremism” like this. Readers walk away being shortchanged of the full truth of the matter.

Further, Dawkins also fails to distinguish between Biblically-based Christian doctrine and the fictional universe brought into being by the Catholic church, with what he (rightly) calls the Catholic “pantheon” of Saints and the nearly divine status of the Virgin Mary (p. 55).

These problems are due to his unsystematic approach, in which he fails to deal with each religion on its own. If he is really attempting to “attack God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever,” (p. 57) he is going to have to be vastly more thorough than merely lumping together all religions and attacking them as one entity.

Citations Needed

Dawkins also seems to have an inability to cite his sources. I don’t mean that he doesn’t have an extensive bibliography in the back of his book (he does), but that those pages are devoted to citing all the people and journals and books in his many off-topic tangents and anecdotes. In the times when it really matters, when he is making concrete statements about what a religion actually says or teaches, his sources are nowhere to be found.

“Christianity, just as much as Islam, teaches children that unquestioned faith is a virtue” (p. 346) This is a big claim (and another example of him being unable to differentiate between religions) and no where on the page does he cite anything.

“The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty, ethnic genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully” (p. 51). This is the same thing. Now, this would have been an excellent way to open a chapter and lay down what would soon follow to be a systematic deconstruction of the Old Testament, but the rest of the chapter has very little to do with the Old Testament God. If Dawkins were actually rigorous about his deconstruction of religion, again, he would have dealt with this at length. As it is, the remainder of the chapter wanders off into many other, unrelated topics and we are left with empty words lacking citations.

“To which chapter, then, of which book of the Bible should we turn — for they are far from unanimous and some of them are odious by any reasonable standards” (81). Again, Dawkins makes a statement and does not cite any sources or follow it up in any way. He proceeds into a series of rhetorical questions, concluding that he “shall return to such questions in chapter 7.” One cannot help but ask, if he was going to devote an entire chapter to the subject, why he felt the need to drop such a powerfully declarative statement in the middle of another chapter, left standing without support, to be accepted. This is another example of Dawkins’ failure to organize his text in a critical, systematic way, and what makes criticisms of rambling so easy. Throughout the entirety of the text, Dawkins wanders into anecdotes at will (Chapter 3 has many good examples) and returns to his previously unsupported statements convinced of their absoluteness.

Use of Rhetoric

Dawkins’ primary argumentative device, where he should instead be using systematic reasoning, is rhetoric.

In one example, Dawkins quotes at length a piece of writing by Theologian Richard Swineburne (P. 89), which attempts to explain something (which is nevertheless off-topic) and instead of addressing Swineburne’s argument, dismisses it by simply saying, “This grotesque piece of reasoning, so damningly typical of the theological mind, reminds me of…” and lapses into another story which is not analogous. Here he deals in what we may call a rhetorical definition, in which he defines what he calls “the theological mind” (which, by the way, is also a Strawman fallacy) though he never actually defines it. All we have is “grotesque piece of reasoning” and “damningly typical.” If one cuts out his rhetoric, we really have no argument to speak of. This is typical of Dawkins, and an exhaustive list of each instance in which he rhetorically defines something he should be logically refuting would be a massive chore, as it occurs so frequently in the text.

This happens again on page 54, when Dawkins brings up the Trinity and offers only the sarcastic, “as if that were not clear enough.” He then quotes St. Gregory on the Trinity, follows it up with how this is a “characteristically obscurantist flavour of theology which – unlike science or most other branches of human scholarship – has not moved on in eight centuries.” No argument here. No argument of how the Trinity is impossible logically, no look at how it might be contradictory with the rest of the Bible, nothing. Dawkins goes on to quote Thomas Jefferson saying that religious people use ridicule as their only weapon, and that no one has ever had a distinct idea of the Trinity. And then, bafflingly, he moves on! Again, if one cuts out the rhetorical definitions, and appeals to Jefferson (which happen much more frequently than one might imagine) there is really no argument here. All we can take from this is that Dawkins doesn’t understand the Trinity. That’s it?

Much later in the text he attempts to give a summary of Christianity: “But now, the sado-masochism. God incarnated himself as a man, Jesus, in order that he should be tortured and executed in atonement for the hereditary sin of Adam. Ever since Paul expounded this repellent doctrine, Jesus has been worshiped as the redeemer of all our sins. Not just the past sin of Adam: future sins as well, whether future people decided to commit them or not!” (286).

What he does with this paragraph, by use of carefully placed adjectives and italics, is rhetorically imply that this is craziness. At no point in here is there an argument of any kind. Perhaps the paragraph is taken out of context? Nope! The paragraphs before and after do not support the implied conclusion, and an unwary reader will walk away with a strong feeling that Dawkins is right about this, and that all this God stuff is nonsense, but he will not be armed with anything substantial. This should come as no surprise, because this is exactly what rhetoric does.

Two more examples of rhetorical definition: “Compared with the Old Testament’s psychotic delinquent, the deist God…” and goes on to describe what he calls the “deist God” (p.59). And again on 68, “The Deist God…is certainly an improvement over the monster of the Bible.” Both rhetorical definitions: no evidence is given to support the argument, but a conclusion is reflexively defined with rhetoric and carried over throughout the text.

Ad Hominem

In addition to rhetoric, Dawkins also enjoys the use of ad hominem throughout his book, though for space considerations I will only give a few examples.

“Jung also believed that particular books on his shelf spontaneously exploded with a loud bag” (74). This is almost a textbook example of ad hominem: he notes that some people hold a belief “without adequate reason” (which is a rhetorical assumption made about theists, also) and then points out this about Jung to discredit him. In reality, what Jung thinks about spontaneously exploding books is not relevant to Jung’s theology. This is a personal attack, and not real reasoning.

Later, after describing one of Swineburne’s more dubious comments, Dawkins goes on to quote the man’s credentials and say, “If it’s a theologian you want, they don’t come much more distinguished. Perhaps you don’t want a theologian.” The first sentence is an implication that, because Swineburne is a theologian, he stands for all theologians, and the second sentence is actually a sentence devoid of meaning, especially given the context of the sentence. (p. 89)

Faulty Reasoning

Finally, when required to make clear arguments, Dawkins can only muster up faulty reasoning and reveal his own ignorance of the philosophical process. He says,

“Any entity capable of intelligently designing something as improbable as a Dutchman’s Pipe (or a universe) would have to be even more improbable than a Dutchman’s Pipe.” 146 This is all. He says nothing else. He does not quantify why it is improbable, he does not give us a step-by-step proof. He merely states, and moves on.

In chapter eight, Dawkins devotes a section to abortion (which is irrelevant, really, in the grand scheme of his argument), and attempts to set up an alternative moral system based on suffering. The problem with this is that he reflexively defines his moral system without giving a reason why such a system should be thusly based, when it could be based on something else entirely. It is times like these in which his philosophical amateurishness becomes easy to see. Any actual philosopher would spend a significant amount of time establishing a moral system from the ground up; Dawkins’ execution, in comparison, is sloppy and rushed.

One of the worst examples of his total disregard for rational modes of argumentation comes in his discussion of a similarity of passages in the Bible (p.273). Dawkins, unassisted by sources or reasoning, says, “The story of the Levite’s concubine is so similar to that of Lot, one can’t help wondering whether a fragment of manuscript became accidentally misplaced in some long-forgotten scriptorium: an illustration of the erratic provenance of sacred texts.” This is pure speculation, ungrounded in citation, evidence, or reason. Or if it is, he gives no reasons for it and does not follow it up with any argument whatsoever. And yet, like the rest of the text, the reader comes away with a feeling, a deep suspicion of everything that might be “wrong” with the things Dawkins attacks but with no concrete evidence or valid chains of reasoning to show as proof.

To Be Continued…?

Unfortunately, yes. If you have not read The God Delusion, you may be surprised at the amount of other fallacies I had to end up cutting out of my last draft to even get this article down to the right size. Strawman, Weasel Words, and Appeals to Emotion all had to be cut. Having fully intended to devote an entire section exclusively to Chapter 3’s numerous errors, I find I must save them for next week’s post.
Thanks to the people who have been patient with my busy schedule. Chapter 3 should be easy to take apart, so look forward to that last week.

Until then, may you think critically.

A quanto pare qualcuno ha preso male tutto il clamore attorno al suo soprannome e si è dato alla macchia. (la bottiglia di cui sotto è sempre a disposizione)

At the corner of  Sophistry and Ad Hominem  there you will find Liberalism

The mental giants of left have found a deeply intellectual argument of immense power:  If you disagree you are stupid.

Apparently the Marxists quickly tired of their other bold rationale:  If you disagree you are racist.

Bill Maher thinks you are stupid.  Especially if you believe in God.

You are stupid and Bill Maher thinks he can prove it

Are you too stupid to be a good Communist?

Embrace your inner Commie!  All the really, really smart ones do!!!

How to Bankrupt a Nation

A Constellation of Idiots

Online Job Search

Government Work

Job Search

Job Search for the Older Worker

Health Care Reform

Taking Crazy Pills

Attitude of Gratitude

Manifesting Abundance

Living Life Abundantly

Interconnectedness

Squidoo

Rainbows in the Gutter

Sacred Circles

Cyber Rainbow

Moon

Sacred Geometries

Digital Creations

Runes

Cyber Rainbows

A quanto pare i premi bloggari hanno avuto un side effect positivo su un  sito a me caro (per la legge che afferma che se visito un sito fiKo poi devo clicckare dappertutto). Dubito che durerà ma credo di dovere una bottiglia di sforzato a qualcuno.

NB: non avendo alcun particolare interesse a conoscerlo di persona potrei fargliela avere tramite un’amica comune (no kidding guy)

Il sottotitolo di questo post è “non è che ci debba essere sempre una buona ragione per fare le cose“.

La mia notoria anima burlona temo superi la mia verve da inguaribile romantico, credo per questa ragione, come mi hanno da poco fatto notare, uso pratiche retoriche che possono essere considerate strane alle donne che incontro.

Il dialogo tipico al  primo incontro con una donna, soprattutto se carina

• “ciao, come ti chiami…,“

• “Maria“

• “… sei fidanzata?“

Nel caso in cui invece io incontri dopo anni donne nella parte sbagliata dei trenta o oltre,  la scenetta diventa.

• “ciao quanto tempo…“

• “ciao“

• “…e quindi ti sei riprodotta?“

Lou Reed's insane double album is nothing but nonstop guitar feedback.

All except for one: the screeching, electric guitar feedback of those who blast ad hominem assaults into intellectual discussions. As soon as someone goes ad hominem and begins attacking a speaker instead of the speaker’s ideas then the music is done. The noise has begun.

Such is the case in the debate over Glenn Beck. On the heels of the fairly even-handed (but still objectionable) Time cover story on Beck the “progressive” online magazine Salon has unleashed a far more devious, horrific assault on this new symbol of the Right.

W. Cleon Skousen

The article by Alexander Zaitchik is titled “Meet the man who changed Glenn Beck’s life” and features the subtitle, “Cleon Skousen was a right-wing crank whom even conservatives despised. Then Beck discovered him.”

The article starts off with a condescending description of the recent Conservative March on Washington before identifying the “true” engineer behind it:

The masses were summoned by Glenn Beck, Fox News host and organizer of the 912 Project, the civic initiative he pulled together six months ago to restore America to the sense of purpose and unity it had felt the day after the towers fell.

In reality, however, the so-called 912ers were summoned to D.C. by the man who changed Beck’s life, and that helps explain why the movement is not the nonpartisan lovefest that Beck first sold on air with his trademark tears. Beck has created a massive meet-up for the disaffected, paranoid Palin-ite “death panel” wing of the GOP, those ideologues most susceptible to conspiracy theories and prone to latch on to eccentric distortions of fact in the name of opposing “socialism.” In that, they are true disciples of the late W. Cleon Skousen, Beck’s favorite writer and the author of the bible of the 9/12 movement, “The 5,000 Year Leap.” A once-famous anti-communist “historian,” Skousen was too extreme even for the conservative activists of the Goldwater era, but Glenn Beck has now rescued him from the remainder pile of history, and introduced him to a receptive new audience.

To Zaitchik understanding Skousen will allow Salon’s leftist readers to truly grasp the lunacy of the modern Conservative Movement without having to bother participating in the intellectual symphony of ideas:

As Beck knows, to focus solely on “The 5,000 Year Leap” is to sell the author short. When he died in 2006 at the age of 92, Skousen had authored more than a dozen books and pamphlets on the Red Menace, New World Order conspiracy, Christian child rearing, and Mormon end-times prophecy. It is a body of work that does much to explain Glenn Beck’s bizarre conspiratorial mash-up of recent months, which decries a new darkness at noon and finds strange symbols carefully coded in the retired lobby art of Rockefeller Center. It also suggests that the modern base of the Republican Party is headed to a very strange place.

The article then goes on to present a summary of Skousen’s life, books, and ideas that reinforces one central thesis: he was a conspiracist, racist, fundamentalist kook who respectable conservatives eventually ignored, until Beck “rediscovered” him. I have not read The 5000-Year Leap nor am I particularly familiar with Skousen. My experience with Leap is limited to seeing it frequently at the top of the political bestsellers list when I’m browsing on my Kindle. To determine the accuracy of Salon’s summary of Skousen is a task I turn over to NewsReal’s readers who are perhaps more educated on him.

It should come as no surprise that Salon also attacks David Horowitz as a Skousenite:

Whatever the circumstances, Beck really began touting Skousen in the latter half of 2007. The first brief mention of Skousen in the online archives of Beck’s radio show is Sept. 24, 2007. Less than two months later, Beck interviewed conservative pundit David Horowitz on his radio program. He asked him, “Have you ever read any Skousen? Have you read — do you remember ‘The Naked Communist’? I went back and reread that, it was printed in the 1950s. I reread that recently. You look at all the things the communists wanted to accomplish. It’s all been done.” Horowitz agreed.

Horowitz notes in response:

In the Salon article, I didn’t say I had read the Skousen book as he insinuates, only that I had heard of it. And I didn’t agree with any statement that Skousen may have made that the Communists achieved everything they wanted.

Here’s the actual exchange that Salon is lying about:

GLENN: You know, I’m reading — have you ever read any Skousen? Have you read — do you remember “The Naked Communist”?
HOROWITZ: Yeah. [DH: I.e, yeah I remember the book "The Naked Communist" but I've never read it and haven't the foggiest idea what's in it.]
GLENN: I went back and reread that, it was printed in the 1950s. I reread that recently. You look at all the things the communists wanted to accomplish, it’s all been done. It’s all been done.
HOROWITZ: Here’s the way I measure what’s happened to the Democratic party and the country. John F. Kennedy was a Reagan Democrat.

(Why on earth would the author lie about this and provide a link where someone can check it? Does he really think that poorly about his leftist audience?)

Whether Salon’s profile is accurate about Skousen or not is irrelevant. (And just because they lie about Horowitz does not mean they’re lying about Skousen.) When they shift back to talking about Beck’s interest in Skousen’s work they are unable to directly pin any of Skousen’s allegedly nutjob statements onto him. All they can really do is point out that he recommended some of Skousen’s books and wrote the foreword to Leap. They have no evidence that Beck supports everything Skousen ever said.

Salon is trying to suggest that because Beck has been inspired or influenced in some abstract way by Skousen he is therefore in the same alleged Whack-Job Right. The Salon piece is not interested in actually engaging with Beck’s and modern conservatism’s ideas. Instead they’re going to perform a  bait and switch, trying to hold up 50-20 year-old objectionable ideas about fundamentalism, racism, and conspiracism and suggest that modern, mainstream conservative thinking is no different.

I have absolutely no tolerance for ad hominem argumentation, whether it’s coming from opponents on the Left, opponents in the Kook Right, and especially from overly-zealous conservative allies.

Because Jill knocked Jack down the hill with her ad hominem argument neither of them got any water from the well.

Here’s a simple explanation of ad hominem that should explain quickly why it’s a classic logical fallacy. Jack puts forth Argument X in a debate with Jill. Jill does not like Argument X and wants to refute it. However in order to do so she decides to say nothing about Argument X and instead say how something about Jack is objectionable. Perhaps she shoots back, “Argument X is not true because we all know that you lie all the time.” Or maybe if they’re having a political debate Jill will say, “Argument X is not true because you’re a leftist/racist/conspiracist. If you’re wrong about something else then you’re wrong about Argument X too.”

But it doesn’t matter if Jack is the one making the claim. Argument X could be “The sky is blue” or “Jimmy Carter was once president” and the truth of the argument would have nothing to do with Jack’s character or ideology.

In the case of the Salon article, Zaitchik is saying “Argument X (the totality of Beck’s thinking) is not true and should not be taken seriously because he has said nice things about books by this nutjob right-winger.”

I’m going to resist the temptation to do to Salon what it does to the Right. It would be ad hominem of me to say that Salon is lying about Skousen because they lied about Horowitz embracing Skousen. The potential truth of the claims about Skousen are completely separate from the fact that the author chose to lie about another fact. The only thing that relates the two claims is the fact that they’re both made in the same article.

If you play an instrument in the intellectual symphony you’re going to run into jerks that do ad hominem guitar feedback. In his book Indoctrination U: The Left’s War Against Academic Freedom, Horowitz demonstrates how this is a classic strategy of the Left. In Chapter 2 he relates what happened at Reed College when Dean Peter Steinberger chose to employ ad hominem against him on the Academic Freedom Issue. Steinberger took passages from Horowtiz’s The Art of Political War out of context to suggest that Horowitz supports lying to achieve political objectives. Thus, why should anyone consider Horowitz’s ideas about Academic Freedom? Clear logical fallacy.

But it’s not just leftists that do this. I’ve had to deal with many commenters at NewsReal who like ad hominem also. Last week I stumbled into a debate with one commenter who was insisting that the founding fathers were born-again Christians. I countered that most of the founders were deists. When he demanded evidence I linked him to some quotes from the founders’ writings at Wikipedia, the blog of my friend Jonathan Rowe, and a book of correspondence between Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. His reply: wikipedia has a liberal bias, the publisher of that book has put out anti-Christian books, and what are Rowe’s qualifications to make these claims?! The same thing happened when I fell into a discussion about the Bible with another commenter. Not even trying to change anyone’s mind or attack anyone’s faith I suggested Bart Ehrman’s recent book Jesus, Interrupted as an example of a book which explained how I tended to view the New Testament. The commenter responded by claiming that Ehrman was a “statist” — I’m not sure if that’s even true — and therefore a liar even on such matters as biblical scholarship. Once he brought out the guitar feedback it was time to pack up my instrument and find somewhere else to play music. How can one find any sort of harmony with people who don’t even know such basics as how to read music or carry a tune?

And before one of our leftist critics can jump on me let me admit it: yes, when conservatives try and say that President Obama’s associations with Bill Ayers, Van Jones, Rev. Wright, and other leftists is grounds for treating everything he says as a lie then, yes, they too are engaging in ad hominem noise. These connections are relevant, they just don’t give one a license to block out Obama’s ideas the way the Left blocks out ours.

This criticism of ad hominem does not mean we should trust what everyone says. If someone is known for lying then by all means be skeptical of one of their claims. (Keep this in mind with the new Michael Moore movie coming out.) We just can’t leap frog to the conclusion that what they’re saying is false. And it does not mean that associations or influences are unimportant or should not be discussed. It would be interesting to study which of Skousen’s ideas might have influenced Beck. That’s not Salon’s agenda, though.

Unfortunately this guitar feedback is seemingly never ending in modern political debate. “The Right is against Obama because they’re racists” is only the newest manifestation.  But this cycle of ad hominem noise needs to stop. It’s time to unplug both our and our opponents electric guitars and pick up our instruments again. Call out ad hominem when you see people doing it. Don’t take this intellectual short cut yourself. And Conservatives can do this and still play their music with all the passion and aggression needed to triumph as we play the American Song together.

Editor’s note: For a different ad hominem assault that labels some other crackpot conservative as Beck’s mentor see the recent NewsReal debate with David Frum.

PHASE 1: PLANNING

We met ONLINE through YM to convene about the theme of our video. Because it has to be viral in just ONE WEEK, we have to think of something that is up-to-date, appealing to our generation (because the youth are really the ones who spend much time surfing the Net and watching videos online), and can be easily done/produced.

The very first criteria we set: NOT ELECTION-RELATED.

This past month, we’ve all been caught up with issues on youth vote, 2010 elections, etc., and so we decided that we’ll avoid ideas that will lead to that topic again. We taught of topics like UAAP, Tips on How to Save Money, How to Work and Study at the same time and many, many more. However, we have no idea how we will go about those topics.

I suggested that we try a one-question format, where the subjects of the video will be asked only one question. The challenge: think of a question that may generate varying opinions.

We want the comments on our video to be varied but with only one direction. We want our viewers to build conversation about what they see in our video. The resounding question we came up with is: Kung Ikaw ang Presidente ng Pilipinas, ano ang gagawin mo?

Yes, the topic we are avoiding caught up with us.

PHASE 2: PRODUCTION

We divided into three groups; each must do an ambush interview of different students. To make the video get hits instantly, we got the contact information of those we ambushed, so they themselves can share the video to their friends.

PHASE 3: MAKING IT VIRAL!

- We decided to promote the video individually to our own sets of contacts.

- We posted it on our respective blogs and SNS accounts.

- We linked it to our YM status, and asked our friends and cousins to repost the video.

- For easy viewing, we made a domain for it : http://kungikaw.tk .

- We even made use of text messaging to promote the video.

- We contacted First Time Voters Project, and other youth-vote and election-related sites for them to view our video, and repost it, if possible.

I’d be a guilty of lying if I say that I didn’t use ad baculum or who-knows-what fallacy to promote the video (and everybody knows that I never lie! Ha!). I know that we’re supposed to tap our target audience–the Filipino youth voters–into watching and reacting to this video. However, all those online articles saying that for a video to be viral, it has to reach 1000+ hits in less than a week made me really anxious.

I saw the videos of others and it’s really funny that I watched it more than once, probably more than the times I’ve watched our video. OOPS!. I especially like the Fayah and Wanna be a Korean. I mean, it’s not so often that I’ll see Ate Lou dancing (trivia: Park Bom–the 2NE1 member Ate Lou portrayed–is her favorite! Haha) and Jhe was really bubbly and cute on their video. Plus, her faux bangs are perfect that I’ve been urging her to get some real bangs

Phase 4: Results (as to the promotion I did)

I accidentally sent the video to GMA news. I was surprised when they asked for my number and called me asking if I can send them a brief summary about the video. I did. I thought that was the end of that.

Last Tuesday, I received a call from Mariz Umali of GMA News and Public Affairs to tell me that she is in UP Manila and hopes to see me so we can talk about the video. Unluckily, the ever enthusiastic Angel Directo was in UP Diliman at that time. She would have been so excited. Well, she still is even she wasn’t there (Peace Jel!).

I’m sensing this is not going to be a simple interview.  And I was right! Ha! One person was already setting up a camera. Good thing Camille was there so we were both interviewed. Who would have thought that we’ll be ambushed with an interview too?!

I think the short interview was shown in News on Q (QTV11). A clip of the interview was shown in 24 Oras (GMA 7) along with two other youth vote-related actions from UP Diliman, and UST.  Only Ate Ana and Glecy saw it. I didn’t get to see it. Haha.

I think, the Youtube link of our viral video was shown because a video of us was taken while we were playing the it in Ate Jackie’s laptop. (trivia: when we borrowed Ate Jackie’s laptop, Ms. Umali saw her bare back creative shot, which happens to be Ate Jackie’s wallpaper. Orcom people is indeed very much exposed! Haha)

For all those who haven’t watched yet our video, here it is….

Personal reaction from the video:

It’s glad to know that the Filipino youth are not deaf, not blind, and not mute. They heard the issues. They have been vigilant about the misdeeds of the current administration. Most importantly, they have a reaction and that if given the chance to be on that MOST powerful position, they know the right thing to do.

With Congress’ fleeting August recess has come a rash of unusually rowdy town hall meetings. Meant to provide a setting to sell their health care reforms, these events have produced tumultuous encounters requiring law enforcement presence. A few of these meetings, classic venues for engaging citizens with their representatives in government, have gotten much play in the media for being illustrative of the brand of contempt accompanied by near-assaults. Senators McCaskill of Missouri and Specter of Pennsylvania come to mind. The rough treatment accorded the Dean of the House, John Dingell of Michigan, the burning in effigy of freshman congressman Frank Kratovil of Maryland, the loud criticisms of Lloyd Doggett of Texas spring to mind. What does the current battle, yes, battle, tell us about national debate?

It usually has something to do with Truth. If there is One, it is a matter of who has It, whether they can articulate It, and whether opponents can evaluate or verify It. A debate is what happens when two opponents, be they on two sides of an issue, disagree on an issue in whole or in part. They get together and hash it out, bringing Facts, Evidence, and good argumentative Techniques to the fore.

Debates are usually had according to some mutually-agreed upon rules which govern them. To say that the town halls of ’09 represent order and comity is tantamount to saying that Abu Graib was a congenial place to lay up, that the interrogations that took place there were dignified. That most ardent beneficiary of Medicaid was being civil when he shoved the other man.

The only rules in play at town hall meetings anywhere at any time are the unspoken ones observed by citizens with some composure. You’ll recall from grade school that a person should be recognized before speaking, that only one person should speak at a time. Not so this August.
For their part, House Democrats were after all given a quick reference card and told to “Sell, sell, sell.” Sell what though? The problem, and a source of frustration for yours truly when contemplating not the debate as I do here, but rather the issue, is that there is no one clear measure under consideration. There are many, and they’re all very different. This may be a legislative tactic, starting from a far-left wishlist with great space left available in conference, but ill-chosen as it has turned out. Troubling not just in isolation, though this is, but such a tact may be nearing begrudging impossibility given the now-established precedence set by Speaker Pelosi in her second term as the boss.

Shifting away from the town halls, what of the debate as read in the papers seen on television? The papers have in large part been excellent, save some choice headlines. Television “news” coverage has been atrocious. The notorious symptoms of the network television news cycle phenomena have at once shamed and altered the trade forever. It is the difference between a tabloid and a newsprint, a television commercial and a press conference, MSNBC or Fox and the News Hour, which determines not only the tenor of the debate, but tragically also sources what the American people know and consequently think about the underlying issue. The rules of Cronkitean or Lehrerean broadcast coverage are embodied now only by the live one of the two. The conversational immaturities of primetime news have in Fact infiltrated our dialogue elsewhere—barber shops and ball games, households and town halls. We must hearken back in this basic regard.

There are many elements of health care in this country that everyone agrees on. As usual, the uniquely American-pragmatic impasse is what to do about it—it being outrageous costs, actuarial malaise, deficiencies in delivery. None of us have yet to experience the current health care system, so why the rancor when all have been touched to their own satisfaction or not by it?

Yet the dialogue has regretfully descended from even the oft-spoken, nay’er meaningful phrase “quality, affordable access” via that even less meaningful Congressional slight, “health care reform.” The attention grabbed by these somewhat rowdy town halls is good for the opponents and essentially democratic in the display of passion. But witness the op-ed tit and tat in the USA Today this week between Pelosi and Hoyer retorted by Boehner, and you will catch my drift. Let us have a real debate. Premises leading to conclusions, no ad hominem, Facts and factual Counters, one person speaking at a time. Let the polls and the experiences of the August recess guide the legislation rather than six drafts having already been reported out of committee before going on to sell something so amorphous. That’s a bill of goods, not a solution emerging from a debate.

It is nothing short of amazing how many believers in the paranormal, usually without the qualifications to know what they are talking about, but sometimes even those with the training to know better, try to expound upon the ‘psychology of the skeptics™’ and get their attempts at reading our minds so completely and utterly wrong. Nothing short of amazing…and amusing.

First, we skeptics are a pretty diverse bunch personality-wise, without a common theme or reason for being the way we are, so there is simply no such thing as a single universal generalization of ‘the’ personality type applicable to skeptics.

Second, a little look through any up-to-date psychology textbook or journal–yes, even those written by us ‘damned fundamentalist reactionary skeptics’–will reveal a wealth of data pertaining to the psychology of belief, from total incredulity to complete acceptance, without a need for a special psychological profile for skeptics. In most psychology studies on the causes and mechanisms of belief, skeptics are already entered into the equation–otherwise there would be nothing to compare with believers.

Most attempts by believers so far to ‘understand’ skeptics involve the use of logical fallacies, usually ad hominems (It’s comical that believers should be the ones to scream “ad hominem!” as loudly and often as they do, but so given to their liberal usage as well, but I digress…), straw man arguments, well-poisoning, the hasty generalization (using a few non-representative samples of skeptics and applying their motivations and personalities to all of us) and to support this generalization, the use of selective and often misrepresented quoting to validate their foregone conclusion.

These sloppy, unprofessional and ad hoc attempts at psychoanalysis of those who criticize their claims are simply rationalizations made by believers to justify their dislike of those of us who offend or shock their ‘delicate sensitivities.’ Pity pooh.

Lack of belief and refusal to believe are not the same. This is no arcane mystery, just basic psychology 101. When one confuses a lack of belief with a refusal to accept, and goes by the logic that as a skeptic, I must be deeply afraid of the paranormal because I don’t believe in it, one must also argue that I am deeply frightened of dragons, unicorns, faeries and flying pigs, because I don’t believe in them either. Please. That’s just silly. Do believers just not ‘get’ why we skeptics don’t take them seriously when they make claims like this?

For the record, I, a dogmatic cynical debunker™, am fascinated, not frightened, by the paranormal, like a moth to a flame, though I look at it with a more critical eye than I once did. Ever want to find out why and how any particular skeptic thinks the way they do? Just ask one. Really, how hard can that be, rather than just taking the lazy route and holding some wannabe pop psychologist’s word as gospel truth?

Updated 8/15/09

Dr. Peter Dale Scott, researcher, author and UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus, recently praised the latest video from CIT, ‘National Security Alert’. However, due to receiving many emails critical of CIT’s work, he issued a qualifying statement, which I asked for and received permission to post publicly. CIT’s film presents witnesses whose statements indicate, or seem to indicate, that American Airlines Flight 77 did not fly the path that we have been told knocked down light poles and caused the damage at the Pentagon, as well as the testimony of an apparent eyewitness to a plane that flew over the building. The film also contends that it is “conclusive” that AA 77 did not hit the Pentagon, that instead it flew over the building. However, in his qualifying statement, Dr. Scott says, “I do not personally believe it.” He explains, “All I endorsed was their assemblage of witnesses…. I do not draw the conclusions from their testimony that CIT does.”

This is Dr. Scott’s statement at CIT’s website:

Citizen Investigation Team has produced an important documentary video that, using numerous independent witness accounts, successfully rebuts the official account of Flight 77’s flight path on 9/11 as it approached the Pentagon. It constitutes a further compelling reason for this country to investigate properly, for the first time, the full story of what happened on that day.

- Dr. Peter Dale Scott

citizeninvestigationteam.com/praise.html

At the above url, there is a link to the film, National Security Alert.

This is Dr. Scott’s statement of qualification, in full:

This is a form letter in response to the flood of letters that has been showered on me by those who do not like CIT.

I have not endorsed the flyover theory for Flight 77, and I do not personally believe it. All I endorsed was their assemblage of witnesses who said that Flight 77 approached the Pentagon on the north side of the Pike. I do not draw the conclusions from their testimony that CIT does. But I believe that the testimony needs to be seriously considered by those trying to find out what actually happened.

I must say that I am disappointed by number of ad hominem attacks I have received. I do not believe one incoming letter so far has dealt with the substance of what the Turnpike witnesses claimed and I endorsed.

In his famous American University speech of June 1963, John F. Kennedy famously said, “And we are all mortal.” I would add, “And we are all fallible.” For this reason I would ask everyone in the 9/11 truth movement to focus their energies on the substance of what happened on 9/11, and not discredit the truth movement by wanton attacks on each other.

Sincerely,

Peter Dale Scott

In his message giving me permission to post, Dr. Scott also said, “I am now aware of [CIT’s] ad hominem attacks on good people, which is a big reason why I am giving you this permission.” In my email to him, I had included a link to the CIT forum thread titled “Face to the Name”, where they post names and photos, and insult and attack those who question their methods, conclusions and behavior:

z3.invisionfree.com/CIT/index.php?showtopic=508

My name and photo are on page 4; CIT co-founder Aldo ‘Investigangsta’ Marquis claims I have made “accusations of being disinfo” against CIT. This is not correct; I have criticized CIT’s evidence, claims and behavior, but I have not accused them of ‘disinformation’, i.e. intentionally misleading the public.

Lessons from Dr. Scott’s message:

1) Labeling people or questioning their motives instead of critiquing their evidence and arguments is not persuasive to people skilled in research and debate, and may even be offensive. Facts are facts, and offensive behavior does not change the truth, but civil discussion promotes greater understanding. Personal attacks can cloud the issues and cause bad feeling and suspicion among 9/11 researchers and Truth activists. The FBI employed such techniques effectively during their COINTELPRO operation, as a means of disrupting and distracting activists. Dr. Scott wisely asks that those seeking truth “not discredit the truth movement by wanton attacks on each other.”

And as 9/11 researcher Arabesque has observed:

About the issue of “disinformation” and “agents” and all of that. I think it is best to reject labels altogether and just give the information. Particularly since there are disinformation enablers who will use these kinds of characterizations and attacks to defend CIT and their endorsements of CIT. I have seen time and time again how this is used as a straw-man to deflect attention away from the bad information and behavior. Instead of addressing these issues, enablers of disinfo/misinfo will point to the “attacks” and accusations of “disinfo” and simply ignore the information.

2) CIT claims their collection of witnesses conclusively proves that AA 77 did not hit the Pentagon, instead flying over the building. In his qualifying statement, Dr. Scott endorsed the assemblage of witnesses, and said, “I believe that the testimony needs to be seriously considered by those trying to find out what actually happened.” He also said, “I have not endorsed the flyover theory for Flight 77, and I do not personally believe it.”

I’ve watched Pentacon and National Security Alert, and have read numerous articles and comments both endorsing and critiquing CIT’s work. While I find both CIT and the witness statements interesting, I personally do not believe the flyover theory either. The witness statements used by CIT are inconclusive, as they are in some cases inconsistent with undisputed facts, with CIT’s interpretation, and with other witness statements.

Arabesque’s review of Pentacon highlights many of these issues:

A Critical Review of ‘The PentaCon – Smoking Gun Version’

Caustic Logic/Adam Larson (no relation) collected statements of 13 witnesses from the public record that support a south-of-Citgo path- including statements by 2 of CIT’s witnesses, Terry Morin and Ed Paik:

THE SOUTH PATH IMPACT: DOCUMENTED

Arabesque has also collected the statements of close to 100 first hand accounts of the plane impacting the Pentagon, as reported by media in the time period shortly after 9/11:

9/11 and the Pentagon Attack: What Witnesses Described

National Security Alert contains much of the same material from Pentacon, but is updated with Roosevelt Roberts, the alleged ‘flyover’ witness, a partial quote from Erik Dihle, and new video with cabdriver Lloyde England, among other things.

I’m not sure what to make of Roberts’ testimony; he says that at 9:11 or 9:12 am (the Pentagon was struck around 9:37 am) he went outside the building after the “impact” and saw a “silver” “commercial aircraft” fly from over the top of the Pentagon to the southwest. Caustic Logic has written a number of articles examining the Roberts account- some of his statements indicate he saw AA 77 approach.

Erik Dihle gave an account to the Center for Military History shortly after 9/11. He had been in his office at Arlington National Cemetery, going outside after the fact. CIT only reports that he said, “The first few seconds it was very confusing, we couldn’t even tell… some people were yelling that a bomb had hit the Pentagon and a jet kept on going”. However, the mp3, which is available on CIT’s website, shows that Dihle completes the last sentence by saying, “somebody else was yelling no, no, no, the jet ran into the building.”

thepentacon.com/neit426.mp3

So far, in the nearly 8 years after 9/11, these are the only first and second hand witness accounts that possibly indicate a ‘flyover’. This is strange if the flyover is a fact, considering that the area around the Pentagon is highly populated and crossed by many roads. A View Shed analysis of a 2 mile radius around the Pentagon gives an idea of how much opportunity there was for a flyover to be witnessed.

Furthermore, 3 video cameras aimed at the Pentagon did not capture a flyover; the Pentagon and Doubletree Hotel security cameras were rolling prior to and during impact, and video was shot by a passing motorist within seconds after the impact (the camera was turned on before the smoke reached the top of the frame, and the Pentagon is in clear view).

Cab driver Lloyde England figures heavily in CIT’s latest film, due to his famous account of AA 77 going right overhead and knocking a lamp post through his windshield. There are photos of his cab stopped on a bridge directly in the official flight path of AA 77, along with a street lamp post. As England was on the official flight path and states the plane flew over him, he’s a witness that contradicts CIT’s theory. In 2007, they put out a video short about him titled “The First Known Accomplice?” National Security Alert features new footage with England. In the film, England is shown photos of his cab on the bridge and driven past the location, and he denies that’s where he was. Instead, England claims he was further east- approximately in the area where CIT claims all their witness saw the plane actually flying. While it appears that England is confused- he seems to think there was another bridge in the area (there isn’t)- CIT claims, “This proves that Lloyde was deliberately changing his position on the highway for the interview, to match up with where all of the witnesses saw the plane.” Why would England contradict the official 9/11 story, if he’s an “accomplice”? CIT does not examine this issue. At one point during the driving segment, CIT claims England is unaware he’s being recorded; for them to make this statement, it would seem they intentionally deceived him, and told him the camera was off- otherwise, why would they think he would assume that? During this segment England refers to 9/11 as having been “planned”, that 9/11 is “a world thing” and it’s for the “people who have money”, that he’s “not supposed to be involved in this”, but they “came across the highway together”, and now he’s “in it”. CIT interprets this to mean, “Lloyd in essence admitted his involvement in the 9/11 black operation, but he was cautious to not outright confess.” In my view, a more plausible explanation is that England understands, as tens of millions of Americans do, that 9/11 was planned by people with money, and given that he happened to be driving by when the plane flew over and knocked a lamp post through his windshield, he became famous and of interest to CIT, so now he’s “in it.”

If the flyover theory is correct, it means faking the damage path must have been planned in advance; as CIT states in the film, the scene with England, his cab and the pole had to be staged “in real time.” They speculate that the other poles could have been taken down and planted by the Secret Service the night before. This also means the damage to the generator, concrete barrier and tree had to have been staged. If 9/11 was a ‘false-flag’ operation orchestrated by very powerful people, why would they go to the trouble of doing this, when they could simply arrange for AA 77 to be flown into the only recently-reinforced section of the Pentagon? Conveniently, this section was nearly empty except for civilian contractors and defense accountants, and opposite the offices of the top brass. Faking the damage and conducting a ‘flyover’ would mean additional people being knowingly involved, as well as the risk of both the damage-staging and the flyover being seen and videotaped.

The film’s first section contends that the damage to the façade of the Pentagon is inconsistent with a 757 being flown into it. However, photos show there’s a 90’ gash in the base of the Pentagon with a fuselage-sized hole in the center. There are numerous photos of AA 757 plane parts outside and inside the building. These articles review the physical evidence for a 757 crash, and correct many misconceptions:

The Pentagon Attack: What the Physical Evidence Shows – Jim Hoffman

Pentagon Attack Errors – 911Review.com

While the film National Security Alert is an interesting artifact, I don’t find it compelling- let alone “conclusive”- evidence that 9/11 was, in the words of CIT, “a false flag ‘black operation’ involving a carefully planned and skillfully executed deception.” While I don’t accept the official explanations for 9/11, and it’s fair to say ‘9/11’ was and is a ‘deception’, no other information is presented that the official story is false, other than what CIT believes supports the theory that the plane didn’t hit the Pentagon. Furthermore, the only other ‘9/11 Truth’ organization featured in the film is Pilots for 9/11 Truth, which also focuses almost entirely on information that implies AA77 didn’t hit the Pentagon. The 9/11 Truth Movement has been divided and distracted by the controversy over ‘what’ hit the Pentagon, and Establishment media and politicians have been provided a strawman that can be used to ridicule and dismiss 9/11 questions and those that press them.

While the film is an interesting artifact, I don’t find it compelling- let alone “conclusive”- evidence that 9/11 was, in the words of CIT, “a false flag ‘black operation’ involving a carefully planned and skillfully executed deception.” While I don’t accept the official explanations for 9/11, and it’s fair to say ‘9/11’ was and is a ‘deception’, no other information is presented that the official story is false, other than what CIT believes supports the theory that the plane didn’t hit the Pentagon. Furthermore, the only other ‘9/11 Truth’ organization featured in the film is Pilots for 9/11 Truth, which also focuses almost entirely on information that implies AA77 didn’t hit the Pentagon.

In addition to the questionable evidence and claims, CIT has developed a reputation for abusing people who disagree with them, and have been banned from participating in many popular online forums as a result. Lloyde England, who they’ve called “the Devil” and “a demon” is one, but they have also made accusations against other witnesses whose testimony contradicts their claims, and attacked anyone who contradicts their claims, both 9/11 researchers and Truth activists, and so-called ‘debunkers’.

For more info on CIT’s bad behavior, see their own ‘Face to the Name’ forum thread:

z3.invisionfree.com/CIT/index.php?showtopic=508

And the following articles document still more bad behavior, plus other problems with their evidence and claims:

CIT, Craig Ranke, Aldo Marquis, and the PentaCon Flyover Theory: Origin, Debate, and the ‘Smoking-Gun’ Anti-Controversy – Arabesque

Arabesque has written a number of articles on CIT, and been the target of numerous attacks; this is a link to all CIT articles by Arabesque

To Con A Movement – Victoria Ashley

Google Earth Exposes Pentagon Flyover Farce – Jim Hoffman

Michael Wolsey interviewed Jim Hoffman about the Pentagon ‘flyover theory’, CIT and disruption in the 9/11 Truth Movement:

Visibility 9-11 Welcomes 9-11 Researcher Jim Hoffman

For more info on compelling reasons to doubt the official 9/11 story and demand a full investigation, see these websites:

The Complete 9/11 Timeline – HistoryCommons.org

Journal of 9/11 Studies and Scholars for 9/11 Truth & Justice

911Research.WTC7.net and 911Review.COM

Arabesque 9/11 Truth

And these books:

The Road to 9/11: Wealth, Empire, and the Future of America by Peter Dale Scott

The war on truth: 9/11, Disinformation, and the Anatomy of Terrorism by Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed

The Terror Timeline by Paul Thompson and the Center for Cooperative Research

And these films:

9/11: Press for Truth

Everybody’s Gotta Learn Sometime

9/11 Revisited: Scientific and Ethical Questions

Improbable Collapse: the Demolition of Our Republic

9/11: Blueprint for Truth

Loose Change, Final Cut

For more info on 9/11 Truth news and activism, see these websites:

911Blogger.com

911Truth.org

TruthAction.org

TruthMove.org

Visibility911.com

YourBBSucks.com

Stereotypes always have a grain of truth to them.  Particularly in the last decade, the political scene has become increasingly heated and divisive, and although every group on the face of the planet believes they are justified in their actions, discernible and despicable patterns have emerged that tend to uniquely characterize one group from the other.

I tend to be classified as liberal, not necessarily because of my views (which lean liberal, yes) but largely because those I often pick debates with are conservative.  These debates typically are very formulaic: a passionate but ill-informed conservative makes an inflammatory and fallacious post, I attempt to point out the logic error, and all hell breaks loose.  Obviously everyone (myself included) is going to think they’re right, but there have been very, very few instances where I honestly conceded error on my part.  The many other encounters left me scratching my head as to how exactly they were arriving at the conclusions with which they’d ad-hominem’d me into oblivion.

The following is a list of five very specific patterns I’ve noticed.  They are very interrelated, but still distinct enough to warrant discussion.

1. Obama is Evil

Not So Subtle goes into detail far more eloquently than I could, but the ridiculousness of the archetypally-extreme rhetoric that some Republicans are spewing is truly stunning.  Painting Obama as the Joker or Hitler, calling Obama as other liberals “anti-American” (as if Republicans had a monopoly on the term), and even labeling Islam as an “evil religion” reeks of narrow-minded oversimplification.

I wrote an entry a few months ago laying out how these extremes, these Hollywood-esque depictions of true good and true evil simply don’t exist in the real world; everything and everyone consists of some varying combination of the two.

A friend of mine who is a brilliant aspiring journalist and avid follower of politics wrote an article pertaining to this very topic within the realm of the health care reform “debate” (more like chaos).  Whether or not Republicans are actively trying to stifle debate and throw roundtable discussions into disarray is irrelevant; the videos of those roundtables are embarrassing.  The few people who are actually heard over the incessant babble of the mob reveal utterly incoherent and strictly partisan beliefs.  Everyone else is acting like a toddler.  Why anyone – Democrat (who should be trying to spread the message of what the health reform bill will do) and Republican (who should be trying to suggest viable alternatives) alike – thinks this is a productive way to spend the Congressional recess is stupefying.

But hey, if you truly believe in the ends justifying the means, then go right ahead and simplify the message to “those who believe otherwise are evil.”

2. You’re either with us, or against us

People like to say that football is a metaphor for life: adversity, competition, exhaustion, perseverance, teamwork. In having played it, I can say without reservation that they are exactly right.  But what Republicans don’t seem to realize is the meaning of the word “metaphor.”

Awhile back I found this fantastic article elucidating the differences in priorities between liberals and conservatives, and in this vein it’s easier to understand why conservatives tend to be more exclusive than liberals.  I also understand that, biologically, humans can only give two shits about so many other humans.  It’s genetic – we can’t have the same level of emotional attachment to a perfect stranger across the world that we do to our parents, or siblings, or spouse (David Wong of then-pointlesswasteoftime.com, now cracked.com, wrote an excellent article on this phenomenon).

But the level of exclusion that swept the country under Bush and continues now under Obama is horrifying.  Dissent against the conservative agenda – which, by the way, is how this country was created – seems to be viewed as intrinsically anti-American, at times even worthy of the term “terrorist.”  It also significantly hinders cooperation when simply learning one’s political leanings immediately signals the end of any constructive discussion.

Can I exercise my rights as a citizen no less American than you before you start calling me a godless, freedom-loathing, America-hating terrorist?

3. Rewrite the dictionary

If you plug “political spectrum” into Google, you can quite a variation of the landscape. Even the Wikipedia article highlights how difficult it is to create an all-encompassing political spectrum, as the definitions of each are changing.

Republicans, it would seem, have taken it upon themselves to redefine a few terms so, denotation aside, they are immediately given a partisan connotation that essentially makes or breaks a debate. Terms like “socialism,” “communism,” and “free market” no longer have any meaning in a discussion, but rather serve as political leverage one way or another.

When did socialism become evil?  Last I checked, many of our allies employed the economic philosophy to a greater degree than we do. Even here in America, we have lived for decades with programs like Medicare and Social Security, and turned a blind eye to the monopolies like AiG and Microsoft that have used their majority market share to all but extinguish competition in the capitalist free market so vehemently mentioned now.

Communism being associated with evil is more understandable given its history, and yet no one seems to be remember that pure communism has actually never existed to date – the former Soviet Union and current North Korean and Chinese regimes are closer to totalitarian governments than a true communist government.

And don’t even use the “free market” argument to decry the government-run health care plan; we haven’t had a truly “free market” here in America since its inception, for the reasons I mentioned two paragraphs above. Same for the bailouts: no “free market” stabilization would have occurred, since such a thing doesn’t exist without oversight and regulation.

4. Warmongering

My favorite is when people tell me that the reason we haven’t suffered another 9/11-esque terrorist attack is because of the outrageous military spending we’ve been undertaking since then, and our involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This is one of the biggest and most laughable logical fallacies one could ever fall prey to, and frankly if you have used this line, you are a complete dolt. While I have no doubt that the ramped-up security at airports, at the borders, and other measures taken have improved our situation, whether or not our wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have directly resulted in a lack of terrorist attacks here is inherently unknown. Just because I’ve never seen a living platypus does not mean they do not exist.

Take a look at where all our taxpayer money is going: our military budget for FY2010 is well on its way to $700 billion. No other department in the entire budget even approaches $80 billion.  Education, science, NASA, civil works, small businesses…everything else combined can’t remotely compare to the DoD’s annual budget.

5. Hypocrisy

All the previous points lead me to this one.

I can’t even pick a place to begin.  Republicans’ staunch hatred of abortion while simultaneously clamoring for increased military spending and support for the death penalty; espousing the works of Jesus in one breath while condemning entire peoples and religions in the next; reciting the freedoms inherent to every American citizen prior to drowning out attempts at reasonable debate with obnoxious “Just Say No” chanting…the list goes on and on.

The whole ordeal with Sarah Palin’s pregnant teen daughter comes to mind: where whats-her-face was shielded and supported in her pregnancy by the conservative support base, had it been Obama’s daughter that was pregnant, they would have been rabid with judgment.

Conclusion and Disclaimer

I do want to mention something important: I do not honestly believe every single Republican or conservative to perfectly fit the bill laid out above. Nor do I remotely believe that Democrats and liberals are collectively the opposite of the aforementioned. I am simply laying out the most prominent patterns I have observed in my internetting, my newsreading, and my in-person discussions.

Also, with regards to my final and most important point: everyone is guilty of being a hypocrite.  The difference is whether or not individuals recognize and acknowledge that fact in themselves.

In closing, I am immensely proud of my country. There isn’t anywhere else on the planet I would want to live, work, and play on a permanent basis. As such, I will point out where I think it can improve, and I in tandem.  I simply hope that both sides of the aisle can discuss their viewpoints in a calm, rational fashion before our nationalistic zeal tears us to pieces.

The other day, my friends and I got together over pita bread, cayenne hummus, and baby fingers. We had apostate singers’ albums on in the background, playing backwards through a sophisticated CD player system. Finally, we reached for our agenda to see what nefarious plans we were supposed to cook up that day in lieu of bettering our empty, meaningless lives as puppets of Satan.

“So,” Lynn said, chewing thoughtfully on a baby finger, “how are we going to spread evil, perversion, and corruption this week?”

Sometimes, that’s what I feel the conservative and evangelical (and conservative evangelical) people think we do. I spend enough time on religious blogs and reading Christian news (and when I’m particularly masochistic, I read the comments) that I have a pretty good idea how liberal and/or unbelievers are viewed. And sometimes, it doesn’t even seem to be conscious on their part; they don’t even realize that they’re doing it. I was on the blog of a respected writer of the science fiction community, and he asked any liberals or secularists who happened by his blog why they wanted to enforce their immorality and spread their perversion on television, and he wanted answers without ad hominem attacks … at the same time that he presented harsh attacks on leftists as fact. Sometimes I feel that avoiding ad hominem between the two extremes is impossible since each extreme tends to think the worst of the other side (although I sometimes feel like conservatives tend to think liberals are more evil than liberals think conservatives are).

As a liberal myself, and as a nonbeliever, I think many conservatives and believers tend to forget that we’re not actually aiming for evil. It’s moral relativity at its finest. When I was still a Christian, I came to the distressing conclusion that there was an absolute truth established by God, but there was no way that any human could know it absolutely – the Bible is cherry-picked equally and oppositely, with each extreme conveniently ignoring the verses and contexts that support the other side. Of course, my present conclusion to this is that the Bible doesn’t have much use in deciding moral standards, but nonetheless, in a Christian-majority nation, it’s important to acknowledge its importance to a great number of Americans. However, even if there is actually an absolute truth, humans are still stuck with moral relativity, finding our own paths and expressing them in public forums. All we can do is go through life and figure out what’s beneficial for the individual and society and what isn’t. And we’ll inevitably butt heads about it, against each and among our own factions.

Unfortunately, moral relativism becomes even more of a problem when two distinct and opposing forces come together and declare their side right and good and the other side wrong and evil. Most liberals tend to be more annoyed than enraged and believe the other side is woefully misguided, while most conservatives tend to use religiously charged terms that imply that all who disagree with them are evil. Neither seems to acknowledge that both sides are just trying to do the right thing and have very different perspectives regarding how to do that. And it is a matter of perspective. Sadly, for all of humanity’s capacity for empathy, we will never be perfect in that respect.

Above all, I want to do good in this world. I want things to run smoothly and for certain freedoms to be had by all as long as there is informed consent. When I support the increased presence of gay characters (and gay people of color) in television shows, it’s because I don’t think that homosexuality is a problem, not because I support the decriminalization of perversion and seek the corruption of children. Instead, I think that the suppression of homosexual voices and experiences is damaging and wrong. I’ve had too much of myself damaged by silence to think that it’s okay. However, my conservative Christian upbringing enables me to see what I used to see, albeit the memories are a little hazy. So I know that conservatives and evangelicals/fundamentalists see my striving for good as a striving for evil, regardless of what I think about the matter. And likewise, I tend to see the conservative and religious attempts to stifle alternative sexualities as misguided, and even sometimes evil. I do tend to attribute evilness to individuals rather than groups, though, since I am able to understand that the other side is just as interested in the betterment of humankind as I am. We just have very different ideas of what is good and bettering for the world.

If I step away from my personal, emotional involvement in social politics, I recognize that the conservative and liberal moderates and extremes are in fact quite necessary. Neither side is the perfect side; neither side is the right side. Both are needed to check each other. Liberal ideologies exist to keep conservatives from holding us back with archaic and unneeded customs and rules. Conservatives, in always standing their ground and looking back while on a busy street, get hit by oncoming cars. Conservative ideologies, on the other hand, exist to keep liberals from jumping head-long into stupid ideas when precedence clearly says it won’t work. Liberals, in leaping before they look, run into trees. Conservatives carry the history; liberals carry the vision. Both are necessary (though, in order to move forward progressively and safely, the liberals need to have just a little more power than the conservatives). Unfortunately, and for the universe’s infinite amusement, they are also diametrically opposed to each other; brother and sister, they will always be bickering in the back seat. And that bickering can get pretty brutal.

The gap between liberal and conservative and the religious and secularists will never be bridged, and compromise leaves no one happy. However, for the purpose of any dialogue at all that will enable society to move forward, the gap does need to be minded. We must remember that we are both striving for what we consider good. Baseless attacks on motivations will get us nowhere. Stop using “agenda” as a scary term, since we all have goals, and we all want to see our policies and goals carried out. Cease your demonization, because all it does is further the us vs. them mentality that can become violent in its militancy.

And always eat your baby fingers with your utensils. Were you raised in a barn?

What will the fast-ailing Sathya Sai Baba do? Rub oil or vibhuti on the surface of his multiple infirmities, and do all that he has for so long promised? That is to say:

• Bring the world to him, even before he dies
• Harmonize the world’s major religions
• Save the world from enormous catastrophes
• Lift a whole mountain range
• Travel the world
• Fly through the air
• Put humanity on what he calls ‘the royal road’ to righteousness
• And so much more ….

To listen to his carefully hand-picked and carefully-groomed speakers, his fame has spread to virtually every clime. This claim is patently untrue. Ask people on crowded streets in many countries do they know the name Nelson Mandela, or the late Princess Diana. Or whether they can immediately visualize those such as the Pope, Barach Obama, the late Michael Jackson, and so on, and they will instantly affirm that they do.

Do leaders in the interfaith movement feature him or his emissaries as notable in their publications and websites? And yet the following edifice, sited amid the great opulence of his Puttaparthi ashram, displays his symbol (the so-called ‘Sarva Dharma Chakra’ or All Faiths motif):

Sarva Dharma Stupa, Puttaparthi. In background, the huge auditorium Poorna Chandra Hall

Do we see world leaders in politics, religion and so forth beating a track to his door? What do we see?

We see him using visitors to the ashram – not necessarily Sai devotees, either – who are of this or that religion. For propaganda purposes, these individuals are used to give the appearance that educated members of other faiths are accepting his “greatness”. One such use was made of a visiting rabbi from Israel. When I reported on this, Sai Baba’s proxy defender on the Internet stated that I was anti-Semitic. That the Sathya Sai Organization allows its members, some of them prominent in the Sai movement, to assist this effectively conscienceless individual can only still further damage its standing.

Sathya Sai Baba’s official Puttaparthi website shows that he also uses others who have little or no representative power in various faith organizations to make it appear that his evangel is winning hearts and minds in the different faiths around the world. There is a simple test that media, scholars and other investigators can apply:  ask the leaders of the major faiths whether they would lend their organizations’ name and authority to Sathya Sai Baba or his movement. Those Sai Baba protagonists who attack former followers for pointing out the long list of anomalies and cover ups of crimes and spiritual betrayals find it easier to use ad hominem and other profoundly dishonest tactics to deflect forms of questioning commonly regarded as essential to intellectual and moral integrity.

The below – official – text, and many other texts like it, are not likely to stand the test of time. Critical writings of prominent commentators as Robert Priddy, Brian Steel, Timothy Conway Ph.D, and the work of many former Sathya Sai devotee networks – with a most notable activity by the late Glen Meloy and also Hari Sampath and other critics via major world media – have already played a role in ensuring that the Avatar of Avatars – pretendu – has been highly exposed. I may add, from my own personal and close witness that the work of the latter two, although it has had low visibility on the Internet, has been of enormous, indeed incalculable, dimensions.

Further Reading

The BBC’s ‘The Secret Swami’ – A Revision

BBC Hidden Camera in ‘Secret Swami’. Ethical?

Guru Sex Abuse Testimony To BBC – After Years of Silence

Indian Minister Shields Sai Baba on BBC television

Probed On Male Sex Abuse, Sai Baba Evicts BBC TV Team

V.P.B. Nair. B.Premanand. R.Priddy: Sai Baba Bedroom Killings

Exposure of Sathya Sai Baba. Media Source List

Video Resources

The Secret Swami (BBC Television):
(154 MB, Broadband)

Seduced (DR, Danish Broadcasting, Denmark’s national television and radio broadcaster):
(80 MB, Broadband)

http://home.hetnet.nl/~seduced/seduced.wmv
(21 MB, Modem)

Right Hand. Sleight Hand. Watch Sai Baba Cheat With Sacred Ash (Film clip)

BBC and Other Film Footage Shows India’s Top Guru Sathya Sai Baba Faking Miracles

BBC Footage Exposes Fake Sathya Sai Baba Miracle « Call For Media and Government Investigation

Sathya Sai Baba Chief, Dr Goldstein, Explodes. “I am the consummate professional” (See Film Clips)

Raising ever more serious questions about how spiritual is the head of what Sathya Sai Baba has called THE divine organization in the world,

Michael Goldstein explodes with anger (710kbs)

at the BBC’s perfectly reasonable questions about accountability

Dr. Goldstein again reveals his higher self (1.500Kb)

Michael Goldstein and the sexual allegations (2,10 Mbs)

Michael Goldstein admits his view is merely a belief (456kbs)

Sathya Sai Baba Cult Exposure By Major TV Channel In Australia « Call For Media and Government Investigation

……………………………………………………

General

Excerpt From Public Petition

(Note: You may prefer to proceed straight to the Petition):

Public Petition For Official Investigations of Sathya Sai Baba and His Worldwide Organization

There is a Spanish version available:

PETICIÓN PÚBLICA PARA INVESTIGACIONES OFICIALES DE SATHYA SAI BABA Y SU ORGANIZACIÓN A NIVEL MUNDIAL)