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      "author": "steemitboard",
      "body": "Congratulations @arossp! You received a personal award!\n\n<table><tr><td>https://steemitimages.com/70x70/http://steemitboard.com/@arossp/birthday2.png</td><td>Happy Birthday! - You are on the Steem blockchain for 2 years!</td></tr></table>\n\n<sub>_You can view [your badges on your Steem Board](https://steemitboard.com/@arossp) and compare to others on the [Steem Ranking](https://steemitboard.com/ranking/index.php?name=arossp)_</sub>\n\n\n**Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:**\n<table><tr><td><a href=\"https://steemit.com/steemfest/@steemitboard/the-new-steemfest-badge-is-ready\"><img src=\"https://steemitimages.com/64x128/https://cdn.steemitimages.com/DQmRUkELn2Fd13pWFkmWU2wBMMx39EBX5V3cHBEZ2d7f3Ve/image.png\"></a></td><td><a href=\"https://steemit.com/steemfest/@steemitboard/the-new-steemfest-badge-is-ready\">The new SteemFest⁴  badge is ready</a></td></tr></table>\n\n###### [Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness](https://v2.steemconnect.com/sign/account-witness-vote?witness=steemitboard&approve=1) to get one more award and increased upvotes!",
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      "author": "steemcleaners",
      "body": "[Source](https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/libertarians-want-make-world-better-everyone)\n[Plagiarism](http://www.plagiarism.org/plagiarism-101/what-is-plagiarism/) is the copying & pasting of others work without giving credit to the original author or artist. Plagiarized posts are considered spam. \r\n\r\nSpam is discouraged by the community, and may result in action from the [cheetah bot](https://steemit.com/faq.html#What_is__cheetah).\r\n\r\n[More information and tips on sharing content.](https://steemcleaners.org/copy-paste-plagiarism/)\r\n\r\nIf you believe this comment is in error, please contact us in [#disputes on Discord](https://discord.gg/YR2Wy5A)",
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      "author": "arossp",
      "body": "<center>https://aaronrosspowell.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/11/jungwoo-hong-100345-unsplash.jpg</center> <br/><p>If you believe Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu, libertarians are nuts.&nbsp;<a href=\"http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-05/libertarians-are-the-new-communists.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">In a recent commentary,</a>&nbsp;they gave a litany of reasons for “Why libertarian society is doomed to fail.” The trouble is, they’ve managed not only to misunderstand libertarianism, but also to ignore the very problems libertarians see in the authors’ own preferred big government solutions.</p>\n<p>Hanauer and Liu attack “radical libertarianism,” which they define as “the ideology that holds that individual liberty trumps all other values.” Yet this isn’t quite right, whether we’re talking about moderate or radical libertarianism. Liberty isn’t the ultimate value. But it is the ultimate political value. It holds this status not because we shouldn’t care about other values, but because a state that aims at liberty will enable us to realize much more of what we value than one that aims at something else. Whether the goal is wealth, happiness, health, culture or any other value we hold dear, political liberty will bring us more of it than officious government.</p>\n<p>The authors then call out libertarians for our “defective” theory of human nature. They tell us libertarians believe “humans are wired only to be selfish, when in fact cooperation is the height of human evolution.” But libertarians embrace free markets and voluntary association, which both require and encourage cooperation. What libertarians are skeptical of is not cooperation, but the use of, and threat of, force to coerce people into taking part in schemes they don’t approve of, or that harm them, or that aren’t as efficient or effective as other means. Is it “cooperation” when the state forces poor, minority children into failing schools? Is it “cooperation” when politically connected businesses get regulators and legislators to craft rules in their favor? Is it “cooperation” when politicians send young men and women to die in unnecessary wars? Cooperation, far from being anathema to libertarianism, is in fact a core libertarian value.</p>\n<p>Hanauer and Liu tell us that libertarians believe “societies are efficient mechanisms requiring no rules or enforcers.” Yet no libertarian thinks society can function without codes of conduct and methods for enforcing them. Libertarians believe strongly in the rule of law—much more so, in fact, than many on the left and right who would carve out exceptions in statutes and regulations to benefit political friends and powerful interest groups.</p>\n<p>The authors also make a mistake when they claim that libertarians believe rolling back the state is the solution to every problem. It’s not. Rather, it is often the way we can enable solutions, in whatever form they may take. Private individuals are capable of amazing things if given the opportunity to exercise their ingenuity. Too often, the state stands in the way, protecting established industries and special interests by preventing the growth of new and better ones.</p>\n<p>This isn’t a path to progress Hanauer and Liu are willing to entertain, however. Instead, they see the very act of shifting power from government to private citizens as destructive and necessarily at odds with the very idea of creation. Yet we need only look at the inventions and discoveries that have radically improved our lives to see how much creation occurs outside of the direct control of the state. Libertarians demand policies to accelerate that, not to undermine it.</p>\n<p>Defenders of the status quo are always quick to label as unreasonable those who advocate for a different and better world. There was a time when activists for democracy were called unreasonable, and told that turning over power to the people was a laughable idea. “Reasonable people” argued for solutions within the systems of monarchy and theocracy. Hanauer and Liu are just modern versions of these “reasonable people.”</p>\n<p>Libertarians believe the status quo isn’t good enough. Not because we’re selfish or destructive or anti-community, but because we want to make the world better for everyone—and believe freedom is the best catalyst for progress.</p>\n<p><em>This article appeared on&nbsp;<a href=\"http://www.kansas.com/2013/09/17/3004363/aaron-ross-powell-libertarians.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Wichita Eagle</a>&nbsp;on September 17, 2013.</em></p>\n <p><em>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https://aaronrosspowell.com/2013/09/18/making-the-world-better-2/\">AaronRossPowell.com</a></p>",
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      "body": "Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:\nhttps://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/libertarians-want-make-world-better-everyone",
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      "body": "<p>If you believe Nick Hanauer and Eric Liu, libertarians are nuts.&nbsp;<a href=\"http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-09-05/libertarians-are-the-new-communists.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">In a recent commentary,</a>&nbsp;they gave a litany of reasons for “Why libertarian society is doomed to fail.” The trouble is, they’ve managed not only to misunderstand libertarianism, but also to ignore the very problems libertarians see in the authors’ own preferred big government solutions.</p>\n<p>Hanauer and Liu attack “radical libertarianism,” which they define as “the ideology that holds that individual liberty trumps all other values.” Yet this isn’t quite right, whether we’re talking about moderate or radical libertarianism. Liberty isn’t the ultimate value. But it is the ultimate political value. It holds this status not because we shouldn’t care about other values, but because a state that aims at liberty will enable us to realize much more of what we value than one that aims at something else. Whether the goal is wealth, happiness, health, culture or any other value we hold dear, political liberty will bring us more of it than officious government.</p>\n<p>The authors then call out libertarians for our “defective” theory of human nature. They tell us libertarians believe “humans are wired only to be selfish, when in fact cooperation is the height of human evolution.” But libertarians embrace free markets and voluntary association, which both require and encourage cooperation. What libertarians are skeptical of is not cooperation, but the use of, and threat of, force to coerce people into taking part in schemes they don’t approve of, or that harm them, or that aren’t as efficient or effective as other means. Is it “cooperation” when the state forces poor, minority children into failing schools? Is it “cooperation” when politically connected businesses get regulators and legislators to craft rules in their favor? Is it “cooperation” when politicians send young men and women to die in unnecessary wars? Cooperation, far from being anathema to libertarianism, is in fact a core libertarian value.</p>\n<p>Hanauer and Liu tell us that libertarians believe “societies are efficient mechanisms requiring no rules or enforcers.” Yet no libertarian thinks society can function without codes of conduct and methods for enforcing them. Libertarians believe strongly in the rule of law—much more so, in fact, than many on the left and right who would carve out exceptions in statutes and regulations to benefit political friends and powerful interest groups.</p>\n<p>The authors also make a mistake when they claim that libertarians believe rolling back the state is the solution to every problem. It’s not. Rather, it is often the way we can enable solutions, in whatever form they may take. Private individuals are capable of amazing things if given the opportunity to exercise their ingenuity. Too often, the state stands in the way, protecting established industries and special interests by preventing the growth of new and better ones.</p>\n<p>This isn’t a path to progress Hanauer and Liu are willing to entertain, however. Instead, they see the very act of shifting power from government to private citizens as destructive and necessarily at odds with the very idea of creation. Yet we need only look at the inventions and discoveries that have radically improved our lives to see how much creation occurs outside of the direct control of the state. Libertarians demand policies to accelerate that, not to undermine it.</p>\n<p>Defenders of the status quo are always quick to label as unreasonable those who advocate for a different and better world. There was a time when activists for democracy were called unreasonable, and told that turning over power to the people was a laughable idea. “Reasonable people” argued for solutions within the systems of monarchy and theocracy. Hanauer and Liu are just modern versions of these “reasonable people.”</p>\n<p>Libertarians believe the status quo isn’t good enough. Not because we’re selfish or destructive or anti-community, but because we want to make the world better for everyone—and believe freedom is the best catalyst for progress.</p>\n<p><em>This article appeared on&nbsp;<a href=\"http://www.kansas.com/2013/09/17/3004363/aaron-ross-powell-libertarians.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Wichita Eagle</a>&nbsp;on September 17, 2013.</em></p>\n <p><em>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https://aaronrosspowell.com/2013/09/18/making-the-world-better-2/\">AaronRossPowell.com</a></p>",
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      "body": "\n\n<p>Let’s say you believe X is true. You know that many smart, well-educated people believe X — including you! — but also that many smart, well-educated people disbelieve X.</p>\n<p>If you come across what strikes you as an obvious, airtight argument for the truth of X, but don’t routinely engage with smart, well-educated people who disbelieve X, then stop a moment and reassess how certain you should be about the obviousness and airtightness of that argument.</p>\n<p>Chances are those smart, well-educated people who disagree with you have heard the argument before and have a reasonable — though not necessarily correct! — response. Smart people tend not to hold considered beliefs for conspicuously dumb reasons.</p>\n <p><em>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https://aaronrosspowell.com/2016/02/23/on-assessing-arguments/\">AaronRossPowell.com</a></p>",
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      "body": "\n\n<p>There exists a need among theists to justify life’s purpose. Far from being content with self made goals, with personal achievements set by the individual for his own existential benefit, they desire an authority handing down purpose, telling them this is how they ought to live or this is the proper role they are to play. For the atheist, the mere facts that he is here, existing, and that his existence is finite are purpose enough indeed. With one life, the drive becomes to make the most of it we are capable. Thus, the non-believer can answer history’s most asked question by saying, “The purpose of life is to live the best life each and every one of us can.”</p>\n<p>Why should god be included in this consideration? Why can’t the question end there, with each human defining for himself what the best life looks like and taking whatever steps he is willing to get there? For the theist, however, this solution is not freedom but nihilism. A self generated purpose is no purpose at all. It is emptiness and, with it, despair. If nobody made me, why am I here? If nobody wants me to follow a given path, why should I follow any at all?</p>\n<p>This is the same argument from consequences so often hurled at evolution: if we’re all just the product of random chance, what’s the point? If the universe is without a creator, then, for theist, we are all horribly, cripplingly alone. Yet, as an atheist, I am not alone. I have a wife I love and close friends and family I can share my successes and failures with. I’m on a planet with billions like me: humans living out their own tiny blinks of time in the same universe both awesome and mysterious. Making right by that world and the people in it is my purpose, one I can feel the profound weight of and the grand and breezy freedom it allows me to define exactly what “right” means for me. While I may be the result of the very non-random process of natural selection acting upon an arbitrary base of matter and mutation, the joy I feel when I’m with people I love and the sense of accomplishment I get when I fulfill my goals are far from random.</p>\n<p>What role can god even play in any of this? Let us say there exists a supreme being who planted in my head the notion that I ought to live the best life I know how. Does he tell me what that means? If he does, it’s in contradictory forms, for what is best within a Catholic world view is very different from best for a buddhist or best for a Wahhabi muslim. Without definite selection criteria between the faiths, criteria that can themselves be verified without appeal to one of those faiths, how am I ever to know what is the best life? Because the specifics of the world’s religions are, therefore, of little use, I’m left only with what feels right <em>to me</em>. I can seek the advice of others — and I would be prudent to do so — but even they are in same boat as myself, advocating rightness to them as they understand it. Thus the existence of god, so far as purpose goes, is of pitifully little value, with the experience of man carries incredible weight.</p>\n <p><em>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https://aaronrosspowell.com/2008/04/19/what-atheism-offers-justifying-a-lifes-purpose/\">AaronRossPowell.com</a></p>",
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      "body": "\n\n<p>If you take a look at the history of ideas from the Enlightenment onward, an unmistakable trend is the steady abandonment of superstition. Weather patterns aren’t caused by raucous spirits. Diseases aren’t the work of angry spouses and their witch doctor friends. We break it to children in sympathetic voices that Santa Claus doesn’t wiggle down chimneys and the Tooth Fairy doesn’t break into bedrooms at night. Few of us care if a black cat meanders across the sidewalk in front of us or if the big exam falls on Friday the 13th. On the whole, then, we’re a reasonable bunch. So why do so many of us persist in believing in what the biologist, Richard Dawkins, <a href=\"http://beliefnet.com/story/178/story_17889_1.html\" title=\"The Problem with God: Interview with Richard Dawkins\" target=\"_blank\">has called</a> “an imaginary friend who listens to your thoughts, listens to your prayers, comforts you, consoles you, gives you life after death, [and] can give you advice?”</p>\n<p>It’s that sort of god I’m talking about. The personal one, the big guy who hangs out in heaven, watches everything you do, and adds spice to your life when you need it. This is the god the muscled man at the gym was talking about last week when I overheard him explaining to a woman about how his life had been so terrible lately. The thing was, he said, he knew he was going to get through it because “the good Lord never gives you more than you can handle.” So not only do Americans believe in this all powerful imaginary friend, but they’re also convinced he’s the one making their spouses leave, their backs give out, and their children use drugs. That god, the omniscient player of <a href=\"http://thesims.ea.com/\" target=\"_blank\">the Sims</a>, is the concept I have so much trouble believing.</p>\n<p>It’s important, before going too much further, to lay out rather exactly the point I’m trying to make. Namely, I want to claim that I don’t believe in God, and neither should you. This is quite different from asserting the non-existence of God. To say “there is no God” is a fool’s utterance. How would we know? If God can do everything people say he can, I bet he’d be pretty good at hiding, too. We can’t look <em>everywhere</em> for him and there’s a good chance we wouldn’t even know if we’d found him. In this sense, God is like a ghost. I don’t believe in ghosts but I can’t say with total certainty that they don’t exist.</p>\n<p>The reason I don’t believe in God is because I’ve never found a convincing reason to do so. Every argument made to me has fallen prey to counter examples, alternate constructions, and problems of logic. What I’m going to do in this essay is run through one of the more frequent positive arguments for God I’ve heard and show why it shouldn’t convince anybody that he’s up there watching over us.</p>\n<p>That most common of arguments goes like this: “I don’t <em>need</em> evidence for the existence of God. I have faith.” That’s a terrible reason for believing anything and I’m going to explain why, but let me first take a couple of steps back and introduce the topic of <a href=\"http://spot.colorado.edu/~tooley/S&amp;VP.Chapter5.html\" target=\"_blank\">Phenomenal Conservatism</a>. See, for philosophers, knowledge is a sticky concept. If you don’t believe me, grab an introduction to epistemology textbook and prepare the have your simplest assumptions thoroughly rocked. The issue Phenomenal Conservatism want to solve is the problem of justified belief. When are we justified in believing something? Justified means roughly that it is acceptable to believe it. So if I’m standing in front of a table with a cougar sitting in the middle of it and I turn to you and say, “I believe there’s a bullfrog on that table,” you could rightly question my justification for that belief. The trouble is most knowledge stems from our senses and those can be deceived. The most recognizable form of this argument is the brain in a vat thought experiment, which was the basis of the central conceit of the Matrix movies.</p>\n<p>Phenomenal Conservatism jumps into this fray by providing the following basis for justification.</p>\n<ol>\n<li>If it seems to me that P</li>\n<li>and there are no defeaters for P</li>\n<li>then I am justified in believing P</li>\n</ol>\n<p>What I want to argue is that the faith argument is a specific form of Phenomenal Conservatism and, therefore, collapses when facing the arguments traditionally used against its parent.</p>\n<p>So what’s wrong with Phenomenal Conservatism? Well, think about it for a moment. If you follow through on the logic, you’ll see that it can be used to justify belief in pretty much anything. For sample, let’s say I believe in unicorns. Am I justified in do so? It does seem to me that unicorns exist. And there clearly aren’t any defeaters for this position. After all, nobody has conclusively <em>disproved</em> the wonderful tales of brilliant and beautiful horses frolicking in the woods, somehow managing not to get the the narwhal tusks sticking out of their heads caught on every low branch.</p>\n<p>And there lies the problem. Phenomenal Conservatism, as a criteria for justification, is way too powerful. It’s the reverse scorched earth approach to epistemology. Don’t want to risk throwing out beliefs that are justified? Then just go out and justify <em>everything</em>. This sort of thinking isn’t only sloppy–it can be quite dangerous.</p>\n<p>For example, consider the following situation proposed by the philosopher, Michael Tooley. Let’s say I believe there is a supreme being who has the power to put me up in a nice loft in downtown Paradise after I die. He’ll give me wine and women and all the sitcoms on TV won’t have laugh tracks. Sounds like a good deal, right? There’s a catch, of course. You see, to land this righteous, posthumous pad, I have to go out and kill people who don’t believe in my omnipotent patron. If I don’t slaughter at least twenty heathens by the time I kick the bucket, I’m going to some place far worse than Paradise.</p>\n<p>It certainly could seem to someone that the above is the case. And there aren’t any defeaters. How could there be? This makes the above belief <em>justified</em> according to Phenomenal Conservatism. But we don’t want that. We’ve had enough people killed by lunatics who hold fast to similar beliefs to make it more than worth our time to show how they are in fact not justified in flying planes into buildings and chopping the heads off of Wall Street Journal reporters.</p>\n<p>So Phenomenal Conservatism isn’t good enough. It’s too easy to justify even the most erroneous and idiotic beliefs. Now think about the argument from faith for a moment. Isn’t it more or less the same thing? I have faith in God which means it seems to me that God exists. Furthermore, nobody has disproved the existence of God. Therefore I’m justified in believing in God. End of debate. Let’s all send our money to the 700 Club.</p>\n<p><em>Wanting</em> to believe something isn’t a good enough reason for actually believing it. I want to believe I will win the Powerball lottery next week without even having to buy a ticket. Maybe such a belief is fine because it’s rather innocuous. The trouble starts when I act upon that belief. I throw away all my existing furniture because, you know, I’ll have way better stuff next week. Who needs a Sears bought sofa when you’ll be able to afford the entire Ethan Allen store in seven days?</p>\n<p>Or maybe I believe that good Christians can cure their cancer through prayer. I tell all the men in my congregation who are being slowly killed by tumors in their prostates to stop writing checks to doctors and, instead, write them to the 700 Club. And all you women with breast cancer? You ought to do the same. After all, Jesus healed those lepers. And, dammit, I’ve got <em>faith</em> he’ll do the same for you.</p>\n<p>Belief in God is a big deal. It makes people radically change the way they live. It informs their sense of morality, for better or, just as often, for worse. And when faith in involved, there isn’t any way to question the justification for hatred of gays, the slaughter of non-Muslims, or terrible gospel rock.</p>\n<p>I don’t believe in God because I don’t have a reason to. I understand how life can evolve without divine guidance. I don’t feel a need to hold fast to the idea that my consciousness will continue after I die. I have a firm grasp of the secular grounding of morals. I don’t need Dawkins’ imaginary friend.</p>\n<p>In short, I don’t believe in the supernatural because it all strikes me as more than a little made up. Without hard evidence to the contrary, I don’t see how any reasonable person can think that this last weekend celebrated the birth of a guy who literally raised the dead, turned water to wine, magically healed the sick, and, if he’d had half a mind to, probably could’ve shriveled penises with the best of those crazy African witch doctors we’re always reading about in the international editions.</p>\n<p>I mean, if you believe <em>that</em>, you’ll believe anything.</p>\n <p><em>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https://aaronrosspowell.com/2006/01/07/abandoning-superstition-why-i-dont-believe-in-god/\">AaronRossPowell.com</a></p>",
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      "body": "Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:\nhttps://medium.com/@arossp/why-religious-arguments-don-t-have-a-place-in-politics-c58e64df28f7",
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      "body": "\n\n<p>Religion has no place in policy debates. Because of the special nature of faith-based beliefs and values, religious arguments cannot bring anything valuable to the table when discussing the best political solutions to societal issues. When it comes to debating policy, then, we should simply ignore claims that draw exclusively upon religious faith and demand that the faithful provide other arguments — or exit the conversation.</p>\n<h4><strong>The Elements of Policy Debate</strong></h4>\n<p>Political arguments — that is, debates about what policy to enact — are generally about two things: pragmatic concerns (will it work? will the policy do what we want it to?) and values. If we’re arguing, say, about whether to expand charter schools in our state, we have both a value question (is educating children good or bad and should society provide it?) and a pragmatic one (will charter schools improve education for children?).</p>\n<p>It’s clear that on both the value claim and the pragmatic one, people can differ, thus leading to debate. I may value educating children. You may say that education is overrated, and it’s real world experience that counts. I may claim that, from a practical perspective, public schools, run by the local government, offer the highest, most uniform quality. You could retort that charter schools, spurred by compeition, will produce better results. If the goal of our debate is to create policy (legislation allowing more charter schools or banning them, or perhaps a bond issue providing more funding to public education), then resolution must take the form of either compromise (both of us change our values or pragmatic perspectives a little) or one of us “winning” (i.e., the other admits he is wrong about his values or pragmatic claims).</p>\n<h4><strong>The Trouble with Religious Arguments</strong></h4>\n<p>So far, so good. But what happens when one or both parties in the debate ground their arguments in religious faith? What if careful textual analysis leads me to conclude that the Bible says charter schools are better than public? What if your imam instructs you to fight for public schools because that’s what Muhammad would have done?</p>\n<p>What happens is the debate stops. There is simply no meaningful way for to proceed. Remember, for progress to be made, both parties must change their position partially, or one party must change completely. But when the parties ground their arguments in religious faith, such change is, in any real sense, impossible.</p>\n<p>Furthermore, to convince someone that you’re right and he’s wrong, you need to demonstrate two things: the truth of your premises and the validity of your reasoning from them. But the truth of religious premises is off limits. You may assert that Jesus is the son of God and you may be right. Or you may be wrong. But <em>how are we to know?</em> If you have evidence of the kind that can be used to convince people, then you don’t need the faith that so often props up religious claims. If you lack that evidence and only have faith, then you can’t expect anyone who doesn’t share that faith to take your premise seriously.</p>\n<p>In logic speak, <a href=\"http://www.iep.utm.edu/val-snd/\" target=\"_blank\">while it’s possible to show that a faith-based argument is <em>valid</em>, it’s impossible (outside of revelation) to show that it’s <em>sound</em>.</a></p>\n<h4><strong>Excluding Religion</strong></h4>\n<p>Religion can — and, for many, does — inform values. And those values carry political weight. But when values conflict, and when that conflict is present within political debates, appealing to the religious faith underlying them simply isn’t helpful. No matter what your particular religion, the majority of people, to some degree or another, think you’re wrong. To say that those people should take your religious arguments seriously is to say that they should set aside their own faith — or lack of it — and see the world through yours.</p>\n<p>That method of arguing is a form of that standard Washington catchphrase, “Let’s set aside our differences, move beyond politics, and do what’s right for America.” Translated, it means, “Will all of you stop disagreeing with me, recognize that my proposals are correct, and just get on with enacting them?” Religion is a special instance of that broader argumentative category, however. With religion, the truth of the “facts” underlying the proposals is off limits.</p>\n<p>And that makes religion useless in political debates.</p>\n <p><em>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https://aaronrosspowell.com/2010/03/12/why-religious-arguments-dont-have-a-place-in-politics/\">AaronRossPowell.com</a></p>",
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      "body": "\n\n<p>The many articles on Newsvine regarding creationism and intelligent design have sparked a good deal of comments from proponents of those views, several expressing the same tired arguments for why creationism ought to be afforded time in science classrooms across the country. Primarily, they argue that, because the evidence for evolution isn’t convincing (to them, that is — nearly all scientists find it overwhelming), evolution must be wrong and, because it’s wrong, intelligent design must be right. Clearly, these people haven’t spent much time in an introductory logic course, because they’re snagging themselves on fallacies left and right.</p>\n<p>First we have the <a href=\"http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/distract/fd.htm\" target=\"_blank\">False Dilemma</a>:</p>\n<blockquote>A limited number of options (usually two) is given, while in reality there are more options. A false dilemma is an illegitimate use of the “or” operator.\n</blockquote>\n<p>Either evolution is right or God created life. Those are the options given by the creationist. But, of course, there a good deal more possibilities. Maybe there are physical laws we have yet to discover that cause atoms to arrange themselves into living beings. These laws could be a natural as gravity and would in no way require the presence of a creator. I’m sure anyone with even a little imagination can come up with more scenarios that don’t include God. This is a False Dilemma because it is perfectly reasonable for someone to reject <em>both</em> evolution and intelligent design. They are far from the only two possibilities.</p>\n<p>The problem is, this is would mean an end to most creationist arguments. They don’t actually have any evidence <em>for</em> creationism — except the very weak one from complexity I examine below — and so are forced to construct an artificial binary and then proceed to attack one side of it.</p>\n<p>And then there’s what I’ll term the Lottery Ticket Fallacy. It goes something like this: Let’s say there’s a huge pile of pieces of paper, each with a one-hundred digit number on it. You reach into the pile and pull one out at random. Looking at it, you exclaim, “Wow, providence must be at work because, out of <em>all these possibilities</em>, I happened to get <em>this</em> number.” It’s a silly reaction, right? There’s nothing special about your number except that it happens to be the one you got. You couldn’ve seen the same providence at work <em>no matter which number you drew.</em></p>\n<p>How is this similar to creationism? Take <a href=\"http://www.symbolicorder.com/2005/11/26/the-shame-of-intelligent-design/#comment-1206\" target=\"_blank\">this comment</a>, posted on one of my other websites:</p>\n<blockquote>Well, if our own bodies and the very planet we live on is not evidence enough of a supreme power that created us it should at least be enough to be accepted as a credible theory.\n</blockquote>\n<p>(A note: Here again we have the creationist mixing up the meanings of “theory.” In every day life, it means a guess: “I have a theory that the reason the Patriots lost last week is because…” In science, on the other hand, a theory is <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Science\" target=\"_blank\">considerably more rigorous</a>. Please, if you don’t fully understand the difference, <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Science\" target=\"_blank\">read up on it</a>. This is the single most common creationist argument against evolution and it’s also by far the dumbest.)</p>\n<p>What’s going on here? Basically, he’s claiming that because the world exists and because he finds that fact miraculous, there must be an intelligence behind it. How else to explain getting <em>this</em> reality as opposed to some other one? Here’s how:</p>\n<p>There is some evidence to support that our universe goes through cycles. It expands and collapses, over and over again. Each time, it is likely that conditions are slightly different. So it is certainly <em>possible</em> that there have been millions (or billions or trillions) of prior universes that didn’t have the capacity for something like us. And now that Universe 1,000,001 comes along and makes humans, it must be God at work. But what about the other beings that probably existed in those other universes? Did they think the same thing? Did they find their universes required a creator because their own existence was miraculous?</p>\n<p>To take it a step further, there’s no reason to suppose that ours is the <em>only</em> universe. There could be a trillion-billion others out there that don’t have the conditions for life. The simple fact is that even if you take an enormous number of dice, so long as your roll them a sufficiently enormous number of times, eventually you’ll end up with whatever total or sequence you’re looking for. There just isn’t any evidence that there’s anything particularly special about <em>this</em> universe.</p>\n<p>Creationists can’t address either of these questions because they can’t give positive arguments for the existence of God that don’t rest upon similar lines of reasoning. God has to be taken on faith and can, therefore, never be disproved, just as he can never be proved. Evolution, on the other hand, can be easily disproved. All it would take would be finding a skeleton of human or house cat below the <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K-T_extinction\" target=\"_blank\">KT Boundary</a>.</p>\n<p>I’m all for people arguing against evolution. That’s the nature of science. It’s clear that almost every theory (and that’s <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory#Science\" target=\"_blank\">theory in the scientific sense</a>, kids) we’ve held throughout human history has been shown to be inadequate. There’s no reason to believe our current ones won’t look just as silly or basic a couple hundred years from now. Evolution has more evidence going for it than almost any other theory creationists have little trouble with (such as Newtonian physics, the Theory of Relativity, etc.), but it is singled out because it conflicts with a religious world view. Creationists don’t make up their minds after carefully parsing the available sides, theories, and evidence. They believe what they believe and attack anything that might point to the Bible not being true.</p>\n<p>Like flat earthers and anti-Copernicans, we need only wait a few hundred years for their views to be widely derided as nothing more than religious dogma. Until then, though, we can sit back and at least make them learn a little about basic logic.</p>\n <p><em>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https://aaronrosspowell.com/2006/04/24/intelligent-designs-logical-fallacies/\">AaronRossPowell.com</a></p>",
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      "body": "\n\n<p>Timothy Keller’s <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0525950494?ie=UTF8&amp;tag=aaronrosspowell-20&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=390957&amp;creativeASIN=0525950494\" target=\"_blank\"><em>The Reason for God: Belief in an Age of Skepticism</em></a> was a random find. I’d returned a handful of books to the library and was looking for something to listen to in the car. The title of this book caught my eye and, at only five CDs in length, I decided to give it a try.</p>\n<p>The introduction is intriguing. Keller, a Methodist minister in New York City, sets himself the mission of breeding doubt for both the skeptic and the believer. As he rightly points out, even when doubt doesn’t lead to a renunciation of one’s position, wrestling with it — and understanding the arguments for it — will make that position stronger and more nuanced. In other words, you can often learn more about your own views by reading those who disagree with you.</p>\n<p>Unfortunately, Keller’s book, both when he seeks to undermine skeptical arguments and when he tries to buoy Christianity, are thin. No atheist even moderately well versed in the philosophical basis for non-belief will find anything convincing, or even troubling, in<em>The Reason for God</em>.</p>\n<p>For example, Keller begins by tackling the objection that the evidence for Christianity (or God — Keller doesn’t often distinguish the two) is lacking and that the burden is on the Christian to prove his claim. Keller’s response is that <em>all</em> statements about what is true are predicated upon underlying assumptions. Thus, the skeptic is as “faithful” in his beliefs as the Christian. It’s just that what they have faith in differs. Keller extends this by defining religion so broadly (it’s any system of belief about how we ought to live our lives) that he can therefore label the skeptic’s views religious. Once the atheist is seen as just another religious believer, how is he to say his religion is better than the Christian’s?</p>\n<p>The trouble is, Keller’s radical epistemological move opens him up to “true” meaning anything anyone wants it to. Clearly, as a Christian and as a believer in the infallibility of the Bible, this is unacceptable to him. His escape is to fall into a trap common to liberal Christians: he turns to C.S. Lewis. In arguing against the problem of evil, for instance, Keller quotes Lewis’s claim that, because we seem to have a universal moral sense, there must be a God who gave it to us. This tactic only works — and arguably still doesn’t — when there are no alternative explanations for human morality outside of God. But the mere fact that I can respond, “Nope, it wasn’t God, but evolution that gave us our moral sense,” means Lewis (and, therefore, Keller) fail. The burden is again shifted to Keller to demonstrate why his, and not my, explanation is the legitimate one.</p>\n<p>Throughout the book, one gets the sense of Keller as a man who can’t really understand why anyone would reject his belief system. Thus the reasons he gives for such rejection are presented as obviously shallow because, if they had depth, they would mean genuine trouble for his Christian faith. Keller was born into a Christian family, was raised in the Christian faith, and never really deviated from it. Christianity is all he knows, and it is clear he can’t see how that faith looks to the legitimate outsider.</p>\n<p>There are stronger arguments for the existence of God and for the truth of Christianity than Keller presents. <em>The Reason for God</em>, then, is at best a friendly book for Christians who want to feel a little better about holding their faith. At worst, it is an example of why American Christianity is so defensive against the weight of the emergent atheist movement.</p>\n <p><em>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https://aaronrosspowell.com/2009/04/11/the-reason-for-god-belief-in-an-age-of-skepticism-by-timothy-keller/\">AaronRossPowell.com</a></p>",
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      "body": "Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:\nhttps://medium.com/@arossp/practical-political-philosophy-and-will-kymlickas-endnote-42-95a0de3e5bbc",
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      "body": "\n\n<p>Confusions of the real and the ideal underly far too many policy debates. Libertarians, for instance, often assume perfectly functioning markets and compare them to genuinely (mis)functioning governments. Progressives do the opposite, highlighting the very real warts on the existing markets while assuming that government policies will, in practice, turn out exactly as perfect as we’d wish them to. Whenever the real is compared to the ideal, the real comes out tarnished.</p>\n<p>Real/ideal confusion is a particular plague within political philosophy. Philosophers, using the powers of their intellect and the tools of reason, argue to perfect conceptions of justice and then assume that those conceptions (the ideal) can be made manifest if only we decide to do so. For instance, in <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Spheres-Justice-Defense-Pluralism-Equality/dp/0465081894/symbolicorder-20\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Spheres of Justice</em></a>, Michael Walzer argues that, if we banish money from certain realms of human experience, then everyone, rich and poor, skilled and unskilled, blessed and cursed, will have equal access to all that is good within those spheres. He ignores and so wholly discounts the economic insight that, with money excluded, people will “pay” for those goods in other ways, with some having more of this new form of payment than others.</p>\n<p>Likewise, John Rawls, in <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Theory-Justice-John-Rawls/dp/0674000781/symbolicorder-20\" target=\"_blank\"><em>A Theory of Justice</em></a>, tells us that justice permits inequalities in the distribution of goods only if those inequalities benefit the worst-off members of society. He doesn’t tell us <em>how</em> we are to know who the “worst-off members” are, <em>how</em> we are to keep track of them as they shift from worst-off to not-worst-off and from not-worst-off to worst-off, or <em>how</em> we are to measure equality and inequality — all of which are likely impossible tasks to accomplish with any degree of accuracy. It is merely assumed that, upon discovering just principles, we can rejigger the world to conform to them.</p>\n<p>That’s why it was so deeply refreshing to come across endnote 42 in the “Libertarianism” chapter of Will Kymlicka’s <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0198782748/symbolicorder-20\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Contemporary Political Philosophy</em></a>. Kymlicka is far from a Hayekian libertarian — the chapter is downright scathing, in fact — and has built his career discussing theories of justice. With that in mind, here’s the text of the endnote.</p>\n<blockquote>Consider the question of state capacity. It seems clear that liberal-egalitarian theories have operated with over-optimistic assumptions about state capacity. For example, in developing his theory of liberal equality, Bruce Ackerman explicitly appeals to the idea of a “perfect technology of justice” (Ackerman 1980: 21; for similar assumptions, see Arneson 1990: 158; Roemer 1985a: 154). Of course, Ackerman knows that this is not available in the real world. But he does not tell us which parts of the resulting theory can be implemented, given our actually existing “technology of justice.” The inherent limitations in the capacity of the state to achieve social objectives have been theorized by social scientists, both on the right (Glazer 1988) and the left (Rothstein 1998). But this literature has not yet permeated the philosophical debates. <strong>One looks in vain in the corpus of the major left-liberal political philosophers (Rawls, Dworkin, Cohen, Roemer, Arneson, Ackerman) for a discussion of the extent to which the state can or cannot fulfill the principles of justice they endorse.</strong>\n\n</blockquote>\n<p>(Emphasis added.) If true — and my reading in the field indicates that it is — this is a shocking admission. The project of these philosophers is telling us how society should be structured in order to fulfill obligations of justice. By nature of their role as “left-liberals,” they believe that the structuring of society should be conducted via the state. If the state <em>cannot</em> fulfill the goals of that structuring, then the merit of the ideas antecedent to the structuring is seriously undermined.</p>\n<p>Imagine if a philosopher of bioethics spent years writing a book in which she concluded that the moral obligation of modern medicine is to cure cancer through the application of natural spring water. Or if a researcher in education told us that schools should be built on the assumption that children already know the sum total of all knowledge in the universe. While the <em>goals</em> of these scholars would remain laudable (curing cancer is good, as are highly knowledgeable children), their scholarship would have little value. Children <em>don’t</em> already know everything and natural spring water <em>cannot</em> cure cancer, no matter how much we might like otherwise.</p>\n<p>Of course, the arguments of Rawls and Walzer are not valueless. Forcing us to think about the justice of our society and its structure and prodding us to make our world more just are crucial and worthwhile pursuits. But it remains facile to conduct those pursuits without even considering the feasibility of the proffered conceptions of justice.</p>\n<p>There’s another problem, too. Insisting that our states be organized around perfect conceptions of justice — which demand perfect technologies of justice — might very well produce <em>worse</em> results for humanity than accepting a less-than-perfect justice, but one achievable by the technologies we actually possess. A chef attempting to prepare an unattainably perfect omelet will break a lot more eggs than a chef setting out to make — and actually achieving — a merely excellent one.</p>\n<p>But admitting this and and moving forward with it in mind would mean discussing “the extent to which the state can or cannot fulfill the principles of justice” the philosophers demand — something Kymlicka (who is arguably as well-versed as anyone in the philosophical literature) tells us simply doesn’t happen.</p>\n<p>That Kymlicka’s insight hides in an endnote is telling.</p>\n <p><em>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https://aaronrosspowell.com/2010/09/27/practical-political-philosophy-and-will-kymlickas-endnote-42/\">AaronRossPowell.com</a></p>",
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      "body": "\n\n<p>For those of us who believe in limited government and the fallibility of human certainty, the death penalty can pose quite a problem. Is it ever okay to kill someone because of his own criminal actions? I confess to being torn about the morally proper answer to this question. Even if I am sure a mistake of innocence has not been made, do I or anyone else have the moral authority to take a life?</p>\n<p>Last week’s episode of Penn and Teller’s excellent libertarian show, <em>Bullshit</em>, was about the death penalty, to which they are deeply opposed for two reasons. The first, that it is possible that innocent people can be wrongly killed, is a strong objection and one I find convincing enough to support doing away with the death penalty except in cases where guilt is beyond doubt.</p>\n<p>It’s their second reason, though, that I believe is difficult to morally support. Interestingly enough, the objection is itself grounded in the morality of the death penalty. Penn and Teller claim, with great conviction, that it is never okay to kill someone unless that person presents an immediate threat. Call it a clear and present danger. If that isn’t the case, you, I, and the government are prohibited from ending a life. This strikes me as unrealistic and, more broadly, morally wrong.</p>\n<p>In order to understand the problem with the position Penn and Teller have on the morality of the death penalty, several notions need to be unpacked. Let’s start with the interesting claim the hosts make that it is only okay for government to kill people in times of war. We need to keep in mind that when we talk about the “government” killing people, what we really mean in a non-metonymic sense is individual people killing other people when the former have been told to do so by still others in a position of power within the structure we refer to as government. So if you believe that killing enemy combatants during wartime is morally permissible, then you believe that it is okay <em>under some circumstances</em> to kill at the request of government. The question now becomes, what are those circumstances? I’ll address an answer to this question below, but other clarifying duties need to be tackled first.</p>\n<p>We now turn our attention to the issue of killing itself. Namely, is it okay, in any situation, to kill someone who does not constitute an immediate threat to you or someone else? This, in fact, is what the death penalty amounts to. To answer the question, yet another must be posed: Are human rights — including the right to life — inalienable? The Declaration of Independence says they are but even its signatories didn’t believe that in the absolute. After all, they listed liberty as a right but were more than willing to lock people up who broke the laws of the land. This disconnect can be rectified by differentiating between internal and external alienation of rights. In short, while it is not okay for you to act to strip me of my rights, <em>I</em> can engage in actions that remove those rights <em>from myself</em>.</p>\n<p>What’s interesting about this claim is that, while it initially seems to preclude third parties from engaging in rights removal, in fact third parties are a necessary ingredient. Take the right to liberty, for example. I can act in such a way as to remove that right from myself. I could steal your car, for example. Because of the theft I’ve committed, I can no longer claim liberty as a right — I’ve removed it from myself. But unless someone else comes along and locks me up, that right hasn’t actually been removed. Even if I were to confine myself to my apartment under self imposed house arrest — perhaps out of shame for what I’ve done — I can leave that house at any time. Only if a third party enforces the confinement can it be said that I have truly given up the right to liberty.</p>\n<p>Most of us don’t have a problem with third parties participating in rights removal as outlined above. You’re unlikely to hear people arguing that criminals convicted of grand theft ought not be put in prison but should, instead, retain their right to autonomy. So why do we have an issue with third parties removing the right to life? It’s irreversible, yes, but that goes to concerns about false guilt, not the actual immorality of the death penalty.</p>\n<p>What I want to do now is construct a libertarian argument for the morality of punishment by death. I want to show that a libertarian who believes that government should have very few powers can still think it okay for that government to kill its citizens under a strict set of circumstances. I’ll do so by employing that classic libertarian liberty, freedom of contract.</p>\n<p>Let’s say I’m the father of a twelve year old daughter, to use the same example Penn and Teller do. My daughter is hanging out with friends when she’s abducted by a man she doesn’t know. He ties her up, rapes, tortures, and then murders her. Has this man given up his right to life? I would say so. He doesn’t deserve to continue living because he has stripped another of the same right and has, therefore, removed that right <em>from himself.</em> Of course, if he is to do so, he must be aware of the wrongness of his actions. This is why we allow an insanity defense in criminal proceedings. But let’s say he knows rape and murder are morally impermissible yet he just doesn’t care. As the father of a slain girl, am I justified in killing this man myself? Assume for purposes of argument that there is no doubt of his guilt. He’s admitted the crime and is proud of it. Many people — Penn and Teller likely included — would answer yes. It’s okay for the father to kill the rapist. To broaden this example, would it be okay for a family member of a victim of the 9/11 attacks to kill Osama Bin Laden? Yes. Bin Laden, through his own horrific and heinous actions, has given up his right to life.</p>\n<p>From this line of argument, we’ve established that it is okay for you to take the life of someone who has seriously wronged you — or someone close to you — in a beyond the pale fashion. Now there’s a new question: can you hired a hit man to carry out the deed? What I mean is, is it morally permissible for you to offload the actual duty of execution onto a third party? Let’s go back to the example of the father of the raped and murdered daughter. What if the father had been in a terrible car accident and was paralyzed from the neck down. He is incapable of killing his daughter’s murderer. In this situation, could he as his brother to carry out the deed?</p>\n<p>To answer no seems very odd indeed. If the murderer has given up his right to life, what does it matter who actually takes the actions necessary to enforce that right removal? And if it is okay for the grieving father to have his brother act as executioner, can he ask his best friend? What if neither is willing to do it? Would the father then be justified in seeking out an unrelated third party and forming a contractual agreement to kill the murderer? If you accept that the father can kill the guilty party and that he can rightfully ask his brother to do so, you’d have to also accept the contractual killing. To do otherwise would be draw an unjustifiable and arbitrary line.</p>\n<p>All that being said, what is the difference between a third party hit man agreeing to kill the murderer and the government doing the same? After all, as I showed above, the government is really nothing more than a large group of third parties. If you can make a contract with any one of them, why can’t you make a contract with a representative <em>group</em> of them?</p>\n<p>In this sense, the government is not actually going out and killing the guilty. Instead, it is acting as a killing agent in the place of the families of victims. If those families are justified in seeking death, it is morally permissible for the government to carry out the act.</p>\n <p><em>This post originally appeared at <a href=\"https://aaronrosspowell.com/2006/04/26/its-okay-to-kill-a-libertarian-argument-for-the-death-penalty/\">AaronRossPowell.com</a></p>",
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      "author": "cheetah",
      "body": "Hi! I am a robot. I just upvoted you! I found similar content that readers might be interested in:\nhttps://www.libertarianism.org/columns/what-kind-libertarian-are-you",
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