Am I agnostic or atheist? Well I'm both and yes that does make sense...

In a recent debate Richard Dawkins (who has become a common subject on this blog) stated that he was not 100% sure that a god does not exist to the extreme surprise of the moderator. This is a position he has often stated and anyone who has read his books will know this is Dawkins' position. However, most people assume that an "atheist" completely denies the possibility of any god's existence. This is a general misunderstanding of the position of most skeptical atheists.  By skeptical atheist I mean one who comes to atheism due to scientific skepticism.

I call myself a skeptical atheist by which I mean I do not believe in god because I have never found any evidence presented to prove his existence to be convincing even in the slightest. However, at the same time I call myself an agnostic because I cannot know for sure whether or not a god exists. This is not a contradiction or a paradox though, on its face, it may seem to be one. To explain lets start with the definition of each:

• Atheist: a person who does not believe in god.

• Agnostic: a person who does not know whether god exists

Note the difference. Atheism is a statement of belief while agnosticism is a statement of knowledge.  There is a somewhat nuanced difference between these two terms. The difference lies in the degree of certainty we apply to each. We generally say believe when we are less than certain about the truth of an issue because we lack the evidence to really be sure we are correct. Knowledge on the other hand generally refers to ideas that are supported by so much evidence that we feel absolutely sure they are true.

Take Santa Cause for example. I do not believe in Santa Clause and most adults would say that they do not believe in Santa clause. On the other hand most children do believe in Santa Clause. But can we say that we know Santa is not real? Some people might say yes because Santa is obviously a fictional human invention. I would disagree.  Despite the fact that the modern version of Santa as a Jolly old white bearded man living at the north pole was an invention of fiction this does not mean he does not exist...

The ghost owl...

A few nights ago I awoke from a deep sleep, groggily looked around my room, and found a pair of menacing dark orange eyes staring at me from outside my window.  After a few moments it faded away. My initial thought was that I must be imagining it but when I cleared my eyes and looked again the eyes had returned, yet again they only lasted a second before they disappeared. After a few more repetitions of the disappearing and reappearing eyes occurring at regular intervals I decided it must be caused by a reflection in the window from a light in my room. So I jumped up and looked around. Immediately when I stood up the eyes disappeared yet no lights were pointed at the window so I sat, pondering for a second.

Outlandish Rhetoric of the week: Lord Carey

All week long I have been reading ridiculously dishonest, misleading, or just plain incorrect articles (such as this one) by people promoting or representing religion.  My frustration at reading these poorly thought out articles in major publications has left me wondering which ones are worse, more dishonest, misleading, and wrong. So I decided to make an award for the most outlandish rhetoric of the week to award the person who makes the most dishonest, misleading, or simply incorrect argument of the week. I know it is Monday and thus the beginning of the week but I have to start sometime so I'll start today.

Today's choice was a tough one. On the one hand there was a Daily Telegraph article trying to smear Richard Dawkins with the absurd connection that he had a single extremely distant ancestor who owned slaves.  I almost picked this one, but as absurd and dishonest as that was I have to give the award to Former Archbishop of Canterbury Lord Carey for his recent comment on the movement in the UK to legalize same sex marriage.  He says:

I was baffled because this Government’s proposal [to legal same sex marriage] constitutes one of the greatest political power grabs in history.
‘The state does not own marriage... The honourable estate of matrimony precedes both the state and the church, and neither of these institutions have the right to redefine it in such a fundamental way.

This trumps the misleading Dawkins slavery smear merely because of the absolute absurdity of Carey's misleading statement. At least the Dawkins smear was based in truth even if it was completely irrelevant and dishonest.

Hutton and Dawkins separated by equivocation

A recent article at the Observer covers a short debate between Will Hutton and Richard Dawkins.  The two spar back and forth (among other things) over the issue of whether secularism requires atheism. However, reading their arguments I see that they really just differ on their definition of secularism. If either had taken the time to define the word they wouldn't have had the argument.  So before I provide you with quotes from each let me show you the definition of secularism being used by each.

Why do the religious think they deserve special treatment?

There's been a lot of demands recently by the religious (most recently the Catholics) for special treatment.  For some reason they do not feel the need to obey the laws of our society and think that because they have religious beliefs that they should not have to obey the law. This is utterly ridiculous. Religious belief does not and should not excuse unlawful behavior.

These ridiculous claims for special treatment have arisen today in both the UK and the US. In the UK Catholics complain that rules requiring providing of adoption services for gay couples should not apply to them. In the US Catholics complain that rules requiring provision of birth control under employer insurance plans should not apply to them. This absurd plea for special treatment should not be respected but should instead be ridiculed for the absurdity it is.

We generally do not allow special treatment based on beliefs.  A person who does not believe in taxes still has to pay their taxes (religious institutions in the US noticeably do not pay taxes but this is not due to a lack in belief in taxes but due to a belief in separation of church and state). A person who believes in free access to art is still liable for copyright violations when they illegally download movies.

Even religious belief does not grant special privileges.  Those whose religion requires the use of drugs for religious ceremonies do not get to use drugs. Those whose religion allows polygamy do not get to engage in polygamy. Those whose religion requires the stoning to death of disobedient children are still liable for murder. These things are self-evident, the mere fact that one's beliefs run counter to a law does not grant a special right to break that law because the law applies equally to all.

Laws requiring provision of birth control or provision of adoption services may seem different than laws prohibiting behavior such as polygamy. Rather than prohibiting behavior these laws require a person to behave in a certain way. But if you think about it we generally do not allow personal beliefs to be used to avoid such laws. Racists restaurant owners are not allowed to discriminate against customers and thus avoid anti-discrimination laws merely because they hold racist beliefs. We find it acceptable that society can force these owners to serve people of all races no matter if it contradicts their personal beliefs.

Imagine if we give in to the Catholics and say that a person does not have to obey the law if it runs counter to their beliefs.  First, if we allow the religious to escape the law because of the belief we must allow all to escape the law due to belief. It is unconstitutional to make a law that favors the religious. Thus, an exemption based on religious belief would be unconstitutional. The only constitutional way to allow an exception would be to allow everyone who disbelieves in a law to be exempt. When it comes to laws that require behavior this would castrate the law, no one would follow it but the people who already perform the behavior, and again racists restaurant owners would be allowed to discriminate.

This is the absurd result that the Catholics are arguing for.  Even more absurd is the claim that these laws are religious discrimination. I addressed this issue here. These laws clearly do not discriminate against the religious because they apply equally to all citizens. Discrimination requires singling out a group for special treatment. Thus, the irony is, the Catholics are actually asking for religious discrimination against all other belief systems when they demand to be exempt from the law.

A single quote does not make a conspiracy

Back in 2009 we were presented with the Climategate scandal which, at first, appeared to be a scandal involving climate change scientists but in fact turned out to be a news media scandal of poor and perhaps even dishonest reporting.  Hacked emails were released to the public and out of 3,000 documents and emails spanning 14 years the news media latched on to two or three sentences that when read out of context sounded damning.  Today the Heartland Institute (famous for fighting against global warming science) has now had some of its own documents released which are being used to imply a scandal.

The original Climategate scandal turned out to be nothing but an embarrassment for the media.  They should have been clued in by the fact that the day to day emails being sent back and forth showed no controversy and that they could only find a controversy by cherry picking a minuscule fraction of what was written. Additionally, the news media failed to take the time to do proper journalistic research and determine what the quotes meant before releasing them. Instead they promoted the idea that there was a controversy.

Thus, when the investigations into the scandal were said and done it turned out that the there was nothing controversial going at all and we learned that climategate was, as the New York Times called it, merely a manufactured controversy.  The reason this controversy existed was because people jumped on the bandwagon too quickly and assumed what single quotes meant rather than taking the time to learn what was being said.

How Buffett Rule critics try to dodge the 30% tax rate by referencing the marginal rate

One of Obama's proposed tax policies for 2013 is the implementation of the Buffet Rule.  This rule is fairly simple, it sets a minimum tax rate for those who make more than $1 Million at 30%.  The reason we need this rule is to plug up loopholes in the tax code that tax dividends and capital gains at 15%. These loopholes allow people who have massive amounts of assets to essentially pay a 15% tax rate on all of their income because these people can structure their income as capital gains and dividends rather than ordinary income.

The current tax system vastly favors investors over average workers by taxing pure investors at lower rates.  The Buffett rule tries to plug this loophole for those making more than a $1 million by requiring them to pay at least 30% of their income in taxes.

The tax foundation has an article in its Tax policy Blog with the inflammatory title: "Buffet Rule would Cause Marginal Tax Rate of 90%."  Before you become mislead by that title remember that the buffet rule actually sets a tax rate of 30%.  The use of the number 90% in the title is totally misleading because the actual tax rate is 30%.  So where do they get this misleading 90% tax rate?  Well for simplicity's sake let me dive in with a simpler example than they use that shows just how absurd their argument is.