A friend of mine sent me this this morning.

Its great, very witty satire. I particularly like the parody of Dawkin's "Who made God" argument. Dr Terry Tommyrot addresses the question of wether science can explain the existence of Dawkin's books with out postulating the existence of an intelligent author named Richard Dawkins. Tommyrot replies that , "If Dawkins designed this book who designed Dawkins, you tell me that". Exposing in a simple sentence the problem with this, common but mistaken, retort. A retort which, incidentally, constitutes one of Dawkins major arguments. For those interested in philosophical critiues of Dawkins. I recommend Alvin Plantinga's review in Books and Culture .

I wish to clarify that I am not Madeleine Setchell.

My maiden name is Richards.

Apparently, after I commented on kiwiblog the other day under my usual posting name which is simply 'Madeleine' a lot of people jumped to the conclusion that I must be the Madeleine in the story. Whilst there have been instances of David Benson-Pope lying about his staff doing things he in fact did involving me, I am not the Madeleine in the current instance of his fabrication.

It should have occurred to me to post as 'Madeleine Flannagan' in this instance as the leap is a rather obvious one to make - apologies for the confusion - its just that as a 'Madeleine', I am not used to being confused with other people, I have met very few Madeleine's in my life so it simply did not occur to me.

In an earlier post I mentioned the schism within The New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists (NZARH) between former spokesperson Paul Litterick and current spokesperson Dr Bill Cooke. NZARH contend that Dr Cooke was a Professor at The State University of New York at Buffalo. Paul Litterick maintains this is false. Litterick claims Cooke was never on faculty at this University and hence was never a professor there.

A few days latter Dr Cooke wrote to me and complained that I had not checked his side of the story before I posted. On this point he was correct and for that I sincerely apologised. He then proceeded to take issue with two points I had made: (a) My claim that Cooke had not been a professor at this University and (b) My claim that Cooke’s PhD was not in philosophy at all. Seeing I was remiss in not addressing his side of the story I shall do so now.

Turning first to (b) Cooke sent me a copy of his PhD and noted that it had written on it the phrase “Doctor of Philosophy”. I agree. A PhD is a “Doctor of Philosophy” that is after all what PhD stands for. However, this really misses the point of what I said. I never said that Cooke did not have a Doctor of Philosophy. I in fact explicitly stated that he had a PhD. What I said was that his PhD was not in Philosophy. Although the word “Philosophy” appears in the phrase “Doctor of Philosophy” it doesn’t follow that any one who has a Doctor of Philosophy has a qualification in philosophy. This is like saying that a person who has a Master of Arts is qualified as an artist. A person can successfully complete a PhD in physics, or history, or one of any number of disciplines and have little or no training in Philosophy at all. I know many Theologians who have PhD’s in biblical studies and little or no understanding of Philosophy at all.

Dr Cooke’s PhD was in Religious Studies. Moreover his PhD thesis was on the history of secularism in New Zealand. Hence Cooke is best described as a religious historian. He may well be a good one, but that does not make him a qualified philosopher let alone qualified to hold a Professorship in a Philosophy department.

Turning then to (a) here Cooke sent me a letter he received from the Dean of Arts and Social Sciences at The State University of New York at Buffalo which states that he has been awarded a professorship. This letter has since been published on the NZARH web page. This intrigued me because Paul Litterick claimed to have a letter from which denied Cooke was ever on faculty. Not content to rely on ‘he says she says” I wrote to the University myself. Here is the answer I received.

Dear Dr. Flannagan,

As I told Paul Litterick, Bill Cooke was
resident in Buffalo for a time as a fellow at the nearby Center for Inquiry. He
was given a courtesy appointment in our Philosophy Department so he could use
the UB library and facilities. At that time, the title that the Dean's Office
used for such affiliations was "Visiting Professor." Because this caused
confusion, since such people were not appointed to the teaching faculty, we no
longer use that title for fellows of CFI.

There is not any question
of fraud or misrepresentation on Dr. Cooke's part. He refers to the title that
he in fact was given.

I hope this clears up the
matter.

Sincerely,
Carolyn Korsmeyer

This letter states that Cooke was given the title of “Visting Professor” so on this point NZARH and are correct. As Korsmeyer notes Cooke is not lying when he claims he was awarded such a title because this was the term used by the Deans office.

However, the letter also points out this was a professorship in name only. In most English-speaking countries, the term professor refers to a senior academic who holds a departmental chair, especially as head of the department, or a personal chair awarded specifically to that individual. In the US the term is often used of any University lecturer. However, in neither of these common senses of the term “professor” was Cooke a professor. In reality Cooke did not hold any faculty position at all. He was not a researcher, or a lecturer for the Philosophy Department. Cooke was merely a research fellow for a rationalist think tank in the same town. The title “Professor” was only a courteously title given to him so he could use the University Library.

Now when you hear that a person is a professor you normally assume that this means a lot more than that they have access to a University library. Korsmeyer appears to concede this. She notes that the name of the title was latter changed to avoid confusion. Apparently there was concern that people might mistakenly think that a person granted the title of professor was actually a professor in the normal sense of the word i.e. a senior member of faculty.

In light of this information I need to retract my earlier claim. Dr Cooke’s claim that he held a professorship at The State University of New York at Buffalo’s philosophy department is true provided one means by professorship an honorary title which gives you access to the University Library. Incidentally, by this definition I was a professor at the University of Otago last year. I was employed by the Theology department to do research and had access to University library and facilities. In fact by this definition of Professor I am arguably still a professor. Even though I am not on faculty, not teaching, nor studying at Otago, after I graduated I was given special rights to use the University library. Hence, provided this is all NZARH means to convey when it states it’s spokesperson held a professorship, there is clearly no deception on NZARH’s part in claiming this.

On the other hand if by claiming Cooke is a professor NZARH are attempting to suggest Dr Cooke actually had a professorship. i.e. he was a Philosophy lecturer or possibly a departmental chair then there comments are deceptive.

So the question is what does NZARH mean to convey when the claim Dr Cooke is was a Professor? Korsmeyer suggests he means only to refer to the position he was in fact given and suggests there is no deception. Litterick on the other hand thinks NZARH are trying to suggest Cooke held a faculty position in a philosophy department and is hence being dishonest.

I am not party to Cooke or NZARH’s intentions hence I will not comment on who I think is correct. Instead I’ll ask my readers, what do you think? When NZARH, an organization which promotes the philosophical critique of religion, claims that Dr Cooke was a philosophy professor do they intend to let us know that Cooke’s credentials include him being temporarily granted the right to use library at a state university? Or are they trying to pass their spokesperson of as having expertise in Philosophy of Religion which they know he does not?

A final thing, one of the main points in my previous posts was that NZARH have denounced Christian's for falsifying their credentials and hence if they were consistent should now denounce themselves. In light of this I want to ask another question: Suppose a Christian MP had claimed to have a doctorate when in reality it was merely an honourary doctorate, would NZARH consider him to be honest ?

See here and here for NZARH’s answer. A Dr Bill Cooke from NZARH seems to think it is not honest and calls into question the organization of which the Christian is a member.

I leave my readers to ponder the irony.

Here is a list of the instances I can recall where Benson-Pope has blamed one of his staff members for something he did:

• Leaked content of Police Report over Tennis Ball saga - staff member leaked it without his knowledge. (Later turned out it was with his permissison/instruction)
• Having the police collect a $35 cleaning bill - staff member went to police and made request without his knowledge. (Official Information Act request showed his signature on the police forms)
• Playing a part in ending Madeleine Setchell's employment - staff member made calls without his knowledge. (Turns out he forgot that he did intervene)

Are there any more?

Benson-Pope clearly has really crappy staff.

I saw Dr. Michael Cullen speaking in on TV3 last night. What he said was interesting because it highlights a tension I have often noted in liberal views of sexual morality . The issue was as follows: A school had hired a teacher. This teacher however had advertised on an internet adult site for a woman to have sex with him. He requested the women be 17 or adding that the younger the student was the better. His partner apparently consented to him doing this and offered to join in, apparently one of them “liked to watch”.

Now Cullen stated that he wanted to tighten up regulations so Schools could dismiss teachers like this. He stated it was unacceptable that a person like this should be teaching teenage girls. He seemed to take this latter claim as obvious and there was no apparent disagreement from anyone in the clip.

Let’s be clear what Cullen is saying here. He is suggesting that it should be permissible to refuse to employ someone on the basis of private sexual behaviour they engage in with other consenting adults (under NZ’s laws a 17 year old is not considered a minor when it comes to sex and hence is a consenting adult). Moreover, he is also suggesting that a person’s private consensual sexual behaviour can be grounds for considering them unfit to teach at public schools. Moreover Cullen appeared to think this was obvious and certainly no one appeared to disagree in this instance.

If this is so the question I have for Cullen and the Labour party is this. If you believe this, why have you repeatedly stated the opposite in the past? This is the party whose activists have repeatedly stated that it’s wrong to discriminate against people on the basis of their private consensual behaviour.

I also have another question. Suppose this teacher had instead of advertising for a member of the opposite sex on a website he had been cruising for causal sex with another man in a local gay bar. Would Cullen say this person was unfit to teach teenage children? Suppose he had advertised for causal in Express magazine? Would that be grounds to discriminate against him and to claim he is unfit to teach at public schools?

I suspect I know the answer to this question. If a person were to make this argument about a homosexual teacher Cullen and his supporters would denounce the person as a bigot and an intolerant homophobe. No doubt the person would be compared to the Nazis and to the Taliban (as though somehow saying that a person is unfit to teach at a school is the same as engaging in mass murder and genocide).

But this raises an obvious question; If it’s obvious that a heterosexual male is unfit to teach because he advertises for sex on the net. Why is a homosexual male who advertises for causal sex in a Gay bar or on the pages of express not also unfit? In both cases the sex is consensual in private. The only difference is the gender of his partner. I thought Labour believed it was wrong to treat same sex relationships differently to heterosexual ones?

If we are to believe what Labours activists have told us then either one of two things is true either (a) Cullen is a pro Taliban Nazi bigot or (b) much of what Labour has told us about consenting sex in private is false and much of the character assassination it has dished out to Conservatives is unjustified. Which is it?

A rational person should not prescribe a principle unless he is willing to also prescribe the logical implications of that principle. If you prescribe a rule but are unable to accept its implications because you find them intuitively absurd then you have good grounds for rejecting the rule. No amount of denouncing others as bigots can change this fact.

The claim that its wrong to discriminate against people on the basis of their private consensual sexual activities has counter intuitive implications. Hence in the absence of compelling arguments for this claim it should be rejected.

Benson-Pope is someone that the more closely you observe him the more his slimy, smarmy, bullying, bullet-dodging just pisses you off.

Until recently I used to live in Dunedin so I have had a few encounters with Mr Benson-Pope a.k.a. panty slut boy and have crossed swords with him politically and know other people who have too. I find him an unpleasant person and a liar.

The hit he has taken is well deserved. About time. But what annoys me is that he escaped just desserts over so many other issues. But oh well, at least this hit didn't bounce off.

The beehive website is not up with the play though cause they still have him on their site as a Minister.

Interestingly Ian Wishart has re-released his findings on Benson-Pope's involvement in the Dunedin Bondage and Discipline scene with the rather interesting addition:

"[Benson-Pope] went to the trouble of ringing a senior Otago Daily Times journalist at home that evening, expressly to ensure that the newspaper was not quoting him as denying the story. "

This was always a story I felt certain should have had a lot more air time by the media than it did.

It had the now familiar to us all ring of Benson-Pope's dodging the truth.

Add to that our own experience of Benson-Pope's lies. He told the media when he used the police to collect a $35 cleaning bill (the police were his first line of request for this bill - most people would use a 45c stamp first...) that it was not him who utilised police resources as his personal debt collection service but his secretary without his permission (sound familiar?). In fact when we used the official information act to get the files on this incident whose signature was on the request to the police to do the debt collecting? NOT his secretary's but his!

A few days ago I got sent the following message from a high-school student in the US.

I've been studying Christopher Columbus in my history class and my history books say that prior to Columbus everyone did think the world was flat........I don't know if it was a mistake in the history book or your mistake.....but anyway....I guess i have some things to learn! god bless ~Katie Joy~

This was in response to a comment I made online, I had I criticised the popular claim that prior to the time of Columbus, the Church taught the world was flat. In another post on this blog I have criticised Victoria University for making a similar claim as part of it's advertising campaigns.

For our overseas visitors, last year Victoria University had a slick advertising campaign where it is stated that in the 14th century most people believed the world was flat. It then showed a picture of a boat sailing across the sea only to fall over the side of the earth.

We have all heard the story behind this; prior to Columbus, the Church and it’s theological scholars taught that the world was flat. For this reason they opposed Columbus' proposed voyage in 1492 as they believed he would sail off the edge of the earth.

Katie is correct; they do teach this in high school text books. I was taught it repeatedly at primary and high school. In fact not too long ago Pretence Hall published claims to this effect in a middle school textbook Prentice Hall Earth Science. I have heard the story repeated ad nauseam. Normally when I contest it’s veracity I get an incredulous stare (as if I were, in fact, asserting that the earth was flat) “Come on Matt, everyone knows this story is true, didn’t you learn this at school?”

Well, yes I did learn it but I also took the time to research the history of theology when I was at university. What they don’t tell you in high school is that this claim is false. It is a slanderous fabrication invented by opponents of Christianity in the 19th century and has been thoroughly debunked by contemporary historians of science.

The definitive study is undoubtedly that of Jeffrey Burton Russell, he summarises his findings here. However, the same thing is uttered in many studies on medieval science. For example, Edward Grant in his work notes that “there is no mention of a flat earth in any medieval writings, except for a few references to refute it.”

Even Wikipedia, not known for its ability to rise above popular anti-religious prejudice, concedes,

Today essentially all professional medievalists agree with Russell that the "medieval flat Earth" is a nineteenth-century fabrication, and that the few verifiable "flat Earthers" were the exception.

Interestingly, Wikipedia does not point to a medieval scholar who was one of these “verifiable "flat earthers" and its section on the Middle ages ends with the following conclusion.

A recent study of medieval concepts of the sphericity of the Earth noted that "since the eighth century, no cosmographer worthy of note has called into question the sphericity of the Earth. Of course it was probably not the few noted intellectuals who defined public opinion. It is difficult to tell what the wider population may have thought of the shape of the Earth – if they considered the question at all.

Yes, what the school textbooks teach is wrong. In fact the kinds of textbooks Katie mentions have been subject to scathing criticism in the literature. Lawrence S. Lerner a professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy at California State and director of The Textbook League University and a member of the panel that wrote the 1990 framework for science education in California's public schools criticised Pretence Halls text denouncing it as “ignorant fakery.” He goes on state,

The flat-Earth story quickly became a popular piece of pseudo historical folklore, and it remains popular today among people who have had little education. These evidently include the people who produce "science" books for Prentice Hall.” [we kiwis can add that it includes the advertising staff at Victoria university]

The facts are very different. Here are just a few: during the so called dark ages Boethius (480-525) in the Consolidation of Philosophy cited a well known and accepted ancient Greek cosmological model which affirmed the sphericity of the earth. Isidore of Serville, (560-636) published in the Etymologies, affirmed a round earth. Bede (672-735) in his, The Reckoning of Time, taught the earth is round; as did Rabanus Marcus in the ninth century.

The late middle ages are no different. Hemannus Contractus (1013-155), in fact, measured the circumference of the world. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) taught the world was round. As did John of Sacrbosco (1200-1256) and Peire d’Ailly (1350-1420). Dante’s Divine Comedy portrays the earth as a sphere. In the Summa Theologicae Thomas Aquinas in wrote,

The physicist proves the earth to be round by one means, the astronomer by another: for the latter proves this by means of mathematics, e.g. by the shapes of eclipses, or something of the sort; while the former proves it by means of physics, e.g. by the movement of heavy bodies towards the center, and so forth.

In fact, medieval textbooks taught the world was round. The Elucidarium of Honorius Augustodunensis a twelfth century manual for educating clergy and On the Sphere of the World the standard cosmological textbook of medieval universities in the thirteenth century both taught that the world was round.

When I began studying philosophy and theology at University I was literally shocked to discover this. One of the reasons I despise public schools is because they repeated lied to me about things like this. This is not the first or only instance where I was fed false propaganda about Christianity at high school. I could document several other instances; the flat earth story will suffice for now. The point is that state institutions affirm falsehoods about the history of religion and teach propaganda for history.

The fact that a state University, like Victoria, should perpetuate discredited slander as part of its advertising campaign to obtain higher learning about the arts is appalling. One would have thought this institution imparts knowledge, not fraudulent anti-Christian propaganda.

RELATED POSTS:
The "Dark Ages" and Other Propaganda
More on the "Dark Ages" and Other Propaganda
Things They Don't Teach you in Public Schools...

I found this excellent article on Iranpressnews. It asks the insightful question why does the fate of Muslim women suffering under oppressive regimes not appear to matter to western feminists? And offers an insightful critique of the banalities and trivialities of western feminism.

When I was teaching the history of early modern philosophy at Otago last year, one of my students told me I reminded them of Dr Jim Flynn. This was supposed to be a compliment. Flynn was highly regarded at Otago even those who considered themselves conservatives had good things to say about Flynn. I knew him by reputation only, having never had the privilege of meeting him. I did however learn one thing about Flynn during my stint at Otago: he is a left wing activist who is militantly secular.

Recently Flynn has attracted negative attention for these comments.

"I do have faith in science, and science may give us something that renders conception impossible unless you take an antidote,"

"You could of course have a chemical in the water supply and have to take an antidote. If you had contraception made easier by progress, then every child is a wanted child."

Flynn here seems to view a situation where contraception was placed in the water supply an example of progress. Many have interpreted this to mean that Dr Flynn believes that the government should put contraceptive in the water supply? Flynn has claimed this is a misrepresentation of his comments.

Dr Flynn told the Otago Daily Times he was merely trying to illustrate a point,
not seriously suggesting contraception in the water supply. Considering the opposition to fluoride in the water, such a scheme would never go ahead, he said.
But to have a contraception device that meant women had to take action to get pregnant instead of having to take a pill not to get pregnant, "would be wonderful". "It doesn't seem to me too controversial at all."

What really bothers me in this quote is that Flynn only states that such a policy is politically unfeasible. He does not appear to think it is unjust or violates people’s rights. I think this fact illustrates something important about the political culture in which we live.

First let me state why I believe a policy of putting contraceptives in the water supply is unjust. It violates a persons freedom of religion. Let me explain: As a Christian Theist I believe that every person has a sacred responsibility to carefully consider ones conscience and act in accord with what one considers to be Gods will. The existence of this responsibility entails a freedom or right to carry it out. Now according to Roman Catholic teaching artificial contraception is a mortal sin which violates natural law. While this teaching is popularly associated with Catholicism Catholics are not alone in believing it, many of the Protestant Reformers also held this view, and many Protestants still do. Now I happen to disagree with them. I do not think contraception violates the law of God. However, I do acknowledge that these people believe sincerely that God commands this and because of this they have a right to refrain from using contraception if they choose. They have right not just to opt out of contraceptive practises but to not opt in in the first place.

Now, there is an obvious objection to this argument: freedom of religion is a only prima facie right. Consider Sati a Hindu practise whereby a wife is burnt alive at her husband’s cremation. This practise was justly suppressed by the British in India. This however shows that freedom of religion is only a prima facie right and it can be overridden by other more weighty principles such as “do not kill innocent human beings”.

But this is precisely where I see the battle lines being drawn in contemporary culture. While there is a broad consensus that there exists a prima facie right to freedom of religion. There is no consensus on when is it appropriate to override this prima facie right? Are you permitted to do so only when the religion advocates engaging in a seriously immoral action like homicide? Or is the promotion of social utility sufficient to override it? To make things specific: If it is good that every child be a wanted child is this good of sufficient weight to override the prima facie right to freedom of religion?

This brings me to a crucial point: How one answer’s this question in fact depends on the theological perspective one adopts.

Suppose one believes that belief in God is irrational on par with belief in Santa Claus or the tooth fairy and those traditional views about sexuality and procreation are simply homophobic misogynist bigotry. Suppose one is also a secular utilitarian and believes our duties consist not of following commands but of doing whatever maximises net utility. Then one is not going to grant the freedom to follow what one believes God commands a huge amount of weight in ones reasoning. Suppose a person stated that he was opposed to a utility maximising policy because he thought Santa Claus had informed him that Aryans’ were the superior race and this policy prevented him and his community living in accord with that belief. How many people would cease to support the policy? Most I think would be unmoved.

On the other hand suppose one believes that God exists, that he issues commands to human beings that constitute our moral duties and that God holds people accountable for how well they discharge these duties. Then one will grant the freedom to act in accord with what believes to be Gods will much higher weight. Moreover, seeing one sees morality as “a set of rules or precepts of conduct, constituting a divine law”[1] one will not find utilitarian justifications of social policy plausible.

Returning to the policy of putting contraception in the water supply from the perspective of some secular leftists there is nothing unjust about this policy. True the policy violates freedom of religion if that freedom is understood in Christian context. However, if we remove this right from this context and replace it with a secular context freedom of religion can be re-contextualised. Re-contextualised in a manner where Roman Catholicism does not fall under it. And where the freedom to be an evangelical protestant is viewed the same way current society views a Nazis freedom to be a Nazi something begrudging deferred to when the matter is not to serious, but easily overridden by important social policy.


[1] Alan Donagan, The Theory of Morality, (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977), 6.

A little while ago a friend and I were discussing New Zealand politics with an American associate. My friend spoke of how he was an economic centrist and I informed him I was not. The topic got to kiwisaver, a policy with which he agreed. I thought his comments were interesting. Basically he cited anecdotal evidence to support the contention that many New Zealanders do not save money. He then noted that kiwisaver will mean that they do, seeing this was a good result one should support kiwisaver. The conversation was prematurely ended. But I thought my friend had revealed something important about how social policies are often justified in New Zealand.

Now let’s assume for the sake of argument that the conclusion he supported with anecdotal evidence is also supported with empirical evidence and is also true. The argument then is something like this:

[1] Kiwisaver results in more people saving

[2] A policy that results in more people saving is justified

Therefore

[3] Kiwisaver is justified

Now this argument is formally, valid and I have granted that [1] is true. However, [2] is clearly flawed. To see why imagine the following; suppose that one discovered that you could convince people to save by threatening to kill them if they did not. A state policy of issuing such threats would therefore bring about more people saving, and hence by [2] be justified. But such a policy is not justified, why? Because it achieves this good result by unlawful means; by threatening violence against innocent people consequently, the fact a policy results in my people saving by it’s self is insufficient to justify it.

It seems then that [2] needs amending, what is needed is something like

[2’] A policy that results in more people saving, and achieves this by lawful means is justified

But now [1] and [2] do not entail [3], to entail [3], [1] needs to be amended to [1’]

[1’] kiwi saver results in more people saving and achieves this by lawful means

However, the problem now is that affirming [1’] is not justified by the evidence I granted for the sake of argument above. There I assumed that the evidence suggested that Kiwisaver resulted in more people saving. This does not show us that it does this by lawful means, this latter claim is a moral or normative claim not an empirical or sociological one.

Moreover not only is [1’] not supported by the evidence, I am inclined to think that [1’] is false. We need to remember that kiwisaver is taxpayer funded. What does this mean? It means that kiwisaver works this way. Person P signs a contract with another person Q where Q agrees to pay P in exchange for labour. The state however, steps in and threatens P, telling him that if he does not give the government some of the money he has worked for and is entitled to by contract the government will separate him from his wife and kids and lock him up (violate his liberty). In other words Kiwisaver achieves its goals by threatening violence against others. Threatening to violate there liberty rights if they do not comply.

Don’t get me wrong here, I am not an anarchist; I am not saying that the state is never justified in threatening people or taking their life liberty or property. What I do think however is that one needs justification for this. If we are to avoid tyranny, then it cannot be the case that the state can just do this whenever some good consequence or cause would be furthered by doing so. Policies like kiwisaver appear to be premised on the denial of this principle they suggest that merely helping others save is sufficient justification for threatening others with violence.

This is why I am not a centrist, and why I am not a leftwinger. While the left claim to be opposed to violence they really are not. They in fact have a very low threshold of opposition to opposing violence and are willing to use it for almost any reason at all. The left tend to oppose violence when its being used against criminals, such is in cases of capital punishment or in just wars where aggressive or tyrannical regimes are being resisted by force. However, when it comes to innocent people, people who have committed no crimes the left will justify violence for almost any reason. If a policy has a good consequence, such as helping people save, or helping a person educate there children, or helping people artists paint a picture, or whatever, they will allow the state to threaten innocent people to do so.

I find this morally perverse, justice requires distinguishing between the innocent and the guilty, those who are threatening others and those who are not. A just state concentrates threats of violence and if necessary uses violence against the latter and not the former. The state can collect taxes for this purpose but it cannot threaten people for any reason it likes no matter how socially useful such violence may be. Yet the political left have distorted our culture that people now, apparently in large numbers, will justify threatening their law abiding neighbour to help them save money.

This opposition to violence, and wanting it limited by principle is central to me; My faith in fact teaches that God opposes such violence and we have a sacred duty to avoid it. This is why I oppose killing unborn children who are not threatening the lives of their mothers. It’s why I do not oppose executing criminals or fighting in just wars, and it’s why I oppose economic policies that justify threatening people with violence and utilise coercion to bring about monetary or economic gain. Violence must be used to punish the guilty and protect the innocent from attack. Not turned against the innocent for social gain.

And that is why I am not a centrist. If opposing arbitrary violence against the innocent makes me a “rightwing extremist” so be it.

Tonight I watched an ad on TV which has a man congratulating New Zealanders for being the first to give women the vote. This ad reminded me of the following picture which I discovered in Alvin Schmidt’s book "How Christianity Changed the World."


The picture on this page shows women voting at the polls in New Jersey between 1790 and 1805.

Almost a hundred years before NZ granted women the vote.

Kind of reminds me of the woefully ignorant Victoria University ads that claimed that in the 14th century everyone thought the world was flat... must find that map of the world from the middle ages astronomy textbook and blog it, its a funny shape, it is round.

RELATED POSTS:
The "Dark Ages" and Other Propaganda
More on the "Dark Ages" and Other Propaganda
The Flat Earth Myth

Desiree Wright please email me. I miss you.

m_flannaganDELETE@clear.net.nz just remove the word DELETE from this email address.

Madeleine :-)

I hate the new anti smoking ads.

I am not a smoker, I do not advise that anyone smoke nor do I approve of smoking. As I see it we have a duty to respect not only other people but ourselves, as beings made in the image of God. For this reason we should look after ourselves and our bodies and not poison them. However I also think we should not poison our minds and that is why I hate these ads.

Consider the content; person A comes on and tells us that smoking is “so 1997” and “no one is doing it any more” note the reasons being given, don’t smoke because its no longer fashionable. Your peers are not doing it neither should you. Person B comes on and tells us that its just as fashionable, cool, popular etc to not smoke as it once was to smoke. Again the message is clear don’t smoke because not smoking is cool, popular or fashionable now. Then comes person C he tells us that people smoke because they think its cool, but people should not be themselves and not mindlessly follow the crowd.

So apparently we should not smoke because (a) its unfashionable uncool, and also (b) we should not do something because failure do so unfashionable or uncool.

I expressed my contempt for this stupidity loudly one night. And I was informed ( by a teenager) that ads were good because the people in them were well respected amongst youth culture and so whatever they said youth would listen to. That’s sad. If what she said is true the ad effectively says that you both should follow the crowd and not follow the crowd because the cool people in the crowd say so.

There are worse things than polluting your body, teaching a generation of people to pollute there minds by encouraging stupidity is far worse. This ad encourages just that. Respect for oneself means not just refraining from smoking it means respecting Gods gift of reason and learning to use it.

According to one version of the Moral Argument for Theism, God provides the best explanation for the existence of moral obligations. The most sophisticated version of this argument is arguably that provided by Robert Adams in “Moral Arguments for Theistic Belief” (published in The Virtue of Faith and Other Essays). Richard Chappell thinks those who follow Adams in this argument have a “daft’ position. Because, Chappell states, any aspect of morality God can explain can also be explained by appealing to what God would have done in counterfactual situations a. Chappell writes

"Ideal standards can be grounded in counterfactuals, e.g. facts about what an
ideal spectator would recommend."Suppose we want to ground goodness in God's
nature. This does not require God to exist. We could just as well appeal to
counterfactual natures, and what God would have wanted (had he
existed).

Now the best defenders of the meta-ethical argument do not attempt to ground morality in God’s nature. Robert Adams holds not that “Gods nature” grounds moral goodness. But that that the most plausible account of what “right and wrongness of an act consists in” is the theory that moral rightness and wrongness consist in agreement and disagreement, respectively, with the will or commands of a loving God.” Strictly speaking then Chappell attacks a straw man. Nether the less I assume Chappell thinks his argument applies with equal force to Divine Command Theories such as those proposed by Adams. He argues

Consider: you may think (1) that God exists, and (2) that God frowns upon
genocide. Now entertain the hypothesis (3) that God does not actually exist
after all. You should still hold a modified form of your second belief, namely:
(4) God would have frowned upon genocide.

I'm suggesting that claim
#4 can do everything that claim #2 can. It is just as objective, and can
"ground" all the same facts. Any doubts you have about #4 (e.g. "but how can we
know it for sure? We could be mistaken in ascribing these judgments to God...")
will apply in equal measure to #2. There is simply no relevant difference
between them.

Chappell asks us to consider two claims. The first which I will call [a] is the claim that God exists in the actual world and commands C1-C2 in The second which I will label [b] God does not exist in the actual world, however there is a possible world just like the actual world in all respects except that God does exist in this world and does issue commands Cn-Cn+2. Chappell thinks that [a] and be [b] that God will issue the same commands in both worlds C1-C2 will be identical to C1-C2. Hence every aspect of morality which it’s explained by Gods actual commands in [a] will be explained by the counter factual commands in [b].

What I find puzzling about Chappell’s appeal to this argument is that Adams in fact discussed it and responded to it in the above mentioned essay. Which is one of the definitive essays on the topic. After spelling out his argument Adams notes

It may be objected that the advantages of the divine command theory can be
obtained without an entailment of God's existence. For the rightness of an
action might be said to consist in the fact that the action would agree with the
commands of a loving God if one existed, or does so agree if a loving God
exists. This modification transforms the divine command theory into a
nonnaturalistic form of the ideal observer theory of the nature of right and
wrong. It has the advantage of identifying rightness and wrongness with
properties that actions could have even if God does not exist And of course it
takes away the basis of my metaethical argument for theism.

This is almost an exact analogue of Chappell’s argument. Adams response is to deny that God will necessarily issue the same commands in [a] as he does in [b]

The flaw in this theory is that it is difficult to see what is supposed to be
the force of the counterfactual conditional that is centrally involved in it. If
there is no loving God, what makes it the case if there were one, he would
command this rather than that? Without an answer to this question, the crucial
counterfactual lacks a clear sense (cf. chapter 6 in this volume). I can see
only two possible answers: either that what any possible loving God would
command is logically determined by the concept of a loving God, or that it is
determined by a causal law. Neither answer seems likely to work without
depriving the theory of some part of the advantages of divine command
metaethics.

No doubt some conclusions about what he would not command follow logically or
analytically from the concept of a loving God. He would not command us to
practice cruelty for its own sake, for example. But in some cases, at least, in
which we believe the act is wrong, it seems only contingent that a loving God
does or would frown on increasing the happiness of other people by the painless
and undetected killing of a person who wants to live but will almost certainly
not live happily. Very diverse preferences about what things are to be treated
as personal rights seem compatible with love and certainly with deity.

Adams point is as follows much of what God commands in the actual world is a contingent matter. God is not required by the facts of the world or by his own nature to issue the exact commands he does. Of course there are some things a loving God will not command, such as cruelty for it own sake. But once these options are eliminated, there is still no one set of commands which a loving being in a world like ours must command. Hence it simply does not follow that God will issue the same commands in counterfactual situations that he does in the actual world. There are possible worlds like ours where he issues one set of commands and there are other possible worlds like ours in all other respects in which he issues other commands. Hence, there is no determinate answer to the question, what would God command if he existed in a world like ours.

This creates a problem for counter factual appeals to God. The problem, noted by Thomas Carson , is that if we ask what God would have commanded in counterfactual situations we will get contradictory answers In one possible world exactly like ours in all relevant respects God would have commanded us to A. But in another possible world exactly like ours in the same respects, he would have commanded to not A. C1.

Now I think Adams (and Carson) are correct about this, even if I am wrong however, what this shows is that Richard’s argument is mistaken. Richard attempts to criticise a meta-ethical argument for theism. He however ignores the actual versions the argument that occur in the literature and sketches a straw man, he then simply asserts a claim that God will issue the same commands in counter factual situations, which the actual proponents of the moral argument have already noted and argued against. He then concludes from this assertion their position is daft. If people are to rebut Christian philosophers, they need to actually engage with their arguments and that means Richard needs to provide some argument to the effect that God would issue the same commands in a counterfactual situations as he does in the actual world. Divine Command Theorists such as Duns Scotus and more recently Hare and Quinn have denied this claim, and argued against it. They may be mistaken, but simply saying so and ignoring what they have argued is not a rebuttal.

In 2002 I (Matt) publicly debated Dr Bill Cooke from the New Zealand Association of Rationalist Humanists (NZARH). I enjoyed the debate immensely and am confident that I won it. No one whom I know who has watched the debate disagrees with me on this. I was surprised at the time how weakly the arguments he attempted to provide were.

A few years latter Paul Litterick become Spokesperson for NZARH. This I thought was a step down. Cooke was at least a scholar and attempted debate. Litterick appeared to spend his time slagging Christian groups of and launching often dubious and dishonest character assassinations. NZARH after all were supposed to be Rationalists. However, more recently I have read some of Litterick’s criticism of Dr Bill Cookes scholarship I find myself in agreement with much of it.

Litterick and Cooke do not see eye to eye. A few weeks ago Litterick spelt out why here. Dr Cooke it seems has deceived people about his scholarly credentials. Cooke claimed to have a professorship in Philosophy when he did not. In fact Cooke’s Ph.D is not even in Philosophy. NZARH apparently propagated this falsehood and continue to do so even though Paul has repeatedly pointed out its inaccuracy to them. For this and various other reasons NZARH have subsequently expelled Litterick and issued him with a trespass order. Dr Cooke is currently the Editor of NZARH’s magazine the Open Society.

What’s interesting about this is that a few years ago NZARH were all through the News attacking the Maxim institute. NZARH claimed that one of their researchers had passed off other scholars writings as his own ( see their website here). NZARH’s spokesperson appeared on numerous Radio and TV stations condemning this. Maxim’s reputation was damaged by this incident. Now an obvious question can be asked if Maxim lacks credibility because one of its researchers has faked his work. Then it follows that NZARH, by their own logic lack credibility. However, if faking ones credentials is not a serious matter. Why did they attack Maxim for an analogous action?

To add irony to this whole thing Paul has broached the topic of starting a new Secularist society. On his blog he discusses the prospect of doing this with Gaynz researcher Craig Young. (Someone Paul often cites). Craig Young has repeatedly claimed to have a PhD see for example here and here and . The problem is that there is apparently no record of Young’s PhD at Massey library and Massey is where Craig studied as a doctoral student. When an associate of mine enquired at Massey about this he was informed that Craig in fact had never submitted his thesis and hence no degree was ever conferred.

What we have then is an organization, condemning Maxim for faking scholarship which itself fakes the scholarly credentials of its own Editor. This deception (amongst other things) provokes a former member to team up with another academic fake to set up a secularist organization of his own. Welcome to New Zealand Rationalism. I would have thought that it was reasonable to expect a Rationalist society to not contradict itself. Let’s hope this joke of a movement is exposed for what is as soon as possible.