tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-181071002024-03-15T17:45:50.773-05:00The Philosophy of the Socratic GadflyThis is a slice of my philosophical, lay scientific, musical, religious skepticism, and poetic musings. (All poems are my own.)
The science and philosophy side meet in my study of cognitive philosophy; Dan Dennett was the first serious influence on me, but I've moved beyond him.
The poems are somewhat related, as many are on philosophical or psychological themes. That includes existentialism and questions of selfhood, death, and more. Nature and other poems will also show up here on occasion.Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger827125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-11617254729498124262024-03-15T08:40:00.000-05:002024-03-15T08:40:00.150-05:00Why Caesar died on the Ides of March, and some counterfactual history<p> Four years ago, in one of the most popular posts here, <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2020/03/beware-ides-of-march-and-indo-european.html" target="_blank">I wrote about the etymology</a> of the "rex," the "king," that Julius Caesar supposedly wanted to become, that got him killed.</p><p>But, what are the details, beyond Shakespeare, on the actual assassination?</p><p>Caesar was indeed killed for wanting to be proclaimed rex. But, it wasn't just his idea. <a href="https://daily.jstor.org/beware-the-ides-of-march-wait-what/?sponsored=0&position=1&scheduled_corpus_item_id=4319d58e-55a9-424e-9c97-9eeb31fc9f8f" target="_blank">This piece from JSTOR</a> reminds us that Antony, among others, thought that he needed to be
proclaimed king before battling the Parthians, among other things. I
don't follow Antony's reasoning; Pompey had defeated kings in the
eastern Mediterranean, already. But, it's a good read for the timing of
Caesar's assassination and other motives the plotters may have had. (Like the piece's author, I'm not sold on the idea of Caesar's calendrical reform being an additional motive for the plot.)<br /></p><p>==</p><p>Good counterfactual history has only one major twist, so it doesn't become something like fantasy. It also doesn't involve time travel of either people or resources.</p><p>This fits both bills.</p><p>Imagine Caesar listening to friends of his — not a Shakespearean witch or wifely dream — and not going to the Senate. Or, even more, imagine him setting up a counterplot and trap. A few midlevel ringleaders get executed after formal, but drumhead, trials. Most the upper-level folks, though, like Brutus, are brought along with Caesar on the Parthian campaign, which now does take place.</p><p>Caesar offers some commands, at a certain level, knowing that even if they still hate him, committing battlefield treason and switching sides to the Parthians is highly unlikely.</p><p>What happens? He feints a straight-on attack, then has Antony pull a Neronian move through Armenia. But that itself is a feint. The right cross, to use a boxing term, comes from Julius Caesar himself. But, it's a controlled one. It's more a right hook that aims at the Parthian rear lines in Armenia rather than heading straight to Ctesiphon. Caesar avoids Crassus' mistakes, or the ones Antony will make later. Forces reunified, the then marches down Mesopotamia while sending out peace feelers at the same time. Tied to this, he drops hints that he's had communication with Bactrian princies, no matter how untrue.</p><p>And, the Parthians agree.</p><p>Terms?</p><p>Return of Crassus' standards and other lost objects. If he's still alive, the Parthians can keep Crassus himself. </p><p>Roman control of Mesopotamia, with promises not to fortify the east bank of the Tigris. In other words, something like Trajan's conquest. Rome controls Armenia as well, but, as in reality, under some sort of client kingdom.</p><p>An exchange of hostages to seal the deal, as was common in antiquity. And, Caesar's hostages to the Parthians are some of the top-level plotters, especially ones he offered the command option and had them reject.</p><p>On return to Rome, he notes that he can offer hostages to German tribes as well.</p><p>Speaking of?</p><p>Remember that the Roman frontier in the north central part of the Empire was NOT on the Danube at this time. Presumably, Caesar would have done what happened in Augustan times. But, would Parthian kings look to have allied with German tribespeople? Could they even have physically made such a connection?<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-29253659554876301432024-03-13T09:00:00.002-05:002024-03-13T09:00:00.137-05:00A slanderous lying fuq at Patheos<p> Shock me that this is something that, on the political side, Charles Kuffner glommed on to.</p><p>A Fred Clark <a href="https://www.patheos.com/blogs/slacktivist/2024/02/12/the-difference/" target="_blank">claims at Patheos</a> (which I don't go to on my own since they chased the atheists off) that the only diff between White and Black evangelical Christians is racism or not.</p><p>Really? </p><p>For starters, this ignores "liberal evangelicals." <a href="https://sojo.net/" target="_blank">Sojourners</a> mag came immediately to my mind. An internet search gives you <a href="https://www.episcopalchurch.org/glossary/liberal-evangelicalism/" target="_blank">liberal evangelical Episcopalians</a> for doorknob's sake, and that's a pretty White denomination. Or a liberal evangelical Facebook group.<br /></p><p>Second, contra Clark's asterisk that, racism aside, there's actually lots of differences between White and Black, or broader non-White evangelicals overstates those differences.</p><p>Third, contra Clark, per an actually academic <a href="https://www.christiancentury.org/article/critical-essay/american-evangelicalism-and-politics-whiteness" target="_blank">Christian Century</a>, there's not theological unity within White evangelicals anyway. The unity factor, today, for (conservative) White evangelicals (CC ignores the Sojourners world too) is politics.</p><p>Fred Clark could at least be that honest. Shock me that it's at the Slacktivist vertical. That has long been dreck.</p><p>Now, <a href="https://religioninpublic.blog/2021/11/09/in-search-of-the-elusive-liberal-evangelicals/" target="_blank">per Ryan Burge</a>, one can argue about how politically liberal or not self-proclaimed liberal evangelicals are. But that's a different story. And, per <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sojourners" target="_blank">Sojourners' Wiki page</a>, Burge would appear to be right on them not being THAT liberal politically.</p><p>==</p><p>Shock me that at <a href="https://19thnews.org/2024/03/where-to-get-mifepristone-abortion-pill-cvs-walgreens/" target="_blank">another post</a>, also touted by Kuff, Clark rolls out the stupidity of the trolley problem, whose derpity I discussed here a week ago.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-23306700163949714442024-03-07T09:00:00.002-06:002024-03-07T09:00:00.134-06:00Exactly what's wrong with the trolley problem (and what's wrong with Reddit)<p>I've noted this in comments at Reddit’s <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/trolleyproblem" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">trolley problem subreddit</a>, but I decided it was time to make a post there, based on <a class="_1FRfMxEAy__7c8vezYv9qP" href="https://www.psypost.org/three-problems-with-using-the-trolley-dilemma-in-moral-philosophy/" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank">this piece</a> at Psy Post which had just popped up in my blogroll on my Blogger site:</p><blockquote><p>In a recent paper published in the <a class="_1FRfMxEAy__7c8vezYv9qP" href="https://doi.org/10.26556/jesp.v26i2.2317" rel="noopener noreferrer nofollow" target="_blank"><i>Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy</i></a>, Guy Crian critiques the “trolley method” of moral philosophy for its unrealistic simplification of moral decision-making, lack of consideration for the complexity and diversity of real-life ethical situations, and potential to mislead about the nature of moral agency and ethical reasoning.</p></blockquote><p>Next, three pullouts.</p><blockquote><p>First, the trolley method emphasizes dramatic scenarios that are rare or extreme compared to the everyday ethical decisions that people face. ...<br /></p><p>Second, the method tends to present moral agents as generic or anonymized figures, ostensibly to make the scenarios universally applicable. However, this approach overlooks the fact that respondents often unconsciously fill in missing details based on their own biases or assumptions. ...<br /></p><p>Third, the critique points out that the trolley method models ethical decision-making as a clear-cut choice between distinct options. Real-life ethical decision-making is often automatic and influenced by factors beyond immediate conscious deliberation. ...<br /></p></blockquote><p>Update: The derpity of the handwaving and more <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/trolleyproblem/comments/1b4140a/exactly_why_the_trolley_problem_isnt_real/" target="_blank">over at my Reddit post</a> is laughable, if not head-shaking. </p><p>The worst is from SM Lion El, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/trolleyproblem/comments/1b4140a/comment/kswl728/" target="_blank">who says</a>: <br /></p><blockquote><i> As someone with a philosophy degree it definitely is a philosophical question because it forces someone to consider their personal moral responses to a situation. I tend to believe that any question that forces a person to introspectively examine themselves is a philosophical question. </i></blockquote><p>Really? You just ignored the whole post about how this is NOT a real philosophical problem, and also ignored all other commenters who disagree.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-16224351694055961482024-02-29T09:00:00.019-06:002024-03-13T13:37:42.887-05:00More oopses at r/Academic Biblical<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/198m3pu/comment/kibjmz3/?context=3" target="_blank">Contra this person</a>, and the Lester Crabbe he cites, reading between the lines, oh, yes we do have at least hints of Yehud revolting against the early years of Achaemenid Persian rule. Any good critical commentary on Zechariah, specifically the first couple of chapters of the "1 Zechariah" half of the book, will tell you that. Like other portions of the empire, when Darius took the throne after a presumed usurpation against (the murdered?) Cambyses, Yehud/Judah apparently rose up. And was pushed down.</p><p>== <br /></p><p>Ahh, a person <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/199amm4/authenticity_of_colossians/?%24deep_link=true&correlation_id=4ec1e254-ef4f-4ad3-95a3-45d01c10a59b&post_fullname=t3_199amm4&post_index=2&ref=email_digest&ref_campaign=email_digest&ref_source=email&%243p=e_as&_branch_match_id=1037560324120399226&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA22PXWrEMAyET5O%2BJdnETiGFpWwpvYbR2kpW1H%2FYCmlvX6Xb9qkgw%2FCNRpZuzLk%2B9X1B54g7yLnzFN97lZ%2BbUat8RgP1QWQqtFIEb7biz7cj1ahLM75J7fve%2FeRtCgKKvIsFh4HsC109WfCCxAwYuYoc5hlC0KJg45tAssSfJi3GJp9qJYhHW6NkvnaI2RxbNeqVy4bN%2BGhTKeiBKUVDTrhGO%2BA46RYXvbQanGrnCVSrJ3ca7HCCab5KLqfKZtm8jxDwGKfM3yp3k6LDD3FGAQUXURiAvHG0YuU7NBZCBlrj%2F25NW7H46wncOMhdkeVOod%2FfMLHHLxV%2FcGl9AQAA" target="_blank">who thinks Colossians is Pauline</a> and then goes on to justify his ignorance by saying he can't see the difference in writing style from other Pauline books while saying he doesn't read Greek and is going by English. The reality is its codependence on Ephesians, whichever was first, is one issue. An increased emphasis on Gnostic(-izing) themes is another.</p><p>==</p><p>A whole round of comments on <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/lkc6v2/what_is_the_academic_perspective_on_the_bible/?share_id=l8b-V9cJiNXazXf55vn9R" target="_blank">this post</a> by the seeminly chuddish <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/chonkshonk/" target="_blank">Chonkshonk</a> claiming, based on <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/new-testament-studies/article/abs/solomon-and-666-revelation-1318/A6CEF70BFD261E6980C36E75B5001C3D" target="_blank">this paper</a>, that it is NOT Nero, nor any gematria at all, that is behind the name of the Beast in Revelation, but rather, in one of the stupidest things I've seen out of non-fundamentalist Christian academia, that the "666" is instead riffing on Solomon's gold. No, really. </p><p>I'll call him chuddish because he comments regularly, and even occasionally posts, in the form r/AcademicQuran and admits he can't read Arabic. (Worse, he's a moderator. That said, most the mods of r/AcademicBiblical, including Naugrith the Nazi, probably can't read Greek and surely can't read Hebrew.) I can't downvote him because the post is archived, but he's downvoted elsewhere.</p><p>As for the claim? Tosh. First, <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/12/antichrist-vs-man-of-lawlessness-vs.html" target="_blank">a reminder</a> that the Beast of Revelation is NOT the man of lawlessness from 2 Thessalonians and is not set up within the temple. Related to that, the Beast is not identified as a Jewish leader exploiting his own people, etc. Therefore, even if not Nero, this is NOT NOT NOT a reference to Solomon's gold. Also, "666" occuring as the number of number of children of Adonikam in <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ezra%202%3A13&version=KJV" target="_blank">Ezra 2:13</a> is totally irrelevant. I will give the pair some credit for wrestling with the numerology, history of Nero as presumed target, critical text, etc. Of additional note? Keith Bodner and Brent A. Strawn are both OT guys, not NT.</p><p>==</p><p>An easy-to-spot fail <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/1as8nb2/why_isnt_1_enoch_part_of_the_standard_old/?%24deep_link=true&correlation_id=f1ff9990-e9f5-489f-841c-200a38c534bb&post_fullname=t3_1as8nb2&post_index=3&ref=email_digest&ref_campaign=email_digest&ref_source=email&%243p=e_as&_branch_match_id=1037560324120399226&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA22QXWrEMAyET5O%2BZX%2FibEkKS9lSeg2h2PJG1LGNrbDt7at02z4VZBi%2BYTTCs0iuT%2Ft9IedYdpjzLnB835v83HS9yWcCrA8qU%2BErRwywlnCet1RjLk33pnO73XY%2FeZsWBUXfxaKjhe0LT4EtBkVqLhSlqjxiHeLUbeH5E7hGgSNQTHaGjEUgeZCZoApGh8VBCm7rMlrXO6IM25GNeZWyUtM92lQKBRROEdgp90fvx3E8tDT6U9sPo2%2BH%2Fmjb7nBAM9iT6adJczlVAb%2BGEHGhbZ2Bv8vuJkdHH%2BoYBYW8KlqQAzi%2BUpU7BItLRr7G%2F92a1mLp11O4ygI2RdG%2FUPpdIyyBvgDZkxCHjAEAAA%3D%3D" target="_blank">here</a>. Not only the OP has the bad framing with "standard Old Testament," but even a "quality contributor" like Qumrum 60 among commenters failed to tell the OP that <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Book_of_Enoch" target="_blank">1 Enoch</a> is indeed in the Ethiopic and Eritrean canon, and was in the early Christian era, considered scriptural by the author of Barnabas. A better formed question would be "Why did it not get considered scriptural in later centuries?" or "Why did it fall out of consideration?"</p><p>And, a month later, Albanese Gummies <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/1bd1p97/the_church_fathers_were_apparently_wellacquainted/?%24deep_link=true&correlation_id=acf4491b-f4aa-4a30-9944-716ff095f49f&post_fullname=t3_1bd1p97&post_index=2&ref=email_digest&ref_campaign=email_digest&ref_source=email&utm_content=post_title&%243p=e_as&_branch_match_id=1291179830847287753&utm_medium=Email+Amazon+SES&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA22P3U7DMAyFn6bctVubbFORJoSEeI3ITZzVIn%2Bkrgpvj8uAK6REOv5OnGPPzGV5PBwqOkfcQSldoPR2UOWpGbQqVzSwPIjMlW6UIJi1huu8dzXquRle5Wzb1v302xwFVLlgwWEkO9EUyEIQJGbExIvIfnJ9GS%2BieEZj57Xa2XiQoi5mwyqppUCV1%2BFT6hDAvq9AidHtmUpiT4N2iMXs4zbqheuKzXC2uVYMwJSTISccrNd67KfWa4BWgzq246h1e%2BnP3h%2FHk9ejl76SFzZ%2BDSFBxP07Zf5mvJuUHH6IMwio6EVhBArG0Q0XvkNjIRagW%2FrfXbLsib%2BewJWjsVm2Siz0O4aJA34BWXxuUZYBAAA%3D" target="_blank">asking a similar question</a>. And, this time, the comments are overall better, and in the Western tradition, directly address the last issue. <br /></p><p>==</p><p>Even though rules there say no interjecting theology, a fundagelical-type questioner is doing just that in the background, when <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/1avoh4x/are_there_any_roman_sources_for_the_matthean/?%24deep_link=true&correlation_id=cbef3b6b-8be1-4bac-923c-d0946998dfa4&post_fullname=t3_1avoh4x&post_index=5&ref=email_digest&ref_campaign=email_digest&ref_source=email&%243p=e_as&_branch_match_id=1037560324120399226&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA22Q607DMAyFn6b868aaMq1IExpCvIblJu5qLTclLhtvj8uAX0i5HH1Hx3Yyi%2BT6vN0Wco5lgzlvPMfL1uSXputNPhJgfVCZCp85ooel%2BOO8phpzarp3XdfrdfOTtykoKLpPFh0Ftq88erboFakZKEpVucOPNPc3VVgIZCY9MX5CSQEj1LQUSxWmVFYPAopeGNd2Rjv2jijDOmdj3qQs1HR7m0ohj8IpAjvldqTJjPuxPYy0a%2FsRbTt0xrbucej3w3BwE%2Faay6kKTIv3EQOt5Qz8DXc3OTq6qfOkoNCkigKyB8dnqnKHYDFk5HP8370%2F6NdTuEgAm6Lodyj9biMsnr4AXs32sY8BAAA%3D" target="_blank">his question</a> about Matthew's crucifixion earthquake assumes it's real. Since the OP has just two posts anywhere in two-plus years, I can't figure a background. They also deleted some posts somewhere to have 333 karma points with that minuscule amount of overall commenting.</p><p>==</p><p>That said, a kudo on something good. <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/1ay919z/does_the_jahwist_regard_cain_not_seth_as_the/?%24deep_link=true&correlation_id=6510f5d8-5243-400a-b79d-64f1311e7f22&post_fullname=t3_1ay919z&post_index=2&ref=email_digest&ref_campaign=email_digest&ref_source=email&%243p=e_as&_branch_match_id=1037560324120399226&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA21Q7U7DMAx8mvKv69p0HUOa0BDiNSIvcVtDvpS4KvD0uAz4hZRIpzuf75KZOZWHpsloLfEOUto5Cm%2BNSo9V16t0Rg3lTmDMNFEAp5fszvPmqtSl6l7krOu6%2B%2FGb6IXIci8GLHoyT3R1ZMAJJaLHwEVgCx%2Bn9vQpyEYsmmfUrzCvVFhnnCBbbYCCDpF1QZ6lwzazxSlJ7C1i0lvPSj1zXkQYTMwZHTDFoMkKPxza%2FXiw9%2FVB3lH3%2Bz3U1%2BPJ1kM%2Ftqpt8Th2nfhSlMxxcS6Ax22d0n%2FlbiIFi%2B%2BibNMZR0HogZy2NGHhGyl1fQKawv9qiUs2%2BKsJubDXJgaW7xD2O4aJHX4Brm2yU48BAAA%3D" target="_blank">This post</a> about the Seth and Cain genealogies and entanglement, influence or suppression of the Yahwist by the Priestly author and anything else going on, is itself informed and looking for feedback and gets good feedback.<br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-24813071207698726302024-02-22T09:00:00.001-06:002024-02-22T09:00:00.317-06:00A Monty Python-esque poetic fairy tale mashup<p> Written in response to a semi-challenge on Goodreads, when I snarkily responded to a friend's talk about "b&b" angles on a fairy tale and said "bed and breakfast" even as I knew it was "Beauty and the Beast" knockoff talk:</p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal">Once upon a midnight dark and dreary</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Sleepless in the bed with eyes so bleary</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Because their breakfast had made me teary</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There be dragons there, hear ye, hear ye!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The beauty smoked Gauloises in the park</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">While the beast lurked behind her in the dark</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The tale of pending horror loomed so stark</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There be dragons there, out on a lark!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The beast was Jack, indeed the Ripper</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But the beauty brained him with her slipper!</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It was glass, remember, sized to fit her</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">But her stride uneven might just trip her</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">The three-inch heel like that of stripper?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">There be dragons there with smoked kipper.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">It WAS the mightiest beast in the parkland forest</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">And that herring cut it down to death most goreless.</p>
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{page:Section1;}</style></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-77507753833296947112024-02-15T09:43:00.021-06:002024-02-21T23:17:20.128-06:00I just murdered Robert Sapolsky but it wasn't determined; I chose to<p>This is an edited and expanded version of my Goodreads review of Robert Sapolsky's "Determined." It's expanded, not just because I do that at other times with some Goodreads reviews where I want to go more in depth but also because for what I believe is a first, I hit Goodreads' 5,000-word limit. I wanted to be that thorough in showing how Sapolsky is not just wrong, but per the old physics phrase, Not.Even.Wrong. </p><p>So, the more complete murdering happens here.</p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/83817782-determined" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1685350965l/83817782._SX98_.jpg" /></a><p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/83817782-determined">Determined: A Science of Life without Free Will</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/187.Robert_M_Sapolsky">Robert M. Sapolsky</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6235192780">1 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
I began with an in-depth precis or overview,, having read his "Behave" before, knowing his <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Sapolsky" rel="nofollow noopener">bio</a>, having read a <a href="https://ffrf.org/outreach/awards/item/19619-belief-and-biology" rel="nofollow noopener">Freedom from Religion Foundation interview</a> of him and more, I can offer an overview, complete with a start-off set of links for friends interested in some of the philosophical issues.</p><p><b>Precis/overview</b><br /><br />The fact that Sapolsky engages in Dan Dennett skyhooks on page 3, strawmanning on page 5 and says he's like Sam Harris on page 6 (while wrongly insinuating Harris is a *practicing* philosopher or neuroscientist when he is neither) should tell you just how craptacular it is. (That's as he, per the index, can't at all cite an actual neuroscientist and one of the best of the past 40 years, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/V._S._Ramachandran" rel="nofollow noopener">V.S. Ramachandran</a>. Some of the movement syndromes etc discussed by Sapolsky are right up Ramachandran’s alley.) <br /><br />Feb. 5: Up to 2500+ words of notes with straight reading just to page 65 and grokking around the middle of the book after that. I think Little Bobby's bar mitzvah-age break with his childhood Orthodox Judaism is a major explainer of why he is an <b>evangelist</b> (sic) for determinism.<br /><br />(And, yes, he eventually admits that, in the first paragraph of chapter 12, where he says:<br /></p><blockquote>This book has a goal — to get people to think differently about moral responsibility.</blockquote><p>Fine: Then be Sam Harris and write a book on an ethical naturalism-based approach to ethics. You'd still be wrong, Bobby, but in different ways.)<br /><br /> In any case, adult Robert is "good" about playing forensic psychology on others, so turnabout is fair play! And, yes, this would be a big deal for an Orthodox teen, vs Conservative, let alone Reform. Sapolsky says he was raised totally observant, so we can even call this a psychic break, perhaps. And, lower down here, as I ran out of room at Goodreads, per the FFRF piece, yeah, there will be more comment on his forensic psychology. See the double asterisk below. **<br /><br />The "why" of that?<br /><br />Little Bobby, little sad-tromboning Bobby (warning: LOTS of snark and even outright sarcasm ahead), per adult Robert, determined that problems of fairness and similar in treatment of humans, REQUIRED that determinism, not free will, be the baseline. <b>I am reminded of Jehovah's Witnesses founder Charles Taze Russell, who, because he couldn't accept literalist Christian hellfire, revived or revitalized (not invented) the idea of annihilation of souls of the evil instead. (And sadly, Bart Ehrman recently may subconsciously written his <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/4737264193" rel="nofollow noopener">second most recent book</a> for that reason, I speculate.) If I'm throwing people under the bus, well, two birds with one throw.</b><br /><br />There's SEVERAL problems here.<br /><br />Two biggies. They're both philosophical.<br /><br />Side note: The philosophical problems Sapolsky exhibits in general, and in specific vis-a-vis Hume, are nothing new. They were <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2349645233" rel="nofollow noopener">already in exhibit</a> in Behave.<br /><br />So, we'll start with the first biggie, as he already exhibited it there.<br /><br />I realized that little Bobby Saplosky, in trying to make an adolescent belief (or fear?) into a scientific theory, shows he doesn’t know philosophy in another way, as this is a crass violation of St. David of Hume’s famous “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Is-ought_problem" rel="nofollow noopener">is ≠ ought</a>” dictum. Sublinked there, G.E. Moore's <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open-question_argument" rel="nofollow noopener">open-question argument</a> has more modern food for thought, and ties in with comments I had on "Behave" where I thought Sapolsky was flirting with scientism.<br /><br />One more connection to Hume?<br /><br />Sapolsky talks about people acting as if they have free will, then says "priming" them with deterministic ideas lessens that belief.<br /><br />Have you ever heard of anybody, even the most ardent double-predestination traditional Calvinist, acting as if life is all determined? Nope.<br /><br />Even if the actual free will is not at a conscious level, it's there. And, in a recursive loop, we prime ourselves to that end. David Hume, long before AA, first touted the idea of "act as if." We do exactly that — with free will, not determinism.<br /><br />The second philosophical biggie?<br /><br />Sapolsky's worry about what is known as "retributive justice" (on which he petard-hoists later, anyway) and how it has to require determinism is all wet. If he really dove into some philosophical ethics (he makes a weak pass at that in "Behave"), he would know that.<br /><br />Specifically, on page 5, here, we have: “(P)unishment as retribution is indefensible.”<br /><br />Agreed!<br /><br />You know wrote a whole book questioning traditional ideas on both retributive justice and distributive justice?<br /><br />A philosopher named Walter Kaufmann.<br /><br />And, to put it bluntly? Sapolsky's comment above, and little Bobby's teenaged Humean misfire aside, folks, that’s strawmanning. Whether Sapolsky meant it as such, I don’t care; he shows even more that he’s in over his head philosophically, so is not deserving of the most charitable interpretation. Per the likes of Kaufmann’s “<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/485939752" rel="nofollow noopener">Without Guilt and Justice</a>” retributive justice, to properly label it, is indefensible on ethical grounds whether determinism is true, classical free will is true, or my theory of some sort of psychological constraint + the non-existence of CONSCIOUS free will WITHOUT that meaning determinism as the alternative answer is true. Plenty of utilitarians, like a Peter Singer, will refute Sapolsky as well. Arguably, per Kaufmann’s book, which was in part a riposte to John Rawls, retributive justice is also indefensible, as I see it, on political science and similar grounds, again, whether or not Sapolsky is right about determinism. See below at the asterisk for more.*<br /><br />==<br /><br />Full long! review starts here.<br /><br />First, I’ll be honest. This is a book I was prepared to not like a lot, and to read and review critically, in advance, based on various advance observations I had read about it.<br /><br />I had <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/10/sapolsky-all-wet-on-no-free-will-means.html" rel="nofollow noopener">already blogged about it</a>, based on reviews, and also based on knowing that his previous book, “Behave,” had a fair amount of muddled and muddied thinking. <br /><br />And Sapolsky gave me plenty of ammunition from the start.<br /><br />First, the subhed: “A science of life without free will.” As there is no science that proves determinism (other than quasi-proof in a tautological sense for methodological materialists, but even that’s not proof and it’s not even a quasi-proof of “determinism” as normally understood in the world of philosophy, contra Sapolsky, Jerry Coyne, British astronomer Coel and others), there is also no “science of life without free will.” There IS a "scienTISM of life without free will." My blog post linked above talks more about this tautology-based definition of “determinism.”<br /><br />As for determinism in an actual sense? On page 3, we jump right in to the Dan Dennett world of skyhooks, not cranes. Or, since Sapolsky repeats the old story about “all turtles,” we’re in that land.<br /><br />Even though this is not as dense as his previous book, when I hit that, I had two thoughts:<br /><br />1. We’re probably right there at a 3-star ceiling; how much lower will it go?<br />2. We may get quickly into the land of “grokking” or even to the land of “DNF.”<br /><br />There you are.<br /><br />Then, just two pages later, we have: “(P)unishment as retribution is indefensible.”<br /><br />And, folks, that’s strawmanning. Whether Sapolsky meant it as such, I don’t care; he shows even more that he’s in over his head philosophically, so is not deserving of the most charitable interpretation. Per the likes of Walter Kaufmann’s “Without Guilt and Justice,” linked above, retributive justice, to properly label it, is indefensible on ethical grounds whether determinism is true, classical free will is true, or my theory of some sort of psychological constraint + the non-existence of CONSCIOUS free will WITHOUT that meaning determinism as the alternative answer is true. Plenty of utilitarians, like a Peter Singer, will refute Sapolsky as well. Arguably, per Kaufmann’s book, which was in part a riposte to John Rawls, retributive justice is also indefensible on political science and similar grounds, again, whether or not Sapolsky is right about determinism.<br /><br />It’s also a case of putting the cart before the horse. Sapolsky appears to take a political science position he doesn’t like on ethical grounds and then try to use that as a proof or warrant of this thesis about determinism. (Kaufmann gives good thought-experiment quasi-empirical warrants for his thesis, doing things in the correct order.)<br /><br />Page 6, in a footnote (and just after seeing a Tweet-response by John Horgan about that fact) is that Sapolsky talks first about philosophers like Galen Strawson and Gregg Caruso (both of whom I’ve read) rejecting free will on philosophical grounds, then saying he isn’t like them, but that “(his) views are closest to those of Sam Harris, who, appropriately, is not only a philosopher but a neuroscientist as well.”<br /><br /><b>Oh, shit, we’re now officially in 2-star at best territory.</b> (Weirdly, Horgan told me he liked the book.) Harris is not a good, or really an actively practicing, philosopher. Ditto on neuroscience. What he IS, is a political agitpropper.<br /><br />To the degree Harris IS a philosopher, on ethics, he’s an ethical naturalist. And, I think the book that Sapolsky meant to write is a book of ethical naturalism, and somehow he thinks that ethical naturalism requires determinism. (It doesn’t. It’s also more wrong than right, and had Sapolsky written that book, it would also surely be highly wrong, just not in the Not.Even.Wrong space of the book he actually did write.)<br /><br />Also, at the body text for that footnote, Sapolsky then hedges his bets with:<br /><br />“This book has two goals. The first is to convince you that there is no free will, or at least that there is much less free will than generally assumed when it really matters.” Those are two different things. For instance, Daniel Wegner says there is no conscious free will, in a great book, without precluding unconscious free will, or without assuming that, at the consciousness level, this is a twosiderism issue and “no free will” = “yes determinism.” More in-depth, Wegner talks about free will as an emotional state, at least in part. See this <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-illusion-of-conscious-will.html " rel="nofollow noopener">in-depth review of mine</a> about "The Illusion of Conscious Will." Arguably, that doesn’t preclude some sort of determinism, but it does put the onus of proof, both in philosophy and evolutionary biology, on the determinism touters.<br /><br />And, speaking of that, since I’ve already accused Sapolsky, on good grounds, of strawmanning, I’ll now accuse him of question-begging, since that IS the background to his thesis.<br /><b><br />Back to the strawmanning on page 9, on his “second goal.”</b><br /><br />“It’s been a moral imperative for me to view humans without judgment the belief that anyone deserves anything special.” It’s a good sentiment. And, as I noted above, it’s TOTALLY not dependent on the “free will vs determinism” debate. And, besides strawmanning, this again proves Sapolsky is WAY over his head on what’s really Philosophy 101.<br /><br />This is illustrated further in his “four views” on pages 10-11. These are a sterile subset of the richness of discussion on the issue, and ignore the idea of subselves, subconsciousnesses, etc.,<br /><br />At this point, I did a couple of things.<br /><br />First, I posted a “currently reading” on Goodreads.<br /><br />Second, re me mentioning him above, I checked to see if he cited Wegner. He does, but ONLY in conjunction with Sapolsky’s thoughts on the Libet experiments, and not at all for Wegner as Wegner. He also cites not at all friend Massimo Pigliucci, who like Sapolsky, has a PhD in biology … and one in philosophy as well.<br /><br />Next, to the issue of definition of terms, and tying back to Sapolsky’s hedging of bets? In saying “mu” to the sterile old “free will vs determinism,” I have talked EXTENSIVELY about what I call “psychological constraint.” Sapolsky cites “priming” as a first-level example of this. <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2014/01/problems-with-determinism-mu-to-free.html" rel="nofollow noopener">I have cited</a> more serious examples, like how a history of childhood abuse increased a tendency toward adult addiction. <br /><br />This is NOT NOT NOT determinism, though, despite Sapolsky’s attempt to claim it is. And, to tie this back to philosophy, and specifically linguistic philosophy? I refuse to play his language game and accept that it IS determinism. And, other than trying to prove a childhood belief, I think this is the second biggest, second most “core” level wrong of the whole book.<br /><br />That said, that led to two more things.<br /><br />One is the likelihood that this book hits DNF territory. (I eventually slogged 3/4 through.)<br /><br />The other goes back to Page 9 and the “part two” of why this book. A fuller version of that quote above is:<br /><br />“As noted, I haven’t believed in free will since adolescence, and it’s been a moral imperative for me to view humans without judgment the belief that anyone deserves anything special.”<br /><br />So, whether he’s conscious of it or not, we have Sapolsky admitting that this entire book is motivated by belief first (and followed by what I’ve already identified as strawmanning, and am sure I’ll find cherrypicking on the science side, next, since I’ve already found definitional cherrypicking on the philosophy and psychology side) and everything else second. In other words, by page 9, we have two admissions, whether conscious or not, that the cart has been put in front of the horse.<br /><br /><b>At this point in my reading</b> I hit the point where I started thinking about "sad-tromboning little Bobby Sapolsky," with the links above. Soon after, with the philosophy links above, I started thinking about how how's probably getting determinism and ethical naturalism mixed up.<br /><br />But, I want to go further off that FFRF interview.<br /><br />In it, he diagnoses religious leaders as being schizotypal neurotics? It’s poor forensic psychology. It also ignores that, per twin studies and other things, schizophrenia is clearly not totally genetic. It also probably, on the non-genetic side, is not totally environmentally deterministic. It surely has bits of WEIRDness. The biggest picture, per that piece, is that I think he wants to posit a deterministic background for religiosity, and if we’re going to practice forensic psychology, then what’s sauce for the goose also is for the gander. I charge this is directly related to his childhood break with his Orthodox upbringing.)<br /><br />As I indicated in my blogging, and, to go beyond that, this is like Pascal’s Wager, free will version. Nope, Bobby, neither I nor the rest of the world “have to” believe in determinism.<br /><br />Nor do we have to accept that your childhood religious break warrants bad philosophical scrivening. See the JW snark up top.<br /><br /><b>At this point,</b> I'm about 60 pages in, knowing we're in 1-star territory because I can't vote lower (Storygraph lets you) and we're at the (in)famous Benjamin Libet and Libet experiments.<br /><br />Next? Well, citing Libet, of course, and claiming that what Libet founds proves that free will is a myth when it actually does no such thing. First, see what I said about Wegner and conscious will. Second, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/111595070/Critical_Review_of_Robert_M_Sapolsky_Determined_A_Science_Of_Life_Without_Free_Will_New_York_Penguin_2023_" rel="nofollow noopener">per this Academia piece</a>, Libet himself did not oppose free will (and as a presumable extension, did not see his experiments as refuting it). Libet there also talks about “natural law determinism,” which seems to be his phrase for what I call tautology-based determinism up top. That said, contra both that person and Sapolsky, Libet as experimenter, tho not as scrivener, has been at least somewhat dethroned. <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/09/benjamin-libet-dethroned-what-replaces.html" rel="nofollow noopener">See here</a>. <br /><br />That said, contra that author as well as Sapolsky, as a “mu-er” to “free will VERSUS determinism” and as a supporter of Idries Shah’s “more than two sides” idea, I support randomness as part of volition being injected into the mix. And, indeed per the disdain that Sapolsky has, and that Mr. Johnson appears to have, for “randomness” as an “Option 3” on this issue (shades of Idries Shah!) that’s indeed part of what Libet was probably measuring, per that link off my philosophy blog.</p><p>Sidebar: Alan Johnson, the Academia author, focuses on Sapolsky's logically bad argumentation, citing him for engaging in several classical informal logic fallacies. I think he does do that, but beyond that, there's a "framing" issue and the psychology I mention at top. Interestingly, Mr. Johnson appears to not have heard of Kaufmann or anyone like him.<br /><br /><b>Moving forward as I grok. </b>Yes, the insula evolved for diagnosis of physical disgust. Yes, it may have later been hijacked for moral disgust. Sapolsky ignores one thing that undercuts him there, though, and that is that many items of moral disgust are culturally based and thus controlled by cultural evolution. Even if cultural evolution is considered “deterministic,” it’s not the determinism of the simplistic type, nor even of his type of simplistic determinism + psychological constraint. In additional, cultural evolution evolves, in part, because of conscious decisions. People can choose not to adopt trends, or even to adopt countertrends. New world religions replace old ones. Bacon? Not disgusting to a Christian, though it was to a Jew. And, most hardcore physical disgust items — feces, vomit, etc. — don’t generally have moral values attached. And, most morally disgusting items, also contra Sapolsky, don’t make people want to vomit. Rather, they often invoke or perturb non-disgust emotions such as anger.<br /><br />There’s an additional side problem here. Sapolsky often, in talking about issues in this chapter, references behavioral psychology, on things like priming. Just one problem: Behavioral psych, like other branches of psych, has a replication problem. I’m sorry, TWO problems: In the person of Dan Ariely, it also has an apparent fraud problem. So, scratch any inductive reasoning in this book that leans too heavily on behavioral psych. <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2021/08/dan-ariely-alleged-fraudster.html" rel="nofollow noopener">See here</a>. (Sapolsky cites Ariely’s muse Kahnemann once in the index, Ariely not at all. Beyond all of the above, from what I know about priming, he overstates its long-term effects.<br /><br />What I am really reminded of here in reading this whole chapter is “feedback loops,” especially when he talks about hormones. CONSCIOUS (yes) decisions to exercise, hike, paint / play music / do other hobbies, meditate, journal, etc., are all undertaken in part by most practitioners as stress reducers. And you know what? They work! We’re more than our hormones, Bobby. <br /><b><br />HERE IS WHERE I HIT THE WALL at Goodreads!</b><br /></p><p>So, let's continue!</p><p>On to the chapter about “<b>grit</b>.” Sapolsky appears to be a black-and-white thinker here: it’s either all free will, or nothing. He doesn’t riff on Dennett’s idea of subselves to also hint at “subwillers.” As noted above, he doesn’t at all bring in Daniel Wegner for the idea of unconscious will, or the hinted-at idea of Wegner, and the stressed idea by me, that we need to say “mu” in the Buddhist sense to the whole free will “versus” determinism nonsense. As for Jerry Sandusky not being to blame? Contra the psychologist Sapolsky excoriated for saying that, why not? At least in Sapolsky’s black-and-white world. We see how he blanches.</p><p>The second of two chapters on <b>chaos</b>? Sapolsky says that chaos may not be predictable, but it’s still deterministic. First, is all chaos deterministic? (Ultimately, per the Big Bang theory, nothing’s fully deterministic, Little Bobby, whether you like that or not.) Second, to do a 180 on Dennett’s “The Varieties of Free Will Worth Having,” per Little Bobby’s rejectionist 13-year-old mind, a non-predictable determinism seems like a variety of determinism it might not be worth having; it also (see definitional issues above) conflates physical determinism and philosophical determinism. (Insert point here that Sapolsky seems much more of an ev psycher than he did in Monkeyluv and somewhat more than in Behave.) There’s also the issue that not every philosopher thinks one has to revert (sic) to chaos theory to prove, or even to defend, free will of some sort. Also, no, ontology is not “about determinism.” (eyeroll) It’s certainly not about determinism in the philosophical sense. Insert note about scientism here. Sapolsky goes further down that road in strawman arguments against philosophers who won’t accept his stance. Shock me.</p><p><b>Next, the two chapters on emergence issues.</b> I am “shocked” that Sapolsky nowhere references friend Massimo Pigliucci, and doubly so here, since Pigliucci trumps him with dual PhD’s, one in evolutionary biology and the other in … philosophy! Massimo is also at least as much an anti-ev psycher as I am, and big into eco-devo, which I think Sapolsky very much is not. He is also a proponent of <a href="https://plato.stanford.edu/archivES/FALL2017/Entries/evolution-cultural/" target="_blank">cultural evolution</a>.<br /></p><p>The second chapter on emergent properties is the biggie. It’s the biggie first because it’s where the rubber of Sapolsky’s willfulness hits the road. Quotes? “A lot of people have linked emergence and free will; I will not consider most of them because, to be frank, I can’t understand what they’re suggesting and to be franker, I don’t think the lack of comprehension is entirely my fault. As for those who have more accessible explored the idea that free will is emergent, I think there are broadly three different areas in which they go wrong.”</p><p>Problem 1, he says, ties back two chapters previous. Sapolsky again says that someone like Christian List basing free will on anything like chaos (interesting how Sapolsky focuses just on chaos and not the semi-parallel complexity science) are confusing unpredictability for nondeterminsm. I’ve already dealt with that one up above. We move on. Problem 2, he says, is “weak emergence” vs “strong emergence.” For support of his dismissal of strong emergence, he cites physicist Sean Carroll, not a philosopher, and philosopher David Chalmers, laughed at by many other philosophers for his p-zombies, the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hard_problem_of_consciousness" target="_blank">Hard problem of consciousness</a>” and other things that made him <a href="https://figsinwinter.substack.com/p/platos-mistake" target="_blank">Massimo’s whipping boy</a>, with more <a href="https://philosophynow.org/issues/99/What_Hard_Problem" target="_blank">here</a> from Massimo. INNNterestingly, firm materialist Sapolsky ignores that Chalmers is a panpsychist. Problem 3? “(W)here a final mistake creeps in is the idea that an emergent state can reach down and change the fundamental nature of the bricks comprising it.” I’ll switch from bricks to Roman concrete. Recent research has shown that the chunks of lime in Roman concrete are there deliberately, and that when water invades any cracks in the concrete, they actually promote its healing. So, I reject his analogy.</p><p>Chapter 9 is about <b>quantum indeterminancy</b>. Guess what? Sapolsky hedges: “Laplacian determinism (he referenced Laplace early on, and this makes clear he conflates physical determinism with philosophical determinism to come up with a tautological pseudo-philosophical determinism.) really does appear to fall apart down at the subatomic level; however, such eensy-weensy indeterminism is vastly unlikely to influence anything about behavior.”</p><p>Gig’s up.</p><p>First, “vastly unlikely” is not impossible.</p><p>Second, it’s a form of blame-shifting again. Sapolsky has spent whole chapters talking about how human evolution is determined, period and end of story. Not only does the “everyday” quantum world say otherwise, but the quantumness of the big bang says so in spades. Here, I’m reminded of Steve Gould, a good leftist himself and concerned about morality, fairness and humanist issues in general, who said that, if we rewound the clock of Earth and evolution, it would certainly come out differently.</p><p>Third, specifics? The quantum world produces cosmic radiation, among other things. Radiation which, randomly, can cause genetic mutations.
Third, part two? He admits that Browning motion undercuts genetic determinism.</p><p>Chapter 10 is a follow-up to extend quantumness to discussions of consciousness, etc. It too has three problems that Sapolsky alleges. Problem 1 is almost strawmanning by extension. One doesn’t have to be a determinist to reject John Eccles' epiphenomenalist dualism, Roger Penrose’s microtubules or other things. Problem 2 strawmans to a degree as well, namely about quantum “smearing” at higher levels. In all, though, this chapter wasn’t speaking to me, as a quantized world isn’t a primary non-deterministic argument of mine. (Remember, for the purposes of undercutting Little Bobby and adult Robert, we just need to poke holes in his rigid determinism; we don’t have to prove free will.)</p><p>The “<b>interlude</b>” to part 2? The big takeaway: “(I)f you base your notion of being a free, willful agent on randomness, you got problems.” Actually, Bobby, YOU got problems. In my world, that’s called “blame shifting.” Since you’re trying to prove determinism, all I have to do is show that stochastic variables (to use the more proper term), whether subatomic, atomic, at higher levels of purely physical interaction, even without the stereotypical butterfly wings of chaos theory, refute determinism. Oh? They do. Your hand-waving aside.</p><p>Next, the chapter about running “amok.” After saying in the Interlude that whatever the Libet experiments prove doesn’t matter, because it’s all a set of connected “-ologies,” Bobby now cites them again. Contain Whitmanesque multitudes, Bobby? Which one determines the others?</p><p><b>The main thrust of this chapter is about atheism, but has little to do with free will “versus” determinism. </b>Also, if I'm half right in thinking Sapolsky is misfiring and writing a book about determinism when he should really be writing a book about ethical naturalism? Atheism has nothing to do with that, either. And, under “highfalutin philosophy” (his phrase), are atheists really as deontological about fairness and harm avoidance as the religious? I doubt it; one footnote covers multiple paragraphs of ideas. And, I’m not even sure what being deontological would mean vis a vis harm avoidance! Anyway, the general thrust of the chapter seems to be that you don’t need god to be good. Agreed! And, you have atheist free-willers as well as atheist determinists like Sapolsky and atheist option-3 or no-twosider people like me. You have religious determinists (talk to a traditional Calvinist about double predestination or Muslim about kismet, Bobby), religious free willers, and I presume religious option-3 people. Again, none of this connects to his thesis. The chapter then gets worse in a way. Rather than putting Option 3 (which is itself broad) into a third dimension, Sapolsky puts it as one tight category, and in the world of religion, associating it with apatheists vs atheists and religious, calls this group a “trough” of less prosocial people. He says he knows of only one research survey to that end, but leans into it. In short, people like me are, in some ways, the truly bad people to him, since we're the people who don't engage in black-and-white thinking.</p><p><b>The latter part of the book has nothing to do with determinism. </b>It’s really Sapolsky’s indignity over retributive justice played forward. See what I said above about Kaufmann covering both retributive and distributive justice’s problems in general. I don’t need to read Oliver Wendell Holmes “three generations of imbeciles are enough” in the Buck case, people’s bloodlust, past generations’ misdiagnosis of causes of mental illness and more. They’re interesting, but have nothing to do with the subject at hand.</p><p>Finally? The people he asked to be manuscript readers, per the Acknowledgements? In addition to Slamming Sammy Harris and Gregg Caruso, sympathetic scientific names like Sean Carroll and Jerry Coyne pop up. Not a single philosopher who might be challenging. </p><p>==</p><p>* Some further comments about retributive and distributive justice, and also back-thoughts to Kaufmann's book.</p><p>Retributive justice, while it is primarily thought of in terms of the criminal justice system, is not always so. Blood feuds and such qualify as well, obviously. So too do many religious actions as punishment for non-criminal behavior, such as shunning or excommunication. And, it's a part of evolutionary biology, the "tit-for-tat" of reciprocal altruism when somebody doesn't reciprocate. So, tis true that it may have deterministic roots, but again, cultural evolution determines what is judge of more severe and less severe punishment, both within one cultural strain as it evolves and across cultures. (We don't cut off hands for theft any more, but also in the ancient world, not all other societies cut off hands for stealing a loaf of bread, unlike medieval and early modern Europe.)</p><p>Distributive justice is things like social welfare safety nets. These aren't a modern invention; just the broadness of them is. In Europe, albeit not so much the US, governments were more involved with them in the past at many times; discussion and theorizing on a government's role, versus that of churches, moved back and forth in different countries during late medieval and early modern times. Outside of old Europe, especially England/Britain, and its colonial offspring, I have no idea how this might have gone back and forth. That is, in the Gupta Empire, was the state, or Buddhist monasteries etc., more responsible for such safety nets?</p><p>That said, Kaufmann misses a beat here. He unconsciously hints (or seems to) that ultimately, our ideas of both retributive justice and distributive justice are just that — Ideas, as in the Platonic sense. Maybe he didn't think that through, but it sure comes off that way. Of course, that's ironic for Kaufmann, who in several of his books likes to talk about the prophets of the Tanakh talking about "justice rolling down" and variants on that trumpet, usually at the expense of Christianity. See <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/3307670541" target="_blank">my review</a> of Stanley Corngold's bio of him.</p><p>** On the religious leadership as schizotypalism and his forensic psychology? I pull this quote from FFRF (who also <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2013/11/gnuatheists-try-to-score-antihistorical.html" target="_blank">once tried to claim Abraham Lincoln was an atheist</a>, so the fact that this was an acceptance speech for Sapolsky getting their "Emperor" award isn't much):</p><blockquote><i>What is perfectly obvious here is that this entire picture applies just as readily to our western cultures. Western religions, all the leading religions, have this schizotypalism shot through them from top to bottom. It's that same exact principle: it's great having one of these guys, but we sure wouldn't want to have three of them in our tribe. Overdo it, and our schizotypalism in the Western religious setting is what we call a "cult," and there you are in the realm of a Charles Manson or a David Koresh or a Jim Jones.</i></blockquote><p>Really?</p><p>First, it's not limited to "Western religion." I highly doubt Sapolsky is a BuJew trying to protest Buddhism, but both Buddhism and Hinduism are littered with similar cultic figures. After all, "guru" has a denotative as well as connotative meaning, coming from that world!</p><p>Second, that could be seen as psychopathy just as much if not more than schizotypal personality disorder.</p><p>We then go to:</p><blockquote><i>There's a remarkable parallelism between religious ritualism and the ritualism of OCD. In OCD, the most common rituals are the rituals of self-cleansing, of food preparation, of entering and leaving holy places of emotional significance, and rituals of numerology.</i></blockquote><p>Many religious rituals aren't repetitive in the way of OCD, first. Second, boy, no wonder Little Bobby skipped his bar mitzvah if part of this, even was in his mind at age 13.</p><p>Finally, on all of this, I don't know if Sapolsky self-identifies as a Gnu Atheist, but with his scientism, his hostility toward religion rather than benign neglect, and his claim that most religiosity is mental illness, he sure walks, talks and quacks like a Gnu Atheist duck.</p><p><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/110433-socraticgadfly">View all my reviews</a>
</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-74205437240673476622024-02-01T09:00:00.003-06:002024-02-01T10:05:39.392-06:00It's secularists vs all others on taking climate change seriously<p>Don't let anybody tell you it's fundagelical Christians vs other Christians. Not even scholar of religion Ryan Burge. </p><p>Don't let him, or even more, #BlueAnon Dems, riffing on him, tell you it's Democrats vs. Republicans.</p><p>Burge's own data refutes him. <br /></p>At a recent <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2024/01/numbed-out-to-trump-win-numbed-out-to.html" target="_blank">Roaming Charges</a> for Counterpunch, Jeff St. Clair confirmed, with link to the <a href="https://apnorc.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/EPIC-factsheets.pdf" target="_blank">original AP</a>, that it's not Democrats vs Republicans.<br /><blockquote><i>Americans
are less convinced that climate change is caused mostly or entirely by
humans compared to data from recent years, declining from 60% in 2018 to
49% this year. </i>Americans are less convinced that climate change is
caused mostly or entirely by humans compared to data from recent years,
declining from 60% in 2018 to 49% this year. </blockquote><p>Followed by the nutgraf:</p><blockquote><i>Democrats
and independents are becoming less convinced that climate change is
caused mostly by humans, while Republican attitudes remain stable.</i></blockquote><p>So, most of that 11 point drop is from Dems. (I'd already anecdotally seen that in comments on a Nate Silver Substack.</p><p>That said, I talked more about that before diving into Burge <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2024/01/democratic-climate-change-deniers.html" target="_blank">on my main blog</a>, and I want to go more here than I did there about the religious vs secularist angle here.<br /></p><p>Religion scholar Burge, both an academic and a
congregational pastor, looked at this issue from a religion angle, based on recent Pew survey data. Christians of all stripes <a href="https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/do-evangelicals-care-about-climate" target="_blank">take climate change no more seriously</a>
than do non-Christians of other world religions. But, that's not the
biggie. It is that religious people in general take it less seriously
than agnostics and atheists. And, Religious Right smears aside, your
average Democrat is about as likely to be religious, and almost as
likely to be Christian, as your average Republican.</p><p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa35d2fda-c120-4cc8-9661-8e63d3f4649e_2700x1200.png" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="355" data-original-width="800" height="268" src="https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fa35d2fda-c120-4cc8-9661-8e63d3f4649e_2700x1200.png" width="605" /></a></div><p>As you see, this difference is HUGE.</p><p>Forget
about BlueAnon Democrats, or even Burge to some degree, trying to spin this as evangelicals vs others. (I commented multiple times there, posting a link to my main site blog post the last time, and identifying as secularist, with a graduate divinity degree, and also as non-duopoly leftist, and politely but firmly calling out Burge for what I saw as bad framing. No response.) </p><p>By
percentage points, the "all religions" vs "agnostics" gap is bigger than
"evangelicals" vs "all other religious." And, related to that, it's
also not Democrats vs Republicans, and forget about that spinnning too.
It's secularists vs. religious. By degree of difference, on the
"extremely serious," the separation between atheists and either "nones"
or "world religions" is GREATER than that between evangelicals and
non-evangelicals.<br /></p><p>Burge runs the religious breakdown through
the parties filter, and in this case, I don't think that's good framing.
More to the point, I don't think it's "fair" framing. He uses
"independent" to cover anything not D or R, first. Second, he doesn't do
a by party (plus independents, even if separating them by political
stance) breakout of religiosity. It's true that "nones" are more
Democrat than Republican, but that's also <a href="https://www.statista.com/statistics/1411981/us-religious-identity-of-republicans-and-democrats-2023/" target="_blank">not as much</a> as some might think, and "nones" is a catch-all anyway. <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/religious-landscape-study/party-affiliation/" target="_blank">Pew looks at</a> "belief in God," but also with the same three-way breakout of politics.</p><p>I
know that Burge has limited data on politics and religion when Pew has
only the standard three-way breakout. He had the choice of doing less
extrapolative guesstimates than he did, given that.</p><p>That said, he
does also look at age issues related to this. In all religious groups,
the younger are more worried than the older about climate change —
except atheists, where it's even across the board. <br /></p><p>That said, here's where I go even further in this direction in my main blog.</p><p>So, why do other world religions take this no more seriously than Christianity? </p><p>This is speculation, but here's my thought.</p><p>Part of it may be this is a religious consensus in America, and other world religions are going along with Christianity: god will deliver us.</p><p>Part of that, though, may be already held doctrine or metaphysics within the other world religions.</p><p>Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox Jews, broadly speaking, hold to some sort of quasi-armageddon ideas, even if not like the Jews of Qumran.</p><p>Islam also believes in a last judgement of some sort.</p><p>In both cases, per Isaiah as well as Revelation and words likely in the Quran, there will be a new heaven and a new earth. That said, the afterlife is pictured as in heaven/paradise, so a new earth doesn't matter anyway. Now, the more liberal-minded in these traditions, as with more liberal-minded Christians, may still preach the idea of "stewardship" not "dominion" over the current earth, but, believing in an afterlife, still don't have the same framing as secularists. (I use that term both because it identifies what I accept, not what others say I don't believe, and also because tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of Theravada Buddhists are also "atheist" by definition.)</p><p>And, with that, let's transition. </p><p>Buddhism can ultimately preach the dogma of maya about climate change as part of maya about this world in general, especially suffering in this world. Yes, it can also talk about looking for Buddha-nature in every sentient being, such as, say, pika threatened with mountain-stranding species death by climate change. But, it's probably still maya at bottom.</p><p>Hinduism? A cyclical world. Eternal recurrence. So, climate change may be a problem now, but, in the long long term of Hindu eons? Nope.</p><p>That may be true of other religions, more "indigenous," of present or past that have similar ideas on the cyclical world of nature.</p><p>Modern New Ageism? Maybe the Marianne Williamsons of the world believe we just need to focus enough to "manifest" a world free of the worst of climate change. And, yes, cult of Marianne, as I've said on my main blog, she does believe, or has believed, in the idea of manifestation.</p><p>We secularists?</p><p>An issue like this is precisely why I became a leftist, not a liberal, when leaving the conservative Lutheranism, and conservative Lutheran socio-political mindset, of my upbringing as I was finishing up my seminary time.</p><p><b>THIS WORLD IS IT.</b></p><p>Period.</p><p>What else is there to say?</p><p>One final thing.</p><p>The "Nones." <br /></p><p>Burge, and many others, in talking about the continued rise of the Nones, note correctly that most of them are the "spiritual but not religious types." In other words, they still have religious-type metaphysical beliefs. Also, <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-nones-are-not-dan-dennetts-brights.html" target="_blank">many appear to be</a> simply Christians without a denominational home. And, another piece by Burge shows that religiosity and spirituality track each other <a href="https://www.graphsaboutreligion.com/p/im-spiritual-not-religious-an-empirical" target="_blank">fairly closely</a>. With all that in mind, that's background to why the climate issue shows why, at least on this political issue, the "rise of the Nones" is no big deal.</p><p>That said, the Nones, while <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2017/10/in-year-2020-nones-will.html" target="_blank">once rising</a>, plateaued <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2021/10/the-nones-have-slipped-too.html" target="_blank">during COVID</a>; I haven't seen data since COVID went to endemic to see if that pause, or even slippage, has changed back to a renewed rise.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-54654385658876642452024-01-25T09:03:00.001-06:002024-01-25T10:02:31.284-06:00Andy Clark: Another theory of, and theorist of, consciousness that isn't<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61028382-the-experience-machine" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="The Experience Machine" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1670884142l/61028382._SX98_.jpg" /></a><p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61028382-the-experience-machine">The Experience Machine</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/99329.Andy_Clark">Andy Clark</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6060995262">3 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Better than Anil Seth, but that's a low bar to clear.<br /><br />But, that's a good starting point for this review, which, as normal, is extended beyond my Goodreads one.<br /><br />“Predictive processing” sounds more accurate than “controlled hallucination,” especially one notes the denotative meaning of “hallucination.” (I suspect that’s why some cognitive scientists, philosophers etc., use the latter. Anil Seth, who is IMO a cheap knockoff of Clark [and a blurber of this book!] <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5574645649" rel="nofollow noopener">comes immediately to mind</a>. Hence, my opening paragraph.)<br /><br />Second, Clark explains the whole idea of feedback loops, and partial parallels to empiricism, better than Seth's book. Again, though, a low bar to clear.<br /><br />In an mildly extended Interlude about halfway in, Clark dives head-on into “the hard problem of consciousness.” Contra a David Chalmers, he indicates that it’s at least a part of preconceptions, as he first tackles the “meta-problem,” that of the temptation of various dualisms. After that, he says the “hard problem” will look different than often presented, especially if we look at hidden tangled expectations re things like those “pesky qualia.”<br /><br />But, he never does really seem to tackle the issue as head-on as he promises. More below.<br /><br />That said, does Clark have it all right? Perhaps, per one of his strongest critics at the end of a New Yorker piece, he’s offering up a Panglossian view of how the mind works. <br /><br /><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/02/the-mind-expanding-ideas-of-andy-clark" rel="nofollow noopener">Per his primary critic</a>, Jakob Hohwy, and going beyond him? Placebos don’t always work. Certainly, “positivity” in attempting to reframe mental illness doesn’t work. (Clark’s ideas on depression don’t seem that different than CBT. His ideas on schizophrenia seem both superficial and largely wrong.) And, the idea that you might even “reset” or “repredict” physical health skirts somewhere halfway close to New age quackery.<br /><br />And, other aspects? His “interlude” doesn’t really deal that much with pesky qualia. It ignores that qualia are of multiple types. It ignores that some are likely more “grounded” in top-down empirical knowledge than he will admit. “Redness” is an obvious example, with the only differentiating factor being the exact peak frequency in red wavelength in nanometers for your red cone cells vs mine. That said, what does a weaker version of Sapir-Whorf have to say about qualia? If your language doesn’t have a word for “yellow,” is there no “yellow qualia”? What if there’s not even no word, but no concept for, “schadenfreude,” to get to something very non-empirical.<br /><br />In short, like Seth, the energy reduction angle, re Karl Friston and his free-energy principle, of predictive processing is a no-brainer. But, not unique to this theory. Any theory of cognition in general has something like that at base. Again, though, a low bar to clear, and broadly similar ideas are tied not just to other theories of consciousness, but theories of how the human mind in general operates.</p><p>There's one other issue. Predictive processing sounds a lot like AI-type feedback loops, with the "feedback" and "course corrections" being straight and neat. We know, contra many philosophers and cognitive scientists still trying to go down this road, that the brain isn't a computer, or that the embodied brain isn't a robot. Clark may have smoked some of Dan Dennett's shorties from "The Mind's I," but that doesn't make him, or them, any more true.<br /><br />In addition, while the full schmeer of Clark's idea may have a fair amount of truth for homo sapiens, I doubt it, further "down" the animal evolutionary world, talking about evolutionary animal psychological development. (There's a phrase for a non-Ev Psych approach to that, but I can't remember what it is.)</p><p>Also, the "prediction" involved with tracking a batted baseball has been discussed elsewhere, and is not the same as predicting another human being's mental changes. In short, it doesn't well allow for theory of mind. Combine these last two paragraphs together, and while Clark may have a partial theory of human consciousness, it's not complete for humans or non-humans, especially not for the non-human portions of consciousness.<br /></p><p>Beyond that, I don't know if Clark disses a Dan Wegner the way Anil Seth did, but it's something to keep in mind.
In short, there seems to be, in addition to this being only a partial explainer, an anti-Ockhamite problem. One shouldn't multiply entities beyond necessity, but one shouldn't cast necessary ones away, either. </p><p>Finally, I think there’s a fair amount of psychological projection
behind Clark’s theorizing. Probably any philosopher with a theory of
consciousness does some of that (see "Dennett, Daniel"), but the New
Yorker piece ("primary critic," above) plus Clark's own comments cued me
in to the projection level being high here. So, no, don't hang your hats, cranes or skyhooks on what Clark is preaching.<br /><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/110433-socraticgadfly">View all my reviews</a>
</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-36547779531351141982024-01-18T09:20:00.001-06:002024-01-18T09:20:00.132-06:00Top posts, last quarter of 2023<p> I don't do a monthly roundup, unlike at my main blog. But, here is a roundup of the last quarter of 2023.</p><p> Again, not all of these may have been written in 2023, but they were the most read the last quarter.<br /></p><p>We'll start from the bottom.</p><p>No. 10? Bart Ehrman <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/10/bart-ehrman-goes-from-jw-to-marcionite.html" target="_blank">goes from JW to Marcionite</a>, comparing his second most recent book to his most recent. </p><p>No. 9? An extended book review. "A Canticle for Leibowitz" was VERY interesting, but a set of secong and third thoughts <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/10/stacking-deck-in-canticle-for-leibowitz.html" target="_blank">led me to call out</a> various things related to the ethnicity of that person Leibowitz.</p><p>No. 8 was one of many posts about stupidities at Reddit's r/AcademicBiblical, as <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/07/and-more-wrongness-at-racademic-biblical.html" target="_blank">I called out a shitload of stupidity</a> in people commenting on a post about the Woman Taken in Adultery pericope from John.</p><p>No. 7? "S<a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2017/04/say-goodbye-to-history-for-atheists.html" target="_blank">ay goodbye to History for Atheists</a>" was written in 2017, but has been updated more than once since then.</p><p>No. 6 was also from last year, and also from r/AcademicBiblical. and was <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/09/once-again-smart-fool-at.html" target="_blank">various commenting fails</a>
by "Smart Fool" at the same subreddit. </p><p>No. 5? The myth that Paul Hill from St. John's College wrote "Lean on Me," <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-lutheran-college-myth-bites-dust.html" target="_blank">blogged years ago</a>, started trending, in part because I posted a piece where I had dropped this link onto a St. John's College Facebook group.</p><p>At No. 4, from a year ago January, Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod President Matthew Harrison is
either actually dealing with or else pretending to deal with <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/06/fascism-in-lutheran-church-missouri.html" target="_blank">Trumpian-aligned fascism in his denomination</a>.</p><p>No. 3? Calling out Robert Sapolsky <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/10/sapolsky-all-wet-on-no-free-will-means.html" target="_blank">for being all wet</a> on the hoary chestnut of "free will vs determinism," first for believing this dichotomy really exists and secondly for plumping for determinism.<br /></p><p>No. 2 deserves a hat tip to Paul Davidson of "Is That in the Bible"? I riffed on a post of his, into standing both the kingship of Josiah and the development of Deuteronomy <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/11/standing-josiah-and-deuteronomy-on.html" target="_blank">on their heads.</a><br /></p><p>Drumroll ....</p><p>No. 1? As if a first round of proofs wasn't enough, "<a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2007/07/more-proof-buddha-was-no-buddha.html" target="_blank">More proof the Buddha was no Buddha</a>."
Goes way back to 2007, but trended because I posted it to a subreddit
in response to some Buddhist chuds. But, the comments long before that,
like "Addie"? Claiming that the Buddha's teachings are ineffable sounds
like Paul quoting Job in Romans. Nope on both. <br /></p><p><br /></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-26787230732081055862024-01-11T09:00:00.003-06:002024-01-11T09:00:00.245-06:00Top posts of 2023<p> Again, not all of these may have been written in 2023, but they were the most read last year.</p><p>We'll start from the bottom.</p><p>At No. 10, from January 2023, me calling out a then-new moderator at Reddit's r/AcademicBiblical site as <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/01/a-new-sheriff-at-racademicbiblical.html" target="_blank">a moderator Nazi, for various good reasons</a>, which eventually got me comment-banned there, and led to me starting my own, currently restricted group. </p><p>No. 9 was also from last year and was <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/09/once-again-smart-fool-at.html" target="_blank">various commenting fails</a> by "Smart Fool" at the same subreddit. (There will be more; when none of the mods has an academic biblical degree, even at the bachelor's level, you get problems.)</p><p>No. 8? The myth that Paul Hill from St. John's College wrote "Lean on Me," <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2020/04/a-lutheran-college-myth-bites-dust.html" target="_blank">blogged years ago</a>, started trending, in part because I posted a piece where I had dropped this link onto a St. John's College Facebook group.</p><p>No. 7, from way back in 2009, trending because I posted it to various biblical subreddits, including with the Nazi. "<a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2009/04/paul-passover-jesus-gnosticism.html" target="_blank">Paul, Passover, Jesus, Gnosticism</a>" ties together several critical threads.</p><p>No. 6? As if a first round of proofs wasn't enough, "<a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2007/07/more-proof-buddha-was-no-buddha.html" target="_blank">More proof the Buddha was no Buddha</a>." Goes way back to 2007, but trended because I posted it to a subreddit in response to some Buddhist chuds. But, the comments long before that, like "Addie"? Claiming that the Buddha's teachings are ineffable sounds like Paul quoting Job in Romans. Nope on both.</p><p>No. 5? Back to this past year. Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod President Matthew Harrison is either actually dealing with or else pretending to deal with <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/06/fascism-in-lutheran-church-missouri.html" target="_blank">Trumpian-aligned fascism in his denomination</a>.</p><p>No. 4? Way back in 2006, but trending because I posted it to r/classicalmusic. "<a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2006/02/mahler-anti-beethoven.html" target="_blank">Mahler: the anti-Beethoven</a>" invites discussion.</p><p>No. 3? "S<a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2017/04/say-goodbye-to-history-for-atheists.html" target="_blank">ay goodbye to History for Atheists</a>" was written in 2017, but has been updated more than once since then.</p><p>No. 2 goes back to the world of Reddit. <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/08/anal-retentive-liars-by-implication.html" target="_blank">I called out</a> anally-retentive mods at r/religion and (of course) got banned.</p><p>Drumroll ....</p><p>No. 1 again goes to r/AcademicBiblical, as <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/07/and-more-wrongness-at-racademic-biblical.html" target="_blank">I called out a shitload of stupidity</a> in people commenting on a post about the Woman Taken in Adultery pericope from John.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-78642877247674976832024-01-04T09:00:00.010-06:002024-01-04T10:26:25.209-06:00The United Methodist Church crackup, detailed<p> Shock me that the (currently) second-largest United Methodist church in the US <a href="https://dnyuz.com/2023/12/18/with-a-deadline-looming-the-united-methodist-church-breaks-up/" target="_blank">is in Southlake</a>, tilts semi-wingnut within the UMC, and has its growth being driven by Californication. </p><p>More seriously, "shock me" that the departing churches are in general, older and whiter. They're also more Southern, as well as more theologically conservative in general. While "teh gay" and official UMC "don't ask, don't tell" policy on gay ministers is driving the split, larger social justice issues — or resistance to them — in the post-George Floyd era are also in play.</p><p>Also shock me that there's not one but two official conservative denominational offshoots. Once the tent is shrunk, there's usually a fight about just how small it should be. Liturgy (including inclusive language), worship styles, hymnody and other things come into play. Also, within more conservative Methodists, there may be frisson, or fission, between modern conservative evangelical types and traditional conservative Methodists.<br /></p><p>And, follow the money:</p><blockquote><i>Mr. Bickerton, the bishop, said that many of the congregations that left the United Methodists seemed to be motivated as much by a desire for financial independence as by deep theological differences.
“We’ve learned this is not as much about human sexuality as we thought,” he said. “This is about power, control and money.” ... Because of its extraordinary growth, White’s Chapel paid the denomination about $600,000 annually, and had lost confidence that its money was being well spent by a remote administrative bureaucracy, said Rev. Larry Duggins, a longtime member who the church hired to help manage the separation process.</i></blockquote><p>And, follow a church polity matter.</p><blockquote><i>In Southlake, congregants were increasingly wary of the direction of the national denomination’s theology. But they were also unhappy with the Methodist policy of moving pastors to new locations every three years. </i></blockquote><p>Methodists aren't alone here. Catholics reassign priests about every 4-5 years. And, within Methodism in the US, it's been a policy for decades if not longer. The idea, in both churches, as I understand it, is precisely to keep an individual minister from building up a church-politics power base. Especially within Protestant churches that might be a bit less hierarchical than Catholicism, the idea of megachurch pastors within their midst is problematic. They look at the Southern Baptist Convention and say they don't want that. (Surprised my former-life conservative wing of Lutheranism doesn't have more problems with this.)<br /></p><p>Also, I think that like Catholics and Episcopalians (whose own fissures, per the 1928 Book of Common Prayer Anglican-type US Episcopalian fracture), there's church property ownership issues with the Methodist split. That too is a matter of follow the money.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-80721466347506794992023-12-28T20:51:00.000-06:002023-12-28T20:51:23.193-06:00More r/AcademicBiblical roundup<p> NO, Yonathan Adler does NOT "<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/17ti9os/does_yonatan_adler_overegg_it_a_bit_in_the/" target="_blank">over-egg it</a>" on his magisterial new study of the origin of Jewish beliefs and praxis. (Said person is a good commenter on Aussie politics, though.)</p><p>Fortunately, several people set straight <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/17raurg/paul_and_the_gospels/" target="_blank">this poster's presumption</a> that Pauline influences aren't in the gospels.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-5770968366284450552023-12-21T09:00:00.000-06:002023-12-21T09:00:00.139-06:00Brief observations on Paul Davidson of "Is That In the Bible?"I love me some Paul Davidson, author of "<a href="https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/" target="_blank">Is That in the Bible?</a>" (Also u/CaptainHaddock at r/AcademicBiblical. And, sigh, a mod there now, too.) But, Jonathan Poletti, the "Belover" of Medium, <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2022/04/the-bullshit-of-jonathan-poletti.html" target="_blank">the pusher of the Shroud of Turin</a> and other stuff there, on your blogroll? The Poletti <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2021/06/more-jesus-stupidity-from-xn.html" target="_blank">who makes up</a> liberal evangelical Protestant dudebro claims about what Jesus believed? Really?<p>Also, in <a href="https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2023/02/22/the-origins-of-the-parable-of-the-sower-and-other-seedy-riddles/" target="_blank">this piece</a>? I'm <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2020/03/jesus-mythicist-deck-stacking.html" target="_blank">more leery</a> of Tom Dykstra than that, though nothing about Mark's Chapter 4 parables impinges on Jesus mythicism, I'll note. OTOH, per my link, one of Dykstra's pieces I criticized was him talking about sources in Mark. (And link rot says it's gone.) <br /></p><p>And, linking to the Westar Institute's blog, and also to a decade-old book from its Acts Seminar? Interesting.</p><p>Also interesting? Several of the people on his blogroll haven't posted anything in years. One won't load and ergo is presumably defunct. (That said, I got the new Ehrman review from a site that is still posting fresh stuff.) Another blocked me for whatever reason, not human blocking, but internet-mechanical blocking; it said I was blocked. James McGrath? On the conservative side of critical scholarship indeed; I've tangled with him about the origins of the Eucharist and other things.</p><p>I don't think Davidson is a mythicist himself. I can't even say that he's a secularist. He is studious when he writes, and in much depth. I don't know that he's explained why.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-34581812498835695682023-12-14T09:00:00.044-06:002023-12-14T09:00:00.142-06:00Intercessory prayer DOES NOT WORK<p> This is not against the U.S. Religious Right, mainly Christian, but with a few Orthodox Jews along for the ride, and even, for political reasons, a few Muslims.<br /></p><p>This is against the Religious Center and Left, as well as Right, of all religious traditions that believe in praying to a god(dess) to get him/her to change their minds.</p><p><a href="https://www.skeptophilia.com/2023/12/the-problem-with-intercessory-prayer.html" target="_blank">Via Tales of Whoa</a>, who says (rightfully) that even within the world of religiosity, with the Western dual-omni god, at least, this is one that doesn't make ANY sense, we have this in-depth research test.</p><p><a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10689938/" target="_blank">It checks all the scientific boxes</a>:</p><p>Remote</p><p>Random</p><p>Double-blinded.</p><p>People were asked to pray for COVID patients' recoveries. And it made no difference.</p><p>Zip. Zilch. Nada.</p><p>Summary details:</p><blockquote><i>The objective of this study was to evaluate the effect of intercessory prayer performed by a group of spiritual leaders on the health outcomes of hospitalized patients with Novel Coronavirus (COVID-19) infection, specifically focusing on mortality and hospitalization rates. Design: This was a double-blinded, controlled, and randomized trial conducted at a private hospital in São Paulo, Brazil. Interventions: Both groups continued to receive their usual medical care in accordance with HCor Hospital's institutional patient care protocol for COVID-19 patients. Intervention: Both groups received their regular medical care according to HCor's institutional patient care protocol for COVID-19 patients. The intervention group, in addition to standard treatment, received intercessory prayers performed by a group of spiritual leaders. Main outcome measures: The primary endpoint was in-hospital mortality. Secondary endpoints included the need for mechanical ventilation during hospitalization, duration of mechanical ventilation, length of ICU stay, and length of hospital stay. Results: A total of 199 participants were randomly assigned to the groups. The primary outcome, in-hospital mortality, occurred in 8 out of 100 (8.0 %) patients in the intercessory prayer group and 8 out of 99 (8.1 %) patients in the control group (HR 0.86 [0.32 to 2.31]; p = 0.76). Additionally, there were no significant differences between the groups in terms of secondary outcomes. Conclusion: The study found no evidence of an effect of intercessory prayer on the primary outcome of mortality or on the secondary outcomes of hospitalization time, ICU time, and mechanical ventilation time.</i></blockquote><p>A total of 199 patients is relatively robust, too, at least partially undercutting "small sample size" claims.</p><p>As for the theology, philosophy of religion and related?</p><p>This issue hits home hardest with the classical Western monotheisms, post-early Jewish contact with Greek philosophy. In other words, the "dual-omni" god, as I call him, both omnipotent and omnibenevolent.</p><p>But, this critter doesn't even have to be omnibenevolent. Only the first omni is really in play, as long as omniscience is understood as a subset of omnipotence.</p><p>So, you have a deity who already knows what is going to happen because, and in addition to he (she, it) having already created things to happen and play out that way. And yet, you're praying for him to change his mind.</p><p>After all, the Torah records Moses himself as saying, in Numbers 23:19:</p><blockquote><i>God is not human, that he should lie, not a human being, that he should change his mind.</i></blockquote><p>There you go.</p><p>BUT?!</p><p>After the Great Flood, when Yahweh smells Noah's burnt offering, although Genesis 8:21 doesn't use the actual word, he is said to have "repented" of what he did. Of course, before that, in Genesis 6:6, he "repented" of having created human beings in the first place, and there, the Hebrew word is used.</p><p>Beyond that, in Genesis 8, Yahweh is just as much quasi-human as Zeus, as he "repents" precisely because he SMELLS Noah's burnt offering.<br /></p><p>Fact is, of course, as this illustrates, there is no theology of the Bible, or of the Tanakh or New Testament. Nor even of individual books that have gone through multiple writing and editorial hands.</p><p>Of course, there is, in Isaiah, the passage, II Kings 20, when Hezekiah is told that his illness will kill him and he prays and gets 15 more years of life.</p><p>I guess believers in an omnipotent god could say this was his own plan all along and he just didn't make that clear. In other words, per Job as filtered through Paul in Romans, this is god's inscrutability and y'all on earth just need to shut up.</p><p>Well, <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2020/05/francis-collins-templeton-prize-and.html" target="_blank">as I have called it</a>, that's the psychological division of the problem of evil, so you just opened a bigger can of worms. And, per what started us off? The more liberally religious, at least in Christianity, as well as the wingnuts, <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2012/08/a-failed-attempt-at-theodicy.html" target="_blank">ultimately go there</a>.</p><p>Or, also among the semi-liberal theologically, but something also used by religious fundamentalists there's C.S. Lewis, whose essay "Does Prayer Work" Tales of Whoa cites. Lewis says, in essence, that in a scientific test mode, this isn't real prayer. Gee, don't we have psi phenomena people claim exactly the same when telekinesis, etc., are subjected to scientific testing?</p><p>But, Lewis and the wingnuts are wrong anyway, as the study allowed for exactly that:</p><blockquote><i>The intercessors consisted of Protestant religious leaders who were selected based on their faith, availability, and commitment to daily prayers for a specific period. They were volunteers from Protestant congregations across various cities and denominations. The theological knowledge of each intercessor could not be objectively evaluated, but their voluntary participation and shared belief in the efficacy of prayer for the sick were significant factors in their selection.</i></blockquote><p>Your last door is closed.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-29167263916138577972023-12-07T09:00:00.031-06:002024-01-02T17:32:22.214-06:00Michael Hudson needs to leave biblical exegesis to others<p>I've called out Hudson before for his apparent belief that the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jubilee_(biblical)" target="_blank">biblical year of jubilee</a>,
or the seven-cycle culmination of sabbath years with an extra year to
make 50, was actually real. The truth is that, as Edward Chancellor
details in "<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5283700675" target="_blank">The Price of Time</a>,"
kings in the ancient Near East (anachronism, but still often used)
would occasionally, upon their accession, have a debt jubilee, but only
then, and only for certain types of debt. And, the reason they did them
was not because of divine mandate but (derp!) to quell social unrest. It
was a one-off of Rome's bread and circuses. No ancient kingdom or
empire had anything like the biblical ideal, and the 7x7 numerological
artifice should alone indicate this isn't real.</p><p>But, Hudson still thinks he's an academic biblical exegete, and <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2023/11/20/were-the-biblical-prophets-anti-semitic/" target="_blank">his latest proffering</a>
(link is to Counterpunch, but it's also at Naked Capitalism, and problably Alternet, TruthOut or other places) is based on the current Israel-Gaza war. Many people, not just
academically trained (if not in actual academia, like me) exegetes, but
people in the general populace, know about <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2015&version=esv" target="_blank">I Samuel 15</a>,
where Yahweh orders Saul to commit a holocaust (I used that word
specifically, not just "genocide," precisely because of the current
situation) against Amalek, the Amalekite people. In fact, via the
prophet or judge Samuel, Yahweh tells King Saul to kill not just all the
people but even all their livestock.</p><p>Hudson, perhaps in part
acting Jesuitically or Pharasaically (take your linguistic poison) on
parsing the verbiage, claims it ain't so:</p><blockquote><i>Netanyahu
has evoked what he claims to be a Biblical excuse for Israeli genocide.
But what he pretends to be a covenant in the tradition of Moses is a
vicious demand by the judge and grey eminence Samuel telling Saul, the
general whom he hopes to make king: “Now go and smite Amalek [an enemy
of Israel], and totally destroy everything that belongs to them. Do not
spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and
sheep, camels and donkeys” (1 Samuel 15:3).</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>These were not the Lord’s own words, and Samuel was no Moses.</i></blockquote><p>Really?</p><p>Let's quote the start of 1 Samuel 15, specifically, verses 1-3, not just verse 3:</p><blockquote><i>And
Samuel said to Saul, “The Lord sent me to anoint you king over his
people Israel; now therefore listen to the words of the Lord. 2 Thus
says the Lord of hosts, ‘I have noted what Amalek did to Israel in
opposing them on the way when they came up out of Egypt. 3 Now go and
strike Amalek and devote to destruction[a] all that they have. Do not
spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep,
camel and donkey.’”</i></blockquote><p>’Tis so indeed, Hudson.</p><p>But wait! Hudson gets better:</p><blockquote><i>It was not the Lord offering that command to destroy Amalek, but a prophet anxious to place a king on the throne.</i></blockquote><p>Really?
So, in essence, Hudson is calling Samuel a false prophet. And, lying
about the run-up to Saul being anointed on top of it.<br /></p><p>That also ’taint so, as selected verses from 1 Samuel <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%209&version=ESV" target="_blank">9</a> and <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%2010&version=ESV" target="_blank">10</a> tell us. We start with 9:15-16:</p><blockquote><i>15
Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel: 16
“Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of
Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince[c] over my people
Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I
have seen[d] my people, because their cry has come to me.” </i></blockquote><p>Then to chapter 10: 1-2:</p><blockquote><i>Then
Samuel took a flask of oil and poured it on his head and kissed him and
said, “Has not the Lord anointed you to be prince[a] over his people
Israel? And you shall reign over the people of the Lord and you will
save them from the hand of their surrounding enemies. And this shall be
the sign to you that the Lord has anointed you to be prince[b] over his
heritage.</i></blockquote><p>Now, later in chapter 10, in what is surely another "hand," we have this, in 10:17-19:</p><blockquote><i>17
Now Samuel called the people together to the Lord at Mizpah. 18 And he
said to the people of Israel, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘I
brought up Israel out of Egypt, and I delivered you from the hand of
the Egyptians and from the hand of all the kingdoms that were oppressing
you.’ 19 But today you have rejected your God, who saves you from all
your calamities and your distresses, and you have said to him, ‘Set a
king over us.’ Now therefore present yourselves before the Lord by your
tribes and by your thousands.”</i></blockquote><p>This is preceded by another "bookmark," the full chapter of <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1%20Samuel%208&version=ESV" target="_blank">1 Samuel 8</a>,
also having Yahweh telling Samuel it's the people's fault, not his.
But, opening verses there show this was partially Samuel's fault that
the people wanted a king. We read in 8: 1-5:</p><blockquote><i>When
Samuel became old, he made his sons judges over Israel. 2 The name of
his firstborn son was Joel, and the name of his second, Abijah; they
were judges in Beersheba. 3 Yet his sons did not walk in his ways but
turned aside after gain. They took bribes and perverted justice.
4 Then all the elders of Israel gathered together and came to Samuel at
Ramah 5 and said to him, “Behold, you are old and your sons do not walk
in your ways. Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the
nations.”</i></blockquote><p>So, it seems clear there are two
narratives. Chapter 9 and the first half of 10 have an enthusiastic
embrace of a king, it seems, sandwiched between warnings. Proof of this?
A bad transition from from the end of 8 to start of 9. 8:22 has:</p><blockquote><i>And
the Lord said to Samuel, “Obey their voice and make them a king.”
Samuel then said to the men of Israel, “Go every man to his city.”</i></blockquote><p>Followed by 9:1-2:</p><blockquote><i>There
was a man of Benjamin whose name was Kish, the son of Abiel, son of
Zeror, son of Becorath, son of Aphiah, a Benjaminite, a man of wealth. 2
And he had a son whose name was Saul, a handsome young man. </i></blockquote><p>But it gets better. 9:15-16 says:</p><blockquote><i>15
Now the day before Saul came, the Lord had revealed to Samuel: 16
“Tomorrow about this time I will send to you a man from the land of
Benjamin, and you shall anoint him to be prince[c] over my people
Israel. He shall save my people from the hand of the Philistines. For I
have seen[d] my people, because their cry has come to me.”</i></blockquote><p>Note
the footnote there, that Saul here is not called "king." That's another
example we're dealing with two hands. Indeed, one thread appears to end
at 1 Samuel 12 with Samuel's death, with him missing entirely in chapters 13-14 before popping up again in chapter 15. Somewhat Joshua, but definitely,
Judges and the two books of Samuel of the Former Prophets, as shown in
various Greek versions and also at Qumran, have a torturous history. <br /></p><p>I Samuel 13:1, Masoretic Text version:<br /></p><blockquote><i>Saul lived for one year and then became king, and when he had reigned for two years over Israel</i></blockquote><p>Is proof positive of this torturous history.<br /></p><p>The positive thread starts Chapter 10, then, as noted above.<br /></p><p>Clearly,
the previous narrative not only has Samuel being told by Yahweh to
anoint Saul, but it being presented as a good thing in Yahweh's eyes,
overall.<br /></p><p>But, Hudson nowhere at all wrestles with how this evolved. </p><p>Also, contra Hudson, in neither of the two threads (setting aside the possibility there were originally more than two) does it say that Samuel wanted Saul to be king. That's Goalpost Shifting 101. Also, Saul is not mentioned as being a general when crowned. In I Samuel 9-10, he's simply a young man looking for lost donkeys.<br /></p><p>The rest of Hudson's piece is more crapola.</p><p>He
is clueless about just how torturous the text-developmental history of 1
and 2 Samuel in general were, first of all. Second, whether Saul was a
real person or not, or even David, for that matter, later kings who
perceived themselves as David's heirs needed to in some way justify what
seemed to be a usurpation.</p><p>Next, Hudson gets on his debt hobbyhorse:</p><blockquote><i>The
Jewish Bible is remarkable in criticizing the kings who ruled Judah and
Israel. It is in fact a long narrative of social revolution, in which
religious leaders sought – often successfully – to check the power of a
selfish and aggressive oligarchy that was denounced again and again for
its greed in impoverishing the poor, taking their land and reducing them
to debt bondage.</i></blockquote><p>’Taint so, Michael.</p><p>First, there is no "theology of the Tanakh" any more than there is a "theology
of the New Testament." And, given the torturous history of 1 Samuel in
particular and all four of the Former Prophets/Deuteronomic history in
general, there's no unifying theology of the four books, or even the one
book. As for him citing Ezra in that piece? That was the same Ezra who commanded IMMEDIATE divorce of non-Jewish wives.<br /></p><p>As I said on Twitter, Hudson needs to talk to a good modern exegete of the Tanakh, say an Idan Dershowitz, before writing any more dreck like this.</p><p>(Sidebar: If Hudson does want to go hunting for a background to the issue
of debt that stands on better ground than his attempt to base it on
biblical jubilee years? <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/431372-freuchen-tells-how-one-day-after-coming-home-hungry-from" target="_blank">Per comments by David Graeber</a>
in "Debt," it's the old hunter-gatherer world he needs to look at, and,
like the Inuit, preferably looking at a hunter-gatherer world with
limited interaction with the agriculturalist world. The fact that he
doesn't, along with this, reinforces my thought that he is in part
acting as an apologist for Judaism as seen through certain eyeballs, as a
"good" Jewish socialist Trot would do.) <br /></p><p>As for his attempting to rescue Judaism from the Jews? He reminds me of <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2020/05/walter-kaufmann-skeptic-heretic.html" target="_blank">Walter Kaufmann</a>. Kaufmann had the exact same problem of pontificating about biblical Yahwism without talking to actual scholars.</p><p>Beyond that, I've called out politicizing biblical criticism many, many times on this site.</p><p>The biggie? Apparent politicization of biblical archaeology, n<a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2021/12/did-biblical-edom-exist-implications.html" target="_blank">amely in attempting to prove</a> an early-age kingdom of Edom existed, and that in the name of modern Zionism, naturally.</p><p>More recently, on the r/AcademicBiblical subreddit, there was what I called "goysplaining," Gentiles (I presume) <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/04/stupidity-i-cant-respond-to-as-comment.html" target="_blank">attacking a comment</a> with a quote from Amy-Jill Levine saying there are things in the Talmud Jews DO need to be apologetic about. Elsewhere, there, <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/09/yet-more-racademicbiblical-stupidity.html" target="_blank">commenters plumping for</a> a historic King David, in the service of modern Zionism, too.<br /></p><p>Beyond that, there's the whole question of Jewish identity, <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/04/whos-jew-vis-vis-zionist-claims-history.html" target="_blank">which I discussed in detail</a> in my review of Shlomo Sands' book.</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-90736292694007091712023-11-30T09:00:00.003-06:002024-02-23T00:43:34.485-06:00KERA management hasn't changed one thing at WRR<p> Appromimately a year ago, Dallas-Fort Worth's (actually Denton's) National Public Radio station, KERA, took over management of Dallas' classical music station, WRR, which remained under official ownership of the city of Dallas.</p><p>A number of changes happened. The biggest one was cutting the amount of syndicated programs on the playlist, either replacing them with straight individual music or less expensive syndication.</p><p>A number of changes were cosmetic. The website switched from a ".com" to a ".org." Advertisers became sponsors. An addition, in line with this and the NPR background, is quarterly pledge drives.</p><p>Some changes were totally for the good, such as getting rid of the Sunday church service broadcasts I charge were a violation of the First Amendment.</p><p>But, related to that, one thing hasn't changed at all, and that's the reason WRR will be unlistened to this December, as in years past.</p><p>That is the high-octane of Christmas music, whether classical chorale works by Bach, related works by various composers such as Glorias and Magnificats, or classical-styled versions of Christmas carols. Blech.</p><p>So, listen instead to a good old Saturnalia classic along with me instead:</p><p><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="403" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IrrsE3NL5jg" title="Io! Saturnalia! (Multitrack Choir and Electronic Instruments)" width="604"></iframe></p><p>You'll thank me later.</p><p>Or, try this suggestion for non-vocal Saturnalia meditation.</p><p><br /><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="340" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/zjdt2r7s_EQ" title="io Saturnalia! (Ancient Roman Lyre Meditation)" width="604"></iframe></p><p>Again, you'll thank me later.</p><p>Update, Feb. 23, 2024: I will give them credit for one thing I don't think I've heard before — Chinese-themed classical music for Chinese New Year.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-22568116483016239552023-11-22T09:00:00.000-06:002023-11-22T09:00:00.151-06:00Good Associated Press article on the "Nones"<p> The best parts of the piece are two, in my opinion.</p><p>The first is, contra Gnu Atheists, this:</p><blockquote><i>They’re the atheists, the agnostics, the “nothing in particular.” Many are “spiritual but not religious,” and some are neither or both. They span class, gender, age, race and ethnicity.</i></blockquote><p>Reinforced by this from Pastor Ryan Burge, a religious scholar and, if you will, a scholar of the Nones with a book on them:</p><blockquote><i>“All the media attention is on atheists and agnostics, when most nones are not atheist or agnostic,” Burge said.</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>Many embrace a range of spiritual beliefs — from God, prayer and heaven to karma, reincarnation, astrology or energy in crystals.</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>“They are definitely not as turned off to religion as atheists and agnostics are,” Burge said. “They practice their own type of spirituality, many of them.”</i></blockquote><p>That goes on to mention a "higher power," New Agey type beliefs, etc. Or the Twelve-Step movement (although the piece ignores that, in re First Amendment, courts have ruled than AA and NA are religious, and that, if you want to go to an AA meeting as a proclaimed atheist, you'll get a fight).<br /></p><p>The piece doesn't go into this much, but for me, the issue of why Gnus try to claim all these people has two channels. I think some "person on the street" type Gnus believe all these people are either atheists or potential atheists just waiting to be deconverted. But, that's being charitable. I know that Gnu thought leaders have long known the reality, and just like Freedom From Religion Foundation wrongly claiming Abe Lincoln was an atheist, it's all about a movement. Claim famous people that aren't true, or else claim movement numbers that aren't true.</p><p>In other words, hypocrisy.</p><p>Speaking of? That is one of two things that have led most Nones to reject organized religion, the story notes. The other? Money-grubbing. (Gnus aren't total strangers to that one, either.)</p><p>That said, the Nones are real, and Christians, especially thought leaders, ignore them at their own religious peril. Burge knows:</p><blockquote><i>“This is not just some academic exercise for me,” said Burge, who pastors a dwindling American Baptist church in Mt. Vernon, Illinois. It’s “what I’ve seen every single Sunday of my life the last 16 years.”</i></blockquote><p>Catholics? Declining as fast as old mainline Protestants. Fundagelicals may not be declining as fast, but they are, too. Look at the Southern Baptist Convention. Independent megachurches are just stealing from denominations like them.</p><p>And, it's not just a big-city deal. Mount Vernon is a small town, and the piece ends with noting that Nones are growing in even smaller places.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-41418641973170606152023-11-18T22:30:00.002-06:002023-11-21T01:05:10.509-06:00Trumpian headache for LCMS prez Matty Harrison grows<p> His Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod pastor from Illinois, the Revvvvvvv. (Rush Limbaugh voice, political wingnuts) Stephen C. Lee, one of Fulton County (Georgia) District Attorney Fani Willis' "Dirty 19" indictees, and the smallest fish in the overall tank NOT to cop a plea, is back in the news in <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/11/10/us/stephen-lee-trump-georgia.html" target="_blank">this New York Time profile</a> of his recent activities.</p><p>Making the reasonable assumption that he's guilty (he's clearly guilty of stalking the election worker, at a minimum), I'm sure LCMS President Matthew Harrison wishes he would indeed cop a plea.</p><p>That said, knowing the LCMS and its standoffishness within the world of conservative mainline Protestantism, what probably cheeses Harrison — and even more, the people in positions of theological big stole swinging to his right — even more than that is him appearing at some EEEEvangelical church in metro Chicago. If Lee prayed before or with people there as part of an official religious event, that could give Matty the excuse to crack down on him without the hard right being able to lay a theological or church-political glove on him without hypocrisy. I don't know if that happened, but the congregation DID "bless Lee," the story said. Matty's got a theological case IF he wants to pursue it.<br /></p><p>Ditto, if he gave appearance of being an LCMS pastor in his 2021 endorsement of Trumpian Congresscritter candidate Jim Marder. That said, Matty's probably too weaselshit to pursue that angle if Lee did indeed do this. (Although I may be wrong. That said, it would be weaselshit to pursue this angle ahead of the angle of him politicizing his call, which he has clearly done, whether found legally guilty of the charges against him or not — and also, whether found civilly liable in the lawsuit against him or not.)<br /></p><p>As for Lee, or more precisely, his legal beagle David Shestokas, who apparently didn't let the Times interview his client? First, the claim that he was wanting to counsel Ruby Freeman, as "pastoral activities," in the face of the hassling she'd already been facing is so laughable it's not even high-grade bullshit, it's back shelf bullshit.</p><p>As for this claim that this wasn't coordinated with any of the other Devils Who Went Down to Georgia (I see what I did, late, unlamented wingnut Charlie Daniels), how would he know to seek out Harrison Floyd, leader of Black Voices for Trump, if he wasn't at a minimum "connected"? (Willis' office trying to prove coordination, not just connection, might be tougher.) A reporter asked just that question, and Shetokas gave a non-answer.</p><p>Finally, I don't know what Lee's White ethnic background is, but within Whites, German-Americans broke harder for Trump than any other White ethnic group. Yes, more than Scotch-Irish of Southern stereotype.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-39519573995977297792023-11-16T09:02:00.002-06:002023-11-16T09:02:00.138-06:00"Conspirituality" is not all it cracks itself up to be<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62653934-conspirituality" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Public Health Threat" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1684821000l/62653934._SX98_.jpg" /></a><p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/62653934-conspirituality">Conspirituality: How New Age Conspiracy Theories Became a Public Health Threat</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/213189.Derek_Beres">Derek Beres</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5959701423">2 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
Ultimately, a mini-memoir rather than a sweeping observation, and simply wrong on all New Age conspiracy thinking coming from wingnuts.<br /><br />Not bad but not new, other than the new name, the priority of which is disputed by a musician whose Twitter account reflects to a T ideas in this book — wingnuttery, conspiracy thinking, and appropriation of American Indian imagery.<br /><br />Back to the “not new.” As I told two of the three authors on Twitter, this is to fair degree a narrow version of something I wrote about several years ago, how <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/09/conspiracy-theories-are-new-gnosticism.html" rel="nofollow noopener">conspiracy theories are the new Gnosticism</a>. Writing before Trump and COVID, the only thing I didn’t cover is a riff on Naomi Klein’s “Disaster Capitalism” to cover the money behind the new Gnosticism. The folks even mention “hermetic” near the end, but don’t tie things together to the degree they could.<br /><br />Otherwise, the merger of New Ageism and right-wing authoritarianism is not a surprise, even if the book kind of presents it that way. Authoritarian gurus have been here in the US for 50 years. And, given the quasi-libertarian angle of much New Ageism, it shouldn’t be a surprise this authoritarianism is often winger. Quite possibly majority winger. But by no means only so.<br /><br />Next? The authors dismiss with a rhetorical trope the number of left-wing conspiracy thinkers. Having been a Green Party voter for years, on things like 5G and antivaxxerism, I think they’re very much wrong. Of course, I also see a narrowness to their focus by this point in the book.<br /><br />(The "spoiler" isn't so much that, as I've given the big picture, with the conclusion below, as it it the more extensive "receipts" supporting the conclusion.)<br /><br /><a class="jsShowSpoiler spoilerAction">(view spoiler)</a><span class="spoilerContainer" style="display: none;">[I’ve also seen “Jungian” pop up fairly early, as part the description of the teacher that misinfluenced one of the three authors, but it was not itself used negatively. Then, by page 65, I see “archetype” and my antennae are higher. And I see it again later in the book.<br /><br />While ritual Satanic child abuse claims may all have become wingnut-weaponized, they weren’t originally that way.<br /><br />Then, several more chapters of “yogaworld.” On Modi, I know enough about the RSS that I hadn’t paid attention to his attempts to weaponize yoga during the pandemic, but I don’t doubt it.<br /><br />Being anti-materialistic as true yogis may be isn’t necessarily right-wing. It’s not necessarily left-wing either. It’s anti-humanistic, and not all anti-humaism is right-wing. At some point, yes, you get to horseshoe theory.<br /><br />Beyond this, New Ageism covers much more than “yogaworld.” Think Barbara Ehrenreich’s “Bright-Sided” about believing your way out of cancer. (And, that’s not all wingnuts who were pushing that.) Or, to turn this back to politics and someone definitely not right-wing, and also since the authors focus on politics AND mention “A Course in Miracles,” Marianne Williamson.<br /><br />I started heavy grokking at this point.<br /><br />Page 223? Battling Bob La Follette was NOT a socialist. He was a Progressive. <a class="jsHideSpoiler spoilerAction">(hide spoiler)</a>]</span><br /><br />Kudos to the three for discussing their personal histories early on. But that’s the entire basis of the book — their personal histories, not a broad overview of New Ageism.</p><p>And, in fact, the skeptical self suspects, reading between lines, that they're gaslighting themselves on the claim that modern New Ageism is all wingnut. The one explicit "Jungian" reference, plus two "archetype" references I saw (and could have missed others, the amount I grokked, skimmed and outrightly skipped in the last half of the book) makes me think they're all earnest, left-of-center, and at least open to Jungianism. None strikes me as a Skeptics™"scientific skeptic," let alone a broader philosophical one. You will find "critical thinking" referenced in the conclusion, but neither variety of skepticism is mentioned anywhere.</p><p>I do note in the spoiler the short chapters come off as podcast episodic in length. And, speaking of that, I don't have much more need to listen to their podcast <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2017/04/say-goodbye-to-history-for-atheists.html" target="_blank">than I need to listen to the video</a> of "History for Atheists" Tim O'Neill.<br /><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/110433-socraticgadfly">View all my reviews</a>
</p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-18863959154987660702023-11-11T10:00:00.004-06:002023-11-11T10:00:00.154-06:00Nice Catholic school hypocrisy<p> An area Catholic high school had an alumna "cheer-off" for homecoming recently. Groups of classes across decades performed at halftime to various dance tunes.</p><p>One group had "Everybody Dance Now" chosen by the organizer.</p><p>THAT "Everybody Dance Now."</p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="447" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/LaTGrV58wec" title="Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now) (Official HD Video)" width="604"></iframe><p>To refresh you on the lyrics:</p><blockquote><i>And I'm here to combine</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>Beats and lyrics to make your shake your pants</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>Take a chance, come on and dance</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>Guys grab a girl, don't wait, make her twirl</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>It's your world and I'm just a squirrel</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>Tryna get a nut to move your butt</i></blockquote><p></p><p>There you go.</p><p>Duck Duck Go even had a suggestion for "Everybody Dance Now clean lyrics" when I was searching.</p><p>OK, now it's possible the school used clean lyrics. It's highly unlikely they went without, but that, like clean lyrics, would itself be a bit of "red-facedness." Or it's possible they played the original straight up. <br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-20967149662523455802023-11-09T09:00:00.002-06:002023-11-09T09:00:00.153-06:00More stupidity, and moderator fails, at r/AcademicBiblical<p><a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/179agzp/how_could_matthew_and_luke_invent_the_birth_story/?%24deep_link=true&correlation_id=9bbc5ef2-52e7-44c8-8ff2-634ed63173c8&post_fullname=t3_179agzp&post_index=3&ref=email_digest&ref_campaign=email_digest&ref_source=email&%243p=e_as&_branch_match_id=1037560324120399226&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA22PW07DMBBFVxP%2B2qpxmrZIFSpCbGPk2JNkVL9kjwmweiYU%2BEKypetzfecxM6fyuNtltJZ4q1PaOgq3nUpPTdupdEHQ5UFkzDRR0A5qdpd5TTXq2rSvcpZl2f7kTfQCstyr0RY9mWcaHBntBInpMXARuT%2Be9fSZRM1xAROrs%2BA184wL6GDB1RsChTf5DgJhoMwzFI75Y%2B2ppG1nEROswzbqhXPFpu1NzBmdZooByAo%2FD4M54NhuDi0eN11nTpvTKM9edWh7tT8qc5JcioVhrM4F7XEtp%2BBvwrtJweK7OEpAxlEUek0OLE1Y%2BA7BaJ80TeF%2Ft8SaDf56Ait7WT2wLCn0uw0TO%2FwCI00YhJQBAAA%3D" target="_blank">This person</a>
asking how Matthew and Luke could "invent" the birth stories. Not a
fundagelical, though. Dutch, not German, apparently. Belongs to a Dutch
sub, "gekte," which is "madness" in English.</p><p>== <br /></p><p>A fundagelical, <a href="https://www.reddit.com/user/nomenmeum/" target="_blank">r/nomenmeum</a>, thought he had a "<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/17ay3d8/if_daniel_was_written_in_167_bc_why_does_it/?%2524deep_link=true&correlation_id=7bde84a0-917b-4ff0-848f-f1dbe6d07fd4&post_fullname=t3_17ay3d8&post_index=4&ref=email_digest&ref_campaign=email_digest&ref_source=email&%25243p=e_as&_branch_match_id=1037560324120399226&_branch_referrer=H4sIAAAAAAAAA22P3U7DMAyFn6bctVt%2FWAvShJAQr2G5ibNZpEmUuCp7e1wGXCEl0tF34uOTq0gqz4dDJmtZGkyp8Rw%2BDn16qbqhT2cCLA8qY%2BYLB%2FSwZn%2B%2B7lNV%2F1p173q2bWt%2B5k1cFGS9aNDSwmbm2bNBr0jNhYIUle2It95OqtiBxcDkYcMCW2YRCsAB2tMIs4HtegMbqQALaDvCPbzqde9jN1iiBHvfqn%2BTvFLVnUzMmTwKR02xysfZ0jTgsX5qx7kenDvW0zC52rV2ppM9js4OOpdiEXCr9wEX2uN6%2BCt5NzlY%2BlRnf53JqaIF2YPlCxW5QzC4JORL%2BN8tcc2Gfj2FqyxgYtAvi9LvNcLi6QuRuetulwEAAA%3D%3D" target="_blank">gotcha</a>"
on Daniel's critical date of composition vs. the date of the
Septuagint. The idiot had to very publicly pull in his horns after being
told that composition date was for the Torah only. (He tried another
Daniel dating "<a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/AcademicBiblical/comments/176yriy/who_is_the_anointed_one_in_daniel_9/" target="_blank">gotcha</a>" just a week or two earlier.<br /></p>And,
this is another fail by mods. If they'd look at his profile, as I did,
or just note he'd pulled this twice in a week, maybe they would note
that his contributions ARE "invoking theological belief," thus breaking a
rule. Since they didn't do their work, and haul him down, I reported him.<br /><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-91093707520415875702023-11-02T09:00:00.015-05:002023-11-08T22:57:40.082-06:00Standing Josiah and Deuteronomy on their heads<p>We start with <a href="https://isthatinthebible.wordpress.com/2023/09/29/the-fire-from-heshbon-and-a-censored-king-of-judah/" target="_blank">a recent study</a> by Paul Davidson, author of the "Is that in the Bible?" website.</p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Josiah_hearing_the_book_of_the_law.jpg/220px-Josiah_hearing_the_book_of_the_law.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="323" data-original-width="220" height="323" src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e2/Josiah_hearing_the_book_of_the_law.jpg/220px-Josiah_hearing_the_book_of_the_law.jpg" width="220" /></a></div>"The 'Fire from Heshbon' and a censored King of Judah" proposes that seeming problems in the text of Numbers 21, a song about Mosaic-wandering Israel's battle with Sihon, king of Og, and Balaam's refusal to curse Israel on Sihon's behalf reflect something deeper. That's his Problem 1.<br /><p></p><p>Namely, he ties them to seeming problems in 2 Kings with the regnal dates and heritage of Josiah. This is his Problem 2.<br /></p><p>Davidson first notes, as do many lay and academic biblical scholars, that the total of Judahite regnal years vs the actual time span based on external calendrical anchors leaves a surplus. In Davidson's calculations, it's 8 years.</p><p>Second, Josiah is made king "by act of the people." And, other than the populace pushing Samuel to give them their first king (but even then, it was Samuel's act after consulting with Yahweh), nothing else like that is in the Bible.</p><p><i>Image: Josiah receiving the book of the law, something that, as we shall see below, almost certainly never happened.</i> <br /></p><p>It gets worse, with Josiah's own birth and progeny.</p><blockquote><i>Furthermore, math dictates that Josiah was conceived when his father was only 15. Again, not a biological impossibility, but still quite unlikely.2 The problem is even worse for Josiah’s two oldest sons, who are conceived when Josiah is 13 and 15 years old! (Jehoiakim is 25 when he takes the throne in the same year as Josiah’s death. Josiah died at age 39, meaning Jehoiakim was born when Josiah was 14. By biological necessity, he would have been conceived 10 months earlier.)</i> </blockquote><blockquote><i>There is also significant confusion about who Josiah’s sons were. According to 1 Chronicles 3:15, he had a son Johanan who was born even earlier than Jehoiakim (!), while Jehoahaz (his second-born in 2 Kings) is nowhere to be found. Meanwhile, 1 Esdras 1:32 (v. 34 in some versions) refers to Josiah’s second-born son as Jeconiah, and Jeremiah 22:11 gives his name as Shallum, which is the name of Josiah’s fourth-born son according to Chronicles.</i></blockquote><p>Oy vey indeed!</p><p>Problem 3 is the Tower of Hananel.</p><p>His solution is the "censored king of Judah," building on previous scholarship.</p><blockquote><i>In 2005, the late Orientalist historian Giovanni Garbini made the remarkable proposition that Judah was briefly ruled by an otherwise unknown Ammonite king named Hananel during the mid-600s BCE, and it was he who built the eponymous Tower of Hananel. </i></blockquote><p>Innnteresting. Garbini goes on to propose that King Amon (note the similarity to Ammon) was that foreign king, eventually booted in a coup, and replaced by Josiah. </p><p>Davidson says that still leaves unanswered for certain details of Josiah's death, but it's a good idea.</p><p>OK? </p><p>I take off from there, courtesy Idan Dershowitz, an up-and-coming Tanakh scholar.</p><p>Years before, I had read, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1616668587" target="_blank">and reviewed</a>, "The Lost Book of Moses," about <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moses_Wilhelm_Shapira" target="_blank">Moses Wilhelm Shapira</a>'s 1880s reception of a possibly antique Hebrew scroll, referred to as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shapira_Scroll" target="_blank">Shapira Scroll</a>, covered with bits of bitumen and other things. If this had happened after 1947, or enough after 1947 for the Dead Sea Scrolls to have their antiquity and authenticity established and accepted, Shapira's find would have been glommed onto by scholars. Instead, he was accused of forgery, allegedly proven by cursory examination, and a few years later, committed suicide. Being a converted Jew from eastern Europe probably didn't help him. <br /></p><p>But, hold on, says Dershowitz, who in a monograph called "<a href="https://scholar.harvard.edu/sites/scholar.harvard.edu/files/dershowitz/files/the-valediction-of-moses-open-access.pdf" target="_blank">The Valediction of Moses</a>" (PDF) says that Shapira probably found either a direct or indirect predecessor of the canonical Deuteronomy, one that includes only the narrative, not the "book of the law" of modern Deuteronomy 12-26. (Wiki's piece on the scroll references Dershowitz; on Shapira itself, it does not.)</p><p>Hold on to that thought.</p><p>Relevant to Davidson, Dershowitz notes that "V," as he calls this scroll in shorthand (having done a strong attempt at reconstructing the now-lost original from Shapira's notes) has a different version of the battle with Sihon than canonical <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Deuteronomy%202&version=NIV" target="_blank">Deuteronomy 2</a>. (To tie back to the top of this piece, Deuteronomy's version of the battle with Og king of Bashan, no Balaam, is in the next chapter.) In it, Yahweh has Moses provoke Sihon into war; in V, it's a straight-on attack by Israel. Note: Dershowitz says "Elohim"; in canonical Deuteronomy, it's "Yahweh." This is not "stickyness" over the divine name by Dershowitz, as he uses the consonants YHWH of the Tetragrammaton himself; rather, in passages that are directly parallel, Shapira doesn't have Yahweh. The bigger issue is that Yahweh, not Elohim, is who is the actor throughout canonical Deuteronomy.<br /></p><p>As I see it, there are four possibilities, off the top of my head:</p><ol style="text-align: left;"><li>V is indeed a precursor, whether direct or indirectly, to canonical Deuteronomy and Elohim is who it is.</li><li>Shapira, as a converted Jew, wouldn't write out the Tetragrammaton in his notes to a legit book.</li><li>Shapira or whomever, as forger, wouldn't write out the Tetragrammaton.</li><li>This is indeed ancient, but it's not a precursor to Deuteronomy. Contra Dershowitz, call it a targum or whatever, written by a Jew to clear up confusions in Deuteronomy before that text became too finalized, maybe.</li></ol><p>How likely are each of these?</p><p>I'll dismiss 3 right away. Writing out the name is not a problem on Torah scrolls, and besides, a forger wouldn't have scruples.</p><p>No. 2? I don't know enough about Shapira's religiosity to offer any "Bayesian probability." Take that, Mark Carrier. I don't think that's highly likely, though, especially given further background, in the following paragraph.<br /></p><p>So 1 vs. 4 is where we're at. Without explaining why V uses Elohim, Dershowitz does say that, in canonical Deuteronomy, the insertion of the law code would have meant rewriting Deuteronomy 2 into current form so that Moses doesn't violate the laws of war in Deuteronomy 20. Otherwise, on the name, he says that "V" shows no use of P or P-like material.<br /></p><p>How likely is Dershowitz's claim, by the way? At academia-lite, Biblical Archaeology Review, Jonathan Klawans, without calling Shapira the forger, says it's possible he was, and if not, somebody else, indicates that "V" is too Christianizing, and thus <a href="https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/the-shapira-fragments/" target="_blank">can't be authentic</a>. BAR's founder, lawyer and James Ossuary grifter Hershel Shanks, stated this more firmly, jumping with both feet <a href="https://library.biblicalarchaeology.org/article/fakes/" target="_blank">20 years ago</a>, long before Dershowitz. (Being a converted Jew probably didn't help Shapira again.)</p><p>Dershowitz goes on from the Sihon pericope to note that the incipit V has of Dt. 1, far shorter than canonical Deuteronomy, reflects a reconstructed proto-Deuteronomy broached by other scholars, but not in today's version until decades after Shapira got the scrolls and not at all until a few years later.</p><p>Next, he directly addresses Klawans' and Shanks' complaints about V's version of the Decalogue, the Divarim. He notes that there are several places with "intertexts" of the Commandments that parallel at least in part V's version. The closest is Leviticus 19, and it totally blows up the objections.<br /></p><p>So, as a working hypothesis, let us assume Dershowitz is correct.</p><p>This ties back to Davidson. </p><p>Under this theory, the narrative sections, Deuteronomy 1-11 and 27-32, are the original, and the priestly-like law code of Dt. 12-26, a later, and intrusive, insertion. (It interrupts the Ebal and Gerizim narrative.)<br /></p><p>For traditional critical scholarship, <a href="https://www.academia.edu/45052192/Can_the_Documentary_Hypothesis_be_Rehabilitated_A_New_Model_of_the_Collaborative_Composition_of_the_Pentateuch?email_work_card=title" target="_blank">per this piece</a>,* this means that Dt 12-26 almost certainly could not have been "the book of the law" magically uncovered soon after "an act of the people" put Josiah on the throne. Under the Dershowitz timeline, Dt 12-26 is certainly exilic and possibly to probably post-exilic. (He promises a future book on Dt's composition.)</p><p>He wraps up with comparing V and canonical Dt on the Ebal-Gerizim narrative and finds a few interesting differences.</p><p>This does leave one item up in the air. And, that is, why does Shapira's proto-Dt. end with Deuteronomy 11 and not the second half of the narrative material, the Former Prophets material if you will. I hope it's something he tackles in his promised book on Deuteronomy. <br /></p><p>== <br /></p><p>* Piece at this link is cited only for illustrative purposes. I think Russell Gmirkin's idea that the Greek LXX and Hebrew Torah in the current form were written simultaneously in Alexandria, with a core of history behind Aristeas' letter, is laughable. It's based on a strawmanning version of the documentary hypothesis, first, and second, even if Gmirkin IS right on that, his solution is not one. <a href="https://vridar.org/tag/gmirkin-berossus-and-genesis/" target="_blank">A whole series</a> at Vridar devoted to Gmirkin leaves me no more convinced. Some of his ideas are easily dealt with. </p><p>Why is their no attestation earlier in Greek sources of the Torah? No Jewish diaspora, for starters. And, as a <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jts/article-abstract/59/1/212/1638843" target="_blank">JTS review</a> of his book notes, he simply ignores apparent references in Isaiah and elsewhere to the Torah. Weirdly, per <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R8L46NFYARMW0/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewpnt?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0567025926#R8L46NFYARMW0" target="_blank">this savaging Amazon review</a>, Gmirkin at the same time, via Manetho etc., seems to believe there was a literal Exodus. <a href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/customer-reviews/R1OGO1L27YQSHN/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=0567025926" target="_blank">Another 1-star review</a> suggests an earlier translation into Greek of an earlier extant Torah addresses many of Gnirkin's claims.<br /></p><p>And, this may expand into a separate post.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-84477691825146698812023-10-26T09:00:00.019-05:002023-11-12T22:10:42.978-06:00Sapolsky all wet on "No free will means Yes determinism"<p>And, thoughts and claims like what Robert Sapolsky is apparently putting into a new book show why, scientism-peddling scientists aside, science still needs philosophy.</p><p>I've long said "mu" to the issue of "free will VERSUS determinism," and have gone beyond even that with the wonderful insights of the late psychologist Daniel Wegner, on "<a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-illusion-of-conscious-will.html" target="_blank">The Illusion of Conscious Will.</a>"</p><p>Just because conscious will is an illusion doesn't mean that determinism is the only counter-answer. That's why I said mu so many times years ago, and also why, per Idries Shah (a philosopher!) this is clearly an issue with more than two sides.</p><p>And, specifically, what Sapolsky is talking about is what I've called psychological constraint. It's no more deterministic than our genes are, and an evolutionary biologist knows our genes aren't determinist. Yes, bad childhoods on average, per sociological survey, means that the average person with a bad childhood is more likely to become an addict or whatever. It doesn't at all mean they're predestined for that. It also ignores, as I discuss <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2019/06/christopher-list-new-hottie-on-free.html" target="_blank">here</a>, just what words like "agency" and "intentionality" mean.<br /></p><p>I have read Sapolsky's most recent book before "Determined," "<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2349645233" target="_blank">Behave</a>," and noted that it exhibited muddied and muddled thinking, and I have no doubt this is more of the same, and not worth reading. In fact, on that linked review of "Behave," I said then that Sapolsky needed some philosophy. I also said he was getting close to scientism in general and ev psych in particular. I wouldn't be surprised if "Determined" is yet more that way.</p><p>To put it another way? As I said long ago on my main blog, "<a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-simplemindedness-of-determinism.html" target="_blank">determinism is often simplistic</a>."</p><p>Or, and as Sapolsky demonstrates in <a href="https://nautil.us/yes-we-have-free-will-no-we-absolutely-do-not-431904/?sponsored=0&position=4&category=fascinating_stories&scheduled_corpus_item_id=472f9760-b439-4186-bfa2-11e7c093daec&url=https://nautil.us/yes-we-have-free-will-no-we-absolutely-do-not-431904/" target="_blank">this Nautilus interview</a>, determinism is often nothing more than a tautology for methodological naturalism, or more, philosophical naturalism or monism (monism in a non-duopoly, materialist-only sense, and not suggesting anything like Leibniz's monads). This alone, contra a Sapolsky or a Stephen Hawking, shows why philosophy is not dead and why scientists need to stop saying that and stop believing that.</p><p>It is interesting that, in that piece, both Sapolsky and neuroscience professor, and free willian, Kevin Mitchell, refer to the Libet experiments. See my most recent thoughts on them <a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2020/10/third-quarter-blogging-updates.html" target="_blank">here</a>. Mitchell also appears to have not read Wegner. And, shock me that Sabine Hossenfelder, who has plenty of "<a href="https://socraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2020/10/third-quarter-blogging-updates.html" target="_blank">incoherence</a>" herself, attacks free will as being incoherent. Yet more reason to be glad I deblogrolled her on my main site.<br /></p><p>Finally, I reject Sapolsky's idea that determinism is something that, essentially, we need to believe in even if it isn't true, for political science and human sociology reasons.</p><p>And thus, I continue to say mu on free will vs. determinism.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-12139056104380382012023-10-19T09:00:00.018-05:002023-10-19T09:00:00.162-05:00Stacking the deck in 'A Canticle for Leibowitz'<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/164154.A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz" style="float: left; padding-right: 20px;"><img alt="A Canticle for Leibowitz (St. Leibowitz, #1)" border="0" src="https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1450516880l/164154._SX98_.jpg" /></a><p>
<span style="font-family: Cambria; font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Cambria; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">This is an even more extended version of a Goodreads book review than
normal. That’s because, in this case, while I overall still think the novel is
a five-star on literary style, there are “issues” behind it.</span> </p><p>My original review doesn't have plot spoilers, so you may need to hit the Wiki page for "<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz" target="_blank">A Canticle for Leibowitz</a>" to understand why, beyond saluting it as good novelistic writing, I started having a variety of concerns about the author, Walter M. Miller Jr., stacking the deck on the background, or "framing," of the novel.</p><p><style>@font-face
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{page:Section1;}</style>And, I concluded by moving beyond those initial concerns to some degree of disquiet. <br /></p><p><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/164154.A_Canticle_for_Leibowitz">A Canticle for Leibowitz</a> by <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6025722.Walter_M_Miller_Jr_">Walter M. Miller Jr.</a><br />
My rating: <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/5908303447">5 of 5 stars</a><br /><br />
A damned good book, or so I said in my initial review. <br /><br />Almost as dystopian as Cormac McCarthy (until the final twists), but without his gratuitous violence in general and gratuitous bloodshed in particular. Possibly deeper in some ways, philosophically. And, per the Wiki pieces on this and Miller personally, reflecting his WWII service as being one of the US bombers that destroyed (probably, though not certainly, unnecessarily) Monte Cassino.<br /><br />Plot and characters are both good. As are recurring themes. The wordplay in the second part (Fiat Lux), while not on the level of an Umberto Eco, hints in that direction. (I wonder if the name of Leibowitz was in fact such a play.) The "twists" that will later develop can usually be seen in a general way, but not specifically, until you're right there. (A good example of that is Ms. Grales' "second head" Rachel eventually becoming a new Virgin, which I recognized he was getting at right when we got there.)<br /><br />My only complaint, or bit of perplexion, or something? And, that is that "Lazarus" (a character in both parts 1 and 2, and early in part 3, under various names in the three parts) doesn't make a final appearance somewhere near the end of Part 3. It could be that Miller couldn't figure out how to work him and Rachel both in at the end. (Personally, I would have loved to have seen him as a stowaway on the spaceship.) Or maybe it's a statement by Miller.<br /><br />And, per Miller's word play, and one last aside on Lazarus? In Part 2, with the two Hebrew phrases, especially the specific way the second riffs on the Shema? I don't know whether Miller intended it or not, but he likely did, with the specific Hebrew word substituted in the Shema riff? Lazarus is also someone else (besides possibly Leibowitz), and that someone else also from the Christian New Testament.<br /><br />==<br /><br />A note for friends: If you're not religious in general, and haven't been, you may not even grasp at the meaning of the Latin, and if you don't know Hebrew at all? (The first of the two phrases is translated, the second not.) Have Google Translate ready as needed.
<br /><br />
<a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/list/110433-socraticgadfly">View all my reviews</a></p><p>==</p><p>Now, the critique of the backstory. <br /></p><p>The biggie is that, if not outrightly stacking the deck, Miller clearly comes down on the side of religion vs. science, and makes it a two-sided battle of religion versus science. The term scientism may not been around in 1959, but that’s arguably what he’s critiquing. (And, by the time I finished this up, if not “stacking the deck,” I’m ready to say he’s putting one, at least, of his two thumbs on the scale.)</p><p>First of all, in Part 1, we don’t know enough (in the novel) about the actual Leibowitz to say what exactly he did with nuclear programs. But, that’s minor.</p><p>If we’re going to attack science, or even scientism, let us remember that absolutist religion has given us crusades, pogroms and holocausts. Plural. As in, in 1 Samuel, Yahweh telling Saul to commit a holocaust on the Amelekite people and even their livestock. And, it’s not just “western” religions. Think of Buddhism’s 969 Movement in Burma. Or the RSS and Hindutva thought in India.</p><p>Second, the miracle of Rachel the teratoma or whatever we shall call her arising from Mrs. Grales? Yet, Miller doesn’t have New Rome trying to move a colony of the Order of Leibowitz from Earth to Alpha Centauri by miracle. Nope, it’s a rocket launch — rockets like those that kicked off both nuclear Armageddons. And, for that matter, there’s no miraculous intervention in either Armageddon. <br /></p><p>As for the Tua Voluntas Part 3 “showdown” between Abbot Zerchi and Doctor Cors over the issue of euthanasia? First of all, every religion will soften at the edges, at some point, on some major moral issue. Look at actual Catholicism today vs. times past on suicide. Or it will row its absolutist oar, if deemed necessary, when science challenges. Look at the actual church on abortion and reproduction.</p><p>And, in part two, giving the secular scholar Thon Taddeo the last name, auf Deutsch, of "plodding priest" only increases the deck-stacking. <br /></p><p>In reality, <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/485939752" target="_blank">per Walter Kaufmann</a>, there is no such thing as absolute justice and morals must bend on that, despite Miller sympathetically having Zerchi punch Cors.
And, the dying Zerchi thinking that “the battle” was not with pain, but with the fear of pain? His Wiki page notes that Miller committed suicide shortly after the death of his wife, and he reportedly suffered from depression for many years before that, and PTSD over the Monte Cassino bombing. (He had converted to Catholicism after the war, per his own <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_M._Miller_Jr." target="_blank">Wiki page</a>.)</p><p>There’s also datedness and/or Eurocentric issues. Why not have a “New Lhasa” with Tibetan Buddhism paralleling Catholic Christianity? The primary reason is obvious. "Canticle" is ultimately a paean to the eternal verities of Mother Church.<br /></p><p>I will confess that I did not pick up on the Wanderer being “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wandering_Jew" target="_blank">the wandering Jew</a>.” (Wiki's link on the book indicates it is.) The Leibowitz name … “body joke” … may be a pun on that. One wonders, per the Wiki page, if Miller was influenced by Lew Wallace’s “The Prince of India,” where he is the protagonist. That said, that's "interesting" in itself and hold on to that thought.<br /></p><p>Page 169, as numbered in the paperback I read, is interesting, with two phrases in Hebrew, but Miller only offering a translation of the first in the book.
The second? A riff on the Shema, where I first thought a deliberately corrupted form of Adonai was being substituted for Yahweh, but not true.
"Day" (די is Hebrew) for "enough," "sufficient" or "sufficiency," not a shortened Adonai. "Hear, O Israel, sufficiency is our god" ("qoph" used for "he," but Google Translate rendered it as "our god" still, and perhaps it is in modern Hebrew), and sufficiency alone."</p><p>A Buddhist riff, or a riff on what Paul was supposedly told, that "my grace is sufficient for you" when he asked for the thorn in the flesh to be removed? After all, the first phrase IS Tents Repaired Here and what did Paul do? </p><p>I'm pretty sure it's not a Buddhist riff. In that case, Paul, like Lazarus, is the wandering Jew? But why? I have no idea on Lazarus, but, with Paul, maybe it's to subordinate him to first pope Peter? Even though Peter was also a Jew? The "wandering Jew" reportedly taunted Jesus. This would fit pre-repentance Saul before he became Paul. But Lazarus never taunted him in the first place. </p><p>All the other wordplay was easy enough to follow. But, the Paul and Lazarus angles are why I didn't think "Wandering Jew." With Leibowitz himself in Part 1, either the real, or the Wandering Jew, he could be seen as redeeming himself and annuling the curse of wandering by joining the Cistercians, etc. But Paul redeemed himself by repentance on the Damascus Road. And, Lazarus, again, never mocked. But, Miller portrays him as Christ's non-Christian follower, or words to that effect.<br /></p><p>That said, there's one big issue here. "The Wandering Jew" is of itself not necessarily anti-Semitic per se; but with some modern writers like George Sylvester Vierick taking it that way, and with Miller writing after World War II but in the shadow of it, it's a literary trope that needs to be handled carefully. And, tying it to Leibowitz as a nuclear physicist sure treads closely to Hitler's "Jewish science" motif.</p><p>And, with that, I have my answer to the end of the novel, even if it wasn't Miller's answer. Blastoff is to a new Eden, at least potentially, and Ahasuerus can't be allowed to contaminate it.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18107100.post-47143184043208192632023-10-14T09:11:00.009-05:002023-10-14T09:11:00.144-05:00Top blogging for the third quarter of 2023<p>As with my main blog, where I do a monthly top 10, not all of these are from the last three months. I'll note there they are not. And most, in fact, are not.</p><p>No 10 is from 2021, about Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod President Matt Harrison's underhanded <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2021/08/lcms-university-concordia-portland.html" target="_blank">closure of Concordia University Portland.</a></p><p>No. 9 is from recently, though: it's about <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/08/james-ossuary-grifting-tour-headed-to.html" target="_blank">a high-grift tour of the US</a> of the fraudulent, bogus, bullshit "James Ossuary." Actually, the tour is only here in Tex-ass right now.</p><p>No. 8? My 2019 review of Lyndal Roper's Luther bio. (It is near Reformation Day, where conservative Lutherans turn into pumpkins if they see a shadow of Luther legend refuted.)</p><p>Speaking of? At No. 7, <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2017/07/luther-legend-shitstorm-about-to-hit.html" target="_blank">my 2017 roundup</a> of Luther legend.</p><p>If an underhanded closure of a university wasn't enough, at No. 6 Matty Harrison earlier this year had to <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/08/more-trouble-for-matty-lcms-boss-with.html" target="_blank">worry about one of his ministers</a> being among Fani Willis' Dirty 19.</p><p>At No. 5? <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/09/once-again-smart-fool-at.html" target="_blank">I take down</a> "The Smart Fool," one of the overly self-inflated commenters at the r/AcademicBiblical subreddit.</p><p>At No. 4? An oldie but a goodie from 2020, getting new traction because I posted it for Democratic tribalists on r/politics. That's about St. Anthony of Fauci's various <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2020/08/coronavirus-philosophy-noble-lie-and.html" target="_blank">Platonic noble, then more ignoble</a>, lies about COVID.</p><p>No. 3? Even older, but, it's never too late to keep <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2017/04/say-goodbye-to-history-for-atheists.html" target="_blank">kicking and saying good-bye to Tim O'Neill</a>, the papal apologist of History for Atheists.</p><p>No. 2? From this quarter, <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/07/and-more-wrongness-at-racademic-biblical.html" target="_blank">more wrongness at r/AcademicBiblical</a>, namely "The Woman Taken in Adultery" pericope of John 7:53-8:11.</p><p>Drumroll .....</p><p>And No. 1? <a href="https://wordsofsocraticgadfly.blogspot.com/2023/08/anal-retentive-liars-by-implication.html" target="_blank">Anal-retentive backdoor liars</a> at r/religion.<br /></p><div class="blogger-post-footer">“There is no god, and I am his prophet.” – me</div>Unknownnoreply@blogger.com2