Religion turns value backward

In the sphere of thought, absurdity and perversity remain the masters of the world, and their dominion is suspended only for brief periods.  

-Arthur Schopenhauer

About the worst and most fruitless idea humanity ever had is the idea of the gods. Of course, religion has convinced most people that the gods were one of the best ideas humans ever had.  

Religion has this way of reversing values. Nietzsche wrote about it. Whatever the world finds good, religion will eventually demean. Whatever the world reviles, religion finds a way to redeem.  Shall we look at some examples together?

Death. What could be of less importance to us than what happens after we die?  Predictably, the churches insist that the most important consideration in life is what happens after we die. 

Orgasms. The world finds them to be pleasant and very good.  Religion does not care about pleasure, and deems orgasms bad, insignificant, maybe even subhuman.

Erections. All men know they feel good. Some folks find them attractive. Religion reviles erections, and men all over the world feel guilty about this natural source of pleasure and pride.  Those who find them attractive are ashamed of their taste.  

Sex. The most satisfying part of life has to be crimped and clipped and hushed and pushed way to the back of every mind so far as the church is concerned. What life teaches is its foundation, and which it shows us is life's greatest pleasure, the very wine of wines, has to be reviled and restricted to a narrow, moralistic baby-maker's schedule by the tyrannical church. 

Women. Over half of humanity is female, and that is good. The female differs from the male, and that is also good. But the church does not see things that way. Women are harder to control than men, and that too is good. But the church disagrees with the world at large on this too. Women must be demeaned, stopped, stunted, hushed and neglected so far as religion is concerned with them at all. 

Love. Something that comes in myriad forms and fills hearts in thousands of different ways is reduced by the church to a narrow path from hello to marriage.  Anything that veers from the path is slandered and reviled. Brief affairs, friends with benefits, paramours, lovers, serious but never going to marry, trying it out for a while -- such relationships are of no interest to the church. Every encounter of the heart is either trash or a step on the ladder to marriage.  Nothing else can be recognized or discussed.  

Church/Worship. There is almost nothing in ordinary daily life that is worse than sitting in church. In fact, almost everything you can think of is better than church. Cleaning the garage is better than church. So is a root canal. At least they are interesting. But of course, the church holds that there is nothing better or more important than church, and they want to make that evaluation imperative. To that end they condemn everything that competes with church. Sport, money, fame, lawn care, career, profession, self-discovery, jogging, biking, sleeping late -- you name it.  If it competes with church for attention or pocket change, the church throws shade on it.  

Science. The greatest cultural achievement of mankind is the greatest threat to the priest's power. So, of course, the church hates and reviles science. One way they attack science is to lie about its foundations. Christian apologists like to claim that science could only get going because of religion. But religion is falsehoods all the way through, and science is simply the rooting out and rejection of falsehood. There is no way that something as false and partial and closed minded as religion could be the foundation for something far broader, truer and more impartial. Religion as a foundation of science is like theft as a foundation of honesty, or murder as a foundation of love.  It just ain't so.  

Entertainment/culture/art. People spend an inordinate amount of time with the arts these days. In the past, one did not see drama or hear music unless it was done live.  A hundred years into the era of recorded sound, people spend their entire day with TV drama, movies, music, writing and images.  The more the burden of work has been reduced, the more entertainment with art has increased to the point now that some people feel incomplete without the noise of art all around them.  Art is good sayeth the people. What say the churches? Art that does not promote our world view is bad. Art that does not moralize as we wish is bad. Of course they have to hate the freedom of art. Like science, independent art is a huge threat to the power of priests. 

Self-delusion. Much ink and wood pulp have been devoted to the topic of self-deception since the enlightenment. It is one of the greatest enemies of progress and a complete stop to self-improvement.  But despite this, the churches insist on faith, that is, on belief without reasons, a form of self-deception, as the measure of a soul and the very foundation of moral goodness. 

The Hero.  Jesus' main claim to fame is his lineage, and his entire life is devoted to what his father wants, unto the point of dying as a human sacrifice because his daddy wants him to.  There is nothing heroic in failing to separate from the parent. There is nothing heroic in a man of thirty odd years who blindly does whatever his father wants.  There can be nothing heroic in such an extreme degree of subordination.  While the acts and sayings of Jesus are another matter, there is no denying that the raison d'etra for Jesus is to obey daddy.  All the life of Jesus can teach is obedience.  It has no other lesson in it.  There is nothing heroic in that teaching.  

Morality. Nature provides the powers of reasoning about which our monkey brains are sometimes a little too proud. It also provides plenty of morally significant data and feelings (such as pleasure, pain, desire, aversion, embarrassment, pride, shame, etc.). Moral teachings surely go back much further than any of the holy books or scriptures that are believed in today. The reason to believe this is that humans have interests, but they also have the power to make very general, rule like statements.  Thus we can expect them to make general, rule like statements that address their interests.  You can also expect them to have done this throughout the ages that preceded the existence of religious texts (i.e. prior to the bronze age).  Hence, morality (general moral rule making) is a natural product of human life, and far older than religion or worship of any kind. 

Religion views morality much differently. They tend to treat humanity as too inferior a race to have thought up any useful moral rules on our own.  Our morality must therefore have come from a superior source, something super human must be its origin.  

For Christians, morality is condensed into a single statement whenever it is convenient.  The churches do not really believe that all of morality can be reduced to the imperative to love your fellows as you would have them love you.  Church writers have filled many, many volumes with debates on moral rules. But the church is perfectly satisfied letting its sheep believe that all of morality can be found in that one remark.  The church is all about believers in miracles, you know.  And if all of morality could in fact be captured in a few words, would that not be miraculous?  So, let 'em believe, thinks the priest.  

When they are forced to face reality, the Christian moralist resorts to divine command theory, a version of deontology.  According to this view, as long as there is a divine command relevant to your conduct, you should follow that command.  Where a divine command is lacking, there can be no sin/immorality because immorality just means violating a divine command, so far as these theorists are concerned.  

Now, it is questionable whether there is a divine command against rape. Also against lying.  Also against insider trading. Also against cloning humans. Also against AI generated deep fakes. Holy books say nothing about stem cells, intellectual property, brain surgery, computers or microplastics.  Thus divine command theory seems a rather threadbare moral system on the one hand.  On the other hand, there clearly are divine commands in the holy books that no one intends to follow, and which, in fact, many believers find morally wrong (i.e., immoral).  A good example of this is the bible's divine command to stone to death all disobedient children.  Another is the divine command to stone to death all brides who are not virgins.  Another is the divine command to abort all fetuses that were conceived in adultery.  Another is the divine command to completely disallow female teachers ("Suffer not a woman to teach" preaches the mean shit-bag known as St Paul).  Another is the divine command to not marry a divorced woman (Jesus preaches that this adultery). Now if a believer finds one of these views morally repugnant, to what biblical rule are they appealing?  They must be relying on their innate moral sense, not on what they are reading. 

Thus, divine command theory is simply inadequate.  There are not enough commands in ancient lore about the gods to govern modern life, and there are too many divine commands in that lore that are quite simply morally wrong.  Divine command theory cannot explain the wrongness of a divine command, but modern approaches to morality can.  

In the end, divine command theorists do not fully believe in divine command theory. They rely on something else to pick and select among the divine commands they decide to treat as authoritative. This something else is their actual morality in a very important sense, and they didn't get that morality from their allegedly authoritative text.  

For more thoughts on the inadequacy of biblical morality, I recommend this video. 

Proving a Negative (Take 2)

My earlier post on this topic has generated some questions, so, I am going to explain this matter again, and this time I will explain it like my readers are kindergarteners. 

"Proving a negative" means giving compelling reasons to accept a negative proposition. Negative propositions are the ones that include negations in them, such as the words not and no.  In categorical logic we distinguish four proposition types, A, E, I and O. 

A propositions are universal and affirmative: All S is P.

E propositions are universal and negative: No S is P.

I propositions are particular and affirmative: Some S is P.

O propositions are particular and negative: Some S is not P.  

One way to define what we mean by "proving a negative" is based on these proposition types.  We could say that proving a negative means providing compelling reasons to accept a proposition of either the O or E variety.  

It is often rather easy to think up ways to provide compelling reasons for accepting O type propositions. Here are some examples. 

Some men are not happy.

Some birds are not brown. 

Some clubs are not participating. 

Some people are not old.  

Compelling reasons to accept one of these propositions merely require pointing out examples that support the assertion, such as a creature that is definitely a bird and which is also any color except brown, or at least one man who is unhappy, etc.   

Finding compelling reasons to accept a statement of the E variety is another matter.  These statements deny that there are any shared members between two classes. For example:

No fish are birds. 

No man is an island. 

Nobody is happy. 

Nothing is wrong.  

To deny one of these statements is much easier than proving one.  The denials of E propositions are always propositions of the I variety. One would assert that there is at least one fish that is also a bird, that there is a man who is also an island, that there is some person who is happy, and finally that there is at least one thing that is wrong.  

But giving good reasons to accept an E proposition is another matter. Am I supposed to pick up every fish and examine it to make sure it is not a bird?  Or should I check every bird to make sure it is not a fish?  Do I have to check every island to make sure it is not a man?  

The trouble here has to do with universality, not with negation.  The proposition that all bachelors are unmarried cannot be demonstrated by examining all bachelors, because that is impractical. On the other hand, the meaning of the word bachelor is simply an unmarried male. So, it would follow that when the term is used with that meaning, all members of the set of bachelors are in fact unmarried.  So, we can know about the truth of universal propositions, at least sometimes, by knowing about the meaning of the words they employ.  

That would be at least one way to give good reasons for accepting an E proposition.  If you know enough about the meaning of words like fish and bird, you can demonstrate convincingly that no fish is a bird just by examining their definitions.

Another way is by differentiating qualities.  For example, you say "All fish have gills, but no birds have gills, therefore no fish is a bird".  If gills are in fact crucial to counting as a fish, then not having gills would prove that something is not a fish.   Similarly, if having human DNA is crucial to being human, then you can prove that no robot is human by arguing that all humans have human DNA, but no robots have human DNA, therefore, no robots are human.  

The argument form here is either EAE or AEE.  That is, from two universal propositions, one of which is an A and the other an E proposition, you can validly derive a universal negative proposition, that is, an E proposition.  

But if we can validly derive E propositions, then we must be able to prove negatives.  I have defined "proving a negative" as giving compelling reasons to accept a negative proposition.  Valid deductions are compelling reasons, in fact, they are among the most compelling kinds of reasons known to human minds.  

Because we can in fact give compelling reasons to accept some E propositions, it is false to say that "you cannot prove a negative".  That irritating and ignorant sentence should be rejected by all thinking beings.  Of course you can prove a negative.  You can prove that no robot is human. You can prove that no bird is a fish. You can also disprove gods by arguing that all living things are mortal, but no gods are mortal, therefore no gods are living things.  

So, one way to prove a negative is by using AEE or EAE deductions.  

Another way to prove a negative is called modus tollens. The insight behind this type of argument is that false consequences falsify, or that all propositions with false consequences are false. The scheme of the reasoning is this:

If P, then Q

Not Q

Therefore, not P

In this scheme, variables stand for whole propositions.  So the argument asserts that if the the first proposition (P) is true, the second one (Q) would be. But the second premise asserts that proposition Q is not true, and the argument concludes that therefore neither is proposition P. 

To explain this let us start small and discuss what we mean when we say that propositions have consequences.  By a proposition's consequences we mean that if a proposition is true, certain other propositions have to be true as well.  For example, if the proposition that Peter is in Berlin is true, then the proposition that Peter is in Paris cannot be true, and the proposition that Peter is not in Paris must be true.  In addition, the proposition that Peter is not in London must be true, along with the proposition that Peter is not in New York, etc.  These are real consequences that follow from the truth of a single proposition.  Because you know the names of hundreds of places, you can think up hundreds of sentences that must be true if the statement that Peter is in Berlin is true.

The truth of a proposition forces other propositions to be true or false.  In particular, if a proposition is true, then its denial has to be false.  For example, if Zebras are mammals is true, then "Zebras are not mammals" has to be false.  And if the proposition that John Elway won two superbowls is true, then the proposition that "John Elway won zero superbowls" has to be false, while the statement that "it is not the case that Elway won zero superbowls" is true.  

Now let's talk about false consequences.  I've just said that one of the consequences of a proposition's being true is that assorted other propositions have to be true while others have to be false.  

When we say that false consequences falsify we mean something specific: we mean that a consequence that should be true turns out to be false.  When this happens, the proposition being tested is falsified.  Let's look at an example.  

Someone says John Elway won five superbowls.  If this statement was true, records of superbowls would show it.  But the records do not show it.  They show that Elway played in five superbowls, but lost three of them.  He won two. Again, if he had won five, records would show that he won five.  More explicitly, if the proposition that he won five was true, then the proposition that the records show he won five would also be true.  But it is not.  Therefore, the consequence is false, and the initial proposition is falsified. Let's look at the scheme for all of this.  

If Elway won five superbowls (P), then the records show him winning five (Q). 

The records do not show him winning five. (not Q)

Therefore, Elway did not win five superbowls.  (not P)

What we mean when we say that "false consequences falsify" is that when a consequence that should be true fails to be true, the proposition it is a consequence of has been falsified.  When we say that "all statements with false consequences are false," we mean that when the truth of P necessitates the truth of Q, and Q fails to be true, P has been falsified. In other words, we mean modus tollens.  A better way to put it is that "all propositions with false consequences are false" is a beautiful miniaturization of modus tollens. 

It is thought that all instances of disproof can be represented as uses of modus tollens reasoning. 

Now, if you are an atheist like me, you might want to use one or more of these forms of reasoning to throw hard balls across the theist's plate.  This is not so much to change the theist's mind, as to give your audience permission to change theirs.  Try proving a negative by using modus tollens: 

If the bible was inspired by a god, it would be an extremely well written book. 

It is not a well written book at all. 

Therefore, the bible was not inspired by a god. 

If there are any gods, there would be signs of them. 

But there are no signs of them, 

Therefore, there are no gods. 

If heaven is real, there would be souls coming back to earth. 

There are no souls coming back to earth.

Therefore, heaven is not real. 

Or try using EAE or AEE reasoning to prove a negative. 

All living things are mortal.

No gods are mortal.

Therefore, no gods are living things. 

All gods are immortal.

No living things are immortal.

Therefore, no gods are living things.  

All existing things are natural. 

No gods are natural. 

Therefore, no gods are existing things.  

No existing things are unnatural.

All gods are unnatural.

Therefore, no gods are existing things. 

Renaming the American Republican Party

The word republic comes from two Latin words res + publicum.  It means literally that which is public. The term was used to translate a Greek word politea, which means constitution.  The work we all know as Plato's Republic is called Politea in Greek.  

Eventually the word republic came to mean any state that is not a monarchy (i.e., a state that has a constitution instead of a king).  Activists who work to demote monarchy and replace it with a constitutional state are called republicans throughout history.  

I have already said enough about the history of the term to fully convict the American republican party of seriously failing to live up to the greatness of their name.  

First off, the republican party is not a party favoring "that which is public".  Rather, it is a party that disdains all things public, whether it is public libraries, schools or pensions. Public spending per se seems distasteful to republican palates, but public spending is precisely what "that which is public" requires.  There are no public libraries, parks, schools or military without it.  There are no public harbors, airports, roads or sewers either.  But it is not just these obvious uses of public monies that the republican party loathes.  It is the hard to see stuff too, like social security payments, medicare, medicaid, student loans, unemployment insurance, small business loans, job training and myriad other programs. Whatever the public wants and enjoys, the republican party of today is set to disdain.  

So, the republican party is definitely not the party for "that which is public."  They are the party against "that which is public."  About the only public things that the republican party can tolerate these days are police violence, angry mobs, federal prisons, state prisons and tax cuts.  

What about the other part of the meaning of republican, the part about preferring constitutional republics over monarchy?  Surely the GOP fits that form?  

Yeah, well, I'm afraid the results here are mixed.  It is not enough to oppose monarchy.  One has to embrace constitutional forms of government.  An activist who prefers a different monarch from the one in power, and works to replace one monarch with another, is not a republican.  That is a monarchist.  A republican in the historical sense has to favor constitutional rule over monarchy.  

This is, of course, where the modern GOP starts to escape the republican mold.  They are not a party given to palpitations and glittery words about the rule of law.  They are instead a party given to making virtuous noise about stuff that they ultimately loathe and want to destroy.  Thus they told us that Roe v. Wade was settled law, precedent, stare decisis and all that.  But their words were mere flowers and incense that sweetened the air around their corrupt intentions.  

Any words GOP leaders mouth about the rule of law must be taken with a grain of salt. Their recent promise from the floor of the SOTU speech as well.  That promise on social security and medicare was not worth a pixel.  Nor was their cheer in favor of seniors.  You cannot trust a party that wants to snatch away rights.  

But my point has to do with the historical meaning of "republican". Today's GOP is not an anti-monarchical party in two ways.  First, because it is not an anti-authoritarian party.  Second, because it is not anti-fascist, by which I mean, anti-rule-by-force.  The GOP is prepared to impose authoritarianism by force on the nation.  So, they can no longer be considered anti-monarchic.  Monarchy is just a nice word for tyranny.  The GOP is no longer anti-tyrant.  They have not quite become vocally pro-tyrant.  However, some of their extreme elements are saying it.  The worst of their base wants tyranny and forced acceptance of what they say.  

Fascism and authoritarianism are terms thrown about these days for good reason. The GOP has come to fit those molds.  Rule by force is simply called fascism these days, and rule by force is one of the things the GOP has begun to fantasize.  Authoritarianism has to do with enforcing strict obedience, and this is one of the things you can see the GOP jonesing for.  They expect it. Their corrupt SCOTUS wonders how it could be losing authority. The churches, the business leaders too -- they feel their authority weakening even as they step up demands for it.  One of the things these haters of authority do not understand is that when they deride and damage the authority of science, they damage their own authority too.  When they heckle the president they trash themselves.  When they demean the value of teachers and professors, they lower the value of their own degrees.  If they show no respect they will get no respect.  

In addition, the GOP staged a coup. The GOP is still lying about the coup.  The GOP is also trying to hamstring investigations into the criminals directly involved in the coup. The GOP has left its political moorings and gone adrift in their effort to placate a deranged man.  It has not gone well, but they are not sufficiently convinced of that fact to go back to port.  They still think their nine year spineless drift might all turn out to be worth it, maybe when they get the dotard back in the oval.  

So, the GOP is not really anti-monarchical, and they do not clearly prefer the rule of law to the rule of men.  As a result, the constitution is in peril.  

But what should they be called now?  They do not favor republicanism, that is, constitutional law, anti-authoritarianism, anti-fascism and anti-tyranny.  So, they should no longer be allowed to call themselves republicans. In fact, this party is an insult to all the republicans who fought the injustice of royalty over the centuries.  None of the GOP deserve respect from true republicans.  And none of them deserve to share a name with great people in history.  

I suggest we rename the party.  I have enjoyed a few memes involving GQP, which uses Q because of the Qanon conspiracy theory that republican party leaders are too cowardly to denounce. But that one is mostly a sight gag, it is funny but you have to see it written.  Hearing it is just different and not nearly as funny.  I like  to call them the G-O stinky P. That designation is funny in live speech, but does not come off very well in writing. I would love, and I mean love to hear a Dem refer to his or her opponent's party as the G-O stinkin' P in a debate.  It would get attention, and the repugs would cry all over the internet about it.  

Because they cannot be counted on in a fight against kingship, I really cannot continue to call them the republican pig party, which has been my personal favorite moniker for the GOP for over a decade, and has been especially useful in recent years.  I think of terms like The Bigot Party, The Complainers Party or The Hates A Lots.  There are others, such as The Woman Haters or The Paranoid Party that are spot on.  

Looking at the names of parties around the world, the best moniker for them is the Nationalist Party, because nationalism is a sickness, and the party is truly sick.  

Learning some Taylor Swift stuff

On the Saturday before the Super Bowl I clicked a link at YouTube and jumped through a biography of Taylor Swift.  I then got the idea to look into her music, and especially her lyrics.  I listened to several lyric vids on Taylor's YouTube page.  I was impressed.  She writes clever lyrics. Then I found a playlist from her tour. I've now gone through the entire playlist. I remain impressed.  I had no idea what an accomplished lyricist she was.  I did not know she had gone into pop music.  I did not know about her record setting musical tours. I did not know about the size of her fan base. 

I looked into all of this because of the political hoopla surrounding her attendance at the super bowl - basically, the right wing paranoid loons were claiming that Taylor was going to steal the election at the Super Bowl by endorsing Joe Biden in front of a camera.  

I'm glad I learned about Taylor.  I am now quite fond of her and her music. 

It turns out I was familiar with eight of her songs. Before my recent studies, I would have told you that I only knew one song of hers, "Mean", which I have always liked. Two songs, "You Belong to Me" and "We are Never, Ever Getting Back Together," I've heard a lot, but I always thought they were Avril Lavigne songs. I stand corrected .  Another two I have heard many, many times in bars and restaurants, and would have carried no theories as to who did them, "Fearless" and "Long Live."  These two country hits are quite nice and not very twangy.  I think I have probably heard a few more of her country songs that are not on this playlist. I had also heard "Don't Blame Me", "Look What You Made Me Do" and "Shake It Off" more than once.  I also think "Blank Space" seems familiar, like there was a period when I used to hear the start of that song in assorted restaurants, stores etc.  

I was never familiar with the lyrics of Fearless and Long Live. I am now, and they are really nice songs. 

I was impressed by a few other songs on the playlist, including some of the newest ones, like "Midnight Rain" and "Anti-Hero". 

I was  pleased with her lyrical abilities on songs that do not interest me much. I am a 62 year old male with a PhD.  I like and appreciate poetry.  I like Taylor's poetry, even when the songs are not my cup of tea.  A really sad song is called "Tolerate It" -- musically, this is not for me but the lyrics are really well done.  I can say the same for several other songs. "Love Story" is an old song that I have heard before. It has a Romeo and Juliette theme.  It's more musically appealing than "Tolerate It". The lyrics are very well done.  Not my kind of song, but I can see why it has been so popular for so long.  

I think the song called Mastermind is brilliant.  Also the song called Blank Space.  Also a song called The Archer.  These for me are three jaw droppers.  

Taylor is now the biggest pop star on the planet.  She has ten albums, around two hundred songs, a billion dollar tour, a growing fan base and a growing ability to write amazingly satisfying music.  She started writing professionally at age 14.  So, she has been a professional writer of songs for 20 years.  Her lyrical abilities will only improve with time, I think.  

I don't know that I would ever buy one of her disks.  But with all that she means to the rotten righties in the USA, I wanted to know something about her.  She is no longer the blonde kid with a guitar playing country songs on SNL that I recall her as.  She is an icon.  She might already be the most powerful entertainer there ever was.  Move over, Orpheus.  

__________

Below are links to Lyric Video streams of the three jaw droppingly good songs from the tour setlist.  These are lyrically very fine songs and they are very different from one another musically. 

BONUS: 

I explored songs that were not on the Eras Tour setlist.  I found the following especially nice.  The song "Mirrorball", from the Grammy winning album called Folklore, compares being an entertainer during a pandemic to being a disco ball in a room where no one is around.  

"Only the Young" responds to school shootings. 

"This is Me Trying" is about recovery from addiction, toxicity, etc.  

Below is an old favorite, "Mean," which is about bullying and won a Grammy for country music song of the year. I learned this song years ago when I frequented a bar whose owner had it on a loop she played frequently.  That was in 2011-12.  I think this was on Taylor's third album, which appeared in or around 2010.  

Other socially aware songs from Taylor Swift include Anti-Hero, which is about not fitting in. Also "You Need to Calm Down", which has become a pride month anthem.  But lots of her songs include social commentary. Even "Shake it Off" says, "the haters gonna hate, hate, hate, hate, hate, and the fakers gonna fake, fake, fake, ...but I'm just gonna shake, shake, ...shake it off".  

Below is a fan vid of Taylor performing "Don't Blame Me". There are lots of fan vids from her concerts.  This is a pretty cool film shot close to the stage during her 2018 tour, known as the Reputation Stadium Tour. 

5/10/24 Update: I tried out the new album. Amazing lyrics all over the place there.  Here is one song that caught my eye.  "I Hate it Here" addresses compensatory imaginings which arise from disappointment with reality.