Shane’s Neighborhood

I know I have just been posting videos mostly, but I am preparing for finals rights now.  The real action is in the comments right now.

Thanks ZOMGitsCriss for introducing me to this one.

Wow.  Just wow.

It looks like the Pacquiao/Mayweather dream fight may just happen.  The two camps have evidently entered into serious negotiations, though nothing is set in stone.

No contracts have been signed, according to Pacquiao's financial adviser Michael Koncz, who says that there is "fine-tuning" to be done in negotiations yet. But such is the hunger for what is potentially the biggest money-spinner in boxing history, that the pressure to reach an agreement will be intense. Total revenue, including pay-per-view, could hit $150m.

Fight fans around the world are no doubt keeping their fingers crossed.

Here follow the results of a "debate" between a scientist and a comedian/radio talk show host.

I wonder how many people saw through Maron's showmanship and realized he had nothing valid to say.  Could the BBC not find someone more credible than him?

This is an argument I conceived today against gnostic theism.  I do not recall ever hearing anyone make this argument before, though I am sure I am not the first to think of it.

For clarity's sake, a gnostic theist is someone who does not claim to simply believe a god exists, but claims to know a god exists.  A prime example of a gnostic theist is Ray Comfort.  As a side note, gnostic theists often claim to know specific characteristics of their professed deity, such as how he/she/it feels about certain issues and what he/she/it can or cannot do.

As much as I can know anything, I know my wife exists.  Short of convincing me I am schizophrenic or demonstrating to me that I have long be under the influence of powerful hallucinogens, no one will ever convince me my wife does not exist.  Furthermore, I have never doubted the existence of my wife.  Even in philosophical discourse where the very nature of reality and the reliability of sense datum is questioned, I have not doubted.  The testimony—if I may borrow a popular religious term—of my experience of her is simply too convincing to give me cause to doubt.

Most the people attending my parent's fundamentalist church, my parents included, claim to know their god exists.  They justify this knowledge through their "experience of God" and the "testimony of the Holy Spirit."  At the same time, my parents and many others have admitted they have occasionally doubted God's existence.  In fact, the Sunday after I told my father I was an atheist, in an event he chalked up to divine intervention, the pastor at his church preached a sermon on doubt, acknowledging that doubt is perfectly normal.

This whole situation strikes me as remarkably peculiar.  My father knows my mother exists.  Likewise, my mother knows my father exists.  Do you think they have ever doubted each others' existence?  Do you think they have ever doubted the existence their parents, children, friends, acquaintances, or that stranger who accidentally bumped into them in aisle nine at the Kroger?  No, of course they have not.  Their experience of their god, whether they admit it or not, is not even as convincing as their experience of strangers on the street, and certainly not as convincing as their experiences of each other.  Is it not bizarre and unusual to think they also profess their religion is more important to them than they are to each other?  Furthermore, is it not odd to think that this attitude permeates throughout fundamentalist thought despite the fact that most honest believers will admit they have doubted their god's existence at one point another?

Look at William Lane Craig.  He knows "Christianity is true."  The man has all but blatantly admitted no evidence could ever convince him God does not exist, yet a few breaths later acknowledges that doubting god's existence is typical and normal, even going so far as to outline a strategy for overcoming that doubt.  Can you imagine William Lane Craig outlining a strategy for overcoming your doubt of the existence of your parents, hometown, or the soda in your refrigerator you plan to drink tomorrow?  Such a commentary would be absurd to the highest degree because you actually do know those things exist, and you do not need any further convincing.

This argument need not apply only to Christian theism.  Those who claim to know a supernatural agent exists in the same capacity they know things which manifest in reality exist face an interesting problem with the issue of doubt for those willing to admit experiencing it.  I think the honest ones would have to admit the certainty of the existence of their couch is, in fact, stronger than the certainty of the existence of their deity (or whatever).

Long story short, in my estimation, gnostic theism is not an intellectually honest position.

Sometimes I hate reading things I have typed, because I almost always find errors in them.  I have noticed I fall prey to two errors more than any others.  First, I completely leave words out of sentences.  This annoys the hell out of me, because it makes my sentences sound ridiculous at times.  Secondly, I have found I tend to join dependent clauses with commas as if they are independent clauses.

I think these errors pop up with higher frequency in the comments than in my posts, since I can more vigorously proofread my posts (and I sometimes edit them days after posting them), but I can never seem to catch them all.

Also, though this practice is not an error, I tend to overuse parenthetical statements.

What sort of errors do you find you are inclined to make?

Join the wall of supporters asking for clean energy resolutions at Repower America.  Repower America is a project put together by the Alliance for Climate Protection, and though this is the organization Al Gore founded, I earnestly feel the cause of clean energy is one conservatives and liberals alike can support.  Pollution is nonpartisan, and regardless of an individual's politics, regardless of whether or not one accepts climate change theory, few would argue pollution is good, safe, or nondestructive.  Clean energy reduces pollution, reduces our consumption of nonrenewable resources, and reduces our dependence on foreign oil.

As I said in my small contribution to the wall, "Clean energy is the only long-term plan that makes sense."