Forest Meet Trees

Reintroduction

The initial idea behind this blog was so I could give the world my personal philosophy (IE: whine on the internet).   For a while, I didn't have time to make post so I started using this blog for research.    I would post about a single topic that I have researched usually the result of some argument on Facebook.      I will try to post more often but don't hold your breath.

Down the rabbit hole

This was mainly at the point when I really started identifying as an atheist.  I hung out in atheist groups and read atheist books.   I got into arguments online which are all pretty normal for most atheist at the start.     The problems there started when I began reading more books about related topics and learned what logical fallacies are.   I love Christopher Hitchens.  The more I learned about how and why he argued the more my way of thinking changed.

I started to notice the people around me were often to the extreme left politically.     In fact, the atheist movement was like being in a radical feminist Marxist rally.       Obviously, I didn't stick around long.    

The extreme left made holding conferences impossible and their groups don't tolerate descent.  Lately, I rarely discuss religion unless someone preaches their way into annoying me.  

In the Forest

What generally made me get back into the blog this time was reading something from a friend.    Of course, this person believes they are special since he has "converted" an atheist back to Christianity.    I guess I'm thankful he hasn't approached me yet with the idea of conversion.     I probably know more about the bible than he does.   I've probably been in more of these arguments than he has and I'm certain it will end up in one direction.    Essentially, he will try to convince me that his personal opinion is proof of a god.    I will deny it and punch enough holes in his assertions that it will end in the "agree to disagree" land.   What a waste of time.   He doesn't have the proof I need to believe and he doesn't need proof to believe.

His comment was that he was upset that some members of congress have been allowed to use the Koran to swear in on.       His problem what that it was the wrong religion and should be banned because obviously all Christians think the same way.  (his way)     Nevermind, this would be impossible as our bill of rights prevents it.      Of course, it isn't truly about Muslims.    He would oppose Mormons, Jehovah Witnesses, and Catholics just as much.

However, I think he misses the point here.     The religion of these senators isn't the problem.    It's the political beliefs which are from the extreme progressive left.   I recognize that Muslims have been responsible for some of the worst events in modern history in the name of their beliefs.      I think all religions are equally toxic.      In modern times, all religions have had some horrible events that were only made possible by their beliefs.    Christians had people like Jim Jones and David Koresh.    There is a major difference even though you can find more examples from Muslims

The extreme sects of Muslims are often sponsored by rouge states to do their dirty work.     The pour money into the religions which goes into attacks and teaching to get more followers.      Think of the Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, and Iran.    All three of these countries find extremist to further their causes.

Can you imagine what David Koresh or Jim Jones could have done if the United States had funded them instead of trying to stop them?      They would have been an unstoppable force that could have created havoc with Mexico and many others.    

Reponse to Blog post of Strom

Original Blog post is located here.

This article is flawed to the point of absurdity. Roosh is a "pick up artist" which has nothing to do with the liberties of either gender.  This is a fact that Roosh himself has said repeatedly despite feminist trying to throw him in with the men's rights crowd.  I don't think Roosh is even representative of the "pick up artist" as some focus on training men how to talk to women.    It's inaccurate to say that all push an "asshole" approach to women.    Roosh is merely interested in getting sex thus I will exclude anything responding to his philosophy. 

 

I would also not include "men going their own way" as a men's rights group.   These men are often those who reject the notion of relationships and marriage for various reasons.      Some of them are also in the men's rights camps but that is not to say all of them.  Many of them maybe victims of a bias system but there is also nothing wrong with people who choose to remain single regardless of their reasons.

It is also inaccurate to draw a distinction of modern and old feminism. Feminism has never been about equal rights which is clearly outlined in the "declaration of sentiments".   You only have to read the writings of prominent feminist from the 60's to see this has changed very little.    I have never heard of a single instance where feminist have fought for equality. I have yet to meet a single feminist who doesn't claim some form of patriarchy theory to explain things which even the author used to a lesser extent by claiming men were taught they were superior to women.   I would grant that some feminist are about equality such as Christina Hoff Summers but they are by far the minority of the group.

The claims on sexual assault are completely wrong. It's impossible to say which gender suffers more sexual violence and irrelevant. Are we going to say because men are the majority of murders and assaults that society oppresses men?    Clearly not.    The main reason a comparison of sexual violence is impossible is that until 2012 male victims were recorded as "aggravated assault" due to the definition used by the FBI. This means the rape statistics prior to 2012 completely ignore male victims and female perpetrators. The definition since then has improved but it still completely ignores any victims of female crimes including men and other females. The best information currently available was a survey funded by the CDC which shows nearly equal victimization of the genders if you assume "made to penetrate" is a synonym for rape.   The consultant on this survey, Mary Koss, even said that she used a different classification because men secretly wanted the sex even if they were unaware of it.    This type of thinking has even been used to justify charging child support to a male victim of rape in several states.

The second claim of sex trafficking is also wrong. What little research that has been done shows that boys are more often the target of sex trafficking but receive little help from society. In addition, boys are also trafficked for other purposes like slave labor. I guess one could argue that labor slavery is better than sex slavery but I doubt victims would agree.

 

The short comment on GamerGate is completely wrong as well.    GamerGate was a consumer revolt against corruption in the game journalism.     The movement has had a profound impact on journalism in most game magazines now include ethic clauses to disclose conflicts of interest.    Anita and her ideology are irrelevant to the cause.

I applaud the author's recognition of custody issues as well as domestic violence. However, I would note that the claim that child abuse has gender parity is incorrect. The overwhelming amount of child abuse is done by the mother most often toward the male until puberty.

 

While we are talking about crimes, I would point out the sentencing gaps where women convicted of crimes are given a significant light sentence compared to men.     There have even been feminist calls to abolish female prisons altogether.

The characterization of Karen's arguments for the draft missed the point entirely. The argument is a rebuttal of the inaccurate claim that women couldn't vote but men could. The fact is that the draft was (and still is) a requirement for every male in order to vote (among other things). Women have never been subject to this requirement regardless of how just it is. The idea is that if men and women should be equal under the law then they should have the same rights and responsibilities. 

 

I agree that women are generally not as physically strong as men but that doesn't mean there are no roles in combat for them.      Currently in the military, women are often given different physical standards and generally are not in positions that require extreme physical ability.

I am glad to see the author called out the pay gap myth.   However, they replaced it with a call for some sort of communism.      Female dominated professions are not paid less because they job is somehow valued less.      These jobs are generally not as difficult or dangerous as male dominated areas.   I don't see how paying a librarian the same as a miner is justice.      Women have the choice to participate in any job.   To achieve parity on the pay scale then women will simply have to do the same jobs with the same amount of effort.   I agree with the author that women are over taking men in a lot of areas.      In fact, women are now the strong majority in college and have been for many years.    I find it odd that when women were only a few percentage behind in college it was considered an emergency and now that women lead by nearly 20% "we need to do more".

It's funny how the article never mentions anything wrong with what Paul Elam has said and only a minor disagreement with Karen which is completely inaccurate..

Why is feminism not about equality?

Why is feminism not about equality?

First, imagine you get paid to eat a handful of candy from a bowl every month and 90% of those candies are poison.   You may not die from eating a single poisoned candy but it will at least reduce your lifespan by 10%.    Sound good so far?

You aren't allowed to refuse them.    If you don't eat them the government will throw you in jail or execute you.    

Now, imagine your neighbor is getting paid the same amount of money you get, but they don't have to eat any candy.   

Is that equality?

Why online dating fails

I have used online dating sites and even run one for a while.  It seems everyone has bad experiences.  Why do so many people have bad luck with online dating sites?  The answer is simple.

Male Perspective

On average, for every 50 messages sent there's only one response.  The received responses are almost always from a model with an invitation to view their web cam or another site.  On a rare occasion, a female profile initiates communication which almost always an automated system or baiting.  (Baiting is trying to lure someone to another website with the promise of something.)  

Female Perspective

The ladies are flooded with messages containing penis pictures or one line messages with cheesy pick-up lines.  On average for her, every 50 messages received contains one response from someone reasonable.

Failure

The problem is on three fronts.   First, the site only cares about collecting fees and not making connections between people.  Many sites create fake profiles using pictures of models and change the location information on deleted accounts.   

Second, most good men will leave after a short period due to the lack of any real profiles and the expense of the site.  This leaves only the most aggressive males who have nothing better to do than send out 500 dick pictures and corny one-liners to random profiles per day. 

Third, most good women will leave after a short time due to receiving so many emails from jerks.  This leaves only the females who are there for some commercial interest such as web cams or pushing a different web site.

These three issues create an environment hostile to the normal people who come to the web site.   The business has no incentive to correct the problems while the money continues to roll in.

Ideologues

ideologues: (noun) An adherent of an ideology, especially one who is uncompromising and dogmatic.

I've had discussions on a wide range of topics and the only thing common is humans seem incredibly prone to the mindset of an ideologue.  Unfortunately, this is true in the current age of information where data is available to everyone.  It seems people are satisfied to repeat whatever their social group says and resist anything that contradicts those assertions.  I've lamented on this topic in several posts before. (See: Atheist and Beliefs, A political party)   I just didn't realize how deep this problem goes.

Solar Panel

Most people think that religion is the only dogmatic form of thought, but I've talked with people who became hostile when presented with facts about solar panels.   They couldn't handle that solar panels aren't economically feasible on a massive scale mainly due to a lack of technology for industrial power storage and the availability of the sun varies.  I argued that solar panels aren't the answer to getting off fossil fuels for reasons I've written in two articles. (See: Solar Myths. . .Again, Solar Mecca)  Why should facts be so offensive?    It's fine if you want to waste money putting panels on your home, but don't pretend that they are the solution to the energy problem.

Cannabis

Recently, I was talking with some people about cannabis.  They claimed that it should be legalized due to a wide range of benefits from smoking cannabis like curing cancer, multiple sclerosis, and HIV.  Sounds too good to be true?  They obviously had never researched the topic because when I asked for the basis of their claim they posted five links to news stories.  The titles appeared to support their claims, but they obviously didn't read the study referenced in the news story.  None of the studies supported their claims.  In this case, several of the links referenced studies that were against their position.  When I pointed this out, they tried to rationalize how I was still wrong.  All they had to do was read their own links.  They should have the courage to admit they wanted it to be legal because they liked getting high.  Honestly, I don't care if it is legal or not.  It wouldn't affect me either way because I wouldn't smoke it regardless of it's legal standing.   What I am against is unsupported claims especially claims that could cause harm to people like cannabis cures cancer and HIV.    There are some benefits in certain cases, but all of those benefits are available in synthetic pill form which makes the legalization of pot irrelevant.

Gun Control

Another common hot topic is that of gun control.  I have posted three separate times on this topic. (See: My opinion on guns, Propaganda on guns in Australia, and Assault Weapons Ban)  There are many books on the subject.   The most well known books are by John Lott titled "More Guns, Less crime" and "The bias against guns".  John Lott's work has been replicated over 25 times in peer reviewed literature.  It has never been refuted despite some unsourced claims by political websites.  I have never encountered a logical or reasoned argument against the private ownership of guns.

In fact, all my discussion on guns go like this:

1. Owning buckets is legal 
2. Putting water in your buckets is legal
3. Sometimes people leave buckets full of water unsecured
4. Some children drown in these buckets
5. I support #1 and #2
6. I hate children

In this example, I would support a ban on owning buckets if someone could show that banning buckets would save lives.    However, their proof goes like this.

1. Country A has fewer Children downing in buckets than Country B
2. Country A has low bucket ownership compared to Country B
3. #1 must be the result of #2

This is a correlation equals causation argument and conflicts with the evidence we have available.  They ignore all the other types of drowning which could be a sign of neglect on the part of the bucket owner or the parent.   They are ignorant of the history of the laws toward buckets in country A.  It's possible they never owned a large amount of buckets or even had the right to do so.

The crime rates have been falling for decades despite gun ownership going up and the increasingly common CCW permits.    This simple look at crime statistics shows that the mere availability of guns doesn't increase crimes.   Otherwise, we should expect more crime as more guns are owned.

Religion

The oldest of dogmas is religion.   I have never written much outside of a few debates because there are many books covering this topic.  The bluntest of these books is "God is not Great" by the late Christopher Hitchens.  I think the strongest argument against Christianity is covered in books by Bart Ehrman which addresses the bible from historical perspective.   Of course, another of my favorite authors on this topic is John W. Loftus.     The best argument I've seen against religion was made by Mr. Loftus as quoted below.

"Let's consider the kind of evidence believers point to for us to believe.  Philosophical arguments don't count as evidence.  They are mostly special pleading since they don't lead to any specific religious sect.  What's left?  There is no empirical evidence since we weren't there to witness the resurrection for ourselves.  There is no first hand eyewitness testimony.  The textual evidence comes from the 4th century.  There is no prophetic evidence of a resurrected Messiah, while all the so-called OT prophecies are either not predictions at all or misapplied by the NT writers. And I'm supposed to accept Christianity? Really? Seriously?  When I say there isn't sufficient evidence to believe I mean just that.  It doesn't matter if the earliest disciples had sufficient evidence to believe.  We don't know that they did.  All we have is the so-called evidence above. The kicker is that the Jews of that day did not believe this so-called evidence, nearly 8 million of them, even though they believed in God, his ability to do miracles, OT prophecy, and were there. So tell me once again why any reasonable person should believe? It simply does not add up."

-John W. Loftus

Feminism

The most controversial topic I have researched by far is that of feminism.  I started from a neutral position and researched the claims made by feminist.  What I found was the worst dogmatic beliefs resistant to the slightest glimmer of light from logic and evidence.  I have never experienced more hatred than when I questioned the feminist position.   Apparently, I am supposed to merely accept it without question even when their ideas are toxic.

Feminist are the most violent ideologues I have every seen.  When Erin Pizzey challenged common (feminist) beliefs about domestic violence she was threatened and her dog was killed.   This violence is still seen today in their protest against any ideas threatening their dogma. 

The conclusion I have come too is feminism only cares about women and female supremacy.  Feminist often quote statistics that ignore men and assert that men are responsible for the women.  I have addressed the feminist narrative in a series of articles starting with What feminist don't want you to know: Introduction.

In the end

Maybe it's just the agenda they are pushing?  The politics they subscribe too?  They already have the answers and look for facts to support it while ignoring anything that doesn't agree.  This is nothing more than confirmation bias.  Now, I understand how creationist can think they are right.  They are no worse than a self proclaimed skeptic who comes to the right conclusion for the wrong reasons.

My discussion usually follow the same pattern which is why I stopped trying to reason with these people.  They never provide sources for the basis of the opinion.  When asked, they do a quick Google search for relevant titles.   The links they post are normally news stories to politically leaning sites supporting their conclusion.  (The right is usually to Fox and the Left is to HuffPost) The have titles supporting their assertion, but sometimes the content contradicts their basis.   I end up wasting my time reading their links and pointing out the problems I find.   They are never willing to discuss the issues with their links.  They rationalize their position followed by name calling or switching the burden of proof to me by claiming they are right until I disprove their theory.

What evidence can you provide to someone who denies all evidence?  The answer is you don't.    You will never convince someone with dogmatic beliefs and it is best to simply avoid them.   At most, you may convince someone who is already sitting on the fence from their doubts.  No one can ever be reasoned or debated from a position they hold as absolute truth.  Debates are good to reach people who are undecided and attended the debate to gain additional information.

Solar Myths . . . again

Oklahoma recently made the news with stories like this.   Most of the left leaning news sources have picked up the story and misrepresented the facts around the law, technology, and science.  I have covered the science behind solar panels in detail in this post.    Do we have a massive corporate conspiracy by oil companies that has been hidden from the public for years and would involve both political parties?      The short answer is no.

Solar panels sound good on a bumper sticker but the technology just isn't there.  Everyone always talks about Germany, but their solar panels were installed on over 20 billion Euros of subsidies netting about 3% of their power needs.

There's no way to store the extra power so individual homes aren't allowed to feed power back to the grid. The perfect solar panel could theoretically convert about 33% of the sun's energy into power. Our best panels do about 18% but that requires perfect angels, clear skies, and being geographically located on the equator. Germany has shut down most of their conventional power plants which means they have to buy their power from their neighbors when there isn't enough sun to fill the demand. This is especially true in the winter when they sun is hidden by clouds for months. This has made their average electric bill the second highest in the EU. They have restarted some of their old plants that use oil to fill the gaps. I guess modern people hate brown outs.

The best case would be to build the solar power plants in the desert where the sun isn't interrupted by weather and transmission lines to carry the power to the consumer. This would exclude the northern United States since the available solar energy decreases as you move north.  You would still have to keep existing plants running because you can't just throw a switch and instantly get power from a conventional power plant when the demand exceeds the available supply. So you would have to build twice the infrastructure and still produce the same amount of green house gases while the consumer pays for it all.

The bottom line is "alternative" energy sources aren't economically feasible due to technology constraints. This is mainly due to the lack of industrial batteries.  Germany is a beacon of failure but no one is willing to research it. Simply throwing money at it makes people feel good but in the end we are still digging the hole at the same speed and just poorer.

In the past, Oklahoma has been like most states paying subsidies (tax breaks) to people who install alternative energy sources. Where this ties into the news story is that if a large number of individuals are feeding power back to grid then they have to make infrastructure changes to handle it because our power system wasn't designed that way.   When more power is generated than used, the power has to be dumped because it can't be stored. (It's actually cheaper to just not feed the power to the grid) The utility companies can't pay for this extra cost out of pocket and they are limited on what they can charge consumers. (The power utilities are regulated in Oklahoma)  This leaves a few possibilities which are to charge everyone more for the electric or more government subsidies.   Either way, everyone pays the extra cost for a few people to feel good about them self. The most viable option is to tax those causing the problem.

The only way we will get off the oil dependency is to pour money into science and R&D.  Unfortunately, science has been subject to budget cuts for years.    In fact, every dollar wasted on installing "alternative" energy source would be better served to be spend on science.    We must develop an economical feasible technology to replace oil.   

Right now, the most promising science to help with global warming is to remove the CO2 from the air by chemical reactions or to collect it from the exhaust of conventional power plants.   So it's possible that solar will never replace oil.

"Why do people laugh at creationist" Index

Thunderf00t has produced some amazing videos on creationist claims but lacks an index of the topic of each video.    This list will provide a short summary of each video.

1. Video 1 - Covers the claim about the grand canyon being a result of Noah's flood and water found outside the Earth.   It also includes covers the shape of the Earth's orbit and habitable zone.
2. Video 2 - This video talks about the creation of new elements from basic atoms and the moon eclipse.
3. Video 3 - A video debunking Kent Hovind's theory of how Noah's flood was the result of a comet impact.
4. Video 4 - Number 4 calculates how much water is needed to cover the Earth based on claims made by Kent Hovind.
5. Video 5 - This debunks the assertion by Kent Hovind and the bible about a canopy of water/ice existing in the sky.
6. Video 6 -The video addresses the claim by Kent Hovind that clouds can shield against radiation from the sun and the cause of aging.
7. Video 7 -This explains the basis of evolution and inconsistencies in Kent Hovind's explanation of the lack of large animals in modern times.
8. Video 8 - This video addresses the claims of creationist regarding the probability of evolution.
9. Video 9 -A video talking about quote mining used by creationists and the argument by design.
10. Video 10 - This video addresses the argument by creationist for the fine tuned values of forces of nature like gravity.
11. Video 11 - Video number 11 debunks generic creationist claims regarding Noah's flood and soul deaths.
12. Video 12 - In this episode, Kent Hovind confuses basic biological terms and concepts.  The primary focus is on reproduction and inheritance.
13. Video 13 - In this video, the Discovery Institute demonstrate their ignorance of science by claims of design.    It touches on the court case on intelligent design.
14. Video 14 - In this episode, creationist's common method of dishonesty by misquoting people. This dishonesty was particularly obvious in the dover vs kitzmiller trial where creationists simply lied in court.
15. Video 15 - This addresses creationist claims of the Cambrian explosion.
16. Video 16 - This video addresses some of the claims by creationist venomfangx regarding radioactive decay rates and radiometric dating.
17. Video 17 - This covers the value of information and the discovery of science.
18. Video 18 - The video addresses the issue of creationist censoring comments to prevent criticism and false flagging.
19. Video 19 - This one explains micro evolution versus macro evolution compared to misconceptions by creationist.
20. Video 20 - This episode addresses a creationist claim about the moon's orbit.
21. Video 21 - It goes into the religious intolerance of critics and how religion has held us back.  How important free speech is.
22. Video 22 -This addresses Ben Stein misinformation in his documentary about evolution.
23. Video 23 -This video concentrates on bad information given by Ben Stein through interviews because of his new movie.
24. Video 24 - This is a continuation of #23 regarding Ben Stein bad information focusing on his statement that 'science leads to killing people' and claims about the status of the US military.  
25. Video 25 - In this episode creationists about abiogenesis being impossible and how toxic theism can be to our society.
26. Video 26 - This focuses on how theism impacts politics through the example of Sarah Palin. 
27. Video 27 - This goes after the various absurd claims of Venomfangx.
28. Video 28 - This episode looks at claims by theist that the bible is the most scientifically accurate book.
29. Video 29 - In this episode the origin of morality is addressed with respect to arguments of Ravi Zacharias
30. Video 30 - This video follows Casey Luskins creationist claims after Intelligent Design lost in the landmark court case.
31. Video 31 - This video follows Ray Comfort starting from his fumble with the origin of bananas and addressing some of him claims.
32. Video 32 - Addressing Kent Hovind and Eric Hovind 'four questions' and attempt to contrast how science views the question with how their particular sect does.
33. Video 33 -This episode covers conservapedia and the recycled creationist claims it contains with a focus on claims made by Nephilimfree and Shockofgod as being alternative theories to science.    This includes claims on how the moon got the craters.
34. Video 34 - A deeper look at creationist Nephilimfree claims about Noahs flood which he claims flooded the Earth, caused the craters on the moon, and the comets.  Finally deposited the iridium in the imaginary 'K2' boundary.
35. Video 35 - This looks into claims that because Newton was a smart Christian that Christianity must be true.
36. Video 36 -Covering more claims from venomfangx claiming science is in the bible including sea currents, fish of the sea, washing your hands under running water, and the general fallacies of his arguments.
37. Video 37 -This one unpacks the five points used by William Lane Craig to prove Christianity.
38. Video 38 -This video details what would happen if the Earth stopped rotating or revolving based on the story of Joshua.   It also addresses biblical morality like the slaughter of children by the commandment of god.
39. Video 39 -In revisiting Noah's flood, this discusses the volcano theory that explains that the animals on the ark got back via a massive volcano eruption that threw the animals in the general direction of their homeland.
40. Video 40 - The creationist onceforgivennowfree says the question 'is your brain intelligently designed' is the new atheists nightmare.
41. Video 41 - A high level overview of the debate between Ken Ham and Bill Nye.  This video covers the evolution of dogs and observational science.
42. Video 42 -  This addresses the end time claims primarily from Ray Comfort.    The evidence of the end times like a lunar eclipse and the existence of the ocean is proof of Noah's flood.