Richard Dawkins and "Child Abuse"

After Richard Dawkins wrote his best-seller The God Delusion there has been a rash of backlash by many theists who misrepresent his position about religion and children and what Dawkins calls "child abuse."

Throughout the reviews I've written of the books that misrepresent his position I've tried my best to foil such propaganda. Of course, not that Dawkins' position needs to be defended necessarily because he succeeds in expressing his views so clearly. Unfortunately, despite Dawkins' clear language theists still cannot help themselves but take him out of context, allowing their own bigotry and dislike of Dawkins to rule over their more rational state of mind.

In The God Delusion, the very book these theists are arguing against, they often claim that Dawkins is comparing physical abuse to the mental abuse of telling children about hell, and since our culture takes children away from their parents for physical abuse, these people misinterpret Dawkins' message, and believe he wants to keep kids away from their parents if they're going to teach them religion! Nonsense!

The following are a few quotes from those who have spread this common misconception:

From The Truth Behind the New Atheism: Responding to the Emerging Challenges to God and Christianity, by David Marshall - “Dawkins admits his own intention to “focus on,” or intrude in, other peoples' families.” And, “Dawkins is more broad-minded: he thinks children have a right to be indoctrinated into thinking they're all evil, no matter what their parents say.”

From The Irrational Atheist: Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, by Vox Day - “While there is no evidence that being raised Catholic is more psychologically damaging than being sexually abused as a child, there is a great deal of evidence proving the opposite.”

From Answering the New Atheism: Dismantling Dawkins' Case Against God, byScott Hahn and Benjamin Wiker - "Dawkins makes the charge of child abuse with all seriousness, and this brings him to wade into what even he regards as dangerous waters. If it is abuse, then shouldn't children be protected from their parents? Agreeing heartily with psychologist Nicholas Humphrey, Dawkins argues against the notion that parents have a right to educate their own children in their own faith, precisely because children have a right to be protected from harmful nonsense."

What all these quotes have in common is the same wrong-headed reasoning. Each of them have badly taken Richard Dawkins out of context.

Dawkins’ argument was that the fear of hell that is so often instilled in children at a young age is often harmful to a child and that labelling children with the religion of their parents (thus forcing them into a religious belief box and limiting their free choice about what to believe) is “abusive.” On Scienceblogs.com Dawkins himself commented with the following:

According to decrepitoldfool, I assert that 'teaching religion to children is child abuse'. That is false. I have never asserted anything of the kind. I have said that LABELLING children with the religion of their parents is child abuse. That is very different from teaching religion to children. As I said in The God Delusion, and as I repeated in my post above, I am IN FAVOUR of teaching comparative religion, and teaching the Bible as literature. What I am against is labelling a child a Catholic child, Muslim child etc. I am, of course, equally opposed to labelling a child an 'atheist child'.

Throughout The God Delusion Dawkins makes this so very clear the only way a theist could misinterpret Dawkins' message is purely because of cold, hard bias. Several of the ideas Dawkins expresses in the ninth chapter of The God Delusion are so very clear, the above misinterpretations should be very easily seen.

On page 315 Dawkins has just finished telling his readers of the story about Edgardo Mortara, a six-year old boy who was taken from his loving Jewish parents after being splashed with some water and told some supposedly magic words by his babysitter, and poof, the boy is transformed into a Christian, no longer fit to be raised by Jewish parents. Dawkins writes,

...[I]sn't it always a form of child abuse to label children as possessors of beliefs that they are too young to have thought about? Yet the practice continues to this day, almost entirely unquestioned.

On page 327 Dawkins expresses his views about how a child should be free to make up their own minds once they're old enough to understand:

I thank my own parents for taking the view that children should be taught not so much what to think as how to think. If, having been fairly and properly exposed to all the scientific evidence, they grow up and decide that the bible is literally true or that the movements of the planets rule their lives, that is their privilege. The important point is that it is their privilege to decide what they shall think, and not their parents' privilege to impose it by force majeure...truly moral guardianship shows itself in an honest attempt to second-guess what they would choose for themselves if they were old enough to do so" (emphasis in original).

Another example of Dawkins expressing this view is when he relates the story about a find by archaeologists of a young Inca girl who was a victim of a child sacrifice,

Humphrey's point - and mine - is that, regardless of whether she was a willing victim or not, there is strong reason to suppose that she would not have been willing if she had been in full possession of the facts. For example, suppose she had known that the sun is really a ball of hydrogen, hotter than a million degrees Kelvin, converting itself into helium by nuclear fusion, and that it originally formed from a disk of gas out of which the rest of the solar system, including Earth, also condensed...Presumably, then, she would not have worshiped it as a god, and this would have altered her perspective on being sacrificed to propitiate it.

Another example is the following. An Amish community had taken their children out of high school on religious grounds because they didn't want them to have any further education. Dawkins expresses his opinion on page 330:

Even if the children had been asked and had expressed a preference for the Amish religion, can we suppose that they would have done so if they had been educated and informed about the available alternatives?

On page 338 Dawkins speaks of his "consciousness-raising" attempts:

In an earlier chapter, I generalized the theme of 'consciousness-raising,' starting with the achievement of feminists in making us flinch when we hear a phrase like 'men of goodwill' instead of 'people of goodwill.' Here I want to raise consciousness in another way. I think we should all wince when we hear a small child being labeled as belonging to some particular religion or another. Small children are too young to decide their views on the origins of the cosmos, of life and of morals. The very sound of the phrase 'Christian child' or 'Muslim child' should grate like fingernails on a blackboard.

On page 339-340 he encourages his readers to raise others' consciousness when they hear others' speaking of a "Christian child," etc. and to "raise the roof whenever you hear it happening."

Afterwards he says, "This...would be an excellent piece of 'consciousness-raising' for the children themselves. A child who is told she is a 'child of Muslim parents' will immediately realize that religion is something for her to choose - or reject - when she becomes old enough to do so."

On page 340 Dawkins expresses his beliefs that children should be taught comparative religion; hardly the evil atheist so many ignorant Christian apologists make Dawkins out to be in claiming he doesn't want children learning about religion because they're all "evil."

Dawkins says,

A good case can indeed be made for the educational benefits of teaching comparative religion...Let children learn about different faiths, let them notice their incompatibility, and let them draw their own conclusions about the consequences of that incompatibility. As for whether any are 'valid', let them make up their own minds when they are old enough to do so.

Finally, near the end of the chapter, Dawkins expresses his thoughts about how the bible should be read for it's cultural significance:

The King James Bible of 1611 - the Authorized Version - includes passages of outstanding literary merit in its own right, for example the Song of Songs, and the sublime Ecclesiastes (which I am told is pretty good in the original Hebrew too). But the main reason the English Bible needs to be part of our education is that it is a major source book for literary culture. The same applies to the legends of the Greek and Roman gods, and we learn about them without being asked to believe in them.

On page 344 Dawkins concludes:

Let me not labour the point. I have probably said enough to convince at least my older readers that an atheistic world-view provides no justification for cutting the Bible, and other sacred books, out of our education. And of course we can retain a sentimental loyalty to the cultural and literary traditions of, say, Judaism, Anglicanism or Islam, and even participate in religious rituals such as marriages and funerals, without buying into the supernatural beliefs that historically went along with those traditions. We can give up belief in God while not losing touch with a treasured heritage.

These quotes from The God Delusion should help to put a stop to the common demonizing of Dawkins and his views. However, despite these many quotes some still don’t get it.

In my many attempts to fix this distorted image that so many narrow-minded theists have spread about Dawkins' views I've debated several theists on this issue. During my research I came across an interview Richard Dawkins had given for The Guardian newspaper titled Darwin's child, with Simon Hattenstone, from from February 10, 2003:

Hattenstone: I tell him I've been thinking about his point that children should not be defined by religion, and that I have a solution. Why not ban religion till you're 18? I expect him to be delighted by my initiative, but he looks horrified.

Dawkins: Oh no. I don't want to lay down a law that says when you get a driving licence, you can call yourself anything you like. It's a consciousness-raising issue.

Hattenstone: What would [Dawkins] do if he had the powers of a dictator?

Dawkins: I think I would abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.

Hattenstone: But you've still got parents infecting the kids with their dogma, I say, playing devil's chaplain.

Dawkins: Well, I wouldn't want to have the thought police going to people's homes, dictating what they teach their children. I don't want to be Big Brotherish. I would hate that.

During some of the discussions I’ve had about this issue, and after quoting the above interview where Dawkins explicitly says he would not want to keep parents from teaching their children religion, Christians have claimed that Dawkins gave his true intentions away because he said in the interview that he would “abolish schools which systematically inculcate sectarian beliefs.”

Curious what Dawkins may have meant by "sectarian" I went to the RichardDawkins.net website to the discussion forums there and I posted a question to Richard directly asking him about this interview. I received a few replies but one was especially helpful from a man who lives in England and he helped me to better understand the context in which Dawkins was speaking.

England does not have a separation of church and state and therefore there are many schools that are religious and teach the general curriculum along with the specific belief system of that particular school.

After looking at the links provided in the forum I found that these schools often cause a lot of intolerance between the children of different schools (in fact if memory serves these are the schools Dawkins refers to in his series The Root of All Evil?) and a majority of people in Britain dislike the schools. In one of the links provided at the RichardDawkins.net forum, it explained the situation there with the "faith schools" and how according to critics of the schools, they educate children separately which can lead to social and religious divisions.

Ultimately what Dawkins meant was not that he wanted to stop religious instruction, since he even said he would not want to stop parents from teaching their children religion, he just said he wanted to abolish the "faith schools" that are in England (assuming he had the hypothetical power of a dictator) which segregate children by religion and close them off to other points of view, and the religious indoctrination often causes tension between children of other faiths, creating unnecessary tension and intolerance (and in my opinion possible violence).

Another aspect of this issue is the political climate in Europe. According to the reports I was given it's been estimated that 80% of the population of Britain disapproves of faith schools because of the problems mentioned above. The National Secular Society had this to say on the subject:

School provides the best, and sometimes only, opportunity to teach tolerance, but only if children of all beliefs and cultures are educated together. The problems in Belfast, Bradford and elsewhere remind us how imperative this need is […]

It's clear that Dawkins is not some atheist who hates religion and wants to close religious schools. This is (or at least was at the time of the interview) a very heated topic where he lives where a majority agree that the schools tend to breed intolerance. So, given the power of a dictator (and taken in context) he is referring to Britain's "faith schools" and not banning religion outright or wanting to keep kids from learning religion, but expressing his frustrations (that the majority in Britain can sympathize with) about the divisiveness of those schools and how he would have them shut down.

Dawkins is clearly not speaking of the banning of religion, or the banning of the teaching of religion. He clearly expresses these views not only in his book but the above interview as well.

Before I end this post I’d also like to quote Dawkins from his book A Devil's Chaplain, where in chapter seven he has published a letter to his daughter about exactly this issue. His daughter was ten years old at the time and he tells her about "good" and "bad" reasons to believe things, and the difference between good and bad evidence and how to tell the difference.

Just as he expressed in The God Delusion, about how his parents taught him how to think, he is doing the same with his daughter. Here is the relavent passge from A Devil's Chaplain:

[...] It is not easy for you to do anything because you are only ten. But you could try this. Next time somebody tells you something that sounds important, think to yourself: 'Is this the kind of thing that people probably know because of evidence? Or is it the kind of thing that people only believe because of tradition, authority or revelation?' And, next time somebody tells you that something is true, why not say to them: 'What kind of evidence is there for that? And if they can't give you a good answer, I hope you'll think very carefully before you believe a word they say.

After reading this passage did Dawkins tell his daughter that all religions were “evil?” That you shouldn’t believe? That religion was wrong? Of course not. He was introducing her to critical thinking skills so she could figure out the answer as to what she will believe on her own.

There isn't one shred of truth to those lies about Richard Dawkins telling parents not to teach their children religion. Now, it's just a question if these same people will once again gloss over the same quotes Dawkins used to express himself in the book they already claimed to have read or actually admit their bias.

In addition, this is another example of the undeserved respect religion gets from the majority of people. To most individuals it's commonly considered respectful to raise a child by allowing them to follow their heart and letting them choose their hobbies and not have the parents choose for them. It’s often considered good parenting to give children the freedom to experience all kinds of hobbies, and this should apply to ideas as well. If a parent forces his/her daughter to go to piano lesson seven though she doesn’t care for them, and if given a choice would choose something else, that's often considered bad parenting. But the same thing happens with religious beliefs and no one bats an eye.

As Dawkins has clearly expressed it's most respectful for a parent to allow their children to choose what they are to believe and this is no different then when parents chide other parents for making their children follow in their footsteps and no one sees that as threatening, but with religious beliefs they do, even though there really is no difference between these two ideas. It's just that religious beliefs are once again given a free pass from criticism and religious parents are allowed to force their beliefs on their children. If a parent forces their hobbies on their child, it's often considered wrong, so people must stop giving religion this very undeserved respect and we must "raise" parents' "consciousness" and allow all our children to choose their own path in life. This is truly all that Dawkins is asking for. Certainly not the banning of religion or the banning of the teaching religion to children, but respect for the childrens' minds.


Related Posts:

Richard Dawkins and "Child Abuse" Part 2
Richard Dawkins and "Child Abuse" Part 3

Against the Gods: Arguments Against God's Existence

Introduction:


It's been my hope to create a blog which attempts to answer a great majority of the claims and arguments put forth by theists about the existence of god, evolution, etc. I think I've amassed a great deal of information since I began my blog about a year and a half ago, but there seems to have been some arguments I've missed or just didn't bother to cover because, to put it simply, I thought they were too stupid to be taken seriously. For this reason I won't cover the Ontological arguments for god's existence, but I will cover all others. Because I have spent so much time on the arguments against "design" I will skip those sets of arguments as well (but I will place links that will point you to posts I've already written about it).

Because I began my blog in the first place to argue against the creationist/intelligent design nonsense a majority of my counter arguments and posts have been geared towards those kinds of arguments but because of reader feedback I've decided to address more arguments for god. I have referenced the book The Non-Existence of God, by Nicholas Everitt, for a list of arguments that I will be debunking.

The truth is, though, that I see nothing special about these arguments. Each of these arguments are fatally flawed when you think about them for just a few minutes (or when you look at the contradictory evidence). When someone comes to me and starts using a lot of philosophical arguments I often dismiss them by claiming they're using "philosophical bullshit" because, while I like philosophy, it can oftentimes be abused and just because something sounds logical doesn't mean it represents reality. Take, for example, the experiment in which a feather is dropped along with a bowling ball (taking wind resistance out of the equation). Logic would dictate that the ball would hit the ground first, but in reality they would both hit the ground at the same time. This is an example of something that seems like a logical conclusion: a heavier object will fall faster, but if you eliminate the affect air has on the objects, they will fall at the same rate and hit the ground at the same time.

It is because of this that I strongly argue that logic by itself (and I'm referring to both our more common "every day logic" and philosophical logic), while extremely helpful and right much of the time, can sometimes get you into trouble. Again, this is why I will not bother with covering the Ontological arguments. They don't prove anything. Their premises may all be true, but that doesn't mean the conclusion is true in reality.

With that in mind, let's begin smashing the logical disaster that is theology.


The Euthyphro Dilemma:


The Euthyphro Dilemma is so named because it comes from Plato's Euthyphro, in which it's asked, "Is the pious loved by the gods because it is pious, or is it pious because it is loved by the gods?"

This essentially means, "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?" This is also called the divine command theory.

Assuming god exists, it would be horrible to have morality dictated by such a being. The reasons are the following:

1. The first question that must be asked is what god are you interpreting? The god of the bible, or nature?

2. If it is the god of the bible then you have already lost the argument because god commands the murder of the inhabitants of multiple cities in Joshua 10:28-42, "...as the Lord the God of Israel had commanded." [NEB] This is one of many other slaughters found throughout the bible, including, Hosea 13:16:

"Samaria will become desolate because she has rebelled against her God; her babes will fall by the sword and be dashed to the ground, her woman with child shall be ripped up." [NEB]

Clearly, any sane human being will see that this is an immoral act, therefore, god cannot be considered a source for good morals since he commands the murder of many people.

Some christian apologists attempt to explain these acts away. Take the author of the apologist website godandscience.org for example. He says,

"The sixth commandment is "Thou shall not kill."1 Atheists claim that God violated His own commandment in ordering the destruction of entire cities, just to allow the Jews to have a homeland in the Middle East. The Bible confirms that God ordered the killing of thousands of people. Isn't this an open and shut case for the hypocrisy of the God of the Bible?

One thing you have to love about atheists is their extreme appreciation for the King James Version (KJV) translation. The KJV was translated in the early 17th century using an archaic form of modern English. In the last 400 years, English has changed significantly. Unfortunately, the vast majority of those who read the KJV (both believers and unbelievers) are unqualified to know what the text means in many instances because of word meaning changes. In attempting to demonstrate the contradiction of God's commands to Israel and the sixth commandment, atheist cite the KJV translation, "Thou shalt not kill."

However, like English, Hebrew, the language in which most of the Old Testament was written, uses different words for intentional vs. unintentional killing. The verse translated "Thou shalt not kill" in the KJV translation, is translated "You shall not murder"2 in modern translations - because these translations represents the real meaning of the Hebrew text. The Bible in Basic English translates the phrase, "Do not put anyone to death without cause."2 The Hebrew word used here is ratsach,3 which nearly always refers to intentional killing without cause (unless indicated otherwise by context). Hebrew law recognized accidental killing as not punishable. In fact, specific cities were designated as "cities of refuge," so that an unintentional killer could flee to escape retribution.4 The Hebrew word for "kill" in this instance is not ratsach, but nakah, which can refer to either premeditated or unintentional killing, depending upon context.5 Other Hebrew words also can refer to killing.6-8 The punishment for murder was the death sentence.9 However, to be convicted, there needed to be at least two eyewitnesses.10 The Bible also prescribes that people have a right to defend themselves against attack and use deadly force if necessary.11

To answer the question whether God breaks His own commandments, we need to determine if God committed murder (i.e., killed people without cause). [emphasis mine] The Bible is quite clear that God has killed people directly (the most prominent example being the flood) and indirectly (ordered peoples to be killed). If God ordered or participated in the killing of innocent people, then He would be guilty of murder. Let's look at two of the most prominent examples.

According to the Bible, God killed every human except Noah, his wife, his sons, and their wives in the flood. Were any of these people killed unjustly? The Bible says specifically that all people (except Noah and his family) had become corrupted.12 Not only had all people become corrupted, but they were continually plotting evil!13 Is it possible that an entire culture can become corrupted? You bet! Recent history proves the point rather well. When the Nazis took over Germany before WWII, opposition was crushed and removed. When they began their purging of the undesirables (e.g., the Jews), virtually the entire society went along with the plan. Further examples are given on another page. So, the Bible indicates that no innocent people were killed in the flood.

What about when God ordered Joshua and his people to kill every man, woman and child in Canaan?14 What crime could be so great that entire populations of cities were designated for destruction? God told Moses that the nations that the Hebrew were replacing were wicked.15 How "wicked" were these people? The text tells us that they were burning their own sons and daughters in sacrifices to their gods.16 So we see that these people were not really innocent. For these reasons (and others17), God ordered the destruction of the peoples whom the Israelites dispossessed....

The commandment "Thou shalt not kill" is really not as general as the King James version would indicate. The commandment actually refers to premeditated, unjustified killing - murder. Although God ordered the extermination of entire cities, He did so in righteous judgment on a people whose corruption had led to extreme wickedness, including child sacrifice. Did God destroy the righteous along with the wicked? In an exchange with Abraham, God indicated that He would spare the wicked to save the righteous. He demonstrated this principle by saving righteous people from Sodom and Jericho prior to their destruction. The charge that God indiscriminately murdered people does not hold to to critical evaluation of the biblical texts."

So, according to this guy, murder is killing another without cause, therefore god did not murder since he had reasons to do so. Alright, let's take this to it's logical conclusion. A wife cheats on her husband, which gives him a reason to murder her, and so he carries out his plan and kills her. Now, by this apologist's own argument, he would not have murdered his wife because he had a reason; it would have been justified.

Clearly this isn't the case (I've got to say too that this thinking is literally insane. The lengths apologists will go...). Even if we accept this author's claim that the people were "corrupted" and "evil" what exactly does this imply, and who is to judge what is 'corrupt' or 'evil?' The author's claim that the people were "evil" for their acts of child sacrifice sounds like a decent reason (to protect the children) but god is being a hypocrite if that was the case, because in the very next book of the bible god asks for a sacrifice:

Exodus 22:29-30: "Do not hold back offerings from your granaries or your vats. You must give me the first born of your sons. Do the same with your cattle and your sheep. Let them stay with their mothers from seven days, but give them to me on the eighth day (NIV)."

If god cannot even be consistent in what he deems immoral and moral, how are we to judge what is moral or not by looking at the actions of god in the bible?

Again, we're back at the same question as before. "Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?"

3. A theist could look around at nature and conclude this god is a wonderful god, but nature, as even Charles Darwin wrote, is often cruel and inhumane. Animals kill and eat others for food, sometimes while still alive. Natural cells in a body turn cancerous and a person dies, etc.

True, there are very many things in nature that we could call "beautiful" but there are many cruel things as well, and if god is given credit for the good, he must also be given credit for the bad.

If god's commands cannot be considered moral, then is it possible that god is responsible for some kind of "moral sense" within us, which helps guide us?

This has been proposed by theologians for centuries. Christian apologists even today use this claim of "Natural Law Theory." One example is David Marshall, author of the book The Truth Behind the New Atheism, who seemingly tries to dismiss the findings of evolutionary psychology which is studying the innate nature of our moral sense, by saying that, "The naivete displayed by [Marc] Hauser's questionnaire is even more remarkable. Can a Harvard professor writing about morality have never heard of Natural Law Theory? Christians (and others) have been talking about it for thousands of years" (page 103). Marshall seems to be trying to give credit to theologians for this concept and not science for discovering it's truthful biological basis.

First of all, I wouldn't trust a "moral sense" put inside me by a being who is clearly hypocritical in nature and oftentimes horribly cruel.

Second, if god supposedly placed this moral sense within all humans, then how can theists claim that atheists are immoral if god gave this moral sense to everyone? Atheists and christians would be getting their morals from the same source. Unfortunately, this isn't the case. Many theists insist homosexuals are to be put to death, but this isn't shared by atheists and others. So, where are theists getting this information? The bible. If god is supposedly the author of the bible, or at least inspired it, and god is the one who created this moral sense, why wasn't he consistent with what he deems moral (according to divine command theory, whatever god commands is moral)? Our human conscience (for most of us anyway) sees the persecution of homosexuals as cruel and wrong, and yet it is a law given in the book supposedly written/inspired by this same god.

A third stumbling block is the fact that god has never been proven. If god cannot be proven beyond a reasonable doubt then the most logical answer for our morality would be our biology and our culture.

A related point are people who claim to do helpful and harmful things because god supposedly told them to. Because there are people who have supposedly been told to commit both good and bad acts, this doesn't do anything to fix the contradictory messages that god seems to send (assuming he is real). There are people who feel compelled by god to help the poor, but there are also people who commit horrible atrocities, such as Dena Schlosser who chopped off her eleven month old girl's arms because god told her to.

Now, an apologist will likely say that Schlosser was clearly insane and god would never command someone to do such a thing. But if they dismiss this woman's testimony so quickly, why do they accept a christian's so easily, as long as they're doing something good? The simple answer? Bias.

Morality has nothing to do with god and, therefore, it cannot be used as any kind of "evidence" of god.


The Cosmological Argument:


The Cosmological argument has a few variations but ultimately it is the famed "first cause" argument. Theologians postulate that the universe cannot possibly be eternal and therefore something had to have brought it into existence. They call this thing god.

It can be broken down as follows:

1. Whatever begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.

There are a few major flaws with this. First, theologians assume that the universe can't be eternal; that it's impossible for the universe to just be, to just exist. Second, because of their claims that the universe cannot be eternal they then make a wild claim full of hypocrisy and nonsense and state that their god is eternal and does not need a cause. Third, they also assume that events that took place in the past could not go on indefinitely. But again, they contradict themselves and claim their god is infinite and has always existed, though they can never articulate "where" their god was or" what" he was doing the eternity before he just happened to create this universe. A related point is the fact that if the currently most widely accepted model of the big bang is one in which time didn't exist before the big bang, how could god exist in a "time" before time even existed? It's a contradiction. Fourth, with the Kalam Cosmological Argument claiming god has no beginning, thus needs no cause, they have no proof of this, and it's unknown if the universe even had a cause to begin with. The big bang we know of may have been just one out of countless "bangs" that have occurred throughout time, following Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok's theory.

Because of these facts and the lack of knowledge human beings have regarding the universe (though more is being learned through science; religion sure hasn't done anything to help out on the matter) no one truly knows if the universe is eternal or not (though there are some plausible scientific theories that state the universe could be eternal such as those endorsed by Paul J. Steinhardt and Neil Turok, authors of the book Endless Universe: Beyond the Big Bang), but one thing is for sure, completely contradicting themselves in order to claim "god did it" is a completely bogus answer and leaves one to ask: "If nothing can be eternal, who made god?" Theologians have yet to come up with a reasonable answer that doesn't violate some scientific principal or use the bible for their proof, ahem, Ray Comfort.

The fact is, though, that there are things that happen at the subatomic level which appear to have no cause. "When an atom in an excited energy level drops to a lower level and emits a photon, a particle of light, we find no cause of that event. Similarly, no cause is evident in the decay of a radioactive nucleus" (Source: God: The Failed Hypothesis, by Victor J. Stenger, page 124). So it seems it's known that things can happen without a cause, which would put to rest the entire cosmological argument at the beginning. Since it's known that some things happen without a cause then it's scientifically possible for the universe to have come about without some definite cause.

Even assuming that the universe wasn't eternal, and the previous research was flawed in some way, it's pretty presumptuous of them to claim their god did it. They have no proof. All they have is a book written by very superstitious individuals who didn't know what we do today about the world and how it works. How theists can claim this book that is full of oftentimes silly and cruel statements and stories tells us how the universe came to be is dumb founding.


Teleological Arguments:


Teleological arguments are arguments in which theists cite the apparent design and order in the universe as proof of a creator.

To quote Nichloas Everitt about this argument, "This argues from the fact that the universe is orderly, or displays regularities, to the conclusion that there must be a cosmic intelligence responsible for creating or imposing and maintaining the order."

As far as design, this implies intelligent design and creationism. Both of these arguments I've written about at some length so I will point you to other sources for that information.

Life shows evidence of evolution, not of being created:

Another "Gap" Is Found

Earth is not the only planet located in the "sweet spot" for life to thrive; it's also known for a fact that life can thrive even in immensely hot and cold temperatures:

Design in the Universe...There's No god Behind It!

More Evidence Against the "Design" Argument

Ignorance and More 'Design' Nonsense

A website that is excellent and handily debunks many claims of "design" and "order" is the TalkOrigins Archive (along with many other creationist and intelligent design lies and deceptions).

The fine-tuning argument suffers from the same lack of reasoning, lack of scientific knowledge, and "god of the gaps" thinking that dominate all arguments for the existence of god.

First of all, it seems that many numbers have been manipulated to make these constants seem extraordinary. Some examples are irrelevant. Victor J. Stenger says, "Many of the examples of fine-tuning found in theological literature suffer from simple misunderstandings of physics. For example, any references to the fine-tuning of constants like the speed of light,c, Planck's constant, h, or Newton's gravitational constant, G, are irrelevant since these are all arbitrary constants whose values simply define the system of units being used. Only 'dimensionless' numbers that do not depend on units, such as the ratio of the strengths of gravity and electromagnetism are meaningful.

Some of the 'remarkable precision' of physical parameters that people talk about is highly misleading because it depends on the choice of units. For example, theologian John Jefferson Davis asserts, 'If the mass of of neutrinos were 5 x 10 - 34 instead of 5 x 10- 35 kg [kilogram], because of their great abundance in the universe, the additional gravitational mass would result in a contracting rather than expanding universe.' This sounds like fine-tuning by one part in 10- 35. However, as philosopher Neil Manson points out, this is like saying that 'if he had been one part in 10- 16 of a light year shorter (that is, one meter shorter), Michael Jordan would not have been the word's greatest basketball player.....'

One of the many major flaws with most studies of the anthropic principle coincidences is that the investigators vary a single parameter while assuming all the others remain fixed. They further compound this mistake by proceeding to calculate meaningless probabilities based on the grossly erroneous assumptions that all the parameters are independent....

Physicist Anthony Aguire has independently examined the universes that result when six cosmological parameters are simultaneously varied by orders of magnitude, and found he could construct cosmologies in which 'stars, planets, and intelligent life can plausibly arise.' Physicist Craig Hogan has done another independent analysis that leads to similar conclusions. And, theoretical physicists at Kyoto University in Japan have shown that heavy elements needed for life will be present in even the earliest stars independent of what the exact parameters for star formation may have been" (Source: God: The Failed Hypothesis, pages 145 - 149).

Other theories seem to put the Anthropic Principle to rest, including possible multiple universes, and string theory. If our universe is just one out of many the chances are very good for different values in the universe to happen to be within the right parameters to facilitate life.

According to Gordon L. Kane, and associates, "In string theories all of the parameters of the theory - in particular all quark and lepton masses, and all coupling strength - are calculable, so there are parameters left to allow anthropic arguments... "

Even Stephen Hawking's more recent studies seem to cast doubt upon the Anthropic Principle. "He proposed that our universe is much less 'special' than the proponents of the Anthropic Principle claim it is. According to Hawking, there is a 98 percent chance that a universe of a type as our own will come from the Big Bang [emphasis in original]. Further, using the basic wave function of the universe as a basis, Hawking's equations indicate that such a universe can come into existence without relation to anything prior to it, meaning that it could come out of nothing" (Source: Did Man Create God?, by David E. Comings, M.D., page 272).

Because physics and cosmology are not my strong suit I suggest reading Victor J. Stenger's book dealing in much detail with many of these arguments.

One of the best arguments I've heard against the anthropic principle isn't scientific arguments, but one that just relies on pure logic. If the universe wasn't suitable for life we wouldn't have evolved to witness it! Proof of our being here is no proof of any designer or creator.

After giving the previous examples of false reasoning and evidence that proves several of the fine-tuning and design arguments incorrect, I think it stands to reason that most others are just as faulty. That's something I've noticed about theists' arguments. After you debunk one they throw another argument out at you; you then successfully debunk it, and so it goes again and again. It would be nearly impossible to catalogue each and every single argument ever used, but again, if a majority are found wanting then most likely the others are as well. Especially since their beliefs oftentimes blind them from seeing the truth anyway, they won't give up until they find something you cannot effectively answer. Then they'll raise their arms in victory (after about a thousand wrong arguments in a row), but once again, the gaps in our knowledge is really the only avenue theists have for arguing their god. If that's the case they really have no arguments at all.


Appeals to Miracles:


I find the use of miracles to be one of the most absurd "proofs" of god's existence. It is once again a "god of the gaps" argument: because we don't understand precisely how someone may have been healed, it was a miracle. Most of these are far and few between. For example, in Richard Dawkins' two part series called The Root of All Evil? Part 1, it was said how within the last century and a half there were "sixty-six declared miracles" to have taken place out of the yearly 80,000 people who go a pool of water where the virgin marry is said to have appeared. Obviously not anywhere close to a significant percentage to declare any genuine miracles.

Other than this example, the failure rate of prayer is another devastating blow to the theologian. I've gone over this evidence in the past, along with other arguments against the supernatural, and those are located here.

Instead of trying to debate whether or not miracles exist I try to argue against the entire concept of the supernatural, or the existence of an immaterial world. If it cannot be reasonably shown that the supernatural exists, then no miracle could possibly occur. I have given several challenges for anyone to give me unbiased evidence (no personal accounts, secondhand stories) of the supernatural. No one has been able to present any evidence, nor debunk my two papers Evidence Against the Supernatural, parts 1 and 2.

The fact of the matter is that there have been many people have have experienced "something" in their lives they cannot explain but it seems that the mind is wired for personification and people apply human traits to objects and events. People tend to "see" something intervene in their lives if it goes the way they want; if their prayer was answered, if someone's injuries are healed all of a sudden, if a disease disappears. Again, just because these events occur doesn't even imply the existence of god! What if it was some other being that humans have never discovered? What if it was a different god? What if there were laws of nature that we haven't discovered yet and that's what was responsible for such and such event occurring? If these things happened due to this unknown law of nature, then it couldn't be considered a miracle nor supernatural.

There are countless examples of this throughout history. It's not a stretch of the imagination to any degree to think that these current claims of some supernatural agency are just as likely to be false as the ones that happened in the past. Because of the many natural events that took place in the past, lightning, wind, and other forces, human beings were sure to give these events human traits and think "something" caused them to happen. It's only with our more advanced knowledge do we know how wind and other natural disasters happen. No doubt the same will take place with certain instances of a medical "miracle" or other such events in the future.


Religious Experiences:


In this final section, I will attempt to argue why I think religious experiences aren't any form of evidence for god, let alone the supernatural, because of the large body of research which shows that these experiences are happening at the level of the brain only, and most religious experiences have been duplicated in subjects when certain areas of the brain are stimulated.

Mostly performed on epilepsy patients these tests confirm that when the temporal lobes, amygdala and hippocampus are stimulated many different experiences take place. Everything from out of body experiences, deja vu, a feeling of not being in this world, hearing voices, feeling a presence, etc.

In fact, one man who had been diagnosed with left temporal lobe epilepsy, his brain was stimulated at the point of the inferior temporal lobe and at this time he exclaimed, "I'm going to die." When he was asked if he saw anything, he replied, "No, God said I am going to die."

One case reported that while a man's brain was stimulated in the right superior surface of the temporal lobe he had an out of body experience. He exclaimed, "Oh God! I am leaving my body!"

In a case with a twenty-five year old woman who had TLE (Temporal Lobe Epilepsy), an MRI showed a right-sided, mesial temporal focus and hippocampal sclerosis. The auras, seizures, and religious thoughts she was experiencing were almost completely eliminated after the removal of the right amygdala and hippocampus.

In 1997 Vilayanur Ramachandran developed the idea of "The God Module" when studying epilepsy patients. During the experiments one subject with TLE felt a "oneness with the Creator" and others made statements like, "I finally understand what it is all about..."

Other experiences elicited feelings of a god and feeling as if they were "filled with the spirit" and felt the presence of god (Source: Did Man Create God?, by David E. Comings, M.D., pages 347, 349, 354, 355, 362).

This is only a tiny fraction of the experiments and examples of this kind of experiment. Direct stimulation of the temporal lobes seem to consistently bring out spiritual and religious thoughts, feelings, and visions.

This seems to be bedrock evidence that all of these religious experiences are caused completely at the level of the brain and humanities' experiences of god and spirituality are truly just in our heads.

Obviously religious believers would likely respond that this is proof of a god; that god placed these parts of our brains inside us so we might be aware of his presence. It's an interesting hypothesis, but I don't see how that's possible. god supposedly will send his creations to hell dependant upon if they believe or not based on some clue he left in our brains that might or might not give us the sensations of his presence. That's like rolling the dice and whoever gets a certain number gets themselves engulfed in flames, and others get "saved" just by the luck of the throw. Not a very kind thing to do in my opinion (of course theists always have silly excuses for the cruel acts of their god).

Another problem with this is the fact that this "spiritual feeling" one might characterize as "god" just points us to a belief in "something out there" that's bigger than us; points to ghosts, fairies, and a multitude of gods. If this belief was truly put in place by the one true god (according to christians) then why do humans have such a variety of beliefs about spiritual agents and gods? Wouldn't god implant a belief that just included him if he is the one and only true god in existence, if it was him, and only him, he wanted his creations to worship?

Based on this evidence, it seems clear to me that this "spiritual feeling" does not point to any god; the god a person believes in depends upon the culture they grow up in, and is not "hardwired" into our minds; it is only this vague spiritual belief that is hardwired (possibly for survival purposes and to cope with the fear of death) and humans built upon these vague, innate beliefs by making up everything else about these various spiritual agencies.

Because there is no evidence of any gods the most likely explanation is that these experiences caused the belief in gods and not the other way around.


Conclusion:


I'm sure there are many apologists who may feel as if I've created strawmen arguments, or did not represent all theological views during this discussion. I would argue strongly that I created no strawmen; I consulted the books of philosophers and ex-theologians such as John Loftus in representing the arguments of theists (and arguing against).

I also think it would be a near impossible task to present every theological argument, or variation of those arguments. I tried to pick the most common ones and go from there. Besides, most arguments are variations upon a basic theme anyhow, so if I debunked a major argument I likely debunked its variations as well.

It's sad that the a large majority of the human race must feel it has to lie to itself for whatever reasons it has for believing in some higher power or god. What it ultimately amounts to is ignoring and/or distorting evidence, and having a preconceived bias that leads you to believe in your god (while disbelieving in everyone else's for the same reasons they don't believe in yours!). This is surely the case with many believers and one such example is the christian apologist William Lane Craig, as told from John Loftus' book Why I Became an Atheist (page 214):

"Mark Smith (of www.jcnot4me.com) set up the following scenario for Craig: 'Dr. Craig, for the sake of argument let's pretend that a time machine gets built. You and I hop in it, and travel back to the day before Easter, 33 AD. We park it outside the tomb of Jesus. We wait. Easter morning rolls around, and nothing happens. We continue to wait. After several weeks of waiting, still nothing happens. There is no resurrection - Jesus is quietly rotting away in the tomb.'

Smith asked Craig, given this scenario, if he would then give up Christianity, having seen with his own two eyes that Jesus did not rise from the dead. Smith wrote: 'His answer was shocking, and quite unexpected. He told me, face to face, that he would STILL believe in Jesus, he would STILL believe in the resurrection, and he would STILL remain a Christian. When asked, in light of his being a personal eyewitness to the fact that there WAS no resurrection, he replied that due to the witness of the 'holy spirit' within him, he would assume a trick of some sort had been played on him while watching Jesus' tomb. This self-induced blindness astounded me.'"

There is no evidence of god in our biology, in the cosmos, nor within our uses of logic. This is why I often make the claim that there is no evidence for god, as I did here, in the review of the first chapter, despite these arguments being held up as such. I've even been insulted because of this view (though no one has yet to offer one argument against my position).

Because of the facts and logic that I have presented I see no reason to believe in any god. There are miles wide, gaping holes in every single argument ever put forth for a god and these arguments will only get weaker as science discovers more and more about the universe and us.

It is precisely for this reason that I consider christian apologetics to be a huge pile of bullshit, and half ass attempts by unenlightened and superstitious individuals to convince themselves that they aren't going to die.


UPDATE 4-3-09

It has come to my attention that some of Victor J. Stenger's statements that I cited may be false, but as with just about everything I write I usually think two or three steps ahead of any possible detractors, which is why I stated the following in the above post:

Even assuming that the universe wasn't eternal, and the previous research was flawed in some way, it's pretty presumptuous of them to claim their god did it. They have no proof. All they have is a book written by very superstitious individuals who didn't know what we do today about the world and how it works. How theists can claim this book that is full of oftentimes silly and cruel statements and stories tells us how the universe came to be is dumb founding.

I said this because I am well aware of the fluid nature of science. As more data is collected old theories are put to rest and are replaced with new ones that fit the data better. Because of the non static nature of science you can't always count on everything being completely accurate at all times, especially in the fast moving world of cosmology where they're finding new things at a fairly fast pace. There is also a lot of disagreement among scientists so to proclaim Stenger as the ultimate authority would be foolish. Of course he could be wrong (and as someone has informed me, he very well could be) and I don't deny that, but because he is wrong does nothing to my case. It's still no proof of a god and where I cited Stenger was just a small part of my argument.

As I tried to show throughout the post, all arguments for god are nothing more than "god of the gap" arguments: because theists are at a loss to explain something we don't yet understand or something miraculous, they wish to subscribe a god to plug the "gaps" in our knowledge. But, this is severely logically flawed way of thinking because theists are also at a loss to explain their god. They just assume their god exists and that it's necessary to have this "uncaused cause" to cause the universe. That's preposterous and contradictory to say the least. I might as well say that some leprechaun caused the universe because it's utilizing the exact same flawed reasoning.

The overall premises of my arguments stand untouched and thus far unrefuted. All arguments for god are nothing more than illogical attempts to plug "gaps" in our knowledge and that's that. That's no more "proof" of a god than me trying to explain how my sandwich disappeared by claiming the tooth fairy got hungry.

UPDATE 4-6-09

I've responded to a few criticisms (though they are mostly misunderstandings and pure ignorance) by one Joe Hinman, who tries, but fails miserably, to rebut any of my above arguments. I respond to his claims here.

UPDATE 4-21-09

I created a post pointing out errors in a christian apologists' arguments against my claim that all arguments for god are nothing more than "god of the gap" arguments. Click here to read it.

UPDATE 5-28-10

I recently finished writing a rebuttal to several of famed Christian apologist William Lane Craig's arguments for god. Some are repeated from this paper, but there is some new stuff in the new one that you might find interesting as well. It can be found here.

Say NO to Red-Light Cameras

I'd like to discuss an issue that upsets me. That issue is the fact that dozens of red-light cameras are going up all over the country. Advocates claim that these cameras keep people from running red lights and are keeping people safer. But from my research, what they actually do is cause more accidents, don't stop people from running red lights, and are purely there to gain revenue for the state. Not that it shocks me though; its just like the government to instate a policy which makes them richer at the expense of human safety.

Without further adieu, let me just get to the meat and potatoes of my post and get down to the statistics.

The first issue I want to raise is the fact that red light cameras have not been proven to be effective in several studies done across the U.S.

A study done by USF Health, and released in March of 2008, shows that "cameras are significantly associated with increases in crashes, as well as crashes involving injuries. The study by the Virginia Transportation Research Council also found that cameras were linked to increased crash costs."

Another important finding of this USF Health study was "[s]ome studies that conclude cameras reduced crashes or injuries contained major 'research design flaws,' such as incomplete data or inadequate analyses, and were conducted by researchers with links to the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety. The IIHS, funded by automobile insurance companies, is the leading advocate for red-light cameras. Insurers can profit from red-light cameras, since their revenues will increase when higher premiums are charged due to the crash and citation increase, the researchers say.

Langland-Orban said the findings have been known for some time. She cites a 2001 paper by the Office of the Majority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives, reporting that red-light cameras are 'a hidden tax levied on motorists.' The report concluded cameras are associated with increased crashes, the timings at yellow lights are often set too short to increase tickets for red-light running, and most research concluding cameras are effective was conducted by one researcher from the IIHS. Since then, studies independent of the automobile insurance industry continue to find cameras are associated with large increases in crashes."

A study done by the government itself (!) showed that red light cameras cause just about as many accidents as they stop. This study, done by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA-HRT-05-048) in April of 2005, shows that in some jurisdictions the cameras only reduce right-angle crashes by as much as 40%, while the rear end collisions have gone up as much as 38%.

Another aspect of this study estimated how many collisions occurred before and after the installation of the red light cameras, and here are the findings:

Before the installation of the cameras they noted a total of 1,542 right angle crashes, with 351 "definite injuries." The total of rear end collisions were estimated at 2,521 with 131 "definite injuries."

After the cameras were put in place they found a reduction of 24.6% right angle crashes, with 1,163 crashes, and 296 "definite injuries." While the rear end collisions went up to 2,896 with 163 "definite injuries."

In total, after the cameras were put in place, there was only a 24.6% drop in right angle crashes, and a 15.7% decrease in injuries. On the other hand, there was a 14.9 increase of rear end collisions, with a 24.0% increase of "definite injuries."

These figures sure don't look very promising, with not even a reduction of half of the right-angle crashes. The red light camera proponents tout their safety benefits but it's obvious they cause about as many crashes as they stop.

Another study that was done in California between 2004 to 2005 showed similar results. The year before cameras were installed, they monitored three intersections in the city of Costa Mesa and found that there were 39 accidents, while after the cameras were installed, it was reduced to 28; a drop of only 28%. While in the city of Fullerton there was a total of 88 crashes before the cameras, and 83 after; only a 5.7% decrease.

In fact, they even did a study in Westminster, which had no cameras, and from 2003 to 2004, there was a 24.1 % drop in crashes, though they attribute that to "added raised medians."

On page 7 of the study, they ask "Are RLC's 'cash cows' for cities?" They answer with a bit of a round-about answer saying that 33% of the fines were not paid. Yet, just above they ask the question "RCLs aren't cheap. Why use them?" They give their reasons about safety, etc., but the very last sentence they say, "In addition, RLCs are seen as a potential source of municipal revenue." They right out admit it's mostly about money, because even their own study shows that they do not reduce accidents to a worthwhile amount.

In a 2005 Washington Post article, they reported "that the number of accidents has gone up at intersections [ in D.C.] with the cameras," and that the "increase is the same or worse than at traffic signals without the devices."

The story also reported that, "[t]hree outside traffic specialists independently reviewed the data and said they were surprised by the results. Their conclusion: The cameras do not appear to be making any difference in preventing injuries or collisions.

'The data are very clear,' said Dick Raub, a traffic consultant and a former senior researcher at Northwestern University's Center for Public Safety. 'They are not performing any better than intersections without cameras.'"

A study of the issue showed that "the number of crashes at locations with cameras more than doubled, from 365 collisions in 1998 to 755 last year. Injury and fatal crashes climbed 81 percent, from 144 such wrecks to 262. Broadside crashes, also known as right-angle or T-bone collisions, rose 30 percent, from 81 to 106 during that time frame. Traffic specialists say broadside collisions are especially dangerous because the sides are the most vulnerable areas of cars."

The article continues, "the number of crashes and injury collisions at intersections with cameras rose steadily through 2001, then dipped through 2003 before spiking again last year.

The results were similar or worse than figures at intersections that have traffic signals but no cameras. The number of overall crashes at those 1,520 locations increased 64 percent; injury and fatal crashes rose 54 percent; and broadside collisions rose 17 percent.

Overall, total crashes in the city rose 61 percent, from 11,333 in 1998 to 18,250 last year.

Lon Anderson, a spokesman for AAA Mid-Atlantic, said the data reinforce the motor club's view that the red-light effort is targeted more at generating revenue than at reducing crashes. 'They are making a heck of a lot of money, and they are picking the motorists' pockets on the pretense of safety,' he said."

To give the reader an idea of how much money the state rakes in, some of the articles I read said that the revenue generated by the cameras was in the millions in many cities. For example, in the Washington Post article I just cited said that in six years the cameras generated $32 million in fines.

The second issue I wanted to address was the privacy issue. Many advocates of red light cameras claim that all the cameras do is take a picture of the back of your vehicle to get your license plate number. Well, this sounded logical at first but after finding some actual pictures taken by red light cameras online I've found this to be a lie. These pictures prove that their field of vision is very broad, and it makes perfect sense that they would have to be that way, because if you're going to take a picture of a speeding car you can't just focus on a smaller area, around the license plate for example, because of the speed of the car. Depending on the speed you've got to give yourself a lot of room for error so you can be sure you get the person's plate number, or else the camera might miss the speeding vehicle.

Here are some examples of pictures from red light cameras I found on the internet, and one diagram showing how they work:








In the final picture, above, you can easily see the broad range of view that these cameras have, despite the lies of many proponents. Someone has to zoom into the picture in order to see the license plate, and/or face of the driver.

There are also more privacy concerns as well. According to a news website I found, "Lockheed Martin, which makes about 85 percent of [the red light cameras], often leases the cameras to cities because they are expensive, and enables Lockheed Martin to retain rights to all the data collection, he said.

'Cost averages between $60,000 and $90,000 per camera. You're looking at a quarter of a million dollars for one intersection,' Burns said. 'The camera company gets about $70 per citation.'

This means private companies are allowed to have sensitive information, he said, and they can use it for whatever they want."

According to the ACLU website, a privacy invasion has already occurred with cameras placed at a border.

From the website, they say, "There are also important privacy issues raised by the cameras. The ACLU is most concerned about what we call 'mission creep' -- that the data collected by these cameras will be used for purposes other than tracking reckless drivers. Government and private-industry surveillance techniques created for one purpose are rarely restricted to that purpose, and every expansion of a data bank and every new use for the data opens the door to more and more privacy abuses.

Similar systems have already been used to invade privacy. For example, cameras installed at the Texas-Oklahoma border have been used to capture the license plate numbers of thousands of law abiding persons, who were subjected to inquiries about why they were crossing the border."

Despite these valid concerns, the proponents of these cameras claim that it's not an invasion of privacy because you're out in a public area and have no say about any footage that might be taken of you. I've heard this claim in regards to voyeurs taking picture and video of women in a bathing suit outside of their homes, and there was nothing they could do to get it away from them because it was claimed they had no right to privacy while out in public.

I find this odd and hypocritical because if it's OK for someone to take video of you out in public, why was there such an uproar when Google took pictures of places for their map service and ended up capturing people walking, or even in their underware, and they were able to get Google to remove the images? There was even a couple who took Google to court in 2001 because it had a picture of their house on it's map service and the couple felt it was an invasion of privacy.

OK, so let's see here. In one instance the government wants to put up cameras and watch everyone, and no one really cares, and some even defend this clear invasion. In another case, a company pretty much does the same thing and people complain about it. Some might argue that Google's images were online and more accessible, but think about all the footage who knows who has of who knows what, and where it all might end up??? To me, that seems much scarier. Plus the fact that Google has allowed you to remove any images of yourself that you don't want online, so you have more control over your privacy than you do with the government (or who knows who else?).

In case it's not clear, the point I am trying to make is many peoples' hypocritical nature. On the one hand, they don't seem to care if their privacy is invaded upon by the government (or even Lockheed Martin!), while in the case with Google, people actually took them to court, and they even changed their ways by allowing someone to delete any private information, even if it was in public, when all along the proponents of the cameras claimed that because you were in public you had no right to privacy. Well, which is it people? Do you have a right of privacy in public or not? I say no one has any right to photograph, or video tape you without your permission - period - no matter where you are.

I think I've done a good job in proving my case that not only do these red light cameras not work in reducing accidents, but they also pose a significant privacy threat to everyone. Some people might see this as an overreaction on my part, but I feel these cameras are only the beginning of a police state, much like Orwell's 1984, in which everyone is watched at all times. I also see this situation as being similar to the fiasco with 9/11 and the "Patriot Act," which tramples over all manner of our civil liberties for the sake of "protection." Just as with the "Patriot Act" these cameras can be used to spy, all under the guise of them being used solely for "protecting" us, and people ignorantly allow such breaches of their privacy. Let me tell you something. It's nothing but a lie!

Priest Off! - A Funny Video

I was emailed this funny video today and I thought I would share it here. Enjoy!




I tried to upload the video to my blog, but the site was being a pain so I just used the embed code instead. I do have the original video saved in case the website hosting this video takes this video down in the future.

David Marshall Finally Replies

EDIT - 3-22-10 - I've decided to add some comments to this post in order to shed some light on this issue. The wonders of 20/20 hindsight. I wish I had saved all of our earliest exchanges which would make my job of proving him wrong that much easier. My comments will be in italics.

Marshall replied to my new review finally, and it seems that he is getting more and more desperate in his attempts to defeat me, and prove me wrong...he can't. In this post he lies about what he says in his book and I make him eat those words...though I'm curious how he will twist that around as well. While he took his usual condescending tone, he was actually able to make it through without one personal attack! I am indeed impressed. Maybe he's finally learning something about debating.



Here is Marshall's reply:

David Marshall says:

Ken has spent a lot of time and effort reviewing my book, here and elsewhere, which on one level I appreciate. (Even bad readers are still customers, and as a long-time resident of Japan, I can't help feeling that the "customer is king.") King Ken appears in this review to be trying to be more fair-minded than in past reviews, which is commendable. However, despite many corrections, he is simply not good at accurately representing what I say. I doubt he's being deliberately dishonest, but I ask readers not to take his assertions for the truth behind "The Truth Behind the New Atheism." To wit:

"He claims science is biased against supernatural events, and blames science on such things as 'abortion, social darwinism, LSD, and free love (I got a big laugh out of that one)', etc."

The notion is, indeed, laughable. I do say some scientists are biased against the possibility of miracles, as of course they are. It's hard to be sure where Ken got the idea I blame science for abortion, LSD and "free love," and as on previous occasions, he won't be able to furnish a direct quote. (LSD was invented by the chemist Albert Hofmann, but free love is as old as the hills!) My best guess would be he's referring to the section on pages 203-6, "Are We Having Fun Yet?" There I say nothing bad about "science," but do talk about the sometimes unfortunate influence of certain skeptical thinkers (Kinsey, Sanger, etc) on sexual relations.

Simple-minded skeptics project attacks on science onto this book, perhaps because that's what they expect to find. But no scientist or philosopher has found any yet.

"Because no one knows exactly how complex life arose Marshall wishes to ascribe a supernatural event as a kind of helping hand to evolution. He also quotes several historians and scientists without backing up his claims with direct evidence, which is a logical fallacy, as noted above."

Actually I make no argument in this book about the origin of life, aside from refuting Richard Dawkins' plain error in implying that the problem is solved. I conclude that section by saying, "I'm not offering an argument for God. I'm pointing out that no one knows how life arose, including Richard Dawkins."

To draw such a conclusion in three and a half pages, of course I need to quote scientists. It's a simple-minded error to assume that all arguments from authority are fallacious: citing eminent scientists to establish that a scientific question is still open is of course a legitimate thing to do. If citation were a logical fallacy, Dawkins' own books on evolution (not to mention the Origin of Species itself) would themselves be rendered pseudo-science.

Ken's quote on sex comes from the first edition, in which there is indeed a typo. (Caused, it seems, by an automatic computer spell-check.) Originally, I wrote that God "dams" human sexuality -- in the sense of directing and restraining, in order to channel it productively -- but does not "damn" it. I was a bit irritated when I found the pun got lost in the shuffle. The second printing (which readers ordering the book now receive) corrects this typo. I apologize for the error.

But "Orwellian newspeek?" Here is where skeptics like "Gifted Writer," and Richard Dawkins, really should read philosopher Nicholas Wolterstorff's Divine Discourse. Among other things, he points out that when a careful reader bumps up against a passage that doesn't make sense on a literal level, he looks for other levels of meaning. (In this case, pun / typo.) As I show, Dawkins makes the same mistake more importantly in his interpretation of the Bible, for example with the story of Abraham and Isaac. Like Dawkins, "Gifted Writer" seems too much of a literalist to exegete a text with any subtlety.

I think my point is clear. The more powerful and useful a force is, the more it can be used to harm as well as to help. No one but a fool would look around modern American society, and deny that sex is often abused, or that a lack of restraint has ruined many lives. I make no apology for finding the practice of raising children without one or the other parent -- when it is possible to do otherwise -- troubling. With all respect to single parents who are forced by circumstances beyond their control to raise children single-handedly, I do believe children are best off with loving parents of both sexes, and can't imagine how anyone who has experienced a loving intact family would think otherwise. Divorce and casual parenting hurt children. I feel terribly sorry for children who never know for themselves what the word "Dad" or (in some cases) "Mom" means.

Ken misquotes the word "God," which I capitalize, as is appropriate in standard English. (I also capitalize Ken's name, and my own. In this case, leading New Atheists like Christopher Hitchens teach their followers bad grammar as well as pettiness.)

In the story of the boy with the "hate speech" t-shirt, Ken has simply omitted my point. The point is that while Richard Dawkins accuses a 12-year old boy of "hate speech" for calling Islam a "lie," on the very next page he accuses a group of Muslims of "lying." And of course the whole point of The God Delusion is that religion in general is a lie -- which Dawkins is never shy of pointing out.

Speaking of untruths, it is more than a little dishonest for Ken to imply that I approve of the t-shirt, when I say directly that I do not. "Such a t-shirt does, I think, violate the teachings of the Apostle Paul, who says Christians should 'speak the truth in love.'" Is that not clear enough?

When corrected, critics like Ken tend to simply delete the old error, then go and make half a dozen new ones. Apparently Ken found his earlier review of this book, in which some incredible sloppiness was pointed out by another reader, too embarrassing, and he finally deleted the thing -- only to post another set of misquotes here.

I make no apology for calling Dr. Dawkins "sloppy." In my first reading of The God Delusion, I found 160 errors, gross exagerations, and highly dubious claims. Citing The Infancy Gospel of Thomas and calling it the Gospel of Thomas (twice, actually) is just one.

My use of the term "New Atheism" is partly a matter of convenience; though see my explanation in the CADRE interview. Most professional atheists with whom I've interacted have had no objection to my use of the term. But in the interview Ken mentions, I say jokingly that I invented the term, and had it stolen out from under me by spies. The other participants laughed, recognizing it (note Wolterstorff again) as a joke.

Considering the fact that The Truth Behind the New Atheism is so poorly researched, it is remarkable that with all the time and effort "Gifted Writer" has put into rebutting it, he has only found one genuine error -- one we'd already corrected. Other readers have found three or four minor typos, which I appreciate having been brought to my attention, for whatever motives. Much of the credit to this book's excellent record of surviving hostile critiques must go to my editor, who seems less credulous, and far more exacting, than the editor of The God Delusion.


Here is my reply:



I am appalled at your accusations. Once again you are the one who is guilty of misrepresenting your own book, just for the sake of making certain reviewers look bad. You claim that I made up that quote of yours about science being responsible for LSD, free love, etc. and (what you would consider at least) to be some of the worst occurrences in human history on page 219. I did not misquote you at all. I find it funny that you're the one who wrote your book, and yet can't even remember what you wrote.

You said:

"It's hard to be sure where Ken got the idea I blame science for abortion, LSD (though of course was a scientific discovery!) and "free love," and as on previous occasions, he won't be able to furnish a direct quote."

That's funny. Here is the quote from page 219:

"Science has also played the role of the witch. Brights cheerfully midwifed the birth of every modern form of barbarism. Hardly any travesty of justice, any 'bootstamping on a human face forever', has not been instituted in the name of science: Social Darwinism, eugenics, abortion, the new infanticide, free love, LSD, gas chambers, the Gulag."

Looks like you stuck your foot in your mouth once again.

This might be one small mistake I made. It seems Marshall was blaming more or less the people who used science and not science itself. However, I had come across many theists who accuse science of being bad (and often name off many of the things Marshall mentions specifically) and I unfortunately may have allowed those past experiences to taint my view of his passage. Of course, due to the ambiguity of the passage I believe it could also be read either way, and since Marshall has not been honest in the past about nearly all of my interpretations I would still take his claim with a grain of salt.

Thus far, I'd like to point out that despite all the claims by Marshall and his pals about my alleged mass confusion about Marshall's book with my earliest critiques I've shown here how only a few were off and mostly I was correct in both my interpretation and rebuttals. As I've said over and over they all wildly overstate my mistakes just to underhandedly discredit me. As can be seen, they've been at this since our earliest discussions. Again...it's no wonder I got so pissed at them! I've been having to deal with their crap and dishonesty (and insults) for a long time.

You said:

"Actually I make no argument in this book about the origin of life, aside from refuting Richard Dawkins' plain error in implying that the problem is solved. I conclude that section by saying, "I'm not offering an argument for God. I'm pointing out that no one knows how life arose, including Richard Dawkins."

"To draw such a conclusion in three and a half pages, of course I need to quote scientists. It's a simple-minded error to assume that all arguments from authority are fallacious: citing eminent scientists to establish that a scientific question is still open is of course a legitimate thing to do. If citation were a logical fallacy, Dawkins' own books on evolution (not to mention the Origin of Species itself) would themselves be rendered pseudo-science."

I know you did not state that you claim to know about the origin of life; I never said such a thing to begin with. Maybe you should re read my review a bit slower next time? I simply said that because of your bias towards a religious explanation , you wish to cast doubt in the readers' mind about the lack of information regarding the origin of life and use the god of the gaps explanation instead of any valid scientific answer. And for the record, Richard Dawkins doesn't say anywhere that the problem about the origin of life is solved. Once again, you put words into Dawkins' mouth, as you did several times in your book.

I don't have anything else to add. I showed in my addendum to Marshall's fourth chapter why I felt my critique was accurate and he intentionally or unintentionally is guilty of what I accuse him of, even if he won't outright admit it. Of course, as I noted in the addendum, he seems to be wishing to propose god as some kind of 'scientific' explanation to gaps in our knowledge, just as the highly deceitful Discovery Institute has tried to do over and over again.

For example, you claim that Dawkins says Dobson wishes to kidnap children, but I couldn't find anything in his book implying anything of the sort. You also take something that Dawkins says out of context. You quote Richard Dawkins from his book, The god Delusion, as claiming that even if an irreducible structure was found it would be "unscientific" to say that it had to have been designed. Yet, this is misleading because the title of the section where Dawkins is quoted is called, "The Worship of Gaps", and Dawkins says that if something that was "irreducibly complex" were found, it doesn't automatically mean a god designed it, and that science must investigate further, if this could have been done naturally, before evoking god in a "god of the gaps" argument.

You don't explain the context and imply that Dawkins is steadfast in his evolutionary theory, and doesn't like when people challenge it.

Those are two instances of your dishonesty...whether or not it was intentional I'm not sure, but either way, you misrepresented what Dawkins said. Of course, with that one of Dawkins accusing Dobson of wanting to kidnap kids, you apparently pulled that out of thin air.

It is a logical fallacy to do nothing but quote an authority for your "proof" and have no scientific evidence to back up your claims. That is exactly what you did in your book. A scientist's opinion on whether or not it's improbable that DNA was able to form on its own is not a valid argument, because you present no scientific evidence to support that claim.

Once again you make an issue out of the fact that I don't capitalize the word "god". Who cares? I've gone over my reasons for this before; I won't repeat them again.

I agree with everything I've said here, however, the comment about Marshall accusing Dawkins of saying how Dobson wants to kidnap kids I'm again unsure of since I do not trust Marshall's interpretation of his book. He has, as I've shown, been deceitful about several things but I go to great lengths to qualify my accusation in my PDF version of the review.

You said:

"In the story of the boy with the "hate speech" t-shirt, Ken has simply omitted my point. The point is that while Richard Dawkins accuses a 12-year old boy of "hate speech" for calling Islam a "lie," on the very next page he accuses a group of Muslims of "lying." And of course the whole point of The God Delusion is that religion in general is a lie -- which Dawkins is never shy of pointing out."

"Speaking of untruths, it is more than a little dishonest for Ken to imply that I approve of the t-shirt, when I say directly that I do not. "Such a t-shirt does, I think, violate the teachings of the Apostle Paul, who says Christians should 'speak the truth in love.'" Is that not clear enough?"

In fact you said on page 184, and I quote, "But is this really 'hate speech'? The shirt calls certain behaviors (abortion and homosexuality) wrong, and a certain belief (Islam) false. Why define the expression of such views as 'hatred'?"

You don't seem to consider such a message as hateful, and shows your bigotry, brought about because of your religious beliefs. It's odd that you would quote Paul, because the bible many times condemns homosexuality and any other religious belief as wrong. Don't tell me that you're going to go against your god's commands...you might get thrown in hell ya know...

Another instance of Marshall's deceit about what his book actually says. Again, see why I called him a liar? How else am I to interpret that passage? Marshall may have argued that Paul would condemn the shirt (highly unlikely as I cite him in the bible as saying the opposite), but Marshall seemed to approve of the t-shirt via the quote I gave above.



You say:

"When corrected, critics like Ken tend to simply delete the old error, then go and make half a dozen new ones to make up for it. Apparently Ken found his earlier review of this book, in which some incredible sloppiness was pointed out by another reader, too embarrassing, and he finally deleted the thing -- only to post another set of misquotes here."

Oh here we go once again....

I never denied my few errors. I was honest and I corrected them, which is more then I can say for you. Once again, you make unsubstantiated claims about me being 'embarrassed', when that's not the case at all. I still have the original review up at my blog, and apparently you didn't even read my reasons for doing so. Just like your misquoting of Dawkins in your book, you state another outright lie when you claim I misquoted you in my last reply. I did no such thing.

In fact, if one wants to they can go to my blog where I happily admitted my four errors (hardly the gross misrepresentation that you continue to claim). I don't mind being shown I'm wrong because that's how one learns. I find it very childish that even after I admit and correct my mistakes you continue to bring it up. Your pathetic attempt at discrediting me won't work. It's also hypocritical of you because you have yet to admit your misquotes, let alone doing anything to fix them.

I have nothing else to add, though I'd like to point out that even this early in our discussions Marshall was favoring the good old discrediting campaign. So sleezy...


You said:

"I make no apology for calling Dr. Dawkins "sloppy." In my first reading of The God Delusion, I found 160 errors, gross exaggerations, and highly dubious claims. Citing The Infancy Gospel of Thomas and calling it the Gospel of Thomas (twice, actually) is just one. At the least, no serious reader so far has denied that I show Dawkins is in over his head."


It's funny how you claim you found so many "errors"; you don't refute anything that Dawkins has said, other then your point about Dawkins accidentally quoting from the wrong book.

You say:

"Considering the fact that The Truth Behind the New Atheism is so poorly researched, it is remarkable that with all the time and effort "Gifted Writer" has put into rebutting it, he has only found one genuine error -- one we'd corrected already. Other readers have found three or four minor typos, which I appreciate having been brought to my attention, for whatever motives. Much of the credit to this book's excellent record of surviving hostile critiques must go to my editor, who seems less credulous and far more exacting than the editor of The God Delusion."

I have found many more then "one error". It's apparent that you haven't carefully gone through my review. You misquote Dawkins several times, you make use of the argument from authority too often, and you offer intelligent design as an explanation, when it's been handily refuted many times in the past. This is evidence of your sloppy research on that topic.

Your pitiful attempts to rescue your book's reputation is futile. By the way, if my objections are really as bad as you (wrongly) claim, then why do you continuously feel the need to reply to everything I say? If I was really wrong, one would think you'd just let the people read your book and see for themselves how wrong I am. But no, you feel that you must 'apologize' for your errors in an attempt to explain them away.

My Final Thoughts on David Marshall

I thought I would write some final thoughts I've been having about my verbal assaults from David Marshall at amazon.com, and just talk about my feelings regarding all that's gone on. This will be my final post about this guy...that is, unless he comments on my new amazon.com review, or he writes me back on his blog. To date he still hasn't written back yet (The post I left on his blog I talk about here).

Well, to begin, I'm glad this all happened because he showed me that I was wrong on some things in my review, and I went to work to fix them. I don't regret this because as I've said before, I'm all about truth. If I'm wrong please point it out to me. But you have to bring evidence that I'm wrong. I doubt he can now refute my arguments, which is probably why he hasn't even tried since I rewrote the few parts of it that I did.

I would still like to actually debate Marshall, if he ever decided to get the courage to. I was just thinking how even Ray Comfort debated me (even though he used the same old debunked creationist arguments, which I easily refuted) and I would consider Comfort at the bottom of the totem pole as far as apologetics go. Though I wouldn't rate Marshall much higher. I think that it's humorous that even someone as dim witted as Ray Comfort has the guts to debate me, and Marshall doesn't. Maybe it's because Marshall has a bit more brains then Comfort, and he knows if he does debate me he will look like an idiot.

I don't usually get angry when I debate someone...though as I've pointed out, this wasn't even close to a debate. This was nothing more then Marshall throwing a temper tantrum and using personal attacks. Even after I fixed my few errors, he kept bringing them up. I thought that was cowardly, because yeah I was wrong, and I admitted it, and I fixed the problems. But he doesn't seem to want to shut up about the few mistakes that I've been guilty of. I see right through all this though. It's nothing more then a ploy to discredit me so he brings it up every chance he gets. This is a very disingenuous tactic and an unethical one.

I've fixed the errors, but he doesn't want to let it go and put his neck on the line (not to mention is book sales), and deal up front with my legitimate objections and criticisms of his book. This is all too clear.

But, I'm pretty much over it now. I still dislike Marshall; he is a cowardly asshole, and is an intellectually limited idiot who acts like a child. But, I won't waste any more space on my blog talking about such human trash. True, I'm using personal attacks, but when push comes to shove, I fight back. I always have. This, I basically said in my most recent Dumbass of the Month post on Marshall, which can be found here.

Now that I've fought back with words of my own I feel better. I said what I wanted to say to him and I hope he reads this.

I guess that's it.

Thanks for reading....

See ya next rant!

David Marshall Replies...Badly...Again

Edit - 5-30-10: I wanted to edit this post to include some comments in light of my second reading of Marshall's book and the more extensive 100 + page refutation I've since written and to put Marshall and I's messy past in perspective. These comments will be in italics. No other changes have been made to the original post. Other posts can be found here, here, and here.



Marshall finally responded to my last post at his blog. See my post David Marshall's Attempted Rebuttals.

Here is the screenshot of it:



After my repeated attempts to get him to give me evidence for his claims, and getting nothing back from Marshall but him dodging questions, personal attacks, and unsubstantiated claims, like when he makes the asinine statement that I get my "theology from Wikipedia", and other nonsense. Marshall seems, to me, to be a coward.

Here is my reply. His comments will be in bold and my replies will come after.


Well, I had a feeling you would bring up by past "blunders" just to discredit me. To that I say, so what? I made a few mistakes (only 4 I might add, on a 40 + page paper) which I corrected. That is a sign of honesty. You, however, have not admitted or corrected your mistakes. So what does that say about you? I'll leave you to think about that one.


I wasn't "playing dumb" with (2); your comment was ungrammatical, and it wasn't clear what you meant to say. In any case, I did not say what you (now, more clearly) claim I said.


Actually, no it wasn't "ungrammatical", and that's simply your biased opinion to begin with. That's no argument what so ever. So, you yourself clearly lied when you said that passage was not in your book. I didn't change your quote to the point that it was unrecognizable. I think you're just using that as an excuse to cover up your deception. I think anyone who compares both quotes can see that.

I believe this comment was in response to a quote by Marshall about jesus. There were several instances where Marshall would quibble over semantics and because I didn't word something just right, he'd claim I was misrepresenting his position. Because I do not remember what we were discussing I'll refrain from commenting.


On (6), you both contradict yourself and make excuses (again) for misrepresenting my position.


How in the world did I contradict myself? I made a reasonable judgement based on what was in your book. What else were you talking about? You sure aren't correcting me. Why is that? Perhaps because you know I'm right and you don't want to look foolish by admitting it?

Here, Marshall and I were discussing something he said about the bible and he claims I misread what he wrote, but I exposed his deceit here (it is the first lie that I listed). You can also see how he talked down to me, and this one of the earliest discussions I had with him.

On (7), you try to correct my understanding of faith, and that of Aquinas, Justin, Augustine, Locke, Lewis, Pope John Paul II, etc, by quoting a single Bible verse from Wikipedia!


That's an actual quote from the bible; I looked it up myself. Who cares where I get the quote from? It's still true and can be found in the bible.

Here is one example of Marshall's pathetic attitude. To put simply, I knew the quote I wanted to find from the bible but I simply wanted to copy and paste it instead of copy it by hand and Marshall gives me his immature attitude. Something I had to put up with a lot. He also ignored my reasons why I said what I said! I had tried to explain that the definition of faith had changed over time.

On (8), you admit your error, but then try to hide it by calling me a "hypocrit" (on unspecified grounds, but doubtless as shaky as all your other arguments in these forums.)


Actually, I readily admitted it - I don't see how you can claims I hid anything. You are a hypocrite. You claim that I didn't read your book, and yet you clearly didn't read Dawkins', because you claim that he doesn't want parents teaching kids about any religion because they're "evil", even when Dawkins himself states the exact opposite in his book!

I'm quoting you from page 185: "[Dawkins] ..thinks children have the right to be indoctrinated into thinking [religion is]...evil, no matter what their parents say."

Yet on page 327, in The god Delusion, Dawkins writes, "If, having been fairly and properly exposed to all the scientific evidence, they grow up and decide that the bible is literally true or that the movements of the planets rule their lives, that is their privilege. The important point is that it is their privilege to decide what they shall think, not their parents' privilege to impose it by force majeure."

Seems you didn't bother to read this paragraph, because you were too busy trying to attack Dawkins' character?

Here is once again where Marshall's smear/discrediting campaign is showcased. Here also is a very early post where I expose his errors about Dawkins' opinions that Marshall never admitted to, despite the overwhelming evidence. So, despite Marshall's continuous claims that I've never rebutted any arguments of his, this is obviously false.

On (9), the issue is not my understanding of your attempt to rebut the Trinity (why should I care about that, from a guy who gets his theology from Wikipedia, muddles centuries of thought, and can hardly write a coherent sentence in English?), it is your misrepresentation of what I said about the subject. Again, you don't deny your error, you just try to distract readers from it. You made two concrete claims here about what I said, both of them wrong. Those are the facts. The rest is just spin.



Yet even more personal attacks and I don't get my theology from wikipedia. Yet another unsubstantiated assumption on your part. Would you like to see all the books I have?

Actually the facts are that I did make some mistakes and I admitted and corrected them. You have made more mistakes then I have, and yet you don't either admit, nor correct them. Those are the facts. The rest is just spin.

Get over yourself, man. Your book is a poor attempt at distorting truth, and trying to convince yourself that there really is a god. Please just wake up and see reality, and be honest with yourself and others for a change.

For anyone who doesn't have blinders on, I think they can clearly see your deception and the fact that you constantly dodge questions. That apologetics training has really come in handy, huh? That's why I call it the art of B.S.ing because that's all your so called rebuttals are.

And don't use that condescending tone with me. I gave you plenty of opportunities to rebut me, but you didn't. I've had debates with people who are much more grammatically skilled then you, and who actually have skill in debating. You are simply someone who dodges questions. And you're telling me, I need to work at it more? That's just too funny.

You can come to my blog and attempt to refute my arguments...though judging from the pitiful attempts, and the fact that you dodge questions a lot, I don't see that happening. If you're so right, and I'm so wrong, why don't you set me straight? I've given you many opportunities but you avoid addressing my criticisms like the plague it seems. All you do is hurl insults and avoid directly answering my objections.

I don't really have much else to add. I was getting very tired of Marshall's attitude and obvious attempts at dodging questions and arguments, and of course his discrediting attempts. Here is also where I challenged him (just one instance of many) to go read my review (which he did eventually, but his response was less than satisfactory) and comment on it and the more extensive rebuttals that I already took so much time to write out here. I figured, why bother posting everything that I've written here on Amazon.com when it's so much simpler to post a link and allow people to copy and paste what they want to comment on. Despite my open invitation, I'm accused of avoiding discussion and allegedly never posting arguments - which is a complete lie. That really shows how out of touch with reality that David Marshall and his buddy J.R. Fraser were to accuse me of such things.