What Jonestown can teach us

The truly honest will never shy from questions.


The truly rich (in character) will rarely speak of money.

The truly helpful will never speak of the help they give to others.

The truly powerful (in character) will have no need nor desire to ask for your loyalty.

The truly loving will never ask for your love.

I will list out below the strategies with which Rev. Jones manipulated and eventually murdered his followers. Maintain a rational level of skepticism and apply critical thought to every facet of your life.

Jim Jones started with promising beginnings and was the champion of multiculturalism in a racist era.

Upon his church’s growing popularity, he targeted the recruitment of the dispossessed, the young and impressionable, the old and the needy.

Followers gave their earnings to the church and began working for the church to support the many functions of the church. With no financial independence of their own, they became locked into the church.

He carried out psychic healing scams to earn the trust of his followers.

He transferred the moral authority/ focus of faith upon himself soon after.

Next, he put forth tests of loyalty in order to hone their confidence in their faith (in him) and weed out possible dissenters.

The church held entire families in and familial bonds prevented followers from leaving.

He isolated them geographically. Mentally, he engineered the removal of external influences and achieved monopoly of influence by bombarding them with his narrative (which his followers had to accept without question).

He had a team of loyal lieutenants who had a hidden cache of weapons. These people then went on to murder congressman Leo Ryan and forced the followers to ingest poison.

Be responsible in the public sphere as a critical thinker

 When in doubt, critically examine.

This is an external process which should be open to criticism from rational counter-agruments and draws in more sources of information for you to make a more rational decision thereafter.

I highly advocate against praying to alleviate or doubt which is internal and therefore devoid of other rational counter-arguments which would serve as test of validity for one's stand. It also does not draw upon any new sources of information. Thus these two limitations would hinder the progression towards making a more rational decision.

 

And I was quite appalled by this. You can call me an intellectual prune if you want but my logic is that since his 'personal' view which now is the public sphere, it should be presented without at least some degree of evidential support. Al...most all the claims that he makes are entirely unsupported and therefore presenting it in a schematically logical pattern gives it the false image of critical thought. And if his personal views are shared in the public sphere and if he is highly aware of the fact that he has a 'following' and an ability to influence, then it is his academic responsibility as a critical thinker to provide at least some degree of evidential support as to why he reached his personal view. So that anyone who may be influenced by his personal view has the equal academic responsibility as a critical thinker to examine the logic which culminated in his view and decide whether or not to be influenced. This will reduce the probability that anyone take his public 'private' view to inform their own position without first critically examining it.

Warm and fuzzy but Oxymoronic

Though the logic on this quote is warm and fuzzy on a first read, it fails in critical logic and theological grounding on subsequent readings. The God in question is the Christian God and it is omnibenevolent. It wants the best for mankind. It is also omnipotent. All that happens to anyone is within its control. An omnibenevolent being would never visit any physical or psychological pain on us (his creation out of love) for the sake of us knowing it as a healer, comforter and ultimately just as proof of its existence. Why does it need us to know its existence if it is omipotent? Why inflict pain upon us if it ultimate wish for us is love? Being omnibenevolent, it should possess selfless love and want what is best for us regardless of its own being. So the above line of logic is oxymoronic.

Secondly, if we interpreted the pain, sadness and imperfection in life as a test, then it makes more sense. But still,the logic fails given that an omnibenevolent being would never cause any pain....test or not. 

 

So the applicable logic then stands is that the God in question may be omnipotent and may be using the sadness, pain and imperfection in life as a test for us to hone our physical, emotional and mental strength by applying a utilitarian system of benevolence.

Adam Deen......morality without God.....

Full article here: http://www.adamdeen.com/updates/whats-new/270-are-morals-real-without-god


In summary, a non-theistic moral realism is false by virtue of the fact that moral facts cannot be successfully established and that irrealist view cannot maintain a genuine notion of morality. What logically follows is therefore moral nihilism. Given that nihilism is true, it implies that morality does not exist and that our use of the vocabulary and structures of cognitive enquiry are a mere mask. This reality hides the fact that moral judgments are nothing other than the expression of personal preference or socially imposed rules without God as the locus and paradigm of morality.






In summary, a non-theistic moral realism is false by virtue of the fact that moral facts cannot be successfully established and that irrealist view cannot maintain a genuine notion of morality. ->

Firstly, the non-theistic moral realism view that moral facts can be established is increasingly supported by evolutionary psychology and animal behavioralist studies of our highly social cousins in the animal kingdom. Therefore, he cannot argue that it is false unless he debunks the accumulative research and findings in the above field.

Secondly in a more serious mistake in critical thought, by equating non-theistic moral realism with the irrealist view is to commit an error in equivocation with regard to concepts thereby rendering his entire argument unsound because of its untrue premises.



What logically follows is therefore moral nihilism. ->

Logically follows? Moral nihilism is the opposite of moral realism! Has there been overwhelming evidence that non-theistic morally realist societies will degenerate into morally nihilistic societies with high probability? This bridging process is unproven by any tests of logic or evidence in reality. So this bridging process should contain an ‘If’. But it does not and instead tries to pass off as a modus ponens which it cannot be without any test of validity.



Given that nihilism is true, it implies that morality does not exist and that our use of the vocabulary and structures of cognitive enquiry are a mere mask. ->

Without establishing the validity of his previous statement, he goes on to state another two “truths”.



This reality hides the fact that moral judgments are nothing other than the expression of personal preference or socially imposed rules without God as the locus and paradigm of morality. ->

This predicate is only ‘true’ if the premise of the subject started out true and that is highly debatable. The validity of the alternative that he puts forth is not explained here but in the statement below.



Traditionally morality was grounded in God. God was the transcendental grounding for objective morality. God provided the transcendental vantage point in order to escape the subjective, partial personal preference based views concerning morality. ->

Firstly, he commits an error of ad verecundiam. Tradition does not automatically pass for rational authority until it has been examined. Tradition can give us clues to tested modes of operation but we still have to critically examine its basis. Just because “God was the transcendental grounding for objective morality.” does not mean that it still “must be”.

Secondly if he pushes for an argument that since God was (a factual statement), therefore God should “still be”, then he is committing an “is-ought” fallacy and is deriving a positive value (prescriptive statement) for God still being from a fact.

Should we fully trust scientific "authority" and accept their findings and/or statements?

Should we fully trust scientific "authority" and accept their findings and/or statements?
NO! We should never trust anyone or organisation without first examining its argument.

Science has permeated almost every facet of our modern life. Our daily processes and activities are dominated by scientific apllications and theories. We cannot escape it even if we tried. And as science pushes its frontiers more and more beyond the testing abilities of our technology, we find ourselves confronted with theories that challenge our previously held thinking or even our systems of wishful thinking. So how can we trust what scientists at the cutting edges of scientific pursuit put forth?

1) The first issue is one of ad verecundiam. Is the scientist qualified to comment in that particular field? This is fairly straightforward.

2) The seond issue are the "high barriers to entry" in scientific pursuits: these barriers to entry are HIGH indeed. Why? How many of us even understand how a fan works? This is because our modern understandings of scientific applications and theories have greatly advanced and are far beyond the understandings of the general public. This then leaves us with the fear and problem of not being able to analyse the validity of their findings and leaves the scientists to engage in putting out unchecked theories.

Read and study beyond your needs. Try to keep up with scientific developments. Do so in a progressive manner. There are many great communicators of scientific theories who go to all lengths to package complex theories in palatable explanations.

Ask questions and examine scientific journals whereby scientists cross-examine and conduct each oher's experiments. This is the process of falsification.

3) Beware of scientists who make “is-ought” statements. Scientific findings focus on facts. These are “is” statements. When scientists make conclusive value (ought) judgments from facts, they commit the “is-ought” fallacy. Facts can inform value judgments but cannot conclusively decide value-driven judgments or actions. We should not allow ourselves to accept conclusive value judgments from scientists because of factual findings. I provide an example: “Abortions are unnatural in nature, no animal except humans perform abortions. Therefore abortions are wrong and we should not perform abortions.”

4) Every human being has a slant. And this slant may inform their findings. However, we cannot entirely discount a scientist's findings because of their background. This would be committing an error of ad hominem. We should examine the soundness of the argument first. If it is sound, the hypothesis still stands despite the scientist’s background. If it is unsound for various reasons, we may have clues from their background on why particular “errors” or suppression of evidence was committed.

Deconstructing the religious argument using cosmological constants

Abel: Our cosmological constants show signs of the universe being fine-tuned for life.

Cain: And so?

Abel: God is responsible for this fine-tuning.

Cain: How do you know?

Abel: Because our holy book says that God created the universe so he set the cosmological constants to allow for life to occur.

Cain: Even if your holy book says so, how do you know that it is God?

Abel: It has to be God. Who else has the ability to do so?

Cain: Ok maybe it is God but who’s God?

Abel: Of course, it is our God. Only our telling of God is correct.
Fallacies in critical thought

1) Is our universe really fine-tuned for life? (As much as the universe seems fine-tuned for life, it also seems fine-tuned to deny life. By assuming that our universe is fine-tuned for life, this fallacy is “Begging the question”.)

2) Are cosmological constants really fine-tuned? (This commits the problem of Ad Ignoratium. We do not know for certain if cosmological constants are fine-tuned. For now, we can ony say that cosmological constants seems fine-tuned for life.)

3) God is responsible for this fine-tuning. (This is an unfalsifiable statement: the existence of God and its hand in the setting of the cosmological constants cannot be falsified.)

4) Because our holy book says that God created the universe so he set the cosmological constants to allow for life to occur. (this is circular reasoning)

5) Cain: Ok maybe it is God but who’s God? (this is a good question to prevent equivocation. There are many conceptions of God.)


6) Abel: Of course, it is our God.
    Abel: Only our telling of God is correct. (this is unfalsifiable. No religion has proven its concept of God to be truer than others.)



Ultimately, the entire argument is not sound because it lacks (1) validity and (2) a true premise and commits many other fallacies in reasoning as shown above.

I shall examine my stand

I shall examine my stand (I am a naturalist and function morally as a humanist) as according to the 12 virtues of rationality,

Curiosity (you really need to know) -> Yes! I do!


relinquishment (give it up if it is false) -> I will be more than happy to. On the issue of morality, if  God/s convincedly spoke to us about its existence, it would be great for me to know that there is an afterlife and rewards for morality and then we would also have an objective morality with which to operate from. This may hopefully unite more of us too. This would also reduce a lot of the heartache and philosophical disputes that we have. Then again in the darker conceptions of such a happening, I can imagine that some groups would be convinced that the God/s were truly God/s and not acknowledge them and even seek to destroy them (given that they do not wish to live under their fixed system of morality and absolute authority).

lightness (you must have no fixed position before deciding on an issue. if not, you are a 'lawyer' and not a 'judge') -> my position has changed quite a bit along this journey as I have been more informed. I have not had a fixed position and am still in the process of ultimately deciding. I was once a believer in the supernatural due to a lack of scientific knowledge and family background. Later, I studied religions more in depth and seeked to find commonalities in morality. Then I realised that some religions clashed with each other for the truth of God. I was still convinced that we had souls and that there was something uniquely special about humans. I then went through an existentialist patch and came out better with the understanding that although nothing definite was currently dictating a meaning for my life, I could dictate one for myself. Then I had to decide what that was. Through grief and disappointments, I realised something. That on a cosmic scale, I was not all that special and thus it was arrogant for me to consider myself too much. I should then be concerned more about others rather than myself. But I still held the conviction that mankind was special. So I wanted to study all I could about mankind's origins and nature. From anatomy, anthroplogy, sociology, psychology, neuroscience, biochemistry, astrophysics, biology and philosophy, I realised the beauty of it all. We were special! This was because we were connected with every other living creature and we are fortunate to be alive and part of this biological experience. And that this meant that my humanist morality should seek to uphold this special experience with our fellow humans (even though others may not think as I do with regard to the conclusions of the hard sciences as they may believe in other systems to inform their conclusions because this was secondary to their biological experience: life)

evenness (you must not argue for one side.... you are the judge and not a hypothesis) -> I must seek to be more even. I think that as of late, I have become more of  "lawyer" for naturalism as I find their arguments more compelling and with evidential backing. I have found the arguments for supernaturalism often tainted with greed, hypocrisy and inter-faith bickering. I need to think more about this virtue and decide how best to be more even.

argument (you do not have to end with a balanced judgment. let reality be the test) -> thus far, reality is swinging in favor of naturalism. and given that reality does not yet accord a supernatural realm, then humanism is the most moderate and tenable position of morality to me.

empiricism (observe and predict. Do not ask which beliefs to profess, but which experiences to anticipate) -> I totally agree. I am a reality-based individual both in fight, moral and cognitive philosophy. Facts are testable in which experiences can be anticipated and observable with accuate prediction and therefore explanation.

simplicity (When you profess a huge belief with many details, each additional detail is another chance for the belief to be wrong. Each specification adds to your burden) -> Occam's razor. Just like in many facets of life, I go with the dictum "less is more", "smooth is fast" and "K.I.S.S"

humility (Who are most humble? Those who most skillfully prepare for the deepest and most catastrophic errors in their own beliefs and plans) -> I do not confess to be correct. Nor do I confess to be the only one who is correct. I will guard against the possibility of the folly of my own ways by equally granting others the freedom to expression and thought. Moreover, no one system is privileged and all are open to critical analysis.

perfectionism (The more errors you correct in yourself, the more you notice) -> I must strive more in this area.

precision (the evidence which is more useful is the one which has exposed itself to a stricter test) -> science and human experiences has proven thus far that most supernatural claims are not useful with experiments and tests (even challenges by skeptics such as Randi) which can be replicated for confirmation.

scholarship (study for as long and as much as you need) -> reading and learning more each day and loving it!

the void. (to embrace and live a life of rationality in which all qualities should be striven for in equal importance with one another to achieve the utmost rationality) -> I must truly understand this. I admit to currently not understanding/ being able to imagine the full meaning of this virtue and in the future, I will aim for this. :)