The Transcendental Argument

Thanks go to Matt Dillahunty of the Atheist Community of Austin for many of these observations.

Matt Slick is a christian apologist and founder of CARM(Christian Apologetics & Research Ministry). The Transcendental Argument for the Existence of God (or TAG for short) is Slick's attempt at proving god's existence through logic and philosophy.

You can read his full argument here:

http://www.carm.org/secular-movements/atheism/transcendental-argument-existence-god

To summarize:

Mr. Slick proposes that logical absolutes are conceptual.

Since they are Absolute they require an Absolute mind.

This Absolute mind is god.

TAG can easily get very messy. I've decided not to question any of the philosophy in TAG, even though in my experience many people do find it questionable. Going the philosophy route gets very messy very fast and I think simple analyses of his logic is enough to draw a meaningful conclusion.

I've found this is the simplest way of going about it:

One fatal problem arises when Mr. Slick fails to show that Logical Absolutes are conceptual.

Premise 6. A. states:

"Logic is a process of the mind.  Logical absolutes provide the framework for logical thought processes.  Therefore, Logical Absolutes are conceptual by nature."

"Logic is a process of the mind." I agree.

"Logical absolutes provide the framework for logical thought processes." I agree.

"Therefore, Logical Absolutes are conceptual by nature." Does not follow.

This is a logical fallacy on Mr. Slick's part.

Logical Absolutes <----- Logic

This simple diagram shows how logic is based on logical absolutes.

If logic is conceptual there is no requirement for logical absolutes to be conceptual. We create conceptions of non-conceptual things all the time.

Chair <----- Concept of Chair

Our concept of a chair is based on the chair.

Does this make the original physical chair necessarily conceptual? Of course not.

Mr. Slick continues with

Premise 6. B:

"Logical absolutes are either conceptual by nature or they are not."

I agree. They are either conceptual or non-conceptual.

B. i "If they are conceptual by nature then they are not dependent upon the physical universe for their existence."

I disagree. Mr. Slick has failed to show how concepts are not tied to the physical universe, he simply states it as true.

In reality concepts require a mind to conceive of them and everything we know of minds suggests they are physical (i.e. show me a mind without a brain). This is however irrelevant to the main point of showing that Logical Absolutes are conceptual. So I will move on.

B. ii "If they are non-conceptual by nature then

a. What is their nature?"

This is an odd way of suddenly trying to turn the burden of proof onto the reader. No one has claimed they are non-conceptual by nature.

In pointing out Mr. Slick's error in Premise 6. A. I am merely showing that his reasoning is flawed and thus he hasn't proven anything. I am not making a claim about the nature of logical absolutes myself. They still could be conceptual as far as I know. But it still needs to be proven. 

b. "If it is denied that Logical Absolutes are either conceptual or physical, then there must be a 3rd (or 4th...) option.  What would that option be?"

It is not denied that Logical Absolutes are either physical or conceptual. At this point their nature is simply unknown.

c. "If another option cannot be logically offered, then the only options available to us are conceptual and physical."

See response to d.

d. "Since logic is not a property of physical nature, see point 5 above, then we must conclude that they are conceptual by nature."

With c and d Mr. Slick continues his bizarre game of spinning the burden of proof. "Conceptual and Physical are the only options, can you think of any other ones? No? Then it must be true!" Meanwhile Mr. Slick has failed to actually prove that physical and conceptual ARE the only options. The burden is on HIM to prove this. He is the one presenting the argument and he must prove his own premises.

Mr. Slick is using physical vs conceptual as an absolute dichotomy here. While he has no justification to do this. "If something isn't physical it MUST be conceptual."

Firstly he has failed to prove these are the only two options.

Secondly the second option (conceptual) is possibly contingent on the first (physical). As I've already covered, concepts requires minds which require physical biology. If the conceptual depends on the physical they cannot be an absolute dichotomy.

Now we can argue about dualism back and forth. However the plain and simple philosophical controversy about it should shake anyone's faith in physical vs conceptual being a proven absolute dichotomy even if you ignore my first point.

We have to be very careful when dealing with absolute dichotomies. We don't know everything and these broad categorizations and generalizations are frequently and easily fallacious.

Most of the time they are structured in a more logically "strong" way.

For example:

Physical vs Non-Physical

or

Conceptual vs Non-Conceptual

rather than

Physical vs Conceptual

e. "Simply "denying" that Logical Absolutes are either conceptual or physical nature isn't sufficient."

It is not denied that Logical Absolutes could be either physical or conceptual. At this point their nature is simply unknown and the absolute dichotomy Mr. Slick draws his conclusion from has not been properly established.

Atheism as a Religion

The claim:

Atheism is a religion just like any other.

It is important to note that the claim is not made analogically, atheism is literally a religion.

Purpose and Uses:

This is usually stated by a theist towards an atheist. Commonly as an attempt to point out what the theist feels as hypocrisy. The atheist has been arguing against religion and it's traits while subscribing to a religion themselves.

The theist may also be attempting to put atheism "on the same playing field" as theism. Arguing that they are both irrational beliefs that require faith.

The theist may simply be trying to annoy or goad the atheist.

As well as many other possibilities...

Thoughts:

Ultimately the term religion is very malleable. It can be molded to fit belief systems that do not believe in a deity, such as many sects of Buddhism. But largely refers to belief in deities or the supernatural.

The theist may label atheism a religion and the atheist may disagree with him. But what it really comes down to is your own personal interpretation of what a religion actually is.

When the objective nature of definitions break down like in the case of "religion". We can draw no definite conclusions from semantic arguments involving the term.

Many atheists specifically define their beliefs as lack of a religion.

Keeping that in mind, when a theist tries to convince an atheist that atheism is a religion it appears non-sensical. A lack of something is not another version of that something.

Many amusing quotes arise from that situation:

"What hair color is bald?"

"Atheism is as much a religion as not collecting stamps is a hobby."

"Joe had two apples. John has two oranges. Jeb has no fruits. You cannot say that Jeb has fruits of a different kind. That his 'no fruits' are some how fruits."

Would someone attempt to label theism it's self as a religion? Unlikely as theism is simply a category. Just as atheism is more of a category or "trait" of other beliefs. Atheistic Buddhism, Atheistic Hinduism and Secular Humanism as well as many other belief systems for example. 

Someone may be an atheist with no other articulated beliefs. But I put forth the idea that they still have a personal unlabeled and unique system of beliefs of which atheism is just a trait. Two Atheists can have vastly different world views from each other.

Being an atheist does not necessitate acceptance of evolution or being anti-religion for example.

There is no over arching atheist philosophy or ideology that all atheists share inherently from their atheism. Just the simple uniting lack of belief in deities.

Bear in mind that atheists don't consider atheism a religion and that atheism contains none of the common signs of religion. (deities, the supernatural, scripture, rituals or even any ideology or philosophy) It seems unlikely someone would attempt to label atheism as a religion. 

I find that it is a bit disingenuous (if not propagandistic) of the theist to put forth the idea that atheism is a religion. It does not appear to be a genuine opinion. But rather simply a tool in a game of semantics meant to be used against the atheist.

Lying with Numbers Part 1: Absolute and Relative Changes

This is the first part of an on going series in which I discuss how numbers (usually statistics) can be used to mislead people.

First an example stat: (hypothetical)

You have a 2% chance of getting cancer.

The issue of absolute vs relative refers to the type of statistic used to represent the change in another statistic.

Your chances of getting cancer have increased 50%.

Here we have a statistic that represents a change in the original 2% stat (an increase of 50%)

The problem that arises is that this change is not labeled, it could either be a relative change or an absolute change. The actual result can change dramatically depending on which one is used.

If the change is absolute:

You have a 52% chance of getting cancer. (a +50% absolute change)

If the change is relative:

You have a 3% chance of getting cancer. (a +50% relative change)

As you can see the absolute percentage change is added to the original percentage, done from the perspective of "revising" (or directly adding to) the original percentage.

While the relative percentage change is done from the perspective of the original 2% increasing by 50% of it's self.

50% of 2% is 1%

2% + 1% = 3%

So the relative increase is the original 2% plus half(50%) of it's self: 3%.

It's important to note that this isn't limited to percentages. There are many ways to represent changes in numbers. For example, ratios and fractions being interchangeable with percentages can fall prey to this as well. Remember that the number that represents a change in another is what is important. The original number cannot be relative or absolute, only the change in it can be.

A final example: (hypothetical) 

Bird Flu cases up 300%

A relative increase from 1 case to 3 cases. Not so scary now is it?

So next time you hear of a change in a statistic be sure to find out if the change is relative or absolute. It can make a world of difference.

Application Recommendations Part 3 - OS X Applications

The OS X software library continues to grow. However it's size still pales in comparison of the amount of software available on the Windows side. Fortunately for what it lacks in quantity it tends to make up for in quality. Most applications in OS X often have an emphasis on User Interface design which make using OS X applications a very different experience then using the common Windows one.
Apple bundles a very valuable amount of software with it's computers and operating systems. I suggest you look through these (all found in the Applications folder) before pursuing third party alternatives.
Lastly, although the Windows versions of Quicktime and iTunes leave much to be desired. I have found that their OS X counterparts function better.

• I like the LotsaWater and the Filigree screen savers.
• Adium is an extremely customizable Instant Messaging Meta Client.
• Transmission is a well designed Bit Torrent Client.
• Webkit Nightly Builds are development builds of safari that are frequently updated and tweaked by the developers.
• Safari Adblock is a plug-in for Safari that blocks ads.
• Safari Tabs adds additional Firefox inspired tab options for Safari.
• InquisitorX improves the Google search field in the top right of Safari's interface.
• The Unarchiver is a replacement for OS X's built in uncompressing tool thats adds the ability to uncompress additional formats.
• Xee is an image viewer that can open almost any format.
• Onyx is a general maintenance, repair, cleaning and customization tool for OS X.
• iStat Menues adds informative (and very comprehensive) statistics about your computer to the top of the menu bar. Ram and CPU usage, hard drive read/writes, fan speeds, temperature sensor information, voltages, current and more.
• Gmail Notifier to keep track of your Gmail.
• VLC will play many different, obscure and even broken video files. As well Perian will allow Apple's default Quicktime software to play many additional video formats.
• Flip4Mac allows Quicktime to open Windows Media files.
• SmartSleep is for Mac notebooks and tweaks the default sleep/hibernate settings. The "SmartSleep state" option is recommended, read about it on his site.
  
• SMCFanControl allows you to manually ajust the fan speeds of your Mac.
• Lab Tick allows you to manually ajust the keyboard backlighting on your Mac notebooks.
• Growl ties into many popular OS X applications and creates non-intrusive and customizable notifications for application events.
  
• Quicksilver, if you choose to accept it. Will change the way you use a computer. After a short adaptive period you will find yourself wishing every computer had this built in. Further Explanation.
  
• iStumbler is a wireless network sniffing software.
  
• Remote Desktop Connection 2 is Microsoft's Remote Desktop protocol client for OS X.
  

A couple sites good for finding software for OS X:
Versiontracker
iusethis

Application Recommendations Part 2 - General Windows Programs

It can be hard to find good software for Windows. Because it has the largest install base by far, it also has the largest software library. Unfortunately most of it is crapware. For the most part good Windows software comes from the open source community. As a side note: All the programs I will list in these entries will be free.

• Zune Theme is my Windows XP theme of choice.
• Filigree for windows is my screen saver of choice.
• Gmail Notifier helps you keep track of your Gmail.
  
• CCleaner is a brilliant application that everyone should have. It combines a very thorough cache cleaner, registry cleaner and startup items manager. I've seen it clean out up to 8GB of temporary files on very old computers.
  
• Defraggler is a nice defragmenter by the developers of CCleaner. I find it defragments more thoroughly then the default windows Disk Defragmenter. It allows you to defrag freespace to help prevent future fragmentation, check the hard drive for errors and defrag individual folders/files.
• Recuva, again by the developers of CCleaner, allows you to recover deleted files. The program is well designed and has many features including the ability to recover files from external sources such as digital camera memory cards.
• Eraser is a very thorough and feature rich program to securely delete files/folders or whole drives.
  
• ImgBurn is a program for creating and working many types of disk images and burning CDs, Audio CDs, DVDs, HD DVDs and even Blu Ray discs.
• 7-Zip will not only uncompress almost anything but it will also compress into a number of high compression ratio formats.
• MediaCoder is a "free universal batch media transcoder" designed to convert almost anything to anything else.
• MagicISO/MagicDisc is a small little program for mounting different types of disk images. (don't forget to disable it's startup item with CCleaner)
  
• Sumatra PDF is an extremely lightweight PDF viewer that will most likely meet your needs. However if you need some extra features Foxit Reader is recommended. I would strongly recommended against using Adobe Reader to view PDFs, it is the definition of bloated and intrusive software.
• CutePDF is a small and free program for converting documents to PDF.
• DriveImage XML can create/restore/view drive image backups of hard drives.
• Digsby is a pretty and customizable Instant Messaging Metaclient (multiple IM networks at once, such as AIM and MSN concurrently) it also includes E-mail and Social Networking support.
• CCCP+MCP thats the Combined Community Codec Pack and Media Player Classic. This suite will play any type of movie file you could want. VLC is also notable for having the ability to open almost anything you can throw at it. Including half downloaded or corrupted files, although it's subtitle support is lacking.
  
• uTorrent is a nice and lightweight bit torrent client.
• Combofix is an excellent virus removal tool. However you really shouldn't use it unless you really know what your doing.
• and of course FireFox, which I cover in more detail on my first post.

Edit: Added November 22, 2008

• FreeCommander is a free replacement for Window's Explorer. It has an impressive feature list that can be viewed on it's website. I find FreeCommander is useful to use if Explorer.exe is corrupted, broken, infected or otherwise borked.
  
• Process Explorer is a more advanced version of the Task Manager already in Windows. It is an essential tool for diagnosing performance issues or tracking down viruses and other malicious software.

In fact Process Explorer was created by the now legendary Sysinternals team and all of their software are highly recommended for those who are technicaly minded.

Software developed by Piriform (CCleaner, Defraggler, Recuva), Sysinternals and Sumatra PDF are all self contained .exe files. Which means they can easily be stored and run from USB sticks.
If your looking for more "portable" programs then PortableApps is a good resource.
More advanced customization of the Windows interface can be found here.

Application Recommendations Part 1 - Firefox

Being in the IT industry I frequently get asked to recommend certain programs for this and that.
What do I use to open swap.avi? How do I block the ads in Firefox? Et cetera.
Because of that I've decided to create this list of my most commonly used programs for both Windows XP and OS X.
I'm going to start with Firefox on Windows and move on to more general Windows and OS X software in later entries.

Firefox It's a great browser that is both fast and secure as well as standards compliant (more or less) and extremely customizable.
I use the following Add-ons:

• NASA Night Launch as my Theme.
• Adblock Plus as a ad blocker.
• Ctrl-Tab to add a graphical alt-tab functionality between large numbers of browser tabs.
• Download Statusbar a cleaner and more efficient downloads manager.
• Firebug a comprehensive and invaluable web development toolbox.
• IE Tab lets you render websites using Internet Explorer inside Firefox.
• NoScript secures your browser by blocking all scripts by default unless you allow them. As well as an asortment of other security enhancements. It's a trade off of security vs convenience.
• Web Developer adds a small toolbar with numerous useful web development tools.
• Firecookie is an extension for Firebug that adds cookie support.
• Flagfox creates a small icon of a country flag showing where the website you are currently viewing is hosted. Right clicking on this flag reveals a collection of useful information about that website.
• Flashblock stops all flash content from auto playing.
• GooglePreview adds a visual thumbnail of the web page beside every google search result.

Now these add-ons are obviously not for everyone, they are just the ones that I personally use.
There are quite a lot of add-ons for Firefox and they can all be found listed here.

There are also many settings and options that you can tweak in Firefox. I've always been happy with the default settings myself. However is there is one tweak that I would particularly recommend. I use a slightly different version of the streamlined layout explained here.

(click for larger image)

It essentially involves hiding the Bookmark and Navigation tool bars and adding whatever elements you need to the menu bar instead. This gives you the maximum viewing area possible as well as efficient use of space. I like it a lot but it's largely up to personal preference.