Quotes and Musings, on Saturday

NEW FEATURES

I have added several new blocks of text at the bottom in the left column. I really think you will find them interesting, valuable, perhaps new to you, and decidedly dedicated to naturalism, objective thinking, and human freedoms.

Besides "The Phrase of the Week," which is really just meant as a curiosity to introduce readers to ideas they have not heard of before (so some of them might appear to be very obscure--or very basic,) I've added some blocks of history in education, philosophy of religion, and other subjects which will make good reading. I will change these as I see fit, but as I see fit right now, they are a perfect juxtaposition from the philosophy of naturalism to educated ideas that promote the value of the human being, and contribute to each of us achieving that state of "Man qua Man."

There is a block "ON SECULAR EDUCATION" by John Stuart Mill; a block on "Sex Between Humans and Gods," by the American Patriot Thomas Paine; a block on "Free Will and Naturalism," by Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D ; and because so many Yahoo Answers readers want to know what "time" is, (though by the tone of some of the questions you just know the questioner is as skeptical that time exists as he is that he himself exists,) called "Consciousness, Reality and Time," by Professor Alek Samarin.

Even though the viewer counter I choose never showed up on this page (I'm not a geek; I can't understand RSS urls and things like how to put a counter on the page!), still, Google tells me in my account how many hits this page has had, and I must say I appreciate everyone of them. I only wish that some of you would comment so I knew what you were thinking, but I hate allowing comments to be put directly on the site without my reading them first, because then I get arguments, straw men, hate messages, irrational ranting, etc. I know that if someone takes the time to click on the link to this email address, that he or she has the constitution to write a logical, rational rebuttal or the knowledge to correct me where I've been wrong, or just to comment one way or another. So the "comments" button won't be coming up on this site anytime soon.

But Saturday is the day I've chosen to lay back and take it easy, posting my own offhand comments, or more than likely some of my (new!) "favorite" quotes from other people. If you're interested in whose quotes I used last week, they are listed under "Blog Archive" for the previous week.

BTW, if you have noticed, there is a link to PHILO, The Center for Inquiry, and Purdue U. at the top of the left column of this page. There are lots of links that might astonish you. Check them out. And while you're at it, click on some of the Google ads that have to do with Naturalism, or Atheism, etc. You'll be be helping me pay my bills! Or click on the pretty, animated ad for Turner Movie Classics. I'm broke.

LAST WEEK'S SERIES ON THE "INFORMED" NATURALIST AND SECULARITY

If you have followed my week-long series based on Dr. Quentin Smith's paper published in PHILO, on the subject of "uninformed vs. informed naturalists," then you will understand why I'm not energetic enough to comment on anything today.

Each of those daily blogs took me approximately four hours of research and writing and editing for format (the appearance, the look,) of the blog. How many online blogs have you read that provide all the necessary links to the websites from which the information came? I want each of you to be able to judge whether or not I "appropriately appropriated" the copyrighted materials of others under fair usage and according to whether or not I was on the mark with the material I used: was it properly supportive of my own ideas? was I creating straw man arguments? did I "appropriate" too much to make a point, or would you have liked me to use more, in order to make my own case as tight as possible?

At any rate, the authors and the holders of the copyrights I appropriate under fair usage deserve--legally and ethically--to have their material linked. And several editors and publishers have given me outright carte blanche to appropriate as much material as I need or want, so long as I give the credit where it is due.

"Dear Curtis,

Many thanks for writing, I’ve put you on our newsletter list. I’m glad to know that you self-identify as a naturalist and we’ll be happy to help in any way we can. You can use and distribute anything at Naturalism.Org and Centerfornaturalism.Org, just cite the source.

I certainly encourage you to promote naturalism using all possible means – talking with co-workers, friends and family, giving talks, writing op-eds and articles. I look forward to collaborating in making naturalism better known as a worldview.

Best regards,
Tom Clark
Thomas W. Clark, DirectorCenter for Naturalism www.centerfornaturalism.org
www.naturalism.org Encountering Naturalism: A Worldview and Its Uses "

Thank you, Tom. We are not related, tho our last names are the same. I've never met Tom. I've never spoken to Tom. Tom and I have each written only one email to each other. But this is the kind of response that people in our field are willing to give to each other.

Dr. Quentin Smith lives right here in my home town and I've met and spoken with him. I wrote him an email about my week-long series, but he never got it. I sent it to the general email address of the Western Michigan University philosophy department, and yesterday when I went there to ask the Dr. what he thought of how I had handled his paper, not only was he not there, but the department secretary said her own volunteer had been absent and had not forwarded the email! But I did manage to get another professor, someone who's bio and photo are not yet up on the WMU website http://www.wmich.edu/philosophy/index.php?content=home to promise to take a look at this site. I hope he shows it to Dr. Smith. I hope he shows it to the whole staff and to any students who are interested in Naturalism, or in whatever else the young professor may find interesing here.

I almost want to say his name was Professor Philo, but that would be too convenient. It only reminds me of "philo." At any rate, Professor, thank you for promising to at least look at my site, and my deepest apologies for having a short term memory loss.

A friend of mine who owns a 50,000+ sq. ft. building suitable for a convention, and I, are hatching the first big idea for the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism. It will probably happen before the Academy begins offering unaccredited courses. I've been looking at several courses that are well regarded in both academic and non-academic circles. But it is not just a matter of finding the right material to advance Naturalism, or to advance the epistemic integrity of bringing secularism back into the field. It is a matter of find the right professors who can work long distance with students who are not in a formal classroom on a formal campus. It also requries hiring a webmaster who can put the package of online learning into the kind of internet superhighway of academic learning that I envision for the Academy.

Oh yeah, did I leave you hanging up there, about the "first big idea" of a convention? I'm going to have to continue to leave you hanging because the whole idea is only a week old, barely old enough to be debatable as to its possibility, let alone as to its probability. Sorry.

Tomorrow is Sunday, the day I take off from my postings. I'm going to an AA picnic today (there is a link to AA International on here, also, if you have not noticed.) It's supposed to be a bright, warm, wonderful day under the naturalistic sun on the naturalistic turf of a large county park on a beautiful and large naturalistic lake. But I just broke one of my smaller toes. I may have a hard time walking tomorrow. It's the same toe I broke a year ago. I limped in my shoes for a month.

So I hope you all have as wonderful a weekend as I'm going to have, and I'll see you Monday with another blog, the subject of which I have no idea yet as to its subject. I'm worn out from thinking about this week's subject, and the many hours it takes to write and publish it, not only here but on my Yahoo 360 profile 360.yahoo.com/curtisedwardclark , and on Scribd. http://www.scribd.com/

Suggestions for topic are welcome, as well as suggestions for the "Phrase (or Word) of the Week." And you are welcome to send original material, as this blog points out in approximately 20 different places.

Until Monday, then, Best Wishes that the naturalist events of the cosmos work to your advantage.

Curtis

QUOTES TO MAKE YOUR DAY

"The generation of random numbers is too important to be left to chance. "
Robert R. Coveyou, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

"I often quote myself. It adds spice to my conversation. "
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

"All my life I have tried to pluck a thistle and plant a flower wherever the flower would grow in thought and mind." Abraham Lincoln

"All men are prepared to accomplish the incredible if their ideals are threatened." Maya Angelou

"All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance and should be undertaken with painstaking excellence." Martin Luther King, Jr.

"As our enemies have found we can reason like men, so now let us show them we can fight like men also." Thomas Jefferson

"A baby is an alimentary canal with a loud voice at one end and no responsibility at the other." Ronald Reagan

"There's no half-singing in the shower, you're either a rock star or an opera diva.”
Josh Groban quotes

"Bart, with $10,000, we'd be millionaires! We could buy all kinds of useful things like...love!" Homer J Simpson. http://www.short-funny-quotes.com/top_ten_quotes.html

"I'm an excellent housekeeper. Every time I get a divorce, I keep the house." Zsa Zsa Gabor ibid

"Programming today is a race between software engineers striving to build bigger and better idiot-proof programs, and the Universe trying to produce bigger and better idiots. So far, the Universe is winning." Rich Cook ibid

"When I was kidnapped, my parents snapped into action. They rented out my room." Woody Allen ibid

"Catch a man a fish, and you can sell it to him. Teach a man to fish, and you ruin a wonderful business opportunity." - Karl Marx (What--Capitalism from the king of Marxism? WTF?)

"The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing. If you can fake that, you've got it made."
Groucho Marx (1890-1977)

"No man or woman who tries to pursue an ideal in his or her own way is without enemies."
Daisy Bates (1863-1951)

"The most important service rendered by the press and the magazines is that of educating people to approach printed matter with distrust." Samuel Butler (1612-1680)

"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact." George Eliot [Mary Ann Evans] (1819-1880)

The Loss of Secularism in Naturalism, Part 1

Between the blocks of time I use writing this blog, answering questions on Yahoo Answers (under an assumed moniker,) and attending to the more mundane aspects of living such as feeding the wild animals right outside our back window, mowing the grass, preparing dinner for my partner and myself, attending AA meetings or watching 24 hour new networks or my favorite dramas, I read.

It has come to my attention that naturalism is a bigger deal in the world of academics than I could have imagined. I am not in formal academics; I have no "classroom" but this one and Yahoo Answers. Now I discover, through an article written by a local, esteemed philisopher that naturalism as a secular activity in academia was once the norm, whereas now it is being pushed out by the arguments of philosophical theists who argue that existence cannot be self-sufficient and the given.

Dr. Quentin Smith http://www.wmich.edu/philosophy/index.php?content=smith_faculty_profile writes that naturalist philosophers desire to search for knowledge for its own sake, going so far as to claim they want the truth "whatever the truth happens to be (e.g., be it naturalism or theism)." "The Metaphilosophy of Naturalism", http://www.philoonline.org/library/smith_4_2.htm

But, Smith writes, because academics in the second half of the 20th century had, for the most part, become secularized, that all of academia, aside from a few exceptions, was in the search for objective truth whether it turned out to be naturalism or theism.

"[D]epartments of theology or religion aimed to understand the meaning and origins of religious writings, not to develop arguments against naturalism."

As many of my readers are also users of Yahoo Answers, let me state that one of the big debates has been why the atheists assume such a large role in the Religion and Spirituality forum, and why the so-called philosophy students in the Philosophy forum often argued so vigorously for theist answers. The atheists in the R&S forum often made the claim, as did I, that even atheists have souls, that we have "spirituality," and that when not prodding the theists to make them angry, the goal was simply to set the record right, to state that theists didn't have all the answers, that religions were "set up to terrify and enslave mankind, and monopolize power and profit," as the American patriot Thomas Paine stated so boldly in his book, "The Age of Reason." (1794)

While all this and more may be true, it seems there is more going on being the curtains of academia that lead to the face off between the theists and the seculars. What this is, writes Smith, is apparently not even known explicitly by some of the academic seculars.

"Naturalists passively watched as realist versions of theism [ ] began to sweep through the philosophical community...", in effect, developing the very arguments for creationism that will lead to the death of naturalism if we naturalists don't wake up and begin taking back the epistemic high road.

Realist theists may be identified in this context as anyone who proposes a rational theory of creationism or intelligent design. Rational theism, according to Phillip E Johnson in his book, "Reason in the Balance," is true knowledge (!), starting with the belief of God as the Creator. "Theistic realism relies on a God that is real, personal, and acting in the world through mechanistic creationism." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theistic_realism

To demonstrate how low the realist theists believe naturalism has gone, and perhaps not without some validity if we are indeed losing ground to their arguments, a site called "the evangelical outpost" (sic) http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/ finds plenty to laugh at concerning their opposition.

"Christian thinkers ranging from the profound to the banal have argued that philosophical naturalism is internally inconsistent and contradictory," it posts, calling naturalism a "naked emperor." http://www.evangelicaloutpost.com/archives/001271.html "But we Christian critics now have a handful of unwitting allies in our cause. A small group of atheist philosophers, including Daniel Dennett and Brian Leiter, have instituted a new organization that will prove to be our best ally in the effort to expose the self-refuting philosophy: [ ] The website provides such a parody of naturalistic ideas that it couldn't be anything other than an elaborate prank."

Yet I assure you it is no "elaborate prank." The esteemed list of contributors to the site, called The Center for Naturalism http://www.centerfornaturalism.org/ would convince anyone of that. (They are listed on the home page.)

"Naturalism is the understanding that there is a single, natural world as shown by science, and that we are completely included in it," states the Center. That much is probably as easy to accept for the theists as for any atheist. But the next words are hardly the words of science, but of a type of humanism that seems more like the victim falling on his sword rather than as a leader in scientific thinking.

"Naturalism holds that everything we are and do is connected to the rest of the world," says the Center, without any scientific description of that "connection." It could just as easily refer to the butterfly effect. "Each of us is an unfolding natural process [ ] and seeing just how we are caused gives us power and control, while encouraging compassion and humility."

Is this an apologetic for what naturalism in science is supposed to be?

I was never under the impression that this was the nature of naturalism. My understanding of it is that it is the scientific view that existence is self-sufficient, the given, describable in axiomatic concepts and defendable as the default position versus some theory of ex nihilo where "nothingness" was at one time the condition of existence. My understanding of naturalism has nothing to do with social policies "encouraging compassion and humanity." While those may be outstanding values to encourage in the proper conditions, it strays far from a black-and-white, concretized description of naturalism as an epistemological position derived from logic.

Everytime some young student in Yahoo asks where the world or the universe came from, whether challenging the naturalists or seeking a sincere answer, the question automatically takes the default position that "nothingness" was once the conditon of the universe.

There are contradictions inherent in this default position, and for the rest of the week it will be the task of this blog to uncover those contradictions. In the mean time, until tomorrow, let me paste the definition of Naturalism from the Dictionary of Philosophy. http://www.ditext.com/runes/index.html This definition was written by B.A.G. Fuller, a Harvard professor whose clarity of grammar and syntax rivals that of Thomas Jefferson, and is just as often as difficult to digest on the first reading.

"Naturalism, challenging the cogency of the cosmological, teleological, and moral arguments, holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government, but is self-existent, self-explanatory, self-operating, and self-directing, that the world-process is not teleological and anthropocentric, but purposeless, deterministic (except for possible tychistic events), and only incidentally productive of man; that human life, physical, mental, moral and spiritual, is an ordinary natural event attributable in all respects to the ordinary operations of nature; and that man's ethical values, compulsions, activities, and restraints can be justified on natural grounds, without recourse to supernatural sanctions, and his highest good pursued and attained under natural conditions, without expectation of a supernatural destiny."

This has always been my working definition of naturalism, and I see nothing in it that refers even implicitly to an apologetic for its nature, and certainly nothing even remotely close to being social policy for compassion and humanity.

"And how," asks Quentin Smith, "have naturalist philosophers reacted to what some committed naturalists might consider as 'the embarrassment' of belonging to the only academic field that has allowed itself to lose the secularization it once had? Some naturalists wish to leave the field..."

That does not surprise me. What surprises me is that naturalism has lost the secularization it once had.

Please send all comments to mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the sm (service mark) of the Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism tm, which is the educational arm of the Assemblage.
This publication © 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®