Cult of Sundries

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More thought experiments. [This is a simple courtesy to those who have no interest in participating in one.] Recently, a friend sent me this video: It is a common example of someone trying to reason with a deeply religious person and the eventual failure to convince the religious person despite rational discourse. The host, Maajid Nawaz, attests to being a Muslim himself. The point of contention was the hijab.  The entire exchange is focused on why the caller would believe she has to wear one. An argument offered is that the hijab is not required by the Quran, but instead imposed by some male in a hadith  somewhere.  The conversation then descends into a series of fallacies and the call ends without a resolution. Normally, I would love to dwell on the caller, but this time I want to focus on an argument by the host. To stress this, I'll provide another example. This time from my main man John Fugelsang, on Twitter.  Those of you who do not have time to waste, Fugelsang is

[Fair warning: this includes a thought experiment.  Those uncomfortable with the thought of one should probably sit this out.] This subject comes up a lot. If you are an atheist, it resonates irritatingly as I think it takes more faith to be an atheist than to believe in God. I'll leave aside the irony of a believer having less faith in God than atheists having faith in themselves. Okay, after a brief sneering chuckle. But what does it mean? The assertion is predicated on ex nihilo creation of the universe, life, and species. The Big Bang, abiogenesis and evolution are apparently so incredible that they could not possibly have happened by chance accident luck non-supernatural causes. In short, it is a daily double: argument from design and an argument from incredulity . The notion being that because none of us "were there" at inception, we are speculating and taking things on faith. "Were you there?" is a familiar challenge. Well, obviously

[I think I am going to start redoing some topics that I have an interest in, rather than attempting to appeal to culters and culteresses.  Who knows, maybe this is what folks want.] "Why did you smoke pot, Timmy?" "Well mom, everyone else was doing it, so I thought it was cool" "If everyone jumped off a roof, would you?" Most of us can recall a similar conversation from our childhoods. It is usually when parents tell their kids that something is not OK to do, just because everyone else is doing it. To a large extent that makes sense, right? Just because everyone else is doing it, why should you? Would you jump off a roof because everyone else was? What if the building was on fire, and people partying on the roof figured that jumping off the two-storied building was indeed the best chance of saving yourself? Then, it is not as clear cut. Often in argumentation, whether it be on your favorite news program or your debate channel, y

Well, those who know me or care to know me, know that I am not one much for platitudes. Wait, what’s a platitude? plat·i·tude ˈpladəˌt(y)o͞od/ noun plural noun: platitudes a remark or statement, especially one with a moral content, that has been used too often to be interesting or thoughtful. "she began uttering liberal platitudes" synonyms : cliché, truism, commonplace, banality, old chestnut, bromide, inanity,banal/trite/hackneyed/stock phrase "boring us with his platitudes" Yup, something that sounds good, but it only sounds good. It doesn’t do anything, and if you think about it a bit, it is irritating as hell. At least to me, it is. For example, There’s no I in 'team' . Arguably emphasizing teamwork. I like how Dr. House addressed that: The point being, well, sometimes—more often than you think—there is a brilliant individual who is carrying more than her share of the load. The common argument against my irritation is that such

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it  ~ Aristotle[1], circa 350 BCE. I like to conduct thought experiments because they are useful to understand how people think. But, almost always, I am disappointed because people get defensive and refuse to engage. Perfectly understandable and often frustrating, but it does not faze me, I'll keep trying. One way to conduct a thought experiment is to use a hypothetical situation. A key requirement for such is that the participant provisionally accepts the premise(s) and then reasons out the rest. Albert Einstein used thought experiments a lot. They were useful to him to explain complex phenomena and to gain insight into them.  His book, Relativity , is filled with such. As an example, they shed light on how the same object falling from a moving train appears to take a different path depending on whether the observer is watching from the stationary platform, or from the train itsel