The Divine Fallacy : Not To Be Mistaken For The Divine

It's Christmas Eve and I should probably be doing something other than working on my blog, ah but it's also Tuesday and I'm a little bit OCD as they say.  So here it goes.

My last post about the Onus Probandi fallacy attracted some questions.  The most obvious being about of all things, the spaghetti monster.  Yes, even though I made no mention of that lovable guy he decided to crash my logic party.

For those of you not familiar with the spaghetti monster let me offer a quick explanation.  Some people thought themselves exceptionally clever when they invented a fictional being with god-like powers that lives somewhere out in space beyond our ability to confirm or deny his existence.  They thought they created the perfect answer to the "you can't prove God does not exist" argument.

The spaghetti monster, they would say, was just like God in that his existence could not be disproved, thus to believe in God makes just as much sense as believing in the spaghetti monster.  "Not much", their argument goes.

This was suggested to me in response to my assertion that the burden of proof rests with whoever is attempting to change the other's mind.

They missed the point and on top of that they stepped right into another logical fallacy.  The irony of this is rich since one of the names this fallacy goes by is the Divine fallacy.

Divine fallacy (argument from (personal) incredulity, appeal to common sense) – I cannot imagine how this could be true, therefore it must be false.

Some atheists apparently insist that logic must always make sense to them, which is a fallacy.  I inferred this last week when I wrote,

"Interesting conclusion, but I can't see how they get to it.  And it's not that I'm ignorant or trying to use the fallacious argument that what I personally can't see must not be valid.  But it is in fact that they seem to be using it."

That fallacious argument I was referring to there was the Divine fallacy.  The spaghetti monster is just a clever attempt to frame a logical quandary its creators don't like in a way to make it look ridiculous.  They feel justified in doing it because the implications of the quandary seems ridiculous to them.  But they miss the important point that no matter how ridiculous it may seem to them, the challenge is still before them if they wish to change anyone's mind.

They can't prove God doesn't exist and yet they're partly right in saying they don't need to.  Just as long as their intent is not to persuade.  If it is to persuade, then however they're stuck.  The spaghetti monster can't save them unless they're willing to throw logic to the wind and commit the Divine fallacy.

I can't resist making this one last point, or rather completing a thought started above.  Belief in God has a lot to do with semantics as in how you define Him.  Listen to an atheist some time when he's completing a sentence like this about God, "I don't believe in some guy who ...".  How they complete that often touches on how they define him.  There's a good chance no one believes in the "God" the atheist is describing.  But as for the real God ...

We thank Him for His son.

Merry Christmas!

Christmas And The Onus Probandi Fallacy

It's that time once again.  What for Eddie Fontaigne to discuss logical fallacies?  Well yes and no.  What I was referring to more precisely is Christmas season and those who feel obliged to make as many people as possible feel their personal discomfort with religion, most specifically Christianity at this time of year.

Besides the pluralist extremists who don't want to hear "merry Christmas" there is a particularly peculiar group of folks who actually wish to attack Christianity.  Not with bombs or guns thankfully but with words and images.

A certain atheist organization posted adds on billboards reading things like, "who needs Jesus during Christmas, nobody", and "OMG there is no god".  And when asked about their intent a representative said they were encouraging people who may feel pressured to act as though they believe in God to resist that pressure.

Well as a Christian myself I certainly wouldn't want anybody to believe in God out of peer pressure.  I especially wouldn't want that as I'm also an individualist of sorts.  And to be fair to atheists in general I want to be careful to note that I'm referring to certain organizations that claim to represent atheist interests, and they are not all atheists.  I'm sure there are many who will see my point below and some who already have.

Anyone who believes in something as important as the existence or non-existence of God out of peer pressure has a rational gap that has nothing to do with theology.  This is someone who either hasn't learned to think for themselves or refuses to.  The former is to be taught and latter to be pitied.

My problem with the reasoning of this atheist organization is the poor reasoning it implies.  Apparently they believe that if people could just be freed of peer pressure in the area of theology there would be more self-professed atheists.  That's quite a claim.  Apparently they believe that human beings left to their own devices would naturally not believe in anything greater than themselves that may be beyond their comprehension.  That such an uninhibited human being would naturally believe themselves capable of understanding anything and everything and that anything they cannot grasp must not exist.

Interesting conclusion, but I can't see how they get to it.  And it's not that I'm ignorant or trying to use the fallacious argument that what I personally can't see must not be valid.  But it is in fact that they seem to be using it.

I often ponder what it is exactly that drives certain atheists to certain faulty arguments, and with such enthusiasm at that, but I would be remiss if I didn't acknowledge that certain Christians are also guilty of this, complete with the enthusiasm.

At the core of the debate over the existence of a god (note that I used "a god" and not "God"), is a logical fallacy that both sides trip over a lot, the onus probandi fallacy.

Wikipedia defines it as follows,

"Onus probandi – from Latin "onus probandi incumbit ei qui dicit, non ei qui negat" the burden of proof is on the person who makes the claim, not on the person who denies (or questions the claim). It is a particular case of the "argumentum ad ignorantiam" fallacy, here the burden is shifted on the person defending against the assertion."

Atheists are fond of accusing theists of this fallacy whenever a theist appeals to the logical truism that it is impossible to prove a negative.  The theist will argue that since the atheist cannot prove that a god does not exist, which is logically sound, the atheist loses the debate from the very start.  The atheist will then say the theist is unjustly shifting the burden of proof onto the atheist, thus being guilty of the onus probandi fallacy.

In other words the atheist insists that the only claim in the debate is that a god actually exists and thus it is with the theist that the burden of proof rests.  And I might add that atheists in my experience feel extremely comfortable with this argument.

The problem that both sides encounter here is in how they determine who owns the burden of proof.  Contrary to what many on both sides think, that burden shifts itself according to context and can be on either depending.

The key here is to ask who is making the assertion?  That's dependent on context entirely.  If I wish to convert an atheist through my own wit the burden is on me.  If the atheist wishes to convert me the burden is on her.  Whichever one of us wishes to change the other's mind is the one making the assertion.  If gods exist they do so with or without us proving the fact to someone else.  The only thing up to logical debate is our ideas about them and no person has an over-arching burden to prove their own ideas to anyone but themselves, and if they hold these ideas that's already done.

That then translates into public discourse that if most people in a given group agree on something, no matter if it's true, false, plausible, or implausible, the burden of proof is always on the minority belief.  Majorities aren't always right.  That's an "of course", but what they believe stands in the public's minds without proof.  To argue that something the majority believes is so subjective that they must prove it is arrogance.  To convince you, yes they must prove it, but to live their lives publicly as though it's true, no they don't.

I'm one of those few people that knows the current millennium started 1/1/2001 and not 1/1/2000 and it frustrated me a bit that I had to celebrate that day without most of my fellow humans who had jumped the shark one year earlier.  I was one of those people that failed to convince the rest of humanity of the truth.  That unless we intended to stop following the same calendar we have used for a couple millenia prior, a millenia like a century always starts in its year one, not its year zero.

You probably see the analogy I'm making here.  As right as I was, the burden of proof was on me and other right-headed individuals.  And I believe we failed to accept it.  Instead we just annoyed our friends and colleagues with our arrogance.  "we are right so we don't need to prove what is clearly correct to anyone who will investigate it".  And we lost.

The onus probandi fallacy, remember that the burden of proof has nothing to do with whether your claim is right or wrong.  It has to do with context and perhaps most importantly, if you actually want to change anyone's mind or just annoy them.

The Reification Of Us All

Around this time last year I did a series of posts about logical fallacies.  One of those posts was my most read blog of all time, thus far.  It was about the regression fallacy.  You can find it listed to the left of this post at the top of the list of my most popular.  It was very relevant when it was written and continues to be.  I'd recommend a read of it to anyone who hasn't already. 

Today I've decided to post a discussion of another logical fallacy.  This time it will be on what is called reification or what is also called hypostatization.

Wikipedia defines it as follows;

"Reification (hypostatization) – a fallacy of ambiguity, when an abstraction (abstract belief or hypothetical construct) is treated as if it were a concrete, real event or physical entity. In other words, it is the error of treating as a "real thing" something which is not a real thing, but merely an idea."

Now where do I see good examples of equating abstractions with things that are concrete or real?  Consider that I describe myself as an individualist and I'll give you three guesses.  The first two wont count.

Between individuals and groups, which is concrete and which is abstract?  Is it possible to find out a group you thought you were in doesn't actually exist?  Of course.  It's probably happened to most of the people who are reading this right now.  e.g. You were put on a committee that was cancelled before it ever met.  It never really existed.  Now is it possible that you don't exist?  I don't write to fictional abstract people so no.

Take that Descartes!  You read my blog therefore you are.  But seriously, the individual is as fundamental to the concrete as it gets.  Groups such as economic classes, racial groups, ethnic groups, religious groups, groups defined by gender or sexual preferences, nations, and communities, these are abstractions by comparison to individuals.

Of course I would be guilty of another logical fallacy if I were to tell you groups are just abstract beliefs or hypothetical constructs.  They are collections of concrete things, most specifically individuals so they are in that sense concrete too.  It's possible to gather a group together in a room with us and point them out without any need of imagination.

But there is still something there that is an abstract belief or hypothetical construct.  And that's the definition we used to determine that what we have before is a group.  Change that definition and we no longer have a group, or maybe we have more than one group, or one that extends beyond the room we're in.  That part is abstract and without both the abstract part and all the concrete parts that were essentially defined into it we don't have a group.

So when someone attempts to apply moral instructions intended for individuals to groups, such as in social justice, that someone becomes guilty of reification or hypostatization.  The same is true of people who pit economic classes or ethnic groups against each other by making it seem that the acts of one person against another is the same as actions of one group against another group, and thus the group they hope to get votes from should "stick it to" some other group.

And it's the fact that groups are half abstract and half concrete that makes this commonly practiced logical fallacy so easy to get away with.  The fact that only the individual is purely concrete becomes clouded in people's minds.  Many people who attempt to argue with the collectivists are accused of not caring about the individuals that make up the collectives; the opposite of the truth.

To understand today's world is to understand logical fallacies.  Here's a big one, reification.  The fallacy is that groups matter as much as individuals.  The truth is that only individuals are real and groups are just abstract groupings.  We must never forget who we should serve. 

Revisiting A Day My Life Changed

This is a re-post from almost exactly a year ago.  I don't think I can go too far wrong re-posting this particular entry once a year.  It explains a lot about why I write this blog and do many of the other things I do in my life.  It also allows me to get some much needed rest in recovering from a viral infection.  Flu shots don't seem to do anything about such things.  So with that I hope you find the following to be edifying.

***

Some times I look back at my late and short teaching career and wonder if I ever should have done it. Perhaps, I consider, the time could have been better spent, say, getting my computer science degree sooner, or I could even have started to write sooner, but no. Without that experience there are certain very important things I never would have learned.

As a teacher I was driven to take an interest in the character and destiny of each of my students. I know it sounds a little corny, but what exactly is the universal job description teachers have? Are we not there to help our students by encouraging high character in them, and then to train them in what they need to know and master in order to achieve the personal goals that derives from that high character? These are the sorts of things only a teacher or parent is likely to ever commit to, and having never been a parent, teaching was the reason for me. So in spite of my normal tendency to simply allow fools to be fools, I was driven by a job description to try and save them.

I remember in particular one middle-school student of mine that was a free spirit. He was smart, got good grades on his assignments, and was generally respectful toward his teachers, but from the point of view of my lead teacher and the school's principal he was sorely lacking in two very important areas. He was terribly disorganized to the point that the contents of his desk often overflowed into other students' spaces. That really annoyed them, but the second area of lacking was what really worried them. He tended to be a loner. He seldom associated with other students and when he did, the other students would become annoyed with something he'd say or do. Nothing serious. They were little things I don't remember exactly, but like say playing four square and not seeming to try, or starting to do his imitation of a flying saucer sound. The only thing I do remember is that there was little to no consistency or pattern in these things. He might frustrate students not trying one day and then compete in earnest the next, or just not play on another. In a nut shell, he was not just a loner, but a very creative one.

The moment of my enlightenment came as I was grading papers after school and he and his parents were meeting in the next room with the principal and my lead teacher. I heard bits and pieces of what was being said at first. It was an old story.  For years he had attended this K-8 school, and for years the faculty had worked with him on his two shortfalls. The parents said things I could tell they realized they had said several times before, but the teacher and the principal sounded more determined to make progress. They noted it seemed that none had been made.

The principal, a woman I had great respect for, was talking when suddenly this young 7^th grade fellow shouted “shut up!”. I was horrified, both because he was being so extremely disrespectful and because I was worried for him and his future at the school. I was tempted to charge into the room, but wasn't sure what I could or would do, calm him down or scold him. I decided to stay at my grading work, but couldn't avoid hearing what was going on in the next room. He went on to tell them how it made him feel to be continually picked at, and asked them, still yelling and angry, to “just leave me alone!”. I heard adult voices, occasionally his parents but mostly my co-workers, attempting to reason with him, but he wasn't having any of it. He only continued to tell them off.

It was then that it happened, the thing that really mattered to me and my future, the proverbial lights came on. The words came out of me like an involuntary sneeze, “you tell them”. I caught them enough that I couldn't be heard through the walls. It scared me for a split second, but then I felt something quite different than fear. I felt free and enlightened.

This young man had spent the last several years of his life under constant attack for in essence just being an individual. Sure, organization is important, but not enough to justify years and years of nit-picking and threats. And sure, it's wise to worry a little when a child is left out of social circles, but not when it's his choice and when he has no ill will or feelings toward anyone. His stand in that meeting, taken out of context is just a student being extremely disrespectful and insubordinate, but in context it was the Boston Tea Party, Lexington-Concord, Rosa Parks in the front of the bus, and Robert the Bruce at the Battle of Bannockburn. He was expelled that day, and I called the parents shortly after to offer any and all help I could give them. My help was minor, but I was there to see him go on with his life, free of those who had sought to take away his individuality. To the best of my knowledge he's been very successful at being himself, and more than that.

One of the most significant measures of success in a person's life is who they've effected in positive ways, and just how positive. In this young man's case, he effected me. His moment of taking that stand that day showed me just how important the individual is. Without his stand, I probably wouldn't be writing right now. As a matter of fact I hate to think of what I might be doing, something meaningless, something depressing, something wrong.

I'd be so bold as to thank him by name, but I don't want to draw in the people I worked for and with at that time. That moment was also the moment I realized I was working with the wrong people, at least for someone like myself who cherishes the individual. So I'll leave it at this until I manage to contact him again more directly and less publicly, thank you, and sorry I was unable to see things before that day, but that wasn't going to happen without you doing it. The individual is bigger than all of us.

***

I have not been able to contact him up to this point in time.  It's probably just as well though.  Such is the nature of providence.

Conservative And Liberal Christians And The Golden Rule

All Christians know about what is called the Golden Rule, "Do to others as you would have them do to you", but how liberal and conservative Christians end up reading it so differently, and how that translates both theologically and politically is quite significant in meaning.

Both believe in the general principal of treating others the way you want to be treated.  That much isn't missed by either.  The difference is how each seem to interpret the context of the rule's application.

Conservatives, I believe, see the rule is largely practical.  Following it will generally result in others treating you better than if you didn't follow it.  It's what some would call a win-win.  If you treat others well they will tend to return the favor, not always, but often enough for it to just make good sense as a regular practice.

Liberals  on the other hand believe the rule is largely moral.  You treat others the way you want yourself to be treated because it's the right thing to do.  There's no guarantee or even likelihood the favor will be returned, but good people just do it.

How these two different perspectives of the Golden Rule plays out is then perhaps counter-intuitive, but very much logical.

The Counter-intuitive Outcome

The Conservative follows the Golden Rule reflexively without thinking, while the Liberal follows it with greater hesitation.  Since the conservative believes there's a personal benefit to following it there is seldom if ever a question about following it, but since the Liberal believes it's pretty much a moral decision they think about it as a test of their character and so it's conceivable they may not follow it in a certain instance, but when they do they tend to pat themselves on the back or say, "I was good".

Now before my fellow conservatives jump to the conclusion our perspective is superior since we will be "good" almost without hesitation, consider what the liberal perspective on this difference is.  Liberals could claim their heart is more sincere and selfless in this since they have no expectation of reward for being "good".  They also will insist they're the more rational and realistic.

How This Tends To Translate Into Politics

Liberal Christians distrust human nature more than conservative Christians so much that they're inclined to favor government control over individual liberty, while Conservatives are so confident that people left to their own devices will tend to do good because it benefits them, that they have a hard time accepting government controls as justified.

Liberals tend to see the decision to do good as the result of high personal character and enlightenment, and conservatives tend to see it as a rational response to an environment where people being good to each other tend to prosper.  These different ways of seeing "good" and its consequences leads to very different politics.

If you believe good behavior derives from enlightenment then you're open to government enforced good behavior.  After all, the average person cannot be expected to have the kind of superior moral character and/or spiritual enlightenment necessary to make these decisions on their own.  And further, if someone compelled to do good becomes so enlightened they should have no problem with having been forced, since it would have been their decision anyway if they knew then what they know now.

If on the other hand you believe most people tend to act rationally and rational people will see enough personal benefit to good behavior that they will tend to do what is good, then you will also tend to see government enforced good behavior as generally unnecessary, demeaning, oppressive, and arrogant.  And further, seeing it as unnecessary, you will see the potential harm of government possibly getting things wrong as outweighing the likely possible good.

Conclusion

I summarize this thought exercise as follows -- the reader should keep in mind I am a conservative --.  The modern American conservative sees all things in life as connected and that means to be rational one must have the humility to not look down on anybody, and perhaps more importantly one must see doing good as having a practical reward.  

Humility and balanced rationality are what separates conservatives from liberals.  

The left tend to see those who disagree with them as inferior in some way, most commonly in the area of enlightenment.  The modern American liberal sees a disconnect between the way things ought to be and the way they would naturally trend without the the intervention of the enlightened.  They see no need for balance in their reasoning since they see themselves as fixing a broken world.

A Call To Action For Christians (The Church Universal)

Now it's not that conservative Christians fail to see the world as fallen, it's that they have the humility to accept that it is Christ and not them who will fix it.  

The liberal Christian may argue that we are Christ in this world and we should thus share in His purpose to redeem it, and the conservative view is little more than an excuse not to act.  The liberal argument however reveals its own shortsightedness.  It does this in three areas primarily.

1. Christ calls us to do many things in His name, but hubris isn't one of them.  If human effort, even that aided by Christ's inspirational enlightenment, was capable of redeeming this world He would not have had to die on the cross.  

Justifying the use of governmental power to force people to act in "good" ways by saying it's what Christ would want us to do, well perhaps that's just nonsense, but I'd say it's more like a hubris born of poorly balanced reasoning.  This shows in the very use of the phrase, "we are Christ in the world".  No, Christ is Christ in the world.  We should be His humble followers, not His replacements.  If He needs us to be Him, our religion has a problem much bigger than a lack of active members.

2. The liberal argument is very unkind in its assumption that conservatives believe in sitting around and waiting for Christ to fix everything.  While there are lazy Christians who can't seem to do much more than attend Church and accept the label, their problem isn't theology or philosophy.  They may use a false humility of the sort that says, "who am I that I can make any difference?", but that's not because they're really humble, certainly not because they're theology is conservative.  

There are many lazy ones who also use liberal sounding theological reasons for their laziness as well, like, "the church is full of hypocrites".  

There are even what I call pseudo atheists who are really just people who's core beliefs are Christian but are too lazy to wrestle with the meanings and would rather not face their unfinished intellectual work on a regular basis, so they declare themselves to be atheist.  

There seems to be no theological position of any popularity that isn't used by someone somewhere to justify laziness.  

My point being that we don't need to become little Christ's looking down on the world to serve the real Christ in it, and suggesting that anyone who doesn't must be amongst the lazy is unjustly insulting, and thus not a Christian argument.  We can and should serve Him with humility and respect for other individuals.

3. The logical ends of this "we are Christ in the world" theology is that we stop acting as persuaders and become more like dictators, authoritarians, patronizing.  This is clearly evident in the results, yes even the very results our liberal Christian brothers and sisters are more than happy to point at and claim.  

Government grows and grows to add to and sustain programs designed to be everyone's salvation from misery, and it tells us more and more what we must and must not do for our own sakes and that of others.  Even as we all see how impersonal and dehumanizing many of these programs, laws, and regulations become, even as we see how they undermine individuals seeking even the slightest sort of self-actualization, they see all of this as just acceptable collateral damage.  

The Christian Church as a whole keeps losing more and more ground in a nation, yes in a world, filled more and more with people who want to be treated and seen as individuals, and we lose ground because we have become trapped in the misconception that when Christ told us to take our message to the nations he some how meant we were supposed to convert their governments and their government policies and essentially just skip over the actual individuals who live there, or that they would just come along.  

In a world where more and more people are losing their faith in their rulers, liberal Christians seem to think it good policy to work out the Gospel from the top of government down to the people.  It is little wonder that fewer and fewer people associate themselves with the Christian message.

So am I saying liberal Christian teachings are to blame for our current failure to connect with people?  Not in the sense that they are to blame alone.  

Who amongst us is earnestly reaching out to the individual?  There should be more.  The lonely unreached poor of John Wesley's time are now embodied by the lonely people who sit alone and use web-based media for most of their socialization.  

Who are today's Methodists who are reaching out to these people?  If Paul were walking the Earth today instead of when he did, his dream in Troas would not have been of a Greek, but a geek.  

In today's world, more and more people are waiting for the next Paul the Apostle or John Wesley to bring the gospel to them, and not just in word but in deeds, and to do this the message must be one aimed at individuals, not collectives. You know what I'm talking about, like Christ's message was and is?

I Told You So: Re-post From A Year Ago

One year ago today I was posting in response to the 2012 elections and it's interesting to note how spot on I seem to have been about the consequences.  So spot on that I'm re-posting that blog entry below.

I'll also note that while some nations' people seem to be coming around to the truth about the "straw-man" and those who defy reality, I think my own people are still being quite slow to realize.  They still want to blame the people they keep re-electing instead of the people who do the re-electing.  Some even are so far off as to blame those newly elected recently who are actually trying to do the right thing.

So I ask you to read so you can see what I mean (substitute "last year" for "last week" and it's amazingly relevent if I say so myself).

Post 1 : About The Election

Are We This Stupid?

An amazing thing happened last week in the United States.  In a very low voter turnout the majority of the people said they either don't see a problem with the last four years, or they don't believe anyone can do any better than the current set of leaders we've had the last two years, or they just don't care.  In this election they had the opportunity to express themselves, to put their government in a position to get things done, to at least try to end the paralysis it's been in.  Instead they both re-elected the Democrat president and strengthened the Republicans hold on the House of Representatives while doing nothing to weaken them in the Senate.  One side or the other needed to be significantly weakened or at least in some way sent a clear message to cooperate with the other.  Instead the voters and non-voters conspired to help the two sides dig their trenches all the deeper.  It's as if the majority of the American people decided to give reality the finger, or maybe just refuse to take responsibility for their role in self-governance. 

We've been blaming our leaders for not being able to put aside partisanship to get things done, but when we had a chance to correct that, we essentially allowed our own partisanship to reinforce there's.  We actually seem to have asked our leaders to go right on not getting anything done while our government heads towards fiscal oblivion and our economy has all the symptoms of D.C.S. (dieing civilization syndrome).  Just as President Obama will most certainly no longer be able to justly blame future economic woes on President Bush, the American voters will no longer be able to justly blame the politicians in general for our government's inability to get anything done.

If we cease to be a great nation in the next few years, let future historians know that it wasn't any of our leaders' fault.  It was ours, we the people, or at least the majority of us.

Post 2 : Worldwide Debate Over The Economic Crisis

We Are Not Alone If We Are

If your ideology defies reality you must call reality an ideology, so as to create an illusion of plausibility.

Based on my reading of both domestic and foreign journals on our current economic state, worldwide, and on the results of last week's election, something has dawned on me.  The debates between the Capitalists and the leftists needs to stop.  Unlike any fair and honest debate, it has not served in any way to advance our knowledge or understanding of economics.  Instead it has only served to deceive us.
 
Through it the world has been cruelly deceived into thinking we can defy reality.  It's as if a bunch of adults had taken up the habit of telling every child they see near a precipice they will fly if they jump off.  Only in this case, while the potential consequences are just as horrible, there can be no authorities to tell the real deceivers to leave the gullible alone.  The deceivers I speak of are, to be fair to them, self-deceived, but not all of them are unaware of the disingenuous tactic they've been using to advance their cause.  They just believe the ends can justify the means.

Their disingenuous means is to set themselves against a mythological ideology they call Capitalism.  The reason Capitalism is a myth is because it is an attempt to explain the natural phenomenon of market forces within human civilization by a means other than objective observation and study.  Instead of treating the facts of how market forces operate as the facts that they are, they stuff them into a fabricated ideology called Capitalism, so they can debate reality itself and not look ridiculous.

Like real isms it may have some purely ideological/philosophical elements, but they also make it include things that are factual and thus should be ideologically neutral.  e.g. Quality of goods and services naturally trends upward with higher compensation.  Competition does usually produce more favorable price to quality ratios for consumers.   Centralized decision makers intervening in market decisions tend to make services less sensitive to individual needs.   These are not the facets of an ism or ideology, they are part of reality.

Marxists and other leftists needed to create this label, "capitalism", in order to give their ideas which flew in the face reality the illusion of merit.  Or from their perspective, the delusion of merit.   I should add, as the recent re-election of a leftist president in the United States seems to indicate, this intellectual slight of hand has been very effective. It seems most of the world is now fooled by it.  A world-wide delusion has set in.  One where the above realities about how goods and services best get distributed can be treated as just someone's unenlightened or poorly informed opinions.  They're part of an ideology after all, right?  So the leftists can claim they have no more merit than their ideas that happen to fly in the face of such things.

Of course we cannot dismiss these factual ideas about product distribution by simply attaching them to a made up straw-man-like ideology and then posing another ideology against it, but why do I say contemporary leftist ideologies fly in the face of reality? Because they do.

The most fundamentally flawed of them is the one that laid the foundation for the others.  Marxist economics is based heavily on what has come to be called Marx's Labor Theory of Value.   In fact, according to my reading of Das Kapital, this was the base assumption of the book.   Marx pretty much came right out and said so.  'All value is ultimately derived from labor' would be my paraphrase.  While this is a great place to start if one wishes to argue workers are being unjustly exploited, property owners have no intrinsic right to their property, and all property is ultimately that of the community's, it's none the less a horrible place to start if you want your ideas to withstand any respectable application of critical thinking.

If all value derives from labor, what does that say about ideas that dawn on people while their not working?  What does it say about forests, rivers, mountains, and other natural wonders?  What does it say about talents that only a few people have at certain levels, like leadership, craftsmanship, artistic ability, creativity?  What does it say about human dignity? It's not a matter of having caveats for things in order to save the Marxist assumption about value from being untenable.  Value either derives from labor or it doesn't.  If it doesn't then Marx's Labor Theory is wrong from the very start of its argument.  If value does derive from labor than individual worth and dignity is nonsense and I have some cardboard homes to sell that should catch me a high price.

Obviously value does not ultimately derive from labor.  Labor is just another part of the set of goods and services that we human beings endeavor to distribute between ourselves and benefit from.  This isn't capitalism.  This is just how things work.

Marx may have been attempting through this base assumption to give individuals more dignity, but he actually did the opposite by equating their whole value to their ability to work, and even worse for the plausibility of Marxism, he forced it to stand on a foundation of dehumanization.  If your ideology's base assumption quickly falls apart, or even worse becomes monstrous, when confronted with both reason and reality, then your ideology is implausible.

It is this implausibility that made it necessary for the straw-man called "capitalism" to be created, so that the facts and realities that make Marxism implausible could be dismissed as just being part of its rival ideology, Capitalism.

The other major contemporary leftist ideologies, Progressivism and socialism, don't escape the same implausibility of Marxism.  It's not that they necessarily can't escape it, but they simply don't try.   It's too convenient for their causes to reject reality and pretend that anyone who tells them free market forces will ultimately maximize the effectiveness of the distribution of goods and services is simply part of a rival ism, "capitalism", and thus it's actually possible for them to know a better way.   As if someone may know a better way of dealing with gravity than assuming you'll fall if you jump off a bridge.

It's a titanic slight of hand and it's worked.  Now it seems most voters in the United States believe reality is just a nasty ideology they need not agree with.   My advice to the rest of the world is to stop depending on us.  Whether you agree with the leftists in this country or not doesn't matter.  Reality is not an ideology you can argue with.   If you defy it, as the left will insist on doing, everyone who depends on you will lose.

My advice to my fellow travelers in the struggle for individual liberty is to lean on one of our surest allies, reality.  She can be a harsh mistress, as the saying goes, but we gave it one really good try this election cycle to help our fellow citizens see what the left is doing and most of them chose not to see it, so now they have to deal with that harsh mistress.  There is much suffering ahead and I for one will not be shy to say, "I told you so".

As for all the people about to lose your jobs, we so called "heartless conservatives" will be doing whatever we can to help you, within reason of course.  Look to churches, synagogs, and other volunteer organizations if you have need.  We are all going through very rough times and we all will get through them the best if we come together and help each other. 

I just wish so many of us hadn't bought into and played along with that "capitalism" trick the left used.  Will these be the last words of a great nation to warn others who come along after us, "reality isn't an ideology!"?

Jesus Isn't About Social Justice : Good Thing Too

There's a popular story about some folks who took a copy of the Bible and cut out every part that spoke of social justice.  The claim is that there wasn't much left of it after that.

I have a hard time believing the story though.  They actually sell Bible's like that, ones where everything that supports of social justice isn't there.  You can go to almost any bookstore in the western world and find one for sale.  In fact I own not only one but several.  One's even a parallel version with four different translations side by side.  I actually like this version of the Bible a lot.

Is it because I like editing out the stuff I don't like in the Bible?  No, it's because every translation of the Bible I know of is like that.  There is no support for social justice in the Bible.

To read more specifically about social justice I recommend reading this,  Christian Brothers And Sisters, Social Justice Must Go.

As those who read me find out pretty quickly I'm an individualist and so it should come as no surprise that I might direct you to the story of Zacchaeus.  This is one of the clearest individualist moments in the Gospels.

Luke 19:1-10
New International Version (NIV)

19 Jesus entered Jericho and was passing through. 2 A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; . 

Note that "he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy" i.e. Zacchaeus was the worst sort of rich man who made his money by cheating and abuse of government.  Sound like a familiar story to what happens far too often today?

3 He wanted to see who Jesus was, but because he was short he could not see over the crowd. 4 So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way.

This is a big moment within the moment.  "He wanted to see who Jesus was".  In spite all that the local people could justly see as bad about Zacchaeus he wanted to know "who Jesus was".  That's the beginning of wisdom cubed.  Not only did he admit there was something he didn't know worth knowing but that something was Jesus Christ.

5 When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” 6 So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly.

Jesus addresses Zacchaeus individually and demands something of him, a place to stay the day.  It's interesting that it was a demand and not a request.  Jesus clearly knew something about this situation the rest of didn't or still to this day don't.  But the huge thing from Zacchaeus's point of view is that he welcomed Jesus gladly.  I suspect at this point he was saved, though of course this could just be Zacchaeus being hospitable to a guest and not the more momentous acceptance of Jesus Christ as his lord and savior.  So let's read on.

7 All the people saw this and began to mutter, “He has gone to be the guest of a sinner.”

The people are of course shocked at what they just saw happen between Jesus and this man.  Not only has Jesus "gone to be the guest of a sinner" but one of the very worst in their eyes.  I would add, in my eyes as well.  He abused government power to enrich himself and the oppression of government is bad enough without people exploiting it.  So unfortunately I could easily see myself in this crowd.

8 But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount.”

Here Zacchaeus seems to be painfully aware of what the crowd is thinking and doesn't want them to think his bad past has somehow been justified, so he offers a penance.

9 Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Jesus's words here are where a huge lesson manages to hide from many of us.

"Today salvation has come to this house".  Why?  Because of Zacchaeus's offer to do penance?  No of course not, not if we truly understand how Christ's gift of salvation works.

Jesus goes onto say, "because this man, too, is a son of Abraham."  So is Jesus saying Zacchaeus is saved because he's a Jew?  Is he saying he stopped being a Jew but became one again due to his penance?  Once again not according to the nature of Christ's gift of salvation or what the Bible says about being a Jew for that matter.

Especially considering Jesus then follows the sentence with, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost."  And who are the lost?  Jesus told a few parables about "lost" things, sheep, coins, and each of them had two important things in common.  One was that having the nine out of ten whatever they were was never good enough reason not to make finding the one that was missing a priority.  And the second key thing was that whatever was lost, there was just one of.  It was never the lost group but always the lost one.  So when Jesus said, "For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost", I'm pretty sure He meant the individual.  That is the lost message for many of us in the story of Zacchaeus.

What Jesus said about him being a son of Abraham was contextual, though not without great meaning itself.  He was saying Zacchaeus was just as important to Him as any of them.  But what the story of Zacchaeus should tell us is that Jesus came to save the individual and so much so that He risked the ire of groups of people in order to do it.

Jesus didn't die for your group.  He died for you.  His ministry, His mercy, His loving compassion is for individuals.  Anyone who attempts to help groups at the expense of individuals is clearly not being as they may claim, "Jesus in the world".

Christ's love is not compatible with social justice.  He calls me, He calls you, He calls individuals to reach out to individuals in need.  And it should go without saying but it doesn't, if we attempt to reach out as a collective to groups we do something bad.  And what that bad thing is, we separate ourselves from His ministry.

Each of us must try to see the individuals like Zacchaeus as He does.  Not in terms of socio-econonics like wealth distribution or in terms of one group of people being more or less worthy than others.  No group is getting saved.  If that was His goal He would only have come once and we'd all live in the Kingdom of Israel.  Individuals are who the son of man came for.  He came to save the lost, the ones.

If you're not certain I know what I'm talking about, read those parables, read the prophets for that matter.  Even in the prophets where Israel was being condemned God had a message to the individual that was faithful. He was going to save them.  Read about the times when God would warn someone of imminent destruction for some nation or city and that person would attempt to negotiate with God.  Always it would come down to saving the one, sparing the one.

Jesus Christ came to save Zacchaeus and He did.  The city of Jericho where Zacchaeus lived on the other hand, we don't know how many were saved that day, just that one individual was.

As long as the perversion of the gospel that is social justice continues to infect Christianity I cannot seem to say this enough.  Social justice must go.  The individual today climbs a tree to see who Jesus is and instead of seeing Jesus in us, the individual gets knocked to the ground and condemned for his greed.

On judgement day will some of us need to answer why we failed to help "the least of these" and then say that we "thought some were getting what they deserved, that it was social justice."?  I speak so that they can repent before it comes to that.