B310-DES250

A DVD Review of The God Who Wasn’t There

Copyright © by Dan Schneider, 1/13/06

Update   Update 2   Update 3   Update 4   Update 5   Update 6   Update 7   Update 8   More On The Moderate Voice

  What separates a good critic from a hack is the ability to move beyond one’s own biases. Longtime readers of Cosmoetica know that I am not a religious person and find religion to be silly and wasteful, as well as clinically psychotic. That said, I am not an atheist, but an agnostic, because one cannot logically be an atheist, in denying the existence of a deity, for a negative can never be proven. I often argue this same sensible position with anti-death penalty advocates who claim that the death penalty is not a deterrent, but then cannot wish away the fact that no executed murderer has ever killed again, and if someone is deterred from murder, and the murder never occurs, how does one prove that their murderous intent ever was, or was deterred? I have often felt that atheists are as dogmatic as theists, and too often atheists, in their zeal and insecurity, go as far as the religiots in trying to sway others. Among the most vocal proponents of theism are ex-atheists, and, consequently, the most vocal atheists are often ex-theists. This is exactly the case with an hour-long ‘documentary’ called The God Who Wasn’t There, directed by Brian Flemming- an ex-Fundamentalist Christian cultist, and produced by Amanda Jackson that I stumbled across online.

  Don’t get me wrong, I love making fun of religion and its silliness as much as the next intelligent person, as my essays on the Jesus Christ Myth and exposure/debunking of Internet charlatan and Christian apologist Robert Turkel show, but it’s how you do so, and to what degree, that determines the success of your attempt. This film, while filled with alot of facts that are easily discoverable to anyone willing to seek, tends to lose its way with its maker’s desire to exorcise his personal demons. And that’s a shame because it a) is chock full of correct information- in the film, and in the commentaries, although far more exists and could have been used in a lengthier and better edited film, b) makes good usage of public domain films- such as 1952’s The Living Bible, 1941’s The Rapture, and 1905’s La Vie Et La Passion De Jesus Christ- from the valuable online Prelinger archive- to illustrate Bible scenes, and even brazenly appropriates Mel Gibson’s 2004 gorefest The Passion Of The Christ without permission- quite commendable a thing to do, and c) shows that a single person, using only a few thousand dollars’ worth of computer equipment, can make pretty slick special effects, and do a competent job of editing.

  According to online sources, the film was released last summer, and compiled while Flemming was researching a low budget thriller in The Da Vinci Code vein, albeit with a different posit. The film starts off comparing belief in Jesus Christ, as God or even a historic figure, as akin to a pre-Copernican view of the solar system, then confronts some glazey-eyed wannabe Christians at a Billy Graham Crusade, who- surprise, surprise- don’t have a clue as to the origins of their beliefs, nor their church. In perhaps the best sequences in the film, we are then treated to scenes culled from the public domain films that are used repeatedly in the film to first explain the Jesus Christ chronology mythically, then culturally. All the most manifest flaws in the historical record are bared, the sort that even the worst Christian apologists, like the above named Turkel, have no explanation for, save ‘Hamana, hamana….’.

  Well, that’s not true, exactly, as Flemming documents the claim that Satan manipulated people to explain away Jesus Christ’s uncanny similarities with prior and contemporaneous deities such as Mithra, Thor, Hercules, Osiris, and Dionysus, by backwards redacting the historical record to deliberately deceive people into believing the other gods were Messiahs. Almost as effective a sequence is where Flemming concocts a story about an Internet spammer getting killed with a can of Spam lunch meat shoved down his maw, labels it fiction on his website, but sees it morphs into a full blown urban legend, proving how easy it is to bilk the gullible, be it today or two thousand years ago. Another effective sequence- dialectically and filmically- compares the filmic monetary success (inflation adjusted) of The Singing Jesus (Jesus Christ: Superstar- $55 million in America) with The Horny Jesus (The Last Temptation Of Christ- $13 million in America) with the Bloody Jesus (The Passion Of The Christ- over $370 million in America, and $1 billion worldwide). In the very best sequence in the film Flemming details the number of violent and bloody images in Mel Gibson’s film minute-by-minute. This devastatingly shows how depraved the impulse of the impassioned believers is for their own self-flagellative instincts to be sated.

  Not as successful, dialectically nor filmically, is a sequence where Flemming juxtaposes the naïve Billy Graham Christians with Charles Manson, David Koresh (and his 86 ‘crispy’ cohorts from Waco), and Pat Robertson, among others. Why he left out Jim Jones I do not know. He also links President Bush and the Iraq War (replete with Abu Ghraib photos) with being another Christian Crusade against Islam. These conflations are just that, and cheap shots. I’ve certainly spoken out against religious nonsense and the Iraq War, but this sort of intellectual dishonesty only gives easy talking points to the film’s many vocal critics. It is also akin to what Christians and Right Wingers often do, in trying to tar atheists with Mao Zedong and Josef Stalin, pagans with Nazism, homosexuals with Jeffrey Dahmer, or even clowns with John Wayne Gacy, for Stalin and Mao certainly were religious cultists, with themselves as the godhead, and Nazism has no real relation to animism, etc. Yes, Flemming effectively argues that fundamental religious belief- be it Robertson’s, or the mullahs’, or Torquemada’s, are not perversions of their religions, but the purest forms of it. However, purity does not equate with the whole of the thing, and most Christians that I’ve met share far more with the sermon-snoozing Homer Simpson than Charles Manson or David Koresh. This is a line of inquiry that most non-religiots, including Flemming, fail to use- that the vast majority of folks who claim to be religious are really Homer Simpsons who merely give lip service to belief, like my parents did. We always get the numbers of how religious folks are, but the truth is that small churches are closing down in record numbers across America, and only a small percentage of those people are going to the non-denominational mega-churches. While these folks may not be atheists nor agnostics, they certainly are not religiots. I suspect they form the largest group of people’s belief systems: the Apathetics. Flemming also fails to put the Fundamentalist upsurge of the last twenty years in the context of Millennialism and the many other signs that religion has slowly but surely been dying out as science advances; although this is broached on one of the commentary tracks. Part of the reason these many wider and more cogent points are left out is because Flemming, like Michael Moore, wants to make the film more about himself, and his past dealings with Christianity, than about truly debating and defeating the claims of both a historical and a deific Jesus Christ.

  As the film goes on it tackles the Rapturists, and the whole Left Behind book nonsense, then tanks near the end. After a series of questions with a nice but deluded fellow named Scott Butcher, the webmaster of RaptureLetters.com, where addled believers can request an email to be sent to loved ones who are left behind, after Armageddon, Flemming reveals his own past as a Fundamentalist cultist (although you sort of knew something like this was coming as you watched the film), and returns to confront the superintendent of his childhood Village Christian Schools. The man, Dr. Ronald Sipus, is a boob, albeit a notch or two above the Rapture moron, but, after a few obligatory questions, Flemming starts asking real questions, not the usual softballs, and the predictable result is that the man feels betrayed, claims Flemming lied to him over the nature of the interview, and ends, walking away, claiming that he was under the impression that Flemming wanted help in dealing with what he felt were unfair treatments received at the school. All Flemming is left with is a Pyrrhic ‘Gotcha’ moment, which he underscores by identifying Sipus as being in control of the education of 1800 children. So what? It is obvious the man is an intellectual flea, so was Flemming’s embarrassing the rube, and making himself look like a spiteful ass who was still hurting over his childhood indoctrination, worth it? Perhaps to Flemming’s ego, but not to the viewer, nor any critic worth their salt. Even worse, the film ends with Flemming on his way out of the school campus, only to return to the little chapel where he was ostracized, to exorcise some more demons, by denying the Holy Spirit, which he claims is the Bible’s only unforgivable sin. It’s not particularly dramatic, nor is it filmed well. Overall, for a film with such promise, and such a clear and factual presentation (one only wishes the ABC television network would contacts some of the many scholars Flemming uses the next time they put on another of their ridiculous pro-Jesus agitprop ‘documentaries’), this is an awful way to end. It utterly kyboshes the integrity of the filmmaker, the seriousness of the film, and brings it down to a cheap The Blair Witch Project wannabe level.

  Fortunately, the scholarly voices in the film- Sam Harris, Richard Carrier, Alan Dundes and Robert Price- never sink to that childish level. Nor do the commentary track participants, such as biologist Richard Dawkins, online blogger The Raving Atheist, and Biblical scholar Earl Doherty. Yet, Flemming is, to beg the cliché, mostly preaching to the choir in the film and the extras. The unfortunate fact is that no amount of evidence- empirical nor otherwise- can persuade a closed mind, and being religious means you have closed your mind to reality. Also, ripping others’ baggage loses weight when you’re slogging your own. The film should have spent far more time detailing the many other holes in Christian pseudo-history than taking the easy way out in merely ridiculing it as a form of dealing with its maker’s fascistic religious upbringing. As it is, though, it asks many of the right queries, such as why Paul never mentions the major events in the Gospels? Why he implies Christ’s sacrifice was only set in the heavens when believers now claim it occurred on earth? Why did no contemporary historians mention Jesus Christ, despite his supposedly being a royal thorn in the Romans’ side? Why was there a minimum of a four decade gap between the ‘real’ Jesus and his historical ‘appearance’? Why do Christians not see the manifest similarities between Christ and other earlier gods as the steals they are?, etc. The most important question the film asks, however, albeit not directly, is why in other areas of inquiry is the burden of proof on the believer (such as believers in ghosts, yetis, or UFOs), but, in religious circles, the burden is with the non-believer? If you’re claiming you were abducted and raped by gray aliens, or saw a troll living under a bridge, you’re a kook, but if you believe in an all-powerful deity that has sex with virgins, you’re faithful, even though, no matter how small the possibility of gray alien rapists nor bridge underdwelling trolls is, the possibility of an omnipotent deity is infinitely more remote. To believe in such things that have no empirical reality is by definition psychotic.

  As for the extras on the DVDs, there are extended interviews with Scott Butcher, still deludedly preparing for the Rapture; historian Richard Carrier giving hit and miss explanations for the existence of God- making good points on the cosmos seeming more designed for the production of black holes than the tautological anthropocentric argument that it’s designed for human life, and the lack of needing a brain if God only requires a soul, but then overreaching by claiming the existence of human brains is some sort of manifest proof for atheism- a syllogism that is absurd, and also misconstrues the difference between atheism and agnosticism; anthropologist Alan Dundes says little; author Sam Harris hyperventilates about religiots with their fingers on nuclear buttons, in what seems an all too typical Leftist slice of negativity, and rips the God Gene Hypothesis for its lack of explaining why so many societies about the globe are becoming more secular; Barbara and David Mikkelson, founders of Urban Legends website at snopes.com offer little; and Robert Price, a Professor of Biblical Criticism takes an almost secular Christian stance in ripping atheistic fears of religion, and expounds on savior mythos and its relation with comic book superheroes. The commentaries by Richard Dawkins, The Raving Atheist, and Earl Doherty offer hit and miss analyses- with Doherty’s being the most relevant since it’s the longest. But, the sound quality of the film and the commentaries varies wildly, although I know about such problems with sound vary, having done my own Omniversica Internet radio shows, including one on religion with the then head of the Alabaman Mobile Atheists, Blair Scott. Flemming also gets a little too cutesy with exactly 66 minutes and 6 seconds of the interviews.

  Another downside to this DVD is that during the whole film, and all the extras, not a single scholar, nor anyone else, seems able to divine the difference between religiously based morals and secular ethics. It’s another minor point, but one that hamstrings some of the underpinnings of many of the Christian critics’ arguments. Another flaw that is merely intellectual, but needs to be addressed since we are talking of the worth of ideas, is that Flemming, in one of the commentaries, never seems to recognize that Dawkins’ idea of the ‘meme’ is merely a metaphor- there is no physical real world substance to it, no more than any religious idea has. Yet, Flemming calls it akin to a virus, as if it were a literal physical scrap of genetic material or the like. This conflation, and its lack of recognition as such, is an important distinction, one Dawkins seems to have long ago lost, basking in his own genius in coining the term.

  All in all, I’d recommend this DVD for its provocative nature, and many good points, but calling it a documentary is tough. It’s far more like the agitprop of Michael Moore. Not that that’s bad, for he is a very good crafter of filmic art, as long as you realize his work, and this film, is agitprop with no attempt at objectivity, and that agitprop is designed, at its core, to appeal to the heart, not the head. That said, it is, with only a couple of minor Biblical textual exceptions, good history, but only meager agitprop- Flemming has neither Moore’s skill with film and its presentation, nor his humor, but there are glimmers that he could get better, and a return trip to this material when he has improved would be welcome. Hopefully, there will be other documentary filmmakers who will tackle some of this film’s many questions, for, far too often, Flemming sounds like he’s still trying to convince himself of the fact God does not exist, yet, if he were truly irreligious he’d not really care. With more balance, rather than using only the two morons who provide the pro-Jesus point of view, the digs against the manifest stupidity of the Jesus claims would stand out all the more plainly, and Flemming would not come off as such a bully, picking on the mentally deficient, or seeming as an ex-alcoholic ready to torch a bar in a Carry Nation crusade, as too often the converts from any system of belief to another are the worst sorts of supporters for the new belief system.

  As the old apothegm says, if a glass of water is clear that fact will be readily apparent by merely holding it up to the light. To quote yet another apothegm, in ending, a little more light and a little less heat would have been welcome, as well as better art and dialectic. For better or worse, the strength and honesty of dialectic all too often determines the outcome of the minds who listen, and this film’s strength and honesty could and should be higher, closer to its art. Such unity of purpose and presentation is what all good critics should strive to seek. Few do, and as a consequence the art, the artist, and the art lovers suffer. Thus, I urge Flemming to seek to get better, for voices as his are needed- they just need to be as clear as they are strong.

Websites related to this review:

The Film: thegodmovie.com

Brian Flemming: slumdance.com/blogs/brian_flemming

Richard Carrier: infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier

Sam Harris: samharris.org

Robert Price: robertmprice.mindvendor.com

Rapture Letter: raptureletters.com

Village Christian Schools: villagechristian.com

The Raving Atheist: ravingatheist.com

Urban Legends: snopes.com

Update: An email exchange with Richard Carrier:

Carrier in red, Schneider in black:

Dan Schneider wrote:

> Richard Carrier wrote:
>> On Thursday, January 12, 2006, at 11:13 AM, Dan Schneider wrote:
>>
>> That said, I am not an atheist, but an agnostic, because one cannot logically be an atheist, in denying the existence of a deity, for a negative can never be proven.
>>
>> Just FYI, a negative can be proven, although it might often be harder:
>> http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/theory.html
>
The problem with your proof is that you're proving a negative material thing. This is not the same as proving a non-material thing- such as a deity nor a murder that does not occur. In effect, you've proven the statement, 'You cannot prove a negative,' is inadequate, as stated, but not its colloquial claim. Disprove someone loved you who claimed to.
>>
>> And if we accept your definition of atheism, there is no such thing as an atheist, at least no one I have ever met, including hundreds of people who call themselves atheists. For all the people I've met who call themselves atheists don't say anything differently than you do--they simply use the word "atheist" correctly:
>> http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/atheism.html
>
I note that the term atheist is used in capitals and lower case- denoting a change in the strength of the term. I am 'atheistic', in that I think it's statistically insignificant that there is a deity, but I an not an 'Atheist', as that is illogical, which your posits did not address. I see this as akin to belief in the anthropic principle- the weak ap is not likely, but the strong ap is absurd. Granting that you do not deny that you are a finite being, nor an omniscient, there simply is no logical way to declare that a deity does not exist, although my money would be on its absence, as well. This is where many 'A'theists get as wacky as theists in their near dogma; as if the sense of their own finity is an affront to their being.
>
>> See my book Sense and Goodness without God, especially pp. 253-90.
>> In short, all atheists are "agnostics" (as you define the term) with respect to some gods and "atheists" (as you define the term) with respect to other gods (like the God who by definition always turns the sky green and tells you in a booming voice that he exists--you can be as certain that this God does not exist as you can be certain of anything in your life). But what makes these people "atheists" in the general sense actually used in the real world is their lack of belief, not why they lack belief--especially since "proving" that something doesn't exist is not necessary to justify believing it doesn't exist.
>
But, this is where the break between lower and capital A-theists rents first.
>>
>> After all, have you "proven" that aliens haven't tricked us into thinking the earth revolves around the sun though in fact the sun revolves around the earth? No. Yet do you believe that aliens have tricked us into thinking the earth revolves around the sun though in fact the sun revolves around the earth? No. Atheism is the same way. And there is only one word that means a lack (a-) of "belief in god" (-theism), and agnosticism isn't it. Agnosticism means lack (a-) of knowledge (-gnosis). Not the same thing. Agnosticism can be a *reason* you don't believe, but the *fact* that you don't believe is atheism.
>
The problem is the capital A's go beyond and declare that a god cannot exist, and DOES not exist. Therefore, they've shifted the burden of proof by making the claim. In short, you're on logically more sound ground as a small a.
>>
>> Lest you want to object by trying to selectively read some dictionary entry, I must call your attention to the arrogance of trying to define someone else's identity pejoratively, like those who insist "secular humanism" means communism. They have no right to claim this. Only secular humanists get to define their identity. If you want to know what secular humanism means, a dictionary might help, but it is no authority against what secular humanists say themselves. 
>
A bit of political bias leaking through? I note how you've shifted from a claimed empiricism to a slippery PoMo approach. This is like people who deny race exists, simply to battle racism. While I may be the best expert on me, by no means is the breadth and depth of me defined by me alone- that's PC nonsense. As an artist, this is ridiculous. Shakespeare's opinion of his own plays does not define how they are critically viewed, nor should it. You can call yourself a Communist, Atheist, whatever, but, in fact, atheists are really agnostics who are insecure with their own limited knowledge of the universe, so need something to anchor them, rather than float free in the cosmos and explore....kind of like....theists. Odd how Ayn Rand was so like many other religious leaders in her cultic appeal.
>
>> So, too, atheists. If you want to know what "atheism" means, dictionaries and your own pontifications carry no authority next to what *atheists themselves say they are*. And that means you need to go out and actually ask atheists--as in, real people who actually call themselves atheists--why they call themselves that. And the common thread in the answers they all give you? *That's* atheism.
>
Actually, I reviewed a film. You're the one tying yourself up in knots, and quoting yourself- so who's the pontificator? BTW- what did you think of the actual film? It could have been so much better. DAN
>
>> Good luck.
>> -- 
>> Richard C. Carrier, M.Phil.
>> Columbia University
>> www.columbia.edu/~rcc20 

Update 2: Carrier Replies

  I had to include this exchange, just as an instructional aid, because it totally exposes the dogmatism of modern Atheism. Read how Carrier first claims one thing about me, but by the end of the email claims a wholly oppositional claim, as well as sustaining a string of fallacies, and constantly mischaracterizing my statements so to argue against straw men, and not a real opponent.

For clarity's sake, the prior email exchange, both Carrier and me, is in black, Carrier in red, and my replies in blue:

Dan Schneider wrote:

> Richard Carrier wrote:
>> On Thursday, January 19, 2006, at 04:42 PM, Dan Schneider wrote:
>>> Richard Carrier wrote:
>>>> On Thursday, January 12, 2006, at 11:13 AM, Dan Schneider wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> That said, I am not an atheist, but an agnostic, because one cannot logically be an atheist, in denying the existence of a deity, for a negative can never be proven.
>>>>
>>>> Just FYI, a negative can be proven, although it might often be harder:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/theory.html
>>>
>>> The problem with your proof is that you're proving a negative material thing. This is not the same as proving a non-material thing- such as a deity nor a murder that does not occur.
>>
>> I can disprove a murder that didn't occur, by producing the alleged victim alive, or by proving they died by natural causes. You need to think these things through.
>
> Prove that it was really intended. You cannot. You can prove a failed murder attempt, but not that a planned murder that never was carried out was intended. Really, a little more thought. Please. In your second claim, you are not proving a murder did not occur, but that a natural death did occur. Either you are being willfully obtuse, or are clinging on to a politicized view of your belief in capital A atheism.
>>
>>> In effect, you've proven the statement, 'You cannot prove a negative,' is inadequate, as stated, but not its colloquial claim. Disprove someone loved you who claimed to.
>>
>> No problem. See my book's chapter on love for details. The existence of love entails behaviors. When those behaviors do not obtain, but in fact contrary behaviors obtain, then you have sufficient evidence to believe they are lying when they claim to love you. We could even go to brain science, since love entails certain brain centers will engage in heightened activity under certain stimuli (this is a burgeoning field of study now), and we can prove with an active MRI whether someone's brain is behaving as it would if they loved someone (we can also tell if they are lying, in certain circumstances, using the same technology).
>
> You are claiming love is scientifically open to study? This is like trying to determine truth via sweat or open pores and equating nervousness with truth. Even most state courts recognize that truth is not testable scientifically, but you proffer love is? And, you're quoting yourself again. You are confusing sexuality and libido with love. But, even were one to see a stimulated love center in the brain, prove it was a true or a false love.
>
>> There is no connection whatever between materiality and provability, because we do not experience materials, only phenomena. That materials exist at all is something we infer from observations, something that could in some or all cases be false. So we could just as easily infer from certain observations that something causing a phenomenon isn't material. In the most obvious example, if God was actively talking to us and answering our questions, told us he was immaterial, and otherwise maintained a consistent track record of always being honest and correct in what he says. But in a less obvious example, if we had not found any material basis for light, nor any evidence for a material basis for light, despite all we had discovered up until now, it would then be more probable than not that light was not a material. By the same token, all the evidence we actually do have that light is a material is evidence that light is not a non-material thing, and therefore we have proved a negative, the non-existence of a non-material thing, in this case, non-material light. As my article explains, we could always have missed something, but that's true for any claim, positive or negative, and the only question is what it is reasonable to believe given what we know so far, and given what we know so far, no one has any reason to believe that non-material light exists, and pretty much no one does.
>
***Really read what you've written, and you've just debunked your own claim. This is the problem with most dogmas, and Atheism is a dogma as much as theism. You do not really understand what it is you are advocating. Your claim about light is not applicable since it seems light is both material and immaterial, and you are again trying to use false comparisons to argue with a straw man, not what I debunked in your claim.
>
>> See my book's chapter on method, where I explain that any claim, regardless of what it is a claim about, entails predictions in certain circumstances, and when those predictions don't come true in those circumstances, we have proven that the claim is probably false, to a standard of reasonable disbelief. Being material or non-material makes no difference.
>
***Again with the self-referentiality?
>
>>>> And if we accept your definition of atheism, there is no such thing as an atheist, at least no one I have ever met, including hundreds of people who call themselves atheists. For all the people I've met who call themselves atheists don't say anything differently than you do--they simply use the word "atheist" correctly:
>>>>
>>>> http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/atheism.html
>>>
>>> I note that the term atheist is used in capitals and lower case- denoting a change in the strength of the term.
>>
>>
>> Not by anyone I know, and not by me. You're making this up. In fact, you just made it up...notice how there is no capital letter in your statement above that you are not an atheist. Nor was your argument "I am not an Atheist, but an atheist" but "I am not an atheist, but an agnostic," which entails that the only options you provided for an unbeliever were atheism and agnosticism, and you then said atheism is illogical. That's simply false, because it plays a word game with the word "atheist" that is completely out of touch with the factual reality of how the word "atheist" is actually used.
>
***Now you are being disingenuous, because I've nailed you. To try to claim that there is no difference between a-theists, who are without God or religion, and dogmatic Atheists, who deny any possibility of God, is simply not even trying to engage in honest intellectual debate. I did not make this up, and my claims of being a-theistic is consistent with agnosticism. Colloquially, atheist and Atheist are used interchangeably, but it is you who have taken the strong A position, which was why I differentiated, merely to highlight what was an implicit difference. I could have, and did, also differentiate atheism from a-theism, in a similar vein.
> Because you have not a philosophic answer you are resorting to weak semiotics. If you are denying that there is a colloquial difference between Atheism and atheism (strong & weak) you are either lying or out of touch with the real world politics of the debate. And given your bent for philosophy this would not surprise. Thus why philosophy is even less popular than poetry.
> To paraphrase you, 'Atheists are really agnostics who don't have the strength of intellect nor character to admit that they are finite beings who cannot know all that is needed to cope with reality.' There, I can dismiss even more effectively than you can. And I'm correct. Neither of us can know logically whether or not a deity exists. I'm willing to admit that limitation. You and your ego are not.
>>
>>> I am 'atheistic', in that I think it's statistically insignificant that there is a deity, but I an not an 'Atheist', as that is illogical, which your posits did not address.
>>
>> Who cares? I am saying that you have completely invented a new word, Atheist, out of whole cloth, a word no one ever uses of themselves, or ever has in human history, and then you claim you aren't one because it's illogical. Why bother? That's like writing an essay on why you are not a faerie dragon princess. Does anyone claim to be a faerie dragon princess? Why do we need to hear you prove you aren't one? Or that I'm not one? What's the point? There is none. That's why you give the impression of claiming all Atheists are illogical, which means you believe some exist (you explicitly say so below). In fact, by your rejection of the label entirely, you imply that everyone who calls himself an atheist is an Atheist. But since no such persons exist, that's nonsense. Again, it's like making a point of saying "all you faerie dragon princesses are illogical." Which faerie dragon princesses? I don't know of any. All I know of are a vast population of "atheists" who believe exactly the same thing you do, that "it's statistically insignificant that there is a deity." I've never met anyone who actually believed anything more than that.
>
***And that's patently untrue that I coined a word. There are plenty of folks who claim both Atheism and atheism. You, for one, if you look at what you have stated in these emails. I don't need to prove I'm an atheist or a Jew or a lover of Rockports. When did I stake my claim? Again, you are arguing not with me, but your willful misperception of me....which is exactly what dogmatic theists do with agnostics. You and your ilk have ignored Pogo's advice and become your enemy.
>
>>> I see this as akin to belief in the anthropic principle- the weak ap is not likely, but the strong ap is absurd. Granting that you do not deny that you are a finite being, nor an omniscient, there simply is no logical way to declare that a deity does not exist, although my money would be on its absence, as well. This is where many 'A'theists get as wacky as theists in their near dogma; as if the sense of their own finity is an affront to their being.
>>
>> Who? Give me one example of any actual human being who actually claims to be an Atheist as you define that term--however you define it, since it isn't clear what more one could say than "it's statistically insignificant that there is a deity," which is what you assert as your own belief. Hence be ready to demonstrate that this is what they actually believe, once you've pinned down what it is they claim that goes beyond what you yourself already agree with.
>
> Madalyn Murray O’Hair, my friend Joe Homrich, any number of artists I've known over the years, not to mention any number of Socialist-Communist types. I can only state what they stated, because, as I've shown- like with love, I cannot prove what they really felt. Notice, too, how you are now using my exact same argument when it suits your purpose. Notice, too, I've not denied my limitation in knowing their true feelings. 'Tis you who have presumed powers beyond the norm in knowing others' motives.
>
>>>> See my book Sense and Goodness without God, especially pp. 253-90.
>>>>
>>>> In short, all atheists are "agnostics" (as you define the term) with respect to some gods and "atheists" (as you define the term) with respect to other gods (like the God who by definition always turns the sky green and tells you in a booming voice that he exists--you can be as certain that this God does not exist as you can be certain of anything in your life). But what makes these people "atheists" in the general sense actually used in the real world is their lack of belief, not why they lack belief--especially since "proving" that something doesn't exist is not necessary to justify believing it doesn't exist.
>>>
>>> But, this is where the break between lower and capital A-theists rents first.
>>
>> That distinction is your invention, not any convention in common use nor anything I have ever used. Perhaps you are imagining the strong/weak atheism dichotomy, but that does not align with what you are saying, since *both* strong and weak atheists believe "it's statistically insignificant that there is a deity" and nothing more, and *all* atheists are strong atheists for some gods and weak atheists for other gods, so the distinction doesn't even have merit as a dividing category, since every atheist on earth is a weak atheist for some gods.
>
***Repeating a falsehood will not make it true, Richard, although it may get you elected to Congress.
>
>>>> After all, have you "proven" that aliens haven't tricked us into thinking the earth revolves around the sun though in fact the sun revolves around the earth? No. Yet do you believe that aliens have tricked us into thinking the earth revolves around the sun though in fact the sun revolves around the earth? No. Atheism is the same way. And there is only one word that means a lack (a-) of "belief in god" (-theism), and agnosticism isn't it. Agnosticism means lack (a-) of knowledge (-gnosis). Not the same thing. Agnosticism can be a *reason* you don't believe, but the *fact* that you don't believe is atheism.
>>>
>>> The problem is the capital A's go beyond and declare that a god cannot exist, and DOES not exist. Therefore, they've shifted the burden of proof by making the claim. In short, you're on logically more sound ground as a small a.
>>
>> I have never met or read any human being who claimed that *no* god can exist. Many rightly claim that certain gods cannot exist, but that's not the same thing. Otherwise, nearly everyone who does not believe in any god believes God does not exist. This is easily demonstrated through Bayesian logic. If you do not believe any god exists, then necessarily you must believe the probability that any god exists is less than 50%--let's say you believe it is 30%. That entails that you must necessarily believe that the probability that no god exists is greater than 50%--in our example, you must believe it is 70%. Therefore, you believe God does not exist. There is no escaping this. Unless you believe in God, it is necessarily the case that you believe God probably does not exist, which is what the sentence "God does not exist" means in ordinary English and in common discourse.
>
***Then you are by definition an agnostic, if one believes your first sentence. Game, set, match. It's over. YOU ARE AN AGNOSTIC! You have made my argument. Thanks.
>
>> Though it is logically possible to believe the probability that some god exists is exactly 50%, you say "it's statistically insignificant that there is a deity" so you cannot believe that the probability of any god's existence is 50%, since that is a far sight away from "statistically insignificant." But even if you retreated to this "statistically significant but insufficient" position, that would still entails that you believes the probability that god does not exist is also 50%. So you would be compelled to use your 50% chance he exists as a reason to believe he exists, *or* to use your 50% chance he doesn't exist as a reason to believe he doesn't exist. And in the one case you are not an atheist, while in the other you believe god does not exist. End of story. It is also extremely difficult to get any logical argument to produce so perfectly balanced an outcome as a 50/50 result, especially employing a sound method as I describe in my book, much less a proper Bayesian analysis. See, for example, my discussion here:
>>
>> http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/carrier- wanchick/carrier1.html
>>
>>>> Lest you want to object by trying to selectively read some dictionary entry, I must call your attention to the arrogance of trying to define someone else's identity pejoratively, like those who insist "secular humanism" means communism. They have no right to claim this. Only secular humanists get to define their identity. If you want to know what secular humanism means, a dictionary might help, but it is no authority against what secular humanists say themselves.
>>>
>>> A bit of political bias leaking through? I note how you've shifted from a claimed empiricism to a dlipper PoMo approach. This is like people who deny race exists, simply to battle racism.
>>
>> No, it's not. Race is a reference to physical characteristics (objectively defined appearance features and genetic features). It is folly to try and claim black people don't exist if your aim is to convince white racists to respect black people as equals. Hence we are not talking about physiology. We are talking about ideology, and just as one cannot claim all white men are black men, so you can't claim all humanists are communists. It is a plain falsehood to claim that all Secular Humanists are communists--it's false as a matter of objective fact. So, too, it is a plain falsehood to claim that all atheists are Atheists--or even that *any* are. Maybe some scarce few are (since whatever you mean by Atheist is unclear), but to date, no one I have ever met in my life believes anything more than "it's statistically insignificant that there is a deity," and since I am heavily plugged into the organized atheist community and have communicated with hundreds of atheists across the world, clearly these mysterious creatures you are talking about must be as rare as the Yeti.
>
***Again, you are straw manning. You are making assumptions of what I would think from simple statements that are not logically correlative. And I never said all atheists are Atheists. You just did. I am the one who made the distinction- which you denied, even as you admitted that you are an agnostic, even if you won't utter the word.
>
>>
>>> While I may be the best expert on me, by no means is the breadth and depth of me defined by me alone- that's PC nonsense. As an artist, this is ridiculous. Shakespeare's opinion of his own plays does not define how they are critically viewed, nor should it.
>>
>> What has opinion to do with what someone believes? What someone believes is a matter of objective fact. 
>
***That some one believes a thing is an objective fact, or can be. What the belief is is not necessarily so. C'mon. This is a degree talking?
>
>> It is a matter of objective fact, not opinion, that no one I know, despite having communicated with hundreds of atheists, believes what you appear to credit to this imaginary creature you call an Atheist. So it is plainly false for you to act as if all atheists are Atheists. That is not a matter of opinion, so you can't escape being false by pretending it's just an opinion. Whether it's true requires actual atheists to actually believe what you attribute to Atheists. And the only way to find out is to ask them.
>
***Again, I distinguished the strong and weak atheists. It's you who are seeking union. Please, when arguing, stick to the opponent that's real, not made up. I feel like one of Pat Robertson's devils is wrestling with you as I type.
>
>>> You can call yourself a Communist, Atheist, whatever, but, in fact, atheists are really agnostics who are insecure with their own limited knowledge of the universe, so need something to anchor them, rather than float free in the cosmos and explore....kind of like....theists. Odd how Ayn Rand was so like many other religious leaders in her cultic appeal.
>>
>> I am not a communist. So I don't know what your point is. I *am* a naturalist, so I do believe that more likely than not a particular worldview is true, but I give ample reasons why in my book--it isn't something I just latch onto because I like it or because I'm scared of being uncertain. Uncertainty is already built into my entire worldview. It's the air in which I breathe. But uncertainty does not entail the absence of beliefs. I can never even be absolutely certain I am on earth. But it is certainly reasonable to believe I am. So uncertainty has nothing to do with this.
>
***It was a throwaway. Jeesh. I was not Nixonianly insinuating. Did you really think I was? If so, I can only reckon it's because you've set up so many straw men that you feel I argue with the same tacks.
>
>>>> So, too, atheists. If you want to know what "atheism" means, dictionaries and your own pontifications carry no authority next to what *atheists themselves say they are*. And that means you need to go out and actually ask atheists--as in, real people who actually call themselves atheists--why they call themselves that. And the common thread in the answers they all give you? *That's* atheism.
>>>
>>> Actually, I reviewed a film. You're the one tying yourself up in knots, and quoting yourself- so who's the pontificator? BTW- what did you think of the actual film? It could have been so much better. DAN
>>
>> Try to argue in a mirror all you like. The fact remains: no Atheists exist, or if any do, they are an extreme rarity among atheists. So for you to act as if all or most atheists are Atheists is for you to entertain a false belief--a factually false belief, not just an opinion contrary to mine.
>
***Again, and lastly. I differentiated the two strands of atheism. I never said they were the same. How can you state I claim both are the same, when you also claim I am making a false distinction in the first place? I am black and I am white in your view, yet to me I am gray, and your monochromatism cannot really take the glare.
Seriously, though, the film was too puerile for its own good. That's a 2-0 lead I've got. AGNOSTICS RULE! Yeah! Thanks, DAN
>
>> -- 
>> Richard C. Carrier, M.Phil.
>> Columbia University
>> www.columbia.edu/~rcc20 

Update 3: A bonus exchange 

With another well known online atheist who seemingly does not understand his own positions. Lowder is in red, my initial reply is in aqua, and my last reply in blue:

Dan Schneider wrote:
> Jeff Lowder wrote:
>>On 1/22/06, Dan Schneider wrote:
>>>Jeff Lowder wrote:
>>>On 1/15/06, Dan Schneider wrote:
>>>
>>***I have to say, you change your arguments so much in one email it's hard to keep up with:
>> 
>>>Except that presumes your senses and abilities are w/o bound. As finite beings (which I presume you are) your second method is invalidated,
>>>
>>>This doesn't follow at all. The fact that we are not finite beings does not prevent us from legitimately concluding that, *given some body of evidence*, a particular hypothesis is more probably than another hypothesis. This goes for conclusions about God's existence just as it does for other areas where inductive logic is used, such as weather forecasting and criminal forensic investigations.
>>>
>>>***Wait a moment, is that a typo or are you claiming omniscience?
>>
>>Oops. Yes, that was a typo. That sentence should have been, "The fact that we ARE finite beings does not ..."
>>
>>>I don't disagree with your statement. Note- you said probably(e). I have no problem with lower case a-theism, to be without God. I have a big problem for Capital Atheism, that THERE IS NO GOD! Assuming you are finite, there is no logical way for you to disprove the existence of a deity.
>>
>>The statement, "Assuming you are finite, there is no logical way for you to disprove the existence of a deity" requires a supporting argument. I do not find such an argument in any of your emails to me. Furthermore, I have previously explained that we can use inductive arguments to show that God's nonexistence is more likely than God's existence. Do you disagree with that? If so, why?
>>
> ***No, I don't disagree with the statement, but the GIGO rule applies here- garbage in, garbage out. As a finite being with limited senses and limited capacity, there will always be a gap in the knowledge any individual who is not omniscient has. No? 10,000 years ago I could expostulate over and over about 'the world' which might have been a 100 square miles, at most. Could I have imagined Greenland, Antarctica, Hawaii, Everest? No. I am not saying that there will never be a way to wholly disprove the existence of a deity, but we are certainly not there yet. The way to 100% absolutely disprove an immaterial all-pervasive thing like a God is to have all the available info. Induction, and even deduction, is only as good as the available evidence, and if there are gaps caused by our limitations, there can be no certitude- overwhelming almost certainty, but not, as John McLaughlin might say, 'metaphysical certitude'. Is this not sensible?
>
>>>I argued with Richard Carrier over this- see my posting below the review. He wants it both ways, though, as you can see from his slippery email's wording. Again, though, you've moderated your claim and backed away from the imperative. Because a finite being can ONLY know to a reasonable degree what is real or not. I assume you're real, and not a PC gone Hal, ala 2001. But, I cannot prove it till we met, if ever. But a deity is on a wholly different level, for to be a deity means we are dealing with the immaterial, and that cannot be disproved. As I queried Carrier- disprove you greatest ex-flame really never loved you.
>>> 
>>I'm not following the argument. I wonder how the words "proof" and "disproves" are being used here. If "proof" means something like an incontrovertible argument (one that confers a 100% probability on its conclusion), then I don't think there is "proof" for atheism in that sense of the word. Nothing of consequence follows from that, however. There are very few conclusions for which an incontrovertible argument can be given. The much more interesting question is which hypothesis, if any, does the evidence favor. As I argued in my debate with Phil Fernandes, the evidence favors naturalism over and against theism.
>>
> ***I take it, then, that you cannot disprove another's love? I'm glad you admit my 'proof' point on atheism. Now, if you can just retain that the next time you argue and use the logical, lower case, depoliticized 'atheist' and not the Capital, pompous, illogical, politicized 'Atheist', I think your 'side', if you will, would win alot more 'converts'. Big point- naturalism is the antithesis of supernaturalism, and they are close cousins, but not synonymous with atheism and theism.
>
>>and the first does not apply- and can be refuted semiotically, in many instances. For example- is a sonnet only a 14 line poem? Depends, if you're talking a strict formal sonnet, yes, but not if you mean a 'little song'. Another example- how many sides does a circle have? The answers none and infinite are both applicable.
>>
>>Right. And there are conceptions of God that can be refuted on purely logical grounds, because the attributes are incompatible with one another. I have never claimed that all such conceptions of God can be refuted in that way, however.
>>
> ***Glad to know you're still with me.
>
>>This doesn't deny the point that there are a variety of conceptions of God; some of them have contradictory attributes; and a valid deductive argument can be formulated to prove that those gods do not exist.
>> 
>>***Depends on the conception. One can prove, to a reasonable extent, that Jesus was not a historic personage, and this has been done repeatedly.
>>
>>So I'm skeptical about both clauses of your sentence: that it can be proven, and that it has been done repeatedly. I think Jesus' historicity is highly probable given the available evidence.
>>
> ***Clause one was modified with 'reasonable extent', and there have been Jesus debunkers for centuries. You can disagree, but both are valid statements. I think there's very good reason to doubt a historical Jesus, and there is no contemporaneous proof of 'his' existence- not one! 2000 years and not one! Given it's only been 6 decades and UFO debunkers gleefully chime that there's not a single piece of evidence for extraterrestrial visits, and most scientists agree, what does 2000 years of bupkus mean? That the belief is so engrained in childhood that most cannot see straight.
>
>>But Jesus was supposedly God made man. Still, a) the burden is on the claimant and b) that claim falls onto the Atheist once he uses the imperative argument:
>>
>>I have no idea what you mean by "imperative argument."
>>
> ***Imperative- as in absolutes, such as this, directly below:
>
>>There can be NO God, or There IS NO God. My point is that atheism is not illogical, but Atheism surely is, just as theism is. The only logical stance re: religion is agnosticism.
>>
>>This is an extremely strong claim that requires a supporting argument. I do not find such an argument in your post. 
>>
> ***It's actually a passive claim, because agnostics say we don't know, and have not the tools to know, for our limitations. Atheists and theists are the claimants. And you have admitted my argument when you stated 'There are very few conclusions for which an incontrovertible argument can be given.'
>
>>Atheists (cap A) are generally very scared people who cling to their imperatives with all the zeal of a mullah. I freely admit I CANNOT know, given my finitude, and am comfy with that. Why aren't you?
>>
>>Huh? Did you just presume to know that I am uncomfortable? Here's an alternative explanation: I am an atheist because I believe the weight of the evidence favors naturalism over theism. 
>>
> ***Again, you are mixing domains, and yes, I presumed you're uncomfortability, or why else claim something (Atheism) which you admit in this email is NOT incontrovertible- that's a hallmark of dogma. I am an agnostic because no arguments pro nor con a deity have had any real weight, and even atheists like you grudgingly, and when pushed, admit agnosticism is the correct stance. Now, if only the theists were so easily persuaded. DAN

Update 4

Should I laugh or cry?

Dan Schneider wrote:
> Jeff Lowder wrote:
>> Dan,
>> Your most recent email came through with very strange formatting, so I'm not even going to provide in-line replies. Instead I will provide my reply here.
>> First, please note that I have not changed my arguments in this email exchange. Correcting a typo is not changing my arguments.
>> Second, I suspect that you are holding both theism and atheism to a much higher evidential standard than we apply to other empirical questions. The fact that we might discover some new item of evidence in the future that supports a contradictory conclusion in no way undermines the fact that the evidence we have *today* supports an explanatory hypothesis. For example, the probability that the Declaration of Independence was signed on July 4, 1776 is extremely high, but it is not 100%. I suppose it is logically possible that in the future someone might discover historical evidence demonstrating the Declaration of Independence was signed February 2, 1775. But the fact that such a thing is logically possible is irrelevant to the inductive (probabilistic) conclusion that the Declaration was indeed signed on July 4, 1776. In other words, a conclusion can be highly probable even if it is possible that it is false. 
>>
> ***I don't disagree. But, again, this is a wholly different scale of inquiry- a material one from an immaterial one. I've posted these exchanges, and those with Carrier, under the original review, because I find it fascinating the lengths both of you will go to argue and/or evade, when both, in essence, are really assenting to my agnostic viewpoint as the only logical one. Carrier even goes so far as to cite me for differentiating atheists from Atheists, and then again claiming I am trying to unify both. But, again, a tangible document is a wholly different thing than a deity, an emotion, or an act that is wished for but does not occur.
>
>> As a nontheist, I don't demand that someone prove to me that the existence of God is absolutely certain (i.e., has a 100% probability). I would settle for an argument showing that the total relevant evidence merely makes the existence of God highly probable. Similarly, we don't need absolutely certainty (i.e., 100% probability) in order to know that there is no God. We can use inductive arguments to show that God's nonexistence is more likely, even *much* more likely, than God's existence. And, indeed, I think there are inductively correct arguments that show religiously significant conceptions of God--such as the God of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam--does not exist.
>>
> ***This makes you an agnostic. That you cannot see this says that there is likely an emotional impediment blocking your cogitation, for it's obvious from even how you framed that paragraph that you accept there is no way to disprove God wholly. Therefore you can ONLY be an agnostic and be logical. As for absulute certainty to know there's no God, you don't need that certainty, UNLESS you use imperatives such as THERE IS NO GOD, THERE CAN BE NO GOD. As long as you qualify your statements with uncertain modifiers it's perfectly colloquially acceptable to speak of there being no God, but we are not exchanging colloquially, are we? We are in a steep philosophic debate. So, cut it out with the dodging and weaving. You are, by your own words above, an agnostic. Admit it, drop the emotional attachment to the superiority you feel Atheism gives you, and accept your finity.
>
>> Third, the idea that immaterial beings "cannot be disproved" is an extremely strong assertion requiring a supporting argument. I still do not find such an argument in your email.
>>
> ***Then reread. This is the same tired semantic dodging theists use when nailed. I've challenged you to disprove a person who claims to love you was not genuine, or a murder that was plotted but never brought to fruition was deterred. Still waiting. When you've proven those you've disproven my claim. Go ahead.
>
>> Fourth, I think your assertion, "One can prove, to a reasonable extent, that Jesus was not a historic personage, and this has been done repeatedly," is just that -- an assertion, with no evidence or arguments offered in support.
>>
> ***Now you're merely aping your prior email. See my response below yours under the review.
>
>> Fifth, I'm not sure I would word things as you do, in saying that the proposition, "There is no God," is an "imperative" or "absolute" statement. For a belief in that statement may be held probabilistically. (For example, "I think there is a 80% probability there is no God.")
>> 
> ***Do you even realize that you are unwittingly arguing FOR me?
>
>> Sixth, although you do not make a claim to know whether God exists, you DO make a claim when you assert that "the only logical stance ... is agnosticism." Moreover, your claim is an EXTREMELY strong one that requires a supporting argument. I do not find such an argument in your post.
>> 
> ***I've proven that atheism is illogical, and we both concede theism is, and I cannot see that agnosticism is not. I've never heard anyone argue against its eminent logic. Certainly, neither you nor Carrier have. I grant this is possibly untrue and welcome its challenge and defeat. Again, nothing....centuries and counting.
>
>> Seventh, I wrote, "I am an atheist because I believe the weight of the evidence favors naturalism over theism." You responded by claiming that I am "mixing domains," but this doesn't follow at all. That is because naturalism *entails* atheism. If metaphysical naturalism is true (i.e., if no supernatural beings exist), then atheism has to be true (i.e., God does not exist).
>> 
> ***There are different meanings to the term, and as applied to physical sciences it does, but we were talking philosophy, no? There it does not.
>
>> Eighth, again, the statement, "no arguments pro nor con a deity have had any real weight," is another sweeping assertion requiring a supporting argument. You have not yet provided such an argument in your post.
>> 
> ***Those making the claims pro or con a deity have the burden, not me. Note how you keep shifting the burdens when it suits your claim, rather than remaining steadfast.
>
>> Ninth, you claim that I have "grudgingly, and when pushed, admit agnosticism is the correct stance." I think that is a rather creative interpretation of our email exchange. I understand "atheist" to mean a person who believes there is no God. There is no requirement that one has to be *absolutely certain* that there is no God in order to qualify as an atheist. I have never claimed to be absolutely certain that atheism is true, but it doesn't follow that I merely lack belief in God or that I am not an atheist. Rather, I believe God's existence is very improbable. And I don't find your assertion, that agnosticism is the correct stance, in the least bit compelling.
>> Jeffery Jay Lowder
>> 
> ***You sound like a thoroughly indoctrinated theist who doesn't realize he's sleeping in the pews, but calls himself a Good Christian. It's just fascinating to read both you and Carrier expose both your biases and limitations all the while maintaining a dogma that some spark in both of you know is wrong, as revealed by your very words' contradictions with their stated claims. To use a metaphor, I just wonder when you'll be either emotionally mature or intellectually ballsy enough to 'come out of the closet' as an agnostic. Praise Jesus! Yeeha! DAN

Update 5

Dan Schneider wrote:

  Feel free to mention me and my website- in fact, by all means do so. I'm the one who has been consistent, while you and Carrier have hamstrung yourselves with Clintonian semantics. And I don't have to change your mind, since you've already admitted that your argument was with yourself, not me.
  Objectively speaking, you have in your posts, admitted your agnosticism. That you won't directly say it can only mean there is a blockage of pride, or an emotional attachment to the mere term Atheist, that seduces you more than being correct.
  As an agnostic, I don't care if there's a God, nor what you believe, as long as you don't force it down my throats. What I am not agnostic about, is the semiotic distortion of a) words and their meanings and b) the real world relevance of your claims, although, to be fair, you did not do this nearly to the degree Carrier shamelessly did, by denying there are rabid Atheists who deny God can exist.
  My money says you're further along the road than Carrier, and some day you'll look back on this exchange and say, 'Damn, he was right. I am an agnostic, and that's the only sensible thing to be.'
  BTW- I am not a Right Winger, nor against Atheism, just poor thinking, and if you scan my website you'll see that I've attacked religiots mercilessly, as well as PC Elitists, Conservatives, anti-abortionists, and even pro-abortionists, who like agnostics as yourself, refuse to properly identify themselves as pro-abortion, preferring the mealy-mouthed pro-choice.
  I'll be awaiting the godless fanatics who contact me when they read your blog. It's good critical exercise, and in a week or so you may wanna look back for a piece I'm doing on Lowest Common Denominator thought and Wikipedia, more deadening of the culture. DAN
>
> Jeff Lowder wrote:
>
>>I don't think I'm going to change your mind on this matter. You may, of course, feel that you are unable to change my mind as well. I don't think this private, back-and-forth email exchange is worth continuing. Instead, I'm going to take this matter public and write a post for either my blog (http://lowder.blogspot.com/) or the I.I. blog (http://secularoutpost.blogspot.com) that addresses your actual points, but I'll do so in a way that doesn't mention you by name. You are, of course, welcome to post public feedback on the blog entry, and publicly identify yourself, if you wish.

Update 6: This Time It's Ridiculous!

Richard Carrier wrote:
> On Friday, January 27, 2006, at 03:43 PM, Dan Schneider wrote:
>
>> Prove that it was really intended. You cannot. You can prove a failed murder attempt, but not that a planned murder that never was carried out was intended.
>
> You keep backtracking and backtracking. Tsk, tsk. Okay. Ready? I *can* prove that a planned murder that never was carried out was intended. That's even easier! For example, I can present evidence that someone wanted to kill me (from his statements to others and in a suicide note), that he actually shot at me (witnesses observed it), and his gun jammed (from a forensic inspection of the gun). Now, maybe you mean a murder that was "planned" but not carried out, but that's just as easy. If I have the witnesses who report that this guy told them he was planning to kill me, and we had his own notes stating he was planning this and even articulating the plan, but police raid his house before he can carry out his plan. In that condition, I will have indeed proved "a planned murder that never was carried out was intended."

***Are you really this dense? Prove that someone who was not sloppy was to do it. What you are proving is that an idiot can be caught, and indeed, an idiot can be caught doing anything, criminal or not. But given the fact that most murders go unsolved, in fact, most crimes, when there is ample evidence- a body, a break-in, etc., the idea that you can prove that an intent to murder was real or not is absurd. Do you even live in the real world, Richard?

> Care to keep stepping back and back and back? Or will you finally give up and admit you aren't going to get the conclusion you want? Stop being stubborn and face it: we can prove negatives. Period. The only negatives we can't prove are those that have the same properties as positives we can't prove--such that, in fact, it's not being negative that makes them unprovable, but the possession of those properties that make even positives unprovable. Just as my essay explains. Read it.

***You have not proven a negative. Again, are you really this dense and disconnected from reality? Why should I read anything you're willing to sell me when your free claims are as pallid as these have been.

> Really, a little more thought. Please. In your second claim, you are not proving a murder did not occur, but that a natural death did occur.
>
> That's the point of my essay: the latter proposition "this body died a natural death" logically entails the former proposition "this body was not murdered," and therefore proving the former proves the latter.

***And how many so-called 'natural deaths' have been disproven years later? Why? Because technology, or the force of our knowing, improved. And this is the crux where your rabid Atheism fails. Since one cannot know everything, one cannot certainly know for sure, which you conceded last email, amid all your puffery, thereby acknowledging you were an agnostic. I'm sure you've read Abbot's Flatland, wherein poor A Square was frustrated in his attempts to prove a 3rd Dimension existed to his poor mates, after A Sphere wafted him up into height. To take that analogy, in our current state of evolution, we are incapable of knowing nor differentiating A Sphere's existence from that which is supernatural. Yet, he was a natural phenomenon (in the fictive realm of the book where geometric shapes can converse). Imagine now, that this was the situation with a powerful being, perhaps an all-powerful deity, or even a lesser godlet. What we presume supernatural could still be natural, but beyond our ability to measure, just as New Guineans famously thought white men magical when they saw cigaret lighters for the first time, as well airplanes. I was arguing with another closet agnostic this same point, when he tried to equate naturalism with atheism. The fact is, that a God could be natural outcome of a cosmic existence, thereby nullifying the linkage of atheism and naturalism, but if we've no way, like A Square, to reckon A Sphere's divinity, mundanity, or between, the square can only take an agnostic position- which may include thinking himself nuts!

> Maybe you are trying to say I can't prove that "a murder did not occur" anywhere ever, though that is not even a true proposition (murders obviously occur). But if it was a true proposition, it could still be proved to a degree sufficient for belief, e.g. "given what I know, it is reasonable for me to believe that no murder has ever occurred" (e.g. if no murder ever had occurred, then I could in principle gather abundant evidence that there are no known murders and that all deaths were probably not murders, just as the evidence overwhelmingly supports that there is no Big Foot and that all purported evidence of Big Foot fails to establish the existence of Big Foot).

***Great, but it's not relevant to our dispute.

> You are claiming love is scientifically open to study?
>
> Already has been. See my book's chapter on love, and its bibliography. Also, the new book by Anthony Walsh, The Science of Love: Understanding Love and Its Effects on Mind and Body, which came out after I could include it in my book's bibliography.

***Aside from your crass commercialism, I still see nada in your defense.

> You are confusing sexuality and libido with love.
>
> No, I'm not. See, again, my book's chapter on love and Walsh's book, in addition to the books in my bibliography ending my love chapter.

***You must be very well off, for you are relentless in hawking your works. If only a fraction of that energy were expended in this debate. Sigh. BTW- I'm not a Left Winger who hates capital- by all means, I hope you sell alot of books. In a sense, despite your alarming similarity to dogmatic Christian dialectics, I realize you're the lesser of, forgive the cliche, two evils.

>> But, even were one to see a stimulated love center in the brain, prove it was a true or a false love.
>
> I do not mean the lust center of the brain. The actual areas of the brain that govern higher affect, such as compassion, empathy, passion, and admiration, etc. (vs. dislike, indifference, etc.), components of actual love, are known. And as far as we can tell, it is physically impossible to experience any particular affect without the activation of the brain center that causes that affect, and it is physically impossible for those brain centers to activate and for us not to experience the corresponding affect, *except* in cases of physical damage or interference to the brain which blocks access between that brain center and certain other parts of the brain--damage or interference which is also observable. For why we know things like this, see my book's chapter on brain and mind and the bibliography concluding it.

***This reminds me of Dennett's Multiple Drafts model of the brain. The major flaw in that book, though, was that, at the end of it, he still had not laid out what consciousness was, only eliminated what it wasn't. I'm not arguing for the homunculus, but the Multiple Drafts failed, and so does this, for what is exactly stimulated, and why, is not addressed. You have defined a mechanical problem, or situation well, but, as with a deity, there is nothing deeper than the mechanics described.
Of course, I'm open to the fact that we are all automata with delusions of inner lives, but that inner delusion is so persuasive, in my case, I admit I'm biased for it. Still, my limitations of knowing are, to the best of my knowledge equaled in every other human being or mind I've met. Perhaps there are aliens, like those Krel in Forbidden Planet, with abilities well in advance of ours, that can disprove love, deities, etc., and I'd love to be able to hear their proofs, but I doubt either of us would be up to the task as presently constructed. In effect, you are a dog chasing your own material tail in this argument, and what is amazing (although not to me, because I've argued with theists and atheists for years, but it sounds very Huxleyan) is that you- if you are being honest, cannot see this in yourself and your words.
>
> But again, brain scans, though most effective, are not necessary: emotions like compassion, empathy, passion, and admiration *cause outward, observable behaviors*. Though it is possible to "mimic" such behaviors, it is very difficult to do so consistently over a long period of time, especially through difficult tests, and most especially when maintaining the charade runs counter to the purpose for maintaining the charade in the first place. Ultimately, we have ample evidence that the *probability* of someone maintaining such a charade for so long, so effectively, and despite such challenges, is much lower than the probability that someone exhibiting such behaviors in such circumstances is not engaging in a charade. As with all positive claims, there is always a small probability of being wrong, but that does not prevent us from proving positives to a degree of reasonable belief. So, too, negatives.

***Hello, agnosticism!

> You do not really understand what it is you are advocating.
>
> Clearly, that describes you, not me.

***See your umpteenth admission of agnosticism directly above.
>
> I have never argued this. I am arguing that there are no Atheists, as a matter of empirical fact. I am not arguing that Atheists, if there were any, would not be logically different from atheists. You seem to have a reading comprehension problem.

***Or you have a reality problem.

> It is you who have taken the strong A position
>
> No, I have not. You defined Atheist as someone who believes God's existence is impossible ("Atheists...deny any posibility of God"). I do not believe that and have never argued that. I believe the evidence is such that God's nonexistence is more probable than his existence, which is exactly the same thing you claim to believe. And as I have said, I have never in my life met anyone who "denies any possibility of God." No such person exists. Or if any do, they are extraordinarily rare, rare as Big Foot.

***Great, I'm wrong, you're an agnostic. I accept your admission, and put baddies on my tongue for impugning you with atheism or Atheism. I'm randy that way.

> There are plenty of folks who claim both Atheism and atheism. You, for one, if you look at what you have stated in these emails.
>
> Give me a single example anywhere, in anything I have ever written in my entire life, that genuinely amounts to saying "I deny any possibility of God." I know for a fact I have never argued any such thing ever in the whole of my life. So good luck finding evidence of it.

***Agnosticism averral again?

> Who? Give me one example of any actual human being who actually claims to be an Atheist as you define that term--however you define it, since it isn't clear what more one could say than "it's statistically insignificant that there is a deity," which is what you assert as your own belief. Hence be ready to demonstrate that this is what they actually believe, once you've pinned down what it is they claim that goes beyond what you yourself already agree with.
>
>> Madalyn Murray O’Hair
>
> Give me a single quote from her that amounts to denying ANY POSSIBILITY of a God. And be careful. I will check the context of anything you send, so no trying to quote out of context.

In just a quick Googling of O'Hair and quotes I found this, not from her, but from an Atheist defending her: http://www.jomarpress.com/nagel/quotations/OHair1.html 
The fundamentalist Christians claim that O'Hair herself had become a victim to a godless world that she helped to create. This is typical Christian illogic:

1. O'Hair did not "kill" any "god." There never has been one in the first place.

So, that's a pretty imperative denial- 'There never has been one....'.

Will you concede that there are Atheists who deny any God can exist? I'm sure I could find many such claims online if I cared to bother, but I only needed one, right? Another game, set, match.

> my friend Joe Homrich
>
> Then give me his email address and I will ask him if in fact he denies any possibility of a God.

***I would, except he's chickenshit and has tried to avoid arguing such matters. I invited him to do my Omniversica radio show with Blair Scott, whom you may know, then head of the Mobile Alabama Atheists, but he refused to appear unless the show would only make fun of religion, which I'm always willing to do, but not if the logic of atheism was questioned. He gets very paranoid about getting dragged into political fights and has chided me in the past over such, but as shown above, he's superfluous, correct?

> I have never met or read any human being who claimed that *no* god can exist. Many rightly claim that certain gods cannot exist, but that's not the same thing. Otherwise, nearly everyone who does not believe in any god believes God does not exist. This is easily demonstrated through Bayesian logic. If you do not believe any god exists, then necessarily you must believe the probability that any god exists is less than 50%--let's say you believe it is 30%. That entails that you must necessarily believe that the probability that no god exists is greater than 50%--in our example, you must believe it is 70%. Therefore, you believe God does not exist. There is no escaping this. Unless you believe in God, it is necessarily the case that you believe God probably does not exist, which is what the sentence "God does not exist" means in ordinary English and in common discourse.
>>
>> ***Then you are by definition an agnostic, if one believes your first sentence. Game, set, match. It's over. YOU ARE AN AGNOSTIC! You have made my argument. Thanks.
>
> Stop being childish. I have never denied that I was an agnostic. Being an agnostic does not preclude being an atheist as well, exactly as I just explained. I am *both* an agnostic and an atheist and in fact I am an atheist partly *because* I am an agnostic (only with regard to certain, not all possible, gods), in the sense I actually defined, which is the correct or common use of the word in ordinary and formal English.

***Show me where I said the two were mutually opposing. You are again arguing with a straw man. And again showing you're really under my banner after all. With enemies like you, who needs friends?

> Again, and lastly. I differentiated the two strands of atheism.
>
> Not in your review. You made no differentiation at all and your words on any plain reading implied you intended no such distinction. You did not use a capital "A" and you offered no alternative to atheism but agnosticism. "I am not an atheist, but an agnostic, because one cannot logically be an atheist." Full stop. Thus, clearly, you wrote that there are only atheists and agnostics, the former are illogical, and therefore you are the latter. It is only when I corrected you that you backtracked and made up all this ad hoc baloney about Atheists and atheists and that you were "really" an atheist. Which is rich, since that entails that you meant agnostic and atheist were compatible and that in fact you were both (since your review said you were an agnostic and later you said you were an atheist), and yet you have the temerity to attack me for saying the same thing above (that I am both an agnostic--with regard to certain but not all possible gods--and an atheist--with regard to all possible gods).

***I admitted in our first exchange that I was speaking colloquially in the review, but needed to specify when you chose to be willfully obtuse. I don't deny this, and you were correct in pointing out, I fear, that I have to be ever mindful of sinking to the dread Lowest Common Denominator lest every possible meaning of every possible term be misconstrued- willfully or blithefully. And my small a atheist was clearly in the capital imperative sense. I again acknowledged that. Now, that I have shown that there are atheists and Atheists, will you admit you're wrong? And, if you really want to be persuasive, why don't you Google and get the email addresses of all the people who have posted things like, 'There is no God.' We can kill two birds with one stone- poor thinking and poor declamations- and I will support you as the leader of our agnostic cause, which will also teach people to speak more clearly and properly. Having been chastened by my colloquial usage of atheist I deem you the man to explain to all those imperative Atheists that they are really a-theists who are agnostic. We are in agreement. You are my hero!

> You strike me as a very childish man. You don't seem to have any interest in sincerely admitting your errors, and you have no shame in contradicting yourself by attacking me for believing the same things you do.
> I won't continue talking to children. Grow up, or go away.

***Yet, it is I who have admitted errors in this and other emails. It was you who chose to argue when you knew you were wrong, simply to, I presume, flex your intellect against a presumed inferior. Forsooth, who's chastened now? And who's an agnostic? Try again in a few years, when you can a) argue in an intellectually honest fashion, and b) admit your own solecisms. I'll be waiting. In the meantime, brush up your arguments on some Baptists- they're always a riot! DAN

And still more:

Dan Schneider wrote:

> Real mature. But, it's not nice to spray spittle with your raspberries. DAN
>
> Richard Carrier wrote:
>
>> Do not communicate with me any more. Your continued childish behavior is beneath my contempt. Goodbye. 

Update 7: Lowder takes a powder.

Dan Schneider wrote:

> Jeff Lowder wrote:
>
>>Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! You are the one engaging in Clintonian semantics by redefining the words "atheist" and "agnostic." To make matters worse, you then claim to know better than I do what my own position is! I think it is highly condescending and rude when person A presumes to know better than person B what person B is (i.e., atheist, agnostic, or theist). I think the problem is only made worse when person A justifies their views by using words in a non-standard way.
>>
> ***I gave definitions of the words that were coined long before either of us was born. You were the one squirming on the hook. All I did was help you clarify your own position, as I did Carrier, who responded in the typical fashion that liars, cowards, hypocrites, poseurs, and the insecure do- by name-calling. Please, don't prove I was wrong by saying you were further along than he is!
>
>>The standard definition of the word "atheist" is a person who believes that God does not exist. That is, in fact, my position. The fact that I do not claim to be able to *prove with certainty* that *all conceptions of God* do not exist is irrelevant to whether I am an atheist. The word "atheist" is NOT defined as "a person who believes it can be proved with absolute certainty that God does not exist."
>> 
> ***See my argument with Carrier under the review. Many people utterly deny God can exist. This is an Atheist. You are then an a-theist. Cool. Is it so difficult to admit I got you to clarify your position?
>
>>Again, one doesn't have to believe that the probability of the statement, "There is no God," is 100%, in order to believe there is no God. Consider the hypothesis that the sun will rise tomorrow. I don't know with absolute certainty that the sun will rise tomorrow, but I am highly confident that it will (i.e., it has an epistemic probability for me of >99.999%). That hardly means I am "agnostic" about whether the sun will rise.
>> 
> ***Of course, the sun is a material object, so different realms apply, thought-wise and materially.
>
>>You seem to be terribly confused about the difference between holdinga belief and the epistemic probability one assigns to a belief. I recommend an introductory, college-level course in inductive logic. In particular, read Brian Skyrms' CHOICE & CHANCE (4h ed.); it is a very easy-to-read textbook on inductive logic. After you have read that book, feel free to resume the dialogue.
>> 
> ***And you've run into someone who's an expert in dialectics and words. As I said to Carrier, brush up these condescending tones and remarks on some slobbering Baptists, or even a few Roman Catholic priests, presuming there are no altar boys nearby to distract them, and when you're willing to be a) honest, and b) admit when you've lost an argument, then we can resume, ok? DAN

PS: Notice how Lowder and Carrier are constantly quoting themselves and others. This is symptomatic of the poor discourse in this society, for too often folk crib others, and do not think for themselves. This is why the plots of books or films are misconstrued and repeated over and again. Is it any wonder that those weaned on such methods are shocked and destroyed in dialectic when they run across someone like me? DAN

Update 8

Dan Schneider wrote:

> No. By its nature there is no private email correspondence, and before emailing me you should have read:
>
> http://www.cosmoetica.com/Contact-Submissions.htm 
>
> All emails with attachments will be deleted unread, and any threats- personal or legal- will immediately be reported to the authorities. All contacts, emails, and submissions become the intellectual property of Cosmoetica.
>
> DAN
>
> Jeff Lowder wrote:
>
>>I just looked at your webpage for the first time. It appears you have been posting our private correspondence without my permission. I like to be asked before anything I've written in private email is published publicly. Please remove all of my material immediately from your website.
>>
>>Sincerely,
>>
>>Jeffery Jay Lowder

PS: It's amazing how seeing one's folly in black and white, for others to see, quickly changes one's tune. And note in Update 4 I have told Lowder I am posting these exchanges. That he claims he did not know only further proves the obvious- that he was not really reading my replies, only arguing with himself. DAN

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