Reasonings Archive

Required Reading for the Day

Posted November 23, 2021 By John C Wright

From the pen of Larry Correia, The Spiked Club of Clarity, as we call him, and Master of Penitential Fisking:

Fisking one of the many Dumb Hot Takes on The Rittenhouse Case

My comment: This case has provoked several columns from me, more than usual for a topic of public interest, but that is for two reasons. First, I regard it as the trial of the decade, the trial that put the US court system on trial.

Second, this victory is our Midway Island, that is, the turning point in the Culture War. If we are bold, smart, quick, and unflagging as we press the advantage, it may hap that the forces of sanity and decency will have the orcs and trolls and creatures of darkness howling and scurrying in full rout. Let us drive with verve mercilessly them into the filthy holes and fetid sewers whence they crept, and make them fear the sunlight for a generation.

Herebelow is my dogpiling on the anonymous Internet expertificator, who apparently wrote his doggerel of dog-latin before the trial began, but now is still being broadcast like tares among wheat among the lefty social media. Click through the link above to Monster Hunter Nation to see the original, to which I here respond.

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Part Seven and Conclusion: Cosmos and Chaos

We conclude our overview of Problem of Pain inherent in the Monotheist worldview, versus the Problem of Piffle inherent in the Atheist. The previous entries are here:

This overview is not the final word on any of these topics, nor even a close examination: Each point raised has possible rebuttals and counter-rebuttals not here addressed.

This overview, at best, is meant to be a rough survey of the lay of the land to identify where apologists for either view would be wise to prepare answers for deep questions.

While not underestimating the difficulties of defending the monotheist view — for while there is an answer to the Problem of Pain, there are no easy answers — this overview demonstrates the atheist worldview, due to shallow and foolish philosophical roots, faces difficulties more numerous and more fatal.

Simply put, there are too many deep questions to which atheist worldview provides trivial answers or none at all.

A logically consistent atheist worldview portrays the cosmos as nihilist hence irrational, unreal, unknowable, nonsensical, immoral, antinomian, ugly and hopeless.

The human soul cannot flourish in such a cosmos: the atheist avoids despair only by embracing pointless hedonism or paltering hypocrisy.

The atheist answers to the deep questions of life are piffle. That is his main problem.

We conclude with a list of such unanswered questions.    Read the remainder of this entry »

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Part Six: Formless & Void (Concluded): Chaotic and Ugly

We continue our examination of the Formlessness and Void necessarily implied by the atheist worldview below. The previous entries are here:

We have previously established that a godless view of the universe, to be logically consistent with itself, must view the universe as nihilist hence irrational, hence unreal, agnostic, nonsensical, immoral, antinomian. 

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A King of Infinite Space in a Nutshell

Posted November 5, 2021 By John C Wright

The argument that “given infinite time and space, all possibilities becomes actualities” is based on an ambiguity of speech. The word “possible” is used in three ways, first, to say something is practical, second, to say something is imaginable, third, to say something is nonsense.

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Swami and McGuffin

Posted November 1, 2021 By John C Wright

The most skilled mathematician of Trantor, Hari Seldon, poses a question:

Quoting me:

For then there is no explanation to explain why this particular earth in this particular solar system and galaxy and continuum just so happens to be the one we inhabit, and not one where the moon was in a different orbit, earth’s core did not spin to erect a magnetic field, and Jupiter did not sweep the early solar system clear of planet-killing asteroids and meteorites, where chemical ratios and atomic behaviors were all exactly just so to give rise unintentionally  to men.

He asks:

“I don’t understand this part of the objection. In the atheist-multiverse worldview, there would be an infinite number of solar systems, and the solar systems where the Earth’s core didn’t spin up or Jupiter didn’t exist would be ones inimical to human-type life, and these solar systems would be much less likely to harbor human-type life. Therefore, most humans to evolve would evolve on solar systems friendly to them, and however many coincidences it took for humans to evolve, almost all humans would live in universes where those coincidences happened, in a cosmic survivorship bias.

“Positing an entire multiverse might well go against Occam’s Razor, but I don’t see how it wouldn’t be self-consistent. Unless I’m misunderstanding your comment.”

This requires, alas, a very long and involved answer. Please be patient.

Please keep in mind the argument and counterargument. I am not saying their answer is not self consistent. I am saying it is not an answer at all.

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Part Five: Formless & Void (Continued): Amoral and Anarchic

We continue our examination of the Formlessness and Void necessarily implied by the atheist worldview below. The previous entries are here:

We have previously established that a godless view of the universe, to be logically consistent with itself, must also be a nihilist hence irrational universe, an unreality where fiction and fact are indistinguishable, words are arbitrary, knowledge is impossible. It is hence a nonsense universe.

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Natural Selection

Posted October 29, 2021 By John C Wright

A reader with the royal yet Caledonian name of KingMcDee writes: “Materialists following this line of reasoning have for several years now been selling the notion that altruism and homosexuality are actually somehow good for the survival of the species, even though they tend to reduce the reproductive likelihood of the individuals that have them.”

One problem with such a line of argument is that it is a non-disprovable.

A theory that cannot be proven nor disproven is not a theory. It is an “ad hoc” story, or, better yet, a “just-so” story, like the Kipling tale explaining how the elephant got his trunk.

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Part Four: Formless & Void (Continued): Unreal, Unknowing, Nonsensical

We continue our examination of the Formlessness and Void necessarily implied by the atheist worldview below. The previous entries are here:

We have previously established that a godless view of the universe, to be logically consistent with itself, must also be a nihilist hence irrational universe. 

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The PROBLEM OF PIFFLE, Part Three: Formless and Void

Posted October 25, 2021 By John C Wright

Part Three: Formless Void: Nihilist and Irrational

This is the third of a six part series investigating the paradoxes confronting monotheistic and atheist models of the world. The first part is here; the second part here

The atheist worldview, by denying a Supreme Being, denies not only a rational creation, but denies any supernatural element or aspect to creation, including universals.

This means the atheist universe is a nihilist universe, void of metaphysical truth.
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The PROBLEM OF PIFFLE, Part Two: Foundations of the Cosmos

Posted October 23, 2021 By John C Wright

Part Two: Foundations of the Cosmos

This is the second of a six part series investigating the paradoxes confronting monotheistic and atheist models of the world. The first part is here

For the monotheists, our view of the cosmos rests on nine foundations.

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The PROBLEM of PAIN and the PROBLEM of PIFFLE: Part One

Posted October 21, 2021 By John C Wright

The PROBLEM OF PAIN and the PROBLEM OF PIFFLE

Part One: Monotheism and Atheism

Here follows the first of a six-part series of columns exploring the metaphysical and philosophical implications of monotheism versus atheism, comparing the paradoxes each must address.

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Common and Refined

Posted October 11, 2021 By John C Wright

It will wound America ears to hear, but there is a difference between fine art and popular, between Great Books and comic books, between poetry and jingles, symphony and dance tunes, slicks and pulps, philosophy and punditry. One has an entry cost.

In the Old World, there was a cultural difference between the classes. In England especially, the upper class with their French family names were the progeny of conquerors, and a long history of deliberate class distinction informs their society. High and low, by and large, did not share a common background of education, did not read the same books, and did not visit the same shows. In America, it is the opposite. We generally ignore distinction of high and low, looking for what might sell well. Hence the influence of negro spirituals, originally the music of slaves, on jazz or rock is clear, as is the influence of country music on composers like Aaron Copland.  American fine arts speaks in the vernacular.

Nonetheless, I submit the two are distinct, and meant to be judged by distinct standards.

While I am a man of common tastes, and have no criticism of those who prefer simple, fun, and vulgar things, fastfood tacos or Jack “King” Kirby, to fine things, caviar and Milton, I cannot have a fruitful discussion with those who cannot tell the difference between fine and vulgar, simply because I cannot ignore the difference, but neither can I define it precisely.

Like a vast fogbank of cloud looming on the horizon, one can spy it, it is obvious, but one might be able to tell precisely where the boundaries rest.

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Is is Is

Posted September 30, 2021 By John C Wright

I have noticed of late that when an atheist is confronted by one of the several paradoxes of logic that haunt atheism, instead of addressing the issue, the atheist finds it simpler to jettison logic. In such sad attempts, the atheist employs the very laws of logic he denies.

What desolation atheism eventually produces in the soul!

In the dry, dim, gray world where life has no author, hence no meaning, no purpose, no point, no escape, is a world so empty and unwelcoming that eventually even immaculate Reason herself gathers her white robes, quenches her bright torch, and wings away.

A short reminder of the law of logic is in order, and perhaps a word as to why, despite their great boast to be unsentimental and clear-eyed paragons of reason, those who abandon God find it increasingly difficult not to abandon nature, human nature, human virtue, and human reason as the implications of that first abandonment play out.

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The Nature of Nature

Posted September 27, 2021 By John C Wright

An irony of the modern age is the growing absence of reason and the growing predominance of mysticism among the atheists.

Witchcraft is popular among the Woke.

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The Universal Field Theory of Leftism (Reprise)

Posted August 31, 2021 By John C Wright

Here follows a reprint of a column from 2014, which I thought pertinent to the tumults preoccupying current headlines.

I here add only the comment that the remarks below pertain only to those foolishly but honestly deceived by the slogans of the masters. The elite masters of the murderous ideology regard their followers as useful idiots, much as the Morlock of A.D. 802,701 regards the hapless Eloi.

In the short time since this essay was last reprinted here, the naked wickedness of the elite of the Left, with their abundance of allies on the RINO Right, has grown more clear, and mental no-man’s-land where honest self-deception can still flourish grown narrower. 

Universal Field Theory of Leftism

Do not be deceived: Leftism is an enigma. We need a theorem that explains not one or two aspects of Leftism, but all their traits.

The theory must explain, first, the honest decency of the modern liberals combined with their astonishing indifference, nay, hostility to facts, common sense, and evidence; second, it must explain their high self-esteem (or, to be blunt, their pathological narcissism) combined not merely with an utter lack of accomplishment, but with their utter devotion to destructiveness, a yearning to ruin everything they touch; third, it must explain their sanctimoniousness combined with their applause, praise, support, and tireless efforts to spread all perversions (especially sexual), moral decay, vulgarity, and every form of desecration; fourth, their pretense of intellectual superiority combined with their notorious mental fecklessness; fifth, it must explain both their violence and their pacifism; sixth, the theory must explain why they hate the very things they should love most; seventh, the theory must explain why they are incapable of comprehending an honest disagreement or any honorable foe.

And, while we are at it, if we could also explain why the Rich, who are routinely vilified by the Left number among its most ardent supporters, or the secular Jews, our theory would be very potent in its explanatory power.

There is such an explanation. I make no claim to have discovered this theory. It was discovered by Alan Bloom, back in the 1980’s, in his book THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND, which he wrote to explain why the generation of the 1970’s was suddenly and remarkably stupider than any previous decade of his students.

The theory was popularized recently by Evan Sayet in his book KINDER GARDEN OF EDEN. Roots of this theory go back further yet: you will find an early articulation by C.S. Lewis in his seminal THE ABOLITION OF MAN, written a generation prior. And no doubt he learned his ideas from G.K. Chesterton in his ORTHODOXY, who wrote a generation prior again, and first diagnosed the error involved in Freethinkers (as they were called then) doubting one’s own ability to think.

Let us examine each one in order.

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