Godless Cowards? Nonsense!

Sorry if this is politically incorrect or Un-American to point out; but I am tired to no end of politicians (and others) constantly referring to 9-11 terrorists as "Godless Cowards".  This assertion is not just false (and  rather obviously so), it's offensive.  Let me explain my point.

But first, a disclaimer but should not be necessary but may well be even so:  I think these guys did a terrible, abominable, horrible thing.  I have little sympathy for them or their moronic, testosterone fueled world view.   Their way of looking at the world is revolting to me.  Having said that...

Were they "Godless"?  Well, they committed suicide quite deliberately in order to please God.  And their last words word likely something like "God is great!".  The whole motivation appears to based on their interpretation of their duty as Muslims engages in holy war.  How is this Godless?  I can only only think of a couple of explanations for this assertion:  "Incorrect religion  = Godless" OR "Bad deeds = Godless".   I am not sure which one of these is more obviously wrong or offensive.  But I can admit that if you are so sure of your own religion that you are willing to call people of other faiths "Godless", then I think you are full of shit.  And I don't apologize for that. You are full of shit. By the way, feel free to call me Godless; because I am.  

But if your position is that because the deed itself caused great misery and seems to be evil and twisted that therefore the agents of it were Godless, I still don't get you.  Were the pilots who dropped nukes on Japan in 1945 Godless?  Were the numerous slave owners in the American Deep South Godless?  Were the Crusaders Godless?  Was the Great Inquisitor Godless?  Were the witch burners in Colonial Mass Godless? The Aztecs who sacrificed people Godless?   I would submit that asserting "Bad deeds = Godless"  presumes that God loving people never do bad things and/or that only atheists are capable of evil (which again seems to suggest that most religions are atheism in disguise?).  I find this offensive.  I and I am not sure I should even need to explain why it's offensive.

What about "cowards"?  I find this one even harder to comprehend.  They killed themselves for their cause, no?  This is not the same as someone not wanting to face the music for their crimes as thus killing themselves.  Their crime was completely intertwined with killing themselves.   And the evidence does not suggest that they were ashamed of their "crimes"; rather, they expected great rewards in heaven from God himself for their courageous deed. Let me ask this, which of these are cowards are which are courageous heroes?

• Kamikaze pilots
• An American Pilot who during the battle of Midway plunged his crippled plane down the smoke stack of a Jap ship
• The American soldier who stood his ground spraying the enemy with machine gun fire while his compatriots fled knowing we would certainly be killed (and was)
• Pakistani Muslims who attacked Mumbai knowing they would be killed
• The Japanese Soldiers who charged American positions in Iwo Jima  hopelessly outgunned and out manned (sure to die and did)
• Egyptian soldiers who followed orders and were drowned in the Red Sea chasing the Jews.
• Abortion doctor shot in hia kitchen in front of his children via high powered rifles.
• The Christian who pulled the trigger killing the abortion doctor.
• The Communist troops in Vietnam who held their positions (and died) knowing full well that the Americans would eventually blow them up with bombs from the air.
• SS troops who fought ferociously and died in a hopeless battle against the Russians in 1945.

Why?

I am not sure any of these people were cowards.  They had convictions and followed through on them at possibly great cost to themselves. Perhaps one could argue that "cowardice" relates to the ignobility of the cause?  That would be a new definition I think.  Put another way, I just don't get how anyone gets "coward" out of the 9/11 terrorists.  Are the people asserting this so insecure that they cannot admit that the enemy is brave too?

So, why is it offensive?   Because I think it presumes something like this:  If someone does something I really don't like, they must not have the correct (read my) religion and they are cowards (even though by any other measure they are not). Well, OK, congratulations on your Godhood. 

What to get into next?

Not sure where to go next, so many topics I can easily rant on.  So I am going to throw out a short list, and hope for some feedback.  But of course, it's my blog, so I may ignore your comments and post what I feel like writing about . Nevertheless, I want to know what my  readers think would be interesting (assuming anyone cares, but I'll assume that for my personal benefit).

So here it goes:

1) The efficacy of Prayer.

2) The 9/11 terrorists were bad guys.  Sure, but they were certainly not "Godless cowards". They were obviously neither Godless nor cowards in fact. So stop saying that they were.

3) Why I don't believe in Zeus ( nor Yahweh, Allah, Buddha, Vishnu, FSM, etc).


Which do you want to hear about?  


Side note:

I did have had a list of political topics.  But I think it's fair to say that my pet peeves politically have mostly to do with the silly (and very unhelpful) "good versus evil" world view of too many these days. Which in turn leads to hyperbole that is beyond nonsense (e.g. Obama is just like Stalin and Hitler combined).  I just don't have the energy right now.  Perhaps later.

Punishment

Today I would like to share my thoughts on the purpose of punishment. In particular, I have thought about over the years, I have concluded that my views are almost certainly a minority view.  I am interested in how other people think about the same topic.

What is the purpose of punishment?   I can come up with two compelling reasons that I do not think are controversial:

1)  To correct behavior
2)  To deter others

Some people argue that punishment has dubious value even for the purpose of correcting behavior (as in, there may be better ways),  but I think it would hard to maintain that it does not modify behavior.  After all, if reaching for a cookie gets your hand slapped, you won't reach cookies ( save when no one is looking perhaps).

The deter others also seems obvious and noncontroversial.  After all, I don't need to get my hand slapped if I have seen my friend's hand get slapped.

Is there another purpose?  I think most people believe there is. Let me take a quick shot sat it

3) Justice

I think the idea here is that there is some kind of cosmic score keeping and in the end, things need to be balanced.  If someone does wrong to others, they "need" to experience some kind of suffering in order to redress "the balance".  And if society cannot redress the balance, then God (or Karma, etc) will ultimately.

This is consistent with how our culture thinks about punishment and it is very much woven into our cultural view on crime and punishment.  The problem is, I just don't buy it.

Why not?  Well, I don't assume that just because something is woven into our culture, that it gets special privilege as to its merit.  There may be good reasons why something becomes a cultural norm, we should keep that in mind (the old ways often have more wisdom in them that isn't written on the package).  But simply doesn't mean cultural norms should never be questioned.

To help bring out the discussion, let me propose a thought experiment.  Let's just take a guy most agree deserved severe punishment.  Hitler (you can easily modify this for the rapist monster Castro).  Let's suppose you have a time machine (may or may not be shaped like a blue box) and you can transport right the moment before Hitler killed himself in 1945.  Furthermore, you have certain technology available that allows you the following options (but only these options):

a)  Let history play out  (God or Cosmic justice will punish his soul)

b) Save him and turn him over to Allies so that he can be put on trial and punished publicly for his crimes

c) Take him away, place his mind into the body of all 20 million of his victims and let him experience each and every death and suffering. Drop him off on planet Vulcan when done. (history written the same as a)

d) Endowing him with empathy and compassion so that he realizes the magnitudes of his crimes.  Then, erase his memory and drop him off on planet Vulcan (history written the same as a).

Which one appealed to you?   I think that c appeals to our gut instincts.   Likely many will think about it and decide on a, either not wanting to play God or being familiar with what typically happens in time travel Sci Fi.  I think b has little or no emotional appeal (am I wrong?).  What about d?  That would be my choice.  What?  What about justice?  To be honest, I really don't care.  I just don't see why further suffering accomplishes anything.  


I could go on on this topic, but I hoping to get some feedback.  What do you think?

Psychology and Science Denial Part 2

So, last time I dealt with the mechanisms behind Climate Change denial and psychology.  My main point was that people deny Climate Change primarily because of cognitive dissonance and because the threat lacks saliency (and immediacy I should have added).  I wonder sometimes whether we would have successfully reduced CFC emissions had the huge hole in the Ozone layer in the Antarctic been discovered much later.  That event brought saliency to the whole issue.  What will it take for APW?  Obviously not Katrina, Sandy, polar ice sheet reduction, the hottest decade in history, etc.     We Americans love our SUVs.

But let me switch gears a bit.  Instead of asking why people refuse to believe it when science tells them something they don't want to hear, I am going to ask, why do people believe complete nonsense?

I think the answer lies in how we come to the sense of knowing something is true.  In the book, "On Being Certain: Believing You are Right Even When You're Not", Robert Burton (a neurologist) proposes that the sense of "knowing" something is true is a sensation in the brain just as pleasure is.  He further proposes that we are unaware of why we "know" things are true, we just do.  This is because the mechanisms that bring this about are in the subconscious mind. So for example, if someone asks you how you "know" your name, you would be hard pressed to say why.  You might make up a story (my parents always called me that), but you don't really know how you know your name. But you do know it.  And you know it without a doubt.

Our subconscious brain a marvel of quick heuristic calculations that help us navigate an incredibly complex experience.  It instantly sorts out a wide variety of stimuli, and prioritizes which things need to attention of the conscious brain.  According to Burton, it also instantly tells us which of our stray thoughts are "real" and what we are "imagining".  That is, I can imagine a horse and picture one in front of me, but my brain automatically knows there is not a horse there.  Or someone can put a photo of a horse in front of me and same thing: I know it's not really a horse and my conscious brain didn't need to figure that out.

The bottom line is we effortlessly "know" some things are true (or not true).  And that sensation is powerful enough that we will almost always trust it more than our reasoning.  Put another way, we trust our gut over our head.











Let me add one more important ingredient.  Our subconscious brain is fast. It's fast because it uses easy heuristics to reach quick conclusions.  One of those short cuts could be characterized as "correlation equals causation".  So now take autism.  Autism manifest between age 6 months and 3 years.  Guess what else happens then?  Vaccinations.  Now, an upset parent will look for an explanation as to what went wrong.  The subconscious brain easily picks up on the correlation.  Many parents will say that the "know" it was the vaccination.  They have they "know it's true" sensations in their brains. 

Now, in a scientifically educated world, this is not so bad, because people will learn to rely on scientist to do things like peer reviewed, double blind experiments before drawing conclusions and setting public policy.  But what about a world where science itself has been under relentless undermining?  Like, say, the USA.  In this case, all theories are need only pass our gut feeling test to have merit. We are free to go with the ones our "gut" tells us to believe.   And our "gut" tells all sorts on nonsense.