The Truth is Subtle

What’s wrong with people? Why do we hear so many stories of evil, immorality, and corruption in the news and so few stories of goodness and integrity? Part of the reason is the bias the media has for bad stories because they are generally more controversial, sensational, and newsworthy than good stories. But I don’t think that’s the whole story – surely there must be more to it than that.

Why am I ranting on about my evil fellow humans again? Because of several stories I read in the news recently: three about bad behaviour and one about good. These are the stories…

First the most evil. Islamists in southern Somalia have stoned a man to death for adultery but spared his pregnant girlfriend, at least until after she gives birth. Isn’t that nice of them? They kill two people for doing nothing which affects others in any meaningful way but at least they spare the innocent unborn child. I know that this represents the extreme of Muslim belief but I still blame the religion in general for this abhorrent behaviour.

A point which has been made against religion in general is that the moderate members in some ways provide tacit support for extremists. In other words, moderate Muslims are OK so we should be tolerant of Islam in general which allows extremist to thrive. The same applies to other beliefs of course – this example involves Islam but it could also be Christianity (although I think Christianity is a far more benign belief system at this point in its history, that hasn’t always been the case).

I’m not sure I totally believe this idea though. It should be possible for moderates to be accepted but for extremists to be rejected but I’m not sure that always happens. I would personally prefer beliefs (like religions) which often lead to extremism to disappear completely but I guess that’s not going to happen.

The next 2 stories are a bit less serious. They involve more incompetence and lack of integrity for New Zealand politicians. Rodney Hide’s credibility continues to plummet as further news of him wasting money is revealed. And now another government party is involved with Maori Party MP Hone Harawira having a holiday at the taxpayers expense. And it gets worse: a rather unfortunate email reveals his crazy extremist beliefs. I wonder how many other members of the Maori Party believe these sorts of things (that will probably be the subject of a future blog entry).

Finally a good story. And just to show that things are always more complicated than you think, its a story about the good side of religion. A New Zealand pastor, Murray Smith, is giving up his $1 million home to help raise funds for his church and build a community center for the town. I’m not sure if there is more to this story that I don’t know about but in this case I’ll assume the best and say this is the sort of thing that makes me more hesitant to suggest eliminating religion (like I did above).

I should say though that I think the negatives of irrational belief systems, like religion, do outweigh the positives but I would be prepared to reconsider this if the evidence was sufficiently persuasive. The critical point is that looking at only the good or only the bad in any situation isn’t enough. The truth is always more subtle than that.

Question of Suffering

I use a program called EverNote to store interesting articles I see in printed sources. It allows me to take a photo of the item using my iPhone and store it on a server for later reference either from the phone or on my Mac. I was scanning through this material today looking for a news article to blog about and found one concerning a pastor’s response to the classic problem of evil, which he phrased as “the question of suffering”.

Basically the problem of evil goes something like this: if god is good, omniscient and omnipotent (or even if he isn’t but has near omnipotence) why is there so much evil in the world, why do bad things happen to good people, and why do the promises of help from god never eventuate?

I get various responses from Christians who I confront with this problem. Some say that God is doing good things but we can’t expect to have no bad things or we wouldn’t understand what good is. Some say the bad things are sent by God for some mysterious purpose which we don’t understand. Some say that God isn’t good and we should believe in him and obey him because of his power. And some say there is an answer but we don’t know what it is (or that they are thinking about it and will get back to me with the answer).

In the article the author claimed “The question of suffering always emerges in debates about religion. It is possibly the major reason many reject religion, or a God of any kind.” I don’t necessarily agree. Its an interesting question but not one that many atheists I know take too seriously because goodness is so subjective and, depending on how you read the Bible, whether God is good, bad or neutral is very much open to interpretation. Most atheists I know (including myself) don’t believe in a god simply because there is no evidence he exists.

Many people see the Holocaust as the ultimate act of evil (and I think that’s possibly true) so the author talks about two reactions of survivors: one who wanted to sue God for negligence for letting it happen, and another who seemed to become even more dedicated and convinced of God’s love. I presume the person who wanted to sue god was doing it as a rhetorical point and in fact didn’t really think there was a god (who would try to sue a god if he really thought one existed).

If people are determined to believe God exists and loves them they will use ridiculous events to support that idea. If someone survives a bad event (like a tsunami, plane crash, or war) they will thank God. But what about all the people who did die or suffer because of that event? Surely God is also responsible for them. On balance I don’t think they should be thanking God at all. If there was any reason to think he did exist I think I would be more likely to despise him than love him!

Next the author resorts to the tired old idea that we need God to define good, morality, etc. He says “If life is just random there is no point in complaining because who are we complaining to?” and “In a godless universe the ethics behind [Nazi concentration camps] are irrelevant.” I’m afraid I disagree again. Morality doesn’t require God. Morality can just as easily be seen as a set of basic social rules that all reasonable humans agree to follow. So if an evil regime arises, such as the Nazis, then we should complain to them and the people who allowed them to exist, not an imaginary god.

Finally we get a fairly standard claim that what Christianity supposedly offers is actually real. He says “Christianity claims that God, through Jesus, is making all things new, will bring justice and healing, and holds out an offer for people to share in it. [Coming through hardship a believer could say] God’s love is deeper still. Maybe that is something worth looking into?” Sure, that is worth looking into. Many people have looked into it, found it was a load of nonsense, and rejected it. Its only the people who have accepted it without “looking into it” who are convinced its true.

So I’m afraid there is no convincing answer here to the problem of evil. At least not for the believer. Atheists have no trouble explaining it at all because in a neutral universe we would expect both good and bad things to happen about the same to good and bad people. We would expect good and bad to be defined in terms of social rules which allow people to live together. And we would expect events to proceed with no sign that a god is involved. That’s exactly what we do see. So the problem of evil is not a problem at all as long as you take the pastor’s advice and “look into it”.

Nonconformity

Several recent items have lead me to a great epiphany regarding modern society. One was when I completed reading the book, iWoz, which is the autobiography of Steve Wozniak, one of Apple’s founders and one of the most important figures in the computer revolution of the late 70s. The other was an interview with well-known New Zealand musician, Dave Dobbyn.

The common theme of these, and other sources, was that nothing great ever gets done by committee, or in an over-managed environment, or in an environment controlled by people with an inflexible mindset. Many people will say “so what, that’s obvious”. But if its so obvious why do the vast majority of people work in that sort of environment? Why do potentially creative and original people have their creativity stifled by a system which encourages unthinking conformity?

So either its not obvious to many people, or they don’t care, or I’m wrong. Thinking back to the great steps forward for modern society it does seem that most of them were made by individuals working outside the existing constraints of society. For example, Steve Wozniak was certainly in this category when her created the Apple I and Apple II computers.

And scientific geniuses like Einstein, Newton and Darwin made their great breakthroughs by working alone. Sure, their work was partly based on what had already been done by others but can you imagine relativity or evolution being discovered by a committee? OK, we are going to vote on time dilation. Who here thinks time slows down to ensure the speed of light stays constant? Yes, I can imagine the outcome of that vote!

Einstein made a lot of his discoveries in his spare time when he was working at the patent office. So its precisely because he had a lot of spare time to “waste” that one of the most important theories of all time was discovered.

Its probably not quite as simple as I have described here. Many projects do require a large organisation to make them practical and some discoveries do come from large organisations. For example, a lot of the ideas we now have in modern computers (the mouse, ethernet, laser printers) came from Xerox PARC, but it operated in an unusually open and unmanaged way where the researchers had an unprecedented amount of freedom to pursue their own ideas.

So the PARC model is the sort of thing that more organisations should pursue. Just from my observations of the way people work around various organisations I am involved with I can see a huge amount of wasted talent because people are forced into ridiculously bureaucratic systems which waste their time and skills.

One of the reasons this lack of flexibility is so common is that certain people want more “accountability” from staff, especially in public organisations. But if you asked the taxpayer whether they really want highly skilled and moderately well paid experts doing piles of paper work to make their departments more “accountable” instead of doing the work they were actually employed for, I think they would suggest accountability isn’t all its cracked up to be!

I agree that tighter controls do mean that some people who would otherwise do as little as possible are forced into doing some work but the price we pay for that: inflexibility and bureaucracy, just isn’t worth it!

Inspirational Leaders

In my experience most people aren’t very impressed with their leaders. Actually, in New Zealand we have a rather exceptional situation at the moment because our prime minister, John Key, is quite well liked. I’m not really sure why this is, it must be more because of his “nice, normal guy” image rather than what he’s doing because I see no reason to get too inspired by his government’s performance so far. Anyway, apart from the PM I don’t see a lot of respect for other leaders.

The biggest problem, I think, is that so many of them indulge in a lot of “do as I say, not as I do” type of behaviour. In other words they are hypocritical and not very moral.

A classic example of hypocrisy occurred here recently when self-styled “perk buster” Rodney Hide was caught ripping off the taxpayer as badly as any of the people he’s had the temerity to criticise in the past. He took his girlfriend on an expensive overseas trip to investigate issues related to his area of responsibility (which ironically includes more efficient use of public funds by local authorities). So the taxpayer spent $25,000 on a single trip for her and more for him.

If he was genuinely interested in more reasonable use of taxpayer funds he would try to find a cheaper way to gather that information. Electronic communications provide very reasonable alternatives to actual travel now, and if he was going he should pay for taking his friends and family himself. Avoiding travel would also reduce his carbon footprint, but I guess since he is basically a global warming denier that wouldn’t be a major consideration for him.

So what little respect I had for Hide in the past (and I did have some even though his political position is totally unacceptable to me) has gone. Its worse for him than the other politicians recently discovered misusing public funds such as the minister of finance. They all showed poor judgement and lack of morals but in Hide’s case it was far worse because of the way he criticised others for doing the same sort of thing. One good thing could come from this though: voters might remember this and we might finally see the end of him and his odious party in New Zealand politics.

But this issue applies to leaders of private companies and public organisations as much as political leaders. The global economic disaster caused a lot of resentment and lack of respect for the top echelons of banking and finance managers because they incompetently mismanaged the economy, caused a lot of people to suffer, yet still extracted huge bonuses and other payments for their hopeless performance. Yet these are the same people saying they can’t afford better pay for employees unless they show improved productivity or other forms of improved performance.

Recently senior management of universities here accepted huge salary increases at the same time as they warned about lack of funding for increases for the people who actually do the work. And the same thing has happened in the private sector where the top management not only provided poor service to their customers but also poor returns to the shareholders yet still accepted obscene salaries and bonuses.

Many of our leaders bemoan the fact that there is an “us and them” mentality amongst many people who work for large organisations, but should they really be surprised? I don’t think so because they can’t expect to get respect if they don’t treat their employees with respect, lead by example, and show a higher level of morality than they do now.

Doubting MMP

In the past I have always been a supporter of MMP but now I’m beginning to wonder whether it really is the best political system. Actually, no one should ever say its the best political system and the real question is whether its better than the major alternative: first past the post (FPP). For those of you who don’t live in New Zealand (or another country with a proportional system) let me explain: the old system we had, FPP, meant members of parliament were voted in when they got the highest vote in their electorate. With MMP we maintain that system but also allocate extra MPs by using the percentage vote for parties. So if a party got 10% of the vote but none of its members got a majority in an electorate extra MPs would be allocated to take their representation to 10%.

There’s an obvious advantage here because it means that voters get the representation they voted for. In FPP it would be common for a party to get over half the number of MPs (so they could form the government) even though they got a lot less than half the vote. There were also cases where a smaller party got a significant percentage of the vote but no representation in government or even the opposition.

There will be a referendum on the subject at the next general election in 2011 but a survey published today already shows 49% of respondents want to dump it, only 35.8% would keep it, and 15.2% don’t know. By the time various pressure groups start their propaganda campaigns before the referendum I would be surprised if a much higher variety don’t want to have MMP dumped.

As I said above I have been a supporter of MMP in the past because it is more representative and I think it moderates the powers of the big parties, but I am more doubtful about the whole process now. I really don’t like the current government’s minority partners: the Maori Party and Act. I inherently dislike a party which is based on racial politics because its always going to divide the country and work for special privileges for one group based on race. And Act is almost as bad except they want the already privileged business elite to have even more privileges than they already have now.

So I think my previous thought that MMP moderates the power of the major parties is true but that doesn’t mean we get more moderate politics. So far National has managed to control the crazies from Act but can that really last? In many ways we would all be better off if a fairly moderate center-right party like National did govern on its own. Of course there’s no guarantee that they won’t pursue an ideological campaign of privatisation and other right-oriented actions later in their term in government.

In New Zealand I don’t actually see any small parties which are very attractive any longer. The Maori party is racist, Act are a bunch of rabid ideologs, the Greens have lost all of their good people, Jim Anderton is just one person, United Future is too conservative and religious, New Zealand First has an unstable leader. So that really leaves the two major parties. Labour are in disarray and will take a while to rebuild so maybe National really are the best choice to govern alone.

One thing’s for sure, the decision about whether we keep MMP or dump it is unlikely to have much to do with what’s the best system for the majority of New Zealanders. Its more likely to be about which pressure groups have the biggest budget and who can push their propaganda through the media most effectively. If that’s the case then MMP is practically gone already.

Church or Cult?

The question of whether a religious organisation is a church or a cult often arises. In fact I heard two news items this morning where this was an issue. The first was regarding a New Zealand fundamentalist church called the Destiny Church and the second was regarding Scientology in France. To me the difference between the two isn’t that great because all churches have elements of cults and vice versa, so the dividing line is very much a matter of subjective opinion.

According to the dictionary a church is “a particular Christian organization, typically one with its own clergy, buildings, and distinctive doctrines” and “the hierarchy of clergy of such an organization”. I’m a bit surprised that this definition specifies a church must be Christian so I’m going to ignore that aspect of the definition (that may seem arbitrary but only real Christian bigots would say a church has to be Christian surely).

The same dictionary (the New Oxford American) defines a cult as “a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object” or “a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister”. So a cult either venerates a particular object or figure (I’m sure most people would say religions do this as well) or are relatively small and considered strange or sinister.

Some people (myself included) consider a lot of Christian beliefs strange and sinister so that isn’t necessarily a good indicator of a cult. That leaves the size of the organisation as a significant factor which means all current religions were cults when they started and were relatively small.

So it seems to me that, at the very least, the line between the two is blurred and in many ways a church is just a big, established cult and a cult is a church which isn’t well accepted or very big yet. Those don’t seem like very important distinctions to me.

This should in no way be construed as meaning I support the existence of the Destiny Church or Scientology. I think in general these are cults (in the sense most people use the word) and need to be controlled although I certainly wouldn’t make them illegal because people should have the choice to believe stupid and ridiculous things if they really want to.

The leader of Destiny is either a nutter who is totally out of touch with reality or a very clever, scheming politician intent on using religion for his own personal gain and power. I’m honestly not sure which he is but either way its concerning. A good example of his paranoia or duplicity is a speech at a recent meeting where he likened himself to King David and said: “Who is going to touch my people? Who is going to steer your children? Who is going to try and put a disease upon you if I already pre-programmed, pre-designed it? God. I am God, I am not just some man or spirit, I am god.”

He is God? Really? When people start indulging in this sort of rhetoric, or worst still, have delusions of grandeur to this extent, its time to be worried!

At the same meeting he told the men (not the women, which sounds like classic Christian misogyny) to swear an oath which included: “Always speak of Bishop Brian in a favourable and positive light. Protect him from outsiders who try and get in his face. Tactfully move in on people who do this. When Bishop Tamaki is speaking all others stop. Never openly disagree with Bishop Tamaki in front of others. If seated with Bishop Tamaki at a table wait until he has started eating before you do. In a sign of love and respect for Bishop Tamaki surprise him with gifts.”

So this really shows the requirement of unthinking support for a leader which is clearly cult-like, but is it that much different from the requirement of Catholics to respect the Pope and not question his decisions? I don’t think so, although there are so many Catholics that the Church can’t monitor them all for compliance where the meeting mentioned above only included 700 people.

In just 15 years (from 1991 to 2006) the percentage of New Zealanders identifying themselves as Christian has dropped from 75 to 55 while those saying they have no religion has gone from just over 20% to almost 40% (Wikipedia: Religion in New Zealand). By the time the next census is held in 2011 I would expect that non-believers will be the close to being the biggest group in New Zealand.

This is clearly what extremists like Tamaki fear. In 2003 he predicted that “we will be ruling the Nation” in 5 years. The church’s main attempt at political power was a pathetic failure when the Destiny New Zealand political party gained just 0.6% of the total vote. Why even that number of people would vote for a bunch or corrupt nutters I cannot imagine!

As religion gradually disappears from western society we should expect churches to become more desperate to survive. Maybe that’s all we are seeing with the latest chicanery from Destiny.

Jesus and Stalin

Recently I have been commenting on how I don’t totally discount the idea of conspiracies even though I tend to be very skeptical when they are used to justify a political position such as global warming denial. I mentioned a couple of conspiracies I currently subscribe to, including the religious conspiracy which results in the acceptance of the historicity of Jesus as a fact, but today I have found another, more current one which is a classic!

There is a political/religious organisation in the US called “the Family”. Its a conservative, fundamentalist Christian organisation dedicated to using religious ideas to advance a conservative political agenda. There are many very powerful American political figures involved and it has a lot of influence with both parties, although its more strongly aligned to the Republicans, of course.

So these shadowy figures are working in the background influencing American (and international) politics in various nefarious ways. It really does sound like a classic conspiracy theory, doesn’t it? Many conspiracy theories posit the existence of organisations like this who are the real power behind the world’s governments or who even exist at a level above the recognised centers of power. I’m not saying this organisation is quite that powerful but I am suggesting they do have a lot of influence. If that’s a conspiracy theory then I guess I’m a conspiracy theorist!

So what is known about this organisation? I listened to an interview on the subject by an author, Jeff Sharlet, who has recently researched and written a book on the subject and listening to him should lead anyone to a lot of genuine concern. Of course, as I said in my previous blog entry, I think it is important to independently verify the existence and some of the details about this organisation and indeed it all seems true.

The mission statement includes the following: To develop and maintain an informal association of people banded together, to go out as “ambassadors of reconciliation,” modeling the principles of Jesus, based on loving God and loving others. To work with the leaders of other nations, and as their hearts are touched, the poor, the oppressed, the widows and the youth of their country will be impacted in a positive manner. It is said that youth groups will be developed under the thoughts of Jesus, including loving others as you want to be loved.

But according to a lot of the the evidence I’ve seen they don’t really live up to these lofty ideals. Perhaps the most concerning aspect of their operation is secrecy. They make no attempt to be open and actually adopt secrecy as a fundamental part of how they operate. They make no apology for this and (ironically) don’t try to hide secrecy as a major part of how they work. If there morals are so high and purpose so pure I really have to wonder why secrecy is important.

And they have been connected to some very disturbing activities, especially by aiding dictatorial and murderous regimes in countries like Somalia and Indonesia. If these accusations are true – and they certainly seem to be – then they have indirect responsibility for the deaths of millions of innocent people. And why have they connected with these murderers? So that they can use political influence to further their extreme right wing objectives.

Its a classic example of how religions can be warped to mean anything at all. The beliefs of the family are completely contrary to what most people would consider the classic Christian message. It would almost be worth it if Christianity really was true because what these people do has nothing to do with the Christian message and I’m sure God would find a particularly nasty corner of Hell for these totally evil people when they die!

The Family’s current leader, Doug Coe, has encouraged commitment to the organisation and to Jesus Christ by comparing it to the blind devotion of followers of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Chairman Mao, and Pol Pot. That seems like a very strange selection of people because in hindsight they didn’t really deserve the following they had. I’m not sure what that really tells us about the Family’s leadership. Maybe they are so confident in their power that they think they can make outrageous statements like that without fear of condemnation. Maybe they genuinely admire dictatorial regimes, because that’s the way most religions work. Or maybe they are just so out on the fringe that they have no handle on reality at all. I suspect its a little bit of all of those.

One aspect of the regimes I listed above is that they all ended relatively quickly because they just weren’t viable as a long term political solution. Of course Christianity has done a lot better than that but I think the signs of its imminent demise are there. Already it has become a spent force in Europe and that’s gradually happening in the US as well. Its really only in third world countries where the naive inhabitants can be easily exploited that religion is growing. So, like Hitler, Stalin, Chairman Mao, and Pol Pot, Jesus doesn’t really seem to have much of a future. Its rather ironic really!

My Philosophy

Everyone has philosophical perspectives or a worldview whether they explicitly understand that or not. Many people seem so apathetic that its hard to label them with a worldview at all but maybe apathy itself could be considered as one. So what I plan to do here is explore my philosophy or worldview (which I don’t necessarily know myself at this point but hope to discover as this blog entry proceeds).

First I am a rationalist. According to Wikipedia rationalism is “any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification”, or a method or a theory “in which the criterion of the truth is not sensory but intellectual and deductive”. Many people who aren’t rational will claim to be (I’ve heard people claim that belief in creationism is rational) so it really requires an objective, rational (getting a bit circular there) assessment to know for sure.

I’m also an empiricist, specifically a scientific empiricist. From Wikipedia again we get this definition: empiricism emphasizes those aspects of scientific knowledge that are closely related to evidence, especially as discovered in experiments. It is a fundamental part of the scientific method that all hypotheses and theories must be tested against observations of the natural world, rather than resting solely on a priori reasoning, intuition, or revelation. This seems to partly contradict rationalism but let’s not go there!

So I don’t rate ideas very highly unless there is objective evidence they are true. Some people claim I miss out on some subtle aspects of reality this way but I counter that by saying if a phenomenon is so subtle it has no measurable effect on the real universe then it actually don’t exist in any real sense.

The world views above naturally lead to atheism but that is a label I avoid because its more about what I’m not than what I am. I currently see no reason to think there is a god but so what? I am prepared to change that idea if the evidence changes and I also see no evidence for the tooth fairy existing. Should I also be labelled an afairiest?

I am also a political liberal. Liberalism, according to the dictionary is being “open to new behavior or opinions and willing to discard traditional values” or “favoring maximum individual liberty in political and social reform”. I don’t know how useful that definition is because many conservatives and libertarians would also say they support those views but I oppose a lot of what they believe.

I heard an interesting anecdote about liberals in a recent podcast. A radio producer was being challenged about why he used so many conservatives as talkback hosts. The explanation was that conservatives are better for the job because they have more fixed views and are more likely to cause controversy because of that. By contrast liberals make an effort to consider all sides of the story so they are more likely to have at least partial agreement with others and reduce the conflict and therefore the entertainment value of the program. Of course that higher entertainment value comes at the expense of fairness and accuracy!

Maybe most importantly I am a skeptic. That word has several possible nuances in its meaning. I don’t mean the philosophical skepticism which denies the possibility of all knowledge or the popular meaning of someone who doubts the validity of everything, what I really mean is thinking about the validity of new information or ideas instead of just accepting them. For example I never believe anything I see in the media until I have a chance to verify it on the internet or another independent source.

That doesn’t mean I ignore everything in the media. If the sports news reports that a sports team won a game I accept that because its easy to validate and unlikely to be controversial. If the media reports a UFO was sited I will definitely want to do a bit of research to find out what other perspectives are available on the story, and in every case so far there has been another perspective which inevitably involves a prosaic explanation. But that might not always be the case which is why I research the story instead of just discarding it.

The difficulty with skepticism is not so use it as an excuse for disbelief. A friend I recently debated global warming with (he’s a denier) refused to answer the question I asked which was “why did a recent study show 97% of climate experts accept global warming is real and caused by human activity”. He eventually dispensed with this inconvenient fact by saying “I’m deeply suspicious of all statistics that quote wide numbers of opinions as being in concert to the tune of 97%. It’s truly most unlikely”.

That’s not skepticism, its just pure, blind stupidity. I would be prepared to put a small bet on this: I he received a survey indicating 97% of experts supported something he believed in he would suddenly find that statistic quite persuasive!

So skepticism is great but it must be used fairly and evenly. None of the climate change “skeptics” I have met ever qualify as true skeptics, for example, because they are far too selective about how they apply their skepticism. Unless you are fully skeptical (including poorly supported scientific findings) you really shouldn’t use the tag “skeptic”. I use “denier” in this case instead. They love that!

Which brings me to my last label. I’m sarcastic and a bit of a smart-ass! Yes, this isn’t a formal worldview but I enjoy using humour to make a point and sarcasm to highlight the inconsistencies in other people’s opinions. Unfortunately that sometimes means I aren’t quite as objective, respectful, or careful as I should be but, no one’s perfect and you’ve got to have a bit of fun some times!

Am I Wrong?

One of the reasons I write blog entries and debate people on the internet is so that I can get a reality check on my own beliefs. I don’t like using the word “beliefs” because it seems to put me in the same category as believers such as religious people, spiritual people, conspiracy believers and people with strong political views, but I hope that my form of belief isn’t really the same as that.

Of course no one is perfect and there are sure to be some areas where I have unreasonable biases, but I hope that these are considerably more reasoned than most. Of course, how would I know? Many people genuinely think they are right when they are obviously wrong so I could easily be in that category too.

There are two areas where I think I might be unreasonably biased. First, I think Christianity is based on a huge conspiracy, the greatest the world has ever seen. Considering I criticise other people for following conspiracy theories that is a bit worrying. The other area is in politics where I have an obvious left bias. I don’t take this to any sort of extreme and I think I’m very pragmatic but again, everyone sees their own views that way, even when (in my view) they actually tend to the political far right.

So what about this great “Jesus conspiracy” – what’s all that about? Well I think Jesus never existed which is quite an extreme view because even atheists and other skeptics usually think the Jesus stories are based on some sort of real historical figure. So making Jesus both a real person and a religious figurehead obviously required a huge conspiracy to be created first.

I am prepared to be proven wrong on this and it wouldn’t make a lot of difference to my overall worldview because even if Jesus did exist he was clearly totally different from the character in the BIble. The reason I doubt his existence is that there is just no credible evidence that he existed outside of the BIble and the Bible stories are contradictory and inconsistent as well as being written many years after the alleged events by people who weren’t even there. Believing the Bible is a total joke and no other book based on such obviously flimsy evidence would be taken seriously.

And despite all the challenges I have put out, no one has been able to show me a single record of Jesus’ life written by an actual witness at the time. Other events were recorded in detail so why not those which involved Jesus and were allegedly so miraculous?

So I really think I have good reason to believe the Jesus conspiracy really exists but the difference between me and other conspiracy believers is that I am totally relaxed about being proven wrong. I just want to know the facts. in fact, I think its fairly likely that a historical figure might exist that loosely matches the Biblical Jesus character but I would be totally astounded if there was any evidence of the miracles!

So what about my left political bias? I think that is more relative than absolute. I am certainly to the left of many of the people I debate with – after all that’s why I debate them in the first place – but I don’t think I’m far left in any real, absolute sense.

These are some of my key political beliefs (there’s that word again): I want tight controls over business and have little faith in laissez-faire economics, I think its everyone’s social duty to ensure a decent standard of living for all people even if that involves paying tax, I don’t think long prison sentences or the death penalty is an effective deterrent in most cases, I don’t think the private sector can be relied on to be genuinely innovative in all areas, I don’t think foreign investment and privatisation is the best option in most cases.

Note that I don’t want to do away with private enterprise, I just want to control and moderate it. And I don’t want more leniency in criminal prosecution in every case, just the recognition that it is counter-productive in most instances. And I’m not totally against foreign investment, I just think that key assets are better controlled by people more closely connected with where they have to operate.

Does any of that really sound like extreme left politics? It doesn’t to me but if it is extreme left then I say bring it on! I really don’t care about labels of left, right or center. I do care about what works according to evidence and history, not ideology as it is usually practiced by conservatives and libertarians, as well as extreme liberals and socialists.

Looking back through my blog I can see a few occasions where I have indulged in a bit of rhetoric or hyperbole to make a point, or maybe when I was a bit upset about a particularly egregious incident involving my political or religious opponents. But overall I think I have been quite sensible and offered compromise solutions which are quite easily justified.

So in answer to the question “am I wrong” I would say, I really don’t know. But if I am wrong I still think I am right in having the opinions I do, especially since I am prepared to change them if the evidence is sufficiently compelling.

Global Conspiracy

Some people probably think I’m terribly naive to reject the idea of global conspiracies. After all, if big business, governments, pressure groups, or terrorist organisations have indulged in a conspiracy one of their primary objectives would be to keep it secret. People like me refusing to believe in the conspiracy are just playing into their hands aren’t they?

The problem is that its too easy to stray into the area of paranoia. If you believe in a conspiracy then secrecy is usually a major aspect of it. If evidence keeps appearing to show the conspiracy isn’t true couldn’t that be construed as evidence that the conspirators are successful in keeping their activities secret?

No doubt you will have detected the flaw in this logic. The more evidence against the conspiracy the more believers want to believe it because subterfuge is an inherent characteristic of the conspiracy. The problem then becomes: what could be used as evidence against the conspiracy? If more evidence for it supports it and lack of evidence or evidence against it supports it then it can never be denied. If that isn’t paranoia then at least its a terrible application of logic.

The reason I have talked about conspiracies here is because its usually the only way people who believe in theories which contradict the mainstream can justify their beliefs. Specifically, it is often used by global warming deniers to support their belief that global warming isn’t happening because almost all experts, scientists, and governments do take it seriously. Of course the same criticism applies to believers in 9/11 conspiracies, creationism, and UFO visits.

I have recently been debating global warming with a friend and I have asked him to explain why the majority of experts believe that anthropogenic global climate change is real. He has so far refused to answer the question because he knows that the only explanation is a global conspiracy and relying on that does significantly weaken his argument.

But is there really a consensus? Well yes, there is actually. I admit that it is possible to carefully select statements which seem to counter the idea but looking at the big picture its obvious that practically everyone who has a credible opinion agrees that global warming is real. Surely they can’t be all wrong so that just leaves deliberate deception on a huge scale: in other words a conspiracy.

Here’s a statement from Wikipedia regarding the consensus: A survey published in 2009 by Peter Doran and Maggie Zimmerman of Earth and Environmental Sciences, University of Illinois at Chicago of 3146 Earth Scientists found that 97% of active climatologists agree that human activity is causing global warming. A summary from the survey states that: “It seems that the debate on the authenticity of global warming and the role played by human activity is largely nonexistent among those who understand the nuances and scientific basis of long-term climate processes.”

To be a global warming denier you must believe in a global conspiracy because the idea that all those experts could be just wrong is ridiculous. But most conspiracies are also ridiculous. No wonder the deniers don’t want to answer this question!