Ontology of the Soul Part 2, Cont.

Identifying the Entity Called "Soul", Part 2, Continued

To repeat from Identifying the Soul, Part 2: There is clearly a difference between voluntary and involuntary volition. So we cannot say at the present point in this discussion that the soul did or did not animate the newborn of any species. Catholics, who believe human life is endowed at conception with a soul would say it does animate the newborn. The antithetic argument is that human volition begins with the first syllogism.

These antithetic arguments will be the basis for making the identification of the entity we call the soul. But it must be stated at the beginning that there is a school of thought that says what is self-evidential to the senses as the thing called the soul is no more than the physiological workings of the brain and body. This thinking does not deny that something is self-evidential to the senses; instead, it denies the metaphysical importance of that which is self-evidential, and uses language other than the word soul to identify what it admits is self-evidential.

As was stated in the first part of this discussion, ontology is a branch of metaphysics. "Zygote," "embryo," "fetus," "chimp," "bonobo", "consciousness" and "soul" are all metaphysical classifications, made by identifying characteristics, differences between them and similar entities, differences based on scientific descriptions where science has made them, but identities and differentiations of ontology represent metaphysical values. Why? Because ontology itself would not exist without metaphysics, and is a branch of it.

The Religious Identity of "Soul"

"The term 'mind' usually denotes this principle [called 'soul', by which we think, feel, and will, and by which our bodies are animated,] as the subject of our conscious states, while 'soul' denotes the source of our vegetative activities as well." Catholic Encyclopedia (CE)

Thereby volition--will--is either 1) a quality of the conscious mind; and/or 2) an entity not of the conscious mind. Objectively this is correct, because the body does have the ability to remain alive even while the mind is comatose.

By this definition, a person in a vegetative state of coma has a soul. Practically speaking, this "source of our vegetative activies" makes our stomachs digest food, causes our lungs to breathe, and our noses to sneeze. Should we call this "source" by the name soul?

One of the difficulties of nailing down a classification, either of genus or of species, is where to draw the line. What line of demarcation, either scientifically or metaphysically, is there between the volition of the conscious will, and the volition of the body apart from the conscious mind?

As an object of ontological identity, the CE says "our vital activities proceed from a principle capable of subsisting in itself, [and] is the thesis of the substantiality of the soul: that this principle is not itself composite, extended, corporeal, or essentially and intrinsically dependent on the body, [and] is the doctrine of spirituality. If there be a life after death, clearly the agent or subject of our vital activities must be capable of an existence separate from the body. The belief in an animating principle in some sense distinct from the body is an almost inevitable inference from the observed facts of life."

Ok, what does all that mean? It begins--and ends--with the "thesis of substantiality." The CE does not list "substantiality" as an entry, but of the thesis of "substance" it says this: "A genus supremum, cannot strictly be defined by an analysis into genus and specific difference; yet a survey of the universe at large will enable us to form without difficulty an accurate idea of substance."

So it gets back to taxonomy, i.e., genus and specie. Calling it a "genus supremum", followed by the explicit lack of specie and the anti-definition given means the soul is not definable in human terms, i.e., "genus and specific difference."

There is a reason for this. Onlologically the Catholic Church cannot allow itself to be pinned down on a definition, because it believes the soul to be "genus supremum," ergo, supernatural.

Oddly (or not, as you prefer,) the CE does not have a definition for supernatural. The only two "supernatural" entities in its pages are these:

"Supernatural Gift - Something conferred on nature that is above all the powers (vires) of created nature

"Supernatural Order - The ensemble of effects exceeding the powers of the created universe and gratuitously produced by God for the purpose of raising the rational creature above its native sphere to a God-like life and destiny"

This can only lead us to conclude that the most powerful and ancient Christian Church cannot define "genus supremum." As a matter of fact, that definition is another entry missing from its pages. The Church obviously prefers not to ontologically identify the entity soul, while at the same time describing its qualites as those which "animate" the human being. No wonder it defines the soul as a "principle."

Qualities described will necessarily lead one to an ontological ID of the entity that possess those qualities, unless the qualities are themselves not concretely identified. The definition given by the CE of soul is not concrete.

Tomorrow: The Secular Identity of the Entity Called "Soul"

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

Bigot Dobson Honored by Broadcast Museum

Bigoted, Lying James Dobson to be Honored

I once had a revealing conversation with an A-list news reporter, when I was trying to convince him to cover the scientific distortions of Focus on the Family's James Dobson. He declined to do so because he felt that Dobson lies so frequently that it wasn't news.

This lack of accountability has allowed Dobson, and others of his ilk, to portray themselves as spokespersons for morality, even though they are regularly engaged in glaring examples of moral turpitude. Occasionally, they are even honored for their sinister "success" and showered with undeserved adulation.
more at Wayne Besen - Daily Commentary

Truth Wins Out (TWO) launched a new website today, DumpDobson.com, that calls on the Museum of Broadcast Communications to reverse its decision to honor Focus on the Family’s James Dobson in its Radio Hall of Fame. Unless the museum withdraws its pledge to induct Dobson, TWO will join Equality Illinois and the Gay Liberation Network to protest the awards ceremony, Saturday, Nov. 8, (5:30 PM – 7:30 PM), at the Renaissance Chicago Hotel .

To fight back against this offensive decision, DumpDobson.com is asking fair-minded people to take four actions.

E-Mail Radio Hall of Fame CEO Bruce Dumont, brucedumont@museum.tv, and urge him to withdraw Dobson’s honor.

Sign our letter to the Radio Hall of Fame urging them to reverse their foolhardy decision to celebrate Dobson’s shameful and ignoble career.

If you live in the Chicago area, please sign up to participate in our protest.
Donate to Truth Wins Out or Donate to the Gay Liberation Network to help us fight back. http://www.truthwinsout.org/pressreleases/two-launches-dump-dobson/

GLAAD Joins Coalition To Dump Dobson From Radio Hall of Fame

Coalition Press Conference

Young Man to Radio Hall of Fame: Dobson Divided My Family

more http://www.dumpdobson.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®
mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

Naturalism Denies Free Will; Assumes "Locality" of Abstractions,cont.

Liberalism and "Spatial Locality" of Abstractions, cont.

go back to Liberalism and "Spatial Locality" of Abstractions

But my answer in the string was much shorter. Here it is in its entirety:

"QUOTE
'You don't *experience* any of those things as a conscious awareness of neurons firing in a specific location in your brain. The *thought* is conceptually distinct from the neurons just as the mind is conceptually distinct from the brain." by Dragon Lady

"The distinction Dragon Lady makes is the difference between Objectivism and scientific naturalism. The website Center for Naturalism states, 'More and more, biology and neuroscience show that the brain and body do everything that the soul was supposed to do. [ ] Your thoughts, experiences, feelings, decisions, and behavior are all things your brain and body does. [ ] Naturalism says we are completely physical, material creatures, a complex, highly organized collection of atoms, molecules, cells, neurons, muscles, bone, etc., produced by evolution.'

"The owner of the Center for Naturalism is Tom Clark, who is opposed to Ayn Rand and had debated her with myself via email, and with Tibor Machan and others on the web. [See "Round Four"]

"To further the statements made by Clark in my second paragraph above, in 'Round Five' he begins a sentence by saying, 'In a world in which all behavior is understood to be fully caused...' This is the kind of language that scientific naturalists use to indicate that behavior is caused by environment, biology and brain physiology, 'memes,' and anything but free will, which they they dismiss, not suprisingly, as a myth.

"Clark's 'advisors' who are named on his website are Susan Blackmore, Paul Bloom, Paul Broks, Daniel Dennett, Sheldon Drobny, Owen Flanagan, Ursula Goodenough, Joseph Hilb, Nicholas Humphrey, Brian Leiter, Thomas Metzinger, Tamler Sommers, and John Symons. Then he has another longer list of 'allies' and another list of 'contributors.' They are all of the same school in one way or another--they are anti-Objectivists, anti-capitalists, anti-free-will philosophers.

"Many of them have good contributions to make here and there, but overall they are subjectivists. But the overall similarity between them is that they maintain we are not 'self-made' creatures, that we are 'fully caused,' and they invent the most metaphysically horrid things like 'memes' to describe why we act the way we act.

"In other words, they 'spatially position' who and what we are in the firing of neruons and the resultant "reactions" we call emotions. Clark's sister website Naturalism.Org has all the technical ideas explained in great detail. Check it out. You won't like what you read." END QUOTE

Clark and his cohorts turn it all into biology and neurology. However, to be fair, Clark sometimes writes in the phrases of apologetics:

"Some might conclude from this [from scientific naturalism] that naturalism reduces human beings to mere mechanisms, mere automatons, but this doesn’t follow. What follows is that the physical universe has produced, in us, marvelously complex and adaptive organisms, with the capacity for self-reflection, wonder, suffering, and joy. Far from mechanizing humanity, naturalism re-enchants the physical world by showing how consciousness and choice don’t involve supernatural processes."

I don't believe him for a minute, and I don't think you should either. That is because his scientism also leads him to say things like this:

"Naturalism holds that everything we are and do is connected to the rest of the world and derived from conditions that precede us and surround us. [ ] Our bodies and minds are shaped in their entirety by conditions that precede us and surround us. [ ] Seeing that we are fully caused creatures - not self-caused - we can no longer take or assign ultimate credit or blame for what we do. [ ] ...the homeless person in front of us, the convict, or the addict, [have] been given their genetic and environmental lot in life. [ ] Instead of supposing people can simply will themselves to be otherwise... [ ] We don’t have free will...in our choices or decisions. [ ] People don't create themselves, so responsibility for their character and behavior isn't ultimately theirs, but is distributed over the many factors that created them." [italics added]

Need I go on? Clark speak from both sides of his mouth and hopes you, his readers, don't see all the contradictions, and the determinism (his word), and the subjectivity involved in everything he believes.

I would not be surprised to find some of Clark's "advisors" and "allies" and "contributors" on the list of Barak Obama's advisors. Some may even wind up in the White House or in other government agencies--seriously. His advisors are well respected authors and they say that same social slogans Obama says. Obama is well-read, erudite, a Constitutional scholar, lawer, and professor who, we all know by now, leans well to the left.

Clark's advisors are left-leaning in their own liberal/academic spheres. Obama has been quoted as saying many of the same things about jurisprudence that Clark's website says, things like: "This leads to an ethics of compassion and understanding, both toward ourselves and others. We see that there but for circumstances go I." [and] "Naturalism focuses our attention on what works, increasing self-efficacy and encouraging science-based, progressive social policies in areas such as criminal justice, social inequality, behavioral health, and the environment."

Be afraid, very afraid, because many policy wonks who think in these same terms are already in positions of power, and you can see, if you look far enough into the future, where this nation is headed, because we are already half way there.

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®
mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

Leiter's and Slate's Bankruptcy

Leiter Finds Free Market Ideas "Amusing"

Back Ayn Rand's Philosophy not "A Propos" to Leiter's Naturalism

Brian Leiter of Leiter Reports: A Philosophy Blog could not be expected to be a fan of Ayn Rand, because of his contribution to the determinism of scientific naturalism. So it is not surprising that he "finds amusing" http://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/2008/10/the-end-of-libe.html an article in "Slate" http://www.slate.com/id/2202489/ that describes libertarianism as "ideology [that] makes no sense," and says, "Utopians of the right, libertarians are just as convinced that their ideas have yet to be tried, and that they would work beautifully if we could only just have a do-over of human history."

The problem lies not only with the "Slate" article, but with Leiter's agreement with it that "The worst thing you can say about libertarians is that they are intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many of them absorbed from reading Ayn Rand novels in high school."*

It was Rand who wrote: "The moral justification of capitalism does not lie in the altruist claim that it represents the best way to achieve “the common good.” It is true that capitalism does—if that catch-phrase has any meaning—but this is merely a secondary consequence. The moral justification of capitalism lies in the fact that it is the only system consonant with man’s rational nature, that it protects man’s survival qua man, and that its ruling principle is: justice."
“What Is Capitalism?”; "Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal"; http://www.aynrandlexicon.com/lexicon/capitalism.html

And in defining "justice" as "the recognition of the fact that you cannot fake the character of men as you cannot fake the character of nature," Rand would be the first to point out that no justice was accomplished by the shameless, wasteful and reckless extravagance shown by so called "capitalists" who are backed by government funds and act like the immoral, dog-eat-dog money grubbers in "Atlas Shrugged," rather than like "Hank Reardon" or "Francisco D'Anconia," or even like philosophy professor "Hugh Akston" serving hamburgers in a diner.

Anyone who cannot see the difference between the "good businessmen" in AS, and the "bad businessmen" in Fannie, Freddie, and in the giant banks and investments firms has no business claiming Rand's "heroic view of capitalism makes it difficult for [her fans] to accept that markets can be irrational, misunderstand risk, and misallocate resources or that financial systems without vigorous government oversight and the capacity for pragmatic intervention constitute a recipe for disaster. [Her fans] are bankrupt, and this time, there will be no bailout."

Rand's fans, like myself, may have our head in the clouds hoping for the day when the world recognizes it defines the world irrationally; but at least we have our feet planted firmly on the ground, ready to run for "Galt's Gulch."

Will Leiter and the others like him see their own bankruptcy, then?

*A version of this article also appears in this week's issue of Newsweek.

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

Atheism is Godless and Naturalistic

Naturalism is Epistemically Godless, continued

The Thought System

About that table there is no belief “system.” No one has to go through the process of deciding on the merits of whether tables exist before making either statement of whether he/she believes a table exists in a particular room.

But about God that process of systematizing one's beliefs is inherent in the subject. It requires many more processes of logic—and acceptance or denial of religious faith—before one has a belief “system” about God. So the distinction about “believing no god exists,” versus “not believing a god exists” is more than a slip of the English language.

It would not be acceptable if a woman said she believes tables don't exist. We would question how she could come to such a belief.

It should not be presumed that when a person says he “believes there is no god,” that he means he is atheist. A belief that there is no god, taken literally, would really define the agnostic.

But for the atheist who by definition cannot have a belief about a deity, that slip of the tongue is only that: a slip of the tongue. If he has thought about this oddity in the English language, he will argue against you when you point out his “belief.”

Otherwise, he will agree, not having seen the error in the semantics.

If a theist says, "You say don't believe God exists, then you probably believe there is the possiblity He does exist, don't you?"

That is what the syntax would lead a theist to think, and technically he would not be wrong to think it; but semantically he knows the atheist means to say "there is no god."

Yet how many people (besides myself) are willing to state unequivocally that there is no god or gods? It may be this unwillingness to make such a definitive statement that puts most atheists closer to thinking like agnostics than like someone who is sure.

The Epistemic Semantics

There is a large distinction to be made in this semantic difference. You can choose to believe that something exists. On the other hand, you may have a total lack of belief in that same thing without making the attempt not to state "the thing does not exist."

But god exists as a concept, if not as a reified (empirical) yet supernatural being, for all persons in all cultures and in all languages. Therefore, the contrary of "god", i.e., the epistemic opposite to a theologically conclusive deity, is metaphysical naturalism. In that epistemic system there can be for the atheist nothing but a denial of the existence of anything of a supernatural origin.

A formalized epistemology is not a belief system, yet it may contain some beliefs where it finds no empirical or intellecual resistance to an idea such as a god, or where it actually allows for beliefs of faith to replace reason (where "faith" is taken to mean the negation of "reason."

In the book "Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy," Edward Craig writes: "The Medieval Church wrested the keys away from the pagan philosophers; making the fatal mistake of trying to reconcile faith and and reason, it ended up subordinating Scripture to reason. Now the keys are being claimed by science..."

"Naturalism holds that the universe requires no supernatural cause and government..." The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism's "Strong" Definition of Naturalism

Semantics vs. Perception and Conception

Such negation of reason is negation of existence when "existence" is defined as the content of a human consciousness. Certainly there is more to existence than what is known; but what is "known" is that many things in existence are not known and that a metaphysical valuation must be placed on what is possible within the unknown.

In a consistent epistemic system, nothing unknown could defy or deny the content of consciousness. Existence and one's consciousness are irreducible primaries. Outside of the axioms that "things exist" and that you are "conscious" of them.

Those "things that exist" are perceived, and one may conceptualize god, but one may not "perceive" god when the distinction is made between perception being empirically induced, and conceputalization being intellectually induced.

In the absence of a "revealed revelation" as a direct perception which most people will never have in their lives, they are left with the conceptualization of the existence of god.

And that is not a matter of semantics. It is a matter of consciousness of percepts vs. consciousness of concepts. The only means of perceiving god is to have a revealed revelation, and as Thomas Paine wrote, such a revelation is revelation only to the person who had it; no one else is committed to accepting it.

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

Laissez-faire and Individual Sovereignty cont.

Laissez-faire and Individual Sovereignty cont.

BACK to part One

Locke's ideal consists of a state built upon the natural sovereignty common to a people who can replace or overthrow its chosen form of government if it ceases to function toward the primary end of serving that natural sovereignty.

Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, and other political thinkers wrote little, if anything, on the sovereignty of the individual. It took the political thinkers of Colonial America to conceptualize that no citizen can give up certain rights, such as the right to be judge, jury and executioner, if he/she is not endowed at birth with all such rights one grants to the government. In other words the government, which has no sovereignty of its own except in relationship to other nations, cannot act in your name if its actions are not those which you yourself could do had you not given the state the right to act in your name.

Neither the States nor the nation is sovereign over you. This is why civil disobedience is often defensible.

You can't assign to the "common sovereignty" what you don't own as an individual.

What the critics also do not seem to realize, or choose to ignore, is that your individual sovereignty is guaranteed by the Tenth Amendment. It did not have to be in the form of an amendment. It could have been incorporated into the body of the Constitution, and perhaps it would have been a more secure safeguard of our sovereignty if it was in the body of the Constitution.

The Tenth Amendment states that the powers that don't belong to the federal government and are not prohibited to the States, are reserved to the States, "or to the people." But this is not a granting of rights which at its writing the government saw no need to retain. It is the written recognition of an existing fact: the rights which the people have not granted to the government are rights they retain.

The Founding Fathers always defined "the people" to be all individuals considered as a conceptual collective entity, but not as a thing in-itself that exists extant of the collective individuals that comprise it. In a situation where only two or three people may exist, such as on an island, it is foolish to talk of them as "the people." But in a nation of millions it is foolish to forget that those who disagree with a political decision remain a conceptual part of "the people"; and since they have rights which are sovereign (unalienable), democracy must never be allowed to deny individual, unalienable sovereignty.

"While ignoring the principles of individual liberty," said Rep. Ron Paul, in the House of Representatives in 2003, this nation was led into creating some serious errors Constitutional issues, in effect denying some liberties that had been reserved to individuals.

"The ideas of [pure] democracy, not the principles of [republican] liberty, were responsible for passage of the 16th Amendment. It imposed the income tax on the American people and helped to usher in the modern age of the welfare/warfare state," Paul said.

Laissez-faire is the economic state of man if no government bothered to tell him how to conduct his economic affairs. The First Amendment right to freedom of religion is the intellectual state of man where no government may tell him how to conduct his religious affairs.

Capitalism requires "a separation of state and economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of state and church," wrote Ayn Rand.
“The Objectivist Ethics”; The Virtue of Selfishness

Such a separation of state and economics would achieve the natural state of man to conduct his affairs without government holding sovereignty over the individual. Granting sovereignty to the government in this realm of economics was not something contemplated by the authors of the Constitution, but neither was the return of communism to the shores of America anything they comtemplated.

The Founders could not have forgotten this communist endeavor, because Governor Bradford wrote one of the most politically elegant arguments against it, after giving it two years to work.

"The funding for the Pilgrims to go to the New World was provided under a contract with London merchants who wanted an economic profit from the venture. Under that contract whatever they produced was to be put into a common warehouse, with each one getting one equal share. All the land, buildings and end product were communally owned. Half of the Pilgrims died during the first winter, including Branford's wife." http://www.creationworldview.org/articles_view.asp?id=18

Bradford wrote: "[Ending corn collectivism] had very good success, for it made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been by any means the Governor or any other could use, and saved him a great deal of trouble, and gave far better content. The women now went willingly into the field, and took their little ones with them to set corn; which before would allege weakness and inability; whom to have compelled would have been thought great tyranny and oppression." [italics added]http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/11/a_thanksgiving_.html

Capitalism without restraints is laissez-faire. Capitalism with restraints that deny the sovereignty of the owner of capital to apply his ownership rights is a "mixed economy." Laissez-faire is one of the conditions of the standards of "qua Man." ["search" this blog]

But laissez-faire does not deny that rational planning is necessary.

"During his years of teaching, Peter J. Boettke frequently used [Atlas Shrugged] as a teaching tool, comparing the economic ideas it taught with those in John Steinbeck's "Grapes of Wrath".
[Boettke wrote:] "Rand makes the very important point that the critique of socialism was never against rational planning per se. Rather the question was who was to do the planning and the scope and the scale of the planning proposed." Blame It On Ayn Rand

Individual sovereignty is the state of every man in nature, before he agrees to relinquish some of it "in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common Defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to [themselves and their] Posterity."

It is the state of man as he would rule himself, not as he would deny others what is natural. It is the state of economic man not bound by direct and populist democracy. It is capital ruled by the natural laws of capital.





mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com
http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

Pirates Seize Dirty Bomb

Hijacked Iranian Ship Was A Dirty Bomb Meant For Israel On Yom Kippur

On August 21st, 2008, the MV Iran Deyant, 44,458 dead weight bulk carrier was heading towards the Suez Canal. As it was passing the Horn of Africa, about 80 miles southeast of al-Makalla in Yemen, the ship was surrounded by speedboats filled with members of a gang of Somalian pirates who grab suitable commercial ships and hold them and their cargos and crews for ransom. The captain was defenseless against the 40 pirates armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenades blocking his passage. He had little choice other than to turn his ship over to them. What the pirates were not banking on, however, was that this was no ordinary ship.

The MV Iran Deyanat is owned and operated by the Islamic Republic of Iran Shipping Lines (IRISL) - a state-owned company run by the Iranian military that was sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury on September 10, shortly after the ship’s hijacking.

According to the U.S. Government, the company regularly falsifies shipping documents in order to hide the identity of end users, uses generic terms to describe shipments to avoid the attention of shipping authorities, and employs the use of cover entities to circumvent United Nations sanctions to facilitate weapons proliferation for the Iranian Ministry of Defense. The MV Iran Deyanat departed Nanjing, China, July 28, and, according to its manifest, planned to sail to Rotterdam, where it would offload 42,500 tons of iron ore and “industrial products” purchased by an unidentified “ German client”. The ship has a crew of 29 men, including a Pakistani captain, an Iranian engineer, 13 other Iranians, 3 Indians, 2 Filipinos, and 10 Eastern Europeans, stated to be Albanians.

The MV Iran Deyanat was brought to Eyl, a sleepy fishing village in northeastern Somalia, and was secured by a larger gang of pirates - 50 onboard and 50 onshore. The Somali pirates attempted to inspect the ship’s seven cargo containers but the containers were locked. The crew claimed that they did not have the “access codes” and could not open them. Pirates have stated they were unable to open the hold without causing extensive damage to the ship, and threatened to blow it up. The Iranian ship’s captain and the engineer were contacted by cell phone and demanded to disclose the actual nature of the mysterious “powdered cargo” but the captain and his officers were very evasive. Initially they said that the cargo contained “crude oil” but then claimed it contained “minerals.” Following this initial rebuff, the pirates broke open one of the containers and discovered it to be filled with packets of what they said was “a powdery fine sandy soil” …. Within a period of three days, those pirates who had boarded the ship and opened the cargo container with its gritty sand-like contents, all developed strange health complications, to include serious skin burns and loss of hair. And within two weeks, sixteen of the pirates subsequently died, either on the ship or on shore.

News about the illness and the toxic cargo quickly reached Garowe, seat of the government for the autonomous region of Puntland. Angered over the wave of piracy and suspicious about the Iranian ship, authorities dispatched a delegation led by Minister of Minerals and Oil Hassan Allore Osman to investigate the situation on September 4. and they witnessed some of the deaths due to exposure to ‘something on that ship.’

The Somali pirates initially set the ship’s ransom at $2 million and the Iranian government provided $200,000 to a local broker “to facilitate the exchange.” The $2 million dollar ransom agreement, which was supposedly secured on September 6th, never took place for reasons unknown. After September 10th, sanctions on IRISL were applied specifically because the company was said to engaged in illicit operations on behalf of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps.

Serious negotiations were broken off completely. Iranian authorities subsequently denied that it agreed to the price nor had paid any money to the pirates. Nevertheless, after sanctions were applied to IRISL on September 10, Osman says, the Iranians told the pirates that the deal was off. “They told the pirates that they could not come because of the presence of the U.S. Navy.” The region is patrolled by the multinational Combined Taskforce 150, which includes ships from the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet. Subsequently, it was disclosed that the U.S. government had offered to pay $7 million to the pirates to “receive entry permission and search the vessel.” Officials in the Pentagon and the Department of State have consistently refused to comment on the situation.

The exact nature of the cargo remains officially a mystery but officials in Puntland and Baidoa are convinced the ship was carrying weapons to Eritrea for Islamist insurgents. “We cannot inspect the cargo yet,” Osman said, “but we are sure that it is weapons.”

The US Navy (and the French and the Russians) have been hove to off the coast of Eyl, going anywhere once released, it will be seized once it gets to sea. The specific clauses that have been approved in both the UN and in Congress would allow the US Navy to seize the ship under the suspicion clause. The claims that there are weapons onboard, and the possibility there might be chemical weapons, has insured there is at the very minimum, an inspection of the ship by outside authority will be mandated. At this writing, the MV Iran Deyanat is at anchor, watched closely by American, French and Russian naval units.

Although American intelligence and government sources are maintaining a strictly observed silence, the same does not apply to the Russians and so it is that we learn the real story of the MV Iran Deyanat. She was an enormous floating dirty bomb, intended to detonate after exiting the Suez Canal at the eastern end of the Mediterranean and in proximity to the coastal cities of Israel. The entire cargo of radioactive sand, obtained by Iran from China (the latter buys desperately needed oil from the former) and sealed in containers which, when the charges on the ship are set off after the crew took to the boats, will be blasted high into the air where prevailing winds will push the highly dangerous and radioactive cloud ashore.

Given the large number of deaths from the questing Somali pirates, it should be obvious that when the contents of the ship’s locked cargo containers finally descended onto the land, the death toll would be enormous. This ship was nothing more nor less than the long-anticipated Iranian attack on Israel. Not the expected rocket attacks (which could be intercepted by the Israelis) but an even more deadly and unexpected attack by sea. It is very interesting to note that the Israeli government has in the past few weeks, been loudly demanding that the United States establish a naval blockade of Iran.

The reason for this blockade would be to prevent any more Iranian ships with deadly cargos from attacking either Israel or other targets from the sea.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
American Congress for Truth

P.O. Box 6884

Virginia Beach, VA 23456

http://mc590.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=member@americancongressfortruth.org

http://www.americancongressfortruth.org/
Every day, American Congress for Truth (ACT) a 501c3 non-profit organization is on the front lines fighting for you in meeting with politicians, decision makers, speaking on college campuses and planning events to educate and inform the public about the threat of Islamofascism.

To maintain and bolster our efforts, we need your continued solidarity, activism and financial support. We are only as strong as our supporters. We thank you for helping us carry on this important work.

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

Ethics continued

Asking Ethical Questions Ethically

Back to Part I Asking Ethical Questions in Ethics Classes Must be Done Ethically

Starting out an investigation of morals by asking a question designed to elicit a response about particulars (such as the harm of pornography,) is going to cause the controversy of pitting one student's opinions against others, and perhaps against the professor's. If I wish to harm myself, it is my business. I used to harm myself with alcohol, which then put others at risk because I drank and drove. It is within the scope of putting others at risk that ethics may properly address; but it is the purview of psychology, not ethics, to address personal risk-taking.

Ms. Dwyer states that her class has two main aims: (1) to introduce some central concepts in ethical theory and moral reasoning; and (2) to help begin to develop views that can be articulated and defended about the aforementioned topics.

I don't need to defend my "no" answer to the harm of pornography. My answer is no one's business to debate.

The second question, "Should the state censor or restrict the publication of pornography?", is a proper question of ethics as an answer to "Does man need values at all--and why?" Dwyer's first question assumes there are questions of value/harm in the use of pornography and leaves no opening to disagree.

The question about "should the state..." opens the real door to an ethical debate.

Dwyer writes in the Outline: "Here are two of my guiding assumptions in teaching this class. First, controversial and emotional topics admit of systematic scrutiny. Second, careful attention to these issues will help us see what particular views are defensible. We ought to be able both to explain why we hold the moral views we do and to justify the views we hold to others. I do not believe that all possible views about these matters are defensible; some positions are just mistaken or stupid. Nonetheless, there is a range of defensible views."

So, in Dwyer's class, I would be expected to admit that the question of whether pornography is harmful contains elements that not only can be systematically scrutinized, but contains things I must defend. And I will admit such elements exist--in psychology. In ethics, they are no one's business but of the man or woman who uses the porn.

The next question about the right to determine the manner and time of our own deaths would be better stated something like this: "In a society based on individual sovereignty, what philosophical position would be required by the government for said government to think it has the right to prevent one's personal choice of the manner and time of his/her own death?"

That puts an entirely different spin on the epistemology of the question by putting it right where it belongs. But asking whether or not we have the right, skips over the question of how we get from the state-of-nature where as an individual no one could prevent us, to the state of a nation of laws that would think it had the ethical right to do such a thing.

But stating her questions as she does, Dwyer gives no leeway for a dissent that such a question--as asked--is appropriate. As Dwyer states, each question holds controversial and emotional content. The content is often not, however, ethical but psychological; or it skips right over what ought to be Ethics 101, namely, "What is Are Proper Subjects of Ethics in a Free Society?"

As I regularly make the point of repeating once or twice a week under various subject headings, "Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..." Kelley L. Ross, Ph.D. "American Sphinx, The Character of Thomas Jefferson"; http://www.friesian.com/ellis.htm I am able to repeat it as often as I do because "individual sovereignty" begins as an epistemological and metaphysical position, becomes ethical, and then as you can see moves on to becoming political. As such, it covers almost every human activity, from 1) those which ought to be kept behind closed doors; to 2) those about which no one has the right to inquire of others; to 3) those which have no business being discussed as something law may intrude into, ("those powers not delegated"); to 4) those subjects about which civilization and law have legitimate interests in discussing and perhaps intruding into (powers delegated.)

Whether or not pornography, for example, is "harmful," fits into 3), except that "feminist theorists" such as Dwyer examine it outside its ethical concepts as a right.

"The suggestion that pornography
has a "'cathartic" effect on its consumers often figures in arguments against
the restriction or prohibition of pornography, whereas anti -pornography
theorists tend to focus on the claim that pornography has significant negative
effects. In other words, empirical considerations play a role in arguments both
for and against pornography. So the success of these arguments partly depends on
what can be established about the connection between pornography and various
types of behavior and attitudes." The Problem of Pornography

Other feminist authors lay claim that it is harmful to the family; that it makes "objects" of women; that it lowers men's respect for women; and that it sometimes "causes" men to rape.

"[I]n my theoretical model, pornography can induce a desire to rape women in males who previously had no such desire, and it can increase or intensify the desire to rape in males who already have felt this desire. [I] will provide the evidence for the four different ways in which pornography can induce this predisposition." Diana E.H. Russell, PhD. "Against Pornography: The Evidence of Harm"

As to Dwyer's remark about the empirical nature of the "considerations," I would submit that there are no empirical considerations about the role of government in regulating an activity, per se. The argument needs to begin with, "No matter the empirical data, is the government the Constitutionally authorized regulator?"

As for Russell's argument, I would argue that pornography cannot suddenly anesthetize a male against the ethics which previously left him with no desire or prevented a desire to rape, that such an immediate desire could be induced by reading about a rape in the newspaper if that male was so inclined to ignore ethics, and that if he can be anesthetized against his own morals, or be so easily persuaded to become passive of them from the hormonal or psychological changes within him that were caused by a newspaper story or a photo or a movie then: A) he has either acted criminally, or B) he can validly mount an insanity defence at his trial.

But this Academy article is not about pornography. It is not about feminist ideals of an engineered society. It is not about Dwyer, Dworkin, or Russell's ideas about porn and feminism and supposed harm.

This article is about the epistemic basis for the questions posed in ethics; for the syntax of the questions (and answers); and about ignoring whether it is the right question to ask when teaching students to ask questions.

"How is punishment justified?" Ask first how its absence can go unjustified? Are the victims not to be thought of? Is the initiator of violence or coercion not to be automatically considered the object of jurisprudence? How is a civilization to survive if punishment upon judgment of guilt is not administered?

"Is it permissible for a doctor to kill a patient at that patient’s request?" In a state of nature where only two people existed, (think Promethius and The Golden One in Ayn Rand's "Anthem," where they abandonded "civiliation" for the rationality of living alone as a couple,) who would prevent one person from taking the life of another rather than leave the other to suffer beyond what the other desired to suffer? The healthy person who had to make the choice could certainly make an ethical and moral decision not to commit euthanasia. But no third party ought to be able to prevent it when the third party is aware of the patient's desire. No doctor can be forced to commit euthanasia; but no doctor should be prevented from it, in a just society that recognizes one's sovereign right to his own life--and to relinquish it when he wishes.

"What is the right to life?" If the right to life is not defined as "sovereign ownership of one's body and mind", then rational civilization as understood in the revolutionary ideas of the Constitution will be forever lost, never to be touched again by objective jurisprudence. So long as one sovereign does not impose unlawfully on the sovereignty of another to the degree that the law demands he forfeit his life, then he has a right to his life.

"Is the human fetus a person?" This is actually and unquestionably one of the right questions to ask. The problem is in the prevention of theistic (theological) concepts being introduced and accepted as valid. There is no science to back up the claim that soul is anything more than consciousness of one's conscience. Therefore, a fetus, having no conscience, has no soul, and it is the transcendentalism of the soul that theists argue for when they argue against abortion. To take the high road and say we cannot prove that transcendentalism of the soul is not real and so abortion must be prevented, is to take the low road in the definition of a woman's sovereign ownership of her own body. It may be more than a parasite in her body; but it is not a fully-realized human in the sense of having been endowed with its own sovereignty. Until it has been born or is viable, it ought have no sovereignty (except, I would argue, when it has been harmed, such as when its mother is murdered.)

"What is the relation between morality and the law?" This is as valid as the question can be made. This relationship is the first question of jurisprudence and jurisprudence is derived directly from ethics.

When a question of ethics is posed without context, or with a political spin built in, or with syntax that would make it a "leading" question in a court of law, it has no business being posed in a freshman class.

Those freshmen have not even learned yet to ask the most important question of ethics:

"What give you the right to suggest remedies
to questions which, if implemented in the positive, would limit my
unalienable sovereignty and increase your tyranny?"

But how many graduate students are aware that they are sovereign individuals, if they handle their legal affairs correctly? How many are aware that they are not sovereign individuals if they accept the "citizens of the United States" clause of the Fourteenth Amendment?

How many professors bother teaching any of that information?

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

Metaphysical Naturalism Part 3: The Mechanical and Moral Arguments

What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part 3

Challenging the Mechanical and Moral Arguments

to go Back What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part 3

A-Mechanical

The first part of the Academy's Strong Definition of Naturalism reads:

"Naturalism, challenging the cogency of the cosmological,i mechanical,ii and moral argumentsiii..."

Yesterday I discussed the cosmological aspect. see What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part Two

Mechanical Naturalism believes that this universe is a lifeless huge machine which gets its form through matter and motion. This is not so difficult to argue in the negative because "Nothing exists outside the natural order" is the position of naturalism.

But as Rastaban writes in "Atheology," http://atheology.com/2007/08/06/naturalisms-touchstone-proposition/ "In his book, Faith & Reason, Ronald Nash declared that Naturalism’s touchstone proposition is that 'Nothing exists outside the material, mechanical (that is, nonpurposeful), natural order.'" [italics added]

There is an important distinction between the simple statement that "nothing exists outside the natural order," and the strawmen of "material," "mechanical," and "nonpurposeful." The theistic thinker will argue that the universe has the "purpose" of supporting life, when in fact that only became its purpose after the natural creation of life made it so. We can as easily argue that a woman's womb has the purpose of supporting the life that is within it; but if the woman is not pregnant, then her womb does not have the same purpose, and in fact no life ever need be within it.

Before the first forms of life appeared in the universe, the universe was entirely purposeless. Because the universe has no purposeful volition of its own by which to make the decision to be of purpose to life, it remains "purposeless" in its inherent nature.

The Academy's Position states: "iiWhere mechanical is taken to mean the explanation of the present and the future in terms of the past. The opposite of mechanical is teleology, i.e., the explanation of the past and the present in terms of the future."

In effect, this means to the Christian that the present and future are the result of the universe having been given its purpose by God; whereas for the naturalist it means the past and the present are states of "Being" and "Becoming."

For example, as Rastaban points out, "We had no evidence for the existence of neutrinos two centuries ago, yet neutrinos existed 200 years ago as certainly as they exist today. [ ]

"Evidence logically requires an observer, and there were no observers of neutrinos then. However, in 1807 neutrinos were nonetheless doing things that in theory were observable. Existence = Possibility of Evidence."

I.e., "Existence is Being = Possibility of Becoming."

There is more to this, however, on another level: "The ‘mechanical philosophers’ of the early seventeenth century held that any material body maintains a constant velocity unless acted on, and moreover held that all action is due to impact between one material particle and another. So stated, the mechanical philosophy immediately precludes anything except impacting material particles from producing physical effects. Leibniz saw this clearly, and concluded that it discredited Descartes' interactive dualism, which had a non-material mind influencing the physical world (Woodhouse, 1985). (Of course, Leibniz did not therewith reject dualism, but instead opted for ‘pre-established harmony’. Views which avoid ontological naturalistic views of the mind by denying its causal efficacy will be discussed further in section 1.6 below.)" Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/naturalism/

So on the one hand, the "present and future in terms of the past" refers the the Creation idea that in the past the universe was created by God to have a place to put his creature which he called Man. The naturalist position is that existence exists, has always existed, cannot ever have not existed without contradicting the definition of the word "existence," and so therefor the universe as we know it today may have been created naturally from cause-and-effect upon the material within existence; but that existence itself cannot have been created, bears no realtionship to time insofar as existence has no beginning and no end; and that the Big Bang did not create existence, it only (maybe) created the known universe.

On the other hand, since "the mechanical philosophy immediately precludes anything except impacting material particles from producing physical effects," it completely leaves out the theory of free will within the being of Man.

B-Moral

iiiWhere the moral argument is taken to mean an argument for God based on man's moral nature, an objective nature that gives him cause to make moral assertions about existence but has no basis for conclusions of the supernatural. The only moral argument acceptable is teleological, meaning it must be the answer to the question of whether, not why, Man needs ethics; and what those ethics must be in terms of the objective nature of Man himself as "all there is" in terms of deducing the natural, not the super-natural, existence of existence.

Telology is "The theory of purpose, ends, goals, final causes, values, the Good (s.). The opposite of Mechanism. As opposed to mechanism, which explains the present and the future in terms of the past, teleology explains the past and the present in terms of the future. Teleology as such does not imply personal consciousness, volition, or intended purpose (q.v.)." "Dictionary of Philosophy"; Runes; http://www.ditext.com/runes/t.html

Not implying personal consciousness merely means that the world would still exist even were no life extant as its witness. This is called the Primacy of Existence. see If A Tree Falls In the Forest--the Primacy of Existence

The Primacy of Consciousness dictates that the world does not and cannot exist without the consciousness of extant life as its witness. This results in such non-sensical philosophical questions as this: "If I die, does everyone else die too?"

I actually answered that question in another forum, so I know it is on peoples' minds. The same sort of question, metaphysically speaking is this: "If a tree falls in a forest and no one is there..."

I have never once read the correct answer to that question as it addresses the Primacy of Existence. That is why I wrote the column behind the link directly above.

Parts Four and Five, tomorrow and Friday (and perhaps into Part Six on Saturday if necessary, I will deal with the rest of the Academy's Strong Definition of Naturalism.

Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC

mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.

The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,

The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and

Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®

What is Metaphysical Naturalism Part 2 continued

What is Metaphysical Naturalism? Part Two

Clark wrote this to me in an email, after I explained to him my own positions on several aspects of strong, weak, altruism, and egoism:

"Ok, many thanks for these clarifications, most interesting. It would be nice if [everyone examined his] philosophy as assiduously as do you, ending up with more nuanced conclusions about the legitimacy of compassion and limits of egoism."

For more about Clark, see Determinism Vs. the Individualistic Naturalism of the Soul

"Nuances" are extremely important in understanding naturalism, if only because there are so many nuances that anyone trying to understand is going to be confused as he/she begins investigating this science.

As stated in yesterday's Academy's posting, [see link in first paragraph above,] compassion, humanism, and altrusim are major aspects of some forms of naturalism. This necessarily involves bringing in the subject of egoism, since, "Altruism is the opposite of egoism." "The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy"; http://www.iep.utm.edu/e/egoism.htm

But we will get to that, later in this series. For now, lets begin with the first part of the Academy's position. http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/2008/08/academys-strong-definition-of_03.html It begins with this:

"Naturalism, challenging the cogency of the
cosmological,i mechanical,ii and moral argumentsiii..."

That alone is daunting. Three words in that short clause had to have footnotes. But as I stated above, definitions must be precise if they are to be called definitions, and as you will note, I began the basis of my definition from another authoratative philosopher, in an encyclopedia I trust, and then amended it. As it stood in that enclyclopedia, it did not precisely fit my own understanding nor my epistemic base. And as it was authored in the early part of the 20th Century, it did not address issues that have arisen since it was written.

I am certain that as the subject is discussed more in public and in the blogosphere and in academia, that I may have to amend it more in the future.

1) "...challenging the cogency of the cosmological,i arguments..."
"Cosmology" in its simplest definition is understood as a world view. Cosmology is explained as an awareness of the universe, an awareness one has when one holds the world before his mind as if it were a single intelligible object.* To which it must be added: while holding the universe in one's mind, one decides what his place is or is to be, in that universe as he comes to understand it "heart and mind."
i * Phrasing taken from the "Syntopicon of the Great Ideas of the Western World"; the "Syntopicon" is Vols. II and III of the "Great Books of the Western World"; Encyclopedia Britannica; Mortimer J. Adler, Editor.

Marcus Aurelius wrote about having a world view, i.e., a personal cosmology, when he wrote, “He who does not know what the world is does not know where he is, and he who does not know for what purpose the world exists, does not know who he is, nor what the world is.”

"Cosmology" describes man's need to explain the world in which we live, his need to explain it as he feels it in his being. But aside from the cosmology of physics, which has arisen only in the era of science that came after Galileo and Francis Bacon specifically, cosmology was made the sole property of the Church. This was done when St. Aquinas incorporated the philosophy of Aristotle into Christianity. It was this cosmology of the Roman Church that was overturned when its leaders had to admit that Galileo and Copernicus were correct in their science.

And it was this necessary capitulation by the Church that proved to every man of reason whether of the physical sciences or of medicine or of mathmatics, art, politics or theology, that science had found its place in the affairs of man. Yet the Church continued to cling to every fiber of its cosmology that was not directly affected by the "Copernican Revolution." And so the naturalism within the calculations of Copernicus did nothing (or little) to "challenge the cogency of the cosmological argument."

Yet the argument is still being challenged because the cosmology of Western religion has still not opened its door to allowing science to tell it what God hath wrought. Dogma is created when it ignores science. Science destroys dogma. And religion ought to be built on what science is able to tell the Church is the truth about our world, as Copernicus and Galileo did. Yet it resists.

The Single Intelligible Object

"Single intelligible object" does not mean an object as described as a single word. Doing so in one word would leave out so much of the essence of existence and our emotional reaction to it; but it means defining it in the fewest number of words (because that is what definitions do,) which describe that essential characteristic, as an object which is intelligible in its singularity.

Every dictionary definition turns the concept(s) described by a word into a single intelligible object. http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/search?q=single+intelligible+object and On Free Will, the Soul, and the Single Intelligible Object That is the specific nature of definitions.

The footnote to this first piece of the Academy's definition of naturalism states that it is "challenging the cogency" of the arguments. Mirriam-Webster's Online Dictionary defines "cogent" as "appealing forcibly to the mind or reason : convincing b: pertinent , relevant synonyms see valid." http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/cogent

So naturalism is challenging the validity, the pertinence, and the convincing relevance of not only the cosmological position, but also the "mechanical" and the "moral" arguments that are contrary to naturalism. According to Dr. Quentin Smith, naturalism was the conventional wisdom for nearly 1000 years, with theism playing the role of skeptic to it. Smith says that all changed with Augustine, who managed to make theism the conventional wisdom, and turned naturalism into the skeptical position. He says naturalism must take back its ancient tradition. See The Loss of Secularism in Naturalism, Part 1

Ayn Rand, in "Philosophy: Who Needs It", never used the word "cosmology," so far as I know. Instead, she called it "a sense of life" and said that it "represents an individual's unidentified philosophy (which can be identified—and corrected, if necessary;" and said "it affects his choice of values and his emotional responses, influences his actions, and frequently clashes with his conscious convictions."

Religions have their own philosophies--identified sometimes in minute detail--and the word cosmology is most usually associated with either religion, or with physics. As an identifiable philosophy, physics has it own philosophers, called cosmologists, and physics is loath to accept any cosmology that strays into the real of metaphysics.

Metaphysics is not a strict science; it is actually more of an art, the art of non-contradictory identification of the values men place on the things which they know. But such identification of values is not the same as scientific identification of the laws of nature. Metaphysics is, instead, opinion about those laws. The opinions of the cosmologists of physics may still be opinions, but they are based not on value to the human psychology, but to value of the knowledge in the structure of the scienc of understanding the laws of nature as mathematical elements.

Description of Cosmology according to the Academy's Position on Metaphysical Naturalism

iWhere cosmology is taken to mean that which treats of the origin and structure of the universe. Cosmology also refers to the structural view where it is the world view of physics. However, as to cosmological origin, let me be clear: There is no origin. If existence itself had an origin, then the pre-existing condition of existence would be non-existence, which by definition can have no existence and therefore cannot have been a state of being prior to existence.

In Part Three: The Mechanical and Moral Arguments

Note: I will be the featured speaker at the Center For Inquiry (CFI) meeting, October 16, 2008, in Portage, Michigan. The topic is "Atheism as a 'Religion' Protected by Courts According to the Establishment Clause" CEC


mailto:freeassemblage@gmail.com

http://freeassemblage.blogspot.com/

The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the SM of
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists LLC.
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism TM,
The Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger TM, and
Academy of Metaphysical Naturalism Blogger Extra TM are the educational arms of the LLC and are:

© 2008 by Curtis Edward Clark and Naturalist Academy Publishing ®