Ray a Day Guest Post: Marc Newcomb

Aww, have you guys missed Ray a Day? Well guess what, our friend Marc decided that it was his turn. Enjoy:


As Ziztur's now busy with reviewing the trip to the Truth About Origins seminar, I'm doing a guest post to help with the extremely lengthy task of correcting the many errors in Ray Comfort's new book.

Today's "angry skeptic" states,

"The God that I read about in the Bible is quite capricious. You never know when he might smite one."

In the first part of his response, Ray claims that the skeptic only thinks this because he is unable to understand God's judgments.

"I can understand why you feel that the God of the Bible is capricious. To you, His judgments make no sense. That's because you are not God. I'm not being facetious. I'm reminding you that you aren't omniscient. It is because He has all knowledge that all of His judgments are righteous and true altogether. Your knowledge is extremely limited, so how could you begin to understand the judgments of Almighty God?"

Obviously the skeptic has made no claim to omniscience. It is possible to admit that our own knowledge is limited, while using what limited knowledge we have to form ideas about morality and assess whether certain characters (such as Jehovah) appear to be acting morally.

If our knowledge is just too limited to make any judgment at all on the morality of God, as Comfort seems to be claiming here, then the logical response is to withhold judgment, refusing to call God's alleged acts either good or evil. Comfort generally rejects this option, and chooses to judge God's actions as good, despite having the same limitations as the skeptic. He doesn't seem to realize that by calling God's actions good, he is making a judgment on God's morality just as much as any skeptic is. Judging God's actions to be good is still judging them. It is hypocritical of him to dispute the right of others to make the same kind of judgment just because they come to a different conclusion. Asking how the skeptic can possibly understand the judgments of God is especially hypocritical when Ray makes far more precise and wide-ranging claims about God's judgments than any skeptic does.

Comfort continues,

"Let's look at your moral judgments for a moment. Do you think homosexuality is morally wrong? Of course you don't (I'm guessing). How about fornication? Adultery? Murder? Rape? Lying and stealing? If you say that any of these things are morally wrong, from where do you get your standard of judgment? Is it your own moral standard? Perhaps you say that it's whatever society considers to be morally correct."

But where does Ray get his moral judgments from? The commands of God? Why does Ray consider that a good moral standard? Perhaps he think that he owes God for the good things God has provided. But then don't we have a similar obligation to society, for the things society has provided? What consistency or basis does Biblical morality have that makes it any less arbitrary than just following society?

"So then if society says that homosexuality is morally okay, then you agree. If society says that fornication (sex outside of marriage) is okay, then you agree."

And if God says marrying and having a child with your half sister is okay (as Abraham did, with God's approval), then Ray must agree.

"Then if society says that it's morally right to exterminate Jews, then you must say that it's okay, because you have no moral absolutes."

And if God says that it's morally right for those same Jews to be tortured in Hell for following the right God in the wrong way, then Ray must agree. If God says that it's morally right to exterminate Amalekites, then Ray must say that it's okay, because Ray has no moral absolutes. He has only blind obedience to, and approval of, commands which he does not understand.

Most people that I have met, whether skeptic or Christian or anything else, seem to base their morality on empathy and enlightened self-interest. Despite the claims of Ray Comfort and other Christians, people in general are not wholly evil and selfish, and even if they were, most people can appreciate that injustice and random violence are not in their own best interests.

Ray's amorality continues into a final paragraph:

"The thought of you ending up in Hell grieves me. I can hardly entertain it. But I know that if a holy and perfect God judges you by His perfect moral standard, that is where you will end up."

It grieves Ray? He can hardly entertain it? Why is Ray Comfort so grieved by what he considers justice? Is it so regrettable for justice to be done? How can Ray be sorry that I am going to Hell, and yet approve of the decision to send me there? The inconsistency here reveals that Ray is instinctively against punishment in Hell, but ignores its obvious immorality because he thinks God demands it.

"You may go kicking and screaming (like a murderer to the electric chair), but you will still go there. Please look for a moment at the Ten Commandments. Go through them and ask if you have kept them in light of what Jesus said in the Sermon on the Mount. If you are honest, you will come to the same conclusion that I came to one night in 1972. I am a sinner. I need a savior."

Ray's answer ends as it began, with a collection of unsupported statements. Apparently Ray's idea of being "honest" means accepting God as a moral authority. Blindly obeying a God whose reported acts seem to me to be immoral is not my idea of honesty. Ray has provided no evidence for the claim that there is a God judging us, and even if there is one, there is no guarantee that denying our own morality to obey the commands of an ancient text will make that God approve of us. We can't know how a god might judge us, but we can be loyal to our own sense of morality and reason. As a certain Jean-Luc Picard once said, if we're going to be damned, let's be damned for what we really are.

What the $&#@ is ubuntu?

Ubuntu is commonly known in the geek community as a Linux Distribution. The name comes from the Zulu word "ubuntu" which is a word that expresses the essence of being human in African philosophy.

Instead of the idea that "I think, therefore I am" which alludes to the knowledge of one's existence because one is thinking - one can be certain of one's own existence above all other things, ubuntu means something more like, "I am human because I belong, participate and share in the lives of other human beings".

In African culture, ubuntu is a quality that people can have. When they want to give high praise to someone, they might say, "Yu u nobuntu": "Hey, so and so has ubuntu". It means so and so is caring, hospitable, moral, ethical, compassionate, generous, etc.

A person with ubuntu is open with others and affirming of their intrinsic value. They delight when others are successful, able and good without feeling threatened if they do not do the same. The reason they do not feel threatened or ashamed is because they recognize that they are a part of the larger whole that is humankind. He or she is uplifted when others are uplifted and recognized, and diminished when others are humiliated or diminished or treated as less than who they are. For people with ubuntu, social harmony is the greatest good and anything that subverts or undermines this good is to be avoided.

To me, having ubuntu means the ability to form intense relationships with others. I spent good portions of my life in shallow relationships with people - even though I saw them often, I really felt like they were strangers to me. They didn't let me into them, and I, conversely, didn’t open myself to them. In a way, I let my fear of people get in the way of knowing them. Fear of what, I can't exactly articulate. But one day I decided to stop living my life with such shallow relationships.

But people, of course, are worth knowing. Everyone has a story that is worth telling, and I want to hear it. I've found that by trying to get to know people beyond their surface, it forces people to get to know themselves beyond the surface. It thrills me when people say, "you know, I've never thought of that before" and then they think about it and discover something fascinating about themselves. It's also interesting to see where people's limits are. While it might be nice to say that everyone is capable of understanding subject X on whatever level, that's really not true. Everyone has limits, and I like to hang around right at the border of those limits... and perhaps even stretch them a little.

It is the intense bonds I form with other people that give my life meaning, and it is through knowing others that I can know myself. So that, in essence, is ubuntu.

I am, because you are.

(Un)scientific Testing, day 4

We skipped a day, so last night we made 100 tosses for each hypothesis
Flimsy: H1: 100:22/4.54 (total: 250:50/5) H2: (100:21/4.76 (total 250:50/5)
Ziztur H1 100:18/5.55 (total : 250:37/6.75) H2: 100:15/6.66 (total 250:43/5.81)
Looks like Flimsy is still running above chance with 1:5 hits for both hypothesis 1 and hypothesis 2.
I, on the other hand, am below chance for the same almost as much as he is above chance.
(Click link for explanation.)

(Un)scientific psychic testing, V2.0!

Ever since Flimsy and I decided to roll some dice and try to see if we could guess the numbers, we've been curious about the results. Here were the results out of 40 rolls:

Me: 11 correct guesses - I guessed correctly 1: 3.63 times (Chance is 1:6)
Flimsy: 3 correct guesses. He guessed correctly 1:13 times.
Combined: Combined, we guessed correctly 1:6.15 (pretty much chance)

We've been playing Confrontation and Warhammer (I prefer Confrontation...) and seriously, Flimsy rolls TONS of ones. Last time we played Confrontation, I had the last man standing only because he was rolling ones like one out of every three rolls. I rolled maybe 3 ones during the entire 5 hour game. We always just grab random dice so I don't think it's the particular dice we use. Or is it?

Neither of us believe we can intuit where the dice will roll or influence dice rolls psychically or psychokinetically. But science is not about what you believe or don't believe - ever. Science is about where evidence, observation and rational thinking lead. So we've decided to extend our dice rolling experiment. We're going to perform two experiments:

1. Hypothesis: When attempting to guess where a die will fall when rolled, we will guess correctly 1:6 times, consistent with chance.
Subjects: Myself and Flimsy
Equipment: Random die chosen out of a bag of 100 6-sided dice, my kitchen table, and this computer to record our results
Method: Each subject will pick a die out of a bag of 100 dice. The subject will sit at the table, hold the die in his or her hand, and attempt to guess which number will land facing up on the table. The subject will call out the number they think the die will land on. The subject will cup the die between two hands and shake the die for five seconds. The subject will then drop the die on the table from a height of 6 inches. The subject will do this 50-100 times each night until the number of rolled die reaches 1,000. The number of times the die is rolled will be determined before die rolling begins.
Data collection: Either Flimsy or I will record the number of dice thrown, The number the subject guessed, the number facing up when the die stops rolling, and whether or not the subject correctly guessed the number rolled on the die.
Weaknesses: Obviously, Flimsy and I could lie about the number of hits or misses. The dice, being gaming dice and not perfectly weighted dice, could roll some numbers more often than others.



2. Hypothesis: When attempting to influence the number facing up on a die when rolled psychokinetically, subjects will roll a number corresponding to the number they attempted to influence 1:6 times, consistent with chance.
Subjects: Myself and Flimsy
Equipment: Random die chosen out of a bag of 100 6-sided dice, my kitchen table, and this computer to record our results
Method: Each subject will pick a die out of a bag of 100 dice. The subject will sit at the table, hold the die in his or her hand, and attempt to influence the number that rolls psychokinetically. The subject will try to influence the way a die rolls in consecutive order, I.E. Attempting to get the die to roll a 1, then a 2, then a 3, then a 4, then a 5, then a 6 then a 1 and so on. The researcher will tell the subject which number he or she is attempting to roll. The subject will cup the die between two hands and shake the die for five seconds. The subject will then drop the die on the table from a height of 6 inches.The subject will do this 50-100 times each night until the number of rolled die reaches 1,000. The number of times the die is rolled will be determined before die rolling begins.
Data collection: Either Flimsy or I will record the number of dice thrown, The number the subject attempted to roll, the number facing up when the die stops rolling, and whether or not the number the subject was attempting to influence was the number rolled.
Weaknesses: Obviously, Flimsy and I could lie about the number of hits or misses. The dice, being gaming dice and not perfectly weighted dice, could roll some numbers more often than others.

Our guess (which you should have gathered from the hypotheses) is that our individual and combined results will be consistent with chance. So what do we do if our results are far above or below chance? What does that mean? It will be interesting to discuss flukes, coincidences, poor methodology, etc. Should we record video of each test for analysis?

I will keep you updated on the nightly numbers by posting them with my 8:00 AM post. They will appear at the bottom of the post in this format:

(Un)scientific psychic test update:
Ziztur: correct guesses out of the number of dice rolled, and ratio from the previous night and overall total.
Flimsy: correct guesses out of the number of dice rolled, and ratio from the previous night and overall total.