Moral Atheism vs Religion, and the Prisoner's Dilemma

The Prisoner's Dilemma is a ethical quandary.  In short, two prisoners are arrested with a minor amount of evidence against them.  If neither squeal, they get a light sentence (1 year for example).  If both squeals, they both get medium sentences (2 years) , if only one squeals, the squealer goes free while the upstanding criminal gets a heavy sentence (3 years).

Each individual prisoner is better off if they squeal: if you don't squeal you will either get 1 year or 3 years, if you do squeal you will either get 0 years or 2 years. Yet, people do not squeal.  In real life, many, many criminals are offered something very close to this, yet they do not rat. Most humans understand why this happens, it's a recognition of an unspoken contract and sticking to it because you realize the group as a whole is better off.  (Note, religion has nothing to do with it - these prisoners are not afraid God will punish them for squealing. )

But not everyone does keep silent.  Some people do squeal.   They do so because they think it is better to take advantage of the unspoken social contract, rather than to obey it.

There is a psychological word for these people:  "sociopath".  Sociopaths recognize what they are doing and feel guilt about it, but they do it anyway.  They are not pyschopaths - who feel no guilt and may not even understand why it is wrong.  Sociopath simply thinks that while society benefits from the unspoken social contracts, they personally are better off if they break it - just like the Prisoner's Dilemma.

A friend recently sent me a video from a man named Jordan Preston, claiming that religion was the only reason not to commit a crime (squeal).  Jordan is wrong, and is in fact a sociopath.   He knows about the unspoken social contract, but thinks there is no reason for anyone to follow it.

The reason most people do not commit crimes is not, as Preston thinks, only God.  Instead it is four fold.

First, the unspoken contract - I agree not to murder, steal, cheat, etc. because I want other people not to murder, steal, cheat against me.

Second, even if I am a sociopath, I also understand that the government has created a legal system, complete with cops, judges, lawyers, etc. to enforce the social contract, at least the parts they wrote down.  As such, I must take into account the chance of being caught and punished for my crimes.

Third is the social disproval, should I be found out.   This applies to all of the unspoken contract, even the stuff not written down as law.  I.E.  Should you skip the line, people will get upset and you know it.  If people get too upset, they can even riot and/or lynch you.   See the poor black men that were lynched  for decades (even centuries) after the American civil war - they broke the vile rules white men enforced even if they were not written down as laws.  Or see the parts of Mexico where vigilante citizen groups are in a war against the cartels.

Fourth, one of the advantages of religion is (as Mr. Preston pointed out), to convince people that even if our faulty legal system doesn't catch you and punish you, God will.

For someone to commit a crime, the following has to happen:

1)  They must either be a sociopath, or be pushed out of the social contact by others (i.e.  if no one is willing to sell you food, you will steal it rather than starve).
2)  They must also be willing to risk the legal system - they must believe the  potential gain outweighs the risk of legal punishment.
3)  They must also be willing to risk illegal revenge by a lynch mob.  Generally this risk is relatively small if the legal system is strong, but where the legal system is weak, this risk increases.
4) Finally, they also must believe God will not punish them (or much rarely, that the punishment would be worth it.)

These situations are rare. Less than 1 in 20 people decide to commit a crime, at least in America.  But Religion is the last and weakest of the stopgaps.

Usually if you are capable of believing in God, you are also capable of believe in the social contract.  It takes a lot of education to convince a sociopath that God is real and that they will punish you for evil you do. It's not impossible, but it does happen.  Many sociopaths become atheists, but that does NOT mean that many atheists are sociopaths.  All lions are cats does not mean all cats are lions - most cats are house pets.

When you fail to understand that atheists have lots of very good reasons not to commit crimes, you are not being 'rational', as Mr. Preston claims, instead you are being sociopathic.  Failing to understand the basic unspoken social contract.

This is all made worse by one simple factor: Religion does control people's behavior, but there is nothing stopping Religion from being used to make people do evil rather than good.  And throughout history, every single major religion has been used to do evil. Every religion has a Spanish Inquisition, jihadists, or similar fanatical extremists that break the law in the name of God.  Mormons - some of the least criminal people in the world - have a history of murdering people and blaming Indians.  Even Buddhists attack Muslims in Myanmar.  Religion's ability to control people is not always good.

Many atheists believe that the good religion has done is outweighed by the bad.  There is no way to actually tell if this is true, but crime statistics in atheist countries support this belief.  (https://www.quora.com/Are-atheists-more-or-less-likely-to-be-criminals-than-theists)

Church and State: Taxes

In the United States we have laws preventing churches from engaging in political speech.   We don't arrest the holy men, we just take away their tax free status.  When some people hear about this they get all upset - mainly because they think we are taxing holy men.   No - we are taxing criminals.  

The thing they forget is that in the US, we accept ALL religions.  Including the 'bad ones'.  It's not just the Catholic church, the Protestants, the Jews, that get tax free status.

It's also the Mormons, the Muslims, the Scientologists, and the Moonies (until a court found them to be propagating political views, so it took away their tax status).  But that's not the worst of it - it's also The Children of God, Heaven's Gate, the Branch Davidians, the Order of the Solar Temple, and Jim Jone's The People's Temple.

And don't forget those TV Evangelists that tell poor people to send them money, all the while living in mansions and buying airplanes for personal use.  While the people sending them money are literally unable to pay their own rent.

So how do you tell the difference between a "real" religion and a cult?  Well, we can't.  There is NO way to do it.  NONE.   As strange as you think some of the religions are, in the eyes of the law, they are the same - as long as they obey the law.  That doesn't just mean not killing people, not forcing them to work for free - it also means obeying the law to not interfere in our political process.


All of them get the same tax free status.  Yes, even the Branch Davidians had legal tax free status, - at least until they got caught breaking laws. 

Lots of people have abused these laws.  Not just the violent and crazy cults I mentioned.  There are also the thieving liars.  People that start a church not because of a true belief in god, but simply out of a greedy desire to not pay taxes.  They even have a preferred system, called "the prosperity gospel".  You preach that giving money to the church will put you in God's favor.   This is NOT in any of the 'real' bibles - not the christian, Jewish, or Muslim versions.   They just made it up for their own benefit.   You can do that too, and it's all legal.  It just requires you to be a soul-less, corrupt, evil, son of a bitch, willing to lie to everyone about what you belief - and not get caught doing so. 

The United States has not found a legal, constitutional way to stop them.   Because the real problem is not their philosophy, but the fact that they don't really, truly believe in it (with perhaps some exceptions for those that are really good at self-deception).  

[If you find a way to stop them, that does no make a value judgement on their religion  (the US Constitutions says the government shall not make value judgements on religions - we accept all, no matter how bat shit crazy it is, because of how badly the English and other European countries did at judging religions), speak up.  But I doubt you can, lots of very intelligent people have tried for a very long time.]

But we did find a way to stop ONE clear and obvious abuse of religion - political lobbying.

Remember - the US is supposed to not favor any one religion.  As politicians are not supposed to favor any one religion, that means religions should not be trying to tell politicians what to do.  If the politicians obeyed, that would mean favoring one religion over the other ones that disagreed with them.  So any religion that attempts to influence politics is attempting to violate one of the most sacred principles of our Constitution.

Which is why we made it illegal for churches to do this - with the minor punishment of removing their tax free status.  This stopped just one of the several abuses 'fake' religions that were set up only for tax purposes.

Is this evil?  No.   Churches are not entitled to tax free status.   Do you think that the Moonies, who worship a North Korean man and want to establish a world wide government ruled by Moonies should get tax free status?

The Mormons have walked a very fine line, basically running the state of Utah, but being careful to not step over it.  So we let them stay tax free as long as the church itself doesn't engage in political lobbying.

God's honest truth say there is nothing about democracy or capitalism that exempts churches from  paying taxes.  That is just an old hold over from the European custom of not taxing churches because they were basically an arm of the government.

Unlike the Middle ages, we have religious freedom, there should be no connection between church and state, so there is no reason to give ANY church tax free.  We have however graciously given all churches tax free status on the one condition that they don't get involved in politics.

You break that rule, you give up your special, UNEARNED status.  The same rule applies to the Moonies, the Mormons, the Muslims, the Protestants, the Catholics, and the Jews.

Don't compare Trump to Hitler - Trump is nicer than Hitler

Everyone loves to compare their political opponent to Hitler.   He is the 'go-to' bad guy.  Unarguably evil, unarguably a bad military and governmental leader - despite having significant public speaking skills, he makes for a powerful and therefor overused comparison.

Let me be very clear - Donald Trump is not Hitler.  There are several ways that Trump is better.   Hitler was stupider than Trump (Hitler dropped out of college and repeatedly screwed up good military strategy).   Few if any people will disagree when I say that Donald Trump is nicer than Hitler.  (Good T Shirt...) That statement is pretty clearly true.  A low bar, but Trump can make it over the bar.

But there IS a World War II leader that Trump is comparable too.  No, I am not going to compare Trump to other bad guys.  It's not Stalin or Mussolini.   It's Henri Petain, leader of Vichy France, the 'Lion of Verdun' that surrendered to Nazi Germany, and was later sentenced to death for his treason (sentence was commuted to life in prison).

The similarities are clear.  Petain was a bigot, that refused to help refugees based on things he had heard about their religion.   Previously he demanded a giant wall to keep invading murders out.

Petain was an anti-Semite that went beyond preventing Jews from entering France, he also specifically removed protections originally granted to french Jews.  (source)  He was scared that the Jews would not be loyal to France - and instead would engage in acts of violence, perhaps try to take over France.  In truth, the Jews were just fleeing persecution.  Trump, like Petain, want's to block a group of refugees - Muslims in Trump's case - from entering the US.

Petain was one of the major forces behind the Maginot Line - a giant wall that was supposed to keep Germans out of France. (source)   But the Germans had  airplanes to fly over the wall.   It was also so big, that it had week spots - too expensive to build a strong wall that large.  Similarly, Trump want's to keep Mexican out because he thinks they are murders.   Petain at least was right about Germany, but Trump doesn't even have that going for him.  

Petain also married a woman 20 years younger than him, violated the Constitution of France, and ran the government along the lines of his previous profession (military) rather than using the normal political means.  Trump has married a woman 20 years younger than him, has been told by the military that they will not obey illegal orders to torture the family of enemy soldiers, and claims that he will run the government like his previous profession (business).

Donald Trump is nothing more than America's Henri Petain.   We can't afford to let Trump do to America, what Petain did to France.

We need to do better.  We need someone that does NOT simply try to offer up simple, obvious solutions to complex problem.  Because if the answer was simple, we would have already solved it.

Real life is complex and requires harder, more difficult solutions.   Simple solutions are simply wrong.  Walls haven't worked since the invention of the airplane.   Judging people - even for a short amount of time - on their religion is called prejudice, and history has shown that it is evil, not good.

What does Religious Freedom Let you Do?

In America, the Radical Right has tried to expand the concept of Religious Freedom to mean anything any preacher has ever said. 

They love to use he words "sincerely held religious beliefs" as a get out of following the law card.  The problem is you can make up your own religion, putting in any crap you want - like the right to kill people portray your god in a photo/video - or even just cut your off in traffic.   They try to fix this obvious flaw by putting in limitations to prevent the most obvious abuses.  Obviously this leaves the less obvious abuses in place, and they think we are too stupid to notice.

At a lower scale, it would be possible to claim "my religion says it is a sin to pay taxes", or just "my religion says it is a sin to have any business relations with black people".   Don't like gays?  Have a preacher somewhere say that homosexuality is evil, then use it as an excuse to violate their rights.   Same for abortion, or healthcare in general.

Freedom of Religion definitely has limitations.  Obviously Freedom of Religion does not let you kill people that cut you off in traffic.   In addition it is NOT just the most obvious abuses that are limited.  We have a reasonable test for what is really a sincerely held religious belief and what is just made up bull.

So lets talk about what Religious Freedom actually means, starting with some definitions.

1. Reasonable Accommodations.   This is a key legal concept not limited just to religion.  For example, the same concept is used in the Americans with Disabilities Act.   With regards to religion, it means that you force people to ignore their religion when a simple and obvious solution exists.  You can't make them work Saturday, taking Sunday off if their religion says they need to take Saturday off.   In effect, this rule says no to silly technicalities.
2.  Religiously Required activities.  Here are things your religion requires you to do - take one day off a week, Confess your sins, observe the Sabbath, have a Seder on passover (including drinking alcohol and eating matzoh.).  These are extra important and need more protections
3. Religiously Forbidden activities. These are things the religion expressly forbids you from from doing.  They may be sins, they may be a dietary restriction - such as kosher or Halal, or they may simply be rules - such as the Catholic Church's rules on condoms.  Again, these are extra important.
4. Religious attitudes.  These are things that are not expressly forbidden, but are frowned upon.  For example, most churches frowns on excess nudity, but don't have actual rules forbidding it.   The Catholic Church may dislike strippers, but nudity itself not a sin, instead it is claimed the profession thrives on and creates the sin of lust.  As per the Catholic Church, if it is done without lust, it is not a sin - which is why parents may remove the clothing of their infants to bathe them.   By itself it is not a sin, even if it is RELATED to sinning.   Attitudes are not important - not to the law, and honestly not to the church.

Religious Attitudes are not sincerely held religious beliefs.   They look a lot like them, but are something far less important.   Compare them to the Required and Forbidden things.

• Things that are truly required and forbidden are OFFICIALLY WRITTEN DOWN.   They are distributed to all churches/clergy as dogma, not merely discussed on the pulpit.  If it is that important, then we want to get it right, and leave nothing to chance.  We don't simply talk about it, the holy people get together and write down exactly what is forbidden or required.  More importantly, they are sure to put down exceptions (such as Orthodox Jews being forbidden from start fires on the Sabbath - unless the fire is needed by a sick person/someone freezing to death).
• It is also written down BEFORE any laws about it were even discussed, let alone created.   While some 'religious' people play fast and loose with dogma, churches are not trying to game the legal system.   They are truly concerned about the spirituality of their flock and need to clarify things ASAP.  Long before someone writes a law, they write down the religious rules. 
• Religious attitude are heavily argued and people that belong to the exact same religion/church will have different opinions on it.  If some want to make it forbidden/required rather than merely a religious attitude, a schism happens and a new church breaks off, with one group retaining an attitude, while the other WRITES DOWN the new differences and declare themselves a new religion.  Why do they write it down?  To show the world how they are different from the other one.  (See the multiple Episcopalian pro-gay rights right Conventions.)
• What may only be a Religious Attitude in what religion may be a a Religiously Forbidden/Required act in another (obviously from the above statement).

Religious Attitudes are clearly not sincerely held religious beliefs.  If someone else in your church believes disagrees with you and you don't yell out APOSTATE and kick them out (or leave), then you have personally demonstrated that it is not a sincerely held religious belief. Instead it is a a religious idea that you are thinking about turning into a sincerely held religious belief.   Catholic priests may say anything they want, but only the Pope is infallible.

More importantly, it makes for a very easy test to pass.  If you sincerely and honestly believe it, then you are free to start your own church.   Nothing stops you from doing that - except social pressure, which should already be applied if you are trying to use your religious beliefs to break a law.

OK, now for the meat of the argument.

Reasonable Accommodation does not mean anything you want you get. If your religion requires you to spend 5 minutes praying every time you kill an animal, don't try to get a job at a slaughterhouse (at least not one that does not cater to your religion).

That also means if you religion does not let you fund abortions, then don't try to go into the insurance business - unless you expressly only insure people that believe in your religion.   Guess what - that includes self-insurance.  If your religion expressly forbids you from funding abortion, fine, you don't have to do so - your insurance company does.  That means you may have to give up the monetary savings of being self insured.  That is part of the price you pay for having your particular religious beliefs.   Religions have a long history of requiring their members to sacrifice freedoms.

What you expect OTHER people to pay the price for YOUR religious beliefs?  No.  You pay for your own religious beliefs.  You can't make me (or anyone else) pay for your beliefs.

If it isn't written down then it is NOT forbidden/required by your religion.   By not writing things down you are intentionally keeping it vague to prevent reasonable accommodations.  For example, orthodox Jewish rules expressly state that you can hire non-Jewish people to light fires.  This makes it quite clear what a reasonable accommodation would be for a Jewish business that was required to light fires every night for testing purposes.

So guess what - refusals to due business with gay weddings is not a religious right, it is just a prejudiced person attempting to use the false claim of religious freedom to over-ride other people's civil rights.  If was actually a religious belief you would have it written down someone.  That is not a very hard test to pass - write it down or shut up about it.

More importantly, once you write it down it gives actual evidence to the court.   They can examine it for loopholes (such as hiring other people to have contact with gay people.). More importantly, they can also examine it for consistency.    That is - if it lets you hire a gay man that is married to watch your kids but won't let you pay someone else to cater their wedding, the court can rule your beliefs are clearly designed to negate the law and are not sincerely held personal beliefs.

Why Abortion won't be solved, but other issues will be.

Note that this is a big one, so wait for abortion stuff down below.

One of the differences between the GOP and the DNC is that GOP routinely uses false arguments and abandon them left and right, while the DNC routinely sticks to it's real arguments unless an immense amount of proof shows them wrong.     Conservatives are loyal to the program, changing arguments at will, while liberals are loyal to the argument, changing programs at will.

This is why conservatives prefer money saving light bulbs that use less energy but do NOT save the environment over money saving blights that use less energy and do save the environment.  (source)

You see, unlike conservatives, liberals actually put forth their real arguments to support themselves. If they are proven wrong, they change their mind.  But it takes a LOT of evidence to do so.   Liberals come from a science background and science takes solid, thorough evidence.   Conservatives on the other hand are quite willing to suddenly change their arguments but keep their mind, even when faced with relatively weak counter-claims.

This leads to some confusion.  Conservatives think Liberals are far more hidebound than they really are, because the liberals keep sticking to their original arguments even after the conservatives think they disproved them.   The problem is conservatives often have no idea how much evidence it takes to actually disprove an argument.  Liberals think Conservatives are far more hidebound than they really are because they abandon their old arguments that they never truly believed in.  Note this is not a 100% thing, more like a 55%/45% thing.  There are exceptions - it is a generality, not a rule.

A prime example of this is the violent video game debate.  Conservatives want them banned because they don't like them and think they are immoral.   They put forth badly crafted theories that claim they cause violence.  Liberals look at their studies and laugh at how poorly done they are.  The conservatives sit in wonder thinking 'what will it take to convince the liberals', without having any idea of how ridiculous their studies are (outright confusing correlation with causation).

Simultaneously liberals try to tax sugar drinks, so the conservatives get all upset about 'excess taxes'.  But that's a fake issue - they really care about personal freedom.  So when the liberals switch from taxing sugary drinks to outlawing them, the liberals are so confused about why the conservatives don't like the new idea to outlaw them as opposed to tax them.


This dichotomy is mainly caused by the nature of the political parties.  The word liberal originally meant in favor of progress, while the word conservative originally meant in favor of the tradition.   As such, Liberals can easily abandon bad ideas and move on to new good ones.  But Conservatives can't do that, because the new traditions are the old liberal ideas.   Conservatives have a choice - either stick to your old ideas with new arguments, or accept the liberal ideas of the previous generation.   Eventually they do make the switch to the liberal ideas of the previous generation - but it takes a generation.  The old conservatives die out/retire and new conservatives that have adopted old liberal ideas move in (i.e. race-blind admission to universities is a prime example.)

Another reason why this happens is the core support systems.

Conservatism/traditionalism all have strong support among religious people.  Religion is about faith and loyalty, so this core value has become central to conservatism.  In a loyalty and faith based system, you keep your truth hidden and put forth many arguments that you may not care about.  

The problem with a faith based political system is that it tends toward sudden dramatic shifts.  There is no middle ground, to quote a conservative "You are either with us or against us."  Hence the concept of the "Republican In Name Only."   If you disagree just a little bit, you don't belong and are 'other'.

Liberalism is however founded on a more scientific thought process.   It is about making things better, not accepting things as they are.  As such, it needs discovery and tests, and sometimes negative results.  At the heart of liberalism is a scientific method, not faith.  It also requires a lot of significant evidence, thoroughly backed by science to disprove.  This makes it a little bit more accepting of moderation, changes become gradual, not sudden shifts. 

This is something conservatives never understood - they put together a tiny amount of evidence, build it into a mountain and are shocked that the liberals laugh at their molehill.   Simultaneously liberals stand in dis-belief as conservatives bring up new arguments for clearly dis-proven political ideas.

This has certain implications about how progress happens.  

First of all, again there are certain exceptions.   The Abortion argument will never truly be won by either side.  It will continue to be an issue for the foreseeable future.  As I have said before, Abortion is different - it is not a scientific issue.  Most of the other issues are.  It is theoretically possible to scientifically determine if gay marriage hurts regular marriage.   A massive double blind experiment could prove it either way.  Not so for abortion. 

I am NOT saying that the pro-life or the pro-choice's reasons are religious.  I am saying that the question itself comes down to when an embryo becomes a person and THAT is at best a philosophical question, totally unanswerable by science.   No amount of studies will ever prove the answer either way.  As such, pro choice can never be proven wrong, and the pro-life people will never abandon their core belief.

Only God can tell us who is right or wrong about abortion.   No studies can ever tell that.  Instead we are stuck arguing about what should we do when we don't know.

One way to summarize their arguments is:

Liberals say "We don't know if it is a person and the only claims for it are religious, so that makes it a freedom of religion issue and you can't force me to believe your religion.  QED abortion is legal."

Conservatives say "We don't know it's not a person, and no reasonable person can take the chance that our beliefs (religious or otherwise) are wrong.  Thus any sane government forbids abortion."

Abortion is an example of what to do when we can't know the right answer. 


But this differs from 99% of the other political arguments out there.  

Most other political arguments can be proven.   Unlike abortion, eventually we will find out the truth, it just may take a long time.   Battles about drugs (Marijuana legality), Marriage, economics, etc. can all be proven with decades of studies. When they are proven, one side wins.  When Conservatives are right, they need to painstakingly prove with impeccable science.  When they do this, liberals cave in. It might take 2 years, it might take 40.

But when Liberals are right it takes a very different path.  It needs to build up in a crescendo, slowly building strength among liberals, being repeatedly demonstrated to conservatives till a large majority laugh at the ridiculously, patently false ideas held by the old guard.  It usually takes at least 20 years to get the laws passed.  They need to wait for the old conservative guard to retire and the new ones to take over.

 It's what happened with a federal banking system (from the early 19th century), the gold standard, social security.  We pushed it through legislation, tested it for decades then watched the conservative opposition die out.   That's what is happening now with marijuana and gay marriage.  Give it another 10/20 years and these will cease to be issues.  Not because the liberals will convince the conservatives, but because the older conservatives will retire/die off.

Of course, this means that before that happens, their will be more ridiculous scenes of conservatives believing obviously false ideas.  Slowly they will realize that no one else agrees with them.  It happened with racism, rape, and Social Security.  Now it is happening with gay rights and marijuana.


Note this is not a 100% thing.  There are liberals that still believe in Communism - but none of them hold a national elected office. (Despite the lies spread about Obama). 

Also certain issues will not die, but simply slowly weaken.  Take Black/White Racism.  In the United States it was created in order to justify slavery.  It started back in the 17th century, but was strengthen by slavery until the mid 19th century.  When the good guys won the civil war, the real war against Black/White Racism began.  It took almost 150 years to get a black president, and Black/White Prejudice still struggles on, half-dead but still surviving.

That battle had to be won repeatedly.  Voting rights, educational rights, marriage rights, fought slowly.  But real progress was made.  Not like abortion where things swing back and forth.


Other wars were much shorter.  You don't hear people claiming that the irish aren't 'white' anymore, but they used to be considered a separate race, with racist laws hurting them.

Free Will

There is a common deterministic view of the human mind as being just a bunch of tiny, hard to see gears.  It claims that if you had omnipotence, then you could predict every action done by a human being.  By that belief no one is responsible for their behavior/actions because it was all per-determined at the big bang.  They think you have no free will, you are just a robot.

It came about from a 19th century view of physics  as a deterministic nature.

Now adays most people recognize quantum mechanics mean that no matter how much knowledge you have, you can not predict the human brain, because at at very small level, it is not deterministic.

The deterministic then respond that this just means everyone is random.  They claim that again, you have no free will, you are just a robot with a random number generator.

This again is lacking in understanding.  First, it misunderstands a lot of quantum mechanism.  It is NOT just a random number generator for Einstein's proverbial God's Dice game.  Instead, quantum mechanics is far more complicated and many claim that no one understands it.  Among other things, there is an 'observer' portion of quantum mechanics that is NOT random.  That is, when you observe things, it changes the outcome (see Schrodinger's Cat).

But lets ignore the physics and get back down to philosophy, as that is the core of the model and a far more important question.

Here are some given assumptions.

1.  If everything is 100% accurately predictable, you have no free will, because your actions are predetermined.
2. If your actions are random, or 100% accurately predictable except for a random factor, then again you have no free will, you are just a random number generator's output.
3. For true free will to exist there must be some inherent core personality that is neither random, nor entirely predictable, but instead is internally consistent, not entirely determined by birth, (and therefore at least partially learned), and that determination is not random, but PATTERNED.

First note, there is a word for something that is not random, not entirely predictable, but is internally consistent and not determined by the creator/birth.  It's called Art.   Yes, Art, not Science is the key to understanding Free Will.  
 
Assume for example God exists (God is not neccessary for this argument, but positing his existence makes the discussion easier, as God acts as an Omniscient creator who could predict your actions).  God choose to create people as works of art, rather than either engineering projects (robots) or random number generators (robots whose programming was choosen at random).

Can God create something so he could not understand it?  The answer here is yes (Not sure if he could create a stone to heavy for him to lift, that's a different question).   He creates it in an artistic fashion instead of a planned one.  He looks at the over-all forest, not the trees as he creates us.  He lets the micro stuff fall randomly, but makes sure that the total creation follows a specific pattern.   

If we were talking about painting, think of God as randomly throwing balls of paint at a wall that has a specific stencil design protecting it.  Yes, the paint is random, but it will still spell out the letters "FREE WILL" because of the stencils.

Such a design is not random OR determined.  There is a third choice of patterned.   Patterned does not fall in between those two extremes.  Instead it is something VERY different from either of them.   You see, it is not a black/white choice of determined or random.  Nor is it a choice of 'gray'.  Instead it is a choice of the color purple (one of my favorites).    It is neither determined nor random, but something different.

Now, patterns are the key to life - on both all scales.  On the large scale, life has a set pattern of symmetry.   On a small scale, life is a complex pattern of cells, on a micro level, DNA is just a pattern.

Life is about patterns, and human minds are the ultimate expression of that pattern. We are not robots, nor random number generators.  We are patterns.  And our patterns have free will.

Prejudice, How to Recognize it.

There are basically three main stages of Prejudice.

1. X group should not be considered people.  They are 'subhuman', and my superior group should be able to treat them like (or worse than) animals
2. X group are people, but my group is clearly superior.   They have some rights, but treat them like children, don't give them important jobs, and let us make the important decisions over them. 
3. X group are people, and equal, but you can't make me like them.  My privileges over-ride their rights.    I should not be inconvenienced in any way, shape or form by them.   You should not take my resources to help them - not in the form of taxes, and not in the form of legally mandated services that I must provide to them.

It's an interesting progression.   Note that all stages deny they are prejudiced.  At stage one, they claim they are correct, and you can't be prejudiced against the sub-human group, anymore a human could be prejudiced against dogs.   At stage two, they say they are not prejudice because again, they are correct and they recognize the group is human.  At stage three, they say they aren't prejudiced because they ostentatiously admit that X group are people and equal, but that is not the issue.  Instead they claim their rights are the issue.

In America, racists first claimed blacks were sub-human, so you could enslave, kill, and rape them.  Come the 1940's, no one would dare publicly claim it was OK to enslave, kill, or rape blacks, but they still claimed they could keep blacks from voting, going to school, drinking the same water, etc.  Come the 1970's, prejudice still existed, but the defense was that they admitted equality, but insisted on the right to engage in racists business processes.

The same thing goes on with homosexuals.   The worst homophobics (stage 1) claimed they were evil incarnate and that good citizens should hunt them down and kill them - preferably before they 'infect' our innocent children with their evil.  At stage 2, a much more common one, they admit that gays are people worthy of a trial, as opposed to simple execute them.  But they don't want them teaching their kids, because clearly they are not good enough to teach our kids (they might rape the boys - because we all know that straight teachers never rape students ) .   Then there are the stage 3 people that admit gays are not sub-human, nor rape-crazed people.  But still they insist that their right to practice religion means that gays can't marry.

No.

As I have stated previously, rights are NEVER about your right to do something.   Rights always limit what other people are allowed to do to you.   You don't really have a right to speak, the government has a limit preventing it from punishing you for speaking (but your boss can still fire you for it.).  I don't have to listen to you, I can walk away - despite your 'right to speech'.

If there is ever a question, just simplify the process and look at the core basic issues.   FORGET ABOUT THE BULLSHIT.   The complicated explanations people use to try and 'prove' themselves right?  They are just gobbledygook to hide the prejudice - it's just used to confuse the issue.   Finding a bureaucratic loophole does not let  you do evil.    Generally they are just people trying to exaggerate their rights beyond what they actually do.  My right to practice my religion does not mean I can force it on you - even if my religion has a proselytism core.

Laws are about following the rules.  But Governing is about what's fair.   When some one tells you you need to follow the rules even if they are unfair, that just means the rules should be re-written.  But usually that's not the case.  Usually what's going is not that the rules need to be re-written.  Instead, the man that says you have to follow the rules is lying about what the rules say.

The right to practice your religion never lets you put anyone else's life in danger.

The right to be alive trumps Aztec' religious rights to practice the sacred ritual removing a live heart.
Nor does it allow a government to ever put up any barriers to abortion if the mother's life is in danger. 
When you try to stop women from getting insurance coverage that includes abortion, you are interfering with their rights, not exercising your religious rights.

The right to practice your religion NEVER lets you say who is allowed to marry who.   It doesn't matter if one guy wants to marry another guy, a robot, an alien, a corporation, or even a car.   The government might say that certain people are not eligible to marry (robot, corporation, car), but if they can get married, they can marry anyone else.  The fact that they are 'redefining' the word marriage is not relevant at all (if it were true - and it isn't - see multiple examples of polygamy in the bible).


When you try to have unprotected sex without telling your partner you have aids, you are violating their rights, not exercising your own.

So when someone tries to convince you they aren't a racist, ask them to simplify their viewpoints without the explanations of "why".    Because "why" is very often a "lie".   Instead, talk about what.  That is the thing that really matters.

List of Terroirst acts in the US

Every once in a while, some ignorant fool who never bothered to Google anything claims only Muslims are terrorists.   Then they remember one or two things before September 11 and then adds "in the past 15 years".  Well, they are wrong.

Here is a list of all terrorist attacks on US soil (including aircraft going to or coming from the US).  I exclude other countries because I don't want to debate who is or is not a terrorist - and in a country that has no Christians it is not relevant that no Christians were terrorists (just as a in Ireland, there are no Muslim terrorists, they are all good Catholics).  The date goes back to 1975, as any further things get a bit grey on 'terrorist', again. 


1975:  Jan 24, NYC, Puerto Rican separatist terrorists - Christian
1988: Dec 21, Lockerbie airplane bound for NYC.   Libya (Muslim) takes credit.
1993: Feb 26, NYC - first WTC bomb.  Muslim
1995: April 19, Oklahoma  City bombing, Christian
2001:  Sept 11, NYC, Arlington, Shanksville, Muslim
2009: Dec 25, Detroit, underwear bomber, Muslim
2010: May 1,  NYC, Time Square, Muslim
2010: May 10, Jacksonvile, Florida, Christians pipe bomb a Mosque
2010: Oct 29, two Yemen Planes to US, (Saudis discover and remove bomb before the planes lift off for the US), Muslim
2011: Jan 17, Spokane Washington, pip bomb along Martin Luther King Jr. March - unknown, most likely Christian

First of all, holy crap 2010 was a bad year!

But of the 10 terrorist acts between 1975 and 2011, only six are Muslims, three of the others are confirmed Christians, and one more is most likely Christian.


Part of the problem is definition.  Some morons define terrorism as anytime a Muslim kills a non-muslim.   If you do that, then yes, only Muslims are terrorists.  Suddenly the Irish's IRA say "YAY - we can get out of jail, now, right?"    That is why you have a bunch of fools claiming things like the Little Rock traitor was 'terrorism' or the Cole bombing was terrorism.


The CIA's definition of terrorism is simple:
1) Premeditated Violence (including the threat of violence)

2) for Political reasons
3) against Civilians
4) by sub-national groups


(Source)


The last one (sub national groups) was put in just so that the CIA's own actions don't qualify as terrorism.   They wanted to be allowed to kill North Korean and Iranian Nuclear Scientists without worrying about going to jail or violating certain treaties the US has signed.

But we can accept their definition, it has certain things going for it.


First, if you attack a soldier, it is an Act of War, not an act of terrorism.   It doesn't matter if it it is a hopeless attack, or even suicidal - like the kamikaze attacks Japan was famous for in World War II.   Nor does it matter it if was an 'ambush'.  Both of those activities are just as ethical and reasonable as any other military action.

Second, under these terms as per the CIA's own rulings that means the 2000 USS Cole attack - suicide torpedo boating of a US war ship - is not terrorism.  Neither was the 2009 Attack on two US Soldiers outside a military recruitment center.  Both were done against soldiers, not civilians.  As such I did not include it on the list above.


Why is this so important?  Because we want the bad guys to try and kill out soldiers, not to try and kill our children.   If you have enough guts to attack us head on, as opposed to trying to kill old men, women and children, then we say "You are honorable enough to qualify as a soldier and we will treat you as a Prisoner of War."

Those are important things are they make a lot of sense to me.  We treat soldiers better because they act  better.  Good people may, if the conditions warrant it, have to go to war, but they don't have to kill kids, old people, or pregnant women.  Not ever.

Prejudice - how to recognize it.

One of the problems we have with prejudice is a total failure to realize that you are prejudiced.  It requires a huge amount of self-awareness to realize you are prejudice or a constant social pressure.  Neither require or force you to change your actions.

Part of the issue is that hating some group, or feeling superior to them does not make you prejudiced.  

• Someone that hates Nazis is not prejudiced, someone that hates Germans because at one point they were ruled by Nazis is prejudiced.
• Someone that hates Al-qaeda is not prejudiced, someone that hates Muslims is prejudiced.
• Someone that hates George Lucas is not prejudiced, someone that hates Methodists is prejudiced.
• Someone that hates the CIA is not prejudiced, someone that hates Americans is prejudiced.
• Claiming any team is superior to the Baltimore Orioles (14 consecutive losing seasons, as of 2011) is just reasonable.  But claiming your race/country/religion is prejudiced.

The concept of prejudice is simple - it means to pre-judge someone before you know them.  If you hate a group or feel superior to them because of actions they admit they have done (or in the case of the Orioles, failed to do), that isn't prejudiced.  But if you judge people not on what they admit doing, but on what some people that YOU think are identical/nearly identical have done, then it is.    You are pre-judging a large group based on a small group.  Here are some warning signs about prejudice.  They are things people do to convince themselves it is OK to hate a specific group.

1. Confuse a large neutral group with a small bad group.  I.E: "I know about some (large category = Hispanic/Italians/black/German/Methodist/Muslims/Mormons/Americans) that are part of  (small category = gang/mafia/propaganda organization/political party/terrorist organization/black-ops law breaking spy group).  So all 'large group" are are incredibly evil - they do crimes and have specific plans to create more crimes.
2. Claim a small leadership group has a secret agenda that most are not aware of - even though the no one admits to being part of that leadership group or admits those plans.  In particular, there is no such thing as a 'well known secret'.  If it's well known, it's not a secret.
3. Ignore members of other large groups that also join the small evil group (or similar group).  That is thinking that there are no white gangs, no jewish mafia, no christian terrorists, etc.
4. Claim that there is some kind of inherent link in the culture/genes that explains this - despite no real  evidence supporting their position.   (It's genetic, they are raised to hate, their religion encourages a master/slave relationship.)  If the link is not so clear to your opponents, then it isn't strong enough to be effective.
5. Demand that because of the evil that some do, all of the larger group must suffer stricter control (i.e. discrimination) even if by some small chance a few of them don't belong to the small evil group.  Ignore statistics that prove this is no better than doing it to another, favored group.  Racial Profiling is the major example.  
6. Claim a general, non-specific superiority, as opposed to a specific one.  I fully admit that there are people  smarter, faster, nicer, more dextrous, stronger, prettier, sexier than me but that does not make them BETTER than me.  There is no way to say that one race is generically better than any other.   Note this is mostly used as an excuse to not let the other group prove they are just as good (Boys are better than girls, so we won't let the girls play on our team!  na na na).

These are the hallmarks of prejudice if you do these things, you are prejudiced.  No matter what.  If you don't, chances are you are not prejudiced.

These ideas are the heart of prejudiced - and ALWAYS wrong.   The quite truth is that the larger the group, the more variety within it.  It is easy to enforce uniformity in a small group, much harder to do so on a larger group.  Time makes this far harder - large groups drift and schism.   If the large group were as bad as the small group, they would not lie about their goals, they would publicize them.   Groups grow by convincing other people they are right, not by hiding their intentions.   It's why Christians and Muslims outnumber Jews (Jews don't recruit, while Christians and Muslims do.)  Secret agendas don't work - you need to publicize the core of your beliefs - if not your 'solutions'. 

Always clean up your own backyard before you talk about the opponent.  When the police break this rule, it is called "selective enforcement" and negates the arrests (If I can prove that the police are ignoring all the black men doing exactly what I did, then I can get a judge to dismiss the charges against me.).   The inherent link think is required for internal constituency.  You need to explain why all of 'them' are bad.   The thing is this doesn't work - groups/genes that are that bad die out.  They don't get passed on - whether they are genes or social habits.  As for the racial profiling - everyone is for it until they find out they are the one's being discriminated against.   Finally, there is no such thing as a general superiority.  Certain things are neither good nor bad - water for example can kill in too much quantities, but is essential to life.    People are one of them.   You may be a better liar than I am - but that means I am more honest than you.  If I am more law abiding, then you are a better criminal.  No such thing as a superior person.

Institional vs Moral values

Recently, a book made some claims about conservative vs. liberal.  I don't think the ideas in the book are well thought out.   Among other things, it simplifies things way too much.   I am not hot here to talk about the book, so I won't name it.

Instead I am going to talk about values.   The book mentions three values that it claims both liberals and conservatives share:

1. Caring for the weak
2. Fairness
3. Liberty

It also mentions three values that it claims only conservatives have, but liberals don't.  I disagree.  I do think liberals values these just as much, but have different understandings of them.

1. Loyalty
2. Respect for Authority
3. Sanctity

But lets ignore the conservative/liberal issue for now.   There a major difference between the first set and the second set is qualitative.  The first set of values are moral values.  The second set of values are institutional values.

What do I mean by that?  Well, a moral value is something that is ALWAYS moral.  They exist to help you define right vs wrong.  You can't truly 'sin' by obeying the moral values.  You might get arrested, but even the people that arrest arrest you will admire you and call you a good man, if misguided.


Say you care for the weak - and the weak are illegal aliens.   People will still admire you for it.  Everyone will.   They won't think you are vile scum going to hell.  They might say you are misguided, but they won't attack your MORAL character. You won't be reviled for demanding prisoners be treated fairly, nor for insisting on liberty for all (note liberty is NOT freedom from everything, just freedom from arbitrary/despotic control - we can demand that even for criminals - their control should be appropriate not arbitrary and despotic.)  As such all three of these support morality.

But the three institutional values are different.  They don't support morality, they support institutions.  Their morality depends on the morality of the institution.  If the institution is evil, then having those values for that institution is evil.  You can have them and still be a vile sinner.   You can be 'loyal' to a mob boss,  respect the authority of a corrupt cop, and respect the 'sanctity' of an aztec cannibalistic human sacrifice ritual.  In all these cases, you are evil BECAUSE you maintained these values, not merely misguided.

Because institutional values are not in and of themselves good, they are dangerous. If you are loyal and respect the authority and sanctity of the Spanish Inquisition, you are a vile sinner going to hell.  If you are loyal and respect the authority and sanctity of Buddha, no one will think any less of you (Buddha is, to my knowledge, hated by no group.  No one has used his name to steal, kill, rape, pillage, etc).

Institutional values are worthwhile, but they are in no way in the same league as moral values.  They can be turned to the 'dark side' and used for evil.   Like a gun, they can be used by the good guy or the bad guy.

We need to recognize this and acknowledge that Caring for the Weak, Ensuring Fairness, and Promoting Liberty are far and away superior to the lesser values of loyalty, respect for authority, and sanctity. The second set are just not in the same league as the first. 

Some worthwhile institutions need to be supported, but we can not blindly support all institutions.   We can not and should not praise them at anywhere near moral values.

Why Insurance (of any kind) should pay for birth control

 This is not about religion o the government.  It is about why healthcare should pay for birth control.

Health insurance is not a magic pool of money - any money you get out must first come in.   If birth control costs say $30/month, then if everyone buys it through insurance, it raises the cost of insurance by say $32 - after all their are administration costs and and the insurance company needs a profit.

So, why do it through health insurance as opposed to paying for it ourselves?  It clearly costs more

Well, first of all, not everyone buys birth control but everyone benefits from it.   When we do it through insurance, it doesn't raise the women's health care cost by $32, it raises both men and women's healthcare by $16.   This is fair because the men benefit as much as the women do.   For every woman that has an unwanted child, their is a man with an unwanted child as well.

But that's not all.  If the birth control is condoms, we not only control birth but we limit the spread of deadly, incurable, EXPENSIVE diseases.   Condoms are clearly healthcare - and as anyone concerned about an epidemic would consider it worthwhile for all to use birth control.  Birth control pills have similar, though not as strong or obvious, health effects.

Also, if it is covered by insurance than that encourages people to actually use it - as they have already paid for it.  It stops idiots from having unprotected sex because of short term money issues.  Anything that stops idiots from having unprotected sex is a good idea.  We have enough idiots, we don't need them making more.

Moreover, as China has clearly demonstrated, it is in the interest of United States to limit birth.   While China is a autocratic country that uses evil methods to limit births, that does not mean a democratic country can't use legal insurance rules to encourage people to limit births.

That is, it is in the states' interest to reduce birth in the USA .   Our population is growing and excessive population growth can cause problems (just as Japan is having an issue with insufficient population growth)

As such, it is reasonable to charge everyone to control births, even if they don't want to do it.  Requiring insurance companies to offer it is a kind of indirect tax on consumers that don't want birth control.   It makes them pay for those that do.   Which is currently in the United States's national interest.

Note, if we ever have Japan's problem of insufficient births, it would then make sense to prevent insurance companies from covering birth control, and perhaps to even tax it.

Catholic Church, Obama and Birth Control

The USA has always had a problem with the first amendment.  Specifically, when it comes to religion. 
The part in question reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;"  (The rest of the sentence deals with non-religious matters such as free press.)

 The two viewpoints basically boil down to who/what gets the legal rights.  Conservatives see it as a right of the church, while liberals see it as the right of the people. 


Conservatives generally describe it as a fairly limited restriction.  That is their can be no 'official' establishment of religion, but 'unofficial' promotion is fine.  Atheism is not a religion and get's no protection.   You can ask people to pray as long as you don't force them to pray.   Effectively, they want to guarantee the rights of each church to worship as it chooses, with no specific church gaining any advantage.  Note that they leave open whether temples and mosques get the same protections - this lets some conservatives think "they don't", while others realize the constitution gives no special advantage to christian religions.


The liberals see it as a more sweeping.  They don't allow 'unofficial' establishments of religion, atheism is protected as you can't force people to believe in a religion.   You can't even ask kids to pray.   Effectively, we want to guarantee that the government will not persecute people because of what we believe.   We specifically include all religions, even atheism.


The current issue is slightly odd.  Obama is not restricting religions or religious people.  Instead he is restricting businesses and charities owned/run by religious organizations that have non-religious employees and serve non-religious people.

SCOTUS (Supreme Court) has said that the government can make reasonable non-religious based laws and people can NOT use religion to allow them to break the law all the time.  But special exemptions are allowed for religious ceremonies. Specifically, a member of Native American Church can not grow, sell, buy or use peyote for personal enjoyment,  but they can do so for a religious purposes.  They must be registered and follow the law.

Religion gets special exemptions - but ONLY for religious purposes.  This is something that conservatives agree on.  If you ask them if an American Indian can legally sell peyote to their kids, they will say no. But for some reason they don't want to extend that same idea to christian organizations.

The real problem is what happens when a religion deliberately blurs the line between it's religious activities and non-religious activities? Churches have gone into a LOT of non-religious businesses and charities.  Private schools, wineries, hospitals all are owned by churches. Not just the catholic church - The Church of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) own 3 universities.

Now these people are tring to use religious exemptions for their BUSINESSES, as opposed to their religions.  

Here are 7 situations, stripped of some of the confusing stuff, of 7 different levels of religious hiring.

1. A catholic priest hires cleaning person to clean the church.
2. A catholic priest hires an atheist cleaning person to clean the church.
3. A catholic priest hires atheists to run a charity to give to destitute nuns.
4. A catholic priest hires nuns to run a charity to feed the homeless (of any religion).
5. A catholic priest hires atheists to run a charity to feed the homeless (of any religion).
6. A catholic priest hires atheists to sell wine he made.
7. A catholic priest buys 51% controlling interest in a winery.

Obama's position is that in situations 1-4, the church doesn't have to buy insurance that includes birth control, but in 5-7 it does. If you are employing non-believers to serve non-believers, that's no longer a religion.  You can't force them to convert to your religion and you lose most of your religious exemptions.


The Church's position is that they never have to buy insurance that includes birth control.  Not even if the priest doesn't completely own the business.   Mainly because they don't care about the law, they care about what their religion says.

At heart the conservatives see it as the church having the right not to pay for something it doesn't believe in.    The liberal view is that the church can not willing hire non-believers to do non-religious activities then say "Oh, but you have to follow our religion in your personal private life".  That's not fair.   You can't force your religion on other people - even if you employee them.


Given Obama's new ruling, where the insurance company is not allowed to charge a different amount of money for insurance that doesn't cover birth control.  Now, it is the insurance company's money that's paying for the birth control, not the church's money.  So the church's are complaining about how a vendor they use is being forced to ignore the church's beliefs..


Without the insurance then the church pays the employee and the employee pays the bill.  With the insurance, then the church pays the insurance company and the insurance company pays the bill. Either way, if the employee decides they don't agree with the church and wants the birth control, the money starts out with the church, goes through one intermediate and ends up being used to buy the birth control.


The question becomes should the church in effect be allowed to force the employee to take a minor cut in pay if they use their right to birth control or should instead the insurance company be allowed to take a small profit extra if the employees choose not to use their right to birth control?

The CHURCH that is trying to pull one over on us.  The government is being neutral.  Note we are not talking about the church paying for religious activities.  We are talking about a church running a separate non-religious business - such as a winery (or a hospital or a charity for homeless), hiring athiests, mormons, muslims and jews.

Churchs are tax free.  Business owned by a churches are not.    The further you get from religious activities, the fewer religious rights you get.  When you lose your automatic tax free status, you lose the right to object to activities that your religion objects to.

When the church hires non believers to do non-religious activities, it must obey the laws of the country.  If they can't, then don't do businesses.

Which is probably why most Catholics agree with the president.