Politics D21

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Politics The Town Voice Balanced

Breakdown of the Atheist Dialectic

By Arlon Staywell RICHMOND June 14, 2011 — Upon the challenge in a recent debate that religious authoritarianism is the cause of current political troubles an investigation was conducted. For example are religious formulas like the Ten Commandments "authoritarian." It was noted that rather than a formula to coerce others into the fold they were a formula to minimize coercion in the world. Such counter formulas as the atheists could provide did not minimize coercion. They rather chose consistently to justify coercion by the majority.
This means that within the atheist dialectic no check or balance was found on the so called "tyranny" of the majority.
What is this dialectic?
The definition of terms can on the whole be viewed as ultimately arbitrary. In physics it is quite different. For example "weight" in physics has only one possible definition, regardless of the wider English language usage. In physics there is a rigorous discipline of terms. In debate the definitions of words are totally arbitrary. Before a debate begins or in what might be called the first step, sides agree to a definition of terms. Usually some prepackaged set is used such as a particular dictionary, or some party, group or "school" dialectic. A dialectic or "school" is the package of definitions. It would be meaningless to debate whether junior colleges are best starting points for liberal arts majors unless all sides agree in advance to what is a junior college and what is a liberal arts major, and perhaps even a starting point. Both these dispositions have value in their individual contexts. The rigorous discipline of terms in physics serves to best understand what is already known, and the arbitrariness of terms in debate serves to best learn and understand what is not yet known.
So a preliminary to the debate was the establishment of the "minimization of coercion" and the "justification of coercion" dialectic.
The atheists were then challenged that justification of coercion often overuses the principles of mass production. The principles of mass production show that producing identical items can save costs. The savings come from using the same manufacturing equipment repeatedly. Although this principle was recognized by all, the atheists were accused of exceeding the limits.
Mass production limits
If certain manufacturing equipment can produce "X" number of items then the cost per item is far lower than if only two or three items are produced. But the cost per item of producing twice that or 2X items is the same as X because of the necessity to replace the equipment. Furthermore because of the increasing efficiency of manufacturing techniques the design of initial equipment will mean a more specific value of X. So beyond the quantity X there is no more savings in cost.
PPACA
A basis of the challenges to the Patient Protective and Affordable Care Act is that it is an example of "tyranny" of the majority. It misapplies the principles of mass production. It also misapplies the principles of insurance. In insurance the fundamental determinant of the premium is the rate of occurrence of the events insured against. That is statistically independent of the number of participants.
Of course there are other challenges such as that it requires much medical care without evidence of being efficacious.
Marriage law
An assertion was made that marriage law was an example of minimization of coercion in its proper application. It was further noted that recent attempts to redefine marriage are based on justification of coercion and therefore misguided.
The assertion included that if biological parents accept full responsibility for their children coercion is minimized.
The atheists' argument was that there is significant evidence that married couples are unhappy with their lot, therefore marriage laws are too coercive.
The reply was that trivializing marriage by easy divorce and placing a cash value on the responsibility of biological parents did not make people happier. It reduced marriage to prostitution. It was argued that the multiplicity of divorces rather shows that their problems are only compounded. It was also argued that married couples having powerful, veritably inescapable, bonds to their biological children, or the expectation of such bonds, were likely the best adoptive parents. Without such a bond the "love" between homosexuals might be no more than a word on a three dollar greeting card.
Intelligent Design
Since people had been breeding plants and animals for centuries before Darwin, his real scientific contribution can be described as the "dialectic" of "random mutation" and "natural selection." The real utility of the dialectic is still much debated. One utility in its earlier years for some people was extending a scientific dialectic from the origin of species to the origin of life. Although that made some mathematical and scientific sense in the age of the belief in animalcules, further developments in microscope technology have made it abundantly clear that there is no such thing as an animalcule. Although the Darwinian dialectic no longer has that fundamental utility it seems to remain lodged in the atheists' dialectic where its only utility appears to be Social Darwinism, which is no science at all but a further example of the tyranny of the majority.
The atheists' assertion is still, even after all the improvement in microscopes, that "there is no evidence" of an intelligent designer.
The reply is that without a model of some animalcule or other their assertion is still invalid.
Armed conflicts
An attempt was made to identify and quantify the differences between the United States and "radical" Muslims. There was no clear resolution but it was suggested and generally agreed that attitudes about marriage might be key.
Other Acknowledgements
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom -- from Psalms 111 verse 10
Free at last, free at last, thank God almighty, free at last -- from Martin Luther King, Jr.

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