Link of the Day

I came across this New Age Text Generator, and it's hilarious.


It's a site that randomly generates profound-sounding nonsense. Read below the jump to see what I got:

The Problem with Platitudes

“Spiritual” books, teachers, and groups – particularly the execrable “New Age” movement – typically present seekers with no end of platitudes: pithy expressions of so-called wisdom that are often accepted uncritically by these seekers, who usually have never been taught to properly evaluate claims (or, indeed, why they should even bother evaluating claims).

A new series of posts (“The Problem with Platitudes”) will examine some of these phrases.

Make no mistake: uncritically accepting these fortune-cookie sayings is absolute poison to any real attainment. This series of posts aims to explore exactly what’s wrong with these platitudes and exactly how they impede progress.

First up: the classic canard, “Everyone’s opinion (or belief) is equally correct.”

This phrase – far from being “wisdom” – is a lie that, if accepted, will make it almost impossible for the individual to gain a clear picture of reality (and thus impossible for an individual to attain in the Thelemic system).

Read on for more.

Finding Your Own Answer

George Carlin once amusingly commented on that old phrase – common in courtrooms and in classrooms, he points out – “your own words.”

“Tell us,” an authority figure will often say to you, “in your own words….”

Carlin’s joke continues as follows: “Do you really have your own words? Hey, I’m using the  same words everyone else is using! The next time someone asks you to say something in your own words, just say, ‘Nigflot blorny quando floon!’”

As much as it pains me to explain a joke, the humor in the above piece relies on the fact that the joke’s speaker – i.e. the character through which Carlin is ironically speaking – takes the phrase so literally that he misunderstands what it really means: no one has their “own words,” in the most literal sense. We might even appeal to the dialogism theory of literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, who noted that much, if not all, discourse comes from recycled language: not only do we use a language that was made long before we were born, our basic speech and writing patterns reiterate phrases, verbal tendencies, and other structures that we have absorbed from sources other than ourselves. How many of us use phrases that were used by people around us when we were growing up? How much of our daily speech consists of repetitions of or variations on phrases we’ve heard elsewhere or in popular culture? On an even more trivial level, how many of us have watched a few episodes of The Sopranos and found ourselves, the next day, greeting a fellow fan with “Ohhhhhh!”

The point here is that there’s nothing new under the sun of language. And we all know this – partially, this is why Carlin’s super-literal reading of that phrase is so funny. We all know perfectly well that “in your own words” simply means “don’t quote someone else verbatim.” And even then, it frequently doesn’t even mean that: teachers in classrooms are usually happy for students to compose a reply to a question in advance, and judges in courtrooms are usually fine with witnesses preparing their statements ahead of time. Some degree of quotation – even if it’s self-quotation – is inevitable.

The bottom line is that you really don’t have your “own words” in a silly, overly-literal interpretation of the phrase: participation in discourse is part of a shifting amalgam of other discourse that originates somewhere beyond what you call “you.”

This observation about words might possibly be applied to interpretation as well: when it comes to studying a subject, do you have your “own interpretation,” your “own answer”? What is it about the answer you come up with that is your “own”?

The topic comes up a lot among occultists, some of whom are staunchly against anyone who explains a subject clearly and lucidly, on the grounds that a clear explanation robs a “seeker” of the chance to “find his own answer.” In Thelema, such sentiments surround the idiotic ideas that people have about “The Comment” to the Book of the Law. There actually are some people – believe it or not – who think we shouldn’t be talking about the Book on the grounds that such talk may “influence” someone’s interpretation of it and prevent that person from “finding his own meaning.”

The premise behind these ideas seems to be that if one is “influenced” in some way in one’s interpretation, then one will be unable to “find one’s own answer.”

I would like to question this idea of “your own answer.” As this post will demonstrate, occultists who fetishize their “own answer” are ironically misunderstanding that phrase in a way analogous to the manner in which the speaker of Carlin’s joke misunderstands “your own words.”

Read on for more

A Wild Ghost Chase

Following an exchange with occult author Donald Michael Kraig on his blog, I briefly corresponded with him via e-mail about some of the points I raised in my last post, particularly the point that his approach to evaluating magical claims was an example of confirmation bias and incapable of properly evaluating the claims. In his response, he continued to assert that his method was “true skepticism.”

This post will reproduce part of my answer to him – which gives a more thorough example of the way that confirmation bias works – and will follow this with an example of confirmation bias and a lack of critical thinking that I chanced across the other day: namely, a gullible Thelemite claiming in public that he has “objective proof” of the supernatural thanks to his brother’s handy “Ghost Radar” (a toy that can be bought for $0.99 on an i-Phone).

Read on for more.

Profiles in Ignorance: The Argument from Ignorance Revisited

As an amusing follow-up to last week’s post on the argument from ignorance, I’d like to post one example of the argument in action.

This example comes from an interview given in 2007 by Richard Dawkins, one of the world’s most prominent scientists and outspoken atheists, to Bill O’Reilly, one of the world’s most annoying blowhards. O'Reilly is, for those who are blissfully ignorant of his existence, the host of a talk "news" show -- and I use the term "news" sparingly -- that consists mostly of his opinion on things and interviews in which he dominates the conversation by talking louder and faster than anyone else.

The interview can be found here, and the remainder of this post will analyze O’Reilly’s appeal to ignorance as an argument for the existence of a god.

Fundamentalist…Materialism?

Jim Eshelman’s “Temple of Thelema” forums (found here) is, in my humble estimation, a regular fruitcake factory. While there are sometimes interesting nuggets to be had in these forums, many of the “discussions” there are filled with ridiculous supernatural claims and all sorts of distractionary nonsense that are little more than impediments to serious students of Thelema. It’s unfortunate that a number of participants in the threads seem to be sincere seekers who are looking for truth and are, instead, being peddled supernatural claptrap.

[For relevant background information, see here, here, and here for Erwin Hessle’s insightful posts about dumb comments Eshelman has made in public and about how serious Eshelman's organization appears to be]

On one recent thread over there, one poster was explaining to the others that none of the supernatural tripe they believe in is actually real. As would be expected, these religious believers didn’t take very kindly to someone pointing this out, and Eshelman posted a short rant misdescribing such a basic observation as a “fundamentalist religion.”

This post will refute Eshelman’s rant.

Believers Say the Darndest Things 3: Self-Evident Stupidity

In the vast arsenal of underwhelming and idiotic arguments that believers have at their disposal, one that starkly stands out in terms of its foolishness is used more often than would be expected.

The argument goes like this: “it’s obvious that there is a god [or insert some other supernatural claim]. If you look around you [or inside of you, or whatever], you know that this is true because it’s self-evident. In fact, you already know deep down that it’s true, you just don’t want to admit it!”

As hard as it may be to believe, that’s really the nuts and bolts of this argument – though calling it an “argument” is clearly something of a stretch. It’s really more of a tactic, one script among many that believers fall back upon when they are attempting to argue in public – in situations where they must appeal to reason and evidence – and realize that they have no rational justification for what they believe.

Those who don’t regularly engage believers in arguments might think that no believer in his or her right mind would ever appeal to “it’s obvious!” as a serious argument, but such appeals come up with shocking frequency.

Read on for examples and analysis of this script at work.

What's the Default Position, Anyway?

Over on the Lashtal.com discussion thread about this blog, one responder noted that

I think that agnosticism flows more naturally from skepticism than atheism, as the agnostic says, "I can't be certain" whereas the atheist says "certainly not," to say certainly not to something you have no means to be certain of is a failure to apply skepticism in all areas, such as your own certainty.

This objection was addressed in the introductory post of this blog.