There is no middle ground in the God debate

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I recently browsed through a book titled I Don’t Believe in Atheists. As I have not actually read the book cover-to-cover, I won’t attempt to review it here — or even give my opinion of it.

I will say that one of the general points seemingly made in the book is similar to one I have seen made many times before: Strong advocates of atheism (such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris) are characterized as every bit as much extremists as the religious fundamentalists on the other side of the fence. Indeed, atheism itself winds up being equated to just another “faith” — and therefore no more worthy of support than any other faith.

The argument that atheism itself is just another type of religion has been more than adequately rebutted elsewhere (although, as with creationist arguments, that won’t prevent it from going away). So I won’t bother with answering that here.

However, I do want to address the idea that atheists and fundamentalists represent the two extremes on a spectrum — with the implication that more reasonable minds should prefer to seek some more rational middle ground.

Normally, I am a strong advocate of the “middle ground.” Take almost any controversy — and you will almost certainly find that the most extreme advocates for either side have pushed the argument too far. A middle ground is a more sensible approach and, thankfully, often becomes the dominant view. For example, consider arguments over the concept of instinct. One side may say that there are no such things as instincts, that all behavior is learned. The other side may claim that all behavior ultimately emerges from innate patterns, that learning plays at best a minor role in behavior. The truth, almost assuredly, lies somewhere in between.

Still, there are “either-or” propositions for which there is no middle ground. Either the earth revolves around the sun or the sun revolves around the earth. There is no compromise position here. Either O.J. killed his wife or he didn’t. There is no middle ground on this matter. The only ambiguity comes from the public not knowing with 100% certainty what O.J. actually did, not with any ambiguity in his actions.

And so it is with God. Either God exists or he doesn’t. If God exists, the atheists are wrong. If God does not exist, all the theist religions of the world are wrong. There is no safe middle ground to be found. Trying to find some compromise here is simply a waste of time.

We can perhaps agree that, in the absence of 100% proof in either direction, some degree of tolerance should be maintained for both positions. But that’s about it.

However, understand that much of science is based on evidence for things we cannot see. No one has actually visited a black hole. Almost no one (maybe no one really) has seen an atom. We cannot actually view gravity. Yet most people (at least virtually all rational people) believe that these things exist. We don’t consider such beliefs to be based on faith — but rather the result of the preponderance of scientific evidence. Atheists simply ask that a belief in God be established in the same way. Given that no such preponderance of evidence exists, rejecting the idea of God makes more sense.

Or, to turn it around (and as I have said before in other postings), we don’t assume something is likely to be true simply because we can’t prove with 100% certainty that it’s not true. Otherwise, we would have to say that it is plausible that little green men live on Mars. And so it is with God. The fact that existence of God cannot be disproved with 100% certainty, does not make it likely that God exists.

In the end, atheists wind up discarding a belief in God following the same logic that leads science to discard a belief in men on Mars or support a belief in atomic theory. This is not an “extremist” position and there is no need to seek a middle ground for retreat.

The surge is a failure

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I am so tired of seeing repeated references to how the surge of troops in Iraq has been a success. I expect to hear this from the Bush administration and its supporters. I am surprised, however, by how much this illogical framing has been accepted by the mainstream media.

The problem begins with the definition of success. The Bush White House wants success to be equated to a reduction in violence. Looked at from this narrow perspective, a case could be made for the surge being a success. As far as I can tell, the overall level of violence in Iraq is currently down (although whether or not the surge deserves all the credit for this is less clear).

However, by itself, this reduction means practically nothing in terms of how we should truly measure the success of the surge. If you keep adding more and more U.S. troops to a battle zone, of course you expect to see a reduction in violence eventually. The real surprise would be if we kept increasing our troop level but never saw any effect at all.

A more accurate measure of success would require looking at how far the level of violence has fallen and how sustainable that level is. On these measures, the surge does not appear to be doing well at all.

The level of violence is still nowhere near a peacetime level. And we still have not begun to reduce our troop levels significantly. In fact, I believe levels are still higher than before the surge started. Does this mean that we have to maintain our current troop levels in order to maintain this “success”? If so, it’s is hardly what I would call a success.

A success is when you can send your troops home. A success is when you have an Iraqi government that can take care of its own security. So far, I have seen no sign that this is happening. Even vocal opponents of the war agree that it will likely be years before most of our troops are out of Iraq (it will likely be decades, if ever, before they are entirely out). This is not evidence of a success. Rather, it is evidence of how much we have messed things up.

One more thing: No matter what happens in Iraq from this day forward, it can never erase the failures and lies of the past.

This was a war that was started against a country who had not attacked us and had shown no signs of doing so. It was based largely on a claim that Iraq was in possession of WMD—a claim that turned out to be completely false. The claim that Al-qaeda and Sadam Hussein were working together, another justification for the war, also was completely false. Instead of continuing our focus in Afghanistan, where we were fighting Al-qaeda, we were diverted to a country where Al-qaeda wasn’t—and we our now doing rather poorly in both countries.

We were promised a short war that would largely pay for itself. We instead got a long war—lasting 5 years and counting—that is costing us trillions of dollars and thousands of lives.

Iraq-related incidents revolving around Abu Ghahib, Guantanamo, and waterboarding have further sullied our reputation and moral standing in the world community.

Finally, there are all the negative side-stories that have emerged over the years: the Blackhawk scandal, the Valerie Plame outing, the Pat Tillman coverup, the Walter Reed Hospital conditions, the illegal wire-tapping, the elimination of habeas corpus for terrorist suspects, and more.

It is outrageous to think that a slight reduction in violence, possibly linked to our increase in troop levels (levels that show no sign of significantly decreasing), could be used to justify all of these past lies and abuses.

No matter what happens in the future, our decision to invade Iraq will always remain the wrong thing to have done. There is no way that this failure in leadership can ever be considered a success.

Let Oscar be Oscar

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Every year, it’s the same lament: The Oscar telecast ratings are down. What should we do to prop them up?

Enough already. Let’s be clear: The purpose of the Academy Awards (Oscar) is not primarily to garner ratings (although television executives may dispute this). It is to give out awards.

Ideally, it is to give out awards to the most deserving films. Admittedly, it is not an ideal process. For one thing, many in Hollywood view everything about films, including the Oscars, only as a way to generate money. Artistic value be damned. Movies that don’t make a lot of money are, by definition in this view, not good and should not get Oscars. Another problem is that some of the people that vote don’t take the process all that seriously and may not even have seen many of the films in contention. Or they vote based on which film ran the best “campaign” or which actor has the most sentimental appeal. And don’t even get me started on the screwy way that the nominations work for Best Foreign Film (so that a superb picture such as 4 Months, 3 Weeks and and 2 Days doesn’t even get a nomination). Or the fact that the last time the Best Song category had more than one memorable song (if that many) was several decades ago.

Even so, the Academy Awards is still, even in a bad year, one of the most watched shows on television. So enough complaining.

Instead, revel in the fact that this year’s nominees somehow managed to include a bunch of great films, even though they were not blockbusters. Major nominations, for example, went to No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Atonement, The Savages, La Vie en Rose, Away From Her, and The Valley of Elah.

Yet I keep reading how the solution to the Oscar ratings “problem” is to ensure that awards should go to more popular films. The theory is that if nominations mainly go to pictures that most people actually saw, more people would watch the telecast. A Time magazine column by Richard Corliss expressed this view in its most extreme and despicable form.

I spit on this solution.

The five most popular films this past year were: Spider-Man 3, Shrek the Third, Transformers, Pirates of the Caribbean: At World’s End, and Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. Now some of these films were enjoyable. No doubt about it. But I’d like to believe that even people who went to these films and enjoyed them can recognize the difference between an enjoyable and popular film vs. a great and award-worthy film. These are not mutually-exclusive categories. But it is far from a sure thing that they will overlap. Does anyone truly want to argue that the 5 pictures at the start of this paragraph should have been the Best Picture nominees? I hope not.

There’s only so much you can do to improve the ratings the Academy Awards. Giving awards to popular but otherwise crappy films should not be one of them. Doing so, in my view, is equivalent to saying that we could improve the ratings of the Super Bowl if we gave the underdog team a 10 point lead before the start of the game, so that the score would likely remain close throughout the 4 quarters. Sound crazy? Sure. But it’s no more crazy than the phony solutions to the Oscar ratings non-problem.

My one suggestion to increase Oscar ratings is to focus more on the films themselves. Creative segments that include clips from great films of previous years, for example, are always one of the highlights for me. Beyond that, leave it alone. Let Oscar be Oscar. Don’t sell him out to the highest bidder.

Can voters be more stupid than this?

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Here in California, we had State Proposition 91 on yesterday’s ballot. It’s designed to make sure that gasoline tax revenue is used for transportation funding, as intended, and not something else.

In an unusual turn of events, no one supported this proposition, not even the people responsible for getting it on the ballot.

How can this be?

It’s a timing thing. It turns out that the approval to be on the ballot was given in 2006. However, a separate proposal that accomplished the same goal wound up on the November 2006 ballot and was passed. This made this year’s Proposition 91 irrelevant. So the original supporters said not to vote for it.

Don’t believe me? Check out the Voter Information Guide and see for yourself. The section for arguments in favor of Proposition 91 states: “Proposition 91 is no longer needed. We respectfully urge you to vote NO ON PROPOSITION 91.”

Okay. Here’s the punchline:

It’s still early as I write this (only 14% of precincts are reporting) but the percentage of YES votes for Proposition 91 is 44% (that’s over one million votes and counting). That’s right. A greater percentage (and greater number) of people have so far voted in favor of Proposition 91 than have voted in favor of Proposition 92, 94, 95, 96 or 97. Of all the propositions on the ballot, only Proposition 93 has received more YES votes—with an only slightly larger percentage: 48%.

Hillary Clinton and John McCain (the projected winners in their respective primaries) each have less votes (by several hundred thousand) than the votes in favor of Proposition 91.

The kindest spin that can be put on this is that “yes on 91” voters read the proposal for the first time when in the voting booth and made their decision knowing nothing else about it. Maybe that’s not exactly a stupid way to vote. But it’s sure close.