Having just finished this fucking philosophy thesis that has been keeping me from loving the internet like I should, a friend recommended me a recent horror film called The Ruins. And it wasn’t bad. To start with, it had that guy from 100 Girls, which is favourite b-grade, pseudo-intellectual teen comedy of all time. I mean, that’s good, but it’s not very scary. And including people from the cast of Pulse was never, ever, ever going to help the success of the movie.

But how many times do we have to sift through the same story in a different setting? The past 20 years of horror movies haven’t seen too much innovation in the genre (disregarding, of course Scream and it’s partner in crime, Scary Movie 1). Apart from an intensification of gore, the storylines consist of ‘regular’ people (just like you and me!) that somehow end up in bizarre situations where their reasonable beliefs are devoured by some supernatural or currently-unexplainable-by-our-science creature that has somehow managed to evade not only scientists but batshit insane cryptozoologists for centuries. This supernatural mystification, that giant Other lurking in the background - and it has to be the background, for how else would it be unexplainable?? - is pretty much essential as a plot device. Otherwise, how can we get scared?? How many Saw-esque movies based entirely on gritty special effects and gore scenes are we gunna have to watch before we get bored? Looking at the imdb database of top rated horror movies, the most recent horror film that sits in the top 50 seems to be Evil Dead II, the other two notable exceptions being Grindhouse and Sean of the Dead, which are both parodies of the genre in a sense. This is surely saying something. But what????

The first answer that comes from the lips of many friends: aren’t you just fucked up? This shit is brutal, man. But you’ve spent so much time on the internet and researching strange social fetish groups (religion included, of course) that you’ve become desensitized to the brutality! But the words just make me think of Metalocalypse and how funny death by metal can be. Is parody all that’s left here? We all laugh at Nazi jokes, even if the methodological slaughtering of Jews was the worst tragedy of the reasonable and industrial modern world. If parody is all that’s left, this cynical, jaded apathist won’t be disappointed - it may even be worthwhile.

But a man like myself who so often falls into inconsistent banter cannot rest content at this though - why do I keep watching if every story has been told over and over in the back of my mind? It is not true that every supposed horror film I’ve witnessed in the past few years has been full of crap. Of course it’s not. But when I think to the ones I hold in esteem, what is the link? Audition was the most recent addition to my favourites collection, and among recent non-parodical horror Cannibal Holocaust and Devil’s Rejects sits up there too, despite my not liking it at all at first. Takashi Mike has given me a few good cringes and laughs, to be honest. But it’s hardly fair to group him with other western gore/horror directors.

There’s a decent theory spinning around my mind about this: we educated westerners have forgotten how to be scared. We’ve grown so accustoms to the clichés of genre that we can predict every movement that is made on the screen. Of course the critical girl is going to die. Of course there’s going to be a male who scarifies himself in hope that some weaker character can escape, and of course there’s going to be that shot that so obviously hints that this redemptive hope can never be realised. Either that, or like the fucking bastardization of I am Legend we are presented with some ridiculous eutpoian religious salvation. And this deluded hope is obviously enough to tide over most of the people who watch movies like this. The money makers are the films that play on many people’s greatest fear: that we will not be saved from death, that there is no salvation for any of us. A few may offer a happy conclusion in some redemptive state, but the horror has been looked into; the temporary status of life, the futility of redemption. But for us educated bunch, believing something in spite of evidence is more than a little silly. Hence, our horror films are parodies of the great alien invasions or supernatural travesties of decades past.

But does this mean that there is no redemption for horror?? Are we condemned to be the reclusive ironists of the film industry? I think not. And the reason I think this is that what we know is a hell of a lot scarier than what we do not know. The recent success of the prominent new-atheist movement attest to this: the fact that there are a billion people out there who would kill you for their gods is fucking scary. The Dionysian brutality of human nature will always be scarier than whatever bullshit ’supernatural’ theme that the modern monotheistic majority can throw at us. And if this is too ‘brutal’, too fucked up for your liking, than maybe you should stick to reading your bible than watching these shitty, repetitive and unconvincing horror films.

“For a start, the earth is four and a half billion years old, for gods sake. That unsavoury taste is the palpable palette of your faith-fucked goals.” And so opens the most reasoned atheistic punk and/or rock album I’ve ever heard.

Lungs are an east-coast Australian band headed by ex-Staying at Home guitarist Adam Lees, and musically I find the fast-paced under-40-minute album An Anatomical Guide to be plain orgasmic. Maybe I find the bass a bit boring, but I am a bassist, and as long as it is following Lees’ guitaring then it is going to be good enough for me. Lees, the author of the rationalistic prose contained in the songs, is rather evidently a fan Dawkins and even includes images from The Blind Watchmaker in the album artwork.

Opening track Tens of Thousands doesn’t show any mercy to faith-based religion:

“You can euphemise these insane holy wars to ethnic cleansings of terrorisings, but there’s such an obvious obtrusion behind it all. You’re all just as bad as each other. You’re just as stupid. Promptly decloud your heads and put them together instead”

And the closing track Alone in a Godless Universe makes it even more explicable, paraphrasing Douglas Adams:

“Consciousness beholds the garden in its various beauty. It’s natural. But isn’t it enough without having to believe in fairies at the bottom of it too?”

Backing up popular culture with reason:

“Complexity could never be explained by merely postulating further complexity. An infinite regress.”

Lastly deserving a mention, from their previous EP, off the song Huxley (which I can’t help assume is about T.H. Huxley, agnostic and famously labelled ‘Darwin’s Bulldog’ for his loyal support of Darwinism):

“It’s true that to know is delusional… but not knowing is driving me crazy”

Huxley’s agnosticism was the result of his scientific world view, in which he proposed that beliefs should only be formed on the basis of evidence. Asserting that one could know in such cases that there is no evidence is dogmatism and clearly incorrect. Problem is, most of our everyday beliefs, including much of our social interactions, are based on assumptions that we can’t live without; ie, the notion of another consciousness, or the notion of an outside world. Sceptical arguments from classical empiricists like Locke and Hume seem to be impossible to decisively refute, and yet impossible to rationally accept. This is basis of Camus’ absurdism; that we know things like the outside world (through living in it) and yet can never know such things (through the necessary, if ever-so-small, possibility of intellectual errors). Sure, Camus might have exaggerated how much indeterminate evidence can suck, but he had the right idea. Karl Popper can also be classed an agnostic in this case; falsification only eliminates whatever is incorrect within controlled premises and a controlled environment, but can never give us positive knowledge.

Anyone interested in pop punk that is technical, intelligent, melodic, critical and poetic should check these guys out.

Um… pizza is cool too

Yes, lame post title. It’s how I roll baby. But holidays mean mindless TV, mindless TV means being annoyed at stupid religious propaganda, and stupid religious propaganda means venting in blogs. Oh, and blogs mean puns. To me anyway.

The Futurama episode titled ‘Godfellas’ has bending unit Bender shot out into space accidentally, apparently leaving him alone for the rest of eternity. During his voyage he runs through an asteroid belt and a small asteroid gets lodged in his casing. The asteroid is home to little living thingies who happen to think that Bender is god, and well, he orders them around and tries to help and ends up making things worse before they eventually blow each other up. Fair enough.

After all of this happens, a mourning Bender manages to crash into the actual theistic god who has somehow taken material form (I’m sure the dualists will make up some unconvincing argument as to how this is possible) and learned binary along the way. Bender shares his experience as ‘being god’; how it was so damn demanding and how it was so difficult to manage their society. Those who had faith in Bender the god believed that he would smite the unbelievers after listening to their prayers, leading them to victory, while the unbelievers for some reason were immoral bastards trying to bomb the religious, apparently because they’d ‘lost hope’ and were jealous or something. God tells Bender that it’s a balancing act and for some reason thinks this gem is relevant:

“When you do things right, people won’t be sure that you’ve done anything at all.”

According to this supposed god, people shouldn’t be able to know for certain if he exists or not because they will assume that he will always come to their rescue and do the good for them. Subjects are supposed to gain their own moral awareness, shown in the fact that by the end of the episode Bender is unknowingly led to do the good by something that this supposed god has told him. This also seems to involve knowing which prayers to answer and which not; leaving this balance so faith can work is supposed to justify leaving some prayers unanswered.

Picking on this is too easy. Perhaps I should have found something different to write about. But it was there, so what the hell.

It’s pretty obvious for starters that there are people out there who claim that they “know” that god exists. A majority of the world, in fact, despite them all meaning different things when they say it. Most notably we have the dramatic rise in fundamentalism world-wide. The funny (or perhaps scary) thing is that this conviction does not lead to passivity one bit; it leads to passionate action. Instead of (logically) assuming that an all powerful being can sort out his own problems, people feel the need to do things for him. Hence we have Osamas, Bushes and Robertsons.

Secondly, there are people who firmly deny the existence of god (even if only probabilistically like myself in a weak atheism) that haven’t ‘lost hope’, so to speak, of living a meaningful life; these people seem to be the majority of the unbelieving population (from personal experiences, being involved in atheistic communities). Not only this, but finitude is arguably more desirable than infinite consciousness - and the episode even offers similar arguments!! Bender’s drifting through space for all eternity is seen as meaningless because he will eventually become infinitely bored as less things come to entertain him. Imagine existing for all eternity, doing all the things that you have always wanted to do. Assuming that one has conscious thought capable of change, one will eventually do everything there is to do, know everything there is to know, perfected every attribute of ones being to the extent that one is capable of. While one may dream of living forever as a child (when the religious dogma is seeded), growing old leads to different attitudes towards death. Finitude is not necessarily an evil.

So the justification for faith (reasonless belief) is misleading. Which leads us back to the question: why should one believe that all events are working towards the greater good when it is not very probable at all that they are?

While Futurama and the Simpsons may be commended for their light-hearted stabs at organised religion, their depiction of the universal acceptance of a god is downright disgusting and incorrect.

Internet prices were raised at my uni this year, and as a result I’ve been avoiding (much to my dismay) any forums, blogs and porn sites. As a result I’ve had more time to study and drink myself into paralysis, hoping that maybe I’ll induce one of those mystical subjective experiences that convert thousands each year. I’ve decided alcohol doesn’t work, so perhaps I’ll give up for now. With the extra time and money I will save from drinking I think I can afford to post once a week or so. Yay.

A few posts ago I teared a new one in an episode of medical comedy Scrubs about how it dealt with the problem of evil. In the latest episode screened on American TV it picks up the issue again, this time putting a different spin on things. Nurse Roberts is the generic large black gospel women; probably one that fell out of Sister Act when they decided there were enough sequels to leave a lasting meme floating about the realm of popular culture. Dr Cox is the generic cynical, angry atheist with Daddy issues; probably an inversion of that much more plausible Freudian understanding of worshipers and fathers. Memetic lineage aside, Cox wants to show Roberts that bad things do happen for no good reason. Thankfully the show doesn’t resort to miracles again. Instead, Roberts argues that without her faith (in this instance, trust in her purely subjective communication with the J-dog) she wouldn’t be able to keep going with all the seemingly bad things that happen for no good reason.

There are two important questions a disbeliever should take into consideration. Firstly: Should people be allowed to trust their mystical experiences if it is the only thing keeping them going? And secondly, how is an atheist or agnostic to deal with evil?

Answering the first question is probably most controversial. Most people I have met who define themselves as atheists would argue no. They would argue that if it is not reasonable to believe then they should disregard the belief. But most of these people I know would not hesitate to give an addict drugs if it meant he could live to potentially kick the habit, or even, to just live slightly longer. There is inconsistency here if one objects to thousands of people dying.

The problem with enforcing beliefs is that people can’t always be reasonable, or that what is reasonable for one person may be unreasonable for another with different experiences. If ex-Korn guitarist dude believes that Jesus exists because he has conversations with him about everyday activity, then it would be hard for him to disbelieve that this character doesn’t exist. Sure, he’s crazy. But to him this character really exists beyond reasonable doubt. He’s probably too stupid to ever understand enough of the history of science to know that science does make progress on theories and technology, so probably to stupid to trust medical authorities when they tell him that all those drugs that he’s taken in the past have probably screwed with his head a bit and now he’s talking to himself, not to mention that there are hundreds of others that have their own different imaginary friends that don’t correspond with each other.

What it comes down to is something like Plato’s ‘noble lie’: how let the masses give meaning to their suffering without infringing on philosophical and scientific inquiry. What religious tolerance does is allows room for people like Nurse Roberts to hold her belief without forcefully pushing her beliefs onto others. As long as she doesn’t mind if Doctor Cox can get by without it, she can keep her faith. The best environment for freedom of meaning is secularism and religious pluralism. On this view fundamentalism is the enemy of religion, as is extreme rationalism, ala Descartes, or perhaps the crazy cult of objectivism, ala Ayn Rand. Expecting everyone to be reasonable is unreasonable in itself as reason is not tied down; what’s reasonable is relative to a subjective experience of life. Pluaralism gives religious meaning (which some people actually need to continue existing) some moving space while letting scientific inquiry continue. People should be able to have private freedom and private beliefs, as long as they don’t spill over to infringe other people’s freedom of belief .

The second question is easier to answer and much less controversial. Unbelievers can deal with evil any way they want. Disbelief in god does not logically entail any view on morality. Both Nurse Roberts and Dr Cox understand medicine in the same way as Camus does: as a never-ending defeat. Eventually people die and suffering wins. All that we can do is rebel against the state we find ourselves in and temporarily hold it back for ourselves and others.

Some people need more than that though. And they can believe more as long as their beliefs don’t restrict the fact that we don’t.

Camus on Suffering

I would name Albert Camus as being one of the most under-rated atheists of last century. Unfortunately, The Simpsons got it wrong with the whole ‘Sartre is smartre’ thing. Also, Sartre was an inconsiderate twat who practiced personal hygiene less than even the most devout arts-school drop-out. Camus’ arguments are equally applicable to realists as they are to phenomenologists, which is quite nice considering the metaphysical mumbo-jumbo of Heidegger and similar metaphysicians. Who would have thought using common language could be so effective. Sigh.

Anyhoo… Camus makes an interesting attack on theism.

In Camus’ The Plague there is a character by the name of Father Paneloux. His first real mention in the novel sees him delivering a sermon preaching the god-given nature of the plague that has infected, exiled and alienated the town of Oran in which the novel is set. He offers the same belittling opinion of humanity as is necessary in Christian thought - necessary because we must all be lowly sinners if Christ’s sacrifice is to be meaningful. It is the rational stance to be taken by someone assuming the truth of Christianity. In a theoretical perspective it makes sense to him that god should be punishing these wicked creatures. But upon seeing first-hand the enduring torment that the plague inflicts upon a small boy he falls to his knees and is horribly shaken.

Paneloux knows that this intense suffering (followed by the child’s slow death) must be for the greater good if God is to exist. Let me go back to my earlier Scrubs post in which I laid out the general argument from evil. Those who already feel that they know the existence of god can simply deny this argument by denying P5 on faith. Considering how unsuccessful most theodicies are, it is no surprise that this is the most general position taken. Theists, Paneloux included, assume on faith that all seemingly gratuitous suffering is actually for the greater good and they just don’t understand how. God does work in mysterious ways, after all. While the argument from evil is not objective, it is objective that from what follows from the argument is either god does not exist or there is no gratuitous suffering. Thus, when Paneloux is presented with the intense suffering of the boy he is given two choices; he can abandon his faith or convince himself that these horrors are necessary. Logically following his predictable choice he has to admit that the cause of this boy’s suffering is not an unnecessary evil; that the plague bacillus, killing hundreds a day in the same manner, is there for the greater good. Paneloux does not encourage going out and deliberately infecting himself with the plague, but insists by analogy:

For the true Christian, one who has a logically consistent faith in god, it is unreasonable to not welcome suffering that has made others in the same circumstances suffer.

No one is sure if Paneloux dies of the plague or some other disease and is ironically marked as ‘a doubtful case’. Truth being, if he had have doubted his Kierkegaardian ‘leap of faith’ he may not have died.

This is about as far as the text goes in the way of argument. But I have a couple of criticisms of this argument that I’ll put in my next post. I have a feeling that I can strengthen it afterwards.