Atheist Meditations

This is a blog I don't want to write, but feel I have to.



e·pis·te·mol·o·gy /ɪˌpɪstəˈmɒlədʒi/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[i-pis-tuh-mol-uh-jee] –noun a branch of philosophy that investigates the origin, nature, methods, and limits of human knowledge.
(Dictionary.com)


Last weekend, Cindy convinced my occasionally anti-social ass out of the house to meet up with a local group of progressive democrats for coffee. This would be the third political sort of group that we've tried to interact with, it can be cumbersome compared to drinking beer at 11 Am and starting a game of Civilization 4; it must be done. It was a small turnout, and my intention is not to paint a picture of the meeting at all. I do believe, however, that my uncanny levels of observation did detect a slight hint of something that might be more than just a curiosity with some of the more radical of progressives. There was an undertow of 9-11 conspiracy. To the point where President Clinton at a recent fund raiser here was confronted by a group of 'radicals' who shouted at him, '9-11 was an inside job!'

First, let me insert again into this web log a serious caveat regarding the discussion of 9-11. The event was a serious tragedy and dramatically affected the lives of over eight million New Yorkers, along with millions of other human beings associated with those doomed flights, the pentagon, and the family / friends of America's lost. I, living in the Mid-West, was considerably isolated from the true terror of that experience as well as the intense pain of personal loss. Many who are invested in this debate have grieving loved ones. My intention is to discuss the matter with adequate abstraction to avoid insulting anyone.

Just as I can look my grieving aunt straight in the eye at the funeral and say, 'you know it, he's in heaven with our Lord Jesus Christ right now.' There is a little fucking thing called tact, and I try hard to have it. Blogs, unfortunately, are exceptionally poor transmitters of this fine virtue.

Well, lets have a go at it then.

Within our modern world we must grapple with the double edged sword of our media. While more information than ever before now moves around our society in packets ranging from gossip to Wikipedia, groups also have the capacity to close their own systems, thus recycling their own Ideas and flying under the radar of the rest of us. A surprising number gather their RV's in Roswell and listen to speakers discuss the government's complicity in hiding the 'truth' about UFOs from the population. A great number are not there to be amused, they make the pilgrimage because they are true believers. Likewise, on the West Coast, a frightening book has become the nucleus of a 'masculine christianity', Eastern European, militantly anti-gay movement. Scott Lively's The Pink Swastika: Homosexuality in the Nazi Party, fabricates a history where Hitler and his ruling cabal were all gay, and it was out of that gayness that all their faults and crimes sprung. (SPLCenter.org)

Obviously this is just the tip of the iceberg. We can all rattle off a half dozen such groups and movements of various degrees: theorists advocating an alien/Atlantis connection, Scientologists, believers in 'faith healers', Bigfoot 'researchers', Holocaust deniers, and the movement for 'Intelligent' Design.

My point is that everybody loves a mystery, and some part of the human brain digs engaging the 'what if' regions of mental experience. Yet the world has plenty of L. Ron Hubbard's (whom I'll always fondly remember by his nom de plume: Winchester Remington Colt), we must be careful. Our epistemology must have a solid foundation.

Some folks trust Fox News to report so that they can decide. Others rely on the natural mellowing agents within NPR. Some trust preachers, some trust professors, some gangstas who 'keep it real.' How can we know anything?

Carl Sagan tried to equip society with the tools in a chapter called 'The Baloney Detection Kit.' I skipped it, my penchant for vulgarity thought that was the dumbest fucking title ever.

Personally, I think the most rudimentary skill with which to dig the foundations of epistemology is good old anger. Channel some high quality righteous anger. Close your eyes and remember George W. Bush and the Republicans during the 2000 election cycle, when every damn sentence had the word 'accountability' injected into it like 9-11 gets injected now. Eight years of liberal largess had resulted in all sorts of over-expenditures and corrupt failures. They were going to usher in a new era of 'accountability.' I know, irony can fucking burn.

Still, the concept have value far exceeding a slick, yet meaningless, talking point. When someone lies to my face I, like most adult males, find that to be disrespectful and thus it makes me angry. Perhaps not the ideologically pure anger associated with 'accountability', but I don't like that guy. I used to work with a fella who was completely full of shit. Despite the fact that I knew he grew up in a nearby town he pretended to talk with a Southern accent and claimed to have served two terms in the Vietnam war. He was the same age as me and that war ended when I was three. In my mind he is still an anomaly I just can't figure out.

So we have the growing mythology out there that 9-11 was an 'inside job', that our government went beyond merely being a tad unprepared for an organized terrorist attack, they actually committed it themselves. Government investigations into the matter cannot be trusted as the myth places the investigators in the shadow of guilt already. Plus, most of us know that our government has done some nasty things - and we all hate Bush/Cheney - so why not? Is it not plausible?

Yes and no. Some varieties of the myth, some of the accusations are just fucking ridiculous and I worry about the society that creates individuals who can repeat them without critical analysis. Like claiming the Pentagon was hit by a cruise missile or that any of the three buildings at Ground Zero were destroyed by previously planted demolitions, I don't even want to begin to engage such theories. Hundreds of eye witnesses watched the plane hit the Pentagon, crew uniforms from the flight with body parts still inside were recovered. All three buildings that fell that day were occupied with thousands of workers - perhaps someone would have noticed if truck loads of explosives were being strategically placed . . . Other parts of the myth might be plausible, but extremely implausible claims require extremely convincing evidence; at the first wiff of an L. Ron Hubbard or a 30 year old 'Nam vet, we need to get fairly angry and cry bullshit!

Lets just take one example, I believe it is from the 'Loose Change' documentary. In it CNN correspondent Jaimie McIntyre is shown reporting that he just can't find any evidence that a plane crashed around the Pentagon at all. I mean here we have a good looking CNN journalist saying something pretty straight forward, before the government can enforce their cover story onto the media. Yet honest research reveals that his report has been edited to take that statement out of context. Apparently, in the initial chaos some conjectured that Flight 77 may have hit the ground first and then sort of 'skipped' into the Pentagon. Mr. McIntyre was responding to a question of that nature, and his reply in the the negative regarded evidence that the plane struck the ground before it hit the Pentagon. (Skeptic vol12 num4 2006, p37)

Here the editors of 'Loose Change' are indulging in the same shit bird tactics that 'vags use when trying to convince folks that Albert Einstein believed in their god by taking a few quotes out of context and ignoring the great deal he said specifically regarding the matter. Either the editors are just carelessly sloppy, or they are purposefully manipulating their media to try to make a quick buck. Maybe enjoy some notoriety.

Unfortunately, the world is full of shit birds. Many may even feel that the 'ends justify the means', so a few embellishments are o.k. Even on the level below them, many people will want to tell juicy stories about government conspiracies on a similar human impulse to having the best gossip about a co-worker. We can look at multiple examples in our own current society where these same tactics and impulses create very robust mythologies.

I believe those of us on the Left have much more important battle to fight.

I got no time for this shit.

Labels: current events, Skepticism