Atheism has the same logical flaws as religion

Yeah, because you'd be a miserable brain surgeon. If that had been your point (don't piss down my leg and tell me its raining), you ought to have made it at the outset. If either you or Frank are trying to suggest that that was Napoleon's point in his horseshit suggestion that victor's write the history--you both continue to display the ignorance of historiography which i've attributed to you alone.

Cui Bono is a basic principle applied to both historiography and criminology--just because you apparently don't know that, doesn't mean that tired old chestnut you've been trying to hammer here is true.

Here ya go, akaM, I'll give it to you once more, in more detail. As it is indeed not brain surgery, you can consider it at your leisure. You have now reached the stage in your feeble defense of your original statement of contending that your point was about bias. Bringing it up at this stage demonstrates that nothing I've told you about historiography has sunk in. If Frank was indeed attempting to make the same point with his silly poetic quote, then he is as clueless as you.

Napoleon was actually very well read in history, such as was available to him in his student days. At Brienne and the École Militaire in Paris, his two best subjects were mathematics and history. The former becomes evident the extraordinary organizational skills he displayed as Emperor, and in his excellent manipulation of the new French military dogma which has since been incorrectly identified as "Napoleonic Warfare." He did not in fact invent it, and he was rather poor at battlefield tactical command. But he was a genius at exploiting the system, and showed true genius in his organization of France to provide the "sinews of war" for his campaigns of self-aggrandizement. He was a thoroughly bad man in most other respects--his record shows that he didn't care if his soldiers starved, unless it threatened to impair their ability to win victories he could claim for himself. The French armies of Louis XIV had had surgeons who developed medicine as it had never been developed in history since the Greeks--but Napoleon ignored medical services, and his soldiers, who could have had the benefit of the best medical care then available all too frequently died of wounds which needn't have killed them. Those maimed were often left hopelessly crippled because of a lack of that attention. He exploited subject nations ruthlessly, after holding out to them the prize of revolutionary reform on the French model. These and other reasons are what have lead me to say that as he was not the victor, history had been far kinder to his memory than his silly statement about it would imply.

His knowledge of history seems to have haunted him--he made many, many statements about history, most of them off-the-cuff and disparaging, such as that history is a set of lies agreed upon. He was far too intelligent not to have known that he was greatly despised in much of Europe, and I believe he feared for the reputation he would leave behind. He needn't have worried. His éclat has been such that even many historians have been fooled--for example in not realizing that he does not deserve credit for the brilliant military system devised by St. Germaine, de Broglie and others, which nevertheless now bears his name. But he was sufficiently impressed with the importance of historical study, that when he was about to die and knew it, he advised that the King of Rome (his son by his Hapsburg wife) should be made to study history--an injunction he had made in other forms at other times.

His statement that history is written by the victors might be forgiven in consideration of the times in which he lived, during which the practice of historiography by method was unknown. I tend not to forgive him this ideological gaffe, however, because he had read so much history, and was very intelligent. In the generations after Napoleon, historians such as McCauley, Carlisle, Parkman, Prescott, and many others more obscure, began to develop methods of historical investigation not unlike those which scientists were developing for their investigations. History cannot in fact be scientific, because it is not replicable. But many cause and effect relationships can be worked out; and the similarity of historical events (although history does not repeat itself) in terms of the behavior of bodies politic or militant allow for some conclusions to be reasonably drawn on a basis similar to scientific experimentation. Ultimately, the close relationship between historiography and criminal forensics developed because the methods are the same.

One of the most crucial parts of the historical method is the question cui bono. Literally, "to whom the good," it is generally translated by historians and lawyers as "who benefits?" It is on this basis that your contentions about bias are naïve. I've already taken notice of the healthy skepticism with which the French people greeted Napoleon's bulletins. They knew, untutored, that he had a stake in the portrayal of events in which he was involved, and hence, "lies like a bulletin." It is this question of who benefits which beggars your contention about a bias imposed on history by "victors." Victors have never completely exterminated the vanquished, which is why I used an analogy from Hiroshima. Neither have they ever successfully extirpated all of the records which their victims leave behind, such as correspondence and journals. The Nazis may have driven Anne Frank to her death, but she has been made immortal by the publication of her diary. No victor has ever achieved world domination, which means that many records are put beyond their reach. Most ironically is the degree to which the "victors" so frequently provide richly detailed records of their own deeds which are later condemned. The Nazis are one obvious example. But the most common reason for this is that the "victor" does not feel that he/she is doing anything reprehensible. The first successful French colony in the New World was established by French Protestants at Cape Canaveral in 1564. (An earlier attempt by them at Hilton Head in 1562 had failed because those left behind when the ships sailed back to France grew despondent, built a boat, and sailed home, abandoning the colony.) When the Spanish became aware of this, they decided to put them out of business. Ordinarily, they might have given more thought to challenging the French King, but they rightly estimated that no real outcry would arise from them killing "heretics." So an officer named Nunez lead an expedition against them. Due to a set of extraordinary circumstances (largely, due to a hurricane), Nunez succeeded when he ought to have failed. He relates in minute detail how he tricked the Frenchmen--scattered about the countryside by the effects of the storm,--into surrendering, and then bound and executed them. Since he was, in his own eyes, "doing god's work," he not only did nothing to hide his actions, he wrote down an account, to boast of his success. Like most such instances, he did not fully carry out his plans, and left some of the Frenchmen alive. Their testimony corroborates his. In contentious historical events, when both sides agree on what happened, that is as certain as you can get in historical research. I could go on for pages and pages with examples of cases in which the "victors" provide the evidence of what we now consider their atrocities.

In most examples, however, it is a third party, often one who passes the cui bono test as a disinterested party, who provides the evidence. When the Iroquois decided in the mid-17th century to exterminate all of the tribes of the Great Lakes region in order to engross the fur trade, the Jesuits and Recollet friars who lived in that region left us a record of the events. They, the Iroquois, succeeded in wiping out one sept of the Hurons known as the Cat People. We only know of them because the French priests tell us they are now gone. They succeeded in inflicting a drastic slaughter on the Hurons, even thought linguistically and culturally, the Iroquois and the Hurons are very close cousins. They did great damage to the Outagamie (the "Fox" Indians, fox being the name they had chosen for their sept, or sub-tribe), but the Outagamies were a match for them, and beaten, but not bowed, retreated from Detroit to Wisconsin. They came after the Illinois in the late 1600's, and a lieutenant of La Salle, Henri de Tonti, was present to record the event, and to participate. He warned the Illinois, and lead a force to attack the Iroquois and delay them, while the rest of the Illinois nation prepared to flee. The tribe then fled down the right bank of the Illinois, while the Iroquois pursued them on the left bank. Reaching the Mississippi, all of the Illinois nation crossed that river, except for the Tamaroa. The following morning, the Iroquois fell on them, and butchered all but the surviving warriors, who abandoned their women and children to flee across the Mississippi. The survivors were integrated into the other septs of the Illinois, and for all practical purposes, the Tamaroa ceased to exist. Although both the Illinois and the Iroquois were illiterate, Henri de Tonti was there to record the events, and with no stake in the outcome, other than the eternal enmity between the French and Iroquois. When, later, English-speaking settlers encountered the Illinois, they had much the same story to tell, which serves to corroborate Tonti's story in the main, if not in the details.

All in all, there are so many sources for any significant historical event, that it is hopelessly naïve to assert that we cannot seek the truth because of bias; that "the victors write the history."

Here's another appropriate quote:

If you are debating a fool and he is spouting nonsense -- give him a microphone and lots of encouragement.

He'll probably do more for your side than you can do.

Grab a mike, Setanta. You are going strong. Keep up the good work.

Sentanta, refering to your post of Oct 20, 2003, 8:40 AM

And I quote you verbatim.

"The entire point of my having introduced his work was to show that respected scholars with solid credentials can enter the realm of speculation and drift very far from supportable statements".

So what's the fuss. Are we married and I am not aware of it

Thank you for the brief "history lesson". Some of it verified things that I had already "learned" having been raised in that neck of the woods.

But I stand by my statement. History is written by the victors. Personally I doubt that Nappy said it first. There were too many good thinkers ahead of him.
Here is another--- "Those who fail to learn the lessons of history are doomed to repeat it". Trite but probably true. And more in the line of an observation than a hypothesis.

"History is written by the victors" is a completely different assertion than "Most history is victor-biased."

And it completely ignores that the process of historical investigation seeks to discover bias, and to account for it. It is also naively simplistic because it assumes far too much, such as the extermination of the "losers," and the extirpation of all record of them. The suggestion that forensic investigation is a "pure" process, free of bias, as opposed to historical investigation, posited by akaM as somehow flawed fundamentally in comparison, is absurd to an extreme. Such a contention ignores that both forms of investigation use the same methods and sources.

Sentanta, I am sorry but bias must creep in. I have pondered this very much the last couple of days and I do not think that I, despite my best efforts could give you an unbiased account of anything other than a dry recital of facts. And If I who am the most open to ideas person that you are likely to find cannot give you an unbiased account then then I don't believe anyone can. If you condense facts at all, then the problem of "which facts" arises almost immediately. I cannot solve the problem. I doubt anyone can. Peace---










At what price?

So you are basically contending then, that my refutation about Washington's instructions to Lewis, based upon his having died more than three years before Lewis was sent to the Louisiana Territory, and of his interest in mammoth bones unearthed more than two years after he died, is, in your opinion, a biased interpretation which i had no right to make?

Get a grip, there is no bias involved in the simple recitation of documented facts, such as that Washington died in December, 1799, and that Lewis was commissioned to organize and lead the Corps of Discovery in January, 1803. Bias creeps in in a discussion of the meaning of historical records, not in their simple recitation. In fact, " . . . anything other than a dry recital of facts . . . " is not history, it is historical interpretation. The most reliable secondary sources are dry as hell, and reading them is an acquired taste. Primary sources are often not simply interesting, but quite lively. It is to the reading of primary sources that one needs to apply the tests of cui bono, and to compare such accounts to other available records.

Sorry, but you don't make your case. I objected to what PS wrote because of the eggregious errors about Washington, and because of a weak case for the contention that people once believed that god resided in the ocean. None of your objections, the most of them badly untutored, and some downright silly, haven't altered that.

Don't forget though, that it is the interpretation of those facts which makes them useful. Abstract facts, such as Washington's birthdate, don't mean much without relation to other events, influences on Washington, the outcomes of his choices, the implications of those outcomes, etc. It is the application of knowledge of history to understanding modern events that makes history worthwhile.

I see what you mean, about facts such as death date being very difficult to bias historically. Unless it had some point of pride (like wanting to be remembered for dying in a war when one hadn't) I can't see many reasons for record keepers to bother altering birth and death dates.

I'm undecided about whether the popular literature of a people represents the common mindset of a people. I guess it depends on the situation, and the only record I have about puritan mindset is their literature/art and literature written about them. As for the assertions, I wasn't creating them so much as agreeing with other people who made them (who's literature, if there is literature, is cited.)

Washington was interested in the mammoth bones, and had interaction with Peale about the mammoth, but it was Jefferson who sent Lewis and Clarke to look for mammoths. Again, acknowledged error on my part.

Sentanta, I am not saying that you have no right, indeed you have an obligation, to correct PS's account of facts. Indeed I'd have done it myself if I was quicker.

The interpretations of fact--- following are some quotes from this thread

"qualified as a scientist"- "crackpot historical synthesis"-- "hilarious as the God of"--"elected dictator"

Those are biased statements IMO natch, they are particularly flagrant.
And I may have missed 50 more.

My bladder is drained

PS, my principal objection was that you had not supported your case well. In fact, i assumed from the outset that you had been referring to Jefferson rather than Washington, but i wished to point out how such errors beggar your argument. You wrote just now: "Washington was interested in the mammoth bones, and had interaction with Peale about the mammoth, . . . " Yet, earlier in this thread, you wrote: "The mastodon bones were dug up in 1801 in New York state." That could only mean that Washington had been dead for a little more than a year, or up to two years, when the bones were exhumed. It is this lack of attention to detail which will get you into trouble when you try to make a case for an historical synthesis. This is not intended as a damning of you--i make such mistakes, but i also edit my copy before posting it, and often after posting it. For example, in my original reply, i had written that " . . . Washington was dead by December, 1800." That was a true statement, but it was not an exact statement. I couldn't recall if he had died in December, 1799, or December, 1800. But, having posted it, i thought better of it, looked it up, and edited my post so as to more correctly state the date of his demise.

Your entire thesis about Purtians believing that their deity resided in the ocean still leaves me mystified. I frankly cannot believe that whomever you refer to as the author of this statement has reasonable support for such a contention. From the time of the return of John Knox from Geneva to Scotland in 1555, to the restoration of Charles II in 1660, i've studied the history of England and its New World colonies in great detail. (Knox's visit to Scotland lead very quickly to the establishment of the "Kirk," the established Protestant denomination in Scotland, for which they were prepared to and did fight; this was also quickly followed by the rise of congregational Protestants in England, derisively called Puritans, which name they adopted with pride. After the restoration of the monarcy in the person of Charles II in 1660, and especially after the "Glorious Revolution" of 1688, an insidious, and usually officially ignored, persecution of Puritans in England took place. The revolution of 1688 also lead to the revocation of the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and an imposition of royal authority there, largely because of complaints of abuse by other sects in the colony--and the Puritans began to fade from that scene, as well, eventually becoming the modern Congregationalist. Those who survived in England were called Independents--both names derive from the description of "independent congreationalists" which was applied to Puritans by non-hostile outside observers.)

I've gone back to look at your earlier post, and you have given Roger Stein as the name of the author of a paper which you have used as your basis for your statement about people believing that god resided in the ocean. Your original statement was far too broad, and you have revised it in the course of your posts to say that this belief was held by Puritans, and then Puritans in New England, based upon Mr. Stein's paper about literary symbolism derived from a view of the Atlantic Ocean. I would suggest to you that either you have made a statment which i would find is not supported by what Mr. Stein wrote--that you misunderstood what he wrote; or, that Mr. Stein, if he is actually making such a claim, has been very guilty of the bias in historical interpretation for which our interlocutor akaM has tried to skewer me. Mr. Stein is an art historian according to what you wrote. If you misinterpreted him, i would suggest that in fact he was not likely to have made such an interpretation, as any specialist historian cannot afford to ignore all other aspects of history outside his or her specialization. If in fact, Mr. Stein has posited such a case, then i would say that his qualifications are severly compromised by not having a balanced perspective, or not having given much consideration to history outside his specialization. Given that your original post to which i objected took the view that people once saw god as residing in the ocean, but later "removed" god to a place in the sky, or elsewhere in the cosmos when the original thesis was no longer supportable based upon available knowledge of the oceans, this is a very thin basis indeed for such a broad statement. Even qualified to Puritans, or just to Puritans in New England, it would be a shakey contention at best.

There were other aspects of what you wrote to which i might take exception. But i truly don't wish to humiliate you, or to belittle you. Rather, i would hope that you would see that i am trying to give you an idea of how one might use historical synthesis to formulate an idea, which one would then express with far more confidence, and which would be more acceptable to a knowledgable reader. To do so, a great deal of reading is necessary, because the very diversity of human expression tends to mitigate against generalizations about what people believed--such statements are usually not supportable, unless an exhaustive study of the group in question has been made, and sources can be adduced to support the statement. Statements about what all people believed at any given time are almost never supportable.

I could have my dates wrong, this is coming from lecture notes. If I put that much effort into posting (looking up multiple sources for dates, facts, etc.), I would never have time to post, and lecture notes aren't a perfect source of info. I know Washington and Peale corresponded, and that they corresponded about the mastodon. If you, as a historian, want more information on this I recommend looking up Peale's exhumation painting - it may be accompanied with factual text.

I think that a general idea of my reason for thinking is acceptable in internet forums, as this is a leisure activity - I want the philosopy/debate to be more demanding than the otehr forums because in order to have a good debate, a person must have evidence. I acknowledge a general idea of reference or thought problem as suitable evidence in this case (although I wouldn't in a real debate) becuase it is a leisure activity people do inbetween other activities for social interaction and fun. This doesn't mean I don't absolutedly want you to correct me when I make mistakes, but I'm letting you know I am not looking up my evidence/sources unless it is brought into question. Otherwise, posting would be a hassle instead of a fun and somewhat liberal thought/idea exchange.

You don't believe people think g-d resides in the sky nowdays? That's where most people pin heaven, and if you look at western pictures of Jesus, he is often in the sky. When people look towards g-d, they look upward, towards the unknown. People used to believe hell was in the center of the earth, but now we know about the center of the earth and people are forced to adapt their views. That was my main point - mythology/ Religion inhabits the realm of the unknown. The view stein proposed of the way puritans viewed the sea in his essay (elaborated on in a book) was that they associated it's impenitrable vastness symbolically with g-d. This makes sense, if you agree with the view that people attribute mythilogical/spiritual characteristics to the unknown (in order to explain what they do not have imperical knowledge for.)

my views on the whole matter, how did religion originate?

(i have my own theories, but i want to hear yours)

PS, i think you may not understand what i write, which is unfortunate, because i have been trying to communicate. I was simply saying that you had not supported a blanket statement that people once believed that god inhabited the ocean. As for people believing that god(s) inhabit the sky, or further out in some putative "heaven," i believe there is a wealth of information that this is the case, and has been for at least a few thousand years. Very much earlier in this thread, i posited what most people believe when they speak of a deity, and i couched it in terms of it being my opinion, i wasn't making any attempt at a didactic statement. Where they might believe god to exitst is not something i'd have considered terribly relevant. I do see your point, though, that people's notions of a deity have required revision from time to time as newly acquired knowledge has tended to throw older beliefs in doubt.

my theory is religion originated either by a few kids making a joke, or people feeling empty or lonely or like they have no meaning and inventing a reason to feel special

I think religion is natural for human beings for two reasons.

1. they quest for knowledge, having a monkey-like curiosity that needs to be constantly satisfied. The creation of oral myth satisfies this curiosity about the world while also gratifying social needs.

2. Humans have a hierarchial social structure, and when a thinking group of animals has a hierarchial social structure, it is only natural to wonder : who is the ultimate alpha male? The top of the top?

Out of that same line of reasoning, a person can observe that all animals on the earth have parents. This leads them to wonder: who was the very first parent?

The concept of heaven (although not present in all religions) is gratifying because it presents a sense of justice and familial eternity. It is especially comforting to the sad, usurped, or dying.

Religion is a way of satisfying human desires and orienting social behavior. It is steeped in ceremony and ritual, and explains difficult questions of pertinance to a human life.

I think it is also useful to consider how a perceptive and intelligent person, living in an illiterate culture of people with short life spans would be naturally placed to be called upon to explain the world to his or her fellows. Given such a circumstance, that individual (as shaman or priest/priestess) might well find it easier to construct a metaphor from parentage to explain the world around us all. This is a charitable view on my part, in that my natural inclination in matters of religion is to look for venality and self-interest. If in a small clan or tribe, such an individual were not immediately succeeded by someone equally as intelligent and perceptive, the metaphor could quickly take on the quality of "revealed truth." That is the point at which a suspicion of venality sneaks in. If at a later point, another such intelligent individual comes along, who understands that what they are told about "creation" or "deities" is simply a warped metaphor, they may well find it in their personal interest to promote the belief, while not actually subscriging to that belief.

I think one other factor leading to religion -- and to atheism -- is the reluctance of humans to accept and acknowledge that there are bits of knowledge beyond their grasp.

That reluctance causes people to make guesses -- often wild guesses based on almost nothing -- and then to insist that the guess has great value.

Since the title of this thread is "Atheism has the same logical flaws as religion" -- that reluctance is something we ought all to consider carefully. Fact is, that reluctance is the reason we have people defending guesses in both directions.

[condensed version]

Each position starts with the assumption that the world is knowable in some respect. As there cannot be absolute certainty in assumption both positions, theism and atheism, approach the problem of certainty in similar ways with different facutlties. The theist begins with faith; the atheist begins with reason. Both are faculties of the human soul and both rightly persue truth. Atheists, at least those men of good will, persue the same end as theists in a different way.