Atheism

Where if at all, does religious and occult intuitionism draw the boundary with sheer magic and magical realism of utterly wishful thinking? Some scientific studies, particularly such as recently funded by religion, contend that religion helps with stress, health and longevity. But so do marriage and pets, or so we are also told. For that matter, understanding, as facilitated my scientific rationalism, has been observed to inspire active confidence, assuaging anxiety in the face of the unknown. Now, whatever feels more reassuring may be the point of religion, though seldom so openly, but since when is any of that a criteria of successful science in quest of truth?

Quite trivially, most any assertions, such as rummaged from whatsoever among any scientific hypotheses plus any religious beliefs, can be imaginatively synthesized in to any new fiction, however pleasing. But would merely such achieve the vaunted quest of religious and scientific reconciliation? Or might it be more honest and productive first to begin with identification and confrontation with whatever true bones of contention between faith and reason?

Is there howsoever religious application to science? Yes, for there is certainly all manner of scientific study of religion including alleged health benefits etc., but seldom, from any religious vantage or concern, unless to the point of however biased distortion in the vested interests of religion or fraudulent validation of Theology.

But sincere attempt at application of science to Theological questions is not inconceivable.

And so, in the unlikely contingency that anyone might ever actually be motivated to pursuit after curiosity, I have gone ahead and invented full blown and from the very thin air, two scientific specialties pursuing different distinct religious or Theological concerns, but without biased distortion in the vested interests of religion or fraudulent validation of Theology, that I have respectively dubbed: Endotheology and Theophysics.

For, after all, there has been such much talk of and some effort too, at reconciliation, to render compatible or consistent (and one would hope, with reciprocal integrity), of science and religion. But what can any of that actually ever literally signify? What can it even mean to reconcile undertaking the explanation of the unknown by the known with such presupposition as the explanation of the known via the unknown? -never mind precisely how...

An Atheist, simply and straightforwardly, is one who does not believe in God or gods. But there is another related term, Agnostic, meaning one not knowing or professing ignorance in regards to any question of the existence of God. And this has engendered much confusion, because, from the standpoint of the Scientific Rationalism of Atheism, the default is disbelief. And so, barring any particular knowledge to the contrary, one would scarcely suspect, much less opine or believe in, the existence of God any more than the Yeti, the Loch Ness Monster or, for that matter, Santa Clause. And so, that would suggest that utter and complete Agnosticism is actually sufficient to Atheism. Indeed, the very uncertainty professed of Agnosticism ought to require any serious evidentiary support whatsoever for whatever tantalizing suspicion of any possible existence of God at all, just to raise so much as a specter of doubt at all! (Unless an Agnostic, perhaps in the most in monumental Socratic irony, where to actually claim and thence begin from complete ignorance even of the entire question, rather than actual indecision with the known arguments and evidence.) But from any religious standpoint wherein the certainty of reveled truth is professed, Theists often insist that since otherwise one cannot know anything for certain, indeed, because only positive assertions are directly supportable while negative assertions are supportable at all only by an ongoing and endless process of elimination, therefore Atheists are more properly merely Agnostics. Worse, because religion appeals more to the test of faith, as a human need and value to be redeemed and recovered, rather than any standard of objective reality testing otherwise, Theists generally assume that an Agnostic is lost, yearning for the reawakening to worship. In other words, by just such circumlocutions, many Theists, in their priorities mandating a practical rejection of Ontology, utterly and blithely refuse to even recognize Atheism in and of itself!

After all, such are the deep and psychologically ingrained cultural Judeo-Christian presumptions of an all pervading God, as to become all nigh inescapable in the mind, as likewise must be the unintended ironic subtext, so dramatically delicious, of this very text, in it's confessedly and inevitably mounting virulence, as might be imagined issuing forth like unto smoking charnel brimstone spewing from the mouth of some devil, denying, mocking and railing against God in His Heaven Above!

For is it not said that the Devil is Ultimate Negation? And is not God just said Ultimate for the Devil to deny? No, not unless God exists to begin with! Rather, whether one accepts an actual Devil anymore than God, it remains in truth that the most extreme conceivable Nihilism necessarily entails rejection of reason, logic, Ontology and thence the embrace of madness in whatever ensuing moral vacuum.

And exactly such anti-rationalism is typically necessary in order to sustain irrational beliefs given the typical lack of evidentiary support and even in the face of overwhelming refutation or just lack of supporting evidence. Thence the Theo-crypto-Nihilism or conventional religion argues no other escape save through faith, typically then dismissing all criticism or rejection of faith, of Nihilism. And what monumentally pessimistic hypocrisy is just such false hope in Theo-crypto-Nihilism! For in truth, one must first be Nihilist in one's heart of hearts to begin with, and in utter failure imagination otherwise, stone blind to all other options, in order to so desperately gasp at straws of so specious an antidote as lunatic faith.

Indeed, and being just so damnable, must it come as little surprise that each and every one of the traditional logical proofs of the existence of God are all logically flawed Sophistry, long standing refuted. Because, in the first place, reduction to First Principles is quite impossible. Proof, after all, is only of validity, defined as theoretical logical internal consistency, and never of truth value, defined correspondence to external reality which is never ascertainable by logical possibility alone without actually testing by observation and experiment.

At least with anyone honestly declaring that where the conclusions of science and scripture might if ever logically conflict, they will side with scripture, we know where they stand and can readily question and criticize their dogmatism and double standards, because there is no pretense. Indeed, only science is bound by standards of evidence seeking to screen out special pleadings of self-undermining reasoning. Whereas matters of faith hold themselves to no such standard. And so, as far as internal consistency alone, that confession should simply be the end of it.

But Theistic pseudoscience is no less convoluted than Theology. All the standard distortions of Apologetics are routinely brought to bear in support of the existence of God, including all manner of scientific misconceptions and omissions in order to fabricate scientific problems then demanding explanation only by intelligent design or God one way or another. Or else Apologetics may often be extremely learned in the sciences, demanding a great deal of attention to detail from the reader. Because, in the suggestible receptivity of faith, which is the cultivation of satisfying beliefs in order to bring about altered states of consciousness, and the protection of said beliefs in order to cultivate altered states of consciousness in the long term, even bad evidence gains weight as it accumulates. -As if the house of cards might still stand, at least one or two broken logical links and mooted points hovering miraculously. Alas, in truth, all of the extensive information and argumentation of such Apologetics, much like unto empty gossip, is centered about the same shopworn general logical falsities in the Epistemology of Scientific Method and standards of evidence, herein to be stripped bare:

Indeed, Evangelists of every stripe often exhort all whom they hope to convert, to undertake whatever particular prayer, meditation or such, usually with a certain required attitude, as a means of direct evidence, in order for the subject to achieve the certitude of divine revelation for themselves. But thus do they simply presume Epistemological Methodological consensus. Because, even assuming resounding success, why accept any such at whatever ostensible face value any more than drug experiences, hypnosis or any other similar incidentally altered or deliberately tampered with states of consciousness and impaired judgment? Since when is even the most immediate of direct experience beyond question and skeptical examination? Because, what can there ever be in human nature at all beyond fallibility? Since when is direct experience so completely reliable? In particular, religion is, after all, the notorious opiate of the masses, prone to pernicious nonsense with such great conviction and hence meaningless conflicts that can never be settled. And so, by appropriate analogy, do the other people at the bar really become more beautiful the more one drinks? After all, pub crawling too, has it's ardent and fevered Evangelists! And so, with no satisfactory answer, all such mental masturbation must be recognized as experimentally inconclusive, no matter how vivid. Because even the most successful desired results remain open to a myriad of explanations and are well known to be very much colored in the mind by preconception even to be intelligible at all. Yea, verily, experience is biased by context of expectations. And apparently, there are not only the entire range of paranormal interpretations and the idiosyncratically surreal, but even entirely prosaic apprehension of much the same experience, altered states or day to day private cognition and emotion. After all, in the Epistemology of science, which, Methodologically, is the application of systematic doubt, inspiration from the willing suspension of disbelief and judgment, is not the motivating end goals ever put forth, as in religious faith, but only a starting point of unsupported conjecture to be subjected first to Critical Preference and then to Empirical reality testing and the quest for the simplest likeliest explanation.

Indeed, as yet there is no evidence for God save as He may be evoked explanatorily, even so far as affirming the consequent or converting the conditional (Modus Ponens). That is to say, by the same observable outcome, be such Ontological or Phenomenological, that, however, may be, and indeed is, also and better explained by whatever other competing viable hypotheses. Hence, the current evidence for God is only as good as Theistic explanation for scientific problems. And for any given problem, either there are alternative hypotheses to that of the existence and agency of God, or else, conceivably, there might not be. Even if neither first cause nor infinite regress are deemed satisfactory explanation, that still does not necessitate God, because God explains nothing, being Himself and His alleged agency unexplained, unsupported and theoretically inelegant. What profit is there in simply shifting the burden of explanation into an even more difficult problem, when the entire point is simplifying theoretical elegance of adequate explanation?

If there is currently no other known explanation, than, for example, flying saucers, spontaneous anxiety, conspiratorial Jewish bankers or God, then this only amounts to the same tired and fallacious Argumentum Ad Ignorantium or argument by lack of imagination, jumping to conclusions in the face of the unknown, circuitous reasoning affirming the consequent. Because, even when we have no explanation at all, new explanations may arise later and often do. The lack of explanation or solution at any given time offers slim support indeed for paranormal claims, whatsoever. If there are no good explanations, for however long, that still does not support bad explanations, unsupported explanations and out and out non explanations! Of course there will always be new questions, but God has yet to become a viable hypothesis. God remains an inelegant non explanation. There is, as yet, precious little in the way of mechanistic explanation of how God is supposed to exist, function or accomplish all that He is presumed to have done or to does. Nor, indeed, much effort at all to improve matters, neither theoretically nor experimentally. Indeed, lately, God has been a fruitless hypothesis. And the reburial offered remains much to the effect of: "Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Clause!"

Hence, scientifically, thus far, all that evoking God accomplishes is to remove any complex problem to an exponentially more complex problem upon which there has been no progress to speak of. God, then, lies on the cutting room floor amid the fat trimmed by Ockham's Razor. Hence, any viable hypothesis remains far better than Theism. In a nutshell, God is vastly superfluous. In the hurly burly contest of competing hypotheses for explanatory fitness which is the Evolutionary Epistemology of scientific progress, God does poorly. Indeed, His faithful are not even really making such effort as is appropriate among scientists wanting to settle a bet at all. And it's easy to see why they'd all chicken out! From a standpoint of Psychology, then, given the behavior of endless and specious denial and evasion, it becomes difficult not to question the sincerity of the belief in God, in most cases.

After all, we know, one way or another, indeed, in very principle, that order progresses without intelligent design. Certainly, at first blush, one might wonder daunted at the utter improbability of the sheer complexity of the universe, all out from empty chaos and darkness. But surprisingly it turns out how a complex universe is actually highly probable, indeed, nigh inevitable, out from empty chaos and darkness. We now know that chaotic flux is an unstable and impermanent state, because, eventually even by sheer chance, homeostasis always eventually arises from such a state of utter chaotic flux, bringing an onset of the development of ordered complexity, tightly integrated dynamic complex systems of organized correlation between functioning components as a result displaying emergent even howsoever organic properties or Gestalt, even including hysteresis beyond determinism alone (hysteresis being a quality of system dynamics often analogized to memory, the manifestation of various persistent states, each responding to similar inputs howsoever differently), indeed the maximum complexity possible only from ongoing chaotic disruption of orderly systems known as the edge of chaos. Indeed, even the origins of physical laws are but a special case of such order from chaos, said physical laws being description of conditions most fundamental to coherent physical existence in the universe as it has ever existed beyond it's most primordial state of chaotic flux. And Entropy is often seen to decrease locally at the expense of increased Entropy globally. So, beyond the sheer joys of unfettered fantasy, scientifically, why seek to anthropomorphize Negentropy and the edge of chaos? What need is there anymore of Teleology?

Indeed, for a prime example, characteristics may become advantageous for entirely different reasons, in the course of evolution, without somehow actually striving towards whatever we see today. And so, the precursors of complex systems, even such as are currently only advantageous in their current conjunction with other complex components, may have hitherto been useful to perform other, entirely unrelated functions, even far more simply. So, why would any particular instance of order, "improbable" low Entropy, however seemingly fortuitous, then require God? Not without either far better support for God and/or far more rigorously ruling out the more ordinary even if highly complex causal alternatives.

Apparently, only artifacts are products of intelligent design. Indeed, we know that intelligence itself arose naturally. Natural order is not the handiwork of intelligent design, rather intelligence is simply another ordered state of localized low Entropy. There is no evidence of vital force or awareness as a primary, whatever that means, pervading the universe. Nor do these assertions amount to Reductionism, but, rather, just to the contrary, Gestalt.

Clearly, an unending chain of causal events, an infinite regress, would not by itself necessitate God. Indeed, if there is necessarily anything however eternal in nature, or even one way or another or in any sense outside of space-time as we normally experience, neither still would establish that this would have to be God in Eternity. Science may as yet be somewhat short of fully satisfactory explanation for the emergence of existence from nonexistence, but even so still further along than religion. For, remarkably enough, from the known evidence to date, modern Cosmologies do posit and describe in any detail, both a chronological first event and also dependence upon a condition, both primordial and forever imminent, with neither volume nor duration, or in Theological terminology: Eternity, chaos and darkness. -And yet, no need or trace of any aware consciousness, anthropomorphic, benevolent, all powerful or otherwise.

Indeed, even if first cause is at all are ever where satisfactorily demonstrated, then that still need not by itself establish any God as first cause. And whatever the first cause, would that not leave said in need of explanation? Indeed, is not God often claimed to be causeless and eternal? -Which is to say, unexplained... Yea and verily, the Archeologist will unearth the Israelites before Physics ever works its way to God(s)! Even if neither first cause nor infinite regress are deemed satisfactory explanation, that still does not necessitate God, because God explains nothing, being Himself and His alleged agency unexplained, unsupported and maximally theoretically inelegant.

Furthermore, it bears mention that even demonstrating only the very existence of God, even if such compelling evidentiary support ever where to come to light, would not necessarily or automatically follow any specific sectarian details as to His (or Her) nature, particularly not even any sort of personal loving God, much less the specific sort of God in detail, nor any other tenets asserted by any given religion, for example, as to an afterlife. Indeed, all such questions and details might conceivably very well remain open, even if the very existence of God at all, and no more, where to be demonstrated and supported by whatever sort of new evidence. True enough as it may be, as held forth in the Zen, that unworkable and misleading models obtain in the differentiation of God from self and the totality of being, indeed, simply calling or naming most any given phenomena God, is a common though transparent ruse either for metaphorically dragging in so much more via the proverbial back door, or else a flimsy camouflage for however reluctant or pseudo-pious Atheism.

For example, as computer analogies are current in physics and ecology, action and reaction, particularly as constituent in homeostasis, become comparable to responsive internal state monitoring, then euphemistically referred to as life or even awareness. Unfortunate mythological amplification and distortion then ensues until, either at superficial appraisal, all such rhetoric be naught but the Theological Sophistry, equivocation and slight of hand of typical Apologetics, or else otherwise, just idiosyncratic language in the poetical indulgence of Atheistic false piety.

Indeed, for fear of undue reduction, in case there may, after all, be anything more conscious and directed at work than meets the eye, let anyone seeking thereof first contemplate the sheer physical and computational requirements, if, in faith, they are at all serious about advancing beyond unvarnished Science Fantasy and at long last building a model and formulating and fleshing out any cogent viable and testable hypothesis of universal consciousness and at long last undertaking the challenge of Theophysics! If religion seeks to undertake science, then let them do it! And damn their tiresome hypocrisy. However slim the prospects for success, the uplifting vindication of science is in the fruitfulness even of failure.

In any case, putting aside all Epistemologically dubious Ontology from yearning and wishful thinking, religion can still embody values including morality, even regardless of the sheer brutality of any actual scriptures. All question of the essential characteristic disposition and application of values by which we live are informed by worldviews of human nature. Specifically, there have always been those exhorting or even in any way imposing whatever change as a free willed choice of decision outright and nothing more, and those extolling, instead, honesty and harmony with destiny on whatever path to change, growth or progress as is congruent with life and human nature.

Indeed, any willful effort at change, let alone imposition by others, raises the question of self control unto concerns with levels of denial, self deception and manipulation. And Sigmund Freud is very clear that new conditioning pressure in conflict with preexisting issues often results in suppression and yet more reaction formation.

Indeed, in the alternative, Freudian catharsis, the expression and release of inner hurts to be tended upon with compassion, is not without ancient precedence. Alas, however, it often seems that, all pious protestations aside, sanctimony and trivial superstition are more common than true profundity and richer inner life, let alone improved character and true benevolence. For many so vociferously protest their deep spirituality and relationship to God, the more transparently shallow and disappointing are their religious fantasies. Verily, even their day dreams are dreary cliché!

But ever as for any who sincerely walk with God, by concerted introspection perhaps such as they may ever fruitfully contribute to Endotheology, the Phenomenological study in cognitive psychology/philosophy, of the role and value of God in the psyche, entirely unburdened with any mechanics of Theophysics nor, to begin with, question whatsoever of the objective or external reality of God, one way or the other.

For in the pointed caution of Alexander Lowen MD: "Conviction lies not in the ego." "But" to quote Thomas Moore "faith, fanatic faith, once wedded fast to some dear falsehood, hugs it to the last." Such verily qualifying as the proverbial wedding made in Hell!

In the alternative, however, any quest for unknown or uncertain truth may call for a kind of faith, trust or optimism not contingent upon any particular assertion, theoretical Ontological opinion or belief. Indeed, does belief that the city of London is located in England or that two and two equal four, require much effort invested in faith? Atheism is no more than assertion of a rational conclusion. And if there are moral values of Rationalism, then these must be the honesty, responsibility and autonomy. For indeed as the saying goes: there can be no other values without honesty first. And morality as the dictate of God would be entirely arbitrary unless there is any reason, at least such as would be known even only to God. Hence, any punishment and reward system, bribes and threats of the Appeal to Force logical falsity aside, asserting that God is the source of morality explains nothing about morality whatsoever. Indeed, if there is a God, then, as Sartre observed, man must be freer than God, because man can sin. Indeed, an ultimately good God would actually have to be bound by morality, making moral principle primary even beyond God. What does it mean at all, then, to assert that God is the source of morality? Just how does that work?

Who so truly and abjectly surrenders and submits to the will of God can no more rely upon the efficacy of prayer than an Atheist. Prayer alone and in and of itself, ever such as that may be, must be deemed howsoever the only comfort entailed therein. Likewise, the conviction of righteousness alone, a value, the appeal to a morality beyond selfish concern alone is observably a comfort and support to confidence, short of despair, utter defeatism and Nihilism in relation to which opinion that God exists observably only serves as denial of despair, never mind, and less importantly, of unbelief. -Irresponsibility in the face of fallibility and uncertainty. Again, to quote Alexander Lowen MD still, "conviction lies not in the ego." Hence, like autonomy, morality and ethics remain aspects of character.

Faith by any other name, courage, "basic trust," residual optimism however cautious, all for lack of better understanding thereof, sustains us at all, even to rise when we wake; not knowledge, not by faith nor otherwise. Faith bears no Epistemological moment. Socratic wisdom is only knowing that we do not know, how ever approximately gauging the scope of ones own ignorance.

If there is a God who keeps His own secrets, withholding certainty only unto Himself, then, likewise, Godlike responsibility can solely be for God alone, and by design. Hence it can only be the human struggle from from uncertainty with human responsibility, within the fallibility of all as much and as little that is given us to know, that will ever be pleasing to God. Allegorically, it may be only the struggle with God, that is pleasing to God. Indeed, such is the role of Job, and by metaphorical extension, the Jew, as loyal opposition to the Almighty. Otherwise, if all is subject to the will of God no less than if none, then any appeal to God's will is non explanatory and uninformative, to believer and unbeliever alike. Which is to say that, clearly, the dramatic struggle with God is either simply a potent metaphor for coming to grips both with the limitations of situation and the demands of conscience, or else religion is no more than the abrogation of responsibility into lunatic moral Theo-crypto-Nihilism. Whereas, by contrast, the Atheist remains free and lucid to discern the moral behind the fairytale.

It is argued that without God as an absolute, then morality becomes so subjective and flexible as to loose all meaning and so becomes void. Indeed, all values, even survival instinct to begin with, cannot be logically reducible, but simply a matter of human nature, biological and arbitrary. For as Socrates famously argues, how can the oblivion after death be any more painful than the oblivion before birth? In the immortal words of Protagoras,

"Man is the measure of all things." There is no objective meaning. Meaning occurs subjectively in the human mind. And because values ultimately derive from biologically innate needs and drives; therefore as discovered in the Empirical childhood developmental psychology of Piaget, the clearest known actual source of howsoever Altruistic morality remains sympathy emerging as a human, indeed an animal, propensity. Humans can be humane.

G. E. Moore derided the very notion of ethics ever founded upon scientific principles, as: the naturalistic fallacy, because ethics strives to define what ought rather than what is. Thus science, he claimed, can’t get an “ought” out of an “is." After all, philosophy has never actually produced a falsifiable assumption for ethics. Only given any moral premise can scientific investigation up to any point, ever shed light upon possible and likely consequences of behavior informing responsibility towards whatever choices free to us.

Indeed, in so far as morality is, after all, conjectural, Godliness only promises certainty but cannot deliver. Morality is a passionately uncertain struggle. " . . . since the possible number of actions in the universe is unlimited -- as is the number of possible situations from which actions may proceed and take their tone -- morality is ... too complex to be knowable and far too complex to be reduced to any code . . ." - John Gardner, On Moral Fiction

Indeed, by every Technique of Suspense plotting, the rising tension and of dramatic conflict signifies that the resolution of whatever the central problem is such as to increasingly press character(s) inevitably to take action in struggle with whoever or whatever the antagonist in some way that must one way or another bring the very values of said character(s) into question for them. Most dramatically, an attempt at howsoever the wiser course may instead press a character into conflict on every level with their own motivating values for which they will be compelled to sacrifice the easier way because the moral course and the more difficult among free willed choices may so often coincide.

Ethical appeals employ commonly held values and beliefs; appeals to our sense of fairness, right and wrong, justice and mercy, persuasively as pertaining to the real world, or as pertaining to the consistent fictional scenario. Ethical appeals may appeal either to actual people, readers, or, likewise, fictional characters may seek to motivate and persuade one another by appealing to the values of the fictional or historical scenario, milieu or setting.

Morality is a value, not an Ontology as such. True morality is a matter of principle but no less a question of responsibility that in turn obtains from foreseeable consequences as much as principle, principle being extrapolated deductively while foreseeable consequences are a matter for prognosis. Hence the entire concept of God remains irrelevant, moot, non sequitur, morally. Morality and Ethics are trying and difficult concerns of actual life in the real world, not specious nattering of the supernatural.

There is, however, endeavor at statistical corroboration and even explanation of positive moral values, especially those often deemed most crucial to relationship, as howsoever fostered by religion and particularly by sense of community therein. -though apologism typically continues sidestepping the alarming downside of antirational indoctrination and taboo.

For only one example, abortion is certainly not murder, because murder requires a real victim, not potential, whatever that means. The murder of a dream unrealized, is not literal but remains euphemism, poignant metaphor. Perhaps unless, of course, the soul really does enter at the very moment of genetic recombination, as allegedly revealed only to those declaring themselves to be "of the spirit." Otherwise, in the real world, reproductive free willed choice remains compassionate and responsible priority, no less than anesthesia for women in labor, a medical innovation likewise initially obstructed by similarly cruel biblically derived taboo and depraved indifference. Indeed, all whosoever deem coerced childbirth appropriate chastisement for the joy of sex, are scarcely any better than honor killers and widow burners.

In the time bound state of human consciousness and reflection, we not only react spontaneously in the present, but also remember the past and imagine scenarios to anticipate possibilities of the future. And so, barring sheer depraved indifference, in rational foresight there accrues responsibility, whereas by contrast, religion, historically rooted in fairytale magical realism, is instead typically associated with guilt over very intentions. As for example, again, the lofty pure intentions behind opposition to reproductive free choice yoked to irresponsibly ignoring the known and foreseeable consequences. For, indeed, the pure intentions of chastity invariably leading to the inevitable fall from grace, that, by rejection of the occasion of sin intrinsic to preparedness for the foreseeable eventuality of sexual opportunity and activity, then actually demands the patent irresponsibility of deep denial ignoring all need and prudence of preparation including such precautions as prophylaxis. Surely, all such exemplifies the the proverbial road to Hell paved with ostensibly good intentions! Excuses aside, in truth, subconscious ulterior motives to pregnancy, often as compensation for deep-seated inadequacy, far better explain the behavior than does all crazy-making doctrine and capricious denial.

In the end, Dr. Frankenstein was right! The nigh idolatrous awed cult reverence towards sheer procreative power in Nature only inspires contempt for the individual, resentment and lemming-like self-loathing, the Medieval sanctification of poverty and ignorance unto the Necrophiliac adoration of the imagined hereafter as this life is progressively rendered intolerable, that has also obstructed the benefits of organ donation, autopsy and cryonics. Man, we are told, is made in God's image, not that we so exist and abide. The alleged sanctity of life seemingly does not extend beyond the womb, not even to the mother to be herself, and only returning in the cold dirt of the grave. So called Pro-Life is actually more of a Kirbyesque Anti-Life, a sinister Orwellian mind controlling Nihilism wielded by its fanatical memebots, ridiculous yet dangerous Fascist comic opera villains and Elmer Gantry pseudo pious charlatans.

Indeed, worst of all, by no means limited to religion or ideology, there is sheer anti-rationality, but in the mentality of religion and magic, even beyond any more pedestrian double-think self deception as denotes self manipulation in order to juggle contrary inconsistent beliefs, there is even the Solipsistically resolute faith in miracles of the literally most impossible, as in supernatural powers and the agency of an omnipotent God bound neither by neither logic nor even morality. And by that path lies the ultimate negation of truest devil worship that actually treasures hypocrisy and leaves little other account for heterodoxy whatsoever save by Ad Hominem hostility, one way or another. But here, in any sense, any appeal to God is deployed only in the unrepentant abandon of all values and conscience whatsoever.

Indeed, all values, even survival instinct to begin with, cannot be logically reducible, but simply a matter of human nature, biological and arbitrary. For as Socrates famously argues, how can the oblivion after death be any more painful than the oblivion before birth? Nevertheless, just as the false characterization of all science as Reductionism is often deployed for launching argument from ignorance and lack of imagination, likewise moral Nihilism is falsely claimed as the only default without the certified word of God. But in the immortal words of Protagoras,

"Man is the measure of all things." In truth, morality and ethics no less than aesthetics or taste are a values, qualities regarded as having desirable worth or utility, and as are all values, especially democracy, unless utterly and unnaturally abstract and ideal or just arbitrary and dogmatic, are not Ontology but subjective and redolent with meaning in the deepest sense relevantly derived from the motivation of human needs evolved first for survival and beyond, survival, pleasure principle, sympathy, culture to stave off boredom even without danger and violence, ultimately the gratifiable but insatiable attraction to new and fresh challenge and growth toward self-actualization or at least freedom and autonomy, without which purpose life itself threatens Zen futile Ecclesiastical vanity! and suicidal ennui is even known to ensue. Indeed:

People seldom quite understand what they want. Freudian transference love is the associative projection in the mind of fantasies onto a real person who somehow or other strikes a chord. Eliciting values in order to build rapport, which is the sensation of comfortable harmonious mutual understanding as from relating well to one another, denotes the sensitivity of psychoanalytically and dialectically drawing another to ponder and to reveal their unique profoundly motivating individual intangible true deepest end yearned for emotional state or experience, simply how they like to feel, as opposed to their more superficial means desires, typically concrete tangible things, phenomena, situation or circumstances, and especially qualities in others, merely howsoever associated or expected to help achieve or attain the former. Indeed, emotional motivation of inner life, is externally relevant only in response to circumstances, favorable or unfavorable.

By every Technique of Suspense plotting, the rising tension and of dramatic conflict signifies that the resolution of whatever the central problem is such as to increasingly press character(s) inevitably to take action in struggle with whoever or whatever the antagonist in some way that must one way or another bring the very values of said character(s) into question for them, even the very most intrinsic values that define character by consistently taking priority over other clearer and simpler motivating interests and concerns, often extrinsic.

The very question of value also is further elaborated in the quest for that which is dubbed moral science, with many useful and fairly concise definitions and explanations compiled and correlated. But the grab-bag remains still somewhat ill sorted no thanks to somewhat confused holism, in that there are also certain key distortions of to be well wary of:

Indeed, all that is said of value judgment as a complaint, is very true, but in actuality unproblematic. For the rejection of ego, the ego being the font of perfectly valid and meaningful value judgment, is a position though couched in Eastern terms, that is nevertheless identical with the very Western mistrust of human nature, a mistrust rightly denounced, being evil by the very adequate humanistic definition of evil proffered, specifically: denigration of legitimate need fulfillment, the railing against desire.

Certainly, biology has every part in most profound motivation, but sociology can never be discounted or despised either. Neither nature nor nurture need negation. Indeed, the loftiest goals of self-actualization, a concept much abused, must never overlook nor overshoot first the more concrete imperatives toward autonomy requiring a healthy ego, no less worthy to be extolled though, and alas, they are not, regardless how what passes for education, exemplar of the social evils mounted against developmental autonomy, is accurately and rightly denounced.

And the confusion can only be compounded by the ad hoc non sequitur inaccuracies of Taoist objectivity demands plus transcendental hand waving, obfuscating the entire point of the humanist legitimacy and even loftiness of worldly subjectivity so unjustly and disastrously despised in the East no less than in the West.

They say that there is no disputing matters of taste. And yet, the saying is observably false. For not only are matters of taste disputed and argued every day, but even, sometimes, quite sensibly, even meaningfully. Indeed, by exercises and studies in art appreciation, the tastes of other people, individually and culturally, can be better understood even if not quite reciprocally embraced. Which is, upon reflection, quite surprising! How can it ever be possible, and by what Epistemological Methodology, to argue Aesthetics sensibly, when taste is manifestly so subjective, quite beyond any proper Ontology?

Indeed, in drama, the aesthetics of which are very much bound up in the morality explored, though even the classical rules of drama can never be so steadfast as physical laws, nevertheless, without any critical disposition in the labor of writing, readable and compelling fiction is unlikely to result. But why so? As to the question of Aesthetic validity, there may be a clue in that Musicology can discover, discern and even most anciently mathematically express the characteristics and proportion not only of harmony but also, in modern times, of melody, musical pattern pleasing to the human ear. Such accomplishment suggests that as well as obvious culture and individuality, there may actually be an innate neurological component even to artistic taste. Corn ball cliché aside, there may even be some truth to beauty after all!

Moreover, Aesthetics is a value. So, might such as the above discovery regarding Aesthetics also in any way somehow also pertain to other values, particularly and most crucially, morality and ethics? Or, indeed, are ethics and morality nothing but arbitrary questions of taste? Clearly, no less that with Aesthetics, morality and ethics are rooted in human nature. And given the premise at all, somehow, sensible discussion ensues every day.

To attempt consistent description is to seek to know truth {to attempt to locate and identify correspondence to reality in assertions} in generalization, in ethics and morality no less than any other field of inquiry, despite the inter-subjectivity of values. Integrity, after all, is of the human condition.

The best that can be asserted is only as to the objective reality of subjectivity itself, of the Phenomena as some sort of ongoing event, simply rejecting whatever trivializing Reductionism. Hence, morality cannot be derived logically because morality is Altruistic, arising by way of sympathy, love recognizing the selfish needs of others as well as one's own, so that bonding becomes possible. Indeed, the dramatic exploration of moral dilemmas depends very much upon the emotions and sympathies evoked, or else the work fails and falls flat. But, regardless of recognizable or foreseeable consequences whatsoever, any motivation to responsibility at all, selfish needs to begin with, growth in the pursuit of self-actualization or at least freedom and autonomy, whatever will to power, the avoidance of pain and pursuit of pleasure, even self preservation, survival instinct, even for oneself, let alone, by love, caring and Altruistic extension, to others, are not logically derivable. For, to reiterate, as Socrates put it, how can the non existence after death be any more distressing or unpleasant than the non existence before birth? Indeed, what is more logical than Nirvana Principle, the Draconian escape from subjective suffering by reducing one's needs by abrogating all sense of identity, ego? Only developmental psychology recapitulating evolution at all explains first of all selfish concern let alone Altruism and therefore morality at all which can no more be logically validated than selfishness in the first place. Likewise God remains, at best, entirely non sequitur to the question of morality.

It is often quipped that those who can't do, teach (and that those who can't teach, teach gym!). But why, indeed, are teachers as a breed, so crushed and helplessly paralyzed? Just what is their damage? Absurdly, rather than firmly resolving as soon as safely practical, to end plainly destructive scholastic oppression, granting freedom and even establishing whatever necessary democracy to mitigate conditions of daily student captivity not to mention their own captive and sore travails! [the French word for 'labor,' literally: suffering] teachers instead remain intent as directed, upon the Quixotic doomed effort of lunatic faith and doublethink sleight of hand, somehow to integrate and reconcile autonomy so terrifying to them, as a component enfolded within their desperate security blanket of heteronomy.

Precisely thus, our educational system remains no more or less than the institutional Fifth Column of dedicated loving but insulting Totalitarian patronizing condescension within democratic society alas still too cowardly and contemptuous to trust the worthiness of our own children or even adult college students (therefore, when if ever??), as to be curious enough on their own without exactly such constantly mounting, pressurizing and ultimately crushing abuse guaranteed to quickly erode any joy of autonomous curiosity.

But worse, precisely such societal cowardice and contempt is unsuspectingly internalized by children subjected to manipulatively devious and systematic indoctrination to paralytic heteronomy, so that they can never trust others or even especially themselves to be curious enough on their own without exactly such constantly mounting, pressurizing and ultimately crushing abuse guaranteed to quickly erode any joy of autonomous curiosity. In brief, in order to function at all, they become helplessly addicted to coercion, from wherever coercion can be found.

If anyone is ever observed to prefer eating junk food and memorizing sports trivia to studying math and working hard at it, there are at least two competing explanatory hypotheses: One is that human beings from childhood are naturally lazy and hedonistic, and the other, quite simply, is that people are routinely traumatized from childhood by school but less often by their hobbies. Alas, the latter is as yet recognized only as a complicating cofactor at best, while the former has never properly come into doubt, in blithe denial of theoretical inelegance and preponderance of evidence. Thus, to typical heteronymous authorities and functionary teachers, the quite unpalatable risk in any fundamental alternative, is in simply respecting the individual right also perhaps possibly to reject unwanted education. Because, what then? If no one is coerced one way or another, indeed, if one day automation finally puts an end to chores and busy work, then how will anything ever get done and what will be the point of living?

It's still all for your own good, dear! -even if we dare no longer proclaim that: "pressure makes diamonds!"

Indeed, such insult as patronizing condescension that after all comes of love can be less painful than insult that comes without it, or more so, or equally so, as the case may be: but be that as it may, it is, in any case significantly more harmful. This is because insult provokes anger and hostility, but hostility towards people who even sincerely profess to love you and act on your own best interest is curbed and turned inwards, internalized, and experienced as self-hostility, namely guilt.

Precisely such deceptive appeals undermining the target’s credulity and defenses even whilst actually exercising coercion constitute often likewise internalized flagrantly manipulative behavior, conscious or unconscious; because, beyond bypassing and overwhelming aware intellect and good sense by the adroit application of such motivating emotional triggers as guilt, fear, spite, temptation and flattery, a prime function of manipulation is simply to disarm individual resistance to coercion by rationalizing said coercion as reasonable, fair, moderate or even benign and benevolent.

In brief, however deplored by Vockell may be the application of external extrinsic motivation even where internal intrinsic motivation and value is absent, fulfilling internal and intrinsic motivation being howsoever preferable to oppressive extrinsic motivation, teachers are still not charged by the expert and authoritative likes of Vockell simply to facilitate and aid in the fulfillment of whatever varying needs and desires of students themselves, but rather still, however adaptively, to inculcate curriculum and even socialization by whatever motivation necessary, fair or foul.

Because, after all, while teachers naturally want students to flourish, responsible and accountable to themselves, we all need to be sure that this will be the right kind of responsibility for members of society! -Alas, the irony here is mine, not the educators...

And where, according to Vockell, extrinsic motivation (often) must(!) be employed initially, then only temporarily, because "extrinsic motivators may lead to merely short-range activity while actually reducing long-range interest [...] Therefore, it is essential that extrinsic motivators be backed up by intrinsic motivators or that the extrinsic motivation become internalized", indeed, by the correct application of behavioral modification. But behavioral internalization is never classified properly and honestly as manipulative and uncritical indoctrination, whereas education, in distinction from indoctrination, professes to foster unfettered critical thinking in quest for truth, free of corrupting vested interest.

Indeed, a most remarkable aspect of modern scholastic indoctrination, rife with such patronizing condescending hypocritical doublethink, is how scholastic indoctrination strives to avoid indoctrinary bias except, without saying, as to the urgency of putative need for scholastic indoctrination itself and also for the putative imperative of socialization, all thereby theoretically leaving wide open a vast and free range of critical thinking, indeed so long as it remain entirely abstract with no risk of action and change.

Yes, the challenge of student motivation aside, whether in the most harsh and brutal competitive arena of old or the worst "No Child Left Behind" misguidedly egalitarian reformist cultivation of sheer Harrison Bergeron mediocrity of today, should ever compulsory education fail, naturally it remains entirely acceptable for the student to be chided and blamed via a bad grade despite being captive with little real choice, the risk from true unique independent individual mistakes remaining still so terrifying a responsibility for all concerned! Indeed, nowadays, mischievous schoolchildren may be "consequenced." But such parlance is even more transparently Orwellian. Alas, even given, obviously, how external and therefore extrinsic motivation often indeed arises situationally, nevertheless the inductivist deliberate engineering of external extrinsic motivation is also never honestly and responsibly named as: systematic punishment and reward, doomed to demoralized failure exactly as already explained and acknowledged quite sufficiently by the author himself Edward Vockell, Ph.D, even as he extols exactly such tactics, even if only in such deviously and manipulatively ostensible moderation!

Alas, the truth remains that even given that the application of discipline may ever be necessary and appropriate in matters of conduct such as to simply in defense of our rights from one another as from bullying, the application of discipline as punishment and reward to extrinsically motivate learning remains as failed an enterprise and dubious a proposition as ever since the dawn of history.

Indeed our tragedy is rooted in the motivating allure of heteronomy, the dread of individual responsibility in the face of uncertainty and risk, and how exactly the sheer futility of artfully minimized indoctrination is, in truth, simply the more insidious than merciful let alone certain or risk free in the manner that true freedom clearly is not. Thence the moral of our story might be how modern education remains utopist as ever, and the manner in which inflexible grand and overreaching responsibilities to desired results however lofty, only end in rationalizing the most flagrant irresponsibility even regarding minimally acceptable daily conduct of educators simply not to bully and abuse power, even however deviously and manipulatively (and of the expertly guided administration not to actually demand such evil of teachers), never mind simply to freely provide educational service with immediate, attractive and yes: intrinsic end-user appeal in service to stimulus need and therefore conducive to individual growth.

Education is supposed to be entirely distinct from indoctrination, yet the perception that indoctrination remains integral to education persists. And indoctrination is intrinsically harmful to autonomy. So Behaviorism, behavioral conditioning and modification, as employed above, is as wrongheaded a response to this educational dilemma as conceivable!

Indeed, Behaviorism, behavioral conditioning and modification is an abomination, an a'priori abrogation of medical ethics, because the core medical ethic of psychotherapy, equivalent to the Hippocratic oath in medicine, is the Freudian injunction against suggestion. For just as the Physician strives to minimize harm to the absolutely necessary and unavoidable trade off, the therapist must strive never to usurp the freedom of the patient howsoever by insinuating his or her own will over the patient. Even the patients are encouraged to relax and be less willful over themselves, instead to find responsibility in truth as they themselves will honestly see it, liberated to pursue their own will. Because Freud discovered suggestion to be useless at best and harmful at worst.

Behaviorism, then, has been a doomed effort from the start.

Now, it is all fine and good to criticize Freud, professionally and even personally, indeed thereby to rediscover the flawed humanity of so influential a thinker. Indeed, it is all fine and good to wish for something more scientific, precise and reliable, than our essentially Freudian legacy of Psychodynamic diagnosis and treatment. But wishing doesn't make it so, and certainly not for the doomed effort of Behaviorism, behavioral conditioning and modification. Simply because motivation is so difficult to quantify, does not mean that conditioned behavior offers anything remotely adequate either in diagnosis or ministration to the human condition. Plainly it does not. That is why Behavioral theorists may nowadays be found striving to slip deeper motivations in via the proverbial back door.

The current ongoing salvage effort upon Behaviorism, behavioral conditioning and modification, is named: Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, incorporating insights derived from Cognitive Philosophy which is a body of self observation of thought patterns even sometimes dubbed: "mental behaviors". And a common frustration with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, is that the observations offered by the Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, of the suffering patient's blithe kneejerk responses, and the tips and tricks the Cognitive Behavioral Therapist strives to teach the patient, the better to govern themselves, all immediately trigger traumas from the past and issues in the present, heartbreakingly calling out for Psychodynamic Therapy for which the Cognitive Behavioral Therapist is unequipped. Hence the vaunted quick efficacy, ever at all, of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, even for treatment of minor problems, depends upon the lowered expectations of the patient, even lonely Zen resignation and crushed spirit. The Behavioral quick fix so beloved of insurance providers, actually only suffices at all in fairly mild cases, to get the poor wretches up on their feet and back to work, troubled and unhappy as ever. -Ah, but functioning!

Instead, better that the blithe emotional triggers so blindly proffered by the skilled yet hapless Cognitive Behavioral Therapist, should be rescued to the Psychodynamic toolbox, as another oblique angle past the forward defenses of the patient, for access to patients issues in the present and traumas from the past, bringing yearned for compassion, understanding, insight, catharsis and relief, with whatever practical helpful cognitive advice as a motivating bonus. This might also be of particular benefit, for example, to high functioning Borderline Personalities, nevertheless still too volatile and defensive for Psychodynamic Therapy. The superficial short term self control cultivated via Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, might be just enough for withstanding, participating and benefitting from Psychodynamic Therapeutic treatment to resolve persistent deeper troubles.

With best and appropriate redeploy of purely cognitive tools and insights, Behaviorism, behavioral conditioning and modification may at long last be afforded a by far long overdue decent burial.

Those who can make you/	[If/ As long as]: we/ People (who)
		believe in absurdities
can make you/			[will/ shall]: eventually/ continue to
				commit atrocities.
-Voltaire