The Worth of a Man (Spoilers: less than a fetus)

The death of late-term abortion provider George Tiller at the hands of a pro-life fanatic (who once tried to bomb an abortion clinic prior to the murder) has revealed a particularly nasty streak in some members of the pro-life movement. No, I am talking about the killer himself.  I am talking about the people who refuse to say a bad word about him. First up, a published comment on the part of Randall Terry, founder of the organization Operation Rescue (which protested Tiller at length about 15 years back):

 "George Tiller was a mass-murderer. We grieve for him that he did not have time to properly prepare his soul to face God.   I am more concerned that the Obama Administration will use Tiller's killing to intimidate pro-lifers into surrendering our most effective rhetoric and actions. Abortion is still murder. And we still must call abortion by its proper name; murder."

The key points are to note that George Tiller was "a mass murderer" only according to the deranged, subjective opinion of people who insist that killing undeveloped fetuses is the moral equivalent of killing fully cognizant human beings, and not the opinion of the law.   In addition, isn't it rather telling that there is not one word expressing actual sympathy for the sentient human being that was killed?  The one with friends, and family, who was doing a job that few have the skills to provide and was doing it perfectly legally?  Whether what he did was deemed "murder" by a group of politically and religiously minded people or not is irrelevant to the objective fact that killing him is murder by the law.  Sadly, it appears that this individual cares more about not being politically inconvenienced by someone who took the "most effective rhetoric" of the "pro-life" movement too literally than about someone actually being killed due to the divisive and irrational political climate they are contributing to wholeheartedly.

And, since that was nice, succinct, and savory, how could you settle for just one?

Here's a good number more wingnut nuggets:

• Crap, I always forgot hashtags. I'm happy Tiller's dead. - Jennifer Waite, Selah, Washington
  
• UPDATE... Doctor George Tiller was aborted today in his 204th trimester - aren't paybacks a bitch - Punch
• oh HAPPY DAY! Tiller the baby killer is DEAD! - Samantha Pelch 
• George Tiller the baby killer was shot dead this morning. God bless the gunmen who hopefully won't be caught. - readnwatchchris, Creedmor. NC
• was George Tiller the baby killers brain scrambled the way he scrambled full term fetuses.. one can only hope - Brad S
• Infamous baby killer George Tiller gunned down at (irony) church. Why do I not feel sorry for him? Have fun at Judgment Day. - James Fiddler
• tiller the baby killer shot dead...wow. is it insensitive of me to say what goes around comes around? - Brad M. Negulescu Cleveland.
• George Tiller the Baby Killer shot dead. May he rot in Hell. - Amy Strong
• Tiller Baby Killer was shot and killed this morning Justice has been served. - Shirl Ledeux
• Thinking about "Tiller the baby killer" He now knows the wages of sin is death. - Dianne McDowell
• May Tiller rot in Hell , infanticide is the murder of babies, he WAS a provider of death like Hitler, Bundy the list goes on.... - Dennis, A People Voip Company
• Burn in hell George Tiller - mikedanben Sparta, NJ (41.005501,-74.672)
• No need to pray for George Tiller. We know he went straight to hell!!!!! - Laurie D. Bailey Olive Branch, MS
• Good ridence to Tiller - babies will not be murdered because he is now gone. Wonder how he likes hell! - Jay Emess, Southern, NJ
• Karma is a beautiful thing. Cheers to the hero who sent George Tiller where he belongs... straight to hell. - Matthew Kamar
• omg!george tiller abortion dr. was killed n his church parkn lot! hell yea! - Sarah Gulick, Wtichita, Ks
• George Tiller: Burning in Hell for the last three hours. - darthdilbert Kettering, Oh
• Hmm, I know it's wrong, but I feel like the Late-Term Abortion Doctor George Tiller, got what was he deserved..... - Mary Keogh London England
• Boom Boom Boom. George Tiller was served a very very late term abortion this morning. - Chad Coleman, coeur d'alene, Id

A few more added 6:54 PM Pacific Time

• Guy shoots a Dr. to death in Church. Me I'm willing to bet that Jesus was his co-pilot. - jeremyawhitman 
• Tiller the Killer goes to Church and ends up in Hell - mshellisright, Tulsa
• Tiller the Baby Killer is finally dead....God took care of what needed to be done.... - Cynthia Wrench
• The left-wing nutjobs don't understand that Tiller the baby killer was not human. No human kills babies, only monsters. Good riddance - Sami Shamieh, Walnut Creek, CA
• I guess Obama the Messiah can't resurrect Tiller the baby killer. -  Sami Shamieh, Walnut Creek, CA
• The person who shot Tiller the baby killer simply excercised a man's right to choose. - Sami Shamieh, Walnut Creek, CA
• the killing of tiller the baby killer was JUSTICE, not murder. - eqbt
• Glad someone offed Tiller. Baby Killer. - Kat, Kansas

The most common perspective seems to be one of feeling that this was justified, because Tiller was a "baby killer".  Interestingly, the term "baby killer" may be more accurate than when pro-lifers generally use it to describe abortionists, because Tiller had a clinic in which he performed late-term abortions (after the 21st week, near or into the third trimester).  The counter-point to that issue is the fact that he usually only performed these procedures when it was medically necessary.

That's right.  Tiller the baby killer killed babies that were most likely going to die on their own or who would result in serious medical/psychiatric complications for the mother.  It is only by prioritizing these fetuses' lives over both their mothers' and Tiller's life that you can even begin to suggest that something approximating justice was served.  In this case, we could even grant the pro-lifers their baseless assumption that killing a fetus with not even a semblance of cognition is equivalent to murder of a full functioning human being who is biologically independent and it would not even be relevant to this case.  Odd for something pertinent to abortion to have the major point of disagreement between the political sides (that a fetus counts as fully human) be completely irrelevant, but there ya go.

And this is what brings me, once again, to a dissection.  Hat tip to Pharyngula, leading me to an article by Gingi Edmonds: (Warning:  this going to be long, and you may not want to look directly at the quoted passages, lest your eyes be burnt out of your skull from exposure to the criminal levels of inherent evil contained within).

Tiller was one of only three nationwide abortionists that make a living injecting digoxin into the beating hearts of small infants from the 21st week of pregnancy to birth.  This man put Kansas on the map as the "abortion state" with his entrepreneurial spirit in capitalizing on abortion services

Well, so far so good....she isn't lying!  Even though she is stating it in clearly biased language...who can really blame her?

In addition to being a hit man for hire, Tiller also offered funerary services to mothers that paid him to off their kids.  While most clinics in the nation are content to just rape and scrape, Tiller took his practice leaps and bounds beyond the norm and peddled abortion packages that included photographing, footprinting, handprinting, baptism, cremation, and arrangement for autopsy.

"Hit man for hire"?  Is there really any other kind? 

How is "rape" at all anyway analogous to anything that is occuring in this voluntary procedure?

Why does she continue the great pro-lifer tradition of talking about abortion as if it was some frivolous/hateful decision on the part of the mothers that needs to be mocked?  So many questions...

George Tiller personally killed more babies than America lost soldiers in Vietnam.  Although he specialized in killing handicapped children, most of his tiny victims were late term, fully-formed, healthy, and viable outside the womb.  He performed an average of roughly seven post-viable abortions per week and has admitted on tape to aborting babies a day before the mother's due date. 

As mentioned in an article I previously linked to (here it is again), the idea that these "children" were viable is quite a distortion, because all his cases either involved non-viable fetuses or significant threats to the mother's well-being.  So, under that condition, it probably doesn't matter if he aborted an infant a day before it was due to be born, because it was either not viable, "handicapped" (i.e. with sufficiently severe birth effects) enough to not make it very long after being born, or could very well have brought harm to the mother had the due date been reached. 

Despite his radical dealings in abortion extremism for over 35 years, Tiller has been met with physical violence only three times in his career of mass baby slaughter.  His clinic was bombed in 1985.  On August 19, 1993 he was shot in both arms outside of his Wichita clinic.  And on May 31, 2009 Tiller was shot to death as he served as an usher during church services.

You see?  He was only attacked by anti-abortion fanatics three times.  He should've considered himself lucky!  This makes me feel much better.

Murder is murder, and it is something that we pro-lifers inherently deplore.  But I can't help but note - and my history is rusty so pardon me here - I'm trying to remember, did anyone mourn Lee Harvey Oswald when Jack Ruby gunned him down?  Or better yet, did anyone mourn the deaths of Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer, or any other mass murderer for that matter?  Even according to the harebrained pro-choice life-at-viability reckoning, Tiller was indisputably a mass murderer who was executed in a fashion far more humane than the tens of thousands of children that he mutilated and left to die in cuddle session bassinets.

"Murder is murder, but just give me a second while I try to justify this murder".  Lee Harvey Oswald did have the right to a fair trial, did have family, and Jack Ruby was punished for killing him.  Jeffrey Dahmer is still loved by his father, whom he lived with during the murders, and both parents publically stated that they still loved him, despite the murders.  I know less about Bundy, but, then again, he was executed, not killed by a random person who felt they were justified in doing so because their victim was themselves a killer.  And I sincerely doubt that shooting someone to death is more humane than whatever procedure Tiller used.  In other words, [citation needed].

I mean, think about it.  Someone just shot a Nazi guard manning the gas chamber at Aushwitz.  I should feel bad about this?  George Tiller the Baby Killer's acts are every bit as vile as the Nazi war criminals who were hunted down, tried, and sentenced after they participated in the "legal" murder of the Jews that fell into their hands.

Ah yes, the abortion=The Holocaust bit.  Just a natural conclusion to draw from the abortion=murder presupposition, with a little emotional blackmail on top by pulling a Godwin.  In other words, this is just a reiteration of the last paragraph. Murderers "deserve" to be murdered, therefore "murderers" deserve to be murdered (note the scare quotes please).  

The lone wacko who gunned Tiller down was not associated with any single pro-life organization or group.  He was working solo and his acts rest on his head alone.  So why, exactly, are pro-lifers doing back flips to appease the abortion mongering moonbats that seek to elevate Tiller to martyrdom and sainthood?

Here's the brief version for why "pro-lifers" need to at least try to pretend to have human decency and care about this: because the extreme rhetoric on your side of the aisle is the kind of crap that justifies this.  Just read your post up to this point.  The entire time is spent trying to both 1. characterize Tiller as a "mass-murderer" and 2. suggest that killing people due to being a mass-murderer is fully justified.  In other words, you are arguing that the person who did this, by the logic of the pro-life movement, is completely justified!  And that's why you need to start doing "back flips" right now: because you will completely lose all credibility if anyone with the slightest bit of sense realizes that those slightly to right of moderate in the "pro-life" movement fully support the actions of the killer!

Instead of scrambling to feverishly denounce the pro-life community ("Anyone who thinks Tiller's death is in any way a positive thing is not a true pro-lifer"... huh?) we should be looking at a very serious fact:  If every single pro-lifer who is currently falling all over themselves to publicly mourn the "loss" of this abortionist displayed just a fraction of that outrage over just ONE of the children Tiller murdered on a regular nine to five, Baby Killer Tiller would have been put out of business long ago and he would not be dead today. 

And if the "pro-lifers" didn't spent so much time freaking the fuck out over the well-being of non-viable third trimester fetuses and the brainless first trimester fetuses that we so merrily massacre and rather started caring about the post-birth children in our country, and throughout the world, who are suffering and dying, then they would resemble people with a semblance of sanity.  But, alas, this is not the case.  And, yes, those who think that Tiller's death was justified are "pro-life" rather than pro-life.  But, frankly, the scare quote version is the only kind we are used to encountering anyway.

Over the years there have been multiple opportunities to peacefully and legally hold George Tiller accountable to his actions, thus shielding him from acts of extremism.  An example would be his trial that took place in March of 2009.  Being charged with 19 misdemeanors he got off scott-free through corrupt political ties and professional dishonesty.  Again, had justice been served in that courtroom, Tiller would be alive today and serving a sentence behind bars.

So, in other words, the court rules in favor of Tiller, proving that he is working within the confines of the law, but, because the result wasn't in favor of your delusions, you think that it was just another tally against him?  Rather than vindicating him, it was obviously a "corrupt" ruling and, once again, killing him is justified?  You know, I originally intended to blog crazy, inane things.  I am glad I gave up on that early, because I clearly can't compete with this!

Is the pro-life position one of violence?  Of course not.  It is because we are so peaceful that lone acts of extremism immediately garner national attention.  In the course of a 36 year genocide, only five abortionists have been killed.  According to government statistics from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, for every abortionists killed, over thirty clergy members have been murdered.  Where are the candlelight vigils and 24/7 news coverage for these victims of political violence?

If the pro-life position isn't one of violence, then you must have really missed the boat in spending every paragraph before this point coming up with rationalizations in favor of a violent crime.  And, please look at the side of pro-choice supporters, and compare the acts of terrorism and murder (you know, the actual kind prohibited by law) between the sides.  Peaceful my ass.  I have no idea about the clergy members, but I sincerely doubt that they would killed for "political" reasons, let alone all of them for the same political reasons.  And I also doubt that they have a comparable populations (i.e. abortionists are most likely more rare than "clergy" in a general sense of the word).  So, yeah.

According to the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, every day more than 80 Americans die from gun violence - many of these being senseless death with the victims innocent of any wrong-doing.  And here we have a man who made a living peddling death, who reaped what he had been sowing for over 36 years at $5,000+ a pop. Does this honestly surprise anyone?

Yay!  America has an abysmally large number of murders via gun usage, and Tiller deserved it.  Ergo, stop talking about it everybody!   Since this particular "gun violence" was politically motivated, rather than a standard random act of violence, and was directed at a guy who has been incredibly demonized by the "pro-life" crowd, I am going to have to say, yes, this is relevant news.  But, sadly, I am not surprised by it.

Pro-lifers need to stop hyperventilating over the pro-aborts who are having aneurisms synthesizing mock outrage at Tiller's demise.  We need, now more than ever, to keep things in proper perspective. 

I assure you, pro-birther, that the outrage is genuine.  And when did you ever, in your life, come across a proper perspective, in which to be in a position to "keep things in" one?

 I know this is a huge loss for Tiller's family and they need our prayer and support.  I'm sure they are grieving bitterly, and it is heartbreaking to think of the pain that they must be feeling.  It is ultimately tragic that Tiller did not have an opportunity to properly prepare his soul to face his Maker.  Unless some miracle happened, he left this life with his hands drenched with innocent blood.

Hopefully there is more support than prayer.  Unless you just want to feel self-important, in which case, pray away!  Also, the last two sentences sound almost identical to Randall Terry's up top.  Maybe they shared notes?

While it is imperative that we extend love and grace to the family of Tiller, we still cannot afford to lose sight of the fact that George Tiller was a mass murderer of the worst kind who made a living off of killing babies and harming women.  Unless you are radically against capital punishment, those who view abortion as murder agree that the penalty for the crime of mass child slaughter is death.  And although the method and means of his execution is deplorable, the ultimate outcome is not. 

PRO-LIFE!!1!!!

(Also, "radically" against capital punishment?  What?)

The man chose his fate the moment he dismembered his first infant.  I'm not embarrassed to say what the punishment for the crime is anymore than I'membarrassed to admit that child killing is a crime.

You should be dreadfully embarrassed to say both.  You should be embarrassed to say that the punishment for mass murder is death because it depends on your jurisdiction.  There are laws, and due process involved in this, ya know, and not everywhere allows the death penalty.  You should be embarrassed to say that child killing is a crime because 1. regular abortion is not "child" killing and 2. it completely ignores the fact that, in this case, the "child killing" was done to the already dead/those who would harm the mother/those that would likely die out of the womb anyway.  And you should be incredibly embarrassed, having said both of those, because Tiller was already in court and deemed innocent of crime and unworthy of punishment!  And you've already acknowledged that you are aware of that!  So, quite frankly: fuck you.

Did I want him to be gunned down in church - even a hypocritical, Molech-worshiping fraud of a church like the one he was attending while shot?  No.  I would have much preferred him being tried and convicted in a court of law that is consistent with medical science and personhood as defined in our Constitution.  We can prevent the atrocious acts of violence against abortionists by holding them accountable to their actions.  

Here's where the fun is at:  suggesting that a church is a "fraud" because it is presumably a liberal one (it is a Lutheran church...that's all I know about it on this end).  Classic conservative move, attempting to imply that they have an exclusive claim to "TRUE!" Christianity.  And, although I am sure she would have preferred that he was "tried and convicted", he was tried already and found innocent!  Goddammit, how much does she think the "medical science" that doesn't support her position and the Constitution that doesn't define personhood has changed since then?

The sooner pro-lifers stop giving pro-aborts wiggle room in their perpetual playing of the victim card, the better.  We need to reveal to the nation what this man did for a living and shed even more light on the grisly details of abortion.  Our pointless pacifism and back-peddling in the face of this tragedy is helping turn George Tiller into a hero for the pro-abort crowd.

Yeah, pro-choicers are the ones who play the victim card.  Sure.  And, lol at the idea of exposing "the grisly details of abortion".  It's how they operate: showing disgusting photos of the most developed aborted fetuses they can find.  They are the real life version of a shock site.  They are the goatse of political movements.  That's probably the nicest thing I've been able to say about them thus far, as well!

(Note:  if you don't know what goatse is...please take caution when looking it up.  No need to expose you to horrors beyond the Lovecraftian nightmares and terrifying illogic I deem fit for the blog).

Already, the pro-deathers are making absurd comments such as, "Tiller was truly pro-life, he helped women and was willing to sacrifice his own life for them!"  Well, if pro-aborts can dub Tiller "truly pro-life", then in all fairness I guess it's safe to say that his killer was truly "pro-choice".  He believed in the idea that if a person's existence troubles you, you have the right to kill them.  He also obviously strongly felt that every abortionist should be a wanted abortionist.  Is it not a personal decision?  His ammunition, his choice?  Everybody has an opinion... can't we all just get along?  Find common ground, like Obama asked us to?

I mean, I personally would not shoot an abortionist, but who am I to impose my morality on someone else?  If you are against shooting abortionists, then don't shoot one, right?  Hmm, suddenly pro-choice  rhetoric doesn't sound so warm and fuzzy and virtuous, does it?

Let me repeat the key strawman:  "if a person's existence troubles you, you have the right to kill them".  Did she unintentionally leave out the part where the person is biologically dependent on you, causes strain on your body due to this, will inevitably need to cause you tremendous pain in order to claim independence and could cause permanent damage in the process, the person popped out of nowhere with no known acquitances, and the person has no discernible cognitive function until half-way through the entire process?  I am sure it was just a mistaken omission on her part.

I am glad to hear her scoff at the sound of compromise. It's a sign of a true zealot.

Also:  "If you are against shooting abortionists, then don't shoot one, right?"  How many ways can you restate "abortion=murder" in one article!?

Tiller was killed by a pro-choice act.  Pro-lifers need make no apologies.  Both men are guilty of bloodshed and this tragedy is a sad but all-too-real testament to the biblical truth that those who live by the sword, die by the sword.

Does that mean that we get to kill Tiller's murderer?  Or do we have to break that "Biblical truth" by just giving him life in prison?  

What else do we have here...

Oh look, Bill O'Reilly makes sense for a whole one minute before frantically trying to defend himself.  

Funny to see him so riled up, making many of the same harebrained points that Gingi does. Oh, if you want to see one of the reasons why Bill seems so defensive...here ya go.

2:32 or so, he starts to muse about roughing up Tiller, but restrains himself with the particularly weak (and almost sarcastic sounding) "Can't be vigilantes".  Well, apparently, some among us think otherwise.  

And, last but not least, read this article for a dash of redemption for the pro-lifers (just, don't read the comments....fair warning...).

All I've got to say is that, at the end of the day, it is a good thing we have the rule of law to protect us from the anti-abortion crowd. 

Edit:  This article at Slacktivist describes the issue incredibly well.  Also:  

While attending worship at Reformation Lutheran Church this morning, child-slaughterer George Tiller seems to have been assassinated. Without a doubt the most bloodthirsty and cruel of our nation's baby-murderers, Tiller's name has been infamous among men committed to stopping the bloodshed. He's one of the few willing to take money to murder babies so late in the pregnancy that they would be viable outside the womb.

Operation Rescue publicity hound, Randall Terry, expresses regret at Tiller's assassination. We express regret for the years he was allowed to slaughter babies with the civil authority doing absolutely nothing to stop him. One wonders what Martin Luther, John Calvin, or Dietrich Bonhoeffer would say at the news that he was attending church this morning when he was killed?

May Almighty God keep another man from picking up his traffic in murder.

God, please protect me from your followers....

Everything you believe is a convenient and advantageous lie!

Okay, as a prelude to a long post, I give unto you, my adoring audience, a youtubular present.

I truly do love myself some rap music.
Anyway, for this post, lovingly crafted at the very end of a month in which I have posted next to nothing, I have decided to delve into the same Christianity Today article that was brought up over at The Pharyngula.  It is an article authored by philosopher Alvin Plantinga, who I personally thought was one of those apologists from the mid 1500's, due to his name and the high regard with which he is usually mentioned.  The article serves primarily as a brief summary of his "Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism", in which he attempts to show why holding evolution and naturalism to be true simultaneously is self-refuting.

What she means is that natural selection doesn't care about the truth or falsehood of your beliefs; it cares only about adaptive behavior. Your beliefs may all be false, ridiculously false; if your behavior is adaptive, you will survive and reproduce. Consider a frog sitting on a lily pad. A fly passes by; the frog flicks out its tongue to capture it. Perhaps the neurophysiology that causes it to do so, also causes beliefs. As far as survival and reproduction is concerned, it won't matter at all what these beliefs are: if that adaptive neurophysiology causes true belief (e.g., those little black things are good to eat), fine. But if it causes false belief (e.g.,if I catch the right one, I'll turn into a prince), that's fine too. Indeed, the neurophysiology in question might cause beliefs that have nothing to do with the creature's current circumstances (as in the case of our dreams); that's also fine, as long as the neurophysiology causes adaptive behavior. All that really matters, as far as survival and reproduction is concerned, is that the neurophysiology cause the right kind of behavior; whether it also causes true belief (rather than false belief) is irrelevant.

He is correct in saying "natural selection does not care about the truth or falsehood of your beliefs" if it either has no effect on your behavior or produces adaptive behavior.  But, let's take a look at the examples he gives.  A frog who possesses the belief that flies are good food and a frog who possesses the belief that flies will turn him into a prince, a true belief and a false belief.  The problem here is that the frog with the first belief will likely be willing to eat flies in a wide variety of situations, whereas the one who thinks he will turn into a prince will be unwilling to do so if he fears a sudden transformation will result in falling off his lillypad and drowning, or meaning that he will have to leave his frog-wife, or if he simply does not think becoming a prince is a good thing.  It is far less likely to be a positive motivator for eating and more likely to be a deterrent in certain situations than the more general, correct belief presented.  As for the relevance of "true belief"...it's kind of a recurring theme, so I'll address it later.

What we learn from Crick and Churchland (and what is in any event obvious) is this: the fact that our hypothetical creatures have survived doesn't tell us anything at all about the truth of their beliefs or the reliability of their cognitive faculties. What it tells us is that the neurophysiology that produces those beliefs is adaptive, as is the behavior caused by that neurophysiology. But it simply doesn't matter whether the beliefs also caused by that neurophysiology are true. If they are true, excellent; but if they are false, that's fine too, provided the neurophysiology produces adaptive behavior.

If that entire paragraph sounds at all familar, its because it is a painstaking repetition of the same exact idea alluded to in the previous paragraph and explicitly stated in its last sentence.  But, I am not one to judge.  If I were accused of being redundant everytime I was redundant, then I would be accused of being redundant.

So consider any particular belief on the part of one of those creatures: what is the probability that it is true? Well, what we know is that the belief in question was produced by adaptive neurophysiology, neurophysiology that produces adaptive behavior. But as we've seen, that gives us no reason to think the belief true (and none to think it false). We must suppose, therefore, that the belief in question is about as likely to be false as to be true; the probability of any particular belief's being true is in the neighborhood of 1/2. But then it is massively unlikely that the cognitive faculties of these creatures produce the preponderance of true beliefs over false required by reliability. If I have 1,000 independent beliefs, for example, and the probability of any particular belief's being true is 1/2, then the probability that 3/4 or more of these beliefs are true (certainly a modest enough requirement for reliability) will be less than 10(to the power -58). And even if I am running a modest epistemic establishment of only 100 beliefs, the probability that 3/4 of them are true, given that the probability of any one's being true is 1/2, is very low, something like .000001.[7] So the chances that these creatures' true beliefs substantially outnumber their false beliefs (even in a particular area) are small.

Two interesting assumptions are made.  One is that beliefs become believed in at random.  The other is that, by setting the probability of all beliefs being true at 50% and then stating that it is profoundly unlikely that 75% of a random assortment of a large sample of beliefs are true, he is actually stating something of significance.  The argument here is that, given a .5 chance that a belief is true, it is unlikely that .75 of beliefs are true, in case that rephrasing makes it clearer.  I am sure that this is a remarkable observation to someone out there.  

So, I guess now is the time to lay my cards on the table:  the chances of any given belief being true is higher than he suggests it should be.  Why, you may ask?  Well, intrigued reader who obviously cares about this a little too much, it is because, even though "producing true belief is irrelevant" as long as it produces adaptive behavior, adaptive behavior is far more likely to come from true beliefs than from false ones.  True beliefs, or those that are at least good at approximating reality, are inherently more likely to give advantages to the creature that possesses them than false ones.   This is because false beliefs rely on luck and specific contexts in order to not be maladaptive, and most often are outright maladaptive in almost all situations if they deviate from reality enough.  By contrast, there is almost no imaginable circumstance in which true beliefs are maladaptive, even if there are some cases where it would be nonadaptive and deemed irrelevant to survival.  To better get an idea of the problem here, I summon forth another example he uses in establishing this argument, from Wikipedia:

Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief. ... Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it. ... Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behaviour

In the first situation, he has offered up a double-set of false beliefs that interact in order to offer up adaptive behavior.  The first is a maladaptive desire to be eaten, and the second is a belief that the animal about to eat him is unlikely to do so and thus he is compelled to leave.  Of course, the problem is that this set of beliefs is nowhere near as beneficial as a simple fear of getting maimed to death.  Primarily because it depends on Paul being able to outrun a tiger, on the second belief always trumping the former whenever it triggers, and on Paul not setting himself up in a situation that he cannot escape from before he has a chance to be promped to believe that the animal approaching is not fit to devour him.  The second belief acts as a safety net that only works if he is in position to meander away safely.  In any other circumstance, he will be screwed over and will have put himself in that position due to the maladaptive first belief. 

The second scenario is slightly better, because the two beliefs directly redefine one another into "the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat, run away from it".  The only problems he would incur would be that he would run away from anything that he wanted to pet (not too significant), that he would still be willing to approach the tiger under the assumption that he is "cuddly pussycat" prior to his attempt to "pet it", and this once again relies on the ability of someone being able to outrun a tiger while simultaneously having a mitigated, but still inordinately large, desire to be near one.  And this is to say nothing of how he would deal of news of tigers approaching (as opposed to approaching them himself), or how much problems it might cause for other people if he insists that tigers are harmless.  Who knows what would happen if he didn't inform his children about the proper way to "pet" the tigers...

But of course this same argument will also hold for us. If evolutionary naturalism is true, then the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable is also very low. And that means that one who accepts evolutionary naturalism has a defeater for the belief that her cognitive faculties are reliable: a reason for giving up that belief, for rejecting it, for no longer holding it. If there isn't a defeater for that defeater—a defeater-defeater, we could say—she can't rationally believe that her cognitive faculties are reliable. No doubt she can'thelp believing that they are; no doubt she will in fact continue to believe it; but that belief will be irrational. And if she has a defeater for the reliability of her cognitive faculties, she also has a defeater for any belief she takes to be produced by those faculties—which, of course, is all of her beliefs. If she can't trust her cognitive faculties, she has a reason, with respect to each of her beliefs, to give it up. She is therefore enmeshed in a deep and bottomless skepticism. One of her beliefs, however, is her belief in evolutionary naturalism itself; so then she also has a defeater for that belief. Evolutionary naturalism, therefore—the belief in the combination of naturalism and evolution—is self-refuting, self-destructive, shoots itself in the foot. Therefore you can't rationally accept it. For all this argument shows, it may be true; but it is irrational to hold it.

And that's how he refutes naturalism.  By indicating that our brain is unreliable and pulling a Descartes on us, specifically focusing on the "belief in evolutionary naturalism" that is assumed in order to establish that the brain is unreliable.  But, the problem is that the brain is not unreliable according to his projection based on evolutionary theory, at least not to the degree that Plantiga would have us believe.  As I said above, the probability of a belief being true is higher than the probability he gives.  Partly because I cheat.  I feel that "true" is overrated, and "true enough" needs to be given some credit as well.  Making it a dichotomy between beliefs that are either wholly true or wholly false is missing the point of having a "reliable" brain.  Example: believing that an object is blue is technically a false belief.  In reality, an object perceived as blue is just that:  perceived as blue.  It is reflecting light that is of a wavelength interpretted by our eyes as blue.  Which is why we need to have a more lax distinction between "true" and "false"; because sometimes the answers that we arrive at are necessarily simplistic in comparison to the reality.   

Another part of it is because not all beliefs are equiprobable to possess, in that any given belief is more likely to be believed in the closer it is to reality.  Picture an acute angled piece of a pie chart.  Imagine that the point that was once at the center of chart is representive of the one true belief about a subject matter, and every other belief is "false".  Now, the further out you go, the more false the belief is, and, in addition, the more possible beliefs there are.  There are an increasingly large number of possible beliefs the more wrong you become.  The number of beliefs that are close to the truth are much smaller than the number of possible wrong beliefs.  This would suggest that it is more likely to get a false belief, given the sheer difference in number.  But, I would like to declare right now that belief is not determined by chance alone.  We do not simply receive beliefs from all possible options that are randomly plugged into our skull.  We receive our beliefs based on, well....reality.  Our beliefs are inherently biased to be near the shallow end of the piece of pie, deviating from the one true belief as little as possible.  This is just because it requires an incredible amount of effort to make conclusions about reality that are backasswards to that degree, and the fact that there are probably so many possible ways of determining its falsity when you reach the "counterfactual" zone of false beliefs that it is unlikely that any creature that isn't already non-functional would adopt it.  The "true enough" beliefs are significantly more likely because they actually have evidence to support them, and thus we make reality serve as the common reference point for determining our beliefs.  

Anyway, further granting that beliefs are also more likely to be maladaptive as you deviate from reality further, and require other improbable but complementary false beliefs to make it potentially adaptive or neutral (as in the tiger examples), it becomes clear that false beliefs should be far less common, or should at least have a small enough of a magnitude, to make it so that our brain is "reliable enough".

I'll admit, false beliefs can creep in, but they would be scarce in comparison to true beliefs, which are infinitely more convenient, in that they don't need to rely on other beliefs to allow you to be functional.  I assume that it is rather analogous to lying:  tell the truth and everything is straight forward, but tell a lie and you better be prepared to continue lying in order to provide a network of support for the original.  Instead of simply rendering the world accurately, you need to create a flimsy house of cards and try your damndest to not accidentally knock the whole thing over.  Humans do in fact have known false beliefs and perceptions.  We have oversimplifying heuristics, we experience some known illusions and have some common cognitive biases and delusions that we encounter every now and then as well.  So, in short, the human mind is unreliable to a degree, just as one would expect for an evolved brain in a species that, though not infallible, has its brain as its almost exclusive remarkable feature.  Interestingly, the explanations for these shortcomings are less than satisfactory for those purporting theistic evolution/creation.  Well...I thought it was interesting at least...

Just a side note though, is that even if "naturalism" were refuted, we would still necessarily need to adopt methodological naturalism in order to function in the world, and we would still have no reasonable case for why we should believe in anything but methodological naturalism.  Indeed, there is a possibility that there is more to reality than the observed, natural world, but, sadly, we have yet to see evidence for whether there is more, let alone what kind of things we should expect that more to be.

So reflect once more on what we know about these creatures. They live in a world in which evolutionary naturalism is true. Therefore, since they have survived and reproduced, their behavior has been adaptive. This means that the neurophysiology that caused or produced that behavior has also been adaptive: it has enabled them to survive and reproduce. But what about their beliefs? These beliefs have been produced or caused by that adaptive neurophysiology; fair enough. But that gives us no reason for supposing those beliefs true. So far as adaptiveness of their behavior goes, it doesn't matter whether those beliefs are true or false.

Here's the point to drive home, I suppose:  adaptiveness of belief does not guarantee truth of belief, but adaptiveness of belief does correlate with accuracy of belief (which correlates with the likeliness of obtaining that particular belief, due to beliefs being easier to adopt when you actually have facts to support them).  I have yet to be convinced that adaptiveness of a belief and veracity of a belief are mutually exclusive, despite the number of times it has been repeated.

Suppose the adaptive neurophysiology produces true beliefs: fine; it also produces adaptive behavior, and that's what counts for survival and reproduction. Suppose on the other hand that neurophysiology produces false beliefs: again fine: it produces false beliefs but adaptive behavior. It really doesn't matter what kind of beliefs the neurophysiology produces; what matters is that it cause adaptive behavior; and this it clearly does, no matter what sort of beliefs it also produces. Therefore there is no reason to think that if their behavior is adaptive, then it is likely that their cognitive faculties are reliable.

Again, yes it is does not matter whether a belief is true or not if it is adaptive.  And yet, true beliefs are more often adaptive than false ones, and false ones are more often maladaptive than true ones.  Fancy that.  [ I can repeat things too ;) ]

And now, for dessert, a brief discussion of something completely similar, stolen from the Pharyngula comment thread.  Take it away, , Jim:  

Because I think naturalism is a false view of reality, I have no trouble trusting that my thoughts - such as the thought that my bed exists - can be rational (i.e. possessing reason and understanding) and valid. You, on the other hand, have no doubt that your bed exists, but you subscribe to a worldview (naturalism) that provides no basis for trusting that what you think about your bed is true. You argue for the truthfulness of naturalism, but you conduct your mental activity as if it isn't true. If it were true, there would be no "you" engaged in any mental activity; that mental activity would instead be nothing more than electro-chemical neural activity induced by material causes, all of which are irrational (i.e., lacking reason and understanding).

Here is the rub:  emergent properties.  The straw naturalist/materialist always seems to involve dismissing humans as simply a cluster of cells/molecules/chemicals, and dismissing thoughts as mere "electro-chemical" reactions.  The argument is overly reductionist and is inordinately obsessed with the components rather than the whole.  Please though, dismiss the spoken word as mere syllables.  Dismiss the written word is simple globs of graphite, streaks of ink, or random arrangements of pixels (depending on your medium).  Dismiss a building as just bricks.   Completely ignore the larger functions such things have.  An interesting note:  you can observe this kind of thing in molecules themselves.   Compounds comprised of molecules have much different properties than the elements of its component atoms possess.  A slight change in atom type or amount can also significantly change a molecule.  Hell, even a change of the position of the atoms relative to one another without changing the component atoms at all can result in a change in its observed properties at a macro level (e.g. isomerism, stereoisomerism).  In short, it is not that consciousness is just electro-chemical signals, it is that consciousness is a very difficult to explain phenomenon that fairly clearly results from said signals.

As for why he thinks that his ability to rationally determine the truth of something is superior to those who admit the neural basis to their thoughts, I have no idea.  Considering that all that we know about the fallibility of the human mind (independent of Plantinga, of course), it probably isn't a good idea to trust your thoughts alone, especially if you think that naturalism is wrong.  You might find yourself encased in a solipsist nightmare, forced to doubt external reality and the existence of other people, doomed to an existence entirely defined by only your own thoughts, since they are the only thing beyond the Deceptive Demon's reach. 

So, on that note: sleep tight.

[If you still having difficulty seeing how the video at the start of the post relates to anything at all, you are sane.  Congratulations.]

The Outbreak and the Paranoia Treatment

Sure, many people have been warning us about it from the outset, and yet there was only a single case for the longest time.  And then, suddenly, bam, 2009 and its running rampant, spreading from state to state with incredible speed and much fear and outrage in its wake.  It has yet to be seen whether it will become a pandemic, or if it will be fought off.  But, nonetheless, it has happened:  Maine has legalized gay marriage.

Here's a brief summary of events:

1996:  Defense of Marriage Act is passed in anticipation of states soon legalizing gay marriage.

2003:  Massachusetts court ruling finds gay marriage bans unconstitutional.

October 10, 2008:  Connecticut court rules that banning same sex marriage is unconstitutional.

November 4, 2008:  Proposition 8 passes.  In addition, legislation to ban adoption by gay couples was passed in Arkansas and Florida and Arizona passed laws banning same sex marriage.

April 3, 2009:  Gay marriage is made legal in Iowa with a court ruling that they cannot ban same sex couples from getting marriage certificates.

April 7, 2009:  Vermont passes legislation that will allow for gay marriage to replace civil unions come September 1st, 2009.

May 6, 2009:  Maine passes legislation that will allow for gay marriages to occur after September 14th, 2009.

 New York recognize gay marriages, and New Hampshire and New Jersey 

allow for civil unions (Connecticut and Vermont have in the past as well).   Legislation for allowing gay marriage is pending in Rhode Island.  Flip side: Proposition 8 is likely to remain upheld by the Supreme Court in California.  And the decision in Maine is already meeting opposition, with a petition being signed in an attempt to get a referendum.  Luckily, the story makes it sound as if the activists have learned their lesson of Proposition 8, and are just as willing to fight for the decision as its opponents are to fight against it.  Which, brings me to my actual observation (which I believe is a point also made in the former of those two articles):  the injustice that was the passage of Proposition 8 may have invigorated gay marriage proponents, as well as sympathy for the cause, more than if it had actually passed.  This recent avalanche of legislation may actually owe its entire existence to Proposition 8, which illegalized gay marriage after it had already been legalized and invalidated marriages in the process.  It has intensified the voice of those who had already supported them, and may have broadened support as well.  

It is unclear whether we are seeing a trend that will continue, especially since most of the states that have turned within the past year or so were already rather gay-friendly, and it is unclear whether greater acceptance of homosexuality and the idea of same-sex marriage has been exclusive to locations that were already rather accepting of both, rather than being a full-nation phenomenon.  But, as a word of caution, we should not only expect that this will be the last state legalizing gay marriage in the near future, but we should also expect that those who oppose gay marriage will be trying everything in their power to shift things back to the status quo.  It's overly pessimistic, but we need to concentrate on keeping the ground that we have now made, and not allow ourselves to become overwhelmed by a sense of accomplishment for something that could be taken away so easily when in such a state of self-satisfied arrogance.  The advances that we have made are only tentative if there are enough people out there with the means and the passion to undo it.  Stay vigilant, and guard the reset buttons with all your might!

(For those of you who initially thought that this post would be about the spreading swine flu meance and some of the over-the-top reactions that people have about it....I am too ambivalent about the matter to really do such a thing.  And, anyway, xkcd has done it for me.)