Trump is in Control of the USA

[this is a slight elaboration on a comment I made elsewhere]

I don’t think I’ve said “constitutional crisis” enough. Emphasis mine:

After a weekend spent trying to get the Customs and Border Patrol (CBP) to comply with the New York and Massachusetts Orders staying the Presidential Executive Order banning immigration from seven countries, a group of attorneys Darius Amiri, Laura Riley, Madiha Zuberi, Nina Bonyak, in coordination with other volunteer attorneys working out of LAX, have been at the U.S. Marshal’s office at the Central District of California since 8:00 a.m. this morning.

These attorneys are demanding that the U.S. Marshal’s office comply with its statutory obligation under 28 U.S.C. 566(c) to serve civil federal orders on the CBP Port Director at Los Angeles International Airport. The Marshal’s office has so far failed to serve process and instead represents that it has been instructed by its Office of the General Counsel to await instruction from the U.S. Attorney’s office. Over the weekend, California Central District Court (CACD) Judge Dolly Gee granted a Temporary Restraining Order (TRO) (which was amended and corrected this morning) and this is another of the documents that has yet to be served on the CBP.

Two hundred years of precedent have established that the courts are the final arbitrator of what’s constitutional and what is not. But as I’ve said, the Judicial branch relies on the Executive to enforce its judgments; those court injunctions against Trump’s EO don’t go into effect until they get into the hands of the people enforcing that EO, and by telling the U.S. Marshals to stand down the Executive has effectively blocked those court orders from taking effect.

The Judicial branch is no longer checking or balancing Executive power. You just lost one of your three branches, Americans.

I have been saying that #TheRegime’s big overarching play right now is de-fanging the judiciary, sidelining it, making it subservient.

Now, if objecting to this gets any traction, #TheRegime’s talking point will be that the Marshals have always been part of DOJ, under exec.

Which is *true enough* but beside the point. They are the enforcement arm of the judiciary, grouped under executive because enforcement.

The impartiality of the law enforcement bodies under DOJ (FBI, Marshal Service) is supposed to be–must be–sacrosanct. Sacred. Untouchable.

Making the judiciary’s enforcement wing under the direct command of a handpicked crony AG accomplishes makes the entire judicial branch moot

With the Marshals marching to the president’s orders, court decisions only matter when #TheRegime agrees with them.

To make matters worse, the Executive branch is starting to override the Legislative. Remember how the border patrol refused to meet with Congressional representatives? Emphasis again mine:

“Since my background is a Ph.D. in public administration, I have a good working knowledge of U.S. institutions and policymaking processes,” [Donald] Moynihan told Salon. “Members of Congress are fond of reminding executive branch officials that [the latter] are beholden to them, not just to the president.” It is Congress that supplies every federal agency with its budget, and along with that “specific directives as to [its] role.”

“It’s remarkable to me that when an actual member of Congress would turn up at your doorstep, a manager in that agency would not try to be responsive to their concerns,” Moynihan continued. “It suggests they view obeying the guidance of the president as superior to any other direction. This is troubling precisely because the founders designed a separation of powers so that no single actor (in this case the president) had sole control of administration.”

Trump is also going behind the backs of Congress, borrowing their staffers while swearing them to secrecy. This is a big deal.

This is quite simply unheard of.

To be clear, the executive works with Congress all the time to craft legislation. That’s the President working with members of Congress, though much of the actual work is delegated to staff. All normal. It’s congressional staff working for the executive without telling the members of Congress they work for which is the big deal. […]

I’m not sure this rises to the level of a formal separation of powers issue. But the idea of the White House coopting congressional staff behind the backs of members of Congress certainly runs roughshod over the overarching concept of two coequal and separate branches of government.

Until Congress steps up, or Trump backtracks and agrees to respect judicial rulings, he has [no] checks on his power. He’s become a dictator without firing a single shot.

[HJH 2017-01-31] I just spotted a relevant update from Popehat.

OKAY. Awaiting an official statement, but about that story about the USMS not serving the LA federal court order: /1

/2 Counsel has now appeared for the federal defendants: US Department of Justice, Office of Immigration Litigation – Civil Division

/3 In fact, a stipulation by the parties to move the briefing schedule now appears on the docket (but is sealed)

/4 The significance is this: by appearing, the federal defendants can’t claim lack of service of the order. This should moot service issues.

/5 In fact it should bind the federal defendants to any order the court issues or has issued now that its counsel has appeared, as I read it

/6 That doesn’t answer issue of whether CPD has refused to comply so far or will continue to refuse.

/7 Also doesn’t exclude possibility that USMS dorked around for some period of time until their counsel made an appearance.

/8 But the fact that the ACLU filed a stipulation reached with the feds suggests some level of acknowledgement and cooperation.

In some ways, this is good news. The courts will not be stopped by a technicality like a lack of service, and as of now federal attorneys are respecting the Judicial branch. But if service has been granted, that means that the delays by US Marshals had the effect of deporting potential plaintiffs before they could plead their case before the courts. Any border guard that deported or refused entry to someone as per the immigration Executive Order, as of eight hours ago, is ignoring a court order. And some digging brings up this case.

Mohammad Abu Khadra, who lives in Katy[, Texas] with his brother Rami, traveled to Jordan last week to renew his visa. When he flew into Bush IAH airport Saturday, officials with U.S. Customs and Border Protection detained him at the airport for about 48 hours. He was transferred to an Office of Refugee Resettlement shelter in Chicago Monday, where he remained as of Tuesday afternoon. The teen has no access to his cell phone or to a computer, his brother said.

 Mohammad is among dozens of visa holders and immigrants to be detained at U.S. airports since Trump signed an executive order Friday indefinitely barring all Syrian refugees from entering the United States and suspending all refugee admissions for 120 days. It also prohibits citizens from seven Muslim-majority countries from entering the United States for 90 days, whether they are refugees or not. Those countries include Iran, Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen.

Mohammad’s native Jordan is not on the list, and Mohammad is not a refugee.

The Judicial branch is still out of commission.

Proof of God: Introduction (3)

Whither Proofs?

Why must we bother with proofs at all? Most people don’t put much thought into religion, and are content to know the gods exist through feelings of connection and occasional revelation.

One problem: those are proofs!

We’ve picked up a warped idea of what a proof is via math class. Our teachers tried to wow us with long, subtle chains of reasoning that are impressive mental achievements, but on the elaborate side of proof’s definition. In reality, all proofs consist of two things: an assertion, and one or more bits of evidence that the assertion are true. Length and subtlety are optional:

Assertion: At least one number is even and prime.[10]

Evidence: 2.

There’s nothing in the definition that says proofs must be convincing beyond all doubt, either. Take this example:

Assertion: the length of the longest side of a right-angle triangle multiplied by itself is equal to the sum of the lengths of the two remaining sides multiplied by themselves.

Evidence: Draw such a triangle on a sheet of paper, with plenty of margin. Draw three cubes around it, with one side of each shared with the triangle. Cut out both of the two smaller squares, and place one of them over the untouched larger square. Fill in the remaining visible portion of the largest by cutting up the remaining square. Once done, no part of it will be visible, and no part of the last square will be left.

This is a pretty lousy proof. For one thing, it never really explains why the math works out. Since it operates in the physical world, it’s easy to make a measurement error and falsely conclude you’ve shown it to be wrong. Worst of all, it only proves a single triangle at a time. Repeating the procedure for a thousand triangles only shows that there are a thousand triangles that live up to the assertion; any or all of the infinite remainder might not.

A mathematician would reject that proof outright, and for good reason. In the universe of math, we know every law and every way those laws combine. We have no excuse for considering something “reasonably” true, because we have all the tools we need to verify that it’s absolutely true.

In the real world, we don’t know all the rules. We don’t even know if the rules are constant, or change on very long time-scales, and so we’ll never reach absolute certainty. Instead, every proposed proof is given a court trial of sorts; we gather up all the contrary proofs and evidence we know of, and ask if the sum total gives us a reason to reject the proof. If so, we toss it out and either look for something better or put a different proof on trial. If not, we stamp it as “reasonably likely to be true, until further evidence comes in.”

That lack of certainty doesn’t make the above proof useless. It’s unlikely that a misfit triangle would lurk between two tested ones. Even if this assertion is only approximately true, it would be less complicated and easier than the real answer, and gives valuable hints towards a better proof. Absolute certainty isn’t needed, at least in real life.

We can easily rearrange those earlier statements about the gods into proof form:

Assertion: God exists.

Evidence: Sometimes, I can feel his presence.

Assertion: God exists.

Evidence: The world fits together too nicely to be the product of chance, and must instead have been designed.

You won’t see either of those argued about directly in a philosophical journal, yet both make assertions based on evidence just like their more formal cousins. Both, in fact, are just informal versions of the Proof from Transcendence and the Proof from Design, which have been seriously debated in those same journals for longer than journals have existed. By examining the evidence for both, we can evaluate their assertions in the same way. As I hope to demonstrate in later chapters, perhaps that feeling you get from your god has very natural causes, or there are other explanations for design out there that don’t require the supernatural.

Every informal assertion about god can be formalized and turned into a proof. By looking at the simpler and cleaner logic of the second, we can examine both at the same time and see how effective they are at proving the existence of a god.

It’s no wonder believers are uneasy with formal proofs.

Gotta Catch Them All

I’m left with one final objection to overcome. Given the unending multitude of proofs for a god, how could I possibly cover them all?

Let’s turn back to Comfort and Behe’s proofs. While both seem very different on the surface, they share one common trait: they point to some order within the universe, and declare that the only possible source for that order comes from a god. Instead of spending a few paragraphs going into specific details on each, I could have instead demonstrated a way to produce order that does not require a god as a counter-example. I then throw the question back, and ask how either person knows this mechanism, or another like it, wasn’t responsible instead.

That is exactly what I do in the chapter on Proof by Design. By exploiting these common traits, I can cover a multitude of proofs with a single argument. Coming up with counter-examples is much easier than coming up with proofs, and by raising a number of them I can at least call into question the certainty behind such proofs. This saves me a lot of effort, and serves as partial insulation against proofs that are not in this book or that have yet to be invented. It helps that proofs only seem to come in a few categories:

  • Something exists, and only a god could have created that something. Examples include the universe (Proof from First Cause), consciousness (Proof from Intelligence), and holy texts (you can guess this one).
  • There is an order to things that could only be created by a god. Examples include life (Proof from Fine Tuning), and morality.
  • We are required to have a god, in some way. Examples include logical arguments (Proof from Logical Necessity), the universality of belief (Proof from Popularity), and the benefits of belief (The Pragmatic Argument).

As you read through this book, you might notice that even within these categories there’s a lot of overlap. I could have easily placed the Proof from Fine Tuning in any of them, to name but one. In answering the last objection, I’ve dredged up an intriguing question: is it possible to construct a universal counter-proof to any god?

I’ll leave that to the last chapter. In the meantime, I have a lot of intellectual ground to cover…

[10]  Take a pile of X pennies, candies, or elephants. If you can divide them into two equal piles, X is an even number. Now take the above pile and try to rearrange it into a rectangle with no leftovers. If the only one you can manage is one item high and X long, or vice-versa, X is a prime number.

The Three Stages of a Dictator

[this is similar to a comment I made elsewhere, but it deserves a wider audience.]

Lately, I’ve been reading some depressing things. To start, I’m seeing rumblings that Trump admin is deliberately being provocative.

With the #MuslimBan, Bannon et al chose to do something overtly unConstitutional that they knew would be a flash-point for the left.

They *rushed* this through on purpose, overriding objections and failing to coordinate with intelligence or immigration officials.

From their actions, we can infer the #MuslimBan has a purpose that suits their strategic goals and has nothing to do with national security.

A #MuslimBan is a perfect vehicle for them: it’s a flashpoint for opposition from the left and a dog whistle for support from the right.

The #MuslimBan furthers domestic division: it makes many within the U.S. see protesters as aligned with who they perceive to be “the enemy.” […]

Like other ascendant authoritarian regimes, the Trump Admin WANTS an excuse to put down dissent. And to do so violently.

But why would Trump be interested in flexing the military against the American people? It didn’t make much sense at first, until I remembered the basic arc of any dictator: 1) grab power, then 2) use that power to fill your pockets with as much cash as you dare, then 3) escape. Trump is currently testing what sort of power he has.

the administration is testing the extent to which the DHS (and other executive agencies) can act and ignore orders from the other branches of government. This is as serious as it can possibly get: all of the arguments about whether order X or Y is unconstitutional mean nothing if elements of the government are executing them and the courts are being ignored.

To ensure he keeps his power long enough to successfully smash-and-grab, he needs to remove as many check-and-balances as possible. Narrowing down the number of people he deals with is also a wise move, because it decreases the number of people able to check or balance.

There appears to be a very tight “inner circle,” containing at least Trump, Bannon, Miller, Priebus, Kushner, and possibly Flynn, which is making all of the decisions. Other departments and appointees have been deliberately hobbled, with key orders announced to them only after the fact, staff gutted, and so on. Yesterday’s reorganization of the National Security Council mirrors this: Bannon and Priebus now have permanent seats on the Principals’ Committee; the Director of National Intelligence and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have both been demoted to only attending meetings where they are told that their expertise is relevant; the Secretary of Energy and the US representative to the UN were kicked off the committee altogether (in defiance of the authorizing statute, incidentally).

I am reminded of Trump’s continued operation of a private personal security force, and his deep rift with the intelligence community. Last Sunday, Kellyanne Conway (likely another member of the inner circle) said that “It’s really time for [Trump] to put in his own security and intelligence community,” and this seems likely to be the case.

If this really is the arc of a dictator, though, we need to see step 2 in action. Surprisingly, I thought that piece was missing. Oh sure, a major expansion of your hotel chain paired with a rate hike is a nice start, as is filing to run in the 2020 election so you can fundraise and whip your loyal base into a frenzy, or maybe taking advantage of cheap land that’s just been released. Most of those struck me as too small, or too noisy, or too limiting the escape plan. But then Yonatan Zunger, quoted in the last two paragraphs, led me to this story.

More than a month after Russia announced one of its biggest privatizations since the 1990s, selling a 19.5 percent stake in its giant oil company Rosneft, it still isn’t possible to determine from public records the full identities of those who bought it. […]

“It is the largest privatization deal, the largest sale and acquisition in the global oil and gas sector in 2016,” Putin said. It was also one of the biggest transfers of state property into private hands since the early post-Soviet years, when allies of President Boris Yeltsin took control of state firms and became billionaires overnight.

But important facts about the deal either have not been disclosed, cannot be determined solely from public records, or appear to contradict the straightforward official account of the stake being split 50/50 by Glencore and the Qataris. For one: Glencore contributed only 300 million euros of equity to the deal, less than 3 percent of the purchase price, which it said in a statement on Dec. 10 had bought it an “indirect equity interest” limited to just 0.54 percent of Rosneft. In addition, public records show the ownership structure of the stake ultimately includes a Cayman Islands company whose beneficial owners cannot be traced.

And while Italian bank Intesa SanPaolo leant the Singapore vehicle 5.2 billion euros to fund the deal, and Qatar put in 2.5 billion, the sources of funding for nearly a quarter of the purchase price have not been disclosed by any of the parties.

 

The Kremlin spent two years looking for someone to sell part of a company that was worth $79.8 billion back in 2006, yet is keeping silent on the details. Very strange.

But there might be an answer, and it involves golden showers.

Shortly after CNN published its report, BuzzFeed News published the full 35-page dossier reportedly presented in summary form to the incoming and outgoing presidents. BuzzFeed notes that the dossier “includes specific, unverified and potentially unverifiable allegations of contact between Trump aides and Russian operatives, and graphic claims of sexual acts documented by the Russians.” It states that Russian intelligence was “cultivating, supporting and assisting” Trump for years, and that they have information that could be used to blackmail the president-elect, who will take the oath of office in less than two weeks.

Yes yes, like everyone else I read the first two pages and got a chuckle out of what Trump did to the bed the Obamas slept in. But, also like everyone else, I failed to read to page 30.

2. In terms of the substance of their discussion, SECHIN’s associate said that the Rosneft President was so keen to lift personal and corporate western sactions imposed on the company, that he offered PAGE/TRUMP’s associates the brokerage of up to a 19 per cent (privatized) stake in Rosneft in return. PAGE had expressed interest and confirmed that were TRUMP elected US president, then sanctions on Russia would be lifted.

The timeline fits. Trump has been threatening to run for President since the 1980’s. In 2008, Trump’s son says “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets.” According to the dossier, the Kremlin has been trying to influence him since 2011. In 2013, Trump explored the idea of becoming President. The US imposed sanctions on Russia begin in March 2014, and are a heavy hit to their economy. In August 2014, Rosneft begins the process of selling a 19.5% stake. In June 2015, Trump rides an escalator, and with the help of some Russian trolls goes on to win the Presidency November 8th, 2016. In the meantime, he’s seen hanging out with Russian mobsters. On December 7th, a buyer for Rosneft is finalized with the deal set to close “mid-December.” On December 19th, Trump wins the Electoral College vote. Transferring that much money takes time, probably months. Trump was sworn in as President on January 20th.

If that 19.5% was worth $11 billion, the typical brokerage fee is 2%, and the dossier is on the money, Trump could earn a $220 million payday. No wonder the CIA and five other agencies are looking into monetary ties between Trump and the Kremlin. This also sets the stage for step 3, the escape.

My money is on impeachment, after a string of increasingly draconian and unpopular measures that eventually turns the Republicans against him, followed by a swift exit from the country. Time will tell, of course.

I’m Calling It

The USA is officially in a Constitutional crisis.

In case you’re a Breitbart reader: President Trump issued an executive order that bans immigration from seven countries, for the span of 90 days. This was ostensibly to protect the US from terrorism as what happened during 9/11, yet mysteriously didn’t ban people from the countries behind 9/11, and double-mysteriously didn’t ban people from countries where Trump has business ties. Worse, Trump doesn’t appear to have consulted with anyone about it, giving no heads-up it was coming and certainly not asking about the wording of it.

The result has been chaos.

The new rules blindsided people in transit and families waiting for them, and caused havoc for businesses with employees holding passports from the targeted nations and colleges with international students.

Pegah Rahmani, 25, waited at Washington’s Dulles airport for several hours for her grandparents, both Iranian citizens with U.S. green cards. “They weren’t treating them very well,” she said. Rahmani’s grandfather is 88 and legally blind. Her grandmother is 83 and recently had a stroke. They were released to loud cheers and cries.

Canadian citizens are being turned away, despite assurances from officials. Science is suffering because of it. Protests are already widespread and growing, families are being torn apart.

Late Saturday, though, it looked like there would be some reprieve.

A federal judge has granted a stay on deportations for people who arrived in the US with valid visas but were detained on entry, following President Donald Trump’s executive order to halt travel from seven Muslim-majority countries.

The stay is only a partial block to the broader executive order, with the judge stopping short of a broader ruling on its constitutionality. Nevertheless, it was an early, significant blow to the new administration. […]

“I think the government hasn’t had a full chance to think about this,” Donnelly told a packed courtroom.

This isn’t a full stay, but the judge signaled that Trump’s Executive Order was likely unconstitutional and said parts of it shouldn’t be enforced on a temporary basis.

And yet,

As the night wore on, it became increasingly clear that CBP was defying Brinkema’s ruling. Lawyers concluded that that meant someone was in contempt of court. The judge could theoretically send in federal law enforcement officers to force CBP to let the lawyers meet with the detainees. But sending in the U.S. Marshals—who are part of the Department of Justice—to take on Customs and Border Patrol—which is part of the Department of Homeland Security—would have been a bureaucratic clash of the titans. And, like everything else that night, it would have been unprecedented. It didn’t happen.

Though detainees were slowly being released, lawyers were disturbed that they couldn’t meet with them. What if CBP tried to coerce detainees into signing paperwork that could jeopardize their legal status? Release wasn’t enough. A federal agency was defying a federal judge, and no one was quite sure what to do.

Then at around 11:45 pm, New Jersey Senator Cory Booker showed up. [….]

“We see tonight what I believe is a clear violation of the Constitution,” he continued. “And so clearly tonight we have to commit ourselves to the longer fight. Clearly tonight, we have to commit ourselves to the cause of our country. Clearly tonight, we have to be determined to show this world what America is all about.” 

Asked by The Daily Beast what CBP officers had told him about why they wouldn’t let detainees see their lawyers. 

“They told me nothing, and it was unacceptable,” he said. “I believe it’s a Constitutional crisis, where the executive branch is not abiding by the law.” 

The Executive Branch is not respecting the Judicial Branch. Trump shows no sign of backing down, either.

‏@realDonaldTrump (Donald J. Trump)

Somebody with aptitude and conviction should buy the FAKE NEWS and failing @nytimes and either run it correctly or let it fold with dignity!
7:00 AM – 29 Jan 2017

Our country needs strong borders and extreme vetting, NOW. Look what is happening all over Europe and, indeed, the world – a horrible mess!
7:08 AM – 29 Jan 2017

Christians in the Middle-East have been executed in large numbers. We cannot allow this horror to continue!
9:03 AM – 29 Jan 2017

The closest historical similarity I can find was when Harry Truman decided to take control of a number of steel mills in 1952 during wartime. Back then, the Judiciary said it was unconstitutional… barely. Either the rule of law goes, or he does, and so far he’s got the support of key Republicans.

This is a full-blown crisis. And it comes a mere eight days after Trump came into power.

[HJH 2017-01-29: Extended a quote. Also, someone else who called it before I did.]

Proof of God: Introduction (2)

Definitions

My first task is the hardest: what is a god, anyway? A definition of something acts like the foundation of a building. Everything is built upon it, so if the definition is even slightly loose the entire thing could topple over at the slightest touch. The sheer variety of religions suggests a single definition of god is impossible.

Which is why I’m using two:

God: Something which can or could perform an action which is, or was once considered, impossible to duplicate by any entity that is not a god under any circumstance.

God: Something which can or could perform an action which is, or was once considered, contrary to the physical laws of the universe.

To save my poor typing fingers, I’ll nickname them “practical” and “theoretical,” in order of appearance.

Obviously, I must spend some time challenging and probing my definitions for weakness, otherwise you’d have little reason to take them seriously. I’ll have to get a little philosophical at times, but I’ll try to keep it to the bare minimum needed for this roast. The end goal is to ensure these definitions meet three criteria: they will not call a non-god a god, they will not call a god a non-god, and if there’s uncertainty in the definitions we’ll find disagreement in real life as well.

I’ll begin with a triviality: is an orange a god? Both definitions talk about actions, not objects, so they might seem ill-suited to the question. Oranges occupy a space and time, however, reflect a certain spectrum of light, and have an outer skin that protects soft, juicy innards. All of these are actions, even though an orange performs them passively. So we can apply both definitions by cataloguing all the attributes of an orange, transforming them into actions, and adding these new passive actions to the list of active things an orange can do.

“Theoretical” says oranges are not gods. For each that has been studied, all have followed the laws of the universe. You might get smug and point out this isn’t proof that every orange is so obedient, and you’d be right. Why, then, aren’t we hurriedly searching every orange for this potential violator?

The answer comes from, of all places. a monk. William of Ockham’s[4] original phrasing of this principle doesn’t quite roll off the tongue:

Numquam ponenda est pluralitas sine necessitate

[Plurality must never be posited without necessity]

Fortunately, in the intervening centuries other authors have developed variations that are much easier to understand:

If two or more theories explain something equally well, the theory that makes the least assumptions is the most likely to be correct.

The “simplest” or least assuming answer is usually the correct answer.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.[5]

I lean on Ockham’s Razor pretty heavily, so I’ll spend some time defending it. Let’s consider two theories:

  1. In the next hour, a meteor will crash down from above and smack your foot.
  2. In the next hour, nothing special will happen.

As of now, you’ve got no way to tell between the two theories and no way to tell what will happen. Should you start piling pillows on your foot?

Let’s break both theories down. In order for the first one to be true, we need:

  • A meteor to be on a collision course with Earth.
  • Said meteor to be coming in on a trajectory aimed at where you’ll be in an hour.
  • Said meteor to be large enough for at least one part to survive re-entry.
  • Said meteor piece to have enough energy to break through whatever structure is currently above your head.
  • Said meteor piece to travel through the atmosphere and architecture in a path guaranteed to hit your foot.

For the second one to be true, we depend on:

So while both theories may look identical right now, one requires far more extraordinary events to fall into place. It makes sense say that the first theory is unlikely to happen, even though we can’t put a number on how unlikely it is to happen, and even though we have no proof that it won’t happen. This is Ockham’s Razor in a nut-shell; it’s a heuristic or guide to what’s worthy of consideration, which deals with theories that have equal amounts of evidence going for them, based on the assumption that the most likely thing to happen will most likely happen.

This is not Ockham’s Razor:

According to Occam’s Razor, the simplest explanation or the one with the fewest assumptions that explains the facts is to be preferred. Creation makes one assumption—that God is who He says He is in the Bible—because if this is so, then He must have done all that He said He did. This adequately answers all the problems of origins posed above.

Evolution has many assumptions and none of them provides an answer to anything.

According to Occam’s Razor creation wins!
( “Occam’s Razor and creation/evolution,” by Russell Grigg. http://creation.com/occams-razor-and-creation-evolution, retrieved July 31, 2012)

What’s wrong? While it’s true that biological evolution relies on several assumptions, all of those are fairly simple and easy to show in real life. Evolution does not require the existence of a god, at all. In contrast creationism, or the theory that a god created the universe, depends on the existence of a god merely to make sense. That would have far-reaching, profound effects on the entire universe, and thus counts as an extraordinary assumption.[6]

To properly use Ockham’s Razor you need to do more than just count assumptions, you also need to consider their relative likelihood and their net effect on the world too. A long string of probable events beats out a single improbable one. A vast number of small changes to the world are more likely to happen than one big change.

Back to the orange problem. We have two theories: an orange that violates the laws of the universe is lurking out there somewhere, or all oranges obey the law. If the first one is true, then we have to assume that at least one orange is special, in that it can bend laws that appear rigid according to every test we’ve thrown at its boring peers, while those peers, and indeed everything else we know of, is not special. If the second is true, we’ve made no further assumptions; the very term “law of nature” implies that there are no exceptions, so we’re already covered. Ockham’s razor tells us a frantic orange search is unnecessary, for now at least.

“Practical” is less clear. My interior is soft, but not juicy, and I don’t reflect the same kinds of light, so an orange can already do two things that I can’t. Note that “practical” uses the word “any,” however. An orange tree can bud out a fruit that will eventually become an orange, and so can duplicate one. You might retort that you consider orange trees to be gods, thus saving the orange from being robbed of god-status, but I can counter by replacing the genome of some other seed with an orange’s and letting it grow. We wind up in an arms race, declaring more and more things to be gods until we run out of things, and at this point I’m all too happy to give in. After all, everything is a god when compared to nothing.

Ah, but perhaps I misinterpreted the question. Instead of asking if “any” orange is a god, we should consider if “that” orange is a god. Now you’ve pinned me; quantum mechanics puts a hard limit on what we can measure, so even if I tried to recreate a specific orange atom-by-atom, I could never perfectly duplicate it.

Fortunately, I don’t have to. “That” orange is an abstraction. Bits of the orange are constantly flying off into the environment and vice-versa, so the atom-by-atom definition of “that” orange is different from moment to moment. You can only come up with a useful definition by ignoring those changes, so my reconstruction doesn’t need to include them either. The same logic applies to the quantum fluctuations I was worried about last paragraph.  You might argue that I don’t have the technology to build an orange to the detail required to suit your definition, but “practical” placed no time limits or restrictions on what I could use. I’m permitted to take the age of the universe and use every atom within it in my efforts.

Both definitions have survived oranges, but what about the colour orange? “Theoretical” easily pins this as a non-god, since no definition of orange can be made without reference to light, which itself obeys the laws of the universe.

“Practical” is not far behind. I simply ask you what objects you consider orange, analyse the light coming off them, and duplicate it via some other object. If you instead want orange as defined by everyone, I simply repeat this procedure for everything that can detect a colour called orange and rig up something that matches every definition, on a thing-by-thing basis if need be.

Time for something trickier. In 1983, in front of a large crowd and a huge TV audience, the magician David Copperfield made the Statue of Liberty disappear. Removing a 225 tonne, 47 metre high sculpture is an impressive feat that puts many religious miracles to shame. Does this act make Copperfield a god?

Both definitions say no. Magicians do not honestly claim to bend space and time to their whims, or that they alone are capable of their feats. It’s all just a trick, even if that trick took years of training and no other magician alive now or ever could duplicate it. So long as it could be matched by another magician with sufficient time and space on their hands, “practical” argues that this conjurer should not be a god, and “theoretical” reached the same conclusion long ago.

Consider Thor next. He’s a Norse god that can control the weather. Tens of thousands of people believed in him a millennium ago; now, even those who’d like to revive the old Norse mythology don’t take that ability seriously. He’s still considered a god, despite this. Both definitions are careful to include forgotten gods, and controlling the weather seemed both unachievable and impossible to historic Vikings. Again, we reach the expected conclusion.

In Tripoli, Lybia on May 2010, a plane crash killed 103 people but spared one 10 year old boy. The Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, South Africa, thanked God for saving this child. Surprisingly, he gave no reason why God did nothing for the other 103 people on the plane. Other theologians have thought more heavily and tried to explain why the Christian god can appear so lazy or fickle. Even if they are correct, it’s clear the Christian God can refuse to act. Both definitions permit this and pass the latest challenge.

Deism is a tricky case. There are only three central tenets to this religion:[7]

  1. God exists.
  2. God’s only action was to create the universe.
  3. Only god can create a universe.

This god is a bit cold and sparse compared to the compassionate, active gods of other religions, but there’s still clearly a god there. It’s not clear whether this god is or was, though, since it must have existed before the universe, and may only exist before time began.[8] Both definitions are fuzzy about when and where actions happen, so they still work on this odd god. “Practical” is nearly the twin of the deist god; both divide everything in two, and claim one group can do something the other can’t.

Surprisingly, “theoretical” is less clear-cut. Deism says nothing about the conditions before the universe, so its god could have acted entirely by the book. The third clause provides an escape; since nothing within this universe can duplicate the deist god’s feat, “theoretical” can declare it to be a god relative to the universe you’re reading this in.

It does make you wonder what the simplest possible god could be, however. Deism whittles it down to a only three beliefs; could we cut one out?

Statements two and three are compliments of each other, placing a wall between god and everything else, so for now I’ll treat them as one. The first statement must stay, because if we don’t know whether god exists the second and third statements make no sense. If the second and third statements go, we lose the grounds for claiming the first. The property of existence is unique, since it is only assigned to something that already has other properties. We can say a kitten exists because it has soft fur, or it is an infant cat, but if all you knew about kittens was that they exist, you couldn’t use that information in any meaningful way. You’d never be able to verify I was telling the truth. You couldn’t find a kitten, even if you were feeling the soft fur of an infant cat while thinking over places to look.

Worshipping a thing that you could never interact with, or know if it had interacted with you, is nonsensical. Gods must do more than merely exist.

Dropping the second statement but keeping the third is also senseless. If only a god can create universes, and we live in a universe, then something like statement two must be assumed anyway.

Things get interesting if you drop claim three. A thought experiment will help show why.

Suppose you look up from this book to find a space alien sitting in front of you. It politely raises a tentacle and says “hi;” you politely faint and scream, though not necessarily in that order. With those pleasantries out of the way, Alien A explains how it got there. A million years ago, it was carefully frozen and placed on a giant ship hovering above its home planet, tens of light-years from Earth. That ship slowly plodded across the vast distance, gathering energy from the random junk in between stars, and once in a few aeons raising Alien A from stupor to let it repair the damage caused by a few cosmic rays that wiggled through the ship’s shields.

Just as Alien A finishes its tale, Alien B appears next to it, seemingly out of nowhere. After more pleasantries, B explains how it got here: in the far future, it learned how to manipulate space and time. Due to the laws of the universe, it guiltily adds, nothing else can or will do the same.

Is either alien a god?

A few would claim the first one is. If you were to explain the physical and engineering challenges faced by their race, however, most will change their minds. Why? On the face of it, Alien A is far more advanced than we are, and thus able to do things we can’t. However, the Voyager space probe is travelling faster than that alien’s ship. We know of animals that can suspend all activity for years, survive freezing temperatures, and repair their genome after having it blasted to bits by radiation. We have power sources that can last that long, and can build things in space to save us from lifting everything against Earth’s gravity. In short, while we can’t arrive on Alien A’s doorstep at the moment, it’s plausible that we could drop by later. Once they realize that we could duplicate the alien’s feat, most of those who called it a god would change their mind.

Here we find matching ambiguity in “practical” and “theoretical” as well. Alien A seems to be capable of something that nothing else can do, at first. As we examine the facts more closely, however, we realize that Alien A’s trick could be done by us “in practice,” and so change our minds.

On the other hand, we find that while Alien B’s skill is forever beyond our practical abilities, it could be done by anyone else “in theory.” The two definitions of god conflict, creating ambiguity.

This tale of two aliens has a real-life counterpart: pantheism. In that tradition, “god” is taken to mean the entire universe.  “Practical” agrees with this declaration; the “non-god” portion of the universe is empty, and thus incapable of doing any action the “god” portion can get away with. “Theoretical” disagrees, since by definition this god obeys the laws of the universe. The ambiguity is mirrored in real life. Some atheists, most notably Richard Dawkins, regard pantheists as poetic atheists who can’t give up the word “god.” At the same time, both Taoism and Christianity were initially very pantheistic, while Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam all have sects that take pantheism to heart.

I can’t conclude without sharing the most troublesome case for my definitions: kings and queens. The first ruler to claim a “divine mandate” might have been an Egyptian some five millennia ago, but the documentation is too sparse to call it.[9]

Most of us are more familiar with the European rulers and Asian emperors of midæval times. The majority never claimed to be gods, content to “merely” act out the divine plan.

Even the Egyptian Pharaohs fall into this category: they claimed to be descended from the gods, and would become gods upon death, yet were only messengers while alive. Gilgamesh, one of the first and beet known god-kings, was only declared divine after his death.

True human gods are rarer. Naram-Suen of Akkad is the first we know of, but it’s not clear on what grounds he claimed divinity. Neither definition is much help, since the feat of being king or queen is easily duplicated by their successor. These human gods might solve this by claiming to be reincarnations of some deity, but this doesn’t explain how their successor can be alive at the same time without ruling as well. I’m content to dismiss this corner case by claiming these rulers are “gods” for purely political reasons, and don’t see them as much challenge to my definitions.

I hope I’ve convinced you those two definitions are reasonably robust and future-proof. Which one you choose as the ultimate definition is a matter of opinion, but at least all opinions fall somewhere between the two of them. In the process, I’ll have removed the objection that a god cannot be defined, and at least weakened the argument that I haven’t considered every possible god. Time for the next objection:

[4]  His last name has a number of spellings. “Occam” seems to be the preferred choice of Merriam-Webster, but even “Hockham” is considered kosher. There’s also evidence that Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas

[5]  This invokes the Razor from the opposite side, when too many assumptions have been thrown into the pile.

[6] Not buying it? I go into far greater detail in my chapter on the Teleological/Design proof, which hopefully will be enough to convince you.

[7] I’ll admit I’m abusing the term “deist” here. Most deists add additional claims, for instance that reason is a divine gift, and that a god does intervene in an entirely mechanistic way, with no personal element. Since those claims are quite similar to what most religions already propose, I’ve stripped my definition of deism down to a minimum to make it a greater threat to my arguments.

[8] I’m using “begin” in a very loose sense here. I have no idea if time exists “outside” the universe or space existed “before,” and my brain is unable to cope with a timeless space-less expanse (see?), so I need to abuse a word just to attempt to explain a concept. The worst part? I know it’s doomed to fail.

[9]  For good reason: writing had just been invented, by the Egyptians!

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Proof of God: Introduction (1)

Introduction

Here’s a homework assignment for you: Corner any adherent of any religion, and ask for proof that their God or gods exist.

They’ll refuse, with odds better than chance.

They don’t need proof, they say, because they feel his presence within them, or because nothing else can explain how well this world fits together.

I have moments when I realize things like this [Comfort’s argument, reproduced below] myself. Personal moments, when something very physical and small reminds me that the world can’t be an accident. Reminds me that the world fits together too nicely.

Good sex. Hard boiled eggs when you’re in a hurry. What salt water does to my hair. Peanut butter and milk. Giving birth. Aloe. Fingernails.

Now, I don’t get into debates with atheists, and I don’t think one can prove God to anyone else, but I feel it’s worth taking a second to admit to this… since I post a lot of sarcastic bits on this site, and this is a chance to cheese out.

The way a banana fits the hand is exactly the kind of thing that makes me believe… in something. As good an argument as anything, when one isn’t making an argument out of it.

Call it God, or call it lucky agriculture… either way it makes me think the universe has an order I can believe in.

(Laurel Snyder, May 14, 2007, http://www.jewcy.com/religion-and-beliefs/proof_of_god)

I understand that a lot of people do not believe in God because of the simple fact that there seems to be no evidence of Him. I believe the majority of atheists would believe if God showed Himself. So I’m just curious if you have ever asked the Lord into your heart? Because you can’t find God, if you are simply looking for proof. You can only find God when you truly seek after Him. Even just a small amount of faith will due.Even [sic] if you don’t sense His presence immediately. Simply by asking, “God I want to believe in you, so could you show up in my life?” Some people who don’t believe say, “Alright God, if you exist, then show yourself.” As in if they don’t see God show up, then they automatically rationalize that God isn’t real. But the truth is, you have to invite Christ into your life and then He will show up. You WILL feel His presence only when you invite Him into your life. God says draw nearer to me and I’ll draw nearer to you. You can’t see God face to face on earth, but you can feel Him.

(“Violet”, http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20110209212839AA9uEI7 )

Only a select few will go farther, but those proofs are somewhat lacking. Ray Comfort, for instance, invokes what he calls the “Atheist’s Worst Nightmare”: the banana.

This fruit fits perfectly in your hand, and has a non-slip texture to help keep it there. You can judge when it’s ripe to eat by the colour of the outer skin. It’s easy to peel open, with the help of a well-placed fingernail. There’s a gentle curve for easy insertion into the mouth. The taste is pleasantly sweet, with no seeds to interrupt your enjoyment. Once finished, the skin is easily discarded and bio-degrades.

A pop can has many of the same attributes, and we know it was designed by humans for humans. Bananas are plants, though, so who could be the designer?

Humans, as it turns out.

Originally, the wild banana had large seeds, and was almost inedible to us. Over 7000 years ago, the residents of what is now Papua New Guinea began cultivating them for food anyway. By keeping only those plants that grew the best-tasting bananas, they gradually improved the taste and reduced the size of the seeds. The new-improved banana picked up fans throughout South-East Asia. Islam then spread the fruit across the Middle East, and may have introduced it to Africa[2] . Portuguese sailors discovered the banana in West Africa around 1500 AD, and began importing it to Europe. It slowly grew in popularity there, eventually requiring large tropical plantations to satisfy demand.

Bananas come in a wide variety of colours, from red to purple, and the majority of them have to be cooked before eating. The yellow “dessert” banana was discovered on a Jamaican plantation in 1836, and its unusually sweet taste and softness made it a hit in the United States of America. Modern agricultural techniques and refrigeration have turned this rare treat into a staple.

The banana is dependent on us for reproduction and protection. The lack of seeds means it can only spread by having a certain portion of the root deliberately cut off and replanted elsewhere. Selective breeding and our desire for a consistent product have robbed the banana plant of genetic diversity, making it easy prey for disease and parasites. In fact, the tastiest variant of dessert banana was killed off by a fungus in the 1960’s. Our current sub-standard replacement is being ravaged by the same disease.

This has been known for some time. If Comfort had only done a little research, he would have been spared the nickname “Banana-man.”

Or take Michael Behe’s argument about the bacterial flagellum. These look like little hairs but act like little propellers, whipping around in circles to drive the bacteria forward. The design of these flagellum is fragile, however; remove any one component, and it’s useless as a propeller. However, evolution works via small, incremental changes, not large leaps; having every piece simultaneously click into place by chance is so unlikely, it would be like tossing some metal into the air and having it land as a bicycle.  If the flagellum was designed, not evolved, Behe proposes that the culprit was an “intelligent designer.” While he’s careful not to use the “g” word, the only potential being that could pull off such a design coup would have to be a god.

One problem: evolution doesn’t force a component to have only one use. Wings began as limbs with a flap of skin, which were useful for gliding, and slowly got better at flying and worse at supporting weight. Limbs are fins that stretched out via 500 million years of evolution, and so on. The flagellum bears a strong resemblance to a “secretion system,” generally a long needle-like structure used to stab other cells and inject them with poison, that has had one or two extra bits added on that allow rotation. Those extras are easy to mutate into place, so the flagellum could evolve after all.

Not only did Behe misunderstand evolution, an embarrassing gaff for a biologist, but he did it in a courtroom, so his mistake has been permanently etched into the public record.

Three Objections

This puts me in a bit of a bind. I could spend an entire book jumping from specific proof to specific proof, only to have my work dismissed as merely “cherry-picking” the worst of the bunch. Even worse, new proofs are easy to manufacture. Behe has move on to more subtle arguments surrounding the rate of evolutionary change, while Comfort can rapidly shift between dozens of well-practiced alternate proofs, deflating any rebuttal longer and deeper than a sound-bite.

And so far I’ve just considered Christian arguments. There are thousands or hundreds of thousands of other religions that have existed on this planet. Even within a single religion, there’s an incredible variety of beliefs. Returning to Christianity, depending on your sect God comes in a trinity or in singular form, God is Jesus, Jesus is the Son of God (and thus only partially god-like), or you yourself could become a God. He may actively alter the universe, passively sit by and provides comfort, or any mix in between. In the Old Testament, God is portrayed as a physical being:

And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden.
(Genesis 3:8, King James translation)

And he said, Hear thou therefore the word of the LORD: I saw the LORD sitting on his throne, and all the host of heaven standing by him on his right hand and on his left.
(1 Kings 22:19, King James translation)

Modern Christians reject this, and agree more with the New Testament’s view of God as a purely spiritual being, outside the physical world. That fits well with Daoists, who put it more poetically:

The revealing of great virtue all comes from the guidance of the Dao.
The Dao is so fleeting, so alternating.
Alternating and fleeting, there are signs in between; fleeting and alternating, there are forms in between.
It is so deep and so very dark. In between, there lie feelings of life. And feelings of life are real, latent with trust.
From ancient times until today, the name of the Dao stays; it has been guiding us to the origin of the manifestations of all things.
How do I know the very origin of the manifestation of all things? It’s through the Dao.

Things rapidly get worse for me, though. The conflicting views on god imply that some of them must be incorrect. This in turn opens up the possibility that none of them are correct, and the true description of the divine order has yet to be discovered or was contained in an extinct religion.

So not only am I facing a Hydra[3] of proofs, I must also factor in multiple definitions of gods that don’t mesh well or have yet to be thought up! Looming over it all is the biggest problem of them all, the one I began with. Why is any sort of proof necessary in the first place?

This is a slightly daunting task. Obviously I can’t claim to be definitive, but as impossible as this sounds, I think I can make a reasonable go of it.

[2]  There is some recent evidence that Africans may have domesticated the banana themselves, on or around 1000 BCE.

[3]  An old Greek monster that grew two heads for every one you chopped off. It likely went extinct because of ever-increasing brainpower, which in turn led to ever-increasing boredom.

Proof of God: Acknowledgements

Acknowledgements

In absolutely no order, I must give thanks to:

  • [names]
  • Brandie and Zane, for helping debug some of my thoughts.
  • Daniel Dennett, who’s book “Darwin’s Dangerous Idea” tipped me off to Hume’s near-discovery of evolution.
  • Paul Buller, who accidentally helped me improve my section on the Cosmological proof.

How To Read This Book

Experienced readers may find themselves somewhat bored with this book. I’ve done my best to come up with novel arguments, but this territory is very well trafficked. If you find yourself nodding off or intimidated by the scope of this book, there’s no harm in skipping ahead. You can always come back later if need be.

If instead you find yourself short on time, or with no desire to wade through proofs you’ve heard multiple times before, here’s what I recommend:

  • Read at least the last chapter. It makes more sense if you read the Introduction first, but experienced readers should be able to puzzle out what they missed.
  • Hop around through the rest of the chapters as you fancy. Beyond the beginning and end, this book has a very non-linear structure and sometimes refers to previous or future chapters to support a point. Take advantage of that to graze along as you find the time and desire. I recommend skimming the chapters on Fine Tuning, Design, and Popularity, in particular.

Notes

Any writer that discusses science faces this dilemma: should I use scientific notation, or not?

As an example, I can write the speed of light as 299,792,458 metres per second, or as 3.00 • 108 metres per second. The little exponent piggybacking the 10 tells you how zeros to tack on to the right of the decimal place to get to the true value. If that exponent is negative you head left, unsurprisingly; our eyes are most sensitive to light that has a wave length of 0.000000555, or 555 • 10-9, metres.

Scientific notation is much shorter than the conventional way, which seems like a clear advantage, but it also tends to obscure the true scale of large numbers. The difference between 2.0 • 1010 and 6.0 • 1014  seems bigger than the difference between 7.0 • 1018 and 9.0 • 1018, until you do the maths: the first is a difference of 599,980,000,000,000, while the second is 2,000,000,000,000,000,000. Human beings are lousy with large numbers, and the exponent in scientific notation makes that an order of magnitude worse.

The sheer bulk of conventional numbers creates its own problem, however: all those extra digits make them look more accurate than they really are. For instance, the size of the visible universe is 880,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 metres across. That looks extremely precise, but in reality we’re only confident of the first three digits. All but the first zero is mere padding to get those digits into the right place, and yet there’s no good way to remove the excess fluff.

The same number in scientific notation is 8.80 • 1026. The precision is so easy to convey that it’s intuitive!

On the balance, I prefer to waste a little space to give you a better feel for how large some numbers are, so long as the zeros don’t get too crazy. Just be aware that the first two or three digits are usually the only accurate ones. [1]

My next problem is one of capitalization.

Christianity has decided that their god shall be called God, and can get rather snippy if you don’t fall into line. Yet God is but one of many gods that have existed through the ages, and in this book I’m aiming at a definition of god that encompasses them all. Given the choice of offending Christians by not capitalizing the word god, or offending other religions by implying their Gods are really just the Christian one, I’ve decided to go with the majority. Sorry, Christians, but I don’t mean offence by it, and if I do talk about your god in particular I’ll be sure to make liberal use of the Shift key.

There’s also the problem of pronouns. The Christian God is a “He,” which is both a generic pronoun and a male-specific one. Hindu gods have a definite gender, and some can also be considered a “she.” Deists roll their eyes at the suggestion of a physical shape to their god, let alone a gendered human-like one, so “it” is most appropriate. Satisfying everyone is impossible, so I’ve decided to satisfy no-one and freely interchange all of them.

While apologizing for my apologetics, I should also ask for forgiveness from polytheistic religions. To save my poor typing fingers, I’ll frequently refer to god in the singular. I’m fully aware of the possibility of multiple gods, and all my arguments should succeed or fail equally well in that framework, but it gets annoying to continually write “god or gods.” Again, no slight is intended.

Speaking of other religions, atheists are commonly criticized for focusing on one religion and ignoring all others. I’ve tried hard to avoid that.

[1] But not always. In 1983, the Comité International des Poids et Mesures decided to define the metre as exactly 1 / 299,792,458th of how far light travels through a vacuum in one second.

Proof of God: Table of Contents

 

Proof of God

Context

 (1)

Acknowledgements

How To Read This Book

Notes

  (2)

Introduction

Three Objections

 (3)

Definitions

 (4)

Whither Proofs?

Gotta Catch Them All

 (5)

Proof from First Cause, or the Cosmological Proof

Golden Oldies

Because I Said So

 (6)

Hume’s Trip to the Pole

 (7)

There Are No Stupid Questions

It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

 (8)

Absolutely Nothing

So Bad It’s Not Even Wrong

 (9)

Proof from Logical Necessity, or the Ontological Proof

No Really, It’s Quite Popular With Some People

 (10)

Existence is not Great

The Triumph of Irrationality

 (11)

Kant-er Arguments

Gödel’s Proof, and the Problem of Infinity

The Proof that God Does Not Exist

 (12)

Proof from Intelligence

Definitions

 (13)

Divine Gift or Solvable Mystery?

Cogs in the Machine

Language

 (14)

Problem Solving

Mathematics and Logical Thinking

 (15)

Visual Processing

Music

Intrapersonal and Self-Awareness

 (16)

Spatial Reasoning

Tool Use

Play

Culture

 (17)

Creativity

Long-Range Planning

Interpersonal

Altruism

Cross-species Altruism

 (18)

Farming

Lying

So What’s Left?

 (19)

Proof from Logic and Dualism

The Connection to Reality

Confirming The Obvious

 (20)

Elegant, According to Whom?

Dualism

 (21)

Dualism

The Limits of Logic

 (22)

You’ve Got to Have Soul!

 (23)

Proof from Morality

Moral Quandaries

 (24)

Two Big Objections

 (25)

Social Animals

The First Game

 (26)

The Golden Rule

Clockwork

 (27)

Fuzzy Logic

The Monkey Wrench

 (28)

Proof from Design, or the Teleological Proof

Cranes and Skyhooks

 (29)

A Hat Tip to Mandelbrot

 (30, 31, 32)

Evolution and Chaos

Baby Steps to a Light-Sensitive Patch…

Take A Chance

 (33)

I Fought The Law

Death by a Thousand Cuts

 (34)

Proof from Popularity

Bridge Jumping

Judgement Day

The Ascent of Religion

 (35)

Over-active Pattern Matching

Classism

Evolution

Social Attachment

Fear of Death

How Religion Started

(unfinished)

(36)