Free Thought and Hugo

[I have moved this conversation here because this is getting rather long at the original comment page, which is HERE]

With Hugo around, teleological inevitability seems to take over: I can’t resist responding. It’s because the things Hugo says are voiced in the calm assurance of their universal truth yet are based in demonstrably anti-rational principles.

Hugo says,

” In my opinion, you cannot be both a God believer and a free thinking who think independently. You have to concede that God either does not care or cannot listen to your thoughts to be a free thinker.”

He proclaims this to be an opinion, but contrary to earlier proclamations of openness, it is perfectly predictable that this will not change for Hugo despite any input. Regardless, here is some input:

The discipline of logic (hence rational thought and empirical science) was consolidated and preserved by legions of theists. One must be historically ignorant not to know that. There is no known logical deduction which violates any theist proposition (if there were, Atheists, including Dawkins, would use it daily). Yet every Atheist pretends that every theist proposition has already been invalidated, purely on the basis of the caricature of theism being presupposed a priori false, a presupposition which Hugo has accepted as valid. Thus the common Atheist position of not requiring a rebuttal from themselves to support their reasons for rejecting theist arguments: blind rejection is sufficient.

Free Thinking is an absurdity for the following reason: free thinking works outside of the discipline and parameters of logical boundaries. If it did not, it would not be “free”, it would be subservient and beholden to outside principles – an abomination to free thinking. Thus “free thinkers” who believe their own conclusions based on stacks of ungrounded and false premises are actually both self-elevating beyond the tethers of logic and subjectively subservient to their own self-revelations of ungrounded (and thus false) “truths”.

Theism is not bound by a fear of thought as Hugo would have it; it is rather tethered to a discipline: logic as the path to rationality and the only valid path to comprehending the universe and our place in it. Science is a subset of that mindset, and is valid only for the restricted intellectual spaces of physical, deterministic processes which submit to empirical analysis. That science is limited is not accepted by free thinkers whose axioms do not include valid definitions of determinism (the boundaries of determinism are vastly plastic or rigidly held depending on application, or otherwise free thinkers would not be free).

The human mind is both non-deterministic and an agent. The agency inherent in the human mind must be rejected irrationally (using personal agency to reject the concept of agency) if the free thinking non-theist is to maintain determinism - Scientism – physicalism as the correct path to understanding absolutely everything. After all, if a mental activity is predetermined under determinism, then it cannot be a “free thought”, can it?

Thus the free thinker constrains himself to the most false aspect of thought: accepting the non-coherence of the Scientism – physicalism ideology over the acceptance of the validity of disciplined logic as a constraint on rational thought. The two, Scientism and logic, are totally incompatible. So the rejection of logic in favor of Scientism - physicalism cannot be a product of logic. It is purely an emotional decision.

Because Scientism – physicalism and Atheism all support the individual’s self-image of personal control over intellect (as opposed to the control of logic over a submissive intellect), the overwhelming trend of those types of individuals is toward the self-image of personal superiority. After all, if a person thinks up “truths” which reject the concepts of those others who are intellectually subservient to logic, then the totally open “truth thinker” is superior to the subservient individual, right?

Again, it is an emotional, personally elevating conclusion, borne of the rejection of subservience to any rational control including disciplined logic. And it is emotionally serviced with out-of-hand rejection of theist positions, but with no counter argument or refutation even being necessary.

For Hugo and free thought, one cannot think clearly if one is subservient; one must reject subservience and be free of the hindrances that constrain thought to specific processes.

Hugo says,

” Determinism is complicated because we don't have all the answers to how we can be thinking human beings based on solely natural processes. Adding a God to the equation does not explain anything however... It does not say how God would have built us to be like that, it does not explain how a non-natural soul would work in synch with the natural body without leaving any trace.”

Here Hugo demonstrates his own subservience to determinism, to Scientism – physicalism. Determinism is complicated? No. Determinism is merely this: every physical effect has a physical cause which can be measured using other physical techniques. It’s not complicated. The complication comes from the actions of humans which are outside of the boundaries of determinism, yet must crammed forcefully into those boundaries due to free thinking. That's where adopting plastic boundaries to the definition of determinism become necessary: purely to defend determinism as still being valid where it clearly is not.

The assertion of a non-physical agent being involved does not involve requiring those explanations which Hugo demands of it. Atheists love to use the analogy of accepting gravity despite the undefined source for gravity to explain their inability to provide any evidence for evolution. Or first life. Or huge semantic information load in first DNA. But they demand all these non-essential “explanatory” issues regarding lack of any obvious material evidence for an outside agent. This sort of Special Pleading to conceal Category Errors permeates free thinking. But it is not an issue to the free thinker, who is not subservient to the rules of logic and rational thinking: they operate in a space where Special Pleading and Category Error are without consequence. Thus that operating space is anti-rational and anti-intellectual.

Hugo says,

”I believe there is always a morally acceptable choice in all situations, just like there is always something true and objective, but we, humans, need to work together to figure out what it is. No one has special access to what's true or moral.”

the assertion that there “is always something true and objective”, yet no one knows what it is, is absurd on the face of it. To combine that with the assertion of no one having “access to what's true or moral”, special or common, contradicts the first assertion, a spectacular non-coherence. What Hugo appears to want us to believe by making these assertions is that all humans need to get together to come up with a human-derivation for morality. The consequence is obvious: that set of moral principles would be relative to the opinions of those most powerful and able to influence the outcome. This produces the following: (a) relative principles, (b) advantageous to the powerful (read some Nietzsche, Hugo), (c) declared to be “true and objective”. So this obviously is a validation of the Leftward flow of Atheist mentalities (see also amygdala differences in Leftists).

Further, the use of the term, “no one”, is a dead give-away that the reference is to a belief that is being projected as a truth. Can Hugo prove his assertion about what applies to absolutely no individual in the history of the universe? This statement is based on the rejectionism which is inherent in free thought, a rejectionism based in the practice of radical skepticism and the premise of personal dominance of all thought regarding all existence.

Hugo says,

” What I was trying to tell Stan is that we are all people who hold values, who have core principles we are fighting for. This has nothing to do with emotions. And you are correct, it has nothing to do with metaphysical naturalism because it does NOT dicatate anything. Again, you clearly did not know that but to me it's a consequence of my worldview; not a source nor a base.”

Of course Hugo holds values; he creates his own. That's necessary for those who live in a world where all other morality is rejected. No one that Hugo knows is privy to universal moral values. So it is necessary to create one's own. His values clearly are of the nature of determinism, physicalism, and Scientism, and he cannot separate the cause from the effect, because they are interdependent in a circular fashion. Physical universe > determinism > Atheism > physical universe. In a circular argument, which is premise and which is conclusion? It's a slippery, slidey worldview, which is convenient to unconstrained free thought. Free Thought always results in free creation of values, for those who actually want values.

Time constraints: I must stop here.