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Theism: Does its Irrationality Matter?
Theism is the belief that there is at least one supernatural god, a perfect (all-powerful, all-knowing) person who created the natural universe and who intervenes in that universe, particularly in human affairs. Theism is the philosophical content of religions which is almost never discussed in mainstream journalistic coverage of religions, whether on the radio or TV, in newspapers or magazines. In the West, addressing the philosophical merits of theism would inevitably call the monotheistic religions into question and alienate consumers of news, most of whom pretend to follow a traditional religion without actually doing so. In short, monotheistic religions are currently farcical.
The farce begins with the theist's erroneous notion that theism can and should be rationally supported, as though theism were something like a scientific theory. The scientistic blunder here is monumental and often motivated by comically misplaced arrogance, as in the case of Catholic pomposity or the militant Islamist's woefully perverse delusions of grandeur. A monotheist's condescension towards a nontheist or an Eastern mystic is like an ant's deeming itself to be taller than a giraffe. (I'll speak of nontheism rather than atheism, because "atheism" has negative social connotations which are irrelevant to the core issue I mean to address.) However, the farce ends when we see that theism's irrationality may not matter and that the theist may have the last laugh. The rational case against theism may itself rest on a category error. Indeed, the rational ideal that our philosophical beliefs be logical and attuned to the evidence conflicts with the more Humean reality confirmed by cognitive scientists, that humans are not as rational as we might prefer to think. I'll provide an overview here of why theism is indeed irrational, but then I'll turn to what I'll call the existentialist's nonrational case for theism.
Mysticism and Literalism
First of all, we need to observe the split in all religions between their mystical and exoteric traditions. The mystic seeks transcendent experience of the divine, not a rational justification for intellectual beliefs. She understands that language and logic simplify and thus to some extent falsify reality as they map it, and that in any case those tools evolved to provide us with practical knowledge of how to get by in the natural world, not to contact anything that might lie beyond that world. The mystic prefers a direct, intuitive grasp of supernatural reality, but if she's forced to speak of what she thereby grasps, she often resorts to myths and metaphors which she knows shouldn't be taken seriously.
Mysticism is central to Eastern religions but marginalized in Western, monotheistic ones. What replaces mysticism at the heart of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam is a colossal misunderstanding, called literalism, which is the mistaking of exoteric knowledge for the esoteric, mystical kind. Literalists err in literalizing the mystic's metaphors. So while a mystic may compare God, that which transcends nature, to a loving parent, the literalist falls in love not with God but with the image, succumbing to our primitive, tribal inclination to worship an idol. From the mystic's viewpoint, the literalist's ego gets the better of her; like Narcissus she's captivated by her own reflection, in this case by an image poured out of a mystic's mind to provide a sketchy map of what transcends our rational comprehension. So one of the initial mistakes made by Western theists, at least, is the elevation of their anti-mystical tradition. Thus, Christians persecuted their Gnostics and Muslim jurists have a strained relationship with Sufis.
Indeed, when theism is reduced to literalistic idolatry, the contents of theistic beliefs become ridiculous. The images contradict each other or are otherwise preposterous, leading the indignant literalist into a web of falsehoods as she has to rationalize the absurdities that inevitably follow when she naturalizes and anthropomorphizes something that's supposed to be supernatural. For example, how could God literally have thoughts and feelings with no physical brain or other substrate? If a substrate is needed for psychological states, who made God's? Needless to say, if God evolved, he's not the creator of everything. Literalists have traveled far, looking for Eden or Noah's ark, always ready with a spurious explanation when they fail to find any archeological evidence for the biblical tale's historicity. And literalistic theology becomes the proverbial tennis match played without a net. So-called systematic theology tomes are written to map every nuance of theistic imagery, arriving at creeds that purportedly specify God's attributes--including, no doubt, what God had for breakfast the other day.
Divine Revelation
To return to my narrative, though, the mystic's metaphors are eventually written down, and literalists come to write their own teachings in response or to misinterpret the mystic's texts. Thus we have the spectacle of so-called divine revelation, as though that which begat the universe would write a book or create more or less free creatures and then turn some of them into puppets, "inspiring" them to read God's mind and translate his commandments for everyone else's benefit. Why wouldn't God inspire everyone at once and for all time? That would interfere with our freedom and God cherishes humans above everything else in Creation. Why then would God still inspire a handful of prophets? Because God has a soft spot for the odd human sacrifice. That's just one out of a million contradictions in literalistic theology.
At any rate, we're then faced with the impossible task of correctly interpreting Holy Scripture. This is the hermeneutic problem that besets all religions, because the symbols in natural languages are ambiguous: the words have multiple meanings and this ambiguity ramifies when the text is translated into other languages. The ambiguity is ramified even further, since there are multiple scriptures, leading to many sects and religions, and the adherents of each monotheistic group claim exclusive divine authorship for their religious texts. So which meaning or text is the divinely intended one? We must all be ignorant of God's intentions or else God wouldn't have stooped to writing out his manifesto for us in the first place, but God leaves us to squabble over how to interpret our preferred manifesto and over which manifesto is the genuine article. Inevitably, interpretation of religious texts becomes an exercise in cherry-picking: we ignore some passages and highlight others, usually to suit our own preconceptions.
As for which religion we adopt, despite the competing religions available, that's decided in almost every case simply by where we happen to be born and by the religion of our parents. For evolutionary reasons, children are highly gullible, having to learn quickly in their formative years, so when parents fill their child's head full of nonsense, as was done to them by their own parents, the child's theistically prejudiced for life and the religion recycles itself through the ages. Of course, the theist who regards her religion as exclusively correct needs to explain why God would create people who are so influenced by their parents and their geographical location and time period, that most would thus be innocently misled to adopt a different, false religion, and why God would then punish those people, in effect, for being born to the wrong parents or in the wrong place or time.
Incidentally, another fact that should unsettle a theist is that our brain is adapted to read each other's mind, giving us an instinctive grasp of human motivations. As the philosopher Daniel Dennett argues in Breaking the Spell, we often overuse this capacity for mind-reading, viewing just about any pattern in the world as susceptible of a psychological interpretation, and so we anthropomorphize everything from clouds to automobiles to what we suppose must be the ultimate reality. Here's why this sort of evolutionary fact should worry the theist: it's much more likely that we overuse our innate capacity for mind-reading and anthropomorphize the ultimate reality, arriving at theism, than that that reality is actually a person.
Now, in the case of Christian revelation, haughty Catholic priests come to the rescue, alleging that they've been given the authority by God to provide Christians with the orthodox interpretation of the Bible and with infallible guidance on moral matters. Indeed, Christianity is the most literalistic, and thus the most absurd, of all the major religions. Official Christianity started in the fourth century CE as a gambit by the Roman Emperor Constantine to unite the far-flung and religiously-divided regions of his collapsing empire. Whereas in earlier years the Roman military achieved that goal by quashing rebellions, the fading empire could no longer employ that blunt instrument, so Constantine turned to a subtler approach. What better way to unite than to temper Roman polytheism with at least the appearance of monotheism? Were there only one God, there'd be only one correct way to live (assuming God doesn't have multiple personalities and chooses to issue logically consistent commandments). So the Romans adopted Judaism as the basic ingredient in their recipe. Of course, Judaism would hardly suffice since Jews are famously antisocial, distinguishing themselves from everyone else with their peculiar observances and ceremonies, including circumcision and arbitrary restrictions on diet.
So the Romans opted for an offshoot of Judaism, for a literalistic Jewish cult that promised to combine Jewish monotheism with Roman polytheism, yielding the best of both worlds. That cult became Christianity, and so the one immaterial Jewish god, Yahweh, became a Trinity which included--of all things--a man named Jesus who served as the equivalent of a Roman demigod. And whereas Jews were more interested in how humans can live well by following God's orders, than in speculating on how God might otherwise be acting throughout the world, Christianity doubles down on the literalistic confusion, adding that God, the Holy Spirit, not only speaks through the odd prophet, but passes its power through the greatest prophet, Jesus--just don't say so to a Muslim--to Peter, the first Pope, thus adding the Catholic institution to the list of Christian idols.
Secular Christianity
Ironically, a secular critic of Christianity who points to these historical facts should feel a little guilty. Being first and foremost a secular ploy to preserve the Roman Empire, institutional Christianity has greatly served the purposes of secularization, furthering what Max Weber called the disenchantment of nature. By bringing God so far within nature, actually identifying a single man as equal to the universe's creator, Christianity degrades God, preparing the way for nontheism when scientists explain more and more of nature, leaving nowhere for the literalized God to hide. In this way, Judaism's relation to Christianity is like that between the philosophers, Plato and Aristotle. Plato posited abstract, immaterial Forms or Ideals which account for natural categories. Aristotle brought these Forms down to earth, identifying them with material processes. Just as Aristotle naturalized Platonism, Christians naturalize monotheism--and do so only sometimes unwittingly.
Christianity's covert disservice to theism is seen most strikingly in the way most Americans can pretend to be followers of Jesus even though their behaviour attests to their worship of money and worldly pleasure. Mind you, all these Christian consumers do is substitute one idol (Jesus) for another (Mammon). From a mystical viewpoint, there's surely a slippery slope here: once you initially mistake a symbol for the terrain which the symbol imperfectly maps, you're led further into carnality, egoism, and rationally conceptualized nature, and away from the mystic's experience of the world's transcendent unity. Thus, an American can identify herself to a pollster as a Christian, implying that she wants to be like Jesus who was, roughly speaking, a hippie pacifist and communist who cared nothing for worldly conventions, and then hang up the phone in her mansion and drive her kids to school in her Mercedes--all without feeling guilt for any hypocrisy or fear that perhaps a spiritual life is antithetical to a comfortable secular one. The point is that this materialistic Christian isn't really so hypocritical; she goes where the Roman handlers of Christianity wanted the religion to go. Coincidentally, this utterly compromised Christianity is practiced in a country whose founders explicitly took themselves to be re-instituting a Roman social order. (See, for example, the Roman style architecture of Washington's government buildings.)
Theistic Proofs
How about the philosophical arguments for theism? As Kierkegaard said, none turns a nontheist into a theist. Take the First Cause Argument, which is that everything in the universe has a natural cause, and since there can't be an infinite series of natural causes and the first natural cause can't cause itself, the first cause of everything has to be supernatural. But who says there can't be such an infinite series? Also, things in nature are organically rather than mechanically connected, and so rather than being separate from its effects, the first natural cause, that is, the Big Bang singularity or quantum fluctuation, is more like the whole of nature in seed form that evolves into more and more complex forms. And if God can be an exception to this principle about what can or can't cause itself, why can't that singularity somehow be another exception that causes itself, in which case the supernatural cause would be superfluous?
As for the Design Argument, that the universe is like a human artifact, which implies that the universe was intelligently designed, this argument was more compelling prior to Darwin's naturalistic explanation of biological design. Also, for everything in the universe to be comparable to human artifacts, everything would have to have a function. What's the function of the moon, of an asteroid, or of dark matter? Certainly, we can imagine functions, but those would be what biologists call Just So Stories, meaning ad hoc speculations that may be more or less plausible but that are unsupported by independent pieces of evidence. The notion that the universe is God's designed artifact makes sense only from an anthropocentric standpoint that's long been rendered quaint, from Copernicus onward.
Then there's Pascal's Wager, according to which no one knows whether there's a God or what God would be like, because by definition God is infinite and transcendent, but it's prudent for the agnostic to gamble that a divine Judge exists, because a person making that bet has the most to gain (heaven) and the least to lose (the relatively little effort of going to Church, etc). This argument has many problems, one of which is that the chance that God would appreciate such a gamble and reward the gambler are surely very low. Indeed, who would want to worship such a utilitarian god? Moreover, if God is infinite and transcendent, as the argument assumes, the correct position would be the mystic's, in which case the image of God as a casino operator who cares about our utilitarian calculations should be discarded as a gross oversimplification.
Next, there's the Moral Argument, according to which morality is impossible on the assumption of nontheistic naturalism, and so the existence of morality requires the supernatural, which includes God. The shortest answer here is that there is a complete evolutionary explanation of morality, after all. As I've been saying in my other rants, though, any complete, scientific explanation of morality will commit the naturalistic fallacy. Science might explain how morality originated and how it works, but this explanation won't justify any moral prescription, which is a philosophical matter. The better response to the Moral Argument is just to point out that the anthropomorphic notion of God that this argument presupposes is so parochial as to be a nonstarter. When the universe was believed to be a relatively small place, with Earth at its center and all the stars forming meaningful patterns for our benefit, it must have seemed obvious that God is like a human king or judge who attends to our behaviour and readies himself for the day when he'll render his final verdict. This image is simply no longer credible to any scientifically-informed person. No such person can sanely suppose that the creator of black holes, dark matter, supernovas, and of all the galaxies, stars, planets, and probably other species thinks just like a human. That anthropomorphic image of God has been suspiciously self-serving for monarchs throughout history, who have used it to glorify themselves and pacify the masses. The image no longer has the same power and so it's no longer sensible to thank God for human morality.
A recent and popular theistic argument goes by the name of Presuppositionalism, according to which not just morality but logic and even science presuppose theism. For example, scientists posit natural laws and thus they assume nature is intelligible, but only a mind could cause that intelligibility. (You can find this argument in Dinesh D'Souza's book, What's so Great about Christianity?) Again, there are many problems with this argument. First, natural laws are descriptions, not prescriptions, although early Western scientists muddied these waters with their deism. Second, cognitive scientists explain what human reason is, and they show that we're not so rational, which is just what we'd expect if our cognitive faculties were products of natural selection. Third, who says nature is fundamentally intelligible? Quantum mechanics is paradoxical even to the few who've accomplished the superhuman feats of study to master the mathematics needed even to begin to describe what goes on at that level of reality.
Christians in particular like to say their religion is unique for its abundance of historical evidence in favour of their theistic claims. So there's supposed to be adequate evidence, for example, that Jesus miraculously rose from the dead. This is simply not so, given standard inductive rules of evidence. In a court of law, of course, the historical evidence of the New Testament narratives couldn't even be entered into the record as having any value, because the narratives are now hearsay; indeed, they're hearsay not just because they're one or two steps removed from the present, but because they're hundreds of steps so removed. (The anonymous Gospel texts have been copied and recopied for centuries.) Would the earliest Christians have died for their religion if their belief that Jesus rose bodily from the dead wasn't well-justified? Sure they could have, since people can be very deluded or desperate. Look at the radical Muslim terrorists who even today throw away their lives believing they'll enjoy seventy-two virgins in heaven. If Jesus wasn't raised, why was his tomb empty? Lots of possible reasons, each of which is more likely than that a violation of natural law occurred. Jesus might have been put in the wrong tomb or thrown into a lime pit to rot with other bodies, and in the panic caused by Rome's unwanted attention to Jesus, his followers could have scattered and confabulated all sorts of stories to rationalize their loss. In fact, from where we stand with the limited evidence we have, it's much more likely that there was no historical Jesus in the first place, and that the whole religion is the result of confusion and fraud than that Jesus rose miraculously from the dead.
Again, the Christian's penchant for idolatry has served the cause of secularism well, since it's drawn theism into the realm of inductive reasoning, which works entirely to that religion's detriment. Thus, objective Bible scholars and archeologists have duly investigated the biblical claims and found them wanting in most instances. But after nearly eliminating the supernatural, by identifying what would be a transcendent entity, God, with a Jewish Middle Eastern guy and with a human institution or two, thus betraying perennial mystical traditions--for a Christian then to turn around and pretend that there's a rational case for Christian supernaturalism takes some chutzpah. Christians need to sleep in the bed they've made: they've gone along with secular Rome's subversion of Jewish anti-idolatry, so they have to live with the fact that, as mystics have always understood, secular reason works against belief in the supernatural. Christians can't have it both ways. If God was actually a man and we want to know what we're rationally entitled to believe about that man, standard inductive methods apply. As it happens, the scientific historian subscribes to methodological naturalism, which pragmatically assumes there are no miracles. So much for inductive reasons to be a Christian!
Finally, I'll say something about the Problem of Evil, which has made theism dubious for millennia. The deductive problem isn't as powerful as the probabilistic one. If you define God as being all-powerful, all-knowing, and benevolent, and you grant that there's evil (unnecessary suffering) in the world, you have to give up one or more of those divine attributes. For example, God might have preferred that there be no such suffering but lacked the power to create a perfectly good world. This argument is weak, because the theist is free to modify the list of divine attributes. (Remember that theology is like a tennis match with no net.)
The real thrust of the problem comes from our having to face the question of which explanation of the apparent world is best, the theist's or the nontheistic naturalist's. Were life an accident of natural evolution, unnecessary suffering would be easily explained in terms of the impersonality of the forces that sustain life. But the odds seem low that the deity that most theists actually think about would create just the natural world that actually exists. In fact, monotheists concede as much, which is why they blame nature on our Fall from God's grace and expect that the intended world of heaven or of God's kingdom will eventually replace this imperfect world. This just pushes the problem back a step, since now the theist must consider the probability that God could be responsible for such a rigmarole. Sure, God could have an unknown reason why he allowed the Fall to happen or why he created Satan to tempt humankind into sin, thus somehow corrupting all of God's creation. Again: tennis without a net. Likewise, an insane person, locked away in a mental institution, can explain away any piece of evidence that conflicts with her elaborate fantasy. But such a person will not be thinking properly. At some point, a decision has to be made about whether a certain explanation is the best available and is accepted for impersonal reasons or whether, instead, the explanation is an all-too comforting, ad hoc rationalization, protecting a tradition that's cherished for its ability to unify a family or a society. After all, the root meaning of "religion" is "to bind."
The Existential Argument against Nontheism
In summary, theism isn't rational. Especially after the start of modern science, there's just a wealth of reasons not to believe that a perfect person created the universe and works miraculously in our favour. In the first place, literalistic theism is a childish confusion next to mysticism. Literalistic theists hardly agree on the details of their religion, because of their insuperable problem of interpreting scriptures. The anthropocentric assumptions that historically have lent theism whatever rational credibility it may once had had have been thoroughly undermined by scientific discoveries of the universe's inhuman scale. Scientific standards of explanation count against theism and are especially damaging to the historicity of the Christian narrative. None of the classic theistic proofs is rationally persuasive in itself, and none of the modern proofs improves significantly on the older ones.
Luckily for the theist, none of this should matter. The notion that theism needs to be rational is a piece of scientism, which can be discredited. Humans may be the best thinkers around, but we're still animals and few if any of our important decisions are rational. We choose our deepest beliefs not because we calculate the odds or look over a set of arguments, but because of our experiences, feelings, and character. Once that nonrational work is done, we look for reasons to add to the cognitive edifice, but even here we seldom exercise pure logic; instead, we incline to the many biases and fallacies that our genes have built into our brains, upholding, for example, confirmatory evidence and passing over evidence that counts against our assumptions.
With this in mind, I want to discuss what I think is the best argument against nontheism, which I call the Existential Argument because it focuses on the nonrational nature of our major decisions. I begin by describing the typical nontheist's attitude towards theism. Most nontheists are highly interested not just in the content of modern scientific theories, but in the scientific method of inquiry, which is currently the Western paradigm of objectivity. Religious people fail, therefore, not just because their supernaturalism is incompatible with scientific ontology, but because they elevate faith above reason. The nontheist assumes that metaphysical and empirical questions should both be addressed from an impersonal, objective frame of mind, using rigorous modes of reasoning, avoiding fallacies wherever possible, and paying careful attention to the data. From that frame of mind, nontheism becomes the only viable option. Presumably, theists have roughly the same capacity to reason as the average nontheist, so the nontheist goes on to diagnose the theist as suffering from delusion, brainwashing, superstition, wishful thinking, dogmatism, social pressure, or a mind virus. At any rate, some such nonrational power overcomes the theist's capacity to reason, while the nontheist is liberated from such forces, seeing the situation clearly and going where pure reason takes her, to the rejection of theistic beliefs.
This may all well be so as far as it goes, but the nontheist has to face the question of whether she deems herself to be so rational with regard to all issues of such personal importance as whether there's a god who will take care of us when we die and whether the universe is fundamentally good. The nontheist often boasts that he or she deals with the theistic issue in a rational fashion, discarding theism for reasons like the ones I give above. Is the nontheist hyper-rational, though? Does the nontheist consistently side with reason rather than with some nonrational factor, like feeling, intuition, or institutional power?
Take, for example, the issue of sexual relations, which is just as personally important to almost everyone as the question of whether to be a theist or a nontheist. Should the nontheist find a mate and have an intimate relationship, and if so, with whom? Most nontheists do have intimate relationships. But note that were they to adopt the same attitude towards intimacy as they do towards nontheism, their efforts in dealing with the former would surely end in abject failure. Unless you're living on planet Vulcan, you can't expect to attract a mate and have a successful intimate relationship if you scrutinize every detail of the partner with cold, hard logic and adjust your behaviour based strictly on impersonal observation of the evidence. To take a commonplace example, many people form bonds of intimacy by dancing, which is a ritual that tests a person's ability to let go of reason and to literally go with the flow of the music. In addition, dancing is often a prelude to the sexual act itself, the whole point of which clearly is to bond emotionally with the partner rather than to overanalyze the situation or conduct anything like a scientific experiment.
To put the upshot as bluntly as I can, I ask you to compare the nontheist's image of the theist in the grip of her delusion or mind virus, loudly protesting that God does exist and making a fool of herself in the process, to the image from, say, a hidden camera, of the nontheist in the throes of passionate sex with his or her life partner. Reason clearly has little to do with ensuring the success of either way of dealing with a personally crucial decision. The nontheist puts reason aside when bonding with a significant other, submitting to a cocktail of sex hormones. And the theist puts reason aside both in that situation and when confronting the big philosophical questions of whether there's anything beyond nature and whether that transcendent reality is personal. Why trust science and logic to deal with one decisive personal issue but not with another? Does the nontheist's failure to be hyper-rational, to decide all personal matters using pure reason, undermine nontheism, making the rejection of theism a case of special pleading? If the wisest course is to put our best foot forward when searching for a mate, for example, doing what's practically necessary to be as happy as possible, why not be equally as pragmatic in our choice of what to think about God?
Note that the existentialist's point here isn't quite the same as Pascal's. Pascal advocates a cynical calculation, whereas the existentialist says we should go with our gut: if our temperament and experience happen to direct us towards nontheism, then nontheism will make us happy, and the existentialist concludes that such people have an ethical or aesthetic obligation to be nontheists. Most people, though, clearly find theism more palatable than nontheism. Now, Richard Dawkins likes to emphasize the perfectly logical point that something isn't true just because we want it to be so: even were theism ethically or otherwise practically preferable to nontheism--for most people, at least--that fact wouldn't indicate that God actually exists. But this is just to repeat the category mistake. Granting that theism isn't rational, should everyone reject theism purely for that reason? If you can't bear to live without assuming that you'll see your loved ones again in heaven after you physically die, is the wisest option nevertheless to side with reason and science, to condemn yourself to angst? Again, the nontheist surely agrees we should adopt a less-than-fully-rational attitude with respect to our love life, since rigorous analysis and skepticism are counterproductive in that endeavour. So why doesn't the ethical goal of happiness trump the dictates of reason and science in answering transcendent philosophical questions? The point isn't that emotion or character logically or scientifically proves anything; instead, the question is whether ethical standards should override rational ones in dealing with matters of existential importance.
For the sake of argument, I'll assume that nontheism is indeed in some trouble here. What conclusion should be drawn? Not, of course, that theism is rationally justified. What we need are nonrational criteria, such as ethical or aesthetic ones, for evaluating both how people fall in love, including the partner they choose for themselves and their subsequent behaviour, and their decision to be a theist or a nontheist. Which life decision in either context is superior in terms of character development and the quality of life experience? I leave this question for my fellow nontheists to ponder.
Posted by Benjamin Cain at 11:21 AM
Labels: Atheism, Christianity, Existentialism, Theism
bmiller January 16, 2012 at 6:06 PM
Very interesting post, thank you.
I see your point and it is something I (a nontheist - your point re. the term atheist is all too true!) have been thinking about for a while. Rationality is very powerful in the natural world, but is as far as I can tell a product of human experience and may not necessarily apply to a deity. I tend to state at the outset of any discussion with theists that we assume the laws of logic apply to the deity, or we're playing tennis with no net, or racquets, or umpire...
Regarding your analogy to choice of sexual partner, my jet-lagged brain's first response (and this is not fully thought-out, so I apologise if it's half-baked!) is that the two are fundamentally different. If a theist makes an assertion about their deity, there is necessarily a truth claim: this deity does exist, it does have traits X, Y and Z, and so on.
In choosing a partner, for life or for the night, there is not necessarily a truth claim. Of course, some people claim the existence of soul mates, or an otherwise true or correct partner for them, but this is not inherent in the sexual or romantic relationship. I love my partner dearly, and I hope we spend our lives together, but I make no claim that this is the optimum choice, or the correct choice. There's no truth claim, and hence no need to apply the tools of rationality.
(On a personal note, I find critical assessment of one's partner tends to lead to objectification and failure of the relationship.)
My rather rambling point is that in choosing a partner one makes no statements about reality or metaphysics other than, "I want this person," or the like. Choosing a deity inherently makes statements along the lines of, "This deity exists," and "This deity is the correct deity to worship," and so on. This is where your analogy fails for me.
Your thoughts would be most welcome. Again, I apologise for my poor editing; I am experiencing my first ever bout of jet lag and am rather exhausted.
Benjamin Cain January 16, 2012 at 9:10 PM
Thanks for reading the article/rant. I don't see why the theist needs to say that God is bound by logic. What's bound by logic is our reasoning about God, but by definition God would transcend nature and our power of reasoning. Likewise, if our universe came from a soup of quantum fluctuations in a multiverse, the soup needn't be subject to the natural laws that operate in our universe. Just as the fluctuations in the vacuum produces different universes, each with their own randomly generated set of natural laws, so too if we replace that quantum set-up with God, God might choose to create different universes with different natural, metaphysical, and logical laws.
The deeper question here is whether the laws of logic are descriptive or prescriptive, or whether they apply to things regardless of how they're thought of or only to how we're bound to think of things. We can be realists or Kantians about logic, but if we're realists, logic had better be derivable from physics or from some other science, which seems paradoxical, since scientists presuppose logic. If logic is part of commonsense, how can we be sure that everything is bound by logic, such as the Big Bang singularity? After all, our commonsense evolved on a pragmatic basis, to help us survive in a tiny corner of reality. Indeed, the superposition of subatomic particles violates some basic logical assumptions, although physicists apply laws of probability rather than classical logic to understand that level of reality. This leads to the point that there's a multiplicity of logical systems, depending on which assumptions are added to certain axioms.
Regarding the existential argument against nontheism, it's quite arguable that religion begins with some grade of mystical experience, just as love begins with a rush of hormones to the head. The arguments and reasons come afterward to explain, justify, or rationalize either experience. When you fall in love, as you say, you're bound to screw things up if you overanalyze what's happening. I actually make this point in the article. This is why hyper-rationalism, a sort of style that many New Atheists pretend to adopt, is fishy to me. The fact is that most atheists aren't rational about what they most value, such as their family members. Indeed, the theologian Paul Tillich defines religious faith as our attitude towards what we most value, or to what we'd die for.
Are truth claims irrelevant to a New Atheist's attitude towards his child? I think not. The attitude begins with the rush of hormones that floods the atheist's brain when he first sets eyes on his newborn infant. But there are all kinds of beliefs entailed by the parent's behaviour. For example, the mother believes she'd die for her baby and that that sacrifice would be justified because her baby is supremely valuable. But is any human so valuable or indeed at all valuable? Does something become valuable just because of some feelings toward the thing? Doesn't the notion of subjective value commit the naturalistic fallacy? Just what is subjective value? I address these questions in my Dec 2011 blog article, "Should we Procreate to Honour our Ancestors?" and in Aug 2011, "Oligarchy: Nature's Inhumanity to Humans."
EvanT April 24, 2013 at 6:37 PM
Hey Ben,
interesting article. It's the first time I've seen the issue framed in this iconoclastic way (I can definitely hear some heads exploding) and it's a wonder no one has left any angry messages. Justifications for theistic belief is not what the current atheist movement wants on the side of the plate of its political agenda. BTW, nice going at the end; you could have easily slipped into a massive "tu quoque".
I'm currently translating the article and I mean to post it on Easter Sunday (it will appear at this link).
On a sidenote. You write: "Christianity doubles down on the literalistic confusion, adding that God ... passes its power through ... Jesus to Peter, the first Pope, thus adding the Catholic institution to the list of Christian idols."
While this doesn't really undermine that segment, it should be pointed out that the papal supremacy was not a part of the fledgling christian doctrine as settled in Nicaea. In fact it failed to gain any serious traction until the 8th c., when Constantinople was getting weakened by muslim raids and Charlemagne grabbed the opportunity and backed up the Pope with his secular authority. The papal supremacy certainly benefited the Holy Roman Empire and weakened the Byzantine Empire, but it was definitely not what Constantine had in mind four centuries earlier.
It should be stressed that the "Roman Catholic Church" and the "Catholic Church" institutionalized by Constantine are not the same entity. I see this honest error often from North America based writers. Out of curiosity, isn't the Great Schism of 1054 and its serious repercussions taught in Medieval History over there?
Benjamin Cain April 24, 2013 at 7:15 PM
Thanks for translating, Evan. This is one of the first articles I wrote on this blog. It hints at the existential perspective I'd develop in later articles.
I'm not a historian, and while I was aware that the process of making Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire took centuries, I wasn't aware of your point about Charlemagne. Still, the article doesn't say that Constantine introduced the doctrine of papal supremacy. It says just that the religion of Christianity added that doctrine as part of the literalistic confusion.
It was in the paragraph about the Roman selection of a new paradigm for their religious unification, so I suspected you might have fallen in the same trap. As I said, it's a minor detail; it just bugged me :P
Yes, but the paragraph before that one focuses on Constantine and the paragraph in question goes from talking about the Romans to the transformation of the cult into the religion of Christianity. That is, the paragraph becomes more general and thus is consistent with your point that some of these doctrines were added centuries later. Again, I'm not claiming to have known all of the details when I wrote the article. I'm just observing that as I read it, there's no factual error there. Then again, I'm hardly a neutral reader.
Anyway, as I recall, what I had in mind is Matt 16:18-19, which says Jesus built his church on the rock of Peter and handed him the keys of heaven.
Oligarchy: Nature's Inhumanity to Humans
Happiness is Unbecoming
Conservatism: Myth-Making for Oligarchy
Liberalism: from Scientism to Nihilism


We'll turn up on time.
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Adobe InDesign Plug-Ins and PDF Tools on 50% off Holiday Sale
Zevrix Solutions, a developer of automation solutions for Adobe InDesign, PDF workflows and file delivery, announces today a holiday sale until January 6. The company offers 50% discount on all software including product bundles and upgrades. Zevrix products include plug-ins for InDesign that automate printing and exporting, reduce linked image size and simplify file packaging. The company's software also automates PDF printing and conversion, file delivery and output from Microsoft Office.
Toronto (ON), Canada -- Zevrix Solutions, a developer of automation solutions for Adobe InDesign, PDF workflows and file delivery, announces today a holiday sale until January 6. Zevrix offers 50% discount on everything in its online store including product bundles and upgrades. The company's products include several popular plug-ins for Adobe InDesign and Illustrator, which help professionals automate printing and exporting, repurpose files for web and mobile devices, save disk space and cut production costs.
"Zevrix software its the best kept secret out there for the Graphic Design industry," says Darren Rath of eponymous design studio in Melbourne, Australia. "It rocks and continues to impress and improve at a scary rate... Thanks to Zevrix products, every piece of artwork that flies out of here requires no intervention by the prepress departments."
The following products are available on sale:
LinkOptimizer for InDesign, which reduces link size by eliminating excess image data, performs essential picture adjustments, and converts file formats. LinkOptimizer lets users save gigabytes of disk space, cut down on processing time and reduce production costs.
Output Factory for InDesign, which automates printing and exporting and offers batch output, layer versioning, export as single pages, preflighting, variable file names and more. A server version that processes files from watched hot folders is also available.
InPreflight for InDesign, which offers advanced preflighting as well as automatic packaging of multiple files. InPreflight helps users eliminate errors, save disk space and collect all linked files into a single location.
Zevrix tools for PDF workflows let users batch print PDF files and automate preflighting, color conversion and format exchange. The company also offers batch output solutions for Microsoft Office, file delivery automation tools, and quality control software for images and vector graphic files.
Zevrix software can be purchased at 50% off until January 6, 2018 from Zevrix website. For details, please visit the website. Product trials are also available for download. All Zevrix products require macOS 10.7-10.13; InDesign and Illustrator solutions require Adobe CS5-CC 2018 software.
Located in Toronto, Canada, Zevrix Solutions provides productivity solutions for Adobe Creative Suite software, graphic file diagnostics, PDF workflow, digital delivery, and Microsoft Office on Mac OS. Zevrix Solutions is dedicated to helping professionals achieve more while doing less through automating their everyday tasks, producing error-free documents, saving disk space and cutting production costs. For more information, visit http://www.zevrix.com.
T5 Data Centers Signs New Hospital Network as First Tenant to Benefit from T5@Chicago Phase 2
Health Care Network To Consolidate Data Center Operations in Custom Build-Out at T5's Midwest Data Center Location.
Elk Grove Village, IL, USA -- T5 Data Centers, innovators in providing secure, customizable, hyperscale computing environments for enterprise companies, has signed a pre-lease with a leading hospital network as the first tenant to occupy the second phase of the company's T5@Chicago data center build out. The new lease will occupy a significant portion of the data hall currently under construction.
The hospital network is migrating its existing data center operations to the T5@Chicago custom-built facility to take advantage of more efficient systems and to accommodate capacity demand for future growth. Several of the data centers in the Chicagoland market are not purpose built facilities and have difficulty meeting emerging enterprise computing requirements. T5 Data Centers prides itself on providing state-of-the-art, custom-built data centers with on-site systems management from T5 Facilities Management (T5FM). For T5's new hospital network tenant, T5@Chicago offers a robust infrastructure that allows them to consolidate operations and to maximize control of their infrastructure. The T5@Chicago infrastructure will also comply with HIPAA and other stringent regulations.
"Chicago is becoming one of T5's hottest markets," said David Horowitz, VP of Sales and Marketing for T5 Data Centers. "We are experiencing more demand from the corporate enterprise users who are requiring highly secure, scalable purpose built data centers. We are able to provide this latest Chicago tenant a customizable build-out and a scalable approach to manage future growth. Allowing our customers to control their infrastructure and have visibility into their operations like it was their own internal data center is a major differentiator that enterprise customers appreciate. Our T5 Facilities Management team is simply an extension of our customers' teams."
T5@Chicago is a highly secured, 208,000 square-foot, Tier III data center located in Elk Grove Village. This LEED Silver certified data center was acquired by T5 Data Centers in 2016 and has been operating since its inception through T5FM, which provides best-in-class, award-winning facilities management services. T5 is currently in Phase 2 of its T5@Chicago build-out, adding a new secure data hall with an additional 2 mW capacity.
T5@Chicago is the company's ninth U.S. data center and meets the resilient, high-quality characteristics consistent across T5's portfolio.
About T5 Data Centers
T5 Data Centers (T5) is a leading national data center owner and operator, committed to delivering customizable, scalable data centers that provide a "Forever On" computing environment to power mission critical business applications. T5 Data Centers provides enterprise colocation data center services to organizations across North America using proven, best-in-class technology and techniques to design and develop facilities that deliver the lowest possible total cost of operations for its clients. T5 currently has business-critical data center facilities in Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, Portland, Charlotte, Chicago, New York and Colorado. All of T5's data center projects are purpose-built facilities featuring robust design, redundant and reliable power and telecommunications, and have 24-hour staff to support mission-critical computing applications.
For more information, visit http://www.t5datacenters.com.
Aaron Wangenheim
T5 Data Centers
aaron@t5datacenters.com
http://www.t5datacenters.com
Package Central for Adobe InDesign Improves Preflight, Queue Management
Zevrix Solutions announces Package Central 1.10.3, a maintenance update to company's file packaging automation solution for Adobe InDesign. The software automatically collects InDesign documents along with their fonts and links from watched hot folders. Package Central can serve unlimited users on a network and offers email notifications, variable folder names, PDF export, and more. The new version improves handling of InDesign files with missing elements and fixes some queue management issues.
Toronto (ON), Canada -- Zevrix Solutions today announces Package Central 1.10.3, a maintenance update to its document packaging automation solution for Adobe InDesign. Originally developed for a major publisher in the United States, the software automates InDesign packaging by processing files from hot folders. Package Central offloads file packaging to a central system leaving operator workstations free from the document collection process.
The new version addresses an issue in which InDesign files with missing fonts and links weren't skipped even when this option was checked in the workflow settings. The update also improves the functionality of the Stop button which now lets users reliably stop processing at any time while ensuring that already queued files are removed from hot folders.
Under Package Central workflow, production artists, prepress operators and designers simply submit files to watched hot folders that reside on a network. The software automatically collects InDesign files along with their fonts and links freeing user's time for important tasks such as design and layout. Operator workstations will never again be tied up by the packaging process.
Package Central runs on a dedicated Mac station and watches hot folders for incoming InDesign files. The software performs all its tasks automatically and can run absolutely unattended. It offers the following key features and benefits:
-Automatically collect InDesign files from hot folders
-Update modified links automatically
-Create PDF and IDML files on the fly
-Automatic email notifications of process stages and errors
-Compose variable folder names
-Detailed processing history
Package Central can be purchased for US$149.95 from Zevrix website as well as from authorized resellers. Trial is also available for download. The update is free for registered users. Package Central requires macOS 10.7-10.13 and Adobe InDesign CS5-CC 2018.
Located in Toronto, Canada, Zevrix Solutions provides productivity solutions for Adobe Creative Suite software, graphic file diagnostics and Microsoft Office on Mac OS. Zevrix Solutions is dedicated to helping professionals increase their profits through automating their everyday tasks, producing error-free documents, saving disk space and cutting production costs. For more information, visit http://www.zevrix.com.
Natasha Dematra Received Hero of Peace Prize
Natasha Dematra, the youngest female director in the world, received Hero of Peace Prize Award from the Royal Palace of Blahbatuh in Bali.
Kuta, Bali, Indonesia -- Natasha Dematra, the youngest female director in the world, received Hero of Peace Prize Award from the Royal Palace of Blahbatuh in Bali. The prestigious award was given because of her contribution to peace and humanity. Natasha said that she felt honored to receive it and hopes to keep promoting peace in the future.
The Crown Prince of Blahbatuh, Anak Agung Ngurah Kakarsana, saluted the young director and wished she would carry the honor with her life as she fights for peace and keep her productive.
The Royal Palace of Blahbatuh was founded in 1583. The ancient kingdom consists of a 4.5 hectares area and was built with the concept of Tri Mandala. The Crown Prince is the 25th generation leader of this Kingdom. The Palace is also famous for its original mask of Gajah Mada that is kept sacred and only issued for specific traditional ceremonies or rituals.
Besides receiving the title as The Youngest Female Director in the World for her feature film "Mama, I Have To Go," Natasha Dematra also received Best First-Time Director from American Movie Awards, a notable Film Festival which also gave an award to Steven Spielberg in 1982. Natasha also won Humanitarian Awards from many prestigious festivals. Her film music "Earth" was chosen as the opening film at the Film Festival in New York and was screened at The United Nations Climate Change Conference in Marrakech, Marocco. In addition to being a director, she is also an actress, singer, producer, film festival jury, and the Ambassador for Women and Ambassador for Peace.
Youtube link: https://youtu.be/6rmGVD8YNPM
Media Contact: Irene | Film Festivals Alliance | http://www.filmfestivalsalliance.org
World's First Artificial Intelligence Workshop in Stockholm, Brussels, Singapore, HK, Seoul and NY
The Deep Learning Workshop for Today's Strategic Leaders in Stockholm, Brussels, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Kuala Lumpur, Abu Dhabi, Seoul and Hong Kong will provide key insights into current and future developments for deep learning, with particular emphasis on what organizations can do today to leverage this revolutionary technology and apply it to their most pressing challenges.
New York City, NY, USA -- The Deep Learning Workshop for Today's Strategic Leaders will bring the latest insights in artificial intelligence and most specifically deep learning to executives, managers, directors, consultants and regulators. Attendees to these innovative workshops organized by GLDNAcademy.com in Stockholm, Brussels, Kuala Lumpur, Abu Dhabi, Sao Paulo, Mexico City, Seoul and Hong Kong will:
• Get up to speed on how artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning will impact global business
• Review key enabling technologies including big data and scalable computing processing
• Understand the role of deep learning in healthcare, manufacturing, transportation, customer service and finance
• Look at the landscape of how artificial intelligence stands today, why it is gravitating towards deep learning and how that fits in to the organization's future
• Devise a strategy to move the organization forward that focused on the company's most pressing points to leverage deep learning
• Learn to personalize the customer experience with techniques similar to Google searches and Amazon recommendations
• Start applying TensorFlow, the most widely-used deep learning framework, in the organization
• Embed deep learning in the organization's existing technology development life-cycle
The Deep Learning Workshop for Today's Strategic Leaders will provide key insights into current and future developments for deep learning, with particular emphasis on what organizations can do today to leverage this revolutionary technology and apply it to their most pressing challenges.
ABOUT THE DEEP LEARNING WORKSHOP FOR TODAY'S STRATEGIC LEADERS
Top executives of organizations around the world have heard a lot about artificial intelligence (AI). Within AI, there is machine learning, a technology that enables computers to get better at tasks with more practice. Furthermore, within machine learning, there is deep learning, which involves algorithms by which computers train themselves using multi-layered neural networks (inspired by the human brain) and vast quantities of data.
This program focuses on practical applications of artificial intelligence for business using TensorFlow, the most widely-used deep learning framework from Google. Deep learning is already impacting every part of business today; in fact, PwC has warned that automation could replace 38% of all American jobs by 2030. Deep learning will continue to be a rich source of insights from ever-growing data sets being evaluated by powerful algorithms, enabling companies to make better decisions.
Deep learning allows computational models that are composed of multiple processing layers to learn representations of data with multiple levels of abstraction. These methods have dramatically improved speech recognition, visual object recognition, object detection and many other domains such as financial trading, transportation, drug discovery and genomics. Deep learning effective and efficiently discovers intricate structure in large data sets by using algorithms to indicate how a machine should change its internal weights and biases that are used to compute the representation in each layer from the representation in the contiguous layer, which have brought about breakthroughs in processing images, video, speech, audio and financial data.
GLDNAcademy.com's The Deep Learning Workshop for Today's Strategic Leaders will show attendees how to harness the opportunities deep learning offers, how to identify challenges and how to prepare their organization for what the future holds. From financial trading to autonomous vehicles and from robotics to automated cancer diagnoses, practical applications for deep learning are already here and will impact businesses for years to come.
ABOUT THE CYBERSECURITY WORKSHOP FOR TODAY'S STRATEGIC LEADERS
Despite the ongoing cyber threat that is witnessed through news reports almost on a daily basis, firms are still neglecting proper cybersecurity planning. As information technology becomes ever more complex and Internet of Things applications progressively widespread, cybersecurity is becoming an increasingly important and business-critical field. Unfortunately, a recent study from security solutions provider Resilient Systems and market research firm Ponemon broke down key areas of continued failure for organizations.
The study found that 66% of IT and security professionals surveyed said their firms were unprepared to recover from a cyber attack, and 75% lacked a formal incident response plan. A key example of this unpreparedness is that fact that many of the companies impacted by the WannaCry ransomware attack had not installed patches in their Windows infrastructure that were released by Microsoft months before. Vulnerabilities in commercial software are common; the only solution is to stay abreast of manufacturer's releases.
In order to help businesses in their cybersecurity planning, the Cybersecurity Framework released in February 2014 following a collaborative process involving industry, academia and government has been widely adopted by many types of organizations around the world, quickly becoming the de facto standard by which cyber security is going to be measured.
GLDNAcademy.com's The Cybersecurity Workshop for Today's Strategic Leaders will bring leaders up to speed on the most recent and battle-tested approaches to protect their companies' valuable information and intellectual property from prying eyes of hackers and competitors. Attendees to the program will learn how to apply the Cybersecurity Framework in their organizations and erect strong defenses for their valuable customer and employee data and intellectual property.
ABOUT GLDNACADEMY.COM
GLDNAcademy.com invites CEOs, board members, managers, leaders and professionals to expand their horizons:
• To meet fellow leaders, entrepreneurs, executives, managers, investors and regulators looking for the industry insights that will move the needle in their organizations
• To engage with an experienced faculty that exhibits the deepest knowledge across the most practical and challenging matters that really matter for businesses today
• To become part of the most engaging professional network of leaders in the world
GLDNAcademy.com offers seminars in dozens of industries and functional areas. Each and all of these programs incorporate the following:
• Relevant programs offered in the top business capitals of the world
• World-class faculty with access to the top echelons of the world's most innovative organizations
• State-of-the-art workshops that incorporate hundreds of hours delivering the best
• Pre-program questionnaires that provide key information that permeates our offerings
• Thousands of satisfied attendees from all over the world
Melania Pulitzer
GLDNAcademy.com
mjp@gldnacademy.com
http://www.gldnacademy.com
Academies of Math and Science Opening New Campus at McDowell & 59th Ave
This fall the fifth AMS campus, Academy of Math and Science Desert Sky, will open at McDowell & 59th Ave.
Phoenix, AZ, USA -- For 16 years, the dedicated team at the Academies of Math and Science has accomplished much from being recognized as the 2016 Arizona Charter School of the Year, to receiving the National Blue Ribbon award, to being the #1 and #2 rated K-8 schools in the area by 5-star GreatSchools parent reviews. This fall the fifth AMS campus, Academy of Math and Science Desert Sky, will open at McDowell & 59th Ave.
AMS Desert Sky will hold a New Student Registration event in partnership with the radio station 103.5 LA TRICOLOR on Saturday, December 16th, 2017 at 5757 W McDowell Rd. The event will run from 10 am to 2 pm, starting with speeches from the founding principal and teachers and followed by lunch, music, and kid-friendly activities. Parents will have the opportunity for one-on-one enrollment consultations with the administrative team while children play on an inflatable obstacle course.
With an anticipated attendance of several hundred families, the event will be an excellent opportunity to meet members of the community and talk with AMS staff members and parents. TRICOLOR will hold a raffle, and AMS swag will be given to all attendees, as well as polos for all students registered on-site.
About Academies of Math and Science
The Academies of Math & Science is a tuition-free, high-performing charter school network founded in 2000, with four existing campuses in the state of Arizona. Curriculum includes STEM and programming, foreign languages such as Mandarin and Russian, and music and arts including poetry, piano, and guitar. Free tutoring, affordable extended care, and numerous sports programs are offered as well.
Lisa Graham Keegan, Executive Director of A for Arizona, called AMS "the leader of the pack" in creating high-quality schools, and praised AMS' academic gains and performance levels, saying she believes "that AMS will be a school that makes Arizona famous for this kind of quality." The construction of AMS Desert Sky is enabled by the Arizona State Credit Enhancement Program.
For more information and to register for the December 16th event, please visit http://www.amscharters.org/desertsky or call 623-242-2597.
Emily Chavez, Marketing & Recruitment Manager
Academies of Math and Science
echavez@amsschools.org
http://www.amsschools.org
FED Publishing Releases New Book, "Artak and The Forgotten Mark" by Christian Walker
Artak and The Forgotten Mark, by Christian Walker, takes you on the epic journey of a boy who travels the world to become the man and warrior he was destined to be.
Madison, WI, USA -- Christian Walker's Artak and The Forgotten Mark is the story of Artak, who having travelled the world mastering his fighting skills, returns home a fearless warrior.
When Artak was merely 14, he watched his parents killed along with his entire village. In fear, the boy barely escaped the fiery scene by his father's command. This shock engraved in his heart a vow to avenge them one day.
Collapsing at the gates of Wimbra a few days later, he is taken in by Martuk, the village leader. Accepting him as his own child, he teaches the young boy everything he knows of the art of sword combat, but given his natural abilities and determination, in a short time he surpasses the skills of his teacher.
Little does he know fate will soon give him the chance he's long waited for; to meet face to face with the beast that left him an orphan.
"A good read for all fans of fantasy, adventure, swords and dragons." ~5 Star Review
Genre - Dragons, Romance, Friendship, Love, Brotherhood, Heroism, Fantasy, Adventure
Artak and The Forgotten Mark ISBN 9781506905006, published by First Edition Design Publishing (http://www.firsteditiondesignpublishing.com), is available on-line wherever ebooks are sold. The 244 page print book version, ISBN 9781506904993 is published by First Edition Design Publishing and distributed worldwide to online booksellers.
Christian Walker
media@firsteditiondesign.com
Output Factory for InDesign Improves PDF and Print Workflow Settings
Zevrix Solutions announces Output Factory 2.2.3, a maintenance update to company's output automation solution for Adobe InDesign. Output Factory automates printing, exporting and preflighting from InDesign and offers batch processing, export as single pages, layer versioning, custom scripts integration and more. The new version addresses an issue in which some incompatible PDF and print output settings could be enabled at the same time, which could result in crashes and incorrect file processing.
Toronto (ON), Canada -- Zevrix Solutions today announces the release of Output Factory 2.2.3, a maintenance update to company's output automation plug-in for Adobe InDesign. Awarded 5 of 5 stars by InDesign Magazine, Output Factory automates and simplifies workflows of printers, ad agencies, and publishing houses worldwide by helping eliminate repetitive tasks through batch processing with time-saving output options.
The new version addresses an issue in which users could enable certain incompatible print and PDF settings at the same time, which could result in crashes and incorrect file processing. The option to output InDesign files invisibly is now disabled when users choose to define output settings in the first document of the current batch as opposite to using an existing PDF or print preset. The combination of the above options could cause InDesign to crash, which is now fixed.
"Using Output Factory is straightforward. You determine your settings and sit back while Output Factory does all the heavy lifting. The time savings are huge," writes Jamie McKee in a 5-star review in InDesign Magazine. "If you find yourself repeatedly exporting InDesign files in various formats, you owe it to yourself to install the free trial and see just how much time you'll save using Output Factory."
Output Factory supports printing as well as exporting to PDF, PostScript, EPS, Flash, IDML, EPUB and several image formats. It offers the following key features:
-Batch processing of InDesign files
-Output each page as a single document
-Output files to multiple formats with one click
-Layer versioning: output layer combinations as single files
-Preflight InDesign documents on the fly
-Split InDesign files into single pages
-Preflight final PDF files
Output Factory can be purchased from Zevrix website for US$169.95 (Lite version $119.95), as well as from authorized resellers and Adobe Exchange. Trial is also available for download. The update is free for the users of Output Factory 2.x, and $84.97 to upgrade from Output Factory 1.x and BatchOutput. Output Factory requires macOS 10.7-10.13 and Adobe InDesign CS3-CC 2018.
Located in Toronto, Canada, Zevrix Solutions provides productivity solutions for Adobe Creative Suite software, PDF workflows, graphic file diagnostics, file delivery and Microsoft Office on Mac OS. Zevrix is dedicated to help professionals increase their profits through automating everyday tasks, producing error-free documents, saving disk space and cutting production costs. For more information, visit http://www.zevrix.com.
Adobe InDesign Plug-Ins and PDF Tools on 50% off H...
T5 Data Centers Signs New Hospital Network as Firs...
Package Central for Adobe InDesign Improves Prefli...
World's First Artificial Intelligence Workshop in ...
Academies of Math and Science Opening New Campus a...
FED Publishing Releases New Book, "Artak and The F...
Output Factory for InDesign Improves PDF and Print...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


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To start the process of Human Revolution you must meet the right teaching. The best and easiest way to do this is to have a mentor.
Nichiren Daishonin was the ultimate in mentors and his successors, right through to Daisaku Ikeda have followed his teachings, been his disciples and, in turn, become amazing mentors in their own right.
Find the right mentor and follow the right teaching.


Pediatrics is a relatively new medical specialty, developing only in the mid-19th century. Abraham Jacobi (1830–1919) is known as the father of pediatrics because of his many contributions to the field. He was born in Germany, where he received his medical training, but later practiced in New York City. Pediatrics is the branch of medicine that deals with the medical care of infants, children, and adolescents. The age limit of such patients ranges from birth to 14-18 years; the upper age varies from country to country.
Pediatrics differs from adult medicine in many respects. The obvious body size differences are paralleled by maturational changes. The smaller body of an infant or neonate is substantially different physiologically from that of an adult. Congenital defects, genetic variance, and developmental issues are of greater concern to pediatricians than they often are to adult physicians. Treating a child is not like treating a miniature adult. A major difference between pediatrics and adult medicine is that children are minors and, in most jurisdictions, cannot make decisions for themselves. The issues of guardianship, privacy, legal responsibility and informed consent must always be considered in every pediatric procedure. In a sense, pediatricians often have to treat the parents and sometimes, the family, rather than just the child. Adolescents are in their own legal class, having rights to their own health care decisions in certain circumstances and many identity issues crop up at this age .
4100+ multiple choice questions with one single best answer or questions with more than one correct answer like false true type of MCQs, extended medical questions – EMQ and case studies OSCE on this intriguing subject touching the topics like clinical methods, patho-physiology, system wise medical diseases, differential diagnosis and its applications in first aid, OPD clinics, Indoor care, neonatology, emergency and pediatric intensive Units.
Like internal medicine significant emphasis has been placed to the basic learning of this subject – but to a limited extent and up to 5 % data of objective examination relates to this subject.
The knowledge on this subject is of great importance for all medical professionals particularly concerning Family Practices at primary levels and Indoor – Critical care at the secondary and or tertiary levels.
The topics covered include Fetus, New Born and Infant, The Well Baby, Failure to Thrive, Growth and Development, Human Genetics and Metabolic Disorders, Nutrition and Children with Special Health Needs, Acutely Ill Child, Connective Tissue and Collagen Vascular Diseases, Infections and Infectious Diseases in Children, Cardiovascular, Pulmonary, Gastro Intestinal and Hepatological disorders, Diseases of Kidney, Endocrines, Neuro- Muscular Disorders, Disorders of Eye, Ears, Skin, Bones and Joints, Psychological Disorders, Social Issues, Child Abuse, Neglect and Adolescence Problems, Gynecological Disorder of Childhood, Cancers and Benign Tumors, ADHD, Learning Disorder and Mental Retardation, Laboratory Medicine, Drug Therapy and Toxicology in Children.


The party recuperates for a short while and then spots a series of glyphs on the wall that they are unable to decipher. Cas pulls out the Lens of Truth and reads the glyphs: "The man who is eternally focused on the end will never make it past the present". The party then comes across a room with two pillars and an ornate snake fountain. They also discovered a pedestal with three empty grooves and some sort of mechanical function.
Cas tries to grab the ruby in front of him and suddenly the party's weapons and shield disappear.
The fountain has a cobra carved over it, with water coming out of the snake's mouth at a high pressure. Behind the water flow the party sees a gem. Alodel casts Mage Hand to try and remove the white gem from the mouth of the snake, but the Mage Hand is unable to pass through the water flow. Digoria says "step aside" and casts Shape Water to push the water back in order to grab the blue gem. Then she goes to the appropriate blue slot on the pedestal and slips the gem into the slot. Nothing seems to happen.
Not to be outdone, Alodel casts Mage Hand again on the middle pillar and has it grab the yellowish gem and place it in its appropriate slot.
Sensing a pattern, Alodel cast Fire Bolt on the bottom gem and it reflected back at him. He had Cas try again and again to pull the gem from its place, finally managing to pull it from its lodging. The party puts the gems in their associated slots and nothing happens except some rumbling.
The group then places the the gems in a sort of counteracting position, with the sapphire into the red slot, the ruby into the yellow slot, and the yellow gem into the blue slot. The gems dim and turn grey, as if their energy force was drained from them, and a wall slides away in front of them.
Behind the wall they find a damaged, weaponless, and apparently curses Natalya. Alodel tries to ascertain the nature of her ailment and fails. Cas pulls out the one of the five scrolls he found from the treasure horde earlier and Alodel reads it using the Lens of Truth. It details how the Taint that curses Natalya causes an imbalance of the "Crown Chakra".
Alodel casts Dispel Curse and the symptoms if the curse dissipate and Natalya comes to her senses, but then Natalya grabs the talisman and slaps it up against her forehead, which instantly cleansed her of all ill effects. Alodel suggests Cas hand out two more talismans to Digoria and Alodel, and to keep one handy when they find Gachev, who apparently was in the dungeon as well somewhere.
Natalya asks the party to accompany her toward the entrance to ensure her weary safety before they head back down to the heart of the dungeon.
The party then descends further down and sends Who to scout ahead, and he finds a dead end chamber filled with water. Digoria walks out into the pool using her ring of water walking and suddenly an oriental water dragon appears and attacks them. Shortly after the dragon attacks them, two Ocre water crocodile beasts attack them as well. After a rough battle with much gnashing of teeth, the party defeats the monsters, takes a dive into the oddly small pool, finding a tunnel, swimming through it, and surfacing on the other side of a wall.
In that new room, they found Gachev unconscious on a large platform. The party quickly pressed one of their totem scrolls to Gachev's forehead and cured him, and then made plans to escape the dungeon as soon as Gachev had his strength back. Alodel finds a lever, pulls it, and a bridge falls down into place spanning the chasm. The party runs across it back to the hall from whence the came, and decided to try and scout the rest of the tunnels they had yet to explore.
The party reaches the end of the corridor and finds a black mirror with a gold snake trim around it. The mirror appears to be magical. Digoria walks up, and then the mirror asks Digoria "How does the world end?" Digoria turns around and says "it's talking to one of you!" and Cas walks up but sees only a distorted image from his viewing angle.
Digoria then tells it "the world will end in cold and ice" and then the mirror replies "the world will end in cold and darkness for you" and disappears, in its place is a void sphere. Cas and Digoria attempt to attack it, but Cas falls unconscious in its immediate retaliation. Luckily Digoria is able to shove him in a Krampus sack as the party prepares to make a quick getaway.
Unfortunately, Digoria ran into a forcefield. Alodel and Digoria turned to face the void sphere in grim despair. Digoria dumped Cas out of the Krampus sack and he was miraculously conscious, fully healed, and holding a partially burned-away talisman. Apparently… they had marvelous healing properties. Digoria and Alodel applied their talismans to themselves, healed up and restored a few spell slots, and jumped heartily into the fray. The void sphere, however, also had some gnarly healing abilities. Toward the end of the fight, Cas went down again, and Digoria and Alodel then quickly managed to destroy the aberation once and for all. After a brief… distraction… Alodel healed Cas and the party then made their long return to Entsteig.
Arriving back at the guild hall, a farmer is waiting on the party. He says he has been waiting for several days to talk to the party.


I've had an emotional couple weeks.
My dear friend and mentor, my Moses in Red Heels, is moving to Texas. We attend a beautiful send-off BBQ for her and her husband. Our church family gathers on a wide green lawn, eating brisket underneath a gigantic oak tree. I wrote a speech that was providentially interrupted by a call to move cars from the orchard due to oncoming tractor traffic–my words kept catching in my throat. I shed some tears that evening, but I hate crying in public. Instead I wake up crying in bed the next morning.
The next week my youngest graduates from preschool. This has not been an emotional event for me any of the other three times I've experienced it with my children. I've been more like, "Yes! One kid closer to everyone in full-day school!" I've been looking forward to this for the last dozen years. So it catches me completely off-guard when, in a sudden spontaneous burst of inspiration, I decide to pop into the office of the preschool director to thank her for the years of faithful service and to let her know what a blessing this institution has been to our family. The thank you comes out just fine, but then when I try to explain that this is my last preschooler the words pool in my eyes. She smiles knowingly and gets up from her desk to embrace me. I feel as if I am watching the scene from the hallway, a sappy moment in a movie of someone else's life.
Then last week I receive a call that I had given up on receiving years ago. I nearly miss it because I never answer numbers I don't recognize, and who would be calling me from Grand Rapids, Michigan? Right before it goes to voicemail I remember my processing application and answer, but I had figured I'd receive an email about that… On the other end of the line is an admissions guy from Calvin Theological Seminary informing me that I have been accepted into the distance program to pursue a Master of Divinity degree. I have been accepted under a special provision since I don't have a bachelor's degree. I am stunned numb with joy.
"Holy cow!" Verbatim, those were my first words to mark this sacred journey. Followed by, "Wow… Thank you… Wow… Man… Thanks… Wow…" I filled all the silence with word-sounds to the point he graciously let me know that I didn't need to say anything. Thank God he gave me permission to stop saying nothings! It gave my brain enough time to catch up with my life.
I tend to interact with my emotions as if someone else is having them. I take these charged-up experiences and shove them into individual mason jars, screw the lid on tight, and store them on a shelf in my heart to be safely studied from a comfortable distance. "Hmm, so this is grief," I wonder aloud at the shifting shadows in the jar and wax poetic about its depths. "Wow… This joy is bright and also misty like fog. Interesting," I jot a note in my journal. The sterile, controlled environment suits me, but the pressure in the jars builds to bursting. The lids rattle and steam. Then comes the explosion, spearing sharp shards in all directions of my messy heart. A siren of anxiety blares and I struggle to seal the exits to contain the incident.
My body interprets all of it as fear. For as long as I can remember this is my default setting, part of the trifecta of my signature sin cycle of gluttony-lust-fear.
Reluctant and stumbling, I decide to take a solo hike for space to process–to feel. This is embarrassingly difficult for me. It's a gorgeous day and there are hundreds of people in the park, and I am afraid of them all. As I make my first ascent on an empty trail a rustling in the brush causes me to gasp and jump. A small lizard zig zags across the path and up a tree. I am waiting for horror and tragedy to overtake me. Always anxiously waiting, vigilant to search for signs everything is about to go sideways.
Praying a wilderness prayer, trying to answer the Lord's questions to Hagar, Where have you come from? and, Where are you going? I fight my way up another steep incline. My legs and lungs burn, and my eyes, as I name where I have come from: I list my fears one by one.
At the top there's a metal bench, a memorial to a father who I know died of cancer. Who endured the sudden loss a son before he succumbed. I think of his wife. I do not feel safe in this world. Sitting on the bench, surveying the summering valley below, I turn at a sound from behind me and notice the bench has a bronze plaque engraved with Matthew 11:28: "Come to Me all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." I pull my journal out of my pack as tears make tracks from behind my sunglasses down my dusty cheeks. I wipe my nose on my arm and hope the couple coming up the trail excuses what I hope they will interpret as allergies.
Can you be allergic to emotions? I think I have that.
Struggling in prayer, and seeking solitude, I begin to make my descent. Where are you going? I step carefully and still slide on the loose ground in rhythm to this question. Where-step. Are-step. You-step. Going-slip. And again. I'm not familiar with this trail. I chose it thoughtlessly to get away from the couple by the bench. I think I know where it meets the road, though. Where. Are. You. Going? I respond without further consideration, "I don't know. With You. I am going with You." And in the mysterious way that the right words unlock and unstick and unbind and unfold, I feel the tension leave my neck and shoulders. I breathe deeply; inhale-With, exhale-You.
Lightheaded with new old-hope and relieved I have almost survived being alone in a public place, my steps quicken across the open meadow as I make my way back to my minivan. I must pin this grace down.
A sound next to the path startled me.
Tender greens growing on her stoop.
And the sound sent her diving back inside for safety.
That sudden flash of anxiety that catches in your chest.
we have a Creator in common, after all.
Look! Did you see this?! Isn't it incredible?!
How can I not record such a marvel?
I watch her for five minutes and know we are alike.
Those skittish, un-trusting movements relax.
although I couldn't see hers, so who's to say?
kindred in our fears and flightiness.
but there's no nourishment in the dark.
Light on our faces comes with its own risks.
They call her a mole!
I am fearful, likely will always be. I am sensitive and try to control this by limiting my exposure to my emotions, to the world; I'm working on that. I pay attention and share what I see–I can't even help that. It's time to do a new thing, I am excited and afraid, and alright with that. This is how God made me, and He is with me always–come what may.
So beautiful, Aleah. Exciting things ahead for you.
Oh Aleah. I get this. The processing. The emotions. Such a beautiful post.
But seminary!!! Woo hoo!!!! So very excited to watch the next part of your journey to unfold. So happy for you!
For the admission to seminary: YAY YAY YAY!!!
For the shifts, losses, and uncertainty swirling around that yay, my heart goes out to you as you process all of this.
An empathy hug and many congrats, friend.
I love this and congratulations again. Very excited for you.


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Q: Debian wheezy - hanging on shutdown My debian system hangs when I'm trying to shutdown/reboot. It hangs on:

kvm: exiting hardware virtualization

(infinitely blinking white cursor)
I've tried to shutdown by gui and by poweroff/shutdown -h now.
I've tried to insert in grub config file "acpi=off" and "acpi=force" (I've read that it could help me) but no effect.
How can I diagnose and resolve this problem?

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


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Dodge Nitro Discussion
Audio/ Video/ Navigation / Electronics Discussion
AOL Autos Lauds Uconnect Access
rickaren
November 28, 2012 , Los Angeles, CA -
Chrysler Group LLC's Uconnect Access system has been nominated for AOL Autos' Technology of the Year Award in the category of connectivity.
The system is launching in the new 2013 SRT Viper supercar and the revamped 2013 Ram 1500 full-size pickup.
"We are most honored to be nominated in this, the inaugural year of AOL Autos' Technology of the Year competition," says Marios Zenios, Vice President, Uconnect Systems and Services. "It reinforces what our customers and the media have been saying – that Uconnect Access is easy to learn, easy to use and delivers hands-free convenience that enables drivers to keep their focus on the road ahead."
Uconnect Access features embedded cellular technology that affords direct connections to 911 operators, customer service and roadside assistance providers. The system also boasts breakthrough Voice Texting capability that enables drivers to send text messages using natural speech instead of having to memorize lists of generic messages.
"The whole system is extremely well thought out and wonderfully executed, making it a clear choice as finalist in our Connectivity category for Technology of the Year," says AOL Autos Editor-in-Chief David Kiley.
AOL Autos will announce winners in January at the Consumer Electronics Show.
About AOL:
AOL Inc. is a brand company, committed to continuously innovating, growing, and investing in brands and experiences that inform, entertain, and connect the world. The home of a world-class collection of premium brands, AOL creates original content that engages audiences on a local and global scale. We help marketers connect with these audiences through effective and engaging digital advertising solutions.
Nitro Year: 2007 (1 of 91,815 sold in 07)
Nitro Model: R/T 4X4 Stone White
CAT-BACK Exhaust, CAI, Projector Head Lamps
Fully-Equipped w/all factory options
Sprint brings the connected car to Chrysler
The connected car is fast becoming a reality, and Chrysler leveraged Sprint's expertise to bring two of its vehicles at the 2012 Los Angeles Auto Show online. Chrysler fitted the Ram 1500 pickup and SRT Viper supercar with its new UConnect Access system, an evolution of the UConnect infotainment suite.
UConnect combined navigation, handsfree phone, and digital audio into an integrated system, and uses a single touchscreen interface. UConnect Access adds a number of connected features to the system, such as online points-of-interest search through Bing.
The new system also brings in a full telematics service, with features similar to GM's Onstar. Drivers will be able to push a button on the rear view mirror frame to request emergency assistance. A smartphone app will let owners unlock the doors and start the engine remotely.
UConnect Access adds voice texting, reading out incoming messages to help drivers avoid distraction, and using voice recognition to let drivers compose new messages to send. Because of differing implementations of the Bluetooth standard, this texting feature may not work on every phone.
Sprint is using the partnership with Chrysler to launch a new automotive connected platform called Velocity. Tom Nelson, Director of Marketing for Sprint, says Velocity is an end-to-end solution, and that it will let the company offer automakers a data connection, human-machine interface expertise for in-car electronics, and telematics services.
Velocity uses Sprint's 3G network for data services over CDMA, although Nelson says that Sprint will leverage its agreements with other data networks so that automakers can use a Velocity-backed system internationally. Automakers would have to implement appropriate cell radios in their cars to work with networks in other countries.
For the telematics component, Sprint contracts with other providers that maintain emergency and concierge call centers.
Dec 3, 2012 by PentastarVideo
Chrysler Group LLC's Uconnect has been named a finalist for the AOL Autos Technology of the Year Award. You can vote for the technology of the year at autos.aol.com/award.
Cast Your Vote: Help Uconnect Be AOL Auto's 2012 Technology of the Year
by Mike Driehorst
Chrysler's Uconnect system is one of six finalists for AOL Auto's inaugural Technology of the Year award, as initially announced last week during the LA Auto Show.
Twelve judges from AOL Autos, Autoblog and Engadget selected the six finalists in three categories and now -- through Dec. 12, 2012 -- it's up to the public to vote.
According to AOL Autos Editor-in-Chief David Kiley, Uconnect received an "overwhelming amount of support" from the judges. In fact, as Kiley says in the video below, Uconnect was "a fan favorite with our judges." VOTE
The Uconnect Access system debuted in the 2013 SRT Viper (image) and the 2013 Ram 1500. One of the most tech-advanced features of Uconnect Access is its breakthrough voice texting technology: It enables drivers to send text messages to contacts using natural speech rather than having to memorize lists of generic messages.
However, just because Uconnect made the first cut, it still needs help from the public with a show of support in order to win. And, that support is in the form of votes!
Chrysler's Uconnect, one of two finalists in the Connectivity category, is up against some formidable opponents from Cadillac, Audi, Ford, Nissan and Honda. We're asking our community and other readers to make your $0.02 heard and cast your vote for AOL Auto's 2012 Technology of the Year award before the end of next Wednesday, Dec. 12.
NEW Uconnect services 2019 (late)
FCA Selects HARMAN (Samsung) and Google Technologies for New Global Connected Vehicle "Ecosystem" New on- and off-board systems to deliver faster, more convenient and fully integrated connected customer experience for vehicle owners in more than 150 countries Off-board, Uconnect...
rickaren · updated 6 days ago
Amazon is planning to bring movies and video to Fiat Chrysler with Fire TV
Amazon says it wants to bring streaming entertainment to cars. The same Fire TV streaming programming that you enjoy at home will come to future cars from BMW and Fiat Chrysler, the company announced at the CES trade show in Las Vegas. Mentioning nothing about the dangers of watching...
rickaren · updated 16 days ago
Aftermarket Stereo
Okay I need some help! I have a 2007 Dodge nitro slt with the infinity audio system. I am attempting to put a new aftermarket stereo in it. I want to keep the factory amp. (I have installed many previously) I am getting power to the unit but the amp doesn't seem to be turning on. Tried different...
Greg Sholl · updated 24 days ago
Dodge Nitro: Inside Fuses /Battery/Dome Light/Locks
Hello all, I am new to the community and of course need help. I am working with my friends 2009 Dodge Nitro. According to him shortly after he bought the car randomly the warning sound for his e-brake would come on even if it wasn't. Then, only about 2 months ago we were coming back from town...
rmurphy · updated 2 months ago
NAV/CD/SAT Media Center, setting presets...
My 2008 Nitro R/T has the NAV/CD/SAT Media Center. I want to change the presets for the FM and SAT radio but I can't figure out how. I've got an Owner's Manual and following the directions it says to push the "Set" button. I might be blind but I'm not seeing a "Set" button on mine. Help mine's...
Wapsirat · updated 3 months ago
rickaren Dec 5, 2012
Dodge Nitro Forum
We're a forum community dedicated to Dodge Nitro SUV owners & enthusiasts. Come join the discussion about upgrades, towing capacity, reliability, and more!
Chrysler/Dodge/Jeep News General Discussion Off-Topic Discussion Audio/ Video/ Navigation / Electronics Discussion Wheels, Tires, Brakes, and Suspension


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Thai Christian Foundation
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Our Work and Supported Programs
Chaam Christian Mission Cottages Restoration Project
We are providing a way to support a joint project of restoration, continued stewardship and caretaking of this valuable, historic, spiritually and physically-uplifting landmark. The objective of this joint project is to return the Cabins (Cottages), and other structures on the property, to functional service for the purpose of providing a healthy, healing and beautifully refreshing environment for future generations.
Excerpt from Rev. Richard Worley, one of the founding missionaries: "The Cha-am Vacation Site, as it was originally called, was first conceived to be a vacation place for missionaries. With the agreement, the original owners were the American Baptist Mission (75%) and the Disciples Mission (25%). Since the original purchase, the Disciples have turned over their interest directly to the Church of Christ in Thailand, and the American Baptist interest has been assumed by the Thailand Baptist Missionary Fellowship (TBMF). Although the Christian Mission Cottages property legally belongs to the Christian Service Foundation (CSFBaptist), the appointment of the Christian Mission Cottages Committee that administers the cottages is the responsibility of the Thailand Baptist Missionary Fellowship (TBMF), with the CCT naming their member to that committee."
In 2019, we helped repair the ceilings and roof for all the cabins and facilities and raised support to rewire and install new fans in six cabins, the dining hall, and the church.
We are also supporting volunteers who help the caretaker clean the grounds and repair the cabins as time and funds allow.
In 2020 we look forward to helping the TBMF and CSF Baptist continue to restore and reopen this wonderful and historical site.
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