This Was the Species that Was

or, The Philosophers Stoned

the_mishka pointed out, during the excellent dinner party she and jaegerbeast spearheaded at the Clarendon Silver Diner last night, the existence of the word 'ignosticism,' a non-belief system that holds that even agnostics claim too much knowledge about the existence of 'god.'

Now, I have the utter respect for people whose job it is to sit around inventing and then lamenting philosophical problems (usually turning on clever manipulations of language and meaning... they're basically the corporate attorneys of human understanding, but so far nobody's really caught on and lynched them). But friggin' yikes: this term is annoying and I want no part of it. The sentence 'An ignostic cannot even say whether he/she is a theist or an atheist until a better definition of theism is put forth' (from Wikipedia) is sophistry: theism could be defined as the belief in an old guy with a white beard on a throne in the sky, belief in the Force, belief in Santa Claus, or belief that, every time a box of Ritz crackers is sold in a Giant Supermarket with no broken crackers inside, an angel gets a blowjob. What does 'better definition of theism' even mean? (Falsifiable? See below.) Wait, I have one: God is me. Ding ding ding! I'm a theist! (Or 'God is I': I'm a theist and a SNOOT.)

The position seems an utterly made-up one that no human could truly be said to hold except in formal debates or on the grounds of super-principled logical orneriness: i.e., playing Spock. I don't therefore believe that ignostics exist. Call me an anignosticist. I'll also accept 'pugnostic'.

In other words, saying that a cogent definition of god precedes the arguments for or against the existence of god is one thing (to my mind, one irrefutable thing); saying that, because of a logico-semantic loophole, I cannot choose to identify as an atheist based on my opposition to the extant body of known human definitions of god is another (to my mind, horseshit).

...As is the claim by various philosophers that the proposition 'God exists' is meaningless. This is based, so far as my VAST web research reveals, on defining 'meaningless' as 'unfalsifiable'—but this is an empty if not fallacious definition. (I could accept that any proposition that is unfalsifiable is 'useless' in logical terms, but not meaningless.) No human being who would utter the proposition 'God exists' with any sort of vested interest (e.g., her/his faith) would consider it meaningless. Nor would any person who looks at the world and sees the astonishing things, both beautiful and terrible, done in the name of the gods defined by and believed in by other people! Philosophers who derive meaninglessness from meaning can suck my butt just as much as those who force meaning on poor, unsuspecting meaninglessness.< /rant>

All kidding and all politics aside, the most compelling argument for the removal of U.S. military troops from Iraq—indeed, for the permanent disbanding of the U.S. military as a whole—and frankly they can all stay in fucking Iraq for all I care—is the staggering, in-your-face, nine-inch-nails-on-a-chalkboard stupidity that prevails there. Sure the front lines end up populated mostly by kids most unfit for any sort of formal education (typically performing badly in class from grade school up); but what is less commonly known is that at every level of military command and administration the important once are chosen not for their smarts but for the facility with which they can make shit up on the fly to pretend they're smart. That's why the knee-deep bullshit jargon. That's why "to include:" is used even in past tense. That's why every document in the "List of Applicable Documents" in the Request for Information I'm reading right now has the annotation "(current version or later)" next to it.

Support our troops! They need our support! They're too stupid to get out of the way of a suicide bomber!

(The author of this blog would like to point out to anyone who should happen across this entry who has a relative or friend fighting in Iraq, that he really doesn't wish them ill. After all, they are only following the Fourth Reich's orders and fighting for my right to marry, have joint power of attorney with my partner, visit him in hospital, successfully bequeath my property to him, etc.; to not get beaten up, fired, kicked out of my housing, or kept from joining whatever association for being queer; also for my right to be religion-free; for my overall right to privacy without illegal molestation from the feral gubmt; and to ensure all the country's kids are taught according to indisputable scientific facts and principles.)














































(Oh. Wait.)