Many of the posts here have been little more than: “I disagree with Dinesh, therefore his is lying and a schill”

Also, for those not well read, Dinesh is not saying anything new. I can find his words in texts 100 years old and older. For discusstion fodder, I would like to point out that Freidrich Nietzsche would agree with many of Dinesh’s statements and analysis, disagree with others, but, in characteristic Nietschean fashion, praise Muslims for their ruthlessness and connivery.

It may also be helpful for many to understand that your most cherished values and beliefs and non-beleifs are most likely created in your mind by your environment and hierarchical position in society, and not by any kind of independent objective analysis. Liberals and socialists are especially vulnerable to thinking that their thoughts and perspectives are valid for the sole reason that they appeared in the theater of their minds. All thoughts “pop” into consciousness from unconscious regions of the brain as part of a process of seeking self advantage and comfort. For instance, the thought to change lanes in traffic in order to hasten one’s journey pops into consciousness from unconscious regions of the brain that are doing travel calculations with an aim towards advantage.

All socialist concepts are born of an impoverished environment – there really is no logic to them, they simply offer the poor more advantage. Furthermore, the genetically well endowed don’t beleive in the equality of all humans, rather that too is an idea that pops into the mind of the less endowed as a tool for rallying support amoung others for attacks and restrictions against the better endowed.

And so it is true that Christianity is a kind of morality of the weak, the impoverished and the genetically botched. However, there are far more weak, impoverished and genetically botched people than there are strong and genetically well endowed individuals, so it makes perfect sense for the weak and miscreant to favor Christianity.

However Christianity and other religions as well typically rank as off-limits all or most intoxicating substances and behaviors, in order to maintain a kind of calm order that requires few policemen. Those who have succumbed to intoxicating behaviors and substances and subsequently and mechanistically formed a positive opinion of them will not like Christianity very much, nor any other of the major religions. Thus a person who is poor, weak, or botched and who is also favorably inclined to intoxication will automatically favor socialism. Again, this does not occur as a result of some kind of objective search for the truth, but rather it is totally mechansitic. The advocate of Christianity or socialism really had no say in the formation of that favoritism, rather fate gave them that inclination in a matter not unlike how they come to have a favorite flavor of ice cream.

If one wants to believe that we have free will and choice, fine, it can’t be proved. In fact, such dreams are only possible so long as a proof is impossible. If free will were provable, it wouldn’t be free. All that we can prove through scientific investigation is those things which happen due to causality, and therefore could not happen any other way.

The religious like Dinesh believe in free will. Most people say they believe in free will. But how free is the will of someone who is trying to quit smoking? Smokers say there is nothing more difficult than quitting that habit. This is becuase there is no such thing as free will, and the nicotine is actually controlling their thoughts and compelling them to smoke.

But if there is free will, then we have to admit that it is negatively impacted, that is made less free, by intoxicating substances and behaviors. And what I mean by intoxicating is anything that can cause a compulsion to re-aquire, which in extreme measure we call an addiction. And by the way neuroscientists have established that all intoxicating substances and behaviors cause significant large and sudden increases in the brain of serotonin and/or dopamine. Marijuana is an exception, and so it may be necessary to add cannibinoid to that list. This is to say that a substance or behavior causes its compulsive re-aquistion via the deficit that occurs after the sudden large increase subsides.

From this scientific data we can assume, if one wants to believe in free will, that the will is free-est in the absence of intoxication.

People who like their intoxicating substances or behaviors will object to what I am saying here. But it is only a bi0chemical mechanistic response to the idea of or fear of not being able to reaquiure large sudden increases in serotonin or dopamine. Such objections can hardly be called thoughts, but are more like reflexes, as in when the doctor used a hammer to tap just below your knee and the lower leg jerks upwards.

So Dinesh, and most religious people are arguing for non-intoxicated living in order to maximize free will. And who can fault him for doing that, especially if you believe in free will and think it good.

On the other hand, if we see the brain and mind and human interactions as simply causal and mechanistic, then we can’t blame Dinesh either, for he could not do anything other than what he is doing.

But by that logic we can’t blame anyone for anything they do. We can scientifically determine, using evidence and reasoning if someone committed a crime, but then the idea of punishing them makes no sense as we don’t believe in free will and understand that the so-called criminal had no say in committing the crime, and niether can the future be changed by punishing that individual. For the behavior modification of prison or financial sanctions to be effective, there has to be free will.

So which is it folks, free will, or causal determinism and no-free will.

After reading what I have written, do you still beleive you have free will? If you do, will you value better and stronger free will by avoidance of intoxication? Or will you simply keep doing more or less what you always have been, and actually make my case that there is no free will, and most of thinking about ethics and morality are rationalizations for personal and group gain?

Let is forgive Dinesh, for he knows not what he doeth. He believes in free will –for whatever reason I don’t know — and it may be that it was fated for him to have such a belief way back at the Big Bang.

Cheers

I’ll note that every invocation of race, thinly veiled “you are race X thus you must believe Y” argument … seems to be coming from one side of the political spectrum on this thread….

That might just be because folks haven’t started talking about “culture” in this thread….

This made me pewk. My keyboard is ruined.

Some quotes from a site link posted bye nycpepe. Read, Taz, if you were impressed by D’Souza.

Thanks Razib for drawing attention to his Oreo-ness too. FukYoCouch, Dinesh D’Souza!

He ain’t brown.

And though a Hindi accent may trickle in when he’s morally animated, he says, “No one can tell on the phone where I’m from,” and “My wife tells me, ‘I never think of you as an Indian.’

I’m more interested in the “validity” of say a Pakistani in Lodi,CA or Karachi retaliating against the West because of real or perceived injustices against his Palestinian “brothers”. This persecution complex should be explored more deeply, D’Souza probably isn’t the best person for the job.

Though I think the support Olbermann enjoys will quickly evaporate once things normalize if he doesn’t change his act.

Honestly..someone please slap the brown off him. He’d probably thank you.

Embarrassing toady.

Katie comes across with all the gravitas of Alvin the Chipmunk.