Refutation of Kant's "On God and Morality"

I wrote this for one of my philosophy classes and thought I would post it on here since I haven't done anything with the blog for a few weeks. Hope you enjoy.

Immanuel Kant, having written a full refutation of the Ontological Argument for the Existence of God, thought providing logical proofs for God’s existence were (becoming) an exercise in futility; most arguments can’t prove the existence of any god, and those that at least get you reasonably close, don’t prove the specific god you want. Given that, Kant tried to find an alternative reason for believing in God, while not really demonstrating that the deity exists.

           

His reason is, rather, a pragmatic one. Essentially, what his argument comes down to is this: 1) As rational beings, we have no reason to act morally unless our good deeds get rewarded and evil deeds get punished. 2) Since we don’t see that happening in this life, it is necessary to assume the existence of a god that will make up for the lack of justice we currently face.

The argument is simple enough, but under further analysis, I don’t think it stands up. First of all, excluding the idea that we don’t have a good reason to think a God exists, if injustice is all around us, and God can’t (or won’t) seem to do anything about it while we’re here on Earth, what gives anyone the idea, that he would want to make up for the lack of justice, or even be capable of doing it after we die? So far the evidence seems to be against the concept of a god that has some sort of concern for the state of justice in the world. If I can quote Bertrand Russell, "Supposing you got a crate of oranges that you opened, and you found all the top layer of oranges bad, you would not argue, ‘The underneath ones must be good, so as to redress the balance.’ You would say, ‘Probably the whole lot is a bad consignment’”.

The other objection I will raise is that the argument advanced by Kant precludes the idea that the reasons to act morally could come from within life itself.  It shouldn’t seem unreasonable to anyone (I would think) that purpose for morality can come from the simple fact that there are multiple conscious beings that have to share a living space, at the very least. We can learn to care about each other and desire to get along based on our own shared circumstances, without having to believe something that isn’t supported.

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Dispelling the myth of calorie-free energy drinks

This is my article that ran in the September 22nd edition of The Advocate:

Many people believe that energy drinks such as Red Bull, Monster and the 5 Hour Energy shot are special concoctions that “have a lot of energy in them.”  To most people this usually amounts to thinking about how much caffeine it has, while not really understanding what it means for a drink to have energy.

In addition to that, more and more people are looking for ways to maintain their energy level to keep up with their busy schedules and at the same time keep their calories low for fear of putting on weight.

Lucky for them, it just so happens that many of these brands’ products are sugar/calorie-free or produce a version that is sugar/calorie-free. But does this really do anything for them? Many people argue “yes” simply based off of feeling more energized after drinking one, but this becomes problematic when you actually look at what calories are.

Simply put, calories are the energy that is found in food. If you don’t have calories, there is no sense whatsoever in calling it an energy drink. This is true for zero-to-low calorie energy drinks, but even energy drinks with a normal amount of calories don’t provide much more than you would find in an equivalent amount of your average soft drink.

At this point you may be thinking to yourself, “There’s other stuff in there besides the caloric content, doesn’t that do anything?” So let’s take a look at the more commonly found ingredients in these drinks.

First off there’s the vitamin content. On the face of it, this may seem beneficial for a drink to be loaded with vitamins, but the reality is that these don’t actually do anything for the amount of energy you have, and unless you have a pre-existing vitamin deficiency, it’s probably just going to make you go to the bathroom more.

Taurine is another ingredient often touted by energy drink companies as having some sort of impact on “energy and performance.” This doesn’t actually amount to much for most people because if you consume meat, taurine is already plentiful in your diet. Even with that fact in hand, there is no evidence that taurine provides anything as far as energy goes, though it does play an important role as far as nutrition is concerned.

This brings us to the kicker: caffeine. Caffeine certainly does have a number of physiological effects, but it’s still widely debated as to whether or not it actually does anything to increase awareness and cognitive function. Even if awareness was increased by caffeine, it’s something entirely separate from energy, so it’s still not relevant to the whole “energy drink” issue.

Essentially, what you’re doing if you buy a zero-to-low calorie energy drink is paying for a canned placebo, and regular energy drinks don’t have anything over most soft drinks that deem them worthy of the special “energy” title.

Maybe what we should do instead of forking over cash to a company willing to sell you a placebo every time we feel tired is just to pretend we’re having one or, better yet, have some food with a sufficient number of calories that is actually healthy.

There’s an idea.

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Email to Petco Concerning Homeopathy

I just sent this email to the people at Petco after finding out last week that they send homeopathy, which hopefully people are figuring out is bullshit medicine. Hopefully I get a response. I'll post more if I do, and make a bigger fuss if I don't.

Dear Petco Management,

Last week, my girlfriend and I were shopping for supplies for our cat at your store in Fargo, and I noticed you had a homeopathic remedy for the treatment of worms for sale on your shelves.  Usually I think your store is a great place to shop for pet supplies as I’ve never run in to a problem such as this before, but this was incredibly frustrating for me as someone who both cares about animals and knows about homeopathy. I would think as the operators of store (a very widely used store at that) which is there to help promote the overall welfare of people’s pets, you would have done the research to know that there is no good scientific evidence to indicate that homeopathy works as a medication for anything. At most, it can be connected to the placebo effect but in humans only. Animals do not have the capability of understanding that they are even being treated for a disease, so they can’t even trick themselves in to feeling better. Even with that being said, feeling better is not getting better.  All studies done in an effort to test the efficacy of homeopathy have come nowhere near standing up to legitimate, rigorous scientific scrutiny. Most, if not all, had one, if not several, significant methodological flaws such as: no control group, being single blind, small sample sizes, in addition to not testing the actual effectiveness of the drug e.g., they simply ask the patient “How satisfied do you feel with this product? Rate from 0-10.” That’s not how you test medicine, that’s how you fill out a comment card. If you wish to be responsible vendors of products for pet owners, you should know about the medical trials that a medicine has gone through before you decide whether or not to sell it.

Even more than frustrating, it is saddening, because I know there will be people out there who won’t know what homeopathy is and assume it is an actual, effective medicine that has gone through and passed the necessary clinical trials in order to be sold on the shelves. They’ll go ahead and purchase the homeopathic treatment and give it to their pets, allowing their worms to go untreated, while thinking they are. I’m sure you all know that delaying real treatment for disease, whether you’re human, dog, cat, etc., is a bad approach to getting better. This makes homeopathy more than simply ineffective, it makes it outright dangerous.

The majority of people who are just going about their daily lives don’t have the time, desire, or even know how to go about researching whether or not a medicine sold at their local pet store is approved for use by a legitimate, reputable scientific journal. Your customers trust you to provide them with treatments that are demonstrably effective and when you put something on your shelves like homeopathy right next to real medicine, you legitimize the fake medicine in the unknowing customer’s eye, which is outrageously negligent.

Please, if you are a company that truly cares about the wellbeing of people and their pets, you will do the responsible and morally correct thing and stop offering this phony medicine.

Sincerely,

Kevin

To show that homeopathy has no active ingredients, many organizations have conducted mass overdoses of homeopathic remedies, which are, in fact, water on sugar pills. You can find videos like this all over YouTube, made in an effort to to expose this fraudulent nonsense.

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Religion in the Doctor's Office

I went to the doctor this morning because of some sinus issues I've been having over the past month and at first it seemed like it would be nothing out of the ordinary. However, during the usual run of questions asked by the nurse, I was caught off guard when asked what my religion was. This caused me to hesitate before responding just for a fraction of a second, because I was wondering how the hell it was even relevant to my visit before answering "none".  It wasn't until a little later (surprisingly) that I figured out some way to tie the two together, considering Jehovah's Witnesses won't accept blood transfusions, or even vaccines, if I'm not mistaken. Still, I feel like it was a weird question to ask. You would think if someone's beliefs were that opposed to particular types of medical treatment they would just tell the doctor from the outset or something. Maybe you can think of a reason why this question can/should be asked before someone is about to be seen by a medical professional, in what I'm pretty sure is a secular medical institution, but as of now, I feel like it's an inappropriate and irrelevant question to ask upon a visit to the doctor. Let me know what you think.

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