| | Well done, Joe! A very clear and elegant presentation.
Observe that the people on this forum who are claiming the desirability of taxation are not doing so for any other purpose than the defense of our rights. They're not doing so for any other reason than protection from the initiation of force. But taxation is itself the initiation of force. So how can they claim that for the government to initiate force against its citizens is necessary to protect its citizens from the initiation of force? It is impossible even in principle to meet the burden of proof for an assertion of that kind, because it is a contradiction in terms.
The same applies to the theist/atheist debate. It is impossible for the theist to meet the burden of proof, because the concept of God is self-contradictory. God is a pure spirit -- a consciousness without a body, but a bodiless consciousness is a contradiction in terms, because a consciousness requires organs of perception and cognition. Pure spirits like gods, ghosts, angels, devils or departed souls are impossible by the very nature of what it means to be conscious.
The same is true of extra-sensory perception. Several years ago, Nathaniel Branden sent me the results of a study which he claimed contained statistical evidence for ESP (he calls it "anomalous perception"). But there is no mechanism or sense organ through which this so-called "perception" is identified as taking place. Unless proponents of ESP can identify a sixth sense, they cannot claim that the alleged perception to which they are referring is real. They cannot differentiate it form a hunch or a lucky guess.
Consider the claims for out-of-body experiences. People who have been operated on claim that their soul leaves their body and rises to the ceiling of the operating room, where they can watch the operation on their own body taking place. Can the burden of proof for this assertion be met? No, because it is impossible for this sort of thing to have occurred? Why? Because if the soul left the body, it would have no physical sense organs with which to perceive the operation. How can you watch your own operation from above your body, if you have no eyes with which to observe it -- if your eyes remain in your body, which is on the operating table?
The only reasonable explanation for out-of-body experiences is that the subject is experiencing an hallucination due to an altered brain state; some think it's a lack of oxygen. But whatever it is, it is not the result of the soul's leaving the body, since a bodiless soul is impossible. A soul, spirit or consciousness requires a means of awareness; it requires a functioning brain and sense organs, without which it would not exist.
- Bill
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