Showing posts with label propaganda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label propaganda. Show all posts

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Time and Newsweek magazine covers, U.S. vs. rest of world

This recent comparison has been making the rounds:


As have a few other recent examples:


But this has gone on for many years.  A few others from a few years back:

I suspect the weekly news magazines are simply basing their cover decisions on what sells in the U.S.  Sad.

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Obama conspiracy theories debunked

Yesterday I received an email that contained yet another argument that Obama's birth certificate (the PDF'd scan of the "long form" certificate) was a fake, based on erroneous claims about the name of Kenya in 1961 and the name of the hospital which were already debunked at Snopes.com four months ago.  But this prompted me to see if there were any more advocates of wild claims about the birth certificate, and I came across Douglas Vogt's alleged analysis of the birth certificate and, more importantly, a very well-done, detailed debunking of that analysis by Kevin Davidson (known on his blog as "Dr. Conspiracy"), who has done a great job of responding to numerous Obama conspiracy claims.

Check out his "The Debunker's Guide to Obama Conspiracy Theories."

Vogt, the author of the analysis which Dr. Conspiracy debunks, is also an example of "crank magnetism"--he is the author of Reality Revealed: The Theory of Multidimensional Reality, a 1978 book which looks like a classic work of crackpottery.  Vogt bills himself as a "geologist and science philosopher" who:
has funded and directed three expeditions to the Sinai desert where he was the first person since Baruch (Jeremiah’s grandson) to discover the real Mount Sinai. He discovered all the altars that Moses describes in the Torah. In addition he was the first person since Moses to see the real Abraham’s altar also located at Mount Sinai and not in Jerusalem. He has discovered the code systems used by Moses when writing the surface story of the Torah, which enabled him to decode the Torah and other earlier books of the Hebrew Scriptures.
His book features:
The first information theory of existence. explains many of the hardest phenomena in the Universe such as: the causes of the ice ages, polar reversals, mass extinctions, gravity, light, pyramid energy, kirlian photography, psychic phenomena, and more!
So in addition to a self-proclaimed expert on typography, conspiracy theorist, and "birther," Vogt is apparently a creationist, pseudo-archaeologist, Bible code advocate, and promoter of a wide variety of pseudoscience claims.

Sunday, May 15, 2011

Challenge for Harold Camping followers

On May 22, 2011, we will either see that many Christians have disappeared and we've been left behind, or that the claims of billboards like this are completely false.  If any individual or group of Camping followers have a strong belief that the former is the case, I challenge you to sign an agreement to transfer to me $100,000, effective May 22, 2011, in return for one of two things.  In the case that you have, in fact, been raptured, I promise to use those funds to evangelize in support of your beliefs to try to save as many of those left behind as possible.  In the far more likely case that you remain behind, I promise not to engage in public ridicule and humiliation of your nonsense for a year.  So it's a win-win.  Any takers?

UPDATE (May 20, 2011):  Via Tom McIver:  "Camping has a very idiosyncratic scheme: basically amillennial, and a hybrid of his own Bible numerology and a variant of the World Week (world lasts 6,000 yrs after Creation) framework. Camping puts Creation at 11,013 BC, Flood at 6,000 + 23 yrs later at 4,990 BC, Christ's birth 7 BC, and end of Church Age / beginning of Tribulation 13,000 yrs after Creation. 7,000 yrs after Flood (13,000 + 23 yrs after Creation) is 2011. 1988--13,000 yrs after Creation--was beginning of Tribulation (and also the year Camping left the established church, deciding it was heretical and that all churches had been taken over by Antichrist). 2011 is 23 yrs after 1988 (previously, Camping had predicted a shorter Tribulation ending in 1994). May 21 is Rapture and Judgment Day, world is destroyed Oct 21." And: "Camping also made much of 1948 (founding of Israel), with next Jubilee supposedly 1994. He has much more numerology as well. Interestingly, he doesn't focus on political leaders or natural disasters (although I think the news reports of catastrophes and wars has increased his following)."

Saturday, August 14, 2010

Gun-toting, Scientology-supporting, Bible-thumping, climate change-denying Pamela Gorman wants to be elected to Congress

Former Arizona State Representative Pamela Gorman, whose promo video proudly proclaims her to be a gun-toting Bible thumper, spent some of her time in the Arizona legislature supporting Scientology front groups and denying the existence of human-caused global warming through her affiliation with the sleazy Heartland Institute. Here's her video:

Thursday, July 16, 2009

Deception in "The Great Global Warming Swindle"

Here's a nice short YouTube video documenting several cases of deception in the documentary "The Great Global Warming Swindle." And on the same subject, I'm rather fond of an exchange between Martin Durkin, the producer of that film, and geneticist Armand Leroi, journalist Ben Goldacre, and science writer Simon Singh, which prompted Durkin to respond, "you're a big daft cock" after Leroi pointed out that the film had used completely erroneous data that was possibly even faked.



(Via the Deltoid blog.)

Thursday, December 18, 2008

Sean Hannity: Media Matters' Misinformer of the Year for 2008

The award appears to be well-deserved.

(Hat tip to Schtacky.)

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Hell House


The Door Christian Fellowship, a creepily cultish Pentecostal Christian sect that's an offshoot of Aimee Semple McPherson's Foursquare Gospel Church, is putting on a "hell house" in Chandler. They're calling it "Hell 101," and, as usual, they are advertising it in a deceptive manner that attempts to hide the fact that it's religious propaganda. I say "as usual" because not only have they put on such "hell houses" for years around Halloween, they're also known for advertising events such as Christian rock concerts while conveniently forgetting to mention the "Christian" part.

Such deception has long been associated with Aimee Semple McPherson (1890-1944), who was a fraudulent faith healer, alcohol Prohibitionist, and anti-evolutionist who later in life faked her own abduction in order to run off with her lover, Kenneth G. Ormiston, who had been an engineer for her radio station KFSG in Los Angeles. After disappearing for 35 days, she stumbled out of the desert in Agua Prieta, Sonora, Mexico, just south of the border from Douglas, Arizona, and told a phony story of kidnapping which quickly fell apart when witnesses came forth who had seen her at a resort in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California. She ended up dying of an accidental drug overdose from taking too many Seconol sleeping pills, but her Foursquare Gospel Church still exists today with over two million members, mostly outside of the U.S. (Interestingly, as a teenager McPherson was an agnostic who defended evolution in letters to the newspaper.)

The Potter's House, The Door, Victory Chapel, and other Foursquare Gospel spinoff churches are Pentecostal churches that engage in faith healing, speaking in tongues, being slain in the spirit, and other activities of anthropological interest. They can be very hardcore in the pushiness of their evangelism, and engage in cult-like conversion techniques such as separating people from groups they come with, pairing them off with someone of the same approximate age and sex, and bombarding them with rehearsed questions designed to push someone to a conclusion that they need to accept Jesus and join their group. (The Wikipedia page on The Potter's House describes this particular sect's origins in Prescott, Arizona in 1970, originally officially affiliated with the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. The Wikipedia biography of its founder, Wayman O. Mitchell, is also of interest. The sect's origins trace back to Los Angeles, as does the Pentecostal movement in general.)

"Hell 101"'s website calls it "Final Destination III," and describes the hell house as "a twist on a haunted house style attraction that was described by Phoenix Arizona NBC News Affiliate Channel 12 as 'scary, horrifying, suspenseful, sick....' NBC 12 News had a live video feed from our annual event where hundreds waited up to two hours in line to have the hell-scared out of them." Their FAQ has the question "If I quit because I was scared or anything else can I get a refund?" The "anything else" would include feeling defrauded by having paid money for a haunted house, but getting instead Christian propaganda. The answer: "There are no refunds if you get scared, cry, feel angry, get sick, hate it, love it or just want to run!!! Our job is to confront your senses and that we do!"

A Christian hell house can be quite entertaining, so long as you know what to expect and are prepared to exercise your right to walk away at the end when the attempts at conversion go into overdrive (they may suggest that the doors are locked and that you may not leave). George Ratliff's documentary film "Hell House" is a great way to get a preview, and shows some of the unintentional comedy that can be produced when a bunch of ignorant people try to put together a scary haunted house designed to persuade you that you're going to hell unless you believe the way they do. That documentary also shows how ineffectual some atheists can be in their confrontation of Christians, and I highly recommend that anyone planning to visit one of these hell houses for any reason give it a watch before going.

A "hell house" usually follows a common script template which the churches purchase and customize. They go through a writing, casting, and production process similar to a high school stage production. The "hell house" script typically guides a group of visitors through a series of rooms, each of which contains a brief performance by actors portraying some scene that argues for certain practices, beliefs, or actions as likely to terminate with eternity in hell, though that latter point may initially be somewhat subtle. (By the end, it is anything but.)

I attended a hell house at a Potter's House church in Tucson in 1990, from which the flyer image was obtained. (Also see this PDF of an Arizona Daily Star newspaper story about that particular hell house, which got in trouble with the local fire department for fire code violations.) That hell house followed a female character from scene to scene which included a car crash caused by teenage drinking (featuring an actual wrecked car and empty beer cans), a band of demons playing AC/DC's "Highway to Hell" (suggesting that at least some rock music is demonic in origin and consequences), and the ever-popular hanging nun in hell (Catholicism is regarded by this sect as ruled by Satan) and young woman on a stretcher with a pool of blood between her legs shrieking that she's killed her own baby (the anti-abortion segment). At the end, there's a high-pressure call to Jesus which provides an opportunity to argue with someone who may be something like a street preacher in their skill of providing pre-programmed responses to common objections they've heard many times but is unlikely to have actually thought deeply about. If you do choose to visit one of these, I advise not getting involved in such a discussion if you're somebody who is likely to blow up, call people stupid, or otherwise lose your cool--that's just going to be seen as confirming evidence that you're under the control of the devil and anything you say can be dismissed without consideration.

UPDATE (October 31, 2008): New Times has a review of The Door's "Final Destination III" hell house.

Friday, August 15, 2008

Arizona Republicans turn on themselves

On August 7, the Arizona Republic reported:

The race for a state Senate seat in west Mesa broke out into a wide-open brawl Wednesday, with allegations that Rep. Russell Pearce attacked his wife nearly three decades ago and Pearce's campaign firing back that the charge is false and the height of sleazy campaigning.

A mailer sent to voters in west Mesa cited a divorce petition that LuAnne Pearce filed in 1980. In it, she charges that her husband had a violent temper, hit her and shoved her. The petition also says that two days before the filing, Pearce "grabbed the wife by the throat and threw her down."

The petition was later withdrawn, and the Pearces remain married.
This mailer came from an organization called Mesa Deserves Better, chaired by Republican fundraiser and dirty tricks operator Nathan Sproul, who is former head of the Arizona Republican Party and former head of the Arizona Christian Coalition. Sproul was previously mentioned on this blog during his support of the failed gubernatorial campaign of Len Munsil, when he was complaining about a campaign by a deceptively-named group called the "Arizona Conservative Trust" that criticized Munsil.

Another mailer from Mesa Deserves Better made reference to Pearce's connection to J.T. Ready of Mesa, a white supremacist who has taken part in neo-Nazi rallies. Mesa Deserves Better also rightly opposes Pearce's anti-immigration stance.

Sproul is known nationally for engaging in deceptive tactics in multiple states to help George W. Bush and other Republicans get elected by forming "get out the vote" organizations which worked to get Republicans registered to vote and to deter or discard Democrative voter registrations.

In reality, the Republican would be better off without Pearce or Sproul.

Tuesday, August 12, 2008

The dangers of digital drugs

Kim Komando (who at least used to be based here in Phoenix) is promoting nonsense about "digital drugs":

But websites are targeting your children with so-called digital drugs. These are audio files designed to induce drug-like effects.

All your child needs is a music player and headphones.

Digital drugs supposedly synchronize your brain waves with the sound. Hence, they allegedly alter your mental state.

Binaural beats create a beating sound. Other noises may be included with binaural beats. This is intended to mask their unpleasant sound.

Some sites provide binaural beats that have innocuous effects. For example, some claim to help you develop extrasensory powers like telepathy and psychokinesis.

Other sites offer therapeutic binaural beats. They help you relax or meditate. Some allegedly help you overcome addiction or anxiety. Others purport to help you lose weight or eliminate gray hair.

However, most sites are more sinister. They sell audio files ("doses") that supposedly mimic the effects of alcohol and marijuana.

But it doesn't end there. You'll find doses that purportedly mimic the effects of LSD, crack, heroin and other hard drugs. There are also doses of a sexual nature. I even found ones that supposedly simulate heaven and hell.

Many are skeptical about the effects of digital drugs. Few scientific studies have been conducted on binaural beats. However, a Duke University study suggests that they can affect mood and motor performance.

Dr. Nicholas Theodore, a brain surgeon at Barrow Neurological Institute in Phoenix, said there is no real evidence that idosers work. [emphasis added] But he noted that musical preference is indicative of emotional vulnerability. Trying idosers could indicate a willingness to experiment with drugs and other dangerous behavior.

Theodore added that idosers are another reason to monitor kids' Internet usage. And, he said, kids need frank talks with their parents about correct choices.

...

Let's think about this for a moment. The sites claim binaural beats cause the same effects as illegal drugs. These drugs impair coordination and can cause hallucinations. They've caused countless fatal accidents, like traffic collisions.

If binaural beats work as promised, they are not safe. They could also create a placebo effect. The expectation elicits the response. Again, this is unsafe.

At the very least, digital drugs promote drug use. Some sites say binaural beats can be used with illegal drugs.

At least she doesn't call for new laws. I'd endorse consumer civil complaints, if not fraud charges, against sellers of bogus products, which would include the so-called "therapeutic" binaural beats just as much as the allegedly "sinister" ones.

(Via The Agitator.)

Tuesday, August 05, 2008

Bush pressured FBI to blame anthrax on al Qaeda

White House officials pressured the FBI to blame the 2001 anthrax attacks on al Qaeda, even after it was already known that the anthrax was a strain that came from U.S. Army laboratories, according to a retired senior FBI official.

Just another example of Bush administration deception.

Thursday, May 29, 2008

Footage of Palestinian boy killed by Israeli fire apparent hoax

The footage from eight years ago of a Palestinian boy, Mohammed al-Dura, being killed by Israeli gunfire, which was used by the killers of reporter Daniel Pearl in the video they posted to the Internet of that murder, was apparently a hoax, as reported by Australia's Daily Telegraph.

In an appeals trial for a civil defamation lawsuit by the France 2 network and its cameraman, Charles Enderlin, against a media watchdog who claimed the footage was a hoax, the jury was shown 18 minutes of footage rather than the 57 seconds which were broadcast. That footage includes staged battle scenes, rehearsed ambulance evacuations, and even the boy--supposedly dead--moving and looking at the camera.

The French press, which had been siding with France 2 against Philippe Karsenty, director of the Media-Ratings watchdog group, appears to have been proven wrong and Karsenty vindicated.

Enderlin has apparently been caught fabricating other footage as well.

(This story also covered by the Wall Street Journal online, but apparently not by many other news sources, which is why I'm giving it attention.)

Thursday, January 24, 2008

False statements from the Bush administration before the war in Iraq

This should be considered old news, but the Center for Public Integrity has done an extensive analysis of statements made by the president, the vice president, and five other senior members of the Bush Administration between September 11, 2001 and September 2003 and identified 935 specific false statements made. These statements are now part of a searchable database, and they've put together a graph that shows how the frequency and number of false statements dramatically increased during the run up to the invasion of Iraq, and then declined as the truth became known in the course of the war:

President Bush, for example, made 232 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and another 28 false statements about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Secretary of State Powell had the second-highest total in the two-year period, with 244 false statements about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and 10 about Iraq's links to Al Qaeda. Rumsfeld and Fleischer each made 109 false statements, followed by Wolfowitz (with 85), Rice (with 56), Cheney (with 48), and McClellan (with 14).

The massive database at the heart of this project juxtaposes what President Bush and these seven top officials were saying for public consumption against what was known, or should have been known, on a day-to-day basis. This fully searchable database includes the public statements, drawn from both primary sources (such as official transcripts) and secondary sources (chiefly major news organizations) over the two years beginning on September 11, 2001. It also interlaces relevant information from more than 25 government reports, books, articles, speeches, and interviews.

The CPI report is titled "The War Card: Orchestrated Deception on the Path to War."

Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Message from God billboards

Back in 1999, a bunch of billboards popped up around Phoenix that had white letters on a black background and were signed by God. One I took a bad photo of said "You think it's hot here? --God." They're back. There's now one near Kat's workplace that says "Life is short. Eternity isn't. --God." These come from a group that calls itself GodSpeaks, which doesn't actually pay for or put up the billboards, they just help interested groups in doing it locally.

I'd like to see someone make one of those sign generators for these billboards, so I can make some parodies, which these are just asking for. These billboards aren't as lighthearted as some of the church marquee signs (like this one, for example, which suggests a God who has mellowed considerably from the one who sent the plagues of the Exodus).

Here are some ideas for better content:

Stop putting words in my mouth. --God

If I existed, I'd communicate directly to all people in their own languages in a miraculous manner rather than through billboards put up by people pretending to be me, just as parents pretend to be Santa Claus. -- God

Please post further suggestions in the comments. (And if somebody writes or finds a billboard photo generator, please let me know.)

Saturday, November 10, 2007

Parents Television Council demonstrates their own pointlessness

The Parents Television Council, the organization that is responsible for generating over 99.8% of all indecency complaints to the FCC, has further demonstrated its own complete pointlessness by putting out a website that assembles a collection of the most indecent clips from broadcast television, with no parental controls of any kind on the page. Each clip is categorized with labels like "sex," "violence," and "foul language."

What's a kid more likely to come across? A five-second bit in one of thousands of television shows, or a huge collection of the worst of the worst all in one place on the Internet?

It's high time for broadcast television indecency rules to be dropped.

(Via The Agitator.)

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Expensive intelligent design movie uses Borat tactics

[UPDATE (April 15, 2008): See the NCSE's "Expelled Exposed" website for a look at the deceptive tactics of the filmmakers and the real facts that they aren't showing you.]

In February, the movie "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed," starring Ben Stein, will be released. [UPDATE: The release was delayed until April 18, possibly due to copyright infringement worries.] The film apparently argues that intelligent design is being wrongly excluded from public school classrooms, despite the fact that intelligent design is rebranded creationism and is a religious view without scientific support. There is no scientific theory of intelligent design to be taught in schools--it doesn't exist.

The advertising for the film says that P.Z. Myers appears in the film--but he was not interviewed for a film called "Expelled," but for an apparently fictional project called "Crossroads: The Intersection of Science and Religion." Mark Mathis, a producer for Rampant Films, contacted Myers, and he agreed to appear in that film. Now, as it turns out, Mathis is an associate producer on "Expelled."

Myers writes:
Why were they so dishonest about it? If Mathis had said outright that he wants to interview an atheist and outspoken critic of Intelligent Design for a film he was making about how ID is unfairly excluded from academe, I would have said, "bring it on!" We would have had a good, pugnacious argument on tape that directly addresses the claims of his movie, and it would have been a better (at least, more honest and more relevant) sequence. He would have also been more likely to get that good ol' wild-haired, bulgy-eyed furious John Brown of the Godless vision than the usual mild-mannered professor that he did tape. And I probably would have been more aggressive with a plainly stated disagreement between us.

I mean, seriously, not telling one of the sides in a debate about what the subject might be and then leading him around randomly to various topics, with the intent of later editing it down to the parts that just make the points you want, is the video version of quote-mining and is fundamentally dishonest.
Eugenie Scott of the National Center for Science Education reports a similar experience--she also was interviewed for "Crossroads."

The producers of this film are sleazeballs. This kind of technique is already at or beyond the ethical edge for a comedy film like Borat, but to do this for a film that purports to take on a serious issue--and pretends to be on the side of God--is well past any such boundary. If, as has been suggested, this film is going to argue that belief in God is necessary for moral behavior (a falsehood), the behavior of the producers proves that it is not sufficient.

The lesson for the future: Do not sign an agreement to be interviewed for a film if the agreement contains language that says they can use "…footage and materials in and in connection with the development, production, distribution and/or exploitation of the feature length documentary tentatively entitled Crossroads…and/or any other production…" That "and/or any other production" is a big loophole that will be exploited.

UPDATE (August 23, 2007): Ed Brayton observes that two of the alleged controversies that "Expelled" will cover are bogus claims of persecution--the denial of tenure for Guillermo Gonzalez and the alleged martyrdom of Richard Sternberg. Ed notes that he has an article coming out in Skeptic magazine in February 2008 which will debunk the Souder report about the travails of Sternberg at the Smithsonian (a subject he has already written extensively about on his blog--linked to from the articles at my blog under the "Richard Sternberg affair" category).

UPDATE (December 18, 2007): Ed Brayton points out that a new argument from the Discovery Institute for why Gonzalez shouldn't have been denied tenure actually undermines that claim.

UPDATE (February 10, 2008): John Lynch has a nice visual diagram of Gonzalez's publication record.

Wednesday, August 15, 2007

Wikiscanner

Virgil Griffith has put together a fascinating data-mining tool that compares anonymous Wikipedia edits to WHOIS records for IP addresses, to allow users to examine edits made by people at particular organizations. The tool can be used to examine edits by people at the NSA (Ft. Meade), the CIA, the Church of Scientology, Bob Jones University, the Environmental Protection Agency, Diebold, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Wal-Mart, Pfizer, Raytheon, The New York Times, Al-Jazeera, the WorldNetDaily, Fox News, the Republican and Democratic Party, the Vatican, among many others. The organizations listed here are all listed on the side of the tool's main search page, but there are many more in the drop-down list of user-submitted organizations, and you can specify organization names and locations.

Wired magazine has assembled a list of some of the more interesting edits, such as someone at Diebold deleting references to security flaws in electronic voting machines and someone at the CIA editing song lyrics from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Griffith, who built Wikiscanner while working at the Santa Fe Institute, begins graduate work in September at Caltech on theoretical neurobiology and artificial life under Christoph Koch and Chris Adami.

It's wonderful when data mining can be used for good purposes.

(Hat tip to Scott Peterson on the SKEPTIC list.)

Saturday, June 23, 2007

Christian deception about The Art of Deception

Bill Muehlenberg's blog has a review of Robert Morey's 21-year-old book, The New Atheism and the Erosion of Freedom, which he applies to "atheist storm troopers such as Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris." Muehlenberg characterizes Dawkins and Harris as trying to "suppress all religious freedom, not unlike what was attempted in the former Soviet Union." Muehlenberg offers nothing to support this accusation, but that's not the point I'd like to respond to.

In his review, he makes the following statement:
He [Morey] even quotes from a famous atheist debating guide, in which every trick in the book is offered to fellow atheists as they attack theists. Published by Prometheus Books, the main atheist publisher, The Art of Deception by Nicholas Capaldi teaches atheists how to deliberately use deception to refute theists. After reading Moray’s [sic] description of, and quotations from, the book, it occurred to me that all the atheists I have been debating must have well-worn copies of the book. It certainly explains why actually having a rational debate with an atheist is so difficult. All the dirty tricks, ruses, ploys and deception makes any debate with them a one-way affair.
Muehlenberg has been deceived by Morey, and is deceiving others with this description. First, Nicholas Capaldi is not an atheist, he is a Catholic who teaches at Loyola University New Orleans and has written a number of religious publications from a Catholic perspective (though his central focus is on business ethics). Some of his publications include "From the Profane to the Sacred: Why We Need to Retrieve Christian Bioethics" and "A Catholic Perspective on Organ Sales" (both in Christian Bioethics).

Second, The Art of Deception is not "a famous atheist debating guide." The book's content is fairly standard introductory material for a course in informal logic, logical fallacies, and critical thinking, and there is no focus on arguments for or against the existence of God. There are four examples of such arguments in the book (pp. 97-100, 120-121, and 142). The first set of pages includes a circular argument for God's existence from the Bible's say-so and a refutation of the argument from design from David Hume, the second gives the example of an appeal to ignorance to argue for the existence of God from an inability to disprove God's existence, and the third is an example from Paul Tillich of arguing that your opponent really agrees with you, for example from the claim that a respect for logic is "a sign of ultimate concern and therefore a proof of God's existence." (Similar arguments are made regularly by presuppositionalists--that if you use logic you are presupposing the existence of God.) Note that three of these four arguments are deceptive arguments for the existence of God, not against, and the fourth is an example of a refutation of bad use of analogy to argue for the existence of God. There's nothing in Capaldi's book which even purports to teach atheists how to use deceptive arguments against theists.

Finally, Capaldi's book was not written with the intent to promote the use of deception. Rather, he wrote the book in a Machiavellian style in order to make it more entertaining. Capaldi's explicitly stated purpose is to enable the reader to recognize and not fall for deceptive arguments from others. He writes in his introduction (pp. 13-14):
... I have written this book from the point of view of one who wishes to deceive or mislead others. On the assumption that "it takes one to know one," I have found that people are able to detect the misuse or abuse of logic if they are themselves the masters of the art of deception. I ask the reader to contemplate the prospect of a world in which everyone knew, really knew, how to use and thereby detect the misuse of logic.

To exemplify this perspective, I wish to use an analogy with writings on politics. There are at least three great books which seek to describe political reality: Aristotle's Politics, Hobbes's Leviathan, and Machiavelli's The Prince. Aristotle fails because he is so dull that he is often not read, while Hobbes's perceptiveness is lost in the controversy over the theoretical context in which he embeds his insights. Machiavelli's vivid account is the most popular and the most effective. I believe that more readers have learned about politics from reading Machiavelli than anyone else precisely because Machiavelli's Prince is presented in a format of active manipulation rather than passive recognition. I hope that my presentation of informal logic will have the same kind of impact as Machiavelli.

I draw the conclusion from the facts of the matter that either Morey did not carefully read Capaldi's book, or he is himself being intentionally deceptive. I hope that Muehlenberg will allow the comment I've posted at his blog through moderation and refrain from further misrepresentation of Capaldi's book.

As a side note, one of the commenters on Muehlenberg's blog post is Creation Ministries International staffer Jonathon Sarfati, who writes:
It’s hardly surprising that antitheistic authors like Nicholas Capaldi published by antitheistic publishers like Prometheus Books should advocate deception. Under an atheistic world view, where we are just rearranged pond scum, there is nothing wrong with deception. It’s about time that Christians realized the implications of an atheistic evolutionary worldview and stopped being so trusting of evolutionary “science” that can provide no objective basis for the rightness of truthtelling.
Sarfati has also been deceived about Capaldi and his book, but goes on to engage in outrageous falsehood himself by claiming that it is an implication of "an atheistic worldview" that "there is nothing wrong with deception." This is a lie that Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis is also quite fond of repeating. Even most atheists who reject objective morality (which is not a logical consequence of atheism alone) would not agree that there is "nothing wrong" with deception, but I have never seen a young earth creationist actually engage with any writings or arguments defending nontheistic metaethics (which arguments may in many cases be authored by theistic philosophers). They write things like the above as propaganda against atheism, not as an expression of interest in truth.

UPDATE: I've just come across a review of Morey's book by Jon Nelson that shows that Morey has apparently fabricated quotes from Capaldi's book, as well:
After complaining that "some atheists deliberately use deception to refute theism" (pg. 87), Morey cites Nicholas Capaldi's book The Art of Deception as "proof" of atheistic deception. Morey quotes page 117 of Capaldi's book thusly: "Never admit defeat... ". The only problem is that Capaldi never says this (or anything like it) on this or on any other page. Morey has numerous other false quotes attributed to Capaldi, such as: "Refuse to be convinced. Even if you feel that he has a good argument and that your case is weaker, refuse to be convinced of your opponent's case". Nowhere does Capaldi advocate, as Morey accuses him of doing, that atheists should "use any invalid or deceptive argument as long as it helps him (to) win his case". Morey concludes this amazing series of lies and defamation of character by noting that his examples provide "a small sampling of the 'dirty tricks' methodology that seems to pervade modern atheism", and that, as a consequence, "my personal experience has proven this makes rational debate with an atheist very difficult".
I also note that the Wikipedia entry on Robert Morey states that Morey has claimed to be a reliable information source to the FBI and Naval Intelligence about Islamic terrorist activity inside the United States, that he gave a speech to a San Diego church stating that he had "advised the State Department to blow up the Muslim holy cities of Mecca and Medina if they wanted to win the war on terror quickly," and that he's written an anti-Islam book published by Jack Chick. If these claims are correct, then I'd class Morey with Chuck Missler--a complete huckster who has no qualms about relying on bogus claims or fabricating them himself to promote his "ministry." My bullshit detector goes off when somebody claims to be an important intelligence source and have access to secret inside information--not to mention when they're published by Chick, who has repeatedly published fabricated works by frauds.

UPDATE 2: It looks like Morey has been involved in a religious schism between his church and another, and there are many websites on the Internet critical of Morey and his claims, in particular about Islam. Morey runs the California Biblical University and Seminary, an unaccredited school, which claims to be pursuing accreditation. Morey has a Ph.D. in Islamic Studies from the unaccredited Louisiana Baptist University.

UPDATE 3 (June 25, 2007): My comments submitted to Bill Muehlenberg's site never got past moderation. Instead, he allowed through this correction from Jonathan Sarfati:

I’ve now been informed (by a fair-minded atheist who has taken fellow atheists to task for unfair attacks), then investigated further, that Morey doesn’t seem to have read Capaldi’s book or know much about his background. Checking on Amazon, its full title is The Art of Deception: An Introduction to Critical Thinking : How to : Win an Argument, Defend a Case, Recognize a Fallacy, See Through a Deception, Persuade a Skeptic, Turn Defeat into Victory. It appears to cover introductory logic, critical thinking, seeing through fallacies and contructing powerful arguments. The contents pages on the site and the reviews show that it’s not a how-to-defeat-Christians guide.

Also, Capaldi is Distinguished Scholar Chair in Business Ethics at Loyola University of New Orleans. So there is a good chance that he is a Catholic, rather than an antitheist. Publishing in an antitheistic press which has a virtual monopoly on the “Jesus never existed” nonsense is hardly encouraging, and this should send up red flags just as “Chick Publications” does for atheists (and informed Christians too). Nor is the fact that many Catholic universities are really CINO (Catholic In Name Only), e.g. teaching higher criticism and inviting pro-abortionist commencement speakers, and Loyola seems to fit the description. But it’s hardly plausible that they would appoint a high-profile atheist to be a chair, if that’s what Morey claims Capaldi is.

UPDATE (December 29, 2009): Looks like Morey's church shut down earlier this year amidst scandal.

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

ONDCP "Drowning" ad

I just came across an old post of mine on the Internet Infidels' Discussion Boards:
February 22, 2004, 05:24 PM
I keep seeing this TV commercial from the Office of National Drug Control Policy. The commercial shows a girl standing on a dock on a lake, with a life preserver sitting on it, and another drowning in the water as she looks on. The voiceover says something like "If you had a friend who was drowning, you'd help, wouldn't you?"

Every time I see it I think it's going to be an argument for the nonexistence of God.
The ad is online, though it doesn't seem to be one of the ones the ONDCP put on YouTube, with subsequent ridicule.

The ONDCP ad campaign has been studied by the GAO and found to be ineffective, but the government continues to spend over one hundred million dollars per year on it.

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

ONDCP places anti-drug PSAs on YouTube

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has placed anti-drug PSAs on YouTube. You know, those same ads that have been shown to increase drug use? Perhaps they hope that the video replies which YouTube users generate in response will similarly have an effect opposite to their intent?

(Via CNN.)

Friday, December 23, 2005

"War on Christmas" exposed by New Yorker; O'Reilly annoyed

Hendrik Hertzberg writes of the bogus "War on Christmas" being pushed by Fox News in The New Yorker:
The War on Christmas is a little like Santa Claus, in that it (a) comes to us from the sky, beamed down by the satellites of cable news, and (b) does not, in the boringly empirical sense, exist.
He goes on to note that
Today’s Christmas Pentagon is the Fox News Channel, which during a recent five-day period carried no fewer than fifty-eight different segments about the ongoing struggle, some of them labelled “Christmas under attack.”
and discusses John Gibson's book and Bill O'Reilly's role as "Patton." Near the end, he notes:
In this war, no weapons of Christmas destruction have been found—just a few caches of linguistic oversensitivity and commercial caution. Christmas remains robust: even Gibson says in his book that in America Christmas celebrators (ninety-six per cent) outnumber Christians (eighty-four per cent). But the “Happy Holidays” contagion has probably spread too far to be wiped out.
O'Reilly's response on December 20:
O'REILLY: Time now for "The Most Ridiculous Item of the Day." New Yorker magazine joins our hall of shame. We are recommending readers and sponsors avoid the publication. The reason: that magazine allows writer Hendrik Hertzberg to print dishonest propaganda fed to him by left-wing smear sites. As I previously stated, any publication or news operation that does that will be listed on BillOReilly.com as
not worthy of your attention or advertising dollars. The spin and the propaganda stop here. The New Yorker magazine should be ashamed and is absolutely ridiculous. And one note to Mr. Hertzberg: You might want to rethink your practice of character assassination, sir. Just looking out for you.
And Fox's John Gibson, author of The War on Christmas, got into a shouting match with Rob Boston of Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, with Gibson threatening to sue Boston for pointing out O'Reilly's falsehood about green and red clothing being prohibited by Plano, Texas schools. As it turns out, there were some prohibitions about party items and gifts in Plano schools which included such things as paper plate color, which led to a lawsuit; that ban was revoked and the guidelines made more sensible--e.g., students could give each other religious-themed gifts, but teachers (who are acting in an official capacity and represent the state) cannot give religious-themed gifts to students.

O'Reilly has retracted his comment about a ban on red and green clothing.