The (cosmological) Quranic argument for God

As I was browsing YouTube today, I decided to see if users had posted any new or interesting videos about the existence of God. Since I have addressed a great many arguments from Christian apologetics on this site since 2009, I thought I would check out some arguments for God from Islam. As anticipated, while Islam has its own particular slant on the god question and in some ways is actually more accepting of scientific principles than evangelical Christianity, Muslims by and large use many of the same stock arguments for God as Christians.

Take the following video from Hamza Tzortzis:

Indeed, close your eyes, take out the accent, the Arabic and references to Allah and the Quran, one might imagine watching a diatribe from William Lane Craig.

In this video, Tzortzis tells us that he is going to provide the “Quranic argument” for the existence of God, which is really just the old cosmological argument that has been restated and refuted for hundreds of years now. In any case, Tzortzis identifies four “logical possibilities” for the existence of the universe as follows:

  • The universe came from nothing.
  • The universe created itself.
  • The universe was created by something else created.
  • The universe was created by something uncreated.

As you can see, possibilities 2-4 all commit a fallacy by assuming a priori that the universe necessarily had to be created — it very well could have just always existed, and while that is hard for our mind to grasp, it is nonetheless another possibility — but after ruling out the first three as impossibilities, Tzortzis then hones in on the fourth option, which he calls the “best explanation” for the existence of the universe. He begins to get on the right track when he concedes the point that the “something uncreated” doesn’t necessarily have to be Allah or any other god in human history, but when he then says that by using the “Quranic approach,” we can draw conclusions about the universe’s origins, we know where he’s going to take the argument.

Here are his basic “conclusions,” which we will more accurately call assumptions:

  • Assumption 1: “This uncreated creator must be powerful.” — Notice what he did there. He went from calling the entity an “uncreated” entity to an “uncreated creator” and then bestowed it with a certain power that was, up to this point, not part of the argument. Also as part of this first point, he implied that the mere existence of billions of atoms in the universe and the subsequent release of energy that occurs when an atom is split is somehow suggestive of a powerful god, although splitting just one atom does not produce anything near an atomic explosion, nor does the existence of atoms suggest anything other than the existence of atoms.
  • harris-meme

  • Assumption 2: The creator must be “intelligent and all-knowing” because “it created laws in the universe like the law of gravity.” — Like many of his Christian apologist counterparts, Tzortzis, most likely is speaking to potential converts or people who may be amenable to accepting his brand of faith, uses some fast talking to blaze through these last points, apparently hoping that he can move quickly enough through the message before any sparks of logic creep into the listeners’ minds. But if we slow down and hear what he actually says, we can see that he is just begging the question and taking as an assumption that which he might hope to prove. Simply put, the existence of natural laws in the universe only prove the existence of the natural laws and does not imply a law giver, just like the existence of the universe does not imply by fiat a conscious creator. Attributing laws to the various attributes we observe in nature is just our way, as humans, to describe our world in a scientific way. Unlike God or the various characteristics commonly attributed to him, we can demonstrate these natural laws, which would exist whether we had ever evolved far enough to discover them or not.
  • Assumption 3: The creator must be “transcendent” and exist outside of space and time. — This is a common trope in apologetics and was presumably conjured to excuse God from being beholden and subject to the laws of nature. Thus, believers might say, if we just put God outside of the observable universe, we can say that he is a higher force than anything in this universe and that he is the progenitor of morals, of the natural laws and of life itself. Of course, by definition, we can’t experience anything that is outside of our space and time; indeed, there is nothing outside of space and time. To say otherwise is to just make unsubstantiated claims based on pure fantasy, not unlike fictional tales of unicorns, the Loch Ness monster and Flying Teapot making laps around Planet Earth.
  • Assumption 4: The creator must be eternal. — This is just an extension of the previous claim. Here again, Tzortzis just makes another assumption about an uncreated creator, with no basis in reality, other than, perhaps, a deep-seated desire for it to be true.
  • Assumption 5: The “uncreated creator” must have freewill. — By now, and based on the other points, we can pretty well take it for granted that Tzortzis thinks a transcendant, all-knowing creator pretty well has free reign over his own decisions, but Tzortzis spells it out for us, although Allah or Yahweh being browbeaten and lorded over by an even more powerful overlord is humorous to think about. One might wonder, though, if this uncreated creator was “intelligent” and “eternal,” why would he so freely and benevolently choose to create the universe if he knew beforehand that a good 50 percent of his creation would be doomed to suffer unspeakable torments for all eternity, unless, of course, he was also a sadist and sinisterly set this plot in motion. In fact, if we were to judge God or Allah on his success rate, that is, the number of people who were compelled to believe based on scripture or inspirational speaking or some kind of “revelation” versus those who were not convinced of any of it, a 50 percent rate of belief for the most powerful force in the universe has to be disappointing.
  • Assumption 6: Humans sense the nature of God as creator as part of their disposition, and God as the creator is the “best and most comprehensive explanation” for the existence of the universe. — The first part of this assumption is just an appeal to personal experience, and as any judge, attorney or psychologist will attest, personal testimony is a poor basis to substantiate truth claims. Millions of atheists in the world, some of whom have sincerely searched for a spiritual component, have precisely the opposite experience, having had no innate sense of something spiritual outside of themselves, while millions of Buddhists have no conception of a theistic creator at all.

The last few seconds of Tzortzis’ video — and this ties into the sixth assumption — seemed to take a swipe at the Christian concept of the trinity in suggesting that God is one, rather than three separate, autonomous beings as in the Christian godhead.

Interestingly and ironically, Tzortzis says this concept is “irrational because it creates far more questions than it solves,” which would, on the surface, seem like a tip of the hat to Occam’s razor, if he hadn’t just spent the last five minutes making arguments about God that, themselves, raise more questions than they answer.

While it is true that we do not have an answer for why the scientific laws exist as we observe them in the universe, there is no reason to think that the eventual explanation will spring from anything other than a natural cause, as has been the case with every other question about the universe we have answered from science in the last 250 years. Why some believers think that questions about our origin are somehow exempt from having to be explained by natural processes, when all of our other knowledge about the universe comes to us this way, escapes all comprehension.

In the end, suggesting that an all-powerful, highly complex deity who sits outside of space and time is responsible for everything that we see in nature is, number one, a cop-out for having to come up with any kind of real explanation, and number two, complicates questions about our origin exponentially. For more on this, see my post, Response to Apologetics III: Aquinas and Occam’s razor.

Something from nothing?

I particularly enjoyed Lawrence Krauss’ introduction to answering this question. A common tactic Christians use when asking questions, whether consciously or not, is to begin the query with the word, “why,” which implies that there must be an underlying reason or purpose for our existence. To ask “why” something is the way it is assumes that some kind of conscious force or creator is lurking behind the curtains pulling all the strings. In nature, “how” questions are exponentially more useful and interesting than “why” questions.

Free Thought Bloggers: where they stand on Atheism+

This post is in response to a comment I received from Giovanni Rilasciato regarding a previous article of mine titled, “On Atheism+ and humanism: part 2.”

Rilasciato writes:

FYI, there are 36 bloggers at FtB, and most of them haven’t even commented on A+. There’ve been a few who have even written about why they do not support it, such as Al Stefanelli. It seems that there are about half a dozen there behind this.

I presume that Rilasciato was referring to two parts of that previous post. This passage:

It seems to suggest that this very small group of people (Free Thought Blogs and their supporters) are preparing to carry the banner of social justice for the rest of us, and for a group of people that inherently eschew cliques and in-groups and chafe at being told how they should think or act, this is contemptible.

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On a final note, I think it’s telling that nearly all of the Free Thought Bloggers, from Miller, Christina, McCreight to P.Z. Myers and others are all supporting each other, which to the rest of us, smacks of provincialism if nothing else and speaks to me personally that not one of them are capable of independent thought.

I have waded through all 36 35 Free Thought Blogs and have attempted, as best as I can, to surmise which bloggers support Atheism+ and which have either made no public statement about it or have voiced their opposition. I will admit here that saying that “nearly all of the Free Thought Bloggers” may have been an exaggeration, but I think what I’m about to show indicates that a significant number of FtB’s (more than a dozen) have publicly hopped on the bandwagon. The number could very well be more if they had written anything about it. Two have spoken against it and a couple more were either vague or seemed to be on the fence.

For brevity’s sake, I did not attempt to sift through any comments that may have been left by the bloggers in response to readers that may assert support or opposition. I just stuck with their posts. For each individual page, I went back through the archives from Aug. 18, the date of McCreight’s original post (“How I Unwittingly Infiltrated the Boy’s Club & Why It’s Time for a New Wave of Atheism“) to today.

Someone may ask: isn’t this a waste of time? Why bother? Sure, but so is playing video games or watching movies. I put some effort into this because:

  • I did make a serious claim that Free Thought Blogs was filled with people who hopped on the bandwagon, and I actually found that the figure appears to be more than one-third of the all bloggers at FtB. Again, the figure could be greater, but some either have remained mum or post so infrequently that it’s hard to gauge where they stand.
  • Rather than speculate, I thought it would be instructive to throw out a more concrete figure.
  • Since Atheism+ has become such a divisive issue the last few weeks, I thought readers would be interested to see a rundown on where the bloggers stand. Personally, I would like to see where all the Free Thought Bloggers stand on the issue because hell if the blowback from this thing can compel McCreight to quit blogging altogether, the public obviously has some strong feelings about it, even if some idiots who can’t tell the difference between blasting a person’s arguments versus demeaning the person.

That said, here is the format that I used. Again, this is a best effort on my part. Any corrections or additional information is welcome.

Name — Stance on Atheism+ with link showing support or dissent

Ed Brayton — Has made no statement that I am aware.

P.Z. Myersa supporter but says he’s not an official “member.”

Chris Rodda — No comment that I am aware.

Stephen Andrew — No comment that I am aware.

Cuttlefish — Seems generally supportive even if not willing to adopt the label.

Reasonable Doubts — An infrequent podcast show; has made no comment.

Comradde PhysioProffe — Seems to be a supporter since he reposted part of McCreight’s original post from Aug. 18 with the title of his own post, “Skeptical D00ds Are Not Skeptical About Their Own Gross Misogyny,” included in the title is an apparent reference to Thunderf00t.

Assassin Actual — Hasn’t posted since Aug. 2.

Daniel Fincke — Supporter.

Deacon DuncanSupporter.

Greta ChristinaSupporter.

Hank FoxPossibly a passive supporter. He speaks on the perceived motivations behind the “movement” and about a “Beta Culture,” which seems to be a similar alternative.

Stephanie ZvanSupporter.

Ophelia BensonSupporter.

Jason ThibeaultSupporter.

Jen McCreight — Inventor in chief.

Dana HunterSupporter.

Al StefanelliNot a supporter.

Martin WagnerSupporter.

Brian Lynchehaun — Supporter.

Justin Griffith — No statement.

Kylie Sturgess — Not a supporter.

Maryam Namazie — No statement.

Blackskeptics — No statement.

Richard Carrier — Alientating, overly enthusiastic supporter.

Edwin Kagin — Seems skeptical about Atheism+.

Mano Singham — No statement.

Natalie Reed — Not a supporter.

Chris Hallquist —No statement, moved to Patheos.

Brianne Bilyeu — No statement.

Taslima Nasreen — No statement.

Zinnia Jones — No statement.

Ashley F. Miller — Supporter.

Cristina Rad — No statement. Only two posts since McCreight’s Aug. 18 introduction to Atheism+.

AronRa — No statement. Only three posts since Aug 18.

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Atheism+ reax from female FTB readers

I never really thought this would be the case in the first place, but as it turns out, not all females are buying into this whole Atheism+, hyper-sensitive, reactionary brand of "social justice" that folks like Jen McCreight, Rebecca Watson, P.Z. Myers and others are peddling over at Free Thought Blogs.

This is refreshing for many reasons, not the least of which is because it shows that quite a few members of the atheist community do indeed think for themselves and don’t just dive in head over feet into a “movement” because some influential atheists, and females at that, say they should. Further, this speaks to the fact that McCreight, Watson and Co., don’t speak for all women in the community nor should they. I’m sure there are many others, but I’ll quickly highlight three women who have provided a intelligent arguments against this “movement” for social justice, which is really just a repackaged version of humanism (See: On Atheism+ and humanism: part 2).

Here is Renee from over at Belief Blower, who seems to have a particularly sharp grasp of reality that seems to be woefully lacking in Atheism+ circles:

… What is more distressing and pertininent (sic) to women is that there are 3 women beind (sic) the "movement": Jen McCreight, Ophelia Benson, and Rebecca Watson.

Normally, I wouldn’t give 2 shits about these women or the movement. But they are actively and divisively stripping apart atheism and attempting to bring together a happy little club of women and sycophantic men under the guise of being more socially responsible. Nothing could be further from the truth. These women are simply angry that they’ve been slighted/harassed/sexed in some way, shape, or form and feel their best course of action is to create a "special snowflake" clique.

Ladies, I’m here to tell you that your tiny fucking "slights" or sexist remarks are part of the real world. Each and every one of you spend an astronomical amount of time on the Internet and when you aren’t chatting it up on your computer, you’re off talking to groups that have organizations *begging* you to be there and willing to pay for your constant mini-vacations. I would be happy to swap my childhood and early adulthood with *any* of you. I know what real sexism and misogyny is. All three of you are so quick to throw around the word "misogyny" and yet not one single one of you can correctly identify the true meaning of the word.

Let me clue you in – it means "hatred of women". Do you understand this phrase? HATRED of women. Not bullying, not chiding, not sexist and/or inappropriate remarks. It is the hatred of women.

Here are two YouTubers, BionicDance:

 

And jpkeitt:

On Atheism+ and humanism: part 2

At the expense of repeating myself, I’ll take some time here to explore some of the other components, criticisms and responses to Atheism+ that were not covered in this post. I have wanted to write a follow up post on this for quite a few days, but it has taken awhile to gather my thoughts.

Here I will show in fuller detail why Atheism+ is not only redundant but why it’s actually corrosive to the legacies of atheists and freethinkers who have done important social work under the old banners and who did so bravely and under conditions that were far from friendly or accepting.

First, Greta Christina (“Humanism Is Great — But It’s Not Atheism Plus“) and Ashley F. Miller (“The difference between “atheism+” and humanism“) have suggested with all the fervor they could muster that Atheism+ is not secular humanism. In Miller’s case, she appears to be on board with Atheism+ because she feels the old label, atheism, suffers from an irreparable stigma. As she describes it:

There is a difference between a self-defined humanist doing something good for mankind and a self-defined atheist doing it, simply because of the massive amount of stigma associated with atheism. Proving that atheists care about other people and making the world a better place is important.  I think that “atheism+” is a way to bring the philosophy of humanism more strongly to the fight for atheist equality, and vice versa.

Calling myself part of the atheist — +, humanist, or otherwise — movement is a meaningful political act, and one not worth dropping to join something incredibly similar, but different.

To make one point abundantly clear: atheism is not a movement, and it is emphatically not political. In the wake of Dawkins, Dennett, Hitchens, Harris and the like, one may easily come to think of atheism as a movement, and at one point, Hitchens even said he wrote his book as part of a “pushback” against religion, but it’s not as if the so-called new atheists met prior to writing their books and made some collaborative effort to produce a string of publications on the perils of a religion as a deliberate exercise. After Sam Harris published “The End of Faith” in 2004, these books and the subject matter just caught fire and the works began flying off the shelves. While the new atheism label may have been an unfortunate consequence of the new attention paid to atheism and freethought, “there is nothing new under the sun,” to borrow a line from Ecclesiastes.

Indeed, Tom Flynn traces the genesis of the “movement” that was never really a movement to begin with because, as I previously noted, atheism has hundreds of years, if not millennia, of thought and free inquiry behind it. Susan Jacoby’s excellent work, “Freethinkers: A History of American Secularism,” explores some of the heroes of American freethought, including Thomas Jefferson, Tom Paine, Robert Ingersoll, Elizabeth Stanton and many others.

Flynn said that after the release of Harris’ book, “something new was afoot:”

… but it was only this: for the first time, uncompromising atheist writing was coming from big-name publishers and hitting best-seller lists. You could buy it at the airport. In consequence, people who had never before experienced atheist rhetoric got their first exposure to arguments that had formerly been published only by movement presses. One of these newcomers was Wired’s Gary Wolf. Encountering sledgehammer assaults upon religion that he had never seen before, knowing nothing of freethought’s rich, enclaved history, he thought he was seeing something genuinely new. And the New Atheism was born—out of ignorance, ironically enough.

But it was nothing new.

Flynn’s conclusion is so important to my point that it deserves a full mention:

The triumph of Harris, Dennett, Dawkins, and Hitchens was to take arguments against religion that were long familiar to insiders, brilliantly repackage them, and expose them to millions who would never otherwise pick up an atheist book. That’s no small achievement. But too many commentators lacking the requisite historical background have treated them as though the horsemen invented atheism. Not so!

That’s why I think it is important to recognize that there is no New Atheism. There are no New Atheists. There is atheism, and there are atheists. A spectrum of national atheist, freethought, secular humanist, and religious humanist organizaztions already stands prepared to serve unbelievers of many inclinations, without the need for any New Atheist group to hang out its shingle. Atheism and its companion life stances can be proud of roots that extend far, far deeper than (snicker) 2004.

The so-called Four Horsemen deserve admiration for exposing millions of contemporary readers to refutations of traditional religion that our movement has been burnishing for decades, sometimes centuries. We need to do a better job of sharing the rich literary and organizational history out of which these ideas sprang. At the same time, secular humanists need to do all they can to encourage people newly drawn to atheism to make the added journey to the fully rounded, exuberant lifestance we call secular humanism. (italics mine)

So, while the new atheist label was bestowed on Dawkins and Co., unwittingly, and while they, perhaps, adopted it to some degree, nothing new has actually occurred between 2004 and now. Atheism is just atheism, a disbelief in the existence of a god. It has no new definition and entails no new set of morals or principles, and indeed, no set of principles at all. For that, we need humanism, but more on that later.

The second point inherent in Miller’s argument is that “atheism” has become such a stigmatic and disgraced word in modern society (Or, maybe just in America; it’s not quite clear) that its image needs to somehow be repaired. Again, I don’t sense much of a grasp of history here. Atheists and freethinkers have been marginalized, persecuted, and in some extreme cases, killed for hundreds of years, and so long as religion persists, they will continue to be treated with a certain level of contempt and as subhuman in some circles, when, in reality, unbelievers are more alive than the most pious among us. They and we see the world without blinders and without walls. They and we see the world as it is and as it should be: no heaven and certainly no hell at the end of the tunnel; we see a marvelously wide and interconnected universe. We have no lights to guide our path but our own mind, our own consciences, our own sense of empathy for others and our human solidarity. No light; just life.

If others can’t accept that for what it is, it’s their loss. But for nonbelievers to now suggest that we need to change, or perhaps, evolve atheism into a “third wave” called Atheism+ that will address such things like feminism, ableism, racism,  misogyny, etc., and “prove” that atheists “care about making the world a better place” not only does a disservice to the past freethinkers, like Ingersoll and Stanton, who did indeed prove it with the testimony of their lives that atheists can stand up for important causes and move society forward under the banner of humanism, it also kowtows to critics. Essentially, it is the pitiable admission that the very words “atheism” and “humanism” have become so defiled by dissent that there is no choice but to start again by making atheism seem more positive and socially acceptable to the layperson. This is an admission, in other worse, that we have lost.

This is also the part about Atheism+ that, I think, rubs many nonbelievers the wrong way. It seems to suggest that this very small group of people (Free Thought Blogs and their supporters) are preparing to carry the banner of social justice for the rest of us, and for a group of people that inherently eschew cliques and in-groups and chafe at being told how they should think or act, this is contemptible.

As for Christina, she attempts in her post to answer the question:

 Isn’t ‘Atheism plus social justice’ just another term for humanism?”

She then explains:

Humanism is also more engaged with creating secular replacements for the rituals and structures of religious communities… and while many atheists are cool with this idea and are even engaged with it themselves, there are many other atheists who are profoundly turned off by it. And many humanists are actively hostile to the word “atheist.” It’s not just that they don’t choose to use the word themselves. They don’t want anyone else to use it, either. So that puts another damper on the whole “Atheism Plus is just humanism re-branded” thing.

She goes on to say that, in effect, atheism is a more “in your face” brand of nonbelief, while humanism is more subtle and that many people don’t even know what the term means. Later in the post, she discusses the necessity of keeping the word “atheism” alongside the “plus:”

We see value in it (atheism), and we don’t want to abandon it. We want to form a subset of it that makes it better: a subset that is specifically devoted to making atheism more welcoming to women, people of color, poor people, working class people, trans people, and other marginalized groups, and that is specifically devoted to doing work in the places where atheism and other social justice issues intersect.

Again, atheism needs no improvements or additions to make it better, and attempts to do so actually blacken the legacy of atheists who did work and are working to make the world a better place because of their love of humanity. A disbelief in a god does not include a moral or social stance whatsoever. Atheists are free to be kind and loving toward their brothers or they are free to be assholes and suffer the legal and social disadvantages of ridicule, isolation and chastisement. They are free to be Democrats or Republicans, prolife or prochoice, misogynistic or not, as long as they are willing to live with the consequences of their choices.

In all this, Christina never quite gets around the explaining the clear difference between Atheism+ and humanism. The best she can apparently do is this conclusion:

… And I can’t tell you how many humanists I’ve talked with who have been total douchebags about feminism: insisting that humanism is superior to and more important than feminism, that feminism is exclusionary and anti-male, that they “don’t see gender” and anyone who does is the real sexist, and that the best way to make sexism disappear is to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t exist.

Humanism in theory is on board with social justice — but the practice can be very different indeed. If every atheist who’s sick of sexism and misogyny in the atheist movement picked up their stakes and moved to humanism, it wouldn’t make these problems magically disappear.

There is a great deal of overlap between humanism and Atheism Plus. They are very similar ideas, very similar visions. There is great value in both. I suspect that many people will call themselves both, and I look forward to the two movements working in alliance for many years to come. But I don’t think they’re the same. And I think it’s reasonable for some people to identify primarily as one, and some primarily as the other.

So here again, like Jen McCreight, we have a Free Thought Blogger relying on anecdotal evidence (“total douchebags about feminism”) to describe what is wrong with the humanists she has met and why Atheist+ is going to be so much different and better. She is, apparently, judge and jury.

If I have to point this out 10 more times for it to stick, I will happily do so. If a humanist is not concerned and committed to stamping out hate, racism, bigotry, misogyny, anti-gay sentiment and other social ills, he or she is not a humanist. Plain and simple. I consult the Encyclopaedia Britannica’s entry on humanism about active virtue:

The emphasis on virtuous action as the goal of learning was a founding principle of humanism and (though sometimes sharply challenged) continued to exert a strong influence throughout the course of the movement.

Here is Leon Battista Alberti from “Della famiglia:”

As I have said, happiness cannot be gained without good works and just and righteous deeds. . . . The best works are those that benefit many people. Those are most virtuous, perhaps, that cannot be pursued without strength and nobility. We must give ourselves to manly effort, then, and follow the noblest pursuits.

And Florentine humanist Matteo di Marco Palmieri:

… the true merit of virtue lies in effective action, and effective action is impossible without the faculties that are necessary for it. He who has nothing to give cannot be generous. And he who loves solitude can be neither just, nor strong, nor experienced in those things that are of importance in government and in the affairs of the majority.

And the last sentence from Britannica:

Endorsements of active virtue, as will be shown, would also characterize the work of English humanists from Sir Thomas Elyot to John Milton. They typify the sense of social responsibility—the instinctive association of learning with politics and morality—that stood at the heart of the movement. As Salutati put it, “One must stand in the line of battle, engage in close combat, struggle for justice, for truth, for honour.” (italics mine)

The idea of social justice, then, is built into the word humanism at the core. Regardless of who knows what humanism means or not is inconsequential. The word, the idea, the philosophy has existed for hundreds of years, and it contains within it everything, and in better and less provincial form, I might add, than what has been presented as Atheism+ thus far.

On a final note, I think it’s telling that nearly all of the Free Thought Bloggers, from Miller, Christina, McCreight to P.Z. Myers and others are all supporting each other, which to the rest of us, smacks of provincialism if nothing else and speaks to me personally that not one of them are capable of independent thought. McCreight, Watson and others have some bad experiences with some brutish individuals, so McCreight decides to invent a new “movement.” And no one had the balls to say, “You know what, guys? This sounds really similar, if not the same, as humanism. It seems too similar to justify any kind of  ‘new wave’ of atheism. Maybe we can work within the framework of humanism to discuss our concerns.” But no. That’s not what happened is it? After McCreight’s original post, every single one of them cooed in agreement and passively followed like lemmings off a cliff. That’s not the moral courage, and that’s not intellectual courage.

Agree? Disagree? Feel free to leave a comment below.