Moral Relativism
Topic: All Is Permitted

The typical arguments I've had with Christians online - and there have been many - have been pretty superficial as I've discussed in previous posts.  The typical Christian has plenty of roadblocks preventing her from pursuing an avenue that involves actual thought. The usual form of the discussions I have are an exercise in trying to get the Christian to understand that if the criteria must be "absolutist" or "objective" morals then atheists aren't necessarily worse off than theists. The reality is of course, I'd wager, that atheists are less absolutist and objective on the whole than Christians are, but that's only because they are serious about understanding a complex issue rather than just throwing out whatever conceptual framework is necessary to assure that whatever they believe at the time is right and can't be questioned.

"Absolute" and "Objective" often mean the same thing in ethics though you could separate the terms to mean "fixed" and "external." There are cases where, for instance, ethics could be external and variable. If you've happened to read my posts on structuralism (or are already familiar with the idea), it's easy to see how, if the thought of two societies are different and if one is more or less bound to the thinking of their society, that ethics would be externally bound to the collective resources of society but variable in that the collective resources of societies differ. I'm not saying I buy into this, but I think it's interesting to think through the problems if it were the case. The problems would actually be I think, not as bad as people imagine. The biggest fear of course, is that if morals aren't "Objective" then they could be anything. Of course logically speaking, any given number of things could be different than they are, but they aren't. Without some articulation on the driving force which would make them be anything, then I see no serious reason to accept that accusation blindly. It's logically possible for there to be 100 foot tall spiders but there aren't. And if the hermeneutical point holds that cultures don't readily translate into each other, then it does no good to say, "Aha! See, those guys over there get to cheat on their wives so I'm going to be one of them!" Since one wouldn't be thinking through the "cheating" in context of the other society's thought structures, then it would be impossible to pull off. So the egregious feats of reckless abandon in the name of technicalities aren't at least, pulled off trivially if a thought-through version of moral relativism holds.

Again, I'm not saying I believe all that. And even if I did, then I'd be willing to be a little whiggish and force my values on a society that has a tradition which looks an awful lot like child prostitution. At any rate, our desire for objective morality is rooted in our desire to have the greatest reasons for taking morals seriously in our own lives as well as in other's. But there is also a pull from moral relativism to be practical. I mean, even if we're not prepared to view acts within ancient cultures as moral, most of us are at least willing to allow for mitigating circumstances. What for instance, can we really consider to be a reasonable expectation for a Neanderthal? For only the most naive is negotiation out of the question, and they are the ones who will typically have some kind of silly notion that the Bible has enforced a consistent objective ethic on man from the dawn of time. Which is of course an outright laugh. Moral positions within the Bible and within the cultures which have relied on the Bible have been as variable in their ethics as just about anyone else. The reality of the situation is that we should all be a little confused about what's right and what's wrong. Because if there is a danger that relativistic assumptions will undermine the continuity of good, there is also the danger that absolutist assumptions will tempt us into immortalizing bad. In the balance I'd guess the latter has historically been the greater problem, despite the vivid imaginations of the religious right.

A final comment on relativism. One of the thought-terminating arguments against the very consideration of relativism is that - as virtually every Christian on the net who's never studied ethics for more than five minutes can tell you - relativism is self-refuting. If all is relative, then so is the utterance, "all is relative." Of course, all we have to do to fix that is to say, "all is relative except for this." In any case, this is more of a problem within logic regarding self-reference that unfortunately reveals itself in language use generally. Self-reference is a significant problem where naive set-theoretic assumptions reign (where there are no restrictions on what can belong to a set) and so logicians try to find ways to plug that hole. The most well-known fix being Bertrand Russell's theory of types which essentially just disallows self-reference. I'm not arguing that Russell's controversial idea is true, that's well beyond my qualifications to even have an opinion, but I'm just pointing out that the work to fix problems in logic fortuitously salvages relativism from being self-refuting. The point is that true or false, the suggestion to delimit the sentence in question isn't just an ad hoc ideologically driven one set out to make the truth anything we want.

Detroit
I'm going to drop another odd post here. For those who know me pretty well on the net and read what I have to say now and again, a net hobby I have that surfaces from time to time that I haven't talked about much is browsing websites documenting the ruins of Detroit.

Don't ask me why I think this is interesting. But every month or so, I find myself looking through the same sets of pictures once or twice.

Two well-known sites are:

forgotten

And take the tour:

Detroit Yes

I've never been to Detroit. I drove by it once though a few years ago when I was in Michigan for my job. Not sure if I'll ever actually find myself there.

Tom Leykis
Tom Leykis hosts a "shock jock" radio show that I listen to everyday on my way home from work. On the surface, Leykis seems to be nothing more than chauvinist bent on demeaning women and celebrating all the things we've been brought up to think are bad. Digging a little deeper, however, he's still a chauvinist, but he's pretty honest and consistent in his positions, and there is so much I think if presented a little differently (something he himself often does in debates with callers therapeutically) it's tough to disagree with him. Now, it's both edifying and frustrating for me to listen to him. I don't really want to get into personal details online, but I'm in the transition between a single life where I pretty much believe "anything goes" and family life. Most people seem to just assume family life is where it's at. But all you have to do is look around a little bit and it's clear that family life is by and large, just as much of a failure as any other kind of life. And I think, it's highly mistaken to believe that family life is the one and only true source of possible happiness and fulfillment or to find fulfillment in anything else is bad, and should make one feel guilty. It would apparently, given the number of broken homes, be better for a lot of people out there to abstain from marriage and family altogether, much in the same way others should abstain from alcohol and drugs. And I think Tom's message, cynical as it may come across, is a message of hope for a lot of guys who can't get the indoctrinations of the white picket fence out of their head on their own. Contrary to what church tries to tell us, Hollywood is as obsessed with "family life" as the reigning paradigm for fulfillment every bit as much as religion is. But family life, let's face it, just isn't for everyone.

For Leykis, the lifestyle he teaches and the typical alternative of family life are either/or propositions. What he's trying to get you to do I think more than anything, is to be honest about your choices. I hate to invoke Kierkegaard here, but I can't help think of the aesthete and the religious, and the lack of grounding outside of personal choice to make either meaningful. Leykis' counsels also, strangely, remind me of Mormon thinker Hugh Nibley, who influenced me greatly prior to my wholesale apostasy from religion. Nibley often worked out his politics in terms of oppositions such as the "Sophic" vs. "Mantic" (roughly reason vs. revelation) or "Zion" vs. "Babylon." But as a religious man and intellectual anti-intellectual, Nibley didn't per se, put the life of faith above reason, but rather emphasized the two were diametrically opposed ways of looking at the world that simply don't understand one another. Even within his diatribes against the evils of "Babylon," he's willing to admit that the worldly life is fulfilling for those who live it. Where Nibley concedes a problem is in mixing the two together. Misery isn't living in Babylon, misery is living in Zion, with one foot in Babylon. The Sophic worldview isn't a lost cause either, but the dishonest deviations found in "sophistry" are. Tom Leykis, in a similar way, doesn't preach against marriage and kids as so many misunderstand him to do. Rather, he teaches that you can't have both worlds, you have to pick one or the other, and then must live what you pick like there's no tommorow. The problem is that people want the freedom of being unmarried but are too lonely, so they get married. Or married people like the stability of family life, but they are too career oriented and so get divorced. Leykis realizes millions of years of evolution make a settled-down committed relationship difficult to achieve given our biological urges. People think all too lightly that they can simply lose themselves in love and wholesale ignore the calls of nature to "get it on," not realizing what they thought was love was merely one of those fleeting urges in disguise.

Often callers who only grasp the most inflammatory aspects of Tom's message seek approval for cheating on their spouses, thinking they'll get a pat on the back. But that's never the case. If you love your wife or husband, but you just need a little "fix" on the side, for him, it's too bad. Because ultimately it won't work and will lead to far more misery than braving the temptation or getting divorced and then giving in. Sometimes a caller will emphasize the great sex their spouse gives but this never impresses Tom, because the reason to get married is for the "emotional fulfillment" and if one's concern is focused so much on sex, then the options will always be better in a unmarried situation, and that fact will be a pressure in breaking the marriage. So as you listen, you're forced to recognize just how much you're predisposed to envy the lifestyle that Tom lives, and that there is really, an attractive and fulfilling choice with a support group that doesn't involve the white picket fence. So if you want the white picket fence, you better know what you're getting into and you must really want it. Of course, the converse is also true. Living Tom's lifestyle isn't a walk in the park either, there are another completely different set of challenges and sacrifices involved. But essentially, for him, you've got to take up the life you've chosen and refrain from the temptation to slip up and try to do both - because that's what's going to take your life from boring - if that's the problem - to miserable. On one occasion, a caller phoned in to tell Tom that he had a great job as a lawyer making a lot of money and that, since his college days, now being in his mid-thirties, he's slept with at least 300 women. He's wondering now if maybe he should settle down. What's there left to do? Does he just continue to make money and sleep with more women? The logic here is, I've lived the bachelor's dream, now it's time for something else. I got the feeling the caller would think Tom would be impressed enough with his exploits to say, "Hey man, you excelled in my teachings, you are a model student and have nothing to prove, feel free to retire and find the love of your life." But Tom didn't say that, he instructed the caller that he's living the life, and should in fact continue to do so. Sleep with 300 more women. Continue to make more money. The caller was a bit confused and at the end of the conversation basically said, "Oh, ok. Well thanks, I guess I'll just continue on." The wisdom was subtle. Hundreds of millions of years of evolution which says to spread the seed, and fifteen years or more of putting that message into practice, and what are the chances this caller is going to walk into a lifelong relationship? Chances are, he'll find someone, settle down and have a couple of kids, and then in a few years cheat, lose his family and most of his money, and then be miserable. Tom knows, he's fallen 4 times. The answer from religion of course would be, "He's looking for something real, can't you see that? Can't you see he might be ready for the real joy found in the gospel of Jesus?"

But after 300 women, see, he's already chosen his life. He's already demonstrated, to the nth degree, what he really wants. Any life choice will include moments of indecision and times of boredom and feeling like everything is repeating. Is he going to feel any different after changing diapers for 1000th time? Or after having his wife nagging at him to take the garbage out? The odds are, he won't last. His best bet is to embrace the life he's already constructed and move on to 301.  Yes, the religious answer would emphasize what Christ might do for him - might do for him. Maybe, one time out of a hundred? Or a thousand? People do make radical life changes and find fulfillment, but it's an exception to the rule. And it actually works both ways. I know a guy who was rich, had the model family, and a respectable church position, and left at least the first two for a one-night stand. And it appears now many years after the fact that he's never been happier. People who are cut out for it even get bored in family life, and think maybe they need to move on to some quick fix for excitement. One in a thousand times it will work. Anyway, So that's my long introduction to Leykis. Since I'll never call in and argue with the other guests, I can get it off my chest here.

Structuralism, the Outside World, and Beyond
Now Playing: - It's been edited now
Topic: Postmodernism

Structuralists looked for general patterns which govern human institutions, most famously, language, beginning with Ferdinand de Saussure's A Course In General Linguistics.  Saussure saw language as the most obvious example of the broader subject of human signification. That general subject is called semiology. Borrowing Wiki's summary of Saussure:

...he argued that linguistic signs were composed of two parts, a signifier (the sound pattern of a word, either in mental projection - as when we silently recite lines from a poem to ourselves - or in actual, physical realization as part of a speech act) and a signified (the concept or meaning of the word). This was quite different from previous approaches which focused on the relationship between words on the one hand and things in the world that they designate, on the other.

This way of thinking is sure to run into trouble with American science students. What of the relationship between the signified and the thing in the real world? (the details be damned, we just want to make sure no one is getting away with believing there isn't really anything 'out there') Apparently that question didn't interest Saussure, unlike Charles Sanders Pierce who constructed a semiology roughly similar to Saussure's with the exception that he added a third element which corresponds to the outside thing. From a class handout written by a friend of mine, a real live publishing Frankfurt School cultural theorist known on the web sometimes as et in Utah ego*,

The differences we readily experience as independent of language are in fact constructed by it. This does not mean that language creates "actuality" (that is, trees, rocks, buildings, people) but that language turns undifferentiated, meaningless nature into a differentiated, meaningful cultural reality. The most significant feature of Saussure's work is the argument that language precedes experience. We have no direct access to the world; our relationship to it is always mediated by, and dependent on, language.

Two important ideas from this excerpt, 1) No, structuralists aren't naive idealists who believe everything is somehow a construct of the mind, there is an external world 'out there'. 2) What we experience as reality is preceded by language.

I'd like to pause now and Reflect briefly on point three I made in my first post on postmodernism, that postmodernism isn't the same thing as existentialism. The two are often conflated with each other and with a naive idealism that to my knowledge no idealist ever believed, that postmodernists are out there making 'their own truth' whatever they want it to be, pace Sokal, jumping out of 21st floor apartment buildings without harm if that's how they personally wish to construct the world.

Descartes was the founder of modern philosophy, and he was French. He believed in a stable essence of the mind which allowed him to deduce certainty about some aspects of the world based on thought exercises. Jean-Paul Sartre (who chronologically came after Saussure), the famous French theorizer of existentialism is well known for his catch-phrase "existence precedes essence." Sartre then, thoroughly educated in Descartes' philosophy, denied any stable essence of the mind or consciousness, consciousness was a product of experience with the world. But the French structuralist Ferdinand de Saussure argues essentially, "language precedes existence." What constitutes a person's experiences is greatly determined by context, by reigning (power) structures such as language. Postmodernism is heavily influenced by this idea:

Much of what is usually referred to as "postmodern theory" derives from, or in response to, Ferdinand de Saussure's work in linguistics.  His theories have had enormous influence because of the way they challenge fundamental assumptions about the production of meaning and the relationship between language and the world. - et
 

In traditional modernism, the subject has an essential nature or an 'ego'. Existentialism rebels and now the subject is out making choices, hopefully authentic ones, "constructing himself" and so on. Postmodernism follows the existentialist rejection of essentiality, but takes up structuralism's discourse of the subject as determined by context. Rejoining where we left the discussion on Saussure's theory, what might be a simple, tangible example as to how language defines experience?

The most revolutionary element in Saussure's work is his insistence that languages don’t produce different versions of the same reality, they in effect produce different realities. That different languages conceptualize the world in significantly different ways is demonstrated by the fact that even such "physical" or "natural" phenomena as colours are not "the same" in different languages. Russian does not have a term for blue. The words poluboi and sinij which are usually translated as "light blue" and "dark blue" refer to what are in Russian distinct colours not different shades of the same colour. The English word brown has no equivalent in French. It is translated into brun, marron, or even jeune depending on the context. In Welsh the colour glas, though often translated as "blue," contains elements which English would identify as "green" or "grey." Because the boundaries are placed differently in the two languages the Welsh equivalent of the English "grey" might be glas or llwyd. - et

A clarification at this point is in order. It might be slightly confusing to read the above and work it into the definition of structuralism which I gave of looking for general patterns behind human institutions. How can that be, if human institutions are fragmented and constitute different realities? What is intended to be constant, however, are shall we say, the individual Legos, while the resulting project or structure, a Lego spaceship, or boat, or car are variable. The Legos in this case, are the signifiers and signifieds, and this is what all languages have in common.

Now we might be sly and ask, can Saussure, thinking within French, be sure that "signifier" and "signified" are articulated in other languages such that they are universally, the building blocks he claims they are? Questions like this seem to be what guide Jacques Derrida's critique of structuralism. Derrida shows (see especially Of Grammatology) that structuralism can't escape its own discourse, the articulation of structuralism doesn't happen from some privileged, stable space, it doesn't comment from "outside the text." There are preconditions, in fact, to language, the very language within which Saussure is writing. One might find this encapsulated in his invented term, "differ(a)nce." I'm going to try and get away with now saying, "differance precedes language" in Derrida's thought to keep with our allusion to Sartre. But Derrida fights tremendously the urge to just continue playing the game I'm calling here "this precedes that." On the one hand, Derrida recognizes he's helpless to escape this game, that's partly his point, but on the other, the game's underlying holism, can perhaps, be clarified. He says in his essay Differance,

..I wish to underline that the efficacy of the thematic of differance may very well, indeed must, one day be superseded, lending itself if not to its own replacement, at least to enmeshing itself in a chain that in truth it never will have governed.

I realize this is getting pretty abstract as I'm making no attempt here to explain what differance is (and good luck to me if I ever try), but the key point for this entry is that Derrida is acknowledging an inherent impossibility in the project of structuralism, or any other kind of -ism which might displace structuralism, including his own 'deconstruction' - ism. So while to an American educated science student like myself, structuralism appears "anti-foundational" with the pluralistic world it creates, there is an anti-foundationalism beyond that, which if not overturning structuralism, severely attempts to deepen it. This might be called, poststructuralism.

So now if we've come this far, where does postmodernism fit in? From Steven Best and Douglas Kellner's book, Postmodern Theory,

Poststructuralism forms part of the matrix of postmodern theory, and while the theoretical breaks described as postmodern are directly related to poststructuralist critiques, we shall interpret poststructuralism as a subset of a broader range of theoretical, cultural, and social tendencies which constitute postmodern discourses....

The discourse of the postmodern also encompasses a socio-historical theory of postmodernity and analysis of new postmodern cultural forms and experiences...

More extreme advocates of the postmodern were calling for ruptures with modern discourses and the development of new theories, politics, modes of writing, and values...

It's hard to know what quotes to pick as the discussion goes on for pages. From what I can gather, the postmodernists (postmodern theorists) are almost always shall we say, philosophically poststructuralists and adopt the discourse common to structuralism and poststructuralism. But a key defining characteristic would be their theorizing of a "postmodern age" which breaks with the modern age, or new theories on especially politics and society that attempt to radically break with modern conceptions. So while Jacques Derrida for instance, is often perceived as a poststructuralist, he's not really a postmodernist because his essential concern is his deconstructive reading of philosophers and theorists, not theorizing about a postmodern condition of the world or any supposed break between a modern and postmodern era. Whereas readily identifiable postmodern theorists like Jean Baudrillard are concerned with contemporary issues such as the Gulf War, terrorism and the twin towers, and the role of technology in contemporary life right down to the topic of password protection.  And all of this of course, as symptomatic of a postmodern condition, where his theorizing is both radicalized poststructuralism and post-Marxism.

 

*I have implicit permission to quote et since she complained (jokingly, I think) I didn't cite her on another blog entry of mine. But I never clarified whether such a citation could include using a real name.

The Real World Part 2
Topic: Postmodernism
I wanted to continue the discussion on the relation between postmodernism and the external world, since that's where the hottest disputes with it in cyberspace at least seem to erupt. There is one point I can't emphasize enough that contributes to misconceptions of postmodernism as being inherently anti-science or anti-"reality". I have a couple of excerpts from wikipedia that might help us get a handle on this, why trying to abstract commentary on the results of emperical science from postmodernism is difficult to do. From their entry on "Continental Philosophy":

Continental philosophy includes phenomenology, existentialism, hermeneutics, structuralism, post-structuralism and post-modernism, deconstruction, French feminism, critical theory such as that of the Frankfurt School, psychoanalysis, the works of Friedrich Nietzsche and S?ren Kierkegaard, and most branches of Marxism and Marxist philosophy (though there also exists a self-described Analytical Marxism).

Pop-quiz: Which philosophical subject at the root of the philosophy of science from the positivists to Kuhn is glaringly lacking in this definition?

***********

The answer is, epistemology. Critics with a standard American science education often seem to want one thing out of philosophy; a thorough justification of science which makes it the standard for human knowledge. Given that I have a standard American science education, I sympathize incredibly. I don't care for religion, I certainly don't want to leave the door open for any nutty idea out there God has supposidly communicated to be on equal ground with modern physics. But, how to assess the postmodernist's verdict on knowledge in any kind of a straightforward way if epistemology wasn't popular in Europe? When I began trying to read Derrida, having recently completed a modern philosophy class, I was thoroughly confused trying to make sense of it within the parameters of epistemology as had been laid out in my course, namely in studying Descartes, Hume, and Kant. That led me to assume the worst, initially, when I'd read pronounciations such as, "There is nothing outside the text." Instinctively, I wanted to apply everything I read to the problem of knowledge. But that doesn't quite work if the context has nothing to do with epistemology. Trying to figure out what Derrida's thought implies for emperical science or epistemology generally would be, in my opinion, tremendously difficult. To reiterate this point, one can't easily at all glean from the postmodernists commentary on the results of science experiments or the justification of knowledge generally, since they weren't studying those subjects. For the next quote:

Moreover, while analytic philosophy is generally carried on around certain perennial topics of dispute, as debates in which individual philosophers give their piecemeal contributions, continental philosophy has a tendency to center instead on key thinkers and to discuss their philosophies in relation to each other.

Context then, is ever more important when studying continental philosophy because the terminology will be tied the thinkers they are responding to. Obscure language aside, this alone will make covering ground more difficult since it means there will be more background to study before getting a handle on what's going on. This further underscores the point I've been trying to make that to understand the postmodernists, you have to understand what they're responding to. To sum up, the postmodern theorists aren't responding to the logical positivists, and those who they are responding to (i.e., their response to modernism) studied different subjects than the logical positivists. So to extract concise judgements by "postmodernism" which strike at the heart of science, as articulated by postivist philosophers of science, will be tough going.

Prophets, Drugs, and Spiritual Laboratories
Topic: Buskirk Review

Scientists, notably Sagan and Richard Feynman do have some strong rhetoric against authority. Though I think they probably aren't quite so naive about it as they might come across at times. Certainly, I can agree that science would come to a dead stand still if no one took any science on shall we say, "faith." There simply aren't enough hours in the day to confirm every experiment relevant to one's field prior to accepting them as true. And even if there were enough hours, it would be a terrible waste of time and resources. The important, and relatively straightforward point about authority is that in science, a patent clerk can revolutionize physics. And that in physics, revolutions are a good. In Mormonism, there is no concept of rejecting the revelations of a prophet. And if there is ever, the rejection of a revelation, that rejection must come from another prophet. At any point in Mormon history, the current prophet has always been irrefutably right. For those who think I exaggerate, please conjure up in your mind one doctrine, or matter of revelation, not opinion, that has ever been wrong. The problem isn't with authority, but supposed absolute and incontestable authority, the very kind the Mormon prophet claims.

Continuing on with how we might know religious truth, Dr. Buskirk cites Boyd K. Packer's salt as the sensus divinitatis in his well-known talk, The candle of the Lord.(304) To that I respond with Alice in Chain's, Junkhead,

You Can't Understand A User's Mind
But Try, With Your Books And Degrees
If You Let Yourself Go And Open Your Mind
I'll Bet You'd Be Doing Like Me
And It Ain't So Bad!

A Heroin addict might fail to articulate what his drug is like. But that doesn't mean we should take that leap of faith and find out for ourselves. If the religious experience is truly incommensurable, it's pointless to sell it as enlightenment. Equally likely, is that it's a trip into the "deranged and frenzied" as Korihor taught. You take a 50-50 chance. Maybe I'll try the red pill, maybe I won't. Maybe I'll try heroin, or perhaps Mormonism. If Anne Sulliven could figure out how to communicate with Helen Keller, then Packer is left without excuse.

Finally, Dr. Buskirk quotes Henry Eyring,

“I have often met this question: ‘Dr. Eyring, as a scientist, how can you accept revealed religion?’ The answer is simple. The Gospel commits us only to the truth. The same pragmatic tests that apply in science apply to religion. Try it. Does it work?”

How would the same pragmatic tests that apply in science apply to religion when religion, according to Dr. Buskirk, occupies the domain of a completely different category? How do you "try" moral obligations and come to the decision that they "work?"

Dragons and the Law of Consecration

Topic: Buskirk Review
Dr. Buskirk's commentary on Sagan's Dragon in the garage prefaces his Positivism-Popper-Kuhn tour of the philosophy of science.(20) It's an awkward beginning, however. He seems to realize falsification is Sagan's tool of choice(22), but somehow confuses Sagan's, “If there’s no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists?” with a strict example of the positivist idea that only statements with empirical content have meaning,

In the absence of experimental, hard evidence, the claim is simply meaningless. This idea stems from a group of philosophers in the early part of the twentieth century in Europe who called themselves logical positivists.(20)

The invisibility of the dragon in this case is merely incidental. It's not so much that the invisible dragon is difficult to detect, but that the dragon hypothesis turned and twisted until it seemed to retain none of its original content, the dragon didn't necessarily begin as an invisible dragon in the mind of the person making the claim. The criticism of the dragon hones in on the ad hoc revisions of what we all understand a dragon to be such that any honest assessment of the claim seems pointless. Can Dr. Buskirk imagine a reasonable way in this scenario to meaningfully speak of the Dragon's existence?

Sagan's reasoning is sure to even find a place in religious commentary. How many times has Hugh Nibley, for instance, been critical of the early church fathers for "spiritualizing" key doctrines and even his own church for "spiritualizing" the law of consecration?  In Approaching Zion he writes,

A bishop told me this month that people coming to renew their recommends when they are asked whether they keep all their covenants frequently answer no, explaining that they do not keep the law of consecration. A General Authority recently told me that the important thing is to observe the law of consecration "spiritually." Yes indeed, say I, and the law of tithing also - how much better to observe it spiritually than in a gross, material way - a great comfort to the rich. And yet the express purpose of both those laws is to test the degree of our attachment to material things, not to provide an exercise in "spiritual" semantics. (AZ p. 280)

We might ask, from Nibley's perspective, what on earth does it mean to live a law that decrees all material things to be held in common, spiritually? What does it mean to talk about a being the rest of the planet identifies as an animal that roasts its enemies in flames as an invisible, incorporeal entity that breaths "heatless fire?" As a Chemistry professor, would Dr. Buskirk acknowledge the meaning of fire without heat?

Moving away from Sagan per se for a moment, Karl Popper didn't believe that absent falsifiability, ideas become worthless. They just cease to be matters of science. Karl Popper himself believed that by their very nature, philosophical and metaphysical theories - his own bread and butter - are irrefutable. (Popper Selections, p.214).  More will be said on this topic later as it is relevant to Dr. Buskirk's white space on the matter of philosophy.

 I don't want to spend too much time on the rest of his summary of the philosophy of science through Kuhn, I'd just like to raise a question that might easily be overlooked. If science and religion respectively access the proposed categorically different domains of the descriptive and the normative respectively, why the concern to blunt the edge of science? If his distinction correctly reflects reality, then science can work with 100% absolute certainty and imply nothing for religion. Questioning the objectivity of science buys religion nothing while rescuing Dr. Buskirk's and Sagan's common enemy, pseudoscience. On the grounds of Dr. Buskirk's distinction, the relativistic reading of Kuhn salvages invisible dragons and body thetans, not gospel doctrines. 

Is it true that UFO research is a cult?
Topic: Buskirk Review
There is an interesting question about the science, or pseudoscience status of the portion of UFO investigation which feigns no interest in meaning but simply demonstrating the reality of an alien presence as a matter of fact. Dr. Buskirk is right with Sagan on this one and dismisses all of it out of hand as pseudoscience.  Now,  I would invite those FARMS buffs who agree whole heartedly with Buskirk's assessment to reconsider their position.  Those of us who follow FAIR are accustomed to Dr. Daniel Peterson starting a thread where he introduces the latest FROB, noting one or two of his favorite pieces and sarcastically referring to the authors as "merciless hacks," while then going on to enumerate their degrees and scholarly attainments. The problem it would seem, there is no shortage of critics who dismiss Book of Mormon research as pseudoscience the same way Dr. Buskirk dismisses UFO research. The point we're suppose to take I suppose, is the critics typically don't have the perceived educational background relevant to make an assessment on the quality of the research involved. John Gee is a real Egyptologist, Brant Gardner is a real Mesoamerican researcher, while credential wise, their critics are mere hobbyists. So I'd like to point out, one of the most well known UFOologists, Dr. Stanton Friedman, is a real physicist and was a classmate of Carl Sagan's at MIT. And infamously, the (late) John Mack, a Harvard psychiatrist on the topic of abduction. There are in fact many with advanced degrees within the UFO community. I just ask those who demand the LDS critics to see Book of Mormon studies as real, scholarly research, to be consistent and at least grant some UFO research the status of fringe science, rather than outright pseudoscience and fantasy of no worth like Dr. Buskirk does.

The Alien Landscape
Topic: Buskirk Review

A critic of Stephen Greer observes,

The CSETI difference is Greer's impatience with the traditional notion that we have to wait passively for them to show up. He believes we can prime the pump. Armed with a hardware cornucopia (high-power halogen lights, radar detectors, walkie-talkies, still and video cameras),

BUT,

Greer for years has studied both Transcendental Meditation and the Baha'i religion. TM emphasizes that civilization advances through quantum leaps in consciousness, while Bahaism stresses the spiritual oneness of mankind....

"The craft is round," Lisa says. "A ball. With many different lights around it. They communicate telepathically. If you say, 'Come in peace,' they'll come. If you think negatively, they won't come." "Right, right," says Greer. "That's very true."

http://www.mufon-ces.org/docs/outsidemagazine.pdf

The technology has a context, ultimately a spiritual, faith demanding one. 

To read about Billy Meier's photographs, see here http://www.billymeier.com/photos.htm. These photographs have been the subject of intense debate between believers and debunkers.  Though Meier's apologists are passionate, according Meier's website, "the decision as to their authenticity [the photos] ultimately lies with each and every individual." And the context of the technology is spiritual and social enlightenment:

Semjase had met Billy Meier face to face more than 135 times. She had brought other ETs with her - Ptah, Asket, and Quetzel. They all looked human. They had been coming to Earth for a long time. They gave Billy Meier amazing information about everything from science to philosophy. They were concerned about us - humans - their little brothers. We were, and still are, destroying ourselves and our planet. Nuclear-weapons proliferation, famine, disease, and pointless religions that miss the goals of spiritual evolution were the key topics of their message. http://www.tjresearch.info/Dilettoso.htm

There is the interplay between technology, proof, and spiritual enlightenment, and of course the existential journey of the discovery process. In Billy's words,

By the mid-1970s, I was prepared for the spiritual philosophy to which the Pleiadians educated me. It is a philosophy emphasizing the immortality of the individual spirit or soul, and its purpose in life is to learn, even when it means making mistakes and learning from the mistakes. The learning goes on in successive lifetimes, or reincarnations, over which time the soul gradually evolves and accumulates memories and knowledge normally unavailable to us except as feelings of conscience. http://raphael-labro.org/billy_meier2.html

I'm just curious what exactly, makes Joseph Smith's life and message so much different than Meier's? What makes Joseph Smith a prophet, and Meier a pseudo-scientist? How does Meier's "scientism" fail to wholesale miss the domain religion gives us access to? Or has Buskirk simply lumped the entire UFO community together as one entity and is not aware that there is in fact, irrespective of Sagan's more narrow case, a strong religious streak within the alien community? In fact, in these cases it would appear the "science" is a mere supplement to a greater goal. Take a look at the names of some Pleiadian books: "Family of Light," "Bringers of Dawn," "Comes the Awakening." Where are the warp drive schematics?

The various kinds of alien reports over the years yield a cosmic narrative. While Mormons have the aristocratic falling out in heaven, the creation, and Noah and the ark, alien mystics have their own backdrops to stage mankind and its problems:

http://ufo.whipnet.org/alien.races/exopolitics.org/index4.html

http://galactic.to/kjole/nordic/human-et-history.html

http://www.thewatcherfiles.com/alien_races.html

The accounts vary. But typically you have all alien races stemming from the Lyrians. Dr. Buskirk should be tickled to learn of the Grays, a race of technology crazed control freaks devoid of any humanity who blew up their home world in nuclear war and fled underground where they've mutated from normal human form into the little gray guys with big eyes (it's dark down there). They are all, I suspect unequivocally, logical positivists. And they are the ones responsible for abductions and cattle mutilations. The kind of weekend activity we of course, expect out of men of the enlightenment who don't have a church where they can "surround themselves with symbols and objects linked with the divine." (10) The Pleiadians, on the other hand, having already overcome many of their own social problems are religious sages. They stand with Buskirk against the totalizing of narrow thinking modernism and call man back to his spiritual roots. But they, like the angels in Mormonism, weave a fabric of nuanced spiritual experience along with impressive real-life encounters and photographic evidence. Not everyone gets to see Moroni or heft the plates, but all are welcome to meditate and receive "sudden strokes of ideas" (31) from the Pleiadian.

And let's not forget the grand-daddy of all alien cults, Heaven's gate. Where is their obsession with technology and scientific explanations? Hard Sci-Fi just doesn't sell universally to all those who reject traditional religion. It would seem there is a strong religious appeal, religious by Dr. Buskirk's criteria, not Sagan's, within the UFO world.

It's ok to Laugh at People who Believe in Aliens rather than Angels
Topic: Buskirk Review

Because that's just pseudoscience. Dr. Buskirk agrees with Sagan on the absurdity of UFO research and also includes "fundamentalists" in his grouping of those who provide neither scientific nor religious value,

This craving for certainty is manifest in the searching for signs of UFO visitations; proponents claim that there is hard evidence, including photographs, movies, physical marks on abductees, and a crashed flying saucer stored in Area 51. These physical data relieve the UFO believer of the difficulty of developing faith in an unseen God, offering instead a cheap certainty. Rather than cultivating personal experiences of the sacred, UFO cults replace faith with credulity and blind trust in supposed scientific evidence. Not only can science supposedly prove the existence of these alien or higher beings, but it can to some extent explain their powers.

Of course, the foundational story of Mormonism begins with three literal witnesses to a set of Golden Plates, and then eight more witness who don't get to see, but can touch and heft the plates. And does Buskirk follow FARMS at all? It seems there is plenty of interest in establishing through the historico-critical method, the credibility of the Book of Mormon witnesses, archeological evidence for the Book of Mormon, and Parallels to the ancient world.  Granted, the FARMS associates I've interacted with don't see their attempts as aiming for "absolute certainty" but plausibility, and following Dr. Peterson, possibly the upper hand in the evidential debate.  But I don't think Dr. Buskirk really understands the diversity of UFO communities. For instance, Acolytes of Billy Meier, famous for his photographs of spacecraft, like FARMS, will boast the credibility of their evidence, but they don't believe the matter as settled with the absolute certainty Dr. Buskirk talks about. In fact, they emphasize the "personal responsibility" of those who undertake UFO studies to "decide for themselves." For a great many of these people, a personal, spiritual journey is involved. The aliens reveal themselves to those who are ready. Consider the well-known Dr. Stephen Greer, founder of CSETI, who takes tour groups into the mountains to communicate with alien crafts.  Sometimes those experiences entail a literal close encounter, but the usual it would seem to be is "telepathic" communication, the efficacy of that communication mitigated by personal desire for enlightenment.  Which bring us to the next point,

Alien cults display faith in science—a kind of scientism—to the point of a near worship of technology. Humans now love new toys: shiny new cars, MP3 players, flat-screen televisions... Men and women thoroughly indoctrinated in the modern worldview can satisfy their religious needs without the supposed mystic mumbo-jumbo of traditional religion. Better yet, it’s rather easy. No faith is required, and the aliens don’t ask much in return...far more appealing than a Galilean Jewish peasant who lived two millennia ago.

Dr. Buskirk is way off here. Alien buffs are often openly New Agey and mystical. If it makes sense to speak of a post-modern world, without question, "Alien cults" are are a good fit for that landscape. The techno-geek private investigators exist, but that clinical world doesn't appeal to many of those who are religiously obsessed with aliens. And to the extent that technology does impress the faithful, consider, as Buskirk does later in his essay, that Jesus Christ built his following in part by turning water into wine and raising the dead.  Like Meier or Joseph Smith, Jesus launched his religious campaign with material feats.  The next segment will document a little bit of Meier and Greer and some of the variable terrain within the alien landscape Dr. Buskirk I don't believe has encountered.  And that terrain, it seems to me, can be an awful  lot like Mormonism at times.