The most recent 20 comments posted to Making Light by Kinsley Castle:

"Circular argument! Wizards aren't over governed because there are enough of them to support that size of government..."

That isn't my point. My point is that most of the details invented by J K Rowling for her fictional world point to a population in excess of 100 thousand British wizards. If you're arguing that the wizarding world is over-governed, you're assuming a much smaller number. The only real argument in favor of a small population is that there is only one school.

Clearly, it's better to explain the dearth of schools than to argue that the whole look and feel of J K Rowling's world is wrong. Frankly, the most likely explanation is that JKR fudged the figures to make Hogwarts a more significant component of the wizarding world than it otherwise might have been. But I'm sure everyone would be happier with an in-world explanation.

"I'm pretty sure that it is mentioned that nearly every wizard goes to Hogwarts."

Reference?

If it was ever said that "everyone goes to Hogwarts", was it meant literally, as in, "Everyone is born with a brain." Or is it meant loosely, as in, "Everyone has an iPod." Is it literally everyone who goes to Hogwarts, or just everyone who's anyone?

I think those of you arguing the wizarding community is over-governed are probably underestimating the wizard population. You're only considering one data point -- that there's only one wizard's school -- and ignoring all the contrary evidence.

First, we know, from book five, that there are enough wizards in Britain to fill half of a very large stadium. And not everyone would have gone to the Quidditch World Cup. There are enough wizards to justify maintaining Azkaban and the ministry (but not so many there needs to be more than one prison or one tier of government). There are enough wizards to keep two newspapers in business, a specialist wand-maker, several rock bands, a large hospital, the flue network, and a whole department of aurors. To me, that suggests a population in the hundreds of thousands, at least.

Second, consider that wizard society in general is quite archaic. I don't find it unusual a modern idea like universal education might have passed them by. I suspect that large numbers of kids just don't go to school at all; they're home schooled, or privately tutored (which would explain why Voldemort had to hire gangs of thugs to hunt down truants, who must have numbered in the thousands).

I think this idea of no universal education is supported by Hogwarts itself. Hogwarts is quite reminiscent of Rugby school, as it's described in Tom Brown's Schooldays. That is, it's an elite boarding school. I'd say kids go to Hogwarts because: (1) they're muggle-born and have to be introduced to the wizarding world; (2) like the Weasley's, they have a family tradition of going to Hogwarts; (3) their parents, like the Malfoys, have political ambitions, and seek status by sending their children to Hogwarts.

Glen Fisher: Because you've written a thoughtful post on this issue, I will try to respond in the same spirit.

Similarly, to determine whether religion is "useful", you have to say what you're trying to use it for. As you haven't said that, you seem to be claiming it's of no use at all, for any task imaginable, which would seem to be a very hard claim to support.

The utility the atheist discovers in atheism is its explanatory power. To an atheist the world makes more sense without God. That there is no higher power watching over us is a satisfactory solution to the problem of evil. That there is no heaven and hell, no redemption, and no reason to be redeemed assuages religious guilt and the fear of death. That Jesus is not God explains why there are so many schisms and doctrinal disagreements amongst Christians, and why so many people hold religious beliefs besides Christianity. The atheist finds no utility in theism because theism offers few convincing explanations for them, and increases anxiety over existential and doctrinal issues rather than creating happiness.

True, this does not mean there is no utility in religion for anyone. Pat Robertson, George Bush, and the average medieval Pope have certainly gained a great deal of mileage out of people's religious beliefs. But such usages are not considered particularly worthy by the atheist.

"Enlightened": whether we are living in more or less enlightened times than we used to depends on what you deem to constitute "enlightenment". There are a considerable number of people who claim that the 21st Century is less enlightened than times past, and point to the prevalence of greed and intolerance as support.

When an atheist uses the term "enlightenment" he is almost always talking about the philosophical movement of the 17th and 18th centuries, out of which came science. This has nothing to do with greed and intolerance. (Your use of enlightenment here seems to have more in common with the Socratic notion of virtue.) The chief tenet of enlightenment philosophy is "self-improvement through rational enquiry". Now, as an Empiricist, I personally have problems with this version of rationalism, but its importance to the enlightenment cannot be ignored. It denied the authority of the Catholic Church over the natural world, and asserted that "truth" could be discovered by the individual through the medium of reasoned argument.

If there's anything people cannot agree on, it's what makes them happy. "Happiness" is about as subjective a term as you could find. There are people who are made happy by having lots of stuff. There are people who are made happy by having no stuff at all. There are people who are made happy by being able to stay in the same place for their whole lives.

I agree that happiness is not a very good word. It's a shame that the English language has no more appropriate term for the philosophical/psychological concepts that get bundled under "happiness". And the components of this more intellectually rigorous happiness are fairly well understood. Happiness is freedom from deprivation and physical harm. It is freedom from fear. It is to be loved and to belong. It is to achieve and to be recognized for one's achievements. It is understanding and the pursuit of knowledge. And finally, it is to know and to be at peace with oneself.

Sometimes these notions of personal needs are combined with utilitarian ethics -- "the greatest good for the greatest number" -- or secular humanism. But overall, the pursuit of happiness is a motivating force for many atheists. The pursuit is a substitute for Christian notions of "the meaning of life", which usually has something to do with serving God -- notions that are, of course, nonsensical to an atheist. Life has no ultimate meaning, but you can give it purpose, and you can die fulfilled.

Disbelief in Really Big Powerful Guys Up There (RBPGUTs) is as much a religious position as any form of belief is. Any statement about whether RBPGUTs exist or not is, at its core, a statement of religion. Science has nothing to say on the subject. Science bases its claims on evidence, and while there is no evidence that RBPGUTs exist, neither is there evidence that they don't. (Remember that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.)

I imagine that very few atheists would ever agree with the argument you make here. And the trouble with it is the word "exist". You are attempting to coopt what is a simple existential problem and make it the exclusive preserve of religion. But if you're using a word like "exist" with no qualification whatsoever, you are not making a religious claim, but a factual one. It is true that science, or indeed any kind of Empiricism, cannot say with 100% certainty that God does not exist. But then science cannot make 100% certain claims about anything. Instead, an atheist will ask the question, "Is it reasonable that God exists?" Or, in other words, "Is the probability of God's existence far enough above zero to take it seriously, or is it statistically insignificant?"

Is it reasonable to suppose that an intelligent agent kicked off the big bang, as opposed to an unintelligent agent? Is it reasonable to claim that something as complex as the universe requires an intelligent designer, but something as complex as God doesn't? Is it reasonable to suppose that the God who would make an entire universe would take special interest in one particular planet that's less significant than a single grain of sand on a beach? Is it reasonable to suppose that the creator God would take special interest in a species that has existed for less than a fraction of a percent of the universe? Is it reasonable to suppose that your religion just happens to be the true one, out of the thousands of other religious beliefs that have existed through human history? Is it reasonable to suppose that the creator of a universe unimaginably larger than yourself cares personally about you? Is it reasonable to ignore every bit of scientific data that's consistent with a naturalistic universe and say God exists anyway?

And if you're prepared to swallow all of that on behalf of God, then who's to say that the invisible pink unicorn (PBUH!) doesn't exist? Or the flying spaghetti monster? Or fairies that steal cheese out of your refrigerator? Of course, you could just dodge all of these sorts of questions -- but only by making the word "exist" mean something different from what the dictionary says it means.

Moreover, RBPGUTs are not posited merely to bring comfort, but to bring control. They exist (for some values of "exist") as an attempt to control the otherwise-uncontrollable forces of nature. To keep the typhoons from destroying the crops, you need an entity more powerful than the typhoon. Mere mortals can't do that, so you enlist the help of any non-mortals you can get.

Typhoons destroy crops all the time (don't even talk to me about bananas). People die in horrific accidents. Kids shoot other kids with guns, sometimes accidentally and sometimes not. Wars come and go. Epidemics come and go. Economies collapse and are rebuilt. All the mass of humanity goes about its business on this planet day in and day out. Good things and bad things happen. No amount of prayer or appeal to celestial authority makes the slightest bit of difference. You can sit in the dark and call out the name of your God and he won't answer... but another human being might.

Yes, there are dogmatic and defensive atheists. There are some, like Richard Dawkins, who are that way because they are ferociously intelligent, passionate, and unwilling to compromise. But I'd say the majority are Americans, suffering the emotional toll that social ostracism reaps. They're considered monsters by the right and spiritual cripples by the left. The article linked from the OP is a typical example of the kind of crap they face every day of their lives.

Frankly, I don't think the current US administration can be compared to the Nazis. After all, Hitler had a workable strategy going into WWII, and at least one competent associate in Rommel.

And just because I couldn't resist, here's The Empirical Storm Troopers.

I'm with SteveE here. The Empirical Storm Troopers are great. They're the little bespectacled guys with the scales and slide-rules who mutter things like, "That's one-point-three-seven give or take a gnat's whisker."

"if we find something like the theorems of euclidean geometry encoded in our genes I am going to start believing in intelligent design."

Actually, I'd consider that to be unintelligent design. You'd be encoding something in the genetic material that serves no direct purpose, as far as the organism is concerned.

It would also imply that Euclid was God.

"To whip back to an earlier part of the thread, something that annoyed me (in my childhood, but still) about the question 'How does Santa visit all the children in the world in just one night?' is that, well... He doesn't."

I guess it's easy to falsely assume that everyone around the world does things exactly the same. And then you realize that, actually, the majority of the world's population isn't even Christian.

So when you pose the question, "How does Santa visit all those houses on Christmas eve?" the majority of the world's children are going to say, "Who's Santa?"

"...the current U.S. administration has been chastising our Canadian leaders for bringing a bit of anti-U.S. sentiment into our election campaign. Just this week, the U.S. ambassador gave a speech warning our leaders that they were on a 'slippery slope'."

Bush tried to pull the same stunt a while ago during the Australian elections. He said, gee, it would be kind of swell if all you guys voted for that nice Mr Howard again. Only, in that case, he was obliged to come out later and say that, no, he wasn't trying to influence the democratic process in Australia.

But Howard still got in, because the other guy wasn't up to scratch.

Hmm. I wonder if Santa takes advantage of the time dilation effect when he's out in the sleigh on Christmas eve? Do you think that flying reindeer can achieve a relativistic speed?

Have a very Infernokrusher christmas. ;-)

So, does this mean Michael Moore gets a free kick at the Repubs in USA Today, if he can write something more coherent and slightly less rabid than Coulter? Oh, the irony.

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