1/5: RALLY FOR THE BUFFALO IN MONTANA'S STATE CAPITAL!

From Buffalo Field Campaign

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RALLY FOR THE BUFFALO IN MONTANA'S STATE CAPITAL!

Dear Buffalo Friends in Montana,

Join Buffalo Field Campaign and other wild bison advocates on Monday, January 5, 2009 for a *RALLY IN HELENA*! We need you to stand with us for the buffalo as both Governor Brian Schweitzer and the Montana Legislature are sworn into office. Stand with us to let the Montana Governor and the Legislature know that wild buffalo have a right to migrate into and be treated respectfully in Montana!

* WHO: Everyone who cares about restoring wild bison in Montana

* WHAT: March & Rally with banners, puppets, speakers and take action items

* WHEN: Monday, January 5, 2009. 9:00 - 10:30 am

* WHERE: Meet at Women's Park then we'll march to the state capital around 9:30 am. Women's Park is located between Neill and Fuller Avenues, near N. Last Chance Gulch, about a mile from the state capital building. Visit Google Maps, and type in Women's Park, Helena, Montana for a map and directions.

* WHY: America's last wild bison that migrate into Montana from Yellowstone National Park continue to be harassed and killed for following their natural instincts. Last year, the state of Montana and Yellowstone National Park perpetuated the largest-scale wild bison slaughter since the 1800's, killing more than 1,600 wild bison. During Governor Schweitzer's first term, more wild bison were killed than under the combined three terms of the governors who preceded him, even though when he first campaigned he did so under the promise to provide "more tolerance for wild bison in Montana."

We gather to hold the Governor accountable for his actions against wild bison, to encourage him to support actions recognizing wild bison as a valued wildlife species in Montana, and to provide year-round habitat for this special, prehistoric species.

When he ran for office Governor Schweitzer said that the Montana Department of Livestock (DOL) is "ill-equipped to manage wild buffalo." We will ask the Montana legislature to repeal MCA 81-2-120, the current law that places the Montana Department of Livestock in charge of bison management, and urge them to support LC0128, the Montana Wild Buffalo Recovery and Concervation Act of 2009; a bill that will remove the DOL's authority, respect wild bison, and designate Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks as the managing agency.

We will also have post cards on hand for you to sign and mail or hand deliver to your state legislators, and we'll have enough post cards for you to take back to your community. Hot beverages and snacks will be provided to keep you warm and happy!

CONTRIBUTE YOUR CREATIVITY & ENERGY! There are many ways you can help make this rally a success:

• Join us and bring your friends and family
• Make banners, puppets, masks (Message should include: Year-round habitat, Respect bison as wildlife, Remove the DOL's authority, or any others that are close to your heart for the buffalo)
• Organize or be available for carpools to get as many people as possible to attend
• Distribute fliers around your community (flyer to be distributed in subsequent email)
• Contact local media to let them know about the event
• Write letters to the editor of local and regional newspapers to talk about the buffalo

We look forward to seeing you there! Please spread the word to save the herds!

For more information, please visit http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org or contact bfc-media@wildrockies.org


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Media & Outreach
Buffalo Field Campaign
P.O. Box 957
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
406-646-0070
bfc-media@wildrockies.org
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

BFC is the only group working in the field every day
in defense of the last wild buffalo population in the U.S.

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Media & Outreach

Buffalo Field Campaign
P.O. Box 957
West Yellowstone, MT 59758
406-646-0070
bfc-media@wildrockies.org

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

BFC is the only group working in the field every day

in defense of the last wild buffalo population in the U.S.

Stay informed! Get our weekly email Updates from the Field:

Send our email address to bfc-media@wildrockies.org

* View BFC Video Footage:
http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org

* Why are they killing the last wild buffalo?

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/issueinbrief.html

* Buffalo Field Campaign Blog

http://www.blog.buffalofieldcampaign.org

* Protect Horse Butte for Wild Buffalo!

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/legal/horsebutte.html

* BOYCOTT BEEF! It's what's killing wild buffalo

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/boycott.html

* Speak Out! Contact politicians and involved agencies today:

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/politicians.html

* Write a Letter to the Editor of key newspapers:

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/actnow/lte.html

* BFC Wish List

http://www.buffalofieldcampaign.org/aboutus/wishlist.html

Return to the Ontological Argument for God's existence

It's been awhile since I have written anything for this blog, but it's not for lack of activity. Instead of writing essays, I've been on the ground organizing for Buffalo Allies of Bozeman.

However, returning to my roots in philosophy, I've recently been discussing God with my dearest friend. I recently remarked that I've always been impressed with a version of the Ontological Argument for the existence of God. This, perhaps, may surprise some of you who may only know me for my anarchist writings. It's certainly anarchist heresy to be a theist and an anarchist. But, perhaps, that's another part of what makes me eclectic.

My father is a United Methodist minister back in Ohio. He always taught us that Christianity is a radical religion, that love in particular is the most radical concept the world has ever known. Unfortunately, little about Christianity or love in practice is all that particularly radical. However, we were always taught that in Christ there was no male or female, for instance. That, God's kingdom resided principally within the hearts of the community of believers, that the "kingdom" was an anti-kingdom where the last shall be first, and God was first servant of all. The language of hierarchy was used to invert and subvert hierarchy. The only thing that mattered was the practice of love to each other. "What you do unto the least of these, you do unto me."

That sounds in some sense Quaker, for those of you familiar, and to some extent it is. However, culturally, I've always felt more at home with non-Christians, with those who preferred to make a lot of noise, with those who weren't afraid to identify with trouble making and subversion - who weren't afraid to embrace the radical aspects of virtue. So, perhaps, most of my friends have been agnostics of various types, pagans, and other kinds of spiritualists.

And, yet, all that being the case, I am firmly a theist.

In that context with one of my agnostic/atheist and dearest of friends, I have tried to explain why it is I believe in God and what I mean by that.

Here is most of the recent letter that I sent her, covering my arguments for the ontological argument and then moving beyond that, trying to bridge the implications of the ontological argument, the implications of my experience as a being, with faithful adherence to a theistic view of God.

This is only the start. If people want to chime in relevant comments, they are welcome to do so. You can find some very old writings by me on the subject at http://www.geocities.com/jsmacdonaldjr/six.html. Defending the basis of these views is at the heart of everything I do and has taken up many years of my life. No doubt you can find many online arguments I've had with people just by doing some Web searches.

Here is my letter written today:

Aneslm's version of the ontological argument.

Define God as "that than which a greater cannot be conceived."
"That than which a greater cannot be conceived" includes the concept of existence because a "that than which a greater cannot be conceived" would not be a "that than which a greater cannot be conceived" if it lacked existence.
Therefore, God exists.

Critique: The argument does not prove that existence is necessarily greater than non-existence. That is, if one denies that existence is not something that necessarily makes a concept greater, where is the contradiction in that? Therefore, God's existence would not depend upon the definition of God, it would depend on knowing the value of existence to a concept. So, it is incomplete.

Leibniz's version of the ontological argument.

Define God as "necessary," that is as "that which cannot be conceived not to be."
If God is possible, then God exists. That is, if the concept of a "that which cannot be conceived not to be" is logically possible, that is - without contradiction -, it must exist because nothing can limit it from being.
God is possible. That is, there is no contradiction in conceiving of a "that which cannot be conceived not to be."
Therefore, God exists.

It follows from this that this is the only sort of being whose existence follows merely from considering the definition. That is, I don't exist by definition because I might not have been and might not be. That is, one could posit the non-existence of anything that is not necessary.

A "that which cannot be conceived not to be" is little different than positing the law of noncontradiction, not merely as a law of our thought, but as an existing being in its own right.

But, why call this God? What would it have to do with the God believed in by the churches or the various religions of the world?

Let's consider this more. However, let's note this first. One thing that religious people certainly mean by God is a being that cannot be conceived not to be. The existence of God must be the most pre-eminent axiom of a religion, but whether what necessarily exists bears any other likeness to what people call God than mere existence is a pertinent question. Why not simply call a "that which cannot be conceived not to be" simply a law of reason, or a law of being, required for reason, required for understanding reality, but not an active being in its own right, not a good being, not an all powerful being, not an all present being - as is required by theism.

Certainly, if we simply stop with the law of noncontradiction, we merely have God as an empty tautology. The philosopher and logician Fred Sommers called the ontological argument by Leibniz a sound argument; however, he said that it implied that this notion of "God" was purely negative. It suggested that God was simply the domain of discourse, or the domain in which we make assertions about objects in the world, but was nothing else in its own right. To suggest that God was more than a domain of discourse would lead to paradoxes that philosophy is not (yet) equipped to deal with - namely others like Bertrand Russell argued, how an object could be a member of its own class. How could we make assertions about God - defined first as a necessary being - if God is the domain in which all assertions about God must be considered.

So, to say as theists do that God is all powerful, all knowing, always present, and all good would be, according to this view, to make claims about God that cannot be applicable to the concept of God.

Therefore, we need to look more closely at the question of what else can be known about God; we also have to understand how tautologies of any type can be incarnate, so to speak.

Just as there is one thing that can be known to exist by consideration of its definition - that is, necessary being (a "that which cannot be conceived not to be"), there is at least one being that can be known to exist through the consideration of experience. Descartes's great dictum whereby he recognized his own existence because he was not able to escape the notion that it was he who was thinking it. When he tried, it was he who was trying. In fact, I do exist. I might not have existed; I may not exist. However, I do in fact exist right now. That I exist, I who am thinking, who might have been otherwise. My existence, however necessary to acknowledge right now, by force of the inescapable experience of my existence, am not a logically necessary being. That is, I can be conceived not to be, at least in terms of what I am, even if I am unable to conceive of it as I am thinking it right now in terms of my experience. This is what Leibniz in part meant by calling a being contingent. Logically, a contingent being, as opposed to a necessary being, is one that can be logically (essentially) conceived not to be without contradiction. However, in one sense, my being is necessary, in that I cannot escape the conclusion that I do in fact exist. That is what Leibniz meant by hypothetical necessity. That is, it might not have been the case that I exist, but that I exist is surely a necessary conclusion. It does not follow from my essence, however. It's not the same nature as a "that which cannot be conceived not to be." That is a being that necessarily exists in fact and also by logic. There is nothing hypothetical about it. The existence of a necessary being does not depend upon me conceiving of God's existence; in fact, it's the other way around.

So, here I am, a being whose existence is contingent. It might not have been; in my definition, I don't contain within me the reason for my own existence. What then is the reason for my existence? To suggest that there is no reason for my existence is nonsensical because the lack of sufficient reason for my existence is precisely what makes me distinct from that of a necessary being. To deny a sufficient reason is to deny my own existence, which we cannot in fact do. Thus, we have unearthed another principle of reason, one that follows from considering the distinction between necessity and contingency. That is, there is such a thing as a principle of sufficient reason. There must be a reason that explains what a thing is - either that thing is necessary, in which its existence is explained from within its own definition, or a thing is contingent, in which its existence is explained by something else.

What explains my existence? Perhaps, it is another contingent being. Maybe, we are like a jigsaw puzzle, not one of us is explained in ourselves, but we are explained by the sum of our parts fitting together. In that way, our sufficiency is a sum. But, then the reason - the sum - is still something which is distinct from a consideration of the parts themselves. Even if we considered existence a sum of parts (a problem for infinite reasons), the sum itself is not reducible to a consideration of the meaning of the part. That is, the existence of contingent beings cannot be explained by contingent beings, no matter how many others there are, and no matter how they fit together. The sufficient reason for anything contingent must have its reason arise from something necessary. Out of the nature of necessary being then, my own existence arises.

This leads to more questions. How can what is necessary implicate the reality of my own existence, which we know is contingent? This is an important question, but we cannot deny that we have reached the point where we cannot doubt that the question has a rational answer to it even if we are not there. One thing we must realize is that there is a connection between my own existence and the existence of necessary being, and this also is something that is consistent with what we find in the religions. But, we must admit its also what we find in philosophies like materialism, which teach that we arise out of the material of the universe. If the universe is that material, and that material is necessary, then we who are less than the sum of the universe nevertheless find our reality from the attributes of universal matter, according to this view. This is not something the religions generally would subscribe to. It doesn't bring us to a theistic notion of God, but it brings us now closer to understanding the connection. Notice that what I've done here , though, in considering the nature of sufficient reason, is give a version of the cosmological argument. It is an argument that derives its force only if the ontological argument is sound. If it is not, then the cosmological argument cannot hold weight. If one can truly deny that a necessary being exists, then there is no reason to posit a principle of sufficient reason.

I'm going to stop here. I've taken a lot of steps; do we need to backtrack? Is there something to this point that you don't find ironclad convincing? We need to stop and look over that. That starts with the ontological argument.

Where have I gone amiss, if I have gone amiss? I have not considered Kant's objections here, either. Should I go over those before I move forward?