There is an assumption among many atheists that atheism somehow is synonymous with science, or else that only atheism is really rational as a worldview because of its basis in science. The most recent expression of this view was by Sam Harris in a speech last year at an atheists’ convention in Washington DC, in which he recommended that atheists should not identify themselves as atheists, but see atheism merely as a subset of rationality or science. Although Naturalism as a philosophy of science can be traced back to Hume and Mill, its most prominent exponents in the 20th century have arguably been Ernest Nagel and Morris Cohen, who expressed their views of the scientific foundations of Naturalism in works such as their An Introduction to Logic and Scientific Method of 1934. 1 Part of the hostility towards non-materialistic approaches to science, such as Intelligent Design and parapsychology, comes from the conviction that these highly controversial subjects cannot be scientific because they are predicated on non-material causes. Indeed, they are denounced by their opponents as ‘non-science’ or ‘anti-science’. The opponents of these sciences see themselves as preserving science against its corruption and distortion from religion and the supernatural. Yet rather than materialists being the defenders of science, it can also be alleged that they have also corrupted science by introducing their own philosophical assumptions into it.
It has been observed that up until the 18th century, science was essentially the ‘mind’s road to God’, with scientists attempting to read the Book of Nature as part of the general enterprise of finding and understanding the Lord. This also included what we would now consider as psi phenomena. Francis Bacon, in his Sylva Sylvarum of 1627, recommended ‘experiments in consort, monitory, touching transmission of spirits and forces of imagination’ and that ‘the experiment of binding of thoughts should be diversified and tried to the full’. 2
By the late 19th century, however, telepathy was firmly out of favour with scientists, despite the efforts of scientists such as the Society for Psychical Research in Britain and the American Society for Psychical Research to investigate it and provide experimental proof of its existence. For the great pioneering psychologist of religion, William James, this opposition was grounded in the challenge it posed to the materialist basis of science. ‘Why do so few ’scientists’ even look at the evidence for telepathy, so called? Because they think, as a leading biologist, now dead once said to me, that even if such a thing were true, scientists ought to band together to keep it suppressed and concealed. It would undo the uniformity of Nature and all sorts of other things without which scientists cannot carry on their pursuits.’ 3 Yet the uniformity of nature itself has a distinct origin in religious, and particularly Christian, metaphysics.
‘Historically, it is relatively easy to demonstrate that the notion of the ‘laws of nature’ is firmly grounded in a Christian doctrine of creation. They are to be regarded not as arbitrary regulations imposed upon the world from without on an occasional basis, but as a permanent expression and embodiment within the world of the mind of God as creator. The idea that nature is governed by ‘laws’ does not appear to be a significant feature of Greek, Roman or Asian conceptions of science; it is firmly entrenched within the Judaeo-Christian tradition, reflecting the specifics of a Christian doctrine of creation.’ 4
There is an irony here in that the concept of laws of nature, which for Naturalists rules out the miraculous and the supernatural, is the product of Christian philosophy.
The doctrine of the uniformity of nature in particular, which James’ biologist friend felt so strongly was inviolable, has been used by philosophers since Spinoza to rule out miracles. Yet Spinoza insisted on the uniformity of nature and the non-existence of miracles because he felt that these were necessitated by the divine nature itself. In proposition 29 of part one of his Ethics, he stated that ‘Everything is determind by the necessity of the divine nature’. This he restated in less metaphysical language in chapter 4 of his Tractatus Theologico-Politicus as ‘everything is determined by universal laws of nature to exist and act in a certain and determinate way’. 5
Atheist opponents of religion have often criticised it as wishful thinking, yet one can also make the case that Naturalism too is based on what its proponents wish to be true, as much as, or rather than, what they consider to be rationally acceptable. Nagel himself stated that he ‘didn’t want there to be a God’. In this instance, atheist philosophical preference and prejudice, rather than a superior rationality and open-mindedness, can be seen to be an obstacle to certain controversial areas of research. In the case of parapsychology, meta-analysis of the positive results of 597 experimental studies and 235 control studies by 68 investigators on the influence of consciousness on micro-electronic system by Dean Radin and Roger Nelson of Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research laboratory showed that the odds that the overall result was due to chance was in one in 10 to the power of 35. 6 Now psychical research contains to be highly controversial, despite the immense interest in it by an increasing number of respected scientists. In this instance, it can be considered that in the case of parapsychology at least, there is a legitimate scientific case which is being denied through atheist philosophical prejudice, imported into and confused with true scientific scepticism.
Notes
1. ‘Naturalism’ in Stathis Psillos, Philosophy of Science A-Z (Edinburgh, Edinburgh University Press 2007), pp. 158-9; ‘Nagel, Ernest’ in Psillos, Philosophy of Science, p. 155-156; John Passmore, One Hundred Years of Philosophy (Harmondsworth, Penguin Books 1957), p. 293.
2. Francis Bacon, Sylva Sylvarum, cited in Alister Hardy, The Biology of God (London, Jonathan Cape 1975), p. 139.
3. ‘William James: The Will to Believe’, in Paul Helm, Faith and Reason (Oxford (Oxford University Press 1999), pp. 241-2.
4. Alister E. McGrath, The Science of God: An Introduction to Scientific Theology (T &T Clark International, London 2004), p. 131.
5. ‘Spinoza, Baruch’ in Passmore, Philosophy, p. 336.
6. Richard Milton, Forbidden Science: Exposing the Secrets of Suppressed Research (London, Fourth Estate 1995), p. 57.
January 25, 2008 at 11:45 pm |
“Naturalism too is based on what its proponents wish to be true, as much as, or rather than, what they consider to be rationally acceptable”
No.
Naturalism is based on what we can observe and measure, and is limited by the same.
If naturalism was based on wishful thinking, I’d have a god like yours, only nicer.
January 26, 2008 at 11:21 am |
Naturalism is based on what we can observe and measure, and is limited by the same.
Nope – it goes beyond this, in that it insists that what can be observed and measured is all that exists. This is a philosophical position that goes beyond the mere facts of what can be observed and measured.
As for Naturalism not being based on wishful thinking, regardless of your individual motives for being a Naturalist, this is still true. James’ biologist friend, remember, rejected telepathy outright, even if it was true, because it was a threat to his entire scientific worldview. Or rather, he perceived it as a threat. Ernest Nagel still said that he didn’t want God to exist.
January 26, 2008 at 6:18 pm |
You have blurred philosophical and methodological naturalism.
We have evidence for naturalism, because it is evidence based. If supernaturalism were true, I think naturalism’s descriptive power would still hold. Those two folks are arguing to consequences – although it doesn’t make their position wrong.
January 27, 2008 at 6:06 pm |
Beast, you have to almost feel sorry for atheists on this one – they can no more succeed in suppressing the truth about the supernatural than they can hold back the sea with a sieve.
You’ve recently talked about the research which suggests we know events are going to be happen about 3 seconds before they do – many folk have experienced this themselves, knowing who is going to be on the phone before they answer it for example, even sometimes when its someone they haven’t heard from in months.
The evidence for ghosts is even stronger. I haven’t seen one myself but judging by the number of reliable folk I know who claim they have its likely that tens of millions alive today have. There’s very strong evidence for the existence of a spirit world to from peer reviewed science.
One paper folk can view on line is
http://www.explorejournal.com/article/PIIS155083070600454X/fulltext
Other even more convincing papers are available in the prestigious British Journal of Psychology or Jstor, but require at least registration or sending of for a hard copy. I can supply details if anyones interested, found out about them from the excellent Jerome on Richard Dawkins.net.
So despite best efforts many scientists have broke ranks and been truthful about the reality of the supernatural. This is what we’d expect – God shrouds Himself in mystery as he values our ability to think for our selves and possibly as He prefers to be known through faith. But He wont allow atheists to create a too convincing illusion that science shows God doesn’t exist. If their propaganda starts getting to successful He will simply call more scientists and academics as Apostles to testify to His truth. And possibly He will also allow more supernatural occurrences to happen to reduce the credibility of philosophical naturalism.
Its regrettable that atheist scientists react with dishonesty. For example the leading skeptics organisation CSI where they replicate work that others say points to the supernatural. When their own experiments appeared to confirm a supernatural explanation as being the most likely cause of certain phenomena they tried to suppress the truth:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Committee_for_Skeptical_Inquiry#Controversy_and_criticism
This doesn’t help the publics trust in science and damages good causes like the efforts to tackle global warming.
Atheists can’t win their little propaganda war but they can do a lot of damage!
January 27, 2008 at 8:27 pm |
Rich, to answer your points
You have blurred philosophical and methodological naturalism.
Actually, I think this is a problem generally, even amongst scientists and philosophers who are careful to distinguish between the two. An awful lot of the arguments against ID that claim that they are based only on methodological naturalism also end up by invoking or implying philosophical naturalism.
If supernaturalism were true, I think naturalism’s descriptive power would still hold. Those two folks are arguing to consequences – although it doesn’t make their position wrong.
As Feyd’s metioned, there’s a lot of evidence for the supernatural from a scientific perspective. Take a look at the Public Parapsychology website, which collects and discusses parapsychological research from around the world. It’s fair to say that there’s an irony there in that the methodological naturalism of science is being used to suggest the existence of the supernatural.
As for CSI, or CSICOP as it was years ago, their doctoring of research over Gauquelin and the ‘Mars Effect’ led to a number of their members leaving, including one of the founders, Marcello Truzzi. Truzzi died last year, and the Fortean Times duly published an obituary. Truzzi was a sociologist, who saw himself as an open-minded sceptic. I think he wanted to CSI to investigate the claims of the paranormal honestly, rather than simply debunk. As a result of the organisation’s doctoring of research to falsify the Mars Effect – Gauquelin’s suggestion that there was a statistical correlation between a person’s career and which planet was in the ascendant at the time of their birth – Truzzi left CSICOP as it was then to found a rival journal of scientific investigation of the paranormal, the Zetetic Scholar .
January 27, 2008 at 11:03 pm |
Sorry Fellas. I’ve seen *No* credible evidence for the paranormal. And with no well poisoning intended, you aligning yourselves with Woo will just make it easy to dismiss you as crackpots.
January 28, 2008 at 1:41 pm |
Rich: “You have blurred philosophical and methodological naturalism.”
BR: “Actually, I think this is a problem generally, even amongst scientists and philosophers who are careful to distinguish between the two. An awful lot of the arguments against ID that claim that they are based only on methodological naturalism also end up by invoking or implying philosophical naturalism. ”
The distinction between methodological naturalism and philosophical naturalism is a charade, a distraction, a deception.
Just look at what you (BR) have said.
Then, let us suppose that the DesignDeniers were actually able to formulate some anti-ID argument that didn’t borrow from “philosophical naturalism.” What would this mean?
Would it not mean that the anti-ID argument was trivial and essentially unimportant — that it could be easily disregarded? Is it not the case that this MN anti-ID argument amounts to nothing more significant than “ID is not strict MN?” (which we already knew). For after all, the claimed distinction between (the supposedly existing) “methodological naturalism” and “philosophical naturalism” is that MN doesn’t make truth-claims.
Or, to look at this yet another way: If there *really is* a difference between “methodological naturalism” and “philosophical naturalism” — if one *really can* “do science” on a basis of MN without dragging in or implying PN — then the same holds for (what we might call) “methodological designism” and “philosophical designism.”
If the DesignDeniers *really are* “doing science” by means of “methodological naturalism” (that is, if they really are not importing PN into their definition of ’science’), then they have no logical (or moral) basis for objecting to the DesignDiscerners trying to “do science” by means of “methodological designism.”
Rich: “We have evidence for naturalism, because it is evidence based.”
How quaintly amusing!
To translate: “We *assume* ‘naturalism,’ and then collect “evidence” consistent with ‘naturalism’ (while ignoring evidence inconsistent with ‘naturalism’ — not least of which is that ‘naturalism’ itself is logically incoherent), and then proclaim that we have verified ‘naturalism’ and falsified “supernaturalism.””
Rich: “If supernaturalism were true, I think naturalism’s descriptive power would still hold.”
Unlike ‘naturalism,’ “supernaturalism” (i.e. the attempt to appreciate the fullness of actual reality) does not entail the denial of an important chunck of reality. This is what your statement means (though I much doubt you will allow yourself to see it).
January 28, 2008 at 4:33 pm |
Oh dear, Illion.
Let’s look at say, F=MA.
basic physics. Derived from observations of the natural world, with very high predictive power.
This is all naturalistic.
We could write F (plus or minus woo effects) = M(plus or minus woo effects) x A (plus or minus woo effects).
This would encapsulate the supernaturalist position and account for stuff we’ve never recorded, nor have any evidence of ever existing.
That’s not to say its not right (problem of induction and all that).. Its just not very usable. Everything descends into a very squishy stuff = stuff type framework.
So, WRT.
“If supernaturalism were true, I think naturalism’s descriptive power would still hold.”
if F (plus or minus woo effects) = M(plus or minus woo effects) x A (plus or minus woo effects) is true, its likely that F=MA will still work also. And it does. Yipee!
Your amusing screed fails to address my particular issues for “design”:
(1) You can’t define it in a measurable way
(2) You can’t detect it
(3) You offer no POSITIVE arguments for it.
Ps – you forget to tell BR how great he is in yo9ur last post
Pps – Still waiting on your proof of god, although your history of making grandiose claims then fleeing is DULY NOTED. =0)
January 28, 2008 at 6:02 pm |
What an amusing chappie.
January 28, 2008 at 8:31 pm |
Clearly methodological naturalism has been a powerful tool for examining the natural world. However, there are problems with it. It’s reasonable to begin by excluding the miraculous from an event, but if the current understanding of science prevents a naturalistic explanation for the event being found, then one is entitled to explain it through the supernatural.
As for aligning ourselves with ‘woo’ making us look like crackpots, I know exactly what the academic and social prejudices against parapsychology are, and they are largely prejudices based on the assumption that miracles don’t occur, and that only peasants and the lower orders believe in the supernatural.
As for discerning design, one can remark that there is one branch of sign that based very much on it: archaeology. Some of the features investigated by archaeologists can be so eroded that they’re not immediately discernible as archaeological features, and so part of archaeology, particularly landscape archaeology, has involved investigating the problem of design. I’d say that one important feature of design was if the artefact was at a level of complexity that excluded random chance.
January 28, 2008 at 9:35 pm |
“I’d say that one important feature of design was if the artefact was at a level of complexity that excluded random chance.”
negative argument, that doesn’t really:
Define ‘complexity’
Specify ‘Random Chance’
Numerate anything
Acknowledge auto-recursive biological systems (NDE) , but reads more towards the old Junkyard / Tornado canard.
Remember, the EF is ten years old, and no-one has ever used it.
January 29, 2008 at 8:43 am |
Rich, there’s an awful lot of ID material that does just that. Mike Gene over at Telic Thoughts uses autorecursive biological systems – in this case, the parts of the DNA that patrol against copying errors – to demonstrate another level of complexity in the genome that orthodox Darwinism has difficulty explaining. Similarly, Fred Hoyle before he died published a whole book attacking the mathematics behind Darwinism and its assumptions. And by your own argument that atheists don’t have to produce a positive argument for their beliefs, as you can’t prove a negative, so you don’t have to produce a positive argument to show that Darwinism is either false or incomplete. All you have to do is criticise Darwinist ideas of ‘random chance’.
As for ‘EF’ – would you mind writing that out fully, rather than just using acronyms? Thanks.
January 29, 2008 at 2:32 pm |
Sorry. EF is short for explanatory filter, Dembski’s design detection ‘tool’. I find Mike Gene a fuzzy thinker, his book is being dissected over at the blog I shan’t link too.
Very Ironic you should cite Hoyle:
“A junkyard contains all the bits and pieces of a Boeing 747, dismembered and in disarray. A whirlwind happens to blow through the yard. What is the chance that after its passage a fully assembled 747, ready to fly, will be found standing there? So small as to be negligible, even if a tornado were to blow through enough junkyards to fill the whole Universe.” – Fred Hoyle, The intelligent universe.
No biologist thinks spontaneous generation of complex life appeared. This is a canard – and from Fossils to Big Bang (He coined the phrase!), there is no brand of Woo Fred Hoyle didn’t like.
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CF/CF002_1.html
We seen complexity arising and increase in biological systems. We can trace the history of life, ERVs (Endogenous retroviruses) are a wonderful example. Did you know genomically you’re 8% ERV?
January 29, 2008 at 2:37 pm |
BR: “And by your own argument that atheists don’t have to produce a positive argument for their beliefs, as you can’t prove a negative, so you don’t have to produce a positive argument to show that Darwinism is either false or incomplete. All you have to do is criticise Darwinist ideas of ‘random chance’.”
Ah! But it’s different, you see, when the shoe is on the other foot!
The fact is — since science isn’t about truth in the first place — “negative arguments” is how science is done.
BR: “… All you have to do is criticise Darwinist ideas of ‘random chance’.”
This is true, regardless of Rich’s quite selective application of the principle. One never has the obligation to offer a “better” version of the idea(s) one is criticizing. One is obliged to criticize logically and honestly; but one is not obliged to give the partisans of the idea one is criticizing a replacement they will accept.
January 29, 2008 at 4:02 pm |
Wey Hey! Circus is in town!
First, there’s a big conflation of ‘atheism’ and erm, ‘Darwinism’. Plus I’m sure you’re conflating Abiogenesis with NDE with ‘Darwinsim’. So we’ve not started well. You can be a theistic evolutionist. There are LOADS of them. It’s not incompatible with faith, just with YECism / Biblical literalism.
I never disagreed that “Darwinism” isn’t complete. Geez, “Darwinism” isn’t even used anymore, NDE, EvoDevo or modern synthesis is where we’re at, although none of those are ‘complete’ either.
http://evolutionlist.blogspot.com/2007/10/rm-ns-creationist-and-id-strawman.html
we’ve come a long way from RM & NS.
Without getting too ‘Godel’, most doors have other door behind them.
Let me try and make this simple.
You have some thoughts : ‘conjecture’
You formulate them in a testable way : ‘hypothesis’
You test them, and they work / have descriptive power : ‘theory’
You keep kicking the tires, forever.
You are never ‘right’, or ‘complete’. You keep looking and reassesing what you have.
the hypocrisy of Ilion’s inability to posit any positive arguments (even when be blows his own trumpet and tells you the big one is coming) is duly noted.
January 29, 2008 at 4:15 pm |
No biologist thinks spontaneous generation of complex life appeared.
I didn’t say they did, Rich. I said that the type of genomic systems Mike Gene describes added a level of complexity that Darwinism has difficulty explaining. I’m perfectly aware that Darwinism assumes the first lifeforms to have been very simple. That’s part of the problem. There’s now a lot of evidence building up that some organisms, like the order to which starfish belong, had highly complex genomes very early in their evolutionary history and have lost complexity.
As for Hoyle, yeah, he and Tommy Gold thought outside the box. That doesn’t mean they were wrong. Yes, he coined the term ‘Big Bang’ and very strongly defended the ‘Steady-State Theory’. This was because the ‘Big Bang’ to Hoyle seemed far closer to Jewish, Christian and Muslim theology than to actual science, especially as the formulator of the theory, Joseph LeMaitre, was a Jesuit priest. ‘What kind of scientific theory is it,’ he thundered, ‘which is produced by a priest and blessed by the Pope?’
January 29, 2008 at 4:23 pm |
Methinks you’ve been reading to much ID stuff, which is ironically evolved from creationist stuff. I’m happy to address specific claims.
I have my bingo sheet out and I’m just missing:
SLoT
‘Genetic entropy’
Frontloading
Irreducable complexity
Darwin made Hitler.
January 29, 2008 at 4:29 pm |
Rich, yes, I know you can be a theistic evolutionist. Most of my friends are. And yes, I’m aware that atheism does not equal Darwinism. However, most atheists are Darwinists, and it is being used as an ideological tool for atheism – witness Daniel C. Dennett and his declaration that Darwin is the universal acid against religious belief.
As for the distinction between classical Darwinism, Neo-Darwinism and Evo-Devo, just about all of them have their basis in Natural Selection. Yeah, I read the argument that there’s also Sexual Selection and general, neutral genetic drift. This does not negate Darwin, however, has I suspect Ernst Mayr probably said in one of his books. And the theory of Sexual Selection was developed by Darwin himself.
Now Darwinists may admit, like Gerd Korthof, that the theory is incomplete, but they are not going to admit that it’s wrong. And this is what is at issue here. Richard Dawkins has even said that even if the evidence for Darwinism was non-existent, he would still believe in it because Creationism and Lamarckianism are, for him, not credible because of their theistic basis. In fact I don’t think there’s anything in Lamarckianism that makes it theistic, but because the mechanisms through which biological change would be brought about if Lamarckianism were true are difficult to explain by purely mechanistic models, some biologists like Dawkins dislike it because it leaves the door open to God again, in their view.
January 29, 2008 at 4:42 pm |
Are we into semantic games? They admit to it being “incomplete”, but wont admit it’s “wrong”, although will never declare it “right” or “complete”. If it gets falsified, Its wrong, and we adjust or find something with better descriptive power. I’m fine with this.
January 29, 2008 at 4:47 pm |
Are we into semantic games? They admit to it being “incomplete”, but wont admit it’s “wrong”, although will never declare it “right” or “complete”. If it gets falsified, Its wrong, and we adjust or find something with better descriptive power. I’m fine with this.</b.
No, we’re not into semantic games, Rich. The fact that a theory is incomplete doesn’t mean it’s wrong. Indeed, you presume Darwinism is correct, regardless of which version of it is currently fashionable at the moment. Clearly, you are not happy with it being challenged, otherwise you would not subscribe to Antievolution.org , Talkorigins and P.Z. Myers’ Darwinian talking shop. You assume that Darwinism as a theory is mostly correct – that’s what ‘incomplete’ means – but just needs that extra refinement.
January 29, 2008 at 5:01 pm |
“, you presume Darwinism is correct” I’ve not seen any evidence that is “wrong”, although I acknowledge it has issues in areas and is incomplete, so I proceed accordingly. That being said, it has more predictive power than any other theory, (primarily because its the only theory in town)
January 29, 2008 at 5:08 pm |
That being said, it has more predictive power than any other theory, (primarily because its the only theory in town)
That’s the problem, and probably the source of the great fear that seems evinced by Darwinists whenever Darwinism is questioned. It’s held to be the only viable explanation for life, and so when it is challenged this is taken to be an assault on rationality and civilisation itself.
January 29, 2008 at 5:15 pm |
It’s not really fear, its more sadness, because the vast majority of questions seem to be religiously motivated folks who want their holy book taught in science class.
No one is banging on about the incompleteness of gravity.
January 29, 2008 at 5:22 pm |
It’s not really fear, its more sadness, because the vast majority of questions seem to be religiously motivated folks who want their holy book taught in science class.
Doesn’t mean that their objections to Darwinism aren’t legitimate. And I haven’t noticed much sadness amongst Darwinists at their theory being questioned. More like rage and hatred. As for why no-one has objected to the incompleteness of gravity, well, the incompleteness of gravity has not been used to degrade human dignity in the same way Darwinism has.
January 29, 2008 at 5:27 pm |
No, but their objections mean their objections aren’t legitimate:
From above:
SLoT
‘Genetic entropy’
Frontloading
Irreducable complexity
Darwin made Hitler
I’ll leave out “if we come from monkeys, why are there still monkeys?”
You are arguing to consequences. And they’re not even real consequences.
But I think you for clarifying your position.
January 29, 2008 at 6:46 pm |
Yeah, Rich, I’m aware that Darwinian orthodoxy has challenged ID on all of the above. I’m also aware that the ID guys have also replied to their objections.
As for arguing to consequences that aren’t real consequences, in the early part of the 20th century the German philosopher Karl Jaspers objected to Freud and Darwin because they gave a degrading, dehumanising view of humanity under the guise of science. Now Darwin didn’t create Hitler. Hitler himself stated that the species gap was still a problem for the theory of evolution. He did, however, state in his Table Talk that the teaching of evolution in school had been one of the factors in the loss of his Roman Catholic Christian faith, and the intellectual environment in Germany created by Darwinism through the strong influence of Ernst Haeckel did facilitate the rise of Hitler and mean that the overwhelming majority of German medicine enthusiastically embraced the Nazi eugenics programme, even if, like Eugen Fischer, they weren’t originally antisemites.
January 29, 2008 at 8:39 pm |
In Mein kampf he references God a lot and Darwin not at all. Also, one of his first acts was to banish freethought societies. Whether you like or don’t your perceived consequences of “Darwinism”, that has no baring on if evolution is true or not. If you feel you have to perpetuate a lie to protect another lie, then that is sad and I suspect you will be called on it.
We’ve already brought up that eugenics predates “Darwinsim”, yet we’re still recycling that canard.
Let’s recap on ID:
No theory
No experiments
No predictions
Sell of a lot of books
Don’t publish papers
Good at press releases
Financed by postmillenial reconstructionists. (the stone the gays and adulterers kind)
Creation science with a “find and replace”
ODIOUS.
Go to Uncommon Descent. Look at the posts.
It’s “Darwinism can’t explain..”, “Jesus this, bible that…”, “This looks designed” – but with no actual science and heavy suppression / moderation of opposing viewpoints.
January 29, 2008 at 9:02 pm |
In Mein kampf he references God a lot and Darwin not at all. Also, one of his first acts was to banish freethought societies. Whether you like or don’t your perceived consequences of “Darwinism”, that has no baring on if evolution is true or not. If you feel you have to perpetuate a lie to protect another lie, then that is sad and I suspect you will be called on it.
No, he doesn’t mention Darwin. I never said he did. And despite mentioning God a lot, he certainly wasn’t a Christian. His beliefs about God were Spinozan pantheist, very much like those of Ernst Haeckel, the symbol of whose Monist League was also a black swastika in a white circle on a red background. I didn’t know that Hitler banned the Free Thought societies. I’m not surprised, as he wasn’t an atheist. However, he was an enemy of religion and hated Christianity. I’ve dealt with this in my blog post on Hitler and Christianity. So no, I’m not lying and I’m not lying to protect another lie.
And yes, I do read Uncommon Descent . And I also know that attempts to do research on ID, for example at the Baylor Evolutionary Infomatics Research lab, was met with considerable hostility. As for not having papers published, this is another canard. As we’ve seen, people have lost their jobs for supporting ID at academic level.
As for eugenics predating Darwin – you mentioned only the Spartans. As I said, they weren’t the rule for all societies, and eugenics itself was started by Darwin’s cousin, Francis Galton, and was supported by leading evolutionary scientists in the West who took their cue from Darwin’s Origin of Species .
January 29, 2008 at 9:28 pm |
I’m not saying Hitler was true to Christian ideals, but I think he self identified as such. The Baylor affair is special. You are aware of what Dembski and marks tried to do and how they tried to do it?
How many papers that directly support ID do they have? How many press releases. Do this sound like a scientific enterprise? Geez, they couldn’t even get a Templeton grant.
January 29, 2008 at 9:40 pm |
Also WRT to eugenics, selective breeding / animal husbandry is the same, it’s artificial selection. We can opine on the morality of it, but if you have household perts, they’re a product of it.
So Let’s not ‘lay blame’ at Darwin’s door, you don’t need natural selection to come up with artificial selection, we’ve had it and used it for ages, for much longer than evloution was recognized.
January 30, 2008 at 8:55 am |
I’m not saying Hitler was true to Christian ideals, but I think he self identified as such.
No, he didn’t, Rich. He hated Christianity and it’s very clear in his Table Talk . Again, I’ve discussed this in my blog post on ‘Christianity and Hitler’.
The argument about natural selection and artificial selection in animals is a red herring. Conscious scientific artificial selection of breeds has been around only since the 18th century, and it was controversial then because of the violation of the prohibition against incest. Now what changed with Darwin is that eugenics applied selective breeding to humans, along with the scientific imperative to prevent the unfit from breeding. This had not been done before in Wester society.
Regarding Hitler and Haeckel, yes, I’m very well aware of how strenuously P.Z. Myers objected to any connection between the two. I’m also aware of the work of German historians in establishing the importance of Haeckel in creating the intellectual, scientific climate in Germany which prepared for the Holocaust. If you want, I’m prepared to write a blog post about it.
I’m afraid you probably have the advantage of me regarding Dembski and Marks at Baylor, though I do know that P.Z. Myers at one time declared that Baylor’s sacking of Dembski was a clear act of academic censorship. I also can’t imagine any academic journal accepting an ID based paper because of the presumption that Darwinism is true and must be inviolable.
Now regarding the tone of your posts in which you repeatedly tell me that I will be called on various points. Yes, I’m aware that what I say is controversial, and I expect to be challenged. However, my point here is that atheism has no proprietorship over science. The pioneers of science in the Renaissance, Galileo, Descartes, Bacon, Boyle and Newton were all Christians, and atheism is not synonymous with either science or the scientific method. And I also challenge atheism’s attempt to claim the moral high ground. Most of the atheists I’ve come across believe that morality is subjective or else a construction of society. In this case, if morality is merely what the individual decides is right, then you have no moral basis for attacking the beliefs of others, as that is clearly what they subjectively believe to be right and true.
January 30, 2008 at 2:09 pm |
BR: “Most of the atheists I’ve come across believe that morality is subjective or else a construction of society.”
The important question isn’t what specific beliefs an individual holds, but rather whether any specific belief he holds cohers with the sum-total of his beliefs. To put it another way, are the individual beliefs in agreement with, or in contradiction to, his core or fundamental belief(s)?
As to ‘atheists’ and the issue of whether morality is subjective or objective, if his belief on this particular question is to be coherent with his ‘atheism,’ the ‘atheist’ *must* believe that morality is subjective — i.e. that there is actually no such thing as “morality.” If there are any ‘atheists’ who affirm that morality is objective (i.e. that it really does exist), they are with that belief denying their ‘atheism.’
Though, as it turns out, there is no consistent moral subjectivist anywhere on God’s green earth.
January 30, 2008 at 3:26 pm |
Arguing to mortality wont help you. I know you think you have the font of true morality, but I find some of it reprehensible. I think Morality is more likely and emergent evolutionary property (we see signs of it in higher animals) and probably relative to a degree (we see this in society).
Arguing to the Christian intellectual tradition wont help you. What did Adam and eve get kicked out of heaven for? The fact that christian scholars did a lot when the civilized world was predominantly christian is a red herring. You could opine of the greatness of bipeds and get the same conclusion. Correlation is not causation. In the modern world, I would suggest the great doers, the great scholars, the great scientists and the great givers are less likely to theist than before. And the trend continues.
And again even if Hitler used ‘Darwinism’ as a basis for eugenics or whatever (he didn’t) – that’s still an argument to consequences (third time I’ve said this) and has no relevance to if biological evolution is true or not.
January 30, 2008 at 4:11 pm |
Sorry Fellas. I’ve seen *No* credible evidence for the paranormal. And with no well poisoning intended, you aligning yourselves with Woo will just make it easy to dismiss you as crackpots
Lol, only in front of biased audiences like Biologists.
Gallup polls and leading atheists agree that belief in the supernatural is rising amongst the general public. Recent studies even suggest the more higher education folk have the more likely they are to belief in the supernatural!
http://www.livescience.com/strangenews/060121_paranormal_poll.html
Nice to see that education hasn’t lost its power to dispel myth – in this case the atheist naturalist myth.
Its sad that there’s still many academics who claim they’ve seen no evidence of the supernatural no matter how many times they’ve been pointed towards credible peer reviewed studies.
Even highly intelligent folk can make mistakes and almost everyone is influenced by group think. Yet as we’ve seen some skeptics have deliberately falsified the evidence. I guess biologist have the problem that they feel most threatened by religion and in many cases have already had their integrity corrupted by dependency on drug companies for their research grants. (knowing a few reasearch biologists Im well aware of how widespread that problem is, and how successfully its hitherto been kept out of the public eye)
Atheist propaganda can have appalling consequences. If atheists persist in falsely asserting science suggests the probability of a God is very low, then it will be with some regret that credible theists will increasingly expose the widespread corruption and lack of integrity within science, especially Biology & related disciplines.
January 30, 2008 at 4:14 pm |
Argument to popularity!
Ohhh Noooes!!!!1111oneoneone.
and in the 12th century, the world was flat.
January 30, 2008 at 4:20 pm |
“If atheists persist in falsely asserting science suggests the probability of a God is very low”
Strawman. We don’t claculate the probability of God, as there is no data. That’s the problem.
You get bonus Waterlooooooooo! points, though.
January 30, 2008 at 4:36 pm |
I think Morality is more likely and emergent evolutionary property (we see signs of it in higher animals) and probably relative to a degree (we see this in society).
No, you don’t see morality. What you see is collaborative behaviour. Morality requires a rational choice.
The fact that christian scholars did a lot when the civilized world was predominantly christian is a red herring. You could opine of the greatness of bipeds and get the same conclusion.
Nope – the fact is, the Christian scholars who produced the great intellectual and moral advances of the West were working within an intellectual tradition provided by Christianity, that supplied the intellectual and moral material for their advances. So it’s more than ‘well, everyone was Christian then, so you can’t use that as an argument.’
And again even if Hitler used ‘Darwinism’ as a basis for eugenics or whatever (he didn’t) – that’s still an argument to consequences (third time I’ve said this) and has no relevance to if biological evolution is true or not.
Yes, it is an argument to consequence. And while Hitler may not have invoked Darwin, his university professors were strongly influenced by that tradition.
As for the great givers being nontheists, actually studies show that the vast majority of charitable giving is done by theists.
January 30, 2008 at 4:37 pm |
Strawman. We don’t claculate the probability of God, as there is no data. That’s the problem.
Then why do you and Richard Dawkins keep insisting that it’s very, very unlikely?
January 30, 2008 at 4:39 pm |
and in the 12th century, the world was flat.
Showing your ignorance there, Rich. No educated person believed that the world was flat in the 12th century. What do you think the orb held by medieval monarchs represents? It represents the world.
January 30, 2008 at 4:44 pm |
And I’ll clarify my position on Darwin. The eugenics debacle doesn’t on its own discredit Darwin. It does, however, discredit the moral authority of those scientists who attempted to establish a purely naturalistic conception of man as an organic being rejecting Christian moral views of human biological integrity.
January 30, 2008 at 4:47 pm |
“No educated person” – but you were appealing to popularity, not authority. You used the phrase “general public”.
Is my ignorance still showing?
*pulls up pants*
January 30, 2008 at 4:54 pm |
Financed by postmillenial reconstructionists. (the stone the gays and adulterers kind)
Huh?
January 30, 2008 at 4:58 pm |
RICH you have this way of getting me back to the laptop.
I find it contradictory that on one hand you mention all these alleged sins about ID like financing, and peer review. I’ll not tell you this money issue is irrelevent, like Geoge Soros’ funding of “findings” about US foreign policy. And yes, DI was created by a lawyer, not a scientist. The aforementioned George Gilder is in on this also. But I find it odious that one the one hand the IDers get smeared for not producing copious volumes of Peer Review and YET on the OTHER hand they are basically prohibited from crossing certain preset notions and lines in order to do so. Violate this and lose your job.
There’s your answer. The real question for our purposes here is not so much funding sources but rather whether a possibly productive research program can overcome the prejudices of methodological Nauralism.
January 30, 2008 at 5:03 pm |
AS to your comments on Hitler and Christianity, RICH, it seems this was probably mere political expediency. At most. Elsewhere Hitler generally disparaged Christians as weak and the philosphy as bankrupt. He sought to destroy all societies that didn’;t hold to his ideology. Not just the freethinkers as you alleged.
Speaking of that term–so called “freethinkers” today on Skeptic sites can be the nastiest and most ignorant of people I’ve encountered. I don’t want to sweep with too broad a brush, but that is my initial impression from spending time with these people.
As to morals, I think BR had this one nailed for quite awhile. Would you have us as an army of automatons–robots? Morals must be chosen to be meaningful and “right” as oppsed to “wrong” —-else they mean nothing more than something or someone is cruising on autopilot like cockroaches and crocodiles. The latter certainly surviving well in their own “choices” set on genetic freeflow from evolution but certainly just becuase they “choose” well due to genes does not make them moral beings.
January 30, 2008 at 5:12 pm |
“No, you don’t see morality. What you see is collaborative behaviour. Morality requires a rational choice.”
gap…smaller…god…shrinking.
“The fact that christian scholars did a lot when the civilized world was predominantly christian is a red herring. You could opine of the greatness of bipeds and get the same conclusion. ”
yes the “don’t eat from the tree of knowledge”,
Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.”
–Proverbs 3:5 (KJV)
“Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ…”
–2 Corinthians 10:5 (KJV)
tradition. Mothers, lock up your astronomers.
“Yes, it is an argument to consequence.”
Thank you. The world isn’t always how we’d like. but we can change parts of it, together.
“studies show that the vast majority of charitable giving is done by theists”
There are of course more theists. But Class B shares of Bershire Hathaway, the Bill & Melinda Gates foundation of the giving of George Soros would suggest otherwise. And the first two don’t come with a parasitic message, (Sorry George, you know I love you, and your mentor)
January 30, 2008 at 5:17 pm |
Hi Wakefield. Thanks for capitalizing my name completely!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Ahmanson,_Jr.
Come up with a hypothesis, ID guys, and we’ll look at it. This is how science works.
If Morals are so absolute, why do we all have different ones?
TEH FALL! TEH FALL?
I’m sure there are nasty freethinkers. It doesn’t make them wrong, though.
January 30, 2008 at 5:30 pm |
As for the FreeThinkers, the other contradcition is that on many other issues they certainly don’t believe in freedom of thought, which is why almost to a person they support the mind numbing public school debacles and pitch to outlaw school choice and homeschooling and generally lean to a variety of left wing causes that have little to do with human freedom. And certainly not much in the way of thought.
Sorry about the name thingy, Rich
As to morals, most are absolute in the sense that anthopologists have found that most societies hold to similar values—its just that they apply the rules and contexts differently.. This is not the same thing as saying that some things are wrong one day and relativistically right the next.
Its just you have to be careful of terminology here. Context is key.
Once you get the terms down things make more consistent sense.
January 30, 2008 at 5:37 pm |
FLAT EARTH???
This is an oldy but goody.
The Flat Earth Fallacy: According to the atheist narrative, the medieval Christians all believed that the earth was flat until the brilliant scientists showed up in the modern era to prove that it was round. In reality, educated people in the Middle Ages knew that the earth was round. In fact, the ancient Greeks in the fifth century B.C. knew the earth was a globe. They didn’t need modern science to point out the obvious. They could see that when a ship went over the horizon, the hull and the mast disappear at different times. Even more telling, during an eclipse they could see the earth’s shadow on the moon. Look fellas, it’s round!
And, of course, as with the Washington Irving mythologies that got transmogrified into ‘just so’ stories that in turn turned into “fact” about Christians allegedly once thinking the Earth was flat or that such false cosmology is found in the Jewish Scriptures (also untrue), it IS interesting to see just how long mythology http://www.veritas-ucsb.org/library/russell/FlatEarth.html can hang around as “science” and history.
Scripture was SOMETIMES misinterpreted regarding what most Jewish scholrs think was a description of the cardinal directions:
(four “corners” of the Eath–north south east west) and “foundation of the worth” as being metaphorical, not literal.
Also, Job talks about the Circle of the Earth.
The Hebrew language does not distinguish except in context for terms between SPHERE and CIRCLE.
January 30, 2008 at 5:38 pm |
I quite like “RICH”, makes me feel all self-important.
I’m not a big homeschooling fan, I think interaction and diversity are good for kids. I would guess there is a bifurcation: Momma has 3 PhDs, Dad has a noble prize, and Fundies.
Help me through this morality thing. Let’s look at slavery throughout time and show how its a contextual thing?
January 30, 2008 at 5:40 pm |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth
Looks like I was wrong with regard to the time, but at one time people thought it was flat, so the argument still stands.
January 30, 2008 at 5:46 pm |
Homeschooling. Wow. You are asking for something I’ll just have to link you up to get started. Study after study after study indicates that this whole notion of teacher certification being important in the education of the young–at least through high school level–is sheer MYTH.
It is nonsense put out by the teachers’ unions at best.
http://wakepedia.blogspot.com/2003/11/great-care-must-be-taken-to-inform-and.html
The whole “socialization” thing is a myth on a number of points–the most glaring as I pointed out to BR and regarding something I’ll blog about later when I feel better and congeal all this is that horizontal “peer” organizing is not good for kids. THeir models need to be adult and older kids, not their peers. But that is but one part of my upcoming blog when I get to it, so enough of that for now…..
There are some serious issues here in the US regarding social policy and atheistic thought being intentially placed in schools. They are NOT value-neutral. Far from it, as I posted here before and gave you the quotes from committed “educrat” writers on the importance of public education as a tool to destroy Christianity.
They mean it. I assure you.
January 30, 2008 at 5:47 pm |
People might have thought about FLATNESS–but it was not an issue regarding Christian theology. Far from it. It is not found in Christian cosmology.
January 30, 2008 at 5:49 pm |
I don’t present myself as an expert on it, nor have a considered the issue in depth. I’ll have a read. Of the top of my head, I don’t think all parents would necessarily be good teachers, and I’m not sure all parents know enough about enough subjects.
January 30, 2008 at 6:07 pm |
“As to ‘atheists’ and the issue of whether morality is subjective or objective, if his belief on this particular question is to be coherent with his ‘atheism,’ the ‘atheist’ *must* believe that morality is subjective — i.e. that there is actually no such thing as ‘morality.’”
Only if by ‘atheist’ you mean ‘materialist’, Ilion.
January 30, 2008 at 6:23 pm |
Is my ignorance still showing?
*pulls up pants*
Your ignorance is most definitely still showing. You said ‘people’. That’s inclusive. You didn’t say ’some people’, you said ‘people’, indicating everybody.
gap…smaller…god…shrinking.
No – all the evolutionary evidence for moral behaviour, but not morality does is dovetail nicely with traditional Roman Catholic Natural Law.
yes the “don’t eat from the tree of knowledge”,
Red herring, once again Rich! That’s God addressing Adam and Eve, not the general human race. Remember, the concept of the Just War was developed by St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas, partly using extant Roman law but also applying the Christian law of love.
tradition. Mothers, lock up your astronomers.</b.
Oh dear, a reference to Galileo. Actually, Galileo was a believing Christian and a far more devout Roman Catholic than his detractors. His approach to astronomy and Holy Writ was made very clear in his Letter to the Grand Duchess in which he states that such passages in the Bible that suggest the Earth does not move are poetic metaphors in line with the culture of the time. His view was entirely orthodox, and following the Church Fathers.
Now for your comments on charitable giving. Actually, all the people you mention, like George Soros, are incredibly rich, so their charitable doesn’t actually count. However, the number of people who regularly attend church in Canada is only about a third of the populat, yet they contribute about 2/3s – or even above – of all monies given to charity.
Let’s look at slavery throughout time and show how its a contextual thing?
Actually, I’m planning to do that anyway, but I’ll tell you a few things now. Slavery was accepted as part of society in the Ancient World. The distinction between owning a person’s labour in the form of paying them for a day’s work and owning the person generally wasn’t made. There were wage labourers, but there were very few of them compared to the slave class. It was accepted by ancient societies as they simply saw no other way of ordering society and supplying a labour force. Also, ancient slavery was not like translatlantic chattel slavery. Most Roman slaves were manumitted at age 30, and they did a variety of jobs which today would be considered management. They ran businesses on behalf of their master, and in the case of the slaves of the imperial household in Rome could exercise a profound political influence. Claudius is judged by historians to have been strongly influenced by his slaves and freedmen, including Scribonianus.
Also, the ancient world did not have a welfare state. However, masters were required to feed their slaves, so people would sell themselves into slavery in times of hardship or famine.
January 30, 2008 at 6:26 pm |
Looks like I was wrong with regard to the time, but at one time people thought it was flat, so the argument still stands.
Actually, I could have a bit of mischief here. Long after Aristotle proved that the Earth was round, one group of philosophers certainly believed the world was flat. The Epicureans, who denied divine creation, life after death and were certainly very atheistic, if not technically atheists, believed that the world was flat.
January 30, 2008 at 6:28 pm |
If Morals are so absolute, why do we all have different ones?
TEH FALL! TEH FALL?
Yup, and the limitations of human intelligence.
January 30, 2008 at 6:35 pm |
Sorry beast Rabban:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argumentum_ad_populum
read, learn.
People are Christians. People are Muslims. therefore Christianity = Islam.
Crappy conflation trick. Go to the back of the class.
“, all the people you mention, like George Soros, are incredibly rich, so their charitable doesn’t actually count.”
Special pleading. Why doesn’t it count?
Let me try!
“theists are trying to get into heaven, so their giving isn’t charitable”
At leat mine has substance.
Looking forward to slavery mitigationism.
Other subjects we might disgaree on:
Haulocaust?
vaccinations?
Global Warming?
age of Earth?
Common Ancestory?
January 30, 2008 at 6:37 pm |
Looks like I was wrong with regard to the time, but at one time people thought it was flat, so the argument still stands.
Actually, I could have a bit of mischief here. Long after Aristotle proved that the Earth was round, one group of philosophers certainly believed the world was flat. The Epicureans, who denied divine creation, life after death and were certainly very atheistic, if not technically atheists, believed that the world was flat.
I’m a Stoic. I just go to the epicurean parties. You hopefully see the argument to popularity, though.
January 30, 2008 at 6:39 pm |
“don’t eat from the tree of knowledge”,
I believe actually that was to be The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, Rich..
Not knowledge, per se.
Adam and Eve lost their innocence. There has been a suggestion by some theologians that actually these two were more knowldedgable in most areas of life than we are today.. But that the Fall removed that along with their longevity, etc.
January 30, 2008 at 6:46 pm |
Hmmm. Seems wrong to punish them, as they didn’t know right from wrong.
January 30, 2008 at 6:50 pm |
They were specifically instructed about what not to do in this case. The notion from the Serpent was that they could be like God.
Regarding Global Warming, I’m far from an expert. Just when science writer Michael Fumento had gotten through discussing this more recent notion that global warming increases hurricane activity and he laid out the cyclical stats to demonstrate that even in the highly politicized and emotional issue of the post Katrina days, this was still not the case and that cycles were invovled, now I find another article contradicting this. Only at the end do the detractors chime in to remind the reader that this latest study only studied recent history and does not go back far enough.
and so it goes.
January 30, 2008 at 6:52 pm |
“They were specifically instructed about what not to do in this case”
agreed. But they don’t know right from wrong.
January 30, 2008 at 7:00 pm |
They didn’t have some elements of a larger picture regarding this, Rich, but per Scripture their walk was closer with God than ours, so they should have known better.
January 30, 2008 at 7:09 pm |
Lots of special pleading. Not very convincing for me.
January 30, 2008 at 7:28 pm |
Sorry, Rich- you’re just having to go and spell it out for me. In what way did I argue ad populum? The only person I know who said that people thought that the Earth was flat was you.
Read! Learn! Now go to the back of the class.
Special pleading. Why doesn’t it count?
You seemed to be claim that people would be more generous if they were atheists. However, if most of the charitable giving is done by theists, then however much Soros and co give won’t change the statistics. As a group, atheists give less to charity. Get used to it.
“theists are trying to get into heaven, so their giving isn’t charitable”
Nope, told you – that’s not why theists give. They give because it’s right adn they love God, not out of self interest.
Read. Learn. Understand?
At leat mine has substance.
Nope.
And I’ve already explained slavery in context. I haven’t mitigated it. And as I explained, the leaders in the antislavery movement were theists. Not atheists. Not Freethinkers, as claimed from the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Theists. Arguing from the Bible – specifically, the passage against manstealing.
vaccinations?
Great! You’ve fallen for the old canard that Christians first objected injections! Faaaaantatstic! Is there anything you won’t believe, Rich!:D
That one was exploded long ago.
As for the Holocaust Denial, I’ll leave that to you atheists.
January 30, 2008 at 7:41 pm |
You really don’t understand the argumentum ad populum , do you, Rich. It does not mean, as you seem to believe it does, that merely because most people were Christian, the reforms that arose from Christianity would have occurred anyway, because Christians are humans. It refers specifically to the consensus theory of truth – that because a large number of people believe something, it must be true. Thus the argumentum ad populum would, for example, be the claim that Christianity is true, because everyone in the Middle Ages was a Christian. But to explain why the West has democracy, human rights, and science while other civilisations, like Islam, Indian and China didn’t develop these concepts, or did then radically curtailed them, you have to seek answers within the culture in Europe. And this was Christianity. That’s not an argumentum ad populum , that’s just ordinary historical research.
January 30, 2008 at 7:46 pm |
“Gallup polls and leading atheists agree that belief in the supernatural is rising amongst the general public. Recent studies even suggest the more higher education folk have the more likely they are to belief in the supernatural!”
Here’s the quote. It’s clearly an appeal to popularity. Perhaps you think I’m taking issue with something else. “Gallup polls” are no measure of “correctness”, only of peoples opinions.
January 30, 2008 at 7:48 pm |
Here’s the quote. It’s clearly an appeal to popularity. Perhaps you think I’m taking issue with something else. “Gallup polls” are no measure of “correctness”, only of peoples opinions.
I don’t think any of us said that they weren’t, Rich. What we are saying is that, contrary to your assertion, belief in the supernatural is rising. And some of those opinions are going to be informed by what they consider to be personal experience.
January 30, 2008 at 7:51 pm |
I’m a Stoic. I just go to the epicurean parties.
Good! So you believe that the world was providentially created and organised by a divine intelligence, after the arguments of Chrysippus and Cicero!
January 30, 2008 at 7:53 pm |
However, if most of the charitable giving is done by theists, then however much Soros and co give won’t change the statistics. As a group, atheists give less to charity. Get used to it.
Let me give you an objective metric. More dollars per capita. Smaller population, but higher per capita donations. Of course they effect the numbers, they’re members of the population so they pull up the mean for the population.
“At leat mine has substance.
Nope.”
I’m sure lots of people try and buy there way to heaven.. leave it all to charity, etc.
“They give because it’s right adn they love God, not out of self interest.”
Againb we’re not all priviy to your telepathy, so I’ll take your word for it. The asymatry of “all christians are motived to good by X” but when one does someting bad, it’s not because of their faith, is duly noted.
“You’ve fallen for the old canard that Christians first objected injections!” – can you show me where I said that? I wasn’t appealing to your faith, just your love of Woo.
Yes, us atheists. The Muslim ones especially.
January 30, 2008 at 7:56 pm |
As someone better than me said:
“In the life of the individual man, virtue is the sole good; such things as health, happiness, possessions, are of no account. Since virtue resides in the will, everything really good or bad in a man’s life depends only upon himself. He may become poor, but what of it? He can still be virtuous. A tyrant may put him in prison, but he can still persevere in living in harmony with Nature. He may be sentenced to death, but he can die nobly, like Socrates. Therefore every man has perfect freedom, provided he emancipates himself from mundane desires”
January 30, 2008 at 8:00 pm |
I don’t deny its belief in the supernatural is rising…although it may be cannabilizing religion. (back to the “what is a religion?) debate. Doesn’t mean it’s correct though. And from an empiricists standpoint, I’m unconvinced.
January 30, 2008 at 8:00 pm |
More dollars per capita. Smaller population, but higher per capita donations. Of course they effect the numbers, they’re members of the population so they pull up the mean for the population.
Might be true of Soros et al personally, but despite that, theists still give far more personally than atheists. This is objectively true of theists as a group. Pointing to Soros won’t change that.
As regards Christian’s buying into heaven, I’m not claiming telepathy. I’m arguing from how the church and believers have traditionally seen and argued about it. No telepathy needed. And no, I don’t deny that terrible things have been done in the name of religion. You, however, don’t seem to want to accept that terrible things have been done by atheists because of their atheism. And that’s definitely asymmetrical.
can you show me where I said that? I wasn’t appealing to your faith, just your love of Woo.
You mentioned objections as something we might disagree on. In my experience, the most common atheist canard is that Christians first objected to injections when they appeared.
Yes, I know there’s a nasty streak of Holocaust denial in Islam. There’s also a very nasty streak in Europe and America by the extreme Right, who hate Christianity. And some of them are very definitely atheists.
January 30, 2008 at 8:01 pm |
“In the life of the individual man, virtue is the sole good; such things as health, happiness, possessions, are of no account. Since virtue resides in the will, everything really good or bad in a man’s life depends only upon himself. He may become poor, but what of it? He can still be virtuous. A tyrant may put him in prison, but he can still persevere in living in harmony with Nature. He may be sentenced to death, but he can die nobly, like Socrates. Therefore every man has perfect freedom, provided he emancipates himself from mundane desires” .
Yeah, that’s Chrysippus. And a lot of Christians have drawn on his words.
January 30, 2008 at 8:15 pm |
“Might be true of Soros et al personally, but despite that, theists still give far more personally than atheists. This is objectively true of theists as a group. Pointing to Soros won’t change that.”
not according to mathematics.
Total donations / population.
January 30, 2008 at 8:31 pm |
“not according to mathematics.
Total donations / population.”
I think I get it now. Rich is Ted Bell. He was playing a good game for a while but now he’s saying things so dumb they can’t possibly be for real.
January 30, 2008 at 8:37 pm |
Look at the aggregates.
what was the total charitable giving?
How much have these three given?
how people people in the US? How many atheists?
JOR, I’m not sure where you’re going.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Bell
I think your grip on reality might lack opposable thumbs, though.
January 30, 2008 at 9:04 pm |
Rich,
I used an argument from popularity to counter the idea that we’d be dismissed as crackpots for talking about the supernatural. Wasn’t trying to use it to proof God! Personally I believe Christ will ultimately save even unbelievers so im not that desperate for you to belief if you don’t want to. I do think you or anyone else would be happier for knowing Christ’s love, and would have a quicker path to heaven if you asked for Christ’s forgiveness.
Dawkins went a lot further than you in Chapter 3 of The God Delusion where he seemed to be suggesting that even agnostics should be embarrassed and that the only respectable position for an academic is moderate to strong atheism.
January 30, 2008 at 9:24 pm |
Ilíon: “As to ‘atheists’ and the issue of whether morality is subjective or objective, if his belief on this particular question is to be coherent with his ‘atheism,’ the ‘atheist’ *must* believe that morality is subjective — i.e. that there is actually no such thing as ‘morality.’”
JOR: “Only if by ‘atheist’ you mean ‘materialist’, Ilion.”
JOR, I meant exactly what I wrote; it’s a habit I try to cultivate.
A “non-materialistic atheism” will be either an oxymoron (“western”) or void (“eastern”).
January 30, 2008 at 9:51 pm |
“A “non-materialistic atheism” will be either an oxymoron (”western”) or void (”eastern”).”
There’s some truth in this, however, straightforward theism not only faces similar problems – it faces the exact same problems. I suspect they are two sides of a false dilemma.
January 30, 2008 at 10:49 pm |
Hi Feyd. Fisrt, the sentimets are appreciated. I know there’s goodwill begind them. I think Jesus is quite explicit on hell, though.
January 30, 2008 at 11:19 pm |
BR: “Most of the atheists I’ve come across believe that morality is subjective or else a construction of society.”
Ilíon: “The important question isn’t what specific beliefs an individual holds, but rather whether any specific belief he holds cohers with the sum-total of his beliefs. To put it another way, are the individual beliefs in agreement with, or in contradiction to, his core or fundamental belief(s)?
.
As to ‘atheists’ and the issue of whether morality is subjective or objective, if his belief on this particular question is to be coherent with his ‘atheism,’ the ‘atheist’ *must* believe that morality is subjective – i.e. that there is actually no such thing as ‘morality.’”
JOR: “Only if by ‘atheist’ you mean ‘materialist’, Ilion.”
Ilíon: “A “non-materialistic atheism” will be either an oxymoron (”western”) or void (”eastern”).”
JOR: “There’s some truth in this, however, straightforward theism not only faces similar problems – it faces the exact same problems. I suspect they are two sides of a false dilemma.”
JOR, I’m afraid I can’t make heads or tails of this last response (as a whole).
First, in saying “There’s some truth in this …” it seems that perhaps you’re acknowledging that my statement you’d objected to was not off-base, after all.
Was not the objection you raised to what I’d said essentially that I was making an improper conflation? [similar to what "One Brow" (and then Jason Pratt and then Victor Reppert) did in these comments at Dangerous Idea]
While my response to you was far more succinct, it is the same response that I made there (and, in fact, it was the very first thing I said in the very post you question — the statement you were or are questioning is to be read/understood *with* the preceeding): “The important question isn’t what specific beliefs an individual holds, but rather whether any specific belief he holds cohers with the sum-total of his beliefs. To put it another way, are the individual beliefs in agreement with, or in contradiction to, his core or fundamental belief(s)?”
Anyway, it appears from your initial objection that you agree that “materialistic atheism” is logically committed (regardless of whether any ‘atheist’ individual makes the committment) to the proposition that morality is subjective. And, from this response it appears that you acknowledge that “non-materialistic atheism” is either an oxymoron/incoherent or void of actual content — i.e. if “non-materialistic atheism” has anything to say, how could we ever find it out? And why would we even care to do so?
So, it *appears* that you don’t really have an actual objection to I’d said, that perhaps you’d objected on stylistic grounds.
JOR: “There’s some truth in this, however, straightforward theism not only faces similar problems – it faces the exact same problems.”
“Straightforward theism” (whatever that is; aren’t I glad I’m a Christian, rather than a “theist!”) faces exactly the same problems as atheism-in-general or as “materialistic atheism” or as “non-materialistic atheism?” Either incoherence or nullity? Really?
JOR: “I suspect they are two sides of a false dilemma.”
Which false dilemma are they [these exact same problems faced by both "straightforward theism" and (apparently) all flavors of 'atheism'] two sides of?
January 30, 2008 at 11:33 pm |
Thanks Rich, thats good to hear. Yep Jesus did seem to be fairly clear about Hell, but that was in parables. He explicitly told his disciples that the surface meaning of parables is not always the correct one. There are lots of passages in the Bible that clearly suggest all will be saved:
1 Timothy 2:3
God our saviour, who will have ALL men to be saved.
1 Corinthians 15:22.
For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall ALL be made alive.
Colossians 1:20
and through him to reconcile to himself ALL things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of His cross.
January 31, 2008 at 3:37 am |
Rich I meant to add that regarding Peer Review, the Fallable Fiend has written to me to say that we Bible Thumper types don’t know science from shingles, and that what actually happened in the Dover case is that while the judge did cut and paste from some notes given to him from the “Darwin side”, he had no choice.
Fiend thinks, like you, that Science must be at least PROVISIONALLY atheistic or cease to be science. So if all is or can be explained Naturalistically and no research program can find God’s design in things, then by VERY DEFINITION IDers will never pass peer review.
End of story.
Part of me agrees, in that it is possible that only through some philosophical inference can we know God and that science cannot approach this no matter what “intelligent” patterns we behold. The reason is akin to what Darek Barefoot (an aquaintence of mine on Victor Reppert’s site) said in that by analogy perhaps God moves the chess pieces and it is illogical to say in this analogy that just because we see no giant hand from the sky does NOT mean rules of nature are not at play.
There ARE scritpures about God’s involvement in sustenance of Nature.
But like the invisible hand (not Adam Smith’s!) these moments are Unknown to science. So Fiend might have a point.
The other part of me on Cosmic Log reviewing his hatred of Christians wants to supply another answer. But I have none. If peer review is methodologically impossible and ID research programs have the Sisyphusian task of demonstrating Unknown’s by research that IMPLIES a Creator but can’t prove this or at least DISPROVE darwinian descent, we admittedly have stopping point, Rich.
January 31, 2008 at 3:40 am |
..Or that Chess Pieces, having physical reality, don’t move themselves but by implication and extrapolation we know the real issue is not so much the physical nature of the movement (analgous to “rules of nature”) but that there is the element of INTENTIONALITY and a PERSONAL INPUT that would have to be greater than matter and indeed the Cosmos to set these things in motion. Else the only explanation for the “rules” of matter is that they simply “just are”
An easy quick quip—but not all that helpful.
January 31, 2008 at 5:40 am |
Wakefield, may I repeat:
“Let’s recap on ID:
No theory
No experiments
No predictions
Sell of a lot of books
Don’t publish papers
Good at press releases
Financed by postmillenial reconstructionists. (the stone the gays and adulterers kind)
Creation science with a “find and replace”
ODIOUS.”
When they get a hypothesis, I’ll have a look at it.
Could it be Philosophy or religion? Sure.
WrT to Judge Jones, do you think the practice is uncommon to site testimony and support documents in the ruling?
January 31, 2008 at 8:42 am |
Let’s review your list, Rich. First of all, the ID crowd do indeed have a theory – that Darwinism only works at the micro- but not macroevolutionary scale, and that the structure of biological organisms suggest intelligent design, rather than random chance.
Experiments: Actually, all they have to do for this is cite the relevant scientific literature that suggests that there is indeed an edge to evolution. The experiments demonstrating this have already been done by mainstream scientists. See Behe’s The Edge of Evolution .
No predictions. Actually, O’Leary’s made a few predictions earlier this week, and had the usual response. But there is a problem with evolutionary biology anyway in that, except at a genetic level, it’s an historical science. You can’t predict what new species will arise, only find what has already appeared in the fossil record.
Don’t publish papers: As we’ve seen, there’s real hostility towards publishing anything that deeply challenges Darwinism. Ernst Mayr used to fire regularly research assistants who believed they’d found a direction in evolution, while Rupert Sheldrake’s theory of morphic resonance was attacked by Nature as ‘the best candidate for burning since Galileo’.
Financed by Pre-Millenial Reconstructionists of the ’stone the gays and adulterers’ kind: Not that I’ve noticed.
Now Rich, regarding your general demeanour, I have to say that I’m not impressed with your use of personal insults, and the gibes and sneers, especially the insinuation that as a Christian I’m somehow inclined towards Holocaust Denial. This is not an open forum, and it’s clear that you don’t have honest questions, but are simply here to vent your contempt and hatred of Chistians and their beliefs. I am therefore banning you from my blog.
January 31, 2008 at 10:06 am |
Ilion, real quick:
“Was not the objection you raised to what I’d said essentially that I was making an improper conflation? [similar to what “One Brow” (and then Jason Pratt and then Victor Reppert) did in these comments at Dangerous Idea]”
Sort of, but I’d say my objection was more that you confused a symptom for the disease. To say this: one might accept atheism, but not materialism; one may be mistaken in this, but this sort of atheism, even if unjustifiable given its non-materialistic premises, does not commit one to moral subjectivism. That is to say, it is not atheism that commits one to moral subjectivism; but rather the most convincing grounds for concluding that atheism is true, also happens to imply moral subectivism.
“Anyway, it appears from your initial objection that you agree that “materialistic atheism” is logically committed (regardless of whether any ‘atheist’ individual makes the committment) to the proposition that morality is subjective.”
Yes, I agree with this. But I think the error that leads them to this commitment is one they share with their ‘supernaturalist’ theistic opponents.
“And, from this response it appears that you acknowledge that “non-materialistic atheism” is either an oxymoron/incoherent or void of actual content — i.e. if “non-materialistic atheism” has anything to say, how could we ever find it out? And why would we even care to do so?”
Not quite. I’ll be able to get back to this later.
January 31, 2008 at 10:07 am |
I don’t like Rich, but I’d like to make it known that I disapprove of banning him.
January 31, 2008 at 11:27 am |
Thanks for that, JOR. I might lift the ban later. I don’t actually like banning people either, but the insults, personal and collective, are unacceptable. I made this clear at Christmas. If he can express himself without sneers and insults, I might let him back on.
January 31, 2008 at 12:23 pm |
To give a preview of what I aim to show, I don’t even think it’s materialism per se that is the problem. I used to think it was more something like empiricism, but now I’m not so sure. I think there’s an auxiliary premise that both entail that is the problem, and it’s also something entailed in most forms of theism. I’m trying to find my way to the problem, and I’m probably going to have to do some reading and re-reading, so bear with me.
January 31, 2008 at 2:25 pm |
You can’t ban Rich! He is what makes the comment threads, and insults are hardly a cause for stress. Hey Beast, if he has the patience to critique and read and respond to the blog, he deserves the chance to call us all numpty morons with **** for brains. Seriously – he cares enough to dialogue, and while he sometimes throws his toys out of the pram, who doesn’t once in a while? We want Rich back – free the atheist one!
Seriously, ban trolls, spammers and the truly obscene (like me!) but don’t ban Rich. He does insult, but there is a lot of signal among the noise, however much I disagree with him (usually totally), he actually engages.
cj x
January 31, 2008 at 2:27 pm |
And yes, if someone called me a Holocaust Denier I would be tempted to ban them. However as you are not, and are one of the most generous spirited and intellectually honest men I have ever met, rise above it Beast. Honestly, Rich does contribute, no matter how unpleasantly at times…
cj x
January 31, 2008 at 2:57 pm |
I’d also miss Rich, he’s often a very funny contributor and sometimes his comments provoke us to post facts we might not have which can only help our case. But whatever you decide Beast, you are the only one who sees the full picture about what folk are posting.
January 31, 2008 at 3:02 pm |
CJ, I can’t see where there is any “signal among the noise” in the typical post Rich makes. I can’t see, from reading his posts, that he does, in fact, have “the patience to critique and read and respond to the blog” or that he “he cares enough to dialogue.”
That is, it seems to me that many, if not most, of his posts are indicative of just the opposite, of someone who is *not* reading others’ posts to which he is ostensibly responding.
This — my view of his behavior and from that my inference as to his underlying attitude — is the one of the primary reasons I rarely even reference his individual posts, much less respond to them.
January 31, 2008 at 3:32 pm |
Well to be honest, having spoken to Beast. yes, I think a break might be needed. It must be extremely wearing on the patience, and I do note the fact that the thread comments often wander alarmingly off topic. I respect Beast’s decision, and am fully aware of the herculean labours he puts in ot writing, research and answering comments. He has never evaded the questions, and if met with rudeness despite his efforts, and as Ilion points out many comments are just rude, I fully respect his decision. Objection withdrawn!
cj x
January 31, 2008 at 3:36 pm |
JOR: “ … so bear with me.”
I’ll pretty much have to, since so far what you’ve said doesn’t seem to me to make sense over-all and especially in relationship to what I’ve said. And, after all, what you’ve said is offered in criticism of what I’ve said, so it’s *supposed* to make sense in relationship to that. Perhaps it will once you’ve said it all.
I’m going to try to resist the temptation to critique what you’ve said so far (though, I will admit that I generally have a difficult time resisting temptation).
January 31, 2008 at 3:45 pm |
Thanks, CJ and Ilion. And thanks also for your comments in suport of Rich, Feyd and JOR. No, I don’t like banning Rich, as I don’t like banning anyone. However, I’ve got a lot of things that require my attention at the moment, and so really, really don’t have the necessary time or patience for some of the sneering comments he’s posted recently.
I’ll going to take a break for a few days, and then I may reconsider my position.
January 31, 2008 at 3:49 pm |
“… and am fully aware of the herculean labours he [BR] puts in ot writing, research and answering comments.”
I quite agree. This is one reason I decided to begin to post responses on BR’s blog.
In general, I *dislike* blogs. To be more precise, I dislike the software behind blogs, and therefore the presentation of the content of the blog.
It’s not the content of blogs I dislike, it’s the way that, due to the software, one must necessarily interact with others and with that content that I dislike. It’s the difficulty, due to the nature of blogs, in havinf a sustained conversation, that I dislike.
In general, I find discussion boards to be much more “user friendly” (while realizing that they have problems, too). Unfortunately for me, for some months now I have had a very difficult time even accessing/reading the discussion board I had for long been active on.
January 31, 2008 at 3:55 pm |
This is my last post, if it goes through. If not, so be it.
It was because I perceive you as a denialist / woo lover that I asked you if you were a holocaust denier. You’ve said you’re not. Can you please show me where I called you a Holocaust denier, or apologize? Fair enough. If you want to ban me, that’s your prerogative. To be fair my comments were all going through (most creationists sites are very moderation heavy *glares at uncommon descent*) so thanks for that, although it is sad commentary I’m saying “thanks”.
I appreciate the “Don’t ban Rich” posts. Clearly there are minds at work here, so I found the engagement enjoyable. And I learn stuff. But I’m going to call stuff as I see it, and you can correct me. And vice versa.
Ilion, I can see you don’t like me. But then again, your history of ‘debating’ is duly noted and the folks here are more charitable than I with regard to your folly.
This is my last post. The banning doesn’t look good for you..it’s a pattern that has been repeated a thousand times – beliefs that wont withstand scrutiny. Don’t be a potomac village. Surely if you can look hard and long and still believe, then in was worth while.
I’m cross posting this at After The Bar Closes.
If any of you want to reach me, I’m Richardthughesyahoo.com
Good luck to everyone in the search for truth, try not to hurt anyone whilst searching.
Fond Regards,
Rich.
January 31, 2008 at 11:09 pm |
Rich if you see this even if not able to post, I and the others whom I think its safe to speak for don’t dislike you.
Hate and dislike is never a productive thing.
I think, like me, you are in SEARCH MODE. And that’s great, but there are different tacks to take.
I certainlly of allpeople don’t have all the answer and don’t claim to.
I do the best I can with limited time and the resources I have to learn more. I have learned much from BR and the others and hope to share insights.
If you phased things in simply a question or straightforward manner you’d find better responses, and I’m quite sure that our host is more than willing to answer these issues. I have some too, but will have to get back later, and in fact you might find them interesting to ponder also and might find the answers as a sort of ammunition for other ventures.
Take care. We might see you sooner than you think.
If you make a pitch as an honest way to seek answers there is little problem IMO about using what you’ve seen, just not in a nasty manner.
IF the question seeking is honest we might be able–MIGHT–make a sales pitch to BR at some point to have you back. Who knows what can happen in time.
I do this also–question, that is. There are some really dumb things out there and there ARE some insights from secularists that once you remove the politics can be congealed into something that DOES need answering.
I might blog on this later or just ask BR. You might find them interesting as they are comments I’ve not seen myself or points I find intriguing. Some I can answer to the tune that they sound nasty or politicallhy motivated. OThers are pure theology. BR typically fields both types.
February 1, 2008 at 2:46 pm |
Hi Beast, real life always have to come first but I hope you wont be taking too long of a break! Your blog is a real gold mine for anyone looking for solid authorative facts for countering atheist propaganda. Im sure many Christians and other believers really appreciate it. God bless you and everyone who contributes here.
February 6, 2008 at 2:18 pm |
Hey Beast fans, if you’re looking for alternative sources of analyses on atheist propoganda while Beast Rabban is busy elsewhere, check out the stunning “The Irrational Atheist”
http://irrationalatheist.com/freedl.html
A free E book!
February 7, 2008 at 4:37 am |
Thanks, Feyd. It’s an interesting read.
February 7, 2008 at 5:04 pm |
Thanks for the comments, Feyd, M and Ilion, and for posting the link to Vox Day’s Irrational Atheist e-book. I was planning to link to it too, as Day is very, very thorough indeed. I haven’t read it, but I have seen him take apart Sam Harris’ argument that there are more Christians than atheists in prison.
Rich, thanks for the apology. I deliberately tried to go easy on the moderation here, as I actually don’t like censorship, surprising as that may seem to you. The issue here isn’t about protecting my Christian worldview from criticism, but simply one of ordinary courtesy and respect. You probably saw the sneers, jeers and personal comments in some of your posts as nothing more than jolly japery, but to me they were nothing more than personal insults. If you really want people of faith to treat you with respect, you have to respect them. I also have to say I’m suspicious of the use of slighting phraseology and personal comments by atheists because of the way some atheist polemicists have sought to use this for simple disruptive, polemical purposes on the blogs of people of faith. John G. Deering recently recommended that atheists should try and provoke an angry reaction from religious believers in order to show them up.
Take Wakefield’s advice and be careful how you phrase your comments to avoid the ad hominem . If you can do that, I’ll let you post here again.
February 7, 2008 at 11:45 pm |
Yes, it was a good read. Vox Day did a fine job acheiving his main stated goal: demonstrating the illogic and irrationality of the New Atheists.
As appears to always be the case with anything humans do or say, one can always find points of objection.
The point of objection that stands out for me is Mr Day’s Open Theology. I was fairly sure, early on, that he holds to (the error of) Open Theology. In Chapter XV (Master of Puppets or Game Designer), in his consideration of arguments against God which devolve on (alleged) contradictions in the divine characteristics, he lays his Open Theology cards on the table.
Consider: on page 271, Mr Day says: “First, it is important to note that the Christian God, the god towards whom Dawkins directs the great majority of his attacks, makes no broad claims to omniscience. Although there are eighty-seven references to the things that the biblical God knows, only a single example could potentially be interpreted as a universal claim to complete knowledge.”
This simply isn’t true. Just consider that God claims to “know the end from the beginning.”
February 8, 2008 at 5:00 pm |
You’re very welcome Ilion. Like yourself I don’t agree with all Vox says about Christianity, but when he sticks to countering atheist propaganda he’s outstandingly good.
February 8, 2008 at 8:37 pm |
Let’s be very clear. I made no apology (that is not to say I shouldn’t, but as I see it:)
“It was because I perceive you as a denialist / woo lover that I asked you if you were a holocaust denier. You’ve said you’re not. Can you please show me where I called you a Holocaust denier, or apologize?”
I’m asking for clarification, or an apology from you.
If you want to squash dissent with the treat of banning, that’s your call, it’s your blog.
As an aside, which may well be well-poisoning, Vox Day also thinks women shouldn’t vote. Progressive.
February 9, 2008 at 11:25 am |
Hi Rich, in reply to your comment:
I’m asking for clarification, or an apology from you.
Well, I’m sorry if I got the wrong end of the stick, and you weren’t calling me a holocaust denier. However, you accused me of ‘denialism’ and when you said that you were wondering what else we disagreed on, like the Holocaust, it seemed natural that you were accusing me of denying the holocaust. You have even said yourself that you were accusing me of being a holocaust denier: “It was because I perceive you as a denialist / woo lover that I asked you if you were a holocaust denier. So if you weren’t calling me a holocaust denier before, you stated afterwards that you were asking me if I was. Now whether you were stating that I was, or were merely asking if I was, I still find it extremely insulting as the insinuation is nevertheless there that I am in some way doing something like denying the Holocaust.
If you want to squash dissent with the treat of banning
I told you, your ban had nothing to do with quashing dissent. Rather it was because of your insulting behaviour. If you can maker your points without sneers and jeers, then you can comment. This isn’t about suppressing dissent, but about simple decent behaviour and civilised debate.
As an aside, which may well be well-poisoning, Vox Day also thinks women shouldn’t vote. Progressive.
I don’t know whether Vox Day does or doesn’t. If he does, he speaks for himself. It’s irrelevant to his comments and critique of atheism, however.
February 9, 2008 at 5:15 pm |
I think all questions are fair game – Perhaps I looked foolish for asking (you’re not by your own admission) but I thought you might be. I don’t think there are bad questions, personally. You can ask me anything.
“I told you, your ban had nothing to do with quashing dissent. Rather it was because of your insulting behaviour.” – which was apparently asking a question you didn’t like (That perhaps you thought were a statement). Whilst I appreciate certain things are scared to you, they are not sacred to me. No concept is beyond challenge in my world.