Skepticism is a good thing.
It keeps us from believing everything we hear.
Without it…
…we would think the ShamWow is the most important invention of all time.
…and the television show “Myth Busters” wouldn’t exist!
I don’t want to live in a world without Myth Busters.
…especially knee-deep in ShamWows.
However, skepticism doesn’t actually solve any problems.
Skepticism is just suspicious.
Unless suspicion spurs us to keep looking for explanations; it’s pointless.
Imagine a cabin in the woods inhabited by two skeptics.
Skeptic “A” and Skeptic “B” (not their real names).
In the middle of the night, the skeptics are awakened by a sound outside the cabin.
Skeptic A: “Sounds like an animal is getting into the trash cans.”
Skeptic B: “You can’t know that for sure.”
Skeptic A: “True. But the sound is coming from the area where I put the trash cans.”
Skeptic B: “That doesn’t prove anything.”
A: “True. But it’s a similar sound to what I’ve heard when the trash cans bang together.”
B: “Trash cans don’t make noise by themselves.”
A: “True. That’s why I guessed that an animal is getting into them.”
B: “Just conjecture! You have no proof!”
A: “True. Let’s go outside and make some observations.”
The two skeptics go outside to discover the wind is blowing fiercely.
The trash cans are nowhere to be seen.
Skeptic A: “Aha! The sound we heard was the wind blowing the trashcans away!”
Skeptic B: “You have no proof! There are no trashcans here.”
When you distrust every answer…
…you live your life without truth.
…and trashcans.
191 Responses
No. I did agree with your comment.
There is no “lie” anywhere.
So, are you saying you accurately described skepticism in your post?
Are you admitting that you understand I did not ‘lie’?
I asked a yes or no question, JB. Did you not understand it?
No. You asked a loaded question. Equivalent to ‘have you stopped beating your wife’?
You haven’t proven to be trustworthy with answers. I’ve responded several times with sincerity. Continuing to press the idea that I was deceitful just demonstrates that you’re mainly interested in arguing.
I’m not.
Actually, it’s a direct question that cuts to the heart of the issue, JB. The fact that you won’t answer it also is not surprising; it shows that yes, you were being at least slightly sarcastic in your original response to me here.
My intent here is not to paint you as a deceitful person. I’m just giving back what I’m getting from you. Give me sarcasm, evasiveness, and snark, and I’ll return the favor.
To show I’m on the up and up, I apologize for my use of sarcasm here. It’s a barrier to mutual understanding.
I did not read your first comment as sarcasm.
None of my replies were meant to be sarcastic.
Believe that or don’t. I have answered your questions.
Where did I say my first comment was sarcastic?
You didn’t say anything about a lie in your first comment.
I assumed you were being earnest. I’ll not make that mistake again.
Do you really believe I lied or are you just trolling?
Sorry I didn’t reply to this sooner; I didn’t get a notification.
Basically JB, you didn’t understood the implications of my comment and responded with something cute, so I responded to you in kind. All of my comments here have been made in earnest. The only evidence I have of your demeanor and intentions are from what you write and your interactions with other people.
So where did I lie?
Well, either you intentionally misrepresented person B as a skeptic in your original post, or you intentionally misrepresented your complete agreement with me. You can take your pick.
It was an analogy. Skeptic A and B are fictional. It is impossible to “lie” in fiction. It is equally impossible to misrepresent characters that I made up myself.
So then you lied when you said you completely agreed with my comment.
Hey there!
It looks like your example in your post is describing solipsism rather than skepticism. Either that, or person B is just being contradictory. Regardless, it’s not a very good example of skepticism.
Person A actually is a better example of a skeptic; rather than insist one’s views are taken at face value, that person invited person B to go out and investigate. Skepticism is more about inviting people to consider objective facts rather than insist somebody takes one’s word for things.
From your lips to God’s ear.
We agree completely!
Great!
I’m happy you’ve admitted to lying for Jesus in your post! This is progress!
Where did I lie?
Wait, does this mean you don’t completely agree with me?
“Blind Skepticism” (the title of this post) is another word for “Solipsism.”
Many people call themselves skeptics when they’re actually just solipsistic. I thought this comment was great. And I was going to say “I agree with you, too.”
But if agreeing with you would make me a liar–somehow–then I guess we don’t agree.
I apologize for not getting to this comment sooner.
You are right in that you shouldn’t agree with my comment. In my comment, I was (attempting to) politely imply that person B was a straw man argument of skepticism, and specifically skepticism regarding religion. It’s not that atheists (like me) are being disingenuously solipsistic regarding truth and evidence that Christians offer; it is that proverbial apples are being offered as evidence and truth when I am asking for oranges. Thus, person B really doesn’t exist when it comes to describing religious skepticism. While it can feel that way at times, it’s usually just the product of people trying to verbally outmaneuver each other.
Granted, this isn’t obvious from my comment; I intentionally kept it short to leave room for dialogue. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, I realize this was a mistake.
I understand, Sirius.
And I agree that (most) Atheists are not “being disingenuously solipsistic.”
I don’t think this was a critique of JUST Atheists. It’s just a general warning to anyone who identifies as a Skeptic not to get lazy and turn into Skeptic B. It’s exaggerated to make a point–but we’ve all known people who are only interested in “winning” some type of I-Doubt-It argument, rather than actually finding ANSWERS to the mystery together…
🙂
So, if it was just a misunderstanding, why are you still accusing JB of lying?
Both he and I read your comment as something we could agree with. Why are you still going round and round trying to trap somebody, who genuinely thought he had found common ground with you?
Actually, I’m not intending to trap anyone. I answered a question that was put to me.
You’re still trying to get JB to answer between being “Lying” for Jesus or “Lying” about agreeing with your very first comment when neither is the case.
It’s a really unnecessary rabbit trail.
I can’t understand why you can’t just tell him what you told me: the first comment you mad was–in hindsight–a really unclear one. You meant it more critically than it came across.
All of us ought to be able to share this blog post about investigating mysteries–as a warning to anyone who thinks they’re being intellectual when they’re just being argumentative. All of us should be confident that we are Skeptic A.
If you’re not solipsistic, like Skeptic B, then what’s the problem? Tell JB it’s a good parody of those annoying conversations all of us have experienced at some point with a solipsistic (blind) “skeptic,” and move on, right? The fact that you’ve dragged out this thread by trying to paint JB as a “liar” is…actually…kind of ironic. It’s not very intellectual.
Personally, I’m not interested in painting anyone as a liar. I’m just giving back the sarcasm I was given at this point. Still, it isn’t something I’m a fan of using, because it’s more of a defense mechanism than anything else.
I can say that I have enjoyed our conversation here. It’s been a pleasant exchange, and I’m grateful for it.
Okay, Sirius.
See you next time!
Thanks for the blog, John.
Makes me wonder what empirical evidence I have that my mom loves me.
Sure, she says it. Sure, she does things that appear to be out of kindness for her nearly-quinquagenarian son. But what *proof* do I have?
Guess I will just have to trust that she is telling the truth and not trying to deceive me with crafty appearances of beneficence. I will have to take it on faith for the things I can’t see, can’t quantify, or can’t discern the ultimate origin of. (Forgive the dangling preposition… I have been meaning to have that checked).
1 Corinthians 1:20-24 (ESV)
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.
Dave
Makes me wonder what empirical evidence I have that my mom loves me.
That’s a very poor empirical claim, Dave. Remember, evidence is the link between the cause and the selected effect. Using umbrella terms like ‘love’ moves us away from empiricism but you know perfectly well that claiming ‘love’ and then receiving behaviour that does not show profound affection and caring would affect the truth value of the claim.
Alas!
I was trying, and perhaps failing, to say that the evidence of my mom’s love was not perceived by me as empirically laid out. The evidence was historical, logical, and theological, and perhaps even emotionological (can I trademark that?) My mom has loved me even when I did wrong, disappointer her, or even when I did something so horrible that even some of my closest friends fled from me. That makes no fleshly sense to me. But I am thankful to God that she still loves me. And that God Himself still loves me and forgives me in my repentance, regardless of what I have done.
Of course… if one had a parent that practiced “tough love” (a phrase that makes me think of Hulk Hogan tossing his child over the top ropes, I must confess), they may not see any evidence of love.
Dave
Luke 6:27-36
“But I say to you who hear, Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either. Give to everyone who begs from you, and from one who takes away your goods do not demand them back. And as you wish that others would do to you, do so to them.
“If you love those who love you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what benefit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to get back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return, and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, for he is kind to the ungrateful and the evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”
My point is that the claim about love is not a faith-based claim but one built over time and behaviour. It is full of empirical evidence for a deep affection and concern even though the term itself is nebulous, which is often misrepresented to be numinous. That’s why I included the claim about a lack of affection and little concern demonstrated over time through behaviour that produces evidence of a lack of love… in spite of the word being tossed in. Put another way, perhaps we don;t show love by believing; we show love by doing. And that’s exactly what you’ve provided to back up your claim.
I trust answers that I can point to. I think this post encourages its audience to stop actively seeking the truth and simply accept inferences, which would be a mistake.
Also, the metaphor in this post about the trash cans would be a much stronger inference than one for the existence of a God. I could probably accept that the trash cans were blown away by the wind, because I’ve seen it happen before and it’s just a couple trash cans. I can’t just accept a leap of faith towards an old man in the sky who created everything and has rules and does miracles and yada yada on the basis of some old stories. The connection isn’t there, and the existence of God is perhaps the biggest claim one could make.
“Astronomers now find they have painted themselves into a corner because they have proven, by their own methods, that the world began abruptly in an act of creation to which you can trace the seeds of every star, every planet, every living thing in this cosmos and on the earth. And they have found that all this happened as a product of forces they cannot hope to discover…. That there are what I (or anyone) would call supernatural forces at work is now, I think, a scientifically proven fact.” -Robert Jasdrow, physicist and founder of NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies
Jastrow also acknowledged the earth was experiencing a warming trend, but claimed that the cause was likely to be natural variation.
See? Even scientists can fool themselves. It’s hard work to be a good skeptic and not jump to the conclusion we want. Jastrow was a significant jumper and, when he made this quote you’ve highlighted, was unaware of and ill-informed about the cosmological model regarding the arrow of time. That’s why he so easily mistakes a period of no time with a before time, which he assumes grants him license to fill in our ignorance about the Big Bang and ‘arrive;’ at the conclusion that this is where theologians already are. This is straight up bullshit. Jastrow fills his profound ignorance in with a standard thinking mistake common to creationists and presumes a before time means a first cause… a cause he then oh-so-conveniently attributes to some supernatural (by definition) creative agency. The letters after his name does not inform this argument but demonstrates that even really smart people doing good science can succumb to their own religiously inspired hubris and spout bullshit as if it were scientifically justified. What he’s doing is putting his scientific lipstick on the pig of ignorance and thinking it’s no longer a pig.
It’s too bad Jastrow didn’t have someone like you to set him straight, Tildeb! He may have been smart…but, oh, how he was prone to fooling himself!
Since you’re here, I’m dying to know what’s wrong with Peter Harrison’s understanding of reality:
“Those who have magnified more recent controversies about the relations of science and religion, and who have projected them back into historical time, simply perpetuate a historical myth. The myth of a perennial conflict between science and religion is one to which no historian of science would subscribe.” –Harrison, former professor at Oxford
Tildeb is perfectly accurate. Your quote is from 1982, meaning he didn’t even understand the basics of Inflation. You see, the BB has never actually been proven. It’s a hypothesis, and this is where Jastrow has leapt to the conclusion, as Tildeb rightly points out, without actually knowing anything.
The problem here is we just don’t know what was happening before Inflation. We. Don’t. Know. All physics breaks down. That’s not to say we won’t ever know, but for now, no definitive statement can be made. None.
Here is a leading cosmologist explains things quite nicely: “Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists”
https://preposterousuniverse.com/wp-content/uploads/nd-paper.pdf
Jastrow was probably wrong about everything.
You and Tildeb are absolutely correct.
You’re right!
You’re right! Right! Right!
We. Just. Don’t. Know.
Now, just help me understand how this profound ignorance makes a creator God so highly unlikely to you.
Should I give up waiting for a question about creationism and just consider the topic ‘defended’?
John B, if you actually thought the criticism against Jastrow’s claim that science leads to appreciating the accuracy of the cosmology from Genesis, then you wouldn’t say, “You and Tildeb are absolutely correct. You’re right! You’re right! Right! Right! We. Just. Don’t. Know.”
You don’t think this for second. You think our criticism is without merit. But rather than tackle the thorny issue of why you think this may be the case, and actually discuss it, you simply sweep it away and show no reason why you disagree… just the pallid attempts to do so as if in a humorous way, that you’re humoring us blind atheists, that what you REALLY want to know is the next thing, until it is addressed and you repeat your tactic.
That’s all you’re doing with these quotes. You are trying to suggest that because many scientists are also religious, there is no fundamental incompatibility going on here between science and religion, and so anyone who suggests there is is wrong.
Let’s insert priests who rape children in this reasoning. You are trying to suggest that because many priests also rape children, there is no fundamental incompatibility going on here between religion and rape, and so anyone who suggests there is is wrong.
John B, you’re so busy trying to malign those who do not believe as you do that you pay no attention to the strengths and weakness either of their reasons or your own. And if you don;t care about these reasons, then why even pretend you want to engage? You don;t. You want to preach. That’s it. You want no feedback other than accolades and echos.
I think you and JZ are correct that we don’t know about the origins of the universe. Sorry if that bugs you.
There is no fundamental incompatibility between science and religion.
Teachers have raped children too. Would you suggest that there’s no fundamental incompatibility between rape and education?
And you are among the most passionate preachers I know, my friend.
I think you and JZ are correct that we don’t know about the origins of the universe. Sorry if that bugs you.
It doesn’t bug me at all, John B. But it demonstrates yet again how you misrepresent criticism. You DO think you know. That’s the problem. You just don;t have either the intellectual integrity or honesty to admit this fundamental difference; instead, you malign others, distort their points, and claim this kind of motivated piety you wield is based on reason. It’s not. It’s based on bullshit.
Thank you, Dear Leader.
You have given me insight into my own thought process.
Jastrow was probably wrong about everything.
Mmmm, did I say that, John? You know, lying is a sin, right?
Now, just help me understand how this profound ignorance makes a creator God so highly unlikely to you.
Because we see no supernatural stain anywhere. Every explanation to every question to-date has not involved a supernatural touch. What rational, coherent, defendable reason exists to believe one should be there, in the gaps?
It’s special pleading to the extreme.
Should I give up waiting for a question about creationism and just consider the topic ‘defended’?
Read on from the first line of your cosmology…
You’re not going to, though. I already know this.
“What rational, coherent, defendable reason exists to believe [supernatural forces] should be there, in the gaps? ”
Quite by accident, you’ve finally asked a creationism question! Here’s my response:
It is perfectly rational (and rationality doesn’t need to be ‘defended’) to posit a baker when we come upon a plate of cupcakes sitting on the table. It is rational to posit a painter when we come upon a painting on the wall.
No computer exists that wasn’t brought about by intelligence and it is reasonable to posit Apple while reading this post on your iPad.
Nature is vastly more impressive than cupcakes or computers. There is no rational, coherent reason to believe that the universe is not intentional.
To believe there is no God is special pleading to the extreme.
Watchmaker argument. How breathtakingly original. If you want to discuss that, and I really hope you do, I would ask you to first read my book, then you can try to debunk my Watchmaker thesis.
Now, care to keep reading from your cosmogony, John?
I’m guessing, No….
I really, really do want to discuss it!
Where can I read your Watchmaker thesis?
I’ve already said. In my book. I prove a Creator exists. I’d like to see if you can disprove it.
Despite many promises, no professional apologist has yet presented a formal rebuttal. I know many (including theology professors) have read it, which merely indicates they have not been able to arrange a coherent argument against it.
Perhaps you can, but I doubt it.
A creator exists and you remain an atheist?
You tell me. The evidences are presented. If you can find fault in the thesis, then by all means present an argument against it.
Again, i don’t think you’ll be able to, but I might be surprised.
I’m not buying your book.
I’m skeptical that there’s anything new in it.
Surely there’s something on your blog that outlines the thesis.
Fine, then I’ll just assume you can’t mount a coherent argument against it.
No problem.
But then again, I thought you liked the Watchmaker Argument? I thought you found it persuasive? Well, William Paley (evidently a man you admire) stated, “Contrivance proves design, and the predominant tendency of the contrivance indicates the disposition of the designer.”
It’s a superb observation.
The question then is: what is the predominant tendency of the contrivance?
That, John, is quantifiable.
So, does actually applying Paley’s argument to the real world (with 13.82 billion years of history of study and draw our conclusions from) frighten you?
It appears it might.
William Paley’s prose does not serve as the basis for my faith. You’ve got to stop trying to tack your myopic worldview onto me. I always call you out for that.
And please don’t go on and on about suffering cells again….I’m begging you…for the love of all things Holy…spare me…
How odd, you’re now desperately afraid of the Watchmaker Argument… the very argument you tried to use to persuade me just a few hours ago.
That’s cute.
Yes. That’s it exactly!
You alluding to William Paley has struck terror into my heart.
I’m typing this from under my bed.
I may never venture outdoors again.
Like I said: cute.
Pathetic, but cute.
And John, if you don’t want to talk about single-celled organisms, that’s fine. They don’t even get a showing in the thesis. We can talk about paranoia and physiological illnesses, the paradox of choice, complicated grief, polymyxin resistant superbugs like mcr-1, predation, 3.8 billion years-long arms races, even hope… all of it is quantifiable and I can speak on these, and many more, subjects (case studies) in great depth.
Or have you now changed your mind on the persuasive nature of the Watchmaker Argument you seemed to champion a little while ago?
Not so keen to actually discuss it anymore, huh?
But, regarding single-celled organisms, there is a question I posed to you in the past which you have rather conveniently dodged.
In the hope that you won’t dodge it again, here is that question again:
If it does not recognise that it is suffering, then why, exactly, does the protozoa resist the attacking parasitic Legionella pneumophila?
Why does it resist, John?
Yikes!
More protozoa talk!
No way I’m coming out from under the bed now!
Fine.
Be sure to let me know when you want to discuss your favourite argument for the existence of a Creator, OK.
I’m ready whenever you are.
Oh, and John, here’s that question you keep dodging again:
When you can’t remember that I’ve answered a question, you accuse me of ‘dodging’.
Protozoa were created by God to do whatever protozoa do.I do not believe they are like tiny, single cell people, shrieking in terror when parasites show up. I do not think they experience consciousness. I do not think they ‘suffer’ the way humans understand suffering.
BUT – even if protozoa have been suffering severely for billions of years, that is happening for a good reason that their Creator understands. He made them. He can do as He chooses with them. And scripture assures me that God loved the world enough to sacrifice His most precious relationship.
The book of Job talks about suffering of an actual person. The theme of that book is ‘God is in charge and sometimes allows bad stuff to happen’.
God has given humans (not protozoa) free will to pass judgment on Him. We can trust that He is good. Or we can write books about how He is maximally evil. (We can ignore the irony that writing said book requires the use of abilities that have been gifted to the author by God.)
I’m not ‘dodging’ your arguments when I say that I just don’t think you’re as smart as God.
The book of Job talks about suffering of an actual person. The theme of that book is ‘God is in charge and sometimes allows bad stuff to happen’.
Allows? No John B: he inflicts suffering. It is intentional.
The book of Job is a compilation written by at least two different authors. It’s not about a real person called Job; it’s about the demand for blind piety, that attributes all fortune and misfortune to Yahweh. It’s about Yahweh being tested on merit, Yahweh being questioned on merit, Yahweh failing these tests of merit on reasonable grounds and establishes the totalitarian power to which the pious must submit in order to remain pious. The story demonstrates the lack of morality, the absence of fairness and reciprocity and ethical behaviour by this jealous and capricious god more concerned about his reputation to be powerful than his concern for those who give him piety. Yahweh is a god who unfairly demands piety but is quite willing and able to inflict terrible suffering and death for his own motivations that are less moral than those on the receiving end. Job’s piety does not matter in gaining fortune nor for avoiding misfortune. He’s just a thing, a tool, a possession of Yahweh. Remember, Yahweh is a god of war. He’s not a benevolent deity. He can’t even answer a straight up question on reasonable merit but avoids it by accusing the pious of not having the right to even ask. He does what he does and is who he is and we’re to go along with it because he owns us.
The ending is entirely unsatisfactory and was clearly a later inclusion: POOF!… let’s fix up Job with a replacement wife, replacement children, replacement possessions, and throw in a pot of money. There. All fixed, right?
Umm… no. That’s not all right. Real people are not things, not possessions, not so easily replaced. Job is still a possession. That’s what piety means: submitting and becoming nothing more than a possession to be played with at the discretion and amusement and whim of this god. It may be good, it may be bad, but it doesn’t matter to this god. The only thing that matters to this god is piety and if he doesn’t get enough of it, he will kill us all. Or not. It doesn’t matter what we think.
Nice. At least Jesus supposedly loves you.
Sometimes He does inflict suffering.
Your outrage contradicts your atheistic claims. Why be so upset with a God who doesn’t exist?
Outrage? What are you talking about? The Book of Job is what it is – a compilation story demonstrating the capriciousness of Yahweh ordering and then expecting pious compliance… or else.
Why do you care?
Why do I care? I care to understand the source material used by many people for their own reasons, and who then try to use this material as a justification for avoiding responsibility for their actions, for making ludicrous causal claims about reality that, oh by the way, just so happen to negatively affect my well being and cause pernicious harm throughout the world.
I care because I can and do. Why don’t you care enough to take responsibility for your beliefs and defend them in an honest and straightforward way rather than spend so much effort avoiding responsibility and vilifying those who dare to question your assumptions?
The Book of Job is Jewish comedy that was misfiled and wrongly inserted into the Torah long after everyone who knew it to be comedy had died. Seriously, read it as a comedy and you’ll see what I mean.
Yeah, Tildeb. It’s a comedy!
Don’t get so worked up about it!
I never said protozoa suffer like humans, but nice attempt at constructing another straw man.
You can add that one to your Lego box of similarly dressed dolls.
The question (and answer) demonstrates that suffering is built into the very nature of all things, present and acting on even the most primitive of life for billions of years before it—life—stumbled upon the chemicals (enkephalin) and cellular structures (opioid receptors) with which it could recognise something resembling ‘happiness.’
That is quantifiable. It is historical. And if you want to propose the Argument from Design, then, John, you have to face the historical reality of the design. Remember: “Contrivance proves design, and the predominant tendency of the contrivance indicates the disposition of the designer.”
However, somewhat predictably, despite your words, that is not something you are prepared to do.
At best, this makes you hopelessly disingenuous. At worse, it makes you a simple liar.
People lie when they’re frightened.
Ah, Divine Command Theory.
So, it’s disingenuous, a liar, and now an enemy to all human decency.
You, John, are ISIS on a paved street. Yes, they’re into Divine Command Theory, too. That’s how they rationalise their sickness.
What is hopelessly disingenuous is your assigning me ISIS status in order to forge a criticism. Especially entertaining after your indignant accusation of straw man argument!
Cut and paste something from your book! That’ll probably scare me into silence!
Divine Command Theory is the same justification for a member of ISIS to pass on responsibility to some god for actions committed as it is for someone who uses it to justify “even if protozoa have been suffering severely for billions of years, that is happening for a good reason that their Creator understands.” It’s okay/righteous/moral/ if God commends it. That’s the comparison, John B.
Yeah. I got it the first time.
He has no rebuttal so he equated me with ISIS. It’s a great tactic to use with people who don’t actually read responses because they’re busy spewing fundamentalist bullshit (to use your term).
God created the universe from scratch. Who is better suited to dictate what is righteous than Him?
You are because you do come equipped with a sense of reciprocity.Oh, and you’re real, too.
I didn’t create the universe. Neither did I create myself. That’s an important point.
Yeah, neither did I. What an astute observation.
But unlike you, I didn’t make up and invest confidence in some version justified only by superstitious nonsense that I pretend ‘explains’ where my ignorance begins with a Just So story.
Yeah.
But if I’m just as qualified to determine righteousness as you, why do you keep arguing with me?
And if I’m righteous, why do you keep accusing me of stuff like “…using this material as a justification for avoiding responsibility for their actions, for making ludicrous causal claims about reality that, oh by the way, just so happen to negatively affect my well being and cause pernicious harm throughout the world…”?
Lemme know.
And don’t, “make up and invest confidence in some version justified only by superstitious nonsense”. Make sure you answer with hard, scientific evidence!
You’re really not very good with understanding words, are you John B? Is there a misrepresentation you cannot be tempted to raise? I said you were better suited THAN GOD… specifically the Yahweh of Job who you raised in this thread but who demonstrates not a scintilla of righteousness in the story, whereas you have both a sense of reciprocity and are real, which makes you BETTER suited. It doesn’t make you righteous by fiat. And it doesn’t aid you in pretending your god is more righteous.
We argue because you make points with which I disagree on merit and then, rather than deal with the criticisms I raise in an honest and straightforward manner as behooves an honest and straightforward person concerned with what’s true, begin your tactics of playing stupid, of misrepresenting what others say, of intentionally diverting the comments to a straw man that you create, of blaming the motives of those who do not believe as you and dare to point out where your reasoning goes off the rails of reasonableness, all the while trying to appear humorous doing so, which I think is condescending bullshit supported only by more condescending bullshit.
Maybe I’m not very good at understanding YOUR words, Tildeb.
Your philosophy is bankrupt.
If there was substance to offer, you wouldn’t waste time crying ‘bullshit’ about all my responses.
If God made the universe, He is best suited to determine righteousness. If there is no God, then neither you nor I can make any claims about what ‘ought to be’.
Sure we can (and do), John B. Don’t be such a Scaredy Cat. Rather than submit to the argument ‘Because God commands it to be so’, we can actually use good reasons. Remarkable concept, I know, but good reasons can empower ‘oughts’ far better, far more morally and ethically defensible, far more righteously, than ‘Because this god or that one interpreted by clerics say such and such and you’d better do it or else you suffer for all eternity.’
That’s not disingenuous at all, and the observation stands. Or are you taking back your deferment to Divine Command Theory?
Of course, you’re not taking it back.
We both know that.
It’s the only card you have left. That wonderful HAND-WAVE OF ALL-HAND-WAVES… The All-Weather, Reusable Excuse of Excuses.
If you take it back, heavens forbid, you will actually have to deal, like an adult, with The Argument from Design… No excuses welcomed, just historical facts.
That will never happen, will it, John?
And there you were, trying to persuade your readers that it (Paley’s Watchmaker Argument) was the most persuasive argument you could present.
So, if the day ever comes, let’s talk about it.
Right.
You have no rebuttal for the All-Weather, Reusable Excuse of Excuses.
We’re saying the same thing over and over now…
I do have an argument, but you keep trying to PRETEND it doesn’t exist. It’s my thesis. It contains no excuses. The world that is, has been, and will be is explained without need for a clever cover-story, or deferment to some obscene notion that contradicts the very premise you are trying to forward.
So, tell me, John, which explanation for the world is stronger: the one that requires an excuse (a theodicy) just to be even vaguely possible, or the one that doesn’t require an excuse at all?
Want to talk about the design, or have you lost all faith in that particular argument?
I’m guessing the latter….
You told me I had to buy your book if I wanted to hear your brilliant design theory.
Do you want to share your theory or have you lost all faith in that argument?
I’m guessing the latter…
And there is the shining example of why there are no successful evangelical/conservative comedians.
Repeating what someone else has said, and thinking it’s funny.
It’s not.
Sorry.
Wrong. It IS funny. I’m a professional on this subject.
So do you want to share your theory? Should I climb under the bed and cower in anticipation?
And around and around John goes, spinning and spinning, pretending he’s naïve.
What, John, is the predominant tendency of the contrivance?
JZ…
Honestly,
Sincerely,
In all earnestness,
I do not know what you want me to say. I have answered this question many times.
I’ve asked you to answer it in order to give me some perspective. In the past, you’ve exempted yourself from answering it.
So, I’ll let you answer it FOR me. Tell me how I SHOULD answer this question so I’ll some idea what point you’re making.
Can you point me to where you think you have answered it?
Of course you can’t.
The question is painfully simple.
What, John, is the predominant tendency of the contrivance?
Leading I.D theorist, William Dembski, has called this, directed contingency, or what you might call, choice: the choices of the Creator.
You can draw your answer from 3.8 billion years of life on this planet (the terrestrial, organic evolutionary paradigm), or, if you’re really brave, you can also comment on the directional patterns as exampled in this universe’s 13.82 billion years history.
Here’s a clue as to that larger canvas: we are all hydrogen’s diaspora.
Assuring me that it’s ‘painfully simple’ and repeating the exact question is not helpful.
Can you answer your own question or not?
Of course I can. I wrote a book on it.
Listen, as you’re so clearly in an awkward position here (pretending you’re dumb is embarrassing and demoralising, I understand) I’ll buy you some time so you can gather yourself.
Take Paley’s quite brilliant observation (“Contrivance proves design, and the predominant tendency of the contrivance indicates the disposition of the designer”) and frame your answer in a post dedicated to your favourite argument, The Argument from Design.
That is, of course, provided you still think it to be a persuasive argument.
I (and I’m sure everyone reading this) get the impression that you’re running away from it now as fast as you possibly can.
Just so there’s no confusion: We are starting with an acceptance that a Creator exists. No need to present old existence arguments like the cosmological or ontological arguments.
A Creator exists.
A nameless, invisible Creator.
Following Paley’s observation, we are looking to identify the Creator… To determine his disposition, his character, which will be revealed (as it must be) through the design.
So, John:
Tensions stitched into the deepest recesses of Creation have always favoured one direction for the sweet debris of existence to be expelled.
What is that direction, and what does that reveal of the Creator?
I look forward to reading your post.
Are you talking about death? Existence ends in death.
No.
I look forward to reading your post.
You just did. Hope it didn’t disappoint!
Not at all.
You’re a continual disappointment.
Ah, yes, how silly of me. If Jastrow had understood inflation, then he’d be an Atheist!
“Science is a game – but a game with reality, a game with sharpened knives. If a man cuts a picture carefully into 1000 pieces, you solve the puzzle when you reassemble the pieces into a picture; in the success or failure, both your intelligences compete. In the presentation of a scientific problem, the other player is the good Lord. He has not only set the problem but also has devised the rules of the game – but they are not completely known, half of them are left for you to discover or to deduce. The uncertainty is how many of the rules God himself has permanently ordained, and how many apparently are caused by your own mental inertia, while the solution generally becomes possible only through freedom from its limitations. This is perhaps the most exciting thing in the game.”
—Erwin Schroedinger (Another Nobel winner.) (But it was back in 1933, so we probably shouldn’t listen to him.) (If Schroedinger knew what JZ and Tildeb know, he’d be an Atheist.) 😉
Indeed. It seems that science is merely plays a supporting role in their atheism. Fundamentalists pick and choose their quotes and pay no mind to the ‘quoter’.
Right, those who respect reality and pay attention to it are the ‘fundamentalists’ and not those who simply spout bullshit because they want to believe the bullshit is pious and so it must be true.
Your ‘reality’ is too small, Dear Leader.
Your ‘reality’ is too small, Dear Leader.
No, John B, it far exceeds your little god. And I love the ‘totalitarian’ dig that accuarte only when applied to your tyrannical God. I just want to try to know something about reality whereas you already know it’s all about your God. That’s more shoveled bullshit. You think you can contain reality in your pious and pathetic explanatory model ‘Godidit’ and decide by your belief what is true about it. You mistake your bullshit for knowledge and all I’m doing is calling you on it.
Yes, Dear Leader.
Your reality is supreme.
I must learn my place.
Yes, Dear Leader.
Your reality is supreme.
I must learn my place.
See? This is your bullshit in action. It is disrespectful of me, disrespectful of finding out what is true no matter who says it. It misrepresents me specifically. It distorts what I’ve written. It substitutes a deceitful motivation and imposes it on me.
Why the bullshit, John B?
I’m not afraid of the truth! Fire away! you say.
That’s a lie. A blatant lie. A pathetic lie.
You are very much afraid that your religious beliefs are misguided. You are afraid that your religious beliefs do act to protect a profound ignorance from legitimate criticism. You are scared that you could be completely wrong, that your religious beliefs have motivated you to reject and spurn gaining knowledge. You are scared that you have indeed indoctrinated your children with lies and deceptions and falsehoods and Just So stories that make YOU feel good. You’re scared that you’ve been too credulous and trusting of your own religious indoctrination and that you’ve become a gullible fool, that this foolishness is the legacy of wisdom you’ve passed on to the next generation.
Of course you’re scared. You know you’re peddling bullshit covering up ignorance with quips and quotes you seek out on the internet. You know you do distort and intentionally deceive from time to time in your comments. You know you do these things. You don;t care about maligning other people to do so. And you know you justify these actions by thinking well of yourself, thinking you are a defender of the faith, a soldier. for Christ, a guardian of His Word.
What’s true doesn’t need all of this bullshit. And you know this, too. What’s true stands on merit. That’s why you’re scared and that’s why what’s true doesn’t matter nearly as much to you as being seen as pious and therefore ‘right’, a victim of non believers who raise the curtain on your peddled bullshit, a poor guy mostly helpless but oh-so-nice unfairly targeted by those big bad atheists. And that’s all bullshit, too.
How many times are you going to make me say ‘Dear Leader’ before you stop giving me cause to do so?
Fundamentalists Google the name of the person quoted, to find out whether their father was a minister, in order to decide whether the quote is valuable.
Fundamentalists Google the name of the person quoted, to find out whether their father was a minister, in order to decide whether the quote is valuable.
Is that what fundamentalists do, mrsmcmommy?
More bullshit.
Do you and your dad play together with the straw men dolls you make?
Is that the best question you can think of to ask?… Still don’t have a good one regarding Creationism?
I’d love to have an actual conversation. But Atheists and paper dolls have the exact same capacity to contribute to a discussion…
Guess we have to keep playing with paper until we have the opportunity to pick the brain of a rational person, like Ted Harrison:
“Here is the cosmological proof of the existence of God – the design argument of Paley – updated and refurbished. The fine tuning of the universe provides prima facie evidence of deistic design. Take your choice: blind chance that requires multitudes of universes or design that requires only one…. Many scientists, when they admit their views, incline toward the teleological or design argument.” –Ted Harrison, Cosomologist
He sort of asked a question unintentionally, so I answered it.
He apparently doesn’t think I’ve read the book of Genesis as he keeps urging me to ‘read further’ into my cosmology.
I think I may buy a copy of his book though. We can cut the pages into paper dolls!
Since I’m tired of throwing pearls before swine, I’ll just send this one to you…
“God is Truth. There is no incompatibility between science and religion. Both are seeking the same truth. Science shows that God exists.”
“The observations and experiments of science are so wonderful that the truth that they establish can surely be accepted as another manifestation of God. God shows himself by allowing man to establish truth.”
–Sir Derek Barton, 1969 Nobel Prize Winner in Chemistry
That is an excellent paper.
It is, but buckley’s and no chance of John and his daughter ever reading it.
It’s too bad Jastrow didn’t have someone like you to set him straight, Tildeb!
How true. How very true. So much to do. So little time. Still, I do try…
Science was a religious endeavor not so long ago. There was no dividing line between them as there is today. In this sense, Harrison is absolutely correct but only trivially so.
There is absolutely no question that many empirical claims are made – and have been long assumed to be the case – by many religious dogmas that do not have empirical support for them, and there is no question that many of these claims are counterfactual and incompatible to how we understand reality to operate. There is no question that two contrary explanatory models that produce opposite claims simply are not compatible and we find this all the time in populations where the religious explanatory model is in direct competition with a scientific one.
The point Harrison is making about the claim that there has always been a perennial conflict in this regard, which there has not, but we have to remember that science as it is described today has only been around for a few hundred years. What we do know is that in Western culture, the ORDER of authority for scientific claims was subservient to the religious and this order was used historically to judge the truth value of claims made about how reality operated (did it agree with scripture). This order is the source of the contention for pointing out the long historical conflict where this order was upheld as if justified and I have many such examples to present to any historian of science who tries to fob off this incompatibility of method to be fictional. It is not a fictional. It runs throughout history. The religious method – is it compatible with scripture – was never a method compatible with finding out what is true about reality – no matter what form this order was described, under them name of physics, natural philosophy, or religion. This order of presumed authority really did have a profound historical affect and had an omni-presence up until the 1600s. That’s why so little knowledge was produced under its tenure. This is the historical incompatibility talked about today between science and religion, between which authority – scripture or reality – should adjudicate contrary claims made about it.
I can give you a historical summary of the scientific method if it helps:
Science developed because people started reading the Bible.
That’s not an historical summary, John B. That ignorant bullshit… not that you care to know why or on what compelling evidence. After all, anything you believe must be the case because you believe it, and so any criticism is completely misguided.
I’m not asking you to take my word for it! I’ve never suggested that ‘it’s true because I said so’. That’s how YOU talk.
I’ve done quite a bit of reading on the history of science. The Bible’s influence over early scientists is profound and unquestionable.
BUT…Maybe you know something I don’t. Surely you wouldn’t accuse me of bullshit unless there was an obvious mistake in my thesis.
So send me the ‘compelling evidence’ that demonstrates my ignorance. I’m not afraid of the truth! Fire away!
See? You claim ‘the bible’s influence’ without understanding what that actually meant in practice. But it sounds good to think ‘Oh, the marvels of the universe, god, god, god, just look how profound a motivator was the bible in seeking knowledge about the universe.’ That’s not how ‘the bible’s influence’ influenced anything in practical terms. In Western civilization, the Church had a stranglehold on what was considered acceptable knowledge and what wasn’t. That’s not motivating knowledge about the universe; that’s motivating religiously acceptable dominion over the inquiry itself.
Because I wrote and presented a thesis for adjudication on the history of astronomy, I am quite familiar with how the Church absorbed its cosmological model. and the level of interference and direction it was responsible for. For example, Copernicus left detailed instructions not to submit his heliocentric paper until after his death. His reasons? Because he knew his mathematical model did not fit the Church’s geocentric dogma and would cause a shit storm so he didn’t want to be subject to the Inquisition. How very free, how very motivating. How very supportive of the Church to free inquiry. Yeah, right.
Oh, for the glory of god there was lots of money, to be sure, but you risk your life to go against the Church’s explanatory model and the cherry picked scripture to support it.
I’ve already mentioned Galileo. There are lots of letters between Galileo and many other ‘scientists’ about all kinds of shared subjects of particular interest – from astronomy and optometry to smithing, from weapon makers and hunters (he didn’t have the math of logarithms for his trajectories study) to ship builders, from securing funding from various influential families to soothing the concerns of the highest levels of the Church as his fame and fortune grew, demonstrating the ongoing problem of religious interference in absolutely everything ‘scientific’ and having to seek constant permission from people utterly ignorant about these topics… yet utterly dependent on them for their approval for various projects and inquiries and publications. Spokesmen for God, donchaknow.
That you simply wave all of this away I attribute to your profound ignorance. And you maintain your ignorance under the guise of honest curiosity until, just the the Church of old, you deem something unacceptable to your religious explanatory model. Ah, the gift that keeps on giving: piety having dominion over free inquiry. You’re not free to think, John B, not free to consider evidence and arrive at adduced conclusions; you’ve already shackled your mind to serve your religious sensibilities. That’s why you continue to produce nothing but bullshit but try to sell it as insight.
If I had said ‘the church’ was influential in the development of science, everything you said would be spot on.
The church has historically been adversarial to science (and scientists). This is the result of the fundamentalist thinking which I’ve railed against many times. Fundamentalism is illogical, irrational and thoroughly emotional.
I’ve never defended church piety. I am not ignorant about the corruption of church leaders through the ages.
That doesn’t change the fact that the Bible is THE primary influence in the development of science.
…unless you still have compelling evidence to the contrary.
Tildeb, you’re pulling things out of your ass.
Seriously. So many words, and not an ounce of “reality” (though you like that word a lot). For someone who has no way to explain logic and the laws of physics themselves, I can’t believe you’re weighing in again.
It was THEISTS who had the freedom to develop the scientific method and build the techniques and methods for research that we still depend upon. They outlined the basic rules, because they believed in a Rule Giver.
They weren’t using the Bible as a textbook for early physics and astronomy, as you seem to suggest. They reasoned, “If there’s a God who has created this Universe, then we ought to be able to study what has been made and have it be consistent with any supposed Words From God.” The books of Scripture and the Book of Nature ought to line up.
So, yes, early scientists studied scripture and made predictions. But they ended up BEING CORRECT, and their shoulders are the ones you’re standing, while trying to discredit their work.
To paint the founding fathers like Newton and Keplar and Boyle as zealots who would ignore or throw out good science when it surprised or offended their biblical assumption is 100% NOT TRUE.
On the other hand, the New Athesists have stolen the presuppositions of the early scientists. They take the Laws for granted and deny the very existence of the Law Giver, which scientists for centuries have acknowledged as essential.
YOU still can’t tell me whether the brain or logic came first… yet you take logic for granted. You take “reality” itself for granted.
See the quote from Schroedinger I shared with JZ. You’re happy to use God’s rules and to make believe you’re winning the game.
The ‘they’ you are referring to is Galileo, mrsmcmommy. I have expertise in this subject. He tried and failed to get his friend the pope to understand that if reality indicated scripture to be in error – and he had lots of evidence it was – then it was the Church’s problem to be open enough to align its interpretation of scripture with reality and not maintain the incorrect dogma that preceded it. This was an attack on the authority fo the Mother Church. Undermine scripture, undermine the Church’s authority. He was no more ‘free’ to do science than anyone else; you wouldn’t know, of course, because you mistake your profound ignorance with pious knowledge, which I call by its proper name ‘bullshit’. Like all ‘scientists’ throughout Christendom, Galileo by law needed the Church’s PERMISSION to publish his findings. It was denied, in case you’re curious and remained a banned book until I think the 1980s. He got in such trouble because he published without this legal authority to do so. That was his ‘crime’.
Look, I understand you have no clue about what you’re talking but have a belief that you are trying to support with anything that gives the appearance of support. This deeply dishonest tactic is from the teat of your proud Daddy and he’s wrong to think this method leads to anything other than believing full out bullshit if appears piously acceptable. Your ramblings about logic and the brain are a perfect example of just how confused you are about how things have come to be, how we know about anything to do with anything. Piety is not the key to this understanding. It is an obstacle… as you and your Daddy demonstrate time after time after time.
If you want to understand how the brain works, my dear, religion is not the means to do so. It’s empty of knowledge. You’re simply hand waving and demonstrate that you don’t want to learn a a damn thing unless the thing already aligns with your religious beliefs. That approach is a guaranteed way to fool yourself to believe whatever you want to believe and think yourself justified by God to do so. No. That’s how you remain ignorant for life.
Y9ou need to break out of these theological bindings and open your religiously fettered eyes by opening your mind with knowledge.
I honestly don’t know why you’re so angry, Tildeb. OR why you’re bringing up Galileo’s fight with the Pope and the other local religious folks, as if that’s relevant.
The Truth prevailed. As it always does. That’s how both of us know who Galileo was and what he accomplished. The people who try to shove God into a box are made to look foolish every, single time. In this case, it was the Church leadership who thought they knew everything about God and (as you’ve correctly noted) wanted to be the final authority. The leadership wasn’t interested in “seeking” God; they were interested in TELLING others who God is, and exactly how to interact with Him. Their god was the size of their Bibles–just as yours is the size of a laboratory.
Speaking of Galileo, aren’t you glad the Church couldn’t stop God’s plans–so that we can read quotes of his like this?
“Philosophy [nature] is written in that great book which ever is before our eyes — I mean the universe — but we cannot understand it if we do not first learn the language and grasp the symbols in which it is written. The book is written in mathematical language, and the symbols are triangles, circles and other geometrical figures, without whose help it is impossible to comprehend a single word of it; without which one wanders in vain through a dark labyrinth.”
― Galileo Galilei, student of God’s Book of Nature
Is there something about the word ‘bullshit’ that is supposed to break down our arguments? It seems to be coming up a lot and I’m certain that our rational, logical interlocutors wouldn’t use it emotionally. There must be science behind it.
Maybe it was one of Galileo’s studies which never saw the light of day because the Church suppressed it! “Calling Things Bullshit Is a Rational Way to Decipher Truth.”
mrsmcmommy, all you doing is calling what’s the case ‘God’ and then assigning to ‘God’ what’s the case!
The problem is in the finding out. That requires a method. A method than comes loaded with assumptions and presumptions to already know what is the case – say, God created Man in His own image – because of access to this god through belief (to what is already the case) is doomed to produce not knowledge about what is the case, but what is BELIEVED to be the case, what is believed to be about ‘God’. That belief doesn’t lead towards knowledge. It leads away from it. It leads to bullshit.
When you presume your god and what is the case are synonyms, then to successfully find out what is the case means leaving any and all presumptions aside. That means putting God aside. I honestly don’t think any religious believer doing good science while trying to incorporate belief in a creative interactive god can produce good science – knowledge into what is the case. That believer must compartmentalize, must put aside the religious beliefs that imports what is believed to be the case in place of what is the case. This is hard to do. And it’s an unnecessary difficulty.. all to keep God somehow involved. As I keep quoting Laplace, we have no need for that hypothesis, no need to include any god in our scientific pursuits. God just become a problem.
That’s why religious belief produces empirical claims about what is the case contrary to and in conflict with what doing good science shows us IS the case. Evolution is a stellar example that directly contradicts the claim that God created Man in His own image. Both claims cannot be the case. Get rid of the God claim, lose no knowledge. Add the God claim, lose all knowledge about Man’s heritage.
What you think are synonyms ‘God’ and what is the case are in fact and practice adversaries.
Ah, we’re going to use the word “case” now instead of “reality.”
Alrighty then.
As I’ve already explained a few weeks ago, you can change the terminology as much as you want–but the words aren’t the problem. You’re seeking after truth, just like me, which is a religious concept.
Whenever you assume that there is something outside yourself which can be known, you are behaving like the religious founding fathers, and you are looking for God, too. It’s built into all of us.
Reality/truth/”The Case” is what I’m seeking, just like you. And–just like you–I accept WHATEVER good scientists have discovered to be “the case.” If it’s true and it is responsible for this miraculous, magical reality we have the ability to think and grow within, then it deserves my worship.
You’ll have to excuse me now. Today is the first day of the school year at my house. My daughter and I are talking about numbers and the fact that adding one more always equals the next highest number. (Of course, there are physicists who theorize that there are universes in which 1 + 1 never equals the same number, because “reality” is completely different in those Universes. But the only reason they have come up with that mind-bending theory is to escape the dilemma they have in OUR reality: it’s awfully orderly and predictable to not have Mindful intelligence behind it.)
“Atoms are weird stuff, behaving like active agents rather than inert substances. They make unpredictable choices between alternative possibilities according to the laws of quantum mechanics. It appears that mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent inherent in every atom. The universe is also weird, with its laws of nature that make it hospitable to the growth of mind. I do not make any clear distinction between mind and God. God is what mind becomes when it passes beyond the scale of our comprehension.” –Freeman Dyson, Quantum Physicist at Princeton
Dad–I think you and I need to start interpreting the Bible exactly how JZ interprets it, before he blows a gasket.
“Belief in Yahweh means THIS and THIS and THIS…and you can’t find places of agreement with Deepak…and don’t even think of uttering the word evolution!…or else you’re not a Christian!”
I mean, yeesh. Most pearl-clutching, bun-wearing Mennonites aren’t THIS overt with their black-and-white thinking. .
Hey, JZ, quick question about Christianity: am I allowed to have an occasional sip of alcohol?…
#Fundamentalism
I’ve tried that already.
The problem is that he doesn’t know what he believes. His fundamentalism is “disagree with everything JB writes”.
It bothers him that Christianity even allows for skepticism. He doesn’t know how to handle religious folks who don’t share his myopic view of ‘god’ (little g).
Be patient with him. He’s got a very old brain.
Does he have an old brain, or just a very small one?…
At the end of the day, even the Albert Einstein’s among us are just children.
“I’m not an atheist, and I don’t think I can call myself a pantheist. We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the books but doesn’t know what it is. That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God.” –Einstein
Noooooo! Einstein has to be an atheist!!!
Let’s talk about YHWH now!
Tell me, why do you support slavery?
Maybe JZs god is sitting on the toilet…
That thought went through my head too but I didn’t want to quote scripture.
You can quote whatever you want! If it turns out to be wrong, you have the ability to recant it.
If it’s true, it belongs to God.
Whether Depaak says it…or Moses…or some nameless person who made up a mortality tale about a mythical guy named Moses…or Einstein or Millikan or JZ…
It doesn’t matter who speaks the Truth.
It’s God’s.
please do tell us what scientists aren’t skeptics.
Every good scientist is a skeptic.
ah, there is the wiggle word. What is a “good” scientist, John?
Nothing ‘wiggling’ here.
Everybody (even non-scientists) should be open to the possibility of being mistaken. That’s skepticism.
So, evidence for your religion, John? Or are you not open to the possibility of being mistaken? Again, what is a “good” scientist? It seems you are unable to answer a question again. Plenty of scientists who know they can be wrong and have been shown wrong. Where have you said you can be wrong and your god imaginary or another god being the right one to worship?
Of course I’m open to being mistaken. We’ve had several conversations where I’ve asked for alternative explanations.
I’m skeptical that life came to exist without some supernatural force getting it started. I’m open to any ideas that will diminish that skepticism.
You’re contradicting your cosmogony here, John. Your cosmogony doesn’t say anything about life needing a start, rather that all kinds were created.
Like I said, if you’re not embarrassed by your cosmogony, then embrace it!
Defend Creationism, John.
No. I’m probably contradicting the cosmogony that YOU keep sticking me with.
You did notice that I mentioned being open to ideas that diminish my skepticism about creation, right? That’s where you materialists, naturalists, determinists (or whatever you’re calling yourself) rise up and present the robust and compelling evidence that creationism is indefensible.
I’m skeptical that you will do that.
John, you have a cosmogony.
It’s the Hebrew cosmogony.
It’s the cosmogony of the Pentateuch.
It’s the cosmogony Jesus believed.
I’m terribly sorry, John, but you (a self-proclaiming evangelical Christian) don’t get to play with that.
You don’t get to go all Deepak Chopra and insert all sorts of new agey things while still trying to claim to be an evangelical Christian who believes in the specific, personal god named, Yhwh.
You don’t even get to play with evolution.
Sorry.
Genesis. It’s yours. Own it.
Now, the fact that you keep running away from YOUR cosmogony like a frightened long eared jerboa merely demonstrates how stunningly embarrassed you actually are of it.
So, as I said to your daughter, if you don’t like this box YOU’VE CHOSEN then I suggest getting rid of it and finding another that suits you better.
“This is where you materialists, naturalists, determinists (or whatever you’re calling yourself) rise up and present the robust and compelling evidence that creationism is indefensible.”
Genesis is mine.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth….
Embarrass me, JZ.
In the beginning, God created the heavens and the Earth…
Don’t stop there. Read on…
You mean, keep reading until I get to something to which you can cut and paste a reply?
Your problem is not that you don’t believe in God. Your problem is you don’t LIKE God.
Actually, you don’t like YOUR cartoon god that you’ve cut and pasted from assorted religious philosophies.
I don’t like your god either. Your god is small, quarrelsome, arrogant and weak.
Your god tells you to write criticisms of this blog post even though you value skepticism as your precious atheism is constructed entirely from doubt.
Your god tells you to accuse me of ‘running away’ even though I’m standing right here asking your god to provide you with answers.
Your god can’t even give you intelligent questions!
Need proof?
What aspect of Creationism do you want me to ‘defend’?
No, I mean, if you’re not embarrassed to do so, keep reading after that first line…
Ta-Da!!
You’re so predictable.
I’m boldly standing my ground and asking again:
What aspect of Creationism do you want me to ‘defend’?
Okay, so you don’t want to keep reading from your cosmogony.
No problem.
I can appreciate how monstrously awkward it is for you.
Hey, you frightened long eared jerboa, I’m waiting for your question. Make it a good one! Pound my cosmogony to mush! Bring it on!
What aspect of Creationism do you want me to ‘defend’?
Who distrusts every answer?
Nice straw man, John. You can add this one to your Lego box of dolls you like to play with.
Tired of McMommy and world-renowned scientists spinning you in circles? Is that why to you fired a shot at me?
YOU distrust every answer that doesn’t come from your pre-approved source list.
You dismissed Millikan because he was a minister’s son! DO YOU EVEN KNOW WHAT A STRAW MAN IS???
Go ahead and jump into my Lego box my friend! You ‘think’ just like one of those dolls.
John, the irony seems lost on you that you are trying to portray reasonable versus unreasonable skepticism.
What is the difference between reasonable and unreasonable skepticism?
“This much I can say with definiteness – namely, that there is no scientific basis for the denial of religion – nor is there in my judgment any excuse for a conflict between science and religion, for their fields are entirely different. Men who know very little of science and men who know very little of religion do indeed get to quarreling, and the onlookers imagine that there is a conflict between science and religion, whereas the conflict is only between two different species of ignorance.” –Robert Andrews Milliken, Nobel Prize Winner (Physics) in 1923
Fields? Empirical claims know no such boundary. It’s the religious who try to create this false boundary in order to get around backing up empirical claims with empirical evidence. No matter what some people say, there really is a fundamental incompatibility in the methods used to arrive at conclusions about reality: science allows reality to arbitrate empirical claims made about it whereas religions don’t. In practice, religion always tries to make a special exemption for its empirical claims. That’s the incompatibility in action. What’s ignorant is trying to pretend there is no incompatibility.
Milken, the son of a minister, evangelical Christian, and advocate for eugenics.
Eugenics is nice, isn’t it.
The date of his quote, though, is interesting.
1923. Two years before the magnificent Cecilia Payne presented her Ph.D thesis (Stellar Atmospheres, A Contribution to the Observational Study of High Temperature in the Reversing Layers of Stars), six years before we learned the Milky Way was not the entire universe, thirty-four years before Hoyle, Margaret Burbidge, and Fowler proved that all heavier-than-hydrogen elements were forged inside supermassive stars (not conferred by some benevolent benefactor as religious fantasy would have us believe), thirty years before the discovery of DNA, and fifty years before the beginning of genetic mapping.
Got any contemporary examples?
JZ has faith that, had Millikin lived TODAY, he would be a staunch Atheist.
How sweet.
So, got any contemporary examples?
Contemporary? Like the scientists who are building on the foundation laid by people like Milliner?
Come on, JZ, this isn’t our first conversation. We both know that I can’t just give you ANY scientist currently living who believes in God. No, that won’t do…
If I find you 100 cosmologists and 100 philosophers and 100 geneticists, you’ll want 100 quotes from botanists as well.
You always have to outline the terms of the conversation in order to feel like you’ve achieved some type of victory.
So, how about this? I’ll keep posting quotes I like from scientists–regardless of how old or new they are. And then you can keep telling yourself that you and Richard Dawkins are WAAAAAAAY more informed than those ancient and obsolete Nobel winners…
“A little philosophy incline’s man’s mind to Atheism, but depth in philosophy brings men’s minds to religion.” –Francis Bacon (the philosophical pioneer of the Scientific Method that Tildeb is so fond of.) 🙂
A contemporary Nobel winner is what we’re looking for.
And I’m sorry, but there is no god named, God. Could you be more specific as to which god (and which cosmogony) you are talking about?
Don’t you ever get tired of running that script, JZ? “Which God?” “Do you mean Yahweh???” “PLEASE say Yahweh’s name, so I can copy and paste from my book!”
Lol.
“God” means supreme. Whatever the highest, most intelligent, most true thing you can think of–that’s your god. I really couldn’t care less what you call that intelligence. (I suspect you call yours “John Zande.”)
Also, I think Millikan (whose name you keep misspelling) would be very interested in the eugenics debate STILL HAPPENING today. For example, should we allow couples to choose the hair, eye color, and sex of the embryos they implant? (That’s the modern version of eugenics, you know.) As a Christian, I could give Millikan a couple reason why I don’t think that’s a good idea and try to steer him away from that. As a….well, whatever you are…I’d be interested to hear how YOU’D explain what’s wrong with controlling the biological direction of the human race…
Here’s another quote for ya.
Frank Tipler (Professor of Mathematical Physics): “When I began my career as a cosmologist some twenty years ago, I was a convinced atheist. I never in my wildest dreams imagined that one day I would be writing a book purporting to show that the central claims of Judeo-Christian theology are in fact true, that these claims are straightforward deductions of the laws of physics as we now understand them. I have been forced into these conclusions by the inexorable logic of my own special branch of physics.”
The word “god” is a common noun, like tree. You do learn about common nouns in American schools, don’t you? You capitalise the name of the god. So, if you are referring to Olódùmarè, then the “O” is capitalised. If you are talking about the Middle Eastern god, Yhwh, then the “Y” is capitalised.
Tipler and his Omega Point, huh? Funny how his thesis (a masterpiece of pseudoscience, i think it’s been described as) completely contradicts the Hebrew cosmogony. Also, be sure to let me know when he actually presents a coherent rationale for how the supercomputer will emerge. His thesis sort of conveniently ignores that part…
“…completely contradicts the Hebrew cosmogeny…”
That’s Fundamentalism for you!
Step One, take the infinite, omnipotent Order of the Universe, and stick it in a box.
Step Two, wag your finger at anyone whose box doesn’t look exactly like yours.
If you think you understand Yahweh well enough to dismiss Him, then He wasn’t a very good god…
And anything which can be used to criticize or disprove a god becomes the new standard. Which means THAT’S God.
The Supreme. The Force. The Ultimate Truth. Reality. Beginning and End. These all can be names for God.
Here’s another quote: “This sense of wonder leads most scientists to a Superior Being – der Alte, the Old One, as Einstein affectionately called the Deity – a Superior Intelligence, the Lord of all Creation and Natural Law.” -Abdus Salam, 1979 Prize Winner (Physics)
I didn’t stick it in a box.
If the box YOUR cosmogony is in bothers you, if it embarrasses you, then I would suggest throwing that box out and finding one that better suits your mantle.
I’m embarrassed of nothing.
Embarrassment should occur when grown up people cling to the dogma of a godless universe after the repeated demonstration of the futility of that cosmogony.
I admit that I don’t know what point you’re making. Do you disagree with the content of this article?
Self-evidently, you are embarrassed, or else you (and your daughter) wouldn’t keep trying to run away from the cosmogony detailed in your particular religion.
If you’re not embarrassed, embrace it!
Ok. Now that you’ve got that out of the way…
Do you disagree with the content of this blog article?
I’ve already given you my opinion of this post. It’s just another example of the dolls you construct and play with so as to maintain (reinforce) your pantomime version of reality.
Ever skeptical of my own conclusions, help me understand the position from which you make these assertions.
What dolls? Where does my reality become pantomime?
Again, I’ve already explained: your straw men are your dolls. As for your pantomime, well, as you both seem to enjoy quotes from scientists, I’ll let Einstein explain:
That clears up nothing.
You’ve explained nothing.
But you’ve certainly written a lot of words!
I don’t find it especially stimulating to cut and paste quotes but since it seems to be the extent of your skills:
“I believe in Spinoza’s God, who reveals Himself in the lawful harmony of the world, not in a God who concerns Himself with the fate and the doings of mankind… ”
Albert Einstein to Rabbi Herbert Goldstein (1929)
So you’re a Pantheist, John?
No.
I’m just copying and pasting quotes from scientists.
Doesn’t have anything to do with what I believe.
I thought this was your method of argument…?
No, but apparently it is your daughters….
I’ve never worshiped the Bible, JZ. I worship the Supreme End-All. The Way the Truth and the Life. The Governor, which causes people who are much smarter than you to stand in awe…
Speaking of smarter guys, here’s another quote:
“People take it for granted that the physical world is both ordered and intelligible. The underlying order in nature-the laws of physics-are simply accepted as given, as brute facts. Nobody asks where they came from; at least they do not do so in polite company. However, even the most atheistic scientist accepts as an act of faith that the universe is not absurd, that there is a rational basis to physical existence manifested as law-like order in nature that is at least partly comprehensible to us. So science can proceed only if the scientist adopts an essentially theological worldview.” –Paul Davies, 2002 Faraday Prize winner. (And 1995 recipient of Templeton Prize.)
Davies is an atheist. I’ve met him in Sydney.
You believe in the Middle Eastern god, Yhwh: the god the Pentateuch.
If I’m mistaken, please correct me.
I read your comment, but all I heard was, “Please say the name Yahweh, so I can quote my own book” again.
You use the word “God” like my First-Grade daughter uses the word “winner.”
We both are the winners, Mommy!
No, there can only be one winner.
And there can only be one God.
I believe in whatever God is the Truest.
Fine, then you’re not a Christian.
Can we move on from that now….?
There are many Christians who would agree with your assessment that I don’t make the cut. (I think they’d probably use the word “heretic.”)
Also, they don’t like that I dance and visit the movie theater from time to time.
#Fundamentalism
Many probably also don’t like the idea that you support slavery, human trafficking, and are a fan of eugenics.
But then again, you don’t have to be a Christian to find these beliefs of yours grotesque. But then again-again, there are many White Supremacist Christian groups who’d welcome you with open arms.
Perhaps you’re already a member of one of these uniquely American Christian Identity “churches”?
Are you?
We’ve covered slavery already, too, remember? But you only have so many talking points, so I forgive the repetition…
You’re only proving you are guilty of the “ignorance” that Millikan mentioned in the very first quote I shared. There are no discrepancies between religion and science… There only are two camps of people whose gods are too small…
Speaking of heretics, here’s a little C.S. Lewis for you. (Since you’re so well-read on Christianity, I’m sure you’re familiar with Lewis, right?)
“”I have therefore no difficulty in accepting, say, the view of those scholars who tell us that the account of Creation in Genesis is derived from earlier Semitic stories which were Pagan and mythical. We must of course be quite clear what ‘derived from’ means. Stories do not reproduce their species like mice. They are told by men. Each re-teller either repeats exactly what his predecessor had told him or else changes it. He may change it unknowingly or deliberately….
“Thus at every step in what is called—a little misleadingly—the ‘evolution’ of a story, a man, all he is and all his attitudes, are involved. And no good work is done anywhere without aid from the Father of Lights. When a series of such retellings turns a creation story which at first had almost no religious or metaphysical significance into a story which achieves the idea of true Creation and of a transcendent Creator (as Genesis does), then nothing will make me believe that some of the re-tellers, or some one of them, has not been guided by God.” –C.S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy
Davies: “Yes, the universe looks like a fix. But that doesn’t mean that a god fixed it”
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2007/jun/26/spaceexploration.comment
Could you do me a favor and stick to one thread? These multiple replies are just complicating things.
(And I don’t care whether Davies identifies as an Atheist. That’s just another way of saying, “Small-minded.”)
http://godevidence.com/2016/02/everyone-religious-rather-nobody/
And I don’t care whether Davies identifies as an Atheist. That’s just another way of saying, “Small-minded.”
Now that ‘logic’ means ‘God’ and ‘love’ means ‘god’ and ‘reason’ means ‘God’ it’s nice to see you changing the rest of the lexwicon to suit your religious biases. No you say ‘atheist’ means ‘small-minded’? Why, of course it does.
Hey, I’m not in moderation over here! Go figure.
Nobody has ever been in moderation, Tildeb.
Quit whining!
I’ve no intention of deleting or moderating any of your comments. They’re just too awesome!
And yet, there I was for over a day and it’s only because I alerted Ark that I was somehow ‘found’ sitting there with “Your comment is awaiting moderation.”
Whaaaa!
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
My comment was in moderation!
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!
Is John moderating now? Might be going the way of Colourstorm, Wally, James, and all the others….
Never have. Never will.
My level of tolerance is unprecedented.
He says no and mrsmcmommy tells me the comments were discovered in her spam folder so I presume she’s really the admin on John B’s site… meaning he can claim he doesn’t do any of that stuff, I guess. But I ma amused when he tells me “Nobody has ever been in moderation, Tildeb” and I have demonstrated to have been in moderation on his site No apology, of course, just claims that I’m whining because I was held in moderation.
I tell you, JZ, it’s getting harder and harder to make sense of his thinking. Maybe that’s what’s supposed to be funny. I don’t know.
Maybe that’s what’s supposed to be funny. I don’t know.
I suspect the U.S. (Trump-voting) Conservative (Teabillie) brain is not wired for that sort of complexity in humour. It’s why john can’t grasp Poe’s Law. It’s also, i suspect, why he does Grade 3 toilet seat protector jokes in his standup.
And I like the useful advice to let you know I’ve been sent off to moderation when that notification itself then heads off into moderation.
Tildeb: “Waaaaa…Waaaaaa…..Waaaaaaa”
Oh, and do you think Milken’s evangelical Christian belief was what shaped his belief in, and promotion of, eugenics?
…preferably one who isn’t into eugenics…