Go ahead, guess. Would you be surprised to learn that Warren is a creationist?
I believed that evolution and the account of the Bible about creation could exist along side of each other very well. I just didn’t see what the big argument was all about. I had some friends who had been studying the Bible much longer than I had who saw it differently…Eventually, I came to the conclusion, through my study of the Bible and science, that the two positions of evolution and creation just could not fit together. There are some real problems with the idea that God created through evolution… My prayer is that you will have this same experience!
The Bible’s picture is that dinosaurs and man lived together on the earth, an earth that was filled with
vegetation and beauty…man and dinosaurs lived at the same time…From the very beginning of creation, God gave man dominion over all that was made, even over the dinosaurs.
Isn’t it nice of Obama to grant this clown a prominent place on the national stage?
Sorry facilis, John 7:5 does not specifically say jezus’s brother. It says his brethren. I could just as easily refer to Rev. BigDumbChimp, Holbach and Kel as my Pharyngula brethren. The passages I mentioned do state brothers and sisters.
If you really want to be embarrassed look what else it says.
Facilis #495 wrote:
If we were talking about someone’s Uncle Warren, and dealing only on the personal, family level, then I think I’d probably agree. Everyone seems to have some friend or relative who is convinced that we never landed on the moon, or that pets communicate by telepathy, space aliens built the pyramids, or there’s a car that can run on water. Taken one at a time, we can be indulgent, and shrug.
But Rick Warren has a very public platform. And he represents a very big constituency.
The larger problem shows up on the communal, national, or global level, when this type of irrational approach is redefined as shrewd “skepticism,” and people put more weight on what their “gut” or their “heart” tells them, than on rational analysis and cautious appeal to expertise.
Is Religulous out on DVD yet? It didn’t come out in Australia and I would love to see it.
This isn’t some post-modern society where one person’s opinion is as valid as another, there’s the simple matter of truth. Change evolution to denying the holocaust. Now what does it matter if people say the holocaust didn’t happen?
SC, OM the movie is in 20 parts, look under the YouTube heading Bill Maher (I always misspell that name).
My trying to post YouTube links always ends up a fail. I have a bar fight scene I’ve been wanting to share with tsg & Janine for ages, but it never turns out. Perhaps that’s for the best. Poor tsg can’t even bear sharing a Walnetto with me, a bar fight might do him in. *sigh*
“Psst1 Not a brother, she is a sister.”
Oops, my apologies.
Gets coat, slinks away.
Facilis:
Wow. It’s supposed to be the holy scripture of your religion!
How hard is it to read one book?
Facilis:
Behemoth. Dick like a cedar tree, mongo stones barely contained by sinews or some shit. Leviathan. Dude, even I know this one.
OK – I’ll try it.
Religulous part 1
If it doesn’t work blame the monkey with a #2 pencil and a scrap of paper. Or me, banging two rocks together…
SC, OM, I didn’t watch it on youtube but took clinteas’ hint about a ‘torrent’ of people watching it :)
I was told long ago that “Leviathan” and “Behemoth” were crocodiles and hippos, respectively. They were not dinosaurs.
Obama could have chosen a minister who wasn’t as much of a lightning rod for stupidity as Warren is. But he didn’t. I have always been lukewarm towards Obama, and this is yet another reason I just shake my head.
“Yes. Ditto for the germ theory of disease, or the second law of thermodynamics. When an “informed layman” decides to reject major, well-established scientific theories because they conflict with his religion –Yes. Ditto for the germ theory of disease, or the second law of thermodynamics. When an “informed layman” decides to reject major, well-established scientific theories because they conflict with his religion — or because they conflict with his politics, his patriotism, or his self-esteem — he is advocating a very dangerous approach to deciding truth.”
It is yet another self-defeating ideologue. Many notable Christians are good scientists- and most of the founders of science itself. Here’s a nice list- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Christian_thinkers_in_science
Particularly ironic- Georges Lemaître (1894-1966): Roman Catholic priest who first proposed the Big Bang theory.
Of course many can be looked up for further discussion, though indeed that would overflow this thread. I wonder if there are any threads with this topic- how Christians are biting their own ass when they submit anti-science and hold such fervent anti-intellectual platforms and opinions.
Sven – Splitter! It’s dragons.
Dragons – six.
Leviathans – two.
Facilis – I’ve read a good deal of the bible… that’s it. You loose the great compliment of being the $2 troll. Spread the word amongst your brethren, don’t go bible quoting to PZ’s blog. They know the book.
Yay! Worked! Thanks, Patricia!
And while I was looking, I checked out this live video of the song I was listening to at the moment:
Shhhh – my computer will hear you. *pets 9-year-old laptop gently* No, honey, I won’t ask you to do anything as exotic as all that. Never you fear.
RickOll #512 wrote:
I can’t recall any particular thread, but that’s a common theme. If creationism is successfully identified as the “Christian” view of origins in the larger culture, then Christianity is in serious, long-term trouble. They’ve managed to make their religion not only falsifiable – but falsified.
Are they mad? I had thought theists in general understood that reality can’t be shoved around for long, and that the wisest course in religion is always to discover how much better God becomes, and how much deeper the appreciation for Christianity, with each new bit of scientific information. Now we need less faith/more faith! Yea! God always wins. The Creationists set it up so that’s not possible. Nice.
I’m always a bit surprised when people are so quick to assume that the most fervent enemy of the Creationist would be the atheist. The people who should be really jumping up and down in panic and teeth-grinding fury are the reasonable Christians, who must surely recognize what’s at stake for them. For us, it’s a matter of principle. They’re fighting for the soul of Christianity.
Somehow, many of them seem to be lulled into indifference by the blanket of “faith,” and its need for respect. “Everyone has the right to believe whatever they want about God” is turning into “everyone has the right to believe whatever they want about everything and anything…”
SC, OM, actually I have an old Acer laptop that I play with for fun occasionally which only has 16MB RAM and an Intel DX2x25 CPU (that’s 25MHz doubled to 50MHz) running W95 and it will play a 700MB AVI file using the original basic MS media player. Admittedly, it won’t do anything else while playing it, but it will play it.
Holy shit, SC, all I can say about Gogol Bordello is, like, holy shit! Thank you for that link!
Sastra @515, +5 Insightful.
:) I may try, but I’ll probably just wait till I *whispers* get a new one in Feb.
You’re welcome!
John Phillips,
Actually, when I read that again I did fully understand it. I think I just zoned out when I saw all of the numbers. Thanks for the info. That’s pretty amazing, actually. Mine is capable of a lot more than people can believe, but I don’t want to push him. I’ll likely get another HP, as this one has been so solid.
SC, OM LOL
WEll I have never had a HP before, but a couple of months ago I needed another laptop for my collection. So treated myself to a HP TX2350EA tablet and I must say I am quite impressed with it so far.
since we’re bragging about laptops, everybody say hello to my new baby
Off to the MCG to watch us getting embarrassed by the South African fast bowlers batting…..
I have no idea if it’s available on YT,but I imagine it would not be there for long,copyright and all.
Kel,
It must be,somewhere.
Oh the humanity of it all!
Kel,
Officially? Not until the 18th. of Feb 2009.
Fair enough. When I get back home tomorrow night, I’ll see what the torrent of people are flocking to.
Enjoy SC, I’m watching YouTube clips of Doug Kershaw and singing and dancing along.
All this time I thought Cajun was hillbilly. I wish my grandparents were still alive to explain how we got to be such a mixture of cultures.
Oh well, I’m a happy monkey tonight!
Kel, yep, it took all of 10 minutes to pour down my pipe :)
FUNDIE FIGHT!!!
This may be the best Christmas present EVAR!
http://www.ocregister.com/articles/warren-obama-drake-2265240-baptist-pastor
I hope this grudge match goes on for years!
Longtime lurker, that is just too funny, LOL
Let me respond to a few posts:
First, I didn’t ‘run’ off. It was past midnight (here on the East Coast) on Christmas night, and I had to be up very early the next morning. The question I last responded to was very much a side issue (with respect to the issue I was addressing), and I provided a reference for anyone interested.
Second, it’s simply farcical to suppose that you can argue that a book you’ve never read has been ‘demolished’ by a historian of science who himself has never read the book, and who was responding to three short excerpts provided by a commenter who admitted that he wasn’t knowledgeable enough to form any judgment about the book in question!
Finally, I just have to respond to this one:
Kel: “erics (paraphrased argument) God is immaterial, thoughts are immaterial, you don’t need to measure thoughts to know they exist, therefore you don’t need to measure God, and I won’t provide any evidence because I can rationalise God purely through thoughts!”
I challenge you to provide a reference to any post on this blog in which I’ve ever said anything remotely close to this. I can’t tell if you’re simply lying here, or if you honestly think that I’ve said anything like this. Anyway, provide the quote, if you can. If you can’t — and I could understand why you might have better things to do than search this blog for my past posts — then at least provide me with some more information about how you ever reached such a ridiculous understanding of anything I’ve said.
One more thing: since I only (initially) write on this blog when I see something I disagree with, I’m always bombarded with responses from most of the ‘regulars’ who, understandably, tend to agree with much (not all) of what is written here. Since I can’t make responding to people on Pharyngula into a full time job, I’m only going to respond to a what it seems to me are the strongest arguments against my position, with the occasional clarification if something I’ve said seems to have been misunderstood or poorly formulated. I’m not ‘dodging’ anybody; I just don’t have enough time to respond to every counterargument. As I said, though, I’ll do my best to respond to the strongest criticisms I see (Nick Gotts, Sastra, Owlmirror and Windy seem consistently to provide some of the best criticisms, but I’ not going to limit myself to them).
I’m not going back, but you made a clear argument for the immaterial in thought, then tried to claim similar for God. Wowbagger will back me up on this, it was quite a dirty trick.
Somehow, many of them seem to be lulled into indifference by the blanket of “faith,” and its need for respect. “Everyone has the right to believe whatever they want about God” is turning into “everyone has the right to believe whatever they want about everything and anything…”
If only they stopped there, Sastra, but they demand respect and deference for whatever stupid belief it is they cling to, and screech like a Body Snatcher Pod Person when it’s withheld. I defend the right of anybody to believe any damned fool thing they like, but I fully exercise my equivalent right to point, laugh, mock, and run rings around logically the sort of drivel promulgated in these threads in endless rounds of wack-a-loon.
Kel, that’s not what you said above. You’re making two different claims now about what I said:
1.God is immaterial, thoughts are immaterial, you don’t need to measure thoughts to know they exist, therefore you don’t need to measure God, and I won’t provide any evidence because I can rationalise God purely through thoughts!
2.but you made a clear argument for the immaterial in thought, then tried to claim similar for God
Do you see how (2) is different from (1)? In (2), you’re only saying that I made an argument for some kind of dualism, and then tried to make a similar argument for god. Well, this is perfectly respectable, even if it’s not exactly what I did. With (1), however, you’re claiming that I argued that dualism entails that god is immaterial (if you don’t need to measure thoughts, you don’t need to measure god), and that since this is the case, one doesn’t need to provide evidence for god’s existence! Now, this is simply nonsense, and I’ve never said anything like it.
Which is what I was getting at, it’s nothing more than mental masturbation. It’s making an assumption: “thoughts are immaterial”, which I would contend is false. And secondly you are concluding that thoughts and God are of the same nature, which again is false. Unless you are saying God is a product of the mind, then I’d fully agree with your assertion.
Well, dualism (of whatever kind; there are many varieties, some of which are consistent with physicalism) is not an ‘assumption’; it’s a conclusion, and one that has many strong arguments supporting it. The arguments aren’t coercive, and reasonable people can disagree about their strength, but then, the arguments for physicalism (wherever they lead, e.g. functionalism, property dualism, etc.) aren’t coercive either, and have their own problems.
Also, I never said that thoughts and god are of the same nature, though I would say that both are immaterial (when I say that thoughts are immaterial, I’m referring only to acts of the ‘intellect,’ as Thomists use the term, and not about all mental states).
The difference is of course we know the physical exists, we don’t know that the immaterial does. Of course physicalism is not perfect, but thoughts are in a whole something we can experience and thus is something we can measure. Even if thoughts are immaterial, I would contend they are perfectly measurable given the right equipment. Right now I can just ask you what is on your mind, and while that is not going to be perfect, it’s a way of ascertaining that thoughts and ideas do infact exist and are a product of mind.
So that’s where it baffles me that you are going out of your way not to provide evidence for God. Because if we can do measures of what you call immaterial, why can’t we apply any test at all to measure God? What’s wrong with putting this immaterial to measure, especially when we are evidence-based creatures.
So, any dualists want to tackle a question posed by a smart thinker?
“Consciousness. Is it linear, or parallel?”
Kel, it’s simply not true to say that thoughts ‘on the whole’ can be measured. What are the physical dimensions of my thought of ‘triangularity’? Where is it located? How much does it weigh? Is it bigger or smaller than your thought of ‘triangularity’? Now, you can provide some data about my neural activity when thinking about ‘triangularity,’ but the issue is, can we identify my thought with my mental states? Some say that this is a variant of the masked man fallacy, but I don’t think this works. For example, we know that the morning star is the evening star, and it therefore makes no sense to ask ‘why’ the morning star is the evening star; when we have a clear instance of the masked man fallacy, this is where we find ourselves. But it seems clear that it is meaningful to ask why my thought of triangularity is this neural state(s) (event, etc.).
Also, what can it even mean to ‘measure’ the ‘immaterial’?
correction: but the issue is, can we identify my thought with my *brain’s activity*
eric:
James Randi’s million dollars is still waiting collection…
The only one arguing that was William Hilbright, totally missing the thrust of SC’s comment. But if those quotes are genuine, then they have indeed been demolished.
“During the past century, Western intellectuals have been more than willing to trace European imperialism to Christian origins, but they have been entirely unwilling to recognize that Christianity made any contributions (other than intolerance) to the Western capacity to dominate. Rather, the West is said to have surged ahead precisely as it overcame religious barriers to progress, especially those impeding science. Nonsense. The success of the West, including the rise of science, rested entirely on religious foundations, and the people who brought it about were devout Christians.”
You allude to the book to support your contention, you apparently have read it, so is this quote accurate of its thesis? (my bold)
can we identify my thought with my *brain’s activity*
Where else shall we look? Your kidneys? Without your brain’s activity, there is no other way to identify any thought as yours. People do manage to talk and type without any apparent brain activity.
Someone has a million dollar prize concerning dualism?
John, look at the bold portion of your quote. You do realize that that is essentially the thesis of the book. In other words, it’s the conclusion of the book, and it’s argued for over the course of 235 pages. I’m sorry, but you cannot intelligently criticize a conclusion unless you know something about the arguments supporting it (let me be clear: i’m not talking about conclusions that contain contradictions, or about conclusions that are self evidently false, or about conclusions that have so much powerful evidence supporting them that it’s patently ridiculous to question them seriously; this conclusion is not like any of these, it’s certainly plausible, and it’s prima facie at odds with nothing more than conventional wisdom, so you can’t deal with it unless you deal with the arguments).
eric:
Fair enough, and this is also your contention?
Well, that’s debatable, but nevertheless feel free to, in your own words, make those arguments. I’m sure you can paraphrase them, since you feel they’re cogent and compelling.
So far, all you’ve done is make the claim and allude to the book as justification. It’s been shown the claim is (at the very least) disputable.
I’d say we can. The technology is limited and our ability to measure is limited, but we can change your thought process through the interaction of stimuli, through damaging your brain, and we can observe it both directly and indirectly – directly through measurement of brain activity and indirectly through the actions you take. It’s by no means perfect, but currently as it stands we see behaviour before conscious awareness of said behaviour. i.e. people make a decision before they are aware of making a decision.
While this isn’t conclusive proof that thoughts and rationalisation are material, it does teach us a lot about the nature of how the brain works. And while we are observing lesser degrees of both awareness and rationality in other species such as chimpanzees and crows, it does give us a good indication that the ‘mind’ is a product of evolution.
As for your exact thoughts, the technology is not there yet, and the understanding of how the mind works is limited. But it’s still testable, to say it’s untestable or immaterial at this stage is unwise. And that’s why myself and NoR (among others) are having problems with your position. You are not making the case that God is beyond testing with the examples that you have, and especially not with the nature of the god you posit.
Kel @546, you bring to mind this recent post.
Um, I forgot:
For evidence of the supernatural, yes.
“The organization offers a prize of one million U.S. dollars which it claims it will pay out to anyone who can demonstrate a supernatural or paranormal ability under agreed-upon scientific testing criteria.”
Such as ghosts, past lives, astral travel, mediums etc comply with the terms.
That’s why I subscribe to Stephen Novella’s blog. His writing on what we can do with neuroscience is pretty amazing. Same goes for anything concerning animal testing, what we have learnt through the study of animal behaviour about how our mind works is astounding. Apart from the level of interaction our mind has, there doesn’t seem to be anything that our mind has that at least one other animal in the animal kingdom doesn’t have.
There was a great article in New Scientist about 8 months ago called “Humans are obviously unique, but it’s surprisingly hard to explain why” which goes through all the ways we thought we were unique and where we see that behaviour in other animals. Though it’s hardly a surprise in the end, we just have a large ape brain.
“It’s been shown that this claim is (at the very least) disputable.”
Of course it is. So are nearly all claims, especially when we’re dealing with the social sciences and the humanities. Has anyone ever written a book in which every reviewer and reader said, “Yes, that’s right.”
As for summing up the book, that’s simply not feasible. I’m sure I could do a decent job if I had the time to devote, but I simply don’t — which is why I referred to it. It presents a historical argument, so it necessarily presents a ‘cumulative case’ argument. As with most historical arguments, you have a plethora of data converging on one point, and not a few big pieces supporting the whole. If you care enough about the subject to read it, go ahead; if you don’t care enough, don’t read it. But at least you’re now aware of the fact that there are well informed, well respected academics out there (and Stark is hardly alone; there are many others, especially historians of science, questioning the ‘conflict thesis’ today) making the case that that theology has, in its way, contributed ‘something’ to society. (If I remember correctly, Dennett has made a similar argument about religion as a whole: he compared it to a ‘nurse crop’ insofar as it was initially required to maintain and protect certain assumptions and ways o thinking about the world that were necessary to get the whole scientific enterprise going.) Keep in mind, I’m not making an argument from authority here, since I’m not saying anything like, “Stark’s book, therefore theology has made all these wonderful contributions”; rather, I’m referring you to a source that defends conclusions at odds with your own. Do what you will with that source. Someone asked what theology has ever contributed; I recommended a book on the subject, one that apparently no one here was aware of.
My ears are burning!
Kel wrote:
I will back Kel up on this summary of the argument eric was making at the time – specifically, comparing the inability to show evidence for the existence of abstract concepts to why there’s no evidence for the existence of God – though I probably wouldn’t go as far as to describe it as a ‘dirty trick’. It’s just an uncompelling argument, no matter how much apologist sophistry it has to prop it up.
Should anyone actually be interested, the relevant posts on the topic begin here, where eric expresses his dislike of the ‘extraordinary claims/extraordinary evidence’ demands.
Here’s another reference — not an argument, but a reference — to some decent (though brief, as the titles of the posts indicate) arguments for dualism:
http://edwardfeser.blogspot.com/search?q=some+brief+arguments+for+dualism
Wowbagger, thanks for providing the link. However, it’s clear from my posts that I was not doing anything like what you and Kel claim. I was attacking Nerd of Redhead’s ‘physical evidence’ criterion by showing that there are a host of things we all believe to be true, and a variety of ‘things’ we all believe to exist, without a jot of ‘physical evidence’ supporting any of it. There’s a world of difference between saying, “Your criterion for x, which is controversial, doesn’t work because it brings y and z, which are not controversial, also into question,” and “x is immaterial, and can’t be measured, therefore y is immaterial, and you can’t ask for evidence of y”!
Your example is of something that probably isn’t immaterial, and in any case can be measured. There’s still no justification for withholding evidence for something that is alleged to have a physical effect on the universe.
eric:
1. I’m not asking you to summarise all the arguments, but even one would do for starters. You’ve only alluded.
2. You cared enough to refer to it, but now plead wholistic indivisibility for it, so that you cannot paraphrase it’s thesis? That’s an example of special pleading.
Let me clarify that last bit, since it seems already to have been misunderstood:
“There’s a world of difference between saying, *as I did*, “Your criterion for x, which is controversial, doesn’t work because it brings y and z, which are not controversial, also into question,” and saying, *as Kel claims I did, but which I did not*, “x is immaterial, and can’t be measured, therefore y is immaterial, and you can’t ask for evidence of y”!
You are claiming that thoughts and reason are immaterial, which can be measured, observed and may not even be immaterial. Why is this anything more than special pleading on an object that you claim not only exists but interacts with the material world?
Sastra #515: “The people who should be really jumping up and down in panic and teeth-grinding fury are the reasonable Christians, who must surely recognize what’s at stake for them. For us, it’s a matter of principle. They’re fighting for the soul of Christianity.”
Oh, hell yes, but this applies to more than just creationism. Every time I hear some Christianist asshole explain why equal rights for gay people aren’t Biblical, I sink a little more into despair.
Not so much panic, but “teeth-grinding fury” — oh yeah.
Thanks- and now you’re making me feel bad for snarking at you in the past! But I still think that this Stark business is pretty lame.
I am aware that linking to a bad review does not constitute a refutation of Stark. But the bad reviews do cast doubt on the idea that Stark is well informed and well respected (although maybe he once was)
Here’s another review – from a sociologist and not on Amazon:
“The Victory of Reason is the worst book by a social scientist that I have ever read. Stark’s methodology has nothing to do with history, or the logic of comparative analysis, or the rigorous testing of hypotheses. Instead he simply makes claims, the more outrageous the better, and dismisses all evidence that runs contrary to his claims as unimportant, and treats anyone with a point of view different from his own as stupid and contemptible, and reduces causation in human affairs to one thing and one thing only. How in the world, I kept asking myself as I read this book, could someone spend so much of his life trying to understand something as important as religion and come away so childish?”
Here, just for laughs, Rodney Stark’s opinion of evolution:
…the boundaries between species are distinct and firm – one species does not simply trail off into another by degrees
…why not lift the requirement that high school texts enshrine Darwin’s failed attempt as eternal truth?
I don’t know if Stark is full of shit about the history of Christianity but let’s just say that my Bayesian prior for it is pretty high at this point. Do you really want us to suffer through 235 pages of Stark? Isn’t there anyone else you can recommend?
PS. John Wilkins and Thony Christie are not proponents of the ‘conflict model’.
Here’s another reference — not an argument, but a reference — to some decent (though brief, as the titles of the posts indicate) arguments for dualism:
From Feser’s post:
Arrgh, not good.
-completely ignores the concept of levels of explanation.
-his objection would apply to a physical explanation of any phenomenon, not just the mind!
-the mind is not always a reliable interpreter of itself and its causes, which seems to falsify the claim that “aspects of the overall causal situation have no special significance apart from a mind which interprets them as having it“.
Sorry I had to post and run; I was due for a bike ride – attempting to work off the usual extra intake of food that is standard for the season.
eric, you spent a great deal of time on that thread pointing out how there are a great many ‘things’ we believe in that don’t have a physical components. Why, if you weren’t extending that argument to the existence of gods (which was the point Nerd was making), did you go to so much effort?
I asked you (as did one or two others) about this at the time, in this comment, but I think you’d left by then; either way I don’t think you responded to it.
So, there seem to be two alternatives: your argument was either a refutation of Nerd’s demanding physical evidence for your god, since we believe in abstract concepts for which we have no physical evidence – as Kel has pointed out – or it was an attempt at a diversion, and you’ve been called on it.
Here, just for laughs, Rodney Stark’s opinion of evolution
Wow, you gave two of the milder quotes from the whole article. It’s amazing to see that much stupidity in one place. Apparently, all the “leading biological scientists” realize that evolution is a failed theory, but they keep up the pretense that it’s true for some reason or other. Just to badger religion, I guess. A remarkable piece of work, that article.
Posted by: eric | December 28, 2008
I was attacking Nerd of Redhead’s ‘physical evidence’ criterion by showing that there are a host of things we all believe to be true, and a variety of ‘things’ we all believe to exist, without a jot of ‘physical evidence’ supporting any of it.
Those are called myths, fables and folklore.
How wrong can one person be about evolution. You can’t beat ring species as a classic example of such ‘trailing off’ from one species to another. A simplified example, species A can interbreed with species B but not species C or D. B can breed with A and C but not D. D can breed with C but not A or B.
Now I don’t know when Stark made that statement, but the first paper I came across in a quick search is nearly four years old.
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/307/5708/414
Can you name anything that we believe in that is beyond the realms of human measure either through direct or indirect means? The difference is that you were claiming that God requires no measurement, and that’s something highly contentious – especially when the examples you mention are well within the scope of measurement.
I wrote that your argument about the contributions of theology was destroyed there. (For someone who fails to make himself clear and then constantly complains about being misunderstood, you certainly do have a knack for misrepresenting others.) I did not say anything about the book as a whole. And you STILL haven’t responded to anything substantive that Thony C. had to say. If you’re offering one reference to support your argument, you need to be prepared to defend it against criticism. Feel free to decline to do so in the lame terms you’ve been doing thus far, and I will feel free to think you’re a total shmo.
What a series of intellectually-dishonest cop-outs, followed by that concluding sentence that sums up your whole pretentious attitude. It was the equivalent of referring to How the Irish Saved Civilization. Not that it’s of any significance whatsoever, but I was aware of it, and I may have read that post at Evolving Thoughts when it appeared. I’m certainly familiar with Stark, and IIRC PZ has posted a link to a study by him within the last year. Frankly, his work is an embarrassment to me as a historical sociologist. We’re not perfect, but we generally try to make supportable claims, and have great respect for the historians who have spent decades studying one small time period, individual, or event. Stark’s work insults them. There was an article in the ASA journal Contexts called “Religion Returns to Campus” about the rise of academic (and specifically sociological) attention to religion, and, while this is perfectly fine in theory, the path it’s taking in practice is disturbing (that isn’t the position taken by the authors of the article; it’s my response). From what I’ve seen, Stark seems to be a prime example.
For a more intelligent discussion of religion among social scientists that might be up your alley, go here:
http://www.ssrc.org/blogs/immanent_frame/
(And I second the recommendation of NeuroLogica. Or you could start with Lucretius. Oh, that’s right, though – people like him had no role in the development of scientific thinking or practice. Not like those monks.)
eric (#537):
Hmm. And what exactly is an “act of intellect”, other than a mental state (or change in mental state)?
(#540):
Fallacy of Reification. Your thinking about triangularity is a thing only in the very broad sense that states are “things”. And states do not necessarily possess the same properties as the subject.
As to where your thought is located – since it’s a state of you, then it’s located in the same place as you, wherever that happens to be. If you want to narrow it down further, then it’s in whatever part of you that you use to think with.
Your other questions constitute a category mistake – which I think you appreciate at some level, since your point seemed to be that thoughts and physical objects do not fall into the same category. However, you draw the wrong conclusion. From the premise that mental states do not share the same properties as physical objects, it does not follow that they are not physical. It only follows that that they are not physical objects. They may still be states of physical objects, and as such, still be part of the physical world.
is followed by
Oh, no, of course not. I can’t imagine why anyone would think that. :S
I would like to hear a full defense of the claim that the Bible informs every aspect of my culture – every value, belief, norm, and meterial object (and a definition of “informs” as it is used here).
“But the bad reviews do cast doubt on the idea that Stark is well informed and well respected (although maybe he once was)”
And do the good reviews do the opposite? Are we to set up a series of columns, provide a numerical value to each reviewer’s level of expertise, devise a system to determine the value of a review (from “this book is horrible” to “this book is great”) and work out the merits of Stark’s book with this ‘reviewer calculus’? Does the same analysis apply to all other books — such as the God Delusion, which has gotten a large number of horrible reviews from very secular sources?
“I wrote that your argument about the contributions of theology was destroyed there.”
Go back to my original post (167, I think). I said explicitly that I was providing a reference; does providing a reference constitute an argument, or is it pointing you in the direction of an argument? I was writing a quick response to a question that wasn’t exactly related to the main point we were addressing, and sure enough, what I thought would happen has indeed come about: people ran a number of searches — scrupulously avoiding Amazon reviews so as not to violate the concerns I expressed literally — and mentioned only negative reviews of the book (there are a number of positive ones too, you know). I’ll say it again — if your (I’m speaking in general here) idea of research and refutation is to compile a list of negative reviews, then — well, res ipsa loquitur. And my suggestion that apparently no on had heard of the book was prompted by the obvious reliance on google search results alone to ‘comment’ upon it.
“From the premise that mental states do not share the same properties as physical objects, it does not follow that they are not physical. It only follows that that they are not physical objects. They may still be states of physical objects, and as such, still be part of the physical world.”
Ian, that wasn’t itself an argument for dualism, but an argument against the notion, which Kel was pushing, that every aspect of our thoughts are measurable. Note, in an earlier post I referred to property dualism, which is consistent with physicalism, and which is what you seem to be referring to here.
“Fallacy of Reification. Your thinking about triangularity is a thing only in the very broad sense that states are “things”. And states do not necessarily possess the same properties as the subject.”
Again, I was responding to Kel’s assertion about thought and measurement.
“I can’t imagine why anyone would think that. :S”
They only think ‘that’ if they haven’t quite learned how to recognize an argument when they see one, and distinguish arguments from explanations, references, etc.
Eric still hasn’t told us where his sponge is.
Ken, it’s worn out. I need a new one, so now you can *really* say that I’m unemployed. But just provide me with a new sponge, and I’ll show you a real entrepreneur…
now you can *really* say that I’m unemployed. But just provide me with a new sponge, and I’ll show you a real entrepreneur…
There you are. Philosophy is an entertaining game, easy to learn, difficult to master, but unlike science, hasn’t been where the action is for a long, long time.
Thony C.’s criticisms related directly to substantive claims and refuted them with substantive evidence (as, as a matter of fact, did the review by Alan Wolfe to which windy later linked).
How was that obvious? The first link provided was to another scienceblog. And I can’t believe I have to say this again but it is of zero importance whether or not anyone had heard of the book or not. I just quoted from and linked on another thread to Bakunin’s “God and the State.” There are probably a number of people who hadn’t heard of it before, and this means nothing in terms of the strength of his arguments. You’re fucking obsessed with how well informed you believe yourself to be. It’s loony.
Your comment was an assertion (with several aspects), the only evidence you provided in support of which was a reference to another’s work. You later prattled on about how Stark was well respected, other well-respected scholars have made similar arguments, etc., still without ever addressing anything substantive. If historians of science have made a case for the position that science is a gift or contribution of theology and you’ve found their evidence solid and credible in the face of other evidence, then you should have no problem responding (preferably at Evolving Thoughts) to the evidentiary refutations.
Your suggestion that it wasn’t your main line of argument (I’ll note that you mentioned this science thing more than once on this thread) is not a defense. It’s a dodge. I would respect you if you said something like “It wasn’t my main point, and was really just something I threw out there hastily. I shouldn’t have made such a bold claim when I wasn’t prepared to defend it, but let’s get back to the rest of the discussion.” But you don’t. As Kel pointed out above, you won’t concede any point. Your resorting to these pitiful gambits to avoid doing so is immature and exasperating.
“Philosophy is an entertaining game, easy to learn, difficult to master, but unlike science, hasn’t been where the action is for a long, long time.”
It’s certainly not easy to learn, unless you falsely identify ‘learning philosophy’ with memorizing what such-and-such a philosopher has said about such-and-such an issue.
As for ‘where the action is,’ I’d say that if you’re talking about what’s fashionable and trendy, then you’re right (though it hasn’t been as long a time as you think since philosophy was ‘fashionable’ — the early decades of the twentieth century, for instance. I don’t think seventy years or so is such a ‘long, long time’). However, if by ‘where the action is’ you mean where the most interesting and difficult questions lie, I’d say that philosophy still has as much a claim to that title as science does (indeed, it’s not even clear where the line is always to be drawn between our most interesting scientific and philosophic issues, e.g. consciousness, morality, etc.)
However, if by ‘where the action is’ you mean where the most interesting and difficult questions lie, I’d say that philosophy still has as much a claim to that title as science does
Where the action is? In a field that isn’t otiose.
Where the action is: where important questions concerning the origins and workings of the universe, life, consciousness, morality, emotions, and so on are not only being asked but being answered.
Any philosopher who ignores, denies, or otherwise fails to engage with scientific findings in these areas is a wanker. Really – why don’t you go over to NeuroLogica and post some of your philosophical musings there?
Speaking of laptops, I lost mine this summer, and haven’t been able to afford a new one, so I haven’t been online very much in the past six months, compared to the past few years. I still have the old computer in the basement, but it’s excruciatingly slow. Also, I’m just not as internet-oriented as I’ve been in the past. I miss this place, though. :-) Happy New Year, everyone
Happy New Year, Kseniya! Hope you’re able to buy a new laptop soon, if only for selfish reasons – miss you around here!
Hey, K, you’re missed here in turn. Happy New Year indeed! (and, while I’m at it, to you, too, SC!)
what a strange thing to say… Western Civilization is based on pre-Christian cultures (Greek and Roman, most notably), pagan cultures (Germanic and Celtic), and influences that seeped in from the East via the Islamic intrusions into Europe (Spanish Moors and the Ottoman Empire).
the Christian stuff is at best the icing on the cake. The recipe for the cake itself is decidedly non-Christian.
I’ll second that – it’s good to see you back Kseniya, even if it’s only occasionally until you can get properly re-equipped!
SC, I can’t believe that you’re having such a difficult time grasping such a simple notion. I’m not ‘dodging’ anything; I’ve said repeatedly, as I said in my *first post* on the subject, that I was providing a reference. After the reference, and the flurry of activity it inspired, I said it’s just a reference — do with it what you will. Someone had asked, almost rhetorically (as if the answer were self evident), what theology has ever ‘contributed’; I provided a reference which indicates that it’s not exactly self evident that theology has a big zero in the contributions column. And yet you still insist that I was using it as an argument (as opposed to referring whoever asked the question to the argument the book presents), and that I’m thus obliged to present a detailed defense of Stark’s thesis.
Imagine this: you’re discussing the relationship between religion and evolution, and someone throws out a question about what effects religion has had on political structures (note the change in topic). You refer him to Bakunin’s ‘God and the State,’ after which he and a dozen other people — none of whom have read the book — search for, and present you with, only bad reviews of the work, and claim that you’re now obligated to defend the book’s claims against the charges made in these reviews — some of which were written by people who themselves had not read ‘God and the State.’ Now imagine that people are confusing your reference with an argument along these lines: “Bakunin’s book, therefore religion has had negative political consequences.” If such a situation wouldn’t strike you as ridiculous, and give you good reasons to doubt the sincerity of those who are now demanding a defense from you, then I don’t know what would. Now, it would be different if someone went on to read the book *and then* came back to it, saying, “Hey, I just finished Bakunin’s book, and I see some problems with it. Would you like to discuss it, and make clear what parts you agree with, and what parts you have problems with? I’m only asking because it’s not clear to me, after reading the book, that Bakunin has made a very strong case.”
See the difference?
“And I can’t believe I have to say this again but it is of zero importance whether or not anyone had heard of the book or not. I just quoted from and linked on another thread to Bakunin’s “God and the State.” There are probably a number of people who hadn’t heard of it before, and this means nothing in terms of the strength of his arguments.”
No kidding. But it *is* of importance if you want to critique Stark’s arguments; if you’ve never heard of the book, it’s a bit difficult to critique it. And quoting negative reviews, while carefully avoiding positive reviews, doesn’t constitute a substantive critique, and doesn’t give one the impression that you’re operating with good faith here.
I second that. It would be nice to have you back. Alas, I understand lack of funds all too well.
And to you, Sven! (And everyone else – even eric! :))
Kseniya, Happy New year to you too.
and you want a netbook. trust me, you really really do… ;-)
“Any philosopher who ignores, denies, or otherwise fails to engage with scientific findings in these areas is a wanker.”
Who does that? Can you provide me with a reference to a philosopher working in any of these areas who ignores, denies or otherwise fails to engage with the relevant science?
Who does that? Can you provide me with a reference to a philosopher working in any of these areas who ignores, denies or otherwise fails to engage with the relevant science?
Who? you! since you’re not employed in any of those areas (see post #572 regarding missing sponges). We are also free to consider the evidence (look at those stains!)
Ken, I doubt there’s a well supported, major *scientific* conclusion that you (or anyone else on this blog) accepts that I reject. I’m not a creationist, an ID advocate, a Cartesian substance dualist (I’m a hylomorphic/hylemorphic substance dualist, which is perfectly consistent with the findings of modern neuroscience), etc. I think that we should push scientific research as far as it can go into all areas, including morality, religion, consciousness, etc. (assuming the conventional moral restraints on such research, of course). I think that philosophers should be well informed about the scientific research that’s relevant to their areas of study. However, I also think that philosophers need to point out when scientists are pushing the data too far and are moving from properly scientific conclusions to poorly defended philosophic conclusions.
Am I the only one to whom the transparent dodge here is plainly evident? Your obligation is to defend the claim about theology you presented, not his entire thesis. If you want to play word games, claiming that you were only providing an “answer” or a reference which just happened to be in response to a specific question that required a substantive reply, go ahead. Your intellectual dishonesty is noted.
First, I would not reference Bakunin’s work in that circumstance in that way. But I’ll give you a better example: Say someone asked me about what religion had contributed to our understanding of morality in the context of evolution. I would likely make a fairly broad claim that its influence had been largely negative. I might even discuss Peter Kropotkin’s works on the subject (among other more recent writings, of course, and with an appreciation of the flaws in Kropotkin’s works and the fact that they were unfinished). I would be open to criticisms of his work by historians in those areas or other knowledgeable people, and prepared to discuss the matter further. If the negative reviews made substantive arguments backed up by evidence, I would investigate the matter further or use the knowledge I had to defend claims I thought were solid. I would love to hear what historians of science and philosophy would have to say about his work in, say, Ethics: Origin and Development. I wouldn’t care if these criticisms came directly from people here or if they pointed me to those of others, as long as they made an actual argument and backed it up with something.
You were pointed to, as far as I can see, two reviews (one of specific claims made in the book and one of the book as a whole), both of which made substantive arguments. They didn’t just say “This argument/book sucks.” How is that situation “ridiculous”? That’s the fucking point of a discussion/debate. If you can just fling something out and then run away from it, there’s little point in anyone responding to you, shmo.
I’m glad I’m an upholstered avocado, not a Pentacostal camshaft.
Posted by: Kseniya | November 29, 2007 5:24 PM
SC:
Not by a long shot…
eric:
I don’t even need to read the rest of what you wrote – that sentence alone is proof positive that you’re not paying attention to anything other than what you’re writing.
“If you can just fling something out and then run away from it, there’s little point in anyone responding to you, shmo.”
No, you’ve got it wrong again: If you provide a reference no one bothers to read, and for which the ‘research’ you’re supposed to respond to comprises the content of negative reviews only, one of which was written by someone who had never read the book, *then* there’s little point in responding. It’s not the equivalent of throwing a ball to someone in a game of catch, and then running away when he throws it back at you; it’s more like throwing a ball to someone who never catches it, who then gets upset with you for not catching it for him, and who proceeds to pull out another ball which he throws at you on the assumption that the game has gone along uninterrupted!
“that sentence alone is proof positive that you’re not paying attention to anything other than what you’re writing.”
Hmm, there’s something wrong with your methodology. If you bothered to read past the *first* sentence, which you referred to, you’d see me engaging with, and thus paying attention to, the claims others are making.
See, that’s your problem – comprehension. I said I didn’t need to read more of your post to gather the merit of your argument – not that I didn’t read it. As a matter of fact, I did read your post, it just didn’t change my opinion of your argument in the least.
And engaging someone else’s claims doesn’t mean that you’re doing so intelligently or even coherently. It only means you’re making the attempt – and in your case, you’re failing.
Yeah, that sentence was not good. *tries to teach by example* I think it was less a matter of bad writing and more of my thought not being fully formulated. I could go into a little rant about Giorgio Agamben (whom I like – don’t get me wrong) and historical evidence, but I won’t…
Which is why I referred you to NeuroLogica.
Thanks! Eric seemd to have a strange lack of ability to read his own words from another perspective, which is why he’s constantly frustrated by being misunderstood. I saw this on the earlier thread: He entered an ongoing discussion about physical evidence for God with a rather sloppy and confusing comment about how there’s no physical evidence of propositions, concepts, etc. Then when people responded about God, he responded huffily that he hadn’t said anything about God. Well, if you enter a discussion about something, it’s reasonable for people to assume that your intervention is referring to it in some way. I mean, sheesh.
You’re wrong. If the reviews are readily available and the reviewers make substantive arguments, you have an obligation to respond to them, whether they’re negative or not. If you think that someone, in responding only to short extracts from a long book, is missing important parts of the argument of important pieces of evidence, then you can point that out in your defense. Whether the people who pointed you to those reviews had read the work or not is completely immaterial. The critiques exist, and they’ve been presented to you (thus returning the volley). You’re being a baby.
eric #589 wrote:
And, by the same token, scientists need to point out when philosophers are playing games in order to keep their conclusions out of the realm of science. The arguments about the relevance of science to religion often comes down to special pleading.
Vic Stenger uses a term (not sure if he invented it or not) which often applies to the more ‘liberal’ or ‘sophisticated’ theologians: he calls them “Premise Keepers.” Can they find a way to accept the findings of science and keep the premise?
Short answer: yes, of course. But it may be more honest to see if they can instead derive their premise as a conclusion. Short answer: no — and that’s where the song and dance about the beauty of “faith” comes in, pushed and promoted by hardheaded people who would otherwise scorn such a move, in any other context. But this one (whatever it is, usually God, but could be some other form of woo) is special.
“Whether the people who pointed you to those reviews had read the work or not is completely immaterial.”
Of course, since we all know that uninformed people who selectively choose only the information that supports their position deserve serious responses!
Two more things:
1) You were presented with direct counterarguments on this thread to your argument/claim/answer/reference concerning the ancient Greeks, to which you did not respond.
2) Did you read Stark’s article about evolution which windy linked to @ #559? If nothing else, that alone should make you skeptical of his ability to appreciate evidence.
Hi, Kseniya!
The place isn’t the same without you. I miss your eloquent and lively comments.
As a wannabe writer, I’m always looking for examples of artistry and wit in self-expression (that’s one of the reasons I began reading Pharyngula in the first place), and the energy you apply to being inventive and articulate is inspiring.
Don’t stay away forever!
Sastra nails it again :)
I think you are defnitely due a tentacle or two to your OM by now.
You’re either a moron or profoundly intellectually dishonest. A waste of time, either way.
eric,
Do you have any references to writers who take the view that Christian theology is responsible for the rise of science in Europe and are not, as Stark clearly is (given his views on evolution as linked to by John Phillips, FCD@564) rendered seriously irrational by their religious faith? I take the view that if a writer writes arrogant, blithering nonsense on one topic (I don’t just mean something I disagree with, or even something that can be shown to be wrong, but ludicrous crap of the kind Stark writes on evolution), it’s a fair presumption that they will write arrogant, blithering nonsense on other topics, and it would be a waste of time reading it. Of course, this is not an infallible rule, but life is short.
Would you also care to comment:
1) On formal reasoning about god(s) among the ancient Greeks (Epicurean paradox, Euthryphro dilemma).
2) On why formal reasoning about God should be considered of particular importance, given the ancient Greek achievements in formal reasoning about other matters, specifically mathematics – which were largely preserved by Islam, and transmitted to Christendom around the 12th century?
I’m not, by the way, denying that Christians, and Christian institutions, played important roles in the development of European thought and technology; but I don’t see the specific role of theology.
SC:
uninformed = have never read a page of the book
selectively choosing only the information that supports their position = looking at negative reviews only
“since we all know that uninformed people who selectively choose only the information that supports their position deserve serious responses!”
Intellectually dishonest? Hardly; it perfectly encapsulates this whole silly discussion.
Sastra, there are ‘premise keepers’ on the scientific side as well, though they work a little differently: they insist that their philosophic premises are scientifically established, or scientifically supported, premises, when in fact the evidence for them is meager at best.
That aside, the whole notion that belief in god is a ‘premise’ among (most) theologians is misleading; it operates as a premise in some arguments, and is a conclusion of others. Every conclusion can be used as a premise, and most premises are only acceptable if they can be shown to follow, as conclusions, from good arguments (excepting properly basic beliefs and the like).
Finally, while the term ‘faith’ may be used in that context among televangelists and the like, that’s not how it’s used among theologians.
Even if both of those are true*, so fucking what? Respond to the substantive parts of the comments and the reviews. This evasiveness is pathetic.
*And neither would indicate that people are uninformed about the history of science or philosophy or religion, which is what is at issue – only that they hadn’t read one dumb book.
They are, we can measure thoughts through both direct and indirect means. I asked you to provide something we take for granted that we can not measure either through subjective, indirect, or direct means. I can measure my thoughts well and so can you. Sorry, but thoughts exist because they are regularly experienced on a subjective level and it’s something we all seem to have. We can even measure thoughts in other animals.
Your assertion is that some things are beyond measure, and I again would contend that you haven’t given a good example of anything that is.
So, I see eric’s written many hundreds of words defending his reliance on the argument from authority, but none on making any arguments himself for that claim.
For someone, who when challenged to make their own case for the claim that theology is primarily responsible for the success of the West answered “As for summing up the book, that’s simply not feasible. I’m sure I could do a decent job if I had the time to devote, but I simply don’t — which is why I referred to it.”, eric ironically seems to have found plenty of time and energy to defending his justification, instead. Ad nauseam.
Shorter eric: “I’ll make a claim, but you can’t argue it with me because my only justification is that it’s in a book. Argue with the book.”
The post @593 was typical. Bah.
I had a quick look at Edward Feser’s blog (see eric@552). Bizarre: he claims non-human animals are incapable of thinking or willing. I’ll tell my dog, next time she’s pestering to be fed or go out, that she really can’t be doing this. I’m sure he could also demonstrate to the orang-utans recently shown to be capable of learning to exchange tokens with each other in order to gain access to food that what they are doing is impossible.
Good grief! I can only imagine the context in which that comment occurred!
eric way back @ #145,
Two questions:
(1) What are these “abstract philosophical arguments”?
(2) Do these arguments make any predictions that can be falsified?
If it wasn’t for philosophers like Wilkins http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/ who describes the role of philosophy WRT science as doing the conceptual tidying up, with no business telling scientists how to do their jobs, I’d get the impression that philosophy is employed primarily for obfuscation and preening.
But that is an important job,to provide a conceptual framework within which science can flourish and define new goals.
I would by the way strongly doubt that christian theology begins with any kind of philosophy.And as to the “rationality of believing in a certain kind of god”,thats done by decree rather than philosophy in the big religions,isnt it?
Thanks, Ken. That’s very close to the point I was trying (and failed) to make above.
Ha! Eric’s not actually making an argument, he’s merely referring to some abstract arguments. Second, when he stated that, he was responding to some narrow sliver of an argument, and thus can’t be expected to respond to your unrelated questions. Third, your motives in querying him are clearly impure, and you have probably not read the extended works of these vaunted theologians. What makes you think Eric the Scholar should deign to respond to you?
(He’s soap in the bath, that eric!)
Anyway, even if eric’s not interested, I’ll provide one link to NeuroLogica re dualism:
http://www.theness.com/neurologicablog/?p=312
Hi all, back from visiting relatives over Squidmas.
Eric, logic and philosophy is simply sophistry unless backed up by physical evidence. Possible by logic simply means someone can imagine it, not that it is there. This applies to god, or some of the paranormal claims. James Randi’s million dollar prize proved the latter wrong, and if a similar prize was applied the to god the results would be the same. No physical evidence for god exists, so until that happens, Occam’s razor says god is a delusion.
To summarize, philosophy in itself proves nothing, and is simply mental masturbation. It need some physical evidence to move the conclusions from speculation to reality.
Feynmaniac asked:
From the last discussion a few of us had with eric about this I believe it’s drawn mostly from Thomism.
I summarised it, back on that thread, as this:
I don’t recall him commenting on what I said, probably because there were people commenting who were more able to mount specific philosophical refutations, rather than my half-assed layperson ramblings.
Y’know, even if a review of a book says that the book is bad, said review will often give the reasons why, and those reasons can be argued with. A review of The God Delusion might say that Dawkins does X, Y, and Z, and it could at least be argued whether or not the reviewer is correct in saying what Dawkins did, and why.
So, eric: Thony Christie has reviewed statements, claimed to be representative, made in Rodney Stark’s book, and criticized Stark’s scholarship and honesty based on those statements.
Would you say that the statements are not representative?
Would you say that the criticism ignores crucial context that bolsters the statements?
Would you say that the criticism is incorrect based on anything that appears in the context that answers such criticism?
My own criticism of the book was based on your summary.
Was your summary correct?
Did Stark in fact address anything that I brought up in my criticism?
More generally, does Stark anywhere give an unbiased definition of “formal reasoning”, and explain in a clear, unbigoted, formally reasoned way why it would be correct to claim that only Christian philosophers used it and no non-Christian philosophers did?
Having read through all of that, could someone, other than eric*, please provide a summery of what eric was trying to argue in the first place.
Did he actually have a point?
I mean, other than that he has very poor written communication skills.
*I don’t speak Weasel.
eric, your problem is that you’re referring to complex and abstract philosophical arguments, all the while not even mastering the basic structure needed to conduct cogent argument. When someone makes a claim in order to support an argument, they must provide an example. You’re simply not doing that. Need proof?
eric @ 589:
That’s the first step…but where’s an example of this happening to validate your claim that philosophers need to prevent it from happening?
eric @ 605:
Again, you’ve claimed that theologians use the word “faith” in a manner that differs from the previously offered manner, but where is your example showing the correct manner in which theologians use the word?
And you can’t claim ignorance of the requirement, because before either of those two above posts, SC made a claim you thought unsupported, and you responded.
eric @ 587:
If you want to win the game, or at the very least play honestly, you have to follow the rules.
I didn’t realize theologians could possibly count as philosophers. The idea was too silly even to consider. Is eric including them?
Malcolm, I’d hazard to say that eric’s main contention (#104, #117) is that there’s no incompatibility between the Bible/Biblical view and evolution.
Rather than trying to sustain this, however, he debouched into nitpicking, weird claims* and self-justification.
e.g. (“… no theologically informed Christian thinks about the Bible as ‘an instruction manual’ of *any* sort.”)
eric #605 wrote:
Without an example, I can’t comment — though I suggest that any “premises” which are falsifiable are ‘working assumptions,’ instead.
When God is reconciled with modern science, it’s usually approached as a premise: given that God exists, how can we explain why it either does not, or cannot, conflict with the findings of modern science? If it’s approached as a hypothesis, it either fails, or turns into pseudoscience.
It seems to me that televangelists and the like, like theologians and the like, usually have about 4 or 5 different working definitions of “faith,” which can be applied, as needed.
The No True Believing Scotsman fallacy.
So, I just checked regarding faith: (note it’s from The Theologian)
Such an achievement. Such clarity! Such simplicity!! Heh.
John Morales #624 wrote:
Very clear and simple — if you’re applying the concept of “trust” to a person whose existence is in no doubt, but whose authority may be in doubt. But that’s not it.
At least, not to those outside the self-referential system. To us, it’s as if they’re approaching the question of “is there a sea serpent in Loch Ness?” as if it required an answer to the question “do we care about protecting an endangered species like the sea serpent in Loch Ness?” Every time you try to bring it back to the first question, they insist on answering the second, which covers the first.
Why do you ANessieists hate Nessie?
Is it because you want to fish in the loch with impunity, or walk by the shore of the loch with no fear of being attacked?
Say, speaking of faith, here’s a comeback: Mark 15:34 and/or Matthew 27:46.
Jesus screams out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”.
Would someone who had faith speak of having been forsaken?
So… either Jesus-the-man lost faith in God (huge support for heteroousia, there), or (even worse if one’s interlocutor stubbornly asserts homoousia), God lost faith in himself.
Even if they argue back that the loss of faith was temporary, it still implies that either God isn’t that great at keeping faith, or Jesus wasn’t that great at keeping faith.
(It’s interesting to contrast the above verses with the later martyr-miracle legends, with stouthearted Christians keeping firm faith despite the most horrendous tortures.)
I’m not arguing we can measure every aspect of our thoughts, at least not with our current technology. But we can measure thought in general, we are limited by our understanding of the mind and the technology we have to read it. We are learning though. What I’m saying is that thoughts are measurable, we know thoughts exist because each of us experiences thoughts subjectively and on a wider scale we can correlate each person’s subjective experience on a whole.
The question I’m posing to you is why God should be exempt from the evidence burden when indeed we can experience and measure thoughts (subjectively, indirectly, and directly.) Even if thoughts are immaterial, you would be hard-pressed to deny that we do not have the ability to experience them.
Okay, I am just as annoyed and upset that Rick Warren will be making his speach, but let’s get one thing correct: IT WAS CONGRESS THAT CHOSE HIM, NOT OBAMA, JESUS EFFING CHRIST.
Ah – I love it when someone shows up on a three-day-old thread to lecture everyone in ALL CAPS on an issue that’s been dealt with earlier.
How can someone be drawing from Thomism and at the same time suggest that Western theology had nothing to do with Greek or Islamic philosophy? *scratches head* :)
Oh, I’m sure eric would have no hesitation in justifying himself; however, I’m equally sure the jusitification would be, shall we say, ten pounds of sophistry in a five-pound bag…
eric:
“Bothers”?? Do you expect people to run out and read a 200+ page book without looking up any reviews or other information on Stark’s arguments first?
If that’s really your m.o., I’d like your opinion on Tro and Vetande (Belief and Knowledge) by Ingemar Hedenius. Hope you know Swedish!
You know what, screw you. (There goes the sympathy elicited by your previous compliments.) You awesomely predicted that if you recommended a book people would “run a number of searches on it”? Well, NO SHIT. Wouldn’t you do that if you wanted to find out if a book was worth reading?
FYI, the Wolfe review is the second hit for this book so there was no need to “carefully avoid positive reviews” before stumbling onto that.
I have not read Behe’s latest either. Have you? Do you think that everyone that hasn’t read the book is completely uninformed re: Behe’s arguments?
E.V.:
It should have read: “economic collapse resulting from unbridled greed, and unprecedented war spendingexpenditures…”
I don’t see how war expenditures are anywhere near unprecedented levels.
Fuel prices driven to ridiculous prices by speculators bad. War Bad.
The claim that fuel prices were driven up last summer by speculators is not very popular among economists. In fact, it’s the kind of populist nonsense that politicians have been spitting out for centuries.
-and all on the Bush Administration’s watch. Dems didn’t blow whistles or call them out on it
The recession would have occurred just as likely under a Democrat president. The seeds were planted long before Bush.
Nick Gotts:
Proposed US military spending for FY 2008 is larger than military spending by all of the other nations in the world combined; the same cannot be said of US medical or social spending – despite the gross overpayment for medical care which the US system involves.
So?
So, I got Stark’s book from the library against my better judgment, and now I guess no one is reading this thread anymore. Meh.
Here are a couple of examples of Stark’s claims in case anyone’s interested
Freedom is another concept that simply doesn’t exist in many, perhaps most, human cultures- there isn’t even a word for freedom in most non-European languages (p. 24)
Even if this preposterous idea were true (and if arguments from etymology were valid), Stark doesn’t even realize that it would be evidence against his idea that freedom as a concept was derived from Christianity, if there are native words for it in European languages (presumably predating Christian loanwords!) Instead he is so fond of it that he repeats it elsewhere in the book.
Also amusingly, the source for this claim is Moses Finley’s book on antique economy.
All of these remarkable developments [compass, etc] can be traced to the unique Christian conviction that progress was a God-given obligation entailed in the gift of reason. That new technologies and techniques would always be forthcoming was a fundamental article of Christian faith. (p. 48)
Er, this is an usage of “fundamental article of faith” I’m not familiar with.
On initial Christian opposition to interest etc:
So by no later than the thirteenth century the leading Christian theologians had fully debated the primary aspects of emerging capitalism…
No later than the 13th century?
… Capitalism was fully and finally freed from all fetters of faith. (p. 66)
Is he having an argument against himself?
*Snort*
I point to 1 Corinithians, which has explicit condemnations of reason, and Christians keep ignoring me.
Martin Luther hated reason too, as the various quotes that PZ has from him on the topic attest.
And amusingly enough, in the 9th century CE, Ibn al-Rawandi was saying things like:
I point to 1 Corinithians, which has explicit condemnations of reason, and Christians keep ignoring me.
I think it works this way: if some development is broadly consistent with the Bible or other Christian teachings, chalk up one for Christianity (delays of 1-2 millennia between one and the other can be disregarded). If some development is a result of overcoming some difficult point of Christian doctrine, chalk up one for Christianity too!
And what is the message behind Jesus’ words (in the mythical tale) to “Doubting Thomas”: “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” Seems a pretty clear rejection of skepticism and evidence-based knowledge to me.
I also saw on “Banned from the Bible” a while back a story about some writings being intentionally excluded that told the story of Christians exposing the miracles of another cult’s idol as a cheap magic trick through empirical investigation. I can’t remember the details, though. Does anyone know?
But think on the bright side – perhaps now Eric the Well-Read will deem you worthy of a serious response!
Was that the story of how Daniel exposed the priests of Bel to be charlatans by secretly covering the temple floors with powder to track the priests’ footprints when they reentered the locked temple via a secrete entrance to eat Bel’s offerings (then later slaying Bel by feeding the god’s fire-breathing dragon (or dragon-shaped idol) with a ball of pitch and hair)?
Yes! Thank you so much – that was bothering me! I found it:
Hmm. I guess part about its having been excluded due to the focus on questioning of religious claims and using empirical evidence in this case came from me and not the show. Oh, well.
:)
If that’s your contention, then you need to get out more.