I'd be very interested in a thoughtful - not knee jerk as you yourself warn against Billy - response to the Mullen article I posted. One of the things it helps articulate is my sense in both your thinking of a strong case of not seeing the wood for the trees. Particularly with you Billy - on the science front you have a lot of knowledge and big words. But I'm afraid my view of your handling of theology and the Bible from what I've seen is similar to Mullen's view of Dawkins in this regard - frankly ignorant and infantile - astoundingly so in one so clever. Especially in your last comment's mishmash thinking about 1 Cor 13 and God - which I'd have to come back to. Especially look at what Mullen says about faith and presuppositions near the end. You can't escape the need for faith with God, it's a gift you have to be open to, and you're closed. But you have a lot of faith in science as an absolute.
'No god is required' - you both buy into this god of the gaps thinking, and Billy you recently pointed this out as a weakness in a recent comment! - I refuse to tag along, although can come back to and discuss. In response to your low opinion of evidence for the resurrection, I challenge both of you to read McDowell 'Evidence' pp 203 to 285 (of a 760pp book) - a detailed and thorough 'wood not just trees' catalogue of evidence - and respond.
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9 comments:
To return to:
Personality, personhood: qualities that refuse to be reduced to blind process. Love - only a very narrow view of it could reduce it to evolution. Wd you see it so dispassionately if I killed someone you love? The 'surfeit' nature of these qualities - far more than needed for evolution.
Sense of moral law - deeper than grandest concept of evolution. Frankly, if it suits me, I feel like it and I can get away with it, why shd I not kill someone? I'd say the human sense of horror and wrongness of this goes much deeper than 'unacceptable in an evolutionary scheme'.
J: No, I mean the very early church - with Constantine, you're talking a good 3 or 4 hundred years in.
Billy, your comments on 'circular argument, evidence' - see Mullen near end on presuppositions.
Fascinating that you think my theology ids a tad off, but you have never actually been able to refute it. This is very telling, as are the words you use such as infantile etc. Ad hom is not an arguement. Paul defines love, and I hold the actions of god up to this definition, Please tell me how punishing decendants for the sins of their ancestors, or killing cildern is in any way whatsoever a fair and loving act. I could just rant on about how your theology is just plain stupid and not backed up by the bible, but rather than hurl accusations at you, I provide evidence. Note the difference in tactics. I have shown that god is a nasty piece of work, you offer no counterargument, just accusations. Please back up what you say.
Lunch beckons, but more later. By the way, I have heard and read christians say things like "if there was no god, I would kill my neighbour" Pretty telling really
Billy
But you have a lot of faith in science as an absolute.
'No god is required' - you both buy into this god of the gaps thinking, and Billy you recently pointed this out as a weakness in a recent comment! - I refuse to tag along, although can come back to and discuss.
Now Bruce you are misrepresenting me here. Mutation is a random event, triggered by all sorts of things, like radiation, chemical mutagens, random DNA breaks, failure to copy DNA correctly of proof read it properly. All these events are random and require no god. So, what is your problem with that statement? Now, where did I talk about science as an absolute? I have even pointed out to you that to be scientific as in McGraths “scientific” theology, it must be testable. If it is testable, it can be falsified. If it is falsified, it is rejected. You really must stop getting your definitions of science off fundie evangelical sites. So, as I have said before, it is the testing of evidence that guides us, not dogma!
Please point out how this is a “god of the gaps” argument.
I challenge both of you to read McDowell 'Evidence' pp 203 to 285 (of a 760pp book) - a detailed and thorough 'wood not just trees' - catalogue of evidence - and respond
Well, I have read this book before. I no longer own a copy, so lend me yours and I will read it again. Alternatively why don’t you just present his best case – than Jonathan doesn’t have to fork out for a book that will leave him wanting a refund. Now, and this is important, I challenged the credibility of the witnesses, you have not commented on that. I challenge you to do so – gosh it’s all getting pretty macho now isn’t it.
To return to:
Personality, personhood: qualities that refuse to be reduced to blind process.
Now Bruce, we both asked you to provide evidence that they cannot be reduced. All you have done is restate your position here. I challenge you to do so Again.
Love - only a very narrow view of it could reduce it to evolution.
Sorry, a statement does not provide evidence. Back up your claim. There is even evidence that Chimps and Dolphins may experience love. Certainly, chimps have been observed showing concern for the well being of other chimps. One even drowned trying to save another.
Wd you see it so dispassionately if I killed someone you love? The 'surfeit' nature of these qualities - far more than needed for evolution.
This statement displays a total understanding of evolution. Why is it a surfeit? Is the peacocks tail a surfeit? Or the decorative abilities of bower birds? What about the ability of octopi to solve complex problems? They all appear OTT to the uninformed casual observer, but they all perform important gene survival purposes – getting laid, avoiding predators and getting food.
And rest assured, any emotional response would have an underlying physiological one.
Sense of moral law - deeper than grandest concept of evolution.
Now there is a sweeping statement that does not understand the evolutionary concepts of Kin selection and reciprocal altruism read this for starters http://www.geocities.com/paulntobin/evolpsych.html - I challenge you to.
How can a “sense of” be an actual law? You keep trying to tell me that God progressively reveals his laws to people. That you claim is why it was once acceptable to kill homosexuals. This is an inconsistency of your argument. How can there be a sense of moral law when you claim there is no absolute law, that the moral zeitgeist changes? How do you explain the fact that people who have never heard of your god make similar moral judgements to you?
Now concerning that ill-conceived murder comment. What generally happens to people who violate the “laws” of society? They get cut out of it, killed or punished in some other way. There therefore is a strong selective pressure to “conform” and not kill each other – THIS ALSO MEANS THAT YOU TOO ARE LESS LIKELY TO BE KILLED AND PRODUCE MORE OFFSPRING. “Morality” has gene survival qualities. I like the example of bumble bees, for most of the summer all get on harmoniously. By the end of the summer, the queen is loosing her control of the hive and other workers start reproducing. This causes war and every bee loses out genetically. Then we have chimps who refuse to share food with other chimps that don’t share theirs. The selfish chimp then finds itself on the outside of the society, and as a result is less likely to breed. So, natural selection gives both an explanation and mechanism for the existence of morality. At no point is a god needed.
Then we have the immorality of biblical teachings. I touched on that yesterday.
Frankly, if it suits me, I feel like it and I can get away with it, why shd I not kill someone?
see above
I'd say the human sense of horror and wrongness of this goes much deeper than 'unacceptable in an evolutionary scheme'.
Another incredulous opinion! Would you agree that positive and negative emotions are good at modifying your behaviour? Not surprisingly then that natural selection has provided us with a mechanism of ensuring we “behave”.
The Mullen article is so bad that I couldn’t discuss it adequately here. How on earth does monotheism provide the basis of modern science. Also, if we all worked on presuppositions, I guess we would never have discovered the weirdness that is the quantum world. Science is very good at describing nature, and it gets better all the time. What presuppositions do you think we have. I cant think of any that don’t involve being rooted in the reality of a physical universe. We don’t need god to explain anything. Not being able to explain something does not mean god is there either. Even if he was there, it is not evidence that he, a deistic god or the flying spaghetti monster are there. This presupposition business is an attempt to obscure. How do you personally go from supposing the supernatural to Yahweh and not Allah or bobbi bobbi? What is your evidence?
Billy
Ooh yeah. One thing's for sure, Billy, you don't leave me short of material to blog about.
One thing about Mullen I forgot to add. He says faith lets you see what you want to see. Talk about self-confirming circular logic. If I want to believe in santa claus I can, but that doesnt make him real. Justify belief in the supernatural. You could try bloging that as well as justify the statements that we have asked you to
That'll all for today you will be happy to hear
cheers
Billy
Bruce-
briefly, as a good TV show is on right now! Re Mullen's article. He looks down on Dawkins for not knowing any "or much) theology, but he fails to acknowledge that the rarefied, intellectualised, trans-dimensional God of the theologian is not the interventionist, demanding, contradictory, grouchy God that the overwhelming majority of believers believe in. Dawkins could have wrote an anti-theological book, instead he wrote a book to make general believers think. A good thing too, in my opinion.
He claims that Christianity is the driving force behind science. At this stage I'm going to lapse into teen-speak. Hello, the Dark Ages? Duh.
"St Augustine and The Athanasian Creed did not use the phrase absolute presuppositions. They used the word faith. But they meant the same thing"
Erm, no, they didn't. The "faith" of scientists and mathematicians is backed up by thousands upon thousands of experiments, backed up by day to day observation of the world around us.
"Faith is to believe what you do not see. The reward of faith is to see what you believe.
And again:
Seek not to understand that you may believe, but believe that you may understand".
So, if I really believe that I share my flat with a falcon with a laser on its head (Billy will understand this- RD site in-joke), then I will see it if I really, really believe it. The second part essentially tells people to forget trying to understand God, just believe in him and you will understand through the filter of faith.
"In modern terms, we must start off with the correct presuppositions if we are to have any hope of arriving at true knowledge".
And of course HIS suppositions are the correct ones. His God is right. Right?
"If they knew a little more about the history of science, they would know that the belief in the possibility of science – which is applied mathematics – is only one part of the belief in God".
To me, this closing statement is just an attempt to give God the credit for scientific progress. This speaks more to his mindset, that science will never disprove God, because to him, science is part of God.
Overall, I came away from the article with the impression that he hadn't really said anything of substance. He didn't back up his assertions in any meaningful way.
Jonathan.
Bruce-
oh yeah, don't forget the point I made yesterday-
"Personality, as I understand it, arises through a blend of instinct, interaction, and bodily function (ie glands, and stuff). It is not something unique to humans. Household pets and animals in the wild have it, or at least the vestiges of it.
You believe that such things come about through being present in the "foundation of reality", but let me ask you this. Assuming that you are right, imagine a place where such things are not part of the foundation. How do you think creatures of that universe would behave? What would be so radically different about them?"
I am extremely interested in your answer to this. You might even say that I challenge you.
Jonathan.
I was all set to say today that if I really want to believe that Scotland beat France last night, then we did - but we did, so there's that analogy knackered then :-)
I flicked through the resurrection chapter in "The case agaist Christ" last night. Again, it was pretty poor - not thinking deeply enough about the evidence and and using the bibleto confirm it's self. Did you know the fact that jesus first appeared to women was evidence of the validity of the resurrection. Apparently women were considered unreliable witnesses at that time, so the fact women were the first to see him means it must be true - If only all gospel accounts agreed on this eh? (read for yourself, they dont) Also, the fact that washing the body would have been woman's work doesn't come in to it either.
I've brought in my copy of The God Delusion for you. I want it back before you leave though. Remember, read it with an open mind.
This is a great video, I recommend watching it. This is what christianity sounds like without the faith goggles on. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goQO4lcDt6E Any problem with the link, just search you tube for kissing hanks ass
Billy
Jimmy, in the flurry of activity, I missed your last post a couple of days ago. I have now responded on that thread.
Billy
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