The Mind of the ID Critic
by MikeGeneHere is a critic's cartoonish Venn Diagram that purports to describe Intelligent Design.
Since this would resonate with mostly critics of ID, I think it is more helpful in providing a window into the minds of so many ID critics. The diagram is really a mental template they use to assign meaning to any information concerning ID and its debate. This template thus effectively filters reality, as all aspects of ID and its debate must be squeezed into one (or more) of the categories. As such, the template is a screen.
I highly recommend that ID proponents and sympathizers keep this screen in mind as, more often than naught, it will help you understand where most of your critical opponents are coming from and how their mind processes your words and arguments. It will help you understand what the "real" issues are from their perspective. They do not come as open-minded investigators seeking to understand the views of another human being. They come only to impose their template on you. The template is reality in their mind, thus it must rule.
August 17th, 2007 at 8:43 pm
Yeah, this resonates. ID critics, for the most part, like to categorize those with whom they disagree. Makes things simpler when you can paint people as you'd like them to appear.
Comment by Bradford — August 17, 2007 @ 8:43 pm
August 17th, 2007 at 9:19 pm
Mike wrote:
Um, Mike, maybe that's because it is a cartoon, coming as it does from a site that bills itself as
and
Not that the diagram is totally off-base; it wouldn't be funny if there weren't some truth to it.
Comment by keiths — August 17, 2007 @ 9:19 pm
August 17th, 2007 at 9:32 pm
There is a better one here
http://www.evangelizethis.com/...
I particularly enjoyed this article:
http://www.esquire.com/feature...
Comment by dimasok — August 17, 2007 @ 9:32 pm
August 17th, 2007 at 9:57 pm
For what it's worth, the people who are usually intent on slapping ID into a template usually do the same things to themselves and others. It's hard to cope with a world where intelligent people may disagree with you - so imagine a world where no intelligent person does, and stick with it.
Atheists walk like this, but them folks who believe in a higher power all walk like THIS.
Comment by nullasalus — August 17, 2007 @ 9:57 pm
August 17th, 2007 at 11:19 pm
It's not fair to typify ID critics exclusively as liable to create caricatures of those who disagree with them. As nullasalus points out, it is hard to live in a world where intelligent people may disagree with me; such a world is one in which I may be wrong. As such it is a temptation for everybody to reduce, in their minds, those who differ with them to the level of morons, or to question their integrity, or psychoanalyze them rather then engage with their ideas.
Having said that, I do see a particular tendency on the part of militant atheists to grossly overstate the persuasive power of their case. For example, Richard Dawkins attacks belief in God not merely as a mistaken belief, but as a delusion, a sickness of the mind. Yet the arguments in his book don't come anything close to proving that belief in God is so obviously mistaken as to be an act of intellectual perversity. His argument in chapter four which might be labeled 'the argument from statistical improbability' upon which so much of his overall argument rests seems fundamentally based on equivocation: the inference from complexity to design depends on something like the improbability of a large number of different parts being related in a particular fashion; whereas 'complexity' as Dawkins applies it to God seems to refer to his capacity to act and know. Perhaps some argument could be made that God's knowledge is information and information must be complex but such an argument could hardly be considered the slam dunk Dawkins seems to think it is. Even more telling is his appeal to multiple universes - surely any position depending on the existence of an enormous number of universes we cannot observe can hardly be said to be so superior to alternatives as to render them delusions.
This also plugs into the ID debate; atheism needs Darwin. For most religious folk of all descriptions the most important anchors for belief aren't grounded in philosophy: answered prayer, a changed life, particularly intense experiences, a general sense of divine presence in life. Conversely reasons to be a materialist are almost exclusively philosophical. These reasons are grounded in Darwin: if the human body can be shown to be the product of chance and necessity then perhaps all the other 'designed' looking features of the universe can be likewise explained. Darwinism is not simply a foundation for the materialist world view, but the foundation. And thus it is defended with the fervor of a religious apologist.
Comment by BenK — August 17, 2007 @ 11:19 pm
August 17th, 2007 at 11:33 pm
Following is a comment on an anti-Uncommon Descent blog
I'm beginning to wonder just who the scientists are on the "blogosphere," and who are the juvenile delinquents disguised as scientists.
This is why I prefer to find my truth from books, rather than the internet. Everyone's a critic of something, and there's not much respectful discussion about anything. While, of course the same sort of thing happens in books, no doubt. At least with books I can be a little more selective.
TV was once labeled a wasteland. It seems that our new wasteland is the internet.
The clear agenda of the Darwinist critics of ID can be summed in the following quote:
So Behe, Gonzalez, Dembski, et al., are pseudoscientists. Argument complete.
But why does it behoove them to identify IDers as such? I can't help believing that it is the absense of substantive retort.
Here's the setup: "ID is a rhetorical movement." So as a movement, and not a theory, it is invalidated.
"Major doctrines" hence, it is religious in nature.
"(framing the issue) include that ID is not creationism (error of classification)." I.e., It's adherents are biased, so they are incapable of classifying themselves appropriately.
"and that IDiots are 'scientists.'" And Darwinism is not a rhetorical movement?
Comment by Randy — August 17, 2007 @ 11:33 pm
August 17th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
I would have to disagree that most religous folk are not grounded in philosophy. To the contrary, this is where religion stems from, and on which theology has grappled for thousands of years. The Christian worldview is highly philosophical. The Christian apologetic is grounded in logic, not in esoteric experience driven blind leap-in-the-dark faith.
Comment by Randy — August 17, 2007 @ 11:48 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 12:28 am
It may be grounded in philosophy, but there is no one in America or elsewhere for that matter who could lead at least a half-retarded conversation with you about philosophical underpinnings of their religion. They have blind faith, and the key-word here is "blind" because, and I checked that on numerous occasions and seen that in many videos, these people have absolutely no idea what they're talking about!!! If you dare to ask them the question of "how" or "why" they can merely refer to a god-damn stupid book with no opinions of their own! We, the scientifically-literate intellectuals make a big deal out of this whole ID vs evolution debate, but this is as far-away from the true believers mind (the whole point of their belief is to REMOVE the complexities from their minds, not AMPLIFY it by asking questions or doubting their beliefs) as a gamma ray is from hitting earth anytime soon or as Dawkins is from baptism! It never crosses their mind! It's like the developers or the filmmakers who invest hundreds & thousands of hours into the development of movies and video games, all done for the public who wouldn't know how all of this behind-the-scenes stuff is done even if they'd seen it with their own eyes, who can simply shrug it all off and say that this or that sucks despite their silly stupid uneventful lives, far removed from the complexity of what went on during the production,etc. Kinda funny when you think of it!
Comment by dimasok — August 18, 2007 @ 12:28 am
August 18th, 2007 at 12:34 am
Well now, I would agree that there does seem to be a whole lot of people of faith who don't know why they have faith, but "no one in America" is stretching it a bit. There are some excellent philosophers in America who happen to be people of faith.
Comment by Randy — August 18, 2007 @ 12:34 am
August 18th, 2007 at 12:40 am
I wouldn't argue with you here since obviously I didn't go through every single one. I was talking about the crux of the population… I assume you were referring to those people who got their Ph.D's or what have you, right? Well then, even so, unfortunately, I've read about them, but I was not able to find much of anything coming from them that could have suggested that they scrutinized their beliefs sufficiently, otherwise, they wouldn't be religious as they are. I get just as irritated talking with them as I feel frustrated doing with the others who don't know why they have faith… why do people that could have been brilliant scientists and help humanity advance into the transhumanistic/post-human stage, choose to focus their energy on decidedly vapid endeavors such as religion will forever remain beyond me.
I wouldn't mind if someone believed in some higher cosmic power, even if that power is some sort of God, but to connect that to some ancient book (choose yourself which one) and then conjoin it with our fate as a humanity is an intellectual dishonesty and wishful thinking. It may be so, but there is no evidence that it is, and if we let go of science (as they seem to have done, even the "elitists" among them), then we have nothing else left to rely upon and we will be free to do what they've been doing for the duration of their lives - dream up anything that makes us feel good about ourselves and the universe. That I can already see in video-games, movies and science-fiction books, why should it be a part of the scientific picture as well?
Comment by dimasok — August 18, 2007 @ 12:40 am
August 18th, 2007 at 12:46 am
Are you certain of that? Have you actually done a study into the intellectual persuits of the religious population in America? Or have you been bothered by the pop-religious fringe on the telly?
Comment by Randy — August 18, 2007 @ 12:46 am
August 18th, 2007 at 12:54 am
Have you? Look, this seems to be the way things are based on my personal observations and the impressions of other people around the world (pretty much any article coming outside of the U.S. thinks America is permeated with an absurd religious population that builds museums targeted at creationistic genesis stories (see link to one such article above). Not everything is pop-religious fringe and similarly, not everything is brainwashing or new-atheist movements.
I know that there are lots and lots of people in the U.S. that are brilliant, but the caveat here, is that all of them are in universities and nearly all of them are indeed SCIENTISTS and not religious freaks preaching to the masses about ludicrous falsehoods, nay, hooey. If you want hooey, there is plenty of it in science-fiction books, why not buy into it instead? Sounds much more refined and interesting than religious propaganda reeking of an aboriginal creation story passed on from generation to generation in hopes that someday it will become truth just because some scribes one upon a time decided it was correct. Well then, I say that everything science-fiction produces is correct as well so how about I start doing what they're doing? LMAO, it makes more sense, especially since a helluva lot of it is actually based on science and has no reference to the abstrusive lands of religion.
Comment by dimasok — August 18, 2007 @ 12:54 am
August 18th, 2007 at 1:03 am
No, I haven't either. But you phrased your response as though you were relying on your own experiences with religiously motivated people as your litmus test for how all religiously motivated people must behave. I have had an entirely different experience than what you seem to have experienced. Perhaps we could combine our experiences to get a two person synthesis of how religiously motivated people behave and believe. That would at least give us a better understanding than simply relying on one's own experience. I have certainly experienced people of the sort that you have mentioned, but this has not been the norm for me, and I have been among religious people for over a quarter century.
Comment by Randy — August 18, 2007 @ 1:03 am
August 18th, 2007 at 1:07 am
Sure, no problem. Well, the kind of people I've encountered were the ones you were referring to that you met as well (those that have no idea why they have faith at all - they simply do unquestionably). Now you tell me, what other people of faith have you run shoulders with who were intellectually savvy and could discuss with you topics of science vs religion in a manner that you found rationally-stimulating?
Comment by dimasok — August 18, 2007 @ 1:07 am
August 18th, 2007 at 1:17 am
Well sure, but I think the discussion, as well as what we have stated thus far is well beyond the scope of this thread. So to sum up, I have had discussions with rational people of religious pursuation, particularly in America (California and Pennsylvania - where I have lived for the last 25+ years). I think it might be good for you to at least read some of the work of some prominent Christian thinkers of say the last 30 years. I would start with philosopher and theologian Francis A. Schaeffer, to have an understanding of the Christian worldview. J.P. Moreland and William L. Craig have written a philosophy text entitled "Philosophical Foundations of a Christian Worldview," in which they discuss (among other things) Philosophy and the Integration of science and theology. That should give you a good start. Many of the people I have encountered in churches are well-read in this sort of foundation. They are not IDiots.
Comment by Randy — August 18, 2007 @ 1:17 am
August 18th, 2007 at 1:29 am
This blog is concerned with what sort of God would be the Creator of the universe. I don't know, but I would think it entirely reasonable that such a Creator is personal, and that He decided to communicate with His intelligent creation early on in their development. So connecting God to an ancient book is not entirely illogical. It is the content of such a book that I would be concerned with, not the peculiarity of its existence. But the peculiarity of the Bible's existence is certainly a remarkable study in itself. Unfortunately, much of the intellectual discussion about the Bible over the past 100 years or so has been dominated by materialists. I'm not convinced that the present-day consensus regarding the Bible among scholars is accurate, given the materialist-driven bias.
Comment by Randy — August 18, 2007 @ 1:29 am
August 18th, 2007 at 1:48 am
Ye gods. Case in point?
Comment by BenK — August 18, 2007 @ 1:48 am
August 18th, 2007 at 1:51 am
Huh?
Comment by Randy — August 18, 2007 @ 1:51 am
August 18th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
dimasok wrote:
This is simply false.
I explain some basic thoughts on why it's false here.
An example of evidence for connecting God and Christian scripture is Blaise Pascal's "Memoriale", recording a two hour long mystical experience, which produced a deep conversion. The text was found sown into his clothing seven years later, following his death.
Here's contemporary philosopher Plantinga's description of an experience while walking one rainy night from Widenar Library to his dorm building (Thayer Middle) when he was a student at Harvard:
[Philosophers Who Believe (Inter-Varsity Press, 1993), pp. 57-58.]
I recount my own experiences here and here.
See also the links at this post.
Then there's the autobiographical writings and other records of St. Paul, St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Teresa of Avila, St. John of the Cross, St Ignatius Loyola, Simone Weil, Thomas Merton, and many other remarkable people like this dock worker from my own native city, and remarkable events such The miracle at Juarez garbage dump.
And this is only a tiny fraction of recorded Christian religious experience.
To say that there is no evidence connecting God understood as creator of the cosmos with the God of Christian scripture is just ridiculous.
Comment by stunney — August 18, 2007 @ 5:43 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 6:51 pm
The evidence is that Christians have mystical experiences of the Christian God.
Oddly enough, Hindus have mystical visions of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Australian Aborigines will have mystical visions of the Rainbow Serpent, and a Kwakiutl mystic will have visions of Raven.
It's not clear what this is evidence of, but it's clear it isn't evidence for the truth of Christianity over any other religious belief system.
Comment by mtraven — August 18, 2007 @ 6:51 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
mtraven wrote:
You're confused.
dimasok said there is no evidence of the truth of Christianity. That is simply false. There is such evidence. There being evidence that other religions are true does not affect the fact of whether there's any evidence that Christianity is true.
There is some evidence that today's humans all descended from a single group of homo sapiens in Africa. There's some evidence of multiple groups of homo sapiens arising in different geographical areas, including some not in Africa. The fact that there's evidence for the single out-of-Africa hypothesis is not affected by there also being evidence for the multiple group hypothesis.
If there are 80,000 people who watch a football game, and they each are asked to give a description of the game, and each description is different, does that mean that there was no football game that they all attended and observed? If it was a game between fierce cross-city rivals, the accounts would probably be markedly different. But that wouldn't mean that they hadn't witnessed the same game, or that the game hadn't really taken place as an objective event.
Why can't this be analogous to religious experience? A divine reality, which lots of people experience, but when they give accounts of it, and act in response to it, it comes out in markedly different versions, using different conceptual resources, though also with considerable commonalities. Just as the universe was once described a certain way which is very different from how you might describe it now doesn't mean there's no objectively existing universe. Indeed there have been many conflicting theories about the universe, though with some commonalities.
This is why it's good that Saul Kripke ripped the descriptive theory of reference. Hesperus turned out to be the same thing as Phosphorus, even though the descriptions associated with each term were very different for millenia.
Comment by stunney — August 18, 2007 @ 7:46 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 8:09 pm
Christianity was merely an example. I was talking about ALL religious teachings.
Yes, but what about people who haven't experienced anything? You are aware that most of these people (if not all) are the individuals pushing our knowledge beyond the currently visible horizon, despite the fact that they're atheists who don't believe in anything beyond the materialistic universe? How did anyone from your list advance our knowledge of the world in any significant way other than by recounting their experiences which no one could verify but themselves?
I read various accounts of different people about all kinds of otherwordly experiences (anything from all branches of religion to mysticism, new-age thinkers, paranormal advocates, etc) and yet, I never heard anything like that from any well-respected scientist (one that I did read about conducted research all her on life on these topics and finally gave up after coming up with zero evidence) nor have I witnessed anything extraordinary myself.
So, why should I take their world for it instead of the people who are non-believers and yet who discovered so much new about the universe for ALL of us to see and not just a selected few?
I'm not saying they're wrong, nor am I saying that all they've seen doesn't exist (I hope it does). I'm simply saying that I see no logical reason to believe people from the religious camp who put forth unverifiable proofs and not those who are willing to test everything and keep searching until they either discover something that revolutionizes everything (such as a God, or paranormal processes, afterlife or what have you) or that goes against their initial conjecture in which case it is discarded. Personal experiences are just that - PERSONAL. I guess now I understand why scientists were so reluctant to include the observer into the scientific picture, even after the quantum revolution and the urgent need to solve the hard problems of consciousness.
Comment by dimasok — August 18, 2007 @ 8:09 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 9:39 pm
stunney said:
Now, I know there are ecumenical versions of Christianity (and other religions) that acknowledge that other faiths have validity, but they are a distinct minority view, and are hard to reconcile with the plain words of Jesus (not to mention Jehovah, whose first commandment was to have no other gods). We recently had the spectacle of a fundie congressman getting all incensed at the heathen Hindu and Islamic prayers he had to endure. So there doesn't seem to be much support from Christianity to support the idea that it can be true as well as all the other thousands of human religious belief systems
This relates to the argument I'm having on another thread, which might interest you. It's not my job to tell Christians how to manage their public image, but if I were you, and a political and spiritual liberal, I'd be doing more to rescue my faith from the retrograde fundamentalist idiots who appear to have hijacked it.
if you want to argue that the commonality of spiritual thought and experience across all human cultures proves something about the reality of such experiences, well, that's one thing, but that's not what you said.
As for Kripke, let's let that sleeping dog lie.
Comment by mtraven — August 18, 2007 @ 9:39 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 9:51 pm
dimasok wrote:
LOL! Science only counts if it comes from scientists who are well-respected! "No true Scotsman dislikes haggis!"
That fallacious framing stuff cracks me up every time.
Comment by angryoldfatman — August 18, 2007 @ 9:51 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
dimasok wrote:
What about them?
Just because some people haven't had one, it doesn't follow that there's no such thing as an orgasm. People who haven't had one probably can't imagine what it's like. Same with the taste of Scotch. You have to experience certain things for oneself. But the way an orgasm feels or the way Scotch tastes are not visible, material objects, and yet they're real enough.
And I'll grant you, God is not a visible, material object of any kind (and especially not an old man with a long white beard sitting on a cloud, etc). But, as a great man once said…, so what? Science postulates lots of unobservable, theoretical entities, so God's mere invisibility isn't a credible objection. God's mind, like all minds, is invisible.
I've written previously in response to this "What about people who haven't experienced God?" query:
As for religion's utility, you're not seriously doubting that something so long-standing, so universal across space and time is useless to its practitioners, are you? In fact, there are recent quantitative studies demonstrating the real benefits associated with religious practice.
Comment by stunney — August 18, 2007 @ 9:52 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 10:21 pm
Damn, I forget to frame myself correctly every time. Again, you misrepresent what I was trying to get to (my fault). By "well-respected" I was trying to separate "religious" people who are not scientists and scientists themselves and append the "well-established" label to the latter rather than the former. Any scientist making a contribution or merely doing his own research is "well-respected" in my book.
Comment by dimasok — August 18, 2007 @ 10:21 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 10:25 pm
How the hell do you know what or who God is? Yes, science postulates lots of unobservable theoretical entities, but that's in theoretical physics and most of it is rejected anyway if it doesn't fit into the scientific picture (string theory anyone?). Same with God, it simply does not fit anywhere, It's a fluff then, why bother?
Now, about those who haven't experienced "God". Well, why should I believe them at all? I could write memoirs describing my elaborate conversations with some higher intelligence that reveals the whole mystery of the universe to me in one smack and as far as I'm concerned, I would have exactly the same credibility as these people do and I would be the ONLY one that God revealed itself too. Fortunately (or unfortunately), I don't engage in that kind of self-flattery which they seem to relish in.
Your explanations contains a lot of linguistic exposition that doesn't carry much weight to a non-religious person such as me. To begin your explanation with "I do not think that 'experiencing God' is a 'right' that we have" starts the whole debate on a wrong foot - how can you experience a concept that is either delusional or that you can't even define in a non-equivocal manner?!
Again, I don't claim that there is no God or that these people are wrong, but merely pointing out that science is open to everyone and it had always been like that, whist religion always remained in the province of personal experience unverifiable by science.
I'm sorry but I take everything that is stated outside of science with a grain of salt, because I can duplicate their experiences in my own elucidative way just as well as they do and you wouldn't know the difference.
Comment by dimasok — August 18, 2007 @ 10:25 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 10:45 pm
Comment by BenK — August 18, 2007 @ 10:45 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
BenK
If you were trying to be witty, I'm afraid you didn't convey your message effectively. Run with the ideas of deluded people? Not me.
Comment by dimasok — August 18, 2007 @ 10:57 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 11:09 pm
Heh, you're preaching to the choir.
My point is not that religious belief can't be philosophically sophisticated, but that people's personal reasons for belief are rarely pure philosophy. In my experience, believer and non believer alike come to conclusions about the nature of God, the universe etc. and then (if they have a philosophical bent) begin to justify those beliefs philosophically.
However, the rhetoric of unbelief depends upon unbelief being philosophically superior to belief; the believer can say 'in spite of what you say Jesus has changed my life' or something similar, whereas the materialist can only say 'reason compels me so.' Hence Dawkins et. al. fighting like cats in a sack over Darwin; show Christianity to be philosophically empty and the Christian is left only with faith, show Darwinism to be philosophically empty and the materialist is left with nothing at all.
Comment by BenK — August 18, 2007 @ 11:09 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 11:10 pm
But you would say that, wouldn't you?
Comment by BenK — August 18, 2007 @ 11:10 pm
August 18th, 2007 at 11:36 pm
dimasok,
Believers don't ask questions? Perhaps the average person is content to believe in God and not bother delving into the philosophical, theological, historical, and - yes - even scientific arenas that apply to their faith. But you'll find plenty of people (even atheists) who proclaim certain belief in things that they, frankly, have never bothered to look into. And I don't just refer to Dawkins' now famous grasp of serious theology and theistic philosophy. Do you think every person who proclaims a belief in evolution really has a firm grasp of the subject? Do you think every person who rejects dualism (property and substance) with regards to the mind has arrived at that conclusion as a result of investigating philosophy of mind and neurological advances? And do you think every person who rejects ID does so because they don't think the evidence stands up?
Or put another way: Can you accept that someone can be scientifically literate - why, maybe even an intellectual - and disagree with you regarding ID? And if you can't, well. My compliments on the very comfortable, black-and-white world you've made for yourself.
Comment by nullasalus — August 18, 2007 @ 11:36 pm
August 19th, 2007 at 1:57 am
Religion requires more of a person than simply a philosophical commitment. It starts there, but goes way beyond that. This point should be evident in any observation of religious people. They accept certain propositions that are philosophical, but then they apply that to their lives. Jesus stated that a person who believes in him must do so out of commitment, not lukewarmness. As such, it is not enough just to accept the philosophical idea of who Jesus is, but to make a commitment, and to design one's life after what one believes about him.
A person who thinks that simply accepting the doctrines of Christianity without conforming to the morality, the spirituality, the convictions of Christianity, forgets that Christianity is more than simply a blind leap-in-the-dark faith. But on the other hand, Christianity is on more than one level. It is sophisticated for the high-minded, and simple for the simple-minded. It can be commited to on all levels of understanding.
I speak of Christianity, because that is what I know. I'm not certain how people of other faiths would respond.
Comment by Randy — August 19, 2007 @ 1:57 am
August 19th, 2007 at 5:38 am
dimasok wrote:
Have you ever had a mind other than your own, you know, communicate with yours?
Or is there another way in which you were imagining it might happen?
Oh, well. That's alright then, isn't it?
Yes indeed.
Oh, well, if it's fluff then, why bother?
Yes, I mean, why indeed? Quite so.
It's a big 'if', however.
Why should you, indeed?
Why should you believe anything anybody ever tells you?
They could be insane. They could be liars.
You can never be too careful, can you?
Well, you've got nothing to worry about then, have you?
No divine being is going to pull the wool over your eyes, so relax.
Kick back. Have a brewski.
How stupefyingly marvellous that you don't engage in anything of that sort, then, eh?
What a stroke of luck.
It must be superb to be you.
Truly, you're blessed. I suppose you tell yourself that every day you wake up. You must, right?
I beg your forgiveness.
I hereby promise that I shall never again declare that experiencing God isn't a 'right'. Inalienable or otherwise.
By the way, are you a 'bright', by any chance?
I've no idea.
On the other hand, I wasn't aware of ever in my life saying that the concept of God was delusional or that I'm unable to define it in a non-equivocal manner, let alone that I've 'experienced the concept' of something that's delusional or of something which I'm unable to define in a non-equivocal manner.
Whatever the fucking hell that's supposed to mean.
By the way, you wouldn't happen to be, by any chance, you know, a 'bright', would you?
Phew, that's a relief.
I mean, think of where we'd all be otherwise.
How many people will attend Mass this weekend? How does that compare with the number of people who will conduct experiments to test inflationary cosmology this weekend?
I guess they're roughly equal, right?
How admirable is it possible for one person to be?
What about having sex with with Anna Nicole Smith? Can you duplicate that?
Comment by stunney — August 19, 2007 @ 5:38 am
August 19th, 2007 at 10:05 am
dimasok wrote:
Nah, I caught you subconciously referring back to the template being discussed in this thread. The rest of your response to me indicates this as well; I'll continue using the "true Scotsman" example to highlight your rigidity of thought.
"By 'true' I was trying to separate 'non-haggis-eating' people who are not Scotsmen and Scotsmen themselves and append the 'kilt-wearing' label to the latter rather than the former."
"Any Scotsman eating haggis or merely wearing a kilt is 'true' in my book."
Remember, "well-respected" means receiving lots of respect. From whom? From other scientists one would suppose (though you seem to imply it means from you alone - humility is not prevalent in Darwinians from what I've observed).
Since the majority of scientists believe neo-Darwinian evolution to be the only viable theory of biological diversity (much like the majority of pre-1950s scientists believed the Steady State to be the only viable theory of universal origins), it is assured that they will not respect any scientist who says otherwise. Thus, a "well-respected" scientist is one who believes neo-Darwinian evolution to be true; one who doesn't believe such is a "religious person who is not a scientist".
This is a false dichotomy reinforced with circular reasoning, which I have found is a standard mode of thought among ID critics. A template, if you will, which is illustrated so succinctly in the blog entry.
Comment by angryoldfatman — August 19, 2007 @ 10:05 am
August 19th, 2007 at 10:10 am
"subconsciously"
My spelling is atrocious this morning, apologies.
Comment by angryoldfatman — August 19, 2007 @ 10:10 am
August 19th, 2007 at 3:40 pm
mtraven wrote:
Let's suppose that all who come to the Father do so through Jesus Christ. Why is it necessary for them to get the name right, or have a true description inside their heads of Christ's salvific mediation role in the conceptual terms of Christian theology? Not even Christians have perfectly correct descriptions inside their heads of all the theological facts.
It's the Hesperus/Phosphorus thing again, I'm afraid. Frege's distinction between sense and reference. Semantic and epistemic externalism. Direct reference rather than the descriptive theory of reference. Kri… Oops.
Jesus was an early opponent of the descriptive theory of reference. In Matthew 25, there is the parable of judgement. In that parable, the damned—-or to use the politically correct terminology, the 'eschatologically challenged' or the 'differently saved'—–protest their innocence, saying, "Lord, when did we see you hungry, etc, and not give you food, etc?" They're told that insofar as they neglected to care for the poor, they neglected to care for him, Jesus Christ.
In another saying, Jesus says that it's not those who say "Lord, Lord" who will inherit the kingdom, but those who actually do God's will. That could mean 23 million atheists will inherit the kingdom, and every TV evangelist will have to spend 14.5 trillion years in purgatory.
Well, that's three strikes against him. He's a fundie. He's a congressman. And he's extremely rude. I'm not a fundie or a congressman.
Two points to keep in mind. 1) Contradictory beliefs of any kind can't all be true; but some beliefs are true, and it's no argument against Christianity being true that some people hold beliefs that contradict it, just as it's no argument against evolutionary naturalism being true that some people hold beliefs that contradict it. 2) People do manage to refer all the time despite often doing so under false descriptions and inadequate conceptualizations. And this is as true of science as it is of theology.
A philosophical example: Let's suppose that substance dualism is true. It would not follow that all materialists had always failed to refer to anything when they used the word 'mind', and that all Berkeleyan idealists had always failed to refer to anything when they used the word 'body', even though the materialist theory of mind and the idealist theory of body are both erroneous, ex hypothesi.
A little lecture room trick is to point to an object while saying to the students, "D'you see that little metal chalk box over there attached to the wall?" They all nod and mumble affirmatively. Then you tell them that it's actually plastic and isn't a box at all, but a small shelf.
Meanings are not objects inside human heads. Saying what they are is very tricky, but especially if you're a materialist.
I've tried to oppose idiocy regardless of its source. Communist idiocy, Thatcherite idiocy (I once gave a paper on her idiocy at the University of Havana, Cuba), and more recently Religious Right Republican idiocy. But there are many worse things that have been done by neocon and Rovian apparatchiks (who are mostly Straussian atheists, btw) than have been done by Young Earth Creationists, and there's only so many hours in the day. Ya know?
I never said anything about proving anything. I said there's evidence that Christianity is true. This is compatible with:
a) there also being some evidence for the truth of other religions
and with
b) bits of other religions also being true,
and with
c) adherents of other religions actually referring to many of the spiritual facts represented by Christian theology, but under strictly false or somewhat inadequate descriptions.
Some non-religious illustrations may help. In criminal law, there is often incriminating and exculpatory evidence. In the subject of history, there is often a range of evidence to support a number of conflicting theses, e.g, about Napoleon's generalship or why Germany lost the First World War, or the social attitudes of ancient Greeks towards homosexuality, or why Britain was able to acquire such a large empire. Etc.
The Arabic word for 'God' is 'Allah'. Palestinian, Syrian, Egyptian, Iraqi and Lebanese Christians use that word exactly as Germans use 'Gott' and we use 'God' and Mexicans use 'Dios', etc. Now suppose the Christian doctrine of the Trinity is true. Would that mean that every time a Muslim said 'Allah', s/he was not referring to God? Or let's suppose a little old Catholic lady thinks each divine Person has a separate and distinct will, which is in fact not the case according to Catholic theology. Does this mean that when she recites the Creed at Mass each Sunday, she is not in fact referring to God, but is reciting her heretical belief in tritheism?
Dump the idea that reference can only be determined by true descriptions. Embrace Kri***anism. If referring and meaning were all determined by or identical with the descriptions inside individual human heads, we could not refer or communicate or translate, because those descriptions—–the ideas we each have in our heads and which we associate with words in our various languages——-vary enormously, and are very often wholly or partially false, or inadequate, inaccurate, and misleading.
A scientific example: I recently referred to Hans Halvorson's demonstration that localized particles are not real, and hence that 'particle talk' has merely pragmatic utility, and is false if construed ontologically.
The issue of realism versus intrumentalism is pervasive, and is by no means peculiar to religion. But underlying that issue is the fundamental issue of whether, and how, human thought can refer to reality even though no human has anything like a complete set of true descriptions of the world inside their head, and even though we cannot stand outside ourselves and from a 'neutral', 'independent' vantage point compare reality 'as it really is' with our descriptions of reality. And an interesting question is to ask what justifies us in morally condemning the Falwells and Robertsons. Why is reality apparently such as to oblige us rationally and morally to prefer our conceptual schemes and theories over theirs? So you see, it's not just all religions failing to agree. It's human thoughts about lots of things failing to agree. If the fact of disagreement about religion disqualifies religion from the possibility of achieving referential and epistemic success, the same kind of disagreement disqualifies human thought generally.
But once one becomes a devotee of the gospel of Kri***anism, you stop worrying about the possibility of one's descriptions of reality being false preventing successful reference. So the physicists really are talking about a physical world, and the theologians really are talking about God. The solution is modal logic. There is a possible world in which Berkeleyan idealism is false and in which matter exists independently of minds. There is a possible world in which theism is true. So we can refer to those possible worlds, and hence to mind-independent matter and to God. Hence I can refer to the possible world in which Christianity is true and Hindus come to the Father through Jesus Christ without having subscribed to the relevant bits of Christian theology. And I believe that possible world coincides with, or is, the actual world.
Lah-dee-dah.
Comment by stunney — August 19, 2007 @ 3:40 pm
August 19th, 2007 at 4:43 pm
You're right. Christianity cannot be true and all the others true as well.
Comment by Bradford — August 19, 2007 @ 4:43 pm