9 Responses to “The Universal Signal”

1. kamell Says:
   October 15th, 2007 at 8:41 am

   greating for all my friends

   that is my blog about the famous pharaohs of ancient egypt , here you can read about ancient egyptians and the most famous pharaohs and there deeds like the pyramids, temples, tombs and more

   http://famouspharaohs.blogspot...

   also you can find info about the races which invaded ancient Egypt like Hyksos and persians …..

   http://www.gatesofegypt.blogsp...

Comment by kamell — October 15, 2007 @ 8:41 am

2. chunkdz Says:
   October 15th, 2007 at 1:17 pm

   So the signal means "Design Matrix now entering second year overdue."

   [Incidentally, there is another signal used by an elite few. Right hand two fingers, left hand five fingers means "I shelled out 25 bucks, did you?"]

   Love you, Mike! :smile:(wink, wink, secret signal)

Comment by chunkdz — October 15, 2007 @ 1:17 pm

3. fifth monarchy man Says:
   October 15th, 2007 at 5:25 pm

   Is this yet evidence of front loading?

   http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_...

   Standing upright is not the result of hominids moving to the savanna after all. It seems that our ancestors were bipedal before they ever left the trees.

Comment by fifth monarchy man — October 15, 2007 @ 5:25 pm

4. Guts Says:
   October 15th, 2007 at 9:06 pm

   That book , Upright Ape, is pretty good. It summarizes pretty consisely what Mike and Krauze have been writing about here in several chapters.

Comment by Guts — October 15, 2007 @ 9:06 pm

5. keiths Says:
   October 17th, 2007 at 5:12 am

   Alister McGrath seems to have become sort of a de facto spokesman for theism, presumably on the basis of his criticisms of Richard Dawkins. Yet he has been quite ineffective in debate.

   I just watched the video of his debate with Christopher Hitchens, held a week ago at Georgetown University, and I can fairly say that Hitchens mopped the floor with McGrath.

   Questions for the theists at Telic Thoughts: Do you agree with my assessment of McGrath's skills? If so, who would you rather see representing the theistic position in these debates?

Comment by keiths — October 17, 2007 @ 5:12 am

6. keiths Says:
   October 17th, 2007 at 3:44 pm

   Here is a recommendation for Peter Kreeft as a replacement for McGrath:

   I wish McGrath had directly challenged Hitchens more, instead of defending himself. Maybe someone like Peter Kreeft would be a better choice for this kind of thing; though I doubt Hitch would care (or dare) to face him.

Comment by keiths — October 17, 2007 @ 3:44 pm

7. platolives Says:
   October 17th, 2007 at 7:09 pm

   "Pupils must be protected from all forms of fundamentalism" said Sweden's Education Minister Jan Björklund against Intelligent Design. Why not "Pupils must be protected from the latest findings in Biopolymeric Information research." Eric Peterson

   Information, thought recorded on matter, always exists for the sake of something else, some goal or end.-E. Peterson

Comment by platolives — October 17, 2007 @ 7:09 pm

8. MikeGene Says:
   October 18th, 2007 at 12:18 am

   Hi Keiths,

   I just watched the video of his debate with Christopher Hitchens, held a week ago at Georgetown University, and I can fairly say that Hitchens mopped the floor with McGrath.
   Questions for the theists at Telic Thoughts: Do you agree with my assessment of McGrath's skills? If so, who would you rather see representing the theistic position in these debates?

   I clicked on your link and saw the debate was almost two hours long. Needless to say, I'd have to save it for a very rainy day. But I did see the first few seconds, where the moderator lays out the debate: Poison or Cure? Religious Belief in the Modern World

   I also see that activist PZ Myers summarized the debate. Of course, we can't expect him to be objective, but if it did indeed go like this…..

   The debate between Hitchens and McGrath is well worth listening to. Hitchens is cogent and sharp; he makes exactly the same points about the fundamental immorality of religion that he made at the FFRF convention, but in less time, and with fewer distracting digressions. He's on fire. Of course, he also doesn't get sucked into anti-Islamic fervor, but addresses the deplorable universal qualities of religion.

   McGrath is simply awful. This is his argument in summary:

   I was an atheist once, but I got better
   Being religious has health benefits
   It's the fringe fanatics that give religion a bad name
   Here, I have some tedious praise for Jesus that you've all heard before

   It's dreadful laid out like that, but it's worse hearing him plummily drone on about it all. Even worse, Hitchens specifically asked him to state his beliefs "” does he truly believe that a human sacrifice two thousand years ago relieves him of certain moral responsibilities? "” and he doesn't touch that one. All he had to offer was murky blathering.

   Hitchens asked some clearly worded questions about the meaning of the central events of Christianity, and McGrath didn't answer any of them.

   …then it sounds like Hitchens didn't stay on-topic. So what's the poison?

Comment by MikeGene — October 18, 2007 @ 12:18 am

9. nullasalus Says:
   October 18th, 2007 at 12:43 am

   I've never been a big fan of Alister McGrath. He self-promotes himself as the anti-Dawkins, but he's just not all that good in a confrontational/persuasive manner. William Lane Craig, John Lennox, and others do well - Lennox in particular impressed me recently, mostly because he was willing to do something McGrath isn't, and go on the offensive against some of Dawkins' claims. Still not nearly enough, but I saw Lennox as clearly winning that one.

   Some of the theist v atheist debates I've seen usually involve a theist entirely on the defense, and an atheist entirely on the offense. If that's the way the debate is set up, there's no way for the theist to come out looking good. It's along the lines of a creationist v darwinist debate, except the entire conversation is pointing out flaws and lack of evidence/discovery with regards to evolution, and critiques of creationism never come up.

Comment by nullasalus — October 18, 2007 @ 12:43 am

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.