What Creationists think gives an argument worth March 22, 2008
Posted by Evil Bender in Religion, Science, wingnuts.trackback
Commenter Sirius Knot apparently has his own blog, where he’s made (in comments) my favorite version of a common Creationist argument. The basic version of this argument is this: if you don’t believe in God, then you can’t believe that people have any real value, because the only value they can have must be given to them by God. Now, they don’t usually say the last part, because it makes clear how foolish the argument is. But the argument runs roughly as I’ve outlined 9 times out of 10.
But Sirius has taken the argument to a fun new conclusion, and one that is unintentionally telling. He writes
If you believe that individual men have no individual worth then I must point out the hypocrisy of your post: if the individual has no intrinsic worth then neither does his opinions, counting yours.
Who has ever seriously argued that ideas have intrinsic worth? The value of ideas isn’t in that they’re ideas, but that good ideas are ideas which illuminate and correspond to reality, or ideas that provide us with productive means of acting. They don’t have intrinsic worth: rather, the worth of an idea is based on its demonstrable merits. Evolution through natural selection is an incredibly powerful idea, because it explains so much about the world. Communism was a powerful idea that now has much less power, because it has repeatedly given rise not to a workers’ paradise, but to totalitarian governments antithetical to the expressed aim of communism.
Science is a wonderful tool for helping us discover, test, and affirm or disprove a wide range of ideas. Those ideas are said to have merit if the prove helpful in describing reality and making useful predictions.
None of this should be a surprise to anyone reading this. But apparently Sirius thinks differently, since he’s worried that without god, ideas would lose their intrinsic worth. Wow. How oddly postmodern from a self-described fundamentalist.
Note: the post the comment is from is a defense of Creationism, and good for a laugh. My favorite part is when he insists that the burden of proof is on those who don’t see clear evidence of design in the universe. That’s right: he wants us to prove a negative, while he gets to assume that toast that looks like the Blessed Virgin any feature of the universe that seems designed absolutely must be. Naturally, he ignores–as he did in his comment on my blog–all that we do know about how “design” features like irreducible complexity can be formed by completely natural processes, despite the fact that the whole IC argument depends upon the perceived necessity of design.
But naturally arising complexity discredits his whole line of argument, so we’re not likely to see him admit to any of this.
Wow. Looks like you think that your opinion has more worth than mine….
You’ve missed the point, which is par for the course where you’re concerned. Perhaps my wording could have been clearer.
I shall be happy to elucidate.
My ideas and your ideas, if creationism is truth, have potential worth [not intrinsic worth, so feel free to burn that straw man and thatch together a new one.]. The potential worth of our ideas, from, the theist perspective, are based in no small part on the fact that our minds were designed to operate rationally.
Yes, designed. We can test whether this is so by attempting to order the observable world in a rational manner. We observe that we exist for we could hardly deny our existence if we weren’t around to do so. This is the law of noncontradiction. We observe that we exist in a world over which we have little control, which is largely inflicted upon us, so we know it exists independently of ourselves. Others share this world. Their experience testifies to the same, namely, that universal laws and forces regulate the world we inhabit. We go from there, categorizing, hypothesizing, and reasoning until we come to the conclusion that order is present in the very fabric of our world. Order does not come from disorder. We may observe from human experience that information and intervention is required to order and organize. A Rational Mind is necessary to order the universe, someone to set the constants, program the laws, set in motion the forces: A First Cause.
Now, if I’ve lost you at this point, it may be because you don’t really buy things like cause and effect, reason or scientifically proven universal laws and constants; in short, in the presence of order in the universe. I would caution you on how you might answer me here, for I will invariably ask you where we got all of this precious information required to order and regulate the observable universe. I would even have to demand that you explain to me exactly how natural selection [the working dynamic behind evolution] came to be and how it came to be that such a structure came to work in the manner that it does. Where did the information come from? You see, you can’t just CLAIM a thing is true: you must justify your claim. If you say that this observed irreducible complexity can be explained by natural processes you have to explain how and you have to explain how that process came to be.
Now because Creationism and a rational look at the observable universe infers a Designer, I can trust that my intellect is, in fact, reliable. I can trust that my logic is not faulty. I can trust my conclusions to a large degree, making allowances for the possibility that I may have come to my conclusions based on misinformation, bias, false data, false assumptions, et cetera.
Which means that not all ideas are equal. Some, in the end, are actually worthless.
Let’s compare my worldview to the evolutionary worldview:
Oh. You can’t really comment on the origin of the universe. Natural selection only applies to biology. Since we can’t really say it applies to abiological chemistry either, we can’t really apply it to the question of how life sprang forth from nonlife either. I mention this because some evolutionists actually forget this key limitation to natural selection; which also limits the explanations evolutionary theory can offer us.
But OK, you believe that life evolved as a freak accident and somehow propogated, mutated and changed into various progressive species until we came to the current pinnacle of evolution: the housecat, who uses humanity for slave labor. No, that’s right: it’s man. Man somehow also developed his reason by these blind, accidental processes which is how he kknows the universe was a great big accident, et cetera. Which leads to the inevitable question: How can you know that your reason is reliable if its essentially an evolutionary accident? While you’re thinking about that: If it’s all pointless, meaningless and heading nowhere, why do you bother arguing at all? And evolution at its core does say this: humanity has no purpose. Meaning is a false construct that we’ve erected to get us through the night. There’s no point in our existence. We might have worth to someone, but it’s artifice, chemical reactions to our environment. The only purposes that evolutionists have been able to propose are procreation [continuing the species] and survival of the species. The individual has no intrinsic worth. The individual exists for the benefit of the species.
So how can the ideas of the individual who has no intrinsic worth, but only relative worth be said to have any worth? How do we test the worth of these ideas if our reason and intellect came about by random processes and we can’t really say why they should be reliable?
Fortunately, your worldview takes less sense and more faith than mine. You see, atheism has to prove a negative: you have to prove that absolutely everything has a purely natural explanation. If God exists, your methodology is flawed and you are doomed at the outset for excluding all possibility of the supernatural.
– Sirius Knott
“so feel free to burn that straw man and thatch together a new one.”
You’re the one who said it. Discussing the implications of your own words isn’t a strawman. I’m thrilled if you don’t believe in ideas intrinsic worth, but that is certainly what you implied in your comment.
“The potential worth of our ideas, from, the theist perspective, are based in no small part on the fact that our minds were designed to operate rationally.”
That’s funny, since my worldview discusses the worth of ideas can be demonstrated by their usefulness and correspondence to reality. I don’t have to include God to come to that conclusion. Interesting that you do.
“Order does not come from disorder. We may observe from human experience that information and intervention is required to order and organize.”
No, we don’t. We can see many examples in the natural world of spontaneous order. Humans used to think that God must be keeping planets and stars in motion, because we didn’t know about the mechanisms that actually did so. Once we learned of those, some people said “where does Gravity come from” with the same way they once assumed that only God could keep the universe in order. God’s role got smaller: no longer did he have to hold the planets in order. Establishing natural laws was enough. That’s nothing but god of the gaps, once again.
“evolutionary worldview”
I don’t have an “evolutionary worldview.” I have a scientific worldview. I demand evidence for conclusions, and I don’t assume that any knowledge we don’t currently have must have been the direct an incomprehensible work of the Almighty.
“Oh. You can’t really comment on the origin of the universe. Natural selection only applies to biology. Since we can’t really say it applies to abiological chemistry either, we can’t really apply it to the question of how life sprang forth from nonlife either. I mention this because some evolutionists actually forget this key limitation to natural selection; which also limits the explanations evolutionary theory can offer us.”
I’m glad you understand this, as it demonstrates a better understanding than most Creationists have. Having read your blog, though, I have to say: it seems disingenuous to make this claim, since you reject evolution anyway. If you won’t accept what science has learned about the origin of life, I don’t believe you can ever be convinced that the universe wasn’t created as described in a particular, literal reading of Genesis.
“How can you know that your reason is reliable if its essentially an evolutionary accident? ”
Because reason gets results. Because we can make testable predictions. Reason is far more reliable than faith, and gives me great confidence in our ability to know the world. It gets results, so I have confidence in those results.
“While you’re thinking about that: If it’s all pointless, meaningless and heading nowhere, why do you bother arguing at all? And evolution at its core does say this: humanity has no purpose.”
Evolution is a description of the natural world, and an explanation for the diversity of life. Its philosophical implications have nothing to do with its accuracy. Arguing that evolution is nihilistic is irrelevant to the point, and certainly doesn’t demonstrate anything about the truth or falsity of either of our positions.
“Fortunately, your worldview takes less sense and more faith than mine. You see, atheism has to prove a negative: you have to prove that absolutely everything has a purely natural explanation. If God exists, your methodology is flawed and you are doomed at the outset for excluding all possibility of the supernatural.”
I’ve dealt with “excluding the possibility” in response to your comment on the other thread. And I do not have to “prove a negative,” obviously. You’re positing the existence of an invisible, all-powerful, omnipresent, all-knowing being, and you suggest those who do not assume the existence of that being have the burden of proof. That’s truly amazing. If you want me to believe that God created the universe, you’re going to have to do better than saying that reason is unreliable and that I haven’t proved he didn’t.
First of all, you keep talking about noncontradiction but don’t seem to actually know what it means. The law of noncontradiction says that proposition A and not-A cannot both be true. What that has to do with God is beyond me. Do you really think that it requires God to assure that not-A is false if A is true?
The question about the foundations of reason is an interesting one. For the purposes of science in its most general sense — our apprehension and comprehension of objective reality — reason can be said to be a provisional stance. We use it because it works, and we’ll abandon it if someone shows that it’s wrong and not before. You don’t deny that reason works, you just want it to depend on God. That’s a hypothesis that would need to be demonstrated, and as EB says your personal incredulity is not enough.
Actually we can make a much stronger claim to the primacy of reason. Reason is actually necessary and sufficient — it is self-justifying. The foundation of reason is reason itself, and we can make that argument in a way that is much stronger than any such argument for God as a metaphysical primary. The discussion is obviously too long for a comment.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noncontradiction
Jack, my applications of the law of noncontradiction are perfectly valid. read it again. I’ll understand if your poorly evolved brain has to read it a few times to get it.
Evilbender [by the way, nice handle for an evolutionist. where did you get your concept of evil? Are you admitting to the existence of a standard of good?], it’s not really my responsibility to convince you of the existence of God. Ample proof of God’s existence has been left in His Creation, in the existence of reason, of thought, of life, of consciousness, of morality and in His written Word. For those who are willing to receive it.
You see reason does not compell acceptance of reason’s conclusions. One may choose to disbelieve the evidence. You certainly accuse creationists of willful ignorance and I happily turn your accusation on its head. The evidence is there, but there will always be those who consider it critically nstead of with open-minded skepticism.
It may interest you to note that the Bible does not offer one single argument for God’s existence. It’s not necessary. The evidence is there and by the visible things of His creation the invisible things of God are evident including His eternal power and Godhead, so that the world is without excuse.
You have chosen to disbelieve in God. It was a volitional act of will. reason cannot compell a decision, though it may influence one.
have you investigated the claims of Christianity? Honestly. Or have you dismissed them out of argumentum ad populum? Did YOU make a personal investiagtion? Or have you dismissed Jesus Christ off-hand?
be honest,
Sirius Knott
Sirius:
You’ve made your stance on cosmic origins quite clear. I assume, by your insistence on God as Creator, that you hold some religious convictions (Particularly, you mention Jesus Christ, the author of my faith). If that is NOT the case, feel free to disregard what I’m about to say; if you’re not a pious man, this does not apply to you. If, however, you have some religious affiliation, I’d like to know how you think it serves your Master to tell unbelievers that they have “poorly evolved brain”s. Seems to me that those of us who believe in a Creator and (in my case) a Redeemer, ought to treat our fellow human beings with a bit of respect and a touch of charity.
I really wish I’d kept the list of the number of people who have thought they’re clever by in talking about how I’m “Evil” Bender. I love when my opponents ridicule themselves and save me the trouble.
Spartacus,
I’ll try to be kind about this. I don’t believe in evolution. I’ve read Origins. It’s correctly shelved in my persoanl library as science fiction.
I am a Christian and I am relatively pious [though not a Pietist]. I’m glad that you have your personal convictions as to how I ought to respond to my fellow human beings. And I hope that you stand by your convictions.
Having said that, I was using what some of us call irony to make a point. If their brains came about by evolution [a series of nondirected yet amazingly beneficial accidents], how can we be sure that reason is actually reliable? It’s valid point and most evolutionists don’t really have any other answer than, Well,it works, right? It doesn’t answer the question of why should it work at all? If the odds for life are astronomical, the odds for sapience are rediculous.
Now, I realize that a lot of good Christians don’t use irony or sarcasm [Elijah. Mount Carmel. Prophets of Baal. Read it again.] or say anything that’s not oh-so-nice. I hope that you’re not one of these guys who has this image of Christ as a woman with a beard, some sort of milquetoast lamb cradling perfectly meek Woody Allen rip-off. Some folks forget how often Jesus had harsh words, even insults for those who stood against him. Some folks gloss over the whole Jesus thrashing everyone out of the Temple bit. Because it seems irreverent somehow. But that’s actually in your Bible, along with the admonition of love your enemies. There appears to be some discernment involved in the application of the Christian faith. Given Paul’s admonition about how Christians in his day should handle meat sacrificed to idols, there even appears to be some gray areas to the faith.
That said, the requirement of discernment necessitates the probability that some of us will screw it all up. If you think I’ve been out of line, forgive me. I don’t really think I have been.
And Evilbender, you’re not making any sense, as usual, though I do note you are also familiar with the rhetorical value of an occasional ad hominem. Since you’ve obviously read enough of my post to pick at a nit, may I ask if your equipped to handle the dragons of my post? You seem to be notatble silent on the large questions I posed.
–Sirius Knott
Wow, Spartacus! I guess that’s what you get for favoring reasonable discourse. We frequently disagree, but it’s fun to find someone crazy enough to go after us both on the same topic! Thanks for weighing in.
Sirius: You’re the one using ad hominem attacks. And there is not a single thing worth responding to in your post. You’ve claimed I need to prove God’s nonexistence, a logical impossibility, you’ve repeated “Reason can’t work if evolution is true,” despite admitting that clearly we can have confidence in reason based on its results, and then you asked me a bunch of irrelevant questions about Christianity.
Although I do find it hilarious that you accuse me of the ad populum position. Atheism is clearly the choice of the masses.
Sirius: Your ad hominem against me was so childish I hadn’t realized that it was actually a pillar of your reasoned assault. Kudos for your subtlety!
Of course someone of your sophistication realizes the futility — indeed the logical fallacy — of using reason to argue that reason cannot function. If we can’t start from the assumption that reason works than your argument is mere blither blather. And not only because it’s the spittle-covered ravings of a self-obsessed lunatic.
(Notice how I threw in the “occasional ad hominem” there, for rhetorical effect.)
God doesn’t solve your problem with reason either. If god is the rule-maker who makes reason function properly, then he could have chosen not to. That means he could have created a world where the law of noncontradiction was false, in other words a world where the very concept of truth is impossible. If you believe that, as your words imply, that puts you on the wrong side of a debate that the theologians long ceded to the philosophers. God, however powerful, cannot do the logically impossible. Reason trumps god.
Are there -still- people in the 21st century making the “the universe seems non-random to me, therefore it must have been made by God” argument?!? Didn’t Thomas Aquinas or somesuch clever person point out quite a ways back that the same argument also applies to God. Given a deity-concept that is not wholly random, a “First Cause” must be found for God as well. Let’s call that Overgod. Of course, it gets absurd when we reiterate, contemplating the Overoveroveroveroveroverovergod.
Yet the absurdity is not in the number of iterations. It rests instead in the initial blunder of assuming that the universe itself couldn’t simply exist a priori. Of course, none of this is actually testable. To perform such analysis in a non-insane way, we would need to compare a group of universes that was created by divine design and a group of universes that occurred spontaneously. With only the one specimen to study, we are stuck with two alternatives. One is to filter faith from demonstrable fact, confining our discussion of cosmological issues to findings rooted in some sort of evidence. The other is to engage in underhanded trickery that presents faith as fact — something the faithful would do well to avoid unless their God-concept looks kindly on lies.
Jack,
As you can see from Evilbender’s response, my argument isn’t pure ad hominem. There’s actually something that requires debunking.
What you’ve just attempted here is an argumentum ad logicum: you assume that because you’ve noted one logical fallacy in my argument that it’s all bunk. Which is absurd, I know. But out here in the world of blogs, it’sactually quite common to pick out one portion of an argument and crow that you’ve beaten the other party soundly, regardless of whether the opponents other arguments bear weight or not.
I’m glad [for your sake] that someone showed you what an ad hominem is. Good luck with the rest of your rhetoric.
–Sirius Knott
Demonweed,
You make good use of ad hominem as well; however, there IS a flaw in your argument. A First cause for this universe, whether we call it God, a grand unified theory or a theory of everything, is necessary to avoid the paradox of infinite regress. Nothing does not cause something. In this universe…
There’s the rub. We know from observing this universe that in this universe every effect has a cause. God, being outside this universe, does not necessarily require a cause for Himself, though He is a valid First Cause for the universe itself.
Atheism, of course, would rather argue from a negative, but the only way to state that there is no God with absolute certainty is to enter the realm of religion. You see, know there is no God, you’d have to know everything, meaning you’d need omniscience, arguably an attribute of deity.
–Sirius Knott
Evilbender,
You only saw them as irrelevant because you fail to comprehend their significance.
I’m not sure it’s your fault. Perhaps I’ve explained badly. After all, you have misunderstood my argument concerning reason.
Let me state it more plainly. Reason cannot be explained by evolution.
More specifically, why reason should be reliable at all, coming from blind improbable chance, cannot be explained by evolution. The improbability of reason suggests that evolutionary processes cannot account for it.
If reason exists and works and is reliable, it is more probable that we owe its existence to a Designer.
Why? Because we need to explain why the universe is so perfectly “self-organizing.” Even if evolution were true, even if we applied it to cosmology [when natural selection is actually limited to biology], the existence of such an efficiency engine or organizing mechanism [a program] necessitates both information to process [raw data] and a designer [programmer]. Nothing does not produce something. Nonlife does not produce life.
The fact that the universe is ordered and can be catalogued also speaks of design.
I’ve already addressed First Cause and infinite regress.
I believe that First Cause is necessarily God. I came to that conclusion after realizing that these things suggested the possible and apparent existence of God. The possibility that God might exist poses a challenge for the honest philosopher. To maintain a personal sense of intellectual veracity, if there exists the possibility of God’s existence, I must investigate further to determine whether His existence is merely apparent or probable. Or I can brush him off with knee-jerk atheist dogma.
I chose the more honest route.
–Sirius Knott
Sirius I question if you fully understand the concept of ‘the big bang’ . There wasn’t nothing before the big bang. We are still looking into it, the maths indicates there was some kind of imploding universe with different fundamental laws then ours. If that turns out to be true, then how many universes ago did your god set the rules? does he pop in every crunch/inflation event and tweak the fundamental laws?
Further more on the topic of cause and effect, they can only exist with in a single timeframe and cannot cross timeframes. A crunching universe such as the one on the other side of the ‘big bang’ has reversed time so effect proceeded causes from our point of view. You have the possibility that that universe caused this universe and this universe caused that universe. With out a set timeframe to observe there cannot be an cause effect set as you would observe within this universe, so it’s entirely possible for two events to cause each other. Another possibility
Premise 1. Time is a property of this universe.
Premise 2. Cause and Effect is an emergent feature of a universe with time.
Premise 3. The beginning of the universe is outside the universe.
Therefore the beginning of the universe is outside time (a property of the universe) and thus outside of the jurisdiction of cause and effect.
Therefore the universe did not require a cause.
To deny any of the premises also makes the argument that god is immune to cause and effect fail. Again Occam’s razor removes the hypothesis that requires additional agents. So being intellectually honest requires ignoring any part played by any god until evidence is produced to warrant it’s inclusion.
Sirius, I think you’re not quite getting the hang of this ad hominem thing. If I point out that you are stupid, then I am levelling an ad hominem attack. If I point out that something you believe is stupid, then I am not levelling and ad hominem attack, because that belief is not a person. I suppose if I argued, “that belief is stupid because you espouse it” I’d be encroaching on a true ad hominem that at least takes the form of a critique of substance.
In any case, it is clear you are not stupid. You must be a genius. After all, you have just managed to “prove” the existence of God by asserting that God occupies a context that defies the very idea of evidence. Here’s a nice thought experiment. Read any post you’ve written here, substitute “Flying Spaghetti Monster” for “God,” and see if you’re still so certain of your conclusions. The alpha, omega, and everything in between of your arguments applies equally well to any made up concept of a supreme being.
The flaw I pointed out previously holds true, as do criticisms others have offered. Even if we stipulate that everything in the universe has a cause and effect relationship with something else in the universe, we still have no knowledge of the cause and effect relationship the universe may have with other entities. I may know that every chicken hatched from an egg, but that does not excuse boldly assuming that henhouses come into being through a similar process.
However, if one glosses over the logical three-card monte stuff and accepts that the universe simply must have an Architect Clockwork Engineer Fry Cook God to have produced it as is, that reveals nothing about the nature of that First Cause. I think the old Greek Abraxas makes a great deal more sense than anything plucked right from an ancient storybook. Of course, I also think, God or no God, we are all better off using reason and honesty to confine what we claim we know to what we actually do know. After all, I don’t think the Flying Spaghetti Monster looks kindly on those who speak arbitrarily of his Noodly ways.
Yes, I read Hawkings book. Imaginary time, infinity turtles, whatever….
You presume there’s nothing beyond the big bang. You also presume a crunching effect that science will neveer be able to verify. No one knows what’s beyond it because the laws of physics break down there. This puts us squarely in the realm of metaphysics.
You misunderstand Ockham’s Razor. Parsimony requires that nothing unnecessary be introduced to an explanation. It does not require that God be disallowed from the conversation [that he be denied as a consideration]. How is it more intellectually honest to purposely limit your search to allow only for a natural explanation? If God exists, he is certainly a necessary consideration. The evidence for God’s existence is abundantly and readily available for those who will receive it.
Think of it this way.
If God exists, God is supernatural.
Atheistically biased science requires a purely natural explanation to the world.
If God exists, said scientific methodology and presumptions doom it to failure from the outset.
and here again:
1. If God exists outside the universe, He is separate from it and may not be bound by its rules of operation. [i.e. He is supernatural, not natural or an observed part of nature]
2. If God designed the universe, since He cannot do anything inconsistent with his nature, it is reasonable and ordered.
3. If God designed an ordered universe, those laws are discoverable.
3a. Only an infinite mind could fully comprehend the entire rules of operation of the universe.
3b. Man possesses a finite mind and can only comprehend a finite amount of what is discoverable.
3c. Nothing can be known of how forces operate outside the universe, apart from divine revelation.
4. Whatever forces and rules of this universe are observed may be superceded by other forces.
4a. Miracles are allowable as the application of overarching forces at God’s disposal.
5. Causality and time are observed features of this universe.
5a. Nothing does not produce something, as causality is observed.
5b. Causality is bound by the contraints of time, in which it must work.
6. Time is subject to relativity.
7. Causality is likewise subject to relativity.
Therefore, God is the First Cause of the universe relative to its beginning.
Now, it should be noted that if the cosmological argument were my only leg to stand on, I’d merely be on equal standing with a materialist. I could also mention the teleological argument [argument from design] which demands as answer to the question of where order, information, life, consciousness, morality and reason themselves sprang forth from. The evidence for God is there if you will receive it.
–Sirius Knott
Atheistically biased science?!? The last time I checked, Richard Dawkins and the Pope took exactly the same time to hit the ground after being dropped off the Leaning Tower of Piza. Likewise, they both take the same comfort from analgesics when battling a persistent headache. Science doesn’t care what faith you have, only what claims you can support with evidence. That is all well and good, because “science” becomes a meaningful term when defined that way.
You seem to be proposing an alternative to “atheistically biased science” as if cultivating belief in the unproven and unprovable is also a scientific endeavor. It actually isn’t. If you want to stipulate the existence of the unproven and unprovable, that which offers up no measurable evidence of its own existence, then you want to look for a non-scientific approach. If you have faith that there is a God, so be it. If you walk around claiming to have proof that there is a God while a puddle of mangled logic is all you can offer, you misunderstand the nature of proof. If there is a God, this bumbling is pleasing to Him exactly how?
Um, let’s review..
ad hominem is not merely a personal attack, insult or slam, if you will, but also descibes a belittling of another’s [be it a group or individual] viewpoint by mere mockery. I hope you didn’t miss that nuance of rhetoric. It’s certainly a tactic en vogue of the modern-day atheist. Flying Spaghetti Monsters. God Green Aliens. Clockwork Architect Engineer Fry Cook God. You reduce it to something rediculous and thereby create a preposterous straw man which you can easily refute because no one’s arguing for the existence of a Fry Cook God or Flying Spaghetti Monsters et cetera ad nauseam. Perhaps you do so because you know you can’t really address the real thing.
BTW, the single most ebarrassing aspect of atheism these days must be its reliance upon, nay, it’s worship! of the subject of Bobby Henderson’s satirical letter [http://www.venganza.org/about/open-letter/], The Flying Spaghetti Monster. It is interesting to note that his entire letter is a perfect example of a straw man. He makes rediculous claims that neither Creationists nor ID advocates make. He offers no scientific data [humorous pirate chart nonwithstanding - I never trust graphs without checking the data] under the presumption that theists have none for the creation model or that evolutionists have any more than we do when it comes to origins.
But this weak Flying Spaghetti Straw Man is the best argument you guys got. Even dawkins quoted it in his rediculously shrill God Delusion rant.
Pastafarianism is yet another reason why Creationism is simply more reasonable than the alternatives.
–Sirius Knott
P.S. I didn’t prove anything. Neither God’s existence or non-existence can be proven, but the invisible things of Him, including his power and eternal Godhead, are evident in the observable, natural world, so that this world is without excuse.
Demonweed,
ad hominem.
Here’s the logic, since you’re not into thinking unless someone else does it for you…
Evolution presumes that there is a natural explanation for everything.
Eventually [and the Pope will come to see it] that would include religion as well.
A purely natural explanation for everything negates the possibility of the supernatural [God].
So while many who profess a belief in evolution are not atheists, the theory is in itself practical atheism.
–Sirius Knott
P.S. I suppose bumbling supports evolution. It fits in rather nicely with that whole survival of the fittest philosophy of yours. On the other hand, it supports creationism as well since the Bible claims no one is perfect but God.
Sirius:
Wow… ok, one more comment and then I’m done. I feel extra ridiculous getting into blog arguments of this length. Yes, thank you for explaining to me what “some of us call irony.” Thank you also for telling me that Jesus wasn’t a bearded woman. Believe or not I have read the Bible. Even the bits about Jesus speaking out boldly against sin and reacting angrily against hypocrites and opportunists. My issue with you is not that you sometimes say things that aren’t “oh-so-nice.” Jesus and Paul and Peter all speak out in harsh truths on more than one occasion. No, my issue is with your pride and your desire to win an argument over your desire to be a witness. Yes, you’re correct that Jesus spoke harsh truths. He also died on a cross. The way I see it, your job as a Christian is to testify to His story. Correct? Do you think that your mean-spirited bickering with people of different beliefs will move them toward the Christian faith? Even if you think you’re right to keep arguing, should you resort to personal attacks? (Yes, I know what irony means. Again, thanks. Still, you speak rudely and childishly to people who disagree with you.) I know your type. You point to prophets like Jeremiah who faithfully speak God’s words and are rejected. You feel like it’s noble to be a light in the darkness. Well, here’s the deal. No one ever trusted Jesus by being argued to death. Jesus said if a village didn’t accept His disciples and their teaching, his followers were to MOVE ON. You’re not serving any greater good here. You’re serving your ego. You told me to go read my Bible. Go read yours. Check out Numbers 22 and remember that even an ass occasionally gets to win an argument.
Hey there. You won a prize in my blog contest. I emailed you but haven’t heard back so I thought I’d comment here since I want to make sure you get your prize. You can email me at radicalvixenatgmaildotcom
I would encourage my readers to ignore Sirius, who has managed to irritate people into what has to be some sort of record for a Friday comment thread around here.
Sirius, you’re welcome to keep commenting here, though I’ll not be bothering with a response. One word of caution, though: if I see another ad hominem attack from you, I’ll be banning you. You’d have the honor of being the first such banning on the blog, so I’d appreciate it if you wouldn’t let it come to that.
I won’t stir up more clash on the core issue, since I don’t want to exploit a potentially unfair opportunity for last-wordism. However, just in case people unfamiliar with formal argument pass through, I thought I would clarify an unrelated point. “Ad hominem” is Latin for “to the person.” It specifically and exclusively refers to argument that attacks the advocate rather than the substance of an exchange.
For example, if I am arguing with John McCain about Iraq policy, and I let “George W. Bush is a world class imbecile” slide from my lips, I have not made an ad hominem attack. In fact, I may be reinforcing (albeit crudely) my position in a dispute about whether or not the sitting President is a credible authority on matters of foreign policy. Had Sen. McCain recently said something like, “I agree with the President’s assessment that we cannot withdraw military forces form Iraq while terrorists remain at large within that nation’s borders,” then my crude remark would be entirely fair game. No source should be treated as impervious to critique, even if that souce should happen to be a human being.
However, the real disagreement here is about beliefs. Sirius apparently contends that if a belief is held near and dear to one’s heart, then repudiating it is no different from personally attacking an advocate in an argument. This is, of course, absurd. For a sad mad fringe of Americans, “this land was intended for the sole use of the white race,” is a belief held with fanatical zeal. Some may embrace it every bit as deeply as Sirius embraces his commitment to worship Jesus Christ. Of course, it is never an ad hominem argument to contradict such an assertion. This is not because it is obviously in error. Instead, it is because that belief is obviously not a person, and certainly not a party involved in the ongoing debate.
Like little children playing around with loaded rifles, Internet personalities utilizing formal terminology related to logic and argument can provide onlookers with an experience that is simultaneously disturbing and amusing. As it happens, most people who truly understand the ad hominem concept are also versed enough at the practice of argumentation to turn the tables without using that particular phrase as a shield.
When it is used correctly, “ad hominem” applies only to those arguments one participant in ongoing clash uses to undermine the personal credibility of another participant in the ongoing clash. In fact, even within those constraints there is a particular gray area. In casual human interactions, often sources and advocates are one in the same. If my half-blind senile uncle insists he saw Sasquatch picking out turnips at the local Safeway, a response of, “yeah, but you don’t see so clearly these days,” is a perfectly rational response. It may still be an attack on the advocate, but many logicians would not classify that response as an ad hominem because it goes to the credibility of that person as a source, which is not the same thing as his credibility in advocacy.
Anyway, thanks to all concerned for the light distraction today. I hope the long-windedness of my responses was not terribly problematic.
Other examples of arguments that are not ad hominem
Of course American Idol is not educational television!
Abraham Lincoln did not discover America in 1776!
There are real bones of human beings that died more than 10,000 years ago.
There are biological explanations for all manner of unreal perceptions, memories, apparent experiences, beliefs.
If there is a God, surely He would be more pleased by those able to honestly stare mystery in the eye than those who defile the best human endowments by eschewing the application of reason to the question of theism.
“I would encourage my readers to ignore Sirius”
Your blog, your rules. Will do.
Wow….The things that happen while I’m away…….
Yup–you were experiencing the world, and we were arguing with creationists. Kinda puts things in perspective for me.
Evil Bender,
Regardless of whether you ban me from your blog, I feel the need to point out that it is YOU who took a quote of mine OUT of context and created a straw man and stated that this was what I professed. Now let me ask you this: If I did this to you, would you feel insulted?
Demonweed,
My understanding of ad hominem came from debate. I certainly appreciate your clarification. Apparently, I was wrong. In some cases, rather than ad hominem attacks, you offered sweeping generalizations and straw men. I stand corrected. For example, when you comment in regard to what I “apparently believe” rather than what I’ve actaully said. Likening me to a child playing with a loaded gun would definitely be ad hominem. Your last sentence is a rather good straw man, pitting reason on your side and presuming that I have “eschewed” the same.
Spartacus,
Please take your own advice [and mine!]
–Sirius Knott
P.S. If you ban me, please let me know about it so that I can let everyone know on my blog. And kindly don’t quote me out-of-context in the future.
Again, just to be sure profoundly wrong nonsense doesn’t get taken in by any readers, it is worthy of note that Sirius is having trouble with the language of argument. I simply use terms like “apparently” so that if there is a misinterpretation on my part, it is clear that I was reacting to that misinterpretation rather than contriving a deliberate distortion.
Still, there are straw men to be seen here. Those would misrepresentations of the other side in an argument for the purpose of appearing to win the clash on a particular point. For example, Sirius (using Manifesto Capitalization, of course) tells us “Evolution presumes that there is a natural explanation for everything.” Of course it does no such thing. Biological evolution provides a natural explanation for the process that, over the course of billions of years, transformed the earliest life on Earth into the diverse array of complex organisms inhabiting our world today.
Evolution makes no claims about how this initial life came to exist. It also makes no claims about how the planet itself came to exist (though astrophysics does offer a sound explanation for that.) Sirius sets up the straw man of “a natural explanation for everything” because without that bogus target to attack, perhaps not even he could embrace reasoning so shoddy as has been displayed in this discussion.
Not only does he dismiss the application of reason, but he also abandons honesty in his zeal to concoct a narrative that vindicates his heartfelt opinions on natural history. Were he an honest and rational person, he would learn what the science on evolution actually teaches, then compose his arguments as responses to that science. Of course, the whole martyr complex is also a nice touch. No doubt he is certain each and every ban he has endured online is persecution based on the desire to suppress his views. He cannot conceive of a scenario in which being cast out was a reaction to his inability to act as an honest and thoughtful participant in dialog.
Demonweed,
I’ve never been banned. Most folks find that they like me despite their better judgment.
But you’re last paragraph was touching sophistry nonetheless. I’m sure fans of your tautology were sighing with emotion and appreciation of your gift of… well, insult.
Your point concerning my use of Manifesto Capitalization is a straw man. Evolution presumes that all processes will be natural and not supernatural and that, therefore, there will be a natural explanation for everything. It does not allow for supernatural intervention.
Here’s a clue-in: Beliefs have implications. If you believe that we evolved, you assume it was by a natural process and that God [the supernatural] was unecessary.
Your comments are alsoloaded with weasel words by the way.
As for my notes on how you comment on what I apparently believe as opposed to what I actually state, I was not commenting on your usage of the word “apparent.” I was comment on the fact that you constantly theorize and speculate about my motives, intents and very thoughts while largely ignoring what I’ve actually said.
It is little wonder then that straw men are apparently your modus operandi.
You also make sweeping generalizations, I see. When exactly did you prove how I had dismissed the application of reason, abandoned honesty or the like? Oh, because I’ve dismissed the square peg of atheistic evolution in light of the round hole of the fossil record? Equating naturalistic science with reason is yet another straw man. Do you NEVER tire of thatching these things?
–Sirius Knott
Evolution describes a process by which new forms of life can emerge from pre-existing forms of life. Again, if you had anything vaguely resembling the kind of integrity you claim to possess — any respect at all for the importance of honesty — you would not continue to insist that biological evolution speaks to the nature of processes that are not by nature biological. For that matter, you would also not think of it as atheist. Plenty of religious individuals have no trouble reconciling faith in the divine with belief in the vast body of solid empirical evidence validating evolution’s model for the emergence of biodiversity.
What you have presented as logic here begins with bold assumptions rooted in no actual evidence and stumbles into conclusions you were determined to find long before the process began. Even if you cannot admit it . . . even if you cannot recognize it . . . that nonetheless happens to be the case. The idea that the universe must have had a creator is itself ludicrous (never mind the obvious, if unwritten, way you seem to conclude that creator has properties consistent with your personal faith.)
If you want to believe that which is unsupported by proof, fair enough. Thought policing is dirty work anyway. However, if you want to insist these unsupported personal convictions are actually some sort of facts supported by ironclad proof, then you run the risk of becoming/supporting one of those monsters who imposes the arbitrary whims of the sacred on those who do not make a personal choice to accept that faith as their own. That perverts faith and degrades the tranquility of any pluralist society. A free land should make a place for a diversity of religious beliefs, but it should never provide support for chicanery that passes off such beliefs as if any specific set was uniquely worthy of popular adherence.
So you agree that exclusively promoting naturalism/atheism through our public schools is wrong.
Thanks for clearing that up.
–Sirius Knott
Sorry Demonweed,
I just re-read your comments and I gotta say: You paint a pretty grim picture of us religious folk. Do you really feel that all religious-minded folks are sheep? Fodder for the next Jim Jones or david Koresh? Or do you worry that someone like myself fits that profile? Have you no consideration for the likes of Mother Teresa?
To put it another way: Do you honestly think that imposing atheism is better than imposing theism in a free society? When the imposed viewpoint is your own, are you OK with that, pluralistic society be damned?
Demonweed, I’m not quite sure you understand that a marketplace of ideas, that free expression itself does not demand or imply that no idea shall ascend to dominance. It means everyone has a voice, not that all ideas are equal. It means that free folk can discuss their ideas without threat or muzzling, but in the end the majority rules, meaning that plurality cannot be a homogenization of all ideas as equally valid [i.e. as equally irrelevant]. Such a homogenous plurality would lead to an effective muzzling of the masses and rule by a few already in power, so long as they were careful enough to make their stated views homogenous enough to appeal to the masses.
Dogma does not offend me. The insistence that I or anyone else shut up simply because I happen to disagree with you, that’s the dangerous idea.
Now more to the point, you fail to see that evolution is a naturalistic explanation of how life develops. It is true that it never explains life’s origins, but it presumes that all processes will be naturalistic.
Unless of course you’re conceding that God created life and set natural selection in place to guide it along? You see, that would be a supernatural explanation for the origin of life. Naturalism by definition is the belief that no God is needed to explain the universe. Or had you thought out the implications of the theory? True, a number of theist’s have attempted a synthesis, but they relegate God to a “God of the gaps.” The more they capitulate to naturalism, the less place He has in His Creation. My view is more consistent with both theistic belief and with the evidence at hand.
By this I mean the fossil record.
The naturalist must forever lament, as darwin did, at how “imperfect” the fossil record is, since it does not line up with the theory. It shows each kind of creature, with variations within each kind [as we see today in living creatures], with no transitionary forms, and each fully formed and functional as it is today. Fossils of fish immortalized in the act of swallowing fish and like fossils [like fossilized trees sticking up through several strata allegedly representing billions of years] better fit the picture of catstrophism than evolution.
But keep looking at the world the way they tell you to look at it, if it pleases you. I choose to actually consider the evidence, whether you concur with my conclusions or not.
—Sirius Knott