The Warfare Is Mental

Consistent With The Hypothesis Of

July 20, 2011

Though occasional use is inevitable, I generally try to avoid the words proof and disproof, especially in discussions of epistemology and empiricism. I don’t know how many of you have met him yet, but Peter Hurford is a new commenter around here with a blog of his own, and from what I’ve seen so far, I would highly recommend dialoging with him on behalf of his aptitude and courtesy. He also asks good questions, the kind that get you thinking, as opposed to, say, the kind that piss you off. Recently on another blog, Peter made a remark that I felt compelled to reply to, and I wanted to repost a slight modification of that short reply here, just to see what people here might think of it.

The Obligatory Bloody Nose

July 19, 2011

Many years back when I was not yet in high school, I used to get in fights with my cousin every so often. Since we were young, they were never really real fights, more like little skirmishes that most similar-age family members can identify with to one extent or another. I mean yeah, we got physical, but it was usually just your average preteen headlock with a few wild punches thing. The obligatory bloody nose was the worst it ever got.

The Problem Of Evil: Where I’m At Today

July 17, 2011

While I’ll still gladly engage anybody on the issue, these days, I’m leaning towards the conclusion that the atheist’s problem of evil arguments are fatally flawed. In the end, all variants I’ve encountered reduce to incredulity: reasoning from premises derived at via conceptual analysis and intuition, the atheist disbelieves that a morally sufficient reason can exist: “There’s no way a good God would allow this much evil in the world.” That’s it. I’ve not seen a single POE argument that doesn’t reduce thus, and I’ll leave it to you to decide whether disbelief is sufficient to warrant skepticism in this regard. I say no. I mean, people said the same thing about QM and all sorts of other stuff: “There’s no way light can act as both particle and wave!” “There’s no way an airplane can fly!” “There’s no way man will walk on the moon!” Etc. This is why I like what they attribute to Archimedes: with a long enough lever, one could move the Earth.

Is anybody aware of a POE argument that doesn’t reduce thus?

Probing DD’s Standard: Truth Is Consistent With Itself

July 16, 2011

I recently stopped by DD’s blog to see what sort of arguments are on offer, as I usually do every few months or so. Today, I’d like to raise some questions relating to DD’s standard of evidence as delineated in his post, Alan Roebuck and the Covert Materialism. DD writes:

…if there is some evidence that is better than the rest, believers could and would bring that evidence to the forefront. This fact invalidates the Courtier’s Reply because if there were good evidence, then the dialog between believers and unbelievers ought to focus on that. If good evidence does exist, then there’s no point in complaining that skeptics have failed to study the bad stuff. Bring out the good stuff, and let’s see how they deal with that. And conversely, if it’s all equally bad, then an exhaustive study of all the bad evidence would be merely a waste of time.

First off, we seem to have differing opinions about why people use the so-called Courtier’s Reply. I’ve never been of the opinion that the Courtier’s Reply is for skeptics who haven’t studied the bad stuff. Rather, any so-called Courtier’s Reply I’ve given is usually towards skeptics who’ve failed to study the good stuff.

What The Bible Really Says About The Soul, II

June 6, 2011

Yesterday, I responded to a post titled, The Bible Says The Soul Is Not Immaterial, by Matt DeStefano. DeStefano’s response seemed rushed, but I liked his point about AT&T park [even though I’m not convinced he fully got my point].

What The Bible Really Says About The Soul

June 5, 2011

This is a response to Matt DeStefano’s post, “The Bible Says The Soul Is Not Immaterial.” The Bible does not say—anywhere—that the soul is not immaterial. Before we get too far into this, I want to say where I think DeStefano gets it right:

This view of the soul has ramifications when discussing the afterlife. Heaven becomes a physical resurrection by which our bodies are continually existing.

Coloring Death With Hope: Jesus & His Kingdom, IV

June 4, 2011

In this installment, we’re going to briefly cover three chapters, because 4 and 5 are mostly background information Mike wants readers to absorb so they can be aware of biblical context. If you’re interested, you should read or at least gloss them over them yourself, instead of relying on my interpretation of what Mike wants to say. Chapter 6 is titled, Coloring Death With Hope.

Mike begins chapter 4 by noting the importance of oral tradition in history, a point often overlooked or underplayed by those fond of the “but all we have are a bunch of stories” when it comes to evaluating the integrity of historic documents. It’s an off-the-cuff type statement, but he makes a humorous point related to hyper-skeptics and their demands:

If I want to know who brought the first airplane into existence, I am satisfied when I hear the names Wilbur and Orville Wright. I do not need to know the kinds of wrenches they used or where they bought the raw material before I can accept the answer. Even if I was interested in such detailed information and could discover it, this still would not change the answer to my original question – no matter how much detail I did or didn’t uncover.

Religion Contorts Morality? Oh Please!

June 1, 2011

So Greta Christina has a post titled How Religion Contorts Morality, and I think that’s nonsense. First off, we have a category error: “religion” is not an agent such that it can contort anything. Only people can contort morality, if such a thing called “morality” actually maps to the real-world in the first place. You might be tempted to think this is just semantics, but it’s not. Speaking precisely minimizes error and misunderstanding. Of course, “Why I Think Religious Person X Is Wrong About Morality” is nowhere near as provocative a title, so I guess I see where she’s coming from there.

Anyways, I’ve seen some pretty contorted “morality” from atheists, too. For example, Tommykey, who apparently thinks it’s wrong to torture terrorists for information, but okay for a woman to kill her unborn child simply because the father possesses unsavory characteristics, or because she thinks she might have a tough time coping with the burdens of parenthood.

In my opinion, that’s about as contorted as can be – but it has nothing to do with atheism, because atheism can’t contort anything.

Nothing New Under The Sun: The Stevenson-Cohen-Taylor Debate

May 28, 2011

The following excerpt from Chris Carter’s Science and the Near-Death Experience, reminded me all-too-much of contemporary (a)theist discussion [cf. Materialism Is A Misnomer]. The philosophy of materialism is so deeply ingrained into their minds that Cohen and Taylor seem unable even fathom the logical and empirical possibilities Stevenson suggests. Everything below the fold is quoted directly from the book, with my additions in [red brackets].

The God Delusion: Low Hanging Fruit Indeed!

May 15, 2011

This morning, I stumbled across The God Delusion while deciding which books weren’t worth keeping on my shelf. I was about to simply toss it on the logic that plenty of people have dissected the book for the kitzche that it is, but then something from page 249 caught my attention, even inspiring me to post! Of course, one can pretty much flip to any page at random and find something that’s either outright false or at least fallacious. In reference to the “religious zealots” responsible for “burying” Mecca, Dawkins writes:

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