The Warfare Is Mental

The eBate: Rules & Guidelines

May 28, 2009

As stated in the introduction, the eBate is a real-time, one-hour long online debate between myself and another writer.

In the introduction, I said I would look for some folks to volunteer as moderators, but I've realized what I was really looking for were qualified people who can assess the debate once it has concluded, and pronounce judgment. So in essence, I was really looking for judges, it seems – but then again – maybe the distinction is mostly semantic. To me, a moderator describes an authority figure whose purpose is to control an open forum. I'm looking for qualified people to stay out of a closed debate until it's over, and then offer their reasoned opinions. At any rate, I've found what I think are three reasonable volunteers: Commenter Brad, MS Quixote, and Lifeguard, who recently resurfaced over at his blog, The Meme Pool.

On Atheists & Blind Faith, Or, False Arguments 27, 28 & 29: Why Prayer Studies Are Not Credible

May 14, 2009

So I locked horns with PhillyChief and John Evo, again, this time it was over the following comment from PhillyChief – who if I remember correctly – claims to be a scientifically-minded rationalist atheist:

Prayer helps no one but the one praying, providing a euphoria and calming effect, which could be comparable to ejaculating.
–PhillyChief

I felt that was an odd statement for a scientifically-minded rationalist to make, but was not surprised that it came from a sarcastic atheist who claims to be "almost always right", and so I replied,

How would you know? Where is that "demonstrable evidence" you're so fond of? Aside from being grossly unscientific, statements like the above appear contradictory alongside appeals to soft atheism as you've recently made on my site.
–cl

A Chat With The Chaplain?

May 13, 2009

On a thread at DA, I remarked that,

..improving the condition of the human species and doing things for the
benefit of our fellow living beings is what true religion is all
about,

to which the Chaplain from An Apostate's Chapel replied,

What is the basis of this proposition?

The following post intends to perfunctorily answer her question. Let's refer to the idea that true religion entails improving the
condition of the human species and doing things for the benefit of our
fellow living beings as the Good Will Hypothesis (GWH).

Another Question For DD

May 8, 2009

I don't know if it's the full moon or last night's aforementioned adult beverages or what, but I simply cannot seem to stop thoughts of logic from forcibly invading my mind today. You implied that it's reasonable to want to be with those we love forever, and I agree, but assuming you accept stock claims of theism's irrationality, have you thought of the disadvantage this puts you at?

If loving others is at least a partial motivation for theism, are not the subset of theists who share said motivation at least partially sustained by a rational and reasonable proposition?

Response To DD’s Interpreting Scripture

May 7, 2009

I decided to create this impromptu post in the event anyone from the original thread wishes to continue rational discourse (Keyword: rational).

On Blogging, Passivity, Party Lines & The Pursuit Of Truth

April 25, 2009

If you’re at all like I am, you probably consider the pursuit of truth to be pretty valuable. I think most of us can agree that the pursuit of truth is an important task. That’s the way I see it at least, and as an extension of that principle, I say one cannot accurately call oneself a pursuer of truth if they allow falsehood to remain uncorrected.

With that in mind, I’d like to discuss how passivity, especially selective passivity, can obscure the pursuit of truth – and more specifically – how these ideas relate to blogging.

MiracleQuest Continues: My Response To The Ultimate Superstition

April 17, 2009

In X-Files Friday: The Ultimate Superstition, DD cites Geisler and Turek,

David Hume argued that miracles cannot affirm any one religion because miracles are based on poor testimony and all religions have them. In other words, miracle claims are self canceling. Unfortunately for Hume, his objection does not describe the actual state of affairs. First, Hume makes a hasty generalization by saying that alleged miracles from all religions are alike. As we’ve seen since chapter 9, the miracles associated with Christianity are not based on poor testimony. They are based on early, eyewitness, multiple-source testimony that is unrivaled in any other world religion. That is, no other world religion has verified miracles like those in the New Testament. (G&T)

…then says,

What we have in the New Testament is a well-documented, well-preserved record of people making claims. This does not constitute a body of verified miracles. (DD)

I agree. I've certainly not been afraid to criticize some of G&T's strategies elsewhere, and I agree that in this citation, G&T conflate claims with verification – and that's wrong. To me, it appears G&T simply presume the correctness of that which they are trying to prove, by alluding to it as verified. However, G&T's criticisms of Hume happen to be spot-on, and quite pertinent to our ongoing miracle discussion. That being said, I've also complimented DD's logical prowess elsewhere, but this time he did not address G&T's citation squarely at all – just flanked them with Benny Hinn before proceeding on to their "One Solitary Man" ideas.

MiracleQuest Continues: Retracing Our Steps At DD’s

April 8, 2009

So I'm part of the lovely little soiree about miracles that's been going on over at DD's for months. The purpose of today's post is to strain some of my points from that debate, and eventually I hope to distill them into one concise listing.

When I entered the discussion over at DD's, I just happened to be fresh off the heels of a similar argument, and my first comment criticized attempts to verify miracles without agreed-upon definitions and criteria. More specifically, in the context of allegedly miraculous healing, I asked how we might eliminate confounders such as spontaneous remission and the placebo effect. Commenters John Morales and jim both chimed in at this point.

A Huge And Hitherto Undiscovered Cretacious Beast, Part I

March 27, 2009

Sorry, but the title's a little misleading. This post has nothing to do with evolution. Rather, I was on a thread recently when a commenter whose name I like and would enjoy hearing an explanation of (Mike aka MonolithTMA) made a passing comment that got me thinking:

I always wonder why theists bring up Ockham's Razor as it points about as far away from God as possible, (March 26, 2009 7:44 PM)

I thought that comment was interesting, but I didn't say anything at the moment, just tucked it into the "parsing" file. A few more Ockham's Razor -related comments were subsequently thrown out, the next from the blog owner, Karla:

Ockham's Razor to go with more simple answer that fits. . . To me it would appear that suggesting infinite un-caused universes is more complex than the answer of an eternal being.

Anonymous: And, you would be wrong, as I've explained. god is the most complex "answer" anyone can propose, because the level of complexity for a god would be far and away higher than any other explanation, not to mention all the additional questions it raises, the added layer of the supernatural over the natural universe, and the fact that it can't get off the ground scientifically. You can continue to ignore all of this and erroneously assert that "goddidit" is simple, but it clearly is not.

Does anyone else see the rational difficulties here?

On Full Disclosure & Knee Jerk Reactions

Enough with the whining about lack of full disclosure in (a)theist discussion. There are very logical reasons for not painting oneself into some silly little mental category that is both culturally fabricated and deduced via subjective experience. I believe it is ultimately foolish and non-productive for a group of people to assign themselves emotionally-charged and socially-conflated labels while attempting to have anything even remotely close to a rational discussion. FAR too often it's more of the same in the blogosphere: Consider your average internet (a)theist discussion: Believer A shows up on atheist website B and leaves some comment C that falls anywhere between Cro-magnon man and Einstein on the intelligence scale. Atheist commenters D – Z then proceed to accost believer A anywhere from Bill Cosby to Christopher Hitchens on the respect scale, each according to their own ideas of what A believes.

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