The Warfare Is Mental

Response To DD’s Unscientific America

August 3, 2009

Hmmm…. I'm not sure, but I believe Deacon Duncan considered my response to his Unscientific America trolling, and deleted it. I suppose time will tell. What is it with atheists and censorship, anyways? Do the dissenters now fear the dissent they were once so fond of championing?

DD's post was about the great American intellectual decline, and of course, he blames religious influence – and only religious influence – for the current problems facing our education system. I've noticed that many otherwise educated individuals erroneously brand religion as the convenient scapegoat for society's ills-du-jour, and for me, such usually comes across as rhetorical stretching, just like when religious individuals blame evolution for society's problems.

I felt DD's argument had a tincture of merit, but was also grossly oversimplified. I figured I might as well post my thoughts somewhere else they be wasted, so my response follows. I'm mostly interested in your thoughts on the great American intellectual decline, but I'd also like to know if anyone can speculate on why this comment might have been deleted.

MiracleQuest Continues, This Time It’s Limb Regeneration: Response To John Evo

July 29, 2009

So, we were discussing the hypothetical scenario of a limb generation, and how much supernatural credence we could assign to such a thing. The blog owner, jim, banned me, because his blog is, in his own words, "not a free-speech zone." He claimed I committed an "egregious breach of honesty above" and demanded that I apologize for it, yet 40 comments preceded his, and he refused to be any more specific than that. I felt such a demand was a bit strange coming from somebody who apparently has no problem calling others things like "mealy-mouthed prick" and "disputational pissant." Further out of line for a rationalist was that jim didn't even offer a testable claim: he never even said where this "egregious breach of honesty" occurred, that I could challenge it. He just deleted my next comment.

On Evidence & Proof, Pt. II: Questions From Lifeguard

July 13, 2009

In Pt. 1, we discussed SI's version of the oft-repeated "no evidence for God" argument. In the thread, Lifeguard asked a few good questions:

Can an ironclad case for God’s existence can be made? Absent an ironclad case, regardless of why such a case cannot be made, then what is a believer left with besides the naked decision to believe? If even an IRONCLAD CASE does NOTHING without having ALREADY made the decision to believe, then what does that say about the warrant for belief in the absence of an ironclad case? Doesn’t this amount to saying that evidence for the existence of God only becomes evident when you’ve already made up your mind to believe? Isn’t that putting the cart in front of the horse?

I believe answering these questions as clearly as possible is mandatory in making myself understood here, so let's tackle the necessary definitions first.

On Evidence & Proof, Pt. I

July 9, 2009

If you've spent more than a passing moment listening to contemporary debates between atheists and believers, you're likely to have heard the claim that there is no evidence for God. I've heard this claim countless times, and I believe that many, most or possibly all who make the claim conflate the two related but distinct concepts of evidence and proof.

I also believe that attempts to resolve the matter are futile without firmly cementing the goalposts before beginning. Whether the responses are single or list, I've not once had an atheist accept anything I've ever suggested or heard suggested as evidence for God, and IMO there's nothing more annoying than, "Here is good evidence," followed by some variant of, "No it's not you douche," only to be repeated ad nauseum.

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

False Arguments #23 & #24: The Sufficiency Of Microevolution Tropes

April 20, 2009

There are two equal but opposite errors I see again and again in ostensibly educated discussions about evolution, and both of them involve ignorance about what scientists mean when they use the words macroevolution and microevolution, (hereafter Ma and Mi, respectively).

The creationist or believer who maintains that Ma is impossible or unproven shows an ignorance of science paralleled only by the atheist or skeptic who maintains that such is untrue because Ma is just cumulative Mi. These are what I call the sufficiency of microevolution tropes, and both of them distort scientific accuracy concerning the facts of evolution.

As genuine thinkers, we need to know what to look out for here, so first let's discuss the terms.

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.

Death And Blind Faith In Everyday Life

April 16, 2009

What do people mean when they use the phrase blind faith?

Like many words, this phrase will surely mean different things to different people. I define blind faith as the unquestioning acceptance of statements spoken by an authority, and in my definition, such faith is accompanied by a lack of critical thinking. Going further, blind faith refuses to apply critical thinking even in the face of solid evidence suggesting that the statements being accepted in blind faith may actually be incorrect.

One anti-religious criticism we tend to hear ad nauseum is that religion is based on blind faith. To a certain extent, such can be true, but sweeping generalizations like this always portray a one-sided view of things. There are many, many religious people who do not base their beliefs on blind faith, and just as many irreligious people who do. Humans accept all sorts of statements on blind faith every day, and blind faith is by no means an exclusively religious error.

So without defending or attacking those who accept their religious beliefs on blind faith, I'd like to discuss an area where blind faith and rejection of science are arguably stronger motivators for belief than in religion: and that area is medicine.

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.

Dawkins, 9/11, Special Pleading & Conflation

April 1, 2009

So, A Huge And Hitherto Undiscovered Cretacious Beast, Part I turned into a total thread derailment. I'm really upset at Arthur and John Evo, and although I'm not going to ban them, I'm limiting the amount of comments they can make on TWIM. I don't usually punish atheists just for being atheists, but this has become intolerable…

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