The Warfare Is Mental

On Malfunctioning Bus Doors & Arguing Against A False Reality

March 4, 2009

So I worked late the other night and was riding the bus home. It was cold, it was one of those times where there's a mild to severe "flu scare" in the general atmosphere. You know, that stage which usually happens to correlate with what they call "flu season" where the media or some other authority has pumped the idea of a "new and improved more virulent strain" into everyone's minds. It was cold, and it seemed everyone else on the bus had just gotten off work and was tired. They all had that post-work, spent, lifeless kind of stare, that stare where you just sort of gaze non-descriptly ahead while processing the random background noise, that stare too many people have seen and felt before. You ever notice that when a person is experiencing some kind of privation their patience tends to plummet? How many husbands might crack an ovulation-related joke here? Okay maybe that's a little too much, but the point is that if we're not careful, strong desires to remove privation can blind us to an objective view of reality.

Trilobytes Don’t Deny Evolution Because Humans Weren’t Around In The Cambrian

March 2, 2009

The title will make sense later and this post has nothing to do with evolution.

Last month I got involved in a thread which has turned out to be quite productive in my opinion. Although I can't speak for the others involved, I've gained considerable insights into a variety of epistemological arguments and ideas. Miracles have been the topic that have underscored our debate, and we've bantered about the amount of credibility one can reasonably assign to episodes like Zeitoun and Bernadette McKenzie for example. The blog's host, Deacon Duncan (DD), also made a claim he calls the Undeniable Fact, and commenters both here and there have agreed and disagreed with that.

DD devotes considerable thought to the comments which keeps the discussion going and for that he gets good mention. It also helps that he's a good writer. If you have good logic, you don't get good writing for free, so people that have both are fortunate. This related post of DD's is among the better I've read in terms of writing that succinctly and persuasively portrays the inherent dilemmas in miracle claims and the amount of credibility we can assign to them.

Why Aren’t Less Science Students Atheist?

February 18, 2009

After all, the general trend of science has been to reveal that things are exponentially bigger, infinitesimally smaller and vastly more complex than what was once beyond our weirdest and wildest dreams, right? I mean come on, beer galaxies? Really? Point is, there's always been far more to reality than we imagine. Instead of producing insurmountable discontinuities, the horizons of human knowledge and objective reality tend to expand astronomically. We used to think this world was all there was. We were wrong. We used to think this solar system was all there was. We were wrong. Some of us think that this universe and this existence are all there is. Especially in light of emerging evidence combined with past tradition, isn't there a reasonable chance that they, too, are wrong?

Anyone Know Of A Computer I Can Debate With?

February 13, 2009

I'm actually serious in asking that question. Besides skating the streets with zero cars on the road, another one of my fantasies is a supercomputer that can deduce the logical correctness of any argument. Don't get me wrong, I love debating with humans of any and all stripe. In fact, some who know me might say this is an understatement. Yet no endeavor is likely to persist in the absence of a worthwhile payoff, and every now and again I find myself getting really discouraged and sullen about debate.

Right now is one of those times and there is one simple reason for this discouragement: Humans are prone to motivations above and beyond the resolution of pure logic. Unlike computers, humans possess the peculiar ability to deny truth, and the reasons humans do this are as many as the stars in the night sky. If I ask a computer, "Is (X) = (~X)", I'm going to get a straight and honest answer. The computer can't stop to think, "Well, if I admit / deny that (X) = (~X), I'll look weak / wrong / unintelligent / contradictory."

Atheists & Skeptics Use God Of The Gaps Reasoning, Too!

February 8, 2009

This is something that's been rattling around inside my head for some time now, and I won't be surprised if people disagree. I've written on it before, and I've never been able to come up with a fancy name for a skeptic's argument from ignorance.

We have to admit, when skeptics accuse believers of claiming that a gap in scientific knowledge constitutes evidence for God (for example in the transition from non-life to life), it's called a God Of The Gaps (GOTG) argument. It is essentially an argument from ignorance, in particular, an argument that a set of claims is true because their competing set of claims lacks a particular element needed to justify their conclusion and is hence assumed false.

False Argument #18: Personal Anecdotes = Empirical Evidence, or I Believe Mother Teresa, Not George Bush

January 14, 2009

Please, somebody help me determine that I am not crazy, mentally deficient, or possibly worse. I've now heard the following argument in the blogoshpere two times, and I immediately pegged it as a fallacious case of special pleading with absolutely zero bearing in logic whatsoever.

What do you think? Here's the argument, from a website titled, Why I Hate Jesus:

False Argument #17: Bible Claims Those Who’ve Never Heard Of Jesus Go To Hell

December 18, 2008

For the past three days I've been spending way too much time on an atheist forum where over a dozen commenters have taken me strongly to task on this issue. Yet strangely, when asked for scriptural support, they offer nothing but the standard verses relating to salvation.

I agree that the Bible says Jesus is the only way to God. Does this mean that those who have never heard of Jesus go automatically to hell? My atheist opponents cry an emphatic yes.

But even a basic Bible education disproves this idea. If this interpretation is correct, then Moses, Isaac, Abraham, Daniel, Isaiah, David, Solomon and ALL of the other Old Testament figures would ALL be in hell, correct? Yet scripture clearly indicates otherwise, and each of these people lived and died before Jesus ever walked the Earth.

Is A Screwdriver Better Than A Ratchet? or, My Response To Evidence-Based Faith vs. Evidence-Free Faith

December 7, 2008

So I stumbled across this article in the blogosphere yesterday, which argued for the superiority of reason in formulating our worldviews. More specifically, the author was responding to claims that the validity of logic and reason have to be taken on faith. Apologists often criticize atheism as a faith-based worldview, which may be true in a trivial sense. However, such does not necessarily level the playing field and what the author of EBFVEFF correctly notes is that even in the restricted sense that atheism is a faith-based worldview, it's based on a different type of faith; faith that proceeds from empirical, observable evidence.

Even so, does this make evidence-based faith inherently superior to evidence-free faith?

On The Argument From Scientific Foreknowledge

December 3, 2008

Quite a few apologists have written books and given speeches making various claims regarding scientific foreknowledge in the Bible. The scope and disparity of the claims varies from ultra-outlandish to fairly credible, but over-eager writers tend to exaggerate these claims, not only to their own embarrassment but also to that of anyone else who thinks there is legitimate scientific foreknowledge in the Bible.

I believe reasonable middle ground exists between the polarized positions that the Bible contains numerous examples of scientific foreknowledge, and that the Bible contains zero examples of scientific foreknowledge. I realize that by simply affirming my position, I risk being perceived with equal scorn as the incipient creationist whose sneaky techniques disrespect the basic rules of logic and reason. However, I think tactics like those prevalent in most creationist outfits actually show a lack of confidence in the Bible. If the Bible really is the word of God, should one have to contrive?

Jesus Never Pooped: or, A Better Way To Conduct Exegesis

November 10, 2008

Excuse me for making a generalization here, but I've noticed that atheists tend to approach the Bible much like creationists tend to approach literature on evolution. Certain atheists (for example Richard Dawkins) are publicly fond of bashing creationists for dodgy scholarship, and rightfully so. For example, many of us know how some creationists are overly fond of emphasizing select passages from Darwin or Dobzhansky to support their arguments, while selectively de-emphasizing other passages that might weaken their argument. What's less recognized is the extent to which atheists and skeptics do the same thing (for example Richard Dawkins) when quoting the Bible or the Founding Fathers to support their cases for atheism.

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