Housekeeping note …
The new atheists: Santa’s sleigh came and went, and never gave them what they needed
In The Ottawa Citizen, Robert Sibley advises
From New Age cults to murderous fundamentalism, these are dark times for religion, and the ‘new atheists’ are in the ascendant. The problem with their movement is that they don’t understand the source of their hostility … (December 26, 2008)
Oh? In the ascendant? In the legacy mainstream media, maybe, but not in the world at large.
In fact, this year – for the first time in a long while – I noticed a decisive pushback against their efforts to stop people from saying “Merry Christmas!”
Be a Christian, don’t be a Christian, … it’s your choice. But December 25 is Christmas Day. In Canada, both December 25 and December 26 are statutory holidays – and pretty popular ones, too, so you need to keep that fact in mind if you intend to try litigation. No one is going to thank you for forcing them to work on one of those days, if they are not in an essential service field.
Anyway, I don’t think the new atheists’ movement is really going anywhere because what they don’t have is any important new ideas.
I mean, once you get past Richard Dawkins explaining to Ben Stein in Expelled that space aliens might have created life – but not God – or Lee Smolin’s zillions of flopped universes, theirs are not new ideas that we can compare with, say, the discovery of neuroplasticity in the brain.
Now THAT was a discovery – oh my heavens, what a discovery! Just think of all the old people who realize that they are not consigned to involuntary senility after all! But that discovery did not help materialist atheism one bit. Neuroplasticity makes way more sense if your immaterial mind is real and directs your brain.
Which reminds me: What discoveries would have helped materialist atheism? Here are some:
Brownian Motion, Reynolds Number, Supersonic Flight, and the Danger of Mindless Extrapolation
At very small scales, the disturbances caused by the random motion of molecules in a liquid is called Brownian motion. This is why bacterial flagella must spin at such high RsPM (Revolutions Per Minute, not Revolution Per Minutes). They must overcome the random motion of the particles in their watery environment. The propeller on the back of a motor boat does not have to deal with Brownian motion. In fluid dynamics there is Reynolds number, with which we must deal in aerospace R&D. What this basically says is that we cannot make small models of an aircraft flying at low altitudes and extrapolate this to large aircraft flying at high altitudes, or vice versa. The leading edge of an aircraft Read More ›
What is the Flying Spaghetti Monster actually mocking?
Flying Spaghetti Monster Creation of Adam Any questions on what exactly is being mocked? Hint: The answer is not the science of design detection. Any questions on how we define Intelligent Design here and elsewhere? Hint: Look on the sidebar under Definition of Intelligent Design. It’s been there, unchanged, for years. I should know as I put it there years ago. This definition of Intelligent Design was worked out in a collaborative effort by all the usual suspects – fellows of the Discovery Institute.
Introduction to a Science of God: Fathoming the Intelligence Behind Intelligent Design
This is the first of a series of posts on ‘The Science of God’, aka my response to the charge that ID is indistinguishable from Pastafarianism. Let me start with a familiar Q and A:
Q: What, in a nutshell, is the Darwinist argument against ID?
A: First of all, nature doesn’t exhibit the sort of design that requires a prior intelligence to explain it. But even if nature were shown to exhibit ‘intelligent design’, ID has no way of specifying the responsible intelligence. It might as well be the Flying Spaghetti Monster. So at best ID might undermine the adequacy of Darwinist accounts without advancing anything positive on its own behalf.
The import of this analysis is obvious: ID is a science-stopper: ID tries to leverage Darwinism’s own difficulties into grounds for concluding that science can only go so far before one needs to turn to something else, presumably blind faith of some sort. It’s easy to see why Judge Jones didn’t have much time for ID at the Dover Trial. He basically bought this analysis, as spoon-fed to him by the ACLU lawyers. What worries me is that some ID supporters may buy it as well. In other words, they would wish to have ID taught in science classes, not as an alternative to Darwinism but as a means of demonstrating the limits of scientific inquiry altogether.
Creationism in Turkey: A fellow hack’s field trip
Nathan Schneider draws my attention to his article on Turkish creationist Harun Yahya (a pen name for Adnan Oktar). He asked for my comments, and here is more or less what I said: Read More ›
A new look at an old idea – Geocentrism
In another thread a new sock puppet contributor on Uncommon Descent named TheYellowShark with an as yet undetermined appendage writes:
Geocentricsm was accepted beyond all reasonable doubt the scientific community circa 1610. Being in an echo chamber isn’t good for anybody.
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And intelligent design was accepted by the scientific community prior to 1859. Both ideas were replaced, and rightfully so.
Rightfully so? Think again my cartilaginous fishy friend. Nothing in science is beyond refute.