Church-Burning Video Used to Promote Atheist Event

"Atheists are no more nor less evil or amoral than anyone else, and ugly bigotry is found on both sides. Please let’s stop." Jeffrey Dahmer, a convicted serial killer and cannibal, was an atheist. Find me a religious/Christian counterpart. Pol Pot, Lenin, and Stalin were atheist dictators who systematically murdered millions of their own people. Find me a religious/Christian counterpart. Difficulty: The Crusades killed far fewer than these atheists did, so it's not much of a real comparison. The problem is that atheists do not lay claim to any objective standard of morality. Christians may lay claim to biblical standards of morality; Muslims the Koran, Jews to the Torah, and so on. When you make up moral standards as you go along, you are then more evil and more amoral than those who have an objective standard to live up to. Why? Because you cannot differentiate right behavior from wrong behavior.Barb

February 4, 2012

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F/N: Aveling and Francis Darwin on Darwin:

SINCE the death of our great teacher, the clergy, who denounced him aforetime with that volubility of which long practice in the art of vituperation has made them consummate masters, have claimed the illustrious dead as one of their flock . . . . those who are trying to effect a compromise between the irreconcilables, religion and scientific thought, from the Archbishop of Canterbury upwards, are assuring us that the great truths of Evolution are all in harmony with the Bible, and have been this long time embodied in more or less hidden guise in the teaching of the Church—that, in short, the discoveries of to-day are a godsend to religion, whilst less versatile thinkers had regarded them the rather as a god's end. All this might have been passed by with pity and a sigh for something more novel. But when these same persons tell us that Charles Darwin was a religious man and a Christian, a feeling other than one of pity is ours . . . . [Having been invited to lunch and at the end of the meal with a Dr Büchner of Germany, withdrawing to Darwin's study, so] once we were within the walls of his study, and he was sitting in most unconventional fashion in the large, well-worn easy chair, almost the first thing he said was, "Why do you call yourselves Atheists?" . . . . It was pointed out that the Greek ? was privative, not negative; that whilst we did not commit the folly of god-denial, we avoided with equal care the folly of god-assertion: that as god was not proven, we were without god (?????) and by consequence were with hope in this world, and in this world alone . . . with point after point of our argument he agreed; statement on statement that was made he endorsed, saying finally: "I am with you in thought, but I should prefer the word Agnostic to the word Atheist." Upon this the suggestion was made that, after all, "Agnostic" was but "Atheist" writ respectable, and "Atheist" was only "Agnostic" writ aggressive. To say that one did not know was the verbal equivalent of saying that one was destitute of the god-idea, whilst at the same time a sop was thrown to the Cerberus of society by the adoption of a name less determined and uncompromising. At this he smiled and asked: "Why should you be so aggressive? Is anything gained by trying to force these new ideas upon the mass of mankind? It is all very well for educated, cultured, thoughtful people; but are the masses yet ripe for it?" Then we asked him whether the same questions he now asked of us had not been addressed to him about the years 1859—60, when his immortal "Origin of Species" first saw the light. Many at that time had thought a greater wisdom would have been shown in only enunciating the revolutionary truths of Natural and Sexual Selection to the judicious few. Many had, as of old, dreaded the open declaration of truth to the multitudes. New ideas are always at first regarded as only for the study. Danger is feared if they are proclaimed abroad on the house-tops, and discussed in market-place and home. But he, happily for humanity, had by the gentle, irresistible power of reason, forced his new ideas upon the mass of the people. And the masses had been found ripe for it. Had he kept silence, the tremendous strides taken by human thought during the last twenty-one years would have been shorn of their fair proportions, perhaps had hardly been made at all. His own illustrious example was encouragement, was for a command to every thinker to make known to all his fellows that which he believed to be the truth. Then the talk fell upon Christianity, and these remarkable words were uttered: "I never gave up Christianity until I was forty years of age." I commend these words to the careful consideration of all and sundry who claimed the great naturalist as an orthodox Christian . . . [Aveling, E. B. 1883. The religious views of Charles Darwin. London: Freethought Publishing Company. In reply to this, Darwin's son, Francis wrote: "Dr. Aveling tried to show that the terms "Agnostic" and "Atheist" were practically equivalent—that an atheist is one who, without denying the existence of God, is without God, inasmuch as he is unconvinced of the existence of a Deity. My father's replies implied his preference for the unaggressive attitude of an Agnostic. Dr. Aveling seems (p. 5) to regard the absence of aggressiveness in my father's views as distinguishing them in an unessential manner from his own. But, in my judgment, it is precisely differences of this kind which distinguish him so completely from the class of thinkers to which Dr. Aveling belongs."]

I went on to remark:

Of course, the proffered definition of "atheist" is a rhetorically convenient and somewhat tendentious one, as atheism normally is understood as the active, even aggressive, denial of the reality of God, not merely doubting it. Which is of course the reason why Francis Darwin emphasises the difference between Agnosticism and Atheism in his own onward response as cited. But, from the pen of Aveling, and the association of Dr. Ludwig Büchner, of Darmstadt, president of The International Federation of Freethinkers Congress in London on September 25th, 26th, 27th of 1881, we have a clear enough picture on Darwin's views on Religion and how this intersected with his theory and its expected effect on the masses. In particular, Darwin was plainly of the view that the Christian faith is ill-founded, that there is no clear warrant for confidence in the reality of God, and that gradual scientific enlightenment would so undermine the Christian faith and theism that eventually an "enlightened" era under the name science would emerge. God's reality would not so much be hotly dismissed but rather viewed as increasingly doubtful and irrelevant to the world of informed thought. (Cf. below.)

This is of course the root of the patterns that are so familiar to us today, and have now become institutionalised. This is the context in which Lewontin did not hesitate to write, in his infamous 1997 NYRB article:

To Sagan, as to all but a few other scientists, it is self-evident [[--> actually, science and its knowledge claims are plainly not immediately and necessarily true on pain of absurdity, to one who understands them; this is another logical error, begging the question , confused for real self-evidence; whereby a claim shows itself not just true but true on pain of patent absurdity if one tries to deny it . . ] that the practices of science provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality, and that, in contrast, the demon-haunted world rests on a set of beliefs and behaviors that fail every reasonable test [[--> i.e. an assertion that tellingly reveals a hostile mindset, not a warranted claim] . . . . It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes [[--> another major begging of the question . . . ] to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute . . .

And, therein lieth the rub. That is why Philip johnson's retort is ever so apt:

For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. [[Emphasis original] We might more accurately term them "materialists employing science." And if materialism is true, then some materialistic theory of evolution has to be true simply as a matter of logical deduction, regardless of the evidence. That theory will necessarily be at least roughly like neo-Darwinism, in that it will have to involve some combination of random changes and law-like processes capable of producing complicated organisms that (in Dawkins’ words) "give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose." . . . . The debate about creation and evolution is not deadlocked . . . Biblical literalism is not the issue. The issue is whether materialism and rationality are the same thing. Darwinism is based on an a priori commitment to materialism, not on a philosophically neutral assessment of the evidence. Separate the philosophy from the science, and the proud tower collapses. [[Emphasis added.] [[The Unraveling of Scientific Materialism, First Things, 77 (Nov. 1997), pp. 22 – 25.]

It is time for re-thinking, starting at worldview foundation levels. GEM of TKI PS: The historic meaning of the term "freethinker" should also be underscored in the above.kairosfocus

February 4, 2012

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Prof Gumby: Have you actually read the letter? Do you not see that Darwin spoke in terms of an undermining attack being more effective, long run than a direct one, and in that context, spoke about his own actions? Do you not see that it is then legitimate to see this sort of worldview agenda implicated in the science he did? Not to mention other materials that we have that point in that direction? Just think of how he used Paley as a foil, and the background role of the issue of the problem of natural evils, in his thought. There is plainly a lot of [anti]theological agenda linked background in Darwin's work. KF PS: Thanks for the note on Aveling's book, I will make that adjustment.kairosfocus

February 4, 2012

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Ch, clever turnabout tactics, shoot at the messenger rhetoric and sneering denigration do nothing to ground OUGHT objectively on evolutionary materialist premises. Similarly, if you don't understand that fascism is a STATIST, politically messianic system [with the messiah for the designated identity group being in effect a Nietzschean superman beyond law and morality], i.e. it is leftist, trotting out sneers does not turn your error into being correct. Notice, the Nazis were the National Socialist German [D] Workers [A], Party: NSDAP. The right, in recent times [ever since monarchy moved off the scene], has been increasingly libertarian then, at extreme, anarchist. That extreme is where you get those odd survivalist cults and self-organised militia groups from and their fulminations that there should be little or no government and especially taxes. The republican conservatives are centre-right, and your democratic-liberals are centre-left. Fascism is further left (but often made pragmatic deals with those to their right: deals with parties and industrial cartels were common, but make no mistake, the second definition of ownership is control . . . a nominal owner who has no control is a tenant of the controlling state), and communism is to the far left: the state and party becoming increasingly totalitarian, ideologically controlling everything. KFkairosfocus

February 4, 2012

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Onlookers: We now see a borrowed principle:

We advocates of what you call “evolutionary materialism” are quite capable of figuring out what is ethical from what isn’t. And I’d argue, do a better job, most of the time, the poster child being the absurd religious condemnation of homosexuality. We, on the other hand, understand that at the heart of ethics lies the principle of the Hippocratic oath: First, do no harm. And from our need to live in social groups, the Golden Rule: Treat others as you would be treated.

Of course, the scare quotes willfully ignore 2350 years of apt description, analysis, and from the horse's mouth examples. But, that is just a note on tone. On to the meat. Now, let us first ask, why this maxim? (We need not bother to ask what grounding worldviews and champions have put forth the GR, that is well known in our civilisation . . . ) What is there that makes this not just someone's feel-good recommendation, but a real binding OUGHT? Where do we get the notion that our evolutionary inferiors and defectives -- think here, those ever so ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked fundies of prof Dawkins -- have such value that they have RIGHTS that they should expect to be treated with equality? Has not the very fact that some have risen to the top shown their evolutionary superiority, and does that not justify the domination or even elimination of the unfit? So, WHO is the neighbour to be loved and treated as oneself? If you doubt me on this, here is Darwin, in Ch 6 of Descent of Man, 1871, on the implications of his theory for the human future:

Man is liable to numerous, slight, and diversified variations, which are induced by the same general causes, are governed and transmitted in accordance with the same general laws, as in the lower animals. Man has multiplied so rapidly, that he has necessarily been exposed to struggle for existence, and consequently to natural selection. He has given rise to many races, some of which differ so much from each other, that they have often been ranked by naturalists as distinct species . . . . At some future period, not very distant as measured by centuries, the civilised races of man will almost certainly exterminate, and replace, the savage races throughout the world. At the same time the anthropomorphous apes, as Professor Schaaffhausen has remarked, will no doubt be exterminated. The break between man and his nearest allies will then be wider, for it will intervene between man in a more civilised state, as we may hope, even than the Caucasian, and some ape as low as a baboon, instead of as now between the negro or Australian and the gorilla.

And, we have this, from Ch 5:

the reckless, degraded, and often vicious members of society, tend to increase at a quicker rate than the provident and generally virtuous members. Or as Mr. Greg puts the case: "The careless, squalid, unaspiring Irishman multiplies like rabbits: the frugal, foreseeing, self-respecting, ambitious Scot, stern in his morality, spiritual in his faith, sagacious and disciplined in his intelligence, passes his best years in struggle and in celibacy, marries late, and leaves few behind him. Given a land originally peopled by a thousand Saxons and a thousand Celts- and in a dozen generations five-sixths of the population would be Celts, but five-sixths of the property, of the power, of the intellect, would belong to the one-sixth of Saxons that remained. In the eternal 'struggle for existence,' it would be the inferior and less favoured race that had prevailed- and prevailed by virtue not of its good qualities but of its faults." There are, however, some checks to this downward tendency. We have seen that the intemperate suffer from a high rate of mortality, and the extremely profligate leave few offspring . . .

This is of course precisely the line of thought that crops up a few generations later as received scientific wisdom in Herr Schicklegruber's infamous writing:

Any crossing of two beings not at exactly the same level produces a medium between the level of the two parents . . . Consequently, it will later succumb in the struggle against the higher level. Such mating is contrary to the will of Nature for a higher breeding of all life . . . The stronger must dominate and not blend with the weaker, thus sacrificing his own greatness. Only the born weakling can view this as cruel, but he after all is only a weak and limited man; for if this law did not prevail, any conceivable higher development of organic living beings would be unthinkable. The consequence of this racial purity, universally valid in Nature, is not only the sharp outward delimitation of the various races, but their uniform character in themselves. The fox is always a fox, the goose a goose, the tiger a tiger, etc., and the difference can lie at most in the varying measure of force, strength, intelligence, dexterity, endurance, etc., of the individual specimens. But you will never find a fox who in his inner attitude might, for example, show humanitarian tendencies toward geese, as similarly there is no cat with a friendly inclination toward mice . . . . In the struggle for daily bread all those who are weak and sickly or less determined succumb, while the struggle of the males for the female grants the right or opportunity to propagate only to the healthiest. [That is, Darwinian sexual selection.] And struggle is always a means for improving a species’ health and power of resistance and, therefore, a cause of its higher development. If the process were different, all further and higher development would cease and the opposite would occur. For, since the inferior always predominates numerically over the best [NB: this is a theme in Darwin's discussion of the Irish, the Scots and the English in Descent], if both had the same possibility of preserving life and propagating, the inferior would multiply so much more rapidly that in the end the best would inevitably be driven into the background, unless a correction of this state of affairs were undertaken. Nature does just this by subjecting the weaker part to such severe living conditions that by them alone the number is limited, and by not permitting the remainder to increase promiscuously, but making a new and ruthless choice according to strength and health . . .

And, if treasuring the evolutionarily unfit and/or inferior is undermining the fitness of the community of interest, does that not justify first sterilising them forcibly if necessary, then "mercifully" putting them away, so removing a burden on the society? And if that is the consensus of the elites and their media spin doctors and amplifiers, driven home drumbeat style, with any who dares to differ swarmed down under the media hornets, where would the community held captive to such head? And so, if I have enough power and cleverness to manipulate laws and policies to do that, and can propagandise enough to agree with me, does that not make what I am doing "right"? Do you see what happens when you have a worldview that has in it no foundational is that can ground ought objectively? Starting, with the value of our fellow human being that gives them rights? I repeat, from 1.1.2.2.6, as already pointed out Jan 29 (but of course ignored and buried under distractive comments):

Let me put the core problem in the (dangerously fallacious) form Hume put it, pretending to a “surprise”:

In every system of morality, which I have hitherto met with, I have always remarked, that the author proceeds for some time in the ordinary ways of reasoning, and establishes the being of a God, or makes observations concerning human affairs; when all of a sudden I am surprised to find, that instead of the usual copulations of propositions, is, and is not, I meet with no proposition that is not connected with an ought, or an ought not. This change is imperceptible; but is however, of the last consequence. For as this ought, or ought not, expresses some new relation or affirmation, ’tis necessary that it should be observed and explained; and at the same time that a reason should be given; for what seems altogether inconceivable, how this new relation can be a deduction from others, which are entirely different from it. [Hume, David (1739). A Treatise of Human Nature. London: John Noon. p. 335.]

The gap in Hume’s thought, of course, is that he was not allowing consideration of the possibility of a worldview foundational IS that grounds OUGHT. Arthur Holmes, citing Elizabeth Anscombe, puts his finger on the problem:

However we may define the good, however well we may calculate consequences, to whatever extent we may or may not desire certain consequences, none of this of itself implies any obligation of command. That something is or will be does not imply that we ought to seek it. We can never derive an “ought” from a premised “is” unless the ought is somehow already contained in the premise . . . . R. M. Hare . . . raises the same point. Most theories, he argues, simply fail to account for the ought that commands us: subjectivism reduces imperatives to statements about subjective states, egoism and utilitarianism reduce them to statements about consequences, emotivism simply rejects them because they are not empirically verifiable, and determinism reduces them to causes rather than commands . . . . Elizabeth Anscombe’s point is well made. We have a problem introducing the ought into ethics unless, as she argues, we are morally obligated by law – not a socially imposed law, ultimately, but divine law . . . . This is precisely the problem with modern ethical theory in the West . . . it has lost the binding force of divine commandments. [Ethics: Approaching Moral Decisions (Downers Grove, IL: 1984), pp. 70 – 72.]>/blockquote> In short, the foundations of our worldview must be inherently moral, or else morality cannot later be introduced on any objective foundation. And without such an objective warrant for OUGHT in a grounding IS, morals reduce to might and manipulation make ‘right.’ Which is of course inherently amoral, and invites the sort of cynical nihilism that has been highlighted since Plato.

In short, what the objective grounds for morality issue is about has been on the table ever since, and is quite well known. the fact-value or is-ought gap is a longstanding and well known issue. Just, this issue is not convenient to those who are advocating a worldview that has in it no IS that has inherently moral character that can warrant OUGHT. And of course, this points onward to the question, is the sort of is that has been put forth as warranting morality, well grounded? Namely, the inherently good and loving Creator God. A 101 introduction to that is here on. Until evolutionary materialism advocates soundly ground moral claims, the sound, fury and rhetoric that we see in a tone of high dudgeon and sneering dismissal of those who challenge whatever happens to be politically correct and fashionable just now, comes down to little more than manipulating moral feelings and perceptions, manipulation, not objective and sound calls to action. And, it is patent that evolutionary materialism has in it no IS that can so objectively ground OUGHT. Such advocates are reduced to borrowing and manipulating principles and feelings, ending up in the cross-hairs of the following classic prophetic woes:

Isa 5:20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes and clever in their own sight.

Over against such, we are aptly warned and counselled -- and, pardon my citing scriptures, but I suspect that with the sort of poisonously laced strawman dismissals coming from new atheist circles (such as Aiden tellingly exemplifies) too many do not know the likes of this, from Paul's pen:

Eph 4:17 So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. 18 They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. 19 Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more. 20 You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. 21 Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. 22 You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; 23 to be made new in the attitude of your minds; 24 and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness . . .

G'day, GEM of TKI

kairosfocus

February 4, 2012

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Onlookers interested in the roots of the rise of modern liberty and democracy are directed here, as I have done ever so many times. They will find what we will not usually hear in schools today, from original sources. Let the shoot the messenger rhetoric above, in the context of what Aiden is patently up to and the obvious lack of an evolutionary materialist IS that objectively grounds OUGHT speak for itself. KFkairosfocus

February 4, 2012

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Dr REC, you plainly have not read what the band sings, or seriously looked at the video that is linked before shooting off dismissive talking points. Ironically, there are clips just below. KFkairosfocus

February 4, 2012

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Gil, kairosfocus -- You still haven't retracted your false accusation against Aiden. Why is that?champignon

February 3, 2012

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F/N; I of course am giving the key connexion of the gentleman Darwin wrote to.

Which is rather irrelevant as it happened after Aveling's correspondence with Darwin. Anyway, I'm happy I was able to correct the error you made about the book's authorship.Prof. FX Gumby

February 3, 2012

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Whether or not Darwin was a skeptic or an agnostic or a Church of England minister does not support your assertion that:

right from the beginning, the worldview, ideological agenda was central to the whole enterprise dressed up in the lab coat

You need more than Darwin rejecting a request for having a book by a "freethinker" dedicated to him.Prof. FX Gumby

February 3, 2012

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It is quite evident that advocates of evolutionary materialism are unable to objectively ground OUGHT on the ISes they are willing to accept

No, it is not "quite evident". It's not even clear what you mean. We advocates of what you call "evolutionary materialism" are quite capable of figuring out what is ethical from what isn't. And I'd argue, do a better job, most of the time, the poster child being the absurd religious condemnation of homosexuality. We, on the other hand, understand that at the heart of ethics lies the principle of the Hippocratic oath: First, do no harm. And from our need to live in social groups, the Golden Rule: Treat others as you would be treated. That is why we do not condemn homosexuality, and is one of the many reasons why atheists (in common with many Christians) are often so morally indignant at the so-called moral edicts from the more conservative regions of theism.Elizabeth Liddle

February 3, 2012

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For, you have already proved yourself unable to recognise the institutionally dominant worldview of our time and civilisation — the one that likes to hide in the lab coat, whether presented in descriptive summary, or by definition or by key exemplars, from 2350 years ago, to the current time. Namely, evolutionary materialism.

In other words, by disagreeing with you I have proved that I am wrong? Can you not see the circularity, here, kf?Elizabeth Liddle

February 3, 2012

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Onlookers, observe again, the changing of the subject. The issue is not whether one may inherit, borrow or even conceive moral ideas out of thin air -- or if we are lucky the inbuilt testimony of conscience -- and think or act morally, but the objective warrant for morality on evolutionary materialist atheism. It is quite evident that advocates of evolutionary materialism are unable to objectively ground OUGHT on the ISes they are willing to accept, which leads to precisely the concerns highlighted by Plato 2350 years ago. Notice, the case in view, Aiden, is exactly a case in point of the concerns Plato raised. KFkairosfocus

February 3, 2012

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F/N 2: I should add that Darwin's writings in significant part functioned by way of being an attempted rebuttal to Paley's design arguments [though it seems to me that Paley's self replicating watch elaboration needed and needs to be cogently and fairly addressed], with natural evils playing an important role as well.kairosfocus

February 3, 2012

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F/N; I of course am giving the key connexion of the gentleman Darwin wrote to.kairosfocus

February 3, 2012

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Yes, but usually that appears in a context of debates about being a "true" free thinker. I do appreciate your willingness to acknowledge that I have described the predominant historic meaning accurately.kairosfocus

February 3, 2012

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Dr Liddle: I am sorry, the point is that all of the above lie on a narrow spectrum, and are quite closely inter-related. Skeptics of the era were deists and/or agnostics or atheists; deism being an unstable view that tends to the latter, especially since Darwin. To this day, when we press atheists in a suitably serious context, they often turn out to wish to defend agnosticism, especially if they know that they do not possibly know enough to KNOW that there is no God. As to your accusations, given your false accusation of libel already, I take it at no weight. For, you have already proved yourself unable to recognise the institutionally dominant worldview of our time and civilisation -- the one that likes to hide in the lab coat, whether presented in descriptive summary, or by definition or by key exemplars, from 2350 years ago, to the current time. Namely, evolutionary materialism. And, in case you were not paying attention, I am using the terms of others, in describing Wallace as the heretic in Darwin's house. Have you taken time to look at prof Feser's video? Can you tell us what Darwin scrawled in the margin of his magazine when he saw Wallace's conclusion of 1869? Can you ex-lain why it is that Wallace has essentially disappeared from the commonly seen record, only now being resurrected as a corrective on the relevant history of the origin of and views on evolution as a scientific system of thought? Why is it that everyone has heard of origin, far fewer know of Descent of Man, and so very few know of The World of Life? Good day, madam GEM of TKIkairosfocus

February 3, 2012

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prof Gumby: We all know just what "Free Thought" means as used at the relevant time. This was a rhetorical, self-congratulatory term, e.g. we may see from Am HD, "Thought that rejects authority and dogma, especially in religion; freethinking." Taking in the highlighted code words, it is not too hard to see that "rationalists" saw themselves as refusing to be cowed by authority in ecclesiastical robes (meanwhile refusing to seriously and soberly assess the actual weight of the evidence on its own historical merits); meanwhile they usually were blissfully unaware of their own a priori metaphysical commitments. Just as, today's evolutionary materialists do not recognise the a priori metaphysical commitments that hold them fast. It is quite clear that Darwin was a "skeptic," at minimum some sort of vague deist, and maybe more of an agnostic, as he was prone to speaking rhetorically in a veiled manner. The context of refraining out of concern for family relationships, especially by implication his wife, is quite decisive. But then, at this point, I have crossed a watershed where I no longer expect Darwinist advocates to be reasonable or responsive to mere facts or to reasonable context. G'day GEM of TKIkairosfocus

February 3, 2012

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Another day has passed, and Gil and kairosfocus are still allowing their false accusation to stand.

5.1.1 champignon January 31, 2012 at 12:07 am kairosfocus wrote:

Gil: a serious and sobering point, given the above. I note that we see no serious response on your expose of promotion of synagogue and church burning. KF

Gil, kairosfocus, You have falsely accused Aiden of promoting synagogue and church burning. When will you retract your irresponsible accusation?

champignon

February 3, 2012

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Dear Liz, We have much more than that in common. Anyone who likes my piano recordings can't be all bad! Seriously though, although we disagree on many things, I appreciate your good character. You are consistently wrong, but consistently respectful, in my opinion. Where did that come from? I suspect it was acquired by osmosis from the Judeo-Christian culture in which you were raised.GilDodgen

February 2, 2012

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In 1973 I discovered hang gliding, built my first glider from a kit and taught myself to fly. During the following 30 years I made approximately 1500 hang glider flights. Many hours of soaring on wings of Dacron with eagles and falcons represent some of my most precious memories.GilDodgen

February 2, 2012

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08:10 PM

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Dear Liz, ...the Unitarian Universalist church... When I was seven years old I started asking my parents about God. They were so horrified that they decided to take me to a UU "church," obviously in an attempt to straighten me out concerning irrational thinking and the dangerous and destructive influence of religion. (My mother in particular hated Christians and Christianity with a passion.) My only memories of UU "ministry" was a bunch of academic intellectuals getting together on Sunday mornings to congratulate themselves for having high-enough IQs not to believe in God.GilDodgen

February 2, 2012

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kairosfocus -- master of self-parody:

4 –> This evil, demonically manipulative music group Aiden, is a case in point.

He even goes a little BA77 on us with his exclamation marks:

FYI, Fascism was an ideology of the LEFT!!!!! Just, not so far left as Stalin, who set about labelling it as Right-wing, successfully. To begin to see this consider that Nazism is really national Socialism . . .

Someone on the ID side might want to intervene. He won't listen to us demonic evo-mat atheists.champignon

February 2, 2012

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09:37 AM

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Oh - I see Dr Liddle thinks/types a little faster than I do!Bydand

February 2, 2012

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07:56 AM

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Point of information - whilst you are correct in asserting that "free thought" was and is a synonym for skepticism, agnosticism, or atheism, it also sometimes means just what it says - thought untrammelled, free of pre-existing conclusionsBydand

February 2, 2012

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[--> NB: free-thought is an old synonym for skepticism, agnosticism or atheism]

If it's a synonym for all three, it's a synonym for none, because those three words don't mean the same thing. Kairosfocus, you are making a terrible habit of making an idiosyncratic and pejorative interpretation of other people's words, and then insisting that all who interpret them differently must be "corrected". "Free-thought" means what it says on the tin. It means freedom to make up your own mind, rather than accept dogma from authority. And when you use the word "heretic", you might like to remember its origins and history.Elizabeth Liddle

February 2, 2012

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06:35 AM

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You are reading into the letter exactly and incorrectly what you want to read into it. Rather than Darwin supporting dressing up ideology "in a lab coat", he is rejecting it. This is one of the reasons why Darwin would prefer not to have the book dedicated to him:

It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science.

Thus, a separation between science and religious matters, not cloaking one within the other. And for what it's worth, the book in question is The Student's Darwin by Edward Bibbins Aveling, who became Marx's daughter's partner (he was already married but separated) in 1884, four years after the letter you quote.Prof. FX Gumby

February 2, 2012

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06:16 AM

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F/N: Just in case you missed out on the worldview agenda that -- right from the very beginning -- underlies what is dressed up in the holy lab coat and presented to us as scientifically grounded knowledge as sure as the law of gravity or the roundness of the earth, let me clip from an Oct 13, 1880 Darwin letter to Karl Marx's son-in-law, in which Darwin declined to have one of Marx's books explicitly dedicated to him:

. . . though I am a strong advocate for free thought [--> NB: free-thought is an old synonym for skepticism, agnosticism or atheism] on all subjects, yet it appears to me (whether rightly or wrongly) that direct arguments against christianity & theism produce hardly any effect on the public; & freedom of thought is best promoted by the gradual illumination of men’s minds, which follows from the advance of science. It has, therefore, been always my object to avoid writing on religion, & I have confined myself to science. I may, however, have been unduly biassed by the pain which it would give some members of my family [--> NB: especially his wife, Emma], if I aided in any way direct attacks on religion.

In short, right from the beginning, the worldview, ideological agenda was central to the whole enterprise dressed up in the lab coat, which of course is a key part of the story as to why Wallace's turn to design oriented views pushed him into heretic status, starting 1869. Something more to think about . . . KFkairosfocus

February 2, 2012

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04:26 AM

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I expect that it was written by Mike Meier, who is a clever fellow with an excellent command of the English language (although he still needs to learn about hyphenating two words that combine to form an adjective which precedes the modified noun).

Heh, Gil, we have something else in common :)Elizabeth Liddle

February 2, 2012

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Well, if his piano recordings were recorded while he was an atheist, I would agree! They certainly bring joy to me.Elizabeth Liddle

February 2, 2012

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