Church-Burning Video Used to Promote Atheist Event

KF, Your "deconstruction" is irrelevant to the charge of quote mining. Quoting the first two lines by themselves...

Love how they burn your synagogues Love how they torch your holy books

...paints a completely different picture from quoting them in context:

Love how they burn your synagogues Love how they torch your holy books Filling coffers with your grief Filling coffins with your misery Faith holding outright criminals safe This is just the world we live in Can you justify the pain The death of fiction will save us all

That is quote mining, and no amount of post hoc "deconstruction" will obscure the fact that you and Gil chose to quote only the first two lines, knowing that this would create a false impression in the minds of your readers. I'm ashamed to say that when I read Gil's post and your subsequent comments, I actually believed that the songwriter was expressing approval of the burning of synagogues. I figured that you and Gil couldn't possibly be brazen enough to quote mine the song lyrics, particularly when anyone could look them up online. Well, you and Gil have stooped that low, and you can bet I won't be assuming your honesty in the future.champignon

January 30, 2012

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Onlookers: Ch, sadly, skips over how I took the time to step by step deconstruct the image sequence and lyrics used in the song as he cited it. And, of course I gave the wider context implied by some other lyrics, that characterised and dismissed the core Christian faith by using the worst sort of vulgarities. Sadly revealing. But plainly, we need to know what is going on in the world of the new atheist movement. The world that shows up ever so often in my inbox [spam section], in pretty much the same tone and language. KFkairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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Dr Liddle: This is now sadly predictable. I suppose, you and those of like ilk did not have long debates with GP, against the concept of "Libertarian free will," advocating at most some form of compatibilist redefinition, that boils down to we are shaped by forces of chance and necessity, through biological and socio-cultural evolution and individual patterns of conditioning, but because we are moving in light of internal forces, we can be said to be freely deciding. Let me further quote Provine -- you were busy looking for more on a false accusation of quote mining on a toxic video that I have just had to deconstruct above, but somehow I do not see evidence of further interaction with say, the following wider context of the 1998 Darwin Day remarks at U Tenn:

Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . . . The first 4 implications are so obvious to modern naturalistic evolutionists that I will spend little time defending them. Human free will, however, is another matter. Even evolutionists have trouble swallowing that implication. I will argue that humans are locally determined systems that make choices. They have, however, no free will . . . . Without free will, justification for revenge disappears and rehabilitation is the main job of judicial systems and prisons. [[NB: As C. S Lewis warned, in the end, this means: reprogramming through new conditioning determined by the power groups controlling the society and its prisons.] We will all live in a better society when the myth of free will is dispelled . . . . How can we have meaning in life? When we die we are really dead; nothing of us survives. Natural selection is a process leading every species almost certainly to extinction . . . Nothing could be more uncaring than the entire process of organic evolution. Life has been on earth for about 3.6 billion years. In less that one billion more years our sun will turn into a red giant. All life on earth will be burnt to a crisp. Other cosmic processes absolutely guarantee the extinction of all life anywhere in the universe. When all life is extinguished, no memory whatsoever will be left that life ever existed. Yet our lives are filled with meaning. Proximate meaning is more important than ultimate. Even if we die, we can have deeply [[subjectively and culturally] meaningful lives . . . . [[Evolution: Free Will and Punishment and Meaning in Life, Second Annual Darwin Day Celebration Keynote Address, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, February 12, 1998 (abstract).]

In short, the evolutionary materialist elites admit that they have a hard sell -- even tot hose who accept the theory at popular level -- on the implication of their system, that free will is an illusion, a myth. So, prof Provine chose this as his actual focal issue and pivot to argue on things relating to how criminals are to be treated. Echoes of C S Lewis' warning on what happens when prison is seen as a way to reprogram the defectives, in the hands of a ruthless and amoral elite, are all too loud and clear. And, we must not ever forget the standard Soviet-era praxis of designating dissidents as mentally ill and putting hem in institutions where they were pumped full of mind-bending drugs. You and I both lived through that era, so you know or should know about this. So, also, sorry, the evasiveness above on "yo no undestan" simply does not add up. If you do not recognise the definition of evolutionary materialism I have given, that is despite the fact that, on abundant evidence, and example, you SHOULD. It is, after all, the DOMINANT view of the scientific and other intellectual elites in the world of academia and in wider elite circles in our civilisation. It is, indeed, the very basis for prof Dawkins' declaration that Darwin's theory makes it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist. So, let me cap off by summarising the evolutionary materialist view, in the often quoted words of that spokesman, prof Richard Lewontin of Harvard, the man who let the cat out of the intellectual bag; words that you know or full well should know, to be accurate:

. . . to put a correct view of the universe [--> this is about a worldview, presented in the name of science] into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations [--> anything but materialism is deemed irrational, superstitious and even "demon[ic"], and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth [[--> NB: this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting]. . . . 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 [--> to be defined below as applied, a priori materialism, in an implicitly evolutionary context: cosmological, planetary system, chemical, biological macro, then socio-cultural] provide the surest method of putting us in contact with physical reality [ --> = all of reality to the evolutionary materialist], 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 [-> the basis for so-called methodological naturalism now lies exposed], no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute [[--> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ], for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen. [[--> Perhaps the second saddest thing is that some actually believe that these last three sentences that express hostility to God and then back it up with a loaded strawman caricature of theism and theists JUSTIFY what has gone on before. As a first correction, accurate history -- as opposed to the commonly promoted rationalist myth of the longstanding war of religion against science -- documents (cf. here, here and here) that the Judaeo-Christian worldview nurtured and gave crucial impetus to the rise of modern science through its view that God as creator made and sustains an orderly world. Similarly, for miracles -- e.g. the resurrection of Jesus -- to stand out as signs pointing beyond the ordinary course of the world, there must first be such an ordinary course, one plainly amenable to scientific study. The saddest thing is that many are now so blinded and hostile that, having been corrected, they will STILL think that this justifies the above. But, nothing can excuse the imposition of a priori materialist censorship on science, which distorts its ability to seek the empirically warranted truth about our world.] [[From: “Billions and Billions of Demons,” NYRB, January 9, 1997. Bold emphasis and notes added. Kindly see notes here on on the context in reply to the usual "quote mining" false accusation and the like.]

This is the most clear statement of the worldview of evolutionary materialism, from an adherent who is an eminent scientist, that I know of. As you know or should know, I have provided four more clips that back up the claim that this is the view of the elites, in key institutions, immediately following the place where I have clipped this in the intro page for the IOSE. This is not just an idiosyncratic view. Philip Johnson's rejoinder of November that same year was richly deserved:

For scientific materialists the materialism comes first; the science comes thereafter. [[Emphasis original; Johnson'e terms are synaonymous with my own, the science in question here is origins science and the framework of paradigms and research programmes is that of cosmological, planetary system, chemical, biological macro and in the end socio cultural evolutions] 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.]

All of this has been presented here at UD, over and over and over and over, indeed, in point 14 of the weak argument correctives, we can observe:

ID proponents acknowledge that Darwinian mechanisms operate within a limited scope (changes in beak sizes among finches as a result of environmental pressures; development of resistance to antibiotics by certain bacteria). But they dispute that the mechanism responsible for these micro-evolutionary changes is also responsible for macro-evolutionary changes. In other words, ID proponents agree that Darwinian processes can change the size of finch beaks across generations, but they dispute that those processes are solely responsible for the existence of finches, or birds or dinosaurs, or land-animals in the first place. At the macro-evolutionary level, ID proponents point out that Darwinism is too often rooted in an evolutionary materialist metaphysical presupposition imposed on science and posing as a scientific theory; as Richard Lewontin notoriously admitted in his infamous 1997 NYRB article, “Billions and Billions of Demons”:

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 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, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.

Grounded in materialistic ideology, such Darwinism holds that purposeless, mindless, physical mechanisms, manifested as small genetic changes, can drive the evolutionary process to produce all observed complexity and biodiversity on earth. As such, it interprets all evidence in light of its own materialistic ideology and rules out, in principle — indeed “a priori,” any possibility that any part of the evolutionary process could have been designed . . .

And, in the UD glossary, we may read, under "Materialism":

. . . the philosophical premise that all that is, is “material.” In practice, that means that our observed universe is held to be “nothing but” the result of blind forces of nature acting on matter-energy in space-time, in light of chance circumstances across time. Thus, the resulting evolutionary materialism assumes or asserts – and this (on pain of the old “No True Scotsman” fallacy) is not at all simply the general consensus of “all” informed and responsible thinkers – that: (a) through undirected cosmological evolutionary processes, our cosmos came into existence and evolved into the complex of stars, galaxies and planetary systems we observe. Similarly, (b) life originated by fortuitous synthesis and juxtaposition of required chemicals such that self-replicating entities came into existence. Once life originated, (c) chance variation of various sorts, and competition for food and for reproduction allowed diverse life forms to originate by chance and necessity only, and to fill the niches in ecosystems, leading to body-plan level biodiversity as observed in the fossil record and in our current world. Also, (d) at a certain point, some ape-like animals — having a superabundance of neurons, relative to what was needed to survive on the plains of East Africa several million years ago — became conscious, intelligent hominids; who eventually became modern man. Such philosophically premised evolutionary materialism is then often enforced institutionally through the recently imposed “rule” of science known as methodological naturalism: in effect, only causal patterns and stories fitting into the origins model (a) through (d) as just summarized are permitted in scientific discourse, on pain of “expulsion.”

Immediately following:

Methodological naturalism — the concept or “rule” that science may ONLY seek to ultimately explain observed phenomena in terms of (i) non-directed mechanical forces, and (ii) non-directed contingencies. That is, it is committed to the idea that the observed cosmos (including ourselves) originated and developed through undirected evolutionary processes — cosmological, chemical, biological, socio-cultural — that are in the end rooted in law-like necessity and/or chance. It therefore often contrasts “natural” vs. “supernatural” explanations; dismissing the latter as un- or even anti- scientific. However, this overlooks or ignores the alternative observed contrast that dates at least back to Plato: natural vs artificial (or intelligent). So, if (i) intelligent cause is empirically observed (e.g. humans), and (ii) such causes may leave reliable signs of intelligent action (such as SETI investigators are looking for), then – as we have no good reason to assume that we exhaust the set of actual or possible intelligent agents – (iii) we must leave open the possibility of intelligent causes. At least, if science is to be an unfettered (but intellectually and ethically responsible) search for the truth about our world in light of the evidence of observation and experience.

What has been meant in and around UD has been on clear record all along, easily accessible through the glossary and FAQ, as well as commonly used quotes from eminent evolutionary materialist spokesmen. So, what "evolutionary materialism" means is -- or should be -- no strange and puzzling, hard-to-understand mystery, nor is it an idiosyncrasy of some questionable bloggist who can be brushed off without more than a dismissal. Pardon, but since you chose to do that, thus enabling the fringe of hate site operators in much more that using terms like "idiosyncratic," I have no choice but to be fairly direct:

that you have plainly chosen this evasive rhetorical tack tells us all that you have no cogent answer on the merits, and -- regrettably -- have chosen to be distractive and dismissive rather than face the deep difficulties of evolutionary materialist views.

Please, please, please, think again and do better next time. Good day GEM of TKI F/N: As noted in the main body, I have already answered the nature of the video in question, and the agendas thereby exposed, above.kairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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kairosfocus,

Pardon, but I fail to see how additional lyrics do anything but worsen the force of my earlier point.

There is a reason that you and Gil quoted only the first two lines of the verse below. Is dishonesty okay as long as it's done for Jesus?

Love how they burn your synagogues Love how they torch your holy books Filling coffers with your grief Filling coffins with your misery Faith holding outright criminals safe This is just the world we live in Can you justify the pain The death of fiction will save us all

champignon

January 29, 2012

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Ch Pardon, but I fail to see how additional lyrics do anything but worsen the force of my earlier point. But, crying "quote mining" will often cloud an issue. Onlookers, kindly pardon my having to wade into a cesspit, with filthy language [I only use leading initials but the infamous seven words are well represented] and much worse than merely filthy words, below. I do think however, sadly, that some specific corrective comments are plainly needed. Now, of course, a preliminary point: I would like to hear your side grounding the basis for the ought that you are so fond of appealing to in a foundational is for your evolutionary materialism; on pain of standing exposed as seeking to rhetorically manipulate moral sentiment, on the principle that might and manipulation make 'right.' On the specifics of context, I have long since given the link to the actual video of the Aiden song Hysteria in this thread, and of course you managed not to discuss the implications of the church leader as vampire against chiaroscuro background imagery, the opening image of burning synagogues/churches, the call to such burning, etc. Image gives telling, utterly telling context to words in this case, sir. Let me spell it out, in the name of the many decent men and women of God I have known over the years: Christian clergy are not blood-sucking vampires who profit from the pain, suffering and gullibility of others, nor do they foment blood-letting the better to have the blood they crave. To portray such in that way -- as this video does from its opening imagery, in this context is little more than target-painting and the worst sort of slanderous scapegoating. Not to mention the implications of the other cluster of filthy lyrics I quoted. Lyrics that sound ever so familiar to me after several months of seeing exactly those sentiments and echoes of the actual language in my inbox from the hate site operator. Your accusation of "quote mining" is grossly out of order. Let the sad record stand, in response to the case we are seeing -- the leading new atheism spokesman carded as key speaker at an event warmed up for by a band that advertises the event with a video that STARTS with images of burning houses of worship and presents a church leader as a vampire in a graveyard [I understand, of service-members of the US] and "Love[s]" synagogue/church and holy book burnings, etc -- the response of your ilk has been distractive and shoot at the messenger. What we see here is the stoking of extreme hostility, through scapegoating and denigratory, demonising characterisation. A vampire, for instance, is a stand-in for a demon, and is of course dressed with a symbol of the Christian clergy. And, that is how a "typical" church leader is presented. Do you know whose name means "Accuser"? Please, think about that. "Love how they burn your synagogues" in such a context then speaks for itself, especially in the onward context that speaks of torching holy books and the like. The onward remarks attempt to lay the world's ills at the feet of the church [the cross imagery is plain] -- or "Faith" -- and of course try to pose the problem of pain and the assertion that belief in God is belief in fiction, by of course implicit appeal to the "ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked" canard. I would infer from the intervening lines and general time of composition, that this song largely comes from one side of the debates over the flaring up in ME fighting of the ongoing, long-running now low burning, now hot, war with IslamISM (which is a war that our civilisation cannot escape, historically every time IslamIST powers have had enough strength, they have renewed the jihad, for 1400 years; hence, for instance the reason why the first wars the US fought 200 yrs ago were the wars with the mujaheddin of the coast of NW Africa, as in "To the shores of Tripoli . . . "; such can only be contained . . . ). So, that is how I then read:

Filling coffers [offerings are blood-money]with your grief Filling coffins with your misery [you are war mongers] Faith holding outright criminals safe [your clerics promote and protect war criminals who on the excuse of the US etc being attacked have invaded countries in the ME, and by extension, generally corrupt right-wing theocratic fundy politicians and officials . . . a highly misleading and poisonously loaded stereotype] This is just the world we live in [as in, this is subject to change by the new atheist revolution of the "brights" which "we" represent]

The problem with this is of course in such a context and coming from such a source, this is an allusion to the largely imaginary right wing, inherently racist . . .

[did it dawn on you -- given onward imagery of police arresting a black person -- that Black churches in the US and elsewhere are both Christian churches and have a history of contribution to liberation struggle rooted in the Bible?]

. . . deeply Christian fundamentalist theocratic agenda, which is the same step beyond the canard that say design theory or thought is "Creationism in a cheap tuxedo," and the like that is ever so familiar. In short, this video is broad-brush cheap talking point strawmannising, stereotyping, scapegoating and demonising of the worst sort. Let's go on to the bit of my own excerpt that brings out the Abrahamic religions meme that is promoted by Dawah advocates to try to gain credibility, and which has been latched on to by new atheists to push Christian faith etc into the same immoral equivalency boat with IslamIST terrorists -- and yes this is in my inbox too; sidestepping the odd little fact that such IslamIST terrorists are not even representative of Muslims as a whole, much less members of sharply different faith traditions:

Faith whether Christian, Muslim, Jew [broad-brush stereotyping] Still you all distort the truth [how do we know that Mr Bright, and on evolutionary materialist premises, how do you ground the value that we must prize and seek the truth? And, onlookers, kindly cf where this all started above, where I presented links on warranting the core Christian faith in particular and the broader generic framework of theism in the teeth of such accusations.] The death of fiction will save us all [has it ever dawned on such Brights, that evolutionary materialism is inherently self-referentially incoherent and necessarily false?]

But it is the background context of the other lyrics that you so artfully chose not to touch that tells all we need to know about this band, the warm-up act for prof Dawkins, ret'd:

Christ died for s–, and was a f— c– … F— your God F— your faith in the end There’s no religion [kindly cf here on in context on warranting worldviews, a theistic worldview in particular, and the Christian tradition within that broad worldview]

Sorry, this is a jaundiced, hostility laced stereotyping and demonisation by toxic music video, fully consistent with the snide, poisonously loaded and implicitly anti-semitic dismissal of God and those who believe in him in the Judaeo-Christian tradition found in The God Delusion bestseller of recent years, as authored by the featured speaker for this concert. It is time to stop, look at what is now going on by cold light of day, and rethink the sort of visceral hostility that this song shows. Before it is bloodily too late. Please, think again. GEM of TKIkairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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Dear Liz, Please explain to me where in the Wedge Document it is proposed that there should be a government-imposed Christian theocracy. And also please explain why, by judicial and governmental fiat, no evidence can be presented in public education concerning the monstrous logical, mathematical, and evidential holes in Darwinian orthodoxy, through which a Mack Truck could be driven. I suggest that your irrational fear of a government-imposed Christian theocracy has been replaced by a perfectly rational fear that materialists have taken control, and have implemented a government-imposed anti-theocracy, with the full force of academic consensus and the power of the legal system to punish all dissent, no matter how rational or evidential that dissent might be. Philosophically committed Darwinists are not interested in science or evidence. They are interested in converting others, and others' children, to their nihilistic, materialistic worldview. I'm a freethinker. I follow the evidence where it leads. That meant -- despite a lifelong philosophical commitment to materialism and atheism -- admitting that Darwinian orthodoxy is bogus philosophy wrapped in junk science, and that design is the only reasonable inference.GilDodgen

January 29, 2012

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Gil, KF, You've stooped to quote-mining song lyrics now? Elizabeth is right: the song condemns the burning of synagogues and holy books. Shame on both of you for deliberately quoting the first two lines but not the rest:

Love how they burn your synagogues Love how they torch your holy books Filling coffers with your grief Filling coffins with your misery Faith holding outright criminals safe This is just the world we live in Can you justify the pain The death of fiction will save us all

champignon

January 29, 2012

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kf, I honestly have no idea of what you are talking about at this stage. So I cannot "explain" anything - I do not understand the charge you have levelled at me. Of course I know something about how we can be influenced by things without being aware of the influence. But I have no idea how it relates to my posts, or to this topic. And I am NOT playing games. I don't. Please explain. Thanks. Lizzie PS: I just found a video of the song you object to. It's certainly heavy stuff, but it is quite clearly NOT a call to burn churches and holy books. It actually segues, at the end, to a clip of Hitchens appealing to our better natures. So not nihilistic either - quite the reverse. It's a powerful condemnation of hysteria of all kinds and an appeal to reason instead. And I heartily approve. It's precisely the point I've been trying to make on this thread.Elizabeth Liddle

January 29, 2012

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Dr Liddle: Pardon me, but I think it is you who have some explaining to do. Perhaps, you have not worked through the issues and implications, but it is pretty clear that for instance you MUST know the issue of unconscious influences. Similarly, I have taken time to go again through 2300 years worth of highlights on what the worldview in question is, as a review; in a context where for months at least, you have seen the relevant evidence and points of concern. Something does not add up, and, this is all neatly tangential to an issue and situation that are highly, highly revealing, on 2400 years of history. I am not calling you a liar, but I am saying that something does not add up, bigtime, in a serious context. Good day GEM of TKIkairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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And actually, having checked out the lyrics myself, here, I think you've misread them anyway. I don't think that's a call for atheists to burn churches or synagogues or holy books, I think it's a condemnation of believers for doing just that. Hence the refrain: the death of fiction will save us all. I don't think the song is nihilist at all. I've read through the lyrics of the whole album just now, and while it is powerfully anti-religious, it also seems powerfully moral to me, and certainly not nihilistic. Angry, but not nihilistic: In fact one song appears to be a quote from Christopher Hitchens: "So when I say religion poisons everything, I mean to say it infects us in our most basic integrity. It says we can't be moral without Big Brother, without a totalitarian permission. It means we can't be good to one another. We must be afraid, we must also be forced to love someone who we fear, the essence of sadomasochism." which, far from being amoral or nihilistic is the complete reverse: he is saying that under religion there is no morality, only fear, that religion poisons morality. You will disagree, of course, but if this is the kind of message Aiden is trying to convey in their lyrics, then it is not what you allege, but the opposite.Elizabeth Liddle

January 29, 2012

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F/N: I have of course highlighted that it is evolutionary materialism -- a worldview -- that has in it no foundational is that can ground ought. Atheists of this view, are still human beings who have implanted moral impulses. My concern, though, is the benumbing and endarkening impact of such a worldview as it comes to dominate in a culture, much as Paul warned in Eph 4, warning Christians to steer clear of deleterious cultural influences:

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 . . .

And, these concerns, too, I have pointed out over and over, only to meet again and again with a snidely set up strawman. Sorry, now that Aiden/Alcibiades is on the table, that talking point tactic is simply not good enough.kairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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Please, think again before playing what looks more and more like neat little evasive and distractive rhetorical games.

And please think again before accusing me of dishonesty. I have no idea even what it is that I said that you don't believe. And certainly not why. I don't tell lies.Elizabeth Liddle

January 29, 2012

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Dr Liddle: Sorry, but I simply don't believe you at this time. Especially, as we both grew up in the era of Freudian thought, Behaviourism, and Marxian thought, so you must be aware of the issues of unconscious influences on how we think and act. I also note, reigning myself in, that all of this, very conveniently, is nicely tangential to a question that -- had it been a Christian spokesman and music group -- would have been deluged with outraged comments and demands. In short, frankly, all of this is patently distractive in effect; from a case where the leading new atheism spokesman, prof C Richard Dawkins, ret'd, is in a situation where he is carded -- in the next six or so weeks -- to be at Ft Bragg NC, to present to an audience warmed up by Aiden, a band that has advertised the event with a video encouraging burning of synagogues and churches, as well as holy books. Let me clip some of the lyrics by this atheism advocacy band; pardon that I need to show the initial letters of some outrageous words:

Christ died for s–, and was a f— c– … F— your God F— your faith in the end There’s no religion

And:

Love how they burn your synagogues Love how they torch your holy books … Faith whether Christian, Muslim, Jew Still you all distort the truth The death of fiction will save us all

I hope you will understand the seriousness of such nihilism, as warned against by Plato, never mind Paul. (Do you recall exactly why Alcibiades was recalled from the Sicilian expedition he had championed, by Athens, and what he did? What he then did to his city, then to the king of Sparta who was in the field? Then, to the Queen and their love-child? And so forth? Do we really want to go down the road Plato warned against on that example?) Please, on your tangential matter; take some time to see just what the likes of Provine, Lewontin, Dawkins, Crick et al are really saying. Since you talk about the subjective experience of intentions, let me cite Crick from his The Astonishing Hypothesis, 1994; as I have cited in the same IOSE intro page that cites Lewontin et al:

. . . "You", your joys and your sorrows, your memories and your ambitions, your sense of personal identity and free will, are in fact no more than the behaviour of a vast assembly of nerve cells and their associated molecules. As Lewis Carroll's Alice might have phrased: "You're nothing but a pack of neurons." This hypothesis is so alien to the ideas of most people today that it can truly be called astonishing.

It should be plain that the evolutionary materialism that is championed by ever so many in the name of science, fatally self destructs in self-referential incoherence and amorality leading to nihilism. Please, think again before playing what looks more and more like neat little evasive and distractive rhetorical games. Good day, GEM of TKIkairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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The Wedge Document scarcely renders the fear that ID proponents want to impose a Christian theocracy "irrational". The fear seems quite well-founded to me. As for the "promotion of synagogue and church burning". Clearly that is indefensible, and I've seen no-one here defend it.Elizabeth Liddle

January 29, 2012

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No, of course I'm not, kf. It's just that you have given so many interpretations of the term that I just don't know what you are talking about. But let me take just one of your summaries above:

the view that all of the world, from hydrogen to humans, has arisen by forces of blind chance and mechanical necessity, acting through cosmological, planetary system, chemical, biological macro, and sociocultural evolutions; in a universe that is seen as, believed to be, or assumed to be ultimately physical only.In particular, it is seen as warranting the concept that scientific explanations (especially in contexts of origins) may only appeal to forces tracing to blind chance and mechanical necessity; typically presented as “natural” or “naturalistic” explanations, i.e. so-called methodological naturalism. This last, is as opposed to seeking to identify and characterise such forces of necessity and factors of chance, without making any a priori commitments that such exhaust the forces and factors that have causal influence in the observable world.

That is simply not a world view that I even recognise. It completely ignores, for instance, the fact that biological agents exhibit intentional behaviour. So it seems you have built a straw man, called it "evolutionary materialism" (not sure why "evolutionary", it seems just a kind of "materialism" to me), and then laid the blame for the evils of the world at its door. Let me present an alternative view: That what is sometimes called "methological naturalism" is the methodology that underpins science, and rests on the assumption (whether true or false) that observed phenoneman can be explained in terms of other observed phenomena, by a series of discernable regular relationships, in which events can be predicted by other events. It is "amoral" in the sense that any methodology is "amoral". You cannot derive from "methodological naturalism" any moral precepts. But nobody attempts to. You have made the grievous error, IMO (and I think it really is grievous - dangerous in fact) of mistaking a methodological stance for a moral one. It is of course perfectly true that some people (me for one, Dawkins for another) take the view that the world itself is not the work of an intentional agent. But that does not mean that there is no morality within it. There clearly is. But it arises from our properties as human beings, not from the properties of the (non-intentional) origins of its existence. That's the only difference between us. Atheists, whether scientists or anything else, are not amoral, and there is no reason why they should be.Elizabeth Liddle

January 29, 2012

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F/N: Let me be more explicit: kindly look at point 4 here above, noting the term that appears in bold twice and what is said about it.kairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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Dr Liddle: I am sorry, but this is now ridiculous. Are you trying to irritate me to the point where I may say something untoward? Did you not see that in the remarks just above -- again bringing together remarks I have made over and over and over again, I provided links, quotations and TWO definitions of what evolutionary materialism is, bolding the term itself? Please, do better than this. Right now, I am very much not pleased to see what you are doing. Please, again, do better. GEM of TKIkairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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kf, first of all please don't feel you have to apologise for anything :) But before we go any further, could you please answer my question? What is your definition of "evolutionary materialism"? (I link to where you have previously defined it is fine). But unless I understand what you are actually talking about, I can't really comment on any of the above.Elizabeth Liddle

January 29, 2012

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F/N: If you doubt my remarks on a "trash them" approach, kindly read the CFP blog post, including the lyrics and comments, also look at the Youtube discussion surrounding the video.kairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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F/N: The Aiden video in question, "Hysteria."kairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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F/N 2: the blog, Christian Fighter Pilot, adds:

The band Aiden has announced it will be playing the atheist festival “Rock Beyond Belief” at Fort Bragg in March 2012, as the lead-in act to Richard Dawkins, the main attraction at the “concert.” Never heard of them? You’re not the only one. But first, take a look at what the band said in their announcement [emphasis added]:

Justin Griffith, the soldier in charge of setting this up has a very interesting story to tell. The United States military had no problems funding a christian based musical event, but when it was suggested that the large number of atheists and secular humanists who are enlisted, would like to have a function of their own choosing, the top leaders at Fort Bragg decided to pull the plug on the entire thing. Cutting the funding without any reason at all, that I can see, except that maybe christians in the Army are the only ones allowed to have fun… They fought the law and THEY WON.

Given that they attribute their information to the soldier hosting Rock Beyond Belief, Justin Griffith, its unlikely a call to correct their misinformation would go far. For the record (again, and again), the US military did not fund a “Christian musical event” when it hosted Rock the Fort – Christian military congregations funded it. “Top leaders at Fort Bragg” didn’t pull the plug on anything — Griffith did. Nor did anyone “cut” any funding. Finally, they fought nothing and won nothing. Based on public information, it appears they did little more than a lot of complaining about the US military, even as Fort Bragg’s leadership remained magnanimous in the face of very public — and very personal — insults by Rock Beyond Belief supporters. Griffith finally raised money to fund the event (as a result of the publicity over his decision to cancel) and finished the appropriate paperwork, as had always been required. The only victory was the one over paper cuts. So, once again, the US military gets drug through the mud over its decision to allow an atheist festival to be held on military grounds — and it is the participants of the festival doing the dragging, not critics of it. Graciousness is apparently a lost virtue.

Something is plainly very wrong here, and the underlying hostile attitude and "trash-them" approach to issues, people and concerns, sound, sadly, ever so familiar. The New Atheists have some serious work to do, to address serious concerns and issues. KFkairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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F/N: Let us notice the Fox News commentary that is linked in the first word of the original post:

Atheists are using a music video that celebrates the burning of churches and synagogues to promote an upcoming atheist-themed festival at Fort Bragg. “Rock Beyond Belief” is scheduled to be held on the parade field at Fort Bragg in March. The event was created in part as a response to a Billy Graham Evangelistic Association event that was held last year . . . . Justin Griffith, who organized “Rock Beyond Belief,” said he was personally offended that a Christian evangelical event like “Rock the Fort” was held on the base. “We felt it was entirely inappropriate for anyone to say your current religion is wrong,” Griffith told Fox News& Commentary. “We view all soldiers as already spiritually complete. Whatever their current religious preference is has no bearing on how fit they are as a soldier or anything related to military business” . . . . There will also be a number of bands performing – the most famous of which is Aiden. They are featured in a video on the “Rocky Beyond Belief” website that includes images of burning churches and bloody crosses. The website Christianfighterpilot.com was the first to raise questions about the music. The website labels the song as the “atheist anthem.” Among the lyrics: “Love how the burn your synagogues, love how they torch your holy books.” The group is no stranger to strong lyrics. Another of their songs says, “F*** your God, F*** your faith in the end. There’s no religion” . . . . Griffith said that particular song would not be performed at the festival, but defended the video of burning churches. “You can buy their albums in Wal-Mart, a Christian-friendly store,” Griffith said. “If you have issues with bands that sometimes have swear words, or naughty words, or shocking imagery, that’s a part of the First Amendment.” Benjamin Abel, a spokesman for Fort Bragg told Fox News & Commentary that they were launching a review of the bands scheduled to perform along with their content. “This is a family-friendly event and we expect the entertainment will meet the standards of decency that would be typical on a top-40 music station,” Abel said. “We owe it to our soldiers and families on post to make sure it is.” As for the graphic, anti-Christian lyrics – Abel said “I would have to think we would have to take a very close look at that kind of lyric.” “I don’t know how family-friendly that is,” he said. Griffith said there is absolutely no controversy about Aiden’s upcoming performance. “It’s a little shocking to hear some of this stuff,” he said. “I’m sure you understand that these types of shocking things are not going to be front and center for a rock concert that is on a military base. This is not controversy. This is not a real story.” But if that’s the case, why is there a video of the band performing in front of burning churches on the “Rock Beyond Belief” website? The military could not answer that question . . .

In short, the back-story itself underscores the significance of the concerns raised above. KFkairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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Onlookers and participants: As you will know from my just posted, I decided to take an overnight, to give time for feelings to calm down and for a serious response to the expose by Gil of how Mr Dawkins has set himself to be key speaker at an event where the warm up act is by a band, Aiden, that is promoting itself in a context of suggesting synagogue and church burning. The lack of serious response on this is deeply disappointing and itself a warning, tot hose inclined to heed such portents. Professor Dawkins, ret'd, clearly has some serious explaining to do, and should promptly cancel the band with explanation. In addition, he needs to address the issue of grounding morality on evolutionary materialism, and he should soberly address the wave of unhinged hostility and now incitement that is associated with the new atheism movement that he is one of the leading spokesmen for. It may be easy and rhetorically clever to distract from this -- as we saw above -- by playing at the "sins of Christendom" card [note my response at 3 above based on prof Bernard Lewis' apt point, and the onward linked] and/or shooting at the messenger, but that in no way addresses the underlying issue; which is extremely serious. I trust that a serious, sober response will be forthcoming. Gil, a good investigative job. GEM of TKIkairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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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. KFkairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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Dr Liddle: Pardon the pain the below will occasion, but I must point out that the above is deeply, sadly, tellingly disappointing and points to serious gaps and breakdowns in evolutionary materialistic thought. I decided to wait until this morning, to give time for cooling off, reflection and serious response. What I have found instead tells me a lot, and none of it good. This calls for some painful cutting, lest he boil break out into blood poisoning. I apologise in advance for the pain and the mess, but I do not think this can be responsibly avoided. Let me approach the problem by taking up several clipped points from your response to my discussion in 1.1.2.2.4: 1] EL: I’d like to see specific citations [on the moral hazard of evolutionary materialism], kf, This is astonishing, for 1.2.2.4 has in it two highly significant clips from eminent evolutionary materialists, in highly significant contexts: (a) Prof William B Provine of Cornell at the 1995 U Tenn Darwin Day keynote address, and (b) Prof Clinton Richard Dawkins, in his 1995 Sci Am article on God's utility Function. Your pretence that I have not given sources and references, here, repeatedly across time at UD, and in my own online course that was linked as recently as above in this thread, is irresponsible and unbecoming, especially of an academic of your stature. In addition, you and onlookers will easily see that in those sources, as you can see for the price of a click, Provine characterises the worldview in question and the scientific paradigm it dominates as "Naturalistic evolution," going on to list as direct implications, "3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent . . .". That is already quite plain enough, for in a naturalistic evolutionary worldview, we are here seen as being without an objective foundation for ethics and without power of responsible choice, which immediately entails that morality is a purely subjective phenomenon under the control of "might [and manipulation] make right." In addition, if we cannot think based on responsible choice, our very thoughts, decisions and resulting deeds are preprogrammed, i.e. there is a logical entailment of self-referential incoherence. Reason, objectivity and rationality have been fatally undermined and reduced to might and manipulation make right. All of this, in the very state of the US where the Scopes Monkey trial put the debate over darwinism vs the Bible on the map, and allowed the issue to be -- highly misleadingly -- cast in the public's mind, as reason and objective science triumphing over backward, irrational superstition clinging to God, guns and the Bible. (It is quite clear from context that for instance, Fundamentalism as Bryan et al championed, was seen as compatible with an old earth and the sort of evolution that say Wallace championed, where there was a spiritual intervention to make man. This was not the era of young earth creationism.) And Dawkins speaks in Sci Am -- an extremely prominent and influential source -- of how:

In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication, some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won’t find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference . . . . DNA neither cares nor knows. DNA just is. And we dance to its music.

That is, he sees a world that has moved from hydrogen to humans by way of blind unfoldings, i.e. a cascade of naturtalistic, physicalist, materialist evolutions: cosmological, planetary system, chemical, biological macro, socio-cultural. In his mind, "science" -- and particularly evolutionary science -- makes it possible to be "an intellectually fulfilled atheist," and grounds the conclusion that we live in "In a universe of electrons and selfish genes, blind physical forces and genetic replication . . . [where] The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but pitiless indifference . . ." All of this -- long since -- is known to you, or should be known to you. So, your attempt to pretend that I am speaking without warrant is irresponsible and should be withdrawn, with a proper explanation. 2] I also beg to differ, except in the trivial sense that you clearly cannot abstract moral principles from a scientific theory. Not even close. The issue, patently, is that we have a scientific theory that is deeply embedded with worldview declarations and positions, as again summed up from eminent sources. It is the worldview level implications, assumptions, assertions and claims that have created the moral hazard, and it is that cluster which has to be addressed. If you have a paradigm in science -- with a cluster of associated research programmes, that pivots on there being a world that is materialistic or physicalist or naturalistic [all three boil down to the same in essence as was highlighted in another recent thread], then the only ISes that are allowed in the worldview are: matter, energy, space, and time, in one form or another. The challenge such a worldview faces is to ground OUGHT, moral responsibility and duties of care -- including those of scientists -- on those ISes. It is not hard to see that you cannot do it, that it has not been done and that it all but certainly cannot be done, for these 2350 years since Plato in The Laws, Bk X, put the problem on prominent public record. 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.]

In short, the foundaitons 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. 3] It is certainly perfectly possible to construct moral principles without assuming that there is a God I have of course highlighted the key substitution in this strawman argument. The issue is not to CONSTRUCT systems of ethics by whatever assumed authority or implied power of coercion or manipulation, but to OBJECTIVELY GROUND and WARRANT said principles. As has been repeatedly said, and as has just as repeatedly been dodged by advocates of evolutionary materialism. Which brings us to a piece of sophistry that is perhaps the most disappointing of all: 4] please provide a definition of the thing you are calling “evolutionary materialism” . . . . Your entire argument seems to rest on an idiosyncratic concept you call “evolutionary materialism”. What is it? Given that this has been defined, exemplified, explained, cited on and highlighted as a description of the institutionally dominant "scientific" worldview of our time, over and over and over again, the sudden pretence of ignorance is deliberately selectively hyperskeptical, and the dismissive term "idiosyncratic," is utterly revealing of a want of genuineness in the discussion. Sorry, Dr Liddle, but this last rhetorical gambit on your part, and that of your ilk, is not good enough, by a very, very, very long shot. Let us go to where the matter first seriously comes to the attention of Western Culture's intellectuals some 2350 years ago, i.e. in Plato's The Laws, Bk X, c 360 BC; as I have drawn on in the IOSE and have cited here at UD over and over and over again, month after month (onward links are of course at the just now linked):

[[The avant garde philosophers, teachers and artists c. 400 BC] say that the greatest and fairest things are the work of nature [ --> physis, in effect mechanical necessity of inner essence of things] and of chance, the lesser of art [[ i.e. techne], which, receiving from nature the greater and primeval creations, moulds and fashions all those lesser works which are generally termed artificial . . . They say that fire and water, and earth and air [[i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art, and that as to the bodies which come next in order-earth, and sun, and moon, and stars-they have been created by means of these absolutely inanimate existences. The elements are severally moved by chance and some inherent force according to certain affinities among them-of hot with cold, or of dry with moist, or of soft with hard, and according to all the other accidental admixtures of opposites which have been formed by necessity. After this fashion and in this manner the whole heaven has been created, and all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [--> we thus see evolutionary materialism, including in essence implied biological evolution] . . . . [[T]hese people would say that the Gods exist not by nature, but by art, and by the laws of states, which are different in different places, according to the agreement of those who make them; and that the honourable is one thing by nature and another thing by law, and that the principles of justice have no existence at all in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.- [[Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT. (Cf. here for Locke's views and sources on a very different base for grounding liberty as opposed to license and resulting anarchistic "every man does what is right in his own eyes" chaos leading to tyranny.)] These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might [[ Evolutionary materialism leads to the promotion of amorality], and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [[Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles; cf. dramatisation here], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is, to live in real dominion over others [[such amoral factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless tyranny; here, too, Plato hints at the career of Alcibiades], and not in legal subjection to them . . .

So, 2350 years ago, what I have summarised descriptively as "evolutionary materialism," was a long since established worldview. However, I have found that most educated people have probably never heard of Plato's The Laws, much less this cite. Though, I have found things over the years that sound very much like veiled allusions to some aspects of it. A far more familiar source is Lucretius in his The Nature of Things, Bk I (which was actually alluded to in my O Level Physics course, many years ago now, as a manifestation of Democritus' atomism):

[[Ch 4:] . . . All nature, then, as self-sustained, consists Of twain of things: of bodies and of void . . . . Naught, saving body, acts, is acted on; Naught but the inane [[i.e. void] can furnish room. And thus, Beside the inane and bodies, is no third Nature amid the number of all things . . . . [[Ch 5:] Bodies, again, Are partly primal germs of things, and partly Unions deriving from the primal germs.

So, evolutionary materialism is an ancient worldview, one that has always sought to appeal to the intellectual elites and aspiring elites among youth. It has always presented itself as skeptically anchored, objectively warranted, empirically grounded knowledge. So also, it is unsurprising that in our day, it should come to us dressed in the holy lab coats of science, which precisely pis about empirically grounded objectively warranted albeit provisional knowledge and its discovery. Let Lewontin speak for today's scientific elites on the matter (in yet another of those oh so despised letting the cat out of the bag clips that I have so often used here at UD and as has been so deeply resented and derided without good reason):

. . . to put a correct view of the universe into people's heads we must first get an incorrect view out . . . the problem is to get them to reject irrational and supernatural explanations of the world, the demons that exist only in their imaginations, and to accept a social and intellectual apparatus, Science, as the only begetter of truth [[--> NB: this is a knowledge claim about knowledge and its possible sources, i.e. it is a claim in philosophy not science; it is thus self-refuting]. . . . 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 [--> = all reality, to a materialist], 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 [[--> i.e. here we see the fallacious, indoctrinated, ideological, closed mind . . . ] [“Billions and Billions of Demons,” NYRB, January 9, 1997. Bold emphasis and notes added. Discussion and rebuttals of the usual counter-points can be seen at the linked. So can clips from four other witnesses that show the representativeness of this clip. Note, two of these are the US NAS and NSTA, speaking officially for institutional science and science education.]

So, we can see that evolutionary materialism is an apt, two word description of a worldview that has been around for thousands of years, and which dominates in the halls of science and science education, formal and popular. In effect, the descriptive term (one BTW that I have found others using before I did; it is an obvious summary phrase whatever objectors may want to pretend), evolutionary materialism can be summed up as:

the view that all of the world, from hydrogen to humans, has arisen by forces of blind chance and mechanical necessity, acting through cosmological, planetary system, chemical, biological macro, and sociocultural evolutions; in a universe that is seen as, believed to be, or assumed to be ultimately physical only.In particular, it is seen as warranting the concept that scientific explanations (especially in contexts of origins) may only appeal to forces tracing to blind chance and mechanical necessity; typically presented as "natural" or "naturalistic" explanations, i.e. so-called methodological naturalism. This last, is as opposed to seeking to identify and characterise such forces of necessity and factors of chance, without making any a priori commitments that such exhaust the forces and factors that have causal influence in the observable world.

I have, of course presented similar discussions and descriptions many times, here at UD and elsewhere. My always linked note through my handle, in Section A (with onward links), describes how:

. . . we all intuitively and even routinely accept that: Functionally Specified, Complex Information, FSCI, is a signature of messages originating in intelligent sources. Thus, if we then try to dismiss the study of such inferences to design as "unscientific," when they may cut across our worldview preferences, we are plainly being grossly inconsistent. Further to this, the common attempt to pre-empt the issue through the attempted secularist redefinition of science as in effect "what can be explained on the premise of evolutionary materialism - i.e. primordial matter-energy joined to cosmological- + chemical- + biological macro- + sociocultural- evolution, AKA 'methodological naturalism' " [ISCID def'n: here] is itself yet another begging of the linked worldview level questions . . .

So, the pretence that evolutionary materialism is an idiosyncratic, obscure and ill-defined term, spectacularly fails. 5] If you mean a scientific theory, then obviously it’s amoral, but people don’t base their morality on scientific theories. The neatly set up and knocked over strawman in this, is that we have a worldview that dresses itself up in the holy lab coat, and then pretends to be "the only begetter of truth" regarding the real world. Even, "self evident[ly]" so. And, in that context, the obviously it’s amoral is a grudging acknowledgement of the point, but with the rhetorical hope that we will then not notice that those who advocate evolutionary materialist scientism, cling to the notion that, even self-evidently, this is the only begetter of truth about reality, which is held to be wholly material -- bearing in mind that mass and energy are in effect different forms of the same thing per Einstein and E = m_0*c^2-- and governed by physical laws of chance and necessity only. Against that backdrop of course moral principles can be artificially CONSTRUCTED and then put into general acceptance through manipulation, conditioning and in the end naked force or barely less overt intimidation of the power elites. But that boils down to: "in a materialistic world, might and manipulation make 'right' . . ." i.e. it is wrapping the problem up in a nice rhetorical package and presenting it as the solution. Sorry, fail. ________________ We can therefore see that he above explosion of "how dare you" outrage is little more than "how dare you say the emperor is naked." But, sadly, he is. And, we had better realise that, and what it implies for our culture if we allow an amoral system of thought to dominate our thinking and deciding. One that also implies that we cannot truly responsibly think for ourselves. So, all boils down to might makes right power politics. Hence the very breakdown of science itself that we are beginning to see. Reductio ad absurdum, in short. It is high time for reformation! Bydand! GEM of TKIkairosfocus

January 29, 2012

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Apparently, one of the main themes of my post was not recognized. Disparagement and ridicule directed at Christians is not only tolerated, but sanctified and promoted by the politically-correct, secular-leftist crowd and the popular media. Check out the Comedy Channel. Everywhere in the secular-leftist media we encounter the term "Islamophobia." A phobia is an irrational fear, that is, a mental disorder. Yet, we are bombarded by people like Eugenie Scott with the irrational fear that ID proponents want to impose a Christian theocracy, but she and her ilk are never labeled "Christophobics," that is, accused of suffering from a mental disorder.GilDodgen

January 28, 2012

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"Christian believers are mysteriously the primary targets of denigration and vilification on the part of militant atheists (always, of course, in the name of the high virtues they proclaim: tolerance, diversity, etc. — yawn)." I don't believe that Christians are mysteriously the targets of denigration, as Jesus himself indicated that his followers would be persecuted. It's something to be expected, unfortunately. I find it amusingly ironic that a group (atheists) who preach tolerance are themselves intolerant and disrespectful of those who do not share their views.Barb

January 28, 2012

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Atheist movement is trying to gain momentum. They need the blitz kreig. The way they are achieving it is by encouraging anger. Anger is an empty, unsatisfying emotion but a powerful tool. I grew up in East European communist country where religion was systematically repressed. Religious people were second-class citizens with limited career options. My father, a teacher, was constant suspect because he could possibly indoctrinate young students. He was interrogated several times by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. Good teachers were demoted and intimidated if they mentioned their religion. It was Orwellian atmosphere where you had to be careful not to reveal your thoughts and opinions. Unfortunately, reminds me of today’s political correctness. All along, the Church was comforting its people in spite of atheist oppressors. Church is embedded and intertwined with the nation for centuries. It has deep understanding of history and its people needs. It was focusing us on positive and reminding that evil cannot last forever. Evil eventually collapsed and nation withstood. It wasn’t the first and will not be the last time my Church saved the nation. It is worrying to see the rise of militant atheism. I understand some educators and scientist here (in North America) have their careers put on hold or they are being intimidated and ridiculed. I don’t want to see oppression again.Eugen

January 28, 2012

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Pardon, but — as has repeatedly been pointed out to you — it is not just me who says that the worldview of evolutionary materialism, however labelled has in it no foundational principle that can carry the weight of objectively grounding ought. Leading advocates for the view say much the same, though they often do not seem to be fully aware of the moral hazard thereby implied for the worldview.

Well, I'd like to see specific citations, kf, and I also beg to differ, except in the trivial sense that you clearly cannot abstract moral principles from a scientific theory. It is certainly perfectly possible to construct moral principles without assuming that there is a God.

You will also kindly note that I have repeatedly underscored — thread after thread, month after month, actually for years at UD — that we ALL struggle with the challenge that we are finite, fallible, morally fallen/struggling, and too often ill-willed.

Sure. I'm not arguing with that.

As a Christian, it is a foundational teaching of my faith [Try Rom 2 for size] that all of us have an implanted candle of the Lord, the conscience, that when properly maintained, guides us towards the duty of care we all have tot he truth and to the right, whatever our worldview. That too, I have repeatedly said, but it has been repeatedly ignored or at least overlooked by those who imagine that I am singling out atheists as particularly wicked. Atheists can be wicked and nihilistic [the amorality I have highlighted is a property of the evolutionary materialist view, not even all forms of atheism, e.g. there are some highly moral and impressive forms of Buddhism that are formally atheistical], but so can just about any adherent of just about any faith, that is not the hard thing to explain.

Well, please provide a definition of the thing you are calling "evolutionary materialism". If you mean a scientific theory, then obviously it's amoral, but people don't base their morality on scientific theories. If you don't, then what on earth do you mean? Your entire argument seems to rest on an idiosyncratic concept you call "evolutionary materialism". What is it?Elizabeth Liddle

January 28, 2012

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F/N: What I actually intended to try to address by citing from the page here on, on what I have actually endorsed as a problem that faces our civilisation, including in the era in which it was generally known as Christendom. But then I saw Dr Liddle's remarks. Okay, back on the clip: ______________ >> The historic and current strengths and sins of Christendom As a first step to taking a more balanced view, we could listen to the great Jewish Historian of the Middle East, Bernard Lewis, in his pivotal September 1990 Atlantic Monthly essay, The Roots of Muslim Rage:

. . . The accusations are familiar. We of the West are accused of sexism, racism, and imperialism, institutionalized in patriarchy and slavery, tyranny and exploitation. To these charges, and to others as heinous, we have no option but to plead guilty -- not as Americans, nor yet as Westerners, but simply as human beings, as members of the human race. In none of these sins are we the only sinners, and in some of them we are very far from being the worst. The treatment of women in the Western world, and more generally in Christendom, has always been unequal and often oppressive, but even at its worst it was rather better than the rule of polygamy and concubinage that has otherwise been the almost universal lot of womankind on this planet . . . . In having practiced sexism, racism, and imperialism, the West was merely following the common practice of mankind through the millennia of recorded history. Where it is distinct from all other civilizations is in having recognized, named, and tried, not entirely without success, to remedy these historic diseases. And that is surely a matter for congratulation, not condemnation. We do not hold Western medical science in general, or Dr. Parkinson and Dr. Alzheimer in particular, responsible for the diseases they diagnosed and to which they gave their names.

In short, a more balanced view of the sins of Christendom would have to recognise that hegemony is an occupational disease of wealthy and powerful classes, and has been for millennia, in all major powers. So, the peculiarity of Christendom is not that across time all too many of its leaders -- including, sometimes, princes of the churches -- were infected with the corrupting and destructive sins of power; naturally staining the whole fabric of society. That is a sad and drearily often repeated lesson of history. All over the world. And, down the long reaches of time. What is positively peculiar with the history of Christendom over the past five hundred years, is in the door opened to penitence, reformation and liberation, once the Bible was put in the hands of the ordinary man,through the Protestant Reformation (for all its sins!) and once people were called to true penitence under the Gospel afresh. Soon after this, liberation struggles ensued, and have continued for centuries . . . . The specific, vexing case of slavery also needs some balance. For instance, we may read in The Oxford History of the Roman World, [a work that is in other contexts not particularly sympathetic to the Christian view or claims; even by contrast with, say, sympathy to the rampant homosexuality in the ancient pagan Mediterranean world], under the sub-heading "The Church and the End of the Ancient World," on p. 471, that:

. . . there were questions about [Christian] compromise with the political and social system. Gregory of Nyssa boldly attacked the institution of slavery. Augustine thought the domination of man over his neighbour an inherent wrong, but saw no way of ending it and concluded that, since the ordering of society prevented the misery of anarchic disintegration, slavery was both a consequence of the fall of man and at the same time a wrong that providence prevented from being wholly harmful. Slaves were not a very large proportion of the ancient labour force, since the cost of a slave to his owner exceeded that of employing free wage-labourers. Slaves in a good household with a reasonable master enjoyed a security and standard of living that seldom came the way of free wage labourers. But not all slaves had good masters, and in special cases the bishops used the church chest to pay the cost of emancipation. Refusal on moral grounds to own slaves became a rule for monasteries. [Henry Chadwick, "Envoi: On taking Leave of Antiquity," in The Oxford History of the Roman World, Eds. Boardman, Griffin & Murray, (Oxford, England: Oxford University Press paperback, 1991), p. 471. Links added. NB: In the very next paragraph, the contributor goes on to discuss how the church also deeply disapproved of capital punishment [which in many cases of course would be by the utterly degrading death on the cross, and which would thus sharply contrast with Paul's remarks on the magistrates' power of the sword in Rom 13:1 - 7] and judicial torture. Indeed, he notes that "[a] Roman church-order of about 200 forbids a Christian magistrate to order an execution on pain of excommunication. No Christian layman could tolerably bring a charge against anyone if the penalty might be execution or a beating with lead-weighted leather thongs . . . Torture forced so many innocent people to confess to crimes they had not committed that the Christian hatred of it commanded wide assent . . ." In short, the picture is far more complex than we might have thought.]

So, through the impact of the moral-ethical teachings of the Bible and the courageous voices of our civilisation's prophets who demanded justice in Government -- too often, at the cost of their lives -- it has had its heart gradually softened, and has "tried, not entirely without success, to remedy these historic diseases." Then over the past five hundred years, especially since the scientific revolution of 1543 - 1700 and the industrial one(s) from about 1750 - 1870, and now the information revolution, the power of the West was greatly multiplied; with a sustained improvement in the lot of the common man occurring for the first time in recorded history. Through the impacts of these revolutions, Christendom has also been increasingly secularised (especially since the rise of Darwinian Evolutionary theory in 1858-9), and today a militant anti-Christian new atheist movement is in the forefront of a trend to break the credibility of the Judaeo-Christian worldview in the culture at large, especially its public square. As a result of this radical secularisation, radical relativism concerning knowledge and morality have for the first time become mass phenomena. So, at this time, Western Civilisation -- the change in terminology is revealing -- is economically powerful, militarily dominant, and morally-culturally deeply divided, with Bible-believing Christians becoming an increasingly isolated, controversial and despised minority in many quarters . . . >> ______________ I ask my critics to kindly note that I have ENDORSED Lewis' critique of our civilisation, and have specifically pointed to the sins of the era in which it was known as Christendom. I ask them to at the very least simply watch Weikart's survey of the impacts of social darwinism in Germany, and to respond point by point if they find that this tracing is in error. Also, to go through the excerpt from Mein Kampf [the very title echoes the then darwinist view: survival of the fittest5 in the struggle for existence] and show us how it is not a fair conclusion that Hitler was deeply influenced by Darwinist thought as applied to human society in that era, and that he felt that he could appeal effectively as a politician on those terms. Now, I know that in the aftermath of that horror, there has been a repudiation of social darwinism and of eugenics etc [thought his part took decades]. My point is not that Darwinists are nazis, and no fair minded reader can say that. What I am pointing out is that there is a longstandsing moral hazard, one that was foreseen by Heine in his astonishing prophecy, one that was identified and addressed by the likes of H G Wells, in preaching parts of very popular novels, and so forth. Look, the very reason that Bryan became a leading anti-darwinist was because of his concerns about social darwinism, and even the Hinter's Civic Biology that was in the Scopes trial, was influenced by eugenics. All of that is well substantiated history and fact. What I am calling for is to mange the moral hazard, and I have specifically called for serious and honest examination of cases like these in science, worldviews, ethics and society courses that should be compulsory parts of undergraduate and graduate education in science. (Just last weekend I was chatting with a recent grad in physics, who did do such a course, Guess what, Hitler's case was conspicuously absent, and the links between US Eugenics and what happened in Germany were just glided over in an all too convenient silence.) It is high time we got serious and sober about this matter. G'day again GEM of TKIkairosfocus

January 28, 2012

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