Barry Arrington

Materialists have a lot of stock responses they use to distract themselves from the explanatory poverty of the “answers” their faith commitments require them to spew out in response to obvious objections.  Consider the materialist responses to my last post, Quashing Materialist Appeals to Magic (Again). Briefly, I argued that unless materialists can provide some sort of an explanation of the process by which the physical electro-chemical properties of the brain result in the mental properties of the mind, then merely invoking “emergence” has exactly the same explanatory power as invoking “magic.”  I quoted atheists Thomas Nagel and Elizabeth Liddle, who concur. Now to the materialist’s stock answer (courtesy of Popperian):  Barry, you have committed the Fallacy of Composition.  The Read More ›

Everyone who believes the barbarians among us have declared total war on Western Civilization raise your hand. The differences between this and Auschwitz: 1.  The victims are more defenseless. 2.  The victims are more innocent. 3.  The victims are smaller. 4.  The execution chambers are more sanitary. Ideas have consequences.

Ironically enough, materialists are a mystical lot. They say they reject irrational and superstitious beliefs, but when one pushes them past their ability to explain life, the universe and everything in materialist terms, they are very quick to resort to obscurantist pseudo-explanations. And “it emerged” is their favorite dodge. As we have explained many times before, “it emerged” is the explanatory equivalent of “it’s magic.” But like bugs scattering when the lights are turned on, we have to stomp on this one again and again. Like today for instance. In my Why there is no Meaning if Materialism is True post I argued that on materialist premises – that nothing exists but space, time, particles and energy – there can Read More ›

Posted without further comment: Barry  eigenstate @ 45 keeps going on about how morality is like value. What we value is good simply because we value it. And what we don’t value is evil simply because we don’t value it. eigenstate  And even more fundamentally, “good” and “meaningful” and “valuable” are products of our mental processes, inherently subjective. If the referent you are thinking about is objective, it can’t be a “good” or a “value” these are intrinsically subjective concepts. Barry  A Zimbabwean dollar once had value; now it has no value. eigenstate  Right. Value, like meaning is a subjective function of the mind.  There’s nothing inherently valuable as currency about the piece of paper we may call a “Zimbabwean Read More ›

The word “ethics” implies an ethical standard.  Under materialism there can be no standard that is objectively binding as between two people who disagree, because under materialism the only thing “good” can mean is “that which is subjectively preferred.” I will explore this concept in response to some objections raised by commenter Pro Hac Vice.  In a comment to my prior post I wrote: The first question that must be answered is whether the concept of “good” means anything other than “what I [or some group of people] happen to prefer at this particular time.” If it does not, then Hitler actually was doing good if he was doing what he preferred. Post Hac Vice tried to summarize my argument Read More ›

In my last post I linked to an article in which several atheists discuss how they deal with the lack of meaning in the universe.  In response Seversky asks: What is meant by “meaning” in this context? To me, it sounds like a purpose conceived in the mind of an intelligent being, in this case God. So what you are saying is that unless another intelligent being has a purpose in mind for you, your existence is worthless and meaningless? So, a question, why should you only have value or worth or meaning if it exists in the mind of another intelligence. What is wrong with finding a meaning or purpose for yourself? After all, if God has a purpose, Read More ›

Next in my “things that make you stupid” series (see here, here and here), is the gobsmacking stupidity of the atheists quoted in this article.  The lack of intellectual honesty on display is astounding.  Atheists of the world accept where the logic of your premises takes you.  Stop spouting self-contradicting pseudo-profundities.  It’s embarrassing.   HT:  Heartlander

Kirk Durston writes: [S]cience reveals that nature, composed of space, time, matter, and energy, had a beginning. Scientism requires a natural explanation for the origin of nature, a logical impossibility. One cannot provide a natural explanation for the origin of nature without assuming the existence of nature in that “natural” explanation — a circular fallacy. Yet another way materialism makes people stupid.  It requires them to say there is a natural explanation for nature itself.

Commenter psypaul writes regarding those (such as Sam Harris) who say consciousness is an illusion. Consciousness is an illusion….to whom? Who is being deceived? Isn’t ‘self’ an illusion as well? Doesn’t the concept of ‘illusion’ require a perceiver (person)? Absurdity. Indeed, psypaul.  As with much of the drivel that comes pouring out of the materialists, this is a statement of purported universal truth that requires an implicit exception for the speaker, thus rendering absurd its claim to being universal. “Consciousness is an illusion – except for me right now; I’m aware of (that is to say, “conscious of”) the illusion.” “There is no meaning.  Except what I just said.  That has meaning.” “We deconstructionists assert absolutely that all texts have Read More ›

I noticed an article on MSN entitled “15 Ways You’re Secretly Ruining Your Marriage.”  Curious, I clicked on it, and the author was trotting out pop Darwinism by Way #2: YOU TAKE HIS PORN HABIT PERSONALLY Sure, it doesn’t feel great to think about your guy fantasizing about other women. But it’s totally normal. Research shows that 64 percent of U.S. men look at porn at least once a month, and 55 percent of ’em are married. And it really has nothing to do with how he feels about you or your relationship—most men just need to blow off steam by themselves, the way you zone out to How I Met Your Mother reruns after a long day. The fact Read More ›

This time it is the “97% of scientists agree” lie.  See here. Which, once again, leads to the question:  If the science is so solid, why do they constantly lie?

So-called progressives are feeling pretty cocky nowadays, which is not surprising after they achieved a decisive victory on one of their key policy goals when the United States Supreme Court mandated that every state must adjust its laws to pretend that people of the same sex can marry one another.  Of course, it is the case and will always be the case that a man cannot marry another man any more than he can marry his left shoe.  Marriage is not an infinitely malleable concept; it has an irreducible essence, and that essence is defined by the mutually complementary design of male and female bodies.  Now the Supreme Court tells us we must, insofar as our civil laws are concerned, Read More ›

Further to the more serious critiques of Pope Francis’ recent encyclical, is a more tongue-in-cheek critique of some of his sillier prior pronouncements: HT: Lutheran Satire  

In a comment to a prior post daveS writes: It’s not that string theory and the multiverse are known to be false yet persist because they conform to favored narratives. The existence of the multiverse is not known to be false.  Nor is it known to be true.  It is literally unknowable by scientific means, because, by definition, the only universe we can test empirically (i.e., by the methods employed by scientists when they are doing science) is the one we are in. Yet, it is undeniable that the non-scientific idea of the multiverse persists among many scientists, some of whom go so far as to push ( or at least imply) the clearly false idea that the existence of Read More ›

What inclines me now to think that you may be right in regarding it as the central and radical lie in the whole web of falsehood that now governs our lives, is not so much your arguments against it as the fanatical and twisted attitudes of its defenders. C.S. Lewis The “it” to which Lewis was referring was evolution. Today, “it” could well be climate alarmists. According to this paper the climate alarmists are undermining science itself: Scientists don’t like this lèse majesté, of course. But it’s the citizen science that the internet has long promised. This is what eavesdropping on science should be like—following the twists and turns of each story, the ripostes and counter-ripostes, making up your own mind Read More ›