It seems, this issue is on the table here at UD again, and it needs to be publicly corrected for record. As a first step, I link a discussion in response to the oppression thesis used to try to discredit and marginalise the historical contribution of the Christian faith (and to create the false impression […]
Darwinist rhetorical tactics
“If it fits into a nutshell . . .”: on, the error of demanding arbitrary, rhetorically loaded brevity
I noticed that the objection of dismissal on length (without substantial consideration) has come up here at UD yet again. I think it appropriate to note its fallacious character where considerable reflection is required. (And BTW, a quote from a serious source is a legitimate approach as I will shortly exemplify.) Accordingly, let me headline […]
FYI-FTR: The answer given to attempts to undermine moral government (and to those that — even worse — suggest that Christians must become/are vigilantes)
A new accusatory talking point being used by one particular frequent objector, is that I am ducking answering what he imagines I cannot answer. This arose in connexion with his drearily raising yet again an obsessive theme that would drag threads into the sewer. Having taken time to deal with such in one thread, I […]
FYI-FTR: Burning the fixity of species strawman
One of the lingering talking points used by darwinists in debates is fixity of species, which as usual is used in a way that is rhetorically resistant to correction. It just popped up here at UD, and so, by way of DDG search, let’s lay it to rest, starting with the much despised YEC’s. The […]
What is the warrant for the core gospel and linked ethics? (Does this matter?)
The gospel-based Christian synthesis of the heritage of Jerusalem, Athens and Rome — led by the Apostle Paul (Cf. Ac 17, Rom 1, Ac 27) — is a core but often unacknowledged or even resented part of the historical foundation of our civilisation. A civilisation which within living memory was described by Churchill as Christian […]
BBC on the “evolution” of robots (missing the “by design” part)
BBC has done a mini-series on the “evolution” of robots, even speaking of invasive species. The silence on the “by design” part is conspicuous, especially as they use a biologist (male) and an engineer (female) as their key personalities: The blindness to the obvious is glaring, inadvertently showing the blinding power of a dominant, flawed […]
Logic and First Principles, 12: The crooked yardstick vs plumb-line self-evident truths
Let’s propose a silly example, that a certain Emperor (maybe, just before he went out in his new invisible clothes) decides that a certain crooked stick is now the standard of length, straightness, uprightness and accuracy, a crooked yardstick. Suddenly, what is genuinely such things will be deemed the opposite. And then, suppose that somehow […]
Logic and First Principles, 11: The logic of Ultimate Mind as Source of Reality
After we headlined and began discussing PS on hearing and consciousness yesterday, H raised a significant issue: H, 15: >> . . . the invocation of a Creator who “beautifully designed what each sound should sound like” and “put the special program that can interpret each frequency pattern of air vibration into each sound, thus […]
SM on Gerrymandering of definitions and the breakdown of responsible discussion
Sometimes a gem of a comment gets overlooked, but is well worth promotion to headlined status. Here, let us belatedly highlight SM on gerrymandering definitions in the slippery slope thread: SM, 13: >>If three successfully interbreeding populations of finches on a single island are separate species then whenever a Japanese person marries a Sicilian we […]
The problem of anti-conscience, anti-theistic prejudice driving opinion, views and policy
In a current thread on the morality or otherwise on the Pagan practice of infanticide, frequent, objecting commenter BB gives us a summary of a common prejudice of our time: BB, 69: ” The fact that we no longer blindly accept discrimination based on the justification of freedom of conscience or freedom of religion is […]
Reference: pregnancy, week by week:
Video: Cf, here for pictures and descriptions. END
SM: Is the slippery slope argument ALWAYS fallacious?
In the fallacy thread, Scuzzaman has raised the issue of the slippery slope argument, which he argues is not necessarily fallacious. Let’s pause for a vid (without necessarily endorsing all that is said, this is food for thought): Benjamin McLean here connects the issue to the principle of induction and so also to the post-Hume […]
Logic and First Principles, 7: The problem of fallacies vs credible warrant
When we deal with deeply polarised topics such as ID, we face the problem of well-grounded reasoning vs fallacies. A fallacy being a significantly persuasive but fundamentally misleading argument, often as an error of reasoning. (Cf. a classic collection here.) However, too often, fallacies are deliberately used by clever rhetors to mislead the unwary. Likewise […]
Logic & First Principles, 4: The logic of being, causality and science
We live as beings in a world full of other concrete entities, and to do science we must routinely rely on mathematics and so on numbers and other abstract objects. We observe how — as just one example — a fire demonstrates causality (and see that across time causality has been the subject of hot […]
Logic & First Principles, 3: The roots of right reason and the power/limits of entailment
Why is this topic important? (Why a series, now on no 3 (see 1 and 2)?) Here at UD, the phrase “first principles of right reason” and similar ones (e.g. “reason’s rules”) have often come up. Others talk about “the laws of thought,” which in a post-Kant world hints of “the ugly gulch” between the […]