William Lane Craig calls Michael Behe a theistic evolutionist

_{Denyse O'Leary

July 31, 2013

Christian Darwinism, News}

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Here, in a discussion, saying he is better known for theistic evolution than Francis Collins.

Let us hope so. Francis Collins has accommodated Darwinism to the point of founding BioLogos to proclaim to the world that “Darwinism is a correct science.” Despite everything we have heard and read even in the last few months.

Behe, author of Edge of Evolution (the book you should get and read), is a biochemist who first drew attention to the fatuous claims of tenured profs battening on unexamined Darwinism. The latter are often supported by “Christians for Darwin” groups, who don’t get the problem either: Natural selection — a method for killing things—does not result in complex, interlocking, interrelated innovations.

Behe has focused on the issues. He thinks common descent is a reasonable idea. It might not be true, and the giant viruses are making people wonder. But it is a reasonable idea. We are not going to find out what is until we finally get loose from the phantasms of what isn’t, and blow clear of a religiously motivated need to defend them.

Comments

T:
What you perhaps meant to say is: “If I still believed in God and was still a Christian, I would hold to something close to the Dominican theology of McCabe, but as this is not the case, I unfortunately have to say that I think that just about everything the man believed and taught about God and Christ was false.”
touche However, I prefer to think that EL writes what she means to write.Mung_{August 4, 2013
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Axel: Prob is, revolutions are made by disaffected MIDDLE classes ["leadership"], often in alliance with some mass group [cannon fodder] and at least some local or foreign power elite [money, guns etc]. That has been so since Moshe led the most spectacularly successful slave uprising in history, and since David fled to the bush and became the prototype, force in being guerrilla campaigner. [And remember, he had to trick the temple into giving him Goliath's sword, Israel then having no iron sword making capability, something he would later do a thing or two about.] The issue further is, that when there is a rebellion against the compellingly evident root of being and root of morality, thence the implication of duty in community, we have every man increasingly demanding to do what is right in his own eyes. It is most blatant with the rich, but pervades down to the farthest margins. Multiply by the perpetual threat of upcoming boys without guidance, and anarchy, brigandage, rapine, criminality and rebellion are at the door. Genuine anarchy is unstable, and a rescuer will be sought to restore order. If that rescuer is a political messiah -- properly, an anti- [=counterfeit] Christ -- riding troubles to power, God help us. KFkairosfocus_{August 4, 2013
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Jerry: Pardon me, I am processing a developing med situation with son, and am fighting a migraine attack. It affects. I agree with your overall point. However, I think it is important to have fought out the first principles of right reason issue, showing willful denial and evasion. Just as, some months back, it was important to have stood gound on hosting slander. For record, we see the evident unreasonableness of too many objectors. If there was such a dust up over admitting to what a red ball on a table reveals, and to the undeniable fact that rocks cannot be deceived to be self aware so when we are self aware that is certain truth, whatever errors we may be making otherwise, then we have no reason to expect willingness to accept things which are more inferential. Much less an explicit inference to best explanation argument in light of empirical testing and induction. It is now plain record that we are dealing with unreasonable objections, willfully sustained in the teeth of all correction. BTW, just now I see the attempt to substitute obvious to me, for self evident. There we go again. Let's put it this way: The caravan approaches, the dogs bark and growl, the caravan simply moves on. It is time for the caravan to move on to its destination, duly noting the unreasonableness we have been dealing with for what it is. And where any barking dogs try to jump up and outright bite, we need to deal with that for what it is, too. That is why caravans need things to fend off biters not just to pass by the barkers. KFkairosfocus_{August 4, 2013
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Mark and Kairos, a police state cannot be avoided, once even the rich and powerful cease to promote the Christian by-product of personal responsibility, which had been, at least in some measure, a feature of our Western culture, because government becomes increasingly expensive as the anomie and anarchy (which starts at the top!) becomes increasingly generalized, under the aegis of moral relativism. The economic elite simultaneously are able to follow their dream and cut back on funding the policing of the country (preferring a cheaper but more targeted personal-security service, within their moated estates). Until the SHTF, that is, and then they need to crack down on the enraged populace brandishing torches and pitch-forks, via the ever more comprehensive and potentially vicious panoply of a police state. Anarchy is a luxury for the few, but even for them becomes self-defeating, when the attraction of licence trumps the tempered freedom of Christian common sense. Even if it was only ever in externals. How prescient G K Chesterton was, and perhaps never more so than in his remark: 'When a Man stops believing in God he doesn't then believe in nothing, he believes anything.' The multiverse is the poster brainchild for that wee dictum, and no mistake.Axel_{August 4, 2013
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EL: Can you operationally ground the requirement you would impose that all definitions be operational? Then, operationally ground that, and so forth? (In short you seem to be walking in the well worn rut of the self refuting verification principle that cannot meet its own criterion of meaningfulness. But also, there is a very simple test that we can reasonably carry out: attempted denials of genuinely self evident truth end in patent absurdities . . . and it seems you just gave an example. [Now, suppose I were to point out to you that to harbour slander is in effect the same as to be a slanderer so that there are limits to freedom of expression tied to the distinction between liberty and licence; and yes I am reminding of a case that I know you wish to forget but it aptly illustrates the same basic problem of willful denial and evasion.]) KFkairosfocus_{August 4, 2013
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William:
Try looking it up in a dictionary, Dr. Liddle.
Try operationalising the dictionary definition, Mr Murray.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 4, 2013
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'Enlightenment', not 'betterment'.Axel_{August 4, 2013
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I get the feeling the day will soon come when objectors to such educational 'initiatives' for the betterment of young children, will be forced to wear blue triangles on their apparel.Axel_{August 4, 2013
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#98, Mark: The link below will take you to a news site which will reveal to you what our 'infotainment' news channels are not interested in disseminating. Or rather, what the people who own the media do not wish to be disseminated. Even the right wing, whose supporters have always had an idolatrous hang-up about money, but had nevertheless remained one of the last bastions of Christianity in the UK, notably with their private schools (UK 'public schools') have jumped ship in large numbers, and the remainder are now powerless to stand in the way of the billionaire oligarch bankers, oil men, etc. The word 'freedom' had a common-sense meaning in the past, including within it a certain level of responsibility (nothing to do with the criminally idiotic defamation of the poor for being poor.) Today, it simply signifies licence, promiscuity, 'anything goes'. Whether it's sexual or economic predation, or both (pornography being a multi-billion pound industry), it's rampant and ubiquitous. Even coming on here, I get that girl's charlies pushed in my face. But on the Christian Forums, an otherwise useful blog, it's worse!! Now, here is the site I was talking about, which shows in multiple ways the wages of jettisoning what used to be common-sense, Christian values, in favour of fathomless greed, insatiable lust for power. http://theinternetpost.net/ The daily newspapers will give you all the latest on record levels of schoolgirl pregnancies, sexually-transmitted diseases, etc., while sex education for infants, teaching homosexual acts as well, is being forced upon the UK population, bypassing the democratic process. Strange how mankind - not to speak of the animal kingdom - has managed to flourish up to now.Axel_{August 4, 2013
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KN: I think you are wrong on your history. The Nazis had the radicalised nihilists in a framework of might makes 'right' and had to use power to hide what they were doing. IIRC, they took measures to put the statistically correct proportion of children on death trains, etc. We had nihilists in charge, totalitarian intimidation -- as in, literally, off with their heads and worse [cf. White Rose movement] -- and passive enabling by many. Recall, there was an in denial state about what was going on, right up to when the forced tours of death camps were made. IIRC, one mayor, having been made to do such a tour, committed suicide. Which is EXACTLY the concern many of us have as we see some very dangerous trends in our own day. Finally, the post WWI state was anything but stable and normal. Armed gangs fighting on the streets, treason being treated as patriotism [suicidal], a male population traumatised by 4 years of war and defeat, being the most seasoned killers to that time, etc. Don't forget, the rape of Belgium and the lack of accountability for it. Then, there was the Eugenics, euthanasia, Haeckel+ driven Social Darwinism, etc etc. (Note: Darwin was himself a social darwinist, thought it a consequence4 of his scientific views, and his remarks in chs 5 - 7 of Descent of Man are utterly chilling in retrospect.) And more. Let's just say that Hitler spent 4 years soldiering in the exact region where that foreshadowing of what would happen in the 1940's was happening. KFkairosfocus_{August 4, 2013
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F/N, $0.02: No-one has denied that one can refuse to accept a self evident truth, just that to do so comes at a stiff price indeed, patent -- not subtle -- absurdity. A self-evident truth will have properties, in a context where we are going concern, language/symbol using thinkers with experience of the world as backdrop and whose assertions in many relevant cases accurately describe reality:
1: On understanding the claim in light of that going concern status, we see it is true (and yes, without need of elaborate onward justification), e.g.:
2 + 3 = 5, seen as so once we see: || + ||| --> ||||| (this is also a trivial existence- by- demonstration "proof")
2: that it MUST be true, on pain of patent absurdity. That is, the error resulting from denial is obvious save to the willfully blind. E.g.:
a: Error exists is undeniably true, and the attempt to deny such directly instantiates an example of error. b: Attempts to undermine or dismiss the MORALLY self evident truth that to kidnap, torture, rape, mutilate and murder a little girl is wrong, simply show that the would be denier is morally gravely deficient.

Going back to first principles of right reason, as going concerns conscious of being aware, we recognise that there is such a thing as a red ball on a table; which of course is the context in which we are prone to perceive and report such on observing it. The attempt to suggest an utterly impassable gulch between the inner world of appearances and that of things as they are, is another little error in the beginning that ends in utter absurdities. (And I refer to F H Bradley for those who want a rabbit-trail discussion.) What is of real importance is that the ball, A, effects a world partition, on which LOI, LNC and LEM are immediately, necessarily and inescapably present (never mind issues of potential fuzzy borders, which can be resolved as they have been for millennia. Let me just say, Zadehan logic). Here we are: W = { A | NOT-A} Deal with it, starting with how to use distinct symbols to post objections, the objector is relying on that which he would deny. As in patent absurdity, again. Similarly, If A is, we may freely ask and seek answers as to why A. Thence contingent/Necessary being, on/off enabling causal factors for the former, and Causality. And so forth. KFkairosfocus_{August 4, 2013
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By my lights, a conceptual framework according to which it is not wrong to torture people would be a framework that we cannot understand as being about morality. Similarly, a conceptual framework in which 3+8=35 would be a framework that we could not understand as being about arithmetic. We could not make sense of it; it would be too alien for us. I think that this is what is so fascinating and horrifying about the Nazis: on the one hand, Weimar-era Germany wasn't so radically different from other industrialized Western societies at the time, including 1930s America -- and yet on the other hand, within a very short period of time, they managed to create a whole set of institutions in which it was taken for granted that there was a moral obligation to eliminate entire groups of human beings. So here we have a conundrum -- a society that is astonishingly similar to ours rapidly invents a 'moral' code that we today are unable to comprehend as being about morality at all.Kantian Naturalist_{August 4, 2013
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I would say that under pragmatism, there are self-evidently true statements, but that their sense depends on the conceptual frameworks in which they are embedded, and that all conceptual frameworks are (in principle) revisable.
So, under pragmatism, there could be conceptual framework where it is self-evidently moral to torture children for personal pleasure? Meaning, it's relative according to conceptual frameworks?William J Murray_{August 4, 2013
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As a working philosopher, I don't use Wikipedia as a substitute for doing philosophy -- though it's quite reliable for general background knowledge. I'll admit that in the first case, "the ball is red," I treated it as a case of someone seeing the red ball and remarking on it -- and the analysis I suggested works much better for "I am seeing a red ball" rather than for "the ball is red". I would say, however, that "the ball is red" would be construed as "if someone were present, he or she would be disposed to say, 'I see a red ball'." However, that's not to say that the objective property of the ball -- its existence, roundness, and redness -- depends on how it is apprehended by someone with the appropriate perceptual and conceptual abilities. The point goes in the other direction, too. It is the case both that
If the ball is red, then if someone were present, he or she would be disposed to say, 'I see a red ball'.
and that
If it were the case that if someone were present, he or she would be disposed to say, 'I see a red ball', then the ball is red.
To be technical, we are dealing here with biconditionals, not with conditionals. The same point holds for the judgment that the torture is wrong. In any event, I never asserted or implied that one would have to observe the torture in order to apprehend its wrongness -- the biconditionals depend upon the subjunctive mood, what would be the case if someone were present. And that can be counterfactual -- the redness of balls and the wrongness of torture doesn't depend on the presence or absence of observers. As for the more general point:
Why not just admit that under physicalism/materialism, there are no self-evidently true statements, that all statements are essentially subjective, open to debate, and prone to error?
I'm defending pragmatism, not physicalism/materialism, and I would say that under pragmatism, there are self-evidently true statements, but that their sense depends on the conceptual frameworks in which they are embedded, and that all conceptual frameworks are (in principle) revisable. For the heart of pragmatism is that all statements, both 'subjective' and 'objective' statements -- indeed, both a posteriori and a priori statements! -- are fallible, revisable, and corrigible. Of course, as is perfectly clear to all by now, pragmatism is non-absolutist and non-foundationalistic. (Interestingly, pragmatism in epistemology is perfectly compatible with religious metaphysics. So although I'm both a pragmatist and a naturalist, those are separable commitments. For me personally, the pragmatism is more important than the naturalism.) But it avoids the slippery slope to postmodern anti-rational nihilism precisely by distinguishing between objectivity and absolutism (I've given that argument here many times), just as Kant, Dewey, and Sellars all indicated. And that is, at least, clarity about the relevant issue: pragmatism is a via media between absolutism and nihilism if there is a viable distinction between objectivity and absolutism, such that the former does not depend upon the latter.Kantian Naturalist_{August 4, 2013
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From Wiki:
In epistemology (theory of knowledge), a self-evident proposition is one that is known to be true by understanding its meaning without proof.
Your proof of the truth of the statement "the ball is red" is the red ball in front of you. If you cannot see a ball, and someone says, "the ball is red", is it a self-evidently true proposition, not dependent upon seeing a red ball? Of course not. If someone says,"torturing children for personal pleasure is wrong", do you need to see any children, or see the torture, to know that the statement is true? Of course not. But, we can always count on you and Dr.Liddle for coming up with compatibalist redefinitions. Why are materialists/physicalists interested in being able to say that something is "self-evidently" wrong or true in the first place? Why reach into a deep bag of redefinition and sophistry to try and wrangle a definition or concept out of that phrase they feel comfortable using, just so they can use terms they don't even need in the first place? Why not just admit that under physicalism/materialism, there are no self-evidently true statements, that all statements are essentially subjective, open to debate, and prone to error? Because they just don't want to live with those consequences, so they play word games to fool themselves into thinking their worldview doesn't really mean what it really means.William J Murray_{August 4, 2013
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Try looking it up in a dictionary, Dr. Liddle.William J Murray_{August 4, 2013
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Honestly, William, if "self-evident" means something other than "evident to any sane person considering the matter", I have no idea what it does mean.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 4, 2013
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I see the concept of “self-evidently true” escapes you. If it is not self-evident to a person, it cannot be made so by any others, any argument or any evidence. The presence or absence of “consensus” is entirely irrelevant. All I can do is point to a self-evidently true statement, such as “it is wrong to torture children for personal pleasure, regardless of culture, authority, consensus or personal proclivity or beliefs otherwise”; if someone else cannot recognize it as true once it is pointed out for them, nothing else can be done.
There is a curious and deep ambiguity to the notion of "self-evident," first explored in systematic detail (so far as I know) by Sellars, though of course inspired by Hegel and Peirce. The ambiguity is this: "self-evident" is usually taken to mean "presuppositionless" -- it is self-evidently true that-X if and only if one could know that-X even if one knew nothing else. (Think of Descartes' cogito argument.) But as "self-evident" is typically used, it admits of a quite different interpretation: that of non-inferential knowledge. So, in the trivial case, when I see that a ball is red, I'm not first presented with some sensory stimuli ("sense-data") and then conduct an inference to the redness of the physical object, the ball -- I just see that the ball is red. It is self-evident that what I am visually presented with is a round, physical object that is red in color. Likewise, when I consider the case of torturing a child for anyone (or, I would say, the case of torturing anyone for any reason or motive), I immediately apprehend the moral wrongness of the act. I don't need to go through an elaborate cost-benefit analysis or hedonic calculus. It's just the phenomenology of morality that the act is wrong. However -- Sellars points out -- that when I immediately apprehend the red ball, it is because I have acquired the appropriate concepts: of "red", "ball," "physical object," "color," and many others besides -- I have learned how to apply these concepts non-inferentially in my sensory experience, because I am a competent user of the conceptual framework pertaining to physical objects that are described by the proper and common sensibles, and I have become a competent user of that framework by virtue of having acquired a language. Analogously, when I immediately apprehend the wrongness of torture, it is because I am a competent user of the conceptual framework of moral perception, judgment, and action, and I have become a competent user of that framework by virtue of having been raised in a decent, caring family and community. But the particular judgments we're considering here -- the redness of the ball, the wrongness of torture -- are, though "self-evident" in the sense of immediately available to anyone who has acquired the relevant framework, are not "self-evident" in the sense of free of all presuppositions -- for the judgments are bound up with the entire conceptual framework in terms of which they have the meaning that they do. And neither conceptual framework -- neither that of sensible physical objects nor that of moral evaluation -- is "presuppositionless", in the strong, Cartesian sense -- because both conceptual frameworks involve a great of "knowing-how" -- knowing how to navigate the world by means of that framework. So: there is an ambiguity in the very notion of "self-evident truths" between "noninferential knowledge" and "presuppositionless knowledge," and just because a judgment is self-evident in the former sense, it doesn't follow that it is self-evident in the latter sense. Once that distinction is made, the way is clear for someone to affirm that there are self-evident truths in the former sense (the redness of balls, the wrongness of torture) while denying self-evident truths in the latter sense (what one can know even if one knows nothing else, an absolute foundation to knowledge, etc.).Kantian Naturalist_{August 4, 2013
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This then presents a problem. In the absence of a consensus how do we know if it self-evidently true or just appears to be that way to those people who believe it is true?
I see the concept of "self-evidently true" escapes you. If it is not self-evident to a person, it cannot be made so by any others, any argument or any evidence. The presence or absence of "consensus" is entirely irrelevant. All I can do is point to a self-evidently true statement, such as "it is wrong to torture children for personal pleasure, regardless of culture, authority, consensus or personal proclivity or beliefs otherwise"; if someone else cannot recognize it as true once it is pointed out for them, nothing else can be done.William J Murray_{August 4, 2013
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William #100
There are things that are self-evidently true. What “self-evidently true” means, despite Dr. Liddle’s attempts to redefine it, means that it is true without evidence or argument, and without any necessary “consensus”.
I accept the definition of self-evidently true as true “without evidence or argument”. Of course if it is self-evidently true and there is no consensus then there must be a group of people for whom it is not evident that it is true. This then presents a problem. In the absence of a consensus how do we know if it self-evidently true or just appears to be that way to those people who believe it is true? We can’t present evidence or arguments for or against it as you have just defined it as not subject to evidence or arguments.
What shuts down rational inquiry and meaningful debate is the denial of what is self-evidently true. ALL arguments begin, in some way, with a spoken or unspoken statement of faith and an agreement that such faith is necesarily warranted.
I would not call it faith but I agree that it is not possible to argue unless all participants explicitly or tacitly find some common ground which is mutually accepted. But it has to be accepted by all parties. Otherwise it is nothing but a shouting match.Mark Frank_{August 4, 2013
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You seem to be saying that it’s all together better for ID to be a matter of opinion than that the truth should actually be ascertained, one way or another!
I never said anything like this nor thought it. I am probably one of the more factually based persons ever to comment here. There are others but I have never seen anyone on this site that follows the evidence better than myself. Others also have followed the evidence too so I am not the only one. Also there have been few who have defended ID more than I have. Let's look at some of my quotes just on this thread:
I believe at one point that Behe said the mechanism for the creation of new forms was a mystery. That is what I personally believe. In the Edge of Evolution Behe refutes that Darwinian processes could be the mechanism.

I just don’t think it signifies intentional design
The absence of an answer to the origin of complexities is what gives the ID argument, plausibility. This is the theme of Meyer’s two books. Extreme complexity and preciseness in inter acting systems is the finding. The conclusion is leading more and more to design by default. No naturalistic approach can explain the basic issue. Nothing on the horizon that comes close to an explanation except design.

Science marches on. In this case the smartness may be the complete undermining of the various modern versions of the Darwinian theory. It may be that some of what Darwin saw as natural selection might have been epigenetic factors designed to allow organisms to adapt to new environments. See Pigliucci who says that there is no known mechanism for macro-evolution

Because this use of term, macro evolution, in this example trivializes the term to the point it is meaningless. Maybe we need to agree on another term to describe the phenomena that everybody cares about. Second, is it a shift in the frequency of the gene pool? Or is it something else? The appearance and disappearance of the different beak sizes may have nothing to do with the frequency of genes in the gene pool. It may be eipigenetic changes caused by different environments which causes different genes to be expressed. Which case is it evolution at all let alone macro evolution? Also the most knowledgeable people on the finches, Rosemary and Peter Grant said it takes 20-30 million years to get to a population that does not inner breed. And then they will not look that much different. So is this macro evolution? No body cares a rat’s rear end about this process or should I say a finches’ front end.

I have little time for those here who try to play the mind games that you referred to. They have been here for years denying everything like information, intelligence, life, species etc, redefining anything they like when the normal definition is not to their liking. Never defending what they believe except in generalities.

The anti-ID people here are not representative of the real divide. The fact that they deny the obvious immediately disqualifies themselves as serious. The ID position if it was available to all pre-Darwin would have won the day easily and Darwin would have never published.
Does this sound like someone who is questioning the objective basis of ID? I have been pushing for a discussion of Meyer's book (which I strongly defend) since it came out more than a month ago. I even said it will change the entire debate away from the genome to other areas that will make it even more difficult to accept the Darwinian position as having any credibility. I can provide some very long comments from years past that indicate just what I think and believe. I started commenting here in 2006. None of it questions ID as a legitimate process or as science. Now given that, I believe the following is an interesting and very useful exercise to help understand the dynamics of the behavior of what is going on.
My point was that if it was assumed obvious to either sides position we would have a world that is very different, and one that is very undesirable.
I always maintained that what is puzzling is the behavior given the obviousness of certain points. It comes from examination of the theodicy issue which was before I even knew there was a controversy with evolution. However, it is even more evident with evolution because evolution is much more fact based than the theodicy issue. However, I consider the theodicy issue a much more important area.
Because we have free will. Those that wish to doubt, disbelieve or outright deny the obvious can do so, even though it causes them to say mad and absurd things.
And yes, free will is key. We must have free will to deny/accept. If something is so obvious that it cannot be refuted then when we accept it, are we acting with a free will. There must be doubt for free will to be a factor. But free will is not the only thing.jerry_{August 4, 2013
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To just keep on asserting “it is obvious” and “anyone who denies it is just playing mind games” is not an argument nor is it evidence. It just a statement of faith and a way of closing down enquiry. That is what WJM is doing.
There are things that are self-evidently true. What "self-evidently true" means, despite Dr. Liddle's attempts to redefine it, means that it is true without evidence or argument, and without any necessary "consensus". One cannot provide evidence for, or argue towards that which is self-evidently true; it is self-evident truths that are used to argue from, and as evidence for other conclusions. What shuts down rational inquiry and meaningful debate is the denial of what is self-evidently true. ALL arguments begin, in some way, with a spoken or unspoken statement of faith and an agreement that such faith is necesarily warranted. Intelligent/intentional design exists. To look at a post that is necessarily designed by intentional intelligence, and to respond in a way that expects intentional intelligence on the other side, while denying that intelligent/intentionality exists and is discernible as such is a blatant, self-refuting denial of the obvious. Intentional/intelligent design is a self-evident fact of existence. From the atheo-materialist perspective, this means it should be amenable to scientific study, theory, and modeling. It would be a causal commodity like any other that factually exists, and there would be ways of determining, within a good likelihood, if an phenomena was likely the product of intelligence/intentionality. To argue otherwise is painfully, obviously absurd. To call a factual, obvious causal commodity, and a theory about how to detect its work "non-scientific" is ideological insanity.William J Murray_{August 4, 2013
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#97 William
Says the person that claims that one cannot be certain of anything, having his cake and eating it, too.
I think you are confusing me with someone else. I think there are quite a lot of things you can be certain of.Mark Frank_{August 4, 2013
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Axel #96
Common sense is one of the first and most seminal casualties of apostasy in favour of atheism.
Can you give an example? I don't understand.
But what WJM wrote in #83: ‘Of course there is a smoking gun. The smoking gun is blatantly obvious. It’s all around us and within, everywhere we look and in what and how we think and feel.’ .. could hardly be more comprehensive and emphatic. The folly of denying it is real and permanent. It is not a matter of the zeitgeist or a promissory note.
To just keep on asserting "it is obvious" and "anyone who denies it is just playing mind games" is not an argument nor is it evidence. It just a statement of faith and a way of closing down enquiry. That is what WJM is doing.Mark Frank_{August 4, 2013
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I assure you I am not playing mind games.
Says the person that claims that one cannot be certain of anything, having his cake and eating it, too.William J Murray_{August 4, 2013
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'Obvious of what? You will get a different response from a large section of the world, especially those who have been educated. Go outside of these friendly compounds and you will encounter large numbers who will disagree with you.' Jerry, that's what a post-Christian civilisation incurs, a far worse folly than it displayed prior to its Christian conversion. Common sense is one of the first and most seminal casualties of apostasy in favour of atheism. 'History is full of beliefs that appeared to be obvious and later turned out to be false or misleading. Some of my current beliefs I thought obviously wrong at one stage.' But what WJM wrote in #83: 'Of course there is a smoking gun. The smoking gun is blatantly obvious. It’s all around us and within, everywhere we look and in what and how we think and feel.' .. could hardly be more comprehensive and emphatic. The folly of denying it is real and permanent. It is not a matter of the zeitgeist or a promissory note. Your point in #84, 'that if it was assumed obvious to either sides position we would have a world that is very different, and one that is very undesirable, is puzzling beyond belief.' You are playing mind games with yourself. You seem to be saying that it's all together better for ID to be a matter of opinion than that the truth should actually be ascertained, one way or another! As long as you think in such terms instead of the simple truth or falsehood of a proposition, you will be arguing in circles. And what's more, enjoying the puzzle. Not sensible at all, imo.Axel_{August 4, 2013
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Jerry #91
I have little time for those here who try to play the mind games that you referred to. They have been here for years denying everything like information, intelligence, life, species etc, redefining anything they like when the normal definition is not to their liking. Never defending what they believe except in generalities. Some are still the same people. It seems like every anti-ID person here engages more or less in these posts which seem mainly to have the goal of frustrating a lot of the pro ID people with tactics and arguments that would get them excluded from any knowledgeable society. They admit by their tactics that their position is baseless or else they would inundate us with science and logic. But on that they are radio silent. And the pro ID people fall for it and take the exchanges seriously.
Jerry I am sorry you feel this way and I expect I am one of those you accuse. I want to defend myself and thus possibly defend others in the same category. I assure you I am not playing mind games. I have beliefs such as the nature of information, free will and morality which opponents find obviously wrong but I genuinely believe to be true. I have tried to argue the case with science, logic and examples not just abstractions. Often the response is just “You are obviously wrong” (sometimes linked with a bit of personal abuse on the lines of “all atheists are stupid”). Furthermore these are arguments that arose in knowledgeable society and I continue to use them in knowledgeable society. History is full of beliefs that appeared to be obvious and later turned out to be false or misleading. Some of my current beliefs I thought obviously wrong at one stage. So please don’t dismiss an opinion as mind games because it appears obviously wrong to you. You may decide that it is not worth following their argument. That is fair enough. But do not assume their motives are just to play mind games.Mark Frank_{August 3, 2013
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Whether or not you are “godless” of course depends entirely on what you mean by the word. By the most common definitions, in use in everyday speech, you would indeed appear to be “godless,” but you may have in mind some different notion of “god.”
Obviously, she's a compatibalist theist, a form of theism compatible with atheism. It's really not so difficult once you've dispensed with the Law of Non-Contradiction as necessarily binding.William J Murray_{August 3, 2013
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Why if the evidence is so obvious, is there so much doubt/disbelief?
Because we have free will. Those that wish to doubt, disbelieve or outright deny the obvious can do so, even though it causes them to say mad and absurd things.William J Murray_{August 3, 2013
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Timaeus
If the only problem were that you couldn’t say the Creed anymore, you could still become a Jew, a Muslim, a Deist, etc. There are lots of Gods who don’t impose the Creed on you. So it’s not simply the Creed that you no longer believe in.
Buddhism might fit the bill. And I could go back to Quakers - they don't have creeds. I actually know a couple of Buddhist Quakers.Elizabeth B Liddle_{August 3, 2013
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