Heresy Against the Church of Darwin Must be Stamped Out!

_{Barry Arrington

March 12, 2013

Intelligent Design}

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Tomás de Torquemada (1420 – 1498) was the first Grand Inquisitor of the Spanish Inquisition. Steven Pinker has appointed himself as the Grand Inquisitor of the Church of Saint Charles the Bearded.

As reported in these pages (see here and here), atheist philosopher Thomas Nagel’s book Mind and Cosmos: Why the Materialist Neo-Darwinian Conception of Nature is Almost Certainly False has caused quite a stir. The New Republic reports that Pinker has taken to cyberspace to stir up the Darwinist mob against Nagel. Every whiff of heresy against the true faith must be ruthlessly stamped out. Torquemada had his Auto-da-fé. Pinker has his Twitter account.

Irony alert. We can be certain that Pinker is horrified by and wholly condemns Torquemada’s efforts to persecute and silence perceived heretics from the Christian faith. Yet he does not hesitate to strike at the slightest whiff of heresy against his secular faith.

Comments

In my opinion, knower and known cannot be made of the same substance because one is unchanging and the other one is not.
You are free to hold any opinion you want, but an opinion does not a necessary and exclusive logical conclusion make.
Also, there can only be two opposite and complementary realms, the spiritual and the physical. Why? Because otherwise we run into an infinite regress. Why? Because, in one realm there are the creator spirits and in the other, the created particles.
Your conclusions do not follow from your premise. There could be one creator god that created several realms of varying degrees of physicality. Thus there would be a limited structure (non-infinite regress), one creator, and the capacity for human consciousness to survive death.William J Murray_{March 16, 2013
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I think it is disgusting that Pinker has been torturing people. I thank your cool headed and rational article for pointing out this injustice against humanity.Driver_{March 16, 2013
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In re: Mung @ 86
My knowledge of Kant is very limited. But would it be wrong to say that he rejected the method and the philosophy of the pre-moderns? Did he think of them as uncritical? Now I think there’s no doubt that Kant was influenced by Hume and sought an answer to Hume’s skepticism. But why did Kant not find an answer to Hume in those who had preceded Hume? Did he not look?
Well, yes -- that's right -- Kant did think of the pre-moderns as "uncritical". All I meant above is that Kant was thoroughly knowledgeable about ancient, medieval, and early modern philosophy -- not that he endorsed any particular positions or methods. I think it's fair to say that Kant thought that Hume's challenge to traditional metaphysics was substantial enough that there was no response to it that could be found in previous philosophers. Kant regarded Hume as a genuine revolutionary -- he thought that Hume had posed an entirely new problem that hadn't been asked before, by anyone. Here, in a nutshell, is the problem: is there a priori knowledge of causation? Hume contends that (i) all a priori knowledge only tells us about "relations of ideas" (what we today call "analytic statements"), and (ii) all causal knowledge is grounded in experience. Here's why. Hume proposes a conceptual test for the a priori: if the negation of an assertion is a contradiction, then the assertion is necessarily true (and hence a priori); if the negation of an assertion is not a contradiction, then the assertion is not necessarily true (and hence not a priori). But, he then reasons, the negation of any particular causal claim is just false, not contradictory -- hence all particular causal claims are a posteriori, hence there is no a priori knowledge of cause and effect. Kant's "critical philosophy" is intended to do several different things, more or less all at once: it's intended to rescue metaphysics from "skepticism", but also to resolve all the disputes among metaphysicians. He takes aim at both skeptics and dogmatists alike, and is no more sympathetic to materialism (e.g. La Mettrie, d'Holbach) than to spiritualism (e.g. Sweedenborg). And Kant ends the Critique with a very short gloss on the history of philosophy, in which he suggests how his system can resolve the various debates inherited from antiquity, e.g. between Platonism and Epicureanism. In particular, I have a suspicion that Kant was particularly concerned with refuting Spinoza. Spinoza is rarely mentioned in Kant's work, but I have a particular interpretation of Kant -- and of the history of modern philosophy -- according to which Spinoza, along with Hume, is the real target of the Critique.Kantian Naturalist_{March 14, 2013
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Me:
If the knower is spiritual, then the known is necessarily physical and vice versa.
Murray @101:
(1) Unless the knower and the known are both spiritual, but just two distinct, different spiritual things; (2) Unless knower and known are two different physical things; (3) Unless there are more states of existence than just “physical” and “spiritual”.
In my opinion, knower and known cannot be made of the same substance because one is unchanging and the other one is not. Also, there can only be two opposite and complementary realms, the spiritual and the physical. Why? Because otherwise we run into an infinite regress. Why? Because, in one realm there are the creator spirits and in the other, the created particles. If the creators of the physical universe (PU) are not changeless and not separate from the PU, the PU can never come into existence. If the PU exists without a spiritual realm (the materialist hypothesis), then it must not have a beginning, hence the infinite regress. Of course, we can dismiss the materialist nonsense about the universe creating itself out of nothing. That's not even wrong.Mapou_{March 13, 2013
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Box @96:
Mapou, you have constructed a very original and novel concept of consciousness. However your connection between spirit and matter is far from obvious and it runs into insurmountable trouble when ‘knower’ and ‘known’ are the one and the same: during self-reflection – the essence of consciousness.
One of the problems in this discussion has to do with the shifting definitions that we use. I don't ever see knower and known being the same. They are opposites by definition. And I don't see the self as being the knower within the context of self-reflection. One can only reflect on the knowledge that happens to exist in the brain's memory and is accessible to the spirit. One key is to remember that our memories reside in the brain.Mapou_{March 13, 2013
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Mung @102: "God is omnipresent . . ." In what sense?Eric Anderson_{March 13, 2013
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Mung @78: P.S. "God is love."Eric Anderson_{March 13, 2013
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BA77, God is omnipresent and thus all of us, even non-Christians, even those not experiencing a NDE, are in his presence. Right? So what does an NDE have to tell us, if anything, about what it means to be in God's presence? Did Jesus need to be near death to experience God?Mung_{March 13, 2013
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If the knower is spiritual, then the known is necessarily physical and vice versa.
(1) Unless the knower and the known are both spiritual, but just two distinct, different spiritual things; (2) Unless knower and known are two different physical things; (3) Unless there are more states of existence than just "physical" and "spiritual".William J Murray_{March 13, 2013
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Mung, do you disagree that there are different degrees of 'being in God's presence' as are noted in spiritual experiences and NDEs? Exactly what are trying to get at? Of course I hold God to be Omnipresent and thus we are each always 'in His presence' wherever we are at, but why would you question that premise since you know I'm a theist? Its pretty doggone clear what I'm talking about! 139:8-10 If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in hell, behold, thou art there. If I take the wings of the morning, and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; Even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. Well I'm off to bed, night.bornagain77_{March 13, 2013
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If it is any help, I ran across someone who had a problem with God' omniscience because of free will. It was pointed out to him that knowing beforehand what someone will freely choose in no way compromises either omniscience or free will. If you disagree please tell me exactly how foreknowledge of a freely chosen action compromises that action.bornagain77_{March 13, 2013
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BA77, Can you please explain why you are not in God’s presence right now? Do you have to be at some physical place and time to be in God’s presence?Mung_{March 13, 2013
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BA77:
Well Mung, I’ve heard of people having deep ‘spiritual experience’ where they have felt God’s love very intensely while here on this earth, but I have never heard of anyone having anything close to what Near Death Experiencers typically describe for being in the presence of God? ,,, Perhaps you know differently?
Maybe I've had a near death experience and maybe I haven't. How would I know? How would YOU know? You seem to be entirely focused on the death of the body. But what did Paul preach? There is no "Gospel of NDE." Are you seriously proclaiming that we, as Christians, cannot have a more intense experience of God than a non-Christian? And yes, I know differently.Mung_{March 13, 2013
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Mapou: Sensations, thoughts, etc. are conscious phenomena. So, they require both a knower and a known. They cannot exist separately. There is something physical and there is something spiritual and the two together give rise to the sensation.
Mapou, you have constructed a very original and novel concept of consciousness. However your connection between spirit and matter is far from obvious and it runs into insurmountable trouble when ‘knower’ and ‘known’ are the one and the same: during self-reflection – the essence of consciousness.Box_{March 13, 2013
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Well Mapou, much like your reasoning for not believing in NDE's, I find your reasoning faulty here as well. Psalm 139:16 Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.bornagain77_{March 13, 2013
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BA77: Mapou “There are things that even God cannot know.” I’m pretty sure God and you will have a nice laugh about that particular comment when you are in His presence: Can a God that knows everything have regrets? The book of Genesis teaches us that God regretted creating man. In my opinion, the doctrine of the omnipotent/omniscient God is an evil one. But you know me. I always tell it like I see it.Mapou_{March 13, 2013
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Well Mung, I've heard of people having deep 'spiritual experience' where they have felt God's love very intensely while here on this earth, but I have never heard of anyone having anything close to what Near Death Experiencers typically describe for being in the presence of God? ,,, Perhaps you know differently?bornagain77_{March 13, 2013
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Mung: So it’s possible that God’s “physical body” is composed of “spiritual matter”? It depends on what your definition of "is" is. LOL.Mapou_{March 13, 2013
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Box @76: Me: All I know is that both knower and the known must exist and the two are opposites by definition. If the knower is spiritual, then the known is necessarily physical and vice versa. Box: I’m not sure I follow. Let’s assume the knower is spiritual. We can know our sensations, thoughts, math, believes, desires etc. So those are part of the ‘known’, right? Are you saying that sensations, thoughts etc. are necessarily physical in order for a spiritual knower to consciously know them? Not really. Sensations, thoughts, etc. are conscious phenomena. So, they require both a knower and a known. They cannot exist separately. There is something physical and there is something spiritual and the two together give rise to the sensation. This is why our robots cannot be conscious unless we figure out the exact nature of the brain states that spirits interact with. Then we must somehow coerce a spirit to inhabit the robot's brain. That's not going to happen. So, in a sense, we do feel a little bit of our spirits via our sensations. But it is an indirect knowledge.Mapou_{March 13, 2013
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BA77, Can you please explain why you are not in God's presence right now? Do you have to be at some physical place and time to be in God's presence?Mung_{March 13, 2013
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As an aside, I often see atheists getting mad at God (go figure) and accuse him of creating evil when he made Lucifer.
Atheists are not mad at God. They are mad at their mommy or their daddy, or at themselves.Mung_{March 13, 2013
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Mapou "There are things that even God cannot know." I'm pretty sure God and you will have a nice laugh about that particular comment when you are in His presence: In The Presence Of Almighty God - The NDE of Mickey Robinson - video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4045544bornagain77_{March 13, 2013
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Mapou, So it's possible that God's "physical body" is composed of "spiritual matter"?Mung_{March 13, 2013
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Hi KN! My knowledge of Kant is very limited. But would it be wrong to say that he rejected the method and the philosophy of the pre-moderns? Did he think of them as uncritical? Now I think there's no doubt that Kant was influenced by Hume and sought an answer to Hume's skepticism. But why did Kant not find an answer to Hume in those who had preceded Hume? Did he not look?Mung_{March 13, 2013
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Box @80: Mapou, your reasoning precludes self reflection. That is, if the knower can only know its opposite – spirit can only know matter and vice versa – it can never know itself. That's right and that is a Christian doctrine, by the way. The spirit can only be known indirectly, that is, by its fruits. This is why God cannot know if we are faithful unless we are tested. Yep. There are things that even God cannot know. Know thyself does not mean knowing your spirit directly. It just means knowing your own capabilities. Each spirit has its own talent which is manifested in the person's behavior. As an aside, I often see atheists getting mad at God (go figure) and accuse him of creating evil when he made Lucifer. In my opinion, spirits can be neither created nor destroyed. God can only create physical stuff. Our spirits, including Lucifer's, are our own. So yes, even Lucifer has a physical body. Sure, his body consists of a different type of matter than normal matter but, whatever it is, it is physical. I see no way around it.Mapou_{March 13, 2013
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In re: 74 -- what vile slander! :) (I'm assuming you're aware that Kant was deeply knowledgeable about the history of philosophy.)Kantian Naturalist_{March 13, 2013
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A new verb- "Pinkered"- to be the subject of a verbal or written lashing full of virotrol, ad hominems and intolerance: "Thomas Nagel wrote against materialism and was Pinkered for his efforts."Joe_{March 13, 2013
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Box @80, that was a very astute insight!bornagain77_{March 13, 2013
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"Know Thyself" - SocratesMung_{March 13, 2013
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Mapou, your reasoning precludes self reflection. That is, if the knower can only know its opposite - spirit can only know matter and vice versa - it can never know itself.Box_{March 13, 2013
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