Uncommon Descent Serving The Intelligent Design Community

What Gives?

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In my essay here, paragwinn asks, “You’ve been quite prolific lately with these testimonials. What gives?”

Note the 136 comments at this writing, which eclipses most all recent posts by an order of magnitude. This is not an atypical consequence of my posts at UD.

So, what gives? What gives is a sea change in the history of science. For centuries it was thought by the “scientific” elite that materialism (i.e., chance and necessity) would eventually explain everything, and there was (what turned out to be ephemeral) evidence that this might be the case, as a result of the advancements of science and technology in the 19th and 20th centuries.

But something happened in the latter half of the 20th century. Suddenly, the science upon which a materialistic worldview depended was turned on its head. The fine-tuning of the laws of physics for the eventual production of living systems was elucidated, and the information-based nature of living systems was discovered.

Another commenter on the thread referenced above thought that I was somehow proud of my militant-atheistic past. Nothing could be further from the truth. I am hideously ashamed of it.

The reason for my passion is that reason and science liberated me from the nihilism of materialism. The irony is that a materialistic worldview is not only destructive of the human soul, it is destructive of legitimate scientific investigation.

Comments
Well, I guess you answered my question from above! Nice polemic though, quite colorful. Obviously many people here think this whole topic has more to do with spiritual warfare than science.woodford
September 29, 2011
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Not only do Atheists have deeply held beliefs (instead of just lack of belief as they like to claim), but their beliefs are exactly opposite of the truth!
From Atheism to Theism In Reverse http://www.godtube.com/watch/?v=9C2E1MNU
bornagain77
September 29, 2011
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To celebrate one's liberation from the slavery of Darwinist materialism is to offend those who choose to remain enslaved. That would explain why Gil's enemies continually try to discourage him from sharing his story. Fortunately, he is not buying into their strategy. He understands that new readers are finding this site every day and will likely not know about his life-changing experience unless he shares it from time to time. It is a simple truth about the art of persuasion: facts tell, but stories sell. Darwinists, of course, cannot sell anything. If they couldn't resort to tyrannical intimidation, intellectual dishonesty, and systematic brainwashing, they would be out of business. Typically, they think with their glands, which is another way of saying that the cravings of their appetites shape the content of their minds. If a man does not conform his behavior to a philosophy of life, he will find a philosophy of life that justifies his behavior. Darwinism is nothing more than a rebellious act of the will; hit has no intellectual substance.StephenB
September 29, 2011
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I honestly don't really care all that much what Gil talks about really. But I guess the question is, is this a site about the science of UD, or a testimonial site about people's spiritual journeys and a rallying center against the evils of atheism and materialism? Certainly it seems the later theme here appears more than evidence for ID (e.g., when was the last time there was a post about published results from an ID experiment?) I'm more interested in the former, and want to hear more about the evidence for ID (and not just arguments from incredulity either). And while we're on the topic, I wouldn't mind a bit less of some of the sneers that seem to appear here on a daily basis from "News". They diminish and detract and do not reflect well on UD or ID.woodford
September 29, 2011
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Gil, I wish you had not promised to never again reference your abandonment of militant atheism. I love to hear it, every time you bring it up. It gives me much hope, and encouragement is one thing that none of us ID types can do without. And as for repetition, who cares? Who knows how many people out there visit this blog only once or twice, and it will be their only chance to hear about your militant atheism gone kaput. I say mention your ex-militant atheism as much as you want, detractors be damned (pardon the pun).M. Holcumbrink
September 29, 2011
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Kind of interesting to me. Human stories are the most meaningful kind, imo.Collin
September 28, 2011
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Gil, I definitely do NOT mean to criticize. I do not have a problem with your posts, so I'm sorry if I gave that impression. I don't agree with the detractors here. I was just curious about some of the details and I appreciate the references to your other posts that have some of those details.Collin
September 28, 2011
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My purpose is to provide encouragement to fellow victims of materialistic philosophy -- which is ubiquitous and pervasive in public education and all the popular media -- and to demonstrate that legitimate science points in the direction of design and therefore purpose and meaning in life. I promise to never again reference my abandonment of militant atheism, since that seems to be out of bounds. I'll just address the science. In pursuit of that goal I'd like to refer UD readers to two of my previous UD posts: Writing Computer Programs by Random Mutation and Natural Selection The Miracle of Co-option The bottom line, as far as I'm concerned, is that the Darwinian thesis of random errors producing biological technology is transparently illogical, mathematically absurd, and clearly ideologically motivated. In my opinion, the claims of Darwinists for the creative power of Darwinian mechanisms have been empirically falsified by people like Michael Behe and Doug Axe.GilDodgen
September 28, 2011
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Yes, you might note that most of your posts are about your atheist father who was a great scientist, your prior empty atheist life, and your conversion due to your determination to follow a life of rationality. Yet you might note that none of those topics get picked up in the threads. Aside from being repetitive, those subjects just don't really offer anything interesting to talk about.Timbo
September 28, 2011
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Note the 136 comments at this writing, which eclipses most all recent posts by an order of magnitude.
Did you count the comments generated over at AtBC as well? They are also not an atypical consequence.paragwinn
September 28, 2011
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Collin, I don't think the video was so much a bait and switch tactic that Comfort used, such as what neo-Darwinists do with the word 'evolution', to try to trick people into believing that large scale 'evolution' is true from small scale 'evolution' events. (Small scale events that are shown to degrade preexisting molecular functions for the vast majority of times (Behe)). No I think Ray Comfort was very wise in showing people the logically inconsistency of their worldview for different situations. Since people intuitively know that the logic of their worldview must hold true for their worldview to actually be true for all situations (unless qualified by a sufficient 'logical' warrant of exception), then 'the tactic' was not malicious or misleading in the least!bornagain77
September 28, 2011
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I would like GilDodgen to go into more detail about what facts lead him to change his mind. I do suspect that he has done so before though.Collin
September 28, 2011
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Thanks for sharing this. Very powerful. I do kind of think its a bait and switch though. But I'd hope everyone would watch it.Collin
September 28, 2011
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JDH as to, 'I hope they will goad people like you into some self-examination.',,, JDH, Funny you should say precisely that statement because, serendipitously, this award winning mini-documentary, which I JUST WATCHED moments before I read your statement, is precisely about 'goading' people into self-examination!!! Cool huh?!?
"180" Movie - Award winning documentary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7y2KsU_dhwI
bornagain77
September 28, 2011
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markf - I am in somewhat agreement that Gil's posts have a repetitive nature to them. Yet I still find them entertaining because I hope they will goad people like you into some self-examination. It's not as though compatibilism is this clear explanation that takes away all the inherent contradictions of the materialistic perspective giving Gil a lot of intellectually stimulating areas to attack. IMHO compatibilism is merely cloud of obfuscation and vagueness that somehow allows a pseudo-intellectual enough clever words to hide behind. It clarifies nothing, makes no convincing arguments, and only tries to bury the problems of self-consciousness behind a mask of impressive sounding philosophical terms. I can understand you may think his posts a bit irritating. But I think its mostly because you have no clean rebuttal available.JDH
September 28, 2011
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I'm afraid I find happiness and unhappiness to be inborn traits unrelated to ideology, theology or politics. I have known chronically unhappy people with all variations of the above. Same with happy people. As with most traits, it's a spectrum rather than all or nothing.Petrushka
September 28, 2011
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I have to concur that I find Gil's posts mostly very repetitive. I wish he would talk more in-depth about the evidence that has persuaded him of his position (and not just that he thinks it "obvious" - obviously many of us don't). And just for the record, not all atheists are wretched creatures living a miserable life. I'm sorry if that was Gil's experience, but there are a vast number of happy, well-adjusted atheists who live very fulfilled lives.woodford
September 28, 2011
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What interest me at the moment is that long threads no longer load to completion. I am not the only one having this problem. There is no link for reporting things like this, so I'll do it here on thread likely to be noticed. I, and others, have experienced this on IE, FireFox and Chrome.Petrushka
September 28, 2011
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Gildodgen The fact remains that your posts are very similar to each other and mostly about Gildodgen . I suspect the reason they often lead to a lot of comments is that they effectively become open threads for anyone to discuss whatever interests them.markf
September 27, 2011
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The reason for my passion is that reason and science liberated me from the nihilism of materialism. The irony is that a materialistic worldview is not only destructive of the human soul, it is destructive of legitimate scientific investigation. THAT says it all!!! :-)Blue_Savannah
September 27, 2011
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