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Bill Tracer

Deist Clockwork Evolution vs Creationism vs Atheistic Evolution - 1 views

www.socyberty.com/...m-vs-Atheistic-Evolution.49636

atheistic charles clockwork cosmos creationism darwin deism deist evolution

shared by Bill Tracer on 14 Dec 07 - Cached
  • Bill Tracer on 14 Dec 07
     
    When it come to a bebate between Deist Clockwork Evolution vs Creationism vs Atheistic Evolution, all too often, those who take up this topic for debate neglect to acknowledge the Deist option.
rapp0026

The Second Oldest Question: Jeff: Yes, to Common Ground - 0 views

apologia.typepad.com/...jeff-yes-to-com.html

shared by rapp0026 on 03 Sep 07 - Cached
    • rapp0026
      rapp0026 on 03 Sep 07
       
      Should Muslium students be allowed to leave class so that they can pray or have a special area so that they can face Mecca?
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 04 Sep 07
       
      Good question. Personally, I think not. Allowing that would allow any religion to claim a "special area" or some other related exemption. By saying that prayer should be allowed in school, what I mean is that one shouldn't try to police their minds. I suppose I was referring to silent prayer. But you bring up a much better point. The real issue is around how they may desire to behave outloud and in public view... interesting. What do you think?
Jeffery Reid

The Dawkins Confusion - Books & Culture - 1 views

www.christianitytoday.com/...1.21.html

shared by Jeffery Reid on 13 Sep 07 - Cached
  • religion-bashing in the current Western academy is about as dangerous as endorsing the party's candidate at a Republican rally
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 13 Sep 07
       
      Tell that to Salman Rushdi!
  • First, is God complex? According to much classical theology (Thomas Aquinas, for example) God is simple, and simple in a very strong sense, so that in him there is no distinction of thing and property, actuality and potentiality, essence and existence, and the like. Some of the discussions of divine simplicity get pretty complicated, not to say arcane.3 (It isn't only Catholic theology that declares God simple; according to the Belgic Confession, a splendid expression of Reformed Christianity, God is "a single and simple spiritual being.") So first, according to classical theology, God is simple, not complex.
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 13 Sep 07
       
      So, because a couple of early thinkers concluded that God is simple, therefore God is simple? So this is Christianity's foremost apologist in action, huh? Wow... Does he consider, I wonder, that other things these same thinkers considered simple then are now generally regarded as complex? What did they think of DNA, of the human circulatory system, of how plants grow, on the effect of sunlight on chlorophyll?
  • More remarkable, perhaps, is that according to Dawkins' own definition of complexity, God is not complex. According to his definition (set out in The Blind Watchmaker), something is complex if it has parts that are "arranged in a way that is unlikely to have arisen by chance alone." But of course God is a spirit, not a material object at all, and hence has no parts.5 A fortiori (as philosophers like to say) God doesn't have parts arranged in ways unlikely to have arisen by chance. Therefore, given the definition of complexity Dawkins himself proposes, God is not complex.
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 13 Sep 07
       
      Wow.... I'm just astonished that this kind of muddle-headed playing of logic games passes as philosophy. I always had a rather good view of philosophers. I guess I need to read more. "but of course, God is a spirit"? What? Huh? What about Jesus being the embodiment of God? What about the Holy trinity? Why would god be separated into God, The Holy Spirit and Jesus if God were ONLY a spirit? What about Man being cast in God's image? Is Alvin a spirit? He may believe he HAS a spirit... Utter nonsense
  • ...2 more annotations...
  • So why think God must be improbable? According to classical theism, God is a necessary being; it is not so much as possible that there should be no such person as God; he exists in all possible worlds. But if God is a necessary being, if he exists in all possible worlds, then the probability that he exists, of course, is 1, and the probability that he does not exist is 0. Far from its being improbable that he exists, his existence is maximally probable. So if Dawkins proposes that God's existence is improbable, he owes us an argument for the conclusion that there is no necessary being with the attributes of God—an argument that doesn't just start from the premise that materialism is true. Neither he nor anyone else has provided even a decent argument along these lines; Dawkins doesn't even seem to be aware that he needs an argument of that sort.
    • Jeffery Reid
      Jeffery Reid on 13 Sep 07
       
      OMFG! So again... Sure, IF you START with the assumption that "God is necessary" Dawkins owes you an explanation for why God is not necessary. Hell, if you start with the assumption that God is a potato bug, then Dawkins owes you that as well... IF HE IS ONLY TRYING TO DISPROVE GOD. However, if he is looking at observable data and formulating a theory that BEST explains what he is able to observe, then he owes you no such thing.
  • If this is so, the naturalist has a defeater for the natural assumption that his cognitive faculties are reliable—a reason for rejecting that belief, for no longer holding it. (Example of a defeater: suppose someone once told me that you were born in Michigan and I believed her; but now I ask you, and you tell me you were born in Brazil. That gives me a defeater for my belief that you were born in Michigan.) And if he has a defeater for that belief, he also has a defeater for any belief that is a product of his cognitive faculties. But of course that would be all of his beliefs—including naturalism itself. So the naturalist has a defeater for naturalism; natural- ism, therefore, is self-defeating and cannot be rationally believed.
Jack Frost

Atheism and politics: Count the fallacies with Christopher Hitchens! - 0 views

atheismandpolitics.blogspot.com/...allacies-with-christopher.html

atheism Religion Christian Christian Nation Christopher Hitchens National Day of Prayer Non-sequitur Bad reasoning

shared by Jack Frost on 19 Apr 10 - Cached
  • Jack Frost on 19 Apr 10
     
    Try to keep track of the looping reason shown by a Christian as he meets Christopher Hitchens in a quick exchange about the National Day of Prayer.
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