Comments by epeeist

2801. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #82387 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 8:10 am

Comment #82368 by Dianelos Georgoudis

You mean your question in post 461 (#81776) above? I thought that post were meant as humor, and found it quite good too;

No, it wasn't meant as humour. I really want to know how you can dismiss the gods of one bronze age people for that of another bronze age people. I want to know how you can dismiss a triune goddess that is much older than your triune god. I really want to know why the myths of a middle eastern people should override that of those of Northern Europe (or the Aztecs, or anywhere else come to that).

By the way, given your Greek background I am amazed that you are not aware of the matriarchal society and its mythos that preceded Zeus and his pantheon.

2802. A new website addition: Debate Points

Comment #82348 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 5:55 am

Comment #81738 by USA_Limey

I am not a fan of this approach as it always seems to put us on the defensive. Answering their questions. Letting them on our turf.

I have to say I agree with this. Essentially it puts us on the back foot (hope you remember your cricket USA_Limey).

Rather than simply responding to attacks on the atheist position (whatever that is) we ought to be extolling the benefits.

I would also say that a frontal approach is probably doomed to fail, we need to be subtle about it. In fencing terms, making a second intention attack.

2803. Most religious people are moderate, and don't hurt anybody

Comment #82311 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 3:18 am

Comment #82306 by Bonzai

I have never heard any religious moderate saying point blank that all faiths have to be respected. I challenge you to show me any Christian who is not a member of the Westeboro Baptist Church who insists that we should respect Phelps because of his faith.

Agree to a certain extent. But I don't think this is the problem.

Moderates are obviously going to defend their faith against atheists, and I don't have a problem with this. However, how do they do this and at the same time denounce the likes of the Phelps?

2804. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #82295 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 2:40 am

Comment #82293 by Philip1978

Besides, we all know it was Quetz who did it anyway! :)

You realise he is going to call that one a straw man don't you.

You should point out that you are referring to the Aztec god, not a poster to this website. He hasn't given me any reason for dismissing Zeus or the triple goddess as yet.

2805. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #82277 by epeeist on October 26, 2007 at 1:39 am

Comment #82270 by Diacanu

Ah, a god-of-the-gaps worshipper.

The thing that gets me about many theists is their inability to count to more than the number 2.

Their arguments seem to follow the pattern that there only two alternatives to a question

Some single (tortured) naturalistic answer

Godddit

Since the first never quite answers the question to their satisfaction they then proclaim that the second must be true.

This is of course the fallacy of bifurcation, which then allows them to attempt to shift the burden of proof back on to the scientist/atheist/naturalist. It also allows them to use argumentum ad ignorantiam on the assumption that their conclusion was triumphantly validated.

I think the short form of what I am saying is "lying for Jesus".

2806. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #81999 by epeeist on October 25, 2007 at 2:11 pm

Comment #81991 by Goldy

So, what am I to think. He lies, discards data and evidence that refute his theory, ignores questioners that probably get too close to the truth and waffles. What am I to think?So, what am I to think. He lies, discards data and evidence that refute his theory, ignores questioners that probably get too close to the truth and waffles. What am I to think?

You might want to look at the third definition for "epiphany" on Ask Oxford - http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/epiphany?view=uk

I wonder whether commiserating with Sinbad gains us any points in DG's ethical worldview? Would it gain us more points if we were theists?

2807. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #81796 by epeeist on October 25, 2007 at 7:41 am

Comment #81786 by Sinbad

My apologies to all for seeming to have abandoned this thread dozens of posts ago. I live in the Rancho Bernardo secion of San Diego and have been evacuated and off-line for several days due to the terrible fires here.

I am sure that everyone here wishes you well and hopes you find everything okay once you can move back in again.

2808. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #81776 by epeeist on October 25, 2007 at 6:58 am

Comment #81733 by Dianelos Georgoudis

Incidentally, to compare belief in God with belief in Santa Claus, or in fairies, or in orbiting teapots at best evidences cluelessness about theism and at worst the intent to use a strawman.

I would probably go along with Santa Claus and Russell's teapot, but fairies or faery has a distinguished aetiology in Europe.

However I won't insist on it, instead let us replace them with Zeus, the Emperor of Japan, the triple goddess or (from my own neck of the woods) the Green man. Would you claim that belief in these evidences cluelessness?

2809. Atheism is a religion and you're as bad as the fundamentalists

Comment #81706 by epeeist on October 25, 2007 at 4:14 am

I have posted this before, but I think it bears reiteration.

Atheism is a scientific hypothesis, testable and falsifiable.

The basic proposition is

~(Exists g) G(g)

in other words the class of all gods is empty, call this t. Now find a prediction from this (e.g. there was no biblical flood) and call this p, i.e.

t => p

If ever we produce a prediction from t that is falsified then we have

t => p
~p
Therefore ~t

2810. Science can answer how questions but only religion can answer why questions

Comment #81671 by epeeist on October 25, 2007 at 2:49 am

It must be Thursday. Thursday is the day I operate in Winnie the Pooh mode (bear of very little brain and long words bother me).

It seems to me that both religion and naturalism can ask why questions and both can give answers. The question then is, how valid are the answers?

2811. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #81624 by epeeist on October 25, 2007 at 1:27 am

Comment #81620 by Goldy

Care to quote some of these stats?

There is an article at http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3647/is_200310/ai_n9340592/pg_1
that I am currently reading.

It is going back a few years to when I worked alongside a statistics group, but I don't feel comfortable with a regression technique for the analysis of the figures. If he had used a multivariate analysis method such principle components I would be happier. As I say, the caveat is that I haven't done this kind of statistical multivariate analysis for a while.

2812. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #81614 by epeeist on October 25, 2007 at 1:08 am

Comment #81608 by Dianelos Georgoudis

But why would these results surprise you? It's easy to see that all other things being equivalent a religious person has one more reason to act ethically than a nonreligious person, namely the belief in the afterlife in which one's actions in this life have relevance.

Ah, the fear and greed gambit.

To open it up further, in the region where I coach there are a couple of coaches who are Methodists, I am an atheist. Of the others, I wouldn't have a clue as to whether they profess any religion or none. Given this is in the UK I would guess that many would be CofE of the hatch/match/dispatch variety. How therefore would you decide whether their efforts are to be placed in the religious or secular camp?

2813. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #81166 by epeeist on October 24, 2007 at 10:06 am

Comment #81155 by Dianelos Georgoudis

And if you are asking for specific objective evidence, Harold Koenig's "The Link between Religion and Health" and Arthur Brooks's "Who Really Cares" quote dozens of scientific studies that document both the physical and ethical benefits of religious belief. Let me quote from page 34 of the latter book:

But the evidence leaves no room for doubt: Religious people are far more charitable than nonreligious people. In years of research, I have never found a measurable way in which secularists are more charitable than religious people.[snip] In 2000, religious people - who, per family, earned exactly the same amount as secular people, $49,000 - gave about 3.5 times more money per year (an average of $2,210 versus $642). They also volunteered more than twice as often (12 times per year, versus 5.8 times).

It is an interesting quote, but I wonder whether the author is committing a sin of omission.

Religious organisations are of course charities. I would be interested to see a more detailed breakdown of the figures. How much did the average church goer donate to their church (effectively a tithe) and how much to, say, Medecin sans Frontiers? How many times did they volunteer to take Sunday school outings, and how many times did they volunteer as amateur sports coaches? How does this compare with people who profess to be secularists?

2814. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #81048 by epeeist on October 24, 2007 at 1:12 am

Comment #81047 by Dianelos Georgoudis

Secondly, whichever worldview turns out to be true, the fact remains that theism is more conducive to moral behavior than atheism - as is easy to see on conceptual grounds and is moreover evidenced by observational facts.

You have your mantra, I have mine

The burden of proof is always on the person asserting something.

Put up or shut up. Show us some evidence

2815. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #80862 by epeeist on October 23, 2007 at 8:36 am

I was discussing Goldy's demand that I provide "irrefutable proof" for something I claimed; I hope you are not saying that Goldy's demand is reasonable. For if you are saying that then I would like you to provide irrefutable proof for your assertion above ;-)

No you weren't, you were trying to divert the discussion using the variety of ad hominem known as a tu quoque.

You assert "Atheism is inferior to theism both abstractly (atheism does not recognize objective morality), as well as practically". Goldy has questioned this. Since it is your assertion then the burden of proof is upon you.

You might try "The Trivium: The Liberal Arts of Logic, Grammar, and Rhetoric" by Sister Miriam Joseph. This discusses the burden of proof and a variety of other logical fallacies.

2816. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #80792 by epeeist on October 23, 2007 at 3:59 am

Comment #80790 by Dianelos Georgoudis

But I wonder: Can you, for example, provide irrefutable proof that you are a human being, and not, say, some extraterrestrial zombie visiting Earth for research purposes? Or that American astronauts walked on he moon? Or that Julius Caesar was a historical person? Or that the world was not made five minutes ago? Or that objective reality exists?

Tu Quoque, which of course means that it can be ignored.

The burden of proof is always on the person making the assertion or proposition. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of "argumentum ad ignorantium," is a fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion being made. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise.

2817. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07

Comment #80772 by epeeist on October 23, 2007 at 2:35 am

Comment #80766 by steve99

I detect the slight flavour of a Dianelos approach

I see you have managed to avoid responding to DG in the Dawkins/Lennox thread. Is it me or does he seem to be rather more peevish than usual, with ad hominem attacks based on what he believes people are saying?

2818. Cheney and Obama: It's Not Genetic

Comment #80629 by epeeist on October 22, 2007 at 11:33 am

Comment #80626 by Pallinn

If I remember my Ancestor's Tale correctly, that sentence is complete and utter nonsense. You inherit exactly half of your father's genes, certainly, but the odds against getting exactly a quarter of each grandfather's genes are astronomical.

Especially as it is rather difficult to guarantee that you grandfathers were actually your grandmothers husbands.

2819. Make Richard Dawkins a Knight

Comment #80332 by epeeist on October 21, 2007 at 11:10 am

Comment #80328 by steve99

Also, the honour really comes from the government, not the monarch.

I thought that it had been taken out of the hands of the government after the cash for honours affair?

2820. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07

Comment #80311 by epeeist on October 21, 2007 at 9:30 am

Comment #80291 by denoir

Well, first of all, quantum effects on a molecular level are extremely unlikely.

Got to agree with steve99 on this one. My Ph.D. involved looking at the potential barriers to rotation in small molecules. Observation of the microwave spectrum shows splitting due to quantum mechanical tunnelling through the barrier.

For some molecules you get additional effects due to nuclear quadrupole coupling.

2821. Christopher Hitchens at AAI 07

Comment #80262 by epeeist on October 21, 2007 at 3:09 am

Comment #80241 by Diacanu

Posted by Scooternyc-
"If one were to know every stimulus a newborn would experience and the exact physical arrangement of the newborn's anatomy, then one would be able to predict every choice the newborn would make until death".

Yeah, but you can't know all that, because of that pesky Heisenberg principle.

You don't even need that. The Laplacian dream falls apart at the classical level once non-linear systems come into play.

I can't find the quote - but I believe it was Lord Rayleigh that said the thing he would ask God about was turbulence, he wasn't convinced God could explain it.

2822. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #80125 by epeeist on October 20, 2007 at 5:24 am

The burden of proof is always on the person making an assertion or proposition. Shifting the burden of proof, a special case of argumentum ad ignorantium, is the fallacy of putting the burden of proof on the person who denies or questions the assertion being made. The source of the fallacy is the assumption that something is true unless proven otherwise.

2823. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79923 by epeeist on October 19, 2007 at 4:43 am

Imagine you give your daughter a "Where's Wally" book, not just any old WW book but an absolutely huge one. You tell her this is just one of a whole set of WW books and it is special - Wally only occurs once in the whole set. You tell her she will get a reward when she finds Wally.

She looks through the first book, then the second, and the third... no Wally. When she gets to the end of all the books you have given her you give her a few more. Just to liven it up a little, you ask her whether Wally was hiding behind a tree on page 15719 of volume 8374. She reminds you that this is a book and you can't look behind the trees.

Of course she never gets to find Wally. Doesn't prove that he doesn't exits though, there is always another volume to look through and always the doubt that she missed him somehow on one of the pages.

Of course, if you had told her explicitly that Wally doesn't appear in any of the books and she managed to find him then she would deserve a reward.

2824. God's honest truth?

Comment #79888 by epeeist on October 19, 2007 at 12:56 am

Comment #79880 by Russell Blackford

We need to find other ways to phase it out of our societies ... though a good start would be refusing to fund non-state schools and particularly "faith schools" that propose to indoctrinate children - it's one thing to prohibit something, another merely to refuse to fund it with taxpayers' money.

Faith schools here in the UK receive the majority of their funding from the state. Most only put around 10% of the costs in from their own pocket.

An easy start at getting ridding of them would be to tell them that they put x% of the money in, they get to select x% of the pupils by religion. The rest come from the catchment area regardless of religion.

2825. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79652 by epeeist on October 18, 2007 at 4:33 am

Comment #79647 by steve99

Thirdchimpanzee, and others:

It is not wise to take what Dianelos says seriously. Just about everything he claims has been dealt with countless times on various threads on this site. However, he ignores this, and continues to post his own personal straw-man ideas of what science means, what it does, and what 'naturalists' think. As has been pointed out (but is worth repeating) what is really going on here is a desperate attempt to defend what are basically mundane Christian beliefs, little different from those of an average moderate churchgoer.

[fx]Round of applause[/fx]

Complete agreement. The methodology seems to be to take a belief, 'Big Invisible Magic Man can do everything by Invisible Magic', and either attempt to fit everything back to this conclusion, or claim any counter-arguments are invalid because they are not ontologically sound, about science (which supposedly can't deal with ontology), or about naturalism (which supposedly cannot describe reality). To use another quote, it is rather like 'straining at gnats, and swallowing camels'.

2826. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79640 by epeeist on October 18, 2007 at 3:01 am

Comment #79637 by Dianelos Georgoudis

Epeeist (post 476, or #79140):

It's no good Dianelos.

As the Brasenose porter said "It's no good you making a noise, gentlemen. The Dean ain't a coming down tonight."

2827. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #79605 by epeeist on October 17, 2007 at 11:49 pm

Comment #79531 by PaulEmecz

Logic is based on axioms which we define. These don't come from God. Logic is not absolute.

Honestly, I have read enough of your posts to know that you are too intelligent to be saying what I think you're saying. Genuinely. Please say it again using different words so I can be sure what you're claiming here.

There are different ways of looking at this. It would seem that you (possibly unconsciously) follow a Platonic idealist view, where mathematics and logic are there to be discovered.

There are other views, one of which is formalist. We put down symbols and define some rules for manipulating those symbols. Any theorem is true if we can start from a base set of sentences (axioms) and get to our target sentence using our manipulation rules. No meaning is ascribed to any of the axioms or symbols.

I can't do 1 + 1 = 3, but 2 + 2 = 1 would be fairly easy.

2828. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79604 by epeeist on October 17, 2007 at 11:41 pm

Comment #79516 by steve99

Also, I am just not going to engage with you on the other matters. I have dealt with all of them in discussions with you before. This is a waste of time. Any attempt to show that you are mistaken will lead to meaningless word-play, probably involving obscure falsehoods about what 'naturalists' believe, and lots of use of the word 'ontology'. I will feed the troll no more.

I left the Alistair McGrath thread because of the same thing, only to get drawn into this one. I too will respond no more.

I am sick of posting a rebuttal, having it ignored and then the same material posted again as though I had said nothing. Witness my simple hypothesis about the non existence of gods. Witness the twisting of your posts about the state of QM and repost of material on other threads as though you have said nothing.

2829. Debate between Christopher Hitchens and Alister McGrath

Comment #79415 by epeeist on October 17, 2007 at 8:13 am

Comment #79409 by loki

I vote for Hitchens Vs Rev Ian Paisley , I would pay top dollar to see that. !!!

I would prefer to see him up against Paisley's son, a significantly nasty piece of work. Alternatively Franklin Graham.

2830. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79407 by epeeist on October 17, 2007 at 7:43 am

Comment #79404 by phasmagigas

I personally know christians in my very neighbourhood who discriminate and dislike homosexual behaviour and even the people themselves and their main argument 'its against god' or 'its adam and eve, not adam and steve'. enough said.

You mean like this person in my area.

http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/1019871_man_jailed_in_antigay_row

2831. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79363 by epeeist on October 17, 2007 at 4:19 am

Yes, but you did not mention the foreign occupation ...

Merely because of space. I accept your additional causes and could probably add more.

I don't accept your blanket claim of one side involvement by the West. It may be true of the States, but it is more nuanced here in Europe.

Your point about Sharon is well taken, but surely he was visiting a religious site?

While religion may not be the most pressing problem on the world scene it is a substantial one. There are those in the States looking to establish what is virtually a theocracy and similarly there are those Islamists who are looking to establish a caliphate, a theocracy in all but name. Admittedly the rulers of such organisations would be power brokers, but their rule would be based on their interpretation of their holy book. I am afraid you (and I) would be first against the wall when those revolutions came.

2832. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79350 by epeeist on October 17, 2007 at 2:56 am

Comment #79344 by Corylus

When you start talking about 'will' then you are running the risk of using the word 'intentional' in terms of its common everyday usage (rather than its philosophical fashion) i.e. an action performed with the goal of bring about a specific end.

Rumbled!

I just wanted to see whether a diversionary tactic would work :-(

2833. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79140 by epeeist on October 16, 2007 at 9:25 am

Comment #79137 by Dianelos Georgoudis

When atheists say "no gods exist" they are making an ontological proposition which they believe is true.

Rubbish - there is no other word for this.

How many times do I have to write it. The hypothesis that the class of gods is empty is simply that - a contingent hypothesis. Belief is unnecessary.

2834. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79131 by epeeist on October 16, 2007 at 8:48 am

Comment #79128 by phasmagigas

can you or somebody else explain just what this means in laymans terms and how could it apply to me say buying a block of cheese at the store...

To put it analytically

There exists a piece of software on the internet that generates random post-modernist articles. (premise)

DG has access to the above software. (premise).

DG is a software engineer (premise)

DG has modified the above software to generate random articles proclaiming idealistic theism (conclusion)

2835. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79127 by epeeist on October 16, 2007 at 8:39 am

Comment #79121 by Dianelos Georgoudis

So anyway will you now answer the simple question I asked you in post 378 and clarified in post 424 and this one?

You haven't given me enough to work on. I would accept the initial definition that you gave.

As I have tried to illustrate, starting with the premiss that such an entity exists is problematic. Any attempt to find the entity that fails does not mean that it does not exist, there is always another tree to look behind, stone to lift or day to wait.

Starting with the hypothesis that such an entity does not exist is easier. All one needs to do is find a consequent of such a hypothesis that is falsified and you have falsified the initial hypothesis.

I am not sure where you a going with this (a second intention attack?) but the way I have framed this is pretty much standard.

2836. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79106 by epeeist on October 16, 2007 at 6:21 am

Comment #79097 by mward

(1) Dawkins thinks that all faith is blind: faith necessarily involves
ignoring evidence. Lennox distinguishes between blind faith
and evidence-baised faith. More generally, Dawkins likes to lump
all religions together and assume that by criticising one of them
he is criticising all religion. Lennox wants Dawkins to distinguish
between religions.

Begging the question - if gods do not exist then why should we distinguish between their various apologists.

(3) The fine-tuning of physical constants points to a designer.

Douglas Adams puddle analogy

(4) The Bible states that the Universe had a beginning: it was
created by God. Scientists used to believe that the universe
didn't have a beginning (eg the Steady State Theory),
but discovered that it did have a beginning. This leads to the
question: where did the universe come from? Dawkins' response:
that it is a 50-50 choice, so its hardly significant if the Bible
gets it right, misses the point. There *must* be something
which is eternal: either the universe itself or the Creator.
(Or an infinite regress of finite creators: which theory
I will discount on the basis of Occam's Razor!).

Scientists didn't "believe" any such thing. It was one hypothesis about the universe, since disproven.

You have Occam's razor the wrong way round. An infinite regress is actually fairly simple. You need to add an auxiliary hypothesis to account for the termination of the series, and that at a particular point.

If the universe is eternal, then indeed there is no need to invoke
a creator to explain where the universe came from.
If the universe had a beginning, then it must have a creator: who must, of course, be eternal (so Dawkins' schoolboy
response "who made God?" is irrelevant).

This is a non-sequitur stemming from a fallacy of bifurcation and your assumption above.

So, atheism has
made a falisifiable prediction: the universe is eternal.
Christianity also made a falsifiable prediction: the universe
had a beginning. So, in Popper's philosophy of science,
each of these theories are scientific. Which theory was
in fact falsified? The atheist theory. So science
supports Theism against Atheism here, as with the fine-tuning
of physical constants and with the existance and comprehensability
of natural laws.

I am sorry, the above has no sense, i.e. it is nonsense.

(5) Dawkins claims that "religion" is responsible for a lot of evil
in the world. In actual historical fact, atheism (via Nazi Germany,
Pol Pot, Soviet Russia and Communist China) has been responsible
for more violent deaths than all religions throughout all history.
There may be religions in the world which teach violence:
Christianity is not among them. But there is a definite link
between atheism and amorality in practice as well as theory.

So, without Jesus you would be out raping, pillaging and burning just like the rest of us atheists, Buddhists and followers of Vishnu?

I am sick of posting it - but have a look at what was done to the Cathars in Beziers at the instigation of the papal legate then tell me that Christianity is not responsible for violence.

And remember which entity was responsible for supposedly killing 99.99997% of the human population and virtually 100% of the world's animal and plant population according to your particular holy book. Stalin only managed 0.8% of the world's population in comparison.

(6) Without an absolute basis for good and evil, Dawkins cannot
even condemn the "evils" of religion, or evil atheists.
Dawkins says we can "rise above our genes": but if there is no
definition of "up" or "down" (there is no good or evil and no justice)
then "rise above our genes" is a meaningless statement.
Suppose Dawkins is right in that we have a "lust" to do good.
Why should we indulge this "lust" as opposed to any other?

Your moral absolutes presumably include keeping slaves (but being nice to them) and stoning adulterers. No? Then morals would seem to have changed since the time of Jesus.

2837. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79086 by epeeist on October 16, 2007 at 4:35 am

Comment #79067 by Dianelos Georgoudis

I think the correct answer is T1, namely the person who lacks any beliefs in heavenly reward but who has still all the anger.

But then where comes this motiveless anger?

I think we can agree that for things like the Israeli/Palestinian conflict the causes of the anger are complex and include things like nationalism, poverty, ideology, constraints on freedom and the like. I think we could also agree that there are a number of power brokers who play the religious card. But religion is at least part of the problem.

Your "thought experiment" is simplistic, assuming a single cause of the anger and the ability to partition the religion from the anger. This then leads you to the most blatant of strawmen.

2838. John Templeton's Universe

Comment #79050 by epeeist on October 16, 2007 at 1:50 am

Comment #79041 by Jiten

Templeton is perverting science.We need a billionaire on our side!

Yes, but the only atheist one that comes to mind is Bill Gates...

2839. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #79044 by epeeist on October 16, 2007 at 1:21 am

Comment #79035 by Dianelos Georgoudis

After all we all have some beliefs about objective reality (the reality that produces our experiences on which we base all knowledge we have), and there is a great disagreement about whether that reality is at bottom material and mechanical (as naturalism has it and as virtually all atheists in the West believe) or is at bottom spiritual and intentional (as theism has it)

Why can't intentionality be a human attribute, as proposed by Brentano and Husserl?

2840. Report on Hindu god Ram withdrawn

Comment #79029 by epeeist on October 15, 2007 at 11:34 pm

Comment #78968 by n0rr1s

An army of monkeys would be awesome! I would take over the world! Cue maniacal cackling...

It didn't do the Wicked Witch of the West any good, anyway I bet you don't have a golden hat.

2841. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #78933 by epeeist on October 15, 2007 at 12:59 pm

Comment #78929 by Lauregon

As I've mentioned before, Dianelos, there's a reason why theism has been sold through fear and promises of reward.

I once had the misfortune to work for a large British bank. I have to say that the collective noun for bankers (a wunch) is completely apposite for those who worked on the corporate side.

They essentially work on two emotions, greed and fear. Doesn't sound too different to your view of religion.

2842. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #78914 by epeeist on October 15, 2007 at 11:23 am

Comment #78841 by Dianelos Georgoudis

"I shall define the God Hypothesis more defensively: there exists a superhuman, supernatural intelligence who deliberately designed and created the universe and everything in it, including us."

I can accept this as the initial bit of an argument, providing that it goes on to say either that the class of such beings is empty or that the probability of such a being existing is low.

Let me go back to my previous example, that there are no black swans.

Assume you are a swan upper in the time of Henry VIII and the king demands not just a swan but a black swan for a banquet (at least he isn't asking for one matching a cloth of gold).

You look around Windsor, Hampton Court, the Tower but you can't find one. But this in itself does not prove the non-existence of such a beast. You have to search not only through Tudor England but through all possible times (past and future) and places before you can verify the non-existence of a black swan. Hence the reason for the Dr. Benway's null hypothesis.

All this is fairly standard stuff. For the philosophy behind it Popper provides the basics, with Tarski and Frege giving support. For the statistics then Ronald Fisher is the key.

2843. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #78801 by epeeist on October 15, 2007 at 1:08 am

Comment #78793 by Dianelos Georgoudis

Nobody has done such and thought 'this is because there is God' either.

No? You have obviously never been to Beziers. "Caedite eos! Novit enim Dominus qui sunt eius"

2844. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #78698 by epeeist on October 14, 2007 at 11:02 am

Comment #78684 by Dianelos Georgoudis

I disagree on epistemological grounds. Science's job is to model physical phenomena as well as possible, but not to model the models. The models that science discovers are the end of the road as far as science is concerned.

Sez You.

And

1. Hypothesis: Richard Dawkins is a conscious subject.
2. Null hypothesis: Richard Dawkins is not a conscious subject.
3. Predict some observation that would have to follow if the null hypothesis were true.

Please go away and read about designed experiments and particularly about Ronald Fisher's methodology.

2845. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #78693 by epeeist on October 14, 2007 at 10:32 am

Comment #78651 by scottishgeologist

Check out Franklin Graham (Billy Grahams son) on CNN:

Ah yes, that nice man who runs "Samaritan's Purse" and "Operation Christmas Child".

2846. Archbishop of Canterbury Rowan Williams criticizes popular atheist writers

Comment #78690 by epeeist on October 14, 2007 at 10:23 am

Comment #78610 by keith

Very good comments. At first I was confused as to why you hadn't used the argument espoused by Ben Hope (a disbelief in fairies) and Richard Dawkins (the moustaches of Hitler and Stalin) as factors in explaining away the mass murders of atheists.

I was saving this until devolved came back, but since he has done the usual creationist post and run stunt I will post it here:

	Percentage world population	Percentage animals and plants
Deliberately killed by God during the Flood	Approx. 99.99997	Approaching 100%
Deliberately killed by Stalin during the Purges	Approx 0.8%	Negligible

2847. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #78624 by epeeist on October 13, 2007 at 11:16 pm

Comment #78545 by Dianelos Georgoudis

So what is your position in respect to Dawkins's proposition that all creator God hypotheses are scientific hypotheses?

As I have said in a previous post, I don't have my copy of TGD here since I loaned it out. Therefore I cannot comment on Dawkin's hypothesis.

What I gave you instead was the way I would frame the hypothesis to make it both testable and falsifiable. Dr. Benway reframed this in the way that people who make designed experiments would put it.

2848. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #78536 by epeeist on October 13, 2007 at 2:09 pm

Question: Apart from a little more education is there any difference between Dianelos and revocort?

2849. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #78442 by epeeist on October 12, 2007 at 11:29 pm

Comment #78376 by Dianelos Georgoudis

Dr Benway (post 304, or #78302):

If that post is your idea of a "direct and clear answer" to my simple question in post 302 then we have some serious semantic differences :-)

It may have been a presumption on my part but I thought you actually knew something about the philosophy of science, plainly I was mistaken.

Could I suggest that you find a copy of Popper's "Logic of Scientific Discovery" and read it through. The process of science is more complex than Popper discusses, after all it involves humans (and some extremely iconoclastic ones at that), politics and economics. But the basic ideas on the methodology I think are sound.

You may need to supplement it with some other reading, Copi and Cohen's book on logic is a good text, though Tarski is more contemporaneous. You might also want to read Tarski's paper on the semantic meaning of truth.

Oh, and the reason I didn't respond was because of the time zones - I actually went to bed since I need a good sleep. I am refereeing all day today and tomorrow.

2850. Debate between Richard Dawkins and John Lennox

Comment #78353 by epeeist on October 12, 2007 at 1:34 pm

Comment #78345 by Dr Benway