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"You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes."

Oh drat, another allusion...

But I’ve never understood what that’s all about. Could you please enlighten me?

Movie allusion.

Psychoactive drugs or what?

Well, I certainly wouldn't recommend taking pills from a stranger...

Perhaps if you asked the kind teacher’s aid,

she’d be happy to trade your red crayon for a blue and a green one.

*raises hand*

Can I trade my red pill for a blue one?

"Perhaps teleology might not necessarily be obvious in nature..."

Good, your last sentence there acknowledges the point I've been trying to make.

No, the problem is that you attempted to go much farther. This is what you claimed in post 73:

The fact that infants die of cancer is extremely relevant however, as compelling evidence that nature is not teleological in character.

Do you understand yet that the very assumption (i.e. that infant cancer is an example of something gone "horribly wrong") required in order to give this claim an air of plausibility in the first place (which it only achieves by eliciting an emotional response) would in fact imply the opposite? You have yet to address this problem. Why did you ignore the rest of my post?

Again, I'm not trying to prove to you that nature is teleological. Why should I? You already believe that it is.

But just because I propose a trichotomy...

A false trichotomy. This is another problem that you have yet to address (again, see my previous post).

...and at some point make a statement based upon the presuppositions of one of them (as I've done with each of the others as well) it doesn't mean that I actually accept that view.

Except that's not what you did. You said (post 95):

We all admit that things in nature at least sometimes don't work as the should, and in fact often go horribly wrong, as in the case of infant cancer.

This was presented not as a logical consequence of any of your three proposed possibilities, but as an overarching assumption. According to you, this is something on which we all agree. Obviously, you believe it.

Temporarily adopting the presuppositions of a particular argument in order to follow them to their conclusions is long-stand rhetorical method, and ignorance of that method or pretense otherwise isn't going to get you guys any mileage.

See above. It is obvious that you did not merely adopt the assumption for the sake of argument. Either way, you still need to deal with the fact that you were wrong about the implications. From post 79:

That "failure of some system" (especially in the context of a young life) is direct evidence that nature is non-teleological.

On the contrary: If cancer is the "failure of some system" then this means that the system has a purpose. So instead of concluding that infant cancer implies that nature is not teleological, you must logically conclude that infant cancer implies that nature IS teleological.

Again, is infant cancer the result of something not working as it should, or isn't it? If the former, then nature is teleogical; if the latter, then it cannot be used as an argument against teleology. Either way, infant cancer does not demonstrate that nature is not teleological. You have no argument, and you never did.

Go back and read my last few posts, and you'll see that I've allowed for the possibility that one could conclude the existence of an inept or insane (or evil) designer(s) based upon purely naturalistic evidence.

OK, but I was pointing out the problem with your argument against teleology. Your proposed trichotomy (either no designer or inept designer or insane designer) is also fallacious, but before we get to that perhaps you should come to terms with your own apparent belief in teleolgy. Perhaps teleology might not necessarily be obvious in nature... but then why do you believe in it? Why do you believe that infant cancer is the result of something gone "horribly wrong"?

Again, I am not trying to prove to you that nature is teleological, but if you wish to discuss the matter logically then you need to understand why your attemped proof of the contrary is self-defeating. Is infant cancer an example of something not working the way that it should, or isn't it? If infant cancer is an example of something not working the way that it should (as you presume) then this implies that nature (at least so far as human life is concerned) is teleological, which is the opposite of what you claimed it showed. If, on the other hand, infant cancer is NOT an example of something not working the way that it should, then you have no argument to begin with.

Now, regarding the false trichotomy you proposed regarding the possibilities of a designer (or lack thereof): What do you mean by "evil", and by what "purely naturalistic" standard would you accuse the designer of nature of being "insane"? Or perhaps you have some standard in mind that is not "purely naturalistic"? Do you see the problem here?

No, the logical trichotomy is not nearly as loaded: Either 1) There is no designer; 2) There is an inept designer; or 3) There is a perfectly skilled designer.

We all admit that things in nature at least sometimes don't work as the should, and in fact often go horribly wrong, as in the case of infant cancer.

We do? So now you're saying that nature is teleological? Saying that "things in nature at least sometimes don't work as the[y] should, and in fact often go horribly wrong" assumes that there is a purpose to the way that things work, i.e. it assumes teleology.

In post 92 you wrote:

You can't just glibly speak about "cancer causing chemicals" and "disease" as if those are neutral things.

But without a teleological framework, that's exactly what they are: They're just things that happen, and there is no question of anything "going wrong".

To be clear, I am not trying to prove to you that nature is teleological. However, it seems that you already (tacitly) believe that it is.

I am pro-choice: I support the right of a man to beat his wife. This doesn’t mean that I’m pro-wife-beating, simply that I’m pro-choice. I personally believe that wife-beating is wrong, but the decision must be left up to the husband. I believe that wife-beating should be safe, legal, and rare.

I am pro-choice: I support the right of people to own slaves. This doesn’t mean that I’m pro-slavery, simply that I’m pro-choice. I personally believe that slavery is wrong, but the decision must be left up to the slave-owner. I support federal funding for slave trafficking as the most effective way to reduce slavery.

Anyone who disagrees with this is trying to legislate morality, which is unconstitutional.

/moonbat logic

I’m glad to hear that your ex got help, but did you mean to ping the original poster of the thread instead?

Also, she was clearly not given any special status...

See Luke 1:26-37.

...as shown in Luke 11:27-28.

Now continue on to Luke 1:38. ;)

Correction:

But on a more serious note, faithful African Anglicans are not AT all amused that Lambeth and especially TEC are trying to put an “African” spin on this nonsense.

But on a more serious note, faithful African Anglicans are not all amused that Lambeth and especially TEC are trying to put an “African” spin on this nonsense.

a burned steak

;)

Particularly, since one was actually His Son

And this is what completely obliterates any so-called "Christian" pro-abortion argument. How can a fetus be anything less than a human being when the Son of God became one for our sake?

Add, if you like, Helvidius, the other humiliations of nature, the womb for nine months growing larger, the sickness, the delivery, the blood, the swaddling-clothes. Picture to yourself the infant in the enveloping membranes. Introduce into your picture the hard manger, the wailing of the infant, the circumcision on the eighth day, the time of purification, so that he may be proved to be unclean. We do not blush, we are not put to silence. The greater the humiliations He endured for me, the more I owe Him. And when you have given every detail, you will be able to produce nothing more shameful than the cross, which we confess, in which we believe, and by which we triumph over our enemies.

-St. Jerome (Against Helvidius)

Yab-indaba-doo!

And with apologies to Brylcreem, the "Listening Process" in a nutshell:

List'ning, a li'l indaba'll do ya,
List'ning, but we don't really care;
List'ning, forget Holy Tradition,
Ol' continence is more than we can bear.

A hair-etical jingle. *groan*

I deserve to be burned at the stake for such a bad pun...

But Zero Sum's postulation would not "entail" that the Sun must "agree" to stand still, so to accommodate his/her thought experiment.

True enough. :)

So what's the point of the thought experiment?

Pedagogy. Just like with the exercises you find in physics textbooks.

As it stands, it has no "stationary object," no anchor or criterion according to which its phenomena can be compared and judged. JMHO FWIW

When we speak of a "stationary object" it is understood that this is not because the object meets some universal standard for being "stationary" (there is none) but because the object is stationary WRT to some inertial frame. The Sun is stationary WRT an inertial frame to a close enough approximation for the purpose of emphasizing the empirical difference between a real orbit as viewed from an inertial frame and an apparent orbit due to viewing a stationary object from a rotating frame. In the context of the merry-go-round experiment, the same could be said of the "stationary" target standing still on the Earth. Does this clarify things?

This is a very good day. I have been humbled a little bit and I have learned a couple of valuable lessons : )

It is always a good day when we are humbled. Humility is something in which I am sorely lacking and for which I need to remember to pray every day.

God bless.

Our solar system is orbiting the Milky Way galaxy at a speed of 486,000 miles per hour. And on top of that, space/time itself is expanding.

To the extent that these might affect the apparent motion of the Sun as viewed from the Earth at all, the effect is negligible compared to the apparent motion of the Sun due to the Earth's rotation. For the purposes of our thought experiment, we can consider the Sun to be stationary WRT an inertial frame.

OK, now that I'm awake, let me clean up my answer to #2, which in post 751 reads very badly and completely misses the point I was trying to make.

2) "In other words when we see the Sun we see where it was apx 8 and a half minutes ago."

This is true, of course. But the Sun is in the same place that it was 8.5 minutes ago, which is where we see it. This is because the apparent motion is due not to the Sun revolving around us, but to our rotation, and these are not relative.

That we see the Sun where it was 8.5 minutes ago would of course be true whether we were rotating or whether the Sun were orbiting us, but in the former case the Sun is where we see it while in the latter case the Sun is 2 degrees ahead of where we see it. These situations are not equivalent.

Now, if we want to hit the Sun with our "LASER", we must aim at where the Sun will be 8.5 minutes from now: In the former case we would aim at where we see the Sun, while in the latter case we would need to lead the Sun by 4 degrees (not 2) from where we see it. Again, the situations are not equivalent.

2) "In other words when we see the Sun we see where it was apx 8 and a half minutes ago."

This is true, of course. But the crux of the matter here is: Where was the sun 8.5 minutes ago? Was it where we see it now or was it where we saw it 8.5 minutes ago, 2 degrees behind where we see it now? The former is the correct answer because the apparent motion is due not to the Sun revolving around us, but due to our rotation, and as I've tried to make clear already, these are not relative.

And of course I left out the most important part (although I had alluded to it above) that the Sun is in the same place now that it was 8.5 minutes ago, which is where we see it now.

You have come to this discussion a little late and I don't want to get bogged down in Galilean inertial frames.

The discussion of inertial frames applies to Lorentz transformations as well, which, like Galilean transformations, are linear. The transformations for rotational frames are not, which is why a rotating frame is not inertial.

The initial statement that I made was that an objects apparent position is not identical to its actual position at any given instant in time, primarily due to the speed of light. In other words when we see the Sun we see where it was apx 8 and a half minutes ago.

Do you agree or disagree with that statement?

If I answer this then will you do me the courtesy of answering the quesions that I posed in my previous post? If you demand that I answer your questions but you refuse to answer mine then I don't see any use in continuing this discussion, nor will I respond to you again unless and until you show the courtesy to reciprocate. If you choose not to then my post stands, and I have no reason not to be content with that.

Now, I answer that there are two statements there.

1) "The initial statement that I made was that an objects apparent position is not identical to its actual position at any given instant in time, primarily due to the speed of light."

I agree if you insert the word "necessarily" before the word "identical". However, there are certainly cases where an object's apparent position can coincide with its actual position, the case of a stationary object WRT an observer in an inertial frame being the trivial example. Here is another example:

2) "In other words when we see the Sun we see where it was apx 8 and a half minutes ago."

This is true, of course. But the crux of the matter here is: Where was the sun 8.5 minutes ago? Was it where we see it now or was it where we saw it 8.5 minutes ago, 2 degrees behind where we see it now? The former is the correct answer because the apparent motion is due not to the Sun revolving around us, but due to our rotation, and as I've tried to make clear already, these are not relative. If you would argue that they are, then kindly address the questions from my previous post.

MrJesse is quit adamant that the actual position is the same as the apparent position, except for a little parallax that I taught him about.

And he is correct (although we should take into accout refraction due to the atmosphere as well, but that's a different story). In your Earth/Pluto thought experiment you will not get 102 degrees difference from parallax, not even close. The correction for parallax will be miniscule. Nor will you get even close to 2 degrees due to parallax in 8.5 minutes considering the position of the Sun as seen from the surface of the Earth.

But since we are discussing rotating frames (which for some reason you seem to think are inertial) let's keep our thought experiments focused on that. Or better yet, do a real experiment and see for yourself the difference between spinning and orbiting. And keep those questions from my previous post in mind when you do. :)