Posted on 11/17/2003 6:02:20 AM PST by Tribune7
The idea that he is a devotee of reason seeing through the outdated superstitions of other, lesser beings is the foremost conceit of the proud atheist. This heady notion was first made popular by French intellectuals such as Voltaire and Diderot, who ushered in the so-called Age of Enlightenment.
That they also paved the way for the murderous excesses of the French Revolution and many other massacres in the name of human progress is usually considered an unfortunate coincidence by their philosophical descendants.
The atheist is without God but not without faith, for today he puts his trust in the investigative method known as science, whether he understands it or not. Since there are very few minds capable of grasping higher-level physics, let alone following their implications, and since specialization means that it is nearly impossible to keep up with the latest developments in the more esoteric fields, the atheist stands with utter confidence on an intellectual foundation comprised of things of which he knows nothing.
In fairness, he cannot be faulted for this, except when he fails to admit that he is not actually operating on reason in this regard, but is instead exercising a faith that is every bit as blind and childlike as that of the most unthinking Bible-thumping fundamentalist. Still, this is not irrational, it is only ignorance and a failure of perception.
The irrationality of the atheist can primarily be seen in his actions – and it is here that the cowardice of his intellectual convictions is also exposed. Whereas Christians and the faithful of other religions have good reason for attempting to live by the Golden Rule – they are commanded to do so – the atheist does not.
In fact, such ethics, as well as the morality that underlies them, are nothing more than man-made myth to the atheist. Nevertheless, he usually seeks to live by them when they are convenient, and there are even those, who, despite their faithlessness, do a better job of living by the tenets of religion than those who actually subscribe to them.
Still, even the most admirable of atheists is nothing more than a moral parasite, living his life based on borrowed ethics.
(Excerpt) Read more at worldnetdaily.com ...
All I have to add is for those who are interested in non-compactified alternative higher dimensional theories, this link: Space-Time-Matter consortium
As you requested, here are links to various Clinton administration death information on the Downside Legacy:
On the link you provided, the author offered basically four rebuttals to Hoyle’s approximation which I paraphrase as follows:
If what Hoyle offered were any more than an approximation I would be concerned about points 2 and 3. Nevertheless, others who approached the same problem – Yockey, Rocha, Wolfram etc. - all seem to narrow in on the same issues – in particular that since the universe had a beginning, the amount of time available for abiogenesis anywhere is not infinite.
It appears the most popular mechanism to explain it is the theory of autonomous biological self organizating complexity.
That theory however comes with a price for the atheist because it means evolution is not a directionless walk. Moreover, a bootstrap for such a process in an RNA world requires toggling between states which are stable to carry information, and not to be reactive (Rocha).
cornelis, there is justice in what you say. The problem is, science has not demonstrated a whole lot of competence to study man. At least not so far, not seriously. Which I have to admit is an extraordinarily odd thing, since science is the offspring of the human mind, and supposedly in the service of man.
It may well be that the job of studying man is properly left, not to Naturwissenschaft, but to Geistenwissenschaft. We just don't want Naturwissenschaft to grind him down to dust beforehand; and so we say that in principle, intellect, mind, consciousness are preeminent in the universe. This is to "immanentize transcendence" only in the scientific setting, because science has difficulty dealing with transcendence in principle: It is beyond the reach of physical laws and direct observation.
But still one can't deal with God as an intended object; and similarly, one really can't deal with man in this way either.
Does this make any sense to you?
I don’t see how producing precise results is a defense for removing the complexity and ambiguity from calculations. It’s been a long time since Chem 101, but I think molecules and amino acids do interact, and to remove that would be like removing the interaction of people from an equation as saying that Free Republic could not have been built by just one person in his short life span, born ignorant of everything.
I haven’t read the other authors, but if they make the same omission…
I’m not familiar with #1 the “anthropic principle”, but I don’t think that #4 the “absence of information” is dependent on world view. If we are evaluating the probability of biogenesis, we don’t begin with theological premises. The absence of information is very real.
Also there was a #5 reference to the problem of “calculating the probability of a predetermined outcome”. The author used the lottery example. Maybe the odds were 15 million to one that a specific creature would have been produced randomly, just like the odds are 15 million to one that a specific individual would win the lottery. But someone always wins.
Thank you so very much for your kind words, Alamo-Girl! WRT the above, as you note I do suspect the same myself. Vafa has extraordinarily interesting things to say. People, go take a look!
Thanks so much for the link, A-G!
It was a hard saying.... LOL! But do not be concerned! "To everything there is a season..." :^)
The number five lottery example, like the number one, is another way of stating the anthropic principle. There's lots more on this at post 70. Here are two restatements of the anthropic principle (from that post):
and...
Faced with such overwhelming improbability, cosmologists have offered up several possible explanations. The simplest is the so-called brute fact argument. "A person can just say: 'That's the way the numbers are. If they were not that way, we would not be here to wonder about it,' " says Rees. "Many scientists are satisfied with that." Typical of this breed is Theodore Drange, a professor of philosophy at the University of West Virginia, who claims it is nonsensical to get worked up about the idea that our life-friendly universe is "one of a kind." As Drange puts it, "Whatever combination of physical constants may exist, it would be one of a kind."
The first link at 562, to the Origin-of-Life Prize, takes you to discussion page which provides the considerations in some detail for scientists making submissions.
Thus, the sustaining & enhancement of one's life and of those whom they value is as much an objective good as you could ever hope to find, IMO.
The problem is that you do have a hope to find an objective good. Why is that?
Some sort of non-temporal non-physical cause-and-effect would seem inescapable given the structure, stability and clear order of physicality and the fact that physicality is "built upon" and likely "rides upon" nothing physical. This, to me, implies intelligence far, far beyond the human capacity to comprehend due, I presume, to our very physicality. And "intelligence" is a wholly inadequate word -- the kind of capacity required would far exceed the intellectual. The alternative, an absense, again to me, makes far less sense.
Then atheism would be shallow and irrational. :-)
And those telling you about "Hank" are know for building schools and hospitals and caring for the poor and orphans, along with being generally industrious citizens. And, while the choice is yours, no "ass-kissing" is required.
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