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The idea that he is a devotee of reason seeing through the outdated superstitions of other, lesser beings is the foremost conceit of the proud atheist.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 ...
Ewwww... This article is out of the gate with a lame assertion. This is like the nutjobs in the crevo discussions who still assert that biology violates thermodynamics. It kind of brings into question the competence of the individual to even be involved in the discussion.
The "Golden Rule", when more rigorously characterized, is mathematically optimal (c.f. "Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma"). Only a fool wouldn't follow the Golden Rule no matter what their religion or lack thereof. The fact that the Golden Rule appears to be universal should be a big clue that it is not a uniquely religious concept (or unique to a particular subset of religions, for that matter).
Other arguments might be interesting, but the assertion that atheists have no reason to live by the Golden Rule is essentially based in ignorance. Trivially falsifiable arguments are pretty distasteful no matter who is making them, and are a net negative.
No, I did not say the bad things religious people do are the fault of "religion" (although in the case of Islam, since it is a "totaletarian ideology" it does cause its adherents to do bad things). If you go back and read my posts I quite carefully said, it is ideology, not religion (or lack of it). They are usually not the same thing, but sometimes are.
Hank
How many atheists these days have you heard of flying planes into buildings killing thousands of people, or strapping explosives to their bodies and blowing themselves and as many other people as they can to smitherines.
And what have you been smoking? Do the names Lenin, Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, Caucescu, et. als. mean anything to you?
Religion itself is not a good--as there are false and true religions...however the most bloodthirsty men in history have been atheists.
My apologies for the length of this reply, but I felt the Lurkers and participants on this thread might be interested in some points raised in that discussion, which support the view that atheists are on a very shaky foundation if they appeal to science and math:
…So I imagine at the end of the day, having made such a “confession,” scientific materialists out there will have a great chuckle over my superstitious and quite ridiculous suppositions and myths.
What they may not realize is that I sometimes find myself chuckling over their superstitious and quite ridiculous suppositions and myths.
My favorite one these days is the theory of the “primaeval soup” out of which all biological life is said to have spontaneously arisen, out of the blind chemistry of inert matter, all on a random basis; and then organize itself for greater biological diversity and complexity on a random basis, under the guiding hand of the physical laws and Natural Selection.
In a nutshell, there are not a few problems with this theory, in light of recent discoveries/experiments in quantum physics, astrophysics, geology, microbiology, mathematics, probability theory, and information theory.
One big problem in another nutshell:
As Dean Overman writes in A Case Against Accident and Self-Organization (2003):
Think about it: Logically, ‘natural selection’ requires something from which to select. That means there’s a “there” there already.
Yet the theory seems to want to explain the problem of natural evolution of species, the rise in complexity, etc., etc., while leaving the problem of the origin or basis of life in total obscurity – resting blissfully on materialist ideology, and faith in the guiding (yet invisible) hand of materialist Natural Selection (which being a concept, is hardly a “material” thing…).
I have to leave it to the reader to figure out what this all means.
IMHO, the first pillar - random mutations - is already in jeopardy because the lack of mutability in regulatory control genes points to autonomous biological self-organizing complexity as a better explanation, i.e. evolution is not a directionless walk.
The second pillar - natural selection - has been placed in doubt (Wolfram) in that natural selection more often works against such a mechanism than for it.
And that is without even looking at the syntactic autonomy required for abiogenesis (Rocha) or the underlying physics of life v non-life (Pattee) or the information content necessary to sustain biological life (Yockey).
Finally, all of these efforts are set in the context of our understanding of the universe or multi-verse (Tegmark, Penrose, Ovrut) - which has a beginning - and the astonishingly improbable physical laws of this universe (Rees) - and moreover, the geometry or dimensionality of all that there is (Vafa).
He writes, "Highly complex structures require many instructions. A structure may be highly ordered, such as a crystal, but contain very few instructions." Order displays pattern, sequence. Indeed, very simple instruction sets (and even chaos) have been observed to produce regular patterns. But highly complex structures -- such as DNA -- are nonperiodic, seemingly random sequences. DNA is "complex" in the way a crystal is not: Its complexity means it can encode an astronomically vast number of instructions/information content to specify its structure and realize its function.
Overman is also very keyed into issues in particle astrophysics. He wrote:
"Because the formation of life requires the formation of a universe compossible with life, the case against accident as an explanation for life is satisfied completely by an examination of the probabilities involved in the fine tuning of particle astrophysics without regard to issues raised by molecular biology. When one couples the probabilities in physics against an accidental universe compossible with life with the molecular biological and pre-biological possibilities against the formation of the first form of life from inert matter, the compounded calculation wipes the idea of accident entirely out of court."
The statement comes in the book's conclusion. It seems to have been thoroughly well argued and documented throughout.
Of course, there are things that cannot be known for a certainty. Most cases, we have to be satisfied with the standard, "beyond a reasonable doubt." I think Overman makes an persuasive case against life arising by accident; but I'll be checking his thesis against future developments, new evidence, new discoveries....
I certainly agree with the author’s measure of complexity – which roughly corresponds to the Chaitin/Kolmogorov view that complexity can be measured as the size of smallest program which will produce the subject string.
Sadly, there is a tendency around here to dismiss the importance of Shannon entropy to biological information content. Instructions flow through biological systems like communications between devices and thus, Shannon is very relevant in my view. Shannon entropy is roughly the uncertainty of that flow, the successful flow is information.
Likewise, when we speak of order there seems to be a tendency here to observe that when the universe dissolves in the end, it will have achieved both maximum entropy and greatest order. That is an interesting observation but it doesn’t really tell us much about order in biological systems.
Randomness raises the same kind of issue. For instance, both pi and Chaitin’s Omega will generate a string which – if you were to select a chunk of it at a respectable distance – would appear to be random. In the case of pi that impression would be false. In the case of Omega after a certain number of positions, that impression would be true.
Or would it? … since in both cases, the number itself is a derivation of algorithm and thus, not random. I believe this is Wolfram’s counter-point, i.e. that all randomness is only pseudo-randomness.
Indeed, on closer inspection (especially in alternative bases) - most candidate number generating algorithms have a high degree of auto-correlation.
The order and complexity of biological information content is frankly stunning. But if the greater the entropy, the higher the order, then the less the opportunity for complexity. On its own then, complexity can only form in lower entropy, higher chaos. But is that rational? IOW, for a metaphysical naturalist [atheist] explanation to prevail it must have gone from chaos to complexity to order to entropy to more chaos, more complexity, more order, more entropy and so on.
In sum, if the initial conditions are not random - indeed, if there is no randomness apart from pseudo-randomness - then the metaphysical naturalism theory of origins fails.
The counter to actual randomness around here has been the Brownian motion, but that (like pi and Omega) is an effect and not a cause, i.e. the consequence of ongoing bombardment by atoms and molecules….
And this [notion of an accidental universe] is the rub. Because the physical constants that exist – that absolutely, positively must exist – for biological life to have formed in this universe are stunningly improbable.
The only defense the metaphysical naturalists have to this is the plenitude argument – everything that can exist does, in some parallel universe.
Even for the die-hards who hold on to the hope of plenitude, they are nevertheless stuck with a beginning – and for that, they have no defense!
Which [cleverly] leads me to question how you arrive at your "stunningly improbable" conclusion. I'll give you an example of what prompts my question. Let's say the lottery in your state has arithmetical odds against a particular numerical sequence of 50 million to one. Fine. Let's say you win. Great for you!
Nothing supernatural about it. Someone's always winning. After all, some combination of numbers comes up every week. We agree that your winning is no miracle. Now let's suppose you win again. And a week later you win again. And then again! Now that's "stunningly improbable" enough to trigger an investigation.
Anyway, in concluding that your streak of wins is "stunningly improbable," we have some understanding of the genuine odds involved, how many players there are, etc. We have experience with lotteries, week after week. We know something of which we speak. But -- here comes my point -- when it comes to universes, we know nothing but this one. So how can anyone conclude that it's "stunningly improbable"? Compared to what? Given the data we have, it may just as well be stunningly inevitable.
By the way, I think that either conclusion about the universe (improbable or inevitable) is consistent with divine creation. I have no ax to grind there, and that's not what prompts my response. I'm genuinely curious about the "stunningly improbable" conclusion. Personally, I just don't see it.
A bit more on this (I hope you can put up with me). If the universe, and life, were really "stunningly improbable," then this brings to mind a deity that interferes continuously with the natural order of things (whatever that might be) in order to bring about this "stunningly improbable" universe in which we find ourselves. When I think of a continuously interfereing deity, I can't help coming up with this kind of image: [picture of Charlie Chaplin]
Now this "Charlie Chaplin Modern Times" kind of deity, running around flipping switches, pulling handles, turning dials, adjusting mixtures of chemicals, tweaking relationships, etc., may be just what it takes to generate a "stunningly improbable" universe. It seems that way to me, but I don't know. My personal opinion is that a universe where things just had to turn out this way, complete with life, consciousness, intelligence, and free will, is a far more elegant, even sublime creation, than a Rube Goldberg situation that requires constant attention.
So, for what it's worth (don't tell me), I suspect that this universe, and life, and everything, isn't "stunningly improbable" at all.
The Universe is unlikely. Very unlikely. Deeply, shockingly unlikely.
"It's quite fantastic," says Martin Rees, Britain's Astronomer Royal, waving a hand through the steam rising from his salmon-and-potato casserole...
In his newest book, Just Six Numbers, Rees argues that six numbers underlie the fundamental physical properties of the universe, and that each is the precise value needed to permit life to flourish. In laying out this premise, he joins a long, intellectually daring line of cosmologists and astrophysicists (not to mention philosophers, theologians, and logicians) stretching all the way back to Galileo, who presume to ask: Why are we here? As Rees puts it, "These six numbers constitute a recipe for the universe." He adds that if any one of the numbers were different "even to the tiniest degree, there would be no stars, no complex elements, no life." ...
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."
Rees objects, drawing from an analogy given by philosopher John Leslie. "Suppose you are in front of a firing squad, and they all miss. You could say, 'Well, if they hadn't all missed, I wouldn't be here to worry about it.' But it is still something surprising, something that can't be easily explained. I think there is something there that needs explaining."
Meanwhile, the numbers' uncanny precision has driven some scientists, humbled, into the arms of the theologians. "The exquisite order displayed by our scientific understanding of the physical world calls for the divine," contends Vera Kistiakowsky, a physicist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. But Rees offers yet another explanation, one that smacks of neither resignation nor theology. Drawing on recent cosmology- especially the research of Stanford University physicist Andrei Linde and his own theories about the nature of the six numbers- Rees proposes that our universe is a tiny, isolated corner of what he terms the multiverse.
The idea is that a possibly infinite array of separate big bangs erupted from a primordial dense-matter state. As extravagant as the notion seems, it has nonetheless attracted a wide following among cosmologists. Rees stands today as its champion. "The analogy here is of a ready-made clothes shop," says Rees, peeling his dessert, a banana. "If there is a large stock of clothing, you're not surprised to find a suit that fits. If there are many universes, each governed by a differing set of numbers, there will be one where there is a particular set of numbers suitable to life. We are in that one."
A review of the book to name the six numbers:
So what are the six numbers? One is the number of dimensions we live in: three. The rest are, at least at first sight, more obscure. For the record, they are N, the ratio of the strength of gravity to that of electromagnetism; epsilon, the ratio of mass lost to energy when hydrogen is fused to form helium; Omega, describing the amount of dark matter; lambda, the cosmological constant; and Q, related to the scale at which the universe looks smooth.
…Gravity. Suppose gravity was stronger or weaker than it is.
However, the efficiencies of nuclear reactions vary as a function of energy, and at certain critical levels a reaction rate can increase sharply - this is called resonance. It just so happens that there is a resonance in the three-helium reaction at the precise thermal energy corresponding to the core of a star... So if there was another resonance at work here all the carbon would be quickly processed into oxygen, making carbon very rare again. In fact, it turns out that there is an excited state of oxygen-16 that almost allows a resonant reaction, but it is too low by just 1%. It is shifted just far enough away from the critical energy to leave enough life-giving quantities of carbon untouched.
http://www.spacedaily.com/news/life-01o.html
Moreover, the Sun's circular orbit about the galactic center is just right; through a combination of factors it manages to keep out of the way of the Galaxy's dangerous spiral arms. Our Solar System is also far enough away from the galactic center to not have to worry about disruptive gravitational forces or too much radiation.
When all of these factors occur together, they create a region of space that Gonzalez calls a "Galactic Habitable Zone." Gonzalez believes every form of life on our planet - from the simplest bacteria to the most complex animal - owes its existence to the balance of these unique conditions.
Because of this, states Gonzalez, "I believe both simple life and complex life are very rare, but complex life, like us, is probably unique in the observable Universe."
2. Plentitude – everything that can exist, does in some multi-verse (Rees)
3. Anthropic Principle – without the right kind of physics, you don’t get physicists (PatrickHenry)
As a #1 – I consider #3 to be giving up. Conversely, as a #3 you might consider #1 to be giving up. But perhaps we can both agree that #2 ought to be pursued?
I see no hope for #2. It's kinda wishy-washy. And it's rather untestable. But #1 and #3 are also untestable, now that I think about it. It may be that we'll have to have a knife-fight to resolve all of this.
Now you know I can't do just one!
And I dissagree that Revelations has happened repeatedly. It has been predicted repeatedly, but chapter 6 on has not happened.
The book is a little cryptic at times and written the way a first century man might see the modern world, there is also a lot of specificity as you will see in the following. Specific percentages and numbers are included that should allow us to distinquish that these events have not happened yet. No events in history match these events recorded here. This should allow us to be certain that Revelations from Chapter 6 on has not happened.
In addition to these very specific prophecies, the temple will be rebuilt in Jerusalem in time for the Anti-Christ to desecrate it half way through the 7 year tribulation.
Rev 11:3 And I will give power unto my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. 4 These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth. 5 And if any man will hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man will hurt them, he must in this manner be killed. 6 These have power to shut heaven, that it rain not in the days of their prophecy: and have power over waters to turn them to blood, and to smite the earth with all plagues, as often as they will. 7 And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that ascendeth out of the bottomless pit shall make war against them, and shall overcome them, and kill them. 8 And their dead bodies shall lie in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also our Lord was crucified. 9 And they of the people and kindreds and tongues and nations shall see their dead bodies three days and an half, and shall not suffer their dead bodies to be put in graves. 10 And they that dwell upon the earth shall rejoice over them, and make merry, and shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwelt on the earth. 11 And after three days and an half the spirit of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which saw them. 12 And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they ascended up to heaven in a cloud; and their enemies beheld them. 13 And the same hour was there a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell, and in the earthquake were slain of men seven thousand: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven. 14 The second woe is past; and, behold, the third woe cometh quickly.
I can't be certain that you will see these in your lifetime. Of course your lifetime could end today. There are other prophecies that have occurred, that should not be ignored. Why you discount the fulfillment of prophecies that have already occurred, and need fresh prophecies and miracles is beyond me.
It's like asking the men who walked on the moon to do it again. What will be different, color video instead of black and white. If you didn't believe the prior proofs, why will one or even several more make a difference?
If I remember the prisoner's delimma correctly, the prisoner who manages to cheat while the other prisoners don't wins more than if everyone cooperates and much more than if everyone cheats. There is no incentive on an individual level to adhere to the golden rule.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/playground/pd.html
Actually, It was you that shifted the context, creating a “strawman” as you say.
DannyTN spoke in a universal context when he said that God provides the Atheist with ample proof , a general presence of evidence that should be convincing to any rational mind (or risk being considered irrational). That was the context, very relevant to the human condition.
After I called that kind of proof “objective” you were the one who introduced that strawman scenario so unlikely that it doesn’t warrant consideration beyond its amusement value. The irrelevant consideration that there’s less than a one in a trillion-trillion chance that all existence an illusion, varying in the way that it’s subjectively perceived, and therefore nothing is objective.
And besides introducing that strawman, calling existence a “leap” of faith is such a distortion of the English language that it’s symptomatic of something more disturbing.
Quoting myself: "Only a fool or an intellectual could be an atheist". Human arrogance is boundless.“Fool” and “arrogant” was a complement? Come on guy, I know enough about your faith to say that it promotes honesty, especially with oneself.
Most people don't follow it.
The fact that the Golden Rule appears to be universal should be a big clue
Do you know what the Golden Rule is?
:-)
Vox is among my favorite columnists. If you aren't familiar with him you may enjoy him. He's at WND.
The iterated prisoner's dilemma. The only time defection might be a net positive is in the case of a single instance in isolation; iterated over multiple instances defection is a net loss to everyone on average with the biggest loser being the person that defects the most. In the real world, interactions with people and society are iterated, not isolated, and so the IPD applies.
I repeat: Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma. Its what's for breakfast.
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