Posted on 05/29/2002 8:32:25 AM PDT by cornelis
Yes! Good to see you here, Kevin.
Why, I must have been having a bad dream! Look, I'm in Kansas! There's Toto! And there's the local board of education!
The rule is: "When you don't have the facts, resort to humor". But your selection of the title "Comrade" was excellent!
Important point with which I agree but separate from the issue of Darwinism As Science, which is also important.
Well, hardly.
The many who read it before it disappeared know better. If it had been addressed to me and were still in my reply queue, I might be tempted to repost it and get myself suspended or banned for reposting deleted text. Let's see if I can recapitulate an argument or two, without attempting to outdo the original.
Phillip Johnson confuses naturalism, the method (science) with naturalism, the philosophy. They are different things. He whines particularly that naturalism, the method, excludes supernaturalism and supernatural explanations. That's what the philosophy does, not the method.
Now, Johnson rather deliberately limits the scope he seeks for supernatural explanations to the subject of origins. Why?
Suppose you went to the doctor with a problem for which he could not immediately suggest a natural explanation. Suppose further that, if he was stumped for half an hour, he felt obligated to announce a supernatural explanation and treat you with spells and incantations.
The point is that, if Johnson didn't restrict supernaturalism to an area nobody ever really has to deal with, anyone, no matter how friendly his predisposition might have been, would see what an utter crock it is.
Another point is that science doesn't really exclude the possibility of finding evidence for the supernatural at all, although Johnson is shrilly claiming that it does. The problem, and Johnson may at some level realize this, is that is hasn't done so and probably never will.
End of vague paraphrase. The original was more detailed, more scholarly, and contained many other points. FR should be ashamed of itself to let this travesty continue.
I did. It was no such thing. It was a well-reasoned, well-thought out refutation of much of Johnson's thinking. Reasonable people may disagree about how well post 103 made it's case, but...well, no they won't, not any more. Post 103 is an unpost. That person is an unperson.
It is lucky for the C side that 103 does not exist. Now they will never have to trouble themselves about dealing with it, or answering it. And they can continue on in ignorance, secure in the knowledge that there was never a post 103, nor were any problems with Johnson ever noted by such an unperson.
I agree. But religious people do draw inferences (quite possibly incorrect) that others are generally unwilling to consider. Sometimes these inferences are purely emotional (I am awed by the majesty of the universe, therefore I feel that God must have created it.) But sometimes they are more than that. This question of the initial extremely low entropy of the universe is an actual phenomenon from which one may draw inferences - and for which it is hard to posit a reasonable explanation based on our knowledge of natural phenomena.
I became acutely aware that what we think is reasoning is very often rationalization. When you speak of rationality, there are two very distinct components. One is logical reasoning, which is about going from premises to conclusions, conclusions that should be as good as your premises. Thus, logic will get you into insanity if you’ve got the wrong premises.The other component of rationality is having the right premises. How do you get them and how do you determine that they are right? Not by logical reasoning, surely, because then you would be reasoning from other premises in order to justify them. There is an instinct, or revelation, or whatever you want to call it, that underlies your thinking, and the only interesting problem in philosophy is how you get that.
After figuring that out, it was the death of rationalism, as far as I was concerned. The problem with rationalism is that it isn’t rational. It fails to give sufficient importance to the development of the choice of the right premises; it tries to justify them by circular reasoning. Once I was alert to that distinction, I was able to critique the things that previously I felt I had to take for granted.
Then again, maybe it was some entity who was bored one day and just created a life-supporting universe for the hell of it.
As before, I do agree with you. However, many people are interested in the notions of good and evil, and what constitutes good and evil. Maybe these notions are just byproducts of our evolutionary design (you know, whatever might harm us is evil, etc.). Others make inferences about mankind's obsession and struggles with these questions that lead them to believe that creation wasn't just for the hell of it. You may believe (and you may be right) that these inferences are based on weak or faulty evidence, etc. etc. But many people's belief in religion (and in God) come from multiple and strong inferences in their minds (and not just because they were told to believe in God!). And, as a human, I'm sure you make inferences every day (where you assume things based not on direct evidence, but on clues and suggestions in the environment around you). Many great scientific discoveries have been made based on inference. And, as discussed yesterday, whole areas of science are based on it (quantum mechanics is a particularly good example). I do agree with you. No proof of God before the big bang, and no way (so far) to prove anything about before the big bang. But also don't close your mind to (reasonable) inferences that one might draw where actual scientific proof is lacking.
(As I recall, however, the writer went on to mention that you can test your rational model against your experience of the world. Omission of this point looks like a glaring deficiency of the argument of the section you posted.)
If it had been addressed to me and were still in my reply queue, I might be tempted to repost it and get myself suspended or banned for reposting deleted text.
Take care. ;)
Huge Western Culture BUMP!!
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