Sunday, July 10, 2016

How the World Should Look


I was intrigued to read an article in Crude Ideas that pushes back on the claim sometimes made by many naturalists: "The world looks exactly the way it should look if God didn't exist."  Crude considers this to be an intellectually vapid statement that theists can easily deal with if they just use the right tool.
Intellectually, there's a way to describe it: weak. It's nothing but a subjective claim (not even an argument) with little in the way of intellectual content, little in the way of evidence. Powerful subjectively, but most self-described atheists aren't going to want to stick with it once the subjective, evidence-free aspect is pointed out to them.
But what is the right tool for answering this claim?  It isn't theistic arguments like the cosmological arguments.  It is "an explanation of metaphysics and God's role in relation to such" that will do the trick, he says.  If only we naturalists had some inkling of the fundamentals of metaphysics, we would understand how stupid it is to make a statement like that.

Unfortunately, crude does not bother to elaborate on how an understanding of metaphysics would cure us of this supposed intellectual problem.  He doesn't deign to enlighten the reader with even the briefest of explanations of what this metaphysical concept is that theists understand but that eludes naturalists.  Which leaves me wondering whether he actually has any such understanding himself, or if he is just spouting his own subjective take on things in his usual manner, without substantive argument or justification for the hot air that so freely flows from his wide-open mouth.

Let's take a closer look at the naturalists' claim.  What are they saying?  I think it's fair to say that this is a claim about teleology.  It is about design and purpose - or in this case, the lack of design or purpose.  If the world exists as a result of natural processes that lack any intent or design, we would not be surprised to find that much of it plays no role in human existence.  Planets, stars, and galaxies come into existence and are destroyed again, without ever affecting our lives.  We would not be surprised to see much that is imperfect, or poorly "designed" for some apparent purpose.  Like animal species that become extinct because they are not adapted for the changing environment, or bodies that are vulnerable to succumb to disease without ever having a chance to experience the fullness of life.  We would not be surprised to find that suffering is ubiquitous.  Billions of sentient creatures experience pain and die in agony, without ever contributing to the spiritual well-being of mankind in any discernible way.

Under the theists' worldview, the world we live in was created by God.  It has a purpose, which we suppose is to provide a place for mankind to live and learn the lessons of life in preparation for his eventual transition to the spiritual realm, where he will live in eternal bliss in the presence of God.  From the Christian perspective, the world was designed for that purpose, and it is exactly what it should be.  It is the "best of all possible worlds".  In other words, our world is exactly what it must be in order to fulfill God's divine purpose.  In this view, it is assumed that whatever seems to be problematic to explain under the concept of a God who is omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-benevolent, must be necessary, because without it there would be unavoidable consequences that would result in an overall reduction of the goodness of the world.  So, for example, if we imagine a world where one single creature long ago was spared the agony of being devoured alive, that would necessitate consequences that would make the world a worse place than it is.  And the same would be true for any possible scenario where some flaw or imperfection in the world were eliminated.

It is worth noting that the reasoning behind this theistic worldview is the assumption that God, being maximally good, must have created the best world achievable without entailing some detrimental consequence.  This is not based on any evidence, or any analysis of what kind of world might be achievable.  It is based purely on the presumed properties of God.  And furthermore, this view pre-dated much of modern science.  And that gives us an opportunity to glimpse the Christian view of what their "best of all possible worlds" should look like. 

Before science gave us the ability to see the world with much more clarity than was possible in ancient or medieval times, the conception of the world was much different from what it is now.  The earth was at the center of the cosmos, and there were no distant stars and galaxies.  Why should there be, if it was all created for us?  The whole thing was ideal for human existence.  There were no vast reaches if inhospitable space. There was no past consisting of millions of years, in which countless species lived, suffered, and died, leaving only the faintest of traces behind.  Why would there be, if God could just make us and place us in this world?  But now that we know so much more about our world than we did in the past, the theist has much more to explain.  And of course, as their explanations grow ever more attuned to modern scientific observations, they become increasingly incoherent in terms of divine intent.  The all-powerful God, who designs the laws of physics, had no choice but to do everything exactly as we see it, in order to fulfill his purpose, they say.  Um, OK.  But why couldn't he just make a world like the one the ancients believed in?

Naturalists, on the other hand, don't have to explain why the universe would be designed to be so vast, with humans occupying only a tiny little corner of it.  It wasn't designed at all, much less designed for us.  We don't have to explain why so much of it is inhospitable to life.  There was never any intent for it to host life.  We don't have to explain why a good God would make so many animals to suffer.  We don't think that would happen if God really had the attributes that Christians insist he has.  We don't have to explain why a young child would die without having a chance to gain the life experience that theists believe is necessary to abide with God for eternity.  Because the child was not created for that purpose, or any other purpose that God might have had in mind.  If there is no God, there is no intent to make humans for any particular purpose, and there is no intent to make a world that is suitable for us to live in.  The world that we observe fits perfectly with naturalism.  Not so much with theism.

We can explain how the world turns out to be what it is by the laws of nature, without any design or any purpose.  And those laws don't entail intelligent life, but neither do they preclude it.  We can explain how evolution adapts creatures to their environment, giving them the appearance of design, but without any intelligence or intent involved in the process.  But evolution doesn't entail perfection.  It adopts sub-optimal features that are good enough to survive in the existing environment, but there is no intelligent force driving toward the best possible design, or any design at  all, for that matter.  We can understand the existence of suffering, in light of the fact that there is no benevolent God who wants to make the world the best that it could be.  In short, without God, what we see in our world fits perfectly with our expectations of how it should look.

Christians once had a view of how the world should look if it were designed by God.  Science has shattered that view.  Christians are left with a struggle to rationalize what we see now in light of their theistic beliefs.  They haven't discarded their old theodicies and beliefs about divine design.  But it all becomes a bigger hill to climb.  That doesn't stop them from heaping criticism on naturalists who look at the evidence and draw a completely different conclusion about how the world came to be what we see.  In their mind, failing to presume God and his divine purpose constitutes an intellectual deficiency.

To people like crude, metaphysics deals with being, and being means only one thing: God (as in God is being itself).  But metaphysics is about ontology (among other things), which attempts to examine the nature of being and what kinds of things exist.  It doesn't presume God.  Crude should shut his mouth for a moment, open a philosophy book, and start reading the chapter on fundamentals of metaphysics.  It wouldn't hurt if he learned a little science, too.  Having done that, he should then proceed to enlighten the rest of us on what is so ignorant about the claim "The world looks exactly the way it should look if God didn't exist."

62 comments:

  1. " it is "an explanation of metaphysics and God's role in relation to such" that will do the trick, he says. "

    Elbert Hubbard, American philosopher, had the likes of crude pegged well before he was even a figment in his mother's imagination:

    "A mystic [read christian metaphysic] is a person who is puzzled before the obvious, but who understands the non-existent."

    Couldn't have said it better myself.

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    1. Here's another puzzler for crude: Why is it that every non-believer in the world is less intelligent than himself? Or could it be that God just made him special?

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    3. Isn't Crude the one who kicked your butt time and time again in debate and caught Papalinton plagiarizing?

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    4. crude has never kicked anyone's butt in a debate. He doesn't engage in debates. He engages in personal attacks and innuendo. And nobody would ever accuse him of showing Christian charity.

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  2. Why would there be [vast time and space], if God could just make us and place us in this world?

    But again, why wouldn't there be? Rather arrogant of you, don't you think, to think you know what the "right size" ought to be?

    But why couldn't he just make a world like the one the ancients believed in?

    Again, you seem to be rather fond of second-guessing the Creator.

    Naturalists, on the other hand, don't have to explain...

    But you do have to explain why the universe is here at all.

    We can explain how the world turns out to be what it is by the laws of nature

    But you cannot explain how those "laws" came to be in the first place.

    Christians once had a view of how the world should look if it were designed by God.

    No, scientists had a view that was in keeping with the best observations of the time. Ptolemy (and his successors) had tens of thousands of hours of phenomenally accurate astronomical observations backing up their quite reasonable view that the heavens encircled the Earth and revolved about it. It was Catholic scientists who "shattered" that worldview and replaced it with one that better suited new observations.

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    1. Rather arrogant of you, don't you think, to think you know what the "right size" ought to be?
      - But I didn't say what the right size should be. That's what theists did in their old model of the world, which was based on theistic belief more than observation, and turned out to be mostly wrong.

      Again, you seem to be rather fond of second-guessing the Creator.
      - That's what they said to the early scientists (yes, they were Catholic) who dared to challenge the theistic view of the world. But my statement is based on what YOU say. It is your belief that god is all powerful, and so he shouldn't be hemmed in by rules of his own making that severely restrict the way the world can be made. How about a serious attempt at answering the question? Why couldn't God make the world a better place than it is?

      But you do have to explain why the universe is here at all.
      - Why? I'm not the one who insists that it's all for a purpose. You are. I'm perfectly happy to say that this is simply the way things are. I don't need a reason. That's your department.

      But you cannot explain how those "laws" came to be in the first place.
      - No more than you can. Sure, you think you know, but you don't know. Goddidit is not an answer that satisfies the intellect. The fact is that we don't know. Maybe the laws of physics are necessary in the same manner as the rules of logic. We don't know. Maybe there are lots of universes that each have their own laws of physics, and only a few of them are suitable for life. We don't know. And you don't either.

      No, scientists had a view that was in keeping with the best observations of the time.
      - I've heard this before. It doesn't take a scientist to make observations. Science goes beyond that, to make hypotheses and put them to the test. The best you can say about Ptolemy is that he made adjustments to his model to make them fit the observations.

      It was Catholic scientists who "shattered" that worldview and replaced it with one that better suited new observations.
      - The old trope of religion being responsible for science. Don't forget that their work was declared to be heretical by the church.

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    2. I don't see why naturalists need to explain why the universe exists at all. If they accept strong versions of the principle of sufficient reason then perhaps they require an explanation, but otherwise I see no epistemic obligation to find an explanation. Naturalists might very well take physical reality to be a brute fact.

      FYI, saying "Why wouldn't there be x?" does not answer "Why is it that x?". If we want to say a large, old universe is expected given theism then we need an explanation for why (Among the set of possible worlds) God would actualize a world like this rather than a smaller, younger world.

      In the future, try actually answering the questions of the OP rather than trying to score rhetorical points.

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    3. It would make sense to conclude that if God exists, he doesn't want us to know it. He sure does a good job of presenting a set of observable facts that would lead reasonable people to think he doesn't exist.

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    4. If it has any interest to you, Joe has recently said that he does not think there are genuine non resistant non believers. If that isn't good reason to not bother with his blog then I don't know what is.

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    5. your whole argument the world looks like it should if I'm right--height of ignorance--like saying how did this river getv to flow in the exact shape of the state line?

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  3. "Again, you seem to be rather fond of second-guessing the Creator."

    The deeper issue here is your fondness for second guessing the existence of an actual 'creator'. And an even deeper fundamentally and irreconcilably problematic issue is your fondness for pretending that only the christian god exists. If ever there was an illustration of arrogance and hubris this is truly the doozy of them all.

    "But you do have to explain why the universe is here at all."

    Why? Not one single person in their right mind, theist or atheist, would deny the existence of the universe. It is observed, experienced, tasted, imbibed, felt and and verified every second of every day of each and all living person's existence. What isn't experienced every day by the overwhelming majority of people on this planet is the wholly unnatural and particularly parochial christian rendition of their 'ground of all being', the utterly illusory and mistakenly purported creator of this universe. No amount of apologetical gobbledegook can circumvent this fact.

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    1. It is inimical to the Christian faith to think that something can exist without an explanation. Except, of course for God himself. Yes, they claim that his explanation is his necessity, but that's just circular reasoning. If anything else could exist without an explanation, then God isn't necessary.

      a. The existence of contingent things is explained by a necessary God.
      b. God's necessity is explained by the existence of contingent things.

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  4. If God has gone to all this trouble to make it appear like He doesn't exist, isn't it blasphemy to insist that He does exist?

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    1. I think the real blasphemy is to presume to know anything about God.

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  5. The real problem with crude's somewhat sad and tired rendition is not that we [atheists] apparently have no understanding of metaphysics but rather the forlorn belief that metaphysics is ubiquitous with the existence of a specific spectral numen, their particular christian god. The study of Metaphysics as was intended from the time of Aristotle was that which followed after physics, not that which followed after God. Aquinas appropriated and cannibalised Aristotelian metaphysics 1,300 years later, which we now are slowly beginning to understand, in an effort to cloak the christian mythos to give it the appearance of philosophical substance, to add bones to a flabby superstition. READ HERE :

    "This was misread by Latin scholiasts, who thought it meant "the science of what is beyond the physical".

    It was Aquinas that misinterpreted metaphysics to mean 'beyond science' rather than 'after science'. One need only read The Five Ways to catch the numinous 'presence' in his theological rationale of the world. And the whole sorry business about metaphysics is perpetuated by the likes of crude.

    As is outlined in the citation above, "A person who studies metaphysics is called a metaphysician.[4] Among other things, the metaphysician attempts to clarify the fundamental notions by which people understand the world, e.g., existence, objects and their properties, space and time, cause and effect, and possibility." Those that study bona fide metaphysics are philosophers. Those that dabble in metaphysics that is 'beyond physics' are called theologians.

    Crude would be better advised to remove himself from the big people's table.

    Sheesh!



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    1. LOL
      Bare assertion and straw man. Very convincing.

      That is quite a list of fabrications and unsupported opinions.
      Obviously put together by someone who has been on the losing end of many online arguments about religion.

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    2. Why did you post that list? Suppose that the set of universes God would create (Denote it as "C")has 1000 elements, and among those only 10 are large universes and the rest are very tiny compared to ours. Denote the size of our universe as "S", theism as "T" and naturalism as "N". Pr(S|T) would be 10/1000, or .01. An atheist could not soundly derive ~T from S, but if Pr(S|N| >>> Pr(S|T) then S would be evidence for N over T, and if all else is equal then S would make Pr(N) > Pr(T).

      If we followed that route then the fact that {T, S} is a consistent set does nothing to help change whether S lowers the probability of theism relative to the probability of naturalism.

      The fact that that list comes from creationists doesn't inspire any confidence in you as a thinker. It might also not help that the authors probably fuck animals, but whatever.

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    3. I have to say that this is a laughable caricature of atheistic thinking. Not because it is an exaggeration of beliefs that atheists hold, but because it is so far off base, it shows how absurd YOUR understanding of atheists and atheistic thinking is.

      Number 5 on that list completely misses the mark. Nobody ever claimed that the vastness of the universe disproves God. But it was theists who used to think the cosmos was small, based on their theistic conceptions of God's design and God's purpose. If it had turned out to be true, they would see that as confirmation of their belief. But now that we know better, they see the vastness of the universe as confirmation of God's grandeur. In other words, the evidence makes no difference whatsoever to theists. They will see it all as evidence for their beliefs. And then ridicule atheists for pointing this out.

      This is nothing but a caricature of YOU.

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    4. If you find the link on that site to 300 disproofs of God then you'll find 300 reasons to think the author of the article has never really honestly engaged with atheists.

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  7. Why did you post that list?

    Because item number 5 was hilariously apropos to the discussion.

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  8. But it was theists who used to think the cosmos was small

    Not so. Not so at all. Ptolemy wrote that the stars were so distant from the Earth that for all practical (that is, computational) purposes, the Earth could be considered to be no larger than a mathematical point.

    That sounds pretty dang big to me!

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    1. The Ptolmeic System was a geocentric model with celestial spheres that contained the stars.

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    2. The Ptolmeic System was a geocentric model with celestial spheres that contained the stars.

      You are absolutely correct. And the Ptolemaic universe was so inconceivably large that, in relation to the whole, our sorry Earth was nothing more than a geometric point. As I said, "That sounds pretty dang big to me!"

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    3. Plank: "Not so. Not so at all. Ptolemy wrote that the stars were so distant from the Earth that for all practical (that is, computational) purposes, the Earth could be considered to be no larger than a mathematical point."


      Plank is an intellectually confused christian. I'm pretty sure Ptolemy was a pagan. It is any wonder he deduced the cosmos large, very much contra to contemporaneous christian thought which believed the cosmos small?

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    4. HERE is a nice little article on Ptolemy. The pertinent bit about Ptolemy and christian thinking is:

      "It would be a mistake, therefore, to think that their [Ptolemy and Aristotle's] theological investigations and speculations were equivalent or similar to what Jewish, Christian, or Muslim theologians or scholars would say about either the methods or objects of theology."

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    5. In Ptolemy's model, "The largest sphere, known as the celestial sphere, contained the stars and, at a distance of 20,000 times the Earth’s radius, formed the limit of Ptolemy’s universe." - Britanica

      OK, pretty dang big, perhaps, but absolutely nothing like reality.

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  9. Im Skeptical, I think you should click on that blog entry that you linked to from Crude's site.

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    1. Well, that's interesting. As I mentioned earlier, all personal attack, no debate. Oh, and what a liar this guy is. He said he doesn't read my blog and he ignores everything I say.

      Unfortunately, he doesn't have the courage or the honesty to link to this post so that his readers can see for themselves what he's talking about. Afraid they might see my point, I suppose. What a piece of work.

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    2. I think he did already debate you, and you got your butt kicked. And, he isn't afraid that his readers will see that. A few of them know about you and what you are like. He doesn't link to your site because you are just looking for attention, and he doesn't want to send traffic to your blog.

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    3. In your wildest dreams JBsptfn. Crude has added nothing to any debate, let alone any discussion, that has been other than unfounded, formulaic apologetical drivel. Christian hegemony is slowly but inexorably waning in the West, even the US being the last of the boneheaded strongholds following in the wake of the European contribution to the rise and rise of secular humanism. The US must be congratulated for the enormous groundswell and shift in community sentiment against much of what were cherished but utterly indefensible christian stances on marriage equality, recognition of the freedoms and rights of LGBTI in our community, the sovereignty of women's reproductive rights and concomitant health care, all on which crude has been on the wrong side of history. And I suspect as you have been.
      No person in their right mind is going to be lectured to by the remaining Dodos of historical intellectual has-beens that crude represents.

      I simply cannot go past Stanislaw J Lec, a Polish-Jewish poet/aphorist and Holocaust survivor who poignantly noted and history so clearly shows us:

      "All gods were immortal."

      And so it is, as we are slowly discovering, with the christian god. Old gods don't die. They fade away.

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    4. Papa, you make the mistake of lumping all Christians together under a fundamentalist, right-wing flag. That's wrong. I am a Christian, and I am not conservative or liberal. As Fred Reed pointed out once (not his exact words. I am not a plagiarizer like you), the left and right wing are both sides of the national labotomy.

      And, as for Crude, what you say about him is BS. You are just butt-hurt because of what happened here (in the comments):

      Ed Feser: Was Aquinas Dualist

      And also, here:

      Dangerous Idea: Reply to Loftus on Argumentum ad Kierkeggard

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    6. Oh dear. You must be truly desperate JBsptfn. I'll bet you keep these in a very special dirt file of favourites for such occasions. Incapable of contributing to the discussion in any significant or relevant way you have waited years and years for the opportunity to trot out this incident to which not only did I immediately own up to but own as the comments section clearly records. It was an excellent lesson to learn. One should not copy other work even when it is utter religious tripe. I don't resile from admitting that I erred.

      As for your, "I am a Christian, and I am not conservative or liberal."

      Precisely. It is not being conservative or liberal that is at issue here but the irreconcilably problematic fact of your being a christian, a purveyor of ancient superstition that you are forlornly attempting to drag from our primitive ignorant past into the 21st century. The issue here is all about the transition of the community from a world view based on mythos, superstition and unfounded belief to one that is built on fact, evidence and proofs sustaining an epistemological and ontological paradigm that is orders of magnitude more robust than the christian belief system. And it is a painful journey for the theist no doubt. And that is why christians fight so hard to stem the bleeding from its ranks.

      In response to this OP about the existence of god[s], renowned anthropologist Dr David Eller, says it most eruditely, based as his response is on thousands of years of historical fact and evidence:

      "Old gods don't get disproven. They get forgotten."

      And so it will be with the christian god. There is no need to disprove the existence of it. Such effort is both unnecessary and irrelevant going forward. The christian god is a wholly-owned derivative of the terrestrial imagination [as are Ganesha the elephant-headed god of contemporary Hindu, the Giant Water Serpent god of today's tribal Australian Aborigines, and Xenu of Scientology] and it will eventually fade from the terrestrial imagination. The particularly endeared spectral numen central to the christian mythos is slowly but inexorably tracking the same path as its predecessors, Isis, Jupiter, Mithra, Hercules and a myriad others consigned to the dust of history.

      It is neuroscience, among the many other allied research in biology, physics, astronomy, cosmology, history, anthropology that is informing a consistent narrative, filling in the blanks of humanity's knowledge and understanding of why we imagine gods, evil spirits, exorcisms, apparitions, devils, angels, nephilim, poltergeists and other things that go bump in the night. Like astrology, alchemy, numerology and a host of related areas of earlier unsustainable pursuits before it, theology, and more particularly in this case the christian god, will continue to fade from public consciousness.

      Interestingly crude has been doggedly stalking me for years trotting this out wherever I happen to comment. Indeed, on Dr Reppert's site 'Dangerous Ideas' crude was challenged to refrain from this stalking behaviour. And if I recall correctly the commenter was not especially enamoured of me, either. Clearly, in the absence of any intellectual contribution to make, you have taken on the lickspittle role of minion. All kudos to you. It is a fitting role for a Christian. And I'm sure your's will not be the last time.

      It's probably hubris or arrogance on my part. I don't know. I'll let others judge. But I actually wear the moment as a sort of badge of honour, regurgitating theological hylomorphic swill back to the intellectual poor that believes in this nonsense.

      In all, if this is the best that life offers, then I am content.

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    7. new atheism is Newman illiteracy, it';s based upon very stupiod narrow minded people like Dawks who doesn't know his head from his ass.

      atheism is 3% of world pop and 1.4-3% of U.S. pop. not growing. IO's been three decades since atheists started talkimng about growing they have not gained more than 2% mzx in all that time,

      The categroy of :none: on surveys has gfrown, there visv growin in unorganized n on Chrikstian religiomn bjut not in atheism.

      expansion of rights and tolerance for gays is not decline of Christianity most of those gays see themselves as Christians.

      expansion of understanding and exceptionable for evolution is not a ictory forv atheism it;snto a defeat for Christianity,

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    8. Joe, is there some point you are trying to make? Do you think anyone listens to your incoherent babbling?

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    9. @Joe Hinman

      "Dawks"?
      Seriously?

      Sorry, Dr, Dawkins standing in the scientific community is unassailable.
      You may not like what he has to say but there is no way to credibly deny that he is a first rate intellect.
      And someone who can barely post a coherent sentence or follow an intelligible thought to its conclusion probably shouldn't be projecting any cogitations about heads and asses.
      Is that dissertation still under consideration, fool?

      {"....Several polls have been conducted by Gallup International: in their 2012 poll of 57 countries, 13% of respondents were "convinced atheists" and in their 2015 poll of 65 countries 11% were "convinced atheists"....."} wiki

      11% to 13% worldwide, fool.

      http://www.wingia.com/web/files/news/290/file/290.pdf

      {"....major new survey of more than 35,000 Americans by the Pew Research Center finds that the percentage of adults (ages 18 and older) who describe themselves as Christians has dropped by nearly eight percentage points in just seven years, from 78.4% in an equally massive Pew Research survey in 2007 to 70.6% in 2014....."}

      http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

      Adults who identify as atheists in the US went from 1.6% in 2007 to 3.1% in 2014.

      https://baptistnews.com/article/u-s-atheist-population-is-growing-and-needs-radical-hospitality-christian-filmmaker-says/

      Almost double in 7 years. You should be very anxious, fool, and apparently you are.

      Not even half of LGBT people identify as christers.

      http://www.advocate.com/politics/religion/2015/05/12/report-half-lgb-americans-identify-christian

      The expansion of gay rights is a resounding defeat for american christianity. Don't kid yourself-if christians could they would still be stoning/burning/hanging gays.

      Christianity worships a "holy" book that claims humans were made by a magic man breathing life into clay, fool. If the first chapter of your bible is metaphorical what good is it?

      You need to take more time with your posts, son.
      Say more with fewer words. Make a single point and support it with documentation.

      And for crap's sake....learn how to turn on spell check.





      http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/americas-changing-religious-landscape/

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    10. Skep you really want to do this insult thing? I don't need to waste my time practicing typing here.

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    11. Joe,

      No, I do not care to exchange insults. If you listen to what I've been saying, you should know that. However, the comment you made that I deleted was just plain nasty, and I don't want that on my blog. Your other comment in this thread (July 13, 2016 at 8:50 PM) is completely off-topic and has nothing to do with any discussion that was in progress, aside from being factually wrong, as pointed out by Merrill. (New news out today: nones are now the largest voting bloc in the US, according to Pew.) That's why I asked if there was some point you were trying to make. This isn't about insults, it's about trying to make sense of what you say. And by the way, I still haven't been able to decipher what you meany by the last sentence in that comment. To me (and to others, I'm sure) it comes across as meaningless nonsense.

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  10. Papa, your post is just retarded. Where is this proof that Crude was stalking you? I don't buy it. And everything else you said is a pile of BS. That also goes for Merrill.

    And, IMS, you can't beat Joe's arguments, so you have to insult him. Interesting.

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    1. Where is this proof that Crude was stalking you?
      - It is crude's custom to always accuse Papalinton of plagiarizing whenever he mentions him, no matter what the context. I this particular instance, it was MY post that he was responding to, so why did he even need to bring it up? The answer is obvious.

      By the way, I followed one of those two links and saw what his complaint was about. It seems there were two sentence fragments that were repeated verbatim. Not even a full sentence, mind you, and this is what crude has been harping endlessly about for years.

      And, IMS, you can't beat Joe's arguments, so you have to insult him. Interesting.
      - I would be happy if Joe wanted to make an actual argument - especially one that addresses the topic at hand. I had to delete one of his comments - not because I don't like what he says, but because it was an over-the-top personal attack. That's the first time I've ever done that. I don't want this blog to become like so many others out there, where people just attack each other. And that goes for you, too. You haven't had much to say that has any substance, or that addresses the topic of the post in some meaningful way. If all you want to do is cut people down, you can do that in crude's blog, or Stan's.

      Delete
    2. @JBsptfn

      "....everything else you said is a pile of BS.
      That also goes for Merrill. ..."


      Yup, goober, Pew and Gallup polls that directly contradict Hinman are nothing more than "BS".

      And you wonder why no one takes you seriously.

      Delete
    3. This is probably going to be my last post here for a while, so let me say this:

      To Merrill: You are the one who isn't taken seriously. Your most recent post is full of fundy atheist crap, and you wouldn't accept the truths that me and Joe tried to share with you about when the Gospels were written (and how they were transmitted). Also, Joe told me that he beat you like a drum in a debate (on the Sec Web or something).

      To IMS: I have done some searches on you (with your comments on other blogs). You have been a nuisance wherever you go. One person said that he tried to explain certain concepts to you, and you didn't understand them, so you kept arguing against them. I went to his site and mentioned your name, and he vehemently told me to avoid trying to argue with you.

      Also, Crude calling Papa Plagiarizer out on his BS isn't stalking. You guys must think your stuff doesn't stink, so when you get called out on something, you are being harassed or stalked.

      In conclusion, you three need to grow up and learn what you try to oppose. Your Atheistic Presuppositionalism is childish. Good day.

      Delete
    4. And you just go on being a denier of science. If I try to argue that evolution and the second law of thermodynamics really are compatible, you and your creationist friends may get all hot under the collar and angry at me for not buying your bullshit, and claim that I just don't understand it. But I will keep arguing against your ignorance. Because whether you think so or not, I understand it and you don't.

      Delete
    5. @JoeBtfsplk


      Are you for real son?

      Yup, goober, the most recent polls by Pew and Gallup are "fundy atheist crap".

      LOL
      Yes the "truths' you and Joe blathered that had no basis in reality, only wishful thinking and were at odds with the majority of biblical scholars and biblical textual analysts.

      Do you ever listen to yourself, fool?

      My only experience with Crude was on David Marshall's pathetic blog where he popped up to serve as the blazing saddles "Howard Johnson is absolutely right" wing man. And that was quite enough. He's a dick, a bully and doesn't in my experience do anything except attack other posters. It doesn't surprise me at all that he stalks.

      And speaking of "stalking", wtf do you think it's called when you pull this kind of shit because you're losing an argument?

      ".... I have done some searches on you (with your comments on other blogs). You have been a nuisance wherever you go....."

      And then you resort to this:

      "You guys must think your stuff doesn't stink, so when you get called out on something, you are being harassed or stalked. "

      Hilarious.
      You're here whining and defending an idiot who just called Richard Dawkins "Dawks" and said he doesn't know his head from his ass and quoted undocumented 'statistics' about atheism that were manufactured bullshit.

      What you smell ain't our stuff. moron. Check your diaper.

      "In conclusion, you three need to grow up and learn what you try to oppose. Your Atheistic Presuppositionalism is childish. Good day."

      Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha......

      I'm sorry, that is side splitting. Yes we all need degrees in Fairieology to refute the existence of fairies.
      I'm guessing you're in your mid teens at this point, son.

      That's one for the joke books and the forums.

      "Atheist Presuppositionalism".

      Sometimes the jokes write themselves and sometimes they're named "Btfsplk".

      You've earned the nick name and it's going to stick.



      Delete
    6. Maybe there was a point in time where Papa did plagiarize. Though I'd note from the evidence given, Papa never said the passage he used was originally from him so I don't think he was deceitful.

      But it doesn't matter either way. There's two issues I see, with the latter being the most important. First, it's very much a fundamentalist Christian attitude to notice a bad decision a person made and think that decision defines them forever (they must be punished forever because they are forever a bad person). To sensible people not believing in hell, this is silly. People can change, and their past transgressions can be forgiven.

      Second, and more important in online debate, Crude's plagiarism attack is a straight up ad hominem. He uses it avoid anything Papa says, and that's just the sort of red herring to distract people that counts as an ad hominem. Even if the charge is true, it is irrelevant to the truth of Papa's assertions and consequently the soundNess of his arguments.

      Delete
    7. What crude does, as well as JBsptfn and quite a few others, is known as poisoning the well. They're saying that people shouldn't even bother listening to any argument I or Papalinton might make, because of some supposed adverse information about us. Rather than judging our arguments on their own merit, just listen to the innuendo being spread around.

      Delete
  11. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "Papa, your post is just retarded. Where is this proof that Crude was stalking you? I don't buy it. And everything else you said is a pile of BS. That also goes for Merrill."

      Is that it? Is this all you have left, JBsptfn? Your contribution in this thread has been nothing more than bad mouthing. In assessing the total of your comments here, you seem to have developed all the characteristics of a genuine bottom feeder, a mud shoveler, much as crude has exhibited over the years. I guess it's a Christian thing.

      Merrill, Skep, Ryan and I have put in the hard yards in research and endeavoured to provide evidence, support statements, research surveys, data analysis and citations in order to substantiate the claims made. Your response? "Everything else you said is a pile of BS." Such a response is entirely anti-intellectual, incompetent, disingenuous and devoid of content. It has all the hallmarks of knee-jerk recalcitrance and callow petulance of a congenital juvenile. But then, belief in a mythos founded on superstition and borrowing the ubiquitous dying-and-rising-saviour motif as outlined HERE by historian Arthur George from the many earlier traditions is not a substantive base onto which a fully-functioning epistemology can be properly constructed for the 21st C.

      Give it a break JBsptfn. Just as the Egyptian religion with its Book of the Dead existed for some 2,000 years, [longevity of a tradition is no reliable measure of truth] so too is Christianity with its Bible tracking the same inexorable route of its predecessor fading into the dust of history. History assuredly as any reliable criterion shows us in spades of the incalculable numbers of religions that have faded and eventually forgotten. I will probably not see the end of Christianity in my lifetime but the groundswell of transition to secular humanism as the guiding principle for human behaviour and relationships both here in Australia and in the US is palpable. I am content in that knowledge.

      Delete
    2. This statement is from Joe Hinman, not me:

      Quote"It seems that you have a theory such that they see Christianity as following the traces of some well worn path in history such that it is suffering the fate of previous type religions. As though there is a historical law of repetition for religions. History does not work this way. Modern historians do not accept history repeating itself or cycles in history. Cycle in economics but in history. So that idea is anathema to historians.

      Religion as a whole has proved to be pretty resilient. Japan is an excellent example of how religion had changed and kept pace with modern ideas, I think the same happening for Christianity. It's growing in 3rd world, and it's keeping pace with modern thinking in first world. There are Christians on the faculty of every major university in the world, and in every major department. There are theology ensnarement in all the major universities. Desperate a rigorous anti-religion movement in religious studies and God disproving industry in philosophy it's not going away. Atheism has not grown, it's stil about 3% of world pop. Still 2 billion Christian, and Christianity has translated into modern thought pretty well. The problem is fundamentalism but that's growing.

      Atheists are always inflating their numbers and trying tell themselves they are winning. I Imagine you are just making typical mistakes like counting nones as atheist."Quote

      Delete
    3. Why are you and Hinman going on about how many atheists there are? Aside from being wrong, that was not the topic of discussion. Why don't you join the discussion in a more constructive way?

      Delete
    4. @JoeBtfslk

      "This statement is from Joe Hinman, not me:"

      Then why are you posting it?

      Quote"It seems that you have a theory such that they see Christianity as following the traces of some well worn path in history such that it is suffering the fate of previous type religions. As though there is a historical law of repetition for religions. "

      Anyone who doesn't understand that religions have a shelf life hasn't studied the history of religions. At all.


      "History does not work this way. "

      Actually it kind of does.

      "Modern historians do not accept history repeating itself or cycles in history. Cycle in economics but in history. So that idea is anathema to historians. "

      Citations needed.

      "Religion as a whole has proved to be pretty resilient. "

      So has human stupidity.
      Your point?

      "Japan is an excellent example of how religion had changed and kept pace with modern ideas,"

      All social institutions morph and mutate. Who said anything different?
      Oh, yea. You.
      Somehow you imagine christianity isn't like other religions because it has the one true god......


      "I think the same happening for Christianity. "

      That christianity has mutated to remain viable over the last 2,000 years isn't in dispute.
      Again, your point?

      "It's growing in 3rd world...."

      Yes, but as i pointed out earlier, you aren't going to recognize it when they are done with it.

      ".....and it's keeping pace with modern thinking in first world. "

      The hell it is.
      As education rises superstitions recede. Including yours.

      "There are Christians on the faculty of every major university in the world, and in every major department."

      So?
      Again the trend of history is against you.
      Not so long ago there were no atheists on university faculties. It was in fact grounds for being fired to admit to being an atheist.
      Now 10% are openly atheist and 13.4% are openly agnostic.
      23.4% "nones". And the higher the level of the institution the lower the percentage of faculty believing in "god".

      http://religion.ssrc.org/reforum/Gross_Simmons.pdf

      "There are theology ensnarement in all the major universities. "{

      Hahahahahahahahaha.....
      Nice work Btfsplk.
      I'm sure you don't see the humor in your choice of quote here or how ridiculous it makes you and Hinman look.
      What ever.

      Theology "ensnarement".
      Hilarious.
      Theology departments are vestigial and there will be fewer and fewer.

      "Desperate a rigorous anti-religion movement in religious studies...."

      LOL
      Despite a rigorous Anti-redundency Department of redundency......

      (continued)

      Delete
    5. (continued for Hinman and JoeBtfsplk)

      ".....and God disproving industry in philosophy...."

      More hilarity.
      Again, burden of proof is on those who insist a "god" must exist.
      Deal with it.

      "...it's not going away. "

      Nor is human stupidity. Again, your point is....?



      ".....Atheism has not grown, it's stil about 3% of world pop."

      It has grown and I produced not one but two recent and reputable polls that say it is 11% to 13% (and that does not include agnostics).
      You're a dick, Btfsplk, for reposting this and pretending it wasn't answered and disproven with documentation.
      Oh, that's right....it's just "atheist fundie bullshit" isn't it.

      Moron.


      ".....Still 2 billion Christian, and Christianity has translated into modern thought pretty well."

      Again, maintained only by a high birthrate and third world conversions without which your numbers would actually be in decline.

      "The problem is fundamentalism but that's growing."

      Your problem is growing?
      LOL
      Actually fundamentalism is shrinking. Millennials are leaving the evangelical movement.

      "Atheists are always inflating their numbers and trying tell themselves they are winning."

      Yup. goober, Pew and Gallup are run by atheists just trying to inflate their numbers.

      No idea how stupid you sound and Btfsplk has no idea how much of a fanboi he looks repeating your BS.


      "I Imagine you are just making typical mistakes like counting nones as atheist."Quote

      It would be comforting for you, I'm sure, to think that. But if you bothered to read the links I posted for you would know it's not true.

      Hinman got his ass kicked, Btfsplk, admit it.

      And learn to think for yourself, fanboi.

      Delete
    6. Oh, and by the way, why are you so hostile, and why do you have to resort to name calling? Is it because you haven't grown up yet?
      - That's rich. Perhaps you should listen to yourself.

      Delete
    7. "....Secular humanism as a guiding principle for human behavior? Yeah, that could work out real well (lol):..."

      Christianity has failed. It has only brought wars, exploitation and genocide. Time for a reset.

      "... I really don't give a crap about polls either way because they can be manipulated....

      And yet, twice now you've refused to even address the idea that neither Pew nor Gallup would have any reason to inflate the percentage of atheists. Why is that?

      "...It has more to do with things like falling morality and a right-wing, intolerant type of "Christianity". "

      Yes, no true scotsman would be intolerant. LOL

      And you need to check the definition of the word "fundamentalist", fool. You keep using that word. I do not think you know what it means.

      As to name calling, reread the board then tell me who started it, you dim wit.

      Delete
  12. howvdo get the commemt system you have Skeptioc? how do you get a better one

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. @JoeBtfsplk

      "...Joe told me that he beat you like a drum in a debate (on the Sec Web or something). ..."

      LOL
      Not on this planet, son.
      I do remember whacking that mole until it's head stopped popping up here though.

      Delete
    2. Just checked secular web's blog roll.
      I've never discussed anything with you on any of them.
      The only place I've encountered you is here and your own pathetic blog, son.

      And you haven't beaten anyone "like a drum" or even your own micro appendage.

      Pigeon chess = you

      Delete
    3. Listen here, prick: I am not your son. If he didn't debate you, then so be it. You don't have to hurl insults. If you ever did debate a good apologist, you would get you ass handed to you.

      Delete
    4. This comment has been removed by the author.

      Delete
    5. @JoeBtfsplk

      Okay, dick sheath, thanks for admitting Hinman lied.

      And thanks for admitting neither you nor Hinman are "good" apologists.

      LOL
      The clown who just posted this little gem:

      "...Ironically, you and the other two half-wits (Skep and Papa John's) are on the atheist side of the fundy coin...."

      Now says:

      "...You don't have to hurl insults...."

      Ironically indeed.

      Stop behaving like a child if you don't want to be treated like a child.

      Delete