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Monday, October 20, 2008

“…Professing Themselves To Be Wise, They Became Fools…”, part 5 of 5

Please note that this post has been moved to True Freethinker’s Atheism category.

2 comments:

  1. "According to the Bible, the universe had a beginning.
    Millennia after the Bible’s statement, science has discovered this fact."

    Except this was predicted by every other religion on Earth. And it turns out that the universe is finite, but it doesn't have a beginning. I don't understand that-need to take cosmology.

    "According to the Bible, the universe expands.
    Millennia after the Bible’s statement, science has discovered this fact."

    Citation?

    "According to the Bible, the universe consists of time, space, and matter.
    Millennia after the Bible’s statement, science has discovered this fact."

    ... as opposed to? I wasn't aware of alternate theories. As it is, the bible also holds that there are supernatural things that aren't made of any of the three.

    "According to the Bible, the universe functions under the rule of laws.
    Millennia after the Bible’s statement, science has discovered this fact."

    Except that it doesn't. You know, quantum mechanics? Randomness at its purest. On a more macro scale, this startling insight was first discovered by... I think the Babylonians actually. They figured out that the heavens follow a regular pattern and started writing rules for lunar eclipses.

    Science as a hole depends on using rules to describe reality, so it isn't "discovered" as much as "based on". And science was first constructed by the Ionians.

    "According to the Bible, no new energy is being created.
    Millennia after the Bible’s statement, science has discovered this fact."

    Uh, creation ex nihlo? That would count as new energy.

    "According to the Bible, the Earth is spherical.
    Millennia after the Bible’s statement, science has discovered this fact."

    Please tell that to the flat earthers- obviously they must be reading a differant bible. For the record, it wasn't exactly secret that the Earth is a sphere- the Greeks knew it and the Babylonians and Egyptians might have. It isn't hard to hypothicize.

    "According to the Bible, the Earth “hangs on nothing.”
    Millennia after the Bible’s statement, science has discovered this fact."

    Except it does. Gravity literally pulls the Earth more effectively than any string. More to the point, this is an inevitable result of beliveing the Earth is a sphere and/or the center of the universe.

    "According to the Bible, the Earth has a hydrological cycle.
    Millennia after the Bible’s statement, science has discovered this fact."

    Citation?

    "According to the Bible, disease can be controlled by quarantine.
    Millennia after the Bible’s statement, science has discovered this fact."

    Which is why the Romans and Greeks didn't know about this tactic... oh wait, they did. In fact, in the areas were transmitted disease is common, the idea of quarentine exists.

    "Etc., etc., etc. "

    You know, for the bible to be credited, it has to be something non-intuitive (otherwise it could simply be a bright person), nonbinary (because those are very easy to guess) and not in any of the surrounding people's discoveries.

    None of these really fit the criteria.

    To have an idea why this is needed, read up on the Dogon. They are a ethnicity who live in West Africa- in the 1800s normally they would be some no ones the local viceroy would pacify and control and let the missionaries try to convert them. Except they believe some... interesting things. That the planets follow eleptical orbits, that the Sun is the center of our solar system, that there is nine planets and some other neat stuff. Okay, maybe they can do it by chance... even though no other culture on Earth got that far. Nope. They go further. Part of their beliefs involve the Dog Star... which they believe has an invisible companion that orbits once every 50 years and is made of metal, unlike other stars.

    Guess what?

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sirius#Discovery_of_a_companion

    As for the story about the Dogon:
    http://www.unmuseum.org/siriusb.htm
    Needless to say, it is a clear example of why we don't immediately say "OMG- proof!"

    "When, in the 20th century, scientists declared that they had discovered that the universe had a beginning Judeo-Christianity yawned and said, “Thanks for catching up.” And yet, Christians are faulted for not instantly jumping on the latest scientific bandwagon."

    Except that science gave a natural explanation, which CONFLICTS with the Christian version. Prior to that science didn't have an answer to how the universe started- there was too little funding :)

    Well, part of the reason they don't like the idea of a finite universe is that it means in the end the universe spreads out and dies. Which is obsenely depressing.

    "They either avoid the pre Big Bang scenario at all cost or they concoct their own scientifically unverifiable mythology by appealing to the sci-fi concept of a multi-verse. "

    It makes me angry when people concoct explanations for the atheism and ignore me. I embrace the Big Bang and find multi-verse to be an abomination unto science- as bad as the string theory but less verifiable.

    "Please understand that in the secularist view it is ignorant superstition to believe that God made everything out of nothing but it is scientifically enlightened to believe that nothing made everything out of nothing. "

    And you will go onto expain why... or not. For the rationale, it is under the rebuttal to the first cause argument.

    "It is ignorant superstition to believe that God could exist without having a cause but it is scientifically enlightened to believe that the universe could exist without having a cause. "

    Occum's Razor is responsible for this.

    "It is ignorant superstition to believe that God is eternal but it is scientifically enlightened to believe that matter is eternal."

    Actually, matter isn't. It slowly is breaking down into its constituents. Iron will be the last to go,but eventually, the universe will be dead.

    "Now it is scientifically verifiable that human embryos do not have gill slits, and still this is proof of ontology recapitulates phylogeny."

    Except that biologists don'tt believe that anymore. The ontology recapsukates phylogeny.

    "There are scientific cenobites whose authority is such that they make proclamations regarding scientific discoveries based on schools of thought, worldviews, desired outcomes, professional rivalries, emotionalism, assumptions, anti-theistic motivations, etc."

    How? Scientists are reviewed by their peers and get grants from the government or companies. How could such an individual wield such power?

    "Of course, he is dealing with a convenient, benevolent, redefinition of science and a convenient, malevolent, redefinition of religion."

    No, he is dealing with the one that includes Christianity, Scientology, Islam and the like.

    "Now to the issue of basing ethics/morals upon science and the very foundation of this concept which is that we ought to accept only that which is scientifically verifiable."

    No, ethics and moraality are based on reality. Science just gives information about reality.

    "If we are to inform our ethics/morals with science then we ought to be racists and sexists. "

    Ahyes, Social Darwinism. Interestingly it turn out that men ARE bigger, have larger and differant brains, are more ambitious and have more upper body strength. There is a reason the Marines are all male!

    Men aren't more intelligent- although I do belive men have a flatter bell curve- they are more variable than women.

    Of course, statistics don't tell you anything about individuals, which are the focus of ethics.

    Than there is racism. You do realize science rebuts racism, right? People are all one gentically homonogous group. If nuclear war killed all but a tribe of Australian Aborigines, 85% of the human races variability would be preserved. The Human species has negligable differance between groups.

    “Darwin’s notion of struggle for survival was quickly appropriated by the racist…such a struggle, legitimized by the latest scientific views, justified the racists’ conception of superior and inferior peoples…and validated the conflict between them.”

    Except that they don't. Evolutionary fitness is measured in number of survivng offspring... which means that the poor are the most fit.

    "There is nothing in a materialistic worldview that would stop us from doing so,"

    Only facts. After all, the first civilizations weren't made by whity.

    "take it from Charles Darwin and what was subsequently made of his theory by Communists, Marxists, and Nazis. "

    The Communist Manifesto was written in 1848. Origin of Species came out in 1859.

    The Nazi's held that Aryans were descened from a seperate species... which has no link to any part of evolutionary theory.

    "social Darwinism, Aryan/Norse mythology, Nietzsche’s philosophy, occultism, etc."

    Uh, no. Eugenics was pressed because the poor where welfare momas to society and were taking money that could be used on other things (see the handicap related math problems). Aryan isn't a mythology system. Norse was confined to a few loons- most Nazi's were members of the Church of Rome. Occultism had nothing to do with the foundation of the Third Reich- it was just a private obcession of some of the brass. And Facism is OPPOSED to Neizche. The superman is above society- facism is about subordinating your will to the state.

    Wallace didn't have any proof except "it is too complex". he thought that the fact that savages have equal brains was proof of a designed mind because they obviously didn't need it. Because being a hunter gather is obviously such a simple activity, right?

    "In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. "

    Because, he is denouncing them for advocating immoral things under the guise of morality. See "moral values" for an example. After all, if you assert that you have the correct moral system, all others are wrong, and so you fight them.

    "we are nothing but glorified animals"

    Not Darwin's fault. We feel into the category sue to taxidermy.

    "Prof. Richard Dawkins argues that we ought to rebel against Darwinism in this regards but never offers a reason why"

    Because the whole drive of evolution is having offspring. If people followed hat logic, a sperm bank donor would be the highest goal.

    "They believe in absolute materialism without proof. "

    You can't prove a negative. You can only show it has not been disproven.

    "They believe in the absolute truth of the scientific method without proof."

    Because it gets results. That counts as evidence.

    "They believe that they are right and everyone else is wrong. "

    Everyone on Earth believes that.

    "They have been guilty of violence, oppression, racism and sexism on massive scales. "

    So no one practiced racism, oppression, violence and sexism before the 1800s?

    "They have justified themselves by appealing to self-serving definitions of what theists are and what it means to do science. "

    Prove it. You haven't given definitions for either.

    "In the end, they are illogical faith based believers that have set up authoritarian dogmatism."

    Except your definition of dogma is so broad it includes concepts like democracy. After all, one of the assumptions of democracy is that solphism is wrong... and it doesn't prove that.

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  2. Pardon me for being blunt but your parsed jabs are so confused that they refute themselves.

    aDios,
    Mariano

    ReplyDelete

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