May 15, 2012
…for completely robbing Earth of her natural resources, that is.
Atheists and skeptics—the faithful congregation of the First Church of Scientism—can often be found singing praises to their god, but we rarely hear them tell the whole story. The faithful are quick to chant, “science the best method we have of finding the truth,” but why don’t they also chant, “science is the leading cause of our destruction?” Why might that be? Is there a corollary between the religionist and the proponent of scientism in this regard?
Anyways. I’m back from vacation, hope you’re all well. Any suggestions for new posts?
April 13, 2012
This post is in direct response to Peter Hurford’s misleading essay, The Contradictory Failure of Prayer. My official position on prayer studies is that atheists who champion them as evidence for atheism are just as irrational as believers who champion them as evidence for theism.
As is typical of internet atheists, Mr. Hurford misleads his readers to believe that science is purely on his side, stating (bold mine) that “every time we look at the results, we notice that atheists recover from illness just as frequently as believers who pray.” I don’t know about you, but it really bothers me when people use “we” when they should use “I” instead [cf. Alonzo Fyfe and his litany of unsubstantiated "we" claims]. Peter’s use of “we” implies that his readers have reason to share his conclusions, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth. When I look at the results, I notice a state of affairs quite different from the one Peter wants his readers to accept as reality.
March 10, 2012
I’ve realized something in this latest fiasco with the judges in DBT01. I now understand why Vox, Spacebunny, et al. accused me of “entering into” the PZ Myers Memorial Debate. Technically, I did interact with the arguments more than simple judging required. Although there was no conscious intent to do so, that doesn’t change the fact. This became apparent when Matt DeStefano did the same thing in his writeup of my opening statement. He interacted with my arguments from Leviticus:
September 12, 2011
You can download the four letters that comprise Round One as a single PDF file, here [131KB]. If you don’t want to download it, simply copy the URL and paste it into your address bar. Or go check it out at VoxWorld. Be forewarned: Dominic’s piece is a bit sloppy grammatically, making comprehension a challenging at times. Vox, on the other hand, is at least articulate enough that intelligibility is not an issue.
September 2, 2011
I’ve noticed this thing where uber-rational people judge others as “irrational” based exclusively on whether or not the belief in question has **unassailable scientific evidence. When the uber-rationalist makes that move, they misapply a legitimate but isolated truth-criterion without consideration for the full context in which the “irrational” person holds their belief. I say “misapply” because I generally disfavor a myopic approach to reality and I believe truth is best demonstrated through multiple criteria.
July 21, 2011
So I’ve been cleaning out my notes, and I came across the following accusation from somebody calling themselves Hermes:
Why spend time on a detailed and thoughtful response when the other person is unwilling and also unable to comprehend or even attempt to engage what you have said?
Of course, the implication is that I am unwilling and unable to engage Hermes’ points, but you can find evidence to the contrary, here. As JS Allen also points out, Hermes was directing all sorts of believers to this thread and challenging them to respond to the points, yet, Hermes seems to have disappeared, and it’s been over a year now. So who is unwilling and unable to engage what’s been said?
April 17, 2011
Pardon me for asking a silly question, but here I go anyways: If you made salad dressing that was one part vinegar and 10,000,000,000,000 parts olive oil, would it be accurate in any sense of that word to label your dressing as vinegar-based? I’m going to bet that any reasonable person would say no.
Yet, physicists estimate that the atomic material/non-material ratio is akin to a single grain of sand in St. Peter’s Basilica [approximately 163,000 square feet]. So then, why do so many “materialists” assert that “material” explanations can account for all known phenomena when what they call “matter” is actually something like 99.9999999999999% immaterial?
Am I missing something?
April 12, 2011
I imagine most anybody familiar with (a)theist discussion has encountered a believer whom, when backed into a corner about, say, the unimpressive findings of various prayer studies, resorts to the rejoinder that “God works in mysterious ways.” Personally, I don’t endorse that as a legitimate response to the unimpressive findings of various prayer studies, but that’s not what I’d like to talk about today.
I’d like to talk about the viciousness with which atheists often handle the “mysterious ways” response, then suggest that atheists are often just as guilty of the essentially the same “mysterious ways” rejoinder themselves.
April 9, 2011
I’ve often been dumbstruck by the similarities between hardcore materialists and religious fundamentalists. Along these lines, Neal Grossman wrote:
One of my earliest encounters with this kind of academic irrationality occurred more than twenty years ago. I was devouring everything on the near-death experience I could get my hands on, and eager to share what I was discovering with colleagues. It was unbelievable to me how dismissive they were of the evidence. “Drug-induced hallucinations,” “last gasp of a dying brain,” and “people see what they want to see” were some of the more commonly used phrases. One conversation in particular caused me to see more clearly the fundamental irrationality of academics with respect to evidence against materialism:
February 15, 2011
In his post, Listing of Cognitive Biases, Loftus states, unequivocally, the following:
We should all ask for positive evidence for that which we accept as true.
Okay, if there’s one thing I admire in (a)theist discussion, it’s a firmly cemented goalpost, and I think the above certainly qualifies. How about you? If you agree with me, perhaps it won’t be much of a stretch to gain some empathy for my consternation at the transactions that follow.
