Apologists wasting their talent

[_The Dude]

You mentioned "Nevermind the hundreds of millions of nonfundamentalists out there," but what do you mean by them? Yes, nevermind them because they aren't the issue here. The issue is the fundamentalist young earth creationist.

ALITD, do you believe the same things Wise believes about literal biblical creation?

Dawkins is referring specifically to this guy who has turned his back on his career as an academic because of a slavish insistence that the Bible must be literally true. From the point of view of your beliefs do you think Wise made a bad choice? Do you think he should maybe have used his talents to study science instead of trying to twist it to fit the little worn out box of biblical creationism?

[_A Light in the Darkness]

ALITD, do you believe the same things Wise believes about literal biblical creation?

Yes, but no I think you are referring to young earth creationism, so no.

Dawkins is referring specifically to this guy who has turned his back on his career as an academic because of a slavish insistence that the Bible must be literally true.

No he's not. He's using him as an example of how religion: every denomination of the Christian, Hindu, Zoroastrian, etc. faith is worthy of opposition. Wise's personal fundamentalism is used as a lesson for how religion corrupts minds in a way that is "sad, pathetic, and contemptible." It's part of Dawkins modus operandi. He uses religious fundamentalists as a strawman for all religion because it presents him with an easier target given his philosophical and theological naïveté. My paranthetical was a side-comment on the fact that his argument is questionable because religion isn't turning everyone into Kurt Wises. People have bad religious ideas. That doesn't mean religion is corrupt. People have misguided views on science that cause them to waste their talent and resourches. Does that make science as a means of knowing something worthy of hostility?

From the point of view of your beliefs do you think Wise made a bad choice?

Yes.

[_The Dude]

Ha! So if I have faith in the Flying Spagetti Monster, I can magically escape the box canyon of atheism? You mean all I have to do is believe in some kind of "god" and it becomes kosher for you?

Mocking believers aside, we both know there is no rational basis for believing in the Flying Spagetti Monster. That would be the problem with trying to ground your moral ideas there. You might say, "Aha! The same is true of God. Neener Neener." Yeah, you might think that, but I believe I have enough reason to warrant strong disagreement. And it is true that if my beliefs are true, then there's no problem. If your beliefs are true, then the argument holds. We both know the FSM isn't something sound to believe in, so the example is a mildly offensive nonstarter.

I hope you recover from your mild offense and realize this is a counter-argument I want to make. Coggins asserted that without God there is no meaning; I countered that believing in a specified creative entity (SCE) does not suddenly give meaning. Or if it does, could you please explain the philosophical principle because to me it sounds like a non-sequitur. Additionally, it sounds like you want to involve "rational basis for belief" as a necessary quality for the SCE to have meaning-endowing properties... but how is that so?

Further, I said this to The Nehor:

Why does the Universe need a purpose? I don't agree it's even meaningful, nor do I see why anyone must assert it.

The random set of genes in my body are entirely coincidental, of course, as is the geography of the city where I live, and the weather from day to day, yet I feel that I am here for my purpose, which I can just decide for myself. I exist and that is enough to make the Universe purposeful for me.

So there is nothing wrong for claiming the Universe is entirely coincidental. And yet I fulfill something just for existing.

Clearly to me, and probably to Richard Dawkins and many other atheists in the world, there is meaning enough without belief in an SCE (a flying spagetti monster or a humanoid deity, it doesn't matter). You and Fancis Beckwith can sit back and call us hypocrites or inconsistent or whatever you like because you don't "get" the world the way we do... but please don't forget to mention whether or not you are a young earth biblical creationist yourself.

[_KimberlyAnn]

You mentioned "Nevermind the hundreds of millions of nonfundamentalists out there," but what do you mean by them? Yes, nevermind them because they aren't the issue here. The issue is the fundamentalist young earth creationist.

ALITD, do you believe the same things Wise believes about literal biblical creation?

Dawkins is referring specifically to this guy who has turned his back on his career as an academic because of a slavish insistence that the Bible must be literally true. From the point of view of your beliefs do you think Wise made a bad choice? Do you think he should maybe have used his talents to study science instead of trying to twist it to fit the little worn out box of biblical creationism?

Scientific study or pursuits based on the presumption of Biblical literalism are essentially worthless. I would submit that it is indeed a waste of talent trying to twist science "to fit the little worn out box of Biblical creationism". Where is the intellectual honesty in pursuing only that which reinforces a pre-determined conclusion? That kind of "science" results in things like the new "Creation Museum" which shows how dinosaurs were transported on Noah's Ark.

http://www.creationmuseum.org/


KA

[Tator]

Or, you know, I don't always check this board every few minutes and actually was doing other things with my life. This is the first time I looked back on the board. I'll reply shortly to the extent there are replies worthy of addressing. And yes, I realize that everyone likely thinks their counterargument is awesomness incarnate, but calling a philosophy professor's argument "idiotic" does not a refutation make.

I'm much less interested in searching your post history to link examples where you express lament for apologists not using their abilities on more worthwhile pursuits, but this isn't as important to my main point as the mere fact that one person has done such a thing. I know Tarski did recently in a thread I posted in, so I am able to link that example. Searching for other examples will prove difficult and I only have so much time.

Then STOP using me as an example of the particular behavior, because when I know your accusation is simply not true, and I, in fact, have not either suddenly supported Kevin's posting style, OR said apologists were wasting their time, I am going to call you on it and I am perfectly justified in doing so.

The fact that you NEVER provided support for the charge you laid against me concerning Kevin's posting style, (not content) and even expressed that you did not feel it necessary to do so, leads me to believe that your refusal to do this does not have to do with whatever time you may or may not have, and more to do with the fact that you seem to believe that your BELIEF that I have engaged in the behavior is adequate evidence. (Or, perhaps, since another poster engaged in the behavior, that's good enough to use my name) Well, it's not, and the next time you use me as an example you'd better be ready to back it up with evidence, because my experience with you, so far, is that you BELIEVE I'm engaging in certain behavior because you of your eagerness to pin some sort of hypocrisy on me. Yes, like any other human being, I'm capable of hypocrisy, but when you accuse me of specific acts of hypocrisy, you better prove it.

[_The Dude]

No he's not. He's using him as an example of how religion: every denomination of the Christian, Hindu, Zoroastrian, etc. faith is worthy of opposition. Wise's personal fundamentalism is used as a lesson for how religion corrupts minds in a way that is "sad, pathetic, and contemptible." It's part of Dawkins modus operandi. He uses religious fundamentalists as a strawman for all religion because it presents him with an easier target given his philosophical and theological naïveté. My paranthetical was a side-comment on the fact that his argument is questionable because religion isn't turning everyone into Kurt Wises. People have bad religious ideas. That doesn't mean religion is corrupt. People have misguided views on science that cause them to waste their talent and resourches. Does that make science as a means of knowing something worthy of hostility?

Lets separate these arguments because I think we agree on two points:

1) Wise made a bad choice. He is wasting his career. Dawkins also agrees with this. We all agree!

Now for some reason I don't understand, Francis Beckwith isn't happy that some people like Dawkins have an opinion on this and since you quoted it in your OP I guess you agree with Facebook. (?)

2) Dawkins is using Wise as a worst-case scenario to show what religion can do to otherwise talented people.

You don't think #2 is effective. I also question this, and would tend to look at each case individually. I don't think there needs to be a crusade against religion.

This is where we disagree:

3) "Dawkins is irrational in his judgment of Wise and other creationists whom he targets for reprimand and correction." -- Francis Beckwith

This is the idiotic sophistry I spoke of earlier. You will have to show how my post to "The Nehor" is not rational in order to support this claim.

[_beastie]

The reason I do not believe I ever said apologists were wasting their talents, and was actually a very poor example of the behavior, is because I think it is a charge almost impossible to support, even aside from philosophical atheist/theist issues.

Besides, I don't think I have the right to decide what other people should or should not do with their lives, unless we're talking about overt anti-social and dangerous behavior.

[_A Light in the Darkness]

2) Dawkins is using Wise as a worst-case scenario to show what religion can do to otherwise talented people.

He's using Wise as an example of why religion in general is worthy of opposition. This is as sensical of me pointing to Linus Pauling wasting his later years lauding the miracles of Vitamin C as an example of why scientific thinking is worthy of opposition. And mind you, I could've picked one of any thousands upon thousands of examples of scientists spending their time believing in bad ideas in preference of good ones. Dawkins uses fundamentalism as his avatar for religion because it is an easy target he can handle. He knows how to confront Ted Haggard in a parking lot. Alvin Plantinga in a refereed journal? Not so much. My parenthetical comment would've been just as apt if someone said science is worthy of opposition because pursuit of scientific thinking caused Franz Joseph Gall to waste his considerable talent on phrenology.

[_beastie]

He's using Wise as an example of why religion in general is worthy of opposition. This is as sensical of me pointing to Linus Pauling wasting his later years lauding the miracles of Vitamin C as an example of why scientific thinking is worthy of opposition. And mind you, I could've picked one of any thousands upon thousands of examples of scientists spending their time believing in bad ideas in preference of good ones. Dawkins uses fundamentalism as his avatar for religion because it is an easy target he can handle. He knows how to confront Ted Haggard in a parking lot. Alvin Plantinga in a refereed journal? Not so much. My parenthetical comment would've been just as apt if someone said science is worthy of opposition because pursuit of scientific thinking caused Franz Joseph Gall to waste his considerable talent on phrenology.

If you want to argue this point solely within the context of Dawkin's larger, anti-all-religion stance, then your OP was even more misleading and inappropriate that I first realized.

You are comparing the statement of Tarski, (trusting you that he did make this statement about apologists wasting their talent*) that was made in an entirely different context than Dawkin's criticism was made. I don't ever recall Tarski arguing that all religion, of whatever stripe, is worthy of opposition. I certainly have not made such an argument.

To simply assert that LDS apologists are wasting their talent is not the equivalent of arguing all religion is worthy of opposition.

*given your tendency to misattribute statements to me that I have not made, I am reluctant to accept this assertion on your part without evidence. So I want to make it clear I am using Tarski's name with the understanding that he really DID make this assertion. If he did not, which is possible, then he is no longer to be used as the example.

[Dr. Sunstoned]

Clearly, very clearly, most of the people here responding to Light's Beckwith post are either not willing, or not capable of following the complexities and nuance of Beckwith's argument such that any really serious dialog is possible regarding the issue. This is dispiriting, but precisely what you get through Stargate Exmo. This is exactly the kind of anti-intellectualism and hackneyed dismissal of serious thought that virtually defines much of the anti-Mormon world.

Most of the responses to Beckwith, including Dude's either miss the point so severely or simply ignore the philosophical substance of his argument, that the entire thread has become, in essense, tangenital to the original post.

Any philosophical materialist who posits the nonexistence of anything outside the physical, observable universe, is trapped in logical self contradiction at any point at which he posits meaning to anything in the universe, not the least of which is meaning to a human life. Dawkin's own simplistic and facile pop Atheism, his scientism, and his fevered concern that many others don't share it, or that one person among many held to beliefs to which he does not subscribe, implies meaning in a universe where the utter, irreducible random chance nature of the entire created order imply just the opposite.


Dude's purely subjective and idiosyncratic use of the term "meaning" does nothing to rescue Dawkin's logical inconsistency from philosophical oblivion. In Dawkin's world view, there is no general or overarching meaning or purpose to the universe in general, or to the existence of human life in general (or to the entire biosphere). Human beings only find there specific, unique meaning in a universe of common meaning in which life qua life has meaning within a universe that is in some manner related to and a part of that meaning. Playing subjective word games with the term "meaning" doesn't alter Beckwith's primary point: that Dawkins holds to what are in essence religious views (secular naturalism, scientism etc.) and imputes values and value judgments to others, illogical if Dawkins core world views are correct.

It should also be noted that Dawkin's anti-religious screed The God Delusion, demonstrates a positively gross ignorance of comparative religion, philosophy, and history that make that book meat and potatoes to the Madalyn Murry O' Hair type of self satisfied pop demagogue, but should even make intellectually serious nonbelievers cringe at its simplistic and shallow analysis (not to mention its arrogant, intellectually snobbish certitude).