Apologists wasting their talent

[Guest]

Dawkin's concern with Wise is irrational because holding that concern is in logical contradiction to the implications of his entire world view.

This is what Beckwith is saying Dude. You keep missing the point. I think you are capable of getting the point, even if you are liable to disagree. But thus far you keep missing your mark which is making conversing difficult.

Well guess what, people who don't believe in DTEs are never going to see it your way.

Stubborness is not a reason or argument. They don't have to see it my way. I'm just pointing out that they are then being rationally inconsistent if they also want to say that Kurt Wise ought to use his faculties in such a way that he does not pursue young earth creationism. Likewise, if someone asserts that one ought not act morally, they need not agree with me that that claim is a moral one and therefore self-refuting. Then one simply should conclude they are being irrational.

[_Coggins7]

Dawkin's concern with Wise is irrational because holding that concern is in logical contradiction to the implications of his entire world view.

This is what Beckwith is saying Dude. You keep missing the point. I think you are capable of getting the point, even if you are liable to disagree. But thus far you keep missing your mark which is making conversing difficult.

Say Light, you're quoting me here, not Dude.

[Guest]

Actually, you are wrong. Dawkins is using this as an example to demonstrate why "I am hostile to fundamentalist religion."

This is either egregious incompetence or downright dishonesty. Both in the quoted portion and in the theme of his argument (and indeed the theme of his entire book), he is talking about religion, not fundamentalist religion. You can gather this by reading it. That you have the gall to call me wrong is almost admirable in its boldness.

Go back and read my comment again. My comment is made within the context that Dawkins' remarks were indeed limited to "fundamentalist religion." I left open the possibility that you were correct in asserting that Dawkins uses "fundamentalist" as code word for religion in general.

I see absolutely nothing in my comment that smacked of "gall," whereas you appear guilty of gross overreaction.

When I'm finished reading the book, I can offer a more informed opinion of what Dawkins actually meant. You'll forgive me if I form my own opinion rather than take your word for it.

Out of curiosity, am I the only one who harbors a suspicion that ALITD is rcrocket under a different guise (despite his bidding adieu to this board)?

[_Coggins7]

Let's go back to Beckwith himself for a moment. Italics are mine:

But Dawkins, in fact, does not actually believe that living beings, including human beings, have intrinsic purposes or are designed so that one may conclude that violating one’s proper function amounts to a violation of one’s moral duty to oneself. Dawkins has maintained for decades that the natural world only appears to be designed. He writes in The God Delusion: “Darwin and his successors have shown how living creatures, with their spectacular statistical improbability and appearance of design, have evolved by slow, gradual degrees from simple beginnings. We can now safely say that the illusion of design in living creatures is just that—an illusion.”

But this means that his lament for Wise is misguided, for Dawkins is lamenting what only appears to be Wise’s dereliction of his duty to nurture and employ his gifts in ways that result in his happiness and an acquisition of knowledge that contributes to the common good. Yet because there are no designed natures and no intrinsic purposes, and thus no natural duties that we are obligated to obey, the intuitions that inform Dawkins’ judgment of Wise are as illusory as the design he explicitly rejects. But that is precisely one of the grounds by which Dawkins suggests that theists are irrational and ought to abandon their belief in God.

So if the theist is irrational for believing in God based on what turns out to be pseudo-design, Dawkins is irrational in his judgment of Wise and other creationists whom he targets for reprimand and correction. For Dawkins’ judgment rests on a premise that—although uncompromisingly maintained throughout his career—only appears to be true.

This closes the logical bear trap on Dawkins, and Dude and Chap can still have all the self generated and ascribed meaning they like.



http://francisbeckwith.com/

[_Coggins7]

When I'm finished reading the book, I can offer a more informed opinion of what Dawkins actually means. You'll forgive me if I form my own opinion rather than take your word for it.

That won't be difficult, as its essentially a screed, and one can read it quite rapidly, as much of its argumentation is quite frankly facile.

[_guy sajer]

You misunderstand creationism in a very fundamental way. Even the young earth kind. The entire reason for its existence is to provide extra-Biblical scientifc evidence of the creation of life on Earth and, depending on your type of creationist, other religious beliefs such as a global Noahic flood. They may be wrong, but you don't even demonstrate a rudimentary grasp of what they are about. All you are is snide dismissals that is more worthy of contempt than anything Kurt Wise did.

What snide dismissal? I am asking in which scientific journal (mainline peer-reviewed, not in-house rag of some intelligent design advocate) credible empirical evidence for intelligent design in published. If you consider this snide dismissal, then you've got other issues to deal with that are probably more important than this debate.

I haven't ventured any attempt to explain what intelligent design is, so I am not sure how I've demonstrated not "even a rudimentary grasp" of the issue.

For that matter, I don't recall you posting any information demonstrating that you know what the you're talking about either. Should we assume, therefore, that your grasp of the subject is also less than rudimentary?

[_grayskull]

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.

Coggins, do you have any idea what you're talking about? It doesn't seem like you do What does "meaning" mean to you anyway?

[_guy sajer]

Bottom line: if there is no God and no ultimate meaning, then Stalin was right: one death is a tragedy, but a million are just a statistic. The point is that there is no intrinsic, inherent moral frame of reference for this in Dawkin's world. We may not like death and killing and abuse because, as organic creatures, we don't like to be exposed to such things, but this is pragmatic self preservation, not morality. Without an ultimate standard, our own standards of self preservation, standards that we may term "moral" are no less arbitrary, and no more defensible, than the starving of 20,000,000 Kulaks.

I disagree fundamentally with you and Stalin. I don't believe in God, yet I find tremendous meaning, moral and otherwise, in the death and suffering of others.

Capability for abstract moral thought and feeling is what makes us human and what, IMHO, differentiates us from animals. This innate capacity, and tendency, for investing actions, beliefs, etc., with moral significance is easily explained within an evolutionary framework; one that does not rely at all on any notion of God.

Stalin had lots of very bad ideas. This is but one of them.

[_KimberlyAnn]

What snide dismissal? I am asking in which scientific journal (mainline peer-reviewed, not in-house rag of some intelligent design advocate) credible empirical evidence for intelligent design in published. If you consider this snide dismissal, then you've got other issues to deal with that are probably more important than this debate.

I haven't ventured any attempt to explain what intelligent design is, so I am not sure how I've demonstrated not "even a rudimentary grasp" of the issue.

For that matter, I don't recall you posting any information demonstrating that you know what the you're talking about either. Should we assume, therefore, that your grasp of the subject is also less than rudimentary?

I think ALitD is responding to my snide dismissal, Guy Sajer. Actually, it was a joke and not really an attempt at a dismissal at all. I realize creationism looks outside the Bible for scientific evidence of the creation of life on earth (as long as it corresponds to their presupposition that God created it in six days). Some non-fundamentalists are happy to support intelligent design, and aren't concerned with Biblical literalism. My reply was a joke and I guess our Point of Light didn't get it.

KA

[_Mercury]

deleted

You seem to delete a great deal of what you post coggie. Poor impulse control?