From: Chris Cogan <ccogan@telepath.com>
>>Stephen
>>Here is an interview in a Christian magazine of Phil Johnson, by fellow
>>IDer Nancy Pearcey.
>>
>>Johnson puts his finger on the ultimate self-refutation of Darwinism, that
>>Darwin himself in his later years came to realise, namely if Darwinism is
true
>>it could not know whether it was true or false:
>>
>> "But then with me the horrid doubt always arises whether the
>> convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind
>> of the lower animals are of any value or at all trustworthy.
Would
>> any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are
>> any
>> convictions in such a mind?" (Darwin C.R., letter to W. Graham,
>> July 3rd, 1881, in Darwin F., ed., "The Life of Charles Darwin,"
>> [1902], Senate: London, 1995, reprint, p.64).
>>
>>The atheistic evolutionists on this List talk a lot about rationality, but
>>where do they get rationality from out of random mutations and
differential
>>reproduction?
>>
>>An atheist using reason to deny God's existence is like a computer using
>>Microsoft software to deny Bill Gates' existence!
>
>Chris
>I trust that most readers on this list realize at least intuitively just
>how *stupid* and irrational this line of "reasoning" is. If *this* is what
>Johnson thinks is an "ultimate self-refutation of Darwinism," then my
>remarks about Johnson's intellect in earlier posts stands confirmed once
>again. Johnson is an intellectual -- and *moral!* -- *pipsqueak*, making
>his career almost entirely on the basis of lies, half-truths, sophistries,
>and sucking up in a whole-hearted way to the ignorant, the unwary, and the
>stupid.
Actually, the claim made by Stephen above is not based on anything in the
cited article, so it may be a mistake to attribute it Johnson. (But maybe
Johnson makes it elsewhere.) We're all familiar with Stephen's
misrepresentations of his opponents' views, but here we apparently find him
misrepresenting those of his ally. At least this gives support to the
sympathetic interpretation that Stephen's misrepresentations are the result
of sloppy thinking and are not deliberately mischievous.
There are, of course, plenty of other things to criticize in the cited
article. But most subscribers to this list will not need me to point them
out.
However, there is one point on which I'm in agreement with Johnson:
>A: The typical tactic is to cede to science the authority to determine the
>"facts," then try to salvage some area for Christian faith in the realm of
>"value." But since "values" are not granted the status of genuine
knowledge,
>what you put there is eventually dismissed as subjective fantasy.
Christians
>need to insist that they are making genuine knowledge claims. I like to put
>it this way: Is there any "-ology" in theology? Are we studying anything
>real?
If a religion makes no claims to factual truths, then what is the basis for
its claims regarding values? How is it any different from a secular school
of philosophy? If, on the other hand, it does make claims to factual truths,
then it must hold its own in the scientific arena. So I think that ID
proponents are right to look for scientific evidence for their God. The
problem is that they are so desperate to find it that they will claim to
have it whether it exists or not.
Richard Wein (Tich)
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Thu Jul 27 2000 - 09:12:33 EDT