Reflectorites
Sorry this is late.
On Mon, 27 Nov 2000 14:37:25 -0600, Susan Cogan wrote:
[...]
>SJ>Where does this "recommend ... lying about belief in God just to appease
>>God"?
SC>I do not believe that any of the gods exist. If I were to "wager
>that there is a God" in order to do that I would have to *pretend*
>God exists. An omniscient being would figure that out in a quarter of
>a nanosecond. My belief or non-belief does not impinge on the reality
>of the gods. So my choices boil down to 1. live a lie and 2. live
>honestly.
Susan misunderstands what Pascal is saying. He is not asking atheists like
Susan to "pretend God exists". Pascal is accepting that atheists sincerely
believe that God (i.e. the Christian God) does not exist.
He is pointing out that the atheists are, in effect, embarked on a gamble
with their assumption that God does not exist. But if in fact the Christian
God *does* exist, the consequences for the atheists (and in fact any non-
Christian) will an infinite loss. OTOH, if the Christian God does exist, the
consequences for the Christian will be an infinite gain.
I repeat that Pascal's wager is not a full-blown philosophical argument.
Pascal's Pensees were just some brief notes he made from which he was
going to write a major apologetical work, and he died aged 39. His wager
therefore may be just a simplified outline of a future argument, and in its
present form it contains a number of weak spots. But I believe it can be
strengthened, although I am no Pascal, so I may be unable to do justice
to it. When I catch up with Pascal I will ask him what his full argument
was! :-)
SC>I occurs to me that the underlying assumption in Pascal's wager is
>that you have to believe in a God in order to live a good life. If
>you don't believe in God then you will have no reason to be good.
>That is hogwash. A good life is intrinsically satisfying. If that
>*is* the underlying assumption, though, then Pascal's wager makes a
>lot more sense. If you live a good life *as if God is watching and
>exists* then if there is a God you get a big pay off in the end.
Pascal is not saying that "you have to believe in a God in order to live a
good life". His point is that the Christian life is a good life also, so there is
normally no loss in this life in being a Christian.
I say "normally" because Christians, if they attempt to follow Christ, and
not just capitulate to their society's pressure to conform to its standards, do
suffer varying degrees of persecution for their faith. But this is usually
more than compensated for by other factors. So the Christian life is
normally a win-win situation.
>>SC>I don't think Christianity is any different from any of the many hundreds
>>>(perhaps thousands) of religions that humans have involved themselves in. I
>>>think my point above was that the evidence for the reality of the Hindu
>>>gods isn't any more compelling that the evidence for the reality of the
>>>Christian gods.
>SJ>How does Susan know? Has she personally studied "the evidence for the
>>reality of the Hindu gods" and "the evidence for the reality of the Christian"
>>God?
SC>they are about the same. There's a book. The book says the gods
>exist. There are millions of believers. The believers say the gods
>exist. And yes, I've studied a lot of world religions over my
>lifetime.
Susan does not answer the question which was "the evidence for the reality
of the Hindu gods" and "the evidence for the reality of the Christian God".
Susan is stating the obvious that "The believers say the gods exist". But
that tells us nothing about: 1) what they *mean* by "gods" or God (the
very difference in names is significant); and 2) the *evidence* on which
they base their respective beliefs..
>>>>>>SJ>ideas-called neo- Darwinism-seems inadequate in many respects."
>>>>>>(Leith B., "The Descent of Darwin..." 1982, p.10)
[...]
>SJ>That's funny because I just did a search on AltaVista for the words "Leith"
>>AND "Descent of Darwin" AND "inadequate in many respects" and it did
>>not turn up *one* site where this was quoted. It isn't yet on my own site
>>BTW.
SC>I just did another search for "Leith B., "The Descent of Darwin" cut
>and pasted from your quote above and got this as the first hit
>http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~idea/philoevolquotes.htm
Susan should check again. The page she quoted does contain the words
"Leith" and "Descent of Darwin" and "inadequate" (from another author's
quote altogether) but it does not contain the word "respects". The only
quotes it has of Leith's are from "p.21, 22" and "p.20" of The Descent of
Darwin.
BTW I repeat that this web page by IDer Casey Luskin contains many of
my own quotes. Casey got them from me, not I from him.
>>>SJ>I am pleased that Susan finally admits that these are my own quotes from
>>>>books I have read, and not from one of those mythical quotes sites she is
>>>>always talking about but never providing their URLs!
>>
>>Thanks to Susan for these URLs below, which apart from one of them (see
>>below) I didn't know about. I have checked them out (see below) but they
>>seem pretty limited.
SC>well, you at least seem to have gone from "they don't exist" to "they
>are limited."
Susan is right and I apologise. On reflection Susan has in the past provided
me with URLs of creationist sites but they have all been limited. I have
never found any that were much good except the one at UCSB which I
already had on my quotes page as a link. That's what I meant by them being
"mythical", in the sense that they are not the major quote sites that Susan
makes them out to be.
My own quotes pages starting at http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones/cequotes.html
now total about 0.98Mb of HTML files, so that is what I mean by a major quotes
site.
>>>SJ>Why? Does Susan after all doubt that I own the book? Or does she
>>>have a quote
>>>>that is does start before my quote? Whatever, Susan's wish is my command!
>>>>Here is the entire Chapter up to the words quoted:
>>SC>thank you! No, I didn't believe that you had a copy of it.
>SJ>Why does Susan need to believe that I am a liar? Is her position so shaky it
>>can't stand on its own but must depend on liquidating any opposition?
SC>I have seen that so many of your quotes are identical to other
>creationist quotes
Well, if I am quoting from the same source material, the quote itself
*should* be "identical"! If it wasn't Susan could claim I was misquoting.
But, having said that, the way I reference the author's name in quotes on
my web pages is unique. I therefore challenge Susan to produce *one* of
my quotes that is: 1) "identical to other creationist quotes"; where 2) my
quote is not the original, and the other quote(s) copied mine. For example,
as I have said, Casey Luskin's quotes that are identical to mine, he copied
from me.
SC>AND I have seen that they are often out of context.
Susan has never stated in advance what is her criteria for an "out of
context" quote. So her claim after the fact that my quotes are "out of
context" is objectively meaningless and just her subjective feeling.
I have stated before that I have no desire, or need, to post a quote that is
out of context and I would appreciate Susan, or anyone else, pointing out
objectively why any of my quotes is out of context, and I will gladly
withdraw it.
In the 5+ years on the Reflector, I have posted probably thousands of
quotes, yet I have never had *one* evolutionist show objectively by
reference to the context of either: a) the paragraph; b) the heading; c) the
page; d) the chapter; or e) the entire work, why even *one* of my quotes is
out of context.
SC>I like to think that if you actually read the context, then
>your morals would not allow you to deceive us as to whether or not
>the author has actually said something that supports your position.
See above. These are just subjective allegations by Susan with no objective
evidence to back them up.
SC>Therefore I like to think you pick up a lot of your quotes from
>secondary sources.
Note the subjective way Susan says this: "...I like to think..."! So what
these baseless allegations about my quotes (and therefore my "morals") is
just Susan's subjective need to prop up her shaky position.
On the rare occasions that I use "secondary sources" I will state them in my
quote. If I only state the primary source then I am working from the
primary source. I have followed this rule since my Fidonet days in 1994.
As I have stated before, I am happy at any time to be tested on this, by
someone asking (say) "what is the X word on the Y line of page Z"?
Susan continues to make this serious allegation about my "morals" and she
is therefore obligated to put me to this test, or withdraw her allegation. If
Susan continues to make her regular allegations that my quotes are not my
own, etc, without giving me the opportunity to show they are, then it is
*Susan's* "morals" which are the problem, not mine.
SC<That leaves the professional creationists as liars, not you.
Susan has called me a liar too. If Susan continues to make allegations that
my quotes are not my own, even though I represent them as my own, then
Susan is, in effect, calling me a "liar" without giving me the opportunity to
show that I am not. Therefore, if Susan continues with these allegations
about my quotes, then it is not *me* who is the "liar"!
>>SC>BTW, in "Finding Darwin's God" Miller does a job on the people who think
>>>evolution explains *everything*. I think it explains the wide ranging
>>>flexibility of human behavior but not the details of that behavior.
>SJ>I haven't got that book yet. But the title sounds misleading. Darwin didn't
>>have a God:
>>
>> "I suspect that most of Miller's materialist colleagues ... may also
>> wonder what Miller could possibly mean by his quest to "find
>> Darwin's God," when it is so widely known in the scholarly world
>> (and even to Miller himself) that Darwin in his later years was an
>> agnostic... In his biology textbook Miller makes the preposterous
>> claim that Darwin "remained a devout Christian all his life" ... On
>> the contrary, Darwin was never more than a lukewarm believer, and
>> by the time of his death described himself as an agnostic." (Johnson
>> P.E., "The Wedge of Truth, 2000, pp.91,182n).
SC>Johnson (and you) should read the book. Darwin's God is the god that
>created the universe *and* evolution.
Johnson *has* read the book, even if I haven't yet. But I have read Darwin
and he did not believe in *any* "god" at all, not even one "that created the
universe *and* evolution." So Miller claiming that Darwin had a
"God" is just plain old misleading advertising.
I don't like to claim that anyone is a liar, but it is hard not to conclude
that anyone who could write in his Biology text that Darwin "remained a
devout Christian all his life" is either deluded or a liar.
>SJ>That might be true of the USA but Unitarianism goes back further than
>>that, to at least the 16th century: [...]
>>and De regno Christi . . . (1569; "On the Reign of Christ"), which showed
>>the influences of Servetus and Laelius Socinus.
SC>Servetus is considered to be a sort of "patron saint" of modern
>Unitarianism. He was burned at the stake by your guys.
I (and I am sure most Christians ever since) regret what happened to
Servetus. All that can be said in mitigation is that Servetus was executed by
the Geneva civil authorities under existing Roman Catholic law, not by the
Reformer John Calvin himself:
"Calvin had received the fullest support from the Magistracy
throughout this painful affair. Furthermore, it was the political
power which had taken over the conduct of the prosecution, in
which the reformer figured as hardly more than a technical adviser."
(Wendel F., "Calvin The Origins and Development of His Religious
Thought," 1965, p.98)
Calvin tried to have the sentence commuted from burning to beheading:
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://www.britannica.com/bcom/eb/article/7/0,5716,68607+1+66881,00.html
ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA
Servetus, Michael
[...]
When some of Servetus' letters to Calvin fell into the hands of Guillaume
de Trie, a former citizen of Lyon, he exposed Servetus to the inquisitor
general at Lyon. Servetus and his printers were seized. During the trial,
however, Servetus escaped, and the Catholic authorities had to be content
with burning him in effigy. He quixotically appeared in Geneva and was
recognized, arrested, and tried for heresy from Aug. 14 to Oct. 25, 1553.
Calvin played a prominent part in the trial and pressed for execution,
although by beheading rather than by fire. Despite his intense biblicism and
his wholly Christocentric view of the universe, Servetus was found guilty
of heresy, mainly on his views of the Trinity and Baptism. He was burned
alive at Champel on October 27. His execution produced a Protestant
controversy on imposing the death penalty for heresy, drew severe criticism
upon John Calvin, and influenced Laelius Socinus, a founder of modern
unitarian views.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
No doubt some will shoot back that beheading was bad enough and I
agree, but it was the prevailing view at the time, that blasphemy was worse
than murder, because it caused *eternal* death, rather than just temporal
death:
"The death of Servetus, for which Calvin bears a large share of the
responsibility, has given rise to an abundant literature ever since the
day after his execution. Most of the historians, even of those most
favourable to Calvin, have bitterly reproached him for having
tarnished his renown by such unconsidered action. But this is to
forget two things: first, that Servetus suffered the fate that
hundreds of heretics and Anabaptists suffered at the hands of
Protestant authorities of all shades of opinion, as well as of Catholic
authorities; and secondly, that it is contrary to a sound conception
of history to try to apply our ways of judging and our moral criteria
to the past. Calvin was convinced, and all the reformers shared this
conviction, that it was the duty of a Christian magistrate to put to
death blasphemers who kill the soul, just as they punished
murderers who kill the body." (Wendel F., 1965, p.97)
I don't like to copy the evolutionist "attack is the best defence" tactic, but I
would point out that if I am to be held accountable for what `my guys' (i.e.
16th century Christians like Calvin) did to one man (or even thousands of
men), then on that principle Susan should be held accountable for what `her
guys' (i.e. 20th century atheists like Stalin, Mao-Tse Tung and Pol Pot)
have done to *tens of millions* of men.
I have pointed this out to Susan a number of times and AFAIK she has
never acknowledged that atheism's track record on ideological executions
is many *orders of magnitude worse* than that of Christianity when it was
mixed up with politics.
>SJ>Darwin himself came from a long line of Unitarians on his mother's
>>(Wedgewood) side.
SC>yes, he was Church of England or we would proudly claim him!
Darwin was baptised as an infant as an Anglican. But he was actually raised
AFAIK as a Unitarian:
"Another baby was delivered on 12 February 1809, in her forty-
fourth year. They called him Charles Robert Darwin, after the
medical men in the family - his father Robert and dead uncle
Charles - in the hope of a bright career. Respectable gentry
themselves now, ensconced in the imposing Mount, they had the
baby baptized at the new St Chad's Anglican Church on 17
November. It was becoming for the Doctor, and prudent. The
country was still at war with France and a conspiratorial
underground suspected; now was no time to wave the family's
liberal flag. old Erasmus had been pilloried by government-inspired
propaganda for his pro-French poetry. The name of Darwin was
already associated with subversive atheism. Dr Robert was himself
a closet freethinker, so it paid to tread carefully in these
conservative years. But Susannah stood quietly by her heritage. She
took the children on Sundays to the Unitarian chapel." (Desmond
A. & Moore J., "Darwin," 1992, reprint, p.12)
So Susan can "proudly claim him" if she likes. But Westminster Abbey
might have other ideas! :-)
>>SC>The Pilgrims came here to escape religious oppression. Then, in fine
>>>Christian style, they turned around and oppressed anyone who disagreed with
>>>them.
>SJ>That is regrettable. But does Susan think that Christians have a monopoly
>>on oppression? What about the atheists in Russia, China, Cambodia, and
>>Nazi Germany-in this century?
SC>The Nazis were not atheists and neither are the Cambodians, but what
>the heck, eh?
To be fair, even Hitler denied being an atheist (which I did not know at the
time I posted the above), although he was an anti-Christian agnostic
scientific materialist, as I have recently posted.
But the communist leaders of "Russia, China, Cambodia'" were atheists,
since their official creed was Marxist Dialectical Materialism. So on what
basis does Susan claim that "the Cambodians" weren't?
In any event, just the atheists in "Russia" and "China" would be enough. If
Susan can charge all Christians with the responsibility for thousands of
executions under Christianity nearly five centuries ago (and I repeat that
even one execution was one too many) then I presume Susan accepts
responsibility as an atheist for the tens of millions of executions in this
century under atheistic regimes like those in communist "Russia" and
"China"?
>SJ>But then that's *different*. The people who agree with Susan are OK. They
>>wouldn't oppress anyone. Only those nasty Christians - but they *deserve*
>>to be oppressed!
SC>not allowing a conservative branch of Christianity to use the force
>of government to proselytize is not the same thing as oppressing them.
Agreed, but allowing Susan's side to "use the force of government to
proselytize" for their scientific materialistic `religion' is the "same thing as
oppressing" those who don't believe in it.
I repeat that Susan and her ilk don't think they are being oppressive, but
oppressors never do. Oppression can only be appreciated by the oppressed.
[...]
>SJ>That sounds like banning it in public life! I agree that citizens should not be
>>"compelled to participate in Christian religious life" but I can't understand
>>why a compromise can't be reached.
SC>this is the compromise
Sounds just like an oppressor's idea of a "compromise": you Christians are
free to keep your religious belief to yourself and teach it privately, but we
are going to teach *our* `religious belief' (which includes trashing your
religious belief) in public, using your tax money, to your children!
>SJ>Here in Australia non-Christian school Principals are *asking* for Christian
>>chaplains to come back into their schools.
SC>you don't have a separation of Church and state rule. We do.
So do we. Australia's Constitution was modelled largely on the USA's
Constitution. But our separation of church and state has not been taken to
the extreme it has in America.
>SJ>In the USA this could not happen even if most people wanted it to happen.
>>This is straight out oppression by those on Susan's side riding roughshod
>>by force over the wishes of the majority. Even on " creationism in science
>>classes" polls show that most people want *both* to be taught in schools.
>>Of course Susan does not *see* it as oppression. Those doing the
>>oppression never do.
SC>the 10 Amendments to the Constitution were put in place to prevent
>oppression of minorities by majorities. Christianity is the majority
>religion, but it is far from the *only* religion in the US. Buddhist
>parents don't want their children to get Christian "pastoral care."
>Neither do the Moslem parents. If parents can't see that their
>children get pastoral care outside the public school system then they
>are hopelessly stupid. No, it's just a way to force your religion on
>other people's children.
The same as in Australia. But the materialist minority in the USA have
exploited this to mean that *all* religions are banished from public life.
Even when the overwhelming majority agree with some religious
observance, like generic public prayer, materialist minority assert their role
of self-appointed cultural guardians and step in with threats of lawsuits.
George Orwell would be proud of this `protection' of civil liberties!
>>SC>the states cannot pass a law that contradicts the federal constitution. Nor
>>>can they engage in behavior that violates the constitution.
>SJ>...One day hopefully the people will wake up that they were better off when
>>Christian teaching was allowed in schools and Christianity was the
>>unofficial State religion rather than scientific naturalism.
SC>oh, yeah. We were better off. Racism, lynchings, wife beating and
>child beating perfectly legal. Slavery legal. No voting for women,
>etc. etc.
I don't know much about the USA but I would suspect that most (if not all)
these social reforms were led by Christians in a previous era when
Christianity was still the unofficial State religion.
SC>We were *much* better off!
Susan needs to take a reality check. I am 54 and I have lived at a time
when Christianity was still largely the unofficial State religion and Christian
ethics the norm. When we were kids we did not need to lock our doors and
we could and did walk home through the city streets after 10pm and not be
harmed.
As Christianity has declined in influence over public and private life, so
violence has multiplied. In Australia we haven't got to the stage where
school kids have to walk through metal-detectors as they enter the school,
but no doubt it is coming.
I presume also that America is like here, with an epidemic of kids ending
their life because they have been taught that they are just the unintended
output of a series of cosmic accidents and therefore life has no ultimate
meaning and death is an escape into non-existence?
This is not to say that life was perfect back in the `good old days' (I came
from a broken home and I lived in some pretty rough places and I saw
some pretty rough things, including my non-Christian parents getting drunk
and beating each other up). But back then broken homes were rare and
most kids never had to put up with what my siblings and I had to.
But today, kids with permanently married parents are becoming a rarity,
because the materialistic ethic is that there is no transcendent moral law
that everyone is accountable to, and therefore one has a `right' to look after
their own happiness in this one life they think they only have, no matter
who else it hurts.
[...]
>SJ>Great! But the evolutionists have had a monopoly on teaching "*real*
>>evolution" for over 40 years and the creationist have lost every court battle
>>and have been almost completely marginalised. So why does the public
>>only know what Susan calls "the false creationist version" of evolution?
SC>creationists can and do intimidate textbook publishers, science
>teachers and school boards. There was exactly *one page* in my
>daughter's biology text book pertaining to evolution and it was
>mostly just a bio of Darwin.
I have heard this excuse before and I find it unconvincing. Evolutionists
have won *every* legal battle, up to an including Kansas. A publisher who
promoted evolution might lose in the Bible belt but they would win
handsomely elsewhere. The evolutionist authorities would promote their
book and they would do very well, thank you.
In my Biology degree course to date, we have two textbooks, one from
Australia (Knox, et al.) and a leading one from America (Campbell, et al.).
The amount of evolution it them is about the same (about 1% of the total
by pages), even though there is no comparable pressure from creationists
here. The USA book even has a two page spread by Dawkins arguing
against creationism and design, so clearly its publishers are not worried by
creationists not buying the book.
The real reason why there is less evolution in Biology texts is because there
is so much more new things to learn about *biology* and not much more
new stuff to learn about evolution.
>SJ>How is this "*real* evolution" going to be different from the `unreal'
SC>creationists have a strawman version of evolution that they flog and
>"refute" because there's no real evidence against the real thing.
Susan in the past has defined "evolution" as something like: "any change in
the gene frequency of a population". So it is no wonder "there's no real
evidence against the real thing"!
But this is revealing. For true believers in `evolution' (whatever that is)
there simply *cannot* be any evidence against evolution. So creationists
*must* be attacking "a strawman version of evolution... because there's no
real evidence against the real thing"!
I have discussed this before that to committed evolutionists `Evolution'
is like a law of nature, or rather a *super* law of nature, because laws
of mature can be superseded. But `Evolution' cannot be superseded.
This idea of evolution as a super-law of nature has perhaps
been best expressed by the evolutionists Teilhard de Chardin:
"Is evolution a theory, a system or a hypothesis? It is much more: it
is a general condition to which ALL THEORIES, ALL
HYPOTHESES, ALL SYSTEMS MUST BOW and which they
must satisfy henceforward if they are to be thinkable and true.
Evolution is a light illuminating all facts, a curve that all lines must
follow." (Teilhard de Chardin P., "The Phenomenon of Man," 1967,
p.241. Emphasis mine).
and Julian Huxley
"This centennial celebration [of Darwin's launching of the theory of
evolution in 1859, at the University of Chicago, 1959] is one of the
first occasions on which it has been frankly faced that ALL
ASPECTS OF REALITY ARE SUBJECT TO EVOLUTION,
from atoms and stars to fish and flowers, from fish and flowers to
human societies and values - indeed that all reality is a single
process of evolution." (Huxley J., "The Humanist Frame," in
"Essays of a Humanist," 1969, p.78. Emphasis mine).
So I presume this is the reason why committed evolutionists think
creationists must be crazy and/or liars, or, as Dawkins put it: "ignorant,
stupid or insane ... or wicked..."!
It would be like us creationists being confronted by a bizarre sect which
claimed that the laws of physics were wrong and they had their own laws
of physics. We would assume that *they* were crazy or liars. It would
probably never occur to us that the laws of physics (as it were) were wrong,
and we probably could not even grasp the concept.
So this is how I assume that the more doctrinaire evolutionists like Susan,
Chris and Richard, etc, see creationists. It is just not on their mental map
that evolution could be wrong and the creationists could actually be right!
So whenever the creationist puts up an argument that the evolutionist finds
hard to answer, the evolutionist's assumption will be that the creationist
*must* be lying, being "irrational" and/or spouting "nonsense'.
I stress that I assume the evolutionists are not being dishonest here. This
is how they *really* see it.
SC>Whenever a creationists says "evolution requires" or "evolutionists
>maintain" you can brace yourself, they are almost always about to say
>something that is not true.
See above. This *perfectly* fits my theory that committed evolutionists like
Susan are unable to even entertain the possibility that what the creationist
says actually could be true. So it simply *must be* "not true'!
[...]
Steve
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
"The philosophical problem with Darwinism is that it actually explains too
much, that it is difficult to falsify by experimentation. Once again this seems
a nonsense: how can the ability to explain too much be a problem for a
theory? Surely a good theory should be able to explain all the observations
of nature? Nevertheless it is a real problem, and one that is appreciated not
only by the philosophers of science but also by some of the biologists
actively engaged in evolutionary research. The difficulty is that if a theory
explains all observations it is in danger of being unfalsifiable in the same
way that the existence of God is unfalsifiable ... And ... the leading
twentieth-century philosopher of science, Karl Popper, is also worried
about the scientific status of Darwinism. ... `it must be possible for an
empirical scientific system to be refuted by experience'. Popper, 1959"
(Leith B., "The Descent of Darwin: A Handbook of Doubts about
Darwinism," Collins: London, 1982, p.27)
Stephen E. Jones | Ph. +61 8 9448 7439 | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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