[Matteo is quoting from another blog, and I'm quoting from Matteo's blog. Read Matteo's post here; Read Mark Shea's post here.]
Mark Shea highlights a rejoinder to some atheist "reasoning":I [Mark Shea] scrolled up to see who Rosemarie was replying to and got as far as this mixture of parrot talk and "original thinking":That last one is a good one. I'm [Matteo] sure an atheist would agree with my reasoning if I said, "Now I know that you reject spontaneous generation, perpetual motion, the luminiferous ether, and phlogiston. In rejecting Darwinism, I'm just rejecting one more theory than you!"Just like you are a-zeus-ist, a-allah-ist, a-fairy-ist, a-invisible-pink-unicorn-ist... basically you are very similar to me, you're an atheist in almost everything but the religion you were indoctrinated into by your environment. I'm just atheistic in a few more things.
I still have to get to reading some of this Aquinas fellow, though I have the vague suspicion that he doesn't adress the Plantinga Disaster.
Right?
And, of course, Matteo's final question is rhetorical and ironic -- the typical 'atheist,' even the one who has just mindlessly parrotted the "I simply reject one more god than you do" line, will vehemently reject the validity of the argument which is inherent and implied in that line when it is being employed as Matteo employed it.
9 comments:
ps. I keep intending to write a post which contains just links to various sites and blogs I frequently read. Sure, I have the "blog roll" over there (and Matteo's blog surely belongs there), but had I wanted to keep that small. I've already added more links to it than I'd originally intended.
You are obviously unaware that in science, "theory" is a term of art, and neither spontaneous generation, perpetual motion, the luminiferous ether, nor phlogiston qualify. The term "theory" is reserved for things like gravity, relativity and evolution. In science, "theory" is the gold standard -- it means a body of knowledge about a certain subject that has been subjected to rigorous testing and become widely accepted within the scientific community.
NI, you're obviously a fool of some sort, and I have no patience at all for fools. Now, please go bother someone with more patience than I even care to have.
Ilion, I just shredded your argument and that's the best you can do?
By the way, here's a link to some posters you probably won't find amusing:
http://www.scottklarr.com/topic/453/collection-of-atheist-and-atheism-motivational-posters/
Gentle Reader,
Observe how the fool, NI, has "shredded [my] argument" (and which argument he clearly can't even identify) ... by the simple expedient of asserting that I'm ignorant or stupid, and by insinuating that I'm intellectually dishonest.
Well, that is, after all, how "Dawrinists" and "liberals" and 'atheists' tend to "argue" (which may explain why there is so much overlap amongst the three groups).
"But, but, but," you're sputtering, "you called him a fool!"
I did, indeed (and the accusation happens to be true).
A 'fool' is not someone who is ignorant, much less someone who is stupid. A 'fool' is someone who is intellectually dishonest; a 'fool' is a specialized sort of liar. A 'fool' is a hypocrite with respect to regular reasoning in the same way that a regular hypocrite is a hypocrite with respect to moral reasoning and actions; for both are asserting a double standard against which to measure the acts of reasoning and/or the actions which proceed from that reasoning: a more stringent one for others and a more relaxed one for themselves. Ergo, a 'fool' is worse than a mere liar; for a mere liar is lying about some fact or other, but the 'fool,' the intellectually dishonest person, is lying about reason itself.
Look again, carefully, at NI's first post. The content of the post is false, entirely false. Now, that *could* be explained as mere ignorance, in which case it would have been wrong for me to call him a 'fool' as I did.
Look, carefully at that post. That post is not the result of *mere* ignorace. That post is the result of self-satisfied ignorace, that post is the result of willful ignorace. Which is to say, the post was made by a fool. There is *nothing* I (or you, it you are a reasonable person) can ever say to reason on this matter with the sort of person who posted that, for that sort of person rejects reason and logic.
I hadn't thought of that argument as a reply to the atheist statement to monotheists that they only believe in one less God than we do. It had occurred to me that it was also a good response to Richard Dawkins' reply to the observation that he doesn't tackle the more sophisticated arguments for the existence of God produced by the world's great theologians and philosophers. Dawkins' reply was that he didn't feel he had to, as he didn't believe in God, and so didn't feel he had to deal with these arguments. Now, this is a statement of both arrogance and ignorance on Dawkins' part. Dawkins has also made his career attacking Creationism and the Argument from Design. However, I suspect that if a Creationist, when asked by Dawkins why he didn't tackle any sophisticated arguments proposed by Darwinists, gave the same answer - that he didn't believe in Darwin, and so didn't feel the need to tackle any of the complex arguments advanced by Darwin's supporters, would certainly not be accepted by Dawkins himself.
Now for N1's comment that a theory isn't really a theory unless it conforms to rigorous scientific testing, this simply confuses 'validity' - whether a scientific theory correctly, more more correctly represents objective reality, with the nature of theories themselves. IN fact the history of science consists of a multitude of theories that were accepted as perfectly valid and acceptable in their day, but now would be immediately regarded as absurd by contemporary scientists. One example would be the belief of the ancient Stoics that the world really was flat, and that whatever the apparent size of a fire seen at a particular distance, the fire really was that size. The vast majority of people today would accept that these theories are wrong, but their truth value does not mean that they didn't constitute theories.
BR: "I hadn't thought of that argument as a reply to the atheist statement to monotheists that they only believe in one less God than we do."
I hadn't either, and I should have. The reason I say that I should have thought of it is because turning irrational or illogical (or dishonestly offered) arguments back on those who present them, sort of an intellectual jujitsu, is a particular pleasure.
Instead, when offered the vacuous "I reject just one more" line, I have tended to concentrate on the fact that in rejecting the existence of Zeus (even though by the logic of their own belief system they have no rational justification for doing so) they have said nothing about the reality of the Living God.
BR: "... Dawkins' reply [to the observation that he doesn't tackle the more sophisticated arguments for the existence of God] was that he didn't feel he had to, as he didn't believe in God, and so didn't feel he had to deal with these arguments. ... However, I suspect that if a Creationist, when asked by Dawkins why he didn't tackle any sophisticated arguments proposed by Darwinists, gave the same answer - that he didn't believe in Darwin, and so didn't feel the need to tackle any of the complex arguments advanced by Darwin's supporters, would certainly not be accepted by Dawkins himself. "
Exactly. That's sort of thing I regularly point out ... and so I *should* have noticed on my own the point that Matteo made.
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BR: "Now for N1's comment that a theory isn't really a theory unless it conforms to rigorous scientific testing, this simply confuses 'validity' - whether a scientific theory correctly, more more correctly represents objective reality, with the nature of theories themselves. ..."
"Science" fetishists tend to be very ignorant -- and proudly so -- about science ... and about reason.
Shoot, you don't have to go as far afield as the ancient Stoics to find theories which are perfectly valid as scientific theories, and yet are now considered false or even non-sense. For instance, the theory of the 'luminiferous aether' is a perfectly valid scientific theory; it just happens these days to be considered false.
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