Friday, December 14, 2012

Not so fast,Reformedish!



  Not so fast, Reformedish, your book review cannot overcome evidentialism, because evidentialism does indeed take into account the basics- the external world and so forth.
  Deity is hardly basic as we have sufficient natural explanations to account for matters without calling for an overreaching,ultimate ccount to again count for what already is accounted for as Percy Bysshe Shelley notes; theists would beg the question in countering that we make a category mistake. No reason exists to make that metaphysical category against this scientific one. That would be the [ \Morgan/Lamberth's] Deity of the explanatory gap.Even some theists deny the [ Henry Drummond's] God of the scientific gap.
    Atheism would not be self-defeating,because it finds no reason to accept Deity, and that rests on the fact that so-called facts for theism are just misreprensentations of facts-evidence Faith, definition and postulation just cannot instantiate Him.Faith, the we just say so of credulity,begs the question and is an argument from ignorance1
     Personal testimony means nothing without real evidence as snake-oil salesmen cannot give evidence for their panaceas. Why, other religions can do likewise!
      Scripture cannot help,because of their massive failure as history and  internal and external contradictions and misanthropic morals!
       Reformedish  thus is  special pleading for faith, testimony and scripture.
       The defeater  remains- no evidence forthcoming for Deity! Reformedish just uses Plantingan solecistic,sophisticated sophistry of wiley,woeful woo!
       Two of  the points are quite valid: [1]Obsevations and experience.However,we must ever re-intepret them if necessary.                     [2] Mistakes can afford us better experience when we learn the right lessons from them.
.       And two defy rationality:                      1[Revelation commits one to accepting the mental processes of someone, which has no basis anymore than accepting what a schizophrenic alleges about the CIA spying on her.They so differ from sect to sect. The commonality of some background cannot overcome their differences. No, all revelations and religions do not get one to the same God.
                                                                  [2]Traditions can carry real information of value, but can also err. So, we  can make mistakes in using them.Observations and experience can counter the errors and confirm the truths.
         No, Reformedish, we owe Deity absolutely nothing-no worship, as we are independent beings as Lamberth's argument from autonomy notes. You allege that He rightly demands worship but no, whilst He'd face that one way-street of having to have put us into a better place in the first place per Fr. Meslier's the problem of Heaven. You claim that that worship endows to our own benefit, but that would only be were we just things! Theists just betray humanity with that claim! As independent beings we are not His pottery, and He is not our potter, controlling and judging us!
          This gnu atheist ever goes to the theistic jugular! Sentient beings' lives are worthful whilst divine tastes and whims mean nothing and would be immoral to put into practice! Theists cannot gainsay this.
           Ti's  special pleading to allege that why, His demand for worship and such reflect on His glory, as that is no more than pleading might makes right. And it does no good to aver that why, with His omniscience, He knows better than we our moral rights and duties, as that is just another argument from the greater good and thus one from ignorance; why, your Scriptures with their misanthropic morality vouchsafes that your morality rests on men's tastes and whims- egregious simple subjectivism as opposed to good,simple subjectivism and to wide-reflective subjectivism.
           We can expiate without that barbarism of that blood sacrifice- the Atoenment. No rational, moral being would ever contemplate sentencing the good for the bad, and Christianity's notion of the bad is itself wrong insofar as it sanctions slavery and other wrongs; being non-Christian  is no reason to harm someone in Hell, and Hell itself is evil. Ti's supercilious to ever that ,why, Hell only means to annihilate,not roasing eternally anyone. All but the Hitlers would deserve immortality anyway, the bad undergoing purgatory, as the late John Hick speculates.
           Why,even that falls underneath the glory of humanity when per the problem of Heaven, there would only be beings with free will and a guarantee only to do right. As is, ti's no hobgoblin of little minds to call to attention that inconsistency betwist Heaven and Earth per the problem.
           Religious people should not consider social and political issues with their faith as that can be contrary to sound practice. Not only should there be separation betwixt church and state but also betwixt belief and social and political judgments. People can for their own sakes carry out their beliefs but not impose them on others: parents don't have the right to impose faith-healing and exorcism on their children, as the latter's right to health and safety dominate.
           Reformedish, thanks for your blog!
             

Reformedish

Reformedish

Friday, December 7, 2012

Theology- that fountainhead of ignorance!


              Theology is the subject without a  subject! It  came from ignorance and depends on the arguments from personal incredulity and from ignorance.
              People wondered how did the world come about and were grateful for things and wanted help, so emerged animism- finding  supernatural intent for what occurs in Nature. Polytheism just made the many spirits of  full animism into many gods.
              Theism then arose, people thinking that one Supreme Being instead of many lesser ones, directed outcomes in Nature, but  the notion  was still the same- the intent that  isn't there!
               Lamberth's reduced animism argument that theism is just that, noting that as Lamberth's teleonomic argument presenting the fact that science sees no supernatural intent behind natural processes, and any would contradict instead of complementing  science so that theistic evolution is just an oxy-moronic obscurantism!

               Whilst some theologians try to update their theologies with scientific and historical understandings that very intent belies their actually doing so.
                Why is there something rather than nothing? Because nothing is nothing! That query is indeed the grandest of the arguments from personal incredulity and its answer- because of God' will is just another argument from ignorance.              Astro- physics tells us the reality about the eternal quantum fields whence come one universe after another.
                That is the scientific answer to replace  Henry Drummond the scientific God of the gaps.
                Then there is the philosophical one -Lamberth's the God of the explanatory  gap. Here theologians maintain that why, the scientific one is right, but there still remains the need for the Primary Cause  of Aquinas and the Sufficient Reason of    Leibniz: what lies at the bottom of all natural processes to make them work. Again, that putative intent arises.
                  Aquinas himself reveals why that is a pseudo- question and pseudo-answer. This argument boomerangs on his own five ways! He maintains,for the sake of argument, that :"It is moreover  superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many.But it seems that everything  in the world can be accounted for by other principles without supposing God exists. For all natural things can be accounted for by one principle,which is nature' and all voluntary things can be accounted for by one principle
, which is human reason or will. Hence, there is no need to suppose that a God exists." This is his superfluity argument, which Percy Bysshe Shelley implicitly uses.
                 He maintains:" To suppose that some existence beyond, or beyond them [ the descriptions-  laws- of Nature, S.K.] is to invent a second and superfluous hypothesis to account for what already is accounted for." Theists would beg the question to claim that that is a category mistake.
                This bespeaks the difference betwixt science and theology about the use of  ignorance.
           God did it adds nothing to natural explanations. No need  exists then to posit  a personal explanation as Richard Swinburne and William Lane Craig claim.
                Ti's no matter of intent to choose from possible outcomes. Leucippus is right that necessity rules. 
                That very intent serves to assuage people's misfortunes and falsely gives hope that that intent can change matters.
               That intent bespeaks superstition. And people murder due to what they think is the divine intent!
              We all can find succour from other sources. We need no divine intent for our having purpose and divine love for us and the future state; our own purposes and human love and this one life suffice.
           " Life is its own validation and reward and ultimate meaning to which neither God nor the future state can further validate." Inquiring Lynn  
      We can express gratitude to others.  We can expiate for wrong-doing.  We can acknowledge that we ourselves with our own inner resources get us through things instead of relying on faith. We can find inspiration for that from other sources.
       We full skeptics are ever trying to educate the public about intellectual scams of " The Transcendental Temptation," that the late Paul Kurtz calls the twin superstitions of the supernatural and the paranormal. Do read that book!    

Ignorance: Does It Drive Both Science and Theology? (RJS)

Ignorance: Does It Drive Both Science and Theology? (RJS)