Can America Survive Evolutionary Humanism?

Conservative Underground ^ | 2 February 2010 | Linda Kimball

[EnderWiggins]

"It is. Your first clue should be Endless Wiggles appeal to “lost books”; if they are lost, then he certainly can’t know what’s in them any more than you do, and you can’t examine them to keep him honest."

LOL... that was a weak assertion for several reasons.

First, something lost can be found as in the discovery of the Nag Hammadi Library in 1945 or the Gospel of Judas in 1983.

Second, lost documents have often been preserved in memory by references to them in other surviving texts. An example would be the Gospel of Barnabas (not the fraudulent Muslim text, the one mentioned in the Decretum Gelasianum).

Third, no small number of the early variations of Christianity that did not make the cut into orthodoxy are recorded by the Pauline Christian writers themselves in their responsive attacks.

It is good to note however that you do not pretend that there actually are no "lost books" at all. Good for you.

"Wiggle’s disparagement of Pauline Christianity is another clue that he’s wandering in the fever swamps of terra conspiratoria. Pauline Christianity is the major portion of the NT. His acceptance by the Apostles is documented by Luke, by the first Jerusalem council."

I gotta say... can an argument get any more viciously circular than that? If so, I have never seen an example.

"FF Bruce was one of the preeminent scholars of his time and his books are classics of apologetics. Wiggle’s condescension of Bruce simply marks him as a crank."

Sectarian apologists always adore the books of fellow apologists that agree with them. Calling those who disagree "cranks" or insultingly riffing on their userIDs with nicknames like "Wiggles" is, well, a wonderful example of how intolerance commences. I trust that you will not advance to physical violence from verbal insult?

People wonder why the exclusive monotheisms of Christianity and Islam have earned less than stellar reputations for ecumenicism.

The difference between my measured disagreement and your intense defensiveness could not be much more stark. I merely disagree and you immediately take it as malicious "disparagement." You are projecting.

You are not being threatened here, Pelham. You guys already rule the world. Is that not good enough for you?

No need to answer. It was a rhetorical question.

[AndyTheBear]

Why then would you object even the tiniest bit if the premise should then serve for what actually is a rigorously deductive set of subsequent syllogism?

I object to the meaning of a premise being changed. For example consider this deduction:

Premise A) Banks are safe places to keep your money.

Premise B) The place by the side of the creek is a bank.

Conclusion: It is safe to keep your money by the creek.

Obviously this argument is fallacious. The problem is that we use the term "bank" to mean more than one thing. But if we were more objective we may have said:

Premise A-prime) Everything that could be called a bank, whether a financial institution or side of a creek is a safe place to keep your money.

Now in this case, premise A-prime is the one actually used to make the syllogism's conclusion valid. However we would not be able to get many people to accept this premise. Thus if we are devious, we could propose A and than imply A-prime to form our syllogism.

You have made this mistake a couple of times that I have pointed out, and I have spelled out the specifics already. I'm sorry that being wrong about what you are selling is hard to accept. Nobody likes it, including when it happens to me. Which is why I understand that you are resistant to accept this correction.

[EnderWiggins]

"I object to the meaning of a premise being changed. For example consider this deduction.

So do I.

"You have made this mistake a couple of times that I have pointed out, and I have spelled out the specifics already."

No you haven't. You have made the bald accusation, but you have demonstrated no actual equivocation whatsoever. If you can make a case that I've done this, then just go ahead and do so. I'll be happy to respond.

[ColdWater]

Who knew that there was no such thing as despotism, genocide tyranny and warfare until Darwin invented them in 1859?

Wasn't Darwin the cause of 'original sin'?

[ColdWater]

His point was that Darwinism gave rise to evil.

Which is such an obviously false premis that it doesn't even merit a discussion.

[AndyTheBear]

You have made the bald accusation, but you have demonstrated no actual equivocation whatsoever.

The equivocation was certainly more subtle and harder to see than the bank example. It didn't boil down to two parts of the same word like your former error with "portray". I will try one more time to point it out to you, although I doubt you are in any mood to recognize it:

The law of cause and effect is the most rigorously confirmed induction we have ever been able to make as a species. The confidence is so great that we even have invented a label for those instances when it appears the law might have been violated. We call them "miracles."

This is a premise. You used this premise further down in post 131 in another form:

If we hold the premise that all effects have causes, it cannot lead you to an effect that has no cause. It can only lead you to an eternal chain of causes and effects.

Well both these snippets appear to make sense. However, when did we ever hold this premise as stated in the second snippet? It kinda sounds like the previous one, only stated with more brevity. But it isn't really the same. I hold the first premise, but in a different way than you do that does not support your restatement: that everything in nature has to have a cause, and that exceptions are properly called miracles because they are thus an effect of some super nature.

If you like, you can assert that the non-existence of super nature was an implied additional premise, but that's hardly useful in considering the veracity of naturalism. And it would make the rest of your argument have little utility other than obscuring that you have really just assumed your conclusion.

[AndyTheBear]

Which is such an obviously false premis that it doesn't even merit a discussion.

I was summarizing what I thought to be the author's conclusion rather than a premise. I used vague terms for brevity, being that my purpose was to distinguish the authors conclusion from a conclusion that it gave rise to all evil which seemed how Ender was interpreting it.

For myself, I think judging Darwin's theory to have moral culpability for Nazism is quite a stretch. But I don't think it as big a stretch as Ender's subsequent contention that it was the gospel of John that was the "proximate and ultimate" cause of the Holocaust. Subsequently, I have been debating Ender for quite some time now.

[EnderWiggins]

”The equivocation was certainly more subtle and harder to see than the bank example. It didn't boil down to two parts of the same word like your former error with "portray". I will try one more time to point it out to you, although I doubt you are in any mood to recognize it: “

I’m all ears.

Well both these snippets appear to make sense. However, when did we ever hold this premise as stated in the second snippet? It kinda sounds like the previous one, only stated with more brevity. But it isn't really the same. I hold the first premise, but in a different way than you do that does not support your restatement: that everything in nature has to have a cause, and that exceptions are properly called miracles because they are thus an effect of some super nature.

Wait a minute. I thought you said you were going to show me where I equivocated. Instead, you are not talking about the premise at all, but instead complaining about an irrelevant aside.

So worse than being wrong… your complaint here is irrelevant.

The existence or non-existence of super nature was not a premise at all in my argument. I never asserted it, and it certainly served no role in my chain of reasoning. To do that would be to commit the same viciously circular illogic that I abhor among you guys. I neither included nor concluded the non existence of super nature. I did not even introduce the concept in the reasoning.

I simply pointed out that if every effect must have a cause, the only logical conclusion that would not violate that premise is that the universe is eternal. No consideration of super nature anywhere involved.

[AndyTheBear]

A complete red herring. An eternal universe does not require there to be "anything infinite in it."

How long is eternity?

[AndyTheBear]

I simply pointed out that if every effect must have a cause, the only logical conclusion that would not violate that premise is that the universe is eternal.

Well I never signed on to the idea that every effect has a cause. It was not a premise we agreed to, it was one you were arguing for. You stated the premise twice. The first time it sounded in line with both our world views. The second it was only in line with yours. You equivocated to get to that "premise".

But I am more interested in knowing how you think an eternal universe can have nothing infinite in it. Are you thinking of time as a part of the universe, or of something that transcends the universe and need not be considered part of it?

[ColdWater]

But I don't think it as big a stretch as Ender's subsequent contention that it was the gospel of John that was the "proximate and ultimate" cause of the Holocaust.

I never went that way but the biggest holocaust was the great flood.

[EnderWiggins]

"How long is eternity?",/i>

The question is internally contradictory. It has no actual answer.

[EnderWiggins]

"Well I never signed on to the idea that every effect has a cause. It was not a premise we agreed to, it was one you were arguing for. You stated the premise twice. The first time it sounded in line with both our world views. The second it was only in line with yours. You equivocated to get to that "premise"." Actually, you did sign up to that idea. In fact you were the first in this thread to propose that "nothing comes from nothing." Or did you forget?

Now... I am perfectly cool with you abandoning that idea now and deciding, well, okay, things do come from nothing after all, and there are effects with no causes. Is that the premise you are embracing here? Because, if is, then we'll work from there.

But you still are showing zero equivocation on my part. The objection you posed to what you call the second statement of the premise had nothing to do with the resulting logical conclusions. Miracles were neither a major or minor premise, and never presented themselves as a conclusion either.

"But I am more interested in knowing how you think an eternal universe can have nothing infinite in it. Are you thinking of time as a part of the universe, or of something that transcends the universe and need not be considered part of it?"

The universe is a chain of causality. (Well... it's actually a web of causality, but let's keep it simple.) It consists entirely of discrete entities and events, none of which are infinite. All of them are limited in dimension and ephemeral in existence. Without exception.

Time however is not an entity at all. It cannot be reified into a discrete thing as it bears none of the characteristics of either matter or energy. In point of fact, time does not exist at all.

There is no past or future. There is only now. The immediate instance of the universe is all that exists. What we conceive of as "past" is simply the artifact of previous "nows" that we retain in memory, but we still retain that artifact now. What we conceive of as the "future" is simply the recognition that now does not stay the same, and the instance we are immediately experiencing is different from other instances that we will eventually experience as "now" but have not yet.

Once an instance of "now" becomes "past," it doesn't go to some other place where it is filed away for reference. It ceases to exist completely. And instances of "future" are not waiting in a vestibule to eventually make their entrance onto the stage. They do not exist until "now" becomes them.



I suspect that you will make the same pointless complaint you made a couple posts ago about how this is not "intuitive." That's merely damning with faint praise. There is a reason why intuition should not be trusted... it is too often wrong. An eternal universe is certainly counter intuitive, but so what? It is still the only logical conclusion that can be reached from a premise of "all effects have causes" or "nothing comes out of nothing."

The intuitive leap that religionists make when confronting the eternal chain of causality is to "call it God," but that requires the contradiction of the premise, and is therefore not justifiable logically.

So... is it intuitive? No. But it is perfectly and unforgivingly logical.

[AndyTheBear]

In point of fact, time does not exist at all.,

This sounds odd, and I don't know what you mean.

Is this an assertion only for the sake of that argument, or is this your view, or do you merely mean time is not the same kind of thing as matter and energy, and is only the background on which matter and energy operate?

[EnderWiggins]

It is a widely held position among cosmologists, especially those working on models of what existed prior to the Big Bang.

Time is a convention that we use to make sense of change in the universe. But it doesn’t really exist. Matter exists. Energy exists.

Time does not.

[AndyTheBear]

Time is a convention that we use to make sense of change in the universe. But it doesn’t really exist. Matter exists. Energy exists.

Hmmm, well change seems to imply a ratio whose denominator is in terms of time. Perhaps they are using a number of event states as such a denominator and think of it more discreetly?

Perhaps all things if we would like could be abstracted in one way or another and thought of to not really exist, for some special meaning of existence that is useful to some model or another. For example, I believe some world views hold that matter and energy don't really exist.

"Existence" as a technical word causes more confusion than it helps I think. Its usefulness was eroded by too many philosophers putting too many meanings to it. So I favor using it in the most general non-technical way.

To the fictional characters of a book, the author does not exist (unless the author chose to represent his own person in the story). However the author is more real than the characters in the book.

But under the model you seemed to be describing, the author himself is not real. What is real is the state of the matter in the author at the thinnest possible slice of "time" (whatever that is), and the state of the particles close to the author, that might not be considered the author exactly...and perhaps the rest of the universe at that moment I suppose.

In the mind of the author would be a thought of the characters, so perhaps they are real in that way...but thoughts require a much longer chain of tiny causal steps then the thin tiny slice of now that is the only state that currently exists. Since the future and past don't really exist, well I can't see how thoughts exist. Or the mind of the author for that matter. Certainly the particular arrangement of some particles of matter and some energy that do not constitute a single thought do not constitute a mind.

Seems this view implies that minds only exist in our minds...which don't exist anyway...so we should just stop it!

[EnderWiggins]

"Hmmm, well change seems to imply a ratio whose denominator is in terms of time. Perhaps they are using a number of event states as such a denominator and think of it more discreetly?"

Who are "they?" I cannot answer the question unless I know who you're speaking of, because different communities use the concepts of change and time differently.

"Perhaps all things if we would like could be abstracted in one way or another and thought of to not really exist, for some special meaning of existence that is useful to some model or another. For example, I believe some world views hold that matter and energy don't really exist."

I'm sure some such world views exist. But they have nothing pragmatic to show for their trouble. When a set of ideas is so completely sterile in its contribution to our lives, I am comfortable paying it no heed. When it actually ends up accomplishing something, then I will grant it closer scrutiny.

I was once, for instance, challenged by a "new age" guru along the Tony Robbins line to point out something that was "real." I volunteered the piano in the corner as an example of something that was real, and he responded, "Oh you think so? You think that if I got Deepak Chopra here he couldn't make a case that that piano was not real at all?"

I looked at him and said, in front of seminar of more than 300 people, "I'll tell you what. First get Deepak Chopra in here. Then let me drop that piano on his head. Then I will be more than willing to let him try and convince me that the piano was not real."

"To the fictional characters of a book, the author does not exist (unless the author chose to represent his own person in the story). However the author is more real than the characters in the book."

What silliness. Fictional characters in a book do not exist. Authors of fictional characters do exist. The author is not "more real" than the fictional characters. The author is real, and the characters are not.

Existence is a binary state. Ones and zeroes. There is no fractional existence, or fractional reality.

"But under the model you seemed to be describing, the author himself is not real. What is real is the state of the matter in the author at the thinnest possible slice of "time" (whatever that is), and the state of the particles close to the author, that might not be considered the author exactly...and perhaps the rest of the universe at that moment I suppose.

Nonsense. The author is absolutely real regardless of the existence of time. Like all other entities that exist in the universe, the author is a discrete being that can be described as a particular conformation of matter and energy. All three spacial dimensions exist, and no "slice" of time of any thickness need be considered.

That author exists only within now. There are not an infinite number of authors occupying different "slices" of time like pages in a flip book. There is no author in "the past." There is no author in "the future." The author will change as each subsequent instance of now replaces the prior. But the author that exists now is the only author that exists... period.

"In the mind of the author would be a thought of the characters, so perhaps they are real in that way...but thoughts require a much longer chain of tiny causal steps then the thin tiny slice of now that is the only state that currently exists."

Not so. A thought is a physio-chemical process, a sub-component of the discrete conformation of matter and energy that is the author. In one instance of now thought will be commencing. In another instance of now, the thought will be concluding. In all instances of now in between, the thought will be in progress. But the thought obeys the same rules as all other entities composed of matter and energy. It is not an exception to the rule.

"Since the future and past don't really exist, well I can't see how thoughts exist. Or the mind of the author for that matter. Certainly the particular arrangement of some particles of matter and some energy that do not constitute a single thought do not constitute a mind.

Sure they do. You seem to have again assumed your desired conclusion and are arguing in a circle. You are presuming that a thought is an immaterial thing, that the mind is something different from the body. Oceans of ink have been wasted on "the mind body problem" when the obvious solution has always been that they are the same thing.

"A thought" is merely the arbitrary demarcation into granules of the ongoing seamless process we call "thought." Where one thought ends and another begins is merely convention... but we do not stop thinking in between.

And mind is more than just the sum total of our thoughts. The components of mind include cognition, perception, memory, consciousness, self awareness... the list is a long one. But ultimately... mind is what brain does. It is not a separate thing that exists independently of the material organ that produces it. Livers produce chemicals. Kidneys produce urine. Brains produce mind.

And we can confirm this by showing that no component of mind, no matter how subtle or definitive of "humanness," cannot be affected or destroyed by affecting or destroying the brain that produces it.

"Seems this view implies that minds only exist in our minds...which don't exist anyway...so we should just stop it!"

Nothing in that conclusion makes sense, fist and foremost because mind does not only exist in our minds. As evidence, it is my hope that you (through empathy alone) grant that I probably have one, even though you are not experiencing it in your own. You cannot think my thoughts, feel my feelings, or experience my experiences... so they clearly exist independently from your own. They are a different instance of mind from yours.

The intuitive turmoil is generated by the simple fact that your first person experience of your mind cannot be shared. It is an experience entirely unique to you. If I were to put you under a PET Scanner and look for your mind I would have no trouble describing the electro-chemical signals that cross your synapses, the firing of your neurons, the regions of your brain that are active and those that are not, the rewiring of synapses that constitute learning and memory... I might even be able to make some rough assessmenets of your emotional state or what you are doing.

But my third person experience of your mind can never be the same as your first person experience. It is the same mind... but our experiences of that mind will always be so different that I can only suspect and never know that our separate first person experiences are at least similar.

No... don't stop it. Embrace the unique and unrepeatable first person experience of your own mind, even if it ultimately is only the chemical reactions you are able to witness in mine.

But please, do not fritter away the singular experience of your mental universe by imagining it is merely a dress rehearsal. This is your one moment on the cosmic stage, and then into dust thou shall return.

Don't waste it.

[AndyTheBear]

Existence is a binary state. Ones and zeroes. There is no fractional existence, or fractional reality

It is an ambiguous term in reality. You seemed to be simply creating your own definition of the world with an implied model and asserting it as some immutable truth. Did you have a revelation I should know about?

[EnderWiggins]

You are equivocating again.

[AndyTheBear]

You seem to have again assumed your desired conclusion and are arguing in a circle. You are presuming that a thought is an immaterial thing,...

I was proceeding only from the model you presented and was trying to see if there were problems with it. Forgive me for suggesting that there might be more to a mind than just the brain. I should immediately reject that since you say so.

That author exists only within now. There are not an infinite number of authors occupying different "slices" of time like pages in a flip book. There is no author in "the past." There is no author in "the future." The author will change as each subsequent instance of now replaces the prior. But the author that exists now is the only author that exists... period.

Very well, this seemed a little different then the impression I had of your model, so now I think I understand it better.

But I see a problem with this new understanding of your model: Is not the entire universe and everything in it an entity? If so, certainly it is an infinite one--having an infinitely long web of causes and effects in it. Thus this entity is necessarily infinite provided that the universe really is eternal.