Tag Results
15 posts tagged atheism
Michael Peterson on a number of questions regarding C.S. Lewis, esp on his conversion from atheism to Christianity.
The NYT reported few days ago a research done on yeast, specifically on its ability as a single-celled organism to develop into a multicellular organism. The story is yesterday’s news and may not be quite as remarkable a finding as it may sound.
The atheist community, however, make of this a Darwinist goal scored in the creationist net: further proof that everything that has ever lived — the human being of course included — evolved from a single cell organism. Though there are plenty of questions remaining in the explanation of how single-celled organisms become multicellular, there remains an even bigger question without anything even resembling a decent answer from the believers in the materialist view of the world. Namely: where or how did the first cell appear? What made life from non-life?
The Ten Fallacies of Atheism @ Atheism Analyzed
1. False: “I can know that there is no cause for material existence which is greater than anything found in material existence.” (Category Error).
2. False: “I can know that there is no existence beyond the mass/energy, space/time existence to which we humans are limited.” (Category Error).
3. False: “Science has no limits and is therefore the only source of knowledge.” (Failure to comprehend Material limitations of science, and the other types of knowledge commonly in use).
4. It is false to reject [P] yet claim that you have no belief concerning [P]. (Claim doesn’t match action/reality).
5. It is false to reject logical claims of first cause deductions based solely on rejection of ecclesiasticism. (Fallacy of Guilt by Association, and Black and White Fallacy).
6. False: “Theists must show material evidence that there is non-material existence.” (Category Error).
7. False: “Atheism is based on evidence and logic but needs neither for support in order to reject the existence of non-material dimensions because Atheism need not adhere to the Burden of Rebuttal.” (Special Pleading).
8. False: “Atheism is not a religion, despite having religious content, beliefs concerning deity, and the propensity to evangelize, and demand that government be limited to their worldview regarding religion.
9. False: Atheism has no ethic or morality attached to it, yet claim that “Atheists are good without God”. (internally contradictory: non-coherent).
10. False: “Since there are demonstrable myths, then all references to non-material existence are declared to be myths by association” (Fallacy of Guilt by Association).
Richard Dawkins Predicament @ The A-Atheism Blog
I know it is a somewhat provocative post, but hey: RD had it coming. With his response to his non-response to the Sheldonian debate — find links below. It seems that the Professor for Public Understanding of Science has not only attacked his students, but his peers at the University of Oxford. For, you know, disagreeing with him regarding propositions he did not want do defend in public, at the Sheldonian.
A redeemed mind, you know. A terrible thing.
The debate between William Lane Craig versus the empty chair, reserved for Richard Dawkins, on the question of Is God A Delusion? It would have been the debate of the decade, but, alas, was not to be as professor Dawkins did not want to share a platform with Professor Craig (which he had previously done). This video is WLC’s response to RD’s atheist magnum opus, The God Delusion, which the Professor for Public Understanding of Science did not show up to defend at the Sheldonian Theatre last month.
To quote a fellow blogger: a redeemed mind is a terrible thing to waste.
What is the best way to stop your child from becoming an athiest? [sic]
Wonderful satire by Rod Draher:
Make sure they never learn that many brilliant men and women throughout history and even today — scientists, philosophers, artists and others — were and are religious believers. Children must accept that religion is only something for dupes and fools, and that no intelligent person could ever believe in God.
Richard Dawkins's refusal to debate William Lane Craig is cynical and anti-intellectualist
This is a criticism of Dawkins’ open refusal to debate Craig in Oxford this Tuesday posted on The Guardian’s Comment is Free: Belief-section. For more anti-intellectual cynicism of the a-theist variety, have a look at the comments. There is a lot.
Excellent Essay on "Grounding" @ Atheism Analyzed
Good stuff pouring out of Atheism Analyzed. This one takes a metaphor from electrical engineering and, from there, discusses the idea of “grounds” in logic. This is an important topic if we want to discuss important philosophical matters, such as morality: does there exist such a thing as Good or Evil?
Interestingly, Philosophers in general reject the existence of grounding Truths. So where does that leave the truth value of their declarations? Without some sort of inflexible guiding principle, some veridical axiom, some inviolable, incorrigible, external ground, all thoughts become relative, floating in a tide of unknown and unknowable, non-existent truth. The result is an attempt to create a truth out of nothing, ex nihilo, just by thinking really hard about it.
Out of nothing nothing comes. If good and evil are social constructions, relative to time and place, there is nothing that tells giving and loving apart from stealing and killing. If we claim that one is more moral than the other we subscribe — often implicitly, sometimes explicitly — to a standard of some kind. We give in to moral absolutes.
Letter to a Friend @ Atheism Analyzed
Stan at Atheism Analyzed published an excellent “Letter to a Friend” last week, but have been too busy recently to keep things prompt around here. Anyway: a wonderful approach to truth among different worldviews. What it comes down to is the inappropriate truth that the denial of absolutes implied by materialism pure and simple leaves it without a leg to stand on:
One of the outcomes of the atheist denial of absolutes is that logic, without an absolute basis in First Principles or axioms, is totally relative. Logic can slip and slide around and be made to fit the non-absolutist’s opinion. And everything produced by Atheists and Materialists is therefore just non-logical opinion, based on no absolutes and no experimental science.
Worth your time.
“If it be true (as it certainly is) that a man can feel exquisite happiness in skinning a cat, then the religious philosopher can only draw one of two deductions. He must either deny the existence of God, as all atheists do; or he must deny the present union between God and man, as all Christians do. The new theologians seem to think it a highly rationalistic solution to deny the cat.”
