Author Archives: keiths

on how to reconcile evolution, creation and intelligent design

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<video snipped on request>

 

From the video description:

<redacted> TEDx presentation speaks to the debate over innovation of ideas specifically regarding evolution, creation and intelligent design. He asks whether or not science can have the courage to work together with philosophy and religion or worldview to discover where humanity is headed and presents the idea of human extension as a way to promote human dignity, cooperation, altruism and flourishing instead of Darwinian dehumanisation, conflict and struggle.

Roger Scruton on altruism

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I’ve just started reading philosopher Roger Scruton’s new book The Soul of the World, in which he defends the transcendent against the scientific conception of reality. Chapter 3 contains an interesting but wrong-headed argument to the effect that evolutionary explanations of human altruism are superfluous, because altruism can be explained perfectly well in moral terms. It’s particularly interesting in light of our discussions on the Critique of Naturalism thread, so I thought I’d share it:

An organism acts altruistically, they tell us, if it benefits another organism at a cost to itself. The concept applies equally to the soldier ant that marches into the flames that threaten the anthill, and to the officer who throws himself onto the live grenade that threatens his platoon. The concept of altruism, so understood, cannot explain, or even recognize, the distinction between those two cases. Yet surely there is all the difference in the world between the ant that marches instinctively toward the flames, unable either to understand what it is doing or to fear the results of it, and the officer who consciously lays down his life for his troops.

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God and Identity

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When is the YEC God no longer the YEC God?  That question came up in my recent thread on methodological naturalism and accommodationism.  In that thread I argued that science falsifies the YEC God, because it shows definitively that the earth is about a million times older than the YECs believe.  If the earth is old, then the YEC God doesn’t exist. There might still be a God, but not the YEC God, because the YEC God necessarily created the earth a short time ago.  Otherwise, it wouldn’t be “the YEC God” at all!

Robin and Petrushka objected because they didn’t see “the YEC God” as being essentially YEC.  In other words, they saw “the YEC God” as referring to a God who would still be the same God even if it turned out that he hadn’t created the universe several thousand years ago.

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Jack Chick comes to the big screen

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Some of you may be familiar with the infamous Jack Chick tract Big Daddy?, in which a sweaty, arrogant atheist professor with a hideous combover is defeated by a young, earnest Christian student with a side part.

If so, then this trailer for the new movie God’s Not Dead will seem eerily familiar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMjo5f9eiX8

I saw the movie a few weekends ago, and I’ll post my thoughts in the comment section. Meanwhile, enjoy!

Sal Cordova: Why is there no creationist Isaac Newton?

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At UD, Sal asks:

When I watched the Ken Ham vs. Bill Nye debate, I lamented, “Why Lord do we not have an Isaac Newton of today defending your creation?” In years gone by, Christians were at the forefront of intellectual advancement in science, technology, medicine, literature, art, music, etc. I lamented, “dear Lord, why has this happened? Why do you defend your Word and the testimony of your creation this way? Wouldn’t the world be inclined to believe if you raised up someone like Newton to defend creation in the present day?”

Nullasalus embraces the multiverse

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A bizarre new post at UD had me checking the date to make sure it wasn’t April 1st.

In it, commenter ‘nullasalus’ explains that although he doesn’t think the multiverse is plausible, he nevertheless thinks “it’s a good idea, from an ID perspective, to accept and take part in multiverse speculations,” and offers these four reasons, which I have quoted verbatim:

1. If we live in an infinite multiverse, Intelligent Design is no longer a possibility – it is a certainty.

2. While Intelligent Design becomes a certainty (at least somewhere), Darwinism becomes obsolete and obscure.

3. Theism becomes true on the spot – specifically, polytheism.

4. If ID proponents embrace the multiverse, there’s a good chance the scientific community will drop it like a hot potato.

That last one is especially funny. Enjoy!

Is God a brain in a vat?

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From a comment I made last year at UD:

It’s impossible to verify the reliability of a cognitive system from the inside. Why? Because you have to use the cognitive system itself in order to verify its reliability.

If the system isn’t reliable, you might mistakenly conclude that it is!

This even applies to God himself. From the inside, God may think that he’s omniscient and omnipotent. He seems to know everything about reality, and he seems to be able to do anything that is logically possible. But how can he know these things with absolute certainty?

What if there is a higher-level God, or demon, who is deceiving him into thinking that he’s the master of the universe when he really isn’t? How, for that matter, can God be sure that he isn’t a brain in a vat?

He can’t. Defining him as omniscient doesn’t help. Like everyone else, he can only try to determine, from the inside, whether his cognitive apparatus is reliable. He can never be absolutely sure that he isn’t being fooled, or fooling himself.

VJ Torley’s itchy trigger finger

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At UD, vjtorley has posted a bizarre, 5,000-word “rebuttal” of Jerry Coyne. It begins:

Over on his Why Evolution Is True Website, Professor Jerry Coyne has posted a short passage on the papal condemnation of Galileo, excerpted from Andrew Dickson White’s A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom(New York, NY: D. Appleton and Company, 1896). However, all the passage proves is that neither White nor Coyne understand the theological doctrine which they are attacking: they are all at sea about the dogma at which they are aiming their barbs.

One slight problem: Coyne isn’t attacking anything. VJ Torley is tilting at windmills.

Coyne doesn’t express agreement or disagreement with the passage. He merely points out a funny proofreading edit pencilled into his copy of the book by a previous, seemingly obsessive reader:

Now I don’t even know if that correction is grammatically necessary, but I had to smile at the anonymous reader who got annoyed and took the trouble to add the proofreader’s transposition symbol.

VJ is evidently so sensitive to any attack on Catholic doctrine, real or imagined, that he’ll fire off a 5,000+ word “rebuttal” without even reading the post he’s responding to!

A dilemma for Christians – is there free will in heaven?

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Why would an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent God knowingly create a world containing the evil we see all around us? That, in a nutshell, is the well-known theological “problem of evil”.

A standard Christian response runs as follows: God, being omnipotent, certainly could have created a world without evil. However, a world without evil would be a world without free will, because free will implies the ability to choose to do evil. In a world without evil, we would effectively be robots preprogrammed to do only the good. God values free will so much that he chooses to grant it to us despite knowing that we will misuse it. In short, God chooses to create a world containing free will, at the expense of some concomitant evil, rather than creating a pristine world full of robots.

Now consider heaven, a perfect place in which there is no evil. Do believers have free will in heaven?

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UD censorship circumvention thread

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Rampant censorship at Uncommon Descent has left many of us banned and unable to post comments there.  Others are able to post but are subject to having their comments delayed in the moderation queue, defaced, or deleted altogether at the whims of moderators (such as UD “President” Barry Arrington*) whose egos are large and fragile.

This thread offers a safe place for folks to respond to UD posts and comments without the threat (or the reality) of censorship. It’s also a good place to cross-post and preserve UD comments that you think are likely to be censored.

If the thread becomes popular, we can sticky it or otherwise make it easily accessible from the TSZ home page.

* I kid you not – look at the bottom left corner of the UD home page.

The (il)logic of intercessory prayer

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Suppose the standard OmniGod exists: omnipotent, omniscient, and omnibenevolent.

Now suppose that Mary contracts a serious illness.  Her family and friends pray for her health.  This makes them feel better, and it also makes Mary feel better.  The knowledge that others are praying for her may even affect her body in a way that contributes to her recovery.

The question is whether those prayers have any effect on God’s actions.  Being an OmniGod, he will always do the right thing, without fail, regardless of whether anyone asks him to do so.  How can prayer ever change what God does, if he always does the right thing in all circumstances?

In other words, is it ever possible that God is prepared to let Mary die, but decides to intervene simply because her family and friends pray for her recovery?

Theists out there: Do you believe in the power of intercessory prayer? If so, how do you resolve the problem described above? Ex-theists, I’m also interested in hearing about how you dealt with the problem back when you were still among the flock.

Kairosfocus and his son

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At UD, kairosfocus writes:

I have a son, now on his way to major medical intervention overseas in light of recent developments, of such delicacy that the difference between success and devastating failure is literally 1/8 of an inch.

Accordingly, I request prayers for the proverbial guidance of the final diagnosis and surgical interventions and follow up care that lie ahead; also, for the logistical details connected therewith.

Kairosfocus,

Though I can’t in sincerity offer my prayers, I do offer my heartfelt and earnest wishes and hopes for your son’s successful treatment and speedy recovery. I’m sure others here at TSZ do as well.

Please keep us posted on your son’s progress.