Comments that seem to me to be in violation of the game rules will be moved here, and closed to further comment. Do not regard having your post moved here as a reprimand, merely as a referee’s whistle. 🙂
Feel free to comment on them at any other peanut gallery of your choice.
phoodoo,
He’s baaack! 🙂
Are you here to just complain, phoodoo, or will you humor us with some thoughts on this thread?
phoodoo,
Love the way you go to specific cases and stay away from ad hominem.
Did everyone bring their sophistry free big-boy pants today?
Kalamazoo Mike. How would anyone know how to get the geography right if you are willing to say *NOTHING* about who you really are? And then you blame someone else for it… = ))
I asked you directly, clearly, without any doubt. It was a simple 10-second Google search – Is this you? http://www.kamsc.org/staff/Michael+Elzinga You didn’t answer.
No, I don’t hate atheists. I’ve studied with, worked with and even lived with atheists without problems. I believe that in the hearts of many (perhaps all!?) atheists something greater lives. It’s just yet to be found though its real.
But as for insights into creationism vs. evolutionISM (yes, as ideology) vs. IDism, of course atheists like you, Michael Elzinga, are heavily biased in your own way. A simple imitation of NCSE scouts, tainted with local bitter bias. “Ain’t that America?” Yet you’ve done so little to openly admit yourself or show this, it’s actually not even funny. So I won’t laugh. You are a non-person, disguised as a physicist, according to the way you talk. Inhuman robot ‘scientismist’ (to use your term).
For me, that’s not acceptable. It’s weak. It’s heartless. It’s empty.
I drew attention to one basic failure in the OP, which is entirely on topic and speaks more deeply to the idiotic distinction that Ham makes and that Lizzie misunderstands, with her dull HPSS mind.
THERE ARE MULTIPLE SCIENTIFIC METHODS. “Yes, of course,” the chorus *should* say. But no, not here at TSZ among agnostics and atheists. Instead silence, looking at feet, not responding is what has happened here at TSZ. Oppose the theist though it stare directly in the face of rationality and logic. You folks (mostly USAmerican) live in a very strange and sad country when it comes to worldview!
The existence of multiple scientific methods challenges (nay, destroys) Lizzie’s outdated, amateur ‘observation’ of ‘science’ at its core. But then so you’re stuck folks, cuz following Lizzie, you simply don’t know, but just want to believe. It’s like boo-hoo chorus, post-Soviet scientific atheism, cuz the world’s focused on Sochi now and Obama didn’t come (though more Heads of State than ever did come) and Putin is actualy clearer now and more stable than GWB ever was. But you didn’t want it to be about you or USAmerican and it isn’t, so you don’t. Enough to quiet the 95% atheist-skeptic crowd.
I’m sure the term Dunning-Kruger has been mentioned.
If you don’t like the folks posting here you can always leave and go to Uncommon Descent. You’d raise the average IQ of both places.
Mike Elzinga has insulted, prodded, condescended and tickled me at TSZ.
I asked a simple question and he ducked it. I’d like to know if asking this is against the rules. His name is already listed, not hidden; his claims are already made.
http://www.kamsc.org/staff/Michael+Elzinga
Is this TSZ’s Mike Elzinga or not? He feigns authority like it is, then says nothing when pressed and claims to be a current University of Michigan Professor.
What’s actually real in this ‘Skeptical’ Zone?
“I suspect it’s a Heideggerian term of art.”
Do some research then. You claim to be a scholar.
I’ve traced it to the 1950s. Where have you traced it to?
Your ‘suspect’ appears as empty speculation.
“looking for “naturalism without scientism” that I’ve started and stopped four times now.”
Well good. I honestly hope you find it and start again. I’m well ahead of you and most other ‘USAmericans’ on this. I went East.
Did you see the Opening Ceremonies in Sochi, KN? So much you don’t know, or them. And it’s not my knowledge to possess to claim arrogantly, it’s theirs to humbly follow and learn from. Are you willing to do this? I know you want to, but will you, KN? You have doubts. Given.
“Trying to get clear about any of this stuff is extremely frustrating!”
Right, so call these dogs off my back cuz I got no more time for this filth and will disappear. Will you?
Yes, I read Pigliucci, White (you saw my review), and Wiseletier. And I teach it. Fascinating. But read Hutchinson and Artigas too; don’t shy from the theists.
“I won’t say that the term is entirely useless.”
Good, well fend off the scientistic hounds of TSZ then. But they don’t pay you much attention as a mere (ex-Reform atheist Jewish) philosopher, do they? You’re a mere ’empirical’ pawn for them. sCiEnCe –> SciEnTiSm
You seem to fall down willingly at the ‘philosophy is dead’ trope. Stand up, KN. Get inspired. For Y-WH’s sake! Learn more than the Sophists did. Find truths and adventures in the neo-post-modern age. You need not be as weak or eclectically destructible as you appear. Why not awake, arise?
The utter self-defeat of writing to tell people they’re not worthy of your time. Gregory, I suspect our opinion of you is 1/yours. Your poor fucking students.
Of course, you’re not biased, as an incorrigible radical atheist, are you ‘davehooke’?
‘Secular politicians’ = pseudo-saints according to davehooke, who is doing his radical atheist worldview duty, supported here at TSZ, even by mods. It’s just as ideological as the Soviets nowadays in USAmerica with such claims. There are a lot of religious politicians in the USA, but that’s not newsworthy except pejoratively at TSZ.
So you whine about how you’re treated here, while you make an appallingly false and ignorant statement such as that one, without any adequate argumentation.
It’s not wrong at all, although I could have included the caveat that strict causality isn’t something known to extend beyond “classical science.” I thought I’d let that go because the issues here are almost always of the nature of classical science, such as the highly classical causation of orbiting bodies.
Why don’t you make a case, rather than the usual ignorant and false accusations? Is it the apparent cause, that you write without understanding the matters you so unswervingly bungle?
Glen Davidson
Just your usual arrogant and ignorant tripe, and blatantly false misrepresentations.. Interactions cause things, not forces, gravity is just one of the ways in which interactions occur.
Since you can’t deal with these matters competently you just repeat your ignorance and demand that others back up your grossly ignorant misstatements.
Glen Davidson
LOL! Here comes drive by Steve posting more regurgitated ID Creationist bluster.
He still can’t find the spine to post his definition of information as it applies to biological life. What a surprise.
Thorton,
At least Neil gets it now.
You however, unfortunately lacking the prerequisite luminescence required to enable a successful search for that which sits on the head of a pin…..
Nah, on second thought, I don’t feel sorry for yah.
More empty ID Creationist bluster from Steve, still no definition of information.
What, zoocentrism now? Typical. And what if Michiganers believed in a nothing-feeling atomic reductionistic worldview? Would it bring happiness, fulfillment? Or ultimately NIHILISM – the primary subject of this OP?
No society in history has ‘dispensed with deities’ and been better for it. Not one. Even the Scandinavians have religious crosses on their flag, if they’re partially forgotten in their hearts. Religion is a so-called ‘human universal’ according to anthropologists. We can’t escape it.
But hey, that’s just ‘soft’ sociology talk, not ‘hard’ physicalism. It’s easy picking condescension from a difficult ‘scientist’ like Mike. “If I could be like Mike?” No, thanks to his unbelief.
Mike Elzinga nihilistically plays charades that the world should adopt his physicalistic-reductionistic natural scientism. He abhors people who believe in Creation, in a vertical existence, in more than DEATH without LIFE. Most of the world, however, including its/our intelligentsia (of which Mike doesn’t seem to be a part) disagrees.
A guy who is blind sees/feels life better than Elzinga! Elzinga’s ‘humbug’ doesn’t spoil the party. It’s just sad, arrogant provincial materialistic insularity, echoing NCSE, with not a speck of originality, deeper vision or faith involved.
Only now, in your 70s, and finally looking up ‘polygenism’!?! That’s the whole ball game, senor. Any Hebraic (or German) person should know this.
It’s in the links above.
(Btw, were you actually named after ‘Joe’ Stalin, a former Georgian seminary student gone very bad?! Wow.)
walto,
As of last night you hadn’t “gotten less critical” at all. You were claiming that my “stuff” was just as confused as ever:
Today, you suddenly credit me with “an important point” and say that “our critiques are related.” Yet my argument hasn’t changed one bit. The only thing that’s changed since last night is your understanding of it.
Indeed, one can practically feel the warmth and amity radiating from this statement of yours:
walto:
I invite you to reread both threads in a calm state of mind. If you can summon some objectivity, you’ll gain quite a different impression of my behavior, and especially of your own.
I come to The Skeptical Zone to debate and discuss, and that includes challenging other’s views as well as having my own views challenged. I’m emotionally equipped for that, while you seem to struggle with it. I can admit my mistakes with no fuss. So can Vincent Torley, and in a very public way. Why is it so hard for you, walto?
As I said in the other thread:
Dry out those big-boy pants and pull them back on, walto.
keiths,
I have no problem with anybody disagreeing with me, keith. It’s your weird desire to win that I find irritating. When I say, e.g., that there’s a sense in which you and I aren’t disagreeing too much, you shoot back stuff like “I see you’ve made a 180.” You did the same kind of stuff on the other thread. I think it’s adolescent.
I guess you could say we have different ideas about what constitutes a big boy. I think there’s a kind of big boy that doesn’t always feel the need to WIN when discussing things that they may disagree upon. To me your kind of bellicosity is unpleasant and pointless.
Now, I get that you take my attitude not to be above reproach. You think it’s both condescending and, I guess, cowardly or little boyish. The little-boy pants thing I have no problem with, but I absolutely encourage you or anybody else here who thinks my posts are too condescending to ignore them and for the moderators to guano-can them. For that stance, I agree, is also unattractive.
walto,
You most definitely do, walto. A big problem, especially when the person challenging you is an engineer “who first heard about de re and de dicto a couple of days ago and is still trying to get it straight”, in your words. Like I suggested, try reading the two threads when you’re in a calm and objective state of mind. You’ll see what I mean.
If I think my position is correct, I defend it. I’m neither intimidated by credentials nor cowed by arguments from authority.
On the other hand, if I’m wrong, I don’t try to win at all costs. I admit my error and move on. It happened in this very thread, when you challenged my Snoopy example and I conceded your point. Why do you find it so difficult to follow suit? Why this weird desire to avoid admitting error at all costs?
That’s because you objectively have made a 180, as I already explained:
walto:
I actually doubt that, but I do suspect that you have a harder time living up to your big-boy standards.
The problem isn’t that you’re condescending or critical. I’m thick-skinned, and I’ve gotten plenty of that at UD and from a couple of individuals here. The problem arises when you refuse to take responsibility for your statements.
I don’t want your comments to be guano’ed. I’d like for them to remain out here where people can easily see them, but it would be really nice if you would don the big-boy pants and take responsibility for them. It’s your choice to click ‘Post Comment’. Don’t do it if you aren’t willing to assume responsibility for what you’ve just typed.
Cast aspersions all you like, but take responsibility when you do so and be prepared to back up your claims. You don’t get special privileges here at TSZ. Like everyone else, you may be challenged if someone disagrees with what you’ve written. Deal with it and stop complaining.
(Or if you insist on complaining, then be prepared to back up your complaints, and don’t complain about having your complaints challenged. 🙂 )
Big-boy pants.
‘petrushka’ doesn’t present himself as someone to take seriously. Atheist, nihilist late-age frivolity. Play, wink, sad telos. Veneer of meaningful, no depth. This thread is yet another that lowers TSZ’s credibility, if it ever had any credibility (other than reactionary IDism) to begin with. keiths’ recent anti-theism posts show the bias of ‘skepticism’ at this site. Uninspiring.
Oh looky, here come Gregory, the “Big I am” with his HPSS and whatnot. What’s that Gregory?
“Most atheists are nihilists depending on scale.”
You’ll be able to support that, of course. I’d hate for you to be making shit up, as they say in sophisticated philosophical parlance.
Is there anyone on the interwebs with moar butthurt than Gregory? You athiest / skeptics are a joke not having his HPSS.
Patrick,
Address the refutations? What? What is there to address? The moderators here allow all sorts of off topic ad hominem insults, whilst selectively censoring those with opposing views. There is nothing to address, insults and rubbish are common here, they aren’t at UD, pretty simply really Patrick.
Do you struggle with that concept, you brainless moron idiot atheist spewer? (See I am allowed to say that here, because its the standard here).
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAAHAHAHahahahhahahahaha
Oh man, the irony.
Joe G, is that you?
That is a lie (not a mistake, because you have been repeatedly shown otherwise). Comments that violate Lizzie’s very simple and non-intrusive rules may be moved to Guano. No messages are removed.
Let’s compare that with UD (quoting from my previous questions that you never answered):
How many people have been banned at UD? How many people have been banned here?
How many comments have been removed from UD? How many comments have been removed here?
How many comments have been modified by people other than the author at UD? How many comments have been modified here?
Well, in the past you’ve spoken of a desire for “intellectually satisfying” beliefs. Most of us would find it intellectually unsatisfying to hold beliefs that weren’t defensible.
I do understand that your intellectual standards are quite low, however.
One of TSZ’s moderators (NR) chimes in yet again obviously without understanding, showing the philosophical acumen of a baboon (philosophy in defense of which KN either *wills* not or personally cannot correct/convince him).
Why? Because, of what the thread’s author, who (still, but hesitantly) considers himself a ‘naturalist’ (he hasn’t directly denied it yet, in the line of I. Kant – a deist), proclaimed.
Reminder: KN said this:
Will no one actually hold KN to his own words? Alan has done so at the top, but as of yet gone unanswered.
What ‘can’ be right then, if not ‘naturalism’? What alternative to ‘naturalism’ is to be proposed? Nothing so far. KN will as usual dance, dive, dip, divert, into Sellars, Dewey, James, et al. but folks, he simply *WON’T* give you (or ‘us’ as TSZers like to hear) an alternative to save his life. He’s got enough names, claims, jokes and rhetorical sidetracks up his sleeves to stop people here from actually taking seriously his ambiguous position (which I have no doubt his ‘professional’ host would disown if they knew it).
The position of this particular ex-Reformed Jew (as told already here) philosophist is apparently still (and must be!) ‘naturalistic’ even when it is denied by him to be as such by evasion. It does not allow for, nay clearer, DOES NOT POSSIBLY EMBRACE theism. Nothing other than disenchanted ‘naturalism’ (in contrast to theism) is possible for KN, as much as he’d apparently like it to be otherwise, because his agnosticism doesn’t allow his heart to breathe vertical.
As for “the tops of the Internet,” TSZ is obviously far from it. A place for KN to trumpet his hesitant (duplicitous) naturalism posing as philosopher, but behaving as philosophist.
As for “naturalistic swine,” KN apparently knows much more about it than most, as his language shows. Even if he won’t actually swallow it nihilism-raw himself. A visit to a rabbi might help, but as an (unconfirmed) ex-theist agnostic he seemingly wouldn’t dare.
Rather no, scientistic ‘Myth of the Given,’ shallow USAmerican analytic philosophy, selling out his soul to naturalism while in this thread pretending to declaim it, yet without offering an actual clear alternative is all KN seems capable of. Sad. No elevation from such disenchantment on display here.
Kantian Naturalist,
You’re incompatible with your own statements. And I highly doubt you were ever actually ‘reformed.’ It’s a joke on this site for anyone to listen to your ‘philosophistry’ (even ‘as typically construed’).
Healing is wished for, though KN has demonstrated no grasp of medicine available against his self-proclaimed ‘naturalism’. His voice (and heart) seems to be shut to antidotes. No speak *actual* alternative; mind agnostic closed.
It is astonishing how badly ‘keiths’ can miss the point, reducing “a critique of naturalism” to merely a discussion of the so-called ‘naturalistic fallacy.’ S/he sounds like a person who thinks having Wikipedia access constitutes having a credible education. S/he asks walto, someone at least studied in philosophy, “Have you heard back from Plantinga?” Yet Plantinga wouldn’t give ‘keiths’ the time of day, anti-theist and disenchanted ‘human’ as s/he is, who obviously couldn’t even understand what walto was saying in the mentioned thread, after several arduous efforts.
This is a sad situation with keiths huffing and puffing in importance, while more important topics are eluded. KN was at least trying, in his own reflexive way, to face ‘naturalism’ critically. That’s more than most sceptic-atheists/agnostics at TSZ can say.
p.s. I’ll provide my own (in dialogue with others) definition(s) of naturalist, walto, time permitting, but it is more than strange that you claim not to even hold a definition of ‘naturalist’ of your own as a USAmerican ex-philosophy teacher / workers comp. insurance salesman. Are you really that unaware of the ideology of ‘naturalism’? For an atheist or agnostic, that would be a surprise.
[Click]
(That’s the sound of Gregory’s error percentage edging up one notch.)
Stratosfreakingpheric, I tell you!
walto,
You have not proven yourself worthy of it, disrespectful bad-mouthed – claimed ‘philosophy’ teacher, ex-insurance salesman & avowed atheist – knowing apparently nothing about ‘naturalism’ that you would even understand. I do hope you eventually elevate, but doubt you would (cf. will) ever take a step to do so.
Well, I have several definitions of ‘naturalism’ handy by significant scholars.
The idiotic ‘sceptics’ here, as represented by ‘keiths’ (anonymous engineer) and ‘walto’ (Walter Horn, as yet unknown USAmerican affiliation), do not seem worthy of discourse given their disrespectful, unknowing and anti-theist history. But yeah, theirs is sadly a trend of what Lizzie’s TSZ site has become with such active posters (“too many atheists here”). KN was notably different even as an ex-reformed Jew, now agnostic.
BruceS (who apparently is a theist) has tried to encourage a middle ground, so far without success among the majority ‘sceptics’ here.
No actual facing of the OP’s claim that “naturalism cannot be right” at TSZ? That’s banished here by bigots!
How is it possible that someone who supposedly teaches youth at an undisclosed college/university in the U.S.A. (with a 79.15$ book about an obscure person that obviously no one buys) doesn’t know what ‘naturalism’ means? Is this the kind of ‘scholar’ (former insurance salesman) that TSZ wants to embrace as their new ‘resident philosopher’ after the rage-departure of KN?
Gregory,
Newly dubbed “resident philosopher” and unworthy shithead all rolled into one.
(Not knowing what to do with this new information, Walto headed out to sell some surplus lines policies.)
If ‘walto’ (Walter Horn) is actually a teacher of philosophy at a USAmerican college or university, that would go far to show the poverty of thought in that country.
People who might be interested to discuss the ‘critique of naturalism’ that KN posted in this thread should steer clear of the moronic ‘sceptics’ in this thread.
How is it possible (really, ask yourselves that!) that someone (Walter Horn) who supposedly teaches youth at an undisclosed college/university in the U.S.A. (with a 79.15$ book about an obscure person that obviously no one buys) doesn’t know what ‘naturalism’ means? He needs a definition because he can’t read a book?! Is this the kind of ‘scholar’ (former insurance salesman) that TSZ wants to embrace as their new ‘resident philosopher’ after the rage-departure of KN? Without Lizzie, this has become a rather poor and futile place. Let the idiotic USAmerican wanna-be philosophers (keiths & walto) have it? Or else…
How is it possible (really, ask yourselves that – depraved naturalists!) that someone (Walter Horn) who supposedly teaches youth at an undisclosed college/university in the U.S.A. (with a 79.15$ book about an obscure person that obviously no one buys) claims he doesn’t know what ‘naturalism’ means?
“there’s a case to be made for moving most to either guano or sandbox”
Then someone should take 5 minutes responsibility and do this. Hint: find any post without the terms ‘natural,’ ‘nature’ or ‘naturalism’ and move them. Done. Simple. Easy. No controversy.
My status is already ‘author,’ Alan, as is yours. (But you have undemocratic ‘Moderator’ powers too.) KN left because he couldn’t answer serious challenges to his ‘pseudo-naturalistic’ worldview – he got in a rage about it and deleted threads. Those are simply facts.
I treat people as people and communicate with them based on their word. KN is a ‘naturalist’ based on his pseudonym. Nobody is denying that or even speaking about it here at TSZ.
Alan did not ‘give’ me priviledges here. Lizzie did. This is her site. Naturalists are in control of this site, though Lizzie is more sensitive to theists than most here, given her eclectic quasi-Buddhist worldview.
It is rather obvious what the atheists and agnostic caretakers of TSZ are forcing themselves into if they only listen to openly anti-theist ‘keiths.’
Have some respect and rise to face the challenge of “A Critique of Naturalism” as some naturalists don’t want you to do here. They want tripe, diversion and shallow talk instead in this thread.
That’s obviously a joke. There’s appeasers and then….
For a self-proclaimed (Canadian) theist, BruceS, you don’t seem well-informed or on-line aware. Wake up and stop supporting TSZ anti-theism.
Respectfully, tell the internet you hadn’t heard of this before: http://blogs.ssrc.org/tif
Surely Alan Fox won’t Moderate a post to Sandbox (after the vast number of off-topic posts in this thread) about pretending to be Canadian by USAmericans travelling abroad because he friendly atheist thinks it’s on-topic for “A Critique of Naturalism,” right?
What a gringo joke! 🙂
“the kind of huge forces we anti-naturalists have to deal with on this site.”
LOL!
First, Walter Horn claims not to know what ‘naturalism’ means and asks for a definition.
Second, he claims to be an ‘anti-naturalist’ yet still an atheist, with no other alternative to ‘naturalism’ than the ‘supernaturalism’ that KN said was not the only alternative to naturalism.
Honestly, are USAmericans among the most underdeveloped thinkers on the planet today (and still hire a guy like walto to teach philosophy there)?
Bruce S said:
Scientific evidence isn’t defined “arbitrarily” any more than testimonial evidence is defined “arbitrarily”. It’s definitional; it’s a category of data/information. If it’s not repeatable by everyone else doing the experiment, it’s not scientific evidence.
The question is, if you hold reality to be defined by that kind of data, then naturalism cannot be shown to you to be false. Period.
I don’t think the “norms” critique of materialism is interesting. If one is satisfied with feelings-based or physics-produced thoughts, impulses and sensations as the basis for their “oughts”, the critique is at an end. If KN finds chance & physics unpalatable as the cause of his oughts and beliefs, he should stop trying to hide behind jargon and sophistry and return to theism.
Unacceptable, you can repost the rest of the comment if you omit this bit.
Alan said:
Yeah, I figured your “moderator hesitancy” was highly selective.
William J. Murray,
A line was drawn, William. If you have an objection, there is the “moderation issues” page.
Just believe differently, that’s all it takes, right?
I simply don’t believe William. If his wife gets appendicitis or a toothache, she will be taken to a modern medical practitioner.
William’s faith healing is only relevant when the doctors have given up.
Well, I’m not a fan of Barry (or UB in their ‘scientistic’ IDism). Alan, otoh, has little to offer. Just ‘material’ and no ‘ideas’?
You mean ‘naturalistic,’ ‘materialistic’ or ‘physicalistic’ origin-of-life theories instead, don’t you? That’s what ‘reality-based’ means to you and most others here at TSZ.
Alan Fox’s atheism demonstrated as moderator at TSZ. That’s what this place has sadly come to be about.