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| Why I refuse to debate with William Craig Lane | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Oct 27 2011, 01:01 PM (857 Views) | |
| Moonbat | Oct 28 2011, 04:27 AM Post #26 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Though if you were cooling something down you wouldn't be removing heat from somewhere else, you would be removing heat to somewhere else from the object you were cooling down. In fact you don't need to do this by transferring heat to another system at all, as John points out you could do it by converting the heat to potential energy, e.g. an endothermic reaction. You can also raise and lower the temperature without altering the amount of heat at all: expand an elastic band it's temperature increases, allow it to contract and it's temperature decreases, this effect is not due to the heat gain or loss. |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| Axtremus | Oct 28 2011, 05:09 AM Post #27 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Nice going, genius; now you've raised the profile for this Lane dude whom I've never heard of before. |
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| Moonbat | Oct 28 2011, 06:12 AM Post #28 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Thought I was safe as there was an earlier thread about him here. Oops! |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| Axtremus | Oct 28 2011, 06:14 AM Post #29 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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No offense, but by "genius," I was referring to Dawkins. ( )
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| Moonbat | Oct 28 2011, 06:58 AM Post #30 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Haha double oops!
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| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| KlavierBauer | Oct 28 2011, 07:01 AM Post #31 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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It seems that purely from a Darwinian/naturalist perspective (i.e. not philosophical or religious) there is empirical evidence for good and evil. The actions of both aggregated are not zero sum, they have either a net benefit, or net loss for life in general, and so with interest to survival, their difference is more than semantic. In a human, we can measure differences in the brain between these two phenomena as well, so I don't buy that in nature's eyes they're two sides of the identically same thing. An infinitely evil God would act in it's own best interest which likely wouldn't involve creating anything. This, as an argument seems to fall on it's face rather quickly. It seems there would necessarily be measurable differences between the two, as they wouldn't be direct opposites (one isn't simply the absence of the other). I think your point only works if you can say that evil is simply the absence of good, or that good is simply the absence of evil, and I don't think you can. |
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"I realize you want him to touch you all over and give you babies, but his handling of the PR side really did screw the pooch." - Ivory Thumper "He said sleepily: "Don't worry mom, my dick is like hot logs in the morning." - Apple | |
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| Larry | Oct 28 2011, 07:01 AM Post #32 |
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Mmmmmmm, pie!
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All Dawkins is known for is for being a dimwit who thinks he's smart because he doesn't believe in God. But I realize to you atheist religionists he's an apostle.. |
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Of the Pokatwat Tribe | |
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| Renauda | Oct 28 2011, 07:16 AM Post #33 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Why I refuse to debate with William Lane Craig Frankly I can fully understand why Dawkins refuses to debate Lane. Lane is an apologist for an event (the alleged divinely ordered mass slaughter of the Canaanites) that probably never happened, or at least never ocurred on the scale as described in the bible. While there may have been conflict between the ancient Israelites and the Canaanites who were presumably already settled in the geographical region of what is commonly referred to now as Palestine, the archeological record suggests the two cultures intermingled and eventually assimilated into one. In any case there was no supernatural entity that ordered the Israelites to slaughter anybody. That is a tribal myth that arose out of the process of settlement and assimilation. A rational person cannot argue with the likes of Lane who, like a Marxist-Leninist, always arrives with his or her answers prepared. Lane merely reinforces my conviction that theology is a useless pursuit. A bit like modern sociology which does not fare much better in my estimation of valuable social science. |
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| Moonbat | Oct 28 2011, 07:22 AM Post #34 |
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Pisa-Carp
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That's what Ivory wants to say, and what I suggested was just semantics.
We would expect many differences between a universe made by a super evil god vs. one made by a super good one. The argument Law made was that our universe is equally incompatible with both notions. |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| John D'Oh | Oct 28 2011, 07:23 AM Post #35 |
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MAMIL
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Actually, he's an emeritus fellow of New College, Oxford, and an FRS. You might not like what he says, but he sure ain't a dimwit. He's also known quite a bit more than his lack of religious beliefs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Dawkins Incidentally, I don't think I'm smart because I don't believe in God. On the contrary, I don't believe in God because I think I'm smart.
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| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| ivorythumper | Oct 28 2011, 08:30 AM Post #36 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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OK, but Moonbat's position requires that cold be produced as a positive process, not a negative one. Similarly light -- can darkness be positively produced as light can, or rather can matter only obscure light and block it out? The whole point of "We could have found a world with both light particles and dark particles ..." is to dismantle the idea that light and heat are positive presences in the observable cosmos, and therefore serve as a reasonable analogical predicate to goodness. He's positing a dualist universe, which is what I already discounted ("don't think in terms of dualism"). So far, I haven't seen any reason to accept Moonbat's position that goodness and evil are just interchangeable concepts. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| ivorythumper | Oct 28 2011, 08:32 AM Post #37 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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No, you're not following. Goodness is not an absence of evil, but rather a presence. Like light and heat are presences, and darkeness and cold are absences. You are saying this is not the case, correct? |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Luke's Dad | Oct 28 2011, 08:41 AM Post #38 |
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Emperor Pengin
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The absence of evil would not be good. It would simply be the absence of evil. The absence of sorrow is not joy... |
| The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it. | |
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| Moonbat | Oct 28 2011, 09:23 AM Post #39 |
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Pisa-Carp
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You've misunderstood me - I'm well aware that we experience darkness when there are no photons in the visible frequency hitting our retinas. (Though of course there are many different kinds of photons) I was attempting to show that your statements about light and about heat are not merely semantic as they are empirical claims i.e. they lead to different predictions. If you wish to make the same claim for a statement like "evil is the absence of good" etc. then you need to do what I did for light; describe the differences we would observe if we lived in a world where there really was both "good" and "evil" or where "good" really was the absence of "evil". If you can describe three different sets of observations we would make if we lived in the three possible kinds of worlds then the statements correspond to empirical claims. If you cannot then they do not.
That's not my position.
I'm not following? It's not your position that "evil is simply the absence of good"? As for my position, well I don't agree or disagree with these statements because I don't know what they are supposed to mean. |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| Renauda | Oct 28 2011, 10:42 AM Post #40 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Absence of Joy is dirty dishes. |
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| Luke's Dad | Oct 28 2011, 11:37 AM Post #41 |
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Emperor Pengin
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After Mary went home, everybody jumped for Joy. |
| The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it. | |
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| John D'Oh | Oct 28 2011, 11:53 AM Post #42 |
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MAMIL
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Absence makes the farts smell stronger. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| Renauda | Oct 28 2011, 11:56 AM Post #43 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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The absence of wormword does not absinthe make. |
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| Chris Aher | Oct 28 2011, 12:27 PM Post #44 |
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Middle Aged Carp
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Abstinence makes the fond grow harder |
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Regards, Chris | |
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| ivorythumper | Oct 28 2011, 06:26 PM Post #45 |
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I am so adjective that I verb nouns!
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No, I really don't have to do that since you are not able to produce anything verifiable or knowable or even coherent. You have not even produced a coherent cosmological vision of a universe comprised of "absence of energy" "absence of light" "absence of heat" that was in any manner knowable -- from everything we presumably know about the laws of physics, you could not even have "observation", or an "observer", in such a universe. The simple fact that you can use your imagination to wonder about other hypothetical combinations speaks to only about what really is and nothing about what may be in another cosmology where energy, heat, light, etc are not positive values -- and their absence is the positive value -- or where these are in positive opposition with their opposites. Even your attempts to think about other combinations are completely grounded in the one we have (where matter, energy, light, heat, etc are positive values), and apart from this one universe that we experience you have no idea if you would even have being or presence or consciousness to observe. As for a universe that had both positive senses of light and darkness/ energy and stasis/ heat and cold -- I have no idea what such a universe would act like, or how we would observe it. I suspect you don't either. All we epistemologically have is the one we all experience. Then what is your position?
What you wrote suggested that "evil is simply the absence of good, or that good is simply the absence of evil," is my position. It is not. Evil is not simply the absence of good, but the absence of a good where there should/ought/needs to be be a positive good. The idea that good is simply the absence of evil means nothing apart from a dualistic worldview. We don't think of not having a nail driven through your cranium is a good, though it is good to not have a nail driven through your cranium. We don't say light is simply the absence of dark. There is a positive presence of photons that create "an absence of dark". Assuming you are referring to "Goodness is not an absence of evil, but rather a presence. Like light and heat are presences, and darkeness and cold are absences." They are supposed to mean that good is a positive condition related to the perfection or well being of something (telos, but you don't have to assume a real teleology for it to make sense); and evil is the privation. It is a much broader concept than moral evil, but is applied also to moral questions. The good of a photosynthesizing plant is light and water. The lack of water and light would be evil, privations, that would keep it from continuing to live would be "evil". Too much water or light might be an evil. Salt water is a good for sea bass and an evil for freshwater bass (and visa versa). Applied to human moral thinking, good is that which we require for happiness and well being -- (classically with a teleological view to "human perfection) ; evil (either by deficit or excess) prevents our happiness and well being. We do acts of evil or good (acts which either promote our happiness and well being, or detract/prevent/preclude/exclude our happiness and well being). That is the moral application of the same principles we find in the physical world. |
| The dogma lives loudly within me. | |
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| Moonbat | Oct 29 2011, 03:43 AM Post #46 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Well you have to if you want to demonstrate that the equivalent statements about "good" and "evil" are empirical statements. That's what it means to say something is an empirical statement; the statement predicts empirical observations. Only one of the statements about light fits our observations, the point was to demonstrate the opposing statements were not meaningless by showing they predicted different observations. (Whether they fit in with other theories about how the world works is irrelevant to this point)
That Stephen Law is right; super evil god is ridiculous because the world is nothing like what we would expect if a super evil god were responsible for it and super good god is ridiculous for the equivalent reason. (Of course both gods are ridiculous for many other reasons too but this is one reason). As for the stuff about "good" and "evil", I don't think statements like "there is good and there is evil" vs. "there is just good and evil is merely the lack of good" vs. "there is just evil and good is the lack evil" have any meaning. |
| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| John D'Oh | Oct 29 2011, 05:18 AM Post #47 |
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MAMIL
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Hey guys, has anyone ever noticed that 'Evil' is just 'Live' written backwards? Don't believe me? Try writing it down on a piece of paper, then reversing all the letters. It's totally freaky! Also, 'Good' written backwards is suspiciously close to Dood, a common mis-spelling of dude, although admittedly that one's a bit more complex and you guys might struggle with the concept. |
| What do you mean "we", have you got a mouse in your pocket? | |
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| Luke's Dad | Oct 29 2011, 06:54 AM Post #48 |
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Emperor Pengin
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Well thanks for that breakdown, Moonbat. I remember a debate I attended between Dawkins and a 3rd grader I believe. The 3rd grader produced a mathematical formula that proved the probability of the existance of God to be 73.8 % I believe. There were mathemeticians there to confirm the accuracy. Dawkins reply was that math was stupid, and so was God, as far as I can recall. I might be paraphrasing, but that was the gist. |
| The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it. | |
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| Moonbat | Oct 29 2011, 06:59 AM Post #49 |
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Pisa-Carp
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| Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem | |
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| Luke's Dad | Oct 29 2011, 07:21 AM Post #50 |
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Emperor Pengin
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In essence, that's what you just did. You related a debate you observed anecdotally, consolidating the argument of one side down to a dismissive 4-5 word sentence, and giving full credit to the argument you agree with, and but still relating it from your recollection. Now color me skeptical, but I believe your recollection may possibly be a littled skewed in one direction... |
| The problem with having an open mind is that people keep trying to put things in it. | |
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double oops!





4:16 PM Jul 10