Chances are, people in pubs don't want to argue about speculation either. But at least going to pubs and churches is not mandated by the State.

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Post Edited (Similtude) : 9/30/2009 12:32:08 PM (GMT-5)

 

Jeff: As I understand it, ID is the belief that some phenomena are best (most analogically) explained by design. It's that generic. That's why Dembski doesn't agree with Behe on the particulars, e.g.

Daniel: Evolution, as I was taught, is the process of natural selection, the development of species in various areas of adaptive space. It doesn't suggest why it happens, it doesn't say that God doesn't exist, or created it all. We know biological life adapts. We have a massive amount of fossils from a massive amount of various species from various periods in our history. There seem to be patterns of development through time.

 

Jeff: There are patterns in the temporal ordering of Ford Mustangs. But a pattern, per se, doesn't indicate a thing about "development" that rules out design. Evolutionists that oppose ID mean something very specific by "development," and it is naturalistic. Moreover, the quotes I provided above demonstrate that the pattern is not near as unequivocal as is often claimed. There is a very good reason why macroevolutionists still have different opinions about what critter gave rise to which, after all.

 

Daniel: What, exactly, is hostile towards religious beliefs in evolution?

 

Jeff: What possible difference does it make with respect to the 1st Amendment or to just plain old respectfulness to other people's intelligence? The question is, how could you possibly know that a religious belief that contradicts the supposed naturalistic evolution of all terrestrial life from some one or more single-celled organisms is false apart from divine revelation? You see, the burden of proof is on you, not me. And trying to interrogate others as if that is not the case is condescending and insulting to the intelligence.

 

Daniel: And if this is really an issue of public schools undermining religious beliefs. What do we do with the age of the universe? Or is that merely speculation? How far do we take it? Do we stop our kids from learning physics, because they might learn that the universe (specifically the earth) is older then a YEC believes? Do we stop our kids from learning about archeology, because they might learn about Human-type skeletons that date back 20,000 years?

 

Jeff: As a matter of fact, it IS speculation that the red-shift is only explained by Einsteinian relativity. Indeed, it is counter-intuitive as many atheistic physicists admit. Not only are there other conceivable explanations for the red-shift, but Lorentzian relativity is a logical possibility as far as we know in the first place. And Lorentzian relativity is posited by some very smart atheistic physicists. 

 

I have no problem with UNTESTED mainstream views being taught AS the opinions they really are. But there's so much non-controversial, tested science that we don't even have time to teach in the first place that it seems like a virtual obsession when people act with what seems to be an uncontrollable need to teach the most controversial science to kids as young as possible. Is it fear of dissent that motivates that?

 

Daniel: What about other religions? I have a Muslim friend who argues that the moon was split in half, then put back together by Muhammad. Do we not teach our kids about the moon? Because, to the best of my knowledge, there is no evidence that the moon was split in half, then put back together in the last 1500 years. What if this issue comes up, and the teacher has to undermine the Muslim's religious beliefs?

 

Jeff: We're talking about differences in opinion that come from scientific inferences that can't yet be tested in any significant way. No one is saying we shouldn't use analogical reasoning. We're saying when tests can't be done to determine which analogical inference is true, RESPECTFUL TOLERANCE IS CALLED FOR. Claims that ateleological macroevolution is supported with overwhelming evidence are patently absurd and, therefore, intolerant and disrespectful when made to captive audiences that need to pass academic tests designed by those making such absurd claims.

 

The burden of proof is on the Muslim. The Muslim, after all, says that the bible is a corrupted version of God's word. But he has nothing close to the kind of historical evidence for confirming signs and wonders of that claim as does the NT for its claims. If we can't determine who has the burden of proof any better than that, intolerance truly is inevitable. Your argument amounts to this: We can't prove absolutely who has the burden of proof, so let's do it my way. I disagree. I think most of the time it is pretty darn clear who has the burden of proof if, indeed, deductive and inductive logic are the sound modes of inference public education claims they are, in the first place.

 

And to the extent that we can't determine who has the burden of proof, it's because a claim being contested is too darn speculative from an analogical point of view in the first place. And that ought to be frankly admitted. All mega-explanations consist of A-plausible claims. There is no getting around that. And anyone who says otherwise is confused.

 

J: No, my point was that you should be against any view that is compulsorily taught. Even evolution. Yet you act like ID'ists are the culprit. That makes no sense.

 

Z: You should WANT ID students to be challenged and contradicted!

 

J: I want all views to be challenged. None of them need to be contradicted unless they ARE contradictory themselves. Because the LNC is non-negotiable in education. Speculation is not.

 

To me it's this simple. People, like you, who think all beliefs are speculative or a-plausible are immune from all counter-argument except contradiction. So that's all that can effectually be used against them in an educational context. So as long as they are consistent, why would I contradict THEM in class? What would be the point? Just to irritate them?

 

 

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Post Edited (Similtude) : 9/30/2009 10:37:34 PM (GMT-5)

 

Jeff: I can't remember where I read it, but I read that he thinks something like the author discussed in the link of the opening post of this thread. IOW, he thinks if final causes are involved IN the origin of critters (as  opposed to way prior to their origin, say, in a Big Bang), then God is culpable for natural evil that Miller feels uncomfortable with. To my mind, if no other final causes were involved in the origin of such natural evil except that/those involved in a Big Bang, God is responsible for it either way--whether by intentional risk that He is perfectly fine with, or by intentional determination. I don't see how God is "off the hook" unless the world is not divinely created in any sense. The process theists are more consistent than these guys. But they have to render God a non-creator of the world's entities and relatively impotent to get there.

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Post Edited (Similtude) : 10/1/2009 8:15:28 PM (GMT-5)

 

Zach: It makes a difference because I'm not giving all these infinite possibilities equal weight. I've chosen one of them. In my way of thinking about the world, it's good to care.

 

Hitler: It makes a difference because I'm not giving all these infinite possibilities equal weight. I've chosen one of them. In my way of thinking about the world, it's good to rid the world of Jews.

 

Jeff: So why are you right and Hitler wrong? Define "right" and "wrong" such that the distinction between the two is not meaningless or arbitrary--with "arbitrary" definitions being definitions that have no relation or identity to any human intuition, category, or basically proper belief. For if they are arbitrary, thus, isn't it obvious that you are "wrong" by my definition? And therefore we have nothing to discuss insomuch as we differ fundamentally in our metaphysics?

 

You say others contribute to your thinking. But if not by pointing out to you when you contradict yourself, then how? I simply don't see how it could work, otherwise. You seem to be suggesting to me that it is good to intentionally make people feel uncomfortable in the hopes that they might come to a different arbitrarily-chosen belief. That seems so pointless to me that it seems morally equivalent to poking people with a hot iron merely to make them change bodily positions. If either of these modes of treating our fellow humans is not "wrong," I don't know what is.

 

So if I'm still misunderstanding you, quit asserting that fact and re-articulate your view where I (and Tom, etc) can follow it. It is pointless to continue to say that I misunderstand you if you're not going to try to bring about some real understanding.

 

Zach: And for the record, when did I ever say that God never gave Hitler anything intellectually to work with?

 

Jeff: This is a perfect example of your mode of operandi. You assert that I've misrepresented your view without explaining what you think God "gave Hitler .... intellectually to work with." How can I have a meaningful debate with someone who does nothing but make assertions with no explicitly provided "reasons," which you say you have. Moreover, even your "reasons" are just arbitrarily-chosen beliefs (arbitrary, intellectually, i.e.). When I ask you how you know those "reasons," you say you chose to believe them. You choose to believe you remember. You choose to believe the LNC. You choose to believe there is a 3-D world. You choose to believe there is a "Jeff" that you choose to believe is a liar.

 

Nothing is obvious or plausible to you, therefore if you are right that we all think the way you do, there is no way your "reasons" could have any more "perceived weight" TO anyone else THAN anyone else's "reasons." Because you deny the very knowability of the act of "perception." And that means you deny "perception," per se. For what could it possibly mean to say that you perceive, and yet you are also ignorant of said perceiving?

 

Indeed, one of the problems is that you really do hold a different metaphysic and epistemology than most people. But the meanings of words are conventional, which means they're defined in terms of how most people think. So you're trying to use words that can't possibly mean for you what they mean for most people. Most people have no idea what it means to be completely ignorant and have nothing but blind faith beliefs. Why else do they criticize blind faith?

 

J: For most of us, the notion of propriety or "right-relating" is only applicable to education in terms of an epistemology (and you were discussing how and what we "ought" to teach). If you disagree, fine. I just have no idea how to make sense of "propriety" or "right-relating" (even as related to education) apart from apprehending being(s) in terms of relations. Thus, however you try to contradict my view, I'm sure I won't be able to comprehend what you're saying if you think "propriety" has meaning apart from the occurrence of the apprehension of other beings that are educable. Therefore, it is not enough, for me, to say, "I just choose to believe there are other beings, though I can not apprehend them."

 

Z: It's good that this is a part of a thread about ID. What are the reasons for believing ID? Jeff, you said, "As I understand it, ID per se, is not falsifiable." Yet you believe it. So let's extend your analogy:

 

J: The LNC is non-falsifiable. Are any anti-ID'ists going to oppose it on that ground? I don't think so. I believe in teleology for the same reason I believe in causality or the LNC. Because I can't quit thinking that way. Teleology is literally categorical to my thinking. If that makes it false, then, for me, it makes the LNC and causality false, also. Those arguments against ID prove too much and are, therefore, pointless. When they can prove by aposteriori reasoning that the LNC or causality is valid, then they're getting somewhere. They haven't done that.

Z: In all three cases one could claim that the conclusions are not falsifiable. In the first two we are dealing with morality; there's no proving morality - no disproving it either. And you admit that your belief in ID is likewise not falsifiable. That doesn't mean you don't have your reasons; nor does it mean that claims to a particular morality don't have their reasons.

J:  Right. But I am a kind of foundationalist. My beliefs seem to be grounded into relations and the concept of being which I can not account for except by recognizing that they just ARE categorical to my thought. I don't CHOOSE to believe them. They just happen. That's why many people use language for them like "laws of thought." They're not chosen.

 

You are saying you can choose with no foundationalism. That makes all belief arbitrary and a-plausible. Thus, your concept of "right" is arbitrary and a-plausible. Thus, I have no way of concluding, per that epistemology, that Hitler is "wrong." Moreover, I think your view entails an infinite regress in the first place. Thus, I can't even make sense of it at all given my conception of a "choice."

 

Z: I've had experiences of the Spirit that have led me to believe that it is good to care. I can't prove that it was the Spirit. So you can go ahead and mock me for that.

 

J: I have no issue with you. I'm trying to understand why you judge other people only to retreat to radical skepticism when asked to explain why your judgment should be embraced by me or others. Will I agree with you on certain things? Of course. I just think that's because you and I have certain categories that render that probable while you think both my very existence and any agreement I have with you is by pure coincidence. If your right, blast away. When we disagree, don't be surprised, though. Coincidence is fickle. When we talk past one another, don't be surprised. Coincidence is fickle. On the other hand, if you choose to be surprised, then, well, whatever.

 

Z: Maybe you had an experience of the Spirit that leaves zero room for doubt. And maybe that means that God likes you better than me.

 

J: Yes, if all beliefs are arbitrary, then that SOFA is just as probable as are the SOFA's you believe in. So why act as though I'm the source of that SOFA, even if it's true? Why act as if I'm the source of any SOFA since you only choose to believe I exist, independent of any foundational, categorical tendency to believe I exist? It makes no sense, Zach. Your angst against me is utterly arbitrary, because it is purely chosen. By my beliefs, arbitrary or not, that makes it wrong.

 

Z: Now if my refusal to pretend to know the intuitions of all humanity amounts to arbitrariness, then call me arbitrary. But I think it's more a matter of basic humility.

 

J: Not by any conceivable meaning of humility I can imagine. If you didn't call other people wrong, then you would be humbly consistent. But your judgment is quintessentially non-humble insomuch as you don't know what ANY other human is given, therefore you can not know what God requires of them. THerefore, you can not know they are ever doing wrong. And yet you still call them wrong from your position of absolute ignorance. Why say they're wrong? It amounts to this:

 

"I say you're wrong. But I have no idea whether you're wrong or not."

 

So again, why say it? Not only that, you think even though all people's beliefs are equally a-plausible or arbitrary that it's "good" (whatever that means) to intentionally make them uncomfortable. That's humility? According to which dictionary?

 

Z: He [Hitler] didn't care for people. This is wrong because Jesus says so.

 

J: But you say it's just as plausible to believe neither Hitler nor Jesus existed. So what does the indicative mood, when used in a sentence, mean to you?

 

Z: I believe what Jesus says because of what happened to me at certain turning points in my life.

 

J: You told me that memory is not a form of knowledge--that we have to choose to believe what happened in the past. So, again, what does the indicative mood, when used in a sentence, mean to you? If all belief is arbitrary, the indicative mood amounts to "I arbitrarily choose to believe ..." Now if that's what you mean, I'll start quoting you that way so we can see how humble it sounds when you're judging me and trying to make me feel uncomfortable. IOW, I'll quote you like so:

 

"I choose to believe that there once existed a man named Jesus, who I choose to believe said certain things which I choose to believe, because I choose to believe certain things happened to me in the past that I choose to believe has some kind of implications about what I choose to believe was said by that Jesus, that I choose to believe existed."

 

Then we'll better see how guilty I should feel about your condemnations of me.

 

Z: To put it simply: We are both human. Turns out you are too.

 

J: What does "turns out" mean? That you choose to believe that I exist and that I'm human?

 

Z: We all lack certainty and can only attach ourselves to faith of some sort, to some non-falsifiable claim.

 

J: Faith is the conviction of the things not seen. Conviction is a species of certainty. If you disagree, then what is conviction?

 

Z: So, your question is how. How can it work? By being friendly. By not changing the subject and attacking the other person at every turn. After that it's surprisingly simple.

 

J: So if Satan came to you being nice and not changing the subject, he could cause you to believe he is more worthy of worship than God? If that's all it takes to change your mind, I have no idea what you mean by fidelity/faithfulness.

 

I purposely try to stay as non-emotional as possible, in these kinds of arguments. So it's not personal when I'm trying to be as logically rigorous as possible. I'm trying to stay focused so you can see that the arbitrary judging of people IS the opposite of being friendly. Friendliness IS conducive to objectivity. But arbitrary judgmentalness necessarily starts debate off with animus. And that's what you consistently claim you are doing--arbitrarily judging people.

 

Indeed, my whole soap box IS about the impropriety of making people uncomfortable when there are no non-arbitrary reasons for it. Most everything I've contended for on this forum is about that one thing, in one way or another. It's your incessant judging of people, e.g., for not being pacifists when you had no compelling grounds, that I have opposed. I always contended that if we were both seeking God honestly, He would not allow us to be tempted above what we're able. Thus, if God truly wanted us to act non-passively in some situation, He would protect us from wrongly-relating, thus, providentially, so long as we are being intellectually honest in our beliefs and so long as we were suffering the necessary sufferings to act non-hypocritically. But the incessant judging of people on arbitrary (a-plausible) grounds, now, THAT'S unfriendly.

 

Z: What is the alternative? How do you KNOW these things that I choose to believe? Even for you there must be a sliver of doubt, even if that doubt is not felt emotionally - intellectually it is there. You admit you can't attack such a position. So there is the possibility that these doubts are true. Such geography requires a leap of faith. And as an adult the continued leaping becomes subject to volition.

 

J: A sliver of doubt is not the logical equivalent of the absence of certainty. Certainty exists in degrees. You argue as if there can be NO non-volitional degree of certainty. I don't see how that's even possible. I don't choose to believe, e.g., that particular associations are memories. By the time I would have HAD time to choose, that association is gone, necessitating a true MEMORY to even "get back to it." Memory is non-volitional knowledge. I see no way to get around that.

 

But YES, we can CHOOSE to question after the fact whether what we thought was a memory was an illusion. But how do people, in fact, do that? They explain it in a way that renders most "memories" valid. IOW, they always use analogical reasoning to maximize the breadth of our explanations. We can NOT be consistent radical skeptics. You can't either. If you don't want to commit to what you think is intuitive, that is no reason to suppose that non-foundationalism is doable. IT'S NOT. No one can or has done it, except by being completely arbitrary and, therefore, utterly irrelevant to the human business.

 

Z: Its the blending of obviousness and plausibility that I'm NOT doing. And it seems to be what you assume I am doing.

 

J: But you say all beliefs are chosen. Thus, you must choose to believe not only that there IS such a thing as plausibility, but also that some specific criterion or criteria of plausibility is the "proper" criterion/criteria, as well as that "proper" is a true property or relation at all (which is why I can't get past the infinite regress problem of your approach). IOW, since there is no apriori element to your conception of plausibility, it is arbitrary, therefore amounting to nothing, epistemologically speaking. It is logically equivalent to there being no such property of beliefs as "plausible," at all.

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Post Edited (Similtude) : 10/4/2009 11:54:21 AM (GMT-5)

Jeff,

What you think of this?

prosblogion.ektopos.com/archives/2009/09/models-of-creat.html#more

 

Jeff: Just started briefly looking at it. But I think there is much stuff there worth discussing. When I get some time, I think we ought to use it as a spring board for further discussion.

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