In a recent comment, William J. Murray wrote:
Slightly off topic, but relevant
Well, let’s discuss that (all of that comment) here in a new topic where it won’t be off topic.
WJM began that comment with: Continue reading
Thanks for keeping the site warm for me 🙂
Gotta lot of threads to catch up on, by the looks of things.
Still a bit gobsmacked by the number of Christians on Uncommon Descent who seem to think that William Lane Craig’s apologia for the divine command to genocide has any merit, and it’s left me somewhat sick of heart, but reassuring that Timaeus, and some others also find it abhorrent.
The idea that any action is good if you think that God commanded it seems to me so self-evidently dangerous that I simply cannot imagine how anyone can entertain it for a moment. And that’s only one of the problems with it.
For those out of the loop, the hoohah started here:
I think Dawkins’ excuse rings hollow, myself, but his link to Craig’s essay on the genocide of the Canaanites made my blood run cold.
In the previous thread, Jet Black made the following comment in response to one of my comments:
Atheism is a statement about gods, not a statement about nature. You just seem to be making them synonyms. This is precisely the same trick that creationists and religious people often try to play; implicitly claim that a bunch of things are synonymous, reject one, and then by induction, you reject them all.
LINK
I disagree. Here’s why: Continue reading
…a paradigm where ‘explanation’ means something different than the modern usage of the term.
I wrote this in response to a question about supernatural events but I think it applies to Chalmers’ ‘Hard Problem of Consciousness‘ also:
Me: Who said I was unattached and objective? Find me a single example of a supernatural event.
Other guy: Jesus’ resurrection.
Me: Perfect example. We’ll assume that Jesus’ resurrection was a real event, witnessed by millions. A team of doctors pronounce him dead as a doorknob. He turns blue, rigor mortis sets in, and the doctors take his liver and heart for transplant patients so we know he’s as dead as they come. No tricks.
Now, the next morning, a team of scientists representing every known discipline with every possible piece of testing equipment starts monitoring the cadaver. They have EEG, MRI, CAT, mass spectrometers, chemical analysis teams, scales, x-ray machines, scopes up his ass and forced through his urethra, down his throat, in his ears and nose and around his eyes up his femoral artery, cloud chambers to measure the particle interactions, and a cop with the insta cocaine detector kit snipping bits of his hair at 2 second intervals to make sure his carcass doesn’t commit a crime. After watching the decaying flesh vigilantly all morning, suddenly the systems reanimate. Brain waves start registering, a heart regrows and starts pumping, the liver develops and the gall-bladder fills with bile. Jesus takes a breath. Witnessing the monitoring devices with a mix of awe, fascination and horror, the eyelids flicker and Jesus sits up. The cop’s test turns positive and Jesus nonchalantly waves his hand and the test turns negative.
What do you think the scientists do?
Crazy little thing called God:
In ancient times, unusual physical events apparently scared the shit out of the locals, even the local philosophers. Events like lightning, earthquakes, meteors, floods and things of that nature prompted fears and speculations about the wrath of some critter, a critter much more powerful than ourselves, that suffered petty jealousy and fits of rage. The goal, assuming such a being, becomes appeasement. That is a highly rational belief. Bad things are bad. It’s worth investigating ways to avoid them. It’s probably why Richard Simmons became a celebrity.