1

Is Hume a child of the Enlightenment? But it was Hume's position that Voltaire described. And what are we to make of Comte?

The Enlightenment was not a monologic phenomenon; it was full of rogues, and I daresay that Voltaire could sit down among them neatly.

Nonetheless, it is *very* interesting stuff, and should give pause to those who too-confidently treat themselves as the rightful heirs of an univocal "reality-based" monopoly on truth.

And, might I say that the Enlightenment roots of ID are not, in my book, reasons to support it? Quite otherwise. Modernism is a very tenuous thing to rest Truth on. One might occasionally dance on a high-wire, but probably should not attempt to dwell there.

Cheers,
PGE

2

Even if we reject the sort of 'pure' materialism at which you take aim, the field of views that yet remains is quite large. Amomg them are these: the traditional dualistic theism (which assumes the twin dualisms of mind and body and God and world), deism, Spinozistic pantheism, Kantian transcendental idealism, Hegelian absolute idealism, and many others. Some of these are perfectly consistent with Darwinian evolutionary biology. For instance, the deist might well say (and has said in the past) that when God surveyed the plurality of possible worlds, He chose this one in part b/c of itself it would give rise to life and to intelligence.

3

"For anyone to claim that materialism is the true progeny of that period is laughably misguided and a sad example of the decline in liberal education. Anyone with even a basic grasp of intellectual history should see where the truth lies."

As usual, Joe, hyperbole does not serve you well in your discussion of materialism. It undermines your stance that, in fact, those with "a basic grasp of intellectual history" see that your characterization of the enlightenment (and materialism) is flawed. This link to a brief, scholarly overview might prove helpful to some:

http://www.wsu.edu/~brians/hum_303/enlightenment.html

"But their ideas are not based on reason."

They most certainly are based on reason. What would you have us believe they are based on?

4

Joe's problem here is that he has already forgotten, yet again, that he has argued himself into a corner. He admitted last time we went around on this that he doesn't really believe in chance. More specifically, he doesn't believe that chance exists in the universe except as a sometimes useful mathematical short-cut. To Joe nothing can happen 'by chance'.

Hence to use the tools of chance to describe the development of humans is not more problematic in Joe's scheme of things than to use those tools to describe how a casino works. Yet, of course, Joe would not get upset if someone turned to their old probability textbook if they were called to write an article on casino management.

Why did we lose our body hair? Sex selection. Why do we retain some body hair? Yep, sex selection. Why do humans walk on two legs? Again, the same answer, sex selection. Why do dogs walk on all four? You guessed it, sex selection. The fact that a theory that can explain everything ends up explaining nothing seems to have eluded this “bright” Brit. Yet in some circles this sort of circular reasoning is considered the height of profundity.

Actually most 'brit circles' would consider the passage you quoted to be an example of off the cuff speculation and not profound at all but probably good as a brainstorming session for some hypothesises that could be tested to answer any of those questions.

Nor is the reasoning circuliar. First of all it does not 'explain everything'. Second even if it did it wouldn't be circular. Observe:

How did that rock get to the bottom of the mountain?

Gravity pulled it down as far as it could go.

How did that leaf end up on the ground?

Gravity pulled it down as far as it could go.

How did that glass end up on the floor shattered in little pieces?

Gravity pulled it down as far as it could go.

Profound answers? Probably not but more important they are accurate answers. Circular reasoning? Certainly not.

5

Pgeeps Is Hume a child of the Enlightenment? But it was Hume's position that Voltaire described.

I’m not sure what you mean. Like Voltaire, Hume may have been no friend of Christianity but he was no atheist. As he wrote in the introduction to his The Natural History of Religion: "The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion."

And what are we to make of Comte?

Comte believed that he lived in a post-metaphysical age, which certainly isn’t compatible with rationalism. He is a strange bird and not particularly representative of the Enlightenment.

And, might I say that the Enlightenment roots of ID are not, in my book, reasons to support it? Quite otherwise. Modernism is a very tenuous thing to rest Truth on.

Agreed. My point is only that true rationalists are not materialists.

Franklin Even if we reject the sort of 'pure' materialism at which you take aim, the field of views that yet remains is quite large.

You’re absolutely right. As I’ve admitted on many previous occasions, the choice isn’t simply between materialism and Christian theism. When materialism once again moves to the bottome of the Disreputable Ideas pile there will be many others to take its place.

But it is doubtful that many others could stifle science in they way that materialism does. It will take us decades to clean up the mess materialism has made in the cognitive sciences.

Rob This link to a brief, scholarly overview might prove helpful to some:

Before you provide a rebuttal by hyperlink you might want to actually read the paper you cite.

The author traces the roots of the Enlightenment to Scholasticism (particularly Aquinas’ interpretation of Aristotle – neither of whom were atheists). He then mentions the Renaissance Humanists: “Almost all of them were practicing Catholics. They argued that the proper worship of God involved admiration of his creation, and in particular of that crown of creation: humanity.” Galileo Galilei, François Rabelais. Again, no atheists.

Montaigne, Descartes, Rousseau, Voltaire, Locke, Hume, Jefferson, Washington, Franklin, Paine,…there’s not an atheist in the bunch, much less a materialist. All of these men rejected the very materialism that is promoted by Dawkins, Dennett, et. al.,

They most certainly are based on reason. What would you have us believe they are based on?

Mysticism.

Boonton Joe's problem here is that he has already forgotten, yet again, that he has argued himself into a corner. He admitted last time we went around on this that he doesn't really believe in chance.

After all the time we wasted on the subject you think you’d remember what we concluded. It’s not that I don’t believe in “chance.” As I said before, what we call chance is simply an absence of knowledge. With perfect information we could predict the probability of any even with 100% accuracy.

First of all it does not 'explain everything'.

No? Then what biological phenomena do you think that was created that natural selection didn’t create?

Second even if it did it wouldn't be circular. Observe:

The flaw in your analogy is so obvious that I’m surprised you didn’t notice it sooner.

Your analogy takes the form Natural law X (gravity) effects Y (rock, leaf, glass) in the exact same way (pulls downward) to get the exact same result (object is pulled down as far as it could go).

Apply this analogy to natural selection and we get: Natural law X (natural selection) effects Y (animals) in the different ways to get different and sometimes contradictory results.

6

Joe,

I am going to have to agree with Rob Ryan.

"They most certainly are based on reason. What would you have us believe they are based on?"

Their ideas really are based on reason! The problem is "their" reasoning is rather jaundiced and myopic!

7

Apply this analogy to natural selection and we get: Natural law X (natural selection) effects Y (animals) in the different ways to get different and sometimes contradictory results.

Errr, no. To be more specific when we see a rock at the bottom of the hill we dismiss it as 'simply' the work of gravity. But of course all the rocks that fell off the hill didn't land on that one spot. Clearly gravity doesn't seem to effect the rocks in the exact same way. Or does it?

In reality we say in general that gravity pulled the rock from the hill onto the ground below. Specifically, though, to explain the position of any particular rock would require a more complicated story beginning with where that rock started on the hill, what rocks did it hit on its way down that might have sent it off on a slighly different path, what non-gravity forces effected the rock (wind, air pressue, earthquake etc.).

We say that gravity works because when we eliminate all other variables as best we can we observe that gravity remains the explanation that does the best job explaining most of the data (how the rocks that were on top of the hill ar enow on the bottom).

I'm aware of no contradictory results with controlled experiments in natural selection. If a certain trait is selected for generations of organisms tend to find that trait becoming more dominante just as I'm not aware of observations of gravity producing different results on falling rocks.

However if one were to be assigned the task of creating a history of the fallen rocks around the hill (figuring out which rocks fell first, the paths they took, etc.) then imperfect information is going to probably produce results that you might describe as contradictory. The fact remains, though, that gravity would at least correctly serve as a rough guide to at least get 80% of the history correct ("The rocks started on the mountain and fell down").

After all the time we wasted on the subject you think you’d remember what we concluded. It’s not that I don’t believe in “chance.” As I said before, what we call chance is simply an absence of knowledge. With perfect information we could predict the probability of any even with 100% accuracy.

It would seem as if I did correctly recall what you concluded. However my point stands. You object to chance being used in the theory of evolution but you fail to warn us that you have a very particular definition of chance that carries with it great metaphysical assumptions... If you view chance as just a shortcut...a 'rule of thumb' to use with imperfect information then why this bizaar obsession over evolution which does not use chance in any way that is different from what you'd find in any other field of science.

8

"Before you provide a rebuttal by hyperlink you might want to actually read the paper you cite."

Despite your insinuations to the contrary, I did read the piece I linked. Perhaps I should have just called attention to the specific points that belie your assertion that neo-creationists reflect enlightenment philosophy more than do materialists.

"They believed that human reason could be used to combat ignorance, superstition, and tyranny and to build a better world. Their principal targets were religion (embodied in France in the Catholic Church) and the domination of society by a hereditary aristocracy."

Neo-creationists do not target religion; rather, they seek to bolster it by undermining popular support for the unfettered teaching of evolutionary science. The quotes of the Dover Christians clearly illustrate this point. All the major players in the I.D. movement, Behe, Dembski, The Discovery Institute, evince a clear Christian worldview. They are not enlightenment deists by any stretch of the imagination. It denigrates the memory and legacy of the enlightenment philosophers to compare them with these men. You have tried to build your case on one thing they have in common, the belief in a creator. It is not the deistic belief itself, but the application of it that makes a philosophy.

9

Boonton, your thoughts are very correct. The problem is the Joe Carters simply cannot understand them. Hence they show logical flaws that do not exist in perfectly logical arguements and are not able to see the logical flaws in their own arguemnet.

Take the crackeddoor guy for example. He endorses everything Joe Carter says. It is quite obvious that most of the time he does not even understand what is being debated. He simply supports Carter because they think they are doing the Christian thing.

Why do people who do not understand the basic concepts of logic believe they have a monopoly on the truth. Dawkins was right. The best way to treat these people is to ignore them. They are the intellectually challenged who crave attention.

10

Indeed but at the moment my time is relatively cheap so I'll entertain myself with the debate. It is, after all, only a blog. Besides, Joe has on occassion shown the ability to have a rare insight or two in these debates but I doubt he'll ever admit to it!

It's interesting that you bring up Dawkins because Dawkins is a good case of intellectual humility in this case. Dawkins is very clear that his athiesm is not demonstrated by science but is consistent with it. There's a huge difference between those two ideas.

Joe, on his bad days (and most of the days that he has anything to say about evolution are bad days) seems to think athiesm and evolution are somehow bound together. Disprove one and you've disproven the other and vice versa. Hence the insertion of the word 'chance' in a mainstream article on evolution drives him into metaphysical fits yet he'll never be troubled by the word showing up in a million other places.

The best therapy, IMO, is to demonstrate the difference between arguing about athiesm which is a metaphysical belief neither proven or disproven by evolution's validity as a theory about the material world and arguing about evolution as a scientific theory.

11

Like Voltaire, Hume may have been no friend of Christianity but he was no atheist. As he wrote in the introduction to his The Natural History of Religion: "The whole frame of nature bespeaks an intelligent author; and no rational enquirer can, after serious reflection, suspend his belief a moment with regard to the primary principles of genuine Theism and Religion."

Hume does say that in the Natural History. Joe, but he says a whole lot over the course of his career. Have you read the Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion? Perhaps it would be good to re-read it. In the 18th century England in which Hume was writing, it was very dangerous to come out openly in opposition to established Church teachings. In Richard H. Popkin's introduction to Hackett edition of the Dialogues, it is said that,

Hume realized several advantages in presenting his case in the dialogue form. First of all, in considering how touchy religious subjects were at the time, he was able by means of this form to avoid stating his own views openly; instead, set forth questions and answers through the interactions of three principle characters... Philo, who employs a great many arguments from Hume's other philospohical works, is slowly winning over Cleanthes and Demea, the two religious believers.

There is a longstanding debate over what Hume actually believes. Philo shifts abruptly at the end and seems to confess religious faith in spite of his long series of skeptical arguements. Many believe that this turn and the passage you cite from the Natural History were written only to placate powerful religious figures and Hume wanted his intelligent readers to read between the lines. This topic is up for debate, and must be, I think, approached only through a careful study of Hume's work.

At any rate, the passage you quoted is unlikely to be Hume's actual position. In Part II of the Dialogues, Cleanthes, who seems more of a deist in contrast with Demea's traditional theism, puts forth an argument from design, much like the quotation from the introduction to the Natural History that you quoted. Here is an excerpt:

Look round the world: Contemplate the whole and every part of it: You will find it to be nothing but one great machine, subdivided into an infinite number of lesser machines... All of these various machines, and even their most minute parts, are adjusted to each other with an accuracy which ravishes into admiration all men who have ever contemplated them... By this argument a posteriori, and by this argument alone, do we prove at once the existence of a Deity and his similarity to human mind and intelligence.

After Demea, the more orthodox Christian attacks Cleanthes for thinking God is too similar to humans and faults him for a lack of abstract arguments rather than mere arguments from experience, ("by this affected candor, you give advantages to atheists which they never could obtain by the mere dint of argument and reasoning") Philo levies the famous attack against the argument from design that IDers continue to dumbly ignore:

But can you think, Cleanthes, that your usual phlegm and philosophy have beeb preserved in so wide a step as you have taken machines; and from their similarity in some circumstances, inferred a similarity in their causes? Thought, design, intelligence, such as we discover in men and other animals, is no more than one of the springs and principles of universe, as well as heat and cold, attraction or repulsion, and a hundred others which fall under daily observation. It is an active cause by which some particular parts of nature, we find, produce alterations on other parts. But can a conclusion, with any propriety, be transferred from parts to the whole? Does not the great disproportion bar all comparison and inference? From observing the growth of a hair, can we learn anything concerning the generation of a man? Would the manner of a leaf's blowing, even though perfectly known, afford us any instruction concerning the vegetation of a tree?

...In [the] cautious proceedings of the astronomers you may read your own condemnation, Cleanthes; or rather may see that the subject in which you are engaged exceeds all human reason and inquiry. Can you pretend to show any such similarity between the fabric of a house and the generation of a universe? Have you ever seen Nature in any such situation as resembles the first arrangement of the elements? Have worlds ever been formed under your eye, and have you had leisure to observe the whole progress of the phenomenon, from the first appearance of order to its final consumation? If you have, then cite your experience and deliver your theory.

The Dialogues coninue from there, covering a lot more ground, and I'm not asserting that Philo's position on this question is necessarily Hume's, (although most, I think, assume that it is) but I did think I should post these excerpts to show the difficulty in citing Hume as a defender of the argument from design like you did. You could maybe make this claim, but no one who knows Hume would care unless you respond to Philo's arguments. This book is quite short and is a classic. Everyone who follows this blog would be well served to read and reread it.

One of the great things about the Dialogues, while I'm at it, it Hume's ability to create characters with wildly different worldviews, many of which are necessarily quite different from his own, and put forth the best arguments available to each one. Even though he might disagree with the thoughts expressed, he writes each one as charitably as he can, and we can all learn from that in dealing with people with whom we disagree. I believe that You, Joe, might want to take especially careful note.

12

Some of my favorite quotes from Voltaire:

"Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd."

"It is demonstrable," said he, "that things cannot be otherwise than as they are; for as all things have been created for some end, they must necessarily be created for the best end. Observe, for instance, the nose is formed for spectacles, therefore we wear spectacles. The legs are visibly designed for stockings, accordingly we wear stockings. Stones were made to be hewn and to construct castles, therefore My Lord has a magnificent castle; for the greatest baron in the province ought to be the best lodged. Swine were intended to be eaten, therefore we eat pork all the year round: and they, who assert that everything is right, do not express themselves correctly; they should say that everything is best." (Master Pangloss in Voltaire’s Candide, 1759)

"When one speaks to another man who doesn't understand him, and when the man who's speaking no longer understands, it's metaphysics."
(Candide, 1759)

"There are no sects in geometry."
(Philosophical Dictionary, 1764)

"Nothing can be more contrary to religion and the clergy than reason and common sense."
(Philosophical Dictionary, 1764)

"The truths of religion are never so well understood as by those who have lost their power of reasoning."
(Philosophical Dictionary, 1764)

"Theological religion is the source of all imaginable follies and disturbances; it is the parent of fanaticism and civil discord; it is the enemy of mankind."
(Philosophical Dictionary, 1764)

"Christianity is the most ridiculous, the most absurd, and bloody religion that has ever infected the world."
(Letter to Frederick the Great)

"If God has created us in His image, we have more than returned the compliment."

13

In previous threads, someone raised an interesting question on emergent properties that has not been responded to (I unfortunately forget who it was). To wit - presumably we would all agree that a human zygote is not conscious but a human infant is. If consciousness is not an emergent property of the brain, then what explains it? Does ID sprinkle pixie dust on the developing organism at some point?

14

Joe, this seems like another bait-and-switch post. Bait with a link to a good essay and then switch to some strange and twisted argument that goes nowhere. You say,

I’m reminded of Churchill’s note ever time I hear claims that the Intelligent Design movement is contrary to the Enlightenment ...

The link you provide begins with this:

This year 2004, values voters reopened a 400-year-old debate – the proper relation between faith and reason in public policy.

and this:

Many of us remember the Age of Enlightenment for opening the way to science and technology. It did so by separating the realms of faith and reason and giving preference to reason where conflicts arose between the two.

This summary is precisely what I remember from my history classes. The author continues:

Before that time faith held the upper hand. Scientists were silenced, by execution if necessary, when discoveries conflicted with Holy Writ. The Spanish Inquisition burned heretics by the tens of thousands. But religious mass murder and dislocations occurred across Europe and in its colonies too. Martin Luther and John Calvin approved the slaughter of Anabaptists. Henry VIII unleashed a reign of terror against Catholics. A third of the population of Germany perished during a single 30-year doctrinal dispute between Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists.

Seems pretty clear to me that the author was making a good point in favor of at least acknowledging that faith-based policy making should be supplemented with a little reason and evidence.

The Enlightenment stopped religious carnage by getting governments to agree that one person's God had no business telling other people how to behave. Reason, rational thinking backed whenever possible by facts, was a better foundation for law. Church and state should be separated. Our Founding Fathers enshrined that solution in the first sentence of the Bill of Rights.

Yet, rather than comment on the central point of the article, you chose to make an odd argument that neo-Creationists are the step-children of Voltaire and somehow the true "Heirs of the Enlightenment."

Anyway, thanks for the link to an excellent piece of writing.

15

That was a great post. Seriously, very good post. Needed to be said.

16

Joe, about Hume--you're right, and I know Hume said things like that. However, also--what Tyler said.

Regarding your cite, I would simply suggest that more than one of the folks of Hume's era had a pretty interesting definition of the "genuine principles"--and, in a case like Hume's, that "genuine" pretty routinely meant "as opposed to the ones you all talk about in your confessions and those silly fairy stories in Scripture."

I generally take your point, though, only would quibble with the rationale for recruiting Voltaire as a proponent of ID; seems to me that sinks ID and does little to help Voltaire--or are you trying to help those of us who argue that the Enlightenment underpinnings of many *conservative* elaborations of theology is as dangerous to conservative as the liberal tendencies of same?

Cheers,
PGE

17

Errr, no.

Errr, yes. Gravity effects all objects in basically the same way. Gravity makes objects fall down, if they "fall" sideways or up (or some other direction), it is some force counteracting the gravitational force of whatever large object is acting as down. "Natural selection" is different, the objects don't all "fall down", sometimes they "fall up" or somtimes they just stay suspended in mid-air. It can be used to decribe hairy monkey and the hairless humans, the tailed cat and tailess manx, the lungfish and the goldfish, and so on. The gravity analogy is a poor one. Maybe an analogy using light would be better.

18

Do you have an example where natural selection will produce a trait OPPOSITE than the one being selected for? How about a balloon that rises as you let go? That behavior doesn't look like a rock's behavior yet gravity effects both the same (actually since the balloon is lighter than air the air is pulled down under the balloon causing it to rise...gravity is vindicated still in the long run).

The forces that produce a hairy elephant are not the same as those that produce a hairless elephant. Simple as that. Whether slecection pressure will be for hairy elephants or hairless ones depends on the environment just as which direction gravity will pull something depends on the distribution of mass (if a large planet happened to float by earth things may indeed start falling up!).

19

Do you have an example where natural selection will produce a trait OPPOSITE than the one being selected for? How about a balloon that rises as you let go? That behavior doesn't look like a rock's behavior yet gravity effects both the same (actually since the balloon is lighter than air the air is pulled down under the balloon causing it to rise...gravity is vindicated still in the long run).

20

Do you have an example where natural selection will produce a trait OPPOSITE than the one being selected for? How about a balloon that rises as you let go? That behavior doesn't look like a rock's behavior yet gravity effects both the same (actually since the balloon is lighter than air the air is pulled down under the balloon causing it to rise...gravity is vindicated still in the long run).

21

Sorry about that! Server's ain't working that well this morning!

22

B--Referring specifically to your gravity analogy, I can predict pretty accurately what gravity's effects will be on any give object, even a hot-air or helium balloon. Can you do the same with "natural selection"? That's why the analogy is a poor one.

23

If given the selection pressures created by the environment yes one can predict with relativly good accuracy what the results will be. If this wasn't the case animal breeders would be lost in the dark.

24

Locke was definitly a proponent of ID:

Of our Knowledge of the Existence of a God

25

Intelligent Design, as much as it has any intellectual coherence, does not argue that God exists. It argues that by examining an arrangement of matter one can determine if it was designed by an intelligent agent.

ID advocates have been quite clear and very vocal that their theory says nothing about whether the agent is supernatural or natural. So either we take people at their word or we don't. ID is not a philosophical argument about God but an argument about matter that may (or may not) have some supernatural implications.

That being the case you can't just trot out any old philsopher's tract supporting the Existence of God as evidence of Intelligent Design's long intellectual pedigree.

26

If given the selection pressures created by the environment yes one can predict with relativly good accuracy what the results will be. If this wasn't the case animal breeders would be lost in the dark.

There is a big difference between intelligent animal breeders selecting for existing characteristics and random processes creating new characteristics. One is pretty predictable, one is not.

27

There is a big difference between intelligent animal breeders selecting for existing characteristics and random processes creating new characteristics. One is pretty predictable, one is not.

The breeder or 'random processes'? Do you mean the environment is pretty unpredictable? It is and it isn't. I doubt anyone could predict the environment on very tiny scales (what will the weather be like 43 days from now) or very large scales (what will rainfall look like in NJ for the next 750,000 years).

Yes the breeder is an 'intelligent agent' but selection works whether the force doing the selecting is an intelligent agent or the environment. Also it is quite possible for intelligent agents to create selection pressures unintelligently (aka without realizing it) such as when bacteria develops resistence to anti-biotics.

28

I am definetely no expert on any of this, but I am leery of using natural theology (ie., Barth's Understanding of it) to force my understanding of ID.

One thing that I have never been able to figure out in evolution is the concept of eyesight. Why eyes, and how?

29

ucfengr

"There is a big difference between intelligent animal breeders selecting for existing characteristics and random processes creating new characteristics. One is pretty predictable, one is not."

Also known as: moving the goalpost.

Truly pathetic.

Chalk up another victory for Boonton in the neverending battle against willful ignorance.

30

One thing that I have never been able to figure out in evolution is the concept of eyesight. Why eyes, and how?

Seeing helps animals find visible food and avoid visible predators. Of course, without an organ to detect radiation of some sort, seeing is impossible. The more sensitive the organ, the better the detection. Etc.

Then again, maybe there is some deep sarcasm buried in this post that escapes my sarcasm-detecting organ.

31

My one and only wish is simply that evolutionists would refer to their 'religion' as a theory. Once upon a time, when it was being shoved down my throat in 8th grade biology, it was known as a theory. Now they don't even bother with that trivial descriptor.

32

Apparently, Pete, it wasn't shoved far enough. It is still called a theory in schools, as it should be, but now that is prefaced with "only a".

33

Pete, I wish Christians would preface their evangelism with "this is just my subjective understanding of what is true."

34

All:

I think there is first a need to revisit the summary point Joee made:

Voltaire, of course, was wrong about a great many things so it’s possible that he’s wrong about materialism as well. Perhaps the atheists are right in claiming that the only difference between Newton’s brain and mule’s dung is the arrangement of molecules that release the mystical properties capable of producing reason. They may very well be right on that point. But their ideas are not based on reason. And they are certainly not children of the Enlightenment. To claim otherwise is nonsense; the nonsense of rogues.

--> I think that positivism and atheism in the evolutionary materialist sense grew out of the inner insabilities of deism. But that is a minor point.

--> The bigger point is that we are revisiting the issues last discussed int he rera of the enlightemnnment, in the aftermath of discoveries pointing to the issue of intelligence int he origin of life, mind and cosmos.

--> What ahs changed is not the broad philosphical options as such, but the extent of evidence to account for. And as many recent threads show to onlookers [a bright person caught up in evolutionary materialism as a system is very hard to dissuade, even in the teeth of massive incoherence and error, much less failure of explanatory power], the current and prospective balance is not at all in favour of the coherence or factual adequacy of evolutionary materialism.

++++++++++

Grace, open our eyes

Gordon

35

All:
Arguing over who won the Enlightenment is the sort of post-modern sweepstakes I'd rather not enter. However, since we are debating Materialism, which is substantially unchanged from Lucretius' 50BC synopsis of ~400 BC introduction, I thought it might be relevant that Materialism's first opponent was Aristotle. ID, I would venture, is the true inheritor of Aristotle's mantle. The debate is now 2400 years old and still going. It might be wise to refrain from announcing any premature victories.
- Rob

36

Great post, Joe. Your critics often sidestep your best points in order to nitpick..

You quickly get to the key point about the alleged 'inevitability' of our universe and everything it allows.
This is an incoherent, fuzzy concept [and NOT the same as rejecting 'chance'], since in this universe we can never even *know* about the existence of the 'infinite other real or possible ones'; the multi-verse people are committing the same fallacy they accuse the pagans and deists of committing, namely infinite regression.
'So it's Turtles all the way down supporting the Great Elephant, is it?' they laugh, correctly. And 'But who created God?' they sneer in that wonderful materialist way.

Because the initial conditions are so precisely balanced, they posit every *other* measurable condition really holds too.

But by positing the reality of 'every possible universe' they create their own turtle soup!
At least creationists stop with the Big Bang and God, which does seem more rational given our present state of knowledge of physical laws!

They can only get to our present 'working model universe' by comparing it with the literally incomparable.
Such are the moves necessary to suppress the knowledge of the True God. To coin a phrase, The Flux stops here!