Religion

Denyse O’Leary (an appallingly bad journalist who blogs in favor of Intelligent Design) wrote that she won’t become an internal critic of ID because she opposes the “academic fascism” of ID critics. I find that an appallingly weak justification for being a propagandist. Internal criticism tends to strengthen the quality of arguments and evidence, not weaken them–unless, of course, what you’re advocating is false. Einzige (2006-12-09): Are there any pro-IDers who are critical of other pro-IDers? ...

As President of the Internet Infidels, I occasionally get some interesting email. Yesterday, a guy named Theo sent me a list of three prophecies which he claims will prove the existence of precognition. Here are his three prophecies: 1. Between September 7-9 (probably on the 8th) police make dramatic news of a crazy person doing something. Lots of drama. Alot of people die. 2. On September 17 someone of importance is assasinated in the middle east. This may be related to terrorism. 3. On September 26 thousands of people are forced to relocate due to either tornado or earthquake.I objected that the first happens every day somewhere, and asked him to make it more specific–by “crazy person” did he mean someone who is mentally ill? Is the crazy person causally related to the people dying? How many people is “a lot” (at least give an order of magnitude). On the second, again I said that is nearly a daily event. Could he narrow it down to a country, or the field in which the assassinated person is “someone of importance”? On the third, I asked whether the date is the date of the event or the relocation, and whether he could be specific about the nature of the disaster and add a geographic location. Theo also claims that he predicted Hurricane Katrina “right to the day” (but didn’t say which day of the multi-day event he predicted), and in a later email said that he had made three similar prophecies (presumably one of them was about Katrina) last month, but he hasn’t yet given me the specifics. I’ll press him, and post here if I get the details. (Update: Theo says I can find the information in AOL’s “Christian Living” chat room logs, but didn’t provide them. In response to my request for specifics about what he said, he says “Several weeks ago I predicted that a major catastrophe would occur in this country and that thousands would be forced to relocate between August 29-30.” What happened to a “right to the day” prediction of a hurricane?) In my response, I asked him if he could be more specific, in which case I’d be willing to entertain a $500 wager on it with him (with proceeds donated to the charity of his choice if he gets all three right, and donated to the Internet Infidels otherwise). He told me that I don’t understand how precognition works and that my demands are unrealistic. ...

I can see that the combination of work, calculus, and an attempt at having some sort of a life is going to make it difficult for me to contribute to this blog all that often, but after Jeff Downs put up the link to a Greg Bahnsen article on Tom Wanchick’s The Good Fight, I just had to say something. Calculus can wait a few minutes while I riff on some of the stupider things in the article. [The Apostle] Paul asserts that all men know God so inescapably and clearly from natural revelation that they are left with no defense for their unfaithful response to the truth about Him. Well, then, if Paul said it, it must surely be true! After all, it’s in the Bible! This argument is so bald-faced in its arrogance (what the hell does Paul–or anyone else, for that matter–know about my beliefs and mental states?) and stupidity (it assumes, after all, what it is trying to prove) that it makes me want to… well… beat up a Christian fighter! Christianity can be shown to be, not ‘just as good as’ or even ‘better than’ the non-Christian position, but the only position that does not make nonsense of human experience…. Christianity is proved as being the very foundation of the idea of proof itself. [my emphasis] The first question that comes to mind, here, is: Which “Christianity”? The second one is this: If the whole of logic and epistemology is dependent on the fact that Jesus Christ died for our sins and rose from the grave 3 days later, then wouldn’t it be possible–in fact inevitable–that people engaged in philosophical or scientific inquiry would be able to derive Jesus’s sacrifice entirely independent of exposure to the Bible? Has such a thing ever happened in the history of science or philosophy? And how, then, does one account for the inconsistencies between the 4 gospels? The article goes on for a considerable stretch after that. It would be tiresome to attack the rest of it, since its foundation is entirely baseless, anyway. Calculus awaits. ...