I agree with your assessment of this essay, Dawn. I can just picture Mr. Moriarty delivering a speech like this for closing arguments on "Law & Order." With opinions like these (assuming that he held them a decade and a half ago), I wonder what he felt about the first season "Law & Order" episode "Life Choice," which revolved around the bombing of an abortion clinic. I really enjoy "Law & Order," but the slanted portrayal of a murderous pro-lifer and the specious arguments advanced to support abortion in "Life Choice" really annoyed me. Has anyone else seen that episode, so you know what I'm talking about? I'm not trying to get off-topic, but I really wonder what an actor with opinions like this felt like performing in a teleplay that argued that abortion was a social necessity and a sign of progress.
Chris Chan | 10.31.06 - 2:39 am | #

"The Golden Rule, as we all learned inKindergarten, doesnot mean, "Let's do unto gestating infants … what we wouldnot want done unto our own gestating infancy."

Like I've said before, I don't have any problem with the possibility that my mom could have decided that she needed an abortion.

-Dan S.
Dan S. | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 7:08 am | #

Bravely spoken now, Dan.
Andy | 10.31.06 - 8:00 am | #

Dan, gosh it's nice to cut your mom so much slack now that you're out of the womb and she can't abort you retroactively.

I bet if she tried now you'd not lie down and take the knife to the heart on the grounds that your mother has some sort of moral veto power over your life.
Christina | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 8:25 am | #

Dawn, I was a prolifer for years before I became a Christian, so my stand was entirely secular. And frankly, was based primarily on how the women were being treated. Lied to. Betrayed. Once I saw that evil, then it was sort of self-evident that of course people who had no qualms about killing helpless babies would not balk at lesser sins like fraud and deception.
Christina | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 8:27 am | #

I'm with Dan.

Though I've never seen the point of granting the unborn the metaphysical power of speech - since it's only ever used to drown out the real, rational voice of adult women.
jody tresidder | 10.31.06 - 9:02 am | #

I was still a lapsed Christian when I became pro-life (which was a gradual process). My faith just reinforced what I already believed.

The thing is, when I was a kid and was old enough to understand what abortion was, I was totally against it. I had to talk myself into being pro-choice.

I was wondering why Moriarty was picking on Billy Graham, but if I remember correctly, Graham believes in exceptions for rape and incest -- a position I also held until just a few years ago.
Susan B. | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 9:13 am | #

"The thing is, when I was a kid and was old enough to understand what abortion was, I was totally against it. I had to talk myself into being pro-choice."

Susan B.

I am often fascinated by this truth. That the natural default opinion of children is mostly adorable idealism. (I am not being in the least condescending).

And in an ideal world, every pregnancy would be regarded as an individual miracle - as indicated by the wider point of Dawn's post.

Even as an atheist who supports abortion rights, I grasp this.
jody tresidder | 10.31.06 - 9:45 am | #

And I once saw this question asked elsewhere on a blog: Has the legalization of abortion been connected to lowering the poverty rate, domestic violence, or hunger? How many more abortions does there need to be before we have a "ideal world"?
Rachael | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 10:02 am | #

Well Rachael - let's see. Our country's population just hit something like 300 million. A population of 300 million is about 5 percent of the world's population today but it was the whole of the world's population 1,000 years ago.

We have too many ways to prolong life, and stop natural occurrances like a Plague or miscarriages, or infant death due to serious medical problems.

We're polluting the earth at astounding rates, and there are fewer ways than ever to stop the growth explosion. What I *can't* understand is WHY people feel that we're in danger of underpopulation, and even if it did happen (which it won't) why it wouldn't be a good idea.

"God Says," you say?

I say give me a MUCH BETTER (or, you know, real) reason to destroy ourselves.
Shelley | 10.31.06 - 10:31 am | #

Amen!
Daisy | 10.31.06 - 10:36 am | #

If we intentionally halt His creative process after it has started, we are deliberately asserting our will above God's. That is the sin of the one who fell from Heaven.

Excellent insight -- Creation as a form of conception, and the temptation of Satan/the serpent and the resulting Fall as a form of abortion -- something to ponder further.
Bender | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 10:59 am | #

It is one thing to kill Christ once, but to kill him in the sacred and infinite innocence of gestating infancy, in the womb, outdoes even King Herod! And, at a rate of one and a half million gestating infants slaughtered every year in America - may the Devil have mercy on you, because Christ's Father isn't going to.

This gave me goosebumps! Thanks for the link, Dawn.
Tony | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 11:07 am | #

Though I've never seen the point of granting the unborn the metaphysical power of speech - since it's only ever used to drown out the real, rational voice of adult women.

Because the job of being an adult, rational mother is protecting their children, especially when they are very small and cannot defend themselves.
Pansy Moss | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 11:25 am | #

Dan S.: "Like I've said before, I don't have any problem with the possibility that my mom could have decided that she needed an abortion."

This is the kind of materialist nihilism that one would expect from an atheist point of view. (I am saying this quite matter-of-factly, and intend no "in your face" tone at all). There is no love and value of human beings beyond the material consequences. Dan S. believes that he will someday reach oblivion; therefore, _so what_ if his is mother expedited the process. No value. No love. No reason to care.

jody tressider:
"Though I've never seen the point of granting the unborn the metaphysical power of speech - since it's only ever used to drown out the real, rational voice of adult women."

This actually struck me as funny. As if the pro-choice voices are being "drowned." I suppose the slave owners were upset that the "less human" voices of the slaves should "drown them out."

Shelley:
"Well Rachael - let's see. Our country's population just hit something like 300 million." (etc.)

Shelley, you keep using this argument, but without any rigor. I suggest a scientific survey and methodic discussion would reveal that your "Henny Penny" routine does not have secure grounding. But I doubt we will see that discussion here. (Nor probably should we.)

It should be clear to the rest of us, though, that there is no scientific consensus regarding the implications of Shelley's scary arguments.
Silly Interloper | 10.31.06 - 11:27 am | #

Because the job of being an adult, rational mother is protecting their children, especially when they are very small and cannot defend themselves.

Amen!
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 11:29 am | #

James Fletcher Baxter - What does it all mean? (Tilt head, pull hair, pick up the phone to call Mom...) [He's been banned for hijacking the comments as a means to promote his own Web site, without contributing to the discussion - Ed.]

Quite seriously - I could interpret your intentions several different ways, so it's hard to tell what you are trying to accomplish with the quotes. Some commentary would be helpful.
Silly Interloper | 10.31.06 - 11:32 am | #

"Because the job of being an adult, rational mother is protecting their children, especially when they are very small and cannot defend themselves."

I second Dawn's amen. "Rational thought" of adult women is not the **rationalization** of killing innocent human beings.
Silly Interloper | 10.31.06 - 11:34 am | #

Shelley: "What I *can't* understand is WHY people feel that we're in danger of underpopulation"

Please come visit Europe (where I live) and see what a society of old people without children is like. It is a society of lazyness and despair.

On a more scientific note: A non-religious friend of mine did an MBA in a prestigious university and once he wrote us (our friends) a long email about a seminar with several Economy professors of his who actually showed (with numbers and projections) that our planet can still *easily* feed and give good living conditions to a bigger population than we have. Of course, if his professors are right, this still does not mean we should be reproducing like rabbits. On the other hand, I don't think we would ever reproduce like rabbits...
knit_tgz | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 12:02 pm | #

At the risk of actually interacting with Silly Interloper - I present this:

The Center for Environment and Population (CEP) is an independent non-profit research and policy organization that addresses the relationship between human population, resource consumption, and the environment. The Center works to strengthen the scientific basis of policies and public outreach to achieve a long-term sustainable balance between people and the natural environment.

That said, they put out results of a study recently:

"It's the elephant in the room that everyone recognizes, but doesn't take seriously", said Vicky Markham, CEP's Director. This report takes that extra step--it shows the science is in, and the trends are clear--the U.S. population's growth has strong links to the nation's environmental health."

"This is frequently overlooked as attention to population changes and their environmental consequences is most often focused outside the nation, at the global level. Yet as the report shows, it's occurring right here in the U.S.," said Ms. Markham.
------------------------------------
I'll let you look at the entire report at your leisure...but there is so much evidence supporting what I've said, and from so many sources, that I see no further reason to defend it.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15277606/
Shelley | 10.31.06 - 12:05 pm | #

Shelley,

Say it aint so:

'“If the population grows in thriving existing communities, restoring the historic density of older communities, we can easily sustain that growth and create a more efficient economy without sacrificing the environment,” Replogle said.'

That was your link.
Philip | 10.31.06 - 12:31 pm | #

As an aside, am I the only one for whom the headline evoked The Who's "Won't Be Fooled Again"?
jfpbookworm | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 12:40 pm | #

JFP, I was thinking that too -- except it looked too unwieldy when I wrote, "not the same as the old Christ."
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 12:41 pm | #

Shelley, do you really expect these kinds of statements to be taken seriously?

Citing the attitudes of one advocacy group and making some broad unsubstantiated claim about "so much evidence" is nothing close to rigor. There is "so much evidence" to the contrary of what you are saying, that, heck, apparently there is no reason for me to have to refute it.

Saying there is "so much evidence" as if it settles the argument and closes the subject is simply a tactic that has no foundation in truth. Forgive me if I am not intimidated by "so much evidence."

We could fill books debating this topic, and you would not come close to making the point. So continuing to use it as an argument the way you have to promote killing human beings is simply...er...silly.
Silly Interloper | 10.31.06 - 12:51 pm | #

Please come visit Europe (where I live) and see what a society of old people without children is like. It is a society of lazyness and despair.

So let in more immigrants.

This is what I believe Japan will eventually have to do, too.

Then what`s the problem?
L. | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 1:45 pm | #

Then what`s the problem?

Thereby hangs a tale.
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 2:05 pm | #

wow, you're not kidding about Moriarty's prose style. He sounds like Lyndon LaRouche taught him to write.
Vidiot | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 2:24 pm | #

L:
Well there are a lot of problems with letting in immigrants to replace the native population.
Spain is a clear example at how the out of control immigration is wrecking havoc throughout society.
First, the immigrants are economic refugees who are simply unprepared to work in a post industrial economy. The result is an an explosion of crime in the big cities (don,t forget 3/11 in Madrid)
Second, many of the immigrants are literarly being shunted to the linguistic minority regions (Catalunya, Galicia and Basque country) which is cauuing strains not only with the social services but also preservation of the minority languages. There are 'provincial' elections in Catalunya today and during the campaign the Christian democratic candidate for the presidency proposed a rather mild platform that immigrants who come there should learn Catalan (as well as Spanish) and be aware of the Catalan culture. The leftist parties practically lynched him as a racist.
So for all intents an purposes, the leftist parties have very little respect for the indigenious minorities preferring to suck up to illegal immigrants.
Third, many of these immigrants are Muslims and they're causing enormous problems with living together. They refuse to integrate into society, they refuse to learn the languages, they pull their girls out of school as soon as they have their first period, they act as if they were from Morocco, etc, etc.
A lot of the ordinary citizens are fed up with the immigrants, the political elites' kowtowing to the immigranats (like giving them the right to vote before they even become citizens,) the growing social chaos (cf the Paris intifada)caused by immigrants who refuse to integrate into the new society and abide by its laws and customs.
There's going to be an explosion and it'll be very ugly

So immigration doesn't solve problems and brings its own series of headaches especially when it's out of control, illegal immigration from countries that are both alien and hostile to the west

xavier
xavier | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 2:59 pm | #

Yes, Xavier, of course -- if you`re talking about "illegal immigration from countries that are both alien and hostile to the west."

But...what about legal immigration of people who want to work?

I do not see a problem with letting them in, the way America let in my ancestors -- including, by the way, my great-grandfather who came here illegally.
L. | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 3:33 pm | #

Full disclosure on my immigration opinion: my permanent home is in Japan, a nation very hostile to outsiders like me, especially those of us who breed with the indigenous population and ruin racial purity and corrupt the culture with our ugly Western traditions. So I guess I`m peronally inclined to be pro-immigrant, and see the glass half-full rather than all the problems I cause over there.
L. | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 3:37 pm | #

: Please come visit Europe (where I
: live) and see what a society of old
: people without children is like. It is
: a society of lazyness and despair.

So let in more immigrants.

This is what I believe Japan will eventually have to do, too.

Then what`s the problem?

Oh, L. I guess the fact that within 50 years, the projected numbers will mark the end of Europe as we know it.

Oh, there'll still be a European continent, but the dominant (and I do mean dominant) flavor of the culture will be Muslim.

Then they'll be living under Islamic law and the women will be covered head to toe with little slits to look out of.

If you think that's not a problem well... I guess everyone is entitled to their opinion.
Tony | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 3:47 pm | #

Oh dear -- so one can`t even support legal immigration without accepting the possibility of Europe falling under Islamic law!

So Tony, do you see the solution as keeping all those backwards Muslim people "in their place" -- even "back where they belong?" And only let in the good Christians?

I`m not a European, so I`ll go back to the example I offered: I think Japan would be a much better place to live if it lost some of its racial and cultural "purity," and I`m doing my part to advance this.
L. | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 4:03 pm | #

So Tony, do you see the solution as keeping all those backwards Muslim people "in their place" -- even "back where they belong?"

Sorry, but I would say yes until Muslims learn to behave themselves and quit rioting, burning cars and raping non-Muslim women for not wearing veils.

Oriana Fallaci was right...
Susan B. | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 4:11 pm | #

"Then they'll be living under Islamic law and the women will be covered head to toe with little slits to look out of."

Right, Tony!

Just like everyone in America sports war paint and feathers!

Whoops - wrong immigration template...:)
jody tresidder | 10.31.06 - 4:22 pm | #

"Like I've said before, I don't have any problem with the possibility that my mom could have decided that she needed an abortion."
-Dan S.

...says Dan S., all sound and secure, limbs intact (I assume), brain matter not suctioned from head, heart still beating, etc.
Leif | 10.31.06 - 5:43 pm | #

"I've never seen the point of granting the unborn the metaphysical power of speech - since it's only ever used to drown out the real, rational voice of adult women."
--jody tresidder

Jody,
The pain the fetus feels when being aborted is no metaphysical pain.
And the voices of "prochoice" women being drowned out are no rational voices.
Leif | 10.31.06 - 5:47 pm | #

First, the immigrants are economic refugees who are simply unprepared to work in a post industrial economy. The result is an an explosion of crime in the big cities (don,t forget 3/11 in Madrid)

So..."refugees who are simply unprepared to work in a post-industrial economy" caused 3/11?

I though it was al-Qaeda. Silly me.
Vidiot | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 6:13 pm | #

Susan B., your admiration of the late Oriana Fallaci is one of the few opinions I share with you.

How about the immigrants who DO "behave themselves and quit rioting, burning cars and raping non-Muslim women for not wearing veils?" Surely not every potential immigrant is a radical Muslim?
L. | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 6:56 pm | #

What if Muslimism (regardless of how some of them do or do not behave) is *incompatible* with the US?

Not too long ago, I read a suggestion that the first thing we should do is insist upon a vow against sedition from all Muslims - and include an explicit vow against jihad.

Chances are we would see a _voluntary_ exodus of Muslims out of our country. It isn't compatible with the US - and they know it.
Silly Interloper | 10.31.06 - 7:10 pm | #

"(Moriarty) sounds like Lyndon LaRouche taught him to write."
--Vidiot

Vidiot,
Please don't bring up Lyndon LaRouche.
I've been enjoying this simplistic left-wing vs. right-wing stuff for so long.

:-)
Leif | 10.31.06 - 7:16 pm | #

Surely not every potential immigrant is a radical Muslim?

Of course not, but an awful lot of them are, unfortunately. And it's the radicals that make it difficult if not impossible for the non-radicals to integrate into the rest of society.
Susan B. | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 7:33 pm | #

"And in an ideal world, every pregnancy would be regarded as an individual miracle - as indicated by the wider point of Dawn's post."
--jody tresidder

Jody,
I'm too tired to take this one on as much as I'd like.

But, in brief:
I hear this over and over and over from prochoice friends...
this idea that it would be great "in an ideal world", all things being equal, etc., to welcome every child, to see every baby to term. But alas (goes the argument), this is a tough world and there are hard decisions which must occaisionally be taken...
someday, Leif, you will appreciate the necessity for abortion in this hardscrabble hard-knocks, dog-eat-dog world:
Sometimes you just gotta' pull yourself up by your bootstraps and...

And what?
kill a few babies?

I've always seen this view as a sort of feminist affectation of machismo. It's the *modern* woman's version of marching off to war to kill a few krauts (in her mind)...

...it's a tough ugly business, abortion is, but somebody's gotta' do it! Golly, I wish this world wasn't so full a' killin', corp'ral, but sometimes a man/ *modern* woman's gotta' do what a man/ *modern* woman's gotta' do. What an ugly mess shootin' krauts/ curretting babies... but we're doin' it fer freedom n' liberty, dang blasted.
Leif | 10.31.06 - 7:44 pm | #

Shelly,
Should we then mandate abortions and birth control like China in order to stem population growth? It's a slippery slope from rights to responsiblity.

Legalizing abortion has done nothing to address the root causes of these issues. Population control is only a band-aid. Addressing the population number is one angle, but let's go further, what about the behaviors of the population contributing to waste and pollution? We are a wasteful nation (the U.S.) of fastfood, littering (including discarded cigarette butts), and throwing away tons of nonbiodegradable wastes. I think some behavioral changes could be made with the current population. And as for abuse: education, prevention, and awareness needs to be taking place. And keep in mind, parents, children learn from you. And I believe there is proof that overpopulation is a myth. However, I will need some time, if documentation is requested.
Rachael
http://www.rsnider.blog-city.com
Anonymous | 10.31.06 - 7:47 pm | #

Not too long ago, I read a suggestion that the first thing we should do is insist upon a vow against sedition from all Muslims - and include an explicit vow against jihad.

Chances are we would see a _voluntary_ exodus of Muslims out of our country. It isn't compatible with the US - and they know it.

They would say this was "an acceptable form of taqiyya."
Mary | 10.31.06 - 8:49 pm | #

What if Muslimism (regardless of how some of them do or do not behave) is *incompatible* with the US?

What on earth is "Muslimism"?

Are you referring to Islam?

And are you stating that Islam is incompatible with the United States?
Vidiot | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 9:03 pm | #

It's a slippery slope from rights to responsiblity.

Funny -- I feel exactly the same way about childbirth.

And I have to say, I`m thoroughly creeped out by the anti-Muslim sentiment that`s developing on this thread. Perhaps it`s because my husband and children are Japanese, and a few decades ago, the US rounded up "everyone with a drop of Japanese blood" and put them into camps?

Denigrating an entire group of people because of the unfortunate actions of a few extremists was as wrong an idea then as it is now.
L. | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 9:08 pm | #

I agree completely with Rachael's point. It seems ridiculous that anyone would claim "the sky is falling" over population and never address the underlying issues of excessive consumption (meat, oil, land,etc. etc.) and unjust governments. These are the only reasons that world population could ever even SEEM like a problem. (Although I for one think that creation will always find a way to keep a balance.... so... look out for the SUPER GERMS!!!)

Yikes. Maybe the sky is falling.
corita | 10.31.06 - 10:03 pm | #

"I've always seen this view as a sort of feminist affectation of machismo. It's the *modern* woman's version of marching off to war to kill a few krauts (in her mind)... "

Leif,
I don't recognize a shred of anything I've been talking about in your singular pronouncement (above).

Sorry.
jody tresidder | 10.31.06 - 10:15 pm | #

L:
The problem is that legal immigration in Spain had completely broken down. There are attempts by Spain and Senegal for example to repatritate Senagalese illegals back but it's not enough.
I'm pro immigration too but in Europe's case it needs to shut down external immigration for the next half century to allow the enormous numbers to integrate and for the indigenious populations to get used to them and lower the growing societal tensions.
I understand your leeryness with the growing antiMoslem sentiment; unfortuantely, the Moslems in Europe fully deserve the contempt they're facing. I'd given them a very stark choice: renounce those Isalmic values incompatible with open and plural societies or get out and settle in Saudi Arabia if Islamic values are so essential.
What disgusts me is that the Moslems want to impose the very conditions that caused to flee from their countries of origin in the first place! And the Euro elites are letting them get away with it!

Corita:
I'm not responible for the Moslems' inability to live in peace with the world nor the gross inequalities that exist. If I had my way, I'd completely cut off the Moslem countries from ALL contact and trade. Let them become self reliant instead of mooching off the rest of the world.



xavier
xavier | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 10:46 pm | #

Vidiot: "What on earth is "Muslimism"?"

Muslimism is synonymous for Islam. It is a well-known term.

"And are you stating that Islam is incompatible with the United States?"

That is, indeed, what I am suggesting. A religion that mandates the conversion of everyone by the sword through jihad is incompatible with most of the western world.

L.: "… and a few decades ago, the US rounded up "everyone with a drop of Japanese blood" and put them into camps?"

The Japanese do not as a group profess an incompatible creed against us. The situation is entirely different with Muslims.

L: "Denigrating an entire group of people because of the unfortunate actions of a few extremists was as wrong an idea then as it is now."

Not if the creed itself condemns us and insists upon killing us if we do not convert.

Do keep in mind we are dealing with two different kinds of groups here. Japanese is a race, and Muslimism is a religion. If the Japanese all followed a tenet that we all become Japanese or die by the sword – we'd have a problem with them, too.

Lief: "I've always seen this view as a sort of feminist affectation of machismo." (etc.)

Leif, sometimes you crack me up. I am not sure you aren't on to something here.
Silly Interloper | 10.31.06 - 10:59 pm | #

Silly Interloper, "Muslimism" may well be a "well-known term" -- I hadn't heard it, though of course I'm far from the sole arbiter of these things. From what I can find out about it, "Muslimism" is conflating Islam with Islamist ideologies -- and certainly not all Muslims subscribe to those ideologies.

So: what about all the millions of Muslims -- as in most of them -- who aren't radicalized? Who don't convert others on pain of death, who aren't jihadist, who don't burn cars or riot or rape?
Vidiot | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 11:10 pm | #

The Japanese do not as a group profess an incompatible creed against us.

Yes, but...they once did. Or rather, their government did. Remember?

Japanese is a race, and Muslimism is a religion.

Japan is also a nation. A few generations ago, its military leaders proclaimed their Emperor to be the divine incarnation of the Sun God. Some people believed it -- some Japanese even flew planes into ships in the name of their divine leader. Hundreds of thousands of their innocent countrymen suffered as a result of all this. Remember?

Remember -- lest we forget. Do not condemn entire groups of people, or their cultures, nations or religions.
L. | Homepage | 10.31.06 - 11:37 pm | #

Please, don't concentrate on how easy uit is for Dan to make such a claim now that he is safe. Consider how little he values his own existence if never having existed bothers him not one whit.

Folks who are ambivalent on the fact of their own existence, or ambivalent about protecting the lives of those they themselves acknowledge as the weakest and most defensless human beings are not people to be argued with, they are people to be prayed for, loved and, yeah, pitied.

It takes a special kind of self-loathing to say what Dan said. Again, take him seriously and act accordingly.
Franklin Jennings | 10.31.06 - 11:53 pm | #

It takes a special kind of self-loathing to say what Dan said.

Odd -- I share Dan and Jody`s sentiment. And I happen to like myself a lot. :) Sure, I`m glad to be here, and enjoy the gift of life, but I do think the world would have gotten along perfectly fine without me.

It`s funny - women who choose abortion are demonized in two diametrically opposite ways: either they`re selfish, and think too highly of themselves -- or they`re misguided, pathetic people who don`t think highly of themselves at all. Can`t be both.
L. | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 12:20 am | #

"It`s funny - women who choose abortion are demonized in two diametrically opposite ways: either they`re selfish, and think too highly of themselves -- or they`re misguided, pathetic people who don`t think highly of themselves at all. Can`t be both."

There are more than one of them, who could very well be both.
Andy | 11.01.06 - 12:44 am | #

Vidiot: "From what I can find out about it, "Muslimism" is conflating Islam with Islamist ideologies…"

Interesting. I don't believe I have ever seen it other than as a synonym of Islam.

Vidiot: " -- and certainly not all Muslims subscribe to those ideologies."

A Muslim who denies jihad – the violent conversion of infidels by the sword – are denying their religion. They are rejecting Islam if they do so. And although the secularist pretenders get a lot of press – they certainly are not representative of the majority attitudes about Islam and jihad.

Vidiot: "So: what about all the millions of Muslims -- as in most of them -- who aren't radicalized? Who don't convert others on pain of death, who aren't jihadist, who don't burn cars or riot or rape?"

I don't believe any of them – if they are truly as you think – would be troubled by swearing an anti-sedition oath that specifically rejects jihad.

Keep in mind that I don't despise these people. Islam has proclaimed its enmity to me – I have simply heard it and acknowledged it. It breaks my heart that the vast majority of these people are in the grips of the religion. But – regardless of how compassionate I might try to be about it – it would be foolish to ignore the destructive and dangerous effects that Islam has on them.

Silly: "The Japanese do not as a group profess an incompatible creed against us."

L. responds: "Yes, but...they once did. Or rather, their government did. Remember?"

Sort of. But not really. Whatever the case, I wouldn't have recommended the admission of any Japanese individual who did not reject an incompatibility that mandated sedition or the destruction of our society. I would also be willing to bet that the Japanese in the internments would have no problem rejecting it. Japanese are and were nothing like Muslims.

L: "Remember -- lest we forget. Do not condemn entire groups of people, or their cultures, nations or religions."

I did not condemn a culture or a nation. Islam made itself my enemy. (And yours, by the way.)
Silly Interloper | 11.01.06 - 1:40 am | #

Islam is not MY enemy, Silly Interloper, and my Islamic friends are neither trying to destroy me nor convert me. Just out of curiosity, how many Muslims do you actually know?

And I think you might be misunderstanding jihad -- there are indeed accepted nonviolent interpretations of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad

By the way, to return to the subject of Muslim immigrants to Europe -- I understand that some members of this particular group of immigrants have indeed caused problems in some European countries. Remember, though -- America`s founding fathers were worried that German immigrants would corrupt the culture and harmony of their new country.

Not all assimiliation is smooth, but overall, I still believe that whatever comes out of the exchange and intermarriage of people from different countries, races and religions is mostly good.
L. | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 2:26 am | #

L.: "Islam is not MY enemy, ..."

Many.

"...my Islamic friends are neither trying to destroy me nor convert me."

Ignoring the anecdotal nature of this, would they - for the sake of your safety - reject jihad?

"Just out of curiosity, how many Muslims do you actually know?"

Many.

"And I think you might be misunderstanding jihad -- there are indeed accepted nonviolent interpretations of it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jihad\"

These are innovations that are used to make jihad and Islam palatable to westerners. They are used by secularists who do not take Islam seriously and by those Muslims who do not believe it. (It is explicitly stated in the Koran that Muslims may lie to the infidel.)
Silly Interloper | 11.01.06 - 2:34 am | #

"These are innovations..."

Another possibililty in a particular work may be that it focuses upon some aspects of jihad. This does not, however, detract from the conversion-by-sword part of jihad.

(A discussion that only focuses on the horn on a bicycle's handlebars does not mean the bicycle has no tires.)
Silly Interloper | 11.01.06 - 2:39 am | #

"L.: "Islam is not MY enemy, ..."

Many."

Hm. Don't know how that happened. Instead of "Many," it was supposed to read: "That is not what Islam has to say about it."
Silly Interloper | 11.01.06 - 2:40 am | #

Ignoring the anecdotal nature of this, would they - for the sake of your safety - reject jihad?

They do not prescribe to the notion that jihad must be violent.

Christians have done their share of converting by the sword, too, over the centuries.

Give me Buddhism any day. A religion that`s never had a war fought in its name must be doing something right.
L. | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 2:56 am | #

"And I think you might be misunderstanding jihad -- there are indeed accepted nonviolent interpretations of it."

Well said, L.

And then Silly replies - after mentioning "soft" interpretations of some tenets of Islam: "It is explicitly stated in the Koran that Muslims may lie to the infidel."

Silly, are you trying to sound small-minded and literal?

The moment atheists rudely hurl riper Biblical passages at Christians as evidence of absurd "rules" - Christians quite rightly point to context, metaphor and so forth.

Your statements could be read as carte blanche for total intolerance.

And what do the Muslims you "know" say when you air these views?
jody tresidder | 11.01.06 - 7:41 am | #

"And I have to say, I`m thoroughly creeped out by the anti-Muslim sentiment that`s developing on this thread."

Same here. I shouldn't be surprised, though. On top of all the other factors, it's like Eagles fans and Steelers fans. (Adjust for relevant local rivalries.)
________
xavier:
"Moslem"? Haven't seen that in a while.

" Let them become self reliant instead of mooching off the rest of the world."
Capital idea! Us Americans first, though.
_________
Silly Interloper: "Not too long ago, I read a suggestion that the first thing we should do is insist upon a vow against sedition from all Muslims - and include an explicit vow against jihad."

"The [17th Century] Japanese government used Fumie to identify Catholics. Fumie were pictures of the Virgin Mary and Christ and the government officials made everybody trample on these pictures. People reluctant to step on the pictures were identified as Catholics and were sent to Nagasaki . . . "

Remember, jihad (striving) generally means 'striving in the path of God' (which encompasses everything from violent physical struggle at one end to, as wikipedia points out, inward spiritual striving at the other). NPR has a very interesting piece on the word jihad and the wisdom of using it to refer to Muslim terrorists:
"The term 'jihad' usually means Jihad Fis abu Allah -- "striving in the path of God," says Streusand." Simply by its very definition, striving in the path of God is a good thing to do. If we are calling them 'people who strive in the path of God,' in other words -- if we are calling them meritorious Muslims -- then we are implying that we are fighting Islam, even if we're not."

To draw a comparison, Streusand says, it would be like calling Germans during the Second World War 'National Socialist Aryan Heroes.'"
___
One interesting proposal would be to insist on a vow against sedition by all American Christians, including a explicit repudiation of the idea of America as a Christian Nation.

(note: not serious; would absolutely oppose any such plan).

"These are innovations that are used to make jihad and Islam palatable to westerners. "

Yes, yes, The Enemy is always infinitely clever, tricky, sly, and untrustworthy, of course. Whether they happen to be Jews, Catholics, Masons, whoever . . .
_______
L. points out that " . . . America`s founding fathers were worried that German immigrants would corrupt the culture and harmony of their new country. "

And then (mostly Irish) Catholics immigrants. And Jews, of course, from anywhere. And then Eastern European immigrants could never learn democracy - at least not for many, many , many generations.
_____

As for charges of atheistic materialistic nihilism and special self-loathing, well - I'll have to come back to that later, but let me just say that this isn't actually true. So you have to choose between two options now - 1) I'm lying to you through my teeth, or
2) you're incorrect - hey, it happens to the best of us - and may want to reconsider certain assumptions?
Dan S. | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 8:19 am | #

Silly wrote: "Islam has proclaimed its enmity to me – I have simply heard it and acknowledged it. It breaks my heart that the vast majority of these people are in the grips of the religion"

And from today's Guardian (UK) newspaper: just a low key statement from an ordinary British Muslim - one of those Silly condemns as "in the grips of the religion" telling those who will listen how he lives his life.

From the link (below), Silly - there are about 25 more of these first person statements. Read them.

"I've raised money for a scanner at the local hospital, for the tsunami and the earthquake in Kashmir and for people with Down's syndrome. The most recent charity is Born in Bradford; the infant mortality rate in the city is higher than elsewhere in the country, and we want to find out why.My faith is important to me. I pray every morning, but to me, being a Muslim is more about the way you treat your fellow human beings than how frequently you attend mosque. Don't harm your neighbour, respect other religions..."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/ religi...1936426,00.html
jody tresidder | 11.01.06 - 9:20 am | #

A Muslim who denies jihad – the violent conversion of infidels by the sword – are denying their religion. They are rejecting Islam if they do so.

I could understand if you had said instead, "A Catholic who does not reject abortion - the violent termination of innocent life in its mother`s womb - are rejecting their religion. They are rejecting Catholicism if they do so.

Fair enough -- that`s been said to me many times before, that I have no right to even call myself Catholic at all and doing so is offensive to true Catholics.

But shouldn`t we let the Muslims themselves hash it out about who is a "real" Muslim?
L. | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 10:27 am | #

The life my mother gave me was a gift, not something to be forced from her by the arm of the law.

I can be grateful for the gift without wishing that the law had left her no choice but to give it.
Kris | 11.01.06 - 2:17 pm | #

I like my neighbors. Too bad I'm forced by the law not to slaughter 'em. Even if I'm running low on rent and food money.

*shake head*

I mean, do you listen to yourself?
Maureen | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 4:05 pm | #

"but I do think the world would have gotten along perfectly fine without me."
--L.

L,
As warm and fuzzy as it sounds, we are all placed upon this earth for a reason. This isn't just some feel-good gibberish I unthinkingly tell myself when I'm feeling a bit downhearted. God has allowed our souls to incarnate, each one of us, as part of a detailed design; no person, not you nor I nor anyone, is here randomly. Not one of us is interchangeable with another, in other words.

And therein, by the way, lies the real evil of abortion.
Leif | 11.01.06 - 5:32 pm | #

Kris,

So, in your view the law should not prohibit us from killing one another?

We should have the choice, in other words, to kill one another, without the interference of "the arm of the law".
Leif | 11.01.06 - 5:36 pm | #

Leif, has it ever occurred to you that if God, in His infinite wisdom, wants a certain soul to come into this world, he wouldn`t let abortion get in His way?
L. | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 6:50 pm | #

L,

I just had to comment about your statement about Buddhism never being violent. I am in the process of re-reading the book, by Neil Fujita, "Japan's Encounter with Christianity: The Catholic Mission in Premodern Japan". One point that the author seems to be making is that the warlords and shoguns were interested in Christianity or at least tolerating it was partly to counter act the various Buddhist militia.
Anna | 11.01.06 - 6:54 pm | #

Leif,

If none of us are interchangeable by divine design, what gives YOU the moral right to gun down a suspicious trespasser on your property - even if, in fact, the particular individual meant you no harm at all - as you were so vigorously arguing recently?
jody tresidder | 11.01.06 - 7:06 pm | #

Give me Buddhism any day. A religion that`s never had a war fought in its name must be doing something right.

Who's stopping you? Go ahead and take it. We won't kill you as an apostate.
Mary | 11.01.06 - 7:26 pm | #

Leif, has it ever occurred to you that if God, in His infinite wisdom, wants a certain soul to come into this world, he wouldn`t let abortion get in His way?

God wouldn't send the soul to begin with. Sending the soul is God's doing. He doesn't send souls just for them to be rejected. Abortion is purely man's doing. Man has free will to do evil. Man can murder, abuse children, burn down rainforests, listen to contemporary Christian rock or any number of evil atrocities because of free will. Just because He allows the evil, does not mean He encourages it.

The world was meant for you to be in it. And every soul God creates. God doesn't send souls He has no intention of being here.
Pansy Moss | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 7:31 pm | #

Thanks, Mary - as a matter of fact, I have.

Anna, the Buddhist "warrior monk" appears throughout Asian history. Temples were often like cities unto themselves, carrying out their own agriclture, commerce and defense. Notably, in 1593, about 8,000 Korean monk warriors joined their nation`s forces to help defend their country from Japanese invaders.

But Buddhists did not use force to convert "infidels," which is what I meant when I said Buddhism has never had a war fought in its name.

Pansy, when I saw "contemporary Christian rock" on your list of atrocities, I laughed so hard my lemonade came out my nose -- ow!
L. | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 7:43 pm | #

Ditto on "contemporary Christian rock"! Pansy, may I add Marty Haugen and David Haas?
Dawn Eden | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 7:53 pm | #

Pansy, when I saw "contemporary Christian rock" on your list of atrocities, I laughed so hard my lemonade came out my nose -- ow!

Tee hee.

Pansy, may I add Marty Haugen and David Haas?

Oh please, by all means!
Pansy Moss | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 8:40 pm | #

Just wanted to reply to Silly Interloper's comment from early in the thread.
"This is the kind of materialist nihilism that one would expect from an atheist point of view."

I'm certainly an atheist; I don't believe in God or Gods. I simply can't see any compelling or obvious reason to do so. I'm also a materialist, believing, as wikipedia puts it, that "the only thing that can truly be said to exist is matter; that fundamentally, all things are composed of material and all phenomena are the result of material interactions." To go on, I think everything can (theoretically) be explained by reference to natural, rather than supernatural forces. Again, can't see why not.

I'm not, however, a nihilist - at least in any meaningful sense; as wikipedia points out, "Nihilism is often more a charge leveled against a particular idea, movement, or group, than it is an actual philosophical position to which someone overtly subscribes. . . Often this means or is meant to imply that the beliefs of the accuser are more substantial or truthful, whereas the beliefs of the accused are nihilistic, and thereby comparatively amount to nothing". I don't see my original statement as reflecting nihilism, and I certainly don't understand why you view it as obviously following from atheism. Perhaps if you gave some definition of nihilism?

"There is no love and value of human beings beyond the material consequences."
I suppose one could claim that this is trivially true, in the sense that I believe that all things are consequences and all consequences are ultimately material. So in the end, it's just saying that this worldview contains a sense of love and value of human beings. But language is playing games here, I think. Materialism as a philosophical view is confused and conflated with materialism as consumerism and greed - mammonism, let's say. Hence "material consequences" suggests 'consequences involving personal monetary benefit.'

"Dan S. believes that he will someday reach oblivion;"
Yep. I think death is a door with only one side.

" therefore, _so what_ if his is mother expedited the process."
No, no, no! One does not follow from the other; there is no relationship. I'm unsure why people so often assume that belief in mortality results in
" No value. No love. No reason to care." After all, if this life is not just a stopover, but the entire trip, not a practice round or test but the thing and the whole of the thing - well, one obvious and predictable response is to value existence very highly indeed, and recoil from ending both one's own and others. (Although existence might be so inescapably painful that an individual might reasonably seek nonexistence, but that's another issue.) One could (theoretically) base a strong pro-life stance on this view, although almost nobody does.

Anyway, my statement's based - rightly or wrongly - on the conviction that fetal-me had in fact no meaningful claim to existence, not the fact that I will someday die.

Another way to approach this is with the assumption that my mother wasn't insane, idiotic, or evil.

"" No value. No love. No reason to care." "
On the contrary, the presence of all these things is why, for example, I went into teaching (also why I left teaching, but that's another story.)
Dan S. | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 10:43 pm | #

L.: "They do not prescribe to the notion that jihad must be violent."

Then I have been clear in previous posts that 1) they are not taking their religion seriously, and 2) they would probably have no problem swearing an oath against jihad. (They may be "serious" about being Muslim. But that doesn't mean they take the implications of Islam seriously.)

It's too bad we can't do the experiment to see how many would immediately exit the US. ("We can't" meaning us, right now. There is no reason the US gov't can't do it.)

L.: "Christians have done their share of converting by the sword, too, over the centuries."

Virtually all groups of people of every kind of category have committed awful things. However – the Christian world unanimously condemns conversion by the sword – including going so far as condemning past actions. The Muslim leaders are overwhelmingly for it.

L.: "Give me Buddhism any day. A religion that`s never had a war fought in its name must be doing something right."

Right. Tell that to the Sri Lankans. (I hate it when someone presents a statement like that, L., because it compels me to present negative things about the subject. I have great respect for the peace-oriented nature of Buddhism, and their developed morality [which includes its own sort of just-war theory] but it is far from pristine in its involvement with war throughout history.)

jody tresidder: "And then Silly replies - after mentioning "soft" interpretations of some tenets of Islam: "It is explicitly stated in the Koran that Muslims may lie to the infidel."

Silly, are you trying to sound small-minded and literal?"

No, jody. I am taking the leaders and followers of Islam at their word. They are very emphatic about the literal interpretation of the Koran. (Evaluating my small-mindedness goes well beyond any "literalness.")

Ask a Muslim if he can lie, and he will probably say "no." Remind him that it says in the Koran that he can lie to the infidel, and he will respond, "Oh, yeah. That's right. We can." Note that I am not characterizing all Muslims as liars. They may be good and truthful in spite of their license to lie to us.

jody tresidder: "The moment atheists rudely hurl riper Biblical passages at Christians as evidence of absurd "rules" - Christians quite rightly point to context, metaphor and so forth."

Some Christians have problems with literal interpretation, too. But I don't, and Catholicism doesn't. Islam and the Baptist Churches do. They explicitly demand it.

jody tresidder: "Your statements could be read as carte blanche for total intolerance."

Well – you wouldn't be trying to sound small-minded and literal, would you, jody?

I don't know what you think it is that I said, but I have only really said two things. 1) It is very likely that Islam is not compatible with the western world, particularly in regards to jihad, and 2) I find the proposal interesting that we enact an anti-sedition oath that requires immigrants to reject jihad.

That is all I said. Hardly a carte blanche for intolerance.

jody: "And what do the Muslims you "know" say when you air these views?"

In my experience reactions from Muslims are quite consistent. They either know what you are talking about and immediately agree, or they respond with the "Oh, yeah. That's right," when you cite the Koran.

I have found that Muslims give you more respect when you speak frankly about these things. Fortunately, the separation of temporal imperatives provide for relative peace between me and the individuals with whom I associate or have associated.
Silly Interloper | 11.01.06 - 11:34 pm | #

"A fundamental part of being Christian is belief in a personal God — a God who is intimately involved in all creative actions on Earth — including, first and foremost, the creation of life. . . . Any belief in a God who is not personal is not Christianity . . ."

God as micromanager?
And is this - in the sense you give below, where an unborn child "could not exist had God not chosen to bring it into existence at His appointed time" actually necessary to all strands of Christianity? Certainly there are some that seem to involve a somewhat more delegatory, if still personal, God.

"Ecclesiastes 3 says that God appoints "a time to give birth."

What translation is this? I'm more familiar with one that states merely that there is a time to be born (although the above claim might be implicit).
______
(And, Silly Interloper, if we're talking nihilism, the author of Ecclesiastes certainly flirts with it - Vanity, vanity, all is vanity -
and really, "9:5 The living know that they will die, but the dead know nothing; they have no more reward, and even the memory of them is lost. 6 Their love and their hate and their envy have already perished; never again will they have any share in all that happens under the sun. . . .10 Whatever your hand finds to do, do with your might; for there is no work or thought or knowledge or wisdom in Sheol, to which you are going." . . . The whole thing's like this odd theistic existentialism.)
______
Anyway, I dunno - it seems much simpler to assume that an unborn child comes into being because its parents had sex, an egg was fertilized, and managed to develop without serious problems. Why do we need God personally directing?

" That is the sin of the one who fell from Heaven."
Hephaestus?

Sorry, sorry . . .
Dan S. | Homepage | 11.01.06 - 11:40 pm | #

Dan S.:
"The [17th Century] Japanese government used Fumie to identify Catholics. Fumie were pictures of the Virgin Mary and Christ and the government officials made everybody trample on these pictures. People reluctant to step on the pictures were identified as Catholics and were sent to Nagasaki . . . "

I don't see what this has to do with anything, Dan S. It seems so painfully obvious to me that I'm not sure why I need to spell this stuff out.
1) The Japanese is not a group identified with a specific belief that promotes the forced submission of the infidel. They are a race of people with varying loyalties.
2) Islam is a **belief system** that specifically promotes the forced submission of the infidel. (There are many races of people who have a specific loyalty to a specific religion.)
3) If it so happened that the Japanese all served a belief system such as Islam or such as a one that would systematically flush out Catholics and persecute them, then I would have very much the same attitude about them and I would be exploring the same issues about compatibility and oaths of loyalty as I am regarding the Muslims in this thread.

Dan S.:
"Remember, jihad (striving) generally means 'striving in the path of God' (which encompasses everything from violent physical struggle at one end to, as wikipedia points out, inward spiritual striving at the other)…."

Right. You have an elephant with a violent trunk and tusks, so you shouldn't make the mistake of the blind man hugging the elephant's leg saying it is a peaceful little tree. The whole of jihad *includes* forced conversion or slavery by the sword. I'm not going to bless the kindness of the Muslim offering me a chocolate cupcake as he is poised to behead me when I refuse it one too many times.

And as far as the "general" meaning of 'striving in the path of God,' you have to ask the question: What do they mean by this saying of 'striving in the path of God?' I'm sure the KKK would be perfectly comfortable with that line to describe their violent activities. "Islam means Peace" is properly translated: Islam means that peace you achieve when all have been converted, enslaved, or killed while 'striving in the path of God.'

Dan S.:
"One interesting proposal would be to insist on a vow against sedition by all American Christians…"

If the Christian religion were threatening conversion, enslavement, or death, I wouldn't blame anyone for insisting upon it. But we do not have sedition as part of our belief system, so the statement is nearly meaningless.

As for this part:

"…, including a explicit repudiation of the idea of America as a Christian Nation."

Yeah. The cacophony of conservative voices is so much scarier than jihad.

Dan S.: "(note: not serious; would absolutely oppose any such plan)."

I realize that. You are trying to draw a parallel, but it really isn't compelling at all.

Dan S.: "Yes, yes, The Enemy is always infinitely clever, tricky, sly, and untrustworthy, of course. Whether they happen to be Jews, Catholics, Masons, whoever . . ."

Except, Dan S., that we know that it is explicitly false in the case of jihad.

Regarding the other cultures you credit L. with mentioning that were perceived as a threat, there are varying degrees of fears regarding all these groups. But none of them to my knowledge amount to the sedition of jihad. That is an incompatibility that seems not resolvable and not tolerable since it means the inevitable murder of our citizens at some point.

Dan S.: "As for charges of atheistic materialistic nihilism and special self-loathing, …"

For the record – I didn't say anything about self-loathing. What I do say is that you do not acknowledge love beyond the material, so your love is excessively limited compared to the Christian experience, and your attitudes do not surprise me. I think I would have very much the same attitude if I were an atheist. And, to my mind, you may actually experience love beyond the material, even if you don't recognize it – so I'm not trying to box you in as severely as it might sound.

And, of course, if God didn't exist, my words would be nothing but a bunch of blather. (In fact, it would be impossible for me to even conceive of such things.) But he does – and the love that I know is testament to it.

Dan S.: "1) I'm lying to you through my teeth, or
2) you're incorrect - hey, it happens to the best of us - and may want to reconsider certain assumptions?"

I would be genuinely interested in exploring the implications of your atheism, nihilism, and limitations of love as they feed into your self worth and world view, but time is extremely dear to me right now, and even if I could exchange ideas at a constant rate, it would take a long time and a lot of patience, so I don't think this is the right forum. However, I will try to respond as I can when and if you get to it later.
Silly Interloper | 11.01.06 - 11:46 pm | #

jody tresidder: "And from today's Guardian (UK) newspaper…" (etc)

jody, you seem to think that I am saying that all Muslims are evil all the time and can do no good. I am saying nothing of the kind. I am simply pointing out one aspect of their belief system that is incompatible with western civilization. If Muslims were incapable of being decent human beings, I would never have befriended any.

Please do not change my focus to something it is not. *Jihad* Specifically *jihad* as an incompatibility is the idea that I am testing. A group of people who were perfect and angelic in every other way, but exercised jihad would still be incompatible with the West.

L.: "But shouldn`t we let the Muslims themselves hash it out about who is a "real" Muslim?"

If that were the case, we should give up on this conversation all together.

Catholicism is what Catholicism is. There is no one individual who can "decide" what it is – including the Pope.

Islam is what Islam is. Until you have a "Protestant" movement within Muslimism that explicitly rejects the Koran, jihad within Islam will mean the seditious, violent destruction of the western world. The overwhelming support for violent jihad within the Muslim world is testament to that.

I would welcome input from a representative cross-section of the Islamic world into this conversation. I would expect some good, frank discussion. However, just like Catholics do not decide what Catholicism is – neither do Muslims decide what Islam is. And – remember – they can lie to the infidel with a clean conscience.

L.: "Thanks, Mary - as a matter of fact, I have."

Okay, L., I'll bite. You are a Buddhist, then? Which means you are not a Catholic? Or… you consider yourself Catholic even though you are a Buddhist? Care to explain?

L: "But Buddhists did not use force to convert "infidels," which is what I meant when I said Buddhism has never had a war fought in its name."

Hm. So Buddhism, like Catholicism, is against forced conversion. But their rationalizations for brutality are different from Catholicism so that somehow gives them superiority?
Silly Interloper | 11.01.06 - 11:57 pm | #

Silly Interloper, I explained on another thread that I am married to a Buddhist, and it is the other religion in our household. No, I`m not a Buddhist, but I have certainly accepted it in my home.

When I said, "Give me Buddhism any day," I was facetiously comparing it to Islam, not Catholicism.

And the contemporary counterparts of the Japanese/Korean warrier monks of centuries past are indeed probably the Sinhalese nationalists of today. But are they really religious fanatics killing infidels in the name of their religion, or are they nationalist fanatics carrying out their ethnic cleansing, who just happen to be Buddhists? I, too, would welcome input from the Islamic world into this conversation.

Also, it`s kind of interesting that you refer to the Japanese as a "race" above (the way many Japanese themselves do), although they physically resemble Koreans and Chinese, who do not consider their ethnicities to be "races."
L. | Homepage | 11.02.06 - 12:18 am | #

Dan S., I didn't actually mean to imply that you were a conscious proponent of nihilism. However, nihilism is implicit in materialism, and your conclusions are quite consistent with it. Materialism is ultimately nihilism in that all meaning must be found in the material, and the material will ultimately be destroyed. Or an-nihil-ated, if you prefer.

Compared to the eternal and infinite meaning and love that we find in Catholicism, the constrictions of materialism are already so close to nothingness that rejecting its implicit nihilism seems an irrelevant quibble. Were I an atheist, I would acknowledge this. That's why I'm not hitting you about the convenience of your conclusions the way other posters are. (I'm not implying their statements are irrelevant – I simply relate to your way of thinking better than I do to theirs.)

"But language is playing games here, I think."

There wasn't the faintest hint of Mammino…Mumino…Minimam…Mummamonimism – aw, heck, whatever that word was – intended in my discussion. I was using "materialism" in terms of a materialist understanding of reality and had no thought at all about the pursuit of goods or riches.

Silly: " therefore, _so what_ if his is mother expedited the process."
Dan S: "No, no, no! One does not follow from the other; there is no relationship. I'm unsure why people so often assume that belief in mortality results in
" No value. No love. No reason to care."

After hitting "publish," I thought I might need to be clearer. "No value. No love. No reason to care" would be better stated as "No value beyond the infinitesimally small territory of perceived material. No love beyond the infinitesimally small territory of perceived material. No reason to care beyond the infinitesimally small territory of perceived material. Intellectually, you have limited these things to such a small value, they are easily shrugged away. There is not enough value, not enough love, and not enough reason to care if your mother had decided to kill you before you were born.

Please do remember that I suspect you actually reap some benefit from beyond the material. (In fact, I'm certain you do, since you would not even be conscious and would be unable to create thoughts if all were material.) Yours is an intellectual nihilism, but the grace God has granted you provides for more.

Dan S.: "" No value. No love. No reason to care." "
On the contrary, the presence of all these things is why, for example, I went into teaching

I feed upon the grace of God for value, love and reason to care. If I were a materialist and did not have this grace, I have no doubt I would be nothing close to the valuing, loving, and caring man you are. But materialism certainly doesn't give you these gifts. I understand that by God's grace you are more valuing, loving, and caring than what your materialism provides. However, your intellectual perception of these things as seen by materialism cuts this grace way short of its potential. The proof is your unwillingness to extend your love beyond the futility of materialism to the more purposeful and meaningful glory of all existence – including your own existence.

I really have no doubt about this. If your love and life is so constricted by materialism, you are missing the vast majority of the experience that I am having that is beyond the material.
Silly Interloper | 11.02.06 - 12:39 am | #

"No, I`m not a Buddhist, but I have certainly accepted it in my home."

Gotcha. I'm still working on that sense of humor. Progress is slow.
Silly Interloper | 11.02.06 - 12:48 am | #

Dan S.: "(And, Silly Interloper, if we're talking nihilism, the author of Ecclesiastes certainly flirts with it…" (etc.)

Dan S., all Scripture is subject to interpretation. The first thing we need to ask is "What did the author mean." You have chosen one possible interpretation out of many, and it is understandably skewed by a non-Christian, materialist view. (I would say that about your uses of Scripture in all cases against all interlocutors – not just here.) An attempt to impose your interpretation upon a Catholic understanding simply isn't intellectually sound. I suggest you start with inquiry, first. You would find that a Catholic interpretation would not go anywhere near nihilism or your materialism. Since the authors were Catholic, you should probably keep that in mind.

Dan S.: "Why do we need God personally directing?"

I find it interesting when atheists, who have largely ignored God's revelation about Himself, try to second-guess the mind of God. My atheist friends do it all the time, too. It's really a simple matter. God provides everything, and He gives man free will for their ultimate benefit so that they can become greater souls that can love. Within the context of free will, man destroys and kills. Because man destroys and kills, God provides human life within that context. However, the fact that God has made the best possible arrangements with all the killing going on does not justify all the killing going on. The mystery of how all these souls ultimately are realized as souls in heaven is impenetrable. However, it will ultimately be crystal clear to all of us.

I understand that a "hands-off" mentality would appeal to a materialist because you don't see any necessity in it. But when you imagine a great purpose of a great Creator – it's really not hard to understand that He would "work tirelessly" to tweak everything for the absolute best possible outcome.
Silly Interloper | 11.02.06 - 1:10 am | #

Also, it`s kind of interesting that you refer to the Japanese as a "race" above (the way many Japanese themselves do), although they physically resemble Koreans and Chinese, who do not consider their ethnicities to be "races."

I was thinking the same thing...race and ethnicity large distinction. But I aid nothing because it was OT...
Pansy Moss | Homepage | 11.02.06 - 6:01 am | #

"I would welcome input from a representative cross-section of the Islamic world into this conversation. I would expect some good, frank discussion. However, just like Catholics do not decide what Catholicism is – neither do Muslims decide what Islam is. And – remember – they can lie to the infidel with a clean conscience."

WHY on earth would Muslims wish to take part in any of your jolly parlour chats here, Silly?

Since you fully, insultingly expect them to serenely lie their heads off to you - as their good book instructs them to?

Thus, the moment they "play nice", you can retort "either you don't take your religion seriously - or you're a liar."

"A group of people who were perfect and angelic in every other way, but exercised jihad would still be incompatible with the West."

Well, yeah - no one gives you points for pretty table manners if you're a terrorist. Granted.

"Until you have a "Protestant" movement within Muslimism that explicitly rejects the Koran, jihad within Islam will mean the seditious, violent destruction of the western world. The overwhelming support for violent jihad within the Muslim world is testament to that.

This is the key, isn't it?

The "overwhelming support" you claim to detect! (Could you back this claim up?)

And your solution? The explicit rejection of the Koran!

Forgive me, Silly. I have difficulty swallowing your vague claim that the Muslims you discuss these things with merely nod gratefully at your helpful insights.

Isn't it a bit 'Inquisition Lite' to demand people give up what you call an incompatible-with-western-civilization belief system on the grounds that, deep down, you assume they overwhelmingly want to kill or convert you?
jody tresidder | 11.02.06 - 7:15 am | #

Way back to the original subject of the post: I`m looking at Michael Moriarty`s conclusion, in which he says, "If we intentionally halt His creative process after it has started, we are deliberately asserting our will above God's." Above it he cites Ecclesiastes 3, which says that God appoints "a time to give birth."

Ecclesiastes 3 also says that God appoints "a time to die."

So mightn`t the logic work this way, too?

"If we intentionally halt His DESCTRUCTIVE process after it has started, we are deliberately asserting our will above God's."

And yet we do the latter all the time.
L. | Homepage | 11.02.06 - 10:26 am | #

L.,

Yes the logic would work that way. As Shakespeare puts it:

Thus is his cheek the map of days outworn,/
When beauty lived and died as flowers do now....

But still, if there is a time for being born and one for dying, and these can be distinguished, it calls for wisdom on our part to determine when to accept either. This is the argument: is a living human, genetically marked since contraception, the right reason for determining that it is a time for being born?
Philip | 11.02.06 - 11:40 am | #

Way back to the original subject of the post: I`m looking at Michael Moriarty`s conclusion, in which he says, "If we intentionally halt His creative process after it has started, we are deliberately asserting our will above God's." Above it he cites Ecclesiastes 3, which says that God appoints "a time to give birth."

Ecclesiastes 3 also says that God appoints "a time to die."

So mightn`t the logic work this way, too?

"If we intentionally halt His DESCTRUCTIVE process after it has started, we are deliberately asserting our will above God's."

And yet we do the latter all the time.

Is saving someone from environmental cancer halting God's destructive process? How about saving someone from drowning? These can be man'sdestructive processes.

Fact is we do not do this. Last time I checked, science has not achieved a way for people to cheive immortality. I doubt that is truly God's will that people die from things like a lack of hand washing.
Pansy Moss | Homepage | 11.02.06 - 11:51 am | #

I don`t claim to have the answers as to why or how God wills people to be born, and then to die.

But there are so many "miracles" of modern medicine -- children born with grave defects who would have died just a generation ago, but can have corrective surgery now and survive.

One blog I read regularly, The Wait and the Wonder --

http://thewaitandwonder.clubmom.com/

is written by the mother of a little girl waiting for her THIRD liver transplant. Repeat organ transpants strike me very much as intentionally halting a natural destructive process, and yet I have to say that it is a very good thing that doctors perform them.
L. | Homepage | 11.02.06 - 12:37 pm | #

" Leif, has it ever occurred to you that if God, in His infinite wisdom, wants a certain soul to come into this world, he wouldn`t let abortion get in His way?"
L.

Pansy cleared this one up nicely.
Thanks Pansy.

But L, really, do you think that because abortion is carried out, upon this earth, that therefore God is OK with it, because if he wasn't OK with it, he'd put a stop to it by physically disallowing abortions to be carried out?
Is this your reasoning?
So you think God intended for certain infants to be aborted?

Does God say to the abortionists of the world "Thanks for chopping that one to bits, I hadn't intended for it to see the light of day. You knew just what I had in mind Mr. abortionist; that soul wasn't meant to incarnate. Because, if it was, I'd have stopped you in your tracks!"
?
Leif | 11.02.06 - 12:50 pm | #

Just a note...Ecclesiastes was written by Jews, not Catholics. Maybe I misread you but it seemed like you said that.
Sarah Faith | 11.02.06 - 1:19 pm | #

Maybe, Leif.
I don`t claim to know what God is thinking.

Why does He make babies who need liver transplants? Why do healthy embryos implant in women whom He knows will abort them?

I don`t know -- and I dare say, neither do you.
L. | Homepage | 11.02.06 - 1:20 pm | #

Sarah Faith, I brought up Ecclesiastes only because Dawn did in the post (not, as I mistook above, Michael Moriarty -- I didn`t pay attention to where the italicized text ended in the post).
L. | Homepage | 11.02.06 - 1:25 pm | #

My older son has decided he`s an athiest, because he says "I just can`t believe in a God who allows bad things to happen." Two years ago, when he was 9, a close friend of his died very suddenly, and my son has been a "doubter" ever since.

I tell him he has to make up his own mind about these things, and that no one can force him or anyone to believe anything, but I hope he remains openminded to religion in general -- and that despite the profound lack of understandable reasons why a benevolent supreme being allows so much pain in the world, He undeniably allows good, too, and He loves us all no matter what. I have a hard time understanding this myself, but it`s even harder to put it into words a child can understand.
L. | Homepage | 11.02.06 - 1:35 pm | #

Why does He make babies who need liver transplants?

There is death and disease in this world because there is sin. This world is not perfect. All people die some earlier than others. God created people and loves them regardless if they are here for 99 years or 99 seconds after conception. Like you, I am not sure what the answers are in regards to people who need 3 liver transplants, and I think ethically they need to be judged case by case. But there are cases where someone can get on transplant and go onto live just fine.

Why do healthy embryos implant in women whom He knows will abort them?

A mother always has a choice to not abort her child. It is not destiny for a baby to be murdered.

I just can`t believe in a God who allows bad things to happen.

Of course this is not something you can convince a person of, yet the explanation is simple (not easy though). God allows for us to have free will. This is hard concept, and I think since I have become a parent it has been a bit more understandable. let me give you an example:

A couple of months ago we were at the diner and there was a couple there with two younger boys (I'd say 6 and 3). They finished and left. When they were outside the mother realized the younger child's shoelace was untied so she bent down to tie it. Something across the street caught the older boy's eye and without thinking he just drifted across the street without looking. all of us who saw this 9including the mother when she realized) heart's stopped hoping no cars would materialize. Deo Gratias, none did and the mother retrieved the little boy.

Afterwards a waitress in a more so gossipy tone mentioned to me about how the mother does not properly discipline her child which may or may not be true. But I mentioned I had one that I could see doing the very same thing to which she replied "but you know how to control your children!"

It occured to me that this was wrong. I never had any desire to "control" them. Granted when they are small, we do, but as they grow, the idea is not to control, but to teach them and hope they learn to make correct decisions. You can't control them or else you turn out to be a horrible person.

I imagine this was your mind set when you told your son no one can force him to believe anything.

God wants us to freely make the right choices out of love for Him. He does not want slaves out of us. In having free will, many people make some very evil choices that affect all of us.
Pansy Moss | Homepage | 11.02.06 - 2:13 pm | #

And in an ideal world, every pregnancy would be regarded as an individual miracle - as indicated by the wider point of Dawn's post.

Even in a fallen world, every pregnancy IS in fact an individual miracle. That they are not regarded as such is evidence of our fall.
c matt | 11.02.06 - 5:04 pm | #

"I am simply pointing out one aspect of their belief system that is incompatible with western civilization."

Funnily enough, Silly, I just - genuinely by chance -ran across the following lines again today.

They appear to express a different sentiment to yours (above)?

"And if a stranger sojourn with thee in your land, ye shall not vex him.

But the stranger that dwelleth with you shall be unto you as one born among you, and thou shalt love him as thyself; for ye were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the LORD your God."
Anonymous | 11.02.06 - 5:05 pm | #

(The Leviticus quoter was me.)
jody tresidder | 11.02.06 - 5:06 pm | #

jody: "WHY on earth would Muslims wish to take part in any of your jolly parlour chats here, Silly?"

I didn't ask them, so I don't know. But one thing I find consistent about Muslims is that they do not shy away from facing these issues, and they take it as a matter of principle and devotion to stand firm with the Koran.

jody: "Since you fully, insultingly expect them to serenely lie their heads off to you - …"

You know perfectly well that I explicitly stated that I do not consider them a bunch of liars just because the Koran gives them license to lie to the infidel. If it is "insulting," it is the Koran that is insulting them, and I think they would take more offense at you for implying that the Koran is insulting them. They aren't going to take offense at me for reminding them of the words of the Koran.

jody: "…as their good book instructs them to?"

I also did not say the Koran "instructs" them to lie. (Although, it might do that.) What I said was that the Koran gives them license to lie to the infidel if it is for the sake of furthering Islam.

jody: "Thus, the moment they "play nice", you can retort "either you don't take your religion seriously - or you're a liar.""

That is not my intention, but the facts are the facts, and I choose to enjoin such an exercise with my eyes wide open.

jody: "The "overwhelming support" you claim to detect! (Could you back this claim up?)"

To do it with proper rigor would take much more time and space than we have here. There are any number of surveys that have come out, and I have yet to see one that showed a lack of support for terrorism, let alone the general acceptance of jihad. (Quite seriously, rejecting jihad would be rejecting Islam, so you are really asking me if I have proof that the Muslims are actually Muslim.) Some very public occurrences among the Muslim leaders has also been telling. The League of Arab nations, for example, refused to reject terrorism as a tool against its infidel enemies a couple years back. I could throw a bunch of stuff at you, but I doubt you would be satisfied with that. (I know I wouldn't. And each would deserve proper scrutiny.) I'll see if I can find a relatively comprehensive resource for you.

jody: "And your solution? The explicit rejection of the Koran!"

In case there is some confusion here – I was not presenting any "solution" for anything. I was simply making a statement regarding the current state of Islam. There is no significant block of Muslims who reject the Koran.

jody: "Forgive me, Silly. I have difficulty swallowing your vague claim that the Muslims you discuss these things with merely nod gratefully at your helpful insights."

Well, my personal experience is not really all that relevant to the discussion. Regardless of how many Muslim friends and acquaintances I have, my experience is anecdotal in our present context. You asked the question, so I answered it.

I didn't quite characterize them as "nodding gratefully," but, yes, I generally find them ready to face the implications of the Koran – and they generally do it with integrity. You don't have to believe anything I say if you don't want to. I'm just a silly interloper, after all. But if you don't believe what I say – I suggest you don't ask the questions.

You seem to be reading far more antagonism between myself and the Muslims than there is. Muslims are people who should be treated with compassion and mercy. When I propose that there is incompatibility between them and us, I am not proposing any condemnation of them as people. I am not, as another poster suggested, proposing that we shut them out entirely and offer them no charity. I am acknowledging the danger of Islam to the western world, and suggesting one possible way of many for meeting that danger. This says nothing about the hearts of any given Muslim, and it says nothing about their integrity. (I brought up the Koran's allowance for lying to the infidel in order to be prepared for it, but it is not my expectation that the majority of Muslims would lie.) In fact, I think I give them more respect than you do by facing them according to their beliefs instead of facing them according to what you want their beliefs to be.

When a Baptist tells me that all who do not believe in Christ are going to hell, I don't judge the entire person according to that extreme, uncharitable belief. However, I recognize that these beliefs have real consequences, and the consequences of jihad are not tolerable within our western context.

jody: "Isn't it a bit 'Inquisition Lite' to demand people give up what you call an incompatible-with-western-civilization belief system on the grounds that, deep down, you assume they overwhelmingly want to kill or convert you?"

Call it anything you like. It's either reasonable, or it isn't.

But you are continuously putting more meaning into what I've said than what I've actually said. (This straw man approach seems to be your SOP in this thread. ) Nowhere do I say that Muslims in generally "want" to kill me. What I have said is that they generally believe that forcing my conversion, enslaving me, or killing me are legitimate options for furthering the cause of their religion. A thriving Muslim society that was not formally obliged to reject such sedition would be a breeding ground and a growing haven for the deliberate implementers our destruction.
Silly Interloper | 11.02.06 - 5:18 pm | #

jody, your Leviticus quote simply doesn't cover what we are talking about. I have said nothing about "vexing" anyone.

You would also be hard-pressed to demonstrate that the author intended for us to allow those who advocate killing us to infiltrate our country without regulation.

I find it ironic that you chastised me earlier for being "small-minded and literal," yet, you are proposing a small-minded and literal approach to Scripture here.
Silly Interloper | 11.02.06 - 5:25 pm | #

"If we intentionally halt His DESCTRUCTIVE process after it has started, we are deliberately asserting our will above God's."

By such logic, it would be improper to get in the way of murder. God sees the day, the hour, and the second of every aborted baby's death and every murder victim's death. These things are allowed for the aforementioned reasons, and in this way He can be said to "appoint" a time to die. That does not make murder or abortion justifiable. (I might speculate that God in his foreknowledge chooses a special kind of soul for this sort of martyrdom of innocence. But the mystery, as I said before, is impenetrable.)

Once again, though, I have to point out that there are *numerous* ways to interpret that quote from Scripture, and you can hardly expect us Catholics to accept your non-Catholic interpretations.

I rely upon Muslim authority to interpret the Koran as it applies to Islam. I don't interpret it myself and impose it upon them. I would hope you would give Catholicism the same respect.
Silly Interloper | 11.02.06 - 5:55 pm | #

Sarah Faith: "Just a note...Ecclesiastes was written by Jews, not Catholics. Maybe I misread you but it seemed like you said that."

No, you didn't misread it, Sarah. I was careless, and your call for accuracy is noted. If I had been thinking, I would have been more specific. As it is, I could use about three days of sleep to clear the cobwebs.

Two things. 1) The point I was making is valid whether the author is nominally a Jew or a Catholic. 2) I consider pre-Christian Judaism and Catholicism to be part of the same religious continuum. The prophet Isaiah was Jewish, to be sure, but he was also a Catholic who looked toward Christ in the future.

Be that as it may - it is probably better to be accurate in a way that everyone understands. ;)
Silly Interloper | 11.02.06 - 6:08 pm | #

"Nowhere do I say that Muslims in generally "want" to kill me. What I have said is that they generally believe that forcing my conversion, enslaving me, or killing me are legitimate options for furthering the cause of their religion."

Silly,
This is precisely where you drive me slightly up the wall:)

You deny saying that Muslims generally want to kill you.

Then you say, yes, you do indeed reckon they reckon killing you is "a legitimate option" i.e. generally okay!

(In special circumstances - sure - but since those circumstances are "furthering the cause of their religion" - your very existence as an infidel, thus thwarting their religious cause, would seem to qualify you as a target here, even passively.)

You say: "jody, your Leviticus quote simply doesn't cover what we are talking about. I have said nothing about "vexing" anyone ."

Excuse me , Silly?

You don't think you're in danger of "vexing" folk by asking them all to reassure you by oath that they don't take ONE interpretation of bits of their sacred text seriously? You know, just on the off chance that they do?

Oh, look Silly.

I am being a trifle obsessive. It's not your fault I happen to be researching an area which intersects with all this - actually you have a point about my SOP on this thread.

I'm not even going to add a bunch of self-serving caveats.

I think the tunnel vision is my error here.

And I WILL be quiet now - I can feel those caveats nagging!

(Thanks for courteous replies).
jody tresidder | 11.02.06 - 7:07 pm | #

" you have to ask the question: What do they mean by this saying of 'striving in the path of God?"

Indeed. You do.
_________
Anyone read the Book of Joshua lately? You've got page after page of divinely-sanctioned conquest, slaughter and genocide. Yet - whatever one's opinion on certain competing land claims and subsequent actions in the Middle East - Judaism isn't generally considered a religion that embraces genocidal conquest. Christianity is unquestionably religion of peace, love, and salvation, yet has included such incidents as a mass slaughter of European Jews during the First Crusade - where they were given the choice between conversion and death, the incredibly bloody Albigensian Crusade against the Cathars, the torture and execution of countless heretics, etc., etc., etc. In short, religions, past certain fairly general points, often seem to be what people make of them. One might further note that in many of the examples above, social and political currents are at least inextricably intertwined into religious motivations, much like the supposed age-old-tribal/ethnic-conflicts of the past decade or so, which generally turn out to have a lot to do with very modern motivations.

As does, to a fair degree, the current situation.

(as with the persecution of Christians in 17th century Japan - a point far more relevant than distinctions between ethnicity and religion)

I'm going to leave this topic now, though, since I don't think I can really continue to discuss it in a civil manner, and that doesn't really help anything.
_____________
Dan S. | Homepage | 11.02.06 - 11:18 pm | #

"This is precisely where you drive me slightly up the wall:)"

If it helps - its sort of driving me up the wall, too. I simply don't have the time and energy to do this topic justice, and I think I could have articulated things far, far better than I have.
Silly Interloper | 11.02.06 - 11:41 pm | #

"You've got page after page of divinely-sanctioned conquest, slaughter and genocide."

1) The Catholic faith is not a fundamentalist/sola scriptura faith. You cannot simply read the historic texts and assume Catholicism advocates your interpretation of things.
2) Any kind of forced conversion or slaughter of other peoples is condemned by the Catholic Church. Catholicism condemns the errors of its past, and these errors were certainly never part of its doctrine.
3) Islam doctrinally advocates and promotes the forced conversion and killing of others for the furthering of Islam.

This incompatibility is not an ephemeral error. It is inherent to Islam.

(Certain behaviors and/or deeds - formally condemned by the Catholic Church - of some subsets of individuals within the Catholic church throughout history could be said to be "incompatible" with the western world. But these behaviors and deeds are not inherent to Catholicism.)

"I'm going to leave this topic now, though, since I don't think I can really continue to discuss it in a civil manner, and that doesn't really help anything."

I'm sorry if I rankled you. I've been hitting you kind of hard, and my limited time and focus has hampered my finesse a bit. If you feel insulted by something, it wasn't my intention. (I am far more brutal with my Friday night dinner club with an atheist, an agnostic, and a very liberal buffet Catholic for regulars.)

I regret that I wasn't able to follow up on the Evolution thread earlier on, too. But I had to fall off the face of the earth for a while to finish up a contract. It's several pages gone now, so there isn't much point, I suppose.
Silly Interloper | 11.03.06 - 12:05 am | #

", but time is extremely dear to me right now,"

I know the feeling.

" you would not even be conscious and would be unable to create thoughts if all were material"

Why? Remember, 'material' in this case doesn't mean only things one can touch -it encompasses brains made out of cells and electrochemical stuff, and etc. Perhaps a better way of putting it is the idea that everything is ultimately physics, or caused by natural rather than supernatural causes.

"And, of course, if God didn't exist, my words would be nothing but a bunch of blather. (In fact, it would be impossible for me to even conceive of such things.) "

Why?


" you do not acknowledge love beyond the material, so your love is excessively limited compared to the Christian experience, . . .
. . . Compared to the eternal and infinite meaning and love that we find in Catholicism, the constrictions of materialism are already so close to nothingness . . . "

I don't think these things are comparable.

"If I were a materialist and did not have this grace, I have no doubt I would be nothing close to the valuing, loving, and caring man you are."

(I should add here that I certainly didn't mean to present myself as some paragon of virtue! - just trying to provide a counterexample from immediate personal experience.)

But materialism certainly doesn't give you these gifts. I understand that by God's grace you are more valuing, loving, and caring than what your materialism provides. "

This is interesting - now I'd reply that your own goodness owes nothing to divine grace, but in fact is all you (or at least you within an near-infinite web of relationships, descent and teachings), and we could go back and forth denying/repudiating each others' basic beliefs via little compliments. Neat. A bit insulting, in an odd passive aggressive way, but neat.

Too tired. I go sleep now. Meanwhile - anyone, what is the Catholic position on the meaning of the Fall?
Dan S. | Homepage | 11.03.06 - 12:14 am | #

2) Any kind of forced conversion or slaughter of other peoples is condemned by the Catholic Church. Catholicism condemns the errors of its past, and these errors were certainly never part of its doctrine.

Just to add to, there needs to be a distinction between errors done by Catholics and errors promtoted by the Church.

As far as I know with Islam, there is no doctrine, no Pope etc. Catholics who decide to slaughter on their own merit cease to be Catholics. Obedience is a huge part of our religion.I am not sure if fundamentalist Muslims cease to be Muslim when following their own interpretation of the Koran.

Anyway, I really don't like this topic and my point was not to elaborate on Islam as I am not educated enough, but to correct the comparison on Church teaching.
Pansy Moss | Homepage | 11.03.06 - 12:56 am | #

[i]Because the job of being an adult, rational mother is protecting their children, especially when they are very small and cannot defend themselves.[/i]

Double amen. And I think I've earned the right to add: to the point of her own physical injury or death.
Cin | 11.03.06 - 1:30 am | #

I personally don`t think every adult, rational mother would choose to die for her child in every single circumstance, nor should be legally compelled to do so.

But Cin, if you`re the same past commenter who described her experience with HG, then you`ve certainly earned the right to say that, and more. I think what you did went beyond "normal" into the realm of "heroic."
L. | Homepage | 11.03.06 - 2:23 am | #

Silly: " you would not even be conscious and would be unable to create thoughts if all were material"

Dan S. replies: "Why? Remember, 'material' in this case doesn't mean only things one can touch -it encompasses brains made out of cells and electrochemical stuff, and etc. Perhaps a better way of putting it is the idea that everything is ultimately physics, or caused by natural rather than supernatural causes."

You are completely wrong. Consciousness is not a material thing at all. Materialists like to take this blind leap of faith that consciousness simply "emerged" from the mass of cells and electric pulses within a biological brain. But they are evading the fact that something new came out of nothing. Consider the hypothetical process of cells multiplying and increasing cellular and electric activity. You have material things. Cells do not have consciousness. Electricity does not have consciousness. When you reach some "critical mass" just before "consciousness emerges," you have nothing but non-conscious physical things. But then "poof," all of a sudden you have consciousness. One second it wasn't there, the next it is. You have a moment of pure magic where something that wasn't there appears out of nothing. To be a materialist that doesn't believe in God, but believes in consciousness – you have to believe in magic.

Keep in mind that I am not discussing some random permutation of self-referential *information*. That is its own rat's nest. I am talking about actual awareness that magically materialized. (figuratively speakin')

Silly: "And, of course, if God didn't exist, my words would be nothing but a bunch of blather. (In fact, it would be impossible for me to even conceive of such things.) "

Dan S. asks: "Why?"

The blather part is obvious, but I think you are asking about the impossibility to conceive things.

There are a few problems here. First, we again face the problem of creating something from nothing. If you have a purely material world, all of the information in the physical brain has to come from somewhere. Your brain would only contain what has been input. Therefore, any new thoughts, such as God, love, or the Tao would be impossible. They are immaterial things or ideas that were never input from anywhere. It would literally be impossible to conceive of them in a purely material world.

Something else outside the physical world must be doing the "input."

Another problem is that all (unconscious) thought would simply be the random effects of actions upon the random permutations in our brains. Besides not being able to get the elements needed for the permutations (problem 1), you have absolutely no control over the permutations that you have. It is all material and deterministic. What you "think" is irrelevant, because "you" had nothing to do with it. It just randomly occurred. There would be no meaning to any conceptions because they are just the result of shifting "information" in the form of meaningless patterns. Therefore, even if you had a random symbol that fell together that looked like "God," you would have absolutely no meaning to give it.

Silly: " you do not acknowledge love beyond the material, so your love is excessively limited compared to the Christian experience, . . .
. . . Compared to the eternal and infinite meaning and love that we find in Catholicism, the constrictions of materialism are already so close to nothingness . . . "

Dan S. replies: "I don't think these things are comparable."

That's not surprising. You have denied yourself the opportunity to experience what I am talking about. How can you compare what you do not know?

Dan S.: "(I should add here that I certainly didn't mean to present myself as some paragon of virtue! - just trying to provide a counterexample from immediate personal experience.)"

Shatter my illusions!

Silly: "But materialism certainly doesn't give you these gifts. I understand that by God's grace you are more valuing, loving, and caring than what your materialism provides."

Dan S." "This is interesting - now I'd reply that your own goodness owes nothing to divine grace, but in fact is all you (or at least you within an near-infinite web of relationships, descent and teachings),…"

Right. That's exactly what I would expect from you, and it is why I said that it would all be "blather" (albeit miraculous and impossibly conceived blather) if God didn't exist. But he does exist, and that is why it is possible for me to have a created consciousness, conceive immaterial thoughts, and love far, far beyond the material.

Dan S.: "…and we could go back and forth denying/repudiating each others' basic beliefs via little compliments. Neat. A bit insulting, in an odd passive aggressive way, but neat."

It is what it is, Dan S. According to my knowledge, you are far more than you believe yourself to be.
Silly Interloper | 11.04.06 - 12:58 pm | #

By the way, Dan. I think you might benefit from this:
http://www.comedycentral.com/ sho...playVideo=72347
Silly Interloper | 11.04.06 - 1:02 pm | #

After discussing the above arguments with someone, I was given the "Chinese Room" argument by John Searle. This will make some interesting reading for you, as well, Dan S.

http://www.iep.utm.edu/c/chineser.htm
Silly Interloper | 11.04.06 - 1:14 pm | #

To be a materialist that doesn't believe in God, but believes in consciousness – you have to believe in magic.

Something else outside the physical world must be doing the "input."

You know, this sounds a lot like Intelligent Design -- i.e., that the world is so complicated that the only explanation for all we cannot understand is that a higher power created it.
L. | Homepage | 11.04.06 - 1:26 pm | #

It is not anything close to the ID argument, L. This is the "magic is not an explanation" argument. You cannot get something from nothing in materialism - it gets no more "complex" than that.

Additionally, the ID argument does not simply say "that the world is so complicated that the only explanation for all we cannot understand is that a higher power created it." The ID argument usually focuses around the concept of irreducible complexity.

Irreducible complexity contends that the complex systems have no middle steps from which they could have "gradually" developed. I recommend reading _Darwin's_Black_Box_ by Behe to get a better understanding of it.
Anonymous | 11.04.06 - 1:37 pm | #

That's me above.
Silly Interloper | 11.04.06 - 1:38 pm | #

I can`t argue with everything you say, Silly Interloper, since despite what you insist are my "materialistic" leanings, I do favor the "supreme being" concept myself.

But I don`t necessarily think that "magic" is the only non-religious explanation for consciousness. I am open to the possibility that there is a scientific explanation for everything, and that this isn`t incompatible with religious belief (and, incidentally, it`s what my daughter`s 4th grade religion textbook says, in even simpler terms).
L. | Homepage | 11.04.06 - 2:11 pm | #

L: " I am open to the possibility that there is a scientific explanation for everything, and that this isn`t incompatible with religious belief . . ."

Exactly. Before I say anything else, two things:
1) Pretty much by definition, science can never disprove God, and doesn't seek to; that's entirely missing the point. (It can show that certain specific claims about the physical world - a strictly literal reading of Genesis, for example, appear to be unlikely at best - which is why certain religious groups have spent decade after decade after decade trying to take actual science down (and out - of the classroom), replacing it with - to use language from the most recent attempt, as expressed in the Discovery Institute's famous "Wedge Strategy" document, " a science consonant with Christian and theistic convictions.")

2) Nowadays, no religious person in the Western tradition should be troubled by the idea that natural forces makes storms (not, in some direct fashion, Gods/ God/ demons/ witches), that natural laws direct the planets in their orbits (not angels). This is really just more of the same; eventually, I expect, this specific fuss will turn out the same. It is to the Catholic Church's credit that over the last few decades it has embraced modern science - including evolutionary biology - to the fullest extent that one could ask; I hope it doesn't lose its nerve.

Caveats and complaints about practicing theo-psychology without a license aside, if one assumes God, one major attribute is that of the Creator. If one takes human creativity - in both its biological and intellectual senses - as a reflection, an infinitely smaller and lesser image of the Divine, one gets a certain sense of how one of the highest values of creativity is independence - from children growing up, to works of art that take root in people's mind. (Think of the childhood frustration that one's toys would not do things by themselves, and the leap of imagination that let them do so). What seems more likely - a Creator who has wondrously made what is (in a certain sense) a self-sustaining, astonishing complex, and endlessly fruitful universe, or one that has to constantly reach down and nudge things along, whether the stars in their courses, or the origin and evolution of life?
_____

I grow so tired with arguing against pseudoscientific creationism, whether '80s style 'scientific' creationism or turn-of-the-21st-century intelligent design creationism. (And my contribution has been beyond tiny in effort and result, just letters to the editor and online arguments and such). Has to be done, though. We have in science a candle by whose light we are just starting to make out the glitter of treasures astonishing beyond measure; we can't let people blow it out because it hurts their unpracticed eyes a bit, and they prefer the darkness.
Dan S. | Homepage | 11.04.06 - 3:50 pm | #

And L., Silly Interloper is right to say that "the ID argument does not simply say "that the world is so complicated that the only explanation for all we cannot understand is that a higher power created it.""

Instead, as SI points out, it says that the world is so irreducibly complicated that the only explanation for all we cannot understand is that a higher power created it.

Unfortunately, so far it's turned out - long story short - that irreducible complexity is bunk. Yes, Behe can lash out at the scientific establishment (and beat the believers) with his bacterial flagellum, or try to wow folks with the blood-clotting cascade, but with almost pathetic regularity each new claim he's made has been dismantled by cutting-edge research (it would have helped if he had bothered to actually look through the literature before writing his book). There were a couple of show-stopping moments in the Dover trial; once when he was confronted with a tower of work:
"During cross-examination by the plaintiffs' lead counsel Eric Rothschild, Behe reiterated his claim about the scientific literature on the evolution of the immune system, testifying that "the scientific literature has no detailed testable answers on how the immune system could have arisen by random mutation and natural selection." Rothschild then presented Behe with a thick file of publications on immune system evolution, dating from 1971 to 2006, plus several books and textbook chapters. Asked for his response, Behe admitted he had not read many of the publications presented (a small fraction of all the literature on evolutionary immunology of the past 35 years), but summarily rejected them as unsatisfactory and dismissed the idea of doing research on the topic as "unfruitful."

- an exchange that Judge Jones specifically cited in his decision, and one that may have helped tip the scales - and once when it turned out his own research arguably demonstrated how seemingly irreducible complexity could evolve, even using a simulation that tried to stack the deck against such a result. (not the best link - will find better if requested).
There's also Dembski with his very imposing (for the layman) mathematical arguments; one should note that the co-creator of the set of theorems upon which Dembski bases his argument has described his treatment of them as "written in jello."

Silly does describe IC well by saying it "contends that the complex systems have no middle steps from which they could have "gradually" developed." It's just that this keeps turning out - both theoretically and actually - to be wrong.

"I recommend reading _Darwin's_Black_Box_ by Behe to get a better understanding of it."

Along with (or instead of) Behe, I recommend Kenneth R. Miller's quite good Finding Darwin's God: A scientist's search for common ground between God and Evolution. Some of his writings on evolution and creationism can be found here - they get into these topics in much greater depth than one would want in a blog comment. As well as being a biologist, he's also a Catholic. An article of his that stresses theological themes can be found here:

" . . . Science in general, and evolutionary science in particular, gives us something quite different. It reveals a universe that is dynamic, flexible, and logically complete. It presents a vision of life that spreads across the planet with endless variety and intricate beauty. It suggests a world in which our material existence is not an impossible illusion propped up by magic, but the genuine article, a world in which things are exactly what they seem. A world in which we were formed, as the Creator once told us, from the dust of the earth itself.

It is often said that a Darwinian universe is one whose randomness cannot be reconciled with meaning. I disagree. A world truly without meaning would be one in which a deity pulled the string of every human puppet, indeed of every material particle. In such a world, physical and biological events would be carefully controlled, evil and suffering could be minimized, and the outcome of historical processes strictly regulated. All things would move toward the Creator's clear, distinct, established goals. Such control and predictability, however, comes at the price of independence. Always in control, such a Creator would deny his creatures any real opportunity to know and worship him - authentic love requires freedom, not manipulation. Such freedom is best supplied by the open contingency of evolution. . .

An excellent online resource on the creation/evolution controversy is the TalkOrigins archive; an extremely brief and cursory set of responses to ID claims can be found here, as a starting point. There's also Talk Reason, and The Panda's Thumb blog . ..
_________
More later.
Dan S. | Homepage | 11.04.06 - 5:47 pm | #

Silly Interloper: "You are completely wrong."
Oh. OK, then . . .

" Consciousness is not a material thing at all."
Although Madonna is definitely a material girl. She even bought an African child . . .

" Materialists like to take this blind leap of faith that consciousness simply "emerged" from the mass of cells and electric pulses within a biological brain."
This verges on strawmanish parody, but it's certainly true that nobody quite understands consciousness. Yet.
Blind leap of faith, though, is going a bit far. For starters, the assumption of natural, material causes has a very good track record. There's magnetism, lightning, etc., the idea that general life processes were animated by some vital principle irreducible to physics and chemistry- "vitalism - hasn't worked out . . and so on. It's not particularly absurd to expect this trend to continue.

On top of this, there's an enormous body of evidence relating how physical factors affect mental states - something carefully studied at keg parties and in dorm rooms across the land (and so on). And at kitchen tables and office places everywhere - oh, Coffee, you sweet black goddess of increased alertness! My wife can tell, with unerring and slightly irritating accuracy, whether I've remembered to take my ritalin. And of course, there's the morbid catalogs of various kinds of brain damage, with large and small changes to the nature or existence of consciousness. (Although belief in dualism does help explain the Schiavo debacle). Also the development of technology that lets us try to correlate brain states and mental states - first EEGs and later various nifty brain scans.

Now, there are certainly ways to argue that this doesn't show what it seems to show . . . but it does suggest that a materialist explanation of consciousness is quite far from being self-evidently ridiculous. There's also specific research on the nature of consciousness, but I'm not very familiar with it, so . . .

"But they are evading the fact that something new came out of nothing. "
Nothing? That's an odd way to describe the interaction of innumerable neurons and all sorts of electrochemical goings-on . . .

" You have material things. Cells do not have consciousness. Electricity does not have consciousness.When you reach some "critical mass" just before "consciousness emerges," you have nothing but non-conscious physical things. But then "poof," all of a sudden you have consciousness"

You have material things. Flour does not have cookieness. Sugar does not have cookieness. Butter does not have . . .(and so on). When you reach some "critical temperature," just before "the cookies are done," you have nothing but non-cookie physical things. But then, *poof,* all of the sudden you have cookies! Or at least, you do before I eat them all and end up with a stomachache . . .

But more to the point - even leaving emergent properties from complex systems fun aside, this argument's a little silly. Single celled organisms respond to stimuli (and presumably aren't conscious). Little invertebrates with nerves and ganglia - bugs, worms, and spiders, say - can display various kinds of apparently goal-directed behavior, but one doubts that they spend much of the day musing. By the time we get up to relatively big-brained medium-to-large mammals, however, things become less certain. Do dogs and cats, for example, have consciousness? Most pet-owners would be very hesitant to say no. Self-consciousness? Well . . .
At the very least, most of our closest relatives (chimps, etc.), probably dolphins, and now (at least female) elephants appear to have some fairly high degree of self-awareness, at least insofar as this is accurately reflected in the mirror test (basically, is that another x in the mirror, or is that me? - something very young children have a lot of trouble with). Interestingly, capuchin monkeys seem to show a kind of in-between response: they don't act like it's another monkey, but they also don't seem to quite recognize it as self. (Males specifically reacted in a way that in humans might suggest superstitious terror).

" . . . If you have a purely material world, all of the information in the physical brain has to come from somewhere. Your brain would only contain what has been input. Therefore, any new thoughts, such as God, love, or the Tao would be impossible. They are immaterial things or ideas that were never input from anywhere. It would literally be impossible to conceive of them in a purely material world."

This seems to imagine the brain as a kind of passive receptacle, unable to even combine, rearrange, or perform any other kinds of operations on its input. That seems rather dubious. Additionally, it's hard to see why thinking about love is impossible, since love is a common experience for people at all different ages. And whether or not God/s exists, it's certainly interesting that human conceptions of them tend to look like extensions, transformations, or etc. of local family/social structures and experiences - God as King /God as Clockmaker, squabbling God-families / God as Wrathful Father / God as Loving Parent, etc. (One could argue, of course, that we need way-stations towards comprehending the incomprehensible . . .)

"Another problem is that all (unconscious) thought would simply be the random effects of actions upon the random permutations in our brains. . . ., you have absolutely no control over the permutations that you have. It is all material and deterministic. What you "think" is irrelevant, because "you" had nothing to do with it. It just randomly occurred. There would be no meaning to any conceptions because they are just the result of shifting "information" in the form of meaningless patterns. "

There actually are some fairly creepy results that could perhaps be seen as throwing the idea of the volitional self into question (including the interestingly named alien hand syndome). I dunno, though. More to the point - well, I don't know how to respond to this because I have no idea where you're getting all this odd stuff about random effects and meaninglessness; it certainly doesn't match my understanding of this issue. I mean, it doesn't follow at all (additionally, I disagree about the inability to attribute any meaning to random patterns, although there's quite a bit of philosophical background there . . .).
Dan S. | Homepage | 11.05.06 - 12:39 am | #

Silly Interloper, you really should start a blog, so that you and Dan can stop meeting like this.
L. | Homepage | 11.05.06 - 1:19 am | #

I know - people will start to talk . . . !
: )
Dan S. | Homepage | 11.05.06 - 8:32 am | #

There are three primary themes regarding Dan S. and my exchange above.

1) The validity or invalidity of theories of Intelligent Design and Evolution.
2) The nature and value of science in general.
3) The problem of the appearance of consciousness or awareness. (For clarity, I am using these synonymously, and *awareness* is the property upon which I am keying.)
4) The problem of the appearance of non-material thoughts and ideas.

1) I think the Intelligent Design argument is mostly a distraction from the problem regarding awareness that I presented to Dan S. However, he has presented several things regarding ID, and I did not feel it proper to allow them to stand without challenge. I believe that I have provided sufficient argument below to demonstrate that things are not nearly so cut and dried as Dan S. believes they are, and he should be able to perceive from them that he will not be able to dispatch with them easily. He may choose to pursue it, or he may not, but the discussion will be long and drawn out, and his assertions will remain in doubt for the duration of the discussion. (Trust me. I've done this before.)

My goal for the ID argument is simply to demonstrate to those others who are reading that the proponents of evolution are not on the firm footing they pretend to be on, and that ID is *at least* as rational as the theory of evolution. Dan S. has "assumed the win" with his statements in a few places, and that simply shouldn't stand. He must exert due rigor to be taken seriously. And that, my friends, will take some work.

2) The second item is more interesting to me, and it is important because there is a lot of incoherence and obfuscation going on regarding science in general. Both materialists and Theists must have a clear understanding of the "science" they are discussing if the discussion is to be meaningful and coherent. Dan S. has been quite fast and free with his shotgun approach to representing science and presenting scientific examples. A methodic approach is warranted, along with clarity about what science is and what it is not.

3) The third item is the most important one, because it is the primary challenge that I laid before Dan S. If he does nothing else, I would prefer that he faces that particular issue. Number 4 is related to number 3, so they could be dealt with in tandem. Everything else – my interest in number 2 notwithstanding – is a distraction from (perhaps an evasion of?) the problem he faces with the magical appearance of awareness and non-material things.

L: " I am open to the possibility that there is a scientific explanation for everything, and that this isn`t incompatible with religious belief . . ."

Believing that there may be a "scientific explanation" for everything exhibits an improper understanding of science. Science is a study of phenomena through repetitive observation. "Explanations" are simply models – mere approximations of reality – that undergo the scientific scrutiny of refutation. These models all consist of very mysterious creative leaps in thought, and that creative element does not come from anything material. It is one of those immaterial things that are impossible in a purely material world. In a purely materialistic world, the making of scientific models would be impossible. Science **requires faith**.

There are different degrees of strength in different models. Models that have had great success in predicting unlikely or counter-intuitive things are stronger models. Einstein's theory of relativity predicted phenomena that seemed to dramatically contradict common sense. Because these phenomena were observed, the model has been greatly strengthened.

Evolution is an excessively weak scientific model. (So is ID, by the way.) It has not done very well in predicting unexpected phenomena. From a scientific perspective, it is also not a very valuable model because it doesn't even require very much in the way of observation. It is one of those theories that you can just keep "adjusting" when it doesn’t provide your desired predictions. It doesn't restrict the possibilities enough to even undergo a good test. It's sort of like creating a model that economics is affected by biorhythms. There is an infinite amount of information that could *correlate* to such a model, but it doesn't predict anything unexpected. It is a theory of convenience, which has little to no scientific value.

Evolution also is a theory of *convenience* that simply finds a lot of correlation, but does little to present refutable predictions to test. More and more correlative information and adjustments give the impression to the unschooled that it is strong, but it is really just testament to how weak it is. It is an interesting idea, but it is not all that useful to scientific inquiry. That hasn't stopped the materialist influence in the scientific communities from being irrationally dogmatic about it.

Because of the battle between religious fundamentalism and evolutionist fundamentalism, the scientific community has been infused with an irrational fervor that severely impairs its objectivity.

I am on the middle ground as far as the evolution/science battles in the classroom are concerned. I see extremists on the creationist side who would possibly eradicate all science for a strict, literal interpretation of Scripture. And I see extremists on the evolutionist side who far overstep any reasonable representation of science. The puerile and unprofessional battle among the extremists is drowning out the voices of reason on both sides. There is reason to curtail religious fundamentalism from getting into the science curriculum, and there is reason to curtail materialist fundamentalism from it.

Dan S.: "Pretty much by definition, science can never disprove God, and doesn't seek to; that's entirely missing the point."

I don't know why you bring this up, since I did not make issue of it.

Dan S.: "Nowadays, no religious person in the Western tradition should be troubled by…"

There is a difference between "not being troubled," and being force-fed the materialist religion. Materialists talk about "natural laws" as if they really know what they are. We give phenomena names like "gravity," and materialists somehow consider that an explanation within a purely materialistic context. They miss (or ignore) the fact that there is an immense amount of mystery in these named phenomena, and they ignore the fact that they have taken giant leaps of faith in their ideas. Pretending that this depth of mystery and faith does not exist then places them in a position to hypocritically condemn the concerns of the Theists because of all that "irrational" mystery and faith stuff. (This last sentence is a general statement and not intended as a characterization of Dan S.)

Dan S.: "It is to the Catholic Church's credit that over the last few decades it has embraced modern science - including evolutionary biology - to the fullest extent that one could ask; I hope it doesn't lose its nerve."

I don't think you properly characterize this. The Catholic Church hasn't "embraced" evolutionary biology. It has simply acknowledged that it is possible. (I might speculate they have done this to remove some of the antagonism so that evolutionary biologists can feel less threatened and eventually settle into a rational discussion about it.) The Church would probably have no less difficulty in acknowledging the possibility of my "biorhymic economy" theory or most other weak theories – unless they claimed to prove that Catholicism is wrong.

I'm really not sure what your point is regarding creativity meaning independence as it relates to God's intention for man. Since my present focus is upon the shortcomings of godless materialism, I’m not sure how it's relevant.

Dan S.: "I grow so tired with arguing against pseudoscientific creationism…"

Actually, I do to. As far as Intelligent Design is concerned, there are scientific elements to it, and non-scientific elements to it. (That is not to say that some of the non-scientific elements are any less compelling – they are just not strictly scientific.) Understanding what those elements are is an important part of dealing with ID.

But I also grow tired with arguing against pseudoscientific evolution. At least the ID people are promoting something observable. The evolution scientists promote things like speciation and the gradual and accidental (whoops!) random emergence of a cell that has never been observed (science = repetitive experimentation and/or observation) and that are mathematically implausible. (Evolutionists talk about immense time making evolution possible, but when the mathematicians run the numbers, it simply isn't possible for probability to account for it. It is, in fact, vastly improbable.) They also have many problems that they tend to brush off, such as the Cambrian explosion. Most of the variation in life occurred during the Cambrian explosion, but there is far less time to allow for it. One of the dirty little secrets of evolution is that they are not just trying to account for a few miraculous occurrences – they are trying to account for uncountable miraculous occurrences, and the unlikelihood of these myriad occurrences reduces the already vast improbability of evolution exponentially.

ID, on the other hand, gives us something observable and astounding. Looking at the many irreducibly complex systems existing in biology and concluding that they were created may not be precisely scientific, but science is not the sole realm of rational thought, and any rational being can examine these irreducible systems and see that creation is * obvious*. It is so obvious that the non-Theist scientists of Beijing proposed the possibility of an intelligent designer. It is so obvious that Francis
Silly Interloper | 11.06.06 - 8:33 pm | #

" Silly Interloper, you really should start a blog, so that you and Dan can stop meeting like this."

Since I am the interloper, wouldn't it be more appropriate for Dan S. to start one?
Silly Interloper | 11.06.06 - 8:34 pm | #

"I know - people will start to talk . . . !
: )"

You got friends in low places, man.
Silly Interloper | 11.06.06 - 8:35 pm | #

ID, on the other hand, gives us something observable and astounding. Looking at the many irreducibly complex systems existing in biology and concluding that they were created may not be precisely scientific, but science is not the sole realm of rational thought, and any rational being can examine these irreducible systems and see that creation is * obvious*. It is so obvious that the non-Theist scientists of Beijing proposed the possibility of an intelligent designer. It is so obvious that Francis Crick, the famous atheist who discovered DNA and was a renowned expert on microbiology, *insisted* that there was an intelligent designer. He would not give up his atheist beliefs, so he proposed a superior alien intelligence rather than God, but he was immersed in the observations of extreme irreducible complexity, and to him ID was *obvious*.

If we were to see a Lear Jet parked on a distant planet, we would know that it was *obviously* created by an intelligent being. That is not a scientific conclusion – but it would be obvious nonetheless. The minute biological machinery is exponentially more irreducibly complex than a Lear Jet. There are complex machines with many moving parts that execute many tasks within greater complex systems. There are processes critical to life that require many, many steps that are irreducible. There are systems that build and repair other systems. The universe itself is made with a precision that is infinitely more complex than the precision building that went into a Lear Jet. A Lear Jet is vastly simpler compared to a single cell than a mouse trap is to the greatest and most complex computer in existence.

The conclusions of ID may not be "scientific" strictly speaking – but they are certainly *rational*.

Compare that to evolution which, instead of focusing on direct observation of what *is*, focuses on speculation of what *might have been*. As far as their conclusions are concerned, ID is at least as "scientific" as evolution is.

Dan S.: "We have in science a candle by whose light we are just starting to make out the glitter of treasures astonishing beyond measure…"

It seems clear to me that you have way overestimated the value of science. I'm pretty sure you don't even understand it, but I will withhold judgment until you respond to this post.

Dan S.: "…we can't let people blow it out because it hurts their unpracticed eyes a bit, and they prefer the darkness."

Nor can we stand by and let its irrational elements bully us from understanding what is *true*.








Dan S.: "Unfortunately, so far it's turned out - long story short - that irreducible complexity is bunk."

We shall see if you can make the case – which you clearly haven't, yet. But the other task that lies before you is to demonstrate that _evolution_theory_ is any less bunk than ID. If you say that ID is bunk because it lacks "scientific evidence," please demonstrate the "scientific evidence" in evolution that is superior to the scientific evidence in ID. Whatever you say is lacking in ID, you had best demonstrate it is not lacking in evolution. (I already anticipate a lot of what you might throw at me – I'm not new to this exercise – so please give these things careful consideration.)

Dan S.: "Yes, Behe can lash out at the scientific establishment (and beat the believers) with his bacterial flagellum, or try to wow folks with the blood-clotting cascade, but with almost pathetic regularity each new claim he's made has been dismantled by cutting-edge research (it would have helped if he had bothered to actually look through the literature before writing his book)."

Apparently you have not read Behe's book, which you so readily criticize. If you had, you would have noted that he devotes a large portion of it to describing his process of surveying the literature.

I have examined several examples of this "cutting edge" research, and, quite frankly, they have failed to dismantle anything. The best I have been shown (by seemingly more adamant and more motivated interlocutors than you) consisted of small modifications to irreducibly complex systems, which does nothing to resolve the irreducibly complex problem. I went to the source articles by the scientists arguing against ID with these tactics, and they have been, quite frankly, very lame and easily refuted. So I am extremely skeptical about your claims. Perhaps if you presented something specific, Dan S., we could examine it and observe just what it is you, Dan S., consider to be a "dismantling" blow. I am very serious about this. I would find this process most enjoyable. (Update – I skimmed through a couple things from your links, and they were basically over-dramatized implications of modifications of irreducibly complex systems. They essentially overstated a claim by ID and produced an example that contradicted it. Classic straw man. If you think any or all of the examples in your links are worth arguing, please state the argument(s) explicitly so that we can test it properly.)

Dan S.: "Rothschild then presented Behe with a thick file of publications on immune system evolution, dating from 1971 to 2006, plus several books and textbook chapters. Asked for his response, Behe admitted he had not read many of the publications presented…"

You will hopefully forgive me if I don't consider courtroom antics to be salient or relevant to this discussion. Did *you* read those publications, Dan S? If not – how do you know that they are relevant at all? If so – please give us the best "dismantling" blows that these papers had to offer so that we can subject them to scrutiny.
Silly Interloper | 11.06.06 - 9:03 pm | #

Dan S.: "… - and once when it turned out his own research arguably demonstrated how seemingly irreducible complexity could evolve, even using a simulation that tried to stack the deck against such a result. (not the best link - will find better if requested).

If you want me to take you seriously in the present discussion, yes, you will provide a solid, rigorous link (this one didn't actually work), *and* you will tell me _what_ you think is salient about it and _why_. Simply throwing links at me is not rigorous discussion. You do need to demonstrate you understand what you are promoting if you want them to have any impact at all.

That being said – I don’t want to discourage you from giving me links. I actually appreciate every one of them, and I will probably enjoy them very much – **when I get to them**. But, again, to be taken seriously as evidence to this discussion, you have to do your work and explain what they do for it.

For example, you cite a book review of a Dembski work. This one link that I read, and, quite frankly, its arguments lack specificity, are incomplete, and contain unsettled claims. So for me to address that article in any kind of efficient manner, you need to explain what you think it says that is important so that we can follow up on it. (It is especially important because I have not read any Dembski. For all I know, he's a moron. For all I know, he's a genius far beyond either of us.)

The fact that the co-creator of a theorem thinks the use of them are "written in jello" does not help. It is not unusual for the creator of a theorem to not fully understand the implications of it. The theorem has a nature of its own that the creators do not control, so it is entirely possible that someone else has a firmer grasp on proper application of it. So you can't just give the testimony of one guy and expect it to be accepted without rigor. You have to take a side and argue it thoroughly.

Dan S.: "Silly does describe IC well by saying it "contends that the complex systems have no middle steps from which they could have "gradually" developed." It's just that this keeps turning out - both theoretically and actually - to be wrong."

I might not expect you to accept that ID is obvious, but you have a long way to go in demonstrating that it has turned out to be theoretically or actually wrong.

Dan S.: "I recommend Kenneth R. Miller's quite good Finding Darwin's God: A scientist's search for common ground between God and Evolution."

I will definitely check that out, Dan S. Thanks. Does it have the most recent arguments that you believe "dismantle" the IC examples? (Whether you provide them here for the argument, or not – I would be interested in exploring the most recent attempts to refute ID.)

Dan S.: "Such freedom is best supplied by the open contingency of evolution. . . "

I really don't know what you are trying to accomplish here by analyzing a God you don't believe in. You talk about freedom and make conclusions about it as if it should be absolute or not at all, yet you seem to rely upon some relativity of it. It seems like you are trying to force an argument that the last line (quoted above) is self-evident, which it certainly isn't.

If you want to make any point at all here, please explain how you came to the conclusion that "such freedom is *best* supplied by the open contingency of evolution."
Silly Interloper | 11.06.06 - 9:07 pm | #

Dan S.: "Blind leap of faith, though, is going a bit far. For starters, the assumption of natural, material causes has a very good track record. There's magnetism, lightning, etc.,…"

It is not going too far at all, Dan S. Your referral to the track record of natural, material causes shows a completely superficial understanding of our scientific knowledge. There is not one natural phenomenon that is not reduced to things that are full of mystery and require a leap of faith. There is ****NOTHING**** that is fully explained by natural, material causes. Nothing. However, the "emergence" of consciousness goes far beyond that. The emergence of consciousness isn't about a cause/effect relationship. It is about something that didn't exist in any of the elements surrounding it suddenly appearing. To simply assume it can appear is a *blind* leap of faith. You can be a materialist who believes in magic that "poof" makes consciousness magically. You can be a Theist who knows that God breathed your soul, spirit, and consciousness into the physical appearance of your body as it was conceived. Or you can be a materialist who evades the problem. Take your pick.

Dan S.: "…there's an enormous body of evidence relating how physical factors affect mental states…"

That has nothing to do with the magical appearance of consciousness.

Dan S.: "And of course, there's the morbid catalogs of various kinds of brain damage, with large and small changes to the nature or existence of consciousness."

We have no known way of measuring our self-awareness. None of the phenomena that we measure with our complex instrumentation can be said with any certainty to correspond to awareness. We only have our personal experience of awareness. Relative interactions of conscious states are not relevant to the appearance or creation of awareness. Even if we could measure it – you would still have the problem of how it magically appeared.

Dan S.: "Now, there are certainly ways to argue that this doesn't show what it seems to show . . . but it does suggest that a materialist explanation of consciousness is quite far from being self-evidently ridiculous."

It doesn't suggest anything of the kind. It only suggests that there are physiological relationships with the brain as it interacts with the material world. That tells us nothing about how we started with cells, electricity, and chemicals that contained nothing like awareness at all within them, and all of a sudden awareness magically appeared.

Dan S.: "But they are evading the fact that something new came out of nothing. "
Nothing? That's an odd way to describe the interaction of innumerable neurons and all sorts of electrochemical goings-on . . ."

If you have a bowl of cherries, and suddenly something new, say – a pink faerie, appeared in that bowl of cherries – a pink faerie that did not replace any material of the cherries at all, then I think it is fair to say that the pink faerie is something new that came out of nothing. Albeit it came out of nothing *inside* a bowl of cherries.

Take all the physical parts of a brain (chemicals, cells, electricity) – that's your bowl of cherries. There is no consciousness within any of those things. Consciousness is not an element of chemicals. Consciousness is not an element of cells. Consciousness is not an element of electricity. Mix them up in your bowl and all of a sudden a new thing – awareness – appears in the bowl. None of the mindless chemicals, cells, and electricity disappeared or changed into awareness – the awareness is something new that appeared out of nothing. It's magic, or it's God breathed.

Dan S.: "You have material things. Flour does not have cookieness. Sugar does not have cookieness. Butter does not have . . .(and so on). When you reach some "critical temperature," just before "the cookies are done," you have nothing but non-cookie physical things. But then, *poof,* all of the sudden you have cookies! Or at least, you do before I eat them all and end up with a stomachache . . ."

In the cookie's case, you don't have something new appearing out of nothing. You have components of all the ingredients changing their properties *through chemical reaction* to become cookies. In chemical reactions, all parts of the atom are retained. Electrons retain there "electronness," protons retain their "protonness," and neutrons retain their "neutronness." There is something of the original properties of the original things that make up the cookie. They are all of a substance that is retained with the substance of the cookie. Additionally, the cookie in all it's cookieness **contains** all of the original substance.

In the case of biology and awareness, there is no physical property of "awareness" in any elements of the cells, electricity, or chemicals. Additionally, the awareness does not *contain* the physical substance of cells, chemicals, and electricity. Awareness is something other than physical substance that miraculously appeared in yours and my bodies.

Dan S.: "By the time we get up to relatively big-brained medium-to-large mammals, however, things become less certain. Do dogs and cats, for example, have consciousness?"

The argument isn't silly at all, Dan S. I have presented you a problem with materialism and consciousness, and you have not dealt with it. Whether or not dogs, cats, medium-brained mammals, or smaller-brained mammals have awareness is irrelevant to the problem. If they have awareness, it arrived miraculously from nothing.
Silly Interloper | 11.06.06 - 9:08 pm | #

Dan S.: "This seems to imagine the brain as a kind of passive receptacle, unable to even combine, rearrange, or perform any other kinds of operations on its input. That seems rather dubious."

It doesn't imagine anything of the sort. In order to combine, rearrange, or perform operations, a purely material brain has to receive input. It must somehow receive creative ideas that are not observed. No scientific model is *ever* observed. It is mysteriously created in some miraculous creative intuition. These conceptions are never originally received as input. So where did these immaterial ideas come from? It is impossible that they came from the material world.

Dan S.: "Additionally, it's hard to see why thinking about love is impossible, since love is a common experience for people at all different ages."

Right. Love is *not* impossible. We (both of us) *know* of love's existence. However, material cannot create or provide love. If love did not originally come from something other than the material world, it would be impossible for us to know of it. An understanding of love is either something that came from nothing (or something non-material), or the word love is completely meaningless gibberish.

Keep in mind that the root of this problem is the _origination_ of these things in the human population. The communication of these things is a whole other can of worms.

Dan S.: "…God/s...tend to look like extensions, transformations, or etc. of local family/social structures and experiences…."

I have no idea what point you are trying to make with that.

Dan S.: "I don't know how to respond to this because I have no idea where you're getting all this odd stuff about random effects and meaninglessness; it certainly doesn't match my understanding of this issue. I mean, it doesn't follow at all (additionally, I disagree about the inability to attribute any meaning to random patterns, although there's quite a bit of philosophical background there . . .)."

I am getting all this "odd stuff" from myself. Granted, my own thoughts are built upon the backs of many intellectual giants, but I can hardly know where to attribute credit for every logical conclusion that I make. Where they come from is irrelevant. What is relevant is whether or not they bare any merit of truth.

The primary point to which you respond in befuddlement is that materialism requires cause and effect. Materialism means that everything that happens in your brain is the result of some physical cause that physically affected the cells, chemicals, and electricity of your brain. If that is the case – none of your thoughts or mine are made out of volition. They are made *automatically* and without our will by the material world's many causes. If you are right about materialism, we are utterly helpless automatons. (In which case this entire discussion is completely irrelevant.)

But, of course, we both know that we *do* in fact have volition. That volition is just one more thing that contradicts materialism. We also do attribute meaning to symbolic patterns and perceptions, but that meaning cannot go beyond what is input in a material world, which means it cannot represent new, creative, or immaterial thoughts. It is in fact impossible. (Unless you prefer to believe in _magic_.)

There are so many other things that contradict materialism. There is the problem of isomorphism between reality, sensory reception, sensory decoding, and the brain's representation of the information to the awareness. There are problems with resolving communication of non-material things. There are numerous things, but I'll just focus on the ones above for now.

For the record, I will probably ignore other arguments if you do not first tackle the problem of the magical appearance of awareness. Not to be a jerk. I went far beyond the issues I brought up in this post. I'm simply trying to get some focus on what is most relevant to me, without letting it get buried in a lot of other less interesting stuff.
Silly Interloper | 11.06.06 - 9:09 pm | #

"Since I am the interloper, wouldn't it be more appropriate for Dan S. to start one?"

Heh. Fair enough - I'll start an open thread on my - once again neglected - blog, but that will probably be the day after elections.

Anybody who wanders down here and is reading the evolution/ID stuff with interest and/or uncertainty, let me recommend TalkOrigin's Index to Creationist Claims as (and only as) a good starting point. I'd refer especially to the sections on intelligent design (CI000-410), Theory of Science (CA200-250), Physics and Mathematics (CF in general), and CC300-301 (Cambrian explosion). The bio & paleontology sections (along with the geology, astronomy, etc. sections) can give a bit of a sense of how firm evolutionary biology's footing is. TalkOrigin's sprawling 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution is also fun.

Of course, ID creationism as a scientific claim - like virtually all of creationism - essentially cannot be falsified. The most that can be done - as a side effect of innumerable actual scientists working decade after decade after decade in an attempt to understand a little better the wonder of the world - is to reveal it as unnecessary.

It's telling that Silly doesn't really defend ID, more than halfheartedly, with some exclamations of "it's *obvious* and some arguments via analogy (using Lear Jets instead of the standard issue 747s!) - indeed, admitting that it isn't "precisely scientific' - imagine talking to a doctor or engineer and hearing that?! Instead, somehow, the onus falls on me - little ol' me, with my degree in elementary education and a couple of library books - to defend a cornerstone of modern biology, one that has survived every challenge for over a century, becoming only more and more relevant in light of the amazing discoveries - from DNA on - of the last fifty-odd years . . .

The other problem is that it's almost impossible to pin down any concrete ID claims. The world could be 4.6 billion years old - or 4.6 thousand years old. Real science might be fine, with the single exception that the first cell was created pre-packed with everything future life might need - or maybe not. The only constant is irreducible complexity - and hence, what is required isn't that it be shown that apparently irreducible complexity could evolve in any specific case (catching it happening before our eyes is so unlikely as to be effectively impossible - yet we have, to a limited degree - see Miller) - we would have to show that it could and did evolve in every single case.

[But the other task that lies before you is to demonstrate that _astronomy_theory_ is any less bunk than astrology. If you say that astrology is bunk because it lacks "scientific evidence," please demonstrate the "scientific evidence" in astronomy that is superior to the scientific evidence in astrology. Whatever you say is lacking in astronomy, you had best demonstrate it is not lacking in astrology. ]
Dan S. | Homepage | 11.07.06 - 2:10 am | #

Let me respond a little bit on the mind/body dualism (so would we be mind/body duelists?) front, though, before I try to transfer any remaining discussion to my bloghome -

"It doesn't imagine anything of the sort. In order to combine, rearrange, or perform operations, a purely material brain has to receive input. It must somehow receive creative ideas that are not observed. "

(In the most brutally simplified and almost certainly inaccurate sense), I think that creative ideas would be the result of mental operations, in some sense - not raw exterior input?

The rest seems in large part a debate over whether subjective mental states are related to objective physical states (and the nature of this relationship). A qualia hunt, so to speak.

Alrighty, I've set aside a post on my wee little bloggie, if you wish to continue this there- I don't think I'll be responding to anything before (at best) the wee hours of the night, though.
Dan S. | Homepage | 11.07.06 - 8:19 am | #

Hope you are still there, Dan S. If not, I'll copy my responses here over to your blog.

I should have warned you that I can drop off the face of the earth without warning due to the nature of my work. I will respond to your latest comments within a day or two.
Silly Interloper | 11.16.06 - 2:04 pm | #

Dan S.

I do apologize for dropping off the way I did. It was unavoidable. It could happen again at any time due to my responsibilities. However, with the longer term nature of this discussion, that can happen from time to time, and might even be helpful for the inevitable research necessary for some of the issues that could come up.

PROCEDURE

First, we should probably figure out the procedural issues regarding the move back and forth between blogs. Being very inexperienced in the blogging world, I need to understand what we are accomplishing with it.

There are 3 procedural issues as I see it.
1. How to use the blogs, and which one to use for what purpose. (Magical appearances, nature of science, and Intelligent Design/Evolution.
2. Proper use of resources and links in our discussion.
3. Rhetorical garbage.

It seems to me that the suggestion for the blog was made on the spur of the moment, and there was little discussion as to why we would use your "wee little bloggie," and more importantly *how*. Because this discussion is already in danger of growing multiple unmanageable tentacles, it seems prudent to me to establish some focus and a somewhat systematic approach.

One of the difficulties I am having with you, Dan S., is that you go off in many directions and make multiple references without actually formulating an argument. This will not do if we are going to have an actual *discussion*.

Therefore, I propose that a systematic approach would separate the issue that I raised regarding the appearance of awareness and ideas out of nothing from the issues that others raised regarding Intelligent Design and Evolution. A mixing of the two discussions except where it is clearly applicable will make it much more manageable. With that in mind, I suggest continuing our discussion of my concerns of new appearances here on Dawn Patrol (assuming Dawn is amenable to it), and continuing the Intelligent Design portion – which, as I have said, is less interesting to me on your wlb.

That leaves the idea of what the nature of science is. Since it relates to both topics, I will discuss it where it is relevant to each in its own section.

I further propose that you refrain from putting forth links and resources as if they make the arguments for you. They do not. And with the skimming that I did, they clearly did not. If you had some specific evidence and argument within those references that you think make your case, I think it is incumbent upon you to make the case. I am not going to guess at what you think is relevant and endeavor to argue with a phantom.

This does not mean that I discourage you from providing links in general. "Interesting reading" can be a good thing, and I hope to eventually get through much of what you suggested. But let's not pretend it is an argument.

Let me give you some examples to show you what I mean.

Dan S. wrote (after listing numerous resources):
"… can give a bit of a sense of how firm evolutionary biology's footing is."

Following these links provided hundreds of articles. Probably thousands. Volume does not give us any indication that something is on "firm evolutionary footing," and it leaves us with no idea where to start to find what *you* had in mind when you say it gives a sense of "firm footing." (I assume you read *all* of those articles, right?)

Here is another. Dan S. wrote:
"Or rather, I think you've got it backwards. Approaching the question of consciousness in a ~scientific fashion (see methodological naturalism) is very much the non-magical option."

You make an assertion that it is very much non-magical, yet you do nothing to support such a claim. You link to a definition of methodological naturalism, yet you give no indication of its significance to this discussion. (You are also playing a shell game here regarding the question I presented you, but I will deal with that when make the arguments.)

Finally, I have to say that some of your rhetoric comes off as a bit arrogant and uncharitable. If you are going to use this discussion as a forum to puff up your chest and pretend you are so much smarter than the rest of us – I really don't see the point of me continuing.

Here are some examples of what I am talking about.
Dan S. wrote:
" It's telling that Silly doesn't really defend ID, more than halfheartedly,…"

This one isn't actually too bad, but I'm taking them in order, so I'll handle it here anyway. There was nothing half-hearted about what I was saying. I was full-heartedly working to put ID in the proper context – as I have been and will do with evolution. Seeking a responsible approach is not a "half-hearted" thing. This is simply a rhetorical trick on your part to characterize me as not really believing what I am saying. Please do not characterize me in this way in the future.

Dan S. wrote:
"So, Silly, there's a ton here, some of which is exceedingly bizarre,…"

What does your perception of "bizarre" have to do with the truth? Quantum Physics is "bizarre?" So what? This is simple ad hominem that attempts to characterize me as having bizarre thoughts. It does nothing to argue your position or refute mine.

Dan S. wrote:
"…if unfortunately common among those who are forced by their convictions to reject much of modern science - like the idea that evolution - the cornerstone of biology - is an "an excessively weak scientific model . . . not all that useful to scientific inquiry."

This is the least charitable thing you said. You clearly imply that I reject reason due to my convictions. In other words, you are saying that I am an idiot. I don't reject much of modern science because of "convictions," I reject certain fads of modern science because of **reason**. Again, please refrain from the ad hominem. If you want to play that game, please just be honest and call me an idiot.

I am interested in a discussion if we can shed this rhetorical garbage. If we cannot – I don't have the patience for it.

It is worth noting that these statements of yours seem to be uncharacteristic of you. I'm willing to write it off as temporary carelessness at this point.
Silly Interloper | 11.23.06 - 1:24 am | #

ARGUMENTS REGARDING MAGICAL APPEARANCES OF THINGS

Let's look now at the responses and comments you made regarding the appearance of awareness.

Dan S. wrote: "Let me respond a little bit on the mind/body dualism …"

You are introducing a new concept to the discussion here. I never said anything about "mind/body" dualism. If pressed, I would probably reject a "mind/body" dualism on principal. Whether or not the presence of mind and body is "dualistic" or integrated attributes of the same creature seems irrelevant to me regarding the appearance of awareness as a problem for you and materialism. Introducing terms like this only distracts from our focus on the explicit problem.

Silly wrote: "It doesn't imagine anything of the sort. In order to combine, rearrange, or perform operations, a purely material brain has to receive input. It must somehow receive creative ideas that are not observed. "

Dan S. replied: "(In the most brutally simplified and almost certainly inaccurate sense), I think that creative ideas would be the result of mental operations, in some sense - not raw exterior input?"

Material operations cannot invent new things. They can rearrange what they have – but the rearrangement of data is nothing compared to new creative and descriptive ideas. All *conclusions* are new things that are not inherent in the information accepted. There is **nothing new** in a pure material operation. (All mental operations in your world would consist of material operations.) However, there are uncountable new ideas that we have every day.

Dan S.: "The rest seems in large part a debate over whether subjective mental states are related to objective physical states (and the nature of this relationship). A qualia hunt, so to speak."

If that's what you think, I believe you are missing the point. There are physical states, there are mental states, and there is awareness (and there is will). There is no question that the brain interacts with our awareness, and inasmuch as it does, there may be "mental states." But that completely avoids the problem I present you. That problem is: How can materialism make something (awareness) out of nothing (where previously no awareness or elements of awareness existed)?

Using science to *observe* awareness and making contingent conclusions about its phenomena is possible. But that does not account for it, and does nothing to solve your problem.

Dan S. wrote:
" Approaching the question of consciousness in a ~scientific fashion (see methodological naturalism) is very much the non-magical option. Now, no, modern science hasn't figured out how consciousness works yet - indeed, given the current state of neuroscience, it would be very surprising if we had, since we're in many ways just starting to put things together. But it has some firm starting points - that consciousness is a natural phenomenon with natural causes and following/resulting from natural laws. This way it's possible to attempt to study and explain consciousness - to make and test hypothesis, and etc."

I think the above demonstrates parts of your confusion about science in general, Dan S.

The first confusion is your confusion regarding the scientific community. You seem to think the scientific community is a consistent unanimous block of opinion that believes "consciousness is a natural phenomenon with natural causes following/resulting from natural laws." There is no such unanimous block of opinion. The subject of "what consciousness is" is widely disputed and there are numerous opinions on the matter. The most honest answer (and the one I would expect most to get to after offering their favorite conjectures) is that they really have no idea what it is. Your characterization of the scientific community is grossly inaccurate.

The second confusion is the notion that science begins with "firm starting points," such as "consciousness is a natural phenomenon with natural causes and following/resulting from natural laws." First we have to decipher what you are saying. What you are really saying is that science says that consciousness is a *material* phenomenon with *material* causes and following/resulting from *material* laws.

What you are missing is that science has nothing whatsoever to say about whether nature (and thus natural laws) is exclusively material, or not. Science does not tell us that nature does not come from God. Science simply studies the phenomena of what exists, and uses contingent conjectures and refutations to hone imperfect approximations of those observations in the form of models. Science has no qualms whatsoever with the statement: "God is nature."

If you believe that God is nature, then the creation of a soul by God is a perfectly natural thing, and I suppose the statement that consciousness has natural causes might be considered true. However, it would not be a scientific statement.

Scientific starting points are *hypotheses*. Hypotheses are creative conjectures for consistent models, and science tests these models for consistency. They are nothing like the "firm ground" that you are claiming.

The statement that "consciousness is a natural phenomenon (in the greater sense that is not restricted to materialism) with natural causes" may be true. However, it is true in the meaning that we expect reality to make sense. That is a philosophical statement, not a scientific one. Science does not govern reason. Reason governs science.

The "shell game" that I mentioned earlier is that you have been presented with a problem regarding the magical arrival of awareness, but you switch it to the study of the awareness that is already there in order to get it into a scientific context. Whether intentional or not – it is clearly avoiding the problem.
Silly Interloper | 11.23.06 - 1:26 am | #

Dan S.:
"It's the other option that is pretty much magical - or more properly, supernatural - that "God breathed your soul, spirit, and consciousness into the physical appearance of your body."

If God is nature, this is not magic. It is part of his natural omnipotence to do it.

I use the word magic because magic is generally understood to be something that is impossible and contrary to nature, yet it occurs. For a purely material world the appearance of awareness is magic. In my world it is not.

Dan S.:
"Perhaps so (let me note again that science cannot, pretty much by definition, say that this isn't the case). But - how do we test it? What predictions can we make from it? How do we measure a soul? Determine its origin? What, if anything, does this explanation actually explain? (in any scientific sense, which is all I'm concerned with here). It may provide one with quite a lot, of course, but in terms of understanding how the world works, it seems to fall short. If you want to talk about magical *poof!*s, well . . ."

I think you misunderstand the problem before you. I did not present you with a scientific problem, I presented you with a rational one. Explaining the obvious limitations of science to me does nothing to solve your problem. As a materialist, you naturally levitate towards science for cover, and instead of finding support there, all you seem to be able to find is how limiting science supposedly is for me.

The limitations of science gives me no difficulty in staying the course with the problem I present you. How does awareness appear out of nothing?

Dan S: "…you are taking the - if consciousness follows (deterministic) natural laws, then we don't have free will - stance? That's a topic that's way above my head. It doesn't really relate to the origin of consciousness, though, but rather philosophical and theological concepts."

If you read my comments in context, you will find that I was treating it like a separate issue. Consciousness not being possible without God is one problem for you. The problem of determinism relates to the fact that every thought that you or I have – regardless of any awareness – is completely deterministic in a material world, so we are completely helpless against all of our thoughts, actions, and discussions, and they are pretty much irrelevant. Furthermore you have several levels of isomorphism to account for (reality/sensory/brain/consciousness) in order to even consider that what you are experiencing is anything close to true. We are reduced to nothing but cause and effect automations in your materialistic world. But, yes, it is a different issue from the question of awareness.

Dan S.:
And that's interesting, because the competing idea you offer is that "soul, spirit, and consciousness" are God-given. Are you suggesting that various other mammals - including, perhaps, dinner -have souls? Are there different kinds of soul-stuff, then, or perhaps chimps, elephants, and humans (and who knows what else?) are all filled with the same sort of thing, which performs differently given the physical constraints of its earthly shell?"

I don't claim to have any special knowledge on the subject regarding animals at all. I simply noted that whether or not dogs, cats, or any other animals have awareness or not is completely irrelevant to the problem I presented you. We only have first-hand knowledge of *human* awareness, so that is my focus. But the magical appearance of awareness in a material world is a problem for you *wherever* it appears.

Silly Interloper: "It doesn't imagine anything of the sort. In order to combine, rearrange, or perform operations, a purely material brain has to receive input. It must somehow receive creative ideas that are not observed . . . These conceptions are never originally received as input. So where did these immaterial ideas come from? It is impossible that they came from the material world."

Dan S. responds: "Again, I don't see how this isn't imagining the brain as some kind of passive receptacle, limited to only doing things like directly experiencing heat, cold, color, shapes, etc. Presumably - I'm using extremely simple and vague terms, because I'm quite ignorant about this subject - creative ideas could be the result of operations on various kinds of mental representations (which gets us into a whole 'nother issue above my weight class)."

Then, respectfully, your ignorance would explain why you keep glossing over things without really facing them. Instead of taking this blind leap of faith that recombination of sensory input can account for *new* creative ideas, I would recommend you stop, consider it, and really study it before continuing.

Dan S.: "I could also bring up the example of (artificial) neural networks, which can carry out (without consciousness, of course . . . well, unless things are a bit other than the way we think) tasks like pattern recognition – - that is, in a sense, conceptions that are never received as input (see for example, here."

I have a wealth of resources on the topic – most of them human, and my profession is on the fringe of it, so allow me to state unequivocally that "pattern recognition" is *nothing like* a creative thought, and computers are not capable of creative thought. (They are, after all, designed of material).

Additionally, patterns are recognized by computers because of **algorithms and functions that have been input** into the machine. (In your Wikiality link they referred to some specialized algorithms as "agents.") They did not "emerge" out of nothing. They were *designed* for the function.

As it stands, you have produced references to several things that you have not followed up on to explain why they are relevant to the awareness or creative idea problems. Explaining that science can study awareness does not do it. You can legitimately use science to study true miracles. The fact that we can study miracles does not negate the fact that they are miracles. You have a miracle before you – the appearance of awareness. Materialism cannot account for it. (Note – I didn't say "science" cannot account for it. This isn't a scientific question at all. I mean that scrutinizing materialism with reason shows us that it cannot produce something out of nothing, which means it cannot produce the new substance with the attribute of awareness.)

Dan S.: "I am still extremely befuddled as to why you assume that, if consciousness arises from the material world, that there is no mental creativity or possibility of volition."

That's not quite what I assume. These are two separate problems with materialism, I do not assume that there is a problem with mental creativity "if consciousness arises from the material world." I see quite clearly that materialism alone cannot provide for awareness and *independently of that* I see clearly that materialism cannot provide for mental creativity.

The idea that "If you are right about materialism, we are utterly helpless automatons" is an assertion that doesn't seem to be supported here - you seem to be taking the view that consciousness would of necessity be a mere epiphenomenon and that's not at all a given.

Lets keep our eye on the ball here. This is a third issue. The three issues are:
1. Materialism cannot provide for awareness.
2. Materialism cannot provide for creative thought.
3. A purely material existence would require that all things are simply the result of the cause/effect interactions of material, and would thus mean that we had no control of them. If we perceive ourselves to have a "will," it is only because something has caused us to think so, and the resulting actions or thoughts are not within our control. ("Our control" can only be defined by the material things that caused us to want to control something.)

As far as I can tell, Dan S., you have completely avoided facing this issue. If I have missed something, please redirect me.
Silly Interloper | 11.23.06 - 1:27 am | #

INTELLIGENT DESIGN

Dan S.:
"Of course, ID creationism as a scientific claim - like virtually all of creationism - essentially cannot be falsified. The most that can be done - as a side effect of innumerable actual scientists working decade after decade after decade in an attempt to understand a little better the wonder of the world - is to reveal it as unnecessary."

In other words, to place it on the current road of evolution. Evolution is unnecessary.

Dan S.:
"It's telling that Silly doesn't really defend ID, more than halfheartedly, with some exclamations of "it's *obvious* and some arguments via analogy (using Lear Jets instead of the standard issue 747s!) - indeed, admitting that it isn't "precisely scientific' - imagine talking to a doctor or engineer and hearing that?!"

1. It is telling that Dan S. doesn't actually address those arguments, but merely characterizes them as "halfhearted." Also, the Lear Jet (or 747, if you wish) is not an analogy. It is a concrete example of design that is obvious, which we can compare to the biological machines to understand how obvious (or not) the designed nature of them should be.
2. A doctor's job is not "precisely scientific." It entails the practical use of (sometimes) scientific knowledge in the attempt to heal people. There is far more to it than mere science. There is an abundance of non-scientific problem solving and engagement with people.
3. An engineer's job (and technology in general) is not "precisely scientific." It entails the use of practical scientific knowledge for the purpose of creating things and making things work – but not always. Engineering (I am an engineer) is far more than mere science. *Most* of the problem solving in my job has little to do with science.
4. It is a very narrow view to consider any practical endeavor only for its scientific element. It is also irresponsible to ridicule someone for recognizing when an element of an idea (or theory) is *not* scientific. The problem isn't that I do recognize the non-scientific element of ID. The problem is that you, Dan S., do not recognize the non-scientific elements of evolution. Please give us one scientific thing about evolution that we don't have regarding ID. If it is so evident, you should have no trouble demonstrating that superiority with tangible examples.

Dan S.: "Instead, somehow, the onus falls on me - little ol' me, with my degree in elementary education and a couple of library books – "

If you choose the yoke, don't complain about the whip.

"…to defend a cornerstone of modern biology, one that has survived every challenge for over a century, becoming only more and more relevant in light of the amazing discoveries - from DNA on - of the last fifty-odd years . . ."

You really need to put this in the full context of science and history. After all, Newtonian physics – for the first time in history – was considered true knowledge. It shocked the world of philosophy that we could have such certain factual knowledge. But then it turned out to be wrong. It turned out to simply be a creative model that merely approximated the phenomena that were observed. Relativity and quantum physics has left Newtonian physics on the ash heap.

Evolution has far less going for it than Newtonian physics. The laws of NP, after all, were based upon direct observation. Evolution is not. Evolution is only a contingent model – and as I have previously described, it is a weak and useless one.
Silly Interloper | 11.23.06 - 1:29 am | #

Dan S.:
"The other problem is that it's almost impossible to pin down any concrete ID claims."

The same can be said of evolution. There is an immense amount of disagreement among the biologists and paleontologists. They ridicule each other in their books quite frequently. So what? I'm not going to insist that you support every crackpot idea in the realm of evolution, and I would hope you won't expect me to support every crackpot idea in the realm of ID. The primary idea that I have been focusing on is that of irreducible complexity. I suggest you start by focusing upon the argument(s) of your interlocutor.

Dan S.: "The world could be 4.6 billion years old - or 4.6 thousand years old."

I don't care how old the world is for the purpose of this discussion. I tend to lean toward general scientific opinion of 20 billion years. But it isn't relevant.

Dan S.: "Real science might be fine, with the single exception that the first cell was created pre-packed with everything future life might need - or maybe not. The only constant is irreducible complexity - and hence, what is required isn't that it be shown that apparently irreducible complexity could evolve in any specific case (catching it happening before our eyes is so unlikely as to be effectively impossible - yet we have, to a limited degree - see Miller) - we would have to show that it could and did evolve in every single case."

I'm not entirely sure I have your full meaning here. However, it is a bit presumptuous to say that "irreducible complexity" is the only constant. It is one fairly constant thing in the ID discussion, and just so happens to be the one on which I am focusing.

As for the Miller experiment – we have "caught" nothing significant with it. If you think we have, please explain exactly what it was.

Dan S.:
"[But the other task that lies before you is to demonstrate that _astronomy_theory_ is any less bunk than astrology. If you say that astrology is bunk because it lacks "scientific evidence," please demonstrate the "scientific evidence" in astronomy that is superior to the scientific evidence in astrology. Whatever you say is lacking in astronomy, you had best demonstrate it is not lacking in astrology. ]"

This is a cheap rhetorical trick on your part, and, quite frankly, I expect better from you. You have expressed the fact that you have been very tired lately, and I do totally understand if that has affected the quality of your print. Believe me, I do – exhaustion is one of the reasons I haven't gotten back to this until now. But it isn't up to the standard I have witnessed in you before.

First off, my comparison compared two theories – evolution and ID, while your comparison is between two disciplines – astronomy and astrology. (This is not to imply any validity in the discipline of astrology.)

Secondly, any prudent scientist will agree that all theories are subject to scrutiny – all knowledge is contingent. Instead of using rhetorical tricks to attempt to belittle my assertion, why don't you actually *demonstrate* some elements of the theory of evolution that are superior to the theory of ID. If, as you seem to think, evolution is so far and above superior to the theory of ID, you should have no difficulty demonstrating it. So step up.

Dan S.:
"So, Silly, there's a ton here, some of which is exceedingly bizarre, if unfortunately common among those who are forced by their convictions to reject much of modern science - like the idea that evolution - the cornerstone of biology - is an "an excessively weak scientific model . . . not all that useful to scientific inquiry." But let me try to focus first on the issue you're most interested in - points #3 & #4:

I appreciate you focusing in on the parts that I stated were more important to me. However, if you are going to follow through on your argument with ID, you will need to explicitly refute my assertions, and show us that evolution is not a weak theory and merely correlative, as I have said. (And you will need to show it to us in such a way that is *superior* to ID.)

Dan S.: "One could take this various ways, of course. The idea that God created man is similarly unproductive, in this sense; but our growing understanding of how humans evolved can be seen, if one is so inclined, as science letting us see how God did so."

Two things. First, the idea that God created man may not be productive in a scientific sense, but that does not at all mean that it is unproductive in a rational sense. Science is a very small subset of reason.

Saying "evolution created man" (regardless if it is understood as explaining God's methods) is a greater leap of blind faith than saying "God created man." If the statement "God created man" is "unproductive," then so is the statement "evolution created man."

Dan S.: "Quite sleepy still from staying up watching elections,…"

Better you than me.
Silly Interloper | 11.23.06 - 1:29 am | #