Skip to main content

Andalucia - Veleta cycle



Rode up to Veleta today - highest [correction, second highest] peak in the Sierra Nevada. First picture is villages of Bubion and Campiera on the right hand hill side with Veleta (sharpest point on skyline, with tiny patch of snow) behind.

Then two photos of high up.

It's a fabulous place. 5hr return ride climbing from 1800 to 3396 metres, which is, er, 1596 metres or 5226 feet of climbing.... gosh that's why my bum hurts.

In the last photo you can see the trail I rode up on disappearing on right of image on hillside in far background.

...get back to philosophy shortly.
Labels:

Comments

Andrew Louis said…
Stephen,
I wonder if you could address something. Below is an argument that I've seen used quite frequently by the Christian right. I find it to be nonsense and have my opinion on it, but I'm curious of your opinion regarding it. In other words, what is fundamentaly wrong with it and why? Finaly, what is a counter proposition.

http://www.proofthatgodexists.org/
July 23, 2008 at 10:37 PM
Nigel said…
I am so jealous! riding in Andalucia......
Why would you want to come back to philosophy?
July 24, 2008 at 6:15 AM
Stephen Law said…
Dear Andrew

Checked out the "proof". So, if you believe in objective laws of logic and maths and science and moral truths (that are immaterial, by which author means not made out of material stuff), you must believe in God because, er, they couldn't exist if God did not.

Clearly, the author really thinks he's got a "proof". But it is shot full of holes.

First, where's the argument that objective laws of logic, etc. require the existence of God? There isn't one. Just the assertion that they do. Yet amazingly, this is offered as the "proof". The author's chutzpah is kind of breath-taking. Only a religious zealot would dare offer this as a "proof" with a straight face.

But note that, even if the laws of logic DID require the existence of some sort of deity to underpine them, we could still ask, why *this* particular God - the Judeo-Christian God? Particularly as there's overwhelming evidence that there is no such being (see my "God of Eth").
July 24, 2008 at 9:37 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS

(Published in Faith and Philosophy 2011. Volume 28, Issue 2, April 2011. Stephen Law. Pages 129-151) EVIDENCE, MIRACLES AND THE EXISTENCE OF JESUS Stephen Law Abstract The vast majority of Biblical historians believe there is evidence sufficient to place Jesus’ existence beyond reasonable doubt. Many believe the New Testament documents alone suffice firmly to establish Jesus as an actual, historical figure. I question these views. In particular, I argue (i) that the three most popular criteria by which various non-miraculous New Testament claims made about Jesus are supposedly corroborated are not sufficient, either singly or jointly, to place his existence beyond reasonable doubt, and (ii) that a prima facie plausible principle concerning how evidence should be assessed – a principle I call the contamination principle – entails that, given the large proportion of uncorroborated miracle claims made about Jesus in the New Testament documents, we should, in the absence of indepen...
159 comments
Read more

The Evil God Challenge and the "classical" theist's response

On another blog, FideCogitActio, some theists of a "classical" stripe (that's to say, like Brian Davies, Edward Feser) are criticisng the Evil God Challenge (or I suppose, trying to show how it can be met, or sidestepped). The main post includes this: In book I, chapter 39 , Aquinas argues that “there cannot be evil in God” (in Deo non potest esse malum). Atheists like Law must face the fact that, if the words are to retain any sense, “God” simply cannot be “evil”. As my comments in the thread at Feser’s blog aimed to show, despite how much he mocks “the privation theory of evil,” Law himself cannot escape its logic: his entire argument requires that the world ought to appear less evil if it is to be taken as evidence of a good God. Even though he spurns the idea that evil is a privation of good, his account of an evil world is parasitic on a good ideal; this is no surprise, though, since all evil is parasitic on good ( SCG I, 11 ). Based on the conclusions of se...
446 comments
Read more

Sye show continues

I was sent a link to this , for those interested in the never ending saga of Sye TenBruggencate and his "proof" of the existence of God. Hit "sinner ministries' proof of the existence of god" link below or on side bar for 30+ earlier posts on this topic that I wrote during an extended interchange with him last summer (check the literally many hundreds of comments attached to these posts if you really want to get into how Sye thinks and argues). Sye's amazing intial "proof" is available here . PS. For those interested, my own "presuppositional" proof, parodying Sye's proof by his principle "the impossibility of the contrary" (which turns out to be the key to Sye's proof) is: My claim: Sye's mind is addled and his thinking unreliable because he was hit on the head by a rock. Prove this is false, Sye. Try to, and I will say - "But your "proof" presupposes your mind is not addled and you can recognise a pr...
250 comments
Read more