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...
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Adzcliff
In the opening statement, Stephen says: "The Pope rejects young earth creationism ..." This sounds like an argument from authority, or am I mistaken? If that is the case, the Pope is a very peculiar person for Stephen to choose as his authority figure. Am I missing some possibly very subtle layer of psychology here?
The phrase "pernicious scientific nonsense" doesn't work for me. I think it should read "pernicious non-scientific nonsense".
Hope this is received in the spirit of constructive criticism, because keeping YEC teaching out of science labs is a good idea.
I don't claim YEC's are insane. I claim that the thought patterns they exhibit would, under other circumstances, lead us to think the person was mentally ill. See my book "Believing Bullshit" chapter 2. Of course, YECs are not mentally ill. I did say that during the recording, but that bit was cut.
I have Bipolar 1 and believe I should try to speak out when people are trying to stygmatise mental illness. A little warning bell went off in my head when I heard that one too. However on re-playing the clip, the reference is to the symptoms of mental illness, and delusions certainly fit that bill. I had no problem with that reference, and did not mention it before for that reason.
As a side issue, it is a misunderstood position about mental illness, but it is not the delusions that will get you brought before a psychiatrist, it is when your behaviour deteriorates that this will happen. As long as YEC's keep going to work, going to church and feeding their families they will not get a diagnosis of mental illness. Believing the world is 6000 years old does no harm in itself, it is only when your delusions cause your behaviour to alarm others (or disrupt the work of scientists) that it is necessary to take action.
Instead you tried to label this belief as similar to a form of mental illness, notwithstanding your total lack of any medical qualifications to do so, when in reality it is an intellectual fallacy.
Intellectual fallacies are rebutted by evidence, and there is an overwhelming abundance of evidence to rebut creationism. Why didn't you cite it?
I should declare an interest in this; my lungs are colonised by a hyper-mutating pan-resistant strain of mucoid pseudomonas aeruginosa. My awareness of evolution is therefore of the up close and personal variety, but you could inform yourself very easily if you chose to do so. The information is there for anyone who bothers to run a few searches, and it is certainly incompatible with creationism...
Pascal
Even though my understanding of mucoid pseudomonas aeruginosa is very limited, and please feel perfectly free to correct me if I got this wrong, but I think it is perfectly true to say that opportunistic pathogens are able to overcome mucociliary clearance when they encounter phagocytic cells aided by immunological mechanisms, that might include some opsonizing anti-body like call cells etc. etc. The lessons form this are not clear, but it is always very important to focus on the detail, whilst keeping the broader view in your rear-view mirror, so to speak.
There is no reason to believe that Dr Law's careful and penetrating analysis has not been seen, and he demonstrates it eloquently along with his commitment to speak out.
I cannot for the life of me not see why Divinity, by this I mean a proper study of religious practices and beliefs, cannot be taught in all state schools. This would be instead of the wimbly-wambly mish-mash which is RE or Religious Studies. If it is to be studied it should actually be done entirely properly and not liberally, but then I take an extremely old-fashioned upon most things, being as at this stage of life I am past old codger and now firmly a very wizend old man (age 48!).
I'd like to see Latin taught pre-senior school for similar reasons. After all didn't Virgil say in the Aeneid: "Tu ne cede malis, sed contra audentior ito. which must have boldness at its very core.