tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post7645516550619619297..comments2023-09-25T04:26:51.568-06:00Comments on The Barefoot Bum: Appeasement and CensorshipLarry Hamelinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comBlogger6125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post-34966289622113082472007-12-30T09:51:00.000-07:002007-12-30T09:51:00.000-07:00Since I must immediately depart, I will let my res...Since I must immediately depart, I will let my <A HREF="http://barefootbum.blogspot.com/2007/12/new-atheism.html#c8230607844247363960" REL="nofollow">response in the <I>New Atheism</I> thread</A> suffice.<BR/><BR/>I will be gone for the rest of the morning, so kindly keep your censorship knickers untwisted until the late afternoon. After that, if you do indeed post additional lies, feel free to get them as twisted as you please.Larry Hamelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post-5242162980308136432007-12-30T09:31:00.000-07:002007-12-30T09:31:00.000-07:00Most of what you wrote has been responded to on yo...Most of what you wrote has been responded to on your "New Athiesm" thread, so I'll not rehash a lengthy post.<BR/><BR/><I>Perhaps you might explain these recondite concepts, concepts that have as yet eluded the understanding of millennia of philosophers and theologians. Perhaps the knuckle-dragging troglodyte perspective will prove the key.</I><BR/><BR/>*Picks a few fleas out of the hair on his back, munches them contemplatively while rolling his knuckles back and forth on the ground standing in as fully upright a position as he possibly can*<BR/><BR/>Well, hmmm...I possess what for me passes for intelligence. I have emotions, desires, and exercise what sure looks to me like free will. These are all very real concepts to me. My observations inform me that other humans experience much the same thing. Looking at my dog I see sentience, so even animals to varying extents have something like consciousness and self awareness and seem to experience joy and pain. <BR/><BR/>Now comes the question: are these experiences the inherent properties of the matter which composes living organisms? No, I answer. They appear to be wholly contingent. <BR/><BR/>Next question: Since nonliving matter appears to exhibit no signs of self awareness and the range of experiences that accompany it, and since I am composed of nonliving matter, is my self awareness & c. real, or is it just an illusory property that evolved as a mechanism useful in perpetuating and adding further complexity to the randomly generated information matrix that I fondly refer to as myself? Answer: Well, hang it all, it sure feels real to me. And I am aware of no evidence to the contrary.<BR/><BR/>Which leads to the follow-up question: Well, then where do all these abstract things come from?<BR/>So I sit down and do the math and say to myself,(*pausing to pick a few more fleas to chew on*) hmmm...it seems just the teeniest, tiniest bit implausable to think that random forces produced this. In former times it could be fairly said that the theistic response that God created our immaterial parts (i.e. those properties which we possess which are not an inevitable outcome of the properties of the matter of which we are composed) was a "God of the gaps" argument. However, the advent of information theory and understanding our genetic composition demands that the complexity that we observe in living organisms must have had an intelligent agency. Furthermore the observations that we have intelligence, emotion, ability to appreciate beauty, have a strong sense that objective truth is a reality, and possess free will are entirely consistent with the idea that God created us and endowed us with immaterial qualities which He Himself possesses.<BR/><BR/>Now if you will excuse me, I need to sharpen my flint spear and go skewer a wooly mammoth and drag it and my woman back to the cave by her hair so she can cook it for me.<BR/><BR/>While I'm doing that why don't you explain to me where all these immaterial, abstract things come from using a purely materialistic worldview. (Hint: it isn't enough to just wave your hands in the air and say,"Naturalism does not entail determinism, nor does naturalism deny abstraction." But hey, if that doesn't work you can just hurl out a few more crude insults, declare victory and go home.)Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post-34069133934342799432007-12-29T13:33:00.000-07:002007-12-29T13:33:00.000-07:00It is interesting how you throw around abstract co...<I>It is interesting how you throw around abstract concepts like justice, while holding to purely naturalistic (and therefore deterministic) causes for our existence.</I><BR/><BR/>Naturalism does not entail determinism, nor does naturalism deny abstraction.<BR/><BR/><I>How can any such things as free will or free moral agency exist in a deterministically structured world?</I><BR/><BR/>Perhaps you might explain these recondite concepts, concepts that have as yet eluded the understanding of millennia of philosophers and theologians. Perhaps the knuckle-dragging troglodyte perspective will prove the key.<BR/><BR/><I>I notice that my response to your lame attempt at a reply to my post on your New Atheism essay has not been put up. Is your hot house militant atheism really so fragile that you can't allow a real dialogue?</I><BR/><BR/>No. I depend on email notification for comments awaiting moderation; for some reason I did not receive the notification for this comment. Now that you've brought it to my attention, it has been published.<BR/><BR/><I>[I]t surely must be fun to publicly humiliate an ignorant bumpkin like me.</I><BR/><BR/>You know, it really <I>is</I> fun.Larry Hamelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post-23767265072030897292007-12-29T12:04:00.000-07:002007-12-29T12:04:00.000-07:00It is interesting how you throw around abstract co...It is interesting how you throw around abstract concepts like justice, while holding to purely naturalistic (and therefore deterministic) causes for our existence. How can concepts such as truth, beauty or justice have any meaning absent free will and real free moral agents? How can any such things as free will or free moral agency exist in a deterministically structured world?<BR/><BR/>On another note, I notice that my response to your lame attempt at a reply to my post on your New Atheism essay has not been put up. Is your hot house militant atheism really so fragile that you can't allow a real dialogue? I thought gagging those who oppose your religion was something only Jesuits did. <BR/><BR/>I would have thought a knuckle-dragging troglodyte fundie like me would be no match for an erudite, cosmopolitan whiz kid like you. Go ahead, why don't you post my comment and then slap me down with another display of your rapier wit? After all, you're here to have fun, and it surely must be fun to publicly humiliate an ignorant bumpkin like me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post-89917296252296688592007-12-29T10:17:00.000-07:002007-12-29T10:17:00.000-07:00Am I obsessed? The issue has come up specifically ...Am I obsessed? The issue has come up specifically due to Richard Dawkins comments in <I>The God Delusion</I> and is a general topic of conversation.<BR/><BR/>Of course I have an interest in how other people's children are educated and raised: Any empathic member of a civilized society routinely assumes such interests. Hence we have institutions such as school boards, compulsory education, and laws against physical and sexual abuse.<BR/><BR/><I>Thank God for the freedom I have in this country to not have my child rearing techniques dictated to me by an angry, noisy minority.</I><BR/><BR/>Of course. Majoritarian societies such as our own justly give few rights to minorities, and even fewer rights to <I>dictate</I> much of anything to the majority. I don't see any atheist demanding the <I>minority</I> power to <I>dictate</I> child-rearing techniques. Certainly we would like to persuade a majority of people to share our view, at which point your objection would obviously be inapplicable.<BR/><BR/>And I think you are giving thanks to the wrong entity: You should be, I think, thanking those human beings who have contributed to Enlightenment notions of majoritarianism, democracy, and liberty as well as the human framers of the Constitution and American democracy.Larry Hamelinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08788697573946266404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-28755195.post-18932387926819324092007-12-29T08:29:00.000-07:002007-12-29T08:29:00.000-07:00You seem to be fairly obsessed with how children o...You seem to be fairly obsessed with how children ought to be brought up, especially with regards to worldview education. Since you appear to fall into that demographic which is producing children at a level below replacement, presumably it is <I>other people's children</I> whose education you wish to oversee. Thank God for the freedom I have in this country to not have my child rearing techniques dictated to me by an angry, noisy minority. You have the freedom to indoctrinate any of the children you father which are not either sucked into a sink or abandoned by you into whatever form of angry, militant atheism you wish, but fortunately you cannot impose your wishes on me.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com