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filthy
SFN Die Hard
USA
14408 Posts |
 Posted - 04/23/2008 : 03:40:47
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Investigating Atheism is quite an interesting site that I found at, of all places, Uncommon Descent.
Smelling out a Rat, or The Atheistical-Revolutionist disturbed in his Midnight 'Calculations'
Published by Hannah Humphrey in 1790 (hand-coloured etching) by Gillray, James (1757-1815) © Courtesy of the Warden and Scholars of New College, Oxford/ The Bridgeman Art Library.
It has several links that are worth a look. Exerpt from 'Atheism & Evolution' :
"“Atheism & Evolution”
Chapter 8 in: The Cambridge Companion to Atheism (2007) Ed. Michael Martin. copyright Cambridge University Press, all rights reserved..
Descartes, in the Meditations (1641), notes that “there are only two ways of proving the existence of God, one by means of his effects, and the other by means of his nature or essence” (AT VII, 120). The latter, a priori path, represented paradigmatically by the ontological argument of St. Anselm (and its offspring, including Descartes' own version), has perennial appeal to a certain sort of philosopher, but leaves most people cold. The former, represented paradigmatically by the argument from design, is surely the most compelling of all arguments against atheism, and it apparently arises spontaneously whenever people anywhere are challenged to justify their belief in God. William Paley's example of finding a watch while strolling on the heath epitomizes the theme and leads, he says, to “the inference we think is inevitable, that the watch must have had a maker – that there must have existed, at some time and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer, who comprehended its construction and designed its use” (Paley 1800). Until Darwin came along, this was a respectable argument, worthy of Hume's corrosive but indecisive broadside in his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion (1779). Descartes himself subscribed to a version of the argument from design, in his notorious Third Meditation argument that his idea of God was too wonderful to have been created by him. Though Descartes surely considered himself intelligent, and moreover an accomplished designer of ideas, he could not imagine that he could be the intelligent designer of his own idea of God.
The familiar idea that the marvels of the universe prove the existence of God as its creator is perhaps as old as our species, or even older. Did Homo habilis, the “handy” man who made the first crude tools, have some dim and inarticulate sense that it always takes a big fancy smart thing to make a less fancy thing? We never saw a pot making a potter, or a horseshoe making a blacksmith, after all. This trickle-down, mind-first vision of design seems self-evident at first. A creationist propaganda pamphlet I was once given by a student exploits this intuition with a mock questionnaire:"
Said questionaire is brief and pretty much typical of the genre. No smoking please; you're apt to set the straw alight.
I haven't gone through all of them yet, but will.
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"What luck for rulers that men do not think." -- Adolf Hitler (1889 - 1945)
"If only we could impeach on the basis of criminal stupidity, 90% of the Rethuglicans and half of the Democrats would be thrown out of office." ~~ P.Z. Myres
"The default position of human nature is to punch the other guy in the face and take his stuff." ~~ Dude
Brother Boot Knife of Warm Humanitarianism,
and Crypto-Communist! 
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the_ignored
SFN Addict
2562 Posts |
Posted - 04/23/2008 : 12:23:03 [Permalink]
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Hah! You people say I'm the one who's a glutton for punishment?
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>From: enuffenuff@fastmail.fm
(excerpt follows):
> I'm looking to teach these two bastards a lesson they'll never forget.
> Personal visit by mates of mine. No violence, just a wee little chat.
>
> **** has also committed more crimes than you can count with his
> incitement of hatred against a religion. That law came in about 2007
> much to ****'s ignorance. That is fact and his writing will become well
> know as well as him becoming a publicly known icon of hatred.
>
> Good luck with that fuckwit. And Reynold, fucking run, and don't stop.
> Disappear would be best as it was you who dared to attack me on my
> illness knowing nothing of the cause. You disgust me and you are top of
> the list boy. Again, no violence. Just regular reminders of who's there
> and visits to see you are behaving. Nothing scary in reality. But I'd
> still disappear if I was you.
What brought that on? this. Original posting here.
Another example of this guy's lunacy here. |
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Investigating Atheism
