QuantumTroll wrote:Yarr, I meant for this to post yesterday, but I failed at mouse-clicking.
Metacrock wrote:
The only counter-argument I've heard is "but God could be behind it all", which isn't a counter-argument at all because I agree with that statement.
when are you going to start reflecting people's argument honestly and the way they used them? I put forth a complex and sophisticated position involving the concept, religious a priori and you just come back and say "God could be behind it all." is that what I really said? no it is not and you know it is not. No way does that do justice to the arguments I've made.
why can't you refute them honestly?
QT; I don't know which post you're talking about. The only time you mentioned a priori anything was when you said "God is necessary because if anything at all exists, then God is a priori, since God is being itself." God is necessary if anything at all exists, QED folks, let's go home. Uhh, yeah...
I was specifically responding to the charge that my arguments, and view of God are weak. I think they are far stronger than any Christian apologist I see on the net.
I guess "nothing in physics can take us beyond the Big Bang" is a counter-argument, but it's very weak because
weak! weak! it's the whole of the matter, it's the whole nub of the matter. why can't you deal honestly with arguments? If it doesn't your pre conceived bigoted notions you just dismiss it as though it means nothing that is not thinking. that is nto what the big thinkers do. that's the cowards way. "that doesn't' fit the precieved I made all ready so it jsut can't be. I can't accept it so it doesn't exist.
OT: I gave you 4 good reasons why the argument is weak, and you didn't address any of them. I'd explain them in more detail if you showed any interest at all in listening to what I'm saying.
But those reasons, if I have the right four in mind, don't mean anything. Evolution is an assumption I make. It's not fair to allege that ti some how makes God unnecessary,when it is part of theological world view. Same is true of emergent properties. I assume emergent properties to explain human spirit. So where's the sense in using that when it's part of my theology?
the other two I don't remember. I don't think you answered any of my God arguments much less the a priori.
QT:Quite frankly, I'm currently more interested in hearing what you think about my "new" theory of God than having an argument about this stuff. As a die-hard scientician, God-as-meme is quite compelling, and I think you'll find some things you like about it as well.
It would be hard to answer that without insulting you. I would have to forgo telling you what i really think of "memes." But suffice to say I think its' an illusion created by the fact that ideas spread epidemiologically because they are told by one person to another. The rest is a con game by unscrupulous people like Dawkins.
For instance, the religious a priori is there, and now I can accept the religious a priori because it is explained by logical universals and our brain structures that inevitably produce certain categories in thought.
First of all why must it be explained?
Secondly, why wasn't it explained anyway, as long as you are not explaining it away. You still don't seem to get the drift. when you reduce a concept ot a ponit where the thing observed to begin with no longer exists, you have no won the argument, you have merely explained away the phenomena. that is a bad move. That's not a disproof. it's proof your reductionism is ideologically driven.
Explaining something away is not an explanation. its' a doge.
Thirdly, God is beyond our understanding so any attempt to or claim to "explain God" is a prori foolish. you can't explain God.
The memetic definition of God is quite rigorous and grounded in reality, although turning it into a divine Creator requires some far-fetched sci-fi. While everything (God included) is ultimately explained by fundamental laws of physics, God can't be understood in those terms any more than biology, so there's a scientific motivation to treat God "on its own turf".
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that is nothing more than a con job. It's like HRG's mathematical crap. I can use big words you don't know about to impress you and make you think I have secret knowledge you don't have. I can do that stuff too. that's what Transcendental signifier is about. O that's a real idea, and it's a good argument, but I use those Derrida terms fight back at Hans for his elitist secret knowledge stuff.
that's all that meme crap is. It's just a way of saying "I can keep your ideas at arms length." NO I am not saying you are doing that. I think you take them seriously because you have hoodwinked into thinking Dawkins is really a good scientist.
My friend Latz Miller, best buddy for all of life science first grade, wrote the anti-Dennett article for Negations, tells me that Dawkins is not a major scientist, he doesn't necessarily know any more than my old freshman biology prof. Hes' not great the meme stuff is not a done deal. It's not like nuclear physics or anything.
Lantz was graduate student at MIT, got Masters in some science, worked in the lab of the guy who invented asritame, for Nature magizine and editor of some Science journal.
I'm sure a lot of the problem is I can't read your writing very well.
Look here. Throughout this thread, I've mostly used physical arguments (you know, the kind of arguments that built lasers and stuff) to show that the universe can be completely physical, and that God might be a part of this universe. I'm actually going to need some physical counter-arguments before I'll back down even an inch. Character assassination of Dawkins will accomplish about as much as character assassination of Darwin, it's simply irrelevant. I admit that a lot of meme theory is pretty sketchy, but I'm convinced there's really something to it because it sometimes really helps to explain stuff. And that is, after all, how I judge the character of an idea. More on this later...