Saturday, July 16, 2011

I Ain't Gonna Work On Darwin's Farm No More

Same story. Woke up early, and there's nothing else to do while I'm sitting here drinking my coffee, since I can't begin working until my mouth is free (I need to dictate a report).

So it seems the supernatural thing to do to rummage around in the archive, and next thing you know I've pulled out a nugget from three years ago, just because I wanted to see what was going on back then in pre-Obama times. Seems like a clear enough dividing line between "these days" and "way back when."

However, the post is not irrelevant to recent inane discussions, because it does touch on the question of why intellectuals and so-called "geniuses" are so often wrong in such foolish and/or catastrophic ways. Reader William raised the well-known example of Einstein, who, when he wasn't a savant, was often an idiot, but there is no dearth of similar cases. Paul Johnson wrote a book on the subject, but it barely scratches the surface.

Most of our problems are due to man. From this one may deduce that man is "fallen," but it doesn't really matter what you call it, so long as you get the memo: that man has intrinsic limitations, and that, whenever he tries to deny them, he makes himself a god. And not a good one.

But the garden-variety intellectual commits a double-blunder, in that he first denies the nature of man (since there is no positivistic "evidence" for it), and then -- because he is so much smarter than the rest of us -- comes up with some bright idea to cure mankind, even while denying that there is anything wrong with him, nothing that a little indoctrination and coercion can't fix. See history for details.

Think of how this principle applies to all those naive intellectuals who unironically accept Darwinism as their guide to understanding man. Among other things, all this does is transfer our fallenness to the genes: we do bad -- or good, for that matter -- because we are programmed by our genes to do so. We cannot help it. We have no free will, but are condemned by nature and nature's genes to do what we do.

There are, of course, Darwinists who do not take the argument this far, but that is the problem: either one must draw out the implications of one's first principles, or get new ones. A trollish inconsistency is the bobgoblin of little minds. There are no "buts" in metaphysics -- as in, "I am constrained by my DNA but I can still know the truth of myself, to say nothing of you peons."

Rather, one of the two must go, even -- or especially -- if one doesn't yet know what to replace it with. I mean, when did not knowing fall out of fashion? (Oh, right -- when man fell out of paradise.) It is axiomatic that "knowing" is preceded by ignorance. If one prematurely forecloses one's ignorance with knowledge, then -- ironically -- the evolution of thought comes to an end, because one has reached the end of its evolution.

On to the post. I didn't intend to start a new one:

... [T]he notion of forest does not become invalid just because it is not possible to define quantitatively the number of trees that would constitute not merely a grove but a forest. It is not possible to find the number of pages that would necessarily constitute a book and not a mere pamphlet.... Human knowledge... concerns two separate realms, quantities and non-quantities, and these two realms are irreducible to one another. --Stanley Jaki

In his The Savior of Science, Stanley Jaki -- who was not just a physicist pretending to be a theologian, but both a Jesuit and a physicist -- writes of the vital relationship between Christian theology and the development of science. In the words of Professor Blurb of the prestigious Frontflap University,

"Beginning with an overview of failed attempts at a sustained science by the ancient cultures of Greece, China, India, and the early Muslim empire, Jaki shows that belief in Christ -- a belief absent in all these cultures -- secured for science its only viable birth starting in the High Middle Ages. In the second part of the book Jaki argues that Christian monotheism alone provides the intellectual safeguards for a valid cosmological argument, restores the sense of purpose destroyed by theories of evolution, and secures firm ethical guidelines against fearful abuses of scientific know-how."

Are there limits to the scientific method, or is it absolute? What, are you an absolute moron, or only relatively stupid? For clearly, the answers are "yes" and "no," respectively. In fact, as Jaki points out, "one may rightly say that there is nothing so important as to ascertain the limits to which science can rightfully be put to use."

For example, vulgar Darwinians insist that human beings are just replicating machines, or the gene's way of making more genes. If they truly believe that, is it permissible to treat a human being as a machine? Why not? Just because we "feel" it would be bad? What if other people such as Peter Singer or Josef Stalin feel it would be a good idea to murder certain people?

There are very sharp limits to the scientific method, one of which is that it specifically applies to the relative, not the absolute. Another intrinsic limit would be Gödel's theorem(s). Others include quantifiability: "science ceases to be competent whenever a proposition is such as to have no quantitative bearing" (Jaki).

This is why, when the scientist forces his paradigm into areas that intrinsically elude its competence, he always sounds a bit stupid to those outside the cult of scientism. As they say, it would actually be funny if their psychopneumatic dictatorship weren't a real problem. Life is hard enough without having to escape from the commissars of culture just to hit bottom and start all over.

Science can only operate within a matrix of a freedom that it is powerless to explain. Rather, it just assumes a freedom that nevertheless, from its blinkered standpoint, "cannot be." Einstein: "I do not believe in free will.... This awareness of the lack of free will keeps me from taking myself and my fellow men too seriously as acting and deciding individuals, and from losing my temper."

But where did this illusory idea of freedom come from, since we are not free to harbor it? Muslims certainly don't believe in it -- much less value it -- and to the extent that scientists do, they cannot account for it. Is it a good thing? Obviously, most people, right up to the present time, don't believe so. Even in America, "land of the free," perhaps twenty to thirty percent of the population is composed of freedom-hating leftists -- most of whom undoubtedly harbor the conceit that they are more "logical" and "scientific" than religious believers.

Spengler points out the irony that Muslims and atheists are much closer in their metaphysical assumptions than are Christians with either, which is why Muslim apostates so often become atheists, for it is much easier for them to understand "no God" than a loving one:

"Islam is much closer in character to atheism than to Christianity or Judaism. Although the 'what' of Muslim and atheistic thinking of course are very different..., the 'how' is very similar. Secular liberalism, the official ideology of almost all the nations of Western Europe, offers hedonism, sexual license, anomie, demoralization and gradual depopulation. Muslims do not want this....

"For Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.... Ibn Hazm went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that 'nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God's will, we would even have to practice' idolatry.

"What does it mean for God to be 'absolutely transcendent'? .... Allah does not limit himself by ordering the world through natural law, for natural laws would impinge on his absolute freedom of action. There are no intermediate [i.e, horizontal] causes, in the sense of laws of nature. Mars traverses an ellipse around the sun not because God has instituted laws of motion that require Mars to traverse an ellipse, but because Allah at every instant directs the angular velocity of Mars. Today, Allah happens to feel like pushing Mars about in an ellipse; tomorrow he might just as well do figure-eights."

Here is a moony quote which demonstrates the moronic convergence of moongods and moonbats, and with it, the lunar eclipse of intelligence:

"That notion of a god who accepts no limitation, not even the limit of laws of nature that he created, characterizes mainstream Muslim thought since the 11th century. St Thomas Aquinas wrote of its deficiency, drawing on the critique of the 12th-century Jewish theologian and philosopher Moses Maimonides. Despite its vehement and haughtily carried-forward idea of the unity of God, Islam slides into a monistic paganism.... Allah is no more subject to laws of nature than the nature-spirits of the pagan world who infest every tree, rock and stream, and make magic according to their own whimsy" (emphases mine).

The cognitive problems of Islam are more than self-evident. But note that phrase: a god who accepts no limitation. Functionally speaking, this is no different than the scientistic god who accepts no vertical limitation, and deems itself fit to pronounce on subjects that clearly transcend it, thereby reducing intrinsically transcendent categories such as virtue, beauty, truth, freedom, dignity, nobility, charity, compassion, etc., to the deceptive and self-flattering survival strategies of genes. Only the sober Darwinist sees through the ruse of these ruthless and entirely self-interested genes.

Roger Kimball says something similar, in citing E.O. Wilson's morally and intellectually insane comment that “an organism is only DNA’s way of making more DNA.”

"Now, just sit back and think about that. Think, for example, of your favorite organism -- your spouse, for example: is he or she only DNA’s way of making more DNA? Is E. O. Wilson himself only a mechanism for the production of deoxyribonucleic acid?" (This is what I mean when I say that metaphysical Darwinism is logically self-refuting.)

Likewise, the renowned scientistic theologian Richard Dawkins says that we are just a "robot-vehicle blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes." Not only does this intellectual pablum converge with the fatalistic and freedom-hating Muslims, but with the deterministic Marxists and their many modern-day spawn who believe, for example, that poverty, rather than bad values, causes crime.

I have no doubt that they will eventually identify the "gene for crime" -- if they haven't already -- which will make the tyrannical marriage between Darwinism and leftism complete. Instead of the radically transcendent religion of Islam, it will be the radically immanent religion of Scientism. But both result in a fascistic repression of our divine-human birthright, i.e., our humanness.

A couple more passages by Spengler before I attempt to tie this all together and wrap up: "the absolute transcendence of Allah in the physical world is the cognate of his despotic character as a spiritual ruler, who demands submission and service from his creatures. The Judeo-Christian God loves his creatures and, in an act (so to speak) of love, makes them free. Humankind only can be free if nature is rational, that is, if God places self-appointed limits on his own sphere of action. In a world ordered by natural law, humankind through its faculty of reason can learn these laws and act freely. In the alternative case, the absolute freedom of Allah crowds out all human freedom of action, leaving nothing but the tyranny of caprice and fate."

"The empty and arbitrary world of atheism is far closer to the Muslim universe than the Biblical world, in which God orders the world out of love for humankind, so that we may in freedom return the love that our creator bears for us. Atheism is an alternative to Islam closer to Muslim habits of mind than the love-centered world of Judaism and Christianity."

I guess I don't have to tie it all together, because that pretty much did it.

Contrary to the claim that DNA is the secret of life, life remains the secret of DNA.... Microbiology has not found a quantitative answer to the question of free will. Brain research cannot answer the question, "What is that experience, called 'now,'" which is at the very center of consciousness.... Nor is the universe as such an object for science. Scientists cannot go outside the universe in order to observe the whole of it. --Stanley Jaki

53 comments:

Rick said...

"robot-vehicle blindly programmed to preserve the selfish molecules known as genes."

Programmed by whom?

"I do not believe in free will...."

Finally a decision!

Rick said...

You know, he had to put "blindly" before "programmed" for reason.
It doesn't help. How could it.

julie said...

I have no doubt that they will eventually identify the "gene for crime" -- if they haven't already -- which will make the tyrannical marriage between Darwinism and leftism complete.

Just this week, we learn that men with wide faces are more likely to engage in unethical behavior. Perhaps we should lock 'em all up, then, and leave the ferrety-faced fellows free to live their scientifically-proven ethical lives free of the trouble caused by the broad of visage.

***

On a more serious note, it occurred to me yesterday that one of the questions always on the table here is, "what if atheism?"

Clearly, the atheists don't much like the conclusions but it is an important game to play. I've noticed, though, that the humorless scientismists among us are almost never willing to play the opposite game, "what if God?"

In fact, it was almost notable yesterday when William popped in to say "If...," except of course he was playing the wrong game: "If Bob," which is just silly. Truth is truth regardless of what Bob thinks it is. The important question is, "If God, then ??" If Willionymous would ask himself that, we'd all be the better for it.

Rick said...

Julie, there was a Gag who went something like this, "Either God exists or he doesn't." No in between and either one makes offers you can't refuse. Demands.

Dawkins' God is so flimsy. Way too flimsy and weak and shallow and childish to explain someone as ordered and planned and programmed as Dawkins. I mean his genes.

Rick said...

Re the wide faces, it reminds of that thing a while back about creases in the earlobe being a sign of heart disease. I told my wife I'll just get some Botox injections.

julie said...

Rick, lol - too bad you're not in LA. You could get a discount on Botox injections from Michael Jackson's dermatologist this weekend for Carmageddon.

Re. either/ or,

Come to think of it most atheists don't seem to play "What if atheism," either. They just proclaim it so without following the proposition to its fullest (or rather, shallowest) conclusions.

Rick said...

Discount! Whatacountry :-)

William said...

First, Bob needs an education on the historical development of science. He furthers the myth that Christianity was instrumental in the development of science, where the facts show quite the contrary. They didn't call it the "Dark Ages" for nuthin'.

One only has to look at the pre christian technology, almost inexplicably advanced, evidenced by the pyramids at Giza, Machu Picchu, Mayans, etc...

While Bob has used his ignorant stilted thesis to bash Muslims, and those other 'lesser infidels', he should consider where modern mathematics and engineering came from. Around the same time pre christian greek mathematicans (Euclid, Pythagoras) were making advances, India produced a number of important mathematic concepts ( i.e. the Surya Prajnapti).

What happened durinr the first 10 centuries of christianity in the christian world compared to the non-christian world? Lets start in 415 when a Christian mob murdered the mathematician and philosophy teacher, Hypatia -generally thought of as the beginnng of the Dark Ages. When Christians took over Europe, they abandoned many of the accomplishments of their predecessors. Although the Church educated their male clergy, in Western Europe the majority of women, the poor, and and serfs remained ignorant. The first schools didn't appear in Europe until around 400 years after the beginning of the Dark Ages. King Charlemagne started the schools, and over time the schools fused with the church to become cathedral schools, but these schools taught mostly to male students for careers in the church, not for scientific investigation into nature. Degree-granting universities didn't appear until centuries later. During the Black Death in the 1300s, the Christian masses panicked and looked for supernatural solutions. They thought the plague came as an act of God, not nature.

The first Roman blacklisting occurred in 1559 under the direction of Pope Paul IV and entire works of some 550 authors got on the Roman index, including authors of subjects ranging from botany, medicine, geography, and cosmography. Christians burned the priest Giordano Bruno to death in 1600 for the charge of holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith. Bruno praised Copernicus for establishing a scientific explanation for heliocentrism and published dialogues on the subject. (By the way, The Greek thinker, Aristarchus of Samos, developed the first heliocentric theory around 270 BCE, not Copernicus as many Christians falsely believe.)

During a Roman Catholic Inquisition, they imprisoned Galileo for his heretical beliefs of a heliocentric solar system and forced him, under threat of torture, to recant. In spite of his recantation, Galileo had to spend the rest of his life under house arrest. Isaac Newton studied occult religion in secret. If some of the Anglican Christian authorities had discovered this, they would have labeled him a heretic.

William said...

Science comes not from ideology or religion; it derives from natural human curiosity and the will to know, not the will to believe. Humans have an evolved innate built-in curiosity and science cannot survive without it. Religion fosters the capacity to fool oneself and to believe without evidence (faith).

The Old Testament starts with the condemnation of eating from the the tree of knowledge (Gen. 2:17) and the term "Doubting Thomas" derived from the New Testament (John 20:24-29) refers to one that refuses to believe something without direct evidence.

Revealingly, the scientists that Christians usually cite, lived during the Renaissance or the Age of Enlightenment when the Church began to lose its power and the populace began to wake up from its religious stupor. None of them (except for a very few), lived during the Dark Ages. If the foundation of science depended on Christianity, then why-oh-why didn't science develop and flourish during the Dark Ages at the height of Christian power and influence? They had centuries to invent or advance astronomy, chemistry, and mathematics, but they didn't. Why not? Because to do good science, you need an environment that encourages scientific thought, and the Church did little in this regard.

julie said...

lol

Now I really have to get to work...

Gagdad Bob said...

I thank William for sharing so many outdated cliches about the relationship between science and Christianity. In truth, as early as Whitehead's Science and the Modern World, this facile caricature was thoroughly debunked.

Van Harvey said...

"But the garden-variety intellectual commits a double-blunder, in that he first denies the nature of man (since there is no positivistic "evidence" for it), and then -- because he is so much smarter than the rest of us -- comes up with some bright idea to cure mankind, even while denying that there is anything wrong with him, nothing that a little indoctrination and coercion can't fix. See history for details"

Ssspeaking of that garden variety asshat, here's the latest assought from the quantitative upon the Qualitative, "Brain Co-Opts the Body to Promote Moral Behavior, Study Finds"

"The human brain may simulate physical sensations to prompt introspection, capitalizing on moments of high emotion to promote moral behavior, according to a USC researcher.

... found that individuals who were told stories designed to evoke compassion and admiration for virtue sometimes reported that they felt a physical sensation in response. These psycho-physical "pangs" of emotion are very real -- they're detectable with brain scans -- and may be evidence that pro-social behavior is part of human survival.

Immordino-Yang's hypothesis, borne out thus far by her research, is that the feeling or emotional reactions in the body may sometimes prompt introspection, and can ultimately promote moral choices and motivation to help or emulate others.

"These emotions are foundational for morality and social learning. They have the power to change the course of your very life," Immordino-Yang said"


Now all that's left to be done is to discover the formula for evoking compassion responses, in order to stimulate virtue pangs, then we'll make something of our educational system, I'll tell you what! Jolt + pang->virtue=utopia!

William said...

Islam slides into a monistic paganism.... Allah is no more subject to laws of nature than the nature-spirits of the pagan world who infest every tree, rock and stream, and make magic according to their own whimsy"

While Christian Europe produced very little significant science for several centuries, Islamic hakims - scientists and philosophers played a central role in the development of science in medieval Islam. Have you heard the term "Arabic numerals"?

For example;

al-Khwarizmi (ca. 8th - 9th century) - mathematician, geographer and astronomer. He is regarded as the greatest mathematician of Islamic civilization. He was instrumental in the adoption of the Indian numbering system, later known as Arabic numerals. His developed algebra by introducing methods of simplifying the equations. He used Euclidian geometry in his proofs.

al-Battani (850-922) was an astronomer who accurately determined the length of the solar year. He contributed to numeric tables, such as the Tables of Toledo, used by astronomers to predict the movements of the sun, moon and planets across the sky. Battani's astronomic tables were later used by Copernicus centuries later.

Jabir ibn Hayyan (ca. 8th - 9th century) - developed laboratory techniques and experimental methods of chemistry. He identified many substances including sulfuric and nitric acid. He described processes including sublimation, reduction and distillation.

Jafar-Muhammad, Ahmad and al-Hasan (ca. early 9th century) were three sons of an astronomer. They elaborated the mathematics of cones and ellipses, and performed astronomic calculations.

Ibn Ishaq al-Kindi (801-873) was a philosopher and polymath scientist who wrote a piece on the subject of time, space and relative movement.

Hunayn ibn Ishaq (809-873) was a physician and a writer on medical subjects. Some of his translations of medical works were used in Europe for centuries. He also wrote on medical subjects, particularly on the human eye.

Abbas ibn Firnas (810-887) scientist, musician and inventor. He developed a clear glass and lenses used for magnification and the improvement of vision.

Ibrahim ibn Sina (Avicenna) (908-946) was a physician, astronomer, physicist and mathematician. In addition to his master work, The Canon of Medicine, he also made important astronomical observations, and discussed a variety of topics including the different forms energy can take, and the properties of light. He contributed to the development of mathematical equational techniques.

Omar Khayyam (1048-1131) was a mathematician who calculated the length of the year to within 5 decimal places. He found geometric solutions to all 13 forms of cubic equations. He developed some quadratic equations still in use.

etc....

Infidels!

Gagdad Bob said...

Indeed, some Muslim apologists even say they discovered zero. Problem is, they've been discovering it ever since.

Gagdad Bob said...

And Muslims also invented the two-piece bathing suit: a burka and a snorkel.

Van Harvey said...

"There are, of course, Darwinists who do not take the argument this far, but that is the problem: either one must draw out the implications of one's first principles, or get new ones. A trollish inconsistency is the bobgoblin of little minds. There are no "buts" in metaphysics -- as in, "I am constrained by my DNA but I can still know the truth of myself, to say nothing of you peons." "

Nail. Hammer. Wham.

"... It is axiomatic that "knowing" is preceded by ignorance. If one prematurely forecloses one's ignorance with knowledge, then -- ironically -- the evolution of thought comes to an end, because one has reached the end of its evolution. "

Hence the leftist know-it-all who never learned to say "No, I don't know", no's it all with what he feels he knows.

Van Harvey said...

Wow again willian, you really are a prize demonstration of the ignorance of those who no. Have you heard the term Babylon? Or Aristotle? How about Alexander? Caesar? How about ghastly al-Ghazali? Islam had nothing to do with any of them, except the last, who wiped them from the minds of the Mid-East.

The sciences which developed in the Mid-East found their existence and roots the the Greek culture which Alexander spread throughout the lands, particularly in Alexandria, and through the Romans, in Byzantium/Constantinople. If you actually bothered to look into the histories of those you mentioned, and other leading lights such as Averroes (sometimes Ibn Rushd), Avicenna, al-Khwārizmī, etc, you'll find that their intellectual roots did not spread from anything having to with 'Islamic culture', but from the Greek & Roman learning which they had established throughout the region for centuries before the coming of mohamed.

Algebra has it’s roots going back to Babylon, not islam, as did much of the techniques which led the Greeks to develop Geometry, but those techniques stultified and died where they were born in the Mid East, it wasn't the physical techniques which were important, but the philosophical thinking of the Greeks which led to everything the islambies leach off of the West even today.

The men you mentioned feasted on much of the treasures of the West, Greek and Latin philosophy, which were lost to us with the fall of Rome in the west, and later its eastern half in Byzantium, at the hands of the barbaric islambies. To the credit of the Greco/Roman culture which survived mohamed in Persia, those treasures continued on in their hands; Science, Mathematics, Medicine, which they used to create things such as Telescope's and an impressive (and bathing) civilization. But they still had to choose between the past and the future (the past being the barbarity of islam, and the future being that which was lost with Greece & Rome), and had they chosen otherwise, and followed through with it, today it might the West that was striving to keep up with the Middle East.

But that isn't the case, is it? Ever wonder why?

We faced a similar choice in the west after the fall of Rome, and the battle tipped back and forth for quite a while, and just when it seemed darkest, the efforts of Alberto Magnus & his pupil Thomas Aquinas began to win out, and the Aristotelian, Greco-Roman view was reintroduced with the remarkable leavening agent of Christianity and the first ever valuation of the Individual Soul, and its prize realization of Free Will and the importance of choice.

(Break)

Van Harvey said...

(cont)

They were not so lucky in the Mid East, when their decision point came they had a similar philosophical duel, between Greek and Latin thought, and Islamic dogma. Aristotle, Averroes, Avicenna, Islam and their Dark Side version of Aquinas, Al-Ghazzali. Sadly for Persia and the world, Al-(Ghastly) Ghazali won. Not even wiki can completely leave that out, it notes on his 11th century book "The Incoherence of the Philosophers":

"The Incoherence also marked a turning point in Islamic philosophy in its vehement rejections of Aristotle and Plato. The book took aim at the falasifa, a loosely defined group of Islamic philosophers from the 8th through the 11th centuries (most notable among them Avicenna and Al-Farabi) who drew intellectually upon the Ancient Greeks. Ghazali bitterly denounced Aristotle, Socrates and other Greek writers as non-believers and labeled those who employed their methods and ideas as corrupters of the Islamic faith."

They chose not to further integrate Greek and Latin thought, or any type of secular learning into their islamic dogma, they never allowed Humanism of any significant form after that period (case in point is Salman Rushdie). If there is any point in history that you can point to and see the light of learning being extinguished from the Middle East, and theocratic totalitarianism embedding itself beyond recall, that was it. From there on out, it became the "In ša? Allah", "if God wills it", endemic fatalism, and the Mullah's who decree what it is that Allah wills, which has drawn out all the worst of religious belief tied in with statism, and the absolute control of True Believers intent on imposing perfection upon their lands and subjects.

Infidels? Damn right they are. And you with them.

anon said...

I wonder why you would take the word of a Catholic theologian about the nature of Islam. Would you form your opinion of Catholicism by listening to Ayatollah Khomeni?

It is undeniable, as Wiliam says, that the Islamic civilization was ahead of the West in learning for many centuries; just as undeniable that is behind now. The reason for both of these facts is a whole tangle of complex social and historical reasons; it can't be boiled down to simpleminded metaphysical slogans.

Van Harvey said...

Hey willian, your name Jim Walker? No? Stop swiping his stuff.

Or did he swipe it from someone else? That's what's such a pain with leftists and thieves (sorry for repeating myself), it's so hard to tell which thief first tried to pass off stolen goods as their own, as long as it breaks with reality, they figure it's fair game.

Van Harvey said...

anunce said " it can't be boiled down to simpleminded metaphysical slogans."

No, only to those who think metaphysics is simple minded.

(that'd be you)

julie said...

I wonder why you would take the word of a Catholic theologian about the nature of Islam. Would you form your opinion of Catholicism by listening to Ayatollah Khomeni?

Says the atheist who would tell Christians how to be Christian...

Gagdad Bob said...

If nothing else, our trolls reflect the mullah-terror & nasty-old-leftist complex discussed in the post, and which Eisenhower so presciently warned us about.

William said...

Van,
Thanks you for reiterating my points regarding contributions from non-christian cultures, most notably, the ancient Greeks and Romans - that practiced and pagan mythical religions and that much of their science was lost after christianity arrived. Also, note, many of the Muslim scientists and mathematicians did in fact draw upon priniclpes of these ancient pagan cultures, notably the Greeks, but they also drew upon Hindu mathematicians from India..

No need to belabor the Christian apologist BS. You've just reinforced what I said.

William said...

And on Darwin. I would like to discuss this on Bob's turf, since he has recently been discussing the papacy.

First, every leading scientific professional organization has through position statements unequivocally endorsed evolution as a widely accepted and well-proven scientific fact. I find it unfortunate and igorant that one would use religion as a basis for science denial.

Science denial was most certainly a part of christianity through the Dark Ages and even persisting through the Inquisitions, however, that is NOT the case today.

Father George V. Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory said, "Pope John Paul’s declaration that evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis is a fundamental church teaching which advances the evolutionary debate....Intelligent Design is not science, invented to avoid the overwhelming evidence for purpose and design found in modern science"


Archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Church's Pontifical Council for Culture said, "the Church had never formally condemned Darwin, in the last 50 years a number of Popes had accepted evolution as a valid scientific approach to human development. Evolution could be traced back through Scholastics such as St Thomas Aquinas to St Augustine in the fourth century"

You see, belief in God doesn't dictate a ignorance of science, as Bob would like his minions to believe. His attitudes are a thinly veiled divisive tactic to attack those of different beliefs, perhaps to buildhimself up, as evidenced by this post. He shows us the pitfalls and divisiveness of religion with nearly every post. He starts out by talking about Darwin and begins a screed against Muslims and atheists.

Typical Bob.

Don't believe his bullshit. God is much bigger and more encompassing than he thinks, according to Catholic church leaders.

Checkmate.

Van Harvey said...

willian simpered "No need to belabor the Christian apologist BS. You've just reinforced what I said."

Correct. No need to wonder why science failed to flourish where it originated outside of Christianity. Nothing to see there. Move along.

As I must... very late. Ta.

julie said...

William said...

Aw, why bother quoting. The point is, L.O.L.

Criminy, man, for someone as obsessed with Bob as you are can't you read?

Gagdad Bob said...

Not really my business, but dude, you're pushing against a wide open door. Not only do the Protocols of Toots affirm an unwavering belief in cosmic and terrestrial evolution, but they require us to practice it daily with unstinting diligence.

Gagdad Bob said...

Indeed, the very fact that we once thought and believed just as our subspiritual troll does, is sufficient proof of evolution.

Gagdad Bob said...

I even have this vague recollection of having written a book on the subject of cosmic evolution, but I could be wrong about that. I sometimes mix myself up with Deepak.

julie said...

Indeed. I hope my laughter doesn't come across as malice, it's just that I'm getting a very Python-esque picture of the poor fellow bouncing up and down, crying, "he said Evolution! Stone him!!"

It's like he skims the post for some buzz-word that trips a circuit in his brain, and he seizes on just that word while missing the entire context, and proceeds to flog the point with a single-minded mania that would be impressive - if it were in pursuit of anything that reflected reality.

Hah - wv says he manglets the ideas beyond all recognition.

Gagdad Bob said...

Some people even apparently consider me one of the LEADING FIGURES of evolutionary spirituality -- which, first of all, is untrue, plus the link is to an expert on Led Zeppelin. To be clear, our OLDEN PNEUMAGAIN IMPROVISATIONAL ORTHOPARADOXICAL NEOTRADITIONAL RETROFUTURISM has some overlap with those chumps, but the differences are more striking and less remunerative.

Gagdad Bob said...

And if anyone knows how to edit wiki, they should definitely link that reference to the blog....

Van Harvey said...

willian said " Thanks you for reiterating my points"
Not to be rude, but as I pointed out, they weren't your your points, you plagiarized them. Not that thats surprising, leftist and all, but as Julie pointed out, you don't read, and apparently you don't write either... So... Don't be surprised by your own ignorance, we're certainly not.
Class is on again, see ya

Gagdad Bob said...

Or to BobWatch. Either one will suffice.

anon said...

One of the things that always bugged me about atheism is that it is defined wholly negatively, by what it doesn't believe in.

However, it seems to me that Bob and the Bobbies have a similar problem. Whatever they do believe in, its apparently not very much, or they wouldn't have to spend 80% of their energy critiquing, mocking, and misunderstanding what they don't believe in, such as the left and Islam, which apparently have blended together in their odd worldview, and the achievements of any culture other than American.

It's a pretty weak belief system that only can define itself by what it hates. It's lazy.

And to be sure, a good part of the contemporary "left" (not the actual left, but the Democratic half of the electorate) defines itself by what it hates, which is again a weakness.

Gagdad Bob said...

Indeed. The cult of Bobism is nearly as debased as the cult of anti-Bobism.

julie said...

Again with the inability to read...

As to BobWatch, I don't read it but its very existence is amusing, if a little sad as well. As the purveyor of my own blog, I'd be more than a little ashamed if I couldn't come up with something to post that doesn't revolve around One Cosmos...

Gagdad Bob said...

Wait -- are you suggesting that Willianon is incapable of coming up with something that doesn't revolve around One Cosmos?

julie said...

I suppose there is running, but other than that it certainly seems so...

Gagdad Bob said...

Bob's worse than Moses -- DON'T lie, DON'T steal, DON'T murder, DON'T envy. What the hell is he for, anyway?

Aloysius said...

William you define arrogance

Gagdad Bob said...

Now now. You were once 18.

JP said...

Bob's quotation of Professor Blurb says:

"Beginning with an overview of failed attempts at a sustained science by the ancient cultures of Greece, China, India, and the early Muslim empire, Jaki shows that belief in Christ -- a belief absent in all these cultures -- secured for science its only viable birth starting in the High Middle Ages."

Unless you see "science" as part of the rolling out of a High Culture across time and space.

Since we are at the peak of Western Culture-Civilization, we get to experience what appears to us to be "sustained science". We need to wait 200-300 years to see if it really is sustained.

And Islam is the Protestant version of Orthodox Christianity. They make excellent puritans. The science of Islam has it's roots in the Byzantine empire.

I'm unfortunately stuck with Spengler's Civilizational Model unless someone can get me a new one that works better.

Serr8d said...

Oh, my. Seems you've been infested with the plagiarizing troll Dr. William Yelverton, known far and wide as an insatiable spam-splattering LeftLibProgg who can't be reasoned with. When he wears out his welcome at one venue, he'll seek out another and start his inane never-varying spiel once again: BOOOOOSH! hatred, Christian-hatred and repeat those same tired memes ad nauseum.

He had a run at protein wisdom just a while back; as you can imagine, Jeff Goldstein lit him up and banned his goofy arse forever. Then on to Patterico's; same M.O., same result.

The only place he hasn't dared to set foot is Ace's. I'd buy tickets for that one, if he ever works up the nerve!

Gagdad Bob said...

Epic.

Although, I'm a little offended that you think Ace could better eviscerate him! It's just that here, it all goes over his head, so he keeps returning to beclown himself.

Serr8d said...

William is a featherweight. Ace wouldn't have to roll out of bed. The commentariat there would handle his light work.

Here's our mutual troll, famously serenading a cat. Mike LaRoche supplied the caption.

Gagdad Bob said...

I hate to admit it, but your old Gagdad might be stumped for a caption. That photo is too far beyond parody.

julie said...

Wow. That's him? Why am I suddenly reminded of the Unabomber?

Gagdad Bob said...

Best comments at Protein Wisdom:

I’m trying to figure out what motivates someone like Willie. I guess it must be overwhelming narcissisim coupled with a very strong sense of entitlement. He thinks the thoughts of others that he agrees with must be shared (cut and paste), and must be accepted as fact by those he deigns to bless with them. He also seems to think the he gets to make the rules on private property, and that private property must somehow obey legal restrictions against the government suppressing speech.

His shallowness of understanding is quite remarkable.

I still think this is just a desperate cry for attention. He might very well be slipping into madness, but in the least he should consider seeing a professional about his obsession. Most people, when asked to leave, do so. The fact that he refused to do so is telling.

Can you imagine what it would be like for a psychiatrist to do an evaluation of a 50+ year old drooling idiot midget that sock puppets people, impersonates others, repeatedly visits places he has been repeatedly banned at, and is otherwise a classic mendoucheous twatwaffle?

That’s part of what I really don’t get about him. He has a nice place. He’s probably pretty good at the guitar thing. What the fuck does he have to be so damn angry about?

It’s in Nowhere, Tennessee, hence cheaper than dirt. Plus he’s a 50 year old man with no grown up responsibilities like, say, a family, so it’s not a home so much as a monument to what a loser he is.

Competent but not inspiring. He gets all the notes right and at the right tempo, and it ain’t easy stuff, but there’s no real life to it. Reminds me of when I used to program Bach 2- 3- and 4- part inventions into the computer because Bach very much lends itself to mechanical perfection (and it was fun to listen to each melody line separately). However, there was no spark to it, no human interpretation to add that subtle little touch that makes the difference between genius and competence.

I’ve got some classical guitar on my iTunes, and Yelverton ain’t no Fisk, Yepes, or Parkening. Not even close.

julie said...

mendoucheous twatwaffle

Love it.

Also, it sounds like it could be the name of a band...

julie said...

Or a villain in a Roald Dahl story...

Cond0011 said...

"The empty and arbitrary world of atheism is far closer to the Muslim universe than the Biblical world, in which God orders the world out of love for humankind, so that we may in freedom return the love that our creator bears for us. Atheism is an alternative to Islam closer to Muslim habits of mind than the love-centered world of Judaism and Christianity."

Yea.

As it is worth repeating:

We are trapped between the Fires of Islam and the Ice of Atheism.

Gerard brought to my attention this beautiful poem by Robert Frost:

Fire and Ice

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I've tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

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