My reply:
Well, you pretty much ignored the majority of the questions I asked, made several more empty claims, made appeal to authority fallacies and basically preached your beliefs at me. The one point you did argue was that materialism is bad (even though your original point was that it was only illogical--please don't change the subject).
Needless to say, I am not amused.
I appreciate you returning my message but the problem with ignorance is that you do not know what you do not know.
And since you clearly know so little about science, biology, evolution, cosmology etc, what business do you have criticising their findings?
I have acquired a very good understanding of intellectual history and its development from studying the Germans who realize the importance of these matters much more than Americans.
So how does ANY of this make you knowledgable to
overturn the conclusions of science?
> I was pretty much a regular ignorant
> materialist created by an
> ignorant society and a biased college education
> until I started to study
> intellectual history and then realized that I was
> not even aware of the most
> important questions. I read St. Augustine and
> learned to understand his
> Platonic criticism of science and materialism. He
> wrote, "For there are
> some individuals who, having abandoned virtue and
> not knowing what God is
> nor the majesty of His eternal and immutable nature,
> suppose themselves to
> be engaged in a great enterprise when they busy
> themselves with intense and
> eager curiosity exploring that universal mass of
> matter we call the world. .
> . . . For it is by such desire that the soul is
> deceived into thinking that
> nothing but matter exists, . . ."
Appeal to authority fallacy. Why should St.
Augustine's opinions be considered the number one
authority on these matters or even have any validity
at all?
> When I first read that I felt that
> Augustine was being biased and unfair
And THERE is your problem. You judge not by whether
or not an idea is logical but whether or not it is
"biased and unfair". That is a TEXTBOOK ad-hominem
fallacy.
> and then I realized that, yes, the
> Scientific Revolution did lead to materialism,
> especially the dialectical
> materialism of Marxism.
Hardly. The scientific method DEPENDS on observation
while Marx's followers do the same thing with his
works as you do with St. Augustine's. "Its true
because he says so".
I can use the scientific method to show WHY communism
is flawed. It makes numerous false assumptions of
human nature and commits the alternative syllogism
fallacy (if not A, then B) or in other words, if
capitalism isn't 100% perfect, then communism wins by
default, eventhough communism is far worse.
> What made possible a rational belief in
> materialism? Evolution, a mechanism to explain life
> on earth through random processes rather than God.
Hardly. Logic predates Darwin by many centuries.
William of Occam (a theologian) first came up with the
idea of parsimony (a.k.a. Occam's Razor) in the 14th
century. THAT is the principle that makes materialism
rational. Because God can not be observed in any
objective, verifiable way, the logical conclusion is
that he doesn't exist.
So much for your claims of being a history expert.
> And what was the result? A Communist ideology
Again, blatently untrue. Evolution and Communism are
polar OPPOSITES. When applied to econimic systems,
evolution is the blueprint for CAPITOLISM. In a free
market society, strong business survive, weak ones die
and the society as a whole becomes stronger which is
the exact same thing evlution says about biological
species.
> that taught that man is God and could perfect
> humanity and the world.
That thought is hardly unique to Communist states.
The idea of divine humans dates back to the EGYPTIANS
who viewed Pharoh as a god.
> [if this sounds odd check it out] And this led to
> Communist societies that failed and at the same time
> killed millions. It created the closest thing
> that I have ever read about to hell on earth.
You have no evidence connecting materialism to the
bloodshed of Communism. Just because society 'A'
incorporates idea 'B' in its ideology does not mean
idea 'B' is responsible for the flaws in that society.
> But what was the philosophical root of such
> materialism? The ancient
> Greek philosophy of Epicureanism.
And what was wrong with Greek philosophy. THEY are
the ones who invented Democracy, not the Christians
contrary to your claims below.
> Epicurus was a man who believed that
> religion was evil. While yes often religion has
> caused people to harm eachother, this ignores all
the
> good that religion has inspired people to
> perform. In fact, in human history nothing has
> inspired people to be moral more than religion.
Prove it.
> This is why there have not been any atheist human
> societies.
No, there haven't been any 100% atheist societies
because many religion demands that its adherents
indoctrinate their children from a young age to not
question their beliefs. Religion is the world's first
giant pyramid scheme.
> Epicurus wanted to argue against the idea of
> providence, that everything happens for a divine
> purpose, and so posited a limited materialism based
> on the random movement of atoms.
Which idea is still valid today.
> Epicurus' philosophy has come down to the modern
> world through the work of his Roman disciple,
> Lucretius. But Cicero poked holes in this
> explanation long ago.
And whould you care to NAME these holes or are you
just making more empty claims again?
> Epicurus inspired the Scientific Revolution and the
> Enlightenment.
And why is this bad? Oh, thats right, you think
living in mideval Europe would have been a GOOD thing.
Most people call that period the "Dark Ages" for a
reason.
> The first creator of a Christian Epicureanism was
> Pierre Gassendi but he was followed by Thomas
Hobbes
> and most influentially John Locke, the creator of
> classical liberalism. But the Enlightenment
inspired
> materialists such as Baron d'Holbach and La Mettrie
> and a desire for such people to use science to
> explain away God.
By "explain away God" you mean "understand the world
around them"?
> Lucretius had posited evolution because Epicurus'
> theory required it although he did not explain the
> actual mechanism by which he thought this occurred.
> Others took this hint and came up with different
> ways of explaining it. There were many including
> Lamarck and of course Darwin.
how does ANY of this show that Darwin's idea is
invalid?
> Despite the problems with natural selection
> pointed out by Darwin himself,
What problems? Darwin outlines two ways his theroy
could be disproved an NEITHER of them has been met.
Therefore his theory stands unrefuted. The same can
be said for ANY scientific idea since a theory that
cannot be falsified essentially makes no concrete
predictions and therefore says nothing and is
worthless.
> materialists gravitated to it because it made basic
> sense.
AND it FITS THE FACTS. A century and a half of
investigation has done nothing but support evolution.
So you ADMIT that evolution makes sense. That makes
it FAR superior to biblical creationism which involves
a pile of dust turning into an adult male which makes
ZERO sense.
> But it is not scientific because it is not logical
> and requires a leap of faith.
What leap? And you have utterly failed to show how
evolution is not logical. You have only made more
empty claims.
> No adequate materialist theory, that explains the
> creation of the universe without God, exists.
Since evolution is NOT ABOUT the creation of the
universe this is irrelevant. Evolution is about the
diversity of life on this planet, how all life on the
planet has a common ancestor and species changed over
time to fit into different environments and survive.
By the way, there isn't a theory that explains the
creation of the universe WITH God either since saying
"God did it" is NOT a scientific theory. It can't be
tested, measured or evaluated in any way. It has no
mechanism for HOW God did it so it doesn't even
qualify as a theory.
> You say that the Big Bang theory does not say that
> the universe came from nothing but it has to. If
it
> starts from something, then the question becomes
what
> created the something and so God is still
> necessary to explain it.
No, "God" is not necessary. No scientific theory EVER
appeals an unknowable supernatural being to explain
anything.
> I guess you could argue that matter is eternal as
> Epicurus did but science has disproven that by
> showing how it erodes.
How does matter "erode"?
Study general relativity. Big Bang says all the
matter in the universe was at one time all contained
in an incredibly massive quantum singularity.
According to relativity, time does not pass within
such a mass. As such, there is no reason to say there
was any "before" at all.
> One of the greatest challenges to a mechanical
> understanding of the universe has been quantum
> mechanics because Newton's beautiful
> system has not explained the sub-atomic world.
Since Newton could not observe the subatomic world,
its no surprise that his laws couldn't account for it.
Never the less, his "flawed" ideas are STILL taught
in college physics class.
> In fact, the whole thing appears more like a
constant
> miracle that violates the laws of space and time.
NOTHING in QM violates fundamental laws of physics
like conservation of energy. Quantum mechanics is a
matter of probabilities and because there are
countless subatomic particles out there, eventually
anything will happen. However, none of this can be
used to support Biblical claims since QM does NOT
apply to SUPERatomic objects.
> To sum up, I believe that God sent Jesus to
> save us from our sins [immorality] by teaching us to
> love eachother.
Good for you. However, "I believe" is not an
argument. There are people who still believe the
world is flat. They are still wrong.
And Jesus taught violence far more than he taught
love. He states quite clearly that he doesn't have
ANY objection to the cruelty of the old testament laws
(Matt 5:17), shows NO sympathy to a man who's father
just died (Matt 8:21), approves of racial segregation
by focusing only on Israelites and not helping
Samaratins, Gentiles (Matt 10:5-6), destroys whole
cities just for not receiving the apostles or his
teachings, innocent children and all (Matt 10:14-15,
11:20-24), whole families will be torn apart because
of him--one of the few Biblical prophecies that HAS
come true unfortunately (Matt 10:21), he comes not to
bring peace but a sword (Matt 10:34-36) ignores his
own family in favor of his disciples (Matt 12:47-49)
and teaches that abandoning wife and kids for his sake
will earn you reward in heaven--what LOVELY family
values (Matt 19:29), delibrately taught in parables so
people wouldn't understand him (Matt 13:10-15),
initially wouldn't heal a Cananite woman and compared
her to a DOG indicating racial discrimination (Matt
15:22-26), thinks one generation should pay for the
sins of their ancestors (Matt 23:25) and thinks the
idea of drowning everyone in the flood was a good idea
and says God will kill the non-believeres again at the
second comming (Matt 23:37).
Its clear that you only read the parts of the Bible
you like and ignore all the horrible things in it.
Just like you do with my points. But as any HONEST
person can see, even the New Testament recomends
violence far more often than is says "love thy
neighbor". And my list only partially covered
Matthew--LESS THAN ONE BOOK!!!
> In fact, the rational argument for the truth of
> Christianity is very strong and was the main reason
> that people converted to Christianity.
On the contrary. Most of Europe converted because it
was made the state religion of the Roman Empire.
> The greatest enemies of Christianity, the Jews, who
> rejected the idea that Jesus was the Messiah,
> admitted his parentage [confirming Old Testment
> prophesy], that he did miraculous things, and that
he
> disappeared from his tomb. They would have denied
> all of these if they could but because they
> were facts, they had to explain them away.
When did the Jews admit ANY of those things?
And thats a nice little racist statement there about
the Jews all being "enemies". Such sentiment let to
their torture and execution throughout the last 2000
years across Europe, cumulating with the holocost.
> While I agree with you that Christians have not
loved
> others enough [then again nobody else has either],
No one has declared war on entire races of people and
other religions the way Christianity and its religious
sibling Islam have though.
> I believe that it is a message that God wanted
humanity to hear and now the
> whole world has been
> influenced by this message.
What about the billioins who lived and died throughout
the world BEFORE the Christian missionaries showed up?
China, the Americas, Australia, etc. went for
millenia withoug hearing about Jesus.
> Who but Christians and those inspired by
> Christian morality have worked to abolish slavery,
> cruel and unusual punishments, racism, sexism,
> authoritarianism, oppression, witch-burnings,
> superstitions, exploitation of women, and so many
> more horrors?
Christians were RESPONSIBLE for those horrors in the
FIRST PLACE. The witch burnings were 100% inspired by
the Bible: THOU SHALT NOT SUFFER A WITCH TO LIVE.
(Exodus 22:18)
It was the BIBLE BELT SOUTH that threatened to seceed
from the United States so that they could CONTINUE the
practice of slavery and they used the BIBLE to justify
their actions.
Its the BIBLE that RECOMMENDS cruel and unusual
punishments. Jesus HIMSELF talks about hanging
milstones around someone's nect and drowning as
PREFERABLE to what God plans to do to certain sinners.
It was CHRISTIANS who so enthusiastically used all
those wonderful mideval torture devices in the first
place. You know, mideval Europe, the era you highly
recommend because its peasants would laugh at modern
day ideas?
Few of America's founding Fathers who were Christian.
Most were deists. THOSE were the people who penned
the ammendment to outlaw "cruel and unusual
punishment", not the Christians who have historically
held the position of "an eye for an eye"
The bible itself never condems racism and in fact it
UPHOLDS it by elevating the Jews to the level of
"God's chosen people". That is racism, pure and
simple. Jesus repeatedly went ONLY to the Jews and
instructed his apolstles to do the same--blatent
racial discrimination. While Martin Luther King Jr
was an example of a wonderful Christian, he had
nothing but criticism for most of the rest of
Christianity that SAT ON THE SIDELINES or openly
oppoesed the whole civil rights movement.
Don't even talk about Christianity being anti-sexist.
The Epistles of Paul are absolutely FILLED with sexist
remarks about the secondary and subserviant role of
women in society and Christian preachers continue to
this day to fight against equal status for women,
condeming it as a tool of Satan.
> Who brought democracy and liberty to the world?
The ancient Greeks and American Indians. The
enlightned thinkers of Europe copied their ideas. The
CHRISTIANS wanted to continue a monarchy, based on
kings being "God's annointed".
> And all inspired by Jesus' simple message - love
> your neighbor.
People in various parts of the world were able to come
up with that concept long before Jesus lived so it is
completely false to link the goodness of the world to
Christianity. Besides, YOU were arguing that Mideval
Europe was the way to go in your first email. A time
of witch hunts, inquisitions, torture, slavery. All
those things you SAY Christianity solved.
> And one thing I have learned is that part of
> loving your neighbor [and even your enemy] is
> respecting their opinion enough to learn from them.
> Because they can teach you the things that you
> hate but will help you the most. Only that has
> allowed me to question my own prejudices and achieve
> a better understanding of history and life.
Yet you don't even BEGIN to understand Evolution or
Big Bang so you clearly don't respect them or the
opinions of the people who accept them.
"everytime a person is born the Earth weighs just a little more."--DMJ on StarTrek.com
"You see now you are using your thinking and that is not a good thing!" DMJay on StarTrek.com
"Watching Sarli argue with Vympel, Stas, Schatten and the others is as bizarre as the idea of the 40-year-old Virgin telling Hugh Hefner that Hef knows nothing about pussy, and that he is the expert."--Elfdart
Great going Darth Servo. Usually I don't even get a reply. 
