Sermon
evolvingthoughts | March 31, 2008
I have yet to see the film Expelled, because it hasn't come to Australia yet, but I have become absolutely convinced that Ben Stein is correct. Darwinism causes antisemitism. I have therefore conveniently listed all the cases known of this below the fold. I'll stick with those in which Jews were killed or which led up to justifying such killings. I have of course had to correct the Darwinian fake history, which I have done with strikeouts and italic insertions so you all can see how perfidious these Darwinian revisionists are.
38CE: Thousands of Jews were killed in Alexandria, under Darwin…
evolvingthoughts | March 24, 2008
I once sat across the table from Alex Rosenberg, a well known philosopher, who argued persuasively that one cannot be both a Christian and accept natural selection. I think Alex intended this as a reductio for Christianity, as natural selection is both true by definition and also observed in the real world. Is it correct?
The recent Frame Wars (which followed the Clone Wars) suggest this is really what's at issue in the Expelled case (Yes, I said I wouldn't post on it, but this is broader than that kerfuffle). Is accepting evolution going to make nasty atheists of us all?
Let's think of…
evolvingthoughts | March 23, 2008
So here's a neo-Thomist talking about species, and not getting it due to (i) prior metaphysical commitments, and (ii) not understanding Aristotle - dude, he never called anything a species, not in the biological sense. Eidos and genos were just ordinary words he coopted for the Metaphysics and Posterior Analytics. He used them interchangeably in the Liber Animalia, and sometimes didn't use either words for living kinds. Rule Number One: You can't do science by definitions.
Here's a furore (is that pronounced "few-roar" or "few-ror-ay"?) about whether to respond to the Expelled gaff. Nisbet…
evolvingthoughts | March 6, 2008
I (and apparently Jim Lippard) went to see Dawkins' talk based on his The God Delusion, which I have critiqued before. I was impressed at the technique. It was definitely the very best Revivalist Sermon I have seen. I was not impressed by the content, nor by the fact that Dawkins was playing for laughs, applause and identification of Us versus Them.
In particular I was annoyed that those of us who do not condemn someone for holding religious beliefs were caricatured as "feeling good that someone has religion somewhere". Bullshit. That is not why we dislike the Us'n'Themism of TGD. We…
evolvingthoughts | February 12, 2008
Language Log recently took apart the speech and interview by the Archbishop of Canterbury that the media are, inaccurately, reporting as advocating the introduction of Sharia law into British and by implication other common law jurisdictions. Its conclusion was that Abp Rowan Williams did not advocate Sharia law, but instead suggested that secular law should not have a monopoly on regulating human behavior.
As someone once said, of course they would say that. Williams is a religious leader, and wants to have a role in regulating his adherents' behaviour. Tu quoque, he must accept the same…
evolvingthoughts | February 9, 2008
Since I'm feeling low, I thought I'd wallow in it for a bit.
A while back, Australian musicians were asked what they thought was the perfect song by an Australasian and they proposed "Into Temptation" by the adopted Australian Tim Neil Finn (he's a Kiwi) of Split Enz and Crowded House. It's a good song, but I think, instead, this is one of the most perfect songs of all time, and it resonates for a Melburnian (and, I gather, Kiwis, Irishfolk, and anyone who lives where the weather is fickle). Video clip below the fold...
evolvingthoughts | February 1, 2008
A rather cute article at the Catholic News Service says this:
In commentaries, papal speeches, scientific conferences and philosophical exchanges, the Vatican has been focusing more and more on the relationship between God and evolution.
From the outside, this may seem a reaction to the U.S. debate over creationism versus evolution, but it really has as much or more to do with the pope's interest in defining the legitimate spheres of science and faith.
Pope Benedict has weighed in several times on evolution, essentially endorsing it as the "how" of creation but cautioning that evolutionary…
evolvingthoughts | January 30, 2008
For a long time, I thought that animals were pretty much as Descartes thought - largely unreasoning organic machines. This morning, my teacher on animal communications died.
Her name was Chesh, and she was 17 and a half. She was a year younger than my eldest, and a year older than my youngest, so we referred to her as the "middle child". Her name comes from the fact that my firstborn is named Alice, so "The Cheshire Cat" was obvious, reduced by said child at 1 to "Cheshycat", and thence to "Chesh".
Apart from having the loudest purr, usually just when one was feeling down (coincidence?…
evolvingthoughts | January 5, 2008
Larry Arnhart has a post up on how Huck Finn's moral quandary about turning in Jim, the escaped slave, as good religion said he should (at the time), when he has come to know and admire Jim as a man, displays the evolved nature of morality. I tend to agree with this view.
Huck decides, "Very well then, I'll go to hell". Here's the entire passage, one of the greatest in English literature.
Once I said to myself it would be a thousand times better for Jim to be a slave at home where his family was, as long as he'd got to be a slave, and so I'd better write a letter to Tom Sawyer and tell…
evolvingthoughts | January 3, 2008
The previous Australian junta introduced a "citizenship test" for those wanting to become naturalised Aussies. It includes such gems as who Don Bradman was, who wrote a song that isn't even officially our anthem (Waltzing Matilda - Tom Wait's version is way better), and other fluff. About one in eight failed the first round. Similar tests apply in the US, Canada and the UK, I gather.
This raises the question of the title. What must a citizen know?
I hold a somewhat spare view of this topic. A citizen must know only that which all citizens are obligated to know, and for my money, that is…
evolvingthoughts | December 29, 2007
The New York Times has a long overdue article on the stupidity of airport security measures for those flying to, within or in markets affected by the United States post-9/11. Pointing out that the security screening at airports in no way reduces any threats (but screening luggage does considerably), and that anyway it is the role of government enforcement agencies to prevent terrorism the old fashioned way, using police work techniques, Patrick Smith highlights the loss of rights, the incredible costs, and the increase in inefficiency of a mode of transport that was supposed to improve our…
evolvingthoughts | December 29, 2007
One of the things about being a Mac user, for 20-odd years now, is that you just like your corporate hero. Sure, they stuffed up on a number of hardware releases, and their delay in getting a multitasking OS out the door is only redeemed by the quality of the OS they did release, but by and large, they have been a pretty good graven idol, especially since the Holy St Steve returned to guide them.
But now...
... a local developers' site has noted that Apple have patented a DRM daemon like Windows Genuine Advantage, which as everyone knows is a genuine advantage to Microsoft and nobody…
evolvingthoughts | December 28, 2007
Found in an old manuscript in the ruins of an old university:
Well this year has been pretty much the same as those that went before. We planted crops, most of which failed because we only had the poverty of seeds we could find by the side of the now-decayed roads. Out children died of diseases that were once thought to be gone. It is time at the end of this century to reflect on the past two centuries - the second dark ages...
It is astounding to think that we have come to this pass after rising so high in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. We once went to the moon, but now we…
evolvingthoughts | December 22, 2007
Okay, so the Eighth Day Inventism calendar as rolled around to coincide our Holy day with one of yours. We Inventists are open minded people and often try to reach out to you heathen irreligious puppy grinding moral monsters. Because that's what you are, you know, if you don't exactly believe and do what we Inventists do.
So to try to save you from your moral malaise of happy lives and families, meaningless rituals that you perform on turkeys several times a year, and other abominations that you make more or less simultaneous with the summer solstice (did I mention that Inventists use God'…
evolvingthoughts | December 18, 2007
PZ Murghl has challenged me to explain why there are theology departments in universities. Of course, most universities lack theology departments, and some, like the Princeton Theological Seminary, have been hived off their home institution. Back when I actually did theology, at Ridley College at the University of Melbourne, the theology was run independently of the university under the aegis of a nationwide theological umbrella institution, and its entire connection with the university was as a domiciliary college.
But that's not what PZ is asking. So I will give a reason and limited…
evolvingthoughts | November 24, 2007
I have a rule (Wilkins' Law #35, I think) that if any scientist is going to draw unwarranted metaphysical conclusions, it will be a physicist, and in particular a cosmologist. Witness Paul Davies in the New York Times.
Davies wants to argue something like this:
Premise: there are laws of the universe and we cannot explain the existence of laws
Premise: the assumption that laws are to be found is the basis for doing science
Conclusion: Ergo, science rests on an act of faith
Can anyone spot the enthymeme? That's very good, children. You spotted the easy mistake. Davies moves from "assume…
evolvingthoughts | September 16, 2007
All the strangers look like family
All the family looks so strange
The only constant I am sure of
Is this accelerating rate of change
— Peter Gabriel, Downside-Up, from the Ovo Album
Creek Running North has a delightful rumination on the lack of a balance of nature, in which he notes that
The sheer fecundity of the world conceals its vulnerability to change.
and
There is no balance of nature. Or if there is, it is the balance of a teetering rock on a pedestal stable enough to hold it for the moment.
This instability of the world bothers many people, or they ignore it and hold fast…