>> Assuming all the negative stereotypes of atheists can be discounted ("criminal behavior, rampant materialism, cultural elitism")

Those are mostly false stereotypes, unless the Bush administration was a bunch of Atheists.

(yeah I know I am answering a logical fallacy with a logical fallacy)

Morality is independent belief in God or any religious belief. This has been known since Plato and Aristotle, and virtually every philosopher since then has concurred. Saints and criminals can be found among both believers and non-believers.

The simpleton who thinks that the only motivation humans have to do good in the world is so that we can get rewarded after we die, is in desperate need of education.

You are taking it out of context. He was referring the to legend of the Gordian Knot.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordian_Knot

This is just a case of culture shock...I am sure the Greeks found it pretty insulting as it is meant as a phase to associated to great cunning and not that of power and might. Alexander the Great was a student of Aristotle remember, he wasn't just a warrior, he was multidimensional.

This is no doubt just as large a diplomatic insult as he did to England when he sent back the statue they gave him. His diplomatic abilities seemed to be poor at best. If you don't give him a teleprompter he's clueless.

Good video though, thanks blank

>> ^budzos:
D'Souza's "three basic faith-based principles upon which science is suspended" are utter fucking nonsense. Each one boils down to a logical fallacy, first and foremost being the straw man... I don't think any prominent thinkers are putting forth the idea that the universe is conscious, and I don't think anyone with intelligence is even able to confuse the laws of physics with the laws of man.
He's just a FUCK. ARRGH I CANT STAND THE BULLSHIT.


He does not say that the universe is conscious. He says it is rational. That is, it can be measured, chopped up conceptually into discrete chunks, bits of it can be mathematically compared to other bits, it shows order, and so on. The universe need not be conscious to be rational.

The three "faith-based principles" he mentions are indeed fundamental requirements for science as we know it. (Sort of. The third is only essential for the most popular notions about science, not for doing science itself.) However, the principles are not Christian in origin. They are Greek, from Athens rather than Jerusalem. The the universe is rational, and that the mind corresponds to it, can be found in Plato and Aristotle. That it shows a uniquely mathematical order can be found in Pythagoras.

The principles made their way into modern science through the Renaissance. The creators of modern science, men like Galileo and Kepler, were profoundly interested in Pythagorean theories of the universe.

HadouKen24, why?

Because she sucked at philosophy. Her epistemology and metaphysics were not even close to sophistication and nuance of the works of the Vienna Circle, whose philosophical contributions were similar in aim and attitude, but far superior in quality. She did not come close to answering the challenges presented by the pragmatism of William James or the holism of W. V. O. Quine. (The Quine-Duhem thesis pounds the last nail in the coffin of Objectivism.)

Her ethical thought, while correct in its rejection of a hard fact-value distinction, nonetheless failed to account for or take into account important facts about human nature and psychology. As a result, it is abysmal--not only wrong, but horribly and dangerously wrong.

While Rand occasionally refers to previous philosophers like Kant and Aristotle, the way she made use of their works made it clear that her understanding of them was cursory at best.

the lyrics in the description are wrong:

Immanuel Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable,
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy beggar
Who could think you under the table,
David Hume could out-consume,
Schopenhauer and Hegel.
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as schloshed as Schlegel.

There's nothing Nietzche couldn't teach ya
'Bout the raising of the wrist.
Socrates himself was permanently pissed.

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shandy was particularly ill.
Plato, they say could stick it away,
Half a crate of whiskey everyday.
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle,
Hobbes was fond of his dram,
And René DesCartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am."

Yes, Socrates himself is particularly missed,
A lovely little thinker
but a bugger when he's pissed.

"Probably the biggest reason people outside of the sciences have such a hard time with evolution is the idea that something can't turn into something different. (somewhat of a remnant of Aristotle's thought on our culture.)

I think you are right here, but this is exactly not what evolution is. Creatures don't turn into other creatures in a morphing movement like creationists insinuates (like http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Simpsons-Evolution-Intro). Every time a "baby" is born it is different from its parent, even if the genetic changes are minuscule. And this is how a creature species turns into another. It's not generation 1 = monkey, and generation 2 = human. There have been many, many thousands of steps from proto-monkey to human (and to the other apes of today).

So yes, things are what they are, but the next generation is always a mutation away from its parents and theoretically you could call that a different species, but it would be a far to specific species, so we allow quite a lot of difference inside a single species. For instance, humans. It is obvious that there is a difference between whites, blacks and Asians for instance, its not much, but it's there. These are merely different branches of the same evolutionary tree, like different races of dogs.

"Now to the religious individual who feels his beliefs are threatened by evolution. The scriptures as you know them cannot and do not answer the questions about evolution. They were never intended to be used for such a purpose. Evolution should not contradict your beliefs, rather it should support them.

I disagree. The creation story was made for exactly this, to explain why we have the vast multitude of creatures, and it is provably false. This is a problem for everything using the bible, because if THIS is false, what of the rest. How can we know what is true and false, and is it a total coincidence when something is right?

Evolution does not directly threaten religion, because it does not cover religion. It does, however, cover a field which religion previously held claim, creation and life. Science in general does, in my opinion, threaten religion, because the two work in diametrically opposed ways. Religion has the answer in the bible and finds evidence to support it; and science discover answers from the evidence.

Religion: Answer --> Evidence
Science: Evidence --> Answer

You see, that Science can change the answer as the evidence differs from the previous answer. Religion cannot do that - what's in the bible is in the bible - you can re-interpret the bible, but this is like re-interpreting evidence and a single source of evidence is not enough to sustain a viable theory. Some things in the bible cannot be re-interpreted as much as would be needed to still hold up to evidence, see Genesis.

Taken from Conservapedia's evolution page:

"The great intellectuals in history such as Archimedes, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton and Lord Kelvin did not propose an evolutionary process for a species to transform into a more complex version. Even after the theory of evolution was proposed and promoted heavily in England and Germany, most leading scientists were against the theory of evolution."

What are they trying to say? How is this even relevant? Why is the fact that historical figures before Darwin's time didn't propose an evolutionary process for a species to transform into a more complex version relevant at all? Isn't that why we hold Darwin up as the father of the theory in the first place? Because he made the proposing first?

Could the following paragraph be included in the automobile section?:

"The great intellectuals in history such as Archimedes, Aristotle, St. Augustine, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton and Lord Kelvin did not invent automobiles. Even after the invention of the automobile most leading scientists did not drive or use automobiles."

The whole paragraph doesn't bring any information to the table but it does subtly suggest that the Theory of Evolution is academically controversial. Wait, isn't that bias?

So is Conservapedia against bias as a principle or do they just not like being disagreed with?

Meh.

Yes, despite being a devout Catholic, and despite trying to remain loyal to the church, Galileo could not ignore the observations showing the sun at the centre of the solar system. The catholic church was of course teaching that the earth is the centre of creation and the universe (Aristotle). They persecuted Galileo. In later years, the catholic church recruited and funded astronomers which was the beginnings of the church using science for persuasion of its esoteric teachings which still goes on to this day. Today it's called Intelligent Design.

In reply to this comment by deedub81:
Galileo? Seriously?


In reply to this comment by Irishman:
"The Catholic church gets bashed on a lot and I'm never sure why."


The vatican staying silent about the holocaust during WWII,

Still teaching even today that HIV can pass through condoms in AIDS stricken Africa,

Covering up child abuse allegations, for example that of Father John Geoghan, accused of sexually molesting over 100 boys in the Archdiocese of Boston,

The persecution of Galileo, the inventor of the telescope,

The infamous brutal and violating interrogations directed at the suppresion of heresy,

In fact hundreds of years of years of persection, deceit, lies and social control; much of which can be levelled at any religion in the world. Take your pick.

The vatican's position on evolution does not explicity say that evolution is the most likely creation theory, only that "faith and scientific findings regarding the evolution of man's material body are not in conflict, though man is regarded as a 'special creation', and that the existence of God is required to explain the spiritual component of man's origins."

This is always worth saying: Science is a METHOD, not a position.

Keep in mind, as you read this response, that I've been drinking. Any errors, I hope, can be blamed on the pernicious evils of that blackgaurd Jack Daniels, whose intoxications cloud the minds of men, but (happily) sometimes open the thighs of women.

That said, I spoke briefly with someone from my department of study on the topic of Aquinas' proofs of God before my graduation ceremony (B.A. in Philosophy) this last Saturday.

I feel fairly confident in what I learned, since the individual I spoke to had spent a semester studying Aquinas at Oxford last year. He explained to me, after my mentioning the utter failure of Aquinas' Five Ways, that they were severely misunderstood by modern thinkers. As it turns out, Aquinas did not say that time, or even causality, cannot infinitely regress. That claim, which is simply false from a logical standpoint, was never stated by Aquinas. Indeed, he is famous for stating that, without faith, there is simply no reason to believe that the universe has not existed, as Aristotle claimed, forever, infinitely reaching into the past. (This was, of course, prior to Big Bang cosmology) I felt rather stupid when this was pointed out to me; it's such an obvious contradiction that I couldn't believe I had overlooked it. Aquinas certainly wouldn't have.

The version Dawkins proposes is actually the Kalam cosmological argument, not Aquinas'.

The version Aquinas presents is far closer to Leibniz's cosmological argument, which depends on the Principle of Sufficient Reason (PSR)--the claim that everything has a reason for its existing and being the way it is. Alcohol floods my brain ever stronger, so I can't hope to do justice to the argument. I shall leave it as an exercise for the reader. Suffice to say that, if one accepts the PSR, the existence of God ineluctably follows--or at least the existence of an Ultimate Reason for Everything, which amounts to the same thing.

Note that I have not claimed that the existence of the Abrahamic God is proven this way. Not only do I not believe in such a God, I do not believe that this kind of argument could prove such. Nor did Aquinas. Which is why he said it was a matter of faith.


In short, Dawkins fails because he utterly misunderstands Aquinas at a basic level. Which is somewhat forgivable, because everyone does. You have to understand Aristotle in order to understand Aquinas, and that is something that few attempt these days.

>> ^Kraz:
Not to sound cheeky, but can you kindly point out where the bible states that the Earth revolves around the Sun? I've heard this before and it piques my interest because I know of no such passage.

It doesn't say anything about it, which is why the first popes took the most recent and celebrated work on geography and cosmology at the time, that of Ptolemy, as the base of their temporal doctrine. Later some Aristotle was thrown in retroactively by Thomas Aquinas, on the epistemological level. To make an analogy, this means that if the Christ would have been born in the 17th century, the first popes would have used Newton's Laws of motion and gravitation. They would have then condemned Einstein as a Heretic for his special and general Relativity.

>> ^Dadeeo:
This is what happens when "scientists" accept theory AS fact.

Theories explain known facts and predict (as yet) unknown facts. Theories are not facts, but their predictions can be taken as such until proven otherwise by experiments.

Too bad the theory's are constantly changing, yet every new one gets embraced as the truth without ever acknowledging the error of accepting the now former "defunct" theory.

Accepted scientific theories are never "defunct": they are expanded, generalized, etc. For example, euclidean geometry still has good predictive value under certain circumstances, as when the surface you examine is sufficiently flat. So are Newton's Laws of motion a good appromixation when speeds are not near the speed of light. Pythagoras' theorem still holds and his divisions of the octave still divide the octave.

How could you ever trust anyone that refuses to admit their errors?

Scientists admit their errors all the time. Einstein admitted that the cosmological constant was the biggest mistake of his life. When they're stubborn, death makes their outdated views irrelevant, as with Einstein vs. Quantum mechanics. In religions, being dead makes you a Saint, and your opinions that of God himself (or close enough).

The Bible speaks of them is "ever learning but never able to come to the knowledge of the truth".

Wow, postmodernism at its 1st century's best! It's true that ultimate, absolute knowledge by observation is now thought to be impossible, but careful observation over many centuries has shown that those who don't learn can't know and are doomed to repeat their mistakes.

Of course a baby's eye develops as it grows from egg to full term, but does that prove the theory of evolution? No! Do creatures with varying degrees of eye function prove evolution? No! Does a blind cave fish prove there is no God? No!

Maybe they don't prove anything, but they don't need to, since empirical science doesn't need and can't have "proofs" in the same sense as logic and mathematics. There are facts and theories that explain the particular facts. The theory that explains all of the particular facts and that is consistent with the greatest number of other accepted theories in other fields of knowledge, is said to be the most adequate. It is not impossible that new facts should reveal a hitherto less adequate theory to now be the most adequate &mdash it happens &mdash and sometimes two or more theories will seem equally adequate. But not all theories can fit the facts and be globally consistent. Of course, if you reject all of science or all of empirical science, then you may as well go live with the Amish, 'cause it's not God that gave anyone the knowledge required to build the computers we both used to transmit these electronic messages.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'monty python, socrates, nietzsche, plato' to 'monty python, socrates, nietzsche, plato, aristotle, heidegger, descartes' - edited by my15minutes

>> ^Crosswords:

As Matt Dillahunty said in the video, any possible argument for a god as creator can be applied to the universe itself, which is one of the reasons Einstein said if he ever believed in a "god" in a religious sense, this "god" would be the universe itself. The problem here is that there's a lot of morons who keep on calling the universe "God" and then instead of sticking to known characteristics of the universe, start going on tangents about this "God" being a "Who" (i.e. an individual, with a human-like will and personality) or having powers he can "use" when he feels like it, or ascribing to it every concept they don't understand like infinity, absoluteness, transcendency, perfection, circularity and what have you.
In this case, God as a perfect circle dates back to the Greeks, and Aristotle in particular, and I doubt very much the caller knew anything about ancient Greeks. Aristotle said it could as likely that a God exists or not, but that he himself thinks there is one and so he postulated one. He also said that since we can't imagine that there is not a first cause, then there must be one, even though time is infinite in both directions. Not much of an explanation you'll agree. Some backward churches, especially in America since they cut themselves from the Vatican a long time ago, still believe in the Aristotelian world-view even though the Vatican has long embraced modern science, although reluctantly (and as long as it doesn't contradict their miracles!).

How is that a line-crosser? Seriously, how is that a line-crosser? You think things like that don't color every part of their psyches with a broad stroke every day they spend in that town?

This video, the individuals it depicts and the masses they represent scare me more than any threat from outside this country. Calling them ignorant allows us to metaphorically pat them on the heads as we walk on by feeling morally and intellectually superior. This is a mistake. As dannym3141 suggests, their comfort in the FACTUALITY of the end of the world is not just mildly significant. It is so unfortunate that democracy requires that these people are able to sit around the same table as everyone else. Aristotle wrote that government is much like a dinner party and democracy is the best because we all get the benefits of the myriad flavors of the pot-luck dishes and home-brewed wine of our fellow citizens. I say, the corn bread from Lynchburg tastes like poison. (But the booze is great! Thanks Jack Daniel)

I gotta say BicycleRepairMan, I think you grossly underestimate the information flow and knowledge of both the ancient and the medieval world. A discovery like Aristotles evidence of a spherical earth (which was a lot more then just 'guessing' at its shape) would likely have been all over the hellenistic world within a few years.

And nothin I have ever read on the topic has said that the concept of a flat earth was ever wide spread during the 'dark' ages. In fact Klaus Anselm Vogel stated in his disseration from 1995 that "since the eighth century, no cosmographer worthy of note has called into question the sphericity of the Earth." (in german at http://webdoc.sub.gwdg.de/diss/2000/vogel/index.htm#inhalt).

I dont know much about Islamic history and I've never read the Qu'ran so wouldnt really feel comfortable commenting on that part though.

Errrm, feels very errendous to claim that Eratosthenes (ca 240 BC) 'discovered' that the earth was not flat when that fact had been a strong hypothesis since atleast ca 600 BC (and probebly as far back as 900 BC from memory) and Aristotle (ca 330 BC) provided quite compelling observational evidence for a spherical earth, Eratosthenes really mostly added to that.

So contrary to what is still sometimes a popular belief 'intellectuals' in the European (dont know enough about arabic/asian/south american etc to comment really) world have not believed the earth to be flat for atleast 2000 years and probebly longer.

Still Carl Sagan does have a purty voice, rawr.