Here's Why We Win

In
nature, which always triumphs, the one with the most children is able to
out compete everyone else. The progressives who have at best one, or no
children, there is no way they can beat religious people in the long
run, as a central tenant of most religions is to have lots of children
and spread out over the earth. Someone with one child is, genetically, a
loser compared to someone with seven
children. In fact, the only reason progressives still exist in 2014 is
because they spent the 20th century culling the population of religious
people, with the murder of over half a billion (China CELEBRATES 500
million abortions since Mao took over, to say nothing of the 200+
million killed during all the atheistic regimes - with a single Germanic
pagan occult exception). Progressivism can only exist by murdering vast
numbers of religious people.

It doesn't matter if short term
trends indicate a growth of secularism over the past fifty years. Fifty
years is a blink of the eye in terms of natural time scales. Written
history occupies only about 0.0025% of the total amount of time humans
have been around, and that was 5000 years. Secularism is over if it
keeps oppressing religion the way it is, and if secular people keep
trying to bring about their own extinction by not breeding.

It
is the very conceit of these people that will be their downfall. A
culture that values individual pleasure over strong communities and lots
of children is, in evolutionary terms, dysfunctional. It is an
aberration, a disease, a mistake nature will soon correct. That is why
Japan will collapse before the end of the century, as will China. Russia
is taking steps to correct the situation before it is too late, by
curtailing abortions which currently outnumber live births (more babies
in Russia are murdered than are actually born!). Russia is taking the
hard steps necessary for biological survival by telling the children
"your personal pleasure does not trump the needs of society," a lesson
many in the West refuse to listen to (Remember Star Trek, when Spock
sacrificed himself? And we still haven't learned).

The United
States? The Dollar is over. There is absolutely no saving it. Many
countries are already dumping the Dollar when purchasing oil. The
economy WILL collapse, totally, and soon. And when it does all the
fashionable people who love abortions, hate guns, and have eliminated
from themselves all manner of survival instincts while praising their
bestial sexcapades, will be among the first wave to go in the mass
die-offs. Before 2100, and I'm predicting closer to 2064, progressivism
will be over. Secularism in the United States will be over. Nature will
correct itself, as it always does, and to the breeders go the spoils.
They may celebrate the victories they have stolen, the worst generation
in the history of the planet may celebrate their whole childless lives
(unless they purchase children as status symbols) in their progressive
wonderland, but they're it. They will be the last generation to
celebrate their sickness. The future belongs to the religious.

God, Evil, and Richard Swinburne

Richard Swinburne, one of the greatest living philosophers, tackles the atheist toolbox of arguments. A good video, aside from that echo.

Reformed Epistemology and Religious Pluralism

Alvin Plantinga





John Hick




Alvin Plantinga's argument against religious pluralism points to one particular reliabilist argument and tries to refute it. He uses the argument of John Hick, that nearly 99% of people, the religion that an individual professes is the religion in which they were raised - an accident of their birth. Someone born to Buddhist parents will almost always be a Buddhist, a Muslim to Muslims, a Christian to Christians, etc. Plantinga accepts this at face value, but then moves off in a direction I see as a tangetn. Plantinga asks "does it follow that I ought not to accept the religious views that I have been brought up to accept, or the ones that I find myself inclined to accept, or the ones that seem to me to be true? Or that the belief producing processes that have produced those beliefs in me are unreliable? Surely not."*



Plantinga goes on to imply that Hick's argument works against the pluralist. If the pluralist is right and beliefs are largely a product of our upbringing, then if a pluralist were born in a different time or place he likely wouldn't be a pluralist. If our beliefs are largely an accident of our birth, then so is the belief in pluralism.



He continues, that if his (Plantinga's) beliefs are true, they could be produced by a reliable, properly functioning belief producing process. From this he concludes that "there is no reason whatever to think that the exclusivist might not know tha they are true."



For Plantinga, the existence of the multiplicity of religions counts for nothing to advance the belief in pluralism. The fact may call into question the source of one's belief, but it does not follow from the existence of many religions that any one particular religion (Plantinga's own) is false. It may be a shame that billions of people may have faulty belief producing processes and will burn in Hell forever, but Plantinga can accept that with stoic resolve.



I don't buy this. If most people go through similar belief producing processes and tend to find themselves believing the dominant set of beliefs as their culture, how can Plantinga claim that his beliefs are more likely to be true than someone else's just because they formed in him? What offers him special status? How does he know his belief producing process (which just so happens, by coincidence, produce beliefs conforming to his culture) is functioning reliably and properly and is not working as such in others with different beliefs? What makes Plantinga's belief that his belief producing process is functioning reliably and properly and the process in other exclusivists who have different beliefs is not functioning properly and reliably?



Furthermore, Plantinga's Reformed epistemology is anti-foundationalist. Plantinga rejects the notion of evidence or proofs for supporting beliefs; instead affirming that his beliefs are basic beliefs, that can be known without proof or evidence, yet are not self-evident (such as belief in an external world or belief in other minds). What, then, is the basis of Plantinga's belief that his exclusivist belief generating process is working reliably and properly?



It can't be that this metabelief (the belief that his belief generating process is functioning reliably and properly, and furthermore, is producing the correct set of exclusivist beliefs and all other exclusivists with contradictory beliefs have faulty belief generating processes) has come about through an analysis of different religions and assessing which one is most correct, because Plantinga rejects any method of assessing the truth value of these beliefs. Plantinga affirms this metabelief either because it is an attempt to justify a rejection of Hick's pluralist argument based on nothing at all, or is itself a product of the culture in which he was raised.



This does not mean that the pluralist position is correct, or even that Plantinga's own exclusivist beliefs are false, merely that his refutation of the pluralist falls apart on its face.







*All quotes from "Pluralism: A Defense of Religious Exclusivism"

Why Dawkins Doesn't Debate Craig

Dick-to-the-Dawk-to-the-PhD won't debate William Lane Craig because he's scared there's a huge likelihood that he'll lose, but instead makes up fake reasons like: "I'll only debate members of the Church establishment and not professional debaters," and "Craig believes in genocide because he's a Christian." Other atheists are calling Dawk out on being a pussy. This guy (don't know who) posted two videos showing Craig destroy Dawk's fellow nay-theists Peter Atkins and Sam Harris with the remark "I think the real reason for Dawkins’s refusal to debate Craig is plain enough to see."



Here are the videos below:





Atkins





Harris

Why The Multiverse Is A Disaster For Atheists

Vjtorley, UD contributor, has written an enormous thing about an article that explains how it is consistant to be a young earth creationist and still have millions of years old stars. In it he says that invoking a multiverse, a scenario in which there are an infinite number of "universes" in which everything that can happen does happen, does not disprove the existence of God. The number of universes where everything was created in 6,000 years is infinitely greater than the number of 13.7 billion year old universes. When you're dealing with infinities, the number of nonparsimonious universes is infinitely larger than the number of parsimonious universes, so the likely hood that we inhabit a nonparsimonious universe, like say one that's 6,000 years old yet has seemingly billion year old stars, is infinitely greater than the likelihood we inhabit a parsimonious universe. When you deal with infinities you have to throw parsimony out the window. Also, having a multiverse that's been around for 6,000 years yet still has infinitely many universes that were all created 6,000 years ago still has that pesky infinity problem to get around.



The whole UD piece is monstrously long and involves many more points than I could possibly add to this summary, so I'll just skip to the end: "I conclude that a skeptic who wishes to deny the reality of God by positing a multiverse containing an infinite number of universes is engaging in scientific and intellectual suicide. Such a skeptic no longer has a reason to believe in a 13.7 billion-year-old universe which unfolded in an orderly fashion, without any changes in either the laws of Nature or the constants of Nature. Indeed, the multiverse destroys the skeptic’s arguments against a 6,000-year-old universe. And finally, the multiverse fails to rule out God anyway – for you could always say that God created it." (bold and italics in original)



-Dee

Balking Hawking Part 2

Stephen Hawking (see previous post for a more or less complete bio) has a new book called The Grand Design out in which he lays claim to an idea he didn't come up with, namely that the universe created itself from nothing by some sort of quantum fluctuation wizardry.

Stephen M. Barr, physics professor from the University of Delaware, writes in an article from First Things: "Right up front, it must be noted that this idea is extremely speculative, has not yet been formulated in a mathematically rigorous way, and is unable at this point to make any testable predictions. Indeed, it is very hard to imagine how it could ever be tested. It would be more accurate to call these “scenarios” than theories." He then cautions theists that just because the idea that a wizard did it isn't testable or has no mathematics doesn't mean it can be rejected outright. In order to reject it, Mr. Barr has more to say on what he feels are good reasons why Hawking's idea doesn't hold water.

First, Hawking and his ilk define the universe as a physical structure, like a bubble (at least pop science writers in Scientific American and Michio Kaku on his Science Channel program use the analogy of bubbles). This bubble universe is floating in some sort of plenum with many many other bubble universes that are also just physical structures. Also, these bubble universes are constantly popping into and out of existence due to quantum fluctuations in the soapy water plenum of all that is (which, if you want to be pickey would really be the universe and the so called "universe" bubble would be just a region within the real universe; hardley seems worth calling this bubble a universe, but some people want to blow some things way out of proportion).

Andrei Linde had an idea called eternal inflation about bubble universes branching off one-another forever within a false vacuum. When a new "universe" branches off, a big bang happens, but all that's really happening is the whole system is branching, nothing is really being created. That's why it's called eternal. The whole system has always existed, and so needs no explanation (at least Linde believes it's eternal in the past, most cosmologists don't think so*).

*Dr. Bruce Gordon says in an interview, The Argument for Design in Cosmology, that: "At first it was thought that it might be eternal into the past too, thus obviating the need for a universal beginning, but it was shown conclusively in 2003 that universes having an expansion rate of greater than zero over their history, universes like ours, must have a begining.... even if the string multiverse existed it would have an absolute beginning in the finite past." He continues to say that even if one were to postulate that quantum laws always existed, even before the multiverse, or plenum as is referred to above, such abstract mathematical laws are causally inert and cannot force anything to happen on their own.

For Hawking and Linde and others the universe wasn't created out of nothing, because nothing has no positive atributes, even if Hawking may misappropriate the word "nothing" to mean something completely else. The universe also didn't "create itself." What happened was the damn thing inflated. This reduced definition of the universe requires the preexistence of the plenum itself, inflaton fields, and quantum laws, but everyone has to assume the preexistence of something, so that itself doesn't toss this idea out. I would say it gets messy having to assume 10^500 random universes just to explain away the fine tuning of the laws of the universe, but parsimony only counts when the most parsimonious option isn't God.

Barr seems to think that Hawking has really goofed the flute with his new book, since in his A Brief History of Time (which I do have and wasn't all that great), Hawking acknowledged that the equations of physics are just numbers and can't cause anything to happen on their own and that physics can't address the issue of why something exists instead of nothing. Now Hawking proposes a new old story for how the universe always existed and so no explanation is necessary. I bet Hawking will rename this "theory" after himself like he does with every idea he steals. Barr concludes: "There are two answers to the question: “Why does anything exist rather than nothing at all?” The atheist answers, “There is no explanation.” The theist replies, God. An intelligent case can be made for either answer. But to say that the laws of physics alone answer it is the purest nonsense—as Hawking himself once realized."

And with that we leave the Sad Sad Tale of Stephen Hawking, a man so consumed by egoism that he no longer is the respected physicist of yesterday, but instead is now spouting nonsense.

-Dee

Balking Hawking Part 1

Jane Hawking, former wife of world famous scientist and sore loser Stephen Hawking (he is notorious at losing bets with fellow scientists and never paying up, even after decades), has written a book, Music to Move the Stars. In it she tells of how they met, the troubles of dealing with his progressive illness, raising three children, and religious disputes that put an end to their marriage after 25 years. 25 years is a long time, and this book is suitably lengthy: at over 600 pages you could seriously hurt someone with this doorstopper. Surprisingly, every Amazon review is positive, something you just don't see very often, especially books about celebrities.

Cosmologists like to reduce everything in the universe to equations, she says, and God just gets in the way of what they percieve as mathematical harmony. She goes on to say that because the work of cosmologists is so complex that for some people it becomes a substitute for traditional religion. The cosmologists are seen as being so smart they must have all the answers, and if their answers leave no room for God (because God would mess with their perfect tick-tock system) then God must not exist, end of discussion.

She is distressed over the pseudoscience (my word, not hers) of evolutionary psychology. They try to reduce all human behaviour to natural selection, tossing out things like altruism and artistic expression that do not fit their NeoDarwinian narrative. Unable to answer why certain human faculties exist (or why something exists instead of nothing), the scientistic elite scoff and deny the general public the right to even ask why. Science forbid if one of their own rank should ask why! Such a person is denied tenure or kicked out of academia all together. Asking why the universe exists or why altruism exists is like asking "why Mount Everest exists" (here's a hint: it involves continental drift). It should be noted that none of their hypotheses are testable and therefore do not count as science. There is no way, short of building a time machine, to test what human ancestors did tens of thousands of years ago or whatever survival function their actions served. Evolutionary psychology just takes old hat psychological ideas (every revolutionary idea evo psych has ever come up with has been said by a regular psychologist at some time in the past) and puts a sexy evolutionary spin to it to make it sound science-y.

Jane says of her former husband Stephen: "on one historic occasion he actually made the startling concession that, like religion, his own science of the universe’ also required a leap of faith as did theism."

As Stephen became more famous he became more dogmatic in his atheism and surrounded himself with people who cared more about their careers and equations than about other people. Over time their equations began to replace the real world around them, and Jane couldn't handle living in that world of mathematics. As his fame grew ever higher, Stephen became cold and cruel and condescending and loveless in his vastly increasing arrogance and narcissism. Despite the fact that his wife had to take care of his every bodily function he remained an ungrateful bastard (my word). She says: "I found myself telling him that he was not God. The truth was that supercilious enigma of that smile which Stephen wore whenever the subjects of religious faith and scientific research came up was driving me to my wit’s end. It seemed that Stephen had little respect for me as a person and no respect at all for my beliefs and opinions." (p. 536) He was insulted by his wife's compassion for him, because for him compassion reeked of religion. Stephen divorced his wife in 1995 and married his nurse because he cared more about himself than anyone else. Never satisfied with anything humanity had to offer, he divorced his second wife ten years later.

Fuck you Mr. Hawking. Fuck you very much.

-Dee