Anne Coulter' book Godless

[Sisyphus]

You said you could falsify Yahweh. Want me to get the quote by you? Now you seem to be backing off.

 

No, I said you could disprove that Yahweh. Theoretically, that is, for reasons I thought I explained. I'm not in the business of hunting down evidence for or against every single human being's personal god.

 

What "current physical evidence"? The key here is current. At the time, there was indeed physical evidence: the risen Jesus with nail holes and a wound in the side. So it's not the same argument. In this case, the miracle healings, the loaves and fishes, et. there was evidence. It's just that the evidence does not persist to our time. You've confused apples with oranges.

 

It "does not persist?" Maybe it doesn't persist in a form that is easy (or practically possible) to discover, but absolutely everything leaves traces. That is, unless the removal of those traces is itself another miracle. But the idea of a miracle which has no physical effects after it occurs seems odd to me.

 

False dichotomy. There are many positions other than these two. But no, they don't believe in the same deity, but not for the reason you think.

 

A person who believes the Bible is literally true has the literal Bible as a god. It's the equivalent of a graven image. It's not Yahweh.

 

I didn't say those were the only two positions, I just picked those two because the difference between them is particularly obvious. But that is a curious argument you make, and, unless I'm mistaken, it amounts to "if they have the wrong interpretation, then they're not really worshipping the same God I am," which seems to be more or less what I was trying to say, the only difference being you call one right and the other wrong, and I merely say they're different. The point is, they do have a religion, and in that religion they worship a god called Yahweh. Whether or not it's the "real" Yahweh is irrelevant.

 

There are several different statements here:

 

1. God exists.

2. God created the universe.

3. God used creationism to create the universe.

 

Yes, I understand that you don't make the distinction between method and existence, but that is the error. It's obvious why you don't want to make the distinction and you want to tie the 3 statements together: it's the only way you can falsify God and make atheism look valid. But it's equally obvious that the statements are separate. If God doesn't create the way stated by the theory of creationism, that does not mean God didn't create. All it says is that God didn't create THAT way.

 

All you can do is say "a literal interpretation of the Bible is disproven". You are making the same non-sequitor mistake as creationists: if Yahweh did not create this way, then Yahweh does not exist. You can readily see that this does-not-follow.

 

Sir, I'm afraid you are the one tying them together. "God exists" has no meaning for me, therefore neither does the statement "God does not exist." I wouldn't say such a thing because I don't think the word "God" is clearly and universally defined enough to make general statements about.

 

HOWEVER, if you say "my God exists," than that is a meaningful statement, because presumably you have something specific in mind. (This is really what is usually meant when someone says "God exists.") If part of the definition of "God," for you, is the being who performed such and such actions, and those actions demonstrably never occured, then that god doesn't exist.

 

As for "Yahweh," that has almost as many problems as simply "God." Well, it's the Judeo-Christian god, you say. But then what's a Judeo-Christian? They don't all have identical beliefs. Far from it - "Yahweh" means millions of different things, some of which can be shown not to exist, and some of which can't.

 

What Coulter is doing is trying to lump them all together into a single being, to say that arguing against a particular, new-Earth creationist god, is also arguing against all those that share the same name. You seem to be accusing me of this as well. However, it is NOT. It is merely arguing against those which include the falsified aspects.

 

No, it's not. It's simply a way to get you off the hook of being unable to disprove the existence of God. Instead of showing the weakness of atheism in this regard, you are trying to shift the blame to theism by saying "God can mean anything." But you haven't demonstrated that Christians are using the word in that sense.

 

Well, first of all, it's absolutely crucial. Like I said above, "god exists" doesn't mean anything to me. "Disproving the existence of God" is a silly endeavor. The most one would accomplish would be to morph the word into meaning wildly different things. You might decide, after strenuous theological investigation that God is natural law, and the creative force of the universe, and logic. Or even simply "what exists." But then, why even both using the word any more? Especially given all the connotations that go with it. The only real reason one would would be to say, "See, we were right all along! God DOES exist! We were just wrong about all the details." But really, "God," in this example, has gone from the wrathful but loyal scourge of the Pharaohs to something utterly different. The association is merely one of comfort. (See, I can psychoanalyze, too.)

 

Now presumably, the "Christian" gods have in common that they took the form of a man 2000 years ago who sacrificed himself in order to save mankind from a terrible afterlife and give him a wonderful one. You, as one of them, probably have more specific criteria regarding which differences among you are important and which not, who is worshipping the "same god" and who is not. If you assume your God is real, then naturally you don't think of it as your God, but everyone's God, about which different people who also talk about "God" speak with varying degrees of accuracy. But you have to understand that I don't feel equipped to make those distinctions. Try try TRY to see it from the point of view of one who does NOT believe in any particular god.

[PhDP]

I said "at least half of all evolutionary biologists", not "most". Again you are trying to change terms.

 

This is just ridiculous... I hope you understand that it only means something different if there's EXACTLY 50% christians and 50% non-christians...

 

Looking at scientists in general -- which would include evolutionary biologists -- 40% are theist with a very conservative definition of theism. EJ Larson and L Witham, Scientists are still keeping the faith, Nature, 286: 435-436, 1997 (April 3)

 

The number is not that high at the highest level of science (just look at "Leading scientists still reject God", Nature, 1998 or at "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_intelligence"). Also, it says nothing of notable evolutionary biologists, I don't really care about "all evolutionary biologist". I'm interesting in those who shaped the theory of evolution, this is not the same.

 

And you get to define "important". So that you can exclude anyone you don't want.

 

First, I don't exclude people because of their religious beliefs or political beliefs, if it was the case I would excluse Mayr and Fisher and include Dawkins. It's true that my list is a least a little subjective, I've never said it wasn't. However, the scientists I've quoted are all well known, they made specifics and importants contributions, have prestigious awards/positions. Sure, there's a certain amouth of bias, I'm not interested in plants and I don't know much about evolutionary biologists studyign plants.

 

No, he's an evolutionary biologist and has written one of the most popular scientific textbooks. He's a charter member of NCSE and the most effective defender of evolution against attempts to include creationism in science class. He was a star witness for evolution at the Dover trial and it was his testimony that caused Judge Jones to rule that IC had been refuted.

 

Sure, he's one of the most effective defender of evolution, but... he's a cell biologist. Just look at the scientic papers he published, he's not an evolutionary biologist and I really don't understand how you could think he's an evolutionary biologist. Just for fun; could you name his contribution to the theory ?

 

Walcott discovered the Burgess Shale and thought a lot about the Cambrian explosion. This simply shows your religious bias, pettiness, and attempt to exclude data you don't like. As I said, it's selective data.

 

That's pure nonsense. First, I cannot list everyone. Second, I wasn't aware he was a christian, how can it be biased ? The amount of paranoia in your posts is simply disturbing. Not only you thought Kenneth was an evolutionary biologist, but you still haven't been able to explain to me why Ayala was the foremost evolutionary biologist in America, but somehow I'm biased because I did not listed a paleontologist in a list of notable evolutionary biologist ? And you call ME biased ? You've just decided that I'm unable to make an objective list, but I think if you'd ask some evolutionary biologists from different domains to make a list of the most importants people who changed our view of evolution you'd get a very similar picture, and, incidentally, very few christians...

 

Which also characterizes Walcott. But you apparently don't know him.

 

I do know him, but he's known for discovering fossils not for having changed our view of evolution, I don't consider that a notable contribution to our understand of evolution.

 

Also, theism is rational.

 

Sure it is, it's why theists need faith.

 

I said "at least half". And the only reason you think you are right is that you exclude any theist from being "great evolutionary biologist". Again, this reminds me of Gish. He excludes all transitional fossils as being transitionals, then he says "there are no transitional fossils".

 

You haven't even found one credible evolutionary biologist that I've discareded from the list, how can you say I'm exluding theist ? I've listed some theists, but not because they were theist but because they did a lot for evolution (Like Dhobzhansky). You'd have to stop attacking me and concentrate on the data.

 

So-called weak atheism is an untenable position. It either becomes agnosticism or strong atheism.

 

... Do you believe in werewolves ? And can you prove their inexistence ? If you answered "no" to both those question and replace "werewolves" by "god", that's weak atheism. It doesn't need to be always black or white.

 

The Judeo-Christian deity is not anthropomorphic. But anyway, I presume you can quote Gould?

 

Surely, you have no idea what "anthropomorphic" means. The Judeo-Christian god has intelligence, conscience, he even have emotions. About Gould you can look at this (http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m2843/is_4_23/ai_55208043), if you're not satisfied I could look for something else, Gould's atheism/agnosticism isn't the greatest mystery on earth.

 

Did you read what you wrote? You never did research, but you know? Yet I have done some research.

 

Obviously, you haven't read what I wrote, I didn't said "I know", In fact I said clearly that I'm not 100% sure about all the religious affliation. I'm certain my list has a value in the sense that scientists in it were/are really important to the theory, but I've not made extentive researches on their religious views because I don't really care. I know most of them are not christians, and I know the religious affiliations of many of them, not all. My point is that the major developpements in evolutionary biology in the 20th century were made MOSTLY by nontheists/atheists/agnostics and that you have no proof to the contrary, you've just said "at least half" were christians without any proofs.

 

And this is where your faith threatens science. We can disprove many of the stories we tell children. We can falsify Santa Claus, Tooth Fairy, etc. In fact, I have inadvertently done the experiments that disproved TF.

 

I don't need faith to understand the universe, so I have no idea what you mean by "your faith". In fact, this accucation is baseless, I've said many things but I never said I had faith in something or that I knew with 100% certainly something. Anyway, you can't really disprove the TF, there's always a way around with those myths, I can say she's invisible, she's immaterial (like your god), she doesn't take a tooth when people are around, there's ALWAYS a way out with those myths. Can you also disprove the existence of vampires, werewolves or cyclops ?

 

As I said, there is reason to doubt the data. BUT you can NEVER use theory to disprove data or even show it "unlikely" That is simply dreadful science.

 

There's nothing wrong with the word "unlikely" (although disproving data is another matter). If I say that our understanding of biology makes the existence of vampires unlikely, it makes sense. Because according to everything we know (have tested), an undead creature "living" on blood and transforming into a bat is not in the realm of the possible. Sure, we can't say it's 100% impossible because our theories are not perfect, but again, there's no proof it can exist, no evidences, and it's unlikely. This is the "deduction/induction" cycle, imperfect, but very usefull. And christianism is as unlikely as other mythologies/religions. Can I reject it with 100% certainty ? No I can't, but I do reject faith to understand the universe, and as you need faith to believe in those stories, I don't. Also, being a christians (or muslim/buddhist/taoist) has much more to do with believing the same thing as your parents, it's not like people were starting to think as adult, "hey, THAT religion makes sense". It does happen, but it's not common practice.

 

So what you are saying is: these guys are "notable contributors" to evolutionary thought and they are all atheists, therefore evolution is atheism.

 

In fact, I said the opposite, stop inventing. They are not ALL atheists, and I never "evolution is atheism". IMO, evolution gives a lot of credibility to atheism, that's all. I've said, again, very clearly, that science (it includes evolutionary biology) isn't atheistic in nature.

 

Remember, this started out as a counter to Coulter's assertion/theory that people must either choose evolution or theism -- that evolution and theism cannot co-exist.

 

My discussion with you started when you said "at least half" evolutionary biologists were christians, now I know you had no reason to say that. Coulter is one of the most pathetic clown in the United-States, I don't care what she says.

 

Evolutionary biologists that are both -- and even you can't belittle Dobzhansky or Fisher -- are evidence refuting her theory.

 

"even me" ! That's something ! I certainly have no reason to belittle Dobzhansky, he's one of the greatest.

 

So tell me, why do you want us to think Coulter's theory is true?

 

You're really living in another world, I never said you could not be both a theist and an evolutionary biologist. The question is totally demagogic. I think theism is irrational, but you can have both an irrational view of the world and still be a serious scientist. I wish I'm saying this for the last time; I only questionned your affirmation that "most" (or "at least half", I don't care) evolutionary biologists were christians, and that Ayala was the "foremost" evolutionary biologist in America. I really fail to see what's so hard to understand.

[bascule]

Ann Coulter is a professional troll. By the looks of this thread, she succeeded.

[D H]

Ann Coulter is a professional troll.

 

From the political and scientific leanings of your posts, I am not surprised that you don't like her, but this is just an ad hominen attack that will only fuel her admirers.

 

Unfortunately, I don't have much positive to add to the debate because I don't like this woman either. Ann and her brethren on the right are almost enough to make me rejoin the ranks of the Democratic voters.

 

Even more unfortunately, I don't see much of alternative to voting Republican come this November. To me, the anti-freedom, anti-American, and anti-capitalistic attitudes of the left stinks even more than the anti-intellectual and let-them-eat cake attitudes of the right.

[bascule]

the anti-freedom, anti-American [...] attitudes of the left

 

Bitch about my ad hominem and come right back with a category fallacy?

 

What specifically makes "the left" "anti-freedom" and "anti-American"?

 

I would argue things like suspending habeas corpus and arresting someone who criticizes a prominent politician are "anti-freedom" and "anti-American"

[swansont]

...this is just an ad hominen attack...

 

No, it's not. It's an assessment of her arguments. An ad hominem is an attack on an unrelated characteristic, e.g. concluding she's wrong because she's a pasty-faced witch.

[D H]

What specifically makes "the left" "anti-freedom" and "anti-American"?

 

I see both parties as having some rather strong anti-freedom elements to them. For example, I have been to several political talks that had to be terminated because some loudmouth a*holes would not let the speaker talk. Such people are not exercising their First Amendment rights; they are doing their best to deny the First Ammendment rights of those with whom they disagree. I have seen this much more from the left than the right, but that might be because of the kind of speakers (e.g., Bill Buckley) that attract me.

 

Examples of how the left is anti-freedom -

• Enforced political correctness
  Saying something politically incorrect has become tantamount to committing a hate crime.
  
• Hate crimes
  How do these differ from the thought crimes that put so many Russians in Gulags?
  
• The Fairness Doctrine
  Air America can't compete on a commercial basis with right wing talk radio, so let's outlaw talk radio ...
  
• Campaign Contribution Reform
  Why can't billionares contribute millions if that is their desire? It's not fair, but life isn't fair and stopping such contributions is anti-freedom.
  

 

The right of course has its own set of anti-freedom elements, such as denouncing critics as traitors.

 

Anti-Americanism:

The left is currently stricken with angst about McDonalds, Coca Cola, Walmart, ... all-American success stories. I don't eat at McDonalds because it is not very tasty. If I want a hamburger, I'll go to a place that serve up a lot more unwholesome grease than McDonalds. I don't shop at Walmart, can't stand the place. But a whole lot of Americans do like to shop there and apparently, work there.

 

Bottom line, I don't particularly like either side. To me, the First Ammendment means I have to let Ann Coulter *and* Markos Zuniga have their say.

[CharonY]

To me, the First Ammendment means I have to let Ann Coulter *and* Markos Zuniga have their say.

D H is offline Report Post Reply With Quote

 

Actually I do not think that any poster argues differently (even the non-American ones). Yet, it should also be allowed to criticize what they say (especially if one is as incoherent and illogical as Coulter).

 

On another note, I assume people do not like to work at Walmart due to the bad working conditions.

[Sisyphus]

Well, as long as we're wildly and cheerfully off-topic...

 

D H, a few things:

 

The first amendment says government can't restrict your speach. It doesn't say I can't restrict your speach by being obnoxious and immature. Hence what you describe isn't a first amendment issue.

 

Campaign finance reform is about preserving democracy. What we see is politicians being elected with the help of a few entities, for whom the politician is then indebted to, and must unfairly help those entitities' interests at the expense of the nation as a whole, in the form of unfair laws, corrupt government contractors and pork-barrel spending, all of it paid for with my tax dollars at the expense of the economy and of democracy. The counter-argument, that money is speach and shouldn't be restricted, is easily shown to be paper thin when you look at the records at see every major corporation giving money to the campaigns of both main candidates. If money is speach, then what is being said? "You both need me. If I'm displeased with the decisions you make, I will withdraw my support for you and your party, and only support your opponents, who will not make the same mistake you did."

 

Being anti-Walmart and anti-monopoly is anti-American? Hardly. Ideal capitalism doesn't exist in the real world, and in certain situations tends to destroy itself. If Walmart steamrolls over all other retail in most of America, what you're left with is de facto communism, where people have to work there because there's nowhere else to work, and they have to pay whatever is asked because there's nowhere else to go. And things like not providing health insurance are bad for the economy as well, because an unhealthy workforce is an unproductive workforce. In other words, the anti-Walmart movement is PRO-capitalism.

[D H]

Bascule,

 

First, a tribute to the topic of this thread:

 

The chapters in Ann Coulter's book that are the subject of this thread are a compendium of logical fallacies. How can they be otherwise? The only way to argue against evolution is to toss a large number of red herrings while performing some duck-and-weave/spin dance. To deny the basic concepts of evolution is Luddism.

 

Continuing off-topic (back on-topic at end of this post),

 

Please tell me you didn't spout that post complete with 1984 catchphrases in any vein of seriousness.

 

I can see the lefts' ongoing immature efforts to shout down their opponents for what they are: The left doesn't really believe in free speech. It is the hypocrisy and immaturity of the left that made me (along with millions of others) leave the grasp of the Democratic party 20 years ago.

 

Finally, back on topic: It is the anti-intellectual garbage that Ann Coulter and several others on the right epouse that might turn me right back to the voting Democratic in a few short weeks.

 

Then again, I might just vote for Kinky Friedman instead. I remain hopeful that he will not try to force-feed me with either religiously upright or organically-grown, trans-fat-free cr@p.

[Sisyphus]

 

Please tell me you didn't spout that post complete with 1984 catchphrases in any vein of seriousness.

 

Is that directed at me? If so, care to elaborate?

 

I can see the lefts' ongoing immature efforts to shout down their opponents for what they are: The left doesn't really believe in free speech. It is the hypocrisy and immaturity of the left that made me (along with millions of others) leave the grasp of the Democratic party 20 years ago.

 

That's not a leftist phenomenon. It's common to the low-brow elements of both left and right. If you don't believe me, watch the O'Reilly Factor, or see what happens when a liberal is foolish enough to call in to the Rush Limbaugh show.