The Top Six and the stupidity of ID/creationism

[RonO]

1.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-the-universe/

2.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe/

3.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-information-in-dna/

4.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-irreducibly-complex-molecular-machines/

5.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-animals/

6.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-humans/

The ID perps at the Discovery Institute bestowed these Top Six evidences
for IDiocy onto the creationist rubes that still listen to them over 2
years ago. It was an obvious mistake to put out the best that they had,
but they have not retracted the list. All the IDiot/creationists on TO
ran from the list except for Pagano and Pagano claimed that the list was
bogus and tried to put up IDiocy that didn't make the list as something
better. To this day Kalk and Glenn can't even acknowledge that the
IDiot Top Six list exists, but for a while they both would keep going
back to the ID perps for second rate junk that didn't make the list as
if that junk mattered. Kalk quit that stupid behavior and Glenn stopped
for a couple of months recently before starting up again. Beats me what
Glenn thinks that he is doing. Why would anyone go with the second rate
junk when they are running from the best that they have?

This IDiot/creationist behavior is not due to the fact that all 6 of the
IDiot Top Six failed the scientific creationists over 30 years ago
because IDiot/creationists like Dale, Dean, MarkE and Garasso have no
problem putting up one of the Top Six as singletons. Dean has done this
repeatedly and claims that he forgot about the Top Six as some excuse,
but he still could not deal with all six together even though he has
probably put up most of them one at a time since they were listed as the
ID perp's Top Six. Dean even put up one of the Top Six after he had
been reminded about the Top Six list in the last such episode. It
obviously takes some level of incompetence to keep doing this. Why
would Glenn and Kleinman participate in Grasso's recent thread without
admitting that the topic was bogus because it is one of the Top Six and
no IDiot/creationist can deal with them? Not even the ID perps have
done anything with this list since it was put out. The ID perps have
obvously had these Top Six since they started the ID scam unit at the
Discovery Institute in 1995, so where is the book with all six
demonstrating the glory of IDiocy? There obviously have been many books
on one at a time.

It may seem strange that the current IDiot/creationists can be so
incompetent that they can run from the Top Six, and still put them up
one at a time, but the only IDiot/creationists left are the ignorant,
incompetent, and or dishonest. It has been that way probably for over 2
decades. When the bait and switch started to go down back in 2002 and
no IDiot rubes were getting any ID science, Mike Gene claimed that he
had given up on teaching the junk in the public schools back in 1999.
By that time the informed and halfway competent already knew that IDiocy
didn't make the grade. All that are left are pretty much just the ones
that want to be lied to, so that they can continue to lie to themselves.

As I mentioned these Top Six are not new and specific to the current
creationist intelligent design scam. The Scientific Creationists used
these top six, but they were not used as creation science. These six
were only used as denial arguments. They were used in things like the
Gish Gallop, but were never meant to be anything that the rubes were
supposed to learn anything from. They were just something to deny just
long enough to get to the next such denial bit of stupidity. No one was
supposed to integrate any of these Top Six into their creationist
alternative. You just have to take the Big Bang (#1 on the list) as an
example. When creationists have time to think about the Big Bang it
turns into something that they want to ban from the science classroom.
Years after the failure of Scientific Creationism in the 1987 Supreme
Court decision the Kansas creationists dropped the Big Bang along with
biological evolution out of their science standards in 1999. The Big
Bang may be the closest thing science has come up with to a creation
event, but it isn't the IDiot/creationist's type of creation event. The
scientific creationists may have been able to use it as a temporary
denial argument (we don't know this or we don't know that), but it isn't
anything that they want to deal with in this reality.

Grasso doesn't want to learn anything from his current abiogenesis
thread (#3 on the list). The reason why he doesn't want to understand
the argument is the reason why the Top Six list fails creationists.
Taken together you have to consider just what the parts are in
relationship to each other. On the simplest level this would tell any
competent person how much better the science is than anything that the
IDiot/creationists can come up with. They have to deal with the fact
that what they have is worse than their own level of not good enough.
They have to run in denial or just forget what they can't deal with in
order to continue.

Any competent IDiot should be able to put the Top Six together and build
their best creationist option out of them. The ID perps have told them
how to do this because they claim that the list is not in order of
importance to IDiocy, but is in their order of occurrence. Really, the
Big Bang (#1) likely happened around 13 billion years ago. The fine
tuning that they are talking about happened during or possibly before
the Big Bang, and a second round of fine tuning happened when our solar
system was forming around 5 billion years ago. Abiogenesis (#3)
occurred around 4 billion years ago when the earth cooled enough to have
liquid water. Behe's flagellum (IC, #4) evolved on this earth over a
billion years ago. The Cambrian explosion (#5) happened during a 25
million year period over half a billion years ago. The gaps in the
human fossil record (#6) occur within the last 10 million years of the
existence of life on earth.

So, any competent IDiot/creationist should be able to come up with their
best creationist alternative based on the best that the ID perps can
give you. If you don't come up with something like Behe or Denton you
are doing it wrong and should start over. Denton claims that his
intelligent designer got the ball rolling with the Big Bang and it all
unfolded over billions of years as it is today. Behe claims about the
same thing, but he thinks his intelligent designer has tweeked things
along the way every once in a while. Behe's last IC system is the
adaptive immune system that evolved in vertebrates over 400 million
years ago. Behe claims that it may have been a long time since the
designer did anything and that the designer could be dead.

Behe and Denton are two ID perps that IDiots have listened to for
decades, but likely never understood what they were being told. That is
the sad fact of the current creationist ID scam. If any IDiot rube
needs the ID science all they can expect to get is the obfuscation
switch scam that doesn't mention that ID ever existed. It has been that
way for 18 years. So why are there still any IDiot/creationists in
existence?

Why are there IDiots like Grasso and Dean that can't deal with the ID
Perp's Top Six, but who can still put them up one at a time?

Ron Okimoto

[Glenn]

On Sunday, February 9, 2020 at 8:10:03 AM UTC-7, Ron O wrote:


Ron, I'm becoming concerned about your contribution and impact to the safety and welfare of the public. As a geneticist, does your work extend beyond chicken farming?

[MyNews Hot-Text]

"RonO" wrote in message
news:r1p73k$4vn$1...@dont-email.me...

Scientific No Humen
Is Created The Equal

Acceptance of evolution
by religious groups - Wikipedia

Although biological evolution has been vocally opposed
by some religious groups, many other groups accept
the scientific position, sometimes with additions to allow
for theological considerations.

The positions of such groups
are described by terms including
"theistic evolution",
"theistic evolutionism"
or "evolutionary creation".

Theistic evolutionists
believe that there is a God,

< https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_of_evolution_by_religious_groups
>

ID/Ron Okimoto

It The Believe
That There A God

Is Stupidity Too You

[RonO]

On 2/9/2020 9:51 AM, Glenn wrote:
> On Sunday, February 9, 2020 at 8:10:03 AM UTC-7, Ron O wrote:
>
>
> Ron, I'm becoming concerned about your contribution and impact to the safety and welfare of the public. As a geneticist, does your work extend beyond chicken farming?

Glenn still can't face the Top Six and he has to run in any way that he
can. You could address the Top Six and demonstrate that you can deal
with reality, but that never happens. Why is that? Why go back to the
ID perps for second rate junk when you can't face the best that they
have ever given to you? Really, Glenn, look where the Top Six come
from. The same creationist news site that you got the second rate junk
from in one of your recent posts.

The Grasso thread that you participated in was about #3 below. Running
from reality isn't going to change reality.

For years you were just a plain vanilla anti evolution creationist
before you switched over to IDiocy, and what good did that do? You
can't deal with the best that they have to give you.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

Looks like bots are taking over the creationist side of the issue.

[MyNews Hot-Text]

Just A Theory
Re: The Top Six and the stupidity of ID/creationism
"RonO" wrote in message
news:r1pjod$gro$2...@dont-email.me...

Each Type Of Cell
Has Its Own Life Span

> Looks like bots are taking over the creationist side of the issue.

Relating Science
On The Day Of Creation
Did The Human Have
A Belly Button

If It Did Who Was It Mother

If It Was Mother Earth
Would It Have A Umbilical
Cord Attach It To Gravy

Scientific It Like God
There No Verifiable Evidence
Of Bring Together

Just A Theory

Who Know As The Humans

Come Out Of Mother Earth

Maybe There Was A Umbilical
Cord Between The Two

Attaching
Male And Female
As One

It Just One Theory
Of Creationist
Gn 2:22,23,24

[Tom Aull]

On 2/8/20 1:15 PM, MyNews Hot-Text wrote:
> "RonO" wrote in message
> news:r1p73k$4vn$1...@dont-email.me...
>
> Scientific No Humen
> Is Created The Equal
>
> Acceptance of evolution
> by religious groups - Wikipedia
>
> Although biological evolution has been vocally opposed
> by some religious groups, many other groups accept
> the scientific position, sometimes with additions to allow
> for theological considerations.
>
> The positions of such groups
> are described by terms including
> "theistic evolution",
> "theistic evolutionism"
> or "evolutionary creation".
>
> Theistic evolutionists
> believe that there is a God,
>

Many evolutionist, before hand, reject the existence of God,
therefore, in their mind, since there is no God there can be
no alternative to a natural origin for life.
But to me, the existence of life, and the miracle of it's
origin does infer a creator. As far as I've been able to
learn there is no empirical evidence providing a complete
pathway between inorganic matter and complex living organisms.
If this is a fact, then God as creator cannot be ruled out.

This is my first post. I was pointed to talk origins by
a friend. I found it interesting and inspiring.

>
> < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acceptance_of_evolution_by_religious_groups
> >
>
> ID/Ron Okimoto
>
> It The Believe
> That There A God
>
> Is Stupidity Too You
>
>

--
talk origins

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/13/20 3:12 PM, Tom Aull wrote:
>> [...]

> Many evolutionist, before hand, reject the existence of God,
> therefore, in their mind, since there is no God there can be
> no alternative to a natural origin for life.

Do you have any evidence for this? In my experience (and some current
polling supports this), the rejection of God comes from people looking
at religion and seeing hypocrisy, materialism, and immorality generally.
Mostly this consists of the Right-wing politics of Evangelicals
(giving overt support to hate, lying, theft, and adultery) and the
Catholic church's appallingly poor handling of sex abuse scandals, but
the denial of science by many churches is part of the same problem.

> But to me, the existence of life, and the miracle of it's
> origin does infer a creator.

Does the miracle of the existence of evolution imply a creator?

> As far as I've been able to
> learn there is no empirical evidence providing a complete
> pathway between inorganic matter and complex living organisms.
> If this is a fact, then God as creator cannot be ruled out.

God can never be ruled out, no matter what the facts or lack of them.
For science, that's a problem, since god can never be ruled in, either;
in fact, the god hypothesis is completely, totally, absolutely useless.
For theology, it's a mixed blessing. Some people are able to see god
behind (or among) regular scientific laws. Others see god operating in
the gaps of the unknown, so their god is small and getting smaller.
Which group are you in?

> This is my first post. I was pointed to talk origins by
> a friend. I found it interesting and inspiring.

Welcome.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net
"Omnia disce. Videbis postea nihil esse superfluum."
- Hugh of St. Victor

[Bill]

Mark Isaak wrote:

> On 2/13/20 3:12 PM, Tom Aull wrote:
>>> [...]
>> Many evolutionist, before hand, reject the existence of
>> God, therefore, in their mind, since there is no God
>> there can be no alternative to a natural origin for life.
>
> Do you have any evidence for this? In my experience (and
> some current polling supports this), the rejection of God
> comes from people looking at religion and seeing
> hypocrisy, materialism, and immorality generally.
> Mostly this consists of the Right-wing politics of
> Evangelicals
> (giving overt support to hate, lying, theft, and adultery)
> and the Catholic church's appallingly poor handling of sex
> abuse scandals, but the denial of science by many churches
> is part of the same problem.

This is a common error among those who don't want to think
too deeply about deep things. How people respond to the
question existence of God(s) is not relevant to the question
of the actual existence of God(s). Every expression of every
religion may be (probably is) completely wrong yet an actual
God(s) may exist. Religion tells us about people, not
God(s).

Even so, rather than concede that God(s) might exist, it's
easier to just attack the human beliefs derived from that
possibility. Your entire diatribe above is just a snarky
irrelevancy.

Bill

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/14/20 8:52 AM, Bill wrote:
> Mark Isaak wrote:
>
>> On 2/13/20 3:12 PM, Tom Aull wrote:
>>>> [...]
>>> Many evolutionist, before hand, reject the existence of
>>> God, therefore, in their mind, since there is no God
>>> there can be no alternative to a natural origin for life.
>>
>> Do you have any evidence for this? In my experience (and
>> some current polling supports this), the rejection of God
>> comes from people looking at religion and seeing
>> hypocrisy, materialism, and immorality generally.
>> Mostly this consists of the Right-wing politics of
>> Evangelicals
>> (giving overt support to hate, lying, theft, and adultery)
>> and the Catholic church's appallingly poor handling of sex
>> abuse scandals, but the denial of science by many churches
>> is part of the same problem.
>
> This is a common error among those who don't want to think
> too deeply about deep things. How people respond to the
> question existence of God(s) is not relevant to the question
> of the actual existence of God(s).

I vehemently disagree. If I saw a shining, angelic being descend from
the heavens with a flaming sword, and use that sword to slaughter all
the innocent children, often doing so in front of their vainly imploring
parents, and if, when an onlooker impressed by that power professes
devotion to that being, the being kicks said supplicant in the balls --
then I would say I have good evidence for a supernatural being, but that
that being is not worthy of worship and therefore does not qualify as a god.

The so-called god of certain Evangelical churches is not quite that bad
but certainly falls in the same category.

> Every expression of every
> religion may be (probably is) completely wrong yet an actual
> God(s) may exist. Religion tells us about people, not
> God(s).

Religion tells us about gods, too. (I have read the books.) Sometimes
they tell us enough to find a different religion which a certain
so-called god is not a part of. Or to abandon religion entirely and
worship (if that word applies) a god that nobody knows about.

[Bill]

Let's see if that works. During the 20th century there were
many beliefs systems: Fascists, Nazi, Communist among
others. These required certain nasty behaviors from their
followers. Each was a form of government. Since these
governments did terrible things, government itself must be
terrible. Since government is terrible, it cannot be true.
The only rational response must be anarchy.

Bill

>

[Peter Nyikos]

On Sunday, February 9, 2020 at 1:40:04 PM UTC-5, Ron O wrote:
> On 2/9/2020 9:51 AM, Glenn wrote:
> > On Sunday, February 9, 2020 at 8:10:03 AM UTC-7, Ron O wrote:
> >
> >
> > Ron, I'm becoming concerned about your contribution and impact to the safety and welfare of the public. As a geneticist, does your work extend beyond chicken farming?

Glenn forgets that Kleinman, to whom 'e is voluntarily shackled,
is subject to the same kind of jibe. Unfortunately for you, Ron O,
so are you.

>
> Glenn still can't face the Top Six and he has to run in any way that he
> can. You could address the Top Six and demonstrate that you can deal
> with reality, but that never happens. Why is that?

Short answer: I have argued for the no-brainer (IMO) that the
fine tuning of the universe either shows that there is a multiverse
of vast proportions or a designer of our own universe.

My arguments go far beyond the DI take on the subject:

>>2.
>>https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe/

You abandoned a thread which you had set up on this topic as soon as
I showed up in it, so inept are you at on-topic argument.

What passes for argument in your highly unstable mind is exemplified
by your relentlessly *ad hominem* polemic below, because you are totally
inept at arguing rationally. So it is no surprise that you fled
from that thread, despite the fact that you had set it up.

> Why go back to the
> ID perps for second rate junk when you can't face the best that they
> have ever given to you? Really, Glenn, look where the Top Six come
> from. The same creationist news site that you got the second rate junk
> from in one of your recent posts.
>
> The Grasso thread that you participated in was about #3 below. Running
> from reality isn't going to change reality.

The Grasso thread was about abiogenesis, and an inept beginning it
most certainly was. I've started to talk about the subject
a little while ago today, and you will see a lot more about
it when I find the spare time for it next week.

Correction: OTHERS will see a lot more about it, because
I don't think you'll dare to touch what I write with a ten foot pole.

> For years you were just a plain vanilla anti evolution creationist
> before you switched over to IDiocy, and what good did that do?

Plenty. It moved Glenn to the topic of the miserably embryonic
state in which current mainstream evolutionary theory is stuck,
and where all your anti-ID idiocy avails you nothing.

> You
> can't deal with the best that they have to give you.

There is no point in so doing, because I have done far better.

> >
> >> 1.
> >> https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-the-universe/
> >>
> >> 2.
> >> https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe/
> >>
> >> 3.
> >> https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-information-in-dna/

> >>
> >> 4.
> >> https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-irreducibly-complex-molecular-machines/
> >>
> >> 5.
> >> https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-animals/
> >>
> >> 6.
> >> https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-humans/
> >>

I've left in the rest of your display of maniacal hatred for the DI
below.


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

[Peter Nyikos]

On Friday, February 14, 2020 at 12:55:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 2/14/20 8:52 AM, Bill wrote:
> > Mark Isaak wrote:
> >
> >> On 2/13/20 3:12 PM, Tom Aull wrote:
> >>>> [...]
> >>> Many evolutionist, before hand, reject the existence of
> >>> God, therefore, in their mind, since there is no God
> >>> there can be no alternative to a natural origin for life.
> >>
> >> Do you have any evidence for this?

You ask a question, yet what you say next shows no skepticism
of what Tom wrote, so why even ask the question?

> >> In my experience (and
> >> some current polling supports this), the rejection of God
> >> comes from people looking at religion and seeing
> >> hypocrisy, materialism, and immorality generally.
> >> Mostly this consists of the Right-wing politics of
> >> Evangelicals
> >> (giving overt support to hate, lying, theft, and adultery)

There is no real scope for overt support for theft and adultery
here in talk.origins. But you give plenty of overt support for
hate and lying here in talk.origins. The example I keep bringing
up, because you have never shown any sign of regret for having
done it, is your libel that I want to take fundamental human
rights away from gays.

Every time you repeat that libel, you are giving overt support
to such lies, and to the hatred that would naturally come my
way, were the libel to be generally believed.

> >> and the Catholic church's appallingly poor handling of sex
> >> abuse scandals,

Actually it has been superior to the record of the public schools
in handling their own sex scandals since 2002. And now, with increasing
scrutiny of bishops for their cover-ups, it is slowly climbing to
new heights of responsibility. Granted, it has a long way to go,
but at least the trajectory is upward, in stunning contrast
to the pampering of the people who cover up that kind of behavior
in the public schools.

> >> but the denial of science by many churches
> >> is part of the same problem.

Suddenly, you switch from Catholics to non-Catholic fundies. The Vatican
has had no problem with evolution since John Paul II noted that evolution
"is more than just a hypothesis."

However, to damn fundies with faint praise, Kleinman outdoes all the
ones I've seen or heard of spectacularly with his ranting and raving
about "fossil tea leaves".

In fact, I sometimes suspect Kleinman of being a "loki": someone who
claims to be a creationist but secretly hates creationism, and therefore
acts in a way that would make people hate creationism even more, were they to
think that a typical creationist were like him.

> >
> > This is a common error among those who don't want to think
> > too deeply about deep things. How people respond to the
> > question existence of God(s) is not relevant to the question
> > of the actual existence of God(s).
>
> I vehemently disagree.

You are putting your own spin on the term God(s) in what you say next.

> If I saw a shining, angelic being descend from
> the heavens with a flaming sword, and use that sword to slaughter all
> the innocent children, often doing so in front of their vainly imploring
> parents, and if, when an onlooker impressed by that power professes
> devotion to that being, the being kicks said supplicant in the balls --
> then I would say I have good evidence for a supernatural being, but that
> that being is not worthy of worship and therefore does not qualify as a god.

So much for the evil gods of some religions. Saturn swallowing
his children suddenly makes him a non-god in this wordplay of yours.
The same applies to the gods of the Aztecs [except for Quetzalcoatl].
To appease same, the Aztecs slaughtered 60,000 human captives
in a single day.

Sorry, but the word "god" is too well entrenched for anyone to
change the general meaning of the word. Least of all you.

> The so-called god of certain Evangelical churches is not quite that bad
> but certainly falls in the same category.

Would you care to give a description that we all could compare
to widespread human sacrifice?

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina

http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

[Mark Isaak]

1. Governments are not gods.
2. You can reject one depiction of god without rejecting all of them.

Please get some sleep.

[Mark Isaak]

Tom,

Like I said, welcome to talk.origins. The above dialog shows a lot of
what goes on here: People have their own ideas, and when they read
yours, they automatically think you are talking about their ideas, and
if they find any difference, they make little or no attempt to read the
context in which you wrote, and they seem to try to take the most
uncharitable interpretation of what you say. Not everyone does that all
the time, but it is common enough that I recommend you develop a thick
skin if you post here.

[*Hemidactylus*]

You are a dichotomous thinking simpleton. Egads man is that an argument
against gov’t? You take the totalitarian worst cases and make them
representative of all forms of government. And you think anarchy is an
alternative. Have you heard of Thomas Hobbes on the state of nature?
Because that’s what you’re asking for. War of all against all...nasty,
brutish, and short! But don’t worry...we will eventually have private
police protection rackets cropping up for those who can afford it and maybe
death squads to eradicate poverty. In a privatized world mafia replaces the
power vacuum left by representative and responsive government administrated
in the public sector.

There is much to be said for a much less worse case Leviathan, funded by
progressive taxation, and given monopoly of use of force...though presently
at the level of executive branch rule of law seems to be passe’. That’s
what happens when exploitative real estate mogul vices take over.

[Burkhard]

Im' with Bill here. 1) is a reductio ad absurdum. if your inference
scheme is applied to another field, it yields absurd results, hence it
is an invalid scheme. So of course for this to work, something other
than gods is used, that;s how a valid reductio works.

2) is pretty much what Bill has been saying - that your inference starts
with one depiction of (some) gods and then makes an inference to all of
them. So again a valid reductio on his side.

You try to put "worthy of worship" into the definition of deity. I don't
think that is legitimate. I don't even think all gods demand worship.
Tak doesn't want you to think of him, but he wants you to think - though
admittedly I'm in a schism with myself about the status of Tak. But
there are also bona fide historical deities that did not seem to require
worship, or had a cult associated with them. Esu Elegbara and similar
"trickster" deities e.g.

Demanding worship anyway would not be the same as "being worthy of
worship". I'd def. worship your god above, for no other reason that they
have a f@@@ing big flaming sword and a temper management issue, while I
have a strong sense of self-preservation.

"Being nice" is not the same a "exists" or "being true: and your
argument at least looks as if it makes that inference.

Now, I would agree that historically, what you describe has indeed been
a much more important reason why people gave up on religion than
science. But that would be because of a mix of cultural and
psychological grounds which are not truth tracking. So they start in a
culture where the dominant deity is claim to be deserving of worship and
nice. Then they step back and realize that neither is the deity as
depicted worthy of worship, nor the religion as practices benign, and
hence conclude that THIS deity does not exist. And because religion is
closely linked to a sense of belonging (Simone Weill's "Need for Roots)
and change of religion that is not in one way or the other forced or
bribed rare, they see no need to look for a replacement.

But while psychologically plausible, this is as I said not necessarily
truth tracking.

[Burkhard]

Tom Aull wrote:
> On 2/8/20 1:15 PM, MyNews Hot-Text wrote:
>> "RonO" wrote in message
>> news:r1p73k$4vn$1...@dont-email.me...
>>
>> Scientific No Humen
>> Is Created The Equal
>>
>> Acceptance of evolution
>> by religious groups - Wikipedia
>>
>> Although biological evolution has been vocally opposed
>> by some religious groups, many other groups accept
>> the scientific position, sometimes with additions to allow
>> for theological considerations.
>>
>> The positions of such groups
>> are described by terms including
>> "theistic evolution",
>> "theistic evolutionism"
>> or "evolutionary creation".
>>
>> Theistic evolutionists
>> believe that there is a God,
>>
> Many evolutionist, before hand, reject the existence of God,
> therefore, in their mind, since there is no God there can be
> no alternative to a natural origin for life.

That would require some evidence from your side to support this claim

> But to me, the existence of life, and the miracle of it's
> origin does infer a creator. As far as I've been able to
> learn there is no empirical evidence providing a complete
> pathway between inorganic matter and complex living organisms.
> If this is a fact, then God as creator cannot be ruled out.

First, there is a big difference between "X does infer Y" and "X cannot
be ruled out". There is in particular no direct way that gets you from:
some entity cannot be ruled out as the cause of something else to "the
existence of this something else is evidence for, or infers, this
entity. A space alien in an invisibility cloak cannot be ruled out as
the true assassin of JFK, but the JFK assassination is hardly evidence
for space aliens

From the scientific perspective, "X can't be ruled out" isn't a
particularly meaningful proposition, unless there is a number of tests
one could make to distinguish affirmatively between "ruling in"
and"ruling out".

Finally, any religion that has to look all the time over its shoulder to
see if science has now provided a more complete answer than the day or
week before is going religion wrong. This is just one indicator for
really bad theology

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 14 Feb 2020 08:06:32 -0800, Mark Isaak
<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 2/13/20 3:12 PM, Tom Aull wrote:
>>> [...]
>> Many evolutionist, before hand, reject the existence of God,
>> therefore, in their mind, since there is no God there can be
>> no alternative to a natural origin for life.
>
>Do you have any evidence for this? In my experience (and some current
>polling supports this), the rejection of God comes from people looking
>at religion and seeing hypocrisy, materialism, and immorality generally.
> Mostly this consists of the Right-wing politics of Evangelicals
>(giving overt support to hate, lying, theft, and adultery) and the
>Catholic church's appallingly poor handling of sex abuse scandals,

Yet again you make a wild-assed assertions that is not supported by
any facts, simply what you like to believe to be true based on your
own prejudices towards the Catholic Church:

"We showed evidence on the effects of the U.S. Catholic abuse scandals
on religious participation, religious beliefs, and pro-social
behavior. We found a significant decline in religious participation as
a result of the scandals. Despite this decline, the scandals did not
have a significant effect on religious beliefs or pro-social beliefs."

Bottan, N.L., Perez-Truglia, R., 2015. Losing my religion: The effects
of religious scandals on religious participation and charitable
giving. Journal of Public Economics 129, 106-119.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpubeco.2015.07.008

[Mark Isaak]

At least 4% of people in developed countries get along just fine without
any god, and I see no reason why the number could not go higher. The
same cannot be said of governments. Besides, the reductio based on what
I wrote would advise that if you don't like one form of government, get
a different form of government. Optionally choosing no government at
all would parallel my point, but since governments are not gods, it is
not an option.

> 2) is pretty much what Bill has been saying - that your inference starts
> with one depiction of (some) gods and then makes an inference to all of
> them. So again a valid reductio on his side.

That's just the opposite of what I thought I have been writing.
Checking back, I did say, in so many words, "find a different religion
...". The inference Bill reads into my words was put there by Bill, not
by me.

> You try to put "worthy of worship" into the definition of deity. I don't
> think that is legitimate. I don't even think all gods demand worship.
> Tak doesn't want you to think of him, but he wants you to think - though
> admittedly I'm in a schism with myself about the status of Tak. But
> there are also bona fide historical deities that did not seem to require
> worship, or had a  cult associated with them. Esu Elegbara and similar
> "trickster" deities e.g.
>
> Demanding worship anyway would not be the same as "being worthy of
> worship". I'd def. worship your god above, for no other reason that they
> have a f@@@ing big flaming sword and a temper management issue, while I
> have a strong sense of self-preservation.
>
> "Being nice" is not the same a "exists" or "being true: and your
> argument at least looks as if it makes that inference.

This is a valid criticism of a point I should have handled better. Yes,
for the current context, I used a narrower definition of god. I
emphasize that I did so only for the context of religious worship. I
recognize that my usage is different from usual definitions of god.

> Now, I would agree that historically, what you describe has indeed been
> a much more important reason why people gave up on religion than
> science. But that would be because of a mix of cultural and
> psychological grounds which are not truth tracking. So they start in a
> culture where the dominant deity is claim to be deserving of worship and
> nice. Then they step back and realize that neither is the deity as
> depicted worthy of worship, nor the religion as practices benign, and
> hence conclude that THIS deity does not exist. And because religion is
> closely linked to a sense of belonging (Simone Weill's "Need for Roots)
> and change of religion that is not in one way or the other forced or
> bribed rare, they see no need to look for a replacement.
>
> But while psychologically plausible, this is as I said not necessarily
> truth tracking.

I shall try rephrasing my point. Tom suggested that rejection of God
leads to accepting evolution. My points are, first, I have never known
that to happen. Second and more important, there are reasons *why*
people who reject god have done so; it's often because religion fails
those people. Such failure can take different forms, and moral failure
is probably the most common, but rejection of science is a failure of
some churches. So rather than rejecting God causing acceptance of
religion, it looks more likely that accepting evolution can cause the
rejection of an anti-science church and the God which that church
represents.

I should add that I don't know of any cases where people have rejected
god solely because their religion was anti-science. But it seems more
plausible than accepting science because one rejected god.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Doh! I didn’t follow close enough to realize Freon Bill was making a subtle
large point against Mark by reductio. So much for my spirited argument
against anarchy.

[Mark Isaak]

"Millennials who are opting out of church cite three factors with equal
weight in their decision: 35% cite the church’s irrelevance, hypocrisy,
and the moral failures of its leaders as reasons to check out of church
altogether."
Barna Group, "Americans divided on the importance of church", 2014,
https://www.barna.com/research/americans-divided-on-the-importance-of-church/

Granted, that does not say they therefore became atheists, but the fact
that increases in atheism parallel decreases in church attendance raises
the possibility above "wild-assed assertion".

(Unlike your own wild-assed assertion about my attitude towards the
Catholic Church. I think you would also call me biased against road
transportation if I complained about a pothole which needed fixing.)

[jillery]

Since you mentioned it, and notwithstanding that nobody does anything
solely for one reason, and unrelated to any other point you posted
above, you might like to know a little bit about Paulogia, who claims
Ken's Ham's idiotic answers inspired him to question and ultimately
reject his Mennonite YEC upbringing:

<https://youtu.be/zr8XFqnGBco?t=163>
***************************
05:22 Until at one point I got to the question about how did
kangaroos get to Australia. And, and, basically their answer is "they
jumped on logs and floated there" was the answer. And I just dropped
the book on the floor. I'm like this isn't, this isn't, they can't,
they aren't even serious, like I don't know what this is. And that
was quite existential for me.
***************************


--
You're entitled to your own opinions.
You're not entitled to your own facts.

[Tom Aull]

For certain the communist governments were officially atheist.
Therefore, whatever the leaders thought necessary to keep
themselves in power was acceptable. No matter how terrible their
actions were, there was no consequences in response to these
horrible actions. It's just an opinion, but I suspect in the
back of most human minds there is a price to be paid for our
terrible acts.
But then there are the Muslim terrorist who
believe they will be rewarded with many virgins for killing
infidels.
They must be taught that by killing non believers they are pleasing
Allah! Why else would the believe this? Go figure~
>
> Bill
>
>>
>


--
talk origins

[Tom Aull]

On 2/14/20 5:29 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Friday, February 14, 2020 at 12:55:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 2/14/20 8:52 AM, Bill wrote:
>>> Mark Isaak wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 2/13/20 3:12 PM, Tom Aull wrote:
>>>>>> [...]
>>>>> Many evolutionist, before hand, reject the existence of
>>>>> God, therefore, in their mind, since there is no God
>>>>> there can be no alternative to a natural origin for life.
>>>>
>>>> Do you have any evidence for this?
>
> You ask a question, yet what you say next shows no skepticism
> of what Tom wrote, so why even ask the question?
>

I can understand the reason for the question. But I doubt there
has ever been a research program to determine the answer to
the question. So, no I have no evidence for my statement; it
just seemed reasonable. But in contrast, I can understand why
after accepting evolution as fact, atheism seems a rational
conclusion.
For my part, I agree with those who say evolution as a theory
based upon 'interpretation of the evidence'. And interpretation
is subjected to a higher sense of reality.

--
talk origins

[Tom Aull]

I have appreciated and respected your views, and on this anti-science
position of churches, I doubt there is any that totally reject science.
While some minister might preach against Darwin's theory, the world is
round; the sun is 93 million miles from earth; disease is caused by
bacteria, virus etc. Hospitals and medicals professionals are scientist
who are accepted and often needed.

>
> I should add that I don't know of any cases where people have rejected
> god solely because their religion was anti-science.
>

thank you.

But it seems more
> plausible than accepting science because one rejected god.
>

I suspect this is more descriptive of biologist than other
scientist.
I know an astronomer who is a dedicated Christian, also there
are a few biologist who are Christian. If you look at the
history of science, many scientific disciplines were founded
by religious clerics such as Catholic Priest and bishops
who are called "father of - - - ".


--
talk origins

[Tom Aull]

Kangaroos in Australia. This if the best evidence supporting evolution,
even if it's circumstantial evidence. In Australia there are multiple
classes. orders, families etc of marsupials, both living and extinct.
There is no alternative explanation that fits the bill as well. When
this island broke away it safe-guarded these animals, while on the
Euro-Asian and American continentals the marsupials, with one or two
exceptions, lost out due to the struggle for survival.

By the way, I have enjoyed your debates with a good friend who
on several occasions encouraged me to join this group. I've known
'Hack' Dean for many years. It's sad and tragic what happened to him.
Do you remember debates with Haskell R. Dean? He had a stroke, he
survived, but mentally he's not there. He is improving though.

>
> --
> You're entitled to your own opinions.
> You're not entitled to your own facts.
>

--
talk origins

[Martin Harran]

rOn Sat, 15 Feb 2020 13:41:20 -0800, Mark Isaak

That is irrelevant. Your original claim was that the Catholic Church's
handling of sex abuse was a significant factor in people rejecting
God. That Barna article is about *participation* and the research I
quoted above shows that decreases in participation does not reflect
decrease and belief.

If you want to talk about levels of participation and the reasons for
decline in it, fine we can do that but do you now withdraw your
initial assertion that the handling of sex abuse led to people
rejecting God?

>but the fact
>that increases in atheism parallel decreases in church attendance raises
>the possibility above "wild-assed assertion".

<Gulp> Do I really have to explain to you the risks of mistaking
correlation for causation? Or do you think that Nicholas Cage causing
swimming pool drownings is more than a wild-assed assertion?

https://www.indy100.com/article/bizarre-correlations-that-will-leave-you-wishing-nicolas-cage-would-retire--l1XwA_q1Je

https://bit.ly/39GQSc2

>
>(Unlike your own wild-assed assertion about my attitude towards the
>Catholic Church. I think you would also call me biased against road
>transportation if I complained about a pothole which needed fixing.)

If you regularly complained about potholes which were shown not to
exist, then I would certainly suggest you get your eyes tested.

[Otangelo Grasso]

On Sunday, February 9, 2020 at 12:10:03 PM UTC-3, Ron O wrote:
> Grasso doesn't want to learn anything from his current abiogenesis
thread (#3 on the list).

> Ron Okimoto

Blame shifting, and psychological projection

When you blame others, you give up your power to change !!

Psychological projection is a defence mechanism in which the human ego defends itself against unconscious impulses or qualities (both positive and negative) by denying their existence in themselves while attributing them to others. For example, a person who is habitually rude may constantly accuse other people of being rude. It incorporates blame shifting.

What happens when you have a whole bunch of uncomfortable, embarrassing and annoying emotions that you don’t want to unconsciously deal with? According to famous psychologist Sigmund Freud these emotions are projected on to other people, so that other people become carriers of our own perceived flaws. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for us, this form of emotional displacement makes it much easier to live with ourselves … because everyone else is responsible for our misery – not us!

[jillery]

On Sat, 15 Feb 2020 23:20:24 -0500, Tom Aull <"Tom Aull"@gmail.com>
wrote:

The radiation of marsupials in Australia is indeed good evidence of
biological evolution, as is the radiation of lemurs in Madagascar, as
is the radiation of finches in the Galapagos. All show that over time
isolated populations naturally fill the available ecological niches.
The extant diversity of these examples also reflects the initial
diversity at the time of isolation, as well as the amount of time
since isolation.

Even if one accepts for argument's sake that Galapagos finches might
be consistent with Ken Ham's post-Ark adaptation hypothesis, and they
are all of the finch "kind", even his willful stupidity can't stretch
that idea to claim that all Australian marsupials are of the marsupial
"kind".

>By the way, I have enjoyed your debates with a good friend who
>on several occasions encouraged me to join this group. I've known
>'Hack' Dean for many years. It's sad and tragic what happened to him.
>Do you remember debates with Haskell R. Dean? He had a stroke, he
>survived, but mentally he's not there. He is improving though.

Thank you for sharing this information. R.Dean mentioned he had
life-threatening health problems, but did not specify it was a stroke.
I am glad to hear he is improving. If you talk to him, please extend
my best wishes from me to him.

[RonO]

I see that you are snipping and running from the Top Six. What do you
make of that behavior? It looks like the projection is on your part.

Projection is a psychological defense, but I don't know how it works
because the perpetrator has to understand what he is in order to do it.
You could explain how it works for you, but you should deal with the Top
Six first. Your current denial argument is #3. How does it fit in with
all the others? What should you learn from the Top Six?

REPOST:

1.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-the-universe/

2.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-fine-tuning-of-the-universe/

3.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-information-in-dna/

4.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-irreducibly-complex-molecular-machines/

5.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-animals/

6.
https://evolutionnews.org/2017/11/ids-top-six-the-origin-of-humans/

Grasso doesn't want to learn anything from his current abiogenesis

END REPOST:

Ron Okimoto

[Otangelo Grasso]

Repeating your assertions do not make them true.

How did proteins emerge on a prebiotic earth ? Please explain. In detail.

[RonO]

So demonstrate that they aren't true without running from the Top Six.
Go for it.

What good is your denial about the origin of life when you can't deal
with how it fits in with everything else? Why does your response tell
anyone with a brain that my assertions are true? What are you doing
with this response?

Ron Okimoto

[Otangelo Grasso]

On Sunday, February 16, 2020 at 11:05:03 AM UTC-3, Ron O wrote:

> What good is your denial about the origin of life when you can't deal
> with how it fits in with everything else? Why does your response tell
> anyone with a brain that my assertions are true? What are you doing
> with this response?
>
> Ron Okimoto

I did ask you a specific question. How did proteins emerge on prebiotic earth? Show that you have more than name-calling.

[jillery]

On Sat, 15 Feb 2020 13:41:20 -0800, Mark Isaak

My impression is, this is just the latest example of Martin Harran's
inability to control his jerky knees, and/or his willful denial of
specific instances of RCC culpability.

While it is true that participation in organized religious activities
isn't the same thing as rejecting God, my experience is the two are
strongly correlated, especially among those who are told the Church is
God's representative on Earth.

I acknowledge that some people successfully seek out other Churches,
but I have heard too many testimonies from those who believe their
Church and God failed them. Perhaps they used a particular experience
to affirm a pre-existing doubt, but they still equated their belief in
Church doctrine with their belief in God.

[RonO]

You are running from the Top Six of which your question is included.
What don't you get? You might ask MarkE. He should know part of that
answer if he doesn't run from what he was given previously. A hint
would be that the proteins that exist today were likely made by an RNA
based replication system. Really, pester MarkE for the answer about how
the genetic code got started.

Ron Okimoto

[Otangelo Grasso]

On Sunday, February 16, 2020 at 11:35:02 AM UTC-3, Ron O wrote:
the proteins that exist today were likely made by an RNA
> based replication system.
>

> Ron Okimoto

likely? that is all that you get? And based on that, you keep namecalling all who are skeptics in regards to this kind of just so assertion? Really?
And you run for years in this group wasting your time? Oh please...No kidding.....

Did you EVER spend time investigating what professionals say?

RNA & DNA: It's prebiotic synthesis: Impossible !! Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZFlmL_BsXE

RNA & DNA: It's prebiotic synthesis: Impossible !! Part 2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv4mUjmuRRU

Main points addressed in the video
Synthesis of nitrogenous bases in prebiotic environments
- High-energy precursors to produce purines and pyrimidines would have had to be produced in a sufficiently concentrated form. There is no known prebiotic route to this.
- Scientists have failed to produce cytosine in spark-discharge experiments, nor has cytosine been recovered from meteorites or extraterrestrial sources. The deamination of cytosine and its destruction by other processes such as photochemical reactions place severe constraints on prebiotic cytosine syntheses.
- The origin of guanine bases has proven to be a particular challenge. While the other three bases of RNA could be created by heating a simple precursor compound in the presence of certain naturally occurring catalysts, guanine had not been observed as a product of the same reactions.
- Adenine synthesis requires unreasonable Hydrogen cyanide concentrations. Adenine deaminates 37°C with a half-life of 80 years. Therefore, adenine would never accumulate in any kind of "prebiotic soup." The adenine-uracil interaction is weak and nonspecific, and, therefore, would never be expected to function in any specific recognition scheme under the chaotic conditions of a "prebiotic soup."
- Uracil has also a half-life of only 12 years at 100◦C. For nucleobases to accumulate in prebiotic environments, they must be synthesized at rates that exceed their decomposition.
Ribose: Synthesis problems of the Pentose 5 carbon sugar ring
The best-studied mechanism relevant to the prebiotic synthesis of ribose is the formose reaction. Several problems have been recognized for the ribose synthesis via the formose reaction. The formose reaction is very complex. It depends on the presence of a suitable inorganic catalyst. Ribose is merely an intermediate product among a broad suite of compounds including sugars with more or fewer carbons.
The phosphate group

On prebiotic earth, however, there would have been no way to activate phosphate somehow, in order to promote the energy dispendious reaction.

Prebiotic RNA and DNA synthesis
1. No prebiotic mechanism is known to select:
- Right-handed configurations of RNA and DNA
- The right backbone sugar
- How to get size complementarity of the nucleotide bases to form a DNA strand and strands of the DNA molecule running in the opposite directions
2. Bringing all the parts together and joining them in the right position
- Attach the nucleic bases to the ribose and in a repetitive manner at the same, correct place, and the backbone being a repetitive homopolymer
- Prebiotic glycosidic bond formation between nucleosides and the base
- Prebiotic phosphodiester bond formation
- Fine-tuning of the strength of the hydrogen base pairing forces
3. The instability, degradation, and asphalt problem
- Bonds that are thermodynamically unstable in water, and overall intrinsic instability. RNA’s nucleotide building blocks degrade at warm temperatures in time periods ranging from nineteen days to twelve years. These extremely short survival rates for the four RNA nucleotide building blocks suggest why life’s origin would have to be virtually instantaneous—all the necessary RNA molecules would have to be assembled before any of the nucleotide building blocks decayed.
4. The energy problem
- Doing things costs energy. There has to be a ready source of energy to produce RNA. In modern cells, energy is consumed to make RNA.
5. The minimal nucleotide quantity problem.
- The prebiotic conditions would have had to be right for reactions to give perceptible yields of bases that could pair with each other.
6. The Water Paradox
- The hydrolytic deamination of DNA and RNA nucleobases is rapid and irreversible, as is the base-catalyzed cleavage of RNA in water. This leads to a paradox: RNA requires water to do its job, but RNA cannot emerge in water and cannot replicate with sufficient fidelity in water without sophisticated repair mechanisms in place.
7.The transition problem from prebiotic to biochemical synthesis
- Even if all this in a freaky accident occurred by random events, that still says nothing about the huge gap and enormous transition that would be still ahead to arrive at a fully functional interlocked and interdependent metabolic network, where complex biosynthesis pathways produce nucleotides in modern cells.
Unguided prebiotic synthesis of RNA and DNA: an unsolved riddle!

The origin of the RNA and DNA molecule is an origin of life problem, not evolution.

Steve Benner, one of the world’s leading authorities on abiogenesis: The “origins problem” CANNOT be solved.
Graham Cairns-Smith: The odds against a successful unguided synthesis of a batch of primed nucleotide on the primitive Earth would be a huge number, represented approximately by a 1 followed by 109 zeros ( 10^109). 'The odds are enormous against its being coincidence. No figures could express them.'

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/15/20 7:22 PM, Tom Aull wrote:
> On 2/15/20 11:41 AM, Mark Isaak wrote:

>> [...]

>> I shall try rephrasing my point.  Tom suggested that rejection of God
>> leads to accepting evolution.  My points are, first, I have never
>> known that to happen.  Second and more important, there are reasons
>> *why* people who reject god have done so; it's often because religion
>> fails those people.  Such failure can take different forms, and moral
>> failure is probably the most common, but rejection of science is a
>> failure of some churches.  So rather than rejecting God causing
>> acceptance of religion, it looks more likely that accepting evolution
>> can cause the rejection of an anti-science church and the God which
>> that church represents.
> >
> I have appreciated and respected your views, and on this anti-science
> position of churches, I doubt there is any that totally reject science.
> While some minister might preach against Darwin's theory, the world is
> round; the sun is 93 million miles from earth; disease is caused by
> bacteria, virus etc. Hospitals and medicals professionals are scientist
> who are accepted and often needed.

I would say that to "reject science" is to reject the scientific method.
And anyone who rejects scientific findings just because they don't
like those findings does that.

>> I should add that I don't know of any cases where people have rejected
>> god solely because their religion was anti-science.
> >
> thank you.
>
>  But it seems more
>> plausible than accepting science because one rejected god.
>>
> I suspect this is more descriptive of biologist than other
> scientist.
> I know an astronomer who is a dedicated Christian, also there
> are a few biologist who are Christian. If you look at the
> history of science, many scientific disciplines were founded
> by religious clerics such as Catholic Priest and bishops
> who are called "father of - - - ".

Agreed, except I expect the number of Christian biologists in western
countries is more than a few. I have personally known (and respected
and admired) biologists who were Catholic and Mormon, among many others
whose religion I don't know. Some religious sects have views that are
hostile to science, but many others don't.

[jillery]

How does it make any sense to ask for details about things you insist
could not have happened?

[RonO]

On 2/16/2020 8:49 AM, Otangelo Grasso wrote:
> On Sunday, February 16, 2020 at 11:35:02 AM UTC-3, Ron O wrote:
> the proteins that exist today were likely made by an RNA
>> based replication system.
>>
>> Ron Okimoto
>
> likely? that is all that you get? And based on that, you keep namecalling all who are skeptics in regards to this kind of just so assertion? Really?
> And you run for years in this group wasting your time? Oh please...No kidding.....

My likely is so much more than anything that you have you have to be
lying to yourself to even make this comment. Really, put up your
alternative and see for yourself. Your alternative isn't even "likely"
on that scale. Go for it.

>
> Did you EVER spend time investigating what professionals say?

You haven't. You may claim to have investigated, but all you ever did
was lie to yourself about what you were doing.

>
> RNA & DNA: It's prebiotic synthesis: Impossible !! Part 1
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZFlmL_BsXE

Why would you believe these guys. They don't even know how RNA was made
before there was DNA. Really, find a person that knows how it was made
and you win the prize. Not knowing something does not make it
impossible. It just means that you don't know.

>
> RNA & DNA: It's prebiotic synthesis: Impossible !! Part 2
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dv4mUjmuRRU

Ditto. You lose again. What is your alternative? Why is your
alternative not as good as your own level of not good enough?

Steve Benner obviously isn't a good source because he obviously isn't
investigating the issue because he claims that something can't be done
before he has solved anything. Why would you believe guys like
Cairns-Smith and Benner when they have obviously stopped investigating
the issue before any success? What is their alternative and how much
headway have they made on it? Nowhere comparable should tell you that
these type of deniers are losers.

Ask Benner and Cairns-Smith what the first self replicators were made
of. If they tell you that they know, they are lying because no one
knows at this time. These first self replicators are what would have
made the RNA to form the RNA based replication system. Before RNA the
replicators would have been making themselves out of something else.
Once you have molecules that can self replicate they obviously can do
more than just self replicate. Other parts of themselves can have other
catalytic features.

What you need to do is determine how far you have gotten on your
alternative and then compare it to what the abiogenesis researchers have
come up with. Nothing comparable should tell you something. You don't
even have the atoms and molecules to help you get started. Think about
it. What is not as good as your own level of not good enough?

Put up your alternative and determine for yourself how much worse off
you are than what you claim isn't good enough.

We have RNA. We know that RNA can have catalytic properties. There is
an obvious means of replication for RNA that does not involve the
genetic code. RNAs could have been doing the job of proteins for
replication of such lifeforms. The catalytic RNA is used to make
proteins to this day. Do you understand what that means? It means that
the current genetic code could have evolved to produce proteins. You
don't need the code to produce RNAs that produced the proteins. Think
about it.

What do you have by comparison? Nothing should make you wonder about
which alternative you should include as being impoosible. It is your
own level of what is not good enough.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

He isn't asking the right question. The proteins we know today that are
encoded by genes did not emerge on a prebiotic earth. There may have
been peptides that were made, but not the proteins he is thinking about.
There were likely already lifeforms that were replicating before such
proteins were made from genes. The RNA world alternative has RNAs doing
the work of what most of the proteins do today. Catalytic RNA is still
used to make those proteins today.

Ron Okimoto

[Otangelo Grasso]

On Sunday, February 16, 2020 at 3:50:03 PM UTC-3, Ron O wrote:
We have RNA. We know that RNA can have catalytic properties.

The implausibility of prevital nucleic acid

Genetic takeover, Cairns Smith, page 66:
Now you may say that there are alternative ways of building up nucleotides, and perhaps there was some geochemical way on the early Earth. But what we know of the experimental difficulties in nucleotide synthesis speaks strongly against any such supposition. However it is to be put together, a nucleotide is too complex and metastable a molecule for there to be any reason to expect an easy synthesis.

If you were to consider in more detail a process such as the purification of an intermediate ( to form amide bonds between amino acids and nucleotides ) you would find many subsidiary operations — washings, pH changes and so on. (Remember Merrifield’s machine: for one overall reaction, making one peptide bond, there were about 90 distinct operations required.)

Chemistry and the Missing Era of Evolution A. Graham Cairns-Smith
What is missing from this story of the evolution of life on earth is the original means of producing such sophisticated materials as RNA. The main problem is that the replication of RNA depends on a clean supply of rather complicated monomers—activated nucleotides. What was required to set the scene for an RNA world was a highly competent, long-term means of production of at least two nucleotides. In practice the discrimination required to make nucleotide parts cleanly, or to assemble them correctly, still seems insufficient.

RNA & DNA: It's prebiotic synthesis: Impossible !! Part 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ZFlmL_BsXE

Claim: Your argument is based on ignorance, gaps, and incredulity.
Reply:
1. if there is no money in the wallet
2. It's an argument of knowledge to say: There is no money in the wallet after you check.
3. The same happens in molecular biochemistry. We checked, and scientists discovered that DNA stores specified complex information, which is a blueprint, instructing the precise sequence of amino acids to make proteins. Such information has never been observed to emerge by chance, and therefore, we have evidence that something is extremely unlikely (e.g., that chance could inform the correct instructions to make proteins). Indeed, scientists will often debate whether an experiment's result should be considered evidence of absence. Something has proven not to be the result of X ( as chance, for example )
4. Intelligence can act towards achieving specific goals, and knows how to create codified language, and use that language to create blueprints, used to make complex machines, production lines, and factories. It can finely tune and arrange things to work in a precise fashion. it can shape and form parts that perform tasks by interacting like lock and key. None of all this has been observed to be achieved by any alternative non-intelligent mechanism. if anyone wants to propose an alternative to replace intelligence, it should meet the burden of proof, and falsify the claim based on empirical testing and falsification.
5. Hence, the argument of Intelligent Design as best explanation of origins is based on experiments and observation, gained knowledge and experience. Not from ignorance.

Eliminative inductions argue for the truth of a proposition by arguing that competitors to that proposition are false. ( Contrast this with Popperian falsification, where propositions are corroborated to the degree that they successfully withstand attempts to falsify them ) When the available option form a dichotomy, just to option, A, or not A, they form a mutually exclusive and exhaustive class, eliminating all the competitors entails that the proposition is true. As Sherlock Holmes famous dictum says: when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. In this case, eliminative inductions, in fact, become deductions.

While theists hear the claim that inferring God is a gaps argument in almost every debate, are atheists not themselves actually guilty of using it?

We don't know:
- if the universe is eternal, there might be multiverses
- how the Big bang started, maybe virtual particles
- why the universe is finely tuned - maybe bubble universes
- how life started, but the Urey Miller experiment showed that amino acids can emerge in the lab, and what science not yet knows, one day it will find out - and it won't be a God
- how exactly evolution works to produce biodiversity, but its a theory, and there is consensus in science, therefore it must be true.
- how the brain can produce thoughts and conscience, but we don't know of a mind being able to exist outside the brain, therefore, monism must be true.

min. 45:04 - God of the gaps arguments
Common atheist fallacies: exposed !!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wK99BsNc2Ko&t=3054s

[jillery]

You noticed that, too.

>The proteins we know today that are
>encoded by genes did not emerge on a prebiotic earth. There may have
>been peptides that were made, but not the proteins he is thinking about.
> There were likely already lifeforms that were replicating before such
>proteins were made from genes. The RNA world alternative has RNAs doing
>the work of what most of the proteins do today. Catalytic RNA is still
>used to make those proteins today.
>

[RonO]

On 2/16/2020 3:05 PM, Otangelo Grasso wrote:
> On Sunday, February 16, 2020 at 3:50:03 PM UTC-3, Ron O wrote:
> We have RNA. We know that RNA can have catalytic properties.
>
> The implausibility of prevital nucleic acid

Still more than you have. Demonstrate otherwise.s

Doesn't matter what you repeat below. You have nothing better. What is

not as good as your own level of not good enough?

By your own standards what you have isn't good enough. Not only that,
but it is worse than what you don't want to believe.

RNA looks like it was the intermediate for what we have today.
Intermediate, does not mean that it has to be made de novo the way that
Smith claims is impossible. Think about it. There was likely something
that came before RNA. We don't know what that was, but we know that it
could have existed. What do you have by comparison? What evidence do
you have that your alternative ever existed?

In your alternative what came before RNA? You don't even have an
alternative for what came before matter as we know it. Really, put up
your alternative and just see that for yourself.

We have RNA. We know that RNA can have catalytic properties. We know
that this could have existed before we had DNA and protein coding genes.
What do you have for what came before DNA and protein coding genes?

Reposting crap that doesn't mean jack isn't going to do you any good.
What you need is an alternative that is as good as your own not good enough.

Really, what do you have that is as good as what we know about RNA?

Just put up your alternative, and demonstrate that you know anything
equivalent to what we know about RNA that pertains to your alternative.
This is your own level of not good enough, so how does your alternative
measure up. Worse than not good enough should bother you. It means
that all your denial is meaningless by your own standards.

Ron Okimoto

[Bill Jefferys]

Let me just say...

The "model" that Otangelo Grasso has is indistinguishable from:

MAGIC!!!

The Creator that he is arguing for in the back of his mind is indistinguishable from MAGIC!!!

Wit MAGIC you can do anything. There's no model. There's no clothes for the emperor. You just say that this (undefined, magical) Intelligent Designer did it all!!! That's all you need.

Explains everything by actually explaining nothing.

Now back to the show.

Bill

[Mark Isaak]

Sorry, I'm not convinced by one paper on statistical trends that some
people (perhaps not a statistically significant number in Bottan's
study) did not lose their belief in God, or even more likely, that some
did not form such a belief in the first place. I do grant that the
effect of the Catholic sex scandals on religious belief is small or
nonexistent.

>> but the fact
>> that increases in atheism parallel decreases in church attendance raises
>> the possibility above "wild-assed assertion".
>
> <Gulp> Do I really have to explain to you the risks of mistaking
> correlation for causation? Or do you think that Nicholas Cage causing
> swimming pool drownings is more than a wild-assed assertion?
>
> https://www.indy100.com/article/bizarre-correlations-that-will-leave-you-wishing-nicolas-cage-would-retire--l1XwA_q1Je
>
> https://bit.ly/39GQSc2

Do I really have to explain that the mistake you refer to occurs because
it is often the case that correlation *does* indicate causation? You
seem to be reading "proves conclusively" when I say something like
"raises the possibility". I wish you would stop that.

>> (Unlike your own wild-assed assertion about my attitude towards the
>> Catholic Church. I think you would also call me biased against road
>> transportation if I complained about a pothole which needed fixing.)
>
> If you regularly complained about potholes which were shown not to
> exist, then I would certainly suggest you get your eyes tested.

As best I remember, the only complaints I have leveled against the the
Catholic church are their handling of the sex scandals and their
promotion of the medical pseudoscience of exorcism. I may also have
mentioned their institutionalized sexism and/or noted that I'm glad that
they're getting over their homophobia, but I don't remember if I did.

I know we disagree about exorcism, but what of the other points? Do you
disagree that the Catholic Church's handling of pedophile priests was
appallingly poor? Do you support institutionalized sexism? Do you want
to see the Church support homophobia? If not, what are those
nonexistent potholes you refer to?

[Otangelo Grasso]

Your willful ignorance is remarkable.
Intelligence can make blueprints, basic building blocks, machines and factories. Random luck can't.

we don't need to know how the mind/brain/matter interface works. We know it does. Thats all we need to know to have a case.

[jillery]

From your cite above:
********************************
@54:18
Blueprints and instructional information which directs the making of
machines factory production lines and entire factory parks the origin
of both is always tracked back to an intelligent source. Biological
cells are literally a park of millions of interlinked factories each
full of complex molecular machines and complex chemical production
lines.
*********************************

Blueprints and instructional information for machines and factories
are products of humans, so it's a truism they always track back to an
intelligent source.

It is incorrect to say biological cells are literally the same as
factories. Instead it is at best an analogy, where some things are
similar and some are not; ex. human factories do not reproduce
themselves.

This is a standard ID trope, to start with things which are known to
be of human design, analogize them to life processes, and then assert
this proves ID. Even if the analogy supported the claim, that human
factories and biological cells are functionally identical, the
conclusion would still be illogical hyperbole, as the video didn't
even try to track back to cells' source.

From your cite above:
*******************************
@52:52
So is the accretion theory of stars, despite the fact that the gas
exercising gravitational forces and clumping together to form stars
has never been observed and this highly speculative.
*******************************

Star formation occurs over millions of years, so it's practically
impossible to directly observe their creation. What has been observed
are different stages of stellar formation. Stellar accretion is a
logical inference based on that evidence.

To say the accretion theory is speculative is to handwave away all
inferences about the past, or to deny even the past itself. This is
like [1] a mayfly, which lives for but a day, resting on a great oak
tree, which has lived for hundreds of years. The mayfly dismisses as
highly speculative that the oak tree is a living thing which
originated long ago from a tiny acorn.

The video's line of reasoning is a standard pseudo-skeptic trope, to
impose illogical standards against scientific evidence, while making
no effort to similarly challenge its own assumptions.

[1] This is an example of a correct use of analogy to illustrate a
point. The video's logic is like a mayfly with respect to their
similar narrow POV and limited imagination. But it is not like a
mayfly with respect to their ability to fly. This is beyond the scope
of the analogy, as is the video's conclusion that cells are a product
of ID.

[Otangelo Grasso]

On Monday, February 17, 2020 at 11:20:03 AM UTC-3, jillery wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Feb 2020 13:05:32 -0800 (PST), Otangelo Grasso
> <audiov...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >It is incorrect to say biological cells are literally the same as
factories.

then why is the scientific literature full of claiming that?

Analogies are used as comparison between two things, typically for the purpose of explanation or clarification. Cells correspond to factories. But they are far more than just a factory. Cells are a gigantic high-tech megacity hosting millions, in some cases, billions of interlinked factories ( human cells ) which work in an orchestrated interdependent manner together.
The claim that cells are factories is both an analogy resembling human made factories, but cells are as well defacto and literally a megacity of interlinked self-replicating factories. The fact that cells self-replicate substantiates and reinforces the inference of intelligent design gigantically. If man were able to make self-replicating, fully automated robotic factories using in-situ resources, that would be game-changing technology for all of humanity. This is a monumental challenge. The number of processes involved and parts to build the complex machinery is very large. We don't have any factory without human control or intervention.

And even if we eventually get there one day, raw material inputs would still have to be managed by man. Cells have sophisticated gates in the membrane, which sort out what materials can be permitted to get in, and waste product out of the cell. They have even sophisticated machines on the membrane surface, like amazing molecular assembly lines called nonribosomal peptide synthetase, which are protein nanofactories. They detect, atract, and transform iron in the environment into siderophores, which is iron in form that can be mobilized, uptaken and imported into the cell to manufacture protein co-factors, Iron-sulfur cores used as the catalyzers of enzyme reactions in the core pocket of proteins.

Iron mobilization and uptake - an essential process in all domains of life
http://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t2445-amazing-molecular-assembly-lines-and-non-ribosomal-amino-acid-chain-formation-pathways-come-to-light#5901

Each factory would also need the means to replicate and copy the information storage device, the hard disk, equivalent to the DNA molecule, and the information content. That is staggeringly coplex.


Factory is from latin, and means fabricare, or make. Produce, manufacture. A factory or manufacturing plant is a site, usually consisting of buildings and machinery, or more commonly a complex having several buildings, where, in fully automated factories for example, pre-programmed robots, manufacture goods or operate machines processing one product into another. And that's PRECISELY what cells do. They produce other cells through self-replication, through complex machine processing, computing etc. They produce all organelles, proteins, membranes, parts, they make a copy of themselves. Self-replication is a marvel of engineering. the most advanced method of manufacturing. And fully automated. No external help required. If we could make factories like that, we would be able to create a society where machines do all the work for us, and we would have time only to entertain us, no work, nor money needed anymore..... And if factories could evolve to produce subsequently better, more adapted products, that would add even further complexity, and point to even more requirement of pre-programming to get the feat done.

The Molecular Fabric of Cells BIOTOL, B.C. Currell and R C.E Dam-Mieras (Auth.)
http://libgen.io/search.php?req=The+Molecular+Fabric+of+Cells&lg_topic=libgen&open=0&view=simple&res=25&phrase=1&column=def

The central theme of both of these texts is to consider cells as biological factories. Cells are, indeed, outstanding factories. Each cell type takes in its own set of chemicals and making its own collection of products. The range of products is quite remarkable and encompass chemically simple compounds such as ethanol and carbon dioxide as well as the extremely complex proteins, carbohydrates, lipids, nucleic acids and secondary products.

Membranes represent the walls of the cellular factory. Membranes control what comes into the factory and what leaves. We may view the cytoplasm and its surrounding plasma membrane as being the workshop of the chemical factory. The Golgi apparatus, another membranous structure embedded in the cytoplasm, is also involved in the processing of macromolecules made within the cell. Its special properties are for modifying cell products so that they can be exported from the cell. In our chemical factory, they are the packaging and exporting department. Enzymes are indeed rather like the workers in a large complex industrial process. Each is designed to carry out a specific task in a specific area of the factory.

To understand how a factory operates requires knowledge of the tools and equipment available within the factory and how these tools are organized. We might anticipate that our biological factories will be comprised of structural and functional elements.

Mammalian cell factories are typically complex production systems as productivity and product quality are controlled by a large number of coordinated metabolic reactions
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/engineering/cell-factory

Plant Cells as Chemical Factories: Control and Recovery of Valuable Products
https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-94-017-0641-4_14

Microbial cell factory is an approach to bioengineering which considers microbial cells as a production facility in which the optimization process largely depends on metabolic engineering
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_cell_factory

Microbial Cell Factories is an open access peer-reviewed journal that covers any topic related to the development, use and investigation of microbial cells as producers of recombinant proteins and natural products
https://microbialcellfactories.biomedcentral.com/

Fine Tuning our Cellular Factories: Sirtuins in Mitochondrial Biology
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3111451/

Cells As Molecular Factories
Eukaryotic cells are molecular factories in two senses: cells produce molecules and cells are made up of molecules.
http://serendip.brynmawr.edu/exchange/bioactivities/cellmolecular

Michael Denton: Evolution: A Theory In Crisis:
The cell is a veritable micro-miniaturized factory containing thousands of exquisitely designed pieces of intricate molecular machinery, made up altogether of one hundred thousand million atoms, far more complicated than any machine built by man and absolutely without parallel in the non-living world.

Ribosome: Lessons of a molecular factory construction
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1134/S0026893314040116

Nucleolus: the ribosome factory
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18712681

Ribosome: The cell city's factories
http://www.open.edu/openlearn/nature-environment/natural-history/ribosome-the-cell-citys-factories
In the cell, there are production lines, in this case, manufacturing new proteins of many different sorts. New goods and products are continually being manufactured from raw materials. In cities this takes place in workshops and factories. Raw materials are transformed, usually in a sequence of steps on a production line, into finished products. The process is governed by a clear set of instructions or specifications. In some cases the final products are for immediate or local use, in others they are packaged for export.

The Cell's Protein Factory in Action
What looks like a jumble of rubber bands and twisty ties is the ribosome, the cellular protein factory.
https://www.livescience.com/41863-ribosomes-protein-factory-nigms.html

Chloroplasts are the microscopic factories on which all life on Earth is based.
https://www.quora.com/What-is-chloroplast-For-what-it-is-used

Visualization of the active expression site locus by tagging with green fluorescent protein shows that it is specifically located at this unique pol I transcriptional factory.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v414/n6865/full/414759a.html

There are millions of protein factories in every cell. Surprise, they’re not all the same
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/06/there-are-millions-protein-factories-every-cell-surprise-they-re-not-all-same

Rough ER is also a membrane factory for the cell; it grows in place by adding membrane proteins and phospholipids to its own membrane.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Cell_Biology/Print_version

Endoplasmic reticulum: Scientists image 'parking garage' helix structure in protein-making factory
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/07/130718130617.htm

Theoretical biologists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have used a New Mexico supercomputer to aid an international research team in untangling another mystery related to ribosomes -- those enigmatic jumbles of molecules that are the protein factories of living cells.
https://phys.org/news/2010-12-scientists-ratchet-cellular-protein-factory.html

The molecular factory that translates the information from RNA to proteins is called the "ribosome"
https://phys.org/news/2014-08-key-worker-protein-synthesis-factory.html

Quality control in the endoplasmic reticulum protein factory
The endoplasmic reticulum (ER) is a factory where secretory proteins are manufactured, and where stringent quality-control systems ensure that only correctly folded proteins are sent to their final destinations. The changing needs of the ER factory are monitored by integrated signalling pathways that constantly adjust the levels of folding assistants.
http://sci-hub.cc/10.1038/nature02262

The cell is a mind-bogglingly complex and intricate marvel of nano-technology. Every one of the trillions of cells in your body is not “like” an automated nano-factory. It is an automated nano-factory.
https://uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/pardon-me-if-i-am-not-impressed-dr-miller/

[jillery]

On Mon, 17 Feb 2020 12:08:57 -0800 (PST), Otangelo Grasso

<audiov...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Monday, February 17, 2020 at 11:20:03 AM UTC-3, jillery wrote:
>> On Sun, 16 Feb 2020 13:05:32 -0800 (PST), Otangelo Grasso
>> <audiov...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >It is incorrect to say biological cells are literally the same as factories.
>
>then why is the scientific literature full of claiming that?

Cite.

[RonO]

What do you think not as good as his own level of not good enough refers to?

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

You have nothing comparable. Just put it up to demonstrate that to
yourself.

>
> Your willful ignorance is remarkable.
> Intelligence can make blueprints, basic building blocks, machines and factories. Random luck can't.

Put it up and see if it stands up. You have nothing supporting your
alternative. You have no blueprints. You have no building blocks
(hint: what is your designer made of). You have nothing equivalent to
what you claim is not good enough.

>
> we don't need to know how the mind/brain/matter interface works. We know it does. Thats all we need to know to have a case.
>

You are arguing the opposite. Are you too stupid to understand what the
god of the gaps argument is? Science is the side claiming that we do
not know everything, but that does not mean that we know nothing. You
obviously don't even know what you are arguing about.

Ron Okimoto

[Otangelo Grasso]

On Monday, February 17, 2020 at 9:05:02 PM UTC-3, Ron O wrote:
Put it up and see if it stands up. You have nothing supporting your
alternative. You have no blueprints.

Intelligence can make blueprints and factories.
I am a machine designer, and elaborate them on a daily basis.
I have NEVER seen a blueprint to emerge by chance.

[Otangelo Grasso]

Are you too stupid
> Ron Okimoto

I know your ink and your modus operandi for years. You have not improved, and keep name calling others. How do you feel about yourself ? Good ?

Namecalling is the lowest form of discoure, the last refuge of those who cannot disprove an opposing point of view. The Internet is dominated by the crude, the uninformed, the immature, the smug, the untalented, the repetitious, the pathetic, the hostile, the deluded, the self-righteous, and the shrill. Usually, the tool of the loser of a debate will resort to insulting, [Arostotle] Basic rule of thumb: When someone with opposite views starts calling you names, it means he has nothing left to debate against your argument. It also means: The proponent of intelligent design / creationism just won the debate. Namecalling serves no useful purpose and is, therefore, illogical My advice: Do not make any explicit adhom, calling me names, like a troll, stupid, idiot, religious nutter etc. , or accusing me of not thinking, or not using my brain. - Do also not try to attack my education, ( asking to go back to school, taking a science class etc. ) or ask for my credentials. It adds nothing to your case, nor does it make naturalism become more compelling.

[RonO]

Those designs are made by humans. You need blueprints from your
intelligent designer. When you have nothing, you just have nothing.

What is not as good as your own level of not good enough? Catalytic RNA
exists. You have nothing equivalent. What is your designer made of?
If you knew that, you might figure out what to look for to find the
blueprints such a designer might have made. Maybe your designer could
look for them for you. Would such a designer even need blueprints?
Face the facts. You can't even start on your alternative, compared to

what you claim is not good enough.

Ron Okimoto

[RonO]

On 2/17/2020 6:40 PM, Otangelo Grasso wrote:
> Are you too stupid
>> Ron Okimoto
>
> I know your ink and your modus operandi for years. You have not improved, and keep name calling others. How do you feel about yourself ? Good ?

You are the one that is lying to themselves. You obviously have nothing
as good as what you claim is not good enough. It isn't name calling to
tell you what you already know.

>
> Namecalling is the lowest form of discoure, the last refuge of those who cannot disprove an opposing point of view. The Internet is dominated by the crude, the uninformed, the immature, the smug, the untalented, the repetitious, the pathetic, the hostile, the deluded, the self-righteous, and the shrill. Usually, the tool of the loser of a debate will resort to insulting, [Arostotle] Basic rule of thumb: When someone with opposite views starts calling you names, it means he has nothing left to debate against your argument. It also means: The proponent of intelligent design / creationism just won the debate. Namecalling serves no useful purpose and is, therefore, illogical My advice: Do not make any explicit adhom, calling me names, like a troll, stupid, idiot, religious nutter etc. , or accusing me of not thinking, or not using my brain. - Do also not try to attack my education, ( asking to go back to school, taking a science class etc. ) or ask for my credentials. It adds nothing to your case, nor does it make naturalism become more compelling.
>
>

Just keep lying about something stupid when you have nothing worth
putting up that is as good as what you claim is not good enough. You
are the one that can't do what I claim that you can't do. Who should be
considered to be the Troll. You could be trolling because you have
nothing worth putting forward to support your alternative. Calling you
a troll would likely be a kindness.

What is strange is that I haven't attacked your education, just your
ability to understand that you have nothing. Just look at what you
tried to put up. That may have something to do with your education, but
it seems to have more to do with your incompetence and not being able to
understand your own arguments.

Your stupidity about the origin of life is #3 on the Top Six list put
out by the guys scamming you about intelligent design. No IDiot can
face the Top Six. Just check out those threads. You should be able to
figure out why all the IDiots have to run from the best that they have.
all you have to do is learn something from each of them and understand
what you have learned from them. Maintaining the denial isn't learning
anything, and if any IDiot has to deal with all six they can't help but
understand that what they have is not as good as their own stupid denial
about what is not good enough. It isn't the gaps that are important
about the Top Six. It is what is understood about what is between the
gaps. The Top Six should tell anyone that what is between the six gaps
is more than enough to make anyone understand just how bankrupt IDiocy is.

Beats me why you can't understand that your origin of life, god of the
gaps argument requires that you know nothing about your intelligent
designer. For you the intelligent designer can only live in the holes
in our understanding. As long as we don't know something your
intelligent designer can survive. Doesn't it ever occur to you that you
are admitting that your belief can't survive in the light of what we
already know?

Really, instead of run from the Top Six like all the other
IDiot/creationists on TO, just go to them and understand what exists
between the gaps, and try to understand what the creation actually is.
Once you understand that, you can start to try to fit your intelligent
designer into that reality.

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/talk.origins/L21KpMBQEXk/x8R6s8qoEAAJ

Your origin of life denial argumnent is #3. How does it fit in with the
other 5? The ID perps even tell you that they are in the order of when
they occurred. Try to build something instead of wallow in denial.

Ron Okimoto

[Peter Nyikos]

Nice having you with us, Tom. I am doing something here that
I often do due to lack of free time (I am a full-time research Professor):
I comment on things others have said before getting around to you.
But some of those comments are directed to you, Tom.

I simply cannot spare the time to reply to jillery, Mark, Burkhard
and Bill separately.

On Saturday, February 15, 2020 at 11:20:02 PM UTC-5, Tom Aull wrote:
> On 2/15/20 7:03 PM, jillery wrote:
> > On Sat, 15 Feb 2020 08:41:34 -0800, Mark Isaak
> > <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
> >
> >> On 2/15/20 12:49 AM, Burkhard wrote:
> >>>> On 2/14/20 10:11 AM, Bill wrote:

> >>>>> Let's see if that works. During the 20th century there were
> >>>>> many beliefs systems: Fascists, Nazi, Communist among
> >>>>> others. These required certain nasty behaviors from their
> >>>>> followers. Each was a form of government. Since these
> >>>>> governments did terrible things, government itself must be
> >>>>> terrible. Since government is terrible, it cannot be true.
> >>>>> The only rational response must be anarchy.
> >>>>
> >>>> 1. Governments are not gods.
> >>>> 2. You can reject one depiction of god without rejecting all of them.
> >>>>
> >>>> Please get some sleep.


Gratuitous put-down noted.


> >>>
> >>> Im' with Bill here. 1) is a reductio ad absurdum. if your inference
> >>> scheme is applied to another field, it yields absurd results, hence it
> >>> is an invalid scheme. So of course for this to work, something other
> >>> than gods is used, that;s how a valid reductio works.

Burkhard is right, of course. Very few regulars have as hard
a time comprehending *reductio* *ad* *absurdum* as Mark did here.
The only others who come to mind is the late (?) Ray Martinez
and Dr. Dr. Alan Kleinman.


> >> At least 4% of people in developed countries get along just fine without
> >> any god, and I see no reason why the number could not go higher. The
> >> same cannot be said of governments. Besides, the reductio based on what
> >> I wrote would advise that if you don't like one form of government, get
> >> a different form of government.

The reductio addressed point 1. Mark is here confusing a conclusion
about his own point 2. with his own point 1.


> >> Optionally choosing no government at
> >> all would parallel my point, but since governments are not gods, it is
> >> not an option.

Funny how Mark talks as though gods were an invention that one could
abolish whenever needed. In this he is a kindred spirit of the
anarchist Bakunin, who famously turned an even more famous statement
by Voltaire on its head, by saying, "If there were a God, it would
be necessary to abolish him."

All the more strange, then, that he dismisses anarchy out of hand.
So much for all the people who became Marxists because they thought
that the ultimate goal of Marxism was "the withering away of the state."


<big snip for focus>

> >> I shall try rephrasing my point. Tom suggested that rejection of God
> >> leads to accepting evolution. My points are, first, I have never known
> >> that to happen. Second and more important, there are reasons *why*
> >> people who reject god have done so; it's often because religion fails
> >> those people.

Mark is making a strange claim that the second is more important than
the first, but I can't see how he can say that about things
that are totally disparate -- except, of course in the sense of saying how
rejection of God sometimes comes about.

And so, his "more important" statement simply complements yours, Tom,
without undermining it in the least. I made that point the other day,
in direct reply to another post of Mark's.


I haven't read every post on this thread, so I have no idea why
jillery brings up Paulogia and Ken Ham. I hope you do, Tom.

> > Since you mentioned it, and notwithstanding that nobody does anything
> > solely for one reason, and unrelated to any other point you posted
> > above, you might like to know a little bit about Paulogia, who claims
> > Ken's Ham's idiotic answers inspired him to question and ultimately
> > reject his Mennonite YEC upbringing:
> >
> > <https://youtu.be/zr8XFqnGBco?t=163>
> > ***************************
> > 05:22 Until at one point I got to the question about how did
> > kangaroos get to Australia. And, and, basically their answer is "they
> > jumped on logs and floated there" was the answer. And I just dropped
> > the book on the floor. I'm like this isn't, this isn't, they can't,
> > they aren't even serious, like I don't know what this is. And that
> > was quite existential for me.
> > ***************************


And now, I get around to your words, Tom:

> Kangaroos in Australia. This if the best evidence supporting evolution,
> even if it's circumstantial evidence. In Australia there are multiple
> classes. orders, families etc of marsupials, both living and extinct.
> There is no alternative explanation that fits the bill as well. When
> this island broke away it safe-guarded these animals, while on the
> Euro-Asian and American continentals the marsupials, with one or two
> exceptions, lost out due to the struggle for survival.

Technical correction: Australia actually broke away from Antarctica,
where I suspect lots of marsupial fossils will be found if the ice cap
ever melts. Antarctica in turn broke away from South America, where
there are more than just two marsupials. And it had many more before
the invasion of the North American carnivores with the establishment
of the land bridge between the two continents.


> By the way, I have enjoyed your debates with a good friend who
> on several occasions encouraged me to join this group. I've known
> 'Hack' Dean for many years. It's sad and tragic what happened to him.
> Do you remember debates with Haskell R. Dean? He had a stroke, he
> survived, but mentally he's not there. He is improving though.

I take it that R. Dean (= Ron Dean) is the same person as "Hack" Dean.
My condolences. He was an asset to Intelligent Design (which is NOT creationism) but he handicapped himself by trying to go his own way
all the time instead of learning from other people who wanted to
give him a hand.

His heart was in the right place, though, and I do miss his contributions.
Some of my best material was posted in threads that he began.

I hope you stick with us at least until (knock wood!) Ron gets
well enough to resume posting here.


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
U. of So. Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[Martin Harran]

On Sun, 16 Feb 2020 19:08:53 -0800, Mark Isaak

So, you have absolutely nothing to offer in contradiction of a
published, peer-reviewed paper by a researcher who is shortly joining
Cornell University as Assistant Professor but you want to dismiss it
simply because his findings don't agree with your pre-conceived
beliefs. Nice example of Creationist-type behaviour.

>I do grant that the
>effect of the Catholic sex scandals on religious belief is small or
>nonexistent.

Thank you for that even if it does come across as somewhat begrudging
withdrawal of your original claim.

>
>>> but the fact
>>> that increases in atheism parallel decreases in church attendance raises
>>> the possibility above "wild-assed assertion".
>>
>> <Gulp> Do I really have to explain to you the risks of mistaking
>> correlation for causation? Or do you think that Nicholas Cage causing
>> swimming pool drownings is more than a wild-assed assertion?
>>
>> https://www.indy100.com/article/bizarre-correlations-that-will-leave-you-wishing-nicolas-cage-would-retire--l1XwA_q1Je
>>
>> https://bit.ly/39GQSc2
>
>Do I really have to explain that the mistake you refer to occurs because
>it is often the case that correlation *does* indicate causation? You
>seem to be reading "proves conclusively" when I say something like
>"raises the possibility". I wish you would stop that.

Apparent correlation can certainly indicates a potential for
investigation but claims about causation can only be made when that
investigation is carried out. Making the claim without the
investigation is what amounts to "wild-assed" and that is what you did
originally, claiming without investigation that the sex scandals led
to decline in religious belief - compounded by the fact that you want
to ignore the findings of someone who did actually investigate the
apparent correlation and found no causation.

>>> (Unlike your own wild-assed assertion about my attitude towards the
>>> Catholic Church. I think you would also call me biased against road
>>> transportation if I complained about a pothole which needed fixing.)
>>
>> If you regularly complained about potholes which were shown not to
>> exist, then I would certainly suggest you get your eyes tested.
>
>As best I remember, the only complaints I have leveled against the the
>Catholic church are their handling of the sex scandals and their
>promotion of the medical pseudoscience of exorcism. I may also have
>mentioned their institutionalized sexism and/or noted that I'm glad that
>they're getting over their homophobia, but I don't remember if I did.
>
>I know we disagree about exorcism, but what of the other points? Do you
>disagree that the Catholic Church's handling of pedophile priests was
>appallingly poor? Do you support institutionalized sexism? Do you want
>to see the Church support homophobia?

Of course I do condemn those and other things where criticism is
justified and have done so numerous times but your selective amnesia
seems to kick in about this. Here is just one example of a response I
gave to a previous claim by you that I "cannot abide any criticism of
the Church":

<quote from myself>
You reckon?

Now, I don't expect you do read everything I post, but you once again
show your penchant for extending your personal observation into a
general assumption.

Just a few examples of things I have posted here over the last while:

To zencycle:
"… the Church's abysmal treatment of Galileo - they were totally wrong
in how they treated him …!

Also to zencycle:
" … the Inquisition had a very wide role and the fact that it was
guilty of truly dreadful behaviour in
some areas …"

To Jimbo
"… the Catholic Church's treatment of both Bruno and Galileo was
dreadful …"

To Jonathan:
"… Pope Urban knew that there was no heresy involved but he let a
sham, Lenin-like show trial go ahead to punish Galileo for insulting
him personally. That was a total abuse of his papal authority and an
abrogation of his papal responsibility …"

To Burkhard

"… The Catholic Church deserves criticism on a number of fronts but
that deserved criticism is not helped by promoting myths that have
been shown to be untrue…"

Having said that I don't expect you do read everything I post, in a
post to you last year, I said:

"… I have previously condemned without reservation the Catholic
Church's treatment of Bruno. Burning people at the stake is
unforgiveable no matter what the reason …"

Also, funnily enough, on one of the very rare occasions when I
commented on Church matters outside of science, it was also in a
reply to yourself where I said:

"Take your example of birth control. I happen to be a harsh critic of
the Church's position on this, I am convinced - as are many, probably
most, theologians - that the official position itself is inherently
wrong."

</quote>

Is it enough that I simply bookmark this post for future reference, or
do I need to set up a formal schedule of say something like every
three months where I make a statement condemning the wrongs in the
Catholic Church or do you need me to set up in my sig so that it is
there permanently?

> If not, what are those
>nonexistent potholes you refer to?

<sigh> it gets rather tedious reminding you of things you have said in
the past due to your selective amnesia; nevertheless, here we go yet
again.

You didn't simply *complain* about the Catholic Church's "promotion
of the medical pseudoscience of exorcism", you outright accused the
Church of torturing and killing people and went on to accuse me
personally of defending torture and killing people; in fairness, you
did partly withdraw that personal attack on me, putting the claim
about defending murder as hyperbole though you did continue to insist
that I was defending torture.

When I asked you to give examples of the Catholic Church killing
anyone in exorcism, you give a lurid article listing 15 examples of
ghastly exorcism; it turned out that 14 of those had nothing
whatsoever to do with the Catholic Church and the other one had only a
tenuous connection (it was an exorcism carried out by two priests but
they were guilty of clear negligence and completely ignored the
procedures set down by the Catholic Church).

In a later discussion on another topic, you again lashed out at the
Catholic Church claiming that 'they shout to the world, "DEMON
POSSESSION IS REAL!!! DEMONS ARE EVIL!!!" and only mention their
procedures in fine print in an appendix.' I was able to point you to
the a publicly available FAQ on exorcism on the website United States
Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Or the time on a discussion on Giordano Bruno where, when Burkhard
produced evidence that the Church didn't even bring heliocentrism into
his trial, you asserted that 'it is no stretch to imagine that
authorities at the time were thinking, "We don't like his heretical
views on astronomy, but nobody here is competent enough in that
subject to build a good case. Let's find other excuses >to burn him.'
- asuggestion based on nothing whatsoever except on your own
prejudice.

In that same thread you also referred to "Copernican heresy" even
though Copernicism was never declared to be a heresy.

Or do I need to go back to the time when you tried to argue that
Catholic faith is largely based on superstition because some Catholics
behave in superstitious ways even though I pointed out that the
Catholic Church has one of the most extensive written bodies of text
covering all its teachings and doctrines and that those superstitious
beliefs are not endorsed anywhere in those writings?

[Otangelo Grasso]

Eliminative inductions argue for the truth of a proposition by arguing that competitors to that proposition are false. ( Contrast this with Popperian falsification, where propositions are corroborated to the degree that they successfully withstand attempts to falsify them ) When the available option form a dichotomy, just to option, A, or not A, they form a mutually exclusive and exhaustive class, eliminating all the competitors entails that the proposition is true. As Sherlock Holmes famous dictum says: when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. In this case, eliminative inductions, in fact, become deductions.

1. WE KNOW universe had a beginning, therefore a cause. That cause was God.
2. WE KNOW the universe obeys laws of physics. Therefore, it needs a law giver.
3. WE KNOW the universe is finely tuned for life. Therefore, it requires a fine-tuner.
4. WE KNOW that cells are factories in a literal sense. Factories require a designer.
5. WE KNOW that cells are irreducibly complex. They had to emerge ALL AT ONCE.
6. WE KNOW that cells host genetic and epigenetic codes. Codes come from intelligence.
7. WE KNOW that cells host instructional complex information, which must come from a mind.
8. WE KNOW that cells process information like computers. Computers are always designed.
9. WE KNOW that consciousness and intelligence can only come from a pre-existing mind.
10. WE KNOW that the mind and consciousness are separate from the brain. Dualism is true.
11. WE KNOW that organismal form is explained through codified information and signalling.
12. WE KNOW that objective moral laws are ought to be's. Since they exist, the are from God.
13. WE KNOW that historical facts described in the Bible are confirmed by archaeology.
14. WE KNOW that Jesus Christ is a historical figure, confirmed by extrabiblical texts.
15. WE KNOW that prophecies in the Bible have been fulfilled.
16. WE KNOW that reported after-life experiences confirm there is life after physical death.

WE KNOW THAT THE GOD OF THE GAPS ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

[jillery]

On Mon, 17 Feb 2020 19:17:19 -0800 (PST), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Nice having you with us, Tom. I am doing something here that
>I often do due to lack of free time (I am a full-time research Professor):
>I comment on things others have said before getting around to you.
>But some of those comments are directed to you, Tom.
>
>I simply cannot spare the time to reply to jillery, Mark, Burkhard
>and Bill separately.

But you do have enough time to pretend to post an intelligent
response. Is anybody surprised.

><big snip for focus>
>
>> >> I shall try rephrasing my point. Tom suggested that rejection of God
>> >> leads to accepting evolution. My points are, first, I have never known
>> >> that to happen. Second and more important, there are reasons *why*
>> >> people who reject god have done so; it's often because religion fails
>> >> those people.
>
>Mark is making a strange claim that the second is more important than
>the first, but I can't see how he can say that about things
>that are totally disparate -- except, of course in the sense of saying how
>rejection of God sometimes comes about.
>
>And so, his "more important" statement simply complements yours, Tom,
>without undermining it in the least. I made that point the other day,
>in direct reply to another post of Mark's.
>
>
>I haven't read every post on this thread, so I have no idea why
>jillery brings up Paulogia and Ken Ham. I hope you do, Tom.

Your willful stupidity here is even worse than you admit. You didn't
need to read every post, or even all of the one post to which you
replied. You needed only to read Mark Isaak's comments above, to whom
jillery replied, not to Tom, and not to you, all still preserved in
the quoted text above.

>> > Since you mentioned it, and notwithstanding that nobody does anything
>> > solely for one reason, and unrelated to any other point you posted
>> > above, you might like to know a little bit about Paulogia, who claims
>> > Ken's Ham's idiotic answers inspired him to question and ultimately
>> > reject his Mennonite YEC upbringing:
>> >
>> > <https://youtu.be/zr8XFqnGBco?t=163>
>> > ***************************
>> > 05:22 Until at one point I got to the question about how did
>> > kangaroos get to Australia. And, and, basically their answer is "they
>> > jumped on logs and floated there" was the answer. And I just dropped
>> > the book on the floor. I'm like this isn't, this isn't, they can't,
>> > they aren't even serious, like I don't know what this is. And that
>> > was quite existential for me.
>> > ***************************
>

>Peter Nyikos
>Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
>U. of So. Carolina at Columbia
>http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

Do your employers know that you associate them with your willfully
stupid trolls?

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/18/20 3:35 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Sun, 16 Feb 2020 19:08:53 -0800, Mark Isaak
> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

> [...]

So we agree that the Catholic Church merits criticism in several areas,
and we mostly agree on those areas.

Exorcism is medical pseudoscience. Medical pseudoscience, where it
applies to potentially life-threatening diseases, kills. Supporting
such medical pseudoscience means supporting killing. *ANY* support for
exorcism is appalling and unjustified. The procedures you laud are
execrable to begin with. Furthermore, what matters is what actually
happens, not what fine print says is supposed to happen.

> Or the time on a discussion on Giordano Bruno where, when Burkhard
> produced evidence that the Church didn't even bring heliocentrism into
> his trial, you asserted that 'it is no stretch to imagine that
> authorities at the time were thinking, "We don't like his heretical
> views on astronomy, but nobody here is competent enough in that
> subject to build a good case. Let's find other excuses >to burn him.'

> - a suggestion based on nothing whatsoever except on your own
> prejudice.

I hope you have some appreciation for the fact that the Church of 300
years ago is not the same as the Church today. One may be biased
against one and not the other. Furthermore, that suggestion is not
based on nothing whatsoever; it is based on my observations (mostly via
extensive news reports) of various interactions of present-day
authorities with black people.

> In that same thread you also referred to "Copernican heresy" even
> though Copernicism was never declared to be a heresy.
>
> Or do I need to go back to the time when you tried to argue that
> Catholic faith is largely based on superstition because some Catholics
> behave in superstitious ways even though I pointed out that the
> Catholic Church has one of the most extensive written bodies of text
> covering all its teachings and doctrines and that those superstitious
> beliefs are not endorsed anywhere in those writings?

Do you have a date on that? It sounds like something I might have
written in the 1980s. I think I have grown some since.

[Burkhard]

True, a proper blueprint would be quite compelling evidence for ID. So
if we once found, on this planet or another one, an abandoned facility
with a plan of a cell, or a human that renders a 3d object on a 2d
surface, and an instruction written next to an arrow "insert code v.2
here" ID would have powerful support. It need of course not be blue,
that was a contingent feature of the way mechanical copies were made in
the 19th century, and the description won't be in English an difficult
to decipher, but at least that would be a proper research project.

But that's not quite what we find. We find complex chemical reactions.
It helps us to understand them in the vocabulary of code and plans,
because we make plans, and code, but that reflects our knowledge and way
of thinking only. When we didn't code yet, but build watches, that was
the metaphor of choice, and before that pottery or planting.


>
>
>

[jillery]

Not to put too fine a point on it, your assertions of fact not in
evidence don't make your argument more compelling, either. Just
sayin'.

[jillery]

Again, your use of "blueprint" is merely analogous to DNA, and a poor
one at that. There is nothing in DNA which is schematically
represents the organisms which derive from it. A better analogy would
be a recipe, which describes what to use and how to use it.

More to the point, natural processes don't require either blueprints
or recipes. They follow the rules of physics, by definition.

[Glenn]

No, we find

"an abandoned facility
with a plan of a cell, or a human that renders a 3d object on a 2d
surface, and an instruction written next to an arrow "insert code v.2

here".

You just believe complex chemical reactions explain it all.

[Burkhard]

Logically, I think that's the "fallacy of the four terms". You still
need to show that exorcism is the type of pseudoscience that is applied
to potentially life threatening diseases.

*ANY* support for
> exorcism is appalling and unjustified.

That's a more substantive issue. When we had the discussion first time
round, I remember citing a couple of studies, some of which showed a
beneficial impact on the patients, some none, and some a negative. It
all depended on the specific belief system of that society, and the
specific way in which exorcism is practiced. Mental health is complex
this way.

In addition to the studies I cited then, here an interesting case study
where conventional treatment and exorcism worked well together and
added value:
https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1025714626136

A more ambivalent study is here:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.2044-8341.1994.tb01794.x

Many patients perceived the exorcism as helpful, but with little or no
statistically significant impact when measured against psychiatric
symptomatology - but also a recognition that the results were broadly
similar in those cases where the secular intervention was
psychotherapeutical rather than drug based. And in both harm can be
magnified when the intervention fails.

Generally, that's a vert fruitful field of interaction between
anthropology and psychiatry,

[Peter Nyikos]

In fact, exorcism is, at least under the aegis of the Catholic Church,
applied only in cases where severe mental -- not physical illness
has been diagnosed.

There is a whole chapter in _People of the Lie_, by M. Scott Peck, M.D.
On pp. 182-202 he writes about what is commonly identified as possession
in ways that allow one to see that it is a rare form of mental illness
superimosed on more common forms. Peck was present in two exorcisms
from beginning to end, and wrote that the exorcisms were a (very unusual,
to be sure) form of psychotherapy.

>
> *ANY* support for
> > exorcism is appalling and unjustified.

> That's a more substantive issue.

But a misguided one. For example, the two exorcisms in which Peck was present
were successful. True, the patients had a long "convalescence" afterwards but they were much better off mentally and emotionally than they had been
for over a decade.

Peck emphasizes that there is a great deal that is not understood
about either exorcism or what is commonly seen by the Caholic Church
as "demonic possession". Due in large part to this ignorance, most
Catholic parishes and monasteries want nothing to do with exorcisms.
Hospitals, including mental hospitals,
are even more opposed, so they have to be done in private homes
due to widespread ignorance of their true nature.

> When we had the discussion first time
> round, I remember citing a couple of studies, some of which showed a
> beneficial impact on the patients, some none, and some a negative. It
> all depended on the specific belief system of that society, and the
> specific way in which exorcism is practiced. Mental health is complex
> this way.

Well put.

> In addition to the studies I cited then, here an interesting case study
> where conventional treatment and exorcism worked well together and
> added value:
> https://link.springer.com/article/10.1023/A:1025714626136

This is very much along the lines of what Peck wrote, but it is not
about what the Catholic Church calls "demonic possession". It is
about what the Church calls "being obsessed by the devil". ["obsessed"
here means having what most people would call hallucinations]

> A more ambivalent study is here:
> https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1111/j.2044-8341.1994.tb01794.x
>
> Many patients perceived the exorcism as helpful, but with little or no
> statistically significant impact when measured against psychiatric
> symptomatology - but also a recognition that the results were broadly
> similar in those cases where the secular intervention was
> psychotherapeutical rather than drug based.

In the SAME cases? In the two cases of which Peck wrote, conventional
psychotherapy had been tried for a long time, but without significant
results. Most importantly, both patients had been diagnosed conventionally
as being mentally ill.


The rest was not on the subject of exorcism or "demonic possession,"
and is deleted.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

U. of South Carolina in Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

[Burkhard]

If you mean the official rules since 1999 that tightened considerably
the approach, not quite - a medical doctor must have ruled out both
physical and mental illness. The latter I'd consider problematic if
taken literally (unsurprisingly, as I consider exorcism and similar
rituals as one way to manage mental health issues). A better way to read
it would be to say: not diagnosed with the type of mental health problem
that either makes them a danger to themselves or others and requires
therefore hospitalization, or the type of mental health problem for
which more efficient drug-based interventions exist.

Severe mental illness can of course be life threatening - from suicide
and other forms of self-harm to harm to others - and it would indeed be
dangerous if an indicated drug based intervention, or hospitalisation,
were delayed.

The real big big problem with though is when the intervention fails, or
has no lasting effect. At this point different religions differ
considerably how they interpret this, and this can then be much more
harmful to the patient than the intervention itself. Religions that
associate possession, or resistance to exorcism, with the sinful nature
of the patient ("you are just so wicked that not even you priest can
keep the demons away etc") obviously fare worst. Those who frame it more
like a viral infection much better. But in any case people need proper
aftercare, and it is that that is often not provided.

>
> There is a whole chapter in _People of the Lie_, by M. Scott Peck, M.D.
> On pp. 182-202 he writes about what is commonly identified as possession
> in ways that allow one to see that it is a rare form of mental illness
> superimosed on more common forms. Peck was present in two exorcisms
> from beginning to end, and wrote that the exorcisms were a (very unusual,
> to be sure) form of psychotherapy.

I have lots of sympathy for this general idea, and the Swiss study comes
to a similar conclusion: we try to make sense of our lives, and of
traumatic events in particular, through stories. Psychotherapy helps in
building these stories so that they help and not harm. From that
perspective there is not much difference between giving a name to
something that was at one point conscious but then rejected or
eliminated from consciousness through repression, and calling it a demon.

Peck has many interesting ideas, unfortunately his writing on exorcism
is rather bad - and was savaged by proper theologians and
psychotherapists alike. It is based to a significant extent on the book
by Malachi Martin, the former Irish Jesuit priest with...decidedly
unorthodox beliefs, including a number of wild conspiracy theories that
make Dan Brown look like a rank amateur. Martin had no relevant
training, and the accounts of exorcism he claimed to have performed are
widely considered to be made up entirely. Peck accepts uncritically
these accounts and Martin's interpretation of them, seems ot be unaware
of the significant body of literature on exorcism, and his own dabbling
is based on Martin's discredited ideas too All this is of course
pre-1999 - but cases like that of Martin were a factor behind the
substantial tightening of the rules then

>
>
>>
>> *ANY* support for
>>> exorcism is appalling and unjustified.
>
>> That's a more substantive issue.
>
> But a misguided one. For example, the two exorcisms in which Peck was present
> were successful. True, the patients had a long "convalescence" afterwards but they were much better off mentally and emotionally than they had been
> for over a decade.

You mean the ones he describes in "Glimpses of the Devil"? Not quite,
though Peck goes some way to create that impression. "Beccah Armitage"
was arguably worse off, and eventually killed herself. “Jersey Babcock”
was potentially more successful, at least based on the self-reports
(crucially, Peck doesn't carry out any of the evaluative tests that
establish a full clinical symptomatology. The Swiss paper I list below
had as conclusion that while patients did claim to feel better, this was
not reflected in the symptomatology, and may have been at least partly
an observer effect (patients don't want to disappoint the healer)
Babcock e.g. continued to suffer form delusions, she just claimed to
cope better with them. What makes the Babcock case problematic,
ethically if not medically, is that she had been sexually abused by her
father as a child. Turning that into an account that centers on her and
her "possession" is something that I find pretty inexcusable, and
displaying exactly one of the dangers of this approach - that can
exculpate the environment and locate the "sin" with the victim.

Richard Woods, the Chicago theology professor, I think gave a
particularly scathing account of Peck's dabbling in exorcism, from both
a clinical and a theological perspective

All patients in the Swiss study have been diagnosed as mentally ill - it
is a quite sizeable quantitative study, so it can compare intervention
efficiency across groups

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/18/20 4:38 AM, Otangelo Grasso wrote:
>
> Eliminative inductions argue for the truth of a proposition by arguing that competitors to that proposition are false. ( Contrast this with Popperian falsification, where propositions are corroborated to the degree that they successfully withstand attempts to falsify them ) When the available option form a dichotomy, just to option, A, or not A, they form a mutually exclusive and exhaustive class, eliminating all the competitors entails that the proposition is true. As Sherlock Holmes famous dictum says: when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. In this case, eliminative inductions, in fact, become deductions.

But one must start with facts and use logical deductions. As we shall
see, you don't.

> 1. WE KNOW universe had a beginning, therefore a cause. That cause was God.

Premise is arguable. We know there is a starting point for our present
cosmos. It may be that the universe is cyclic, or that our cosmos
sprang from a larger universe which has no beginning. Regardless, your
conclusion about cause is a non sequitur.

> 2. WE KNOW the universe obeys laws of physics. Therefore, it needs a law giver.

Non sequitur.

> 3. WE KNOW the universe is finely tuned for life. Therefore, it requires a fine-tuner.

We know that the universe is NOT finely tuned for life, or life would be
a whole lot more common than the minuscule amount we observe. And
again, non-sequitur.

> 4. WE KNOW that cells are factories in a literal sense. Factories require a designer.

SOME cells may qualify as factories; most do not. We know that
factories, in any sense that includes cells, do NOT require a designer.

> 5. WE KNOW that cells are irreducibly complex. They had to emerge ALL AT ONCE.

We know that irreducible complexity can easily evolve naturally. We
know it does not have to emerge all at once.

> 6. WE KNOW that cells host genetic and epigenetic codes. Codes come from intelligence.

We know that what you call codes are not true codes.

> 7. WE KNOW that cells host instructional complex information, which must come from a mind.

Non sequitur. We know that such information need not come from a mind.

> 8. WE KNOW that cells process information like computers. Computers are always designed.

HA HA! Cells are nothing like computers.

> 9. WE KNOW that consciousness and intelligence can only come from a pre-existing mind.

We know that consciousness and intelligence NEED NOT come from a

pre-existing mind.

> 10. WE KNOW that the mind and consciousness are separate from the brain. Dualism is true.

We know that the mind and consciousness are inseparable from a working
brain; all reliable evidence indicates dualism is false.

> 11. WE KNOW that organismal form is explained through codified information and signalling.

Among other things.

> 12. WE KNOW that objective moral laws are ought to be's. Since they exist, the are from God.

Non sequitur again. And we do not know that objective moral laws exist.

> 13. WE KNOW that historical facts described in the Bible are confirmed by archaeology.

We know that some are and some are not.

> 14. WE KNOW that Jesus Christ is a historical figure, confirmed by extrabiblical texts.

We do not know that those extrabiblical texts are reliable.

> 15. WE KNOW that prophecies in the Bible have been fulfilled.

Some of us know that a fulfilled prophecy is a failed prophecy.
Prophecies are supposed to be warnings to get people to change their
behavior. I know of only one successful prophecy (Jonah) in the Bible.

> 16. WE KNOW that reported after-life experiences confirm there is life after physical death.

We know that that is not true, since such experiences can be reliably
reproduced with nobody being ill, much less dying.

> WE KNOW THAT THE GOD OF THE GAPS ARGUMENT IS INVALID.

That one is correct.

[jillery]

On Tue, 18 Feb 2020 10:28:09 -0800 (PST), Glenn <GlennS...@msn.com>
wrote:

Cite.

>You just believe complex chemical reactions explain it all.

On what basis do you doubt the complex chemical basis of life? You
don't say. Is anybody surprised.

[RonO]

So why keep using the God of the Gaps arguments? What do you think that
your origin of life denial is based on?

You would go a very long way by demonstrating that what you claim "We
Know" measures up to the fact that catalytic RNAs exist, and that there
are no impossible chemical reactions involved in life. All chemical
reactions involved with life are known to be possible. What is not as
good as your own level of not good enough? You could also explain why
some of the 16 mean anything of value to your alternative. Really, what
moral laws are from God and how do you know that? Go for it.

Really, just turn your own level of not good enough onto your own junk.
Your junk is worse than your own level of not good enough.

Ron Okimoto

[Peter Nyikos]

I assumed, from the description given by M. Scott Peck, that the two
exorcisms he related were done under the aegis of the Catholic Church,
because he talked about how the patient asked for "the crucifix" at
one point and about how he kept talking about "the Church."

Now it looks like I was wrong, but it's hard to tell because you
are not being specific.

> If you mean the official rules since 1999 that tightened considerably
> the approach, not quite - a medical doctor must have ruled out both
> physical and mental illness.

Are you talking here about the rules of the Catholic Church? Or
about psychiatric associations?

> The latter I'd consider problematic if
> taken literally (unsurprisingly, as I consider exorcism and similar
> rituals as one way to manage mental health issues). A better way to read
> it would be to say: not diagnosed with the type of mental health problem
> that either makes them a danger to themselves or others and requires
> therefore hospitalization, or the type of mental health problem for
> which more efficient drug-based interventions exist.
>
> Severe mental illness can of course be life threatening - from suicide
> and other forms of self-harm to harm to others - and it would indeed be
> dangerous if an indicated drug based intervention, or hospitalisation,
> were delayed.

The two patients in question had been under psychiatric treatment
for over a year, so only during the actual exorcism were there any
such dangers -- and M. Scott Peck is very explicit about them.

> The real big big problem with though is when the intervention fails, or
> has no lasting effect. At this point different religions differ
> considerably how they interpret this, and this can then be much more
> harmful to the patient than the intervention itself. Religions that
> associate possession, or resistance to exorcism, with the sinful nature
> of the patient ("you are just so wicked that not even you priest can
> keep the demons away etc") obviously fare worst.

That is exactly contrary to Peck's experience and recommendations.
He says the most important feature of the exorcism team must be
a love for the patient.

I could be more specific later this week -- I am very busy now.

> > There is a whole chapter in _People of the Lie_, by M. Scott Peck, M.D.

>> [titled: "Of Possession and Exorcism].

> > On pp. 182-202 he writes about what is commonly identified as possession
> > in ways that allow one to see that it is a rare form of mental illness
> > superimosed on more common forms. Peck was present in two exorcisms
> > from beginning to end, and wrote that the exorcisms were a (very unusual,
> > to be sure) form of psychotherapy.
>
> I have lots of sympathy for this general idea, and the Swiss study comes
> to a similar conclusion: we try to make sense of our lives, and of
> traumatic events in particular, through stories. Psychotherapy helps in
> building these stories so that they help and not harm. From that
> perspective there is not much difference between giving a name to
> something that was at one point conscious but then rejected or
> eliminated from consciousness through repression, and calling it a demon.
>
> Peck has many interesting ideas, unfortunately his writing on exorcism
> is rather bad - and was savaged by proper theologians and
> psychotherapists alike. It is based to a significant extent on the book
> by Malachi Martin, the former Irish Jesuit priest with...decidedly
> unorthodox beliefs, including a number of wild conspiracy theories that
> make Dan Brown look like a rank amateur.

Peck mentions how Martin first made him take a serious look at the
possibility of actual demonic possession. I have had to ignore
all Peck's opinions on that -- he really did come to believe in Satanic
possession in the end -- and to focus on all the purely "secular"
aspects of the exorcisms and his recommendations about future
research on the subject.

> Martin had no relevant
> training, and the accounts of exorcism he claimed to have performed are
> widely considered to be made up entirely.

Widely considered within the Catholic Church, or without it?

>Peck accepts uncritically
> these accounts and Martin's interpretation of them, seems ot be unaware
> of the significant body of literature on exorcism, and his own dabbling
> is based on Martin's discredited ideas too

According to whom?

> All this is of course
> pre-1999 - but cases like that of Martin were a factor behind the
> substantial tightening of the rules then
>
>
> >
> >
> >>
> >> *ANY* support for
> >>> exorcism is appalling and unjustified.
> >
> >> That's a more substantive issue.
> >
> > But a misguided one. For example, the two exorcisms in which Peck was present
> > were successful. True, the patients had a long "convalescence" afterwards but they were much better off mentally and emotionally than they had been
> > for over a decade.
>
> You mean the ones he describes in "Glimpses of the Devil"?

I haven't read it, so I don't know whether the patients were
the same ones described in the chapter in _People of the Lie_.
Have you read the chapter?

Not quite,
> though Peck goes some way to create that impression. "Beccah Armitage"
> was arguably worse off, and eventually killed herself. “Jersey Babcock”
> was potentially more successful, at least based on the self-reports
> (crucially, Peck doesn't carry out any of the evaluative tests that
> establish a full clinical symptomatology. The Swiss paper I list below
> had as conclusion that while patients did claim to feel better, this was
> not reflected in the symptomatology, and may have been at least partly
> an observer effect (patients don't want to disappoint the healer)
> Babcock e.g. continued to suffer form delusions, she just claimed to
> cope better with them. What makes the Babcock case problematic,
> ethically if not medically, is that she had been sexually abused by her
> father as a child. Turning that into an account that centers on her and
> her "possession" is something that I find pretty inexcusable, and
> displaying exactly one of the dangers of this approach - that can
> exculpate the environment and locate the "sin" with the victim.
>
> Richard Woods, the Chicago theology professor, I think gave a
> particularly scathing account of Peck's dabbling in exorcism, from both
> a clinical and a theological perspective

Reference?

Got to go now. Duty calls.


Peter Nyikos

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/18/20 12:21 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 1:55:03 PM UTC-5, Burkhard wrote:
>> Mark Isaak wrote:

>>> [...]

>>> Exorcism is medical pseudoscience. Medical pseudoscience, where it
>>> applies to potentially life-threatening diseases, kills. Supporting
>>> such medical pseudoscience means supporting killing.
>>
>> Logically, I think that's the "fallacy of the four terms". You still
>> need to show that exorcism is the type of pseudoscience that is applied
>> to potentially life threatening diseases.
>
> In fact, exorcism is, at least under the aegis of the Catholic Church,
> applied only in cases where severe mental -- not physical illness
> has been diagnosed.

Mental illness is physical illness.

The mind is part of the body. Physical and mental problems both can be
treated successfully with physical and/or cognitive treatments.

[Martin Harran]

On Tue, 18 Feb 2020 08:43:29 -0800, Mark Isaak

That post I quoted above was from Sept 2018, a year and a half ago.
Why have you felt the need to question my readiness to accept
criticism of the Catholic Church several times since that, most
recently this week?

You are clearly flying solo on your insistence on that - and worth
noting that the people challenging you have no religious agenda.

>Medical pseudoscience, where it
>applies to potentially life-threatening diseases, kills. Supporting
>such medical pseudoscience means supporting killing. *ANY* support for
>exorcism is appalling and unjustified.

Your claim that the Catholic Church somehow shares the blame for the
behaviour of all people practising exorcism is akin to arguing that
all nuclear scientists are guilty of killing people because atomic
bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

>The procedures you laud

yet again, you indulge in your irritating habit of accusing me of
things I didn't do. I have never *lauded* exorcism; on the contrary,
in our original discussion back in 2018, I specifically said:

<quote from me>
I have made no claims whatsoever about the efficacy of exorcism; to be
honest I don't know enough about exorcism and its impact to make any
judgement on its efficacy.

All that I have done is to challenge *your* claims that exorcism "is a
particularly heinous superstition, in that it invariably hurts people
and, by distracting from effective treatment and instilling PTSD,
frequently causes long-term harm. Every instance of exorcism is an
atrocity. Every. Single. Case."
</quote>

You seem to have an attitude that someone simply questioning the
veracity of any of your claims is automatically in some sort of
opposing camp.

> are
>execrable to begin with. Furthermore, what matters is what actually
>happens, not what fine print says is supposed to happen.
>
>> Or the time on a discussion on Giordano Bruno where, when Burkhard
>> produced evidence that the Church didn't even bring heliocentrism into
>> his trial, you asserted that 'it is no stretch to imagine that
>> authorities at the time were thinking, "We don't like his heretical
>> views on astronomy, but nobody here is competent enough in that
>> subject to build a good case. Let's find other excuses >to burn him.'
>> - a suggestion based on nothing whatsoever except on your own
>> prejudice.
>
>I hope you have some appreciation for the fact that the Church of 300
>years ago is not the same as the Church today. One may be biased
>against one and not the other. Furthermore, that suggestion is not
>based on nothing whatsoever; it is based on my observations (mostly via
>extensive news reports) of various interactions of present-day
>authorities with black people.

Nice of you to explain the source of your prejudices; doesn't,
however, stop them from being prejudices.

>
>> In that same thread you also referred to "Copernican heresy" even
>> though Copernicism was never declared to be a heresy.
>>
>> Or do I need to go back to the time when you tried to argue that
>> Catholic faith is largely based on superstition because some Catholics
>> behave in superstitious ways even though I pointed out that the
>> Catholic Church has one of the most extensive written bodies of text
>> covering all its teachings and doctrines and that those superstitious
>> beliefs are not endorsed anywhere in those writings?
>
>Do you have a date on that? It sounds like something I might have
>written in the 1980s. I think I have grown some since.

You were still trying to argue the point much more recently than that,
back in May 2017 for example:

ogcver$v30$1...@dont-email.me

[Mark Isaak]

I have no doubt of your readiness to criticize the Catholic Church. My
questions to you boiled down to:

Why is it okay for you to criticize them, and wrong for me to make the
same criticisms?

I know I am not alone in my criticisms. Just google "exorcism
problematic" to see.

Have you ever considered that, just maybe, my problem is not with any
religion, but is instead with medical pseudoscience?

>> Medical pseudoscience, where it
>> applies to potentially life-threatening diseases, kills. Supporting
>> such medical pseudoscience means supporting killing. *ANY* support for
>> exorcism is appalling and unjustified.
>
> Your claim that the Catholic Church somehow shares the blame for the
> behaviour of all people practising exorcism is akin to arguing that
> all nuclear scientists are guilty of killing people because atomic
> bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

That would be the case if nuclear scientists were building atomic bombs
today for the expressed purpose of dropping on Japan.

Your claim that I am biased against the Catholic Church because it
practices exorcism is akin to arguing that a traffic cop is biased
against Catholicism if he arrests a priest for speeding. (In fact, when
that cop arrests members of other religions, that somehow becomes a sin
against Catholicism, too.)

>> The procedures you laud
>
> yet again, you indulge in your irritating habit of accusing me of
> things I didn't do. I have never *lauded* exorcism; on the contrary,
> in our original discussion back in 2018, I specifically said:
>
> <quote from me>
> I have made no claims whatsoever about the efficacy of exorcism; to be
> honest I don't know enough about exorcism and its impact to make any
> judgement on its efficacy.

Begging your pardon, I did not mean to imply that you lauded exorcism,
only that you praised (and that is still the impression I have) some of
the procedures the Church includes in its implementation.

> All that I have done is to challenge *your* claims that exorcism "is a
> particularly heinous superstition, in that it invariably hurts people
> and, by distracting from effective treatment and instilling PTSD,
> frequently causes long-term harm. Every instance of exorcism is an
> atrocity. Every. Single. Case."
> </quote>
>
> You seem to have an attitude that someone simply questioning the
> veracity of any of your claims is automatically in some sort of
> opposing camp.

I find it hard to imagine that you are *not* in some sort of opposing
camp, but that is based on long experience, not on one example of
questioning my facts. You probably have much the same view of me. In
fact, I have a lot of respect for you, and I agree with you on most
issues. I was genuinely surprised when you defended exorcism.

The statement of mine that you just quoted is, I now recognize,
overstated to the point of being wrong. Burkhard has convinced me that
exorcism, in conjunction with other ongoing support, can be beneficial
in certain circumstances. Those circumstances appear rare to
nonexistent in Western culture.

Huh? I think you mispasted the link.

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 07:50:30 -0800, Mark Isaak

I have never said you are wrong to criticise the Catholic Church where
the criticism are based on facts; all I have ever done here is correct
you when you make criticisms that are based on wrong facts or
challenge you when you make assertions with no evidence to support
them as you did in this thread. My doing that is no different from the
regulars here who correct Creationists when they post stuff that is
simply incorrect or lacking supporting evidence.

<sigh> Do I really have to remind you yet again that the onus for
producing evidence is on the person making the claim?

>
>Have you ever considered that, just maybe, my problem is not with any
>religion, but is instead with medical pseudoscience?

Fine, criticise pseudoscience if you want, my corrections have been
specifically in regard to your comments and assertions about the
Catholic Church. A friendly word of caution though - don't assume
something is pseudoscience just because it looks like mumbo jumbo to
you as I suspect others here will challenge you if you do.

>
>>> Medical pseudoscience, where it
>>> applies to potentially life-threatening diseases, kills. Supporting
>>> such medical pseudoscience means supporting killing. *ANY* support for
>>> exorcism is appalling and unjustified.
>>
>> Your claim that the Catholic Church somehow shares the blame for the
>> behaviour of all people practising exorcism is akin to arguing that
>> all nuclear scientists are guilty of killing people because atomic
>> bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
>
>That would be the case if nuclear scientists were building atomic bombs
>today for the expressed purpose of dropping on Japan.

That defence only works if you effectively assert that the Catholic is
carrying out exorcisms with the express purpose of torturing and
killing people; that is quite a stretch even for you!

>
>Your claim that I am biased against the Catholic Church because it
>practices exorcism is akin to arguing that a traffic cop is biased
>against Catholicism if he arrests a priest for speeding. (In fact, when
>that cop arrests members of other religions, that somehow becomes a sin
>against Catholicism, too.)
>
>>> The procedures you laud
>>
>> yet again, you indulge in your irritating habit of accusing me of
>> things I didn't do. I have never *lauded* exorcism; on the contrary,
>> in our original discussion back in 2018, I specifically said:
>>
>> <quote from me>
>> I have made no claims whatsoever about the efficacy of exorcism; to be
>> honest I don't know enough about exorcism and its impact to make any
>> judgement on its efficacy.

>
>Begging your pardon, I did not mean to imply that you lauded exorcism,
>only that you praised (and that is still the impression I have) some of
>the procedures the Church includes in its implementation.

No I have never *praised* any procedures, I have simply pointed out
that you have been unable to provide a single example of anyone being
harmed let alone tortured or killed by an exorcism that was carried
out using those procedures.

>
>> All that I have done is to challenge *your* claims that exorcism "is a
>> particularly heinous superstition, in that it invariably hurts people
>> and, by distracting from effective treatment and instilling PTSD,
>> frequently causes long-term harm. Every instance of exorcism is an
>> atrocity. Every. Single. Case."
>> </quote>
>>
>> You seem to have an attitude that someone simply questioning the
>> veracity of any of your claims is automatically in some sort of
>> opposing camp.
>
>I find it hard to imagine that you are *not* in some sort of opposing
>camp, but that is based on long experience, not on one example of
>questioning my facts. You probably have much the same view of me. In
>fact, I have a lot of respect for you, and I agree with you on most
>issues. I was genuinely surprised when you defended exorcism.

That is a good example what I mean by you automatically putting people
in the opposite camp. I have never *defended* exorcism, I have simply
challenged you to produce evidence to support your claims about
torture and killing people, a claim that somewhat surprised me. It is
interesting that people here who clearly know far more about this than
I do (and, I suspect, than you do) have argued the exact opposite to
you.

>
>The statement of mine that you just quoted is, I now recognize,
>overstated to the point of being wrong. Burkhard has convinced me that
>exorcism, in conjunction with other ongoing support, can be beneficial
>in certain circumstances. Those circumstances appear rare to
>nonexistent in Western culture.

I haven't a clue about how rare or frequent they are and, to be
honest, I don't think you really know either.

Works for me. It was 27/05/2017 in the thread "The Creationist
Minority". It was a short post anyway so here it is in its entirety:

====================================================
On 5/27/17 2:11 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> [...]
> I will however remind you of one of the fundamental rules of research
> - check primary sources. If you really want to know what the Catholic
> Church's teaching is, the first port of call in of things relating to
> Catholic teaching is the Catechism of the Catholic Church which is
> available on line.

I submit that there is room for disagreement about what, exactly, "the
Catholic Church's teaching" means. It can refer either to the body of
congregants who come together identifying themselves as Catholics, or
it
can refer to their leadership, especially the Pope and bishops. The
beliefs of those two groups, I understand, are not always in
agreement.

I grant that "the Catholic Church's teaching" or "position" strongly
implies the teachings of the leadership. However, some of the dispute
in this thread has been over the "views", which to my mind more likely
refers to the congregants and their own ideas.

To summarize the pet peeve which rashly motivated me to write this
post:
Just keep in mind that churches are made up of multiple people, and no
church, not even one with an absolute leader, can be expected to have
a
single unanimous position on anything.

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net

"Ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can
have." - James Baldwin
==========================================================

[Peter Nyikos]

On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 6:40:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 2/18/20 4:38 AM, Otangelo Grasso wrote:

> > 8. WE KNOW that cells process information like computers. Computers are always designed.
>
> HA HA! Cells are nothing like computers.

Try to learn something about the protein translation mechanism,
and if you understand it (fat chance) and Otangelo understands it
(if he takes off his blinders), he will have the last laugh.

> > 9. WE KNOW that consciousness and intelligence can only come from a pre-existing mind.
>
> We know that consciousness and intelligence NEED NOT come from a
> pre-existing mind.

You have no idea where consciousness comes from. In fact, some people,
including John Wilkins [remember him?] has argued that we are all zombies.

>
> > 10. WE KNOW that the mind and consciousness are separate from the brain. Dualism is true.
>
> We know that the mind and consciousness are inseparable from a working
> brain;

You don't know that, and you might be in for a shock if you find out that
there is a life after death.

If you disagree, you might as well confess that you are a materialist
and hence an atheist.

> all reliable evidence indicates dualism is false.

False. But don't let that deter you from admitting that you are a
materialist.

>
> > 11. WE KNOW that organismal form is explained through codified information and signalling.
> Among other things.
>
> > 12. WE KNOW that objective moral laws are ought to be's. Since they exist, the are from God.
>
> Non sequitur again. And we do not know that objective moral laws exist.

I believe they do exist, but you are in some enviable company: jillery,
Oxyaena, Harshman, Casanova...


<snip to get to your punch line>

> > WE KNOW THAT THE GOD OF THE GAPS ARGUMENT IS INVALID.
>
> That one is correct.

If so, the following replacements are also invalid:


Darwin of the Gaps:

This is the default, one-size-fits-all, totally unfalsifiable
naturalistic explanation for any and all biological phenomena:

"Well, it's natural selection, y'know. The __________ that did/could/
are __________ had a survival advantage over the ones that didn't/
couldn't/weren't and so they are the ones we see today."


Nobody of the Gaps:

"Nobody ever claimed that _________________ works like _________."
or
"Nobody ever claimed that _________________
evolved in a random way."



Extrapolator of the Gaps:

"Evolution of organisms has
been shown to produce amazing things such as ourselves in highly un-
random ways. Doubtless, biochemical evolution is capable of such
things by a similar process."


Exaptor of the Gaps:

"The ____________[enzyme, structure, system] you are
skeptical about was exapted from another, which was exapted from another, ..."



And here's one that might especially appeal to you:

Casanova of the Gaps:
"I don't care how or why it evolved. It evolved. End of story."

If you like it a lot, I'll gladly add your name alongside Casanova's.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics

U. of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer --
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/19/20 8:30 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
> On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 07:50:30 -0800, Mark Isaak
> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

> [...]

>>
>> I have no doubt of your readiness to criticize the Catholic Church. My
>> questions to you boiled down to:
>>
>> Why is it okay for you to criticize them, and wrong for me to make the
>> same criticisms?
>
> I have never said you are wrong to criticise the Catholic Church where
> the criticism are based on facts; all I have ever done here is correct
> you when you make criticisms that are based on wrong facts or
> challenge you when you make assertions with no evidence to support
> them as you did in this thread.

And then you add a postscript about how biased I am against the Catholic
Church.

>> [...]

>> Have you ever considered that, just maybe, my problem is not with any
>> religion, but is instead with medical pseudoscience?
>
> Fine, criticise pseudoscience if you want, my corrections have been
> specifically in regard to your comments and assertions about the
> Catholic Church. A friendly word of caution though - don't assume
> something is pseudoscience just because it looks like mumbo jumbo to
> you as I suspect others here will challenge you if you do.

When the stated object of a procedure is to manipulate an always unseen
supernatural entity, I think calling it pseudoscience is pretty safe.

>>> [...]

>>> You seem to have an attitude that someone simply questioning the
>>> veracity of any of your claims is automatically in some sort of
>>> opposing camp.
>>
>> I find it hard to imagine that you are *not* in some sort of opposing
>> camp, but that is based on long experience, not on one example of
>> questioning my facts. You probably have much the same view of me. In
>> fact, I have a lot of respect for you, and I agree with you on most
>> issues. I was genuinely surprised when you defended exorcism.
>
> That is a good example what I mean by you automatically putting people
> in the opposite camp. I have never *defended* exorcism, I have simply
> challenged you to produce evidence to support your claims about
> torture and killing people, a claim that somewhat surprised me. It is
> interesting that people here who clearly know far more about this than
> I do (and, I suspect, than you do) have argued the exact opposite to
> you.

Fair enough. I apologize.

>>>>> [...]

I see nothing in there even suggesting superstition, and nothing that,
to me, seems controversial. What am I missing?

--
Mark Isaak eciton (at) curioustaxonomy (dot) net

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/19/20 3:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 6:40:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 2/18/20 4:38 AM, Otangelo Grasso wrote:
>
>>> 8. WE KNOW that cells process information like computers. Computers are always designed.
>>
>> HA HA! Cells are nothing like computers.
>
> Try to learn something about the protein translation mechanism,
> and if you understand it (fat chance) and Otangelo understands it
> (if he takes off his blinders), he will have the last laugh.

If you want to stretch a point past its breaking point, sure, cells are
computers. So are rivers. Hardly matters, since Grasso's conclusion is
a non sequitur.

>>> 9. WE KNOW that consciousness and intelligence can only come from a pre-existing mind.
>>
>> We know that consciousness and intelligence NEED NOT come from a
>> pre-existing mind.
>
> You have no idea where consciousness comes from. In fact, some people,
> including John Wilkins [remember him?] has argued that we are all zombies.

Whatever. We still know it need not come from a pre-existing mind.

>>> 10. WE KNOW that the mind and consciousness are separate from the brain. Dualism is true.
>>
>> We know that the mind and consciousness are inseparable from a working
>> brain;
>
> You don't know that, and you might be in for a shock if you find out that
> there is a life after death.

We know that every last bit of mind and consciousness that anybody has
ever known about is inseparable from a working brain.

> If you disagree, you might as well confess that you are a materialist
> and hence an atheist.

Non sequitur.

>> all reliable evidence indicates dualism is false.
>
> False. But don't let that deter you from admitting that you are a
> materialist.

I eagerly await your reliable evidence. And yes, I am proud to admit
that material and I get along well together.

>>
>>> 11. WE KNOW that organismal form is explained through codified information and signalling.
>> Among other things.
>>
>>> 12. WE KNOW that objective moral laws are ought to be's. Since they exist, the are from God.
>>
>> Non sequitur again. And we do not know that objective moral laws exist.
>
> I believe they do exist, but you are in some enviable company: jillery,
> Oxyaena, Harshman, Casanova...

I have, in past years, put some effort into finding objective morality,
or even some justification for its existence. What I found instead is
near-consensus that there is no such thing, and reasons why.

My statements stand.

[jillery]

On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 15:19:49 -0800 (PST), Peter Nyikos
<peter1...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 6:40:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 2/18/20 4:38 AM, Otangelo Grasso wrote:
>
>> > 8. WE KNOW that cells process information like computers. Computers are always designed.
>>
>> HA HA! Cells are nothing like computers.
>
>Try to learn something about the protein translation mechanism,
>and if you understand it (fat chance) and Otangelo understands it
>(if he takes off his blinders), he will have the last laugh.

Unless you can show that the protein translation mechanism is
designed, your comment is as inane as Grasso's.

>> > 9. WE KNOW that consciousness and intelligence can only come from a pre-existing mind.
>>
>> We know that consciousness and intelligence NEED NOT come from a
>> pre-existing mind.
>
>You have no idea where consciousness comes from. In fact, some people,
>including John Wilkins [remember him?] has argued that we are all zombies.

He didn't say he knows where consciousness comes from. Learn to read.

>> > 10. WE KNOW that the mind and consciousness are separate from the brain. Dualism is true.
>>
>> We know that the mind and consciousness are inseparable from a working
>> brain;
>
>You don't know that, and you might be in for a shock if you find out that
>there is a life after death.
>
>If you disagree, you might as well confess that you are a materialist
>and hence an atheist.

Right here would have been a good place for you to have identified
documented evidence of any instance of a mind separated from a working
brain. But you didn't. Instead you just posted more meaningless
noise.

>> all reliable evidence indicates dualism is false.
>
>False. But don't let that deter you from admitting that you are a
>materialist.

Don't let posting your meaningless noise deter you from identifying
any reliable evidence which shows otherwise.

>> > 11. WE KNOW that organismal form is explained through codified information and signalling.
>> Among other things.
>>
>> > 12. WE KNOW that objective moral laws are ought to be's. Since they exist, the are from God.
>>
>> Non sequitur again. And we do not know that objective moral laws exist.
>
>I believe they do exist, but you are in some enviable company: jillery,
>Oxyaena, Harshman, Casanova...

You're entitled to your own opinion. Everybody has one.

><snip to get to your punch line>


<snip to get to your punch line>

>Peter Nyikos
>Professor, Dept. of Mathematics
>U. of South Carolina -- standard disclaimer --
>http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos/

Then what happened?

[Oxyaena]

On 2/19/2020 6:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>
>
>
>>> 9. WE KNOW that consciousness and intelligence can only come from a pre-existing mind.
>>
>> We know that consciousness and intelligence NEED NOT come from a
>> pre-existing mind.
>
> You have no idea where consciousness comes from. In fact, some people,
> including John Wilkins [remember him?] has argued that we are all zombies.

"Need not" doesn't correlate to "did not."

>
>
>
>>
>>> 10. WE KNOW that the mind and consciousness are separate from the brain. Dualism is true.
>>
>> We know that the mind and consciousness are inseparable from a working
>> brain;
>
> You don't know that, and you might be in for a shock if you find out that
> there is a life after death.
>
> If you disagree, you might as well confess that you are a materialist
> and hence an atheist.

What is there to "confess" about? You're implying atheism is a moral
lacking of some kind, what the fuck is wrong with you?

>
>>
>>> 11. WE KNOW that organismal form is explained through codified information and signalling.
>> Among other things.
>>
>>> 12. WE KNOW that objective moral laws are ought to be's. Since they exist, the are from God.
>>
>> Non sequitur again. And we do not know that objective moral laws exist.
>
> I believe they do exist, but you are in some enviable company: jillery,
> Oxyaena, Harshman, Casanova...

How many times do I have to fucking tell you to not gratuitously name
drop me in these pointless vendettas of yours? Knock it the fuck off,
for Christ's sake, Peter.

>
>
> <snip to get to your punch line>
>
>
>>> WE KNOW THAT THE GOD OF THE GAPS ARGUMENT IS INVALID.
>>
>> That one is correct.
>
> If so, the following replacements are also invalid:
>
>
> Darwin of the Gaps:

*eyeroll*

>
> This is the default, one-size-fits-all, totally unfalsifiable
> naturalistic explanation for any and all biological phenomena:

No one says that, just that no supernatural explanation has ever come up
that satisfactorally explains any biological phenomenon.

>
> "Well, it's natural selection, y'know. The __________ that did/could/
> are __________ had a survival advantage over the ones that didn't/
> couldn't/weren't and so they are the ones we see today."
>
>
> Nobody of the Gaps:
>
> "Nobody ever claimed that _________________ works like _________."
> or
> "Nobody ever claimed that _________________
> evolved in a random way."
>
>
>
> Extrapolator of the Gaps:
>
> "Evolution of organisms has
> been shown to produce amazing things such as ourselves in highly un-
> random ways. Doubtless, biochemical evolution is capable of such
> things by a similar process."

Strawman noted. That's not fallacious, it's a valid logical inference.

>
>
> Exaptor of the Gaps:
>
> "The ____________[enzyme, structure, system] you are
> skeptical about was exapted from another, which was exapted from another, ..."

Strawman noted.

[snip idiocy]

--
"I would rather be the son of an ape than be descended from a man afraid
to face the truth." - TH Huxley

https://peradectes.wordpress.com/

[Oxyaena]

On 2/17/2020 10:17 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> Nice having you with us, Tom. I am doing something here that
> I often do due to lack of free time (I am a full-time research Professor):

Keep on stroking your ego, dick.

> I comment on things others have said before getting around to you.
> But some of those comments are directed to you, Tom.
>
> I simply cannot spare the time to reply to jillery, Mark, Burkhard
> and Bill separately.

Yet you take the time to wank off here.

>
> On Saturday, February 15, 2020 at 11:20:02 PM UTC-5, Tom Aull wrote:
>> On 2/15/20 7:03 PM, jillery wrote:
>>> On Sat, 15 Feb 2020 08:41:34 -0800, Mark Isaak
>>> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On 2/15/20 12:49 AM, Burkhard wrote:
>>>>>> On 2/14/20 10:11 AM, Bill wrote:
>
>>>>>>> Let's see if that works. During the 20th century there were
>>>>>>> many beliefs systems: Fascists, Nazi, Communist among
>>>>>>> others. These required certain nasty behaviors from their
>>>>>>> followers. Each was a form of government. Since these
>>>>>>> governments did terrible things, government itself must be
>>>>>>> terrible. Since government is terrible, it cannot be true.
>>>>>>> The only rational response must be anarchy.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> 1. Governments are not gods.
>>>>>> 2. You can reject one depiction of god without rejecting all of them.
>>>>>>
>>>>>> Please get some sleep.
>
>
> Gratuitous put-down noted.

Mote beam eye.

>
>
>>>>>
>>>>> Im' with Bill here. 1) is a reductio ad absurdum. if your inference
>>>>> scheme is applied to another field, it yields absurd results, hence it
>>>>> is an invalid scheme. So of course for this to work, something other
>>>>> than gods is used, that;s how a valid reductio works.
>
> Burkhard is right, of course. Very few regulars have as hard
> a time comprehending *reductio* *ad* *absurdum* as Mark did here.
> The only others who come to mind is the late (?) Ray Martinez
> and Dr. Dr. Alan Kleinman.
>
>
>>>> At least 4% of people in developed countries get along just fine without
>>>> any god, and I see no reason why the number could not go higher. The
>>>> same cannot be said of governments. Besides, the reductio based on what
>>>> I wrote would advise that if you don't like one form of government, get
>>>> a different form of government.
>
> The reductio addressed point 1. Mark is here confusing a conclusion
> about his own point 2. with his own point 1.
>
>
>>>> Optionally choosing no government at
>>>> all would parallel my point, but since governments are not gods, it is
>>>> not an option.
>
> Funny how Mark talks as though gods were an invention that one could
> abolish whenever needed. In this he is a kindred spirit of the
> anarchist Bakunin, who famously turned an even more famous statement
> by Voltaire on its head, by saying, "If there were a God, it would
> be necessary to abolish him."

What is the reasoning behind this? How is that "funny?" How is that
relevant to anything? Why are you such an atheophobe?

>
> All the more strange, then, that he dismisses anarchy out of hand.
> So much for all the people who became Marxists because they thought
> that the ultimate goal of Marxism was "the withering away of the state."

Gratuitous reference to Marxism and anarchism noted. What purpose does
this server, other than as fodder?

>
>
> <big snip for focus>
>
>>>> I shall try rephrasing my point. Tom suggested that rejection of God
>>>> leads to accepting evolution. My points are, first, I have never known
>>>> that to happen. Second and more important, there are reasons *why*
>>>> people who reject god have done so; it's often because religion fails
>>>> those people.
>
> Mark is making a strange claim that the second is more important than
> the first, but I can't see how he can say that about things
> that are totally disparate -- except, of course in the sense of saying how
> rejection of God sometimes comes about.

I mean you do it all the time. Projection much?

>
> And so, his "more important" statement simply complements yours, Tom,
> without undermining it in the least. I made that point the other day,
> in direct reply to another post of Mark's.
>
>
> I haven't read every post on this thread, so I have no idea why
> jillery brings up Paulogia and Ken Ham. I hope you do, Tom.

It takes literally five minutes to read every post on this thread.

Sparassodonts disappeared before the brunt of the invasion of the North
American carnivores fyi, by about two million years actually.

[Peter Nyikos]

On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 8:30:03 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 2/18/20 12:21 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 1:55:03 PM UTC-5, Burkhard wrote:
> >> Mark Isaak wrote:
> >>> [...]
> >>> Exorcism is medical pseudoscience. Medical pseudoscience, where it
> >>> applies to potentially life-threatening diseases, kills. Supporting
> >>> such medical pseudoscience means supporting killing.
> >>
> >> Logically, I think that's the "fallacy of the four terms". You still
> >> need to show that exorcism is the type of pseudoscience that is applied
> >> to potentially life threatening diseases.
> >
> > In fact, exorcism is, at least under the aegis of the Catholic Church,
> > applied only in cases where severe mental -- not physical illness
> > has been diagnosed.
>
> Mental illness is physical illness.

Although it manifests itself physically, it has a cognitive dimension
which is not a significant part of physical illnesses.

> The mind is part of the body.

Stop using words in pseudoscientific ways. The BRAIN is part of the body.
The mind has both an external and an internal dimension.

Unless you are an unconscious zombie, you know that your conscious
experience is nothing like what people other than you can detect in you,
even with the help of brain scans.

> Physical and mental problems both can be
> treated successfully with physical and/or cognitive treatments.

Mathematical problems could only be solved successfully by
human reasoning until the advent of the computer. Even today,
huge parts of the many theorems of mathematics are unattainable
by computers.

Of course, I wouldn't expect a computer nerd like yourself to
appreciate mathematical problems and theorems. I don't think you care one
way or the other about Wiles's tremendous achievement in solving
Fermat's Last Problem after it baffled the greatest mathematical
minds for over a three centuries. Such things are "uninteresting"
(or simply below their radar screens)
to run of the mill workers in the philosophy/psychology of mind.

You need to get your mind off the latest psychological experiments and start
trying to think for yourself about your own conscious experiences.

I know, that's a very tall order. And I don't think you are
willing to start trying.

Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--

University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

PS I believe jillery and Oxyaena don't want you to start trying.
You are too much of a Useful Idiot to them and to Harshman where
their respective agendas are concerned.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

[Peter Nyikos]

On Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 7:50:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> On 2/19/20 3:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> > On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 6:40:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
> >> On 2/18/20 4:38 AM, Otangelo Grasso wrote:
> >
> >>> 8. WE KNOW that cells process information like computers. Computers are always designed.
> >>
> >> HA HA! Cells are nothing like computers.
> >
> > Try to learn something about the protein translation mechanism,
> > and if you understand it (fat chance) and Otangelo understands it
> > (if he takes off his blinders), he will have the last laugh.
>
> If you want to stretch a point past its breaking point, sure, cells are
> computers.

You know that wasn't the point I was making, unless the term
"protein translation mechanism" is way outside your vocabulary.

I was taking the most obvious function of the cell where
it is like a computer.

And so, even if Otangelo doesn't go for the last laugh, I have it here:
You were completely wrong when you wrote, "HA! HA! Cells are nothing
like computers."

And, like Kleinman when caught making stupid claims, you act as though
you were oblivious to this:

> So are rivers.

Your brain is working like a mis-wired computer here.

> Hardly matters, since Grasso's conclusion is
> a non sequitur.

I don't think you are intelligent enough to tell Grasso's conclusion
from his premises.

>
> >>> 9. WE KNOW that consciousness and intelligence can only come from a pre-existing mind.
> >>
> >> We know that consciousness and intelligence NEED NOT come from a
> >> pre-existing mind.
> >
> > You have no idea where consciousness comes from. In fact, some people,
> > including John Wilkins [remember him?] has argued that we are all zombies.
>
> Whatever. We still know it need not come from a pre-existing mind.

Misuse of the word "We" noted. Correct is "People with
far more understanding of the situation than myself, Mark Isaak,
have concluded that it need not come from a pre-existing mind."

>
> >>> 10. WE KNOW that the mind and consciousness are separate from the brain. Dualism is true.
> >>
> >> We know that the mind and consciousness are inseparable from a working
> >> brain;
> >
> > You don't know that, and you might be in for a shock if you find out that
> > there is a life after death.
>
> We know that every last bit of mind and consciousness that anybody has
> ever known about is inseparable from a working brain.

Not only do we not know that, but Gilbert Ryle, author of the
highly and widely (and erroneously) acclaimed book, _The Concept of Mind_,
never once invoked the brain to explain the mind; he took a completely
behavioristic tack.

But then, a computer nerd like yourself cannot be expected to know
anything about the branch of philosophy known as "the Philosophy of Mind."

>
> > If you disagree, you might as well confess that you are a materialist
> > and hence an atheist.
>
> Non sequitur.

I see you are unable to "put two and two together." Just like
Dr. Dr. Alan Kleinman.

> >> all reliable evidence indicates dualism is false.
> >
> > False. But don't let that deter you from admitting that you are a
> > materialist.
>
> I eagerly await your reliable evidence. And yes, I am proud to admit
> that material and I get along well together.

That's not what "materialism" means in the Philosophy of Mind.

But do carry on: you are getting to resemble the Dr.Dr. more and
more with your love of corny non sequiturs.

As for your first sentence: I could give you reliable evidence,
but you wouldn't be able to understand it if you don't follow the
advice I gave you in my reply to you less than an hour ago.
One good stimulus to getting you to do that would be a reading of
Descartes's first and second meditations.


Ever heard of them?


Concluded in next reply, to be done soon after I see that this one has posted.


Peter Nyikos
Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
Univ. of South Carolina at Columbia
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/20/20 11:18 AM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 8:30:03 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 2/18/20 12:21 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 1:55:03 PM UTC-5, Burkhard wrote:
>>>> Mark Isaak wrote:
>>>>> [...]
>>>>> Exorcism is medical pseudoscience. Medical pseudoscience, where it
>>>>> applies to potentially life-threatening diseases, kills. Supporting
>>>>> such medical pseudoscience means supporting killing.
>>>>
>>>> Logically, I think that's the "fallacy of the four terms". You still
>>>> need to show that exorcism is the type of pseudoscience that is applied
>>>> to potentially life threatening diseases.
>>>
>>> In fact, exorcism is, at least under the aegis of the Catholic Church,
>>> applied only in cases where severe mental -- not physical illness
>>> has been diagnosed.
>>
>> Mental illness is physical illness.
>
> Although it manifests itself physically, it has a cognitive dimension
> which is not a significant part of physical illnesses.
>
>
>> The mind is part of the body.
>
> Stop using words in pseudoscientific ways. The BRAIN is part of the body.
> The mind has both an external and an internal dimension.

The mind is part of (the operation of) the brain, which is part of the body.

> Unless you are an unconscious zombie, you know that your conscious
> experience is nothing like what people other than you can detect in you,
> even with the help of brain scans.

The same is true for blood flow. Part of the body.

>> Physical and mental problems both can be
>> treated successfully with physical and/or cognitive treatments.
>
> Mathematical problems could only be solved successfully by
> human reasoning until the advent of the computer. Even today,
> huge parts of the many theorems of mathematics are unattainable
> by computers.
>
> Of course, I wouldn't expect a computer nerd like yourself to
> appreciate mathematical problems and theorems. I don't think you care one
> way or the other about Wiles's tremendous achievement in solving
> Fermat's Last Problem after it baffled the greatest mathematical
> minds for over a three centuries. Such things are "uninteresting"
> (or simply below their radar screens)
> to run of the mill workers in the philosophy/psychology of mind.

And you continue your perfect record of being wrong whenever you say
what you expect I think.

> You need to get your mind off the latest psychological experiments and start
> trying to think for yourself about your own conscious experiences.

If consciousness could be explained via introspection, it would have
been thoroughly worked out millennia ago. You need to get your mind off
your own experiences and start thinking about objective, repeatable
psychology experiments.

I know, that's a very tall order. And I don't think you are willing to
start trying.

[Peter Nyikos]

...an inability to admit that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is objectively
wrong, and great resistance to even broach the issue.

This was in wake of you pretending to believe that the Inquisitors
should have forgiven the people who falsely claimed to be Christian
and got cushy jobs and powerful positions under that pretense.

That "should" was an example of you dabbling in objective morality.

You had sided with Ray Martinez, who claimed the Inquisitors were guilty
of murder for turning them over to the civil authorities, who executed
them for failure to prove their claim that they were sincere Christians.

> near-consensus that there is no such thing, and reasons why.

The Roman Catholic Church puts the lie to your claim of a
near consensus. As for reasons why, I don't think you can name
a single valid one. All you can do is make up fanciful exceptions
to inadequately expressed rules.

I'm sure you can dream up hypothetical examples where FGM might
be justified; what you cannot do is to show that the way FGM
is ACTUALLY done is not objectively wrong. If you disagree,
cite an ACTUAL instance of it where it was not objectively wrong.


> My statements stand.

Correction: your uncritical acceptance of things you believe to be
near consensuses is something you cannot let go of.


Peter Nyikos

Professor, Dept. of Mathematics -- standard disclaimer--
University of South Carolina
http://people.math.sc.edu/nyikos

PS I see jillery is doing her best to deflect attention from the
shellacking you are getting from me. And the way she does it
is highly reflective of her totalitarian mentality. I'll explain
how in direct reply to her, on my own good time -- not hers.

I wonder whether you will then come to her rescue the way she is trying
to come to yours.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Peter Nyikos <nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 7:50:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 2/19/20 3:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 6:40:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>>> On 2/18/20 4:38 AM, Otangelo Grasso wrote:
>
>>>>> 12. WE KNOW that objective moral laws are ought to be's. Since they
>>>>> exist, the are from God.
>>>>
>>>> Non sequitur again. And we do not know that objective moral laws exist.
>>>
>>> I believe they do exist, but you are in some enviable company: jillery,
>>> Oxyaena, Harshman, Casanova...
>>
>> I have, in past years, put some effort into finding objective morality,
>> or even some justification for its existence. What I found instead is
>
>
> ...an inability to admit that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is objectively
> wrong, and great resistance to even broach the issue.
>

Concepts of harm-reduction and respect for human rights go further toward
buttressing negative *evaluation* and condemnation of acts such as FGM than
some vague notion of objective morality. Morality isn’t something “out
there” that is discoverable as in things that we regard as elements of
science. In the past “objective morality” was 1:1 with biblical edict
(misogynistic Torah commandments included) so such morality is found
lacking.

You sound much like Sam Harris in putting forth stark person harming
practices such as FGM or burqa wearing and with such shock and awe
theatrics think you have demonstrated objective morality because the
horrific nature of the practices in the eyes of your audience. You haven’t
done that. You have induced discomfort and confusion in most people. Not
me.

Dershowitz’s “rights from wrongs” rubric goes far here (despite himself).
We have recognized past atrocities and thought “let’s not do that again”.
Rights are not things “out there”. They are constructed and quite recently
in history formulated as in the Declaration with vague deistic
justification or Bill of Rights granted by government as protections
against majority imposition. Rights are far removed from an objective
reality and imperfectly applied.

Even Singer’s expansion of the moral circle isn’t a support for objective
morality. People recognize harm done or suffering and such things have
themselves an objective basis at root as they may be measurable on some
scale (eg-capacity for neural processing) and even a product of reasoning
based on experience (almost quasi-scientific in a very loose sense). No
cigar. Evaluation comes into the mix, with emotional subjective components
and a heaping scoop of intuition or gut feeling. Mistreatment of others
when perceived results often in disgust and righteous indignation. Often
this is proportioned to perceived identity distance of the victim. Tajfel's
minimal group paradigm reflects this. Over time expansion of the moral
circle of concern has countered this outgrouping tendency but is this
historic trend an increase in the objectivity of a discoverable morality or
merely a benevolent intersubjective consensus as gut sensibilities such as
empathy and compassion increase?

And at the same time that we condemn FGM we justify torture (human rights
superseded by expediency) in ticking time bomb or abducted child scenarios.
Hence CIA black sites and waterboarding. But that’s ok because Jack Bauer
(FOXes aptly timed social engineering of a voting populace). FGM bad.
Waterboarding good. See I can do stark gut reaction inducing contrasts too
because they are so resonant.

>
> This was in wake of you pretending to believe that the Inquisitors
> should have forgiven the people who falsely claimed to be Christian
> and got cushy jobs and powerful positions under that pretense.
>
> That "should" was an example of you dabbling in objective morality.
>

How so? And were the Inquisitors dabbling in objective morality “as they
saw it” rooting out conversos suspected of being cryptojews? The one aspect
with an objective component that may be relevant is the notion of “could”
as in Kant’s “ought implies can”. Could the Inquisitors locked in their
ideological (theological) or sociological prison have done otherwise? Is
this more explanatory than exonerative?

>
> You had sided with Ray Martinez, who claimed the Inquisitors were guilty
> of murder for turning them over to the civil authorities, who executed
> them for failure to prove their claim that they were sincere Christians.
>

Well I sure would be dumbfounded to find an argument justifying the
Inquisitors acts “as they saw it” given my own vantage point.

>
>> near-consensus that there is no such thing, and reasons why.
>
> The Roman Catholic Church puts the lie to your claim of a
> near consensus.

What authority has the RCC to rule on such matters? Gould’s NOMA was poorly
put. He took the cogent notion that science and morality, though they can
interdigitate, are mostly separate spheres and shat on it by ceding
authority in moral matters to religion.

So many problems, so little space and time. Suffice it to say the RCC is
largely into command (not objective morality). The Euthyphro dilemma almost
single handedly blows that one out of the water.

They haven’t even conceded that priest celibacy is rather out of step with
a healthy lifestance, so many priests likely imitating Onan periodically
because urges. That’s one situation where a fact as to how humans are
constituted butts heads with restrictive religious intersubjective doctrine
masquerading as morality. Every sperm is sacred.

> As for reasons why, I don't think you can name
> a single valid one. All you can do is make up fanciful exceptions
> to inadequately expressed rules.
>
> I'm sure you can dream up hypothetical examples where FGM might
> be justified; what you cannot do is to show that the way FGM
> is ACTUALLY done is not objectively wrong. If you disagree,
> cite an ACTUAL instance of it where it was not objectively wrong.
>

So tell us how it is *objectively* wrong, versus against commendable
notions of human rights (not actually a *real* thing) and harm reduction
(which beats IMO focus on greatest happiness for the whole because the kid
locked suffering in the broom closet per Le Guin).

>
>> My statements stand.
>
> Correction: your uncritical acceptance of things you believe to be
> near consensuses is something you cannot let go of.
>

You haven’t sufficiently supported objective morality. One doesn’t need
such a thing to condemn FGM or waterboarding.

[jillery]

On Thu, 20 Feb 2020 15:57:39 -0800 (PST), Peter Nyikos
<nyik...@gmail.com> wrote:

>PS I see jillery is doing her best to deflect attention from the
>shellacking you are getting from me. And the way she does it
>is highly reflective of her totalitarian mentality. I'll explain
>how in direct reply to her, on my own good time -- not hers.

It's remarkable how you lie even in your wet dreams.

[*Hemidactylus*]

Mark Isaak <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>
[snip]

>
> I have, in past years, put some effort into finding objective morality,
> or even some justification for its existence. What I found instead is
> near-consensus that there is no such thing, and reasons why.
>
> My statements stand.
>

I wonder if so-called “objective morality” is more after the fact
rationalization of gut reaction than reasoned deliberative response. Haidt
has written on such things, but it’s been awhile since I read that stuff.

[jillery]

My experience is, most people I know who say there is an objective
reality, do so in order to elevate beyond question what they believe
is "obviously true", and to handwave away contrary opinions. This is
not to say there aren't people who discuss objective morality
objectively, but instead to say I am unaware of them.

[Burkhard]

I don't know what you refer to here - you seem to be replying to yourself?

>
>> If you mean the official rules since 1999 that tightened considerably
>> the approach, not quite - a medical doctor must have ruled out both
>> physical and mental illness.
>
> Are you talking here about the rules of the Catholic Church? Or
> about psychiatric associations?
>

The Catholic Church. The document is "Of Exorcisms and Certain
Supplications" from 1999, and was in response to a number of high
profile cases where people were harmed or not enough supported.

>> The latter I'd consider problematic if
>> taken literally (unsurprisingly, as I consider exorcism and similar
>> rituals as one way to manage mental health issues). A better way to read
>> it would be to say: not diagnosed with the type of mental health problem
>> that either makes them a danger to themselves or others and requires
>> therefore hospitalization, or the type of mental health problem for
>> which more efficient drug-based interventions exist.
>>
>> Severe mental illness can of course be life threatening - from suicide
>> and other forms of self-harm to harm to others - and it would indeed be
>> dangerous if an indicated drug based intervention, or hospitalisation,
>> were delayed.
>
> The two patients in question had been under psychiatric treatment
> for over a year, so only during the actual exorcism were there any
> such dangers -- and M. Scott Peck is very explicit about them.
>
>
>> The real big big problem with though is when the intervention fails, or
>> has no lasting effect. At this point different religions differ
>> considerably how they interpret this, and this can then be much more
>> harmful to the patient than the intervention itself. Religions that
>> associate possession, or resistance to exorcism, with the sinful nature
>> of the patient ("you are just so wicked that not even you priest can
>> keep the demons away etc") obviously fare worst.
>
> That is exactly contrary to Peck's experience and recommendations.
> He says the most important feature of the exorcism team must be
> a love for the patient.

Which is potentially reassuring, but that's also where it can become
very quickly very complicated and messy, given the context of Christian,
and more specifically catholic, doctrine. The way he describes the role
of the exorcist means clearly that he thinks of agape rather than
philia (or eros). And in some conceptions of agape, it can be very
different from what we might ordinarily understand under love, or what a
psychologist or psychiatrist would mean with that term. He seems to be
more Augustine than Thomas for that matter. But in any case, any of
these would be the type of relationship that are deemed highly
inappropriate between psychiatrist and patient. Learning to keep your
professional distance is one of the key requirements that psychiatrists
and psychotherapists have to learn, precisely because the nature of
their profession makes it so "natural" to form personal bonds with the
patient. These rules protect both, patient and practitioner.

The type of self-sacrificing love that (especially Augustine) meant with
agape can unfortunately have psychologically the exact opposite effect
when taken out of the abstract theological doctrine and becomes applied
in real life by real people. It can and of course has been used to
justify actions that harm the "temporal" aspects of a person in order to
"save" the "spiritual" aspect, inflicting all sorts of harm on them
in the course of the action, and all in the name of love ("this hurts
you more than me...")And where there is the feeling that it has been
rejected (in our setting, the patient relapses), the negative response
can be particularly strong - as anyone who deals with dysfunctional
family relations would tell you ("I gave up everything for you...)

So I'm not too reassured by that part of his analysis, and I find it in
equal parts worrying and interesting that Peck never reconnects that
discussion with the extensive literature on patient-therapist relations
in the psychiatric and psychotherapy literature.

There is a marked development in his own attitude from "The road less
traveled" to "people of lie" to the later "Glimpses of the devil. In
many ways the first is the most worrying, because it frames spiritual
growth solely as an individualistic endeavor. Too much "Batman" if you
ask me - the superhero fighting insurmountable odds, all on his own as
he has to travel this road alone etc. That draws on those intellectual
traditions of Christianity (hermits, seclusion etc) that are least
suitable for mental health practitioners, and sidelined the all
important communal aspect. He got better, and considerably more humble,
in the sense that he recognised the need for community, later, but he
still ontologises evil, considering some people to be "irredeemable
evil" even if they did not commit evil acts as such. Oh, and he
famously thought the entire US Supreme Court was evil for handing
election victory to Bush.

You may want to read also the biography by Arthur Jones, "The Road He
Travelled: The Revealing Biography of M Scott Peck" The image we get
from there is decidedly ambiguous, and shows someone capable of quite
significant cruelty in his personal relations (no, you don't ask your ex
to be your witness at your second wedding, especially if the new bride
doesn't like the idea at all) , though some of this in later life may
have been caused by his own declining mental health. But all in all he
is not the type of person I would like to see in charge of such a
dangerous (for patient and practitioner) relation

Within it. Martin left the Jesuit order... under some cloud, to put it
mildly. His precise status remained an issue of controversy - he claimed
to have received dispensation from all his vows as a Jesuit AND from the
chastity requirement for ordinary priests, the Church authorities said
he was neither, and in any case that would not give license to have an
extramarital affair with the wife of one of the mentally ill people he
got into contact with He was one of the "Fatima Crusaders, claimed
that Pius IX and John Paul I were murdered, that the Vatican conspired
with with the Freemasons and the Soviets to block the election of
Cardinal Siri to Pope, that Popes John XXIII and Paul VI were
Freemasons etc etc. His claims about exorcism are mixed with a lot of
new age nonsense. Not the person I'd go for for an authoritative account
of catholic teaching, to put it mildly.

>
>> Peck accepts uncritically
>> these accounts and Martin's interpretation of them, seems ot be unaware
>> of the significant body of literature on exorcism, and his own dabbling
>> is based on Martin's discredited ideas too
>
> According to whom?

According to himself? He praises Martin throughout the book, names him
as the role model, and also says the only reason he doesn't give more
details is the excellent work Martin has done publishing five case studies.

Otherwise, see below where I put in a link to a reference where you
requested one. You get lots of information on the reaction by the
church and secular psychiatrists in Arthur Jones, "The Road He Travelled"

>
>
>> All this is of course
>> pre-1999 - but cases like that of Martin were a factor behind the
>> substantial tightening of the rules then
>>
>>
>>>
>>>
>>>>
>>>> *ANY* support for
>>>>> exorcism is appalling and unjustified.
>>>
>>>> That's a more substantive issue.
>>>
>>> But a misguided one. For example, the two exorcisms in which Peck was present
>>> were successful. True, the patients had a long "convalescence" afterwards but they were much better off mentally and emotionally than they had been
>>> for over a decade.
>>
>> You mean the ones he describes in "Glimpses of the Devil"?
>
> I haven't read it, so I don't know whether the patients were
> the same ones described in the chapter in _People of the Lie_.
> Have you read the chapter?
>

Yes, but some time ago. Did a quick check and they are indeed different
persons, just two in each case. Glimpses of the Devil contains a longer
discussion of the ones he did himself, and the description is quite
extensive People of the Lie he merely observed - but I didn't find a lot
about the long-term follow up- and we know from more systematic studies
that these interventions sometimes make people feel better for a few
month, but then they relapse worse. (some more conventional
psychotherapy interventions have the same problem)

And he says himself in the beginning that he is only giving a very
brief account, and people interested in details should read Martin's books.

>
> Not quite,
>> though Peck goes some way to create that impression. "Beccah Armitage"
>> was arguably worse off, and eventually killed herself. “Jersey Babcock”
>> was potentially more successful, at least based on the self-reports
>> (crucially, Peck doesn't carry out any of the evaluative tests that
>> establish a full clinical symptomatology. The Swiss paper I list below
>> had as conclusion that while patients did claim to feel better, this was
>> not reflected in the symptomatology, and may have been at least partly
>> an observer effect (patients don't want to disappoint the healer)
>> Babcock e.g. continued to suffer form delusions, she just claimed to
>> cope better with them. What makes the Babcock case problematic,
>> ethically if not medically, is that she had been sexually abused by her
>> father as a child. Turning that into an account that centers on her and
>> her "possession" is something that I find pretty inexcusable, and
>> displaying exactly one of the dangers of this approach - that can
>> exculpate the environment and locate the "sin" with the victim.
>>
>> Richard Woods, the Chicago theology professor, I think gave a
>> particularly scathing account of Peck's dabbling in exorcism, from both
>> a clinical and a theological perspective
>
> Reference?

here is one:
http://www.natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2005b/042905/042905m.htm

[Burkhard]

Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 7:50:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 2/19/20 3:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 6:40:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>>> On 2/18/20 4:38 AM, Otangelo Grasso wrote:
>
>>>>> 12. WE KNOW that objective moral laws are ought to be's. Since they exist, the are from God.
>>>>
>>>> Non sequitur again. And we do not know that objective moral laws exist.
>>>
>>> I believe they do exist, but you are in some enviable company: jillery,
>>> Oxyaena, Harshman, Casanova...
>>
>> I have, in past years, put some effort into finding objective morality,
>> or even some justification for its existence. What I found instead is
>
>
> ...an inability to admit that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is objectively
> wrong, and great resistance to even broach the issue.

Well, that's interesting for a number of reasons. First, I (and Mark,
who said this explicitly) certainly agree that FGM is wrong.

But why do you frame it as "FGM"? Why not the more comprehensive "CGM",
child genital mutilation? Then one could easily extract a general and
not context specific rule: it is wrong to mutilate a child's (or indeed
any persons) genitals without their consent and without a clear medical
benefit"

Could it be maybe that in the culture you happen to be born in and where
you live, cutting the genitals of boys is generally accepted by society,
for religious or more diffuse cultural reasons and practiced by "proper
Americans", whereas FGM is practiced by immigrants, foreigners and other
"others" only? (leaving aside the problem that every culture that
practices FGM also practices MGM, only the converse does not hold, so
the focus on FGM is even more arbitrary).

So you provide a rather nice case study why people argue that moral
judgements are not "objective" in a meaningful sense.

That however does not make them arbitrary. And that is the second
problem with your approach. Moral realism (or objectivism) and
relativism are meta-ethical approaches. They tell you little, if
anything, about substantive moral judgements that people make. Now
admittedly, lots and lots of people confuse this in the discussion, so
it is not entirely your fault.

Rather, it is the same meta-analysis we have in the theory of science. A
scientific non-realist in the mould of Kant, Carnap, Mach, Hempel,
Neurath, Bridgeman, Quine or Kuhn and a scientific realist in the
tradition of van Fraasen, Lipton, Hacking etc will typically agree on
pretty much every substantive scientific statement, and will even call
them "true" (there are outliers of course, Lenin was an epistemological
realist, but had very odd ideas about some scientific theories).

What their disagreement is about is what "T is true" means. In
particular, non-realists may claim that adding "objectively" to a
scientific statement will do some or all of this

- not add any meaning
- add nothing of explanatory value
- does not fit the data from actual scientific practice, in particular
theory change
- can be misused as a rhetorical strategy to immunize contingent
contemporary scientific claims from scrutiny and prevents creative research
- commits implicitly to an ontology that isn't supported by strong reasons

None of this means that scientific statements are arbitrary, or that we
cannot rationally chose between competing theories. It only means we
should not write epistemological blank cheques that we can't honour.
That means in particular it is not sufficient to refute non-realism by
pointing at specific scientific statements and asking the non -realist
if they agree with it - of course they can agree with it, that's not the
issue.

The same is the case for moral relativism. A moral relativist and a
moral objectivist can agree on every single substantive moral "ought"
claim, just as scientific non-realists and objectivists can agree on
every single scientific statement.


What their disagreement is about is what "T ougt (not) to be done"
means. In particular, non-realists may claim that adding "objectively"
to an ought statement will do some or all of this

- not add any meaning
- add nothing of explanatory value
- does not fit the data from actual social practice, in particular the
way in which moral commitments change
- can be misused as a rhetorical strategy to immunize continent
contemporary ought claims from scrutiny and prevents evolution of moral
norms
- commits implicitly to an ontology that isn't supported by strong reasons

[*Hemidactylus*]

I prefer where the rubber meets the road in that FGM (and arguably MGM)
violates rights and brings harm. Rights are non-existent social constructs
cut from whole cloth by enlightened philosophes who applied them
inconsistently or parochially. But they sure offset majority rule when
needed (and heeded). Harm is going to be somewhat subjective as to where
the threshold or line is crossed. We could agree the Janitor harmed Todd
based on the cartoonish pain face scale:

https://youtu.be/eReYfISQ42M

That’s as stark as Peter pointing to FGM yet neither demonstrate objective
morality “out there”, just gut feelings of empathy and compassion “in
here”. Surely we can gauge something on a threshold using objective data,
but the thresholds used and emotive processing involved are not. At best
intersubjective. We can argue whether the Janitor was justified with Todd’s
atomic wedgie as just desert for being an ass or the Janitor violated his
rights or harmed him. Perhaps “reason will prevail”:

https://youtu.be/oPFsNtxH7FA

[*Hemidactylus*]

Oh and following Haidt and Lukianoff “harm” becomes one of those creeping
concepts in the eyes of the beholder. Sure most of us would agree that FGM
is a horrible thing and the practice would best be ended, short of a bloody
war of cultural imposition upon the offending society resulting in even
more rights violation and harm than currently extant.

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 16:30:10 -0800, Mark Isaak

<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:

>On 2/19/20 8:30 AM, Martin Harran wrote:
>> On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 07:50:30 -0800, Mark Isaak
>> <eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:
>> [...]
>>>
>>> I have no doubt of your readiness to criticize the Catholic Church. My
>>> questions to you boiled down to:
>>>
>>> Why is it okay for you to criticize them, and wrong for me to make the
>>> same criticisms?
>>
>> I have never said you are wrong to criticise the Catholic Church where
>> the criticism are based on facts; all I have ever done here is correct
>> you when you make criticisms that are based on wrong facts or
>> challenge you when you make assertions with no evidence to support
>> them as you did in this thread.
>
>And then you add a postscript about how biased I am against the Catholic
>Church.

Simply pointing out the repetitiveness of your behaviour,
repetitiveness that you seem either unwilling or incapable of
recognising.

>
>>> [...]
>>> Have you ever considered that, just maybe, my problem is not with any
>>> religion, but is instead with medical pseudoscience?
>>
>> Fine, criticise pseudoscience if you want, my corrections have been
>> specifically in regard to your comments and assertions about the
>> Catholic Church. A friendly word of caution though - don't assume
>> something is pseudoscience just because it looks like mumbo jumbo to
>> you as I suspect others here will challenge you if you do.
>
>When the stated object of a procedure is to manipulate an always unseen
>supernatural entity, I think calling it pseudoscience is pretty safe.

Once again, you seem to want to redefine words to suit your own
agenda; "pseudoscience" means something falsely claiming to be
scientific and I have never seen anything from the Catholic Church
claiming that exorcism is scientific.

>
>>>> [...]
>>>> You seem to have an attitude that someone simply questioning the
>>>> veracity of any of your claims is automatically in some sort of
>>>> opposing camp.
>>>
>>> I find it hard to imagine that you are *not* in some sort of opposing
>>> camp, but that is based on long experience, not on one example of
>>> questioning my facts. You probably have much the same view of me. In
>>> fact, I have a lot of respect for you, and I agree with you on most
>>> issues. I was genuinely surprised when you defended exorcism.
>>
>> That is a good example what I mean by you automatically putting people
>> in the opposite camp. I have never *defended* exorcism, I have simply
>> challenged you to produce evidence to support your claims about
>> torture and killing people, a claim that somewhat surprised me. It is
>> interesting that people here who clearly know far more about this than
>> I do (and, I suspect, than you do) have argued the exact opposite to
>> you.
>
>Fair enough. I apologize.

Okay, it took a while but you got there eventually.

The fact that you want to judge Catholic teaching on the basis of
common perception rather than the doctrines that the Church clearly
defines; it's like someone judging evolution on the basis of common
perception that it's "just a theory" or that it claims we are all
descended from monkeys.

[Martin Harran]

On Wed, 19 Feb 2020 16:48:28 -0800, Mark Isaak
<eciton@curiousta/xyz/xonomy.net> wrote:


[...]

>We know that every last bit of mind and consciousness that anybody has
>ever known about is inseparable from a working brain.

Repeating an unfounded assertion does not make it any more founded.
The last time you and I discussed this (just a few weeks ago), you
suggested that I was not up to date on the progress on neurology and
consciousness and you referred me particularly to Susan Blackmore's
book, "Consciousness: A Very Short Introduction". In that book,
Blackmore says:

"No one has yet succeeded in bridging the fathomless abyss, the great
chasm, or the explanatory gap between inner and outer, mind and brain,
are subjective and objective."

She clearly does not agree with you.

[...]

[Mark Isaak]

On 2/20/20 3:57 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
> On Wednesday, February 19, 2020 at 7:50:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>> On 2/19/20 3:19 PM, Peter Nyikos wrote:
>>> On Tuesday, February 18, 2020 at 6:40:02 PM UTC-5, Mark Isaak wrote:
>>>> On 2/18/20 4:38 AM, Otangelo Grasso wrote:
>
>>>>> 12. WE KNOW that objective moral laws are ought to be's. Since they exist, the are from God.
>>>>
>>>> Non sequitur again. And we do not know that objective moral laws exist.
>>>
>>> I believe they do exist, but you are in some enviable company: jillery,
>>> Oxyaena, Harshman, Casanova...
>>
>> I have, in past years, put some effort into finding objective morality,
>> or even some justification for its existence. What I found instead is
>
>
> ...an inability to admit that Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) is objectively
> wrong, and great resistance to even broach the issue.
>
> This was in wake of you pretending to believe that the Inquisitors
> should have forgiven the people who falsely claimed to be Christian
> and got cushy jobs and powerful positions under that pretense.

I have no idea what you are referring to here, but I'll just note in
passing that Inquisitors, being Christians, are called upon by their
religion to forgive people. Do you advocate that they oppose their
religion?

> That "should" was an example of you dabbling in objective morality.

It is dabbling in morality, full stop. I assume you have no problem
with that, as you do it all the time. Dabbling in *objective* morality
seems to me to be decidedly immoral. Part of that is Roman Catholic
teaching (against hubris); part is probably just my impression that
people who claim objective morality tend to be the cruelest people I
know of.

> You had sided with Ray Martinez, who claimed the Inquisitors were guilty
> of murder for turning them over to the civil authorities, who executed
> them for failure to prove their claim that they were sincere Christians.
>
>
>> near-consensus that there is no such thing, and reasons why.
>
> The Roman Catholic Church puts the lie to your claim of a
> near consensus.

Wait. You're claiming now that 99+% of the world is Roman Catholic?!?

> As for reasons why, I don't think you can name
> a single valid one.

Lack of an object on which to base the "objective".

> [...]

> PS I see jillery is doing her best to deflect attention from the
> shellacking you are getting from me. And the way she does it
> is highly reflective of her totalitarian mentality. I'll explain
> how in direct reply to her, on my own good time -- not hers.
>
> I wonder whether you will then come to her rescue the way she is trying
> to come to yours.

Peter, *please* get professional help for your paranoia.

[Burkhard]

I don;t think that follows. We may not be able to explain the connection
between mind and brain (for a given value of explanation) but that does
not mean that there is not a dependence. You are committed here to
free-floating minds (ghosts), which is much stronger than anything
Blackmore says

[*Hemidactylus*]

Or the doctrine of ensoulment.

[Martin Harran]

On Fri, 21 Feb 2020 17:18:45 +0000, Burkhard <b.sc...@ed.ac.uk>
wrote:

No, I'm not suggesting anything here, not even saying that there is no
connection, simply making the point that Mark's claims are not (at
least yet) supported by any conclusive evidence.

BTW, I've been reading Galileo's Error; it's a fascinating book, I
will try to find time to post some observations about it next week.