"A politics emptied of substantive moral engagement makes for an impoverished civic life. It is also an open invitation to narrow, intolerant moralisms. Fundamentalists rush in where liberals fear to tread." - Michael Sandel
Wednesday, 14 November 2012
Monday, 10 September 2012
QFT
"One of the greatest mistakes for those who advocate reform is to allow the perfect to be the enemy of the good." - Malcolm Turnbull
Thursday, 6 September 2012
Saturday, 25 August 2012
Doesn't He Know That God Is Dead?
One thing I find fascinating about cities is the street life. Melbourne on a Saturday came alive with buskers, people people with "Free Hugs" signs, and even a street preacher. Unfortunately the cold wind and a restaurant to find prevented me from hearing much of his preaching, but he and his group were still there near my tram stop. And since my tram was nowhere in sight and he approached me with a flier, I engaged him.
His earlier preaching was about how we would all be accountable to God, and that hellfire would be the accountability for our transgressions. So imagine my surprise later when in a one-on-one he said that belief in Jesus Christ was the only way to get to Heaven.
That was a point I pressed him on, since that view seems prima facie absurd. He admitted it was possible that murdering rapists could get into Heaven, though he found it unlikely without much reason to it. But when I brought up the Catholics who participated in the holocaust, the conversation took a tribal turn.
Him: "Who said Catholics are going to Heaven?"
Me: "Don't Catholics believe in Jesus?"
Him: "Yes, but they believe in other things. It's belief in Jesus only, not Jesus and saints and other things."
Here I found myself in a position I thought I'd never be: defending Catholicism and its role in Christian history. Catholicism is a nutty religion to me, but it's hard for me to understand why certain protestant sects hate it and don't consider it Christianity. Mainly that it was Catholicism that decided the texts and the dogma that is at the base of modern Christianity. It takes a history denier to deny this, and that's who I was conversing with.
I was immediately challenged to who my source was, and mentioning historians and the Nicene Creed wasn't enough. I needed to name the exact historian who had filled my mind with Catholic lies. He asked if it was Josephus, who he identified as a 15th century historian. After explaining who Josephus was (1st century Jewish historian) I left to catch my tram.
Two things came to mind, one hearing him preach and one through conversation. If all that matters is belief to be saved, then it's no wonder that ignorance follows. What's learning going to do other than seek to diminish that belief? Unfortunately for me, I get disappointed when people are unwilling to make sure they have their facts straight. I should not have a better understanding of a belief than those who believe in it.
The other thing that struck me was how silly the preaching on immorality was. 2500 years of moral philosophy, and the best he could do was invoke an afterlife?! It makes me wish that people with philosophy degrees would preach on street corners, at least then there might be something relevant said on the subject.More than anything else, the routine was amusing. I couldn't help but laugh!
Hadn't he heard that God is dead? The question of accountability framed in divine retribution not only was at odds with his stated beliefs, but doesn't serve a purpose in modern thought. Of the reason surrounding behaviour, theistic thought plays little role outside of theistic pursuits. It's not a choice between lack of accountability and following God's Word, but a question of how we are accountable to one another. That relationship still exists irrespective of whether God does.
Monday, 30 July 2012
The Radiation Of Marsupials Post-Flood?
Following on from yesterday's post about a video by GreenSlugg, I want to follow up with something that emerged from the comments. Not content to sling arguments from my own blog, I engaged GreenSlugg on the comment section of his video. He claimed to have an answer to my objection about marsupials in terms of geographic distribution by sending me to another video.
Now that 9 minute video was quite tedious, he tended to lack a coherence to his argument and tended to ramble. Yet the video he wanted me to watch was over 3 times that length, coming in at 29 minutes! 29 minutes of him going through objections to Noah's Ark. You'd think in 29 minutes you could get through a lot, but he managed to get through four. Though to his credit, he managed to throw in a 2 minute plug for Jesus halfway through.
After all that, you could imagine my disappointment. He didn't give an answer at all, other than to make a tu quoque claim that evolution has a problem in answering the marsupial problem as well. My whole point is that Creation doesn't give reasonable explanations for why we should expect things to be the way they are; and sitting through 29 minutes of video to hear 6 minutes and 30 seconds of avoiding the challenge - that's simply pathetic. The closest thing to an answer was a link to a page on CreationWiki, but that could have been provided without the 29 minutes of incredulous tedium.
It's the lack of a good answer as to why the patterns are the way they are that's problematic. Without any reason as to why a certain pattern is the way it is means that there can be no claim of compatibility between an explanation and the evidence. All that we get is handwaving, as is the case in that video. He starts by claiming that it's wrong to call Noah's Ark a story, because that would imply it's a fairy tale - and he said: "I believe it's a true event". That's it!
For all the attempts to explain why objections fall flat, the main objection was dealt with as an article of faith. All that time trying to explain how small the dinosaur eggs were or that all the species really just came from a single breeding pair of a kind, or citing cave drawing as evidence humans and dinosaurs coexisted, or that kangaroos did migrate from the middle east - there was nothing beyond an article of faith that one should take Noah's Ark as something to even consider historically.
Now that 9 minute video was quite tedious, he tended to lack a coherence to his argument and tended to ramble. Yet the video he wanted me to watch was over 3 times that length, coming in at 29 minutes! 29 minutes of him going through objections to Noah's Ark. You'd think in 29 minutes you could get through a lot, but he managed to get through four. Though to his credit, he managed to throw in a 2 minute plug for Jesus halfway through.
- How did Noah get two of each animal?(Answer: Noah didn't, God did. Read your bible more)
- a) How did Noah get so many species on the ark? (Answer: Noah didn't need to, the each pair of a 'kind' radiated out into all the species there are today)
b) How did they stop the predators from eating the weak? (Answer: kept the predators in cages, just like at the zoo) - What about dinosaurs? (Answer: only needed 50 'kinds', kept them as juveniles "no bigger than a football")
- What about marsupials? (Answer: it's a mystery to both creationists and evolutionists)
After all that, you could imagine my disappointment. He didn't give an answer at all, other than to make a tu quoque claim that evolution has a problem in answering the marsupial problem as well. My whole point is that Creation doesn't give reasonable explanations for why we should expect things to be the way they are; and sitting through 29 minutes of video to hear 6 minutes and 30 seconds of avoiding the challenge - that's simply pathetic. The closest thing to an answer was a link to a page on CreationWiki, but that could have been provided without the 29 minutes of incredulous tedium.
It's the lack of a good answer as to why the patterns are the way they are that's problematic. Without any reason as to why a certain pattern is the way it is means that there can be no claim of compatibility between an explanation and the evidence. All that we get is handwaving, as is the case in that video. He starts by claiming that it's wrong to call Noah's Ark a story, because that would imply it's a fairy tale - and he said: "I believe it's a true event". That's it!
For all the attempts to explain why objections fall flat, the main objection was dealt with as an article of faith. All that time trying to explain how small the dinosaur eggs were or that all the species really just came from a single breeding pair of a kind, or citing cave drawing as evidence humans and dinosaurs coexisted, or that kangaroos did migrate from the middle east - there was nothing beyond an article of faith that one should take Noah's Ark as something to even consider historically.
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