Atheistwatch: February 2010

Thursday, February 25, 2010

The Great Intellectuals of DC blog

In my last blog spot I talked about the major intellectuals on DC that mock and ridicle those shoddy no good thinkers like Hartshorne, Plantinga, Aquinas. Here's more banter by these major intellects. I posted in response to "Russ" a few quotes by historians talking about how the social democracy of Scandinavia was actually put together by Christians (he brought it up doing one of those little Atheist canned arguments where they jump totally off point and resort to their canned list of what's wrong with religion becuase you are beating their brains out on the real topic). Notice how no one has anything to say other than just calling that material names. For some major intellects these guys really drop the ball.

somehow copying this out of the other blog makes it real hard to correct. It's hard to read because it wont post the way I sperate the words. But the bold parts and the white font in blue boxes are my interjections. The bold is what I said on their blog in response to them and the blue boxes are what I'm saying here to interject retrospective.

Metacrock said...: Through Europe the role of religion in the rise of modern secular liberal states is coming to be re-evaluated. Many historians are finding now that religion always played a more vital role than previously thought. Here'sa quote from a new ground breaking book: Religion, Class Coalitions, and Welfare States Series: Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics Edited by Kees van Kersbergen Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam Philip Manow Universität Konstanz, Germany
This book radically revises established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies and introduces a new perspective on how religion shaped modern social protection systems. The interplay of societal cleavage structures and electoral rules produced the different political class coalitions sustaining the three welfare regimes of the Western world. In countries with proportional electoral systems the absence or presence of state–church conflicts decided whether class remained the dominant source of coalition building or whether a political logic not exclusively based on socio-economic interests (e.g. religion) was introduced into politics, particularly social policy. The political class-coalitions in countries with majoritarian systems, on the other hand, allowed only for the residual-liberal welfare state to emerge, as in the US or the UK. This book also reconsiders the role of Protestantism. Reformed Protestantism substantially delayed and restricted modern social policy. The Lutheran state churches positively contributed to the introduction of social protection programs.
• Radical revision of established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies based on a combination of country case studies and comparative accounts • Introduces a new perspective on why and how religion shaped modern social protection systems and gives a new comparative account of the formation of different welfare state regimes • Systematic inquiry into the role of the state–church conflict for social policy in advanced industrial societies Contents 1. Religion and the Western welfare state: the theoretical context Philip Manow and Kees van Kersbergen; 2. Western European party systems and the religious cleavage Thomas Ertman; 3. The religious foundations of work-family policies in Western Europe Kimberly J. Morgan; 4. Italy: a Christian democratic or clientist welfare state? Julia Lynch; 5. Religion and the welfare state in the Netherlands Kees van Kersbergen; 6. A conservative welfare state regime without Christian Democracy? The French Etat-providence, 1880–1960 Philip Manow and Bruno Palier; 7. Religion and the consolidation of the Swiss welfare state, 1848–1945 Herbert Obinger; 8. The church as nation? The role of religion in the development of the Swedish welfare state Karen M. Anderson; 9. The religious factor in US welfare state politics Jill Quadagno and Deanna Rohlinger; 10. Religious social doctrines and poor relief: a different causal pathway Sigrun Kahl. Contributors (contributors include:Philip Manow, Kees van Kersbergen, Thomas Ertman, Kimberly J. Morgan, Julia Lynch, Bruno Palier, Herbert Obinger, Karen M. Anderson, Jill Quadagno, Deanna Rohlinger, Sigrun Kahl).
9:46 PM, February 24, 2010
Anthony said...: Metacrock, first, most of what you've written here is a "crock!" Secondly, the topic of the blog is natural theology, how has anything you have written related? Can we get back to the subject at hand? On a side note (but related) I just got a copy of Alister McGrath's book "A Fine-Turned Universe" and will be adding it to my collection of books on natural theology. I hope to get around to reading it sometime this year.
10:18 PM, February 24, 2010
Gandolf said...: Metacrock said... "Wouldn't someone out there think "gee, are you a dentist?" Look out Metacrock you`ll go getting yourself so worked up, your dentures will fall out and then you`ll be left trying to gum all us nasty non believers into shape. Naturally someone might have good reason! to wonder if somebodys actually a dentist,dentists tend to mostly all follow some (common scientific teachings) with regards to research done into the practice of dentistry.They follow procedures that have been proved to work. It makes a very big difference if a dentist is actually qualified. This has not got much in common with matters of faith though.Faith is not scientific.Somebodies guess is about as good as anybody elses guess.A qualified theologian, is just somebody thats been taught to become skilled in reciting a certain type of dogma. There is no reason to have any trust of the faithful,their attempt at "faith science" shows its kinda useless.They all end up willy nilly with all manner of ideas,and yet nothing much that can ever be shown as being conclusive. Meaning there is far much more very valid reasons to double question and not trust the ideas of faithful folks,than one would ever likely have reason to question or not trust many qualified dentist.
4:29 AM, February 25, 2010
Russ said...: J.L. Hinman, Joe, JL, Metacrock, You obviously have some sort of cognitive defect. You would be better understood if you use a spell checker. You say, (Meta) I know faar more than you do and moer than you ever will I am much muc much more hintellectual than you ever thought of bieng. Today's intellectuals can and do use spell checkers. Cognitively or perceptually handicapped intellectuals employ such tools as a matter of course to decrease the likelihood that they might be misunderstood. Clearly, you don't care if you communicate well. Meat: That's all they do when you back them to the wall and they can't answer your argument bring out the spelling issue! If these guys were really intelligent, if they really had the great intellectual capacity they loved kid themselves into thinking they do they would know that spelling is not about intelligence! but they are quite stupid, so they think it is about intelligence. You're an apologist for your version of a Christian god, but make no effort to make your message clear. You are fortunate that your god does not exist, since you are an appallingly bad emissary. Just general bad mouthing, doesn't even make logical sense. Undoubtedly, many of the heroes from your Bible's hit parade shared your lack of concern concerning being understood. For example, your version of a Christian god simply commands Believe in me or burn forever! Like you, your version of a god fails to communicate adequately, yet, like you, it insists on being respected. Like you it screams and throws tantrums and threatens, rather than facilitating communication through evidence. That your god does not exist becomes obvious when we consider that it has no action in the world and those who represent it, you for instance, are little more than buffoons and jesters, falling and screeching over one another to proclaim to us all what their version god told them in private. The rest of us don't get to hear what they say their god told them, yet we're supposed to accept that it applies to each of us, even when what they say is observably wrong. No extant god wanting its message to be brought to the world would choose you to make it happen. But, because gods don't exist, even someone like you who can't give his words the respect of a spell check can do the hawking. Are you perhaps transliterating your own speaking in tongues? I don't understand why you aren't more careful, more considerate of the words you write, since you claim to believe that those words can impart beliefs. Those beliefs become emblazoned on a soul. You further believe that your god performs a post mortem inspection of that soul looking for defects in those beliefs to decide if its owner gets shipped off to hell. Joe, if the words you write could be the difference between heaven and hell for some of your readers, they deserve more respect, more care, more love from you. If you know you have a cognitive impairment, deal with it. Don't create strings of words like "you hate God because he let you screw period," or strings of letters like "abaotleyl" and "intelelectual." To gain respect as an "intelelectual" you must act like an "intelelectual," which in part means dealing with your cognitive defects so that the language constructs you employ can be understood. Religious language is obviously human created and plenty stupid on its own without you creating an even more impenetrable drivel by fabricating random lexical and grammatical constructions. Since you clearly don't know this, let me tell you, in Real-Honest-To-God Christianity, only one species of sinner goes to hell: he whose language constructs interferes with other's understanding. Beware!
11:10 AM, February 25, 2010



the only things he had to say there were bad mouthing. no actual refutaion of the facts I brought out at the top.
goprairie said...: Metacrock: No one will debate you because your points have all been refuted and you still think you won. You are not debatable because you don't follow the rules. I would not play Scrabble with you either, because you would redefine the rules, make up new words with wacky definitions, declare foul if I rejected your non words, and when I had more points in the end, you would declare that I did not play fairly and declare yourself the winner. When you then asked someone else to play you, the self-declared champ, and they declined, you would be on here telling us no one will play Scrabble with you because of your superior Scrabble prowess. No one will debate you, true, but it is not for the reasons you claim. The reasons are obvious to everyone but you. You keep coming back with the same delusions and errors. Why?
11:18 AM, February 25, 2010 more bad mouthing, any facts there? no.
Anthony said...: Goprairie: You keep coming back with the same delusions and errors. Why? Not only does he keep coming back with the same erors, but with the same nasty attitude. People talk about the angry atheist, Joe exemplifies the angry theist.
11:25 AM, February 25, 2010



These guys are saying that the great thinkrs such as Plantinga are stupid and shit and they are more intellectual, yet they can't follow a simple line of reasoning and they make no attempt to refute facts with other facts but they are smart one's we are the stupid one's! I have the bad attitude!
goprairie said...: Breckmin: New genes: Obviously you don't know how genes and genetics work. There are not unique genes for every characteristic, rather, there are 4basic kinds of genetic material. They are linked together to mean different things depending on how their order and lenghth. Words are made of letters. There are 26 letters. How many words are there. What does it take to make a new word? NOT new letters, just existing letters combined in a novel sequence. By using some existing stuff, letters, in a new combination, it is easy to make up a new words with new meanings. The new word did not require new material arising from scratch, merely that existing material be combined in a slightly new way. Some combinations work as words and many do not. For example, I can add ge from genetics to turf from landscaping and get gerf and it makes no sense. It won't enter common usage. Or I can take gen from genetics and combine it with idiot and call people like you who make up objections to evolution based on crappy understanding of the basics of genetics a 'genidiot' and if the audience here finds it to their liking and uses it a few times, it has become a new word. No new letters appeared out of nowhere but a new word came into being. Take your genidiocy somewhere where gullible people live.
11:32 AM, February 25, 2010
goprairie said...: Breckmin: You seem to take a position that dogs and chimps and rats have similar biology because God like the design and reused it. Except if that were true, why did he include wacky stuff like the route of certain essentials of the male repoductive system where things loop around in ridiculous routes. The route makes sense if seen as a result of the ancestral animal switching from standing on four legs to two, causing the routes to get stretched out to work in this circuitous way. God would just use a direct route, you'd think. I.e., not reuse the parts that could be done more efficiently and effectively? So also for the routes of nerves in the human neck that make sense only as seen in the context of the horzontal spine becoming vertical. God would reroute those too, eh? If he was smart? Read "Why Evolution is True" before you trot out ideas like design reuse to explain animal body similarities. Evolution fits with how things are. God as an explanation requires us to accept ridiculous claims about God, like that he would think those things were good design.
11:43 AM, February 25, 2010
Metacrock said...: Metacrock, first, most of what you've written here is a "crock!" Meta:that's not an argument. calling it names doesn't make it go away. I used several academic source, I am an academic historian. If you look at what John said about jme he says "this guy is the real deal." he called my school and he knows that I was a Ph.D. candidate nnwo you tell me my that's crock? hu? because just saying that is not an argument. you are not an intellectual. Secondly, the topic of the blog is natural theology, how has anything you have written related? Meta:Russ alluded to The Sucker-man study you tell me! ask Russ, I was just answering him. can't you guys even follow argument? you want to propagate this myth that Christians are stupid and you are so Superior and you can't even follow a simple line of reasoning! Can we get back to the subject at hand? you never got to it to begin with. Natural theology is not about science and not about who is intellectual and it about Sweden having a better from of government. On a side note (but related) I just got a copy of Alister McGrath's book "A Fine-Turned Universe" and will be adding it to my collection of books on natural theology. I hope to get around to reading it sometime this year. Meta:you are the one who wanted to get back to the topic! what does that have to do with it?
11:58 AM, February 25, 2010
Metacrock said...: J.L. Hinman, Joe, JL, Metacrock, You obviously have some sort of cognitive defect. You would be better understood if you use a spell checker. You say, Meta:you have a cognitive defect yourself. Mine is called dyslexia. yours is called being stupid. you would be better understood if you a had a brain.
12:00 PM, February 25, 2010
Metacrock said...: Goprairie: You keep coming back with the same delusions and errors. Why? Not only does he keep coming back with the same erors, but with the same nasty attitude. People talk about the angry atheist, Joe exemplifies the angry theist. aahahah what a pack of fools. you sit over patting each other on the back acting liek you are supuiror and you jus ta bunch of know nothings who never went to gradute school ridiculing great thinkers whose sandels you are not fit to clean, whose words you can never complrehend bu ti hav ethe attutide. Look at this, not one of you has managed to make a single substantive arguer about the subject matter. in this whole chlorophy of stupidity there are massive statements of how stupid theology is not but one single intellectual response to the empirical evidence taht I posted. you cannot respond to an augment intelligently. you even have to attack my dyslexia because that's the level of your stupidity. Plantinga is an idiot, you are the great intellectuals, not one of you can make a single substantive argument against what I said. I bet you can't even remember the original point that I made. Yea yea Plantinga and Harsshorne what idiots the why who spells stuff right he's the real intellectual.
12:05 PM, February 25, 2010

Wednesday, February 24, 2010

Atheism is total intellectual dishonesty.

comments on Debunking Christianity.

Loftus argues against Natural theology, he's going to destroy it by showing that it can't defend the Bible. The whole point of natural theology is to use reason and nature and not use the bible. So why would it have to defend the bible. But we see the true dishonesty in atheism by looking at the responses.

Mike D said...: Mind my deleted post. I wanted to comment more substantively. Theology as an intellectual endeavor is doomed from the beginning, because it is the only intellectual endeavor that requires you to begin inquiry with an immutable conclusion. That's why all of Dr. Craig's arguments are riddled to the brim with a priori assumptions that are transparent to those of us who aren't making them. This affinity for circular reasoning is not only evident in the presumptions required for arguments like the Kalam argument to make sense (the assumption of a non-physical causality existing independently of the universe), but perhaps most plainly in Bill Craig's use the Bible to defend the historicity of the Bible. The rest of us, not drowning in a priori assumptions, see these arguments and say, "Really? That's all you've got? Really?" And yes... I will shamelessly pimp my own blog, as I am a big fan of dissecting Bill Craig's arguments and just posted on him tonight. Cheers.
2:13 AM, February 20, 2010

I said:
: "This is why I focus my critique of the Christian faith on Biblical criticism. I intend to undermine the whole basis for natural theology. My goal is to knock these natural theologians off their stilts to see the basis for their faith is not there, and in so doing show them as much as I can that they're naked. Naked as jaybirds. It's laughable to me." Ok, when are you going to learn what the basis of it is? It seems like you are saying Natural theology requires the Bible if you think you don't know what Natural theology is. To undermine it you mus undermine logic.
12:59 PM, February 24, 2010
Metacrock said...: Theology as an intellectual endeavor is doomed from the beginning, because it is the only intellectual endeavor that requires you to begin inquiry with an immutable conclusion. That's why all of Dr. Craig's arguments are riddled to the brim with a priori assumptions that are transparent to those of us who aren't making them. theology is inherently intellectual, nothing you can abou it. the most billiant minds in hsitory have been theologians. Yes, I know that's hard to believe beause you meausre btrillance by scinece, so by that defintion it can't be true. I meausre it by intelligentce and ideas and Berkely and Schweitzer, two of the most brillliant minds ever. the vast lion's share of great thinkers have been religious. the tiny pathetic list of atheist thinkers pales in comparison. so theology is inherently intellectual. The idea that to be intellectual you must start open ended inquiry and only come to the conclusion that your experiment validated empirical, like a scientist, is bull! That's just garbage. there are all kinds of ways of thinking about what is intellectual, one need not be science to be intellectual. poetry is intellectual, so is art, so is literature so is film. So is literary criticism, so is political activism of a certain kind, social criticism, even bird watching!
1:06 PM, February 24, 2010

Someone named Russ said

I concur with Metacrock's statement, Theology as an intellectual endeavor is doomed from the beginning, because it is the only intellectual endeavor that requires you to begin inquiry with an immutable conclusion. Theology fails as an intellectual endeavor precisely for what is observed here both within the Roman Catholic church and between it and other Christianities. Theology is completely arbitrary codswallop. As intellectual gamesmanship it can be a lot of fun. As far as importance to mankind is concerned theology is less important to us than bacteria. We need bacteria; we do not need theology. Thanks Chuck. You stated my point rather well when you said It's not the name of god that Russ is questioning, it's his competing personhood that christians never harmonize but then claim there is a universal Christian church bound by the Holy Spirit.

H doesn't seem to know what concur means. He concurs but he said the exact opposite. None of these guys have ever read any theology. They don't what theologians talk about. They have not been to seminary but they are just so certain that they know all about how stupuid theology is, having not read a single word of it. That is total hypocracy and dishonesty.

What if I started saying dentists are fools. I don't know anything about dentistry but they are fool sand their occupation is a joke. Wouldn't someone out there think "gee, are you a dentist? have you ever been to dental school?" Wouldn't that seem rather foolish of me? But hey these guys must all about beccuase they know one thing only: it's not atheist so it must be stupid!

Then Russ speaks again, (after my contributions)

Frankly, Al, I don't care what learned Christian theologians have to say since empirical results demonstrate that the masses have no idea who those theologians are or what their ideas are. What's more, Christianity shows no signs that it differentially benefits its believers, devout, pious or indifferent. Scandinavians are largely atheists, yet they have better lives and life outcomes and are morally better grounded than US Christians of any ilk. Until Christianity demonstrates that it actually has something to offer beyond its being a club wherein everyone agrees to say they believe absurdities incompatible with the absurdities in other Christianity clubs, it and its theology will be deserving of ridicule and mockery.

That's the first clue. he doesn't care. That's exactly right and that's why he's an idiot and he's dishonest. Because he doesn't care enough to learn about the things he's discussing, he doesn't care if he's right or if the facts are on his side or not. He does not care about truth. He cares only about what he wants. He wants to sin, so he hates God. He hate God because he watns to sin. he doesn't care about trut but he's going to vent his spleen telling us how stupiod theolgoains are even though he's never read one.

the Reference Russ makes to Sweden is a hint at one of the most irresponsible and idiotic atheist trick. A large segment of internet atheists try to form their own bogus social scinece. One of those is a guy named Zuckerman who did an alleged study in Sweden where he interviewed Swedes who he selected for their atheist beliefs without even trying to find those without them. He didn't even do any research into the background of Sweden's social democracy so he has no idea that Christians are actually responsible largely for the social democracy they enjoy today. They make the simplistic and silly connection that 'were there are a lot of atheists over there and they have social democracy so by golly I guess atheists always have good governments." Even though Zuckerman has some kind of sociological diploma he is a lousy researcher and most sociologists would balk at his methods and conclusions.

It's pretty obvious that Zuckerman argues that the society absent of religion is a better society (more progressive, better educated, more socially conscious concerning its needy) than are societies in which people are religious. We can knit pick over weather he used the phrase "atheist nation" or not, but the fact of the matter is the subtitle of his books is "what the least religious states tell us about contentment." (see his new book Society Without God: What the least religous states can tell us about contentment. That makes it pretty what he is arguing. But my argument, my major argument is basically that this is clearly wrong since none of the states he talks about God the way they are by being without God. Most of them had and still have strong religious populations, the European states emerge out of a context of Christianized society. Many people feel that Sweden is the least religious state. This is actually false, the part of the German republic that was the East German side has the most hard core atheists. That is according to the study on Religious Demand that I link to in part 2. Nevertheless,Sweden is a good test case. Let us examine the situation with Sweden.

We find that the Swedes were Vikings prior to the middle ages. They were pagan, they swooped down upon the brits and killed and took what they had. They were bloodthirsty barbarians. Well actually, that's the myth of the Viking. the truth of it is I've seen historians who now say there weren't that many raids, most Swedes were farmers, not vikings. The Viks didn't do that much, other than play football. Be that as it may, they were Christianized in the middle ages and by the reformation they settled into a state church centered around the Lutheran faith. What rading and so forth that did go on as abandoned when the Christianization came along. But out of the Lutheran inspired culture they raised up a modern society and through Christianity taught the core values that became the modern Swedish welfare state. It is true that the formal Church did not have much to do with building the welfare state, which mostly came about after world war II. But the core values planed in the culture by Christianity culminated in the cultural background that made the state possible.

A Political and Social History of Modern Eruope by Carlton

Three Scandinavian countries, Sweden, Denmark, Norway were officially tied to the Lutheran Church. "Popular education was fostered under ecclesiastical supervision; all three people's developed native literature and a lively sense of nationalism. In all three social and Political democracy made steady progress. McMillian 1916

Religion has always played a role in Swedish culture. What Zuckerman pretends is not there, and what he hides in the data, the role played by religion in planting the core values that build the welfare state. He hides this by refusing to draw the distinction between Church attendance and real actual belief. Though attendence is low the role of religion in Swedish society is old, historical, complex and important:

Welfare and Values in Europe:Transitions Related to Religion, Minorities and Gender;

Sweden:
Overview of the national situation
by

Ninna Edgardh Beckman

Page 1
1
Welfare and Values in Europe:
Transitions related to Religion, Minorities and Gender
(WaVE)
Sweden:
Overview of the national situation
by Ninna Edgardh Beckman
Page 2
2
1.
Introduction
Based on its very low figures of religious attendance and traditional religious faith,
Sweden has a reputation of being one of the most secularised countries in the world. True as
this might be, what the image conceals is the strong and complicated role that religion still
plays in Sweden, not least through history and culture. The modern history of Sweden has its
foundation in national homogeneity, grounded in the principle of one people and one faith.
This principle is closely connected to the Lutheran majority church, to which nearly 80% of
the Swedish population still belongs, even though formally state and church were separated in
2000. The recent presence of other world religions and official policies tending towards
multiculturalism adds new religious aspects to Swedish culture. Religion thus continues to
play an interesting role in Sweden, behind the seemingly straightforward image of a country
on its way towards complete secularisation

The Swedish welfare state was built after the Second World War, based on the idea of
‘the home of the people’ (folkhemsidén). The basic principle of the model is that the state and
local authorities guarantee the basic needs of all citizens. This principle is based on strong
values of solidarity and shared responsibility. Decades of success for the system have since
the 1990s been replaced by growing problems with keeping up the high level of benefits and
services, a development, which is increasingly questioning also the values underpinning the
whole welfare structure. Immigration is one factor, among many, challenging the system and
immigrants have also been among those most affected by emerging new forms of poverty

Through Europe the role of religion in the rise of modern secular liberal states is coming to be re-evaluated. Many historians are finding now that religion always played a more vital role than previously thought. Here'sa quote from a new ground breaking book:

Religion, Class Coalitions, and Welfare States

Series: Cambridge Studies in Social Theory, Religion and Politics
Edited by Kees van Kersbergen
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Philip Manow
Universität Konstanz, Germany

This book radically revises established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies and introduces a new perspective on how religion shaped modern social protection systems. The interplay of societal cleavage structures and electoral rules produced the different political class coalitions sustaining the three welfare regimes of the Western world. In countries with proportional electoral systems the absence or presence of state–church conflicts decided whether class remained the dominant source of coalition building or whether a political logic not exclusively based on socio-economic interests (e.g. religion) was introduced into politics, particularly social policy. The political class-coalitions in countries with majoritarian systems, on the other hand, allowed only for the residual-liberal welfare state to emerge, as in the US or the UK. This book also reconsiders the role of Protestantism. Reformed Protestantism substantially delayed and restricted modern social policy. The Lutheran state churches positively contributed to the introduction of social protection programs.

• Radical revision of established knowledge in comparative welfare state studies based on a combination of country case studies and comparative accounts • Introduces a new perspective on why and how religion shaped modern social protection systems and gives a new comparative account of the formation of different welfare state regimes • Systematic inquiry into the role of the state–church conflict for social policy in advanced industrial societies
Contents

1. Religion and the Western welfare state: the theoretical context Philip Manow and Kees van Kersbergen; 2. Western European party systems and the religious cleavage Thomas Ertman; 3. The religious foundations of work-family policies in Western Europe Kimberly J. Morgan; 4. Italy: a Christian democratic or clientist welfare state? Julia Lynch; 5. Religion and the welfare state in the Netherlands Kees van Kersbergen; 6. A conservative welfare state regime without Christian Democracy? The French Etat-providence, 1880–1960 Philip Manow and Bruno Palier; 7. Religion and the consolidation of the Swiss welfare state, 1848–1945 Herbert Obinger; 8. The church as nation? The role of religion in the development of the Swedish welfare state Karen M. Anderson; 9. The religious factor in US welfare state politics Jill Quadagno and Deanna Rohlinger; 10. Religious social doctrines and poor relief: a different causal pathway Sigrun Kahl.
Contributors

(contributors include:Philip Manow, Kees van Kersbergen, Thomas Ertman, Kimberly J. Morgan, Julia Lynch, Bruno Palier, Herbert Obinger, Karen M. Anderson, Jill Quadagno, Deanna Rohlinger, Sigrun Kahl).

Modern Swedish life no longer includes church attendance as a strong element. This is the only measurement Zuckerman uses to determine the extent to which Sweden, or any country, is "secularized." But there are other measure that are more important. There is a new role emerging for religion in Northern Europe. The fact of secularization in terms of church attendance does not mean that people are not seeking spiritual reality.

The traditional relationship between swedes and the church has changed. Swedes are no longer as connected to conventional church fucntions. But this does not mean that they don't beileve. There is a new string for alternatives to convention, but the embers of belief are still smoldering.

Sweden.SE the official gateway to Sweden.

Sep 1, 2006
Are Swedes losing their religion?
by: Charlotte Celsing, freelance writer

Annika Gustafsson is a theology student whose studies have included work experience in congregations and at confirmation camps. She says that almost all of the young people she meets are open to questions relating to religious and spiritual matters, even though they may have objections to ecclesiastical matters.

The role of religion has changed

Religion has not become less important in Swedish society but it has changed color, according to a report from Åbo Academy (Finland). In the secularized Nordic area the Protestant Lutheran church has to be liberal and open to a modern interpretation of the Christian message. Otherwise the church feels too authoritarian – an attitude that most Swedes do not accept....Yet many Swedes express a longing for a spiritual dimension and a deeper meaning. Modern society has left a void that neither science nor a high material standard can fill....Those who the Church of Sweden fails to attract look for alternatives. Non-conformist churches – of which the Pentecostal Movement is the largest with around 87,000 members – is one example. Others are varieties of eastern religions, such as Buddhism or Hinduism.

Due to immigration to Sweden, Islam is now the country’s second largest religion after Christianity. A number of mosques have already been built in different parts of Sweden and more are planned.

Within Christianity the Catholic Church in Sweden is also large. Today it has a total of 80,500 registered members.

* Almost 8 out of 10 Swedes are members of the Church of Sweden - 7 million.
* Only 1 in 10 Swedes thinks religion is important in daily life.
* Around 7 out of 10 children are christened in the Church of Sweden.
* Just over 5 out of 10 weddings take place in church.
* Almost 9 out of 10 Swedes have Christian burials.
* Islam has around 130,000 adherents in Sweden (more according to Muslim sources).(Ibid)

Modern Church in Europe plays role in social services and culture

2. The second thing is that the church is seen as an emergency exit. The welfare state of Western Europe is the best attempt so far in world history to guarantee safety and security. But life is complicated. In national catastrophes, the churches get filled with people. Catastrophes happen also on a personal basis, and the church has an open backdoor: You are not left alone; you have a backup.

3. The third point is the fact that the churches are seen as embassies of solidarity and mercy. All over Europe, illegal immigrants are hidden by parishes. Anti-racism demonstrations are normally organized by parishes. The protests against reductions in childcare or hospitals and for Jubilee 2000 are signs of solidarity.

From the beginning of Christianity in Northern Europe, the church can be described as a part of the state. Church and state were the same. Probably in the year 1008, King Olof Sk^tkonung of Sweden was baptized by St. Sigfrid, Bishop of Vïxj^. Out of Christianity grew the state. Through baptism you became a Swede. The faith of the king united the nation, confirmed the royal house, and incorporated this northern part of the world into the international community under the pope of Rome.

Five hundred years later the Reformation supported the idea of a nation state. The king of Sweden - as well as the king of Denmark and the king of England - took the place of the pope. They became heads of their national churches. The Swedish king had no liturgical or confessional interests, so the clergy could marry officially but still use the medieval chasubles and hymns and keep the apostolic succession. The king needed the land owned by the monasteries, and in the church he got an obedient instrument for creating conformity in his country: one people, one faith, one king, one church. (Ibid)

In his ground breaking work The Secular City Theologian Harvy Cox Argued that secularization was a good thing. Secularization had created a neutral playing field necessary to stop the religious wars of the seventeenth century. For that very reason secularization has actually been very good religion. It was ironically secularization that allowed the proliferation of religions in America. That's because when there was no state imposed Church Tax, as in much of Europe, and not one organization or Church favored by the state, as in much of Europe and in England, everyone was free to worship as he saw fit and to start new churches, and so they did stat new ones in profusion. Secularization in itself is no threat to religion. But Zuckerman is obviously saying that Society is better off without religion. Now does that mean without church or without any kind of belief? I'm sure he would say the latter, but the only data he presents only backs the former. Yet the conclusions he draws are screwed precisely becasue without taking into account belief in all aspects he's just creating a false data base by equating low church attendance with a less religious society.

Zuckerman reduces the complexity of the development of history int he modern world from the early modern to contemporary, with its sweeping changes in economics, sociology, psychology, technology, the means of production, political theory and so forth, burying all under the rug and reducing it all to a simplistic formula about church attendance. From this kind fo superficial bs atheist mold and shape their morose of lies and propaganda to destroy civilization.

Here's a quotation I found on a blog comment section by a Dane about Zuckerman's book:

From the Square (blog)

Comment from karen Schousboe
Time November 25, 2008 at 4:24 am

To readers who were duped by zuckerman’s book it might accordingly be of interest to know, that Denmark is in no way a society without God. 82% of the Danish population are members of the Danish national Church and have a fond relationship with their local church. It is true that the church is considered a different entity and plays a different role in the local community than what is common in US. This has to do with the fact that the churches are not so much old institutions, than old buildings framing the idea of Danishness - Danes don’t talk about God directly; they talk about their family, their history, their traditions. The preferred location chosen for this “conversation” is however their local church, which means that people do not seek the church sunday mornings to celebrate God; but they take part in year-long and life-long celebrations whenever there is a special occasion in the life of our families or communities. Does this mean that “God is absent”? Not at all: it just means that we encounter God under other circumstances than the traditional American way on sunday mornings. We encounter God instead at family occasions on an average of 4 to 5 times a year. Yes, our “God” does not “live” in an American temple or church. It does not mean, however, that “God” in general is absent from the livess of Danes. It just means that the American God is absent. It also follows that the Danish church is an extremely important factor in the construction of what Zuckerman thought was a society “without God”.

It might be important to know that most academic reviews in the National papers in Denmark noted that Zuckermans book represented a classical example of an anthropologist or sociologist falling short, while being duped by the natives.

Karen Schousboe
MA, Anthropologist, http://www.kirkenikobenhavn.dk

Zuckerman part 1

Zuckerman part 2 : Don't be a Sucker, man.

Zuckerman part 3

Atheist Defense of Zuckerman lame.

history of social progress (reproduced above)

Monday, February 22, 2010

Intersting Resources on Logic.

I am always spotting logical fallacies used by both atheists and Christians (and others) and at the same time I often get into disputes with atheists in which I find I must prove to them what a certain fallacy is and what it is not. Toward this end I think it would help us all to learn of some websites that deal with logical fallacies.

One that I've been using for several years now The Nizkor Project. This is a fine site that deals with logical fallacies of many kinds. Nizkor project is dedicted to the Holocaust victims and is apparently ran by some Jewish group (although that doesn't' necessarily follow). I was under the impression that it's a group of Lawyers. They use a Tutorial done for Macintosh.

Dr. Michael C. Labossiere, the author of a Macintosh tutorial named Fallacy Tutorial Pro 3.0, has kindly agreed to allow the text of his work to appear on the Nizkor site, as a Nizkor Feature. It remains © Copyright 1995 Michael C. Labossiere, with distribution restrictions -- please see our copyright notice. If you have questions or comments about this work, please direct them both to the Nizkor webmasters (webmaster@nizkor.org) and to Dr. Labossiere (ontologist@aol.com).

Their list of fallacies:

ex

Another site, fallacy Files, which uses the same data base as the Macintosh Tutorial.

this one uses several other sources in its data base as well:

Project.

Informal Fallacies
From Charles Ess, a professor of religion and philosophy, comes this collection of 28 files on standard fallacies. It is based on his A Database of Informal Fallacies (1987), and consists mainly of examples, though some of the files are empty. Despite the title, there are a few formal fallacies covered. Also, since most of the files on individual fallacies contain no or little explanatory matter, this is not the best place to start out studying the fallacies. Complicating the situation even further is the fact that some nonfallacious examples are included, along with a "fallacy" which is no such thing, with no indication of which are supposed to be fallacious and which not. So, these files would seem to be of most use to someone wanting to test their understanding on a number of examples, with some ringers thrown in. Disappointingly, most of the examples are anecdotal, reconstructed from memory, or invented: there are few direct quotations, and no citations to allow one to examine the examples in their own words in context.

Silly Syllogisms
By Fergus Duniho. A JavaScript program which randomly generates a categorical syllogism, and allows one to test it for fallacies. Since a randomly generated syllogism is more likely to be invalid than valid, this is a good test of fallacy spotting. The program also comes with a clear, brief tutorial on syllogisms and their fallacies.

Stephen's Guide to the Logical Fallacies
This is the granddaddy of fallacy web sites, first posted in 1995. Stephen Downes, an information architect with a master's degree in philosophy, created the site. It contains short entries for the standard list of fallacies, together with rather unrealistic, cooked-up examples. This guide is probably of most use for a quick check or refreshing of memory concerning a specific fallacy, rather than as a way to learn about fallacies. Unfortunately, it doesn't appear to have been updated since '96.

The Fallacy Zoo
Based on Stephen Downes' list, this site was created by Brian Yoder, a software engineer. Like Downes' site, it hasn't been updated in a long time. I include it mainly because I like the name.

There's a fallacy site called "logical Fallacies" put up by the trade school "Capella University online."

I don't like the way they deal with Pascals Wager but can't have everything.

There are other online sources I find these two are very good. Of course the major knowledge is still in books. Reading about logic in general is very helpful. One of the major logicians in America (long dead but still important to read) is C.I. Lewis (not to be confused with C.S. Lewis--atheists have in past thought I was trying to speak of the latter not the former).

Clarence Irving (C.I.) Lewis was perhaps the most important American academic philosopher active in the 1930s and 1940s. He made major contributions in epistemology and logic, and, to a lesser degree, ethics. Lewis was also a key figure in the rise of analytic philosophy in the United States, both through the development and influence of his own writings and through his influence, direct and indirect, on graduate students at Harvard, including some of the leading analytic philosophers of the last half of the 20^th century.

a books by Lewis:

Lewis, C.I. 1918. A Survey of Symbolic Logic Berkeley: University of California Press. Reprinted by Dover Publications (New York), 1960, with the omission of Chapters 5-6.

Lewis, C.I. 1923, “A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori”. Journal of Philosophy 20, pp. 169-77. Reprinted in Lewis (1970, pp. 231-239.

Lewis, C.I. 1929. Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge. New York: Charles Scribners. Reprinted by Dover Publications (New York), 1956.

Lewis, C.I. 1932. “Alternative Systems of Logic”. The Monist 42: pp. 481-507. Reprinted in Lewis (1970), pp. 400-419.

Lewis, C.I. 1936. “Verification and the Types of Truth”. Unpublished. Reprinted in Lewis (1970), pp. 277-293.

Lewis, C.I. 1941. “Logical Positivism and Pragmatism”. Not published in Revue Internationale de Philosophie due to German invasion of Belgium. Reprinted in Lews (1970), pp. 92-112.

Lewis, C.I. 1946. An Analysis of Knowledge and Valuation . La Salle, Illinois: Open Court.

Lewis (1948), “Professor Chisholm and Empiricism”, Journal of Philosophy 45: 517-24. Reprinted in Lewis (1970), pp. 317-23.

Lewis, C.I. 1952a. “The Given Element in Empirical Knowledge”. Philosophical Review 61: 168-75. Reprinted in Lewis (1970), pp. 324-31.

Of course Anthony Flew's Philosphical Dictinoary

Most helpful of all An actual Online Copy of Same!

You can look up fallacies in Flew's dictionary and it's one of the most authoritative sources. It's also great for reading through about philosophy in general.

these are just a small sample of what can be found on the net dealing with Logic.

Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Monday, February 15, 2010

Major Contradictoin At the Heart of Atheism

On the one hand you tell me that laws of physics are just descriptive and they don't determine anything. On the other hand you say that there is natural world that extends beyond our space/time, presumably to anything physical? So you see the dichotomy of nature/spirit as physical, tangleable, visible vs "in" and "un" and "non" versions of these, intangeable, inviable, non physical.
But how can it be that "nature" extends all over existence beyond the realm of all we know to all other realms anywhere and yet there are no prescriptive physical laws? It seems to be that to be able say that you would have to have a set of laws that delimit what can happen. Otherwise how can you passably know there is not a universe in which all existence is immaterial?

Here are some quotes about Big bang cosmology. They are from major physicists and some obscure physicists and the major upshot of them is we have no physics to explain the big bang.

No Physics to explain something from nothing.

John Mather, NASA's principal investigator of the cosmic background radiation's spectral curve with the COBE satellite, stated: "We have equations that describe the transformation of one thing into another, but we have no equations whatever for creating space and time. And the concept doesn't even make sense, in English. So I don't think we have words or concepts to even think about creating something from nothing. And I certainly don't know of any work that seriously would explain it when it can't even state the concept."[John Mather, interview with Fred Heeren on May 11, 1994, cited in his book Show Me God (1998), Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 119-120.]

That is describing the excepted theory, that the universe seems to pop up from nothing, yet physicists just accept it and assume that its possible even with no physics to explain it. That is a total paradigm shift.

*Multi verse is unscientific metaphysics.

Sten Odenwald, Gaddard, Nasa: http://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/a11215.html

"yes there could be other universes out there, but they would be unobservable no matter how old our universe became...even infinitly old!! So, such universes have no meaning to science because there is no experiment we can perform to detect them."

John Mather, NASA's principal investigator of the cosmic background radiation's spectral curve with the COBE satellite, stated:

"We have equations that describe the transformation of one thing into another, but we have no equations whatever for creating space and time. And the concept doesn't even make sense, in English. So I don't think we have words or concepts to even think about creating something from nothing. And I certainly don't know of any work that seriously would explain it when it can't even state the concept."[John Mather, interview with Fred Heeren on May 11, 1994, cited in his book Show Me God (1998), Wheeling, IL, Searchlight Publications, p. 119-120.]That is describing the excepted theory, that the universe seems to pop up from nothing, yet physicists just accept it and assume that its possible even with no physics to explain it. That is a total paradigm shift. "yes there could be other universes out there, but they would be unobservable no matter how old our universe became...even infinitely old!! So, such universes have no meaning to science because there is no experiment we can perform to detect them."

Some physicists, such as Oldenwald, are aware of this, but that doesn't stop the the materialists from continuing the assumption. So if it is religious metaphysics its bad, but if its metaphysics the materialist can use it's "ok."

We have no physics to explain the bb and yet you want to argue that know what it is and how works and that is material. dilemma

(1) if physical laws are not prescriptive then you must explain how everything can be the same all over all existence

(2) if physical laws are not prescriptive

.....(a) believe in miracles there no barrier to them

.....(b) it could be that some worlds are supernatural. It's only if you have a delimiting set of laws that you can clearly define natural from supernatural (if you go by the degraded concept most of you try to defend)

Second dilemma

(1) if there is a physics to explain bb then it's seems physical laws are prescriptive

(2) if there is no physics to explain it then it doesn't opporate by natural law we can well think of the bb as supernatural. Or even magic.

Thursday, February 11, 2010

examples of Atheist Hate

These are exampls of stage 3, gathering to mock the target (FBI 12 step development of hate group ID).

There are many more that little insubstantial theists can drop on message boards all over the net. Why are these act of hate? First of all there is a major probelm with re-describing. In his brilliant novel 1984 George Orwell brings out the basic brutality of re-describing another person's world view or bleief system. That in itself is wrong ethically and its dishonest, but to do it in such a way as to mock and deride their beliefs while passing it off as what they really believe is nothing more than hate, and hat demonstrates the Orwellian nightmare in the atheist movement.

Someone runs an industry selling these things to someone, either used as clip art or bought by those who use them directly, they are sources of money at some point. Their only purpose is to mock and ridicule becuase if the people making them cared enough to describe Christian belief Accurately they would find out what Christians really belief and be sensitive enough to sort out the difference between illogical and cruelty.

Saying that Christian belief is illogical is not hate, that's to be expected and it's the prerogative of those who do not believe in Christian beliefs. But to purposely misrepresent them, to twist them in such a way as to cause ridicule and then pretend that's a frank and honest summary of belief, is evil and stupid.

The only reason someone would use these is because they hate Christianity and they want to make it look stupid, and that is an act of hate.

First we have to distinguish between a fair summary and unfair summary.

If you say "Christians believe X and X is basically saying this, you talk abou tthe logical implications of X then that's fine. But to say "here is my distorted crap taht you don't believe but I"m going to believe that that's waht your beliefs really do mean," that is nothing more than distortion and dishonesty and refusal to respect other people.

these aer not just little games to those who believe. They are very important to us, they are our sacred beliefs, they are part of who we are. When you say "your sacred belief is shit" you are saying "you are shit." Understand?

Now here is why they are wrong.

"the belief that a cosmic Jewish Zombie who was his own father..."

the phrase cosmic does not describe anything Christians belief about God. I don't even know what it means, but it's not part of any Christian belief, and since a modern joke term to ridicule fake swamis druggies in California it's probably there to mock and humiliate.

can make you live forever if you symbolically eat his flesh...

"make you live forever" is not an adequate description of salvation, but let's let that slide because it's close enough for a skeptic. But the actual notion that we are saved by partaking of the Eucharist is not the case, in any version of Christianity. No creed and no chruch I know of says that we are actually by that act. Igantious said that but he's just one chruch father a long time ago and that view did not make it into Orthodoxy. Of course it's phrased in such a way as to make it sound stupid.

telepathically tell him you accept him

describing prayer as telepathic is totally inaccurate and is done so for purposes of distoring and ridiculing becuase it's stupid, it connected it to knew age stuff.

as your master

I guess that's fair enough but it's phrased in such a way as to make it unpalatable to modern people.

so he can remove an evil force form your soul

a total distortion that is used for the purpose of making it sound really stupid. No one thinks that sin is a force or that salvation means a force is removed form our body. Only fundies, get off on talking about demons and casting them out, most Christians don't believe in that, but even then it's not connected to salvation per se and that demons are "an evil force" I suppose fair enough.

That is present in humanity becuase a rib-woman was convinced

evoking mythological claims that not all Christians accept. At least half the chruch doesn't' take it literally. describing Eve as a "rib woman" is idiotic.

by a talking snake to eat from a magical tree

that's the problem faced by inerrentists but it's structured into the whole in such a way as to compound the sense of it begin stupid and mocking and ridiculing. It's also unfair to try and put mocking and ridiculing labels on all Christians for something only about half believe.

the second banner is the same kind of thing. it's a statement in the worst possible light. Mary was not impregnated by God. She may have been artificially inseminated but not has sex with. The overall statement is not reflective of the Gospel. It's dumbed down to make it sound stupid and you nkow it is. You know that it is.

compare that dumbbell talk with real theological statements:

my view on atonement:

salvation and other faiths.

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Hartshorne's Modal argument

Charles Hartshorne 1897-2000
Modern Champion of the modal argument

What follows is one of the most challenging subjects you will ever hear about. It is the best way to get a head ache, but I think it proves the existence of God. The problem is it requires a very specialized background to understand it. First you have to understand modal logic.

Modal Logic is so called because it turns upon the use of so called "modal operators." It's called "modal" because it is the logic of modes of being. "modes" as in what type of existnce something exits in, weather it is dependent upon other things, weather it can cease or fail to exist and so forth. The modal operators are "necessity," "contingency" "impossibly," "possibility."

Necessity and contingency lie at the base of our modern understanding of cause and effect. They come from scholastic notions of logic, but the distinction between the notion our modern notions of c/e and the shcoalstic ones in the middle ages is not that great. The scholastics had more levels of cause, efficient cause, final cause and several others. But one could everything we have done in modern science using the scholastic ideas of c/e.

Necessity doesn't mean has to exist. It doesn't mean God is necessary to the existence of the world (except in so far as if God exists then of closure God is necessary to the world as creator--without God there would be no world).The modal arguemnt does not begin with the assumption that God has to exist. It begins with the assumption that there is a valid distinction between necessity and contingency, which there must be.It proceeds along the lines of hypothetical consequence that obtain from different scenarios of God's existence. It concludes that is necessary. But by "necessary" it means not contingent, or not dependent upon something else for its' existence.

This is often misconstrued by atheists and taken to mean the argument proceeds from God's existence as an assumed first premise. This is not the case, the first premise is either/or. Either God's existence is necessary or it is impossible. This allows for the possibility that there is no God. So the argument does not begin by "defining God into existence."

Necessity means either non dependent or cannot cease or fail. By "fail" I mean there could not not be a God. That is the conclusion of the argument, not the premise.

Contingent means the opposite: that a thing is dependent upon a prior thing for existence, or that it could cease or fail to exist.

Impossible means logically impossible, something in the structure of the idea contradictions, such as square circles.

one of the sore spots that atheists get stuck on is the idea that God cannot be contingent. They will always leap to the conclusion that this is defining God into existence, because they don't understand the concept of God. God, by the nature of the concept, carriers certain parameters just as the existence of any human assumes humanity, or the existence of any tree assumes that the tree in question is a plant. To have to define that God is not contingent should not even come into it. The idea of God is that of eternal creator of all things. Thus God cannot cease to exits and cannot be dependent upon anything (or he wouldn't be the creator of all things). Atheists usually assume that all knowledge has to be empirical. they will argue this is defining God into existence. maybe God is contingent.

Maybe there is a begin like the one we talk about but he's not eternal or the creator of all things, but that means he's not the God we are talking about.

Hartshorne's version goes like this:

1) God can be analytically conceived without contradiction.
2) Therefore God is not impossible.
3) By definition God cannot be contingent.
4) Therefore God is either necessary or impossible.
5) God is not impossible (from 2) therefore, God is necessary.
6) Whatever is necessary by the force of Becker's modal theorum must necessarily exist.

Argument:my version

1) God can be analytically conceived, as eternal necessary being, without contradiction.

2) Therefore God is not impossible,(because no contradiction).

3) By definition God cannot be contingent (becasue God is eteral).

4) Therefore if God exists, God's existence is necessary, if God does not exist, it is because God is impossible.

5) God is not impossible (from 2) therefore, God is necessary.

6) Whatever is necessary by the force of Becker's modal theorum must necessarily exist.

A. The logic of the argument:

This argument is analytical, it proceeds from the basis in logic to argue that the concept of God is such that if we understood the meaning of the terms we would have to conclude that God must exist. Naturally that is a very controversial position. Many Christians and other theists reject the ontological argument on the grounds knowledge must be somewhat empirical. Nevertheless the argument has been used for a long time, and despite its many apparent deaths, it keeps returning in one form or another. Perhaps the best book on the subject is The Many Faced Argument by John Hick. Somehow the ontological argument just wont die. I feel that this is not so much because the argument itself is true as a proof, but because it gets at something deeper than proof, something to do with the way to think about God, and it strikes a deep cord in our consciousness, even though as a proof it may fail. For this reason alone it is important to know, if only to know the concept itself.

1) God can be analytically conceived without contradiction.
2) Therefore God is not impossible.
3) By definition God cannot be contingent.
4) Therefore God is either necessary or impossible.
5) God is not impossible (from 2) therefore, God is necessary.
6) Whatever is necessary by the force of Becker's modal theorum must necessarily exist.

(This is actually my re-statement of what Hartshorne is saying).

Hartshorne's actual modal logic looks like this:

The OA: an assessment:

by Ed Stoebenau

http://www.eskimo.net/~cwj2/atheism/onto.html Hartshorne's ontological argument is based on Anselm's second argument and claims that God's existence is logically necessary. Hartshorne's argument is given here, where "N(A)" means "it is logically necessary that A," "~A" means "it is not the case that A," "-->" is strict implication, "v" means "or," and "g" means "God exists":

g --> N(g)
N(g) v ~N(g)
~N(g) --> N(~N(g))
N(g) v N(~N(g))
N(~N(g)) --> N(~g)
N(g) v N(~g)
~N(~g)
N(g)
N(g) --> g
g

This argument is valid. Furthermore, given an Anselmian conception of God, premises one and five are sound. Premise two is just the law of the excluded middle, and premise three is a law of the modal logic S5. Premise nine is obviously sound, so this leaves premise seven as the only premise to question. Premise seven says that it is logically possible that God exists.

Yes, those funny lines, "g-->N(g)" are the argument, those are the formal symbols used in modal logic.

B. God's Possibility vs. Impossibility.

The argument turns on the distinction between necessity and contingency, and upon the distinction between mere possibility and the nature of necessary being as not mere possible. In other words, God is either necessary or impossible. If God exists than he is ontologically necessary, because he is logically necessary by definition. But if he does not exist than it is ontologically impossible that he exists, or could come to exist. This is because God cannot be contingent, by definition. A contingency is just not God. So if God is possible, he can't be "merely possible" and thus is not impossible, which means he must be necessary.

God is conceivable in analytic terms without contradiction:
The universe without God is not concievable in analytical terms; it is dependent upon principles which are themselves contingent. Nothing can come from a possibility of total nothingness; the existenceo of singularities and density of matter depend upon empiracal observations and extrapolation form it. By definition these things are not analytical and do depend upon causes higher up the chain than their being (note that the skeptic at this point probably denies the validity of analytic proofs but to reverse the arguement must accept such proof).

Since the concept is coherent nad not contradictory and is derived from analytic terms, to reverse the argument the atheist must show that God is impossible since the burden of proof is now on the one arguing that a contingent state of affirs could produce a universe in which being has to be.

D. Answering Objections:

1) The argument can be reversed

Atheists have tried to reverse the argument merely by saying:

1) either God exists or he doesn't
2) God is either necessary or impossilbe. Necessary if he eixists, impossible if he does not
3) God is impossible
4) Therefore God does not exist.

But of course this is merely stipulation. They assume that what the argument is doing is just stipulating everything that has been said about God, but on the "Modes of Being" page I show that each of these modalities of existence are logical deductions.Either a thing exists or it does not. One can equivocate about the meaning the term "existence," but here I clearly mean concete actual existence in the "real" world. If a thing does not exist it is either that it could, but just doesn't happen to exist, or that it cannot exist because it is a conceptual contradiction, such as square circles, or round triangles and so on. Therefore, if it does exist, it is either that it exists contingently or that it is not contingent but exists necessaryily (that is it could not fail to exist without contradiction). These are the four most basic modes of being and cannot be denied. They could be subdivded, for example fictional contingency, such as Sueprman or Dick Tracy, that which would be contingent if it had real concete actuality, but is merely a fictional concept. But the four modes are the basic logical deductions about the nature of existence.

The idea that the argument can be reversed just by switching the lines and declairing God impossible merely begs the question. Is God really impossible just because we can utter those words? Is God logically necessary just because we can utter those words?. No, but that's not what is being said. God is logically necessary as a concept. That is the nature of the God-concept, that's the idea of God. To deny that would be like saying "how do you know that tables are things to put things on?" Or "how do you know that triagles have three sides?"The question is one of actuality, so if it is possible that God exists than God is ontologically necessary and thus has real concete existence because since God is not contingent it cannot be that God is "merely possible." If it is at all possible that God exists, than it's not impossible. To show that the argument can truely be reversed the atheist must show why God is impossible, and to do that he/she must show that God cannot be understood analytically without contradiction.

Another attempt at reversing the argument, which is always used on message boards when I make this argument: just to put not in front of each line. "It is possible that god does not exist." The premise is they don't have to prove God is ipossible, but just that the possiblity of God's not existing reverses the argment.

The problem is, the premise is false. If god is not analytically impossible (contradictory) then God must exist. Thus it is not ture that it is possible that God does not exist. The logic works like this:

(1) If God is indeep possible, the God cannot be impossible.

(2) to say God is not possible is the same as saying god is impossible.

(3) if something is possible, it can't be impossible.

(4) you must show why God is impossible.

(5) I have showen why God is possible, becasue God is concievable without contradiction.

(6) anticipating answer on eneity and consciousness, consciousness is not a primary quality of God. Other things are conscoiuss, that is not something quiquely estabishes God as God, logical necessity is such a thing.

(7) If God is possible, and can't be impossible, and can't be contingent, then to be possible for God is to be logically necessary. Thus it does not work to say God is not possible because it isn't true, thus it's a false premise.

To make good on any reversal they must show a contraidction in the concept of God. To this they always retort "well you can't prove that God is not contradictory." But I don't have to prove that. One can assume that if there is no contraiction it is not contradictory. They are the one's seeking to make the reversal, so it's their burden of proof. But to prove that God is possible all one need do is concive god analytically without contradiction. what else could one do to prove a possiblity?

2) The assumption that we are merely loading the concept with terms that make it necessary, or that the deftion of God as necessary is arbitrary.

This is really the same arguement one must make to reverse the argument of necessary being. This is what atheists always argue. The first thing they say bout it is that we are just arbitrarily sticking on the term "necessary" and playing word games. Some go so far as to try and demonstrate this by sticking the term necessary on other things, such as "purple cow" or anything they think of, and that's suppossed to show what we are doing. I regard this move as nothing more than a demonstration that they do not understand the concepts The necessity of necessity and why it must be applied to God is demonstrated on the "modes of being" page. Moreover, this move is nothing more than the perfect Island argument. It can't wrok becaus it merely enthrones contingencies. Our reason for saying that God is necessary is much more logical and organic and is much more than a mere word game.

While it is true that God as being itself is a pre-given postulate and is idependent of proof because it is part of the defintion of God, the realization that being has t be means that this must be the case.

3) The assumption that we are lending existence to a fictional being.

This is merely an assumption. The necessary existence of God is implied in the possibility of God's existence and the realization that the the only alternative is impossibility. God is possible and thus necessary. Some have tried to argue that they are breaking up the four categories with a 5th not seen, that of "fictional" but that applies to the category 4 that of non-existing contingency.

4) Equivocating between types of necessity.

The argument says that to say God is necessary as a postulate of defintion is speaking of ontological necessity, than to assert the actuality of it is moving from logical to ontolgocial necessiy.

To say that a thing is logically possible is to say that it might have existed in the past or may exist in the future. But for God to exist he must always have existed; in the past, in the future, or all time. Given logical necessity the logical possibility of God 's non existance is impossible. Therefore, ontoloigcal necessity implies logical necessity. One implies the other and it is a rational move from one to the other.

This argument may seem like merely a trick of words, and modal logic may be conroverial, but it turns on very basic logic, such as modus tolens or modus ponens which is accepted by all logicians. On Argument 1 I document Antony Flew saying that the logoical categories of "Necessary" and "contingent" truth are accepted by all logicians.

TrentDougherty
Concise intero to the Modal Ontological Arugument for The Existence of God.

http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/ontol.html

TERMS

‘Modal’ – Pertaining to the modes of existence (de re) or of propositions (de dicto) as necessary or possible. ‘Necessity’ is a mode of being for a thing or proposition as is ‘Possibility’.
‘Ontological’ – from Greek ontoV for being.
‘Argument’ – designed to logically support a proposition (not to be confused with persuasion which is a psycho-social phenomenon, not a philosophical one).
Throughout this description I shall use standard notation and notation used when the font is restricted to a single typeset as in a text only document for HTTP purposes on the Internet.

The modalities are symbolized as follows:
A square or in typeset [] preceding an expression means “It is necessary that…” or “It is necessarily the case that…” or simply “Necessarily…” e.g. as applied to a propositional function.

Ps/[]Ps – “It is necessarily the case that s is P” where s is a constant referring to some individual and P is a predicate.
A Diamond à or in typeset <> preceding an expression means “It is possibly the case that…” or “It is possible that…” or simply “Possibly…”

SEMANTICS

Possibility is defined as consistency. àPs/<>Ps reads as “Possibly, s is P” and means that there is no contradiction in attributing P to s. Necessity is defined as “not possibly not the case”. If something cannot not be, then it must be.

Psº~à~Ps or []Ps=~<>~Ps
THE CALCULUS

There are many different ways to axiomatize a logic, just as there are different ways to axiomatize geometry. Axioms in some systems will be theorems in others, but since axioms and theorems have the same validity it is only a matter of formal difference. One of the most used systems of modal logic is called S5. There is an interesting theorem in S5 called Brouer’s Theorem.
(PàP)à(àPàP) or (P-->[]P)-->(<>P-->P)
This theorem is derivable in weaker systems as well.
The modal ontological argument for the existence of God is just a substitution instance for this theorem. There are only two propositions needed.
THE PROPOSITIONS

First comes the definition of God as a being who, IF he exists, does so necessarily, i.e. a Necessary Being. This is only the definition of what God would be like IF he existed. The proposition is formalized as
GàG or G-->[]G
“If God exists, then he necessarily exists.”
The other proposition is the assertion that it is possible that God exists.
àG or <>G
“Possibly, God exists.”
RULES OF INFERENCE

The only rule of inference needed is Modus Ponens.
PàQ “If P, then Q”
P
Therefore Q
Now we are ready to put the argument together.

THE ARGUMENT
1.      (GàG)à(àGàG)
2.      GàG
3.      àG
4.      àGàG
5.      G
(Theorem, sub G for P)
(Def of God)
(premise)
(1, 2 MP)
(4, 3 MP)

or
1.      (G-->[]G)-->(<>G-->G) (Theorem, sub G for P)
2.      G-->[]G (Def of God)
3.      <>G (premise)
4.      <>G-->G (1, 2 MP)
5.      G (4, 3 MP)

COMMENTARY

It is quite a simple argument which makes it hard to understand its fullness. The simple is packed with meaning. As you can see, there is one and only one premise, that it is possible that God exists. If this be granted, then his necessary existence follows. Since all efforts to show that the concept of God is contradictory have failed heretofore I conclude, somewhat reluctantly, that God exists. Kai Neilson tried to argue this in his debate with J.P. Moreland, but didn’t make much progress.

Now I realize that to the average person, this seems like a trick, but the average person is not particularly accustomed to following logical arguments at all, much less highly specialized forms of logical calculi developed by professional philosophers. Most professors at the University level don’t even know modal logic and many have never studied it and some have never heard of it. What do those who know it, but don’t believe in God say? They say that the concept of God is incoherent. I have not yet seen an even slightly plausible argument to that effect. Until I do, the OA will be cogent to me. I might add that I am a convert on this argument. I argued for years that the ontological argument was flawed until someone showed me the modal version. I have always followed Reason wherever it lead and, as usual, it lead to God.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Adams, Robert M., _The Virtue of Faith_, esp. “The Logical Structure of Anselm’s Arguments,” Oxford University Press: 1987.
Moris, Thomas V, _Anselmian Explorations_, esp. “Necessary Beings,” University of Notre Dame Press: 1987.
Plantinga, Alvin, _The Nature of Necessity_, esp. “God and Necessity,” Oxford University Press: 1974, 1992.
Plantinga, Alvin, _The Ontological Argument_, Anchor Books, 1965.
Swinburne, Richard, _The Coherence of Theism_, Oxford University Press: 1977, 1993.

Oddly enough that quotation is linked to a site by an atheist named Adrian Barnett who is attacking my older version of this argument, but he was gracious enough to put this quotation, which I think works against his argument, by a philospher in the UK.

About Hartshorne

Hartshorne Lived to be 103, at the time of his death in the Fall of 2000, he was known as "the greatest living Metaphysician." Hartshorne was one of the major forces in the "back to God" movment in Philosophy (a term coined by Christianity Today in a 1979 article. His first and greatest calim to fame is as the second most influential voice in process philosophy, along with Alfred North Whtiehead, but he is also credited as the man who brought the Ontologcial argument back from ignorminious defeat by Kant almost two centuries earlier. Hartshorne was also a recognized authority on birdsong, and an authority on bycicles, having never driven a car a single time in his centogenerian lifespan. Hartshorne devoted the last years of life to waging a letter's to the editor campgaign to advocate social issues such as medical care.

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Atheism is total intellectual dishonesty.

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Intersting Resources on Logic.

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Informal Fallacies

Silly Syllogisms

Stephen's Guide to the Logical Fallacies

The Fallacy Zoo