Rick Perry Does it again

On Need More Shovels: the genius of the campaign trail rejects 90-10 ratio of federal backed matching funds that would have included 1.54 million Texans who are not covered by medicaid and can't afford health insurance.

AW Index: the best of AW

This is an organized guide to make it easy to find the highest quality posts of Atheist Watch.

Ideology

Response to Sandwalk on Courtier's Reply

New Atheist Ideology Discredited and Discredited: Andrew Brown

belief, Rationalization, Manipulation
Loftus is Projecting againPrayer Studies vs. empirical reserach

Atheist Brain washing and Socilization

Victor Stenger's Straw God Arguments

anti-intellectual tendencies in New Atheism

Debunking the Atheist Fortress of Facts part 1

Debunking the Atheist Fortress of Facts part 2

My Review of Krauss's book 'A Universe from Nothing.'

Atheist Attempt to Inflate their Numbers: Staw God arguemnt
with "higher power."

Outrage and Incredulity, Atheist Charge of No Evidence


Atheists misconception about Metaphysics

The ideology of Scientism part 1

The ideology of scientism Part 2

The Atheist Reduction of
Knowledge to Science part 1

The Atheist Redution of Knowledge 
to Science. part 2

can science disprove the soul?


 New Category: Atheist Reveal Glimpse of 
True Goals, persecution of belief.


 Atheists Call for Eradication of Faith


Orwellian

Orwellian

Orwellian Atheism

Atheist Farm

More Orwellian Atheist Language.

another one on Orwellian language

Orwellian Atheist Marks new Trend:
more term 
updated

Is Atheism the "Reality Based" Community?


Propoganda

Debunking the Atheist Fortress of Facts 
part 1 

Debunking the Atheist Fortress of Facts 
part 2 

Propaganda 
 
(bogus studies, social scinece, arguments)

 
Atheist Special Pleading

Atheist Propagaanda and Religious Experince
(Daren Brown's attempt to inoculate us against reigius
experience). 

"Center for Inquiry" Poll of Religion is Atheist Propaganda

Studies that Claim Religious Belief is Magical Thinking (disproved)

Psychology Todoay Scam

Nigel Barber: The Uncertainty Theory of Religious belief:
Bogus atheist social sciences.

Nigel Barber asks: Will  Atheism Replace Religion?

Atheist build mythology of slander

Atheists try to deny that "higher power" refers to God

Media Hype. Alleged Increase in Atheism is Hoax

Examining Atheist Propaganda

Prayer Studies and atheist Echo Chamber

The Atheist Scam

The Atheist IQ bad science and Racist Assumptions: Kanazawa,Nyborg, Lynn, Hamilton.

The Atheist IQ Scam, part 1

The Atheist IQ Scam, racist assumptions

Are Natural Scientists Smarter than Religious people Or Social Scientists?
E.Dutton and Richard Lynn

No Pew Study Says Atheists Know Bible Better than Christians

Bogus Atheist Social Sciences: Nigel Barber's theory of Belief and Uncertainty.

Barber part 2

Atheists psychology today scam

Courtier's replay and the Fool's Gambet

Dawkins's Arguments agaisnt the existence of God
from The God Delusion

Atheist Propaganda at work: Answering Ex-Christian net
(cross referenced below) *

Dawlins and Atheist Straw God part 2

Atheist prison Scam: supposedly Chrsitains in prison more

Atheist Ridicule Gauntlet on Prison Issue


Are Christians more likely to go to Prision (vol 3)

Atheist Slavery Billboards
 
organization

Atheist Live out Life of Brian: Battle Each Other


Organization

The Atheist Movement and It's Organization

So there's no Atheist Movement Hu? (part 4) 

Cracking the Jesus Myth Phony Scholarship code

Center for Inquiry: Atheist Propaganda Machine

Institutionalizing hate: International Blasphemy Day

Atheist Slavery Billboards, who pays? (cross references from above section)

Hate/bully



Hate and bullying

Atheist Call for Eradication of faith

 Atheist leader, Al Stefanelli, (Ameircan Atheits
Calls for "eradication" of Fundamentalist Christians.

Atheist use ridicule to compel belief
a project of center for inquiry.

Brain washing and Atheist Socialization

Atheist Special Pleading

Personal attack on Metacrock

Lowder on bullying and ridiculing ideas.

Shameful Display: Fallacious Reasoning and Emotional Blackmail

Atheists rationalize blaming the victim

an actual exampel of ridicule gauntlet



Boghoaisan calls for perscution of chruch








 atheist say they hate Christians



other

Psychological Insights into atheism
such as atheism and low self esteem.

rejection of Christianity and Low self esteem

Atheist Self Esteem Part 2

Who is Really Self Actualized, Atheists or Theists?

The Illiterate Connection: When Atheism Becomes a Drug

Psychology of Atheism

Atheists who say they hate Chrsitians.

others are starting to notice the narrow minded natuer
of new atheism 

why atheists have no ears
  Logical Fallacies


Atheist Special Pleading

Answering ex-Christian net 

Debate With Occam on CARM

Review and Debnucking of Lawrence Krauss's A Unvierse From Nothing.

illustration of Higgs boson

The closest thing to a “smoking gun” for anti-God evidence is presented by Lawrence Krauss in his book A Universe from Nothing.[1] Krauss merely argues something that every Christian apologist on message boards has been dealing with since the late 90s, that is the notion that the idea that Quantum theory means that the universe popped into existence from nothing based upon the assumption that Quantum particles do the same. This is really nothing new. When I first became aware of message boards and of the strife between atheists and theists on message boards, they were arguing about this. Yet the book has be lauded by atheists like it’s their version of the advent of Christ. Almost as quickly as it manifest it was shot down again by a philosopher. I’ll come t that in a moment. Why Krauss’s book got the glamour and not some of the physicists a decade ago who were saying the same thing I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because they didn’t write whole books about it. In any case, Krauss argues that the eternal laws of Quantum mechanics produce particles out of nothing when the instability of vacuum states causes quantum fields to shift and produce different kinds of particles.[2] This seems like it’s blessed with the aura science and thus cannot be questioned, yet a philosopher dared to question. David Albert exposed the meaning of terms in this senero and exploded the whole project.

Albert first points out that tracing the universe back to some physical property or cause is not an explanation as to why there is something rather than nothing.

What if he were in a position to announce, for instance, that the truth of the quantum-mechanical laws can be traced back to the fact that the world has some other, deeper property X? Wouldn’t we still be in a position to ask why X rather than Y? And is there a last such question? Is there some point at which the possibility of asking any further such questions somehow definitively comes to an end? How would that work? What would that be like?[3]

Secondly, moving on form that difficulty, he points out that since the enlightenment science has always assumed that at the “bottom of everything” there is “some basic, elementary, eternally persisting, concrete, physical stuff.”[4] Newton had it that this “stuff” consisted of particles. At the end of the nineteenth century it was particles and electro-magnetic fields. “And what the fundamental laws of nature are about, and all the fundamental laws of nature are about, and all there is for the fundamental laws of nature to be about, insofar as physics has ever been able to imagine, is how that elementary stuff is arranged.”[5] The laws don’t tell us where the elementary “stuff” came from. The laws concerning quantum mechanics are not exception. The laws do not tell us where the fields came from. Moreover, every previous theory counted particles among concrete stuff and quantum theory does not. In quantum theory particles are understood as arrangements of fields. Some arrangement correspond to certain numbers and kinds of particles, come correspond to no particles.[6] This latter arrangement, Albert tells us, is what they call “vacuum states.” According to Albert, Krauss is arguing that the laws of relativistic quantum field theories “entail that vacuum states are unstable. And that, in a nutshell, is the account he proposes of why there should be something rather than nothing.”[7]

In other words because the state of no particles is “unstable” (it’s hard to keep nothing from becoming something) “nothing” blows up into something so to speak. There are problems with this account. First, we have just seen, it assume a whole set up of laws and fields with no real reason for them to be there (the fact that none of the theory explains a real “why” I’ll put off until latter). Secondly, the issue of what is meant by “nothing” is the crux of the matter. When physicists say “nothing,” they don’t mean real actual nothing as in a lack of anything at all. What they really mean is vacuum flux, that this pre existing framework of law and field and the arrangement there of the and the sporadic popping in and out of prior existing particles. As Albert says, “Relativistic-quantum-field-theoretical vacuum states — no less than giraffes or refrigerators or solar systems — are particular arrangements of elementary physical stuff..”[8] This is most crucial because Albert is arguing that “nothing” in terms of no particles does not mean “nothing” in terms of now fields, or no laws. Thus “nothing” doesn’t mean “nothing,” it means something for which we still must account. That really blows the whole argument because it’s not a universe from nothing, it’s a universe form something else for which we must account, and can’t. So that means it’s just a rehash of status quo. The book originally was introduced with a media splash and created a sensation. Albert taking out the argument created anther sensation. Op ed writers and bloggers began crediting Albert with victory and a sense of hoopla began.

What would a universe from true actual nothing really prove? If it could be shown that the universe just started up, something form nothing (real actual nothing) there would be no way to really demonstrate that it’s not the Christian concept of creation ex nihilo. In fact that would actually fit the qualifications for the basic Christian doctrine of creation. There would be no way to prove it one way or the other because we could never go back to the other side of nothing and demonstrate that something isn’t causing this “something from nothing.” The impression is given the hype about Krauss’s book that there is some control that screens out metaphysical causes such as God. There in fact no such control. Now of course if this were the case we could not use that as an argument to demonstrate the existence of God. If we wanted to use that as a God argument we would have to push the logic of it on the grounds that something form total actual nothing is illogical and flies in the face of every single observation we can ever make about the real world. That would not demonstrate the reality of God. It might be a good conjecture but it would still only be a conjecture. At that rate it could go ether way. Yet it’s not disproof of God either. In fact, examining the arguments made by the three atheists expositors above, none of them actually says “here is proof there is no God.” Dawkins say “almost certainly” and Stenger says God is a failed hypothesis. Krauss imitates we don’t’ need him as an explanation. Something else is going on other than disproof.

What they are really getting at is not about proof or disproof but control of knowledge. They actually want to replace epistemology with ideology. They want to shut down forms of knowledge such as philosophy and phenomenology and replace them with the atheist fortress of facts idea. This is all really saying, all three books make the argument “we have the fortress of facts and theism has no facts.” Of course “facts” in this sense mean nothing more than the information that can be controlled by atheist expositors and that supports the atheist straw God concepts. It’s a switch from a global knowledge which includes philological thinking about science as a respectable partner in learning and centers everything on their realm of discourse. Thus Dawkins reduces God to the level of a biological organism, Stenger reduces belief to the level of a scientific hypothesis (even though belief is about something totally removed form the workings of the physical world), and Krauss asserts that knowledge of the physical world is the only knowledge worth knowing. All three are reducing theological ideas to a point where they take on physical attributes and become part of the scientific domain, thus they can be controlled by scientists.

What is even more blunt and telling is Krauss who gives away the whole store in an op-ed piece for the Los Angeles Times:

The illusion of purpose and design is perhaps the most pervasive illusion about nature that science has to confront on a daily basis. Everywhere we look, it appears that the world was designed so that we could flourish.

The position of the Earth around the sun, the presence of organic materials and water and a warm climate — all make life on our planet possible. Yet, with perhaps 100 billion solar systems in our galaxy alone, with ubiquitous water, carbon and hydrogen, it isn't surprising that these conditions would arise somewhere. And as to the diversity of life on Earth — as Darwin described more than 150 years ago and experiments ever since have validated — natural selection in evolving life forms can establish both diversity and order without any governing plan.

As a cosmologist, a scientist who studies the origin and evolution of the universe, I am painfully aware that our illusions nonetheless reflect a deep human need to assume that the existence of the Earth, of life and of the universe and the laws that govern it require something more profound. For many, to live in a universe that may have no purpose, and no creator, is unthinkable.

But science has taught us to think the unthinkable. Because when nature is the guide — rather than a priori prejudices, hopes, fears or desires — we are forced out of our comfort zone. One by one, pillars of classical logic have fallen by the wayside as science progressed in the 20th century, from Einstein's realization that measurements of space and time were not absolute but observer-dependent, to quantum mechanics, which not only put fundamental limits on what we can empirically know but also demonstrated that elementary particles and the atoms they form are doing a million seemingly impossible things at once.[9]

Wait a minute, something’s wrong here. He’s taking a kind of thinking that is used as a tool to inform us about the workings of the physical world, and saying “because to use this tool we must assume the subject matter of the tool is all there is, that proves that’s all there is.” That proves nothing. Perhaps the subject matter of the tool is irrelevant to the consideration of concepts like “purpose” and “meaning” because these are not part of the domain in which that tool is meaningful. When the concept of the tool becomes the only form of knowledge then of course all other considerations must be put aside, by why should we allow that to happen? Actually science has not taught us “to think the unthinkable—that the universe has. No can it ever do so. To even ask the question is beyond the scope of science. To do science one must not assume purpose or meaning in the workings of the physical world, yet one need not always be doing science. This is truly what we call “ideology.” One idea fits all and all sense data must be herded into that rubric in order to be considered “valid.” It’s really ideological struggle between reductionism which seek to cut off all aspects of reality save those that can be controlled by reductionism, vs. the assumption that human aspirations are worth considering in some way other than reductionsitically. The driving force behind the fortress of facts is the assumption that only one kind of thinking can be pursued. This one idea of reductionism must control and filter all knowledge. This is nothing more than a totalitarian ideology.

Krauss really gets blunt about the ideological ramifications in interview. Ross Andersen publishes in the Atlantic an interview he had done with Krauss for another project. He entitles the article “Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?”[10] Krauss had just come from Christopher Hitchen’s memoral service, and even he descriges as: “It was a remarkable event for a remarkable man, and I felt very fortunate to be there. I was invited to give the opening presentation in front of all of these literary figures and dignitaries of various sorts, and so I began the only way I think you can begin, and that's with music from Monty Python..”[11] Asked why the sudden public antagonism between physics and philosophy he answers:

Krauss: That's a good question. I expect it's because physics has encroached on philosophy. Philosophy used to be a field that had content, but then "natural philosophy" became physics, and physics has only continued to make inroads. Every time there's a leap in physics, it encroaches on these areas that philosophers have carefully sequestered away to themselves, and so then you have this natural resentment on the part of philosophers. This sense that somehow physicists, because they can't spell the word "philosophy," aren't justified in talking about these things, or haven't thought deeply about them---[12]

Philosophy can only have “content” in so far as it reflects the workings of the physical world? As though that’s all the content there is to have. That’s all there is to think about. Only science is about anything. But wait how is it that physics has encroached upon anything philosophy is about if philosophy a bunch of made up flights of fancy. Science was never about the meaning of life and philosophy was never about the workings of the physical world. It’s true that science used ot be called “natural philosophy” but hat was far from being the major section of philosophical thought. He seems embarrassed about not being in philosophy. He resents the idea that he can’t talk about the meaning of life. He can talk about the meaning of life he just can’t claim scientific authority to make pronouncements informing us all of the meaning of life, or lack thereof.

Here is his statement on the importance of philosophy:

Krauss: Well, yeah, I mean, look I was being provocative, as I tend to do every now and then in order to get people's attention. There are areas of philosophy that are important, but I think of them as being subsumed by other fields. In the case of descriptive philosophy you have literature or logic, which in my view is really mathematics. Formal logic is mathematics, and there are philosophers like Wittgenstein that are very mathematical, but what they're really doing is mathematics---it's not talking about things that have affected computer science, it's mathematical logic. And again, I think of the interesting work in philosophy as being subsumed by other disciplines like history, literature, and to some extent political science insofar as ethics can be said to fall under that heading. To me what philosophy does best is reflect on knowledge that's generated in other areas. [13]

He arbitrarily reduces logic to mathematics just because math is in the domain of science. We could just as easily relegate math to a subordination under philosophy on the grounds that math is based upon logic. Russell and Whitehead proved that logic is the basis of math, and since logic started as philosophy it would be more logical to put math under philosophy.[14] Besides formal logic is not mathematics. Moreover, major logicians such as Hartshorne and Plantinga who achieved authoritative status in the use of S5modal logic could, by Krausses logic, be seen as mathematicians and by extension of that association as physicists. Thus their takes on the modal argument for God must be scientific. Remarkably he actually attributes something to fields such as history and literature. He does that to parcel out philosophy. Of course this drive to end the very existence of philosophy is just a bid to take over knowledge so that one ideology prevails as the only way to think, it just happens to be the one in which Krauss is credentialed. He wants to pretend that philosophy is really just leeching off other disciplines when in reality he’s moving beyond the accepted domain of science to poach on the territory of theology, philosophy, ethics history and probably other disciplines (mathematics and logic). It’s also worth nothing that he missed the point on nothing in terms of the history of ideas. He claims it was the philosophers who re-write nothing and have constantly changed its definition when in reality it’s the philosophers who have continually defined nothing as nothing but science Newton scientists have been re-writing the meaning of the term to define it as “something.”15

A humorous exchange occurs when Andersen points out that philosophy offers a basis for computer science. Krauss says: “Well, you name me the philosophers that did key work for computer science; I think of John Von Neumann and other mathematicians, and---.” Andersen says: “But Bertrand Russell paved the way for Von Neumann..”

Karauss says: “But Bertrand Russell was a mathematician. I mean, he was a philosopher too and he was interested in the philosophical foundations of mathematics, but by the way, when he wrote about the philosophical foundations of mathematics, what did he do? He got it wrong.” So not only can we take him over as one of the science boys since he did math but (which would just as easily mean math is part of philosophy again) but he also got it wrong about math (yet that reflects on his philosophical side not on his math side, not real sure how that works since it would be the math side that got it wrong). Andersen remarks “Einstein got it wrong.” To which Krauss replies:

Krauss: Sure, but the difference is that scientists are really happy when they get it wrong, because it means that there's more to learn. And look, one can play semantic games, but I think that if you look at the people whose work really pushed the computer revolution from Turing to Von Neumann and, you're right, Bertrand Russell in some general way, I think you'll find it's the mathematicians who had the big impact. And logic can certainly be claimed to be a part of philosophy, but to me the content of logic is mathematical.[16]

Science guys are happen when they are proved wrong? I guess he must be ecstatic since Albert’s article? We’ll have to ask him how happy he’s been since his book was panned. It means there’s more to learn, such as the meaning of life and the value of philosophy. He admits logic is part of philosophy and Russell was into both it just eludes him that this also means philosophy is the foundation of computer science and math together that makes it the foundation of physics. Now that’s the “unthinkable” we should be taught to think. Maybe the fortress of facts is a house of cards and maybe there’s more than one form of knowledge in the universe? His answer is supercilious because a scientist being happy when he get’s it wrong doesn’t change the fact under discussion it doesn’t change the fact that scientist get it wrong just as philosophers sometimes do.

Kruass referred to Albert as “a moronic philosopher.” That doesn’t sound happy to me. Nor does it sound very acute. Albert is so moronic in fact he is not only a well thought of philosopher at Columbia he also holds a Ph.D. in theoretical physics.[17] He might to reconsider his castigation of Albert when we take a deeper look at Karuss’s argumentation skills. He essentially gives away the store, and thinks he’s bested his opponents.

But I am certainly claiming a lot more than just that [something from nothing]. That it's possible to create particles from no particles is remarkable---that you can do that with impunity, without violating the conservation of energy and all that, is a remarkable thing. The fact that "nothing," namely empty space, is unstable is amazing. But I'll be the first to say that empty space as I'm describing it isn't necessarily nothing, although I will add that it was plenty good enough for Augustine and the people who wrote the Bible. For them an eternal empty void was the definition of nothing, and certainly I show that that kind of nothing ain't nothing anymore.[18]

That’s really the point Albert made and he says this as though he just doesn’t understand the opponent’s argument. He does bring up the issue of St. Augustine and creation ex-nihilo. He doesn’t seem to get that the issue cuts both ways. Yet the Christian is not something from nothing, it doesn’t post that the universe just popped into being from true absolute nothing without a cause and for no reason. He admits that his “nothing” is actually something, and something must be explained, something must have caused it. What could that something be but God? That would be the argument. He’s not answering it by throughing back the issues ex-nihilo misunderstood (minus God) then admitting that his own views leaves an origin form an unexplained “Something.” Andersen raises the prospect that he’s arguing physics with Saint Augustine (who presumably worked form Aristotelian physics thus making his view 2000 years out of date). Krauss states:

It might be more interesting than debating some of the moronic philosophers that have written about my book. Given what we know about quantum gravity, or what we presume about quantum gravity, we know you can create space from where there was no space. And so you've got a situation where there were no particles in space, but also there was no space. That's a lot closer to "nothing."

But of course then people say that's not "nothing," because you can create something from it. They ask, justifiably, where the laws come from. And the last part of the book argues that we've been driven to this notion---a notion that I don't like---that the laws of physics themselves could be an environmental accident. On that theory, physics itself becomes an environmental science, and the laws of physics come into being when the universe comes into being. And to me that's the last nail in the coffin for "nothingness."[19]

He seems not to understand what these “moronic philosophers” are driving at. He keeps talking like he’s proved something if he shows that there is no “nothing” but in fact that’s the only way his argument would work. If no actual nothing then he has no argument at all. Then he’s just saying “the universe came from something that we can’t account for.” Implication: it might have needed God to create it. It only appears to be that God is unnecessary if things can spontaneously pop up out of true absolute nothing. Even that would not be proof since we can’t prove there really is no cause. Yet if we could prove that that would be the only real way to prove that God is not needed or not present. The real answer he has that might work is based upon pure speculation. He appeals to natural law and a supposition not in evidence that they are some kind of accident. This just puts the atheist back at square one saying “maybe there could be an alterative to God, maybe.”

---

[1] Lawrence M. Krauss, A Universe from Nothing: Why There is something Rather Than Nothing. New York, NY: Free press, a division of Simon and Schuster, 2012.

[2] Ibid 189.

[3] David Albert, “On the Origin of Everything ‘a Universe form Nothing’ by Lawrence Krauss,” New York Times Sunday Book Review (March 23, 2012). On line version URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/25/books/review/a-universe-from-nothing-by-lawrence-m-krauss.html visited June 20, 2012. David Albert also has a Ph.D. in theoretical phsyics.

[14] ibid.

[5] ibid

[6] ibid

[7] ibid

[8] ibid

[9] Lawrence M. Krause, “A Universe Without Purpose.” Los Angeles Times, Opinion. (April 1, 2012). On line copy URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-krauss-cosmology-design-universe-20120401,0,4136597.story visited 7/2/12.

[10] Ross Andersen, “Has Physics Made Philosophy and Religion Obsolete?” The Atlantic (April 23, 2012). Pm et 396. Online URL: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/04/has-physics-made-philosophy-and-religion-obsolete/256203/ visited 7/2/12.

[11] Ibid.

[12] ibid.

[13] ibid.

[14] Principia (find)

[15] find

[16] Krauss in Andersen, ibid.

[17] Massimo Pigliucci, “Lawrence Krauss Another Physicist with an Anti-Philosophy Complex,” Rationally Speaking, blog. URL: http://rationallyspeaking.blogspot.com/2012/04/lawrence-krauss-another-physicist-with.html visited 7/4/12

Massimo Pigluicci is a philosopher at City University of New York..

[18] Krauss In Andersen, ibid.

[18] ibid

Atheist "Ridicule Artists" Slander Real Scholar

Fora about five years now I've been trying to these illiterate anti-intellectual atheists to notice the huge body of scientific empirical work on religious experience. The major figure in that field is Ralph Hood, professor of psychology at University of Tennessee in Chattanooga. Hood invented a research tool called "The M scale" (mysticism scale) that enables one to determine if a real mystical experience has been had or not. That's real important if you want to study religous experince beuase you have to know if you have the real deal or not.The illiterate mocking atheist trolls have been incensed about the concept of Hood all this time. They can't accept the fact that a "real scientist" wouldn't' be like Dawkins and make fun of religious people but would actually study them objectively.

Their logic is impeccable

atheism is againt realign

scinece is against religion (it's not)

so atheism is science.

so any "real scientist" will mock and ridicule religious people instead of study them.


post 18

[QUOTE=Marty Hamrick;3109634]Of course not, Meta, this isn't a library or a theology class. You need to be more concise.[/quote]

no you need to be more intelligent. if you deem to mock and ridicule other people's faith you have a responsibility to be through and to consider the answers carefully.you are damning other people.atheism is based on selfish monstrosities. so you are influencing others to go to hell and spend eternity without god just so you can ease your fear a bit for a while. that is mysteriously selfish you owe them the attention to truth and honesty that you are not willing to give.


[QUOTE]No one here is going to read and entire book and do a dissertation.[/QUOTE]

I read 200 studies. if you want to say blanket like you do "these are all bad,they a re horrible they suck they are not good" you certainly owe to it the people you are deceiving to learn the facts!

another troll helping the atheist brain wash people. this proves you are not serious.


what a silly fallacious excuse. It's too long. getting the answers is too much trouble.


post 20

Deist;3109945]If he had it, he'd give it. All this dancing and prancing around and feigned upset is to mask the fact that he has nothing. A childish third grade type M Scale, and "200" articles by obscure nobodies.

of course you want to say such things knowing absolutely nothing at all about it. you wont even read a single comment of anyone I quote saying it's good. you want to whine about how stupid but you have no way knowing anything about it when I put the evidence in front of your illiterate face you refuse to read and see that you are wrong.

MFFJM2;3110396]The "M-scale" is a joke. Asking these kinds of leading and ambiguous questions, failing to explain the terms involved, using only agree/disagree instead of a scale (always, usually, sometimes, seldom, never) will always provide a worthless set of data points. Any researcher worth his salt would instantly recognize this so called "test" as just a blatant attempt to provide emipirical evidence using confirmation bias.

"I have never had an experience in which I felt myself to be absorbed as one with all things."

If reading these questions didn't get you smiling, you lack a sense of humor or have been drinking the kool-aide.

those are feelings that mystics have. those are testaments mystics have made. so how can you know if had a mystical experience if you got ask "have you ever had this?" How desne can you possibility be?
Michael E. Neilsen
Georgia Southern University
Feb, 2000
Psychology of Religion in USA

"Ralph Hood (1998), a major figure in American psychology of religion, suggests six psychological schools of thought regarding religion. The psychoanalytical schools draw from the work of Freud, and attempt to reveal unconscious motives for religious belief."


Not only have I explained explained several times why that's wrong, but I show you a whole chapter on why it' that way you refuse to read it because you don't assures. it front of your face to know why you are wrong you refuse to even consider looking. that's a true know nothing. I put quotes form experts right on th board saying "the M scale is not a Joke its a really great thing" you don't even read them. That's just true troll behavior.


you are a know nothing you know you are a know nothing.\


They really out do themselves on this one. See them actually Slander Hood. this guy acutally attacks the way he dresses. Forget that he's recognized as the great scholar of his field. he dresses funny.


Originally Posted by Metacrock

you are just admitting that you are a troll. All you are saying is that you are not able to objectively evaluate the evidence. yu don't care about the studies. you just have it in for anyone religious.

until you make a real substantive post talking about the issue it will be apparent you are a troll I will not talk to you.

You are expecting your bigotry and hatred of religion to be taken as the valid position to start from. that's begging the question. you have not proved anything about religion you just demand that we all hate it with you.

until you make a reason argument I will not talk to trolls

From an article online by Andrea Perkins,

Originally Posted by Deist

I did my homework and found out that the country’s leading researcher and court appointed expert on serpent-handling sects lives in Chattanooga, where he teaches at the University of Tennessee. Dr. Ralph Hood is originally from California, though with his long white beard and predilection for denim, he says he always gets mistaken for a hillbilly.
"There is little or no difference between a fundamentalist in Bali and one in Tennessee," he said one morning from a green leather arm chair that looked like a toad stool that had sprouted up among the piles of books and papers in his cluttered office.

"One just happens to take up snakes?" I said.

"Serpents," he corrected. "They prefer the term serpents, because snakes are not poisonous. Serpents are."

When someone does dies of snake bite, it means that he or she must not have been "anointed" by the spirit to do so. Handlers don’t believe that you should just go around picking up poisonous snakes any old time. Only when the spirit "moves on you" should you express and rejoice in your faith in this way.

Hood likes to film serpent-handling meetings. He has amassed a sizable library of such tapes, including old super 8 footage of services in the fifties. Hood said the serpent handlers liked and trusted him because he didn’t patronize them, or treat them like precious oddities. For him, they were no stranger then anyone else who decides to take something literally. In fact, he seemed to admire their gumption.

"You’ve got to be awed by that kind of faith," he said. "That kind of commitment to faith. For them, there is only the supremacy of The Word. And The Word is law. These people would sacrifice their lives for the word of god. The thing that people don’t understand is that it is completely rational. These people are far from crazy. They operate by a kind of logic."

So what’s logical about picking up a copperhead and waving it around your head?

"What’s rational about communion?" asks Dr. Ralph Hood. "Why doesn’t it seem odd to us that people ingest the blood and body of Jesus Christ? Because it’s familiar. Strangeness comes from distance."

Meta, the above article is about your famous Ralph Hood. I think everyone here will agree that he is, in fact, a religious whacko with only half a brain. I care less about his alleged degree. He's a loon. You can call me a troll all you want to avoid seeing the truth, Meta. You need to trash this silly M Scale stuff. It isn't helping you at all.

The guy not only LOOKS like a hillbilly. He's dumber than one.

He's studying the people who handle snakes. He's not there to ridiculing them. I know this is a conceptual challenge to ability o understand, that study means objectively look at it not trying to make them feel bad about who they are.

part of his ridicule is based upon the fact that Hood's a good researcher and can be objective. that's what he's ridiculing him for.

He say "I did my homework." that's what the calls "homework" finding finding reasons to ridicule someone who is a giant in his field.


who else but a troll would consider "homework" to be gather material for mocking someone?


How utterly stupid is that? because Hood is not mocking snake handle he must be "a religious nutzo" (he called him before in the thread. the idea of objective study is totally foreign to him.

here's the article he linked to

city travel reporter. No ta schoolyard article at all. on web site about having fun in the bay area.

Stupid Atheist trick of the Week

arguing with Deist on CARM. the thread is an attempt (again) to mock and ridicule the subject matter of my arguments on religious experience. They are talking teh M scale by Ralph Hood which is a control for study of religious experience. A means of understanding if one has had real mystical experience or not.

There's really not much more to say. Taking anonymous loaded surveys that would be answered only by God believers, and then having a religious whacko interpret the answers and proclaim there is a God is hardly an unbiased study. I read up on this Hood guy, and see he's a religious nutzo. Everything he writes about revolves around religion. Just because he somehow got a PH D from Phoenix college or some other such "college" doesn't mean the guy has any credibility. What ELSE would a religios nut conclude frrom loaded surveys? That there is no God?

Originally Posted by Deist

There's really not much more to say.

not when you don't know what you are talking about.

you are not answering the quotes I put up. It hasn't occurred to you that the study in the Backup thread is corroboration of the M Scale.

Taking anonymous loaded surveys that would be answered only by God believers, and then having a religious whacko interpret the answers and proclaim there is a God is hardly an unbiased study.

In other words yu don't know what social scinece research is. it's alluded you that social science research involves hiding your purpose form the respondent so they don't answer the way you want. In other words you knowing about reserach!

I read up on this Hood guy, and see he's a religious nutzo.

No it doesn't. you is no source anywhere that say "Hood is religious nutzo." you are assuming because you don't' like his research, even though you don't sundress it.

you are assuming "He studies snake handlers so he must me one." that's proof you are a bigoted ignorant anti-intellectual pipsqueak who doesn't' undrestand social scineces.

My intro psychology professor was did a study on Transvestites but he not a transvestite do you understand?

Everything he writes about revolves around religion. Just because he somehow got a PH D from Phoenix college or some other such "college" doesn't mean the guy has any credibility. What ELSE would a religios nut conclude frrom loaded surveys? That there is no God?

that's is field Einstein. psychology of religion duh?

btw don't look now everything Dawkins rights is about religion does that mean he's a religious nutzo?

Review Victor Stenger's God The failed Hypotesis

In God The Failed Hypothesis, [1] Victor Stenger uses basically the same over all approach and the same objections disprove his argument, yet he makes more use of the fortress of facts concept. For him it’s not so much reduction of God to a big man in the sky as just the lack of hard tangible evidence of God’s DNA, smoking creation gun or other dead give-aways. His arguments are geared to a fundamentalist big man in the sky concept of God and he takes silence as proof, thus no evidence for God, in his mind, equals positive evidence of no God. He begins with a comparison of scientific method to what he takes to be “theological method.”[2] Of course his straw-man version of theological method has nothing to do with the way any modern theologian works. It’s clear from the outset that he is subjecting belief in God to scientific criteria but he’s expecting belief itself to transmute into a scientific hypothesis. After all if there’s only one form of knowledge, as the atheist ideology has it, then that’s what has to be done to have knowledge of something. What this tells us upfront is that we are dealing with the fortress of facts. We can’t allow religious people to have the belief they have. It has to be made over into the doppelganger of my scientific ideas, or it’s not worth considering. Of course that makes it into a straw-man argument because he’s doing nothing more than taking something beyond the domain of science and saying “hey look it’s not science.” He basically admits this when he says: “Objective evidence for an entity of Godlike attributes should be readily available. After all, God is supposed to play a deceive role in every happening in the world. Surely we should see some sign in objective observations made by our eyes…”[3] Should we? This is a theological question, not a question for science. Why should physicists decide what the parameters are for belief? Why should we expect God to be given in “objective” evidence when he’s not given in sense data? How can we expect that which is beyond our understanding, the basis of all that is, to be subject to empirical observations of beings in creation? What If God’s work consists primarily of holding the strong force together? How could we ever know that? We can’t know it by ordinary means, we might know it by intuitive or deductive or revelatory means. Why isn’t that extraordinary? When we do have objective evidence which we can see with our eyes and prove with medical science, such as the miracles at Lourdes, the atheists will merely evoke incredulity as though it’s a proof and refuse to believe the proof.[4]He clearly and unabashedly places God under the domain of science and makes a subject of scientific scrutiny. He proposes an approach that would cast belief in God as a scientific hypothesis. He proposes a “scientific God model.”[5]

Not content with just using scientific criteria he also evokes what is called ECREP (extraordinary claims requires extraordinary proof). Then he sets about listing conditions for extraordinary claims. One could easily argue that this is a false standard. In fact in my first book The Trace of God I do make this argument.[6] For the sake of argument I’ll accept it for now. These criteria include:

(1) Protocols of the study must be clear so that all possibilities of error can be evaluated…

(2) The hypothesis being tested must be established clearly and explicitly…

(3) People doing the study must have no pre judgment…

(4) The hypothesis being tested must contain seeds of its own destruction…

(5) Results must be independently replicated…[7]

No. 4 is vaguely reminiscent of Hegel or Marcuse, the thesis contains the seeds of its own negation.[8] What he’s really saying is it must be falsifiable. So he already has God starched out in the petri dish and is ready to dissect. He’s reduced God to the level of a scientific question. In evoking falsification, he’s saying under what conditions could this hypothesis be disproved? The unwary might think “it can’t be so it must be true.” No if it can’t be disproved under any conditions it can’t be proved either. The problem this only applies to empirical questions. The issue of falsification only applies to questions that are about things given in sense data.

God is not under the domain of science. The question of God is not a scientific one it’s an existential, ontological, or metaphysical question. The question of God is over and above anything about science, because science is about the empirical and God is not given in sense data. Indeed how could the basis of reality be subject to things in creation? Yet the reductionist tries to subject God to the mundane the material and it’s no wonder they don’t’ find anything. This is the ultimate bait and switch. This tendency to reduce God to the level of science is the result of the ideology that reduces all knowledge to scientific knowledge. Stenger knows that he’s coming up against the problem of overlapping magisteria (domains). He doesn’t like that God is off limits to science. He wants to subject the supernatural to the natural and assert its disproof, because he assumes that there’s one valid sort of knowledge; science. He argues with the national academy of sciences statement in chapter one about supernatural is beyond the study of science.

These scientists and science organizations that would limit science to the investigation of natural causes provide unwitting support for the assertion that science is dogmatically naturalistic…in many of the public discussions we hear today science is accused of dogmatically refusing to consider the possible role that other than natural processes may play in the universe…however, any type of dogmatism is the very antithesis of science.[9]

The problem is by limiting science they admit there maybe more and that they don’t posses the way to know things. In wanting to open everything up to science Stenger Is actually reducing everything to the natural level and implying that there be only one form of knowledge, which by default would have to be science. He’s really making a chatch 22 for religious thinkers, yet he also sows seeds of the negations of his own view. In trying to reduce everything to level of falsifiability he’s admitting that anything not reducible to that level is not under the domain of science. Of course he would probably assert that if it’s not testable by science it just can’t be. So the bait and switch in Stenger’s argument is clear. Reduce everything to the level of science, science doesn’t come up with evidence for God, then argue there must not be a God.

Stenger goes on to indulge in question begging by way of trying to justify stretching science over to fit the supernatural. He says that science can study the supernatural. Yet all he’s really saying is that there is no supernatural which will be proven if science attempts to stud it. All they could logically prove would be that they cant’ study the supernatural. Stenger of course will take the silence as proof because he predisposed to be incredulous about the supernatural. He never takes the dirth of data as an indication that it can’t be studied. It would have to be taken as proof that it’s not there and that’s what he wants.

The assertions that science does not study and that supernatural hypotheses are untestable are factually incorrect. Right under the noses of leaders of national science organizations who make these public statements, capable credentialed scientists are investigating the possibility of supernatural causes…reputable institutions such as the Mayo Clinic, Harvard University and Duke University are studying phenomena that, if verified, would provide would provide strong empirical support for the existence of some nonmaterial element in the universe. These experiments are designed to test the healing power of distant, blinded, intercessory prayer.[10]

It’s clear that Stenger’s purpose in bringing this up is to open up the supernatural to scientific critique so that absence of evidence can be constructed as the failure of empirical testing. The fact of question begging here should be obvious, he’s assuming that because some people study what he deems to be ‘supernatural’ therefore the whole of the supernatural (whatever that is) is opened up as a scientific question. Secondly, the studies he points to are about healing. Healing is only a small aspect of the spiritual and it’s debatable as to whether or not it’s supernatural at all. I would argue that modern concept of “supernatural” is misconstrued based upon concepts of the enlightenment. The term has come to mean anything not under the realm of science, anything form magic to a realm completely removed form the physical. I will deal with this at greater length latter.

Another problem with Stenger’s approach is that it’s a Grand Canyon leap in logic from healing (which is one manifestation if anything of the supernatural) to the conclusion that God’s very existence is a question for science. The question about the reality of God is much more basic and much harder to confront than the question of healing. Healing is an overlap, a point at which something spiritual touches the physical. Yet the reality of God is at the basis of all reality itself. Stenger is assuming that since the work is being done it must be possible to do it. That still doesn’t tell us anything. Suppose the study shows no significant findings proving any extra-naturalistic process. Does that really prove that there is no such process, or does it only mean that it’s out our epistemic reach? Stenger wants to beg the question and assert that because they did the work it be accurate and tell us all. Then he wants to extrapolate from that begged question to another: to extrapolate from the possibility of no demonstration of healing the assumption that there must not be a God.. Rather he wants to use this to establish the assumption that his cosmological opinions really prove something about God’s existence.

I will not belabor the points he makes about reasoning and logic in God arguments. He does deal with some of that on a certain level, in fact he spends a lot pages doing just that. I’m going pass over most of that because the real issue according his own exposition is what science itself has to offer in terms of the big disproof of God. Yet it is instructive to look one most unserious attempt:

(1) God is by definition a being that which no greater being can be thought

(2) Greatness includes the greatness of virtue

(3) God is a being then of which no being can be more virtuous.

(4) But virtue involves overcoming pain and danger.

(5) Indeed a being can only said to be properly virtuous if it can suffer pain or be destroyed

(6) A God that can suffer pain or is destructible is not one that which nothing greater than an be conceived.

(7) For you can think of a greater being one that is non suffering and indestructible

(8) Therefore, God does not exist.[11]

Notice that doesn’t provide any logical problem for the concept of God itself. It’s just one persons idea of God, not one any real theist believes in. Who says God is under the same constraints of virtue that humans are? The idea of virtue and suffering is not applicable to God. Can God even said to be virtuous? If virtue is something creatures of God develop thorugh obeidiecne to God then obviously God is beyond the aspect of virtue, that wouldn’t prevent God form being perfect morally; it would merely mean that virtue for humans an aspect of character we develop. God is source of moral perfection. Even if we assume the argument is right all it’s disproved in one argument, from perfection. It has not shown a logical contradiction in the idea of God per se.

Definition of VIRTUE

1

a : conformity to a standard of right : morality b : a particular moral excellence

2

plural : an order of angels — see celestial hierarchy

3

: a beneficial quality or power of a thing

4

: manly strength or courage : valor

5

: a commendable quality or trait : merit

6

: a capacity to act : potency

7

: chastity especially in a woman

— vir·tue·less adjective

— by virtue of or in virtue of [12]

None of these qualies would fit God except 1 or 3. Those don’t entail suffering. 4 entails courage that’s the virtue of valor but God is not said to have valor, he doesn’t need it. Of God is not going to have “a commendable trait” because that would degrade God, which all Stenger does. This just another example of demoting God ot the level of main and treating God like a human. Notice the one thing he does not do (he offers many many such misguided joke arguments, although he presents them seriously) he never deals with the tradition of theology or philosophy. He makes no effort to reflect what’s been said by the tradition. As though he thinks science is the only from of knowledge, therefore, scientists are the priesthood of knowledge. Therefore, philosopher’s ideas are not worth considering. This is the kind of vapid nonsense he churns out because he knows too much to consult the experts in a field of which he knows nothing.

He never does actually get around to a scientific smoking gun. He has no great insight or scientific facts that would actually disprove the experience of God. All he ever does is argue from silence by knocking down straw-man versions of arguments such as the fine tuning argument then assuming if these arguments are down there is no argument that proves God, thus absence of evidence is the same as disproof. All of these arguments turn on reducing God the proportions of humanity and then judging the Big man in the sky. He basically admits this modus operandi:

The scientific argument against the existence of God will be modified from the lack of evidence argument:

(1) Hypothesize a God who plays an important role in the universe.

(2) Assume that God has specific attributes that should provide objective evidence for his existence.

(3) Look for such evidence with an open mind

(4) If such evidence is found conclude that God may exist

(5) If such objective evidence is not found conclude that beyond a reasonable doubt that God with these properties does not exist.[13]

Most of the positive evidence he presents is just proof of evolution, which is only a problem for creationists, meaning only a problem for adherents to particular idea of God. Thus we see the atheist straw-God at work. The statement above not only conclusively proves that Stenger is reducing God to science, but that his arguments fail a prori. Premise one is granted, even if that role is merely creating the universe, or just savhing people. Number 2 is a straw-God claim. Why should there be objective evidence for God’s role? That would depend upon the nature of the role. What if the major evidence for God is subjective? That’s only a dirty word to atheists. There’s nothing particularly dirty about subjective proof and there’s nothing illogical about it. There’s no reason why the major evidence for God can’t be subjective. After all we are subjective creatures and every single thing we perceive comes to us form subjective experiences. There’s no logical reason why God is logically bound to produce objective evidence. Number 3 is a lost cause. Stenger has proved he do that because he wont even examine Lourdes miracles. Number 4 takes out Stenger’s thesis because we will present such evidence, the Lourdes miracle which he will not examine are such evidence. Number five takes out his thesis because strong enough evidence can be found to at least provide a reasonable doubt in favor of belief. In other words the strength of Stenger’s case doesn’t meet the stipulate of “beyond a reasonable doubt” even if you grant him his moves of the “scientific God hypothesis.” This will be seen in subsequent chapters.

He does actually try to show that cosmologically the universe looks like the kind of universe we would have without a God assuming naturalistic developments.[14] That’s misleading because he doesn’t deal the cosmological argument, or necessity and contingency. Of course he’s not dealing with the major modern issues in theology such as process theology. None of his arguments apply to modern liberal concepts of God. In fact they apply to orthodox concepts either. The whole new atheist movement is aimed at Christian fundamentalism.He's applying the standards of biology to the basis of all reality as though we have a lock on understanding all there, when in reality, we don't know beans about the whys and wherefores, or what's out there.

This is why religious experience and religious life have to be approached as an existential journy not as a scientific hypothesis.

---

[1] Victor J. Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis:How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 2007.

[2] Ibid. 22-23

[3] ibid 22

[4] Lourdes find

[5] Stenger, ibid, 41

[6] Trace of God chapter 2 find.

[7] Stenger, ibid, 24-25

[8] Herbert Macruse, Negations

[9] Stenger, ibid, 28

[10] ibid, 29

[11] ibid, 31

[12] Merrain-Webser’s on line dictionary. URL: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/virtue visited 6/26/12

[13] Stenger, ibid, 43

[14] ibid, 113