To Waterboy (and to anyone else who understood what he was saying),

Thanks for helping to interpret Sells. I need all the help I can get. But I’m also scratching my head for some of your sayings. You conclude your previous day's post alleging that the creation v. evolution and faith v. atheism debates are only for the ignorant. Are all such arguments really invalid? Is so, then why have so many philosophers wasted so much of their time over the centuries?

Are you saying that there are no clear distinctions to be made between the creation and evolution positions? Are the differences between theism and atheism only to be discussed by those who don’t understand them?

Is there no difference between night and day, black and white? Does it require an enlightened person to say that apples and oranges are really one and the same? Are those who play Australian Rules football and those who play rugby all going to wake up one day and realise that they’re playing the same game?

Taking what you say a little further, when are we going to realise that that this web site is pointless, that debating anything is pointless, as there are no real distinctions between major categories? For if we scratch the surface a little deeper, we’d all realise that we all really agree with each other.

I do not consider myself ignorant of the philosophical underpinnings of science and religion. However, when I’m asked to swallow that theism and atheism can be defined as somehow amounting to one and the same thing, I think we’re in danger of entering a zone where words become meaningless.

Is this the logical conclusion of discussing a Peter Sellick article, or should we conclude that all debate is meaningless and pack up this web site?

I was going to keep my peace in this thread and observe for a distance, but . . .

I would like to say, Peter, that I think you take things too far when you use bushfires as a prop to support your anti-establishment stance.

Where this post was really going, however, was to help others to understand why people who support the idea of intelligent design can also be content with evolution. This seems to cause some consternation at times. Certainly, if we are to take the Book of Genesis as a literal account, we can be troubled. I doubt that all of mankind stemmed from Adam and Eve. There's the obvious issue that, by the time Cain killed Abel, there were many nations out there to cast him out because he bore the 'Mark of Cain'. If Adam and Eve were the only inhabitants of the world before this time, they must have been busy . . .

On the other hand, if we are to take the creation story as a bit of a parable, and look at the acts of Adam and Eve as the moral (do the wrong thing and you end up losing the good things you had), it doesn't have to be thrown out completely. My Church teaches that Jesus was the physical, human manifestation of God Himself. Jesus taught using parables - there never was, for example, a prodigal son; rather, it was a device used to prove a point. Now, if the Bible is indeed inspired by God (who taught with parables), then why can't the Old Testament books contain - or be made almost entirely of - parables?

Certainly people are entitled to disagree. I don't believe that the world was created in six days; I do, however, feel comfortable with the idea that there may well be an intelligent design behind it all.

Oh wow Oto, the Old Testament might be made up of parables?
That totally blows my mind. Who would have thought? Really insightful stuff there. Keep it up.

Hey, instead of trying to reconcile two apparently opposing camps, why don't you have a really serious think about what is the most likely to be true. If you have problems with recognising truth, or what is the most likely, I recommend Karl Popper (with the caveat that you have to read the later of his works alongside the earlier, as he had the utmost integrity of admitting mistakes).

I have been getting a bit of stick about my complaints that the Victorian Bushfires are the fault of atheists. We have had a lot of debate about science as well; How about a bit of cause and effect. Everyone can make the connection between excess fuel, and a roaring bushfire, but it may be a little harder to make a connection between an Atheist Magistrate and Judge, and a buildup of fuel.

A state of fear is generated by atheist Judges and Magistrates. The landowning public are prevented by State government regulations made to capture the city green vote, from doing anything as a hazard reduction. No jury would convict a person for preventing such conflagrations, but an atheist Magistrate would and have done so.

Atheists have put Judges and Magistrates in the position of Almighty God for the personal gain of a great many of their believers. Instead of free access to justice, as the Magna Carta requires, it is now sold. The Magna Carta says in cl 29, We will sell to no one either justice or right. What is the Royal We? It is the plural of Almighty God and the Queen or King.

When Jesus Christ got really angry he plaited a whip, and drove the money changers and men of commerce out of the temple. In 1870, the English admitted lawyers back into Parliament after banning them for 498 years. These atheists, who worship the law instead of the lawgiver, promptly gave one of their number power to award costs, even if no trial had been concluded. This made a Magistrate or Judge really powerful. The Magistrates and Judges are truly to be feared. They are gods, and totally an atheist creation. The Constitution says judges so why do Judges deny.

It’s forty three years, since in 1966, Menzies made Judges, without a jury trial capable of making any person bankrupt for orders, awarded by a Judge or Magistrate, without any trial whatsoever; lawyers have become an atheist curse. Christianity separates church and state, by jury trials in a Church/court and abolishes fear.

Once again Waterboy, very well put.
I particularly like this paragraph:
"I speak of friendship and love only as examples of how we are formed out of the subject to subject relationships we participate in and that 'knowledge' of God is knowledge of this type, that being known by God we are 'created' into something more than the sum of our physical parts."
This echoes an argument (see www.thecomensality.com) I have been making for some time now about the true basis of egalitarianism; that it rests on the fact that none of us has any control over any the things that make us who we are, such as genetic inheritance, peers, and as you put it, subject to subject relationships.
Of course, as you clearly understand, this does not require the actual existence of God, to modify the essence of the individual.
It only the requires the belief.
I'm quite certain I am in some measure a product of having been raised in the Christian religion.
In fact, my disbelief in a personal God stems directly from that sunday school teaching.
How could I revere a God who so blatantly plays favorites; who relentlessly pursues his/it's own agenda in complete disregard for it's own adherents; who demands worship and offers nothing in return; in short, acts in a completely non christian manner?
I have nothing against people who believe in a God. If it comforts them, good luck to them.
Which conveniently closes the circle. Yes, it is Sells God which I don't believe in.
Well, actually I don't believe in any God, at least within this Cosmos.
But I particularly don't believe in the Christian God.

crabsy, no worries. with all the heat, it's hard to tell what to engage in. that's my criticism of sellick. he's not interested in engaging, only pretending to do so with deliberately provocative and misdirecting articles. of course i don't expect him to engage with me, since i (accurately) identified him as a clown. but he doesn't engage with anyone.

waterboy:

<<You both seem concerned, and rightly so, to preserve objectivity as a key attribute of knowledge particularly in relation to scientific knowledge.>>

waterboy, yes, for me at least, that's pretty much true. but doesn't say it all.

i don't think i have any great objection to what you write. as for other ways of "knowing", i prefer the word "understanding" to "knowing". certainly the way i understand my world, especially aspects of my world most important to me, goes well beyond science, or anything i'd regard as clear, quantifiable truth. (even if ultimately i believe that's all we are: a bunch of atoms, etc). i'm much less comfortable phrasing it as my knowing my world. that just has, for me, too much connotation of certainty, of definiteness. it sounds arrogant.

a lot of confusion we non-religious guys have is with the words you religious (i prefer spiritual) guys use. you like the word "god", otokonoko likes the expression "intelligent design". but, you don't mean "guy with beard, in sky", and otokonoko (i think) doesn't mean "junk science promoted by dishonest special-pleading pseudoscientific loons". but others, using the same words, pretty much do.

i would probably still disagree a lot (otokonoko, what i see is non-intelligent pattern), but i think you have to think about your words. do you really need them?

do you *really* need the word "god"? why? why not leave it to the literalising types? what would you lose?