tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post6954420644000723402..comments2024-03-27T09:11:00.450-04:00Comments on Incinerating Presuppositionalism: Kreeft on the Design ArgumentBahnsen Burnerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11030029491768748360noreply@blogger.comBlogger11125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post-51741749918075594152009-12-15T08:50:32.712-05:002009-12-15T08:50:32.712-05:00Nal wrote:
"While RK may think your posts ar...Nal wrote:<br /><br />"While RK may think your posts are verbose, I find them detailed."<br /><br />I appreciate this. It's an important distinction, one which RK has missed. For that matter, it'd be nice to see a little more detail from the presup camp. But they're not very diligent when it comes to fleshing out the details. They make some very tall claims, but under examination there's very little substance, and what little substance is found turns out to be shaky obfuscation.<br /><br />As for the Continued Reading function, I've always wondered how bloggers did that. Thanks! I might try it on my next (as <a href="http://www.choosinghats.com/?p=208" rel="nofollow">Chris Bolt</a> would call it) "lengthy, arrogant post."<br /><br />Regards,<br />DawsonBahnsen Burnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11030029491768748360noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post-58767428659081911812009-12-13T12:22:02.289-05:002009-12-13T12:22:02.289-05:00While RK may think your posts are verbose, I find ...While RK may think your posts are verbose, I find them detailed. <br /><br />Also, I would like to see you add a <a href="http://www.videobloggingtips.com/2008/11/continue-reading-blogger.html" rel="nofollow">Continue Reading</a> feature to your posts. If it's not too much trouble.NALhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12244370945682162312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post-48167997462451550022009-12-06T00:58:56.712-05:002009-12-06T00:58:56.712-05:00Thanks for pointing that out to me, Harold. I had ...Thanks for pointing that out to me, Harold. I had not seen RK's comment until now. It took him 3 months to make any kind of reply. <br /><br />It's always curious to me when apologists remark at the volume of a non-Christian's writings devoted to examining a defense of theism. Look how much in terms of volume Christians have devoted to their defenses! Think of how many very lengthy books have been published just on the resurrection of Jesus. Look at Bahnsen's 700+ page doorstop of a book on Van Til's presuppositionalism. I don't come close to holding a candle in the "impressively verbose" department.<br /><br />RK says that "the casual reader... will be singularly unimpressed." Perhaps he's an authority on this. My targeted audience has never been the "casual reader." I don't think many "casual readers" would even begin to read anything by me - they're too absorbed with Steven King and TV Guide. <br /><br />But to answer your question, Harold, so far I've seen zero interaction with my pieces from RK. If there's something wrong with my analysis of his case for Christian epistemology, I don't expect that we'll be learning what it is from him.<br /><br />Regards,<br />DawsonBahnsen Burnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11030029491768748360noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post-21301640650824457922009-12-05T09:00:46.794-05:002009-12-05T09:00:46.794-05:00Eh, that's supposed to be "Razorskiss&quo...Eh, that's supposed to be "Razorskiss"Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10897769844874861468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post-35875097549263749012009-12-05T08:22:56.832-05:002009-12-05T08:22:56.832-05:00Great article.
As a side note, I was going to ask...Great article.<br /><br />As a side note, I was going to ask if you'd received any response from "Razorkiss" on your series of posts refuting his arguments.<br /><br />Then I saw <a href="http://razorskiss.net/wp/2009/08/08/debate-transcript/#comment-320069" rel="nofollow">this:</a><br /><br /><i>"Dawson,<br />While you are quite impressively verbose - I think that the casual reader, upon examination of your mountains of verbiage inspired by this debate will be singularly unimpressed. In fact, it reminded me most strikingly of exactly what my position was. In any position not grounded in the Triune God of Scripture, logical thought just doesn’t happen properly."</i><br><br>Indeed.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10897769844874861468noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post-14589731671309189772009-11-24T15:37:51.867-05:002009-11-24T15:37:51.867-05:00Remove one of the characteristics necessary for Go...Remove one of the characteristics necessary for God to exist--say, omnipotence--and God cannot exist. So it seems that the divine "universe" must have been designed, somehow, to allow for all of the divine characteristics to exist simultaneously. I guess that means the divine universe, and by extension, God, was fine-tuned... Of course, the Christian will undoubtedly go down the special pleading road and tell us that God's case is different... ;-)<br /><br />I was wondering if anyone thought of applying this argument to God before?Robert Moranehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00706576618914923528noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post-90842325875827936062009-11-22T13:42:08.629-05:002009-11-22T13:42:08.629-05:00Interesting article
Firstly, as NAL says, the fac...Interesting article<br /><br />Firstly, as NAL says, the fact that this guy is a professor of philosophy at a relatively good university is shocking - his ideas that you've presented here are literally a non-stop stream of assertions, straw-men, bogus probability arguments (if there's one thing apologists seem to really love doing, it's making faulty use of mathematical ideas) and so on. <br /><br /><br />Secondly, I'm surprised people still bother with the argument from design, it's one of the weakest theistic proofs going in my book.<br /><br />It took a substantial knock from Hume a couple of hundred years back (many of the things you point out he mentions also, such as the fact ordered structures such as crystals and snowflakes can form via unthinking mechanical processes), then the development of Darwin's theory of natural selection acting on sources of variation provided a well-evidenced means by which order/complexity can arise in biology.<br /><br />I think something else you also noted and that Kreeft concedes is that even if we were to accept the argument as sound, it tells us nothing about the 'designer' whatsoever - too many apologists pull this move with the various theistic arguments such as the AfD, cosmological argument, transcendental argument etc - ie they jump from the conclusion that 'therefore a god exists' to 'therefore God exists, created the world in 6 days, sent his son who was born of a virgin to die for us and left us with a 1200 page long infallible guide to life that everyone should take as absolute truth', which is obviously a complete non-sequitur.<br /><br /><br />Another thing in your article that caught my eye was Peter Pike's comparison of information and DNA. Unfortunately for Pike/Triablogue, it's fairly apparent that he/they know little if anything about information theory, since the article states:<br /><br />"B) Information cannot arise from a random, non-directed process."<br /><br />In actual fact in information theory maximal randomness produces the maximal amount of information. As computer scientist Mark Chu-Carroll states here<br /><br />http://scienceblogs.com/goodmath/2008/08/why_is_randomness_informative.php<br /><br />"Imagine you have a string of symbols. (In information theory, we describe everything as strings of symbols.) Now suppose you want to tell someone else how to write down the same string of symbols. The amount of information in the string is the length of the shortest description you can give them that allows them to write down the same string."<br /><br /><br />Chu-Carroll goes on to point out<br /><br />"Informational complexity is well-defined by information, and it's got a precise meaning. The precise definitions vary between algorithmic information theory (Kolmogorov-Chaitin) and communication information theory (Shannon), but the basic concept underlying both is the same, and they agree that complexity is related to information content, and maximum information content (and thus maximum complexity) is perfect randomness.<br /><br /><b>There is no information theory that says randomness doesn't maximize information content and complexity. None!</b> This is something that you see frequently from the clueless about information theory: they really don't like the idea that randomness contains maximum information, and they assert that not all information theory agrees with that - like the statement above" maximal randomness = maximal complexity is not true for all information theories"; but they never actually cite any kind of information theory at all - because there is none that does what they want. They're sure that there must be, because K/C and Shannon seem wrong. <b>But there is no such theory, no matter how much you may want one to exist.</b>"<br /><br />(emphases mine)<br /><br /><br />Touchstone also has a couple of excellent critiques on DC showing why Pike is flat wrong in pretty much everything he says regarding information theory<br /><br />http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008/08/peter-pike-and-calvinist-information.html<br /><br />http://debunkingchristianity.blogspot.com/2008/08/calvinist-information-theory-redux.htmlRocky Rodenthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03620894198842461714noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post-34971384583349136952009-11-22T10:04:30.447-05:002009-11-22T10:04:30.447-05:00Kreeft:
f the temperature of the primal fireball...Kreeft: <br /><br /><b>f the temperature of the primal fireball that resulted from the Big Bang some fifteen to twenty billion years ago, which was the beginning of our universe, had been a trillionth of a degree colder or hotter, the carbon molecule that is the foundation of all organic life could never have developed.</b> <br /><br />1) The age of the universe is 13.73 billion years old. <br />2) There's a carbon atom, not a carbon molecule. <br />3) Carbon atoms were not developed in the big bang. They are formed via nucleosynthesis. Maybe he's claiming that a trillionth of a degree difference would have meant that stars wouldn't have formed and hence, carbon wouldn't have formed. Maybe he just doesn't know what he's talking about.NALhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12244370945682162312noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post-2808722041838465832009-11-22T00:51:00.489-05:002009-11-22T00:51:00.489-05:00Hello Nal & OpenlyAtheist,
Thanks for your co...Hello Nal & OpenlyAtheist,<br /><br />Thanks for your comments.<br /><br />Regarding Kreeft: Yes, it is surprising how shoddy his defense of the design argument is, especially given his celebrity status among Christian apologists. You may have thought he was just another internet apologist since so many internet apologists take him as their model. I wonder if Christians for whom Kreeft is a beloved champion ever notice that he offers no defense whatsoever on behalf of his own argument’s second premise, while focusing primarily on the first, which is far less controversial, depending on what constitutes “design” (which he never defines). If I were a Christian apologist, I would be quite disappointed with Kreeft. But then again maybe not. If I were a Christian apologist, I probably would not know any better.<br /><br />And yes, Nal, you’re correct: Geocities closed all the free sites they were hosting, so I ponied up some hard-earned credit and bought a domain from Yahoo Small Business and moved all my stuff over to the new site. The main URL is: <a href="http://www.katholon.com/" rel="nofollow"> http://www.katholon.com/</a>. The “www” seems to be optional; with or without it, you’ll still get to my site. One good thing is that now I have virtually unlimited space, where before I had to create additional free accounts to hold my ever-bulging content. ;)<br /><br />Openly, I love all the points you make, thanks for posting these well-thought-out remarks. In regard to the “possible universes” idea, you’re right: any actually existing universe could, on the basis of the myriad alternatives open to the imagination, be said to be one in a trillion. It’s like pulling four aces from the top of a shuffled deck of cards. What are the odds of that? Well, precisely the same as any other combination one might pick on any other occasion. Drawing all four aces is just as unique as drawing the king of hearts, the ten of spades, the seven of hearts and the three of clubs. But typically we don’t ooh and ah this latter result, since we do not ascribe the same significance to it. But the uniqueness is statistically and probabilistically equivalent.<br /><br />The rest of your points are also worthy of consideration.<br /><br />As for the criticisms of Rand and Objectivism on the site you linked at, the naked bumbling on display there is too silly to take seriously (notice that no one interacts with anything Rand actually stated), but sadly it’s quite typical. They are effectively broadcasting their own ignorance of the topic they’re discussing. But hey, if they want to endorse altruism, go ahead. Just don’t blame Objectivists when they take it to its logical conclusion. <br /><br />Regards,<br />DawsonBahnsen Burnerhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11030029491768748360noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post-38172457638273351512009-11-21T18:44:16.837-05:002009-11-21T18:44:16.837-05:00Excellent article. So many fallacies to the design...Excellent article. So many fallacies to the design argument, so little time.<br /><br />Possible universes: Apologists exhibit a bizarre sense of probability. If there were a 1-in-a-trillion chance for this universe to exist, out of a continuum of other universes, all other universes in the set would be no more likely to exist. All possible universes would be equally improbable. So there would be nothing unusual about any particular universe coming about.<br /><br />Furthermore, apologists don’t apply this standard of probability to their God. If a God is omnipotent, surely it has a virtually unlimited number of possible avenues of action to take at any given moment. What would be the odds of God taking the singular action to produce this universe as opposed to the virtually infinite number of other actions he could take? Surely the odds of an omnipotent being taking any particular action whatsoever is far worse than 1-in-a-trillion.<br /><br />The beach analogy: Apologists are dishonest in their analogies. They say, “If I find a watch in a field, I determine it was designed.” They should really say, “If I find nothing in a field, I determine the field was designed.” Apologists begin with Naturalism and co-opt man-made vs. natural design comparisons; such as placing a watch in a non-watch-making context. But in what context could one place the universe to make the analogy apt?<br /><br />Fine-tuning vs. Omnipotence: Apologists proclaim that if the constants of the universe were different, life as we know it could not be. But this would not be the case if there were a God, for an omnipotent being doesn’t have to play by the rules. An omnipotent God could create a universe with radically different physical constants and merely declare life to exist anyway, because he wishes it. Didn’t God create angels before the universe? Are they not alive? What did God fine-tune to make sure that angels could live?<br /><br />And if said God created a universe with radically different constants, it too would be a product of design, but without the very traits apologists use to detect design in this one. So how does an apologist tell the difference between a universe God designs to house life, and a universe God creates to be desolate? And how did the apologist gain access to a set of these other universes in order to make the comparison?<br /><br />On an unrelated note, Dawson, I thought you might get a kick out of some poorly done <a href="http://www.freeratio.org/showthread.php?t=278502" rel="nofollow">criticisms of Objectivism</a> I recently found.openlyatheisthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03799132607816184980noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11714522.post-22341642957202423192009-11-21T16:39:35.159-05:002009-11-21T16:39:35.159-05:00Based on the pitiful arguments from Peter Kreeft, ...Based on the pitiful arguments from Peter Kreeft, I thought he was just some internet blogger. Imagine my surprise to learn that he has a PhD in philosophy and is a professor of philosophy at Boston College. He should be ashamed. <br /><br />BTW, the old geocities site is gone. Here's the link to the square circles article: <br /><br />http://katholon.com/squarecircles.htmNALhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12244370945682162312noreply@blogger.com