Amazon Rankings of "The Case against Miracles" (CaM)
Currently it's ranked 1st in Atheism Kindle New Releases and 3rd in Atheism Kindle Best Sellers over-all! Be the first kid on your block to get it! ;-) It'll be released this Friday I'm told.
I flatter myself, that I have discovered an argument...which, if just, will, with the wise and learned, be an everlasting check to all kinds of superstitious delusion, and consequently, will be useful as long as the world endures. – “Of Miracles” by David Hume (1711-1776).No one likes an arrogant person. No one likes to be ridiculed for what they think either. What if Hume didn't say this? What if he played nice with believers? What if he had toned down his rhetoric? What we know is that no one likes to be taunted, belittled, or called ignorant, or delusional. Yet this is what Hume did. Doing so brings believers out of their caves to debate, and debate Hume they have. It's as if what Hume said had a self-fulfilling effect to it.
So our over-all conclusion should be that the Christian religion not only was at first accompanied by miracles, but even now cannot be believed by any reasonable person without a miracle. Mere reason is insufficient to convince us of its truth; and anyone who is moved by faith to assent to it is conscious of a continued miracle in his own person—one that subverts all the principles of his understanding and gives him a determination to believe what is most contrary to custom and experience.Then at the end of Hume's Enquiry itself, he concluded:
If we take in our hand any volume; of divinity or school metaphysics, for instance; let us ask, Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number? No. Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence? No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.Whew. Them's fighting words! And believers have been fighting with Hume ever since. Now I've written a lot to justify the use of ridicule. Hume used it brilliantly. He was also arrogant. He knew the effect that arrogance, inflammatory rhetoric and ridicule would have on believers, when most everyone else thought it was better to engage them with respect. Bravo to Hume!
Labels: Case against Miracles, David Hume, Ridicule
Labels: "Flannagan", Outsider Test, Outsider Test Links
Labels: "Faith", Denigrate Science to Believe
For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid— not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked—to make sure the other fellow can tell they’ve been eliminated. Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can—if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong—to explain it. . . . In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
Labels: Counter Apologist Stance
We just released another short film which compiles the back and forth between Sir Roger Penrose and William Lane Craig. I think it shows Craig either not understanding cosmology or being dishonest about. When asked about Penrose's cyclic model Craig said it wasn't a cyclic model and it has a definite beginning. Penrose said that was wrong. Craig then doubled down and we went back , not just to Penrose, but also his colleagues. They all said Craig didn't understand relativity.
We also show that Craig quotes Penrose saying the universe is fine tuned for life. But Penrose himself says he doesn't believe in fine tuning. He also said he agreed with Sean Carrroll's point that the entropy clearly isn't fine tuned for life. This despite the fact that Penrose's name was trotted out by Craig as someone supporting fine tuning.
Lastly in his discussion with Lawrence Krauss , Craig said to the audience his co author James Sinclair, is a physicist. We show that claim is extremely dubious.