On Creationism

I watch Atlas Shrugged on a streaming-service last night. This is a three movie marathon, and not for the faint-hearted. I was motivated to do so mostly because the book by Ayn Rand is referenced a lot in the video game Bioshock. Ayn uses the book to espouse her philosophy, which can be considered super-capitalism. Quoting Wiki: Rand called her philosophy "Objectivism", describing its essence as "the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute". She considered Objectivism a systematic philosophy and laid out positions on metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, political philosophy, and aesthetics. Philosophy The protagonist is Dagny who runs a railroad company in depression-torn 2017 (the first movie was released in 2011). The company is owned by her brother James, and most of the first two books is about the political shenanigans he, other...

Christmas is but six weeks away, and our thoughts turn inevitably to the dubious claims of a virgin birth... Looking only at Luke's account, it is interesting to note that it is actually consistent with an angel visiting the virgin Mary and telling her she would conceive, Mary then going to tell Elizabeth about it, and staying with Elizabeth three months, then returning home to her family. She then had sex with Joseph, conceiving Jesus with the help of the Holy Spirit. Luke 1:31 And behold, you will conceive in your womb and give birth to a son, and you shall name Him Jesus. ... 34 But Mary said to the angel, “How will this be, since I [v]am a virgin?” 35 The angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; for that reason also the [w]holy Child will be called the Son of God. 36 And behold, even your relative Elizabeth herself has conceived a son in her old age, and [x]she who was called infertile is now in her...

Hartshorne's argument is a development of Anselm's ontological argument. From here : The argument’s logical symbols are the tilde (~) for negation, the arrow (→) for strict implication, M for “is logically possible” (thus, “~M~” means “is logically necessary”), and p* stands for “God exists,” where God is defined as “a being unsurpassable by any other conceivable being.” (In Hartshorne’s dipolar theism, the divine can, in some senses, surpass itself but it is unsurpassable by any other being). The argument is presented as follows: Mp* Mp* → ~M~p* Therefore, ~M~p* If that is not clear, an easier to understand version can be found from Joe Hinman here and here : (1) If God exists, he must exist necessarily, if God does not exist his existence is impossible. (2) Therefore, God is either necessary or impossible. (3) God can be conceived without contradiction (4) therefore, God is not impossible (5) Since God is not impossible he must be necessary . (6) Since god is necessary he ...

Nouveau (now posting as "Authentic Nouveau"), is a poster on CARM. His posts are barely coherent, but he frequently likes to pretend that Darwin was racist and that Hitler based his ideas on Darwinism. Here is a recent sample (from  here , but note that CARM frequently delete old threads, so the link may not work in a few months). Nazis love to claim Hitler was a Christian. KKK were of the same Devil that Atheeists obey. Can you name the documented liar who lies time and again about Ananias and saphira? Lastly, Atheeists in their pride of dishonesty can't quote The Lord Jesus Christ who defines HIS kingdom Satan doesn't give you permission to quote the Bible correctly. You also are not given permission to accuse Stalin and misc other brutal and wicked atheeist ring leaders. I addressed the lie that Darwin was racist here . I have addressed the lie that Hitler used Darwinism here . More recently, I also made a post pointing out these claims are more true of Christiani...

I came across this book in a discussion with Joe Hinman; it is freely available on line here . The author is one of the founders of Liberty University. It is a history of the world - assuming creationism is right. I thought it might be fun to read it. It starts unconventionally by saying God created a whole bunch of stuff before the creation week: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” is a summary statement that includes all that went before the first creative day (i.e., heavens) and all the Creation of the next six days. Time and space begin in Genesis 1:1. Fall of Lucifer He does this to make room for the fall of Lucifer, of which he say: The fall of Lucifer occurred before the seven days of Creation. He goes on to say of angels: Only three are specifically named in Scripture: Lucifer, Michael, and Gabriel. That is not actually true; Lucifer is never named as an angel. It is symptomatic of his approach to the fall of that supposed angel, which is to say, he grabs v...

Theists often use morality to try to prove the existence of God. William Lane Craig's argument Possibly the best know is William Lane Craig's argument , one form of which is: 1. If God does not exist, objective moral values do not exist. 2. Objective moral values do exist. 3. Therefore, God exists. The conclusion certainly follows from the premises, but are the premises true? I see no reason to suppose they are, and until the premises are proven, the conclusion remains unproven. Let us think about why we need God for objective moral values to exist... Indeed, how is the existence of objective moral values even consistent with God? Consider the issue of slavery. If slavery is morally wrong, then either God arbitrarily choose for slavery to be morally wrong - that is, he was free to choose either way - or it was not an arbitrary choice. Either it was possible that God could have make slavery moral or it was not.  In the former case, the claim that slavery is immoral is, well, arb...

 Many Christians cite the guards on the tomb as good evidence for the resurrection, claiming that they are pretty much a historical fact. In contrast, I hold that the guards were made up. How would this have played out? Jesus was real, and was know to be real to the Jews (i.e., the non-Christian Jews) of the time that Matthew was written. The story of the Empty Tomb was already circulating by then (whether true or not), as Mark had already been written, and so the Jews (some at least) also knew that the Christians were claiming an Empty Tomb as part of their apologetic. As a reaction to the claims of an empty tomb, some Jews were saying that the disciples had stolen the body. So far, I do not think any of this is particularly contentious. In this environment, the author of Matthew wrote his gospel. This would have been a community effort. Probably one person did the writing, but the book represented the collective view of the community, and that community invented the guards on the...

To be fair, this is based on a magazine article published in 1909, nevertheless,I feel fairly safe saying the science is from the nineteenth century.  The blog post is here : A new edition of Wallace book, Intelligent Evolution: How Wallace’s World of Life Challenged Darwinism, is out now, edited by science historian Michael Flannery.  It is worth pointing out that Wallace published a book, Darwinism , in which he defended much of Darwin's ideas, and was itself foundational for neo-Darwinism, as it moved the theory away from inheritance of acquired characteristics . However, Wallace did hold to teleology, i.e., that evolution was directed. This is, of course, what appeals to the creationists at the DI... And is what over a century of subsequent science has rejected. It is worth remembering that a lot of scientists are Christians and followers of other religions, so hard to imagine why they would reject teleology - unless that is what the evidence points to. More from the blog:...

 A recent post by the Discovery Institute continues the creationist idolisatin of CS Lewis Lewis was undoubtedly a great author, but despite how creationists might portray him, he was not a world authority on science. I guess they have no one better. They quote Lewis from a letter in 1943: I don’t of course think that at any moment many scientists are budding Westons: but I do think (hang it all, I live among scientists!) that a point of view not unlike Weston’s is on the way. Look at Stapledon (Star Gazer [sic] ends in sheer devil worship), Haldane’s Possible Worlds and Waddington’s Science & Ethics. I agree Technology is not per se neutral: but a race devoted to the increase of it[s] own forces & technology with complete indifference to either does seem to me a cancer in the universe. Certainly if he goes on his present course much further man can not be trusted with knowledge.2 Note that Lewis's argument is very much founded on a book, Star Maker, by Olaf Stapledon. A b...

I came across a post by Jason Lisle. He is a creationist astrologer... sorry astronomer. Is there a difference for creationists? Anyway, about is the post... The gist of it is: Racism is awful, but... He starts: " As Christians, we are very concerned about this because we believe that all people are made in the image of God and therefore deserve dignity, respect, and fair treatment regardless of ethnicity. " That is great, but conveniently ignores centuries of racism perpetrated by Christians. Naturally, Lisle shifts the blame squarely on evolution. It is not the Christian way to consider the beam in your own eye, right? Christianity is in the business of being the victim, not the bully, so cannot ever accept that a Christian was ever a racist. And when black folk object to racism, Christians have to undermine those efforts, lest their own fails get exposed. This is an example of exactly that. The Black Lives Matter movement has recently been very important in raising the is...

 Apologetics is a defence of the faith. It is Christians reassuring themselves that their beliefs are true. How do they do that? Simple: Christianity is true (as all Christians agree) Therefore Christianity is true Hmm, looking... well a little circular. So dress it up! Christianity is true (as all Christians agree) Therefore the verses in the Bible are true The Bible says this, this and this Therefore some claim or another is true Therefore Christianity is true Hmm, still looks a little circular. Okay, we all agree Christianity is true (well, all Christians do) so skip the first two lines. The Bible says this, this and this Therefore some claim or another is true Therefore Christianity is true And that is all there is to it. Of course, it is still circulate, but to a Christians it does not appear circular because they just "know" the unspoken assumptions are true. And if you dare to point out that their arguments are circular, they will just tell you it is up to you to dispr...

 The Discovery Institute's raison d'être is to destroy evolution. They have no science on their side, so they are reduced to empty rhetoric and underhand tricks. The latest post by David Klinghoffer is a great example of the sort of shenanigans they get up to, and the doublethink required to believe them. Klinghoffer introduces the article: The year so far has delivered a stunning lesson in the fragility of freedom and of civilization. Endless lockdowns matched with urban chaos — it’s hard to believe these two shattering phenomena overlapped entirely by accident. How exactly, though, do they relate? At Mind Matters, Michael Egnor suggests Darwinism as a missing link. So to be clear here, Klinghoffer is claiming that Darwinism is to blame for both lockdown and what he calls urban chaos. He begins with the usual creationist lie that Darwinism caused the Nazis (and communist Russia). It is not true - but the Discovery Institute are here to destroy Darwinism, not to tell the tru...

Creationists continue to accuse Darwin of racism. Their argument appears to be: Darwin was racist Racism is wrong Therefore all Darwin's ideas are wrong The logic is clearly flawed, but still they trot it out - I guess because they have nothing better on offer. But the sorry fact is that racism has been rife throughout Christianity. Is that reason to conclude Christianity is wrong? Here is a recent example by the Discovery Institute, though it is rather saying science is bad, rather than specifically Darwin. It is about Alexander H. Stephens, Vice President of the Confederacy who made the "Cornerstone Speech" - so called because he quotes one of the Psalms. Yes, this racist and advocate of slavery was a Christian. No surprise there! An example from Ken Ham here , with the same lies and hypocrisy, very much targeting Darwin. The main reason for this page is so the next time someone on CARM pretends a link from Darwin to racism, I have a ready response. Anti-Semitism...