RE: Ex-"New Atheist", Now Christian
May 9, 2013 at 6:26 am
(This post was last modified: May 9, 2013 at 6:28 am by Cyberman.)
Why shouldn't Occam's Razor have universal application? What are the grounds for discerning the areas in which it can apply? Emergent properties from relatively simple systems are, to my knowledge, reasonably well understood and are capable of explaining, if not everything then certainly a great deal about these concepts. It must be borne in mind that consciousness, love etc are not purely nor even primarily human traits.
Also, I would tend to agree that you're not relying on God-Of-The-Gaps. It's more like Special Pleading with some loaded language thrown in for flavour. I mean, "atheistic rationalists"? Really?
The topics under discussion are indeed exceedingly complicared, however that doesn't mean we know nothing at all about the subjects and still less that we have no tools and methodology for finding out. Least of all that one can simply throw out the available scientific evidence just because it happens to lead to a different interpretation to one's own.
Believe it or not it takes a massive paradigm shift to rewrite the scientific consensus, not because scientists are all atheistic rationalists entrenched in dogma but because it's all-too often the case that the "independent thinkers", as Patrick Moore termed them, have some agenda of their own to push. Present company excepted, obviously.
Also, I would tend to agree that you're not relying on God-Of-The-Gaps. It's more like Special Pleading with some loaded language thrown in for flavour. I mean, "atheistic rationalists"? Really?
The topics under discussion are indeed exceedingly complicared, however that doesn't mean we know nothing at all about the subjects and still less that we have no tools and methodology for finding out. Least of all that one can simply throw out the available scientific evidence just because it happens to lead to a different interpretation to one's own.
Believe it or not it takes a massive paradigm shift to rewrite the scientific consensus, not because scientists are all atheistic rationalists entrenched in dogma but because it's all-too often the case that the "independent thinkers", as Patrick Moore termed them, have some agenda of their own to push. Present company excepted, obviously.
At the age of five, Skagra decided emphatically that God did not exist. This revelation tends to make most people in the universe who have it react in one of two ways - with relief or with despair. Only Skagra responded to it by thinking, 'Wait a second. That means there's a situation vacant.'
