Disqus - Latest Comments for Looney

Re: a biblical exploration of two natures: part 2, the christian scriptures

Looney — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 15:27:19 -0000

Thanks for this. Just some quick thoughts:

Going through the life of David in the OT, it does seem to me that the dichotomy is alive and well in David, although not theologically expressed.

1 John seems to express the same dichotomy: "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves ..." vs. "The man who says, 'I know him,' but does not do what he commands is a liar".

Regarding the dual nature and Greek thought, I haven't read Plato but did spend a lot of time reading other writers like Cicero and Seneca. The duallity of the Greeks is embraced by Philo, but the Christian duality is quite different. The Greek (i.e. Stoic) notion is reason (good) vs. desire (bad), but the Christian one of good vs. evil doesn't rank reason as inherently good. Reason is a tool that can be employed one way or the other. Cicero introduces a Stoic character in "The Nature of the Gods" who both clarifies and critiques the Stoic duality notion quite clearly.

Re: creation care?

Looney — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 17:49:12 -0000

Actually, I usually imagine environmentalists praying to a statue of Vladimir Lenin next to the cross while wearing a Che Guevara tee-shirt. It does seem to me that Christians deserve more options than simply Mega-Government vs. Mega-Mining/Drilling. Do you really think we should embrace a theology of environmental salvation by government? Some think redemption will happen if we crucify the car companies, others the UAW. None of this will quench my totally depraved appetite for using energy that I inherited from Adam. ;-)

Re: Obama not a Real Christian sayeth Rod Dreher and Joe Carter

Looney — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:31:50 -0000

This is something I am still pondering. The Easter sermon given by the new pastor to Obama's former church mentioned nothing of the resurrection. Do they believe Jesus is the Son of God, alive in heaven, and that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord? And what is the nature of this salvation? Obama's language is still a bit ambiguous, because it leaves room for Jesus just being another dead man and the cross just a metaphor. I would like to hear more from Obama on this subject.

Re: Government Bailouts and the Need for Repentance

Looney — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 14:34:50 -0000

Looks like we have some common views on the free market. I spent a few years working around Detroit and other car companies around the world. There are plenty of management horror stories, but they are worse in the US. Then there are the investment banks which employ armies of highly paid staff to shuffle money. But what do you think of the Detroit unions? Do they have any room for repentance?

Re: Image of the Day

Looney — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 16:12:20 -0000

Certainly I agree with support for freedom for immigrants, since I live among them and I have been an immigrant. We divide immigrants into multiple categories. The first being those who came here legally to work, just as immigrants did when the Status of Liberty was made. Then there are those who come here illegally to work or escape persecution. These I have much sympathy for, but I am not sure that they are represented by the Statue of Liberty. The third come here to contribute nothing, but munch off of the welfare state, which was a category that didn't exist at the time when the Statue of Liberty was made. Then there is a fourth which arrives in America because crime is more lucrative here and less risky.

Should we treat them all as one?

Re: Image of the Day

Looney — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 15:33:36 -0000

Of course, we must note that the Goddess of Liberty means different things to different people. To the extent that Liberty is the pursuit of unbridled licentiousness and the extermination of religion, I would be happy to help Sarah mount the head on the wall. There are other aspects of Liberty that are more precious which I don't believe Sarah is a threat to.

Re: College Might Foster Secularism, But Students Increase Spiritual Seeking

Looney — Thu, 14 Feb 2008 05:48:25 -0000

With my kids scattered around the University of California system, I have had a chance to observe things a bit. For example, the last time I went to UCLA there was a stack of Purpose Driven Life books in the book store, along with the obligatory Che Guevara poster. At UCSD I had a chance to check out the latest atheist rants. My impression is that the recent standards of philosophical reasoning at UCSD are much lower than what we had at the University of Tennessee a generation ago. The result is that our church has a number of kids who go through the UC system active with Christian groups and then come back to the church seeking funds to work full time on campus as Christian workers. It is a bit overwhelming.

Re: Everything Must Change. Capitalism? Not So Much.

Looney — Fri, 07 Mar 2008 16:09:58 -0000

I know it is tempting to equate shallow thinking and crass marketing as the same sin. Don't. They will be punished separately in purgatory! ;-)

Re: John Gray on Atheism

Looney — Sun, 16 Mar 2008 23:41:33 -0000

Wow! That article covered a lot.

I would like to see the idea that we all have a religious impulse as part of our human DNA pushed a little harder. The atheist is stuck with this just as much as the fundamentalist or the emergent, divergent new ager. The real issue is how to direct it.

Re: How to Fix the STD Problem

Looney — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:57:44 -0000

Ah, so there is an alternate universe where abstinence only is taught? Certainly not here in California.

Re: How to Fix the STD Problem

Looney — Mon, 17 Mar 2008 23:36:04 -0000

Given that STDs are vastly lower in certain Islamic countries, I think it is safe to say that it is already proven that abstinence education works in some form, albeit one we may not like. The only thing the studies can possibly conclude is that a particular abstinence only trial project didn't show a statistically meaningful change.

Re: How to Fix the STD Problem

Looney — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 00:00:40 -0000

Yes, the focus on women does stand out. The men are the problem, but the women always seem to be the ones who suffer the most.

Re: Another Young Earth Creationist Exhibits Sheer Stupidity

Looney — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 03:20:46 -0000

I agree that the article is extremely goofy, but ...

You wrote: "Does the sun still revolve around a flat earth too?"

Did you know that the flat earth theory was concocted by Washington Irving for his novel about Christopher Columbus? It didn't exist until the 19th century! The founder of Cornell University, Andrew Dickson White was one of several scholars who worked hard to insure that the flat earth theory was considered a genuine part of history so that this bit of slander was in the textbooks that I read as a child in backwoods Tennessee, not far from where the Scopes trial took place.

For a more detailed summary, there is "Inventing the Flat Earth, Columbus and Modern Historians", by Jeffrey Russell.

Stupidity is an equal opportunity employer.

Re: Another Young Earth Creationist Exhibits Sheer Stupidity

Looney — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 15:06:33 -0000

Alan, Dr. White's book, A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom, 1898, does bring together Darwinism and the Flat Earth theory in his attack on Christianity. The notion that there is a battle between religion and science thus traces directly to this famous scholar, although he wasn't the only one nor was he the first. It is fun to ponder where Darwinism would be today without Washington Irving's flat earth theory.

And Mike, which of Aristotle's books did you get your info from?

Re: Orwell on Chastity and Orthodoxy

Looney — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 00:40:23 -0000

Drew, the term "sexual repression" looks like a technical term begging for a definition. Do you have one?

Re: Orwell on Chastity and Orthodoxy

Looney — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 01:39:08 -0000

OK. When I was an undergraduate, my girl friend returned to her home country and told me she didn't want to see me again until I had my master's degree. Would that constitute "sexual repression"? My powerful instinct was bottled down and turned into a driving force that compelled me to work hard and finish my degree faster ...

Re: Why Intelligent Design is a Logical Fallacy

Looney — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 14:11:41 -0000

Of course we also have the fact that the engineering paradigm is the only one that really exists - that is we can actually see it in action from start to end as a new widget is created. The other one involving millions and billions of years is impervious to experiment. No one has ever seen basic chemicals rearrange to form life, nor will they ever, due to the time involved. Evolution in the sense of daily change certainly exists, but evolution as a substitute for ID? No one has ever seen this. It's existence has only been postulated due to the distaste for God.

The other item is that if you spend enough time in the molecular biology texts, it is apparent that life really is a complex machine, and even the biologists use complex machine ideas and ID analogies to explain how biology works, while then attributing the ID attributes to evolution. ID is really inescapable, even for the atheist biologist. My favorite is Dawkins comparison of bat echo location to sonar (ID'd) and radar (ID'd), and then declares that the similarity proves evolution! That was from The Blind Watchmaker. Do they teach how to form an induction argument in the UK?

There is one more argument: Intellectuals (read scientists) can't argue against ID because it is an all pervasive part of their subconscious being and thus it is impossible for them to properly conceive of how things might work without it.

Re: Why Intelligent Design is a Logical Fallacy

Looney — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 16:15:46 -0000

It seems a bit dubious to say that the experiments at Harvard and MIT don't involve ID, given the intelligence of the researchers standing around in the room! They really didn't tweak things a wee bit?

Of course we can cause silicon atoms to spontaneously rearrange into crystals. It is still quite a leap to say that therefore computers (hardware+software) formed without an intelligent designer. Even if I accept the experiments forming proteins, this is comparable to random crystals forming in silicon.

Most of the high energy physics experiments are related to speculative hierarchies of theories that would seem to preclude any hope of making sensible deductions. When I was studying upper division college physics, the main thing that impressed me was how the bizarre behaviors were necessary to deal with issues that were given terms like "the ultra-violet catastrophe". It seems that without all of these strange complexities, the material structures of the universe will either blow up or collapse in a few nano-seconds.

Re: Why Intelligent Design is a Logical Fallacy

Looney — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 17:19:12 -0000

OK. I can buy the argument that ID needs some more development as a philosophical concept. What I don't accept is an argument that is of the form, "ID doesn't represent an acceptable scientific explanation, therefore non-ID does represent an acceptable scientific explanation". This is where I think Dawkins is at.

As far as science and origins in the classroom goes, I am for a neither creation nor evolution approach. It seems to me better to decouple origin speculations from science altogether, rather than fight over which ideology owns the science curriculum.

Re: Why Intelligent Design is a Logical Fallacy

Looney — Thu, 27 Mar 2008 20:24:55 -0000

Paul, the word "evolution" is just a synonym for "change". Yes, change explains everything.

Father to daughter: "Why did the car become all crumply looking?" Daughter to father: "The shape of the car, um, like it evolved."

Evolution simultaneously explains everything and also explains exactly nothing.

I can also say that God evolved the universe and life in 6 24-hour days about 10,000 years ago and I am still completely within the scientific usage of the word evolution. That is why we talk of the evolution of computers and operating systems, or even the evolution of Christian theology.

Re: The Search for the Gay Gene

Looney — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 03:04:11 -0000

Just a thought experiment:

If it were shown that certain people are more genetically predisposed to violent behavior, how would that change the morality of violence?

The Bible tells us that we inherited our sin nature from Adam, so it doesn't seem to me particularly surprising that moral behavior would be connected to our genes. Different races might have a greater or lesser susceptibility to certain things.

Re: The Search for the Gay Gene

Looney — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 14:30:59 -0000

Certainly the Bible has plenty to say about what is or is not moral behavior regarding sex, which includes everything from heterosexuals to those who have a preference/orientation for sheep.

The other thing to keep in mind is that the early church made a huge transformation to the moral standards of the rather licentious Greek/Roman cultures.

Re: The Search for the Gay Gene

Looney — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 15:08:39 -0000

"would not the same rules apply?"

I am getting a bit fuzzy on the rules here. Going back to the violence example, "Do not commit murder" is just as firm a rule for those who inherit a meek nature as those who inherit a psychopath nature in my view. Certainly rules always have a bigger impact on those with the greatest urge to violate them.

Re: The Search for the Gay Gene

Looney — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:06:20 -0000

I suppose you can construct a new version of marriage rules that eliminate "gender bias". This would, of course, be different from Judaeo-Christian-Islamic rules throughout the various sects and history. I don't know of any other societies which had such a concept, but anthropologists might be able to locate one.

Is it possible to create symmetric rules for a bisexual? My understanding is that a bisexual requires at least two partners, one of whom is female, but not bisexual.

Re: The Search for the Gay Gene

Looney — Sat, 29 Mar 2008 20:52:05 -0000

Alan, since I live near San Francisco, my understanding is mostly based on some of the gay meeting places nearby where people try to arrange random sex encounters. Ever had a gay come up to you looking for sex? The notion that gays are more monogamous than heterosexuals strikes me as very odd. We also discuss this from a business standpoint when you have a number of gays in a company who are always needing affirmation of their lifestyle - unlike heterosexuals. Then there is the question of what happens to a company's health insurance which is on the verge of being cancelled, but now the struggling company is legally compelled to treat gay roommates with HIV (monogamous, of course) in the same manner as spouses and children of heterosexuals for health benefit payments. One more excuse to pack up the company and move to an intolerant theocracy like the PRC?

As for polygamy, I think it was pretty much excised beginning in the NT based on Matthew 19:1-11.

Re: The Search for the Gay Gene

Looney — Sun, 30 Mar 2008 23:09:35 -0000

Drew, I guess I see the Matthew 19 passage as defining marriage as being between one man and one woman with no divorce. The reason listed for a deviation, e.g. divorce, was that hearts were hard. We can, of course, creatively read the Bible to the point that it has no meaning whatsoever. As you probably know, polygamy was something that disappeared from the Roman Empire due to Christianity, along with open homosexuality.

Re: The Effect of Religion on Wealth Inequality

Looney — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 14:47:44 -0000

I will need to take some time and read the study. It seems a bit peculiar at the moment, but I have no doubt that there are interesting insights. I have always understood that the number one factor in poverty is family instability. The US as a whole also has one of the worst savings rates in the world, but this has usually been attributed to a taxation system which punishes savings and enthusiasm for debt. Perhaps I will need to adjust my stereotypes ...

Re: Homeschooling: To Fight or Get Credentialed, That is the Question

Looney — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 17:36:19 -0000

The usual arguments against accreditation are the following:

a) Accreditation means two years of inane classes at considerable expense.
b) There is no evidence that accreditation improves teaching.

I am not a home schooling advocate, but my own experience teaching the numerous kids at church is that the home schooled kids are more mature than their public schooled peers. Probably an anthropologist can give some reasons for this, but perhaps homeschooling emphasizes building relations and role models across generations, while public schooling encourages role models from peer relationships. The US, having determined that discipline is a violation of human rights, has some of the worst problems in the public schools associated with least common denominator moral leadership by peers.

Re: Homeschooling: To Fight or Get Credentialed, That is the Question

Looney — Thu, 03 Apr 2008 23:44:49 -0000

Drew, my local school district with Mission San Jose High School is ranked at the top of the public schools in Northern California. (There will typically be several kids who score a perfect on the SAT every year.) We are also starved for cash, thanks to anomalies related to property taxes which were allocated 30 years ago when this was a rural farming community. The local schools are in terrible condition - much worse than neighboring communities including inner city Oakland.

Actually, MSJHS could be cited as evidence of an inverse relationship between school funding and academic performance. Of course the real reason for the high performance is all of the pushy Asian parents.

Regardless, the California public school system can't handle an influx of 160,000 home schooled kids. If the parents of home schooled children started signing up for education classes in the community colleges, the situation would be catastrophic, because young people studying for a career as public school teachers would be competing for scare classroom space.

Re: Why Westminster?: Contra Semper Reformanda

Looney — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 14:42:27 -0000

The problems with this analysis are twofold:

First, the transformation of higher education began in the late 18th century, not the late 19th century. Hostility to scripture was firmly established before Darwin and more likely the foundation to evolution and much other pseudo-scientific work, rather than the consequence. Scientific methodologies were also developing in parallel with the pseudo-sciences - and used by the pseudo-sciences - but they shouldn't be conflated.

Second, the Presbyterian church around about 1900 - based on someone such as Henry van Dyke, who was the Presbyterian head at the time of the split - seems to have rejected the deity of Christ and taught Jesus as guru , nice guy and Martyr, but not Lord and Savior. Hence, in "Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee", Christ is our brother, not our savior. This is best illustrated in van Dyke's sermon given to the victims of the Titanic. Of course van Dyke rejected systematic theology, so you must read between the lines. I searched van Dyke's writings as best I could looking for some sort of personal Christian confession and came up with nothing. They seem to have become universalists rather than Christians.

The Reformed folk definitely overreacted by insisting on the Westminster confession. I was told that I could never teach in my PCA church because I don't believe in infant baptism. The reason for this reaction is actually in your post: The modernists are still insisting that the split with conservatives was about science and miscellaneous nit picky things when the key issues are sin, repentance and Jesus - the core of Christianity. The Reformed folk mostly agreed with the modernists, and decided that the solution to stay firm to the gospel message was to stay firm on the nit picky things!

The consequence of all this is that faculty will continue to be evicted and fellowship broken based on small deviations from a 1647 document.

Re: Why Westminster?: Contra Semper Reformanda

Looney — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 15:40:05 -0000

Drew, the last I checked Voltaire, the French Revolution and the goddess of reason in Notre Dame happened in the 18th century. The Jefferson Bible wasn't late 19th century either. Now it may be that the syllabus hadn't changed, but we should not pretend that skepticism hadn't become the new, established gnosticism by the year 1800 at least in Europe.

Re: Why Westminster?: Contra Semper Reformanda

Looney — Fri, 04 Apr 2008 16:18:22 -0000

Anyway, thanks for pointing me to more resources on the history of this period. It has interested me, but I mostly spent my time checking up on Henry Van Dyke and tracing trivia associated with him.

One thing I found that was interesting: Henry Van Dyke used the phrase "Lord of Love" in Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee. Normally I wouldn't pay attention to such small details, but given that he was a very clever professor of religious studies and interested in small details of other religions, I noted that the phrase, "Lord of Love", is used for Krishna, but doesn't occur in the Bible. Perhaps it is just a coincidence. Any thoughts? Am I being hyper-sensitive?

Re: Pay Teachers More or Reward Them?

Looney — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 14:16:05 -0000

That post I rather like. It isn't often I hear some rumblings about the teachers unions. The next step is comparing education systems outside of the US which are successful.

Re: Pay Teachers More or Reward Them?

Looney — Wed, 09 Apr 2008 01:19:03 -0000

Just an observation:

The generation of 40 something and 50 something Taiwanese Ph.d. scientists and engineers that I interact with mostly were brought up in very large classes in Taiwan. Junior High classes with more than 80 or more kids were normal, while the teachers' education wasn't particularly sophisticated. Relational education? I don't think they could comprehend the idea.

Re: Homosexuality and the Church Blogging Summit

Looney — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 12:57:25 -0000

It seems a bit like starting with the hypothesis that the US is a monarchy, and then seeing what we can deduce regarding the US constitution. I won't say that nothing useful will be accomplished, but the likelihood ...

Post-modernism to me is the overt rejection of a need for any consistent line of reasoning from topic to topic or from day to day, because, as Makeesha suggests, personal feelings trump. The result is syncretism, but they aren't the first to achieve this. They have merely introduced a doctrine which says that syncretism isn't a problem if you don't worry about it.

Re: California and Massachusetts on Marriage

Looney — Mon, 19 May 2008 03:29:34 -0000

Well, if communist had come up with gay marriage in some place like China, I might agree with you. I still feel that gay marriage can only be dreamed up by theologians with a Christian education, but who have rejected Christianity.

Re: California and Massachusetts on Marriage

Looney — Tue, 20 May 2008 14:21:43 -0000

The Economist had a good article on this. In California, we have a symmetric Domestic Partnership system which is parallel to Marriage, but identical with respect to the law. The Economist is rather liberal, but they noted that this symmetry before the law precludes an honest argument that this was about equality before the law. The decision was exclusively intended to make a religious statement, as well as to provide cover to other courts around the US who want to make a religious statement on behalf of God.

Re: Relationships and “Work”

Looney — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:31:10 -0000

Good for you and your wife! Yes, there are good, stable marriages out there. Sometimes even the warnings of family terror due to teen age rebellion prove false.

Re: Gay Agenda Found

Looney — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 00:59:26 -0000

I get the impression that "legal foundations" necessarily excludes everything involving religion, culture, tradition, democratic voting, biology and the laws of nature. Since the constitution is "living", it can be reinterpreted at will, so that it is a rather squishy foundation if we can call it a foundation at all.

The other challenge is that "legal foundations" only means the whims of a scholarly aristocracy. The Supreme Court could discover a constitutional right for pigs to fly, and I agree, there is absolutely no foundation to challenge the ruling. No foundation to challenge any ruling.

Re: Gay Agenda Found

Looney — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:51:10 -0000

Well, Nero had a loving, committed gay marriage to Sporus. Let us continue moving back to the glorious 1st century so we won't commit the crime of moving back to the 19th century!

There is nothing new under the sun.

Re: What God Has Been Teaching Me

Looney — Fri, 20 Jun 2008 14:03:25 -0000

As I look at what you wrote here, I must agree. Still, for curiosity's sake, what sort of examples of unloving behavior by Christians have you been observing?

Re: Making Pro-Life Plausible

Looney — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 13:58:45 -0000

I mostly agree that the issue of abortion is more about a culture and a host of problems that must be addressed as a whole. There are a few quibbles:

"But if we make abortion illegal, and want to be pro-life, the social structures must be in place to mitigate the fear and ostracism that pregnant, young, unwed mothers now face."

There is a young, unwed mother in my church who isn't particularly ostracized. In our society, we systematically reward unwed mothers for having a child without getting married. My wife and I would have been much better off financially through the tax system if we had divorced and lived together.

Other issues range from the dysfunctional inner city government schools to - at least on my part - that we can arrest and convict the drug dealers who are retailing in the city, but can never bring down the drug distribution chain due to more sophisticated criminals and civil liberties run amok.

In China the story is of selective abortion with the result that 30 million young men will never find a wife.

Re: Discomfort in Preaching

Looney — Sun, 13 Jul 2008 02:03:56 -0000

I started to preach when the main pastor's duties and the political entanglement with the elders became so strenuous that he had no choice but to reach down into the bottom of the barrel and, well, ... I found myself standing at the pulpit with a congregation in front of me, while I depended on all my engineering skills at PowerPoint together with my experiences as I sifted through the Bible to find something that would be relevant. Given the all consuming preparation, the final result after the delivery was little more than a numbness from mental fatigue - a complete relaxation given that the stress of preparation (typical over a two to three week period) was finally gone.

Re: Why Does Dobson’s Opinion Matter with Politics…or Anything?

Looney — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 17:43:40 -0000

Certainly evangelicals don't have a spokesdude, but the media needs someone so Dobson and Warren will probably be as good as any. Their fans, although probably less than 5% of the total evangelical population, are still more numerous than other potential leaders.

Although I am not happy with McCain or Obama on social issues, I think there is still a big difference between them. McCain is a bit schizophrenic, sometimes one way, sometimes the other way, and sometimes taking positions that reflect his views of the constitution or federalism as they impact social issues that annoy conservatives, but aren't truly leftist either. Obama seems to be simply a classic social leftist.

Re: Don’t Bother Me You Embarrassing Christian!

Looney — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 01:17:17 -0000

I was with you on half of that rant. Why do I need to read an author who quoted another author who quoted another author who quoted Augustine? I can go read Augustine myself - at least in translation - if I want to. Unfortunately, the Christian bookstores don't seem to have much useful for the student who hopes to be serious. At Borders and Barnes and Nobles, I usually skip the religious books and head for the ancient history section.

Where I have trouble with this is that I always feel I should try to be patient with embarrassing people.

Re: PZ Myers’ Puerility

Looney — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 15:43:54 -0000

Drew, just for curiosity, what is your basis for asserting that Myers is a "smart scientist"?

Re: Re-Post: The Evangelical Paradox

Looney — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 01:27:44 -0000

Yes, the fundamentalists' dispensationalism is in conflict with the more traditional eschatologies, but it does seem to me that there are a few more combinations than you have mentioned. There are reformed Baptists, for example, who are very similar to the fundamentalist mainstream, but differ on eschatology. Then there are the reformed Presbyterians who are even more offended by dispensationalism than you. I have never viewed eschatology as a fightin' issue in theology, and haven't much experienced conflict, except when I criticized a senior pastor's sermon for stating that the United States was mentioned in the book of Daniel. How dare I criticize a Ph.d. seminary prof!

I am probably an odd-ball, however, being pro-choice on eschatology. The Kingdom of God is here now and will continue growing, but the birth pangs will continue and grow too.

Re: Re-Post: Atheism, the Wager, the Burden of Proof, and the Qualitative Leap

Looney — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 11:19:41 -0000

I have always understood that the Bible talked about faith and belief in terms of God's promises and the work that Jesus did on the cross, but God's existence was always a given. It is more like my relationship with my father. His existence is a given. His promises are what I treat with faith or skepticism based on my relationship.

Being a technologist, I proceed simply with the fact that all technology has a designer and there is no contradictory example. Life should also have a designer based on simple induction. This is a given in science and was always this way until theologians started contradicting in the 19th century. Atheists begin by rejecting the obvious, which makes the conversation difficult.

Re: Re-Post: Atheism, the Wager, the Burden of Proof, and the Qualitative Leap

Looney — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 22:39:23 -0000

Samuel, good point. There were no intelligent designers who help with Wiki, and no entrepreneurs who helped with capitalism. No intelligent designs in Ph.d. dissertations, and the microprocessor was the result of random wave action on silicon sand crystals on the beaches of Santa Cruz. Intel is a myth. That is what evolution has proven to be a fact!

Re: Camp Offers Training Ground For Little Skeptics

Looney — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 00:10:24 -0000

It does confirm my suspicion that a skeptic is someone who mindlessly passes on non-sequiturs. When they run in herds, they congratulate each other on their bravery and intellectual astuteness for engaging in this activity. Somehow a camp makes perfect sense.

Re: Evolution is Theory, Not Doctrine

Looney — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 20:53:20 -0000

Again, being in high tech, all scientific theories must share two characteristics: 1) they must involve measurable quantities and 2) they must involve a fixed, relationship. Even quantum mechanics meets this, since it involves measurable statistics and fixed relationships on how those statistics transform. Evolution will never meet either of the requirements, hence it is not a 'scientific theory', nor will it ever become one.

Re: Evolution is Theory, Not Doctrine

Looney — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:26:27 -0000

You will not find a specification of evolutions measurable quantities and fixed relationship anywhere at UC Berkeley. Speculation is not evidence!

Re: Evolution is Theory, Not Doctrine

Looney — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 23:44:09 -0000

Drew, let me explain differently, since I know how science R&D goes.

If you poke around the labs at Berkeley, you will find researchers who have many completely different kinds of measurable quantities and innumerable equations that to relate them which are being tested, discarded, and new ones concocted every day. A biology department probably works with thousands of theories, and each theory is distinct and unique. If I have a success, I say something like "wow! look what theory number 5,232,383.3b succeeded in doing!" If a biologist has a success with theory number 2,485,902.27fq31, he says "wow! look what the theory of evolution succeeded in doing!". If there is credit to be given, why not just give it to the correct theory? Why credit a phantom theory which doesn't even exist?

Re: Evolution is Theory, Not Doctrine

Looney — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 05:39:35 -0000

Well, I guess I still find this puzzling. I read one of Dawkins books, but never found a point in the text where he referred to a theory of evolution that had any resemblance to the kind that I use daily: measurable quantities, fixed relations. It was all hand waving. My molecular biology books mention the theory of evolution, but if you go through them page by page you will find stuff from physical chemistry or math, but nothing directly or indirectly related to a theory of evolution.

My kids A'ced California AP Biology, but they can't identify a tangible theory of evolution either. Could you tell me what the measurable quantities are and what the fixed relation is that has been in use since 1859 when it was first derived by Darwin?

Some have claimed that the measurable quantity was "alleles", but these weren't discovered until almost a century after the scientific theory of evolution was established and there are innumerable relationships regarding how alleles change, so that any reference to them would result in hundreds of theories, all of which would be distinct from each other and from the "scientific theory of evolution" which existed at the time of the Scopes Trial.

I haven't disagreed that theories have been verified, only that researchers have verified other theories and then falsely credited a non-existent "theory of evolution". Having worked with researchers for 30 years, I assure you that it takes very little peer pressure to get someone to do something unethical with regard to who gets the credit. Within a few days of my first job, I came across identical documents with completely different author lists. The copied document had UC Berkeley ph.d's for the authors, but the original (which was copied word for word) came from a consulting company.

Re: Evolution is Theory, Not Doctrine

Looney — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 15:40:54 -0000

Yes, the talk origins makes an attempt to explain beginning with "when non-biologists talk about biological evolution they often confuse two different aspects of the definition". Of course this is silly, since Darwin's only achievement was to bundle various ideas together and label them a single, scientific theory of evolution. According to the philosophy of science, a theory should not be multifarious, but deal with exactly one phenomenon at a time and the very first sentence acknowledges that evolution is multifarious. That was my original objection. By utilizing and verifying biological theory number 2,343,444, I have only verified theory number 2,343,444. The "theory of evolution" wasn't utilized and should get exactly zero credit. Or perhaps the points awarded for a correct answer by one student in class get awarded to the student who didn't show up for the test?

Re: Smuggling Creationism into Science Class

Looney — Mon, 01 Sep 2008 18:43:13 -0000

Of course I don't believe ID is science either, but the Scopes Trial topic is one that I always like to remember:

In 1928, the primary college text for support of evolution was "A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom", 1896, by Andrew White, prof of History; president and founder of Cornell. This was long before the discovery of proteins and DNA, so the argument basically boiled down to this: "Evolution is science, because scientists say 'so', and if you don't believe, then you are one of those flat earth fools. So accept it. Or Else!". White, as a history expert, cited Washington Irving's creative version of the flat earth story as genuine history, putting it into my textbooks that I was given not far from where the Scopes Trial was held in Tennessee. As the founder of America's first 'secular' university, White was also in a position to make implied threats real. Whether evolution has a solid scientific basis today will always hit considerable skepticism due to the methods of White and others.

This would, of course, be another reason for disjoining origins speculation from science in the class room: Both sides have an extensive track record of victory at all costs and by any means.

Re: Is the Bible Important for Christians?

Looney — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 00:47:26 -0000

Just some items to keep things in perspective:

First, I do most of my Bible reading on line these days and electronic gadgets with Bibles are starting to glow in the pews on Sunday morning. This will complicate Bible stats considerably.

Second, you might want to pick some other field of study as a control. For example, MBAs have a demand cycle that correlates with the economic cycle.

Third, I haven't heard that seminaries as a whole are suffering. It may just be that parsing Hebrew is being passed over for other topics that are more vital to the life of the church.

Re: Galileo’s Trial

Looney — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 04:28:10 -0000

Thanks for that link. Especially it is interesting the lack of specifics regarding the events, given that this story has the same level as the flat earth theory in atheist polemics.

During the inquisition, the usual practice was to put people out of their house and confiscate their property. It looks like Galileo not only didn't lose his property, but probably got free pizza delivery as a bonus. Since he was already old, not going far, but still able to continue his work, I have to wonder if this wasn't a bit of a tongue in cheek sentence.

Re: Galileo’s Trial

Looney — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 14:33:21 -0000

I always understood Simplicius to be a caricature of the academics of that day who followed Aristotle primarily, but the Bible secondarily. The educated academics had grafted 'science' (including the astrologer Ptolemy's teachings) onto the Bible - which was the root cause of the trouble. Needless to say, I have always drawn the exact opposite lesson from this example from the academic one. Galileo got a slap on the wrist in order to calm down the academics.