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Post by hibernicus on Apr 1, 2023 1:14:07 GMT
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 1, 2023 1:25:09 GMT
This is an interesting example of the sort of smartypants scepticism run wild often associated with New Atheists. I didn't realise until I read this blogpost by a classicist that there are people on the Net who claim Alexander the Great never existed. (Note that both in the blogpost - whose author does not seem to be a Christian - and in the combox discussion - this is associated with the view that Jesus never existed.) talesoftimesforgotten.com/2019/06/14/what-evidence-is-there-for-the-existence-of-alexander-the-great-quite-a-lot/In 1819 Richard Whately parodied Hume's argument against miracles - that no possible evidence could justify belief in something contrary to commonsense reason - by publishing a pamphlet arguing that Napoleon Bonaparte never existed and was in fact a solar myth. How long will it be before some bright spark propounds this view in perfect seriousness? archive.org/details/historicdoubtsr00what/page/n4/mode/2up
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 1, 2023 1:34:24 GMT
Here's another example of the limits of the Humean view. Until a few decades ago it was believed that eyewitness claims about the existence of 100-ft high rogue waves could be dismissed because it contradicted what were then believed to be the natural laws of wave formation. Further empirical evidence showed such waves do in fact exist, and it is our understanding of the laws of nature which needs to be revised. (To clarify; I'm not equating such phenomena with miracles, which set aside the laws of nature. What I am saying is that the Humean approach can lead to genuine natural phenomena being dismissed out of hand, and is thereby shown to be facile so that its persuasiveness as an argument against miracles is called into question). en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rogue_wave
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Post by hibernicus on Dec 18, 2023 22:04:12 GMT
As someone who laughed at THE HITCHHIKER'S GUIDE TO THE GALAXY as an adolescent, while at the same time uneasily suspecting its underlying atheism (Douglas Adams was a big friend and supporter of Richard Dawkins) this book review is interesting for showing up the unintentional muddle of some forms of atheism. The reviewer tells us both that Adams saw the fundamental absurdity of the universe and that he worked for the triumph of science and reason - but if the universe is completely absurd, then science and reason must also be absurd, and if they are not perhaps the universe is not absurd after all. I suspect the answer lies in some sort of muddled Cartesian or Gnostic assumption of a complete division between an absurd material world and a rational mind; a distinction which can't seriously be maintained by anyone who has stubbed their toe. thecritic.co.uk/the-meaning-of-laughs/
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Post by hibernicus on Feb 3, 2024 1:25:23 GMT
The article linked below may be relevant to the previous post. It discusses the ontological arguments in favour of the existence of God and an afterlife, which are directly linked to Godel's famous incompleteness theorem (which he saw as indicating both that a cosmic order exists and that it cannot be fully comprehended by the human intellect. I am not saying that because Godel believed it it must be true (Godel was not an orthodox Christian and had mental problems in later life). What I am suggesting is that if one of the greatest logicians who ever lived could take these possibilities seriously, then they cannot be so self-evidently absurd as a certain type of atheist rhetorician proclaims. aeon.co/essays/kurt-godel-his-mother-and-the-argument-for-life-after-death
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Post by hibernicus on Apr 22, 2024 22:35:44 GMT
I didn't realise that during the Cultural Revolution Maoist China denounced relativity theory because it allowed for the possibility of a beginning of the universe, and therefore of creation, and therefore of God... Apparently this detail of Maoism features in the new science fiction TV series THE THREE-BODY PROBLEM, based on the novels by the Chinese scientist and writer Cixin Liu. lawliberty.org/chinas-three-body-problem-and-ours/ What puzzles me is that Stalinist Russia, also an atheist Marxist state, does not seem to have had this hostility to relativity theory (though it denounced Mendelian genetics as a clerical-capitalist conspiracy). I suspect the answer has something to do with Maoist hostility to expertise as elitist.
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