Hey Everybody,
Just some random stuff I wanted to blog on.
William Lane Craig had a debate on morality, and I think it is fair to say that he lost and the atheist won. Listen to it here.
Ray Comfort made a stupid ass video on his "banana example of design" and Richard Dawkins.
Comfort says that although man modified the banana, God still gave man the knowledge to do so. And how the hell does Comfort know this? I mean, I could just as easily say that evolution gave us the ability to do selective breeding since I think the mind evolved, and I would be more justified in saying so because I actually have tangible evidence of it.
His video also implied that Richard Dawkins believed life was the result of alien designers. Dawkins thinks this is a possibility, but he does not place any faith in it, and I think he holds to a more naturalistic origin of life.
Last but not least I have some questions for my book:
"What kind of audience are you trying to reach with this book?"
It is for any reasonably intelligent person who wants to understand more about Atheism: How atheists can be moral, why we reject arguments for God, what we think about where the universe came from, etc. etc. This book is primarily aimed at atheists, although believers and agnostics may be interested in it because it explains the atheist worldview.
"Do you have a title yet?"
"Atheism and Naturalism" (although I might change it).
"Are there any pictures of boobs in it?"
Buy it and find out : )
"Will this be a made for internet book, or do you plan to have it printed?"
I'm planning on releasing it on Lulu, so it will be available for download and as a paperback.
4 comments:
"I mean, I could just as easily say that evolution gave us the ability to do selective breeding since I think the mind evolved, and I would be more justified in saying so because I actually have tangible evidence of it."
That's generally the basis for the "differing worldviews" argument they often use.
When the cultivated banana was developed, it was long before Darwin existed (centuries before, IIRC) -- and therefore long before anyone knew anything about genetics.
What would have happened is that random mutations caused some of the bananas to be more desirable for consumption (sweeter, or softer, or bigger, etc.) and the people growing the bananas would say "oh, these ones are better, let's plant their seeds more".
Humans did not have the knowledge to directly manipulate the genes like we do now, so it would have been a non-deterministic process; the cultures didn't know *WHERE* they were going with the banana, they just knew what they *LIKED*.
So to argue that it somehow required special "knowledge" imbued by God is just silly -- they knew how to plant crops, they knew how to eat, and they had tastebuds. We see the same process happening now, except on a MUCH larger scale (globally) -- crop diversity is a mere FRACTION of what it once was.
Nicely said Aaron!
And thank you for answering my question :P
Hey Aaron, I thought about what you were saying, but I think Comfort could claim that even if the "knowledge" of selective breeding was not given to us, our cognitive abilities to discover that knowledge were. That's why I mentioned brain evolution rather than learning.
Anyway, I agree that the argument is silly.
Ahh -- I see what you mean.
Like most of that creationist garbage, it's an untestable argument.
On a related note, I do find it interesting that Comfort decided it was important enough to present a counter-counter-argument to everyone pwning his stupid banana thing.
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