May 2011 Screwballs

[Manwë Súlimo]

Screwball to Randall Monroe of XKCD webcomic fame for keeping his webcomic alive after obviously running out of jokes. I keep going back only to be disappointed

[fm93]

Remember Lawrence Krauss' bitter post-debate comments on PZ Myers' blog? Someone informed Dr. Craig of Krauss' piece, and an anti-screwball goes to Craig for absolutely shredding Krauss yet again. Check this week's question on the Reasonable Faith website for the epic pwnage.

[fm93]

After being called presumptuous for declaring without warrant that God could've found a better way besides eliminating the Canaanites:

The Bible mentions numerous instances where God approves the killing of innocent women and children. It's hardly presumptuous.

Other than calling the women and children innocent, you mean?

Also, I suspect this guy is another banned troll that's back under a different account. He registered just today and has 22 posts already.

Addendum: After looking at this guy's other posts (in the Apologetics section), I'm convinced that "Snarfy" is Pai. He's got the same tendency of making 20+ posts on his first day of registration, and the same venom towards creationism.

[Augustine2004]

Remember Lawrence Krauss' bitter post-debate comments on PZ Myers' blog? Someone informed Dr. Craig of Krauss' piece, and an anti-screwball goes to Craig for absolutely shredding Krauss yet again. Check this week's question on the Reasonable Faith website for the epic pwnage.

Boltzmann brains, wow. Now & then I actually learn something new (kidding!)

Two comments if that's OK: Professor Craig was not interested in pointing out that what Krauss called an equation (Pr(G| E&B) > Pr(G|B)) is in fact an inequality. (I'm not saying that Craig should have pointed that out; I just wanted to point that out.)

Craig wrote,'Obviously, one cannot explain why there are any contingent beings at all by appealing, as Dr. Krauss would, to a contingent being beyond the universe.' I'm not sure whether Craig did mean, 'Obviously, one cannot explain . . . at all withOUT invoking . . . a contingent being beyond the universe'?

[fm93]

Screwball to Randall Monroe of XKCD webcomic fame for keeping his webcomic alive after obviously running out of jokes. I keep going back only to be disappointed

At this point, I think the xkcdsucks blog probably gets more visitors per month than xkcd gets.

[JB]

Wow.... Krauss got served even harder than I'd expected.

Craig wrote,'Obviously, one cannot explain why there are any contingent beings at all by appealing, as Dr. Krauss would, to a contingent being beyond the universe.' I'm not sure whether Craig did mean, 'Obviously, one cannot explain . . . at all withOUT invoking . . . a contingent being beyond the universe'?

No, Craig meant the opposite. Appeal to God to explain the existence of contingent beings is appeal to a non-contingent being to explain the existence of contingent beings. One cannot explain the existence of all Bs (in this case, contingent beings) by pointing to one particular example of a B (in this case, some metaphysically contingent thing 'outside' of the universe) without explaining the existence of that B - since otherwise, the existence of all Bs has not been explained after all.

[Rational Gaze]

Krauss got served even harder than I'd expected.

I didn't exactly have high expectations for Krauss either, but man, that guy is a self-righteous moron. It is almost as if he revels in the fact that he is an incompetent, pseudo-intellectual know-nothing.

[MWM958]

I didn't exactly have high expectations for Krauss either, but man, that guy is a self-righteous moron. It is almost as if he revels in the fact that he is an incompetent, pseudo-intellectual know-nothing.

yeah but he did have that quote on his t-shirt.

[Augustine2004]

No, Craig meant the opposite. Appeal to God to explain the existence of contingent beings is appeal to a non-contingent being to explain the existence of contingent beings. One cannot explain the existence of all Bs (in this case, contingent beings) by pointing to one particular example of a B (in this case, some metaphysically contingent thing 'outside' of the universe) without explaining the existence of that B - since otherwise, the existence of all Bs has not been explained after all.

Thanks!

[The Moonshield]

"It sometimes surprises me, although it shouldn't, how religious devotees feel the need to regularly reinforce their own convictions in groups of like-minded individuals."

...he says as he posts on PZ Meyer's blog, where like-minded atheists gather to reinforce their own convictions with groups of other like-minded atheists...

[Hamster]

Listening to Krauss was like watching a fish die on the sidewalk. Especially the constant ad hom jibes he was forced to use to glue his Jenga tower rebuttals together. Oh okay if the stars re-arranged themselves to say "Hi I'm God" you'd accept that as evidence. So all that talk about the futility of saying "god did it" just because we're confronted with a mystery is ... what? Why aren't we in a universe out of an infinite number of universes where the illogical universe just blipped that out of nothing for no reason?

I believe that if I erred at all, it was in an effort to consider the sensibilities of the 1200 smiling young faces in the audience, who earnestly came out, mostly to hear Craig, and to whom I decided to show undue respect.

It's not his fault, the audience is just crazy and ignores logic. Like the universe.

The only redeeming feature was that he sounded like Duckman when he got riled.

[Benson Shays]

Since somebody mentioned PZ Meyers, hows about a screwball nomination for comparing the cell to a pile of driftwood? I think so.

What about the whole complexity issue? We biologists will freely admit that things are really complicated inside the cell. So how do we explain it? Don’t we have to resort to a Creator? And we say, of course not. There’s lots of things that are very complicated [and aren’t the result of an intelligent creator]. I’ll show you an example here.”

At this point in his PowerPoint presentation there is a photograph showing a rather large pile of driftwood along what is obviously a coastline. Myers informs us that it is Rialto Beach in upper Washington State. He continues…

“And this is a very common thing along beaches…driftwood. You find these walls of driftwood between you and getting down to the beach, real walls, very complicated walls. It has been constructed, who did it? We know the answer, natural processes did it. We don’t need a designer to build this kind of wall. This is complex, you simply can’t deny it. If I turn the projector off would you be able to draw it? No.

http://www.algemeiner.com/2011/05/29...-by-p-z-myers/

[Teluog]

]We know the answer, natural processes did it.

And we all know that there was never a Natural Processor behind it all, or someone who created and commenced natural processes.

Perhaps it might be easier for scientists to consider God as a natural being instead of a supernatural being (I don't like the term 'supernatural,' since I think God is as real as the chair I'm sitting on, or the sun rising.)

[Challenger Grim]

Somebody handed me a tract at work today - I really, really loath tracts. While the one handed to me is blessedly NOT a Chick Tract, it just drives home the point that we're more interested in making converts than creating disciples and that our current method of evangelism is in dire need of a revamp. I'm not even an unbeliever! At least take time to figure that out!

+100 Amen to this.

I had a friend point out that even though he's CoC and generally in favor of a kind of "retro" Christianity, he really wished more Christians would grasp that the social structure of modern day america is not conducive to evangelism methods of 1st century roman empires.

I was reading Loftus's blog, and I noticed a post where he was apparently gonna critique dawkins and myers, which might have been deserving of an anti-screwball. But I stopped reading after I read the first sentence:

I'm very thankful for the brilliance of PZ Myers and Richard Dawkins.

So Loftus isn't a libertarian but a hard-core leftist? I'm surprised Myers really hasn't been burned more by his recent political stupidity (then again, maybe it's building...)

Yep. We're a strange city. I understand we're still harboring two guys somewhere here who asked JPH to review Zeitgeist.

Just more proof we need a border fence else just anyone will be let into the country.

I mean... I've heard that actual Canadians walk among us! *shudder*

"It sometimes surprises me, although it shouldn't, how religious devotees feel the need to regularly reinforce their own convictions in groups of like-minded individuals."

...he says as he posts on PZ Meyer's blog, where like-minded atheists gather to reinforce their own convictions with groups of other like-minded atheists...

Yeah, that's less a religious/atheist thing than a "human nature/we are all social beings" thing.

Perhaps it might be easier for scientists to consider God as a natural being instead of a supernatural being (I don't like the term 'supernatural,' since I think God is as real as the chair I'm sitting on, or the sun rising.)

I always preferred Lewis' definition. That God is more real than your chair or the sun. John C Wright has a term he frequently uses on his blog but I can't think of it right now. Whether it was "extranormal" or "paranormal" I'm not sure. Maybe go look. See if you find it. (after all, there's worse ways to spend an afternoon than surfing around John's archives)

[nightbringer]

So IOW, God designed us specifically to obey his commands as our purpose in life (with consequences occurring if we violate them), and thus has the authority behind his commands? Obviously, you don't just obey anyone who gives you orders unless you know and trust that person's authority, is that what you are getting at?

That's kinda it. My thoughts at the moment are that it is true that there is a way humans ought to be (i.e. kind, caring, faithful etc) if there is a truly ideal way for a human to be. By comparison there are ideal means of obtaining certain ends. Therefore there are means one ought to use to reach such and such end. Because God created humans to be a certain way, there is an ideal for which human beings are created toward. Therefore, humans ought to do/be whatever this ideal is. This to me seems like a valid jump from is to ought for it seems absurd to say "X ideally Ys, but it is not true that X ought to Y."