Atheist Changes Mind

My guess is junk.Did you see what he said about Islam? and Both are incredibly ignorant and bigoted comments. If he accepted the above from sources as "evidence" of what Islam is like, I am less than encouraged what he accepted on a subject with less hard facts like theism.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

You're right. But look around, that goes for scientists as well. Its funny how many biologists feel well placed to discuss physics, or cosmologists discuss fine points of genetics. The Intelligent Design movement is full of that.In the end everyone discussing knowledge is a philosopher, that includes scientists who are natural philosophers, and regular old philosopher philosophers. Everyone from every field is capable of making the error you describe.I moved from straight philosophy into "hard science" and saw the same mistakes being made by the same amount of people. Only the scientists got to play like they must be right because they have a specified "scientific degree". They are not immune and sometimes a badge helps you miss that you might be a bad guy too.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

Actually it does sound like he's shifting into the fundie camp, slowly but surely. These specific tidbits are mainstays of the fundie circles, and I have watched an entire family move from theistic scientists to true fundies under their spell...1) Darwin's late in life "conversion".2) the god of theism certainly would be the cause of the big bang3) One must assume either the universe going on forever or, if you like, as Aristotle believed that there was a first cause.4) Only a god who wants to be praised and wants to be obeyed would create a universe in which there are people to praise and obey is his answer.Essentially this is setting out an historical precedent to create the groundwork for his own conversion, then moving into assertions and ancient philosophy for explaining why a god must exist (stock dilemma, with "going on forever" being a generic catchall which does not measure up to other unknown possibilities), and finally what God it must be.After all it is only the monotheistic Gods whose only answer is obedience, and he has already denied the possibility of Islam, through his bizarre and offensive commentary.My guess is he's converting but wants his cake and eat it too.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)

GRRRRRRARRRRRRRRRR!!!! Apparently you feel it possible to discuss philosophy from an equal state of ignorance?This keeps popping up at EvC and it really pisses me off. Philosophy is the love of knowledge. It is supposed to indicate someone is actively pursuing knowledge.Modern science is the field of natural philosophy. What many call "philosophy" today refer to the bigger picture pursuits such as metaphysics and epistemology and ethics. But that is IGNORANCE about philosophy.While one will study those subjects, one also studies other subjects such as science and most important of all the application of logic to debate and evidence. After all a PhD is a doctorate of PHILOSOPHY in a field.I moved from science to philosophy and back to science and I felt no missed beat. And I'll tell you what, I also saw no change in capability of people talking about things of which they do not know.Biologists are just as likely to be found advancing arguments on subjects such as chemistry and physics, as the latter two are regarding biology. And everyone seems to feel they are capable of understanding sociology and psychology because they are "pseudo-sciences" and then reveal less than a basic understanding in how to interpret studies coming out of those fields.Heck, I have seen a mathematician pretend to know philosophy and logic and yet display a gross lack of knowledge in that area, yet many (including "science minded" people) come around and tell him what a brilliant logician and debater he is just because he is good at emotiona laden zingers. *sigh*If you saw philosophers discussing something they did not understand, then you simply saw some people being very bad philosophers and engaging in what everyone in every field of life engages in... idle and ill informed speculation and sophistry.

---

holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)