Post by FilmFlaneur on Aug 8, 2018 10:37:37 GMT
I started to read Arlon's words of wisdom but almost gave up when even the very first paragraph contained a blinding error eg: "Exactly what is meant by "science" has changed over time. It began as the discipline of "natural philosophy" in ancient Greece. That meant things that can be readily observed, cataloged and studied because they occur naturally and dependably as contrasted with things beyond nature that are the subject of far more speculative and abstract philosophy and with less evidence of a material sort. Ancient Rome gave it the term "science" meaning "knowledge" also meaning those things more readily and dependably observed.."
Fact: the word 'science' was first used in its regular sense only the last two or three hundred years.
After wading through (a lot) of Arlon's opinions thereafter we come the pertinent part, about the (his) definitions of god:
... different things are meant by the word "god." One is the subject of modern religious activities and might mean just the complex and nebulous forces in nature and society required to develop a system of ethics.
It is good that Arlon has the sense and foresight to use the word "might" here, since any thinker of ethics, especially from 'religious activities' would question the notion of its many concepts being 'vague' or 'ill-defined' - the 10 Commandments for instance are, notably not so at all - while the Argument from Nature, referenced here is fraught with difficulties. Such an appeal is an argument or rhetorical tactic in which it is proposed that "a thing is good because it is 'natural', or bad because it is 'unnatural'". It can be a bad argument, because the implicit primary premise "What is natural is good" typically is irrelevant, having no cogent meaning in practice, being often an opinion instead of a fact.
Another is literally the "supernatural" such as knowledge of mysterious origin such as acquiring a foreign language without the usual methods of learning one. ...
This is a peculiar idea of God, allied to a strange example, and Arlon would have found the introduction of such, essentially speaking, deists as Spinoza as an alternative better serving the argument at this point. There, too, have been (rare) cases of people who, after head injuries & etc suddenly acquire linguistic talents. But I am not aware of any brain specialists attributing this to a supernatural entity. In fact something which lacks current explanation does not necessarily mean it is the work of a god, thinking so looks positively medieval. There is also an odd, and forced, distinction being made between the 'supernatural' and the idea of an intelligent designer or ID, discussed by Arlon next. It would be difficult to find any of the devoutly-challenged who do not consider intelligent design the work of the deliberate supernatural. In fact at the Dover trial, the dishonest machinations behind the revision of the Pandas and People school book, where the two terms and concepts were shown to be surreptitiously interchanged according to the need, proved this to the satisfaction of the judge.
A third meaning is the intelligent designer, which is simply a matter of science [sic] with nothing much to offer religion or paranormal studies beyond showing that some things are beyond the reach of science. "
Unfortunately Arlon is unable to suggest, by way of the "matter of science", any positive proof for the purported existence of this form of god, let alone the clear evidence of what can only be supernatural design. It certainly wasn't forthcoming in convincing fashion from the best witnesses for the ID crowd, such as Behe, a selected expert who might be best placed to discover any clear proof and explain it, at Dover either. Neither, more widely is one able to locate any in respectable scientific, peer-reviewed literature (that is away from fringe websites and the pseudo-science of creationists). But this lack of substantiation is entirely characteristic, the reasons not surprising.