Asupernaturalism is too cumbersome…

Someone had the temerity to ask me to “take down” my definition of ‘adeism’, and presumably to change the title of this blog, or even to remove the blog.

1.      This is NOT the definition for adeist that I coined in 2003. Adeism is the word I chose to describe the weak-atheist position of unbelief in supernatural beings. I hope you take this down, because I’m going to promote the usage of adeism as I coined it.

 

What a cheek!

 

Unbelief in the supernatural, or better yet an argument that ‘supernatural’ is a false category, is not a weak position – it obviates the possibility of superstitious mumbo-jumbo and any religious deity other than cult deities such as the Emperor Hirohito (and we know what happened to his pseudo-divinity).

 

I responded: 

 

Sorry, but I am *not* taking it down because I disagree with your definition, even if you did coin it earlier than I.

 

While searching for an official definition for the term that I wished to adopt, I found, as recently as 2007, that there was *no officially accepted* definition of adeism.

 

I think that I found your definition on an atheist message board, where you had previously posted a paper that you’d submitted for a course. Your position, as I recall, was just to the atheist side of agnosticism. I found the paper quite interesting, but disagreed with your terminology for the following reasons:

 

If deism is the weakest form of ‘theism’, then I see refusal to believe in *even* the weakest position as being the strongest form of atheism. The opposite of weak is strong. Deism, as I see it, was a hedge position that snuck the concept of supernatural past the censors by essentially saying “God got it started, but the lack of evidence of His interference is explained by his voluntarily giving up interference.” This contrives to make room for a supernatural creator and attempts to put God beyond question or examination. It’s a theistic notwithstanding clause.

 

I don’t buy *even* that contrived position. My strongly atheist position on this could be summed up by the term ‘adeism’. Basically, as soon as any agent interferes with the physical world, then that agent is necessarily *of* the physical world. The supernatural is a pseudocategory invented by humans to explain away the patently obvious noninterference of a deity in any physical events (which includes psychological events).

 

As you can tell by my delay in posting, I have neglected this blog, so you need not worry that hordes of people are reading my definition. 

 

I can’t stop you from promoting your usage of ‘adeism’ and like the case for VHS technology you just might prevail over ‘Beta’ because most people don’t think the logic through to the obvious conclusion.

 

 

The actual conversation is in the comments section of my ‘about’ post, but I was annoyed enough to bring it up to the front page.

As to the argument from primacy, it could be used in an argument that the conceptualization of Egyptian gods preceded the copy-cat invention of Jehovah/God/Allah, and that therefore Jews, Christians, and Muslims should “take down” their religions and revert to worshipping Ra and the gang. I’d like to see all those religions taken down, but on the basis of factual information and logic and not on the basis of a fallacy of logic.

Essential Whining

 Not content to con reputable scientists into their ridiculous movie about science’s rejection of the IDiocy of so-called ‘intelligent design’ creationism, the producers are now trying to lure logic-challenged students to whine about poor reception of pseudoscience in science classes.

 Those who are not sufficiently well versed in science or logic might continue to be fooled by the ID propaganda, which relies on a very old, and refuted argument to make the illogical proposition that ‘scientific accounts of evolution fail’ and that religiously motivated con artists have something to offer by way of explanation. They don’t. The design argument is based on the irrelevant analogy that human-designed creations are the product of intelligence, so, by their ridiculous reasoning, ‘life could not have arisen by chance and biological complexity could not have evolved by natural processes’. It could and it did, but these fools care nothing for the truth. This argument is unfounded and the claims of ID creationists that they have anything useful to add to scientific knowledge is an unabashed falsehood that rakes in contributions from the terminally deluded.

 Religious fundamentalists are so desperate about the refutation of religious dogma by scientists and philosophers that they must resort to ridiculous ploys such as IDiocy in an attempt to maintain credulity in the ignorant and the credulous. There is no grounds for debate about evolution versus creation because evolution has been overwhelmingly documented as a fact and creationism has been soundly disproven. The scientific theories that explain the mechanisms by which the fact of biological evolution has operated are incomplete but not inaccurate. This is the beauty of science–it is a work in progress, continuously being checked, refined, and verified.

 I do think that there is a place for discussion of IDiocy in university classrooms–disproving ID claims could enliven discussion of the likely mechanisms of abiogenesis, of probability calculations, and of the actual mechanisms of biological evolution; and, the rampant illogic of IDiocy would provide plentiful examples of fallacious logic for discussion of critical thinking. Beyond these applications, IDiocy has absolutely no truth value and no merit for education.

Blogs ~ The Discovery Institute doesn’t like smart college students ~ Expelled: No Intelligence Evident ~

Earlier Blog reactions ~ Pharyngula: I have obtained a stolen, pre-release clip of Expelled!, Denyse O’Leary: paranoid projectionist, More dribblings from the producer of Expelled, Expelled producer seems to be embarrassed about his sneaky tactics, Ruloff’s claims are not credible, Any conservative can make an ass of themselves on Fox: Ben Stein gets crazy, Betrayed!, Watch out, faculty: biblical literalism will be enforced, Expelled comes to the NY Times’ attention, Spiegel gets into the act, too: Bad: Ben Stein in Hot-Pants for Intelligent Design, Expelled movie producer exposes the holy hand of Intelligent Design :

Anti-Theocracy Billboard

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, which is the nation’s largest association of atheists and agnostics, is unveiling what is believed to be one of the first nontheistic billboards erected in Madison, Wis.

 “We think it is time for the rest of us to use the mass media to counter the ubiquity of religious messages on roadsides everywhere!”

The Foundation will be erecting another billboard to greet attendees of its 30th national convention, meeting on Oct. 12-13 in Madison. A smaller billboard on East Johnson Street by Fordem Avenue (passed by nearly everyone coming in from the airport) will carry the “Beware of Dogma” message on one side, while the other side will sport the stained-glass motif and the words “Imagine No Religion.”

My guess is that religious fundamentalists, who believe in free speech so long as this includes only their message and freedom of religion so long as people believe in supernatural nonsense, will deface some FFRF billboards.

Every time I consider the stranglehold that religious stupidity has on the US, I am, except for our obnoxious PM (puerile megalomaniac), thankful that I live in Canada.

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Essential Deceits

 Scientists Feel Miscast in Film on Life’s Origin appears in today’s New York Times.

 Scientists, including Richard Dawkins and Eugenie C. Scott have revealed that their appearance in Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed was induced under false pretenses. 

 Reputable scientists have eschewed so-called intelligent design since its resurrection by American creationists a decade ago. Yes, resurrection. The argument for design dates back to the Greeks and was last rehashed by Christian apologist William Paley in 1802. This argument from analogy might fool creationists, who are, after all, already fooled, but it fools nobody with two neurons to rub.

 Part of the movies purpose was to whine about rejection of creationist pseudoscience by the scientific community. The rejection continues, and is seconded by NYT’s Cornelia Dean:

“There is no credible scientific challenge to the theory of evolution as an explanation for the complexity and diversity of life on earth. And while individual scientists may embrace religious faith, the scientific enterprise looks to nature to answer questions about nature. As scientists at Iowa State University put it last year, supernatural explanations are “not within the scope or abilities of science.””

The British government has released guidelines concerning the teaching of creationism and intelligent design in science classes. “The verdict: they are not science, and they have no place in the curriculum.” Better late than never. It reflects badly on American educators and politicians that they have too long displayed either ignorance of science or cowardly refusal to distinguish scientific reality from religious delusion.

 Of course the makers of Expelled needed to resort to Rampant deception! Eternally outspoken PZ Myers would have enlived the movie, but not in the way that the producers hoped. The arch-deceptionists could not reasonably have expected some legitimate experts on science to otherwise appear in a movie intended to promote unscientific creationist stupidity.

“If he had known the film’s premise, Dr. Dawkins said in an e-mail message, he would never have appeared in it. “At no time was I given the slightest clue that these people were a creationist front,” he said.

Others might have appeared, but would have been more prepared for deceptiveness-in-interviewing.

Dr. Scott, whose organization advocates for the teaching of evolution and against what it calls the intrusion of creationism and other religious doctrines in science classes, said the filmmakers were exploiting Americans’ sense of fairness as a way to sell their religious views. She said she feared the film would depict “the scientific community as intolerant, as close-minded, and as persecuting those who disagree with them. And this is simply wrong.””

Americans’ sense of fairness? This appears to be confined mostly to atheists who have too long tolerated religious nonsense. American fundamentalist theists are so woefully short on a sense of fairness toward genuinely free speech that they would sooner vote for a Muslim presidential candidate than for an atheist. American fundamentalist theists are so woefully short on a sense of fairness that they presume to tell other how to live their lives on the basis of 2,000 year-old moralistic pronouncements in a book that they attribute to a nonexistent supernatural deity so lacking in omniscience as to have concocted mythology fraught with inconsistency. 

Read more on other sites: Pharyngula: I have obtained a stolen, pre-release clip of Expelled!, Denyse O’Leary: paranoid projectionist, More dribblings from the producer of Expelled, Expelled producer seems to be embarrassed about his sneaky tactics, Ruloff’s claims are not credible, Any conservative can make an ass of themselves on Fox: Ben Stein gets crazy, Betrayed!, Watch out, faculty: biblical literalism will be enforced, Expelled comes to the NY Times’ attention, Spiegel gets into the act, too: Bad: Ben Stein in Hot-Pants for Intelligent Design, Expelled movie producer exposes the holy hand of Intelligent Design :

Fall of the Noisome Empire

The fall of the Godmongers

Praise Jesus, it’s the collapse of evangelical Christian rule in America. Rejoice!

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist who links to The Evangelical outcasts.

If you too are tired of the political machinations of moralistic, reality challenged, Godpuffery, then you’ll enjoy the articles.