Video: “Growing Pains” star ready to save America from rational thought

posted at 9:13 pm on September 25, 2009 by Allahpundit

It’s times like these that I wish Tony Danza were an atheist so that we could have a proper theological debate between stars of bad 80s sitcoms. After this week’s post about America’s trend towards non-religion, I figured I owed you guys some end-of-the-week comment fun at the expense of atheists, Darwinists, and all the other racist/sexist/crypto-Nazis in the Kirk Cameron cosmology. Dig in.

Brought to you by the same two guys who think bananas not only appeared on Earth in their current form, but that they are, in fact, a fruit-formed “atheists’ nightmare.” Exit question: Kids can no longer “pray in public”? What?

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yes.

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 9:17 PM

Ahhh! It was all a big misunderstanding then. We could have avoided pages of discussion.

I don’t accept everything Darwin wrote or did. I don’t have to defend him.

yelnats on September 28, 2009 at 9:23 PM

and all data is interpreted to fit the theory.

Not true, there was a time when it was believed that Neanderthals were human ancestors. That notion was discarded a few years ago.

Pelayo on September 28, 2009 at 9:24 PM

You were being so civil! What happened?

hicsuget on September 28, 2009 at 9:18 PM

I didn’t call you any names…thats not civil?? I’ll apologize then.

Modern biologists don’t agree with Darwin. He put forward an idea that was right on some points and wrong on some points. Scientists went where the evidence took them, and biology today is no more Darwinian than economics is Smithian or physics is Newtonian.

all that has changed is the mechanism. darwinism is going strong..

But eugenics, despite borrowing terminology from Darwin’s theories of biology, was no more scientific than was Marx’s “scientific socialism.” (It could be argued, using the same mental processes you are using now, that classical economics led by necessity to Marxism, and that all of economics should be discarded on account thereof.)

its applied evolution…Darwin himself supported it…as did all of his followers, until after WWII. I’ve quoted plenty of people that acknowledge this….I don’t understand why you do not.

The fact that we see light from stars which are more than 10,000 light years away is but one of the many aspects of astrophysics which is irreconcilable with Young Earth Creationism.

you do know there are old earth creationists like hugh ross….as far as the problem with starlight and time…Humphreys has a book about that…I don’t know all the details..but I do know humphreys has been proven right…

link

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 9:27 PM

Humphreys has a book about that…I don’t know all the details..but I do know humphreys has been proven right…

Is Humphreys the guy who thinks that the speed of light has been getting slower and slower?

Pelayo on September 28, 2009 at 9:38 PM

You seem to be unable/unwilling to seperate a scientific theory (evolution) from the implications or assumptions individuals (even Darwin himself) choose to project onto it.

Ofcourse Darwin can do wrong, but evolution is not Darwin just as the pythagorean theorem is not pythagoras.

Equanim1ty found on September 28, 2009 at 9:21 PM

because the implications are so clear…and the darwinists acknowledge it…

whether you like provine or not he is a world famous published darwinist/scientist…he speaks for evolution in a way that you, unless you are dawkins or ayalo (sp?) do not.

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 9:38 PM

Is Humphreys the guy who thinks that the speed of light has been getting slower and slower?

Pelayo on September 28, 2009 at 9:38 PM

I believe he does…along with others..

link

link

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 9:44 PM

its applied evolution…Darwin himself supported it…as did all of his followers, until after WWII. I’ve quoted plenty of people that acknowledge this….I don’t understand why you do not.

I’m an economist by training. Economists always knew better. See, for instance, the following quote from a work one of my favorite economists first published in 1940:

It is usual to call such doctrines social or sociological Darwinism. We need not decide here whether this terminology is appropriate or not. At any rate it is a mistake to assign the epithets evolutionary and biological to teachings which blithely disparage the whole of mankind’s history from the ages in which man began to lift himself above the purely animal existence of his nonhuman ancestors as a continuous progression toward degeneration and decay.

And, from a few pages later,

The present-day prevalence of doctrines approving social disintegration and violent conflict is not the result of an alleged adaptation of social philosophy to the findings of biology but of the almost universal rejection of utilitarian philosophy and economic theory.
…
However, the notion of the struggle for existence as Darwin borrowed it from Malthus and applied it in his theory, is to be understood in a metaphorical sense. Its meaning is that a living being actively resists the forces detrimental to its own life. This resistance, if it is to succeed, must be appropriate to the environmental conditions in which the being concerned has to hold its own. It need not always be a war of extermination such as in the relations between men and morbific microbes. Reason has demonstrated that, for man, the most adequate means of improving his condition is social cooperation and division of labor. They are man’s foremost tool in his struggle for survival. But they can work only where there is peace.

Mises’ contention (I can’t remember which book he contends that in, or I’d quote it for you) is that natural selection is an idea Darwin borrowed from the classical economics of Smith and Ricardo—that the driving force behind evolution of species is the same “invisible hand” that drives economic behavior. The planned breeding programs of the eugenics era failed, and led to unimaginable atrocities, for the same reason that the planned economies of the Soviet Bloc failed and led to unimaginable atrocities.

Biologists have learned their lesson since then. The disastrous consequences of natural selection’s misapplication to human society, however, have absolutely no bearing on the correct-ness of the theory as applied to the natural world. One may as well denounce physicists as thralls of Satan on account of physics’ having made nuclear war possible.

hicsuget on September 28, 2009 at 9:52 PM

I see this thread is still going, I have not read the posts since Thursday. I don’t know what the argument is when we have many bibles telling what the truth is. I would rather trust the bible then over some person in this blog with his or her philosophy. Remember you don’t get a second chance once you die and your mistake is eternal. Don’t be so quick to brush off the Gospel.

garydt on September 28, 2009 at 9:59 PM

Ed kept me hanging-on for so long but alas,
Allahpundit the cowardly rabbit sez stuff and sits back and laughs.

I forgave Michelle after the “Ford thing” but not even Ed can bring me back after MM has enabled him for so long.

I have no idea the pecking order on “HOT AIR”
but now you guys are as dead to me as LGF

cavefish on September 28, 2009 at 10:06 PM

Remember you don’t get a second chance once you die and your mistake is eternal.

I presume that your parents chose your religion for you.

I have decided to worship as many religions as possible, thus hedging my bets. I am going to become a Hindmuszorochristjew.

Pelayo on September 28, 2009 at 10:08 PM

I have decided to worship as many religions as possible

Im sure Ap is quite proud

cavefish on September 28, 2009 at 10:15 PM

you do know there are old earth creationists like hugh ross….as far as the problem with starlight and time…Humphreys has a book about that…I don’t know all the details..but I do know humphreys has been proven right…

link

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 9:27 PM

I read your link. Two points:

1) On the basis of two measurements taken 30 years apart, the author is making extrapolations back in time thousands of years. Even the worst caricatures of made by global warming deniers of “global warming alarmists” give credit for better methodology than what this author openly admits to having used.

2) A God who could make a 6,000 year old universe look exactly as though it were a 14 billion year old universe in all other respects surely would be attentive-enough to detail to make the apparent age of the planet Mercury fit in with the rest of his Creation.

hicsuget on September 28, 2009 at 10:19 PM

Let’s see, all known evidence we possess is that life begets life, and that non-life begets no life whatsoever. Yet, somehow, the people who believe that life has its origen in unliving matter believe they are more rational and less prone to blind faith than those people who are merely going by what all of us observe about life when they come to the conclusion that its most likely that life has existed since the very beginning of the universe.

Funny stuff!!! :)

Bizarro No. 1 on September 28, 2009 at 10:19 PM

but now you guys are as dead to me as LGF

cavefish on September 28, 2009 at 10:06 PM

Im sure Ap is quite proud

cavefish on September 28, 2009 at 10:15 PM

I thought we were dead to you. Drama queen.

hicsuget on September 28, 2009 at 10:21 PM

AP would be proud that I have decided to believe in everything? Ahura Mazda, Allah, Jehova, God, Vishnu, Thor, Zeus, Odin, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, L. Ron Hubbard, Marshall Applewhite, and Jim Jones?

It’s late, bye.

Pelayo on September 28, 2009 at 10:23 PM

One last thing…

This website has been my favorite for many years.

It is sad that no one has the nerve or the desire to tell Allahpundit to be tolerant.

I really liked Charles Johnson’s LGF too

but I see the same trend here too.

I really hate to take this site off my favorites!!!

Why do you hate those that do not oppose you?!!!

cavefish on September 28, 2009 at 10:27 PM

Pelayo, by the way my parents are not believers in Christ and Jesus said Himself that He is the only way to eternal life. He is the only one who paid the price for our sin. You probably deny sin but then you probably don’t recognize any evil in the world either. Remember Jesus didn’t have to come to this earth to pay that price either but did so because of His great love that He desired no one to be eternally lost. He does not endure other false gods but if you want to take that chance you are free to do so.

garydt on September 28, 2009 at 10:32 PM

I thought we were dead to you. Drama queen

Good quote Allah jr.

cavefish on September 28, 2009 at 10:35 PM

SG1_Conservative hiya! got back online and have been reading right4life’s drivel. i think he’s had some drinky’s in him. honestly would he beieve the earth is flat if someone wrote that jesus said it? cause that’s the problem with islam and the “four pillars” relentlessly attacking the same science that makes him safer and healthier than any of our ancestors is as foolish as arguing that species don’t evolve as they move into new territory but he(?) does try.

I acknowledge that there are catholics that do not say that gays are wrong but saying that making love to a man is a sin is ridiculous. was David wrong to love Jonathan? am I wrong to love a man? i think not. the basis of biblical morality are so tenious that any rational argument would have to agree that it is entirely subjective and to punish gays for these beliefs is simply cruel.
I wish you well and hope that others are kinder to gays but I cannot see how the kernel of blind faith will not in time destroy anything any good that it creates.

Zekecorlain on September 28, 2009 at 10:35 PM

Zeke its not up to us on what sin is and what isn’t. Those who have a personal relationship with Jesus knows what is wrong because of the Holy Spirit. This is difficult to understand when you don’t have that relationship and I have to agree that it is very hard to understand. When we die it will not us to decide what sin is and what isn’t because He will tell us.

garydt on September 28, 2009 at 10:42 PM

I must admit that I am angry that Ed and Michelle enable AP.
After years of hoping that AP would stop throwing bombs, my hope is gone. AP owns this site.

cavefish on September 28, 2009 at 10:43 PM

SG1_Conservative hiya! got back online and have been reading right4life’s drivel. i think he’s had some drinky’s in him. honestly would he beieve the earth is flat if someone wrote that jesus said it? cause that’s the problem with islam and the “four pillars” relentlessly attacking the same science that makes him safer and healthier than any of our ancestors is as foolish as arguing that species don’t evolve as they move into new territory but he(?) does try.

care to argue the science with me?? bet you won’t…and if you do….you’ll lose.

all you can do is throw out typical darwiniac talking points…’if you don’t bow before darwin you’re ignorant’

when are you darwiniacs going to evolve some new lines??

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 10:47 PM

1) On the basis of two measurements taken 30 years apart, the author is making extrapolations back in time thousands of years. Even the worst caricatures of made by global warming deniers of “global warming alarmists” give credit for better methodology than what this author openly admits to having used.

he made a prediction, and was proven right. thats what science is all about.

2) A God who could make a 6,000 year old universe look exactly as though it were a 14 billion year old universe in all other respects surely would be attentive-enough to detail to make the apparent age of the planet Mercury fit in with the rest of his Creation.

oh its not just mercury…its Ganymede’s magnetic field…given the problems in cosmology like dark matter, and dark energy, which threaten the entire big bang cosmology…I wouldn’t bet on the age of the universe…

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 10:58 PM

It is sad that no one has the nerve or the desire to tell Allahpundit to be tolerant.

cavefish on September 28, 2009 at 10:27 PM

Have you read this thread? What exactly has Allahchan not tolerated? What thoughts, love, or hate didn’t get expressed?

exception on September 28, 2009 at 10:59 PM

Biologists have learned their lesson since then. The disastrous consequences of natural selection’s misapplication to human society, however, have absolutely no bearing on the correct-ness of the theory as applied to the natural world. One may as well denounce physicists as thralls of Satan on account of physics’ having made nuclear war possible.

hicsuget on September 28, 2009 at 9:52 PM

I really don’t know what to tell you…I’ve posted the linnks… the sources…you try to compare it to economics…doesn’t wash…

the evidence is clear…,

The Darwin-Hitler connection is no recent discovery. In her classic 1951 work The Origins of Totalitarianism, Hannah Arendt wrote: “Underlying the Nazis’ belief in race laws as the expression of the law of nature in man, is Darwin’s idea of man as the product of a natural development which does not necessarily stop with the present species of human being.”

The standard biographies of Hitler almost all point to the influence of Darwinism on their subject. In Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, Alan Bullock writes: “The basis of Hitler’s political beliefs was a crude Darwinism.” What Hitler found objectionable about Christianity was its rejection of Darwin’s theory: “Its teaching, he declared, was a rebellion against the natural law of selection by struggle and the survival of the fittest.”

John Toland’s Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography says this of Hitler’s Second Book published in 1928: “An essential of Hitler’s conclusions in this book was the conviction drawn from Darwin that might makes right.”

In his biography, Hitler: 1889-1936: Hubris, Ian Kershaw explains that “crude social-Darwinism” gave Hitler “his entire political ‘world-view.’ ” Hitler, like lots of other Europeans and Americans of his day, saw Darwinism as offering a total picture of social reality. This view called “social Darwinism” is a logical extension of Darwinian evolutionary theory and was articulated by Darwin himself.

link

the evidence is there for all to see…

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 11:01 PM

in evolution, one race has to be more fit than another..its a logical conclusion of the theory…how can the races be equally evolved??

as Watson showed, that idea lives on today…

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 11:02 PM

Hey Right4life, a few years ago I attended a conference by a bunch of scientists from the University of Oregon and who were also born again Christians. They had so much information on how Science proves that God exists and things like the great flood and how dinosaurs existed during the early human years. I was wondering if you were aware of this group? Their evidence was very convincing but many of the scoffers will still not believe.

garydt on September 28, 2009 at 11:04 PM

garydt on September 28, 2009 at 11:04 PM

no I haven’t heard about them..post a link please…

the skeptics are never skeptical towards darwinism!!

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 11:06 PM

And darwinism doesn’t even give an earthly or heavenly reward. Whats with trying to be right here on earth and be proud and yet hold and empty suit when death comes.

garydt on September 28, 2009 at 11:09 PM

Sorry I don’t have a like for that group.

garydt on September 28, 2009 at 11:09 PM

One last thing…

This website has been my favorite for many years.

It is sad that no one has the nerve or the desire to tell Allahpundit to be tolerant.

I really liked Charles Johnson’s LGF too

but I see the same trend here too.

I really hate to take this site off my favorites!!!

Why do you hate those that do not oppose you?!!!

cavefish on September 28, 2009 at 10:27 PM

No comparison to CJ to be made. AP has been more than accepting of some outrageous vitriol and invective to be posted by both the ‘Faithful’ and the faithless without moderation. Just scroll through the posts and Godwin is on every other page. AP has not been ban happy unlike that California cyclist who is banhammer happy for mere oppossing view. AP hasn’t banned Christians for believing, otherwise why is right4life still around?

Tolerance is not what you think it is. Tolerance is not the refusal to argue or challenge another person’s view. Merely to allow them their view and not discriminate based on that view. But some things are intolerable. Such as politically active religious sectarianism whether it be the Christian Right, the Islamists or the Evangelatheists.

I don’t care if you are an atheist or worship a million Gods. Don’t hack my head off because of it and treat me as an equal in the Republic. If you can’t do that then do not expect tolerance from me. If you subscribe to the belief that your religion must dominate the country and policy must be consistent with your religion, I cannot be tolerant.

Holger on September 28, 2009 at 11:26 PM

in evolution, one race has to be more fit than another..its a logical conclusion of the theory…how can the races be equally evolved??

as Watson showed, that idea lives on today…

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 11:02 PM

This is not what evolution is about. A slug is just as successful evolutionary as a human. If a species is present and thriving on earth then it has been evolutionary succesful. Obviously human interaction with the planet in the last couple of centuries has somewhat altered this dynamic.

Ofcourse species have evolved differently and within the human subset one example is the increased (relatively) athletic ability of certain races, but evolution is not a race to see who can invent the flat screen t.v first or who can jump the highest, it’s about the ability to sucessfully pass on your genitic code and continue to exist and thrive.

Equanim1ty found on September 28, 2009 at 11:34 PM

@garydt actually that is my point that morals are decided by the group not any texts. we decide what is good or bad not any book

Zekecorlain on September 28, 2009 at 11:38 PM

you try to compare it to economics…

Economics is the study of human social interaction. What other science could possibly be applicable?

he made a prediction, and was proven right. thats what science is all about.

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 10:58 PM

The data he cites does not prove his prediction. Go back to the chart on the linked page and look at the error bars on the data points. (To be fair, the data doesn’t refute his position, either.)

Even if the data did show his predicted reduction in field strength, it still would not prove that his theory is the right one. It could be evidence of a short-term fluctuation, or evidence for any number of other theories that predict a gradual decline in Mercury’s magnetic dipole moment.

in evolution, one race has to be more fit than another..its a logical conclusion of the theory…how can the races be equally evolved??

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 11:02 PM

The social Darwinists did not understand natural selection, and neither, apparently, do you. See Equanim1ty found on September 28, 2009 at 11:34 PM.

Science is tricky business, and easily misunderstood (the very existence of the Republican and Democratic parties is due to a broadly-held misunderstanding of economics.) Let us not forget what Richard Feynman, world-renowned expert on quantum mechanics, has to say on the subject of quantum mechanics:

I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics.

He was, of course, including himself in that statement. The solution to the public’s misunderstanding of science is not a pitchforks-and-torches campaign against scientists, but better education for the public.

hicsuget on September 29, 2009 at 12:04 AM

the skeptics are never skeptical towards darwinism!!

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 11:06 PM

I, for my part, was. I was also skeptical towards relativity and quantum mechanics, also on the basis of misunderstanding and ignorance (not a one of the three theories actually claim what I thought they did before I took a closer look at them). Once conclusive data are in, skepticism is nothing other than obstinate prejudice.

hicsuget on September 29, 2009 at 12:09 AM

This is not what evolution is about. A slug is just as successful evolutionary as a human. If a species is present and thriving on earth then it has been evolutionary succesful. Obviously human interaction with the planet in the last couple of centuries has somewhat altered this dynamic.

Ofcourse species have evolved differently and within the human subset one example is the increased (relatively) athletic ability of certain races, but evolution is not a race to see who can invent the flat screen t.v first or who can jump the highest, it’s about the ability to sucessfully pass on your genitic code and continue to exist and thrive.

Equanim1ty found on September 28, 2009 at 11:34 PM

To be honest the fact that had failed to grasp this concept, while understandable as it’s somewhat anti-inuitive means you are really in no position to comment about evolutionary implications. Just as i am in no position to argue scripture with you.

Equanim1ty found on September 29, 2009 at 12:19 AM

reading is fundamental, you should learn how to sometimes..

right4life on September 28, 2009 at 6:58 PM

Thinking is even more fundamental, but that’s not something a locked down religious lemming like yourself practices much I see.

Spiritk9 on September 29, 2009 at 12:55 AM

Evolution is the perfect example of the herd mentality, after all if the priests tell us it’s so it must be so(sumerians). The more time passes, nothing changes. Mankind has believed scientific BS over and over many times because the priests are always allied with the kings……. The fossil record indisputably disproves evolution, but it absolutely can’t be denied by the priests. And all the non-thinking Lemmings just follow the leader and smugly congratulate one another on how enlightened they are. If all you fools would just look at and contemplate what the fossil record says, you would see that it disproves the theory.

cjk on September 29, 2009 at 2:40 AM

I mean it’s like completely obvious to anyone with an open mind that the fossil record completely disproves evolution

cjk on September 29, 2009 at 2:43 AM

I’ll be back tomorrow to answer you smug non-thinking herd following geniuses.

cjk on September 29, 2009 at 2:46 AM

Is Humphreys the guy who thinks that the speed of light has been getting slower and slower?

Pelayo on September 28, 2009 at 9:38 PM

Don’t know, but the current theory of the “inflationary universe” most definitely postulates this.

Squiggy on September 29, 2009 at 6:35 AM

enough. God created the world, and then flooded it. Even this debate was predicted for all to read 2,000 years ago. 2 Peter describes a time when men will scoff at the idea that the world was created in six days.

Osis on September 29, 2009 at 7:47 AM

Your question seems to be “why is the universe structured in such a way as to make this true.” To answer this I again cite the anthropic principle:

The (controversial even in scientific circles) Anthropic Principle doesn’t eliminate the improbability of uniformity in nature. In fact, it points to the necessity of our purposeful existence, a feature of Christianity. It does nothing in the way of giving an account for uniformity in nature in an atheistic worldview. The fact remains that such a worldview is without justification.

Further, it is one thing to declare that one’s morality is absolute, but it is a different matter for one’s morality actually to be correct.

And how is this not an allusion to moral relativism? And why should the human brain, if it is simply a series of chemical reactions, develop morality? Keeping in mind that survival value does not equate to truth.

I refer you again back to the anthropic principle.

Again, a notion dismissed by many evolutionists because of it’s supernatural implications. And not really a justification either.

Vaporman87 on September 29, 2009 at 10:26 AM

Evolution is the perfect example of the herd mentality, after all if the priests tell us it’s so it must be so(sumerians). The more time passes, nothing changes. Mankind has believed scientific BS over and over many times because the priests are always allied with the kings……. The fossil record indisputably disproves evolution, but it absolutely can’t be denied by the priests. And all the non-thinking Lemmings just follow the leader and smugly congratulate one another on how enlightened they are. If all you fools would just look at and contemplate what the fossil record says, you would see that it disproves the theory.

cjk on September 29, 2009 at 2:40 AM

1) You’re a liar. See below.

2) Even without the fossil record, there is overwhelming proof for evolution from modern creatures and from molecular genetics.

3) You have apparently never taken the time to examine the evidence for evolution. I, meanwhile, know exactly what it is that your priests say. (My preacher, at the time, told me not to, that it was all lies anyway, for reasons he could tell me, and that there was a conspiracy afoot among every school teacher, professor, and scientist in the world.) Who is following a herd?

4) I called you a liar earlier. Here is proof that it was a statement of fact, and not mere overheated rhetoric:

…at any moment somebody might dig up a mammal in Cambrian rocks, and the theory of evolution would be instantly blown apart if they did….
Quite apart from all the other reasons to object to [the creationist] explanation [of the fossil record], there could only ever be a statistical tendency for mammals, for example, to be on average better at escaping the rising [Great Flood] waters than reptiles. Instead, as we should expect on the evolution theory, there literally are no mammals in the lower strata of the geological record. The ‘head for the hills’ theory would be on more solid ground if there were a statistical tailing off of mammals as you move down through the rocks. There are literally no trilobites above Permian strata, literally no dinosaurs (except birds) above Cretaceous strata. Once again, the ‘head for the hills’ theory would predict a statistical tailing off.

think what the geographical distribution of animals should look like if they all dispersed from Noah’s Ark. Shouldn’t there be some sort of law of decreasing species diversity as we move away from an epicenter—perhaps Mount Ararat? I don’t need to tell you that that is not what we see.
Why would all those marsupials… but no placentals at all, have migrated en masse from Mount Ararat to Australia? What route did they take? And why did not a single member of their straggling caravan pause along the way, and settle…. Why did the entire order of Edentata… troop off unerringly for South America, leaving not a [trace] behind…? Why were they joined by the entire infraorder of caviomorph rodents…? Why did an entire sub-order of monkeys, the platyrrhine monkeys, end up in South America and nowhere else? Shouldn’t at least a few of them have joined the rest of the monkeys, the catarrhines, in Asia or Africa? And shouldn’t at least one species of catarrhine have found itself in the New World? Why did all the penguins undertake the long waddle south to the Antarctic, not a single one to the equally hospitable Arctic?

Both of the above from Dawkins, The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution.

hicsuget on September 29, 2009 at 1:56 PM

The (controversial even in scientific circles) Anthropic Principle doesn’t eliminate the improbability of uniformity in nature. In fact, it points to the necessity of our purposeful existence, a feature of Christianity. It does nothing in the way of giving an account for uniformity in nature in an atheistic worldview.

You, then, have an incorrect understanding of the Anthropic Principle. Perhaps you have studied rudimentary statistics. If you have, let me explain using statistical terms (if you haven’t studied statistics, nothing can help you understand science… sorry.)

Take a rare event, like winning the lottery. Assign it an arbitrary probability of 1 in a million. Now show up to your high school reunion, and observe that the ne’er-do-well dropout who’s spent half his life in prison now owns a fancy Aston Martin. It seems unlikely. What are the odds of that?

Well, as we have already seen, the probability is 1 in 1,000,000 that he would win the lottery. But what is the probability, contingent on his winning the lottery, that he would buy a fancy sports car? That conditional probability P( buy a sports car | win the lottery ) is 100%.

So, without talking to him, knowing that he owns a fancy sports car, with what probability can you say he won the lottery?

This is the statistics behind the anthropic principle. The odds seem against a random universe being hospitable to life, but the universe we are in is hospitable to life, so therefore it must have happened.

And how is this not an allusion to moral relativism? And why should the human brain, if it is simply a series of chemical reactions, develop morality? Keeping in mind that survival value does not equate to truth.

That’s not a question you can ask. Even assuming that it is impossible to have an absolute morality without religion, the question still remains: is the religion itself true or false? If the religion is false, it is actually a bad thing for it to have an absolute morality.

The choice as it exists for me is between a number of secular moralities which may or may not be absolute, and a number of religious moralities which, while absolute, are based on lies. The choice here is clear.

hicsuget on September 29, 2009 at 2:32 PM

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