... against Thunderf00t on Dembski

 

series:
	Creation vs Evolution : thunderf00t ... did you actually say that? (part 1) thunderf00t, did you really say that? (part 2) Trivium, Quadrivium 7 cætera : Thunderf00t on futile questions Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere : ... against Thunderf00t on Dembski ... on Thunderf00t having a point on feminism - and then a few not so on Ken Ham

Video commented on:

Thunderf00t : Why do people laugh at creationists? (part 13).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPMwDRsfCW8

My comment, over diverse parts

The reason we know the writing in the sand is human is that we have seen people writing in the sand, and also because there is no known natural phenomenon that produces such features.

Well - this is for integral Biblical Creationism, not for ID - Adam seems to have seen God create a few more trees and animals he had to name.

Plus there is to day no known natural phenomenon that produces the genome from scratch (reproducing is quite abnother matter).

Your example this time with the sands of the beach, exactly as the other time with water fitting in the glass, shows you have a lack of logic.

You argue - in my analysis - as follows:

"ID says that amino acids do not know how to combine into RNA, DNA, proteins, unless "told" by previously existing organised material, which means the first material needed a designer.

But I answer that in that case sand would need a designer to combine to a beach.
But we know there is no such designer. ID would admit as much.
Therefore, amino acids do not need a designer either."

In the general philosophical idea of ID (a k a 4th or 5th way of St Thomas Aquinas) the fact of sands combining harmoniously to form a beach do argue a designer too. Perhaps not as convincingly as DNA or as planetary orbist according to Tychonian Geocentrism. But beaches have the exact same designer.

Not just according to Catholicism. But according to what Catholicism claims was knowable to Aristotle & c:o. In other words according to what is knowable independently of confession.

And your parallel with the fire god is not very bad either - not very damaging for our case.

You cannot demonstrate there are no such things as fire spirits. When St Hippolytus wrote about the three young men in the furnace, he called the fire intelligent for not burning the three men but instead burning the executioners who looked down.

In other words, fire to him was certainly in a way material, but not exclusively.

Nor does Thomism teach that fire is an exclusively material phenomenon. As for those worshipping fire or sun or moon or stars, St Thomas likened them to poor men approaching the royal castle and mistaking lackeys for the king because they wear bright clothes.

So no Thomist arguing for design of stars - as observed! - moving as observed! - would need to feel any shame about someone not having a purely materialistic explanation of fire. Of courses, certain details of the material explanation currently accepted may be right. But that does not mean fire is working all on its own.

It is not a parallel where the ID argument would give a wrong answer, which is what you are trying to make it out as.

And I would not laugh at the stone sorting pixies either ...

Now, when you mentioned the one party behaving funny in the trial, here is about the other party.

I know that Kenneth Miller was involved in the trial, against them.

BUT, was he involved playing on the fact he was a Catholic?

And, more specifically, a TRADITIONAL Catholic?

If so he was a clear fraud.

New blog on the kid : Responding to Miller, Staying with Father Murphy's God, part 1
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/02/responding-to-miller-staying-with.html

New blog on the kid : Staying with Father Murphy's God, part 2
http://nov9blogg9.blogspot.com/2014/02/staying-with-father-murphys-god-part-2.html

Correspondence of Hans-Georg Lundahl : Staying with Father Murphy's God, part 3 - Correspondence with Ken Miller
http://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2014/02/staying-with-father-murphys-god-part-3.html

Correspondence of Hans-Georg Lundahl : Correspondence with Ken Miller (part 4 of Staying with Father Murphy's God)
http://correspondentia-ioannis-georgii.blogspot.com/2014/02/correspondence-with-ken-miller-part-4.html

Another funny thing about the trial.

YOU mentioned that Dembski had talked broadly about the affiliations of the judge. Now, behind these open affiliations, like George W. Bush, there could be somewhat more discreet ones, like Skull and Bones. But here I am only spinning on what you gave in video, of course.

Now, I totally agree that the judge argued badly. Maybe just because he was unduly impressed by a "traditional Catholic" calling ID a fraud, when the traditional Catholic was rather what real Traditional Catholics would call an Apostate. Maybe so.

But it could also be that George W. Bush was lying when he bawled "teach the controversy", and was authorised or ordered by Skull and Bones or something to let Dembski down and pass no word to the judge. Or he could have been so clumsy as to do precisely that - on purpose - if the judge would have integrity enough to react against that.

Now, if in such a climate Dembski et al. stepped down in the last moment, that reminds me of Mafiosi trials where witnesses and victims withdrew statements in the last moment.