Comments on: Responding to Sean Carroll: What If There Had Been a Camera at the Resurrection?

By: RandomActsOfReason

RandomActsOfReason — Sun, 19 Jul 2009 06:13:46 +0000

This is simply an argument from authority, one of the most basic logical fallacies. It is revealing that Mooney is so emotionally and irrationally committed to defending his position that he would commit such a basic error.

The veracity of a claim does not depend on the identity of the claimant. Haught saying something does not make it any more correct or incorrect than if anyone else says it, and his testifying in favor of evolution has no bearing on the validity of the assertions about Jesus that Mooney quotes in this post.

Really, is is so disappointing when people with a track record of reasonable and insightful and critical review of the world get caught up in self-justification and abandon their critical thinking abilities in service of an irrational emotional argument that they desperately want to be true.

That’s not how science works.

By: What Questions Can Science Answer? | Cosmic Variance | Discover Magazine

Wed, 15 Jul 2009 15:01:26 +0000

[...] religion, which entails a variety of claims about things that actually happen in the world; not the it’s-all-in-our-hearts interpretation, where religion makes no such claims. (I have no interest in arguing at this point [...]

By: mike

mike — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 20:56:33 +0000

Haven’t read all the comments, but I got to here and paused:

This isn’t the end of Sean’s argument, but I think it’s helpful to pause here and ask, is a claim like “Jesus died and was resurrected” really falsifiable by science in the same way that a claim like “The Earth is 10,000 years old” is falsifiable? I’d submit that at least as held by some sophisticated believers, it isn’t.

Some “sophisticated” believers claim that God created the earth 6000 years ago so it would look at though it were 5 billion as a test of our faith. That’s as strong a claim as those theologians you cite for some sort of non-physical resurection. As far as I can tell, the only one with any sense in the whole resurrection story is Thomas who insists upon putting his fingers into the nail holes and his hand into Jesus’ side, a clearly physical act. Of course this was reported second hand, and the very scientific Thomas left us no lab notes to help us repeat his experiment. Unreproducible results mean I’ll have to discount it as fraud, just like cold fusion. Unless you think we should let those who have faith keep believing in that too?

By: Quote of the Day « Prometheus Unbound

Quote of the Day « Prometheus Unbound — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 18:45:28 +0000

[...] a comment » The Dalai Lama on the relation of his religion to science: If science proves some belief of Buddhism wrong, then [...]

By: RNA world

RNA world — Wed, 01 Jul 2009 11:21:08 +0000

Mr. McCarthy, I am not a new atheist and I am not even really interested in religion. I am not interested in debating anyone here about religion. The reason for my commenting was strictly scientific. I just thought I would mention that scientists actually working in exobiology understand the speculative nature of their work but also apply the same standards to their work as people in other more traditional scientific fields. At least some of their work gets published in journals like Science and Nature. The way I understand it, one of the points here was about whether life in other worlds could have arose by natural selection. Strictly at a molecular level based on what we have seen, I would say there is a good reason to believe that it did, even though actual life may look quite different. I would be happy to provide you with some peer-reviewed journal articles based on which this assumption is founded. I guess what I am saying is that the scientific basis for believing in life arising by natural selection anywhere is not related in any way to Richard Dawkins or Carl Sagan or anyone else.

By: Anthony McCarthy

Anthony McCarthy — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 10:03:50 +0000

Dan S. If you could hear how hard I’m laughing over your psycho-analysis of me. I wish I’d seen it before.

This AM in the gaps is hilarious. I’m going to print it out and show it to people who know me. They’ll think it’s a riot. I think I’ll e-mail it to an old friend from my Science for the People days.

By: Anthony McCarthy

Anthony McCarthy — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 09:31:42 +0000

RNA World. I came back here because the gillt , the phony brought this thread up on a later one. I said I didn’t doubt that there was science being done, but without any application to actual lifeforms other than our own it’s alleged focus is more than a little cockeyed. Your professional career path doesn’t provide one, if it’s science you’re talking about.

While you’ve been polite, it does seem pretty funny to get lectured about my impiety by a bunch of neo-atheists who’ve been calling me all kinds of names and making up all kinds of stuff that I’m alleged to believe even as I point out that I’ve already said those ideas are bunk.

By: The Censorship Canard, Again | The Intersection | Discover Magazine

The Censorship Canard, Again | The Intersection | Discover Magazine — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 13:53:11 +0000

[...] did). And I have a right to criticize them and articulate compatibilist ideas (as I recently did in this post in response to Carroll and in many responses to [...]

By: Fresh debate on an old topic: Science vs Religion « Q2C Festival

Fresh debate on an old topic: Science vs Religion « Q2C Festival — Sun, 28 Jun 2009 01:49:23 +0000

[...] Mooney responded to Carroll’s post the very next day, arguing that Carroll has inadequately considered the definition of religion: It really does depend what you mean by “religion.” If we’re talking about the [...]

By: More of the same: ’science vs religion’ as a byproduct of ’science vs critical thinking’ « Hypertiling

Sat, 27 Jun 2009 13:31:47 +0000

[...] that dangerous man named Sam Harris. In a second post, underverse quotes Carroll from a comment to Mooney’s blogpost: Debating about definitions is tiresome. The relevant point is: belief in the supernatural in all [...]