13 June 2014

The Snarky Materialistic Reductionism Dodge (NEXT! #41)

by Dan Phillips

Challenge: Oh look. Bob's talking about his Invisible Friend!

Response: ...came the noise from the bipedal meatbag-shaped hodgepodge of random atoms.



(Proverbs 21:22)

Dan Phillips's signature


11 comments:

wakawakwaka said...

this is extremely strange I heard many Christians claim that if naturalism is true there can be no free will whatsoever, yet you are saying here that people are made of "random" molecules if naturalism was true. So which is it?

Randy Talley said...

ROFL!! Made. My. Day.

Robert Warren said...

Alt: Big Ugly Bags of Mostly Water.

DJP said...

You don't seem to have learned anything from Frank's schooling, Fozzie-sound-person. But sure, I'll give it a try.

If materialism is true, "true" is a meaningless concept. As is "meaning." And discussion is pointless. Particularly discussion about truth and meaning.

As are all attempts to throw off God's Lordship, materialism is ultimately self-defeating.

Michael Coughlin said...

Maybe Fozzie bear was just giving us a real life example of the point of the post.

DJP said...

Good point. PA#4 (http://bit.ly/MTJJox).

Grant H said...

You know, if you think about it, "Invisible Friend" doesn't have to be taken as derogatory, even if it's intended that way by the scoffer.

I mean, the living Yhwh is currently invisible, and, for Christians, he has become a friend.

You could invert the jibe and take it as an affirmation of your privilege as a believer.

"Invisible Friend": own it!

FX Turk said...

Dear Pac Man Sound Effect:

While I am disappointed that you aren't any better at Philosophy than you are at History, I am pleased you come here to get straightened out.

"Free will" does not equal "random." Random is in fact a key attribute of chaos. If our brains are functioning on the level of "random molecules," those brains are not making free choices: they are making random choices, which is to say they are only picking something with no causal purpose.

Thanks for asking.

DJP said...

...and given that they're random effects of random causes, they're hardly free, are they?

wakawakwaka said...

Frank- I like to see how many papers you wrote about obscure subjects like the marriage rites/rights of Byzantine women in the 14th century in university. You missed the point about my comments with eugenics. And as well (like many other posters)you seem again to fall in to the habit of strawmaning an athestic universe as "chance" based

FX Turk said...

Dear Pac Man Sound Effect --

Thanks again for replying.

In the eugenics comment, you had no correct information about the history of the word/idea, and you scorned the correct information when it was given to you. It's a shame that this is how you receive correction.

The marriage rites of Byzantine women in any century prior to today may have made gripping reading in University, but since it never influenced anything cultural west of what we call Bosnia today, thanks for mentioning it.

As for straw manning anybody, your original comment in this thread conflates "random" and "free." There's no need to straw man someone who frankly doesn't understand the definitions of words and simply tosses them into the comment thread. That person's arguments are already made of straw.

Thanks again.