Sunday, February 24, 2013

Augustine -against science

 Despite the out of context quote of Augustine about his outlook on Genesis, he was indeed a literalist! Non-fundamentalists then vainly quote him.
  As one who hated dissent from Christ=insanity, he favored burning dissenters at the stake. How could he ever favor science?
  Besides, as Dawkins and Stenger advocate, mechanism rules, and thus, teleology contradicts science-Lamberth's mechanism argument- and thus, cannot complement it, and thus theistic evolution is no more than an oxy-moronic obfuscation!
   Both scientists urge others to learn real science. Science eviscerates theism= reduced animism, and thus, reduced animism is as superstitious as full animism and polytheism!
   How could he ever have accepted evolution which denies in effect original sin? Despite Michael Ruse, theology and science cannot mix from the side of science.

Buy-bull: An Examination of Augustine’s Commentaries on Genesis One and Their Implications on a Modern Theological Controversy - Answers in Genesis

Buy-bull: An Examination of Augustine’s Commentaries on Genesis One and Their Implications on a Modern Theological Controversy - Answers in Genesis

Wednesday, February 6, 2013

Our moral sense

I think that overall our moral sense provides more for altruism and empathy than for those bad           activities.. Everyday most people help each other, whilst few engage in those bad activities.
 I agree with Paul Kurtz  in " Forbidden Fruit' and Quentin Smith in his book on ethics and religion that the common decencies are universal.
To concentrate on those bad activities is what the immoral ethicists do. We are not evil by nature as Ellis Albert in " The Myth of Self -Esteem," notes but rather more good than bad.
 As Sam Harris in " The Moral Landscape"  and Alonzo  note, science can inform us about how to proceed with our choices
Theists beg the question that God gave us the moral sense. over the millennia, humanity has refined the sense with  better ethics, and  putative God did not give an evolving ethic!
  Why, as S.T. Joshi  in  " God's Defenders"   notes, even the religious don't favor all their God's commands!
   My covenant morality for humanity -the presumption  of morality is similar to Richard Carrier's in his " Sense and Goodness without God: a Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism."