Todd Horton's back
I know what you're thinking. Oh, goody. He must have sensed how much we missed him.
-------------------------------------
Dale,
Long time since we've talked. Just wondering if you would like to pick up and resume a dialogue. I know that you've gotten enough of a vacation from my "craziness" by now, and you should have had some time to study up and try and present an intelligent argument by now. So if you aren't afraid and are willing I would like to start a dialogue in order to use as an opportunity to get the science students at my local university to toughen up and have a debate. Just think you could be a hero to scientific minded students far away from where you live. This is posted on the board already along with our old dialogue so if you choose not to respond you will let a lot of students down.
Todd
-------------------------------
Can you believe this guy?
-------------------------------
Wow, it's Todd, back for more. Let's see, how does this go again? You're going to say there's this guy called god who made everything, all the evidence for which amounts to nothing.
I'm positive at some point I referred to your "craziness", and that's what it is. I decided that you had flipped when whatever it was that was in the last email I sent you, words I carefully constructed so that they couldn't possibly have been made easier to understand, you decided were, if memory serves, "a little confusing". I was at the end of my rope, and I figured you for a lost cause. Which you are. So if you are itchin' to fight about some specific thing that makes it look like there's a magic man who lives in the sky, fine.Take your best shot, I guess. You bore me to tears.
So now you want to drag a science class into it, like that's going to prove something. If some science class somewhere needed someone like me, which they don't, to have some kind of argument with you, it wouldn't be a science class. It would be an argument class. Science, since you didn't know, isn't a competing philosophy, it's a method invented (or at least formalized) by Isaac Newton, a framework for examining facts and testing ideas. Rigorous, relentless analysis is involved, and nothing is held sacred. This is to make sure that what comes out the other end of "experiments" is actually real. Religion, on the other hand, is designed so that the belief comes first, and everything that comes out the other side looks exactly like it's supposed to, to fit the pre-existing notions of the believer. It makes me laugh and cry that people like you think their beliefs are the equals of everyone else, when they are so clearly grounded in a dogma that bears no resemblance to physical reality.
Two questions for you.
1) Where would you like to start?
2) Where are you posting this, so I can be sure you aren't editing it.
If I get there and all of this isn't posted, you can forget about it.
Hugs,
Dale
-------------------------------
It was Francis Bacon, by the way, not Isaac Newton. Oops. Let's see if he gives me shit.
-------------------------------
-------------------------------------
Dale,
Long time since we've talked. Just wondering if you would like to pick up and resume a dialogue. I know that you've gotten enough of a vacation from my "craziness" by now, and you should have had some time to study up and try and present an intelligent argument by now. So if you aren't afraid and are willing I would like to start a dialogue in order to use as an opportunity to get the science students at my local university to toughen up and have a debate. Just think you could be a hero to scientific minded students far away from where you live. This is posted on the board already along with our old dialogue so if you choose not to respond you will let a lot of students down.
Todd
-------------------------------
Can you believe this guy?
-------------------------------
Wow, it's Todd, back for more. Let's see, how does this go again? You're going to say there's this guy called god who made everything, all the evidence for which amounts to nothing.
I'm positive at some point I referred to your "craziness", and that's what it is. I decided that you had flipped when whatever it was that was in the last email I sent you, words I carefully constructed so that they couldn't possibly have been made easier to understand, you decided were, if memory serves, "a little confusing". I was at the end of my rope, and I figured you for a lost cause. Which you are. So if you are itchin' to fight about some specific thing that makes it look like there's a magic man who lives in the sky, fine.Take your best shot, I guess. You bore me to tears.
So now you want to drag a science class into it, like that's going to prove something. If some science class somewhere needed someone like me, which they don't, to have some kind of argument with you, it wouldn't be a science class. It would be an argument class. Science, since you didn't know, isn't a competing philosophy, it's a method invented (or at least formalized) by Isaac Newton, a framework for examining facts and testing ideas. Rigorous, relentless analysis is involved, and nothing is held sacred. This is to make sure that what comes out the other end of "experiments" is actually real. Religion, on the other hand, is designed so that the belief comes first, and everything that comes out the other side looks exactly like it's supposed to, to fit the pre-existing notions of the believer. It makes me laugh and cry that people like you think their beliefs are the equals of everyone else, when they are so clearly grounded in a dogma that bears no resemblance to physical reality.
Two questions for you.
1) Where would you like to start?
2) Where are you posting this, so I can be sure you aren't editing it.
If I get there and all of this isn't posted, you can forget about it.
Hugs,
Dale
-------------------------------
It was Francis Bacon, by the way, not Isaac Newton. Oops. Let's see if he gives me shit.
-------------------------------
posted by dale at 5:33 PM
1 Comments:
You and Todd (and his science class) might be interested in a book I have written entitled "How Are We To Know?" It's about how we get and evaluate beliefs (plus chapters on truth, reality, the scientific method, pseudoscience, and religion). It's on the web and available no charge! Pointers to the chapters and to the entire book are at:
http://ai.stanford.edu/users/nilsson/hawtk/hawtk-webpage.htm
(nilsson@cs.stanford.edu)
Post a Comment
<< Home