Estranged Notions: Are We Living in the Matrix?

Yesterday's post:

Are We Living in the Matrix?

Estranged Notions: Getting Morality Wrong

Yesterday's post (after 3 weeks of silence):

Getting Morality Wrong

In which Joe Heschmeyer seems more concerned with the headline than the content:

Estranged Notions: 4 Errors About the Burden of Proof for God

Today's post:

4 Errors About the Burden of Proof for God

Estranged Notions: Trial by Fire: Modernity’s Response to Miracles

Today's post:

Trial by Fire: Modernity’s Response to Miracles

Heschmeyer apparently wants to believe that all those people who passed their trial-by-ordeal in the early middle ages were the beneficiaries of actual miracles, rather than that the priests were systematically fudging the trials.

Estranged Notions: How Richard Dawkins Helps Prove Biblical Inspiration

Today's post (well, it was today's when I started, probably yesterday's by the time this is done):

How Richard Dawkins Helps Prove Biblical Inspiration

The ‘bronze-age goat-herders / desert tribes / whatever’ dismissal of the Bible is probably the atheist meme that I find most annoying. It's true that the Old Testament portrays itself—and of course not merely the Protestant fundamentalists but also a substantial Catholic traditionalist contingent concurs in this—as containing a record of bronze-age events and individuals; but this position has long since ceased to be tenable.

As usual, though, Heschmeyer fails to make any kind of credible response.

Estranged Notions: Can We Actually Know Anything About God?

Today's post:

Can We Actually Know Anything About God?

I need a stronger tag than “drivel”.

This one bases its argument primarily on the Aristotelian ‘principle of proportionate causation’, which Heschmeyer seems to think is “so basic that [it] ought to be uncontroversial”. But on the contrary, like many aspects of Aristotelian metaphysics, it's either vacuous or false, and arguments that make use of it rely on equivocating between the vacuous sense and the false sense.

Similarly, it's a fallacy of composition to assume that because something is present in the effect it must therefore be present in the cause, or that the cause must be ‘greater’ than the effect.

Estranged Notions: 3 Easy Steps to Show that Absolute Truth Exists

Today's post:

3 Easy Steps to Show that Absolute Truth Exists

Estranged Notions: Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage?

Today's post:

Does the Bible Support Same-Sex Marriage?

As I believe I've mentioned before, I am, as an atheist, entirely in favour of the Catholic church (and other churches) harping on sexual issues as much as possible, because it's the most effective way of both undercutting their claim to moral authority and driving away many members. (The 2009 Pew survey showed that the top reasons given for leaving the Catholic church—all ranked above the abuse scandals—were the church's positions on homosexuality, abortion, contraception, and divorce, and the status of women.)

Estranged Notions: Abortion, Souls, and the Atheist Conundrum

Round three of Heschmeyer vs. Dillon on abortion:

Abortion, Souls, and the Atheist Conundrum

Estranged Notions: Do You Need God to Know That Abortion is Wrong?

Oh dear.

Do You Need God to Know That Abortion is Wrong?

I don't know whether this is deliberate dishonesty or egregious error: the article has a graph[edit: see below] supposedly showing the "latest" polling data on abortion but which is actually from 2012. This isn't because the whole article is recycled, either, because it is responding to a piece in The New Republic from last month.

Estranged Notions: Is Religion Responsible for the World’s Violence?

Yesterday's post:

Is Religion Responsible for the World’s Violence?

A mixed bag. While Heschmeyer has some correct criticisms, especially of Sam Harris, he tries to make his case using the most ridiculous collection of sources—quoting for example that bastion of authoritative journalism the Daily Mail for some heavily inflated numbers for deaths attributed to Mao and Stalin, and climate-denialist novelist Michael Crichton on the inevitability of religion (taken out of context from a speech in which he repeats an entire litany of easily debunked anti-environmentalist myths).

Estranged Notions: Stem Cell Research and ‘Science vs. Religion’

Today's post:

Stem Cell Research and ‘Science vs. Religion’

You'd think that after that Donohue post, anything would be an improvement, but this one tries hard to prove that wrong.

Estranged Notions: Atheism and the Problem of Beauty

Today's post:

Atheism and the Problem of Beauty

Estranged Notions: What Racism Reveals About God and Man

Belated link to yesterday's post:

What Racism Reveals About God and Man

As usual, there is no actual attempt to engage with secular concepts of ethics, just a brute denial that they exist. (Really need an even more disparaging tag than "drivel" for these kinds of posts.)

Estranged Notions: How to Perfectly Know the Existence of God

Yadda yadda contingent yadda necessary yadda yadda Aquinas. Haven't we seen all of this before?

How to Perfectly Know the Existence of God

Estranged Notions: What the Media Got Wrong about Pope Francis and Evolution

Inaccurate reporting in mainstream media shocker:

What the Media Got Wrong about Pope Francis and Evolution

Of course this all misses the point of what the real incompatibilities between evolution and Catholicism are: no teleology in nature, no Adam and Eve, no immutable human nature, "soul" as the Aristotelian form of the evolved human is not compatible with the "soul" which is individually specially created by God.

Estranged Notions: Did the Accounts of Jesus Evolve?

Today's post:

Did the Accounts of Jesus Evolve?

Estranged Notions: Demons, Playing Cards, and Telescopes

Today's post:

Demons, Playing Cards, and Telescopes

Heschmeyer does not seem to acknowledge that his initial point cuts both ways — being primed to believe in the existence of demons is actually even more analogous to having previously learned to associate the shapes and colours of playing cards.

Estranged Notions: Neurology and C.S. Lewis’ Argument from Desire

Today's post:

Neurology and C.S. Lewis’ Argument from Desire

Estranged Notions: 4 Things You Probably Have Wrong About the Hobby Lobby Decision

Today's post:

4 Things You Probably Have Wrong About the Hobby Lobby Decision