I guess I've been slacking (actually, distracted by other stuff); this one is from last Tuesday.
How “New Existence” Implies God
Still, it's not like we missed anything, since it's all just the same warmed-over Thomfoolery that we've had again and again.
Yesterday's post:
Why Modern Physics Does Not Refute Thomistic Philosophy
Bonnette tries to defend his precious Thomism against modern science, without much success.
Today's post:
Answering Stephen Colbert’s Favorite Atheist Physicist
Horn responds, not to Carroll's book, but to an interview on Salon.
Today's post:
How Do You Know You’re Not in the Matrix?
You don't, and it doesn't matter. But Broussard's arguments get nowhere at all.
Today's post:
Do Theological Claims Need to be Falsifiable?
Feser obviously thinks “no”, but his arguments are as usual full of errors.
Today's post:
Modern Atheism: Dragging Plato Along Aristotle’s Coattails
Gordon slobbers all over Aristotle while accusing all and sundry of not recognizing Plato's inadequacies; never mind that people reject Aristotle because he is wrong, not out of any regard for Plato. (Though one obvious thing that the two have in common is that neither had access to anything like enough raw facts to have any chance of reaching correct conclusions.)
Part of the problem with Aristotle is expressed in Boyden's review of Feser thus:
In this chapter, Feser discusses Plato and Aristotle. He accepts a fairly standard view on which Plato is the crazy metaphysician, and Aristotle tries to take the good parts of Plato's metaphysics and ground them with a healthy mix of common sense. As I understand it, this is roughly Aristotle's interpretation, and I think it has misleading aspects, but it's at least partly true. It's also why I like Plato better than Aristotle, which is of course the reverse of Feser's judgment. The problem with tempering your philosophy with common sense is that it's actually pretty common for common sense to be wrong, and if you make a mistake as a result of faulty common sense, people may fail to notice the mistake for centuries, or even millennia. On the other hand, if you make a mistake in your wild metaphysical flights of fancy, people are sure to call you on it, as they apparently did with Plato; the progression of the metaphysical theories in the dialogues seems to show that he was presented with a variety of criticisms, and tried to revise his theories in response to them.
When the universe turns out not to look anything like the common-sense version, then a commitment to ancient metaphysics becomes a liability.
Today's post:
Is an All-Evil God as Likely as an All-Good God?
Feser vs. Stephen Law from five years ago, on Law's “evil god” reversed-theodicy arguments.
Today's post:
Why You Continually Need a First Cause for Your Existence
Drivel from start to finish.
Today's post:
Do Atheists Simply Repress Their Knowledge of God?
This is Feser's corner of a recent multi-way argument between apologist Greg Koukl, Randal Rauser, Feser, and atheist Jeff Lowder. Unsurprisingly Feser thinks that the Thomist perspective is the only right answer, but at least he has the apparent intellectual honesty to reject Koukl's nonsense.
But there's a wildcard in here that I didn't see mentioned by anyone involved. (I'd skimmed parts of this exchange on Rauser's blog and links before seeing this post). Koukl is using the usual “without excuse” clobber passage from Romans 1:18-20:
Barron goes to the movies again:
“The Martian” and Why Each Life Matters
(I haven't seen the movie yet, though it seems to be highly regarded.)
As usual, though, Barron's argument is an almost complete non-sequitur: yes, people set a high value on individual life (often inappropriately), but no, this isn't anything to do with our ability to handle abstractions; quite the reverse in fact.
Today's post:
Why Must the First Cause Still Be With Us Today?
Round two from Augros' supposed questioner. This time, though, the question being asked is fundamentally flawed.
Every single claimed example of a ‘per-se’ causal series I've ever seen has made one or both of these two errors:
Today's post:
Should We Be Skeptical About Needing a First Cause?
Michael Augros apparently wants to defend his Thomistic metaphysical b.s. against email challengers, but this post is just the challenge and not the response.
