Supposedly he also attacks other atheists to try and prevent “one falsehood to replace another”
Collins should have cited one of the various cosmologists who call multiverse concepts not “theory” but metaphysics. Your nemesis here is demonstrating either ignorance – failure to be aware that there are cosmologists who agree with Collins – or deception.
That just shows he’s never taken a logic course, or basic science for that matter.
What is this dweeb’s PhD in, anyway?
Which is incorrect. “No true Scotsman” requires a moveable definition of a Scotsman; there is a solid definition of Christianity.
Pires is obviously not a literary scholar. He’s ignoring a lot of what was plain to a first-century audience.
But enough of that – I have better things to do than consider what strike me as sophomoric at best.
The “expertise” you need is to recognize that the scriptures are ancient literature and not a single effort to make them talk science is legitimate in the first place, whether its from atheists or YEC.
I’m going to recommend these:
They should help get your eyes back on the text and show why listening to such rabble-rousers as this “angry Spanish guy” is a waste of your time.
Heh – yeah, I basically echo that. If I encountered him in person, I would likely just tell him two things:
- He’s treating the Bible like it’s supposed to be modern literature, which it isn’t, and until he bothers to study what it really is he’s just flapping his lips (or fingers, on the web).
- He should look at the evidence for the Resurrection, since that’s where it all focuses.
The equation is simple, and it smacks me over the head regularly when my brain starts to play games:
Jesus rose from the dead.
Jesus trusted the text.
This is sufficient to tell us to trust the text – not what we think it is, but what it is.
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Thank you for the in-depth analysis! I vastly appreciate this.
To do what Genesis 1 does:
All the statements of science rely on one thing alone: YHW-Elohim is Creator of all, and all was made by Him for His purposes, and if it isn’t serving His purposes, turn away! You don’t have to win battles against chaos; He mastered that at the start and He hasn’t lost control of it – it’s in His hands.
Just image Him!
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For starters he’s playing a quote-mining game, taking quotes that serve his purpose without really bothering to understand what the authors are talking about. For example, there are lots of people who when they “understood the full Darwinian explanation” saw in that a signpost to a Designer who deals not in individual ‘products’ but in elegant systems (guys like that made up most of our informal university “intelligent design” club, former atheists who due to studying evolution became theists [and often Christians]). Then there’s his caricature of history:
" The history of Christianity shows that it survives by absorbing scientific knowledge only when it can no longer combat it, as happened with the lightning rod (pararaios)." He totally skips the fact that it was love of their Creator that drove many, many scientists to seek to understand Creation.
ALso:
" Collins clearly commits a Special Pleading Fallacy (Petição Especial). He accepts the scientific observation (the constants are adjusted, discovered by physicists) but rejects the scientific consequence (the possibility of parallel universes)"
He ignores the physicists who point out that parallel universes are nothing more than a mathematical fancy resulting from playing “What if…?” and aren’t scientific consequences at all.
And:
" This idea of a universal sense of good and evil is false. It is a Judeo-Christian vision that was imposed upon cultures through colonization."
That shows me his familiarity with anthropology and sociology is thin at best.
I really want to know what his claimed credentials are, because by the evidence they have little to do with anything he’s actually pontificating about.
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Thank you again! I hope to one day have the spiritual expertise you have.