Comments on: Interview with Laura Purdy https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/2100 Announcing appearances, publications, and analysis of questions historical, philosophical, and political by author, philosopher, and historian Richard Carrier. Sun, 23 Jul 2023 15:24:57 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.1 By: Ryan M https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/2100#comment-4627 Wed, 12 Sep 2012 12:27:42 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/?p=2100#comment-4627 In reply to larry.

Your reasoning that “If Dawkins does not know what caused the universe then Dawkins is not an atheist” is rather bad. Take for example three explanatory hypotheses, h1, h2, h3. Let’s say h1 is the hypothesis that Abraham Lincoln shot Kennedy, h2 is that Oswald shot Kennedy, and h3 is that the CIA did it. If we didn’t know whether h2 or h3 were true, it wouldn’t follow that we also don’t know if h1 is false. H1 is obviously false, in fact it has a 0 probability (But let’s pretend it can be a hypothesis). Just like the 3 hypothesis example it can be true that Dawkins might not know which hypothesis is the best regarding the creation of the cosmos but it doesn’t follow from this that he can’t know which ones are false.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/2100#comment-4626 Mon, 10 Sep 2012 16:17:47 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/?p=2100#comment-4626 In reply to larry.

False dichotomy.

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By: larry https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/2100#comment-4625 Sun, 09 Sep 2012 20:19:46 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/?p=2100#comment-4625 Being an atheist is useless to me. As a matter of fact, I have never met a REAL atheist. Every person I’ve met who claims to be an atheist ALWAYS turns out to be an agnostic..just like me!! Indeed one can go to YouTube and type “Ben Stein interviews Richrad Dawkins” in the search box and biologist and atheist evangelical Dawkins, when pressed by my Jewish brother Ben Stein, finally admits he is not an atheist after all. Richard Dawkins admits that he has NO idea how the universe got here and/or began and that he does not know how life came to be on this planet, says neither does anyone else & I guess that also means my buddy here Dr. Carrier.. and even admits that the wild theory of scientists such as Sir Fred Hoyle & Frances Crick that life likely came FROM OUTERSPACE could end up being correct. But the big kicker is: Dawkins is NOT a real atheist. I assume atheists with big balls will just come out and say “there is NO god & that is final. The universe either is eternal or created itself out of nothing..but god is a complete myth & impossible”. But Richard Dawkins disappointed me after years of seeing him with much big talk & fell a few rungs on my ladder of heros when he told Ben Stein about how certain he is that god does not exist.. that on a scale of one to seven, he is a six! Well I might be a 3 or a 4 and Dawkins is a 6. But that is NOT a 7! So no matter how you slice it, Richard Dawkins is NOT a REAL atheist. He is agnostic just like me & the majority of people who claim to be atheist and about half the people, when pressed, who believe in god. The world is full of fat heads and agnostics my good man!

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By: gwen https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/2100#comment-4624 Thu, 06 Sep 2012 22:43:37 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/?p=2100#comment-4624 Thanks Richard. I’m looking forward to the next installment.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/2100#comment-4623 Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:25:47 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/?p=2100#comment-4623 In reply to Alscepius.

Wrote, yes. It was in the questionnaire she responded to. The only thing that comes close is Bunge’s eight volume Treatise on Basic Philosophy, and even that was incomplete in respect to describing a fully integrated worldview (e.g. no volumes on politics or aesthetics).

But if you know of any book (or set of books) that attempts to describe a complete, fully integrated worldview covering (and thoroughly linking together in a coherent fashion) all six Aristotelian categories (epistemology, science, metaphysics, ethics, aesthetics, and politics–a complete integration of which also requires at least basic theories of semantics and metaethics), do let me know.

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By: Richard Carrier https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/2100#comment-4622 Mon, 03 Sep 2012 23:19:24 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/?p=2100#comment-4622 In reply to The Nerd.

All links are working as of now. Don’t know what happened.

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By: Ray Staroof https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/2100#comment-4621 Sat, 01 Sep 2012 05:32:37 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/?p=2100#comment-4621 I love this series! Keep it up!

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By: Alscepius https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/2100#comment-4620 Sat, 01 Sep 2012 02:59:24 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/?p=2100#comment-4620 >>I’m pretty sure my book Sense and Goodness without God: A Defense of Metaphysical Naturalism [AuthorHouse 2005] is the only one of its kind in nearly a century.

You didn’t actually say that to her did you?

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By: The Nerd https://www.richardcarrier.info/archives/2100#comment-4619 Fri, 31 Aug 2012 16:47:52 +0000 http://freethoughtblogs.com/carrier/?p=2100#comment-4619 http://www.iheu.org/node/2185 “access denied” to her bio at IHEU

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