Freethought & Rationalism Archive

GakuseiDon · 01-01-2010, 10:22 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switch89

GDon,

I'm not much impressed with your defense of Holding. What he said was pretty gross and pretty rude.

Well... in your blog you describe him as having a "douchebag goatee", call him an "asshole", a "quaking, quivering piss-pants coward", an "unreliable little bastard", and (elsewhere) a "dishonest fag".

Are those terms justifiable?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switch89

Not that that means Christianity is false, just that I think Christians ought to pick a better spokesperson if they want to actually win people over.

He's not my spokesperson. I'm only interested in the verifiable information on his website. As I've said, I think that he does himself a disservice by making so many enemies since it means that his website is unlinkable.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switch89

Now, the three quotes weren't the only thing, or even the main thing, that made me write my blog article. The fact is is that he pretends to be an authority on a lot of different issues and makes grand pronouncements without a hint of doubt about the dates of certain books of the Bible (like Daniel) even though he has ZERO qualifications in any relevant area. And then he criticizes others for doing the same. I also mentioned quite a number of other things that show he is unreliable as an authority. Do you disagree with those?

I haven't looked into many of those issues, since I don't regard the Bible as "true", either literally or metaphorically. So I'm not interested in whether Daniel is 7th C BCE or 2nd C BCE.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switch89

So I think if you want to defend Holding you should also look at the other issues that I brought up.

I'm not interested in defending Holding. I know that saying anything even remotely positive about Holding on this forum paints a big red circle on my forehead, and will probably be used against me in the future. But, having looked for myself, I simply haven't found him as bad as legend depicts. Again, I point to the "Holding Quote" page you gave earlier. Juvenile taunts along the lines of "wee wees" and "doggie doos" are about as bad as he gets.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switch89

Look at the meat of the article, not just the quotes I mentioned in order to give my readers an idea of what Holding was like.

Well, let's have a good close examination of one of Holding's articles from his website. We can do it here, or in a debate thread (though it would be an examination rather than a debate). If we turn up anything that shows Holding is wrong, I'll bring it up myself on TheologyWeb. How does that sound? The only proviso is if it relates to off-line sources it may be hard to verify so the article should preferably contain sources that can be easily verified. But I'm sure we can work around the issues.

Toto · 01-01-2010, 11:18 PM

GDon - Holding has dished out abusive rhetoric and name calling with no provocation. He seems to have tried to clean up his act of late, and he does keep revising things from his website, so I can't easily pull up examples, but you can search www.infidels.org for Holding.

Brian Holtz vs Holding on the Trilemma

Quote:

Robert Turkel does not include this link in either of his essays where he quotes Holtz's edited responses. This is Turkel's modus operandi: he avoids linking to or even naming the essays he rebuts, and usually avoids so much as naming the author he is attacking. He also routinely changes his essays after being refuted, yet rarely announces the changes or concessions in any way, and he also employs childish insults and other rudeness. Because this unethical and shameful behavior of Turkel's has truly run amok for too long, the Secular Web has seen fit to publish this essay to document his behavior, as well as to point readers to some very good material rebutting the Trilemma argument.

Toto · 01-01-2010, 11:26 PM

For that matter, compare Holding's essay on Crossing the Rubicon to Richard Carrier's Rebuttal and see if you think it is worth spending the time on Holding's work. (Holding has intimated that he is revising his Impossible Faith to meet Carrier's objections, but he could't resist throwing in some insults on Theology Web.)

Life is too short to pay that much attention to Holding.

Switch89 · 01-01-2010, 11:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Well... in your blog you describe him as having a "douchebag goatee", call him an "asshole", a "quaking, quivering piss-pants coward", an "unreliable little bastard", and (elsewhere) a "dishonest fag".

Are those terms justifiable?

I think so. The way he has acted shows that he deserves to be treated the same way he treats others. When a comedian gets on stage, they might get heckled: Interrupted, insulted rudely, called names, etc. And the best way to handle somebody like that is to fight fire with fire. The comedian probably recognizes the Heckler's actions as wrong, but that shouldn't stop him from calling the heckler out so he can get on with the show.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switch89

Look at the meat of the article, not just the quotes I mentioned in order to give my readers an idea of what Holding was like.

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Well, let's have a good close examination of one of Holding's articles from his website. We can do it here, or in a debate thread (though it would be an examination rather than a debate). If we turn up anything that shows Holding is wrong, I'll bring it up myself on TheologyWeb. How does that sound? The only proviso is if it relates to off-line sources it may be hard to verify so the article should preferably contain sources that can be easily verified. But I'm sure we can work around the issues.

I'm willing to have that discussion. For now, we'll just look at one example (and perhaps more later on).

From an article that was previously on Holding's website, we see that he says,

"I draw from The Blind Watchmaker. The work as a whole runs upon a premise of an immensely begged question (evolution must have taken place, because here we are)."

This is demonstrably wrong to anyone who has read the Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins not only cites evidence of evolution, but provides an argument that evolution is the only known, valid ultimate explanation for the origin of what we might call "ordered complexity" aka specified complexity, as we see in living things. It is important for to stress what I've just said: evolution is not the *only* explanation for ordered complexity (some things are designed) but what Dawkins claims is that evolution is the only known ULTIMATE (and valid) explanation for complexity (because postulating a designer still leaves us with complexity because designers are, by their very nature, complex).

Also, I don't think it will be necessary for us to examine whether Dawkins is *right* (though I think Dawkins is basically correct and I'm willing to discuss that elsewhere). Even if Dawkins' arguments for evolution are totally invalid, Dawkins still did NOT beg the question. At worst he would have provided unconvincing arguments to support the notion that evolution was the only known valid ultimate explanation for complexity. And that does not equate with the massively stupid error Holding accused Dawkins of.

One might argue that maybe Holding took this article off his site because he realized he was wrong. But he never (to my knowledge) confessed that and I think the last I heard he was revising the article to publish it somewhere else:
http://www.tektonics.org/af/evologic.html

One wonders if the newer version repeats the same errors as the old one.

Switch89 · 01-02-2010, 12:12 AM

BTW, if you don't have access to a physical copy of The Blind Watchmaker, you can look at it on books.google.com

Read the first page of chapter 11 and you'll see that Dawkins said:

"My argument will be that Darwinism is the only known theory that is in principle capable of explaining certain aspects of life. If I am right it means that, even if there were no actual evidence in favour of the Darwinian theory (there is, of course) we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories."

Read on and Dawkins argues against rivals such as Lamarckism and Creationism.

Anyway, I think all of this shows that Holding has poor reading comprehension skills, and therefore its not a good idea to trust him to properly comprehend and interpret books that are even more complex and scholarly than Dawkins' book. Don't buy what Holding says unless you can verify it yourself.

Switch89 · 01-02-2010, 12:19 AM

BTW, I just read Holding's "response". I thought I was gonna get super-pissed off, but in fact I was rather pleased to see that he didn't really say anything to address the substance of what I wrote.

GakuseiDon · 01-02-2010, 12:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switch89

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Well... in your blog you describe him as having a "douchebag goatee", call him an "asshole", a "quaking, quivering piss-pants coward", an "unreliable little bastard", and (elsewhere) a "dishonest fag".

Are those terms justifiable?

I think so. The way he has acted shows that he deserves to be treated the same way he treats others. When a comedian gets on stage, they might get heckled: Interrupted, insulted rudely, called names, etc. And the best way to handle somebody like that is to fight fire with fire.

Fair enough.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switch89

Quote:

Originally Posted by GakuseiDon

Well, let's have a good close examination of one of Holding's articles from his website. We can do it here, or in a debate thread (though it would be an examination rather than a debate). If we turn up anything that shows Holding is wrong, I'll bring it up myself on TheologyWeb. How does that sound? The only proviso is if it relates to off-line sources it may be hard to verify so the article should preferably contain sources that can be easily verified. But I'm sure we can work around the issues.

I'm willing to have that discussion. For now, we'll just look at one example (and perhaps more later on).

From an article that was previously on Holding's website, we see that he says,

"I draw from The Blind Watchmaker. The work as a whole runs upon a premise of an immensely begged question (evolution must have taken place, because here we are)."

This is demonstrably wrong to anyone who has read the Blind Watchmaker. Dawkins not only cites evidence of evolution, but provides an argument that evolution is the only known, valid ultimate explanation for the origin of what we might call "ordered complexity" aka specified complexity, as we see in living things. It is important for to stress what I've just said: evolution is not the *only* explanation for ordered complexity (some things are designed) but what Dawkins claims is that evolution is the only known ULTIMATE (and valid) explanation for complexity (because postulating a designer still leaves us with complexity because designers are, by their very nature, complex).

Also, I don't think it will be necessary for us to examine whether Dawkins is *right* (though I think Dawkins is basically correct and I'm willing to discuss that elsewhere). Even if Dawkins' arguments for evolution are totally invalid, Dawkins still did NOT beg the question. At worst he would have provided unconvincing arguments to support the notion that evolution was the only known valid ultimate explanation for complexity. And that does not equate with the massively stupid error Holding accused Dawkins of.

One might argue that maybe Holding took this article off his site because he realized he was wrong. But he never (to my knowledge) confessed that and I think the last I heard he was revising the article to publish it somewhere else:
http://www.tektonics.org/af/evologic.html

One wonders if the newer version repeats the same errors as the old one.

I have no doubt that you are right, but examining Holding using quotes from an article that is no longer on his website wasn't really what I had in mind, I'm afraid. I was thinking of where Holding has responded to someone (you or someone else), and we have both sides to look at. In that way we can see if Holding is wrong, or dodging the question, etc. But it really does need to be an active webpage on his website, if I'm going to bring it up on TheologyWeb.

Switch89 · 01-02-2010, 12:42 AM

OK GDon. But before we move on to something else, are you willing to concede that Holding has poor reading comprehension skills? Because that, I believe, is the only explanation for how he could've possibly thought Dawkins argued in a circle. Either that, or he hasn't really read the book (which would make him dishonest).

That concession would make a difference, I think. If Holding has shown that he has poor reading comprehension when it comes to an easy read like Dawkins' book, then that means we really have to check on what he claims about more complex scholarly works.

GakuseiDon · 01-02-2010, 01:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switch89

OK GDon. But before we move on to something else, are you willing to concede that Holding has poor reading comprehension skills? Because that, I believe, is the only explanation for how he could've possibly thought Dawkins argued in a circle. Either that, or he hasn't really read the book (which would make him dishonest).

It's really hard to tell, based on a two sentence quote. Certainly Holding would need to justify his statement, and he should be allowed to do so. But it is hard to believe that Dawkins wouldn't have provided evidence for evolution in his book.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Switch89

That concession would make a difference, I think. If Holding has shown that he has poor reading comprehension when it comes to an easy read like Dawkins' book, then that means we really have to check on what he claims about more complex scholarly works.

Yes, fair comment.

Switch89 · 01-02-2010, 02:40 AM

Shall we discuss the objection Chris Hallquist made, and by refutation of Holding's response to that?

Thread Tools	Search this Thread
Show Printable Version	Search this Thread: Advanced Search

01-01-2010, 11:26 PM	#13
Toto Contributor Join Date: Jun 2000 Location: Los Angeles area Posts: 40,549	For that matter, compare Holding's essay on Crossing the Rubicon to Richard Carrier's Rebuttal and see if you think it is worth spending the time on Holding's work. (Holding has intimated that he is revising his Impossible Faith to meet Carrier's objections, but he could't resist throwing in some insults on Theology Web.) Life is too short to pay that much attention to Holding.

01-02-2010, 12:12 AM	#15
Switch89 Regular Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Montgomery, AL Posts: 453	BTW, if you don't have access to a physical copy of The Blind Watchmaker, you can look at it on books.google.com Read the first page of chapter 11 and you'll see that Dawkins said: "My argument will be that Darwinism is the only known theory that is in principle capable of explaining certain aspects of life. If I am right it means that, even if there were no actual evidence in favour of the Darwinian theory (there is, of course) we should still be justified in preferring it over all rival theories." Read on and Dawkins argues against rivals such as Lamarckism and Creationism. Anyway, I think all of this shows that Holding has poor reading comprehension skills, and therefore its not a good idea to trust him to properly comprehend and interpret books that are even more complex and scholarly than Dawkins' book. Don't buy what Holding says unless you can verify it yourself.

01-02-2010, 12:19 AM	#16
Switch89 Regular Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Montgomery, AL Posts: 453	BTW, I just read Holding's "response". I thought I was gonna get super-pissed off, but in fact I was rather pleased to see that he didn't really say anything to address the substance of what I wrote.

01-02-2010, 12:42 AM	#18
Switch89 Regular Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Montgomery, AL Posts: 453	OK GDon. But before we move on to something else, are you willing to concede that Holding has poor reading comprehension skills? Because that, I believe, is the only explanation for how he could've possibly thought Dawkins argued in a circle. Either that, or he hasn't really read the book (which would make him dishonest). That concession would make a difference, I think. If Holding has shown that he has poor reading comprehension when it comes to an easy read like Dawkins' book, then that means we really have to check on what he claims about more complex scholarly works.

01-02-2010, 02:40 AM	#20
Switch89 Regular Member Join Date: Sep 2007 Location: Montgomery, AL Posts: 453	Shall we discuss the objection Chris Hallquist made, and by refutation of Holding's response to that?

Freethought & Rationalism Archive

The archives are read only.