Nano, I have nearly completed The Devil's Delusion, Atheism and its Scientific Pretensions, by David Berlinski.

It is a delightful read. Berlinski is a scholar who thoroughly skewers atheists.

"In all this, two influential ideas are at work. The first is that there is something answering to the name of science. The second is that something answering to the name of science offers sophisticated men and women a coherent vision of the universe. The second claim is false if the first claim is. And the first claim is false. Nothing answers to the name of science. And Nothing has no particular method either, beyond the immemorial dictates of common sense.

Like democracy, or justice, science is a word exhausted by its examples. We have vouchsafed four powerful and profound scientific theories since the great scientific revolution of the West was set in motion in the seventeenth century - Newtonian mechanics, James Clerk Maxwell's theory of the electromagnetic field, special and general relativity, and quantum mechanics.

... as the distinguished mathematician Roger Penrose has observed, but as he at once adds, they also comprise a "tantalizingly inconsistent scheme of things." Ibid, Preface, xii - xiii

OK, I'll bite...

"The first is that there is something answering to the name of science."

What is answering to the name of science? According to those blashemous atheists, that is?

(Oh, yeah, and hello and welcome back. I am going to have to keep things short because I am stuck in a hotel using a computer that obviously has food all stuck up in the keyboard...it's hurting my finger to try to keep jamming down on the space bar to make it work.)

But I'm not.

Been a few months, so...little reminder why this troll and online stalker's moniker is '-5,' for any who might have forgotten.

with the Devil !!!!! we are in for it!!!! :-)

Galileo would be shocked.

"500 years later and you people are STILL dealing with this type of idiocy?!?!!?"

LOL

Gone for so long and you still make the finest strawmen here.

Oh, and out of context quotes I see, another Creationist favorite. Amazing how you can believe so fiercely in a religion that believes in Honesty and yet be so dishonest. Do you think that because you use Jesus every third word we will forgive you your lies?

...of empty bullshit from a worthless troll. The intellectual equivalent of a pasture full of cow-droppings.

I googled Berlinski and found this article. It contained the following:

In responding to Berlinski's arguments, marine biologist Wesley R. Elsberry comments: "I personally like my 'at once's to refer to events significantly shorter than ten million years."

Also

Eugenie Scott, executive director of the National Center for Science Education described Berlinski's arguments in The Deniable Darwin as:[14]

. . . The content of David Berlinski's article does not differ from more traditional creation-science material, though his tone is more genteel and his writing a lot more literate. . . . But true to the creation-science genre, his approach consists of constructing strawmen, then knocking them down with misinterpreted, faulty, or nonexistent data as well as carefully selected quotations from evolutionary scientists. . . .

Engber summarizes Berlinski's more scathing critics:

According to Daniel Dennett, Berlinski exudes a "rich comic patina of smug miseducation"; Richard Dawkins implies that he may be wicked to the core; and blogger-ringleader P.Z. Myers has called him a "pompous pimple" and a "supercilious snot.'"

I especially liked the Eugenie Scott quote where, "...his approach consists of constructing strawmen, then knocking them down with misinterpreted, faulty, or nonexistent data as well as carefully selected quotations from evolutionary scientists." That sounds exactly like the ol' <-5> we have all come to know and...um...ridicule.

It's worth noting that Berlinski is a Fellow of the Discovery Institute's Center for Science and Culture, whose explicitly stated goal is “To defeat scientific materialism and its destructive moral, cultural and political legacies” and “To replace materialistic explanations with the theistic understanding that nature and human beings are created by God”,.

Berlinksi has never published articles critical of evolution and cosmology in peer-reviewed scientific journals, only in the popular press. In his "Deniable Darwin' his criticism consists of typical creationist talking points long rebutted (including the suggestion that evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics), irrelevant points, and rhetorical fallacies such as argument from personal preference.

In short, he's contibuted absolutely nothing to any discussion re: the origins of biological diversity but smoke and mirrors--and second-hand smoke at that.

No wonder cd and nano like him so much.

The best part is that he's not even an advocate of intelligent design: he calls his relationship to it "warm but distant". It's fine for Berlinski that he's not actually advocating intelligent design, just attempting to knock down evolution with bad arguments - but it's more than a little amusing that the Discovery Institute considers being against evolution enough to make him a fellow.

He's just selling books. They don't have to make any kind of sense, as long as some IDers are willing to plunk down their money. I guess that <-5> enjoys being taken for a fool.

Creationists rarely offer their "alternative theory"...merely attack evolutionary theory.

They can't. Any claim for "young Earth" or even "Mankind springing up 'one day' 10,000 years ago" would be immediately shot down by the evidence.

That's why all they have is to take pot-shots at ET and leave the unenlightened true believers to "fill in the holes" (aka "Genesis") and leave their critics nothing to show that they (the creation "scientists") are full of crap.

It really shows how dishonest they are....and possibly many of them don't even believe their own line of crap. (but know it SELLS to the Nano/CD/Dawwgy crowd at $19.95 at fine Christian book stores everywhere)

Reptilicus:

It really shows how dishonest they are....and possibly many of them don't even believe their own line of crap. (but know it SELLS to the Nano/CD/Dawwgy crowd at $19.95 at fine Christian book stores everywhere)

THIS is what makes me want to write 'Christian Romance' novels. Then spend the money made on..... Nevermind.

;-)

And just what is this Nevermind you speak of? I could use a little Nevermind this evening. Alcohol is so debilitating!

Reptilicus:

Galileo would be shocked.

"500 years later and you people are STILL dealing with this type of idiocy?!?!!?"

LOL

Galileo was a deeply spiritual man. He runs contrary to the lies promulgated by atheists, who lay sole claim to "intellectualism." One teacher has lectured to his HISTORY class that "you can't see the truth when you have your Jesus glasses on."

What intolerant persecution of Christians has to do with teaching history quite escapes this "teacher" but his hatefulness does not belong in the classroom, any more than did Ward Churchill.

Then too there is the ordained priest George Lemaitre. He corrected Einstein, advising him that Einstein's equations predicted The Big Bang. Einstein disliked the concept of a beginning to the universe and only relented to Lemaitre's radical findings near the end of his life.

So again and again we find Christians espousing radical new ideas in science, and again and again, we find atheists claiming that Christians are stupid and refuse to accept science.

Lies such as these by atheists are extremely offensive and anti-intellectual. But I repeat myself. Again.