Blocked Comments

The below is a comment I was unable to post on Butterfly and Wheels, presumably b/c I'm at a cafe and this IP has been used by spammers. So, for convenience, I'm pasting it here.

I'm assuming that my apparent ban at the Intersection does not have a similarly innocuous explanation. Does this mean I'm biased?

It seems that I was banned from the Intersection, presumably for this comment.


At least I have the comfort of sharing that distinction with OB.


I'm also glad they linked to the post that led them to ban OB. Scanning through the comments, one can only be astounded that M&K feel that OB's criticisms justify banning. M&K are worse off than I thought.

Here are the sort of vicious comments from me that Mooney will no longer be subjected to:

Chris, do you have a preferred label for your position?

I take it your central thesis is that people should not be arguing that science and religion are (philosophically) incompatible.

Would you object to being called a "compatibilist" (regarding science and religion)?

And wondering whether the ban was permanent, I later thought I'd see whether I could squeeze in this piece of incivility:

TB quotes UA quoting Brownback:

“if evolution means assenting to an exclusively materialistic, deterministic vision of the world that holds no place for a guiding intelligence then I reject it.” But evolution doesn’t mean that: It can’t; it simply describes how human beings and other animals came to exist in their current form. Whether God was in some way also involved, perhaps by creating the universe and the laws that ultimately led to our existence through evolution, is a matter that’s simply impossible to address on a scientific level.”

a. True, evolution doesn't say that the world is completely physical and deterministic, but physics might. I take it that Brownback would therefore reject this physics, and that's a problem.

b. I haven't seen Mooney and Kirshenbaum (or their defenders) address the fact that precious few of the Brownbacks in the world are actually going to be happy with the deistic vision that's being offered here. (I.e., a god whose only actions are "creating the universe and the laws that led to our existence.")

Am I correct in seeing the "accommodationist" position as an attempt to coax theists away from a belief in an interventionist god, and into a (quasi-) deist view? Has Mooney ever discussed whether scientists ought to accommodate belief in miracles? (I get the impression from UA and his blog posts, that he agrees that belief in, e.g., virgin births is contradicted by scientific knowledge).