@Lightwizard,
Quote:Well, we've equated ID to Creationsim (wolf in sheep's clothing), so Spend is attempting to make-up this equation that materialism equals naturalism.
He's a second-rate magician trying to shift attention away to something irrelevant in order to perform the trick. Materialism is not a synonym of naturalism. A materialist is a person who is chiefly interested in material comfort and is hostile or indifferent to art and culture -- looks like a conservative to me.
It matters not a jot that you have equated ID to Creationism. It is a serious error if Creationism means a literal interpretation of Genesis. It is an error persisted in, often stubbornly, to avoid thinking.
I'm not equating materialism with naturalism. Materialism is what Hobbes said it was in the 17th century--" The whole mass of things that are is corporeal". There are no immaterial entities. That these physical objects can be measured and subjected to reason as in geometry and as reason is a characteristic of mind, a material object or series of objects, it is itself a material object. Reason reasons its own reason solipsistically. Automatic egoism. An end point in a chain of causation going back to a first cause which must itself be material. The atheist has no other position.
Reason is simply motion within the central nervous system just as unreason is. I explained it yesterday. The political choice between reason and unreason is determined by a view of potential consequences.
Naturalism is a philosophical concept with a number of meanings.
There is no magic and no trick. Those are simply cheap asserted smears to evade the science when the science has come up short and to cover up a lack of knowledge of these matters.
And it is not irrelevant. A whole range of scientists have studied the subject for many years. It as at the very heart of this debate.
That's why these so-called scientific anti-IDers have taken to talking about ball games and rival fan joshings. Hiding their heads like respectable well brought up Christian ladies do when somebody walks in with his dick out.
They have made an easy assumption that there are no high IQ students in their classrooms who might answer their exam questions in a manner which takes them by surprise. They want students who will simply regurgitate the bullshit they have taught them as they did for their own teachers 40 or so years previously. BI. (Before the Internet). They talk down to people.
Your definition of materialism is just a pejoritive cliche in common usage. It is usually directed at people who the user can't keep up with in the conspicuous consumption stakes. I can do a scientific appraisal of that if you want LW but Veblen has wrung the subject out dry.
My whole support for the ID side is conditioned by my love of art and cultural phenomena. Atheist art is crap. And there cannot be culture in respect of it.
As you can see--anti-IDers have no answers. They have to choose who they are debating with to make a fist of it.
Perhaps I could have taken something you said and learned from it though... if you had actually said anything. No worries. Life goes on whether you think I'm a... a... Oh excuse me please while I go cry myself to sleep. 