Having worked with college professors for the better part of a decade, I'm fairly immune to the appeal to authority fallacy. I don't know what happens during a PhD's final phase of training but I have theorized there is a secret seminar they put students through sometime between the defense of their dissertation and graduation where they tell the soon to to be hooded graduates that they are now an expert in all subject matters.
In the early 2000s I argued at length with a learned PhD in Business who believed that the web had no future because computing would always be thin client-server. In the end I arrogantly boasted that my Bachelors in Computer Science, in that context, trumped his PhD in Business and the conversation ended a few moments later (probably not my finest moment). Or perhaps during the COVID school shut downs the DCSD, under the leadership of the intellectual powerhouse and case study in courage that was former board president David Ray (/sarcasm), brought in an pediatric anesthesiologist to speak on pediatric mental health (to show the lockdowns weren't hurting kids).
What amuses me so much is just how angry they get when you dare to call into question their academic credentials. "But Sir, your degree is in dentistry, you aren't really qualified to give expert testimony on particle physics," garners so much hostility in academic circles that it begs the question if academics isn't just one big mutual admiration society. Heaven help you if you call into question the expertise of someone with advanced degrees in the social "sciences" (e.g. sociology, * Studies, etc.).
But if you think this is limited to the hard sciences and pseudosciences like Sociology, think again. Go look up books on raising children or various mental health issues with a "Christian" label and then take note of how many of the authors of said books have degrees in things like Theology. In most cases, they're written by well-intentioned Christians with advanced degrees in subjects steeped in secular philosophies. Throw in a couple Bible verses to support your conclusions and viola, an expert in Theology as well as the subject at hand. What we don't really consider is that such a person was trained in large part by people who don't know God, credentialed by boards who don't know God, licensed by groups that are now largely openly hostile to God, but a claim of Christianity and a couple Bible verses suddenly replaces formal study in God's word or formal study in Theology. And we in the pews just kind of nod our heads in agreement and then wonder why the church is in the state it is in.
I really did try to not make this about Jordan Peterson, but upon reading this, I realize the connection isn't difficult to make.
If something came from nothing, then how often did this happen?
It must have happened more than once. The most absurd thing would be that this incredibly amazing thing happened just once. So if it happened more than once, there can be no limit in the number of times that it happened. If this is not true, why?
So it must have happened an infinite number of times. And if it happened an infinite number of times, why not one time a self sufficient being poofed into existence with unlimited power and intelligence. Why couldn’t this happen? And if it happened once, why not an infinite number of such events?
Hawkins was driven by blind hatred to accept absurdity. The only logical solution is that there was only one such entity in existence. Why, I have no idea. But without it we are driven to accept an infinite number of absurdities.
We must then follow what is also logical from such a conclusion - including why this discussion and discussions like it are meant to be. Doubt must always be a logical conclusion. Because without doubt we would not be human.
Having worked with college professors for the better part of a decade, I'm fairly immune to the appeal to authority fallacy. I don't know what happens during a PhD's final phase of training but I have theorized there is a secret seminar they put students through sometime between the defense of their dissertation and graduation where they tell the soon to to be hooded graduates that they are now an expert in all subject matters.
In the early 2000s I argued at length with a learned PhD in Business who believed that the web had no future because computing would always be thin client-server. In the end I arrogantly boasted that my Bachelors in Computer Science, in that context, trumped his PhD in Business and the conversation ended a few moments later (probably not my finest moment). Or perhaps during the COVID school shut downs the DCSD, under the leadership of the intellectual powerhouse and case study in courage that was former board president David Ray (/sarcasm), brought in an pediatric anesthesiologist to speak on pediatric mental health (to show the lockdowns weren't hurting kids).
What amuses me so much is just how angry they get when you dare to call into question their academic credentials. "But Sir, your degree is in dentistry, you aren't really qualified to give expert testimony on particle physics," garners so much hostility in academic circles that it begs the question if academics isn't just one big mutual admiration society. Heaven help you if you call into question the expertise of someone with advanced degrees in the social "sciences" (e.g. sociology, * Studies, etc.).
But if you think this is limited to the hard sciences and pseudosciences like Sociology, think again. Go look up books on raising children or various mental health issues with a "Christian" label and then take note of how many of the authors of said books have degrees in things like Theology. In most cases, they're written by well-intentioned Christians with advanced degrees in subjects steeped in secular philosophies. Throw in a couple Bible verses to support your conclusions and viola, an expert in Theology as well as the subject at hand. What we don't really consider is that such a person was trained in large part by people who don't know God, credentialed by boards who don't know God, licensed by groups that are now largely openly hostile to God, but a claim of Christianity and a couple Bible verses suddenly replaces formal study in God's word or formal study in Theology. And we in the pews just kind of nod our heads in agreement and then wonder why the church is in the state it is in.
I really did try to not make this about Jordan Peterson, but upon reading this, I realize the connection isn't difficult to make.
If something came from nothing, then how often did this happen?
It must have happened more than once. The most absurd thing would be that this incredibly amazing thing happened just once. So if it happened more than once, there can be no limit in the number of times that it happened. If this is not true, why?
So it must have happened an infinite number of times. And if it happened an infinite number of times, why not one time a self sufficient being poofed into existence with unlimited power and intelligence. Why couldn’t this happen? And if it happened once, why not an infinite number of such events?
Hawkins was driven by blind hatred to accept absurdity. The only logical solution is that there was only one such entity in existence. Why, I have no idea. But without it we are driven to accept an infinite number of absurdities.
We must then follow what is also logical from such a conclusion - including why this discussion and discussions like it are meant to be. Doubt must always be a logical conclusion. Because without doubt we would not be human.
If there is any such thing as \a law, the universe cannot create itself out of nothing.