The whole truth
Posts: 1554
Joined: Jan. 2012
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| Quote (CeilingCat @ Aug. 01 2014,01:36) | | Quote (keiths @ July 31 2014,14:08) | | Unbelievable. VJ Torley's latest clocks in at 20,515 words. |
It's gotten longer! Edward Feser (pronounced like "phaser" in Star Trek) has replied and Torley has added another page to his original post answering back.
Feser's reply, entitled "Logorrhea in the Cell", is worth quoting at length: | Quote | In a recent post I commented on a remark made in one of the comboxes by a reader sympathetic to “Intelligent Design” (ID) theory. At the ID website Uncommon Descent, Vincent Torley has responded, in a post with the title “Hyper-skepticism and ‘My way or the highway’: Feser’s extraordinary post.” The title, and past experience with Torley, led me to expect that his latest piece would be short on dispassionate and accurate analysis and long on overheated rhetoric and misrepresentation. Past experience with Torley also led me to expect that it would simply be long, period, indeed of gargantuan length.
Both expectations were confirmed. Having cut and pasted Torley’s post into MS Word, I find that it comes to 42 pages, single-spaced. I envy Torley that he has time to write up a 42-page single-spaced commentary on a blog post written in reply to a reader’s combox remark. Why he thinks I (or other people with jobs, families, hobbies, etc.) would have time to read such a thing, I have no idea. As to the content, well, since Torley thinks you can infer quite a lot even from brief phrases, he’ll be happy to know that I agree with him to this extent: Having read the first section and quickly scanned a couple of other passages of his opus -- and seen how badly he there distorts what I wrote -- I infer that it would be a waste of time (time I don’t have in any case) to read the rest.
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Note that by “left me speechless” Torley apparently means “led me to churn out 42 single-spaced pages in reply.”
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I find that this modus operandi is evident in many of the responses ID sympathizers make to my criticisms: First, egregiously misrepresent what I have said, at such prodigious length that the resulting cloud of squid ink completely obscures the unwary reader’s view of what I actually wrote or what the dispute is really about; second, evince befuddlement and outrage that I could say the silly and horrible things wrongly attributed to me; third, sanctimoniously express regret that ID sympathizers and Thomists aren’t on more “friendly” terms (as Torley puts it).
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Could such a pattern -- albeit it is a pattern of cluelessness -- itself be a mark of intelligent design? Indeed it could be, in the sense that you have to be a rational animal in the first place in order to exhibit the kind of irrationality that some ID folks do. |
Apparently never having heard the expression, "When you're in a hole, quit digging", Torley responds to this on Feser's blog and makes things worse. The whole exchange is worth reading and don't forget to click on Past experience with Torley for Torley's sorry history with Feser.
Feser, by the way, is a Serious Theologian™ and a Thomist - as in Saint Thomas Aquinas, pride of medieval theology. Torley's a Thomist too and he tries enthusiastically to convince Feser that ID is true. Feser rejects ID, but for Thomistic reasons that are only of interest to another Thomist.
As you can see above, he likes to be rude, but when he's dealing with a non-Torley he often makes a prat of himself. I fully intend to purchase his book, "The Last Superstition: A Refutation of the New Atheism" as soon as I finish digesting (and excreting) Mrs. O'Leary's "By Design or by Chance". |
Philosophy, especially of religion, is just a way for insane people to say or type a lot of gobbledegook that has nothing to do with reality. If any sort of philosophy ever had any credibility, that credibility has been buried under a humongous pile of bullshit. Frankly, I'm astounded that anyone in their right mind would pay to take a philosophy class or pay someone to 'teach' that crap. I can't help but wonder how many people with a degree in philosophy are flipping burgers or sweeping floors for a living.
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Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword. - Jesus in Matthew 10:34
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me. -Jesus in Luke 19:27
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