quote:

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Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:

The problem I face when confronting a philosophy such as Christianity is that as a sceptic, I need to be shown evidence.

But, I do not just accept anything as evidence. I accept objective, falsifiable(OF) evidence as showing that something exists, and without that, I feel I can safely ignore it.

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But surely that's your problem. Faith exists without proof. Besides, I've looked at your website, and I'm sure you're up on at least a bit of philosophy, so I think I must turn the question back at you.

How do you prove anything?
 

All evidence that I have for God's existence is objective. From my perspective. That same evidence is, from your perspective, totally subjective, and you can feel free to rationalise it away.

At the same time, everyone else's objective evidence is viewed, by me, with suspicion unless it parallels mine, because I'm a sceptic at heart (truly!).

At the same time though, Christianity has, we claim, its foundation as a historical event. For a short period of time, and that period only, the event would have been falsifiable.

That's the nature of history. It isn't the nature of God, who is spirit rather than material. Looking for empirical evidence of something that is spiritual (you could possibly use the word moral here, with caveats) is something like trying to find empirical evidence of justice.
 

wood said "How do you prove anything?"

I guessed I would get this one. I said I am not looking for proof, but evidence. I admit that there is only proof of ourselves (cogito ergo sum). Even what we call relity cannot be proven. There is quite strong evidence that it exists, though. I am trying to find out at what level we can say God exists. It is quite obvious God does not exist in the same way as this computer does, so in what way can we know he exists?

Now then, evidence for Atheism.

That is a tricky one. It all comes down to Occams razor. If we can explain everything around us without the need to invoke God, then adding God in just increases the hypotheses.

Its not fool-proof (It can't be, I accept it!) but it is a workable hypothesis. I would disagree that Atheism takes faith. It takes faith to believe in something. It doesn't take faith to reject something for which there is no evidence. I do not need faith to say that leprechauns don't exist.
 

I like your ' my evidence is objective to me'!

Your point about justice is valid, to a certain extent. Justice is a 'Universal', and as such does exist in a non-falsifiable way. The trouble is, if God is only a universal, then it limits exactly what God is.

God is surely more than just a term to describe his features.
 

They aren't. Faith is more equivalent to trust than lack of knowledge. In this case, it's trust in a Person who has proved, to me 100% reliable with what I know of him and the what he's done (from my limited perspective, of course!).

I would never, ever trust God to do something that I don't know he would, like stop me from hitting the rocks after I've leapt of the cliff in the hope that he'll catch me.

That isn't faith, it's stupidity.
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
David,
Your point about justice is valid, to a certain extent. Justice is a 'Universal', and as such does exist in a non-falsifiable way. The trouble is, if God is only a universal, then it limits exactly what God is.

God is surely more than just a term to describe his features.

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Sort of; I wasn't really trying to draw a comparison between the two, just trying to show the general category inconsistency.

God is not, I would hold, unknowable, but wholly unknowable - but I think you said this in your last sentence.

I think I'll change my sig to cogito ergo credo, just to see if it annoys you as much as yours annoys me.
 

You raise some interesting points. It has been worthwile posting here. Wood and Nightlamp have too.

Thank you all, I will go away and digest. I will probably be back with a new batch of questions, but in such a short time I have achieved more knowedge than weeks on a fundy board.

Thanks again.

Ps don't change your sig, David, I liked yours.
 

quote:

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It all comes down to Occams razor. If we can explain everything around us without the need to invoke God, then adding God in just increases the hypotheses.
...
I would disagree that Atheism takes faith. It takes faith to believe in something.

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Perhaps, as you say, atheism doesn't require faith per se, but I'd argue that believing that we can explain everything around us without the need to invoke God most certainly does - it's an unproveable axiom.

The frame of reference you are using here therefore precludes the existence of God, even though that frame may be internally consistent.
 

Let me make that a little more clear. There is an alternative explanation to all the things we know of.

We then have the two world views:

1) It just happened.
2) God made it happen.

Occams razor can be applied and the second one removed.

Of course, Occams razor only applies if two theories explain the same data equally as well. If there is evidence that I have missed that makes God the better method of explaining the world, then this falls apart.

I won't be disaperaing. I don't think I will be able to contribute much to this board, but I will lurk at least. I have learnt a lot by reading some of the threads here.
 

And 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + … + 16 + 17 = 153. And /0.9 = 170.

So I do believe there is an objective reality. I do believe that this reality adheres to certain laws. I do believe in the principle that God shows Himself by way of scientific formulae.

And so to the truth of light. The word light is mentioned 272 times in the Bible, and so 17 x 16 lots. Not forgetting the hard brass, that called gun-metal has a weight per cubic foot, of 534 pounds, and /Pi is 170 pounds, hence the ‘brazen serpent’ on a pole planted in the Sinai wilderness for the healing of those Israelites with snake bites.

OK, the seventh prime number is 17, and 170 less 10% is 153, and 1,530,000,000 x 3/2 and divided by 1,760 yards is 186,282.4675mps x 7 seconds of time. So light velocity in a vacuum is found to be made up of the number ‘17’.

And the Heavenly number 12, at 1.20000e+169 x 1.20000e+169 x 1.20000e+169 and /20 the square root 5 times and cube root once is 186,282.483mps the velocity of light.

Thus light can be woven out of the numbers 12 and 17.

Window of light: And the Rose Window at Chartres Cathedral has a circumference of 137.7 feet, the same as the Tholos in ancient Greece, meaning Altar of Serpents.

And light velocity in a vacuum is 186,282.4675 miles per second, x 14 seconds x 1,760 yards x 3 feet is 1.3770000e+10 feet.

So the Rose Window has the ID137.7 and 1.3770000e+10 feet and /9 is 1,530,000,000 feet the ‘sons of God’ and /9 is 170,000,000, the Serpent.

And this is without showing the wavelength spectrum.

Undusty
 

The point I was trying to make was that (in the terms of the clarification) you'll never be able to tell whether God caused it, but it looks like it just happened because of the underlying assumptions we bring to the table, or the other way around.

Or something. It made sense in my head.
 

Douglas Adams has a nice line on this about Babel fish ..............

Changing tack slightly have you ever tried (from C.S Lweis) the "suspension of dis-belief" ?

And changing tack again did you sometime inhabit "Yahoo Christian Chat" where the fundies do abound (as well as many other types of wierdo). You're right it is very nice on this site. Good Luck

Pyx_e
 

By using modern science and Occams razor there is a solid foundation for an atheists position.

That position could still be wrong, but it need not be held on faith.
 

If you assume that God does not exist, you are very unlikely to discover that he does. In the same way, if you assume that every human being is untrustworthy, you will never discover that many are trustworthy.

Our assumptions dictate our thought processes and behavior. Our thought processes and behavior, in turn, dictate our experience. This makes it very difficult to discover that our assumptions are wrong.

Moo
 

Your point is valid. That is why I am very careful to show exactly what evidence I would find acceptable. If someone comes up with that evidence, it will be very obvious that I will have to eat my words.

I hope to make my system as transparent as possible. That way it won't only be me making the judgement about what I can reject. I will obviously always be reponsible for the ultimate decision, but I know that there are more than just my eyes searching for the evidence.
 

Am I allowed to offer the fact that you obviously want to pursue this discussion as evidence?

I'm a Sceptical Christian, actually. Some of my friends are very worried by my insistence that my faith is a hypothesis - albeit a working hypothesis, very much so, as far as I'm concerned.

I think there might be a few people who would come out of the woodwork and admit, if I say it first, that we are more certain of Jesus and God than we are of 'Christianity' in its various modern guises.

(Might there? )

I'm sure you will know that there is ample evidence for Jesus' existence. And once you apply the 'Mad, Bad or God' theory you get some interesting results.

Two more things:
Many of us also go round in circles when confronted with 'fundies'.

I don't think you'd enjoy 'Alpha'!!

Please keep posting - we all need each other to find some kind of integrity.

Regards - Gill
 

Dear sceptical atheist, if you have been arguing with fundies then

(a) congratulations on retaining your sanity (they drive me up the wall); and

(b)you may have missed out on more rational and less fideistic writings by theists such as various books by Keith Ward, Hans Kung, John Hick, Maurice Wiles, John Macquarrie. All of which i can highly recommend. At least they are aware of the many arguments against theism and don't reduce objections to theism to being just wilful and sinful unbelief.

P.S. Occam's razor is a methodological tool which is often useful. But is it always correct? - I am sceptical! So are you i believe.

Best wishes
Glenn
 

quote:

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I would disagree that Atheism takes faith

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At one level, as I have said, we cannot prove the existence of reality.

So at that level, I have faith in this chair I am sitting on. I cannot prove even to myself let alone you that this chair exists.

This means we cannot look for proof. We need to rely on evidence.

I have evidence that this chair exists. I can see it, touch it and put my weight on it. That is not proof it is there, but it is good evidence (I think).

We do not live by proof, we live by evidence. You cannoty prove that the sun will rise tomorrow, but you would be able to put forward a good inductive argument to show there is evidence that it will.

I said in my first post, right at the end, that I am not after proof, but evidence, because this keeps cropping up.

So, I do not base my atheism on proof that God exist, but on the evidence. I interpret that evidence to show that there is no God. You interpret it to say that there is.

Between those two viewpoints as they stand, they are both based on the same evidence interpreted differently.

That is when Occams razor is applied.

By using that, I claim atheism is the best system.

To change my view, what would be required is some OF evidence for God rather than against atheism.
 

Just wanted to see if it looks as ridiculous the other way round...

Evidence, Schmevidence! You don't want evidence - at least, nothing you'd admit as such.

I notice you are a 'Militant Atheist'. Why? Isn't being right enough?

Why Christianity? Are you also battling to understand why people eat oysters, dress in furry animal suits or take naturist holidays? What is it about Christianity which bugs you? Could just be you'd find your evidence for God if you thought about that for a while...

Glenn said (I wish I could find out how to include the attribution!)

quote:

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(But I also have problems with the 'mad bad or who he said he was (God)' argument about Jesus. One can be merely mistaken without being mad or bad, and the argument relies too much on uncritical acceptance of the gospels as giving us Jesus actual words).

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Anyway, S.A. I return to my original question:

quote:

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Am I allowed to offer the fact that you obviously want to pursue this discussion as evidence?

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You say that you want "ojective, falsifiable evidence", but I don't think you are putting yourself in the way of gathering such evidence.

I'd like to go back, for a moment, to the analogy of the trustworthiness of human beings. If you assume they are not trustworthy, you will never find any evidence that many are trustworthy.

I don't think you can find evidence of God's existence without sticking your neck out.

Moo
 

quote:

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So, I do not base my atheism on proof that God exist, but on the evidence. I interpret that evidence to show that there is no God. You interpret it to say that there is..

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Genesis1;1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The Bible presumes assumes God. It spends no time or energy giving evidence or proof of God's existence because their is none. The Bible is written for those who have the same presupositions as the Bible, that God exist and is the creator and sustainor and redeemer of the universe. It is for persons who already believe and want to believe and need encouragement to believe. Believing is a matter of faith not fact. If it were fact then who would need faith; we would just need an accountant. In fact anything we see as evidence of God's existence actually grows out of our faith. What those of us with faith look at as evidence of Gos's existenc might be seen by others, believers as well as non believers, ludicrous or not evidence at all. Evidence of God's existence is subjective and personal at best. For if it were not so then God,s existence would be a umiversal fact like H2-O.

For my money the best definition of faith is Hebrews 11:1,"Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. This is what the ancients were commended for. 3.By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God's command,so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible.
So fellow seekers why should we attempt to do what the bible does not do. It was by faith that Abraham did, it was by faith that Moses did, It was by faith not fact or proof. If we have to have facts, proof, evidence before having faith then our faith is the weakest faith of all.It is a matter of personal choice and personal decision to have faith in an existing God and then being comfortable knowing that their is no imperical evidence. Paul calls it the foolishness of the cross.Why should we do any different.
 

But, how far are you prepared to admit the possibility and authenticity of a personal experience of God ... or will you always "win" and put it down to indigestion?

Consider this .... the only people who are prepared to die for Irregular Digestive Conditions are the delusional. Should we be treated? That's the logic. Listen to Solly on the Gulag.

Don't rationalise your existing state. Experiment ... and be prepared for a shock / pleasant surprise. That's how God hit me when I was 12. An experiment. How empirical can you get?!

Good hunting!
 

It can mean a belief that God exists. It can also mean a belief that God exists and has certain characteristics. These include a loving concern for us, and the ability to act on this concern.

I presume that right now you are concerned with the first meaning--the question of whether God exists.

Moo
 

I will tell you why you are all wrong soon.
 

quote:

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...what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them. For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities - his eternal power and divine nature - have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made , so that men are without excuse...

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Oh, can't I argue God from the Bible? Isn't it admissible? That's fair - and you have to hand in Occam's bloody Razor to the Umpire! And your rather subjective pick'n'mix approach to Science!

BTW do you accept discoveries which were made by scientists who were searching for rules on the assumption that God had ordered the universe, or do you only regard the others as sound?

Still, the great advantage of your position is, you don't have to go out and play music in church now instead of lazing in the sun!

P.S. Don't forget to answer my previous question...
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
Just a quick note to say thanks to all of you for your responses.

I will tell you why you are all wrong soon.

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Oooohhh, goody. Some proof that God doesn't exist!

I can't wait.
 

Sorry if this is going to be lots of posts, it is difficult debating with so many, and I don't want to get accused of ignoring posts as a crafty way of ignoring difficult points. So I hope that I have dealt with the major issues, but if I have missed anyone, be comforted in the fact that the point you raised was so difficult I had to ignore it.
 

Sorry, Pyx_e I missed your message yesterday.

This is getting into a bit deeper theology than I was hoping to right now. I would query this in one way. If there was one piece of excellent evidence that was relatively innocuous then that would not affect the ability to have faith, but it would increase dramatically the number of people that did believe. It's not like the Babel fish (I was thinking of that this morning actually!). I am not talking about incontrovertible evidence, just very good evidence.

As an analogy, I have used this before: Imagine of God never let anyone who believed in him get the common cold. That would not stop people not-believing if their 'heart was hard' as the Bible puts it, but it would give all of you something to say to the like s of me.

Every objection I could raise you could counter 'But what about the common cold, explain that'. I would then be forced into a real decision based on the evidence but which would not damage my free will in any way. That is why the common cold is such a good example, getting it doesn't impede ones life in any way.
 

I'm sure you will know that there is ample evidence for Jesus' existence. And once you apply the 'Mad, Bad or God' theory you get some interesting results.

Once again, this is getting into theological subjects, so I will answer in general terms

I am not one of those that deny Jesus existed (though they do exist, I believe ). This whole point does come down to my presupposition. I don't accept that God exists, so any reading of any supernatural event, I admit is tainted by that presupposition. This means I would require good evidence before I accept the supernatural. The old "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

That means I deny the miracles of the Bible a priori. I do not think the Bible constitutes extraordinary evidence. I don't want to discuss the Bible itself too heavily in this thread, but I am always happy too spout my opinions of it generally. I think I should let this thread take its course before starting on the Bible and Christ as a main topic.

You don't want evidence - at least, nothing you'd admit as such.

Actually, I do. Seems silly but when I ask a question, I do hope for an answer.

I notice you are a 'Militant Atheist'. Why? Isn't being right enough?

It’s a little tongue in cheek. I think I have been influenced too much by the fundies. They tend to make extremists in other camps.

Being right is never enough. I want to rule the world [oops, that slipped out. Memo to self: Gill knows too much. Eliminate her]

Am I allowed to offer the fact that you obviously want to pursue this discussion as evidence?

It took me a while to work out what you were saying here. I think I understand what you mean. There is obviously evidence that people believe in God. I am trying to find out if there is evidence for the thing that they believe in. It is a very good question though.

BTW, I ask Christians because they are the most accessible believers.
 

I also have problems with the 'mad bad or who he said he was (God)' argument about Jesus. One can be merely mistaken without being mad or bad, and the argument relies too much on uncritical acceptance of the gospels as giving us Jesus actual words).

Thanks Glenn, you give an atheist hope if a Christian can fight his battles for him 

Thanks for the book rec.'s too. I will see if I can find any.

And yes, Occam's razor is just a methodological tool. It could very easily be wrong, but the general rule does work and is effective. This is why more evidence is required to separate the two possible viewpoints.
 

Firstly, I will reiterate that my conclusions are from a reasonable position that does not require faith. Occams razor and all that. I have yet to see any counterexample of this, except to say that it may be flawed. I accept totally that I could be wrong (in public at least ). We both have a world view or paradigm. Yours is based on faith, mine is based on reason (I do not mean that in a prejudicial sense, obviously you are all reasonable, but I am trying to find the terminology to show the difference of general approach).

This is a great summary of the position, Moo, and the sort of evidence that I would accept is objective and falsifiable (OF for short).

Moo, Yes, at the moment I am just trying to ascertain if God exists per se.
 

If it were fact then who would need faith; we would just need an accountant.

I don't think so. If there was some good OF evidence, but not incontrovertible evidence, then the need for faith would still be there, and, which is more, there would be loads more believers.

On the need for no evidence for faith, what about:

Romans 1:20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:

See, Gill, I know this bit!

So, Paul is clearly saying there is evidence out there, and there is no excuse for not believing. So this idea that evidence denies faith doesn't stand up.

As an aside, the last time I quoted this, just to bug the funies, I combined it with

John 12:40 He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

I then asked them, if I was blinded by God, how could I see the invisible things that are the evidence I require?

Don't answer that question, you lot. It is obviously too simplistic to need one, so it isn't a serious point at all.
 

he still had what he wanted,and indeed was not afraid to amend his scepticism in the light of somewhat overwhelming observational evidence.

Exactly. I have long been of the opinion that St Thomas should be the patron saint of sceptics and atheists. He is my kind of guy.

Erin, your point about ID and chance would take too much space in this already too long post. This one doesn't fall into the 'too difficult' category, it is actually a strawman, but it would tale too long to point out why here. Sorry, I have enough on my plate at the moment, but I will gladly return to this crucial point.
 

This is where the 'Falsifiable' bit comes into play. Is it possible to believe one has been touched by God, when in fact it was really indigestion?

How can anyone tell the difference?

Experiment ... and be prepared for a shock / pleasant surprise.

What if I do experiment, have a pleasant shock, but in fact what I experienced was indigestion. That may make me believe in God, when in fact, I shouldn't have.
 

Once again, science uses objective falsifiable theories, because it is the only way to find out if an experiment works. A non-falsifiable theory would never be effective. A subjective theory would not be open to peer review.

That does not mean that things outside science have no validity, just that there validity needs to be explained in other ways.
 

quote:

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Oh, can't I argue God from the Bible? Isn't it admissible? That's fair - and you have to hand in Occam's bloody Razor to the Umpire! And your rather subjective pick'n'mix approach to Science!

BTW do you accept discoveries which were made by scientists who were searching for rules on the assumption that God had ordered the universe, or do you only regard the others as sound?

Still, the great advantage of your position is, you don't have to go out and play music in church now instead of lazing in the sun! P.S. Don't forget to answer my previous question...

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Hope the quote thing works…

Arguing from the Bible is permissable to a certain extent. If you are talking about God, you need to be able to say something about him. You point out a piece of scripture and I will read it. What I object to is when people expect me to believe in what is said because it comes from the Bible. The Bible is a source, and it should be treated with the same scepticism as any other source. It contains a lot of truth but I don't think that necessarily makes it all true.

Now, can I have Occams razor back? Please? I won't hurt anyone else with it. It just slipped out of my hand, honest.

If I rejected science because of the belief in God of the scientist I wouldn't have much science left! The obvious example is Newton. Just because Newton believed in God does not invalidate his science in the slightest.

I can't lie in the Sun, some of us work on the Sabbath, and I hope I answered your question. If not (I may have misunderstood the aim of it) just repeat it
 

quote:

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This is getting into a bit deeper theology than I was hoping to right now.

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HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAA

Sorry.

Please forgive me.

xx
 

If God posted on this board claiming He existed, would that constitute 'objective, falsifiable' evidence?

And for that matter, if the evidence can be falsified, why don't you just go and say, 'yeah, but you went and falsified that, didn't you?'
 

quote:

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This means I would require good evidence before I accept the supernatural. The old "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence."

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It is old, and very very worn.

Pray tell, offer an example of extraordinary evidence that would not in and of itself be classified as an extraordinary claim!

I am almost certain that the parameters you've set yourself positively preclude finding God. You are after physical evidence of the metaphysical (non-physical, really). God is a moral agent, not a physical one. The truth is philosophical, rather than material. Since all philosophy is externally subjective, it follows that OF evidence doesn't exist.

Add to this the status of the incarnation/crucifixion/resurrection as an historical event (non-OF by definition), you end up searching for something with the wrong tools.

If you are (objectively ) serious about this, you will need to review your tools.
 

quote:

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We then have the two world views:

1) It just happened.
2) God made it happen.

Occams razor can be applied and the second one removed.

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quote:

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Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
Erin, your point about ID and chance would take too much space in this already too long post. This one doesn't fall into the 'too difficult' category, it is actually a strawman, but it would tale too long to point out why here. Sorry, I have enough on my plate at the moment, but I will gladly return to this crucial point.

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Really. A strawman? Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but did you not say that it takes no faith to believe it just happened (ie, random chance) than to believe that an Intelligent Designer (ie God) did it all? My point is that, IMO, it takes a boatload more faith to believe that than to believe that God was the author of the universe.

So I am not quite seeing how this is a strawman, when it came in direct response to statements you yourself made:

quote:

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There is an alternative explanation to all the things we know of.

We then have the two world views:

1) It just happened.
2) God made it happen.

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and

quote:

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By using modern science and Occams razor there is a solid foundation for an atheists position.

That position could still be wrong, but it need not be held on faith.

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quote:

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If you are (objectively ) serious about this, you will need to review your tools.

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Sorry. I'm still 'being renewed...'

Hey S.A., I want evidence for Occam's razor.
It's no good showing me it written down. People who believe it put all that stuff together.

I WANT EVIDENCE. NOW!!!!

It works for you? Well hey, belief in God works for me - but that ain't evidence. Apparently.

quote:

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Am I allowed to offer the fact that you obviously want to pursue this discussion as evidence?

It took me a while to work out what you were saying here. I think I understand what you mean. There is obviously evidence that people believe in God. I am trying to find out if there is evidence for the thing that they believe in. It is a very good question though.

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Too good for an answer, eh?

quote:

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Memo to self: Gill knows too much. Eliminate her

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HAHAHAHAHA
 

quote:

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What if I do experiment, have a pleasant shock, but in fact what I experienced was indigestion. That may make me believe in God, when in fact, I shouldn't have.

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I am wondering what exactly you would lose if you wandered zround following a God which turned out to be indigestion. One part Pascal's wager comes to mind (although I don't like its cynical promotion of belief based on after-life outcomes):

if you were to have believed in God but he didn't exist you would ultimately have lost nothing.

To reformulate the other part to suit my own thinking: if God does exist and you refuse to believe him or be touched by him what benefits you have missed.

Like others here, I think you do not wish to find evidence and would discount what I might provide as evidence. My experiences of God are internal and intimate, both in myself and in others. I find evidence of God in the outworkings of this in his people. But this is easily dismissed if you want to dismiss it.

You say your position is not a faith. Perhaps it is not. What it is is a mode of reading the universe which you have invested a lot of energy into. Most modes of reading are very difficult to dislodge. And you do have faith that your world-view will stand up to any evidences that might be put forward against it, otherwise this would not be sayable:

quote:

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I will tell you why you are all wrong soon.

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But then again, something provokes you to spend time testing your viewpoint. Perhaps that is God's way of irritating you into contact with him.

'frin
 

When I said your comments were a strawman, I was not talking about in terms of this particular debate, to which it is relevant (if they are valid), but your comments themselves. You are making the claim that either life is all by chance or God created it.

To say that the only alternative to God is pure chance is the strawman. No scientist accepts that. There is the theory of natural selection which is not pure chance. Natural selection starts working the soon there is something to select.

So, the origin of life is not about evolution. It is about chemistry. The chemistry involved is not known, but what we do know is that the basic chemicals were there and more complex chemicals necessary are built up very easily by natural processes, so that is not chance too.

That is only a quick summary of the points (there is obviously a lot of controvesy involved here) just to point out what I meant. If you want to discuss the role of the start of life/evolution/chance in the scientific worldview, I would be happy too, but in a different thread (and when this thread has calmed down a little).
 

Gill, sorry abouth the deep theology comment. I know it seems strange, but this is just Theology 101 (as our Colonial cousins call it) at the momsnt, so that we all understand each other.

Evidence for Occams razor. Hmm. Are you being a little facetious? 'OR' is a method it is not a 'thing'. It can be shown to have valididty by examining the Ptolemaic vs the Copernican systems. The Ptolemaic explains the movement of the planets accurately, but it requires so many more hypotheses that on that basis only it should be rejected. Unless there is a feature it explains better. Unfortunately it doesn't. The Copernicam system explains the precession of the equinoxes, and the phases of Venus better, so it actually wins out in those grounds too, but you get the idea.

Wood, the very first message I received on my guestbook at my website is from God who now realises he doesn't exist!

When I say 'falsifiable', I don't mean 'falsified'. Gravity is falsifiable, but it has never been falsified.

David, An example (only an example! I am open to other suggestions) is for someone to pray and get the bonus ball numbers for 10 weeks. Any of you can do this. There are stipulations:
1) The particular 10 weeks must be named beforehand.
2) The numbers should be listed beforehand.
3) Any attempt to ask God and God fails to respond should be noted - that is evidence.

I know you will object to this. All Christians do. So, don't tell me that you do, but use this as a possible example to work with and come up with a better one. I made this one up as a gambit, to provoke discussion into possible tsets, but no other one has been proposed.

Your point about my parameters being wrong seems to be suggesting that my standards are too high for God. That seems a little inconceivable to me.

I am willing to reexamine my tools, but I won't fix something that ain't broke. Unless someone can point out that it is broken and I hadn't noticed it.

The incarnation/resurection thing is a topic about your particular view of God, not on the existence of God per se. I am coming at this from the angle of an atheist, so to tell me that God is of this particular character and expect me to accept that is to me like arguing about the colour of a unicorns horn.

quote:

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Nightlamp: Why is it easier to say It Just rather than god caused it to happen?.
By making this philosophical statement you have certain Presuppositions ie that atheism is true.

---

I could turn this round and point out that you only say the things you claim because of your presuposition, not because your view have any intrinsic validity. That doesn't get anyone very far, though.

What we are faced with is two models of the universe. The naturalistic and the created. I am trying to see which has the most validity.

We have one that has the laws of science.
We have one that has the laws of science + God.

Occams razor says choose the simplest. Now, this is the important bit. I look at both of the above and before making any presupposition about either of them being false, I can see that the naturalistic one is simplest.

On those grounds, atheism does have validity. To attack this point it would be necessary to show something that God explains better than the naturalistic method. I am talking here in general. As I have said, we don't know at the moment about the start of life, so in simple terms, at the moment we might say God explains that better. The trouble is if we examine the mechanism God uses we are stuck with the same 'We don't know' that science is stuck with. With the caveat that we take the position God created it somehow.
 

I like your reworking of Pascals Wager. It gets round most objections that can be raised against the original.

Without going into boring details, I had a profound religious experience when I was 17. The feeling I had was so powerful that even now over 15 years later I still feel it. But, I see no reason to invoke anything other than 'indigestion' to explain it. As far as I could tell, it felt like something greater than me, but after having minor hallucinations when I was ill as a child, I am very much aware that ones minds can create things that aren't there.

So, is there an objective, falsifiable test for the God experience? As far as I am aware, no. If there isn't, then none of us can ever know if God is causing these experiences. As a sceptic, I am interested in what I can know, not what I can believe. So, without an effective test, I return to Occams Razor.

My worldview is open to change at any moment. I have changed my mind so many times on so many issues, that I don't invest much energy into holding a particular worldview. I use to say I collected paradigms. My current one of sceptical athiest is probably the strongest, not because of the amount of energy, but because it is built on the strongest foundations.
 

quote:

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No-one yet has been able to show me any OF evidence for God. What I do often get is a critical assessment of my thinking and why it is not effective in looking for the Truth.

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I put this in the first post of this thread. I can see that the same thing has happened again. My way of examining the world has been called into question, but no-one has provided me with any OF evidence.

That can only lead me to the conclusion that there is only non-falsifiable, subjective evidence for the existence of God.

It is evidence of a sort, but its not very effective. It is the same sort of evidence that can be used to prove the existence of Leprechauns.

Sorry to seem dismissive, but I have been on the defensive long enough. Let me have one swipe, please.
 

quote:

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An example (only an example! I am open to other suggestions) is for someone to pray and get the bonus ball numbers for 10 weeks. Any of you can do this. There are stipulations:
1) The particular 10 weeks must be named beforehand.
2) The numbers should be listed beforehand.
3) Any attempt to ask God and God fails to respond should be noted - that is evidence

---

Sceptical Atheist:

This is a straw man of gigantic proportions. If it happened, it would only provide evidence of a God who did what he was told.

The God I believe in most definitely doesn't do what he is told.
 

Indigestion may easily be recognised.
So can God.

However, you won't know until you have tried.

So what's stopping you?
 

What kind of energy and commitment have you put into this God-experiment thing? Cosmologists have been plugging away at string theory for years. Doesn't God deserve deserve at least the same degree of seriousness as an ogoing project? Or, do you hope to settle things merely by mental gymnastics and the exercise of logic?
 

The God I worship will not jump through hoops because a human being demands it.

There is a collection of C. S. Lewis essays entitled, God in the Dock. I think that title is an accurate statement of your approach. You demand that God do things to convince you, but you seem to make no demands on yourself.

Moo
 

That does not mean that things outside science have no validity, just that there validity needs to be explained in other ways.

Exactly what does this mean? Also, why have you decided that the existence of God must be explained in scientific terms?

Moo
 

Evidence for or against the existence of God is even more open to interpretation, because the context includes whether you have faith or not. It also includes your experience. My experience so far has led me to put my trust in God. At some point in my life, I decided to basically put my trust in something which I didn't understand, couldn't see or prove; and so far I have not been disappointed. The evidence is my life so far. But that is also coloured by my faith.

If I hadn't put my trust in God, then the evidence of my life would then prove that God didn't exist. Evidence only takes you so far: even science only progresses when somebody makes an imaginative leap and can read the evidence in a new way. Relativity seems obvious now; but it wasn't until Einstein came along.
 

quote:

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No-one yet has been able to show me any OF evidence for God. What I do often get is a critical assessment of my thinking and why it is not effective in looking for the Truth.

---

I can see that that must be frustrating - however, is it possible that people are trying to point out that your current methodology will never lead you to the answers you are seeking?

To be really honest, I don't understand what the point of OF evidence is.

All I know is, there are times when one just has to decide which way to jump, and do so. I come from a 'Non-Christian' background, was coerced into joining a Church Choir as part of a political coup by my friend (girls weren't allowed unless she could find six of us!) and spent many a happy session mocking them. At 12, I declared myself, "Too intellectual" to be a Chrsistain, not knowing that my Sunday School teacher had just returned from a lecture tour in the States (he's an astro-physicist.)

However, those darned questions just wouldn't go away.

I was not in the least surprised to read that you had had a very profound experience (or not) and I can't help feeling that what you are trying to do is justify your embarrassment at the memory by 'proving' it couldn't have meant anything.

As you're into this two-sided business, one thought worth pondering is, "If we're right and you're wrong, we've lost nothing... but if we are right..."

Is this a genuine quest? If so, you seem reluctant to really discover anything. Is your frustration at not being able to wind us up, or genuine searching?

In the end, I prayed on my own, thinking that since if there wasn't a God, He wouldn't answer, it was a rational way out of my dilemma. I just asked Him to show Himself if He was there. And as I said earlier, I still treat my faith as a working hypothesis. The day it stops working, is the day I search for a new Theory to replace God! It's held up for 26 years so far.
 

I will return soon and post replies to what the latest posters have said.

I am left with the impression at the moment that you all think my method for obtaining knowledge is either deliberately designed to reject God or it is not up to the task.

What you seem to be saying is that if I am to understand the truth, I must start from a particular viewpoint. A sceptical/scientific one isn't effective.

Can anyone tell me any other form of truth where one must take a particular stance in order to see it.

Its like saying to a mountain climber by a plain that there is a mountain there, but you are looking for it from the wrong angle. If you were over there, the mountain would be clear.

Hmmm. Maybe its foggy? How would that fit into your ideas? My thinking is not cutting through the clouds?
 

Try the New Board Addiction thread!

quote:

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Can anyone tell me any other form of truth where one must take a particular stance in order to see it.

Its like saying to a mountain climber by a plain that there is a mountain there, but you are looking for it from the wrong angle. If you were over there, the mountain would be clear.

---

Why do we hate and fear death? Why do so many of us apparently feel the need to believe in something bigger than ourselves? Why do some atheists say they can’t believe in an unjust God? Why do we think justice. love, truth and freedom are good? What difference does it make? When you really connect with someone, what are you connecting with? That’s where the evidence lies, if you care to look.
 

We come back to my example of the hypothesis that no one is trustworthy. Anyone who believes this is very unlikely to discover that some people are trustworthy.

Moo
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
Okay,

Let me make that a little more clear. There is an alternative explanation to all the things we know of.

We then have the two world views:

1) It just happened.
2) God made it happen.

Occams razor can be applied and the second one removed.

Of course, Occams razor only applies if two theories explain the same data equally as well. If there is evidence that I have missed that makes God the better method of explaining the world, then this falls apart.

---

What about a third possibility, that "God" exists but doesn't explain OR make the world? I personally don't subscribe to either of the world views you listed, so I'll offer you a couple of versions of mine, just for you to ponder:

3. God (or "It")is just happening.
4. It just happened; it is part of something "bigger".

A big influence on me is the Buddhist non-theistic belief. Everything in existence is part of, comes from, and returns to some ultimate wholeness or Void, but there is no separate, particular God in existence.
So Non-theism is an alternative to A-theism or Theism (such as Christianity).

By the way, while I'm not an atheist, I'm not officially anything else. My emotional human needs make me want to convert to Christianity, but I know how you feel. That 'leap of faith' thing grates on part of me.

Great discussion you started here! Don't feel like you're obligated to refute every post! You'll go nuts. The natives are friendly, if argumentative. (When they don't feel friendly, they retire to Hell for a bit and vent.)

Keep worrying that bone!
 

You are obviously well read. I enjoy reading your post. I also enjoy reading my fellow shipmates response because some of them are actually beginning to think rather than blubber on about the etherial. It is kinda sad that the Father's response it to convert you. He is beginning to sound like a Southern Baptist. However it is beginning to read like an exercise in futility or at best "mental masterbation" you know just for the fun of it and no real fruitful results.
 

Yes, we keep telling you you're using the wrong tools when you demand OF evidence. I still think you're expecting more of the scientific worldview than it can produce. You've admitted that it isn't comprehensive, and by definition it doesn't allow for the supernatural.

About the praying-to-win-the-lottery sort of evidence: are you aware of the scientific research that has been done on the power of prayer in assisting healing? I can't give you a source right off the top of my head; I read about it in the LA Times a while back.
 

quote:

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I also enjoy reading my fellow shipmates response because some of them are actually beginning to think rather than blubber on about the etherial

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'frin

*Addison, the Spectator Papers. Early 18th Century.
 

quote:

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That can only lead me to the conclusion that there is only non-falsifiable, subjective evidence for the existence of God.

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Yup (IMHO - others will probably disagree with me). But why does that mean that God doesn't exist? Even if there was no evidence at all, you can't argue from silence.

Besides, as I may have said before, to what extent is any evidence 'objective'? Does
'objective' even exist?

(by the way, correct me if I'm wrong: 'falsifiable' does mean 'can be falsified', right? Or have I grasped the werong end of the stick...? I often do, you know )
 

quote:

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David, An example (only an example! I am open to other suggestions) is for someone to pray and get the bonus ball numbers for 10 weeks. Any of you can do this. There are stipulations:
1) The particular 10 weeks must be named beforehand.
2) The numbers should be listed beforehand.
3) Any attempt to ask God and God fails to respond should be noted - that is evidence.

I know you will object to this. All Christians do.

---

I could object on the grounds that this would not even be slightly representative of the God I know, but that's the one you don't want to hear, right?

My objection is the same as it has been all along - you are offering a material paradigm to try and observe a moral agent.

One of the attributes we often assign to God is "faithful", or "steadfast". This would appear to indicate that God is predictable, and therefore verifiable. And, strange thing, it does in my experience. God is 100% predictable, but only in a generic moral sense, not a material sense.

I'm not arguing about he fact that there is OF evidence of God's existence - that methodology only applies to the material, so it is never going to end up with God at the end of the equation. Evidence for God is at a philosphical and moral level, so it is in those terms both internally objective (from an individual perspective) and externally subjective (from anyone else's perspective).

quote:

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Your point about my parameters being wrong seems to be suggesting that my standards are too high for God. That seems a little inconceivable to me.

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Excuse me Sir, your bias is showing! It isn't about standards, it's about applicability. Have you ever tried to view the craters on the moon with a particle accelerator? Probably not, but that particle accelerator cost billions of dollars and man-decades of research. It is built to the most exacting engineering standards, and even makes qite a good cup of coffee.

In the end, you better off with your 3-yr old daughter's toy binoculars. It isn't about standards at all.

I am willing to reexamine my tools, but I won't fix something that ain't broke. Unless someone can point out that it is broken and I hadn't noticed it.

Let me be the first to point it out then. If you want to discover a spiritual being, you need a spiritual tool. I know something that you don't, and I know it with pretty much the same certainty that I know anything else. Your tools aren't broken, they're just the wrong ones for the job.

The incarnation/resurection thing is a topic about your particular view of God, not on the existence of God per se. I am coming at this from the angle of an atheist, so to tell me that God is of this particular character and expect me to accept that is to me like arguing about the colour of a unicorns horn.

I understand that, but the events I'm mentioning are the ones that come closest to the boundaries you set for evidence. And even then, as historical events, they cannot constitute OF evidence. However, if there is a reasonably high probability that the events occurred pretty much as reported, then it is necessary to re-examine our assumptions about what is and isn't possible.

[ 04 June 2001: Message edited by: David ]
 

The Dragon in my Garage

'A fire breathing dragon lives in my gararage.' Suppose (I'm following a group therapy approach by the psychologist Richard Franklin) I seriously make such an assertion to you. Surely you'd want to check it out, see for yourself. There have been innumerable stories of dragons over the centuries, but no real evidence. What an opportunity!
'Show me' you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans an old tricycle - but no dragon.
'Where's the dragon?' you ask.
'Oh she's right here,' I reply, waving vaguely. 'I neglected to mention that she's an invisible dragon.' You propose spreading flour on the floor of the garage to capture the dragons footprints.
'Good idea,' I say, 'but the dragon floats in the air.' Then you'll use an infra red sensor to setect the invisible fire.
'Good idea, but the invisible fire is also heatless.' You'll spray-paint the dragon and make her visible. 'Good idea, except she's an incorporeal dragon and the paint won't stick.' An[d] so on. I counter every physical test you propose with a special explanation of why it won't work.
Now, whats the difference between an invisible, incorporeal floating dragon who spits heatless fire and no dragon at all? If there's no way to disprove my contention, no conceivable experiment that would count against it, what does it mean to say that my dragon exists? Your inability to invalidate my hypothesis is not at all the same thing as proving it is true. Claims that cannot be tested, assertions that immune to disproof are veridically worthless, whatever value they may have in inspiring us or in exciting our sense of wonder. What I'm asking you to do comes down to believing, in the abscence of evidence, on my say so.

From "The Demon Haunted World - Science as a candle in the dark' by Carl Sagan.
 

One can see this agenda at the moment as atheistic cosmologists try and apply principles of homogeneity, simplicity and symmetry to the "problem" of anthropic fine tuning. Oh dear, does the Universe seem designed for life?! Never mind, invent billions of uninhabitable universes so that observer selection removes the need for explanation. Copernicus elegantly simplified the model of planetary orbits. Now the pendulum has swung toward another obscurantism ... that of the modern day Ptolemy's who frantically invent new models to avoid that which they cannot accept without professional ridicule and personal crisis ... life is special and has a purpose. God has left his calling card ... FOR THOSE WHO HAVE EYES TO SEE!
 

Okay, the bonus ball number idea is just an example. Technically it isn't a strawman, because I am not saying that is how God is, but only this is a test to see of God does work like that. As I said, its not a strawman on a technical point only.

So, to examine the supernatural I need a different toolset. Okay. Now, how do you get a toolset that can obtain knowledge of the true supernatural without allowing in other almost believable, but false, supernatural phenomena?

This is really the whole point. My way of deciding if something is believable is to apply the falsifiability/objective criteria (more on this later). Now, everyone says I must drop that and accept subjective, non-falsifiable evidence to count. That means that UFO's, the Loch Ness monster, dowsing, Psychic surgery and superstition must now be accepted as having a high degree of probabillity because they all also rely on subjective, non-falsifiable evidence.

The Dragon in My Garage is an example of something that is non-falsifiable. It cearly shows why there should be some possibility of falsifiying a hypothesis. If a hypothesis can be falsified, and is tested but is not actually falsified then it moves towards being a theory.
 

I am not sure what you consider all of that to be evidence of. I can tell you that I do not believe humanity to be independently capable of these things, knowing my own self the way I do. What's the old saying? I know, Lord, that I ain't what I should be, but thank you, Lord, that I ain't what I used to be!!

Those who start with the presupposition that God does not exist will not find him. I am not a Bible-thumping literalist by any stretch of the imagination, but over and over and over again in scripture God makes it clear that those who will not see cannot see.

The suggestion has been made that you change your underlying premise to suppose God really does exist, and work from there. IMO that is the only way you will ever see any evidence. And I don't think any of that will ever be physical.
 

Here is the quote from you,

That does not mean that things outside science have no validity, just that there validity needs to be explained in other ways,

I'm not sure what you mean by this. Would you please clarify it.

If things outside science do have validity, as you have said, why do you insist on discussing the existence of God in purely scientific terms?

Moo
 

quote:

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About this requirement for objective, falsifiable evidence: this assumes that the scientific worldview comprehends all that is, an assumption I don't think is warranted

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I think ( having read throught the entire thread ) that this is the heart of the matter. You seem to assume that a scientific/empirical worldview is the only acceptable and valid one, and that God should therefore be able to be proved within that framework. But at the sametime you reject the worldviews that accept the existance of God - Christian worldviews.

So you do have a fiath - it is a faith in empirical ( OF ) evidence. It might be interesting to see if you take that to it's logical conclusions ( which I doubt - very few people take their faith to its logical consclusions, and most of those who do end up dead ), and I wouldn't want to disagree with your faith principles. But htey are faith, they are tools to measure the universe by that you trust and believe in.

So the lack of any means of demonstrating the existence of God within this worldview ( one that does, I believe, rule out the God I know ), does nothing more than prove that you have a consistent worldview when adderssing the existence of God. So what? I can argue for a consistent worldview that denies that the world is round ( I've seen web sites that try to do this ). I can be consistent, and logical even, but wrong. It makes no difference to the shape of the world.

I'm calling you a flat-earth society member, but just trying to point out that internal consistency of ones personal worldview on a particular issue does not prove it right ( or wrong ). I am becoming more and more convinced that the real nature and state of the world is far less logical that we could ever imagine - so I'de probably better stop reading the Discworld books.
 

Astro
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Steve:

So the lack of any means of demonstrating the existence of God within this worldview ( one that does, I believe, rule out the God I know ), does nothing more than prove that you have a consistent worldview when adderssing the existence of God. So what? I can argue for a consistent worldview that denies that the world is round ( I've seen web sites that try to do this ). I can be consistent, and logical even, but wrong. It makes no difference to the shape of the world.

]

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Basically, what we have here is an unfalsifiable claim that OF evidence is the only evidence permissable.

But I am prepared to accept that my belief might be foolish and wrong. I don't really think it is, but the evidence I take as proving God's existence might be just wish-fulfillment. That, I guess, is the risk of faith. Tomorrow, I might just wake up out of this dream and realise I've been an idiot. Oh well, somehow I don't think that believing that Love created and upholds the universe is such a bad mistake to make, so I'll keep on making it.
 

Hell, I sometimes wonder whether God exists myself.

The Bible is of little help here, quite aside from the problem of defending its authority without circular reasoning. It comes from a pre-scientific world view. Its writers wouldn't know objective falisfiable criteria if they got up and slapped them in the face, because these concepts are a product of the scientific age.

Stories about lawyers applying laws of evidence and concluding that etc. etc. mean nothing because there's always someone else who concluded the opposite.

In the end, if God is real, then only He can do the revealing of Himself. And if the Skeptical Atheist is truly open to God doing so, then He may do so.

Where does this leave evangelism, witness, apologetics? In the realm of all other general revelation of God - story. My story, your story, the skeptical atheist's story. That is where God reveals Himself. Hence in the Bible we have a book of stories, not a theology tome. Whenever folk asked Jesus a theological question, He responded with a story. That was the teaching method of the Rabbis of that time, I'm told, and for good reason.

BTW - careful with talk about Intelligent Designers. There is a new version of Argument from Design out there which calls itself Intelligent Design, and it is not highly thought of in scientific circles, because it insists on finding gaps and putting them down to God. As a philosophical point ID is interesting and valid, as science it is not.
 

I will try and answer in general terms, but I am sorry I cannot reply to all points. I have said before, my time is limited.

Please, don't accuse me of deliberately ignoring things that don't fit in, Fr. Gregory. I am trying my best. Do as Gill has done, find the relevant point (please keep it quite small each time) and repeat it specifically saying "Why haven't you answered this point?"

There is only one of me, I am afraid to say.
 

Fr Gregory

quote:

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One can see this agenda at the moment as atheistic cosmologists try and apply principles of homogeneity, simplicity and symmetry to the "problem" of anthropic fine tuning. Oh dear, does the Universe seem designed for life?! Never mind, invent billions of uninhabitable universes so that observer selection removes the need for explanation.

---

Science works on falsifiable things. God is is in principle not falsifiable (I think we have reached that conclusion by now) so cannot be used in a scientific theory. The billions of universes are one possible answer to the problem of Quantum Mechanics and is in principle (in theory at the moment) falsifiable.

If a scientist uses God as an explanation then he moves outside science by definition

Also your comment about "only for eyes that see" is specious. The multiverse hypothesis is controversial, but the basis for the theory is available for anyone to examine and criticise no matter what they bellieve in. It is not necessary to change ones world-view. This is the opposite of religion, where only the believers can see the evidence (as has been made clear by this thread).

If you do not understand the main function of science but feel free to comment on it, where does that leave your views on things for which I am unsure? It reduces the amount of trust I can place in your comments.
 

quote:

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That does not mean that things outside science have no validity, just that there validity needs to be explained in other ways,

---

I accept that the rules of logic have validity, even though it is impossible to prove them. I do not think that this is a contradiction to my usual view of OF evidence because they are self-evident. Take the 'laws of thought':

Traditionally these are:
1) 'What is, is' (confusingly called the law of identity) and
2) 'Nothing both is and is not' (the law of non-contradiction);
and sometimes also
3) The law of excluded middle.

(Taken, in this instance, from my current favourite site Xrefer.com, an excellent resource for definitions: Xrefere.com)

The fact that if something exists then it does exist is self-evident. The fact that something cannot both 'be' and 'not be' is self-evident. The fact that something is either true or false is also self-evident.

I accept that universals exist in some form (but I don't think too deeply about how or why). I accept that the universal 'cat' exists in that it will identify all cats and nothing else but cats.

So, I divide the world in the first place between things that are self-evident and things that aren't. In my next post, I will develop this further and bring the relevance of this spiel in.

To answer Gills question on another point, science does obviously have limits. It does not deal with value judgements. Whether anything is good or bad does not fall into sciences purview.
 

So, we need to examine the relationship, which involves you and God.

So, how are you aware of this personal relationship? It has been said it is not just a feeling, but a knowing (I think this was from one of the threads in Hell, but I have heard it elsewhere too).

So you 'know' about God. That then leads to the question how are you aware of this 'knowing'? This is getting into pretty deep philosophical territory I know, but I think it is relevant.

Using Descartes Cogito Ergo Sum, we know that we exist. We also know our sense data exists. We do not know what the sense data is equated to, because we only know of it through the sense data. That is the external world. Now back into the mind. We are aware of our sense data. We have the sense data and the awareness that something is aware of the sense data. That is the self. The self-awareness that separates us from the rest of the animal kingdom, allegedly. We have a priori knowledge of logic and universals. Sometimes called innate knowledge. We are also directly aware of our thoughts/feelings and our memories, though we know these have the possibility of error.

So, if there are any of you left awake after that paragraph, I think you would class your relationship with God as direct knowledge in the same way that you have direct knowledge of your thoughts/ feelings/ memories but you would deny the possibility of error.

If I am right about the last bit, the question then becomes, as I suppose it always has been in a way, how do you know that the thing you have that relationship with is God?

Taking Once again from the 'Demon Haunted World' by Carl Sagan is the Baloney Detection Kit I would like to pick one of those points in particular, namely

I may still be argumentative, but the debate is moving on. As an atheist on a Christian MB I am very concerned about not wasting peoples time. I am trying to stop this going round in circles.
 

quote:

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Originally posted by astro:
I sometimes find that a person who says he cannot believe in the God of the bible really has a problem, not with whether God exists or not, but with the consequenses to his life if God does exist. Could you face life knowing that God exists?

Astro

---

Have you actually thought about what that means aiming at someone who tries to be moral and listens to a conscience?

Every day I must look myself in the mirror. I am not perfect, but I must live with the consequences of the decisions I make. I face that as well as I can. I cannot 'leave it at the foot of the Cross'. I cannot expect forgiveness or Grace from the position I take. All of these options are open to you from yours.

I will rephrase the question, are you frightened of living life alone and so are too scared to admit the possibility that God doesn't exist?

Why, please tell me, would I be worried about the consequences of something that I don't think exist?
 

quote:

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Please correct me if I am reading you wrong, but given your dragon story I think that you are looking for physical evidence of the non-physical.

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I meant the Dragon story as an illustration of falsifiability. The Dragon is non-falsifiable. There is no possible test that the Dragon could fail.

God is like that. Whatever happens, God can be used as the explanation.

The simple way of talking about falsifiability is to say that something that explains everything actually explains nothing.
 

Returning to the earlier debate about your world-view precluding an evidence which would convince you of God's existence. Is there not an extent to which your mode of reading, your mode of observation alters the results of the tests you perform. How do you factor Heisenberg's Uncertainty principle into your own non-experience of God or my experience of him?

The fact that if something exists then it does exist is self-evident. The fact that something cannot both 'be' and 'not be' is self-evident. The fact that something is either true or false is also self-evident.
 

Thinking further, you also asked what other positions required you to stand within them to see their truth: Postmodernism. Unless you are within post-modernism you will not be able to see with its (non?)perspective.

Although I'm not p-m, post-structuralism suits better. So like Wood, I wonder how one would recognise objective evidence. I suspect an insurmountable level of subjectivity resides inside every observer.

'frin
 

I agree, Philosophy/logic doesn't ultimately solve anything, but it does help in structuring thought and removing deadwood.

I have to agree with all of you, and I think that you have said the same here, Frin, that my preconceptions do colour my judgements.

I do not claim to be objective. I only claim to have a reasonable world-view. All that stuff about Occams razor is showing the justification for my world-view.

So, I will obviously interpret evidence through my paradigm.

Having said that, I can show you the evidence for any of the things that I accept. You don't need to change paradigm to see the evidence. The evidence I accept is also falsifiable.

The evidence that sustains your world-view is not.
 

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How can you live your own life without some intuitive dimension which helps you make sense of your experience and the world? Must falling in love only be gauged by the frequency of one's heart beat?

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I do have an intuitive dimension. I just know that I should not base any major decisions on it. Falling in love for me is measured by the emotions I feel. When I look at my wife, the emotions I feel are close enough to how others describe falling in love for me to safely label them as such.

Notice the cold, emotionless way I can describe it? I am a passionate person, I have an awful temper, I am an emotional animal, but it is still possible to describe theses things in an objective way.

I often stand on a dark clear night and look with awe at the stars. I can name many constellations, I know all about the birth/life/death of stars. I know they are huge balls of gas light years away, but just staring up at them amazes me every time. There is something indescribable about the sight.
 

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Taking Once again from the 'Demon Haunted World' by Carl Sagan is the Baloney Detection Kit I would like to pick one of those points in particular, namely

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Sorry, I didn't complete this. I was going to say that there should be another hypothesis put forward to explain this thing that you have a relationship with and call God. Then a method of testing between them can be devised.

Sorry guys, I haver to go, and I won't be around tomorrow. I hope to catch up with you all on Wednesday.

Its been very thought provoking. Thank you all.
 

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The Dragon in My Garage is an example of something that is non-falsifiable. It cearly shows why there should be some possibility of falsifiying a hypothesis. If a hypothesis can be falsified, and is tested but is not actually falsified then it moves towards being a theory.

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Sceptical Atheist - may I be the first to say how much I enjoyed that illustration, which I have never heard before.

And the first (I think) to echo Karl's assertion that sometimes he isn't sure if he believes in a God.

In the end, paradoxically, it was the lack of PROOF (not evidence) which convinced me - "Surely, if someone devised a religion, they'd make it hang together?" I thought. I don't necessarily think that way 26 years on... but there is something to it, all the same.

You know, I don't think you will ever get the answer you are seeking - or rather, if I understand, the answer you are not seeking. Which, paradoxically, would be your answer!

You are not asking us to justify our faith in God, or even to explain it. You are asking us to provide you with evidence that will point you towards God.

Well, we can't. At least, perhaps some feel they can. But I don't think so. Your dragon sums up your point admirably. Perhaps this is the nearest you'll come to an answer? That there isn't anything we can offer as falsifiable evidence? The only thing I have which approaches that is that although I am an intelligent, deep-thinking woman, the faith I have will not let me be content at those times when I feel like giving up on God.

I won't patronize you by saying any more about looking for God. Personally I believe that God (if there is one! ) honours seekers after truth far more than people who manipulate and control others in the name of religion, of whom sadly there are many in the Churches.

And don't go worrying about my faith, the rest of you - it's just as I've already said, it's real TO ME but integrity demands that I treat it as a working hypothesis.

It's a fine line. But I walk it.
 

It's a recognition thing. What are the marks of recognition? The mind of the Church and the countless millions who have gone before me knowing the same person .... and being prepared to die for Him.

That's how I know.

Whether God is falsifiable or not is a matter for your world view and the questions it generates. I propose, (as I have done before), that God is not just another phenomenon; not just another object; not just another observable reality; not just another "being." (If this sounds crazy to you then you need to factor in the Eastern Church's commitment to apophatic theology .... somewhat weak in the west).

So, I suppose, that's the end of our common ground. I don't want it to be, but I can't see where we go from here.
 

I have a feeling that Skeptic assumes (and perhaps many of the respondents assume) that we are necessarily defining "God" in terms of Judeo/Christian beliefs (theistically). I'm curious though, if we broaden "God" to the non-theistic beliefs of Buddhists, or the Jewish Kabbalistic concept, that G-d is a verb, that the discussion becomes more interesting.
 

On the problem of evil, could we say that Christians talk too vaguely about God and don't get down to the Easter specifics of our faith? If the cross is reduced to the status of a cosmic transaction how can God himself participate in the process? It's as external to Him as it isn't to us.

On many occasions at a funeral I have talked in the most realistic terms about the Cross being the place of resolution. I just don't think many Christians think of it in these terms; never mind atheists and agnostics!

The problem of evil is compounded by the loss of the very Christian mind that might address it.
 

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The billions of universes are one possible answer to the problem of Quantum Mechanics and is in principle (in theory at the moment) falsifiable.

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Interesting concept! At the moment the universe we are in is the only one we can observe by definition.

To postulate the existence of multiple universes in order to explain the fact that the constants that determine the nature of this universe are exactly those needed to support life is a great leap of faith which is not even theoretically falsifiable.

That is why scientists are forced to use your favourite razor to remove the other universes and are left with a universe "designed" for life. Interestingly, a very old book we all know describes the creation of the heavens and the earth in exactly those terms. A massive creation for the purpose of sustaining life.
 

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I do not claim to be objective. I only claim to have a reasonable world-view. All that stuff about Occams razor is showing the justification for my world-view.

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Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:

The fact that if something exists then it does exist is self-evident. The fact that something cannot both 'be' and 'not be' is self-evident. The fact that something is either true or false is also self-evident.

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In fact the "true or false" fails on Russell's Paradox, "'be' and 'not be'" leads us to Schrodinger's Cat. Existence itself I do not believe to be necessarily self-evident in all cases.

Gill and Karl, please add me to the list of those who periodically doubt the existence of God. Like both of you, I prefer to believe.
 

Sure, Fr. Gregory, we can find good theological explanations. I don't think I could be a theist if I didn't also believe that, in some real sense, God suffers with us through the Cross. But that doesn't explain why evil exists. But neither can I explain why goodness exists.

I'm with the "good working hypothesis" brigade here. I think it makes me an optimist rather than a pessimist.
 

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The fact that if something exists then it does exist is self-evident.
The fact that something cannot both 'be' and 'not be' is self-evident.
The fact that something is either true or false is also self-evident.

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This is true of scientific truth. I wonder if it is true of all truth?

Take the statement 'God is our Father'. Is it true or false? Can it be both?
 

Just a few thoughts:

1) I had always thought that an atheist was committed to the proposition that God does not exist. Whereas you seem to be saying only that you have not yet encountered evidence that He/She does. Which would make you a sceptical agnostic ?

2) Would you consider as evidence the stories of people whose lives have been transformed by a conversion experience ? Genuinely criminal types who have become altruistic overnight, "The Cross & the Switchblade" sort of stuff ? Even if the theology of the converted is sometimes dubious, the existence of a power that changes lives seems pretty much a matter of recorded fact...

3) What's all this nonsense about statements being either true or false ? It's like this; reality is complicated. We humans far too often describe it in very simple language. To demand of reality that it be either perfectly like or perfectly unlike the language we use is ridiculous.

Regards,

Russ
 

First of all, the questions raised by the Sceptical Atheist have been very important and interesting. I would probably put myself in the "Sceptical Christian" camp as well as others here. I certainly have no "objective falsifiable" evidence for the existance of God; there is however evidence, some of it similar in nature to the evidence for cosmology (for example).

Cosmologists are faced with a body of evidence that requires explanation. This includes things like the red shift of galaxies (the expansion of the universe), the cosmic radiation background, abundances of helium ....

Cosmologists have developed a number of theories to explain the origins of these observations. However, these theories are not subject to experimentation in the way that (for example) other branches of physics are (unless you know a way of creating a universe in the lab). The theories are still somewhat "falsifiable" in that they can be tested against the observations, and may predict how future observations (eg the precise structure of the cosmic background) will look.

However, the evidence that the theories explain or are tested against is by its' nature incomplete (limited by available instruments and time to make observations) and potentially incorrect (was the instrument recording a particular observation working properly?).

Now, to me, there isn't that much difference to the way I came to accept the theory that God (as described in the Bible and Christian tradition) exists. I looked at incomplete and potentially incorrect evidence (the recorded testimony of Jews and Christians in the Bible, the testimony in words and actions of Christians I knew, my own personal experiences etc) and tested them against the possible theories (God exists, He doesn't exist, there is a supernatural impersonal force...). I came to the decision that the Christian understanding of God best fitted the available evidence.

I also found that I could make a certain amount of "predictive observations", albeit subjective. It was clear that the Christian religion was demanding more than just an intellectual acceptance that God exists, there is a call to personal relationship with him. Now, entering a personal relationship changes both people (OK the change in God is probably insignificant), and I could therefore expect that by making the decision (a "step of faith") to enter such a relationship would result in some form of perceptable change in myself and my interactions with others.

Now, I've no idea if that addresses any questions/comments raised on this thread, but it is the best I can give in response to a request for "objective falsifiable" evidence for Gods' existance.

Alan
 

There was (is?) a mathematician called Godel who has a theorem. My book has gone walkies so I will have to do the best I can from memory, but it deals with the availibility of proof and can be summed up as:

"You cannot prove everything about a system from within the system."

As an example, if you are living in a one-dimensional world, you can only experience the line you live on. You can't imagine a line unless you could see it from above - which is another dimension which you don't have - it's outside your system.

So, there are four kinds of things:

• Things that you can prove are true.
• Things that you can prove are false
• Things that are true, but you (or anyone else) cannot prove it
• Things that are false, but you (or anyone else) cannot prove otherwise

I'm not sure if those paragraphs hang together there; I know they both went towards explaining the theorem and I think that it could apply here.
 

Gill said

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Personally I believe that God (if there is one!) honours seekers after truth far more than people who manipulate and control others in the name of religion, of whom sadly there are many in the Churches.

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Well said, I agree. It is better to honestly doubt than believe because you are told to.

Dear Sceptical Atheist,
I have a great deal of sympathy for your position. I think that the evidence is profoundly ambiguous, and I do sometimes wonder whether I am deceiving myself by continuing to try and live my life as if God exists. On balance, however, I think that such a strategy makes my life more fulfilling (and bearable) and I feel that there are enough grounds for it to satisfy me that I am not being intellectually irresponsible for so believing. (I gave up fundamentalism when I came to the conclusion that I could only remain in it if I compromised on intellectual integrity).

I think that the nature of the universe and its "not quite inscrutability"; some of the religious experience of humankind down the ages (not just Christianity); personal experience of love and kindness; are consonant with there being a God (but one who is rather less anthropomorphic and more supra-personal than the popular christian version).

As has been said the biggest challenge to this is the problem of evil and i find the cross of jesus a partial but not sufficient answer to this. (It is sometimes said that Jesus bore all the world's pain on the cross, if so why do i still have this toothache?)

I have not had an experience of God compelling enough to be indubitable (and would be able to doubt it soon after anyway!) And I prefer to regard experience of God as being found in experience of beauty, truth, kindness,justice, in the day to day than in extaordinary experiences.

Happy searching!
(If you are into Philosophy of Science I would heartily recommend Couvalis, The Philosophy of SCience
Glenn
 

I have given you a testable way of showing me that God exists.

Do any of you have a testable way of showing that God doesn't exist?

What could possibly convince you of this?
 

From Archimandrite Sophrony (His Life is Mine: Part 2, Chapter 2; SVS Press
pg. 117):

"Knowledge which is imbued with life (as opposed to abstract knowledge)
can in no wise be confined to the intellect: there must be a real union with
the act of Being. This is achieved through love: 'Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart...and with all thy mind' (Matt. 22:37). The
commandment bids us love. Therefore love is not something given to us: it
must be acquired by an effort made of our own free will. The injunction is
addressed first to the heart as the spiritual centre of the individual. Mind
is only one of the energies of the human I. Love begins in the heart, and
the mind is confronted with a new interior event and contemplates Being in
the Light of Divine love."
 

For my part all the evidence I have of the existence of God comes from experience. The problem in convincing anyone else is that generally these experiences require the eyes of faith in order to be accepted as evidence . . . which leads into a bit of a circle.

I have also found that trying to apply logic usually doesn't work very well. The big problem I have found is that God can simultaneously be and not be a given attribute.

For example from a hymn:

Ever old and ever new

Does this mean 'Ever not new and ever new'? It sums up the sort of appraoch I think is necessary.

Some thoughts anyway . . .
 

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I have given you a testable way of showing me that God exists

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No, you haven't.

Nor have you answered the points that were made about that.
 

Have you tried that yet?
 

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Originally posted by seasick:
The problem with the approach would seem to stem from 'Do not put the Lord your God to the test'. However, I would appreciate that this isn't terribly helpful in this situation.

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Actually, that is the crux of this whole thing. The temptations of Christ center on opportunities to test God, to do an unquestionably fantastic supernatural thing which would prove undoubtably that God existed (the angels turning up to catch you temptation). This is something we are told not to do, to test God. So I cannot produce an OF test for you as it is (in a mild way) offensive to my belief system.

The problem of an OF test to prove that God is I believe yours to solve.

Incidentally, were God to take you up on your lottery challenge, would you not merely change philosophical enquiries to why God does not intervene in other specified situations. You'd drop the argument for the existence only to pick up the problem of evil.

'frin
 

If Jesus had thrown himself from the pinnacle of the temple, angels would have caught him, because he was God.

If any of us were to jump off anything equally high, we would go splat. We are not God.

The demand that God do something to prove himself has an underlying assumption. That is that we are God's equal or superior. Since that's not the case, those tests never work.

God sometimes does something to show his existence to a person who is sincerely and humbly seeking. Anyone who poses a test does not qualify.

Moo
 

I would like to add that I can't see why any all-powerful being should obey a human individual.

God responds to intercessory prayer, not automatically, but thoughtfully, considering the welfare of the one being prayed for.

Moo
 

I have given you a system of evidence that would show me that your God exists, but you say I should look in a different way.

That means that God does not match my system. That is a question that needs addressing, I know, but please for the moment answer the question I asked.
 

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Steve_R
In fact the "true or false" fails on Russell's Paradox, "'be' and 'not be'" leads us to Schrodinger's Cat. Existence itself I do not believe to be necessarily self-evident in all cases.

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The law of excluded middle is a fundamental way of how we all decide on the truth. If a statement is made, it cannot both be true and false at the same time. There are the caveats about when is something 'red' and when is it 'orange'. Schrodingers Cat, which is of course an impossible situation highlighting the paradox in sub atomic particles, shows that when we are discussing things such as electrons we cannot know if it is a particle or a wave. It depends on the way we examine it. Any statement about the electron, though can be seen as true or false (within the fundamental limits imposed by Heisenbergs uncertainty). I can say that I measured an electron that had X GeV amount of energy. That is either true or false. It cannot be both.

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The fact that if something exists then it does exist is self-evident.
The fact that something cannot both 'be' and 'not be' is self-evident.
The fact that something is either true or false is also self-evident.
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This is true of scientific truth. I wonder if it is true of all truth?

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This is a statement about Truth. They are called the laws of thought. They are self evident. They come into our consciousness as innate ideas before we start examining the truth of particular circumstances. Science is subservient to these points.

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Take the statement 'God is our Father'. Is it true or false? Can it be both?

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Let us consider this.
1) The statement 'God is our Father' is either True or False
If this is True, then we have a True statement. If it is false, we get the secondary point:
2) The statement "'God is our Father' may be true" is either True or False.

If (2) is True then we have a true statement, but we are still unsure in particular circumstances whether God is our Father. The uncertainty does not make the statement made false.
If (2) is False, then we know that the statement 'God is our Father' is totally false.
 

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Alan:
Cosmologists are faced with a body of evidence that requires explanation. This includes things like the red shift of galaxies (the expansion of the universe), the cosmic radiation background, abundance of helium ....

Cosmologists have developed a number of theories to explain the origins of these observations. However, these theories are not subject to experimentation in the way that (for example) other branches of physics are (unless you know a way of creating a universe in the lab).

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This is wrong. There are ways of testing the Big Bang (BB) theory. The cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation was about to be looked for, because it should have been there according to theory, when it was discovered anyway by accident.

The red shift makes predictions about where the galaxies would have been in the past. Pushing matter together increases the temperature, which is why the CMB should have been there. If it wasn't there, then the BB theory would have been falsified.

By using particle accelerators we can for tiny fractions of a second attain temperatures close to BB temperatures, and from this we can confirm that the particle physics (PP) theories are correct.

Using the PP theories, quantum mechanics (QM) and relativity, we can calculate what the Helium content should be. We can then observe the Helium content and see if that ties in. It does.

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The theories are still somewhat "falsifiable" in that they can be tested against the observations, and may predict how future observations (e.g. the precise structure of the cosmic background) will look.

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This is a strange comment. If they can be tested against observation, then they are falsifiable. If they can predict how future observations will look, then they are falsifiable too. The criteria you state here are proper science, so you are confirming the fact that what the scientists are saying is good science. I detect a little confusion here.

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However, the evidence that the theories explain or are tested against is by its' nature incomplete (limited by available instruments and time to make observations) and potentially incorrect (was the instrument recording a particular observation working properly?).

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It is remarkably complete. Thousands of tests in particle accelerators at least and many more tests of the CMB all done with a multitude of instruments getting better and more sensitive all the time. This claim is fallacious.

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Now, to me, there isn't that much difference to the way I came to accept the theory that God (as described in the Bible and Christian tradition) exists. I looked at incomplete and potentially incorrect evidence (the recorded testimony of Jews and Christians in the Bible, the testimony in words and actions of Christians I knew, my own personal experiences etc) and tested them against the possible theories (God exists, He doesn't exist, there is a supernatural impersonal force...). I came to the decision that the Christian understanding of God best fitted the available evidence.

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But it is not the same on one fundamental point. I hate to sound repetitive, but your claims are non-falsifiable. I am not saying that they are wrong because of this, but you are not comparing like with like. Science and religion may be compatible, but they are not the same as you seem to be implying.

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I also found that I could make a certain amount of "predictive observations", albeit subjective. It was clear that the Christian religion was demanding more than just an intellectual acceptance that God exists, there is a call to personal relationship with him. Now, entering a personal relationship changes both people (OK the change in God is probably insignificant), and I could therefore expect that by making the decision (a "step of faith") to enter such a relationship would result in some form of perceptible change in myself and my interactions with others.

Now, I've no idea if that addresses any questions/comments raised on this thread, but it is the best I can give in response to a request for "objective falsifiable" evidence for Gods' existence.

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I am sorry, Alan, this has been quite a negative post back to you, but that is not because I think what you say is not worth considering. You have given a thoughtful repines, but I think your knowledge of these matters is slightly flawed.
 

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Posted by Ann:

Trying to prove God by 'objective falsifiable' could be mathematically impossible.
There was (is?) a mathematician called Godel who has a theorem. My book has gone walkies so I will have to do the best I can from memory, but it deals with the availability of proof and can be summed up as:

"You cannot prove everything about a system from within the system."

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Hmmm. Does that mean we can know nothing about our universe because we are within it?

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As an example, if you are living in a one-dimensional world, you can only experience the line you live on. You can't imagine a line unless you could see it from above - which is another dimension which you don't have - it's outside your system.

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We can imagine a four dimensional cube (I am talking about four geometric dimensions, not having time as the fourth). It is called a hypercube. Specifically, a four dimensional cube is a tesseract. A search on the Web will show three dimensional representations of them. In fact, for a rather striking image of a hypercube unfolded into three dimensions, see Salvador Dali's Corpus Hypercubus.

Dali is trying to say in this painting that the resurrection cannot be fully known from our dimension. Notice the checkerboard pattern at the bottom, showing that Christ rises up above the flat world of our geometry into another plane, and that the resurrection is only seen in our eyes as a shadow of its totality. (I am trying to remember what I read in a mathematics book about it, I am not an art expert. Hey, I don't know everything….yet ). In fact, I have just remembered, last year I calculated the internal diagonal of a tesseract It was remarkably simple, the length of one side multiplied by the square root of four. We have the square root, the cube root and now the tesseract root.

A short story written by Robert A Heinlein on the subject is on-line here And he built a crooked house and well worth a read.

Back on the subject, I think we can know things about a system whether we are in it or out of it. Just the fact that we have names for and methods of calculating things in dimensions higher than the ones we live in says something.

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So, there are four kinds of things:

Things that you can prove are true.
Things that you can prove are false
Things that are true, but you (or anyone else) cannot prove it
Things that are false, but you (or anyone else) cannot prove otherwise
I'm not sure if those paragraphs hang together there; I know they both went towards explaining the theorem and I think that it could apply here.

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These points are very relevant. In fact I am reading a book at the moment which deals with the issue of falsifiability (Pierre Duhem: "Essays in the History and Philosophy of Science"). He raises some valid points about the use of crucial experiments in science, but whether this invalidates the use of falsification as a criteria is still not clear. I need to do some more thinking on the implications of his claims.
 

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Stephen
I have followed this thread for a while now and remain absolutely fascinated by it. One thought that came into my mind was this. It's obvious that Sceptical Atheist has posted on sites with shall we say a more militant Christian bias (I'm being polite!!) and is probably surprised by our response, I hope pleasantly. In my time I have peered into atheism but strange to say find it more a leap of faith than to remain a Christian. I can understand people being agnostics but atheism seems to require that little bit more than I can give. It's possible that by posting here SA may be closer to God than some of us realise or indeed are....and I'm not stirring here!

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I am not surprised by the response I have got (I lurked before I posted) but I am very glad I chose to raise the question. When debating the Fundies, the arguments don't touch me in the slightest. They quote the scripture as if just that will convince me, and when I question what I think it says, they cannot respond effectively IMHO. Here there has been intelligent responses that have challenged my position and made me question where I stand and why. This is totally different to the ways that the Fundies just 'put your back up' and move one into a more hard-line stance.

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But in general the universe is fine tuned to an incredible degree eg the resonance in the carbon atom that has to be just so. Of course there may be many other universe (the multiverse theory) and it just so happens that we're sitting in the one that is not too hostile to life
I'd agree that you can't prove the existence of God from this. But it doesn't seem to be incompatible with God. The problem Christianity has - and it's a big one - is the problem of evil especially if one maintains that God intervenes....and I don't know the answer to this one.

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The existence of humans in this universe is only because this universe is fitted to life. The chances of that happening if this is the only universe is immense. If there are as many as the multiverse interpretation of QM says there will be, the chances are almost certain that in at least one will be set up in favour of life. And, of course, if one is then that will mean many more will be because each time a quantum event occurs, another universe is started.

I have only recently taken the multiverse concept more seriously. A good book by a physicist ("The Fabric of Reality" by David Deutsch) explains why it shouldn't be just dismissed.

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Anyway keep posting Sceptical Atheist....I can't pretend your posts aren't thought-provoking, and if they're not answered it's not because you're being ignored....some of us have work to do as well!!

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I could never accuse any of you of ignoring posts. I am too busy firefighting as many as I can to see if my points are beeing answered.

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The billions of universes are one possible answer to the problem of Quantum Mechanics and is in principle (in theory at the moment) falsifiable.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Interesting concept! At the moment the universe we are in is the only one we can observe by definition.

To postulate the existence of multiple universes in order to explain the fact that the constants that determine the nature of this universe are exactly those needed to support life is a great leap of faith which is not even theoretically falsifiable.

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Actually, if you can explain to me how QM is explainable in simple terms without the use of other universes, then I would like to know. We have mathematical tools, such as the collapsing wave function, for predicting what will happen, but they don't explain it.

Remember, the Nobel prize winning Physicist Richard Feynham said "If you think you understand QM then you don't".

I have mentioned a book in an earlier post, "The Fabric of Reality", and the author discusses in there exactly what the possibilities of the multiverse being there are. The field of quantum computing is one area which could soon be providing us with interesting results on the multiverse idea.

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That is why scientists are forced to use your favourite razor to remove the other universes and are left with a universe "designed" for life. Interestingly, a very old book we all know describes the creation of the heavens and the earth in exactly those terms. A massive creation for the purpose of sustaining life.

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On a technical point, Occams razor isn't used to remove all the other universes. They are removed from our theories purely because we only consider the one we live in. The weak anthropic principle comes into play.
 

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Fr Gregory:
"How do I know that this "thing" I have a relationship with is God?"
It's a recognition thing. What are the marks of recognition? The mind of the Church and the countless millions who have gone before me knowing the same person .... and being prepared to die for Him.

That's how I know.

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So, you accept the Truth of Allah, because of the mind of the Moslem world and the countless millions who know Allah and are prepared to die for him?

You can't have it both ways. If you accept the Truth of your God on those grounds, then you must, to be consistent, accept the Truth of all those other people who have the same claim to make. Unless there is a way of seperating them.

There is an argument used amongst atheists, where an atheist asks a Christian if they believe in Zeus, Wotan, all the Hindu pantheon etc. They obviously say they don't.
"Aha! Says the atheist, so of all the thousands of Gods that there are, you disbelieve in all but one. I just disbelieve in one more than you. You are nearly an atheist yourself"

I understand the aim of this argument, even if it is a little simplistic. Christainity is only one amongst many, and most religions make the same basic claims about access to God, answered prayers etc. If you accept the conviction of bellievers as evidence of its truthfulness, then you must do that for all beliefs, not just the one you happen to believe in.

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Whether God is falsifiable or not is a matter for your world view and the questions it generates. I propose, (as I have done before), that God is not just another phenomenon; not just another object; not just another observable reality; not just another "being." (If this sounds crazy to you then you need to factor in the Eastern Church's commitment to apophatic theology .... somewhat weak in the west).

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No. God is either falsifiable or non-falsifiable. I am not a Post Modernist that says that truth is in the eye of the beholder. I do think that 'the Truth is out there'.
If God has an effect on the world, then why is that effect not measurable? I am not talking about the people who believe in God having an effect, or the Church having an effect, but God Himself.

quote:

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So, I suppose, that's the end of our common ground. I don't want it to be, but I can't see where we go from here.

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You can start being a little more objective about what you claim and what you experience. Objectivity is the key to common ground.
 

You missed answering this:

quote:

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Incidentally, were God to take you up on your lottery challenge, would you not merely change philosophical enquiries to why God does not intervene in other specified situations? You'd drop the argument for the existence only to pick up the problem of evil.

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Asked as a question because that seems to me how philosophical enquiry progresses.
 

If God answered the bonus ball challenge, I would have other questions, but it would not be to doubt the existence of an entity that could do that. It would clearly be something greater than human possibilities.
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
You didn't answer my question. I did not ask you for a test for God, or for you to test God, but I asked you what would ever convince you that there was no God.

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Reciprocally, I missed this one. I cannot think of an evidence which would show me a non-existence of God. Proof will come at the time of Judgement (I didn't enjoy typing that) but if there isn't a God I won't be around to find that out.

'frin
 

I've never doubted that Christianity fails the acid test of any scientific theory -- that is, it is inherently unfalsifiable. But isn't the point that at the very end of all discussions about how Quantum Mechanics demonstrates that there's more to matter than we can currently know, and whether we can understand the Resurrection or not, the answer is finally a (gosh, I hate to use such a trite phrase) leap of faith. We either are capable of believing something that seems to many absurd, or we are not.

I was raised in the ECUSA, and I find from time to time in my life that I cannot believe, that it is too hard to accept -- I reach deep inside, and sometimes it just isn't there, though all the knowledge of scripture and tradition remains, and a supportive community. So I sympathize deeply with the inability to believe.

But I'm not really sure that there's in the end a way past the faith/reason deadlock. I really wish there was.
 

Just thinking aloud.
 

A mans wife died and before she did, he promised that he would never live with another woman. He later fell in love again and married somebody else. Then every night his wife appeared to him as a Ghost accusing him of infidelity and betrayal. The Ghost knew all of the intimate details of what had happened and what had been said between the man and his new wife, So, he went to a Zen priest because he was so frightened.

"Next time the Ghost appears, take a handful of beans and ask the Ghost how many you have got. If the Ghost knows the answer, then she is powerful. If she doesn't then you know she is just a figment of your imagination."

The next night the ghost appeared, and the man took a handful of beans and asked her how many he had in his hand. The ghost didn't know, disapeared and never returned.

[fixed code]

[ 08 June 2001: Message edited by: RuthW ]
 

The closest answer I've heard that would suffice, (if I could but believe it) is the "this life doesn't matter" explanation, in which nothing much that happens here is relevant, though that doesn't seem to jibe with other teachings regarding the value and purpose of life.
 

You don't believe in God, and you are asking him to prove that he exists.

In the Bible verses you cite, people who believed in God asked for a sign to make sure they knew what God wanted them to do.

Since God wants people to do his will, he has no problem with people asking to have it made very clear.

The two situations are completely different.

Moo
 

I am not looking for proof, I am looking for evidence.

I quoted the scriptures (in that badly spelled post) to point out to those who won't answer my questions because they say "You shall not test the Lord thy God"

So, I just thought I would show them that the Lord they God doesn't mind being tested, so that means they are free to answer my question. I wonder how many will?
 

Ah! I hear you say. How do you know it isn't the tooth fairy? Because as a believer I share more in common with, say, a Hindu, than an atheist? We present different beliefs in the particular but we are united in our appreciation of the divine. The evidence we submit is never going to satisfy you because we are agree that all realities are not subject to the falsifiable / non-falsifiable criteria. In short, yours is not the only game on the pitch. It doesn't matter to me that you are unimpressed, (this is not intended to be rude ... just honest). We are working from radically different premises.

I suppose you could answer my point about apophaticism .... God is not, not, not, not etc.
 

quote:

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I have given you a testable way of showing me that God exists.

Do any of you have a testable way of showing that God doesn't exist?

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what you have done using Occams Razor is pitted God starting it all agianst a pile of unknown chemicals that reacted in an unknown way to start the ball rolling.

there is no objective intellectual way of
testing the existence of God.

What skeptical atheist would you say to the the statement that we are all the simply the dreams of god (Berkeley) you could neither find conclusive evidence against or for it.

But it is a simple view of the universe
 

He is willing to be tested by a believer who wants to do his will and needs a clear indication of what that will is.

He does not do things to gratify people's curiosity.

Moo
 

And now I've forgotten what I was going to say... oh, someone on about page 4 said they gave up being a Fundamentalist when they realized it would mean compromising their intellectual integrity. Me too.

And, S.A., if I were ever to feel that the Christian faith per se were to compromise my intellectual integrity, then I suppose I would have to give it up. If 'God' ever stopped being a feasible counter to my many questions, for example (and like many here, I come close to that at times). And that is why I am valuing this discussion so much.

I write for my parish magazine every month and encourage people to face their doubts and examine them. I do that daily. And if ever I find a doubt within me which my faith cannot still, then why would I want to pursue that faith?

Note that I don't use the word 'answer'. my faith doesn't provide me with all the answers, but it gives me grounds to accept the fact that there isn't always an answer.

Before you ask, I can't prove that! Anyway welcome back...

 

I just have one comment on something from way back--

quote:

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You have to believe that random chance threw everything together in exactly the right combinations at exactly the right time. From my point of view, the evidence for that is sorely lacking. I am curious how Occam's Razor leads you to this conclusion.

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S.A. already mentioned that the steps wouldn't be completely random, but also one could say that if the steps-by-chance hadn't occurred, we simply wouldn't be around to question it.
 

I see on your profile you say your religion is 'militant atheist'. Possibly this is a joke, but your website doesn't seem to have much room for doubt about your position either.

Are you really interested in discussing you ideas or are you out to convert us?

I was a sceptical (and occasionally a militant) atheist for years. Therefore it is most unlikely you will persuade me to return to that worldview - 'been there, done that, got the T shirt'

However, I have no interest in persuading anyone to abandon beliefs that work for them. If atheism, sceptical or otherwise, works for you, that's fine by me.

Perhaps you want us all to pile into you and try to forcibly convert you? I don't think it's going to happen here, somehow.
 

Glenn
 

On the other hand ‘God’ is just a shorthand way of describing the gound of our being – and to say our being has no ground is clearly nonsense. And as Fr.Gregory has pointed out elsewhere the ‘God is not’ formula has been well-used in the mystical tradition, which is based on an encounter with something that does not lend itself to logical analysis. Neither does the God-thing relate to the National Lottery. One way that we encounter God is by finding Him in others – and we know that others exist, don’t we? Is that an elephant under that table over there?
 

SA, I did not say that

quote:

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Hmmm. Does that mean we can know nothing about our universe because we are within it?

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If the on-dimensional being is a bit lame, and I think that with the hypercube, we are just imagining it, we cannot see it, try my hash at this:

Euclid had a system of mathematical/geometrical axioms and proofs which served for centuries, but one of them was always a bit clumsy - the one about parallel lines. Many mathematicians have tried to restate that in a more elegant fasion, and failed. Now, mathematicians have said, 'What's the worst that can happen if this isn't as proved as we thought?' and created the branch of non-Euclidean geometry. Conceptually, it all boils down to living on a sphere, inside a bubble or on a flat surface (the last of which is Euclidean). Or to put it another way, do the angles of your triangle add up to more, less or exactly 180°.

Only if you are outside and can 'see' the curve or not of the surface can you use the last proof, you cannot from inside, but the rest of the axioms and proofs are there for the taking.

(BTW: the book is called 'Godel, Esher and Bach', it's mathematical, but if you are asking for proofs, it may have the reasons you (we) may not be able to find them. At least not in the hard mathematics and physics, quantifiable areas which allow for OF evidence).
 

I can't objectively falsify God, but I can do it subjectively.

Here's how it works.

1. I know that when I forgive others, God also forgives me. He's always done it before, and it's something that I can rely on. If this were to cease, my worldview would disappear.

But how can this be tested? Quite simply, if I continually am able to maintain my objective relationship with God, it is because of God's acceptance of me via forgiveness.

But to you, that is subjective of course.

2. If my moral decisions are motivated by love and love only, God sees this and makes my actions based on these moral decision consonant with the motivation. Anything else has a tendency to rebound in some way.

Because my moral decisions are closed to anyone else, they are subjective from your perspective. But objective from mine. (And you can't trace back the physical effects to a spiritual causality, since your are not privy to my motivations).

3. And so it goes on - there are many more things that I know I can rely on. It's based on what I know of God, and this knowledge comes from a large number of things - my experience in this regard and others' experience in this regard are of the foremost importance.

Now the fact that God seems to be deliberately consistent in these activities is, to me, solid evidence. To you, it is simply a subjective report with no basis in fact.

The only way for you to objectify it is to experience it yourself. It is not physical, it's spiritual. To test for the spiritual, you need a spiritual test, not a physical one, and that is based on the moral decisions that we make.
 

I love what you said about...

quote:

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Knowledge of the divine does not come from abstract reasoning but from love.

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This is the essence of God. Not very helpful to a OF search but the essence of it all.

Some questions that should perhaps fill some other strings...

Why does God make Himself difficult to scrutinize? I am fully convinced that He exists, but what would be his motivation for making Himself difficult to find? It seems that sometimes He likes tests and sometimes He doesn't.
If God is the source of everything and God is Good, then why doesn't everything express His character? Why is there a devil? Does God have a split personality?

Hey Sceptic, I had long discussions with my Atheistic friends in Highschool and in the end one of them admitted that it takes faith to be an atheist. The other one converted, only to deconvert later on. I thought I was sick of hearing all the arguements, but this has been very thought provoking. I like the Dragon thing. I like the Zen thing. Thanks.

No intelligent answers to anything,

Freehand
 

This is how it is at the moment.

1) There is no OF evidence for God.
2) The OF system is not amenable to an investigation of God.
3) Therefore I need a different system.

Right, now what method is usable?

BTW, I am not trying to convert anyone, and my webpage is aimed at fundies. If you notice, I have a section on the Biblical writers which actually answers some of the points I raise as problems. If one examines the Bible reasonably, my points will be seen as simplistic and irellevant. If one takes a fundamentalist stance, then they are lies and evil.
 

Let's be honest, even the bonus ball test fails as OF since we can never use it to prove either that the source of our inspiration is God or that God fits the image that we have of him.
 

I used cosmology since it's something I have some knowledge about while still being accessable to many people. I could've used biological evolution where much of the evidence is in a very fragmentary fossil record, but that's a bit outside my field of expertise. I tend to find that if I start talking of experimental tests of multi-body quantum mechanics through probes of the structure of nuclei I go way over peoples heads (incidentally, that is basically what I did my PhD in).

My point was that these branches of science can pose questions of an objective falsifiable nature, but that absolutely objective falsifiable answers can not be given. That doesn't make these fields of study bad science. It does mean that good science requires more than objective falsifiable proofs. I just wish I could recall some more philosophy of science

I should also brush up on my understanding of interpretations of quantum mechanics (my PhD was concerned with measuring things, not enough philosophy it seems ). But, the many-universes view of QM is not the only interpretation, or even one held by the majority of scientists. Multiple universes makes great science fiction, but there is *not* (at least at the moment) any objective falsifiable test that would prove the existance of multiple universes.

I never claimed that scientific methods could be used in examining claims about the existance and nature (if he exists) of God. I do stand by the claim that, for me at least, I came to believe in God through a basically rational almost scientific route.

I believe that God wants people to freely belive in and respond to Him. As I see it an OF proof that God exists would coerce people into belief in Him, and then make a response (whether to follow Him or rebel). Therefore, there can be no OF test that would prove the existance of the God I believe in.

Alan

[*not* added per Alan]

[ 08 June 2001: Message edited by: RuthW ]
 

quote:

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There is an argument used amongst atheists, where an atheist asks a Christian if they believe in Zeus, Wotan, all the Hindu pantheon etc. They obviously say they don't.
"Aha! Says the atheist, so of all the thousands of Gods that there are, you disbelieve in all but one. I just disbelieve in one more than you. You are nearly an atheist yourself"

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IIRC, the Romans regarded Christians as atheists because they didn't believe in the Roman gods etc.

The problem I see with this discussion is that we are treating God as we treat his creation. In science we are dealing with the created order (or the product of a series of random processes) whereas Theology we are talking about God - who we Christians claim created that created order and everything in it.

A couple of friends and I were considering setting up a Theological society at Uni for discussing questions from a more academic position - getting away from the fundamentalism of CU. Unfortunately it didn't happen, because I never got around to it, of the three of us, two were in our final year and the third on a year out. But I did write a consitution for it, in which I wrote the following,

"The Nature of Theology. This society exists to explore theology in the context of worship and prayer. For theology differs from other areas of human learning in that it is concerned with our Creator rather than the creation. Our attitude cannot be detached neutrality. The proper response of creature to Creator is worship."

I went on to say
"Revelation. We cannot know God through our reason alone, but he has revealed himself to us, first to Israel and then supremely in his Son. As the writer of the letter to the Hebrews says, ‘In the past God spoke to our forefathers through the prophets at many times and in various ways, but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the universe’. That revelation is recorded in the Bible, God’s word."

It is on this revelation as much as on reason that I base my faith - God has provided evidence by speaking to his people down the years and supremely in his Son, our Saviour, Jesus. And this is why I do not accept Hindu gods, or Celtic gods, or Greek gods, but only YHWH, the Triune God, God of Abraham and Isaac, of the burning bush. Not some abstract, philosophical construct. However, I don't then dismiss reason as a tool. Sara Maitland has a wonderful phrase, she says that she doesn't look to the universe for 'evidence for the existence of God' but as 'evidence of the existence of God'. She already believes in God for a number of reasons and this is backed up by little things - like the fact that ice floats.

Carys
 

Jesus made a couple claims/promises which should "guarrantee" that anyone can find Him if they are looking. He said that if you seek Him you will find Him (Matt 7:7). Yes, this is within the context of Christianity rather than a more abstract idea of God.

Freehand
 

You have asked what method could be useable. First a preliminary question. Are you prepared to consider an experimental procedure that would have a subjective as well as an objective element?
 

Occam's razor cuts both ways.

If materialism is correct and 'it just happened', then uniformitarianism applies and for physics, energy, matter, stars, life and mind to arise entities must be infinitely, eternally proliferated in space-time and even then resident, undetected forces must be at work as even in eternal infinity the layers of complexity in creation are not necessarily inevitable, particularly as no mechanism exists to explain the origins of most on my list.

For materialism to be right: 'We exist therefore we 'evolved' ultimately from causeless quantum perturbations.' induction is the only possible and forever inadequate response.

Explaining the origin and diversity of life with chemistry and mutation alone is about as credible as invoking delocalization of cause and effect in quantum mechanics.

Chemicals think because I think and I'm made of nothing but chemicals.

I ask you!

If Christians are right, Occam's razor is broken Upwards once (and then laterally thrice ... OK, OK ...).
 

Yes, we are all taught not to test God. Jesus refuses to cast himself off the pinnacle of the Temple to see if God will send angels to rescue him and thus prove he's the Son of God because it's wrong to test God. He quotes Deut. 6:16, which refers to Exodus 17 -- the Israelites challenge God when they first get thirsty in the desert, and Moses strikes the rock as God instructs him to do and gets water.

But I think we need to look at the context. God has just delivered the Israelites from Egypt and is already providing manna, and within weeks they have decided he's not going to take care of them.

Moreover, I don't think this model of not testing God is applicable to this discussion. We who have faith are not to test God -- but there's nothing wrong with asking the God in whom we place our faith to provide a little demonstration for unbelievers.

God goes head to head with the prophets of Baal at Elijah's request after Israel forsakes God (1 Kings 18). Elijah appeals to God: "Lord God of Abraham, of Isaac, and of Israel, let it be known today that thou art God in Israel and that I am thy servant and have done all these things at thy command. Answer me, O Lord, answer me and let this people know that thou, Lord, art God and that it is thou that hast caused them to be backsliders" (New English Bible). God obliges, and the people of Israel are convinced.

The way I've always interpreted this story is that Elijah didn't hesitate to invoke God because of his great faith and because he is sure he is acting at God's own command. So perhaps we should be saying to S.A., "You shall invoke your god by name and I will invoke the Lord by name; and the god who answers by fire, he is God." In other words, does your god (empirical reasoning) accept your worship, consume your offering, as it were?
 

That is a logical fallacy - thought is an emergent property. It's like saying that cats must be colourless because atoms are colourless and cats are made of atoms.

It does not disprove materialism. The mistake is being made between methodological materialism - which is what science relies upon as a toolkit, and philosophical materialism, which says that the material world is all there is.

Folk are right that SA's problem (and he agrees) is that his methodologically materialist toolkit is unsuitable for non-materialist realities and concepts.

And I agree that an alternative toolkit has not been coherently proposed as yet. The 'seek Me and ye shall find Me' argument is all very well, but I've been seeking for years and cannot be sure I have found Him.

Russell Stannard proposes a faith experiment (Science and the renewal of belief) where one sets aside a daily time to talk to this 'God' - if He exists, and see if anything happens. What do people think of that?

[fixed code]

[ 09 June 2001: Message edited by: RuthW ]
 

I have two specific suggestions. First, do it every day for at least two months. Second, consider writing rather than just thinking. Your mind is less likely to wander.

One last thing--be completely honest. If you think God isn't there, or if you think he's cruel, say so.

Moo
 

Give my regards to the tooth fairy!
 

I sat in a dark room, lit candles, gazed at a crucifix I'd bought (dunno why!) and waited.

Nothing happened, though I felt peaceful.

This was my first prayer:

"Umm.... God?" (Pause while I waited fror Him to reply. Well, I didn't know what you did!)

"Um... I feel stupid." (Pause)

"But... (light dawned) I don't need to, do I? Cos if you're not there, nobody can hear me... and if you are, you'll understand why I don't know how to pray..."

And ran out of the room.

It was a pretty effective prayer.
 

That was exactly my experience! That was my beginning also.

 

Of course it's a logical fallacy Karl!

Emergence is another post-hoc fairy story.

Your example of colour being an emergent property of a scale larger than the atomic is hardly apropos or illuminating to me.

I LIKE the metaphor of emergence, but can you show me the math? Can you show me a concrete, minimal, rigorous example? Not a rhetorical analogue?

The human mind being an emergent property of cerebral folds in a high brain:body ratio organism is an inductionist fairy story.

Nice and simple if it were true.

Just like the diversity of life in and since the Cambrian being an emergent property of the archae(o?)zoic or proterozoic etc, etc.

Materialist emergence is a cop out, a proliferation of suspiciously qualitative looking entities, just a synonym for 'resident forces' invoked a century ago to explain the absurd origin, punctuated equilibrium and diversity of life.

3/10 Must try harder!

And I'm with Kierkegaard and the other recent contributors: the subjective is real.

Prayer alters the prayor.
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Martin PC not:
I LIKE the metaphor of emergence, but can you show me the math? Can you show me a concrete, minimal, rigorous example? Not a rhetorical analogue?

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In most cases there isn't "hard maths" for emergent properties, usually because by the time a new property emerges the maths has become hideously complex.

One example I can offer is in the physics of solids. A single atom has an electronic structure described by quantum mechanics. When you put lots of atoms together into a solid then the electronic structure of each atom merges into other atoms' structures. The result is a new electronic structure that depends on the atoms present in the solid and their arrangement; an electronic structure that could not have been predicted from the structure of the individual atoms, it emerges from the combination of many atoms.

Alan
 

quote:

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Your example of colour being an emergent property of a scale larger than the atomic is hardly apropos or illuminating to me.

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Then you didn't understand the point. Unless you also invoke some supernatural explanation for colour as an emergent property, you do not need to for any other emergent property.
 

I like Moo's idea:

If you think God isn't there…..say so.

That means, I must assume that God is a real possibility, as I am not in the habit of talking to non-existent things, or assuming things without evcen the possibility of any objective evidence to back them up have the possibility of existence. So, I must necessarily drop my rational objections to the possibility. That leaves me open to irrational ideas that cannot be disproven. We are back in leprechaun/fairy land again.

I would like to propose another experiment for all of you. Talk to Allah (or Krishna, or Buddha) for two months as if he is there, and see what response you get. During this time, stop praying to God, but anything that you would have assigned to God assign to whatever you are praying to. Guess what? That will show the existence of whatever you prayed to.

This is the problem, and if I drop the objective part of the OF test, we are left with non-falsifiability. David and others have said that they can trust God because he has never let them down. That is no big surprise, because if you accept something that is non-falsifiable, then it will be totally trustworthy, even if it doesn't actually mean anything. There is a non-falsifiable weather forecast that I trust 100% "Tomorrow, if its not wet, it will be dry." See that is totally trustworthy, but it doesn't mean anything. It is not capable of saying anything meaningful about the weather.

Okay, let us consider how this compares to anything else. Is there anything else where to see evidence of it, one must first assume it exists in the first place. I am trying to help here. Show me where believing in something is the only way to discover its existence. I cannot think of anything. It is possible to have emotions, such as love, without first bellieving emotions exist.

At the moment there is less evidence for God than there is for the Loch Ness Monster. I don't mean to be picky, but it seems like God isn't just not providing evidence which would deny faith (perosnally, I think a little evidence wouldn't do that as I explained with the 'cold'; analogy) but he is actively hiding himself. For a God that punishes those that don't accept him that has moral consequences.

I still find it hard to believe that someone said I am out to convert people. I think now I can show it wouldn't be possible for me to do that. You all have an invisible friend, who, being non-falsifiable is totally trustworthy. A friend that can alter the laws of cause and effect (though not in any objectively measurable way) to help those that believe he can. All I can offer is a rational approach to the truth which necessarily entails doubt and uncertainty.
 

quote:

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All I can offer is a rational approach to the truth which necessarily entails doubt and uncertainty.

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You said

quote:

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but he is actively hiding himself

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You also said

quote:

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At the moment there is less evidence for God than there is for the Loch Ness Monster

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As for not talking to someone who isn’t there – imagine you’re a supply teacher taking the register of an unknown class – you call out a name – the kid may or may not be there. Someone might have added a fake name to the list – have you compromised your intellectual integrity by calling that name out? You could try Zen meditation, which doesn’t require you to posit the existence of a Divine Being.

But it seems to me that you’re not really interested. Seems to me that you’re running around in circles and the rest of us are getting tired of chasing you. One Truth, One Light, One God – if you really wanna find, go seek. If not, might I suggest you take up a new hobby? Not that it hasn’t been fun. Thanks.
 

quote:

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That means, I must assume that God is a real possibility

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There is no other basis for any experiment.

I agree with Qlib - 'if you really wanna find, go seek'.
 

We have been so indoctrinated now into unthinking acknowledgement of the scientific worldview that we forget for how long humanity coped without it... (or at least without it being developed as a consistent and all-encompassing thing, rather than an odd coincidence that when one does one thing another happens and there seems some reason to it).

Ian
 

Note I said "philosophies", since there are several such ways of looking at science. Most philosophers of science think of either "positivist" (ie: theories built on experiment predict the positive outcome of experiments) or "falsifiable" (ie: theories built on experiment judged by whether further experiments contradict them). Most scientist don't actually do science in accordance with either of these positions. Most scientists take what could be called a "critical realist" approach; we believe we are describing things that are real, and that our theories are the best approximation to that reality - until new evidence proves us wrong and we need to rethink what we are doing. This involves a level of positivist and falsifiable thinking, with a good dash of intuition and creativity (which hardly sounds "scientific" does it?).

I now find the board is packed full of philosophers of science about to correct my somewhat limited understanding of philosophy of science

Alan
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:

Okay, let us consider how this compares to anything else. Is there anything else where to see evidence of it, one must first assume it exists in the first place. I am trying to help here. Show me where believing in something is the only way to discover its existence. I cannot think of anything.

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I have given you this example twice. The only way you can show that many people are trustworthy is to behave as if you trusted them. There is a problem involved, because some people are not trustworthy.

The advantage to taking the risk is that you discover many people are better than you had given them credit for. The whole world seems a better place to live in.

Incidentally, I assume that you don't think everyone is out to do you down. If you do trust some people, then you are engaging in non-OF behavior.

Moo
 

Moo
 

As a formerly devoted student of the 18th century, I've always thought our scientific worldview, especially our trust in science, is rooted there, in the Age of Reason. It was the 18th century that gave us the idea that the universe is comprehensible.

Yes, they were still very big on the argument from design, and so most of them thought we can comprehend the universe because God made it for us to understand (very circular, but it's their argument, not mine). But they gave us the idea that if we study something hard enough we'll understand it, that it's just a matter of enough study with the right tools.
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
Is there anything else where to see evidence of it, one must first assume it exists in the first place. I am trying to help here. At the moment there is less evidence for God than there is for the Loch Ness Monster.

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Here is an approach I have not seen here yet. It is easy to demonstrate that in the next 20 to 50 years virtually all of you will be dead. This fact adds an urgency to this discussion - because the question of whether or not there is a God is not inconsequential.

I would compare it to people in free-fall debating whether or not they will ever hit the ground. They can examine all the evidence they want, but the real imperative is for them to strap on their parachutes and pull the cord. The use of the evidence, of course, is to make sense of that imperative, so that they can do it willingly and not just because someone is barking orders.

Is there any evidence for life after death? There are a number of alternate explanations for near-death experiences, but the conclusion that there is existence after death is as good as any of them.

Is evidence of life after death also evidence that God exists?

The point is that it is not an idle question. Sooner or later we all find out the answer.
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Fr. Gregory:
.... yes Ruth, but then a limited but relevant application of reason and evidence (in the natural sciences) then expanded to cover all realms of truth about reality. That was the mistake. You might as well weigh a fish with moonshine. Scientism is another form of fundamentalism. Newton (and Einstein for that matter) certainly didn't subscribe to it.

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Oh I agree entirely. In fact, studying the 18th century and reading all the nonsense the poets wrote about Newton (remember, this was back when lots of people actually read poetry) was exactly what put me on to what's wrong with scientism. Since I don't understand most of 20th/21st-century science, I can't draw distinctions between scientism and good science, at least not ones that make sense to other people. But 18th-century science I can follow, so I can spot idiotic 18th-century claims about science.

Newton didn't subscribe to scientism -- but all the odes about light by bad poets writing during the next few generations show how quickly the whole idea of "shining the light on something to make it all clear" became a reified metaphor and an article of faith. One we still seem to be stuck with!
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist (long ago in the opening post....):
The problem I face when confronting a philosophy such as Christianity is that as a sceptic, I need to be shown evidence.

But, I do not just accept anything as evidence. I accept objective, falsifiable(OF) evidence as showing that something exists, and without that, I feel I can safely ignore it.

---

The "Death of Darwinism" thread has included a lot of discussion on the difference between philosophical and methodological materialism, with the comment that scientists are (mostly) methodological materialists - the question of whether there is something more than the material is not relevant to science. This has raised a difference between philosophical views of science, and actual scientific practice.

Most scientists would hold that OF theories and data are the gold standard of science, yet much of science is conducted by asking questions that can not (at least with current instruments) have OF answers. We can, for example, not devise an experiment to provide OF evidence for the conditions in the very earliest phases of the Big Bang.

Beyond the ivory towers of academic science, OF evidence is even rarer. People get married every day without OF evidence of their love for each other. Children trust their parents to look after them without OF evidence that such trust has any foundation. Christians would continue to trust God, without OF evidence, even when faced with compulsive evidence of the existance of a (hypothetical) Charlie.

So, a question for the Sceptical Atheist, are you still demanding OF evidence or are you considering other evidence now?

Alan

(and this is not just an excuse to stop a fascinating thread languishing at the bottom of the list )
 

I am also wondering whether evidence about the life after death qualifies as OF evidence, and whether this then might also be evidence about God.
 

Like SA, I too....<snip>

I just realized I was swinging into a lengthy intro of myself. I will save that for another post. Suffice it to say that I am a latecomer because I just found this place. I understand SA's reasoning and over the past several months my own opinions have taken a similar course as much of this thread.

I've come to the point of being able to say that:

• The physical is not necessarily all there is, though it may be.
  
• If there is a non-material existence, methodological naturalism will not provide evidence.
  

From way back in the thread, SA said:

quote:

---

We then have the two world views:
1) It just happened.
2) God made it happen.

---

I think proposition two has an antecedant. Even more basic than "God made it happen" is that "God exists" and could be stated this way:

• 1') The Universe is an uncaused entity
  
• 2') God is an uncaused entity
  

Now you have two propositions which both imply a necessary complexity.

• If 1a', then physical laws and constants are responsible for what we percieve as existence.
  
• If 1b', then there exists an infinite being possessing omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence, plus perfect justice, mercy, love, etc., and He is responsible for existence.
  

These seem to me to possess equal complexity (or better, equally-incomprehensible complexity) and neither are testable by any OF means at our disposal. Here is where Occam's razor falls short, useful tool though it is. IMHO, here also is where Godel's theorem applies, that any self-referential systems will contain a set of basic propositions that are unprovable.

Neither 1' and 1a', or 2' and 2a' have, by my present understanding, inherent qualities that make one overwhelmingly convincing over the other. These are the most basic of opposing presuppositions in the theism/atheism debate. One of these two premises, either of which must be taken on faith, dictate one's ultimate worldview, philosophy, theology and religion (or lack of religion).

So. Which is true? I honestly don't know. I envy all of you who can say with certainty that they believe one or the other with all their heart. I mean that most sincerely. If this is the beginning of faith, I must ask how one gets there? I know that Fideism(sp?) is out of favor, but I see a basic honesty in Kierkegaard's "Leap of Faith."

I could go on but I've gotten long-winded. I would like to say that I've been looking for people to discuss these issues with and I'm very grateful that I've found this place .
 

Right, flame-proof pants on. I'm sure that ol' Axe of the Apostles was around here soewhere... ah. In the umbrella stand.

OY, SA!!!!!

Just how consistent are you in your morning shave with old Occam's then?

quote:

---

Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
And yes, Occam's razor is just a methodological tool. It could very easily be wrong, but the general rule does work and is effective. This is why more evidence is required to separate the two possible viewpoints.

---

What further evidence do you have to separate the following two viewpoints?

1) Your mind + reason + the material world

2) Your mind.

I notice that you have not answered Nightlamp on two occasions when he hinted at this...
 

quote:

---

Neither 1' and 1a', or 2' and 2a' have, by my present understanding, inherent qualities that make one overwhelmingly convincing over the other.

---

The great advantage that 1 has over 2 is that you see nature with your eyes and you don't see God. On the other hand, the advantage of 2 over 1 is that it invests the entire system with purpose.

I think it just depends which is more important to you.

It does seem strange that if reasoning and logic are important, it would be unimportant that life would have no cause, purpose or meaning beyond evolution. Why would logic be of value within a system that is ultimately absurd?

I love these arguments that depend on our intuitive sense of a pervasive self-similarity in creation.
 

How can we best understand spirituality?

1. God
2. God + science

It seems obvious that #1 works better. Is there any reason why this phrasing is any worse than SA's phrasing?

SA would, I'm assuming, say that it opens the door to lunacy (UFO's, astrology, etc). Christians would say that SA's phrasing cuts out the meaning of life.

I can't see any way to bring them together. We're really arguing about which should be the optional premise. Is God the optional premise or is science the optional premise.

To be fair, the real options that we're talking about are:

1. God
2. God + science (order debatable)
3. Science

In this context, Occam's razor isn't any help except to cut out some common ground that we may have. If we don't agree on authority, then we'll have a hard time coming to an consensus.

Freehand

ps - Willyburger, I really liked how you summed it up.
 

quote:

---

In this context, Occam's razor isn't any help except to cut out some common ground that we may have. If we don't agree on authority, then we'll have a hard time coming to an consensus.

---

That's exactly my point. I've come to the conclusion that neither the theist nor the atheist is free of unprovable presupposition. For my purposes, I'd collapse "God" and "God + science" into one proposition because whether you're a Young Earth Creationist, an Intelligient Design adherent or a Theistic Evolutionist, in both cases the primary issue is God. (Occam's Razor, if you will.) Part of the 'Death of Darwinism' thread was mixing it up over YEC vs. ID vs. TE. I think that fight is a side issue. I think it's all about First Principles (presuppositions) and that either one is unprovable by any rational or empirical means.

Earlier I said that either:

• The Universe is an uncaused entity.
  

• God is an uncaused entity.
  

From another thread here that I've lost track of, I was in a discussion about the unprovable assumptions of Material Monism. If the Universe is an uncaused entity, one must either believe it sprang into being ex nihilo or, as the discussion tentatively concluded, there is an infinite regress of whatever the Universe exists 'in.' One theory says that the Big Bang is the result of the random creation of a pair of virtual particles out of the quantum vacuum. Fine, I say. That's a fascinating theory, and I love to read about quantum mechanics, but where and when did the quantum vacuum come 'from?' I realize that is not quite a logical question because 'where' and 'when' are features implicit to our Universe. We don't know if they apply 'outside.' The point is, the assertion that the Universe 'just happened' is not testable.

Believe me, I'm not advocating for theism here. I am presently agnostic cum atheist. I'm just saying that the presupposition that the Universe is an uncaused entity is as empirically unprovable as the presupposition of an infinite God possessing the 'Omni' qualities and perfect love, justice, mercy, etc. Both in the end depend on what you personally find acceptable to believe.

So, maybe surprisingly, I don't find Theism irrational. At least no more irrational than Atheism.

Maybe this should be the start of a new thread. I'm not quite familiar with that etiquette yet.

Willy
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Freddy:
I think it just depends which is more important to you.

---

I think I was much more long-winded but came to the same conclusion.

quote:

---

It does seem strange that if reasoning and logic are important, it would be unimportant that life would have no cause, purpose or meaning beyond evolution. Why would logic be of value within a system that is ultimately absurd?

---

Yes, but aren't you defining absurd from the stance of a Theist? Without that frame of reference, it's not absurd or not absurd, it just 'is.' After all, just because we desire Life to have Meaning, doesn't necessarily mean that it does or will.

quote:

---

I love these arguments that depend on our intuitive sense of a pervasive self-similarity in creation.

---

I'm going to go away and try to figure out what that means.

Willy
 

quote:

---

What further evidence do you have to separate the following two viewpoints?

1) Your mind + reason + the material world

2) Your mind.

---

H&E , I think you are asking the question "is it possible to seperate mind from mind+reason+reality"

All I can think this means is how can we know that reality exists outside the mind. If all we know is what is in our minds i.e. knowledge of sense data, thoughts, feelings and reason, how do we know that the real world is there?
I hope I am right, otherwise this will make no sense.

The idea that everything is all in the mind is called sollipsism. One cheap point is that there cannot ever be two sollipsists!

On a more serious point, I know that I have a mind (Cogito Ergo Sum et al). So, I have to decide if there is a real world that is not a part of that. In my mind I can imagine flying out of my window in the morning, but I cannot do that in actual reality. Reality conforms to rules that no matter how much I want to break, I would be unable to.
I have two cats. When I am not watching them they move around. They seem to have their own motivation. If I leave them for a while and then return they become hungry at about the same rate all the time. It makes no difference if I am thinking of them or not they get hungry about the same rate, so that seems to be independant of my mind. This shows also that there seems to be a world that follows set rules independantly of me.

I know hundreds of people, and each of them is different, but when I meet them they conform to my memories of them and how their character is but with modifications as if they really have a life separate from my own.
All of this is evidence, but it does not say if there is a reality. What I have described could just be appearance in my mind.

So, let us assume that reality is all in my mind. There are two parts to my mind. The 'internal' part where I can imagine flying and the 'external' one where it is impossible. I can distinguish between the two. I label the external part of my mind "reality" and the internal part of my mind "mind."

This actually shows that there is a reality out there, separate from my mind. This is not a linguistic trick, just by labeling it "reality" doesn't make it so, but the fact that I can distinguish between the two and need separate labels to describe to others what I mean shows that, at some level, there is a necessary distinction.

That means my mind is, while I am doing and thinking other things it is also controlling things which I would normally consider beyond my control. It does it in such a way as to make it appear that there is a reality and that there are many other people who seem to have minds like me.

I think by this I have shown reality, at some level, exists. We can now go back to the original question.
Either:
1. Reality exists
2. Reality is all in my mind.
I can say that all the things that are reality do exist in themsleves, or I can say that they exist in some form but my mind controls their actions to appear to be independent.

The first option is the one that rquires the least number of hypotheses, so I can use Occams razor and suddenly, as if by magic, Reality becomes real.
 

Could 'unanswered prayer' be explained by God's allowing for the possibility of OF evidence for Himself?

If prayer were ALWAYS answered, then indeed God would not fit your criteria. But...?

(And yes, how does one measure it, and what does one ask for - but still, it's there in MY life. I never DID hold truck with 'Yes', 'No', and 'Wait'..." Christian Cop-out.)
 

quote:

---

Nightlamp
hence your name you are skeptical or uncertain about your atheism hence is some respects you are an agnostic.

---

Being sceptical does not mean being uncertain, despite my soundbite. I cannot know I am right. Therefore I must admit the possibility of myself being wrong. I am as certain that atheism is the true world-view as I can be.

quote:

---

If evidence is subjective as much of it is for the Loch ness monster then I would beg to differ that there is more evidence for God.

---

We have photo's of the Loch Ness monster. Not all have been proven to be fake. How many photo's of Jesus do you have?

quote:

---

Still this could all be part of my imagination since i can find no conclusive evidence that I nothing more than a passing thought in a greater being.

---

No. You will never find conclusive evidence, but there is a reasonable way around the sollipsist position, as I have detailed above.

[UBB fixed]

[ 29 July 2001: Message edited by: Alan Cresswell ]
 

quote:

---

Qlib

Hey scep – I don’t believe in a God that alters the laws of cause and effect, either.

---

Walking on water? Water turning in to wine? A dead man rising? These are all alterations of the law of cause and effect.

quote:

---

You could try Zen meditation, which doesn’t require you to posit the existence of a Divine Being.

---

I have done years of Zen meditation. It was an enlightening experience. It showed me that it really is possible to be 'at one' with the universe and to see the divine in everything. I could tell some stories from that time in my life, that I doubt you would think came from me!

Zen also talks about the leap of faith. It says enlightenment is like jumping from the top of a 100 ft flagpole. That flagpole symbolises the intellect. I then started questioning whether the intellect really needs to be overcome. I started trying to work out how one could tell if the fact that one was One whether it was illusion, samsara if you like, and that in fact one was more than One. I came to the conclusion that there is no way of fundamentally knowing. This is where the faith question comes in again. I decided to go on a search to find what knowledge I could know. After Carl Sagan died, his wife was asked "Didn't he want to believe?" Her answer is one that I can relate to "He didn't want to believe, he wanted to know" There is another quote (I think I got this from a Sagan book too) which says it is better to be right about a small thing than wrong about a big one.

It comes down to the question "is it better to be unhappy and know the truth, or happy and possibly living in delusion." Well, I know which pill I would take given the option as in The Matrix.

quote:

---

But it seems to me that you’re not really interested. Seems to me that you’re running around in circles and the rest of us are getting tired of chasing you. One Truth, One Light, One God – if you really wanna find, go seek. If not, might I suggest you take up a new hobby? Not that it hasn’t been fun. Thanks.

---

Don't give up on me yet, Qlib. I am leraning a lot, and this won't keep going round in circles if somebody can give me a falsifiable test for God. Speaking to him and taking any experience that gives as God doesn't cut the mustard. There is no way of knowing that the experience you have is of God or of something other than God. It is only when put in cultural context that the explanation is found.
 

quote:

---

Ian Metcalfe
It's hard for us to think like this, but surely the scientific worldview requires us to believe in it before we can prove its existence. Whatever scientific experiment you could choose has no meaningful results unless you have first accepted that the results of it are likely to have applicable meaning (which is one of the premises of scientific thought).

---

No, it is not required that one believe it at all. It is required that there is a system by which what is examined can be tested against things to see if it is true or not. A non-falsifiable thing has no test by which it is possible to see it might fail. That invalidates it.
 

quote:

---

Incidentally, I assume that you don't think everyone is out to do you down. If you do trust some people, then you are engaging in non-OF behavior.

---

At last, Moo, I have answered this point. Now I only have to get round to Fr Gregorys posts from way back when and I will then only have to answer all the other posts and I will be up to date on this thread

I have objective evidence that people have been nice to me, in the form of gifts given me. I can recount many tales from memory where people I have never met before being nice to me, and I can recount others of me trusting people.

If I meet somebody now I will take as my starting stance that they are a trustworthy person. This is based on an inductive theory, so it is not perfect. It is not based on non-OF behaviour. I have no evidence for this particular person, but I do for people in general.
 

quote:

---

Is there any evidence for life after death? There are a number of alternate explanations for near-death experiences, but the conclusion that there is existence after death is as good as any of them.

---

No, it is not as good. It requires something to llive after death. There is no eveidence of that, so it uses an unwarranted assumption. Having said that...Read this

quote:

---

Is evidence of life after death also evidence that God exists?

---

It could be, but not necessarily. More details would need to be examined.
 

quote:

---

Alan Cresswell

Most scientists would hold that OF theories and data are the gold standard of science, yet much of science is conducted by asking questions that can not (at least with current instruments) have OF answers. We can, for example, not devise an experiment to provide OF evidence for the conditions in the very earliest phases of the Big Bang.

---

I would disagree strongly here. If there is anything non-falsifiable in science then it must be removed. We know exactly what happened at the first moments of the Big Bang and this is confirmed in theory, experiments and astronomical observations (I don't mean big ones ). Just the fact that there is 25% Helium in the universe as a whole tells us about the conditions near the time.

quote:

---

Beyond the ivory towers of academic science, OF evidence is even rarer. People get married every day without OF evidence of their love for each other. Children trust their parents to look after them without OF evidence that such trust has any foundation. Christians would continue to trust God, without OF evidence, even when faced with compulsive evidence of the existance of a (hypothetical) Charlie.

---

Sorry, but there is OF evidence for a lot of this. People don't go around saying "But is it falsifiable?" all the time (not like my wife everytime I come up with anything controversial now!). There is falsifiable, objective evidence (not proof) that people love each other. The fact that they are getting married is objective. It is falsifiable, i.e. they might not have done. So, that is evidence. Children use a different system, based on experiments. I know my children push the boundaries of acceptable behaviour. It is doing that which gives them the evidence that I am or am not trustworthy.

quote:

---

So, a question for the Sceptical Atheist, are you still demanding OF evidence or are you considering other evidence now?

---

I will listen to other evidence. I will not dismiss it out of hand, but I may dismiss it. I guarantee that I will accept OF evidence, I do not guarantee I will accept any other kind.
 

quote:

---

willyburger
If there is a non-material existence, methodological naturalism will not provide evidence.

---

That is just like the Dragon in the Garage. I take it you would accept that, Willyburger?
 

quote:

---

Freddy:
1') The Universe is an uncaused entity
2') God is an uncaused entity

If 1a', then physical laws and constants are responsible for what we percieve as existence.
If 1b', then there exists an infinite being possessing omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence, plus perfect justice, mercy, love, etc., and He is responsible for existence.

These seem to me to possess equal complexity (or better, equally-incomprehensible complexity)

---

No. In 1b' as well as the laws we have the added complexity of a God. You also can never know that he is omni everything (!?). You take that as a point of faith, which precludes it from this particular discussion. The same with mercy/justice/love. There is a materialistic explanation that, because the materialstic world is assumed in 1b' means adding a God to it makes it more complex.

quote:

---

and neither are testable by any OF means at our disposal. Here is where Occam's razor falls short, useful tool though it is. IMHO, here also is where Godel's theorem applies, that any self-referential systems will contain a set of basic propositions that are unprovable.

---

I admit that my system is not provable. What I am saying is that, without evidence, we cannot use the God hypothesis, so the two systems are not equal.

quote:

---

Neither 1' and 1a', or 2' and 2a' have, by my present understanding, inherent qualities that make one overwhelmingly convincing over the other. These are the most basic of opposing presuppositions in the theism/atheism debate. One of these two premises, either of which must be taken on faith, dictate one's ultimate worldview, philosophy, theology and religion (or lack of religion).

---

No. My system does not require faith. It does require reason and philosophy, but I do not need to prove a negative. The burden of proof lies on you to show that God exists. Until then, I can assume reasonably that he doesn't. That is not a faith based position at all!

quote:

---

I could go on but I've gotten long-winded. I would like to say that I've been looking for people to discuss these issues with and I'm very grateful that I've found this place.

---

Freddy, this has been a great post. I have enjoyed putting my alternative against it.
 

While we are doing apologies, sorry about post after post on this one. It is the only way that I can answer everyone.

If anyone has any better ideas, send a postcard to the address appearing at the end of the programme.
 

quote:

---

Freddy
It does seem strange that if reasoning and logic are important, it would be unimportant that life would have no cause, purpose or meaning beyond evolution. Why would logic be of value within a system that is ultimately absurd?

---

Are you saying that the fact that a chair is a chair and not an elephant is something that adds value to life?

Logic is not about purpose, it is fundamental common sense. Of a thing is then it is. That is logic. If a thing is one thing it cannot be another thing. That is logic. Its hardly mind-blowing stuff.

I am curious why people think there should be a purpose to life? I don't even see the need for there to be a purpose in life, let alone seeing an actual one being worked out in this vale of tears.
 

quote:

---

Freehand:
I can't see any way to bring them together. We're really arguing about which should be the optional premise. Is God the optional premise or is science the optional premise.

---

I take it by science you mean the materialistic viewpoint because, of course, science is not an optional premise. Not anymore. As Alan pointed out on a different thread, the computer you use is dependant on the weirdness of quantum mechanics. If you thin science is optional, remove it from your life and see the difference it makes. No TV/Radio/electricity (all developed by Faraday/Maxwell etc).

So, science is not an option. It is a fundamental part of our modern world. What may be optional is the hypothesis that there is no God, just materialism.

quote:

---

To be fair, the real options that we're talking about are:
1. God
2. God + science (order debatable)
3. Science
In this context, Occam's razor isn't any help except to cut out some common ground that we may have. If we don't agree on authority, then we'll have a hard time coming to an consensus.

---

From what I have just said, number 1 can be removed. There is a materialistic world, and science is a very important part of that now. God cannot be used as an explanation on his own.
That leaves us with 2 or 3. As God is non-falisifiable, he cannot be invoked as a scientific explanation, so it is not possible to combine God and science. That leaves 3 on its own.

I may have got this wroing, but I am unsure of the terminollogy. You seem to be using 'science' in different contexts.
 

1. Materialistic world
2. Materialistic world + God

That makes more sense to me. Science seems to refer more to a process rather than to something objective (for lack of a better word).

Freehand
 

Occams razor does work then if they both explain things as well. If there were evidence for God then 1. wouldn't.
 

Science by itself falls woefully short when trying to explain spirituality, at least in many people's opinion. When people have a wonderful experience of God that sets them free, they don't want that attributed to the pizza that they ate at midnight.

Freehand
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
We know exactly what happened at the first moments of the Big Bang

---

It was this area of science I was getting at as an example of theories that are fundamentally incapable of testing against OF evidence. There are other areas where theoretically OF evidence could be found but where the practicalities of obtaining such evidence makes such evidence (at present) unobtainable. The lack of OF evidence does not, however, stop scientists working. We're a pragmatic lot - if we can't get the best data we'll make do with what we have.

So, if in fields of scientific studies non-OF evidence is routinely used to determine the best theory to fit available (non-OF) data, then using similar evidence in non-scientific fields such as philosophy or even theology isn't such a problem. To me at least.

Alan
 

Descartes says "I think therefore I am.". This seems to imply that the only evidence of our own existence is our ability to think. This in turn spins deeper into the concept that the fact that we think of god in some way proves his existence.

Some may argue tha Descartes statement was onl philisophical, I think not (oops)....
 

Either I am being simplistic, or you are overstating the case. Either way, I think that you are having difficulty in considering viewpoints other than strict materialism, and also are not the slightest bit sceptical about reason!

The model answer supplied by the H&E Matriculation Board was:

The key to the application of William of Occam's razor to the two metaphysical viewpoints of strict materialism and sollipsism lies in the acceptance of reason as a presupposition.

If reason is presupposed, the observer's mind exists with perceptions which are ordered through the application of reason into the impression of external reality.

If reason is not presupposed, the observer's mind exists with perceptions, which require no ordering.

Therefore, given Occam's razor, reason and reality are superfluous to our requirements.

I think that you will agree that the above is a lot simpler, and more elegant...
 

D is the corrct answere, but that is besides the point.

I apologize, I was not really trying to interject any real insight on this subject.
I just chose an inapropriate time to tell a very bad joke.

Again I apologize
Gandalf.
 

My point is this. According to strict classical materialism the brain consists of atoms. These atoms obey the laws of physics. The system is complicated, sure, unpredictable in practice, but not necessarily in principle. Therefore the brain, this computer made of meat, is responding to stimuli in a predictable way. So, let's say I ask some dunderhead what 2 plus 2 make, and they say 5, I would say they are wrong. But hold on, my brain is also just a computer made of meat, reacting to its own set of inputs, the atoms in my head are all a-jiggling to give the answer 4. Why are the atoms in my cranium right and the other guys wrong? Both, after all, are simply arrangements of atoms. Where is the standard by which we should judge? Compare with experiment you say. But who does the comparison? Just another set of atoms. But most people would say 4, I hear you say. Fine, but so what. They are all little atoms themselves, merrily interacting with each other according to strict physical law. Reason is not democracy.

My view is that if someone is really searching for a basis for rational belief in God, the best place to start is to ask if they believe in themselves. That is to say, do they think they actually have a choice in what they believe? To put it another way, does reason itself exist. If we are simply material ( at least in the classical sense), then garbage in would produce garbage out. Atoms don't reason, they conform to physical law.

Strict materialism would say that I am no longer free to love my spouse: there is no such thing as love (it is merely a biological reaction in the brain), no freedom (the reaction proceeds according to the classical laws of physics and chemistry) and no 'I' (for I am simply the collection of atoms). Note, however, that even for the sake of making a point on a thread, I venture not to deny the existence of my spouse.

So, SA, is your reply to this post pre-determined, or have you a choice in the matter. Am I writing to just a bunch of classical atoms?
 

Kurt Godel, the brilliant Austrian mathematician, is famous for his theory of undecidable propositions that he proved in the mid 1930s. It is an amazing piece of work, not least because it showed that Russell and Whitehead were wrong!

Anyroadup, in simple language, Godel showed that one can construct mathematical systems which contain statements that are true but not provable . This piece of mathematics is revolutionary, and has tremendous consequences. That is to say, we now know, from mathematics, that provability is a weaker notion than truth.

A good explanation can be found in Hofstater's prize winning 'Godel. Escher, Bach' (that said, he is a strong AI person!).

An interesting point about Godel's theorem is that it generally applies to self-referential systems. So, if from mathematics we know that things can be true, but not provable.....
 

quote:

---

Sceptical Atheist:
I admit that my system is not provable. What I am saying is that, without evidence, we cannot use the God hypothesis, so the two systems are not equal.

---

quote:

---

Sceptical Atheist:
No. My system does not require faith. It does require reason and philosophy, but I do not need to prove a negative. The burden of proof lies on you to show that God exists. Until then, I can assume reasonably that he doesn't. That is not a faith based position at all!

---

Heh....I'm not arguing *for* theism since I'm not a theist. I'm trying to point out that there are unprovable presuppositions in either case.

You already admit that there are unprovables in your view. I believe that you and I already discussed what state(s) might pertain as a precursor to the Big Bang; either an uncaused cause or an infinite regress. Without evidence, how do either of these differ from the "God Hypothesis? If neither of these are provable, yet you or I find them a reasonable explanation, how is that different from faith?

Willy
 

quote:

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Alan:
Not according to any cosmologist I know of; if this were the case Hawking et al would be out of a job.

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No they won't. We know all about stars but there are still plenty of astrophysicists working on the subject.

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You mention helium abundance, which is good solid data that confirms several variations on the Big Bang theory and rules out a larger number of other theories (steady-state for example). But that is data relating to the later phases of the expansion (when the universe was 3-4 minutes old). I was refering to much earlier stages in the early universe;

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We have tested theories that take us back to 1X10 ^-32 of a second. How come Steven Weinbergs book written in the 70's ends at the three minute point. That is because it becomes boring then. It is known beforehand and tested in the particle accelorators.

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there is, after all, no really good data to support inflation (all though it is generally accepted to be the best theory for that stage)

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The universe is flat (three dimensionally flat not curved like a sphere or a hyperbola). That is evidence for inflation. That was the reason the theory was brought forward. That is falsifiable evidence.

Mathematical theories can give falsifiable evidence too. If the inflationary theory produced a Helium abundance of 30% then we would not be discussing it now. It explains all the things the old BB theory did, and some more besides.

Inflation is testable by examining details in the CMB (Cosmic Microwave Background for the non-geeks). That has always been possible, giving falsifiable evidence. This has been done: Read this. I read of this about the time, with interest. Note especially this quote "If no peaks had shown up, inflation would have difficulties," added Carlstrom, who led the DASI team. "We'd be back to the drawing board."

So, I still strongly disagree with your point that non-OF evidence is used in developing theories. In the example you cite, OF evidence has always been available, in the form of the flat universe, mathematics and the CMB. We have only recently had the ability to examine the CMB closely enough though.

So, where else in science is non-OF evidence used?
 

Just to be pedantic, the flatness of the universe (as opposed to the harmonics in the CMB) can't really be considered OF evidence for inflation since inflation theory was developed to explain this fact of the universe. Greater confidence in inflation still doesn't help with what happened before inflation; and since inflation would've erased most (if not all) evidence about what the universe was like before I still can't see any really good data in support of any theories developed for this phase in the universe.

You asked about other fields of science where non-OF evidence is routinely used. The obvious examples I can think of are other sciences which depend almost exclusively on forensic data (ie: looking at the effects of events that are themselves not observable); in addition to cosmology I would include some parts of astrophysics (eg: studies of black holes which by definition we can't see but can see the effects of), geology and planetary sciences, paleantology and evolutionary biology, archaeology etc. All of these sciences have good theories and data, but may often not have the data to fully test OF theories.

Alan
 

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Gill,
SA, I shall repeat here the question I asked you elsewhere, because we might tease something out of it.
Could 'unanswered prayer' be explained by God's allowing for the possibility of OF evidence for Himself?

If prayer were ALWAYS answered, then indeed God would not fit your criteria. But...?

(And yes, how does one measure it, and what does one ask for - but still, it's there in MY life. I never DID hold truck with 'Yes', 'No', and 'Wait'..." Christian Cop-out.)

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I will put this question on the 'prayers answered thread and answer it there.
 

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Ham'n'Eggs
Either I am being simplistic, or you are overstating the case. Either way, I think that you are having difficulty in considering viewpoints other than strict materialism, and also are not the slightest bit sceptical about reason!

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Hey, H&E, I was just answering that query. In terms of that query, I presupposed reason and went on in much more detail than a model answer for a couple of points on an exam. I am trying to explain it in ways that people unfamiliar with this sort of discussion can follow. I am not going to go back to "how do we know reason is there, or anything is" every time I answer a question on this thread. I have pointed out before that I accept reason as a method for arriving at truth already, so I shouldn't need to again. I am sceptical about reason, I am constantly trying out alternatives to reason, but so far they have all been unreliable, so reason still works for me.

quote:

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The model answer supplied by the H&E Matriculation Board was:

The key to the application of William of Occam's razor to the two metaphysical viewpoints of strict materialism and sollipsism lies in the acceptance of reason as a presupposition.

If reason is presupposed, the observer's mind exists with perceptions which are ordered through the application of reason into the impression of external reality.

If reason is not presupposed, the observer's mind exists with perceptions, which require no ordering.

Therefore, given Occam's razor, reason and reality are superfluous to our requirements.

I think that you will agree that the above is a lot simpler, and more elegant...

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I don't understand it! Sorry, why should the ordering of things be important? It must be the terminology that I don't follow. It is simpler, more elegant, but it doesn't explain anything.

So, at the moment, I don't think this is relevant to the question of evidence for God. I think we can both agree that sollipsism isn't a valid worldview, but where does that take us?
 

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gandalf35
I apologize, I was not really trying to interject any real insight on this subject.
I just chose an inapropriate time to tell a very bad joke.

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No need to apologise, Gandalf, I thought it a great post. Humour is an oasis in a heavy thread like this.
 

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DebyeWaller
I guess I would like to ask SA a question. How does a scientist know that he/she has a correct theory (or how does an atheist know they are correct)?

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Pierre Duhem asked this question in the 19th century. He said, basically, that it was impossible. I disagree. We can never know we are right, but we can become more less wrong all the time. Saying the Earth is a sphere is wrong, but its not as wrong as saying it is flat. Science is continually striving to be right, and getting closer, but it may be impossible to even know, if we could possibly get there, that we have arrived.

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My point is this. According to strict classical materialism the brain consists of atoms. These atoms obey the laws of physics. The system is complicated, sure, unpredictable in practice, but not necessarily in principle.

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QM shows that we cannot know anything about things like atoms in principle. This is the start of the wierdness that is Quantum Mechanics.

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But most people would say 4, I hear you say. Fine, but so what. They are all little atoms themselves, merrily interacting with each other according to strict physical law. Reason is not democracy.

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Logic dictates that 2+2=4. Get two things, then get another two things. Count them. This is the clever bit, whatever you choose to be your 'things', as long as they don't merge or disappear you will always count four things. You can choose galaxiers or ants, you will get the same answer. You may say that 2 + 2 = 5, but you will never be able to show it.

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To put it another way, does reason itself exist. If we are simply material ( at least in the classical sense), then garbage in would produce garbage out. Atoms don't reason, they conform to physical law.

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But a non-deterministic law, that of QM, which is probabalistic.

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Strict materialism would say that I am no longer free to love my spouse: there is no such thing as love (it is merely a biological reaction in the brain), no freedom (the reaction proceeds according to the classical laws of physics and chemistry) and no 'I' (for I am simply the collection of atoms). Note, however, that even for the sake of making a point on a thread, I venture not to deny the existence of my spouse.

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You show why you think in such a deterministic way, because you think along classical lines. QM says that things are not determined beforehand.

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So, SA, is your reply to this post pre-determined, or have you a choice in the matter. Am I writing to just a bunch of classical atoms?

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Yes, you are writing to just a bunch of atoms. Do I have free will? I don't know. I have all the appearances of having free will, so whether I actually do is not important. Does is matter that I had no choice, that it was "written" in the universes laws that I would marry my wife? No. To all intents and purposes, I chose to marry my wife.

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Anyroadup, in simple language, Godel showed that one can construct mathematical systems which contain statements that are true but not provable . This piece of mathematics is revolutionary, and has tremendous consequences. That is to say, we now know, from mathematics, that provability is a weaker notion than truth.

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What about the diagonal rule (as per Turing)? No system of mathematics can contain within it all the possible maths from any particular system of axioms. So, take any mathematical system and there will be something that cannot be proven from it.

This means that if we are talking about reality, this idea is not relevant. Our understanding is botched together from many different theories, not a set number of axioms.

This whole subject is fascinating, though. How much can we prove? Is an interesting topic in its own right.
 

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Willburger
You already admit that there are unprovables in your view. I believe that you and I already discussed what state(s) might pertain as a precursor to the Big Bang; either an uncaused cause or an infinite regress. Without evidence, how do either of these differ from the "God Hypothesis? If neither of these are provable, yet you or I find them a reasonable explanation, how is that different from faith?

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Okay, I will come clean. This is my real view on the subject: I don't care. I am not concerned with what was before the universe. Until more information comes in, we cannot know what came before, so if I cannot know, I am not going to speculate. What is clear is that a materialistic answer is possible. If a materialistic answer was not, then my position would be shakey. If we can get some more information that can give us more detail about this subject, then I will be as curious as anyone, but it is clear that to rely on the First Cause argument for God is a weak resort to a God-of-the-gaps which I doubt anyone here would really subscribe to.

It is not enough to say the two systems are unprovable, if the two systems are unprovable but one contains a being for which there is no evidence then that one can, by Occams razor, be removed.
 

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SA, thanks for that link. I wasn't aware of the latest predictions of harmonics in the CMB let alone recent measurements showing these. This was all unknown when I did my astrophysics and cosmology at university, and I've evidently not been keeping as up to date with scientific advances as I'd like to be.
Just to be pedantic, the flatness of the universe (as opposed to the harmonics in the CMB) can't really be considered OF evidence for inflation since inflation theory was developed to explain this fact of the universe.

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So, we have a feature. To explain that feature we produce a theory, and then you say we cannot use that feature to test the theory against? This isn't circular reasonong, because new measurements could show that the universe is not as flat as first thought.

I think, Alan, that you are adding 'empirical' as a criteria as well as OF. A mathematical theory is not empirical, but it is objective, and it is falsifable.

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Greater confidence in inflation still doesn't help with what happened before inflation; and since inflation would've erased most (if not all) evidence about what the universe was like before I still can't see any really good data in support of any theories developed for this phase in the universe.

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No, but as what happened before is beyond Planck time, it is fundamentally unknowable. String theory makes inroads into this, but that makes predictions in other areas that have not borne fruit yet. So, apart from string theory, how many theories (as a pose to hypotheses) are there about what was before this point? I know aof many ideas, but none that has reached the level of theory.

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You asked about other fields of science where non-OF evidence is routinely used. The obvious examples I can think of are other sciences which depend almost exclusively on forensic data (ie: looking at the effects of events that are themselves not observable); in addition to cosmology I would include some parts of astrophysics (eg: studies of black holes which by definition we can't see but can see the effects of), geology and planetary sciences, paleantology and evolutionary biology, archaeology etc. All of these sciences have good theories and data, but may often not have the data to fully test OF theories.

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That is wrong. Geology can test and experiment and come up with theories to explain how rocks form which can be falsified in many ways. What happens inside a black hole is determined by predictions made by the Theory of Relativity (ToR). So, any theory about the insides of blackholes can be falsified against the ToR.

There are gaps in our knowledge, but that does not mean they will never be filled. Scientific, falsifiable, objective work has been done on the evolution of flight in insects. We know how flight must have evolved in insects, and how. What we do not have, and may never is the actual fossils. That does not mean that the work is not falsifiable, or not scientific at all.
 

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There are gaps in our knowledge, but that does not mean they will never be filled

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My point about geology is that not every theory of geology can be tested experimentally; you can't recreate the heat, pressure and chemical composition of rocks in the mantle within the laboratory any more than recreate the conditions within a black hole. Like the other fields I mentioned you gather data (both laboratory experiments and field observations) and test theories against them as far as possible, these theories are then extrapolated to conditions that are not directly testable with current laboratory equipment or observational techniques. As a scientist I have to live with the fact that many good theories lack the data to be conclusively proved as OF. That doesn't stop me applying such theories (although admittedly in my current field of work the theoretical basis is very sound).

One more thing, yes I am saying that empirical data is a vital element in scientific research. Any theory must agree with empirical data. I would, however, add that most empirical data is not entirely objective; there is a certain amount of subjectivity in how the scientist who collected the data decided to conduct the experiment, which equipment he chose to use etc. And, especially when you enter quantum measurements, there is always the chance that the act of observing subtly alters what is observed. In some fields (psychology for example) the subjective element in data is more obvious, but there is always a subjective element in scientific data. Of course, a perfect OF theory should be able to account for such subjectivity but nothing is perfect is it.

Alan
 

I would argue that a theory that is subjective (in that only a few people would, in principle, not because of education, ever be able to see it) is not a scientific theory.

I would also argue that any theory that is in pronciple non-falsifiable is not scientific.

Not all our ideas are observable (as you say about geology) BUT if a geologist describes a theory about the centre of the Earth the theory must be objective (i.e. anyone trained in geology can have access to the theory) and it must be falsifiable. There must be a possible exoeriment or observation that could make it fail.

e.g. If a geologist makes a theory that limestone is formed at the centre of the earth, the theory must be so phrased to sya that "but if X is seen we know it has failed" and the X must be as a consequence of the theory. It might be that he might say that if we see limestone forming a different way it wlll be falsified. Then the hunt will be on to see if that could be found.

I personally think, Alan, that you have a lot more to do with OF theories than you realise, but haven't actually sat down and thought about the way in which it applies.

I have yet to read of any scientific endeavour that has anything to do with non-falsifiable propositions.
 

Science consists of two components; empirical data and theories that explain that data and predict further data.

Preferably the data should be 100% objective, but in practice subjectivity influences the data since they are collected by human scientists with their own agendas and prejudices (which affect which experiments are conducted, and how, and depend on the theories accepted by the scientist). Such data is rarely, if ever, complete and perfect due to imperfect instruments, limited time and finances and inherent problems with data collection (in the case of sciences such as geology and paleantology the record may be incomplete, in quantum sciences there are fundamental limits to what can be measured).

Whereas data is the raw material of science, inorder to make sense of that data we need theoretical frameworks. Theories are usually more objective than the data they explain, but only a theory expressed solely in mathematical terms is absolutely objective; many good theories contain little or no mathematics (evolution for example), but that doesn't make them less scientific. Theories are descriptive of prior data and predictive of future data; if predictions can be tested experimentally then the theory is falsifiable, some phenomena (either certain events occuring or not) can't occur if the theory is correct. Some theories make predictions which (at least with current instruments) can not be tested, which means they can't be proved; however this also doesn't make them non-scientific (this is evidently something we'll disagree on).

The gold standard of science are objective, falsifiable theories. However, as I've said many theories are not as objective or falsifiable as we might like. Scientists, being a pragmatic lot, work with the best theories available and seek to improve upon them as theoretical methods and data progress.

Note that I apply the term "objective, falsifiable" to theories, the data simply is. Thus, if you think of "evidence" as the data on which theories are built and tested by you cannot have OF evidence; the best you can have is objective data, and as noted most data has a subjective component. I'm not sure, but I think this may be at the root of our disagreement about whether there can be good science which is not OF.

Alan
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
QM shows that we cannot know anything about things like atoms in principle. This is the start of the wierdness that is Quantum Mechanics.

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Indeed, atoms are the source of the best piece of knowledge mankind has. The difference in energy between the two most tightly bound states in hydrogen is known to 1 part in (1/137)**8 -and is the most accurately known number in the universe. If the human race knows anything at all, it knows what happens in the simplest atom!

Furthermore, of course, what is weird about quantum mechanics is that the bit we do understand is deterministic, i.e. in the Schrodinger representation the equations are totally deterministic. The problem arises in the interpretation of the determined function multiplied by its complex conjugate as a probability - i.e. the measurement problem.

However, even appealing to QM, the choice and reason argument remains. So now the bunch of atoms has some fuzzy probability of getting different answers. I'm sorry, I still don't see why 2 + 2 is 4. What do you mean you line them up and count them. You are atoms. How do atoms count atoms? Beats me.
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
QM says that things are not determined beforehand.

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I know what you mean, but QM does not say 'anything goes'. If I am perverse enough to choose a different operator, then the outcome is not determined, and I must expand my state vector into the complete set of the eigenstates, and do the dot products to get the coefficients corresponding to the probabilities.

I still maintain that QM does not help with the reason line of thinking.
 

quote:

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Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
Okay, I will come clean. This is my real view on the subject: I don't care. I am not concerned with what was before the universe.

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The preceding trucated quote is in the interest of avoiding overly-long posts.
Anyone who wants to refer back may do so.

S.A., please don't feel I'm trying to back you into a corner about this. It's just that when I toss this subject out, you throw it back so well.

To be honest, I am coming to the conclusion that Empiricism is an inadequate epistemology because, as we agree, one can't know anything about what happened 'before' the Big Bang. In other words, here is a fundamental question that empiricism cannot address.

I don't think it is sufficient to merely state that if we cannot observe something then it is irrelavant or non-existent, which is the basic dogma of empiricism. Whatever gave rise to the BB is surely neither.

Occam's Razor is applied to choose the simpler explanation. Does either an Uncaused Cause (God) or an Uncaused Effect (the Universe) really qualify?

Willy
 

So, on the question of the first cause, we have:

1. Something all Good, all Mercy all Love that you say existed before the universe.
2. A contiunuation of what we observe now and that we now occurred at least to a tiny portion of a second after the big bang to a point just before that second.

Given that there is evidence for 2. available to us now, and no evidence for 1. Which is the more possible explanation?

For 1. We need to work out how God came into being. He is greater than the universe, so saying "Empiricism isn't effective because you can't explain the first cause" is silly. You are proposing that a thing greater than the universe is the first cause. You then speculate that this entity is eternal, and so intelligence, goodness, mercy and love existed before the universe. That is totally unwarranted.

I say that a quantum fluctuation caused the universe and that there has been no such thing as intelligence, goodness, mercy and love until humans arrived. I claim that for the first 6 billion (roughly) years only physical laws have directed the evolution of the universe. I claim that when life started on this planet there was no intelligence existing. I claim that intelligence only arrived in the universe with the first multicelled animals. I claim that concepts such as goodness, mercy and love have only been around as long as humans have.

If you have no evidence to say that merrcy existed before life on earth, then citing God as a first cause fails.

I stand by what I said before, empiricism does explain the universe and also explains the first cause better than the introduction of a hyper intelligence that begs the question "what caused that?" in a bigger way than a quantum fluctuaction does.
 

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SA:
1. Something all Good, all Mercy all Love that you say existed before the universe.

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I'm pretty sure that I had taken care to explain that I am *not* arguing for Theism but am exploring the limits of Material Monism. I am no longer convinced that it is as cut-and-dried as I used to think. What I am suggesting about Theism and Athiesm are not mutually-exclusive.

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SA:
Given that there is evidence for (2.) available to us now, and no evidence for 1. Which is the more possible explanation?

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I believe that Alan pointed out that the only effects observable from the BB is post-inflationary? The rest is theoretical framework. And I think that each has internal contradictions which gives advantage to neither.

quote:

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SA:
I say that a quantum fluctuation caused the universe....

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Here is the heart of it. You posit that the empirical evidence and the theory derived from the study of QM is applicable to the state that gave rise to the BB. You also say that this chain of events is uncaused while cause-and-effect is at the heart of empiricism and rationality.

So, on the one hand, you are claiming knowledge of the First Event using empirical evidence of quantum fluctuation, yet on the other hand, you are denying the empirical evidence of cause and effect and positing an Uncaused Event. Why does one type of empirical evidence hold but not the other? Is this not contradiction? Is there any evidence whatsoever that what we have observed of QM is valid in the pre-BB state and that cause and effect is not?

All I am saying is that the basis of Atheism is as inherently contradictory as Theism and to accept either as a worldview takes faith. (that dirty word)

quote:

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SA:
the introduction of a hyper intelligence that begs the question "what caused that?" in a bigger way than a quantum fluctuaction does.

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Hmm, to digress down the theological path for a moment, anything eternal has no need of a cause. But that is one reason I consider both worldviews to be equally contradictory.

Thanks for the ride. If this isn't the direction you wish to take this thread I will desist. But, damn, it's fun.

Willy
 

What is impotant is that any theory built from the data is falsifiable. If it is not falsifiable then it is pseudoscience. That is one of the definitions of pseudoscience. It is possible that a theory may be falsifiable in principle, but not in practice such as any theory discussing what is on the dark side if the moon before spaceflight. What makes any theory based on it falsifiable is the fact that in the 1940's it was possible to make a theory of the form "If spaceflight means we can go behind the moon, we will find X." That is a falsifiable theory. The Big Bang theory was of that sort for a long time. Then the method of testing for it was devised, and co-incidentally, the test was done at the same time by two people looking for something else. So, as long as a method for falsifiying them when instruments get better is available, the theory is scientific.
 

quote:

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Debye:
(SNIPPED due to space and my inability to find anything wrong with what is said.)
However, even appealing to QM, the choice and reason argument remains. So now the bunch of atoms has some fuzzy probability of getting different answers. I'm sorry, I still don't see why 2 + 2 is 4. What do you mean you line them up and count them. You are atoms. How do atoms count atoms? Beats me.

---

From a study of simple animals, we know how simple nervous systems control the sense data that they receive and motor functions of the body parts. In higher animals, such as insects we are aware that behaviour is controlled by nerves, hormones and pheromones. In higher invertebrates (such as molluscs) we can see how the brain works when learning a maze. This also shows that memory is possible. We can measure intelligence in vertebrates and study the hand/brain co-ordination in apes. We can use MR scanners to see the physical parts of the brain that are used in tasks and we can study brain damaged people to see what effect brain damage has on different parts of the brain.

We know that mathematics and spatial awareness is processed in one half of the brain and that linguistic ability is processed in the other.

So, when you ask how do atoms count atoms, do you mean how do we speak or how do we understand the concept of numbers? Depending on the answer, a different explanation is necessary.
 

quote:

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Willburger:
S.A., please don't feel I'm trying to back you into a corner about this. It's just that when I toss this subject out, you throw it back so well.
To be honest, I am coming to the conclusion that Empiricism is an inadequate epistemology because, as we agree, one can't know anything about what happened 'before' the Big Bang. In other words, here is a fundamental question that empiricism cannot address.

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Don't worry, Willy. This is the best way to see if my system is worth holding onto. If it can't stand up to a little criticism, then it is worthless.

Okay, so I am honest. I say that the evidence goes this far and no further. You say this is a flaw, I say this shows the system can be trusted as far as it can make any claims. It makes no claims that cannot be justified. You say that before the universe a hyper-intelligence existed. You cannot back up this claim in any way at all. That is an unsubstantiated and unsubstantiable (neologism alert) claim. Any epistemological system that requires claims that are, in principle, impossible to refute in any possible way is flawed. My explanation can be falsified. There are tests that can be done that can ruin my position. There is none for yours. That means my system has survived empirical tests. Yours is not capable of dealing with one. No possible test could show your system is wrong. That is a major flaw.

quote:

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Occam's Razor is applied to choose the simpler explanation. Does either an Uncaused Cause (God) or an Uncaused Effect (the Universe) really qualify?

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Yes. We have the universe. We know the universe exists. So, what is required is to find out what could have caused it. I say 'more of the same' which is simple. You say that a totally new layer of untestable reality and intelligence exists now and existed before anything that we know of existed. That is a hypothesis that is unnecessary to use to explain the universe as we see it. I will drop this objection if evidence is produced.
 

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Willyburber:
So, on the one hand, you are claiming knowledge of the First Event using empirical evidence of quantum fluctuation, yet on the other hand, you are denying the empirical evidence of cause and effect and positing an Uncaused Event.

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Willy, don't give up on me now. I think we are talking past each other, I am not quite sure what you are getting at. What you are claiming could be very important, but I am trying to make it clear in my own head.

We have empirical evidence that suggests all the energy in the Universe cancels out. That means the sum total energy of teh universe as seen from outside is zero. That is evidence for a quantum fluctuation.

What we know is that QM says virtual particles have been around as long as we can measure the universe. That takes us back to a tiny fraction of a second after the BB.

So, we have two pieces of empirical evidence that suggest a quantum fluctuation. I am not saying this is a theory. This is a hypothesis.

Are you saying that the materialist worldview is contradictory because we may never know what happened before the BB?

I think that is a specious claim to make. The materialist point of view says there is no supernatural. If we come to a point where the answer becomes fundamentally "We don't know" it is perfectly legitimate to say "But it ain't the supernatural" if no other evidence whatsoever supports the supernatural.
 

I agree that good science produces theories which are in principle falsifiable, although it may be that the data to actually prove/disprove them may never be available. A theory of the early stages of the Big Bang, say, might predict what conditions existed before inflation, but inflation itself smoothed out the data that would verify that theory; if we could go back in time to before inflation we could test it, but that hardly seems likely. I would say such a theory is still good science (unless someone comes up with another pre-inflation theory which makes testable predictions of post-inflation effects). Which reminds me, scientists also use working hypotheses which may not necessarily be falsifiable but help guide experimentation to gather data that will, hopefully, eventually lead to the development of falsifiable theories; this is also good science.

Data usually isn't 100% objective, and reproducibility of laboratory experiments doesn't help if all the scientists involved have the same subjective component in their thinking when devising those experiments. Having said that, reproducible laboratory data is probably the closest we get to objective data. Other data has a larger subjective component; for example measurements of weather conditions depend on the location and type of measuring equipment used which depends on the judgement of the meteorologist as to where the best place for the weather station is and what are going to be the most useful things to measure.

Data which is less than 100% objective may introduce bias to the theories built on or tested by that data. To take the weather station example; if the meteorologist decides that access to the weather station is an important issue in where to site it the stations may be placed predominantly near to urban areas and roads, which may result in very slight differences compared to what would be measured at less accessible locations. The resulting theories of weather patterns will be slightly biased by this effect, and any attempt to model that bias will probably introduce other subjective elements. Thus, theories contain subjective elements resulting from the data used.

Although I agree that 100% objective, falsifiable theories are the gold standard of science in practice these are not achievable. Good theories are falsifiable (in principle), but are almost always less than 100% objective.

The problem with only accepting 100% objective, falsifiable theories is that a lot of good science gets relegated to "pseudo-science". An obvious example (well, obvious to me at any rate) is evolution; this is a theory that can not be expressed mathematically (which as I mentioned in my last post is as close any theory can get to be objective - in fact I would say any theory that progresses to being a law has to be expressed mathematically) and is dependent on data, particularly the fossil record, that is by it's very nature incomplete and that can never be complete. And some of the data supporting evolution contains a potentially important subjective bias, for example it may be assumed by all geologists/paleantologists that a particular rock type can never contain fossils so is always ignored when found in the field, yet if those rocks do contain fossils we may be missing vital data. But despite this, you and I both agree that evolution is a good theory; it explains the observed data very well, has made predictions about transitional forms (some of which have been found) etc.

I hope that clarifies things a bit more.

Alan

PS don't mention my comments about the short comings of evolution to YEC types - they'll only misrepresent it
 

I see what you mean about the positioning of the weather site. What I would say is that if anybody went there to measure the windspeed there, they would all read the same figure. I agree, though, that data collection is less than perfect.

I would say that any theory that is non-falsifiable at the moment would be classed as a hypothesis. So, we have the inflationary theory, but anything before it is hypothetical.

The ToE, I would say, is actually good science (I know you think so too, I mean as opposed to what you say about it).

A theory does not need to be mathematical and not all the data needs to be in to make an excellent scientific theory. The ToE does exactly what you claim is necessary for a theory. It explains the past data ('saves the phenomena' is one way of putting it). It predicts the future. Just date a band of rocks and by using the ToE you can predict the types of fossils that will be found there. What is most important, it is falsifiable.

Yes, there is the opportunity for subjective ideas to get in. One example that is illustrative of what can go qrong and how it hardly ever does is Icthyostega's five toes. The original discoverer said it had five fingers on both feet. The problem was he was the only person allowed to work on it and it waas the only example of its kind.

Now other specimens have been found, it is known that Icthyostega had eight toes. Why teh original finder said five will never be known.

So, by working on his own, wrong, possbly subjective, data got into the system. Objectiveley we now know that he was wrong.
 

quote:

---

SA:
Are you saying that the materialist worldview is contradictory because we may never know what happened before the BB?

---

I'm saying it is contradictory because it uses the empirical evidence and theoretical framework of QM to hypothesise the 'how' of the BB yet falls back on the idea of an Uncaused Cause, in all contradiction to empirical evidence, to satisfy the 'why.'

Please note that I am not arguing for Theism here.

Willy
 

quote:

---

In the end, Occam's razor compels me to put my money on design, but, as always in matters of metaphysics, the decision is largely a matter of taste rather than scientific judgement

---

Alan
 

I'm just starting an essay called "The Uncaused Beginning of the Universe" by Quentin Smith. I'll see where that takes me.

Willy
 

quote:

---

So, let us assume that reality is all in my mind. There are two parts to my mind. The 'internal' part where I can imagine flying and the 'external' one where it is impossible. I can distinguish between the two. I label the external part of my mind "reality" and the internal part of my mind "mind."

This actually shows that there is a reality out there, separate from my mind. This is not a linguistic trick, just by labeling it "reality" doesn't make it so, but the fact that I can distinguish between the two and need separate labels to describe to others what I mean shows that, at some level, there is a necessary distinction.

---

Actually this is pragmatism this theory works hence I shall use it.

I am beginning to come to the conclusion that your 'atheistic theology' is simply pragmatic that it works for you and there is actually no need to change your belief system.
It may be dressed up in different ways but that is what it is well so I think anyway

 

Willy
 

Alan
 

Isn't Occam's Razor potentially flawed? What if someone ('Ms X') held a belief about - I dunno, how babies were made. And rejected the truth because it was more complex than her own theory (the stork brings them for example.) Okay, in such a case, there is a possibility of proof. But in many cases there aren't (I remember a Physics lesson where the teacher told us how much of Physics is still based on theories - they work so far, but they're theories).

All I'm saying is, that as a rational (ish), intelligent woman, I find God to be the simpler explanation, and therefore for me Occam's Razor comes out in favour of God.

I have this niggling feeling I've missed a point somewhere...
 

(You mean it was prophetic when I just cut my knee in the bath??? WOW!)
 

quote:

---

All I'm saying is, that as a rational (ish), intelligent woman, I find God to be the simpler explanation, and therefore for me Occam's Razor comes out in favour of God.

---

That's what I've been trying to get at. Science doesn't provide a good explanation of the spiritual world, at least not for a lot of people. Now if someone, like our good friend, SA, doesn't find the spiritual world significant to him, it's not surprising that he'll cut it out with Occam. However, for many people, it cuts out much of their existance. For some people, the spiritual world may be more real than the physical.

Freehand
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Gill:
I have this niggling feeling I've missed a point somewhere...

---

Gill,

Haven't you just analogized a belief in God with the stork? And didn't Mrs. X prefer the simpler explanation rather than the true one?

Sorry to be a pill. I think the problem with your analogy is that for Occam's Razor to cut cleanly, both explanations have to be reasonable to reasonable people. Then you can use it to identify the simpler solution.

The gist of my discussion with S.A. is that I don't see spiritualism or materialism as having provable first premises. In fact, I presently think that neither really qualifies as an explanation under Occam's razor, so that in the end, both must be taken on faith.

Did somebody kiss that boo-boo?

Willy
 

1) The universe is the result of an uncaused event resulting in a Big Bang and cosmic expansion. This universe is governed by physical laws (although why these, or any laws, is inknown) and forces with just the right properties for intelligent life to appear on at least one planet within the universe. There is no purpose or aim in the development of the universe, nor any ultimate source for morals and ethics that the intelligent creatures on the one planet we know of feel are important.

2) The universe is the creation of a personal, moral, faithful uncaused being who built into the universe a reflection of his (personal male pronoun used for convenience not to reflect anything about gender ) character; thus faithfulness results in a predictable universe governed by physical laws, personality and morality result in a universe fine-tuned to result in the development of intelligent beings capable of relating to him and having a moral sense. As he is faithful, this uncaused being acts through the physical laws he put into the universe.

Now, from a purely materialistic view both of these philosophies have the same effect - there is no reason to expect any difference in the laws, theories and data developed by scientists who accept both philosophies. However, if fields outside the purely materialistic the second philosophy has greater explanatory power (why does the universe exist?, why is it governed by laws that can be expressed mathematically?) whereas under the first philosophy these are simply given.

Alan
 

(1) talks about what (form)

but

(2) talks about what + why (form + purpose/meaning)

I can dig that. The form of the world is interesting to me, but I have a burning desire to know what is the meaning and purpose of life. God seems to provide a much greater explanation of meaning. That being said, it seems awfully presumtuous to say that atheists don't have any purpose to life. Perhaps the meaning is in sustaining life itself because it is "neat". Howevever, the SA said that the whole meaning question was unimportant to him anyway. Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Freehand
 

I've posted some objections to the validity of the materialist viewpoint on the reason thread. I would be very interested in your take on this.

I came into these debates not to champion theism (which I don't feel qualified to do), but to explore alternate philosophical viewpoints.

I started out with a vague acceptance that there were a number of different viewpoints, some of which could be shown to have validity. I assumed that materialism would be one of these. To my great surprise, the more I examine it, the more flawed it appears!

I guess that this could have something to do with the dictum that "the more dominant a belief is in society, the less challenged, and therefore the more suspect that belief is"?

Incidentally, would the Tooth Fairy be interested in granting a franchise in South Croydon?
 

So why is any explanation necessary - is this solely to keep him from descent into sollipsism?
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
I say that a quantum fluctuation caused the universe

---

A quantum fluctuation in WHAT?

Reader Alexis
 

I am awed by your succinct question. I would have required a couple of paragraphs....

Willy
 

I am content to say "I don't know."

But why does 'meaning' have anything to do with this debate?

Why does everything require a 'meaning'?

Now then, the quantum fluctuation in what? question.

In the not-even-nothingness that was before the Big Bang. Or the other universe that is eternal, or the pink unicorns collarbone. We cannot know at the moment and we may never be able to know, but the fact that teh total energy on the universe appears to be zero requires an explanation. A good one is that the universe was caused by a quantum fluctuation. That explains the evidence very well.

Any other alternative?
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
But why does 'meaning' have anything to do with this debate? Why does everything require a 'meaning'?

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If given a choice between meaning and no meaning I would choose meaning.

But if there is no meaning, why ask why?
 

Reader Alexis
 

quote:

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Now then, the quantum fluctuation in what? question.

In the not-even-nothingness that was before the Big Bang. Or the other universe that is eternal, or the pink unicorns collarbone.

---

Everyone knows that unicorns are mauve.

SA:

quote:

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We cannot know at the moment and we may never be able to know, but the fact that teh total energy on the universe appears to be zero requires an explanation. A good one is that the universe was caused by a quantum fluctuation. That explains the evidence very well.

---

Hmmm, you'll pardon me if I'm skeptical, but....fact? What total energy? How was it measured? What assurance do we have that our attempts to measure something so large is in any way accurate for such a quantification? Is the dark energy that cosmologists presently are disagreeing about included in this tally?

Quantum fluctuations as described by present theory, arise from the well-defined, if not well-understood framework of our own space-time. To postulate that the "not-even-nothingness that was before the Big Bang" fill this bill seems contradictory and appealing to an infinite superspace has only changed the subject of the question, not answered the question.

"I don't *know* seems to be as much as anyone can say on the subject.

Willy
 

All I was trying to do was show that there is a reasonable materialistic alternative, not saying that this is exactly how it happened.

As this is reasonable, it does not require faith to accept it as a possibility. It is supported by some evidence, but not much.

What is important about my idea is that it is falsifiable. New measurements could destroy it straight away.

The non-materialistic beginning requires the existence of this creator before anything exists. We are now many billions of years further on and we still have zero OF evidence for this creators existence (and no self respecting unicorn would be seen in mauve!). So, in order to take the non-materialistic view, one must first show that the creator exists or did exist.

Showing he exists now would be an excellent start. If something exists now, we can speculate that it existed before and try and find evidence for that.
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
All I was trying to do was show that there is a reasonable materialistic alternative, not saying that this is exactly how it happened.

---

You are right that there is a reasonable materialistic alternative for the origin of the universe.

My only problem with this alternative is that it does not satisfy my desire for meaning and purpose, which may or may not be important to everyone.

It is certainly reasonable to choose the materialistic alternative. Nor is it unreasonable, coming from that perspective, to look for materialistic evidence for God's existence.

What is unreasonable is when someone fails to acknowledge that a reasonable choice between alternatives is possible, each with its own strengths and drawbacks - and that belief in God is therefore not an irrational choice.

The evidence for God is by definition not material or measurable, since He is assumed to be a spiritual being. Observable phenomena might be taken as evidence, such as near-death experiences, the remarkable self-similarity and order of the universe, or the exquisite feelings connected with romantic love. But all of these have alternative materialistic explanations.

What I am looking for in this discussion is not to convince anyone of the certainty of God's existence. I am hoping that we can dispel the idea that, since it is difficult to point to evidence of His existence, it is unreasonable to believe in Him. I am hoping that we can all acknowledge that belief in God is a logical choice between reasonable alternatives, and not simply a leap of faith.
 

quote:

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My only problem with this alternative is that it does not satisfy my desire for meaning and purpose, which may or may not be important to everyone.

---

I am curious about how satisfying a desire should have any bearing on whether there is a meaning and reason to the universe.

Either there is a meaning or there isn't. If there is, we should be able to determine it (because an unfathomable reason is so close to no reason to make them indistinguishable).

quote:

---

I am hoping that we can all acknowledge that belief in God is a logical choice between reasonable alternatives, and not simply a leap of faith.

---

Hmm. That may take some doing. I will listen at least.
 

I see the creation of the universe as being impossible, according to scientific laws, without control.

Let me summarise:

Thermodnamics
1st Law - Energy is never created or destroyed
2nd Law - All physical systems when left to their own devices will move in a direction from Order to Chaos
3rd Law - Order is max. at -273C, adding raw (uncontrolled...) energy only increases disorder.

Also
The Principle of Conservation of Angular Momentum.

This tells us that that motion in a straight line from an explosion could never give way to spinning motion, as seen in planets, solar systems, galaxies etc.

Or try:
Cause and Effect. (Every cause must have a superior effect)

and

Law of Biogenesis - Life only comes from life.

I'm not going to go into Evolution v's Creationist because this is neither the time or the place. I am just showing you the evidence that I can see for a belief in God to be SCIENTIFICALLY superior to a belief in no God.

You can't have OF evidence for God, but you can have it for scientific beliefs. When these beliefs can only be held to be true in relation to a higher being, I see this to be good evidence.

LB
 

quote:

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As this is reasonable, it does not require faith to accept it as a possibility. It is supported by some evidence, but not much.

---

To consider something as a possibility may not take faith per se, but to postulate that the universe came out of nothing and without cause, and to argue that is a reasonable, explanation, smacks of faith.

SA:

quote:

---

What is important about my idea is that it is falsifiable. New measurements could destroy it straight away.

---

Again, pardon my scepticism, but if there is no empirical way to observe or measure "whatever-was-before," it will remain an unprovable hypothesis and therefore unverifiable.

Cosmologists tell us that physical laws, constants, space and time have no validity or meaning before the Big Bang. How then can measurements taken within our space-time framework be seriously considered as empirical evidence for "whatever-was-before?"

Willy
 

"remain an unprovable hypothesis and therefore unfalsifiable."

Willy
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
Either there is a meaning or there isn't. If there is, we should be able to determine it (because an unfathomable reason is so close to no reason to make them indistinguishable).

---

Great point. And maybe that is really the problem.

I'm tempted to start a thread on the meaning of life.
 

My particular hypothesis can be falsified. If there is a new measurement that shows the energy isn't in balance (this is Paul Davies's idea, which I am borrowing) then my hypothesis gets blown out of the water.

Describing it as a theory is my mistake, it isn't one. It is a hypothesis. There is reason for accepting it as a hypothesis.

I see the alternative to a natural beginning a supernatural one. There is no evidence for the supernatural, so a natural explanation is more reasonable.

I really don't understand why people have such a problem with this. I am not saying that I am right or that anyone else is wrong, just that, if there is no evidence for anything but "ordinary" things, then it is reasonable to say that it was started by some "ordinary" thing. If there is no evidence for anything "extraordinary" then to invoke it as an explanation when one does not know the answer is a cop-out.

I don't know what is around other stars in this galaxy. I suspect there are planets around some. This is a reasonable position to take. It is not a position of faith, even though we do not know the answer. I suppose we could say that there are Gods circling them just as easily.

This is what you are claiming about before the universe, we cannot know, but we have no evidence that anything supernatural exists, but because we don't know the answer, it is unreasonable to invoke natural processes an explanation, and so it could just as well be somrthing supernatural.

Be serious, this is just silly
 

I think the pivot is causation. You are willing to throw that away to avoid the supernatural. I am willing to consider the possibility of the supernatural to avoid throwing out causation.

Willy
 

What caused the supernatural?

By supposing the supernatural the causation question is still not answered.
 

To return to your falsifiability argument: Check my work here. You are saying that because the total energy hypothesis is theoretically falsifiable that makes it valid?

Willy
 

Reader Alexis
 

Willy
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by The sceptical Atheist:
By supposing the supernatural the causation question is still not answered.

---

Alan
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
but by being supernatural, does the natural order of cause and effect still hold?

Alan

---

If that is so, then there is no contradiction in an Uncaused Event, and no objectionto be raised to the hypothesis of an uncaused beginning to the Universe.

Which makes asking the question, "Why is there anything?" a meaningless exercise.

Willy