quote:

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Originally posted by chive
David Robertson has made a career of opening his mouth and letting his stomach rumble so I would take anything he says with an extremely large pinch of salt.

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quote:

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
So said Rev David Robertson, a minister from the Free Church of Scotland.

"I actually know of people who have been converted through reading The God Delusion and interacting with the discussion. Dawkins has opened the door. We now have to walk through it," said the Christian minister.

So has "the world's most famous atheist" been the best thing to happen to Christian apologetics?

I tend to think that Rev Robertson has a point. Has Dawkins' "in yer face" approach backfired?

---

I don't like Dawkin's manner and I thought the God Delusion (the bit I read) was silly. However there are quite a lot of self-proclaimed religious writers who leave me equally cold (or hot under the collar).

It would be hard to find any view which hasn't been supported by boorish idiots. That doesn't the make the view true or false.

When I hear people spouting Ditchkins* speak, I find myself almost automatically defending what they are attacking. But that's because I think shooting paper tigers is counter productive.

However if he's the best thing to happen to Christian apologetics I'd look for some better apologists. You need someone to make a positive case.


* In his Gifford lectures, this was Terry Eagleton's name for the Hitchens-Dawkins combo.
 

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Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
 
[tangent]
David Robertson first came to my attention when he dared to defend a book he wrote criticising TGD - and he did this on the vile echo chamber that was the richardawkins.net forum. A flurry of mean-spirited posts followed in the wake of Robertson's appearance, including some from Dawkins himself. But Robertson kept coming back, and from what I can tell, he stood his ground - firmly at times - without feeling the need to resort to the same level of insult. Indeed, his continued presence on the forum and his continued defence of his POV eventually had quite a profound impact on at least one regular RD.net contributor - more here.

If anyone is interested, the discussion that David Robertson mentioned having with comedian and atheist Marcus Bridgestock can be found here. Just scroll down to the show entitled Comedy & Christianity from the 27th October 2012. It was a fascinating show that was a credit to all involved because they talked with each other, rather than at each other. (His other shows on Unbelievable? are also worth checking out.)
[/tangent]

As for the topic of the tread - while there are, from a Christian perspective, some major downsides to the popularity of the New Atheists, I also happen to agree with Robertson when he says (and I'm paraphrasing here) that Dawkins and the New Atheists have, in part, done Christianity a favour by bring God talk back into places it otherwise wouldn't have featured. People are again interested in the topic and they are listening. And because the debate has become that much more prominent, it has forced Christian apologists to develop better defensive and positive arguments for their faith. It may also force churches to look at what they are, how they communicate their beliefs and how they can be of relevance to society.

It seems to me that the real challenge for Christian apologists (and in a sense this includes all Christians) is not specifically to refute Dawkins and his ilk. The challenge is to offer a post-Christian society a credible alternative to the worldview that is often - and without any justification - presupposed to be true (in the media etc) and provides people like Dawkins with a seedbed to propagate their ideas further.
 

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Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
 
Sorry for the rapid double post, but I just wanted to post a quick response to que sais-je.

I don't think that Dawkins is the best thing to happen to Christian apologetics. However, New Atheism has given apologetics a voice outside of limited corners of the church.

Now all we need is a Christian apologist to get some credibility with the media to the point that they are willing to let them be heard making a positive case, rather than being the lone and all too brief dissenting voice in yet another Richard Dawkins series on Channel 4.
 

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Posted by Doublethink (# 1984) on :
 
Your premier link doesn't seem to be working and I can't work out how to fix it - sorry.

Doublethink
Purgatory Host
 

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Posted by Mark Wuntoo (# 5673) on :
 
I suppose it is possible that some few people have been converted to Christianity through reading Dawkins. It seems equally possible that others have seen the light and left Christianity after reading him.

For myself, I had given up my belief before reading Dawkins. I found his book arrogant nonsense in places. This had the effect of making me look for other books from the 'atheist' camp - which I found to be well-reasoned, readable and polite.

I seem to remember that Dawkins made a big point about people thinking through the issues for themselves (and, of course, helping them along the way), something that too few Christian preachers do in my experience.

[ 04. November 2012, 18:30: Message edited by: Mark Wuntoo ]
 

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Posted by Adeodatus (# 4992) on :
 
Mostly I'm with Rowan Wlliams, who recently wearily referred to Dawkins as "the latest pub bore atheist" (or something like that). But it worries me that both sides of the Religion vs New Atheist debate have cast religion as a set of philosophical assertions to which adherents must assent. If that were true, Christ would have come for the clever and educated, not for the poor and oppressed. I think our collusion with this approach has not done us any favours.
 

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Posted by balaam (# 4543) on :
 
Strange, isn't it that the atheist ramblings of a top scientist are easy to see through, but well thought out theories of an illusionist are much harder to answer.

The Atheists would be advised to ditch Dawkins and replace him with Penn Jillette as their spokesman.
 

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Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Squibs:
Sorry for the rapid double post, but I just wanted to post a quick response to que sais-je.

I don't think that Dawkins is the best thing to happen to Christian apologetics. However, New Atheism has given apologetics a voice outside of limited corners of the church.

Now all we need is a Christian apologist to get some credibility with the media to the point that they are willing to let them be heard making a positive case, rather than being the lone and all too brief dissenting voice in yet another Richard Dawkins series on Channel 4.

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quote:

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* In his Gifford lectures, this was Terry Eagleton's name for the Hitchens-Dawkins combo.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Grokesx:

quote:

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* In his Gifford lectures, this was Terry Eagleton's name for the Hitchens-Dawkins combo.

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IIRC, one of Eagleton's themes in those lectures was the War on Terror. In that context, treating the views of Dawkins (anti Iraq War) and Hitchins (very much pro Iraq War) as interchangeable and complaining about their lack of sophisticated argument was not a particularly clever move.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Doublethink:
Your premier link doesn't seem to be working and I can't work out how to fix it - sorry.

Doublethink
Purgatory Host

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quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
Mostly I'm with Rowan Wlliams, who recently wearily referred to Dawkins as "the latest pub bore atheist" (or something like that). But it worries me that both sides of the Religion vs New Atheist debate have cast religion as a set of philosophical assertions to which adherents must assent. If that were true, Christ would have come for the clever and educated, not for the poor and oppressed. I think our collusion with this approach has not done us any favours.

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quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:

However if he's the best thing to happen to Christian apologetics I'd look for some better apologists. You need someone to make a positive case.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:
I think Alister McGrath has done a good job there.

He's done a lot in dialogue with Dawkins and his ilk and has recently published a book called Mere Apologetics.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Timothy the Obscure:
I think it's mostly that Dawkins has shown that atheists can be just as annoying as Christians. Leveled the playing field a bit...

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Interesting point, but I think I have deepened my understanding that Christianity is not a set of philosophical propositions, partly through reading various arguments for and against Prof Dawkins' stuff.

At any rate, it began to strike me that the discussion around TGD might become too propositional; but I found that others agree with me.

Also, I began to notice the very poor understanding of Christianity that some have, including Dawkins and other atheists (but not all).

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quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
It's just that my perception has been that when the New Atheists say, "How can you believe that X?", they mean, "How can you give intellectual assent to X as a proposition?" My reply is, "I don't. That's not how I 'believe.' It's not what I think 'belief' is."

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quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus
It's just that my perception has been that when the New Atheists say, "How can you believe that X?", they mean, "How can you give intellectual assent to X as a proposition?"

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quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
I just liked the coinage 'Ditchkins' - I'm not claiming Eagleton as a guru or saying I agree with him.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
It's just that my perception has been that when the New Atheists say, "How can you believe that X?", they mean, "How can you give intellectual assent to X as a proposition?" My reply is, "I don't. That's not how I 'believe.' It's not what I think 'belief' is."

And I agree that the New (and some Old) Atheists show an appalling ignorance of Christianity. My reply to all but a handful (including Old Atheist Bertrand Russell, who really should have known better) is, "Well if that's what Christianity was, I wouldn't believe in it either."

[Edited becos my speling was rong.]

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:

Anyhow, my point is that as long as I say that "X is true", an atheist is fully within his or her rights to query me on this statement.

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:

So at a minimum one should be able to defend intellectually that the claim is not contrary to reason.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Justinian:
The problem with this claim is that New Atheists show much less of an ignorance of Christianity than Christians themselves do. This is confirmed by Pew Research where atheists are the third highest scoring group in terms of knowledgeability about Christianity and the Bible. (Of course you take your surveys where you get them - I'm sure that on a different survey the results would have been different).

If Atheists show less of an ignorance about Christianity than Christians do (as the research seems to indicate) then why are you attacking them and not the examples your fellow Christians are setting, which is normally where the atheists get knowledge. Not from the Phelpses of this world that are generally decried by all. But from mainstream Christians such as Benedict XVI, George Carey, Rick Warren, Tim LaHaye, and other influential Christian leaders.

If your theology disagrees with the majority of the above then the accusation of ignorance on behalf of the atheists is ... dubious.

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You make my point for me. It's probably true that some atheists know more of the philosophical assertions that go with Christianity. They probably know better than I how many books there are in the Bible. They probably know how many wives Solomon had, and which hand St Paul used to scratch his arse.

I don't care.

Those things are not Christianity. Christ did not come especially to save those who could do the intellectual gymnastics needed to argue the finer points of the Trinity. The gospels do not record that he ever said, "Blessed are the clever, and happy are those whose arguments are subtle and sophisticated." They do record that he said, "Blessed are you poor ... you who are hungry ... you who weep." And scripture does record the scorn of Paul (in one of his better moments) for "Greeks [who] look for wisdom".

I've done theology. I've more or less got a degree in it. I've spent twenty-odd years studying it. But the old woman who sat in our hospital chapel the other day wiping tears from her eyes as she prayed knows more of the heart of Christ than I ever will by means of my theology.
 

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Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 

 

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Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
Yes, it's striking that Justinian uses the 'about' word - knowledgeability about Christianity.

But what is it to have the mind of Christ? Is there an 'about' about this?

[ 05. November 2012, 11:58: Message edited by: quetzalcoatl ]
 

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Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
One of the big differences between Hindu/Taoist/Buddhist traditions & Judao/Christian/Islamic ones seems to be the former focus on "spiritual development" to a greater extent than on "truths". This is obviously a gross simplification but it could be argued that, if it could be proved the Buddha never existed, it wouldn't necessarily be a death knell for the religion. Indeed the Zen "If you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him" is at least partially a pointer that Buddhism is about experience and behaviour not propositional facts.

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quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
A similar Way exists in Christianity (and maybe IngoB is following it). It just isn't the way usually Christianity presents itself to the general public - or the way many Christians see it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
But how about non-propositional atheism: my usual analogy is that I'm like a person who doesn't 'get' music in the way some do.

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
.... In Eastern terms, most Westerners are laypeople trying to be (or pretending to be...) monks and nuns. It sure would make a difference to the religious practices of most Buddhists (namely, Eastern Buddhist laypeople), if Siddhartha Gautama never existed. That likely wouldn't be much different in practice from the impact of Jesus never existing on Christianity.

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quote:

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Yes. That's a very good point. However, I assume deaf people are not generally denying the value of music. There's a difference between saying "this is not for me" and "this is no good for anyone".

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quote:

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Originally posted by Grokesx:
IIRC, one of Eagleton's themes in those lectures was the War on Terror. In that context, treating the views of Dawkins (anti Iraq War) and Hitchins (very much pro Iraq War) as interchangeable and complaining about their lack of sophisticated argument was not a particularly clever move.

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quote:

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
In fact, I don't regard atheists as champions of reason anyway, and if there is one thing that Dawkins has achieved, it is to create a situation at the popular level where the assumptions of atheism can be vigorously challenged, as they have been - and successfully in my view.

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quote:

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Posted by Quetz
At any rate, it began to strike me that the discussion around TGD might become too propositional; but I found that others agree with me.

Also, I began to notice the very poor understanding of Christianity that some have, including Dawkins and other atheists (but not all).

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
In fact, I don't regard atheists as champions of reason anyway, and if there is one thing that Dawkins has achieved, it is to create a situation at the popular level where the assumptions of atheism can be vigorously challenged, as they have been - and successfully in my view.

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I suppose there are some atheists who might have set themselves up as 'champions of reason'. Can you quote one?

What are the 'assumptions of atheism'? Can you give an example of a couple which have been successflly challenged? Atheism,as has been often said, is a lack of belief in god/god/s. Atheists have many views on all manner of things as have believers, but there are no 'rules' of atheism which direct those ideas.

(This has probably been discussed many times, but I'm no good at finding such past discussions. Apologies!)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Grokesx:
gnu atheism

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quote:

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Originally posted by Grokesx:
It's a personal God who is the creator of the universe, who demands to be worshipped and is apparently interested in who we sleep with. If that's not your god, then the gnus are not that interested in you

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quote:

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Originally posted by Justinian:
.... You "like the coinage". The coinage that makes Dawkins attack on Christianity look subtle. It's nothing more than an ad-hominem attack that can only be based in either ignorance or a desire to turn an already tricky dialogue into a mudslinging contest by conflating people with deep and profound disagreements. Either way at best 'Ditchkins' serves to demonstrate that Eagleton (and any other user of that term) is setting up a straw-Dawkins that is far more profound than anything Dawkins has done.

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quote:

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GNU atheism? Learn something new everyday, apparently New Atheism has now seen fit to invade the hallowed grounds of free software...

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quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
I assume you'll be contacting Rowan Williams separately about his reference to Prof Dawkins as an 'atheist pub bore'?

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How refreshingly honest... Indeed, the "gnus" are more anti-Christian, anti-Muslim and anti-Jewish (anti-Hindu? anti-Baha'i?) than pro anything.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:

quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
I assume you'll be contacting Rowan Williams separately about his reference to Prof Dawkins as an 'atheist pub bore'?

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It isn't mean if it's true.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Grokesx:

If that's not your god, then the gnus are not that interested in you

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quote:

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Originally posted by Squibs:

quote:

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Originally posted by Grokesx:

If that's not your god, then the gnus are not that interested in you

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That odd given that they have published titles such as The End of Faith, a rant against all religious faith.

And it not just that Dawkins is concerned with the god that both of you so delightfully caricature. He also spent a number of pages utterly demolishing the God of classical theism. The problem is that he never understood Aquinas to begin and consequently refutes a series of arguments borne of his own ignorance.

Sorry to say, but some the more passionate New Atheists out there aren't content to demolish faith in the god you describe. Some very much want an end to all supernatural belief, and this often starts with an attack on God as revealed in the Old and New testaments (or various caricatures of him).

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quote:

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Originally posted by gorpo:
Dawkins is concerned with the personal God of abrahamic religions because more "sophisticated" concepts of a non-personal god in the west are usually just a soft transition from christianity to secularism. And it doesn´t make any difference to believe there is no god and to believe "god" is an impersonal abstract entity, since that is pretty much a wording game.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:
The overall effect is that Christianity as it is taught contains elements of both a personal and impersonal God (corresponding to i. and ii. above); that people who describe God in apparently personal terms may be more 'sophisticated' (to use your term) than they appear; and that people who describe God in impersonal terms may not be as 'liberal' as they sound.

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quote:

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The Reality of God and the Problem of Evil, pp. 59-60:
The formula ‘God is a person’ is (given the history of theistic thinking and writing) a relatively recent one. I believe that its first occurrence in English comes in the report of a trial of someone called John Biddle (b. 1615), who in 1644 was brought before the magistrates of Gloucester, England, on a charge of heresy. His ‘heresy’ was claiming that God is a person. Biddle was explicitly defending Unitarian beliefs about God, already in evidence among Socinians outside England.

In other words, Biddle’s ‘God is a person’ was intended as a rejection of the orthodox Christian claim that God is three persons in one substance (the doctrine of the Trinity). One can hardly take it to be a traditional Christian answer to the question ‘What is God?’ According to the doctrine of the Trinity, God is certainly not three persons in one person. And when orthodox exponents of the doctrine speak of Father, Son, and Spirit as ‘persons,’ they certainly do not take ‘person’ to mean what it seems to mean for [Richard] Swinburne and those who agree with him. They do not, for example, think of the persons of the Trinity as distinct centres of consciousness, or as three members of a kind.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
You make my point for me. It's probably true that some atheists know more of the philosophical assertions that go with Christianity.

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quote:

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Those things are not Christianity.

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quote:

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I've done theology. I've more or less got a degree in it. I've spent twenty-odd years studying it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Grokesx:
Also, in TGD, Dawkins is very specific about the type of god he is talking about. It's not a theologically sophisticated ground of all being, or an Einstein style pantheistic entity, nor yet some sort of Spinozan affair.

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quote:

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If that's not your god, then the gnus are not that interested in you, but their contention is that there are plenty of people for whom that god is real, that this is not an unalloyed blessing for the world and that they will jolly well get all militant and write books and blog posts about it if they want to. The bastards.

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Yes, it's striking that Justinian uses the 'about' word - knowledgeability about Christianity.

But what is it to have the mind of Christ? Is there an 'about' about this?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
Well there's Prof Dawkins' assumption that God can't exist because someone or something must have "made God".

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quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:

quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
I assume you'll be contacting Rowan Williams separately about his reference to Prof Dawkins as an 'atheist pub bore'?

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It isn't mean if it's true.

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One of the odd things I've noticed in many discussions with atheists, is that many of them focus on Protestant ideas. The first 1500 years of Christianity seem to have bypassed them. I don't know whether this is because some of them were Protestant Christians, or whether they are just used to knocking over fundamentalist Protestants, or some other reason.

It has odd consequences - I recall explaining to some that Catholic moral theology was not just a Biblical commentary.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
You make my point for me. It's probably true that some atheists know more of the philosophical assertions that go with Christianity.

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Almost certainly.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

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Those things are not Christianity.

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I think you meant to write "Those things are not True Christianity." Because this is the fundamental nature of one of the arguments. Does someone like Adeodatus or even IngoB or EtymologicalEvangelical have the right to define True Christianity? Or is Christianity the religion practiced by Christians taken as a whole.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:

quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
I suppose there are some atheists who might have set themselves up as 'champions of reason'. Can you quote one?

What are the 'assumptions of atheism'? Can you give an example of a couple which have been successflly challenged? Atheism,as has been often said, is a lack of belief in god/god/s. Atheists have many views on all manner of things as have believers, but there are no 'rules' of atheism which direct those ideas.

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Well there's Prof Dawkins' assumption that God can't exist because someone or something must have "made God".

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quote:

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At a popular level, which is the level EE is referring to, this is quite a common view amongst atheists.

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quote:

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This facile argument (repudiated by serious atheist philosophers as well as theist) ...

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quote:

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...has provided an opportunity for Christians to explain the nature of God, his relationship to the universe, ...

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Of which there are of course many, many varying ideas. If there is a 'nature' to consider do you imagine it as a mind? There may be a general consistency, but since all opinions as to the 'nature of God' are thought of and voiced by people, then I think we're back to square one!!

quote:

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...and to bring more to the fore scientific evidence to support premises which form the bases for arguments in favour of God's existence.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
One of the odd things I've noticed in many discussions with atheists, is that many of them focus on Protestant ideas. The first 1500 years of Christianity seem to have bypassed them. I don't know whether this is because some of them were Protestant Christians, or whether they are just used to knocking over fundamentalist Protestants, or some other reason.

It has odd consequences - I recall explaining to some that Catholic moral theology was not just a Biblical commentary.

---

Most are more used to Protestant Christians than to Roman Catholic Christians. And many consider Roman Catholic morality a laughably easy target. But the main reason is that for various social reasons and because it's obviously pear shaped you don't get people leaping to defend Roman Catholic morality in the same way you get the liberal Christians leaping in to defend the bigots. You can also pin down Catholic teaching so you don't have the "That isn't (true) Christianity" used by Adeodatus above.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Squibs:
Some very much want an end to all supernatural belief, ...

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Yes, but of course common sense tells us that unless every single religious belief worldwide was to come to an end simultaneously, then the move to atheism (humanism, etc) must be a gradual one. I do hope that it's moved a bit further along the track before I die!!
 

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Posted by venbede (# 16669) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Could you give me a link to one of these pieces of scientific evidence which lead to support for premises which in turn lead to the existence of God, i.e. the Christian one? I think the link must be very tenuous.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

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Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
You make my point for me. It's probably true that some atheists know more of the philosophical assertions that go with Christianity.

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Almost certainly.

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Only because they are reacting against a belief. That's what most atheism is.

You cannot react against that which you do not know something of the details of.

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quote:

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

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Those things are not Christianity.

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I think you meant to write "Those things are not True Christianity." Because this is the fundamental nature of one of the arguments. Does someone like Adeodatus or even IngoB or EtymologicalEvangelical have the right to define True Christianity? Or is Christianity the religion practiced by Christians taken as a whole.

---

You're missing the point.

Christianity is not a set of intellectual propositions to which one assents.

It's a personal/communal relationship with God and others.

Yeah the intellectual stuff matters. But it's essentially secondary to faith.

You can easily have intellectual assent and no faith.

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Really? Catholic moral theology has surely been through a fairly pluralist period, hasn't it? I'm not an expert on it, of course.

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quote:

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I've often seen atheists struck dumb by mention of ideas from classical theism, for example, from Dionysius the Areopagite, probably one of the most influential of Christian mystics and thinkers.

I just assume that they think Christianity began with Luther!

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
Well there's Prof Dawkins' assumption that God can't exist because someone or something must have "made God".

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Why is this not a reasonable assumption? If you believe (as I used to long ago -) that god just sort of is, then how do you convince yourself of this? Did it decide to turn up when Man evolved? Was it there before the universe began, in which case where is it now, and why connected with this almost invisible dot in the universe?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Really? Catholic moral theology has surely been through a fairly pluralist period, hasn't it? I'm not an expert on it, of course.

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By their fruits shall ye know them. And the fruits of Catholic Morality have been all over the press for a long time. Between the kiddy fucking, the homophobia, and the opposition to contraception the only serious question about Catholic morality is how such a plausible moralistic system can reach such horrible outcomes.

quote:

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I've often seen atheists struck dumb by mention of ideas from classical theism, for example, from Dionysius the Areopagite, probably one of the most influential of Christian mystics and thinkers.

I just assume that they think Christianity began with Luther!

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This is the perfect day to list such an example! I stuck a Christian with a degree in Theology dumb last night by producing Thomas Aquinas. That most people aren't familliar with writings a thousand years old let alone twice that is normal. Most Christians are only familliar with a very few such writings.

That most people in the west are unfamilliar with a mystic who fell out of favour in Western Europe as a consequence of the Great Schism is neither here nor there. It's merely an indication of how little penetration the Orthodox have. And do you mean Pseudo-Dionysius anyway?

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
On your first question, (how a plausible moral system can have horrible outcomes), I do believe that early Christians and later ones have wrestled with that question. For example, you get Paul saying that he was appalled to realize that he did not do what he wanted, but 'the very thing I hate'. Later, Luther was also to be appalled at the realization that he could not try to be good; well, OK, he could try, but must fail.

Anyway, it seems to me that this link between the plausible and the horrible outcome is one of the central tensions within the Christian framework. And of course, this analysis must be applied to itself. I suppose Beckett is relevant: fail again, fail better.

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You are missing half the point. According to Catholic theology, contraception is evil. According to just about anyone who has thought about it who isn't immersed in Catholic teaching or part of the allied Evangelical groups making a pact agaisnt abortion, contraception (a) is the best known thing for reducing the abortion rate, (b) reduces disease, and (c) reduces unwanted pregnancies which is good for a whole range of issues.

The horrible outcomes I'm referring to are not just the actions of the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church but of the moral teachings of that Church. This isn't a matter of failure so much as setting off in the wrong direction.
 

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Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
I guess I will try henceforth to set off in the right direction! Wish me luck.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
IngoB

Thank you for your post to which I have listened very carefully. I am happpy with an unknown first cause which I think of as a 'we don't know , but the universe runs as it does whether that first cause is known or not. I was listening to an article in New Scientist today and it mentioned the 'big bounce' rather than the 'big bang'. No problem, it doesn't matter what it was; what followed occurred as a logical consequence.

To then label that first cause with a name and then add layer upon layer of complexity, adding and subtracting characteristics and supposed thoughts, is a human concept. Then to decide that this named cause can have a personal relationship with people and communicate with them etc ... well, why?! Give the credit for all that Man has done to Man, where it belongs!
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by venbede:

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Could you give me a link to one of these pieces of scientific evidence which lead to support for premises which in turn lead to the existence of God, i.e. the Christian one? I think the link must be very tenuous.

---

That is why Dawkins is totally missing the point in thinking that unless God is yet another item in the universe who can be scientifically measured, God doesn't exist.

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quote:

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If you could prove the existence of God like that, it would not be God whose existence you'd proved.

---

quote:

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God is the possibility of anything.

---

quote:

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(We've met before on R3ok, Susan, where I'm DB. I hope all is well with you and the tap dancing still going fine.)

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris
I suppose there are some atheists who might have set themselves up as 'champions of reason'. Can you quote one?

---

quote:

---

What are the 'assumptions of atheism'? Can you give an example of a couple which have been successflly challenged? Atheism,as has been often said, is a lack of belief in god/god/s. Atheists have many views on all manner of things as have believers, but there are no 'rules' of atheism which direct those ideas.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Thank you for your post to which I have listened very carefully. I am happpy with an unknown first cause which I think of as a 'we don't know , but the universe runs as it does whether that first cause is known or not. I was listening to an article in New Scientist today and it mentioned the 'big bounce' rather than the 'big bang'. No problem, it doesn't matter what it was; what followed occurred as a logical consequence.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
To then label that first cause with a name and then add layer upon layer of complexity, adding and subtracting characteristics and supposed thoughts, is a human concept. Then to decide that this named cause can have a personal relationship with people and communicate with them etc ... well, why?! Give the credit for all that Man has done to Man, where it belongs!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

---

Those things are not Christianity.

---

I think you meant to write "Those things are not True Christianity."

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris
I suppose there are some atheists who might have set themselves up as 'champions of reason'. Can you quote one?

---

Ever heard of the "Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science"?

---

quote:

---

And how did RD begin his eulogy about the late Christopher Hitchens? Allow me to quote it:

"Farewell, great voice. Great voice of reason..."

Great voice of reason? Sounds like the idea of "championing reason".

---

quote:

---

Of course, I would take issue with the idea that atheism is rational, given that it is based on a view of mind rooted in mindless
materialism

---

quote:

---

What do you mean by "successfully challenged"? How many people need to be convinced in order for success to be declared?

---

quote:

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Given that the idea of 'God' - the personal, eternal, intelligent creator of the universe - is about the most non-trivial concept imaginable, ...

---

quote:

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...and which therefore has profound consequences for our whole view of reality, ...

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quote:

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...if 'God' were a totally trivial idea - like the childish constructs of the New Atheism, such as the Flying Spaghetti Monster etc - but quite obviously God is anything but trivial.

---

Certainly the idea of god is not a trivial one, as the people who have made use of its power and influence have been the dominant forces throughout history. But at no time has any person been able to show that God/god/s were any more than an idea. Statues, stories etc etc reveal the thoughts they had about the God/god/s of which they spoke, but that's it.

You talk of FSM etc as childish constructs. In what way is God (or any other religion's god) not a construct? Of course, as soon as religions agreed that the construct is the same, although the god/god/s ones have a longer history, then that's when God ... is really seen as it always has been - one of the infinite number of ideas thought up by Man.
That could come across as somewhat dismissive, but that is most certainly not intended.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Ingo B
thank you for post at 18:35. I have listened through once and will listen again tomorrow and see if I can come up with a good, rational of course, response!!
 

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Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Ever heard of the "Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science"?

---

quote:

---

That odd given that they have published titles such as The End of Faith, a rant against all religious faith.

And it not just that Dawkins is concerned with the god that both of you so delightfully caricature. He also spent a number of pages utterly demolishing the God of classical theism. The problem is that he never understood Aquinas to begin and consequently refutes a series of arguments borne of his own ignorance.

Sorry to say, but some the more passionate New Atheists out there aren't content to demolish faith in the god you describe. Some very much want an end to all supernatural belief, and this often starts with an attack on God as revealed in the Old and New testaments (or various caricatures of him).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

Given that the idea of 'God' - the personal, eternal, intelligent creator of the universe - is about the most non-trivial concept imaginable

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grokesx:
I said not that interested in you, not that they agree with you. They are atheists for crying out loud. Just as damnationists think the gnus (and us olds) are on a one way ticket to the eternal barbeque, we think your faith is bonkers. Goes with the territory.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Grokesx:
They are atheists for crying out loud. Just as damnationists think the gnus (and us olds) are on a one way ticket to the eternal barbeque, we think your faith is bonkers. Goes with the territory.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grokesx:
The days of stupid wars over religion, monkey trials and such were behind us, and secularism - the freedom of religion and freedom from religion - was something valued by the religious and non religious alike. Science and religion were non overlapping magisteria and all was good in the hood. And then we woke up.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:
[QUOTE]
[QUOTE][qb]...and to bring more to the fore scientific evidence to support premises which form the bases for arguments in favour of God's existence.

---

Could you give me a link to one of these pieces of scientific evidence which lead to support for premises which in turn lead to the existence of God, i.e. the Christian one? I think the link must be very tenuous.

---

You could have a look at this - try item 4 on the list. Robin Collins is an American Philosopher with degree-level qualifications in Maths Physics and (of course) philosophy.

By the way Susan, it's a bit cheeky to say your atheism is based on rational enquiry and then to say that scientific evidence supporting arguments for God's existence "must be very tenuous" before you've looked at the evidence. "That Susan's a saucy so and so" I thought...

Truth is my lovely, is that our conclusions about life and reality are based on a number of factors - rational enquiry being one. So on a previous thread you said "Even when I believed in a god, I did not wait for him/her to tell me what his/her purpose was for me, I made my own decisions." How much of the appeal of atheism to you, is that it appeals to your independent streak

Keep warm, and if you're feeling chilly have a virtual hug from a fellow sailor <H>

[ 07. November 2012, 12:50: Message edited by: Ramarius ]
 

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Posted by Squibs (# 14408) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Could you give me a link to one of these pieces of scientific evidence which lead to support for premises which in turn lead to the existence of God, i.e. the Christian one? I think the link must be very tenuous.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Adeodatus:
You make my point for me. It's probably true that some atheists know more of the philosophical assertions that go with Christianity.

---

Almost certainly.

---

Only because they are reacting against a belief. That's what most atheism is.

You cannot react against that which you do not know something of the details of.

---

Atheism is the state of being without (a) God. Most atheists are reacting against a belief. But tha doesn't make this necessary - I'm an a-invisible pink unicornist without reacting against the belief in invisible pink unicorns.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justinian:
You're playing the "true Christian" card again. Christianity is a set of beliefs and practices. The intellectual stuff matters.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grokesx
...we think your faith is bonkers.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
You failed to mention faith again.

It is the cornerstone.

And what Adeodatus said.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Thank you for your post to which I have listened very carefully. I am happpy with an unknown first cause which I think of as a 'we don't know , but the universe runs as it does whether that first cause is known or not. I was listening to an article in New Scientist today and it mentioned the 'big bounce' rather than the 'big bang'. No problem, it doesn't matter what it was; what followed occurred as a logical consequence.

---

Just to make sure that we are on the same page here: the argument for a First Cause is independent from whether there was a 'big bang' or 'big bounce' or indeed a static universe that has existed as it is forever.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
To then label that first cause with a name and then add layer upon layer of complexity, adding and subtracting characteristics and supposed thoughts, is a human concept. Then to decide that this named cause can have a personal relationship with people and communicate with them etc ... well, why?! Give the credit for all that Man has done to Man, where it belongs!

---

Some of the characteristics and complexities are logical consequences that can be argued either from what has already been shown, or from similar metaphysical arguments[/quote]
The word 'metaphysical' always seems to blur clarity a bit in my opinion. I'm probably quite wrong, but only having come across it when I was older, I avoid it!

quote:

---

We can indeed go quite far in analysing what this First Cause, this "God", must be like, simply by applying human reason to observations of nature.

---

quote:

---

But I agree entirely that this will never get us all the way to the Christian God. Metaphysics is not the gospel, and philosophical argument is not faith. My motivations for accepting the Christian God are contemplative experience, hope and a kind of conceptual aesthetics (or as the atheists so charmingly would have it, hallucination, wishful thinking and sentimentality).

---

May I suggest that, rather than 'charmingly', which could sound just the teensiest bit condescending! the word 'evidentially', might work better?!

quote:

---

I think all humans have a "God-shaped hole" in their hearts, and all of them will fill it with something.

---

quote:

---

I think one has to realize that, and then take a good, hard look at what one is dropping in there. And then make a conscious decision what should go in there. That I contend is the human thing to do, and I respect those who have made their choice, even where I think they got it wrong (as with other religions) or very wrong (as with atheism).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:
[QUOTE]
[QUOTE][qb]...and to bring more to the fore scientific evidence to support premises which form the bases for arguments in favour of God's existence.

---

Could you give me a link to one of these pieces of scientific evidence which lead to support for premises which in turn lead to the existence of God, i.e. the Christian one? I think the link must be very tenuous.

---

You could have a look at
this - try item 4 on the list.

---

quote:

---

By the way Susan, it's a bit cheeky to say your atheism is based on rational enquiry and then to say that scientific evidence supporting arguments for God's existence "must be very tenuous" before you've looked at the evidence. "That Susan's a saucy so and so" I thought...

---

Maybe 'confident' might apply ... but I'll see if I can find a suitable paper bag to place over head!

quote:

---

Truth is my lovely, is that our conclusions about life and reality are based on a number of factors - rational enquiry being one. So on a previous thread you said "Even when I believed in a god, I did not wait for him/her to tell me what his/her purpose was for me, I made my own decisions." How much of the appeal of atheism to you, is that it appeals to your independent streak

---

Do you think I'd have done better to wait for decisions to sort of materialise in my brain and then think, ah, that must have been God telling me what to do?

quote:

---

Keep warm, and if you're feeling chilly have a virtual hug from a fellow sailor <H>

---

Thank you!
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Squibs:
Susan, I meant to PM you these links because we had a conversation that touched on this question.

You might want to try out http://www.veritas.org/ and http://www.st-edmunds.cam.ac.uk/faraday/index.php. (Go to the media sections and you can listen to or download the audio/ video files.) Both sites feature guests who make the claim that there is a body of evidence for God's existence, and part of this evidence takes the form of interpretation of scientific discovery.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:
[QUOTE]Truth is my lovely, is that our conclusions about life and reality are based on a number of factors - rational enquiry being one. So on a previous thread you said "Even when I believed in a god, I did not wait for him/her to tell me what his/her purpose was for me, I made my own decisions." How much of the appeal of atheism to you, is that it appeals to your independent streak

---

Do you think I'd have done better to wait for decisions to sort of materialise in my brain and then think, ah, that must have been God telling me what to do?

---

quote:

---

So why would it go with the territory for atheists to think that our faith is bonkers?

---

quote:

---

In Europe, quite frankly, I think Christians have more to worry about than atheists...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justinian:
But then faith is merely intellectual sloth given a new coat of paint to pass it off as a virtue.

---

OMFG!

What a completely deluded view. I've never heard anything so wrong!

[ 08. November 2012, 00:26: Message edited by: Evensong ]
 

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Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grokesx:

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
So why would it go with the territory for atheists to think that our faith is bonkers?

---

Same reason atheism is foolish because of some sort of quantum bollocks, I suppose.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grokesx:
As Dawkins says in the preface to the paperback edition of TGD, the average restaurant review is more belligerent than his anti-theism.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:
How much of the appeal of atheism to you, is that it appeals to your independent streak
You ducked my question Misses SD.
Like I said - saucy....

---

Yes, probably. Looking baqck, I realise that I was the child who always asked, 'Why?' and , 'Is this TRUE?' I suppose I have a natural (and that of course is genetic) confidence, and have never, for example, felt shy! I think my second question about things being TRUE is the more important one.

I hope that answers the question! I shall be interested in your answer to mine:
Do you think I'd have done better to wait for decisions to sort of materialise in my brain and then think, ah, that must have been God telling me what to do?

I listened to the essay and will be posting a comment, or rather quite a few, today or asap.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Ramarius

I hope you will be suitably impressed that I listened to just about all of that paper!
the word 'if' played a major role and introduced many conjectures about a fine tuned universe and our particular planet. He said there was an 'intuitive implausibility' about fine tuning ... well, that intuition is correct! the idea of a fine-tuned universe, particularly one supposedly created by A. N. Other, is just that, completely implausible.

As the essay went on and on, I recognised, i.e. recognised in the sense that I have read a lot and learnt much during the past 10-15 years, the very large amounts of scientific information which served, in my opinion, to distract from the original conjecture that the universe is fine tuned by a something/God, however you imagine that God to be. These science sections I listened to faster, by listening to a few words at the beginning of each line.

However, amongst all those many thousands of words (I would be interested to know approx how many actually!) there wasn't one which provided evidence for the God/mind/power/whatever. If you think they are there and ccan quote the words or section, please let me know.

However, well-presentded and factual the science was, and I thought those parts were very interesting, I do wonder whether the intention was to hide that lack of evidence with the volume of words and info. And no, I'm not being cynical! If that's what he wants to do, he has the right. However, one short paragraph with evidence would have sufficed. Those who were already biased towards agreement with the fine tuning would not be reading in the way that I was doing.

A phrase that kep coming up was'the atheist single universe hypothesis'. A phrase which jarred on me every time it occurred. (a) there may be many atheists who neither know nor care whether there are multiple universes and many others who do, but
even if by some remote chance it turns out to be able to be proved (I've read quite a lot about string theory too) , I can't imagine that its of any practical use, (b) if the hypothesis is well known, it's a scientific idea and would be tested and proved (or not) by experiments to form a theory. Okay, atheists are more likely to do this without trying to put any god into the process. What do you think about the phrase?

I will stop there, but no doubt there will be further questions arising from this!


(By the way, I found I could cursor down line by line, but could not put the coloured frame on the line I was listening to, so could not leave it and go back. It's brilliant software though.)
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Just to be clear - when I mention 'B]evidence[/B], I'm talking of evidence for a fine tuned universe made thus by design rather than it being natural.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
squibs

When I went to the veritas web site, the first video was to a debate with Peter Singer and someone else. I listened to Peter Singer, and then turned off because it was getting a bit past my bedtime but when I went back today, a different video was in the main place and I couldn't find the othere one. That's what these video /you tube sites do, don't they? I have to say that I find Peter Singer's case very well put, but will do my best to watch the second part with an unprejudiced ear, if you know what the link to that particular video is.
 

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Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
We conclude from observing the world that everything that comes into existence or is contingent has a cause. Causation cannot be circular.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Just to be clear - when I mention 'B]evidence[/B], I'm talking of evidence for a fine tuned universe made thus by design rather than it being natural.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

---

Originally posted by gorpo:
Dawkins is concerned with the personal God of abrahamic religions because more "sophisticated" concepts of a non-personal god in the west are usually just a soft transition from christianity to secularism. And it doesn´t make any difference to believe there is no god and to believe "god" is an impersonal abstract entity, since that is pretty much a wording game.

---

Two comments:

a.) There is almost certainly a difference for people who do believe in a purely impersonal god. And telling them that what they 'really' believe is secularism shows the same level of arrogance as the preacher who thinks atheists 'really' know that Jesus wants to save them but reject the belief because they're too sinful and prideful. And it's just as unhelpful.

b.) More pertinently, I think it misunderstands what's actually going on.

(This next paragraph is following C.S. Lewis: I have mixed feelings about Lewis but he undoubtedly represents where many Christians are.)

The contention for many Christians isn't that God is personal or impersonal but that he is 'beyond' personality. There are two ways to proceed from here: i.) God can be expressed in personal terms 'by analogy', in the same way that you'd describe a hypercube using cubes, or ii.) God can only be described negatively, in terms of what he isn't (so-called via negativa or apophatic theology, both of which have a long Christian pedigree).

The overall effect is that Christianity as it is taught contains elements of both a personal and impersonal God (corresponding to i. and ii. above); that people who describe God in apparently personal terms may be more 'sophisticated' (to use your term) than they appear; and that people who describe God in impersonal terms may not be as 'liberal' as they sound.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
squibs

When I went to the veritas web site, the first video was to a debate with Peter Singer and someone else. I listened to Peter Singer, and then turned off because it was getting a bit past my bedtime but when I went back today, a different video was in the main place and I couldn't find the othere one. That's what these video /you tube sites do, don't they? I have to say that I find Peter Singer's case very well put, but will do my best to watch the second part with an unprejudiced ear, if you know what the link to that particular video is.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Grokesx:
You should try telling Squibbsbie that.

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quote:

---

That was a quick move of the goalposts there, from doomed vs. bonkers to foolish vs. bonkers.

---

quote:

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Greater "gnus" are dimly aware that there is very tightly argued theology out there that would require a lot of effort to refute.

---

quote:

---

Well, I cannot judge the book since I have not read it. But I have seen Dawkins in several interviews / discussions and this just goes to show that he either lacks self-awareness or is dishonest.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grokesx:
but the hysteria of the reaction from even moderately religious folk and some nominal atheists like the Grauniad's Andrew Brown.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Dionysius the Areopagite

---

[...]
That most people in the west are unfamilliar with a mystic who fell out of favour in Western Europe as a consequence of the Great Schism is neither here nor there.

---

If he fell out of favour as a consequence of the Great Schism, it would be odd he is quoted so frequently by the aforementioned Thomas Aquinas (who indeed wrote a commentary on him); was translated into English in the c14th; and (through conflation with his cephalophoric namesake) was patron saint of France.

(I would suggest a more plausible signpost might be Luther's dismissal of him as 'more of a Platonist than a Christian' The Babylonian Captivity of the Church - in Selected Writings I:461)

This needn't detract from your primary point that ignorance of the influential Corpus Dionsyiacum is unremarkable (howsoever regrettable).
 

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Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
@ Squibs.OK, condensed version.

Me: Gnu Atheism came about as a result of a various shenanigans at the turn of the century – 9/11, the rise of right wing fundamentalism in the US, teach the controversy etc. If it wasn’t for that, most atheists, while still liable to argue the toss about what they see as your touchingly irrational faith in sky daddies/transcendent entities/grounds of all being, wouldn’t be especially interested in dissing religion overmuch.

You: But Dawkins and co are so horrible to us.

Me: Well, they’re atheists, you and them disagree about stuff. But as I said, their current public profile is mostly a reaction against anti-secularism.

You: And Steven Pinker wrote something nasty about Francis Collins.

Me: (Sotto Voce) Actually that was because of Pinker’s( probably misplaced) fears that for Collins there would be a tension between the role of public advocate for science and his high profile advocacy for Christian evangelism, in the public mind at least. But the really interesting thing here is how any criticism of religion is such a big deal in a way that other criticisms never are. Ingo’s got a post up - I’ll kill two birds with stone.

You: (If I’d have said all that out loud.) There you go. You want to kill us. I knew it.

Edited due to inaccuracy - greater than usual that is.

[ 08. November 2012, 23:11: Message edited by: Grokesx ]
 

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Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
@Dafyd.
Busy night tonight.

In my dictionary nominal means in name only. IMO, Brown will give up journalism soon and join a monastery. His hysteria was of the cumulative kind- there was a time when the man was positively obsessed, he could barely let a article out without some reference to Dawkins. I've not read him for a while, but he used to get regularly trounced by his commenters - not by me I hasten to add.

The worst thing about him, though, was that he deleted a whole bunch of my comments once because I called someone batshit insane. The arse.

I don't think I've got the time or energy to shout down all criticism of Dawkins even if I wanted to. For the record, I think The Selfish Gene, The Blind Watchmaker and the Ancestor's Tale are pretty good books and the God Delusion is a bit shit, but for reasons already given, nothing like as militantly vicious as the godded all seem to think it is.

And Ditchkins? You really want to defend that?
 

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Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
@Dafyd

One more thing. In the atheism+ elevatorgate thing, Dawkins's intervention was both stupid and boorish.

Excuse me while I go and excoriate myself.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Just to be clear - when I mention 'B]evidence[/B], I'm talking of evidence for a fine tuned universe made thus by design rather than it being natural.

---

What's your "evidence" for the universe being "natural" rather than designed?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grokesx:
In my dictionary nominal means in name only. IMO, Brown will give up journalism soon and join a monastery.

---

quote:

---

His hysteria was of the cumulative kind- there was a time when the man was positively obsessed, he could barely let a article out without some reference to Dawkins.

---

quote:

---

I've not read him for a while, but he used to get regularly trounced by his commenters

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grokesx:
@ Squibs.OK, condensed version.

Me: Gnu Atheism came about as a result of a various shenanigans at the turn of the century – 9/11, the rise of right wing fundamentalism in the US, teach the controversy etc. If it wasn’t for that, most atheists, while still liable to argue the toss about what they see as your touchingly irrational faith in sky daddies/transcendent entities/grounds of all being, wouldn’t be especially interested in dissing religion overmuch.

You: But Dawkins and co are so horrible to us.

Me: Well, they’re atheists, you and them disagree about stuff. But as I said, their current public profile is mostly a reaction against anti-secularism.

You: And Steven Pinker wrote something nasty about Francis Collins.

Me: (Sotto Voce) Actually that was because of Pinker’s( probably misplaced) fears that for Collins there would be a tension between the role of public advocate for science and his high profile advocacy for Christian evangelism, in the public mind at least. But the really interesting thing here is how any criticism of religion is such a big deal in a way that other criticisms never are. Ingo’s got a post up - I’ll kill two birds with stone.

You: (If I’d have said all that out loud.) There you go. You want to kill us. I knew it.

Edited due to inaccuracy - greater than usual that is.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:

Do you think I'd have done better to wait for decisions to sort of materialise in my brain and then think, ah, that must have been God telling me what to do?

---

quote:

---

My claim is that atheists like Dawkins, Harris, Pinker and others are passionately interested in what role religion plays in public and even private life.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grokesx:

quote:

---

My claim is that atheists like Dawkins, Harris, Pinker and others are passionately interested in what role religion plays in public and even private life.

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And that's the nub. They are interested in the role religion plays in public life, becoming very publicly so after... well, I won't bother repeating it all again.

But in private life? Passionately so? Do you really think so? Examples would be good.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:

quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Just to be clear - when I mention 'B]evidence[/B], I'm talking of evidence for a fine tuned universe made thus by design rather than it being natural.

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What's your "evidence" for the universe being "natural" rather than designed?

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I'll try and come back on that question later, but that short post was just added as a clarification to my comments on the essay. I look forward to your response to that one!

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Originally posted by gorpo:
It´s just that I find misleading to label any of these non-personal (which is not the same as "beyond personal") "gods" as "God". If "God" is not an intelligent creator, doesn´t have a purpouse, etc, why call it "god"? It´s like calling the law of gravity "god". You don´t pray for the laws of nature. And while people might call this a "god" I would still classify them as atheists, since their use of the term is misleading and has nothing to do with the Christian God that spoke to Moses and the prophets. A living God, not merely a principle or a feeling.

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This liberal "god" that so many theologians insist he doesn´t care "who we sleep with", certainly has nothing to do with the God that delivered a lot of do´s and don´t do´s to Moses. So why call it "god" since it has nothing to do with what average people in our culture refer to as God?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ricardus:

quote:

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Originally posted by gorpo:
It´s just that I find misleading to label any of these non-personal (which is not the same as "beyond personal") "gods" as "God". If "God" is not an intelligent creator, doesn´t have a purpouse, etc, why call it "god"? It´s like calling the law of gravity "god". You don´t pray for the laws of nature. And while people might call this a "god" I would still classify them as atheists, since their use of the term is misleading and has nothing to do with the Christian God that spoke to Moses and the prophets. A living God, not merely a principle or a feeling.

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Would you class Daoists as atheists? AIUI the Dao exists but is not personal.

I think it is quite likely that the majority of people who believe in some impersonal force - whether or not they call it God - probably belong to Eastern religions, rather than being post-Christian crypto-atheists.

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quote:

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This liberal "god" that so many theologians insist he doesn´t care "who we sleep with", certainly has nothing to do with the God that delivered a lot of do´s and don´t do´s to Moses. So why call it "god" since it has nothing to do with what average people in our culture refer to as God?

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I think you're conflating different kind of liberal. Certainly the majority of Christians I've encountered who hold liberal views on sexual morality would nonetheless hold that God is either personal or beyond-personal.

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You do not seriously believe Brown is about to join a monastery. (*)

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You're just saying that because he doesn't agree with the approved line on religion

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I've seen a number of atheists post some variant of the following: 'I admit that Dawkins' book is a bit shit and he's arrogant, but how dare you Christians say Dawkins is shit or do anything other than roll over and bask in his radiance, and all the actual examples of Dawkins' arguments are flawless and we hates you we hates you my precious what about 9/11!!!

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Just to be clear - when I mention 'B]evidence[/B], I'm talking of evidence for a fine tuned universe made thus by design rather than it being natural.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:

quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
[QUOTE]
[QUOTE][qb]...and to bring more to the fore scientific evidence to support premises which form the bases for arguments in favour of God's existence.

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Could you give me a link to one of these pieces of scientific evidence which lead to support for premises which in turn lead to the existence of God, i.e. the Christian one? I think the link must be very tenuous.

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You could have a look at
this - try item 4 on the list.

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Thank you! When I said the link must be tenuous, I can see I did not make it clear that I was thinking of the lack of logical steps from one to the other; to arrive at god you have to have one step which is faith without evidence!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Grokesx:
“Atheism is just another myth and why do you evidence daleks have to be so militant?” schtick is identical to much religious argument. You’re not him, are you, BTW?

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
Let me just cover this off since you were so kind as to ask me twice. When you said you used to believe in God I'm not sure what that meant in practice.

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For me, believing in God is more than assent to a set of propositions or just a logical conclusion from the way the universe is constructed, the otherwise inexplicable rise of Christianity from C1 Judaism and the evidence of Jesus's resurrection.

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Someone could make a mental assent to all that but it still not make one whit of difference to the way they live their life.

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Being a Christian is far more profound than that - God, in particular in the person of Jesus Christ, is someone I know. I love Paul's comment the church in Ephesus "Find out what pleases the Lord". So when it comes to making decisions, no I don't wait around for an idea to come into my head and wonder if it's God. I make hundreds of decision every day, most without conscious reference to God at all. Many of these decisions are made out of habits developed whilst being a Christian.

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I know from reading the Bible, and the life of Christ himself, what sorts of things will "please" or disappoint him. That's the way relationships work generally.

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My version of that would be that by reading the Bible you know how wisdom passes from generation to generation and what people have thought God is like, wants etc; so I give the credit where it's due, i.e. to evolved humans, not to their imagined God. I'd also say that all the credit for all the decisions you have ever made is yours ... and the responsibility of course!

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There are other decisions that I make with explicit reference to God. These will be decisions made on the basis of general considerations about what God does and doesn't like, made after discussion with friends who's wisdom I value (believers and non believers) and always through prayer.

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What I discovered after giving up atheism and embracing Christianity was access to whole new dimension of experience - the experience of the spiritual world, and of God in particular.

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Some of the major decisions I made in life have been, to people who aren't believers, quite irrational and contrary to any empirical evidence available. Yet they have resulted in the outcomes I anticipated. For me the reason's very simple - God knows more about what's happening in his universe that anyone I could enquire of, and his guidance was consequently better.

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I don't know if you were ever confident that you had this sort of relationship with God through Jesus.

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If you believed in a God who, for all practical purposes, never did anything you could recognise, I would wonder what the point would be of believing in him as well.

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But God isn't like that. He's there to be known and to be experienced. And after discovering that, atheism is a poor alternative and not one to which I could see any sense in returning.

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It is here that one comes to the fact that God and the divinity of a person believed to be his son, are the only things for which faith without evidence is required. In my opinion, to ascribe so much to God constrains rather than expands greater and extensive understanding.

And thank you so much for the chance to respond as above. I have probably waffled on a bit too much as usual...
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by W Hyatt:
I don't know enough to assess the soundness of the fine-tuning argument for God, but it seems to me to be unfair to ask for evidence that God is responsible for the fine-tuning. If my understanding is correct, the term "fine-tuning" refers to the precise values of the physical constants that appear in the mathematical formulas physicists use to describe the forces that determine how the universe works. As such, they represent, by definition, empirically determined values for forces which cannot be derived from other values: they are the values for which there is no known cause. Therefore, they represent the very concepts for which (it appears) there can be no evidence!

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Now I realize that asking for evidence that God is responsible for them is simply a rhetorical device to point out that there can be no evidence for God (which I agree with), ...

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...but keep in mind that science has identified them as representing the boundary of what can be explained. You don't have to accept my claim that God caused them to be what they are, but I am equally free to dismiss the alternative possibility that they simply are what they are without any cause.

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In the end, there can be no evidence for why the physical constants are what they are and everyone is free to speculate on why. Neither theism nor atheism can claim to be more logically reasonable about what the evidence suggests in that regard because there can be no evidence to suggest anything one way or another.

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quote:

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So why do I choose theism over atheism? Let me answer that in response to the following:

quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:

quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
[QUOTE]
[QUOTE][qb]...and to bring more to the fore scientific evidence to support premises which form the bases for arguments in favour of God's existence.

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Could you give me a link to one of these pieces of scientific evidence which lead to support for premises which in turn lead to the existence of God, i.e. the Christian one? I think the link must be very tenuous.

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You could have a look at
this - try item 4 on the list.

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Thank you! When I said the link must be tenuous, I can see I did not make it clear that I was thinking of the lack of logical steps from one to the other; to arrive at god you have to have one step which is faith without evidence!

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I acknowledge that the link can seem very tenuous if one is not already inclined to believe in a personal God, but my dilemma is that the alternative seems to me to be even more tenuous. I regularly review my own belief in God to see if I really want to keep believing in him. However, whenever I am tempted to embrace atheism, I keep coming up against what I see as a logical conclusion of atheism that I find far more difficult to accept than the existence of God:

If there is no God who created the universe, then absolutely everything in the universe is essentially nothing more than a machine with inert parts or particles that interact mechanistically. So what we perceive as our life, our thoughts, and our emotions can be nothing more than "emergent"* properties of inert matter, albeit extremely complex matter. If I choose to believe that, though, then it seems that I would have to believe that other extremely complex mechanisms capable of similar behavior could potentially experience these same "emergent" properties that I experience. Since the difference between the complexity of my brain and that of current computers is only one of degree, I have to accept that computers can theoretically become at least as complex as my brain (e.g. past the point where they can pass the Turing Test) and could therefore theoretically become sentient.

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... However, I find it far more difficult to believe that a computer could ever possibly experience things at all similar to the way I do than that my own sentience is simply a gift from God.

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I see no way to extrapolate from complex behavior to get to sentience as I experience it.

So I'm very interested to know how you, and anyone else, thinks about this: do you believe that a computer could even theoretically experience its own "life" and "thoughts" the way
people do?

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quote:

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Or do you see a hole in my thinking that leads me to see that as a logical conclusion of atheism?

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* I use scare quotes around "emergent" because the very fact that I experience them as an observer means that they are more than mere properties to be observed.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
So why do you think the idea of God/god/s arose in people's minds in the first place?

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quote:

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But it is your clever, infinitely complex evolved brain which thinks the thought that the 'emergent properties' are more than mere properties to be observed. All events which occur outside our brains are known through the senses and we list the properties, examine them, see how they interact with the universe, how they have adapted as the universe changes, etc.

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
I think I'm okay with that - that the idea of a first cause can be considered from many points of view but if there is no evidence for any of those points of view, then they are not independent ideas I think. Hmmm.

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
The word 'metaphysical' always seems to blur clarity a bit in my opinion. I'm probably quite wrong, but only having come across it when I was older, I avoid it!

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
As soon as one starts thinking of the god idea and applying our evolved human reason to nature instead of observing and recording directly and checking that such things are indeed independently verifiable, then one loses the impartiality needed to come to a true conclusion.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
May I suggest that, rather than 'charmingly', which could sound just the teensiest bit condescending! the word 'evidentially', might work better?!

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
There used to be in my brain a spot that had a Godd in it, but rationality, evidence, etc etc meant that I erased it and was complete. ... Looking baqck, I realise that I was the child who always asked, 'Why?' and , 'Is this TRUE?' I suppose I have a natural (and that of course is genetic) confidence, and have never, for example, felt shy!

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
He said there was an 'intuitive implausibility' about fine tuning ... well, that intuition is correct! the idea of a fine-tuned universe, particularly one supposedly created by A. N. Other, is just that, completely implausible.

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
However, amongst all those many thousands of words (I would be interested to know approx how many actually!) there wasn't one which provided evidence for the God/mind/power/whatever. If you think they are there and ccan quote the words or section, please let me know.

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
A phrase that kep coming up was'the atheist single universe hypothesis'. A phrase which jarred on me every time it occurred. ... What do you think about the phrase?

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Did you know when you were young, as I did not, that the virgin birth/resurrection/etc stories were based on more ancient Sumerian, Egyptian and Greek stories, which were it must be assumed based on even older ones?

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
One atheist poster I know would say, and I know it might sound a little cynical but I think he's right, something llike, 'Funny how what God likes happens to be the way of behaving that is the culture of the people saying this.'

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
As an atheist, I know that all the thoughts and experiences I have, whether spiritual or not, are entirely from my brain; from its ability to think and create.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:

quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
So why do you think the idea of God/god/s arose in people's minds in the first place?

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quote:

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But it is your clever, infinitely complex evolved brain which thinks the thought that the 'emergent properties' are more than mere properties to be observed. All events which occur outside our brains are known through the senses and we list the properties, examine them, see how they interact with the universe, how they have adapted as the universe changes, etc.

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Perhaps you've answered your own question?

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Physical cosmology just doesn't really feature in this discussion.

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Unfortunately, if you reject metaphysics, ...

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then there's basically nothing left to argue... about as far as God's existence is concerned.

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Modern natural science is by design incapable of telling us anything about God,....

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... since it merely concerns itself with regular relationships between observable entities.

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...If you conclude from modern natural science to atheism, for example, then you are necessarily making a metaphysical move, whether you acknowledge that or not.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
As soon as one starts thinking of the god idea and applying our evolved human reason to nature instead of observing and recording directly and checking that such things are indeed independently verifiable, then one loses the impartiality needed to come to a true conclusion.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
May I suggest that, rather than 'charmingly', which could sound just the teensiest bit condescending! the word 'evidentially', might work better?!

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It is great that you are such a wonderful person.

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The question is: can you deal with the fact that other people come to different conclusions than you, without being irrational...

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Or do you have to believe that people disagree with you because they are less than you?

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The fine-tuning of the universe is a fact. Or perhaps better, it is a conclusion from currently available data using current scientific theory. The question is not whether the universe is fine-tuned or not - on the best of current knowledge it is - but whether one requires a fine-tuner to explain this.

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The article has 10,166 words, by Microsoft Word's counting. It does a fair job of summarising the scientific evidence for a fine-tuned universe (in section "Introduction"), ...

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This one would normally consider as a valid way of "providing evidence for God". Since you do not, I think we need to hear from you a very clear definition of what you would consider as actually providing evidence for God.

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You shouldn't uncritically swallow even the claim that there are clear parallels.

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Perhaps you "know" that as a materialist, but not as an atheist.

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...I would be rather keen to hear how you came to "know" this.

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
I don't see why causality can't be circular. I'm pretty sure it isn't but it is no more logically difficult to imagine than causality extending back infinitely. Imagine a circular train track, train A hits train B which, going round the track, hits train A again. In an imaginary, friction free world it would go on for ever.

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quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
Godel showed that the General Theory of Relativity did not forbid circular time see wiki. Godel's metric is weird. 40 years ago I sort of understood this stuff but my time hasn't gone in a circle yet so I don't now! Godel's metric allows an exact solution to the field equations and depends on wholly unlikely boundary condition but it makes the point that there could universes in which time is circular. Once you've found one solution to a set of equations there could be others we have yet to find. I think Godel invented this to annoy Einstein but it still persists as a problem. Careful theoretical physicists sometimes prefix their proofs with 'assuming no causal anomalies'.

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quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
Your examples are carefully worded to avoid howlers like protons being made from quarks and quarks from .... which wouldn't involve any causation but might involve infinite complexity (which again seems logically possible).

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quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
However statements like the resistance against gravity that the table offers, which is caused by molecular forces could be rephrased the molecular forces are the resistance against gravity that the table offers. Do we have any logical grounds for denying infinite depth of causation in this form? I can't see why, obviously you would have to drop the speed of light as upper limit of information flow but that is a contingent fact which may only apply at certain 'levels' of existence.

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quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
As indeed could many things. The first cause, as you say, may be wholly alien to us: perhaps so peculiar we can't even begin to understand it in our terms. I would be very surprised if it was quite so anthropomorphic as many people seem to imagine (having a 'personal' nature for example).

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quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
Well I don't see 'being' as a predicate. No being, no entity I'd say.

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quote:

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Originally posted by que sais-je:
Of course the UFC could have made independent entities with the power to create other entities out of nothing maybe. And if UFC gave them free will the sense in which every thing comes from the UFC while still true becomes deeply tangled up in what we mean by 'caused'.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
So why do you think the idea of God/god/s arose in people's minds in the first place?

---

quote:

---

quote:

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...but keep in mind that science has identified them as representing the boundary of what can be explained. You don't have to accept my claim that God caused them to be what they are, but I am equally free to dismiss the alternative possibility that they simply are what they are without any cause.

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But as I do not suppose a God, I know we don't know what came before the 'big bang' or 'bounce' but will probably workit out one day later if not sooner. If you suppose a god, then you have immediately supposed a whole set of complexities such as purpose, however hard you try not to do so, I think.

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quote:

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quote:

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In the end, there can be no evidence for why the physical constants are what they are and everyone is free to speculate on why. Neither theism nor atheism can claim to be more logically reasonable about what the evidence suggests in that regard because there can be no evidence to suggest anything one way or another.

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Yes, but as time has gone on, more and more theories about the science and maths of the univers have been produced, tested and found to be independently verifiable about the way things happened and actual evidence for God has not risen above zero, has it?

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quote:

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I'm going to have to read that a few more times, but initial response is: but all computers are made by humans and it would be humans who would supply the coding or whatever it is which would enable computers to become independent of humans.

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quote:

---

quote:

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... However, I find it far more difficult to believe that a computer could ever possibly experience things at all similar to the way I do than that my own sentience is simply a gift from God.

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Why does that make it more relevant or of more value than if it evolved naturally? (which is 'the Magic of Reality')

---

quote:

---

quote:

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I see no way to extrapolate from complex behavior to get to sentience as I experience it.
So I'm very interested to know how you, and anyone else, thinks about this: do you believe that a computer could even theoretically experience its own "life" and "thoughts" the way
people do?

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Only if programmed to do so by humans and I have every confidence that humans will always be ahead of computers..

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quote:

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quote:

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* I use scare quotes around "emergent" because the very fact that I experience them as an observer means that they are more than mere properties to be observed.

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But it is your clever, infinitely complex evolved brain which thinks the thought that the 'emergent properties' aare more than mere properties to be observed.] All events which occur outside our brains are known through the senses and we list the properties, examine them, see how they interact with the universe, how they have adapted as the universe changes, etc.

---

quote:

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Very interesting - thank you!

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quote:

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Originally posted by Doublethink:
SusanDoris, might I suggest that instead of using multiple quotes - you assume folk following the thread will have read the relevant posts, and only quote when you really need to.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
[qb] @Susan Doris. You asked

Did you know when you were young, as I did not, that the virgin birth/resurrection/etc stories were based on more ancient Sumerian, Egyptian and Greek stories, which were it must be assumed based on even older ones? That's the human brain's creative ability and positive response to the colourful narrative which must have been one of the principal factors that kept human groups close and enabled them to pass on acquired knowledge and survive.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

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Originally posted by Doublethink:
SusanDoris, might I suggest that instead of using multiple quotes - you assume folk following the thread will have read the relevant posts, and only quote when you really need to.

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Thank you. However, I rely on using S/N* and being able to put the section I am responding to immediately above my response and deleting the bits which don't apply is, I have found, the most efficient way of doing this.

*DolphinUK SuperNova 13 software with magnification, good ol' Synthetic Dave screen reader and an automatic virtual focus.

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quote:

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Originally posted by W Hyatt:
Since I believe that God exists, I think the idea of God came from Him. If I were to believe that there is no God, then I would think that people came up with the idea on their own to satisfy some need or desire.

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quote:

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I'm pretty sure physicists have already worked out that there can never be any information about before the Big Bang, and even that time itself started with the Big Bang (but I'm always happy to be corrected).

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quote:

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supposing that there is a god, I agree, but supposing that there is no god would present an even bigger problem for me (as I described in my previous post).

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...how did our brains evolve to acquire the ability to be aware of and observe their own activity and the world around us if they are essentially nothing more than inert matter?

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That's far more difficult for me to accept as fitting the evidence compared to the idea of God being the source of it all.

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For me to believe otherwise would require some evidence that complexity by itself can be sufficient to give rise to awareness. Without such evidence, though, I find that idea just as ludicrous as you find the idea of God.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Thank you for response. How do you think God gave people the idea? Was it an idea in their heads? I agree with you that it almost certainly a need, an evolved brain had this need to wonder why and ask questions; so they couldn't stop themselves!

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From the abstract Deist/Theist/Pantheist God-like thing of the first cause type arguments.
Kind of in their heads. But in a way much more like we invented/discovered 'Infinity' rather than like inventing/discovering 'Harry Potter'.

From any specific religious perspective though we have interaction and reporting of said interaction.
If the bible is to be believed, we have a people that had 40 years of national direct revelation of God, plus more indirectly via the judges and prophets.

Mind you if the book of Mormon is to be believed then we have some golden spectacles... so one of the evidences is fraudulent/mistaken/etc...

And for pretty much anything there's multiple alternative more or less unlikely explanation*.

And once you've decided there is no God concept, then one of those alternatives for each has to be true. Although once you settle on one God concept, you have to do the same (though you do have some politer options).

But you can't (legitimately) then use that as a predicate to prove God's non-existence (or existence in a nature), actually you have to be extremely careful even using it to compute reasonable doubt.
It just means in that respect you're being self consistent, which is good and reassuring and fine for intra-group debates.

You can of course debate the texts/etc...
If,say, you find that God must be diverting raw sewage from a stature and adding tears. Then you've got a very good case, even as a believer, to prefer the mundane explaination and not the miracle proposed.
Lourdes on the other hand, is a bit closer, it could be atheist-chance (I'm not sure what the odds are, especially as people mess up the test by praying for non-goers )/fakery. It could be providence.
The Dead Sea event (if you were an eye-witness and it happened as described) you need to postulate something odd. But note even as recorded the Israelites still managed to forget it and pass it off. I bet me, Rowan, Dawkin's, and you would too.

*There's a quote, I think by Pratchett that's on the tip of my tongue and I can't quite recall it.
 

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Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
I appreciate that linear time is not absolutely defined, but I don't see how you can leave 'physical cosmology' out of it. We're physical beings in a physical universe and any other universe, while apparently theoretically possible with maths and string theory, is imaginary, or hypothetical? for the moment.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
True, if 'argument' is to be in the 'language' and terms of philosophy, but I think that brings us back to the God, belief in which requires faith without (testable, measurable) evidence.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
What do you mean by 'by design'? That sounds as if you think the scientific method deliberately rejects any reasonable hypothesis and associated experiments which might show objectively the existence of God.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Are you using the word 'modern' to include work of the last five centuries or so?

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
'Applying human reason to nature' is not what scientists do, is it? They observe and record.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
This one would normally consider as a valid way of "providing evidence for God". Since you do not, I think we need to hear from you a very clear definition of what you would consider as actually providing evidence for God.

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That sounds like a different way of putting the request for ' please prove the negative.' If God were the 'most likely' answer, then that means that all the non'God explanations have to be demolished first.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
On what grounds do you think I 'uncritically swallow' such ideas? That is in fact a completely wrong suggestion.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
If the bible is to be believed, we have a people that had 40 years of national direct revelation of God, plus more indirectly via the judges and prophets.

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It's that little word 'if' at the beginning of that sentence that's the problem, isn't it?
 

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Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
@ mdijon

quote:

---

I haven't read about this Brown guy before, but I'm fascinated by this line. It seems to parallel the Christian's world of "you're not a real Christian even though you say you believe in God and Jesus because you don't have the right doctrine on transubstantiation".

Now we have an atheist saying that a guy who claims not to believe in God isn't really an atheist because of doctrinal weakness and overly-resembling a religious argument on some point.

---

Well, atheism is a broad church and I can only speak on the doctrine of my denomination of one, but the nearest comparison of Brown I can think of was in Father Ted, when Dougal said something like, "All that stuff they taught in seminary about hell and eternal life, you're not meant to take it seriously, Ted."

I'm not sure I'm going too far out on a limb in my opinion that Brown may be on some sort of journey towards the light - he said in his comments section once (I've not got a link, you can believe me or not) that the more he heard atheist arguments against the existence of God, the less convinced he was.

Mind you, I used the word "schtick" for a reason - I'm not sure how much of what goes out under the name of Andrew Brown, editor of the Guardian's Belief section and anxious for page views and comments reflects the views of Andrew Brown the man.

Crikey, when I typed the word "nominal" I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.
 

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Posted by Drewthealexander (# 16660) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
If the bible is to be believed, we have a people that had 40 years of national direct revelation of God, plus more indirectly via the judges and prophets.

---

It's that little word 'if' at the beginning of that sentence that's the problem, isn't it?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Grokesx:


Crikey, when I typed the word "nominal" I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

---

But that's the point me old salt - no-one expects the Spanish Inquisiton
 

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Posted by Jay-Emm (# 11411) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
If the bible is to be believed, we have a people that had 40 years of national direct revelation of God, plus more indirectly via the judges and prophets.

---

It's that little word 'if' at the beginning of that sentence that's the problem, isn't it?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
the "scientific method", pioneered by Francis Bacon of the Order of Friars Minor

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
I have to say I find that experience you describe completely alien, Ramarius. I'm left holding onto belief in a God, who, in your words, never does anything I can recognise. At least not for certain. There are events I can interpret as God's activity, but I'm far from certain that it's anything other than wishful thinking and pattern recognition - humans are so good at recognising patterns that we often recognise ones that don't exist, which is why people still believe in horoscopes.

So I think I know where SusanDoris is coming from. A belief in a God who despite our deepest desires, seems absent to the point you wonder if he's just not there at all. I do not know what your "whole new dimension of experience" means at all.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:
@Susan Doris. You asked

Did you know when you were young, as I did not, that the virgin birth/resurrection/etc stories were based on more ancient Sumerian, Egyptian and Greek stories, which were it must be assumed based on even older ones? That's the human brain's creative ability and positive response to the colourful narrative which must have been one of the principal factors that kept human groups close and enabled them to pass on acquired knowledge and survive.

I didn't know this when I was young. After four years academic study of ancient religion I know now this is complete nonsense. I see IngoB has given you something to read on this.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grokesx:
@Squibs
I don’t really know what to say. Your original comment (apart from bemoaning the state of Dawkins’s knowledge of Aquinas, which is in the same territory I addressed in a reply to Ingo) just states your opinion that the gnus want to extinguish all religious faith. I don’t believe that to be the case and have offered a few thoughts on the matter from my side of the fence.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Interesting. On another forum I sometimes challenge those who claim they have 'reached a higher level of consciousness', or have 'expanded' their consciousness; this is done because of various supernatural powers and writings of mystics, etc. They can never explain what or where these 'levels' are, but know that they can 'reach' them, but atheists cannot! Those who think this, achieved through special interpretation of mystic texts - which, when quoted, read more like psychic babble, etc, seem unable to consider that they are not more special than those of us who interpret things in a more practical way! I think that's 'special pleading'?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
So, if it seems at all attractive to you to sit quietly for a while, doing nothing: do. Say every other day, for at least half an hour, for a year or so. Consider that as an experiment in mysticism. What can half an hour of quiet do, after all? Oh, what can it do...

I should probably advise that you seek skilled counsel in doing this. But then, who would an atheist turn to without compromising their beloved "objectivity"? So, in all fairness, be warned that you may find things in silence that are ... not easy to handle.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Grokesx:
(I've not got a link, you can believe me or not)

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quote:

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Originally posted by Grokesx:
Crikey, when I typed the word "nominal" I didn't expect the Spanish Inquisition.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
The field of mysticism ...

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quote:

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Yet it is also true that (in my estimate) about half of the population has some talent for contemplation, and that (in my experience) they will typically have some mystical experience within a year or so of none too strenuous contemplative practice.

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quote:

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The nice thing about specifically Christian mysticism is that it is not gnostic. Mystical knowledge is not necessary for one's salvation, and it does not reveal anything beyond the Divine revelation accessible to all.

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quote:

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Anyway, it is quite true that no atheist can have mystical experiences...

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quote:

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See for example this article.

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I have read through, but it seems to talk mainly of early AD centuries. I do not have the links to the evidence for the Christian story being one in a series of such stories, but have seen many over the years and they make sense to me!
 

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Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by Adeodatus:

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
So, if it seems at all attractive to you to sit quietly for a while, doing nothing: do. Say every other day, for at least half an hour, for a year or so. Consider that as an experiment in mysticism. What can half an hour of quiet do, after all? Oh, what can it do...

I should probably advise that you seek skilled counsel in doing this. But then, who would an atheist turn to without compromising their beloved "objectivity"? So, in all fairness, be warned that you may find things in silence that are ... not easy to handle.

---

I think m'learned friend meant to say, "Don't blame us if things happen that makes you feel like your brain's been in a blender and is now dribbling out of your ear."

Superb post, IngoB.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Who do we blame if nothing happens at all?

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quote:

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Originally posted by the long ranger:
Can anyone explain how you know that atheists don't spend time in silence and/or that they tried and nothing happened?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
I'd bet good money that the times when nothing happens are vanishingly rare. When a person spends their life being busy, talkative and noisy, and suddenly goes into a long period of silence and inactivity, I'd guess that there are at least physiological adjustments the body has to make due to the change of pace. You often see this on day 2 or 3 of a silent retreat - disturbed sleeping patterns, anxiety, headaches. It's what happens (or doesn't) after that that's the fun part. It's not an accident that, before you take on a 30-day retreat with the Jesuits, you need to tell them about your state of mental health (or you used to, at least in this country).

---

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Anyway, it is quite true that no atheist can have mystical experiences. But not because atheism gets in the way of mystical experience, but because mystical experience gets in the way of atheism. (Note that here I'm thinking of the typical materialist Western atheism, not of the kind of spiritual atheism that Buddhism represents.) Contemplation represents a challenge to atheism: it is something that probably about 50% of atheists could get seriously into, yet if they would, they would not remain as they are. Of that I am sure...

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
So, if it seems at all attractive to you to sit quietly for a while, doing nothing: do. Say every other day, for at least half an hour, for a year or so. Consider that as an experiment in mysticism. What can half an hour of quiet do, after all? Oh, what can it do...

I should probably advise that you seek skilled counsel in doing this. But then, who would an atheist turn to without compromising their beloved "objectivity"? So, in all fairness, be warned that you may find things in silence that are ... not easy to handle.

---

I think m'learned friend meant to say, "Don't blame us if things happen that makes you feel like your brain's been in a blender and is now dribbling out of your ear."

Superb post, IngoB.

---

Who do we blame if nothing happens at all?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by the long ranger:
Yes, I can see that would be highly likely. I suppose I'm referring to IngoB's stance which seems to suggest that something spiritual will happen to anyone who exposes themselves to silence. As if silence inevitably leads to a spiritual experience with a deity.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
It's not an accident that, before you take on a 30-day retreat with the Jesuits, you need to tell them about your state of mental health (or you used to, at least in this country).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Lord Jestocost:

quote:

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Originally posted by Adeodatus:
It's not an accident that, before you take on a 30-day retreat with the Jesuits, you need to tell them about your state of mental health (or you used to, at least in this country).

---

Can this not be inferred from the fact that you're considering taking on a 30-day retreat with the Jesuits?

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Are you suggesting that I might undergo a psychotic breakdown after about 15 days of seeing someone celebrate Mass wearing jeans, a chunky sweater and a knitted stole?

'Cos you're right ...
 

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Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Do you think that whatever they 'experience' is being put into their brains by some outside force, or something? I think that confirmation bias would be very difficult to avoid.

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quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
'divine revelation' sounds like existing outside of human brains/imagination? How can you differentiate it from the millions of other thoughts of which the brain is capable, I wonder?

---

quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Rather than sitting contemplating - which I did seriously and genuinely I assure you try a few years ago, but found it just doesn't suit me - I think and put the world to rights while I'm out on my long sunday morning walk. Thank you for the interesting info though.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Who do we blame if nothing happens at all?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by the long ranger:
I suppose I'm referring to IngoB's stance which seems to suggest that something spiritual will happen to anyone who exposes themselves to silence. As if silence inevitably leads to a spiritual experience with a deity.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justinian:
I've had numerous mystical experiences in my life, most recently some shamanic work over Samhain including meeting my totem animal (a spider if anyone cares, which isn't the animal I expected). I also grew up half-Quaker. Mystical experiences are not a foreign thing to me.

---

quote:

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Originally posted by Justinian:
Contemplation in one tradition represents a challenge to atheism, although not an overwhelming one. Contemplation in more than one represents a vast challenge to monotheism.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
In a previous post, you said:
[QUOTE]See for example this article.

---

I have read through, but it seems to talk mainly of early AD centuries. I do not have the links to the evidence for the Christian story being one in a series of such stories, but have seen many over the years and they make sense to me!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justinian:


I've had numerous mystical experiences in my life, most recently some shamanic work over Samhain including meeting my totem animal (a spider if anyone cares, which isn't the animal I expected). I also grew up half-Quaker. Mystical experiences are not a foreign thing to me. It is, however, part of what convinces me that the something that there is is what we bring to the party rather than an externally existing God, let alone any of the versions of Christianity (I'm more sympathetic to Paganism or even Wicca* than I am to the basic premises of Christianity).

* And yes, I know the history.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Justinian:

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
Anyway, it is quite true that no atheist can have mystical experiences. But not because atheism gets in the way of mystical experience, but because mystical experience gets in the way of atheism. (Note that here I'm thinking of the typical materialist Western atheism, not of the kind of spiritual atheism that Buddhism represents.) Contemplation represents a challenge to atheism: it is something that probably about 50% of atheists could get seriously into, yet if they would, they would not remain as they are. Of that I am sure...

---

It's always nice to hear I don't exist.

I've had numerous mystical experiences in my life, most recently some shamanic work over Samhain including meeting my totem animal (a spider if anyone cares, which isn't the animal I expected). I also grew up half-Quaker. Mystical experiences are not a foreign thing to me. It is, however, part of what convinces me that the something that there is is what we bring to the party rather than an externally existing God, let alone any of the versions of Christianity (I'm more sympathetic to Paganism or even Wicca* than I am to the basic premises of Christianity).

Contemplation in one tradition represents a challenge to atheism, although not an overwhelming one. Contemplation in more than one represents a vast challenge to monotheism.

* And yes, I know the history.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
What is important is simply that contingent entities require an (explanatory) cause.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Thank you for your interesting post, which I have listened carefully through several times.

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
What is important is simply that contingent entities require an (explanatory) cause.

---

Things may 'require' an explanatory cause, but if that cause is not yet known, it has to remain an unknown, not be given a goddidit or any other similar response.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ramarius:

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Things may 'require' an explanatory cause, but if that cause is not yet known, it has to remain an unknown, not be given a goddidit or any other similar response.

---

So whatever the explanation is, it can't be - and never can be - God.

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quote:

---

You have decided God doesn't exist, so any argument to the contrary, however logical or convincing, must be rejected.

---

quote:

---

That's a statement of faith if ever there was one.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Karl

But do you think that people are actually drawn towards God via logical argument?

Perhaps that is true. I have a fantasy of crowds storming churches, shouting, 'kalam, kalam!'

It just sounds arid to me.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
Believing in God is much more logical than not believing in God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
Believing there is a cause and a purpose and a meaning and and endpoint to creation makes much, much, more sense than none of that.

---

quote:

---

Atheism is highly irrational.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
Believing there is a cause and a purpose and a meaning and and endpoint to creation makes much, much, more sense than none of that.

---

No it doesn't. See, we can both assert.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
Believing there is a cause and a purpose and a meaning and and endpoint to creation makes much, much, more sense than none of that.

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No it doesn't. See, we can both assert.

---

Good argument. Highly logical.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong
Believing in God is much more logical than not believing in God.

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Is this argument by assertion or are you going to expand on this one?

---

quote:

---

“Evolutionary naturalism implies that we shouldn’t take any of our convictions seriously, including the scientific world picture on which evolutionary naturalism itself depends.”

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quote:

---

“…neurology causes adaptive behavior and also causes or determines belief content [according to naturalism]: but there is no reason to suppose that the belief content thus determined is true. All that’s required for survival and fitness is that the neurology cause adaptive behavior; this neurology also determines belief content, but whether or not that content is true makes no difference to fitness. Certain NP [neuro-physiological] properties are selected for, because they contribute to fitness. These NP properties also cause or determine belief content; they associate a content or proposition with each belief. The NP properties are selected, however, not because they cause the content they do, but because they cause adaptive behavior. If the content, the proposition determined by the neurology (the NP properties of the belief) is true, fine. But if it is false, that’s no problem as far as fitness goes.”

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Karl

But do you think that people are actually drawn towards God via logical argument?

Perhaps that is true. I have a fantasy of crowds storming churches, shouting, 'kalam, kalam!'

It just sounds arid to me.

---

No, but I don't think they're going to bother looking for him if they have no good reason to suppose he's there at all to be drawn to.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
Natural selection operates in a utilitarian way ...

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:

Certainly the validity of reason itself only makes sense if it has its source in an unchanging (and therefore truly objective) rationality, rather than in changeable, mindless matter.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
It's a reflection of yours. Something does not become logical and make sense just because you say it does or want it to.

---

This is one of those really disturbing moments when I find myself agreeing with Evensong. However you are completely right that she made no argument for her position, only an assertion.

EtymologicalEvangelical provided a good argument which is the fact that strict naturalism is self-contradictory in the sense that it has to be built on a premise which is at odds with itself. That doesn't necessarily make it untrue however.

Similarly many atheists are believers in the Multi-verse or Steady-state universe in some form. Which again is entirely reasonable but problematic if you believe 'scientific-truth' is the only kind of real truth.

Of course, ANYONE who disagrees with me is being irrational...

AFZ
 

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Posted by quetzalcoatl (# 16740) on :
 
You can of course argue that science does not aim for truth or the nature of reality. I suppose 'truth' is ambiguous here, since there is intra-theoretic truth, as opposed to 'it is true that atoms really exist' type truth.

I have always assumed that the latter is not a scientific claim, but a philosophical one, but this seems to arouse great anger in some people, and I have had photos of atoms thrust under my nose, with the injunction, look, that's real. Hmm.

Science makes observations about appearances, but if you want to argue that those appearances are reality, you can do, but that is not a scientific argument ...

Oh, noes, not this one again. (Sound of loud shot off-stage, and crash of falling body).
 

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Posted by que sais-je (# 17185) on :
 

quote:

---

Originally posted by alienfromzog:

Similarly many atheists are believers in the Multi-verse or Steady-state universe in some form. Which again is entirely reasonable but problematic if you believe 'scientific-truth' is the only kind of real truth.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
I provided a logical argument.

You just said it wasn't and provided no logical argument in return.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I see it as a bit like girls - which one turns you on? Go with her.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I see it as a bit like girls - which one turns you on? Go with her.

---

What when she'd rather stick her legs in a blender though? Aye, there's the rub.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I see it as a bit like girls - which one turns you on? Go with her.

---

What when she'd rather stick her legs in a blender though? Aye, there's the rub.

---

Interesting point. Yes, you could be attracted to a religion or a way of life or a woman or man who is very bad for you.

I did that when I was in my 20s and 30s, and I guess I learned from it, and realized I could choose a religion and a way of life and a woman who is good for me.

In fact, in my 20s, I was a atheist, and that was effing boring, but then I found God, and she was very sexy. Well, that's the story as I tell it. Who knows if it has been subject to a renarrativization?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by que sais-je

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
Natural selection operates in a utilitarian way ...

---

What evidence do you have for this? Utilitarianism is usually defined as being about the greatest good (or least harm) for the greatest number. I see no evidence that any 20th believer in evolution holds a view that somehow it has produced the greatest good. Evolution has followed one of many possible pathways and we've ended up here. If it hadn't SoF might well be populated by slug or dolphin descendants for all anyone knows. Who claims this evolutionary is outcome better than others, and for whom?

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

according to naturalism, ideas must have arisen for this purpose, which, of course, tells us nothing about their truth status.

---

So walking in front of a fast moving vehicle may, in truth, be a good thing but we don't do it for the silly evolutionary reason that it tends to reduce our survival chances.

---

quote:

---

quote:

---

Therefore naturalism is epistemologically self-defeating

---

I don't see why. Epistemology is about ideas, not how ideas come into existence. I could create new ideas using a random proposition generator and, as you say, their truth would be quite independent of their method of production. Deciding which are true doesn't depend on their genesis.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Why is it always a logical argument that atheists want? Would you want a logical argument that love exists, for example?

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quote:

---

I would think that many things in life are not discovered via logical argument, but through experience, and learning, and wisdom.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical:
I am using the term 'utilitarian' (not 'utilitarianism', which you implied I had used) in the more general sense of 'useful', which, of course, implies seeking the greatest good (at least for oneself).

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
Believing in God is much more logical than not believing in God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I suppose so. I would say that looking is a big obstacle to finding! But maybe that is an idiosyncratic view, I'm not sure. I just think that looking sets up a dualistic system of subject/object, in which the divine can't get a look in. This means that letting go is the key, including letting go of concepts about God. Perhaps this is not very Christian!

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris: Okay, but when someone has named and experienced them, they can be studied and their source (probably logical!) found.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
I provided a logical argument.

You just said it wasn't and provided no logical argument in return.

---

No you didn't. You just said "it makes more sense" with zero justification for why "it makes more sense". It was pure assertion.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
]

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
The term 'externally existing God' is a bit of a can of worms, as some mystics would in any case argue against this, since a non-dualist experience collapses the internal and external into one, or One, if you want to be fussy about it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
What is important is simply that contingent entities require an (explanatory) cause.

---

Things may 'require' an explanatory cause, but if that cause is not yet known, it has to remain an unknown, not be given a goddidit or any other similar response.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Certainly not; as soon as there is a logical argument, then atheists will be convinced of God's existence. And, somewhat at a tangent, I wonder what you make of all the other gods that are worshipped by other religions?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by SusanDoris:
But love does 'exist' in the sense that it is a word chosen to name an emotion caused by various chemical reactions in the brain and producing certain physical effects.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by IngoB:
.... We are not saying "goddidit" to anything to which you (or rather I, as a working scientist...) may attribute a physical cause. Rather, by examining how physical causes "stack" on top of each other in an explanatory fashion, we conclude that they cannot provide an ultimate explanatory cause.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Evensong:
I provided a logical argument.

You just said it wasn't and provided no logical argument in return.

---

No you didn't. You just said "it makes more sense" with zero justification for why "it makes more sense". It was pure assertion.

---

Well it does make more sense. Why do you think it doesn't?

---

quote:

---

Believing we came from nothing and believing there is a purpose to something existing rather than nothing existing makes it much more reasonable and logical to believe in God.

---

quote:

---

Why is that an assertion and not logical and reasonable statement?

---

quote:

---

Or is it only an assertion because you disagree with it?

---

quote:

---

If you think it is illogical or unreasonable then you should be able to assert why it is not logical or reasonable.

---

quote:

---

Neither of which you have been able to do.

Therefore it is still logical and reasonable.

---

quote:

---

Ergo, believing in God is more logical than not believing in God.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Ikkyu:
Aristotle had good rational grounds to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. But this notion did not survive very long when confronted with experiment. The reason it took so long to get beyond the ideas of Aristotle in many scientific fields was that people used to reason like you do.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
People over thousands of years have had religious experiences, and their source has been identified as God. Again, this can't be studied and there's no logic to it.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Interestingly (imv) if it could be studied, there would be a human way to put God to the test, and as God is God, existing as a living being with a will, God can't be tested by people.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by que sais-je:
What I didn't understand in your original argument to am first cause was why they was only one uncaused cause I'll say UCC). Are you assuming that all causal chains trace back to a single UCC? This is a point I've often pondered over and have never found well described.

There could have been infinitely many UCCs each starting to a new sequence of causes and effects. They may be happening now and everywhere and may cause different things and indeed UCCs could be of infinitely many different kinds. Like (and this is just a metaphor) virtual particle pairs emerging from the quantum vacuum.

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
What reason do you have for supposing that existence should have a purpose?

---

quote:

---

Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider

quote:

---

Why is that an assertion and not logical and reasonable statement?

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Because you've not demonstrated any actual reasoning. It looks like "I want there to be meaning to existence therefore there is."
[/QB]

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quote:

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Believing there is a cause and a purpose and a meaning and and endpoint to creation makes much, much, more sense than none of that.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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If you think it is illogical or unreasonable then you should be able to assert why it is not logical or reasonable.

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No; you're making the assertion that it's more reasonable and more logical, therefore the onus is on you to demonstrate that it is.

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Evensong

I think you are equivocating between causes and reasons, but they are not the same. So you are almost going from cause to purpose, which is illegitimate.

It is a difficult area to discuss as so many words are ambiguous. For example, the cause of the kettle boiling could be said to be the application of heat, and the laws of physics, or it could be said to be my wish for a cup of tea. A lot of arguments use an equivocation between such sub-meanings.

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I'm afraid I'm not following you quetzel.

Cause cannot be correlated with purpose? Why not?

Is it not more reasonable and logical and rational to assume that if something exists (rather than doesn't exist), there is some reason for it?

I exist.

I'm not entirely sure why. And the question has bugged the hell out of me since I was 15.

But the bugging is there because it's reasonable to assume my existence must have a purpose.

I had a major epiphany about three years ago that made me realise I exist to enjoy life and help others enjoy life too.

Viola. Cause meets purpose.
 

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Posted by Truman White (# 17290) on :
 
@Karl, @Evensong

Afternoon lovely people. Can I have a go at finding something you might both agree on? How about if we said that atheism lacks the explanatory power of theism? Here's a starer for ten on that one.

Gregory E Gannssle (in Contending with  Christianity and its critics Chapter 6, Copan and Graig 2009) gives four reasons to conclude that the universe makes more sense if designed than if not.

First, because it's ordered. Theists affirm that a universe designed by God is the result of purposeful action and made for reasons. An ordered universe not only fits better with theism it is exactly what we would expect if it was designed. A naturalistic universe could also be ordered, but it could equally be chaotic. A designed universe could not. Einstein wrote : 'The most incomprehensible thing about the universe is that it is comprehensible.' Cool quote.

Second, because of consciousness. If God exists, the primary thing that exists is a conscious Mind. If such a conscious Mind chooses to create, it would hardly be surprising that, as part of its creative action, it chooses to create other conscious minds. But I reckon this is a real problem for naturalism. Naturalism is faced with the need to explain how conscious minds evolved from non conscious minds. There is no explanation for why this should have happened. 

Third, because of free agency. In a naturalistic universe that is ordered enough to sustain complex life, we would expect events to flow from previous events. We would not expect it to produce beings that could purposefully initiate new chains of events. And yet this is the sort of agency we have. If God exists, he created the universe out of his own free agency rather than being constrained by factors outside himself. That he would create other beings with the same free agency seems perfectly consistent with the kind of being he is. 

Finally, (this is a nice one) because of the Earth's suitability as a place from which to study the universe. We are, on planet earth, remarkably well placed to make rational investigations of the universe. We could have found ourselves on a life-permitting world in a deep part of the universe where we could not see into deep space because of too much starlight. Our atmosphere might have been opaque or translucent rather than transparent. The sizes of our moon and sun and the distance between them and earth are just right to make possible a perfect solar eclipse. During such an eclipse, the thin ring of the sun, the chromosphere, becomes visible and therefore open to scientific investigation.

An orderly designer explains more of this stuff than the random "we just got lucky" argument. Well it does to me at any rate. How about youz?
 

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Posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider (# 76) on :
 
I think I'm getting to the heart of this. It's equivocation on the term "reason".

I realised this when I used the rocks falling into the sea. Yes, on one level there's a reason they make a splash, explicable in terms of physics. But there's no reason in the sense of meaning - and I think that's where you're equivocating, and it's where your logic fails.

It seems to be:

1 exist
Therefore there's a reason for me to exist

So far so good, but that reason may be no more than the copulation of your parents. However, because of the equivocation of the term "reason", you're attaching connotations of "purpose" and "meaning" to the fact that you exist.

That's where the non-sequitur is. Yes, the universe may well exist for a reason, but that reason may just be colliding 'branes. You cannot jump from "it exists for a reason" to "it has meaning".

The problem is that "reason" can mean anything from just "cause" to "purpose"; and equivocating along its spectrum of meanings is I think where your argument is failing, and that you don't see the equivocation explains your frustration that I don't accept your line of argument.
 

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Posted by Evensong (# 14696) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
What Quetz said. It's reasonable to assume something has a cause, but unless that cause is an intelligent agent, there's no reason to suppose it has a reason.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

But why does the universe have to have a cause? Cause and effect might be properties of the universe, but not applicable to the universe itself. Even if it has a cause, and you call that cause God, you only push the problem back one and say that God is the exception to the rule that effects have causes, and he doesn't. Well, why not say it's the universe itself that's the exception, and that that is an effect without a cause?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
What Quetz said. It's reasonable to assume something has a cause, but unless that cause is an intelligent agent, there's no reason to suppose it has a reason. Carrier bags are made by people to fulfil a need; on the other hand the splashes made by falling rocks into the sea have no reason, just a cause. There is no meaning to them, they just happen because they are caused.

But why does the universe have to have a cause? Cause and effect might be properties of the universe, but not applicable to the universe itself. Even if it has a cause, and you call that cause God, you only push the problem back one and say that God is the exception to the rule that effects have causes, and he doesn't. Well, why not say it's the universe itself that's the exception, and that that is an effect without a cause?

You seem terribly frustrated that I don't accept your reasoning. You assume it's some failure on my part to follow your eloquent and perfect argument. Perhaps you need to consider the possibility that it's not as perfect as you think.

For what it's worth, I find both an uncaused universe and an uncaused God equally problematic concepts, hence my inability to choose between them.

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Truman White

Your post above is nicely presented, but just playing devil's advocate here, it does presuppose that the universe must be explained, does it not?

But there is no requirement to do that. Of course, we may have a wish to explain it, or even a need to, but that is something emotional.
.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Truman White:

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
What Quetz said. It's reasonable to assume something has a cause, but unless that cause is an intelligent agent, there's no reason to suppose it has a reason. Carrier bags are made by people to fulfil a need; on the other hand the splashes made by falling rocks into the sea have no reason, just a cause. There is no meaning to them, they just happen because they are caused.

But why does the universe have to have a cause? Cause and effect might be properties of the universe, but not applicable to the universe itself. Even if it has a cause, and you call that cause God, you only push the problem back one and say that God is the exception to the rule that effects have causes, and he doesn't. Well, why not say it's the universe itself that's the exception, and that that is an effect without a cause?

You seem terribly frustrated that I don't accept your reasoning. You assume it's some failure on my part to follow your eloquent and perfect argument. Perhaps you need to consider the possibility that it's not as perfect as you think.

For what it's worth, I find both an uncaused universe and an uncaused God equally problematic concepts, hence my inability to choose between them.

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Yo Karl - wasn't ignoring you I cross posted. Can the universe be an effect without a cause? Here's why I don't think it can. If the universe is uncaused, it must (surely) be eternal.

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quote:

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And we know it isn't because all the cosmology we have tells us it started sometime in the past. I don't see how the universe can have cause itself if it wasn't there to cause itself in the first place.

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quote:

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Nothing in the universe comes into being without a cause, so why would the universe itself?

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quote:

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Makes more sense to me if the universe was brought into being by something that doesn't have to be material to exist, since the universe is where all the matter is.

You then have the problem of why God turns out to be an uncaused cause. Well I grant you it's brain stretching, but isn't it the logical conclusion?

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quote:

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If the universe didn't cause itself,

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quote:

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something else must have.

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quote:

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Seems reasonable to say that cause is mighty powerful, non-material (since it created all matter) purposive (made a decision to make the universe) and even personal since it created persons. If we want to know more about who this cause is we have to look within the universe for clues or info, but as a starting point that all seems to follow.

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quote:

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Are you OK with the logic Karl? Don't know if I can explain it any better, but I'll have a go if if I'm answering the right question.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Truman White:

quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
Truman White

Your post above is nicely presented, but just playing devil's advocate here, it does presuppose that the universe must be explained, does it not?

But there is no requirement to do that. Of course, we may have a wish to explain it, or even a need to, but that is something emotional.
.

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Devil's advocate Q? Nah - Devil really believes in God...

If I was trying to be smart I'd say you're slipping in a weak form of the anthropic principle - the universe is as it is, so why do we need to explain it? Well here's my tuppence happeny. Why the universe demands an explanation goes back to Einstein - there's a stack of reasons why the alternatives are a hellovalot more likely than what we have. There's no reason why the universe should exist, which I'd say is reason enough for asking what it's doing here. It's also far more likely, given the way the universe is set up, for it to be completely full of worlds where nothing's alive - let alone what's alive being able to make independent decisions and interact with other life forms.

How's that? All written from a completely Spock-like state to avoid the corrupting effect of pesky emotions.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Truman White:
@Karl. Just trying to follow through you're logic here. So let's take a step back and try and get some common ground to start the journey with. If the universe isn't eternal, it must have started sometime. So if it started sometime it must have a cause. How does something that started not have a cause? Either it causes itself, or is caused by something else. Did you have another alternative in mind?

Q - there's no reason you have to explain why the universe exists. No-one's forcing anyone to do that. But I'd have thought it was a reasonable question, rather than an emotional one. If want to understand how the universe works, you eventually get bak to what it's doing here in the first place. The question comes out of cosmology as well as theology and philosophy. The Big Bang stuff tells us a lot about how the universe is set up, and follows a timeline back to Planck time (so glad I didn't mis-spell that). So the alternative question, is why stop at Planck time?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Truman White:
@Karl. Just trying to follow through you're logic here. So let's take a step back and try and get some common ground to start the journey with. If the universe isn't eternal, it must have started sometime. So if it started sometime it must have a cause. How does something that started not have a cause? Either it causes itself, or is caused by something else. Did you have another alternative in mind?

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quote:

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Q - there's no reason you have to explain why the universe exists. No-one's forcing anyone to do that. But I'd have thought it was a reasonable question, rather than an emotional one. If want to understand how the universe works, you eventually get bak to what it's doing here in the first place. The question comes out of cosmology as well as theology and philosophy. The Big Bang stuff tells us a lot about how the universe is set up, and follows a timeline back to Planck time (so glad I didn't mis-spell that). So the alternative question, is why stop at Planck time?

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think you are equivocating between causes and reasons, but they are not the same. So you are almost going from cause to purpose, which is illegitimate.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
But why does the universe have to have a cause? Cause and effect might be properties of the universe, but not applicable to the universe itself. Even if it has a cause, and you call that cause God, you only push the problem back one and say that God is the exception to the rule that effects have causes, and he doesn't. Well, why not say it's the universe itself that's the exception, and that that is an effect without a cause?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
That doesn't follow. "Uncaused" merely says there was no cause for it; it says nothing about it being eternal, just that there was nothing that caused it.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
"Uncaused" does not mean "caused itself". It means "uncaused".

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Not really. Uncaused universe or uncaused God. Ockham's razor might be argued to plump for the first. As I said, I find both quite brain stretching; both invite the same question, "where did it come from?", to which both get the same answer "not an applicable question to the universe itself/God".

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
But the same questions can then be asked of God. Where did he come from? Did he cause himself? How? If not, then there can be an entity that is uncaused, why might that entity not be the universe itself?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ikkyu

quote:

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Originally posted by EtymologicalEvangelical
Certainly the validity of reason itself only makes sense if it has its source in an unchanging (and therefore truly objective) rationality, rather than in changeable, mindless matter.

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This is why the scientific method uses reason but compares the validity of the ideas reason gives you with the external world. Aristotle had good rational grounds to believe that heavier objects fall faster than lighter ones. But this notion did not survive very long when confronted with experiment. The reason it took so long to get beyond the ideas of Aristotle in many scientific fields was that people used to reason like you do.

Some world views have not changed since Parmenides.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:

quote:

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Originally posted by Truman White:
@Karl. Just trying to follow through you're logic here. So let's take a step back and try and get some common ground to start the journey with. If the universe isn't eternal, it must have started sometime. So if it started sometime it must have a cause. How does something that started not have a cause? Either it causes itself, or is caused by something else. Did you have another alternative in mind?

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Yes. It's uncaused. It suddenly started without a cause. Your problem here is your axiom "if it had a beginning it had to have a cause", which isn't necessarily so.

There are other possibilities. This universe may be one of a series of universes in eternal sequence, each of which is the cause of the next. Or it may have a cause outside itself, such as 'brane collision. You can then ask "what caused the 'branes", but that's just the same problem as "what caused God?"

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quote:

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Originally posted by Ramarius:
Indeed. Here's an example of an
atheist convinced by a logical argument for the reality of God.

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quote:

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...belief I wouldn’t let go of. And that is something I can’t prove.”

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I just find this obsession with the beginning of the universe bizarre. Didn't Aquinas argue that this was not particularly germane, since God is the source and sustainer of this moment now, and every moment?

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1. Full traditional "First Cause" argument.
2. Relationship of "First Cause" God to the Christinan one.
3. Circular causality, closed time lines, explanatory vs. temporal causality.
4. Causation at all time points and meaning of "evidence".
5. (In 2nd part.) Goddidit and other gods.
6. (In 2nd part.) Uniqueness of the Uncaused Cause.
7. Necessary existence vs. the universe.

quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Ingo, your entire argument seems to rest on the following axiomatic statements:
"There cannot be an effect without a cause."
"There can be a Cause without a cause. However, an Uncaused Cause must be necessary. That is to say, something that exists but has no cause must necessarily exist."
Can I ask you where they come from?

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Oh, it's reasonable. I just don't think it's the only reasonable position.

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Well, so far I have found no reasons to believe that there are any other reasonable positions.

Mind you, I'm talking strictly about the existence of a "metaphysical God", which I consider to have been proven beyond reasonable doubt. (Not just by of the First Cause argument, by the way.) The existence of Yahweh is a completely different ballgame. I'm not even sure whether one can sensibly attach a likelihood to that. But if so, then in my opinion it does not exceed 50%.

So the typical materialist atheism of the West is unreasonable. But these arguments do not touch Hinduism or Islam. They do not rule out Deism, which really is a kind of functional atheism. At a stretch, they do not even invalidate atheistic Buddhism. But nevertheless, these arguments have some bite.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Having read through all these latest posts, I think I might have to retire gracefully and become a spectator only! But I'll have a go at one or two responses first...

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB
Now you have confused the premise with the conclusion, conveniently skipping the entire nice argument that I have provided. This is really annoying.

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quote:

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Originally posted by ndijon
Hence understanding neurological pathways doesn't, of itself, mean that love is explained.

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl
Love as chemical reactions is pretty useless as well, when it comes to dealing with it. I suppose if you were falling in love with someone, being told about the chemicals in your brain might provide some interest, but would it tell you how to woo her? Or how to be intimate with her? Or whether to send her flowers?

The interesting thing about these apparently impeccably materialist explanations is that they leave out ordinary life, in which I am struggling to deal with my relations with others.

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Well, I can't argue with any of that! On the New Scientist CD I was listening to earlier, they referred to an ad for a dating section, but I think I shall probably not try it at my age!!

quote:

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Originally posted byque sais-je
[QB]Apologies for barging into you conversation with SusanDoris but I think she might also be interested.

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quote:

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Originally posted by truman White
Afternoon lovely people. Can I have a go at finding something you might both agree on? How about if we said that atheism lacks the explanatory power of theism? Here's a starer for ten on that one.

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quote:

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Originally posted by Karl
Liberal Backslider
I think I'm getting to the heart of this. It's equivocation on the term "reason".

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quote:

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SusanDoris: But since 'love' is a result of neral pathways etc etc

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:

quote:

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
People over thousands of years have had religious experiences, and their source has been identified as God. Again, this can't be studied and there's no logic to it.

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Nonsense. Of course that can and has been extensively studied, and of course there's plenty of logic to it. In fact one particular branch (not the only one) of these type of studies is even named so as to show this: theo-logy.

quote:

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Originally posted by Raptor Eye:
Interestingly (imv) if it could be studied, there would be a human way to put God to the test, and as God is God, existing as a living being with a will, God can't be tested by people.

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Non sequitur. You are a living being with a will, and I can test you in a multitude of ways. One can make interesting claims about what can and cannot be known about God, based on His omniscience, omnipotence and assumptions about His intentions. But with this you are deeply in the realm of faith.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Having read through all these latest posts, I think I might have to retire gracefully and become a spectator only! But I'll have a go at one or two responses first...
...

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quote:

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[suppose]
God, was the cause, of a universe multiple millions of light years across etc,
why then [would he] concentrate on this little speck which in fact manages perfectly well on its evolved, natural own?

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quote:

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(by an unknown poet)
[qb]
When I consider the heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars which you've arranged.
What is man, that you are mindful of him? and the son of man that you visited him?

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• the rest of the universe is boring
• the rest of the universe is un-fallen
• with Earth in analogy to Israel we were picked to be space missionaries (note if so we weren't chosen because we were the biggest or best planet)
• there was a Jesus for every planet (there is a hymn to this effect)
• we'll find out

quote:

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Originally posted by Grokesx:

quote:

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Possible failure modes: (a) Our rule about contingent entities is not true in general. But we have no reason to believe that it isn't. (b) Reason cannot conclude from contingent to necessary existence. But we have no reason to believe that it can't.

Hence I consider my position reasonable and realistic.

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Which is all very nice for you, but what you have presented doesn't go any way towards justifying:

quote:

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So the typical materialist atheism of the West is unreasonable.

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or saying that atheism is foolish or moaning at Susan D for thinking, like Hume, Kant and many others before her, theist or otherwise, that the First Cause argument is unconvincing.

The contingent entities rule may indeed not be general and I don't see how saying we have no reason to believe it isn't helps your argument. Nineteenth Century physicists had no reason to believe they weren't on the verge of sewing up their discipline once and for all. Lord Kelvin's apocryphal assertion that there was nothing left to discover in physics sums up the mood of the time, but fast forward a hundred years or so and concepts he didn't even know how to think about - wave/particle duality, entanglement and action at a distance, quantum tunneling etc, at one end of the scale and general relativity at the other are grist to the physicist's mill. The gradual discovery that, in J. B. S. Haldane's words, the universe is not only queerer than we imagine, but queerer than we can imagine, makes any argument that extrapolates from what we know now (or from what Aristotle and Aquinas knew) just wishful thinking.

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Edited cos of the inevitable typo.
 

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Posted by Grokesx (# 17221) on :
 
Don't know why that double posted. Sorreeeee...

Yeah I do - quoted instead of edited.

[ETA Fixed that for you, DT Purgatory Host]

[ 17. November 2012, 18:53: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
 

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Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
But since 'love' is a result of neral pathways

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
...has causes in the brain, it does not exist outside.

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quote:

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Originally posted by mdijon:
The perception of love is a result of neural pathways in just the same way that the perception of onions is.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
...has causes in the brain, it does not exist outside.

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Same as fear then. Or a mathematical reduction of a complex problem. Or language.

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Fear - yes, since we have evolved a reaction to danger which enabled us to survive; it wasn't implanted.
A mathematical problem - begins in the brain of someone, but can then be written down and considered by others; but although the result of observation and thought, the mathematical problem wasn't implanted.
Language - a mutation of some sort in the human genome? I'd have to ask a biologist for the answer to that, but again it originates in the brain and can be registered as sound waves and be heard by others; it can also be written down and considered independently, but there is certainly no guarantee that those who read it or hear it will interpret it in the same way! It was not implanted.

quote:

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But to claim that a response to wolves, the speed of light, or the appreciation of a Shakespeare play are simply caused in an individual's brain without any external reality would be a conclusion too far.

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Yes, but the external realities are there, observable and measurable. The human responses have evolved, they were not 'implanted' or 'given' by an external ???.

[ 18. November 2012, 09:23: Message edited by: SusanDoris ]
 

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Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :
 
Perhaps your posts on this thread could evolve beyond begging the question.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Having re-read my post, I think a few amendments are necessary - and although I have read Beeswax Altar's response, it has nothing to do with this!!. I'll come back later.
 

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Posted by Beeswax Altar (# 11644) on :
 
Oh, so even after the amendments, you'll still be begging the question.

Good to know
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
mdijon

quote:

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Understanding those neurological pathways does not diminish the external reality of onions. Hence understanding neurological pathways doesn't, of itself, mean that love is explained

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quote:

---

Originally posted by Jay-Emm:
If God was as the Deists believe, the simple answer is he doesn't care about this world.
With regard to the Theistic viewpoint, there have been a number of theories from (any branch of) Christianity alone.

• the rest of the universe is boring
• the rest of the universe is un-fallen
• with Earth in analogy to Israel we were picked to be space missionaries (note if so we weren't chosen because we were the biggest or best planet)
• there was a Jesus for every planet (there is a hymn to this effect)
• we'll find out

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• God is rather embarrassed that Project Earth hasn't worked out but, being compassionate, He isn't going to abandon even the sad and pathetic humans - however serious our shortcomings.
• He's really more interested in the beetles but as long as we don't look like wiping them out He'll put up with us.
• Read Kurt Vonnegut's "Sirens of Titan" - that makes us even less important.
• He knows that a few years from now his favourites, the tentacled cannibal slime slugs of Rigel 4 will need a new food supply and we're going to be it.
• we'll never find out

quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Language - a mutation of some sort in the human genome? I'd have to ask a biologist for the answer to that

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quote:

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Originally posted by mdijon:
I'd count myself as a biologist. One could describe any difference between the human genome and another species genome as a mutation, so yes, that is what causes language.

My point was that establishing that, and understanding the neural pathways that arise from the genetic code, doesn't actually lead us to infer anything useful about the external nature of the phenomena that we call language.

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quote:

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If we look at society we might start to determine whether language is useful, whether it really exists, whether it exists in the way that I claim it exists... but all those tests are totally divorced from understanding the biological processes that give rise to language.

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quote:

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
There's a kind of biological and/or neurological fallacy going on here, isn't there? It's as if by saying that love or language, are biological, or chemical, or neurological, you have somehow dealt with them!

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
Which one would you choose, since I'm not sure how language can have an 'external' nature. Thank you.

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
I'll keep thinking too about whether it can be divorced from the biological processes, although that doesn't sound logical to me.

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mdijon: I once heard a prominent neuroscientist predict an explosion in functional imaging of the brain that would locate where in the brain various cognitive processes took place. He was right about this - that is exactly what has happened.

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quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
My guess is that in all processes the whole brain is involved

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quote:

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Originally posted by SusanDoris:
'Exists'? It can only exist if humans are around ... no other (known) creature could make use of any written words which remained after our species became extinct, unless they had a suitable mutation. Hmm. I'll keep thinking too about whether it can be divorced from the biological processes, although that doesn't sound logical to me.

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mdijon: This is demonstrably false. If you lose the occipital cortex you go blind, but you remain able to move normally and cognition is not necessarily affected.

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IngoB: I think the current this-or-that-science fallacy argument directed against her is pants.

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LOVED the typo!
 

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Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
So there are additional electrochemical reactions in the brain, which mean we get love poems as well as bonking. So what?

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
The question still remains whether there is "more than that" in the fundamental sense, or not.

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quote:

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Are we a material body (in particular a brain), and that's fundamentally it - or not? There is no obvious fallacy involved in saying "yes" to that.

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quote:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I'd say that my ability to move normally and my cognition would be quite affected if I'd go blind.

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mdijon:Only as an indirect consequence.

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Originally posted by mdijon:

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I'd say that my ability to move normally and my cognition would be quite affected if I'd go blind.

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Only as an indirect consequence. Which isn't really the point.

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Curiosity killed ...: eta - in response to LeRoc - your emotions may well be affected, you may become depressed. But that's not a direct change in the brain function from losing your sight any more than becoming depressed because you have cancer - it's a reaction to the blindness.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
As much as I dislike SusanDoris' blind faith in materialism, I think the current this-or-that-science fallacy argument directed against her is pants.

It is true that talking about photosynthesis and chlorophyll does not exhaust the subject of plants, much less does it give us an exhaustive description of the periwinkle.

But it is also true that photosynthesis is a fundamental characteristic of almost all plant life and in many contexts that is sufficient for conclusions. Like for example stating that plants will not prosper in a dark room.

That we cannot describe all that "love" means to us by saying "electrochemical reaction in the brain" does not blunt the challenge thereof in the slightest. So there are additional electrochemical reactions in the brain, which mean we get love poems as well as bonking. So what? The question still remains whether there is "more than that" in the fundamental sense, or not.

A materialist wielding Chomskian universal grammar like a pro is still a materialist. A materialist Casanova is still a materialist. Are we a material body (in particular a brain), and that's fundamentally it - or not? There is no obvious fallacy involved in saying "yes" to that.

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Curiosity killed ...: it is arguable that not everyone will become depressed when they lose their sight - so you cannot directly assign causation.

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I don't see it as a box with different compartiments, each with a separate functions.

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
I believe that there are many complex connections between different parts of the brain, and we haven't begun to understand the beginning of them.

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mdijon: On the other hand, if one is in the business of trying to understand how things work, one needs to start applying reductionist models at some point.

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
To me, this word suggested a level of accuracy that simply isn't there.

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
An obvious example of this is the over-simplistic bullshit we heard a couple of years ago about the 'God spot'. Yes, undoubtedly there are some regions in the brain that show increased activity when we engage in religious activities. But this doesn't mean that we've 'localized the God-spot that causes religion'.

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mdijon: But you've spotted that the word exactly was applied to the predicted turn of events, not the location of cognitive processes?

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I guess you'll have to admit that it wasn't completely clear. Maybe the prediction in general terms happened exactly, but not exactly what you said was predicted (if you can still follow me ).

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mdijon: Now my main point was to argue that even if one could describe a god-spot or religious-experience-spot, that tells you no more about God or religion than locating an onion-smelling-spot tells you about onions.

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Complete agreement. (In fact, I believe that my onion-detecting spot is somewhere in my lacrimal ducts )
 

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Posted by IngoB (# 8700) on :
 

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Originally posted by LeRoc:

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IngoB: I think the current this-or-that-science fallacy argument directed against her is pants.

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LOVED the typo!

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Originally posted by mdijon:
My point is that determining that we have a material brain in a material body still tells us nothing informative about the realities that the material brain and material body perceive. It tells us all about how we perceive, but not what.

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Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I agree that materialism in itself is not a fallacy. However, using your example of linguistics, is it useful for example, with an utterance like 'the is dog', to study the neurological underpinning of it? ... So it's not materialism in itself, but a claim that materialism of this kind explains our own intuitions about language, logic, and so on.

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Originally posted by mdijon:
Now my main point was to argue that even if one could describe a god-spot or religious-experience-spot, that tells you no more about God or religion than locating an onion-smelling-spot tells you about onions.

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IngoB: Typo? You mean "pants"? It's slang for rubbish.

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I admit I didn't know that. (The typo would have been funny though, especially because you continued to talk about plants )
 

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Posted by LeRoc (# 3216) on :
 

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IngoB: Typo? You mean "pants"? It's slang for rubbish.

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I admit I didn't know that. (The typo would have been funny though, especially because you continued to talk about plants )
 

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Posted by mdijon (# 8520) on :
 

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Originally posted by mdijon:
Now my main point was to argue that even if one could describe a god-spot or religious-experience-spot, that tells you no more about God or religion than locating an onion-smelling-spot tells you about onions.

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Originally posted by IngoB:
Sorry, the previous post was a cross-post. If that is your main point, then I will simply nod in agreement. I did not understand that this was your main concern...

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IngoB: One has to show that physics is not sufficient as the sole basis of love poetry, however far removed.

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
But I wonder on which side the burden of proof lies here. I mean, I can just say to materialists: you haven't shown me that physics is sufficient as the sole basis of love poetry. Wouldn't that be enough?

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Originally posted by LeRoc:
But I wonder on which side the burden of proof lies here. I mean, I can just say to materialists: you haven't shown me that physics is sufficient as the sole basis of love poetry. Wouldn't that be enough?

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IngoB: enough to bring them to Christ, probably not.

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I'm not sure if that's my intention.

But even if it were, I'm not sure if lengthy arguments trying to prove your position will do the trick. Perhaps I prefer to leave the possibility open that Christianity is true, and let people choose for themselves.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Apologies for lack of posts today! I had a software problem and had to wait to speak to dolphin tech Support before I could carry on.
 

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Posted by Ramarius (# 16551) on :
 
Originally posted by mdijon:

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Originally posted by mdijon:
.... a counter to SusanDoris' point that because we understand some of the neurological/biological events that give rise to our perception of love then we can conclude that we have a sufficient explanation for it. In a sense we do have a sufficient explanation for the perception of love, but that doesn't immediately tell us what the thing we are perceiving in that way is. Perhaps it is simply illusion, perhaps it isn't. We need another discussion to work that out. [/QB]

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Indeed. Correlation is not the same as explanation.
 

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Posted by SusanDoris (# 12618) on :
 
Well, I have been sitting here for quite a while looking at all the interesting posts then doing Alt+Tab to go to an answer space and trying to compose a composite response, but I've given up, I'm afraid. I'll just mention that sight loss only leads to depression if you have that genetic tendency anyway, I think!
 

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