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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Purgatory: "Richard Dawkins has done us a big favour..."
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Raptor Eye
Shipmate
# 16649
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Posted
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!
Well it doesn't conform to 'Seek and thou shalt find' but it has a lot to be said for it imv. Trying to make God show us what we prescribe, ie to test God out is a non-starter.
When we throw out preconceived ideas as to how, when and where God might be revealed to us and seek with an open mind, however, we may be surprised by God.
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris: Okay, but when someone has named and experienced them, they can be studied and their source (probably logical!) found.
Despite chemical responses in the brain, love can't be studied and there is no logic to it.
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.
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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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
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?
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.
Why is that an assertion and not logical and reasonable statement?
Or is it only an assertion because you disagree with it?
If you think it is illogical or unreasonable then you should be able to assert why it is not logical or reasonable.
Neither of which you have been able to do.
Therefore it is still logical and reasonable.
Ergo, believing in God is more logical than not believing in God.
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a theological scrapbook
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Ramarius
Shipmate
# 16551
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
]
?.. as soon as there is a logical argument, then atheists will be convinced of God's existence. [/QB][/QUOTE]
Indeed. Here's an example of an
atheist convinced by a logical argument for the reality of God.
Posts: 950 | From: Virtually anywhere | Registered: Jul 2011
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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.
Far from being a minor pedantic concern, this is of course a key issue. And in my opinion the Cloud of Unknowing is excellent in describing the process that puts into question non-dualist interpretations of the mystical experience. Basically, the world (including oneself) first has to be put under a "cloud of forgetting", only then can one move towards the "Cloud of Unknowing". That is not the same experience, or perhaps better, it is the experience of a motion/process from one thing to the other. The final experience is "non-dualist", true, but precisely because one has first removed one pole. And this everybody does. In Buddhism for example, there are various techniques from focusing on breath or the erectness of the spine on the more "basic" side of things to destroying ratiocination with a koan or letting the mind drift away on the more "sophisticated" side of things. However, all these are really just various methods of getting the mind into a cloud of forgetting (playing in very interesting ways with various psychological effects). Buddhism also describes this process quite clearly, except (in my opinion) falsely interpreted: they basically believe that what can be forgotten does not really exist, and since in the mystical process oneself can be forgotten, oneself does not really exist (but rather is an aggregate of transient features etc.).
This is the basic difference between dualist and non-dualist mysticism, it just is particularly well worked out in Christianity and Buddhism (because both tend to have philosophers thinking through the teachings). Are things forgotten or discovered to be nothing in the mystical process? That they are left behind is the mystical practice and experience, but what is the meaning of this? This is in fact one of the reasons why I switched from Buddhism to Christianity. I'm a realist at heart, and once I saw that the same experiential process could be looked at in these two different ways, I knew which one I favored as true. (And yeah, written as in the above this seems a trivial point, but it is much less trivial once you experience these matters, in particular so if one interpretation is taught implicitly and explicitly while you are being taught how to bring these experiences about...)
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.
Now you have confused the premise with the conclusion, conveniently skipping the entire nice argument that I have provided. This is really annoying. 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. The foundational explanatory Cause needs must be something other. And it is entirely fair to call this "goddidit", because by construction this cannot be explained by any kind of normal physical cause, and it is compatible with common assertions about Creator God (while not proving anything about such a God other than precisely the creating).
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?
This is manifestly not the case. You have heard a logical argument for the existence of God. Yet you remain unmoved (not unconvinced, unmoved). Also, please note that the very same argument kills the "I believe in one less god than you" argument. Totally. Because a necessary feature of the existing God has been identified. Hence any god that does not have this feature must be rejected as non-God, and any God that shares this feature is viable candidate for the Godhead. It remains of course of great interest to debate which of the proposed Gods is the right one. But unless atheists can show that the reasoning identifying the necessary feature is faulty, they cannot treat every god the same anymore in their disbelief. In other words, Thor is not the same as Yahweh. They are not in the same class of concept. Hence an atheists cannot say "because you reject Thor, it is fair for me to reject Yahweh". That is a category error.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
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.
To my mind there is a parallel with the argument that onions exist in the sense that they are a word chosen to name the visual impression transmitted to the occipital cortex as a result of chemical reactions in the retina, and further chemical reactions in the nose being sent to the temporal cortex.
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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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
IngoB wrote:
This is the basic difference between dualist and non-dualist mysticism, it just is particularly well worked out in Christianity and Buddhism (because both tend to have philosophers thinking through the teachings). Are things forgotten or discovered to be nothing in the mystical process? That they are left behind is the mystical practice and experience, but what is the meaning of this? This is in fact one of the reasons why I switched from Buddhism to Christianity. I'm a realist at heart, and once I saw that the same experiential process could be looked at in these two different ways, I knew which one I favored as true. (And yeah, written as in the above this seems a trivial point, but it is much less trivial once you experience these matters, in particular so if one interpretation is taught implicitly and explicitly while you are being taught how to bring these experiences about...)
That's very interesting stuff for me, since I have done a lot of Zen meditation, and in a way, came back to Christianity because of it. I find your idea about forgetting particularly interesting, and it brings up what reality is very keenly.
I suppose it's not either/or. One does not have to opt either for a realist view, that for example the I exists, because I experience it, or an 'undifferentiated' view, that it does not, since sometimes I do not experience it. I mean, one can say that both 'levels' exist, which I suppose in Buddhism are given names like the conditioned and unconditioned.
One of the implications for Christianity, seems to be connected with salvation, since if there is no I, there is nothing to be saved. But this might also lead to the view that there is no God, or in fact, not anything at all.
Kabbalah is interesting here, since out of this emptiness or void (which is divine), arises everything.
My sense is that some of the Christian mystics hit upon non-duality, perhaps without intending to, and have struggled to incorporate it into Christian ideas, for example, Angelus Silesius, 'a shine within His shine'. However, I shall chew on it further.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
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.
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.
I'm sure this has been treated of somewhere though sometimes I worry that the question begging 'first' has mislead some people. I have come across one exploration of this but it doesn't attempt to show that infinite numbers of UCCs throughout time and space can't happen.
Apologies for barging into you conversation with SusanDoris but I think she might also be interested.
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
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?
What reason do you have for supposing that existence should have a purpose?
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.
That sentence doesn't even make sense.
quote:
Why is that an assertion and not logical and reasonable statement?
Because you've not demonstrated any actual reasoning. It looks like "I want there to be meaning to existence therefore there is."
quote:
Or is it only an assertion because you disagree with it?
No, it's only an assertion because all you've said is "It is more reasonable."
quote:
If you think it is illogical or unreasonable then you should be able to assert why it is not logical or reasonable.
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.
quote:
Neither of which you have been able to do.
Therefore it is still logical and reasonable.
Your logic seems to be "Not P is not proven, therefore P". No-one's proven there's no teapot orbiting Neptune, therefore there is one.
quote:
Ergo, believing in God is more logical than not believing in God.
Still looks like "I want meaning, therefore there's a God" to me. The universe may well be meaningless; no reason it shouldn't be.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
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.
Nonsense. Aristotle had good observational reasons to assume that heavy objects fall faster than lighter ones. Because, well, generally they do. If you have any doubts on this matter, I can drop stones and feathers on you from a height, and we can see which ones you will find easier to evade. The notion survived for a very long time indeed, almost two millennia, because it is experientially true. What was required there is to separate out conceptually (and eventually experimentally) factors like shape, air drag, etc. and then see that the "purified" falling that was left over (mass points in a gravitational field) did not show mass-dependence. To now pretend that the ancients were blinkered because of faulty reasoning is purely anachronistic. In the same way, Newton's First Law is clearly false concerning the observational reality, and only valid in an abstracted sense that has removed confounds (and usually theoretically so). Nobody expects an object to just keep on moving in a straight line with constant velocity. Everything slows down to a halt, of course. To laugh at pre-Newtonian physical ideas is to laugh at your own practical reasoning that you employ day in and day out with great success.
There is no question that modern physics is "more true" than ancient physics. It is however a considerable question in what sense precisely this is the case. And it is also likely that quite a few philosophical babies were thrown out with the physical bathwater in the historical process of going from ancient to modern physics. People who believe that all this is done and dusted simply because modern physics "delivers the goods" in a technological sense are confusing engineering with philosophy.
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.
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:
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.
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.
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.
That's a good question, to which there are multiple possible answers. (Besides the practical one: parsimony.) I will give three here. In the following let the supposed multiple UCCs be called A, B, C, ...
First, assume we are tracking down some causal chain and are ready to take the step to a UCC. How do we know which one to pick? If you say that this is random, then this association is contingent. But then this contingency itself requires a causal explanation. Something must cause that this causal chain at its bottom is connected to for example A rather than B. (I do not necessarily mean here that this association is determined. I simply mean that because it could have been otherwise, something had to cause that some specific "choice" was in fact made.) But if this is the case, then A and B are not actual UCCs after all, but whatever caused their association. But if you say that this is not random, that this causal chain had to originate in A, but this other one in B, then this regularity itself is something that exists. And while the associations of the causal chain with the UCCs must be so by this rule, the rule itself need not be so. It could be otherwise. Therefore, something must have caused this rule to be. And this then is the real UCC. (Basically, that was the same argument twice: whether determined or contingent, specific associations require an explanation and hence cannot point to the UCC.)
Second, as we track down a causal chain in practice, we find that there is a sense in which each link becomes simpler but wider. So we have tracked a cup not falling through the table to molecular forces. But while molecular forces are complex as well, they are somehow simpler than what they explain, which we see by the fact that more gets explained than the original question asked. That is to say, molecular forces also explain for example why jelly jiggles, and lots of other things. And in fact, once we have an explanation in terms of molecular forces, then we assume that they will explain at least in part something about everything that has molecules in them. Likewise we do not for example say: these electrical charges over here obey Maxwell's law, but those over there obey some other law. A causal explanation is universal in its constituents. So whenever we find shared but essential features in things we see this as an expression of one underlying causal explanation that is valid for all of them. This is a bit circular, since we also identify essential features by virtue of their common causality. But this circularity is simply the usual mystery of understanding, and in particular, does not impact the chains of causation. That is to say, if tomorrow we find that the "electrical" charge of the proton is not "electrical" in exactly the same way as that of the electron, then so because we found some differentiating effect that itself then requires a deeper causal explanation. Yet we know already an essential feature of everything, and one that necessarily cannot be differentiated further: being. Everything that exists has being, and there cannot be two different beings, because whatever differentiates them would have to have being. By virtue of what we have said then, there must be one underlying cause of all being. And since every link of a causal chain also has being, it must be causally deeper than any other causal link. Thus the UCC must be one, and its principle causal effect must be to give being to all that is.
Third, the world is continuous in its causal structure. We do not find that gravity acts here but not there, or that waves propagate yesterday but not today. There also is a coherence in the causal structure which these days perhaps is best evidenced by the success of mathematics and logics. The same highly structured and totally non-trivial description method appears to succeed (eventually), no matter what part or aspect of the world it gets aimed at. So rather than a bunch of causal agents that incoherently and discontinuously pump out all sorts of causality, the only causal "multiplicity" that seems compatible is one of eternal, tightly coordinated harmony. We do not find a cacophony of causal noise, we find a causal orchestra. But such eternal coordination, if it is indeed from multiple sources, could hardly be random. So either there is only one "musician" in the first place (thus one UCC) or if there are many "musicians" (supposed "UCCs") then there must be one conductor (the real UCC).
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
What reason do you have for supposing that existence should have a purpose?
The fact that there is something rather than nothing.
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider
quote:
Why is that an assertion and not logical and reasonable statement?
Because you've not demonstrated any actual reasoning. It looks like "I want there to be meaning to existence therefore there is."
[/QB]
Lets go back to my original reasoning. The second variation just confused you:
quote:
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.
This is logical reasoning. I'm not sure why you can't see it.
It logical to assume that if there is something, there must be a cause for it. (i.e. if I have a house, I have one because I bought it or built it).
If there is something ( the world, the universe, us, the cat and the dog and the ants on my front porch) rather than nothing at all, it makes more logical and reasonable sense that there must be some reason for these things to be here rather than not here at all.
If there is a cause (which we have logically deduced to be true) then there must be a reason for that cause. Otherwise, the cause created for nothing. Bit of a waste otherwise. (i.e. we create plastic bags so we can use them to carry shopping home. We don't just create plastic bags to admire and hang up on our walls).
In terms of endpoints: if there is a beginning, it's quite logical to assume there will be an end. Most things in our lives have beginnings and ends. We are born, we die. We are created. The universe has been created (God only really knows why but it has) so it's quite reasonable to assume it may have an end at some point. Not necessarily so, but it's still a reasonably assumption if we observe other things about the Universe.
So this is my reasoning. What's yours? And why is mine not logical, rational or reasonable?
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
If you think it is illogical or unreasonable then you should be able to assert why it is not logical or reasonable.
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.
I really thought that would have been obvious, but I explained a bit more above.
Conversely, if atheists think it's more logical and rational NOT to believe the universe has a cause and a purpose and a possible teleology then the onus is on them to explain why not.
Because believing life the universe and everything is a random accident with absolutely no cause, nor meaning nor end is the most hilariously irrational bullshit I've ever heard in my life.
Truly.
Atheist being rational is the biggest effing lie.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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 can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
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.
[ 16. November 2012, 14:19: Message edited by: Karl: Liberal Backslider ]
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
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.
![[Confused]](confused.gif)
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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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
@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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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
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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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
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.
Well a stupid agent causing the universe doesn't make much sense does it?
But hey, its possible. Possible, but not particularly reasonable or logical or rational (which was the point I thought we were originally discussing).
quote:
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?
Actually I was trying move beyond just first cause. I was trying to be a systematic theologian (my brain is hurting). God isn't rational and reasonable only as a first cause. God is rational and reasonable because of cause and life and love and purpose and the whole shebang. Can't separate em all out. They are a package.
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
Karl
Yes. I think a lot of these words are actually polysemous, and it's very easy to start sliding along from one sub-meaning to another, often done without malicious intent. That is why arguments are so effing difficult, as so many words are fuzzy.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
TW - those factors, or some of them, may be reasons enough for not abandoning belief in God. They are not, to me, anything like strong enough to conclude that God exists. Moreover, it would not be hard to come up with a list of reasons why the universe is less consistent with having been designed by a God. I'm not going to do the atheists' job for them, but I daresay some of our residents would happily provide such a list.
The other problem I have with them is that they are susceptible to being categorised as "God of the gaps" arguments - we don't know why X, therefore Goddidit.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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.
I am not decrying emotions either, but when they start getting entwined into rational arguments, it often ends badly, with blood on the tracks.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
quote:
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.
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. 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. Nothing in the universe comes into being without a cause, so why would the universe itself?
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? If the universe didn't cause itself, something else must have. 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.
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.
Posts: 476 | Registered: Aug 2012
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
quote:
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.
.
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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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
quote:
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.
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.
Can I stop you there? 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.
quote:
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.
"Uncaused" does not mean "caused itself". It means "uncaused".
quote:
Nothing in the universe comes into being without a cause, so why would the universe itself?
Is the universe a thing or is it a set containing all things?
quote:
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?
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".
quote:
If the universe didn't cause itself,
Which no-one says it did.
quote:
something else must have.
Hang on - isn't that begging the question? The universe cannot be uncaused because it must have a cause? I.e. the universe must have a cause because it must have a cause?
quote:
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.
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?
quote:
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.
As you can tell, I don't find it particularly compelling, no.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
quote:
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.
.
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.
It just looks to me as if you're starting with your desired conclusion. There's no reason for something, therefore there must be a reason? Eh?
I'm not denigrating the wish to know why the universe is here; but wishes don't butter parsnips, or some such folkloric stuff.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
@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?
Posts: 476 | Registered: Aug 2012
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
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?
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?
I can't remember now if I'm playing devil's advocate or not. Damn, that's the trouble with role play, and dressing up as a woman, you start wondering which one you are.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
Posts: 9878 | From: UK | Registered: Oct 2011
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
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?
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?"
quote:
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?
Why indeed. There are lots of physicists asking that question. I'll grant you that "why is there something rather than nothing" is an interesting philosophical question, but it's hardly compelling that the answer has to be God, because then the question is "why is there a God instead of nothing?"
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
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.
Or, Evensong simply follows an older - and IMHO much better - conception of causation, namely that of Aristotle. In particular, her argument is about final causality. Modern science famously eliminated formal and final causes from its agenda (only to have them creeping back in through the back door, in particular in biology). But that is just a historical truth, it is far from settled that this is a philosophical possibility, or even that science will forever continue like this practically speaking. (One could even speak of a bit of philosophical revival of these ideas at the moment.)
quote:
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?
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. The explanation that it exists is then not in something else, but in the fact that it cannot not exist. Yet the universe in all its aspects and parts appears contingent, and consequently in every way we have ever looked at it, all its existence is caused. In fact, this observation is the very root of our premise that all contingent things require a cause. So if you claim that the universe "as a whole" is an Uncaused Cause, while each and every of its parts is not, then you have simply defined the universe "as a whole" to be in an entirely different category to its parts.
What sense can we make of this? Let's think about a toy universe which consist only of two entities, called A and B. Both are contingent as caused. Can A not be? Yes. Can B not be? Yes. So what happens if A had not been caused? Well, a universe with just B would have arisen. And if B had not been caused? Well, a universe with just A would have arisen. And then, what happens if neither A nor B had been caused? Well, a universe without anything would have arisen. But a universe that is nothing does not exist in any meaningful sense. Unless we somehow say that there is a Being that somehow transcends the absence of all things, which remains after subtracting all things. This you can call "universe" if you like, but theists can hardly be faulted for calling it "God" instead. Or perhaps you wish to say that a universe must contain something, so that the case of neither A nor B cannot arise. But then this "must" either requires a prior cause that made this the rule for universes, and this we surely can call God, or it is itself Uncaused, in which case it is God (while neither A nor B nor their union as universe are). Either way, it is not the universe itself which is uncaused, but rather what makes the universe be in a certain way.
quote:
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.
False, it does follow. If something is uncaused but exists, then it must necessarily exist, but if it must necessarily exist, then it exists always, and hence is eternal. You are likely confusing "uncaused" with random. But a random event is caused and has an explanation (for example, it could be due to a "quantum fluctuation"), and hence is a time-bound change.
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
"Uncaused" does not mean "caused itself". It means "uncaused".
True. But "uncaused" does mean "necessarily existent". It does not mean "non-deterministic".
quote:
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".
This is false. The universe is not something that one can attribute necessary existence to, hence it cannot be uncaused. The usual atheist escape route is to consider the universe as a "brute fact", i.e., denying that one needs to answer the question what caused the universe. But "brute fact" is not "uncaused". "Brute fact" means a denial of further causal analysis, hence atheism is fundamentally irrational, whereas "uncaused" means acceptance that causal analysis is still applicable, resulting in the prediction of a necessarily existent entity. That this distinction is real we can see in the immediate consequences: the "brute fact" universe could have a beginning (since we cannot ask questions about it), the Uncaused Cause must be eternal (since by rational analysis it is necessarily existent).
quote:
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?
God did not come from anywhere, but exists eternally since necessarily. God did not cause Himself, which is impossible. He is uncaused. The universe cannot be uncaused because one cannot construct something uncaused out of caused elements, see above.
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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
Posts: 12010 | From: Gone fishing | Registered: Oct 2004
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EtymologicalEvangelical
Shipmate
# 15091
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ikkyu
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.
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.
Nothing that I wrote even remotely suggests that we should not test relevant ideas against the external world. Where did you get that idea from?
I am discussing the source of the validity of reason itself. You seem to be suggesting that it is the external world that gives reason its validity, which can easily be shown to be complete nonsense. If you are not saying that, then why are you criticising my viewpoint and insinuating that experimentation does away with the idea of an unchanging rationality behind the universe?
Allow me to analyse the experiment to which you refer.
We have two objects of differing mass in a vacuum, and we release them at the same time so that they fall under the action of gravity. We find that they fall at the same rate, and we draw the general conclusion that objects of differing mass fall at the same rate in a vacuum.
Now how did we draw that conclusion? By observation?
No! Emphatically not.
Let me explain...
X = The general conclusion we draw about reality concerning the way all objects of different mass fall in a vacuum.
Y = The vacuum and the action of positioning the objects at the same level and then letting go of them at the same time.
Z = The event of the objects falling at the same rate.
So we have the hypothesis: If X is true, then under conditions Y, Z appears.
So we create the conditions Y and we observe that Z appears. We then infer that X is true.
Now the only way that we can get from the sense and practical experiences of Y and Z to the conclusion X is by logical inference, not by sense perception. This inference is contained within the hypothesis in provisional form, and has now been confirmed by experimentation. But the physical experiment itself does not enable us to draw the conclusion, but rather it serves only to support the inference. The experiment itself is merely a series of sensations in our brains. Furthermore, the observation in itself can only relate to those two particular objects acting in that way in that particular point in time and space. We cannot draw any conclusion about reality as a whole unless we make an inference from this experiment on the basis of certain a priori assumptions, such as the concept of the uniformity of nature.
So the empirical aspect of the scientific method is only confirmatory, but the central engine of science is reason itself and the validity of inference working through a set of a priori assumptions.
This shows that the scientific method is dependent on reason itself being valid independently of sense perception. Thus it is fallacious to argue that reason itself derives from the process of sense perception. That is a self-defeating proposition.
Therefore my worldview is alive and well, and is the one on which science (whether consciously or not) entirely depends.
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You can argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome': but you neither can nor need argue with a man who says, 'Rice is unwholesome, but I'm not saying this is true'. CS Lewis
Posts: 3625 | From: South Coast of England | Registered: Sep 2009
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
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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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
quote:
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?
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?"
OK - here's my logic. Everything that begins to exist has a reason for its existence, either in the necessity of its own being, or in some external cause. Even if this universe is one in a multiverse, you still end up with what started the first universe in the multiverse. You'll have to tell me what a 'brane' collission is - not heard that one befiore.
There's two distinct questions here Karl - does the universe have a cause, and does God have a cause? And you linked the two by saying if the answer to 2) is "no" why shouldn't the same answer be given to 1)?
Fair do's
From what you said above, you seem to think the universe did have a cause after all (multiverse or branes being option). As I said before, this is reasonable since we know the universe had a beginning in time. But if God has no beginning, the he falls into a different category, so doesn't need an explanation. To put it more simply, the universe has a cause because it doesn't
have to be here. If you want to avoid an infinite regression of causes, you come back to a first cause which is necessary - it has to exist to account for everything else.
We call that first cause God because of the nature of the universe that has come into existence - ordered, capable of rational investigation, given rise to free interactive agents.
You can come up with alternatives, but do you reckon there are any that make more sense, or have more explanatory power?
[ 16. November 2012, 16:31: Message edited by: Truman White ]
Posts: 476 | Registered: Aug 2012
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Ramarius:
Indeed. Here's an example of an
atheist convinced by a logical argument for the reality of God.
Thank you. I've had a read through although I couldn't see where the logical argument was and I do not think many atheists would convert to Christianity on the basis of that page. she also says:
quote:
...belief I wouldn’t let go of. And that is something I can’t prove.”
Whateverwas sufficient for her ,There appear to be quite a few other issues, the principal one of which could well be that she has an RC boyfriend...I'll read through again later.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
Posts: 3083 | From: UK | Registered: May 2007
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
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?
Yes, indeed, the physical cosmology of the universe - whether it had a Big Bang origin or whatever - is utterly and completely irrelevant to the traditional First Cause argument. This temporal beginning of the universe is not what Aquinas and hence traditional Christianity had in mind when asking about a First Cause. Not. Not. Not. Argh! In fact, St Thomas Aquinas is historically famous for defending the possibility of an eternal universe against St Bonaventure - in spite of being the key advocate of the "First Cause" argument in Christian history. (Of course Aquinas believed that the universe was created by God. But he maintained that this could not be philosophically proven.)
An overview of my topical posts on this thread, which have discussed all this:
- Full traditional "First Cause" argument.
- Relationship of "First Cause" God to the Christinan one.
- Circular causality, closed time lines, explanatory vs. temporal causality.
- Causation at all time points and meaning of "evidence".
- (In 2nd part.) Goddidit and other gods.
- (In 2nd part.) Uniqueness of the Uncaused Cause.
- Necessary existence vs. the universe.
quote:
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?
Realism and reason-ism. First, I assume that there really is a world independent of us. We are not just making up shit. Otherwise obviously all bets are off in Matrix fashion. Second, I assume that our observations of this world lead to actual understanding. I furthermore assume that we can come to true conclusions from our understanding. Reason works, we are not gibbering idiots faced with total randomness. Third, all contingent entities we observe are found to have causes, and we reason that hence this is a universal rule. (This is a better version of your first statement, which otherwise is simply true by definition of the words "cause" and "effect".) This is a reasonable conclusion from observations of reality. Fourth, we conclude from this understanding by reason that the only way something can be and not have had a cause is if it exists necessarily. For if it were contingent, then by our reasonable understanding of the world it would have a cause. Tertium non datur. ("No third possibility is given.") This yields the second statement.
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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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
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# 76
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Posted
Oh, it's reasonable. I just don't think it's the only reasonable position.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Karl: Liberal Backslider:
Oh, it's reasonable. I just don't think it's the only reasonable position.
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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They’ll have me whipp’d for speaking true; thou’lt have me whipp’d for lying; and sometimes I am whipp’d for holding my peace. - The Fool in King Lear
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
Having read through all these latest posts, I think I might have to retire gracefully and become a spectator only! ![[Smile]](smile.gif) But I'll have a go at one or two responses first...
quote:
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.
My apologies, but I have done my best!
I'll defer to que saisje's and Karl: Liberal Backslider's words.
But even supposing, which of course I do not, that something, named by humans as God, was the cause, of a universe multiple millions of light years across etc, why then concentrate on this little speck which in fact manages perfectly well on its evolved, natural own? No answer required!
quote:
Originally posted by ndijon
Hence understanding neurological pathways doesn't, of itself, mean that love is explained.
But since 'love' is a result of neral pathways etc etc, and is experienced in different (although mostly similar) ways by each individual, what further 'explanation' does it need? It is an emotion which has causes in the brain, it does not exist outside.
quote:
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.
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:
Originally posted byque sais-je
[QB]Apologies for barging into you conversation with SusanDoris but I think she might also be interested.
Apology definitely not required from my point of view. See my comment at the beginning of this post.
quote:
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.
Very interesting post, but the idea that the universe makes more sense if designed rather than not is an entirely human idea, thought up by evolved brains that weren't ready for 'we don't know' answers.
quote:
Originally posted by Karl
Liberal Backslider
I think I'm getting to the heart of this. It's equivocation on the term "reason".
Really like the post ending with this quote.
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
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LeRoc
Famous Dutch pirate
# 3216
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Posted
quote:
SusanDoris: But since 'love' is a result of neral pathways etc etc
There's no proof of that. No-one denies that chemical processes are involved in love. But there exists no scientific proof that these fully explain love.
(I'm not even certain what it means to 'fully explain love', but I'm sure I've never seen the phrase in a scientific document.)
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I know why God made the rhinoceros, it's because He couldn't see the rhinoceros, so He made the rhinoceros to be able to see it. (Clarice Lispector)
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Raptor Eye
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# 16649
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
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.
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:
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.
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.
Theology surely takes as read that God is the source of religious experience. It can't test the source, as to do so would show God to be a puppet of human beings. God does not control us, although God could do so. We don't and couldn't control God so as to experiment on and study God in a logical way.
We can and do study people, and our shared experiences of, reactions to, perceived attributes of and revelations from God in many diverse ways using as much logic and creative language as we have progressed to achieve. One of the most exciting aspects of religion is the greatness of God and the unlimited scope of new discovery.
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Be still, and know that I am God! Psalm 46.10
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Jay-Emm
Shipmate
# 11411
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Posted
quote:
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...
...
quote:
[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?
I was struck by the similarity of this to a well known quote. I've trimmed down the header and re-spaced it to match the lines.
quote:
(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?
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
They all raise interesting consequences, in the first 3 this little speck is uniquely good, bad, picked at random respectively.
In the 4th we're saying God can only act with this little speck at a time.
But in all of them, the answer to why does God concentrate on us is basically, "why should we be the one bit in a Universe light years across, that God doesn't concentrate on".
Incidentally if you read bits of Galileo, the arguments are pretty much theoretical, mostly by cleverly morphing the thought experiment*. There are appeals to day to day experience, but little to experiment.
*e.g. by joining two identical falling balls into a dumbbell.
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
quote:
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.
Which is all very nice for you, but what you have presented doesn't go any way towards justifying:
quote:
So the typical materialist atheism of the West is unreasonable.
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.
Edited cos of the inevitable typo.
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
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Grokesx
Shipmate
# 17221
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Posted
Don't know why that double posted. Sorreeeee...
Yeah I do - quoted instead of edited. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
[ETA Fixed that for you, DT Purgatory Host]
[ 17. November 2012, 18:53: Message edited by: Doublethink ]
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For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. H. L. Mencken
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
But since 'love' is a result of neral pathways
That was an assumption I challenged in my post. The perception of love is a result of neural pathways in just the same way that the perception of onions is.
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
...has causes in the brain, it does not exist outside.
Same as fear then. Or a mathematical reduction of a complex problem. Or language.
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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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
quote:
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.
Seems reasonably logical to me - the difference being that onion is a concrete noun and love is an abstract one.
quote:
quote:
Originally posted by SusanDoris:
...has causes in the brain, it does not exist outside.
Same as fear then. Or a mathematical reduction of a complex problem. Or language.
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:
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.
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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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Perhaps your posts on this thread could evolve beyond begging the question.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
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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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Oh, so even after the amendments, you'll still be begging the question.
Good to know
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
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SusanDoris
Incurable Optimist
# 12618
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Posted
mdijon
quote:
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
I think it works well enough for me! How would you like love to be explained? Do you consider it to be an idea, or emotion, or, possibly, gift from anexternal reality? Do you think that the emotion we call 'love' in all its various forms would have evolved anyway, regardless of its survival value?
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I know that you believe that you understood what you think I said, but I am not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
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
Of course there are a lot of less positive possibilities.
- 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
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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mdijon
Shipmate
# 8520
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Posted
quote:
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
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.
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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mdijon nojidm uoɿıqɯ ɯqıɿou
ɯqıɿou uoɿıqɯ nojidm mdijon
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
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!
It's a weird fantasy which some atheists/materialists have, which is akin to scientism, but I suppose is not pure scientism.
For example, this post that I am writing is undoubtedly produced in the brain. Err, so what? Should I send you a brain scan by email instead? It's a kind of cul de sac in terms of actually living, or it detaches itself from concrete living, and dwells in an abstract and unlived in unreality.
"I love you".
"That's just chemicals, I'm afraid."
"Piss off, then."
"More chemicals, I'm afraid. Chemicals all the way down."
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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