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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Introducing me. There are no gods or supernatural!
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
I'm still waiting for the one being argued on this thread to be refuted by the atheists. Anybody can refute a weakened version of those arguments. I don't expect anything different. Attacking straw men with circular arguments is the only tool in the new atheist toolbox.
But, by God, it makes them feel good.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
I'm still waiting for the one being argued on this thread to be refuted by the atheists. Anybody can refute a weakened version of those arguments. I don't expect anything different. Attacking straw men with circular arguments is the only tool in the new atheist toolbox.
I think an atheist like P. Z. Myers would say that it's not refutable, because it places God outside nature, and is incoherent, or not even wrong.
Well, this makes me puzzled that atheists ask for evidence, then, if no such thing is feasible. I'm not sure what they're looking for.
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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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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
It seems odd to me, if an atheist is assuming naturalism, empiricism and rationalism, and is then asking to be shown something outside those domains. How would that work?
Yes …
Think of an utterly devoted baseball fan, "who lives, eats and breathes" the history and rules of baseball, and then complains that, say, "lacrosse" is illegitimate because it isn't baseball ...
Well, I meant it as a genuine question. I don't really understand what atheists mean when they ask for proof or evidence, since scientific evidence is couched in naturalistic terms. So they are asking for naturalistic evidence for something non-natural?
Exactly so …
Further, the game is *rigged* when "God" is defined in terms of "nature," i.e., as "SUPER-natural" …
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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Drewthealexander
Shipmate
# 16660
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Posted
I was reading something today by the cosmologist Alexander Valenkin who quoted favourably the dictum "An argument is what convinces reasonable men, and a proof is what it takes to convince an unreasonable man."
Posts: 499 | Registered: Sep 2011
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Beeswax Altar
Shipmate
# 11644
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Posted
Like I said...circular reasoning is the only tool in the toolbox.
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Losing sleep is something you want to avoid, if possible.
-Og: King of Bashan
Posts: 8411 | From: By a large lake | Registered: Jul 2006
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Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Drewthealexander:
I was reading something today by the cosmologist Alexander Valenkin who quoted favourably the dictum "An argument is what convinces reasonable men, and a proof is what it takes to convince an unreasonable man."
He is wrong. I have seen plenty unconvinced by a proof. The normal tactic is to say it does not address the premis in some way.
Jengie
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"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
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Porridge
Shipmate
# 15405
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
I'm still waiting for the one being argued on this thread to be refuted by the atheists. Anybody can refute a weakened version of those arguments. I don't expect anything different. Attacking straw men with circular arguments is the only tool in the new atheist toolbox.
I think an atheist like P. Z. Myers would say that it's not refutable, because it places God outside nature, and is incoherent, or not even wrong.
Well, this makes me puzzled that atheists ask for evidence, then, if no such thing is feasible. I'm not sure what they're looking for.
I can only tell you what this atheist is looking for: not evidence at all. What I'd really like is a little ordinary honesty from folks on all sides of the question, viz.:
1. The notion that there's some boss skydaddymommy running the whole show is utterly ludicrous.
2. The notion that the whole show is one enormous intricately interconnected oopsie is every bit as ludicrous as # 1.
3. So are all the other notions.
4. We humans know diddly-squat about anything, and that, friends, goes for apparently material as well as apparently non-material realities, assuming we'd recognize either when it fell in our root beer.
5. We've had eons of fun arguing these questions.
6. Except when we've slaughtered each other over them (note: this slaughter is entirely the fault of the humans, not of either the material or non-material realities which may or may not comprise or partly comprise said humans).
7. Meanwhile, who do we think we're kidding? If we put this much energy into some practical need, we'd probably be in serious danger of solving it.
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Spiggott: Everything I've ever told you is a lie, including that.
Moon: Including what?
Spiggott: That everything I've ever told you is a lie.
Moon: That's not true!
Posts: 3925 | From: Upper right corner | Registered: Jan 2010
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Beeswax Altar:
Like I said...circular reasoning is the only tool in the toolbox.
IOW, "God" is DEFINED out*of*Reality ...
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
The crucial difference between what you are talking about and modern science is the latter includes means to evaluate success or lack of it. A common objection to the metaphysical proof you speak of is simply that it is unwise to draw conclusions from extrapolations about causality way beyond our experience.
First, much of modern science is not simply "well tested and true", but rather what I would call "coherent story making". Take something like Hawking radiation. It is not really a tested theory, perhaps it is not even a testable theory. Still, it is a celebrated result because it "makes sense". It connects various theories and results to each other in a consistent way, and kind of "borrows" believability by being consistent with experimental evidence and its corresponding theory elsewhere. A lot of science is actually done in this integrative mode, where the hope is that the sum is greater than the parts - so that from fairly weak and disparate data a coherent understanding can be formed. Unsurprisingly, such constructs often can be adjusted rather flexibly to the failure of any constituent part. This raises questions about the falsifiability of actual (rather than idealised) scientific work. Witness the slow death of supersymmetry in our days.
Second, modern science has a full-on speculative branch, which grants itself freedom to the most fantastic flights of fancy in the absence of any constraining data. There are superstrings and multiverses, we are all just in a branch of myriad quantum worlds and if you heap feedback loop of feedback loop then somehow mind will rise from brain...
Third, the question what counts as "sufficient evidence" for some scientific theory, and why, is far from simple. One could argue that the success of modern science is one of social engineering. Instead of trying to specify objective criteria for success, one devolves this into a majority consensus of experts. The results of this are not clean cut just because they are written in a "mathematical" way. I've long thought that one of the most honest figures in physics was Figure 2 in the Introduction here (page 17, warning: 53 MB PDF file). The figure has been around in various versions for a long time. Consider the error bars, what they are supposed to mean and what a few decades of scientific history show that they do mean.
Fourth, a lot is made out of our technological success. But the relationship of science and engineering (and other applied fields, like medicine) is complicated and generally not just a simple matter of "applying science". A lot of engineering is heuristic, based on its own "trial and error" data gathering. Engineers have their own kind of mathematics, unsurprisingly more concerned with working with real system (like say a Kalman filter). Where they use science directly, it is often in a "good enough" manner. A fluid might not really be incompressible and inviscid, but for calculating flows in this tech problem it will do. Etc. I think it's a often a bit like the Wild West. First, you have the trappers and other trail blazers. Those are the scientists. Then you have the first settler treks, that's adventurous R&D engineering. And then you have the proper settlements establishing towns and roads etc. That's everyday engineering. It is true in a sense that it all started with those trappers, but it is not really true that they build the cities. It would actually be interesting to think about what it means that the world is not just understandable (science) but also useable (engineering). It's not quite the same thing.
I could go on, but I really just wanted to point out that a lot of talk about the "success of science" is rather naive. Science is not an iron clad empirical fortress of absolute truth. It's a bunch of smart people figuring out nature best they can, and rather enjoying the guesswork along the way.
Interestingly, metaphysical proof is in a sense more secure than (modern natural) science. Because it attempts to extract that which is foundational to all observations of nature, rather than looking at the content of some specific observation. You can consider this simply in terms of amassed data. If you are looking at a specific effect, then the only data that establishes your knowledge is the data collected for this effect. But if you look at what underlies all effects, then in some sense any data you collect about any effect contributes to your knowledge.
Consequentially, metaphysical proof is more "mathematical" in nature than "(modern) physical". Because one is operating on those things that underlie all observations of nature, one can attempt true demonstrations. That's not simply a matter of confirming some hypothesis statistically with a certain amount of data. It is making conclusions that must necessarily hold true because they are based on principles underlying all data. For example: "a contingent entity must have a cause." This is saying something about nature, but not something specific to some experiment or observation. It is rather almost a kind of summary of why we are doing experiments and collecting observations. It is the success of the data gathering enterprise as a whole, rather than of any particular data, which motivates us to believe this to be true. Given such a proposition, we can then deduce other truths. They must be truths in a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy sense. In a sense we have no choice but to believe our own minds. Not that we cannot err, but cognition cannot declare itself to be in principle erroneous. That would be like: "This statement is a lie."
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
For instance our observations of natural reality at this moment in time means that in the Standard Model of particle physics we have a fairly good account of around 4% of the Universe. So the best understanding we have of the fundamental nature of our universe is restricted to 4% of it. The other 96% that we think is made of dark energy and dark matter is a pretty much a closed book. And if we are wrong about the existence of the 96% then we possibly know a lot less about the 4% than we think we do. This is hardly a rich seam of data to draw conclusions about universals, especially when you consider our - ahem - universe may well be only a small part of reality as a whole.
What a strange argument, perhaps we could call it "atheism of the gaps". First, this is fairly ignorant as far as the physics and cosmology goes. We are assuming that there could be "dark content" out there, precisely because we see deviations between our measurements (e.g., galaxy rotation curves) and the contribution we expect theoretically from visible matter. Fixing this with dark content says nothing else than that such dark content obeys the relevant, known laws of physics but happens to be unobserved (for some reason). For example, this dark content will have typical gravitational effects. The whole dark content idea is one massive show of confidence in existing physical law! We are so confident in what we already know that we simply go ahead and predict a majority of unobserved stuff when our observations fail to match up with our theoretical prediction. The alternative would be to assume that our physical laws are simply wrong, but we don't do that...
Second, while all this is really a bit of a bummer for physics, it is almost meaningless for metaphysics. Do you expect that this dark matter could somehow demonstrate that contingent entities do not need a cause? How would that even work? Metaphysics is very unlikely to be affected by whatever may explain the observed discrepancies. This brings us exactly back to the point I made above. If you are worrying about specific observations, like in physical theory, then relevant data can easily sway you this way or that. It is physics that gets shaken by such stuff. If however you think about the fundamentals of all observations, then the particular content of one observation means very little. Whatever contingency may be found to apply to dark matter, eventually, it will require some cause. We can say this because in a way it is not really a statement about dark matter as such, but rather about what contingency and cause mean. Metaphysics is one removed from the hustle and bustle of physics, it is about the general principles behind that busyness.
quote:
Originally posted by Grokesx:
I'm interested in where you stand on this. You seem to believe that there's a map existing now, heavily influenced by the work of Aquinas, that, regardless of what we might discover in the uncharted areas of the actual territory, is accurate enough to tell us about any territory that exists. If I have that right, how do you justify that belief? If not, what have I got wrong about it?
No, what I believe in - in terms of your analogy - is that all sorts of people make all sorts of maps, and that one can say general things about mapmaking! Let's call this study of what is going on in mapmaking "meta-mapmaking". In the field of "meta-mapmaking" one can then for example say things like "a good map is always less complex than reality, losing information to increase clarity, and has less spatial extent than reality, losing spatial detail to achieve a manageable size." These are statements not about any specific map, but about all maps in general. From this one can deduce other "meta-mapmaking" truths. For example: "it follows that however good a map is, we can always find something in reality that is not represented in the map, even though the map is of that part of reality." This truth can be demonstrated quite apart from drawing any specific kind off map, because it is a logical consequence of something we have gleaned from the general mapmaking process.
Aquinas et al. are not somehow the giants of mapmaking who by some magical devilry created a super-map that beats the combined efforts of hundreds of thousands of modern mapmakers armed with satellites and lasers and whatnot. Rather, they were doing meta-mapmaking. And as far as they got that right (and I think they were doing pretty well), then whatever they said back then about maps is still true about maps today. Because they thought about what goes into mapmaking, and what we can say based on that, rather than thinking about any specific map. Meta-mapmaking is not mapmaking. Metaphysics is not physics. There is no competition here. Indeed, to some extent the ancients can be scolded for trying to bootstrap physics from metaphysics (and mostly failing). But in the same way moderns can be accused of rejecting metaphysics over physics (and mostly being silly). But metaphysics operates on the principles behind all physics, behind all human investigations of nature. If we can say something there, then it will hold as much true as the human mind can grasp nature in the first place. We are looking at the act of grasping nature in metaphysics, but at what we have grasped from nature in physics.
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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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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
<philosophy OCD to follow, please ignore if not so afflicted>
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
We are looking at the act of grasping nature in metaphysics, but at what we have grasped from nature in physics.
Hmm, the way I have written that it sounds more like epistemology. I guess you could say "graspability" has two parts, one is about how things are (metaphysics), the other is about how we hence grasp them (epistemology), neither of which is however particularly concerned with the specific thing grasped (physics). Something like that... Anyway, as you were. ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
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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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HughWillRidmee
Shipmate
# 15614
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by quetzalcoatl:
I think an atheist like P. Z. Myers would say that it's not refutable, because it places God outside nature, and is incoherent, or not even wrong.
Well, this makes me puzzled that atheists ask for evidence, then, if no such thing is feasible. I'm not sure what they're looking for.
Are atheists asking for evidence? - some may be but that's irrelevant isn't it? The point is that we are told the stories but are offered nothing that we can interpret as satisfactory evidence. Doesn't mean we want evidence (we don't want the story either but people keep trying to sell it to us), just that we expect a decent reason before changing the direction of our lives. Should people accept whatever they're told without some indication that it's valid? With so many versions of religion out there it is surely incumbent, as with a car or a house, upon each option to offer a justification for choosing it, isn't it? Perhaps it means that we are content enough not to want change?
The emperor's new clothes is a valid comparison if one is not viewing from inside the distorting cell wall of the soap-bubble of religion. Then some of us look at religion's effects on humanity (both as individuals and en masse) and come to the conclusion that the net harm caused by religious belief is too high a price to pay to settle for a quiet life. The miniscule possibility of a kernel of truth buried in the detritus is not worth, to us, the aggro that the detritus delivers. That, unsurprisingly, upsets some people who have a conviction that their version of religion is important enough to justify ignoring the detritus.
What am I looking for? I think what I'm looking for is neutrality - which I suspect we all think would lead to the eventual demise of religion- hence I'm not holding my breath..
I would like religious people to desist from making false claims and immorally (in my view) applying pressure to the vulnerable. Loose the fancy dress, the gold leaf, the bells and smells, the pomp and ceremony designed to create an impression of unquestionable authority. Stop claiming that god is a mystery, but he has told an elite few exactly how he wants me to lead my life - as though he would be incapable of making his wishes, and his reality, apparent to each and every one of us if he wanted us so informed. People should believe what they will, religious or otherwise but thy shouldn't use the word "know" when they don't. Convinced, certain, sure, without doubt, all may be true but no-one knows god(s) - the sheer diversity and irrationality of the inconsistent and incompatible qualities people attribute to their god(s) bears irrefutable testimony to that. And no-one should accept blame (the god good, people bad con) as if it is their fault that their understanding of their god(s) is imperfect. It ain't their fault that their god(s) can't communicate clearly enough for humanity to understand the content.
It's my experience that religion thrives in a heads I win, tails you lose environment. (over)simply - if it's good, praise god; if it's bad, blame yourself. Well, if some people are content to be a serial loser (original sin etc.) that's OK. Any attempt to infect other people with the guilt/absolution story I consider abhorrent, but, if people are misled into thinking it must be done, it should be done morally. I've heard too many attempts at conversion by glib falsehoods (you have faith every time you turn a tap on etc.); I know, from experience, that that means that the seller is getting desperate. State the case truthfully and appropriately to those able to decide, not the mentally frail, school children and those who are in despair (all popular targets for evangelisation) - that's both cowardly and immoral.
False guilt destroys people as readily as deserved guilt and religion (not uniquely) actively promotes false guilt. Religion denigrates the scientific method because it can't survive in its presence, yet science has provided food, fresh water, immunisation, medicines, semi-conductors, access to knowledge etc. etc. to the benefit of mankind (and also weapons and synthetic mind altering drugs etc.) whilst religion provides .............what? an unlikely and undemonstrable hope of a better future in return for an acquiescent present? I know about creating a need in order to satisfy it by selling something - I was good at recognising genuine need and developing it, I never stooped to falsifying need. (re-reading, that sounds pious, so be it, it just happens that it's also true).
How many Christians, particularly their leaders, have no savings, no investments, no property and no pension plan? How many have sold all they have and given it to the poor without negotiating a future supply that meets at least their basic needs. Yes, of course it's impractical to the point of being silly, no I didn't do it, but it's their book and their god's clear instruction - not mine. If they talk the talk without walking the walk they should be exposed to justified ridicule shouldn't they?
You asked didn't you!
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The danger to society is not merely that it should believe wrong things.. but that it should become credulous, and lose the habit of testing things and inquiring into them...
W. K. Clifford, "The Ethics of Belief" (1877)
Posts: 894 | From: Middle England | Registered: Apr 2010
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Metaphysics is one removed from the hustle and bustle of physics, it is about the general principles behind that busyness.
Ooooh I like that. Philosophy and Hermeneutics 101.
[ 30. March 2015, 02:00: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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a theological scrapbook
Posts: 9481 | From: Australia | Registered: Apr 2009
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
What am I looking for? I think what I'm looking for is neutrality - which I suspect we all think would lead to the eventual demise of religion- hence I'm not holding my breath..
What do you mean by "neutrality" -- that we stop pretending we believe what we believe? In what twisted version of reality is that reasonable?
quote:
I would like religious people to desist from making false claims and immorally (in my view) applying pressure to the vulnerable.
I agree about applying pressure to the vulnerable. But what "false claims"? We don't believe that we are making "false claims" -- so you're basically saying you believe religious people should stop being religious people. Then the world would become atheist. Um, yeah, sure, almost by definition, right? This is absurd.
quote:
Loose the fancy dress, the gold leaf, the bells and smells, the pomp and ceremony designed to create an impression of unquestionable authority.
Two things: (1) churches without any of these things are going strong, and making converts all the time; (2) why should I care what some disaffected atheist wants from MY church? You want religion without bells and smells? Start your own. Don't DARE presume to tell me how to conduct my religious affairs.
quote:
Stop claiming that god is a mystery,
Yeah, and you stop saying what you think is true in public, too. Why not start today? Then we'll know that you are being sincere in this wish.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Metaphysics is one removed from the hustle and bustle of physics, it is about the general principles behind that busyness.
Ooooh I like that. Philosophy and Hermeneutics 101.
The central vital bit is: Epistemology ... If that isn't well in order, "metaphysics" is just so much mumbo and jumbo ...
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
The central vital bit is: Epistemology ... If that isn't well in order, "metaphysics" is just so much mumbo and jumbo ...
Arguably you need to have a few examples of knowledge about in order to be able to ask what knowledge is.
There's a line of argument, with which I agree, that the problem with modern epistemology is that it works from the first person - 'how can I be sure that I do know anything' - rather than from the question 'what is knowledge and how do people get it'? The third person perspective allows for the possibility that knowledge is acquired in the course of social interaction and education, rather than by philosophers sitting on their own in rooms. But then there's no reason to make the third-person question foundational to the whole philosophical enterprise.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
The central vital bit is: Epistemology ... If that isn't well in order, "metaphysics" is just so much mumbo and jumbo ...
Or perhaps it is exactly the other way around. Quoting the ever useful Ed Feser once more:
quote:
Ancient and medieval philosophy in general, and Thomism in particular, emphasized metaphysics over epistemology, and objective reality over our subjective awareness of it. The right order of inquiry, from this point of view, is first to determine the nature of the world and the place of human beings within it, and then on that basis to investigate how human beings come to acquire knowledge of the world. Modern philosophy, beginning with Rene Descartes (1596-1650), reverses this approach, tending as it does to start with questions about how we can come to have knowledge of the world and only then going on to consider what the world must be like, based on an account of our knowledge of it. In particular, both Descartes’ rationalism and the empiricism of writers like Locke, Berkeley, and Hume begin with the individual conscious subject or self, develop a theory about how that self can know anything, and then determine what reality in general must be like in line with their respective theories of knowledge.
One result of this subjectivist method was to make objective reality and common sense problematic in a way they had not been for Aristotle and Aquinas; skepticism thus came to seem a serious threat, and idealism (the view that the material world is an illusion and that mind alone is real) came to seem a serious option. Another consequence was that even when some sort of objective reality was acknowledged, doubts were raised about the possibility of knowing much about it beyond what the senses could tell us directly. Accordingly, grand metaphysical systems of the sort presented by Plato, Aristotle, and Aquinas were called into question. The philosophy of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) was an especially influential expression of hostility to traditional metaphysics, distinguishing as it does between “phenomena” (the world as it appears to us, of which we can have knowledge) and “noumena” (the world as it exists in itself, which we cannot know).
I think the basic problem here is that human knowing is pulling yourself out of the mud by your own hair. If you look too closely, it all starts to look rather circular and impossible.
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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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Truman White
Shipmate
# 17290
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Posted
@Hugh. You're a lad aren't you? You complain about religious people putting pressure on the vulnerable, having ignored completely upthread the militant atheism in the educational system of Soviet Russia, reinforced by a police state that brooked no dissent. Not much "neutrality" there then.
Quick reminder of what we were saying a page or two ago:
quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
Regarding the experience of falling and being 'in love" -- As it is written (and has been sung), "Fools rush where wise persons never go, but wise ones never fall in love, so who are they to know … ???"
I'm struggling again - the only relevance that I can conjure is the assumption that those who have not been religious can't know......??whatever?? If that's the case I might suggest that rationality could be enhanced by a lack of exposure to religion - I wouldn't know though, both the t-shirt and the (non-physical) scars are still fading.
As to falling/being in love - in my few but exhilarating experiences I was never aware of it being optional.
So how far do you take the logic there me ol' son? Someone leaves their spouse and kids and runs off with someone else and say "Couldn't help it guv, it's the chemicals in me brain.' That alright with you?
Serious point here mate - how much of what we do, do you reckon is down to neural processes over which we have no control?
Posts: 476 | Registered: Aug 2012
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
@Hugh. You're a lad aren't you? You complain about religious people putting pressure on the vulnerable, having ignored completely upthread the militant atheism in the educational system of Soviet Russia, reinforced by a police state that brooked no dissent. Not much "neutrality" there then.
Right......because atheism = communism? Ok then.
And I guess Christians are currently burning heretics at the steak?
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
It seems like this effort to persuade atheists that unbelief in a creator God is irrational is as fruitless as an atheist attempting to prove that belief is irrational.
We all know it is irrational, that is the nature of faith. Clearly there are persuading arguments - which cause people who were atheists to become theists and the other way around. But also clearly neither side has a knock-out blow which is undeniable proof to the other. It isn't that either side is avoiding evidence, it is that it is a different worldview and that the evidence is interpreted and understood in different ways.
The whole debate is rather tired, and the conclusions any one person gets to are dependent either upon their pre-existing worldview or a different one they are prepared to accept because it makes more sense of the world.
Unilaterally declaring that one "knows" that there are no gods or supernatural is as ridiculous as stating that one "knows" a deity must exist to have created everything.
And the old chestnut of declaring atheism a faith like a religion is also pretty tired. In some respects some people may indeed own the philosophy like a religion, but a lot (maybe a majority) of actual atheists are such because they see nothing to attract them in religion, it does not seem to be answering the questions they're asking or they just are not thinking about it.
In the same way, I might not support Liverpool football club. This might be hatred due to my support of a rival football club - I have taken on an alternative view which is a rival to the Liverpool-supporting meme.
But it might as easily be because I have no interest in football. Not supporting Liverpool does not automatically mean that I have equal and opposite fanatical support for another football team.
That's madness.
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arse
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Evensong
Shipmate
# 14696
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Posted
Chicken and egg philosophy is so much fun. Perhaps because it seems to underlie absolutely everything.! ![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
We all know it is irrational, that is the nature of faith.
You have an odd definition of rationality here. I don't think faith is irrational. As you yourself said, there are reasons for faith.
[ 30. March 2015, 11:15: Message edited by: Evensong ]
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a theological scrapbook
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
@Hugh. You're a lad aren't you? You complain about religious people putting pressure on the vulnerable, having ignored completely upthread the militant atheism in the educational system of Soviet Russia, reinforced by a police state that brooked no dissent. Not much "neutrality" there then.
Right......because atheism = communism? Ok then.
And I guess Christians are currently burning heretics at the steak?
Atheism and Marxism are not the same thing. That's pretty clear.
However, all the founders of communism (Marx, Lenin, Engels) regarded atheism as foundational to their project. The whole thing is built on atheism. It was only later forms, which have had little traction outside their areas of origin, that rejected that foundational link.
( The Fount of All Knowledge on Marxist-Leninist ("Scientific") atheism.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
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# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Evensong:
You have an odd definition of rationality here. I don't think faith is irrational. As you yourself said, there are reasons for faith.
Well y'know, read the philosophers who have a better handle on this than me: Socrates, Plato, Kierkegaard, Kant etc.
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arse
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
quote:
Originally posted by Truman White:
@Hugh. You're a lad aren't you? You complain about religious people putting pressure on the vulnerable, having ignored completely upthread the militant atheism in the educational system of Soviet Russia, reinforced by a police state that brooked no dissent. Not much "neutrality" there then.
Right......because atheism = communism? Ok then.
And I guess Christians are currently burning heretics at the steak?
Atheism and Marxism are not the same thing. That's pretty clear.
However, all the founders of communism (Marx, Lenin, Engels) regarded atheism as foundational to their project. The whole thing is built on atheism. It was only later forms, which have had little traction outside their areas of origin, that rejected that foundational link.
( The Fount of All Knowledge on Marxist-Leninist ("Scientific") atheism.
Wow...all these years and I never once realised I was a power hungry communist. Thank you for this. Time for me to go out and murder some people I guess.
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
However, all the founders of communism (Marx, Lenin, Engels) regarded atheism as foundational to their project. The whole thing is built on atheism.
What do you mean by 'foundational' here?
It is true that Marx thought that rejection of religion followed from his political economic analysis. It is true also that they thought religion was one of the phenomena that prevented people from realising that their political economic analysis was true. That doesn't mean that there is a thing called atheism that Marx took one step further. Marx wouldn't have been terribly surprised at atheist capitalists, and he didn't justify communism on the grounds that it was better at eliminating religion.
While 'some atheists persecute and indoctrinate people' is sufficient to reject 'only religious people persecute or indoctrinate people', it is irrelevant to the claim 'all religious people indoctrinate people'. The latter statement is pretty stupid in its own right, but not for anything to do with communism.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Well y'know, read the philosophers who have a better handle on this than me: Socrates, Plato, Kierkegaard, Kant etc.
In so far as we can map modern categories onto Plato, Plato thinks faith is rational (at least in the Republic). We can't read Socrates, because he probably didn't write anything, and certainly didn't leave us any. Kant is ambiguous. He thinks reason cannot justify faith, but he does think reason can make room for faith. If we distinguish between two positions: a) faith is irrational in that rationality believes it goes beyond what is justified by the evidence; and b) faith is a-rational in that rationality leaves the option open either way, Kant is clearly b) with regards to pure reason. (And he notoriously thinks faith is required by practical reason.)
So really of your examples Kierkegaard is the only one who really thinks faith necessarily goes beyond the evidence, and even there it's not clear to me that he thinks it's irrational as opposed to a-rational. (And even that's complicated by Kierkegaard's irony.)
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The whole debate is rather tired, and the conclusions any one person gets to are dependent either upon their pre-existing worldview or a different one they are prepared to accept because it makes more sense of the world.
Believing that a worldview makes more sense of the world certainly looks like a use of reason to me. Just because reason isn't sufficient to prove conclusions either way doesn't mean it's irrelevant.
quote:
And the old chestnut of declaring atheism a faith like a religion is also pretty tired. In some respects some people may indeed own the philosophy like a religion, but a lot (maybe a majority) of actual atheists are such because they see nothing to attract them in religion, it does not seem to be answering the questions they're asking or they just are not thinking about it.
You move rather quickly from 'atheism' to 'the philosophy'. In so far as atheism cannot be said to be a faith, it cannot be said to be a philosophy either.
Also, I think the people who just don't care are in general not the people participating in discussions of religion on the internet.
One might also argue that people who don't think about these questions aren't so much without a philosophy as using hand-me-down scraps without thinking. Just because someone doesn't think about economics doesn't mean they don't make judgements about whether they'll get a better price and quality from the supermarket or from the local corner shop. I at least think that a lot of philosophy is about trying to make explicit and open to question the embedded and sometimes contradictory worldviews and social rationalities of the philosopher's society.
We can distinguish between things people mean when they say 'atheism'.
a) a mere negative definition, that lumps together everything that isn't either monotheistic or polytheistic.
In this sense, atheism implies nothing about acceptance of science, rejection of belief in fairies or astrology, liberal ethics, or so on.
b) the sort of Whiggish liberal democratic scientific rationalism espoused by Richard Dawkins, and by most people who argue against religion on internet discussion groups.
This is not a mere absence of belief. The scientific rationalist position could be described as a faith position for two reasons:
i) it is believed that certain features of any broadly sane philosophical position e.g. the general reliability of knowledge about the external world cannot be justified by any rational standards, and therefore should be considered a matter of 'faith'. If I distinguish between irrationality (contrary to the rationally justifiable position) and a-rationality, this line of argument takes it that scientific humanism relies upon a-rational commitments.
ii) it is believed that the reasons alleged to support scientific humanism as opposed to any other philosophical worldview are not sufficient to establish it. That is, someone might think that scientific humanism is at best less rationally compelling than other positions and at worst actively irrational, and therefore deserves to be considered a 'faith' position.
c) either secular humanism or any one of the other general worldviews that reject religion, such as post-Nietzschean postmodernism. About which each such position much the same could be said as under b.
I'm not entirely sure that I think either use of 'faith' (i or ii above) can be used without distorting the theological meaning of 'faith'. Nevertheless, there are open questions here that cannot be dismissed either by talk of absence of belief or by analogies with football teams.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Teilhard:
The central vital bit is: Epistemology ... If that isn't well in order, "metaphysics" is just so much mumbo and jumbo ...
Arguably you need to have a few examples of knowledge about in order to be able to ask what knowledge is.
There's a line of argument, with which I agree, that the problem with modern epistemology is that it works from the first person - 'how can I be sure that I do know anything' - rather than from the question 'what is knowledge and how do people get it'? The third person perspective allows for the possibility that knowledge is acquired in the course of social interaction and education, rather than by philosophers sitting on their own in rooms. But then there's no reason to make the third-person question foundational to the whole philosophical enterprise.
Yes ... In some respects, in fact Epistemology, while the central bit, is also one of the easiest ...
On the face of it, obviously empirical knowledge, i.e., that which derives from experience, is preferred ...
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Believing that a worldview makes more sense of the world certainly looks like a use of reason to me. Just because reason isn't sufficient to prove conclusions either way doesn't mean it's irrelevant.
Oh no, I don't think it is irrelevant, I just don't think it is really possible to argue outwith of the worldview within which you operate.
So the idea that it is possible to prove something (and I'm talking about philosophical rather than scientific proof) in a way that every right-thinking Greek would agree with is wrong.
Well, at least it is both right and wrong. Right in the sense that it is possible to prove something to someone that is internally consistent if they accept the basis of your worldview - so if all Greeks had essentially the same worldview, then it it is possible to be rational within that framework and prove things to the satisfaction of others who also hold that framework.
But clearly also wrong because the ideal breaks down because not everyone is a Greek and not all Greeks hold the same fundamentals And if you are in an environment where Greek philosophy cuts no dice at all, it seems pretty meaningless guff.
Personally, I think Kierkegaard captured the contrast of different kinds of knowledge really well, and of course he was living in the light of the Greek philosophers before him.
So, I think, he was able to elegantly show the flaws in being totally logical with the bounds of ones worldview - but dismissing the possibility of the prophetic. So living in Nazi Germany and following all the rules needed a dose of the prophetic breaking through the bounds of what was generally accepted to be right and wrong.
But at the same time he shows that the one who claims to be following only the divine prophetic 'God told me' ethic is pretty dangerous because you can't argue with him using logical argument (because, at the final analysis, he'll argue you are arguing with the will of God, and there is no way to persuade him any different).
Kant took this a stage further, as you mention.
Logical, rational knowledge is a different thing to prophetic divine knowledge. It is not possible to interrogate the one with the other and mixing the two things is a wrong way to think, in my opinion. But, I also think both things should be held in tension with each other. Allowing either to argue that the other does not exist is a dangerous thing.
quote:
You move rather quickly from 'atheism' to 'the philosophy'. In so far as atheism cannot be said to be a faith, it cannot be said to be a philosophy either.
Agree. Not believing in Liverpool football club is not necessarily a philosophy. But, maybe, if you are an enthusiastic supporter of Everton, it might be.
quote:
Also, I think the people who just don't care are in general not the people participating in discussions of religion on the internet.
One might also argue that people who don't think about these questions aren't so much without a philosophy as using hand-me-down scraps without thinking. Just because someone doesn't think about economics doesn't mean they don't make judgements about whether they'll get a better price and quality from the supermarket or from the local corner shop. I at least think that a lot of philosophy is about trying to make explicit and open to question the embedded and sometimes contradictory worldviews and social rationalities of the philosopher's society.
I'm not sure about this. The person who is saying 'I think there is a bit too much Liverpool FC on TV' is not necessarily taking a view against Liverpool and for Everton (although they might be). They might just disapprove of football. Similarly, the one who says there is too much religion in society is not necessarily advocating a particular alternative form of secularism. Or atheism. Or anything else.
Nobody anywhere who is expressing dislike about something in public life is automatically advocating for something else nor necessarily agreeing with the thing that others who are also expressing dislike are saying.
quote:
We can distinguish between things people mean when they say 'atheism'.
a) a mere negative definition, that lumps together everything that isn't either monotheistic or polytheistic.
In this sense, atheism implies nothing about acceptance of science, rejection of belief in fairies or astrology, liberal ethics, or so on.
b) the sort of Whiggish liberal democratic scientific rationalism espoused by Richard Dawkins, and by most people who argue against religion on internet discussion groups.
This is not a mere absence of belief. The scientific rationalist position could be described as a faith position for two reasons:
i) it is believed that certain features of any broadly sane philosophical position e.g. the general reliability of knowledge about the external world cannot be justified by any rational standards, and therefore should be considered a matter of 'faith'. If I distinguish between irrationality (contrary to the rationally justifiable position) and a-rationality, this line of argument takes it that scientific humanism relies upon a-rational commitments.
ii) it is believed that the reasons alleged to support scientific humanism as opposed to any other philosophical worldview are not sufficient to establish it. That is, someone might think that scientific humanism is at best less rationally compelling than other positions and at worst actively irrational, and therefore deserves to be considered a 'faith' position.
c) either secular humanism or any one of the other general worldviews that reject religion, such as post-Nietzschean postmodernism. About which each such position much the same could be said as under b.
I'm not entirely sure that I think either use of 'faith' (i or ii above) can be used without distorting the theological meaning of 'faith'. Nevertheless, there are open questions here that cannot be dismissed either by talk of absence of belief or by analogies with football teams.
Yes, that's quite well explained. Personally, I think Dawkins does no favours to most atheists and is not particularly representative of anyone other than himself.
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arse
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Honest Ron Bacardi
Shipmate
# 38
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
quote:
Originally posted by Honest Ron Bacardi:
However, all the founders of communism (Marx, Lenin, Engels) regarded atheism as foundational to their project. The whole thing is built on atheism.
What do you mean by 'foundational' here?
It is true that Marx thought that rejection of religion followed from his political economic analysis. It is true also that they thought religion was one of the phenomena that prevented people from realising that their political economic analysis was true. That doesn't mean that there is a thing called atheism that Marx took one step further. Marx wouldn't have been terribly surprised at atheist capitalists, and he didn't justify communism on the grounds that it was better at eliminating religion.
While 'some atheists persecute and indoctrinate people' is sufficient to reject 'only religious people persecute or indoctrinate people', it is irrelevant to the claim 'all religious people indoctrinate people'. The latter statement is pretty stupid in its own right, but not for anything to do with communism.
By foundational, I mean simply that it was one of the building blocks on which Marx developed his theories.
Following Feuerbach, he considered that any concept of god was "anthropotheistic", and that religion was a symptom of self-alienation. He disagreed with Feuerbach's stronger form of atheism however, which he regarded as a "thing out there". Self-alienation is in contradistinction to the unalienated state which he regarded as was the condition in primitive societies, where actions are more directed to communal ends.
Yes, he thought religion would wither away if his project was followed. But that's a separate issue.
Lenin wrote:- quote:
Our Program is based entirely on the scientific, and moreover the materialist, world-outlook. An explanation of our Program, therefore, necessarily includes an explanation of the true historical and economic roots of the religious fog. Our propaganda necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.
(from On Socialism & Religion (1905))
I certainly do not mean to imply that Marx took atheism and turned into a new product. And I entirely agree with your last para. - I have no interest in silly tit-for-tat arguments. I just wanted to outline where the linkage lies. IMHO naturally.
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Anglo-Cthulhic
Posts: 4857 | From: the corridors of Pah! | Registered: May 2001
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itsarumdo
Shipmate
# 18174
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Posted
I understand that "rationality" to Greeks included a strong element of somatic empathy - what we might call gut feeling. Translating Greek philosophy and logic into a post-Descartian post-modernist world view (even Descartes was not totally rational in the modern sense of the word, and "think" included "feel") creates something of a cold cerebral fish that to the Greeks would have been utterly irrational. And probably stupid.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
Posts: 994 | From: Planet Zog | Registered: Jul 2014
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Martin60
Shipmate
# 368
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Posted
If metaphysics can prove God so can physics.
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Love wins
Posts: 17586 | From: Never Dobunni after all. Corieltauvi after all. Just moved to the capital. | Registered: Jun 2001
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
Believing that a worldview makes more sense of the world certainly looks like a use of reason to me. Just because reason isn't sufficient to prove conclusions either way doesn't mean it's irrelevant.
Oh no, I don't think it is irrelevant, I just don't think it is really possible to argue outwith of the worldview within which you operate.
To some extent, I'd agree, but I don't think any worldview can be so self-consistent and therefore impermeable to other worldviews that it is impossible for there to be rational discussion between them. It might take work to find the footholds in each worldview but that doesn't mean they aren't there.
Personally, I think Kierkegaard captured the contrast of different kinds of knowledge really well, and of course he was living in the light of the Greek philosophers before him.
So, I think, he was able to elegantly show the flaws in being totally logical with the bounds of ones worldview - but dismissing the possibility of the prophetic. So living in Nazi Germany and following all the rules needed a dose of the prophetic breaking through the bounds of what was generally accepted to be right and wrong.
quote:
But at the same time he shows that the one who claims to be following only the divine prophetic 'God told me' ethic is pretty dangerous because you can't argue with him using logical argument (because, at the final analysis, he'll argue you are arguing with the will of God, and there is no way to persuade him any different).
I am not convinced that Kierkegaard, as opposed to Johannes de Silentio, is directly committed to the idea that the teleological directly overrides the ethical, and I'm especially not sure that Kierkegaard thinks it directly overrides the ethical in any non-Hegelian sense.
In any case, you can at least argue that if God commands something then he doesn't also command the contrary. As Kierkegaard (or de Silentio) remarks, to speak is to be in the realm of the ethical-logical.
quote:
quote:
Also, I think the people who just don't care are in general not the people participating in discussions of religion on the internet.
One might also argue that people who don't think about these questions aren't so much without a philosophy as using hand-me-down scraps without thinking.
I'm not sure about this. The person who is saying 'I think there is a bit too much Liverpool FC on TV' is not necessarily taking a view against Liverpool and for Everton (although they might be). They might just disapprove of football. Similarly, the one who says there is too much religion in society is not necessarily advocating a particular alternative form of secularism. Or atheism. Or anything else.
I don't think that analogy makes your point. If someone feels strongly enough about football to disapprove of it that's not a mere negative.
And while arguing against football clubs does not itself make use of any particular football club, arguing against worldviews does look like it makes use of worldviews.
quote:
Nobody anywhere who is expressing dislike about something in public life is automatically advocating for something else nor necessarily agreeing with the thing that others who are also expressing dislike are saying.
Yes, if they're simply expressing negative emotions and no more; but that's not a rational position that other people need take note of. It's not an argument. I find it difficult to see how someone can offer an argument expressing dislike without appealing to something one considers a good that is threatened by what one dislikes.
quote:
Personally, I think Dawkins does no favours to most atheists and is not particularly representative of anyone other than himself.
I think of Dawkins as the George Carey of scientific rationalism myself.
Some things Carey says are representative of Christianity as a whole, some things he says are representative of a subgroup within Christianity, and some things Carey says are representative of Carey's ego.
[ 30. March 2015, 21:20: Message edited by: Dafyd ]
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
To some extent, I'd agree, but I don't think any worldview can be so self-consistent and therefore impermeable to other worldviews that it is impossible for there to be rational discussion between them. It might take work to find the footholds in each worldview but that doesn't mean they aren't there.
I think the idea that it is possible to have a rational discussion between worldviews is itself an assumption based on a particular worldview.
In this case at least, there can be little way to bridge the gap between the worldviews of the deist and the atheist (and I know that this is a broadbrush characterisation of worldviews when they are a lot more convoluted and complicated) when both sides repeatedly make arguments and prevent evidence which only works to one accepting that worldview. The strange thing is when they insist that they are the only ones being logical, when all they're doing is displaying internal consistency.
quote:
I am not convinced that Kierkegaard, as opposed to Johannes de Silentio, is directly committed to the idea that the teleological directly overrides the ethical, and I'm especially not sure that Kierkegaard thinks it directly overrides the ethical in any non-Hegelian sense.
In any case, you can at least argue that if God commands something then he doesn't also command the contrary. As Kierkegaard (or de Silentio) remarks, to speak is to be in the realm of the ethical-logical.
Hahahaha, this is why Kierkegaard is so maddening but so rewarding in a way I find much more invigorating than Kant or most other theologians.
I think Fear and Trembling both illustrates the beauty and the tragedy of Abraham's teleological suspension of the ethical. I think there is a contrast to his other writings where he illustrates the tyranny of the ethical and the need for the gadfly like Socrates.
But this seems to be the nature of Kierkegaard, the more you read the more contradictory it becomes. So I think it is better not to even try to get to what he thought and try to see the images as reflections of excesses in various different directions.
quote:
I don't think that analogy makes your point. If someone feels strongly enough about football to disapprove of it that's not a mere negative.
And while arguing against football clubs does not itself make use of any particular football club, arguing against worldviews does look like it makes use of worldviews.
I am not sure what you mean here. I very occasionally make a comment about football, usually I don't even think about it. I do not consider my dislike of football to be an overwhelming passion nor even a particularly big part of me. If someone asked, I'd say what I thought, but mostly I don't care.
quote:
Yes, if they're simply expressing negative emotions and no more; but that's not a rational position that other people need take note of. It's not an argument. I find it difficult to see how someone can offer an argument expressing dislike without appealing to something one considers a good that is threatened by what one dislikes.
Wait.. so someone expressing emotion is not a rational position? Even if I agreed with that, I'm not forced to accept that someone expressing a general dislike of something is not rational nor only operating from emotion.
I find it easy to understand people expressing dislike on a spectrum of rationality, from an idle fleeting thought all the way through to a fully developed alternative philosophy or religion. The idea that everyone who makes this position is either just expressing a fleeting emotion or supporting a particular worldview is much too broad.
quote:
Some things Carey says are representative of Christianity as a whole, some things he says are representative of a subgroup within Christianity, and some things Carey says are representative of Carey's ego.
There is very little that Carey says that is representative of anyone other than himself either. The trouble with both these characters is that they've run away with the idea that 'if I can think it, it must be true..' and they then take a rather large leap of faith to suggest that everyone else actually agrees with them.
Neither should really be given airtime, in my opinion.
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arse
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
The point is that we are told the stories but are offered nothing that we can interpret as satisfactory evidence. Doesn't mean we want evidence (we don't want the story either but people keep trying to sell it to us), just that we expect a decent reason before changing the direction of our lives. Should people accept whatever they're told without some indication that it's valid?
The problem here are the qualifiers: satisfactory evidence, decent reason, valid indication, ... You are imposing a value judgement. It is not as if theists do not offer evidence, reason and indication; you simply judge it all as no good on principle. The real discussion is then whether the principles you use to reject all that evidence, reason and indication are reasonable. I don't think that they are. That does not mean that every theist argument becomes nothing but the truth. But it does mean that your blanket rejection of theist argument is no good itself.
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
With so many versions of religion out there it is surely incumbent, as with a car or a house, upon each option to offer a justification for choosing it, isn't it?
You can hardly claim that the various religions are not producing a sales pitch. Or at least the various "market leaders" can hardly be said to be lacking in advertisement. Perhaps a Zoroastrian could take this critique to heart, but a Christian? You could probably bury a small city under the advertisement material pumped out by Christianity every year...
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Then some of us look at religion's effects on humanity (both as individuals and en masse) and come to the conclusion that the net harm caused by religious belief is too high a price to pay to settle for a quiet life.
The "quiet life" in our secular societies is hardly that of a religious person, the new normal is apathetic. Although if you live in the USA, then perhaps that has to be qualified depending on where exactly you live...
The net effect of religion on humanity is really difficult to quantify. What is fair to say is that the net effect on humanity is not so overwhelmingly positive as to be undeniable in spite of these difficulties. However, much of the social critique of religion ends up blaming religion for people being assholes, which to me - as cynical misanthropist - misses the key point that people are assholes first, and religious second.
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Loose the fancy dress, the gold leaf, the bells and smells, the pomp and ceremony designed to create an impression of unquestionable authority.
You are clearly a Protestant atheist. ![[Smile]](smile.gif) It seems to me though that your request contradicts itself. If the "pomp and ceremony" give to you the impression of unquestionable authority, then clearly this "pomp and ceremony" is working as intended. Why should we change what works? Now, we can make fine points about who has what kind of authority, and then perhaps reasonably critique some of the "pomp and ceremony" in detail. But as long as you are painting in broad brushstrokes, I will simply answer that I think one of the worst developments in the RCC in the last fifty years has been their tendency to drop the "pomp and ceremony" due to God and His Church, and have their Church life decay to Protestant drabness sprinkled with hippy triteness. And no, I'm not a liturgy fanatic. But I'm all for religious strutting...
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Stop claiming that god is a mystery, but he has told an elite few exactly how he wants me to lead my life - as though he would be incapable of making his wishes, and his reality, apparent to each and every one of us if he wanted us so informed.
Why precisely should God not choose the Church as His means to become known to you? You may wish that God would choose instead to perform fantastic miracles of undeniably supernatural kind that directly confirm His presence for every single human being. Well, He doesn't. So what, exactly? Are you saying that it is unimaginable that God choses otherwise? I don't think so. In fact, given that I think this world is basically a kind of exam, a test, for mankind, it seems entirely reasonable to me that God has chosen a more roundabout way. This world is made such that you can fail to find God in it.
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
People should believe what they will, religious or otherwise but thy shouldn't use the word "know" when they don't. Convinced, certain, sure, without doubt, all may be true but no-one knows god(s) - the sheer diversity and irrationality of the inconsistent and incompatible qualities people attribute to their god(s) bears irrefutable testimony to that.
If it all were as varied as you pretend here, then you would find it much harder to reject it all in one fell swoop. But you don't find that particularly difficult, and the reason for that is that you are speaking a falsehood here. In fact, the diversity does not obscure a common core, and it is this common core you have a problem with. Obviously you can find all sorts of differences between say the Aztec religion and the Christian one, indeed, they might find each other religiously repugnant! Still, the Aztecs, the Christians, you and me would have no trouble recognising these as two religions, in spite of these differences.
"Religion" is a word like "sport". And your argument here is the equivalent of saying "I hate sport because playing tennis is nothing like synchronised swimming." That's just not particularly believable.
(And yes, there is a difference between sport and religion, insofar as variants of the latter commonly claim to be the "only true" one. But there is also a difference between rejecting religion, and rejecting the specific claim of ultimate truth of a religion. As long as you do the former over "religious diversity", my analogy holds.)
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Well, if some people are content to be a serial loser (original sin etc.) that's OK.
Original sin does not mean that people are "serial losers", certainly not by the standards of the world. Original sin can be seen to be mightily at work among the "winners" of this world, probably more so than among its "losers". Original sin is SNAFU. I don't think that there is a single adult person in the world who does not believe in original sin somehow; but the concept goes by many names, or rather curses...
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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
False guilt destroys people as readily as deserved guilt and religion (not uniquely) actively promotes false guilt.
Or so you say. And therein lies the problem: how to tell what is deserved and what is false?
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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
Religion denigrates the scientific method because it can't survive in its presence, yet science has provided food, fresh water, immunisation, medicines, semi-conductors, access to knowledge etc. etc. to the benefit of mankind (and also weapons and synthetic mind altering drugs etc.) whilst religion provides .............what?
First, it is a blatant falsehood to claim that religion is threatened by the scientific method. I'm a professional scientist and a convert to Christianity. I feel very little strain between these two aspects of my life. Indeed, as far as theology goes I feel that my prior scientific training has been quite helpful. Second, religion offers salvation. That is indeed something different to physical wellbeing, and you are correct that to experience it as an explicit need requires a bit of an education. However, without that education this needs is not really absent, just unformed and diffuse, a dull idiosyncratic ache... Religion arises from a very real need of humanity, whatever you may think of the solutions it offers. It shapes and expresses consistently this need, but it does not create it. Rather, it is created by it. It may well be that you have no experienced this need personally. There is a bell curve for anything human, and the world is full with distractions. But religion is something very human, and the idea that humanity will prosper without it may very well be one of those shiny utopian ideals that when put into practice turn out to be destructive and inhumane.
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Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
How many Christians, particularly their leaders, have no savings, no investments, no property and no pension plan? How many have sold all they have and given it to the poor without negotiating a future supply that meets at least their basic needs. Yes, of course it's impractical to the point of being silly, no I didn't do it, but it's their book and their god's clear instruction - not mine. If they talk the talk without walking the walk they should be exposed to justified ridicule shouldn't they?
We call the people who attempt to practice the full ideal of Christian life in this world the "religious", or depending on gender "monks / friars" or "nuns", respectively. If you feel called to such a heroic life of sanctity, then I think you will find that many of them are looking for youngish people to join their ranks.
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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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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
If I claim that there is a three inch high, purple unicorn wearing an orange jumpsuit and sitting on your left shoulder whilst reciting unpublished Shakespearian sonnets in your ear you have to prove that I'm wrong? You can't see or hear it, well neither can I, that simply proves that our brains, via our eyes and ears, are incapable of detecting said unicorn; but I still believe it so it's true until you produce evidence proving that my belief is wrong.
The problems are that, ISTM, every argument you use against purple unicorns in orange jumpsuits
a) could be applied equally to the existence of god(s) and
b) none of them would disprove the existence of the unicorn.
In the context of this thread, that argument is demonstrably untrue.
The Christian God is a plausible candidate for 'necessary being'. The unicorn isn't.
The Christian God accounts for the existence of phenomena that matter to us - morality, reason, existence itself ... . The unicorn doesn't.
There are millions who attest to having experience of the Christian God. No one is a witness for the unicorn.
There are numerous reports of miracles attributed to the Christian God - many, it must be conceded, on very dubious grounds, but some on grounds which do bear examination. No such testimony exists for the unicorn.
Those who are widely considered the best and closest followers of the Christian God are often (though not universally) distinguished by better than average moral insights and conduct. The unicorn has no followers, but there's no particular reason to suppose that if it had any, they would find belief in it much of a help to greater virtue.
The unicorn simply does not occupy a conceptual space remotely analogous to God. There are no metaphysical, moral, experiential arguments for the unicorn, but there are for God. Even if your think the reasons given for believing in God are inadequate, there is no remotely sensible analysis by which we do not have far more for you to argue is inadequate in support of God's existence than we do for any trivial and obviously invented fictional creature you want to compare him to.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Teilhard
Shipmate
# 16342
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
quote:
Originally posted by HughWillRidmee:
If I claim that there is a three inch high, purple unicorn wearing an orange jumpsuit and sitting on your left shoulder whilst reciting unpublished Shakespearian sonnets in your ear you have to prove that I'm wrong? You can't see or hear it, well neither can I, that simply proves that our brains, via our eyes and ears, are incapable of detecting said unicorn; but I still believe it so it's true until you produce evidence proving that my belief is wrong.
The problems are that, ISTM, every argument you use against purple unicorns in orange jumpsuits
a) could be applied equally to the existence of god(s) and
b) none of them would disprove the existence of the unicorn.
In the context of this thread, that argument is demonstrably untrue.
The Christian God is a plausible candidate for 'necessary being'. The unicorn isn't.
The Christian God accounts for the existence of phenomena that matter to us - morality, reason, existence itself ... . The unicorn doesn't.
There are millions who attest to having experience of the Christian God. No one is a witness for the unicorn.
There are numerous reports of miracles attributed to the Christian God - many, it must be conceded, on very dubious grounds, but some on grounds which do bear examination. No such testimony exists for the unicorn.
Those who are widely considered the best and closest followers of the Christian God are often (though not universally) distinguished by better than average moral insights and conduct. The unicorn has no followers, but there's no particular reason to suppose that if it had any, they would find belief in it much of a help to greater virtue.
The unicorn simply does not occupy a conceptual space remotely analogous to God. There are no metaphysical, moral, experiential arguments for the unicorn, but there are for God. Even if your think the reasons given for believing in God are inadequate, there is no remotely sensible analysis by which we do not have far more for you to argue is inadequate in support of God's existence than we do for any trivial and obviously invented fictional creature you want to compare him to.
Re: the proposed invisible Purple Unicorn … The teapot in orbit around the Sun is equally silly …
"God" is "God" -- not a teapot or a unicorn or an hypothesis nor "of the gaps" nor an imaginary friend/being nor a "delusion" nor the omni*everything cosmic sugar daddy errand boy nor a cruel tyrant …
"God" is "God" … (much to the eternal annoyance of the scoffers and skeptics) ...
Posts: 401 | From: Minnesota | Registered: Apr 2011
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
In the context of this thread, that argument is demonstrably untrue.
None of this is actually demonstrated. Thus:
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The Christian God is a plausible candidate for 'necessary being'. The unicorn isn't.
How do you know? There are human communities which believe the universe was defecated out of some mythical being (IIRC), so it is not beyond the realms of possibility that someone somewhere believes that the unicorn is the necessary being.
Asserting your belief on this does not make it a fact.
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The Christian God accounts for the existence of phenomena that matter to us - morality, reason, existence itself ... . The unicorn doesn't.
Again, that is a simple matter of opinion. Both that the Christian God accounts for those things and that nobody anywhere believes that the unicorn does.
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There are millions who attest to having experience of the Christian God. No one is a witness for the unicorn.
You might be on slightly stronger ground here, although for many years mariners (apparently) really believed in the existence of mermaids and other mythical creatures, so again it is not beyond the bounds that there are people who believe that they have experienced unicorns.
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There are numerous reports of miracles attributed to the Christian God - many, it must be conceded, on very dubious grounds, but some on grounds which do bear examination. No such testimony exists for the unicorn.
Again, this is just an opinion. Given that there are long-standing folk stories about the miracles attributed to the unicorn, this is also demonstrably untrue, to use your words.
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Those who are widely considered the best and closest followers of the Christian God are often (though not universally) distinguished by better than average moral insights and conduct. The unicorn has no followers, but there's no particular reason to suppose that if it had any, they would find belief in it much of a help to greater virtue.
Again, this is just an opinion. Given that you don't know of any unicorn believers you have a tiny sample approaching zero. On the general point, there is very little evidence that Christians exhibit overall better and more moral behaviours than any other group of society.
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The unicorn simply does not occupy a conceptual space remotely analogous to God. There are no metaphysical, moral, experiential arguments for the unicorn, but there are for God. Even if your think the reasons given for believing in God are inadequate, there is no remotely sensible analysis by which we do not have far more for you to argue is inadequate in support of God's existence than we do for any trivial and obviously invented fictional creature you want to compare him to.
Now we are nearing the nub of the issue: the unicorn does not, in your mind, occupy the same space as the deity, therefore they cannot possibly be considered the same thing.
Funnily enough, things that happen in your mind are not a particularly good way to measure objective truth.
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arse
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Dafyd
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# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
There are human communities which believe the universe was defecated out of some mythical being (IIRC), so it is not beyond the realms of possibility that someone somewhere believes that the unicorn is the necessary being.
I feel a possible response could go along the lines:
Funnily enough, that this someone somewhere happens to be a possibility in your mind is not a particularly good way to measure objective truth.
Or something like that.
I don't really see why your objections to Eliab have any more force than an argument to the effect that it is not beyond the realms of possibility that someone somewhere has incontrovertible evidence of the existence of God would.
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Dafyd:
I feel a possible response could go along the lines:
Funnily enough, that this someone somewhere happens to be a possibility in your mind is not a particularly good way to measure objective truth.
Or something like that.
I don't really see why your objections to Eliab have any more force than an argument to the effect that it is not beyond the realms of possibility that someone somewhere has incontrovertible evidence of the existence of God would.
How could anyone have incontroversial proof of God? What does that mean?
The problem is that Eliab is simply using the old "I can't imagine it, therefore it isn't" argument.
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arse
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Eliab
Shipmate
# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
The problem is that Eliab is simply using the old "I can't imagine it, therefore it isn't" argument.
No. Not even remotely. I can imagine someone believing in Hugh's unicorn (and I point out for avoidance of doubt that I'm responding to claims about that specific ridiculous entity, not a belief in unicorns in general). It's just that, as a matter of simple fact, there aren't any people who actually do. This is a fact that I can assert as a reasonable deduction from the premise that the unicorn is a device which Hugh concocted for the specific purpose of illustrating something in which everyone would agree it is absurd to believe.
Hugh's point would have been different (and better) if he'd used an actual living religion that most Christians can be expected to find incredible (Mormonism, for example) and different again (and better still) if he'd picked a religion with philosophical, ethical and experiential claims that might present a serious alternative (such as Islam). But he didn't. He picked an intentionally ludicrous analogy.
My point is that there are actually reasons for believing in Christianity which are capable of being discussed that distinguish it from that ludicrous comparator. You might not accept that those reasons are sufficient to compel assent - that's a separate issue entirely. It is quite possible to disagree with Christianity and not hold to anything as silly as thinking that an actual religion followed by millions is exactly on a par with some transparent nonsense made up as a illustration of a stupid belief with no support whatsoever.
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
Posts: 4619 | From: Hampton, Middlesex, UK | Registered: Mar 2005
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Eliab:
No. Not even remotely. I can imagine someone believing in Hugh's unicorn (and I point out for avoidance of doubt that I'm responding to claims about that specific ridiculous entity, not a belief in unicorns in general). It's just that, as a matter of simple fact, there aren't any people who actually do.
Nope, a simple fact is that searching on google shows this is not actually a fact.
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This is a fact that I can assert as a reasonable deduction from the premise that the unicorn is a device which Hugh concocted for the specific purpose of illustrating something in which everyone would agree it is absurd to believe.
No not everyone agrees it is absurd. Who should care what you think is absurd and why do you get to define the terms of what examples are appropriate for comparison?
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Hugh's point would have been different (and better) if he'd used an actual living religion that most Christians can be expected to find incredible (Mormonism, for example) and different again (and better still) if he'd picked a religion with philosophical, ethical and experiential claims that might present a serious alternative (such as Islam). But he didn't. He picked an intentionally ludicrous analogy.
Riiight, so Hugh is only able to compare one thing he thinks is absurd with something you've defined as an actual religion rather than something else he thinks is absurd.
And the best part is you think you are making a serious objective point. Classic.
quote:
My point is that there are actually reasons for believing in Christianity which are capable of being discussed that distinguish it from that ludicrous comparator. You might not accept that those reasons are sufficient to compel assent - that's a separate issue entirely. It is quite possible to disagree with Christianity and not hold to anything as silly as thinking that an actual religion followed by millions is exactly on a par with some transparent nonsense made up as a illustration of a stupid belief with no support whatsoever.
It is perfectly possible to think that Christianity is an absurd belief on a par with believing in unicorns. Whether or not it is a long-held belief and whether or not it is internally consistent and whether or not it is a real religion according to your definition does not give you some kind of special dibs over the examples that your opponents choose to use.
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arse
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Dafyd
Shipmate
# 5549
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mr cheesy:
Nope, a simple fact is that searching on google shows this is not actually a fact.
Really?
When I search for 'three inch high purple unicorn orange jumpsuit' I get women's jumpsuits and toy unicorns.
What sites do you get?
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we remain, thanks to original sin, much in love with talking about, rather than with, one another. Rowan Williams
Posts: 10567 | From: Edinburgh | Registered: Feb 2004
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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
It's an interesting point about unicorns and so on, as the psychiatric definition of delusion excludes enculturated beliefs. The classic example is ancestor worship, common in some cultures; thus, taking your granny to the shrink because she addresses her ancestors would fall flat in such cultures. Religious beliefs are similar, although if you think that you're Jesus, you might raise eyebrows.
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I can't talk to you today; I talked to two people yesterday.
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Barnabas62
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# 9110
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Posted
The OP was about a basis for a belief in the supernatural. IngoB's presentation of the Uncaused Cause argument doesn't confirm the existence of the Christian God (a point he made in one of his posts), but it points to a Cause not Caused by the natural world.
Christian faith argues that the nature of this Uncaused Cause has been made known. I suppose the classic scripture for that is this one (Heb 1).
quote:
1 In the past God spoke to our ancestors through the prophets at many times and in various ways, 2 but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom also he made the universe.
And then there is this one (John 1)
quote:
No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.
These aren't presented as proof texts, simply to illustrate the nature of the revelation, grasped by faith. It distinguishes the Christian understanding of God from, say, belief that the Uncaused Cause is a Divine Unicorn.
Which comes first? Before I ever saw the Uncaused Cause argument, before I came to faith, and despite the undeniable truth that the way things work in the natural universe is often strange and counter-intuitive, I was profoundly convinced that the universe was not a free lunch. Still am.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
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itsarumdo
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# 18174
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Posted
I thiunk it's already been said before here, but there is also a basic problem with the starting point of "supernatural" - which immediately implies something that is not natural, not real. Our experience of what is around us is partly filtered by what our senses are capable of telling us and our minds capable of receiving, and partly by dint of what we choose to put our attention on and how we interpret what we perceive. That's a lot of filtering. I know people who have an intensely spiritual - you might say paranormal - experience of life. But it's only para to anyone who doesn;t have that experience - to them it is NORMAL. And no - they are not delusional or mad - there is a reality to that experience.
The belief "there is only physical" cuts out a lot of reality from the possible range of experience and perception. The interpretation of that - well - it's interesting - if it were "only imagination" (ie delusional construct) then there would not be the extraordinarily coherent qualitative description and interpretation across many cultures.
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"Iti sapis potanda tinone" Lycophron
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George Spigot
Outcast
# 253
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Posted
I'm way behind. I still can't comprehend how one side is allowed to argue that God must exist because all things need a cause but also that God doesn't need to be caused.
Posts: 1625 | From: Derbyshire - England | Registered: May 2001
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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Barnabas62:
The OP was about a basis for a belief in the supernatural. IngoB's presentation of the Uncaused Cause argument doesn't confirm the existence of the Christian God (a point he made in one of his posts), but it points to a Cause not Caused by the natural world.
So what? That is a truth claim accepted by Christianity but not be anyone else.
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Christian faith argues that the nature of this Uncaused Cause has been made known. I suppose the classic scripture for that is this one (Heb 1).
OK, that's nice.
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These aren't presented as proof texts, simply to illustrate the nature of the revelation, grasped by faith. It distinguishes the Christian understanding of God from, say, belief that the Uncaused Cause is a Divine Unicorn.
No it doesn't. It just shows that Christians believe this. Other can, and do believe contrary things. Continually banging on about the Uncaused Cause simply reinforces that you are operating in a worldview that has to have a cause.
Plenty of other worldviews exist. Yours is nothing very special other than that you believe it, and arguing anything using self-supporting internally consistent paradigms is not objective truth.
Stating that your faith is objectively different to another - either one that exists or one that is purely imaginary - is utterly wrong when it is clearly totally subjective.
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Which comes first? Before I ever saw the Uncaused Cause argument, before I came to faith, and despite the undeniable truth that the way things work in the natural universe is often strange and counter-intuitive, I was profoundly convinced that the universe was not a free lunch. Still am.
Good, lovely.
Others believe that the universe is eternal and that it doesn't have a cause. Deal.
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arse
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IngoB
Sentire cum Ecclesia
# 8700
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
I'm way behind. I still can't comprehend how one side is allowed to argue that God must exist because all things need a cause but also that God doesn't need to be caused.
Nobody has argued that all things have a cause. Obviously that would be self-contradictory if one then goes on to talk about an uncaused Cause. Let me emphasise that in the entire, long history of the cosmological argument, none of its many distinguished proponents (Plato, Aristotle, al-Ghazali, Maimonides, Aquinas, Duns Scotus, ...) have ever argued that all things have a cause. Yet for some strange reason this particular straw man just will not die. The key proposition is rather that
Everything that comes into existence and/or is contingent has a cause.
This statement is eminently defensible from our observations of nature (the "physics" part of "metaphysics"). This statement is all that is needed for the classical cosmological argument. This statement also rather obviously allows for a Being that is eternal and necessary to not have a cause.
Indeed, the entire structure of the cosmological argument is just this: if we use the above statement to query in depth (not temporally) for the root cause of things, then by its very nature this statement will not allow us to come to a halt in terms of things that come into being and/or are contingent. But we know for an "in depth" (rather than temporal) causal series that it must have a beginning, it has to be finite. Precisely this tells us that there must be some entity that causes things, but neither comes into existence (is eternal) nor is contingent (is necessary): there must be an uncaused Cause. And theists identify this with God (and they may validly do so, if they attribute the right things to their God).
Relentlessly and consistently following through on the above key proposition about causality forces us to declare that there must be something else that is not described by it. It is exactly our inability to come to a coherent description of the universe otherwise that is the "proof" of an uncaused Cause. It is then pointless to insist that "God" is an exception to the rule, as if that somehow invalidated the argument. Yes, we know that "God" is an exception. That does not invalidate the argument, that is the argument!
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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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quetzalcoatl
Shipmate
# 16740
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by George Spigot:
I'm way behind. I still can't comprehend how one side is allowed to argue that God must exist because all things need a cause but also that God doesn't need to be caused.
I don't understand how a cause can be supernatural; surely the notion of causation rests on space-time as an environment. There don't seem to be any constraints on non-natural causes.
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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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mr cheesy
Shipmate
# 3330
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by IngoB:
Precisely this tells us that there must be some entity that causes things, but neither comes into existence (is eternal) nor is contingent (is necessary): there must be an uncaused Cause. And theists identify this with God (and they may validly do so, if they attribute the right things to their God).
And precisely there you are displaying the bias of your worldview. There does not need to be any entity if matter iself is eternal.
Or if you really want to use this language, 'this' thing you've identified might be the universe itself rather than any kind of being.
quote:
Relentlessly and consistently following through on the above key proposition about causality forces us to declare that there must be something else that is not described by it. It is exactly our inability to come to a coherent description of the universe otherwise that is the "proof" of an uncaused Cause. It is then pointless to insist that "God" is an exception to the rule, as if that somehow invalidated the argument. Yes, we know that "God" is an exception. That does not invalidate the argument, that is the argument!
It doesn't invalidate it, no. But the argument only works if one accepts the central premise. Plenty of people do not accept the central premise that the root of all things must be some kind of being that is an uncaused Cause.
You can restate it any number of times you like, that doesn't change anything.
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arse
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