Is morality objective or subjective?

[Will Bouwman]

Sure. Don't let the facts get in the way of your feelings.

Which part of your word salad are you confusing with fact?

[Skepdick]

Which part of your word salad are you confusing with fact?

Which part of me pointing out that idealised omniscient entities known as oracle machines are part of the formal sciences did you confuse with a word salad?

I can only explain it to you. I can't understand it for you.

[Immanuel Can]

Atheism is inherently irrational, since it cannot summon evidence for its own case.

There doesn't need to be evidence for what we don't experience.

"...what you don't experience." What anybody else experiences, any other person is helpless to say. And that's why Atheism needs evidence -- because while the Atheist can say, "I have no knowledge of God," (and, fair enough) he cannot say, "...and you cannot, either," or "and no such evidence exists," without providing reasons for us to believe hIm.

He would have to convince us he knows all the evidence available within the universe. And he would have to convince us that he had examined it, and that there was no evidence for God in it. And this, despite the ardent insistence of others that they had found such evidence, or had experienced such confirmations. He would have to show that all "religious" people from every tradition and background in the world were all liars or deceived, and that he had the proof that they were. And he'd have to show it for all time, as well, since it's possible that there has been some sort of God in the past, or in the future that there will be, or even more likely, that God transcends time and space, so that searching the entire universe at every moment in time would still not give the Atheist enough evidence.

Good luck to the Atheist, then...he's going to need it.

And ironically, it would literally take a God's-level knowledge to prove there is no God. If one had that, then one would BE God. So then, there WOULD be a God...and it would be the Atheist himself.

Therefore, we have no sufficient reason to believe the Atheist's confident attitude is more than personal smugness. And we have no reasonable expectation that he could ever have sufficient evidence to warrant such a totalizing claim about what others know or have experienced.

That's what makes Atheism inherently irrational.

[Will Bouwman]

Which part of me pointing out that idealised omniscient entities known as oracle machines are part of the formal sciences did you confuse with a word salad?

Which part of an oracle machine is not a god do you not understand?

[Skepdick]

Which part of an oracle machine is not a god do you not understand?

The part where only an omniscient entity would know the correct answer to "Is an oracle machine a god?". Yes or No.

And, of course, an oracle machine would know the correct answer.
Since you are no omniscient being; or an oracle machine - how do you know your conclusion (that an oracle machine is not a god) is correct?

I can only explain recursion to you. I can't understand it for you.

They teach this stuff in the formal sciences, you know...

[Immanuel Can]

It's not you that is insufficiently clear or persuasive, nor is recycling the same debates limited to this forum. The work of Behe, Meyers, Dembski, Swinburne, Plantinga, Lane Craig and a host of others is all recycling the same debates, tweaking them to accommodate developments in science and logic - always following, never leading.

Well, what about the works of Newton, Bacon, Collins and Penfield? These are all leading Theistic scientists, not philosophers of science or apologists. And what about somebody secular, like Nagel or Kuhn? Are you going to argue that they, too, have no right to speak, since they only speak after science has done its work, and do not generate new science themselves? But the job of producing scientific results is not meaningful apart from the "following" task of interpreting them: and the people you list are solidly in the field of the debates over the implications of science.

Isaac Newton's Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica is arguably the most important scientific book ever written. As I have intimated before, it was the fulfilment of the Royal Society's

expressed intention of being a "College for the Promoting of Physico-Mathematical Experimental Learning".

The Principia includes Newton's law of universal gravitation, a mathematical expression of the strength of gravity between objects, accurate enough for most applications. Newton was criticised at the time for not explaining how gravity works, so in the second edition, he added this: “But hitherto I have not been able to discover the cause of those properties of gravity from phenomena, and I make no hypotheses. For whatever is not deduced from the phenomena, is to be called an hypothesis; and hypotheses, whether metaphysical or physical, whether of occult qualities or mechanical, have no place in experimental philosophy.” If that is not absolutely clear, what Newton said is that God has no place in science.

What Newton claimed was more modest. He only said that "experimental philosophy" as he called it, was not concerned with anything "metaphysical or physical" that was outside its purview. In fact, he even included "mechanical" in this. Now, conventional science certainly concerns itself with the physical and the mechanical, and with "hypotheses" of all kinds, as well. What Newton was clearly doing was trying to hedge his current study, namely on the limited subject of "gravity," as he says, off from some of the areas with which ordinary science DOES in fact concern itself.

He wasn't banning God from all science. He was carving off a host of normal science considerations from becoming criticisms of his current study of gravity. We must not make more of this that what he said.

But even if we supposed Newton was making a more universal claim (which he clearly wasn't) that would only be Newton's opinion, and would once again illustrate the point I made in my last post...namely, that practical scientists are less than ideal philosophers of science, in many cases.

The success of Newton and the Royal Society is that science, physics in particular, is that to this day we apply those standards. Both were influenced by Francis Bacon, whose inductive method was much more on the experimental, rather than mathematical side of science. While he was a committed Anglican, he was clear that attributes of God could not be discovered experimentally, but only through divine revelation.

You should read Bacon's famous essay, "Of Truth." You can find it online. Just read his opening line, and you'll find he was an ardent Theist. He was as vigorous in his interest in theology as in scientific method.

I can't be sure who you mean by Penfield and Collins, presumably Wilder and Francis respectively, and I don't know how you think their work supports your case. Do you, for instance, agree with Collins that God created man through the process of evolution, if that is what you mean by

the monkey-to-man embarassment

Collins and I don't agree on everything. But you should read his compendium on belief, which shows that despite subscribing to Theistic Evolution, he was indeed a serious Theist.

But here's the latest discovery of a way in which Evolutionary propaganda has gone wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zignS602-f8

Dawkins, for example, reports he came to his Atheism at the ripe old scientific age of 17 years. If teenagers make good scientists or philosophers, we may suppose he came to his ideology for scientific reasons; but we may well suspect his "conversion" was a product of not much more than regular teenage petulance and resentment.

The truth is that I found God in second year of undergrad...

So a couple of years older than the petulant and resentful Dawkins. What might we suspect your conversion was a product of?

You could ask. You don't need to assume, in my case, at all.

In point of fact, it was a product of skeptical philosophers and writers, as much as of anything. I was reading them for the first time, and found them so poor in answering imporant existential questions that they compelled me to range farther for better answers. I hadn't planned on doing so, but I nad no alternative, when their dusty answers all fell apart. So it was a process of intellectual skepticism that actually started me down the road to the conviction that Theism was true...but not without a time of real searching.

How good are your a prioris?

Very good, I now think. Confirmation has come ex post facto.

As you once said:

That's the trick with personal experience, isn't it? For the experiencer, it can be totally compelling to a degree that even the distant report of scientific or rational arguments fail to be, but to the skeptic it just looks like a sort of passionate, irrational enthusiasm. So it's the best of evidence, and the worst of evidence, at the same time, depending on whether or not it was your own experience.

To those of us who are quite open to the God hypothesis, the cause of your belief remains underdetermined.

That's because it's not really your business to judge another person's quality of belief. What evidence can one summon for that which is in another's mind, save the things he's prepared to tell us?

What's truly fruitless is to try to use somebody else's existential confirmations as if they were empirical evidence for one's own. Doing that doesn't even make sense, and is certainly impossible. Nevertheless, that's what skeptics often try to do, and then, when they can't, they conclude that such evidence cannot be real.

But personal confirmations are those that God allows to the person. That doesn't mean they're not evidentiary and solid; it just means they're often not the kind of thing they can "sell" to somebody else, and particularly not to a skeptic.

For example, if I were to tell you that the process of getting my career started involved several improbable miracles, you'd doubtless say to me, "I can't accept that: what you're describing could be mere extraordinary coincidence, and in any case, I can't see whether it really happened to you as you say, or you're simply making it up for propaganda purposes." And you'd be right...you can't know. It's not evidence to you, the way it might be to me.

It might be real evidence, nonetheless. The alleged 'coincidences' could be so staggering that I am much confirmed in my faith that God helped me to it in extraordinary ways. I just can't give that confidence to you. That's not what it was for, anyway.

That you genuinely have a relationship with your God is a possibility, but given what we know about psychology and brain physiology, there are alternative explanations which are at least as compelling.

Yes; quite so.

So my personal confirmations will simply not help you. You will end up back where you started: having prima facie evidence from science and logic for a Creator, and perhaps some nagging suspicion of the possibility of God's existence and nature, but no personal certainty. And to get personal confirmations of your own, you'd have to take those two steps God always requires: to believe in at least the possibility He exists, and to be willing to believe that He could reward you for an honest search.

Absent those things, you're never going on any kind of search anyway, so they seem pretty modest expectations, wouldn't you say?

[Lacewing]

What anybody else experiences, any other person is helpless to say.

True.

And that's why Atheism needs evidence.

The same is true for Theism.

He would have to convince us he knows all the evidence available within the universe.

Yes, you would, as well. Because everyone may have a different experience, and there might be no overarching ultimate truth that applies to everyone.

Therefore, we have no sufficient reason to believe the Atheist's confident attitude is more than personal smugness. And we have no reasonable expectation that he could ever have sufficient evidence to warrant such a totalizing claim about what others know or have experienced.

Again, the same can be said for theism. You have no idea of the realities and confirmations that other people experience every day.

That's what makes Atheism inherently irrational.

Have you even considered that both experiences, theism and atheism, are valid and true for the human mind? What you experience... what you perceive... as compared with what someone else experiences and perceives... could simply be a different vibration of possibility that is a product of physical/human reality. After we die, 'our energy' might actually merge with a much broader energy field than mortal man can fathom. The human brain, with all of its stories, limitations, fears, ideas... very likely ENDS. That only makes sense, doesn't it? The human brain... the human viewpoint... would not continue... why would it? All of the products of physical reality would no longer apply. The energy that changes into something else is limitless in comparison to the human form/identity.

Clearly, humankind works with countless ideas and experiences while we're in human form. Theism seems to want the assurance of 'continuance of ego/identity'... and that really makes no sense to many people.

[Immanuel Can]

What anybody else experiences, any other person is helpless to say.

True.

And that's why Atheism needs evidence.

The same is true for Theism.

Of course. But Theism always admits to that. It's Atheists that pretend to need none. And their argument is always the same: "I don't need to provide evidence for just not believing something." And if they confine their claims to the statement, "I just don't believe," then they're quite right. But if they go beyond that, and say, "YOU can't believe," (which they all seem to want to do -- that's the point, for them) then suddenly, they need evidence.

He would have to convince us he knows all the evidence available within the universe.

Yes, you would, as well.

Actually, the Theist wouldn't. That's because he isn't making a claim about what cannot exist anywhere in the universe (as the Atheist is). He's only making a claim about the existence of one Entity, namely God. So any solid evidence for that Entity...even one, and regardless of the tradition from which it comes...blows Atheism to pieces immediately.

Therefore, we have no sufficient reason to believe the Atheist's confident attitude is more than personal smugness. And we have no reasonable expectation that he could ever have sufficient evidence to warrant such a totalizing claim about what others know or have experienced.

Again, the same can be said for theism. You have no idea of the realities and confirmations that other people experience every day.

That might be an argument among Theists, having to do with the true nature of the God they all agree exists. But it wouldn't save Atheism, especially if the Atheist is bent on claiming that no God of any kind exists anywhere, anytime, anyhow, and hence that all Theistic claims are false.

That's what makes Atheism inherently irrational.

Have you even considered that both experiences, theism and atheism, are valid and true for the human mind?

That alters the meaning of "true" to mean "whatever the mind tosses up." There are few people who think that's what "true" means, of course. We tend to think it's the opposite of "false," and its clear to everybody that the human mind is capable of "tossing up" both.

[Lacewing]

...the [theist] isn't making a claim about what cannot exist anywhere in the universe

Yes, he claims that the only reality is God, and nothing else can be true.

You have no idea of the realities and confirmations that other people experience every day.

That might be an argument among Theists, having to do with the true nature of the God they all agree exists. But it wouldn't save Atheism

You are unable to understand how much more can be experienced than through ideas about gods.

Have you even considered that both experiences, theism and atheism, are valid and true for the human mind?

That alters the meaning of "true" to mean "whatever the mind tosses up."

Doesn't the idea of 'truth' vary for people?

[Immanuel Can]

...the [theist] isn't making a claim about what cannot exist anywhere in the universe

Yes, he claims that the only reality is God, and nothing else can be true.

That would be Pantheism. That's sometimes regarded as a subcategory of Theism, but it's not one I back.

You have no idea of the realities and confirmations that other people experience every day.

That might be an argument among Theists, having to do with the true nature of the God they all agree exists. But it wouldn't save Atheism

You are unable to understand how much more can be experienced than through ideas about gods.

That's not the point. However "much more" there is or is not, Atheism's still dead, if there is anything close to a "god" or God in the universe.

Have you even considered that both experiences, theism and atheism, are valid and true for the human mind?

That alters the meaning of "true" to mean "whatever the mind tosses up."

Doesn't the idea of 'truth' vary for people?

Are you asking me if that's true? Or are you only asking if it "varies for me"?

"The idea of truth" might "vary for people," and vary among different people groups: but the truth itself won't. "The idea" can be many things...the reality will only ever be one.

The claim, "People have different explanations for things falling down" doesn't imply, "therefore, there's no such thing as actual gravity." And we can test by asking all the disagreeing people to step off a building.

That's the difference between the epistemological claim and the ontological claim. The epistemological claim is about what "people" think. The ontological claim is about what exists regardless of what "people" may or may not think.

[Lacewing]

...the [theist] isn't making a claim about what cannot exist anywhere in the universe

Yes, he claims that the only reality is God, and nothing else can be true.

That would be Pantheism.

No, that has nothing to do with it. You aren't able to fathom any potential that is beyond god-related ideas -- yet you deny making claims (to the contrary) in your comment above.

The idea of truth" might "vary for people," and vary among different people groups: but the truth itself won't. "The idea" can be many things...the reality will only ever be one.

How do you know there is only one reality?

[Immanuel Can]

You aren't able to fathom any potential that is beyond god-related ideas -- yet you deny making claims (to the contrary) in your comment above.

The problem with Atheism has nothing to do with it being difficult at all to "fathom." It's not a complicated claim, at all.

It has to do with how nonsensical Atheism is, especially on its own terms. It wants to present as "evidentiary" or "rational" or "scientific," or certainly "obligatory," but can provide not a single thing to support any confidence that it is any of these things.

How do you know there is only one reality?

Definitionallly.

"Reality" means "all that is real."

[Will Bouwman]

Which part of an oracle machine is not a god do you not understand?

The part where only an omniscient entity would know the correct answer to "Is an oracle machine a god?". Yes or No.

And, of course, an oracle machine would know the correct answer.

If an omniscient entity doesn't know that doesn't make an oracle machine a god, it isn't omniscient.

Since you are no omniscient being; or an oracle machine - how do you know your conclusion (that an oracle machine is not a god) is correct?

One difference between an oracle machine and a god is that an oracle machine definitely doesn't exist.

I can only explain recursion to you. I can't understand it for you.

Have a go when you understand it yourself.

[Harbal]

The problem with Atheism

One of the problems with atheism is that some people insist on giving it a capital "A" when it doesn't deserve one.

[Skepdick]

If an omniscient entity doesn't know that doesn't make an oracle machine a god, it isn't omniscient.

That's a predictable response/justification given the answer you've chosen...

Need a shovel or are you going to dig your heels in all on your own?

One difference between an oracle machine and a god is that an oracle machine definitely doesn't exist.

Sure. In exactly the same way that every other theoretical construct definitely doesn't exist.

Numbers. Minkowski spaces. Infinity. Gravity.

Have a go when you understand it yourself.

That's what I am doing. Thanks.