Christianity

[iambiguous]

Taking Issue with The God Issue
Raymond Tallis argues against theist arguments in PN 99

What about the claim that God is the best explanation why there’s Something rather than Nothing? This presupposes that there are, or could be, other explanations. But there are not; nor would one expect there to be. Explanations – for example ‘there was thunder because there was lightning’ – work inside Something, and cannot operate in the putative vacuum of the Nothing that precedes (or is the alternative to) Something.

Here of course we are all in hopelessly over our heads.

There's the existence of existence itself. There's the "something" behind it that resulted in the human species here on planet Earth. There's you and I and the tiny fraction of knowledge that each of us has given the chasm between what we think we know here and now about everything there is -- and how it's all intertwined ontologically -- and everything that there would need to be known in order to grasp something like that ontologically.

Let's call it "the gap".

Again, we don't even know for certain that we have the autonomy necessary to claim that what we do think we know we know of our own volition.

Then throw in a God, the God, your God here. Your God and not one of the many, many, many others.

Explanations link a bit of Something with another bit of Something. Outside of Something, there is no explanation, least of all an explanation that there is Something. The point is, any explanation of the totality of things would have to appeal to something outside that totality, which is surely a contradiction.

Think about all of the "somethings" in your own life that you never really come close to fully grasping or controlling. All of the uniquely existential variables that you're convinced you understand intimately while many of the rest of us have no real grasp regarding at all.

Then all the way out to the mind-boggling imponderables embedded in the multiverse? As for how we factor Something itself into that...? Go ahead, link me to the argument that, in your own view, comes closest.

Furthermore, the invocation of God as an explanation – of why there is Something rather than Nothing; of the origin of the universe; of the applicability of mathematics to the physical world; of the fine-tuning of the universe for intelligent life; of intentional states of consciousness – simply refers explanation backwards, to God, whose nature can be argued over until the cows come home or eternity’s sunset.

Still, the beauty of religious belief is that it subsumes all of this in one or another Scripture...or leap of faith. Most just sweep all of that "stuff" under the "God works in mysterious ways" rug. Let those like us here argue over it philosophically. Or the ecclesiastics, theologically.

Indeed, run the author's points [not to mention mine] by the faithful here and see how many minds you change.

[iambiguous]

Taking Issue with The God Issue
Raymond Tallis argues against theist arguments in PN 99

Craig’s seventh reason draws on Anselm’s Ontological Argument and Possible World Semantics to arrive at the conclusion that the very possibility of God’s existence implies that He exists.

Then back to this part...

The very possibility of a God, the God existing is not exactly the same thing as it being your God. And not, say, one of these Gods [spiritual paths] instead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions

Craig and others take this part up in those YouTube videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idDoRft ... SjDNeMaRoX

So, by all means, explore them and, if you are convinced that they do demonstrate the existence of the Christian God, note the segments that accomplished this for you.

Craig argues that, if “a maximally great being” (God) exists in any possible world, it exists in every possible world (otherwise it would not be maximally great); from which it follows that it necessarily exists in the actual world.

How is this circular "logic" really any different from "God exists because it says so in the Bible and the Bible must be true because it is the word of God?"

Then back [again] to all of the denominations that embrace this frame of mind while insisting it's their God and only their God that presides over Judgment Day itself.

The idea that God can sneak into existence via a cunning definition belongs to the wilder shores of scholasticism. The false move is the identification of “maximally great being” with ‘God’.

Yep, gotta love those definitions, right? After all, without the right definitions how on Earth can anyone ever hope to actually arrive at the right deductions? And you can't argue God into existence without them, can you?

[iambiguous]

Taking Issue with The God Issue
Raymond Tallis argues against theist arguments in PN 99

Chappell’s Experiences

...Craig not only offers arguments, but also the testimony that “God can be personally known and experienced.” Indeed, he worries that “there’s a danger that philosophical arguments for God could actually distract your attention from God Himself.”

Same thing though. Just as there is often a gap between what we believe about God "on our head" and what we are able to demonstrate that others ought to believe in turn, so it is with "personal experiences". You "feel" or "intuit" God's presence deep down inside you? God speaks to you directly? God comes to you one on one?

Okay, with so much at stake on both sides of the grave you are either able to communicate your own experiences with others such that they can experience Him too, or they ever and always remain just "personal experiences". And then the part where actual "conditions" can account for them instead.

This dovetails neatly with Timothy Chappell’s defence of theism in ‘Theism, History and Experience’ in the same issue. Theists, Chappell says, are not impressed by arguments for or against the existence of God: they should forget arguments and focus on experiences, because experiences cannot be denied.

Clearly, if someone truly does believe that they have had personal experiences with a God, the God...? How on Earth would others who have not go about refuting it? And even if it's not experienced in a mental institution, it's still not the same as providing others with the capacity to experience Him as well. It ever and always remains just that...a personal experience.

In defence of this position he offers an analogy. Clever philosophers are able to demonstrate (to their own satisfaction, if not to ours) that there is no incontrovertible evidence for the existence of an external world. But although we might find their sceptical arguments interesting or even irrefutable, we would not for a moment believe their conclusions: our experience tells us otherwise.

Really? There are actually philosophical arguments some make such that to their own satisfaction they're convinced there's no evidence for the existence of the external world?

I'd like to hear some.

So it is also with those who have had an experience of God, Chappell claims. Their experience justifies their belief, regardless of any counterarguments by clever philosophers.

And that is true becasue the "human condition" itself is such that believing anything is true need be as far as it goes...philosophically? As long as one is able to sustain that belief "in their head" they can go to the grave believing it. God and religion are just on a level all their own because it involves a Kingdom of Ends that "in their heads" the faithful can connect to immortality and salvation.

But, again, until those who have such experiences are able communicate them to others whereby others can experience them too, it doesn't us any closer to establishing the existence of that God.

Let alone pinning down which one of them -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_r ... traditions -- it is.

[Gary Childress]

There is good and there is evil. And there are Christians who embrace a God of genocide (according to their Bible) believing that their "creator" will reward them in "heaven" for doing so. The greatest moral battle of them all is the one a good person chooses to fight against the invincible. Yhwh is no "holy" God.

[Walker]

Jeopardy Question:

Answer: This is the special word for the kind of atheism that believes in God, denounces God, blames God for every bad perception from hangnail to genocide, and yet does not praise this same believed-in God for any perceived goodness.

Question: What is _________?

[LuckyR]

Jeopardy Question:

Answer: This is the special word for the kind of atheism that believes in God, denounces God, blames God for every bad perception from hangnail to genocide, and yet does not praise this same believed-in God for any perceived goodness.

Question: What is _________?

Well that's sort of the standard Christian attitude abour Satan, who while not thought of as God, fulfills essentially all of the criteria for a god in a polytheistic religion.

[Walker]

Jeopardy Question:

Answer: This is the special word for the kind of atheism that believes in God, denounces God, blames God for every bad perception from hangnail to genocide, and yet does not praise this same believed-in God for any perceived goodness.

Question: What is _________?

Well that's sort of the standard Christian attitude abour Satan, who while not thought of as God, fulfills essentially all of the criteria for a god in a polytheistic religion.

So, the special word, or term, is Satanic Atheism.

Not to be confused with Agnosticism.

[LuckyR]

Jeopardy Question:

Answer: This is the special word for the kind of atheism that believes in God, denounces God, blames God for every bad perception from hangnail to genocide, and yet does not praise this same believed-in God for any perceived goodness.

Question: What is _________?

Well that's sort of the standard Christian attitude abour Satan, who while not thought of as God, fulfills essentially all of the criteria for a god in a polytheistic religion.

So, the special word, or term, is Satanic Atheism.

Not to be confused with Agnosticism.

I get what you're saying but if one believes Satan is a god, I'm not understanding how one is an atheist.

[Walker]

Well that's sort of the standard Christian attitude abour Satan, who while not thought of as God, fulfills essentially all of the criteria for a god in a polytheistic religion.

So, the special word, or term, is Satanic Atheism.

Not to be confused with Agnosticism.

I get what you're saying but if one believes Satan is a god, I'm not understanding how one is an atheist.

It's a special kind of atheism, as near as I can tell. It's not difficult to understand when you take into account the effects of the situation. The situation is, we are awash in Double-speak. For example, Biden says that the USA stands with Israel, yet he curtails energy production to make the USA dependent on the middle-east hell-bent on wiping Israel off the map, and he ignores in-place sanctions that make the enemies of Israel, and the same enemies of the USA, flush with cash to finance Evil, along with unfreezing billions of dollars that instead of building infrastructure for those with a nice coastline for tourism, are used for Evil acts, and for building tunnels under a military installation populated with civilians who joined in with the most recent example of terrorist murdering and looting of innocent civilians they are conditioned to believe are their enemies ... which is Hatefully being presented by evil as justified.

When they're fat and comfy, when the physical needs of the special atheist are taken care of, the special atheist claims to sit on the fence because that gives him, or her, a flimsy moral cover, and while perched up there judging the God he, or she, does not believe in, the special atheist insists on cultivating huge blind spots about what lies on either side of the fence so that he, or she, sits suspended, condemning the God the unbelieved-in, and sometimes in quite mean and nasty ways that would get them punishment if they were underage children and under the care of one so inclined, that is, unless they are are raised by believers in the mean-and-nasty.

[LuckyR]

So, the special word, or term, is Satanic Atheism.

Not to be confused with Agnosticism.

I get what you're saying but if one believes Satan is a god, I'm not understanding how one is an atheist.

It's a special kind of atheism, as near as I can tell. It's not difficult to understand when you take into account the effects of the situation. The situation is, we are awash in Double-speak. For example, Biden says that the USA stands with Israel, yet he curtails energy production to make the USA dependent on the middle-east hell-bent on wiping Israel off the map, and he ignores in-place sanctions that make the enemies of Israel, and the same enemies of the USA, flush with cash to finance Evil, along with unfreezing billions of dollars that instead of building infrastructure for those with a nice coastline for tourism, are used for Evil acts, and for building tunnels under a military installation populated with civilians who joined in with the most recent example of terrorist murdering and looting of innocent civilians they are conditioned to believe are their enemies ... which is Hatefully being presented by evil as justified.

When they're fat and comfy, when the physical needs of the special atheist are taken care of, the special atheist claims to sit on the fence because that gives him, or her, a flimsy moral cover, and while perched up there judging the God he, or she, does not believe in, the special atheist insists on cultivating huge blind spots about what lies on either side of the fence so that he, or she, sits suspended, condemning the God the unbelieved-in, and sometimes in quite mean and nasty ways that would get them punishment if they were underage children and under the care of one so inclined, that is, unless they are are raised by believers in the mean-and-nasty.

A lot to unpack here.

Firstly, the actions of a large group, say a nation/state or governing body can be judged to be "better" or "worse" than another large group's. But applying blanket labels like "Good" and "Evil" is essentially universally an exercise in partisanism. Which is fine, but it is what it is.

As to your initial idea on Satanism, Satanism (if it believes what you propose it does) not promoting competing deities is doing exactly what just about all other religions, especially monotheistic religions, do. Nothing exceptional there.

[iambiguous]

Taking Issue with The God Issue
Raymond Tallis argues against theist arguments in PN 99

Is Chappell’s argument by analogy [above] valid? There are several reasons for dismissing his appeal to the primacy of experience over argument in support of the existence of God when analogously compared with experience of the existence of the external world.

And, by far, the most important thing to note here in my view is this...that in regard to both arguments and personal experiences there has not been a single God ever once demonstrated to in fact actually exist.

Well, at least none that I am aware of. Sure, with respect to the "internal world"...the belief that is reflected in what people claim to be true about God "in their head", they are everywhere. But out in the "external world"?

While there are many people who seriously deny the existence of God and behave accordingly, no-one sane could doubt the existence of the outside world, or indeed could function in it if they did.

Or what I call the either/or world. I suspect it exists to remind us over and again just how problematic the is/ought world can be. In fact, isn't that a crucial reason why Gods are invented...in order "in our head" to make that gap disappear?

Chappell acknowledges that there have been long periods of history – indeed most of history before the Christian era – when people have not believed in a personal God, the Infinite Intimate who is the founder and creator of the cosmic order.

Yes, but they are all now no doubt burning in Hell. Right, IC?

Seriously, though, this all comes back around to reminding us that there is a gap between what we believe about God or No God and what we can actually demonstrate. Religionists can't demonstrate that God does exist, and atheists can't demonstrate that He does not.

On the other hand, the religionists are truly comforted and consoled by what they believe. And on both sides of the grave, they'll tell you.

And in this world, that's not nothing is it?

[Walker]

But applying blanket labels like "Good" and "Evil" is essentially universally an exercise in partisanism. Which is fine, but it is what it is.

According to that criterium, is beheading babies, as was done by Hamas, evil?

[LuckyR]

But applying blanket labels like "Good" and "Evil" is essentially universally an exercise in partisanism. Which is fine, but it is what it is.

According to that criterium, is beheading babies, as was done by Hamas, evil?

Well, since "evil" (and "good" for that matter) is a relative descriptor not an absolute one, your question is less valuable as asked. That is, the question should be: more or less "evil" than what? That is: in what context, since evaluating actions in isolation as a pretty rudimentary argumentative technique, doesn't stand up to rigorous scrutiny.

Of course in a world without evil, identifying an occurance of it would be notable. However in the Real World, the total volume of evil perpetrated by warring combatants is almost always statistically similar. Hence why this sort of thing (especially when applied to large groups) is essentially partisanship as mentioned.

[iambiguous]

Taking Issue with The God Issue
Raymond Tallis argues against theist arguments in PN 99

Anyway, arguments for denying the reality of an outside world are self-refuting: the fact of arguing assumes the existence of other people to argue with, which in turn presupposes an outside world. Who, otherwise, would solipsists think they were talking to?

Of course, the solipsists are no less able to scoff at this. They embrace solipsism given the manner in which they have thought/taught themselves into understanding it "in their head". Just as the religionists do in regard to God. All arguments against it are simply subsumed in a set of private, personal premises that makes it true. Then "the gap" and "Rummy's Rule".

The reality of other people, of a community of speakers, is implicit in the very language we use to discuss this matter: how could ‘outside’ and ‘world’ have any meaning in a universe confined to the mind of one individual denying their existence?

On the other hand...

Back to dreams. In my dreams, I am often surrounded by people. And in situations such that while "in the dream" everything is as real to me as in the waking world. Not sure how that is wholly applicable here, but it does denote yet again just how mind-boggling the human brain is. Either with or without free will.

So it is entirely reasonable to reject the idea that there is no external world, however brilliant any contrary arguments. On the other hand, ignoring the arguments against theism, if they are sound, by retreating to an appeal to experience, is not reasonable.

Unless, of course, one day down the road someone has the experience of meeting Jesus Christ. And in fact she did. The Second Coming.

Unless, of course, she's left behind.

Who can say that, beyond all doubt, no one does have experiences with God? Not me. If some here have had such experiences -- and still do -- then they are either able to share that experience with me or they are not. I can either experience God myself through this experience or I can't.

Now, let's run this...

So relegating the atheist’s arguments to mere ‘interesting puzzles’ that are trumped by theists’ experiences is not an option. Nor is it acceptable to respond to the atheist by saying that if a description of God is self-contradictory or problematic, we simply need to alter the description. Nor is responding to the fact that all descriptions of God so far on offer are riddled with contradictions with the claim that “something will turn up.” It’s just not good enough to respond to evidence of logical inconsistency in the idea of God by saying, “How interesting. So God’s omnipotence [or goodness or whatever] lies beyond our understanding,” or “Perhaps omnipotence is not what matters in thinking about God,” or arguing that the problem of evil – of an omnipotent, benign God who nonetheless presides over a world in which wickedness and suffering are prevalent – is simply irrelevant, since it is trumped by experience.

...by the Christians and Deists and others here. Let them encompass their own personal experiences in order to put it all in perspective?

[iambiguous]

Taking Issue with The God Issue
Raymond Tallis argues against theist arguments in PN 99

There are many problems with the appeal to the primacy of experience over argument. The most important is that what is at issue is not whether or not theists have certain experiences they regard as revelations of God, but the firmness of the basis for interpreting the experiences in that way.

In other words, they do have the experience with God. And "in their head" that need be as far as it goes to make the experience real. But, again, the whole point of religions [most of them] is to provide us with the basis for moral Commandments here and now and immortality there and then. So, if this personal experience some have is not able to be passed on to others...? Why is God not inclined to make this the default for all mere mortals?

Then the part where these personal experiences revolve around, well, which God? What, only Christians have them?

No experience, however subjectively compelling, could of itself provide grounds for the assertion that there is One objective Infinite but Intimate God. But this is the belief that Chappell holds (and which, by the way, he distinguishes from a belief in deities in the plural, which he dismisses as mere superstition).

Exactly. When someone here has a personal experience with the Christian God that they are able to effectively convey to others -- to me -- that might change everything.

Also, as fanatical a Christian as I once was years ago, I never had anything in the way of a "personal experience" with God. So I don't really grasp what such an experience is like.

So, if you have had one, please attempt to convey what it was like.

Then back to this...

The dodginess of translating personal experience into an irrefutable justification of a particular belief about the universe as a whole, is betrayed by the fact that other people, with experiences just as profound, have quite different religious beliefs.

Or, sure, maybe there actually are multiple Gods out there and in fact all of these personal experiences are legit. Or, perhaps, it's somehow embedded in pantheism?

Perhaps William Lane Craig, who uses (apparently specious) arguments to prove the existence of God, and Timothy Chappell, who gives experience primacy and argues that arguments are irrelevant, should get together and meta-argue the toss. I would love to chair the debate.

In the meantime, I am bracing myself for the Letters page.

Contempt?

You don't often run across that in Philosophy Now magazine.

In a sense though his reaction to Craig and Chapelle here reminds me of my own reaction to those like IC and henry quirk. In other words, how can otherwise intelligent men and women actually manage to believe in the existence of a God, the God?

Not that I don't want to believe in Him myself. And, perhaps, that's what is behind the contempt some atheists express towards Christians and other denominations. They may be deluded but that doesn't make their comfort and their consolation go away.

Sour grapes?