Philosophy Now Forum

QMan wrote:Ginkgo:
Yes, it is a good post but unfortunately there are a few problems from my point of view:

The biggest hurdle we need to overcome is the idea that science and help prove the truth of the God or the Bible. As I explained to Immanuel Can- it isn't possible.

A case in point from your post: If as you say there is no "physical verifiability" then it is impossible to conduct any sort of scientific experiment. In other words, God cannot be proven true by the empirical evidence (social scientific or otherwise).

Qman:
Let's discuss the science and truth aspect at this time and not the existence of God.

What we need to address is how science, especially the soft sciences, e.g. psychology, arrive at valid results, which we may consider as "truth." Let's agree that as humans truth always means knowledge obtained with some degree of probability (mostly never 100%. Death is 100% certain).

Experimental results in science are preferably obtained by the scientist in what is denoted as a quantitative manner using quantitative variables. I do not mean to lecture, so bear with me. E.g., the resistance of an electric circuit is measured in Ohms, or air pressure in car tires in lbs/sq. inch. There are types of experiments in both, the hard and soft sciences, where only qualitative variables are available for measurement. E.g., when you go to a clinic because you have the flu, the doctor might ask you, how long have you had the symptoms, and on a scale of 1 to 10 tell me what pain you are in. He just used a technique of assigning an arbitrary pain scale in order to convert your qualitative perception into a quantitative variable. After you left and after he has seen several hundred more patients with the flu in the coming weeks, he may sit down and write a small scientific paper to be published in a medical journal concerning the degree of pain experienced by his patients as a function of days from onset of the flu. He will probably publish a nice quantitative numeric graph with a thorough statistical analysis giving confidence bounds for degree of pain for the individual patient and population tolerance bounds for the entire population of patients with the flu. This could be even more quantitatively complex, if he had also kept records for patients differentiating between the different flu types.

Here is another example, which actually happened to me. I went out to purchase a new vent hood for over my electric range, and I don't like noisy fans. So, I looked into the hood specification, and low and behold this is what I found. Hood noise is defined not by the quantitative variable of decibels but the qualitative variable of Sones.

Sones
In 1936, American psychologist, Stanley Smith Stevens proposed the sone as a psycho-acoustical measurement of sound. Generally, the idea was to establish a unit of measurement for loudness. A group of folks were played tones starting at the lowest level that can be heard (frequency of 1000 hertz and a sound pressure level of 40 decibels). People were tested individually and they judged the relative "loudness" of each tone. So for example a tone at 4 sones was perceived twice as loud as a tone at 2 sones.
Key to this description is that this measurement is subjective. Imagine your stereo volume sound control set at 4 (on an indicator level of 0-10). If you turn the treble say from 5 up to 10, without touching the volume knob, you'll find the music to be louder as a result of higher frequency.
Examples of Sone Levels
Sone
Level Source of Sound
0
Threshold of acute hearing
.02
Leaves rustling, calm breathing
.15-0.4
Very Calm room
1-4
Normal Talking at a distance of 3 feet
4
TV set normal volume at a distance of 3 feet
4-16
Passenger car at a distance of 33 feet
16-32
Major highway at a distance of 33 feet

From <http://www.abbaka.com/quiet-hood-design.htm>

And here is a final example and evaluation of the differences and benefits of using qualitative vs quantitative approaches in the psychological sciences. The conclusion is that BOTH methods can be used successfully with highly sophisticated scientific and statistical techniques as used in the hard sciences. This is perfectly natural since, as I mentioned before, hard science often encounters or is forced into (due to time constraints in testing, e.g.) the use of qualitative variables but nevertheless needs to make very predictive quantitative statements and conclusions for such test results.

Origins and methods
The philosophical bases of qualitative psychological research are found in phenomenology, ethnomethodology, and naturalistic behaviourism. Its research methods are derived from ethnography and anthropology.
In psychology, the research methods commonly classified as qualitative include:
• participant observation
• direct observation
• unstructured interviewing
• case studies
• content analysis
• focus groups
The data collected by researchers using these techniques consist of:
• the results of open-ended interviews
• notes of direct observation
• written documents (answers to questionnaires, diaries, program records, and so on)
After collecting data quantitative psychological researchers then organize them into themes, categories, and case examples. Their goal is to examine their data in depth and in detail without being constrained by predetermined analytical categories.
Most psychological researchers probably use both types of method. In particular, qualitative methods are widely used as exploratory methods; the results of qualitative analysis are used to design quantitative research which tests null hypotheses derived from the qualitative observations.

Status in psychology
The prevailing opinion in psychology is probably that both approaches offer important benefits, that rejecting one or the other means renouncing some of those benefits, and that the most useful debate is about the circumstances in which the two approaches may most profitably be used.

From <http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Qualit ... l_research>


So, what I hope I established here is that informative, valid scientific experiments can be conducted and results can be obtained and evaluated in ALL branches of the hard and soft sciences. Thus experiments indeed can result in the approximation of truthful knowledge that we as humans are limited to. How this relates to the truth about God would be next on the agenda if the discussion will warrant going there.

QMan wrote:Hmm, just to clarify, was this a Von Neuman bottleneck problem? You meant to say "agree with what" not disagree, I assume. Seems the word disagree was already stuck in the brain bottleneck and was pushed out through the stack without you realizing it?

QMan wrote:The short answer is yes and no. It will go deeper than that. Hope to develop it slowly and more systematically. Can't right now, will be out for a couple of days or more. Will be based on what I have posted in various threads. Here is a short sketch.

1. Knowledge an individual has is mostly from outside sources, influence etc., compared to from personal experience.
2. Knowledge is always probabilistic.
3. The probability of correctness, truthfulness, we assign to it depends immediately on our preconceived notions, preferences, training, upbringing, personality, temperament, attitudes, etc. It depends rarely on our intellectual capacity for formally assigning quantitative or qualitative significance to passed-on knowledge.
4. Christianity, knowledge thereof for the believer, is vastly misunderstood and misrepresented in these fora. This misrepresentation includes attempts to define the Christian God as nothing more than an idea which the believer has.
5. Christianity for the believer is simply factual based on the assessment that Christ is historically accurate and therefore gets a high score on the knowledge probability scale. Without that factual nature, there would be no Christian. I.e., an idea does not suffice. There is no way I would have any religion without the factual historical certainty of Christ's life, his personal example, miracles, and the totally sufficient and superior internal logic of his message.
6. The probability scale is reinforced by his miracles and all miracles, including in modern times.
7. There is an instinctive realization that a single, competently verified miracle is sufficient to establish the reality of the supernatural, tying in with Christ's teaching and contradicting the pure naturalist.
8. The notion and probability that a miracle simply is an unexplained undiscovered physics is assigned a probability of zero by the average believer.
9. The overall moral teaching of Christ is instinctively perceived as correct for the human condition. Thus it is correctly realized by the average believer that if everyone lived accordingly, the human condition would correctly, asymptotically, approximate heaven on earth and in the heart (the interior space).
10. The Christian is familiar with the bible and knows that the bible reveals that God is discoverable on a personal level as God clearly states in the bible.
11. The believer is willing to engage in the experiment of establishing a personal relationship with God and continue in that relationship for primarily two reasons, a) the promised benefits, which e.g. include heaven, physical, mental and material support, protection from evil, and buildup of character (which includes suffering for oneself and others), and b) the attraction towards a being that is indeed perceived as love incarnate.
12. The believer engaged in the experiment provides an appropriate test subject to arrive at a probabilistic statement that God is discernible objectively and quantitatively through the agency of the believer. One important variable would be the approximate probabilities the believer assigns to the various facets of his/her belief.
13. Human history has so far shown that God is not otherwise directly discernible through physical science experiments. Probably because of free will and the necessity of having humanity strongly act in its own interest for survival's sake. It would be a major undesirable upheaval if faith would not be required and there was absolute certainty that the hereafter exists. Even in the sense that humans would then have to make an immediate choice about the desirability of a creator in their life while this way they can form that choice of potential eternal separation from their creator throughout a lifetime based on the character they have shaped for themselves. Thus they are responsible for who they have elected to become. Of course, responsibility is mitigated by the involuntary circumstances for each individual.

Theism is the belief in a benevolent, omnipresent figure who distributes blessings around the world.

Conde Lucanor wrote:

Theism is the belief in a benevolent, omnipresent figure who distributes blessings around the world.

So, if I believe in a god that is not benevolent, nor omnipresent, am I an atheist?

If 2 people believed in 2 different, mutually exclusive, benevolent, omnipresent figures who distributed blessings around the world, they'll both be theists, right?

And if 2 people believed in 2 complementary, mutually inclusive, benevolent, omnipresent figures who distributed blessings around the world, they'll both be theists, right?

QMan wrote:

Conde Lucanor wrote:

Theism is the belief in a benevolent, omnipresent figure who distributes blessings around the world.

So, if I believe in a god that is not benevolent, nor omnipresent, am I an atheist?

If 2 people believed in 2 different, mutually exclusive, benevolent, omnipresent figures who distributed blessings around the world, they'll both be

theists, right?

And if 2 people believed in 2 complementary, mutually inclusive, benevolent, omnipresent figures who distributed blessings around the world, they'll

both be theists, right?

Hi Conde,
Couldn't find this quote in this thread, so I don't know who you are addressing. In case it is meant for me then I can suggest an answer that seems

reasonable to me on a personal level. Please see material below.

Are all religions good?

"Members of all faiths are equal before God. God rules over each faith just like a sovereign over his kingdom. In the world, all religions are not the

same because all people have not complied with the commandments of God. They reject and disparage them."

http://www.medjugorje.com/medjugorje-me ... mainform=1

Qman wrote: Hi Conde,
Couldn't find this quote in this thread, so I don't know who you are addressing. In case it is meant for me then I can suggest an answer that seems

reasonable to me on a personal level. Please see material below.

Are all religions good?

"Members of all faiths are equal before God. God rules over each faith just like a sovereign over his kingdom. In the world, all religions are not the

same because all people have not complied with the commandments of God. They reject and disparage them."

http://www.medjugorje.com/medjugorje-me ... mainform=1

Conde Lucanor wrote: Hi, Qman:

I quoted a sentence from the first paragraph of the editorial article that was posted at the beginning of this thread:

http://philosophynow.org/issues/99/Gadzooks

Thanks anyway for the answer, although I must respectfully decline going through your suggested link. I'm not looking for personal, subjective, answers coming from religious faith. I am looking, though, for rational, objective answers, which religion by definition cannot provide. I respect everyone's right to believe in whatever they choose to believe, but I think those beliefs are personal preferences which have no place in a rational discussion aimed at discovering objective truths. If I believe in a winged unicorn and you believe in an un unwinged one, there's not much we can argue about, just describe what our personal beliefs are. Of course, anyone can choose to change his/her personal belief from winged unicorns to unwinged ones, and viceversa, but that has no effect on the lack of demonstrational value of the propositions.

At the very moment anyone steps out of his/her personal beliefs and starts proposing things as objective truths, that is, as things that are valid independently of the subject, we have a proposition with a demonstrative value that can be weighed in analysis and shown to be true or false. Religion, on the other hand, just imposes unchallenged dogmas, which you can only choose to accept or not. How far can you go trying to prove the mightiness of Semiramis or Zeus?

What I wrote in response to that sentence from the editorial note is aimed at questioning why the article's author chose a definition of theism narrowed down to the description of a particular god (as explained above, a subjective belief or personal preference), instead of adopting an unbias, neutral, pluralistic, all-encompassing, general description of theism, that would account for all possible beliefs out there. It seems that the statement is loaded with conclusions (that the author does not care to address), which don't look good for an initial statement, even for an editor's introduction to other's people work on the subject.

Qman wrote:In the interest of fairness, let me point out that no one in this forum is entitled to put forth unproven assumptions (often based on personal bias and preconceived notions) and then try to develop a logical argument from that.

Qman wrote: That's what you are doing by claiming that religion, because it is religion, is automatically not rational, not objective, only pronounces unchallenged dogmas, et...

Qman wrote:Clearly you are violating the philosophical groundrule that you cannot use an unproven or unprovable to prove something else. Religion is none of those things unless you can prove it is.

Qman wrote: If you see my previous append above (and other ones in these fora) it shows that I consider myself to be an extremely rational person...

Qman wrote:with some very concrete ideas about why religion is clearly based on factual and historical evidence, without which I would not consider a belief system.

Qman wrote:One of the serious errors you are making is to suggest that religion is solely based on faith. That is patently false since God's/Christ's emphasis has always been to stress that he should be believed in based on his miracles, works, life, and the logic of his moral teaching.

Qman wrote:Faith is the final ingredient based on his and other's example. In this case, faith, to the truly rational person, is simply an assignment of probabilities as to who is correct in his worldview the believer or the non-believer.

Qman wrote: It is simply a given that a nonbeliever rejects religion because the consequences of having religion demand completely life altering action and behavior, which is too inconvenient for them.

Qman wrote:As I have always stressed, God is objectively available to any one who seeks to establish a personal relationship with him. That is the way he becomes real and discernable to the individual and not through physical science proof. Unless an individual is willing to engage in such a relationship they do not have the knowledge and insight to make valid inferences concerning God.

Conde Lucanor wrote:

Qman wrote:In the interest of fairness, let me point out that no one in this forum is entitled to put forth unproven assumptions (often based on personal bias and preconceived notions) and then try to develop a logical argument from that.

I must disagree. Since actually the very nature of a forum is to offer opinions to be discussed openly, we all must suppose, in the interest of fairness, that those opinions carry an intention of truth from the proponent. Its legitimacy as a truthful proposition is then defined through debate in the forum after it is put forth, not before. It can be argued, of course, that a statement is false (because is based only on personal bias and preconceived notions, among other things), but that has nothing to do with being entitled to express an opinion. In fact, your very own first post in response to my argument, was a link that only states beliefs with no intention of a demonstrative, logical structure, just a plain belief that one chooses to accept or no. I may discard it, ignore it, reject it, whatever, but I will not say you are not entitled to express it.

Qman wrote: That's what you are doing by claiming that religion, because it is religion, is automatically not rational, not objective, only pronounces unchallenged dogmas, et...

I offered you an explanation of why I was declining your offer to approach the subject from a faith-based perspective. And the personal reason to decline is a very good, legitimate one: I don't trust in any way religious, blind assertions. They are not philosophical or scientific, in the sense of producing knowledge or discovering truths methodically. I was not trying to prove it to you (not yet), but just explaining my motivations for not getting at it. And I offered an explanation of why a discussion under that premise would go nowhere: because you don't trust all religious, blind assertions, either. A dispute about blind assertions without any demonstrative value, proves nothing.

Qman wrote:Clearly you are violating the philosophical groundrule that you cannot use an unproven or unprovable to prove something else. Religion is none of those things unless you can prove it is.

It would be interesting that a common logical fallacy (ad ignorantiam fallacy) got the status of a "philosophical groundrule". If I didn't prove that religion is irrational, subjective, dogmatic, etc., that wouldn't make it automatically rational and objective. All you could say is that I didn't prove it, but again, you would have to step out of your personal beliefs and start proposing things as objective truths to make a rational judgement about my statements. Messages from a heavenly virgin don't seem yet like an argument to prove anything.

Qman wrote: If you see my previous append above (and other ones in these fora) it shows that I consider myself to be an extremely rational person...

Let me clarify to you that labeling ideas as irrational does not intend to present the beholders of such ideas as stupid, mad, delusional beings. Certainly people can reach those states permanently or temporarily (and undoubtedly can play a role in "supernatural" experiences), but if there's one thing to distinguish human beings from other creatures is their capacity, under normal and natural conditions, to reason. So I depart from the notion that you, as anybody else, are a rational being. That said, however, does not mean that a person cannot act against his/her own nature, forcing himself/herself to believe and defend what doesn't make sense. In fact, I have known very intelligent people, who are ready to believe the silliest of fantasies. In that sense, they hold "irrational" ideas.

Qman wrote:with some very concrete ideas about why religion is clearly based on factual and historical evidence, without which I would not consider a belief system.

Sorry that I'm skeptical, but after looking into these usual claims for long time, I don't see anyone having any chance of bringing facts and historical evidence for religious claims. Facts and history are constructed with the methods of sciences, but you have said yourself that your claims are not the object of scientific demonstrations, but of mystical experiences with the divine entities (a belief system).

Qman wrote:One of the serious errors you are making is to suggest that religion is solely based on faith. That is patently false since God's/Christ's emphasis has always been to stress that he should be believed in based on his miracles, works, life, and the logic of his moral teaching.

Which Christ, which God? The sole mention of this presupposes a belief in a deity. "His" works, "his" teachings, "his" miracles, etc., only become "his" after you have previously accepted the existence of this deity. The main references for the actions and attributes believed about this deity come from hearsay sources, which you accept by faith.

Qman wrote:Faith is the final ingredient based on his and other's example. In this case, faith, to the truly rational person, is simply an assignment of probabilities as to who is correct in his worldview the believer or the non-believer.

That would be making faith equal to weighting the soundness of a proposition, either by way of inductive or deductive reasoning. But that's exactly the opposite of what religious faith is. In fact it is valued more as it takes more distance from any evidence or common sense. The blinder the faith, bigger faith it is. Having to wait for sound evidence is supposed to make your faith "weaker", as was supposedly admonished by the mythical figure Jesus to the mythical disciple Thomas in the mythical story of the resurrection:

Jesus saith unto him, Thomas, because thou hast seen Me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.

Qman wrote: It is simply a given that a nonbeliever rejects religion because the consequences of having religion demand completely life altering action and behavior, which is too inconvenient for them.

Or the nonbeliever rejects it simply because is false, a myth, fantasy. And maybe too because is useless and inconvenient believing in nonsense.

Qman wrote:As I have always stressed, God is objectively available to any one who seeks to establish a personal relationship with him. That is the way he becomes real and discernable to the individual and not through physical science proof. Unless an individual is willing to engage in such a relationship they do not have the knowledge and insight to make valid inferences concerning God.

I think you cannot have a personal relationship with something that does not even exist, although I'm sure you can fool yourself into believing that you do. Gods, fairies, whatever. But anyway, it is interesting to note that this god of yours is only "objectively available" at a personal level, which is almost the same as saying that is only "subjectively available". But if you ask me, at a personal level, don't find any sense in believing in a god which handles so poorly his public relations (not having any). I mean, what a lousy method of communicating with his creatures.

QMan wrote: From what I see, Conde, we are both consistent in the way we reason. Just out of curiosity, have you ever had any background, influence, upbringing etc. in your life that could leave open some room in your mind that there is at least some probability that God could actually exist? Or, do you simply assign a probability of zero?

Conde Lucanor wrote:

QMan wrote: From what I see, Conde, we are both consistent in the way we reason. Just out of curiosity, have you ever had any background, influence, upbringing etc. in your life that could leave open some room in your mind that there is at least some probability that God could actually exist? Or, do you simply assign a probability of zero?

A friend of mine asked me that the other day. I guess that if you learned about my upbringing, you would assume there's some probability. But I answered with another question: is there any chance that you go back into believing in the Tooth Fairy again?

QMan wrote:You know of course that a tooth fairy is meant only in fun

QMan wrote:but you also should know as a rational human that the probability of God existing deserves better than zero, simply because of the historical occurrences and also contemporary ones, however slight, but not zero. So your insistence on zero would logically seem unsupportable to most people.

QMan wrote:What I notice in many instances in these fora is that the public persona of dedicated atheist seems to require them to come across as though they have an ax to grind with God. Maybe they really do and maybe it is nothing more than bluster. In any case, it's not helpful in promoting philosophical argument and discussion.

QMan wrote:Frankly, I also think it's not very clever because of this well known argument that, if you die and you did not shut the door on God in your life and he does not exist, you have not lost anything. If he does exist, it is a win-win situation for you. If you shut the door and he exists it's your loss. You are of course familiar with that argument and therefore belong into the latter category. That makes the discussion in this type of forum so much less relevant.

Conde Lucanor wrote:

QMan wrote:You know of course that a tooth fairy is meant only in fun

That just means that you are a Tooth Fairy atheist. I bet you are also a Santa Claus atheist. It really doesn't matter, I could give you a list of hundreds of divine entities in which humans have seriously believed (although they were no better than the Tooth Fairy). For the last centuries one of those deities has become more popular, but some others are still hanging around in people's minds. What makes you different from me in terms of beliefs is that out of a hundred gods, you only believe in one, and I believe in none. 99% is pretty close to 100% atheism.

QMan wrote:but you also should know as a rational human that the probability of God existing deserves better than zero, simply because of the historical occurrences and also contemporary ones, however slight, but not zero. So your insistence on zero would logically seem unsupportable to most people.

QMan wrote:What I notice in many instances in these fora is that the public persona of dedicated atheist seems to require them to come across as though they have an ax to grind with God. Maybe they really do and maybe it is nothing more than bluster. In any case, it's not helpful in promoting philosophical argument and discussion.

QMan wrote:Frankly, I also think it's not very clever because of this well known argument that, if you die and you did not shut the door on God in your life and he does not exist, you have not lost anything. If he does exist, it is a win-win situation for you. If you shut the door and he exists it's your loss. You are of course familiar with that argument and therefore belong into the latter category. That makes the discussion in this type of forum so much less relevant.