Philosophy Now Forum

Obvious Leo wrote:The existence or non-existence of god is not a legitimate subject of either scientific or philosophical enquiry because such a being can only exist external to the physical universe. Engaging in such an argument cannot possibly be over anybody's head but it ought to be beneath anybody's dignity.

That's all very well until such an entity makes its existence fully known to you. At such a point you will understand just how much it permeates the physical universe.

attofishpi wrote:That's all very well until such an entity makes its existence fully known to you.

In the unlikely event of such an occurrence I shall consult a suitably qualified medical professional without delay and stop drinking red wine forthwith.

Obvious Leo wrote:

attofishpi wrote:That's all very well until such an entity makes its existence fully known to you.

In the unlikely event of such an occurrence I shall consult a suitably qualified medical professional without delay and stop drinking red wine forthwith.

Yes i'm sure you would doubt the rationale of your mind. That was part of the initial test 18 years ago.

attofishpi wrote: Yes i'm sure you would doubt the rationale of your mind.

Indeed it seems I lack the imaginative spirit for irrational belief. I've always had my doubts about unicorns and leprechauns as well, if truth be told. As for UFOs, astrology, homeopathy and the healing power of crystals the less said the better. I'm just not really the type.

Obvious Leo wrote:

attofishpi wrote: Yes i'm sure you would doubt the rationale of your mind.

Indeed it seems I lack the imaginative spirit for irrational belief. I've always had my doubts about unicorns and leprechauns as well, if truth be told. As for UFOs, astrology, homeopathy and the healing power of crystals the less said the better. I'm just not really the type.

It never ceases to amaze me how irrational an atheist is when he\she attempts to compare the belief of an entity that could quite possibly make up the entire backbone of our reality to a belief in unicorns and leprechauns.

attofishpi wrote:

Obvious Leo wrote:

attofishpi wrote: Yes i'm sure you would doubt the rationale of your mind.

Indeed it seems I lack the imaginative spirit for irrational belief. I've always had my doubts about unicorns and leprechauns as well, if truth be told. As for UFOs, astrology, homeopathy and the healing power of crystals the less said the better. I'm just not really the type.

It never ceases to amaze me how irrational an atheist is when he\she attempts to compare the belief of an entity that could quite possibly make up the entire backbone of our reality to a belief in unicorns and leprechauns.

But then you get your faith from a knock on the head - so what do you know?

Hobbes' Choice wrote:

attofishpi wrote:It never ceases to amaze me how irrational an atheist is when he\she attempts to compare the belief of an entity that could quite possibly make up the entire backbone of our reality to a belief in unicorns and leprechauns.

But then you get your faith from a knock on the head - so what do you know?

I don't understand, please extrapolate.

ReliStuPhD wrote:Metaphysics isn't about producing phenomena.

So what are we to make of this?

ReliStuPhD wrote:But if an unobservable, non-physical thing could have an effect on observable, physical things, that effect would count as evidence, right?

Do you see why people might think you are being inconsistent?

ReliStuPhD wrote:The more we go back and forth, the more I'm convinced you're effectively arguing against a point I never made (but one with which I agree).

The above quote looks to me as though you did.

ReliStuPhD wrote:...some atheists misunderstand just how far science can go. In dismissing the theist's answers concerning Truth and then turning to science for those answers, they make a fundamental mistake (and are engaged in more than a bit of hypocrisy).

Hypocrisy is overstating it. It seems odd to this atheist that you maintain there is an equivalence between belief in theistic explanations and scientific ones. The evidence for, say, 4D spacetime is that the experiments designed specifically to test that hypothesis all produce results consistent with it: they are measurable, repeatable and objective. There are no experiments that can test the god hypothesis in the same way. Therefore, while you are entirely free to interpret anything you wish as some god's handiwork, there is no evidence of the sort that scientific hypotheses are required to provide. It is not hypocritical, in my opinion, to consider the evidence for 'metaphysical' things, like spacetime, to be more compelling than simply interpretaing the data in a way you find favourable.

Did you even read this bit?

uwot wrote:Do you not think it disrespectful to ignore challenges put to you, but demand others respond to yours?

Immanuel Can wrote: There's no use in us talking if you don't even know the argument.

The problem is more that you will not or cannot engage in dialogue. It looks like weakness and reduces your contributions to proselytizing, which not many here are sympathetic to.
As I remember, we have discussed your moral argument before, it was weak then. If you feel you have something better, present it, how am I to learn about your argument if you don't?

attofishpi wrote:I don't understand, please extrapolate.

I think he's referring to your story of how you came to 'hear' your 'God'.

Cor! I can hear the tumbleweed over the crickets.

uwot wrote:

ReliStuPhD wrote:Metaphysics isn't about producing phenomena.

So what are we to make of this?

Nothing too increidble, I'd say, just that we're talking about two fairly distinct fields of inquiry. Physics (science) deals with the phenomena themselves, whereas metaphysics deals with the causal agents. Science takes the phenomena as they are, whereas metaphysics wants to get at what's beyond them, so to speak.

uwot wrote:

ReliStuPhD wrote:But if an unobservable, non-physical thing could have an effect on observable, physical things, that effect would count as evidence, right?

Do you see why people might think you are being inconsistent?

I do, but I think it probably comes down to my non-technical use of "unobservable." I was thinking simply of "can't be seen." But a more technical reading of the word would mean that if that thing could, in fact, have an effect on something, the thing itself is observable, no? The point I was trying to make (poorly, it seems) is that claims that "there is no evidence for God" miss the point that, if the theist is correct, then pretty much everything around us is evidence. It's got a certain circularity to it, so I'm not hanging too many hats on it, only trying to point out that "there is no evidence for God" is itself a statement that itself cannot be proven by an appeal to evidence.

(If I've not done a good job of clarifying, let me know).

uwot wrote:

ReliStuPhD wrote:The more we go back and forth, the more I'm convinced you're effectively arguing against a point I never made (but one with which I agree).

The above quote looks to me as though you did.

Yes, and I can see why it would. With any luck, I've explained my point better just now.

uwot wrote:

ReliStuPhD wrote:...some atheists misunderstand just how far science can go. In dismissing the theist's answers concerning Truth and then turning to science for those answers, they make a fundamental mistake (and are engaged in more than a bit of hypocrisy).

Hypocrisy is overstating it. It seems odd to this atheist that you maintain there is an equivalence between belief in theistic explanations and scientific ones. The evidence for, say, 4D spacetime is that the experiments designed specifically to test that hypothesis all produce results consistent with it: they are measurable, repeatable and objective. There are no experiments that can test the god hypothesis in the same way. Therefore, while you are entirely free to interpret anything you wish as some god's handiwork, there is no evidence of the sort that scientific hypotheses are required to provide. It is not hypocritical, in my opinion, to consider the evidence for 'metaphysical' things, like spacetime, to be more compelling than simply interpretaing the data in a way you find favourable.

But if spacetime can be tested by experiments, then, by definition, it's not metaphysical. The defining characteristic of "metaphysical" is that it deals with things beyond the scope of science. This is why there are no experiments to test God. God is not a "hypothesis," it's a truth claim. It could well be a false truth claim, but that's not a question science will ever be able to settle inasmuch as the claim is "beyond physics."

Your point about evidence is a fair one, and hopefully my explanation a few quotes up helps to clarify things, but I'll go ahead and double-down a bit here. If the theist is correct, then the evidence of God's existence is literally all around us. What's more, because God is, by definition, beyond science, science would never be able to come up with an experiment to test this. But the point here isn't to one-up the scientist with clever linguistic games. Rather, the point is to draw out the various epistemological assumptions at work here. The assumption that, because science can't show that the wind blowing through the trees is evidence of God, there is no evidence for God is epistemically flawed insofar as it maintains that the only valid evidence is that which can be tested through scientific experiments. Certainly scientific evidence qualifies as such, but there are other types of evidence. As a result, it's a bit of a failing for the scientist to insist that "evidence" is only that which can be tested by scientific experiments. The word "evidence" is broader than this narrow usage.

With respect to your objection to hypocrisy, I want to be clear that I am not speaking of all atheists, merely a particular subgroup that effectively treats science as a substitute for religion, rather than as a different field entirely. In effect, they want to have their cake and eat it too. There are plenty of atheists (thankfully) who seem to be smart enough to avoid this incoherence.

Arising_uk wrote:

attofishpi wrote:I don't understand, please extrapolate.

I think he's referring to your story of how you came to 'hear' your 'God'.

Ah, that old chestnut.
Once again you are misinterpreting the case in point. First this happened on Nov 13 2005. I had already heard the voice of 'God' for many years since being made fully aware of its existence in 1997.
Secondly, it is the case where the sage introduced itself to me - not God.
--
On the morning of Nov 13 2005 i climbed out of bed and a voice said to me "tonight, bad luck."
I was set to playing cards for money that night, so i though ok, maybe i'll lose.
I did ok at cards, but i left rather drunk and climbed into a taxi. The taxi driver woke me up way north of where i live at a service-station and basically kicked me out. So i sat on some grass outside the servo collecting myself when two people came over to me and started swearing at me and as i stood, told me to sit down, as if i was a dog. So i thought here we go a bit of biffo when the last thing i remember was seeing a silver metal baseball bat being produced. The thug broke my arm and my nose. I was in hospital for a week. I discharged myself early as the nurses would no longer provide morphine. When i got home i found the local pharmacy would not dispense pain killers to me from my script as it was a hospital script.
I called the hospital and their pharmacy was already closed. So i went home with just panadol.
That night i was in immense pain in my arm - i had pins and wires in my not so funny bone. I actually was to the point of tears with the pain. I knew God existed so i said a prayer - something like - please God can you take away this pain. A voice stated to me. "would you like me to erase that?" Of course i said yes. Immediately the pain disappeared and i was extremely relieved. Then about 10mins later the pain started to return and the voice stated. "Do you understand?". At the time i didn't and even if i did i was agitated so fuck any reasoning. It felt a little easier still but felt like my arm was coiling up, bit strange. Eventually i was close to falling asleep when i was jolted back awake, this happened about three times and it really pissed me off. I called out "who are you, are you God?" ..and the reply voice stated "i am a sage."
I didn't know what a sage was so i considered climbing from my bed to look it up in the dictionary, when i was heavily tapped on my right knee - (right-look it up)
I was a little concerned that sage could be a bad thing. I looked it up - an extremely wise person.
And there is that little chestnut, if you think any of that was a result of a broken nose then please think again, and don't forget i had been warned 'tonight bad luck" as i had climbed from be on the morning.
The reason i had 'bad luck' is from the test that had been imparted to me since 1997, i had crossed the line.
---
---
Perhaps you would you like another story - much earlier 1997 when the God shit started...it was all so perplexing, at first i did think i was going crazy, but eventually i started to have 'faith' in myself, and i started testing God\'it' back. The English language, its homophones and reversals and sub-logic started out as suggestion to me from complete strangers calling stuff out as i walked along the main street to\from work in the city - of course it wasnt them that was calling this stuff out.
So I wrote down the sentence from the lords prayer:-
Deliver us from evil.
Reversed:-
Live morf su reviled.
I translated as:-
Live morph soon revealed.
--
One week after having done that, i was working two jobs and on my way from my first job to my second job. I was running late, walking through a car-park. An aboriginal youth was walking towards me wearing a hoodie. As he was level with me i glanced over my left shoulder momentarily. He was now taller, was not wearing a hoodie, and older. I said fuck to myself and turned to look at him again. He was now a white haired old man - anglo-saxon hobbling away!
Needless to say i was rather freaked out by this, i walked around a corner and this man in his twenties was staring at me, leant forward sat on a bench, grinning and rubbing his nose - like- he knows.
--
There you have it, two little examples from countless more in the life of Brian where the true nature of real_it_y should be questioned.

I reckon you should change your dealer, mate. There's obviously some dodgy gear getting around.

Obvious Leo wrote:I reckon you should change your dealer, mate.

Like i said, i did ok at cards.