Philosophy Now Forum

Immanuel Can wrote:Arising:

You seem resolute. I accept that. I think we've gone as far as we're going to get, at least on this strand.

You are very handy at saying what you wish and avoiding answering questions. How very christian of you.

thedoc wrote:Arising, If I remember correctly you claim to be an atheist, yet you seem to think you are competent to tell Christians what they believe. ...

Since I was raised in, at the time, an ostensibly Christian culture, gone to Church, given religious studies at school and have talked to and met a lot of Christians I have a fair idea of the range of beliefs they have, it's one of the reasons I stayed an atheist(although nowadays I'm pretty much an apatheist and when bothered an ignostic) as any 'God' who can't get a clear message across to 'its' followers is hardly a 'supreme being'. Anyhoo, so are you telling me in your sect you don't believe in hell for sinners and your 'God' will be forgiving me? Fine by me.

I have always contended that someone outside a religion, really doesn't know what the believers of that religion believe. ...

And I contend that those in a sect should not confuse what they believe to be the whole truth about their religion.

So I give your pronouncements the credence they deserve.

And I yours. Especially when they talk about bombing and nuking others and killing and burying people to hide the evidence, how christian of you.

If God is good, He will understand a non-believers or doubter's (perhaps even an antagonist's) conundrum, and forgive. If He does not, will not, or can not, He is not worth the trouble.

And if He is not, well, it's a done deal.

Immanuel Can wrote:It begins with the natural world itself. The Bible says, "The heavens (i.e. the cosmos) declares the glory of God, and their expanse tells for the working of His hands."

That looks like Psalm 19:1, “The heavens [shamayim] tell out the glory of God, the vault of heaven [raqiya] reveals his handiwork.” Here's another: Psalm 104:5: “Thou didst fix the earth on its foundation so that it never can be shaken.” Whoever wrote that clearly wasn't familiar with plate tectonics. It's in the same bible though, so in order to reach the conclusion you do, one has to not only accept the affirmation as proof, but at the same time ignore the same source where it conflicts with the interpretation you are seeking to affirm. That is confirmation bias in the form of selective reading.

Immanuel Can wrote:It says this because our universe manifests such precision, such balance, such congeniality to life, and such beauty that it is quite impossible rationally to believe it's a product of chance -- for the open-minded or the Theist, perhaps, but oddly enough, not for the skeptic, apparently.

As far as we know, there is just one layer a few miles thick on one small planet in which life is possible. Anything used to those conditions would very quickly perish anywhere else in the visible universe that is billions of light years wide. To put that into some sort of context, light could circumnavigate the part of the universe we know to be congenial to life in a little over a tenth of the second.

Immanuel Can wrote:Then there are wonders of nature, such as multiple-species symbiosis, which no Naturalistic account of the world is currently able to explain.

What would be a good example of that? And why does evolution fail to explain it?

Immanuel Can wrote:Then there's causality itself, which automatically bespeaks a First Cause.

There is no logical necessity for a first cause. It simply doesn't follow from 'There are causes.' to 'There is a first cause.

Immanuel Can wrote:Then there are historical evidences, the testimony of personal witnesses, and powerful arguments even from Atheist "saints" like Nagel or Flew, or more recently of Aczel, another scientific rationalist.

Which you have to take on trust, because there is no supporting evidence. Once again, you are taking 'evidence' as support for your wish,

Immanuel Can wrote:Then there are moral evidences, like the persistent belief in objective moral values -- manifest even in Atheists, since they insist religion is "bad," which requires an objective moral valuation.

This is sociopathic. The claim is that religious people are 'good' because they fear punishment. I have no fear of divine retribution, but have no wish to cause harm, because I can empathise: I know what pain feels like.

Immanuel Can wrote:Then there are other metaphysical evidences, like the existence of individuality, intelligence, choice and aesthetics, and the intuitive argument from the intuition of the soul.

Pick one and explain why it is evidence for your god.

Immanuel Can wrote:Then there are sociological evidences, like the abundance of charitable work, scholarly work and the arts generated by faith in God, all of which is at least possibly indicative of something more going on in this world than mere mechanics...

There are also wars of religion, meddling in other people's affairs, very little of the great religious art was unpaid...

Immanuel Can wrote:...it just goes on and on. And Atheism continues to claim "there is no evidence."

It is only evidence for what you choose to believe, because you choose to believe it.

Immanuel Can wrote:The Theist scratches his head. He wonders, "How can they not see any of the abundance of evidences that are so clear?"

It is only evidence to you, because you are your own type 1 theist; you accept, uncritically, anything at all as evidence for what you happen to believe. Not only that, you ignore anything that doesn't support your hypothesis.[/quote]

Immanuel Can wrote:And I think there are but two explanations: 1) total ignorance of the available evidence,

That's just rude, Immanuel Can. I know at least as much about the universe and the world as you.

Immanuel Can wrote:or 2) a disposition so antagonistic that absolutely NOTHING would ever count as evidence.

That's rude too. Antagonism has nothing to do with it, there is simply zero evidence that can only be attributed to your god. The evidence you have provided could be used to support any metaphysical claim. The fact that you attribute people's differing opinions to weakness should fill you with shame.

Arising_uk wrote: And I yours. Especially when they talk about bombing and nuking others and killing and burying people to hide the evidence, how christian of you.

It's a good thing to not confuse talk with action. However I do like one saying attributed to the US Marines.

"It's not our job to judge others as right or wrong,
That judgment is God's responsibility,
Our job is to arrange the meeting."

uwot wrote:

Immanuel Can wrote: The Theist scratches his head. He wonders, "How can they not see any of the abundance of evidences that are so clear?"

It is only evidence to you, because you are your own type 1 theist; you accept, uncritically, anything at all as evidence for what you happen to believe. Not only that, you ignore anything that doesn't support your hypothesis.

You mentioned a "Type 1 Theist", could you list the other Types, and their main characteristics, as you see them?

Arising_uk wrote: How very christian of you.

It is just this sort of remark which guarantees that there is little point in further discussion. It eloquently evidences that your mind's made up. It shows that you think you know what to expect from what you think is a "Christian," and you're content to go with that impression. I can't stop you...so it's just not clear what the next conversational move is.

My suspicion is that you may need to have a better experience with what you consider "Christians" -- or maybe a first experience, judging by some of your comments that are rather wide of the Christian main -- before you will be open to entertaining any further possibilities about theism. But it's also clear that for you that time has not yet come.

I'm content with that. Be well. For the moment, there's no way forward. There may be one day, but perhaps not now.

uwot wrote:The fact that you attribute people's differing opinions to weakness should fill you with shame.

I don't, and it doesn't. It's not "differing opinions" I'm speaking about: it's gratuitiously-dismissive, mindless Atheism (Type 3 Atheism, if you will).

So cool your jets. I was honestly answering a challenge that had been put to me. I was asked to say what "evidence" was available to the doubting, regarding the Theist worldview. The assertion of my interlocutor was that there was "no" evidence. I had said earlier that Theists think there is, and so such a remark puzzles Theists mightily. And in fairness to my interlocutor, I listed a whole bunch to show I was being sincere.

Now, you don't like any of it. You nit pick the whole bunch. You're free to do so, of course. But when you do, you only underline the point: there are Atheists who simply will not admit that any such evidence even exists. They just refuse to see it.

Now, not all Atheists are bad on this point. There are some who will consider evidence with an open mind (I list people like Nagel and Flew), and they deserve great respect, even as Atheists. With them there is hope. But with one who thinks there is NO evidence, the Theist can only say, "I'm sorry you imagine that's true," because it isn't true. And since the Atheist has already denied that there CAN BE any evidence, there isn't something further about which the Theist can talk with him, once he's denied what's right before his own eyes. It's an endgame.

As for evidence, there is a great deal, actually; and it's much more challenging and impressive than you give it credit for being. For example, the Moral Argument is absolutely decisive right now; I can tell you for sure, no Atheist has ever come close to solving that one. (It's in my field, you see.) Then there's the Kalaam Cosmological Argument, which has the whole scientific world back on the ropes so far that they're squirting out bizarre hypotheses about empirically-untestable multiple universes and parallel dimensions in a desperate attempt to evade it's causal implications. Yet your remarks show you not even to be in the game with those two arguments; you clearly just don't "get" them, or there's no way you could dismiss them so offhandedly -- the world's greatest experts cannot do that, so how do you manage, unless you're being Type 3 dismissive?

You want evidence? Let's see you deal with the Moral Argument. Step up, chum, and take a swing. Let's play ball.

Or will I have to tell you what it is, before you can even get up to the plate?

Immanuel Can wrote:

uwot wrote: Which pretty much defines confirmation bias. How do you decide, for instance, whether a particular piece of 'evidence' supports one metaphysical possibility rather than any of an effectively infinite range?

A salient point. Well said. That's an eventuality we all have to guard against. .

LOL.
So why is it that every time you bring god into the conversation you loose your sense of reason?

Immanuel Can wrote:...since the Atheist has already denied that there CAN BE any evidence, there isn't something further about which the Theist can talk with him, once he's denied what's right before his own eyes. It's an endgame.

As for evidence, there is a great deal, actually; and it's much more challenging and impressive than you give it credit for being. For example, the Moral Argument is absolutely decisive right now; I can tell you for sure, no Atheist has ever come close to solving that one. (It's in my field, you see.) Then there's the Kalaam Cosmological Argument, which has the whole scientific world back on the ropes so far that they're squirting out bizarre hypotheses about empirically-untestable multiple universes and parallel dimensions in a desperate attempt to evade it's causal implications.

What fascinates me most in all of this is that certain types of atheists dismiss the theist's arguments because they cannot be verified empirically and then turn to their own theories that cannot be verified empirically. It's an implicit acknowledgement of the metaphysical nature of these questions hiding behind an explicit refusal to admit that they're metaphysical questions. They even have the same chip on their shoulder as the religious folks they detest so much. It's just more evidence that unthinking fundamentalism isn't limited solely to religion.

Immanuel Can wrote:

uwot wrote:The fact that you attribute people's differing opinions to weakness should fill you with shame.

I don't, and it doesn't. It's not "differing opinions" I'm speaking about: it's gratuitiously-dismissive, mindless Atheism (Type 3 Atheism, if you will).

So cool your jets. I was honestly answering a challenge that had been put to me. I was asked to say what "evidence" was available to the doubting, regarding the Theist worldview. The assertion of my interlocutor was that there was "no" evidence. I had said earlier that Theists think there is, and so such a remark puzzles Theists mightily. And in fairness to my interlocutor, I listed a whole bunch to show I was being sincere.

Now, you don't like any of it. You nit pick the whole bunch. You're free to do so, of course. But when you do, you only underline the point: there are Atheists who simply will not admit that any such evidence even exists. They just refuse to see it.

Now, not all Atheists are bad on this point. There are some who will consider evidence with an open mind (I list people like Nagel and Flew), and they deserve great respect, even as Atheists. With them there is hope. But with one who thinks there is NO evidence, the Theist can only say, "I'm sorry you imagine that's true," because it isn't true. And since the Atheist has already denied that there CAN BE any evidence, there isn't something further about which the Theist can talk with him, once he's denied what's right before his own eyes. It's an endgame.

As for evidence, there is a great deal, actually; and it's much more challenging and impressive than you give it credit for being. For example, the Moral Argument is absolutely decisive right now; I can tell you for sure, no Atheist has ever come close to solving that one. (It's in my field, you see.) Then there's the Kalaam Cosmological Argument, which has the whole scientific world back on the ropes so far that they're squirting out bizarre hypotheses about empirically-untestable multiple universes and parallel dimensions in a desperate attempt to evade it's causal implications. Yet your remarks show you not even to be in the game with those two arguments; you clearly just don't "get" them, or there's no way you could dismiss them so offhandedly -- the world's greatest experts cannot do that, so how do you manage, unless you're being Type 3 dismissive?

You want evidence? Let's see you deal with the Moral Argument. Step up, chum, and take a swing. Let's play ball.

Or will I have to tell you what it is, before you can even get up to the plate?

I will step up to the plate as I always like learning something new. What is the moral argument and Kalaam argument?

As for evidence of God, I see the illustrations pointing as much toward God as toward scientific explanations. A 50/50 split is not really of evidentiary value. But to tell the truth (and this will show I am not a real atheist, as to them this indicates a weak mind), the design argument still carries a sliver of weight with me, no matter how many science books I read. As for arguments, I've never heard any remotely persuasive.

The problem is, the use of God as an explanation of things - either physical or moral - fails to predict and so is not verifiable. So it can't be proven or disproven because it is outside the realm of scientific reasoning, which to me is all the kind of reasoning there is. That's what I meant by there cannot be any evidence for that theory. A theory that does is not verifiable is really not a theory, it's more of a guess (some would call it a myth or story but that gets theists up in arms). But I agree with you that, for instance, the multiverse 'guess' is no better that I can see.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kal%C4%81 ... l_argument

and the alternative,

http://wiki.ironchariots.org/index.php?title=Kalam

Wyman wrote:...scientific reasoning, which to me is all the kind of reasoning there is.

What exactly do you mean by "scientific reasoning?" I can think of all sorts of reasoning that aren't "scientific." Logic and Mathematics, for starters.

That's an interesting statement, RS. Can you expand on that?

http://www.personal.psu.edu/t20/papers/philmath/

Wyman wrote:I will step up to the plate as I always like learning something new. What is the moral argument and Kalaam argument?

Glad to be of service, Wyman.

Here's a couple of short, easy philosophy videos to cover them in an entertaining way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OxiAikEk2vU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CulBuMCLg0

And here's one related to the Argument from Design:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UpIiIaC4kRA

I was proposing we deal with the first argument, the Moral Argument. But the others are interesting too.

I'll get back to your other interesting comments later, if I may. I have an errand I have to run.