Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Jobar · 03-07-2003, 12:40 PM

From Oxymoron-
Theophilus' proof of God's existence:

1.) Assume God exists.
2.) Er.... that's it.

Mods, can we move this to the 'worst arguments for the existence of God' thread?

Hah, good thought!

Before I came back to this thread today, I realized that any discussion of presuppositionalism is out of place in a discussion about *evidence* of god- obviously, the presupp argument says we simply do not need evidence! So please, theophilus and all, if you desire to discuss presupp for the umpteenth time, start another thread for the purpose.

Mageth · 03-07-2003, 12:42 PM

I "know" things because I begin with God and his word as authoritative and that makes knowledge not only possible but certain because it confirms and illucidates our experience.

So, in order to answer your question, you must explain how you, as a non-theist (atheist-naturalist) can claim to know anything.

OK, riddle me this:

What do you, beginning with god, "know" about the physical universe (leave god and the "supra-sensory", whatever the hell that is supposed to mean, out of it) that I, as an atheist, and not beginning with god, don't or can't "know"?

Farren · 03-07-2003, 05:44 PM

I haven't read the responses, but thank buck, for making me smile:

Quote:

Originally posted by Buck Swope
One thing that I don't understand about athesits is that they like to claim that there is no evidence that God exists.

But it's obvious to me that everything is evidence that God exists.

So it seems that one's idea of what "evidence" might be is pretty subjective.

And I get the notion that no amount of evidence would suffice in the atheist's mind; even though they'll all believe other ideas pretty much on faith.

Um

Evidence of Floop

One thing that I don't understand about afloopists is that they like to claim that there is no evidence that Floop exists.

But it's obvious to me that everything is evidence that Floop exists.

So it seems that one's idea of what "evidence" might be is pretty subjective.

And I get the notion that no amount of evidence would suffice in the afloopist's mind; even though they'll all believe other ideas pretty much on faith.

Geez, you afloopists are so dumb. I mean, its not as if terms like "evidence" actually have a well-defined meaning in philosophy

Oxymoron · 03-08-2003, 12:46 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by stuO

If 1 + 1 = 2. Logically, then if 1 + 1 = 3 then 1 + 2 could = 2

Then 1 = 2?

Bye-bye number system!

Lobstrosity · 03-08-2003, 02:05 AM

I may be completely misunderstanding what Theophilus is driving at with his posts, but as I interpret it his point is not completely invalid. Science seeks to search out objective truths, yet it is carried out by creatures with imperfect minds. Science as a method is flawless, but this method is being implemented by humans who certainly are far from flawless. Is there any guarantee that our brains won't prevent us from drawing the proper conclusions? What if the "truths" we find aren't really true? A good response to this line of questioning is given by Stephen Hawking:

"Yet if there really is a complete unified theory, it would also presumably determine our actions. And so the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it! And why should it determine that we come up with the right conclusions from the evidence? Might it not equally well determine that we draw the wrong conclusion? Or no conclusion at all?

"The only answer that I can give to this problem is based on Darwin's principle of natural selection. The idea is that in any population of self-reproducing organisms, there will be variations in the genetic material and upbringing that different individuals have. These differences will mean that some individuals are better able than others to draw the right conclusions about the world around them and to act accordingly. These individuals will be more likely to survive and reproduce and so their pattern of behavior and thought will come to dominate. It has certainly been true in the past that what we call intelligence and scientific discovery has conveyed a survival advantage. It is not so clear that this is still the case: our scientific discoveries may well destroy us all, and even if they don't, a complete unified theory may not make much difference to our chances of survival. However, provided the universe has evolved in a regular way, we might expect that the reasoning abilities that natural selection has given us would be valid also in our search for a complete unified theory, and so would not lead us to the wrong conclusions."

We have clearly been able to draw proper conclusions regarding notions as far removed from our survival as General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Proof of this lies in our ability to utilize those theories to produce the tangible results of nuclear energy and microelectronics. So our fallible minds have not led us astray yet. As such, I think it's rather presumptive at this point to argue that they will in the future.

Vorkosigan · 03-08-2003, 06:20 AM

Lobstrosity,

It sounds like you are an evolutionary naturalist. Track down a copy of Giere's Explaining Science and pay close attention to the first several chapters. I think you'll enjoy the discussion very much.

Vorkosigan

theophilus · 03-08-2003, 11:58 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jobar
Theophilus-
I freely acknowledge that I begin from the position of acknowledging God and his word as the foundation of all knowledge. The question is which of our presuppositions explains human experience; not just sensory experience, but the supra-sensory experiences?

You see, my presupposition can explain why you want to work for the betterment of mankind while yours cannot.

Wrong twice. Hell, three times.

One. "Which of our presuppositions"? You make the same one I do, and then you add on top of that one which I contend is invalid and extraneous.

Wow! Three times!

I know this can difficult to understand; if we think of a presupposition as an AXIOM, there can be nothing "behind" the axiom that proves it. It is the measure by which everything else is tested.

Your presupposition or axiom is the sufficiency of your own intellect. You test everything by that standard. But there is no way to validate your intellect without asserting something higher which makes that thing the axiom.

My presupposition is God and his word. I do not validate or test that by some higher standard, i.e., my intellect. However, God's word validates my intellect and all other aspects of my life and experience as being real and meaningful. Your presuppositoin cannot do that.

Two. You cannot say, or demonstrate, that "supra-sensory experiences" even exist.

Let's see: love, hate, sorrow, compassion, laws of logic (did you ever "see" the law of non-contradiction?).

[b]Three. Of course I can explain why I want to work for the betterment of humanity. I am, after all, human, and if you need me to tell you why we humans want to make our lives and world better, I'll respond by asking what planet do *you* come from?[b]

Aren't you just begging the question? You want to work for the "betterment" of humanity, but you don't know what that is. If you mean the continued existence of the race and the elimination of pain and suffering, that's nice but that's just your preference. Your system can't validate that those things are inherently good. Afterall, evolution is based on chance and it's just as meaningful that the next step in evolution should be the extinction of the race.

You see, my system makes sense out of your desire; your's doesn't.

Yer out!

Oh yeah- I meant to put this in my previous post, such a cool little .gif-

Interesting. If it "just exists," then you can't say anything meaningful about it, can you.

theophilus · 03-08-2003, 12:30 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Lobstrosity
I may be completely misunderstanding what Theophilus is driving at with his posts, but as I interpret it his point is not completely invalid. Science seeks to search out objective truths, yet it is carried out by creatures with imperfect minds. Science as a method is flawless, but this method is being implemented by humans who certainly are far from flawless.

Interresting. How can science, "as a method" be flawless when it was, as a method, devised by humans who are "far from flawless?" In order to know it is flawless, you'd have to have some standard against which to measure it, right? A system which is known to be flawless; but what would that be and how would we know it was flawless? You see the problem here?

More to the point, the scientific method is based on a logical fallacy: If A then B; B therefore A. It is called "asserting the consequent." It goes like this: "if it rains, the streets will be wet; the streets are wet, therefore it must have rained." This is a rather crude example, but all scientific hypoithesis come down to the same thing.

If you dont' believe me, how about Bertrand Russell (no friend of Christianity): "All inductive arguments in the last resort reduce themselves to the following form: 'If this is true,that is true: now that is true, there this is true.' This argument is, of course, formally fallacious...(he gives an example)... If I were to advance such an argument, I should certainly be thought foolish, yet it would not be fundamentally different from the arguments upon which all scientific laws are based."

Is there any guarantee that our brains won't prevent us from drawing the proper conclusions? What if the "truths" we find aren't really true?

Wouldn't the fact that science is littered with the remains of discarded "laws" which were subsequently found to be false a good indication that this is, in fact, more likely than not?

A good response to this line of questioning is given by Ste
phen Hawking:

"Yet if there really is a complete unified theory, it would also presumably determine our actions. And so the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it! And why should it determine that we come up with the right conclusions from the evidence? Might it not equally well determine that we draw the wrong conclusion? Or no conclusion at all?

"The only answer that I can give to this problem is based on Darwin's principle of natural selection.

Sorry to interrupt, but wouldn't this "only answer" be determined by the unified theory? Continue

he idea is that in any population of self-reproducing organisms, there will be variations in the genetic material and upbringing that different individuals have. These differences will mean that some individuals are better able than others to draw the right conclusions about the world around them and to act accordingly. These individuals will be more likely to survive and reproduce and so their pattern of behavior and thought will come to dominate. It has certainly been true in the past that what we call intelligence and scientific discovery has conveyed a survival advantage. It is not so clear that this is still the case: our scientific discoveries may well destroy us all, and even if they don't, a complete unified theory may not make much difference to our chances of survival. However, provided the universe has evolved in a regular way, we might expect that the reasoning abilities that natural selection has given us would be valid also in our search for a complete unified theory, and so would not lead us to the wrong conclusions."

Unless he's mistaken, of course. This conflating of survival mechanisms with intellectual acumen is untenable. Lots of organisms have survived that don't have the intellectual ability of a flea; take a flea, for exmaple. Also, the assumption that men are getting smarter and know more things now than in ancient times is clearly contradicted by what we have learned from ancient civilizations. In fact, history would seem to indicate that man is degenerating, not improving.

We have clearly been able to draw proper conclusions regarding notions as far removed from our survival as General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Proof of this lies in our ability to utilize those theories to produce the tangible results of nuclear energy and microelectronics. So our fallible minds have not led us astray yet. As such, I think it's rather presumptive at this point to argue that they will in the future.

Isn't it rather "presumptive" to say what the future will be like?

There is no logical necessity of connecting any scientific theory with "correct results." As I note above, that is a logical fallacy. You would have to know that a specific result could "only" be produced by the cause you were testing. Of course, this would require a comprehensive knowledge of all reality and all possibility.

Granting that I may be biased, I'll end with these two qoutes:

"We know nothing at all. Our knowledge is but the knowledge of school children...We shall know a little more than we do now. But the real nature of things - that we shall never know, never." Albert Einstein.

"All scientific statements are hypotheses, or guesses, or conjectures, and the vast majority of these ... have turned out to be false. Our attempts to see and to find the truths are not final, but open to improvement; ... our knowledge, our doctrine, is conjectural; ... it consists of guesses, of hypotheses, rahter than of final and certian truths." Karl Popper.

Oxymoron · 03-09-2003, 07:04 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by theophilus
blah blah blah blah blah...

Oxymoron is puzzled by the inconsistency, nay hyprocrisy of theophilus -

O: "What are your axioms of belief, T, because God is a far from atomic concept?"
T: "My belief in God is assumed as axiomatic. It is therefore beyond questioning"
O: "My belief in science as the most objective tool we have to investigate the world is axiomatic*. It is therefore beyond questioning, too".
T: "Ah, but my axiom is better than your axiom"
O: How? Why?
T: "My axiom says so"
O: "What-everrrrrr..."

*I don't actually see this as axiomatic, but for the sake of brevity, I shall deem it so. Anyway, it doesn't actually matter. If you state your conclusion as axiomatic, atomic and unquestionable and then criticse anyone else for doing the same then I think the term 'hyprocite" fits aptly.

Jobar · 03-09-2003, 06:07 PM

More to the point, the scientific method is based on a logical fallacy: If A then B; B therefore A. It is called "asserting the consequent." It goes like this: "if it rains, the streets will be wet; the streets are wet, therefore it must have rained." This is a rather crude example, but all scientific hypoithesis come down to the same thing.

If you dont' believe me, how about Bertrand Russell (no friend of Christianity): "All inductive arguments in the last resort reduce themselves to the following form: 'If this is true,that is true: now that is true, there this is true.' This argument is, of course, formally fallacious...(he gives an example)... If I were to advance such an argument, I should certainly be thought foolish, yet it would not be fundamentally different from the arguments upon which all scientific laws are based."

Hmmm. Theophilus, where does Russell say that? I think that you, and Russell also if the context of that quote is correct, are leaving out the fact that science contains self-correcting mechanisms; mainly, the fact that the ultimate arbiter of truth is reality itself, by experiment and observation. Science never claims absolute truth; instead of "the streets are wet, therefore it must have rained", science formulates such conclusions as "the streets are wet, therefore it probably has rained". Big difference there! Even when that probability is thought to approach 100%, there is always some room left for error, and if any repeating observation contradicts some scientific law- if the streets are wet, but careful observation indicates it has not rained- then there are searches for further explanatory theories. This sort of thing is exactly what happened when Einstein refined Newtonian physics with special relativity.

This all means that though the scientific method is *not* flawless, it allows us to *approach* flawlessness- AKA truth. Humans have no other way to do this.

And I must strenuously object to this statement-
science is littered with the remains of discarded "laws" which were subsequently found to be false
Name one! Not theories and hypotheses, mind you- those are put forth with the intent of having them hammered away at, and are only given the status of law when extensive testing by many observers show it to be a complete and accurate description of the things the law purports to describe. A law may be *refined*, as Einstein refined Newton- but to call Newton's laws "false" is just wrong. We send probes to the reaches of the solar system using Newton's laws, without the need for Einstein's refinements!

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03-07-2003, 12:40 PM	#111
Jobar Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: secularcafe.org Posts: 9,525	From Oxymoron- Theophilus' proof of God's existence: 1.) Assume God exists. 2.) Er.... that's it. Mods, can we move this to the 'worst arguments for the existence of God' thread? Hah, good thought! Before I came back to this thread today, I realized that any discussion of presuppositionalism is out of place in a discussion about evidence of god- obviously, the presupp argument says we simply do not need evidence! So please, theophilus and all, if you desire to discuss presupp for the umpteenth time, start another thread for the purpose.

03-07-2003, 12:42 PM	#112
Mageth Contributor Join Date: Jul 2001 Location: Deep in the heart of mother-lovin' Texas Posts: 29,689	I "know" things because I begin with God and his word as authoritative and that makes knowledge not only possible but certain because it confirms and illucidates our experience. So, in order to answer your question, you must explain how you, as a non-theist (atheist-naturalist) can claim to know anything. OK, riddle me this: What do you, beginning with god, "know" about the physical universe (leave god and the "supra-sensory", whatever the hell that is supposed to mean, out of it) that I, as an atheist, and not beginning with god, don't or can't "know"?

03-08-2003, 02:05 AM	#115
Lobstrosity Senior Member Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: San Diego, California Posts: 719	I may be completely misunderstanding what Theophilus is driving at with his posts, but as I interpret it his point is not completely invalid. Science seeks to search out objective truths, yet it is carried out by creatures with imperfect minds. Science as a method is flawless, but this method is being implemented by humans who certainly are far from flawless. Is there any guarantee that our brains won't prevent us from drawing the proper conclusions? What if the "truths" we find aren't really true? A good response to this line of questioning is given by Stephen Hawking: "Yet if there really is a complete unified theory, it would also presumably determine our actions. And so the theory itself would determine the outcome of our search for it! And why should it determine that we come up with the right conclusions from the evidence? Might it not equally well determine that we draw the wrong conclusion? Or no conclusion at all? "The only answer that I can give to this problem is based on Darwin's principle of natural selection. The idea is that in any population of self-reproducing organisms, there will be variations in the genetic material and upbringing that different individuals have. These differences will mean that some individuals are better able than others to draw the right conclusions about the world around them and to act accordingly. These individuals will be more likely to survive and reproduce and so their pattern of behavior and thought will come to dominate. It has certainly been true in the past that what we call intelligence and scientific discovery has conveyed a survival advantage. It is not so clear that this is still the case: our scientific discoveries may well destroy us all, and even if they don't, a complete unified theory may not make much difference to our chances of survival. However, provided the universe has evolved in a regular way, we might expect that the reasoning abilities that natural selection has given us would be valid also in our search for a complete unified theory, and so would not lead us to the wrong conclusions." We have clearly been able to draw proper conclusions regarding notions as far removed from our survival as General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. Proof of this lies in our ability to utilize those theories to produce the tangible results of nuclear energy and microelectronics. So our fallible minds have not led us astray yet. As such, I think it's rather presumptive at this point to argue that they will in the future.

03-08-2003, 06:20 AM	#116
Vorkosigan Contributor Join Date: Jan 2001 Location: Barrayar Posts: 11,866	Lobstrosity, It sounds like you are an evolutionary naturalist. Track down a copy of Giere's Explaining Science and pay close attention to the first several chapters. I think you'll enjoy the discussion very much. Vorkosigan

03-09-2003, 06:07 PM	#120
Jobar Veteran Member Join Date: Jun 2001 Location: secularcafe.org Posts: 9,525	More to the point, the scientific method is based on a logical fallacy: If A then B; B therefore A. It is called "asserting the consequent." It goes like this: "if it rains, the streets will be wet; the streets are wet, therefore it must have rained." This is a rather crude example, but all scientific hypoithesis come down to the same thing. If you dont' believe me, how about Bertrand Russell (no friend of Christianity): "All inductive arguments in the last resort reduce themselves to the following form: 'If this is true,that is true: now that is true, there this is true.' This argument is, of course, formally fallacious...(he gives an example)... If I were to advance such an argument, I should certainly be thought foolish, yet it would not be fundamentally different from the arguments upon which all scientific laws are based." Hmmm. Theophilus, where does Russell say that? I think that you, and Russell also if the context of that quote is correct, are leaving out the fact that science contains self-correcting mechanisms; mainly, the fact that the ultimate arbiter of truth is reality itself, by experiment and observation. Science never claims absolute truth; instead of "the streets are wet, therefore it must have rained", science formulates such conclusions as "the streets are wet, therefore it probably has rained". Big difference there! Even when that probability is thought to approach 100%, there is always some room left for error, and if any repeating observation contradicts some scientific law- if the streets are wet, but careful observation indicates it has not rained- then there are searches for further explanatory theories. This sort of thing is exactly what happened when Einstein refined Newtonian physics with special relativity. This all means that though the scientific method is not flawless, it allows us to approach flawlessness- AKA truth. Humans have no other way to do this. And I must strenuously object to this statement- science is littered with the remains of discarded "laws" which were subsequently found to be false Name one! Not theories and hypotheses, mind you- those are put forth with the intent of having them hammered away at, and are only given the status of law when extensive testing by many observers show it to be a complete and accurate description of the things the law purports to describe. A law may be refined, as Einstein refined Newton- but to call Newton's laws "false" is just wrong. We send probes to the reaches of the solar system using Newton's laws, without the need for Einstein's refinements!

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