TerryTryon

1. The whole concept of the supernatural is incoherent. Either something is real or it isn’t, and if it’s real, it must follow natural law. Real things do that; that’s how we know they are real. If the realm of the supernatural is bogus, so are all the entities: gods, fairies, ghosts, demons, etc., which are said to inhabit it.
2. Knowledge of god depends on faith. Faith is merely wishful thinking, which in the cold, hard world usually gets you kicked in the ass.
3. I have a real problem with authority, and when some pompous jerk claims he has authority over me because he was told by some unverifiable entity that I must accept him as boss man, I tell him to get real.
4. The concept of god and the supernatural are intrinsically anti-intellectual. All the classical theological proofs really have nothing to do with god. They merely attempt to create a void of irresolvable ignorance and then fill that void with god.
5. Every religion bases its credibility on the same sorts of evidence, and each religion is irreconcilable with every other religion.
6. Organized religion in complex societies has almost always advocated bigotry toward women and gays. Rigid patriarchalism is the name of the game, and god is the biggest of the big daddies.
7. It is the nature of god-belief is to claim that its dogma is the ultimate guide to morality, but the religious commit just as many shenanigans as unbelievers. Prisons are full of sincere believers.
8. The concept of god seems to excite so much certainty about the wildest speculation. I hate that smug little knowing smile god talkers give when they dismiss the most solid scientific theories out of hand.
9. Even after a god or one of his prophets is totally discredited, the religion runs on its own momentum generation after generation. God-belief has no means of correcting itself.
10. The worst crime possible is to take advantage of a child’s natural credulity, and that is the chief means by which god-belief perpetuates itself.

Okay, ladies and gentlemen, rip into this list with fang and claw. Show me no mercy. I believe I can defend every item. Yet, I know that I’ve touched some raw spots for infidel and god believer alike, and some of you are much more knowledgeable than I. As the good book says, “Pride cometh before the fall.”

Philip Osborne

I'm just going to deal with the philosophical issues you mentioned here, since that is what I'm most knowledgeable about.

The whole concept of the supernatural is incoherent. Either something is real or it isn’t, and if it’s real, it must follow natural law. Real things do...

I'm not sure what your definition of "supernatural" is here. My understanding of it is that God is not subject to natural law. This is not because God is somehow "over and above" natural law, although he may be, but merely because God is not the kind of being natural laws would affect. For instance, the law of gravity affects only objects of mass. But God is not an object with mass, so God is not subject to the law of gravity. The situation is analogous with any natural law.

Knowledge of god depends on faith. Faith is merely wishful thinking, which in the cold, hard world usually gets you kicked in the ass.

Knowledge of God is not necessarily dependant upon faith. It can be based upon rational argumentation and thinking (although it seems to me that such argumentation has been able to reach a definitive conclusion, so it probably isn't a good idea to base one's belief solely on analytic theistic arguments). Most theists would probably follow St. Thomas in asserting that there is no contradiction between faith and reason. Also, there is a good deal of debate about the cognitive significance of religious experience, although I cannot touch upon that here.

The concept of god and the supernatural are intrinsically anti-intellectual. All the classical theological proofs really have nothing to do...

I have to disagree here. Are you suggesting that the medieval philosophers, from Augustine to Aquinas to Duns Scotus, were all "anti-intellectual?" It may be true that the classical theistic proofs are unsuccessful, and that theism is false, but even that would not make them anti-intellectual by any means. How is it the case that they have nothing to do with God? And how does belief in God automatically render one an anti-intellectual. That is a very strong claim to make, and I see no defense of it.

Sincerely,

Philip

Tercel

What is this mysterious "natural law"? Is it "real" or isn't it? ("Either something is real or it isn't".) Well presumably you'd say that natural law is real or you wouldn't be talking about it the way you do.
"if it’s real, it must follow natural law. Real things do that; that’s how we know they are real." -What kind of natural laws do natural laws follow? Or are they a god-like exception to the general rules?

Then why have so many of histories greatest thinkers believed in the existence of a deity? Plato, Aristotle, Origen, Augustine, Copernicus, Pascal, Newton, Riemann, Faraday, Kelvin, Maxwell, Babbage, Boyle, Kepler, Pasteur etc. Even many "enlightened" people who were happy to poo-poo Christianity seem to still have been deists eg Hume.

Suprisingly enough, atheism does a fair job of perpetuating itself through families who pass their non-belief onto their children.

TerryTryon

Phillip:
Supernatural: Of course, I find your concept of god filled with inconsistancies. If god has no mass, he is certainly immune from the effects of gravity, but that also means that he can exert no energy, which flies in the face of him being all powerful. He would also have a very hard time with intelligence since he would have no structural matrix on which to hold his knowledge. A real being without mass is inconceivable, but that is where god believers always run with their tails between their legs. It's a mystery that we can't possibly understand.

Faith and Theology: As Mark Twain commented, "Faith is the stuff we believe that we know damn well ain't true." What do we do when we take something on faith? It is a provisional belief that demonstrates to god that we are ready for revelation. Is that a recipe for self delusion, and how!

When I think of the classical proofs for god derived from reason, I think of the teleological, the cosmological, and the ontological proofs. The cosmological proof claims that there is a chain of actions/reactions that extend back in time. Now for some intuitive reason, since it is a bald assertion rather than a supported one, this chain must have a beginning and that beginning must transcend time. We call that beginning god. So we have defined a mystery on very shaky grounds. We have no idea what the beginning is or its attributes, but we make believe our ignorance tells us something and thus leap to the concept of god. The teleological argument begins with the intuitive (again) assumption that all orderly things must have had an intelligence to organize them. But this assertion tells us nothing about the nature of the intelligence and once again, we springboard from ignoranceinto knowledge because not knowing gives us evidence. The ontolgical argument is no more than intellectual smoke and mirrors. It's sophistry that makes sense only to those with platonic worldviews. But even there, we have to assume that not knowing anything about god, somehow tells us something about his existence.

Medieval Intellectuals: They were very intelligent and they worked very hard to put their houses of cards together, In this sense, they were intellectuals of the highest order. But in a deeper sense, they were not seeking god, but trying to show our reality's contingency on the mystery of god. They wanted to prove that there were areas for god to dwell intrinsically outside the ability of humankind to comprehend, and thus we must walk in faith. In this sense, they were authoritarian obscurantists with no claim on the base of true intellect: free inquiry.
Respectfully (with you if not with Thomas Aquinas),
Terry

TerryTryon

Tercel:
Nature is the tendency of what we observe to behave in predictable ways with predictable attributes. Natural laws are theoretical constructs which explicate the relationships between our observations. When I dream, I often find myself drifting into lucid dreaming because I realize the dream experience is not natural. When a person accepts supernatural explanations, he or she is forfieting their sense of reality for an unverifiable, unknowable cause. We do not know and cannot the attributes or behaviors of supernatural events or entities by definition. So to cite supernatural cause, one really explains nothing; she or he merely makes the claim that the cause is intriniscally beyond explanation.

For the great theistic thinkers of all time, see my notes on the medieval theologians I made to Phillip. I would also like to point out the one great constant in human psychology is self-delusion. Issac Newton did his great work on celestial mechanics and calculus in his young adulthood. He spent most of the rest of his life reading the bible trying to calculate the precise moment of the second advent. Voltaire was quoted as saying that he wrote his great biblical treatise only so that we ordinary mortals would not be intimidated by his overwhelming genius.

Atheist parents: My experience with atheist parents is that they seldom lie to their children. They do not tell them that they are certain of things which they haven't examined. They do not force their children into attending indoctrination sessions. They encourage their children to find answers for themselves. Atheists parents, in my observations are very careful to let their children think freely. This is my biased observation, but I believe the sociological data will bear me out.
With respect,
Terry

[ December 25, 2002: Message edited by: TerryTryon ]</p>

HRG

Not quite. It affects objects with energy and/or momentum and/or stress. Those are exactly the properties which are coupled to gravity
That's quite OK. The problem remains, however, how this God interacts with or influences the natural universe. A god who is not subject to natural law seems to be decoupled from our universe. We know of no situation where A can influence B without itself being influenced by B; interactions always work two ways.

Regards,
HRG.

Hawkingfan

Which is exactly why he doesn't exist.

Yes, because he is in your imagination. Natural laws would affect things that exist.

It is possible to know if god exists because of the Fundamental Quantities of Science (where mass is only one). God possesses none of them. Therefore, it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that God does not exist.

The belief in something that has no single shred of evidence of its existance is 100% dependent on faith. You have not proven that it is based upon "rational argumentation" and "thinking". You are lying to yourself. There is plenty of contradiction between faith and reason. For instance, it is unreasonable to believe that "anything you ask in my name (Jesus), I will do it". Of all religious claims, that one is probably the most unreasonable and easiest to disprove.

I think that telling Adam and Eve to refrain from eating from the tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil could be considered anti-intellectual. Also, the fact that churches do not tolerate people who bring up problems with the bible in church can be considered anti-intellectual. Not to mention refusal to believe in the big bang theory which has 100 data points to prove it is correct.
And don't forget when the Catholic Church put Galileo on trial for saying the earth revolved around the sun! Anti-intellectual indeed!

xplosive58

ah yes, galileo was forced to say that the earth stood still and he quietly said after he ""confessed"", "and yet it moves".

*****
quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Philip Osborne
My understanding of it is that God is not subject to natural law.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Which is exactly why he doesn't exist.
******



though i hate to argue for the relgious side, but i think the general idea of christians is that God exists in another dimesion and can control our world at the same time. However, i see no evidence of this and therefore have no reason to believe this any more than to believe that santa claus exists. I mean, at least I get presents under the tree and the milk and cookies dissapeared :notworthy which gives one good reason to believe when one is a child . However there is never any good reason to believe in god (particually the Christian god, i am agnostic), and is impossible to know without completely brainwashing yourself. I think it is so incrediably sick when people give into religon based on emotion or some guy telling you to have faith. From that point on they are brain dead and sacrifice their logic.

The whole point is you need FAITH. THEREFORE YOU CANNOT PROVE THAT GOD IS REAL

Oh, um, im extreamly sorry for offending anyone. Feel free to retaliate(sp?).

MonkeeSage

TerryTryon:

How is it incoherent? I think I understand it, so please explain what you mean.


This criticism is merely wishful thinking.


But yet, you're allowed to pose your own authority in claiming that you are correct in all your criticism? And we should listen to your authority?


All thinking presupposes God as its ultimate transcendental.


Every worldview (theistic or otherwise) bases its credibility on the same sorts of evidence, and each worldview is irreconcilable with every other at some level. Big deal.


That has nothing to do with the veracity of a given worldview. It smacks of the genetic fallacy, actually.


More genetic fallacy?


The concept of atheism seems to excite so much certainty about the wildest speculation. I hate that smug little knowing smile non-god talkers give when they dismiss the most solid arguments out of hand.


Even after an atheist philosopher or one of his followers is totally discredited, the worldview runs on its own momentum generation after generation. Non-God-belief has no means of correcting itself.


The worst crime possible is to pervert a child's innate sense of God, and that is the chief means by which non-god-belief perpetuates itself.


Conclusion: All of the reasons stated are either reversable or irrelevant.

(Ps. You said not to hold back, so I didn't, the criticisms and reversals are not aimed at your personal character, but your position, and no disrespect towards you is intended).


Shelumi`El
Jordan

S.D.G

xplosive58

this is why i hate these arguments. everyone "PROVES" each other wrong