Freethought & Rationalism Archive

Starboy · 05-01-2003, 05:52 AM

Aw ca'mon Radorth. Admit it. Wouldn't you prefer to be there with all your biblical heros? Seeing all the magic and feeling all that love of god? Why would you want to live in the scientific age? Why a man of your 'unique' talents would be a shoe-in for the jesus squad. After all, the way you post, you and jesus should be great buddies.

Starboy

Tercel · 05-01-2003, 03:29 PM

Starboy,

God of the gaps, is where the explanation "it's God" is used to plug the unknowns for no other reason that that they are unknown.
"I don't know what causes lightening, therefore God causes lightening" is god-of-the-gaps logic, assuming the person actually believes that lightening has no explanation other than God, rather than meaning that God is the ultimate cause/explanation of everything and that in the (temporary) lack of intermediate causes/explanations we can default back up the causal chain. (And it's often damn hard to distinguish which they actually mean: The former being God-of-the-gaps, the latter not)

God-of-the-gaps is when faced with a question with an unknown or challenging answer, the explanation "God-did-it" is substituted and considered to be the complete explanation.
The obvious parallel is Atheism-of-the-gaps: Atheists, when doing the typical assertions about the universe being uncaused etc, are faced with nasty questions about "why was the universe the way it is and not slightly different", or "what is the ultimate explanation for everything" etc that annoying theists come up with, respond with equivalent atheism-of-the-gaps statements "that question has no answer", "there is no ultimate explanation". (As opposed to "I don't know, but I believe there is an answer") Where the theists plug the holes with God, the Atheists plug the holes with non-answers.

Sometimes saying God-did-it is legit. But to reiterate, the defining thing is:
To commit X-of-the-gaps is to deny that there is any explanation above and beyond the one just provided out of ignorance, whatever that explanation might be.

If you would like to point out where you believe I did a God-of-the-gaps in my earlier post, I'd be happy to examine it.

Nickle · 05-01-2003, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tercel

Certainly our greater knowledge has been incorporated into our notions of God to improve them, but that's hardly "destroyed them". eg Where once we would have said "God created the universe", we now say "God created the universe 15 billion years ago when He initiated the Big Bang which began space-time as we know it".

More like "God created heaven and earth at the same time in the not too distant past." Science rejects this, not improves upon it.

Quote:

And where we once said "God created humans", we now say "We once thought that God created all things, but behold we now know that He is so great that He makes all things make themselves."

Better paraphrase: "God created Adam from dust, and Eve from Adam." Again, that little tidbit about God was wrong.

Quote:

Where once we merely asserted the simple truth that God was the ultimate creator of all, we now know the method (mutation and natural selection) that God used to acheive this goal which He foreknew. Such is science.

Science didn't improve or had been 'incorporated' into our notions of God as you euphemistically state. Science has replaced them. As for the 'simple truth that God was the ultimate creator of all,' well that really doesn't tell us anything but a basic tenet of faith. When details are given, they are flat wrong!

Quote:

Eventually our understanding of what reality is will be such that God cannot be left out of the equation. Eventually we will fathom the nature of consciousness and see why it must be that reality itself is conscious. Eventually we will know what happened in the beginning and see that it was God. Such is science. We are close now, our advanced philosophy, computer grammar theory, and quantum physics are almost there. But I have little doubt that within a century they will have advance to the point where this thesis is established undeniably.

Ah, that good ol' future proof.

Basically, there isn't a field of science that needs God as an explanation. Interjecting the supernatural into explanations is pretty much a way of giving up. The Supernatural can explain anything, therefore nothing. As for Langan's paper, care to paraphrase it for me? Or rather, care to give me his definition of the supernatural he finds necessary. He seems to avoid pinning it down

Starboy · 05-01-2003, 06:43 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tercel
Starboy,

God of the gaps, is where the explanation "it's God" is used to plug the unknowns for no other reason that that they are unknown.

I am not sure where the term "god-of-the-gaps" originated however from a historical perspective I doubt that it means exactly what you think it does. A more accurate definition would be:

God of the gaps, is where the explanation "it's God" is used to plug the unknowns for no other reason that that they are unknown and the explainers desire to include god explanations.

As stated before, there are many ways to explain our surroundings. Scientific explanations are one way (at any given point in time there may be several of them), and then there are a large variety and variation of religious explanations. For many religions, including Christianity, their explanations preceded the scientific explanations. As science developed over the years and made many discoveries about our surroundings it presented explanations that were at odds with those of religion. This left the religious with several choices in order of religious fervor: 1) ban the new explanations and dispose of the scientists, 2) denounce the new explanations and burn the science books, 3) insist on religious explanations and change the science books, 4) ignore the new explanations and ban the science books, 5) alter their religious explanations and read the science books, 6) ignore religious explanations and admit that when you don�t know something using god to explain it doesn�t make you know it (essentially becoming an atheist, an increasingly popular choice these days). The god-of-the-gapers choose 5. They accept the scientific explanations as they currently know and understand them and then use god explanations to fill in what is not known scientifically. Hence god-of-the-gaps. Lets take a look at your post:

Quote:

Originally posted by Tercel
Certainly our greater knowledge has been incorporated into our notions of God to improve them, but that's hardly "destroyed them". eg Where once we would have said {BEFORE}"God created the universe", we now say {AFTER} "God created the universe 15 billion years ago when He initiated the Big Bang which began space-time as we know it". And where we once said {BEFORE} "God created humans", we now say "We once thought that God created all things, but behold we now know that He is so great that He makes all things make themselves." once we merely asserted the simple truth that God was the ultimate creator of all[/COLOR], we now know {AFTER} the method (mutation and natural selection) that God used to acheive this goal which He foreknew. Such is science.

The {BEFORE} explanations are all god, all supernatural. The {AFTER} make use of scientific explanations as far as they go and then use god to plug in the rest. I must say Tercel a very nice example of god-of-the-gaps.

Starboy

Tercel · 05-01-2003, 08:23 PM

As I said before: You don't understand what G-o-t-g is.

Starboy · 05-01-2003, 08:31 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Tercel
As I said before: You don't understand what G-o-t-g is.

What causes you to say that?

Starboy

wade-w · 05-01-2003, 10:23 PM

Starboy, Tercel:

Please don't derail this thread any further. Either take it up in PM, or start another thread.

Sabine Grant · 05-02-2003, 04:37 AM

I have wondered if miracles reside in the eye of the beholder... I consider for example the universe itself to be a miracle as well as our existence. It is still unexplained except for various theories.

People may demand the presence of the supernatural to define a miracle. I personaly relate miracles to what I contemplate with awe. The perfect design on the wings of a butterfly can be viewed as a miracle by a more simplistic mind who does not demand what defies physical laws.

Darth Dane · 05-02-2003, 04:54 AM

Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature.

Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe.

God is more truly imagined than expressed, and He exists more truly than He is imagined.

All quotes above is from St. Augustine.

Maybe that is teh case with clair-vision, the modern tele-vision is a circumvention of the laws, so that we suddenly can see across vast distances, and see live developments in australia even though we are in europe, clair-audio is often accompanying(sp?) this tele-vision.

Some humans have professed that it is possible to see to australia without a tv, just through your own mind, someone has boasted this for over 5000 years, modern science have accomplished htrough other agents what others have claimed you can do on your own.

DD - Love Spliff

lpetrich · 05-02-2003, 05:11 AM

GeoTheo claimed that the miracles of the Bible were done only to get people's attention. Though that is not very justified when one looks more closely at many of them, that does bring to mind how talk of miracles seems to be an evangelism pitch.

It would be a case of bait-and-switch, with the hope that critical thinking can be discouraged in the "switch" phase (you have no right to find fault with god and stuff like that).

There are further questions. If miraculous cures are real, then why haven't they put the medical profession out of business? Bloodletting is no longer done because we know of therapies that are MUCH better. So why hasn't that happened to mainstream materialist medicine? As it might be called.

And notice how Radorth talks about limbs extending. Especially extending without before-and-after length measurements. He doesn't talk about limbs regrowing from stumps, which would be very valuable for so many amputees.

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05-01-2003, 05:52 AM	#71
Starboy Banned Join Date: Jun 2002 Location: Tallahassee, FL Reality Adventurer Posts: 5,276	Aw ca'mon Radorth. Admit it. Wouldn't you prefer to be there with all your biblical heros? Seeing all the magic and feeling all that love of god? Why would you want to live in the scientific age? Why a man of your 'unique' talents would be a shoe-in for the jesus squad. After all, the way you post, you and jesus should be great buddies. Starboy

05-01-2003, 03:29 PM	#72
Tercel Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: New Zealand Posts: 1,315	Starboy, God of the gaps, is where the explanation "it's God" is used to plug the unknowns for no other reason that that they are unknown. "I don't know what causes lightening, therefore God causes lightening" is god-of-the-gaps logic, assuming the person actually believes that lightening has no explanation other than God, rather than meaning that God is the ultimate cause/explanation of everything and that in the (temporary) lack of intermediate causes/explanations we can default back up the causal chain. (And it's often damn hard to distinguish which they actually mean: The former being God-of-the-gaps, the latter not) God-of-the-gaps is when faced with a question with an unknown or challenging answer, the explanation "God-did-it" is substituted and considered to be the complete explanation. The obvious parallel is Atheism-of-the-gaps: Atheists, when doing the typical assertions about the universe being uncaused etc, are faced with nasty questions about "why was the universe the way it is and not slightly different", or "what is the ultimate explanation for everything" etc that annoying theists come up with, respond with equivalent atheism-of-the-gaps statements "that question has no answer", "there is no ultimate explanation". (As opposed to "I don't know, but I believe there is an answer") Where the theists plug the holes with God, the Atheists plug the holes with non-answers. Sometimes saying God-did-it is legit. But to reiterate, the defining thing is: To commit X-of-the-gaps is to deny that there is any explanation above and beyond the one just provided out of ignorance, whatever that explanation might be. If you would like to point out where you believe I did a God-of-the-gaps in my earlier post, I'd be happy to examine it.

05-01-2003, 08:23 PM	#75
Tercel Veteran Member Join Date: Feb 2001 Location: New Zealand Posts: 1,315	As I said before: You don't understand what G-o-t-g is.

05-01-2003, 10:23 PM	#77
wade-w Veteran Member Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Silver City, New Mexico Posts: 1,872	Starboy, Tercel: Please don't derail this thread any further. Either take it up in PM, or start another thread.

05-02-2003, 04:37 AM	#78
Sabine Grant Talk Freethought Staff Join Date: Aug 2002 Location: Florida Posts: 32,364	I have wondered if miracles reside in the eye of the beholder... I consider for example the universe itself to be a miracle as well as our existence. It is still unexplained except for various theories. People may demand the presence of the supernatural to define a miracle. I personaly relate miracles to what I contemplate with awe. The perfect design on the wings of a butterfly can be viewed as a miracle by a more simplistic mind who does not demand what defies physical laws.

05-02-2003, 04:54 AM	#79
Darth Dane Veteran Member Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Required Posts: 2,349	Miracles are not contrary to nature, but only contrary to what we know about nature. Faith is to believe what you do not see; the reward of this faith is to see what you believe. God is more truly imagined than expressed, and He exists more truly than He is imagined. All quotes above is from St. Augustine. Maybe that is teh case with clair-vision, the modern tele-vision is a circumvention of the laws, so that we suddenly can see across vast distances, and see live developments in australia even though we are in europe, clair-audio is often accompanying(sp?) this tele-vision. Some humans have professed that it is possible to see to australia without a tv, just through your own mind, someone has boasted this for over 5000 years, modern science have accomplished htrough other agents what others have claimed you can do on your own. DD - Love Spliff

05-02-2003, 05:11 AM	#80
lpetrich Contributor Join Date: Jul 2000 Location: Lebanon, OR, USA Posts: 16,829	GeoTheo claimed that the miracles of the Bible were done only to get people's attention. Though that is not very justified when one looks more closely at many of them, that does bring to mind how talk of miracles seems to be an evangelism pitch. It would be a case of bait-and-switch, with the hope that critical thinking can be discouraged in the "switch" phase (you have no right to find fault with god and stuff like that). There are further questions. If miraculous cures are real, then why haven't they put the medical profession out of business? Bloodletting is no longer done because we know of therapies that are MUCH better. So why hasn't that happened to mainstream materialist medicine? As it might be called. And notice how Radorth talks about limbs extending. Especially extending without before-and-after length measurements. He doesn't talk about limbs regrowing from stumps, which would be very valuable for so many amputees.

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