moore

I am new here (first post) and not much of a philosopher, so go slow with me. I know my ideas are poorly constructed in an academic sense. I am not trying to win a debate, but curious how people here would answer my questions.


1) We know that there is knowledge and concepts that are beyond the physical limitations of lesser animals to conceive. For example, there is no way that a spider, in it's present physical state, could properly conceive advanced math, a concept that exists and holds true in reality. Since we know that humans in their current physical state are not perfect beings, isn’t it safe to assume that there exists knowledge of the universe that is physically beyond our comprehension? Is it also possible that this missing knowledge is a vital component of an irreducibly complex "Answer to the Universe?" Thus is our pursuit of knowledge, particularly about metaphysical concepts such as God, potentially doomed to be false since we cannot conceive the truth?

1A) Along this strain, suppose there exists a God who created the universe. Both the universe and God's intellect are often conceived of as either infinite or VERY VERY large. At the very least, the intelligence of God would have to equal or exceed that of the universe. If the universe is so complex, doesn't this further reduce the possibility of human's conceiving it correctly, particularly if it was constructed by a being of vastly greater intelligence? Could a spider understand the workings, methods, origins and purpose of human-crafted accounting software?


2) While science and the knowledge of humankind is improving, it has never existed in a state of total correctness. There has always been flaws. This is loosely evident because throughout history many of the ideas of yesterday are being shown lacking and are replaced by the ideas and scientific truths of today. (Men in Black: "500 years ago people KNEW the world was flat. What will you KNOW tomorrow?") So how can we trust our immortal souls (as most religions believe) to the best answers that the present state of human knowledge can offer? Doesn't this scientific unreliability reduce scientific atheism to a form of faith, the same faith that is often attributed to religious thinkers?

2A) This may be more subjective on my part, but I was under the assumption that ideas and philosophies have always been inescapably influenced by the human culture in which they exist. Doesn't this present a certain bias, and thus flaw, in any idea that bases it's claim on fact?


3) Even though this site has some very intelligent and civil discussions, it caters to atheists. What is the purpose of "debating" in a place with such a strong, pre-defined bias? The existence of the strongest scholars and intellectuals on both sides of the "God" question suggests that it is not a foregone conclusion. It is impossible for emotion-ridden human minds to completely rid themselves of bias. The scientific community has gotten around this by using the competition and debate of differently-minded individuals as the crucible to purify the truth. Why hold debates in a location so fortified to one idea? What value are the debates then?

3A) Can someone direct me to an unbiased debating site which covers topics such as these?

Alix Nenuphar

moore:

Interesting questions.

This is the actual reason I began posting to the internet.


There are two possibilities here: that we are, as a species, limited in the ability to comprehend or even create certain theories about the universe; or that the knowledge about certain facets of the universe is definitionally beyond comprehension.

I would agree that the former is a possibility, and the latter is a meaningless question. I hesitate to suggest 'there exists knowledge that cannot be known' is even a coherent sentence.

I see no a priori reason why a creator would have to be more intelligent than the universe it created. Consider, as a trivial example, a fractal pattern. The formula is simple enough, but the result is highly complex - more complex than the original formula (depending, of course, on which of the many definitions of complex is in vogue).

However, even if we hypothesize a creator more 'intelligent' than any being in the created universe, there is still no a priori reason to conclude that the universe would be comprehensible to a being within it.

The simple answer then would be: yes, it is possible. Regrettably, we have no good mechanism to determine its probability.


It might be more correct to state, as a mathematician once did: "all models are wrong; some are more useful than others." Generally theories do not advance by elimination of their flaws; generally they advance by being shown inadequate, and are replaced with more complete theories. I admit I could be misunderstanding your usage of the term 'flaw.'

It is not clear what you mean by this statement. What connection exists between the state of our souls and science? Clarification would be appreciated.

That would depend on how you define 'faith'. Many of these discussions derail because of lack of common terminology. For example, I 'accept' the theory that the sun will appear to rise tomorrow, because I am familiar with the behaviour of the solar system; I do not have 'faith' that the sun will rise tomorrow.

Perhaps if you could clarify what you mean by 'faith', it would be simpler to answer your question.

That the origin, development, and retention of certain 'theories' is culturally dependent appears obvious. The ideas (or theories) themselves, however.... Could you give an example? I fail to detect any cultural bias in the statement that water freezes at approximaely 0 degrees Centigrade.

Philosophies, which do not have the objective rigour of science are often cuturally based (and biased) that is true.


I admit I have not been posting here very long, but from what I have seen, this site, while mildly inimical to polite, well-informed, intelligent theists (and charmingly hostile to uneducated or unintelligent theists) certainly does not discourage debate on the subject. II appears to discourage unintelligent debate.

I am confident that rationally presented ideas will receive a full hearing at II.

Sorry, I don't know of any.

Pyrrho

No, it is not safe to assume any such thing. There may be things beyond human comprehension, but it is not wise to assume that there are such things.



What do you mean by "Answer to the Universe"?

There may be things that are unknowable. But that does not mean that pretending to know, or making things up, will get one any more knowledge than just what is possible to have.



If that is the case, then we should stop talking about things like "God" altogether, as we would be speaking nonsense. You may be interested in reading this thread:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=49215



If you were to follow the strain above, you would refuse to talk about "God" at all, as you would know that your comments would be false. Do you not see how inconsistent you are being? If we cannot meaningfully talk about "God", then there can be no fruitful discussions about "God" at all.



Many regard the universe as being as mindless as a rock.



Your analogy is faulty for two reasons. First, we have no idea what a spider comprehends or fails to comprehend. Second, regardless of what spiders can or cannot do, it is clear that someone who is less intelligent than another may very well understand the creations of the more intelligent individual. Many people, for example, understand cars, but most of them are probably not smart enough to have invented a car on their own. (If they now can make a car from scratch, that is not the same as inventing a car. They would simply be copying the basic idea of a car when they made one from scratch, which is not the same thing as inventing a car.)



500 years ago, all educated people knew that the earth was roughly spherical. Do not get your ideas about the history of scientific knowledge from Hollywood films.



You are trying to sneak in ideas that you have in no way established. You are assuming, for example, that we have immortal souls. You need to establish the truth of your claims before you can use them in your reasoning.

What you seem to be saying is that because we don't know everything, therefore we should believe in a god. This is an extremely bad argument.



You should remember this claim when you ask your last question in your original post.

If you say that people are often wrong because of their biases, that is of course true. But it does not mean that there is no reason to believe in the truth of certain claims. For example, the idea that, with a fair scale, putting two 5-pound bags of flour on it at the same time, the scale will read 10 pounds, is something that is pretty reliable. Try it for yourself if you doubt me.



You are free to make any points you wish. No one is forcing you to go along with the view of those who started the site, and they are not preventing you from saying almost anything that you want to say. (They do have some restrictions, as they don't want posts of pure abuse, with no intellectual content, for example.) And, of course, if you feel it is a waste of time to post here, you are free to not post here as much as it pleases you.



You are joking, right? You have just stated, repeatedly, that it is not humanly possible to be free of bias, and now you want to find a place, made by humans, that is free of bias. Do you not see how inconsistent you are?


Going back to your first paragraph, let me suggest that you start off a bit smaller, and argue about one thing at a time. If you were to say, before any evidence on the matter is presented, we should be agnostics, I would readily agree. And I think you would find that many others would agree as well. However, there are many arguments regarding the existence of god, and many kinds of things that people have already considered. Basing a belief upon evidence is not an act of faith. Do you, for example, believe in Santa Claus? If not, why not? Is it just faith, or do you have some reasons for not believing in Santa Claus? I suspect that much of the same reasoning applies to why I don't believe in a god. But by all means, present anything that you wish.

moore

Wow… I didn’t plan on writing a novel.. just kind of turned out that way:

I think most of my questions centered around my doubt that science and knowledge can indisputably kill religion. Very few people are trained to think so clearly and abstractly as some of the people on this forum (atheist and theist alike). For the other 99.9% (a guess) of humanity, people fumble through life, adhering to a worldview usually based on upbringing or the circumstances of life. I do not believe these people to be ignorant by choice, as they are making the best decisions they can with the resources available to them. We can't all be logicians, theologians and anthropologists. I see myself somewhere between these 2 camps of people. Having a stake with the non-philosophers, upon coming here for the first time it struck me as... arrogant, I think... that someone can KNOW the existence, or lack thereof, of a being potentially so beyond our pathetic existence. I understand that this is the wrong place to say this. Most people here seem to be quite proud of the personal intellectual muscles they have built and will shoot me down with extreme prejudice.

One of the thoughts that I often think about is the religious wager people play. Let A = God exists and B = Frank is believer. If ~AB or ~A~B, there is nothing to worry about. All that matters is how a person lives out their lives. But if A is true, then AB is really good news, and A~B is really bad news. It seems like being an atheist is a lose-lose, and being a believer is a win-win. So for me to adopt atheism, it had better be airtight and indisputable to justify the risk, which it is not, IMHO. This may strike some as an ignorant way to go through life, but it is truly the wise thing to do when in a situation where all the information need is not present. These questions I asked were probing to that end, to see if a group of very intelligent atheists could put my concerns to rest satisfactorily enough to take that huge risk.

I don't understand the difference between the two possibilities. Can you explain?


Good example. Makes sense. Not being familiar with the abstract terms, examples help me a lot.


See my second opening paragraph. I use the term "flaw" and the connection between science and the soul to refer to the risk taken by trusting unreliable truths.


I think I mean faith somewhat loosely. I believe that most people believe what they want to believe. The human psyche is built that way, and true impartiality is a near-impossibility. I don't think the atheistic community is immune to this condition. Since, in my views, the case for atheism is not airtight, thus, to whatever degree it is not absolute truth, it requires that much "faith" to follow initially. I guess I define "faith" as a accepting an idea which is not above reasonable dispute. You don't need faith to know that 2+2=4, but you do to know there are WMD in Iraq or that there is not some kind of a supernatural being.

You know I was not talking about hard facts, like freezing points. :P Ok. Example. There are a lot more theists in the U.S. than in Russia. Why? Isn't it all empirical logic? The truth is that science is subjective in certain situation. 2 people who are motivated differently can come up with completely different, scientific answers for the same question. The key ingredient for this to happen is a lack of enough data, so that a person can fill in the gaps in his own fashion. And when it comes to the God question, we are missing a LOT of needed data to make a definitive statement on such a subject.



Yeah. I think it was kind silly for me to ask for an unbiased site... why would there be one? Anyways, thanks for responding.

Pyrrho

I think you are being unjust and inaccurate. I think most of the people here would tell you that they do not have ABSOLUTE CERTAINTY about these things, or any others. But one can be practically certain of many things, even if one cannot be absolutely certain.



You should do a search for "Pascal's Wager". And for a fun place to start, see:

http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.p...threadid=54937

Think very carefully about the beginning of the thread, and ask yourself why it is that you believe that you are risking more if you fail to believe in a god than if you do believe in one.

You can also consider what you are risking if Mohammed is the true Prophet of God, and what will happen to you if you persist in your wicked Christian beliefs.

Or, if that is too much for you (though in the absence of evidence, you are unjustified in rejecting Islam as necessarily false), consider the traditional Catholic stance, that only Catholics go to heaven. Now consider the fact that some types of Protestants believe that all Catholics will go to Hell.

You do not avoid risk by believing in a particular religion, and given the fact that there are an infinite number of possible truths that a god might require you to believe, you basically have no real chance of randomly guessing what you need to believe, if you need to anything at all.

Family Man

What you've described is called Pascal's Wager, which is one of the most abused and discredited theistic arguments out there. The problem with it is that it is a false dilemma. It, and you, are assuming that, if there is a God, it would not only naturally want us to worship it, but it will reward those that do and punish those that don't. But we don't really know that it is true. Perhaps there is a God, and he really admires those who disbelieve based on the principled position that we lack enough information to conclude there is a God, but really detests those who believe in the hopes of gaining some infinite reward. (And if you think about it, why would a all-wise God reward believing for such an asinine reason or punish an honest, if mistaken atheist?)

The reason that your belief appears to be a win-win situation is that you've rigged the game so that it will be win-win. But since you don't know what the game you're playing really is, you're taking as big of a chance as we are.

Answerer

Actually, I think that our knowledge might be limited largely because most of us use a "limited mind" to see a infinite universe.

Wyz_sub10

I would also add that it assumes you are worshiping the right god, and in the right way.

braces_for_impact

Hi Moore and welcome to the boards! Just some thoughts of mine.

I think this may not necessarily be true. Many people find science and religion to be perfectly compatible. People believe in Christianity and biological evolution, for example. I may not be able to fathom how this is done, but they have rationaized it nonetheless.

I agree that very few people exercise critical thinking skills on a regular basis and employ a healthy skepticism. But no special training is required. I discovered the concept of critical thinking on the internet. I studied up on it myself and it simply makes perfect sense to me. I am merely a high school graduate (something I plan to rectify next year) and though I consider myself reasonably intelligent, I am no genius. In fact I am saddled with a few learning disabilities. In my opinion, criical thinking is not employed more often by more people because A) It requires more effort. B) It requires recognition of bias and letting go of preconceptions and dogma.

Of course it is possible that beings exist that are beyond our comprehension. It is also entirely possible that leprechauns orbit Alpha Centauri. But based on my experience and what I know about the physical world that I do understand, I can say that I think it's unlikely. And to boot, if god is so unknowable, then religion is simply an attempt to understand and explain the unexplainable and so they have no greater authority then I do in theological matters. So if this deity is truly unknowable then you run around worshipping and believing in a being that you cannot define, much less understand, and this seems simply silly to me, as you cannot possibly know what this being's expectations are and what it wants from us.

Also I'd like to call your attention to non-belief. To say "I do not believe in god" means simply that. You lack a god belief, as opposed to an active disbelief. Active disbelief would state "I believe there is no god." See the difference? One leaves room for a change of opinion if sufficient evidence is presented.

Goober

And it strikes me as quite arrogant that people can KNOW existence of a being that is unknowable, sometimes by their own admitance. Also, atheists don't KNOW that god does not exist, they postulate this based upon the evidence before them. Should other evidence arrive, I would be happy to change my mind.

If god is totally incomprehensible to us, we will never know if he exists or not. So what do you do? You make decisions based on the evidence you can comprehend, not on a assumption that there is a god.

Finally, welcome to II! Although people might shoot down your arguments, that's all part of debate.