tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post4747793547832667172..comments2023-09-24T07:53:50.826-05:00Comments on The Atheist Experience™: Answering apologists' questions, part 2Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-85383710298976593042009-02-20T20:06:00.000-06:002009-02-20T20:06:00.000-06:00"Lui,We have no reason to think that God’s being i...<B>"Lui,<BR/>We have no reason to think that God’s being is anything like what we are used to."</B><BR/><BR/>Yet he is supposed to possess all the (supposedly) characteristic human emotions and dispositions (you named two of them: love and anger) and to "design" things in a way that creationists are fond of saying is akin to how a human engineer might design them. Saying that such and such "looks designed" and then retreating to "oh, but he might not be anything like us" isn't defensible.<BR/><BR/><B>"How is it that we find a universe in which things behave according to necessity / causation?"</B><BR/><BR/>By definition, we couldn't have found ourselves in any other kind of universe, because they would lack the regularity to have produced us. We would therefore not have been here to talk about it in the first place. Our very existence is predicated upon a universe with a degree of order.<BR/><BR/><B>"Why should we find anything but random behavior that cannot be described in rational or scientific terms?"</B><BR/><BR/>As above. Of course, none of this tells us "why" the universe is as it is; only that our very perception of the universe necessitates that the universe have regularity. I think the erroneous presumption you're making is that there is some a priori expectation for a non-God administered universe to be chaotic. But whether the universe is God-administered is one of the things we're discussing; you don't just presume it from the outset "because" the universe is ordered. Without empirical evidence to that effect, such determinations are quite meaningless. We have no other universe to compare this one to, so a prior probability assessment is not yet possible.<BR/><BR/><B>"God is my explanation. What’s yours? To this point, you have merely stated the way things are, not provided an explanation."</B><BR/><BR/>Your explanation for what? Something you have no prior probability assessment for, and therefore no justification in saying that this-and-this state of the world is more probable than some of other state of the world given an intelligent designer. I'm saying you don't need God to be brought into the picture.<BR/><BR/><B>"It is inherently obvious that one purpose of the design we see in nature is to advance life itself."</B><BR/><BR/>The only thing that's "inherently obvious" from a scientifically defensible position is that the "point" of life, if there be one, is to propagate genetic information. What "purpose" do you see in the design of the Ebola virus? What about parasitic worms?<BR/><BR/><B>"Even evolution, if we assume it to be true, moves toward the purpose of maintaining and improving life. "</B><BR/><BR/>First of all, we wouldn't want to "assume" it to be true because no one has to make a leap of faith when it comes to evolution. Just look at the masses of convergently corroborating evidence for it. It's the most scrutinised theory in the history of science. Secondly, that was a very imprecise, loaded way of putting it. Evolution isn't "for" anything. It's a process that happens automatically when certain parameters in an environment are in place. It doesn't aim for anything, it has no foresight, it has no inexorable drive to discover itself through a rational intelligence.<BR/><BR/><B>"Some intentions are intuitively obvious, if you want to look for them. Some branches of science, paleontology for example, do this all of the time."</B><BR/><BR/>It's a massive leap to say that "Homo erectus designed this implement to kill animals" and "the eye was designed by God". Firstly, we know that H. erectus was, at the least, a collateral ancestor of ours, and that it had a relatively large brain (we also know that H. erectus happened to exist). We know that these implements were designed because they were shaped in the same way we would have designed stabbing instruments with simple materials. But to make the leap and say that the eye is designed by a divine intelligence is unwarranted, for a whole raft of reasons. With spears, we're talking about objects manufactured by beings whose existence is not in question. In the case of God a being whose existence we're trying to determine in the first place - no such neat correspondence exists. Since we can't see God directing anything, we would be as justified in saying that "Biological complexity arose not through God, but through some organising principle which we have not yet modelled."<BR/><BR/>Spears don't have heredity. Their specifications need to be stored in human brains. Eyes are underwritten by genetic programs that interact with their environment in complex ways. These programs are passed on and there is the possibility for them to be modified and shaped according to the demands of the environments they find themselves in. So spears and eyes are utterly different things. Even if we knew nothing about genes, we should still be cautious to ascribe biological complexity to design. Why is there so much inefficiency and waste? Why so many parasites? What would count as evidence <I>against</I> design? Like I said before, if any state of the world is consistent with the God hypothesis - if there is nothing that would count as evidence against God - then the latter ceases to mean anything.<BR/><BR/><B>"These branches of science also assume analogy between our design methods and the design methods of our prehistoric ancestors."</B><BR/><BR/>Yes, of <I>our</I> ancestors. What has that to do with God? You said earlier: "We have no reason to think that God’s being is anything like what we are used to."<BR/><BR/><B>"Except you don’t have an explanation for those laws or regularities. Why are thigns like what they are?"</B><BR/><BR/>That very question comes laden with the presupposition that they <I>shouldn't</I> be the way they are if not for a God directing to that effect. You haven't shown that. You've merely shown that you can't conceive of them being the way they are through a naturalistic account.<BR/><BR/><B>"Parts, well maybe in a certain sense, but it does not follow that those would be physical parts. Why should non-physical / spiritual things be designed?"</B><BR/><BR/>I didn't say they should be designed. I'm only saying two things: that intelligence arrives late in the universe, not earlier. It arrives through a cumulative process of incremental change, and all current indicators are that this view is correct. Secondly, there are no such things as disembodied minds. Minds require a medium to generate them (another disconnect between the notion of God - a cosmic mind - and his creations, which require a physical medium to travel about in. Why would we need to be entrapped in physical bodies? What's the point of creating life so it can perpetuate more life, if nearly all this life is manifested through biochemical - that is, physical - processes?). Besides which, what IS a "spiritual thing"? Does it behave according to any constraints? Does it have the analogue of, say, sub-atomic particles? Is it more like energy? Or is it, as I suspect, just a glorified word for "intentionality"?<BR/><BR/><B>"Please keep one more thing in mind. We have to have an undersigned designer, or we have no explanation for the design we find."</B><BR/><BR/>You PRESUME it's design. If you presume that, then you can't help winning the argument by default, because you've already loaded the terms of discourse with your own presuppositions. The problem is that you haven't demonstrated that the complexity we see IS designed. It might appear to be designed in some respects (and be utterly unlike something a competent engineer would design in other respects, but that can be conveniently taken care of by invoking "God works in mysterious ways", which is the very antithesis of an "explanation") but, since we don't see God actually doing these things (all we see are the supposed artefacts of his genius), and since nothing could count as evidence against God (because anything could always be retrospectively interpreted to make it fit with "God did it") we would be as justified in saying "some process we haven't seen could have produced this order". Of course, we have now discovered this process - natural selection - but even if we hadn't, the God hypothesis would be suspect.<BR/><BR/><B>"We cannot have an unending regress of design. It all must come from somewhere, or we would have none of it at all."</B><BR/><BR/>I find it curious that theists think that can decide when this dreaded infinite regress should be terminated. Apparently, the idea "things are as they are" won't suffice, so a mind has to be brought in. We may never know "why" things are as they are (to the extent that that's even a valid question; it may well not be) but that just means we don't know. It doesn't mean that religion is any more qualified to answer it. The religious "explanation" itself raises more questions: "why" is God the way he is instead of some other way? "Why" should there be a God? Could there not have been a God, and if not, why? Yet the theist feels justified in arbitrarily determining that the infinite regress they warned against earlier is now no more. These existential questions are not alleviated by invoking a divine mind; they are exacerbated.<BR/><BR/><B>"We must have something unexplained, in a certain sense, before we can explain anything."</B><BR/><BR/>So why then do you demand that I "explain" why the order of the universe is what it is before I can proceed? Why can't I take that to be what's unexplained? All you've done is to push the mystery back another notch, and to call it "God" (which is, if anything, even MORE mysterious).<BR/><BR/><B>"We would never hope to find an explanation for the phenomenon we see."</B><BR/><BR/>Only if you choose to ignore the mountains of evidence from evolutionary biology and other relevant fields, which isn't what I've done.Luis Cayetanohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05210714337197709016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-66811870581955329182009-02-19T10:16:00.000-06:002009-02-19T10:16:00.000-06:00Lui,We have no reason to think that God’s being is...Lui,<BR/>We have no reason to think that God’s being is anything like what we are used to. We cannot necessarily reason from the beings / people we see to the things that must necessarily be true of God. Your entire argument against God’s simplicity is based on this notion.<BR/><BR/>“…the existence of convergently discovered logical structures…the issue of how there should be such structures that keep getting rediscovered.”<BR/><BR/>That is the very question I have been asking in several comments above. How is it that we find a universe in which things behave according to necessity / causation? Why should we find anything but random behavior that cannot be described in rational or scientific terms? <BR/><BR/>God is my explanation. What’s yours? To this point, you have merely stated the way things are, not provided an explanation.<BR/><BR/>“Saying that God made everything for whatever reason is intellectually impoverished. If you can't tell us anything about his intentions in designing things this way rather than some other, then you can't talk about him designing things "for" anything. If you can't tell us about his intentions as a designer, then you can't talk about design being more probable as an account for what we see than evolution, because you have no prior probability assessments to compare the two.”<BR/><BR/>It is inherently obvious that one purpose of the design we see in nature is to advance life itself. <BR/>Even evolution, if we assume it to be true, moves toward the purpose of maintaining and improving life. <BR/><BR/>Some intentions are intuitively obvious, if you want to look for them. Some branches of science, paleontology for example, do this all of the time. These branches of science also assume analogy between our design methods and the design methods of our prehistoric ancestors. <BR/><BR/>“… "we happened to evolve in the universe and come to know some of its laws and regularities."… "these laws just happen to be as they are"…”<BR/><BR/>Except you don’t have an explanation for those laws or regularities. Why are thigns like what they are?<BR/><BR/>“Because if God is this homogeneous entity that stays in perfect equilibrium all the time, then it's not a volitional being.”<BR/><BR/>God’s being and character do not change. How does it follow that He is not volitional? He can change in that He can act, but He will act consistently with His own character at all times.<BR/><BR/>“So his character doesn't change, but that means he has a character, which means that he isn't homogeneous, which means he has parts.”<BR/><BR/>Parts, well maybe in a certain sense, but it does not follow that those would be physical parts. Why should non-physical / spiritual things be designed?<BR/><BR/>Please keep one more thing in mind. We have to have an undersigned designer, or we have no explanation for the design we find. We cannot have an unending regress of design. It all must come from somewhere, or we would have none of it at all. <BR/><BR/>We must have something unexplained, in a certain sense, before we can explain anything. Else, we could not possibly have an explanation for anything at all. We would never hope to find an explanation for the phenomenon we see.J. K. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02329537522697826005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-32991176188590100842009-02-18T19:01:00.000-06:002009-02-18T19:01:00.000-06:00"The better way to put it is without conflicting p...<B>"The better way to put it is without conflicting passions. If God is mad, He is all mad. If He is loving, He is all loving."</B><BR/><BR/>Why can't he, say, be a little bit pissed off (as befits certain wrong doings. Why shouldn't WE emulate God and be "all mad" when someone, say, giggles at a funeral, if God is the basis for "good"?) instead of going completely apeshit and drowning the entire planet (an event that didn't actually occur, incidentally, but one can still take it to be metaphorical. Surely for nothing praise-worthy)? Why should this binary disposition be entailed by his not having conflicting passions? What criteria do you use to judge that, anyway? Under what circumstances would he be all mad or all loving? How can we tell? What does he feel right now (surely those people who claim to commune with God on a regular basis can provide some insights there)? And if he's "all mad" right now, as he was during the Flood, say, why doesn't he wipe us out and leave behind a few chosen followers?<BR/><BR/><B>“…the notion that it can have no parts, yet at the same time pontificate about morality and exist…”<BR/><BR/>No physical parts. He exists without physical parts.</B><BR/><BR/>So which is it? He has no parts per say or he has no physical parts? If not the former, then can he continue to be described as non-complex? Surely not, since you would have it that the design specification for living creatures already existed before they appeared on Earth. Design specifications are complex, and they require a medium in which to be stored and retrieved. And that's only the tip of the iceberg in terms of things that God is supposedly capable of.<BR/><BR/><B>"That just proves that people are sinners, and that this sin effects their intellects and emotions. The fault is not with the Bible; it is with us."</B><BR/><BR/>Right, but of course <I>you</I> just happen to have the "right" take on the meaning of the Bible, as befits someone who is saved. The fault certainly is with us: for placing our trust in an archaic, out-dated book.<BR/><BR/><B>"They still use the same logical rules and basic sense perceptions."</B><BR/><BR/>Yes, but but my point is that they use these common logical rules and basic sense perceptions to come to different conclusions about the world. So it's not automatically the case that God should be concerned with making his subjects excellent truth-perceivers just because <I>he</I> made them.<BR/><BR/><B>"Lack of ‘perfect’ design by our standards does not imply no design at all."</B><BR/><BR/>Nor does it imply design. And that, too, is a cop-out, because if "God did it" is consistent with any conceivable state of the world, then the God hypothesis fails to be useful. To be useful, it needs to specify in advance what would count as evidence for design and what wouldn't. So far, no one has come up with such a criterion (including "intelligent design theorists"). Those who would claim that we came about through divine intervention rather than through natural processes have their work cut out for them. Not only does science have a totally satisfactory account for how apparent design can have arisen naturally, there is precisely zero evidence for the divine alternative. It might have been a tenable hypothesis before Darwin and Wallace, but no longer. It is today a completely antiquated conception, at least with respect to biology. "God did it" is the termination of inquiry. It leaves us with a bunch of disparate facts about the world, no organising framework with which to relate them to one another, and no criterion to judge what the utility function of something.<BR/><BR/>How do you actually specify that something has been "designed"? Analogies to human-made artefacts can only take you so far; as Hume showed, if one goes down that road one also needs to contend with the many more dis-analogies than analogies.<BR/><BR/>Finally, since God is all-or-nothing when it comes to anger and love, why not design? If he is "perfect", why don't his designs reflect this?<BR/><BR/><B>"You have to be able to see or hear the words and think about their meaning."</B><BR/><BR/>That, in and of itself, still gives us no reasons to think that what those passages say are actually true. You might believe it, but we're talking about whether it's right to believe it. If you're telling us atheists that we shouldn't trust our senses, then how can we trust them when we happen to read something in the Bible? How can YOU? How do you know your senses aren't fooling you when you read those things? If you can trust them there, then you can trust them in other domains as well.<BR/><BR/><B>"But those solutions ensure survival only, not truth about the real world."</B><BR/><BR/>I was referring to the existence of convergently discovered logical structures. I acknowledged that they might not provide us with a true picture of the world, only a useful one. My aim there was only to address the issue of how there should be such structures that keep getting rediscovered.<BR/><BR/><B>"Yes, isn’t God’s design of the world to be know and us to know it wonderful.</B><BR/><BR/>Except that no one has demonstrated God's design. If you simply assume that everything is "designed", then you've "won" the argument by default. Saying that God made everything for whatever reason is intellectually impoverished. If you can't tell us anything about his intentions in designing things this way rather than some other, then you can't talk about him designing things "for" anything. If you can't tell us about his <I>intentions</I> as a designer, then you can't talk about design being more probable as an account for what we see than evolution, because you have no prior probability assessments to compare the two. It is simply a subjective opinion with no corroborating evidence (ironically, the reason that humans are so prone to <I>seeing</I> design in nature may have to do with the way evolution built us. The reason we find it difficult to accept evolution may be <I>because</I> of evolution. So you have evolution to thank for your creationism). The notion of design is a non-starter in more ways than one. It is seductive and intuitive, but as a scientific proposition to explain biological and cognitive complexity, it fails.<BR/><BR/>Another point of relevance: if "design" is such a truism, then surely our investigations would have uncovered it by now. Instead, the scientific community is virtually unanimous in its . If God gives us such a true perception of the world, then surely the most powerful methodology we have for investigating nature - science - should back up those intuitions. It doesn't. It flies right against them. If you believe that God gave us the tools for seeing the world the way it is, then creationism - being the more intuitive, "obvious" account - should have moved beyond "What, you really think we came from monkeys?"<BR/><BR/><B>"Yes. God designed the universe to be consistent and knowable."</B><BR/><BR/>No more plausible than "we happened to evolve in the universe and come to know some of its laws and regularities."<BR/><BR/><B>"Exactly. God is providing a definition, not a justification."</B><BR/><BR/>And I have a different definition. Yet somehow, you wouldn't think my basis for morality is "justified". God very much IS about providing a justification, and everyone knows it.<BR/><BR/><B>"Universal, abstract laws, be they moral, logical, or mathematical, require an unchanging being for a ground for this very reason."</B><BR/><BR/>How do they "require an unchanging being"? There's a bold, unwarranted assertion if ever there was one. Why not just define them for what they are on their own terms, rather than deferring to a <I>being</I>? Again, you're adding a layer of complexity on top of other things where none is needed. If you want a "ground" on which to tether everything else to, you can <I>call</I> it whatever you like, but why does it have to <I>be</I> a conscious, volitional being? How is it preferable to say "God is the basis of these laws" rather than "these laws just happen to be as they are"? They both need the same thing - namely, that something just happens to be as it is - but in your case, it's God just happening to be the way he is. Why is he this way and not another? The problem doesn't disappear with God, it's simply moved up another level of abstraction, as someone else has said.<BR/><BR/><B>"God is good. God does not change. Good does not change.<BR/>Why is that a problem?"</B><BR/><BR/>Because if God is this homogeneous entity that stays in perfect equilibrium all the time, then it's not a volitional being. A volitional being requires a change in its disposition towards some action. It requires response to contingency. As you said, God can love and he can be angry. This requires a change in his mental state (or what passes for a mental state) in response to the shenanigans of human beings (since God is omniscient, he already knew, from the get-go, that his creation would sin against and betray him).<BR/><BR/><B>"God is unchanging in His being, character (what theologians call His perfections), purposes, and promises. Yet God does act. He does feel emotions. And He acts and feels differently in response to different situations."</B><BR/><BR/>So his character doesn't change, but that means he has a character, which means that he isn't homogeneous, which means he has parts.Luis Cayetanohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05210714337197709016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-74835557137987597152009-02-11T19:18:00.000-06:002009-02-11T19:18:00.000-06:00It’s not ‘situational ethics,’ but it does depend ...<I>It’s not ‘situational ethics,’ but it does depend on the situation at hand. </I><BR/><BR/>And you've just ended your arguement, thank you.<BR/><BR/>you stated that it what God said is what was moral. Then you hold that God's word is the bible. You also told me that God WOULD NOT change what he said.<BR/><BR/>Thus, what he said in the bible should still be true. The issue of blood sacrifice aside, the rest of the laws of the bible either still apply, or do not still apply. You claim that the laws only applied then and don't apply now, but that would be a change in ethics based upon the situation, which is situational ethics, which cannot exist if God cannot change his morals.<BR/><BR/>It was a pleasure debating with you, have a great morning/day/evening.<BR/>-AmnistarAmnistarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463779953148898579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-86863008295413735092009-02-11T11:13:00.000-06:002009-02-11T11:13:00.000-06:00Amnistar,“…the morals that God gives us also do no...Amnistar,<BR/><BR/>“…the morals that God gives us also do not change…”<BR/><BR/>The moral principles do not change. The moral actions those principles require often change. <BR/><BR/>For example, the principle can be that we submit to lawful governmental authority. (I am assuming that the government’s laws do not violate another moral principle.) But the government’s laws may change to make something illegal that used to be legal or vice versa. We have to do what the new law requires. The moral action changes, but the principle does not. <BR/><BR/>God might also change His requirements due to a change in the situation. The principle would be to do what God says to do. The actions might be temporary, as was the case with the ceremonial laws given in the Old Testament. <BR/><BR/>These laws were put in place in order to teach people something important: that a blood sacrifice was needed to pay the penalty for sin. When Christ paid that penalty in full through His perfect life and undeserved death, then the teaching provided by the ceremonial law was no longer necessary. God’s point has been made, so His requirements changed.<BR/><BR/>God can respond to different situations in different ways. He can require something different, based on the situation at hand, in order to comply with basic moral principles. He can act differently toward someone based on a change in that person’s behavior or attitude. He doesn’t change, but the situation He is in changes. It’s an outcome of His decision to create a changing world inhabited by free moral agents.<BR/><BR/>We also face changing situations where morality must be applied. The basic moral principles remain the same because they are based on God’s unchanging nature, but we only apply the particular principle to a situation that the situation calls for. <BR/><BR/>“Thou shalt not kill” does not apply when I am tempted to steal from my neighbor. “Thou shalt not bear false witness” may not apply when we are hiding Jews from Nazis to keep them from being killed. <BR/><BR/>It’s not ‘situational ethics,’ but it does depend on the situation at hand.J. K. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02329537522697826005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-87660660826750685632009-02-11T08:58:00.000-06:002009-02-11T08:58:00.000-06:00Supposing that God's Character does not change, as...Supposing that God's Character does not change, as you claim, then the morals that God gives us also do not change, correct?Amnistarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463779953148898579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-21446654334206432542009-02-11T08:32:00.000-06:002009-02-11T08:32:00.000-06:00Amnistar,God is unchanging in His being, character...Amnistar,<BR/><BR/>God is unchanging in His being, character (what theologians call His perfections), purposes, and promises. Yet God does act. He does feel emotions. And He acts and feels differently in response to different situations. <BR/><BR/>(Most of this we learn from the Bible, but we do know from the universe around us that God exists independently from everything else, and that implies a few things as well.)<BR/><BR/>God’s unchanging nature does have interesting implications. For example, God’s knowledge does not change. He never learns new things or forgets things. He knows all things past, present and future, actual and possible, and knows them all equally vividly. <BR/><BR/>This is why the universe follows logical laws. Logic helps us see how everything fits together (how facts interrelate). We can know it all fits together because God knows everything. It must all be true, and it must all logically inter-relate because it can be known in God’s mind vividly. In a sense, it can be know all at the same ‘time,’ so it must all be logical. God’s knowledge does not change, so we know the interrelatedness of facts must also be consistent. <BR/><BR/>(Note, the idea that God establishes logic is not a ‘proof’ as such. It’s more of an assumption. I can assume logic works because I assume God exists. Proofs of God’s existence come from another angle.)<BR/><BR/>I await the thoughts you have on this one.J. K. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02329537522697826005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-3820075336951118242009-02-10T17:39:00.000-06:002009-02-10T17:39:00.000-06:00J.K. You've now made a statement that I think will...J.K. <BR/><BR/>You've now made a statement that I think will have interesting ramifications, "God doesn't change."<BR/><BR/>Ever? Never changes at all? Not even the littlest bit?Amnistarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463779953148898579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-41546818510630010362009-02-10T16:07:00.000-06:002009-02-10T16:07:00.000-06:00Cipher,Oh you poor dear…having to put up with a st...Cipher,<BR/><BR/>Oh you poor dear…having to put up with a stupid fool like me. How can you ever stand it? <BR/><BR/>You are much better at insulting me than you are at answering my arguments.J. K. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02329537522697826005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-63036027115401752612009-02-10T11:57:00.000-06:002009-02-10T11:57:00.000-06:00Universal, abstract laws, be they moral, logical, ...<I>Universal, abstract laws, be they moral, logical, or mathematical, require an unchanging being for a ground for this very reason.</I><BR/><BR/>Are you kidding me? And you can't understand why I accuse you of having nothing more than a long list of suppositions? Your entire litany consists of "This is the only way in which I can conceptualize it, so this is the way it has to be." You wouldn't recognize anything outside of your narrowly-blinkered world view if it walked up to you and introduced itself.<BR/><BR/>That's it; I'm unsubscribing from this thread. I can't read this drivel any longer. I don't understand how you guys have the patience for it. It's like arguing with Rho, except that this one is polite. As someone said here the other day, it's like arguing with a child who wants a lollipop before dinner. You can give him all the reasons in the world as to why he shouldn't have it; in the end, it's always the same - "WANT LOLLY!"Jeff Eygeshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11967707883565162538noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-60631406576964700892009-02-10T10:59:00.000-06:002009-02-10T10:59:00.000-06:00Lui,“…"Without passions" isn't exactly the impress...Lui,<BR/><BR/>“…"Without passions" isn't exactly the impression one gets…”<BR/><BR/>The better way to put it is without conflicting passions. If God is mad, He is all mad. If He is loving, He is all loving.<BR/><BR/><BR/>“…the notion that it can have no parts, yet at the same time pontificate about morality and exist…”<BR/><BR/>No physical parts. He exists without physical parts. <BR/><BR/><BR/>“…people have been fighting each other over its "real meaning" for centuries…”<BR/><BR/>That just proves that people are sinners, and that this sin effects their intellects and emotions. The fault is not with the Bible; it is with us.<BR/><BR/><BR/>“…Different people have different cognitive predispositions and competences, and these can be affected by such things as age. What's more, numerous studies have shown that people are rather bad at assessing probabilities. Humans are naturally poor statisticians.”<BR/><BR/>Even if some are better at it than others, they still use the same thinking processes. They still use the same logical rules and basic sense perceptions. <BR/><BR/><BR/>“So a God that is all-good and knowledge loving, just as he allows for massive evil in the world, would, by that same token, allow a great variety of cognitive error in the world…”<BR/><BR/>Lack of ‘perfect’ design by our standards does not imply no design at all. I could also note the effects of sin on our cognitive faculties. I’d refer you to Christian theologians’ discussions of the noetic effects of sin.<BR/><BR/><BR/>“…The notion that God is all-loving and knowledge loving does not automatically entail that he would have made humans with a true conception of the world…”<BR/><BR/>But the God who reveals Himself in the Bible does promise that He will be revealed in creation (Psalm 32, Romans 1), in the moral law (Romans 2), and in the thinking process (1 Corinthians 1-2). In fact, sense perception and logical reasoning are presupposed by verbal and written communication. You have to be able to see or hear the words and think about their meaning.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>“…the solutions to problems faced by humans required similar logical structures to crack them because of the similar constraints and demands of those problems…”<BR/><BR/>But those solutions ensure survival only, not truth about the real world. Maybe everyone’s thought process is defective in the same way. After all, in your view, we evolved down similar lines.<BR/><BR/><BR/>“…the sciences have remarkable interlocking parsimony with respect to one another, so this lends credence to the notion that we are at least on the right track in uncovering an approximate view of reality...”<BR/><BR/>Yes, isn’t God’s design of the world to be know and us to know it wonderful.<BR/><BR/><BR/>“…Because they aren't "about us". They're about the universe at large...”<BR/><BR/>Yes. God designed the universe to be consistent and knowable.<BR/><BR/><BR/>“Nicholas Everitt”<BR/><BR/>I’ll read his book as soon as I get a little money.<BR/><BR/><BR/>“…"the standard of God's character is God's character", since you've found no other way to conceive of morality. This is an exercise in labeling, not exposition.”<BR/><BR/>Exactly. God is providing a definition, not a justification. Universal, abstract laws, be they moral, logical, or mathematical, require an unchanging being for a ground for this very reason.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>I have enjoyed our discussion so far.J. K. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02329537522697826005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-86898447849832661602009-02-10T00:58:00.000-06:002009-02-10T00:58:00.000-06:00"It means ‘without passions or parts.’ It doesn’t ...<B>"It means ‘without passions or parts.’ It doesn’t mean without being or existence. It’s not incoherent.</B><BR/><BR/>"Without passions" isn't exactly the impression one gets from the blood-curdling passages in which God and his disciples command their armies to "dash to pieces" enemy tribes, right down to the children. Without parts? Well, when someone resolves that one I'd love to hear about it. In the meantime, I'll continue to think that the concept is incoherent (by "it", I mean the notion that it can have no parts, yet at the same time pontificate about morality and exist).<BR/><BR/><B>"Besides, if there is an argument to show the Bible to be true, and I believe there is, then the concept must by definition be coherent even though it is hard to understand."</B><BR/><BR/>That seems reasonable, except that the Bible isn't true, for the following reason: people have been fighting each other over its "real meaning" for centuries. This would be fine if it was something written by flawed human beings carrying the prejudices and limitations of their age, but a divine being? Surely the latter could write a tome with a bit of clarity and a lack of ambiguity? There's nothing in the Bible that could not have been written by humans living at the time.<BR/><BR/><B>"You said the laws of logic were consistent from one culture to the next or even one person to the next because “we inhabit the same universe and these principles are convergently discovered by different people.”<BR/><BR/>That is absolutely true. We do discover these truths convergently. We all find the same answers to these questions. Buy why do we find these truths to be what they are? That is the question you have failed to answer."</B><BR/><BR/>It's not entirely clear why this should be so, but in fact I was wrong in a sense. Different people have different cognitive predispositions and competences, and these can be affected by such things as age. What's more, numerous studies have shown that people are rather bad at assessing probabilities. Humans are naturally poor statisticians. So a God that is all-good and knowledge loving, just as he allows for massive evil in the world, would, by that same token, allow a great variety of cognitive error in the world. If that's so, then you are in no more position to say that you can be justified in supposing that you have an accurate view of reality on your presumptions than I do on mine. The notion that God is all-loving and knowledge loving does not automatically entail that he would have made humans with a true conception of the world. But to return to my own justification - or attempt at a justification - for why people would stumble upon the same rules of logic (even if these rules of logic are NOT in fact good guides to reality), one factor is that the solutions to problems faced by humans required similar logical structures to crack them because of the similar constraints and demands of those problems. If someone wants to make an aeroplane more efficient, for example, similar constraints will dictate that the shape of a European Airbus and an American Boeing will be pretty much the same: streamlined. Secondly, it could be a necessary feature of an intelligent species that certain logical structures will be apparent to them, owing to convergent evolution and species-wide cognitive features that are shared, more or less, in the same way across the board. It's not that hard to imagine this being the case, or why: having an acuity for one sort of information processing will likely place constraints on or deteriorate the aptitude in another domain. Another issue I've raised in similar discussions (or fist-fights) is that the sciences have remarkable interlocking parsimony with respect to one another, so this lends credence to the notion that we are at least on the right track in uncovering an approximate view of reality. While individual humans may be bad at coming to truths, we have an enterprise that does this for us, and the way we can be quite sure of its reliability is that it is a positive feedback system that can generate predictions and automatically right itself.<BR/><BR/><B>"You said the these concepts “aren't subject to evolution.” You are absolutely right. They are immaterial / abstract concepts. They are also universally true. The question is why are they not subject to evolution when everything else that has to do with us is?"</B><BR/><BR/>Because they aren't "about us". They're about the universe at large. Hence they're not subject to biological evolution.<BR/><BR/>Nicholas Everitt is rather good on these issues, I think. You can download his book "The Non-Existence of God" <A HREF="http://atheistmovies.blogspot.com/2009/02/non-existence-of-god-nicholas-everitt.html" REL="nofollow">here</A>, and read chapter 9 ("Naturalism, evolution and rationality") where he shows that several of your presumptions are erroneous, and that the problems you see in a non-theist account of rational humans are sometimes actually exacerbated if one presumes a theistic outlook. For the sake of argument, I will take his views as my own as I think he makes a reasonable case. You've certainly raised some relevant issues and I thank you for forcing me to think more carefully about them. But I do think that your position is utterly vacuous and self-defeating. Its best hope is to poke holes in the naturalistic account, but in so doing it shoots itself powerfully in the foot, as Everitt shows. If you like I will endeavour to summarise his points, but he writes with far more clarity than I could.<BR/><BR/><B>"The standard of good is God’s character."</B><BR/><BR/>Which is the same as saying "the standard of God's character is God's character", since you've found no other way to conceive of morality. This is an exercise in labelling, not exposition.Luis Cayetanohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05210714337197709016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-14390393135787451372009-02-09T18:26:00.000-06:002009-02-09T18:26:00.000-06:00Amnistar,“So god can't change the standard of good...Amnistar,<BR/><BR/>“So god can't change the standard of good, which means he doesn't decide what is good, merely dictates it. “<BR/><BR/>The standard of good is God’s character. God’s character does not change. God dictates a standard based on His character that He will not dictate in any other way. He’s not going to change His mind.<BR/><BR/>“Good, we now know that God doesn't decide what is good or evil, he merely knows what is good or evil. Good to know.”<BR/><BR/>He knows what is consistent with His own character. That is the standard. <BR/><BR/>“Now we have to decide what dictates good and evil.”<BR/><BR/>God’s unchanging, good character. Nothing else qualifies as an absolute, unchanging standard. Universal, abstract laws must have a ground that does not change, and only God’s being qualifies.<BR/><BR/>God is good. God does not change. Good does not change. <BR/>Why is that a problem?<BR/><BR/>You are going to great lengths to show a circular pattern in all of this that simply does not exist.J. K. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02329537522697826005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-70029199700568667532009-02-05T16:27:00.000-06:002009-02-05T16:27:00.000-06:00It is good because God says so and He is the ultim...<I>It is good because God says so and He is the ultimate definition of good. He does not change, so the standard of good does not change.<BR/><BR/>God could not choose to make the standard any way other than it is, given that He is good. His desires are good, so He desires to give us a perfect moral standard. The standard is not based on something outside of God; it is based on His unchanging, perfectly good moral character.</I><BR/><BR/>So god can't change the standard of good, which means he doesn't decide what is good, merely dictates it. Good, we now know that God doesn't decide what is good or evil, he merely knows what is good or evil. Good to know.<BR/><BR/>Now we have to decide what dictates good and evil.Amnistarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463779953148898579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-76922693067235795122009-02-05T16:11:00.000-06:002009-02-05T16:11:00.000-06:00It's lucky that J.K. Jones keeps reminding us that...It's lucky that J.K. Jones keeps reminding us that he's not using circular logic, or I might be fooled into thinking that he just keeps repeating the same circular logic over and over again.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05324968314168283095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-88827042076222858562009-02-05T15:50:00.000-06:002009-02-05T15:50:00.000-06:00Amnistar,“You can't have it both ways, either it i...Amnistar,<BR/><BR/>“You can't have it both ways, either it is good before God says so, and thus God didn't make it good…”<BR/><BR/>It is good because God says so and He is the ultimate definition of good. He does not change, so the standard of good does not change. <BR/><BR/>God could not choose to make the standard any way other than it is, given that He is good. His desires are good, so He desires to give us a perfect moral standard. The standard is not based on something outside of God; it is based on His unchanging, perfectly good moral character.<BR/><BR/>Therefore the standard is not arbitrary. It could not be any other way than it is.<BR/><BR/>“..OR God says it is good, and then becomes good.”<BR/><BR/>God says it is good. That’s right. What exactly is the problem with that?<BR/><BR/>Why can’t the only being in the universe, that we know of, who is good decide what is good for the rest of us? Why can’t he express a standard based on his own goodness?J. K. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02329537522697826005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-70242538103486650932009-02-05T15:41:00.000-06:002009-02-05T15:41:00.000-06:00Lui,“It doesn't matter where it comes from; what m...Lui,<BR/><BR/>“It doesn't matter where it comes from; what matters is whether the very notion of spirit is itself coherent.”<BR/><BR/>It means ‘without passions or parts.’ It doesn’t mean without being or existence. It’s not incoherent.<BR/><BR/>Besides, if there is an argument to show the Bible to be true, and I believe there is, then the concept must by definition be coherent even though it is hard to understand.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>You said the laws of logic were consistent from one culture to the next or even one person to the next because “we inhabit the same universe and these principles are convergently discovered by different people.”<BR/><BR/>That is absolutely true. We do discover these truths convergently. We all find the same answers to these questions. Buy why do we find these truths to be what they are? That is the question you have failed to answer.<BR/><BR/>You said the these concepts “aren't subject to evolution.” You are absolutely right. They are immaterial / abstract concepts. They are also universally true. The question is why are they not subject to evolution when everything else that has to do with us is?<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>“I don't know.”<BR/><BR/>Then you have no reason to think that any of your arguments can have weight. You can’t ultimately prove anything. Not scientifically, not philosophically, not rationally.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>“…this lends no credence to the notion that God is therefore the default choice to go to in search of an answer…”<BR/><BR/>I said I could assume rationality. I didn’t say I had proved anything in the formal sense. I should point out that I do have a workable assumption. It is at least possibly true. I have heard nothing from you that is even possible. You have no theory.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>“…when a theory is unable to account for something, that doesn't, by itself, mean that an alternative theory or hypothesis is any better equipped to do so.”<BR/><BR/>You have not provided an alternative theory or hypothesis to the one I have. Meanwhile, I’ll just sit back and act on my assumptions. I plan to read the Bible tonight and think really hard about what it says. I might learn something.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>“Secondly, there's no evidence for your assertion that it was God.”<BR/><BR/>Again, it’s an assumption on my part. What is the assumption(s) that underlies your rational and scientific endeavors? <BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>“…we are stuck for the time being with observing what we actually see (a necessity) and working from there, not declaring by fiat that a Godless world would have to be chaotic... We live in this uniformity whether or not God is real…”<BR/><BR/>The world we live in is not chaotic. The question I am asking is why is the world not chaotic? Explain yourself. Give me one workable theory that can be tested. “That’s just the way it is’ does not count.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>“…You don't get to win the argument by default just because your world view entails uniformity in nature. So does mine, but that's based upon evidence…”<BR/><BR/>You don’t understand the nature of your predicament. I want you to provide a workable theory. I want you to establish an epistemology, a theory for knowledge, which is workable within your assumptions. You are the one with the case to prove. Otherwise, you do not have any truth to share on any topic whatsoever. <BR/><BR/>You can’t prove anything you say to be true. All of your truth claims are just a matter of faith on your part. Faith in science or reason that is not based on solid assumptions.<BR/><BR/>You have both feet firmly planted in mid-air.<BR/><BR/><BR/><BR/>“So [God] doesn't have a "choice".<BR/><BR/>He has the same choice that any of us does. He always chooses what He wants. <BR/><BR/>None of us can choose any different. We always choose what we want to choose given our options. We always choose the thing we want most given the situation we find ourselves in. There is no exception.J. K. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02329537522697826005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-72697889704591367902009-02-05T15:10:00.000-06:002009-02-05T15:10:00.000-06:00You need to know at least one other thing about Go...<I>You need to know at least one other thing about God. His essential nature does not change. That is, His desires, in the sense we are discussing them here, do not change either. That is why He makes good, consistent standards.</I><BR/><BR/>What you have claimed is that God is the source of good. That is, whatever God says is good, is good, because God says it is, and for no other reason. <BR/><BR/>Now, if God's nature is to be good, that's something else. He is good, and he says what is good (because he is good) but it was good before he said it, that's why he said it. <BR/><BR/>You can't have it both ways, either it is good before God says so, and thus God didn't make it good, OR God says it is good, and then becomes good. So, which is it?Amnistarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463779953148898579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-68265340003143705542009-02-05T08:34:00.000-06:002009-02-05T08:34:00.000-06:00Amnistar,You need to know at least one other thing...Amnistar,<BR/><BR/>You need to know at least one other thing about God. His essential nature does not change. That is, His desires, in the sense we are discussing them here, do not change either. That is why He makes good, consistent standards.<BR/><BR/>Again, it’s not that He could not change the standard because of something outside of Him. It’s that he does not and will not want to change because of His own nature.<BR/><BR/>This is not to say that His relationships with and actions toward human beings are unchanging. The short version is that when we change our response to Him, He must necessarily change how He reacts toward us. He doesn’t change; we do.J. K. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02329537522697826005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-46233212246725955832009-02-04T23:41:00.000-06:002009-02-04T23:41:00.000-06:00"As to whether God is simple or spirit, I would re...<B>"As to whether God is simple or spirit, I would refer you to Alvin Plantinga in the link above."</B><BR/><BR/>Plantinga doesn't provide an argument to that effect; he merely asserts it. When you're dealing in religion, anyone becomes free to abuse language as they see fit. Since we defer to religion its own "magesterium" - where it is imagined that it deals with questions about "why" while science deals with the "how" - people get into the habit of thinking that they can work from that basic assumption and that there just has to be something to it. This is what happens when we become slaves to language. We imagine that just because a question can be strung together in a grammatically sound sentence and it "speaks to us", that it must therefore be a question with necessary depth.<BR/><BR/><B>"The notion that God is spirit comes from the Bible."</B><BR/><BR/>It doesn't matter where it comes from; what matters is whether the very notion of spirit is itself coherent.<BR/><BR/><B>"Why are they consistent from one culture to the next or even one person to the next?"</B><BR/><BR/>Because we inhabit the same universe and these principles are convergently discovered by different people.<BR/><BR/><B>"If they evolved, why is there no variation?"</B><BR/><BR/>Because they aren't subject to evolution.<BR/><BR/><B>"Why is this the only way we can think?"</B><BR/><BR/>I don't know. Having said that, this lends no credence to the notion that God is therefore the default choice to go to in search of an answer, any more than an Australian aboriginal myth is the place to look. Even if we never discover why this is the way we think, it gives precisely zero weight to the God hypothesis. Firstly, when a theory is unable to account for something, that doesn't, by itself, mean that an alternative theory or hypothesis is any better equipped to do so. Secondly, there's no evidence for your assertion that it was God.<BR/><BR/><B>"Why do the laws of logic (non-contradiction, excluded middle, etc.) not change along with everything else? Logical laws are not merely properties of matter, or they would change with matter."</B><BR/><BR/>Why would that be the default assumption about a Godless world? Since we have no other worlds to compare this one to, we are stuck for the time being with observing what we actually see (a necessity) and working from there, not declaring by fiat that a Godless world would have to be chaotic. <BR/><BR/><B>"Why should I expect the processes I see in the world, if governed by randomness, to result in a world that will behave the same in the future as it has in the past? Scientific experimentation depends on this. It’s called the uniformity of nature."</B><BR/><BR/>Exactly. So since it's a FACT that this is what we see, the question then becomes how to account for it. We live in this uniformity <I>whether or not</I> God is real. If you want to assert that only God can adequately account for a uniform world, you have to provide a prior probability assessment that compares the two and shows that the God hypothesis provides a higher probability. Lacking this, any talk about a default expectation of a Godless world being incapable of producing order and beings capable of beings comprehending logic totally vacuous.<BR/><BR/><B>"You have to provide positive evidence that rational thought is possible."</B><BR/><BR/>No I don't, since the very fact we're engaging in this debate testifies to that. You don't get to win the argument by default just because your world view entails uniformity in nature. So does mine, but that's based upon evidence. The burden of proof is still very much upon you. It isn't me who's violating Occam's Razor by assuming more than the evidence requires. I could say "I think the universe just happens to be this way." You must say, "I think the universe is this way because God happens to be this way." Both have an element of the inscrutable, but you go up another level of abstraction and unnecessarily complicate the picture.<BR/><BR/><B>"it’s His choice and He will not make it differently."</B><BR/><BR/>and yet just a sentence before you say: <BR/><BR/><B>"Buy the way, there is something internal to God that He can’t tamper with. He cannot deny Himself."</B><BR/><BR/>So he doesn't have a "choice".Luis Cayetanohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05210714337197709016noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-45319361532761137622009-02-04T18:42:00.000-06:002009-02-04T18:42:00.000-06:00Aminstar,"...where does God look to decide what is...<I>Aminstar,<BR/><BR/>"...where does God look to decide what is good? That is the real source of morality, not God."<BR/><BR/>Nowhere outside Himself.<BR/><BR/>Kazim,<BR/><BR/>It's really not circular.<BR/><BR/>Why doesn't God choose to drown innocent people? Because He does not want to.<BR/><BR/>Why wouldn't it be good? Because it's not what God would want to do.<BR/><BR/>What is the source of the standard for what is moral?<BR/><BR/>What God desires to do. </I><BR/><BR/>In this case, if God wanted to drown people in M&M's it would be good then. Right? If he decided one day that drowning in M&Ms was good? Oh and also decided that drowning in Skittles was a horrible idea. Both of these would suddenly become true right? Because God decided it? <BR/><BR/>And there is nothing to prevent god from doing this, if he wanted to. Right?Amnistarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463779953148898579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-28660080366876231662009-02-04T17:21:00.000-06:002009-02-04T17:21:00.000-06:00Aminstar,"...where does God look to decide what is...Aminstar,<BR/><BR/>"...where does God look to decide what is good? That is the real source of morality, not God."<BR/><BR/>Nowhere outside Himself. <BR/><BR/>Kazim,<BR/><BR/>It's really not circular. <BR/><BR/>Why doesn't God choose to drown innocent people? Because He does not want to.<BR/><BR/>Why wouldn't it be good? Because it's not what God would want to do.<BR/><BR/>What is the source of the standard for what is moral?<BR/><BR/>What God desires to do.J. K. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02329537522697826005noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-15009426220013160252009-02-04T16:02:00.000-06:002009-02-04T16:02:00.000-06:00Aminstar,There is nothing outside God that is keep...<I>Aminstar,<BR/><BR/>There is nothing outside God that is keeping Him from doing anything He wants to do, but He always does what He wants to do. He cannot do something that He does not want to do, and He always wants to do the good thing.<BR/><BR/>Drowning innocent (!) people in M&Ms is not good, so God won’t choose to do it. </I><BR/><BR/>Well then we've established that good =/= whatever God does. Rather, God=Good. So, where does God look to decide what is good? That is the real source of morality, not God.Amnistarhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07463779953148898579noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-1507507281002872732009-02-04T15:56:00.000-06:002009-02-04T15:56:00.000-06:00J. K. Jones continues to be hilariously circular. ...J. K. Jones continues to be hilariously circular. Something to ponder:<BR/><BR/>Why doesn't God choose to drown innocent people? Because that wouldn't be good.<BR/><BR/>Why wouldn't it be good? Because it's not what God would do.<BR/><BR/>Textbook example.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05324968314168283095noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33241741.post-60761628402555638652009-02-04T15:51:00.000-06:002009-02-04T15:51:00.000-06:00Aminstar,There is nothing outside God that is keep...Aminstar,<BR/><BR/>There is nothing outside God that is keeping Him from doing anything He wants to do, but He always does what He wants to do. He cannot do something that He does not want to do, and He always wants to do the good thing. <BR/><BR/>Drowning innocent (!) people in M&Ms is not good, so God won’t choose to do it.J. K. Joneshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02329537522697826005noreply@blogger.com