Case in point: a theist wrote to me:
Current observations indicate that order and consistency (e.g., "design") can arise from intelligence or from undirected events (e.g., Mandelbrot patterns, chance).
Given those observations, is there any reason to assume that the design of the universe more likely arose from intelligence (theism/deism) or from undirected events (atheism)?
First of all, just because you have two possible events doesn't mean that the two must be equally likely. Some people actually play the lottery this way. They reason: "I either win or I don't. So my odds of winning are 50%." Wrong. The odds of winning the Texas jackpot are about 3*10^-8, which is way WAY less than 50%. Likewise, even if we grant that the existence of God is "a possibility" that doesn't necessarily mean that the probability is any more that 10^-googleplex. Just about anything that you make up off the top of your head COULD turn out to be true, but probably isn't.
But explaining logical fallacies can be difficult when dealing with somebody who is convinced that he's got an airtight case. So I responded with:
Current observations indicate that people can be killed by machine guns, or by things that are not machine guns.
Given those observations, is there any reason to assume that Julius Caesar was more likely killed by a machine gun, or by a non-machine gun event?
He wasn't buying it:
We know with reasonable certainty that there were no machine guns during Caesar's time, so the latter is best assumed.
So what is it that you know about the origin of the big bang that makes your analogy relevant?
But I said:
We certainly do not know that. All we know is that we don't KNOW of any machine guns in Julius Caesar's time. Yet we know that it is possible for machine guns to exist. So what is your proof that machine guns did not exist then?
Another thing we know is that it is much easier to kill someone with a machine gun than without one. Given the reasonable belief that Julius Caesar was killed (rather than dying of natural causes), isn't it fair to say that if there is even a small chance that machine guns existed, then it is at least equally likely that they were used as that they were not?
Why is assuming the existence of something complex, like a machine gun, not plausible to you, when it can be used as a handy explanation for Julius Caesar's death?
What's wrong with this logic? As far as I can tell, nothing. Oh sure, it sounds stupid, but I think it's just as solid as the first cause argument.
The problem with postulating "an intelligence" as the answer to "where did the universe come from?" is that as far as we know, there wasn't any intelligence available at the time. Intelligence in the world we're aware of universally requires some kind of brains, and the brains that we know didn't just happen to exist; they are the end result of billions of years worth of painstaking evolutionary processes.
Could there have been a cosmic super-brain, long before the brains that we know of came into existence? Sure, anything's possible. And Julius Caesar could have been killed by a machine gun.
But you know, I think he probably wasn't anyway.
The truth is that Julius Caesar committed suicide. His colleagues in the Senate were comparing knives and the crazy son of a bitch kept running into them.
ReplyDeleteI had a similar argument with a friend of mine, though mostly this was that sort of argument where she was sounding me out to see what I would say and not necessarily defending her question tooth and nail. But the question was: why not consider the possibility that life on Earth arose from some extraterrestrial source? Isn't that as good as God or evolution or whatever else? I responded that while it certainly was possible that was the way it happened, without any credible evidence to point to that explanation, then there's no sensible reason to entertain it as plausible. This is a common error believers make: conflating the possible with the plausible. It's not sensible to go ahead and take a claim for something seriously just because it can't be completely disproved. To crib from Douglas Adams, the universe could have been sneezed out of the nose of the Great Green Arkleseizure. But without evidence to point us to that as a plausible explanation, Occam's Razor prompts us to look for more prosaic, naturalistic explanations.
ReplyDeleteI wrote about a similar thing on my blog recently. I have been critiquing Rodney Stark's latest book "Discovering God".
ReplyDeleteHe criticizes both "militant atheists" who dismiss the miracles and fantastical elements of the Bible as fairy tales and religious believers who try to explain them with possible natural causes (like the plagues of Egypt being caused by a volcanic eruption).
Stark argues that all that one needs to do is to postulate a god that created the universe. "Surely a God who created the natural laws could suspend them at will."
Raising Lazarus from the dead? The virgin birth? Joshua making the sun stop in the sky? According to Stark, "some believe these things happened, some believe they didn't-AND BOTH POSITIONS ARE BASED ON FAITH!"
Like you write above, it is not a matter of either it happened or it didn't. It is a matter of how plausible the event is. How plausible is it that a being that created a universe so vast takes such an inordinate interest in the affairs of a collection of tribes in a small strip of land in the Middle East? And how plausible is it that said deity is going to cause the sun to stand still in the sky for almost an entire day ONLY ONCE IN HISTORY just so that the Israelites could slaughter retreating enemy soldiers in a battle that was already won and in which most of the enemy soldiers were killed by god's hailstones anyway?
Can you, then, provide an explanation for the origin of matter, time, and energy?
ReplyDeleteThe biblical worldview can. One might say that a worldview that provides answers to such big questions is worth a look in lieu of one that doesn't. Don't you think?
Just because it purports to provide answers does not mean the answers are even remotely correct.
ReplyDeleteTime is a human construct. It does not exist independently of us. It is a way of measuring the passage of existence using available frames of reference, such as the amount of time it takes for the Earth to rotate on its axis or to complete an orbit around the sun.
As for the origin of matter and energy, I leave that task to the scientists.
That's a "no" if I've ever heard one.
ReplyDeleteIf time is a human construct, why appeal to it to prop up the idea of evolution?
"Leaving it to the scientists" is a pitiful answer. William Lane Craig once asked that question to Peter W Atkins, Fellow and Prof of Chem at Oxford.
Atkins' answer was that, though the universe exploded out of nothing, there actually was something, kind of. Negatively-charged mathematical concepts and positively-charged mathematical concepts... and if you add up their net charge, it was neutral. So there was nothing. But there was something.
Snicker. Any other ideas?
Can you, then, provide an explanation for the origin of matter, time, and energy?
ReplyDeleteI most certainly can. It came into being when a giant purple gila monster from another plane of reality ate some bad sushi and vomited out our universe.
Gross, perhaps, but a just-so story is a just-so story, whether I made it up 5 seconds ago or some middle eastern farmer made it up milennia ago.
Anybody can "answer" these questions as well as religion can. What matters is how well the answers are justified by evidence, not whether they are "complete" or somesuch nonsense. I'll take no answer over some made-up claptrap non-answer any day.
Hi Lui,
ReplyDeletethey wave some remaining mystery in science in front of the scientist or atheist's face and say the equivalent of "Ah-huh! So YOU can't answer this! See how superior my world view is?"
You act like there's very little "mystery" to go.
On the presupposition of naturalism, you CAN'T answer this and never will be able to.
So it's a little worse than you're making it out to be.
But the minute the scientists do provide an answer, the religionist goes scurrying off, claiming the discovery as their own, or else trying to denigrate it by invoking "hatred of God" or some such thing.
Naked assertion which can be answered with such. What's an example you have in mind?
scientific hypotheses about the origins of matter and time may be
That's all they can ever be - hypotheses - if you want to be scientific, which seems to be your buzzword meaning "true".
No scientist, no human, will ever be able to OBSERVE the origin of time, energy, and matter.
You might reexamine how you use the word "scientific".
they are still many orders of magnitude better than the non-answers provided by religion
Let's compare:
NATURALISM'S ANSWER = we don't know and there's not a way to know scientifically, which is our big thing
BIBLE'S ANSWER = we DO know. And it explains quite a lot, really.
I don't know about calling answers "non-answers", but it might be a matter of perspective and/or thick-headedness.
Religion posits a being or beings which must itself/themselves be more complex than any of the phenomena they purport to explain
1) The Bible doesn't present a "complex" being. It presents a God Who is One.
2) There's no reason to run away screaming from your bogeyman of "complex being". Oh no, a complex entity! AAAAHHHH!
It answers the question, which is more than your "simpler" "explanations" do.
only because God is left unexplained
Not in Christianity. God is explained plenty; He has revealed quite a lot about Himself.
why should the regression of causality terminate when the theist says so?
B/c He is not contingent and not subject to time.
If we DON'T terminate the causality, we'd end up in your predicament, where we have no idea.
if we allow that not all events have to be caused - as quantum mechanics seems to indicate - why insist on something as fancy as an intelligent being?
I love it - you think you can weasel out of the pickle by claiming that not all things have a cause.
You want to make that bed, you're welcome to lie in it. Just remember you said that when I appeal to it in later discussions.
God is at least as improbable as any of the phenomena he is hauled in to explain.
Naked assertion. Where's the argument?
What makes you so sure that THIS time round, the Biblical "explanation" has got it right?
Well, let's clarify. I'm sure that EVERY time around, the Biblical explanation has it right.
In this case, the one option gives an answer. The other doesn't even have one that is both logically possible and not subject to complete ad hoc conjecture.
The Biblical explanation has failed everywhere else;
Naked assertion.
No it hasn't.
See how easy that was?
but a just-so story is a just-so story
It sure is.
Now, what's the evidence for this?
Anybody can "answer" these questions as well as religion can.
That must be why nobody has been able to answer them yet.
Go ahead - I've been waiting. That was my 1st question, and what I've seen so far is a lot of hand-waving and coming after MY worldview, which I didn't even state in this combox.
All you seem to be able to do is attack - DEFEND YOUR POSITION for once.
Peace,
Rhology
I see we're greeting the new year with a freshly squeezed glass of nonsense from Rho.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely right that science does not have all the answers to everything that exists right now. So what? It never claimed to. Only religion makes that claim, and yours is no different than thousands of others that have come down the pike.
As Lui pointed out quite correctly, filling gaps in your knowledge with religious beliefs is simply the God of the Gaps fallacy, and is the classic argument from ignorance. "Science can't explain it, so it must be God." Well, not necessarily.
Also, that your God belief satisfies you in that it presents an easy answer in the form of a magic being that can obey whatever law you want it to obey whenever it needs to be called on to solve this or that or the other mystery means nothing more than that you find it satisfying. Automatically accepting a religious answer simply because it appears to give an answer is really a testament to nothing more than your intellectual laziness and lack of curiosity. Sure, anyone could criticize science simply by saying things like, "The naturalistic answer does not and cannot provide an answer to the cause of the universe, but the All Knowing Magical Book of Light can, and it's Harvey the Invisible Cosmic Rabbit! See how much better that is?" Hey, it's at least as good an answer as your God is, isn't it?
In any event, I like how you're back to your usual habits of projecting your own behaviors onto the other commenters here, who have been answering you quite honestly and openly. (Mocking them for "naked assertions" when your entire position is nothing more than one big one, for instance.) Anyway, your comments have certainly shored up the points I was making in my post about the faux-intellectualism of religion, in that much of religion's appeal is in convincing people who don't want to have to work for their knowledge that they know all there is to know about everything.
Martin,
ReplyDeleteHappy New Year to you!
It never claimed to.
OK, fair enough.
What I *do* hear a lot of is optimistic claims that science WILL figure it all out eventually.
It's a science-of-the-gaps argument.
yours is no different than thousands of others that have come down the pike.
Every religion is different. Do you mean that mine is like the others in that they're all irrational. Up to you to prove mine is, though I'd argue with you that others are.
filling gaps in your knowledge with religious beliefs is simply the God of the Gaps fallacy
Filling gaps in your knowledge with beliefs that science will one day solve all these questions is simply the Science of the Gaps fallacy, Promissory Materialism. Why should anyone grant that more respect?
"Science can't explain it, so it must be God."
"Science can't explain it, but I'm just SURE it'll be able to in the future! No, really, promise!"
a magic being
Strawman - God isn't "magic".
can obey whatever law you want it to obey whenever it needs to be called on to solve this or that or the other mystery
Strawman - my presentation of God is many 1000s of yrs old, not ad hoc at all.
Rather, your presentation of "science", bending the rules to encompass certain metaphysical claims that you want it to, shoehorning naturalism into it, and making inconsistent moral claims are much more ad hoc.
Automatically accepting a religious answer simply because it appears to give an answer is really a testament to nothing more than your intellectual laziness and lack of curiosity.
You can't reasonably know any of that from some short blog interactions.
I'm curious about a lot of things, sure. But not the things that are confirmed. But the Bible doesn't give all knowledge, so there are tons of things outside that about which I'm curious.
Just b/c you don't like where I'm certain about things doesn't mean it's justifiable to call me names.
All Knowing Magical Book of Light can, and it's Harvey the Invisible Cosmic Rabbit!
Do those exist? Can they be examined?
No, b/c you just made them up. Give your readers more credit than that!
Peace,
Rhology
OK, fair enough.
ReplyDeleteWhat I *do* hear a lot of is optimistic claims that science WILL figure it all out eventually.
It's a science-of-the-gaps argument.
Well, I'm not sure who you're hearing those incautious claims from. Probably not physicists or cosmologists. The most honest thing they could say would be that whatever we do find out, it will in all likelihood introduce a whole new slew of mysteries to examine. But that's why science continues the study. There are always more new things to learn. We've learned more about the cosmos in the last 10 years than we ever knew before, mainly to find out that what we still didn't know was staggering.
The point is that the tools of science are the best and most reliable we have for learning what we can learn and do know, however incomplete it may be. Plugging in gaps in knowledge by making stuff up gets no one anywhere.
Every religion is different. Do you mean that mine is like the others in that they're all irrational. Up to you to prove mine is, though I'd argue with you that others are.
Well, all theistic religions profess belief in unproven and apparently unprovable invisible magic deities. The difference is in the details and level of popularity, I suppose, but in the big picture I see little difference.
"Science can't explain it, but I'm just SURE it'll be able to in the future! No, really, promise!"
Again, since I haven't said this, this is a straw man. In the future science will know more than it does now, and there will be more to discover. In any event, in your belittling of science I haven't seen you introduce a method for obtaining knowledge whose methods are better. So this all just sounds like you're compensating for ignorance with snark. Why you think that's impressive is a mystery.
Strawman - God isn't "magic"....my presentation of God is many 1000s of yrs old, not ad hoc at all.
Rather, your presentation of "science", bending the rules to encompass certain metaphysical claims that you want it to, shoehorning naturalism into it, and making inconsistent moral claims are much more ad hoc.
I'm trying to decipher this blather and am truly baffled. First off, why you think your "presentation of God" should be automatically accorded some degree of respect, or be taken seriously at all, because it is thousands of years old, is silly. The Egyptian gods were worshiped for many thousands of years before yours. What's the point?
Furthermore, this nonsense about "bending the rules to encompass certain metaphysical claims that you want it to, shoehorning naturalism into it, and making inconsistent moral claims," seems to come from nowhere but your deeply confused lack of understanding. Science is a naturalistic process, period. It's all about drawing conclusions about the natural world based on observation and experimentation, and it isn't anything else. What rules do you think it's bending to "encompass metaphysical claims," especially when it's already been made clear to you that questions of ultimate origins and the like are still very much open. When science pursues answers to these questions it doesn't try to change the rules, it just applies the same methods it always has. Right now we can pretty much trace the history of the universe back to when it was around the size of a grapefruit. Whatever came before that is still in the realm of speculation. It's exciting speculation, though, and much more intellectually rewarding, I'd think, then just settling on "Goddidit" and everyone going home.
As for moral claims, that's irrelevant to the topic at hand.
Speaking of God: if my calling him "magic" gets your knickers in a twist, then tell me: your God is alleged to have created the universe by an act of will. If that isn't magic, then please provide the detailed and scientifically testable explanation for the mechanisms your God employs to create universes. You might have a Nobel Prize in your future.
>>Automatically accepting a religious answer simply because it appears to give an answer is really a testament to nothing more than your intellectual laziness and lack of curiosity.<<
You can't reasonably know any of that from some short blog interactions.
Well, that's what the interactions we've had here with you have indicated, so I don't see it as an unreasonable opinion to reach. Anyway, you brought all of this up, and your motives weren't based on an honest sense of inquiry by a long shot. You popped up to ask us to "provide an explanation for the origin of matter, time, and energy," and immediately followed up with "The biblical worldview can." You're not offering anything of substance there into the ongoing inquiry humanity has been making all down the ages into the nature of life and the universe around us. This is just you going "nyah nyah" to a bunch of people who've rubbed you the wrong way for not believing in your invisible magic (oops, sorry) man of choice. I mean, you're not exactly difficult to read, Rho. Those of us who've been debating theists for years and years have seen this sort of thing all too many times.
>>All Knowing Magical Book of Light can, and it's Harvey the Invisible Cosmic Rabbit!<<
Do those exist? Can they be examined?
No, b/c you just made them up.
God's no different, dude. That was my point.
HI Martin,
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure who you're hearing those incautious claims from.
Dr Peter Atkins, during his debate w/ William Lane Craig, for one.
Various anti-Intelligent Design people.
It's all over the place. And I hear people making science the end-all, be-all for knowledge. "God can't be examined scientifically, so His existence is obviously irrational." Science becomes metaphysics! It's naturalistic hubris.
mainly to find out that what we still didn't know was staggering.
One might be pardoned for thinking that such should lead to MORE humility among atheist apologists, not less.
The point is that the tools of science are the best and most reliable we have for learning what we can learn and do know, however incomplete it may be.
See, that's what I mean. You're ranging too far and too wide for your worldview to support.
This statement needs serious qualification. Learning and knowing about WHAT?
Plugging in gaps in knowledge by making stuff up gets no one anywhere.
I'm as much in favor of that as you are.
That's one reason I'm not very fond of the TOE.
all theistic religions profess belief in unproven and apparently unprovable invisible magic deities.
I don't agree that God is unprovable or unproven. Not provable by naturalistic means, of course, but there's no reason to restrict ourselves to solely naturalistic means.
since I haven't said this, this is a straw man.
Since OTHERS have said it and since I'm talking about THEM it's not a strawman.
Just b/c you make them doesn't mean everyone else does. Try to keep it on track.
your belittling of science
I am trying to help science understand the size of its britches. It can't inform metaphysical questions.
why you think your "presentation of God" should be automatically accorded some degree of respect, or be taken seriously at all, because it is thousands of years old
Your calling it "magic" implies that it is ad hoc. It is not.
It is to be respected at minimum for not being ad hoc.
Science is a naturalistic process, period.
I don't necessarily have a problem with that, just remember not to try to make metaphysical claims and claim scientific backing.
And it's illegitimate to rule out things like Intelligent Design just b/c you assume at first that a non-naturalistic claim MUST be the answer.
What rules do you think it's bending to "encompass metaphysical claims,"
I refer to the scientific establishment's a priori ruling out of ID.
we can pretty much trace the history of the universe back to when it was around the size of a grapefruit.
Assuming that you know what happened at the beginning (ie, that it was the size of a grapefruit at some point) is part of what I mean as well. You don't know that.
your God is alleged to have created the universe by an act of will. If that isn't magic, then please provide the detailed and scientifically testable explanation for the mechanisms your God employs to create universes.
You are fond of classic fallacies. Here you present to us a false dilemma. I don't know why anyone might accord a great deal of respect to a worldview that is only represented with the aid of large amounts of fallacious argumentation.
You popped up to ask us to "provide an explanation for the origin of matter, time, and energy," and immediately followed up with "The biblical worldview can."
Which it can.
And which you haven't even attempted. You're just making excuses for why you can't.
Hi Lui,
My, you're more long-winded than I!
disdain for knowledge
Haha. No, it's just disdain for FALSE ASSURANCE and making category errors.
Oh yeah, I forgot to point out that fallacy above - these applications of science to metaphysical claims are category errors, another classic fallacy. They're stacking up on this blog!
unfalsifiable claims
My claims are certainly falsifiable!
Strawman. Classic fallacy, the 4th kind in 2 comments!
The Big Bang, ...ichneumon wasps “affirming” God’s benevolence.
I don't hold to the Big Bang as normally stated and certainly not evolution or an old earth, so I don't see why I'd care about these.
Quantum mech and Trinity I've never heard of. That and the wasps are pretty sorry charges on your part anyway. Trying to explain things on an ad hoc basis is one thing but recognising cool parallels between God and His creation is quite another.
boringly parochial.
I'm sure that God is very hurt that He couldn't entertain you sufficiently. He's up there sobbing.
how does this favour God as opposed to a quantum fluctuation?
Haha, this is a signal of desperation, an example of what I mean by ad hoc propositions.
"Ummmm, yeah, it's a, um, quantum, ummmmm, fluctuation! Yeah, that's the ticket!"
You still encounter the same problems if you posit a quantum fluctuation. It is SOMETHING. Is it eternal? Is it necessary? Does it cause? You have to answer these questions.
I got it right the first time. You might like to consult a dictionary.
So you believe that something that's not observed can be called "science", eh?
Cool, God is scientific. Boom! That was easy.
all we have going for them is your assertion that “God did it”, because the Bible says so
I of course dispute that.
which is the inerrant word of God because it says so in the Bible.
That is only one of the reasons why I think the Bible is infallible.
the Bible posits a being with the following attributes: emotional states...
OK fine, I don't see a reason to dispute this point.
Where’s the argument?
That the Bible says God is one?
You're just being silly. Deut 6:4, Isaiah 43:10, Isaiah 44:8-10 and MANY more passages present monotheism. Just argue things that matter, please.
There’s in fact an excellent reason: something so complex is almost impossible because it is overwhelmingly statistically unlikely to come about by pure chance.
Of course, no one is claiming that God *came about* at all. So this is not even relevant.
The only ultimate way to arrive at complex entities like beings capable of exhibiting features like sentience and intentional states is through cumulative evolution.
What's the argument for that?
I would also love to know how you would go about disqualifying Allah as an explanation.
The same way I examine any worldview - I take on its presupps for the sake of argument and then check it against itself to see if it's internally consistent, first off.
Neither atheism nor Islam make it past even that first stage. In the case of Islam, it bases all on the Qur'an. The Qur'an says the Bible must be believed. It also says Jesus did NOT die on the cross. Contradiction.
He failed to explain why or how he exists.
Sure He did. There are several biblical passages where He explains that He is eternal and infinite.
He did, however, find the time to turn some poor woman into stone for looking at a crumbling city, and to order Moses to carry out his Nazi-like atrocities, and lots of other retarded, messed-up shit
On atheism, there's no reason nor justification to assign ANY moral value to any of that stuff.
And why would I care what you think about the things He found time to do? Give an argument.
provide a smidgen of evidence for this utterly exotic construct?
The impossibility of the contrary. If it weren't the case, I'd be in your position, without any logical possibility for explaining the origin of the universe.
quantum mechanics is making inroads into this
Oh, it's going to explain how either the universe could be infinite or could have popped into existence out of nothing, uncaused?
I'll be waiting with bated breath.
Quantum mechanics seems to indicate that some events are uncaused.
If you want to retreat to the pitiful explanation that "no, seriously, it wasn't caused!", be my guest. You're welcome to that sack of poop.
Genesis (contradicted by ...medicine, physiology, biology).
Quite a mix of question-begging and strawmen you assembled there.
I'd be happy to take those on one at a time. Why don'tcha start a blog and go for it?
Why does God exist instead of no God?
B/c sthg exists.
I don't suppose you could say that sthg HAS TO exist, but it's undeniable sthg exists. And God is therefore necessary.
Provide a criterion for God being a non-complex entity
Just b/c He may be complex, which I don't care to argue, doesn't mean there's more than one God. What would be the argument?
Why does consciousness have to come before matter, despite everything that science tells us to the contrary?
Here you go again trying to make metaphysical judgments based on science.
Consciousness CAME before matter b/c the universe is contingent; God is necessary. And He is not material.
On what medium does this universal consciousness reside?
Spiritual.
Why should one speculative hypothesis – God – be favoured over other speculative hypotheses – quantum fluctuations, multiverses, etc
1) God is logically necessary.
2) The contrary is impossible.
3) You admitted that quantum fluctuations allow you to appeal to "it's uncaused." Pitiful.
4) Multiverses are completely speculative and ad hoc. There's no evidence for it.
Those religions provide "answers", too.
Not internally self-consistent answers.
Because it doesn't posit magical sky-daddies.
That's not an argument. Try answering the question - why is it not Science of the Gaps?
There is in fact no difference between "supernatural" and "magical".
Except that one is pejorative and ad hoc (magical) and the other isn't.
Peace,
Rhology
Dr Peter Atkins, during his debate w/ William Lane Craig, for one.
ReplyDeleteVarious anti-Intelligent Design people.
It's all over the place. And I hear people making science the end-all, be-all for knowledge. "God can't be examined scientifically, so His existence is obviously irrational." Science becomes metaphysics! It's naturalistic hubris.
Again, what other means of investigating the universe do you propose, that will lead to the kinds of verifiable results one gets from scientific inquiry? I see none. If we can't examine God scientifically, how then are we supposed to distinguish God from any other mythical being humanity has invented?
Like it or not, science is the method we use to acquire knowledge. And we just cannot say what will or will not be discovered. After all, many people like you in the religious, anti-science camp have very often, all down the years, boldly proclaimed that science will never figure out this, that, or the other thing. Scientific ignorance like yours is a dime a dozen. We may learn a great deal about our universe's origins, or we may not, and we can't say what we may learn when we do.
But we can say this: whatever we learn, that is factual and verifiable, will almost certainly be learned through scientific study, and not through whatever nebulous and ill-defined "other ways of knowing" that religionists and mystics who attack science propose. (Or fail to propose, more accurately.) No one 25 years ago could have conceived of dark energy, but it was science that found it, not any religionist or mystic with his other ways of knowing.
Anyway, a scientific illiterate who waves around a book of Bronze Age myths and legends and boldly declares himself to have all the answers science hasn't provided us yet is in no position to criticize anyone for "hubris."
One might be pardoned for thinking that such should lead to MORE humility among atheist apologists, not less.
"Atheist apologists..." Gosh, do you mean me? Well, apart from finding it sad that people like you in this day and age think rationalism requires an apologia, all I can say is I'm thrilled to change my mind about things and admit when I'm wrong. Thing is, it takes evidence for me to do that, and all through your comment you repeat that actual evidence for the theistic position is impossible, and that it requires some alternate, "non-naturalistic" process of examining truth claims, the details of which you then fail to provide. So if I'm not sufficiently humble for your tastes, perhaps it's to do with you really sucking at supporting your position.
But if you mean scientists, I think it can be said with complete confidence that they are a far more humble group than religionists who claim to know things they don't know and believe they're due for eternal paradise into the bargain.
You're ranging too far and too wide for your worldview to support.
This statement needs serious qualification. Learning and knowing about WHAT?
The natural world, that's what. I leave realms of the imagination to mythicists like yourself. Of course, if your God is a real, tangible being, then he ought to be within the purview of the scientific method to examine. Is he or not? If not, how do I determine he isn't simply a figment of your imagination?
I'm as much in favor of that as you are.
That's one reason I'm not very fond of the TOE.
The TOE is hardly a bedrock scientific theory, but just for shits and grins, explain why, even if it were, the notion of an invisible magic man in the sky which you already admit is something science cannot even examine is a better "theory".
I don't agree that God is unprovable or unproven. Not provable by naturalistic means, of course, but there's no reason to restrict ourselves to solely naturalistic means.
Ah, here we are again with the appeal to "other ways of knowing." Again, please explain these "non-naturalistic means" of examining evidence, testing and confirming falsifiable hypotheses, and establishing theories with predictive power, actually work. What precise "non-naturalistic" methodologies should we exercise, how do we use them to draw conclusions, and most importantly, how do we determine those conclusions are verifiably real and not merely figments of our imagination or the product of wishful thinking? Again, a Nobel Prize has your name on it if you can do this.
I am trying to help science understand the size of its britches. It can't inform metaphysical questions.
But how do I confirm that your term "metaphysical questions" isn't merely a $20 synonym for "imaginary stuff I'm willing to believe without proof"? Again, you constantly imply the existence of these other ways of knowing, further implying that their methodologies are superior to those of science, since they allow for evidence of concepts that science is suddenly "too big for its britches" if its methodologies are directed at those same concepts. As soon as you explain this "better-than-the-scientific-method method" for studying the universe, perhaps I'll start taking it seriously. Otherwise, you sound like the kind of guy Darwin himself was all too familiar with in his day: "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge: it is those who know little, and not those who know much, who so positively assert that this or that problem will never be solved by science."
Your calling it "magic" implies that it is ad hoc. It is not.
It is to be respected at minimum for not being ad hoc.
What on earth do you even mean by this? My calling your God "magic" implies that it is absurd, not "ad hoc." Your explanation for the existence of the universe involves an unknowable (except by unexplained "non-naturalistic" means) being using unknowable powers in an unknowable way. Until you offer something more concrete, I think "magic" is a perfectly suitable term, along with "imaginary" and "silly."
I don't necessarily have a problem with that, just remember not to try to make metaphysical claims and claim scientific backing.
Uh, what metaphysical claims have I made? IIRC, you got the thread rolling on this bumpy track by making the claim your religion provided answers where science cannot. But you have not at any point laid out the methodologies for this "non-naturalistic" "other way" of knowing. You have merely asserted there is one and that it works where science does not. If anyone's making unreasonable claims and getting too big for his britches here, it's you.
In contrast, all I have said about science vis-a-vis learning about the origins of the universe is that we don't have the answers yet, and can't say qith certainty when we may, or if we ever will. That's about as humble and truthful a statement as can be made. And it throws cold water on your bizarre, continued insistence that I'm claiming the exact opposite.
And it's illegitimate to rule out things like Intelligent Design just b/c you assume at first that a non-naturalistic claim MUST be the answer.
I think you meant "naturalistic" there. Well, again, Rho: ID is ruled out because, scientifically, it isn't even a falsifiable premise. But if there is a valid, "non-naturalistic" "other way of knowing" that can confirm ID's premises and validate it as a testable theory even better than science can, you have yet to explain it and lay out its rules. Otherwise, your continued insistence on "non-naturalistic" answers is just hand-waving. One could just as easily attribute the universe's existence to good old Gus, the Invisible Flying Cosmic Bunny, and rebut scientific skepticism about his existence by berating science for its alleged inability to examine things "non-naturalistically," by which means only can Gus's reality be made known!
Assuming that you know what happened at the beginning (ie, that it was the size of a grapefruit at some point) is part of what I mean as well. You don't know that.
Actually, Rho, this is a pretty theoretically strong area of cosmology and physics. Sure, the findings could change. But that's what's cool about science.
You are fond of classic fallacies. Here you present to us a false dilemma. I don't know why anyone might accord a great deal of respect to a worldview that is only represented with the aid of large amounts of fallacious argumentation.
Well, dang. Do excuse me for characterizing your imaginary magical friend in a "fallacious" way. Of course, your slippery dodge of my question with faux-indignant rhetorical gasbaggery is noted. Of course, I'm still hazy on how these "non-naturalistic means" you keep referring to actually work.
>>You popped up to ask us to "provide an explanation for the origin of matter, time, and energy," and immediately followed up with "The biblical worldview can."<<
Which it can.
And which you haven't even attempted. You're just making excuses for why you can't.
Right on cue, after accusing me of fallacious arguments you make your own: shifting the burden. Rho, if you are the one claiming your ancient holy book can "provide an explanation for the origin of matter, time, and energy," then that puts the ball in your court. It isn't my job to validate your claims, Rho, it's yours. Whenever you're ready...
Anyway, I've openly admitted science doesn't have every answer to every question humanity has imagined, only that the search goes on. And I haven't made excuses for this. Quite the contrary, I've been entirely honest about it. You, on the other hand, continue quite arrogantly to claim superior knowledge to that provided by science, by means of some "non-naturalistic" process you singly fail to explain. Who's throwing around excuses here?
I'm jumping back in here a little late, as I have been busy lately.
ReplyDeleteFor questions about the origin of the universe, I leave it to the scientists because I lack the necessary educational background. I can of course read what scientists have to say about it, but since they are trying to describe an event that happened billions of years ago, I recognize that their explanations are based on interpretation of data that is probably incomplete. I have no doubt though that over time as we continue to study the cosmos that the picture will become clearer.
Secondly, I don't see how it is incumbent on me to even have to explain the origin of the universe. The big bang theory does not inform how I go about my daily life. That is why I am content to leave it to the scientists. Though the origin of the universe is interesting topic to me on a philosophical level, I have no stake in the answer to the question.
I don't need to get into a debate about the origins of the universe when the Bible makes claims about events that supposedly happened within recorded human history that can be tested. Since those claims don't hold up, what the Bible says about the creation of the universe is meaningless to me.
That being the case, it does not rule out the possibility that our universe was created by some intelligent and powerful entity. When you consider how vast the universe is, then it seems rather odd that any being that created it would take such an inordinate interest in the mundane affairs of human beings on a little blue speck circling a small star in just one of the tens of millions (or is it billions?) of galaxies.
I'm surprised you guys are still giving Rho the time of day.
ReplyDeleteClearly, he has no interest at all in what you guys are saying, evidenced by his dismissal of pretty much everything you DO say, claiming strawmen, ad hoc arguments or just saying "you're wrong."
On the other hand, I'm glad you guys are doing it, cause I'm learning a LOT.
Rho, the only answer you seem to have for every argument is "because it says so in the bible," and your reasoning behind that is completely circular. I think you might say I've given you another strawman, but I haven't. Not really.
Your responses feel like the equivalent of sticking your fingers in your ears and saying "la la la I can't hear you!"
I'm surprised you guys are still giving Rho the time of day.
ReplyDeleteWell, the merciless smacking down of wanton foolishness is fun, you know.
BTW, just imagine how Julius Caesar's Gallic campaign would have turned out if the Gauls had machine guns!
ReplyDelete"So, JC, you thought we Gauls were just a bunch of long haired guys running around naked with painted blue faces, eh? Well eat this scumbag!" RAT-A-TAT-A-TAT-A-TAT!