Adam Savage gave a talk at Harvard where he beautifully laid out the logic of a godless universe. Here’s a short sample, but really, it’s worth reading the whole thing:
The idea of an ordered and elegant universe is a lovely one. One worth clinging to. But you don’t need religion to appreciate the ordered existence. It’s not just an idea, it’s reality. We’re discovering the hidden orders of the universe every day. The inverse square law of gravitation is amazing. Fractals, the theory of relativity, the genome: these are magnificently beautiful constructs.
The nearly infinite set of dominoes that have fallen into each other in order for us to be here tonight is unfathomable. Truly unfathomable. But it is logical. We don’t know all the steps in that logic, but we’re learning more about it every day. Learning, expanding our consciousness, singly and universally.
As far as I can see, the three main intolerant religions in the world aren’t helping in that mission.
There’s something else really interesting going on at that link. When I give a talk about being godless, it’s no big deal; it’s what everyone expects, and nobody who knows of me is surprised by what I say. In his television work, Adam Savage doesn’t talk up atheism at all…so there are a lot of semi-shocked responses in the long list of comments, and also a lot of pathetic proselytization. Like this:
I have watched and admired Adam Savage for his intellect for years on his show. I may not be as eloquent as Mr. Savage but I am always a bit saddened to lose that bit of respect when I hear someone try and explain how complex the universe is and then say God couldn’t exist.
I am civil & intelligent. I will agree to disagree. But if you start find life a bit empty Adam Reconsider the “relationship” between you and God. Not the religion.
You may not believe in Him but He believes in you.
We just don’t get comments here that often that hit all my buttons like that. Complexity doesn’t equate to god or design; I don’t care if you’re ‘civil’; there is no relationship with the nonexistent; I despise the attempts to divorce gods from religion, since half the people will be arguing that god is good, religion bad, and the other half will be telling me the virtues of religion; and that last cliche…where’s the hook, drag that bozo off the stage.
Anyway, great speech, but also if any of you are looking for fresh goddist meat to snack on, there’s a new hunting ground. Just read Savage’s closing remarks, though — that cheesy snack food isn’t so good for you.
Next on Mythbusters:
Adam and Jamie will debunk the myth that the three largest world religions are supported by logic, then they’ll be blowing up soda bottles for the remaining 58 mins of the show.
How is that these religious nutjobs know the mind of their god fellah, the bible bogey? It sure as hell isn’t because it exercised much love for the Bronze Age Mesopotamians & their neighbours in their book of myths.
I had no idea he wrote so eloquently… and yet a comment from the public was the showstopper for me.
and ever so slowly
blink by blink
the world gradually awakens from slumber
shaking off fragments of a beautiful dream.
The morn is cold, but bright
and there is so little time to prepare for the day ahead.
we must make haste
“God couldn’t exist” ? Well, that would be a rather stupid thing to say. Perhaps someone who said this might actually lose his listeners’ respect. But that’s surely not what Adam Savage said.
All we can say is that God could exist, but everything in the world looks as though he doesn’t ; you can always believe that everything is the opposite of what it seems, but that would be rather perverse. Ergo, it’s more likely that God doesn’t exist.
But “couldn’t” ? What a huge strawman !
Um.
If it’s unfathomable, how can he know it’s logical?
Bah.
‘You may not believe in
Himyour thetan butHeyour thetan believes in you.‘Fixed.
Carlos Castaneda’s series of books about his training with a Yaqui indian mystic named Don Juan. There’s a lot of controversy about these books being represented as nonfiction. But if you dispense with that representation, and instead take their stories as allegories, they’re quite lovely.
Imagine my surprise upon reading this! I feel the same way about Carlos Castaneda.
I was there to hear the speech (I was the guy who asked how Adam & Jamie felt about sharing a network with Sarah Palin).
I found it interesting that in the Q&A the only person who brought up religion was the global warming denialist who J&A gave a thorough smacking down. Who gives a shit about religion when there are exploding water heaters to talk about!!!!
And we finally learned about M6.
Even my oh-so-xtian wife had a good time.
#5
Because things that aren’t logical don’t exist.
I mean, unless we’re living in a spooky Lovecraftian horrorverse, and any day now all of our triangles are going to suddenly become acute AND obtuse. But that’s HIGHLY UNLIKELY.
Shplane,
So, people that don’t act illogically don’t exist?
Also, Mythbusters is awesome and I should watch it more. Even more so, now that I know it’s not just two dudes blowing things up: it’s two ATHEISTS blowing things up.
Also also, CAPSLOCK.
AlsoX3, shit I need to sleep more.
#10
Illogical IDEAS exist, but they’re wholly virtual constructs, and don’t actually “exist” per se. The physics on which those people run (And which their brains use to formulate those ideas) are entirely logical. Otherwise, we’d be living in a universe where your feet could suddenly turn into cake.
“I mean, unless we’re living in a spooky Lovecraftian horrorverse, and any day now all of our triangles are going to suddenly become acute AND obtuse. But that’s HIGHLY UNLIKELY.”
I need to point otu that they are NEITHER acute nor obtuse, they just appear to have those qualities at different observations due to imposing euclidean geometry on a non euclidean universe.
#13
True, but I was referencing an actual line from one of Lovecraft’s short stories (The ever-popular Call of Cthulhu if I remember correctly). Dude was all like “OH GOD THAT TRIANGLE IS DOES NOT GEOMETRY FFFFFFFF”. Which is so much scarier than the giant squid monster god demon priest ghost that it deserves italics. Totally.
Shplane, I was just messing around (and my #10 was a double-bluff); that said, ‘logical’ has a particular meaning (consistent within a set of axioms and inference rules set in a formal language), and to say “[things] that aren’t logical don’t exist” is begging the question.
How many is ‘nearly infinite’?
I like the ante-penultimate paragraph, myself:
Emphasis mine. Yep, that snack is light, but pretty tasty nonetheless.
#15
*Notices first “Don’t”*
FFFUUUUUUUUUUU-
Also, I don’t quite see how I was “Begging the question”. Generally in order for something to be that, one has to use their conclusion to support itself. I honestly just didn’t support my conclusion at all, as it seemed to be self evident, really.
Unless, of course, Rationalwiki is lying to me. Which I suppose is possible.
The commenter is making a statement about the world, so let’s hear what her god hypothesis really is, and what evidence she’s got, and let’s see if it holds up.
“True, but I was referencing an actual line from one of Lovecraft’s short stories (The ever-popular Call of Cthulhu if I remember correctly). Dude was all like “OH GOD THAT TRIANGLE IS DOES NOT GEOMETRY FFFFFFFF”. Which is so much scarier than the giant squid monster god demon priest ghost that it deserves italics. Totally.”
For a good treatment of this idea see the movie of 1408. The angle thing I’ve seen is best done as a creepy, hey…wtf thing (see Dreams of the Witch House)
What does he mean “three main intolerant religions”? Presumably Christianity and Islam are taking two of the spots. Then what? Hinduism? It has it’s share of reactionary arseholes, but it’s more a family of religions than a religion. Buddhism maybe? I know the “Buddhism is not a religion” thing is not really very true, but it seems an odd fit here all the same. Past that you are down to obviously second league religions: Shinto, Sikhism, Judaism…
My guess is he was talking about the three abrahamic religions.
I also thought it interesting that Savage brought up Castenada’s books as metaphorical allegories, thereby secularizing New Age the way many atheists secularize the Bible. Whenever I read someone explaining why they don’t believe in God, I tend to automatically insert one of the attenuated “spiritual” versions (God-as-Consciousness or God-as-Cosmic-Creative-Principle) into the explanation, to see if the arguments still work. That’s probably because that’s the fuzzy-wuzzy high falutin’God I rejected, when I realized I was an atheist, and I’m so used to hearing its smug little defenses. “Religion gets God sooooo wrong: try approaching God through spirituality. Then there’s no conflict.”
The major temptation often placed before atheists by intelligent theists is to re-define God into something less familiar, so that you can still look like you support the whole rotten network of faith, spirituality, and religion. I think Savage is very shrewd to reject the bait, and see through the sham.
I notice, though, a very common tendency in these ‘coming-out’ stories. At some point, the atheist feels obligated to reassure the audience that, if they want to believe in God and they keep their views to themselves, then that’s okay. You have our permission. We won’t try to change your mind. Relax: that sort of faith is a reason-free zone. You’re on “gool.”
Why the hell do we all do that? Would we do that for any other unevidenced belief? If you want to secretly believe that there’s a teapot circling Mars, or that everything happens for a ‘reason,’ or we’re all living in the Matrix but will never find out — then we won’t try to FORCE you to recant. Because of course we’re all about violence, normally, and you’re understandably skittish. And we’re going to genuflect reverently to the idea that we don’t KNOW anything with 100% certainty, so you’re still peaches with us.
It just seems odd.
Having been a long-time Mythbusters fan, I was surprised to hear the eloquence with which Adam spoke. I’m really glad this made it onto the web – I wanted to share it with everyone I know.
Rev. BDC: yes, that occurred to me. If so it’s weird. It’s common to class Christianity, Islam, and Judaism as “The Big Three” but it’s weird. In terms of numbers it would make more sense to class religious Jews with the Bahá’ís (the next biggest in the Abrahamic family). Suggesting they are on a level with the 2 Really Big Religions in terms of importance seems squickily like the old antisemitic conspiracy theories exaggerating the power of the Jews. (Not that I think that’s what Savage is up to. Classifying the Big Three like that is common enough to be almost automatic)
I agree but being that Adam (and most of us here) probably deal with those three more than the others I tend to think people speak from a personal perspective.
I rarely come in contact with or hear about Buddhists, Hindus, or people subscribing to other religions but I constantly deal with Christians, Jews and at least hear about Muslims.
So when I am bitching about the evils of religion it almost always is a result of dealing with the “big three” that I see mostly.
Great talk!
BTW:PZ, I’d prefer ,and IMHO it would be more appropriate, if you would use Secular(an affirmative and proud word) instead of godless (an insult).
“Godless” is one of the highest forms of praise I know.
Godless is a wonderful word. I’m proud to be godless, and consider it a compliment.
Want to see something pathetic? Check out the Wikipedia discussion pages for Adam and Jamie – you’ll find a bunch of desperate saps trying their hardest to deny that either of them are atheists, free-thinkers, etc. Can’t wait to see what happens now.
What a nice speech. He always seems like such a goofball on TV that it’s hard to picture him delivering something quite so serious.
Awwwwww … ain’t they cute when they’re patronizing?
“You may not believe in Him but He believes in you.”
Well, you may not believe in my asshole, but(t) my asshole believes in YOU, buddy. I’ll send you a photo of the Virgin Mary to jerk off to.
I’ve wondered for years why those guys didnt tackle religious myths.
I resigned myself to silently accept that maybe one of them had some religious values. Truth be told, I suspected Adam as more likely, Jamie seems more of a PEARList. What a pleasant surprise.
I would like to see them go out on a limb and address religion on their show. They have gathered a loyal fan base and taught them to quantify and be skeptical of urban legends and myths.
Mythbusters might not always be true science, but it certainly promulgates rationalism.
That could occasionally be useful.
Rev BDC: Fair point. It’s certainly less weird when an American such as Savage uses that classification than when a Briton does, which I have heard more than once and which is plainly bonkers; Jews comes in behind Hindus and Sikhs in the UK.
(Looking at demographic stats now.. some interesting weirdness)
@mattheath #25:
I haven’t watched the speech yet, but here are two considerations:
Perhaps,
Adam is being myopic, talking about the three most prevalent religions in the US as opposed to the world.
More likely,
he said the three “intolerant religions” not the biggest, right? Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are historically the most intolerant because they condone and promote the slaughter of infidels and apostates. Most non-Abrahamic religions (including Hinduism) were/are syncretic, happily absorbing new gods they encounter.
ajaypalster #27 wrote:
I disagree: the word “secular” has come to connote two different things, and religious people often try to blur them together, for their advantage.
One meaning of “secularism” or “secularist” deals with how one approaches the connection between God and government, or Church and State. Laws and rules meant for everyone need to keep themselves to reasoning which takes place in “the world.” Sacred laws, then, are only for those within a faith tradition. You can believe in God, and even be very devoutly religious, and still be a strict secularist. Rev. Barry Lynn, of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, is an example.
The other meaning of secularism connotes atheism.
People who attack the separation of church and state enjoy conflating secularists, with atheists. That way, they imply that freedom of conscience excludes the religious. Rev. Lynn can’t really believe in God, because he’s a “secularist.” It’s a cheap rhetorical trick. And I think that if we use the term “secular” when we mean “atheist,” we play into their hands, and help with the confusion.
As for “godless,” I personally prefer humanist or secular humanist, but think a lot of atheists like the term because it’s taking what’s meant to be an insult, and saying “oh yeah?” Kind of a Yankee-Doodle move.
Most non-Abrahamic religions (including Hinduism) were/are syncretic, happily absorbing new gods they encounter.
bullshit. Hindus go on the warpath, periodically, and so do the buddhists.
@John Morales #5: Technically it is indeed unfathomable. Of course you can prove me wrong by taking a fathom and demonstrating how it *could* be fathomed.
Consider your relationship with Tsul ‘Kalu. You may not believe in him, but he’s big and can kick your ass.
@Sastra: I never saw “godless” as an insult; I’ve always called myself godless to distinguish myself from the superstitious. Superstition is such a funny thing (in a very scary way); technically everyone is godless, but many people believe they have a god (or more). What irony.
It’s always been my impression that if you have to tell people that you’re intelligent, you probably aren’t. And if you must point up your civility, you’re probably about to abandon it.
@ Sastra #37
That’s not the only set of concepts that the religious like to conflate.
The last time this came up in a discussion here I butchered my favorite quote from Pat Condell. I’ll try to get it right this time: “To conflate spirituality with religion is like a pet store that gives away a rattlesnake with every bunny rabbit.”
He’s criticized religion before, though on the soapbox known as Twitter (@donttrythis).
When he did that he of course got a ton of angry messages and unfollows, but he was quite defiant. It was fun and quite amazing to watch. This is before his appearances at James Randi’s annual conventions I think. That man, with Jamie, are just joys to watch.
I am afraid that this quote is just a bit too glib but, damn, I so agree with this statement and I wish that this is true.
(As side note, when the show was being pitched, it was with Jamie as the host. Jamie, knowing his stumbling way with words, suggested that Adam be included because he is so glib.)
Funny, at least three times a variation of You may not believe in God be He believes in you. shows up in the comments after Adam’s speech. It is meant to be witty and profound but, damn, is it dumb. We are told that having faith, believing in the big sky daddy, is a higher good than just knowing that the BSD exists. But at the same time, the silly little goddist is making the claim that they know the BSD well enough to know that the BSD does not know the the atheist exists but, instead, has faith the existence of the atheist.
Within the context of their beliefs, the “witty” comment is complete nonsense. It think it is time to point this out to these people.
The ID type arguments aren’t all that convincing.
The fine tuning idea is just Genesis 1 updated, i.e. god made the world for us.
We now know that we live in a gigantic 13.7 billion year old universe with billions of galaxies at least.
The vast majority of the universe is vacuum where we can’t easily live. The nearest star is 4 light years away, a huge distance we can’t cross with present technology. The nearest habitable planet isn’t well known now but it is likely to be a lot further than that.
Our own solar system has one habitable planet, the rest being instantly lethal for us.
Our own planet is 3/4 salt water that we can’t live in or even use for irrigation or drink. Much of the land is either too cold at the poles or too dry in the deserts.
We live in a solar system with lots of asteroids and comets traveling about. Right now we are stuck on the surface of the third rock and are sitting ducks. The next Chicxulub event might well end the mammalian biped era. If the dinosaurs had a space program, they wouldn’t be extinct.
It just doesn’t look like the universe was created for us so much as it looks like our planet is an infinitessimial dot in an ocean of vacuum, dark matter, and dark energy. The vast majority of it is fatal to us, not that we can get to it.
To make matters worse, our galaxy is scheduled to collide with the large Andromeda galaxy 2 billion years from now. No one knows what will happen yet but current models indicate that it could be seriously hazardous to anything living then.
If we were really god’s chosen people, he could at least give us a Faster Than Light space drive.
@Janine, Mistress Of Foul Mouth Abuse, OM
BSD does exist, has for ages
proud worshipper since 1977
I was at a similar lecture the other night featuring none other than THE DOCTOR HUGH ROSS! *wild applause*
Oh, and also there was some guy who actually MADE SENSE.
Videos and commentary are here
Lychehaun owes Betrand Russel a few beers, but he was pretty logical and wonderfully godless.
Thank you, asshole, for providing me with that the “proof” of it’s existence. Also, just in case you are too tunnel visioned to have noticed, I am hardly the only atheist at this site.
Proudly godless since 1982.
Now fuck off!
Janine:
I think he meant this BSD. ;-)
(Note the initial release date)
This cannot be repeated enough times. While the lack of evidence is more than sufficient to provisionally reject the existence of any gods, theists like to (correctly) remind us that that is not the same as a proof of the non-existence of god(s). However, you can actually prove that morality is independent of god(s) via a reductio ad absurdum argument. Any attempt to define morality in relation to god(s) will inevitably result in either a logical impossibility, or else a watering down of morality to nothing more than simple obedience (which, philosophers agree, is not what any serious person means by “morality”).
While the “good without God” is a positive message that we need to get out there, it is important to point out when challenged that for all the difficulty of arriving at a god-independent morality, any god-dependent morality is a logical contradiction and can therefore be rejected out of hand.
Godless since 2009.
Down the BSD!
Oh boy, the SIWOTI is strong over there. I am at once relieved at the number of folks Adam has on his side over there, and flabbergasted at the deep levels of ignorance. I only made it about halfway through the comments before I gave it up as a lost cause.
People saying Adam is his own god, atheism is just another religion, conflating evolution and atheism (“point out the huge gaps in evolutionary theory to an atheist, and bla bla blah, ergo God.”) again (Ken Miller, internet guy. Internet guy, Ken Miller.) One guy even went to that massive obelisk of ignorance, that monument to the success of brainwashing, the old “Religion is bad because its corrupted by people. Except mine, of course, because mine was dictated directly by GOD!”
Nope. I don’t have the stomach for it, I can’t do it.
KOPD, thank you for pointing that out. I am very tech illiterate. (And I am afraid it shows.) But given my interactions with Broboxley in the past, I had no idea he was trying to make a joke. So, in this case, I am sorry.
Janine, I think that having a feminine nym is what really gets broboxly’s goat (on fire, or not). He has thoroughly demonstrated his misogyny in previous posts. I shouldn’t be baiting the troll, I know. He won’t be heeding the “fuck off!” order, anyway.
Hmmm, I have nothing to apologize for, other than my own techno-ignorance, but stand corrected for lacking a sense of humor where broboxly is concerned.
There’s a church on my way home from work that always has stupid little things like this on the sign out front. It currently reads “God loves you and there’s nothing you can do about it!” (exclamation point and everything, I swear). It’s the smarmy, smug, self-righteousness of it that makes me want to break something. I don’t care what you think your imaginary friend thinks of me. Jesus thinks you’re an asshole.
Butch Pansy, I think in this case, Broboxley saw a chance to make a joke. Except I had no idea what he was talking about. There will be ample opportunity to heap abuse upon him. This is not one of those times.
Don’t worry about that. I’m always surprised if I meet somebody outside of the industry who has actually heard of BSD and can use it properly in a sentence. And in those cases, they’re probably only familiar with it because of Apple.
And for all I know, broboxely may be a believer. I have admitted I have a hard time with names and remembering the personalities that go with them. I keep thinking I should make a list of names I see on this site and comments about them, and maybe links to a few posts. Seems like too much work, though.
Because we want to be left alone, therefore we leave others alone? What I sort of draw from it is “I’m right, and I’ll tell you why if you’d care to listen, but at the end of the day if you want to leave I won’t follow you home”. It seems to me to differentiate us from jehovah’s witnesses, mormons, and well every other damn religion that gets pull in the states where you get bothered at home.
With a guy who has a TV show, it has an extra meaning of “I’m not going to use my TV Program as a soapbox”, which is also not a guarantee we usually get for religion (See: Scrubs, or TLC)
It’s not bullshit. You’re actually both correct, here. Hinduism and Buddhism are very syncretic (Buddhism calls it skillful means, and Hinduism considers there to be many yogas, and whatever helps you leave Samsara is fine) beliefs. That’s why, for instance, rather then declaring Buddha a false idol he’s considered an incarnation of Vishnu, and technically his teachings are to be respected. Also see: Buddhism in China and Japan.
That doesn’t mean they actually follow up with perfect religious tolerance, but it doesn’t change the general nature of the religions.
Mythbusters has a policy of avoiding supernatural/paranormal ‘controversies’, because they are largely untestable and often involve proponents running away from specific predictions anyway.
I really don’t want to see Mythbusters go down the path of those awful ghost shows that you see on the SyFy channel, for instance. Jamie and Adam with flashlights in a spooky old haunted house, waving around RFI detection gear? <shudder> I’d stop watching.
Odd that no one has responded to comment #114 on the linked thread.
@ googlemess #38 First, I said nothing about the people (i.e. Hindus in your example), I was referring to the religions themselves (i.e. Hinduism). I also qualified by saying “most” and “historically”, and the original statement was qualified by saying “main”. I’m also not talking about pacifism versus aggression (e.g. the Norse Vikings were known as violent raiders who slaughtered whole villages). What I’m saying is that when one looks at religions comparatively, some tend to syncretism (historically, Hinduism, to use that example again, says oh, you worship goddess x in this area? that sounds a lot like goddess y that we worship. they must be the same goddess OR okay, we’ll worship goddess x and goddess y.), while others tend to exclusive orthodoxy (if you don’t believe exactly as the authority interprets the scripture, you must die; if you are a heathen you’d better convert, or you must die). When a syncretic religion meets one of the latter type (usually an Abrahamic one), there is always conflict, and this sometimes does result in wars where adherents of a type 1 religion do get violent (e.g. Hindus and Muslims). But that isn’t because the type 1 religion isn’t tolerant (to use the original term). If Hindus can worship Jesus along with Krishna (and many do), there’s nothing *inherent in the religion* to stop them from worshipping Allah alongside Brahma. Islam, on the other hand, says “there’s no other god than Allah, and if you don’t worship him then you’d better watch out.” See the difference?
“Godless” is fine, but I prefer “faithless”. I personally am godless, but I think there’s a lot of intellectual wiggle room between atheism, deism, and agnosticism (although deism is definitely the last refuge of the God of the Gaps, so don’t take me at my exact word).
But it’s good to see Adam say something we really mostly already knew about him. (I wouldn’t make any assumptions about Jamie though. Adam has always been the much more public about his skepticism, and from what I understand Jamie tends to stay on the outskirts of the skeptical movement.)
Same here, but I would like to see them take on UFO myths. Not so much in the “UFO Hunters” style but by showing how various photos and videos could be faked. Don’t necessarily investigate the stories directly to try to prove or disprove. Just show how it is possible to duplicate the “evidence” without actual UFO’s.
Ironically, I always LOSE a little respect for people when I find out they DO believe in God or religion…
@Janine, Mistress Of Foul Mouth Abuse, OM #58 I was just taking advantage of the OT in my name and you bit :-) wouldnt have been any fun if you had said fuck off I use z/OS
Steven Dunlap #43 wrote:
Assuming I interpret this right, I’m going to have to disagree with Condell here. I don’t have a problem grouping “spirituality” in with “religion.” Though it depends a bit on the definition, in practice they usually both involve belief in supernatural entities or realities. What bothers me is when people conflate “spirituality” with aesthetics, values, and emotions — in hope that people will then give the supernatural a free pass.
csreid #53 wrote:
Yes, this is what I hear from the Spiritual. Religion is man-made, and a corruption of spirituality — which is the pure, direct apprehension of God. Atheists don’t understand this.
Yeah, right. So I am very cautious about using a secular interpretation of “being spiritual.” I’ve seen too many bait-n-switch.
[quote]I really don’t want to see Mythbusters go down the path of those awful ghost shows that you see on the SyFy channel, for instance. Jamie and Adam with flashlights in a spooky old haunted house, waving around RFI detection gear? I’d stop watching.[/quote]
I would stop watching too if they did that. I wouldnt mind them showing alleged miracles as having mundane and rational explanations though.
After all, they have come close with myths about ESP and the like. Demystification though rationalization, as it were.
A further point: type 1 religions tend to be more tolerant overall, historically speaking. People who don’t conform are more likely to be accepted (or even thought of as having a special relationship to god or the gods). Foreigners, women, and homosexuals (for example) have often been treated better where type 1 religions are practised.
Spirituality, religion, god-they’re all facets of the same thing. And thing is made of crap. I get this shit mixed in with the secret poured in my ear eventually when I try to speak to my mother. I suppose that what turned me against the whole crock.
Sastra @68
Actually, he explicitly referred to Christianity as the one true belief dictated by God himself and thus above corruption. I left after that, my face hurt from all the palming.
But I think a lot of xtians think that way, in terms of a personal relationship with god as opposed to a religion. I’ve asked if there’s any real difference and I’ve never gotten an answer. Or perhaps I have, and I’m just not thinking about the Big Picture ™
AS is a guy the theobots won’t be able to handle. He’s smart, he’s engaging, he’s funny, he knows science, and he can conduct simple experiments that put the kybosh on stupid…or at least the kybosh on misunderstood phenomena.
Granted, theobots don’t get any of that, but for once it’s nice to have a humanist that is the sort of character religious proselytization can’t surmount by simple media-driven dismissal.
“What bothers me is when people conflate “spirituality” with aesthetics, values, and emotions — in hope that people will then give the supernatural a free pass.
Oh hell yes.
Lately in my profession (which deals with a lot of soft skills) I’ve noticed an uptick in the number of experts highlighting the need to consider one’s spirituality in their work. In these cases “spirituality” seems to be defined much as you describe, relating to aesthetics, the numinous, and perhaps a thin shade of religion alluded to through references to values and ethics. In the cases where I’ve had the opportunity, I’ve asked people to define exactly what that term means so I know where they’re coming from. The most non-crazy definition I’ve gotten was that the term means the individual conviction to perform to the highest professional standards. I would counter by saying the best term to define such behavior would be “excellence”. Why turn doing your job well into a meta-pursuit on some supernatural level?
“Spirituality” has become one of the words I detest most. It’s so vacuous and meaningless, and has the added danger of being able to be grand-fathered into just about any fact-free evidence-less solipsistic pursuit anyone can devise.
“You may not believe in Him but He believes in you.”
So in other words, I am the figment of an imaginary being’s imagination.
csreid #72 wrote:
Religious people who trash “religion” seem to run the gamut. You get everything from “I don’t have a religion — I have a personal relationship with Jesus” Fundamentalists to the ooey-gooey personalized New Age pablum, to Murky Handwaving Theology where God is a symbol pointing to Transcendence. Their diversity — and devotion — can be hidden by their common complaint that religion is bad, because it’s about dogma or buildings or power: they’ve managed to see the purity of God behind that man-made nonsense. Richard Dawkins referred to this as the “I don’t believe in that God either” response to atheism.
When the statistics show that the number of people with “no religion” is rising in America, I wonder whether some of these very devout, extremely pious, faith-infused supernaturalists have included themselves, in their eagerness to show how direct their relationship with God is.
Would anyone be willing to explain why, from the godless’ perspective, the idea of a primary mover “is the most complex and thus (given Occam’s razor) the least likley of all possible solutions to the particular problem of how we got here” (from Adam’s speech)?
Or link to an article that goes into depth on this.
Thank you.
I got to go to the presentation and talk, and both Jamie and Adam talked about how they don’t want to do untestable supernatural ideas on the show. The whole point, to them, is showing how science works–critical thinking and testing hypotheses. They also both made it clear that they have no personal use for supernatural ideas. It was a good talk, but we were promised a demo and there was no demo.
Probably very few.
Most of the spiritual but not religious types claim to be Deists or Pantheists.
I don’t have a problem with that.
They are unlikely to form terrorist squads to fight for their god who name is (who knows), because it is written in their magic book (which no one has found yet), that they should do (whatever, who knows) in the name of (not known). Or try to sneak their mythology into kid’s science classes.
The “I’m not a xian death cultist”, I’m really a xian death cultist never seemed to be very common and that trope seems to have all but died out.
re: Nathan A R, #77
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultimate_Boeing_747_gambit
Dawkins’ gambit explores the idea of ‘complexity requires an explanation’ and applies it to a god-concept, which is arguably the most complex thing in itself. The wiki article includes some of the standard criticism and response to it.
I think when atheists (mis)use the word “spirituality” to mean emotionally beautiful experiences regardless of whether a “spirit” is involved or not, they are inviting misconceptions by the other side – in exactly the same way Einstein did when he kept insisting on using the word “god” with a strange definition that he knew perfectly well was not shared by the rest of the population. When he later in life started getting frustrated with people presuming he was theistic my reaction to his complaint is, “well, what did you expect, going around saying ‘god’ when you didn’t really mean ‘god’? Of course they’re going to draw the wrong conclusion when you redefine terms like that. Oh, and by the way, thanks very much for opening up an opportunity for the fundies to mis-claim you as one of their own, over and over and over and over…. You should have been more careful and now those of us in the generations that follow you pay the price for your careless use of terms.”
Don’t say you believe in “spirituality” when you don’t believe there exist spirits to be spiritual about. You’re just inviting strawman fallacies by doing that. Instead talk about emotional beauty, which is really what you’re getting at, and using the word “beauty” has the advantage of conferring the meaning that it is a subjective opinion of preferences you’re talking about, not an actual quantity that exists outside the mind.
I got into a discussion on another forum recently, with someone who sounded like this.
But what I thought was interesting, and was a potential lever for getting her to analyze what she actually believed, was that she said that she preferred the ‘peace and joy’ of knowing God even if God doesn’t exist.
Hm, said I.
I’d like to think that my response got her thinking about what she was saying about belief.
And, he is right.
Sastra:
Sometimes I forget that. I hail from Kentland, IN, and am currently attending Purdue University about 40 miles away, so I haven’t really seen much of the world. It’s easy for me to forget that the the whole rest of the world isn’t as bathed in Christianity as my little corner.
I bet if you listen really hard, you can actually hear the wind leaving my sails, and a turd dropping into my punchbowl. I sure hope you’re wrong.
Oh, and something I forgot to mention earlier: Adam Savage got more awsome. Movie at eleven.
That ‘civil & intelligent’ bit doesn’t quite fit when sounding like a patronising fuckwit.
This is almost word for word with what Ray Comfort says about Christianity and it not being a religion.
Steven, tytalus,
Thanks so much for your help! Very informative.
Still…
Given that the empirical evidence that we have indicates that there exists one universe, with one set of physical laws, that had a beginning (so it can’t be eternal – it needs a cause), and that appears as if it were designed (therefore, is the idea of a mind behind it all “an extra arbitrarily invented entity for no good reason” or is this knowledge?), I still struggle to see why the least complex explanation is that this happened without something akin to what we know as “mind” or intelligence. If we say “[the universe itself] is the point where the [rule that we must have a cause] changes and we no longer need a cause” are we really pointing to the most simple and least complex explanation? Even if an infinite regress of designers (hierarchical polytheism) – or just one designer outside of space and time where “the buck stops” (deism, theism) – or a mind that is part and parcel of the emerging, temporal universe (non-eternal pantheism) – might be logically unfulfilling and more complex *from a certain mathematical perspective* (i.e. its not N, but N+1, or N+infinity), can we really say that it is more rational to posit the lucky lottery ticket? (even if we hypothesize [can’t test it though!] that the “6 dials” which control the “anthropic principle” could have all been tweaked together, such that certain arrangements may have been able to give rise to life in ways other than what they actually did).
Savage says, “the nearly infinite set of dominoes that have fallen into each other in order for us to be here tonight is unfathomable. Truly unfathomable. But it is logical.” Again, more “logical” *from a certain kind of mathematical perspective* (but shall we get into the murky waters of the “useful fiction” of irrational and imaginary numbers, etc?), but I am not sure why a nearly infinite set of dominos (i.e. unknown circumstances, that somehow brought about matter, motion, space, and time) is preferable, or more likely, than any of the options above. Maybe you have some solid evidence you could point to?
Don’t get me wrong – when Dawkins talks about cranes vs skyhooks, I certainly see how it is important in the everyday, practical science that we do to not invoke intelligent forces. This would be self-defeating, as in the sciences, we seek to develop models, mathematical or otherwise, of the regularities that occur in nature (so outside interventions, or miracles, are not what scientists are seeking to explore). And of course, theories should be reliable not only for instrumental purposes, for building and making this and that (i.e. “reliabilism”) – but also as tools of reflection so as to enable and enhance further exploration of aspects of the cosmos that we have not yet come to terms with – or even began to conceptualize (i.e. realism, but to truly remain science, all of this must be intricately tied to the importance of empirical confirmation as well). Still, I don’t see how this kind of reasoning is as strong when we get out of the present and the immediately practical and testable and consider the great questions of cosmology and the origins of life (why something rather than nothing?, etc).
Any more comments would be appreciated. I’m sure I’m not even close to a worthy intellectual opponent for many on this blog, so please shoot down my arguments. I can only learn from the experience. : )
Thanks again.
Nathan:
Compare: [something→Universe] vs. [Universe].
Which of those options is simpler? :)
“Given that the empirical evidence that we have indicates that there exists one universe, with one set of physical laws, that had a beginning (so it can’t be eternal – it needs a cause), and that appears as if it were designed-”
STOP! Hammer time.
You make an assertion here. Back it up. The rest of your argument is invalid if this unsubstantiated point is. I think there’s a clear difference between a tumor and a Rolex.
Actually, here’s the hammer time. This is where you beg the question. You must back up this assertion. We only know that this edition of the universe had a beginning. We have no evidence that what it expanded from had a beginning.
It also shows why a god proposition is more complex. You must create a god to cause the universe, and then you must assert that it does not need a cause itself, and is in fact eternal, and is capable of causing the universe. All without having any evidence to show that such a being does or even could exist.
This is false. We don’t know that there is only one universe. Many current theories in physics claim that we may be one universe in a multiverse. Sometimes the answer to a scientific question isn’t yes or no, it is “we don’t know, yet.”
This is false. The universe as far as we know is eternal. It is not known if it had a beginning. Some cosmological theories do not have a beginning, others have infinite universes with ones budding off continuously. Two of the leading theories are colliding branes and the multiverse. Again, we don’t know yet.
This is false. It is simply an opinion from ignorance, incredulity, and wishful thinking. Most scientists look at the universe and life and it doesn’t looked designed by an intelligent entities at all. The designer of life on earth is known, evolution is a powerful designer capable of producing what we see today in the biosphere.
Really, stringing false assertions together proves nothing. This isn’t science or logic, it is religious babbling.
plus yoou know. A universe creating GOD is by most definitions more complex than anything else mechanically
a) it is beyond time and space
b) not limited to physical laws
c) all powerful, thus infinitely more complex than any given universe.
Thus the proposed answer to a gap in this question is an entity that has properties never before seen or observed and more energy available than is known to exist. QED, God–> universe is a theory that has more assumption and prepositions than just universe, making it more likely given the evidence on hand.
Oh and supposedly has no creator/origin which means that proposing it as an answer clearly violates the paradox to begin with.
Nathan AR #89 wrote:
There are several problems here, but I’m going to pick out the one which involves assuming “mind” as a simple, irreducible existent which is capable of starting everything off. It is not. Mind is not a “thing” which exists separate from brains, and it does not work by sending out some sort of force or energy which makes things happen. Assuming this is an appeal to primitive, sloppy intuitions which runs counter to our discoveries in modern neuroscience. In other words, it’s a scientific conflict.
There is a second problem here:
“Mental things, brains, minds, consciousnesses, things that are capable of comprehending anything — these come late in evolution, they are a product of evolution. They don’t come at the beginning. So whatever lies behind the universe will not be an intellect. Intellects are things that come as the result of a long period of evolution.” (Richard Dawkins)
So, in order to posit “mind” as a simple solution to the ’cause’ of everything, you have to begin with “IF everything we know about mind is wrong, then mind might exist in such a way that it qualifies as both simple, irreducible, and primary.” That’s a very serious flaw.
If you leave “mind” out of God, then there’s no good reason to call it God, except as metaphor.
WTH??? Logic fail. Occam’s Razor says the theory with the least assumptions and prepositions is the one that is usually correct. You are just making stuff up.
The universe doesn’t look designed or fine tuned for us at all. In fact, the vast, overwhelming majority of it is instantly lethal and useless to us. And we are stuck on a rock with an expiration date a billion or so years from now when the sun novas unless we collide with the nearest large galaxy first.
Posted by: raven | April 20, 2010 10:58 AM
The ID type arguments aren’t all that convincing.
The fine tuning idea is just Genesis 1 updated, i.e. god made the world for us.
We now know that we live in a gigantic 13.7 billion year old universe with billions of galaxies at least.
The vast majority of the universe is vacuum where we can’t easily live. The nearest star is 4 light years away, a huge distance we can’t cross with present technology. The nearest habitable planet isn’t well known now but it is likely to be a lot further than that.
Our own solar system has one habitable planet, the rest being instantly lethal for us.
Our own planet is 3/4 salt water that we can’t live in or even use for irrigation or drink. Much of the land is either too cold at the poles or too dry in the deserts.
We live in a solar system with lots of asteroids and comets traveling about. Right now we are stuck on the surface of the third rock and are sitting ducks. The next Chicxulub event might well end the mammalian biped era. If the dinosaurs had a space program, they wouldn’t be extinct.
It just doesn’t look like the universe was created for us so much as it looks like our planet is an infinitessimial dot in an ocean of vacuum, dark matter, and dark energy. The vast majority of it is fatal to us, not that we can get to it.
To make matters worse, our galaxy is scheduled to collide with the large Andromeda galaxy 2 billion years from now. No one knows what will happen yet but current models indicate that it could be seriously hazardous to anything living then.
If we were really god’s chosen people, he could at least give us a Faster Than Light space drive.
WTH??? Logic fail. Occam’s Razor says the theory with the least assumptions and prepositions is the one that is usually correct. You are just making stuff up.”
Um, that’s what I said. God+universe’s assumptions > Universe, therefore Universe is the winner.
Oh…wait. Pronoun It==Just the Universe in my sentence not God hypothesis. Bad wording but I think you could get from the context of the rest of my argument against the God hypothesis what I meant.
Raven,
I’m pretty sure Ing is on our side of this.
Hey, Ing. You’re the same Ing from the AE blog, right?
Hey all,
Thanks for the answers to my questions. I was out sick yesterday and won’t be able to get back to a computer for a few days. So, I’ll try to respond by Tuesday or so.
Thanks again,
Nathan
Hello godless ones,
I was able to snag some computer time (no internet at home) this morning.
Lots of issues here. First of all, Ing, you are addressing my arguments as if they are theistic arguments. I’m not making interested arguing with the kinds of assertions you list. My argument is far more general, more akin to that of Einstein (which Dawkins also ignores, as best I can tell).
I must say, I find your responses interesting. I did not suspect that my premises would be called into question, but only my reasoning following from those premises. I thought the premises themselves to be rather uncontroversial. Further, I am said by one above to be doing “religious babbling” (raven), but as best I can tell, you guys above are the ones arguing not on the basis of evidence (“look at this”), but rather assertion and argument from authority.
Let me explain.
First of all, regarding the idea that the universe had a beginning and so must have a cause. It seems to me that experience teaches us that anything that we can locate, circumscribe, measure (count) and describe in space and time, for example, has a cause. Can you think of exceptions? If this is the case, it seems reasonable to think that whatever the universe arose from also had a cause. Yes, you can talk about how this is “infinite regress” etc., but are you now not getting into philosophical argumentation about why this is unsatisfying. Again, human experience – and especially the experiences of experimenting scientists – teaches us that the things and events we examine in the world have a cause – even if we can not always determine exactly what that cause, or causes is/are. Interestingly, as some philosophers have pointed out, the methodological approach that David Hume used to cause skepticism about causation itself employs the logic of causation (see here, for example: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/hume-newton/ ). In this sense, if we are going to be consistent scientists, it is hardly more complex to say that the most reasonable explanation is that anything we can locate, circumscribe, measure (count) and describe has a cause. Also, I am wondering about the evidence that lies behind the statement: “this edition of the universe” (Ibis 3).
Second, re: infinite universes, let’s get real. I’m a concrete kind of guy. Even things we can’t directly observe, like atoms or blackholes, for example, have all kinds of concrete evidence surrounding them. In cases like these, I can get not only mathematically-based hypos, but hard evidence backing them up. What kind of hard evidence can you show me for multiple universes? What kind of real evidence can you produce that even suggests that this is a reasonable consideration? (I’m not interested in arguments from authority: because such-and-such physicist says so).
Third, let’s talk appearance of design. Raven: Most scientists say it doesn’t look designed at all. Huh? If arguably the most vociferous critics of the belief in a Designer, or Mind, says that we must constantly remind ourselves that the universe is not designed (Blind Watchmaker), and in fact builds his whole “skyhook vs. crane” distinction on the idea that the universe looks designed (if that Wikipedia article is right), I’d say I’m justified in having that as a premise. A tumor might indeed be quite a bit different from a rolex, but both a good computer program and a bad computer virus nevertheless look designed, for example, so I’m not sure what you are getting at here.
Fourth, this whole assertion about mind following from brain (Dawkins, quoted above by Sastra, #96). This is an assertion not grounded in evidence (at least as presented here). Let me ask a simple question. If you decide to not take drugs that would destroy the functioning abilities of your brain, for example, was that “choice” determined by your brain alone, or was something else involved?
One person, John Morales, did grant my premises and address my argument (post #90): “Compare: [something→Universe] vs. [Universe] ; Which of those options is simpler? : )” Here is my response:
John, are you saying that given that we have a single, non-eternal, law-packed universe that appears designed, it is more rational to *not* concern ourselves with matters of causation here (i.e. beginners, big bangers, whatever), since to do so would be to introduce more complexity than is necessary – in spite of the fact that science, in general, is about the practical matters of discovering regularities and what causes this or that? Also, would I be right to assume that your position would also be that whether or not the idea of a designing “mind” is empirically testable or not is besides the question, since non-mind theories would also not be empirically testable in the cases of cosmology or the origins of life?
Thanks again for the answers, interaction, challenges, etc. If you reply, I’ll answer again – but not until I can grab some substantial computer access time again.
-Nathan
Dawkins explicitly states that he has little interest in arguing against the vague and somewhat incoherent pantheism of Albert Einstein.
http://catdir.loc.gov/catdir/enhancements/fy0666/2006015506-s.html
Are you aware of virtual particle pair production under the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics?
It’s not merely philosophical, but logical: You either acknowledge that there is such an infinite regress of causes, which means that your cause is not actually the first one, or you’re making a claim that your cause (for which you have no empirical evidence) doesn’t need to have a cause (and you have no empirical evidence for this claim, either). This is special pleading, which is a logical fallacy.
Right now, cosmologists and theoretical physicists are generating hypotheses about how the universe might have arisen, and what might have become before, or if “before” is a meaningless concept given a specific start time for time itself. Until they find evidence that supports one scenario, we have no way of knowing which one is valid.
All that you have is your scientifically naïve extrapolation.
Human experience is woefully inadequate to handle the vast majority of space and time in the universe, and completely fails in attempting to discuss any putative “cause” of our universe. That’s why we need empirical evidence before coming to certain conclusions about the universe.
Do you actually know anything about cosmology?
Heh. And we cannot locate, circumscribe, measure or describe the very beginning of the universe.
It’s one set of real cosmological hypotheses. Do you actually know anything about cosmology?
I’m inclined to doubt this.
What kind of hard evidence can you show for your first cause?
Well, as for it being reasonable, all it takes is mathematical and logical consistency with our current understanding of the Big Bang. Do you want a list of peer-reviewed published papers on the topic?
Do you understand the difference between argument from authority and argument from expertise? You’ve pretty much been arguing from your own authority, and have demonstrated no expertise whatsoever.
Thus contradicting you being a concrete kind of guy…
Because emphasizing that an illusion is an illusion means… what, exactly? That the illusion isn’t an illusion?
Do you not understand that there’s a difference between looking and actually being designed?
Have you ever heard of pareidolia?
This is an argument from deep ignorance. Have you ever even opened a neuropsychology textbook or done any research at all in neurology?
And this is incoherent as any sort of counter-argument. Why would “something else” be involved? Why should anyone believe in your suggested “something else”, given your demonstrated ignorance of the topic you want to make assertions about? Where is the hard evidence for this “something else”, Mr. Allegedly-Concrete-Kind-of-Guy?
You missed 20th century physics. As Owlmirror mentioned, virtual particles appear all the time out of the vacuum without a “cause”.
You have to consider the possibility that the “appearance of design” says more about how our mind categorizes things than about the universe.
There is tons of evidence. Neurology is confirming this all the time.
We also see that damage to the brain changes the mind.
It is not just held by a few physicists. It is held by either a majority or a large minority of them. I am personally skeptical about it, but it is a respectful position within physics.
I don’t understand what’s the point of this silly question.
Questions of the origin of life are definitely empirical testable. There have been many experiments that have tried to replicate the conditions of Earth about 4 billion years ago and see what chemicals can be produced in that enviroment.
_ _ _ _
Carl Sagan gave a good argument regarding God (or gods) creating the universe. If you ask who created God than the answer usually is either God created himself or God always was. Well, why not save a step and say the universe created itself or the universe always was. At least you know the universe actually exists.
Personally, I just answer the question of why there is something rather than nothing with: I do not know. We got scientists working on it. They may or may not actually come up with an answer. However, this God hypothesis is extremely unsatisfactory and should be rejected.
The Goddidit argument is really old. Science cannot explain it, therefore God. The God of the Gaps. An argument from ignorance. Except the gaps have been getting smaller and smaller. A lot of things attributed to God have been been explained by science. Why the Earth circles the sun and why is there such diversity in nature. Maybe science can or cannot answer why there is something rather than nothing, but the theist position offers nothing.
Feynmaniac, Chimerical Toad, owlmirror,
Thanks for your comments. I’ll read over them when I get a chance and try to comment again by this time next week (if it still allows comments) – if you’d like to take me down to size again. : )
~Nathan
Nathan,
Nope.
Nope.
Why bother? What part of you are wrong don’t you understand?
John,
Thank you for correcting my false assumptions, although when you reply “compare: [something→Universe] vs. [Universe]”, as if you’ve answered my objection, I am left wondering why you think that is so obvious. Feel free to write more, as I would love to interact more, although I understand perfectly if you have no desire to do so.
Nerd of Redhead,
If you have no desire to see me work through these issues with people who are willing to continue to talk, that is your perogative. If I am wrong, I hope to be shown to be wrong through good evidence and argumentation. Although I don’t want to be wrong, I certainly wish to learn from the disagreements that come about in the course of conversation.
Owlmirror,
(Feynmaniac, Chimerical Toad – your concerns are addressed below as well)
I don’t mean to flatter you, but you are obviously a very sharp and rhetorically clever atheist, and so I hope that I can continue to have the honor of your challenging my arguments. I confess to some ignorance (though perhaps not as much as you might think I have), and also admit that I should know more about cosmology. . I’m learning more all the time. That said, I think I am pretty up on the importance of expertise vs authority in general, so don’t worry there. Of course experts in fields, for all their agreements, often disagree greatly. Much of this comes down to who you trust.
First, I read the piece you linked to from Dawkin’s book, and I think Dawkin’s failure to really deal with Einstein is lamentable, especially given that both of them are scientists. Why not deal with a fellow scientist’s argument, nay the argument of the greatest scientist of the 20th century, which though perhaps harder to understand, is also either respected or held to by many scientists (esp. physicists) today? As best I can tell, Dawkins does all kinds of irresponsible things here, two of which are: a) redefining pantheism without saying that he is doing this, b) giving the impression that Einstein’s disbelief in a personal God is equivalent to meaning that when he uses “God” he only means it as an illustration of nature’s laws and nothing more, etc. Judging by Einstein’s other comments, this seems absurd.
Anyway, the argument I am trying to advance here is not that there must necessarily be a being called God outside, and completely separate from the universe (the created realm), but simply that there is something akin to a Mind which is ultimately responsible for that which we experience as regards the world (and correspondingly, is something/one(s) that we should be in awe of, have reverence for, etc.). I think it makes much more sense – and is more intellectually responsible, rational – to think that Mind precedes Matter than the other way around (despite all assertions to the contrary about what brain science has clearly “shown” us here – see below).
On the other hand, Dawkins says, “If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural”, and I guess I don’t understand that “hope”. Why should it make a difference one way or the other? How is that science and not religious babbling?
Owlmirror, I think you misunderstand my point about human experience and causation. It does not preclude the importance of empirical evidence. Yes, this *experience of empirical evidence* is necessary – for the historian, the lawyer, and especially, in a more crucial way, for the “hard” scientist (who actually sets up formalized experiments to do this). And all our experiences of empirical evidence show us that the things around us have causes. So when you argue that “human experience is woefully inadequate to handle the vast majority of space and time in the universe”, and that “we need empirical evidence before coming to certain conclusions about the universe”, I think you are missing this basic point: for a scientist to speak about his human experience is not to discount the importance of empirical evidence, which seamlessly fits in experience. What might I be missing from your perspective here?
Re: my “infinite regress” point, I am only saying that given our knowledge about the nature of causation – and scientists natural interest in this – it seems to me that there is no good reason why the hypothesis that whatever came before the universe caused itself, for example, is any more simple than the hypothesis that there is an infinite regress of causes that, were an instrument-ready scientist present (like when the scientist imagines when he constructs the original conditions that he thinks life began, in effect imagining what it would have been like to “be there” – I know, this bit about the imagined “non-time-non-space-bound” observer with measuring instruments was not in my original message), could be located, circumscribed, measured (count) and described. That’s it – I don’t even have to get into “first causes”*** (though this would, as you say, be a way to stop the regress) to make this point. This all corresponds with my general realist presupposition (the falling tree doesn’t make a sound if no one is there, but it does cause strong “trains of compression waves” in the air surrounding it). Saying that N is more simple than N+1 or N+infinity, and hence preferable, seems to simplify matters way too much (not to mention flattens out the nuance inherent in the idea of parsimony in ways Occam, of course, would never have stomached), again, especially given the uniform evidence that we have all experienced (and scientists only more so) regarding matters of causation.
As you say, “Right now, cosmologists and theoretical physicists are generating hypotheses about how the universe might have arisen, and what might have become before, or if ‘before’ is a meaningless concept given a specific start time for time itself. Until they find evidence that supports one scenario, we have no way of knowing which one is valid.” Right – or if any of them are valid. You admit that we have to wait for evidence, which is all well and good, otherwise we have left the realm of science. At the same time, are you aware of any possible forms this evidence might take? Again, re: my point above about the “uniform evidence that we have all experienced regarding matters of causation” (hopefully explained better now than before) why is saying that we must keep our eyes focused on causation here if we are going to continue to call ourselves “scientists” necessarily a scientifically naïve extrapolation? Feynmaniac, Chimerical Toad, mentions Sagan’s view, saying “Well, why not save a step and say the universe created itself or the universe always was. At least you know the universe actually exists”, but again, we know the universe had a beginning, and since evidently, causation reigns supreme, it makes no sense to just give up thinking here.
Re: the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, are you insisting that the virtual particle pair production is uncaused – or that we have yet to identify the cause? According to my very limited understanding of the topic, virtual particles *are real and it seems that we have ways of observing and measuring the things they do*. Therefore, would it be a “scientifically naïve extrapolation” to suggest that, if scientists keep doing what they are doing there is a good chance, given the “uniform evidence that we have all experienced regarding matters of causation” I mention above, that there are things that cause these regularities (which often look like they are completely unpredictable, but when we look closer we find out that there are indeed regularities that are occurring here) and that we will be able to identify the causes (which then leads us to the next puzzle…)? Why would we think that this would not be the case? And if we can’t identify a cause due to the fact that we presently can’t locate, circumscribe, measure, this or that, why would we ever assume that a) it is forever unlocatable, uncircumscibable, unmeasurable, etc…(isn’t this one of the reasons they build those big colliders, so these kinds of things can be done) b) it, if “unlocatable…” is likely uncaused? This seems like giving up (maybe not with “God did it”, but “chance and nothing did it”). Note that my argument said that anything that we “*can* locate, circumscribe…”, etc… has a cause. I did not say that things that we could not do this necessarily do not have a cause (whereas for Dawkin’s “skyhooks” must have causes, but some cranes evidently need not…)
Re: infinite universes, we have “real cosmological hypotheses”, but again, as you admit, we have to wait for evidence. In this case, I am really wondering what kinds of possible forms this evidence might take? Can we even conceive of any? How are we going to – how could we ever – get *concrete* evidence here? It seems to me that, “mathematical and logical consistency with our current understanding of the Big Bang” aside, if there is no real hope for ever obtaining concrete evidence for any of these real cosmological hypotheses, maybe its not a “reasonable consideration” – at the very least insofar as time and money are concerned! (not to mention how these discoveries might conceivably be useful for humanity were they to be discovered – you don’t have to convince me that truth is simply worth knowing for its own sake, but you do need to convince others, with the limited resources we as humans must deal with). I don’t mean for these questions to be rhetorical – I really would like to know if you might be able to give me some leads.
Re: my concerns about appearance of design, this hardly suggests I’m not a concrete kind of guy though, or subject to pareidolia. Of course I have considered that there may be a difference between something actually being designed and only looking like it is (illusion). I have gone through many a doubt actually about my faith in God. At the same time, having looked at things pretty closely, I tend to think that asserting that there is no intelligence behind everything is a terribly irresponsible thing to say. The sense of the idea that there is a Mind behind it all (as with Einstein I think) is too difficult for me to believe.
You answered the mind-brain question the way I thought you would: “why would ‘something else’ be involved. In which case I am very curious to know what you think about free will. I am curious to know how you reconcile your materialist worldview with the fact that you evidently somehow embrace determinism and yet also, evidently, free will. Yes, damage to the brain does change how our mind functions, and yet, at the same time, brain scientists have shown that the choices “we” make can change, and rewire, our brains. But of course, I am guessing that you would say that this only offers us the illusion of “mind over matter”. In which case I am curious to know more about how you see everything shaking out.
Finally, I would like to know exactly where I have demonstrated ignorance about the “topic[s] [I] want to make assertions about”. I don’t deny that this is true, and I fully admit not to be expert in all these areas, but I pay a bit of attention to them. Specific examples of where I have definitely gone awry would be appreciated.
Hope to continue the conversation – although I probably won’t be able to comment until Tuesday again.
Thanks again owlmirror, (and Feynmaniac, Chimerical Toad)
~Nathan
*** – Like David Bentley Hart says from his article last week: “nothing contingent, composite, finite, temporal, complex, and mutable can account for its own existence, and that even an infinite series of such things can never be the source or ground of its own being, but must depend on some source of actuality beyond itself. Thus, abstracting from the universal conditions of contingency, one very well may (and perhaps must) conclude that all things are sustained in being by an absolute plenitude of actuality, whose very essence is being as such: not a “supreme being,” not another thing within or alongside the universe, but the infinite act of being itself, the one eternal and transcendent source of all existence and knowledge, in which all finite being participates.” I’ll admit I’m not sure I get all that, but the wise man does not ignore that which he first does not understand. : )
“On the other hand, Dawkins says, “If there is something that appears to lie beyond the natural world as it is now imperfectly understood, we hope eventually to understand it and embrace it within the natural”, and I guess I don’t understand that “hope”. Why should it make a difference one way or the other? How is that science and not religious babbling?”
I take this back. I think I understand what Dawkins is saying here, and I think I do understand his hope: he wants to figure out “how things work” “in the circumscribed system” as much as possible. If I understand him correctly, I do think this is the way to approach things.
Still, though I think I understand the Dawkins quote above, it seems to me that ignoring the “why question” by saying “Everything is the way it is because it got that way” [J. B. S. Haldane.], for example, is not the way to go. After all, if we agree that there was a beginning to the one universe we can observe, and that like effects proceed from like causes (Newton), and agree on the “effect” of existence (i.e. we really do exist), it seems obvious that existence is more like mind/intellect (rational, ordered) than non-mind/nonintellect (irrational, chaotic). Therefore, it seems to follow that a mind (i.e. a Beginner or Big Banger or whatever) is required by the observation of the evidence that we see. This, it seems clear to me, is the least complex explanation for this problem (if one counters by saying that we can’t conceive of what “non-mind” would be like, is that really a point in their favor?). Again, anyone who calls him/herself a scientist should rightly see the point of plumbing the depths of “how things work” (within ethical boundaries), but when it comes to considering the wider “way stuff happens”, including the “why” question, it seems clear to me that naturalistic thinking, although useful in the context of experiment and observation (in the hard sciences) must be humbled before the thinking and methodologies of other realms. *This*, I think, is clearly the least complex explanation for this problem.
In the end, it seems to me that the pure materialist is like a man who, after receiving crucial radio communication that helps him to navigate his surroundings, claims that he has, at bottom, obtained nothing but atmospheric noise.
~Nathan
I said:
“The sense of the idea that there is a Mind behind it all (as with Einstein I think) is too difficult for me to believe.”
I meant to say:
“It is too hard for me not to believe that there is a Mind behind it all (as with Einstein I think)”
Sorry about that.
~Nathan
Yawn, still no physical evidence for his imaginary deity. Ergo, it doesn’t exist.
Still no need for his imaginary deity, even philosophically. Ergo, philosophy won’t get him where he wants to be, and he has no physical evidence to support the philosophy, which makes it sophistry.
It appears there is no need for any imaginary deity for anything.
I note a double-standard here in you arguing from authority…
And if Einstein actually had a coherent argument, I have not seen it. Can you point to any such argument?
http://einsteinandreligion.com/
And the greatness of any scientist is based on what they can actually argue coherently from evidence.
WTF? What, exactly, are you talking about?
It’s entirely possible that Einstein contradicted himself on this matter, or changed his mind, or expressed absurdities. What “other comments” can you point to, either in the site above, or in his other writings?
And you are entirely wrong and incoherent in your reasoning.
Because if we don’t understand it, we cannot say anything coherent about it at all.
It is metaphysical naturalism, which is an extension of the methodological naturalism that is the basis of science. You may not like it, but it is neither religious, nor babbling.
You’re missing that causation is inevitably bound up in time, and you’re trying to extrapolate causation to a point before time may have even existed. Nothing coherent can be said about that without a theory of what time is and how it works, which we don’t have, or have in only the tiniest amount.
Of course, it may turn out that time is infinite, but that still doesn’t help you. Causation is also based on the forces and laws of the universe; the physical constants operating over time — and you’re also trying to extrapolate causation to before those constants, forces, and laws may have been what they are now
Basically, everything we know about causation and how it works is based on here and now; on a universe with matter, energy, and laws governing matter and energy operating over space and time. We’ve been able to observe a consistency in causation going back in time to just about the point of the inflation of the universe. But we don’t have anything going back further — and certainly little reason to think that what we know worked the same way before the zero point.
You give no sign of understanding parsimony any better than you do anything else.
Is it necessary as an explanation, given the evidence we currently have, to posit an entity that caused the universe?
The answer is “no”.
That may change, but only with evidence that we don’t currently have.
If I were, I would be a cosmologist myself. I am not.
Because so much that was guessed to always be the case turned out to not be the case at all with further physical evidence.
No-one is saying to give up thinking — but you’re offering your speculation, without rigorous logic or evidence, as a conclusion.
Under the Copenhagen Interpretation of QM, virtual particle pair production is necessarily uncaused; the universe is inherently nondeterministic.
If anyone can demonstrate the incorrectness of the Copenhagen Interpretation and that QM is deterministic instead, that person(s) will change all of physics and be worthy of the Nobel prize.
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle.
Or rather, “chance and the fundamental laws of the Universe”, which is certainly more parsimonious than bringing in a God that you have no evidence for. Unless you want to call “the fundamental laws of the Universe” God, which would make you an Einsteinian pantheist.
So God, too, does not necessarily not have a cause?
Sure, but that’s only the “cranes” at the very bottom of the causal chain, in subatomic particles. Note that the further down you go, the “dumber” everything is, which is the whole point of the skyhook-crane analogy — a “skyhook” is an intelligence which demands explanation but has none; small dumb “cranes” building bigger ones to eventually become intelligences of greater and greater complexity require no further explanation than the building process itself, which is evolution by natural selection.
If we could, they would start being falsifiable scientific theories.
I would suggest that you read up on current cosmology first — you know, what we currently have actual concrete evidence for? First science, then speculation.
You have given no sign at having looked closely at anything that is actual concrete science — no physics, no cosmology, no evolutionary biology, no neurology, nothing.
What do you call “looking at things pretty closely”?
We have no reason to think that there is any intelligence behind everything, based on everything we know about everything, which includes everything we know about what intelligence is and how it works. No reason whatsoever — which is not quite the same as asserting that there is no intelligence behind everything.
Parsimony.
You do realize that this is nothing but an argument from incredulity?
I await, with interest, the evidence that Einstein thought there was such a mind.
Which, I note, is a question that you don’t answer.
How does this even begin to address the question of there being “something else”?
First of all, note that the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics means that our universe is, at a fundamental level, nondeterministic.
Secondly, at the level of the cell, biochemistry is to a certain degree contingent and stochastic.
See: Buffeted by the winds of chance: why a cell is like a casino
And there continues to be contingent factors at every level at which our brains work.
That having been said, some think that since the stochastic “noise” smooths out at higher levels, our brains are mostly deterministic, and “free will” is an illusion.
I really don’t know for sure, and I don’t see the applicability of the question to whether mind can possibly exist before and without a functioning brain, which in so far as you’ve presented no evidence for such a thing, remains an absolute “no”.
And? So? The brain being an organ that can modify itself does not argue for mind existing without a brain.
====
Looks like pantheism, talks like pantheism — I’d say that this is an argument for pantheism.
Whoop-tee-do.
====
This is a silly false analogy. Existence is what it is. It contains that which follows simple laws — and those laws lead to both order and chaos, and (eventually) to minds. But minds are complex, and the lowest level of existence itself is simple, and thus not mind-like.
As Sastra has suggested elsewhere in response to this sort of argument, you’re seeing the effect of your own mind seeking patterns and regularity, and mistaking your own mind for the mind of God.
This is apophenia turned into an argument.
No, a cognitive error on the part of those making the argument is the least complex explanation. Existence is not like a mind; existence contains our own minds, which can be prone to making errors.
You continue with your false analogies. Sigh. There is no “crucial radio communication”. You’re listening to noise and imagining a signal.
Hm.
Do you feel that you lack control over your life?
In re-reading my response @#112, it occurred to me to expand on and clarify some of what I wrote:
This is in regards to fundamental physics, and cosmology — both of which are relevant to the question of what causation means, at its most basic level, especially regarding the question of what time is, and what it means for time itself to have begun (and if time did not begin, then how time could have worked in leading up to our universe as we understand it now).
(Fixed.)
The final clauses of that might look like I’m saying that we can stop looking for explanations, but that isn’t my intent. I just mean that all further explanation is in understanding the details of the general explanation; going from the general to the specific.
And while “evolution by natural selection” is the explanation of how brains arose over generations, neurology (and related sciences) would also be involved, inasmuch as that involves the investigation of the details of how brains develop in individuals and work to become minds/intelligences.
By the way, can you provide a definitive explanation of what you think “free will” is, and what it means? I may have some more thoughts, but I’d rather not second-guess.
Owlmirror,
I composed this earlier today and am cutting and pasting it in quickly (so I don’t have time to even read your most recent post)…:
Thank you again for your interaction and patience. I truly mean this. By the way, although I think it is important for me to try to explore argumentation for “Mind before matter” from the perspective of methodological naturalism (since I believe that it is good that scientists take this approach, in order to spur further research) – obviously not metaphysical naturalism – I need to let you know that I am a Christian (like “pantheistic”-sounding David Bentley Hart, who I quoted above), and that I talked with you before. I vaguely recalled that when you showed up here to challenge me, as I recognizing your name, but then I went back and looked at the other Pharyngula thread I had spent time on (the Jerry Bergman one: http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/11/that_bergman-myers_debate.php ), and saw that it was you who talked to me and challenged me the most. By the way, that thread closed down before I was able to respond to you there (we had been talking a bit about Jesus Christ and history), so, if you are interested, let me know, and I will post the response I composed here (and we can juggle more balls). If not, all fine and good. In any case, judging from your opinion of my arguments (and knowledge) on this thread, I would not be surprised if you concluded you have been patient enough. : )
You are helping me to think ever more critically about all this stuff, which is good. Unfortunately, again I have limited computer time and access, and even more limited time to read up on many these things like I wish I could (busy with work and big family). I am hoping that I will be able to put together a substantial response (one worth reading [I can hear Nerd of Redhead OM laughing]) within the next week – if comments are allowed past that point. If I don’t get to respond to you by then, please know that I will be chewing on your thoughts for times to come – and I suppose our paths may cross again.
A couple more quick comments I can make: I am realizing that ideas of what constitutes Pantheism are far more complicated than I imagined, which I guess should not surprise me (given its “like nailing jello to a wall” quality). I looked into this a bit more (and will be reading up on it even more), and I guess I thought that even modern versions of pantheism (pantheism is old even if the word is relatively new) had more in common with the ancient Hindu form and Pre-Socratic forms than they evidently do – so I suppose it is not really totally irresponsible for Dawkins to call, pantheism – at least one common modern version of it – “sexed up atheism”, as I supposed it was. Also, as regards your link to the “control” study: if one of the primary motivations that Epicureus made clear for clinging to his “god-disempowering” atomism are in any case common (namely, that it makes sense to train ourselves to think in such a way so that the possibility of divine judgment does not occupy our thoughts and influence our actions), it seems to me that not only believers in God but unbelievers as well ought to consider that that study about control you cite might actually apply to them. : )
Thanks again. Hope to be back within a week (unless you want me to post the Jesus stuff to, since I can probably cut and paste that pretty quickly if I can get to a computer)
~Nathan
It helps that you give a timeframe for your intermittent responses. If you just commented and left, I would have less reason to check back.
I’m not particularly surprised.
Any particular denomination? I’ve had long-running arguments/discussions with a Calvinist, a conservative Catholic, sundry fundamentalists, and other individuals where denomination didn’t come up.
I vaguely remembered your name as well, but I didn’t feel motivated to search out what we had discussed before — my thinking being that if you wanted to revisit those points, you would just do so here.
The thread didn’t close down, but did go silent (“closed down” means that PZ changes the thread settings so that nothing can be appended). While it’s possible to still add comments there, I think we should stay in this thread until further notice.
Sure, I suppose it might be worth a look. Now that I’ve re-read that thread a bit, I’m curious to see what you might have.
I just checked, and I still have that number I referred to in a file on my disk. I’ve had it since July of 2008, when I got into a similar argument with someone else.
(He didn’t present any of the digits either)
And this is something of an annoyance. But we’ll see what happens.
PZ usually does not close threads down until they reach more than six hundred comments, at least (and there starts to be an actual impact on system performance), and will often let threads approach a thousand comments, or even a bit past that point. Since this one is currently barely over 100 comments, we should be OK for a while.
Of course, he may also just get annoyed anyway. We’ll see.
If the word did not exist, then I don’t see how you can be sure that what existed before the word is necessarily described by the word. Perhaps you were thinking of what is currently called “Panentheism”?
I don’t see how — after all, the point was that people lacking control see things in patterns that are not there, not that people who don’t see things that aren’t there lack control.
Owlmirror:
What follows is what I had planned to share with you last December, but could not (and I was simultaneously disappointed, because I worked long and hard to give you and others my best response – and somewhat relieved, since I had other responsibilities and could not keep it up forever! : ) ) Sorry some of what follows is not directed towards you, but I edited this quickly (leaving in bits to others I thought you might find interesting). I promise to read what you have written and will at least write something by Tuesday. By the way, as you will see, I think I am quite a bit more knowledgable when it comes to the Bible, Jesus and history (than cosmology). By the way, I am a Lutheran (one who knows and holds to the Book of Concord of 1570, composed shortly after the Reformation). My best to you. Here it is:
Re: “Following the evidence” vs. my alleged presuppositionalism… – As I said, I was given the Christian faith in my youth, came to love Jesus (whom my very loving parents only imperfectly mapped), and for a long time of course I saw the world exclusively through that lens. As I grew older, I naturally took an interest in the views of others around me, and wanted to get an idea for how they saw the world. During this process, I became convinced that it is very reasonable to question the worldview that one grew up with (given the variety of claims by seemingly endless authorities and religions), and to continually insist on the importance of public, external evidence that anyone can examine in any attempt to change another person’s mind. I will not put up with religions that focus on my own internal states and refuse to offer external evidences on the ground that can be examined and tested…. Can I provide “conclusive physical evidence” for the God I claim? My point is that this God has given evidence in the resurrection, attested by the empty tomb in the rough-and-tumble world of real-life history. Christianity calls on the empty tomb (“not done in a corner”), biblical prophecy (Isaiah 53 for example, and the fact that the miracles were signs, or markers, of the messianic age – see Luke 7 with John the Baptist’s questions), and the 500 witnesses (I Cor. 15 – ). To channel Sherlock Holmes: Whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth… (yes, I understand the argument vs Holmes, about not being able to really eliminate all the possibilities in the real world: after all, maybe there are multiple universes, in which the chance that a man in one of those universes would rise from the dead surely approaches 100% anyway) What’s your counter-explanation? I can understand how a person might think that it’s ridiculous to offer a counter-explanation for the claims of every religion, but as I have argued above, not every religion makes these kinds of claims (again, for them their gods are tied up with recurring patterns in nature, i.e. the seasons). Again, this is not proof according to science, but to history. They are, understandably, different although both important to life. How “conclusive” that may be for any given person (particularly for persons who frequent this blog) will evidently vary. And as I said before, when I consider abandoning what I was given (my “faith”, those presuppositions), I can’t stop seeing the evidence for the resurrection of Jesus Christ in history (the “hunting down” and “killing” is called metaphorical language, by the way)
“Did De Rerum Natura assert that nature was not consistent?”. I don’t think so, but I also don’t think the ancients had the kind of confidence in all aspects of the cosmos’ regularity / consistency in order to do modern science. Throughout history, the vast majority of persons – including scientists (or, as David Marjanovic prefers, philosophers) – have believed in gods/God/a Mind, etc., and they have undoubtedly assumed that said Beings/Forces (they did not make distinctions between “natural” and “supernatural” ; neither do I see the point of such distinctions, personally preferring the categories, “created” and “Creator”, but acknowledging that for the purpose of publically discussing these things the concepts of “purposeless” and “purposeful”, “Mindless” and “Mind-ful” [for example] may help us get to the core issue better) have had some role in movement of the planets, for example, and other things (like the seasons) that could be observed to follow consistent patterns (as some have pointed out here, the universe has both ordered and chaotic aspects, and it seems to me clear that the ancient scientists did not have the confidence that we do today that the chaotic aspects do not render a experimentally-driven search [using the scientific method] for those ordered aspects [and again, the corresponding knowledge of these ordered aspects can then be imperfectly observed, mapped and harnessed…] futile). I don’t think this is an unreasonable assumption – and I think increasing amounts of less dogmatic scientists are beginning to feel likewise, particularly in the fields of physics.
Further, some of the greatest scientists were committed Christians – who again, believed that a loving God (a loving God not seen in nature per se, but through the person of the God-man Jesus Christ, whispering “Father forgive them” to His enemies from the cross) had so organized the world that it ran according to consistent natural laws which we could harness to our advantage, enabling superior stewardship (not tyranny) over the earth. In other words, since, despite all of its dreadful ambiguities, the universe at bottom was not chaotic but rather ordered, reasonable, purposeful,(being made by a good Creator) actively searching, via *experimentation and observation*, for patterns of order which could be “captured” (via analogy, visual representation, mathematical formulae and the like) and *later practically utilized* was not a waste of time. John Calvin may have disagreed – and large parts of the RC. Church may have resisted it for a while – but individual Christians like Roger (14th c. – by the way, I think by the end of the 14 c. the western world was already the leader in technology [which I think is certainly distinct from modern science]) and Francis Bacon (17th c.) for example, believed that the effects of the Fall into sin and resulting curse (Hugh of St. Victor [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_of_St_Victor ] listed how man was affected: defective mind, morals, and bodies), could and *should* be alleviated through right knowledge (of us, God, creation) and right living (love fulfilling the Law), and this, of course, included the knowledge of the world and how things *generally* occur in it, and how we can use this knowledge to our advantage – what we today call *modern science* (of course, there is no hard and fast reason that this necessarily excludes God from the picture). Their view of the world was so different than the modern view – and part of their views were surely what propelled modern science. They saw things like aging, for example as the *unnatural result* of Adam’s fall into sin. Therefore, men like Francis Bacon, for all of the flaws in his thinking, “addressed the ancient problem of the fall into sin, which effectively sundered godly relations between humankind and nature. Toil and suffering, the ruined earth, affliction with drought and storm, insects and disease, were the consequences of the Fall” ( http://science.jrank.org/pages/10450/Nature-Nature-during-Scientific-Revolution.html ) Since Christians never believed the spirits in the entities of the at times frightening world of nature needed to be appeased/placated (they were God’s “good”, though fallen creation), the way was clear for modern science to really be created, bloom, and be promoted by Francis Bacon.
“Who cross-examined anyone in the bible?” Good point. *If* one takes the book of Acts seriously for what it claims to be, i.e. a serious historical account (and many have pointed out how much geography, culture, and history the book does get right), it seems that no one claims that the disciples stole the body (as the book of Matthew says was the rumor), but that when they or Paul says that “God raised Him from the dead”, “it wasn’t done in a corner”, or that it is “true and reasonable” etc., they are more ignored than addressed (but if the rabbinical arrest notice does indeed describe the right Jesus, here we would see why the claim is ignored: he was believed to have accomplished something extraordinary [though with the help of the devil], in my mind a significant concession [for others less so, since they believe that no one was skeptical of miracle claims back then). Re: whether useful actually means factual, of course not. But re: your wider pt., you believe the resurrection and the claimed 500 eyewitnesses is all about a “conjuring trick”? How does that work? Re: the fake “Testimonium Flavianum”, Meier’s belief (based on some evidence – I don’t recall the specifics) is that there was stg in Josephus’ writing about Jesus but that some monk baptized the passage, making Josephus into a believer (this is what often happens when ancient sources are changed). As for the biblical miracles being merely “claimed signs” which “claimed to show” something and there being “no evidence for their ever having actually happened”, I appeal to I Cor 15 (believed by most all scholars to be very early), with its appeal to the 500 witnesses, the book of Acts and its recording of eyewitness testimony, and the testimony of history (see stuff a few paragraphs down). As for archaeology (and anthropology?) “proving” that Genesis and Exodus must be false, I have to say I think you are mistaken. Of course the Bible has been archaeologies best friend and has provided many a marker (see Genesis 10 for the unparalleled “table of nations”) and clues (like treasure maps). Its not the Book of Morman. As for God creating evil, no that is simply not what the Bible says. As for God abandoning Jesus on the cross, this is a theological question that is disputed among traditional Christians (some see Jesus as quoting the first line of Psalm 22 [where the line is taken from] as an indication that He means for the whole Psalm [where the end shows there, ultimately, is no abandonment] as applying to His situation). As for philosophers, they have much to offer us, but in the end, the cross is foolishness to the wisdom of the world. As for what would convince me that Christianity was false, I have already told you that. Show me the body (this is not to say that other bits and pieces of evidence could not possibly weaken my faith and cause me to doubt). As for my distorting what evidence, knowledge and empirical means, I’ll just ask you to specifically define what you think those terms can and can’t mean, since I think I am well within the limits of common usage. What I know is what I have yet to be shown is false (there are other kinds of knowledge besides scientific knowledge, you know). I find it very interesting to see how Richard Dawkins backpeddles from his claims about Jesus Christ in this debate (see http://richarddawkins.net/articles/3911 and the link he has to the opponent’s talk after their debate) – I think he shows himself to be not really interested in what historians have to say, even though one would think that historians have some knowledge to.
“And there were and are plenty of religions that were and are based on alleged miracles having occurred… Most religions claim to be based on events that have occurred in history.” Maybe so – but they did not make requirements on others to accept their religion on that basis. Nor did they say things like “if Christ is not raised”, let us “eat, drink and be merry, for tomorrow we die”. Further, there are other differences. In “The Riddle of Resurrection” the scholar Tryggve Mettinger says that even though a few myths of dying and rising gods may predate Christianity, Jesus Christ is unique in that he was a *human being* whose resurrection happened once in a specific place on earth at a specific time in history, enabling it to be examined and tested. This is unlike mythical deities whose resurrections are untestable, without fail taking place in the distant past (“once upon a time”…) and coupled with the seasons of the agricultural/vegetative cycle. The man Jesus, on the other hand, died once for all in a specific place and time as a vicarious / atoning sacrifice for the worlds sins (also unique).
The New Testament writers are quite aware of how what they are proclaiming is unlike mythologies (“cleverly devised tales” – see II Peter 1:26, the beginning of Luke, Acts 26:25-26, and I John 1: 1-3) and the importance of Christ’s physical resurrection in Jerusalem (Acts 2:32, 3:18-19, 17:2,3, 18:28, 17:31) and their eyewitness testimony (Acts 4:33) Further, scholars agree that Paul (who yes, does write a fair deal about the historical persons of Jesus) wrote his epistles 20-25 yrs after Jesus’ death (when most of the 500 witnesses of the resurrection mentioned in I Cor. 15 would have still been alive). If Jesus’ resurrection was a myth and the witnesses were trading in cleverly devised tales, they were, in short, pathetic (I Cor 15:19). Where is this kind of first-hand testimony to the miraculous in other religions or mythologies or the assertions of its supreme importance? For the authenticity of the mythological characters? Its not there, which isn’t surprising because these ancient mystery religions were about things that could not even be talked about (beyond secrets!). As a matter of fact, the evidence from Paul and other early Christians shows vast influence not from mystery religions, but Jewish literature. N.T. Wright has clearly shown what the Second Temple era Jews meant by resurrection and it is not like any of the mythologies or mystery religions.
Still not convinced that this is a hell of a lot more interesting than most atheist charaicatures? First, to prepare you for what follows, read this short paragraph:
“As C.S. Lewis noted, people tend to see history as “a shadowy and unimportant region in which the phantasmal shapes of Roman soldiers, stagecoaches, pirates, knights-in-armour, highwaymen, etc., moved in a mist.” Hence the Australian Olympic medals show the Roman Colosseum. And hence we take wildly improbable events for granted, like Allied victory in the Second World War. (Academic depictions of history as the logical result of mechanical forces like “the rise of the middle class” are equally inimical to a sense of wonder at history.)”
Now, after regaining some of that wonder, think about this: A *woman* (whose testimony in those days was worthless) was the first to preach this resurrection to his followers, fearful and distraught, who when they first see the resurrected Christ do not recognize Him (well, initially, the woman didn’t either!). The resurrection accounts are simple, show remarkable restraint (they are about defeat, doubt, the unspectacular…) but looking back with what we know now, we see that they break all the known laws of hallucinations… Also, the story they tell meets all the requirements that would need to be met in order to show that the resurrection had occurred by what appear to me almost incidental observations made by the writers… And now, looking backwards we see that “…some fishermen, a tax collector and a guy who had a seizure on the way to Damascus persuaded their neighbours, people in distant cities and then the Empire itself that a dead Jewish carpenter was God.” Really? And: Christ did not call His followers to smite their enemies, but “to be meek and then the authorities nailed him to a stick on a dung-hill. And the great thing is, he died.” *This* sales pitch converted Rome, the most cosmopolitan society the world had ever seen, in the heart of its intellectual center (the eastern Mediterranean)? More: How does an Irish guy (who gets martyred) and his successor convince savage Norse raiders whose bloody gods promise them victory that the dead Jewish carpenter is God and that they should lay off the slave women and be kind? (now multiply this story several times over) How does this message vanquish polytheism and god-kings (which ruler has claimed this since Jesus…none)? Why do only two new religions since Jesus, both deriving from Christianity (Islam and Mormanism) get any lasting worldly success? Why aren’t their dozens of similar faiths, fixated on a theology of the cross, if religions of “foolishness” have an evolutionary advantage? “True, it has at times been carried on the point of a sword. But only after converting the swordsman. It survived for 280 years before Constantine converted, and it survived Julian the Apostate. Can any explanation be furnished, let alone defended, save that it is intellectually satisfying and works when put into imperfect but sincere practice? So it’s either true or very persuasive.” Why has the Bible “convinced so many people, often (as with [C.S.] Lewis) against their will? … judging by the record, if the barbarian consents to listen to one silly monk, he will be converted.”
Much of this argumentation above is from a non-Christian (its from the Ottawa Citizen article I mentioned above). Given all this, I think Christianity would be more miraculous if it were not true.
“Why is the burden of proof on non-Christians to show that the miracles didn’t happen?”
Simply this: because according to Acts 17, God requires that you take the proof of the resurrection seriously. Because you are specifically asked and addressed re: this matter (right now even). Even if every person in America who claims to be a Christian tries to convince you on the basis of their “personal experience with Jesus”, they are wrong. This is not what the Apostles preached, nor what the greatest preachers of the Church preached fearlessly. Paul didn’t go around telling everyone that they needed to have their own “Damascus Road experience.”
“[request/demand]…This would clearly demonstrate to me that this omniscient and omnipotent and loving God who is as a father and a brother to you actually exists and does speak to you.”
Owlmirror, he has already given you evidence through me. Let it lead you where it will. Please know, I delight in this opportunity to talk with you and only wish good to you.
David Marjanovic, others: Parsimony. I wonder what you might think about the Wikipedia article on parsimony. Crap? (we can go to the Britannica one if you like). It seems far more nuanced and thoughtful than what I have seen here. “Why assume something you don’t need to explain anything?” Again, it is all well and good (Christian even) to not assume moment-by-moment, arbitrary interruptions of our deity into nature’s workings (which again, we are now finally able to distinguish from culture) as we find out “how stuff works”, but to act as if this useful practice can be decoupled with the deeper questions it produces in us is silly. If it had a beginning (do persons here dispute this – if so, on the basis of what evidence?), is it not reasonable to infer a beginner? (and yes, here, you can talk about “turtles all the way down”, but if you stay within the realm of a universe that actually had a beginning [and all the evidence points to this], you can only go so far….). Why not in this case defer to history and say, “if the ancients largely saw purpose in the ordered universe and did not fail to associate the cosmos from the idea of Mind” –even though they obviously had very little confidence in this Force/Being (it/he/she was evidently rather capricious and needed to be appeased) since they did not feel confident in attempting, through systematic inquiry, “to life up nature’s skirts” (F. Bacon, I think) in an attempt to win her secrets – why should we, since we have ***no further evidence*** that can be used to dispute this interpretation (or do we – please share), insist that it should be otherwise? When we get beyond how we practice science (i.e. by assuming that nature runs according to consistent natural laws that can be observed, mapped, and harnessed) why is the least complex explanation for an ordered universe that it happened without any purpose? (i.e. non-teleological understanding).
David, all of your points are about eyewitness accounts (how we see what we want, and men are liars [see Romans 3] are well-taken (lets not forget though that every court in the world operates on the basis of testimony [preferably eyewitness] by word of mouth or in writing – the fields of science and law both rely on evidence in their search for truth, although for different purposes, in different ways, using different methodologies). This is why multiple witnesses are desired. Fortunately, we have that (see above)…. As for Christians believing that all deities except one were in fact demons, this is not only the belief of “American fundamentalists” but also traditional Christians: i.e. Roman Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Lutheran, Reformed, etc. Finally, if you really believe that there was no Jesus, I think you are way, way outside the mainstream of the humanities. I would be very interested in knowing what serious, respected scholars hold this belief, and how their views have held up among their peers (if they are even taken seriously)…
In truth, I am thankful for all of you and what you have done for me. Thank you for challenging me and helping me to learn new facts, learn from our disagreements, sharpen my mind, etc…
~Nathan
OK, thanks. I’ve read a bit about Calvinism and Catholicism, but I could probably learn a bit more about Lutheranism.
Of course, what I know about Martin Luther himself is rather unpleasant.
Right, you were taught about it.
How do you know that what you were taught is true?
If not even those who taught you knew how to convey this properly, what makes you think that you know anything at all about what you think they were talking about?
What exactly is it that you think you love?
How is the love of which you just wrote any different from an “internal state”?
How do you know that there actually was a resurrection, rather than a story about a resurrection, which you are presupposing was true despite having no evidence for its truth?
How can an empty tomb attest to anything other than that tomb being empty?
I have an empty djinn bottle; I know there was once a djinn inside because there is no djinn in the bottle now.
I can call on my empty djinn bottle. Look, see? Empty djinn bottle — so there must have once been a djinn!
Because Jesus was still around and alive after resurrecting, doing miracles and wonders for all to see; and is still alive and doing miracles and wonders today; anyone can go to Jerusalem and talk to him and see a miracle being done if they stick around long enough.
Oh, wait. No, he wasn’t; no, he isn’t; and no, you can’t.
Except that Isaiah 53 is in the past tense.
I note that it says that its unnamed subject was diseased, which is not something I recall being said about Jesus. Ah, I see that Christians simply ignore the troubling parts of that section that don’t apply to Jesus. How very convenient.
The problem with biblical “prophecy” is that it is almost all post hoc rationalization of something so vaguely worded that there are guaranteed to be many potential fits throughout history. Or it isn’t prophecy at all, in that it is simply something written after the event. Or it fails to actually come true — an example that came up in one of the many discussions here was Ezekiel claiming that Tyre would be scraped clean of life forever. We found Google Maps images showing life doing quite nicely on Tyre, thank you very much.
Sometimes the prophecy came true, if you squint at the text hard enough, and distort its exact meaning, but hardly frequently enough, and with sufficient precision, to actually be considered miraculous.
What evidence is there that these miracles actually occurred?
I’m supposed to just believe what the bible says about one of its characters and the number of witnesses? Because I should just presuppose that the bible is true?
What we have “left” is a natural world with no sign whatsoever of a God that performs miracles.
My counter-explanation is that you, and everyone else who finds the absence of evidence that you claim as being “evidence” convincing, are all victims of multiple cognitive errors, which you seem to have psychological blocks against recognizing.
It isn’t proof according to history, either.
Then you’ve been “hunted down” and “killed” by your own brain malfunctioning.
You don’t actually need confidence in regularity to do science, just the rigorous application of the scientific method.
And really, not everyone in the past was so silly and superstitious as to think that the universe had no regularity at all. That’s how we get the natural philosophy that eventually became science.
Do you have any evidence of this alleged absence of confidence?
What I see in looking at the history of natural philosophy is not at all a lack of confidence in consistency, but rather, insufficient rigor in performing experiments — sometimes perhaps from an overconfidence in their own minds, or in the minds of the past, for some of the later ones relying on dogmatically on the work of earlier natural philosophers.
I’m sorry, you think that the universe is in fact too chaotic to perform scientific experiments? What?
The paragraph that this statement follows is so chaotic that I don’t think it’s possible to infer exactly what you are trying to say.
The only one that I know of is a religious scientist, who is indeed dogmatic about the universe conforming to his religion. I know of no-one who is claiming that the universe is too chaotic to perform scientific experiments.
Who exactly do you have in mind?
And yet, there was a gap of more than a thousand years between Christianity and these scientists to whom you refer. The modern scientists all read, and started off with, non-Christian natural philosophers, both Muslims, and the pagan natural philosophers that the Muslims relied on, who built the foundations that the Christians exploited for their own work.
And the ancient natural philosophers give no sign of believing that anything you describe was a waste of time.
And many of the ancient natural philosophers gave no sign that they believed in such superstitions either.
The Iliad and the Odyssey get much geography, culture, and history right without being considered serious historical accounts.
So Acts, a book of religious dogma, has no strong counterarguments to the religious dogma that it is trying to promote.
And I’m supposed to be convinced of what, exactly, by this silence?
I assure you, if I ever write about that djinn that used to be in my bottle, I will not include the scoffing of the anti-djinnists
It doesn’t.
http://talmud.faithweb.com/articles/jesusnarr.html
I wasn’t referring to the resurrection specifically — I was offering an example of something that a crowd of witnesses misinterpreted, in response to your assertion that witnesses were “useful”.
But more generally, the resurrection being a conjuring trick is but one naturalistic scenario out of an unknown number that involve a large crowd of people misinterpreting what they are seeing.
Why should I presuppose that none of those scenarios, nor any other naturalistic scenario, is what resulted in Christianity?
Given the otherwise incomprehensible silence of Origen, I am deeply skeptical that this purported evidence even exists. But if you can find it, I’d be interested in seeing it.
I’m supposed to presuppose that the books are being honest and correct about the witnesses that there is no evidence for, whom it claims support the miracles that it has no evidence for?
Oh, dear me no.
http://ebonmusings.org/atheism/otarch.html
Oh, at first archeologists thought like that. Then they found things that falsified the bible…
It’s “unparalleled” because it’s simply made up. Good grief, do you think that there was a real global flood and that Noah really lived?
It has much in common with the book of Mormon, being a fictitious past made up by human beings who had no idea of what had actually happened in the past.
Isaiah 45:7 begs to contradict you.
It’s a theological question that God and Jesus are not the same person? Isn’t that what I wrote?
Then Jesus should have cited the end, shouldn’t he?
Where?
So the only way to convince you that a body didn’t come back to life is to show you it, despite the fact that you have no idea what it would look like, even if you saw it, since you’ve never seen it before ever?
And this is the same standard of proof that you use that convinces you that no-one else has come back to life? Do you see no problem in the fact that you have not seen the bodies of literally everyone?
I ask only for information.
Off the top of my head:
Knowledge: true justified belief. Belief: Assent to truth. Justification: logic and/or physical evidence in support of a belief.
Empirical evidence: some physical thing or effect that can be demonstrated, and persists as demonstrated despite attempts at falsification.
Only if “common” means “prone to confusion”.
What I know is that you don’t understand burden of proof. Have you shown that I don’t have an empty djinn bottle?
What, specifically, do you have in mind?
How did he propose anyone was supposed to go about this supposed examination and testing?
And this is different from a myth how?
So?
Given that Paul wasn’t providing first-hand testimony, I can’t see that it could have really had supreme importance.
Not everyone is as incoherent and grandiose as C. S. Lewis.
How was it supposed to have been “wildly improbable”?
Nonsense.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/improbable/women.html
You might want to read the entire essay, in addition to just that section. You offer one very, very, long argument from incredulity; Carrier shows that people are a lot more credulous than you think.
The word is spelled “Mormonism”. Just FYI.
Persuasive, and by implication from the contrast with “true”, it is false. But there’s no reason to think that it’s true.
So you think that Islam and Mormonism are more miraculous than Christianity?
Or in other words, the God that you presuppose in the book that you presuppose is true demands that we presuppose the exact same things that you presuppose.
Yeah, that’s real convincing.
You mean, you have pretended to me that God speaks to you, while offering no evidence whatsoever in support of this claim.
It leads me to the certain conclusion that you have no idea whatsoever of what you are talking about.
So why do you presuppose that it ever happened at all?
It is not reasonable to infer that the “beginner” is a person when there is no evidence or logic that supports the inference.
========
I didn’t respond to every point raised. It took me a long time as it is to work my way through and compose this as it is; I suspect that anyone else reading would get fed up with the continued insipidity and presupposition.
But I’ll see if I can maintain interest for a while.
Owlmirror,
Glad to see that you are still around – and as feisty as ever. Tomorrow morning I should be able to post again on the science stuff. I’ll read your last reply on the Jesus stuff and get around to it sometime, hopefully sooner rather than later.
Regards,
Nathan
Acts 17:31
Book of mythology/fiction. Quoting it is both irrelevant and stoopid…
Acts 17:31 = Elvis lives.
Woohoo!
I persevere in my struggle against wrongness on the Internet.
This may take a while…
Owlmirror,
I apologize for mistakes – I composed this very quickly
“the God that you presuppose in the book that you presuppose is true demands that we presuppose the exact same things that you presuppose.”
Glad you are convinced. : )
Let me start by simply saying that what I know is what I have yet to be shown is false. If that makes me a presuppositionalist, so be it. Than I submit we all are, even if you can’t see it. Scientific knowledge is not the extent of what you consider yourself to know either. You are convinced of many things that you do not have scientific evidence for (quantitative evidence, probabilistic evidence, repeatable evidence, etc.), including things based on all kinds of analogies and myriads of historical events that you find useful to know about, for this or that reason.
Love: tell you what. You give your definition and then I’ll give you mine.
Obviously, the empty tomb testifies to the resurrection because of all the other pieces of context involved in the situation we are discussing. I assume you know the Gospels, with Jesus’ prediction of his being raised from the dead. Plus, you have my detailed message. Your “djinn bottle” analogy is just plain silly (more below).
“Not done in a corner” obviously refers to the presence of the resurrected Christ among the eyewitnesses in a discernibly physical body (hence: eating fish in the presence of the disciples) prior to leaving earth in that form.
Re: Isaiah 53 and the other “Servant Songs”, I would be interested in what some of the scholars who believe that it is talking about past events think it means. I think most scholars – Jewish and Christian alike – believe that it is clearly looking ahead to future events, albeit its being written in the past tense. Obviously is not meant to be scientific language. And the “disease” that Jesus had was your and my sin. He took our leprosy, our contagion, our life-destroying evil upon Himself that we might have new life. Your remarks about prophecy are fair as far as it goes, but you discount the possibility of future fulfillments for prophecies in the future.
Re: Isaiah 45:7, this is not talking about essential evil, but the fact that God sometimes hurts to heal. God is “doing evil” to me, means he is against me, when as Job, for example, shows, this is not really the case. God breaks that he may bind, hurts that he may heal, and kills that he may make alive. No Christian believes that God created evil as an essential thing or is ultimately responsible for it.
“I’m supposed to just believe what the bible says about one of its characters and the number of witnesses? Because I should just presuppose that the bible is true?”
No, that’s why I wrote everything else that I did, about how contrary to the rest of pagan literature the Gospels are. Which you discount. Perhaps you could also give me your understanding of how historians understand proof. I suppose it includes those historians (maybe one or two) who don’t believe Jesus existed? Or, are you, like Dawkins, willing to admit that when someone calls you out?
“Then you’ve been “hunted down” and “killed” by your own brain malfunctioning.”
I know this message to you is shaping up to be a bit harsher tone than I have been, so just to let you know how much I appreciate you as another human being who is willing to engage with me on these most important of matters, I want to thank you for causing me to laugh at this. Very clever.
As to the *ancients* (not scientists now, for we have experienced the fruit!) just needing to have rigorous application of the scientific method, its unfortunate that they didn’t figure that out. I think my explanation that this did not develop because they did not have confidence in all aspects of the cosmos’ regularity / consistency is a very sound explanation though, given the lack of controlled observation, experiment, and fruit that took place – although I don’t claim to be able to prove it. I’ll admit that your comment about overconfidence in their own minds of the past, or in the minds of others, is also a possible explanation, although I don’t think that you can discount the fact that in the ancient world, persons outside of the biblical religions (Jews, Christians) had no reason to distinguish culture (which was tied up with the gods/God) from nature/cosmos: all was one, and one did not trifle with the creation. Further, what happened in the 12th/13th century that was so different than caused some persons to stop having overconfidence in their own and others minds? People may have read Aristotle, for example, and agreed that he was brilliant, and yet, still disagreed with much of what he had to say. Why might they have been inclined to disagree re: this or that?
“And really, not everyone in the past was so silly and superstitious as to think that the universe had no regularity at all.”
No kidding. This makes me wonder if you even read my letter (it was long, so I’ll cut you some slack)
“The modern scientists all read, and started off with, non-Christian natural philosophers, both Muslims, and the pagan natural philosophers that the Muslims relied on…”
Most of the “Muslim” philosophers were conquered Christians. Anyway. I think the Christians took the pagan philosophers to the next level because they had the confidence in God that I spoke of. There’s nothing like a little Aristotle to get the gears working, taking what’s good, and showing where he’s wrong (based on one’s belief in a good God and His revelation of course).
“And the ancient natural philosophers give no sign of believing that anything you describe was a waste of time.”
And so why do you think that “actively searching, via *experimentation and observation*, for patterns of order which could be ‘captured’” does not seem to have occurred to them to be a good idea? It seems rather obvious to us today, huh? (why not even more so than an inevitable American victory in WWII?)
“The Iliad and the Odyssey get much geography, culture, and history right without being considered serious historical accounts.”
Which history do we know it gets right? In any case, does the book than go on call on non-Greeks and beyond to believe in order to be made right with the gods based on these “historical” occurrences? See more below. Again, “where is this kind of first-hand testimony to the miraculous in other religions or mythologies or the assertions of its supreme importance?” (I address the “first-hand” complaint next)
“So Acts, a book of religious dogma”
Not Luke’s intention. Luke writes as a historian (see 1st chapter of Luke) about events that happen in history and are important to every man on the planet (“to the ends of the earth” baby), not just his select, and superior, group. Luke reports on first-hand testimony, which I believe is admissible in court cases (we need not get into technical defs of “first-hand testimony”). All hinges on whether or not documents are admitted as reliable historical pieces that are pertinent to the matters at hand.
“Why should I presuppose that none of those scenarios, nor any other naturalistic scenario, is what resulted in Christianity?”
Because of the multiple times the Gospels and Acts report these “naturalistic scenarios” occurred.
“As for God abandoning Jesus on the cross, this is a theological question that is disputed among traditional Christians”
“God” = God the Father. Trinity. Athanasian Creed.
“Then Jesus should have cited the end, shouldn’t he?”
Not necessarily. And besides, I’m not in the habit of telling Jesus what He should have done.
“How did he propose anyone was supposed to go about this supposed examination and testing?”
He didn’t. His heralds, speaking in his time, would have appealed to the eyewitnesses. We extrapolate from here, using the Scriptures and the tools of historians to do the rest.
You: “And there were and are plenty of religions that were and are based on alleged miracles having occurred… Most religions claim to be based on events that have occurred in history.”
Me: Maybe so – but they did not make requirements on others to accept their religion on that basis.
You: What, specifically, do you have in mind?
Me: Again: they did not make requirements on others to accept their religion on that basis. Maybe below will help.
Me: The man Jesus, on the other hand, died once for all in a specific place and time as a vicarious / atoning sacrifice for the worlds sins (also unique).
You: And this is different from a myth how?
Me: Jesus really a man (not just a god). *Whole* world’s sins. Once and for all – for everyone, applicable to everyone. Jerusalem. 33 AD (approximately). Pontius Pilate. Not connected to recurring seasons and the harvest at all. Also interesting: Bible presents expulsion from the point of view of the scapegoat who is sacrificed.
“Empirical evidence: some physical thing or effect that can be demonstrated, and persists as demonstrated despite attempts at falsification.”
The body is no idle matter. To say that we might not be able to find the body – or to not be able to identify the body as Jesus, if it is found – is not to discount the point that it is something that historians and archaelogists can actually look for, unlike your djinn bottle.
“And this is the same standard of proof that you use that convinces you that no-one else has come back to life?”
Other people have come back to life. Besides, if there is a multiverse, this should hardly surprise you. What would then be at issue is whether persons predicted this. If so, this should make us interested in other claims they had which would be tied up with that resurrection.
Me: “unparalleled “table of nations”…
You: It’s “unparalleled” because it’s simply made up
You are not dealing with the truth that it has been immensely useful to archaeologists.
“Knowledge: true justified belief. Belief: Assent to truth. Justification: logic and/or physical evidence in support of a belief.”
Good. Now stop presupposing metaphysical naturalism re: everything and we may really get somewhere. The “burden of proof” is on you who, without good reason, presuppose that there is no Mind (and the ancients did not necessarily equate Mind with a Person, or Persons). Further, the “burden of proof” is on you to demonstrate that Jesus never existed. Further, the “burden of proof” is on you to demonstrate that we have good reason for treating Luke as being anything other than a top-notch historian who gets all the details right. Therefore, Luke 17:31 applies to you as well, and to get this wrong is to get everything wrong. Again, read my first paragraph. Your mind is not as clear of presuppositions as you foolishly suppose.
RE: these:
http://talmud.faithweb.com/articles/jesusnarr.html
http://ebonmusings.org/atheism/otarch.htm
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/improbable/women.html
They look interesting. I will try to look at them as time allows.
Thanks again,
Nathan
Owlmirror,
Written over the past week.
Again sir, a great pleasure. I admit that I do not have your gift for brevity, and I hope I can get better as we go on (though please note that as I responded to you I found myself writing for myself as well – so don’t feel bad if you can’t stomach it and skip it). Rest assured, if I am still able, I will write something again by this coming Tuesday (how much I can’t promise – I may have to wait a while before engaging more fully again).
OK, I agree: let’s just forget Einstein. If it is indeed true that he did not attempt to define what he meant, and that he offered no argumentation from evidence for his position, I agree to leave him alone.
That said, re: pantheism, I’ll just say that I appreciated what the Wikipedia article on Pantheism had to say in its section on Hindu pantheism (good quotes in there), and I also found this summary to be helpful in illustrating how I’ve tended to understand pantheism:
“pantheism [Gr. pan=all, theos=God], name used to denote any system of belief or speculation that includes the teaching “God is all, and all is God.” Pantheism, in other words, identifies the universe with God or God with the universe. The term is thought to have been employed first by John Toland in the 18th cent., but pantheistic views are of very great antiquity. While all pantheism is monistic, it is expressed in different ways according to what is meant by the one whole that gathers up in itself all that exists, or what is meant by God. If the pantheist starts with the belief that the one great reality, eternal and infinite, is God, he sees everything finite and temporal as but some part of God. There is nothing separate or distinct from God, for God is the universe. If, on the other hand, the conception taken as the foundation of the system is that the great inclusive unity is the world itself, or the universe, God is swallowed up in that unity, which may be designated nature. Some forms of pantheism have had their beginnings in religion; others have been based upon a philosophic, scientific, or poetic point of view. Noteworthy among the religious forms is Hinduism, in which the only reality, the supreme unity, is Brahman. This conception is closely connected with the idea of emanation. Pantheism had a place in the speculations of some Greek philosophers. Xenophanes taught that the one God could know no motion or change. The conception of Parmenides left no room for development or ethical meaning. Stoicism gave a more definite expression to pantheistic doctrine, emphasizing the identity of God and the world. There is pantheism in the teachings of the Neoplatonists and of such Christian philosophers as Erigena and such mystics as Eckhart and Boehme. The writings of Giordano Bruno of the 16th cent. carried such weight as to influence the development of modern thought, especially through Spinoza, in whose monistic system pantheism receives its most complete and precise expression. In it God is the unlimited, all-inclusive substance, the first cause of the universe, with innumerable attributes, two of which, thinking and extension, are capable of being perceived. Pantheism of a kind can be traced in the idealistic philosophy of Fichte and Schelling, Hegel and Schleiermacher. Together with mysticism, it fills a large place in literature, particularly in the poetry of nature.”
Source Citation
“pantheism.” The Columbia Encyclopedia. 6th ed. Columbia University Press, 2000. 29274. Student Edition. Web. 6 May 2010.
All that said, according to most modern definitions of pantheism, the David Bentley Hart quote would seem to qualify as panentheism (with a possible theistic interpretation, obviously), given its mention of the Ultimate Being as being transcendent.
Me: “for a scientist to speak about his human experience is not to discount the importance of empirical evidence, which seamlessly fits in experience. What might I be missing from your perspective here?”
You: “You’re missing that causation is inevitably bound up in time, and you’re trying to extrapolate causation to a point before time may have even existed. Nothing coherent can be said about that without a theory of what time is and how it works, which we don’t have, or have in only the tiniest amount.”
Regarding causation being bound up with time, and our not knowing how time works, I think I understand what you are saying, and yet… First, time. Let’s be honest: insofar as we are unable to measure time with consistent reference to some other object that is universally accessible (i.e. some kind of ground from which to stand), I am not sure how time itself can be made a meaningful scientific concept (that is, something that can be conceived to exist *in some kind of way* [“objectivity”] apart from our minds, hence to be able to measure it with reference to another object like we can with physical objects in space [even though nothing is truly objective since we bring our subjectivity to all of it, i.e in deciding what standard of measurement to use as well as the fact that we can’t extract ourselves, with all their limitations, from this process]) – therefore time, even from the perspective of the scientist, absolutely must be seen in a wider human context. After all, hypothetically, if we were to be able to come up with a theory of what time is and how it works – and this could be verified by empirical evidence – would this not *happen* by our learning about it… by our dealing with empirical evidence *in time* and 3-D space (i.e. in the context of our regular human experience)?
You say, “Causation is also based on the forces and laws of the universe; the physical constants operating over time — and you’re also trying to extrapolate causation to before those constants, forces, and laws may have been what they are now” and that “We’ve been able to observe a consistency in causation going back in time to just about the point of the inflation of the universe. But we don’t have anything going back further — and certainly little reason to think that what we know worked the same way before the zero point”, but I say, first, I don’t know of any “universe” other than the one we currently experience (whether what came before can be called “universe” is debateable, I think), and second, as human beings, knowing what we already know for sure – and beyond that, knowing what form our current speculations might take – we not only should continue to ask questions that presume causation – we really can’t not ask these questions… At least, I suppose, until some theory of time (perhaps using new categories that go beyond space-time even), verified in time and space by human experience, for some *reason* [?] “teaches us” that we shouldn’t… Here is where your “Existence is not like a mind; existence contains our own minds, which can be prone to making errors” comes in: if we concluded that the universe “taught us” that we should not ask further questions about the general nature of reality which presume causation – but should just focus on the “details” as you say – how would we know to trust what our minds are telling us the universe is “telling us”, given that our mind is prone to making errors?
So how is that for coherent? In short, we all, scientists included, operate in time and can’t not. And if we are going to be effective (in discerning truth as well as being useful), *we are still going to need to assume causation for everything we see in the now*, even if, depressingly, the “effect” of life for each of us is death. The scientist only takes this natural human quality to pursue causation for everything to increasingly sophisticated levels, using hypotheses, testing, and observation to assist in creating models that offer not-easily-variable (not ad-hoc) and functional explanations/accounts of the regularities that we experience (re: matter, energy, and motion) and can measure to this or that degree – whether time (and space) are something that *only* exists in each individual person – and that will vary to this or that degree (not so much that persons in different parts of the world can’t communicate sensibly about what is happening in the now) depending on their point of reference and motion – or not.
Really, I’m not sure how the question over whether time is an entity in its own right that we occupy is relevant (i.e. time is infinite)…. Of course, Kant essentially said that the physical world is bound to the temporal because of the way our mind works. And I note that Aristotle provocatively said that the present is nothing dividing non-existence (how “thick” is the present?: the present is just a limit between the past and the future). In other words, at this moment, the past and the future do not exist. The past was, but it is not. The future will be, but it is not. Still, as human beings endowed with memories and expectations, we know that the past really was, and the future, barring extraordinary events, really will be (unless you want to get all radical a la Hume). Or maybe you think you really don’t know. In which case, I humbly suggest knowing this until you are proven otherwise.
Re: the uncertainty principle, I can’t claim to have great understanding here, but it seems to me that even under the Copenhagen interpretation (as I understand it), it simply says that we can be certain about uncertainties. There are predictable unpredictabilities, ordered disorder, regular irregularities. In other words, in the double-slit experiment for example, mathematical equations can predict that there will be a range of possibilities about where any electron will end up. Even though we are talking about probabilities here, there are certain limits. Probability itself is a *kind of order*. And in this sense, due to the underlying symmetries of nature, we can “determine” what is happening. Again, within this model, we are talking about *structured possibilities*, the ranges of which can be determined. Which means, experimentation is possible, measurement (at least on the screen) is possible, and we know that something (whether the nature of quantum mechanics itself or the measuring instrument or whatever) has caused these things to act within this range of possibilities. It seems to me that people are not arguing over whether there is a cause, but what the cause is, and what evidence can be called upon to make the issue clear. I mean, I know that I’m not getting into details here, but I don’t see how this necessarily contradicts what I wrote about earlier…
In any case, looking at the even bigger picture, even if people ultimately feel they must conclude there is no satisfying convergent solution to the issues this presents (i.e. combining quantum mechanics and general relativity: why don’t the building blocks lead to the building – for example, to understand black holes, you’d need to use both general relativity and quantum mechanics at the same time, but the theories conflict and break down, giving nonsensical predictions here), that would of course not discount the very real order we really do observe in the world. There still is a lot that “makes sense” (i.e. has meaning [small m]), even if mystery seems intractable. Even looking beyond the scientific disciplines into the wider world, the wise among us recognize that there are all kinds of divergent problems. For example, in the field of education we could reason that if discipline and obedience are a good thing, “it can be argued with perfect logic that if something is a ‘a good thing’, more of it would be a better thing, and perfect discipline and obedience would be a perfect thing… and the school would become a prison house.” On the other hand, if freedom in education is a good thing, “more freedom would be an even better thing, and perfect freedom would produce perfect education. The school would become a jungle, even a kind of lunatic asylum… These problems are not unsolved, but insoluble (Divergent problem par excellence)”. Likewise, “societies need [justice and mercy], stability and change, tradition and innovation, public interest and private interest, planning and laissez-faire, order and freedom, growth and decay. Everywhere society’s health depends on the simultaneous pursuit of mutually opposed activities or aims. The adoption of a final solution means a kind of death sentence for man’s humanity and spells either cruelty or dissolution, generally both… ***Divergent problems offend the logical mind***.” (Schumacher, E. F. A Guide for the Perplexed. New York: Harper & Row, 1977, 122, 123, 127).
In my mind, you can’t be a real humanist (even a scientific humanist) and not believe this – to see that there is something “really real” going on here. I recommend Isaiah Berlin to get started.
So, as you might be beginning to understand, in my world, the idea of “determinism” is not really a real concept anyway: we simply observe regularities that God has put in place and that we can observe and take advantage of to serve our neighbor. There ultimately really is no determinism at all, and within limits (imposed by damage to our brains, for example), our minds are able to function freely and make choices as we mature and grow older. All talk of determinism is nonsense to me, since I am quite convinced that methodological naturalism, is nothing more than a very useful fiction. For those who think otherwise, I suspect that they won’t be able to worship only the game of chance, life and death (run by laws of nature) forever. They will reach for more. Its already happening as Dawkins helps us see, as “sexed-up atheism” takes hold, and leaves its adherents wanting more…
And let’s think… if things are ultimately deterministic (you said you’re not sure if this is true or not so I bring it up here), religion may just be what biochemical predestination leads to anyway. It “makes sense” (as much as anything can I guess): your brain is wired simply to help you and those you “choose” to associate with (most likely blood kin) to survive, and that means that your brain most likely is *only be wired to know truth in a normal sense of 3-D objects, the real world “out there” that we experience in time* (not the hypothesized string theory dimensions, for instance). Therefore, can “you” be expected to trust your brain for more than that? Certainly, we as human beings do seem to share in common an ability to detect the reality outside of us, the truth. You and I can both tell that a car is coming and stay out of the way. And certainly, we have had some success in correlating pure mathematics with empirical reality, as we have been able to test and verify predictions in time. And yet – why should we presume that this success will continue indefinitely – especially if opportunities for empirical confirmation do not present themselves? Why should our minds be any better equipped to handle these higher levels of unseen reality than the organism that evolves a shell for protection due to the mindless laws of nature producing by chance (probabilities) something that happens to work, i.e. be useful in responding to the physical realities (on macro and micro levels) – the truth – outside it? Even if all of us together can help each other along here to correct our theories, why should we presume that our minds have evolved in such a way to be able to understand “the truth” if we work together, much less as individuals?
Perhaps in the best case scenario, only your brain knows (“subconsciously”) what the “deeper truth” (again: string theory dimensions, etc) is – you might as well embrace some form of religion! Or – try this – perhaps there are some people who are biochemically predestined to be “specially evolved” who are able to consciously understand the deeper realities (which evidently, will have some practical survival value as well as making them worthy of honor, understanding the universe as only they do) while the rest of us are not. Think of how appreciated scientists would be then! : )
What do I really think about all this? Again, I shun all determinism. I like the approach of persons who seem to know what they are talking about as regards both the sciences and the humanities. I don’t think its right, for example, to say that we don’t perceive anything as it “really is”, as this strikes me as far too simplistic and unnatural. I say this because our basic perceptions about reality are more or less uniform, even if how we react to those empirical facts (sensation – for more on the distinction I am drawing here, see recent neuroscience re: things like “blind sight”, and Ned Block’s work on consciousness) or how we think they should be intellectually interpreted and arranged with other facts is due to the “theory-ladenness” (Popper) of our imaginations (not perceptions). In short, while strictly speaking our science is not derived from our observation of the real world – our observations test our science – it is nevertheless an absolutely critical and necessary element that is part and partial of it.
In other words, it seems to me that what I’ve said above in this thread still stands. I certainly will pay closer attention now to modern physics and cosmology, and read more on this as time allows, but for now it seems to me that convincing elegant mathematical models aside, without a sober and level-headed emphasis on critical and essential importance of real testability and empirical confirmation –– the idea of multiverses or universes from nothing will strike many of us, myself included (rightly or wrongly), as nakedly atheist arguments, captive to atheist presuppositions, fit only for atheist venues – and this by using the inherited capital of the science that is built on empirical confirmation (Speaking of which, evidently virtual particles do not simply “pop into and out of existence”, at least according to the “bookkeeping” predicted by [and made necessary by] the quantum theory – it seems by some accounts that the evidence that we can observe and measure simply confirms these unsurprising “temporary violations of *conservation of energy*” [http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=are-virtual-particles-rea], which makes much more sense to me).
In any case, I eagerly await the further physical evidence. I say “good luck” without denying that it is possible, or believing that no one ought to pursue these issues.
So what does this mean? Do I think I need to provide a criteria for falsification in belief in a Mind behind the universe? No, I don’t (although with Jesus specifically the criteria is the issue of the dead body). Do I think multiverse proponents, for example, need to (I know they are eager to say that this or that kind of observation would be [indirect] evidence for the multiverse) as Einstein, for example, did? Yes, I do (again, I realize that in practice, it is very rare for scientists to propose criteria for falsification for their own theories).
In any case, the more I think about all of this, I’m not sure if its at all relevant anyway to my original point.
Again, to say N is more simple than N+1 while talking about parsimony is simply absurd, as Occam would tell you I’m sure. It seems to me that the atheist just claims that he just has an N (N=universe), when in reality it seems like what he has is not exactly the same as N, but is quite different. Whether scientists call what preceded the universe a universe or not (keep in mind, the metaphysical naturalist *presupposes* that the definition of universe is basically the same as reality, where I say there is no reason to assume that equivalence) I think we can agree that they think that it was different in what it consisted of in some key ways. Therefore, it hardly seems unreasonable to say that the scientist ought to believe that there are significant causes for these differences, and that they should explore these causes (with their tools of experiment, locating and measuring) in any possible way that they can (and then refraining from calling metaphysical assumptions like “*it* [N] caused *itself* [still N evidently]”, or “it always was” [and/or “all that will be left to explore are practical matters of application”] science)
Me: In the end, it seems to me that the pure materialist is like a man who, after receiving crucial radio communication that helps him to navigate his surroundings, claims that he has, at bottom, obtained nothing but atmospheric noise.
You: “You continue with your false analogies. Sigh. There is no ‘crucial radio communication’. You’re listening to noise and imagining a signal.”
Noise? Don’t you *really* mean to say that yes, there is meaning (law and order), but no Meaning (Law-and-Order Giver/Mind)? (this is what I find incoherent). Of course, if you wanted to actually go as far to say that there is no meaning (small m, i.e. the universe is full of immensely complicated but somewhat comprehensible things that are interconnected and related) “out there” either, than you might as well forget about your pattern and regularity-seeking brain “in there” as well, since existence contains our minds (but how can existence not be like our minds at all if it contains them?). You see, from my perspective, its almost as if you are saying (I know you’d insist otherwise) that there is no rational intelligibility of the universe (its not mathematically intelligible at all or intelligible in any other way at all).
Me: “After all, if we agree that there was a beginning to the one universe we can observe, and that like effects proceed from like causes (Newton), and agree on the “effect” of existence (i.e. we really do exist), it seems obvious that existence is more like mind/intellect (rational, ordered) than non-mind/nonintellect (irrational, chaotic).”
You: “This is a silly false analogy. Existence is what it is. It contains that which follows simple laws — and those laws lead to both order and chaos, and (eventually) to minds. But minds are complex, and the lowest level of existence itself is simple, and thus not mind-like.”
If we, contra the idealists – and nowadays those who think we are brains in vats or just a computer simulation – insist that there really does exist one universe we can detect “out there”, it really is a valid question to ask ourselves if its existence is more like mind or non-mind, more like order than like chaos…. Seriously, though – I framed that badly, as I spoke of existence in general. Change my statement to the following: “After all, if we agree that like effects proceed from like causes (Newton), and that there was a beginning to the one universe we can observe, does it not seem obvious that the universe which began – its existence – is more like mind/intellect (rational, ordered) than non-mind/nonintellect (irrational, chaotic)?” I’ll answer that for you: yes.
Finally…
Me: it seems to me that not only believers in God but unbelievers as well ought to consider that that study about control you cite might actually apply to them. : )
You: I don’t see how — after all, the point was that people lacking control see things in patterns that are not there, not that people who don’t see things that aren’t there lack control.
Logically, of course, you are right, but again, you are missing the bigger human picture. Are you suggesting that it is even necessary to do a similar study in order to show that it is common to human experience that persons have an active interest in suppressing evidence and knowledge that they find to be inconvenient, uncomfortable, and troubling? Is this not also a general observation we can make about human nature?
How about people who aren’t terribly happy about the things that appear to really be there, namely, an ordered universe we can observe where all “six dials” make possible everything needed for life? As we deal with the seen and what lies behind it (this is what sci theories deal with), I think it is true to say that the unseen really does come through the senses – but not always directly of course, as indirect evidence is also key (and certainly not apart from the imaginative models that we construct as we deal with the evidence we detect). In some respects, the unseen does resemble the seen. So again: is the universe that we agree exists out there more like mind or non-mind? You can say it’s a false dichotomy and a false choice, and that I am projecting out of my need for control, etc. etc. but for me – and most regular people, I think – its not. Why shouldn’t I suspect that many atheists, if not most (I’m willing to make an exception for you though!) are much like Epicureus, who *admitted up front* that he wasn’t really concerned about knowing truth – but rather *interested in a form of life that worked and that made living pleasant*? Why is it wrong for me to think that, for most atheists (again, exception made for you!), it ultimately comes down to how they can most effectively deny and argue against their obligation towards the Divine Nature responsible for the cosmos that most everyone else in the world seems concerned about relating to, in some fashion or another?
Of course the great thing about science is that its methodologies are such that it is a self-correcting, and hence, eminently useful enterprise. Popper was surely not right on the mark about the importance of falsifiability (not all scientists are like Einstein, or perhaps can be, in that they offer a particular experiment that would outright falsify their theory) – at least in regards the individual scientist and his designs – but surely, in the wider context of persons contending with one another to obtain solid, verifiable evidence in order to validate their claims, falsifiability is certainly a strong, indirect part of the process.
Still, I think what this may ultimately come down to is that I feel (yes, I write this consciously, preferring this word over think, although thinking is hardly unimportant) that I must trust my own judgment (and those who have taught me) about the overall situation we find ourselves in as human beings living in the cosmos more than you feel you must trust yours (not to mention mine!). I understand that you might think that I am simply ignorant and closing my eyes to the evidence before me, but I really don’t think this is the case. I want to give methodological naturalism its due, but not at the expense of all the other ways that we have of knowing as human beings. You, on the other hand, are more convinced that metaphysical naturalism follows. Here, the Freudian-esque question you asked me about control may very well apply to yourself, from my perspective. You cling to the idea that all the evidence we can ascertain in nature boils down to law-like – albeit undirected and unguided causes, and that some kind of Mind or Divine Intelligence that can be distinguished from material realities we can locate and measure – and that you would owe your existence to, and may have to answer to for what you do (hence the presence of guilt in all humans) – is the least likely explanation.
And that, is seems clear to me, is wrong – and clinging to narrow and hollow explanations of what constitutes parsimony simply don’t cut it.
Rebuttal? You write it and I’ll read it.
Best regards,
Nathan
From a couple of posts back:
Since when is an episode in an anonymously authored literary narrative “the rough-and-tumble world of real-life history”?
Only, it appears, when it is a first-century (or thereabouts) narrative about Jesus. The empty tomb pericope as it appears in Mark, and as it is substantially taken over by the other evangelists, would not suffice to convince anybody that any actual historical event matching the description took place unless they had a preexisting faith commitment to the Christian narrative.
Also, Nathan, somewhere in those voluminous missives just above, you imply that the genuine letters of Paul contain references to the historical Jesus, by which I take you to mean a near contemporary of Paul, a Galilean of Nazareth, a teacher figure who attracted disciples and taught in parables, and a healer and miracle worker. Could you be more specific about that? Because when I read Paul, I don’t see even a hint of any of that.
Except that the burden of proof remains with you, and you have nothing except your presupposition in support of your claims.
This is quite literally as insane as claiming that it has yet to be shown that you being Napoleon is false.
Of course you are.
The difference is that my presuppositions are necessary, minimal, logical and internally consistent, and your religious presuppositions are unnecessary, grandiose, illogical and utterly inconsistent.
Your attempt to read my mind fails on its face.
Which love? The love of parent for child, child for parent, sibling for sibling, sex partner for sex partner, spouse for spouse, person for pleasing thing, idealist for idea, deluded for delusion?
Obviously my djinn bottle testifies to there having been a djinn inside because of the context of my claim that there was once a djinn inside.
I assume you know that I claim that there was a djinn in the bottle, which includes my assertion that it was so.
Your “empty tomb” is as silly as my empty djinn bottle.
Just as I am an eyewitness to my djinn, which had a discernible physical body of smoke and fire, that was quite amazing and awe-inspiring to behold.
And you think this because of course, Christianity presupposes it. You haven’t actually read any scholars who disagree, and why they disagree.
Obviously not meant to be in sane language, you mean, so you distort the language to match your insanity. “Disease” and “sin” are two different words, and both existed in ancient Hebrew.
Since leprosy, contagion, and life-destroying evil existed after the presupposed event of ~30CE, this statement is insane in asserting that which is false to be true.
I discount the possibility of something that has almost nothing to do with what actually is claimed to have happened in the future to be any sort of fulfillment of a prophecy in the past.
The verse says that God creates evil. It says nothing about any healing following this evil.
Except that God did evil to Job, and explicitly told Satan to work against him.
That’s what you say — not what the verse says. And of course, in reality, the dead do not rise, and the broken and hurt only heal from their bodies repairing themselves, with the aid of doctors who sometimes fail, leaving broken parts that never heal completely.
Why is a putative God not ultimately responsible for his actions and inactions? Because you say so?
You mean, — granting that it’s different just for the sake of argument — I should just presuppose that it’s true just because it’s different?
Never mind proving — can you even support it?
Which philosophers have you read, or even read about, that supports your “explanation”?
This claim that you assert as fact is not a fact. Some Hellenic philosophers went so far as to claim that the gods existed but did nothing; others came up with ideas about how gods were the product of culture.
Except that natural philosophers did not consider what they were doing to be “trifling with creation”: they were observing, classifying, analyzing, and recording what they saw in nature.
Really, you betray a profound ignorance of the history you make such certain claims about.
Well, that was shortly after Abū ʿAlī al-Ḥasan ibn al-Ḥasan ibn al-Haytham — Alhazen — expressed the idea of experiments with controls.
What are you talking about?
What are you smoking, and is it legal in the Netherlands? How can you write something so mind-bogglingly, moronically, obviously false?
Or maybe because accumulating knowledge was seen to be useful. Or maybe there’s more than one reason.
Except that you don’t need God or revelation to do science.
Except that you are wrong, because it did. They lacked the idea of experimental controls and many of the critical tools that have been invented since their time, but they did plenty of experimentation and observation; they captured those patterns of order as they understood them, and recorded them, and shared their recorded ideas, and wrote up and discussed what they found with others. Euclid and Archimedes were not Christians; the first measurement of the circumference of the Earth by Eratosthenes was not done by a Christian; Galen wrote many treatises on medicine without being a Christian; Aristotle wrote a tremendous library of observations of nature centuries before Christianity; Ptolemy’s Almagest was not compiled by a Christian. As wrong as the latter two were, they still represent an enormous amount of effort in doing exactly what you foolishly claim they were not doing!
Why are you so damned ignorant of what you are trying to make claims about?
Given your own anti-scientific attitudes, I don’t think it is that obvious today.
Archaeological evidence of Troy and Mycenae has been found.
Of course not. It simply presupposes that the gods were real and helped the various factions involved in the Trojan War, just like you presuppose that God is real and did the things written in the bible.
Where is the first-hand testimony to the miraculous in the New Testament? There is none; everything is at second-hand remove or further.
The intention of a religious fanatic was not to write a book of religious dogma?
A “historian” who contradicted Matthew and put Jesus as having been born 10 years later during the census of Quirinius, and who got the details of the census completely wrong?
That’s a historian, to you?
Right, a religious fanatic promoting religious dogma.
Luke reports hearsay, rather.
So if Luke can be demonstrated as unreliable — as with the census of Quirinius above — his writings can be rejected.
I’m sorry, what? Multiple people being tricked or misinterpreting things multiple times means that an actual miracle occurred?
Which exists nowhere in the bible itself.
This is not a counterargument.
So in other words, examination and testing can be rejected as not having happened.
Or in other words, you presuppose that you know that they knew what happened, and that it was real, and not a misinterpretation or a trick or anything else.
So says the myth.
So says the myth.
So says the myth.
So says the myth.
Are you too stupid to realize that Passover is specifically a spring festival? Have you never paid attention to what time of year Easter takes place?
Which makes it more like a myth, not less.
And what would convince you that the body had actually had been found? I mean, if they found some bones near Jerusalem that date to ~30 CE, with something written near them saying “Jesus the Nazarene” — you would immediately deconvert?
Hey, historians and archaeologists are free to look for my djinn. I’m not going to stop them. When they see a being with a body of smoke and fire, they’ll know they’ve found it.
And did so naturally, indeed. So Jesus could have come back to life naturally as well. No need for miracles at all.
What does a multiverse have to do with anything here?
Or rather, it was claimed afterwards that persons had predicted this, based on vague interpretations of the purported prediction.
What “truth”? What “immense use” is there or was there? What archaeological discovery was made because of Genesis 10?
Why should I? You offer no logic nor evidence for me to do so.
I have excellent reason to conclude that there is no Mind: There is no evidence of Mind. There is no evidence that Mind can exist without a body. Every evidence that we have of mind is that mind is completely natural.
And my belief in this is justified by both the evidence that we have of mind, and by the complete logical incoherence of the arguments of those who say that there is Mind before body and/or without body.
It is you who presuppose that there is a Mind without good reason.
No, the “burden of proof” is on you to demonstrate that Jesus did ever exist. You have provided nothing but your presupposition based on the presupposition of others. Not logic, and not evidence. I reject your claims as silly and unfounded just like you reject my claim of having a djinn bottle as silly.
In addition to getting the details of the census of Quirinius wrong, and contradicting Matthew, I note that Luke may well have been a plagiarist…
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/lukeandjosephus.html
Nonsense. You have nothing to support Luke, or you, being right.
My mind is clearer of presupposition than your mind, so you must obviously be more foolish than I am.
[Definition of pantheism]
Note that the definition says that it depends on what you mean by “God”.
He explicitly says “not a “supreme being,””. Did you read what you copied and pasted?
How can you “presume causation” before cause-and-effect as understood now?
Theoretical cosmologists are coming up with all sorts of models that try and work things out in different ways. No one is saying not to ask questions, only to make sure that the questions are consistent with what we currently actually have.
Who has come to that conclusion? I’m not saying not to ask questions, only not to presuppose that you know the answers to the questions without evidence.
The universe isn’t “telling us” anything. We — humans — are figuring things out about the universe. Since minds are prone to making errors, we simply emphasize that we may have some consistent model, but come to no certain conclusions without evidence. Again: That’s theoretical cosmology.
Except you’re trying to conclude things about before the “now” of the beginning of everything.
If time actually is infinite, then given that the universe of space, matter and energy exists now within time, it’s reasonable to conclude that there has always been something within time that could, and quite possibly did, give rise to our universe of space, matter and energy.
If time is not infinite, then there is something else that we can barely conceive of that gives rise to time. Or we fail to understand that time itself can simply start existing for no reason.
Or something like that.
But we can’t be certain about causes, which was the point of bringing it up.
Nonsensical how?
Stephen Hawking made some interesting theoretical predictions, which may or may not be entirely correct, but which don’t strike me as being “nonsensical”.
I don’t quite get the point of what you cite after this — there exist multiple solutions, and outside of those solutions are two opposing extremes which are obviously not optimum solutions, therefore… what, exactly?
Not believe what, exactly? You’ve not presented anything very coherent preceding this.
You haven’t presented any sort of argument for this. In fact, I’m not even sure of what you mean by determinism.
And when you strip out your presuppostions, you’re left with that things are the way they are because they got that way.
What does determinism have to do with methodological naturalism? And what makes you think that methodological naturalism is false? Oh, right — you just presuppose that it is, because you want to be able to wish things into being true.
Who “worships” those? What do you even mean by worship?
It certainly did not leave Einstein “wanting more” — or at least, not wanting more illogical and mystical presuppositions than pantheism itself.
So? We can reject religion as false just as we can reject geocentrism as false, once we have the logic and evidence that explains why we believed false things.
We cannot presume either infinite success or inevitable failure. But indefinite continued success seems like a reasonable balanced compromise inference at this point in time.
Why should anyone presuppose this?
If there’s empirical support for this, then they’ll be able to provide it. If there isn’t, then they have no real way to be sure that they aren’t the victims of some sort of rare brain malfunction.
This might count as empirical support.
Why should understanding the universe, in and of itself, be worthy of honor? Do you think that because you have some mental ability, like being able to read and write in English, you are more “worthy of honor” than those who lack that ability?
How is it unnatural or simplistic? It is exactly the other way around: It points out that the nature of things is far more complex than what our perceptions allow!
Uniform in error, though, as well — or have you seen no optical illusions?
And how about uniform misunderstanding of that which is perceived? Geocentrism arose precisely because people thought that what they were seeing — the sun going around the Earth — accurately reflected reality.
This only supports perception being more complex than you think — not that what we perceive, or think we perceive, is exactly true.
I don’t think anyone has argued otherwise.
And you are, of course, wrong.
Atheism is not a presupposition, but a conclusion about a consistent universe. The fact that you don’t like the conclusion arises from your own nakedly theist presuppositions of an inconsistent universe.
I’m don’t think that this helps you, since it’s equally reasonable that the entire universe is itself an unsurprising temporary violation of conservation of energy.
Right, because you’re unreasonably presupposing that you don’t need any criteria for your presupposition.
Right, because you have a double-standard — you don’t need to provide anything at all to support your many presuppositions; everyone else needs to present hard evidence for their theories, because you say so.
Theists are essentially epistemic hypocrites.
You fail to understand parsimony.
Is it logically necessary to posit a Mind that created the universe?
No.
You fail to understand metaphysical naturalism as much as you fail to understand parsimony.
This is illogical special pleading.
Is it logically necessary to posit that there is anything unnatural about reality?
No.
I *really* mean to say that you are indeed incoherent.
Except for when they don’t, per QM under Copenhagen
No. It seems obvious that you are confused about the universe and its nature. You are observing, with your own mind, things about the universe that you pretend are “mind-like”, and ignoring everything that isn’t like that.
You are committing massive confirmation bias, and it’s pretty pathetic that you don’t recognize that.
Because you presuppose that I should presuppose the same incoherent, confused, illogical, inconsistent, irrational, presuppositions that you presuppose.
Tough. I refuse.
I should hope so.
I am missing your illogical and wrong presuppositions?
You mean, like you do all the time? It’s pretty obvious that you find the evidence and knowledge about the lack of evidence for Christianity, and the lack of evidence for a Mind that exists in the universe or before the universe, to be inconvenient, uncomfortable, and troubling.
I assure you, similar studies about confirmation bias do already exist, and you exhibit classic symptoms.
Who is unhappy about it? If life couldn’t exist, I wouldn’t be around to be unhappy, now would I?
Your fallacious argumentum ad populum is noted.
Your false charity is noted.
Like so much else that you’re wrong about, you’re wrong about Epicurus.
Epicurus was convinced that a form of life that worked and that made living pleasant was perfectly consistent with knowing truth.
It’s pretty obvious that you hold to your presuppositions precisely because you are concerned about not knowing truth. So not only are you wrong, you’re projecting your own psychological inability to handle truth on those whom you oppose.
Your false charity is again fucking well noted.
Your fallacious argumentum ad populum is again fucking well noted.
And you are wrong because inconsistent and logically unnecessary presuppositions — such as that there is a Divine Nature; that it is responsible for the cosmos; and that anyone has any sort of obligation towards it — can be rejected until demonstrated otherwise with logic and empirical evidence.
You have no logic, nor empirical evidence, to support your presuppositions. They sit in your mind and warp your thinking.
Why am I not surprised that you are wrong about this as well?
Falsifiability is a necessary part of the process.
Or do you simply accept as true that my empty djinn bottle once contained a djinn?
Sure; you have a psychological preference for your presuppositions.
Part of having confirmation bias means that you deny that you have confirmation bias.
Knowing — or “thinking”, or even more weakly, “feeling”, as you phrased it above?
You can’t even summarize what you think I think without interjecting yet more incoherent presupposition in there.
Really now — God exists, therefore guilt exists, therefore God exists? Pfft.
Of course, you presuppose that it’s wrong, rather than having any kind of logical or evidential argument.
You continue to fail to understand parsimony, and your claim that parsimonious explanations are “hollow” (as opposed to you clinging to your greedy fat-filled incoherent presuppositions?) simply shows your continued failure to understand what you are talking about.
Your presuppositions simply don’t cut it.
Meh. I doubt you’ll comprehend it. Too much presupposition in your brain. But since I got here, here it goes anyway.
Wow, did Nathan really write this?
We had a dolt who professed similar:
He got dissed, too. I’d diss you, too, but I find myself too jaded.
Bah.
Owlmirror, that was fucking epic and thoroughly enjoyable.
I love it when the smart ones go into SIWOTI Overdrive :-)
I’m sorry but that’s just an incredibly ignorant thing to write. Here are a few Muslim thinkers that don’t fit that description: Alhazen (whom Owlmirror mentioned) basically invented the scientific method, Muhammad ibn Mūsā al-Khwārizmī who was a prominent mathematician who came up with the term, Al-Kindi was a Renaissance man before the Renaissance. Very few Muslim thinkers seem to fall under the category being conquered by Christians in fact. The hidden assumptions in this statement are also troubling. I hope you take it back.
Not exactly. To understand what happens around the singularity (let’s say within a Planck length) yeah you need a complete theory. However, outside of that we can know quite a bit. Kinda like how classical mechanics is a good approximation to general relativity perhaps quantum mechanics and general relativity are a good approximation to a better, complete theory (M-theory is the lead contender, but who knows). Just like how we can understand a fair bit about, say, the solar system using simply classical mechanics we can understand black holes with just general relativity (or some approximation that uses both general relativity and quantum).
One can believe in methodological naturalism and not be a determinist. In fact, that’s the position of many scientists today.
What?! Atheism has nothing to do with the those ideas.
Did you even read the article? The fact that these particles are popping in and out of existence is BECAUSE of a “temporary violations of *conservation of energy*”. The particles “borrow” the energy for a brief period of of time to come into existence. When and how these particles come into existence is unpredictable (or more precisely, only predictable statistically). I’m not sure why you think it’s an ‘either/or’ situation between the popping up of virtual particles and violation of conservation of energy.
In any case, the article says the particles are *real* and NOT merely “bookkeeping”.
Don’t be silly. The mummy of Yeshua is entombed in the the mountain Cardou in Southern France.
CJO,
See Galatians 4:4, Romans 1:3, 2 Cor 10:1, I Cor. 11:23-25, I Thes 2:14,15, Rom 13:10, Gal 5:14, Rom 13:7, I Cor 7:10-12, 25, 40. Also keep in mind that many of the Apostles were still alive when Paul was and were bigger experts when it came to talking about Jesus Christâs early life. And most everyone agrees that when the author of Acts starts using âweâ in the book, thatâs a good clue that Luke is identifying himself with the person he previously mentioned. Those in the early Christian communities certainly would have known. If youâd like to learn more about this fascinating issue, Google the following article for laypersons: “The Revelation and Inspiration of the New Testament”, (Jeffrey Kloha, “The Revelation and Inspiration of the New Testament”, Lutheran Witness, Septmeber, 2006)
Owlmirror,
Thank you kindly for your long replies. I canât say I always appreciate the tone and language, but I realize thatâs your way. I had best stick with my rather boring one (though I am always tempted to try to imitate [poorly of course, as my parents did Jesus and His followers] your entertaining style).
I know this may not go over too well, but I have to admit I really donât have time for this â literally (job, family, house repairs, etc. â you probably know), not in a âI donât want to talk to youâ kind of way. Really, I do like talking (and I wish I had more liberty to read, study, etc). It is possible that I may find some more time to come up with what I consider some good replies again, so feel free to check back again in a month if youâd like a good laugh (Iâll at least check back to read before then myself), I guess.
Some things that I think I should quickly say though.
First, I thank you for convincing me that I should try to hit the books a bit more. I donât think that I have made any real errors (though perhaps I did misrepresent Epicureus [certainly though, we can say that for him, even allowing that God might intervene in the natural world – and even taking seriously the possibility of an afterlife – were not thoughts compatible with “the good life”, whatever he may have said or believed about “truth”…maybe he is like Dawkins who believes that those who are concerned to speak of evolutionary theory, for example, using terms like “truth”, are really just pedants] – thank you for mentioning this, and I will look into it again…) in what Iâve said below (although many of my comments obviously left themselves open to criticism and need some more clarification, for example, regarding when, where, and why science in its modern form, as a systematic enterprise, took hold widely in culture [no disrespect to Galen, Archimedes, Pythagorus, Aristotle (my favorite quote from him: “Lack of experience diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive view of the admitted facts. Hence those who dwell in intimate association with nature and its phenomena are more able to lay down principles such as to admit of a wide and coherent development; while those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations.â (quoted in Aristotle and the Metaphsyics of Evolution, Journal article by Fran O’Rourke; The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 58, 2004)”, Ptolemy, Alhazen, etc]), but nonetheless, Iâll admit that there are areas I could use some work.
Second, I kindly assure you that âfalse charityâ has nothing to do with my replies, for I believe that you, though an atheist, are God’s [beloved] atheist, and I desire to see you as He does. Although I do believe that everyone does have a sense of God â and that they suppress this knowledge â this does not necessarily mean that I believe every atheist is thinking about these things all the time (despite stereotypes that they are all obsessed with God, i.e. a) He doesnât exist and b) I hate him). I do believe many are utterly convinced that they are concerned about the truth (despite the fact that they give us little reason to trust our minds for this, as âhow survival worksâ really does seem to be primary, thereby possibly undercutting the idea of truth somewhat, for sometimes subtle deception pays, it seems), and nothing but. Also, see this (http://mliccione.blogspot.com/2010/05/why-atheism-can-be-respectable.html ). So itâs a good idea to put the best construction on things (which I think I failed to do a few times last time – I really do apologize). In fact, I really do appreciate many atheists, as they seem far more interested in ideas and history than your average person (I will be interested to see what Richard Carrier produces re: his major project, and whether it will gather much of an informed response – it would seem that currently, his position on Jesus is about as fringe as you can get in historical circles [maybe he is kind of like the atheist’s “young earth creationists”, who, though sometimes having PhDs and/or often doing real useful scientific work, are not even considered to hold significant minority positions as regards the academic landscape]).
That said, thirdly, I think that you really have not considered deeply these very historical and âeventfulâ matters that I have brought up. I once heard a man say that most accomplished academics may only talk to 5 or 6 people that they respect when it comes to their area of expertise for example, but they are content to have a grade school education when it comes to Christianity. I do not necessarily think that this is true for you (whereas many well-catechized laypersons would immediately be able to tell that this is the case with people like Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, Dennet, Carrier), but at the same time, your djinn bottle illustration strikes me again as exceptionally weak (and yes, I know that the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible, although the concept is, and is the best way we have of describing what we find in the Scriptures). That the whole idea of multiple resurrection appearances to multiple witnesses was deception, illusion, or wishful thinking â and is in any sense comparable to your analogy â is a bit hard to swallow or follow (therefore, I probably should encourage you to keep using it as though, since I think it tends to discredit your other arguments, but Iâm being nice, and no, thatâs not false charity either). In any case I do appreciate that you are continuing to talk about these matters (unlike Dawkins as regards John Lennox, for example), and that you basically only have one thing to complain about re: Luke as a historian (more on this below; also: not sure about the contradiction you are speaking of with Matthew: geneologies?).
Fourth, when I said, âYou are convinced of many things that you do not have scientific evidence for (quantitative evidence, probabilistic evidence, repeatable evidence, etc.), including things based on all kinds of analogies and myriads of historical events that you find useful to know about, for this or that reasonâ and you replied âYour attempt to read my mind fails on its faceâ, you really should be more humble. : ) I was thinking about human beings in general. Also, when you say, âAtheism is not a presupposition, but a conclusion about a consistent universeâ, I say a consistent and ordered universe (law and order) clearly points to a Mind (Lawgiver and Orderer) responsible for it (and to whom we would be responsible), and that this is the result of applying parsimony to what is ultimately must become a philosophical, not scientific (mathematics and methodological naturalism) issue (here you better trust the minds of children who are wired for “God”/Creator). In addition, when you say, âthe entire universe is itself an unsurprising temporary violation of conservation of energyâ this hardly means that âvirtual particlesâ (which would be real) â or any extrapolated âvirtual universesâ (which would be real) â are coming from nowhere â i.e. *not* from matter (and energy) that already existed â correct? (in which case, I note that this is not N, but N+1). Also, I did not mean to imply that determinism was synonymous with metaphysical naturalism (although some, as you say, think that it is possible, or something like that). Finally if it is wrong to say that a âmetaphysical naturalist *presupposes* that the definition of universe is basically the same as realityâ I genuinely would like to know your definition (as, even though you may doubt me, I really am concerned to make accurate statements).
Fifth, the Hart quote talked about something of which it’s very essence is being as such: not a “supreme being” (so you’re right: saying “Ultimate being” may not be the way to say it either), but “the one eternal and transcendent source of all existence and knowledge, in which all finite being”. Transcendent by definition means “outside of the box”, (i.e. the system) though, hence my comment equating Hart’s Being to panentheism (though he is a Christian, and like me, would say that we can know God through His revelation in Jesus Christ, and not apart from Him [kind of like this: http://www.geneveith.com/no-end-runs-around-the-cross/_4331/%5D)
Finally, I repeat: does [any ancient mythology] go on to call on non-Greeks and beyond to believe in order to be made right with [their] gods based on these âhistoricalâ occurrences?
You: Of course not.
Me: Well I do – proudly. We do. For He, the Lover of all Mankind, is worthy of honor – and He shall reign forever and ever.
(if you desire [or perhaps if you want a good laugh?], read more by going to the links at the bottom of this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_L._Maier [stuff on Josephus there, and here: http://www.4truth.net/site/c.hiKXLbPNLrF/b.2902067/k.C923/Josephus_and_Jesus.htm%5D, for Quirinius read here: http://www.orlutheran.com/html/census.html)
I donât have more time to directly address others who wrote here. Perhaps later.
My best to all of you (meant truly indeed),
~Nathan
owlmirror,
It looks like we won’t be able to continue the conversation as the administrator of the blog seems to no longer be taking longer comments (or ones that have wandered too far from the original point of the post?).
Perhaps later,
Nathan
Nathan, if you post a comment with too many links it might go into moderation.
Try again without links or with less links, usually 2, if that is the case.
Trying again:
CJO,
See Galatians 4:4, Romans 1:3, 2 Cor 10:1, I Cor. 11:23-25, I Thes 2:14,15, Rom 13:10, Gal 5:14, Rom 13:7, I Cor 7:10-12, 25, 40. Also keep in mind that many of the Apostles were still alive when Paul was and were bigger experts when it came to talking about Jesus Christ’s early life. And most everyone agrees that when the author of Acts starts using “we” in the book, that’s a good clue that Luke is identifying himself with the person he previously mentioned. Those in the early Christian communities certainly would have known. If you’d like to learn more about this fascinating issue, Google the following article for laypersons: “The Revelation and Inspiration of the New Testament”, (Jeffrey Kloha, “The Revelation and Inspiration of the New Testament”, Lutheran Witness, Septmeber, 2006)
Owlmirror,
Thank you kindly for your long replies. I can’t say I always appreciate the tone and language, but I realize that’s your way. I had best stick with my rather boring one (though I am always tempted to try to imitate [poorly of course, as my parents did Jesus and His followers] your entertaining style).
I know this may not go over too well, but I have to admit I really don’t have time for this – literally (job, family, house repairs, etc. – you probably know), not in a “I don’t want to talk to you” kind of way. Really, I do like talking (and I wish I had more liberty to read, study, etc). It is possible that I may find some more time to come up with what I consider some good replies again, so feel free to check back again in a month if you’d like a good laugh (I’ll at least check back to read before then myself), I guess
Some things that I think I should quickly say though.
First, I thank you for convincing me that I should try to hit the books a bit more. I don’t think that I have made any real errors (though perhaps I did misrepresent Epicureus [certainly though, we can say that for him, even allowing that God might intervene in the natural world – and even taking seriously the possibility of an afterlife – were not thoughts compatible with “the good life”, whatever he may have said or believed about “truth”…maybe he is like Dawkins who believes that those who are concerned to speak of evolutionary theory, for example, using terms like “truth”, are really just pedants] – thank you for mentioning this, and I will look into it again…) in what I’ve said below (although many of my comments obviously left themselves open to criticism and need some more clarification, for example, regarding when, where, and why science in its modern form, as a systematic enterprise, took hold widely in culture [no disrespect to Galen, Archimedes, Pythagorus, Aristotle (my favorite quote from him: “Lack of experience diminishes our power of taking a comprehensive view of the admitted facts. Hence those who dwell in intimate association with nature and its phenomena are more able to lay down principles such as to admit of a wide and coherent development; while those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of facts are too ready to dogmatize on the basis of a few observations.” (quoted in Aristotle and the Metaphsyics of Evolution, Journal article by Fran O’Rourke; The Review of Metaphysics, Vol. 58, 2004)”, Ptolemy, Alhazen, etc]), but nonetheless, I’ll admit that there are areas I could use some work.
Second, I kindly assure you that “false charity” has nothing to do with my replies, for I believe that you, though an atheist, are God’s [beloved] atheist, and I desire to see you as He does. Although I do believe that everyone does have a sense of God – and that they suppress this knowledge – this does not necessarily mean that I believe every atheist is thinking about these things all the time (despite stereotypes that they are all obsessed with God, i.e. a) He doesn’t exist and b) I hate him). I do believe many are utterly convinced that they are concerned about the truth (despite the fact that they give us little reason to trust our minds for this, as “how survival works” really does seem to be primary, thereby possibly undercutting the idea of truth somewhat, for sometimes subtle deception pays, it seems), and nothing but. Also, see this (http://mliccione.blogspot.com/2010/05/why-atheism-can-be-respectable.html ). So it’s a good idea to put the best construction on things (which I think I failed to do a few times last time – I really do apologize). In fact, I really do appreciate many atheists, as they seem far more interested in ideas and history than your average person (I will be interested to see what Richard Carrier produces re: his major project, and whether it will gather much of an informed response – it would seem that currently, his position on Jesus is about as fringe as you can get in historical circles [maybe he is kind of like the atheist’s “young earth creationists”, who, though sometimes having PhDs and/or often doing real useful scientific work, are not even considered to hold significant minority positions as regards the academic landscape]).
That said, thirdly, I think that you really have not considered deeply these very historical and “eventful” matters that I have brought up. I once heard a man say that most accomplished academics may only talk to 5 or 6 people that they respect when it comes to their area of expertise for example, but they are content to have a grade school education when it comes to Christianity. I do not necessarily think that this is true for you (whereas many well-catechized laypersons would immediately be able to tell that this is the case with people like Hitchens, Harris, Dawkins, Dennet, Carrier), but at the same time, your djinn bottle illustration strikes me again as exceptionally weak (and yes, I know that the word “Trinity” is not in the Bible, although the concept is, and is the best way we have of describing what we find in the Scriptures). That the whole idea of multiple resurrection appearances to multiple witnesses was deception, illusion, or wishful thinking – and is in any sense comparable to your analogy – is a bit hard to swallow or follow (therefore, I probably should encourage you to keep using it as though, since I think it tends to discredit your other arguments, but I’m being nice, and no, that’s not false charity either). In any case I do appreciate that you are continuing to talk about these matters (unlike Dawkins as regards John Lennox, for example), and that you basically only have one thing to complain about re: Luke as a historian (more on this below; also: not sure about the contradiction you are speaking of with Matthew: geneologies?).
Fourth, when I said, “You are convinced of many things that you do not have scientific evidence for (quantitative evidence, probabilistic evidence, repeatable evidence, etc.), including things based on all kinds of analogies and myriads of historical events that you find useful to know about, for this or that reason” and you replied “Your attempt to read my mind fails on its face”, you really should be more humble. : ) I was thinking about human beings in general. Also, when you say, “Atheism is not a presupposition, but a conclusion about a consistent universe”, I say a consistent and ordered universe (law and order) clearly points to a Mind (Lawgiver and Orderer) responsible for it (and to whom we would be responsible), and that this is the result of applying parsimony to what is ultimately must become a philosophical, not scientific (mathematics and methodological naturalism) issue (here you better trust the minds of children who are wired for “God”/Creator). In addition, when you say, “the entire universe is itself an unsurprising temporary violation of conservation of energy” this hardly means that “virtual particles” (which would be real) – or any extrapolated “virtual universes” (which would be real) – are coming from nowhere – i.e. *not* from matter (and energy) that already existed – correct? (in which case, I note that this is not N, but N+1). Also, I did not mean to imply that determinism was synonymous with metaphysical naturalism (although some, as you say, think that it is possible, or something like that). Finally if it is wrong to say that a “metaphysical naturalist *presupposes* that the definition of universe is basically the same as reality” I genuinely would like to know your definition (as, even though you may doubt me, I really am concerned to make accurate statements).
Fifth, when you say my argument for a Mind fails because “like effects proceed from like causes” does not hold per QM under Copenhagen, I disagree. Again, take the double-slit experiment: we know that something (whether the nature of quantum mechanics itself or the measuring instrument or whatever) has caused these things to act within this range of possibilities, and do not persons agree that the possible candidates for causation are also limited, albeit not clearly discernible? To speak of “chaos” really makes no sense at all, as again, we are dealing with order, albeit “structured possibilities”, right? And from order – albeit not a wholly mechanistic and determinable order – it is only natural to conclude an Orderer.
Sixth, the Hart quote talked about something of which it’s very essence is being as such: not a “supreme being” (so you’re right: saying “Ultimate being” may not be the way to say it either), but “the one eternal and transcendent source of all existence and knowledge, in which all finite being”. Transcendent by definition means “outside of the box”, (i.e. the system) though, hence my comment equating Hart’s Being to panentheism (though he is a Christian, and like me, would say that we can know God through His revelation in Jesus Christ, and not apart from Him [kind of like this: http://www.geneveith.com/no-end-runs-around-the-cross/_4331/%5D)
Finally, I repeat: does [any ancient mythology] go on to call on non-Greeks and beyond to believe in order to be made right with [their] gods based on these “historical” occurrences?
You: Of course not.
Me: Well I do – proudly. We do. For He, the Lover of all Mankind, is worthy of honor – and He shall reign forever and ever.
(if you desire [or perhaps if you want a good laugh?], read more by going to the links at the bottom of this page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_L._Maier [stuff on Josephus there, and here: http://www.4truth.net/site/c.hiKXLbPNLrF/b.2902067/k.C923/Josephus_and_Jesus.htm%5D, for Quirinius read here: http://www.orlutheran.com/html/census.html)
I don’t have any time to directly address others who wrote here. Perhaps later.
My best to all of you (meant truly indeed),
~Nathan