AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
I believe you.
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can you proove there isn't a deity?
- Thread starter kloth
- Start date
I believe you.
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
It's neither. Philosophy Now is a solid popular publication, but its not an academic journal. I'm skeptical over whether Mr. Smethem's article would have survived peer-review.
Which makes it sort of dishonest. Claiming to know that materialism is false is like claiming to know a theory of everything- one is claiming to "know" something which, in all honesty, escapes our current understanding and data. I don't doubt Mr. Smethem believes that materialism is false, but he does not know it.
In any case, if your point was simply that not everyone accepts physicalism, I can easily concede that; although physicalism is still certainly the most tenable view- far more parsimonious and less ontologically problematic than dualism, and prima facie more consistent with the natural sciences than idealism or neutral monism.
Um, I never said that.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
When I was given a copy I looked up it's sources because they had a far more center of the road view than most of the liberal academic rags I have seen. I found an association with Cambridge but can not remember the details and do not care. Here is a little information on it but I am not wasting time discussing the pedigree of a journal because I have issued a disclaimer (or tried to) every time I supplied the link. Not because of it's source but because it is concerning hat very speculative end of things that I elsewhere complain about. I am consistent but wanted to show that for every speculative claim in any direction an equally speculative (though this one claims to be less than speculative) claim exists in the opposite.
Philosophy Now
A Magazine of Ideas
Rick Lewis, Editor
Philosophy Now is a unique philosophy magazine aimed at both specialists and the general public. Its primary purpose is to show that philosophy can be exciting, worthwhile, and comprehensible for general readers, while at the same time providing informed and enjoyable reading for philosophy students and academics. Philosophy Now is intended as a showcase for original philosophy written in a lively, readable, and nontechnical style. This magazine is ideal for introductory students, teachers, and general readers.
Since its launch in 1991, Philosophy Now has become the most widely read philosophy publication in the English-speaking world. It is published six times per year, and contains articles on all aspects of Western philosophy, as well as book reviews, letters, news, cartoons, and sometimes a poem or two. Occasional special issues cover topics such as ethics, ancient philosophy and philosophy of mind. Interviews with leading philosophers are also featured. Sold from newsstands and bookstores coast to coast, Philosophy Now subscriptions in the U.S. and Canada are managed by the Philosophy Documentation Center.
Philosophy Now - A Magazine of Ideas
My point was to show that almost every argument that is used to deny God exists in a speculative arena and that a counter view exists for every argument. In my views it is a meaningless speculation but even so does not add up to a reason to deny faith. I tend to deny the usefulness of all these extremely speculative conclusions but only provided it for contrast, so I am not going to defend it. I wish one of two things.
1. That all extremely speculative views were absent from discussions about God or failing that.
2. That they were all weighted as their merit demands.
That is why I said that what you said meant that, not that it was that. It is a very common tactic. For instance the cosmological argument has had no actual fault existent in it for over 2500 years. Yet any less than certainty that can be introduced (or claimed to be) about it is given as reason for dismissal. My claims are all best fit and best explanation types of claims and the amplification of doubts or less than certainties into reasons for rejection is an invalid tactic. A lack of evidence is only a fault if given a claim's truth, there should exist greater evidence.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
You should.
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
Did you heard that sound? It was your credibility flying out the window when you called peer-reviewed academic journals- the arena in which actual scholarship and academic progress and research occurs- "liberal academic rags". As if philosophy jounals have a political affiliation. You must love the taste of your own foot.
Not sure why you included this; I'm familiar with Philosophy Now, I browse their site every so often, because, as I said, its a pretty solid publication for a popular journal. But it should never be mistaken for a credible academic journal- its more for fun than for serious.
Again, you could've saved yourself the trouble- if your point is merely that some people believe God exists, or accept metaphysical dualism, or whatever, this is a patent fact and I would have readily admitted as much.
If all extremely speculative views were absent, there would be no discussions about God at all...
Is it opposite day? Or tasting your foot again? The fatal logical errors in the cosmological argument, especially as an argument for the existence of the Christian deity, have been documented and acknowledged for centuries, if not millenia. Oopsies.
You mean like the absence of necessary evidence for the existence of God, i.e. the types of evidence which could not fail to obtain if God existed? And of course, the absence of necessary evidence is necessarily evidence of absence, after all...
1robin
Christian/Baptist
You have no idea what publications I was referring to. Do to my laziness I was associated with the purely academic community for about a dozen years. There is no community (excepting possibly acting, politicians, sports, or entertainment) that is more conducive to in groups, arrogance, claims made to ensure grant money, ostracizing, and infighting. I have posted many commentaries on the peer review process as it exists today. It is almost as corrupt as tenure issues have become. It is a good theory but like all good theories that involve people are soon ruined. I have great respect for scholars but not academia as a whole. Anyway your conclusion here was correct in some ways but could not have been based on what I said. If in 5000 years we could not produce a political system we did not very quickly ruin, claiming a far less tried system is beyond complete corruption is null from the start. Do you have personal experience with academic review and procedure? There are very few systems less amenable to corruption. I take claims on their own merits not the claimed merits of their supporters. Craig is one of the most picked on scholars by atheists (which proves his effectiveness) yet he is peer reviewed in dozens of publications. Is he any more right because of it?
I included it only for information's sake, so I have no desire to debate it's pedigree. I do not take pedigree on it's face value most of the time.
My point was that very good reasons exist to claim that mind is primary and matter derivative because that was the context. Another source is an Oxford pure mathematics professor named Lennox. His claims are far less speculative than that article but I do not have a link.
There certainly exist speculative views about God and I do not like them in general. My claims have been logical deductions from very obvious facets of reality. I did not suggest that anything that contains speculation is invalid. I was saying that things based on nothing but speculation are almost meaningless to me.
Am I to take your assertion as evidence. I know most of the counter claims to the cosmological argument and why they are abject failures. They are amplifications of less than certainties and are usually merely semantic technicalities. That is why that argument is as valid today as it was 2500 years ago. No one has ever dented it though stones by the hundreds have been thrown in futility.
There exists no system, no criteria, and no logical deduction to make any claim of insufficiency of evidence for God. There is by any reasonable standard an over abundance of evidence for God. The fact the scholars most notated for examining evidence and making histories greatest contributions to knowledge have been men of faith is very suggestive of this. You are doing exactly what I said your side does. Amplify or actually create any level of uncertainty into an irrational justification to dismiss. You have merely asserted things into existence. There is not even an attempt at evidence of any type in your claims here. Your last statement is a complete fallacy. It is a proven fact that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence, even if that was the case here which it is not. Pluto existed before the slightest evidence was available to man of it's existence. This is like a philosophy 101 elementary mistake. There exists no such category as necessary evidence for God. There is plenty of it but no necessity for it. In fact deism almost rules it out theoretically.
BTW all these "foot in mouth" and "oops' additions just look arrogant and your claims do not derive benefit from their use.
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
His views are more credible and worthy of discussion than someone whose views have no been so vetted, at any rate.
Notice how, in keeping with your overall strategy, you prefer to mention authority, by citing people who agree with you, then citing their arguments. Yes, some people claim something like "mind is primary"- even some academics. But are their arguments very good? No, not really. If you prefer to stop just name-dropping and actually talk about the issue, then we could go over why they are not good arguments.
The point is that, regardless of what other problems may exist, the topic of God is speculative through and through. If you're not OK with speculative discussions, then you're not OK with discussions about God. By definition, God is an object of which we can, at best, merely speculate.
It would appear not.
Ah, I remember this game- logical properties such as invalidity are "semantic technicalities".
No, no one has ever dented the confidence in the argument of those who are already predisposed to accept the conclusion as an article of religious belief. There's a difference. The flaws in the argument are quite fatal. But, as we all know, for someone stubbornly committed to something, they're often willing to claim that up is down in order to preserve their cherished belief.
Hmm, you must've gotten hungry for some more foot since your last post. The absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, but the absence of necessary evidence is necessarily evidence of absence. A little of that "philosophy 101" you mentioned for you. Thus, the absence of the evidence entailed by a theistic deity is evidence of the absence of that theistic deity. Care to refute this evidentiary principle?
Anyway, absent that, here's what said evidence of the nonexistence of any god looks like:
-Is the world scientifically observable?
-Are events/changes in the world scientifically observable?
-Does (any) god cause events, or changes, in the world?
-Which events, or changes, in the world can only be accounted for by (any) god?
If there are no events, or changes, in the world which can only be accounted for by (any) god, then on what non-subjective, non-anecdotal, corroborative, basis can it be reasonably claimed that (any) god is real?
Things that produce or control phenomena in the natural world are, by definition, natural themselves.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
I can give peer review that much credit (in general), but no more. If you can stick with the standard that peer review in general adds a slight improvement in the probability it is accurate I can go along with that as well. I can not agree with the rejection or automatic dismissal of anything based on peer review. many times peer review works exactly the opposite as it is supposed to. It is a methodology for in groups to exclude ideas they do not like and blood academia with ideas they like but on average it may add a small degree of reliability. The area in question would be the worst of all possible area which peer review would add any credibility to something. Discussing black holes, things that occurred billions of years ago, and multiverses are like the blind leading the blind. There exists no standards by which to reject much of anything. Peer review in these areas is a meaningless exercise.
What was that? Am I supposed to use people who do not know anything about the subject and who disagree with me to make my point? What a bizarre accusation. No fair, "Tiger woods is conveniently using golf clubs".
Did you not see the third time I differentiated between things that include speculation and things based almost exclusively on speculation. Multiverses are speculation based on nothing. It is a fantasy on top of a myriad of assumptions based on conjectures. My and billions of personal experiences with God are a direct experiential observation. The former is nothing but speculation the later has a little speculation in it.
What would?
Invalidity is a word or label. If the word it's self had the slightest power to make anything invalid by it's use then we should just yell invalidity at each other and be done with it. Normally technical semantics point out flaws in human language and concepts and do nothing what ever to prove anything. It is the equivalent of getting a guilty man off based on a procedural violation. It is what people do who do not have a actual argument. I have read dozens and dozens of objections to the cosmological argument. At least 90% only point out irregularities in language or terminology not reality. The rest simply amplify any uncertainty that exists no matter how small and hand wave the claim away. They are place holders where actual arguments should have been.
There are no actual flaws in the argument. It is perfect deduction.
Any statements that contain these grossly arrogant euphemisms will not be addressed. Arrogance is the hardest quality to see in ones self and the easiest to see in another. It is also one of the most repulsive.Hmm, you must've gotten hungry for some more foot since your last post. The absence of evidence is not necessarily evidence of absence, but the absence of necessary evidence is necessarily evidence of absence. A little of that "philosophy 101" you mentioned for you. Thus, the absence of the evidence entailed by a theistic deity is evidence of the absence of that theistic deity. Care to refute this evidentiary principle?
Those are questions not examples of evidence that should be accessible but isn't. I have no idea what I am supposed to do with them. Every aspect of reality contains evidence for God. The existence of every atom there is, is evidence for a transcendent being or source.
As usual this is not the definition of evidence. It is not even what science adheres to. Science adheres to no criteria consistently especially that one created arbitrarily for convenience. The most applicable definition of evidence in this context is:If there are no events, or changes, in the world which can only be accounted for by (any) god, then on what non-subjective, non-anecdotal, corroborative, basis can it be reasonably claimed that (any) god is real?
The existence of a fact, observation, or historical event which if included makes a proposition more likely than it's absence.
In answer how about 2 billion experiential claims of God and far more than that to the supernatural in general. Billions of things consider absolute facts are based on less than 1% of that data set concerning personal observation or experience.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
Where did you get that? BTW what humans label things has nothing whatever to do with what their nature's actually are. If I called a whale a fish does it become one by doing so? Our labels are descriptive not prescriptive. They are causally inert. God can influence natural events and remain beyond nature no matter what a guy in a lab labels anything. Their exists no natural explanation for nature within nature. How do you account for it in nature? No natural law has ever produced anything from nothing, yet things exist where nothing used to exist.
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
Um, yeah, that's what I meant.
What I meant was, rather than just saying "so-and-so agrees with me", or "this many scholars agree with me"- as you always do- paraphrase their argument, so that your citation is not simply a bare appeal to authority. If someone says "so and so agrees with me", one need only reply "so what?" But if you say "so and so agrees with me, and here's their argument", then one must address that argument.
Commence backpeddling by introducing distinctions to save yourself, only to explode those distinctions in 3...2...1...
There we go. You destroyed your own distinction, which you only arbtrarily introduced to get yourself out of a bind- which you put yourself in.
No. Invalidity is a property of arguments. "Invalidity" is the word or label for this property. And invalidity is the property of arguments such that it is possible for the premises to be true, and the conclusion false- case in point, the causal argument for God's existence.
Generally speaking, invalidity is considered a flaw in an argument, and an invalid argument is not "a perfect deduction". Since actual logicians have long acknowledged that the argument is formally invalid, and I could actually provide you with a formulation in PL that demonstrates as much, you simply have no leg to stand on here.
I knew you wouldn't be able to refute the evidentiary principle. Coming up with an excuse to not even try is also probably a wise strategic move. Concession noted.
Answer them, if you can.
Since it is not given as a "definition of evidence", that's hardly a problem.
Au contraire; it underlies the entire enterprise of the scientific method- finding the explanation which uniquely accounts for the data.
Works for me. Now answer the questions.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
I normally use numbers to indicate two things. The sufficiency and quality of evidence. When a large number of the people most able to know adopt such a radical idea as God then that suggests very strongly that the evidence is of great quality and quantity. When billions claim to have experienced X then then that is also very indicative that X is true. Now if you want to discuss what the evidence is, or what it's quality is based upon I would use all kinds of methodology but experts and numbers are exactly the appropriate methodology as I used them.Um, yeah, that's what I meant.
What I meant was, rather than just saying "so-and-so agrees with me", or "this many scholars agree with me"- as you always do- paraphrase their argument, so that your citation is not simply a bare appeal to authority. If someone says "so and so agrees with me", one need only reply "so what?" But if you say "so and so agrees with me, and here's their argument", then one must address that argument.
Let the sarcasm train roll on. Do you have the capacity to debate without it?
I demonstrated a superlative example of what I claimed. I have no idea what your talking about and doubt that you do either. I do not have time for this. If the argumentation does not improve IO am going to have to leave you with it for now.
Yet you did not prove anything invalid you only declared it such. You used a label not a demonstration.
Notice you simply called a 2500 year old argument that is the currently accepted model invalid without bothering to even attempt to prove it, yet again. You also did exactly what you complained of my doing. You simply mentioned some scholars somewhere do not consider it valid. Now this one is a fallacy. You are attempting to make something a fact but claiming some scholars claim it is. I am currently involved with a very long semantic technicality discussion with another poster. I do not want another one at this time. Instead of amplifying an uncertainty or appealing to what is invalid concerning human created concepts. Tell me an actually reason the argument that so many of the greatest scholars put forward is not just wrong but completely invalid.
1. Why do not things require a cause or explanation?
2. How can nothing produce anything?
3. Why is God not the best candidate for the necessary uncaused first cause?
I did not even read past the first sentence. It was yet another sarcastically arrogant addition that left me without any desire to read on. I simply went to the next claim.
Parts of it. Most of it is not.
Some of them.
Yes.
1. The world it's self. Nothing has 0 chance of ever producing anything. Nature does not contain the explanation of it's existence.
2. Moral truth. Not one natural law or process can ever tell us what should be.
3. Supernatural experiential observations. Billions of them.
4. The benevolent actions whose best explanation is spiritual faith and influence.
5. The Bible.
6. Natural constants which have no natural explanation but exist as brute facts.
7. Fine tuning in some ranges to the order of 10^10th^123rd.
I could go one indefinitely but it will not matter.
You are correct here. I got that statement mixed up with another.
Which much of science violates as needed and does not even seem to acknowledge anymore.
What works? What questions?
The popularity of an idea isn't an argument for or against it, though.
AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
Not at all. It just suggests that a lot of people need to believe in some kind of God.
But billions of people do not claim to have experieced X. Descriptions of God experiences are all over the board. The only thing they have in common is that most of them use the word 'god.'
And of course they wouldn't do that except that they've been enculturated to use that word and concept.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Yup.
I'm not sure why some use that as an argument. Popularity can only show one thing: popularity. It's the most popular thing. That's all.
And if we consider that two thirds of the world does not have any experience or belief in Jesus as the Son of God, using the same data, using the same reasoning, we would have to conclude Christianity is wrong. And I'm sure no Christian accepts that kind of reasoning (in that specific case).
Enai de a lukal
Well-Known Member
You're still avoiding the point, and evading the implicit request. Telling me who agrees with you is not helpful, and just looks like an appeal to authority. Telling me why certain people agree with you, on the other hand, is substantive and conducive to discussion.
When the claims I'm responding to do not desperately beg for it, sure.
Ok, since you're lost, here's a quick step-by-step recap:
1. 1robin claims he doesn't like discussing speculative topics
2. enaidealukal points out the irony in this, given 1robin's affinity for discussing God, a speculative topic
3. 1robin introduces a distinction between topics based purely on speculation, and containing speculation; and as an instance of the former, gives a speculative scientific hypothesis based on empirical observations.
In other words, either your example was terrible, or you completely undermined the distinction you were trying to use to backpedal away from the first silly thing you said. Better to just admit that you do like some speculative topics.
Sure, on this thread- but I have commented, at some length, on the cosmological and causal arguments for the existence of God, and why they are not deductively sound or valid.
The cosmological argument for the existence of God is not "the currently accepted model". Are you drunk?
Oh boy... Irony alert, for one thing- who complains more than anyone about people supposedly misdiagnosing fallacies? You just broke my irony meter. And strawman alert, for another- I said no such thing; that the cosmological argument is invalid because there is a scholarly consensus to this effect. The great thing about logic is, unlike everything else in philosophy, it is not ambiguous. We can, and many people have, formalized the argument, and we can see, in absolute binary black-and-white terms, that the argument is not deductively valid in the vast majority of formulations. This is a simple fact. And I even offered to go over this with you, if you have the stomach for some tedious formal logic discussion. Oh wait, you've already provided yourself an escape route here-
Don't complain that I haven't backed up a technical claim with a demonstration, when I've offered to do so but you're going to refuse anyways. That's simply dishonest.
Since you've said you don't want a lengthy technical discussion, I'll just skip to probably the most pertinent one here-
If we're talking about the deductive validity of the cosmological argument, whether God is the best candidate is irrelevant. He needs to be the only logically possible candidate. And since, among many other problems, the cosmological argument, if granted, does not entail that there is only one cause of the universe, that God is the cause of the universe, does not follow necessarily. And an argument whose conclusion does not follow necessarily is not deductively valid.
Sometimes reading more slowly, or reading out loud helps me when I have trouble reading a difficult passage.
Really? Like which parts?
And what sorts are not?
None of these are uniquely explained by any god, and clearly fail the test; in each case, not only is there a logical alternative, the alternative seems to be far more plausible.
Sees
Dragonslayer
I know you like to say the deep convictions of Christians is a proof in establishing God and especially their God, but it is interesting what surveys of Christians reveal.
Roughly 70% feel certain God exists
Roughly 65% feel they can have a personal relationship with God
Roughly 65% religion is important in their lives - majority saying it is very important are over age 65.
Roughly 72% believe many religions can lead to eternal life.
Roughly 60% say they feel a sense of spiritual peace and well-being once a week.
Big two ~
Roughly 78% feel there are clear and absolute standards right and wrong.
Only with Evangelicals, Mormons, and Jehovah's Witnesses is there 85% or more who believe that the Bible is the Word of God.
Mormons, JW's, and the elderly bump up the numbers in every category. They are much more believing, certain, and religious than young and middle aged Protestant and Catholic or Orthodox Christians.
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AmbiguousGuy
Well-Known Member
The whole thing is really so mushy. I could easily argue that Christians are responsible for the most horrible genocides in modern human history. I'd only have to point to the Rwandan Hutus, Christians who used machetes to slaughter a half million of their Tutsi neighbors.
But that would mostly just be playing with numbers.
1robin
Christian/Baptist
It most certainly is if it is a claim to experience. BTW I was not discussing claims of agreement but claims of experience so popularity is not even relevant. I did not say there are more Christians than any other faith. I said there are billions who claim to have experienced God.
Ouroboros
Coincidentia oppositorum
Which only supports the billions of people have an experience they believe is God. The experience itself could be misleading. There could be other factors behind the experience. For instance, look into the experiments with the God helmet.