Five Reasons to Believe in God

[Autodidact]

If the sensory world is the system in which we operate, then the validity of this system needs to come from beyond the system.

Why?
And what do you mean by "validity" in this context?

 

[Autodidact]

How about The More?

Could you be a little more vague?

 

[Autodidact]

6. The many things science cannot explain period, even with a theoretical basis. Such as how life even came about.

1. Our historical experience is that science does tend to solve questions like this, eventually.
2. God of the Gaps theology leads you to a constantly diminishing God. I don't think you want that.

 

[Sum1sGruj]

1. Our historical experience is that science does tend to solve questions like this, eventually.
2. God of the Gaps theology leads you to a constantly diminishing God. I don't think you want that.

That's all giberish to me. All I know is that mankind is doomed to not ever know how life came about naturally, will never know what the origins of reality are past speculation, and that mankind will likely blow itself up before it makes it off of Earth.

Happy trails

 

[Autodidact]

As far as I can tell, the only things that can make our reason true would be 1) truth = utility or 2) God.

How would you go about showing that a naturalistic view of the universe is true?

I don't think you can apply the word "true" to a view. How would you show that nothing exists but that it can at least potentially be perceived with our sense?

1. The burden would be on the person asserting the existence of something that does not. This seems impossible to me.

2. For me, to exist is defined as being at least potentially able to be perceived with the senses. If something cannot be perceived, and its effects cannot be perceived, that is the functional equivalent of not existing. For example, if I say I have a tiny, invisible, soundless, intangible but pink elephant in my pocket, and you can't see, feel, smell or hear it, wouldn't you be justified in saying it didn't exist? Or, at a minimum, I would have to show you some effect that demonstrates that it does exist. God has no such effect.

If we're talking about something, anything, and arguing whether it exists or not, like the Loch Ness monster or anything, how do we tell, or what do we mean? If I say, "the Loch Ness monster exists, but is invisible and undetectable," I think you will agree I have said it does not exist.

 

[lunamoth]

Why?
And what do you mean by "validity" in this context?

Can things be self-validating?

 

[Autodidact]

Even a microscope relies upon our senses, as does any instrument that we can devise to amplify our senses. A rock exists but it does not 'sense' anything more. We would be like rocks compared to the something more that could potentially exist.

We probably are. So what? We're like rocks. We cannot even imagine what, if anything, it might be. Entire dimensions, reverse causation and impossible mathematics, in which it turns out the Big Bang is a tiny atomic collision inside itself. Who knows? If we're like rocks to it, we can't know, and therefore by the same token you can't jump from there to God, any God. (Let alone a God who cares about my haberdashery or eating habits.)

In this case I just mean that there is anything, our universe, ourselves. Why?

I think the chances are great that we will never know, or know at best imperfectly. We don't know is a more accurate and honest answer then: "We have no clue...therefore God!" It's more honest to admit we don't know than to make something else to comfort ourselves.

How can higher reasoning (not directly impacted by senses) arise from knowledge that is totally sensory?

Why should it not? What do you mean by "higher reasoning?" Can a Turing machine do it?

How would you know if your reason is giving you true results?

We don't KNOW very much, absolutely, certainly. But we have some pretty good ideas, and we can use the scientific method to get as certain as we can. It seems to be doing a pretty good job.

"It seems to me immensely unlikely that mind is a mere by-product of matter. For if my mental processes are determined wholly by the motions of atoms in my brain I have no reason to suppose that my beliefs are true. They may be sound chemically, but that does not make them sound logically. And hence I have no reason for supposing my brain to be composed of atoms."
— J.B.S. Haldane (Possible Worlds)

I beg to differ from Professor Haldane. There are many other possible resolutions to this conundrum. One may be that he cannot in fact be sure that his beliefs are true, at least, not absolutely true. It appears that people are absolutely certain of many things that are in fact not true, and that probably has a lot to do with atoms. Nevertheless we muddle along, and try to be as certain as we can, and it may be that is as good as it gets.

But in any case, even if there is a incorporeal something or other, which I doubt, you can't legitimately jump from there to God. Again, you may have to be satisfied with not knowing, and doing our best to find out.

If ethics are subjective, why should others share your ethics if they do not agree with them? Who is right? How do you know?

Well, that's an awfully big subject. I would set that aside for another thread. What we observe is that the worst possible attempt at objective ethics is religion.

Who gets to decide what is good?

Each person has to figure that out.

 

[Autodidact]

Are there true, factual answers that we can know conclusively for any of the five points I raise? How can we use science to address them?

We don't generally consider that science can tell us about God. If you are theist, you would think that's because God is supernatural, and therefore outside the scope of science. If you're me, you think it's because God doesn't exist.

 

[lunamoth]

Could you be a little more vague?

Sorry it was not helpful. I don't think my ideas about God are needed for this thread.

 

[Autodidact]

I couldn't quite follow all of your argument, but I do see your point if b is really just completely outside our system and can have no contact with a. So, there must be some connection. Is there any way to have a connection that eludes our senses?

I would say by definition, no.

 

[Autodidact]

Well, I don't think science can address any of these five points. It can inform many of the issues that may come up because of them, but can't determine the truth of the situation.

My thread title actually implies a God of the Philosophy Gaps. Not really good theology.

Exactly! :cigar:

 

[Autodidact]

Good point. So, if God is in charge of anything He must be in charge of what we know, as well as what we don't!

Yes, IMO any God worth worshipping would be a great whopping incomprehensible first cause who organized the whole system, about whom we can know nothing, as far beyond our understanding as quantum physics to a rock, without the slightest interest in our headgear or mating habits, to whom we are less than a particle of an atom in a speck, and therefore, for all intents and purposes, of no practical import in our daily lives. In other words, we can go ahead and treat It as nonexistent in our lives. And that seems to me the only possible God. So I say, for all practical purposes, God does not exist.

 

[Autodidact]

Lawrence Krauss and Sam Harris are dumb, or of lower IQ than Craig?


Good question.

I guess I'd have to watch the famous W.L.C. debate and score it. I'll just say I'm skeptical of these reports.

 

[Autodidact]

But which ethics are true?

Again, I don't know that "true" and "ethics" go together real well.

 

[Autodidact]

The way I see it, keeping the possibility in the back of one's mind prevents the sort of fallacy that made people think they were the center of the universe.

I think the more you learn about the material universe, the less you see people as at the center of it. On the contrary, it appears we're one of millions of species who inhabit the skin of a subatomic particle off to the side of the universe.

 

[lunamoth]

I don't think you can apply the word "true" to a view. How would you show that nothing exists but that it can at least potentially be perceived with our sense?

1. The burden would be on the person asserting the existence of something that does not. This seems impossible to me.

2. For me, to exist is defined as being at least potentially able to be perceived with the senses. If something cannot be perceived, and its effects cannot be perceived, that is the functional equivalent of not existing. For example, if I say I have a tiny, invisible, soundless, intangible but pink elephant in my pocket, and you can't see, feel, smell or hear it, wouldn't you be justified in saying it didn't exist? Or, at a minimum, I would have to show you some effect that demonstrates that it does exist. God has no such effect.

If we're talking about something, anything, and arguing whether it exists or not, like the Loch Ness monster or anything, how do we tell, or what do we mean? If I say, "the Loch Ness monster exists, but is invisible and undetectable," I think you will agree I have said it does not exist.

Good points. I'm not trying to prove, or convince you of, God's existence.

However, yes, I am contemplating whether something can exist and have an impact on us, but elude all of our senses.

 

[lunamoth]

We don't generally consider that science can tell us about God. If you are theist, you would think that's because God is supernatural, and therefore outside the scope of science. If you're me, you think it's because God doesn't exist.

But the points are not about God. They are about our existence and experience of life.

 

[lunamoth]

Yes, IMO any God worth worshipping would be a great whopping incomprehensible first cause who organized the whole system, about whom we can know nothing, as far beyond our understanding as quantum physics to a rock, without the slightest interest in our headgear or mating habits, to whom we are less than a particle of an atom in a speck, and therefore, for all intents and purposes, of no practical import in our daily lives. In other words, we can go ahead and treat It as nonexistent in our lives. And that seems to me the only possible God. So I say, for all practical purposes, God does not exist.

I'm not sure how it follows that the God you describe as worth worshiping would not be interested in us (although I agree headgear and mating habits seem rather low on the list of interesting things about us).

 

[Autodidact]

No, it's not about God knows everything. I don't think that is even related. I am trying to explore how reason can come from non-reason. Can it?

Sure, why not?

 

[Autodidact]

Only that there is more than we can know and thus need to be wary of certainty.

Well, that doesn't seem to have anything to do with God.

I've observed that in general, the most dogmatically certain are religionists.

But what is the basis of thought?

It appears to be an activity of the brain.

I did not mean it to be an oxymoron. I agree with your point, reason needs to be grounded in reason. How does that work? Isn't the material universe, bound by cause and effect, non-rational?

I think you're over abstracting it, as though "reason" was some sort of mysterious substance. Reason has to do with the way the world works, processing, and thought, all activities of the brain, which is made of cells.

Perhaps they are an illusion. And I would agree that pretending to (thinking that you) know which particular ethics are objectively true is a means by which evil and atrocity can be justified (of course, there is no evil if there is no good and evil *scratching head*). This is what makes me nervous about Sam Harris' well-being as an objective basis of morality. LOL! I'd rather I'd have a theoretical objective basis I am uncertain about than an objective basis I think is scientifically true!

It's hard to come out with bad results when you're trying to maximize well-being.

btw I don't share his ethics.