How can we know "God" exists?

[Tiberius]

[FONT=&quot] Well, given your argument, I have to agree that significance is ultimately subjective. However, this is not the same as saying that all ways of assigning significance to reality are equally defensible. Abrahamic fundamentalism is not as defensible as Daoism, for example, because the former commits us to absurd empirical claims. The idea that everything is really wonderful and only seems bad because of our cosmic naivete is not as defensible as the idea that misery is a salient characteristic of many people’s lives and that people should be ashamed to cause so much of it.

So the question becomes meaningless. There is no intrinsic significance to reality.

I agree, and have said as much.

Glad we agree.

The idea that it is wrong to make religion & doctrines institutional does not follow from the ultimate subjectivity of religion.

I think Game of Thrones is boring. This is my subjective opinion. I will go and teach others that it is also boring, telling them from a very young age that it is boring and should not be watched, because it is wrong to watch it.

Seriously, you do not see the problems with making one person's SUBJECTIVE opinion as the basis for an entire worldview?

This is exactly what leads to the persecution of gay people. Look how well it has turned out for the Jews also.

Secondly, while you are correct to say that the universal applicability of subjective judgments does not follow *logically* from my acceptance of those judgments, you ignore the fact that a great many subjective judgments are be shared by a great many people *in fact*, owing to the fact that people are a social and not a solitary species.

And I find it very disturbing that so many people have particular beliefs because they were simply TOLD to from childhood instead of weighing the evidence and reaching those conclusions from a position of careful examination!

For example, there is no objective reason to discourage the wearing of plaid leotards to funerals, but the institution of the fashion industry joins most Americans (and citizens of some other countries) in doing just that, owing to widespread shared subjective opinion. Why is this wrong?

Ah, but such points of view are reached through an examination of the situation, not because people are brought up to mindlessly believe it.

For example, there is a liberal Christian denomination, the United Church of Christ, which rejects the miracle stories, but maintains a theistic worldview and claims that people choose to behave in a manner contrary to the principles espoused by their loving deity. Why is this wrong?

So they reject everything in the Bible that can not happen with only the laws of nature? Why then do they need God?

And by the way, if it is wrong to institutionalize subjective concepts, then on what basis can you promote shared moral judgments, however secular?

By showing the effect those judgements have on others.

This argument makes about as much sense as the idea that, since our emotions are subjective, they can’t have any relation at all to reality. All types of subjective emotional and evaluative responses have a strong relationship to reality, since it is reality that conditions them. For example, if we were living in a world without suffering, our typical emotional states, along with our poetry, our ethics, and our religions, would be radically different.

Emotions can be measured. We can see the activity in the brain that corresponds to particular emotions and we can even produce emotions by stimulating different areas of the brain.

Also, I don't know if I'd agree that emotions are subjective. If I follow a person around constantly poking them with a stick, it's a safe bet that they're going to get ****** sooner or later.

That’s a good point. Objects of faith don’t have the same epistemic status as empirical findings. An object of faith is like a bet—one trusts that it’s true without proof. Empirical findings are simply proven.

So empirical claims of science are more valuable than the faith based claims of religion.

I have no trust in science whatsoever when it comes to judgments of significance, value, or morals. I similarly lack trust in religion when it comes to the determination of which consistent theory accounts for more data about the stars, organisms, etc.

And you would be right to not trust science when it comes to determining what is significant like that. Science isn't designed for that. It would be equally foolish to trust an episode of Doctor Who to learn about the mating habits of the bottlenose dolphin.

But, what makes you think you can trust religion or faith any better? After all, the only reason you DIStrust science in this area is because you can check science's answers and see that it doesn't apply. Since you can't check religion's answers at all, you can't see if they apply or not. This doesn't make religion more likely to be correct.

Within its magisterium, but not outside it.

And science's magisterium is all of reality. Therefore, if it exists in reality, then in principle science can tell us about it in a way that we can verify. Since we are talking about the exisstence of God, we can therefore be sure that if God exists in reality, science can tell us about him as well.

Well, this goes to the difference between knowing X and making X an object of faith. If we know that X exists, or if X is at least unobservable but nonetheless theoretically necessary, we make an existential claim. And if we decide to commit to the notion that Y exists on the basis of insufficient evidence, because it helps us make our judgments of significance and value, we are still making an existential claim about Y, even if it is far less certain than our knowledge of X.

Yes, but such a claim about Y is inherently meaningless, because it cannot be tested. Any claim about Y is nothing more than speculation or imagination. I don't have a problem with those, but I do have a problem with them being given the same status as a claim about X.

I said as much myself when I maintained that religious doctrines shouldn’t conflict with scientific findings. But inasmuch as religions address issues that the sciences don’t, what we have between religions and sciences are (you guessed it) non-overlapping magisteria.

But when science and religion both claim to tell us about how the universe works, what do we do? You've claimed that you accept science over religion in cases of "of which consistent theory accounts for more data about the stars, organisms, etc." Are you saying that you don't think religion can tell us anything about the world?

 

[Trantorfuzz]

Hi, Tiberius--sorry for the delay,

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So the question (of reality’s significance) becomes meaningless. There is no intrinsic significance to reality.

If some evaluations of realtiy are more defensible than others, then the question isn’t meaningless. [/FONT]
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Seriously, you do not see the problems with making one person's SUBJECTIVE opinion as the basis for an entire worldview? This is exactly what leads to the persecution of gay people. Look how well it has turned out for the Jews also.

You ignore that point that subjective opinions can be widespread and shared. Buddhism isn’t one person’s evaluation of reality. It’s a system for evaluating reality founded by one but developed and diversified by many. I see no particular reason why all evaluation of reality have to be individualized.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]As for persecution in the name of religion, it has exists and is egregious, but the same can be said for the rationalism of the French Revolution, the eugenics movement in the United States, other US abuses in the name of science such as forced sterilizations, the radiation experiments, and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. Also, it’s time to quit pretending the Communism, under which millions have been killed and countless others oppressed, is not, among other things, an anti-religious belief system. The idea that persecution vanishes when religion does is *absolute rubbish.* [/FONT][FONT=&quot]

If the twentieth century has taught us anything, it is that almost every ideology, religious or secular, can be and has been used as a pretext for persecution on a large scale.

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And I find it very disturbing that so many people have particular beliefs because they were simply TOLD to from childhood instead of weighing the evidence and reaching those conclusions from a position of careful examination!

In the first place, most of our beliefs are simply told to us. For example, most of the people who believe that quantum mechanics and general relativity are good at their respective jobs but won’t be theoretically compatible until some genius works out a theory of quantum gravity haven’t followed the mathematics and the evidence behind these beliefs. The idea that we all weigh the evidence for most of what we believe is not realistic. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]In the second place, how does one “weigh the evidence” that it’s wrong to beat up your siblings. Most people are merely TOLD that this is wrong. What would constitute scientific evidence for this claim?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

Trantorfuzz wrote: For example, there is no objective reason to discourage the wearing of plaid leotards to funerals, but the institution of the fashion industry joins most Americans (and citizens of some other countries) in doing just that, owing to widespread shared subjective opinion. Why is this wrong?

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Ah, but such points of view are reached through an examination of the situation, not because people are brought up to mindlessly believe it.

In the first place, what possible examination could you be referring to? There’s nothing objective about fashion do’s and don’t’s, and consequently no objective evidence for them.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]In the second place, the idea that religion consists of the mindless acceptance of a list of beliefs is rubbish. You can’t maintain such a belief about religion without a) equating all religion with fundamentalism and/or b) staying ignorant of theology, a field devoted to the examination, clarification, and interpretation of religious doctrines. No it is not objective. But neither is the fashion industry.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]The idea that anything as subjective as evaluation can’t possibly be systematized, thought about, meaningfully argued about, and shared by a great many people is the merest dogma.

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So they reject everything in the Bible that cannot happen with only the laws of nature? Why then do they need God?

The question would be very trenchant if God were a scientific hypothesis. But to liberal Christians, God is a higher moral authority than human beings, and wants us to be good to each other. To them, God is a reason to regard the welfare of other human beings as more important than consumerism, wealth-accumulation, empire building, and other values that dominate the secular world. That’s why they need God. [/FONT]
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[secular moral judgments are vindicated] By showing the effect those judgments have on others.

What scientific experiment or repeatable empirical observation justifies the notion that we should give a damn about how our behavior affects others? Elitist anti-egalitarian ethics work just fine for the upper classes.

Emotions can be measured. We can see the activity in the brain that corresponds to particular emotions and we can even produce emotions by stimulating different areas of the brain.

The measurability of emotions doesn’t make them any less subjective. All sorts of subjective phenomena can be measured, owing to correlations between mental states and organism responses to stimuli. Sound frequency, for example, is measured in Hertz, but sound pitch (an organism’s responses to being presented with different sound frequencies) doesn’t map neatly onto the frequencies, and is measured in Mels. Mystical experiences have also been subject to scientific scrutiny.

Also, I don't know if I'd agree that emotions are subjective. If I follow a person around constantly poking them with a stick, it's a safe bet that they're going to get ****** sooner or later.

The predictability of emotional states doesn’t make them objective either. Surely you understand the fact that “subjective” is not a synonym for “arbitrary,” “mindless,” or “chaotic.” The term simply pertains to experiences—what philosophers call “qualia.” [/FONT]
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So empirical claims of science are more valuable than the faith based claims of religion.

More valuable for what? Coming to terms with one’s life and one’s place in reality? I don’t think so. [/FONT]
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And you would be right to not trust science when it comes to determining what is significant like that. Science isn't designed for that. It would be equally foolish to trust an episode of Doctor Who to learn about the mating habits of the bottlenose dolphin.

But, what makes you think you can trust religion or faith any better? After all, the only reason you DIStrust science in this area is because you can check science's answers and see that it doesn't apply. Since you can't check religion's answers at all, you can't see if they apply or not. This doesn't make religion more likely to be correct.

Science doesn’t have any answers when it comes to values. Ideologies do, and among the ideologies we find religions. Some are more defensible than others for reasons I’ve described. [/FONT]

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And science's magisterium is all of reality. Therefore, if it exists in reality, then in principle science can tell us about it in a way that we can verify. Since we are talking about the existence of God, we can therefore be sure that if God exists in reality, science can tell us about him as well.

If science’s magisterium is all reality, then you should be able to design a scientific experiment or make repeatable observations that vindicate this principle itself. Until someone does, the idea that science’s magisterium is all reality remains an ideological principle, not an objective finding.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]What is more, this principle is completely unnecessary for doing science. In the sciences, given theories that are equally self-consistent and parsimonious, whichever theory explains the most data is the most valid. The strength of this principle runs far short of the strength of yours, yet the former is wholly adequate for today’s scientific endeavors.

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Yes, but such a claim about Y is inherently meaningless, because it cannot be tested. Any claim about Y is nothing more than speculation or imagination. I don't have a problem with those, but I do have a problem with them being given the same status as a claim about X.

Logical positivism died when its verifiability criterion for meaning couldn’t be verified. Untestable claims should be rejected in the course of any empirical investigation, but this is a methodological principle. Strictly speaking, untestable claims are not meaningless. And if an untestable belief can be useful, e.g. in the development of a systematic way to evaluate something, why reject faith in such a belief out of hand?

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But when science and religion both claim to tell us about how the universe works, what do we do? You've claimed that you accept science over religion in cases of "of which consistent theory accounts for more data about the stars, organisms, etc." Are you saying that you don't think religion can tell us anything about the world?

I am saying that religion fails as a tool for the investigation of scientific claims, and the sciences fail as a tool to generate values and judgments of significance. Outside of fundamentalism and other ignorant ideologies, the claims of science and religion need not compete. Nor can either claim to be exhaustive accounts of reality. Our minds and our values are, in their own way, real too.[/FONT]

 

[Tiberius]

Hi, Tiberius--sorry for the delay,

No worries.

If some evaluations of realtiy are more defensible than others, then the question isn’t meaningless.

Only if those evaluations are objective, not subjective.

You ignore that point that subjective opinions can be widespread and shared. Buddhism isn’t one person’s evaluation of reality. It’s a system for evaluating reality founded by one but developed and diversified by many. I see no particular reason why all evaluation of reality have to be individualized.

In other words, one person came up with the idea and other people thought it was a neat idea and started using it themselves. The trouble is that such people indoctrinate their children with it. And children are notoriously unable to examine things like this critically. They are programed to accept what their parents tell them as truth. So the bad (such as, "Hate gays, because they are evil") gets passed along with the good (like "Don't hurt people").

As for persecution in the name of religion, it has exists and is egregious, but the same can be said for the rationalism of the French Revolution, the eugenics movement in the United States, other US abuses in the name of science such as forced sterilizations, the radiation experiments, and the Tuskegee syphilis experiments. Also, it’s time to quit pretending the Communism, under which millions have been killed and countless others oppressed, is not, among other things, an anti-religious belief system. The idea that persecution vanishes when religion does is *absolute rubbish.*
If the twentieth century has taught us anything, it is that almost every ideology, religious or secular, can be and has been used as a pretext for persecution on a large scale.

This may be, but the fact remains that religion is one of the largest excuses given to allow persecution.

In the first place, most of our beliefs are simply told to us. For example, most of the people who believe that quantum mechanics and general relativity are good at their respective jobs but won’t be theoretically compatible until some genius works out a theory of quantum gravity haven’t followed the mathematics and the evidence behind these beliefs. The idea that we all weigh the evidence for most of what we believe is not realistic.

But that can be TESTED. Religious beliefs can not.

In the second place, how does one “weigh the evidence” that it’s wrong to beat up your siblings. Most people are merely TOLD that this is wrong. What would constitute scientific evidence for this claim?

By observation. "I beat my sibling and he lost the use of his eyes and he's blind now." That counts as evidence that beating up your siblings is wrong, yes? Granted that's an extreme example, but lesser examples work too. "I beat up my sibling, now he wn't share his lollies with me."

In the first place, what possible examination could you be referring to? There’s nothing objective about fashion do’s and don’t’s, and consequently no objective evidence for them.

Examination of what happens when you consider the emotions of the people attending the funeral. People tend to wear clothes that match their mood, after all. Nobody goes to a funeral in a "Hawaiian shirt" mood.

In the second place, the idea that religion consists of the mindless acceptance of a list of beliefs is rubbish. You can’t maintain such a belief about religion without a) equating all religion with fundamentalism and/or b) staying ignorant of theology, a field devoted to the examination, clarification, and interpretation of religious doctrines. No it is not objective. But neither is the fashion industry.

Please show me a source which shows that people tend to hold a religious viewpoint because they have critically examined it instead of believing it because that's what they were brought up to believe.

The idea that anything as subjective as evaluation can’t possibly be systematized, thought about, meaningfully argued about, and shared by a great many people is the merest dogma.

That people can't share a conclusion based on evaluation is, I agree, false.

But how can people evaluate something for which there is no objective evidence whatsoever and reach identical conclusions?

The question would be very trenchant if God were a scientific hypothesis. But to liberal Christians, God is a higher moral authority than human beings, and wants us to be good to each other. To them, God is a reason to regard the welfare of other human beings as more important than consumerism, wealth-accumulation, empire building, and other values that dominate the secular world. That’s why they need God.

It honestly scares me that there are people who need the idea of a God in order to be good, decent people. The idea that there are giving people who would stop giving and be selfish if they suddenly thought there was no god is deeply disturbing.

What scientific experiment or repeatable empirical observation justifies the notion that we should give a damn about how our behavior affects others? Elitist anti-egalitarian ethics work just fine for the upper classes.

The fact that we are a social species that lives in vast social groups.

The measurability of emotions doesn’t make them any less subjective. All sorts of subjective phenomena can be measured, owing to correlations between mental states and organism responses to stimuli. Sound frequency, for example, is measured in Hertz, but sound pitch (an organism’s responses to being presented with different sound frequencies) doesn’t map neatly onto the frequencies, and is measured in Mels. Mystical experiences have also been subject to scientific scrutiny.

But the measurable properties of emotions is not subjective.

The predictability of emotional states doesn’t make them objective either. Surely you understand the fact that “subjective” is not a synonym for “arbitrary,” “mindless,” or “chaotic.” The term simply pertains to experiences—what philosophers call “qualia.”

And I said I was unsure. I wouldn't call them entirely subjective, but there is more to them than that.

More valuable for what? Coming to terms with one’s life and one’s place in reality? I don’t think so.

More valuable for understanding how the universe actually works.

Science doesn’t have any answers when it comes to values. Ideologies do, and among the ideologies we find religions. Some are more defensible than others for reasons I’ve described.

But they describe how we see the universe, not the universe itself.

If science’s magisterium is all reality, then you should be able to design a scientific experiment or make repeatable observations that vindicate this principle itself. Until someone does, the idea that science’s magisterium is all reality remains an ideological principle, not an objective finding.

Oh, don't start with the paradoxical philosophical ********.

What is more, this principle is completely unnecessary for doing science. In the sciences, given theories that are equally self-consistent and parsimonious, whichever theory explains the most data is the most valid. The strength of this principle runs far short of the strength of yours, yet the former is wholly adequate for today’s scientific endeavors.

So all scientific theories describe something about the universe, that's what you're saying. That's what I was saying when I said that science is what we use to describe the universe.

Logical positivism died when its verifiability criterion for meaning couldn’t be verified. Untestable claims should be rejected in the course of any empirical investigation, but this is a methodological principle. Strictly speaking, untestable claims are not meaningless.

How can an untestable claim have meaning if it can't be tested?

And if an untestable belief can be useful, e.g. in the development of a systematic way to evaluate something, why reject faith in such a belief out of hand?

Any untestable claim could be wrong. Anything that is supported by an untestable claim could also be wrong. If a systematic way to evaluate something is developed from an untestable claim, then the systematic method of evaluation could be fundamentally flawed and we'd never know.

I am saying that religion fails as a tool for the investigation of scientific claims, and the sciences fail as a tool to generate values and judgments of significance. Outside of fundamentalism and other ignorant ideologies, the claims of science and religion need not compete. Nor can either claim to be exhaustive accounts of reality. Our minds and our values are, in their own way, real too.

Science is the only tool we have for showing us what can be demonstrated to be true about our universe. Of course, religion fails at this.

However, until you can show that significance and value are actually objective properties of the universe and not just subjective interpretations made by people, I won't consider that such things are required for an understanding of how the universe works.

In short, religion and other faith based belief systems can tell us nothing actually useful about the universe we live in. At best, they can only tell us about how people INTERPRET the universe we live in. And people are very often wrong.

 

[Trantorfuzz]

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(Some evaluations of reality are more defensible than others) Only if those evaluations are objective, not subjective.

That isn’t true. For example, the notion that reality is always sweet and wonderful is less defensible than the notion that reality presents us with a mixture of good and bad. Both are subjective, yet one is more defensible than the other. So your claim is simply false. [/FONT]
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In other words, one person came up with the idea and other people thought it was a neat idea and started using it themselves. The trouble is that such people indoctrinate their children with it. And children are notoriously unable to examine things like this critically. They are programed to accept what their parents tell them as truth. So the bad (such as, "Hate gays, because they are evil") gets passed along with the good (like "Don't hurt people").

You have stated absolutely no scientific criteria by which the various ideas you mentioned can be judged bad or good. You are engaging in precisely the kind of subjective evaluation that you have dismissed as invalid. [/FONT]
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This (secular persecution) may be, but the fact remains that religion is one of the largest excuses given to allow persecution.

You miss my point, which is that ANY ideology, religious or secular, can be used as an excuse for persecution. As for the idea that religion predominates as an ideological excuse for persecution, I disagree. The values of the leaders of multinational corporations have caused just as much suffering, and are likely to continue to do so. And don’t forget Communism, which killed *tens of millions of people* in less than a hundred years. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The idea that religion is far and away the leading cause of oppression becomes even more dubious when one considers the fact that religious freedom is a fairly recent innovation (within only the last 300 years or so) here in the West, and that until that time, religion, government, the quest for wealth, and expansionism were all intertwined. [/FONT]

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(one determiners the wrongness of beating one's sibling) By observation. "I beat my sibling and he lost the use of his eyes and he's blind now." That counts as evidence that beating up your siblings is wrong, yes? Granted that's an extreme example, but lesser examples work too. "I beat up my sibling, now he won't share his lollies with me."

No, the observation does not count as evidence that beating up your siblings is wrong. There is *nothing* in the observation that rules out the belief that the half-blinded sibling deserved his injury because he proved to be weaker. As for your lesser example, it doesn’t work. The weaker sibling damn well will share his lollies if his sibling threatens to put out his eye if he doesn't. The wrongness of the act in question simply doesn’t follow logically from the observation. As philosopher G.E. Moore has argued, persuasively in my opinion, values don’t follow from mere facts. [/FONT]
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(The inappropriateness of wearing a plaid leotard to a funeral can be proven by) Examination of what happens when you consider the emotions of the people attending the funeral. People tend to wear clothes that match their mood, after all. Nobody goes to a funeral in a "Hawaiian shirt" mood.

Your last statement constitutes a rather generous perception of humanity. What if our leotard person didn’t like anyone else at the funeral, and wanted to express his contempt? What if our leotard person decided that the expression of his individuality was more important than his fellow funeral-goer’s emotions? Again, the values don’t follow from facts. If you don’t believe me, then design an empirical experiment that proves that everyone *ought* to respect the feelings of their fellow humans. [/FONT]
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Please show me a source which shows that people tend to hold a religious viewpoint because they have critically examined it instead of believing it because that's what they were brought up to believe.

I don’t recall saying that *all* people choose their religion based on examination rather than childhood belief. However, adult conversion is not uncommon. Check out these stats. Faith in Flux: Religious Conversion Statistics and Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S. - Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life Also bear in mind that “unaffiliated” does not mean “atheistic,” as we see here: Pew: 20% of Americans Are Now Atheist, Agnostic or Unaffiliated With a Religion | TheBlaze.com. [/FONT]
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But how can people evaluate something for which there is no objective evidence whatsoever and reach identical conclusions?

See my remarks above on the fact that some subjective evaluations are more defensible than others. Most people won’t say that the world is uniformly wonderful. Most people will say that the world is a mixture of good and bad. Both evaluations are equally subjective, yet one is more defensible than the other. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]This said, in matters of values, people can’t be expected to make judgments that are identical across cultures or, necessarily, individuals. Since science is *silent* about values, this fact doesn’t vindicate your point of view.

(End part A.)
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[Trantorfuzz]

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It honestly scares me that there are people who need the idea of a God in order to be good, decent people. The idea that there are giving people who would stop giving and be selfish if they suddenly thought there was no god is deeply disturbing.

Martin Luthor King doesn’t disturb me. Neither does Mohandas Gandhi. Neither does Bishop Desmond Tutu. Your idea has no empirical justification, because people who convert form religion to atheist rationalism simply don’t behave in the manner you describe. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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(The empirical observation that justifies the notion that we should give a damn about how our behavior affects others is) The fact that we are a social species that lives in vast social groups.

Again, the value isn’t derivable from the facts alone. If one values the elite more than the underclass, the elite don’t have to give a damn how they treat the underclass. On the individual scale, if one decides to kill oneself after committing a mass murder, he has no practical, factual, or observational reason to care about how he treats others. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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But the measurable properties of emotions is not subjective.

Neither are the measurable properties of yogic trances and mystical experiences. But that doesn’t make the experiences themselves any less subjective.[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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(Science is more valuable than subjective values because it is) More valuable for understanding how the universe actually works.

I fail to see that understanding how the universe works is more important than the discussion of values and our place in reality. To understand why I see things this way, we need look no further than applied science. We’ve had the technology to feed the world’s starving for the last fifty years, but we don’t. We can build safer nuclear reactors by using thorium rather than uranium as the fuel, but we haven’t done so on any significant scale. We could refrain making biological and chemical weapons, but only a first class naïf would believe that the big countries would never do this. None of these failings reflect any inadequacy on the part of the sciences. None of them are religious either. Rather, they reflect the ramifications of subjective secular ideologies that place wealth and power for the few over the welfare of the majority. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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But they (ideologies) describe how we see the universe, not the universe itself.

How we see the universe is just as important as how the universe is, for reasons I described in the last paragraph. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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Trantorfuzz wrote: If science’s magisterium is all reality, then you should be able to design a scientific experiment or make repeatable observations that vindicate this principle itself. Until someone does, the idea that science’s magisterium is all reality remains an ideological principle, not an objective finding.

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Oh, don't start with the paradoxical philosophical ********.

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[/FONT][FONT=&quot]There is absolutely nothing paradoxical about my argument. Either your ideas cohere, or they don’t. If science’s magisterium is all reality, that means that all true claims must be scientific. That means that the set of all true claims must comprise a) repeatable observations, such as the apparent motions of the stars, and b) theoretically necessary claims, such as the idea of cause and effect. Your claim that the magisterium of science is all reality falls into neither of these categories. It is therefore your claim that is paradoxical, not my argument. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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And by the way, suppose that you said that science is our best tool for predicting phenomena that all could observe in principle. Then suppose that my counter argument was “oh don’t start with that doggedly empirical ******.” Would you give that reply any weight whatsoever, or even any degree of respect? I didn’t think so. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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So all scientific theories describe something about the universe, that's what you're saying. That's what I was saying when I said that science is what we use to describe the universe.

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[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Your claim was much stronger than that. You said that the magisterium of science is all reality, which is a much stronger claim than the idea that scientific theories describe something about reality. You have no empirical evidence for your “magestirium” claim, and no reason to consider it theoretically necessary. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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How can an untestable claim have meaning if it can't be tested?

By parsing semantically. Take this untestable claim as an example: “Unconsciously, and telepathically, Henry Kissinger is willing everything I think, do, and say.” The reason that this claim is untestable is that it invokes a mechanism, unconscious telepathic commands, whose very existence can only be defended by ad hoc hypotheses (e.g. it’s undetectable!), which themselves are untestable. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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Nonetheless, the claim has a meaning, because we know the meanings of its terms and the meaning relationships among the terms, because we are literate speakers of English. So it is simply false that meaningful claims comprise only testable claims. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
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Any untestable claim could be wrong. Anything that is supported by an untestable claim could also be wrong. If a systematic way to evaluate something is developed from an untestable claim, then the systematic method of evaluation could be fundamentally flawed and we'd never know.

Footnote: In order for an untestable claim to be potentially wrong, it has to mean something. That’s why it makes no sense to say that “My round squares sleep” and “Blgidgeid” are potentially wrong. End footnote. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]
Objects of faith are not knowledge and evaluations are not discoveries. And despite the fact that some subjective evaluations are more defensible, and more useful, than others, it is only to be expected evaluations will not be uniform. [/FONT][FONT=&quot]
[/FONT][FONT=&quot]

However, until you can show that significance and value are actually objective properties of the universe and not just subjective interpretations made by people, I won't consider that such things are required for an understanding of how the universe works.

[/FONT][FONT=&quot]Understanding how the universe works is not the only goal of thought. The kind of evaluation I’m talking about is a distinct goal, which is why the magisteria of religion and science don’t overlap.

[/FONT]

 

[Tiberius]

[FONT=&quot]Martin Luthor King doesn’t disturb me. Neither does Mohandas Gandhi. Neither does Bishop Desmond Tutu. Your idea has no empirical justification, because people who convert form religion to atheist rationalism simply don’t behave in the manner you describe. {/quote]

I have met people who have told me that if they didn't believe in God they'd be robbers and violent and other assorted unpleasant things. it is this that I find disturbing; the thought that there are people out there who are truly nasty people who only behave nice because they are worried about Big Brother God looking over their shoulder.

Again, the value isn’t derivable from the facts alone. If one values the elite more than the underclass, the elite don’t have to give a damn how they treat the underclass. On the individual scale, if one decides to kill oneself after committing a mass murder, he has no practical, factual, or observational reason to care about how he treats others.

I don't think you understand how social hierarchies work.

Neither are the measurable properties of yogic trances and mystical experiences. But that doesn’t make the experiences themselves any less subjective.

Agreed. The INTERPRETATION of the things is different to the things themselves. I've been saying this. What point are you trying to make here?

I fail to see that understanding how the universe works is more important than the discussion of values and our place in reality. To understand why I see things this way, we need look no further than applied science. We’ve had the technology to feed the world’s starving for the last fifty years, but we don’t. We can build safer nuclear reactors by using thorium rather than uranium as the fuel, but we haven’t done so on any significant scale. We could refrain making biological and chemical weapons, but only a first class naïf would believe that the big countries would never do this. None of these failings reflect any inadequacy on the part of the sciences. None of them are religious either. Rather, they reflect the ramifications of subjective secular ideologies that place wealth and power for the few over the welfare of the majority.

Because reality does not care about our interpretation. Our values and all that do not change the way the universe works one little bit.

How we see the universe is just as important as how the universe is, for reasons I described in the last paragraph.

But it is totally irrelevant to the principles that govern how the universe works. This is where you are getting confused. Science can tell us how to build a nuclear reactor, but it does not tell us how to use it. Science can tell us how to build a plane, but it does not tell us if we should use it to transport people on holiday or to carry bombs to our enemies. These are SUBJECTIVE HUMAN OPINIONS, and the principles that govern the way the universe works are not reliant on them. A plane still works the same way, whether we use it for holidays or bombs.

There is absolutely nothing paradoxical about my argument. Either your ideas cohere, or they don’t. If science’s magisterium is all reality, that means that all true claims must be scientific. That means that the set of all true claims must comprise a) repeatable observations, such as the apparent motions of the stars, and b) theoretically necessary claims, such as the idea of cause and effect. Your claim that the magisterium of science is all reality falls into neither of these categories. It is therefore your claim that is paradoxical, not my argument.

Yes, it is paradoxical. It's not much different to the question, "If I make a list of lists that do not contain themselves, should I include it in itself?" If I include it, then it doesn't belong, because it's not a list that doesn't contain itself. If I don't include it, then it's not a complete list.

And by the way, suppose that you said that science is our best tool for predicting phenomena that all could observe in principle. Then suppose that my counter argument was “oh don’t start with that doggedly empirical ******.” Would you give that reply any weight whatsoever, or even any degree of respect? I didn’t think so.

I don't give your paradoxical ******** any respect because it's word play and is based on mind games, not what we see and experience in reality. And it's also taking a single example that is paradoxical and then saying that because it doesn't work in that one instance then it is totally useless.

If you can show that empirical data does the same thing, then by all means. But until then, don't expect me to treat the two as the same.

Your claim was much stronger than that. You said that the magisterium of science is all reality, which is a much stronger claim than the idea that scientific theories describe something about reality. You have no empirical evidence for your “magestirium” claim, and no reason to consider it theoretically necessary.

If something exists objectively (not subjectively) in reality, then it must, by definition, be explainable in a scientific way.

If you disagree, then please show me something SUBJECTIVE that is scientifically definable.

By parsing semantically. Take this untestable claim as an example: “Unconsciously, and telepathically, Henry Kissinger is willing everything I think, do, and say.” The reason that this claim is untestable is that it invokes a mechanism, unconscious telepathic commands, whose very existence can only be defended by ad hoc hypotheses (e.g. it’s undetectable!), which themselves are untestable.

And what is the meaning of this claim? Define the meaning of that claim and then we'll talk. Is the meaning that Henry Kissinger is a telepath and controls you? But since there is no definable difference between him making you do what you do and you choosing to do those things all by yourself, the claim loses that meaning, doesn't it?

Nonetheless, the claim has a meaning, because we know the meanings of its terms and the meaning relationships among the terms, because we are literate speakers of English. So it is simply false that meaningful claims comprise only testable claims.

But without the ability to test it, we can never know if the claim is true. If we can never know that the claim is true, then we can never know if it applies to reality. And if we can't be sure it applies to reality, then reality doesn't require it. And if reality doesn't require it, then Occam's razor suggests we should get rid of it.

Footnote: In order for an untestable claim to be potentially wrong, it has to mean something. That’s why it makes no sense to say that “My round squares sleep” and “Blgidgeid” are potentially wrong. End footnote.

But do you see that meaning does not always correlate with applicability? I can say, "Darth Vader battled with Luke Skywalker." It has perfect meaning. But it has absolutely no relation to the way the universe works.

Objects of faith are not knowledge and evaluations are not discoveries. And despite the fact that some subjective evaluations are more defensible, and more useful, than others, it is only to be expected evaluations will not be uniform.

My point is that subjective evaluations make no difference to the underlying scientific principles that govern the way the universe works.

Understanding how the universe works is not the only goal of thought. The kind of evaluation I’m talking about is a distinct goal, which is why the magisteria of religion and science don’t overlap.

Except that religion DOES attempt to explain how the universe works. It claims that earthquakes are the wrath of god, for example. When it comes to understanding how the universe works, the only tool we have is science, and it is purely empirical and objective. There is no room for subjectivity in science.

 

[Tiberius]

That isn’t true. For example, the notion that reality is always sweet and wonderful is less defensible than the notion that reality presents us with a mixture of good and bad. Both are subjective, yet one is more defensible than the other. So your claim is simply false.

Except that benefit can be quantified (in terms of money gained, length of life, etc), so we can show empirically that the random chance of everyday events produces gains and losses.

You have stated absolutely no scientific criteria by which the various ideas you mentioned can be judged bad or good. You are engaging in precisely the kind of subjective evaluation that you have dismissed as invalid.

Are you saying that we can't empirically show that the "Gays are bad and should be punished for being gay" mindset is more harmful than the "Don't hurt people" mindset is?

Really?

You miss my point, which is that ANY ideology, religious or secular, can be used as an excuse for persecution. As for the idea that religion predominates as an ideological excuse for persecution, I disagree. The values of the leaders of multinational corporations have caused just as much suffering, and are likely to continue to do so. And don’t forget Communism, which killed *tens of millions of people* in less than a hundred years.

The idea that religion is far and away the leading cause of oppression becomes even more dubious when one considers the fact that religious freedom is a fairly recent innovation (within only the last 300 years or so) here in the West, and that until that time, religion, government, the quest for wealth, and expansionism were all intertwined.

This is a whole separate debate in itself, but it only reinforces the idea of "Subjective opinions and viewpoints being institutionalized can lead to bad things."

No, the observation does not count as evidence that beating up your siblings is wrong. There is *nothing* in the observation that rules out the belief that the half-blinded sibling deserved his injury because he proved to be weaker. As for your lesser example, it doesn’t work. The weaker sibling damn well will share his lollies if his sibling threatens to put out his eye if he doesn't. The wrongness of the act in question simply doesn’t follow logically from the observation. As philosopher G.E. Moore has argued, persuasively in my opinion, values don’t follow from mere facts.

First of all, I'd hate to be your sibling or child if you really thought that way.

Secondly, both of those things lead to demonstrable hardships for the sibling, which can be observed. Unless you want to say that "wrong" has no definition, it can be shown that the hardships suffered fir any definition of wrong you want to use.

Your last statement constitutes a rather generous perception of humanity. What if our leotard person didn’t like anyone else at the funeral, and wanted to express his contempt? What if our leotard person decided that the expression of his individuality was more important than his fellow funeral-goer’s emotions? Again, the values don’t follow from facts. If you don’t believe me, then design an empirical experiment that proves that everyone *ought* to respect the feelings of their fellow humans.

Okay, I'll grant this.

However, given what this part of the discussion was originally about, your examples only serve to show that subjective viewpoints do not reflect reality.

I don’t recall saying that *all* people choose their religion based on examination rather than childhood belief. However, adult conversion is not uncommon. Check out these stats. Faith in Flux: Religious Conversion Statistics and Changes in Religious Affiliation in the U.S. - Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life Also bear in mind that “unaffiliated” does not mean “atheistic,” as we see here: Pew: 20% of Americans Are Now Atheist, Agnostic or Unaffiliated With a Religion | TheBlaze.com.

Bear in mind that a great deal of that is people switching to slight alterations of their childhood faith. Kinda like switching your favorite food from mashed potatoes to baked potatoes. Either way, it's still potatoes.

Looking at the chart in the first source, 56% stayed the same faith, and 20% made the change to a similar faith. And for that 20%, it's possible that the change occured not from a deep examination of the core beliefs which resulted in them finding that they are wrong, but from something like "I don't like religion X's viewpoint on this particular topic, so I'll change to a very similar religion that has a viewpoint I do like." So that source doesn't really give us the information we need to come to a proper conclusion.

See my remarks above on the fact that some subjective evaluations are more defensible than others. Most people won’t say that the world is uniformly wonderful. Most people will say that the world is a mixture of good and bad. Both evaluations are equally subjective, yet one is more defensible than the other.

But are they objectively defensible? If not, doesn't it really come down to, "I have the very strong opinion that you shouldn't do X," with the other person saying, "But I have the very strong opinion that I should!"

Let's take your leotards at a funeral example from earlier. What defense can possibly be offered that isn't, "It's not really appropriate to wear leotards at a funeral."

"I don't care, I want to wear them, so I'm going to wear them."

This said, in matters of values, people can’t be expected to make judgments that are identical across cultures or, necessarily, individuals. Since science is *silent* about values, this fact doesn’t vindicate your point of view.

Given that science is concerned with OBJECTIVE, not subjective, the fact that science makes no comment about them shows that such values are indeed subjective. And since that these wildly different subjective viewpoints make no difference to reality (reality, after all, works just the same for the guy who wears leotards to funerals as it does for the guy who wears a sombre black suit), doesn't that show that such subjective values are irrelevant when it comes to determining what reality actually is?

(End part A.)

Oops, I did this backwards.

 

[Trantorfuzz]

[FONT=&quot](In response to your meeting people who would kill and rob if they stopped believing in God.) Not all theists behave themselves out of a fear of God. Many theists behave themselves for the love of God. And most converts from theism to atheist rationalism simply realize that they won’t rob and kill after all. So there’s no reason to feel afraid. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
(In response to the idea that morals come from observations of social interactions, and that the denial of this reflects an ignorance of how social hierarchies work.) I don’t think you understand the logical fallacy of deriving “ought” from “is.” I also fail to see how my response reflects a lack of understanding of how social hierarchies work. What observation would prompt a rich elite to give up their domination of a have-not majority? The exploitation of a vast underclass of fungible people by a rich overclass has been the rule rather than the exception for thousands of years.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]If you don’t understand that maintaining a social order is perfectly compatible with killing off disabled people and exterminating the Jews (The Nazis), murdering tens of millions of dissidents, including a lot of Jews and other minorities (the USSR under Stalin), keeping most people in poverty and shooting labor unionists who try to change this (the USA in the late 19th century—and dozens of countries in the present day), apartheid (South Africa and the Jim Crow South), and 400 years of chattel slavery (the British colonies the USA that they turned into), then you don’t understand how human social hierarchies work. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

Agreed. The INTERPRETATION of the things is different to the things themselves. I've been saying this. What point are you trying to make here?

My point: Though emotions and religious experiences are subjective, they are nonetheless conditioned by the external world. Charging rhino? Most people react with fear. Emotions aren’t the only subjective phenomena that have a relationship to the external world. Our ideologies and their constructs (e.g. God, karma, the dialectic of history, the inevitability of a scientific utopia) are conditioned by the external world as well. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
To eliminate some confusion, I’m going to use “external world” where you have been using “reality.” My unicorn is just as *real* as my pen, but the former is not a feature of the external world whereas the latter is.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]So, does the external world’s indifference to our will make it more important than our values? To put it another way, which is more important—how many quarks there are in a proton or whether or not sound population control should involve murdering billions?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

Science can tell us how to build a nuclear reactor, but it does not tell us how to use it. Science can tell us how to build a plane, but it does not tell us if we should use it to transport people on holiday or to carry bombs to our enemies.

I have been saying this all along.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

These are SUBJECTIVE HUMAN OPINIONS, and the principles that govern the way the universe works are not reliant on them. A plane still works the same way, whether we use it for holidays or bombs.

Yes, this is true. But since you allow that sciences don’t tell us how to respond to the external world, you have also allowed the scientific inquiry isn’t the only goal of thought. My argument is that, though these value systems are ultimately subjective, there is no reason to suppose that they are or should be individual, there is no reason to suppose that they have no relationship to the external world, and there is even no reason why value systems should be forbidden their own theoretical constructs, be they God or some Platonic ideal of Compassion. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

Trantorfuzz wrote: If science’s magisterium is all reality, that means that all true claims must be scientific. That means that the set of all true claims must comprise a) repeatable observations, such as the apparent motions of the stars, and b) theoretically necessary claims, such as the idea of cause and effect. Your claim that the magisterium of science is all reality falls into neither of these categories. It is therefore your claim that is paradoxical.

[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

It's not much different to the question, "If I make a list of lists that do not contain themselves, should I include it in itself?" If I include it, then it doesn't belong, because it's not a list that doesn't contain itself. If I don't include it, then it's not a complete list”.

There is one huge difference between my argument and your list paradox. Your list paradox has no solution. My argument does. All one has to do is concede that the magisterium of science is not all of reality, since it is incoherent to say that it is, owing to the fact that said claim has no basis in science. Where’s the paradox? [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

I don't give your paradoxical ******** any respect because it's word play and is based on mind games, not what we see and experience in reality. And it's also taking a single example that is paradoxical and then saying that because it doesn't work in that one instance then it is totally useless.

Learn to distinguish between the sciences and your views about them. The sciences work because, as it happens, our observations are consistent with a universe dominated by a small number of impersonal forces whose behavior is readily quantifiable. That’s science.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Your idea that the magisterium of science is all reality is not science. It doesn’t follow from any scientific observation, and it isn’t necessary for doing science. Your idea is a philosophical position. It goes by various names, including “scientism,” “physicalism,” and “naturalism.” As a philosophical position, it is susceptible to philosophical i.e. logical criticism. Logic isn’t word play or mind games. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

If something exists objectively (not subjectively) in reality, then it must, by definition, be explainable in a scientific way.

Nonsense! The efficacy of our sciences is a contingent fact, NOT a matter of definition. And, as with your “magisterium” claim, your definition doesn’t follow from any scientific observation and is unnecessary to scientists. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

Is the meaning that Henry Kissinger is a telepath and controls you? But since there is no definable difference between him making you do what you do and you choosing to do those things all by yourself, the claim loses that meaning, doesn't it?

No, it doesn’t lose any meaning whatsoever. It simply loses credibility. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

But without the ability to test it, we can never know if the claim is true. If we can never know that the claim is true, then we can never know if it applies to reality. And if we can't be sure it applies to reality, then reality doesn't require it. And if reality doesn't require it, then Occam's razor suggests we should get rid of it.

Agreed! But a claim has to mean something in order to be dismissed as likely false. Meaningless “claims” are neither true nor false—in fact, they don’t qualify as claims at all. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

But do you see that meaning does not always correlate with applicability? I can say, "Darth Vader battled with Luke Skywalker." It has perfect meaning. But it has absolutely no relation to the way the universe works.

On your previous posts, you asked how an untestable claim can have any meaning. I explained how. Now that you apparently agree, let’s move on. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

My point is that subjective evaluations make no difference to the underlying scientific principles that govern the way the universe works.

I have always maintained that religion is no substitute for scientific inquiry. My point is that the sciences are silent about values, and that therefore thinking about values is not in itself a scientific activity, but hat values can nonetheless can be discussed and theorized about on their own terms. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

Except that religion DOES attempt to explain how the universe works. It claims that earthquakes are the wrath of god, for example. When it comes to understanding how the universe works, the only tool we have is science, and it is purely empirical and objective. There is no room for subjectivity in science.

The idea that*all* religions claim that that earthquakes are the wrath of a god is false. More generally, the idea that *all* religions explain natural disasters as the will of a god is false. What is more, even if a religious person says that one or more gods wanted an earthquake, there is nothing whatsoever that prevents such a person from allowing that the god acts through natural mechanisms best explained by the sciences. After all, if a god is nigh omniscient, that god knows where the dominos fall in a chain of scientifically explicable events. What is more, not all religions are theistic! [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Most importantly, there is no reason that future religions need to conflict with scientific findings. And there will be future creeds—for as long as the sciences are silent about the way things ought to be, as opposed to the way things are. [/FONT]

 

[Tiberius]

[FONT=&quot](In response to your meeting people who would kill and rob if they stopped believing in God.) Not all theists behave themselves out of a fear of God. Many theists behave themselves for the love of God. And most converts from theism to atheist rationalism simply realize that they won’t rob and kill after all. So there’s no reason to feel afraid.

Never said that all theists think this way. But I know for a fact that some of them do. I've met some, and they've told me.

(In response to the idea that morals come from observations of social interactions, and that the denial of this reflects an ignorance of how social hierarchies work.) I don’t think you understand the logical fallacy of deriving “ought” from “is.” I also fail to see how my response reflects a lack of understanding of how social hierarchies work. What observation would prompt a rich elite to give up their domination of a have-not majority? The exploitation of a vast underclass of fungible people by a rich overclass has been the rule rather than the exception for thousands of years.

Did you know that morality is seen in Vampire bats? Each night, they go out to feed. If any bat goes without food for more than a night or two, it will starve. Now, sometimes, a bat won't find food, and so it will beg its neighbour for food. And the neighbour regurgitates a bit of blood for it, and the hungry bat gets enough food to keep it alive.

Now, if there is a bat that asks for food, but never gives food when other bats ask it, then pretty soon the other bats figure it out and won't give this bat food anymore. "You never help out your friends, why should we help you?" And so the bat starves and dies.

This can be demonstrated to be in the best interests of the colony. Exhile one member who doesn't help rather than let many others die who would willingly help.

And where do you think society would be if we started treating like crap all the people who do the unpleasant jobs? If we started treating the bus drivers, salespeople, cleaners, plumbers, mechanics like crap. The people who work making clothes for minimum wage. Society will not work if everyone is treated like crap except for the rich folks who make millions of dollars in business deals.

My point: Though emotions and religious experiences are subjective, they are nonetheless conditioned by the external world. Charging rhino? Most people react with fear. Emotions aren’t the only subjective phenomena that have a relationship to the external world. Our ideologies and their constructs (e.g. God, karma, the dialectic of history, the inevitability of a scientific utopia) are conditioned by the external world as well. [

That's what I've been saying. However, I;ve also been saying that it's a one way street. We can look at the real-world stimulus and make a pretty good estimate of the reaction (A rhino is charging him? He must be scared!). But we can't take a look at the reaction and make an estimate about the stimulus (He's scared? Must be a rhino charging him! Or maybe he's just jumped out of a plane, or he's found someone in his kitchen who's broken in, or he's lost the brakes in his car, or...).

Yet when it comes to OBJECTIVE things, we do get this two way street. We can look at the cause and reach a conclusion about the effect. We can look at the effects and reach a conclusion about the cause.

To eliminate some confusion, I’m going to use “external world” where you have been using “reality.” My unicorn is just as *real* as my pen, but the former is not a feature of the external world whereas the latter is.

I'd disagree here. Can you show me a definition of "real" that considers existence irrelevant?

So, does the external world’s indifference to our will make it more important than our values? To put it another way, which is more important—how many quarks there are in a proton or whether or not sound population control should involve murdering billions?

When it comes to telling us about how the universe actually works (which is the purpose of science, after all), the "how many quarks in a proton" thing tells us more.

I have been saying this all along.

You've also been saying that the "How to use the nuclear reactor" is just as important as the "How to build a nuclear reactor" when it comes to understanding how the reactor works.

Yes, this is true. But since you allow that sciences don’t tell us how to respond to the external world, you have also allowed the scientific inquiry isn’t the only goal of thought. My argument is that, though these value systems are ultimately subjective, there is no reason to suppose that they are or should be individual, there is no reason to suppose that they have no relationship to the external world, and there is even no reason why value systems should be forbidden their own theoretical constructs, be they God or some Platonic ideal of Compassion.

How can anything have a goal that is subjective? If everyone can, in principle, reach completely different conclusions that are all equally valid, how can that be considered a goal?

And how can people reach the same subjective conclusion? Surely their conclusions will be in some way different. How can two completely different people reach subjective conclusions that are identical in every way?

There is one huge difference between my argument and your list paradox. Your list paradox has no solution. My argument does. All one has to do is concede that the magisterium of science is not all of reality, since it is incoherent to say that it is, owing to the fact that said claim has no basis in science. Where’s the paradox?

If this is true, please tell me something in reality, in your "external world" (so no unicorns please) that is NOT explainable by science.

Learn to distinguish between the sciences and your views about them. The sciences work because, as it happens, our observations are consistent with a universe dominated by a small number of impersonal forces whose behavior is readily quantifiable. That’s science.

Your idea that the magisterium of science is all reality is not science. It doesn’t follow from any scientific observation, and it isn’t necessary for doing science. Your idea is a philosophical position. It goes by various names, including “scientism,” “physicalism,” and “naturalism.” As a philosophical position, it is susceptible to philosophical i.e. logical criticism. Logic isn’t word play or mind games.

Sure seems like it to me.

All I'm saying is that science is the study of reality, your "external world". If something exists in the external world, then it is explainable by science.

No, it doesn’t lose any meaning whatsoever. It simply loses credibility.

If A and B are two different things and yet are completely indistinguishable from each other, than are the differences meaningless?

Agreed! But a claim has to mean something in order to be dismissed as likely false. Meaningless “claims” are neither true nor false—in fact, they don’t qualify as claims at all.

I see what you're saying here, and I agree that a claim such as "Pink ideas dance lamply" is meaningless.

But I also think that what I said early, about the differences between A and B are also meaningless. If two things are different and the differences are impossible to determine, then the differences (and any claims about the differences) are meaningless as well.

On your previous posts, you asked how an untestable claim can have any meaning. I explained how. Now that you apparently agree, let’s move on.

Actually, I was referring to how it could tell us anything about the universe.

I have always maintained that religion is no substitute for scientific inquiry. My point is that the sciences are silent about values, and that therefore thinking about values is not in itself a scientific activity, but hat values can nonetheless can be discussed and theorized about on their own terms.

So we are agreed then. Subjective values are useless when it comes to learning about how the universe operates.

The idea that*all* religions claim that that earthquakes are the wrath of a god is false. More generally, the idea that *all* religions explain natural disasters as the will of a god is false.

Ah, you know what I meant.

What is more, even if a religious person says that one or more gods wanted an earthquake, there is nothing whatsoever that prevents such a person from allowing that the god acts through natural mechanisms best explained by the sciences.

But the scientific explanation will not require a god.

After all, if a god is nigh omniscient, that god knows where the dominos fall in a chain of scientifically explicable events.

I could make an argument against this, mentioning how reality is completely unpredictable at a quantum mechanical level, but I can't be bothered at the moment.

What is more, not all religions are theistic!

Obviously, I am talking about the religions that are theistic.

Most importantly, there is no reason that future religions need to conflict with scientific findings. And there will be future creeds—for as long as the sciences are silent about the way things ought to be, as opposed to the way things are.

But such religions will not tell us anything about why the universe is the way it is. They will only be able to tell us how to think about the universe and will be unable to show that they are correct.

 

[Trantorfuzz]

[FONT=&quot](Regarding the notion that vampire bats exhibit morality since they share food, sacrifice themselves at times, and expel colony members that don’t contribute.) [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The idea that vampire bats “have morality” assumes that “morality” is simply a synonym for organized pro-social behavior among social species. It isn’t. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Although I believe that the question of what moral systems we *ought to have* is not a scientific and empirical issue, the explanation of the moral systems that humans *do* have is in fact an object of scientific study among anthropologists and cognitive scientists. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Human moral systems presuppose the ability to make a cognitive distinction between behavior that is morally right and behavior that isn’t. This in turn presupposes the ability to think hypothetically, something that most animals don’t have. I believe that you can find some evidence that chimpanzees have rudimentary hypothetical thinking and culturally transmitted behavioral norms on the net. The same can’t be said of vampire bats. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

And where do you think society would be if we started treating like crap all the people who do the unpleasant jobs? If we started treating the bus drivers, salespeople, cleaners, plumbers, mechanics like crap. The people who work making clothes for minimum wage. Society will not work if everyone is treated like crap except for the rich folks who make millions of dollars in business deals.

But people who do unpleasant jobs generally *are* treated like crap. They aren’t tortured or exterminated, but they get far less respect than people who do more pleasant and stimulating work. I think you would find it instructive to watch the PBS non-fiction miniseries “Manor House,” which illustrates what I’m talking about. An even better illustration can be found in India’s caste system.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]More generally, your last statement is false. Not only can societies that treat most workers like crap function—they have been the rule rather than the exception for thousands of years. The desirability of a middle class, the notion of individual rights, and the notion that all people should be equal before the law are very recent innovations on the historical time scale. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

Can you show me a definition of "real" that considers existence irrelevant?

Non-existence is, strictly speaking, the absence of all properties. Since fantasies have properties, they do exist—but not outside our brains, i.e. not in the external world. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

When it comes to telling us about how the universe actually works (which is the purpose of science, after all), the "how many quarks in a proton" thing tells us more.

Yes, but this doesn’t answer the question, which I’ll repeat: Which is more important, determining the number of quarks in a proton or determining whether murder should be used for population control?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

You've also been saying that the "How to use the nuclear reactor" is just as important as the "How to build a nuclear reactor" when it comes to understanding how the reactor works.

Now that you mention it, I affirm without embarrassment that former issue is more important than the latter. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

How can anything have a goal that is subjective? If everyone can, in principle, reach completely different conclusions that are all equally valid, how can that be considered a goal?

Art, meta-ethics, and all forms of interpretation have subjective goals. The fact that these activities *do* occur makes your question moot.

And how can people reach the same subjective conclusion? Surely their conclusions will be in some way different. How can two completely different people reach subjective conclusions that are identical in every way?

First, I have already explained how subjective ideas can a) be shared by many people, b) be organized into systems, and therefore c) can be discussed on their own terms. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Second, why do subjective conclusions have to be identical in every way? Esthetic don’t have to be, and there are vanishingly few moral absolutes even if one insists that all moral judgments should be egalitarian. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Third, the idea that scientific judgments are always identical is false. Different interpretations of the same data are very frequent in physics. If many issues in the sciences have been resolved once and for all (e.g. evolution by natural selection, electromagnetic theory), it is only because scientific methods as we understand them have been around since Galileo. Among theoretical physicists, there is even disagreement about what constitutes good science. If you don’t believe me, please read the book “The Trouble with Physics” written by theoretical physicist Lee Smolin. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]

If this is true, please tell me something in reality, in your "external world" (so no unicorns please) that is NOT explainable by science.

First, there’s no reason to believe that fantasies about unicorns can’t be explained by science. The use of MRI to read minds is in its infancy, but at present, there doesn’t seem to be any theoretical barrier to the development of technologies that will reveal the neurology of imagining such a creature. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Second, your demand assumes that *explanation* is the only goal of thought. It isn’t. Evaluation and interpretation are also perfectly legitimate goals of thought. My claim is that these are not scientific endeavors. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
We can scientifically explain the values that we *do* have, but science simply isn’t designed to address which values we *ought* to have. For that, you need the constructs provided by ideologies, which include the least superstitious religions in my view. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

All I'm saying is that science is the study of reality, your "external world". If something exists in the external world, then it is explainable by science.

This is an excellent methodological principle. It might be restated thus: In light of their spectacular successes through the centuries, scientists should never give up. (I use the term “spectacular” here without sarcasm or irony of any kind.) But you’d need a working crystal ball to verify this as an empirical absolute—and none of those darned crystal balls have ever worked. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

But I also think that what I said early, about the differences between A and B are also meaningless. If two things are different and the differences are impossible to determine, then the differences (and any claims about the differences) are meaningless as well.

We’re dealing with two meanings of the word “meaning.” One meaning of “meaning” is the association of concepts with their symbols. Another definition of “meaning” makes it a synonym of “significance” or “importance.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I will grant you that the difference between A and B is, from the standpoint of empirical explanation, insignificant. I stand by the claim that the statement of such a difference represents a meaningful use of language, i.e. the terms and the grammatical relationships among them signify concepts and relationships between them. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

So we are agreed then. Subjective values are useless when it comes to learning about how the universe operates.

I would say that the sciences are the best tools we have for the explanation of fundamental phenomena, and that no other methods compare with them for this task. However, the idea that subjective values are useless when it comes to learning how the universe operates is only true outside the sciences. The sciences have never been completely objective: question like what constitutes a scientifically interesting question or how important a scientific finding is have a subjective component. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
I have already said that ideologies such as religions have value, not as tools for explaining phenomena, but as tools to organize thinking about values, the meaning of life, how one might regard reality, etc. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Throughout our debate, you have written as if the explanation of phenomena is the only sphere of thought that has any importance. On this score, I could not disagree with you more strongly. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]

But the scientific explanation will not require a god.

Of course not, but an interpretation of the significance of the earthquake might, for a great many people, be facilitated by making such a god an object of faith. [/FONT]

 

[Tiberius]

Trantor, what is it with the font tags? I have to go through each of your posts and remove them when I quote you. It's pretty annoying.

(Regarding the notion that vampire bats exhibit morality since they share food, sacrifice themselves at times, and expel colony members that don’t contribute.)

The idea that vampire bats “have morality” assumes that “morality” is simply a synonym for organized pro-social behavior among social species. It isn’t.

They help out the individuals who can be counted on to also be helpful. They punish the selfish and greedy ones. Sounds like a basic morality to me.

Non-existence is, strictly speaking, the absence of all properties. Since fantasies have properties, they do exist—but not outside our brains, i.e. not in the external world.

I don't know if I'd agree with this. The memories are stored in chemical chains in the brain, they can be measured.

Yes, but this doesn’t answer the question, which I’ll repeat: Which is more important, determining the number of quarks in a proton or determining whether murder should be used for population control?

How do I measure the importance of things relative to other things? Answer me that and I'll answer your question.

Now that you mention it, I affirm without embarrassment that former issue is more important than the latter.

But a book on how to use a nuclear reactor is worthless without the knowledge to make the nuclear reactor, isn't it?

Art, meta-ethics, and all forms of interpretation have subjective goals. The fact that these activities *do* occur makes your question moot.

But they are all unique to the person experiencing them. There is no objectivity.

First, I have already explained how subjective ideas can a) be shared by many people, b) be organized into systems, and therefore c) can be discussed on their own terms.

And as I said, given that each person has a unique point of view about these things, you cannot say that there is any interpretation that is 100% agreed upon. Any group of people discussing these things will always be talking about slightly different versions of them.

Second, why do subjective conclusions have to be identical in every way? Esthetic don’t have to be, and there are vanishingly few moral absolutes even if one insists that all moral judgments should be egalitarian.

They don't have to be. The only way they could be identical in every way is if they were objective. But my point isn't that we shouldn't have subjective opinions. I have plenty myself. But my point IS that such opinions can tell us nothing about the real world. The best a subjective opinion can ever do is tell us about how the person holding that opinion views the world.

Third, the idea that scientific judgments are always identical is false. Different interpretations of the same data are very frequent in physics. If many issues in the sciences have been resolved once and for all (e.g. evolution by natural selection, electromagnetic theory), it is only because scientific methods as we understand them have been around since Galileo. Among theoretical physicists, there is even disagreement about what constitutes good science. If you don’t believe me, please read the book “The Trouble with Physics” written by theoretical physicist Lee Smolin.

Scientific judgements about how the world works may have differences, yes, but that is because they are the interpretations of the individual scientists. However, the real world does not care. The way lightning works in my world is absolutely identical to the way lightning works in your world.

First, there’s no reason to believe that fantasies about unicorns can’t be explained by science. The use of MRI to read minds is in its infancy, but at present, there doesn’t seem to be any theoretical barrier to the development of technologies that will reveal the neurology of imagining such a creature.

Woah, woah, hang on there, bucko. I said external world. Sure, now you are saying that fantasies exist in the external world, but earlier you were using them as an example of something that has non-existence, the lack of all properties, and hence COULDN'T exist in the real world.

Of course, you could say that you are talking about the fantasy of unicorns, not unicorns themselves, but I did ask for something that is not explainable by science. All you're doing here is claiming that science can't do it at the moment very well, which isn't a very good argument at all.

Second, your demand assumes that *explanation* is the only goal of thought. It isn’t. Evaluation and interpretation are also perfectly legitimate goals of thought. My claim is that these are not scientific endeavors.

Again, back up. I'm not talking about the ultimate goal of thought. I'm talking about tools which we can use to learn how the universe works.

We can scientifically explain the values that we *do* have, but science simply isn’t designed to address which values we *ought* to have. For that, you need the constructs provided by ideologies, which include the least superstitious religions in my view.

And who decides what values we "ought" to have?

This is an excellent methodological principle. It might be restated thus: In light of their spectacular successes through the centuries, scientists should never give up. (I use the term “spectacular” here without sarcasm or irony of any kind.) But you’d need a working crystal ball to verify this as an empirical absolute—and none of those darned crystal balls have ever worked.

Well, science has had far greater successes than religion has, so I'd say science is the safer bet.

I would say that the sciences are the best tools we have for the explanation of fundamental phenomena, and that no other methods compare with them for this task. However, the idea that subjective values are useless when it comes to learning how the universe operates is only true outside the sciences. The sciences have never been completely objective: question like what constitutes a scientifically interesting question or how important a scientific finding is have a subjective component.

But what science studies IS completely objective.

I have already said that ideologies such as religions have value, not as tools for explaining phenomena, but as tools to organize thinking about values, the meaning of life, how one might regard reality, etc.

Unfortunately, I see all too often that such ideologies blind people and lock them into narrow, myopic mindsets, and this is ultimately self-defeating as a tool for the organization of thought.

Throughout our debate, you have written as if the explanation of phenomena is the only sphere of thought that has any importance. On this score, I could not disagree with you more strongly.

Not true. But I am arguing that it is the only sphere of thought that has any importance when it comes to learning how the universe works.

Of course not, but an interpretation of the significance of the earthquake might, for a great many people, be facilitated by making such a god an object of faith.

Leading to people thinking that God is punishing them for something, which leads them to do things to try to appease the gods, like making sacrifices, etc.

 

[Sha'irullah]

What I find humorous is that people argue over whether God himself exist or not. When the true argument is which God does not exist. This can simply be done by deductive reasoning without supernatural understanding yet alone acceptance.

 

[Philomath]

How do you view God? As a literal metaphysical being in the sky? As a state of being? As a force that transcends all? Not literally real, but a symbol that points to something beyond what we can comprehend?

Is there any evidence for God? Scientific, anecdotal, philosophical or otherwise?

I think that the possibility of God is great, considering how organized and precise the universe is; but I wouldn't go so far as to say that I believe in God.

It is impossible to know if God exists or not. I view God as the creator of the Universe/Multiverse and as a force that transcends all. There is no evidence for God's existence and I doubt that there ever will be any. I believe something had to have started the Universe/Multiverse.

 

[Trantorfuzz]

[FONT=&quot]NOTE; I don’t even know what font tags are. For now, I’m going to simply begin and end the quotes with double forward slashes. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]//They (vampire bats) help out the individuals who can be counted on to also be helpful. They punish the selfish and greedy ones. Sounds like a basic morality to me.// [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
You can say the same thing about species of social insects. Once the honeybee drones have fulfilled their function and become useless, they get pushed out of the hive. Are honeybees moral agents?[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
At present, only sufficiently mature human beings are considered moral agents, because morality doesn’t just involve pro-social behavior; it involves having enough cognition to make a conscious distinction between morally right and morally wrong behavior.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]//How do I measure the importance of things relative to other things? Answer me that and I'll answer your question.//

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]You don’t *measure* the importance of things relative to other things. You *judge*. Importance is an issue of values, and consequently not a matter that scientific measurements address. Such judgments are possible because of the many subjective judgments that people have in common. It makes sense that people would have quite a few subjective judgments in common because we all belong to the same species.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]//But a book on how to use a nuclear reactor is worthless without the knowledge to make the nuclear reactor, isn't it?//

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]If one can’t make a nuclear reactor, the issue of how to use one is moot. If one can, the issue of how to use it makes the difference between upping the production of weapons grade plutonium in order to expand the nuclear arsenal and reducing such production to reduce the arsenal. The real-world consequences of being able to design a nuclear reactor doesn’t cost the lives that misusing a nuclear reactor can cost.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]//And as I said, given that each person has a unique point of view about these things, you cannot say that there is any interpretation that is 100% agreed upon. Any group of people discussing these things will always be talking about slightly different versions of them.//

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]First, it is simply not true that all people’s points of view and subjective judgments are unique. Truly original interpretations that are not silly are often hard to find. Dictionaries of philosophy have names for most of the ways that people interpret goodness, knowledge, etc. What is more, everyday moral judgments are, quite often, no more unique or individual than the value of a dollar. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]What is more, objective phenomena vary too. When one talks about chickens, one is talking about billions of beings each of which is slightly different from the rest. But this does not imply that one can’t discuss chickens in general, or that chickens, each separately unique, don’t have much in common. So too with interpretations. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]//My point isn't that we shouldn't have subjective opinions. I have plenty myself. But my point IS that such opinions can tell us nothing about the real world. The best a subjective opinion can ever do is tell us about how the person holding that opinion views the world.//

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Well, if your point isn’t that we shouldn’t have subjective opinions, then why do you seem to use utility for describing the real world as the only yard stick for judging the value of subjective interpretations?

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]I have already explained how subjective opinions can be conditioned by information about the objects of objective inquiry. I have also explained that many subjective opinions are shared by groups, resemble one another, and can be discussed in intelligible terms.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]//Scientific judgments about how the world works may have differences, yes, but that is because they are the interpretations of the individual scientists. However, the real world does not care. The way lightning works in my world is absolutely identical to the way lightning works in your world.//

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]That’s why we need to make a distinction between the sciences, which have subjective components, and the objects of scientific inquiry.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]//And who decides what values we "ought" to have?//[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]
Not scientists, as we see here: [youtube]TjDEsGZLbio[/youtube]
Tom Lehrer - Wernher von Braun - with intro - YouTube

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Most everyday values have broad similarities across moral schools because most parents don’t want their children to kill each other or make trouble for the family. If parents must depend on children to care for them in old age, respect for elders and some compassion are must-have ingredients for a system of ethics.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]However, primate in-group out-group behavior complicates this picture. Is it okay to exterminate out-groups? Here in the West, the roots of the negative answer can be found chiefly in the teachings of Jesus, but in China, similar sentiments have been promulgated chiefly in the name of Confucius (i.e. Kung-tze, or Master Kung), who never claimed to be anything more than a man.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]//Well, science has had far greater successes than religion has, so I'd say science is the safer bet.//

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]As a tool for explaining the phenomenal world, religion has had no success at all. But as a conceptual aid for the discussion and dissemination of values, the sciences are useless, because they aren’t even designed for such tasks. It doesn’t even make sense to say that science has “failed” as values-talk—anymore than it makes sense to say that a pick-axe “fails” as a screwdriver.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]//But what science studies IS completely objective.//

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]That’s an assumption, not a fact.

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]//Unfortunately, I see all too often that such ideologies blind people and lock them into narrow, myopic mindsets, and this is ultimately self-defeating as a tool for the organization of thought.//

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Such mindsets are equally common among rationalists and scientists. Do some research on America’s eugenics movement, our human radiation experiments, our programs of forced sterilization, and about all the things that necessitated human subjects committees that include moral philosophers as well as scientists. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]The sciences help purge superstition from both religious and secular life, but physicalism, the belief that science is the only metaphysics that should entertain, does nothing to save anyone from myopia or malice. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]//But I am arguing that it (science) is the only sphere of thought that has any importance when it comes to learning how the universe works.//

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]Besides learning how the world works, what other spheres of thought do you consider important?

[/FONT] [FONT=&quot]//(Belief in a god that explains the significance of volcanoes) Leading to people thinking that God is punishing them for something, which leads them to do things to try to appease the gods, like making sacrifices, etc.//[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Or leading them to believe that the volcano god shows no mercy for people who insist on living in hazardous areas—or that the god is the god of the Deists, who has no personal concern for us—or that the god insists that we respect the dangerous aspects of the world rather than ignore them. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Science could correct the superstition you just mentioned. That’s how science benefits religion.
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]But even if people sacrifice baskets of fruit to appease a volcano god, how does this compare to the potential destruction of all possible human habitats for political or economic reasons rather than religious ones? Perhaps you are old enough to remember the constant threat of a nuclear winter. Perhaps today’s babies will live to see a human habitat shrunken by climate change, biological warfare, and new nuclear threats—some religious, some not. [/FONT]

 

[Twilight]

As a state of being? As a force that transcends all? Not literally real, but a symbol that points to something beyond what we can comprehend?

All of these things. By not literally real I mean he is not tempro-spacial, as is the usual state of phenomena we would term 'literally real'. I believe he transcends all whilst still permetating all. I think we can come to a 'godly' state of being by understanding what is conducive to godliness and what is not... and in that state we can better understand what God is.

Is there any evidence for God? Scientific, anecdotal, philosophical or otherwise?

Yes, it is found within us. We can only gain evidence for ourselves and not from anything external. External knowledge can only support our own knowledge about God.

[/QUOTE]

 

[Orias]

I'd like to ask, "How can we know "God" doesn't exist"?

Does it really matter? No...

People rationalize anything in anyway, does it really matter? Depends on who you talk to, and what their goals are.

Xeper!

 

[Tiberius]

I'd like to ask, "How can we know "God" doesn't exist"?

Perhaps we should be asking, "How do we know it is unlikely that God exists?"

And my answer would be, "Because the world appears to be identical to a world in which God doesn't exist."

 

[ZooGirl02]

I view God as a single Deity! In my view, He is one God but yet three Divine Persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He is a personal God and He intervenes in our daily life but yet He respects our own free will. God the Father sent His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ to earth and Jesus Christ lived a miraculous life and then allowed Himself to be crucified for our sins. Three days later He resurrected from the dead by His own power and then arose into Heaven some days later. He established the Catholic Church to help lead and guide people into Heaven. He gave us the 7 Sacraments by which we can obtain sanctifying grace as well. He even sent the Third Person of the Most Holy Trinity, the Holy Spirit to us to be our Comforter and to guide the disciples into all Truth. The Holy Spirit continues to guide and protect the Catholic Church to this very day.

The above is what I believe about God and I believe these things with all of my heart.

 

[Warren Clark]

I'd like to ask, "How can we know "God" doesn't exist"?

Does it really matter? No...

People rationalize anything in anyway, does it really matter? Depends on who you talk to, and what their goals are.

Xeper!

Personally I think it matters when people become evangelical young earth creationists and angry Muslim extremists.
Otherwise we should all drink our tea and shut up.

 

[egcroc]

How do you view God? As a literal metaphysical being in the sky? As a state of being? As a force that transcends all? Not literally real, but a symbol that points to something beyond what we can comprehend?

a supreme intelligent force that designed the Universe and set it into motion, a giver of life, wisdom and reason, a great architect, a divine watchmaker and a brilliant musician