Religion proves itself unscientific.

[cottage]

I'm well aware of the problem of induction. In my estimation, the real "problem" is saying how, given that the conclusion of a line of inductive reasoning is never logically necessary, but also given that inductive reasoning undeniably works, how is it that it works if the conclusions are never assured?

The conclusions are assured, but only ever in the present. You can never be certain when going to bed at night that you will be there alive and well in the morning. And the same applies to all things composed of form and matter for eventually they are seen to degrade, wither and perish. And added to that inductive conclusion is the logical argument that every speck of matter can be conceived to be annihilated. In sum, there is no logical reason why the world as a contingent truth must obtain, which is further supported by scientific models cautioning that the world, already universally accepted as finite, may end with heat death or the Big Freeze.

Sure- as above, it works. As per your Russell quote, even though we cannot examine future futures, we can remember past futures, and while we can't have positive confirmation of an inductive inference, we can certainly imagine negative evidence- for instance, if it had happened that one day the sun failed to rise, we would have lost alot of confidence in our inductive inference that it would continue to rise in the future.

And past futures, have there been instances of that negative evidence of which you speak, and do we have reliable experience of every single millennia going back to time immemorial on which to build our inductive inferences?

But once again, you're exposing the operative presupposition; you ask from what argument does it follow- you're using the language of deductive reasoning. You're simply arguing that only logical consequence can attain the epistemic status of knowledge or reasonable belief- in other words, that deductive reasoning provides the gold standard which all other forms of reasoning must satisfy.

That doesn’t answer my question. Certain truth would be the elusive Gold Standard, but which experience can never attain, and so there is no argument that can be made that from the world existing today it must therefore continue to exist tomorrow.

Who went from one extreme to the other? Up til this point, you appear to be arguing that there cannot be any knowledge based on induction, because induction is always fallible- which would entail that the vast majority of what we colloquially refer to as "knowledge" (virtually the entirety of the results of empirical science) would fail your test and thus not count as knowledge any longer. Now you appear to forswear any such argument- which is it? Indeed, the fact that "experience serves us well"- or, as I've said, that induction works, is the reason for supposing that somehow, induction is able to be a reliable form of reasoning about or knowing the world we find ourselves in.

Then it seems you misunderstand me! My standpoint is and has always been fundamentally that of empiricism (tendentiously, as per my post: #86); I take the view that we learn through cause and effect and experience, despite there being no innate or a priori knowledge. Or as Freddie Ayer said: ‘…the fact that the validity of a proposition cannot be logically guaranteed does not entail that it is irrational to believe it. On the contrary what is irrational is to look for a guarantee where none can be forthcoming; to demand certainty where probability is all that is obtainable.’

And I'm not saying it gives us indubitable knowledge; I'm saying that "indubitable knowledge" is not redundant since some types of knowledge are fallible and open to doubt.

‘Some types of knowledge’? So may I ask what ‘knowledge’ isn’t fallible and open to doubt?

"Trust"? Again, it is a matter of probability, rather than logical consequence- and once again you're presupposing what counts as knowledge; perhaps you should lay out exactly what your criteria for knowledge is?

In simple terms I’ve been pressing the point that unless anyone can show me differently there is no certain knowledge, either to affirm or deny that the sun will rise or that the supernatural exists. So to ask me for a criterion of knowledge is to suppose that I can somehow know what I’ve been consistently arguing can’t be known!

But I'm arguing that these are not necessarily mutually exclusive- that one asserts or even knows some X doesn't exclude that ~X is nevertheless possible.

Then once again this demonstrates your misuse of the term. It is self-evidently a contradiction to claim to know a thing to be the case while in the very same sentence allowing that it might not be the case.

Evidence which could not fail to exist if the claim in question were true; we're basically inquiring into the truth-conditions for a given belief, and what the necessary conditions are. But To use an example I used in a similar context elsewhere, take the claim that my house has been burglarized; necessary evidence of a burglary would be some missing property- if I have been burglarized, it is necessary that something has been taken (otherwise it would be trespassing, not burglary), and so the necessary evidence of a burglary would be some missing property.

But what is to count as your ‘necessary evidence’ of absence of the supernatural, because the analogy doesn’t offer an explanation in those terms?

So can we never have knowledge of facts, since they are "only probable" and never certain?

Yes that’s what I’m saying, although not in the way that you’re using ‘knowledge’ by conflating the term with present and/or past experience as an argument to the future.

Well, but what good are such explanations or hypotheses, if they "lie outside the experiential world"? Would this make them distinctions which make no difference? For instance, how would one distinguish between a good hypothesis that "lies outside the experiential world" from a bad hypothesis that "lies outside the experiential world", seeing as our only tribunal for evaluating competing explanations just is the experiential world?

But we are able to distinguish between what you refer to as good or bad hypotheses. Speculative metaphysics and arguments for a transcendent reality have their internal truths and logical conclusions and can still be subject to analysis and reasoned argument, a testament to that would be some of the discussions and ideas explored in this thread. The experiential world isn’t a boundary or an obstacle to what can be thought. For as Wittgenstein remarked: ‘In order to draw a limit to thinking, we should have to think both sides of this limit.’

 

[cottage]

So if you take out the Intelligent Design theory, and all you are left with is blind and mindless nature, at what point would the development of eyes occur, and at what point would the development of not only the heart, but the circulatory system develop? So what came first, the blood or the veins? The heart or the blood? The bones or the muscles? The stomach or the intestines? The testicles or the penis? The vagina or the ovaries? The hair or the scalp?

Right, that is my point. You just said it; “but we can only survive and breed if the heart pumps oxygen enriched blood around the body”. But NATURE doesn’t know that. In fact, nature doesn’t know anything. So how is it that our body has EXACTLY what is needed in order to survive, despite not KNOWING what is needed to survive?

Like you I wasn’t there to observe the beginning of life and so I can’t give you a blow-by-blow account, but in any case it’s not important to be able to list in precise detail the biological order in which life forms evolved in order to deny a supernatural designer. We are talking about an evolutionary process occurring over billions of years where both simple bacteria and higher-order life forms live or die according to their environment and/or their particular mutations, with the survivors going on to breed more of their kind that over almost inconceivably long periods will be barely recognizable in terms of their forbears. So I don’t understand what you mean by ‘knowing what is needed to survive’, for it can hardly be said that we have ‘exactly what is needed’ when only a comparative few life forms survive by what is barely sufficient for their existence, whereas the greater number did not. Many were stillborn, expired due to malformations or disease, or were devoured by predators, but those that survived went on to breed and pass on their genes, good or bad, to the offspring. If the genetic material is healthy then the young will flourish, if not the gene pool will eventually dry up. But the point is that the ones that exist, you, me and any individuals that read this, are incredibly fortunate to be among the almost infinitely tiny number in that succession that survived against enormous odds. Even those among us that have a disability or a congenital disease have somewhere down the line benefitted from natural selection.
According to the TOE, and quite unlike Genesis, nothing just happened in the complete sense that you believe to be the case, for the development and progression was so slow and miniscule to be almost incalculable. You make the very common (theistic) assumption that we are the way that we were meant to be when in fact we might have turned out very differently – or not at all. In just a few million years, if the planet survives, we may very well look and act entirely different from the way we do now. For all we know even the term humanoid may no longer be appropriate to describe the planet’s future beings – and that would certainly be a problem for the Bible believers! For myself I certainly don’t find it impossible to believe that infinitesimally minute changes took place in gradations carried out over several billon years could bring us to where we are and what we have today, during a process where many other basic forms of life might also have been viable but fell into extinction due to competition or conditions unsuited to their form or stage of development. We are the success that came from a very long line of failures, the entire evolutionary journey is a story of omission, incompleteness, and obsolescence – the very opposite of what one would expect from an intelligent designer, especially one that is supposed to be supreme in every respect.

So I can either believe that a mindless and blind process gave me these things specified things, or I can believe that an Intelligent Design gave me these specified things. I will stick with my Intelligent Design.

Intelligent Design (actually a perverted form of the Teleological Argument) is reliant on a causal principle and is therefore attended with the same contradictions that apply to the Cosmological Argument in all its forms. Elsewhere I have given my objections in that respect although I don’t recall having seen them answered?

What we have is a universe that is fine tuned for human life, and we also have human life. Both of these are two separate issues, and right now science is incapable of explaining either one.

If the world is fine tuned by a designer then his supposed fine tuning ability needs to be reappraised because things are either occurring behind his back or he’s got himself into a muddle, ending up unable to control processes that serve no purpose other than endangering his creation.

Things happen, cot.

Yes and either God causes them or he doesn’t, but either way his omnipotence and omniscience is looking shaky.

And on that note, since God is also omniscient and omnibenevolent, then everything that happens must happen for the best, since he cannot make a mistake. So therefore, everything that God allows to happen, he must have a morally sufficient reason for allowing it to happen even if you in your finite knowledge can’t see or understand why.

Well, God isn’t omnibenevolent since that is logically impossible; and in any case you’ve just watered your argument down to a special plea. It is an appalling and utterly absurd argument to make – and you know it is! How can you expect to sound credible when one moment you’re arguing from logic and reason and the next minute saying with a straight face that logic doesn’t apply (when it contradicts the case you’re making)? But also you’re attempting to address the problem with a non-argument. The reason for God inflicting cruelty and suffering on his creation is completely irrelevant because justification on whatever grounds cannot unseat the logical contradiction.

I said that God, a supernatural being, created a natural realm that is governed by natural law and since he transcends these laws, he can use his power to intervene within these laws. I don’t see how that is such a difficult concept to grasp or why do you have this “either one or the other” approach.

The concept is self-contradictory! According to your argument there are instances where things happen that oppose or challenge God’s will, but that means he is not the Supreme Being, since the concept implies the existence of one who cannot be usurped or contradicted.

Like what?

Please see my post 67

 

[johnhanks]

So what came first, the blood or the veins?

Call, just study a little biology, why don't you? Your naive belief that you are asking difficult or unanswerable questions in posts like this serves only to make you look foolish.

The heart or the blood?

There are plenty of animals that have a transport fluid but no heart. The need for a muscular peristaltic tube to propel the fluid arises with increased size: the process is well described here.

The bones or the muscles?

Since vertebrates evolved after primitive invertebrates (which had muscles) the answer is obviously muscles.

The stomach or the intestines?

The gut at its simplest is an undifferentiated endodermal tube; sacculation and folding give differentiated regions like stomach and ileum, and will have occurred as food items became bulkier.

The testicles or the penis?

An intromittent organ makes internal fertilisation more efficient, especially on land. Early aquatic animals (and most modern fish) would have (still have) testes but no penis. So, testes.

The vagina or the ovaries?

Again, vaginas facilitate internal fertilisation, and evolve as a terrestrial adaptation. Ovaries predated them by many millions of years.

The hair or the scalp?

The other questions were silly enough, but this one takes the cake. By scalp do you just mean hair-bearing skin in general, or the skin on the top of the head in particular? Either way, surely even you can see the answer.

This is the umpteenth time you've posed these "which came first" questions under the delusion that you're setting evolution an unanswerable challenge. Just take an elementary biology course, Call; who knows, maybe you'll make less of a fool of yourself in the future.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

This is the umpteenth time you've posed these "which came first" questions under the delusion that you're setting evolution an unanswerable challenge.

But these are important philosophical questions! For example, which came first, study/learning/knowledge, or ignorance? One might think that ignorance came first, because it took a long time for humanity to produce even writing, let alone studies and institutions of learning. But I think that Call_of_the_Wild's point is to show that it is knowledge which came first, because only when there exists an enormous body of knowledge about things like biology, physics, cosmology, etc., can one ramble on and on about it without knowing anything and asking inane, nonsensical questions. True ignorance can only exist when one is willfully blinded to any and all information yet stubbornly insists that they are correct without any adequate knowledge.

Thinking of it that way, as a lesson in philosophy, rather than the sad state of human affairs, sometimes helps me sleep at night.

 

[Sha'irullah]

But these are important philosophical questions! For example, which came first, study/learning/knowledge, or ignorance? One might think that ignorance came first, because it took a long time for humanity to produce even writing, let alone studies and institutions of learning. But I think that Call_of_the_Wild's point is to show that it is knowledge which came first, because only when there exists an enormous body of knowledge about things like biology, physics, cosmology, etc., can one ramble on and on about it without knowing anything and asking inane, nonsensical questions. True ignorance can only exist when one is willfully blinded to any and all information yet stubbornly insists that they are correct without any adequate knowledge.

Thinking of it that way, as a lesson in philosophy, rather than the sad state of human affairs, sometimes helps me sleep at night.

This is a trick question and I had the same proposed to me . You do not mind if I answer do ya

 

[Enai de a lukal]

And past futures, have there been instances of that negative evidence of which you speak

Regarding what? The sun failing to rise? Not that I'm aware of.

and do we have reliable experience of every single millennia going back to time immemorial on which to build our inductive inferences?

Why would that be necessary? The larger the sample size, the more probable the inference, but this doesn't mean that we have to have "reliable experience of every single millennia going back to time immemorial"- where are you getting these ideas?

That doesn’t answer my question. Certain truth would be the elusive Gold Standard, but which experience can never attain, and so there is no argument that can be made that from the world existing today it must therefore continue to exist tomorrow.

Right- no argument that the world must continue to exist, in any logically necessary sense, because it is not a deductive argument, thus the relation between the conclusion and premises is not one of entailment.

it seems you misunderstand me! My standpoint is and has always been fundamentally that of empiricism (tendentiously, as per my post: #86); I take the view that we learn through cause and effect and experience, despite there being no innate or a priori knowledge. Or as Freddie Ayer said: ‘…the fact that the validity of a proposition cannot be logically guaranteed does not entail that it is irrational to believe it. On the contrary what is irrational is to look for a guarantee where none can be forthcoming; to demand certainty where probability is all that is obtainable.’

Ok, but how can we learn, or form knowledge,on the basis of experience and cause and effect (which is induction) if knowledge requires certainty or logical necessity? Indeed, if the conclusion must (logically) follow from the premises, as you seem to be saying, then it would seem the entirety of empirical science cannot count as truth or knowledge. This is the contradiction I mentioned, and a vague reference to "empiricism" (a very large and diverse body of philosophical positions) doesn't really help explain how this is supposed to work.

Some types of knowledge’? So may I ask what ‘knowledge’ isn’t fallible and open to doubt?

Can one coherently doubt logical truths? What would it mean to doubt that 2+2=4, or that all bachelors are unmarried?

Also, if we believe Wittgenstein and others, there are foundational, "bedrock", "properly basic" beliefs (or "hinge propositions") that are not logical truths, but can nevertheless not be doubted since doubt in that context is meaningless (take a gander at On Certainty for a lengthy and erudite discussion of this, as well as plenty of examples)

In simple terms I’ve been pressing the point that unless anyone can show me differently there is no certain knowledge, either to affirm or deny that the sun will rise or that the supernatural exists.

And my point is that this is irrelevant. There is precious little certain knowledge, and it doesn't get you very far. The vast majority of what we consider truth or knowledge is fallible, and open to error, and since belief in the absence of God/gods meets virtually every criteria that other things commonly viewed as knowledge or truth satisfy, it is on similar epistemic footing.

Holding out for 100% certainty is a false dilemma.

Then once again this demonstrates your misuse of the term. It is self-evidently a contradiction to claim to know a thing to be the case while in the very same sentence allowing that it might not be the case.

Of course not. I know Nietzsche was born in 1844. I know this, because it is corroborated by countless credible sources. Nevertheless, it is entirely possible that Nietzsche was not born in 1844, that there was an error on his birth certificate (or a fabrication) which has become systematic. Similarly for virtually any other truth that is not a tautology- there is always some possibility for error (thus, certainty is not the criteria).

But what is to count as your ‘necessary evidence’ of absence of the supernatural, because the analogy doesn’t offer an explanation in those terms?

It depends on the specific supernatural claim, but null search results for X on minimally defined parameters would prove ~X within those parameters.

Yes that’s what I’m saying...

Ok... So now you're coming out and admitting that you regard all truth or knowledge that is arrived at via induction, including the entirety of the empirical sciences as well as truths of common sense, as not qualifying as truth or knowledge. I see no reason to accept this change in terminology, which is all this seems to amount to.

And since you're seem to be saying that you reject atheism or naturalism because it is not certain and is fallible, it would seem that you are obliged to reject all empirical science as well, since it is also uncertain and fallible. You can't have it both ways.

... although not in the way that you’re using ‘knowledge’ by conflating the term with present and/or past experience as an argument to the future.

I have no idea what that's supposed to mean.

But we are able to distinguish between what you refer to as good or bad hypotheses.

Ok, but how? Usually hypotheses are evaluated on the basis of how well they model reality- but hypotheses which do not model reality, that do not have any empirical consequences, can not be evaluated in such a manner.

Speculative metaphysics and arguments for a transcendent reality have their internal truths and logical conclusions and can still be subject to analysis and reasoned argument

What's an "internal truth"?

The experiential world isn’t a boundary or an obstacle to what can be thought. For as Wittgenstein remarked: ‘In order to draw a limit to thinking, we should have to think both sides of this limit.’

Oh dear. First, let's note that Wittgenstein disowned most of his views expressed in the Tractatus. Second, lets take a look at the passage from which your quote came-

"...The whole sense of the book might be summed up the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. Thus the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather--not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense."

For what its worth, I'm afraid LW is in agreement with me on this point- he's saying that there is a boundary, not to thought (as this would require us to think what cannot be thought), but to language; talk about what has no empirical consequences whatsoever is vacuous; it is "simply nonsense".

 

[Call_of_the_Wild]

But these are important philosophical questions! For example, which came first, study/learning/knowledge, or ignorance? One might think that ignorance came first, because it took a long time for humanity to produce even writing, let alone studies and institutions of learning. But I think that Call_of_the_Wild's point is to show that it is knowledge which came first, because only when there exists an enormous body of knowledge about things like biology, physics, cosmology, etc., can one ramble on and on about it without knowing anything and asking inane, nonsensical questions. True ignorance can only exist when one is willfully blinded to any and all information yet stubbornly insists that they are correct without any adequate knowledge.

Thinking of it that way, as a lesson in philosophy, rather than the sad state of human affairs, sometimes helps me sleep at night.

Hahaah i like that one, which one came first, ignorance or knowledge? Good stuff.

 

[cottage]

Why would that be necessary? The larger the sample size, the more probable the inference, but this doesn't mean that we have to have "reliable experience of every single millennia going back to time immemorial"- where are you getting these ideas?

But it is only if the sun had risen in all millennia that you are fully justified in arguing that it will do so in the future, for what is true of a part may not be true of the whole. So in order to claim that past experience is an objectively true precursor for the future you would logically need to state that it has been the case without exception. The fact that it is impracticable to trawl for every possible past experience doesn’t make the evidence of a comparatively few instances an empirically true rule when knowledge of the past is not by the very definition of the term knowledge of the future.

Right- no argument that the world must continue to exist, in any logically necessary sense, because it is not a deductive argument, thus the relation between the conclusion and premises is not one of entailment.

While no argument can be made that from the world existing today it follows necessarily that it will exist tomorrow, there also happens to be a wealth of evidence that informs us that the material world and everything within it is finite and has a temporal existence; so against that inductively derived ‘knowledge’ how can you know from the world existing in the past and present that it will continue existing in the future when a prediction arrived at by exactly same means invites a contradiction?

Ok, but how can we learn, or form knowledge,on the basis of experience and cause and effect (which is induction) if knowledge requires certainty or logical necessity? Indeed, if the conclusion must (logically) follow from the premises, as you seem to be saying, then it would seem the entirety of empirical science cannot count as truth or knowledge. This is the contradiction I mentioned, and a vague reference to "empiricism" (a very large and diverse body of philosophical positions) doesn't really help explain how this is supposed to work.

We self-evidently have learned from experience notwithstanding the elusive and perhaps unattainable notion of certain knowledge because we work with some success on a series of assumptions from the past. As far as we can tell leaden objects placed in water have always sunk while ones made of cork are seen to float and so our expectation is that with the next experiment lead will sink and cork will be continue to be buoyant. And we will continue making use of that learned information until it proves us wrong. Whatever has been the case in the past remains true of the past but it isn’t knowledge of the future since there is no way of knowing or guaranteeing tomorrow that a particular causal sequence will have the effects observed today. Furthermore the uncertainty is such that science does not limit itself to generalizations but is constantly correcting and amending information held from the past and in the present.

Can one coherently doubt logical truths? What would it mean to doubt that 2+2=4, or that all bachelors are unmarried?

Yes of course all such tautologies are true, and although they may be a highly useful tool or a linguistic clarifier the truth is analytically contained within the premises or definition, and while they can demonstrate errors in reasoning they give us no direct information about the world. But if tautologies are knowledge, as you appear to be saying, then please show how they demonstrate the sun will rise tomorrow or that ‘the supernatural does not exist’?

Also, if we believe Wittgenstein and others, there are foundational, "bedrock", "properly basic" beliefs (or "hinge propositions") that are not logical truths, but can nevertheless not be doubted since doubt in that context is meaningless (take a gander at On Certainty for a lengthy and erudite discussion of this, as well as plenty of examples)

I do think we can reasonably agree on an anti-sceptical view; it would be self-contradictory for example to believe that one knows nothing when that position requires the knower to know that nothing can be known, or to believe that the world (whatever the world is) does not exist even though it logically might not. Also it might be said that ‘The moon is the moon’ is true even if nobody is looking at it. But to say ‘the moon is the moon’ we have to know there is a moon, and so even the principle of identity in this case is only true of the moon if it exists. But we are able to say things exist because we are aware of them or because we have, or have had, direct or indirect knowledge of them, or because we can conceptualise them, which we do by compounding ideas from experience. However, things in the empirical world are said to be ‘true’ only because they are, or have been, experienced in some sense, and yet we are led to believe the future will be as the past and that things that are will continue to be. But there is a difference between an anti-sceptical approach of believing-that worldly things are, that they really do exist, and a questionable quasi-religious belief-in their existence, for while we can perhaps speak of knowing today we cannot know of tomorrow.

And my point is that this is irrelevant. There is precious little certain knowledge, and it doesn't get you very far. The vast majority of what we consider truth or knowledge is fallible, and open to error, and since belief in the absence of God/gods meets virtually every criteria that other things commonly viewed as knowledge or truth satisfy, it is on similar epistemic footing.

Then if it is irrelevant then surely so is your assertion that ‘the supernatural does not exist’ for it is in the same category as claims to the contrary.

Holding out for 100% certainty is a false dilemma.

There is no ‘holding out for 100% certainty’! Definitely not an argument that can be attributed to me!

Of course not. I know Nietzsche was born in 1844. I know this, because it is corroborated by countless credible sources. Nevertheless, it is entirely possible that Nietzsche was not born in 1844, that there was an error on his birth certificate (or a fabrication) which has become systematic. Similarly for virtually any other truth that is not a tautology- there is always some possibility for error (thus, certainty is not the criteria).

If past experience allows for the possibility of mistakenness with regard to what can be known how then can you arrive at a judgment in such explicit and absolute terms that the supernatural does/does not exist, or that the sun will rise in the morning, when by your own admission the statement is to be qualified by probability? Whilst your argument can take this form: Based on past and present experience it is probable the supernatural does not exist, that hypothesis isdistinct from: The supernatural does/does not exist, which is in the category of assertions as made by the mystics and dogmatists that denies any possibility of falsehood.

It depends on the specific supernatural claim, but null search results for X on minimally defined parameters would prove ~X within those parameters.

The controversy here is not concerned with the particular but with your general proposition that the supernatural does not exist. So what is to count as ‘necessary evidence of absence’ in support of your proposition?

 

[cottage]

Ok... So now you're coming out and admitting that you regard all truth or knowledge that is arrived at via induction, including the entirety of the empirical sciences as well as truths of common sense, as not qualifying as truth or knowledge. I see no reason to accept this change in terminology, which is all this seems to amount to.

And since you're seem to be saying that you reject atheism or naturalism because it is not certain and is fallible, it would seem that you are obliged to reject all empirical science as well, since it is also uncertain and fallible. You can't have it both ways.

I’m sorry but that, with respect, is quite absurd! Of course I don’t ‘reject’ atheism! And really, it is also wide of the mark to say I’m ‘obliged to reject all empirical science as well’ when I’ve made it abundantly plain that it is only the position of supposed certitude that I question. And in that respect the marked difference between a theist and an atheist is that the former claims certainty while the latter cannot, but as an atheist I can still intelligibly disbelieve there are gods without having demonstrable proof for their impossibility or presuming to know that to be the case.

Ok, but how? Usually hypotheses are evaluated on the basis of how well they model reality- but hypotheses which do not model reality, that do not have any empirical consequences, can not be evaluated in such a manner.

The classic inferential arguments to God (Tele & Causal), ie hypotheses that begin from the empirical world and have empirical consequences and while still being speculative may even be true, against for example where it is argued that the world was created so that mankind could benefit from a relationship with its creator, an argument that can be refuted both logically and evidentially from experience.

What's an "internal truth"?

By that I mean purely speculative arguments for a transcendent reality that have their internal truths and logical conclusions but can nevertheless be subject to analysis and the principle of non-contradiction. God is the creator, for example. We don’t have to accept that there is such a being, but we accept that the predicate belongs to the subject by definition. However, we might object that it does not follow that a creator is benevolent since that attribute is not necessary to the concept. And nor need a creator be omnipotent, for it can only be held that the creator has sufficient power to bring the universe into being.

Oh dear. First, let's note that Wittgenstein disowned most of his views expressed in the Tractatus. Second, lets take a look at the passage from which your quote came-

"...The whole sense of the book might be summed up the following words: what can be said at all can be said clearly, and what we cannot talk about we must pass over in silence. Thus the aim of the book is to draw a limit to thought, or rather--not to thought, but to the expression of thoughts: for in order to be able to draw a limit to thought, we should have to find both sides of the limit thinkable (i.e. we should have to be able to think what cannot be thought). It will therefore only be in language that the limit can be drawn, and what lies on the other side of the limit will simply be nonsense."

For what its worth, I'm afraid LW is in agreement with me on this point- he's saying that there is a boundary, not to thought (as this would require us to think what cannot be thought), but to language; talk about what has no empirical consequences whatsoever is vacuous; it is "simply nonsense".

I rather think that Wittgenstein agrees with me on the point I’m disputing with you. While I do not agree with his questionable, narrowly defined conclusions concerning use of language any more than I do with the Logical Positives that followed him, both he and they were correct in one sense where if in their elimination of metaphysics all such assertions both affirmative and negative are to be described as ‘nonsensical’ then ‘The supernatural does not exist’ is a perfect example of a nonsensical statement. Also, if the term ‘supernatural’ is held to be literally or linguistically meaningless then it is plainly nonsense to then speak metaphysically in a priori terms of its non-being!

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It has always been bizarre as to why a religious organization must tie itself into science so badly there must be an entire sect to mesh it in successfully by the mere usage of the name.
It has always occurred to me that because such schools of thought exists that it is essentially proof religion is not compatible with science.

Theological thoughts such as Christian Science and Mu'tazilah are movements within religions that try to promote the coexistence of science and religion yet they seem to only prove the incompatibility of the two.

Is the fact that religion has to make a continuous effort to prove itself being scientific proof that it is unscientific to begin with?

Science is the study of the natural world... i.e. that which physically exists. If a religion is going to make claims about physical things (and most do), why wouldn't they want to confirm for themselves or show to others that, to the extent that their belief system is testable, their beliefs about reality pass the test?

Also, I wouwould think that any theist who considers the universe to be God's creation would also consider the study of that universe to be a glimpse of the mind of God. In that view, science is just as important as scriptural exegesis.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Science is the study of the natural world... i.e. that which physically exists. If a religion is going to make claims about physical things (and most do), why wouldn't they want to confirm for themselves or show to others that, to the extent that their belief system is testable, their beliefs about reality pass the test?

Also, I wouwould think that any theist who considers the universe to be God's creation would also consider the study of that universe to be a glimpse of the mind of God. In that view, science is just as important as scriptural exegesis.

I do not belief I can express myself any better then what you have done so right now.

This is why I am a Deist and I find no need whatsoever to rely on something to heavily riddled with unverified claims.

Many theists try to go about understanding things in reverse, they look to the world and if it does not confirm to their religious assertions they reject the evidence before the, and find something that conforms to their own beliefs.
Science is not about believing but about knowing. To this very day we know very little but nonetheless we know enough.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I do not belief I can express myself any better then what you have done so right now.

This is why I am a Deist and I find no need whatsoever to rely on something to heavily riddled with unverified claims.

Many theists try to go about understanding things in reverse, they look to the world and if it does not confirm to their religious assertions they reject the evidence before the, and find something that conforms to their own beliefs.

Frankly, I'd say that your complaint applies just as much to deism as any other belief, if not moreso. Traditional theistic beliefs do imply things about the world that can be tested, and if they fail those tests it's a problem, but deistic beliefs aren't any better. Russell's Teapot might be unfalsifiable, but that doesn't mean it's a reasonable belief. By changing God from an active, miracle-wielding deity to something passive, you lose any justification for believing that he exists at all.

 

[Sha'irullah]

Frankly, I'd say that your complaint applies just as much to deism as any other belief, if not moreso. Traditional theistic beliefs do imply things about the world that can be tested, and if they fail those tests it's a problem, but deistic beliefs aren't any better. Russell's Teapot might be unfalsifiable, but that doesn't mean it's a reasonable belief. By changing God from an active, miracle-wielding deity to something passive, you lose any justification for believing that he exists at all.

Deism goes like this..... There is a god, we call him the first cause(insert cause here ____) and that alone is worthy of being called god. Everything else is agnostic as most Deists will only assert the likelihood of a god is higher then the nonexistence of it. Reverse Atheism essentially.

Thomas Paine - The Age of Reason
​

“The only idea man can affix to the name of God is that of a first cause, the cause of all things. And incomprehensible and difficult as it is for a man to conceive what a first cause is, he arrives at the belief of it from the tenfold greater difficulty of disbelieving it. It is difficult beyond description to conceive that space can have no end; but it is more difficult to conceive an end. It is difficult beyond the power of man to conceive an eternal duration of what we call time; but it is more impossible to conceive a time when there shall be no time. In like manner of reasoning, everything we behold carries in itself the internal evidence that it did not make itself Every man is an evidence to himself that he did not make himself; neither could his father make himself, nor his grandfather, nor any of his race; neither could any tree, plant, or animal make itself; and it is the conviction arising from this evidence that carries us on, as it were, by necessity to the belief of a first cause eternally existing, of a nature totally different to any material existence we know of, and by the power of which all things exist; and this first cause man calls God. It is only by the exercise of reason that man can discover God. Take away that reason, and he would be incapable of understanding anything; and, in this case, it would be just as consistent to read even the book called the Bible to a horse as to a man. How, then, is it that those people pretend to reject reason?”​

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Deism goes like this..... There is a god, we call him the first cause(insert cause here ____) and that alone is worthy of being called god.

Personally, I think that the term "God" implies more than just "the first thing that ever happened".

And I've yet to meet a deist who actually lives as if that's all he means by "God".

 

[Sha'irullah]

Personally, I think that the term "God" implies more than just "the first thing that ever happened".

And I've yet to meet a deist who actually lives as if that's all he means by "God".

Most Deists do not like the term god. You should take note of how in most classical literature emitting from Voltaire and Thomas Paine the word God is not overly used or is substituted for the famous phrases like "The Divine Watchmaker" or "almighty craftsman"

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Most Deists do not like the term god. You should take note of how in most classical literature emitting from Voltaire and Thomas Paine the word God is not overly used or is substituted for the famous phrases like "The Divine Watchmaker" or "almighty craftsman"

"Divine watchmaker"? "Almighty craftsman"? How do psedonyms for God that imply intelligence and personality, and that the universe is the deliberate reflection of this personality's will, help your case that deists don't consider God to be anything more than the first cause?

 

[Sha'irullah]

"Divine watchmaker"? "Almighty craftsman"? How do psedonyms for God that imply intelligence and personality,

They do not. They are suppose to do the opposite as they only give absolute claim to the things we know a god has done if he existed.

You are working on the reverse angle of Deism.

and that the universe is the deliberate reflection of this personality's will, help your case that deists don't consider God to be anything more than the first cause?

God has no will for most Deist as it is not personified. So I have nothing to explain.

If I was to take into consideration your claims about God it make me more like a theist than a deist.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

They do not. They are suppose to do the opposite as they only give absolute claim to the things we know a god has done if he existed.

Then they fail at what they're supposed to do. Watchmakers and craftsmen are intelligent agents. I get that they're analogies, but they're analogies that imply agency, intelligence, and personality.

You are working on the reverse angle of Deism.

I have no idea what you mean by this.

God has no will for most Deist as it is not personified. So I have nothing to explain.

When pressed, they argue that God has no will. I think this is different from their actual beliefs in many cases.

If I was to take into consideration your claims about God it make me more like a theist than a deist.

Indeed. That's my point.

 

[FranklinMichaelV.3]

Then they fail at what they're supposed to do. Watchmakers and craftsmen are intelligent agents. I get that they're analogies, but they're analogies that imply agency, intelligence, and personality.


I have no idea what you mean by this.


When pressed, they argue that God has no will. I think this is different from their actual beliefs in many cases.


Indeed. That's my point.

I think the watchmaker/craftsmen angle implies a being who created and gave, and is no longer responsible. The only thing is that creating watch implies a purpose (to tell time), so the deistic deity even if they no longer interfere created for a purpose, and I don' think most deist look it that way.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I think the watchmaker/craftsmen angle implies a being who created and gave, and is no longer responsible. The only thing is that creating watch implies a purpose (to tell time), so the deistic deity even if they no longer interfere created for a purpose, and I don' think most deist look it that way.

I think that many of them do look at it that way but then argue that they don't when asked how they justify their beliefs.

Deism isn't just the belief that there's a "first cause"; plenty of atheists do that much. To make the leap to deism, a person has to believe that the term "God" befits that first cause.