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Atheist looking for religious debate. Any religion. Let's see if I can be convinced.

Colt

Well-Known Member
If a god exists, it is quite clearly hiding by not being plain for everybody to 'see' (in some way) without effort. It is doubly true if it doesn't respond to sincere seekers. The multiplicity of faiths and their different (and contradictory) understanding of god(s) is evidence enough of that, even without my own experience (which just confirmed that conclusion).



Relying on one's own personal experiences is the very opposite of trying to find the truth, unless you're only interest is truths about yourself.



Another recipe for self-deception.



Free will with respect to a creator god is logically incoherent. Even leaving that aside, just providing people with information about reality is not denying them any sort of 'free will'. Why would providing everybody with the knowledge that god exists be a denial of 'free will'?

* If you are given all the answers to every school exam then you wont be learning much. You are being raised by a Loving Deity that has great plans for your future far, far beyond this world.

* I've asked you, what would satisfactory, undeniable proof look like to you? And if God is spirit, then what???? You will still need to surrender to the leading of this Gods spirit. If the Infinite isn't completely comprehensible to your finite mind then you would still be left to trust his program of ascension.

* The stubborn human ego wants to be its own savior until it cant. Out of spite that God isn't running the universe right, the ego would rather die grasping the pride of its own conceit. That's logically incoherent.
 

Marcion

gopa of humanity's controversial Taraka Brahma
Factually incorrect. As for the rest, again, obviously it's what you believe, but I can see no reason at all to believe it myself. The world is full of people who'll tell me exactly how reality works according to their own personal faith or tradition. At the very least, most of them must be wrong.
There is no fundamental difference between one mystic tradition and the next. Religions are concerned with beliefs, mystic or tantric philosophy is about what has been proven by experimentations with spiritual practices. You will never taste the fruits if you refuse to climb the fruit tree and pick and eat the fruits yourself. If you choose to merely describe the colours and shapes in the tree while lying on the ground, how will you ever learn what the fruits taste like? Intellectuals cannot be spiritualists.

So I guess God wanted us all to remain ignorant and not to educate ourselves, given that the most religious tend to be in the countries where education levels are low. So what of the future? Ban education? Something doesn't compute. :oops:
You are mistaken, it is the intellectual who is ignorant.
An intellectual attitude has nothing to do with intelligence or smartness.
A smart person is a spiritual person, true or lasting happiness cannot be found in intellectual pursuits or physical enjoyments.
Education is meant to train skills, not to become an arrogant intellectual with a bloated ego.
 
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It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
First, it is self-evident that something cannot from nothing, the same way it is self-evident 40+40 doesn't equal 3. That's his first argument; it is a metaphysical truth that we all know to be true.

Nope. We've already covered this. There is no evidence that you understood my comments on this, lest there would be some acknowledgement of them - some attempt to refute them.

In case you skimmed over it, my rebuttal was that it appears that something counterintuitive (two seemingly impossible conditions) or incomprehensible must be the case, and that no argument can be of the form that one of those possibilities doesn't make sense, therefore it is wrong.

Also, the mention of quantum indeterminism, which you waved away with a mention of Bohm and his minority opinion rejected by the community of quantum scientists. It appears that you did read my comments there, as there was evidence that you had in your response that time, but as I said, it wasn't a rebuttal of the Copenhagen interpretation, but a mere dismissal of it because like Craig, your argument depends on strict determinism, and like Craig, other logical possibilities simply drop off your list without cause.

the law of causation is always confirmed by experience and never disconfirmed. Ergo, we should generalize this empirical finding to the beginning of the universe

We've already discussed the fallacy of composition, but I see that also had no impact on your reply. My argument that what applies to the part doesn't necessarily apply to the whole hasn't changed, nor been rebutted, simply dismissed out of hand with a reference to red Legos making red structures.

These arguments (if correct) should convince you that logic rules out the possibility of an infinite past.

Are we still stuck here? Perhaps if you had addressed the matter when it went by you the first time, we might be making progress in this area, but when you drop the ball like that, progress ceases.

Did you miss where I listed the possibilities as being that whatever can be called a first cause either existed into the infinite past or came into existence uncaused, that this pair seemed to be mutually exclusive and collectively exhaustive (one or the other must be the case, not neither and not both, unless there is another possibility being overlooked, and if there is, it is inconceivable to me)? You've already said that nothing can come into existence uncaused, and now your saying that you have an argument that rules out an infinite past (Hilbert's Hotel), but you made this comments separately, and in each case, without mention of the alternative. You look at one and find it counterintuitive and so reject it. Later, you look at the other, find it counterintuitive as well, then reject it. But one needs to consider them collectively and recognize that merely calling either idea impossible is an incomplete analysis.

As long as the multiverse is postulated to be temporal and beginningless, it is subject to the same paradoxes a single universe is (namely, the Hilbert's Hotel, Grim reaper and so on). So, it is ruled out by these arguments.

What's your point? Please be specific about what you think that means. You don't relieve your god of whatever paradoxes you think you have by calling it extratemporal. I've already address the inherent contradiction of claiming that something exists, thinks, or acts without time, but once again, you chose to not address that and continue making the same point it rebutted without any evidence that you even read that material much less understood it. You might have taken the opportunity to make progress in that area of the discussion, but you didn't, did you.

Have you heard of the acronym PRATT - points refuted a thousand times? It refers to the practice among apologists of making a claim, having it rebutted, ignoring the rebuttal, and repeating the same claim unchanged and with no evidence that it was understood or even read. Congratulations.

Craig says his theorems apply to the multiverse as well

I've already explained why I consider Craig's premises and his reasoning faulty. Citing him as an authority is pointless. And how do Craig's claims rise to the level of theorem? Theorems have are statement that have been logically proven.

I guess you also didn't find any significance in Craig's proud announcement that nothing can change his mind - no evidence, and no argument - if it contradicts what he has chosen to believe on faith, since you made no mention of it in your reply. I thought that that pretty much ruled him out as authoritative or trustworthy. Why would any rational skeptic be interested in an argument from a person who admits that he is impervious to whatever evidence and argument contradict his faith-based beliefs?

There is only one way to get to truth, and that is with valid reasoning applied to any relevant evidence without any preconception of what one will find, not pseudoconclusions (a premise such as the existence of a god presented as the conclusion of a specious argument engineered to appear to lead to the premise/pseudoconclusion) - the essence of religious apologetics. It's flawed thinking. I think I mentioned how this kind of bias perverts thought in clinical trials. It is imperative that the preferences of both the patient and clinician be kept out of the process, hence double blinding them. I mentioned how this kind of thinking led to the ID program seeing irreducible complexity when it wasn't there.

the argument wouldn't be a non-sequitur since the premises would follow from the conclusion even if they are not sound

Maybe you'd like to restate that. Premises don't follow from conclusions, and premises are neither sound nor unsound. They are established truths or, as in the case of Kalam, insufficiently supported claims.

And you still haven't established that the claim that the source of the universe must be timeless, changeless, or personal, which is essential to claiming that no non sequitur fallacy has occurred. These are simply thrown ad hoc into his Kalam argument, not derived from what preceded them. He might as well have thrown in that this personal god was named Jesus or Jehovah, or anything else he wanted to claim his argument proved.

It seems to me you think the content of the second premise of the second syllogism must be in the first syllogism but that's unjustified.

That is incorrect. I've told you what I think. Craig's premises are unshared (much of the world doesn't accept them as established truths), and in its fourth line, the argument jumps to the desired conclusion.

you failed to show any non-sequitur.

You failed to see it.

But that's the nature of a faith-based confirmation bias. It only allows one to see what he has already decided he must see. Like Craig, you want the Kalam argument to prove God, so that's what you see, like the poster on this thread who can see no evidence for evolution and calls the theory empty speculation.

One can't make a person see what he has a stake in not seeing. You don't want to see a non sequitur fallacy in Kalam, therefore you don't. The multiverse hypothesis contradicts the god hypothesis, and so must go as well. How? In Craig's Kalam argument, fail to even mention or consider it. In your case, with the wave of a hand and some comments about paradoxes ruling it out.

Have you heard of former YEC (he's an OEC now) Glenn Morton and his demon? He's anthropomorphized the confirmation bias as demon: "Morton's demon was a demon who sat at the gate of my sensory input apparatus and if and when he saw supportive evidence coming in, he opened the gate. But if he saw contradictory data coming in, he closed the gate. In this way, the demon allowed me to believe that I was right and to avoid any nasty contradictory data. Fortunately, I eventually realized that the demon was there and began to open the gate when he wasn't looking." The Talk.Origins Archive Post of the Month: February 2002

I find Morton sincere, and as foreign an idea as this is to me, I have accepted his explanation of what befell him as the reason apologists just don't see what is evident to others. Incidentally, Morton is a geologist, which is probably what led to him accepting at least some old earth science.

I'll repeat. If whatever is material and temporal began to exist (per the 2nd premise of the first syllogism), and it had a cause (conclusion of the 1st syllogism), then only something non-material and non-temporal can be the cause.

Nope. Something like a multiverse existing in a (meta)temporal reference frame in which one of its moments is the moment in which the nascent universe budded from it is logically possible - I would say a necessity, since nothing exists or act without time, another point already made and ignored, followed by repetition of the original refuted claim.

“[The first cause] must be personal as well. Why? Because the cause must be beyond space and time, therefore it cannot be physical or material. Now, there are only two kinds of things that fit that description: either an abstract object, like numbers, or else a personal mind. But abstract objects can’t cause anything. Therefore it follows that the cause of the universe is a transcendent, intelligent mind.”

Once again, you're repeating points already refuted then ignored. No, the cause does not need to be a personal mind or an abstraction. Until someone rules the possibility out with more than base assertion, there is no reason why a multiverse can be an unconscious substance existing in its own time frame.
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
* If you are given all the answers to every school exam then you wont be learning much. You are being raised by a Loving Deity that has great plans for your future far, far beyond this world.

What you're describing doesn't sound in the least bit like learning. As I say, it looks way more like making up what you want to be true and then convincing yourself that it is. No checks, no logic, just subjective feelings and blind faith.

* I've asked you, what would satisfactory, undeniable proof look like to you?

Well, I would have thought that a god would know even better than I do, but it could just make itself totally obvious via regular manifestations that impart objectively true and testable knowledge. Curing COVID would be a good thing in this time. It could write its message in solid diamond letters across the surface of the moon, or something. There are endless ways that it could demonstrate that it wasn't just imagination.

And if God is spirit...

What does that even mean?

* The stubborn human ego wants to be its own savior until it cant.

I don't what to be my saviour. What do I even need saving from that wouldn't ultimately be a creator god's fault anyway, if one actually existed?

Out of spite that God isn't running the universe right, the ego would rather die grasping the pride of its own conceit. That's logically incoherent.

Yes - you can't have spite towards something you don't believe in. You have an incoherent imagination.
 

ratiocinator

Lightly seared on the reality grill.
There is no fundamental difference between one mystic tradition and the next.

Not sure what you mean by "mystic tradition" but there are plenty of differences between religions (not to mention all the other baseless ideas that people try to tell other people are 'the truth').

Religions are concerned with beliefs, mystic or tantric philosophy is about what has been proven by experimentations with spiritual practices.

Proven how? Making certain people believe certain things and feeling really confident about them in some way, does not say anything about their objective truth.

You will never taste the fruits if you refuse to climb the fruit tree and pick and eat the fruits yourself. If you choose to merely describe the colours and shapes in the tree while lying on the ground, how will you ever learn what the fruits taste like? Intellectuals cannot be spiritualist.

What's the analogy supposed to represent? You seem to want me to just take your word for all this and not think about it. You know how dangerous just blindly believing what somebody says is, without thinking about it, don't you? Your specific beliefs may be benign, and even beneficial to you, but the attitude is scary.
 

infrabenji

Active Member
I really have to give my opinion. One atheist says he wants to be convinced about religion. Most of the people who reply also have little or no religion. How can they help him learn about religion? Just a bunch of atheists out to prove Christians are wrong.
I haven’t really run into many other atheists on this forum. Did some show up yesterday? It was my fiancé’s birthday. Still would love to hear some best arguments for the belief in or existence of a god. That’s why I made this forum. A lot of people don’t believe me that I am and will be honest and adjust my position if the evidence warrants it and that’s okay I’d still like to have those conversations. Thanks.
 

The Kilted Heathen

Crow FreyjasmaðR
So, like I said, what you experienced could really be anything, and you just attribute it to a higher power.
Gonna borrow your post, Tiberius, as it gives me a good springboard. First, I do agree that it's often foolish to take the unknown and ascribe "God Did It" to it.

But what is a "Higher Power"? Often taken as "Mysterious Sky Daddy" a la Modern Christianity, it's really nothing more than things that are greater than us. For myself, and in my beliefs, I recognize and give offering to the landvættir (wights or spirits of the land) as without the land I would have nowhere to live, and nowhere to grow crops or gather water for sustenance. They are greater than me. I honor my ancestors, because I am a reflection of my ancestors. I am the current sum of all that they were, and they are greater than me. And, when the time is proper for it, I honor my gods. I hail to Thor, Loki and Odin as the thunderstorm passes over, I honor Freyr and Sif in the harvest season. These forces and these events are greater than me, in both strength and importance for all.

But a lot of other things are of my own making and skill, and often require no thanks given to anything or anyone. My skill in artwork, my intelligence, my wisdom through experience. For these things I have only myself to credit, and those who have taught me various skills. I needn't thank a god for every breath I take or meal that I cook, or worse still for the skills and services of others (such as doctors). I find it insufferable when others will demean the works of others and thank their god for what human hands gave them...

You are mistaken, it is the intellectual who is ignorant.
Perhaps of many things they have yet to learn about, but no. This is just backwards logic at it's finest. Reprimanding an overinflated ego is one thing, but to attempt to reverse such words is incredibly naïve.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Why would God stoop to violating your free will, to denying you the right to the thrilling adventure of finding truth/God for yourself through experience???

Of course an omniscient, omnipotent god should substitute perfect judgment for free will if it is benevolent and it can. If I had the power to dial in the will of my children, and I could foresee the outcome of every choice they would make if I let them, why would I let them make mistakes when I could simply program to do the right thing in every case? If I knew in advance that my dog would run out into the street and be killed, and I could prevent him from wanting to do that by setting his will, it would be pretty negligent and immoral for me to let that happen. I do the best I can limiting the expression of his will, such as training him to obey commands and keeping doors and gates closed, so why wouldn't I reset his choices in his will if I could?

If you are given all the answers to every school exam then you wont be learning much. You are being raised by a Loving Deity that has great plans for your future far, far beyond this world.

And what value is learning if it is possible to inject all desirable knowledge into a head?

Its not that God is hiding but some look for their own concept of what God should be and they look in the wrong place.

It's interesting that every choice this alleged god makes - allowing free will when it could have determined that will and made it more effective, forcing us to learn when it could have taught us everything we now need to learn instantly - perfectly imitates what would be the case if it didn't exist. You call setting somebody's will rather than letting them freely make mistakes stooping, implying that that is undesirable without an argument why it is.

I think the best explanation is that no such god exists. It's much more parsimonious than fifty explanations for why this god behaves as it does, such as allowing free will because it's better for us, or forcing us to learn because that's also somehow better, and being difficult to find because it's so much better when you do find him. These are all just-so answers.

Let me share an idea I call restricted choice, a term that comes from contract bridge, which I've re-purposed to refer to the idea that if situation 1 (S1) can lead to result A or B (rA or rB), and situation 2 (S2)can only produce one of these outcomes - let's say result B (rB) - and result B is the one always found, that constitutes compelling evidence that situation 2 is the case.

Let's consider the question of whether a given coin is fair (S1) or loaded or loaded (S2). In the first case, the flip can result in heads (rA) or tails (rB) coming up, but if the coin is perfectly loaded, only tails (rB) is possible. Say the coin is loaded (we don't know that yet), and the first flip is tails (rB). Then another tails. Is this coin loaded? Too soon to say. A hundred flips later, still only rB occurs. How about now? Can we say anything about this coin? Yeah, we can calculate the odds of that happening by chance (0.5E100 = 7.888609052210118e-31), and say that it is infinitesimally unlikely that this is a fair coin.

Likewise with a tax cheat (S2). An honest tax preparer (S1) that makes 20 errors honestly ought to have about half be in the IRS's favor (rA) and half in his favor (rB), but the unsophisiticated tax cheat will have 20 errors in his favor (rB). It's this clustering of one result that shows that S2 is the case, and leads to prosecution and conviction.

So let's apply this principle to the question of the existence (S1) or nonexistence (S2) of an interventionalist god. If S1 is the case, the god could have chosen things to be one way (rA) or another (rB), but in S2, where there is no god acting, only rB is possible. For example, in a universe with a god (S1), there might be a revelation that transcends human capabilty or not, but in a godless universe (S2). What do we see? rB. OK, that's like just one heads in the coin flip.

In a universe with a god, there might (rA) or might not (rB) be fixed regular laws governing the motions and mutations of the objects in the universe, but a godless universe requires these laws (rB)

In a universe with an intelligent designer (S1), we might (rA) or might not (rB) find irreducible complexity in biological systems, but in a godless universe (S2), we will not find it (rB).

And so on. In a universe with a god, we might or might not have the option to make mistakes, or need to learn, or find the deity easily, but in a godless universe, living things will be making choices and with them, mistakes, will need to learn, and won't find a god. As I said, it's always rB, the one forced on a godless universe.

"Consilience (also convergence of evidence or concordance of evidence) is the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can "converge" on strong conclusions."

An intellectual attitude has nothing to do with intelligence or smartness.

Of course it does. Intellect is a form of intelligence involving symbols and thought in abstractions. It's the quality that human beings possess that makes them literate and numerate. It's the mental faculty that allows me to write this post and for you to understand it.

A smart person is a spiritual person, true or lasting happiness cannot be found in intellectual pursuits or physical enjoyments.

Actually, I've found just that living a secular humanist life, which is contemplative, and concerns itself with knowing the self and with knowing what kinds of activities lead to satisfaction, and which lead to undesirable outcomes. This can be done without incense, or Bibles, or sweat lodges, or psychedelics, or chants, or forest music, or finger cymbals, or spirit guides, or any other affectation that people that call themselves religious or spiritual seem to connect with acquiring arcane knowledge that they see as conferring an advantage, and those not following in their path living empty, perfunctory, unexamined lives. They make comments like this one, that depict people like me as Roombas, empty of experience and going about making measurements as if that were an end rather than a means. Apparently, the spiritual existence is the only authentic one, or so he seems to assert without evidence. The religious don't bother having their own experiences, and the atheists have none:

B9FwvutCAAEdcRv.jpg


I can't see what advantage all of these self-described spiritual people have over say the contemplative and observant secular humanist. I see people eternally searching but never finding what they are looking for, which seems to be relief from existential angst with continual self-reassurance, a search for arcane knowledge or power, some sense of added meaning to life. I

How are such people better off than those who have come to a place of contentment without them? In other words, what is the incentive of somebody who is content and has no such needs to join them in their search? What does whatever you are in pursuit of offer to the person who is already comfortable with who he is and the way he interacts with the world, and finds life meaningful and satisfying without the trappings of the mystics?

I'll leave you with this:

I define intelligence as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills, to use them to discern and respond to environmental factors optimally, and adapt to assorted situations optimally when change is beneficial. Unlike intellect defined above, which refers to manipulating abstract symbols - speaking, reading, writing, contemplating, and calculating - this word applies to the beasts, who also have to solve problems regarding opportunities to exploit and dangers to avoid. And for completeness, if intelligence is knowing how to accomplish your immediate goals, wisdom, which is neither intelligence nor intellect, is knowing what will bring happiness Intelligent people that lack wisdom end up unwittingly pursuing unhappiness. Have you found happiness yet?
 

Marcion

gopa of humanity's controversial Taraka Brahma
Intellect is a form of intelligence involving symbols and thought in abstractions.
I was speaking of intellectuals, not about intellect or intelligent or smart people.
Spirituality is not the same as contemplative humanism.
A humanist who practises spirituality is a neo-humanist or a spiritual humanist.
Of course you can also be content with a modest life style just like a cat can be happy sleeping most of the day. But humans on average are not content with limited happiness, they are always seeking for more. This is one of the main reasons they have almost destroyed the planet's ecosystems because humans have sought this limitlessness in the wrong way.

To contemplate something is not the same as practising a spiritual cult (an ordered system of spiritual practices).

I have certainly found more peace and happiness in my life since I started out on the path of spirituality some years ago.
 
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The Kilted Heathen

Crow FreyjasmaðR
Intellectuals are defined as "a person possessing a highly developed intellect." So even with that definition, your claim that they're the ignorant ones is wrong.
 

Marcion

gopa of humanity's controversial Taraka Brahma
Intellectuals are defined as "a person possessing a highly developed intellect." So even with that definition, your claim that they're the ignorant ones is wrong.
From the viewpoint of a spiritualist, intellectual knowledge is not real knowledge. It can be very useful for science, medicine, running affairs, etc., but for the ultimate goal, reaching the spiritual Truth is has little or no use. As we are discussing spirituality here, the usual definition of an intellectual is of little importance.
When I use intellectual I mean a person who thinks that objective knowledge and intelligence is the most important thing in life. These days they are often quite arrogant people who look down on practical simple folk and on religious or spiritual people.

But from the viewpoint of a spiritualist, these intellectuals are fools.
 

The Kilted Heathen

Crow FreyjasmaðR
From the viewpoint of a spiritualist, intellectual knowledge is not real knowledge.
No, from your view. And it is categorically wrong. "Intellectual knowledge" is just knowledge. A spiritualist is nothing more than someone who believes that the spirits of the dead can communicate with living people. Knowledge gained in this manner - if any - would be occult knowledge.

These days they are often quite arrogant people who look down on practical simple folk and on religious or spiritual people.
Just like you're doing to "Intellectuals". It's no better, no different, and ignoble.
 

Colt

Well-Known Member
Of course an omniscient, omnipotent god should substitute perfect judgment for free will if it is benevolent and it can. If I had the power to dial in the will of my children, and I could foresee the outcome of every choice they would make if I let them, why would I let them make mistakes when I could simply program to do the right thing in every case? If I knew in advance that my dog would run out into the street and be killed, and I could prevent him from wanting to do that by setting his will, it would be pretty negligent and immoral for me to let that happen. I do the best I can limiting the expression of his will, such as training him to obey commands and keeping doors and gates closed, so why wouldn't I reset his choices in his will if I could?



And what value is learning if it is possible to inject all desirable knowledge into a head?



It's interesting that every choice this alleged god makes - allowing free will when it could have determined that will and made it more effective, forcing us to learn when it could have taught us everything we now need to learn instantly - perfectly imitates what would be the case if it didn't exist. You call setting somebody's will rather than letting them freely make mistakes stooping, implying that that is undesirable without an argument why it is.

I think the best explanation is that no such god exists. It's much more parsimonious than fifty explanations for why this god behaves as it does, such as allowing free will because it's better for us, or forcing us to learn because that's also somehow better, and being difficult to find because it's so much better when you do find him. These are all just-so answers.

Let me share an idea I call restricted choice, a term that comes from contract bridge, which I've re-purposed to refer to the idea that if situation 1 (S1) can lead to result A or B (rA or rB), and situation 2 (S2)can only produce one of these outcomes - let's say result B (rB) - and result B is the one always found, that constitutes compelling evidence that situation 2 is the case.

Let's consider the question of whether a given coin is fair (S1) or loaded or loaded (S2). In the first case, the flip can result in heads (rA) or tails (rB) coming up, but if the coin is perfectly loaded, only tails (rB) is possible. Say the coin is loaded (we don't know that yet), and the first flip is tails (rB). Then another tails. Is this coin loaded? Too soon to say. A hundred flips later, still only rB occurs. How about now? Can we say anything about this coin? Yeah, we can calculate the odds of that happening by chance (0.5E100 = 7.888609052210118e-31), and say that it is infinitesimally unlikely that this is a fair coin.

Likewise with a tax cheat (S2). An honest tax preparer (S1) that makes 20 errors honestly ought to have about half be in the IRS's favor (rA) and half in his favor (rB), but the unsophisiticated tax cheat will have 20 errors in his favor (rB). It's this clustering of one result that shows that S2 is the case, and leads to prosecution and conviction.

So let's apply this principle to the question of the existence (S1) or nonexistence (S2) of an interventionalist god. If S1 is the case, the god could have chosen things to be one way (rA) or another (rB), but in S2, where there is no god acting, only rB is possible. For example, in a universe with a god (S1), there might be a revelation that transcends human capabilty or not, but in a godless universe (S2). What do we see? rB. OK, that's like just one heads in the coin flip.

In a universe with a god, there might (rA) or might not (rB) be fixed regular laws governing the motions and mutations of the objects in the universe, but a godless universe requires these laws (rB)

In a universe with an intelligent designer (S1), we might (rA) or might not (rB) find irreducible complexity in biological systems, but in a godless universe (S2), we will not find it (rB).

And so on. In a universe with a god, we might or might not have the option to make mistakes, or need to learn, or find the deity easily, but in a godless universe, living things will be making choices and with them, mistakes, will need to learn, and won't find a god. As I said, it's always rB, the one forced on a godless universe.

"Consilience (also convergence of evidence or concordance of evidence) is the principle that evidence from independent, unrelated sources can "converge" on strong conclusions."



Of course it does. Intellect is a form of intelligence involving symbols and thought in abstractions. It's the quality that human beings possess that makes them literate and numerate. It's the mental faculty that allows me to write this post and for you to understand it.



Actually, I've found just that living a secular humanist life, which is contemplative, and concerns itself with knowing the self and with knowing what kinds of activities lead to satisfaction, and which lead to undesirable outcomes. This can be done without incense, or Bibles, or sweat lodges, or psychedelics, or chants, or forest music, or finger cymbals, or spirit guides, or any other affectation that people that call themselves religious or spiritual seem to connect with acquiring arcane knowledge that they see as conferring an advantage, and those not following in their path living empty, perfunctory, unexamined lives. They make comments like this one, that depict people like me as Roombas, empty of experience and going about making measurements as if that were an end rather than a means. Apparently, the spiritual existence is the only authentic one, or so he seems to assert without evidence. The religious don't bother having their own experiences, and the atheists have none:

B9FwvutCAAEdcRv.jpg


I can't see what advantage all of these self-described spiritual people have over say the contemplative and observant secular humanist. I see people eternally searching but never finding what they are looking for, which seems to be relief from existential angst with continual self-reassurance, a search for arcane knowledge or power, some sense of added meaning to life. I

How are such people better off than those who have come to a place of contentment without them? In other words, what is the incentive of somebody who is content and has no such needs to join them in their search? What does whatever you are in pursuit of offer to the person who is already comfortable with who he is and the way he interacts with the world, and finds life meaningful and satisfying without the trappings of the mystics?

I'll leave you with this:

I define intelligence as the ability to acquire and apply knowledge and skills, to use them to discern and respond to environmental factors optimally, and adapt to assorted situations optimally when change is beneficial. Unlike intellect defined above, which refers to manipulating abstract symbols - speaking, reading, writing, contemplating, and calculating - this word applies to the beasts, who also have to solve problems regarding opportunities to exploit and dangers to avoid. And for completeness, if intelligence is knowing how to accomplish your immediate goals, wisdom, which is neither intelligence nor intellect, is knowing what will bring happiness Intelligent people that lack wisdom end up unwittingly pursuing unhappiness. Have you found happiness yet?
Omnipotence does not imply the power to do the nondoable, the ungodlike act. Neither does omniscience imply the knowing of the unknowable.
 

It Aint Necessarily So

Veteran Member
Premium Member
Omnipotence does not imply the power to do the nondoable, the ungodlike act. Neither does omniscience imply the knowing of the unknowable.

So you're saying that God had no choice but to permit some of those rB outcomes, like man having freedom to make wrong decisions? If that's not what you mean, I don't know why you left that comment in response to my post to you. Was it intended for me?

I pointed out that a loving god who knows what we would choose would not allow us to make mistakes that degrade our lives and those of others. You seem to be saying that because of something undoable or unknowable for it, it had no choice itself but to allow rB, freedom of choice, although earlier you said that God would not stoop to that, implying that you considered it an option, but rejected. Now, you seem to be saying that some things are beyond this god - things it can't know or do.

Would a god that can't substitute its own perfect judgment for that of its imperfect creations really be expected to be able to create those creatures or the universe they reside in? I don't have an answer to that, but I cant imagine how that could be the case.

It looks like you found the restricted choice argument unworthy of comment. I find it a compelling argument. I suspect that you do as well. I think that if you had a rebuttal for it, I would have seen it already.
 

Colt

Well-Known Member
So you're saying that God had no choice but to permit some of those rB outcomes, like man having freedom to make wrong decisions? If that's not what you mean, I don't know why you left that comment in response to my post to you. Was it intended for me?

I pointed out that a loving god who knows what we would choose would not allow us to make mistakes that degrade our lives and those of others. You seem to be saying that because of something undoable or unknowable for it, it had no choice itself but to allow rB, freedom of choice, although earlier you said that God would not stoop to that, implying that you considered it an option, but rejected. Now, you seem to be saying that some things are beyond this god - things it can't know or do.

Would a god that can't substitute its own perfect judgment for that of its imperfect creations really be expected to be able to create those creatures or the universe they reside in? I don't have an answer to that, but I cant imagine how that could be the case.

It looks like you found the restricted choice argument unworthy of comment. I find it a compelling argument. I suspect that you do as well. I think that if you had a rebuttal for it, I would have seen it already.

God has a nature, God is truth, God is Love. God cannot do the ungodlike thing. He cannot make evil that is good. God cannot create square circles etc.

If god just made you a robot, you wouldn't be a free will, son of God, potentially eternal being.
 

Tiberius

Well-Known Member
Are you being deliberately obtuse? I already said there was evidence for black holes.

And do you think black holes can exist without singularities?

No, it doesn't. An event horizon shows that the mass is inside its Schwarzschild radius. It's only applying general relativity to what happens inside that leads to a singularity - which is a good reason to think that the theory has reached the limit of its applicability.

My understanding is that the event horizon indicates that the escape velocity within the event horizon is greater than the speed of light. In such a case, the forces that govern the make up of atoms and subatomic particles can't possibly apply, because the forces that, say, keep electrons in particular orbital shells will be overcome by the gravity. And hence we have a singularity.

I'm only trying to clarify a technical point here. When people talk about singularities as if they were actual physical things that have been established by current science, that is inaccurate.

But, whatever, suit yourself. Only trying to help.

It might be helpful if you would actually present an alternative explanation rather than just saying, "You can't prove it!"
 

Tiberius

Well-Known Member
Most of what you experience is not 'inherently unverifiable'

Let's sort out those double negatives here.

"Not inherently unverifiable" cancels out to mean "inherently verifiable."

everyone must take your word for it.

Not according to what you said just a moment ago.

In any case, most of what you experience is a subjective opinion only, so verification is irrelevant.

'Verifiable' things are for corporate proofs only.

What in the world are you talking about? Corporate proofs? What does business have to do with it?
 

Tiberius

Well-Known Member
Underlying principles? How can you have underlying principles for something that science cannot prove has ever happened, except in it’s own collective imagination?

Except science has proved that it has happened. Your inability to understand that does not negate it. In any case, there could still be hypothetical principles for it. I mean, the science, even if you think it is flawed, has to be based on something, right?

Yet all you do is try to get out of talking about it. I suspect because you know that when critically examined, your position will fail.

Adaptation is not really evolution.....what did Darwin observe on the Galápagos Islands? Were the finches becoming another species of bird?.....or were they just new varieties of finches? Were the iguanas on their way to becoming a different kind of lizard?....or were they still iguanas, simply adapted to a marine environment? Weren’t the tortoises just a different variety, adapted to life away from their mainland cousins? Where is the evolution? All I see is adaptation.....changes in appearance, but not changes in “kind”.

Yeah, you know it takes a long LONG time for that kind of change to happen, right?

Please show us conclusive evidence that amoebas (lets not even mention abiogenesis) can morph over time to become every kind of life form that has ever existed on earth.....that something microscopic accidentally came into existence one day for no apparent reason, and came fully equipped to eventually transform itself into every earthy creature, some the size of a three story building :rolleyes:......and you think science can prove this.....? You have to know they can’t.

Okay.

Start with single celled organisms. We need to evolve multi-cellularity first. So let's get groups of single celled organisms that can work together. Take sponges. You can put a sponge through a sieve, break it up into individual cells and then the cells will all come back and rejoin together. Seems like a bunch of single celled organisms that have formed a larger communal being, right? Or how about the Portuguese man-of-war, which is a creature similar to a jellyfish and is made up again of a large number of individual creature working together. But it goes even further, since they have become specialized, with different individuals taking on different roles, much like how different parts of our bodies carry out different functions.

And we can continue on. The evolution of life is very well documented. From soft bodies invertebrates to the evolution of exoskeletons, to the spinal chords which became more reinforced to the development of cartilage and bone and so on through to life today.

There is no genetic evidence for ‘amoebas to dinosaurs’...if there is, please provide it.

The fact that the DNA of amoebas is made up of the same core building blocks as that of dinosaurs, birds and every other life form on the planet.

.....and while you’re at it, can you please identify all those phantom “common ancestors” we keep seeing on those evolutionary graphs or trees. These “trees” need branches that spring from these supposed “ancestors” that can never be identified. Without them, evolution is not a tree, but a telegraph pole. :confused:

Ah yes, the typical creationist claim that if we can't account for every single individual that ever lived, evolution can't be proved.

Believe it if you like.....but don’t expect me to.....

I don't expect you to believe it. It requires an understanding of science that you clearly do not have.
 

PruePhillip

Well-Known Member
Let's sort out those double negatives here.

"Not inherently unverifiable" cancels out to mean "inherently verifiable."



Not according to what you said just a moment ago.

In any case, most of what you experience is a subjective opinion only, so verification is irrelevant.



What in the world are you talking about? Corporate proofs? What does business have to do with it?

My understanding is that I have said 'not unverifiable' = verifiable.
That is, your own experiences are real to yourself - and often difficult or impossible to transmit to another person.
AND wholly subjective.
But subjective isn't necessarily a bad word - I don't have to transmit a romantic attachment to everyone else, they
can believe solely upon the basis of their own experiences. My feelings would be private, not corporate. The bible
states that spiritual things are something to be experienced - and cannot be transmitted to another. But a view
about the natural world can be transmitted, ie "It's cold, and it's such and such a temperature, which you can verify
on your own thermometer."
 
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