Atheistic Double Standard?

[ArtieE]

I won't bore you with the details but I had an experience with God one night that I had no expectation of nor enough words to describe.

Can you imagine how small mathematics looks to a guy who sincerely believes he met God that night?

This sounds like temporal lobe epilepsy. If any reader of this thread comes across a person who suddenly has religious experiences or shows signs of hyperreligiosity please advice them to seek medical help. These could be symptoms of disease or injury of the brain.
Finding God in a seizure: the link between temporal lobe epilepsy and mysticism
A Man's Hyper-Religiosity Was Actually a Symptom of Brain Atrophy

 

[1robin]

The term "choose" includes a notion of action and therefore time. "Choosing" without time is a contradiction in terms, like a square circle.

Why are you binding the supernatural with what governs the natural? Even in space time scholars speak of simultaneous causation. Think of it as in the days when everyone believed that Newtonian physics applied to all levels until someone figured out the entire atomic world behaved in ways no one predicted. In this analogy your rejecting the quantum because it does stuff that Newtonian physics does not allow for. Besides I think I gave you some alternatives to this issue.

Our choices involve neurons, blood, chemistry. Our brains operate according to natural laws and in time. God is immaterial, there is nothing about him that binds him to space time. The only things I know of that God can't do is create logical contradictions. No square circles or married bachelors.

 

[1robin]

This sounds like temporal lobe epilepsy. If any reader of this thread comes across a person who suddenly has religious experiences or shows signs of hyperreligiosity please advice them to seek medical help. These could be symptoms of disease or injury of the brain.
Finding God in a seizure: the link between temporal lobe epilepsy and mysticism
A Man's Hyper-Religiosity Was Actually a Symptom of Brain Atrophy

Everyone knows that some epileptics have religious experiences but for pity's sake Artie there have been at least 4 billion people to make claims similar to mine. The rate of epilepsy^2 would not explain a meaningful fraction of them away. If you can't be sincere, I can't justify the time to have a discussion with you.

 

[1robin]

All I want to do is figure out whether what you're saying is coherent. So far, it's unclear.

I gave you at least two scenarios which are sound. It doesn't make either true, but it does make them coherent.

 

[Polymath257]

I would think the Quantum would be right at home in an electronics lab. However I need to stop mentioning anything about work on a forum, so just forget I brought it up.

Good, then you ought to know of the multivolume history of the modern scientific revolution. I have heard him quoted a dozen times but never recall his name. His atheism wanted to deny what he kept seeing in the history of that period. The reason the modern scientific revolution took place only in Christian Europe was because men who believed in a rational God, they believed he would create a rational universe, they set out trying to decode the rationality in the universe, and modern science was born. There were of course missteps along the way but you will find a Christian or a Jewish person as the author of many entire fields of science.

Well, the idea that the universe could be understood by humans goes back to the ancient Greeks. So it certainly didn't originate in Christianity. Nor does it depend on theism.

That said, I agree that the Christian idea of natural law as opposed to divine law was crucial to the development of science and is one of the big reasons that the Islamic civilizations didn't manage to true science 500 years before Europe.

Can you imagine how small mathematics looks to a guy who sincerely believes he met God that night? I chunked all my physics and math books during a move (except for 1 or 2) and now only read philosophy, theology, and military history (of all things). I am actually surprised science is so full of Christians, you would think there would be more that like me who wanted to study the creator instead of the creation.

I think I asked you before but have forgotten. What do you do for a living that leaves you all this time to debate?

I am a mathematics professor.

 

[Polymath257]

True, though I am not sure that Omni-benevolence is the accepted term or not.

The cause of time can't be in time, again this is logically incoherent. The cause of all matter can't be material. The cause of space must be independent of space. The cause must have a host of specific attributes, if the alternative doesn't then it would lead to incoherence time after time. A cause cannot be composed of it's effect, I will add in here that at least effects which are the coming into being of a thing, but I am not sure I need that clarification or not.

And since *all* causes are in time, and space, all that means is that space and time cannot have a cause at all. They are NOT self-caused---they are *un*-caused.

Causality is part of the natural world. ALL causes we have ever seen are part of the natural world.

The efficient and sufficient action or being that produces an effect.

OK, let's analyze this. The word 'action' already implies time. So there cannot be a cause without time.

Second, how is something 'sufficient' to produce an 'effect'? Doesn't that simply mean that there is a natural law whose initial condition is the 'cause' and and that gives the 'effect' at a later time?

Keeping in mind I define things in ways that make them relevant for theological debates, I think I got pretty close.

Something without which something else would not happen:
cause Definition in the Cambridge English Dictionary

A person or thing that acts, happens, or exists in such a way that some specific thing happens as a result; the producer of an effect:
the definition of cause

a. The producer of an effect, result, or consequence.
b. The one, such as a person, event, or condition, that is responsible for an action or result.
cause

You also need to keep in mind that virtually all dictionaries are written from a secular (or neutral) point of view but the definitions I found fit nicely with the one I made up.

Of course. But the common theme in all of these is that there is a time component (causes first, effects later) and that there is a law-like rule that leads from the cause to the effect.

So, for example, a mathematical derivation is NOT a cause. It is a logical deduction. But, my letting go of a rock *is* a cause of the rock falling *if* there is also a law of gravity operating.

So, again, causality itself requires time and natural laws. Because of this, it is contradictory to talk about the cause of time or the causes of natural laws.

 

[Polymath257]

BGVT, BBT, and a mountain of philosophy.

Asking this is like punching uncle Remise' tar baby. The universe is dissipating toward irrevocable heat death according to entropy. What wound it up to begin with? And if has existed for ever why didn't it achieve heat death an infinite time ago?

We do not know. But going to supernaturalism to answer that question is a leap that is unjustified.

No you haven't. According to some of my teachers and professional philosophers I trust, Quantum events come from fluctuations in energy fields. Whatever that is, it isn't the coming into being of a causeless effect out of nothing. Doing a swan dive into the same old rabbit hole containing the 1% of science that is the least understood.

Quantum mechanics is very well understood, thank you. The quantum events *are* those fluctuations (no,they are not just of energy-although they are fluctuations in fields). The question is what causes those fluctuations.

If I answered every question you have with the famous astronaut quote from the bible:

New International Version
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

You wouldn't find it persuasive, so I deal with things that most consider persuasive. Philosophy, applied science, history, logic, morality, and experiential claims, etc.......

I wouldn't find it persuasive because the lack of evidence for the deity involved. We *know* quantum effect occur. We *know* that quantum mechanics is a far better explanation of how the universe works than Newtonian mechanics. We now have over a century of evidence for this.

 

[Polymath257]

Your actions are not consistent with simple unbelief. They are more consistent with someone who dislikes the entire notion.

I find the notion of a supernatural to be a HUGE mistake that has diverted time, energy, resources, and skills away from critical problems and towards superstitious nonsense.

I am just shooting from the hip but I would say it is usually a set of propositions which describe the way a segment of the universe behaves. They are descriptive, not prescritive. They do not cause things to happen, they describe things that happen. I would also say that the reliability of each claim differs from every other claim.

Not too bad. Yes, natural laws are descriptive. They are not causes themselves, but are used to describe causality. So, for example, if there is a natural law that shows an initial state will develop into a final state, then we say that the initial state is a cause of the final state.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Why would you accept the concept of other universes, causeless effects, or infinite regression but deny the supernatural?

The supernatural is an indistinct idea for which there is no need. All it means is "not nature" with no clear idea of what we are talking about. If we propose the supernatural, how about including the juxtanatural, inferonatural, exonatural, transnatural, protonatural, holonatural, and paranatural? Why not?

My answer would be because these words are not associated with any distinct idea of they refer to, there is n reason to posit them since they add nothing to our understanding, have no evidentiary support, and would be the solution to no known problem, which is exactly the criticism of the concept of the supernatural..

Even if a god exists and created this universe, that god is as natural as its creation.

The concept of the supernatural is basically used by theists to explain why gods are undetectable, to put all discussion of them off limits to science, and to support special pleading arguments that allow the apologist to insist on various criteria for the existence of the universe while excusing gods of any such requirement.

In contrast to that, other universes, uncaused existence, and infinite time into the past, whether they are correct ideas or not, are clear and distinct concepts that all share the virtue of being potential explanations for as yet unexplained phenomena. For example, the fact that there is something rather than nothing suggests to us that our universe or its source if it has one has either always existed or came into being from nothingness uncaused. One of those two ideas may be correct.

Multiple universes is a possible solution to the fine tuning problem, if in fact that really is a problem. If a multiverse is generating multiple universes of every possible "tuning," then this universe would be expected, and probably duplicated countless times along with others that might not be so hospitable to stable matter, life, and consciousness.

The multiverse hypothesis' only competition as an explanation for the apparent fine tuning of the universe is a god hypothesis, which is a flawed answer to the problem. What would a god need with physical constants, physical forces, and laws of nature? Those are the requirements of an universe running unsupervised and unruled. An omnipotent god just wills planets to move in their orbits. No gravity needed, no law of universal gravitation needed, and no gravitational constant needed.

A godless universe, however, needs physical laws and constants.

 

[ChristineM]

The supernatural is an indistinct idea for which there is no need. All it means is "not nature" with no clear idea of what we are talking about. If we propose the supernatural, how about including the juxtanatural, inferonatural, exonatural, transnatural, protonatural, holonatural, and paranatural? Why not?

My answer would be because these words are not associated with any distinct idea of they refer to, there is n reason to posit them since they add nothing to our understanding, have no evidentiary support, and would be the solution to no known problem, which is exactly the criticism of the concept of the supernatural..

Even if a god exists and created this universe, that god is as natural as its creation.

The concept of the supernatural is basically used by theists to explain why gods are undetectable, to put all discussion of them off limits to science, and to support special pleading arguments that allow the apologist to insist on various criteria for the existence of the universe while excusing gods of any such requirement.

In contrast to that, other universes, uncaused existence, and infinite time into the past, whether they are correct ideas or not, are clear and distinct concepts that all share the virtue of being potential explanations for as yet unexplained phenomena. For example, the fact that there is something rather than nothing suggests to us that our universe or its source if it has one has either always existed or came into being from nothingness uncaused. One of those two ideas may be correct.

Multiple universes is a possible solution to the fine tuning problem, if in fact that really is a problem. If a multiverse is generating multiple universes of every possible "tuning," then this universe would be expected, and probably duplicated countless times along with others that might not be so hospitable to stable matter, life, and consciousness.

The multiverse hypothesis' only competition as an explanation for the apparent fine tuning of the universe is a god hypothesis, which is a flawed answer to the problem. What would a god need with physical constants, physical forces, and laws of nature? Those are the requirements of an universe running unsupervised and unruled. An omnipotent god just wills planets to move in their orbits. No gravity needed, no law of universal gravitation needed, and no gravitational constant needed.

A godless universe, however, needs physical laws and constants.

I'm pretty sure that some days juxtanatural takes precedence overt reality...;-)

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Why are you binding the supernatural with what governs the natural? ... God is immaterial, there is nothing about him that binds him to space time.

And there it is. This is the chief usefulness of the concept of the supernatural. Once assumed, anything goes. No absurdity can be discounted. It's different in the supernatural world. No rules need apply,and no argument can be made against gods, because there is always another quality that can be added to revive the notion, such as existing, thinking, choosing, and acting outside of time - all logical absurdities.

But not in the supernatural world. You can be as ridiculous as you like, and claim that it is off limits not just to investigating, but even to questioning. After all, man's mind is too puny to conceive of how eternal punishment is a just consequence of something as innocuous as failing to believe these claims.

Skeptics reject all of this, and rightly so.

The only things I know of that God can't do is create logical contradictions. No square circles or married bachelors.

Unfortunately, the god you describe is steeped in such logical absurdities. Jehovah is the married bachelor of gods. He acts outside of time. He is omnipresent but lives outside of space. He knows all, is all-powerful, loves us perfectly, yet there is needless suffering. He is perfect, yet keep making mistakes such as the one he regretted leading to a near-sterilizing global flood and tried to correct using the same breeding stock.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Why are you binding the supernatural with what governs the natural?

I'm not.

Even in space time scholars speak of simultaneous causation. Think of it as in the days when everyone believed that Newtonian physics applied to all levels until someone figured out the entire atomic world behaved in ways no one predicted. In this analogy your rejecting the quantum because it does stuff that Newtonian physics does not allow for. Besides I think I gave you some alternatives to this issue.

Our choices involve neurons, blood, chemistry. Our brains operate according to natural laws and in time. God is immaterial, there is nothing about him that binds him to space time. The only things I know of that God can't do is create logical contradictions. No square circles or married bachelors.

And what I'm saying is that performing actions that imply time while "outside of time" is just as much of a logical contradiction as a square circle.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I was asked to define two different terms.

1. Your response does not follow from either description I gave.
2. Necessary is a loaded term used in modal logic. I am not sure how to interpret your use of it.
3. No, I do not believe everything that happens is natural.

But you think that "natural laws" are inferred from what happens. So they're only inferred from some things that happen? How do you decide which?

I was going to try and clarify this further but I do not think I can. I said natural laws describe how events occur in the universe. That is true but it does not follow that they describe all events in the universe. For example if water turned to wine, the blind were healed, or a dead man came back to life that could occur in the universe but not be described by natural law.

I've personally witnessed a dead man come back to life. It seemed to be natural to me: they used CPR and defibrillators.

I tell you what is truly weird, is that since many things like mathematics, logical laws, morality, etc... do not seem to have any foundation in nature.

I don't know what you mean by this.

A better explanation would be to claim all events are ultimately supernatural and the only distinction would be between normal and rare. That distinction has much more explanatory scope and power than limiting ourselves to natural law alone.

What do you mean by "natural law"?

Do you mean our current understanding of natural law? If so, it seems very presumptuous to assume that just because something is beyond our current understanding, it's supernatural.

Do you mean the entirety of natural law? If so, it seems presumptuous to assume that you know what natural law entails beyond the current scope of science.

Either way, I don't see how you have a reasonable basis for your position.

 

[Polymath257]

Let's keep it simple. Let's assume that the proposition that murder is wrong is objectively true. The foundation for the truth of that proposition is not found in the universe, it isn't in a star, a proton, nor in anything in between. If it is true then it's foundation exists outside of nature. It transcends nature. It is supernatural.

Wrong. It is founded in human biology and how we have to structure rules for society to make them work for us.

For an intelligent species of spiders, eating your mate would be a moral thing to do.

 

[Polymath257]

I tell you what is truly weird, is that since many things like mathematics, logical laws, morality, etc... do not seem to have any foundation in nature. A better explanation would be to claim all events are ultimately supernatural and the only distinction would be between normal and rare. That distinction has much more explanatory scope and power than limiting ourselves to natural law alone.

Mathematics and logic are part of language. They are how we, as humans, approach the universe in order to understand it. Both mathematics and logic are *formal* systems that we invented to order our thoughts.

Morality is based on human biology and how we have to structure our societies to match that biology.

So, yes, these all have a foundation in nature. In particular, a foundation in *human* nature.

 

[1robin]

Well, the idea that the universe could be understood by humans goes back to the ancient Greeks. So it certainly didn't originate in Christianity. Nor does it depend on theism.

Of course information about nature has been discovered across our entire history. However at times there seems to be localized epiphanies and probably the greatest of these has been the modern abstract scientific revolution.

That said, I agree that the Christian idea of natural law as opposed to divine law was crucial to the development of science and is one of the big reasons that the Islamic civilizations didn't manage to true science 500 years before Europe.

I have no idea what the bolded statement means. Islam did have a period on scientific advancement as have most empires. However it was not because they separated divine law from natural law (though they may very well compartmentalize them). It was because Islam built upon Greek and Latin science. They simply advanced a few paces as has occurred in many empires, Christianity lagged behind (but not so far behind that the label "dark ages" actually applies) because the church restricted access and use of pagan science. However Christian scientists began using them anyway and despite having to fight the church every step of the way they bypassed Islam and everyone else, and never looked back until the very recent trend in secular science. Science never advanced so far so fast as it did in Christian Europe.

I am a mathematics professor.

I would have thought that they would require so much time as to limit debate to far less than what you have managed to churn out lately. So you teach college mathematics courses? How many? Which ones? At what university? I had to teach just two high school classes and I had very little time left for anything else.

 

[1robin]

We do not know. But going to supernaturalism to answer that question is a leap that is unjustified.

By what criteria do you claim positing the supernatural as the explanation of things the natural does not appear to be able to explain intellectually unjustifiable?

Unusual for me (and probably because of our recent debate) I watched a series on net flicks called The Cosmos which was hosted by science's version of Lady Gaga (Neil deGrasse Tyson). At one point in his speculative frenzy he went back to T=0. That's right the most recognizable face of cosmology to day did not even mention infinite regressions, an infinite past, other universes, oscillating universes, cracked egg universes, etc... but instead said that at T=0 everything came into being as basically a gas and expanded the way all unrestricted explosions do, in the form of a sphere. He went on to speculate about every finite stage of the universe until approximately our present day. I only watched the first few episodes (the ones that would apply to your claims) and I do not think the word Quantum was even mentioned. Even within the fog of theoretical science my cosmological argument is affirmed by most mainstream scholars and accepted models I run across.

Quantum mechanics is very well understood, thank you. The quantum events *are* those fluctuations (no,they are not just of energy-although they are fluctuations in fields). The question is what causes those fluctuations.

Yes energy fields.

1. Having fluctuating energy fields producing bizarre Quantum effects is not an example of creation ex nihilo.
2. Energy fields are things and therefore just like every other natural process you have causes and effects.
3. However (just as Tyson, Vilenkin, Bord, Guth, Hubble, etc.... failed to claim) those energy fields are part of a finite universe and can't go back past T=0 into the infinite past.
4. Fluctuations in energy fields occur in time. If one existed an infinite time ago we cannot traverse the infinite fluctuations between it and the current one.
5. If energy field fluctuations did extend infinitely into the past we would have the current one. Review my borrowing a dollar analogy.

I wouldn't find it persuasive because the lack of evidence for the deity involved. We *know* quantum effect occur. We *know* that quantum mechanics is a far better explanation of how the universe works than Newtonian mechanics. We now have over a century of evidence for this.

I could start listing evidence for the supernatural and I would die long before I had significantly dented the whole. Let's just use Christ for example. There is more testimonial evidence for Jesus' claims than any other figure's, of any type, from any period in ancient history. That means the miracles conveyed by the Gospels have a higher provenance than Caesar's actions in Gall against Vercingetorix or Themistocles claims about the Peloponnesian war.

There are billions of people who claim to have experienced God directly, are there billions who claim who make experiential claims about the quantum?

 

[Polymath257]

Of course information about nature has been discovered across our entire history. However at times there seems to be localized epiphanies and probably the greatest of these has been the modern abstract scientific revolution.

I'd say the biggest advance from medieval Europe was accepting that observation and 'getting your hands dirty' could have a positive impact on understanding. That bias was one of the big reasons the ancient Greeks didn't advance more in the sciences.

I have no idea what the bolded statement means. Islam did have a period on scientific advancement as have most empires. However it was not because they separated divine law from natural law (though they may very well compartmentalize them). It was because Islam built upon Greek and Latin science.

The main period of Islamic science was between about 700 and 1100 AD. One big reason this terminated (although not the only one-the Mongols had an influence) was the Al-Ghazali condemned such advances as being un-Islamic. The main reason he saw them as being so is that the idea of natural law was seen as infringing on God's power to do whatever He wants.

They simply advanced a few paces as has occurred in many empires, Christianity lagged behind (but not so far behind that the label "dark ages" actually applies) because the church restricted access and use of pagan science.

Yes, from about 500AD to the start of the translation movement around 1000AD. Most of the 'pagan' ideas were lost to Europeans completely. This included most of the philosophers, including Aristotle and Plato. It was only when the translation movement from Arabic to Latin started that these writings became available again.

However Christian scientists began using them anyway and despite having to fight the church every step of the way they bypassed Islam and everyone else, and never looked back until the very recent trend in secular science. Science never advanced so far so fast as it did in Christian Europe.

Yes, the availability of pagan ideas was crucial to the advances that were made in Europe towards the scientific method. Ironically, it was also the rejection of such sources that lead to the final burst into true science around 1600 AD.

I would have thought that they would require so much time as to limit debate to far less than what you have managed to churn out lately. So you teach college mathematics courses? How many? Which ones? At what university? I had to teach just two high school classes and I had very little time left for anything else.

Well, classes let out at the beginning of this month, so I am on break. I teach at a university (I won't say which one due to privacy) and teach anything they send my way. I have taught everything from the introductory algebra class to PhD level classes in topology or analysis. I've also had one student finish a PhD under my direction. My typical schedule has me teaching two courses per semester in addition to committee work and running the local Linux computers. I've also been teaching at the university level for 35 years now (first as an undergraduate), so I can usually go into the lower level classes (undergraduate) cold.

 

[Polymath257]

By what criteria do you claim positing the supernatural as the explanation of things the natural does not appear to be able to explain intellectually unjustifiable?

Mainly because I see the word 'supernatural' as being incoherent. When the term 'natural' is defined precisely, the term 'supernatural' is seen as meaningless.

Unusual for me (and probably because of our recent debate) I watched a series on net flicks called The Cosmos which was hosted by science's version of Lady Gaga (Neil deGrasse Tyson). At one point in his speculative frenzy he went back to T=0. That's right the most recognizable face of cosmology to day did not even mention infinite regressions, an infinite past, other universes, oscillating universes, cracked egg universes, etc... but instead said that at T=0 everything came into being as basically a gas and expanded the way all unrestricted explosions do, in the form of a sphere. He went on to speculate about every finite stage of the universe until approximately our present day. I only watched the first few episodes (the ones that would apply to your claims) and I do not think the word Quantum was even mentioned. Even within the fog of theoretical science my cosmological argument is affirmed by most mainstream scholars and accepted models I run across.

It sounds like he was describing the standard Big Bang version. Typically, that is a description that is accurate after the first fraction of a second into the expansion phase. Prior to that, there was an inflationary stage where quantum effects (probably of the Higgs particle) dominated. What was before *that* is still mostly speculation (if it is even meaningful to talk about before that).

Yes energy fields.

1. Having fluctuating energy fields producing bizarre Quantum effects is not an example of creation ex nihilo.
2. Energy fields are things and therefore just like every other natural process you have causes and effects.
3. However (just as Tyson, Vilenkin, Bord, Guth, Hubble, etc.... failed to claim) those energy fields are part of a finite universe and can't go back past T=0 into the infinite past.
4. Fluctuations in energy fields occur in time. If one existed an infinite time ago we cannot traverse the infinite fluctuations between it and the current one.
5. If energy field fluctuations did extend infinitely into the past we would have the current one. Review my borrowing a dollar analogy.

You keep repeating that we cannot cover an infinite past, but fail to understand there is no infinite *interval* that is crossed. There is no 'infinite time ago' even if time is infinite into the past. Do you see the difference?

I could start listing evidence for the supernatural and I would die long before I had significantly dented the whole. Let's just use Christ for example. There is more testimonial evidence for Jesus' claims than any other figure's, of any type, from any period in ancient history. That means the miracles conveyed by the Gospels have a higher provenance than Caesar's actions in Gall against Vercingetorix or Themistocles claims about the Peloponnesian war.

Wrong. Like all other historical records, it has to be evaluated for reliability also. The very claims it makes reduces its reliability. In the case of Caesar, we also have archaeological evidence to back up the written evidence. And we certainly do NOT expect Caesar's treatment of Pan leading the way across the Rubicon to be considered without some skepticism.

There are billions of people who claim to have experienced God directly, are there billions who claim who make experiential claims about the quantum?[/QUOTE]

Yes, many people have beliefs and experiences that they attribute to a supernatural. Most people thought illnesses were produced by bad air at one point in time.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

I gave you at least two scenarios which are sound. It doesn't make either true, but it does make them coherent.

You said that God was outside of time, but "relative to metaphysical time." It's not at all clear what any of what you're saying is supposed to mean.