It feels good to be certain about something. Certainty is comfortable, and uncertainty is not. It is uncomfortable ‘not to know’. This is the result of us having evolved a brain which interprets the world by seeking patterns and trying to infer causes from observable effects.
To create a sensible world in which there are answers to all questions, in the cases where answers were not immediately forthcoming, we as a species have often opted to invent them.
So what is ‘God’?
‘God’ is one such invented answer. It is simply a word people use to symbolise whatever they think might be responsible for things we haven’t figured out yet. We have anthropomorphised (made like a person) this ‘whatever might be responsible for things we haven’t figured out yet’, and imbued it with human characteristics such as personality, emotion, and even gender to make it less alien to us, and easier to relate to.
All the things that could not be understood thousands of years ago such as rain, sunshine, life, death, sickness, floods, tectonic and volcanic activity were attributed to this ‘personified’ entity. We then proceeded to develop rituals designed to help us communicate with – and appease – this imaginary personified entity, thinking that by doing so we could somehow influence events in nature to our benefit.
Over many years these primitive rituals evolved into what today we call ‘religion’.
‘God‘ and ‘Religion‘ are inventions of man.
Freethought Kampala 
16 comments
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January 31, 2010 at 4:25 pm
Mudamuli
I could smell FB in this blog the moment I read the blogname and this post. Welcome!
January 31, 2010 at 9:02 pm
James Onen
Thanks, Samali!
February 1, 2010 at 2:58 pm
The 27th Comrade
It’s quite unobservant to say that religion and God were brought forward to explain phenomena about which we were ignorant. That happens to be the lesser purpose for the God hypothesis among human societies. But, characteristically for people who think this, they use science and logic and “reason” as God, since it is that to which they appeal as an explanation for phenomena.
God and religion are not inventions of man. Some attributes of the Universe necessarily point to the fact that God is. For example, since everything that begins to exist has a cause, but there isn’t an infinite chain of causes, there is an uncaused cause: God.
And so on, and so forth.
I see New Atheism has appealed to Ugandans at last.
As fate would have it, on the last Uganda Bloggers’ Happy Hour some days ago, we had this debate inside the nook of Bubbles O’Leary’s Irish Pub. 😀
Hello, there. I’m glad to see you join the group. I’m currently on hiatus, but I’ll be back to engage posts like these, on my new blog. I’ve put my old one in the name I’ve used to post this comment (although I no longer tend it).
February 1, 2010 at 5:08 pm
James Onen
Thanks for your comments Comrade.
If you think you have good evidence for the existence of ‘God’, I’d like to hear it – because as of now, I remain unpersuaded. I hope your answer will begin with a coherent definition of the term ‘God’.
I look forward to your response. Cheers.
February 1, 2010 at 5:54 pm
James Onen
By the way what is a ‘New Atheist’, and on what basis do you think I qualify as one… if I may ask? I ask because I have been a non believer since the year 2000.
Here is Bertrand Russell speaking on British Television in 1959, who had the EXACT same views then as I have now.Were there ‘New’ atheists in 1959 too? Just when did the ‘New’ start?
There have been atheists for as long as there have been believers. There is nothing new about it.
February 1, 2010 at 6:35 pm
The 27th Comrade
Hello, James.
It is a common evasion that I’ve had to deal with: the atheist says “Ah, but you haven’t defined this God!” in order to disagree with the definition, so that you cannot prove that God exists. If you give a definition, all it takes for him to claim that there is no proof of God is to reject the definition.
And all too often many people fall into the trap of trying to define God, forgetting that before I, for one (for example), can call an entity God, that entity must be superior to definition. Sure, I can give you some attributes, but a definition of the entirety of God is even more impossible than a definition of all the positive numbers. (This is generally true of infinite things, of which God is one; indeed, all of which are sustained in God.)
Now, to answer you: the part of God perceieved by me is what my arguments (will) define is Him as. So, you sum up my arguments, and that is the definition of God. From the previous comment, therefore, one of the ways you can understand God is this: God is the Uncaused Cause.
As for evidence for the existence of God, there is one in the comment you replied to. Every other atom is also proof, since each of these things, you and I included, are caused, and there is a finite chain of causes, and the Uncaused Cause is God, the existence of these things – us, them – is one of the pieces of evidence for God.
“New Atheist” is not to say that atheism is new. Of course atheism is old; who would be so unobservant as to say that it is new? (It is strongly implied by the first temptation, and is therefore from the very edges of antiquity.) King David wrote: “The fool has said in his heart ‘There is no God’.” He lived in the Bronze Age. My favourite philosophers are almost exclusively atheists, and none of them is from within two centuries (save for Lord Bertrand Russell).
Lord Bertrand Russell is my favourite atheist, by the way. I think the New Atheists, though, are not as coherent, especially because they live, unlike Lord Russell, in a world that has more access to effects of abandoning classical thiesm, and that has more access to the things of God, but they remain impervious and it takes sheer stubborn foolishness to maintain that.
By “New Atheism” I mean the people who shout “Science!!!” every five seconds, and “Reason!!!” every other ten, even when those things (at least when carried out well) are the strongest refutation of their position. Professors Richard Dawkins and Daniel Denett, Dr. Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens make the “four horsemen” of this particular movement.
February 1, 2010 at 8:39 pm
James Onen
Thank you for your response Comrade.
So ‘God’ is whatever you decide ‘it’ to be? How can you show that your perception of ‘God’ is valid? Your perception of this entity will compete with the perceptions of billions of believers who might not apprehend this entity the same way you do. This is therefore not a convincing strategy and promises to lead to special pleading on your part. As long as you, and other believers, posit an entity that ‘works in mysterious ways’ no amount of argumentation could validate one perception of ‘God’ over another. For this reason it would not persuade me. This is why consistent definitions are important, otherwise arguments don’t matter.
Why would the uncaused cause have to be a ‘God’ – and a theistic ‘God’ no less? How do we know there WAS a cause? Please provide evidence for each of your claims. You are simply using ‘God’ as a placeholder for ‘the unknown’, and therefore no different from the people who thought that gods directly created thunder from up in the clouds.
We all know that when you roll back the clock far enough things get pretty confusing, especially prior to, and around, the Planck epoch. You have simply decided to stick a ‘God’ in this gap in our knowledge, and you are expecting me to accept it as fact. Sorry, it doesn’t work like that. This is called a ‘God-of-the-Gaps’ argument.
February 1, 2010 at 9:42 pm
The 27th Comrade
No.
You misunderstand. God is not whatever I decide Him to be. That would make me God. 😀
Rather, I am showing you glimpses of what God is according to some axioms of reasoning and knowledge. For example, when I say God is eternal, deal with that. I’ve not made Him eternal, I’ve declared a feature of Him. This can be defended thus: He’s eternal because we have eternal truths, and since truths require a knower, eternal truths’ existence implies the existence of an eternal knower: God.
And so on, and so forth.
I guess in the same way that (and as far as) I can show that my perception of gravity’s existence is valid.
So be it. This is why preaching is important. Preaching and discussion and debate, such as what you are hosting here. Preaching, in particular, of revealed theology, as I’ll explain below.
Wherever you see an instance, such as this one, of people trying to provide arguments for God, there is an implicit acceptance of shared axioms between them and the ones they are discussing with.
As such, if they think they can build a case on those axioms, it is because that case can also fall on those axioms. There is no special pleading here. Indeed, I find special pleading to be a facet of atheism (which they are skillful at ignoring and hiding). For example, they insist that God must conform to certain few pre-conceived ideas of their choosing, or He doesn’t exist. Most of the atheist argument, I put to you, is “God isn’t like this, therefore he doesn’t exist.” It is positive special pleading, no doubt, but special pleading nonetheless. (All of us who are afflicted of a Baconian mindset necessarily suffer from this.)
No, you misunderstand. I call that Uncaused Cause God. Call it what you like, say “The Great Causer of All”. Then we can advance from there. So, when I tell you that “God exists”, you can subsititute it with “The Great Causer of All exists”, and we can proceed from there.
Arguments for God from reason don’t necessarily bring you to Jesus Christ, for example; that is what divine revelation is for. We can only get so far with reason alone, but we can get quite far: further than “There is no God”.
(For example, while the cars of the world can only get with reason as far as “There was an original inventor of cars” – and they may be thinking he is a big spanner somewhere – revelation alone will tell them his name: Karl Friedrich Benz, a Homo sapiens sapiens. Certainly the Audi S5 looks wise enough to know that there must be a Great Inventor of Cars. Audis are not ainventorists.)
🙂
You see, this is why atheism is ultimately absurd. We know that there is an effect: the universe. We know that effects are caused. (One sifts through atheists, ranking them, by seeing how quickly they respond to “Can there be a cause without a causer?” Ah, you’re laughing now, but you’ll be surprised.)
So, when we see an effect and you go like How do we know there WAS a cause?, it starts to look sad.
Oh, and we woudln’t want to do that, would we? Well, Richard Feynman did that, and look where it got him. 🙂
Look, James, saying that there must be a causer of the universe is reasonable. It is denying it that makes one even worse than one who imputes thunder to the gods. At least the latter is evidential! Right now, I should be the one with the nerve to ask you for your evidence for the things, for example, that you state below and most-importantly the claim that there is no causer for a cause. But I’ll not do that. It’s our first day in acquaintance, and you host a freakun’ cool show. 😀 (I no listen to radio, for lack of time between six jobs and some hours of sleep. You’re one of the few things I miss.)
Like you, dear friend, I used to sneer disapprovingly of this, and I used to say “God-of-the-gaps” with that tone.
But God-of-the-gaps is only valid when I grant methodological naturalism, which I don’t. Therefore, for me, the God hypothesis, in the few instances where I apply it, it is not of the gaps. It is the central thing.
We don’t need to go anywhere past 12 billion years after the Big Bang to decipher what the universe implies. For example, that we are 12 billion years past the Bang implies that it had a beginning. Among other things that are thus implied, one is that we have a causer for the effect. Our grasp of the Singularity or the Planck Epoch or the before or the after will have at least one implication: we, an effect, have a cause. So, let’s deal with it in truth.
February 1, 2010 at 10:20 pm
James Onen
Comrade,
I’m reading your post and I’m thinking ‘quantum fluctuations’. These are believed by scientists to be uncaused.
Besides, by the very virtue of the fact that you believe in an ‘uncaused cause’ you are granting the possiblity that there exists a set containing some things that can exist without having been caused. You have decided that within this possible set of things there is a single item – and you call this item ‘God’.
For me this is where it gets tricky, and I think further argumentation is needed to establish that
1. Only a ‘God’ can be this item.
2. Within this set there couldn’t be other uncaused items, besides a ‘God’, that are as yet unknown.
This is why I find it weird that you accuse atheists of absurdity when pondering the existence of uncaused things, yet as theists such an entity is precisely what you worship. Its a double standard, Comrade.
Bottom line, we both might be in agreement that a possible set exists that may contains things that exist uncaused. Our disagreement seems to be what we think comprises that set.
From this point onwards we need to talk in terms of positive evidence, otherwise we’re just like those 2 guys centuries ago squabbling over thunder – with you being the one who thinks a god is behind it.
February 1, 2010 at 11:13 pm
The 27th Comrade
If the set of uncaused things that caused the universe contains more than one, all those are one according to this argument. We treat it as a singleton set because we consider the set of all of them as one.
Quantum events are not necessarily uncaused; they are just randomly caused. (After all, Schroedinger is one who we blame for killing the cat. He caused it.) They are called random because the chain of causality is not deterministic.
The reason pondering the universe as uncaused (which was a favourite of Lord Bertrand Russell) is because we know that the universe is caused. And so it is absurd to take the atheist position here.
I’m the guy who thinks there are thunder gods behind the thunder, and you’re the one who thinks thunder causes itself.
Both were wrong, but we know who was being absurd. 😀
February 1, 2010 at 11:16 pm
The 27th Comrade
To clarify: when we consider what is prior to all causation, we do not insist that the number be one.
This is atheist style: set up a requirement wholly unwarranted by the argument, falsify it, deem the argument falsified. Men of straw are only fun in real life.
God is the Uncause Cause, which says nothing about the number. (Trinity, anyone?) 😀
February 2, 2010 at 3:33 pm
James Onen
Easy on the smileys, Comrade. 🙂
I think my wording was not concise enough. I guess what I meant was “within a set of possible things that can exist without having been caused….” So my statement should have read as follows:
[Besides, by the very virtue of the fact that you believe in an ‘uncaused cause’ you are granting the possibility that there exists a set containing possible things that can exist without having been caused. You have decided that within this set of possible things there is only a single possible item that actually exists – and you call this item ‘God’.]
Ok, so having cleared this up now you can proceed to respond to the following:
In other words, you need to provide an argument to show that out of all possible things that can or cannot at this time be conceived of, only a ‘God’ could be that uncaused cause, and not something else. This is where the trouble begins – you would have to define ‘God’ for us to know whether it or not an argument could be made that would demonstrate that it is in fact that ‘uncaused cause’. But then if you start by defining ‘God’ as the uncaused cause (as you have done), then from there attempt to form an argument to demonstrate that it IS the uncaused cause… your argument would be circular, thus fallacious.
Quantum fluctuations have been observed to occur uncaused, and occur randomly. By claiming that quantum events are randomly ‘caused’ I think you are already making the unwarranted assumption that they are in fact caused.
Current cosmology doesn’t get you that far yet, sorry. In the Brief History of Time, Stephen Hawking said:
Currently it is not yet known what the specific conditions of the ‘universe’ were prior to Planck time (because of the above reason) – so it’s presumptuous for you to conclude from this that we know that the universe was caused, and what may have caused it. (Especially if by caused you mean the universe ‘popping’ into existence from ‘nothing’).
Again, from Hawking:
So far, predictions of orthodox quantum mechanics have been highly confirmed by various experiments. If quantum theory holds true, then it is possible that our universe was the result of a series of random quantum fluctuations.
Ha ha..you’re one cheeky guy! 🙂 Unfortunately you’ve massacred the analogy. I would not have said thunder caused itself. As far as that story is concerned, I’m the guy who would have said, ‘I won’t jump to conclusions about what may be the cause of thunder until I have more information’. This to me is not only the more humble position, but the most pragmatic one.
Theists have already jumped to their conclusion, and are grasping at gaps in our current knowledge in order to stick their gods into them.
Therein lies absurdity.
Cheers.
February 2, 2010 at 9:04 pm
The 27th Comrade
I use smileys to break the tension. It’s a device that seems to be the only one (“until science furnishes us with another […]”) that I have to communicate safely, without the capacity for things like calm facial expressions, even in the middle of an effusive sentence. Consider it a smile. Or a grin. 😀
You don’t like smileys? 😦 They, to me, are one of the few things that keep the Internet usable. We didn’t develop facial expressions just so that we can get to the 21st century and stop using them.
You still don’t understand it, James.
I mean that all that is an Uncaused Cause is God. It doesn’t suffice to be merely uncaused. Uncaused impotent things are not God. In any case, there are no uncaused things in this universe, because they all have a cause (the Big Bang), which itself has a cause […]. It also doesn’t matter how many of these uncaused entities are. I speak of them, when they qualify as Uncaused Cause, as one single entity: the Uncaused Cause. So, I said that the Uncaused Cause is God. There is no mention – and this was emphatic – no mention of the number thereof. (I know Plotinus arrived at something like the Trinity from here, but I haven’t.) As I said before, this detour about the cardinality of the set is a strawman argument you’re employing. Leave the cardinality man of straw alone.
Also, you seem not to understand that when we call God the Uncaused Cause he is effectively different from any article – boson or other – that we may hypothesise about being uncaused. Because it is itself, ultimately, caused. If you have an entity – be it a particle, be it many particles, be it many entities – which are not caused but themselves caused effects, that is God.
Do you understand it now? I hope it is clear this time. It’s sad that Leo Tolstoy was right (and I parphrase) “Even a man at ease with problems of great difficulty will have trouble understanding the simplest thing if he has previously believed and proudly taught the idea that it invalidates.” Add here a quote about how new ideas in science become the mainstream. 🙂
There is a reason why Jesus said “From the lips of babies my praise is perfected.”
Dear friend, pause and think about this. Read through the comments I’ve put here before, and they will contain enough for me to not have to spin around this spot of obstinacy.
At least in your question you admit that there is an Uncaused Cause. That’s progress from the shameful pits we were wallowing in yesterday, of denying that there is an Uncaused Cause. Now your problem is that this Uncaused Cause is not called God. One of my favourite philosophers also doesn’t call this entity God.
Like I told you yesterday, call it “The Great Cause of All”, and I’ll be fine with that. If you are ready to call it that, or the like, you can signal me and we will continue. (A sad thing about atheists is that they don’t realise – with the exception, to my knowledge, of Prof. Bradley Monton, who I’ve swapped mail with from time to time, and Prof. Thomas Nagel – that granting this doesn’t necessarily kill their position; it just makes it weaker. Ah, but most of them are just reacting in a rather puerile way that cuts out clear assessment of ideas, and leaves only the repeated chanting of “Science!!!” and “Reason!!!” not unlike kids sticking fingers in their ears and saying “Lalalalala! I can’t hear you!”)
Now, if you call that (for instance) The Great Cause of All, welcome to one of God’s many names (even used by certain communities in history as the name of God). And since you granted that this entity exists, you no longer hold – congratulations! – that God doesn’t exist, since you don’t also say (and certainly can’t prove, when this ball gets to your court) that The Great Cause of All is not God. (In many languages, such as Luganda and Acholi, that would even be an oxymoron.)
You aren’t yet at the point where you say “Our Father who art in heaven”, but you are past the muddle-headed valley of atheism.
You’re lost. I point to the Uncaused Cause (with a unidirectional arrow) and label it “Behold God”. That is what the argument does. Since we see no loop in this graph, there is no circular argument.
Circular arguments are for atheism. (“God doesn’t exist because it is preposterous for God to exist according to what I’m comfortable with as the way the world is!” This is the standard skeleton plan of the atheist argument.)
Hahaha. James, quantum mechanics is a result of the laws of this universe, and therefore an effect of what caused the laws of the universe, and indeed an effect of the laws of quantum mechanics. Do you understand this? Have you understood that?
After you do, then see also that quantum events obey laws (albeit probabilistic laws, because these things seem currently to be irreducibly random). This is one way you can know that something is caused: when it obeys even a single law.
By the way, “quantum” has become the null hypothesis, from where I’m standing. Either in making “quantum” the null hypothesis you’re granting that there is a need for something to fill that role (such as God), or you’re becoming a big, big hypocrite.
Well, even though Prof. Steven Hawking can be wrong, and the appeal to authority is a weak argument (even when it is valid), I’ll grant you this one. After all, who doesn’t like Prof. Steven Hawking? My girlfriend says I do a freakishly-realistic impression of the man. 😀
So, in the quote you provide, you fail to see something hugely glaring (and this is because you have a bias): Prof. Hawking presupposes that the universe is caused, because everything that has a beginning has a cause (see his use of words like “begun” which have no semantic value unless they are being used in the state where they are applied by the English speakers who invented and maintain them: a state where no effect has no cause). He says that GE cannot predict the state during the Singularity, and that is all. He says nothing to imply that because GE breaks down then, we have something as preposterous (and, by the way, opposed to your dear “science”) as a cause sans effect. Just because neo-Darwinian evolution can’t explain the evolution of the car (those laws break down for non-reproducing entities) doesn’t imply that cars have no causes. I think atheism would be more-coherent if we had kept our muddle-headed folk of back then like Hume and Lord Russell and Spinoza. It’s gone downhill since then. (But hey, I’m a Spinoza fanboy.)
Fortunately for you, I don’t mean what you are saying I mean. Again, you’re wrong. The Universe pops into existence in the same way that these characters pop into existence: from a cause. My whole point has been that the universe didn’t pop out of nothing! They, like the universe, are an effect. There is a state when these characters are just electrons, and then the laws of grammar don’t work. That doesn’t do anything to imply that I – their cause – don’t exist.
So, do you now understand what Prof. Hawking is trying to say? He means GE doesn’t hold during the Singularity. Full stop. Everything else you infer you’ll have to shove into his mouth. And that’s not fair, because he has a condition, as you know, which means that, you know, that he cannot like fight back …
😀
No, it only pushes the problem of the Uncaused Cause further beyond the beginning of the universe. If you’re curious about my position: I think our universe is not anywhere near primal in the chain of causality, and is preceeded by perhaps many, many proto-universes.
But what is the point here? I don’t see how our universe’ beginning being the result of following interesting laws, as is the case in quantum theory, is in any way a case for “There is no God”. As Prof. Hawking says, “Who breathes fire into those equations?” You’ll notice that atheism isn’t the reaction of everyone who learns about quantum physics.
And while we are entertaining the argument from authority, I’ll throw you one that is supposed to attack the if-quantum-theory-holds-true clause of your sentence, and note that it was said in response to that same idea that quantum is the end of all: “I do not believe that God plays dice.” ~ Einstein.
By the way, I’m glad you use the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy. It is a truly great resource. A little incomplete at times, but I’d rather get stuff there than from Wikipedia, when I have the choice.
Have you ever wondered if you should not jump to the atheist conclusion (“There is no God”) or the methodological naturalism conclusion (“all causes must be naturalistic”) until you have more information?
I know, of course, why you didn’t, why you pretend that you’re viciously logical and straight in thinking, even when your baseline is a glaring flame of hypocrisy. It is because it is “smarter” (read: “respected by the people we want to suck up to”) to take your own hypocritical route as you have.
That is why believers in God, such as Sir Isaac Newton and Gottfried Libniz and Blaise Pascal and Fr. Gregor Mendel and the list runs to the clouds, could be better scientists than any alive and still say not only things like “Hypotheses non fingo”, which is honourable but these days very rare, but also to say “God” with earnest hearts.
Leibniz believed that God only does miracles to furnish the needs of Grace. That is something worth thinking about. It is not as foolish, at any rate, as an outright rejection of divine activity. Classical theism, if you didn’t know, promises that laws will unfold in the universe as ordained by – you guessed right! – a Law-Giver! That is why discovering naturalistic laws is an opportunity to worship, and why we can say “And this is how God gives His Creation rainfall” after studying the water cycle in fully naturalistic terms.
Do you understand that part?
As I told you before, the guy who said that the gods cause thunder can have told you how they do it (“my gods do it by having electrostatically-charged clouds, and then when oppositely-charged clouds make contact, a spark – lightning – is made, and a sound energy – thunder – is created from the episode”) and then gone on to say, and you couldn’t show him to be wrong, that his gods make the thunder.
That is reasonable and scientific. Like I said, naturalistic explanations don’t invalidate God. They may even augment one’s faith. Consider our dude saying “and that is why my gods are great”. (By the way, the Popperian principle of falsifiability on which science is built is basically this, and equivalent to William James’ Will to Believe. The latter is a defence of belief in God. Selah.)
You’re confused, James. As I’ve explained, it is the atheists who have jumped to the (wrong) conclusion. Read the above thing again. Of course, there are atheist thinkers who have not jumped to the (wrong) methodological naturalism conclusion, but they are very few, and you certainly won’t find them chanting with dilated eyes about the wonders of this “science” and “reason” that will reveal everything to us, worshipping a god they have to carry around (which is the curse of those who reject God), holding a dangerously-flawed worldview that could benefit a lot – in terms of dying quickly – from a correct understanding of the work of Kurt Goedel (and I don’t mean his ontological proof that God is; I mean another proof or two).
As for the gaps thing, my comments are still on your blog.
(You’ll pardon me, but one tires of these rehearsed knee-jerk reactions studied by rote and crammed into the head like secondary school students, such that they will show up again in what the poor fellow believes is a brilliant display of reason and logic when in fact it is a conditioned reflex that betrays the shallowness with which these things have been memorised. The sad thing is that such a one will accuse others of not having reason, and then, if our lack holds up, he will also accuse them of absurdity.)
February 3, 2010 at 12:04 am
James Onen
Hi Comrade,
Thanks for the response.
Wow. All that is an uncaused cause is ‘God’? How do you know that? You’ve basically just slapped a name onto whatever the ‘uncaused cause’ (if there is one) might turn out to be.
You probably believe in a specific entity with a specific set of properties (other believers may differ in what properties they think their god possesses). Christians traditionally believe that their god is ‘omniscient’, omnipotent’ and omnibenevolent’. These are specific properties they say ‘God’ has. Now, it does not follow that the uncaused cause of the universe must necessarily posses these 3 specific properties. The uncaused cause could be easily omnipotent, and omnibenevolent, but NOT omniscient. Lack of omniscience would not necessarily render this entity incapable of creating a universe. But if such an entity existed then it would not be ‘God’ because it does not possess the properties that are believed to be the nature of that being commonly referred to as ‘God’. This is not a trivial matter by the way.
What I’m seeing here is that you’ve created a scenario in which you can move the goalposts around and keep redefining this ‘Uncaused Cause’. That’s why non-believers insist on a clear, consistent and coherent definition of what ‘God’ is (which of course they never get from theists) because theists are very loose with their definitions which makes discussing these issues very hard.
No, YOU don’t understand it. I already showed you that our current understanding of cosmology does not permit you jump to this conclusion. The Big Bang is..
It tells us nothing about what preceded the initial conditions of the universe, prior to plank time. Therefore from current cosmology you have no grounds to conclude that the universe was ‘caused’, or make conclusive statements about what may have ‘caused’ it.
Again, you are just moving the goalposts, allowing your ‘God’ to be whatever might turn out to be the ‘uncaused cause’ – regardless of whether that ‘uncaused cause’ possesses the properties, attributes and qualities commonly assigned to ‘God’, or not. There are many possible permutations of objects that might qualify as potential ‘uncaused causes’ and you believe ‘God’ is an entity with a SPECIFIC set of properties. It therefore does not follow at all that whatever the uncaused cause might turn out to be can be called a ‘God’. It could be any one out of many possible things besides a ‘God'(properly defined).
I understand clearly what you are trying to say Comrade. But your conclusion does not follow from the assertions you have made, as I have already shown.
You’re being condescending here. I have read your comments and not found them persuasive.
No, I granted for the sake of argument that there was an uncaused cause. To be honest, I’m not sure. Current studies in cosmology do not allow us to conclude that this is the case. You, on the other hand seem to be strangely confident – are you an astrophysicist?
Ha ha..I don’t think so. Granting a premise is something done out of courtesy to allow the proponent of a viewpoint to flesh out his argument without initially demonstrating that the premises are true. Of course, once his argument is found to be sound then he has the burden of going back to those premises and demonstrating that they are indeed true, in order for that argument to be considered valid. This is what I have done with your ‘uncaused cause’, for example. I merely granted it as a possibility to allow you to flesh out your argument – which I must say, has not yielded much fruit.
No sir. It is you who is lost. I’ve been warning you about definitions and you haven’t been taking me seriously. I invite you to put forward an argument to show that God is ‘the uncaused cause’. You will see that it will be circular, since you yourself have already DEFINED ‘God’ as ‘the uncaused cause’.
Great, I was waiting for you to say exactly this. Now, explain to me how causality is supposed to apply when there is no time and space within which to occur. It is you who says ‘God’ is the ‘uncaused cause’ of the universe, correct? But as far as we know, causality is a concept that applies within space-time. Did space-time exist while ‘God’ was ‘causing’ the universe to exist? Wait, but you guys say ‘God’ is ‘outside of time’. You can therefore see that the idea of ‘God’ as the ‘uncaused cause’ of the universe is self refuting; it renders the concept of causality meaningless.
Kindly elucidate on this point. From where are you standing? Are you an astrophysicist?
In no way have I suggested this. I am simply going with the currently accepted science. If there is any reason why I should think that your understanding of quantum mechanics is more accurate than the prevailing view, then please let me know what that reason is.
This is an almost cliché statement from Christian apologist philosophers these days. I can’t recall who I first heard it from – Plantinga, McGrath..? Not sure. You guys purport to have so much love for the ‘old’ atheists like Spinoza and Neitzsche – why is that, if I may ask?
Interesting to hear this coming from a theist. I wish you could tell me more about this idea.
Errr…THE Albert Einstein?
I find it quite useful too.
Argumentum ad hominem..
I don’t think so. I could just as easily say ‘jklejkrl’ causes thunder, and does so in mysterious ways. Then as our knowledge of science advances, I’ll just keep moving back my goalposts as science keeps presenting naturalistic explanations. So if science discovers that thunder is caused by charged clouds, I’ll move my goalpost one step back and say ‘jklejkrl’ made the charged clouds. Then if science discovers that evaporation, condensation, and ionaisation are responsible for charged clouds, I’ll move my goalposts back further and say ‘jklejkrl’ is responsible for evaporation, condensation, and ionaisation, etc… As you can see, ‘jklejkrl’ is superfluous and explains nothing. I feel the same way about attempts to attribute natural phenomena to the concept of a ‘God’.
Agreed.
I think what matters is what can be established as true. You should stop being bitter that your beliefs are being challenged. There is an increasing number of people in this world who do not feel compelled to believe in the existence of gods, because they remain unpersuaded by arguments being put forward by popes, bishops, pastors and apologists like you. Some of the best minds in the world today aren’t convinced either. So maybe its not just obstinance on our part, as you have suggested earlier – but maybe its just that your case isn’t a strong one. Have you ever considered that? So instead of calling people confused, maybe you need better arguments.
By the way, have you considered the possibility that YOU could be wrong?
Ha ha..right back at you, Comrade. I feel precisely the same way. I’ve been suffering with your unceasing torrent of knee-jerk responses! However, I must say I find these discussions with you fascinating. I am glad you manage to find the time to discuss these issues with me. But let’s now give this one rest shall we? I’m tired!
February 3, 2010 at 6:11 am
James Onen
Earlier, I said:
I now recall that I first heard this from Catholic theologian John Haught.
February 4, 2010 at 2:55 pm
The 27th Comrade
vim: tw=0
Hello, James.
As you know, I’m only intermittently available, and I had written this below long before now. But since the comment box isn’t going away, I never quite feel compelled to rush. This is the last comment, in keeping with your request for cessation. I must commend you on hosting a good debate, and one that so closely cuts to the core of the issue you set up the blog for. Such is a rare display of good spirit. (I’m not known for being even a quarter as good.)
Now, to reply:
Yes. Yes, that’s what I did. And, as I’ve not stopped telling you, you can just call it, if you want, The Uncaused Cause. God’s name, after all, is a matter of revelation. It’s why when we get there, we can just as easily say “The Unmoved Mover” as we can “God”. These are attributes of God, and these names suffice just fine for the demonstrations we give.
And as I’ve told you, you have the Uncaused Cause, and it is a logical necessity – as in, logically inescapable – given the axioms that we hold (indeed, the ones under which we do science). That there is a cause is not conditional, if the effect is known to be.
I fail to see how the detour you take (typical atheist fashion, as I’ve previously told you) about the other attributes of God have import on this particular question. For example, we can also establish that God is infinite, but that is not brought out for explaining that God is the Uncaused Cause.
Leave the men of straw alone, James. You don’t really have to wriggle like that. Stay still, deal with these things, and then we can move on to other issues.
I see that you refuse to accept that God can be omniscient given some condition or other. I don’t see why, in your comment (as in, I don’t see a defence of that position). Perhaps it’s just not clear to me, but you seem to have tied omniscience to causal primality. Where is the link? Or is this one of those cases born of our famous atheist logic?
The omniscience of God is established in other ways, such as through revelation. Indeed, humans cannot certainly prove that God (or any entity, for that matter) is omniscient, because they themselves (the humans) are not omniscient. We do not have infinite heads, but omniscience would know infinity (which God does, since He knows Himself), and so we cannot be the ones to verify omniscience.
I’m reminded of the bicycle that thought that the idea of the hovercraft – “capable of flight, sea-faring, and journeying on road!” – was a logical impossibility. Of course, if the God of bicycles was a hovercraft, such a bicycle would be an atheist. We all know how muddle-headed and confused the bicycle is, though, even as it creaks loudly “Reason!!!”.
Do you want, therefore, to prove that God is not omniscient? You have the floor.
In as far as our current understanding can be framed in human language and science, it necessarily presupposes a cause for the effect that is the universe. You even have the temerity to proceed to talk of the Big Bang to support your position, as though you do not know or understand that the Big Bang was/is an/the answer to What began the Universe? It put to death all the steady state theories that preceded it, and in so doing excluded the only case where we could have the universe without having a cause for it (ie., steady state theories). James, you cannot use a word like “begin” sans cause-effect, and so cause-effect is packed with the answer that is the Big Bang. But Baruch Spinoza is still relevant for other issues he dealt with. :o) It’s just that his theology went out with a Bang.
It cetainly doesn’t tell us that this effect has a cause; it presupposes it. (It is the only way even “Bang” can have a meaning, because the conditions that precede a bang, Big or otherwise, cause it.) And by what it posits, it presents a start condition that is henceforth deemed the cause of what comes forth after (in the sense that our yesterday is the cause of our today, on this blog and elsewhere).
So, even the quantum world is caused by what preceded it. (It is actually harder to ignore the causality in the quantum world due to how the determinism laws are affected: you never miss the water ’til it’s gone. That’s why action at a distance – that is, effect being caused at a distance – is even know to be action at a distance. If it were uncaused, it wouldn’t be action, and by no means at a distance.) The quantum world is preceded by the Bang, which is itself preceded by the conditions that caused it (the Bang).
It is shameful to keep going on about this simple point, and I’ll put you to rest by saying this: rephrase your quote without relying on teleological language.
Or will you go the absurd way of saying that teleology (or what we like to call “final causes”) doesn’t imply cause-and-effect?
I like that you’re now quoting ‘uncaused cause’, even though it is a logical necessity. 🙂 Like I told you, absurdity is the destination of the atheism train.
And once more, please stop using men of straw. Since you’ve finally accepted the Uncaused Cause, deal with that. If later I bring in attributes, bring this up. Until then, reason excercised well has led you only as far as conceding that there is the Uncaused Cause. Like I said, call it whatever you like. Just know that the Uncaused Cause is the Beginning of All, and now you have one attribute: primality. You can get quite far with reason alone, in deciphering what the attributes of God are, even though for some things you’ll need to rely on revelation. I already gave you the example of the car; should I offer another? (Haven’t I already told you about how Plotinus, who was far from being a Christian, arrived at something vaguely similar to the Trinity, by reason alone? I don’t grant all his axioms, so I do not agree that one can get even to that result by reason alone, but it shows you what can be achieved.)
To rehash: the goal of that argument is to establish that there is an Uncaused Cause. You can simply call this entity by the name implied by the demonstration (“The Beginning”) or whatever you want to call that entity (“The Uncaused Cause”, “The Mother of All”, “The Great Cause of All”, “God”, “Lubanga”, “Katonda”, “Mungu”, “Yahweh”, “Ruhanga”, “The Word”, “The First Cause”). Just get done and then call me up. 🙂
What you showed refuted your stand (as in, you shot yourself in the foot). As I have shown. You know why all the quotes you provide to reject that the universe is caused are instead rejections of your stand? Two reasons: (1) they are from scientists, who presuppose effect-implies-cause, and (2) they are in human language, which is not (indeed cannot be) equipped for descriptions other than those where effect implies cause. (Note carefully the existence of the first comma in the previous sentence).
I’d put here a smug reference to Critique of Pure Reason, but I’m not too sure about it. (I mention this in case you know what I’m talking about better than I remember it and can therefore connect the dots.)
Please accept my profuse apologies for the admittedly condescending tone. I didn’t intend for it to be condescending (although I admit it could have been said much better, in a way that respects you better). I feel, however, that the bit I was replying to betrayed a lack of respect paid to what I had been saying all along, because it was bringing back a question we had long moved past. This, whenever I’m trying to instruct people – in class or in comments – tends to imply that they could benefit from a revision of the ground previously covered.
Even if I had been one, I’d not have used the argument from authority. I’m not an astrophysicist, and yet my field of expertise, involving as it does the creation of small universes, has arrayed me bountiful opportunities for the argument from authority. I don’t take them, however, because I think philosophy, right reason, and correct reasoning suffice for this issue.
The reason I know, in spite of not being an astrophysicist, that physics supports that this effect that is the universe (with or without the details, jargon, and observations that seem to excite non-physicists disproportionately and unjustifiedly) has a cause: physics presumes this; astrophysics even more (dealing as it does with physical history; I hope you suspect that history causes the present). Indeed, all the laws of physics, from the most-basic ones such as Newton’s, have the reliance on effect-implies-cause. Check Newton’s laws, for example, and see that they don’t even establish causality: they presume it. No causality, no physics. Physics cannot be done sans causality, because laws (theories, theorems) are causal. Regardless of what laws hold, if they do, causality holds. (Even civil law, martial law, and so on.)
Now below that, you say that you only granted my premise to allow further discourse. Actually, you didn’t, because if you did grant any single premise of mine, you’d not be able to dismiss any of the arguments given. One implication of so granting any premise of mine would be: “The tools on which we base to dismiss God – whichever they may be – are insufficient for us to reason correctly and arrive at certainty on an entity about God, save for His Existence which is established by arguments such as the Kalam cosmological argument, therefore we cannot dismiss God.”
You see, what you would be granting is: reductive materialism and methodological naturalism is false, and human reasoning is impotent on infinitely many issues.
Then your “[…] therefore God doesn’t exist” becomes impossible to reach.
I’m going to help you past this confusion one more time.
In my experience, I’ve found that using a graph (graph, as in graph theory) makes teaching, and therefore learning, much easier. People reason easier and faster with images indicating things. This is why I gave the explanation of why this is not a circular argument in terms of “an arrow pointing to the Uncaused Cause”, and I labeled the arrow. The idea was so that you see that, since the graph has no loop (the loop of graph theory), it is not circular.
For it to be circular, it would have had to involve the Uncaused Cause bringing forth X, which X ultimately brings forth the Uncaused Cause. As I’ve told you earlier, you can call the Uncaused Cause and say you’ve proven the “Beginning of Everything”. That wouldn’t be circular (it is provably non-circular, since this previous sentence, with its full substitutions, terminates). Now, of course, “Beginning of Everything” is the Luganda word for God.
You say it is circular, and I bet you’re still obstinate on this. I’ll give you one last demonstration, and then abandon you to obstinacy, if you can’t move on. I’m going to use a demonstration we know not to be circular just by looking at ourselves. I’ll demonstrate, instead of God, that we have Eve, an unmothered mother, where the verb “mother” means to bear – that is, bring forth – a human child from within your human body, and that the noun “mother” is one who mothers. I hope you already see the connection (in my circles we say “draw the functor”) between the Uncaused Cause and the Unmothered Mother.
We know that all mothers who are themselves mothered have a mother. But since there was a start to mothering, there is an Unmothered Mother: Eve.
I could go on and on with many such arguments, which (of course, if you see with clear, open eyes, and a clear mind) are not circular. The reason the chicken-and-egg problem exists is because this argument, proceeding in steps identical to those that lead to the Uncaused Cause, is not circular. If it were circular, the problem of chicken-and-egg wouldn’t exist. (Same for when we ask: what made the first DNA? Since DNA codes for the factories that make it.)
Now, let’s await the parade that shows me how I just proved that Eve is born of one of her daughters, and foisted a circular argument on our smart, right-thinking, scientific, logical, rational, non-superstitious friends. 😀
Do you still think it is a circular argument?
No doubt so that you may pull out a well-rehearsed refutation of God, because it asks a presumably hard question. You’ll be glad when you no longer have to memorise the reasons for “reason”. It’s a sad method to use with all but history.
This excited, leaping paragraph is so wrong on so many levels (like most memorised-by-rote answers).
First, you say “as far as we know causality is a concept that applies within space-time.” What species of muddled, confused thought leads one to generalise (again, only as atheists can, in their false pride) that causality applies only within time and space? Indeed, I put to you that there is more than time and space (it is the whole mistake of methodological naturalism and reductive materialism to assume that time and space is all there is).
The Uncause Cause created what is created ex deus, as we like to say. There is causality within God. Repeat that until it sticks in, because therein lies a tap root of your (plural) confusion.
A grand, grand error of atheism is to take “as far as we know”, and use it as “all that is correct and possible”. In this error, this false pride, lies the root of atheism, as I’ve covered in other comments on this nice blog (I believe it was on the other post, your second post).
“Did space-time exist while ‘God’ was ‘causing’ the universe to exist?” Another brilliant display of confusion. If time and space, as we have it in this universe, is of this universe, how can it precede it?
This question is even only valid if (as I grant for argument) the time and space concept is (1) exclusive to the universe, and (2) is necessary for causation ex deus. It is otherwise quite as incoherent as “Did the universe exist while God was causing the universe to exist?”
And don’t say you asked it for effect; that you can think that such a hopelessly-confused question (no doubt “lacking” answers, because of how poorly-formed it is, and therefore fit to be memorised and brought forth in a brilliant display of “reason” to once and for all – “I was waiting for you to say exactly this” – silence these superstitious unscientific people) is a ringing indictment of not just you (plural), or atheist logic, but of methodological naturalism and reductive materialism.
Essentially, you’ve dug yourself a pit wherein you cannot define the things that certainly are, just because they are of God, and God is not allowed into the pit in which you wallow, shouting “Science!!!” every five seconds and “Reason!!!” every ten.
“Wait, but you guys say ‘God’ is ‘outside of time’.” Yes, outside of time and space. A bit like how I’m outside the limits of two dimensions, and while this sentence can’t see the sentence two sentences above it, for it is blocked by the one above it, I can see every sentence here. That sentence, no doubt (if it thinks that I’m bound by the laws by which it is bound, and importantly if it is very scientific and has reason and logic, and only believes what has been proven by science, et cetera) thinks that when this sentence tells it “The 27th Comrade is outside of rhyme and metre!”, this sentence, my dear prophet, is being absurd. Blessed are the sentences that believe without seeing, that have faith, that don’t fall for the foolish idea of methodological naturalism and reductive materialism: they shall be put in bold face, and unto them, my prophet sentences, shall be revealed their Creator’s Name. 😀
By the way, God can have created more than just the universe. We may never know what else, but He is not limited or in any way tied to this particular universe. We should actually just be grateful for the love we have, considering His boundless coolness. Almost like how you take the time to indulge me, when you could do cooler stuff. 🙂
“You can therefore see that the idea of ‘God’ as the ‘uncaused cause’ of the universe is self refuting; it renders the concept of causality meaningless.” This kind of sentence makes many assumptions that it (in order to stay standing) chooses not to have to justify. For example, that causality is the preserve of this universe. What confused thinking leads to this particular assurance?
I mean that it had become the null hypothesis for you. After all, when the Uncaused Cause stares you in the face, you appeal to “Quantum!!!” to solve that. Every obstacle leads you to say “Quantum!!!”, because you hope that the rules that otherwise work you into a corner will be avoided under the “Quantum!!!” conditions. That is why I called it the null hypothesis from where I’m standing. It was about you.
Once again, I’m not an astrophysicist. Refer to earlier answer. Yet what would you have done if I had said “Yes, I am.”? You see, the argument of methodological naturalism and reductive materialism is ultimately one long, long, long appeal to authority. See of the two of us whose case lives or dies by the quotes supporting it (even though Wikiquote and Google are free for both of us). This comically-flawed thinking assumes that argumentum ad authoritatem settles it, since we all believe in (and only in) “Science!!!”, and of course the high priests of this particular religion, the ones who receive the oracles, are the scientists. You can know a religion by seeing how much it relies on appealing to authority. “Science!!!” does it even more than Wahabi Islam, Roman Catholicism, and Anglican Protestantism all put together. In none of those is the number of infallible authorities as many as the people who can put together a peer-reviewed idea.
Methodological naturalism and reductive materialism and the consequent atheism are all built strongly on this one fallacy: argumentum ad authoritatem. Just to demonstrate, I’ll point out all the times you do it for the remainder of the comment that I’m replying to; the cases where essentially you say “It is correct because the Infallible Scientist X says it is!!!”. (This kind of thing is excusable if you have the right religion, but “Science!!! Reason!!!” is demonstrably not the right one.)
And, of course, I do not oppose the use of authority in argument. Merely the misapplication of it, and the failure to realise the implications of the human condition (capacity for lies, biases, failures, fallibility, et cetera) on the value of arguments thus reached. By all means use the style, if it floats your boat. But keep in mind that it is more-often flawed than it isn’t, especially in science where advancement is made by falsification of ideas previously thought to be true (so thought because of having been justified by experiment and the scientific method, et cetera).
I explain above why I say you did, in fact, assert exactly that.
Argumentum ad authoritatem. But by all means, proceed.
Argumentum ad authoritatem (in the “prevailing view” part; more like appeal to consensus, which Michael Crichton said immortal things about). See also: Climategate, alchemy, and so on (all of them backed by consensus in the “prevailing view” thereof).
Also, the view you presented is yours, not the prevailing view. Your view is comically flawed. Don’t take my understanding; take the view that you think you’re taking, but this time take it correctly.
It shouldn’t be difficult to know that thinking of quantum events as uncaused is wrong because you linked to the action-at-a-distance article. Now, read this carefully and repeat it out loud for retention: “action” is the other word for “effect”. You know what they mean, in pharmacology, when they speak of the “action” of the drug? They mean the effect of it.
Now consider your claims (and please don’t foist them on any scientists; they are yours entirely): “Quantum events, ‘highly-confirmed’ by experiments that reveal effect from a distant cause are proof that quantum events don’t have cause-effect pairs.”
Or, as we like to say, “Reason!!!”
Because they were not as confused as you (plura) are, and were therefore more fun to engage.
At least they realised the implications of their chosen axioms to the full extent: that’s what I want in an atheist. (I have many atheist friends, by the way; that’s the company I keep. I like non-believers because the believers I’ve met tend to be too obnoxious and unaccomodating. So liking atheist philosophers is merely a continuation of what I do in real life.)
For example, Spinoza realised that beauty and enjoyment and freedom (of thought and of deed) and thoughts and so on would no longer apply (they’re no more real than miracles, for example, because they, or the perceptions of them, are themselves miracles). That’s the kind of atheist I want. Not you inconsistent, incoherent types that go and croon about “how beautiful” your “free thought” is and how you “enjoy being free of superstition”, and how you “treasure, uphold, and love” these things like “reason” and “logic” and “science” even as you refuse to grant the premises by which these things come to be accepted as existent at all.
Plus, Spinoza is cool. It’s sad that he had bad axioms. Who can fail to love a guy who uses the ontological proof of God’s existence only later to be thought of as an atheist by some atheists who don’t achieve one percent the clarity of thought? Spinoza was not an atheist. Pantheism is a very different thing. But I understand the label.
Nietzsche, for example, realised that stupid things like “rights”, and “equality among men”, and “goodwill”, and “conscience” were supposed to be wrong and non-existent if God was also wrong and non-existent. That’s the kind of atheist I want. Not you muddled, confused lot who purr on about “gay rights” and “equal rights” and that it “behooves” our “conscience” to “treat” our “fellow humans” “well”, even as you refuse to grant the premises by which these things can begin to be considered true and real.
You asked why, and I’ve told you why. 😀
Well, the Uncaused Cause caused His creation to proceed forth according to some laws, which do not necessarily exclude a progression (an evolution, so to speak) of universes, one of which this one is.
Indeed, the other things may not be universes at all, and may obey laws shockingly-different from ours. It is why it is foolish – very foolish – of atheists to say “Because it is preposterous for God to exist according to the following things that are backed by our experience, God doesn’t exist.” The laws of this universe are merely a subset (therefore we know at least some of what is supposed to hold in part of creation, even if, at the very least, that will mean only our universe). This should give us pause before we make grand declarations.
Of course it is not what you hear from most theists, but, like I said, we are of all stripes. So when you say “Nigerians arresting a goat due to a religious reason is absurd, therefore religion and religious reasons are absurd”, you are going to be easy as pie to show to be incoherent and confused in a way only atheist logic can make one. It’s a drawn-out argumentum ad hominem, atheism, for the huge part.
And, of course, this is how the bulk of the atheist argument is built. It is an attack on specific people (“religious suicide bombers are dangerous!”) and then a generalisation is made (“religious people are dangerous!”) and an edict, a fatwa, if you will, is issued (“religion is dangerous!”) and a judgement is delivered (“God is dangerous”) and a final coup, the orgasm of this brilliant display of reason, science, and logic, is brought forth (“God doesn’t exist!”).
In this, you can trace the steps I mentioned in the other posts of how one arrives at atheism starting with a mis-understanding of God.
Er … argumentum ad authoritatem. “This Infallible Scientist doesn’t believe in God, therefore one shouldn’t believe in God.” Now what will you do if I tell you that Einstein hated it when people used his words to support atheism? What will you do? What will you do if you found out that he despised “those ideas”?
Einstein was a Spinozist. And that is as far as you can be from atheism without being a theist. He was a result of his time. Let’s see, “This Infallible scientist spoke German with an Austrian accent, and he didn’t comb, therefore one should speak German with an Austrian accent, and not comb.” There is a reason we don’t go throwing ad authoritatem arguments around. (Then again, we are not atheists, so we have the choice not to.)
By the way, I cited Einstein not for the “God” part of the quote, but for the “dice” part. I was saying that, since you were doing lots of argumeta ad authoritatem, I’d take the opportunity to tell you that Eistein thought that the causality chain of quantum events would turn out to be deterministic.
And when he said “God”, just so you know, he actually meant “God”, because he was a Spinozist.
Well, accept my profuse apologies. I didn’t intend for it to be an ad hominem, because I was describing a word, not anybody. I was defining “smart” as I used it. And indeed the choice of words was poor (it was American, because I was defining a word whose usage is now primarily American), and the words didn’t communicate enough propriety. Mea culpa.
Let me define “smart” again: having good peer-reviewed results among peers who enforce strict boundaries for thought.
I hope that takes the ad hominem edge off it. But I maintain that you choose the atheist tag if at least in part because it helps you seem “smarter”. (I put that word in quotes again, because I mean the definition above. I think I never use it as a positive description.)
I’ll charge you, in my turn, with ignoratum questioni. As in, you like ignoring questions when I ask you. For example, that bit that you quoted lengthily contained a question, which you don’t answer. And this happens all over the place, and as I told you on the other post, I don’t ask these questions rhetorically. They are for establishing where you stand.
(By the way, my Latin is poor, so ignoratum questioni may be wrong on many levels.)
Hey, (1) as I explained (in comments on the other post, I think) the existence of ‘jklejkrl’ would not have been disproven, and (2) establishing how the phenomenon happens doesn’t disqualify the activity of ‘jklejkrl’, it merely explains it. That is why I told you that after describing the water cycle, one can say “and that is how God waters His creation”. Or take our myth of the god Bukuku who is trapped underground and makes earthquakes when he tries to escape. We know about tectonic plates and volcanic activity, and say “And that’s how Bukuku makes the earth quake”.
Since, as you see, scientific explanations don’t invalidate even our myth, this foolish idea that ascribing a phenomenon to God makes it impervious to investigation is yet another atheist trope of assuming things about theists. Didn’t I tell you that atheism is in large part an ad hominem? That is why the huge majority (nearly all) of all inventions of substance (because confused arguments against God’s existence, though numerous, are not of substance) have been done by people who believe in God. All inventors certainly believe in a creator, since they are an instance of such a one. And sensible inventors know that when the laws by which the invention works are uncovered (say by parts of the invention) it is insufferably foolish to go from that to “the inventor doesn’t exist!”, oxymoronic phrasing and all. The correct thing to say is: “So that’s how Karl Friedrich Benz lubricates his wheels!” It is yet reasonable for this part of the car to have thought that Karl Friedrich Benz keeps pouring graphite dust into the wheels to lubricate them.
But you can’t trust atheists to use logic half as well as the lowly car door!
Do you understand this, James?
And since you say you agree that uncovering naturalistic phenomena can augment one’s faith, offering as that does an opportunity to worship, you have no juice left in your assertions about how explaining phenomena naturalistically somehow invalidates faith. And that was the point of your post (of course, doomed from the start).
I agree. And methodological naturalism and reductive materialism cannot be established as true, and hence neither can atheism.
Well, look who is bitter. 😀 Or should I call out an ad hominem here? Or call out an assumption made about me and how I feel about my beliefs being challenged? Or should I just forgive it all? I don’t mind my beliefs being challenged. Some people, however, think they are excercising reason when they are the paragons of the misuse (even disuse) thereof. They think they have reason, when they don’t. You’ll notice that of the two of us, it is you with the blog that has a crusade to carry out: convert to reason. I don’t know if the radio show is like that as well, but generally speaking, if you put, say “Progressive Hinduism” where you have “Reason”, you’ll be able to label yourself “religious nutter”, as you do the rest of us.
Calm down, come down, let’s reason together.
Argumentum ad authoritatem. Also, there is a growing number of people in the world who do not know how to use their time well before a computer. (I’m such a one.) Do you want to connect those dots? There is a growing number of people who are angry and suicidal. Of course, by your logic, suicidal states of mind are what we should all aim for! “Reason!!!”
Appealing to the trends of the masses to give weight to what you believe is as poor an argument from authority as one can get. “Because everybody is doing it!” Do you remember my definition of “smart”? Now you know why all atheists are smart. 🙂
By the way, there is a growing number of people who believe in God. What was the point you were supposed to be buttressing? It appears, from where I’m stading, that you hugged it too hard and killed it!
Argumentum ad authoritatem. Some of the best minds also don’t know any African languages, and have no intention of learning any. They also don’t want to learn Chinese. Do you want to follow what your “Infallible Scientists” do? Have you ever wondered why I don’t say “All the popes and bishops and imams have always been, and are, believers in God, so you should believe in God!”? I’d have already brought that out, but I’m not using the incoherent mess that is atheist logic.
Do you even realise just how terrible your position has to be before you have to back it up like this? Those “best minds” have the wrong axioms. The best computer in the world will still run a buggy program in a buggy way, just better and faster than my computer (that is, a buggy program will crash sooner on a faster, better machine). So, the best minds can be wrong and getting to the wrong conclusion faster than the rest of us.
Imagine, you draw from the argument from authority (and a poor argument) that it may be that you’re not wrong. [Argument from authority], therefore we may right. This, James, is how bad your (plural) arguments are.
Atheist scientists who use the existential qualifier (for example in expecting that adding a positive number to another will result in a bigger number) are inconsistent. You can only fail to disprove the existence of a higher positive number (leave alone the existence of truth, rigour, accuracy, honesty, correctness, and so on) only if you can also fail to disprove the existence of God. It’s just that the rigour with which we assess their calculations is higher than that with which we assess their declarations about God. (When we assess their followers, they say we are bitter theocrats who want to foist our beliefs on them. Ad hominem, atheist style.) In any case, how do you cite an authority on A as a proof of a matter in unrelated (indeed opposite) matter B? You have to use the muddled atheist logic to do that. These are the depths of poor argument, man. I see that you link to Stephen Jay Gould; do you know that you are violating his principle of “Non-Overlapping Magisteria” enough to make the dude cry? And this is what passes for “Reason!!!” as proudly stated in your blog tagline? May I take it that you understand that Gould said there must be something to religion, since he found many of his most-clear-headed friends believed in God?
We don’t need better arguments when this is what they are going to have to be placed next to.
Yes, and logic set me straight. In any case, Pascal’s Wager is an argument for theism. It is built on top of doubt itself. (In case you didn’t know, Pascal starts it off by saying that he doesn’t like arguments for God from reason alone. I agree with him here, but with some audiences we don’t have much choice.)
This reminds me about how Prof. Daniel Dennett dodges this question all the time, by turning it around and saying “I wish theists could ask themselves that!” Well, guys, we did! Pascal’s Wager is a theistic argument.
Now, you, have you considered the possibility that you could be wrong?
So am I. But you had asked questions that needed answering. And there are too many young minds out there that may need to see both sides, rather than your terribly-poor caricatures of theistic belief.
And so I had to write this, and I post it now.
I will respect the call for cessation. I’m not going to post another unless explicitly prompted for it.