1. Comment #81420 by aquilacane on October 24, 2007 at 5:34 pm

There is no proof of a god, so the argument can't even begin to be made. That would be like saying I am the ultimate in logic because I believe in Graduminotata, or Swabiswabininundo. God is just another meaningless word, quite frankly. It is a veil to hide behind. This argument should not take place, there are no grounds for it. the only meaning that can be provided must be provided by the one making the argument, judge what is being said based on the intent of the speaker and not the imagined intent of a magical skydaddy.

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2. Comment #81421 by maton100 on October 24, 2007 at 5:38 pm

Let's not forget the transcendental argument for Charlton Heston either.

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3. Comment #81433 by Crossman on October 24, 2007 at 5:56 pm

Evolution explains how rational beings, albeit with lots of biases, can come about through non-rational forces over millions of years.

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4. Comment #81434 by ? on October 24, 2007 at 5:58 pm

This objection sounds interesting on the surface, but its based on outdated medieval scholastic logic. In the face of an empirical worldview, it falls apart. It doesn't matter if reason has its roots in non-rational forces or processes beacuse:

1. Its here now and is what it is, regardless of origin.
2. It is valueable because it can be shown to get results.

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5. Comment #81436 by Acleron on October 24, 2007 at 5:58 pm

If atheism asserts anything, it is that the universe started as a random event. Darwin's theory of evolution shows that by selective pressure a variety phenotypes can occur from random variation. Homo sapiens' 'intelligence' presumably was selected for and made us the the most abundant medium sized mammal on the planet. Unfortunately there was no selective mechanism for rationality, so while some parts of the population can make use of their intelligence to achieve rationality a significant proportion can only achieve belief.

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6. Comment #81446 by Eelis on October 24, 2007 at 6:22 pm

First of all, the argument is incomplete. Certainly its advocates would not claim that, in general, for a process to be able to produce something having property X, the process itself must have property X (because by that logic, a fast car can only be produced by a fast process). In what way is the property of rationality supposedly special?

Fortunately, regardless of its incompleteness, the argument can be refuted by exhibiting a counterexample: evolution. Evolution naturally gives rise to rational agents, because rationality gives an obvious competitive advantage (e.g. being able to reason about the location of food or attackers, being able to select the best location to grow crops, etc.). In particular, this explanation requires no rational agent guiding the process.

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7. Comment #81471 by prettygoodformonkeys on October 24, 2007 at 7:30 pm

Reasoning coming about as a result of non-rational forces is exactly what has happened. No problem; this does not refute reasoning.

The study of evolution shows that reason is an extremely recent development, and was not needed before that. Still, reason is what makes sense to us as thinking primates, it is what defines falsifiability, it explains why we can agree on things, why some things work and others do not, and why some things are (we can agree) ridiculous. Never mind what they are, it is always reason that we use to make the determination.

The fabrication of an all-knowing being does not make any reasonable sense, nor does it set up a usable framework that would be an alternative to reason.

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8. Comment #81494 by Extropian on October 24, 2007 at 8:41 pm

I've dealt with some apologists who have used this line of argument. In my experience the argument was presented in a slightly different way than described at the top of the page.

The main thrust of the argument thrown at me was that I, as the atheist, assumed the existence of God in order to disprove God's existence. Pretty nifty, that. He/she will go on to explain. Incidentally, the best response to this initial claim is to raise one's eyebrows and ask, "Really. How so?". Since I utilized logic and reason, my assumption was that these faculties are accessing an external standard of truth by which our respective arguments could be judged. Without this external standard, the best I as an atheist could hope for was a sophist's victory. By definition, this external standard must exist outside and over the realm that it judges; not a problem for a supernatural believing theist as they posit the real existence of this external standard (a Platonic Ideal would be the best description of their understanding of what this standard is)and posit God as the ultimate guarentor of this standard (since he created it and sustains it and all truth/standards). This argument can appear as a real logical problem for a thorough-going naturalist (such as myself) if one has not examined one's presuppositions thoroughly and has this sort of argument thrown at them without any preparation or background on it. So goes the argument as I have met it in the trenches.

In short, it is an argument focusing on one's presuppositions and most folks really don't look to hard at their own presuppositions. In fact, this whole genre of apologetics is called Presuppositional Apologetics. It comes out of the Calvinist side of things and is the apologetics of the modern-day Christian Reconstructionist Movements. Cornelius Van Till is the intellectual father of the movement and more recent authors include Greg Bahnsen, Gary North and RJ Rushdooney and those authors are great primers and will allow one to see all the flavors of this style of argumentation.

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9. Comment #81573 by jagmarz on October 24, 2007 at 11:12 pm

Given that 0 = 1, all things may be proven, through nice, simple, easy to understand, but ultimately meaningless and nonsensical logic. What's not to like about religion? God exists, therefore atheists are illogical. QED. Game over. Next!

Hmm. I wrote the above trying to be sarcastic, but it's depressingly close to the original. Demonstrate to me that it's impossible (or even illogical) for the rational to arise out of the irrational; THEN we can address the rest of the question. As a counter example - roll a die and predict the result. You can't. But roll it 100 times and the sum will be extremely close to 350. Order out of chaos; rational out of irrational. It's what the universe is built on, but I suppose that's not really proof, since god created the die in the first place...


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10. Comment #81584 by Shuggy on October 24, 2007 at 11:43 pm

Excuse me? How have you shown that reason can not arise from absence of reason? You just made that rule up! Prove it.

If I pour dry sand into a heap, it forms a cone. By your logic, disorganised sand cannot of itself form a geometric shape such as a cone, but requires some supernatural conemaker...




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11. Comment #81594 by atp on October 25, 2007 at 12:19 am

Atheism doesn't assert anything. It is a lack of belief in something.

I simply have to admit I don't know these things, and that my lack of knowledge is no reason to believe in any random story about supernatural beings or similar that logically cannot be proved to have no more or less truth in it than other random stories.

The propostion that "God did it" does not give me any more knwoledge outside the proposition itself. As not as it is not based in reality or logic and cannot be proved or disproved, the proposition about God holds no value.

It gives no knowledge and no real answers, it only provides us with more questions. How did God come about?

And using Occams razor I can say. If God could exists in order to create the univers. Couldn't the laws of existence that permitted God to exist just as well permit the existence of our universe without any interaction of a God?

So as an atheist I don't have to assert anything. I just have to acknowledge that the story about God holds no value, gives no knowledge and is utterly superfluous.

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12. Comment #81600 by thelivingbrian on October 25, 2007 at 12:39 am

The proposed argument is self-rufting. It states that theist's arguments are founded on a notion. Notions are not true logic, so it follows (from the given argument) that theists cannot claim logic or coherence in their arguments.

It is a bit ironic that an argument that opens with the phrase "Atheism is self-refuting," is self-refuting.

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13. Comment #81636 by bitbutter on October 25, 2007 at 1:40 am

Atheism is self-refuting because it asserts that everything in the universe, including the atheist's own reasoning, came about as a result of non-rational forces. If that is indeed the case, every argument employed by the atheist is, according to his own assertions, incoherent and meaningless. Only the theist is able to claim coherence and true logic in his arguments because those arguments are founded on the notion of an all-knowing being.

Only by subscribing to a position that asserts the primacy of consciousness can one escape the idea that we came about through the action of non-rational forces.

But the primacy of consciousness always loses out to the primacy of existence. Since any consciousness (even a god's) has to exist, we have to conclude that existence is primary. This being so it follows that things (even gods) are, ultimately, contingent on non-rational forces.

The presuppositional theist fails to realise this and builds his 'claim to coherence' on an imaginary foundation.

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14. Comment #81666 by Paul Creber on October 25, 2007 at 2:34 am

I made an attempt at countering this argument here: http://www.fcosonline.org/index.php?topic=5.msg97;topicseen#msg97 (reply 51)

...but I'm no evolutionary biologist and I may well be hopelessly adrift. Any suggestions for improving or amending this line of argument would be welcome.

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15. Comment #81675 by Zakie Chan on October 25, 2007 at 2:58 am

You can also just take any extremely crazy story from the bible (like God sending bears to kill 40 children for making fun of a bald guy, in 2 Kings), and ask the Christian if he believes that that was reasonable/rational response from God. They might make up some crazy excuse, but just persist that YOU think its irrational. And if you think its irrational, your reasoning abilities couldn't have come from God... since God obviously thought it was a reasonable thing to do.

You can use the same tactic for "God gives us morality." If there is any moral action or statement that God has done or made, and we disagree with it, then we know our morality didnt come from God. For if it did, we would agree with everything God allegedly has done.

Oh yeah, and the TAG also completely begs the question.

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16. Comment #81700 by Synchronium on October 25, 2007 at 3:52 am

The forces that gave rise to me are a damn sight more rational than those responsible for conjouring up an imaginary god, even if I don't understand them.

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17. Comment #81903 by sidfaiwu on October 25, 2007 at 11:27 am

"The Transcendental Argument for God" or "how can rational beings be the result of non-rational forces".

Just as orange can be made from non-orange light, or that a liquid, water, can be made from non-liquid components, hydrogen and oxygen.

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18. Comment #81962 by Axulus on October 25, 2007 at 12:58 pm

Here is a somewhat concise rebuttal to this argument, perhaps it can be better refined:

Are you using reason/logic for this argument of yours? You can not use reason/logic to say that a rational universe can only exist on the foundation of an all knowing being since you have not yet shown that reason/logic is a way to arrive at knowledge. We must both start with the assumption that we can gain knowledge by reasoning things out in a logical/rational way or else we must conclude that nothing can be known. Is it your position that nothing can be known?

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19. Comment #82047 by Mewtwo_X on October 25, 2007 at 3:33 pm

"Your second sentence does not follow and seems to invoke Universal Skepticism, while ignoring the fact that it can apply to everything. What makes you so sure that you can trust a god to give a stable foundation for reason? Couldn't it give you a propagandistic logic instead?"

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20. Comment #82327 by steve99 on October 26, 2007 at 4:22 am

Only the theist is able to claim coherence and true logic in his arguments because those arguments are founded on the notion of an all-knowing being.

The issue here is that theists are allowed to get away with claiming that God is somehow the foundation of all kinds of things - statements for which they have no evidence or logical basis.

They want there to be objective morality ... so, God is provides morality....
They want some explanation for why there is something rather than nothing" .... so, God is the "ground of all being"
They want meaning ... so God provides meaning

Unless they can explain why or how God provides these services, they are in no better position than atheists, and "because of God" is simply a meaningless phrase supplied as an answer to all hard questions.

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21. Comment #82329 by stevencarrwork on October 26, 2007 at 4:32 am

'Atheism is self-refuting because it asserts that everything in the universe, including the atheist's own reasoning, came about as a result of non-rational forces'

What is a rational force?

'Only the theist is able to claim coherence and true logic in his arguments because those arguments are founded on the notion of an all-knowing being.'

And theists claim that there are malovelent demons capable of attacking their reasoning and highly-motivated to do so.

Why believe the words of people who claim that they might be possessed by demons?

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22. Comment #82330 by irate_atheist on October 26, 2007 at 4:33 am

Stock reply -

"Go and lie down in a quiet, dark room for a couple of hours. You'll soon feel better. Nurse! Next patient please!"

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23. Comment #82583 by aslipp on October 26, 2007 at 8:01 pm

TAG is generally a lot more complicated than it is described here, and poses significant epistemological questions that can't just be washed away by pointing out "Circular argument!" For TAGers (or pre-sups, whichever) assuming the existence of God (and the Christian God, at that) is precisely the point, because if you don't, all human thought, science, morality becomes completely unreliable. TAG isn't about proving anything to anyone - it's about undermining any other worldview besides that of the TAGer.

BitButter (#13) offers something very close to what's been going around my own head. Assuming that God is the foundation of human thought (man created in God's image, etc.) requires a further assumption: That God exists and has characteristics. Jade at the Internet Infidels board presented a much more comprehensive version of this here (formal debate): http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=80583

and here (peanut gallery discussion): http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?p=1507999

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24. Comment #82737 by bitbutter on October 27, 2007 at 12:30 pm

@aslipp: Agreed. I think its easy to underestimate the strengths of the presup' approach if you haven't debated with a presupper before. You can be caught off guard and end up looking foolish (Bahnsen vs. Stein).

BitButter (#13) offers something very close to what's been going around my own head. Assuming that God is the foundation of human thought (man created in God's image, etc.) requires a further assumption: That God exists and has characteristics. Jade at the Internet Infidels board presented a much more comprehensive version of this here (formal debate): http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=80583

Yes, Jade's posts are some of the most insightful i've read on this topic.

The answer to TAG which i posted earlier is a version of the Objectivist rejection of theism, which i think has a lot of mileage when it comes to answering presupp' apologetics.

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25. Comment #82738 by Bonzai on October 27, 2007 at 12:40 pm

Agreed. I think its easy to underestimate the strengths of the presup' approach if you haven't debated with a presupper

Would a "presupper" be an appetizer? :)

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26. Comment #82747 by Lauregon on October 27, 2007 at 1:09 pm

wikipedia:

Presuppositional apologetics is a school of Christian apologetics, a field of Christian theology that aims to (1) present a rational basis for the Christian faith, (2) defend the faith against objections, and (3) expose the perceived flaws of other worldviews.[1] Presuppositional apologetics is especially concerned with the third aspect of this discipline...

The key discriminator of this school is that it maintains that the Christian apologist must assume the truth of the supernatural revelation contained in the Bible (that is, the Christian worldview) because there can be no set of neutral assumptions[3] from which to reason with a non-Christian, and apart from such "presuppositions" one could not make sense of any human experience...

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27. Comment #83099 by Shuggy on October 29, 2007 at 12:21 am

This is the nearest category I could find to

'Why is there something rather than nothing?'

(which should maybe have its own thread)

Here are my answers:

Answer 1. If there were nothing, we wouldn't be here to ask.

Answer 1a. In fact there wouldn't even be a "here" for us not to be.

Answer 2. I don't know. It's all right not to know.

Answer 3. If your answer is 'Because God/dess/es decided there should be.' then you've only added one layer to the problem: Why are there one or more god/dess/es rather than none? An intangible all-powerful intelligence (or more than one) doesn't actually answer that question.
Is it even a sensible question?
So

Answer 4. One of its legs are both the same.




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28. Comment #83399 by Garnok on October 29, 2007 at 11:13 pm

Atheism is self-refuting because it asserts that everything in the universe, including the atheist's own reasoning, came about as a result of non-rational forces. If that is indeed the case, every argument employed by the atheist is, according to his own assertions, incoherent and meaningless. Only the theist is able to claim coherence and true logic in his arguments because those arguments are founded on the notion of an all-knowing being.

Which requires that said all- knowing being actually exists, otherwise making said arguement meaningless, incoherent and based on nothing but one's own conceit unless one can show that god exists or is very likely to. A claim that requires the existence of something to be true cannot also be used as evidence that said thing exists.

I'm just saying. :)

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29. Comment #84824 by Elentar on November 3, 2007 at 6:22 pm

My impression of Jade's argument on IIDB is that it is similar in structure to Plato's argument in the Euthyphro, in which Plato argues that what is good is not so because the gods demand it, but the gods demand it because it is good. This is my own variation on it:

1) The theistic God has a Presence (existence), Form (nature), and Context (connections with other things). Therefore it falls within the scope of Metaphysical Naturalism.
2) This means that theists must assume the tenants of Metaphysical Naturalism to believe in God. Metaphysical Naturalism is not founded on belief in God. Theists apply the same conceptual framework to their God as they do to the world. The conceptual framework comes first.
4) Induction works because of the regularity and consistency of the universe. Things which are alike behave in like manner, and, after some study, we understand why they behave that way.
4) We can understand the universe not because it was designed for us, but because we were designed by it. Evolution favoured only a type of rationality that worked in this universe.
5) Morality evolved the same way, reflecting the social and emotional realities of living as human beings.

The really interesting part is where he talks at the end about presuppositionalism. The TAG is more complex than stated to be; it does not merely presuppose the existence of God, but claims that YOU need to presuppose the existence of God just to argue, or you have no basis for believing in rationality. The argument against the TAG is to found reason in Metaphysical Naturalism, making God superfluous.

I was expecting his opponent to drag in a variant of the Fine Tuning argument; why is the universe regular and consistent (the opponent quit after the first round.) The answer is that the universe would be unstable if this were so, and probably would have collapsed in the first instant of the Big Bang. There are many possible explanations for this, some of which have some well reasoned arguments to back them up, and some of which are mere conjecture. Theism falls in the latter category. Add to this the range of explanations that we have not guessed or can not imagine, and the theistic explanation is but a very small dot in a vast constellation of possibilities.

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30. Comment #84835 by keith on November 3, 2007 at 9:32 pm

A genuine question: Could someone explain to me what a non-rational force is? For example, is gravity rational or non-rational?
Thanks in advance,
Keith

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31. Comment #84841 by 35bluejacket on November 3, 2007 at 10:41 pm

This question has been perplexing me for sometime, in a bit different form. Can an atheist claim that math and logic are just an invention of man or evolved? The profoundness of these desciplines weren't even understood by their uncovers. Did Pythagoras foresee a connection to Newton? That sounds unlikely. Do these pregnant systems of thought, that are worlds within themselves, stand independent of man and if so, how did they get there?
I need some enlightment here.

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32. Comment #84876 by stevencarrwork on November 4, 2007 at 2:09 am

Why was Newton able to get such accurate results using a basically mistaken view of the world?

Because God guarantees that even mistaken physics is reliable?

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33. Comment #84889 by 35bluejacket on November 4, 2007 at 3:49 am

Stevencarrwork

Example. please...

Newton's physics were not mistaken, they just needed revision. They didn't deal with the great expanses of space. That is my understanding.


The question is: are the laws of physics independent of man?

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34. Comment #84923 by killer_rabbit79 on November 4, 2007 at 8:05 am

Even if the argument that rational thought is wrong because the universe is irrational is true, it doesn't mean a god exists so I really don't care.

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35. Comment #84993 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 4, 2007 at 12:50 pm

Bitbutter (post 13 or #81636):

But the primacy of consciousness always loses out to the primacy of existence. Since any consciousness (even a god's) has to exist, we have to conclude that existence is primary. This being so it follows that things (even gods) are, ultimately, contingent on non-rational forces.

Ontologies around the concept of God postulate that God is the most fundamental or ultimate aspect of reality, so the idea that God is contingent on something else makes no sense. Be careful not to beg the question. So it's not: "Here we have a true theory of how objective reality is and we only have to discuss whether to assume that God exists in that reality makes any sense or is useful for anything", but rather "Here we have two alternative theories about objective reality, one that postulates that reality is ultimately material and ultimately driven my mechanical laws, and one that postulates that reality is ultimately personal and ultimately driven by free will".


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36. Comment #84996 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 4, 2007 at 12:59 pm

The transcendental argument for God (TAG) is not one argument but a type of argument, and it does not argue positively for God but negatively against worldviews that are not based on God. Normally TAGs argue against classes of non-transcendental ontological theories, i.e. non-transcendental theories about objective reality. Their form is:

1. If non-transcendental theory T is true then X is false. (premise)
2. X is true. (premise)
3. Therefore non-transcendental theory T is false. (from 1 and 2)

The logic itself is impeccable, for example the well-known argument from evil uses the same structure:

1. If an all-powerful and all-good God exists then no gratuitous evil exists. (premise)
2. Gratuitous evil exists. (premise)
3. Therefore an all-powerful and all-good God does not exist. (from 1 and 2)

As the logic of TAGs is solid, one can only object to one of the two premises. Normally the first premise is solid, unless it misunderstands the theory T it refers to. So, in practice, one must attack the second premise.

Today TAGs are used to argue against the typical non-religious ontological theory which is "scientific realism", namely the theory that the concepts that science uses (such as spacetime, matter, electron, force, etc) do not only refer to specific parts of models of the physical phenomena that science studies, but also, and at least to some degree, refer to the objective reality that produces these phenomena. The basic idea then of scientific realism is that science not only describes phenomena but also the objective reality that produces them.

If one uses T="scientific realism" under any of its specific guises, then a series of X can be used to falsify it. Some cases are X="objective morality exists", or X="free will exists", or X="consciousness exists", or X="meaning exists", or X="rational humans exist", and others. Now the existence of some of these X can in fact be denied, so there are atheists who emphatically deny the existence of free will (free will is incompatible both with deterministic and non-deterministic versions of scientific realism), or the existence of objective morality. Here we encounter interesting state of affairs: One can of course deny the existence of these and therefore maintain the viability of scientific realism (it's a free country after all). But at least equally reasonably one can affirm the existence of these and therefore deny the viability of scientific realism.

The case of "X=consciousness exists" is more difficult to deny by a scientific realist. Here there exist two strategies: 1) bite the bullet and deny the existence of consciousness at least under revised definitions of what it exactly "consciousness" means, or 2) deny the premise that scientific realism implies the non-existence of consciousness. In the case of consciousness I think most scientific realists follow #2 and claim that even though today nobody is offering any explanation of how consciousness could be produced by a mechanical system (all systems described by science are mechanical) such an explanation will be forthcoming in the future. Or else to argue, as David Chalmers does, for some sort of dualism in which consciousness is a fundamental and irreducible principle of an objective reality amenable to scientific research.

The case of "X=rational humans exist", which is the case the OP used, is more difficult to understand. Indeed it would seem that the theory of evolution explains the evolution of rational beings, but it turns out that natural evolution cannot in fact explain rationality because there is no selective mechanism for rationality. One must not confuse rationality with intelligence: natural evolution can explain why we have evolved the intelligence which guides the sophisticated kind of behavior that has allowed us to become the dominant species on the planet, but cannot explain why we should evolve any cognitive capacity that does not lead to any survival advantage for our genes, such as to device theories about how the objective reality that produces phenomena is. But scientific realism is just such a theory. So that's where scientific realism's incoherence lies: if scientific realism is true then we don't actually have the cognitive capacity to justify its truth. That's the crux of Plantinga's argument against naturalism. As far as I am concerned the only possible response is for a naturalist to have faith that despite there not being any evolutionary reason for it we do in fact possess the cognitive ability to think about objective reality. (There's an entire book about Plantinga's argument: "Naturalism Defeated?: Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism".)

Finally, how does all that work as an argument for God and not only against naturalistic non-transcendental theories of reality? The general idea is that once only transcendental theories of reality remain viable, the same style of argument can be used to falsify such ontologies which do not postulate that reality is ultimately based on a rational and good person. But why not? Why not postulate a non-naturalistic transcendental reality not ultimately based on a rational and good person? Because both objective goodness and rationality appear to not be possible in such a reality, as both objective goodness and the emergence of rational beings appear to only make sense in the context of an ultimate consciousness which is good and which has intentionally created rational beings.

Of course the atheist may reject all that, namely deny that free will exists, deny that objective morality exists, deny that human rationality exists, leaving open in what sense consciousness exists, and so on. In the end of the day and once one has really studied the issues what matters is which ontological theory strikes one as more reasonable. The idea behind TAGs is to convince people how unreasonable non-theistic theories about reality really are.


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37. Comment #85013 by robotaholic on November 4, 2007 at 1:54 pm

Why does everyone always quote Chalmers? - I don't think I agree with a thing he's said. Why does anyone bother with TAG either? Why should the origon of rationality require a rational being? - There are many examples of complexity arrising out of the noncomplex - like all lifeforms on planet earth - the big bang - like RD says the only explanation for complexity is that it started out noncomplex - For one to say the complex came from the complex doesn't explain anything. (And then once complex - we developed language and a sense of self/I/ & finally rationality)
Also the argument says "all knowing" being - I think its like impossible to know Everything in the universe - isn't there like a theorum in math that like proves it? - if not - still it seems like a childish argument

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38. Comment #85033 by Russell Blackford on November 4, 2007 at 3:42 pm

Well, the simple way to put it is "We can know that X is the case only if it happens that Y is the case." X is something very high-level that we are alleged to know, such as "free will exists", "morality is objective", "deductive logic works", "the universe exhibits regularity" etc. Y is something like "there is an all-powerful intelligence".

Often X turns out to be something rather dubious - to say the least, in some cases. For example, it strikes me as wildly unlikely that free will exists in the sense that must be meant, or that morality is objective in the requisite sense. Admittedly, these are things that we are inclined to say, pre-theoretically, but once we think about them it is hard to pin down how they can even be coherent claims, much less claims that we know to be true. If they are true at all, it is likely to be in some very modest sense (as with compatibilist accounts of free will or virtue ethics accounts of morality).

The interesting claims are that deductive logic works and that the universe exhibits regularity over time. To the extent that we do "know" these claims are true (and we need to be very tentative about just what that extent is), it's by no means obvious that the only explanation is the will of an all-powerful intelligence ... or even that this is a good explanation.

That kind of explanation is one that people may think they understand, since agency seems very familiar to them, but I doubt that anyone does understand it once we are talking about some kind of infinite, timeless agency and how it is supposed to affect things like logic. It is clearly something that many people find psychologically attractive and are inclined to say. But that's all.

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39. Comment #85037 by 35bluejacket on November 4, 2007 at 3:57 pm

Jeez!! These verbose arguments sound like the same noises that come from the lecturns of theists.
Is there someone out there who can help me with the answer of this simple question: Are the laws of physics independent of man?

I'm trying to get some enlightenment here.

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40. Comment #85124 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 5, 2007 at 3:44 am

Russell Blackford (post 38, or #85033):

Often X turns out to be something rather dubious - to say the least, in some cases. For example, it strikes me as wildly unlikely that free will exists in the sense that must be meant, or that morality is objective in the requisite sense. Admittedly, these are things that we are inclined to say, pre-theoretically, but once we think about them it is hard to pin down how they can even be coherent claims, much less claims that we know to be true. If they are true at all, it is likely to be in some very modest sense (as with compatibilist accounts of free will or virtue ethics accounts of morality).

I am not sure about objective morality but I think I can show you are factually wrong when you claim that the more one thinks about the libertarian sense of free will the less viable it becomes: About half the well-known specialist philosophers and scientists (atheists all) that Susan Blackmore interviewed said they did believe in libertarian free will (see her "Conversations on Consciousness: What the Best Minds Think about the Brain, Free Will, and What It Means to Be Human"). I personally cannot even imagine how it would be like for me to doubt my having libertarian free will. As for the issue of objective morality atheism is a little schizophrenic: On the one hand atheists argue that there is no objective morality, and on the other hand they insist on the "argument from evil" against the existence of God, a premise of which is that some evils at least are obviously objective. My claim is that the more one studies the best that metaphysical naturalism and theism have to offer the less impressive the intellectual underpinning of the former looks. In fact I think that the best explanation for the recent popularity of atheism is the widespread (as well as illusory) perception that atheism is intellectually superior, a perception believed on faith by most atheists. People do not understand the issues one way or the other but they wish to belong to the group of people who are perceived to be smarter. I wish people (theists and atheists alike) would study more and be less tribal.

The interesting claims are that deductive logic works and that the universe exhibits regularity over time.

Perhaps you are thinking of Mark Steiner's ideas, see http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog/STEAPP.html So we have another possible X for a transcendental argument, namely X="math works for understanding nature". There are several others, including for example X="colored objects exist". It seems to me that the evidence against metaphysical naturalism at least is overwhelming. I wonder how long it will take for this insight to filter down, but it will in the end. Or for the insight that the hard sciences have lost sight of objective reality (or as Nick Herbert says: "One of the best-kept secrets of science is that physicists have lost their grip on reality").

That kind of explanation is one that people may think they understand, since agency seems very familiar to them, but I doubt that anyone does understand it once we are talking about some kind of infinite, timeless agency and how it is supposed to affect things like logic. It is clearly something that many people find psychologically attractive and are inclined to say.

Of course if God does exist then we should expect people to be created in such a way as to experience belief in God as attractive, so the fact that they do experience God as attractive at best says nothing at all about the existence or non-existence of God (but perhaps can be construed as one more piece of evidence for God with X="objective reality is hard to understand naturalistically")

But that's all.

No, not by far. I have observed that when things become difficult atheists will either go back to quoting the Bible (as if what the Bible says here or there is good evidence for the existence or non-existence of God), or else go back to claiming that belief in God can be explained as wishful thinking (as if that makes any sense as an argument). Actually the fact that so often atheists are reduced to falling back to these two non-arguments only evidences how weak the atheist position really is.

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41. Comment #85126 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 5, 2007 at 3:56 am

35bluejacket (post 39, or #85037):

Is there someone out there who can help me with the answer of this simple question: Are the laws of physics independent of man?

Depends on how you mean the question. The laws of physics are discovered by humans (men as well as women :-) and in that sense they are not independent. But probably you are asking whether the laws of physics apply whether humans have discovered them or not. If so, yes, they do.

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42. Comment #85137 by steve99 on November 5, 2007 at 4:58 am

It seems to me that the evidence against metaphysical naturalism at least is overwhelming.

No, it isn't. You only claim this because you personally have difficulty with the consequences of a naturalist view of the world. There are plenty of aspects of the world that people find problematic, but we know are correct, such as relativity. It is not reasonable to expect reality to fit into our ape brains, and it is arrogant to assume it will.

But at least equally reasonably one can affirm the existence of these and therefore deny the viability of scientific realism.

No, you can't reasonably affirm the existence of objective morality. It is a HUGE claim, and needs a lot of backing.

The flaw in your reasoning here is to assume that one can just as easily affirm the existence of something as affirm its absense.

Or for the insight that the hard sciences have lost sight of objective reality (or as Nick Herbert says: "One of the best-kept secrets of science is that physicists have lost their grip on reality").

The best people to judge that are the physicists themselves, who, in general, just don't believe that at all.

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43. Comment #85139 by 35bluejacket on November 5, 2007 at 5:04 am

DG,


Yes, I mean females, teenagers that are not quite adults and males and females that don't really consider themselves quite that gender. Its a manor of speech. I don't know why I even have to mention this.

Are the Laws of Physics "Independent" of man? Example: If all humans on our planet were to perish today. Would the Laws of Physics still be in effect tomorrow? If it is the case that they would be, how could we argue that they are a subject of evolution? It also appears that these Laws (that are worlds in themselves and can predict the actions of material objects) do not have the qualities of the "materisl" universe. Where did the phenomenon of the Laws of Physics of come from?
Please correct me if I have missed something here.



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44. Comment #85141 by epeeist on November 5, 2007 at 5:21 am

Comment #85137 by steve99

It seems to me that the evidence against metaphysical naturalism at least is overwhelming.

No, it isn't. You only claim this because you personally have difficulty with the consequences of a naturalist view of the world.

Here we go round the mulberry bush (again).

We have the same set of assertions (not affirmations) from DG that started back in the Dawkins/McGrath thread. As you have said before, all that seems to happen is you press the reset button and get exactly the same information that you got the last time - the existence of objective morality, the superiority of theism over naturalism, the inability of naturalism to explain consciousness and its ontological failure.

All of them presented as though the counter arguments had never been made. I make this at least the fourth thread in which this has been done.

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45. Comment #85142 by steve99 on November 5, 2007 at 5:27 am

All of them presented as though the counter arguments had never been made. I make this at least the fourth thread in which this has been done.

Well, I thought it might be useful to show the flaws at least once in each new thread before disengaging.....

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46. Comment #85144 by epeeist on November 5, 2007 at 5:32 am

Comment #85142 by steve99

Well, I thought it might be useful to show the flaws at least once in each new thread before disengaging.....

Perhaps it ought to go in the "Debate Points" page ;-)


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47. Comment #85146 by steve99 on November 5, 2007 at 5:36 am

Perhaps it ought to go in the "Debate Points" page ;-)

Yes... "How to deal with Dianelos"! I think the thread would need some kind of counter, showing the number of times DG presses the 'reset' button for each point.

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48. Comment #85150 by Dr Benway on November 5, 2007 at 6:11 am

The transcendental argument assumes that nothing is meaningful unless the universe has some ultimate meaning or purpose. We doctors call this worldview "narcissism."

keith: Could someone explain to me what a non-rational force is? For example, is gravity rational or non-rational?

Rational forces are teleological or goal-oriented.

Elentar: The argument against the TAG is to found reason in Metaphysical Naturalism, making God superfluous.

I'd replace the "metaphysical" with "methodological."

Reason is synonymous with methodological naturalism. Metaphysical speculations about "ultimate reality" immune to independent corroboration are not compelling and can be rejected.

35bluejacket: Can an atheist claim that math and logic are just an invention of man or evolved? ...Do these pregnant systems of thought, that are worlds within themselves, stand independent of man and if so, how did they get there?

Reification error. The map is not the territory.

35bluejacket: Are the laws of physics independent of man?

Relatively independent. Facts which have been repeatedly corroborated are more independent of any hypothetical observer than facts less well corroborated.

Other Comments by Dr Benway

49. Comment #85151 by epeeist on November 5, 2007 at 6:19 am

Comment #85146 by steve99

Yes... "How to deal with Dianelos"! I think the thread would need some kind of counter, showing the number of times DG presses the 'reset' button for each point.

I am sure Josh has something like this behind the scenes.

When did he add the "spam" category, it isn't something that I had noticed before.

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50. Comment #85152 by 35bluejacket on November 5, 2007 at 6:22 am

Thank you Dr.
Let me chew on this a while.

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