251. Comment #87865 by Diacanu on November 13, 2007 at 12:18 pm

DG-

Now suppose that God says "to use violence against other people is wrong in all cases"

Suppose instead he says murdering people of a certain skin color is a-okay.

Not only that, but raping the women, and dashing their babies on a rock is peachy keen.

What then?

Other Comments by Diacanu

252. Comment #87866 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 13, 2007 at 12:24 pm

Bonzai (post 166 or #87211):

What the hell does it mean by "God is the whole of reality"?

It means that the large scale structure of reality is a person, a conscious being. I think it's reasonable to call that person "God" because that person has many of the properties of God as described by traditional monotheism: Except being a person, God is also perfectly good, the creator of us and the designer of our experiential environment. (Which does not imply that every bit of our experiential environment is caused by God, as some theists believe: A significant part is caused by our fellow human beings, and another significant part is caused by chance.)

If that is the case why don't we just talk about "the whole of reality" instead and how does it follow that "the whole of reality" has a personal interest in us?

Good persons have a personal interest in other persons, especially in their own children :-)


Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis

253. Comment #87867 by Diacanu on November 13, 2007 at 12:28 pm

DG-

It means that the large scale structure of reality is a person, a conscious being.

Prove it.

God is also perfectly good

Prove it.

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254. Comment #87868 by Diacanu on November 13, 2007 at 12:32 pm

DG-

I think it's reasonable to call that person "God" because that person has many of the properties of God as described by traditional monotheism:

Well, it's not reasonable.
It totally clashes with what you said about God being perfectly good.

The God of traditional monotheism is full of brutality, jealousy, and caprice.

Other Comments by Diacanu

255. Comment #87869 by phasmagigas on November 13, 2007 at 12:35 pm

But some atheists might reason that the best explanation to fit their experience is that some extraterrestrial and far more advanced civilization is playing games with us. I try to think how I would react; I think (or at least wish) I would react in this latter way too.

for sure it could be a trick by an alien intelligence, actually now thats been brought up its that atheists who might consider it a trick before the religious fundamentalists.

Of course it could go on forever, the real creator god could have created his illusion of a deist god (but he stays hidden for the fun of it) just to have the atheists feel it was an alien trick just to confuse them a bit......BUT heres the big one, the big unambiguous appearence of a god (or alien trick) just ISNT going to happen is it? well lets just say i'd be very suprised if it did, and alien or god, im not sure which would leave me more intrigued.

You see for me thats the big problem with god, it allows one to posit anything atall, anything atall without eveidence, god made the rain fall, not fall, dog die, sun shine, butterfly hatch, light bulb blow, ship sink, lose leg, god could even deliberately not answer prayers just so that people pray even more, I can come up with as many goddidits as any believer. we could go back in time (lets assume its possible even if its not by our phenomenal experience!) and see evolution happen as predicted and see no god but one could say gods playing a trick so the faithful stay faithful, interestingly an evolutionist seeing creation with adam and ribwoman would be hard pressed to say hmm, maybe god is tricking me to and what he really did was guide evolution but hes playing 'creation' with me. with god seems anything is possible, things simply seem simpler without one.

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256. Comment #87870 by Diacanu on November 13, 2007 at 12:42 pm

DG has a brain of 3 guinea pig power, and you disrespect yourselves when you suppose otherwise.

Do what I do.
Stop deconstructing the whole Death Star that is his monster posts. Just find the thermal exhaust port, and shoot that.
Very time and sanity saving.

Other Comments by Diacanu

257. Comment #87871 by phasmagigas on November 13, 2007 at 12:43 pm

As Lennox said in his debate with Dawkins, many of new atheism's criticisms of religion are correct.

im sure i speak for most atheists when i say we dont have a problem with god (if their was one) just the people who feel they know what it wants of us. the existence of a deity and the way people behave in accepting 'theirs' are two things entirely.

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258. Comment #87873 by Goldy on November 13, 2007 at 12:56 pm

Except being a person, God is also perfectly good, the creator of us and the designer of our experiential environment.

Not 100% sure what this is meant to be saying. Never mind - could you elaborate on what you mean by "good" here? Good as in nice or good as in perfect or what? See my last post to try and get the gist of why I am asking :-)

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259. Comment #87894 by phasmagigas on November 13, 2007 at 2:22 pm

i just realised that this thread is supposed to be one of 'my argument is....'

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260. Comment #87957 by Dr Benway on November 13, 2007 at 8:41 pm

Diacanu: Prove it.

I think Dianelos clings to the hope that he can weasle around ordinary rules of evidence by appeals to everythingism - e.g., "the whole of our experience" or "worldview" or "ontology." Somehow if he wins a point at the highest level of abstraction, he's off the hook for particulars. This requires him to imagine that we're doing the same thing. We're trying to sell materialism, just as he's trying to sell theism.

But I'm not selling materialism. I don't even know what matter is exactly. Waves, particles, strings, tiny curled up extra dimensions - it's not a straight forward thing, this stuff we call "matter."

I've been trying to get Dianelos away from the "ontology" stuff, which looks more like hermeneutics to me than science. Science progresses by counterfactuals. It's not really about fitting a grand narrative to a large set of observations.

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261. Comment #87958 by Dr Benway on November 13, 2007 at 8:53 pm

Dianelos: "Subjective" characterizes those propositions that refer only to peoples' opinion. "Objective" characterizes those propositions that refer to something that is independently of peoples' opinion.

Absolute independence from any observer is impossible. We use relative independence from particular observers as our standard for "objective." We use corroboration to demonstrate independence. There are degrees of corroboration. There are, therefore, degrees of objectivity.

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262. Comment #87959 by BAEOZ on November 13, 2007 at 8:56 pm

Dr. Benway. Will you take me as a Padawan and teach me the ways of the force?

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263. Comment #87961 by steveroot on November 13, 2007 at 9:25 pm

260. Comment #87957 by Dr Benway on November 13, 2007 at 8:41 pm

I've been trying to get Dianelos away from the "ontology" stuff, which looks more like hermeneutics to me than science. Science progresses by counterfactuals. It's not really about fitting a grand narrative to a large set of observations.

Ah, one of my favorite words: "hermeneutics".
As in:
A Taxonomy of Religions
According to their Hermeneutics of Fecal occurrence
Steve :-)

ref:
http://www.dogchurch.org/restroom/feces.html

Other Comments by steveroot

264. Comment #87981 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 14, 2007 at 1:29 am

Epeeist (post 126 or #86866):

could you also tell us what you mean by "truth"?

So here are my thoughts about what "truth" means. First of all "truth" is a property of propositions, indeed to claim proposition "P" is identical to claiming "P is true". So here is my definition of truth:

All meaningful propositions make predictions that can be evaluated in one's own personal experience, at least in principle. The meaning of claiming a proposition is true is of betting that the predictions it makes are more likely to obtain than not.

Now the first statement above may seem questionable, so let's use some examples to get the general sense of it: The proposition "today is Wednesday" predicts that if I now ask somebody what day of the week it is they will answer "Wednesday", or that if I check my computer it will display the same. The proposition "tomorrow it will rain" predicts that if tomorrow I leave home without an umbrella I will get wet. The proposition Ms B is a good doctor predicts that if I use her services I'll get better results than if I use the services of the average doctor. The proposition "2+2=4" predicts that if I put two beans and two beans together and count the result I will get four. The proposition "there are an infinite number of primes" predicts that no matter what number you give me I will be able to compute a primer number larger than that. Indeed all mathematical propositions X, no matter how abstract, at the very least predict what I will experience if I push symbols on paper following particular rules. Ethical propositions "you should do X" mean that it pays to do X, i.e. that if you do X you will ultimately not regret it but be happy with your decision. Any scientific proposition X (say: X="the natural evolution of the species happened") predicts that those whose model of the physical phenomena we experience incorporates X will be able to make better predictions about physical phenomena than those who don't. The proposition "God exists" predicts, among many other things, that you will continue experiencing after death. The meaning of the definition of truth I claimed above it that if you adopt that definition you'll find that you will be able to think or to discuss about true propositions more efficiently.

A few comments:

1. The meaning of a proposition covers *all* predictions of that proposition. So, for example, "God exists" not only predicts that we shall survive death, but also predicts all that is predicted by my beliefs related to God, including the propositions "God is a person", "God is perfect in all respects", "God has created us and designed our experiential environment", "ethics is objective because it objectively describes the character of God" etc. For example "God is a person" predicts that it is possible that I shall one day dialogue with God as I do with any other person, maybe ask God about His/er motivations for having done some things, etc. "God is perfect in all respects" predicts that if I knew all relevant factors I would never resent any action by God, and indeed would never be able to suggest a better course of action. And so on.

2. The meaning of a proposition is contingent on the person who makes that proposition. So for a fundamentalist Christian the proposition "God exists" may predict that if before dying they do not believe in a particular set of dogmas they will experience eternal suffering in hell. But that's not my meaning of the same proposition.

3. The meaning of a proposition evolves with time. So, for example, what scientists as a group meant by the proposition "electrons exist" in 1900 is different than what they mean today, simply because the generally accepted predictions entailed in that proposition has changed since then.

4. The truth value of a proposition can be relative in the sense that instead of claiming "P is true" I can also claim "P is true with probability 0.8" meaning that I am willing to bet 4:1 (or better) that the prediction of P will obtain. Similarly if I say "I am absolutely certain that P is true, i.e. P is true with probability 1" it means that I am willing to bet everything I have against one penny.

Finally, let's take a step back and appraise the above definition of truth. I think it has two clear advantages: 1) It is simple. 2) It forces people to explain in a non-abstract way what they mean when the say something; particularly philosophers sometimes seem to get themselves lost in word games, and this definition would help bring philosophical discourse back to earth. By the way, the above definition makes an implicit assumption: that we who discuss about the truth of propositions share an experiential environment which is sufficiently similar for that definition to work. But this is surely a very reasonable assumption to make: all reasonable people believe that we are all conscious beings, sharing the same human condition, experiencing the same physical environment (i.e. this physical universe around us and possessing a similar physical body), experiencing things like pain, joy, love, beauty etc in basically the same manner, etc.[1]

But the key question is: does this definition work for all propositions? Do all meaningful propositions make predictions? Well, I think they must for the following reason: Suppose a proposition does not make any prediction that can affect my experience, if only very indirectly, if only in principle. Then, clearly, I don't have any reason whatsoever to care about whether this proposition is true. But if there is no reason to care about the truth of a proposition, then this proposition is for all practical purposes devoid of meaning for me – clearly there are better things to do than to think about propositions that cannot affect me in any way whatsoever. Take, for example, the proposition: "There is an invisible and insubstantial dragon living in my garage". Whether true or false it makes no difference whatsoever in my current or future experience, and hence is meaningless. (Anyway, if you can suggest a proposition that is clearly meaningful but does not make any prediction then please do so.)

It is not always easy to state the predictions (or at least one prediction) of the propositions one claims. Here are some tough cases of propositions I myself have claimed: "Some ethical precepts are objective", "The physical universe does not objectively exist". But the clear implication of the definition of truth I suggest here is this: If one cannot explain what a proposition one claims predicts then one has no business claiming it when discussing with other people. So if I claim proposition P but am unable to explain what it predicts then you have the right to respond: first find out what P predicts and then come back to claim that P is true.

[1] But one should be careful not to think this assumption holds absolutely. Very clearly we do not all experience life in exactly the same way. So for example if you don't speak Greek you will experience the sounds of spoken Greek very differently from how I experience them. People who study music experience listening to the same sounds of music differently than the rest of us. Physicists experience looking at the equations of general relativity very differently than non-physicists. In general, understanding has the power to transform one's experiences in the corresponding part of life. And as God is the explanation of the whole of our experience of life, the understanding of God can transform the whole of one's experience. Perhaps there are people (e.g. the mystics) whose understanding of God is so deep and therefore their experience of life is transformed so much that the assumption of my theory of truth we are discussing here breaks down. In other words it may be the case that some peoples' experience of life is transformed so much by their understanding of God that it becomes difficult or even impossible to communicate with them about truth (i.e. to understand what they mean by the propositions they claim), for the simple reason that their and our experience of life has grown too far apart.

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265. Comment #87985 by Goldy on November 14, 2007 at 1:49 am

Very clearly we do not all experience life in exactly the same way. So for example if you don't speak Greek you will experience the sounds of spoken Greek very differently from how I experience them.

you Greek Greek, 2nd generation or what? Just interested - I'm Brit NZ, my daughter is 2nd generation :-) Went to Lesbos many moons ago - t'was great! Saw a BMW R25 with a sidecar there (I like old bikes). Also went to Melbourne last year which I believe is the 2nd largest Greek city ;-) Or was that Italian...? :-D

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266. Comment #87987 by epeeist on November 14, 2007 at 2:35 am

Comment #87981 by Dianelos Georgoudis

The proposition "2+2=4" predicts that if I put two beans and two beans together and count the result I will get four.

I will get through the rest later. However this is desperately wrong.

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267. Comment #87988 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 14, 2007 at 2:45 am

Goldy,

I am a Greek Greek, even though I was born in Brazil and have spent most of my life in various countries outside of Greece. But for the last 5 years I live here in Volos where I hope to spend the rest of my days with my wife and daughter.

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268. Comment #87990 by steve99 on November 14, 2007 at 3:26 am

Indistiguistable statements, for which Dialenos has the same amount of evidence.

* Except being a person, God is also perfectly good
* Except being a person, God is also 99% good
* Except being a person, God is also 98% good
* Except being a person, God is also 97% good
* Except being a person, God is also 96% good
.....
* Except being a person, God is also perfectly evil
* Except being a person, God just doesn't care
* Except being a person, God enjoys doing the Times Crossword

Other Comments by steve99

269. Comment #87992 by steve99 on November 14, 2007 at 3:36 am

I don't know how you mean that.

So?

Surely you are not suggesting that we must honestly ask somebody in need whether what they prefer, us to help them or to torture them, before deciding what's ethically best?

Yes. That is part of the approach.

Or that we must honestly discuss with other people whether to help people in need or to torture people in need is the right thing to do?

Yes. That is part of the approach.

Incidentally there are no graduations between "subjective" and "objective".

Yes, there are.

Perhaps you interpreting these concepts to refer to how confident one is about something one believes.

Yes.

But that's not what subjective and objective mean. "Subjective" characterizes those propositions that refer only to peoples' opinion. "Objective" characterizes those propositions that refer to something that is independently of peoples' opinion. There is not middle ground between them.

Yes there is.

I choose the former. Now suppose that God says "to use violence against other people is wrong in all cases" and I say "to use violence against other people is not wrong in all cases". These are both objective ethical propositions, because all ethical propositions refer to how objective reality (and hence God) actually is. The difference of course is that people cannot be certain about how God objectively is, so the ethical precepts they claim may be wrong. God, on the contrary, doesn't express an opinion but simply states how S/He is and therefore is always right. It's a simple idea; please let me know if don't explain it well.

Deary me. You have made a bit of a mistake here.

You have followed:

people cannot be certain about how God objectively is

with

God, on the contrary, doesn't express an opinion but simply states how S/He is and therefore is always right

Please point to the Universal Rightness meter that we can use to know that God is always right, otherwise, I am afraid, "God is always" right just has to go into the "Something Danielos just made up" bin.

Other Comments by steve99

270. Comment #87996 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 14, 2007 at 3:56 am

Epeeist (post 266 or #87987):

The proposition "2+2=4" predicts that if I put two beans and two beans together and count the result I will get four.

I will get through the rest later. However this is desperately wrong.

There must be something desperate wrong in how I understand your comment here. Surely you are not saying that the proposition "2+2=4" does not predict that if I put two beans and two beans together and count the result I will get four :-)

Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis

271. Comment #87997 by steve99 on November 14, 2007 at 4:00 am

So if I claim proposition P but am unable to explain what it predicts then you have the right to respond: first find out what P predicts and then come back to claim that P is true.

That is wrong. The response should be: "find out what P predicts that allows us to distingish P from other propositions".

Other Comments by steve99

272. Comment #87998 by epeeist on November 14, 2007 at 4:12 am

So here are my thoughts about what "truth" means. First of all "truth" is a property of propositions, indeed to claim proposition "P" is identical to claiming "P is true". So here is my definition of truth:

All meaningful propositions make predictions that can be evaluated in one's own personal experience, at least in principle. The meaning of claiming a proposition is true is of betting that the predictions it makes are more likely to obtain than not.

I think you are making the immediate error of confusing the definition of truth and the criterion for truth, unless of course you are taking the pragmatist approach of Pierce, James and Dewey.

All your examples are logically wrong. Propositions don't "predict" anything. A proposition is just a declarative statement. I will treat your examples in this light.

The proposition "tomorrow it will rain" predicts that if tomorrow I leave home without an umbrella I will get wet.

Very sloppy - it will surely rain somewhere in the universe tomorrow.

The proposition "2+2=4" predicts that if I put two beans and two beans together and count the result I will get four.

This is just wrong.

The proposition "there are an infinite number of primes" predicts that no matter what number you give me I will be able to compute a primer number larger than that. Indeed all mathematical propositions X, no matter how abstract, at the very least predict what I will experience if I push symbols on paper following particular rules.

You are mixing propositions and proof mechanisms.

Any scientific proposition X (say: X="the natural evolution of the species happened") predicts that those whose model of the physical phenomena we experience incorporates X will be able to make better predictions about physical phenomena than those who don't.

The word "predicts" is totally wrong in this context.

The proposition "God exists" predicts, among many other things, that you will continue experiencing after death. The meaning of the definition of truth I claimed above it that if you adopt that definition you'll find that you will be able to think or to discuss about true propositions more efficiently.

No, the proposition "God exists" asserts that God exists, nothing else. If you want to assert that "You will experience life after death" then you will have to provide another proposition. If you want to link the two propositions together you will need a connective of some kind.

1. The meaning of a proposition covers *all* predictions of that proposition. So, for example, "God exists" not only predicts that we shall survive death, but also predicts all that is predicted by my beliefs related to God, including the propositions "God is a person", "God is perfect in all respects", "God has created us and designed our experiential environment", "ethics is objective because it objectively describes the character of God" etc. For example "God is a person" predicts that it is possible that I shall one day dialogue with God as I do with any other person, maybe ask God about His/er motivations for having done some things, etc. "God is perfect in all respects" predicts that if I knew all relevant factors I would never resent any action by God, and indeed would never be able to suggest a better course of action. And so on.

As above, this is a set of propositions, not just one.

Do I take it correctly - you are completely disregarding the existential quantifier?

2. The meaning of a proposition is contingent on the person who makes that proposition. So for a fundamentalist Christian the proposition "God exists" may predict that if before dying they do not believe in a particular set of dogmas they will experience eternal suffering in hell. But that's not my meaning of the same proposition.

No, a proposition is either valid or invalid (unless you are using some kind of deviant logic).

3. The meaning of a proposition evolves with time. So, for example, what scientists as a group meant by the proposition "electrons exist" in 1900 is different than what they mean today, simply because the generally accepted predictions entailed in that proposition has changed since then.

No, the hypothesis about the nature of electrons put forward by Johnstone Stoney is false. In the same way as all other scientific theories that have been superceded.

4. The truth value of a proposition can be relative in the sense that instead of claiming "P is true" I can also claim "P is true with probability 0.8" meaning that I am willing to bet 4:1 (or better) that the prediction of P will obtain. Similarly if I say "I am absolutely certain that P is true, i.e. P is true with probability 1" it means that I am willing to bet everything I have against one penny.

This won't do. Are you talking about fuzzy logic or some other multi-valued logic. If so you must ensure that it is not a non-truth functional logic. Alternatively are you talking about inductive rather than deductive logic?

Finally, let's take a step back and appraise the above definition of truth.

Pardon? What definition of truth?

But the key question is: does this definition work for all propositions? Do all meaningful propositions make predictions?

Given my comments and your failed examples then the answer is "obviously not".

clearly there are better things to do than to think about propositions that cannot affect me in any way whatsoever.

Such as "there is no largest prime".

It is not always easy to state the predictions (or at least one prediction) of the propositions one claims. Here are some tough cases of propositions I myself have claimed: "Some ethical precepts are objective", "The physical universe does not objectively exist".

Oh, so you aren't discarding the existential quantifier after all?

Just as a total aside - you are aware that the Russell quotation (comment #87278) he was merely asserting a correspondence theory of truth?

Other Comments by epeeist

273. Comment #88000 by epeeist on November 14, 2007 at 4:23 am

Comment #87996 by Dianelos Georgoudis

There must be something desperate wrong in how I understand your comment here. Surely you are not saying that the proposition "2+2=4" does not predict that if I put two beans and two beans together and count the result I will get four :-)

You proposition says that the sum of the numbers 2 and 2 is 4. It is still fairly sloppy in that you don't specify whether this is in the domain of natural numbers (N) or integers (Z).

Now the second part of your statement says that if you have two beans (we can say "in a cup" without loss of generality) and place two more beans in the cup then there will be four beans in the cup.

Now there is an isomorphism between the number of beans and your proposition (providing you are using the natural numbers, it is meaningless to talk about beans using the integers), but they are different statements.

Does it need to be said again - you are guilty of reification.

Other Comments by epeeist

274. Comment #88024 by Bonzai on November 14, 2007 at 7:18 am

So how does 2+2=4 prove that there is a God? DG is getting more bizarre by the day, maybe medication is in order.

I don't know why mathematics "works". There are different schools of speculation.

But even if you accept the Platonistic view,--which I am quite sympathetic with,-- it doesn't follow that there is a personal God.

It could be,--now we are talking about "ontology" so "it could be" is a legitimate way of making a point,--that the universe emerged out of some kind of abstract, mathematical substrate, like logos of the Greek or Tao of the Chinese. Neither the Greeks nor the Chinese thought a God with intention and agency was necessary. On the contrary, they took the abstract principle as given and the gods were secondary beings "created" by the primitive order. It is more natural and elegant to think of it that way than to credit a human like deity for the abstract principle; the abstract principle came first.

To put it in Dianelos style psychobabble, it could be that logic is a built in attribute to being. It just is. Don't ask me to clarify this. If Dianelos' "arguments" are good enough for him, this can't do worse.

If we pursue this direction of thinking for the fun of it the basic mathematical skeleton of the world is probably something very simple, like symmetry breaking or something like that. This is a better starting point then some complicated gods with ad hoc properties that DG makes up as he goes along.

Other Comments by Bonzai

275. Comment #88084 by Diacanu on November 14, 2007 at 3:04 pm

Basically, DG is left having to burrow God deeper and deeper into theoretical dimensions in the fabric of existence that would make God so ephemeral, he, and the dimensions containing him, may as well not exist anyway.

This is what the god of the gaps trouts can't/don't want to grasp.

If they have to stuff God into gaps that tiny HE'S NOT NECESSARY.

He may exist. BUT HE'S NOT NECESSARY.

The whole POINT of the God argument is he's NECESSARY to explain the laws of nature.

But, if you're finding yourself bullshitting teensy quantum realms, or deep dimensions that are "outside of time", or trying to find rhetorical shoehorns in between 2+2, then GOD ISN'T NECESSARY.

You're hiding him in gaps, because science works ALL BY ITSELF to explain the world.

Again, there may well be a God, BUT HE ISN'T NECESSARY.

He'd be as superfluous as an appendix.

So, you're left having to come up with a new theory for God that reconciles him being so superfluous.

But, that new theory kills theism right out of the gate.

You're left with deism.

A God who doesn't write books.

A God who doesn't give a shit about your dumbass politics.

A God who doesn't give a shit about your theological contortions to defend him.

And for all the good that God does, he may as well be "outside of time", or inside DNA guiding mutations with tricky atomic pool shots even though evolution works on it's own, or squeezed deep inside 2+2 making sure 4 comes out.

Again, NOT NECESSARY.

Other Comments by Diacanu

276. Comment #88090 by steve99 on November 14, 2007 at 3:27 pm

Basically, DG is left having to burrow God deeper and deeper into theoretical dimensions in the fabric of existence that would make God so ephemeral, he, and the dimensions containing him, may as well not exist anyway.

Ah, but not quite. This is because what DG believes is a squished-together hybrid of idealism and Christianity. He believes in the resurrection of Jesus, something that should be repeated as often possible, I believe. This is someone who wants to talk about truth, about proof, about how idealistic theism agrees with science. But that 'rising from the dead' bit sort of puts a spanner in the works of all that lot.

Other Comments by steve99

277. Comment #88104 by BMMcArdle on November 14, 2007 at 5:29 pm

Diacanu,
A new hypothesis for the function of the appendix can be found here: http://uk.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUKCOL26139620071022

Other Comments by BMMcArdle

278. Comment #88108 by Diacanu on November 14, 2007 at 5:38 pm

Yeah, but does God live there too?
;)

Other Comments by Diacanu

279. Comment #88109 by Goldy on November 14, 2007 at 5:42 pm

In industrialized societies with good sanitation, this function may not be important, he and his colleagues suggest.

This line suggests in our case it could be considered almost superfluous...

Other Comments by Goldy

280. Comment #88116 by BMMcArdle on November 14, 2007 at 6:20 pm

As superfluous as my foreskin was.

Other Comments by BMMcArdle

281. Comment #88121 by Diacanu on November 14, 2007 at 6:37 pm

Hey, there's a thought.
What if God lives in the foreskin?
Boy, that would make the Jews REALLY wrong.

Other Comments by Diacanu

282. Comment #88125 by Bonzai on November 14, 2007 at 7:27 pm

As superfluous as my foreskin was.

Well, some men insist passionately that their foreskin is not superfluous. You know who they are. Whenever you start a thread on FGM these guys would show up to hijack the thread to talk about their dicks. :-)

Other Comments by Bonzai

283. Comment #88145 by epeeist on November 14, 2007 at 11:50 pm

Comment #88084 by Diacanu

Basically, DG is left having to burrow God deeper and deeper into theoretical dimensions in the fabric of existence that would make God so ephemeral, he, and the dimensions containing him, may as well not exist anyway.

This is what the god of the gaps trouts can't/don't want to grasp.

If they have to stuff God into gaps that tiny HE'S NOT NECESSARY.

Hey Diacanu, don't sweat it.

Since DG started posting on the site he has been bitch-slapped a number of times, mostly by Steve and Dr. Benway, though I think I may have helped in my small, facetious way.

While he has a rather more understanding than the YEC that post on this site, who just give random links to AiG when you point out that mistakes in their argument, he is still basically Yet Another Creationist (YAC - I am claiming a trademark on this).

I used to be a physicist, but my QM knowledge is decades out of date. I found DG a bit slippery to deal with on this, especially when it came to the different interpretations. Steve rode in to the rescue and pointed out the mistakes that DG was making.

His claim for the existence of "objective morality" has been savaged by just about everybody who has posted, pointing out the differences between times and cultures.

Ontological claims have been dealt with in a very pithy way by Dr. Benway.

Personally I have always been troubled by his "analytical" statements, it was logic Jim, but not as we know it. I started dropping hints about some philosophical and logical terms which he just got wrong (Husserl and intentionality being the start of this). I gave him some bits on the philosophy of science which he totally made a muck of (claiming you couldn't falsify one theory because you hadn't verified others).I dropped some quotations, which he missed ("Man is a political animal", hardly obscure). Finally I gave him the last little challenge on truth. He didn't recognise where I was coming from, and as you can see he made a total hash of it.

In summary then - he can do a good précis of a Wikipedia article and he takes some pains to look at the primary sources. But much of what he says should be taken with a very large pinch of salt.
As I said YAC ™

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284. Comment #88147 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 15, 2007 at 12:20 am

Dr Benway (post 171 or #87266):

Dianelos alone cannot determine what is right and what is wrong.

If ethics were not objective then it would not be possible anyway to *determine* what is right and what is wrong, precisely because there would be no grounds on which to make such a determination. You apparently think that in an atheist reality discussing with others offers or can substitute such a ground, but I think this does not work in practice, for various reasons: 1) When I have the power I need not discuss with other people before acting in ways that affect them, and in an atheist reality the ethical precept that one should discuss with other people when one's actions affect them is groundless in the first place, 2) In many cases my actions affect things that cannot discuss anything with me, say animals or even inanimate matter, and the idea that I should discuss with other people even those actions of mine that do not directly affect them is even more tenuous in an atheistic reality. 3) In those cases where an agreement is reached through discussion, the ethical precept that one should keep an agreement even when to break it is to one's advantage is, again, groundless – so agreements would not be kept anyway.

It seems you are under the impression that a theistic understanding of reality would move people towards ethical dogmatism and away from discussing ethics with each other. But this is true only for Biblical literalism and then in only those cases where Biblical literalism is actually believed and not just announced which is most often the case. But, once again, to conflate theism with Biblical literalism is an obvious and gross strawman. In fact and on the contrary, a theistic understanding of reality motivates people to discuss with each other about ethics. Why? First of all, because by entailing that ethics is objective as it describes God's character, theism offers a conceptual ground that makes thinking and discussing about ethics intelligible. And most importantly because according to theism we are all made in the image of God so the most direct way to discover what is right is to realize how that image of God within us is. And for doing that it's an excellent idea to discuss with people because everybody (including atheists) are made in the image of God so their opinion about innate ethics counts as much as mine. Perhaps you don't realize how theism increases the respect one has for other people. You know of Christ's new commandment (and actually new *direction* is the better translation of the original "entoli" – see John 13:34 in http://www.scripture4all.org/OnlineInterlinear/NTpdf/joh13.pdf ) or of his Sermon on the Mount where he teaches us to love even our enemies because God loves everybody and we should try to become as perfect as God is, see Matthew 5:43-48. According to theism every time you embrace a fellow human being you are actually embracing a spark of God, a being greatly loved by God and made in God's very image. Think of it: theism makes every single human being a receptacle of divine grace.

Now compare this to atheism's understanding. Where exactly is the logic that compels an atheist to discuss with other people? Imagine that George W Bush and his entire cabinet were all atheists, and that they are considering the response to the 9/11 attack. Do you really think anyone would actually come close to suggesting they discussed the matter with the Taliban? As Hitchens puts it in his debate with McGrath: if somebody is killing your friends and threatening to kill you the right response is not the bizarre Christian idea of loving your enemies and of not returning evil, but rather to go out and destroy them. Enemies who do such things are not even worth to be considered humans, Hitchens says. You may find Hitchens distasteful but I fail to see where his ethical stance violates the atheistic worldview (whereas George W Bush's ethical stance does violate the Christian worldview). It seems to me, Dr Benway, that while the moral Zeitgeist for the last thousands of years has been slowly catching up with theistic ethics, atheist logic would drive it back to pre Old Testament ethics of "two eyes for one eye". I mean, why not? If atheism is true why exactly should one not exact two eyes for an eye, if doing so helps destroy our enemies and win ourselves better security? In general: in an atheist reality why should we care about the means if they help us reach the goal we want?

Now I can imagine that the typical atheist reading what I write above would not recognize themselves in it and might well feel irritated by it. But the fact that atheists do not really let atheist logic dominate their ethical reasoning is one more consequence of the fact that we are all built in the image of God and have therefore an innate sense of ethics. The presence of God inside of us is so strong that it dominates the ethical reasoning even of most atheists who know all about the sociobiological explanation of ethical beliefs (see for example what Dawkins writes in his very interesting "Atheists for Jesus" article). Elsewhere Dawkins says that there is a place we all get our morality from but insists that place is not the Bible – and I agree with him on both counts. The place we get our morality from is the image of God within us. The Kingdom of God we reach if we follow his path is within us – says Jesus in the Gospels. And it is by looking within us and considering the whole of our experience as human beings that one can realize the presence of God and understand the meaning of theism.

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285. Comment #88149 by steve99 on November 15, 2007 at 1:20 am

But, once again, to conflate theism with Biblical literalism is an obvious and gross strawman

Except for when people do believe what is literally in the Bible, such as the resurrection of Jesus. Yours is no subtle theism, with God hiding behind Nature - you believe in magic.

Think of it: theism makes every single human being a receptacle of divine grace.

Please point to your divine-grace-O-meter that indicates the presence of this grace.

Theism degrades people, as it claims they get goodness, strength and grace from God, rather than from themselves.

I consider it in some ways just like the 'Ancient Austronaut' ideas that were so popular years ago: People could not have built the pyramids, as they were not capable enough. Aliens had to have helped. In the same way, theism claims that people need God's help to do moral acts.

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286. Comment #88151 by SmartLX on November 15, 2007 at 1:41 am

Either there is a god or there isn't. A believer can't simultaneously claim the rational support of a god by way of its existence and an atheist's incoherence by way of its nonexistence, as long as both people are in the same universe. (You might stop here if you want to move on; that's enough to cast doubt on the general soundness of the argument.)

Therefore, even if both sides accepted the dependence of rationality on the existence of a god (which an atheist never would), an atheist then has no reason to entertain the arguments of anyone on the planet, let alone a believer, and can't be convinced of anything.

That more or less puts the kybosh on using this argument to persuade atheists. Doesn't prevent it being used on unsure believers though, but there's plenty in this thread to deal with that.

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287. Comment #88152 by steve99 on November 15, 2007 at 1:54 am

You may find Hitchens distasteful but I fail to see where his ethical stance violates the atheistic worldview (whereas George W Bush's ethical stance does violate the Christian worldview).

How many times do you need to be told!

The 'atheist' worldview includes Hitchens, Dawkins, the Dalai Lama, and (it seems) Mother Theresa.

there is no single atheist worldview in terms of ethics

Atheism is nothing more that a lack of belief in God.

There is no point attempting to put forward a theistic viewpoint on ethics unless you can show what the right viewpoint is. You can't.

And you can't say that the existence of objective ethics helps, if you can't point to what those objective ethics are.

Look - it is simple. Suppose you are driving around an unfamiliar town and are lost (call it ethicsville) and are lost. You don't have a map. All you can do, is just try your best. The fact that a map of the town does actually exist somewhere doesn't help if you don't have access to it.

This is one of the biggest flaws in your reasoning. You claim we can't know what God is, but them you claim that God is good - but so what? That doesn't help if we can't know what that goodness is. You claim that there are objective ethics - but so what? That doesn't help if we can't know what those ethics are.

You see, this sort of reasoning is a total failure, as here:

But the fact that atheists do not really let atheist logic dominate their ethical reasoning is one more consequence of the fact that we are all built in the image of God and have therefore an innate sense of ethics.

We all have an innate sense of ethics as we are all build in the image of God. But how does that help? Bin Laden has an innate sense of ethics. So do you. I hope they are different. So unless you can tell which bits of the innate ethical sense are the right bits to take notice of, how does this idea help at all?

Your theistic reasoning adds precisely nothing as a practical guide to how we should live.

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288. Comment #88155 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 15, 2007 at 2:01 am

Tommcc (post 172 or #87270):

Isn't atheism simply a rejection of theism and supernatural forces, as an explaination of the existance of the universe? This being the case, we can proceed to explain the power of reason in evolutionary terms ( i will leave that to mr RD).

Noted theist philosopher Alvin Plantinga in his paper "An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism" has forcefully argued that if both naturalism and the theory of natural evolution were true than we would not possess reason. I have explained his idea in this post where you can find some links to outside sources too. I have commented with more detail here. There's an entire book about Plantinga's argument: "Naturalism Defeated?: Essays on Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism" edited by James K. Beilby.

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289. Comment #88159 by Peacebeuponme on November 15, 2007 at 2:14 am

It seems to me, Dr Benway, that while the moral Zeitgeist for the last thousands of years has been slowly catching up with theistic ethics

AAAARRGHH!

I just can't believe anybody can actually write that!

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290. Comment #88160 by epeeist on November 15, 2007 at 2:17 am

omment #88155 by Dianelos Georgoudis

Noted theist philosopher Alvin Plantinga in his paper "An Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism" has forcefully argued that if both naturalism and the theory of natural evolution were true than we would not possess reason.

However, you may also want to read http://fitelson.org/plant.pdf and http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/wesley_robbins/contraplantinga.html as well.

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291. Comment #88161 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 15, 2007 at 2:19 am

Dr Benway (post 181 or #87290):

...but let me point out that even famous naturalist philosopher Bertrand Russell taught that it's important not to conflate them. In his "The Problems of Philosophy" (page 29 of the Oxford University Press paperback edition) he wrote: "When it is said that light is waves, what is really meant is that waves are the physical cause of our sensations of light. But light itself, the thing which seeing people experience and blind people do not, is not supposed by science to form any part of the world that is independent of us and our senses".

Just to clarify: the wave property of light we observe with our instruments is, according to you, also phenomenal.

Correct: according to my worldview the wave property of light is part of science's modeling of phenomenal reality. Contrasted to that, according to Russell's worldview the wave property of light is part of science's modeling of objective reality. But both Russell (as evidenced by his quote above) and I affirm the distinction between phenomenal and objective reality.

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292. Comment #88168 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 15, 2007 at 2:55 am

BMMcArdle (post 182 or #87293):

OK, here are the answers to your new set of questions even though, frankly, I don't see their relevance:

How old were you when you were baptised?

I don't know. Probably less than two.

What faith were you baptised into?

If by "faith" you mean "denomination" then it's the Eastern Orthodox Church. The Eastern Orthodox Church is very similar to the Roman Catholic Church as far as dogmas go, but it's quite different from it as far as knowledge based on tradition goes, in matters of organization and authority, and in matters of practical life. If you are interested in learning something about Eastern Orthodoxy a very good book is "The Orthodox Way" by Kallistos Ware, who, by the way, is an interesting fellow: he is British, a bishop of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, and a professor at Oxford University.

Do you follow the creeds?

No, not by far. I even find it difficult imagining myself actually following the creeds of Christianity. On the other hand these creeds have certainly influenced the way I live. Let me explain: To follow Christianity's creeds means to follow the path of Jesus Christ. I don't really do that. But at least I don't walk away from that path either. My Christian belief has helped me avoid doing some wrong things I would otherwise have probably done.

[Do you] take part in the rituals of that faith?

Rarely. I go to church maybe a couple of times per year. But when I do I greatly enjoy it, so, come to think of it, I should be going more often.

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293. Comment #88172 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 15, 2007 at 3:25 am

Steve99 (post 184 or #87357):

Sure, and that's why it's so naive to ask people for "proof".

Not when religious views have consequences, such as the mutilation of women.

It's naive to ask people for "proof" simply because there cannot be any proofs for ontological claims. Strictly speaking not even mathematical proofs are really proofs, because they all use as a premise unproven axioms and production rules. So when many an atheist keeps asking like a broken record "prove it, prove it" they are only evidencing how clueless they are about epistemology.

As for religious beliefs sometimes having bad consequences it's true, but these pale when compared to some of the consequences of atheistic belief systems, so your argument is not only irrelevant but is also misguided.

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294. Comment #88174 by steve99 on November 15, 2007 at 3:45 am

It's naive to ask people for "proof" simply because there cannot be any proofs for ontological claims.

You aren't asking us to believe ontological claims. You are asking us to believe that certain things are true in reality, like God being in three bits, and Jesus being resurrected. You are simply trying to divert people from your belief in magic; magic that has had a supposedly real effect on reality, and that contradicts science.

So when many an atheist keeps asking like a broken record "prove it, prove it" they are only evidencing how clueless they are about epistemology.

When a theist keeps making claims like a broken record along the lines "there are objective ethics" and "Jesus was resurrected" without being able to show either any convincing objective evidence or any acceptable axioms and formal logic to get to that conclusion, that is the clueless approach, I would suggest.

As for religious beliefs sometimes having bad consequences it's true, but these pale when compared to some of the consequences of atheistic belief systems, so your argument is not only irrelevant but is also misguided.

Nonsense. There is not the slightest difference between your practical approach to ethics - "I believe there is a true map of ethics, but I don't know what it is, so I shall do my best" and the more honest approach "I don't know if there is a true map of ethics, so I shall do my best".

The danger of your approach is that some people do believe they know what the true map of ethics says, and not just that, but they believe that they have (the true danger of theism) the highest possible authority backing their view, and use their supposed knowledge of the true ethics to bomb people.

What you just don't seem to be able to (or want to) understand is that the true danger of a theist understanding of ethics is the sheer force that religion puts behind ethics - it attempts to give infinite and enternal justification for things - do this and you will get eternal pleasure. Do that and you will burn forever. Even some of the mildest theists believe that what is right is backed by infinite authority. This is the problem - theist ethics are sometimes effectively rocket-fuelled, in a way that rationalistic efforts aren't (although by no means always... if someone threatened a member of my family..) If they happen to point in the wrong direction....

Another problem is that theist ethics can be about damn stupid things, like headscarves and female mutilation... by divine authority.

Get rid of the divine authority, and a more reasonable discussion is possible.

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295. Comment #88175 by epeeist on November 15, 2007 at 3:55 am

Comment #88172 by Dianelos Georgoudis

It's naive to ask people for "proof" simply because there cannot be any proofs for ontological claims.

So I can make anything up I like? This is why you can't dismiss Dionysius, Cernunnos or the Triple Goddess? Does wonders for your claim for "objective morality" (or objective anything really).

Strictly speaking not even mathematical proofs are really proofs, because they all use as a premise unproven axioms and production rules.

You are getting pretty desperate. If I can't have mathematical proofs, then you can't have logical proofs. So, anything goes. (I don't need to point out the tautology do I?)

As for religious beliefs sometimes having bad consequences it's true, but these pale when compared to some of the consequences of atheistic belief systems, so your argument is not only irrelevant but is also misguided.

What's an "atheist belief"? The only thing atheists agree on is that there are no gods (or in my particular version, the contingent hypothesis that there are no gods).

If you are claiming that atheists have done "bad things" then you are going to have to show that they were done for the sake of atheism for your claim to have any merit. It isn't difficult to find "bad things" that were done for the cause of religion, from ritual killings and cannibalism through crusades, witch trials and sectarian conflicts up to today's persecution of so called "deviant" sexual behaviour, repression of women and religious cleansing ("ethnic cleansing" is simply avoidance of what the underlying cause was).

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296. Comment #88178 by Dianelos Georgoudis on November 15, 2007 at 4:35 am

Steve99 (post 186 or #87378):

both scientific naturalism and idealistic theism agree with phenomenal reality

Not according to you. You claim that phenomenal reality includes the resurrection of Jesus.

Oh, that's only a red herring as I have already pointed out several times. See for example this post, or this post, or this post where I explain why your oft repeated point that I believe in the resurrection of Jesus is a red herring.

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297. Comment #88180 by Peacebeuponme on November 15, 2007 at 4:48 am

Oh, that's only a red herring as I have already pointed out several times. See for example this post, or this post, or this post where I explain why your oft repeated point that I believe in the resurrection of Jesus is a red herring.

All those posts show is that you are intelligent enough to realise how ridiculous it is to believe in zombies, but since the resurrection is a fundamental part of your faith system, you have had to play word games to try to get yourself on reasonable ground.

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298. Comment #88184 by clodhopper on November 15, 2007 at 5:14 am

OOooo, I've missed so much Danielosity! But I thought he'd thrown in the towel over on the Flea Circus thread.......

DG: #85728 On Flea Circus thread...(So ultimately there is not really any difference between religious and humanist ethics).

Clodhopper #86565: Exactly so. Both are man made. Thank you.

DG: You conceding this?

Did I miss anything interesting?

*taps fingers* *sighs*

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299. Comment #88186 by phasmagigas on November 15, 2007 at 6:01 am

repression of women and religious cleansing ("ethnic cleansing" is simply avoidance of what the underlying cause was).

'ethnic cleansing' is such a monstrous euphamism, why not plain old 'racial killings/murders' at least people (including children) will have a better idea of what they are hearing about. So in some cases it should really be labelled as religious killings. Interesting how religious is swapped for ethnic (and im sure there are cases of both types of 'cleansing') as if somehow ethnic killing is more acceptable than religious killing. the very word cleansing (which is what the cleansers might like to use) is thoroughly inappropriate.

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300. Comment #88188 by steve99 on November 15, 2007 at 6:38 am

I explain why your oft repeated point that I believe in the resurrection of Jesus is a red herring.

I believe it is at the absolute core of things. It explains why you want idealistic theism in the first place. It explains why you try and twist meanings, set up naturalistic straw men to attack and so on. You have this mistaken belief that idealistic theism is some kind of justification for Jesus rising from the dead.

The fact is, you believe in magic. That is part of your worldview. You believe in a God who intervenes in a way that is not amenable to scientific investigation, and contrary to scientific ideas. You claim it is in some posts, but that is not a scientific approach. Science isn't believing anything you like until it is disproved. It is not rational to believe that Jesus was resurrected until they dig up the body.

You see, you can argue all you like for idealistic theism, but we know we won't get anywhere because you are prepared to bend any rules in order to get magic into the picture. Because if you believe that, then, at heart, you just don't believe there are any rules at all.

This really isn't about ontology, or epistemology, or any other deep philosophical attitude. That is all just camouflage. It is about trying to justify magic. You want to try and show that scientific naturalism is wrecked so that you can justify believing whatever you like, even though this in no way follows.

To put it bluntly, it is equivalent to attempting to discuss astronomy rationally with someone who believes with all their heart that their auntie is a venusian.

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