451. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57404 by _J_ on July 19, 2007 at 7:54 am

Dr Benway,

Just want to support you in saying:

I want moderate religionists around the world to say, "Faith, or belief without evidence, is not a sufficient basis for actions against others. We're all human and we can't claim to know the mind of God with certainty."

Problem I find is that people shirk the question. The classic David Robertson tactic, for instance, is to say 'There's loads of evidence for God, so my faith isn't the sort of faith you're talking about' - where by 'evidence' he means things like 'The Creation - its beauty and complexity'. Or people say 'What about first-person data - they must count as evidence too'. Getting people to accept that evidence needs to be of a certain type and standard to be admissible in support of moral practice is a tortuous and circuitous enterprise. (As we both know only too well.)

Thing is, I think most of the people we call moderate actually do what you're asking on some level anyway, without consciously acknowledging it. When I was writing 1419, it struck me that this is a place where doubt lubricates the rusted and rickety contraption that is Christianity. It's only by being a bit fuzzy about the moral imperatives embedded in one's faith that many people can get away with behaving well in our modern society, and not seriously writing letters like the one PaulEmecz gave a link to in 1509. In moderate Christians and Muslims, the awareness that they don't really know for certain allows the believer to shy away from making the bold actions that contradict popular morality that their faith, strictly interpreted, would endorse.

But trying to get a believer to consciously acknowledge this and follow through the chain of reasoning that it suggests is hard! Many will happily say something like 'Oh yes, doubt is crucial to my faith - humility is a Christian virtue, you know' - as if it's perfectly okay to keep doubts in a big vault and never look at them. (Try getting a job in passenger jet maintenance that way.)

But clearly making the statement you ask for (and I support you in asking for) means admitting that a believer's faith has no good evidence (which most will deny) and that they subordinate or re-interpret their scriptural decrees to fit modern common moral consensus.

Which is too, too close to acknowledging that maybe, yes, the castle is made out of sand after all.

452. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57353 by _J_ on July 19, 2007 at 2:29 am

Dianelos, 1513

Trying not to post. Then saw your response to Elli and started a long question to you. Then read your post to Dr Benway, which maybe answers it. You say:

I mean: numbers matter.

Are you suggesting that the method by which you try to determine 'objective morality' is by reference to the complex reality of varying opinions, actions and effects that we observe in the world around us? And that your opinions on what exactly 'objective morality' is will change and improve as you observe and learn?

If so, your objective morality is a kind of Platonic form of morality, hanging in front of us like a carrot on a fishing line, that we will ever strive for but never be able to claim to have attained. Which puts you in the same boat as those of us who don't believe in objective morality at all. You're using the same methods (referral to evidence) to judge what's right. You can't regard your own – or anyone's – actual morality at any given time as being identical with the theoretical perfection of 'objective morality'. You're looking at the same rainbow as us; you just reckon there's a pot of gold at the end of it.

Which makes you (not for the first time) a de facto secularist, just one with a confusing identity crisis.

453. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57350 by _J_ on July 19, 2007 at 2:14 am

GBile, 1512

On a side note, I think that this comment thread is already more interesting than the original RD-McG talk (Apologies to these gentlemen).

Already? Ah good. Hasn't taken long.

454. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57344 by _J_ on July 19, 2007 at 1:54 am

PaulEmecz, 1509

Well, a few differences of detail (atheist, no kids, not a farmer, lives in the West) it's not bad. And I should add that two of the coats are hand-me-downs and one of the others isn't really wearable (though I also have a kagool I didn't mention). 'Blameless and upright' though: spot on! ;)

So, what happens to J? Let me guess - he grows strong and happy on his early morning barbecues and lives a long and happy life of sunshine and plenty in which everyone and everything is lovely to him? (Or am I confusing the Bible with Disney again?)

Good moral, anyway - thanks.

455. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57251 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 4:42 pm

Just before I go to bed:

PaulEmecz, 1499

Can you imagine any context where gratuitous torture would be wrong?

Dr B - the safeword: good example because of the agreed threshold, betrayal of trust, and violent reversal of fortunes for the lover/victim. But the person breaking the safeword is presumably doing so because they themselves want to, at least, and is arguably in a similar position to any common-or-garden torturer who goes beyond the call of duty as a result of personal sadism. Though I might be missing something important.

(Thanks for pointing out the acid-throwing Lal Masjid detail, by the way. Appalling, and a good example.)

Paul Emecz - your Dementors: never mind Fudge; presumably from a Dementor's own perspective, it does no wrong: sucking joy for kicks has a perfectly good reason - it's for kicks. Dementor personal and group morality is in conflict with human morality. (I can't argue this in detail - never read a Harry Potter, though I expect it's only a matter of time.)

I remember hearing about a serial killer who used to hide in bushes and attack strangers who happened past. Once caught, he maintained that the the victims were themselves guilty, because he only killed people who walked past his hiding place of their own free will - they selected themselves for murder. Now this is confabulation - but suppose we really Dicemanned it?

How about if you randomise your behaviour, so there's a one-in-X chance that you'll spend your Sunday afternoon torturing someone. So: there's no purpose to the torture, the victim hates it, you don't enjoy it and no one has told you to do it - you're following an entirely arbitrary decision. It's causeless suffering and nobody wins. But it's different from, say, being maimed by an earthquake, because it's still your fault: you're doing something awful for no good reason at all and you ought to know better.

(Which leads me to one of my favourite old chestnuts: The Ethics of Belief)

That's the closest I can come at the minute. Somewhere along the line, I think you're always going to find that someone, somewhere, in some way has justified the act of torture, no matter how in conflict with the prevailing consensus of morality this justification may be. Then you're having to ask 'What right do they have to make that justification?' Which is referral to evidence. Which is acknowledgement of the subjectivity of morality. (And back to The Ethics of Belief.)

It's the same as the 'Think of an act that's entirely altruistic' game, isn't it? (On which note: I have five coats. This is why there's no biblical Book of J, I suppose.)

456. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #57220 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 3:18 pm

[Almost content-free post alarm]

Fanusi Khiyal

_J_, you say that I am 'flagrantly rude'. I get incensed when people lie to my face. Is there something wrong with that?

Actually, I said 'extravagantly rude'. Fortunately, when people lie to my face, I find that taking a deep breath often helps.

(Just my little joke there.)

Anyway, I didn't actually attack you for your rudeness, and I haven't read enough of you to make a fair comment. I just witnessed some of your battle with (the equally caustic) Xenocratic. It's not often that reading someone else's discussion makes me instinctively duck.

Sorry - do carry on.

457. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57181 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 1:23 pm

Cheers, Corylus!

(Loved your Marcus Aurelius quote the other day, by the way. Added to my file of clever and inspiring pearls of atheistic wisdom.)

Okay, okay: I'm gone.

458. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57178 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 1:12 pm

USA_Limey

Thank you!

At the minute, I'm almost managing to balance re-reading the last draft with posting, so I feel virtuous.

It's okay: I know Pulp Fiction so I didn't think you were actually offering to do something 'objectively immoral' to me.

459. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57172 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 1:00 pm

Elli,

If I could animate it, I'd wink.

(I'm a bit jealous, actually. You, Sharon McT, Dr Benway and Philip1978 seem to have brains and depth perception.)

460. Is there an Artificial God?

Comment #57171 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 12:54 pm

Oh, brilliant! This has been one of my favourite articles on this subject ever since reading it in The Salmon of Doubt. It makes subtle, interesting and balanced points about religion that still usually get overlooked today.

Very excited to be able to actually hear it! [Claps hands, dances jig.] :D

(Oh, and Fedler: me, too - all of it.)

461. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57168 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 12:48 pm

(Corylus, 1481 - Good example! Also found myself trying to use it in a post to someone at the Free Church of Scotland site the other day, who said she was setting out to read through the bible carefully to address all her new doubts about her faith. She wondered how to ask difficult questions without getting an answer like 42. David Robertson gave a friendly answer, but one which essentially wanted her to assume the truth of God from the outset - because we mustn't be so arrogant as to judge Him, you know. I think it's a positive sign that she knows anything at all about Douglas Adams!)

462. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57163 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 12:40 pm

Dianelos, 1483

By gratuitous I mean "lacking any reason".

Do I need to hand-hold you through applying exactly the same response I had already given you to that definition?

What counts as a reason for torture? Who judges when torture is reasonless and when it has a reason? Would half an hour on the rack because 'He looked at me in a funny way' count as 'gratuitous torture'? It's not 'lacking any reason'...

Washing my hands. Cheers, Dianelos. It's been a pleasure.

463. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57161 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 12:35 pm

But before I go:

Dianelos, 1475

please observe that in each of the cases you quote I am speaking of gaps or problems of naturalism and not of science

This is just what Dr Benway was talking about when he observed that you forever swerve the discussion back into metaphysics. He, I and doubtless many others on this thread are willing to confess agnosticism with regard to metaphysical models. In his words, again:

It's possible to engage in methodological naturalism without espousing a particular metaphysical position. I'd like to concede all metaphysical positions as potentially viable, in order to move on to more concrete issues. Many have said the same. Yet, somehow, our debate reverts to theism vs. naturalism. Hmm.

Now, we are not confusing metaphysical and methodological naturalism. You often seem to think we are, and to take that as a cue for sliding back into metaphysics, where your idealistic theism has nothing concrete to worry about. Let's try and clear this up.

You go on to say this:

Maybe part of the confusion resides in the fact that many people consider the dozen or so interpretations of quantum mechanics as part of science. But these are clearly not part of science because there is absolutely no scientific evidence for any one of these mutually contradictory interpretations, and in fact no scientific experiments to sort out which are true and which are not (and that's why their number keeps growing). [etc]

Science is allowed all kinds of wild, wonderful and contradictory hypotheses. But these don't become accepted as solid theories – as things that seem to be true – until they've got good evidence and been well tested. QM theories are fine as scientific hypotheses, but won't become more than that until they've had some testing.

It's not true that there are no tests. Steve99 has mentioned some more than once. I think we talked about Wheeler's delayed choice experiment a while back, didn't we? But, whether we're rolling in tests or desperately trying to think of some, the fact remains that no QM hypothesis will become a universally accepted theory until it's been shown to be significantly, testably, predictively reliable.

Scientists will strive to find ways of testing their QM theories. This does not make them metaphysical naturalists. It's because this is how one does methodological naturalism – by trying to find naturalistic explanations.

There is no confusion between types of naturalism in saying 'we'll try to find evidence through the scientific method, and for as long as we fail we'll admit we don't have a solid answer'. That's just doing methodological naturalism. There is no appeal to metaphysics here.

The problem with your idealistic theism is that you use it to meddle in the domain of methodological naturalism. You make statements like 'there is such a thing as objective morality', which gives you (in your own mind) license to make ethical judgements based on what you personally believe to be 'objectively moral', rather than working with everyone else towards a 'best we can manage' compromise based on observation and co-operation, like those of us who don't make your metaphysical assumption. You claim that science does not, cannot, will never explain consciousness, thereby erecting little 'Off Limits' signs around an area of scientific enquiry in the name of your personal metaphysical model.

When we have tried in this thread to convince you that it is at least possible (I think it quite likely, but that's a personal opinion) that there are scientifically observable explanations for consciousness and morality – that they are examples of complex systems built up from less complex ones over time – you have sidestepped, scoffed and said that we are 'obviously' wrong. And yet you have claimed to be a methodological naturalist.

You are not a methodological naturalist. Maybe 99% of the way you are, but when you spot what looks like a promising gap, you let your idealistic theism into the lab and it slams the door shut behind it.

What we have been proposing is keeping the metaphysics discussion in the philosophy classroom and giving methodological naturalism – including science – the freedom to find out what it can. And not to assume we already know the answers to the things it's working on.

This is not the same as metaphysical naturalism. And every time you suggest that it is, you swing the discussion back round to places we've already visited. The scenery has become very, very old.

So, when you say:

So clearly, QM's interpretations are not science, but rather represent the effort of naturalistic physicists to describe what kind of naturalistic reality might produce the phenomena that QM models, according to their own intuitions about how such a reality should be.

…you are wrong, if you are suggesting that they are an unscientific exercise in metaphysically naturalistic speculation. This investigation of QM is just physicists trying to do methodological naturalism, rather than second guess the whole enterprise and give up physics as pointless – which is what happens if they accept metaphysical presuppositions as having some say over scientific enquiry.

Sure, it may be true that spending one's life doing methodological naturalism as a career makes one intuitively inclined towards metaphysical naturalism. But that doesn't amount to a confusion of the two. It may be that if you ask a physicist to make a guess about something she doesn't know, her guess will be naturalistic. She needs to think this way to do methodological naturalism. If her guess was 'Oh, I reckon probably god did it and we'll never work it out – I just come to the lab to get out of the house', she is not really helping with the process of scientific discovery.

When faced with gaps, we are saying to you 'We don't know, but we think certain naturalistic answers are possible'. We are not saying 'We know for damned sure that the answer will be naturalistic, because we have chosen a naturalistic ontology that doesn't permit supernaturalism'. Nor are we saying 'It's clear that science can't answer this and that my theistic worldview is correct'. That seems to be your position.

I've now, tediously, said the same thing two or three ways, at length. I hope this actually makes the point!

Cheers,

J

464. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57142 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 11:31 am

Elli, 1478

Yay!

(Didn't have to hold my breath long there.)

Dianelos,

There's a clue in the word 'gratuitous', isn't there? My dictionary gives two definitions:

1 given or done free of charge
2 uncalled for; unwarranted; lacking good reason

Assuming you're using definition 2 (you are, right?): that's a definition of an opinion. The torture is judged to be gratuitous in someone's opinion. This means that the opining person has a sense of what is a legitimate use of torture, and is deciding that this particular instance doesn't fit that use.

Once you start pursuing how a person arrives at this opinion, you get into spiraling complexity. Is 'getting someone to give information' a valid use of torture? How much torture is acceptable? How severe? Does it depend on the information? On the person being tortured? Is reciprocal justice or satisfying the sadism of the torturer a valid use (presumably a sadistic torturer thinks so)?

Welcome the world of judgements that underpins your 'objective morality'. Do you see how it is nonsensical to ask someone to say whether something is right or wrong 'whatever peoples' opinion about this may be'? (For heaven's sake, their very reply will be an opinion!)

USA_Limey, 1474

I'm basically convinced, too. It's been obvious for a while, I suppose - just a hard addiction to break. And now I've discovered how much fun it is to make pretty patterns with quote boxes...

Sharon, 1473

Hi, again! Nice to hear from you, too - but I'm not supposed to be here! My play is nowhere near finished and time is running out. (I seem to have Douglas Adams' relationship with deadlines. Wish I had his talent!) No, I'm just compounding my failure to write drama with additionally failing to resist this discussion thread. Like someone suggested when it looked like this was all over, the motivation is more like trying to swat a mosquito than anything else (though hopefully Dianelos doesn't actually present a malaria risk).

No, I need help. Firefox doesn't seem to include a feature for blocking this site. So, I'll have to ask you all again: when I show up here, please tell me to go away, unless I tell you my work is finished. (Then, at least, I have to stoop to lying.)

465. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #57086 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 9:05 am

Impressive quotefinding, Dr Benway!

Just to add another quote strand:

LeeC, 1182:
A gap is a gap however large it maybe, so you have "read my mind" - you are using the god of the gaps, and you know it.

Dianelos, 1215:
Of course I am using God of the gaps: I connect the failings of naturalism and I find they form a remarkably precise God-shaped gap.

Dr Benway, 1259:
Just between you, me, and the lamp post: admitting you are using the argument from ignorance is akin to admitting that your position has been defeated. Thems the rules. Don't blame me; I didn't write 'em.

Dianelos, 1265:
But reality is that from physics, to math, to business gaps have proven to be a good thing: they drive improvement, or, as they say, "paradigmatic shifts". I suppose the same will happen with peoples' understanding of reality when they realize that naturalism has a big gap.

Dr Benway, 1292:
Note that the "good thing" vanishes once you fill it in with God. You can't enjoy your gap and fill it too.

(Dianelos, 1265 cont.:)
And you must concede that the fact that this gap is God-shaped is kind of neat.

Me, 1269:
And you must concede that the way it has shrunk over the centuries to a fraction of its former size, changing shape the while, and still accommodates many different 'gods' around the world, is kind of suggestive. God seems to be made of something like jam.

Dianelos, 1376:
I am not sure the gap has become a fraction of its former size, I'd rather say it has come into focus. Science by dispelling all the wrong theistic ideas of seeing God present in physical phenomena has actually helped theism look in the right direction. All truth helps truth, because reality is coherent.

Which seems to boils down to a statement from Dianelos along the lines of: 'Yes, I'm doing god of the gaps (1215); I think gaps are valuable for provoking discovery (1265) (and I don't recognise that my sticking god in a gap contradicts this value); I regard the collapse of previous gaps as somehow suggesting that my gap is better and won't collapse (1376)'.

466. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #57069 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 8:32 am

You've got a point, Henri Bergson, but there are types of force, aren't there?

If I want to stop a man breaking into my house, I'm allowed to have a door made of plate steel, if I want. That sort of force - something that'll resist anything he throws at it - is fine. But I'm not allowed to wire the door handle up to the mains.

I agree about criticism. I agree about comedy. I agree about taking a stand against the encroachments of Islam (and any other ideology) on human rights and politics and so forth. And I agree that we should be robust and unrelenting in our implentation of the above.

But 'robust' is one thing. 'Outright aggressive' and 'inciting violence' are others. When Dawkins does 'militant' atheism, 'militant' is only a metaphor. His criticisms are serious, but they stay within the realm of criticism. Yours sound a little too ready to jump into tanks and fighters.

467. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #57058 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 8:13 am

Henri Bergson, 92

Sometimes violence is the only way, yes, sadly. But your short responses suggest an unhelpful polarisation. There's a world of options between 'Doing nothing at all because we're all so meek and polite' and 'Carpet bombing the bastards'.

But you know that. Just wish you'd ease off on the scary talk. Some people will agree wholesale with the fire-and-brimstone attitude and you'll find yourself in the company of supporters you'd rather not have.

468. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #57052 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 8:07 am

Henri Bergson,

This is moving fast - you've clarified your position while I was posting and your actual suggestions are, overall, not as bad as I feared. Perhaps a kneejerk response on my part to the taster I was getting in your earlier soundbites. (Though understandable, I think.)

469. Interview with Ayaan Hirsi Ali

Comment #57047 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 8:02 am

Christ, this thread's scary.

First - how come so many people turn on SimpletonVision when they watch an interview? Yes, Avi Lewis came out all guns blazing with glaringly daft, overstated provocations. But he posed them concisely and then he shut up while Ali showed how daft they were. Ever heard of playing devil's advocate? Lewis knows how to make a short interview interesting without talking all over his guest. Two minutes in I thought he was a nob. By the end, I realised that he's actually quite modest - he doesn't feel like he has to come out looking like the hero, so long as he's prompted his guest to give their best. Just like, if I had a short interview with Dawkins or Hitchens, I might throw all kinds of bullshit creationism at them because I want the audience to hear their big arguments.

Second: yeah, maybe Ali comes over as a little overly sold on the American Dream, but she makes perfectly decent points about it. And I can't argue that, with her background, she's in a position to really appreciate what the West gives us. I'm certainly not tempted to walk a mile in her shoes just to share the sentiment.

Third: Tough on Islam, Tough on the Causes of Islam is a valid argumentational position and well worth thinking about, but you are scaring me, Henri Bergson. (Can't you go back to writing about laughter? I liked that one.) If fighting Islamic badness boils down to hoarse laughter and robust doubt, as Fanusi Khiyal is now suggesting (when not being extravagantly rude to people, as seems to be his chief pastime on this site) then that I can support. (Nice Mencken quote, Khiyal.) But, Bergson, what the hell is this:

Force or reticence? The latter's just adding fuel to the fire, the former is effective.

To me, your rhetoric smells of burning flesh. And to phrase the options as 'Force or reticence [to use force]' is just plain begging the question. A non-violent option isn't necessarily mere squeamishness about violence. What do you think sustains the cycles of reciprocal atrocity that militant Islam thrives on? Surely vengeance is one of the major fuels in the mixture?

470. Preventing More Lal Masjids

Comment #56986 by _J_ on July 18, 2007 at 4:02 am

Goldy, 4

Interesting link.

When I visited the page, though, I was distracted (this is off topic) by evidence of advertising based on supernaturalist assumptions. An advert popped up that begged me to avoid regretting not taking out Norwich Union Life Insurance.

Norwich Union's website says:

Life insurance from Norwich Union pays a lump sum if you die during the term.

I would have thought that Life Insurance was the one type of insurance I would never be in a position to regret not taking out.

Or does Norwich Union know something I don't?

471. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #56897 by _J_ on July 17, 2007 at 5:52 pm

Good heavens, Dr Benway! You're a brave titmouse, trying to give a good summary of this thread after 1,450 posts. And that was a really, really useful one. You little birds certainly have a knack for getting to the heart of things. Perhaps it's the beak.

Now we have a synopsis, can we publish? (Or does someone feel inclined to write an index...?)

472. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #56881 by _J_ on July 17, 2007 at 3:57 pm

PaulEmecz

Not commenting on this thread is harder than giving up smoking

TELL ME ABOUT IT.

473. The Ethics of Hell

Comment #56862 by _J_ on July 17, 2007 at 2:49 pm

cmacblue42, 15

Yeah? And I bet he's laughing his evil laugh, stroking his white cat and raking in those YouTube millions...

God, can you believe it? Some people, always out to exploit everyone else for personal gain. Better 'slap him with a lawsuit', eh?

;)

474. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #56861 by _J_ on July 17, 2007 at 2:36 pm

By the way, phil rimmer

Go looking for God and you'll find a god. Better to just go looking.

I found myself repeating exactly this point to someone at the Free Church of Scotland site yesterday. I knew I'd read it somewhere lately, but since I couldn't remember where, I changed the wording. You version's snappier - when the post appears, I might just edit it to quote you. Cheers.

475. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #56844 by _J_ on July 17, 2007 at 1:06 pm

Hi, phil rimmer,

I'd be happy to send you the Word file - though it is about 12MB.

However, you'd be better off just going to the top of this page and clicking Print. Then select to print the article with the comments. Then wait for a couple of minutes as they are all displayed together on one page.

This is a much clearer way of viewing it. When you then select it all and copy it into Word (which is all I did) you lose all the quote boxes, which makes it impossible to tell at a glance when people are quoting other people. It's better just viewing the whole lot in this site's printer-friendly layout.

(Thanks to Dianelos for pointing this out to me, by the way.)

If you'd still like me to email it to you, just let me know. (Best to send a private message, in case I somehow overcome the temptation to keep visiting this page. (Fat chance.))

476. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #56814 by _J_ on July 17, 2007 at 11:41 am

BMMcArdle, 1441

I nodded my head as usual, but it's just struck me that maybe that argument doesn't work.

If you're debating with a proper God of the Gaps theist, their problem is that they just won't accept ignorance. They have to confuse the matter until it doesn't feel like ignorance anymore, by plonking a God on top of it. (Even though that actually just adds something else to explain.)

So, the existence of a god is a prior assumption to the decision about which one it is. Which means that none of the religions have to have a water-tight case for the God-of-the-Gaps-ist. They'll just go with whichever seems most convincing to them. Or, if none of them look too great, make up their own version (like Dianelos' personal variant of Christianity).

So pointing out to the God-of-the-Gaps-ist that their dismissal of other religions ought really to stretch to their own won't work, because they weren't inspecting those faiths to find out whether there was a god. They were looking to decide which god there is. The existence of some kind of god was a prior assumption.

The best this argument alone can achieve is to force a theist to realise that they don't really know diddly-squat about the nature of their god. Getting them to question the god hypothesis entirely is another job.

All of which means that Steven Roberts' reasons for rejecting any particular theist's god, and that theist's reasons for rejecting all the others, are not necessarily the same thing.

477. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #56793 by _J_ on July 17, 2007 at 8:58 am

Hi, Elli,

It's very long. For reasons I can no longer remember, I tried to paste it all into Word a few hours ago. 881 pages. 380,355 words.

On the other hand, Dianelos is more interesting, more knowledgeable and more unusual than the vast majority of theists (or atheists) who post here. And god, is he tenacious.

The current majority opinion among atheists posting here seems to be that Dianelos' position boils down to a God of the Gaps belief. But, in following the arguments, you'll find stuff about philosophy, quantum mechanics, the multiverse, 'objective' morality, the hard problem of consciousness and a load of other bits and pieces. I've found it all very educational.

(And it's not all about arguing with Dianelos, either, as PaulEmecz or Downunder can attest. Just most of it.)

But it's still 380k+ words.

So I'd scan-read, if I were you.

478. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #56779 by _J_ on July 17, 2007 at 7:38 am

I've just stumbled on yet another quote from Arcadia that seems pertinent. I hadn't thought of it in this context before, but now that I do, it seems perfect for God of the Gaps-ism:

[...] ignorance should be like an empty vessel waiting to be filled at the well of truth - not a cabinet of vulgar curios.

479. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #56744 by _J_ on July 17, 2007 at 4:58 am

Dianelos

1426

Thank you for that welcome dose of perspective. I just don't really know enough to be able to point confidently at the world's greatest problems - much less at solutions to them. But I value this sort of reminder not to simplistically vilify the mote in the eye of our choice.

1419

But the goal is the good life. So somebody who does not believe in God and even so finds it in themselves to live well comes closer to God than somebody who has all the right beliefs about God but does not live well.

This, to me, is a great expression of how your personal religion - irrespective of the means by which you arrive at and sustain it - conquers the immoral formulation that lies at the heart of organised Christianity as I have experienced it (and indeed many other religions). To whit:

1 We believe in an immortal soul.
2 We believe this immortal soul has two possible destinies after mortal death - one inexpressibly good, one inexpressibly bad.
3 Therefore, our concern for the immortal soul must outweigh our concern for mortal life.
4 We believe that the only way to achieve the good destiny for the immortal soul is to believe in Jesus [or Mohamed, or whoever].
5 Therefore, we believe that sharing our belief is more important than mortal life.

In spite of all the layers of encouragement to be virtuous that every church I've been to piles on, no amount of well-intended doctrinal detail can cancel out this black hole of immorality at the heart of the faith. (I suppose, when Martin Luther emphasised the sola fide-based belief system, he was doing so as a reaction against a bloated Catholic church that had corrupted 'good works' into sheer exploitation of the poor for its own financial gain. I wonder if he ever realised that he was essentially just defining the real demon in the religion more clearly.)

In fact, the only way I can see that nice Christians who hold this belief can manage to be nice Christians at all is by doubt - by being uncertain whether what their beliefs really are correct, and thus being reticent to actually put their money where their faith is and treat mortal life as less important than the faith. I think it's a pretty serious indictment of a belief system if the only way you can make it acceptable is by being so unsure about it that you don't really practise it!

Anyway, your personal faith overturns all this completely by recognising living 'the good life' as the important thing. You kick out in-group exclusivity and replace it with something that anyone, secular or religious, can strive for. So well done, again. This is a meme (or doctrine, or whatever) we could do with seeing in a lot more of the world's religions. (And in its politics, too.)

480. The New New Atheism

Comment #56633 by _J_ on July 16, 2007 at 4:43 pm

More pressingly: what's brought on Dr Benway's cheeky pose again?

481. Kenya: The Death of Religion And Rise of Atheism in the West

Comment #56631 by _J_ on July 16, 2007 at 4:39 pm

Ranjani, 22,

Thanks for the link.

Sure, I may be all wrong. Africa's enormous, too. I can only comment with any authority at all on my own experience of one small village in Tanzania, which I rather doubt goes for the whole continent.

My position is: it's complicated. Complicated enough for me to feel that, while I'm confident enough being a loud-mouthed atheist in England, I'd think more than twice in many parts of Africa. After that, I think I'm going to bed.

482. Kenya: The Death of Religion And Rise of Atheism in the West

Comment #56613 by _J_ on July 16, 2007 at 2:34 pm

Hmm.

I kind of suspect it'll be a long time before it makes any sense to talk about atheism in East Africa.

I'm not trying to be nationalistically patronising here, by the way. But the one place I've been where I absolutely would not even raise the idea of atheism was a church in rural Tanzania I visited last summer. In that community, religion had such a powerful function in bringing people together and giving them something to celebrate. (I vividly remember the way prayers were made. Couldn't understand the Swahili, but just the tone. Those people really believe you need to make god hear you.)

Obviously, if I could wave my magic wand (I don't have a magic wand (stop sniggering)) and take the whole world all the way to happy, well-informed atheism in an instant, that would be one thing.

But, to talk to those people I met last year and suggest, even to one of them, on their own, in friendly conversation: 'You know, have you ever considered that Mungu [god] might just be made up?' Sorry. I've neither the heart nor the stomach for it.

I know Nairobi is hardly a village in the middle of nowhere, of course. But cities don't exist completely independently of the culture of the country around them. And Kenya isn't what you'd call an urbanised nation. (And I'm not sure where an MP for Nyakach, in the Kisumu district, will spend most of his time.)

Maybe it's something to do with the fact that in the West, arguments like 'Look at all the wonderful health-care and technology we have that can only come through science, and not religion' make some kind of sense. You can't get halfway through that sentence in much of Africa.

And in the technologically sophisticated West, we can come together in thousands of different ways. We're a community in which physical gaps between people increasingly make bugger all difference. In East Africa, where it's a five-minute walk between neighbouring huts in a single village and where the nearest medical dispensary is twenty miles away along a dirt track, something that gets a community to gather together and share something has a real value. Especially if it helps them to put the many hardships that they feel (increasingly, I fear, as they gain more and more glimpses of what life is like in the West) out of their minds, or subordinate them to a sense of something greater. Even if it's a fiction.

As for the racism, and sexism, and homophobia - well, those may be battles to be fought within the framework of the religion that's currently there. And they won't be won overnight. (Look at the problems Anglicanism has with its African representatives over homosexuality.)

I think talking about atheism - though an urgent matter now in the west - may be the wrong sort of conversation in some nations, including many African ones. There are more pressing concerns there.

But then, of course, you can point to the Catholic church and AIDS in Africa, for example. So it's complicated. Like everything.

Probably I should just keep my mouth shut.

For the time being, anyway, we can't really expect the West's conversation with itself about atheism to be well received by too many Kenyan MPs.

(Probably not even any who can string a sentence together.)

483. The New New Atheism

Comment #56567 by _J_ on July 16, 2007 at 12:44 pm

Is that picture supposed to be Hitchens debating with God?

Wonder why they didn't take a photograph.

484. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #56562 by _J_ on July 16, 2007 at 12:26 pm

Dr Benway

Dianelos, some might praise you for trumping Jesus in the charity department. But I see only an endless game of two-coat ping-pong.

Genius.

485. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #56435 by _J_ on July 15, 2007 at 6:07 pm

the great teapot,

Isn't that cockney rhyming slang?

Some would say I wouldn't need a costume to go as a '[Jodrell] Banker'.

You were not at the party. I would have recognised you by your head hung low in shame at recognition of your Monty Hall Error. (Although we could have formed a small coalition of kitchen utensils, which might have been nice.)

Be not ashamed, by the way. All have been been brought low by Monty Hall. It is a rite of passage. In fact, Getting The Monty Hall Problem Wrong may be an 'objective truth'...

486. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #56429 by _J_ on July 15, 2007 at 5:54 pm

Dianelos, 1401

Just very quickly (I am really not here)

Now where've I heard that before? ;)

Everyone,

I'm not here, either. But, in response to Paul's RE teaching (which sounds to be of the best kind; well done, Paul):

I went to an RC sixth form college. In practice, though, there was no pushing of faith. Aside from occasional assemblies that would invariably end with a quote from Julian of Norwich (memorably described to me as 'a donkey') delivered by our wonderful principal who wore a suit and sandals, faith and faithlessness were a completely free choice.

(We did have a weekly Religion and Philosophy lesson, though. This was really an 'Arguing about moral issues' session, which I really enjoyed. After I left the college (but not because of that), it changed its name to 'Ethics'.)

Almost everyone at my college was automatically entered for A-Level General Studies, too, which is the academic equivalent of a pub quiz.

Anyway, I met a young lady at a party last night (fancy dress - I went as Jodrell Bank) who is currently at my old college. And guess what? You can now opt out of the General Studies paper we used to take in favour of studying...Critical Thinking! I spent some time boring her to tears by enthusing about Carl Sagan. (I'm not sure she was able to take me seriously while I was wearing a helmet with a colander glued to it, but she did write 'The Demon-Haunted World' into her phone's memo function.)

Anyway, the point is that my local (excellent) RC College not only still has no interest in pushing religion, but now teaches Critical Thinking.

This makes J a happy bunny.

Right: before someone else tells me to, I'll piss off.

487. The Republican War on Science Rages On

Comment #55997 by _J_ on July 13, 2007 at 6:27 am

Philip1978 and USA_Limey

:D Cheers, guys - excellent work! Needed my shot of methadone, there.

488. The Republican War on Science Rages On

Comment #55990 by _J_ on July 13, 2007 at 5:45 am

blueollie, 12

In my cirlces, "GOP" stands for "Greed Over Patriotism" ;-)

...which is pretty bad, given that patriotism must be just about the most overrated 'virtue' there is.

489. The God of the Bible is No Delusion!

Comment #55963 by _J_ on July 13, 2007 at 3:42 am

this thread is no longer the longest one on the site

To catch up, what's everyones favorite colour?

Mine is red

Good lord, the McGrath/Dianelos thread digressed through some pretty diverse topics in its repeated orbits around the point, but this is just ridiculous! You don't count as winning the marathon if you take a taxi, folks. ;)

Anyway, Dianelos has signed off, so you've got nothing to race against. And I must say it's a relief to be liberated from the discussion, so I'm not even getting started on this one. Count this post as a free gift towards your bid for supremacy.

490. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55891 by _J_ on July 12, 2007 at 7:09 pm

Dianelos, you have reappeared after a very brief absence in which I wondered whether your wife had finally taken action against your computer (which I'd understand!). ;) Nice to see you're still here.

The rest of this post is going to seem a bit lousy given that you've now given me stuff to respond to. But that was going to happen sooner or later anyway. I wrote most of this post a couple of hours ago, you see, and would have posted it then, had I not been drawn away for a while.

I'm not running away from your responses. I will read them, and think about them, and perhaps they'll have an effect on me. (Perhaps doing so without planning a response will help me to resist confirmation bias, too. Who can say?) But I'll have to leave the others on this thread to respond. Judging from recent comments, it seems also that the chief value of this discussion may be to observers.

Anyway, getting to the point, I need to take my leave now. There's only so many times you can hit a swingball round before it runs out of wire, and all the fun fades quite quickly from beating the metal post with the bat. I'm supposed to be writing a play, and I've already frittered away over half of my allotted time on this debate. If anyone sees me on here again, please tell me to piss off and get back to work.

Anyway, Dianelos, as I said, I'll read your posts properly. And this also doesn't mean you can now ignore my recent posts to you. I'll pop in on my lunchbreaks to see your responses, applaud your deconversion and welcome you into the happy universe of atheism… ;) Anyway, thank you very sincerely for all you've put into this discussion, and for sharing your beliefs and your reasoning. I am glad to have heard you explain your brand of theism, I have learned from you and from many of the atheistic contibutors (especially steve99, Dr Benway and epeeist) and I've a better sense of what theism is capable of than before. (If that last remark sounds a little ambiguous: good.)

(By the way – I know it's weird to write a post like this to announce one's departure from something as casual as a discussion thread. But you, and others, have put a lot of time and effort into this debate. So, somehow, it would feel rude just to bugger off without an explanation.)

Cheers, everyone.

J

491. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55887 by _J_ on July 12, 2007 at 6:46 pm

I'd like to put the brakes on and share an anecdote with anyone who's not in a hurry for the discussion to actually go anywhere. (Otherwise, please skip this post. It's a long thread, after all.) It seems relevant, in the context of some of the opinions raised in the last fifty comments.

In the summer of 2002, I did a few weeks' clerical work at a local exam board. On my last day, I was down in the cellar where all the papers were filed. I realised that I was undiscoverable amidst the shelves and decided to kill half an hour by flicking through GCSE papers (taken by 16 year-olds, for those of you outside England). I guessed that the RE (Religious Education) papers had the best humour potential, partly because a lot of kids take it as an easy option and partly because I wondered what papers from religious schools would be like.

Well, it was a good guess. Some papers had obviously been written by kids who hadn't attended a single class (at least not in a wakeful state). You could see a whole narrative suggested in the examiners' marks and comments as they struggled to find ways of awarding a few points.

More worrying were the religious schools. There was an optional paper on the history of the Roman Catholic church, and this had clearly been selected by a lot of RC schools. The file for some such schools showed whole paragraph-length answers that were near-enough identical from student to student. There seemed to be a lot of enforcement of official policy on the interpretation of Catholic history.

But the best, most memorable material came from a couple of the papers submitted by students who were at the 'didn't go to any lessons' end of the spectrum. Two answers have stuck in my mind over the last five years. They were to questions that invited fairly lengthy answers, worth a few points, engaging in a bit of teenage theological argument. The two answers I remember were not lengthy. I didn't write them down, but I can remember them pretty well:

People say that god can see me all the time everywhere I go, but how could he be that big?

God can't be in the clouds because he'd fall through and he can't be underground because there's no air, so where is he hiding?

I was in my brief, but sincere, Christian phase at the time. Yet these comments – simplistic, naïve, unconsidered – oddly struck a chord with me. I was just about to embark on a period of examining my beliefs that would lead me through an increasingly idiosyncratic faith (sort of like Dianelos', but less well-read and sophisticated) and eventually to atheism.

See, I'd always felt a bit like Duchovny/Mulder in The X-Files with his 'I Want To Believe' poster, but about god rather than aliens. I liked the idea of Christianity, but it didn't add up intellectually to me. I wondered if I was really able to believe. (Is it all genetic in the end, I wonder…?) I finally relented in my last year at university and gave Christianity some time and effort. And I was convinced, and I became one. It lasted 9 months (I always like the fact that that's also the human gestation period.)

Dianelos remarked in 1239: 'let's not forget that the intellectual path is not the only one nor necessarily the best path towards God'. Well, sure. But, sort of by way of contrast, I personally still treasure those GCSE RE answers. They're arguments from ignorance and incredulity, absolutely, and any theologian could kick the dodgy assumptions from under them in their sleep. But they were simple responses from people who had clearly not absorbed anything they were taught in RE and were desperately, under pressure, trying to articulate their opinion as an argument. There's something in their ingenuousness that made my former Christian self chuckle – but also take them directly to heart.

And the funny feeling that I've got right now is that, in spite of all the knowledge and all the effort that has been poured into this argument, these sorts of questions are still whizzing about unanswered. With every new layer of sophistication, we still don't get a straight answer. How can god see us all? How can s/he do the things that are claimed of her/him: ie everything in existence. How is s/he an answer for anything?

'Where is he hiding?'

492. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55885 by _J_ on July 12, 2007 at 6:33 pm

1362, Dianelos

There is nothing that naturalism explains and idealistic theism doesn't (because really naturalism does not explain anything beyond what science explains), and there is quite a bit that idealistic theism explains that naturalism doesn't, for example why we experience a physical environment in the first place, why that environment is mechanical, why it can be painful, and so on.

There are words for people who explain things without any testable evidence to back them up. You probably know some of them. They're generally not synonymous with 'source of truth'.

I'm a bit of a creative writer in the spare time that I don't spend on here (which is never, but that's irrelevant(ish)). Give me a little time and I'll give you a worldview that explains things as well or even better than yours. Of course, it'll be evidentially barren, but it'll explain everything wonderfully. And maybe have a decent narrative and some nice words in it, too.

And don't just dismiss my (pending) work of explanatory majesty, by the way. There Are Other Types Of Evidence Than Science, you know. You like your intuition better than science (you have stated as much on this thread); I like mine.

And I have a fiction writer's intuitions.

493. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55882 by _J_ on July 12, 2007 at 6:30 pm

SharonMcT, 1365

For the last decade I have carried around a feeling of sadness about how many people waste the one and only life they have "preparing" for the "next" life. Sometimes you just want to shake them. (Not recommending this)

Oh god, I sympathise. A friend of mine (whom I've mentioned several times now) is about to enter training to become a vicar. That'll be three years studying details of her already unshakeable god hypothesis. She's an Evangelical CofE Christian (not like the scary American ones, I hasten to add – a much more liberal, feministic English one) and she's surrounded by like-minded friends and family. Half her family (living a little distance away) are apparently Jehovah's Witnesses. Anyway, she's clever, caring and compassionate. But on the times we've discussed this, she argues dirty (like avoiding arguments by saying 'Look, he's getting angry' and changing the subject – quite a good way of making me angry…) and ultimately blocks discussion. She doesn't need someone messing up her life plan now she's decided that it's gone to the dogs – sorry, god.

I look at her and a huge part of me desperately, desperately wants to go all out to reel her back in. I want to buy her copies of all the books that I've found useful and helpful and advise her to come onto this site (perhaps to 'test her arguments' or something). I want to strap her to a chair and have this debate through until we've actually got somewhere with it. But, really: what can you do? Am I going to contribute to the amount of happiness in the world by doing this? No. Do I stand as much chance of persuading her there's no god as I do of convincing her that I'm an arsehole? (After all, right up until a theist becomes an atheist, they generally feel like you're shitting all over their parade by arguing against them at all.) No. And I have to admit, she'll probably make a really good vicar.

So for me, it's becoming an exercise in smiling and being enthusiastic about all her vicary things. 'Good for her', I say to myself. Happy day.

'Choose your battles', I suppose.

[…] the best that a theist can throw up […]

What a felicitous turn of phrase.

494. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55880 by _J_ on July 12, 2007 at 6:23 pm

USA_Limey, 1356

Thank you for this post. I really sympathised with what you said, here.


Dr Benway, 1358

Thank you doubly and more for this post. I agree with – and really needed to hear – your attitude. Which was a welcome kick up the arse. (Perhaps I'd just had one pint too many…)


phil rimmer, 1361

Yay! [Clicks heels together] :D

495. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55875 by _J_ on July 12, 2007 at 6:10 pm

Stuart Paul Wood, 1367

Welcome to the jungle…

496. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55843 by _J_ on July 12, 2007 at 2:55 pm

steve99, 1351

I completely concur with your criticisms. But it does seem to me that Dianelos succeeds in marshaling his errors into a something that makes him not just harmless, but pretty happy and quite probably a nice person to be around. I genuinely like a lot of the things he's said when he has simply described some of his beliefs and attitudes. And, whilst I've never met him, the one thing I've seen him do - debate - he does with a courtesy I have not seen equalled.

You might prefer 'harmless' to 'lovely'. I go further, perhaps because I have nagging (albeit conquered, and fading) emotional theistic sympathies. But whichever way you or I express it, I share the concerns you have voiced in your last couple of posts. I think that, on the strength of the arguments that have been presented, he is wrong, I think he's intellectually more than capable of seeing that, and I'm not overjoyed by the fact that he doesn't. But hey, we've got Jonathan Edwards.

497. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55841 by _J_ on July 12, 2007 at 2:47 pm

Dr Benway, 1349

Forgive me for being stupid, but if that post is a disagreement with what I wrote, I don't really see how…

- You'd said previously that the parsimony argument applies only to maps, not reality itself. I understand.

- I observed that Dianelos' map is sometimes (but not in the quote from him that you'd used earlier) claimed to be a lot simpler because it only has to describe people and their immediate consciousness, not all of the rest of the stuff of the universe. Things only pop onto this description when someone is aware of them. Dianelos thinks this makes his map simpler, because it always has less to describe. If I'm missing something important (like thegreatteapot with the Monty Hall problem), I guess it's in this paragraph somewhere.

- I say that even when Dianelos is doing this, he's wrong because his reality-manufacturing god/consciousness is immeasurably complex, as are His Mysterious Ways of making stuff (or making the conscious awareness of stuff – whichever it is).

Where am I going wrong, Dr Benway?

498. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55837 by _J_ on July 12, 2007 at 2:35 pm

steve99, 1346,

Even more depressing is his claim that these challenges have in some way strengthened his beliefs.

I really sympathise with your sentiments, steve99. It is possible to rationalise yourself out of theism, but as BMMcArdle has just implied, you have to be really open to the idea – not just think or say that you are.

It reminds me of the Christian Policy on Doubt, which I tried to explain to David Robertson, and which he unselfconsciously refused to admit that he uses. If you'll forgive me, I'll cut and paste a bit – though I'm sure it'll all be old news to you:

The way it works is quite simple and quite clever. Every Christian I have debated with has learned to substitute a particular positive strength of their faith to deal with a particular weakness. The process goes like this:

- Moderate, thinking, evangelical Christians (ie the ones I tend to talk to) believe that it's important to have a dialogue with non-believers and that it's important to be able to question their own faith in order to understand it better.

- However, the necessity of retaining their faith is a given. Losing the faith would be the worst kind of catastrophe. So, they must question their faith, but in such a way as never to actually threaten it.

- This wouldn't be a problem if Christianity were so evidently factually correct that all lines of question fell before it. But (more on this later) this isn't so. Increasingly, the non-religious can raise doubts that cannot be dismissed outright by rational Christian arguments.

- This is a problem.

- The solution is the concept of humility. When a doubt is raised that a Christian cannot answer, the virtue of humility kicks in. The Christian politely acknowledges that they can't answer the question but asserts that they are sure that the answer is known to god. They maintain that doubt is intrinsic to Christianity and that it is a Christian virtue to be humble and not assume that one can know everything.

- The argument reaches an impasse and grinds to a halt.

I gave some analogies to back it up – it's worth taking things slowly at the Free Church site, because there seem to be believers at various different levels of zeal reading – but that's basically it. To sum up:

Christian doubt is a rigged game with only one possible result. Everything is interpreted to support the original assumption of the truth of Christianity. This is neither a responsible nor an honest approach to evidence. […] the Christian Policy on Doubt and Humility [is] a simple but clever way of converting things that ought by all rights to shake one's faith into feelings that support it. It is a necessary strategy that allows the overriding assumption of the certain truth of faith to demonstrate an apparent, but ultimately false, openness to debate.

In fairness, it seems a bit different in Dianelos' case, because his Christianity plays by different rules than the types I've seen before. But I agree that the end result looks the same. You're left convinced that you've punctured his hull several times, but it's like the ship won't sink until the captain notices. Giving the feeling that it's a ghostship, made – apparently like the rest of Dianelos' universe – from either physical matter or sheer, immaterial consciousness depending on the current attitude of the captain.

Dianelos is not dangerous, but his worldview is.

Yes. Dianelos' worldview as he practices it is lovely – the best theism I've seen. But without the ingredient that is Dianelos doing the interpreting, the same framework would – and does – wreak havoc in someone else's hands. It is upsetting to hear that not only have we not made progress, but we've strenghthened the view.

Ah well, not to worry, eh? {:|

499. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55824 by _J_ on July 12, 2007 at 1:52 pm

Dr Benway, 1345

Thank you for the Donne! Definitely beautiful (if beauty can be definite…), and how relevant to bring up one of the metaphysical poets!

On mapping the Dianelosian universe (perhaps a PhD project in itself, though I've no idea which discipline it would fall under), you say this:

The theist and atheist physicists study the same map for their PhDs. But the theist adds "insert God here" to his map. The theist has more stuff on his map.

…and refer to 1292, where you have this:

...the physical phenomena that science studies are exactly the same in both worldviews.

You concede that the theist and atheist physics grad students study identical maps of the universe. Plus the theist has God. The theist has more stuff!

…so I see how your point adds up.

But I also see that in, 1277. Dianelos has stated his case like this:

[…] when you compare the complexity of worldview (physical X) and the worldview (N persons directly experiencing X + G) then it's impossible for the former to be less complex than the latter, unless N is very large in comparison to X's complexity or else if there is reason to assume that G is of comparable complexity to X.

…in which he is expressly leaving all 'complexity' out of his worldview (map) except that which can be described as 'N persons directly experiencing X'.

Which means that Dianelos, studying his physics PhD, might be nodding along with his atheist colleagues as to the rules that govern the universe's stuff, but he actually regards that stuff as non existent unless a conscious person is actually there directly experiencing it. (Or, strictly interpreting his above statement, non-existent except as data being somehow received by conscious people.) The stuff of the universe that populates an atheist's map may obey the same apparent rules on Dianelos' but it only exists on his map in the same way in which rooms in a 3D computer game 'exist' – ie, they're only potential until you navigate into them.

This does seem to clash with the Dianelos quote that you gave. Meaning that Dianelos may be in a position in which his worldview is not the same thing as his worldview. The Argument from Self-Contradiction. Wonderful.


steve99, 1346

He is assuming that anyone who does not agree with him must assume a territory consisting entirely of little particles interacting in 'mechanical' ways.

Yes. Welcome to the Lego-verse.

(Always write that with the hyphen. Lose it, and you risk giving the wrong impression, should you ever accidentally drop the 'e'.)


Dr Benway, 1347

Yes, yes and yes some more.

If only they all just drew puppies…

500. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #55805 by _J_ on July 12, 2007 at 11:50 am

Dr Benway, 1338

Ah, I see. I did misunderstand you. 'The territory' is whatever actually is; theism is Dianelos' 'map'. I've equivocated too, then – apologies.

I can rephrase the same point, though, for Dianelos can (and probably will (hi, Dianelos, by the way!)) say that the atheist's map records masses of 'complexity' that his doesn't. Dianelos' map marks the locations of all conscious observers, and then only bothers to record whatever other details are perceivable by those observers at any given moment. The whole rest of the map is blank. However, the entire thing is drenched in magic ink, so that as those little observers move around, the details present on the map change, following their little consciousnesses. Consequently, at any moment, his map does indeed display a lot less detail than yours or mine (which try to map an enormous territory on the assumption that trees fall in forests even if no one is watching). But Dianelos' map has the added complexity of magic God-ink, and that sort of complexity is uncountable.