1601. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50307 by steve99 on June 16, 2007 at 3:43 pm

But for me, I am compelled to conclude that behind this universe and all other universes that may exist is the One true God who is infinite, all-knowing, all-powerful, loving, merciful and perfectly just.

Compelled by what, exactly?

I would also be fascinated to know how you know that he is infinite (do you have some sort of deity size estimator? What order of infinite - Aleph 0, Aleph 1, or greater?), how is is all-knowing, and all-powerful (do you realise that those terms are philosophically and logically meaningless?) and as for loving, merciful and perfectly ('perfectly'?) just, again, how do you know? How do you know that he isn't apathetic and uncaring? How would the universe look different if he was?

I am honestly interested. You have applied a series of very definite quantitative attributes to this supposed deity, so presumably you have a reason to do that.

1602. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50266 by steve99 on June 16, 2007 at 6:10 am

Come on Steve99, we need a 4th for euchre. I actually thought you were coming down after your comment no. 684.

Me too. But I have to believe there is hope. (In fact, maybe if I believe it enough, it will become a God-given eternal truth).

1603. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50256 by steve99 on June 16, 2007 at 4:17 am

No, of course not. But there is a big difference, and I am surprised you didn't spot it:

Of course I knew this difference. I was taking an extreme case to make a point.

Many normal adults (indeed probably most normal adults) very strongly believe that to torture children is objectively wrong.

So what? Reality is not determined by what people believe it is. This is obviously nonsense. The majority of people have a wildly different (and mistaken) idea of time and space is than what we know is true. The majority of people think it is obviously objectively true that time can't stop or move backwards. We know from relativity that this is at least possible.

To claim that 'what normal adults think' is any measure of what is supposedly 'objectively true' is absurd.

In recent human history, the majority of normal white adults thought it was objectively true that negroes were inferior. According to your reasoning, that made it a God-given truth.

But fortunately things changed.

Contrasted to that no normal adult very strongly believes that fairies exist. (I know that Dawkins compares believing in God to believing in fairies, but this is clearly nonsense and should not cloud your thinking.)

It is clearly not nonsense, as there is precisely the same amount of evidence for either. That is Dawkins' point.

Oh I agree; reality is the operative word. And reality is objective by definition and does not depend on anybody's opinion.

Yes. But that does not mean that you, Danielos, or anyone else has any claim to know directly what reality is. This is what really puzzles me. What instrument or process do you have that allows you to claim that something is objectively true?

Still, can you explain how a naturalist finds out how reality is?

I am astonished you persist in asking this. It has been dealt with in many, many posts here.

And, of course, it is of no relevance at all. You are the one making claims of some unfathomable direct line to what reality is, with your 'objective ethics' and so on.

As we saw science has nothing to say about reality,

No... this is only what you say.

But if it were true, perhaps you could explain why any other approach should work any better.

You are really fixed on the strange idea that what people want to believe somehow has any relation to what is objectively true.

1604. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50241 by steve99 on June 16, 2007 at 1:43 am

No, I never claimed that. I only claimed the well known fact that nobody knows how to make naturalism compatible with objective morality, and that as many people believe that morality is objective that represents a problem for naturalism.

It is also a well known fact that nobody knows how to make naturalism compatible with fairies. Some people believe in fairies. Would you claim that this represents a problem with naturalism?

You are stuck in a rut. You need to realise that we have to change our minds based on reality - we can't declare what reality is based on opinion of what it should be. that you have a personal belief in objective morality (which I still find unjustified and bizarre) has no relevance to reality.

1605. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50206 by steve99 on June 15, 2007 at 5:17 pm

In any case I can't see how the existence of "objective morality" in any interpretation provides an argument for the existence of God.

Of course, it doesn't. Any more than the existence of an objective idea of logic or of mathematical principles provides an argument for the existence of God.

I am beginning to come to a rather sad conclusion, which is that Danielos is no better than so many unquestioning religious people who post on sites like this. I think I am beginning to understand their motives for posting. They don't post to question or challenge their beliefs. They post in a truly desperate search for reassurance. They have doubts about what they really, passionately want to believe (we see this in Danielos's comments about objective ethics). So they hunt for support. If they can post on just one site, and get some support, or at least encourage doubt from one rationalist, then this provides them with some comfort. They can't quite deal with the idea that their views are irrational, so they seek for whatever crumb of comfort they can find. They try and support their irrationality by straw-men attacks on science and naturalism, and at the same time ironically try and defend their views against philosophy and theology with half-hearted appeals to science (such as arguments based on complexity and order). Try and challenge their ideas with arguments based on evidence and they claim they are only testing ideas, or discussing hypotheses. Challenge their idea of God, and He disappears into an invisible non-entity that has no effect, so is un-challengable, and they still treat that as some desperate argument for His existence.

The argument can't be won, because it was never a serious argument in the first place; just an emotional appeal for reassurance.

1606. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50198 by steve99 on June 15, 2007 at 4:15 pm

I believe the multiverse ideas are correct and that all possible laws of physics may exist. I see a definite need for God to exist because without God, the Supreme Designer and Creator, our universe and all other universes would not exist.

Then you really haven't understood anything I have said. If you thinka supreme designer is required where there is no need for a designer, you are seriously deluded. Your belief is a dishonest belief. You presumably came here because you had some doubt about your belief. You tried to use science to justify it. You can't find that justification from science, yet you still cling on to that belief. I feel sorry for you.

Subjectively, I believe God exists and consciousness continues after death. Subjectively, you believe the opposite. The $64,000 question that arises here is this. Who is correct here, you or me?

You have no idea what I believe. And, what you are trying to argue is Pascal's Wager. Sorry, but that doesn't work. Believe in the wrong God, and you are doomed after death.

Where science has failed you, theology also fails.

I prefer the honest and decent approach - doubt. If there is a life after death, at least I will have shown no favouritism towards a particular God. The odds are, I will be better off than you.

1607. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50155 by steve99 on June 15, 2007 at 10:34 am

…so have I.

I apologise if I have said the same thing. It can be hard to keep track of such long conversations.

1608. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50154 by steve99 on June 15, 2007 at 10:12 am

Again a conflict would exist if science claims a proposition which this theistic worldview denies, or vice versa.

You were talking about conflicts between world views. This does not have to be a conflict between propositions, or a conflict between facts. It can also be a conflict between approaches and attitudes. The theist worldview does conflict in this way. There is a putty-like God able to be squeezed into any gaps that should be left open.

and that I justify by pointing out that all scientific knowledge is based on observation of physical phenomena, and according to the hypothesis all these observations are caused by God.

You are confusing the practice of science with science itself. Science is about being open minded, about allowing evidence and reason to help form and change your worldview. It is about admitting that when you don't know something, that you really just don't know it! This is in direct conflict with a theistic worldview.

Neither can you change their hypothesis at will by claiming properties of God they have not asserted, because this amounts to constructing a strawman.

You say that God exists. He either does or doesn't.

Now, there are various possibilities:

(1) He exists and you believe it because he has changed reality in some way you recognise.
(2) He does not exist and you believe it, so you are (in a polite way) 'deluded'.
(3) He exists and has not interfered with reality at all, and by an amazing co-incidence, you correctly believe that he exists.

(1) means that God has changed reality in ways that have been picked up by your mind in some way. We can watch minds. Minds are linked intimately with brains. It is in principle a scientific issue.

(2) Means you are 'deluded'.

(3) Means you are as good as 'deluded', as you have drawn a conclusion based on no evidence and nothing real. Whether God exists or not is actually of no relevance to your state of mind.

So, either you accept that God has interfered with reality in some way (and so is subject to investigation), or...

I only have to justify any proposition I claim about that hypothesis.

No, that is only what you claim you have to do.

The problem is that you are not trying to justify propositions about hypotheses: You have and are still putting forward claims about reality, not about hypotheses about reality.

For exmample, we aren't discussing "how interesting it would be if there were objective ethics" - you are saying "There ARE objective ethics".

I have often pointed out my goal is to explain how I justify the claim that my theistic worldview works better than naturalism.

But that is the point - works better at what, exactly?

Works better at explaining order in the universe? No, we have covered that. Order can and does arise spontaneously.

Works better at explaining consciousness? No, we have covered that too: it has no explanatory power at all, simply shunts the (supposed) problem to a supernatural domain. That does nothing at all to help with an explanation.

Works better at ethics? No, we have covered that. Even if there were such a highly questionable thing as objective ethics, I have discussed in detail in previous posts that this has no connection whatsoever with the supernatural, or a God. (Why should God determine what these objective ethics are, any more than God determines the digits of PI?)

As I have argued before, what you are using God for isn't really as an explanation in the way that I think most of us mean that. In answer to the question 'how do our consciousnesses arise', you reply 'God wanted us to have them'. You are supplying 'why' answers to 'how' questions, and (I suspect unintentionally) avoiding the issues.

What it might be better at is making you happier. That is fine, but has no bearing in its truth.

1609. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50147 by steve99 on June 15, 2007 at 9:01 am

In our context there would be a conflict if science claims some proposition that this theistic worldview denies, or vice-versa. Can you see any possibility of such a conflict between science and the theistic worldview I described?

Sorry to jump in, I have already covered my view of this in a post above - 661.

1610. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50142 by steve99 on June 15, 2007 at 8:28 am

But clearly, anesthesia does not "remove consciousness", as it does not remove a human's capacity for having conscious experience.

Clearly it does remove consciousness, as it does, in fact, remove a human's capacity for having conscious experience while it is effective. That is precisely what it is for.

But the hard problem that consciousness represents for naturalism is that nobody knows whether cockroaches have consciousness in the first place, nor can imagine how a test to find that out might look like.

And this is an equally hard problem for supernaturalism. Unless you can specify such a test or what it might look like using some hypothetical supernatural technique, you gain nothing by switching to that domain.

1611. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50130 by steve99 on June 15, 2007 at 7:28 am

But suppose that God does in fact exist and directly causes all our experiences including the experiences of physical phenomena that science studies. That's a theistic worldview, yes? And moreover describes a God who is extremely active with us. How then might such a theistic worldview conflict with science? Clearly it can't.

It certainly does conflict with science because it assumes an explanation for things, rather than leaving options open.

Also, if it is in no way measurable, then there is no possible mechanism by which you can know that is is there, so you might as well have just made it up. You can't just come up with an imaginary being that has no detectable effect, because, as has been pointed out, there are an infinite number of those, and no justification for choosing any particular one. You could claim God is very active; I could claim he is very lazy, and only causes things 1% of the time. There is no difference in principle in which anyone could distinguish between our claims. In fact, I could go further and claim that a God exists and is infinitely lazy, and does nothing at all. You could not refute that. So I go one step further....

1612. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50112 by steve99 on June 15, 2007 at 5:33 am

Danielos.

Would you please respond to the previous posts indicated by some of us. Otherwise, you will continue to make assertions that have been seriously (and I believe successfully) challenged in previous posts. For example, your repeated statements about objective ethics and what naturalism can and can't do are, to be honest, a waste of time.

Sorry to be so blunt, but I just can't see what the problem is for you to reply to the posts we have indicated. You asked for us to indicate what you should respond to, and we have.

1613. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50018 by steve99 on June 14, 2007 at 2:41 pm

true science can help children and adults acquire a greater appreciation of the magnificence, immensity and infinite power of God.

That isn't going to work, as all the evidence suggests that the more people learn about science, the less need that have to invoke God. We have an example of this here, where you assumed that order required a Creator. Also, if some multiverse ideas are correct, all possible laws of physics exist. If that is the case, there is definitely no need for a God who makes specific laws.

1614. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50004 by steve99 on June 14, 2007 at 2:02 pm

So, after having clarified the question, do you think that this question is meaningful? If you don't, why not? If you do, how would you answer it?

I promise I will answer this as best I can, but I think it is only fair that first you deal with the posts I have listed.

1615. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49998 by steve99 on June 14, 2007 at 1:38 pm

It doesn't change my conclusion in any way. Math, chemistry and physics require order. Behind order there must be intelligence.

No, this is just not true. Math does not require any intelligence to exist. PI is PI, and not even God could change its digits. Math is not something created.

And chemistry and physics don't require any order. In fact, they are good at describing disorder.

Our universe is extremely ordered.

No, it isn't. You see order on local scales because that is what happens when you have disorder in an initial state combined with a universally attractive force (gravity).

I have recently purchased a book titled "WHAT'S OUT THERE'' with a foreword by Stephen Hawking. In the foreword, he says "It is currently estimated that there may be 150 billion galaxies in the universe." On page 67, it shows a mosaic of 70 galaxies taken by the GEMS Survey and the galaxies shown in this mosaic are anywhere between 100 million and ten billion light years from Earth. Many of these galaxies have similar shapes. This picture demonstrates great order in our universe.

No, it doesn't. It is only showing small amounts of order resulting from local gravitational collapse. It is certainly not a sign of great order.

And what is more amazing many cosmologists now think our universe may be one of an infinite number of universes.

Which makes things even less ordered, as if that is the case, then all possible combinations of physical properties may exist. Put simply, if everything happens, that involves the least possible order and no design or selection of anything.

I still strongly conclude behind all of creation is One Supreme Intelligence, One Supreme Being, One Supreme Designer, and One Supreme Creator that we call God.

Sorry, but I just can't see how that fits with the science I have described. You can believe all you want, but you can't use the 'order' arguments you have listed above, because they are just plain wrong.

1616. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49993 by steve99 on June 14, 2007 at 12:58 pm

1. That science has something to say about how reality is.

Even assuming that this were not the case, that is in no way any argument that a belief in some totally unknown and unprovable supernatural being has anything to say about reality either. That adds no explanatory or predictive power. As I have pointed out, all that leads to is a mistaken answering of 'how' questions with unfounded 'why' answers, as in "Q. How does the brain produce consciousness. A. God decided to give us minds."

If you are not a solipsist, then you accept that there is something out there. Science gives a procedure for finding out about it. Your views do the opposite - they shut down investigation (as shown by your repeated statements that 'this can't be explained').

2. That a theistic worldview must, or at least might, conflict with science.

I have yet to encounter a theistic worldview that has not conflicted with science. Theists make claims about the origin of the universe, and about the cause of structure and order (you have fallen into this trap, and I hope you now realise that you were wrong). They make claims about evolution. They make claims about the mind (as you do).

So there can be no doubt whatsoever that theist worldviews might conflict with science. I believe something stronger - that they inevitably will.

Even the least interventionist theism overlaps and conflicts with science in the following way:

If someone claims that God exists, then they are presumably basing that on some evidence (if not, they are just making it up). That evidence is either their own thoughts (which can be examined by science) or by some physical phenomena (which can also be examined by science).

And, can I mention the following posts again:

619 (and 632), 612, 588, 586

I feel at this stage it is really helpful if you could answer them, as otherwise we will be going round in circles, with you repeating the same claims over and over.

1617. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49974 by steve99 on June 14, 2007 at 10:29 am

If you (or other posters here) feel that me replying particular posts before others would help focus this discussion, please point out the numbers of the posts you mean.

Well, here are posts of mine that have not been dealt with, and I feel seriously challenge what you say you believe:

619 (and 632), 612, 588, 586

1618. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49973 by steve99 on June 14, 2007 at 10:28 am

Do you think that the question "How does mass curve spacetime?" is meaningful?

Yes.

But if you think this is a meaningful question how would you answer it?

I couldn't.

And if you don't know the answer could you at least explain how a possible answer might look like?

First, we have to know what mass and space and time fundamentally are. Work to understand that is being done by those investigating quantum gravity, especially String Theorists.

Modern physics is making things look at lot simpler. Just to give one example (which I am probably going to over-simplify), special relativity reveals that we are all moving at the same speed through spacetime. All that happens when we appear to move through space is that the direction of our movement changes (which is why moving through space results in a slower movement through time). I found this astonishing when I first hear of it.

We may not even get down to the true fundamentals, but what science is doing is moving us to more and more revealing explanations.

1619. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49969 by steve99 on June 14, 2007 at 10:06 am

My argument rests on the hypothesis that that God is personal (i.e. a conscious being), objectively good, and willing as well as powerful/intelligent enough to create us and cause all experience we have.

I have to admit I am starting to have a problem with your posts, in that you keep stating hypotheses that I feel have been seriously challenged in posts you have not yet replied to.

1620. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49899 by steve99 on June 14, 2007 at 3:31 am

I think that to believe that our brain causes consciousness is a belief that cannot be justified on reason.

I know this may sound like a trivial question, but how then do you explain the removal of consciousness through things that change the brain, such as anaesthetics?

1621. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49880 by steve99 on June 14, 2007 at 2:19 am

Steve 99, being a carrier of 1 sickle-cell allele does provide the advantage of malarial resistance, but getting two SCA alleles is deadly.

I know, but the reason it persists is because even though fatal in that case, it provides less overall fatalities than malaria.

1622. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49879 by steve99 on June 14, 2007 at 2:17 am

it's intuitively obvious for me that to gratuitously torture children is objectively wrong.

You can't use intuition as proof of objective truths. You can't use intuition as proof of anything. This reduces to nothing more than "something is true because I think and want it to be true", which is no argument at all.

It's an intuition alright, but such a clear intuition that it's reasonable to expect worldviews to conform to it, and not vice-versa.

No it isn't reasonable at all.

You are making a big mistake here. We know that in almost all areas of human reason intuition fails. Why should it work for you?

1623. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49803 by steve99 on June 13, 2007 at 2:02 pm

epeeist: I hope you will forgive me if I make just one response...

Of course you can invoke the god of luck justified by the anthropic principle.

devolved: I wish to add to the evidence you listed for a creator....

If not for the precise arrangements of continents..

If not for the exact history of our Royal Family...

If one of my ancestors had not been a sailor...

I would not be an Englishman! That is proof of a creator.

It is so astonishing that English people exist where the Universe has co-incidentally designed England to be, that the only explanation is a God.

Of course, this is nonsense.

English people live where England happened to be.

Carbon-based life forms arise where carbon-based life forms can arise.

Other life forms presumably appear where they are possible.

Complex universes arise within the multiverse where complexity is possible.

1624. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49802 by steve99 on June 13, 2007 at 1:51 pm

I explored the observable order in the universe and I concluded that God does exist.

But as we now know, because of work in maths, chemistry and physics in the past century or so, that order can arise by itself... how does this influence your conclusion?

1625. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49799 by steve99 on June 13, 2007 at 1:39 pm

It is essentially trying to reason about things that do not exist. To use another example (from Copi and Cohen's "Introduction to Logic") - someone tells you that (all) the apples in the barrel next to you are delicious. When you look in the barrel it is empty. The presupposition by the speaker is that there are (some) apples in the barrel, this is existential import.

(That makes far more sense that the wikipedia page.)

Ah - I understand now. No, I don't think it is the same thing. I think Danielos (if he will forgive me interpreting his views) is putting forward an ethical equivalent of Plato's "Theory of Forms". Our corrupt world is a mere shadow of some higher realm of perfection, which contains static unchanging ideals. I think Danielos is a Neo-Platonist; identifying the Ultimate Form as God. This is a serious and respectable point of view. The problem is that it has been made redundant by both modern science and modern mathematics. Flaws in both the ideas of causality (even if only at small scales) and in logic shatter any idea of Platonic perfection. Godel destroyed Plato's ideal realm.

1626. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49790 by steve99 on June 13, 2007 at 12:50 pm

even if I think Danielos' posts are steaming piles of horse maneur :)

I really do disagree. I think they are wrong, but in very interesting ways. They have been, to me, a very useful illustration of how well-educated and intelligent theists justify their beliefs.

1627. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49787 by steve99 on June 13, 2007 at 12:42 pm

I think we may be saying the same thing when I have challenged Dianelos on existential import. Just to check on this (and hopefully not to teach my granny to suck eggs).

We may well be saying the same thing. The problem is that .... I have to admit that I have no idea what existential import is! I have to resort to wikipedia (and other sources) frequently in an attempt to deal with the intellectual level of many of your posts! (My level is basically only saying "God. Not. There" with a few fancy words).

1628. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49773 by steve99 on June 13, 2007 at 11:45 am

(If you don't mind, _J_... I had to state the obvious, especially as my opinion was asked for at one point)

the failure to account for objective goodness appear to be insurmountable problems for naturalism

I would suggest that the problem is your belief in the existence of objective goodness (for which you have provided no convincing argument). To suggest that this is a problem for naturalism seems to me rather like someone who believes in dragons rejecting evolution because it can't explain fire-breathing.

First, prove that dragons exist! Give us your proof that there is such a thing as objective goodness.

This does seem to reveal a huge difference between your way of thinking and the way I am sure most of us here think. We are humble enough to allow ourselves to be challenged by reality. That is why some of us are scientists - we are prepared to give up long-held beliefs in the face of reason and evidence. On the other hand, you seem to take the opposite view. You have a firmly held belief, and if reality doesn't fit, you want to re-define reality, adding on supernatural baggage. That is not a way to find truth.

I don't; after all according to Many Worlds there is a huge number of universes in which you and I live and resurrections happen all the time (maybe steve99 would like to confirm this).

This is a very interesting point, and expresses a common misunderstanding of Many Worlds. Many Worlds does not say "anything can happen". All it is saying is that anything that is physically possible can happen. There is a huge difference.

(By the way, I am not personally a supporter of 'Many Worlds'. I find the Transactional Interpretation of John Cramer far simpler and more appealing).

1629. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49771 by steve99 on June 13, 2007 at 11:32 am

According to naturalism all events are composed of elementary events, and elementary events are either deterministic (in the sense that event B is caused by event A, which always causes event B) or random (in the sense that event B just happens without anything having caused it).

No. This may have been a reasonable summary of things centuries ago, but it is not now, not since (sorry to keep mentioning these, as they are relevant) Relativity and Quantum Mechanics. These have shattered our ideas of space, time and causuality. You are setting up a classic 'false duality' argument here.

All naturalistic efforts to find a way to assign objective value to some events must fail because they must be contingent on some other value which in the end must be reduced to subjective judgment.

OK, I agree with this.

In short in order to define that some events are objectively good one must somehow inject goodness somewhere in the causal chain of physical events and start from there. But this initial injection requires a subjective value judgment by somebody or by a group of people or by society, and therefore is non-objective.

This is the tail end of a long paragraph, which still does not provide any argument that objective ethics is not compatible with a naturalistic viewpoint. All you are saying here is that objective ethics are not found when you look at the world in a naturalistic way. Well, I agree. But so are many other things that we consider objectively true, and are not found in nature, but that does not make them incompatible with a naturalistic viewpoint. Let me re-state an argument I have put forward before. I don't think anyone (well, hardly anyone) would question the objective nature of certain mathematical facts. In fact, we consider mathematical principles so objectively true that we assume in our search for alien intelligences that others will have discovered them independently. But are all these mathematical principles physical in any way? You aren't going to find PI by looking at nature - it is too rough and uncertain. But we consider it an objective mathematical object. If you tried to persuade a mathematician that the existence of PI was both beyond naturalism and required a supernatural realm, their reaction would be .... well, let me put it this way - you would not stand a chance.

Yet you seem to think that the existence of some objective standard of ethics (which, after all, is only another form of maths and logic: Given X = "child killing" and Y = set of bad things, then Y contains X) is anti-naturalism. Do you think the mathematical existence of PI is anti-naturalism?

Where I believe you are going wrong is, as I have expressed before, in 'reifying' abstractions. Something can be objectively true, but abstract, requiring no actual existence, in either the naturalistic or supernatural realms.

Of course, I dispute the fact that there is any such thing as objective ethics, but that is another matter.

I would like to add to what others have said here, and express my appreciation of the effort and patience you have put into posting here.

1630. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49766 by steve99 on June 13, 2007 at 10:28 am

(Sorry again, Steve99. Over to you.)

Absolutely no need to apologise. I am interested in the general argument, and have no objection if someone else feels they can contribute to matters I am discussing.

1631. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49690 by steve99 on June 13, 2007 at 1:58 am

But theism avoids naturalism's problems and moreover is able to answer some deep questions that naturalism can't (such as why physical reality exists in the first place, or why the human condition - i.e. how it is to be a human being, how human life is subjectively experienced - is like it is).

If it did, then you would be able to answer questions like 'how does God produce conciousness?'

What you are doing, I think, is proving very dodgy reasons for 'why' something happens when what is required is explanations for 'how' things happen. Shifting things into some supernatural zone does not provide any 'how' answers.

To explain this, let's use the example of Paley's Watch, but in a different context. Walking along I suddenly notice a watch. I pick it up, and I wonder how it works. I ask you, and you say "someone made it so you can tell time with it, no more questions need be asked."

That is just what you are doing with matters such as conciousness. You think you are providing explanations, but you really aren't.

1632. We stand awed at the heights our people have achieved

Comment #49629 by steve99 on June 12, 2007 at 4:07 pm

We do not escape sorrow

I have had many of my close friends and family pass away in recent recent years. This post by Myers was deeply moving. This phrase is so meaningful to me. I did not pretent to hide the sorrow. There was no false comfort, no belief that those who had passed were still around. This belief made me passionate to remember those who had died - as remembering them is how they live on. We who aren't subject to the Delusion of an afterlife truly mourn.

1633. The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos

Comment #49492 by steve99 on June 12, 2007 at 5:36 am

Steve - Mind Rebel had claimed that 80% of the populations of Sweden and Finland were 'Hardcore atheists' and that Kenya and South Africa were run by the Vatican. These claims are demonstrably false so why do you defend them?

I wasn't defending them. I was attacking your point that listing people as members of a church means anything.

The figures for Finland in 2001 were 87% claimed to be Christian, 12.6% non-religious and 0.18% muslim. About 20% of the population claimed to be evangelical as contrasted with 8% of the UK. In Sweden the figures are 54% Christian, 42% on-religious and 5% evangelical.

One caveat - these figures are from 2001 but I suspect that in six years the number of hardcore atheists has not more than doubled.

You are just quoting figures. You need to say where you get these from.

I quote from:
"Atheism: Contemporary Rates and Patterns", Cambridge University Press:

"According to Norris and Inglehart (2004), 64% of those in Sweden do not believe in God."

That differs dramatically from your "42% non-religious".

The figures reported in this report also differ significantly from yours for Finland:

"Norris and Inglehart (2004) found that 28% of those in Finland do not believe in God. According to Bondeson (2003), 33% of Finns do not believe in "a personal God." According to Gustafsson and Pettersson (2002), 60% of Finns do not believe in a "personal God." According to Froese (2001), 41% of Finns are either atheist or agnostic."

These vary hugely, but are nothing like your "12.6%".

1634. Religion - our maelstrom of ignorance

Comment #49460 by steve99 on June 12, 2007 at 2:50 am

Al Gore is a creationist

No, he isn't.

1635. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49442 by steve99 on June 12, 2007 at 1:38 am

I mean one of the hallowed principles of science is that only objective data count as scientific evidence. I really think it would be confusing to change all that and keep calling it "science". But what name we should use is the lesser of worries.

Why call it anything else? One can apply experiment and testability to one's own experiences just as to physical data.

And if Chalmers considers the problem consciousness to be something that can be subject to investigation, I am at a loss as to why you insist the matter is beyond hope.

And I am afraid I still haven't a clue as to how God is involved - by what mechanism is he supposed to give us consciousness?

1636. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49342 by steve99 on June 11, 2007 at 2:58 pm

Genetic diseases persist because there is little evolutionary advantage in eliminating them. For example sickle-cell aenemia kills people long after sexual maturity and therefore does not negatively affect the spreading of their genes.

Actually, we do know the advantage that sickle-cell anaemia provides. It gives resistance to malaria.

Also, there is an advantage to surviving after sexual maturity. Humans survive long past the time when they can be parents. The advantage is that non-reproductive relatives can assist in the raising of children. Anyone who has had children knows how useful uncles, aunts and grandparents of those children can be!

1637. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49324 by steve99 on June 11, 2007 at 1:41 pm

It is much simpler to say a Prime Mover exists.

I suggest you read comment 138 on this thread. It is not simpler.

Although this planet is a temporary hell, I am comforted by the belief that every eternal soul that occupies a human body on this planet is destined to fulfill their divine mission for their creation.

There is a real danger with that belief. It holds back people from helping to make life better.

1638. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49317 by steve99 on June 11, 2007 at 1:18 pm

In fact in my experience I have found several positive feedback loops, for example the hypothesis that our experiential environment is optimized for gaining virtue helps me become a better person, and becoming a better person helps me understand how the world is optimized for that. I can elaborate on these points, but I imagine a naturalist may explain away these empirical gains as based on an illusion, pointing out that, for example, a terminally ill patient who believes that God will cure him or her might experience a better life just before dying, but his or her belief was illusory nonetheless. That's a valid point I think, even though illusory beliefs tend not to pan out, i.e. on the long term one is apt to experience evidence that contradicts illusory beliefs, whereas in my case the experiential evidence appears to be slowly but consistently piling up.

That is no evidence for God. It is only evidence that your worldview is useful to you. I strongly suggest you take a look at Buddhism. Not because I am trying to convert you, but because it is a worldview that provides for many exactly the same emotional benefits.

If I am right and the existence of God is the best explanation for the whole of any person's conscious experience (simply because that experience is caused by God) then a prediction I make is that slowly but surely all humanity will turn to theism in the future

That is not evidence for God. That is only evidence that a theistic worldview might be useful in making some people happy and content. Emotionally useful does not equal true.

but I interpret this phenomenon as a result of overspecialization (in particular scientists tend to suppress all experiential evidence that is not objective),

I really can't allow you to get away with that. It is nonsense. Scientists only suppress evidence that is not objective ... when they are doing science! Scientists, if they are normal people, relish many subjective experiences - they feel awe, they love and so on. Read anything by Carl Sagan and you will see this.

My second prediction is wilder: I believe that in the future we shall build intelligent computers and I believe that intelligent computers are conscious beings, i.e. persons too. So for them too theism will be the best explanation for the whole of their experience. So I predict that intelligent computers will also tend to adopt theistic worldviews.

And I can give you solid evidence that this is most unlikely. You must have heard of the research which shows that with increased education, and increased intelligence, religious belief declines. I see no reason for that trend to stop.

I do detect a theme here - you are confusing what you feel useful for you (and others) to believe with what is true.

It's here that an increasing number of increasingly fantastic descriptions of physical reality are proposed, and it's here where the problem of consciousness for naturalism arises.

No, it really doesn't. The problem with your argument is that we know that increasingly fantastic descriptions of reality are almost certainly true. If you use GPS to navigate, you are using both quantum mechanics and general relativity - some of the wierdest descriptions of reality. This should show you that your judgement of what is too fantastic to be true is flawed.

but I judge based on evidence and on good arguments that the situation is hopeless.

As yet you have provided no evidence or arguments for this that have not been refuted.

1639. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49303 by steve99 on June 11, 2007 at 12:36 pm

I agree common sense is not a variable to be used in studying the laws of physics. But common sense does come into the equation when someone tries to convince me that a universe as complicated and orderly as ours came into being without an Intelligent Designer and common sense tells me that there has to be an Intelligent Designer behind the creation of our universe and the laws of physics that govern our universe.

That is because you don't understand the laws of physics. The universe really isn't that complicated or orderly. Our observations suggest that at the beginning it was very simple - perhaps nothing more than a quantum fluctuation. We know that complexity and order can arise out of simplicity with no designer or intervention. (I know, this is contrary to common sense, but it is a standard part of modern thermodynamics and physics). Introduce randomness in the initial state of the universe, and combine that with a long-range attractive force - gravity - and you end up with non-equilibrium areas where order and complexity arise. So why imply a designer? And as for the laws of physics - we don't yet have a clear understanding of where them come from, but some ideas (such as those of Max Tegmark) suggest that there is no need for a designer as all possible laws exist. Our form of life simply exists where our form of life can exist. If all possible laws exist, there is zero complexity, as there is nothing for a designer to choose. These ideas may not be right, but they show that to require a designer with our current knowledge of things is extremely premature.

1640. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49291 by steve99 on June 11, 2007 at 12:10 pm

Operational science involves experimentation in the here and now. Historical science deals with how something came into existence in the past and so is not open to experimental verification / observation (unless someone invents a 'time machine' to travel back into the past to observe).

Haven't you heard of the COBE experiment? It was really neat. Someone predicted what the cosmic microwave background looked like, and then a satellite was designed to experimentally verify that prediction (of the way things were just after the Big Bang) by observation.

So there goes that argument.

Studying how an organism operates (DNA, mutations, reproduction, natural selection etc.) does not tell us how it came into existence in the first place.

Yes, it sure can. I mentioned the polyploid Oat in my last post. The ancestor was not polyploid. So we know exactly how the current Oat species came into existence - through genome duplication. We even see this in animals right now. Polyploid rats have been discovered - we actually see such gene duplication happening.

So there goes that argument.

1641. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49287 by steve99 on June 11, 2007 at 11:55 am

As will be shown, none of the alleged proofs of 'evolution in action' adduced in this series provide a single example of functional new information being added. Rather, they all involve sorting and loss of information.

This is nonsense. I can easily give you an example of functional new information being added. It is called polyploidy. It is when the genome is duplicated due to an error in reproduction. It happens often in plants. So, you end up with double (or more!) of the information. And then, one copy of a gene can mutate to provide new functionality while the other copy (or copies) keep providing the existing functionality.

This is extremely common in plants. The domestic oat has 6 times the number of chromosomes of its ancestor.

There you go. Problem solved.

Of course there are other methods of information increase too, such as copying errors that result in individual gene duplications and so on, but I thought I would give an example that even a skeptic could understand.

1642. Atheism is the absence of belief

Comment #49283 by steve99 on June 11, 2007 at 11:07 am

But if their thoughts—i.e. of materialism and astronomy—are merely accidental by-products, why should we believe them to be true?

Even if this were true about thoughts (and I would say that it is not, as thoughts are anything but accidental by-product - thoughts and their effects have almost certainly been a key factor in recent evolution), the conclusion does not follow. The reason is science. We may arrive at a hypothesis by accident, but the subsequent experiments and results are not accidental. Our thoughts about, for example, astronomy have been refined by centuries of non-accidental study and experiment.

1643. Atheism is the absence of belief

Comment #49282 by steve99 on June 11, 2007 at 11:01 am

Actually, I'm an atheist. Because I don't believe in God, I don't believe in absolutes, so I recognize that I can't even be sure of reality

Well, that fellow is simply incorrect in his reasoning. He is confusing "I don't believe in God, and I also don't believe in absolutes" with "I don't believe in God, therefore I don't believe in absolutes". There is nothing about being an atheist that of necessity leads to those other beliefs.

1644. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49271 by steve99 on June 11, 2007 at 8:51 am

Even then when my own temporarily structured dust permanently disintegrates and all I have been is lost like a tear that falls in the sea (to use a memorable phrase from Blade Runner), I will have lived a better life than my more realistic fellow beings.

I feel you will have lost a lot. You have already shown a symptom of some religious people - you assume that the real world is simpler and less wonderful than it really is, so you try and explain things with supernatural theories. This blocks off your investigation of the real world, and - trust me - it is far more beautiful and incredible that you know. Theism is holding back your journey of discovery.

1645. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49270 by steve99 on June 11, 2007 at 8:46 am

I never claimed that (a) follows from (b). I just claimed that if one believes that (a) and (b) are true (in conjunction or even separately) then it is reasonable to consider that consciousness exists in a realm beyond nature.

I don't see why you claim this. All it means is that your definition of naturalism is wrong. There are many things that we know exist in nature that don't fit with what we would have called 'naturalism' centuries ago - the warping of spacetime, and the way that Quantum Mechanics seems to deal with information. Yet no-one would claim that these are supernatural.

Well I judge that the problems of naturalism are fatal and that therefore something more than naturalism is needed to understand the whole of my conscious experience. You judge that these problems only reflect what we now know about nature, and that in the future they may be solved without recourse to the supernatural. Fine. I can understand your position.

What I don't understand is why you feel you are in a position to claim that what you see are problems with your understanding of naturalism are fatal. It is bad reasoning, when you know that we have been in this position many times before in the history of science. You can't just close things off and say 'sorry, but science and the natural world finish here'.

I am only explaining why I think that theism is the most reasonable worldview, and not why you should think that theism is the most reasonable worldview.

I am trying to point out that what you claim are explanations for your worldview aren't really explanations at all.

I find confusing your statement that experiments in a lab evidence that structure and order can evolve from zero structure and order; after all a lab entails quite some structure and order, at the very least the structure and order of the physical laws that everything that happens in the lab obeys.

That is not what structure and order means, and it really does not make sense. It is like claiming that if someone makes a vacuum in a laboratory, it isn't really a vacuum because the people needed to breathe air to make it! All that matters is that someone has set up an environment where such a thing happens.

Are you sure that non-equilibrium thermodynamics and chaos theory show that structure and order can evolve from zero structure and order?

Yes. Certain.

I insist that if one has hypothesized that the supernatural realm causes our structured and ordered conscious experience then it is reasonable to assume that this supernatural realm is structured and ordered too.

No, it doesn't. You have simply just put two phrases together. In fact, if you are claiming that these things are beyond nature, then it seems a bit strange that you claim any type of behavioural laws for them at all!

After all even if you show that it is possible for structure and order to naturalististically evolve from zero structure and order (which I think you haven't shown),

It is not a matter of what you think I have shown. This is independently known physics and thermodynamics. It is not up to me to show it to you, any more than it is up to me to show you that the Earth is round. Look at any modern chemistry or physics book (under non-linear thermodynamics and chaos).

So if one assumes that the supernatural realm causes structured and ordered conscious experience then it is entirely reasonable to assume that the supernatural realm is itself structured and ordered.

And if I assume there is a God, then it is reasonable to assume there is a God. This is a circcular argument, and proves nothing. As it is a fact that you don't need a supernatural realm to cause structure and order, and as there is no evidence (other than your assumption) that concious experience requires a supernatural realm, then this conjecture has no foundation.

Consciousness represents an explanatory problem for naturalism because even though we know that both the physical universe and our consciousness exist we do not understand how the former explains the latter, in short how the two are connected.

No, it does not represent an explanatory problem for naturalism. It only represents and explanatory problem for our current understanding of the natural world. At the moment we have no real understanding of how quantum mechanics works (such as what is the reason for uncertainty). But that does not mean physicists invoke the supernatural.

In God we find the explanatory principle that explains the whole of our conscious experience, including the fact that we exist as conscious beings

No, it isn't an explanatory principle. You are making a false logical step here. You have no idea what God is, and you assume (with no evidence) that our conciousness requires supernatural explanation. So you are simply labelling as 'God' whatever the supposed explanation is.

That is meaningless. If you are prepared to say 'We must stop at God - he needs no explanation', it is entirely fair for me to say 'we must stop at our conciousnesses - they need no explanation'. Unless you can come up with some actual mechanism by which God produces our conciousness, and that is simpler that our conciousnesses, it serves no explanatory function at all; not just in a naturalistic view, but in any way of thinking.

It's meaningless to ask for an explanation that goes beyond that, an explanation that explains more than the whole of our conscious experience.

But that is exactly what you are doing by extrapolating God from some vague (and unecesary) explanation for conciousness to Christianity.

1646. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #49125 by steve99 on June 10, 2007 at 12:40 pm

To accomplish this there has to be extreme order in the universe.

why?

To even entertain the possibility that this extreme order can come about solely by natural selection defies logic and common sense.

Allow me to welcome you to the world of modern physics! One of the most important lessons that we have learned from physics over the past 100 years or so is that common sense is an extremely poor way of finding out what is real. We know we live in a universe where space and time stretch in strange ways, and then there is quantum mechanics....

If you learn nothing else from this thread, let it be that to try and justify any view about the universe using the phrase 'common sense' is hopelessly inappropriate.

An important issue that comes up here is this. If God exists what is behind God? The answer is there is nothing behind God. God is the ultimate reducible answer. God always was, is and always will be.

No, that doesn't work. Because I can just say the Universe (or sequence of Universes, or whatever) is the ultimate reducible answer; always was, is and always will be. And there goes the need for an additional and superfluous deity.

1647. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49119 by steve99 on June 10, 2007 at 12:14 pm

For the record my intention here is not to convince you or anybody else, but to explain why for me theism is the most reasonable worldview. I don't mind if we agree to disagree :-)

Well, I honestly think I have a chance of changing your mind, as (see below) I believe I now understand at least part of the way you think, and why you think it, and I know why it is flawed. It is the 'reification' error.

On the other hand I find that my theistic worldview a) works much better than naturalism both in its explanatory power and coherency, and also in its experiential value, b) allows me to at least imagine how an answer to your question might look like: it would be contingent on God's objective to give us an experiential environment optimized for attaining virtue.

That isn't really any kind of argument. Why would it be anything to do with virtue?

Theism represents a paradigmatic shift in one's entire worldview; and I can understand that it is not easy to try that for size.

I fully understand the theist worldview. I used to be a theist.

How so? Because being a person myself I can very well understand that God would want to create other sentient beings and give them an experiential environment apt for gaining virtue. Now, this is not the kind of naturalistic explanation you are used to, and I can imagine that it is difficult to let go of your naturalistic intuitions and evaluate the worldview I suggest at face value.

On the contrary, it is natural for many to want an all-powerful protector figure. It is not difficult to see why the idea is attractive and common.

But what you have said just isn't any kind of argument at all, not just in naturalistic terms, but in any philosophical terms. You can imagine that God may want to create other sentient beings and give them experiences and virtue, but that does not have any relation to the question of whether or not such a God exists. I can easily show this. I could just as easily posit a supernatural being that intends people to experience a world where they gain wickedness. If you look at the world, this is entirely compatible. But there is absolutely no way for you to distinguish between my hypothetical worldview and yours. Therefore, your worldview has no foundation. It is just your feeling, I suggest. And as anyone who has studied this area knows, that is not a reliable guide to anything.

There are strong arguments that show that objective ethics is not compatible with a naturalistic worldview, and this clearly has something to do with naturalism.

You keep saying this, but you never actually present any such arguments.

After all naturalism is supposed to be a description of all reality, and if objective ethical precepts exist and naturalism has trouble accounting for this fact then naturalism has a problem as a description of reality. Interesting that you should mention mathematical objects and theorems. It turns out that these are precisely the kind of eternal and perfect things that a naturalistic worldview has trouble accounting for too. So some naturalists argue that for example the number pi does not "really exist", but only exists as a particular pattern of neuron firings in the brains of people who know about pi. Which implies rather strange propositions, such as that the number pi did not exist before the first person who thought of it.

I see where you are going wrong. I believe you are assuming that abstractions have actual existence. You are are making an error known as "reification". Just because something is objectively true does not mean it has any actual existence. 1 + 1 = 2. But that does not mean that somewhere in some supernatural or spiritual realm there is a big sign saying "1 + 1 = 2".

And, you have presented no evidence or argument that ethics are objective.

Now I agree that I added God (but certainly not as an independent thing - quite the contrary I view God as intimately connected to all of us and indeed to every single experience we have).

But you have presented no evidence or argument about why this being should be connected like this. It adds nothing.

Did you know that the many worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics implies that there are many physical universes where you and I will never die? It seems to me that naturalism works really badly even in its own natural subject matter of the physical world.

I know the different interpretations of quantum mechanics in some detail. You are simply making an arbitrary value judgement here. You find this interpretation odd, so you claim that is a sign of the failure of naturalism. But that is an opinion, not evidence. Your substitution of God here just doesn't work. Whatever you think of the Many Worlds interpretation, it is a useful tool in some physics work. This does not mean it is right - just that it helps work things out. But your God hypothesis can't replace that tool. You just can't hand-wave away the need to do quantum mechanics!

I hope to have at least dispelled one myth: that all theistic worldviews are incompatible with science. That can only be true for the most naive religious worldviews, for the rest seamlessly and naturally absorb science in their understanding of reality.

I am afraid you have done the opposite. Your confusion about God and quantum mechanics only helps to show that many people who are religious have a mistaken understanding of the physical world and assume a need for supernatural explanations where none is needed (as in your discussion of structure and order).

The only God who is compatible with science is a God that does nothing.

1648. We of little faith

Comment #49095 by steve99 on June 10, 2007 at 9:38 am

What a wonderful article! Listening to Blair, one can only hand one's head in despair. Thinking back to when he came to power, and the hopes it engendered, is enough to make one weep. If I'd wanted a crypto-Tory government, I'd have voted for one.

As someone who has recently been through a civil partnership ceremony, and being a supporter of devolution and the banning of field sports, I have had many of my hopes fulfilled.

The belief in faith based schools, and the supine respect which the nauseating "New" Labour cadres spout everytime religion is even mentioned is enough to make you look desperately for a sick bag.

It is wrong to generalise. Just because Blair and some others (like the awful Ruth Kelly) have these views, does not mean they are shared by all Labour MPs.

1649. The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos

Comment #49092 by steve99 on June 10, 2007 at 9:29 am

although Sweden had a State Church and 90% membership of that Church until 2000.

As I am sure you well know, membership of a church can have little connection with belief. I am a member of the Catholic Church. Even though I am an atheist, I happen to remain a member (and counted as such) unless I am excommunicated.

Also, what you claim contradicts what people say in surveys. The vast majority in Sweden claim that they are atheists. What you need to provide is contrary surveys that show that people are believers.

Finland had and has one of the highest percentage of evangelicals in Western Europe.

It also has the highest percentages of reindeer herders in Western Europe, but that does not mean that the majority of people are interested in any kind of herding...

This is a demonstrably false claim.

First of all, I am impressed that you know more than the United Nations (is this like you knowing more than biologists and psychologists in other areas we have discussed?). Secondly, you seem to confuse demonstrating a claim false with simply claiming that it false. If you are going to claim this report is mistaken, where is your published report with the contrary evidence?

1650. The Myth of Secular Moral Chaos

Comment #49089 by steve99 on June 10, 2007 at 9:12 am

It acts as a light to show us where our moral nature has become perverted.

It can't be a very well focused and strong light, can it, considering the huge number of different interpretations. It is more like every individual is carrying their own personal selective torch.

They make typically make a fetish of moral rules, instead of keeping in mind what morality is for.

You need to look in the mirror to see who is making a fetish of moral rules, David. You are the one so strangely concerned about who does what with various bits of their bodies.

Again an interesting comment. Who is going to do the revising? Who is going to decide what is rational?

Let's throw the question back at you. Who revises your rules? You pick and choose what bits of the bible you want to follow, and even what bits of your own church's doctrine you take seriously (and it is good that you do, otherwise you would hold some strange and unpleasant views). But how do you decide what to accept and what to ignore?