Thanks Al Moritz.
I will give that article a read.As if big brains automatically explain rationality.
The problem with the naturalistic world view is not that it is simple – that would actually be a quite atttractive feature. The problem with the naturalistic world view is that it is simplistic. Huge difference.
You seem to be suggesting that our phenomenological experiences would be different than they actually are if determinism is true. This isn’t obvious to me. Suppose we’re determined. We’d still be having this conversation, discerning this issue, etc. We’d continue thinking truth is (x), and hold our epistemologies. We’d just be determined to. So, the naturalist would defend his position as he ordinarily does, and you’d deny it as you are.
I just meant a determinist wouldn’t affirm any indeterminacy. But, why is it either determinism or random? Why not probability?
Let’s concede that evolution can indirectly select for an allegedly false belief. We’ll still discern whether a belief is true or false in the manner we are now. Further, most people are theists. Plantinga even uses this to suggest theism is natural for us. So, your argument would seem to work against theism (which we seem naturally disposed to) rather than atheism.
I think God detracts from the story. He’d remove the adventurous uncertainty that pervades an atheistic world. It’d be like reading the end of the story before starting it. There’s a certain inevitability when God enters the picture. I believe it’s that uncertainty of an atheistic world that gives it such beauty and adventure.
ooooh so that’s why your an atheist
Uh-oh! Now you’ve done it. Wad just might be a ‘prodigy!’
While the age varies but depending on the culture that sounds close to the age where there may be several life style changes, including diminished influence from parental figures and preparing to move out and into the world with a bit more independence from family.
hmm, I don’t remember saying this is why I was an atheist. Just that this was a reason for my atheism.ooooh so that’s why your an atheist
I wonder what you would think of GK Chesterton’s remark that the Christian is free to believe both in a degree of chance and a degree of determinism that are present in the world, but a skeptic must believe wholly in determinism. Where is the adventure involved in determinism, if the past, present, and future are wholly determined by casual factors outside myself? Isn’t the end on an atheistic world even more certain and fixed than on a theistic one?
I am just pulling your leg
Cosmology, ie the origin of the Universe, is a matter for Science now. While philosophers and theolgians continue to argue over ancient disputes going back to Aristotle, scientists are quietly getting on with the job of understanding it. We do not have all the answers yet, but the history of science shows that its method is the only valid question-answering process. The Fine tuning rgument (ie that of the “Laws”) has been pretty well debunked, Victor Stenger has written an illuminating book called “The Fallacy of Fine-Tuning”.Thanks Al Moritz.
Can you please explain what is meant by brute chance? Surely brute chance, unless I am not understanding it correctly, would require that all natural law exists necessarily?
Consider the following…
Conclusion: It doesn’t seem possible to speak of ontological brute facts reasonably in regards to contingent things, because a brute fact suggests that it cannot be any other way. But the universe could have been may other ways and could have not existed at all. We cannot arbitrarily posit an ontological brute fact to serve a presupposed ideology (metaphysical naturalism), since that would be a circular argument. But rather, a brute fact can only be considered a reasonable conclusion when it is evidently clear that a phenomenon cannot possibly be explained in terms of an inference to another nature. But there is another way of explaining the laws of physics and that is by positing a non-physical intelligent creator of those laws. Besides that, there is no rational evidence that a brute fact can truly exists accept as an epistemological defect in human knowledge. The idea goes against all forms of intellectual inquiry; that the explanation of a things existence is either evident in itself on in a cause.
- Given metaphysical naturalism, Physical laws cannot be said to exist apart from the fact of physical bodies, if all is physical. Therefore it would have to be true that all possible rules of nature are intrinsic to actually existing physical objects. Also, such laws would have to be a true expression of the physical universe from the moment of conception since they are necessary. Therefore one could not say the laws evolved
- Thus it has to be the position of the metaphysical naturalist that physical behaviour is not the produce of some transcendent law or abstraction and that there cannot be any other possible species of law that are not already an expression of the intrinsically necessary universe.
- There is nothing about physical laws that would suggest they exist necessary and in fact scientists say that they could conceive of a universe where physical laws are different.
- Like you said, there is no necessary law. Add this to the fact that you cannot be the sufficient cause of that which you are subject to, which contradicts the idea that physical bodies are self-determinant of their behaviour.
- Therefore the universe and its particular specification does not exist necessarily assuming that premise 3 is correct.
- Assuming that premise 3 is correct, we would have to say that the fact we have the particular laws we have is a purely unnecessary phenomenon that is not determined by the existence of the universe itself. Therefore metaphysical naturalism is not possible, if by that we mean that the universe is rationally self explanatory.
The universe cannot explain itself or its particular laws. Therefore it seems that the burden of proof lies with the atheist who wants to claim that the universe exists as it does for no reason. And while they are thinking that through to no rational end, it is reasonable for the for us to conclude some form of intelligent design as a sufficient cause.
Sounds like a very erudite aphorism-, but I would submit that a natural world full of vast complexity (see above re the brain), the chemistry of DNA and proteins, and the physics of black holes etc, is anything but “simplistic”.
When I was a child I thought as a child, but when I became a man (at 17), I put away childish things"–(or something like that). Also, as I have become older (and more mannish), and inflormed and educated, it has confirmed my atheistic/naturalistic Weltanschauung. I am well acquainted withy the Bible, but when it comes to knowledge, give me instead Dawkins, Hawking, Stenger etc -any time.
If you choose to ignore what I said above, with links, about Victor Stenger and cosmological natural selection, that is your prerogative. It only demonstrates what I have thought all along: your atheism is not based on serious study, but on a constant ritualistic repetition of your confirmation biases until you have convinced yourself that you are ‘right’. If you want to impress us you have to do better.
Perhaps you need to improve your reading skills. I said “the naturalistic worldview is simplistic”, not “the natural world is simplistic”. The latter is indeed full of complexity, as you say.
As I said before:
Which Dawkins? The one of “The Blind Watchmaker” and “Climbing Mount Improbable”, or the one of “The God Delusion”? While the latter book reveals a ludicrously shallow and uninformed amateur philsopher (who has even been attacked by atheist philosophers for that), I fully endorse the scientific Dawkins of the former two books.
I don’t think there is any beauty or adventure on determinism. I agree with GK that Christians are free to have graded beliefs like that. But, I’m not sure what he means by ‘skeptic’. If he means ‘atheist’, I’d disagree that the skeptic is committed to determinism. What do you think?