Question on Atheism

[ddarko]

That doesn’t answer the question. If we were to have some robust and solid model that explained the Church’s resurrection claims as mistaken in their invocation of supernatural powers and miracles, and that Jesus was not reanimated, the body was never missing, and Jesus never appeared to or interacted with anyone ever again after his death, would you say that would be “Descartes’ God” and not the Official Catholic God orchestrating the resurrection?

-TS

Um… Touchstone, those above comments are NOT scientific TRUTHS. They are historical truths.

If Jesus never rose from the dead, then Christianity is falsified. End of story. But that is obviously not a Scientific truth.

This is the meaninglessness of your argument.

Your claim is something along the lines of

“Science advanced so much that we know that a person CANNOT rise from the dead, therefore Jesus didn’t rise from the dead”

to which I would say sure. BUT that is WHY the resurrection is a miracle. To say that the resurrection never happened because it is scientifically impossible is not a logical conclusion UNLESS we presuppose scientific naturalism.

Do you understand that?

And do take the time to read over Post 67

God Bless

 

[Windfish]

Here is an example of self-refutation:

1. God is undeniably knowable through reason alone.
2. Faith is necessary to know God.

:takethat:

Please hear me: I’m not a positivist! That’s not a set of claims I make. The problem is that windfish can’t apparently be bothered to distinguish positive verification from falsifiability. Science as a research program (including falsifiability as a pillar of its epistemology) very much does cohere and succeed with reference to itself, where positivism does not.

-TS

Both are a part of positivism, Touchstone.

 

[Touchstone]

God is just as relevant. Because even the scientific mechanism that one postulates is simply degree of explanation that is satisfactory. There is no reason to believe that the ultimate explanation can be scientific and in fact, considering certain elements of Scientific methodology cannot be explained by Science, the ultimate explanation definitely cannot be a Scientific explanation.

First it hasn’t been established what “ultimate explanation” means, let alone how we would identify such. For any given putatively ultimate explanation, we can just “Quine it”, and wonder why that “ultimate” circumstance is the way it is. Knowledge is never ultimate, or it’s not knowledge. That’s not news to science, and is in fact a significant ramification of employing the scientific method to build knowledge. This is apparently unknown in some religious circles (yours!), and is a form of superstition all on its own, untethered and unwarranted, that there is some “ultimate answer” that is in any sense ultimate or an answer, at all.

There is nothing but superstition supporting that view. Science disavows that epistemologically, and understands that the frontiers of knowledge necessarily must trail off into ignorance and non-knowledge somewhere. It doesn’t even recognize that what you are chasing is chaseable, let alone actual and catchable.

Or, as a philosophy professor once asked the class: OK, you are God, or god-like, you think. Do you know everything? Do you have ultimate, infinite knowledge? How do you know? How would you test that proposition?

I understand your position will be “it’s self-evident!”. But think about that a bit more, please.

Then there’s the problem of default. For whatever limitations you and I can agree on for scientific and empirically grounded knowledge (and these are not controversial I think), such limitations IN NO WAY concede “the truth” or assign authority to superstition or intuition. If science stops making headway at this particular point, or that, why would you suppose your superstitions are going to succeed where science has run out of gas. There’s a glaring non-sequitur here: at the point where science gives up, my superstitions take over as authoritative and become “true by default”. But your superstitions never did anything to establish any epistemic bona fides on anything. They couldn’t even acquit themselves on the easy stuff, the questions that science was able to take on. Why on earth would you suppose that when science fails, magical thinking would become authoritative?

Now however, this is NOT why Christians believe in the existence of God. Existence of God is through deductive reasoning based on self-evident truths.

Right, and here the trap-door of “self-evidence” snaps open wide. Should I just say “the non-existence of God is self-evident”? That’s nonsense, or actually not completely nonsense, since God is “unseen” (even per the Bible) and manifestly not self-evident, but even so, it’s a bogus claim for me to advance. But I’ve as much warrant to advance that as you or Aquinas does for the “truths” you and he hope to excuse through the loophole of “self-evidence”.

Btw, you might have missed my post right before (Post 67) where I refute your original argument. Did you miss it or are you agreeing that it was wrong?

God Bless
Must have missed it. Looking back, I think you must mean post 67. You made it clear you weren’t interested in more of the same from me on that, and that’s immediately what you’d get right back, as it was same song, same verse on your end. I’m happy to respond, but it seems a waste of time, if we’re stuck in the rut that you yourself identify.

-TS

 

[warpspeedpetey]

No, that’s not the problem. Non-verification of verificationalism is just weak, not self-refuting – or even more bizarrely, now, as you have it – logically contradictory.

That is undeniably the problem.

If the proposition “statements are meaningless unless they can be empirically falsified” is true it is necessarily false. This is a logical contradiction. A proposition cannot be both true and false. This cannot be rationally denied.

… it’s just week.

Your talking about weak Falsification/Verification. They failed because there is no way to exclude metaphysical statements, which was the original purpose of the Vienna Circles formulations. F/V systems only work in small specific domains, such as the scientific method. They simply are not applicable to the questions of being that metaphysics addresses.

Here is an example of self-refutation:

1. God is undeniably knowable through reason alone.
2. Faith is necessary to know God.
   …

This isn’t self refutation.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

:takethat:

What can we do?

 

[Touchstone]

It is a dogma of Catholicism that the existence of God can be known through reason with certainty.

That doesn’t help you a bit. It’s a dogma of Touchstone that:

***D1: No gods exist, and we can know that with certainty, and this is self-evident, unquestionable.

---

I’ll just say by way of waving my hand like the Church does. If you can, I can, right? Now what?

We have contradictory dogmata! Both are undeniable, unquestionable, unassailable. This is a major problem, isn’t it?

It is also a dogma that the fact of revelation through the Catholic Church can be known.

And here you’ve further compounded the problem. Here’s my latest dogmatic decree:

***D2: No god can be known outside of the physical senses, through revelation, even if a god were to exist (see D1)

---

Now we are really wrapped around the axles!

I can (and will) match you dogma for dogma. I’ve got just as many pretend magic bullets as you do.

The contents of that revelation cannot be plainly seen or known and so we have faith in it because it is God who reveals it, who can neither deceive nor be deceived (and that can be known through reason as well). But even that faith is rational because we know that God is faithful and true.

But the predicate for that knowledge is not rationale sustained, so neither is that belief/faith. Your rational product is only as strong as the weakest link in the chain it depends on, and that means, since you have a “skyhook” that has no warrant at all underneath it, this collapses, too.

Now, just what those reasonable proofs are is besides the point. You had a misunderstanding about what we mean by faith, and now I have corrected you.

This is what I understood all along, the above. “Dogma”. Whoops. XXL Fail.

Why is it a difficulty? Anyone can deny anything. So what? Historical methods cannot demonstrate anything for certain since there is always the possibility of events happening differently than how they are recorded. It is possible, for example, that the moon landing was a government conspiracy.

But we believe the moon landing was real for the same reason we disbelieve in the resurrection, if we are being reasonable: each is least outrageous, best-fitting explanation. That the moon landing was a hoax is logically possible, but outrageously fantastic in light of the available evidence. That the resurrection WASN’T a hoax, a cascading set of mistakes and imaginations is outrageously fantastic in light of the available evidence.

It’s less outrageous to suppose that aliens abducted the body of Jesus and “neuralized” the Apostles to a mind-state where they were resurrection-crazed than what the Catholic Church claims actually happened. And there are too-many-to-count more practical and humble and non-miraculous hypotheses in front of that.

That possibility should not paralyze us, though, from making a historical judgment. Historical methods deal with probabilities, but not all possibilities are probable. So with miracles. All things being equal, sure, we should favor an ordinary explanation over an extraordinary one, but not all instances are ceteris paribus.

Still doesn’t help you. Even if we stipulate, arguendo, that “all things being equal” goes out the window for some unspecified reason here, the resurrection claim is still at the far end of outrageous. Just to pick a ridiculous example the “alien theory” I just ad-libbed above. That’s crazy, and doesn’t assume any kind of “normal day in the life” constraints. It’s a visit from beings from another galaxy! But crazy as it is, it’s got the actual belief of Christian beat hands down in terms of plausibility and reasoned acceptance, crazy as it is.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

All situations are unique, and we can use historical methods and tools of epistemology to evaluate the evidence and see if there is a confluence of factors that makes a particular explanation more probable than the others.

Situations are unique, but per our experience, physics are a constant, a set of uniform natural principles. Without exception. And that’s really astonishing to be able to say that, given the collective observations and measurements we’ve been able to analyze and digest this far in.

And that’s why the probabilities are your worst enemy for your claims. Probabilistically, based on all the evidence and all the outcomes we have available to look at, your claim is as weak as you can get, as incompatible with the probabilities as any other theory you could imagine. Really, it’s as maximally fail as any alternative you might dream up.

Which is, again, an important feature of Christianity, not a bug (in Christianity’s view). It’s precisely because what happened was so irrational, so improbable, so… miraculous, that we are supposed to thereby identify the hand of God, intervening against all natural probabilities and principles of mechanistic natural law.

Sure, there is always the possibility of an alternative explanation, but that means squat. We can show it to be so much unnecessary ad hoc with significantly low epistemic warrant. We need not consider it too seriously anymore than we need to seriously consider 9/11 conspiracies. So deny them. I really don’t care unless you have a rational argument to disprove them.

You’re confused. You are the “truther” here, at odds with the physical evidence, the knowledge of how nature and physics works, just like the 911 truthers. Please remember that you are the one advancing the idea that a supernatural miracle happened, that a man dead three days came back to life and walked around for several weeks before ascending into the sky…

This is pure ********. We recognize in the first place that God is not just another mechanistic cause competing with others to explain a mechanistic event - rather, he is the ground for all of it!

That may be what is concluded, or inferred. But it isn’t “recognized”. You have no prior pattern with which to match that idea against, no previous experience as a precendent that facilitates recognition. I do understand that is how the conceit works, though. It “feels like recognition”. I used the same tricks on myself as a Christian.

Far from being irrelevant, he is essential and vitally immanent in this, just not in a mechanistic way! It is your reductionism to mechanistic causes that produces your view, but that is not our view, and so your narrative fails.

Now you are just waving your hands, again. Assertions tied to nothing, dogma: He is immanent, TS. Really, really, really! Did I mention that he really, truly is? He is! Really!

Really.

-TS

 

[ddarko]

Right, and here the trap-door of “self-evidence” snaps open wide. Should I just say “the non-existence of God is self-evident”? …

Do you just love to attack straw man positions? Because I don’t recall at any point saying God is self-evident. But you mention such a thing and then go on a full length diatribe.

Then you keep saying how self-evident truths are bad because you can consider ANYTHING to be self-evident. But this is really absurd. Whether you like it or not, all knowledge is based on self-evident truths. And self-evident truths are just what they are… self-evident. It’s not meant as a defense to say something is self-evident. Aquinas uses truths from human experience to prove existence of God. It is up to you to be honest and think about the premises and see if they are self-evident or compatible with your human experience. You make it sound like self-evident truths are a defense. IT IS NOT!!!

Seriously, try to stick with the discussion will ya? I have attacked and shown why your argument for “Science is successful therefore religion is irrelevant” is FALSE. Now do you have a defense or is this your way of avoiding defeat?

Must have missed it. Looking back, I think you must mean post 67. You made it clear you weren’t interested in more of the same from me on that, and that’s immediately what you’d get right back, as it was same song, same verse on your end. I’m happy to respond, but it seems a waste of time, if we’re stuck in the rut that you yourself identify.

I refuted your argument by showing faults in your premises in that post. I ignored the rest of your reply because you were simply trying to justify a premise that attacked a straw man. If you are attacking the wrong thing, no matter how many adjectives and examples you give, your argument is meaningless.

I would much rather you write me a song in defense of your argument or accepting that your argument was false rather than giving me long diatribes attacking straw man positions.

If you want to play the “I want to do unto you as you did unto me” card, then at least take the time to reply to the part I DID REPLY TO YOU in that post.

Or is this your way of saying “Yea, I don’t really have a counter-argument”?

God Bless

 

[Windfish]

It’s like talking to a brick wall. You demonstrated a misunderstanding about what we mean by faith. I cited Catholic teaching to correct you, not to prove my case.

Whether or not I am the one promoting the improbable claim given the evidence is yet to be explored. I am just laying the groundwork for saying that it will do the atheist no good to declare, as you have, that the miraculous is so impossible that we should prefer some other explanation. That all depends on the evidence we have. Saying aliens did it has low, if any, epistemic warrant. Provided the evidence, we have much higher epistemic warrant for the traditional explanation. Again, this is without getting into the evidence, just speaking generally.

 

[ddarko]

It’s like talking to a brick wall. You demonstrated a misunderstanding about what we mean by faith. I cited Catholic teaching to correct you, not to prove my case.

Whether or not I am the one promoting the improbable claim given the evidence is yet to be explored. I am just laying the groundwork for saying that it will do the atheist no good to declare, as you have, that the miraculous is so impossible that we should prefer some other explanation. That all depends on the evidence we have. Saying aliens did it has low, if any, epistemic warrant. Provided the evidence, we have much higher epistemic warrant for the traditional explanation. Again, this is without getting into the evidence, just speaking generally.

Exactly. That claim is only valid if one presupposes Scientific Naturalism to be true. But there is no deductive reason to believe it is so and there are good arguments to think it is self-refuting. But somehow, Touchstone is starting off with that as TRUE which is neither self-evident or deducible

God Bless

 

[Windfish]

Exactly. That claim is only valid if one presupposes Scientific Naturalism to be true. But there is no deductive reason to believe it is so and there are good arguments to think it is self-refuting. But somehow, Touchstone is starting off with that as TRUE which is neither self-evident or deducible

God Bless

Right. To me, it’s just a matter of finding out where there reasoning goes off because, according that reasoning, if I see a miracle happen in front of me, and my family has been blessed by God to see many genuine miracles, I should go against my intuition of the evidence and should, instead, believe aliens did it. That’s just plain ****.

 

[Sair]

I beg to disagree. If a supernatural entity is rational it must be consistent. Its activity must fit into an intelligible pattern and serve a specific purpose - or purposes. That is the hallmark of events which are intended rather than due to physical causes.

I have difficulty with the notion that a supernatural entity must be anything. For something to have what may be described as a nature - for example, a rational or creative nature - it must have certain limitations that make it some particular way and not some other way. If an entity is able to be defined as having a certain nature, it is in that respect a natural entity, not a supernatural one. If a supernatural entity is defined by what it isn’t - that is, subject to any natural regularities or limitations - I’m not sure how we could even begin to approach an understanding of its behaviour and purposes.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

I have difficulty with the notion that a supernatural entity must be anything. For something to have what may be described as a nature - for example, a rational or creative nature - it must have certain limitations that make it some particular way and not some other way. If an entity is able to be defined as having a certain nature, it is in that respect a natural entity, not a supernatural one. If a supernatural entity is defined by what it isn’t - that is, subject to any natural regularities or limitations - I’m not sure how we could even begin to approach an understanding of its behaviour and purposes.

G-d isn’t subject to any limitations whatsoever. G-d is defined as the act of existing. The negation of that is “no-thing exists” which is a logical contradiction. G-d is therefore logically necessary. Anything we might consider a coherent natural or logical limitation cannot exist without G-d first having a rational and creative nature.

 

[Sair]

G-d isn’t subject to any limitations whatsoever. G-d is defined as the act of existing. The negation of that is “no-thing exists” which is a logical contradiction. G-d is therefore logically necessary. Anything we might consider a coherent natural or logical limitation cannot exist without G-d first having a rational and creative nature.

If God is the act of existing, that seems functionally indistinguishable from the pantheist understanding of God, as the totality of that which exists, encompassing all the actuality and potentiality of the (natural) universe. But that doesn’t actually address my objection - my issue is with the concept of supernatural entities having anything as definable as a ‘nature’ - this implies that such entities admit of observation and definition as some thing and not some other thing, that they are under some form of natural regularity, even if it’s different to the regularities that obtain in the known universe. And if you are intending to define a specific being, it probably isn’t a good idea to make your defintion so all-encompassing that it cannot be said to delimit any particular entity, as distinct from any other entity. If you define God broadly as ‘existence’ or the act of existing, that doesn’t really say anything about your God that makes it distinguishable from my God.

 

[tonyrey]

I have difficulty with the notion that a supernatural entity must be anything.

I have difficulty with the notion that **everything **must be a natural entity!

For something to have what may be described as a nature - for example, a rational or creative nature - it must have certain limitations that make it some particular way and not some other way. If an entity is able to be defined as having a certain nature, it is in that respect a natural entity, not a supernatural one. If a supernatural entity is defined by what it isn’t - that is, subject to any natural regularities or limitations - I’m not sure how we could even begin to approach an understanding of its behaviour and purposes.

You are presupposing that everything is subject to natural limitations but the mind clearly is not. A supernatural entity is defined by its rationality, self-awareness and self-control - which natural entities lack.

Your appreciation of the value and beauty of nature suggests that you recognise the limitations of natural explanations. .

 

[warpspeedpetey]

If God is the act of existing, that seems functionally indistinguishable from the pantheist understanding of God, as the totality of that which exists, encompassing all the actuality and potentiality of the (natural) universe…And if …

Its called panentheism. Its a different thing than pantheism.

But that doesn’t actually address my objection - my issue is with the concept of supernatural entities having anything as definable as a ‘nature’ - this implies that such entities admit of observation and definition as some thing and not some other thing, that they are under some form of natural regularity, even if it’s different to the regularities that obtain in the known universe.

I understand your argument, I am trying to point out that for you to exist to make this argument, for there to be such things as “natures” or “regularities”, First G-d, the act of existing, must necessarily have a rational and creative nature. Rational because creation is coherent, and creative because these things were created. It seems in some sense that the in order to make this argument one must first admit its false.

 

[Sair]

I have difficulty with the notion that **everything **must be a natural entity!

The difficulty is in defining what constitutes a natural entity, as opposed to a non-natural or supernatural entity.

You are presupposing that everything is subject to natural limitations but the mind clearly is not. A supernatural entity is defined by its rationality, self-awareness and self-control - which natural entities lack.

The mind is not subject to natural limitations? That’s certainly news to me. Rationality, self-awareness and self-control are features of natural entities - human minds - which behave in accordance with natural regularities, cause and effect being one such. In the probably not too distant future, there may be computers or robots that have the features of rationality, self-awareness and self-control. Would these count as supernatural entities on your view?

Your appreciation of the value and beauty of nature suggests that you recognise the limitations of natural explanations. .

On the contrary, value and beauty are natural, being concepts conceived by natural entities like us.

 

[Sair]

Its called panentheism. Its a different thing than pantheism.

As I understand it, panentheism implies that God both inhabits and transcends the universe. Are you a panentheist, then?

I understand your argument, I am trying to point out that for you to exist to make this argument, for there to be such things as “natures” or “regularities”, First G-d, the act of existing, must necessarily have a rational and creative nature. Rational because creation is coherent, and creative because these things were created. It seems in some sense that the in order to make this argument one must first admit its false.

Existence must exist in order for anything to exist. Got it. I see how the assumption of existence is necessary in order to get any further, but not how it must be supposed that there is a specific entity, a person, a necessary being - which is how many theists conceive of God - that is possessed of a specific nature, being rational and creative. That, in my book, would make God a natural entity, one that is at least theoretically amenable to scientific investigation. Nor do I find it necessary to suppose that rationality and creativity must have been somehow injected into the universe by some other entity, as opposed to being features that could arise, ultimately, from the behaviour of energy and matter, of which we are yet to understand all the capabilities, if we ever can.

 

[warpspeedpetey]

As I understand it, panentheism implies that God both inhabits and transcends the universe. Are you a panentheist, then?

Immanent and transcendent is the terminology used. I have some panentheist leanings.

Existence must exist in order for anything to exist. Got it. I see how the assumption of existence is necessary in order to get any further, but not how it must be supposed that there is a specific entity, a person, a necessary being - which is how many theists conceive of God - that is possessed of a specific nature, being rational and creative.

G-d is logically necessary because the negation of existence “no-thing exists” is a logical contradiction and therefore an impossibility. There is no other possible state of reality than for there to be G-d. As to the rational and creative nature of G-d, it seems obvious that we can infer them from the existence of the universe. The universe is coherent, and not logically necessary. Therefore it demonstrates that G-d has the faculties to create and to do so in a coherent way. Further, the documentation gathered over the centuries shows that G-d is a rational actor. He describes His nature as “I AM” and so forth. That’s all very specific. So we have both documented evidence about the nature of G-d and rational reasons to suppose them from creation as well. It seems like a justifiable belief to me.

That, in my book, would make God a natural entity, one that is at least theoretically amenable to scientific investigation. Nor do I find it necessary to suppose that rationality and creativity must have been somehow injected into the universe by some other entity, as opposed to being features that could arise, ultimately, from the behaviour of energy and matter, of which we are yet to understand all the capabilities, if we ever can.

The scientific method is restricted to empirical matters by definition. To me that makes most talk of scientific investigation a moot point. After all, the scientific method requires empirical falsifiability. Metaphysics, logic. These are the proper tools for investigating being.

 

[Sair]

G-d is logically necessary because the negation of existence “no-thing exists” is a logical contradiction and therefore an impossibility. There is no other possible state of reality than for there to be G-d.

It would be as valid to state that there is no other possible state of reality than existence, especially if you equate God with the act of existing.

As to the rational and creative nature of G-d, it seems obvious that we can infer them from the existence of the universe. The universe is coherent, and not logically necessary.

Who’s to say that the universe is not logically necessary - especially if the universe is taken to mean everything that exists? How would we know that to be the case? Have we any possible alternatives, apart from nonexistence? And it strikes me as backwards and somewhat equivocal to claim that the coherence of the universe implies that a rational mind made it. We are rational beings, as far as we suppose, but on my view, we are products of the universe as it exists.

I don’t claim that the universe itself constitutes a rational being in the sense that it may think and act volitionally, according to preconceived plans (although some have suggested that the universe is somehow analogous to a mind) - but by the same token, will and intention are not necessary, so far as we can tell, for order and intelligibility, or to make the universe behave in certain ways - natural regularities and physical limitations can produce these effects. Intelligent beings are necessary for arriving at what might appropriately be termed a second-order understanding of reality, a mental model of how the universe is, but rational beings could only have come from an already orderly existence. If our minds were formed within the universe, why should not they have evolved to understand this universe?

Therefore it demonstrates that G-d has the faculties to create and to do so in a coherent way. Further, the documentation gathered over the centuries shows that G-d is a rational actor. He describes His nature as “I AM” and so forth. That’s all very specific. So we have both documented evidence about the nature of G-d and rational reasons to suppose them from creation as well. It seems like a justifiable belief to me.

Actually, to me, much of the documentation shows that the God of classical theism is a highly anthropomorphic being, a product of the human propensity to project human-like intentions onto the rest of nature. The fact that people conceive of God as a person, as a rational actor, is largely a mark of human hubris, or a desire to think the universe was made for us by someone fundamentally like us.

The scientific method is restricted to empirical matters by definition. To me that makes most talk of scientific investigation a moot point. After all, the scientific method requires empirical falsifiability. Metaphysics, logic. These are the proper tools for investigating being.

Metaphysics and logic must have some empirical grounding, otherwise they can only deal in imaginary entities. Arguing about the nature of some being without objective grounds for supposing that such a being even exists is just tilting at windmills.