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Bradskii
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I don’t believe that the belief that the the non-belief in the non existence of God is beilevable.
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Bradskii
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I wish you guys would stop conflating ‘X does not exist’ with ‘I do not believe X exists’. The first requires some evidence from the person making the statement. The second is a refutation of the evidence that someone else has presented.Bradskii:
That’s an error the burden is on me when I make the claim “the FSM does not exist”.
It also works in the positive sense. ‘X exists’ requires evidence. ‘I believe that X exists’ is an acceptance of the evidence put forward.
I have been on this forum a long time and you will not find anything from me along the lines of ‘God does not exist’. So there is nothing for which I have to produce evidence.
On the other hand, many people have said ‘God exists’. I have then sked them for a definition (there seem to be many) and the evidence they feel is acceptable. Then we have a chat about it. ‘It’ being the evidence put forward.
Quite simple really.
Look, a cathedral. Hmmm. Evidence of intelligence.
Hey, it’s raining. Hmmm. Evidence of…a rain god?
The argument goes nowhere unless you already have a deity in mind. Which is where all arguments for God fall down. They assume the conclusion in the first instance and structure the arguments to lead only in one direction.
A: We exist because of an intelligent being.
B: Yeah? What evidence do you have.
A: X, Y and Z.
B: Sorry, I don’t find those reasons believable.
A: Prove it.
Is that how you see the debate?
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abucs
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Yes but there are two possibilities. That our reality was caused from intelligence, i.e. God or it was caused from non intelligence. You either believe in one or the other or you don’t have a firm view on the matter.
To strongly believe that our reality does not come from intelligence, God, leaves one with only the alternative that it comes from non intelligence. They are mutually exclusive if someone is going to have a firm belief on the matter.
So to go through the semantics, to have a firm belief in the non existence of God is to necessarily have a firm belief in the only other alternative, that our existance comes from a non intelligent source.
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PickyPicky
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There is a third. That it was not caused.
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Bradskii
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If I see a pond freeze over then how many choices do I have? Was it two? Either a god made it happen or it happened naturally. Hands up everyone who thinks it was the Ice God?Bradskii:
Yes but there are two possibilities. That our reality was caused from intelligence, i.e. God or it was caused from non intelligence. You either believe in one or the other or you don’t have a firm view on the matter.
To strongly believe that our reality does not come from intelligence, God, leaves one with only the alternative that it comes from non intelligence. They are mutually exclusive if someone is going to have a firm belief on the matter.
So to go through the semantics, to have a firm belief in the non existence of God is to necessarily have a firm belief in the only other alternative, that our existance comes from a non intelligent source.
Do I then get to nominate a few properties of the Ice God? Omniscience, omnibenevolence, omnipotence etc?
Why ‘is’? Why the present tense? Why not ‘was’?
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abucs
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If we have a reality, which we do, then it is caused.
It might be caused by electrons and protons that have always been here with no intelligence present. But it is caused by something. In this case electrons and protons would be causing our reality.
If you don’t agree with the word ‘cause’ you can substitute 'gives us our ‘existence’.
We have an existence. The question is whether it ‘comes from’ is derived by’ ‘is present because’ of intelligence or non intelligence.
Note I am not saying our universe has a beginning (although I think it does) but that our existence is caused by something.
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abucs
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If a pond freezes over there is either intelligence present in that process or there in not. It is an exclusive either/or reality.
If I create a software game and in my game I have a pond that freezes over obeying the laws I have set where there is a temperature and my water freezes at around 0 degrees Celsius then there is intelligence present in that process. Personally as a human being I may not be aware every time one of my creations freezes but there is intelligence behind the process.
Call that an Ice God if you want but since everything in my created software reality comes from me, simply God will suffice. (maybe I should have a small letter ‘g’ there),
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PickyPicky
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My existence was caused by my parents, and they had intelligence, true. But if you are referring to all reality taken together, one possibility is that it was not caused.
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Bradskii
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Common sense has a lot to answer for.
It used to be obvious to everyone that the sun moved across the heavens. Common sense really. And common sense that something couldn’t be in two places at the same time. Or that time runs at the same rate everywhere. Or that the stars you are looking at must still exist. Or that everything must have had a begining.
The universe in which we exist, this universe, the one you can see out of the window, made an appearance a few billion years ago. As time is part of this universe it is not logical to ask what happened before it appeared just like it’s not valid to ask what’s north of the north pole.
If you stand on the pole then some people will say that you can only head south. But that’s not true. It’s the same with the Big Bang. We can only see it from one viewpoint. ‘It must have had a begining’ is the common sense view.
It’s the biggest God of The Gaps argument there can ever be.
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abucs
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Your existence is caused by many things including your parents. The law of thermodynamics causes your existence. The presence of weak nuclear forces causes your existence. Gravity causes your existence. Your parents desire for each other causes your existence.
The beginning of something is a subset of why something exists.
I have a sore thumb because I hit it with a hammer. It was caused by me hitting my thumb. But the reality of the sore thumb is also because of nervous systems, because of evolution, because of gravity, because of the relative strength of materials because of the changing of forms of energy, because of electrical impulses attached to my thumb, because of brains and because of consciousness. All of these have to be present to have a sore thumb. Together they cause the reality of the sore thumb.
We have an existence. Something causes that existence. Ultimately there is intelligence involved in allowing our existence (gravity, electrics, matter, consciousness etc.) or there is not intelligence involved in allowing our existence.
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Bradskii
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It appears to me to be entirely natural. Just like the pond freezing over. I could ask what existence might look like if it was entirely natural. And the answer would be: ‘Just like it looks now’. Because everything that we can measure and test and examine appears to be happening according to natural laws. That there is an appearance of intelligence to some people is just that. An appearance. Just like lightning was thought to be caused by an intelligence. Or storms.PickyPicky:
If we have a reality, which we do, then it is caused.
It might be caused by electrons and protons that have always been here with no intelligence present. But it is caused by something. In this case electrons and protons would be causing our reality.
If you don’t agree with the word ‘cause’ you can substitute 'gives us our ‘existence’.
We have an existence. The question is whether it ‘comes from’ is derived by’ ‘is present because’ of intelligence or non intelligence.
Note I am not saying our universe has a beginning (although I think it does) but that our existence is caused by something.
If you start with God, then you will see intelligence everywhere. If you don’t, it simply doesn’t exist.
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abucs
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God is on the other side of the gap Bradski.
That is what you are missing.
Western scientific endevours in Christendom was and is to try and close that gap. Quantum mechanics is the study of the smallest things. Quantum mechanics is the field of science that is derived from that medieval Christendom search for God.
You are looking at the wrong gaps. Like looking between the pixels on the screen and saying there is no intelligence there. The intelligence is in the CPU and software in the hard drive that you can’t see. It is that intelligence which produces and gives cause to the reality of what happens on the screen.
You’re stuck only considering the reality of the screen, like Plato watching the shadows on the cave wall. There is a deeper reality.
That reality is either intelligent or it is not.
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abucs
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You don’t start and limit your search in a freezing pond.
You go to the furtherest and most basic fundamentals of reality and ask the question if intelligence or non intelligence is the most rational answer. I think when you do that intelligence is the most rational answer.
As a philosopher once said, if I know everything about one speck of sand then I would know all things. The question of what causes that speck of sand is the box and dice of reality. Either intelligence is there or it is not. Christian thought believes intelligence is there and intelligence is transcendent which is why intelligence has been valued in the western world and we are where we are today by using our own to push back the gaps. When we do that, for me, our science suggests it is intelligence on the other side of the gap as we always thought it was.
Werner Heisenberg - the first gulps of natural science will make you an atheist, but God is waiting for you at the bottom of the glass - Co-founder of the field of quantum physics and Nobel prize winner for physics.
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Bradskii
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Nice line.
You are confusing order with intelligence. Order is the natural state of the universe and intelligence is an emergent property of that order.
You call that natural order God. I call it nature.
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abucs
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When we look at ourselves in our own physical universe we can view the coming together of human brains as an emergent order. The question is whether this is all there is or is there is a deeper reality responsible for that order and whether it is intelligent or not.
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Bradskii
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But you are asking the question whilst keeping the answer folded up in your back pocket. It’s like someone doing a cold reading. They know the answer and keep asking questions that will get them there. It’s less a search for the truth and more a search for the path that will lead you to where you want to go.Bradskii:
When we look at ourselves in our own physical universe we can view the coming together of human brains as an emergent order. The question is whether this is all there is or is there is a deeper reality responsible for that order and whether it is intelligent.
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PickyPicky
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Or, indeed, doesn’t.
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Bradskii
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Look at it this way. We examine the universe. It performs and evolves and changes to rules which we can understand. Someone asks if there an intelligence behind it. So we head back and the walls start closing in. It’s like a tunnel heading back to where we might find an answer.
And each step we take, it all looks entirely natural. ‘But keep going’ someone says. So we keep heading back. And the passage keeps getting smaller and smaller. Still looking entirely natural. And we eventually reach a point where we cannot go any further.
That’s it. No answer. Except you have one in your back pocket. Which leads to the question: What was the point of the journey to find the answer when you had it with you all the time?
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Bradskii
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And I’ll see your Heisenburg and raise you a Feynman:
“It doesn’t seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.”
“It doesn’t seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama.”
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abucs
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If we talk about the Christian search historically then yes. The idea was God and people created western science looking for it. This was a hugely beneficial enterprise.
Because that enterprise was so successful we have so much knowledge about the working of our physical universe. As we knew more and more and hadn’t yet ‘trapped God in a scientific beaker’ then it was understandable for a body of thought to emerge that claimed we would continue on to know everything and that there was no deeper intelligence, God.
What we have to do is assess this body of thought on its merits using all available knowledge. This brings the talk neatly back to the original discussion in that the burden of proof lies on all sides, including this later body of thought that argues for no intelligence.
The tools we use are rationality, logic and knowledge together with scientific experiments and the value that guides us is truth. We have to be faithful to that truth and wherever it leads.
Having been a Christian and then Atheist and then Christian again is evidence that the truth is something that I am committed to. There is no hidden answer in my back pocket. There is the assessing of all claims, all with the burden of proof across multiple considerations and there is the truth of what claim is more rational than any other.
ok bbl.
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