The Theist Position

[catholicray]

I appreciate that and you as well.

 

[o_mlly]

You directly claimed, rather vociferously, that you had never claimed that intelligence requires a living being. I showed where you did. Muting thread.

Vociferously, really? Sorry, still wrong, friend. Read the posts more carefully.

Intelligence, defined as the property to hold and process information, exists in every living creature and does not exist in any non-living creature.

Yes, I moved the goalposts. I moved the goalposts in (and spread them farther apart) in allowing Watson as artificially intelligent just as my hand-held calculator is intelligent.

Now, falsification of my position is easier as it no longer requires only living examples as negating evidence but just about anything will do – alive, dead or simply just existing.

Got anything? Please no more deflections.

 

[MPat]

We’re talking many decades here where the needle has crept ever so slowly but irrevocably towards absolute certainty.

No, we are talking about the “default”, which happens before any evidence is taken into account:

The default ‘We don’t know’ leaves a lot of options open. Except a personal God, which I am pretty certain does not exist.

If you mean anything else, you are free to reword that.

If the definition is ‘a deity who interacts in a regular and meaningful way with individuals’ then I’m as close as I can be to one hundred percent. And that’s beause, having started with the default ‘I don’t know’, I have reached a point where it would be nonsensical to maintain that position.

OK, how did that happen? What evidence was taken into account?

Was it that you did not grant an audience to God yet?

You presented no other evidence.

And thus your argument is:

1. If God would exist, He would have asked “Bradskii” for an audience by now. (premise)
2. God hasn’t asked “Bradskii” for an audience. (premise)
3. God does not exist. (from 1, 2)

Of course, premise 1 looks, um, very suspicious. That is: who is that “Bradskii”, that God should have asked him for an audience?

After all, if this argument was good, I could also prove that Queen of England or President of US do not exist: they haven’t asked to meet with me either.

And there’s no scare tactics involved in pointing out that if I need to rely on personal testimony to help me make my mind up, then I need to listen to all claims of a personal nature. Which leads to the question: Whose testimony should I believe?

Let’s note that one does not have to believe the testimony to listen to it.

And let’s note an admission that you ignored the available evidence outright.

For that matter, if the question “Whose testimony should I believe?” was sincere, you could investigate how professionals - judges, police detectives - make such decisions. Something tells me that you have not done so.

 

[catholicray]

Not to mention you can start at I don’t know and end up at the existence of God.

 

[LionHeart]

Not to mention you can start at I don’t know and end up at the existence of God.

Yes, indeed. And that is what many skeptics yearn to achieve. They may ask and pray for actual evidence, so they can drop their non-belief. The proper prayer goes something like this:

“Please God, help me. I do not believe because you did not give me sufficient evidence so I could believe. I was told that you love me more than I will ever know. All I ask for is actual evidence. They say that you gave the sufficient evidence to Doubting Thomas. Thank you in advance for your help.”

 

[Lion_IRC]

Bradskii:

That’s an error the burden is on me when I make the claim “the FSM does not exist”.

I haven’t made an error because I haven’t said you have to prove anything. I’m simply showing you that by your logic neither do I. Thus the burden of proof is even. I haven’t made a claim.

Right.
Frank Turek says it best - I dont have enough faith to believe what atheists believe.

Atheists either know there’s no God or they BELIEVE there’s no God.
If they know - prove it. If not, then atheism is just another belief with respect to the existence or otherwise of God, so atheists should be honest and admit that they cant claim to be the default starting position.

The persuasive burden of proof rests on the person who wants to persuade. If atheists wish to remain unpersuasive - thats fine by me.

 

[niceatheist]

What if atheism is defined as a lack of belief in God? That definition seems lacking here.

 

[MPat]

What if atheism is defined as a lack of belief in God? That definition seems lacking here.

Because it is not the definition of atheism, and everyone knows it.

Someone, who seriously wants to claim that he does not believe that God does not exist, but also does not believe that God exists, will call himself an agnostic.

Someone who insists on calling himself an atheist and also insists that atheism is “lack of belief” shows that: 1) he holds a belief that God does not exist, 2) he has no good reason for this belief, 3) he knows he has no good reason for this belief.

 

[niceatheist]

I lack belief in God. You can choose to call me a liar, but then where are we at?

 

[MPat]

I lack belief in God. You can choose to call me a liar, but then where are we at?

Do you also lack a belief that God does not exist?

 

[Lion_IRC]

I lack belief in God. You can choose to call me a liar, but then where are we at?

I don’t think you were being called a liar. You deserve to be taken at your word.

However, in the context of atheism, the self-professed “lack” of belief in one direction unavoidably entails a belief in the opposite direction.

To say I lack the belief that a coin toss will result in ‘heads’ necessarily implies that I have the belief it will result in ‘tails’.

So you tell me, do ‘coin tossing’ atheists hold the view that God’s existence (heads or tails) is a 50/50 possibility? Is there room, philosophically speaking, for the atheist to believe that a coin might land on its edge? I don’t think so.

Atheist ≠ Agnostic

Spectrum of theistic probability - Wikipedia’_formulation

 

[abucs]

But we’re then just arguing about the pond freezing over. Who on earth says that there is intelligence involved? Your question is the the same question writ large.

No-one argues ‘There is no intelligence behind water freezing’ so there is no burden of proof. No claims are being made. Except that we know how it happens and here is the scientific evidence.

And that holds however far up the chain you want to go or how far back. There are answers for most things and there probably will be for all things…up to a point.

I say there is a natural answer and I can show the evidence and equations and experiments that prove that statement. However, it is your claim that there must be intelligence behind it so it is incumbent upon you to back up your claim. Without reference to the piece of paper in your back pocket.

I don’t think you are on such as sure a footing as you think ‘knowing’ the natural process of things and somehow that excludes God. If God is the creator of nature, that is the natural order, then knowing something about that order doesn’t exclude God, it explains His process.

The question is nature itself and what, if any sentient intelligence is involved with the natural order.

Again going back to creating a virtual computer world. That has laws relating to the different pixels on the screen and the emergent properties of groups of pixels and the interactions of those pixels and groups of pixels.

Viewed from the screen we can describe all that is happening (except at the smallest level) as a natural order. That is, given the pixels and known law we can describe what happens and call this the natural order. But the pixels don’t have their own agency they are projected onto the screen from another realm according to computer programming law which has sentient intelligence behind it.

Reducing everything to particles following laws is not seeing the forest for the trees. It is not an argument against God. When we look at the smallest level in our world (quantum physics) we also see that these particles look more like projections from a non local reality following law rather than having their own agency. Knowing this we can arrange scientific experiments that blow apart the notion of a world limited to physical cause and affect of interacting particles of their own agency in a local confined universe.

Our science when studied closely does look at the natural order as a non local experience that gives the impression of locality involving particles that do not have their own agency yet appear to as the higher level of human interaction. And this phenomenon seems to be programmed with respect to the experience of consciousness.

That appears to be what you are describing at the smallest level when you say ‘the natural order’.

 

[abucs]

Morality is also an emergent property. If a way of acting which has evolved to deal with certain aspects of life aligns with what we have agreed is beneficial then we describe it as being good.

It’s akin to the Euthyphro dilema. We don’t do good because morality defines what is good. We define what is good and that becomes what we describe as morality.

If there is a transcendent Being underwriting our existence then there is an ultimate ‘good’ morality and the people created in that existence can experience it and come closer to understanding it. Again, what morality is depends upon whether our reality is underwritten by intelligence. You are describing morality given the assumption that there is no ultimate transcendent intelligence and Being. That is fine, but to go back to the burden of proof - both those arguing for intelligence and those arguing against it have to make their case.

The outcome of that discussion then decides if ultimately morality truly exists in a good form or whether it is all a delusion with different delusions of morality being no better than any other. In fact the standard of ‘better morality’ disappears into a subjective notion by beings that are deluded about morality and in fact deluded about their own existence.

In the end the Theist argues for ultimate intelligence, morality and conscious existence while the atheist argues these concepts only exist in the brains of objects we call humans who simply are arrangements of atoms following scientific law and there is no deeper reality.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

We’re talking many decades here where the needle has crept ever so slowly but irrevocably towards absolute certainty.

No, we are talking about the “default”, which happens before any evidence is taken into account.

The default position in my casewas belief. It was accepted. Everyone I knew was telling me there was a personal God. I believed them. But then began to doubt because I saw no evidence. From a personal viewpoint and also from the testimony of others (I don’t need a personal audience, so premise 1 doesn’t exist). The longer the investigation went on, the more I realised that the evidence was not there. Absence of evidence etc…but…as I said, there comes a time when you have to call it.

So I can’t produce evidence that something isn’t there. And if different religions claim a personal connection with the supernatural, again, who should I listen to? Either all of them are wrong or just one group has it right. I call the former.

And what do judges and the police have to do with listening to people’e evidence? In this case it either sounds credible or it doesn’t. There’s no proof available.

 

[abucs]

Define intelligence. Are we speaking of consciousness? Something more? It’s too important a concept to leave undefined.

By intelligence I mean a sentient, reasoning and conscious factor. A Being if you like.

Being inside our reality of cause and affect we almost necessarily have to think in terms of the intelligence we know. Having that restraint removed and considering intelligence outside of our realm leaves open somewhat the definition to perhaps being something more than we can imagine.

I am specifically looking at the ‘observer affect’ in physics which seems to be a lynch pin for a subset of intelligence in our world. So for example in the famous double slit experiment a human that knows or potentially can know which slit the particle went through interacts with the laws of physics in such a way as to affect the ‘physical’ outcome whereas a cat or donkey doesn’t.

There is something about the human’s ;intelligence’ consciousness’ etc that is written into the laws of physics that is different from a cat. This highly suggests that consciousness was involved in the writing of these scientific laws probably at a level differentiated from us in a similar way to our 'intelligence/consciousness being differentiated from the cat.

Will reply to any comments from responsents later.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

Morality is also an emergent property. If a way of acting which has evolved to deal with certain aspects of life aligns with what we have agreed is beneficial then we describe it as being good.

It’s akin to the Euthyphro dilema. We don’t do good because morality defines what is good. We define what is good and that becomes what we describe as morality.

If there is a transcendent Being underwriting our existence then there is an ultimate ‘good’ morality and the people created in that existence can experience it and come closer to understanding it. Again, what morality is depends upon whether our reality is underwritten by intelligence. You are describing morality given the assumption that there is no ultimate transcendent intelligence and Being.

Indeed I am. It can’t be divinely ordained (which might lead to a conclusion that there is a personal God, interested in our moral well being) and a naturally evolved aspect of our lives. So if there is evidence for it having naturally evolved then it cannot have been divinely ordained.

In which case, no personal God.

 

[abucs]

So I can’t produce evidence that something isn’t there. And if different religions claim a personal connection with the supernatural, again, who should I listen to? Either all of them are wrong or just one group has it right. I call the former.

Having interactions with the supernatural (or Creator of nature) in a stated context is different from understanding or clearly and accurately defining that interaction.

If one feels a transcendent connection with the supernatural while looking at a frozen lake and interprets that as an Ice God, it doesn’t mean that the Divine was not incarnated in Bethlehem 2000 years ago or that Buddha did not experience the goodness of God.

All of these religions have a description of the divine in one form or another. What the atheist does is go down the path of saying because these understood forms are different I will reject them all because they can’t all be right while simultaneously rejecting that what is common to them all, and that is the notion of the Divine.

So whether all of the religions disagree on interaction or form or all religions agree with substance doesn’t really matter. The atheist will disagree anyway.

ok this time really bbl.

 

[Bradskii]

Calliope:

Define intelligence. Are we speaking of consciousness? Something more? It’s too important a concept to leave undefined.

I am specifically looking at the ‘observer affect’ in physics which seems to be a lynch pin for a subset of intelligence in our world. So for example in the famous double slit experiment a human that knows or potentially can know which slit the particle went through interacts with the laws of physics in such a way as to affect the ‘physical’ outcome whereas a cat or donkey doesn’t.

There is something about the human’s ;intelligence’ consciousness’ etc that is written into the laws of physics that is different from a cat. This highly suggests that consciousness was involved in the writing of these scientific laws probably at a level differentiated from us in a similar way to our 'intelligence/consciousness being differentiated from the cat.

This is a fallcy:

A particularly famous example is the 1998 Weizmann experiment.[1] Despite the “observer” in this experiment being an electronic detector—possibly due to the assumption that the word “observer” implies a person—its results have led to the popular belief that a conscious mind can directly affect reality.[2] The need for the “observer” to be conscious has been rejected by mainstream science as a misconception rooted in a poor understanding of the quantum wave function ψ and the quantum measurement process,[3][4][5] apparently being the generation of information at its most basic level that produces the effect.

 

[Bradskii]

Bradskii:

So I can’t produce evidence that something isn’t there. And if different religions claim a personal connection with the supernatural, again, who should I listen to? Either all of them are wrong or just one group has it right. I call the former.

Having interactions with the supernatural (or Creator of nature) in a stated context is different from understanding or clearly and accurately defining that interaction.

If one feels a transcendent connection with the supernatural while looking at a frozen lake and interprets that as an Ice God, it doesn’t mean that the Divine was not incarnated in Bethlehem 2000 years ago or that Buddha did not experience the goodness of God.

All of these religions have a description of the divine in one form or another. What the atheist does is go down the path of saying because these understood forms are different I will reject them all because they can’t all be right while simultaneously rejecting that what is common to them all, and that is the notion of the Divine.

So whether all of the religions disagree on interaction or form or all religions agree with substance doesn’t really matter. The atheist will disagree anyway.

ok this time really bbl.

But we aren’t talking about a sense of the divine. Everyone has that. We are talking about a personal God. The Abrahamic God. A God that is specifically concerned about you and may well answer your prayers. A God that will offer you the keys to His kingdom. A God that sent His son to atone for your sins.

All religions have their own personal God. Which you would reject because you would claim that yours is the true God.

I was in Bali recently. And you can’t walk down any street without stepping over banten or food offerings to the gods. It seems that there is a daily and almost universal connection between the Indonesian people and their version of the divine. You can’t be introduced to anyone or interact with anyone without first saying ‘peace and greeting from God’ (in Bahasa) and placing your hands together as if in prayer.

Their religion seems more relevant to them than does Christianity in the west. It seems more natural. And that’s just one of dozens. Of which I know very little. So my disbelief for theirs is lagging slightly behind Christianity.

And that’s because the more I found out about God, the less I believed.

 

[MPat]

The default position in my casewas belief. It was accepted.

Then, presumably, the “default” you were talking about previously was “logically prior” to taking evidence into account.

Everyone I knew was telling me there was a personal God. I believed them.

So, what is the religion in question?

And if different religions claim a personal connection with the supernatural, again, who should I listen to? Either all of them are wrong or just one group has it right.

Not necessarily.

If someone claims to have had a personal supernatural experience, there are several options:

1. It was a direct experience of God.
2. It was an experience of some other spirit on behalf of God.
3. It was an experience of some other spirit (probably a demon), not on behalf of God.
4. It was not really a personal supernatural experience, but the witness mistakenly thinks that it was.
5. The witness is lying.

I see no reason to rule out any of those for non-Catholic Christians. And even for non-Christians, at least option 3 is possible.

And what do judges and the police have to do with listening to people’e evidence?

Seriously?

Their job is to make decisions using, among other things, witness testimony. And witnesses can be lying.

So, do you know what techniques they use? Would you like to find out? Have you ever tried to do so?

All religions have their own personal God.

Um, no. For example, Buddhists have no personal God.

Was all your investigation so worthless?

All religions have their own personal God. Which you would reject because you would claim that yours is the true God.

Would we? For example, as you might note from the threads in this forum, a significant part of Catholics think it is at least arguable that we worship the same God as Muslims.

Again, was all your investigation so worthless?