This isn't baseball

[Leela]

The thing that is interesting here is that atheists insist their methodology is somehow born of the ultimate arbiter of all truth, logic. Assuming all questions can be answered in the language of human logic is actually the Mother of all provincial thinking.

The thing that is interesting to me here is that you have not addressed any of Touchstone’s arguments.

The ability to declare that nothing occurs outside of the fishbowl of spacetime is, quite frankly, above the pay grade of human beings.

Your thesis in this thread seems to be that it is unreasonable to conclude based on the available evidence and arguments that God probably does not exist, but it is perfectly reasonable to conclude that God does exist. Is it not also above the human pay grade to conclude that something DOES exist that stands appart from ordinary human experience?

Using logic to convince oneself that they have it all wrapped up is convenient but delusional. The same muscles theists use to console themselves that God exists and that there is a point to all this are the exact same muscles atheists use to console themselves that there are no consequences to one’s actions here on Earth. Truth is incredibly complex and arguments on both sides are usually reductionist.

I agree that there are limits to rational argumentation, but your idea that atheists need to console themselves or try to have faith in the pointlessness of life is way off. As a nonbeliever I can tell you that I am every other nonbeliever I know believe that life is of incalculable worth. They just don’t think that believing in God gives anyone a ruler by which to calculate that worth.

How could believing in God make life more meaningful than it already is?

 

[a_priori]

The thing that is interesting to me here is that you have not addressed any of Touchstone’s arguments.

But I have. TS’s arguments involve logic and evidence rooted in the categories of spacetime. I have argued for the possibility of a reality outside of spacetime where logic using to/from and before/after does not apply. I am not asserting one over the other but rather suggesting that my inability to “prove” that reality’s existence is equal to the atheist’s inability to disprove it.

Your thesis in this thread seems to be that it is unreasonable to conclude based on the available evidence and arguments that God probably does not exist…

That is not what I’m saying at all. My point is simple. I cannot prove God exists. Atheists cannot prove He doesn’t. We are on equal footing. You cannot appeal to logic because you cannot disprove a reality outside the fishbowl of spacetime where your logic must reside to operate. As soon as you appeal to logic, you root yourself firmly in the fishbowl. Again, I cannot prove the existence of anything outside the fishbowl. But neither can you disprove it. This is my point. I cannot prove and the atheist cannot disprove but yet the atheist claims victory. As I said, tie doesn’t go to the atheist.

 

[Touchstone]

The thing that is interesting here is that atheists insist their methodology is somehow born of the ultimate arbiter of all truth, logic.

I don’t insist on anything like that. Logic is a tool, an invaluable tool, but just a tool. Experiences and observations are at the top of the epistemic hierarchy, in my view, not logic.

The classic example where this comes into play for us is in quantum physics. There are a whole array of observations and experiments in that field which defy what we would call logic. The universe, at that scale, and in some aspects, laughs at our application of logic. Does that make it “untrue”, because it’s problematic in a coherence sense?

I say no. The evidential and sensory data we take in from the extramental world trump any logical notions we have, if there is a conflict between them. Fortunately, the universe has a deep level of intelligibility, and our logic takes us far towards a robust understanding of the world around us.

But it’s not supernatural or magic – logic is just a tool we use to help us comprehend and analyze.

Assuming all questions can be answered in the language of human logic is actually the Mother of all provincial thinking.

You know, if you ask atheists, diverse as they are on so many other matters, I think you will find a consensus that denies this proposition. For myself, and I suggest that I’m representative on this topic, it’s foolish to claim that “all questions an be answered in the language of human logic”. That’s a non-starter, as there’s some regressions and stumpers readily at hand that are easy to point to that make that proposition unworkable.

Instead, I grant there may be much more than “meets the emprico-logical eye”, so to speak, but reason and observation are all we have to go on. That’s quite a lot, actually, but those aren’t the tools of omniscience, by any means. We’ just carve out what we can with them. Other features of reality may obtain, but we aren’t equipped to apprehend them, or more precisely, we aren;t equipped to distinguish between them and fantasy, fanciful indulgences of our imagination.

That does not deny “the beyond”. It rather just recognizes the limitations of our humble frames, and affirms the distinctions between knowledge that coheres and performs through testing and demonstration, and beliefs that cannot do so.

The ability to declare that nothing occurs outside of the fishbowl of spacetime is, quite frankly, above the pay grade of human beings.

I couldn’t agree more, and suggest this very principle makes Catholicism and other religious canons quite problematic. Catholics, for example, insist that something particular and known DOES obtain “outside the fishbowl”. They are as emphatic about this is they unable to substantiate that claim, or even express it in coherent terms (“outside the fishbowl” gets at the very deep conceptual problems that inhere in these claims).

A Catholic has no business making the claims she does, epistemically. It’s a free society, and so I celebrate the freedom to make those claims, but in terms of “pay grade”, Catholics, like so many other advocates of religion, are way out in left field on this matter. As an atheist, it’s fundamental to me to acknowledge that I am not in any epistemic position to make any claims about all that. I know of no Gods or god, or anything “outside the fishbowl”, and furthermore understand the profound challenges of substantiating “beyond the fishbowl” claims, challenges with Catholics and others pay no heed to at all, and pronounce gratuitously on the subject. This is hubris of a rarified kind… way, way beyond the pay grade of a reasonable human being.

Using logic to convince oneself that they have it all wrapped up is convenient but delusional. The same muscles theists use to console themselves that God exists and that there is a point to all this are the exact same muscles atheists use to console themselves that there are no consequences to one’s actions here on Earth. Truth is incredibly complex and arguments on both sides are usually reductionist.

These “same muscles” I criticize the h*ll out of in atheist proponents of it even as I do in theists who do the same thing. “Consoling oneself” is a spectacular bad reason to embrace an existential proposition, and it doesn’t matter if the consolation obtains in theism or atheism. If you are thinking in terms of what consoles you, you have left disciplined, rational thinking behind. That’s OK, and people are free to do that, but let’s be clear that one has wandered off the reservation at that point, atheist or theist.

Atheists just don’t think they have it all wrapped up – that’s a deception someone has sold you. Rather, atheists find theistic arguments weak, fallacious, or otherwise inadequate in terms of reasoned, rigorous thinking. One doesn’t have to have it “all figured out” to see how bogus theistic arguments are.

Newton was convinced that time and space were immutable. He would have argued that point with great conviction on any internet forum I’m sure.

I’m sure. And I’d be happy to deconstruct that nonsense from him just like anyone else who would advance such an unsupportable idea. Science is the uprising against and overthrow of the unaccountable intuition, and while Newton was a “hall of famer” in terms of scientific contributions, he was at the same time very foolish in that understanding, religiously wedded to gratuitous intuitions on many subjects that he could not justify, to read his writings, anyway. The real force and leverage of science took time to develop and realize, and back in Newton’s time, one had only the faintest glimmer of what a revolution science would become against religious intuition and credulity. He could not know, of course – we have the advantage of broad retrospect that he does not.

-TS

 

[Touchstone]

But I have. TS’s arguments involve logic and evidence rooted in the categories of spacetime. I have argued for the possibility of a reality outside of spacetime where logic using to/from and before/after does not apply.

I have no trouble with acknowledging the possibility you refer to here. It cannot be ruled out, logically [sic]. There may be something (and yes, “thing”, and even “some” are stolen concepts from space/time-centric thinking…) “beyond this fishbowl”. But the possibility, which is what you acknowledged, is not sufficient for sustaining reasonable belief. It’s possible that unicorns exist. It’s possible that “extra-universal Unicorns exist”.

But possibilities qua possibilities don’t get you anywhere. What a reasoning analysis requires is something that selects that as actual (nevermind what “actual” means “beyond the fishbowl”, which isn’t the least bit clear) rather than just “possible”. That is, your words above can reduce religious beliefs to worshipping a possible god, rather than an actual god.

I am not asserting one over the other but rather suggesting that my inability to “prove” that reality’s existence is equal to the atheist’s inability to disprove it.

Right, but we don’t accept beliefs just because they can’t be disproven, right? You can’t disprove Mohammed’s claim to be God’s messenger, and to have authority over your doxis and praxis. But “inability to disprove” is not sufficient to make a belief incumbent upon you, else you’d be obliged to pray to Mecca five times a day.

Unless the proposition is resolved through “self-evidence” or some other axiomatic warrant, belief gets meted out in proportion to the positive case that commends it. Which does, by extension, imply that “tie goes to the skeptic”. It must be that way, or we’d be agnostics about unicorns and faeries and pixies and fire-breathing dragons and all the rest, unable incline through reason toward the reasonable conclusion, that these claims are not validated through self evidence or any other means at all, and the “inability to disprove” is no barrier whatsoever to reasoned disbelief in those claims.

That is not what I’m saying at all. My point is simple. I cannot prove God exists. Atheists cannot prove He doesn’t. We are on equal footing.

This is not equal footing. If you take me to court on a civil matter, complaining that I took $100,000 of our business partnership, we are not “tied” before the court if you get up and say “I can’t show Touchstone took the money, or that any money was even taken, but he can’t show he didn’t take it either”. You’d get laughed out of the court room.

Why is this, do you think. It’s true, you know: I could not prove I didn’t take any money, as no matter what evidence I provided, it would remain possible that I had still taken it and just managed to hide it somewhere, say an unnumbered account in Switzerland (which, I hear, they are cracking down on now, there, so maybe I’d have to be more creative than that!). I could never show I didn’t have that money.

But we wouldn’t be at parity there, any more than we are on this question. You make the claim of theft, you demonstrate the case. You claim God is real, actual, the burden is on you, not me, to show that is the case. And on this, Christianity fails. I understand the strong urge to shirk this burden, but its inseparable from your claim, for anyone who demands that the matter be investigated in terms of reason and evidence.

You cannot appeal to logic because you cannot disprove a reality outside the fishbowl of spacetime where your logic must reside to operate. As soon as you appeal to logic, you root yourself firmly in the fishbowl. Again, I cannot prove the existence of anything outside the fishbowl. But neither can you disprove it. This is my point. I cannot prove and the atheist cannot disprove but yet the atheist claims victory. As I said, tie doesn’t go to the atheist.

It does, and it’s straightforward to understand why. The principle as precedence in practice is all around you – he who makes the claim carries the burden of proof. That’s how logic and reasoning on the evidence work, that is what has proven effective in adjudicating truth claims in the real world.

-TS

 

[Leela]

But I have. TS’s arguments involve logic and evidence rooted in the categories of spacetime. I have argued for the possibility of a reality outside of spacetime where logic using to/from and before/after does not apply.

I think you still need to address TS’s question about unicorns: “Are “Unicornists” and “a-Unicornists” at a respectful stalemate, too, with neither carrying the burden of proof for a claim?” Your answer is that though TS makes a good point, good points are irrelevent to the discussion. You seem to be saying that it useless for TS to argue with you because you are willing to be irrational. It is true that someone who is not interested in evidence and reason is not worth arguing with; however, based on the fact that you have seen fit to make arguments in support of being irrational when it comes to religion, I suspect that you actually are interested in trying to have good reasons for your beliefs.

So we are back at the unicorn question. Is the belief in unicorns on equal footing with the belief that unicorns probably do not exist? Is this even a good analogy to the impasse between believers and nonbelievers?

I am not asserting one over the other but rather suggesting that my inability to “prove” that reality’s existence is equal to the atheist’s inability to disprove it.

That is not what I’m saying at all. My point is simple. I cannot prove God exists. Atheists cannot prove He doesn’t. We are on equal footing. You cannot appeal to logic because you cannot disprove a reality outside the fishbowl of spacetime where your logic must reside to operate. As soon as you appeal to logic, you root yourself firmly in the fishbowl. Again, I cannot prove the existence of anything outside the fishbowl. But neither can you disprove it. This is my point. I cannot prove and the atheist cannot disprove but yet the atheist claims victory. As I said, tie doesn’t go to the atheist.

Thanks for explaining. I think I better understand your position now, but I’m still unclear about what you mean by “equal footing.” The fact that neither side of an argument can supply a knockdown argument to convince the other side does not mean that neither side is making better arguments. As for the atheist claiming victory, neither side of an argument can claim victory without convincing the other side. or else the victory is just to have successfully convinced one’s self.

But note again that when you argue that rational argumentation is irrelevent with regard to the supernatural you are still making an argument and trying to be rational to some extent even as you are expressing a willingness to be irrational to some extent. You seem to want to rationally justify being irrational. It is one thing to say, “I don’t care what anyone else says, I believe what I believe,” and another thing to try to argue that it is a good thing to dismiss TS’s appeals to logic. How could you try to convince someone that it is good to dismiss appeals to logic without appealing to logic?

Best,
Leela

 

[tonyrey]

Experiences and observations are at the top of the epistemic hierarchy, in my view, not logic.

Precisely! And our experiences and observations of our thoughts, feelings, perceptions and decisions are at the summit of the epistemic hierarchy. Or, to change the metaphor, the foundation of all our knowledge. We can be more certain of our mind than anything else in the entire universe…

 

[Detales]

Tonyrey, I wonder if you have done even cursory reading, never mind self observation, about the actuality of the claim you make for the mind. I hope I am mistaking a good bit of sarcasm for your belief, but you sound convinced of your statement about the mind, and it fits as well as with other misalignments in your perceptions, so I am taking it as your actual position. Your position as stated is unfortunate for a number of reasons.

First is that we project our world according to what we accept as a world view when we are but infants and toddlers, and to some extent later. Unless those are rigorously rooted out and made conscious, we are at the mercy of programing accepted as a matter of survival at a time we saw no other choice. Unfortunately, religion, any religion or lack of it, as well as economic, social and political stances also tend to take root at this time and steer our lives by hidden assumptions whose validity or truth (they are different) we rarely question until disaster strikes.

Second, the unexamined nature of the mind and its contained assumptions leads us to believe that there is a one-to one correspondence of our perceptions and the world as it is. Nothing could be further from the truth and destructive of useful teleology. Several simple exercises in perception prove this beyond the shadow of a doubt if one is willing to self observe honestly.

Third, for the vast majority of the world population, the “normal” subject/object mode of experience is all that they know. They have often not even, like most religionists in general, a clue as to what a pure Conscious awareness state is, what it feels like, and what fundamental information relative to being that such an experience imparts. This ignorance prevents a basically necessary foundation for actual spiritual understanding,

Fourth, the mind works as much by omission as by inclusion. This is vastly important in assessing how and why we acquire the beliefs that we do. There are excellent studies that demonstrate how and why it is necessary for us to function this way, but for the most part we do it unconsciously, thereby necessarily excluding much that is potentially beneficial to our unfoldment as Children of God.

I could go on, but that is a good start. I hope that your piety doesn’t kick in and deny you the opportunity of examining some of these propositions, nay, actualities, in depth.

 

[tonyrey]

Tonyrey, I wonder if you have done even cursory reading, never mind self observation, about the actuality of the claim you make for the mind.

I could ask you precisely the same question about your claims!
More to the point you haven’t answered these:

1. What do you regard as evidence?
2. What is the evidence that you exist?
3. Can you see, touch, hear, taste or smell yourself?
4. How do you explain the fact that the vast majority of human beings have known intuitively that the spiritual world is distinct from, and more significant than, the world of material objects?

 

[Detales]

1. What do you regard as evidence? Of what?

2. What is the evidence that you exist? That is a silly tautology. the only thing any one knows for sure is that “I am.” The rest is conjecture and limit.

3. Can you see, touch, hear, taste or smell yourself? Those are the usual five sense modes of humans. The body can be the object of those senses.

4. How do you explain the fact that the vast majority of human beings have known intuitively that the spiritual world is distinct from, and more significant than, the world of material objects? I don’t know that that is a fact. I see it as an assumption, primarily because though I am quite sure that most humans are haunted by the feeling of “there must be more,” their “spiritual” pursuits are for the most part diverted by religion, which treats of mental contents, not the nature of Divinity.

And we have already treated of this all this in #47. The “spiritual” world is not distinct from or superior to “this” world. “This is always already the “other” world,” if you will remember me quoting. The lack of that experiential knowledge exactly constitutes the blindness of religion.

So how do you answer these, and, again, what is your point? This may not be baseball, but this is already strike two for you, after several innings and “outs.”