Who am I? Why am I here?

[RyanL]

Sparetherod:

I agree, I do not have a rational choice to deny the obvious. Does that somehow leave my life lacking?

Have you stopped beating your wife?

That’s the same sort of question you are asking here. Your life would be lacking if every choice had this kind of undeniably obvious answer - it would be effectively lacking free will. Effectively, choice has been removed. If God were to walk out on Wrigley field and regenerate limbs at the command of every athiest / agnostic who desires He do so…where would be the free will choice to believe? (And what kind of God would that be who is subject to the command of His creations, specifically those who reject what He says?)

As to your snippy comment about proving unicorns based on “old stories written by very superstitious people” (a not-so-subtle jab, I might add, constituting conduct about which I’ve already warned you), I have not asked you to prove a negative. I have asked you to make a free will choice about which you cannot prove either possibility (at least not through logical exercise). You need to have faith to answer in either direction, though good arguments could be made in both directions. (If the analogy fails, pick a similar one - you get the point.) That’s free will.

What you have asked for is for us to remove the choice through incontrovertable evidence. We have logical arguments with the preponderance of the evidence, but we do not have incontrovertable proof. If we had it, there would be no athiests. We do have some of the evidence for which you ask, however. Example: Saturday, Oct 13, 1917, the Sun “danced in the sky” for 12 minutes, as witnessed by 70,000 believers and non-believers in Portugal, and was reported in the NY Times in a nearly full page article. Unfortunately, because it didn’t happen in front of you I doubt you will believe it. You would most likely attribute it to a “strange” aurora borealis and chalk it up to 70,000 people not knowing what the Sun looks like.

Objectively verified medical and scientific miracles could be further enumerated, including your requested regenerated amputees, but what’s the point? It’s not likely to happen on Wrigley’s field for you to personally view, so you won’t believe them. Rather, you’ll find a case where some wackos claim a miraculous event occured (healing, etc.) where no objective evidence is given and call it the same thing. Perhaps you would even go so far as to equate it with Jonestown…wait…too late.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[Philthy]

EnterTheBowser:

I will confidently assert that Pascal’s Wager is a really bad argument. In a sense, it can be used to show that it is reasonable to believe in everything. Watch:

Imagine that God, instead of demanding acknowledgment of his existence as a condition of infinite reward, demands that we acknowledge proposition X as true. It is possible that such a God exists - basically, some creature capable of dealing out infinite reward (and perhaps infinite punishment) in exchange for belief in some proposition. The problem is that I can put in any statement for X. And so, if Pascal’s Wager is a good argument, it is reasonable to believe that the Sun is an orange, that the sun is not an orange, and so forth - every statement, and its negation. So there seems to be problems. Now, it might be replied that I can only stick in statements for X of which we are not entirely sure - but in reality, all knowledge is, to some extent or another, doubtful - or at least enough knowledge is that this modified Wager would declare it reasonable to believe in A and ~A, for some A or other.

For a more amusing yet equally serious response to the Wager, read this:

infidels.org/library/modern/richard_carrier/heaven.html

Im not that familiar with Pascals wager, but I don’t find your response even remotely convincing. It is not reasonable to consider that God would arbitrarily choose to reward in the manner you have proposed - it would be unjust and that really makes sense for the author of justice. It is an imaginable argument, but it lacks any real beef IMHO: God is not petty.

 

[Anonymous_1]

i wonder if this got skipped over…

Anonymous_1:

sparetherod, you state you love discussions of ethics and morality:

Im wondering how ethics or morality could exist without a universal principle or form that transcends the individual. How does an atheist for example defend against an appeal to a universal moral form? An example: if there was no source or form of Justice how could there be justice? Philosophers like Plato, Berkeley and Descartes appealed that God was the true source, form and embodiment of these things like Truth, Love, Justice, and they argued that apart from this Source, there exists no truth, love or justice in this corporeal, temporal world.

Sparetherod and PLP I havea question for you both that I would like you to really consider and answer if you would. Do you believe there are such things as truth, love or justice?

 

[Maranatha]

Philthy:

Im not that familiar with Pascals wager, but I don’t find your response even remotely convincing. It is not reasonable to consider that God would arbitrarily choose to reward in the manner you have proposed - it would be unjust and that really makes sense for the author of justice. It is an imaginable argument, but it lacks any real beef IMHO: God is not petty.

Yes, I agree. The “standard of reason” is the core difference between theists and atheists. I’m a theist because I believe a preponderance of circumstantial evidence meets the criteria for a reasonable level of proof.

If our courts demanded proof beyond a shadow of a doubt, they would not function. It’s an unreasonable level of proof.

Hyper-rationalists are just as unreasonable as those who are superstitious but on a different end of the spectrum of reason.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Philthy:

Im not that familiar with Pascals wager, but I don’t find your response even remotely convincing. It is not reasonable to consider that God would arbitrarily choose to reward in the manner you have proposed - it would be unjust and that really makes sense for the author of justice. It is an imaginable argument, but it lacks any real beef IMHO: God is not petty.

I am not talking about the Christian God. The argument runs with any sort off God that is even remotely possible - and the sort of God I imagined is definitely possible in the same sense that the Christian God is possible.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

tdandh26:

…

Tell me this though please will you leave this life fighting for life when there is no chance left, or will you go peacefully to the winds.

It depends on the circumstances of my death - though I will in general admit that I very much enjoy being alive and would definitely seek to prolong it.

 

[Anonymous_1]

to every atheist and agnostic in this thread…
if there were a God would you want to know? I mean really…I think Atheism falls apart under careful scrutiny and this is why.

ok…so you got us…THERE IS NO GOD…

If you were to tell us that with confidence, I would be forced to call you a liar. And here is why:

How could you tell me there is no God without perfect knowledge? If you were omniscient that would make you godlike, thus refuting your claim. I think the best you can come up with is Agnosticism or plain indifference.

Heres the thing, I get back to my original question, if there is a God would you want to know?
If you are not completley indifferent to this question, then you must take up agnosticism, any other choice would be absurd. Either you really do not care if there is a God, or you simply do not know. And this must be the foundation: we do not know but we want to. From here we can examine the evidence around us.

Oh wait there is another alternative: you refuse to awknowledge or even consider the existence of a Higher Power because of the implications it may lead to. However this is denial, the funny thing about relaity and truth is that it exists whether we awknowledge it or participate in it; it continues to be whether we like it or not.

The Bible tells us that the Heavens, in fact, All Creation bears witness to Him. I don’t think obtaining evidence is very hard.

Here is a really cool argument i heard today actually. SETI is constantly scanning the cosmos for signs of intelligent life. They have developed complex formulas and methodologies for discerning between random noise and various other forms of “meaningless” noise comming from the cosmos in the forms of radio, gamma, etc. If SETI were to pick up a stream of data comming from space that looked like the DNA or RNA seuqence of even the simplest organism, they would have no questions: they have found intelligent life. So yea, creation bears witness to God, and so does Science.

fides quaerens intellectum
faith seeking understanding

credo ut intelligam
I believe in order that I may understand

imma pray for ya’ll

 

[Philthy]

EnterTheBowser:

I am not talking about the Christian God. The argument runs with any sort off God that is even remotely possible - and the sort of God I imagined is definitely possible in the same sense that the Christian God is possible.

No, the argument doesn’t run with “any sort of God”. That was my whole point. Did you not read it? It runs if you make God petty and arbitrary. But the Christian God is not petty and arbitrary, so it doesn’t apply and you still have no argument against Pascals Wager as it applies to the God of Catholicism. Did you forget where you were posting?
Who cares that you can invent a petty God and then show that if we apply Pascals wager to that invented God, that Pascals Wager produces falsehood? What does that proove? Nothing, and it certainly doesn’t mitigate Pascals Wager.

Phil

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Anonymous_1:

to every atheist and agnostic in this thread…
if there were a God would you want to know?

Yes.

I mean really…I think Atheism falls apart under careful scrutiny and this is why.

ok…so you got us…THERE IS NO GOD…

If you were to tell us that with confidence, I would be forced to call you a liar. And here is why:

How could you tell me there is no God without perfect knowledge? If you were omniscient that would make you godlike, thus refuting your claim. I think the best you can come up with is Agnosticism or plain indifference.

Well… logicians are often concerned about which sentences are true in a given structure. A structure is a given set of elements and what’s called a “relation” - a subset of pairs of these elements. For example, the “less than” relation on the natural numbers. The relation subset is simply all those pairs of elements which satisfy a certain condition (for example, a<b iff there exists some c such that a+c=b). A sentence is just a statement (for example, for every a, b, c, a<b & b<c → a<c). In a sense, knowledge about the world can be looked at in a similar way: what statements about the facts that we are aware of are true? That being said, it is not true that I need to know every element in a structure - or even the general pattern of it - in order to determine if a sentence is true or false (for some sentences). A contradictory sentence is false in every structure - I don’t need to know anything to say that it’s false. For some other sentences, I only need to know a few things to determine their truth or falsity. For example, if we imagine the sentence “for every a, b, a=b,” as long as I know that 5 and 4 are elements of the structure, I can know that the sentence is false.

That being said, I believe that it is true that we do not need to know everything in order to know some things - or at least to be reasonably justified in believing them.

…

The Bible tells us that the Heavens, in fact, All Creation bears witness to Him. I don’t think obtaining evidence is very hard.

Here is a really cool argument i heard today actually. SETI is constantly scanning the cosmos for signs of intelligent life. They have developed complex formulas and methodologies for discerning between random noise and various other forms of “meaningless” noise comming from the cosmos in the forms of radio, gamma, etc. If SETI were to pick up a stream of data comming from space that looked like the DNA or RNA seuqence of even the simplest organism, they would have no questions: they have found intelligent life. So yea, creation bears witness to God, and so does Science.

…

That was not an argument.

 

[EnterTheBowser]

Philthy:

No, the argument doesn’t run with “any sort of God”. That was my whole point. Did you not read it? It runs if you make God petty and arbitrary. But the Christian God is not petty and arbitrary, so it doesn’t apply and you still have no argument against Pascals Wager as it applies to the God of Catholicism. Did you forget where you were posting?
Who cares that you can invent a petty God and then show that if we apply Pascals wager to that invented God, that Pascals Wager produces falsehood? What does that proove? Nothing, and it certainly doesn’t mitigate Pascals Wager.

Phil

Alright…

Pascal’s Wager runs as follows: the evidence concerning the existence of the Christian God is not certain either way. Additionally, we must choose whether to believe or not, because it’s an important question. So, which side should we take? We then look at a decision table which tells us the rewards in the four possible situations::

G exists__~G exists
Atheism___negative infinity_____some finite A
Theism___infinite_______some finite B

So obviously, regardless of how improbable the existence of God is, we should believe in God.

Now, I have said the following: the evidence is not conclusive either way regarding the existence of the God Sally. Sally is a “petty” God who wants us to believe in proposition X (which is also uncertain in the way that so much knowledge is ultimately uncertain). So we look at a decision table:

________Sally exists~Sally exists
Believe X_______infinite__________finite A
Disbelieve X____negative infinite____finite B

Following Pascal’s logic, it is a good idea to believe that X is true. But I can construct an identical argument for ~X. So if the form of Pascal’s Wager is correct, it is reasonable to believe both X and ~X (for some uncertain X). So the form of Pascal’s Wager is unsound.

 

[RyanL]

EnterTheBowser:

So if the form of Pascal’s Wager is correct, it is reasonable to believe both X and ~X (for some uncertain X). So the form of Pascal’s Wager is unsound.

The form of Pascal’s Wager is unsound when applied to everything possible, and the form of Pascal’s Wager is unsound when applied to the various gods of your imagining. However, when Pascal’s Wager is applied to God as we can know Him through Natural Law and right reason, it is a very sound wager. Only if you completely ignore what empirical evidence we have to support God could you make Pascal’s Wager unsound - which, of course, you do, so you have.

God Bless,
RyanL

 

[melbourne_guy]

I hate reading atheist vs theist debates because there so boring and repetitive. I remeber a teacher of mine told me something.

An atheist said to a theist " if you can prove god exists i will give you one hundred dollars" and the theist said “if you can prove god doesnt exist i will give you a thousand dollars”

i think this story pretty much somes up a theistic debate.

 

[PLP]

Jabronie:

Welcome to the boards. I hope you find what you’re looking for here. I think this is one of the most polite religious board out there, so I’m sure you’ll be able to have some really good discussions.

So far, everything’s been really great.

The whole point of “faith” is to accept what can not be proven.

Indeed. I’m not a fan of “faith”. Under some definitions, I have no faith at all; under others I have the bare minimum.

 

[PLP]

Maranatha:

What sort of “proof” would you accept to change your position? Normally discussion between theists and atheists revolve around scientific and/or logical proof. Logical proof can only give circumstantial evidence. Scientific proof would require a repeatable experiment.

Repeatable experiments would be good! The preponderance of evidence is always a good bet. Generally, logic can’t “prove” anything other than whether or not a concept is coherent. I don’t think logic by itself can’t prove anything true.

To be proven, do you require evidence beyond a shadow of a doubt or evidence beyond a reasonable doubt?

To change my position from atheist to agnostic, I’d require only a reasonable doubt, i.e. an actual reason to doubt my atheism. As far as theism goes, I’d accept even the weaker standard of the preponderance of evidence.

Do you understand the theory of free will and how evidence beyond a shadow of a doubt would affect free will?

Yes, I understand the concept of free will. No, evidence, even evidence beyond a shadow of a doubt does not affect free will. Evidence can show only what is or is not (or what could be and what cannot be); free will is about choosing between two things that are or could be. I could know the truth of God’s existence and still have the free will whether or not to obey.

Would you be willing to discuss theism and atheism and reserve discussing the differences between theistic beliefs only when the conversion moves beyond and accepts (for purpose of the conversation) the existence of a creator that exists outside the universe?

I’m not sure what you’re asking here. Generally speaking, I don’t try to analyze others’ theology except in the most general terms.

 

[PLP]

Lapsed:

Would you care to comment on how the principle arguments classically presented by theists (argument from necessity, etc.) fail directly without opposition?

I’m going to create a thread for each of the principle arguments promoted here. So far, I have the First Cause and Pascal’s Wager.

I’m not here to debate you, I’m just trying to see where you are coming from.

All right: Briefly then, the logical arguments for the existence of a god all have premises that are deniable without absurdity or contradiction. The evidential arguments fail because the evidence (at least the evidence I’ve seen) can be explained more simply than by hypothesizing the existence of any kind of a god.

I’m always curious as to what makes atheists tick.

Read my posts and you’ll find out at least what makes me tick. Atheists are hardly a monolithic bloc; we have a wide variety of opinions and beliefs.

 

[PLP]

Sparetherod:

PLP, I am an atheist as well, and subscribe completely to your initial post.

Indeed

So I would love to be your wingman in a sense in this thread.

The more the merrier. Our readers should, of course, understand that as freethinkers, we each speak only for ourselves.

As am I. You might want to check out my Moral Subjectivism thread.

I am more concerned about the anti-intellectual effect that belief in dogma has on people, to the detriment of our society.

One nice thing about Catholics is that they are, in the main, very intellectual types.

Specifically, many will reject science, and elect a President who is waiting for the rapture, thinks dinosaurs played with Adam and Eve, and communes with the likes of “kill’em all” Pat Robertson.

It’s been my experience that such trivial anti-science and anti-intellectualism does not have much currency here.

 

[PLP]

Anonymous_1:

Do you believe there are such things as truth, love or justice?

Truth is a property of statements. Properties do not “exist” in the same sense that objects exist, but I do think we can create a coherent definition of “truth” such that some statements objectively have the property of truth or falsity.

Love is an ordinary human emotion; there’s nothing controversial to a naturalist about love.

Justice is a horse of a different color. I don’t think we do have a complete definition of it. There are certain meta-ethical rules that most people subscribe to (such as fairness), but they don’t have consistent application even in human society. And there are no meta-ethical principles that seem to have good logical justification or empirical justification independent of the properties of human minds.

See my thread on Moral Subjectivism for a more complete discussion on the topic.

 

[PLP]

scylla:

Welcome to the forums, as atheist you will find quite a different bunch here on the Catholic Answers forums.

I must say, my experience here has been very different from my experiences on other Christian-themed discussion forums, with the comparison entirely in this board’s favor.

I believe in a logical faith that demands some submission to things I do not understand, as I am just a man.

A good point of contrast. I attach a negative value to submission. I won’t say I never submit (there are certain laws I submit to), but I try to minimize it, and if I am going to submit, I want to know precisely why, and I must agree that the value of submitting is greater than the value of resisting.

Catholics are way different from fundamentalist’s Christians and are not to be classified in the rapture is coming, Pat Robertson, “all the cliche” type stuff about common American Protestantism.

With the exception of certain tiny fringe Catholic groups, I would agree with you here.

So feel free to ask us questions and keep an open mind as we do also and we will have some good dialogue. You are not always right and we are not also, but if there is truth it can be understood and it doesn’t change, regardless of our beliefs.

I agree wholeheartedly!

You are to be commended though as atheist’s I think you have more honest minds than some Christians… Unless you are atheist’s out of pride, or fear of changing then I invite you to question that.

I will take the commendation. I try to have an honest mind.

It could be argued that believing I can know the truth without first having faith in a God is, by itself, prideful. In that sense, yes, I am proud; unashamedly so.

In the sense of Milton’s, “Better to rule in Hell than serve in Heaven,” I’m only partially proud; If I thought God were good (and, of course, actually existed!) according to my own moral beliefs, I would serve in Heaven. I’m proud enough to judge myself, but not too proud to accept the dictates of my own conscience.

 

[PLP]

Anonymous_1:

I disagree vehemently
I dont understand how one could lead even a psychologically healthy life without faith…

To the extent that psychologically health is separate from having faith, and to the extent that psychological health is objectively and naturalistically determinable, I consider myself to be psychologically healthy: I am free from neurosis, I am well-connected to consensus reality, I have appropriate affect, and I am generally happy.

 

[PLP]

JimG:

In addition to considering yourself an atheist, are you also a materialist?

That is, do you believe that everything that is, is composed of matter/energy/space/time? Do you believe that there can be anything real that is not composed of these basic elements of the material universe?

Is your own consciousness, for example, a result of material interactions? Your decisions? Your ideas?

I am a “materialist”, with the proviso that, given the current state of scientific knowledge, what constitutes “material” is very subtle indeed, and a matter of no small scientific controversy.

Technically, scientific materialism specifies that one has ontological belief only in those entities specified by the best available scientific theories, i.e. the most parsimonious theory or set of theories with the greatest power to explain observed phenomena. And one hold belief in those entities with only the epistemological confidence (i.e. uncertainty) of those scientific theories.

In other words, “material” is whatever our scientific theories say exists. And our current scientific theories strongly indicate that ordinary matter and ordinary energy–indeed even ordinary space and ordinary time–are not the most fundamental material of even the physical, observable universe.

According to this definition, the existence of the “immaterial” is analytically incoherent. We are not arguing about whether only the material exists, since by definition “material” is that which exists. According to scientific metaphysics, we are arguing, rather, over what precisely the word “material” means.

One reason I ask is that the Catholic conception of God is that He is an entirely non-material entity, having no parts, and occupying no time or space.

One thing that Quantum Mechanics teaches is that “time” and “space” are entirely parochial concepts; operations without regard to time and space are uncontroversially prosaic.