101. Comment #47080 by Logicel on June 3, 2007 at 1:22 am

Dianelos, I agree with Dr. Benway's comment 47035 regarding whether absolute evidence is required or not in order to agree on a consensus.

Philosophy is not one of my strong points because I find much of it ridiculous. I remembered acing a Philosophy test in University, even though I had not read a single suggested reading as I was too occupied reading non-philosophy books of my own choosing instead. I just flim flammed my way through the test, and the professor rewarded me with an A anyway. I just made everything up, sort of like what astrologers do.

There are some here that are not like me, and do appreciate what Philosophy offers, like Russell Blackford, and perhaps they can respond to your comments. I was once told that Philosophy is the love of knowledge, and if that is true, then I suppose it is a worthy discipline. Except it seems that some major philosophy was being done before significant scientific tools, methods, and knowledge were amassed, and that these achievements would most likely re-interpret what knowledge can consider to be.

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102. Comment #47082 by alovrin on June 3, 2007 at 1:47 am

Daneil Dennett (Now there a philosopher) said recently philosophy is useful when forming the question to be asked by a science.
So Danielos for all Alvin's philosophic posturing and proving the problem with the argument from evil is evidentiary not the logic When the question is asked, Is there a god?
The best he can come up with is that god is not impossible its just that it only....

decreases the probability that God exists?

Oh dear, the gap still seems to be shrinking.

Poor, james the doubter you are addicted to god it seems.
As your conversation reminds me of the junkiespeak as they attempt to justify their addiction all the while wondering how they can scam some bucks for their next hit. And maybe there will be some different brand of Harry the Horse available which will make that next hit even better, but maybe I should give up. Not just yet tho' one more hit, if the next hit doesnt work then maybe ....but if it does what then...

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103. Comment #47085 by epeeist on June 3, 2007 at 1:52 am

Comment #47030 by Dianelos Georgoudis

First of all "prove" is a loaded word, because strictly speaking proofs in the sense of demonstrations that offer complete certainty do not exist.

Agreed, inductuction only gives probabalistic results for non-axiomatic systems.

So what religion should produce is not so much such a "proof" but rather a sufficiently good reason for somebody to believe in the existence of the supernatural realm.

And here is an indisputable fact: Contrary to what popular atheism dogmatically believes there are several good arguments for the existence of God

"Reasons" and "Arguments" but nothing empirical.

Here is my hypothesis: Gods do not exist.

This is both testable and falsifiable. All you need to do is find a critical experiment that is a consequence of my hypothesis and test it. If the experiment fails then you have disproved my hypothesis.

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104. Comment #47087 by Logicel on June 3, 2007 at 1:55 am

Mr. Doubter, our dear weekend godder, your religious experience seems to be mostly one of touch, the touching of hot honey flowing over your head. Touching is a sensation like smelling...

You have not responded--not that I can remember--to human brains being shown to be superb simulation software.

My personal anecdotes were to mostly underline the contextual framing commented on by alovrin. The first, the one of my friend, was to show how supernatural context plays an role in interpreting information. The second, my own experience in knowing what the identity of the playing card was, is to show that when one does not have any supernatural framework in place to which to resort, it is not.

Unfortunately, since religious upbringings are prevalent, the majority of humanity has this context located conveniently close by within which they can frame an event or an experience. The ubiquitous possession of fantastic simulation software coupled with the learned framework of the supernatural can result in some pretty zany interpretations.

As far as what to "do" with your particular religious experience, that is entirely up to you.

I once participated in what was called a special encounter with Jesus. I was handpicked for this event, and I failed miserably. The stage was set, in a dark room, with a recording droning the words of the NT, with fragrant, burning incense, flickering candles, lush draperies, etc. The other 5 girls--we were teenagers--fell sobbing to their knees, experiencing all kinds of revelations, while I remained erect and dry-eyed, observing this spectacle of theatrical set triggering of emotion with emphasis on latching said emotion to the supernatural.

On the way out of this "event", I met up with one of the two priests hosting this encounter with the Lord, and I stated that it was disgusting that these girls were led into behaving like a bunch of silly ninnys. He said that not all were as smart as me, and that such "tricks" were necessary in order to make some to feel the presence of the Lord, but not me, I could simply be talked to. Ha! He was wrong about that, as I was able, some years down the road, to help him air some of his grievous doubts about his chosen profession.

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105. Comment #47088 by the great teapot on June 3, 2007 at 1:57 am

Dianelos Georgoudis

I do not understand your position.
Your appear to be saying that philosophically we can prove nothing, and then go on to say that scientists or intelligent people who do not believe can not see the wood for the trees.
You can choose to believe without evidence but I don't see how you can criticise others for not believing when you have already argued that every belief could be false.

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106. Comment #47090 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 3, 2007 at 2:03 am

Dr Benway (93):

"Evidence" too is a loaded word. For example I think that our very consciousness is extremely strong evidence for the existence of God, in fact the kind of undisputable, overwhelming, ever-present evidence that God would have given us for His/Her existence. But me offering consciousness as evidence means nothing at all by itself. I must first construct an argument based on that evidence. So the real issue when discussing the existence of God on an intellectual level is not so much the presence or absence of good evidence, but rather the presence or absence of good argument.

Now I agree that there are excellent arguments to justify one's belief in the existence of Lincoln, the electrons, and the truth of the Pythagoras theorem. But it is a fact that there are some good arguments for the existence of God too. How good? Well, good enough for atheist philosophers to write books responding to them. (Incidentally the best book written by an atheist philosopher I know of is "The miracle of theism: Arguments for and against the existence of God" by J. L. Mackie.) One is of course free to weight the arguments for and against the existence of God and decide that the latter are stronger - but my point is that the issue of the existence or non-existence of God is far from obvious even in the intellectual arena, and those atheists who think otherwise only evidence their own ignorance.

In fact the main problem I have with the version of popular atheism that Dawkins epitomizes is how superficial it is. I think we all agree that it is unreasonable when a fundamentalist Christian claims that natural selection is so obviously wrong that one does not have to actually study the science behind it before rejecting it. By equal measure then it is unreasonable when a scientist claims that theism is so obviously wrong that one does not have to actually study the religious thought behind it before rejecting it. And many have criticized Dawkins's "God delusion" precisely on these grounds – Dawkins is a good scientist but hopelessly out of his depth when discussing religion. And that criticism does not only come from philosophical or theological quarters only, see for example the very detailed review by fellow biologist Allen Orr here: http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19775

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107. Comment #47092 by Flagellant on June 3, 2007 at 2:11 am

Dianielos Georgoudis (98) suggests

One answer might be that these people [people with a naturalistic World view?] are particularly intelligent and knowledgeable and are therefore the first to recognize that belief in God is a delusion. Another answer might be that these people are over-specialized and miss the forest for studying the trees.

That might be 'another answer'; it isn't anywhere near correct, though.

If you learn science and the scientific approach, you see how the World can be understood; that understanding is being added to all the time. Ok, we have to backtrack a bit sometimes, but the approach is fruitful and the results are pretty consistent: the periodic table, for example.

When you have had this sort of education, your World view is not a matter of overspecialisation; it is a matter of recognising generally that we understand the World much better now. (And understanding it better is by no means to lose one's awe of the place.) We no longer think that disease is a plague from god and this gives us a way to seek to prevent it. The more we understand the World, the less room there is for a supernatural entity. This explains Dawkins's 6.9 on a scale of 7.0, rather than absolute certainty, that there is no god.

I am minded of the spat between Snow and Leavis, here. Leavis, an English professor, upbraided Snow for his (Snow's) students' ignorance of Shakespeare's plays. Leavis retorted that Leavis's students didn't know about the second law of thermodynamics.

This 'Two Cultures' argument is rearing its head again, here. While one can criticise the scientific approach from the philosophical viewpoint, as in the philosophy of science, it cannot be done in the way Dianelos Georgoudis suggests. As someone who has had a foot in both camps, I have concluded that philosophy has more to learn from science than vice versa.

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108. Comment #47095 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 3, 2007 at 2:32 am

Epeeist (103):

I think that all arguments must be based on some kind of evidence, and all evidence at some level must be empirical, don't you agree? After all if some evidence were not empirical how could one possibly know about it?

Now you claim that the hypothesis that "Gods do not exist" is testable. So, how do you propose one can test that hypothesis?

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109. Comment #47097 by bouwe on June 3, 2007 at 2:32 am

78. Comment #46955 by james_the_doubter

Thanks James for that story. I can sort of relate to it in the sense that I grew up in a church where that sort of thing happened to someone every other week. Every time I watch Benny Hinn, he just touches the faithful and they fall to the ground. If I asked them what they were feeling, I wouldn't be surprised if they had a similar story. I am sure all the other members of my immediate family experience something like that on a regular basis.

I say I "sort of" relate to it because I never experienced it myself. I went forward for prayer once or twice and they all put their hands on me and prayed. Everyone around me were dropping like flies, but I never experienced anything. There was no "drenched in honey" experience. Nothing.

I remember Richard Dawkins once appeared in a documentary where he submitted himself to a test where this scientist had created an apparatis which (it was claimed) somehow induced a "religious experience" (maybe sort of like the dripping honey experience). RD popped on the helmet and they attached the electrodes to his noggin and - nothing - no religious experience induced. Others submitted to it and claimed that they sensed a "presence" around them and were filled with lovey-dovey god feelings.

If there is a gene which makes one receptive to such experiences, then maybe Richard Dawkins doesn't have it, and it seems that neither do I. Perhaps we are deficient in some way and should be pitied for our inability to "tap in" to the power source known as "god"?

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110. Comment #47098 by Logicel on June 3, 2007 at 2:32 am

Dianelos wrote: By equal measure then it is unreasonable when a scientist claims that theism is so obviously wrong that one does not have to actually study the religious thought behind it before rejecting it.
_______

I also think it is very unreasonable for car drivers to insist that car driving is better, more reasonable, and effective than driving a horse-drawn buggy. If they only would study the marvelous aspects of horse-drawn buggies, they will see that when driving in their cars so fast, they see nothing but a blurry forest. In fact, I think they should all get out of their cars and walk instead. How about crawling, that would even be slower?

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111. Comment #47099 by the great teapot on June 3, 2007 at 2:33 am

Did I dream the proof for x2+y2=z2.
I must have ate a lot of cheese when I went to bed in my early teens.
Why do people seem to think it is some sort of emprical or finger in the air proposal.

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112. Comment #47100 by Logicel on June 3, 2007 at 2:44 am

The perspective held by Dianelos is redolent of, though in an apparently milder form, of the kind of admonition that a more extreme believer of religious superstitions would hold: IF YOU DO NOT READ AND ADHERE TO THE WORD OF GOD YOU ARE ALL GOING TO HELL, NOT TO MENTION MISSING THE RAPTURE! Instead, in Dianelos' version, if we do not study the finer religious points--the spellbinding nap of the velvet, the captivating drape of drapery, the sublime cut of the cloth, we are all going to stew in our superficial juices, preventing us from paddling about in a profound pool of pathetic pedantry.

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113. Comment #47101 by epeeist on June 3, 2007 at 2:44 am

Comment #47095 by Dianelos Georgoudis

I think that all arguments must be based on some kind of evidence, and all evidence at some level must be empirical, don't you agree? After all if some evidence were not empirical how could one possibly know about it?

Directly or indirectly

Now you claim that the hypothesis that "Gods do not exist" is testable. So, how do you propose one can test that hypothesis?

You're the one that has the belief, why should I do your job?

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114. Comment #47104 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 3, 2007 at 2:50 am

Flagellant (107):

The problem I see is that the theistic and atheistic worldviews disagree about what the "World" consists of. According to atheism the World consists of our physical universe and nothing else (some atheistic worldviews posit the existence of an enormous and ever-growing number of physical universes – but this I trust is a minority view). According to all religious worldviews though our physical universe is only a part of much larger World. Now all educated people agree that science is extremely successful in producing knowledge about the physical universe, but for a religious person this does not imply that science can produce knowledge about all the World.

Obviously then, if an atheist assumes as a given that our physical universe exhausts all reality then he or she will not understand religious thought. So when atheists discuss religion they must at least temporarily abandon their basic beliefs or preconceptions about reality, because failure to do so amounts to begging the question. After all what our basic beliefs about reality should be is precisely what is under discussion here.

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115. Comment #47105 by Logicel on June 3, 2007 at 3:00 am

bouve wrote, Perhaps we are deficient in some way and should be pitied for our inability to "tap in" to the power source known as "god"?
________

Or perhaps the pity would be better served if it was served to believers who despite the evidence that not all people are brain-wired to be receptive to the presence of a supernatural being because their God apparently failed to make them that way, and therefore dooming them to eternal damnation, keep on insisting that ignoring such evidence if not for the lack of Gods, but for an existence of an cruel and certainly not a loving one, is reasonable and fair.

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116. Comment #47107 by Logicel on June 3, 2007 at 3:07 am

Dianelos wrote: So when atheists discuss religion they must at least temporarily abandon their basic beliefs or preconceptions about reality, because failure to do so amounts to begging the question.
_______

What question is that? Are atheists asking if there is a God?

Would you similarly offer the same advice to a psychiatrist treating a Schizophrenia sufferer? You are simply advocating that religion be given a special pass and not be subjected to the same demand for evidence as any other reality is.

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117. Comment #47112 by the great teapot on June 3, 2007 at 3:24 am

Re comment 114

Most atheists are well aware that there is more to the world than we can imagine. But what we do not subscribe to is viewing fanciful notions of the world as anything more than a parlour game. Fictional world views may well be true but we shouldn't treat them with any seriousness until we have reason to believe they may be true.
Atheists do not yet see any validity in the claims of any religions which would entice them in to belief.
Excuse me for my naiveity.

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118. Comment #47117 by alovrin on June 3, 2007 at 3:50 am

RE Comment 114 Danielos

a religious person this does not imply that science can produce knowledge about all the World.

OK lets cut the bullshit. You are referring to such places as heaven and hell, places that exist on the other side of death I suppose.
All the World?... WTF.
And please dont waffle on about other dimensions.

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119. Comment #47121 by sane1 on June 3, 2007 at 4:04 am

50. Comment #46732 by Rtambree on June 1, 2007 at 10:04 am

You raise some very important points.

Hey, the head cocked sideways thing is really odd, almost as odd as McGrath's bizarre mind bending self-contradicting. How the hell does this kind of thinking persuade anybody?!


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120. Comment #47126 by Flagellant on June 3, 2007 at 4:21 am

Thanks for that Danielos Georgoudis (114). I'm not sure that I can even agree with you about the problem, i.e. that

the theistic and atheistic worldviews disagree about what the "World" consists of

And when you say

According to all religious worldviews though our physical universe is only a part of much larger World.

are you saying that there is a realm of thought, this 'larger World' not open to (let us say) atheists. Why is this? Theists don't have a monopoly of theoretical thought; theoretical physicists, whom you acknowledge, postulate and calculate values for imaginary parallel universes (perhaps with a logical constant for Thor, LOL) and there are other ways in which people with a natural World view think theoretically. Why, some of them are even philosophers.

Given that you accept that science is successful in producing an understanding of the World as we experience it, do you therefore think that there is some artificial limit on what science can tell us? Or do you think that there is, almost by definition, something about the World – and perhaps we can think of things like consciousness, here - that is not open to understanding? We can only speculate about this, but we can do so inductively from the history of scientific successes. This is an interesting problem to which many people would not claim to know the answer. Is there a limit to scientific knowledge? Most would regard it as much more realistic to say 'I don't know', than to claim that there is a much larger world only susceptible to religious thought. Atheists don't seem to have preconceptions: all they say is 'Convince us, but what you've shown us so far isn't up to much.'

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121. Comment #47152 by Nastikananda on June 3, 2007 at 7:27 am

Mc Grath is no match for Dawkins for the following reasons:

1. Dawkins is a serious seeker of truth and McGrath has found truth in Jesus. He has stopped enquiring! Dawkins is full of wonderment and has the curiosity of a fresh mind while Mc Grath has concluded, is certain and he knows the mind of GOD.

2. McGrath is conditioned and programmed in the patterns of thinking that drive Christians.He seems to draw from the goldmine of ignorance called the Bible.

3. He, McGrath, kept saying " I think you raised some good questions"....

4. To be fair to him he had to answer questions, so he was a bit nervous and thought he had to defend his faith. One should never defend anything, not even himself, if one wants to know the truth.

5. I think he is no match to Dawkins.It is unfortunate that there is no serious believer with a first rate intellect, to challenge Dawkins and give him a hard time.

6. Editing was bad, the participants were disturbed by the cameras...and it did not sound like natural, relaxed setting!!! Very unfortunate.

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122. Comment #47153 by Nastikananda on June 3, 2007 at 7:32 am

It is time an Atheist challenges Dawkins and keeps him on his toes. Believers end up making a fool of themselves by exhibiting their ignorance. A first rate atheist should find flaws in Dawkins' statements.

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123. Comment #47160 by Russell Blackford on June 3, 2007 at 8:37 am

Danielos is doing a good job for the theist side here, IMHO. Better than McGrath did, actually.

It's quite enjoyable to watch, though I did find the last post rather odd, since I don't see how any atheists are assuming anything. No atheist whom I can think of has ever argued something like:

P. There is no God.
Therefore C. There is no God.

But there's no reason to be neutral about it. If someone wants to explain something about the phenomenal world, whuch we all observe and interact with, by conjecturing about some additional immaterial world, or about the actions of a powerful but disembodied intelligence, well, they are welcome to do so. But until there is some positive evidence that such things exist it's all just speculation. Don't expect the rest of us to believe it. We don't rule it out a priori; we just see no reason at all to believe any such claim.

Such speculation is fine with me, actually. If someone wants to speculate away about how some phenomenon - or the universe itself - was created by a powerful, disembodied intelligence ... well, shorn of its cultural familiarity to us that's a pretty bizarre sort of explanation, but it can't be ruled out, and it does no harm as far as it goes.

All I ask is that anyone with that pet hypothesis acknowledge that it's no more than a pet wild hypothesis - with nothing like the powerful convergent evidence in its favour that, say, biological evolution has - that they not teach it to children as fact, and above all that they not elaborate it with a whole lot of additional claims about what such a being wants us to do in our bedrooms, etc., etc.

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124. Comment #47171 by Dr Benway on June 3, 2007 at 9:51 am

Dianelos Georgoudis:

Why many people, including Dawkins, do not see sufficient reason to believe in God is the gist of the newest argument against the existence of God, the so-called argument from non-belief.

Hold up. Saying "I've not yet heard a good argument for God's existence" isn't an argument. Likewise, lack of belief is not a type of belief. Lack of faith is not "faith" in non-belief. Firm rejection of dogma is not a form of dogmatism. Off is not a TV channel.

Let's give this tiresome theist strategy a name. Maybe "the equivalence ploy."

Here's why it's used: at some moment, the theist sees he's been shot. He then hopes that if he can somehow equate the atheist's position with his own, the atheist will go down by the same bullet. Then it will appear that neither position wins, and everybody can go back to using "faith" as the basis for prefering one position over the other.

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125. Comment #47173 by the great teapot on June 3, 2007 at 10:08 am

thank you Russell for restoring my faith (mmm not the best choice of words) in the noble science of philosophy.

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126. Comment #47211 by Dr Benway on June 3, 2007 at 1:54 pm

Dianelos Georgoudis :

The problem I see is that the theistic and atheistic worldviews disagree about what the "World" consists of. According to atheism the World consists of our physical universe and nothing else...

The point about world views might have merit if religious people were consistent. But they aren't.

When we talk to each other about an issue, we put forward various propositions. Some propositions are supported by stronger or weaker degrees of evidence, and some are without evidence. Many people call the latter, "matters of faith." I prefer the term, "stuff one pulls out of one's ass."

If you're an innocent man on trial for murder, you want a clear-thinking jury capable of sorting and grading evidence. You want people who understand the difference between hearsay and eye witness testimony. You want people who can separate supposition and opinion from fact. The last thing you want is a jury that feels entitled to pull any verdict it wants out of its own collective ass.

If you're seriously ill, you want a doctor who affords greater status to double-blind, placebo studies involving thousands of subjects as compared to anecdotal case reports. You don't want a doctor who thinks he's allowed to pull any treatment he wants out of his ass as a matter of "faith."

If your car is making a strange noise and running badly, you want a mechanic who can reason through the possible causes, eliminating all but the true cause using a system of evidentiary tests. You don't want a mechanic guided by whatever he pulls from his ass that day.

If believers and non-believers really operated from fundamentally different "world views" we wouldn't be having epistemic debates pertaining to a few hot button issues, such as evolution. We'd hear challenges regarding the meaning of "evidence" everywhere.

To be consistent, when Dianelos Georgoudis sees his doctor, there ought to be a few conversations like this: "You say you're hoping my test results will help you sort out what's wrong with me. But what do you really mean by 'tests'? Sure, the 'tests' are described in various studies in your medical journals, but how do we know those studies actually happened? Aren't you taking those study results on faith?"

The "we all live by faith" ploy is predictable: the religious person tries to find some proposition accepted by the atheist without a firm evidentiary basis. This acceptance is termed "faith." Once faith is admitted, nothing is logically excluded. In comes Jesus. QED.

Orthodox believers generally fail to notice that the door they've opened for Jesus also lets in Zeus, honor killings, clitorectomies, suicide bombings, homeopathy, voodoo, and all manner of superstition, madness, and bullshit high up the ass of our species.

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127. Comment #47260 by Dr Benway on June 3, 2007 at 7:23 pm

james_the_doubter:

When I woke I had an overwhelming sense of God's power/love/spirit or some like that - I have a hard time nailing it down... What do I make of that? ... Do you think those things were all natural/rational/logical? I assume your are an atheist?

I suspect there's a non-supernatural explanation for your experience. But you ought not take my opinion about such an important, life changing event. If you believe that your feelings were touched by God, who can contradict you? I might think such a thing improbable, but could I say impossible? No.

Never surrender sovereignty over your own truth. No group, no power ought to tread upon your right to see what you see, feel what you feel, and think what you think.

It's not atheism that animates me, but secularism. Secularism protects the still, small voice of personal conscience from the crushing power of the state. Secularism is worth dying for. Atheism, not so much.

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128. Comment #47266 by Miri on June 3, 2007 at 8:20 pm

First of all "prove" is a loaded word, because strictly speaking proofs in the sense of demonstrations that offer complete certainty do not exist. In that absolute sense, for example, we don't have any "proof" that Abraham Lincoln has existed, or that electrons exist, or that the Pythagoras theorem is correct. So what religion should produce is not so much such a "proof" but rather a sufficiently good reason for somebody to believe in the existence of the supernatural realm.

I agree, and this is what I meant by the word proof.

Contrary to what popular atheism dogmatically believes there are several good arguments for the existence of God, and knowledgeable atheist philosophers have to struggle long and hard to try to counter them. Examples of such arguments are the argument from morality and the argument from consciousness. Even the traditional argument from design (or teleological argument) that appeared to have been buried by Darwinism has found new life recently in the form of the argument from the fine-tuning of the universe. But there are also good arguments that justify the atheist worldview including the argument from evil and the argument from non-belief. So the question of how reasonable it is to believe either in the existence or the non-existence of God is far from settled. There is a good book I can recommend you read in this context: "God? A Debate between a Christian and an Atheist" by William Lane Craig and Walter Sinnott-Armstrong.

I actually have read this book, and several other works of apologetics which similarly deal with the argument from morality. I find it suffering from a logical flaw, and that is it assumes the existence of morality in order to make its case for God, yet at the same time asserts that a case cannot be made for morality until God is proven. It's conclusion jumps its premise.

The "fine-tuning" argument is another I find unconvincing. We are judging the universe's natural laws from the perspective of benefit to ourselves. This is far too human-centric to take seriously.

The evidence that theism has in its favor is that atheism (or naturalism) is unable to deal in a satisfactory manner with fundamental questions such as the existence of consciousness or ethical truth.

Ethical truth does not pose a problem for the naturalist at all.

It even fails to account for such basic concepts as "meaning" or "value".

Meaning and value are subjective concepts.

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129. Comment #47267 by Enlightenme.. on June 3, 2007 at 8:21 pm

What I wanna know is why this man looked exactly the same to me as Ted Haggard in the "if I had only read the same books as you... but please, don't be arrogant" bit.

I've read the earlier posts about non-relevance of the body language with his words, but I disagree - the eyebrows going up & down, forehead creasing, whole iris visible - what is this? Is it what cognitive dissonance looks like? Or something even more sinister?

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130. Comment #47277 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 3, 2007 at 11:04 pm

The great teapot (96):

The argument from morality is indeed a very good point in favor of theism. The basic idea is this: Most people find it obvious that at least some ethical precepts are objectively true, in other words are true in a way that does not depend on one's subjective opinion or social convention. One such ethical proposition might be: "One should not cause others gratuitous pain." Now it turns out that atheistic worldviews have much difficulty dealing with the idea of objective ethical precepts. A few philosophers, such as the above mentioned J. L. Mackie, bite the bullet and affirm that ethical precepts are not objective (see his "Ethics: Inventing right and wrong"). But most atheist philosophers reject that avenue, because the idea that no act is objectively wrong is found to be extremely distasteful by almost everybody, and the view that atheism implies just that would make atheistic worldviews very unattractive to most people.

In general atheism has trouble dealing with ethical questions. You see atheism's intellectual toolkit is science, and you cannot use science or the scientific method to decide about ethical questions. For example how is one to use scientific knowledge (or objective evidence, or experiment, etc) to decide about how society should use scientific knowledge? Indeed, how is one to scientifically find out what is good? Some atheists believe the answer lies in the suggestion that ethical beliefs, as all beliefs, evolve through natural means (see sociobiology). But this is irrelevant, because even if one could attain exact knowledge about how or why a particular ethical precept has evolved (in one brain or in a society) it wouldn't at all help one decide whether that ethical precept is correct or not.

In comparison theistic worldviews do not have this particular kind of problem because they affirm the existence of a deeper reality, God, which instantiates what is objectively good. In other words according to theism fundamental reality itself is good and by understanding that fundamental reality we can find out what is objectively good (reality has goodness built in). In fact that's how a theist can explain the fact that many atheists, while not expecting reward or fearing punishment after death, are nevertheless excellently moral people: They form part of the same reality and are therefore connected and can make use of this fundamental goodness, albeit without realizing what it is. IRC Dawkins in this video says something like: "Whatever the place is that people get their ethics from it's not religion". I think he is both right and wrong in this. If by religion he means (as he probably does) faith in the Bible or following institutionalized religious groups then he is right. But if by religion one means the knowledge (including experiential knowledge) about the deepest – beyond the physical universe - order of reality then he is wrong.

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131. Comment #47278 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 3, 2007 at 11:09 pm

Miri (128):

You write: "I find [the argument from morality] suffering from a logical flaw, and that is it assumes the existence of morality in order to make its case for God, yet at the same time asserts that a case cannot be made for morality until God is proven. It's conclusion jumps its premise."

Where does the argument from morality assert that a case cannot be made for morality until God is proven?

As I see it before trying to understand reality and build our worldview about it we must start with some axiomatic givens. Some such axiomatic beliefs might be "I am a conscious being" and "There are objectively good and bad acts". The theistic arguments from consciousness and from morality work by claiming that all atheistic (or at least all non-religious) worldviews cannot deal in a satisfactory manner with either one of these axiomatic givens. How could atheism respond to that?

1. To deny that atheistic worldviews are incompatible with these axiomatic beliefs. There is right now a lot of work being done trying to show that consciousness is compatible with a materialistic understanding of reality (the one the great majority of atheists subscribe to), but there are also very deep problems in that project (J. A. Fodor is quite concise: "Nobody has the slightest idea how anything material could be conscious. Nobody even knows what it would be like to have the slightest idea about how anything material could be conscious."). The problem of morality is even harder to tackle because here it is even less conceivable how science can be of any use.

2. To deny that these axiomatic beliefs are true. The problem here is that virtually everybody finds these beliefs to be self-evidently and undisputedly true. For example it's very hard to defend the idea that to torture a child for pleasure is not objectively wrong. As for consciousness some atheist philosophers go so far as to suggest that it is an illusion, but this is plainly nonsense as the very concept of illusion is contingent on the reality of conscious experience.

3. To assert that the failure of atheistic worldviews to account for these basic beliefs does not show the existence of some supernatural realm, and that worldviews can be devised that account for them without positing the existence of anything supernatural. I think that's the path that David Chalmers has chosen in the case of consciousness. (David Chalmers is one of the sharpest philosophers of the mind-body problem and has written the hugely influential "The conscious mind: In search of a fundamental theory").

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132. Comment #47281 by the great teapot on June 3, 2007 at 11:48 pm

Dianelos

Unfortunately I have to go to work, otherwise I would reply in depth to your nonsense.
Unless the deeper reality of god speaks to me in the next 8 hours I will pick holes in your horseshit later.
Sorry for the agressive nature of this post it is completely unwarranted,I was obviuosly in a bad mood this morning.Monday bloody mornings.

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133. Comment #47298 by alovrin on June 4, 2007 at 2:42 am

The argument from morality is indeed a very good point in favor of theism.

No it isnt, you just like to think it is based on your prejudice.

Now it turns out that atheistic worldviews have much difficulty dealing with the idea of objective ethical precepts.

Thats just your opinion, and the opinion of people who think like you, who abuse the word atheism and deliberately
misunderstand the meaning of the word.

You see atheism's intellectual toolkit is science, and you cannot use science or the scientific method to decide about ethical questions.

You are setting up a strawman here for you to knock down this is transparent nonsense.

In comparison theistic worldviews do not have this particular kind of problem because they affirm the existence of a deeper reality, God

This is utter drivel. You are making a connection yet you offer no proof, other than your say so. How do you know this "deeper reality" is your god? It might be Mazda, or Kali, or Shiva, or Horus or Set, or Nobody.

Im bored now, Danielos have you heard of the Courtiers Reply?
It would seem note as all your verbose ramblings are nothing more than gilding of a nonexistent lily. Im sure you think you have made an eloquent case for your nonexistent god, but still no proof, no proof!

We didnt get our morals from this nonexistent god person.
Unfortunately centuries of conditioning have given rise to this falsehood and also the falsehood that religion is above criticism.

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134. Comment #47343 by Dr Benway on June 4, 2007 at 6:18 am

Dianelos Georgoudis:

Some such axiomatic beliefs might be "I am a conscious being" and "There are objectively good and bad acts".

Define "good" please. I think once you do that, you'll see that in this context, "objectively" means "doubleplus".

The effort to establish certain values as "objectively good" is politically dangerous. The state wants God and doubleplus good, because the state is about power and God is all-powerful. Doubleplus good means no argument allowed, which is quite convenient if you're in power and doubleplus good is on your side.

Hello 1984. If you haven't read that book, pick it up. It's the natural sequel, or prequel, to "god is Not Great". God + groupthink = Big Brother.

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135. Comment #47348 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 4, 2007 at 6:59 am

Briancoughlanworldcitizen (100):

Well, that you can't know anything about objective reality based only on your perceptions is known at least since Kant.

The Matrix movie is a dramatization of a thought experiment long used by philosophers, the so-called "brain in a vat". One interesting thing to consider is this: In the Matrix movie the real world obeyed the same physical laws as the Matrix, but this need not be so. Imagine that after taking the red pill and being flushed out of the Matrix Neo were to discover that the real world is a two-dimensional holographic universe inhabited by intelligent shades of blue. Why is that relevant? Because in the real world Neo would not possess a brain in any way similar to the one he knew about in the Matrix. And why is that relevant? Because in this case Neo's consciousness would in no way be produced by what Neo used to know as his brain in the Matrix. Which shows that there is a logical possibility that our consciousness has nothing to do with our brain except for the correlations we discover between conscious experiences and observed brain processes. At this juncture one could argue that to demonstrate the mere logical possibility that our consciousness might have nothing to do with our brain is not particularly impressive, because it is still reasonable to believe that most probably our consciousness is produced by our brain. Still this demonstration has two implications: First it shows that it is not obvious or self-evident that our brain produces our consciousness and that those who believe that should find arguments to justify that particular belief of theirs. Second, it turns out that there are arguments according to which, far from being a wild speculation, such a Matrix like situation has a significant probability of being true, see www.simulation-argument.com (Incidentally the hypothesis that we live in a computer simulation is one possible explanation for the fact that the universe is so quiet instead of swarming with signs of intelligent life as one would expect. But luckily there are other alternative explanations for that :-)

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136. Comment #47350 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 4, 2007 at 7:12 am

Logicel (101):

Philosophy is about careful and independent thinking and not about memorizing facts. So if you got an A even though you had not studied maybe your professor rewarded you for your creativity. Maybe you have talent for philosophy :-)

Anyway I personally find philosophy to be enormously interesting, not to mention extremely important. It represents humanity's best thinking about questions that go deeper than any other discipline. So depending on your interests you can study the philosophy of science, or the philosophy of religion, or ethics (thinking about what is good), or ontology (thinking about what exists), and so on. But as any other discipline (e.g. math) in order to understand how interesting it is and to enjoy studying it you have to invest some work beforehand.

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137. Comment #47352 by Dr Benway on June 4, 2007 at 7:36 am

Dianelos Georgoudis:

The Matrix movie is a dramatization of a thought experiment long used by philosophers, the so-called "brain in a bat".

Most bats do, in fact, have brains. But that seems neither here nor there. ;o)

I found the reason given for the Matrix curious. If you remember, robots of the future need a lot of batteries, and homosapien brains seem to do the trick.

Do you think knowledge is knowable? If not, how do we know this?

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138. Comment #47366 by PrimeNumbers on June 4, 2007 at 8:49 am

The problem of morality is not a problem for Atheists, but it is one for Theists. For Theists, it's the problem of where their God get's his morality from, and that God either logically thinks it out for himself (and hence we could do the same), or he picks it arbitarily, and hence it's not better or more absolute a morality than if we had picked it out for ourselves. On top of that, there's the communication problem, in that we don't see as many burning bushes these days :-)

Atheist's morality is empirical - we see what works and change and adapt to circumstance.

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139. Comment #47378 by Miri on June 4, 2007 at 9:29 am

Where does the argument from morality assert that a case cannot be made for morality until God is proven?

It is not implicitly asserted. It is merely a logical flaw which has been overlooked. The Christian apologist's way of proving morality is simply by stating how torturing children (for example) is self-evidently wrong. But they also claim that it cannot be wrong if God does not exist. Therefore, God exists. The problem is, if you cannot justify the claim that torturing children is wrong if God does not exist, then you cannot prove morality without first proving God. Instead, the apologist asserts the truth of morality unjustifiably (according to his own definition of what is justifiable) in order to prove the very thing morality is said to be contingent on (God). If you cannot prove morality without God, you cannot prove God with morality.

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140. Comment #47380 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 4, 2007 at 9:31 am

Dr Benway (137):

I mistyped; I meant "brains in a vat" not "brains in a bat" :-P

Even though I enjoyed the first Matrix movie I agree that its premise that the machines farmed humans as a source of energy is ludicrous. Why not farm cows instead?

As for how one is to know something, this is the subject matter of a major philosophical field called "epistemology". In many ways it is the most critical philosophical field because it is needed to justify all other fields. My own views here are rather practical, in short: what works works. So what justifies a particular methodology of thought is its empirical success. And what makes something empirically successful? That what on average helps me achieve personal well-being or helps me avoid personal misfortune.

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141. Comment #47385 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 4, 2007 at 9:47 am

Flagellant (120):

I am not saying that this larger World is not open to atheists – after all if such a larger World exists then, obviously, it's open to everybody. What I am saying that that many atheists don't think that such a larger World exists. Which atheists? Well, obviously, those who believe that the physical universe exhausts all reality and that there is nothing more there than the physical universe. So let me suggest something that clearly exists but that does not form part of the physical universe: the color red. To claim that the color red does not form part of the physical universe might sound surprising at first but consider this: According to science (or more precisely: according to scientific realism) there exists electromagnetic radiation of various wavelengths, molecules that absorb or reflect some of these frequencies better than others, cone cells in the human eye that are especially sensitive to some particular electromagnetic frequencies, particular neural networks in the human brain connected to these cones, etc – but no matter how carefully you search in the physical universe as modeled by science you will not in fact find any part that is what we know as red.

You ask whether I think that there is something about the World that is not open to understanding. Well, we can only try to reach understanding about what we consciously experience, which philosophers like to call the "phenomenal world". To answer your question then I believe that there is no limit to our capacity of understanding our experience. Part of our experience is that of physical (i.e. objectively observable) phenomena, and science has done a splendid job explaining them. But there is much more in our experience than physical phenomena and I think it is very worthwhile to try to understand that part too. For example, our experience of the color red is something that is not objectively observable and cannot therefore be a subject of scientific investigation. But it clearly exists and forms part of what it is like to be a human being. Similarly, how it is to love, how it is to perceive beauty, how it is to do the right thing, how it is to reach self-transcendence – these are all parts, even significant parts, of the human condition, but do not form part of the subject matter of science. What I would like is to reach understanding of the whole of the human condition, and not only about the part of physical phenomena. And to go back to the question of theism, I personally find that the best theistic worldview I can devise is much more successful in giving me this kind of overarching understanding than the best atheistic worldview.

You ask if there is a limit to scientific knowledge. Of course there are such limits, and philosophers have written books about this. So what are these limits?

Even though it might seem very surprising science does not and in fact cannot tell us how physical reality objectively is. So, for example, science cannot answer the question of whether electrons really exist or are only useful elements of science's modeling of electromagnetic phenomena. Another example: After Newton's mechanics many physicists (not well versed in philosophy I'm afraid) firmly believed that electromagnetic force fields objectively exist. But in the beginning of the 20th century Einstein developed his general relativity according to which force fields do not exist; rather the curvature of spacetime exists. But does it really? If somebody in the future were to develop an even better model of gravitational phenomena then the bending of spacetime may go the way gravitational force fields went. What is the upshot of all this? That science can only model physical phenomena but cannot say anything about how the physical reality that (supposedly) lies behind physical phenomena really is. In fact when physicists tried to describe what kind of physical reality might produce the quantum mechanical phenomena they discovered that it was possible to device not one but more than half a dozen radically different views of physical reality (the so-called interpretations of quantum mechanics), each contradicting all others, each equally correct in the functional sense, and, I might add, each rather fantastic.

Another example of a very important class of questions that science cannot answer is ethical questions. There is no way to use the scientific method to decide ethical questions about abortion, euthanasia, social justice, war, social justice, the appropriate use of scientific knowledge itself, or any other ethical question. Science can help us predict the effects of a particular course of action but cannot help us decide what to wish for, i.e. what state of affairs one should try to achieve. In short science cannot help us decide what is good.

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142. Comment #47387 by BAEOZ on June 4, 2007 at 10:02 am

The basic idea is this: Most people find it obvious that at least some ethical precepts are objectively true, in other words are true in a way that does not depend on one's subjective opinion or social convention. One such ethical proposition might be: "One should not cause others gratuitous pain."

And instead of invoking another unknown realm that can't be measured why not use Ockham's razor and see the explanation that is in the natural world? We evolved in such a way that it would seem "good" to us to have these ethical traits. Our brain is hardwired to see the "ethical" features as "good"....

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143. Comment #47389 by epeeist on June 4, 2007 at 10:47 am

Comment #47385 by Dianelos Georgoudis

but no matter how carefully you search in the physical universe as modeled by science you will not in fact find any part that is what we know as red.

It sounds as though you are trying to present Plato's idealism or Husserl's phenomenology without mentioning either of their names.

Even though it might seem very surprising science does not and in fact cannot tell us how physical reality objectively is. So, for example, science cannot answer the question of whether electrons really exist or are only useful elements of science's modeling of electromagnetic phenomena.

Possibly true, but there again neither can philosoophy or theology.

Another example of a very important class of questions that science cannot answer is ethical questions. There is no way to use the scientific method to decide ethical questions about abortion, euthanasia, social justice, war, social justice, the appropriate use of scientific knowledge itself, or any other ethical question.

Again, possibly true. But that does not mean we have to reach for the Bible or Qu'ran on the assumption that these are authorative on the question of ethics. We might want to consult Aristotle, Spinoza, Kant, Mill or even Nietzsche. We may consider that these do not form the basis of an ethos that fits our particular society and attempt to use our reason to find something that does.

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144. Comment #47392 by james_the_doubter on June 4, 2007 at 11:04 am

Dr. Benway wrote:

I suspect there's a non-supernatural explanation for your experience. But you ought not take my opinion about such an important, life changing event. If you believe that your feelings were touched by God, who can contradict you? I might think such a thing improbable, but could I say impossible? No.

Never surrender sovereignty over your own truth. No group, no power ought to tread upon your right to see what you see, feel what you feel, and think what you think.

Thanks for your honesty... at least you didn't compare me to a drug addict like someone else on this site. ;-] (To that person, I forget who now, I haven't had a "hit" off God for years, so I'm not desperately hanging on to my faith as compared to a junkie)

If I was a doubter in Christianity before I found this site a few days ago, I'm even more of one now... in the sense that I have even more questions and fewer answers. Strangely, my "faith" is not weaker. This would probably confirm many atheists' views that faith is not really founded on reason. I don't know what to say about that at this point.

I picked up a book by Michael Shermer yesterday called, How We Believe: Science, Skepticism and the Search for God. In the preface he summarizes, "Of course, if the answers to these arguments are as obvious and clear-cut as both theists and atheists think, then why do such debates continue, even in the hallowed halls of theological seminaries and universities, where presumably the question of God's existence would have been resolved by now? It has not. That fact alone tells us something about the nature of the subject."

That is exactly what I was thinking after spending way too many hours on this forum Friday and Saturday. Hey, but the journey is sure fun.

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145. Comment #47395 by BillySands on June 4, 2007 at 11:23 am

Someone told james of the god machine somewhere. here is the link
http://richarddawkins.net/article,361,The-God-Experiments,John-Horgan--Discover-Magazine

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146. Comment #47403 by james_the_doubter on June 4, 2007 at 12:05 pm

Thanks Billy. Interesting article.

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147. Comment #47406 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 4, 2007 at 12:15 pm

Russell Blackford (123):

I think Plantinga's point in his "The Dawkins confusion" is that Dawkins, as many other atheists do, simply begs the question by assuming as a given that only the physical universe and its parts exist (i.e. so-called naive materialism). If you assume this then it is very easy to construct an argument against the existence of God, for example:

1. Only the physical universe and its parts exist. (premise)
2. God is not the physical universe and is not some part of the physical universe. (premise)
3. Therefore God does not exist. (from 1 and 2)

According to Plantinga, Dawkins's argument for the non-existence of God in chapter 3 of his latest book is:

1. God in enormously complex. (premise)
2. The more complex any thing is the more improbable it is. (premise)
3. Therefore God is enormously improbable. (from 1 and 2)

Plantinga accepts for discussion's sake premise 1. Dawkins himself apparently thinks that somebody capable of creating something as complex as the physical universe must be even more complex (that's a shaky argument but no matter). But Plantinga wonders how one is to justify premise 2, which indeed does not at all sound self-evident. He explains that the only way to justify that premise is to implicitly assume that only physical things exist (i.e. naive materialism). So Dawkins's explicit argument is as follows:

1. The more complex a physical thing is the more improbable it is. (premise)
2. All things are physical things. (premise)
3. Therefore the more complex any thing is the more improbable it is. (from 1 and 2)
4. God is enormously complex. (premise)
5. Therefore God is enormously improbable. (from 3 and 4)

Premise 1 is plausible, but premise 2 asserts naive materialism. But to accept naive materialism as a given is to beg the question of the existence of God because naive materialism entails that God does not exist, as God is not supposed to be a material thing. So I think Plantinga makes a convincing case that Dawkins's argument contains one of the most basic logical errors: to implicitly assume what it intends to show.

Now I haven't yet read "The God delusion" and maybe Plantinga has misrepresented Dawkins's argument in chapter 3. But as far as I can tell Dawkins has not responded to Plantinga's review of his book, and there is the principle that silence gives consent.

As for you asking me to acknowledge that the hypothesis that an additional immaterial world exists is a "pet wild hypothesis", I wonder why you think it reasonable that I should acknowledge that. After all I find that a worldview that includes that hypothesis can work much better than any worldview that omits it. So, far from calling it "pet" or "wild" I judge such a worldview to be far more reasonable than any materialistic worldview, because it explains the whole of my experience much better than any materialistic worldview.

You see, one thing I believe many atheists waste their time with is to focus on the most noisy and in-your-face versions of theism (e.g. religious fundamentalism) or in the most official versions of it (e.g. dogmatic Christianity). I have read books by atheists that exclusively deal with religious fundamentalism, but this is as clear a case of a strawman as you can find. What I think a seeker after truth should do is to search out, study, and engage with the best versions of the opposite side's worldview. Or even an atheist should try to device his or her own best theistic worldview and see how well it works. This might seem to be too difficult a quest; on the other hand if God exists then it's reasonable to expect that God helps those who seriously seek for truth :-)

As for me I don't worry about atheists going to hell or any such nonsense. I believe that what really counts is to be a good person, and belief in God is valuable only in as far as it helps one be a good person.

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148. Comment #47410 by Dianelos Georgoudis on June 4, 2007 at 12:34 pm

Dr Benway (124):

You write:

"Saying 'I've not yet heard a good argument for God's existence' isn't an argument."

Actually I think this is a pretty good argument, and one that many atheists use to explain why they don't believe in God: They simply don't know of any good reason for thinking that God exists.

You write:

"Likewise, lack of belief is not a type of belief. Lack of faith is not 'faith' in non-belief. Firm rejection of dogma is not a form of dogmatism. Off is not a TV channel."

This reminds me of the trick question of whether black is a color. But in general I agree with the above.

On the other hand there is a definition of atheism that states that atheists are characterized by the absence of belief in the existence of any gods. I think that's a bad definition because it contradicts how the term is normally used. For example it implies that all newborn babies and all severely mentally handicapped people are atheists. In reality only really very uneducated people have never heard of the concept of God have never thought about whether such a being might exist. So really only very uneducated people will truly lack belief in the existence of God. The rest have given at least some thought about this question and have decided that God does probably not exist. In any case as a practical matter it only makes sense to discuss theism or atheism with people who have given some thought or at least are interested in given some thought in these matters.

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149. Comment #47414 by epeeist on June 4, 2007 at 12:44 pm

Comment #47406 by Dianelos Georgoudis

1. The more complex a physical thing is the more improbable it is. (premise)
2. All things are physical things. (premise)
3. Therefore the more complex any thing is the more improbable it is. (from 1 and 2)
4. God is enormously complex. (premise)
5. Therefore God is enormously improbable. (from 3 and 4)

Taking your first three sentences and trying to recast them as an Aristotlean syllogism.

1. All things are physical things


2. All complex things are improbable things

You have four terms here - things, physical things, complex things and improbable things. This is the basic fallacy of four terms.

As I said the other day, one can use an hypothetico-deductive approach and raise the hypothesis that gods do not exist. This is contingently valid unless you can produce a consequence that is falsified.

The alternative hypothesis "one or more gods exist" is of course not falsifiable.

All one can do in this case is argue inductively and come to a probabalistic conclusion. Now while there are numerous "holy books" and "miracles" suc h as nuns being cured of cancer by reading a missive from a former pope these hardly count as empirical evidence. In fact there is a dearth of empirical evidence, which would seem to indicate that the probability of the existence of any god is small.

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150. Comment #47417 by Dr Benway on June 4, 2007 at 1:04 pm

Dianelos, thanks for that simulation link. Loads of fun reading.

Bat, vat, does it matter? Perhaps my brain is wired into a bat body in such a way that although I believe I'm hitting keys on a keyboard, I am in fact squeaking out sonar.

Religion as subjective experience like the color red doesn't bother me. Religion as politics bothers me.

Let's say God speaks within me and commands me to confiscate my neighbor's TV set. I knock on my neighbor's door and inform him of the Lord's commandment. He tells me the Lord never said anything about this to him and he suspects I'm off my meds. What then?

Until the Lord can speak for himself in court, His testimony is hearsay and we rightfully ought to ignore it.

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