1551. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51786 by steve99 on June 25, 2007 at 12:12 am

In post 782 (#51647) you wrote that for something to be objective it is "for anyone to discover, in any universe". I was just pointing out that this is too strong a definition.

No, it isn't. Available for anyone to discover does not mean they will discover it.

So if something were out there without some substance to exist in, it could not affect our experience, and therefore we wouldn't have any evidence for it, and therefore we would not know about it.

No. We can discover some truths simply by logical reasoning. For example, we can conceive of imaginary numbers, but I think you would find it hard to point one out.

My argument is that mathematical truths exist as properties of material things. Therefore naturalism has no problem accounting for the objective truth of mathematics.

And I keep pointing out to you that this is clearly nonsense, as there are plenty of objective mathematical truths that can't and don't exist as properties of material things. PI does not exist as a property of material things, as it is infinite in precision, yet even you would not deny that it is a mathematical truth.

Do you know of Cantor's proof of the higher infinity of real numbers? Put simply, it shows that the number of numbers with decimals is larger than the infinite number of integers. Yet there is no way that a higher infinity is present in our natural world.

I really don't understand what your problem is with this, and why you are so mistakenly obsessed with the physicality of facts.

1552. Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Comment #51744 by steve99 on June 24, 2007 at 4:11 pm

Steve, the arguments advanced by you are absurd to the highest degree.

Well, I appreciate debate. However, 'the highest degree' sounds somewhat harsh.

Drawing a line between life and non-life in terms of which collections of atoms are subject to evolution and which aren't is not vitalism. This division lays out the purview of the subject of biology. It is false to suggest that simple chemical compounds or vortices in a stream are subject to evolution, or that pothese compounds or vortices "compete" in any meaningful sense for energy.

No, this is not false at all. Such systems are certainly subject to selection. You should study the Cairns-Smith model of how selection can happen even in simple minerals.

You must recognize that not all physical systems are subject to evolution. There are prerequisite conditions that must be fulfilled before evolution can even begin: replication, mutation, and selection pressure.

Of course they aren't. I am talking about physical and chemical systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium.

The emergence of the first replicating molecules was not steered by evolution.

That is simply something you are stating, and does not fit with many current theories.

You should not be afraid to admit that the beginnings of simple self-replicating molecules would have been unlikely if not for the vastness of chemical events in the universe.

I won't admit that. I think that most theories I have heard about the origin of self-replicating
molecules are unconvincing. The argument about probability has never been satisfying. I believe life is far more probable than that argument suggests.

Although it is true that selection pressures change over time, remember this is a simplified model, but the correspondence to evolution is clear.

Yes, the correspondence is clear. I don't disagree. The problem is that the correspondence isn't enough to convince many doubters.

1553. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51720 by steve99 on June 24, 2007 at 10:01 am

But if that is true then we have no reason to trust our cognitive faculties on which our discovery of the theory of evolution rests.

What convolutions you go through. Just because we can't perfectly trust our cognitive faculties is no reason to think that evolution does not exist.

Either naturalism is true and the belief in evolution is not justifiable, or else naturalism is false and belief in evolution may be justifiable.

Nonsense. This is an entirely false dichotomy. If naturalism is true, this means nothing more than we have to be cautious about how accurate our beliefs might be, nothing more. To claim that the belief in evolution is not justifiable is absurd.

Science does not study things with perfect tools. It samples reality. And even sampling reality with imperfect tools gets you a very, very long way, in terms of both understanding and predictive power.

1554. Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Comment #51704 by steve99 on June 24, 2007 at 7:31 am

That was his point, clocks are not alive, so the whole argument about clocks and evolution is a straw man.

If the argument about clocks and evolution was a straw man, then why is he simulating the evolution of clocks?

1555. His word: Attacking religion can seem like breaking a butterfly on a wheel

Comment #51696 by steve99 on June 24, 2007 at 6:48 am

I would like David to see the errors of his ways and make him question his bigoted views.

I would like to see him realise how silly and inconsistent it is to base your views on an old book, parts of which you choose to ignore, and also to make vows based on a set of doctrines, parts of which he has the arrogance to decide to ignore (even though they have been a largely unchanged part of his church for centuries).

1556. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51686 by steve99 on June 24, 2007 at 5:23 am

Danielos: Let me give an example of how your analogy of a universe without countable things is wrong.

The constancy of the speed of light is an objective fact. It comes from Maxwell's Equations. It can be explained even to a blind scientist - who can never experience light! You don't need to be able to experience in the physical world things that are objectively true.

1557. Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Comment #51679 by steve99 on June 24, 2007 at 4:05 am

It might be possible. Can you find such a scenario?

Yes. First of all, I have above mentioned Dawkins' delightful suggestion of allowing animals to select what is produced on a computer. But anyway, many people are already doing what I suggest. A simple google search reveals:

Evolution lab:
http://biologyinmotion.com/evol/

and

Evolution Simulator
http://www.truthtree.com/evolve.shtml

Please don't get me wrong - I think that this video presents a useful and clever piece of work. Where I am sure it will succeed is in showing many who believe in evolution how it can work. It would be a great educational video for schools, for example. However, I think it fails in its objective as a refutation of Creationism and ID.

1558. Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Comment #51678 by steve99 on June 24, 2007 at 3:56 am

Steve didn't understand it I think...

I understood it very well. I have nearly 30 years experience in numerical work and simulation, and I have been following evolution simulations for a long time.

Even among us atheists, one needs to learn to separate the contingent from the necessary in an analogy... He wasn't showing how evolution in the natural world works, he was showing how it might work among a very specific population of pre-established entities...

I know. And it was interesting. But it is not an analogy that is going to convince any creationist or IDer. The only way you might have a hope of convincing such people is by showing complexity arising from simpler systems without the intervention of a programmer or user to do the selection. I have seen all this kind of argument before. All they will say is that you have substituted one intelligent designer (their God) for the intelligent human doing the selection. They will even go so far as to say that this simulation proves their point!

This is why analogies have to be very carefully chosen, and this model is not that useful an analogy of natural selection.

1559. Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Comment #51676 by steve99 on June 24, 2007 at 3:49 am

I wonder if RD will have time to see it and comment, if I remember correctly he was a very early user of computer simulations in is work.

And some of RD's work in this area, fascinating though it was (remember the biomorphs?), was subject to precisely the same criticism that I have described. He was the selector of 'fitness', not anything intrinsic in the model. I know he recognised that, and it would be interesting to know if he has done further, more realistic work in this area. I think I remember him mentioning somewhere the idea of trying to evolve insect-like shapes using garden birds to choose the biomorph that looked most tasty! Now that is more like it!

1560. Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Comment #51669 by steve99 on June 24, 2007 at 3:27 am

Steve, evolution can act only where there is reproduction with mutation. So it seems to me that the origin of the first replicating molecule could not have been a Darwinian process.

It is simplistic to think only of a first replicating molecule. These days there are many ideas about the start of life which involve things such as simple chemical cycles, possibly involving quite trivial molecules. Such cycles are certainly subject to mutation (substituting one molecule for another) and selection (competing for the source of energy).

I feel that this attitute to abiogenesis .. that suddenly a relatively complex and unlikely replicating molecule appears and then instantly natural selection starts up has a nasty flavour of vitalism - drawing a line between life and non-life. Selection is a general principle in non-equilibrium system - it can be as simple as a certain pattern of vortices being the most stable in a fast-moving stream, or it could as complex as a rich set of interacting chemical systems.

If you think equating the ability to tell time with survival fitness is artificial, then imagine that the watches eat insects that come out of their hives at very specific times, so the watches that can tell time better get more food and are more likely to survive.

But that is not the way most things are selected - it is far too simple a view. It is rare of anything as complex and analogous to 'watch-ness' to be selected very long term for a single function. For example, our ear bones were initially selected (if I remember right) as gill supports. Some eyes may have started out as heat sensors. A nice example of how things change is the plumage of some birds. Feathers probably started off as thermal insulation. Then some moved to help with flight (while retaining an insulating function). Some have lost their flight function (or at least, aren't good at it any more) and have come used for display. That is far more typical of the messy and unpredictable way evolution works.

That is why I disliked the constant selection for watch-ness - it plays into the hands of IDers - that someone is watching evolution long-term and picking out what they want.

I don't think a video like this is going to change any minds unless it presents a far more realistic simulation, where functionality just appears by itself, with selection coming from within the model, and not from the programmer/user.

1561. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51661 by steve99 on June 24, 2007 at 2:15 am

As for mathematical theorems, such as "1+1=2", they are not objectively true either, because there may be universes where no countable things exist, and where therefore numbers are meaningless concepts.

No, this is no argument at all.

Objectively true things require no substance to exist in. The infinity of primes is an objectively true fact, yet there is no space in our universe for an infinite number of primes.

You need to read up on your philosophy and logic. Your strange idea that objective truths require substance to exist is seriously wrong, and because this is wrong, it undermines your whole argument.

I can easily show you an objective proof that PI has an infinite number of digits. You can't refute it, and that proof is there for anyone to see. But there is nothing in this universe that has infinite precision. But that does not make the statement any less true.

You seem to have a major problem understanding what 'objective' means. In means independent; independent of substance, and independent of who knows about it (including Gods!)

1562. Evolution IS a Blind Watchmaker

Comment #51620 by steve99 on June 23, 2007 at 8:10 pm

I see a couple of problems with this. Firstly, I have never been convinced about the need to separate evolution from abiogenesis. It seems an artificial distinction, implying that life is somehow special, as against being on a continuum with simpler chemical and physical systems. There is no clear 'non-life to life' transition, and forms of selection can work even on simpler systems.

Secondly, I think this gives a false impression of how evolution works. There are no long-term objectives in evolution, which is suggested by the selection only for clock-functionality. More realistic would be a period of selection for some other behaviour, which eventually resulted in structures which could also function as clocks.

1563. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #51613 by steve99 on June 23, 2007 at 7:14 pm

I disagree and believe and live by the reality that science and religion are complementary and compatible. I disagree and believe and live by the reality that science and religion are complementary and compatible.

That does in any way address my point. You are supporting your view of religion with ideas (the requirement for God as a source of order and as a first cause) that are contrary to modern science.

This is about whether you accept or reject modern science. If you accept it, much of your justification for God disappears, and you need other arguments for His existence - arguments which aren't based on your understanding of science.

If you are going to persist in the 'order' and 'first cause' arguments, then you are rejecting the work of some of greatest scientists of the last 100 years or so. For example, if you insist that God is required to create order, as order can't come from nothing, then you are claiming that you know better than Boltzmann, Poincarre, Mandelbrot and many others.

You can't just make your views compatible with science simply by declaring that they are! That is dishonest.

1564. 'Purity' ring case in High Court

Comment #51383 by steve99 on June 22, 2007 at 2:39 pm

I don't know, it's just a ring, seems the school are being perhaps a little inflexible.

It isn't just a ring. It is a public statement. It also implies that anyone who does not wear a similar ring is in some way morally degenerate, and so is divisive.

I suggest a promotion of rings that promote opposite views... "I am dead keen, and willing", and "You need to put a bit of effort in, but you have a chance". The only way to deal with this sort of nonsense is ridicule.

1565. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51372 by steve99 on June 22, 2007 at 2:01 pm

You really haven't understood the implications of what I have said.

What you have done is separated math into the countable parts, which can be detected in the natural world, and the supposedly uncountable parts, which can't. You are ignoring the fact that there are clear mathematical facts that are true, but don't require any physical basis. No God can redefine what the definition of PI is, but you can hardly claim that PI has no impact on our world.

But I don't see a similar way to describe objective goodness as a property of the physical universe, and therefore cannot see a way to make the objective existence of goodness compatible with naturalism. The reason is that I cannot imagine a way to describe objective goodness as contrasted to objective evil as a property of the physical universe

Then you really, really haven't understood what I have written, and your understanding of mathematics is lacking. Let me try and explain it again.

Objective facts are not founded on a physical universe.

If they are truly objective, they are there for anyone to discover, in any universe, and in any context, be it supernatural or natural.

Let me explain yet again.... you are falsely 'reifying' abstract concepts. You are trying to look for a physical basis for abstract truths.

(This reminds me of the Auditors in Terry Pratchett's 'Thief of Time', who took apart a painting atom by atom in order to find out where the Beauty was).

Mathematical proofs are objective facts. They require no physical reality to support them. They require no supernatural reality to support them. They are there for any sentience to discover, be they men or Gods.

ANY truly objective fact is similarly there for any sentience to discover, in any context.

If you claim that some ethics are objective, then, by definition, any sentient being of whatever nature, should discover them. But that also means that they are independent of any reality, physical or otherwise.

If this is the case, then truly objective facts cannot arise from a creator - they don't need a creator: if they needed a creator, then, by definition, they would not be objective.

If you are looking for the foundation of ethics in any substance, then you really don't consider them objective.

I am sorry, but the entire foundation of your requirement for a God in all this has gone.

If you need a God to define something, then by definition, that thing is not objective. So you have a choice - God-defined ethics, or objective ethics!

Sorry, Danielos, but I know I can win this debate. I have a lot of respect for your opinion, and you have debated here with rare politeness and skill, and I appreciate that. It has been a real pleasure to debate with you. But, I now know in detail the flaws in what you say, and I am sure I can present them in a way that you can accept.

1566. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #51358 by steve99 on June 22, 2007 at 1:23 pm

Regarding the issues of the existence of God and consciousness continuing after death

That is not what I am talking about. I am talking about you using arguments based on order in the universe and the need for a first cause as justification for the existence of God. As you now know, those arguments conflict with what has been found out about physics and cosmology in the 20th century.

These issues are nothing to do with whether or not consciousness exists after death. That is an entirely separate matter.

This is about whether you accept or reject modern science. If you accept it, much of you justification for God disappears, and you need other arguments for His existence - arguments which aren't based on your understanding of science.

1567. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51257 by steve99 on June 22, 2007 at 6:00 am

So ethical goodness and evil are properties of real things (namely our actions) and therefore they too are real and represent facts about the world. So: I ought to do this action because this action is ethically good; I ought not do this action because this action is ethically bad.

No, they aren't properties of real things. They are just abstract ideals with which we associate things. They are just labels. For example, we have geometric ideals like right angles. But they are ideals. We can label a real-world shape as a right angle, but that does not mean that the right angle is a property of that shape - in the real world no object is actually that perfect shape.

As I wrote way back in the description of the God hypothesis, God instantiates what is objectively good.

No, this is wrong by definition.

As I have shown, truly objective facts are independent of any substance (material or supernatural), and are there for any sentient being of any nature to simply discover, then they are there for God to discover too! They aren't "produced" by a creator, they just are. If a fact is truly objective, then it is, by definition, not something that can be created, as the creator would have a choice about what the facts are, and with choice comes subjectivity.

So if your ideas about objective ethics were true. That would be a reason to NOT require a God or a supernatural realm. The only types of things that require a creator, or arise from some sort of substance (natural or supernatural) are subjective things.

No being of any kind can instantiate objective things. If they are truly objective, they are independent of any being. That is the definition of objective.

1568. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51235 by steve99 on June 22, 2007 at 3:09 am

Unfortunately you don't give a straight answer about whether you think what is referred by the concept "number 7" is part of reality or not. But I take it you believe it is.

The real problem is what you mean by "reality".

After all if it weren't how could other intelligent beings possibly discover its objective existence? (Not to mention that to claim that X objectively exists but is not part of reality is incoherent, as one normally understands reality as the set of all that objectively exists, correct?)

No, I don't think I would agree with that. We normally think of reality as based on time and space or at least physical existence. The nature of abstract things like the number 7 is not the same kind of thing. Objective truths don't have to have existence in time, space, or material form. I am not entirely sure it is 'real' in any sense, but that does not mean it can't be true.

The problem is that once you start to talk about 'reality', you can then define 'unreality'. That makes sense. However, it makes no sense to talk about a reality in which there aren't an infinite number of primes, or in which PI has different digits. These are objective things that are independent of what we normally think of as the matter of reality.

If we are agreed so far let's go back to the issue of the objective wrongness of gratuitous torture. By the same measure it is reasonable to believe that that the objective wrongness of gratuitous torture is part of reality itself, and therefore the truth of that ethical proposition can be discovered by any intelligent being independently from us.

This is where I disagree. First, let's leave out the supposed connection between truth and reality. The problem with the supposed objectivity of ethical propositions is that we don't know of any logical foundation for proving them, in contrary to our deep understanding of the logical foundations of mathematics. Until/if we do, your claim that they can be independently discovered is just a hunch, and as far as I can see, without proof.

1569. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51226 by steve99 on June 22, 2007 at 2:11 am

I ask these questions because reading your argument above I am not sure what your point is. It seems to me you are saying that what the abstract concept "number 7" refers to does not form part of reality. But if it does not form part of reality then neither does it objectively exist. On the other hand you speak of the objective facts of mathematics, so I get the impression you believe that what the abstract concept "number 7" refers to does objectively exist. Isn't there a contradiction here?

No. Not at all. And this is where your deep misunderstanding is, I feel. Let me give you an example. It does not matter what your actual substance is as an intellectual being, I could still communicate the value of PI to you, with the formula for you to calculate it. Or I could give you the proof of the infinitude of primes.

These are objectively true, but independent of substance - they are true but not physical. (and by not physical, I also mean they don't need any supernatural substance either). They are abstract concepts, but that makes them no less objectively true.

Having no requirement for any material or supernatural substance for their foundation, and being true for any sentient being in any situation - be they Gods or humans - they don't conflict with naturalism (or any other theory of reality).

Similarly, if there are objective ethics, then they should be true and able to be discovered for all sentient beings in any environment and of any form, and should not depend on any creator or higher power for their existence (because if they do they aren't objective!) So, again, they don't conflict with naturalism (or any other theory of reality).

By presuming that these things DO need some sort of origination and substance, you are making the 'reification' error - you are confusing different types of truth.

1570. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #51100 by steve99 on June 21, 2007 at 1:16 pm

Steve99 PLEASE REREAD MY COMMENT # 262 ABOVE.

Your comment is clear. You don't claim to know more about the universe than Linde, Hawking, Boltzmann, Poincarre, Mandelbrot, Einstein and many, many others.

But that is precisely what you ARE claiming if you reject their descriptions of space, time, order and causality.

If you are rejecting their science because of 'special knowledge' given to you by God, then you ARE claiming to know more than them.

You can either embrace science honestly, and admit that the order and first cause arguments for God are redundant, or you can reject science. Your current position is unsupportable.

Your choice.

1571. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #51078 by steve99 on June 21, 2007 at 11:28 am

I explained this in post 571.

No, you didn't in that post explain why you have a high level of confidence in the truth of the proposition "gratuitous torture is objectively wrong".

You said:

Sorry, I don't have any justification for my belief in objective morality. It's just an intuition:

That is not an explanation of why you have a high level of confidence. Indeed, it suggests you should, as a reasonable fellow, have a low level of confidence in it. Anyone reasonable knows that intuition is unreliable.

I explained this in post 712.

No. In this post you said:

We say "X is objectively true" when we claim that X is true independently of peoples' opinion.

But that is not the manner in which you are using the word. As quoted above, you say that you are basing your beliefs on intuitions. Intuitions are subjective. Objectivity is not based on subjective intuition.

I explained this in post 582.

No, you did not explain how naturalism conflicts with your proposition of objective morality. You are not using the term 'conflicts' correctly. I have, again and again, shown you how objective facts need not come from naturalism. The infinite number of primes is an objective fact - anyone can discover it. But you can take apart the whole universe atom by atom and not find that fact written anywhere. But no-one would claim that the fact of the infinite number of primes 'conflicts' with naturalism.

Similarly, there could be objective morality (although I think this idea is wrong), yet this need have no foundation in nature, and need not conflict with naturalism.

What you are trying to do is look for a physical foundation for abstractions you have defined. Your search is hopeless and pointless.

As I explained before, your reasoning here is flawed because you are falling in a philosophical trap. You are 'reifying' (assuming to be real) things that are abstract and need no substance to exist in. You are like someone forever trying to find the end of a rainbow - your search doesn't even make sense.

1572. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50996 by steve99 on June 21, 2007 at 1:11 am

Kroger: I know, but maybe I will get lucky.

1573. The new preface to The God Delusion paperback and Q&A

Comment #50978 by steve99 on June 20, 2007 at 8:10 pm

In response to the Q&A session. In contrast to Richard Dawkins, I think there is a very good reason why so many religious people in the USA (and elsewhere) would rather support anyone with religious faith, whatever that faith is, rather than atheists. Atheism is not just any other philosophy - it rejects any kind of supernatural creator and protector. Religious people hunger for the supernatural. Having been religious in the past, I know that that feels like. I had a vague feeling that believing in any god was better than none, and would help me in the afterlife. Even if I got the details wrong, and the true God was the God of Muslims, He would at least appreciate that I had made an effort!

1574. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50974 by steve99 on June 20, 2007 at 7:20 pm

Similarly I have a very high level of confidence in the truth of the proposition "gratuitous torture is objectively wrong"

Why? What do you mean by 'objective'?

and as naturalism contradicts that proposition I have very strong reason to reject it.

Why does naturalism contradict that proposition?

1575. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50966 by steve99 on June 20, 2007 at 6:07 pm

Again who is deluded you or me? Again the correct answer will only be found if consciousness exists after the death of our physical bodies.

No, because you are deluded about other things in this world.

You say at best I have only a 19th-century understanding of science. I believe there are approximately 150 billion galaxies in our universe and some jumbo galaxies may contain up to 3 trillion stars. I believe in DNA. I believe in plate tectonics. I believe the speed of light is 186,000 miles an hour. I believe there are other planets in other star systems. Are these 19th century scientific beliefs?

Yes, they are. They are all based on a 19th century, primarily Newtonian foundation. The speed of light was actually measured way before the 20th century, Mendel discovered the particulate nature of inheritance, and many, many philosophers postulated a potentially infinite universe.

Where you decide to shut down your education is at the start of the 20th century, with relativity and quantum mechanics. Both revealed the distortions of time, space and causuality that you hand-wave away in your desperate need to support your belief in some 'first cause'. Also, at the start of the 20th century, the mathematics which led to thermodynamics and chaos theory was devised, becoming more widely understood in the 60 and 70s. That is yet more 20th century progress that you wish to ignore because you are so anxious to need a God to explain order.

If you want to learn and use science, then do so! But to pervert science and mathematics as you do, in some attempt to justify God and your naive model of the universe is dishonest.

You claim you believe in plate tectonics. Why do you? I am not sure I understand. You don't believe in what physicists say. Why do you listen to experts on geology, but not physics?

1576. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50963 by steve99 on June 20, 2007 at 5:45 pm

Thank you again Dr. steve99 for your insight into my psychological state. You say " there is probably more than just a simple God Delusion going on here." So Dr. steve99 describe my symptoms to me.

Well, I leave that to you. You claim to know more about the nature of the universe than Andre Linde, Stephen Hawking, and even Einstein... apparently because God has given you some special knowledge. Me, I call that deluded - what do you call it? Or perhaps it was not God...

In the Miracle At The Pyramid, we get some sage advice by an intergalactic entity named Nano.

Are you sure that was not "Nano Nano"? Perhaps then Mork could come and rescue us...

1577. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50957 by steve99 on June 20, 2007 at 5:07 pm

I am 66 years old and retired. Alternative career paths are not in the plans.

Then if you aren't as deluded as your book suggests, then for goodness sake, while you still have time, educate yourself! You have at best a 19th-century understanding of science. At worst, you sound like someone claiming that the flat earth can only be explained by God, and refusing evidence for its roundness. (After all, scientists have been wrong before!)

1578. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50952 by steve99 on June 20, 2007 at 4:23 pm

In the Miracle At The Pyramid, we get some sage advice by an intergalactic entity named Nano.

Oh dear. No point in further discussion I think. There is probably more than just a simple God Delusion going on here.

1579. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50949 by steve99 on June 20, 2007 at 3:58 pm

Incidentally, I personally have no problem abandoning the intuition that the physical universe is objectively real.

And this basically sums up your entire argument.

You are fundamentally a naive solipsist. The universe has to conform to your point of view. You have no problem rejecting reality. But, when you want to insist that certain moral viewpoints are objective, then the Universe has to agree with you, otherwise it is the Universe that is wrong, not you.

Some of us are humble enough to allow our views to be tested. We compare our views both with other people, and with experiment.

1580. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50914 by steve99 on June 20, 2007 at 12:09 pm

Fortunately the most important thing I learned in college was how to do critical thinking.

Rejecting current science in favour of your own cherry-picked and biased views simply to justify your belief in God is not a sign of critical thinking.

1581. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50699 by steve99 on June 19, 2007 at 1:50 pm

I don't know if I can stomach going point by point through the things you have written in that pdf.

I opened at something that seemed vaguely interesting, and gave up at ....

"If we classify God as infinite, then the most intelligent being below God would have a classification of infinity minus one."

This is new-age gibberish that ranks along with the stuff that Alan Sokal so justifiably parodied.

1582. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50687 by steve99 on June 19, 2007 at 12:49 pm

Your point is well taken but I believe when push comes to shove, science will be on my side and in the end science and religion will become compatible and complementary.

You haven't understood, I don't think. You are no in position to claim that science will be on your side, especially when you now actively reject well-established science. Unless you are personally thoroughly versed in thermodynamics and physics, you simply have to take the word of experts in that field. To claim that you know better than them is not justifiable.

1583. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50683 by steve99 on June 19, 2007 at 12:31 pm

On the issue of order, I understand your logic but I respectfully disagree. Order can not come from nothing. Order comes from Intelligent Design and that Intelligent Design is God.

No, sorry, this doesn't work. As I have clearly shown you how order can indeed come from nothing (and you can go and look this up for yourself in non-linear thermodynamics books), your disagreement simply shows that you are being deliberately ignorant. This is why, earlier on, I claimed you were being dishonest, and I stand by that.

The loop in time appears to be an excellent theory that could cause other universes to arise. However, who caused the loop in time? God, the First Cause did.

No. This simply shows you don't understand the meaning of the words 'First', 'Cause' and 'Time'. A loop in time means causality is not present, and to talk of a first cause shows you just don't understand.

I have studied this question thoroughly and have concluded that God does and have formulated my beliefs accordingly.

No, this isn't true. You now know more than before this thread started, and yet you reject science to try and cling to the idea of a creator. You really haven't studied this question thoroughly enough, or you would know about the issues I have discussed here.

I find your approach deeply puzzling.

1584. U.S. circumcision rate drops

Comment #50588 by steve99 on June 19, 2007 at 1:03 am

Of course, using circumcision to reduce HIV transmission in countries with high rates means you don't have to offend Catholics with the use of condoms, or educate people about safe sex, or about cultural practices that help spread the disease.

1585. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50510 by steve99 on June 18, 2007 at 1:44 pm

If science comes up with a new theory that gives plausibility that ours is the only universe, I will not believe it. Science has been wrong before and they will be wrong with such a new theory.

Ah yes. I have heard that argument many times before! I have heard it used to justify bigotry. (I am not claiming that you are in any way a bigot, but I think you need to hear this)

I was debating someone on another forum this year and he had a vicious dislike of homosexuality, claiming it was both unnatural and abnormal. I pointed out that for over 30 years, all the major biological, psychological and medical groups in the Western world have believed, based on considerable research, that homosexuality is part of normal human sexual behaviour. This unpleasant individual said that he didn't care - he knew he was right, and all the experts were wrong, as, after all, they were wrong before and could change their minds again.

Even if this were true, his argument was nonsense. He was not an expert in these areas, so what he wanted to believe had no connection with reality. He was not in a position to judge which views were correct.

You are in the same position. You can't in one sentence attempt to use scientific arguments (such as the existence of order) for the existence of God, and then the next claim that you won't believe scientific evidence about the nature of the universe. Can you see the inconsistency?

1586. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50506 by steve99 on June 18, 2007 at 1:35 pm

Before I go on, I have to say that I am concerned about challenging what may be a deeply held, and necessary, belief. I sense that you would be deeply troubled by loss of this belief. So if you don't want to continue discussion, I can understand.

However, here goes....

Yes, I can and for the rest of my life will invoke the order argument and the First Cause argument to justify in my mind my belief in God.

The problem is that, as I have shown, the order argument is wrong. Let me have another go at explaining.

First, math does not require order from a creator. That is not just me saying that; as I said, even a God could not change the digits of PI!

The order we see in the universe arises entirely by itself. Imagine that the universe consisted of nothing more than a dispersed gas.... no structure at all. Even the slightest random fluctuations in density will eventually be amplified by gravity. These can build up to structures like stars and galaxies. Once you have stars, you have energy production on that scale, you have systems far from thermodynamic equilibrium, and huge complexity can arise spontaneously. No need for order; no need for a creator.

And, there is another (and pretty wild, but illustrative) example from the great Boltzmann: If the universe was eternal and entirely random, then areas of arbitrary order (even an entire universe) will, by chance, form eventually. This is just a matter of statistics.

So you really can't use the order argument.

The first cause argument is reasonably respectable, but does not survive modern thinking of science. Cause implies causality, and there is good reason to think that there are cases when
causality fails. There are models of the origin of the universe (or multiverse) which require no cause. An example is Andre Linde's, in which universes could arise from a system that is looped in time. If you have a loop in time, there is no 'first', so no First Cause.

All I can tell you is that I genuinely believe to be true what I have stated and I live my life accordingly and I shall die accordingly.

Yes, but you know that others in the past have genuinely believed all kinds of things. So, that really isn't any guide to what is true. People said exactly the same thing about Zeus, Poseidon, Mithras and so on.

1587. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50477 by steve99 on June 18, 2007 at 11:10 am

Danielos:

Let me put forward a hypothesis that someone might have that to me sounds rather like yours. This may sound like a parody, but it is not intended as such - it hope it illustrates flaws.

Imagine an islander with no experience of technology. They see these planes flying overhead.

One of them proclaims:

"These are evidence of a good creator. I have a theistic worldview that is useful. These sky dragons don't fit with naturalism, as we know that naturalism describes only the substance of the flat earth and the endless sea around it. Therefore, these sky dragons must be supernatural. Because it is objectively true that these are dragons (after all, no reasonable person doubts that is what they are, and it would be unacceptable for dragons not to exist), therefore we must have been given the experience of these supernatural dragons by a loving creator.

This is pretty close to how I see your arguments. What you fail to see is that you are boxing yourself into the same kind of position as that islander. You are limiting yourself to what you can and can't conceive. For all you know, there may be a different perspective on things that makes far more sense.

1588. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50474 by steve99 on June 18, 2007 at 10:56 am

Absolutely right! Or, as I once heard a chef say on the radio: 'Every recipe for capers can be improved by leaving out the capers'.

Apart from grilled skate. That HAS to have capers.

1589. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50464 by steve99 on June 18, 2007 at 10:07 am

Newton's mechanics imply that gravitational force fields objectively exist. And then comes Einstein, discovers a better pattern (namely his model of gravitational phenomena as described in the equations of general relativity) according to which what objectively exists is rather curved spacetime. So the belief about the objective existence of gravitational force fields is falsified (as you pointed out).

This is exactly the reason why science is a far better way to examine reality that anything you describe: It allows ideas to be shown to be wrong. As someone said (I forget who): science is a good way to stop us fooling ourselves.

All of your ideas are nothing more than arbitrary, and other ideas can be substituted that work equally well. For example, I could say that realist consists of an person of pure evil, who has given us consciousness so we can suffer life. You can no more prove that wrong than I can prove you wrong. That is why your hypothesis is useless - you have no way to determine its truth.

We saw that naturalism entails several serious conceptual problems, including the problem of consciousness,

No. All we saw was that you claimed this.

The simplest hypothesis about reality that eliminates the first two problems is to assert that reality consists of a person of objective goodness who has the will and power to create us living in our experiential environment.

No, that is no way the simplest hypothesis. The simplest hypothesis is that reality just is the way it is, and does not consist of such a person.

All you need to do to make all of your ideas simpler is to remove the 'good person called God' aspect. I am being serious here! You will see that everything works fine without it.

1590. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50443 by steve99 on June 18, 2007 at 7:14 am

Right. I mistyped; I meant: in my worldview scientific propositions are objective.

But this is still no clearer - how can a 'proposition' be 'objective'? A proposition is a statement, not a fact.

1591. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50415 by steve99 on June 18, 2007 at 12:54 am

Russell: Well, the problem with my view is that you are right. After some research, I realise now that I was not using 'fundamentalist' correctly, and it is a much more precisely defined term than I thought.

1592. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50413 by steve99 on June 18, 2007 at 12:43 am

As I said above it is scientifically impossible at this time to prove the existence of God.

At least we agree on that.

However science has helped me to believe without doubt that God exists and has a purpose for creating us. Science has demonstrated to me the great order that exists in our universe.

Then you have really misunderstood the science.

Also, as I said above, because there are an infinite number of universes, God must also be infinite.

No, that is not what you said above. This is what you said:

Current theories also seem to confirm there may be an infinite number of universes.

So, presumably, God 'may' be infinite, depending on whether or not current theories are confirmed?

So if they don't work out, then God is finite?

1593. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50412 by steve99 on June 18, 2007 at 12:30 am

Behind theoretical and practical experiments in chemistry is order and without order chemists could not perform any experiments. Behind order is design and behind design is God.

No, this is rubbish. I have already explained that you don't need design for order. To keep insisting that this is true and any justification for God is dishonest.

I see symptoms of delusion and grandeur here. You have made a diagnosis of my psychological state of mind without seeing me in person and observing how I live and react to life's many varied situations.

I am only responding to what you have said about yourself. You said you took comfort in the existence of God. Yet your belief in God is based at least partly on your poor understanding of physics. Even worse, you persist claiming things about physics even when it is clearly shown to you that they are wrong.

Current theories also seem to confirm there may be an infinite number of universes. Behind these universes and all universes is the First Cause, God, who is Uncaused and the Supreme Designer and Creator of all that exists.

As I have explained, if there is an infinite number of universes with all possible laws, then there is no need for a cause or designer, and to postulate one on that basis is intellectually dishonest.

You are welcome to believe in God, obviously. But what you are doing here is wrong - you are trying to justify your belief using a poor understanding of physics, and that is not a good idea.

However, I think many atheists have become slaves to the very narrow belief that it is impossible for God to exist when it is scientifically and logically possible for God to exist.

I have never heard of a single atheist who claims that it is impossible for God to exist. All they claim is that it is both very, very unlikely and unnecessary. There are an infinite number of things that are scientifically and logically possible, but that does not mean they exist.

Anyway - I am now interested to know what the reason for your belief in God is. You know that you can't use the 'order' argument, and the 'First Cause' argument has always been pretty shaky...

1594. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50409 by steve99 on June 17, 2007 at 11:40 pm

The C of E may be misguided on some issues - even drastically so, and in ways that can be oppressive or destructive or bigoted, or whatever; but it's definitely not fundamentalist.

I really do disagree. Most members of the C of E do believe that parts of their holy book are infallibly and literally true (although there are honourable exceptions).

Personally, I think that the use of fundamentalist in this way helps to show people that the difference between their supposedly moderate views (i.e. having their coffee mornings and church fetes, but also believing that Jesus rose from the dead and St Paul was right about those nasty queers) and those "funny American Creationist preachers" who seem so shocking .... is really only a matter of degree.

This may seem harsh, but I have to tell you that you get that way when that nice Archbishop of Canterbury campaigns against your legal equality.

1595. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50406 by steve99 on June 17, 2007 at 11:07 pm

But what the proposition claims is that gratuitous torture is wrong whatever people may believe

And this is just a proposition; that is all. It is up to you to prove it.

Even though naturalists believe that the physical universe is objectively real they don't believe that scientific propositions (say "the speed of light is the same in all frames of reference") are objectively true.

Yes, that is exactly what they do believe.

You have a serious problem with words here. The phrase "I believe that something is objectively true" can be followed by the phrase "but I might be proved wrong in the future".


I can show that your way of thinking is seriously flawed using an example you have given.

First, you say:

it turns out that in my worldview scientific propositions are absolute.

(Actually, I am not really sure what this means. I can't see how a 'proposition' can be absolute.)

But then you say:

But Newton's theory is still objectively true, because it expresses a pattern that is really there in our experiential environment.

However, you are wrong. These days many of us use GPS. That requires Einstein's work - GPS will not work without General Relativity. So, in our everyday lives, we experience Relativity at work.

So your supposedly 'absolute' proposition turns out not to be so absolute at all.

To make claims about things like this being absolute and objective is extremely unwise, because, as in this case, you can be proved wrong.

1596. Vatican cardinal calls on Catholics to stop funding Amnesty

Comment #50376 by steve99 on June 17, 2007 at 12:15 pm

It also drives me mad when atheists say that they want to stamp out all religion, because they don't see beyond the fundies.

I am afraid that the definition of 'fundamental' can vary considerably depending on who you are. Let me give you an example. In the UK we have the supposedly moderate Anglican Church, yet it has campaigned vigorously against gay rights. It is doing this purely on the basis of its supposedly moderate religion. Being gay, I find this oppressive, and I find it fundamentalist.

1597. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #50348 by steve99 on June 17, 2007 at 4:32 am

Surely I don't have any instrument or process that you lack, my friend :-) We are both human beings sharing the same human condition.

Exactly. Which is why you have no way to claim that there really are objective ethics.

Again: What I am explaining here is how I justify my claim that theism works better than naturalism. One reason is that I very strongly believe that gratuitous torture is objectively wrong and naturalism is incompatible with that belief. So it's reasonable for me to consider naturalism problematic in this respect.

No. I really think you are confusing meanings here, and have a problem with what 'objective' means.

What you seen to be saying is that you have a deep feeling that by any standards, gratuitous torture is wrong. Well, that is fine, and I agree with you. But that does not make it 'objective'. Objective means not just something that we should all believe; it means something that is a universal truth in the same way that, say Godel's theorem is true, or that

You simply can't claim that this opinion about torture is objectively true.

As I write about this an image comes to mind - it is a drawing by M.C.Escher. It shows a 2-dimensional dragon desperately trying to pull itself into the 3rd dimension, but no amount of tearing and folding of paper works - it is still stuck on that paper. This is like your attempt to try so hard to pull the subjective into the objective. No matter how hard you want it, and no matter how much you think it should be true, you end with with a subjective opinion, not an objective truth. But that does not make it any less important.

Don't you agree that it's reasonable to consider that this contradiction represents a problem for the suggested worldview, and is a reason to reject it?

I think you are hugely mixing ideas. There is no contradiction between us having conscious experiences, and also believing that the foundation for those conscious experiences is material (of some sort) in nature.

So how does science find out whether electrons form part of reality or not (or in other words objectively exist)? How does science find out whether reality consists of some kind of physical world that causes our observations of it, or rather consists of God directly causing all our experiences, or rather consists of a two-dimensional field of hyperintelligent shades of blue where two schoolchildren are running a simulation in their home computer?

The problem is that you are using an extreme definition of reality. No such reality may exist.

However, what science does is provide very powerful tools for examining things in a way that seems to indicate what is objectively out there. The big difference between science and most other approaches is that science is good at preventing people from fooling themselves. That is the best indicator that it is at least closer to reality than other approaches.

And it is the key property of science - you can be shown to be wrong.

That's a very good question, which I have never considered before. It's an important question. I have the answer but I will need some time to compose it. Anyway this post is already too long so I'll answer it in a future post.

I think if you try and answer that, and also get past the 'lots of subjective opinion is the same as objective truth' issue, and I think we will get somewhere (or at least perhaps start to talk the same language!)

Oh, and as for Dawkins and fairies. You are right that there have been some arguments put forward for the existence of God, but this God is not the god most people believe in, with all the refinements - the ability to answer prayers, the ability to create life, a dislike of certain sexual practices. This is a God with 'frills' - all sorts of add-ons and extras. This is one reason why the fairies comparison is valid - they are also complex little beasts.

1598. A battler beyond belief: Review of 'God is Not Great'

Comment #50336 by steve99 on June 17, 2007 at 12:01 am

Stalin wasn't an athiest. He opened several churchs during WWII.

That isn't any evidence for Stalin being religious. It is only evidence that Stalin realised that religion could be used to motivate people.

1599. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50334 by steve99 on June 16, 2007 at 11:34 pm

To believe in God because of Pascal's Wager would be a silly, blasphemous and unscientific reason for believing in God.

So what is your scientific reason for believing in God? Remember that to be scientific, it must be..

(1) Based on evidence
(2) Testable
(3) Refutable

What I a particularly interested in is what evidence would lead you not to believe. If there is no possibility of such evidence then your belief is not scientific.

1600. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #50312 by steve99 on June 16, 2007 at 4:35 pm

You state many things that reveal you simply don't understand the subjects. This was one of the worst:

If order did not exist, we couldn't solve any math problem. Without order try to divide 4 by 2. Is the answer 2, 3 or 1? Without order we would not know the correct answer.

That is nothing whatsoever to do with order, and any philosopher or theologian will confirm that your conclusion here is nonsense. If you doubt that, perhaps you could try and come up with a mechanism by which a deity could change the digits of Pi when expressed to base 10.

Behind order is Intelligence and the Ultimate Intelligence being God.

No, sorry. As I keep showing you, you don't need anything behind order.

Regarding chemistry and physics you need order to work with disorder in order to complete a scientific experiment.

As someone who has worked in theoretical chemistry for decades, I can confirm this is just putting a lot of words together without any understanding at all, and is just embarassing.

Regarding gravity, we don't know everything yet and later discoveries might show small order to be much more than presently known.

This is just about the same. It is just (probably unwitting) word-play. You haven't understood what I have said at all.

Let me try and explain more carefully. This is nothing at all to do with understanding gravity. It is simply that any long range attractive force of any kind will magnify small differences in the density of dispersed matter, causing localised collapses. In such collapsed areas, you can get spontaneous generation of order, as you get structures like (in the case of our Universe) stars, which can produce energy.

Why do you state my belief is "a dishonest belief?" That's a terrible slander of my character. My reputation in my community is one of honesty, fairness, understanding, compassion and straight forwardness.

It isn't slander - it is a harsh, but simple statement of fact. Let me explain. If you claim that you need God because that supposedly explains the complexity of the universe, and someone gives you a clear explanation (that you can confirm for yourself just by looking things up) that you have misunderstood the matter of complexity, and your requirement for a God in this matter is simply not there, then to continue with an unaffected belief in God really is intellectually dishonest. But to try and get some kind of support for your ideas, you put forward statements about math, physics and chemistry that make no sense at all, and scrabbling for justification in this way is also intellectually dishonest. An honest approach would be simply to admit that you were wrong about the 'order' argument.

I believe Dr. Dawkins, as well as many atheists and agnostics, confuse the monstrous evils of organized religion with God and conclude that these evils prove that God does not exist

That is a hopelessly confused interpretation.


That is in no way the reason why he does not believe in God.

Dawkins argues that God almost certainly does not exist because He is a complex and superfluous entity that explains nothing about the universe.

He goes on to argue for the proposition that a believe in God can cause harm, but that is nothing at all to do with whether or not God exists.

Why do you feel sorry for me? I am very happy with my life. Life is beautiful and I delight in the daily activities of experiencing nature's magnificent beauty. Also I am comforted with the knowledge that there is a loving, merciful and perfectly just God and this thought not only makes me feel secure and exuberant in this lifetime but it also makes me feel exuberant and secure in anticipating the after life.

I am sorry for you because you need this imaginary security blanket. I feel sorry because I believe you aren't truly experiencing life in all its richness, which includes its fears and terrors as well as its joys and wonders. You may need this use of religion as a comforter, but my view is that this is rather like non-stop use of Prozac. It may feel good, but is it really any way for people to live?

That is the reason I believe most scientists are highly developed spiritual beings. Scientists are heavily involved in studying God's laws of physics and that is exactly what is required for salvation.

That is just gibberish. How is studying the laws of physics supposed to assist with salvation?

Why do you say that "the odds are I will be better off than you?" What scientific evidence do you have to support this statement? If you can scientifically prove to me that your statement is correct, I will immediately convert to your beliefs.

This is nothing to do with science. It is a common philosophical argument.