1651. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49086 by steve99 on June 10, 2007 at 8:54 am

Danielos:

In general it seems to me that many of the naturalistic beliefs about consciousness are either arbitrary or else based on faulty logic.

But that is an argument for dualism, not the existence of a spiritual mind. And even if it were an argument for the existence of a spiritual mind, it has no connection with the existence or otherwise of God. Why should it?

In general I find I learn more discussing with people who disagree than with people who agree with me.

I agree. But it is just a bit frustrating when someone who disagrees with you (me, for example) takes time to think of and post some serious points and they are not replied to.

1652. We of little faith

Comment #49049 by steve99 on June 10, 2007 at 4:57 am

"How long would the teachings of Buddha have been preserved if they weren't wrapped up in all the trappings of the other religions? How much of a shelf life does your average self improvement manual have without dressing it up as something more and how long did his ideas last before they were corrupted into the mumbo jumbo we see today.
Not a criticism just a question.

It is not so much a question as a statement of what you believe Buddhism is. There is no one thing called Buddhism. Some is definitely full of superstitious nonsense, but some isn't. So the ideas have survived for millenia.

1653. We of little faith

Comment #49016 by steve99 on June 10, 2007 at 2:46 am

Sure, these eastern "religions" (or philosophies, etc) may be more scientifically compatible and less harmful, but it's a round-about way - why not just embrace science directly.

Because not everything in our lives is to do with science.

1654. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49015 by steve99 on June 10, 2007 at 2:42 am

Well not wanting to engage in debate is obscurantism. As is Dawkins's ridiculing the study of serious books about God as being equivalent to the study of serious books about fairies. After all obscurantism is defined as "opposition to the spread of knowledge" and as "the intention to make something obscure".

I can't let this stand. You are the one refusing to engage in debate.

1655. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #49008 by steve99 on June 10, 2007 at 1:55 am

There are some problems that science has not yet solved or are in a domain where science is not appropriate. This gives me a gap into which I can insert god.

It is far worse than that. There is also

"There are problems in science that I refuse to accept are solved, and I will use God to explain these."

Dianelos:
I have finally given up. I have gone into great detail about why your continual invoking of the supernatural is not just logically seriously flawed, but solves nothing. You just won't respond to my arguments, and instead keep posting as if those arguments were never made. You invent problems in physics that aren't there, and keep insisting that the problems exist even when you have been corrected. This not an honest way to debate I am afraid.

1656. We of little faith

Comment #48950 by steve99 on June 9, 2007 at 5:48 pm

Smith:

Apparently, I did, and have, as a consequence, removed my comment!

1657. We of little faith

Comment #48945 by steve99 on June 9, 2007 at 5:13 pm

And you can call me stupid all you want, but the facts are facts and i'm more concerned with the truth than looking cool or hip in some nonsense mystical faith. No disrespect, but Buddhism is pretty stupid, and for a religion that aims to dissolve the ego, they tend attract some real egomaniacs.

I don't think you are stupid. But, I think your posts here sometimes do a disservice to the cause of rational atheism. You latch on to a simplistic view and defend them even in the face of evidence to the contrary. Sometimes your views seem so simplistic that they almost seem to be parodies posted by those who who wish to attack atheism. I am sorry if this sounds harsh, but this has also been pointed out by others. Personally, I have no doubts that your motives are good, but I would suggest you take more time, and do more research before you post.

I also find the Buddhist training riddles of which Mind_Rebel so adeptly parodied to be tiresome and silly.

I am rather disappointed by this point of view. It is easy to dismiss as silly that which you don't understand. I recently have detected an attitude on recent threads on this site that philosophical arguments are somehow against the spirit of rationality and clear thinking. That just isn't the case. Discussions about reality involve more than just practical science.

1658. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #48924 by steve99 on June 9, 2007 at 3:17 pm

The universe operates according to orderly laws and yet some scientists claim that it functions without a law giver. How can they be so sure as to call themselves atheists?

This is very strange reasoning. Mathematicians assume that maths operates according to logic and rationality, yet see no need for a supernatural mathematician who sets up the laws. They realize that mathematics can stand alone.

The same applies to most scientists. The existence of physical laws does not imply the existence of a law-maker.

1659. Can we really learn to love people who aren't like us?

Comment #48873 by steve99 on June 9, 2007 at 9:48 am

Rabbi Sacks is a good, humane man.

He holds some views that I, at least, find less than humane. He is extremely conservative on at least the issue of homosexuality, not rejecting any recognition of same-sex partnerships, but unconditionally condemning such sexual relationships. I find it difficult to consider such views humane.

1660. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48795 by steve99 on June 9, 2007 at 4:29 am

It's not so much a question of "defining" consciousness as supernatural. The idea is that as long as it is reasonable to believe that a) consciousness cannot be explained on naturalistic grounds and b) consciousness is not at all similar to any of the other natural things, it is also reasonable to consider that consciousness exists in a realm beyond nature, the supernatural realm.

This is not reasonable. You are making a false jump of logic.

First of all, (a) does not follow from (b). Just because something is not similar to other natural things does not mean that it is not natural. All It means is that it is not similar to other natural things! As an example, when we look at some of the strangeness of Quantum Mechanics, we can say that it is unlike anything else we see in nature. But that does not mean it is beyond nature.

And even if something is indeed beyond what we now know of nature, that does not give any justification for classifying it as supernatural. It just means it is unknown. What you are doing is assuming you know the answer.

Darwinism (in short the premise that the structure and order present in the species can arise by natural means only) does not imply that no structure or order are needed at all.

Again, this is just bad understanding of physics. Structure and order CAN arise from absolutely no structure and order. This is well understood from modern non-equilibrium thermodynamics and chaos theory. This is not abstract - experiments to show it can be done in any lab with a few chemicals!

What happens is that sufficient structure and order can lead to replicating entities. If those entities replicate with the possibility of error, then Natural Selection kicks in.

There is nothing mysterious about it, and nothing that requires an initiator.

Your whole premise here is based on a lack of understanding of modern physics and thermodynamics. I don't blame you for that, as this stuff is not widely known.

In any case, again, I don't have to show beyond reasonable doubt that the supernatural realm that causes my structured and ordered experience must itself be structured and ordered.

Yes you do, else it has no explanatory power. If you claim that something explains structure and order, then having something equally structured and ordered is not an explanation, as it might as well not be there.

My theistic argument only requires that it is reasonable to think so, and indeed that's clearly an eminently plausible belief

No, you have it back to front. By introducing a God you are already introducing order, so you can't use it as a justification for why order is there. It is circular.

I can't see any of your arguments left to discuss. I have shown pretty conclusively that something being objective has no connection whatsoever to the matter of the supernatural. I have shown that you are making a false leap of logic by claiming that things you don't believe can be understood by current ideas of nature have to be classified as supernatural. I have shown that there is no need whatsoever for any supernatural origin of structure and order. So, as you have neither evidence or philosophical justification that any of these things are in any way supernatural, there is no need for introducing God, even assuming that God was in any way connected with the phenomena you describe (and you have provided no justification for that conclusion).

1661. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48756 by steve99 on June 9, 2007 at 1:48 am

It suffices to claim that it is reasonable to believe that naturalism cannot explain consciousness, and therefore it is reasonable to adopt competing supernatural worldviews that can.

The problem is that they don't explain conciousness at all. They simply transfer it to a domain (supernatural) where explanations are supposedly not required. If you have an explanation for why the colour red looks 'red' based on supernatural principles, I would like to hear it.

A more intelligent reaction is to think thus: Consciousness is not a supernatural thing, and as it is impossible to explain how matter produces consciousness, consciousness must be an additional fundamental constituent of the natural world. That's the path that David Chalmers chose, but he was criticized for asserting a dualist understanding of reality. I sympathize which Chalmers: if one if not prepared to abandon naturalism then dualism is the only solution.

I would put it more strongly. There is no reason at all to abandon naturalism, as you have no evidence that you need to, so support naturalistic dualism. I do. What is the problem with this?

For example, if one's naturalistic worldview cannot account for the existence of objective ethical precepts then ethics too can be added to the mix as a fundamental principle of reality.

I just can't understand your thinking here at all. Why should the supposed existence of objective ethics have anything at all to do with naturalism? As I mentioned earlier, objective mathematical and geometric facts exist (such as the formula for the circumference of a circle), but that does not imply some sort of supernatural world in which perfect geometrical shapes have to exist.

In conclusion if one's motto is "anything but God" and would rather believe that our best understanding of reality must consist of a potpourri of independent things and/or asserts fundamental limitations in our intelligence and/or hopes that, no matter the arguments against, naturalistic explanations for consciousness will be found in the future – it's ok with me. Meanwhile I judge that the theistic worldview works much better.

But your worldview works no better, as you also have a potpourri of independent things. You have simply added another one - God.

You have supposedly objective ethics and you have conciousness. Even assuming they required some sort of supernatural domain, this has absolutely no connection one way or the other to the existence of a God or Gods. To show you that this is the case, there are many philosophies that do believe in the supernatural, but don't believe in a God or Gods.

Your reasoning has a profound flaw: You are assuming that because two things are both supposedly beyond physics, that they have a causual link.

I can just as easily substitute the word 'fairies' for 'God' in your explanation of your worldview and it makes about the same level of sense.

I can suggest a far more rational 'supernatural worldview', if you insist that the supernatural exists:

The things that you suggest are supernatural may arise from some simpler common cause that we don't yet know about. We know that complexity can arise from simplicity in the physical world, so why not assume the same in the supernatural world? The 'God' idea is the defeatist one - it assumes no explanation can be found, so you substitute an 'explain everything' idea.

Replace 'God', for 'to be determined'. You have an even simpler system that you describe.

1662. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48694 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 5:56 pm

Here are some pretty standard guidelines

It is all very well to talk about guidelines and approaches to interpretation, but you have completely failed to respond to my comment about the range of views even in the Anglican Church.

1663. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48681 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 5:31 pm

Oh, so now we're into NOMA territory!

What are you talking about?

1664. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48677 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 5:23 pm

but I don't try to pretend that all religions are the same!

No-one here is saying that all religions are the same. What we are saying is that all religions suffer from the same flaw - faith - the rejection of reason.

1665. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48674 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 5:18 pm

Athiesm lead directly to the labelling of christians as "enemies of the state" - and lead to persecution exile and execution of many priests and christians. For instance, in the USSR you were excluded from getting an education, never mind a decent job, if you were a christian.

Atheism didn't lead to that. As I said, there are no atheist doctrines or scriptures that imply you should do anything.

Stalin was simply using control of religion as a political tool. The reason for suppressing Christianity was to prevent a competing power base forming. But when circumstances changed, Stalin was actually a supporter of the church - he re-instated it after Hitler invaded as he felt he could use it as a way to motivate people.

Atheism has and does lead to de-humanisation, vilification, persecution and mass murder.

I am sorry. I try and be polite, but this is just silly. Many, many Buddhists are atheist - they don't believe in a God or Creator. You could hardly find a more peaceful way of living. Also, if what you said were true, then Sweden (perhaps the most atheist country in the world) would be a place of evil and bloodshed.

Just because books by Marx, Mao etc aren't called "scriptures" doesn't mean that atheism was not the reason for murder!

You can't claim that books by Marx and Mao are treated like any kind of dogma by atheists. They are works about different political systems.

(Incidentally, Marx was a peaceful man, and in no way condoned murder).

Christian don't believe without evidence. Ask any christian why they believe-in and follow Jesus and they will start giving you evidence. You might not believe the evidence is factual, or you might have a different interpretation, but they are not believing without, or despite, any evidence.

Actually, most Christians believe because that is what they were told by their parents. Many subsequently try and rationalise some of it, but there is always a core of faith.

You need to look up the term 'Fideism'. It is part of Christian theology, which asserts that reason is irrelevant to religious faith.

1666. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48646 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 4:34 pm

..."there would be no culture from which extremists could arise"

Sorry - poor wording on my part. I was, of course, talking only of religious extremists.

1667. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48645 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 4:32 pm

Interpreting what the Bible writers meant, and what it means for us today, is hardly a black art. A good starter book is "How to Read the Bible for All it's Worth" by Gordon Fee et al.

To see the problems in interpretation, let's consider than nice, moderate and quiet Anglical strain of Christianity. It includes views as widely different as those of the Episcopalians and the Church of Nigeria - from a gay Bishop to Bishops who support laws criminalising homosexuality. No matter what your views on homosexuality, this is surely clear evidence that interpretation is a major problem.

1668. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48635 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 4:14 pm

atheism has lead to persecution and mass murder of non-atheists!

No, it hasn't. Sure, there have been bad people who were atheists, but you can't claim that atheism led to the murder, as atheism is not a belief or doctrine. There are no atheist scriptures or set of commandments that tell followers to kill people (unlike the Bible).

STEVE99 - Look back at this exchange between USA_Limey and Logicel and you'll see what I mean:

The language is stronger than I would like, but the sentiment is sound. Extremists are possible because the majority of believers think that belief without evidence is a good thing. If they didn't, there would be no culture from which extremists could arise.

And I resent having christianity associated with people who fly planes into buildings.

But it is. The problem is faith, because without reason you open your mind to believing just about anything, and that can include flying planes into buildings - it is all a matter of degree.

1669. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48602 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 1:55 pm

The trouble with many of your atheist comments and arguments is that they are predicated on your own assumptions and understandings of what christianity is supposed to be... Rather than what christians (at least most of them in theUK) actually believe and live for.

I don't really get your point. What almost all of us here comment about and argue with is what people actually say and write, not our own assumptions.

And as for what most Christians believe and live for; that isn't the point. I have many Christian friends, but they don't interfere with my life. They aren't the problem, and it was not them that stirred up the current atheist movement. I believe it was apparently intelligent and educated people flying planes into buildings. This made a lot of us in Western countries realise that religion was not just a benign delusion - it was dangerous and threatened us directly. Once we realised that, we started to see the way that religion was privileged, and was starting to interfere in so many ways - faith schools, condom use, encouraging bigotry against women and gay people. An increasing number of people feel it is time that this stopped, and we follow Dawkins' example - the best thing to do is to attack religion itself.

You would be pretty upset if we did the same to you. For instance, I could assert that any good atheist would come to the same conclusions as Stalin, Mao, PolPot and their mates - and impose a 'final solution' to rid the world of the diseased minds of religious people.

Many already do say that kind of thing.

1670. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48552 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 11:04 am

... what would your response have been I wonder?

No different. Why should it be?

Danielos is the very epitomy of the pseudo intellectual theist who hides his nasty little superstitions behind grandiose philosophical arguments: and you fall for it and engage him!

I don't consider engaging someone falling for anything.

I bet you are all about inclusivity and cultural relativism and dialogue and understanding an all that bullshit aren't you?

Absolutely not. But what I trying to do is figure out how people think differently from me work. I am trying to understand how they get to believe what they think, not for inclusivity, but to help figure out how to best argue against them.

YOU are only helping these idiots perpetuate their nonsense and I have no time for it.

My concern is that you are helping them to continue to believe their nonsense by refusing to discuss things with them. I can't see how saying to someone 'you are wrong, go away' is going to achieve anything.

As Sam Harris says, we need to open up a conversation.

1671. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48521 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 9:00 am

Dianelos. please go away now.

Someone has come on this site, and is politely explaining their point of view. No matter how wrong you may think they are, I don't think statements like this are appropriate.

1672. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48465 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 3:41 am

I judge that naturalistic worldviews are incompatible with consciousness

Your reasoning doesn't work here. All you are doing is simply defining naturalism as being incompatible with conciousness.

In other words I am not prepared to entertain the idea that ethical precepts, such as "you should not torture a child", are true only because of personal opinion or convention.

Whether or not you support the idea is irrelevant. What matters is for you to present evidence that these ethical precepts are objective.

What I on the contrary observe is that, compared to the disagreements that also exist between religious worldviews, the disagreements on the naturalistic side are a) deeper, b) tend to grow both in number and in kind, and c) tend to produce increasingly fantastic (credulity straining) descriptions of reality.

That is not an argument against them. There is no reason why reality should be understandable.

This incidentally makes it impossible for any piece of scientific knowledge to contradict or be used as evidence against any of the non-fundamentalist religious worldviews.

This is easily shown to be wrong. If there is a God who has intervened in the Universe, then that is a measurable phenomenon, so it is subject to science.

So, to resume, the supernatural (beyond the natural world) part of reality must a) have consciousness as its fundamental constituent, b) be objectively good, and c) must contain structure and order, because after all it causes our experience of the very intricately structured and ordered physical phenomena we observe.

No...

a) There is no reason to define conciousness, even if it exists as separate from what we currently understand, as supernatural. That is just arbitrary.

b) There is no reason for anything supernatural to be objectively good. I could just as easily say that it is objectively bad, or objectively neutral. In fact, there is no reason why something should be objective just because it is supernatural, or that something should be supernatural just because it is objective. It is objectively true that a square has four sides, but that does not make squares supernatural.


c) This is just bad physics. We know that structure and order can arise spontaneously. There is no reason at all to suggest it has a supernatural origin.

Economy (or Occam's razor) requires that I make the simplest hypothesis in order to account for all three properties, and the simplest hypothesis I can find is the presence of one single and objectively good, intelligent, and powerful conscious being: a divine person on whom all bucks stop, a person whom, in order to be consistent with the three great monotheistic religions, I call "God".

This does not follow logically at all. It would be simpler to just accept your points a, b, and c without then adding God.

1673. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston

Comment #48460 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 3:17 am

You seem almost pleasant today. Is your bishop watching or something?

I do wonder if other members of the church know that David is posting here. I wonder what their reaction would be to the quality of his debating.

1674. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston

Comment #48458 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 2:58 am

I'm not sure what your hang up is about sexuality. What's the problem? Why are you so hung up about sexual sin?

You see, this is why I have a problem with the quality of your debating. You are the one who is a member of an organisation that is calling certain sexual practices sinful, yet you are projecting this on others... It is like a racist asking others why they have an obsession with coloured skin.

1675. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston

Comment #48445 by steve99 on June 8, 2007 at 1:57 am

As I say it is impossible to discuss the homosexuality issue rationally. You have no intention of doing so.

On the contrary. I am trying to introduce biology and psychology. I can't see how I could be more rational.

You know what is right and the question is only asked to establish my irrational and stupid bigotry. If you seriously want to discuss it rationally then I would be more than happy to do so.

Well why don't you answer the points I posted?

Let's go through them again:

1. It does mean that such things can't be dismissed as either abnormal or unnatural. People have to come up with some other justification.

2. As you are not (I assume) an expert in biology or psychology, then you have no right to use those as justification when the vast majority of experts in those fields disagree with you (as I have said, science is not like football - you can't just choose the team you like).

3. So all you are left with is 'God doesn't like it'. However, you ignore many other 'God doesn't like this' statements from both the Old and New Testaments.

4. So what you are left with is to try and claim that you personally have been divinely inspired to disagree with it. However, for all you know others might be divinely inspired to support homosexuality (God's ways are mysterious).

5. So all you can really say is ... "I don't like it". But that was just what people used to say about coloured people, and women getting the vote..

If you can find any fault in my reasoning, please point it out. There is nothing fundamentalist about that reasoning, and nothing irrational about it, at least not that I can see. I await your response.

However I'm afraid that given that belief that the practice of homosexuality is natural, normal and moral, is the shibboleth of the elite in our society, I am on a hiding to nothing when faced with accusations like you make.

No. Firstly, it is not the elite who say that. It is the majority of biologists, medics and psychologists. I am seriously trying to understand why you feel you are justified in disagreeing with them. All you have to do is explain why. It does not seem a hard question. You can either explain what your biological (or other scientific) qualifications are, or you can say that you simply reject science, and have some direct line to the truth via God. I am honestly curious as to which it is.

Can I suggest that if you serious about studying and discussing this subject then you read Thomas Schmidts' Straight and Narrow'? If you just want to accuse then feel free to go ahead and shout. But forgive me if I do not join in.

I happen to have 30 years of scientific experience, including a Ph.D. in biology. I suggest that if you are serious about this, then you are the one need to get educated. I would suggest reading the report of both the British and American Psychiatric organisations, rather than one author's views. Otherwise, for every author you quote I can quote one to support my views and we get nowhere. The only sensible approach, as I am sure you realise with your understanding of science, is to go with the consensus. You can't just pick an author who you agree with, unless you yourself are qualified in this subject.

You do not know my own church's teaching or you would understand that we have never claimed that the church is infallible, and for at least two hundred years we have accepted that the earth may well be millions of years old.

"may well be?" (And it happens to be billions).

But then I have a question for you - why does it still state in your doctrine that everything was created in 6 days, and not, say, '6 aeons'? And if you were persuaded centuries ago by evidence that the Earth is more than a few thousand years old, why are other doctrines of your church so resistant to evidence? Are there some that are simply immune to science, or are we going to have to wait a few centuries for you to accept the scientific view of sexuality?

What evidence would convince you to change your mind?

The trouble is that you live in a simple atheistic fundamentalist world where, not only do you define your own position, but you also define others, and then turn round and call them stupid or hypocritical if they do not stick with your definition of what they believe!

I think you may be misunderstanding things here. I am not talking about my definition. I am talking about yours. I did not write the any of the text that your Church claims to be the truth.

An honest question - where in any text of your Church does it say that you are free to ignore parts of the Church's doctrine?

You do need to answer these questions, as your lack of response will me a matter of public record.

But if you managed to put some logic in to your thought processes I think you would find that my posts would be a lot shorter if I was just saying 'No. you are wrong'.

I am happy for you to point out any lack of logic, in fact, I would welcome it!

The empirical scientific evidence that a baby has nothing outside of the womb that she does not have within it.

A baby does not appear in the womb fully formed. It goes through a process of development. Throughout much of that development it has considerably less than it has at birth.

1676. Protesting the Creation Museum

Comment #48413 by steve99 on June 7, 2007 at 7:27 pm

The creation(denial) museum is as offensive to rational thinkers as a WWII museum would be to holocaust surviviors.

If you are going to post things like this, then I am afraid you aren't helping atheism or clear thinking at all; in fact you may be doing the opposite.

There are world war II museums that are of deep significance to holocaust survivors, as they help educate people as to the horrors of the past. The Auschwitz Museum is good example.

1677. Protesting the Creation Museum

Comment #48410 by steve99 on June 7, 2007 at 7:19 pm

Modern translations of the Bible use the word "plant" not herb.

Most translations I have found seem to stick with "herb". And I am sure the Creation Museum does not want to have to deal with anything modern (like evolution, radioactive dating etc).

"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so."

But that does not change the meaning of the subsequent verses - sure, there may be plenty of fruits, but you are only allowed to eat the herbs.

1678. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48405 by steve99 on June 7, 2007 at 6:43 pm

I agree that definitions change, but in our case it's clearly those who proposed the "lack of belief" definition who are changing them.

Why does that matter? Surely it is appropriate for those defined by a term to be the ones who can change what that term means.

To know that you lack belief in gods entails that you have some notion about what "gods" means.

This is obviously false. I have just invented an imaginary being. I am not going to tell you anything about it. It may be a god; it may not be. But I can be certain you have no belief in it, and to say you have a lack of belief in it is anything but incoherent - it is a simple statement of fact.

I am afraid I find the definition of atheism that you use to be incoherent and very problematic. It implies that one can't be an atheist until one knows exactly what one is being an atheist about. Then it is almost impossible to be an atheist, as if even the religious aren't that sure what their God is, what chance does someone intending to be an atheist have?

1679. Protesting the Creation Museum

Comment #48289 by steve99 on June 7, 2007 at 10:33 am

Good to see Krauss doing this.

Incidentally. I found out something rather amusing about the Creation Museum. They say that T Rex ate coconuts. Well, I am afraid that according to most biblical interpretations, that is wrong. Genesis 1:30 says:

"and to every beast of the earth, and to every bird of the heavens, and to everything that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for food: and it was so"

Unfortunately, the coconut palm is not a herb. It has vascular bundles within its trunk that resemble those in coniferous and dicotyledonous trees.

I am tempted to initiate a campaign to close the Creation Museum because they contradict the bible - how dare they claim that pre-flood animals ate things other than green herbs!

They can't even accurately mislead people...

1680. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48264 by steve99 on June 7, 2007 at 8:18 am

Dianelos:

I think the atheism discussion is a distraction. What we are waiting for (well, I certainly am) is your 'God Hypothesis'.

1681. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48184 by steve99 on June 7, 2007 at 1:54 am

With all due respect I think that by defining atheism as "lack of belief in a god or gods" it's you who is changing the definition. After all here is how dictionaries and encyclopedias define "atheism/atheist":

The problem is that terms change.

Here is the Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy:
"Atheism. Either the lack of belief in a god, or the belief that there is none."

And, after all, the way we use it here is based directly on the word itself. 'A-theism' - 'without God'. The way you (and many, many others I would agree) use it it should be 'antitheism'.

1682. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48167 by steve99 on June 6, 2007 at 11:29 pm

Watch out for the naturalistic fallacy.

Well, the problem is what one means by 'good'.

1683. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48159 by steve99 on June 6, 2007 at 10:16 pm

(some ethical precepts are objectively true) implies (materialism is false)

I find this a very strange statement. Here is an ethical precept that is objectively true that is entirely consistent with materialism:

It is bad to kill lots of people.

This is objectively true (and not just opinion) as a general ethical statement, because if everyone did it our species would not survive for very long. It in no way conflicts with materialism as it could be hard-wired into our brains by evolution, and not placed there by some invisible spirit.

It still works though as an argument for religion because I cannot conceive a worldview that is both non-materialistic and non-religious.

That is not an argument for religion. It is simply a statement about your imagination. I can describe a worldview that is both non-materialistic and non-religions: suppose someone believed in the existence of spirits living in another world, but not in Gods.

There. So now you CAN conceive of a non-materialistic and non-religious worldview, as I have just described one. So your argument for religion fails.

And that in fact one of the basic tenets of theism, namely that God created the physical world that science studies, makes it literally impossible for science to contradict theism.

Not really. Russell's teapot argument is pretty effective here. If we discover that the physical world does not need a creator, then God becomes an undetectable entity that has had no verifiable influence on anything. You can claim his existence isn't falsifiable, but he effectively gets diluted out of existence by the infinite number of alternatives that are also undetectable, such a celestial teapots, spaghetti monsters etc.

1684. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48080 by steve99 on June 6, 2007 at 1:50 pm

So, in your opinion, is this true for everyone regardless, even babies and severely mentally retarded people?
Or does one have to accept the hypothesis before one can be considered an experiental conscious being?

I have to say that your contributions here are becoming increasingly unhelpful.
Sorry, but that is just nonsense, and is, I honestly believe, against the spirit of open and rational debate that inspired this site.

I think that the wisest approach is simply to shut up until Dianelos has posted his hypothesis. He is someone who has come to this site and is prepared to debate honestly and openly. Let us welcome such people; even congratulate them on the fact that they are open to discussion, and debate them.

1685. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48028 by steve99 on June 6, 2007 at 10:44 am

Actually even though the concept of spacetime comes of special relativity the concept of its bending by mass comes from general relativity, which is a theory of gravity, in other words a theory that explains gravitational phenomena.

Yes. I was just saying that the way it was devised was not through the process you described.

Point taken. Other posters have made similar criticisms, so I owe this forum an explanation of why I think that the God hypothesis works so well.

Yes, but I think you also you need to explain what your understanding of the God hypothesis actually is, before you explain why it works, if you see what I mean. (And your attitude here is why I disagree with those on this thread who have been so dismissive of you).

1686. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #48027 by steve99 on June 6, 2007 at 10:38 am

Predicting results to this accuracy hasn't, as far as I am aware, been done by any other theory.

Absolutely. But there is still an unpredictability at that very, very small scale.

1687. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47993 by steve99 on June 6, 2007 at 8:07 am

No, the results of a measurement lead to a certain level of indeterminacy in the result. They are not unpredictable.

I feel you are splitting hairs. Your use of predictability seems to me to be like saying that if you throw a dice, it is predictable - as you can predict that 1 to 6 will appear. If you decide to perform a certain measurement on a quantum state (such as direction of spin), you can't predict the reading you will get.

1688. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47980 by steve99 on June 6, 2007 at 7:36 am

This is simply untrue. The results of a measurement cause a reduction in the state vector and indeterminacy (Copenhagen interpretation), while the many worlds interpretation is deterministic. Neither interpretation is "unpredictable".

Hmm. Not sure I would entirely agree with that. The results you get from quantum measurements are certainly unpredictable, and the Many Worlds interpretation is only deterministic from an impossible viewpoint - being able to see all 'worlds'.

1689. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47979 by steve99 on June 6, 2007 at 7:32 am

This person is a flimflam, a phoney.

I don't believe he is.

1690. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston

Comment #47963 by steve99 on June 6, 2007 at 6:26 am

yes lots of things happen in nature. I was brought up on a farm. And I often witnessed female pigs eating their own young. Death, killing and sexual promiscuity are all natural. Does that mean we should declare that such behaviour is all legitimate with human beings?

Of course not, but it does mean that such things can't be dismissed as either abnormal or unnatural. People have to come up with some other justification. As you are not (I assume) an expert in biology or psychology, then you have no right to use those as justification when the vast majority of experts in those fields disagree with you (as I have said, science is not like football - you can't just choose the team you like). So all you are left with is 'God doesn't like it'. However, you ignore many other 'God doesn't like this' statements from both the Old and New Testaments. So what you are left with is to try and claim that you personally have been divinely inspired to disagree with it. However, for all you know others might be divinely inspired to support homosexuality (God's ways are mysterious). So all you can really say is ... "I don't like it". But that was just what people used to say about coloured people, and women getting the vote...

Actually, no. Facts are facts. Just because one expresses a fact it does not mean that one is arrogant.

You aren't responding to what I posted. I don't care about the 'facts' that your version of Christianity believes. What I have a problem with is that you personally feel you have the authority to arbitrarily ignore words in your own Church's dogma, when for centuries people who have been experts in translation from Hebrew have left those words as they are.

That, to me, sounds arrogant.

But now that you have admitted that your dogma is factually wrong, this raises the question about how much else of that dogma you feel you have the right to question.

"I am not asking you to become 'like us'. I am asking you to become open to reason. There are plenty of religious people who are open to reason"
I think you will find that for you and your fellow atheists on this site this is actually one and the same thing.

Did you actually read what I wrote? I said that I have many close Christian friends who are open to debate and changing their minds. That is all I am after. This reply is nothing more than a 'No, YOU are wrong so there!' response.

1691. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47947 by steve99 on June 6, 2007 at 5:37 am

Now I do not base this claim on some actual study, but only on personal experience discussing with atheists and reading atheistic arguments. And anyway I was not referring to Buddhists or any other class of religious people who might be construed as being atheists, but rather to people who have pondered the question of divine beings and have decided that God or gods of any kind probably or certainly do not exist.

But, as I keep telling you, that does include a considerable number of Buddhists and members of other 'religions' like Daoism.

But if there are atheists here who think that there are things beyond the physical world we observe and its natural laws as studied by science, then I would like to ask them what things?

Ghosts, spirits, other worlds, karma.

1692. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47931 by steve99 on June 6, 2007 at 4:18 am

And as red doesnt actually exist, neither does your god.

That is no argument one way or the other. And a considerable number of philosophers would argue (correctly in my view) that red does exist. It is that thing you experience when you are shown something red, after all.

1693. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47922 by steve99 on June 6, 2007 at 3:55 am

My understanding is that all schools of Buddhist believe that people after death reincarnate into some other form: people, animals or gods

Sorry, but your understanding is wrong. Check the teachings of the Buddha. There is no re-incarnation there.

Also I dispute your claim that Theravadin Buddhism does not believe in the existence of gods

Again, you are just simply wrong. The BBC is not an authority on religion. Buddhism is a hugely adaptive philosophy. In certain cultures Buddhists may believe in gods just as in certain cultures they may believe in growing rice. But it is nothing to do with the core philosophy.

Again this implies that the majority of atheists are religious people – I doubt that typical person who calls himself or herself an atheist would agree with that.

Completely irrelevant. Someone can be something even if they don't call themselves that.

Well, here are some counterexamples: Some physicists speak about the objective existence of parallel universes even though there is no solid evidence for their existence. Other physicists have dedicated their lives to string theory even though there is no solid evidence for the objective existence of strings (in fact some physicists think they don't).

Physicists claim that they *might* exist. They don't have faith that these *do* exist. And if they exist, there will be undeniable evidence for them, unlike an arbitrary declaration of 'objective ethics'.

Whatever – materialism has trouble accounting to the existence of what is referred by concepts related to the concept of consciousness; whether you call them conscious experience, qualia, how it is like to be a human being, how it feels like to be conscious, etc.

In what way? And why does the possible existence of God help with this in any way at all?

What I try to illustrate above is that it is extraordinarily difficult to develop a rational/objective ethical system that works well.

Sure. But how is this related in any way to the existence of God?

I think I have presented such evidence: That when knowledgeable theists and atheists debate, neither side is entirely successful and both sides have difficulty countering the other side's arguments.

I just can't see any evidence at all, other than arguments like: "My mind is mysterious, God is another thing that is mysterious. Therefore God exists, and somehow explains my mind".

So to ask whether God interacts with the physical universe is meaningless.

No, it isn't. If God does not interact, then there can be no causual connection between the mental processes in our brain that occur when we think of God, and any actual God; in other words, we have just made up the idea, based on no foundation, even if He does actually exist. Suppose there is a locked room, and I imagine there is an elephant in there. There may actually be one there, but that would just be co-incidence, and not related to the what you imagined!

And I think that theory evolution has offered zero help for improving this state of affairs.

Why should it? The theory of evolution is no more a moral guide than the theory of gravity. It can explain why we have a moral sense, and even why most people tend to act in a certain way, but that is all.

Well, if natural selection is what happens in the physical universe (i.e. is the physical universe's way to produce the species), and if God has created the physical universe, then, obviously, it's quite reasonable to consider natural selection God's way.

Only if you don't have a good understanding of physics! The universe isn't deterministic, as Newton thought it was. Even if there was a creator, he could not have had any idea how things could have turned out, so it isn't reasonable to consider natural selection 'God's way'.

And as that interference of God would happen on the quantum level it would be undetectable to objective observation (it would exist within quantum noise and therefore beneath science's radar so to speak.)

If it is within 'quantum noise' then it can have no effect at all, so it makes no sense to assume it is there at all.

If so God might have designed homo sapiens (or at the very least guided the evolution of homo sapiens) in a way that is fundamentally undetectable by science.

That doesn't work. Fundamentally undetectable by science is exactly equivalent in effect to 'didn't happen'.

Of course (1) is a premise, all arguments use premises. The question is do you agree with it? If you don't, why not? Do you know of anything in the physical universe that is red?

Yes. My experience of red. That is in the physical universe because (1) it happens when physical things happen to my neurones and (2) when I think about red, it causes physical results (things to happen to neurones).

But how is that in any way related to the existence or otherwise of a God?

I still can't actually pin down any single argument in what you write for the existence of God.

1694. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47777 by steve99 on June 5, 2007 at 1:48 pm

What do you think about the movies "What the Bleep Do We Know?" and "The Secret". They are pretty talked about in Can/USA.

In polite terms - nothing more that a huge amount of extrapolation and vague wishful thinking based on minimal science. There is not the slightest evidence from quantum mechanics that the mind creates its own, or any other reality.

1695. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47751 by steve99 on June 5, 2007 at 12:41 pm

So why dont you get down of that high steed you seem to think you are riding upon, answer a few questions, tell us which brand of christianity you subscribe to and leave it at that. Come back to another thread we'll remember you, dont you worry. Ciao

I really hope Dianelos doesn't take this advice. I don't consider he is on any high horse at all, and I think to claim he is is unfair. He has interesting beliefs. I think they are mistaken, but is that any reason to try and discouraging him from posting?

1696. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47727 by steve99 on June 5, 2007 at 11:13 am

So we discover that to hypothesize that mass bends spacetime helps explain these phenomena. This is then what justifies our belief that mass bends spacetime.

No, that isn't the way this worked at all. The bending of spacetime actually came from special relativity(*), and was connected to gravity indirectly via thought experiments about acceleration.

I find that the hypothesis that God exists and is perfectly good works very well.

I hope Prime doesn't mind me responding with a comment. What I have great difficulty with understanding is why the hypothesis that God exists in any way helps with any of the points you mention. They seem to me (and even to many religious people) to have no logical connection whatsoever. To put in a very flippant way (although to make a serious point), it seems to me equivalent to saying "I am concious. The hypothesis that fairies exist works well to help me with this."

This reminds be a lot of New Age 'science' thinking: "Minds are mysterious, and quantum mechanics is also mysterious, so let's assume that they are connected." It just doesn't work.

* Just to explain, as I find this interesting. In special relativity, if you move at significant speed, distances seem to shrink for you. So what happens if you move in a circle? The circumference will seem to shrink, but the radius (not moving, as parallel to your direction) won't. So, you are travelling in a circle where the diameter is not 2 x PI x radius. So, space must have distorted! Isn't science astonishing?

1697. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston

Comment #47644 by steve99 on June 5, 2007 at 5:58 am

Ewan:

From that video "Thick people are very good at winning arguments, as they are too thick to realise they have lost". How delightfully appropriate :)

1698. Debate between Richard Dawkins and Robert Winston

Comment #47642 by steve99 on June 5, 2007 at 5:55 am

NMcC. Great post. I think David and his ideas and ways of arguing are useful evidence for the poisonous nature of so-called 'moderate' Christianity.

1699. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47635 by steve99 on June 5, 2007 at 5:38 am

This is the worldview entertained by the vast majority of actual atheists: that there is nothing beyond the physical world we observe and its natural laws as studied by science. So for the vast majority of actual atheistic worldviews my arguments stand.

It doesn't stand. All atheism means is a lack of belief in a God or Gods. The Buddhism link proves you wrong (see more below).

Rather according to the Second Law of thermodynamics information is irretrievably lost at each irreversible physical process, which entails that knowledge about that lost information cannot be gained. For example after an explosion it's impossible to know the exact state of the bomb before exploding.

That is not the Second Law of Thermodynamics - there is no irretrievable loss of information. This is shown by the Poincare recurrence theorem.

And Godel's theorem (combined with later work) is certainly relevant, as it reveals that there are true things that can't be proven.

That's why we say that Buddhists do not believe in a personal God. On the other hand Buddhism is a full-fledged religion with monasteries, complex dogmas, temples where religious ceremonies are performed, prayers to Buddha, belief in life after death, and so on, so to call Buddhism atheist is terribly confusing. In fact it's factually wrong because according to Buddhism's understanding of reality many supernatural gods exist (in fact good people may re-incarnate as gods, albeit these gods are considered lower then Buddhas and Bodhittsavas).

No. That is far too simple an analysis. There are many, many schools of Buddhism. Some believe in life after death, and supernatural entities, some don't. Some schools of Buddhism (such as Theravadin) don't believe in prayer, survival of the self, or Gods.

At its core, Buddhism is certainly atheist.

You write that the majority of atheists use philosophy, not science. I think that's factually wrong, for example Dawkins doesn't. Again, the great majority of atheists believes that science is capable of explaining anything that needs explaining and therefore the God hypothesis is superfluous.

No, you are factually wrong, as the majority of atheists (even if you stick with just the more basic forms) are Buddhists.

Indeed objective existence does not imply that it is easy or straightforward to reach knowledge about that existent.

But here we hit a problem, don't we? You can't speak of an objective existence in any useful sense unless you have solid evidence that the supposedly objective thing you talk about actually exists. Otherwise, it is just an arbitrary assertion, which can have no place as proof in any logical argument. Saying that ethical things are objective when all experience of them is subjective it is like saying that you are almost sure that you are certain about something - a confusion of terms.

On the other hand it is an objective fact that materialistic worldviews
(which, again, characterize the vast majority of atheistic worldviews)

Wrong - just to show you, here are some figures. In China (just to pick one country) the vast majority of Buddhists follow a tradition that incorporates Confucianism and Taoism, which have few supernatural aspects. There are about a billion Buddhists in China. This vastly exceeds the number of atheists elsewhere.

But let's continue....

have a big problem accounting for our consciousness.

I think you have a confusion of terms here. These world views have no problem accounting for conciousness. What they may have a problem with is accounting for what it feels like to be concious, which is a different matter. But even with that, it depends what you mean by 'materialistic'. In the current state of physics, where fields and curved space and quantum mechanics dominate, it means more that just 'made of matter'.

And anyway my goal here is not to convince anybody of the existence of God, but to argue that the non-existence of God is not a trivial matter as Dawkins apparently believes).

But you have provided no evidence so far that I can see that the existence or otherwise of God isn't a trival (in terms of logic, not significance) matter.

In the end, there either is some being who interacts with the Universe (even if at only at the beginning), or there isn't. That is the core of things.

Also right and wrong has nothing to do with survival value. Slavery might have survival value both for the owners and for the slaves, but this cannot be used as an argument for the morality of slavery.

Again, your argument fails because you use generalities. Right and wrong certainly are related to survival values. For exmaple, you can even demonstrate with mathematical models how altruism (which we consider 'right') has a major survival value. Just because we don't all do right all the time does not refute the argument.

Incidentally, even in some slave-owning cultures, there were opinions about certain rights of slaves!

Rather I gave a specific argument to justify my claim. If you can find some error in this argument I would very much like to know about it. The argument is very simple really:


1. Nothing in the physical universe (as described by scientific realism) is red. (premise)
2. Therefore red is not part of the physical universe. (from 1)
3. Red exists. (premise)
4. Therefore some things exist that are not part of the physical universe. (from 2 and 3)

This fails at (1) - it is a premise, nothing more; indeed, as you go on...

Of course the relevance of this argument goes far beyond the issue of red. It can be extended to show that all qualia (and therefore the whole of our conscious experience) is not part of the physical universe. This is one of the reasons why David Chalmers claims that the problem of consciousness is hard (read: impossible). The solution that Chalmers proposes, indeed the only solution possible in this context, is that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, at par with matter itself.

Precisely. It is a fundamental property of the universe - the physical universe.

But anyway, this is irrelevant to the existence or otherwise of God.

Well Atkins expressively claims that science can answer all significant questions,

Fair point.

Finally my understanding is that Dawkins introduces that argument in chapter 3 in his book (the so-called Boeing 747 argument) to show precisely that: that God does not exist, or more precisely that it is enormously improbable that God exists.

But as I said, it is not that argument alone. It evidence that God does not exist because one of the main justifications for God's existence is as a reason for complexity.

It seems to me that you are trying to imply that the question of the existence or otherwise of God is complex by introducing various other questions that you believe are somehow related to the question of the existence of God, when I think I have shown that they aren't.

1700. Richard Dawkins and Alister McGrath

Comment #47618 by steve99 on June 5, 2007 at 4:38 am

Intellectual theists love that approach because they know it means they don't have to engage in the "nuts and bolts" arguments about their own particular brand of whatever theist crap they believe in.

I don't believe that this is obscure philosphical debate. I have had considerable experience of it, and I believe it goes to the core of how some theists justify their belief in God.

Ultimately a theist can pull out all the theological philosophy in the book but when it comes down to it they are either a strict Deist or not. If not; what system of beliefs are they ACTUALLY subscribing to then?

For some of them, relatively complex philosophical ideas form the system of beliefs.

And so on... it is in the DETAILS that we find our most effective arguments because there really are NO weasel words or philosophical squirming to help them at that level. In my experience all they ever fall back to at that level is the unanswerable, "FAITH". Well, at that point they have shot their last bolt.

My experience is that it can sometimes be more complex. The some aspects of faith (such as transubstantiation) are just the frills. Get rid of those and you are still left with an inner core of philosophical ideas that, pushed to the limit, can even allow people to justify changing faith. These core ideas have to be challenged with some people.