I’m a theist and was a chemist and science instructor for some time. I happily taught evolution, continental drift, the Big Bang. Isn’t it stretching things a bit to up and deny that a person like me is ‘scientifically minded’? You’ll not offend me by saying Yes, but it would be good to know if that’s a general conclusion.
ITG, I recognize that you are scientifically knowledgeable (I don’t care for the term, ‘minded’) as am I. I also recognize that there are some situations where I don’t and don’t want to think like a scientist. In addition, all of us have some areas of cognitive dissonance. It appears that the beliefs of one or the other of {scientific orientation}/{non-theism} or {scientific orientation}/{theism} is just that. While neither of us would admit to it, I’m sure both of us feel the other suffers from it. I don’t see any problem with us thinking differently.
To put it in probability terms, I need to get the ‘A god exists’ dial back to ‘coin-toss’ on the dial. A better way to put it is that I only want to prove that a god’s existence is neither crazy nor absurd. That’s all i’m attempting right now. I agree with dougsmith that mucking around in non-naturalism doesn’t give me a free pass to assert any god exists. But it is needful to go over that.
The problem with this is, which or who’s god(s) are you claiming has coin flip probability of existing? The only god to completely avoid empirical testing, so far, is Spinoza’s god. This is because Spinoza’s god assumes the definition of being un-testable. Discussing the efficiency and benefits of believing in imaginary friends is a different topic (I may agree with you more on this topic). Any definitions of god other than Spinoza’s, that I have come across, have made objective claims that can be tested empirically and to my knowledge have not lived up to the scientific scrutiny. If you can offer a new definition of god, I’m all eyes.
The problem this may lead to is, the creativity of the theist to push god to more complex gaps. Bertrand Russell pointed out this problem with his celestial teapot example. It just isn’t practical to spend the time, energy & resources to refute the plentiful & exotic claims of theists. That hasn’t stopped scientist though. It is possible to define a god so complex and incomprehensible that it eludes our scientific skill. This begs the question that how did you come by this knowledge if it is untestable in the first place and should we be as equally open minded towards other exotic claims such as the flying spaghetti monster. RAMEN
I haven’t given any evidence for God’s existence yet - and maybe I won’t ever on this forum. I need room to put a god first, and so I need to first refute arguments here and there that deny even that room. And as others have pointed out, it seems really hard to sort this out, and lots of basic things bear repeating, sometimes many times to the same person.
To put it in probability terms, I need to get the ‘A god exists’ dial back to ‘coin-toss’ on the dial. A better way to put it is that I only want tp prove that a god’s existence is neither crazy nor absurd. That’s all i’m attempting right now. I agree with dougsmith that mucking around in non-naturalism doesn’t give me a free pass to assert any god exists. But it is needful to go over that.
Sincerely,
Kirk
As a an advocate for science & evidence PZ Myers had this to say on the interview with Haught:
Is science the only way of knowing? It is a way, and it’s effective. I’ve noticed that those who complain about scientists always demanding evidence and material causes and testable hypotheses and such nuisances never seem to get around to telling us what their alternative method might be. Haught is no exception. Here he is, complaining about our elitist exclusivity and our “faith” in the scientific method, and he can’t be bother tell us how else he proposes we figure things out. Shall we pray for answers? Will divine revelation help us understand how, say, nerves conduct action potentials, or how genes specify body plans, or whether that girl likes us enough to say “yes” when we ask her to dance?
[Doug:] To begin with, Dawkins is quite careful never to claim he can disprove the existence of God.
[Kirk/inthegobi:] That’s true - but don’t you find that coy? To deny any route to knowing that gods exist is to do Hume’s move for moral facts.
[Doug:] Actually I don’t find it coy at all—I think it’s quite straightforward of him. The problem, perhaps, is in the title of the book. However if the probability of X is sufficiently small, really a delusion is an adequate explanation for one’s belief in X.
A long answer to defend a little intemperence on my part:
If using some argumentation I well-accept the sentence “it’s unlikely that ‘X is so’ is true,” then I accept that “It’s likely that ‘X is so’ is false.” And if I accept that, I effectively have an argument against X being so in reality. (It’s true that - strictly speaking - the object of proof is a belief like “X is so”, and not a piece of reality like X and X’s so-ness. Still, the normal use of dialectic is to figure out the parts of reality we cannot access by observation. Dialectic is exactly to get true beliefs without them being justified simply, by observation.
That’s *strictly* what I mean by ‘coy’ regarding Dawkins’ protestations that he isn’t disproving the real existence of God. At least it speaks against normal dialectical practice. Is there a name for a sophistical refutation whereby the arguer pretends his argument is *less* strong than his opponent would accepted it to be?
I shall transfer your comments and my replies about evidence for spousal love to another thread.
[Doug:] To begin with, Dawkins is quite careful never to claim he can disprove the existence of God.
[Kirk/inthegobi:] That’s true - but don’t you find that coy? To deny any route to knowing that gods exist is to do Hume’s move for moral facts.
[Doug:] Actually I don’t find it coy at all—I think it’s quite straightforward of him. The problem, perhaps, is in the title of the book. However if the probability of X is sufficiently small, really a delusion is an adequate explanation for one’s belief in X.
A long answer to defend a little intemperence on my part:
If using some argumentation I well-accept the sentence “it’s unlikely that ‘X is so’ is true,” then I accept that “It’s likely that ‘X is so’ is false.” And if I accept that, I effectively have an argument against X being so in reality. (It’s true that - strictly speaking - the object of proof is a belief like “X is so”, and not a piece of reality like X and X’s so-ness. Still, the normal use of dialectic is to figure out the parts of reality we cannot access by observation. Dialectic is exactly to get true beliefs without them being justified simply, by observation.
That’s *strictly* what I mean by ‘coy’ regarding Dawkins’ protestations that he isn’t disproving the real existence of God. At least it speaks against normal dialectical practice. Is there a name for a sophistical refutation whereby the arguer pretends his argument is *less* strong than his opponent would accepted it to be?
Happy New Year,
Kirk
I think one characteristic of the “New Atheist” direction is that it doesn’t get mired with philosophical discussions of deities - this is related to the criticism that they don’t know ‘enough’ theology as well.
There is a cutting of the Gordian knot of ‘existence proofs’ which presents itself—it doesn’t make practical sense to say that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and omni-present and yet have to muster philosophical explanations for why he is (or isn’t) very clearly here. One can either use the analogy of Mormonism (where way too many people believe an angel helped a guy translate some golden plates which then disappeared {and the translation is obviously incorrect}) or the Flying Spaghetti Monster—believing in a hidden deity with no confirmed interaction with the world, and who seems to prefer to stay hidden, is not ‘religious’, it is superstitious.
These straightforward explanations have been raised before and I think the New Atheist discussions will continue to reinforce them.
I do agree that logically one can’t ‘prove’ something doesn’t exist.
But none of the atheists—whether the hardcore or the new atheists—really examine where this courage comes from. What is its source? How do we account for the courage to go on living in the absence of hope?
Isn’t that just a developed form of survival mechanism?
Who says atheists have no hope? No hope of life after death, maybe, but lots of hope about their own lives, those they care about, the species and the world generally. The old line that a life without God is cold and filled with despair is just an assumption the theists make, without substance IMHO.
Who says atheists have no hope? No hope of life after death, maybe, but lots of hope about their own lives, those they care about, the species and the world generally. The old line that a life without God is cold and filled with despair is just an assumption the theists make, without substance IMHO.
Agreed. And given the sort of malicious deity believed in by most theists of the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic variety, one does wonder what their sort of “hope” really amounts to anyhow.
The hope of an eternity spent in contemplation of a bellicose egoist? Good lord. Give me realism to this sort of half-baked romanticism any day.
Who says atheists have no hope? No hope of life after death, maybe, but lots of hope about their own lives, those they care about, the species and the world generally. The old line that a life without God is cold and filled with despair is just an assumption the theists make, without substance IMHO.
Yes, I’m tempted to think that a life without a belief in god allows one to better focus on ones own life. Knowing that when one dies, it’s over, would motivate one to live a fuller and richer life. Because that is all you have, one life. I imagine that creationist are so caught up in their belief in god and in a afterlife, that they to a degree, deemphasize or have less respect for their life in reality.
But we need a worldview that is capable of justifying the confidence that we place in our minds, in truth, in goodness, in beauty.
Interesting, or should I say funny, how he makes it sound like “truth”, “goodness” and even “beauty” are universally accepted - and almost simple - concepts… and even how theism has to be that bridge of justification.
Yes, I’m tempted to think that a life without a belief in god allows one to better focus on ones own life. Knowing that when one dies, it’s over, would motivate one to live a fuller and richer life. Because that is all you have, one life. I imagine that creationist are so caught up in their belief in god and in a afterlife, that they to a degree, deemphasize or have less respect for their life in reality.
Yup… and the amount of time they waste with prayers, pointless concerns and fear. At this point we can start questioning their real happiness. I guess I can get used to be called a nihilist or pessimist… but I’m sure I am not a masochist.
[G]iven the sort of malicious deity believed in by most theists of the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic variety, one does wonder what their sort of “hope” really amounts to anyhow. . . . The hope of an eternity spent in contemplation of a bellicose egoist?
Note the need to add Islam in order to prevent the overgeneralization from utter falsity (it’s still false - i lived in a country for three years with plenty of Muslims who would disagree; but who cares, they were just peasants on a bunch of volcanic dirt-balls in the Pacific.)
‘Malicious’ must be a new word for ‘omnibenevolent’, one of the typical posted attributes of God. I rather like the ambiguity of ‘theist’ - it bundles my grandma with Aquinas. I’d use ‘theist’ of people who make some attempt to have a theology, and even tho’ I’d still refute that most common pious people have a much more loving god than Doug would give them credit for, still most humble religious people aren’t ‘theists’ except in a rather loosey-goosey use of that philosophical term. And of course, theists - which ones? - believe ‘love one another’ is a typical saying of the bellicose.
Nice overgeneralization - and with delicious straw-man shortcake. Like the ad about the rum, does every atheist have a little Dawkins in him?
“One ill turn deserves another.” (Saruman, *The Return of the King*). But maybe you’re just tired tonight.
Yes, we all know that God is supposed to be perfectly good. Then go look at what he does in the Bible and tell me it is so. Look at how he demands obedience, how he punishes disbelievers, how he roasts those who pray to others in lakes of hellfire for all eternity and tell me with a straight face that this is something that is correctly described as “omnibenevolent”.
Yes, there are those who say either that God was talking in parables in the OT, and that Jesus was talking metaphorically of lakes of hellfire in the NT. (Some parables! Some metaphors!) ... There are others who disavow the notion of hell, and eternal punishment, and even the demands of exclusive obedience. OK, let’s leave out these folks; their God perhaps is a decent sort, though one who ought have nothing to do with Judaeo/Christian/Islamic theology. He’s basically a genial Deist sort who doesn’t get his hands dirty killing millions in tsunamis. Or creating people who go ahead and produce mayhem.
To keep alive the fiction of an omnibenevolent God one either has to deny the reality of pain and suffering in the world, or modify one’s view of what constitutes true evil.
To keep alive the fiction of an omnibenevolent God one either has to deny the reality of pain and suffering in the world, or modify one’s view of what constitutes true evil.
Yes, we all know that God is supposed to be perfectly good. Then go look at what he does in the Bible and [3] tell me it is so.Look at how he demands obedience, how he punishes disbelievers, how he roasts those who pray to others in lakes of hellfire for all eternity and tell me with a straight face that this is something that is correctly described as “omnibenevolent”.
Allow me a push back. I ask you, is literalism a live issue? So Christ is the Door. Is He wood or steel? The style of the New Atheists has helped taught us to threaten the weakest member of the herd to make the rest skittish. How - evolved. The principle of charity in argumentation is dead, although you did not kill it.
Yes, there are those who say either that God was talking in parables in the OT, and that Jesus was talking metaphorically of lakes of hellfire in the NT. (Some parables! Some metaphors!) ... There are others who disavow the notion of hell, and eternal punishment, and even the demands of exclusive obedience. OK, let’s leave out these folks; their God perhaps is a decent sort, though one who ought have nothing to do with Judaeo/Christian/Islamic theology. He’s basically a genial Deist sort who doesn’t get his hands dirty killing millions in tsunamis. Or creating people who go ahead and produce mayhem.
To keep alive the fiction of an omnibenevolent God one either has to deny the reality of pain and suffering in the world, or modify one’s view of what constitutes true evil.
What me, tell you about the meaning of unjust or unnecessary suffering? What do I know? But let’s ask an expert - other than Job, whose story bears closer reading than almost anyone gives it:
http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/pontifical_councils/hlthwork/documents/hf_jp-ii_apl_11021984_salvifici-doloris_en.html
Briefly, there seem four positions. God is not all-knowing, or not all-powerful, or not all-benevolent (he doesn’t care), or suffering has to have meaning even when it’s unnecessary or unjust. None of them are easy.
On the topic of the thread: Let’s map Haught’s position onto a quick three-way cut.
The uh, ‘robust’ believer in the Bible might believe that any significant statement in the bible can counterfactualize any statement accepted in the natural sciences. Maybe one is a hard literalist, or maybe one only commits to the ‘bare or ‘rough’ story, or maybe even just the ‘gist.’ But at least a few pretty miraculous-looking things happened. But all of them suggest that at least some list of theological or biblical facts will ‘trump’ beliefs to the contrary generated by scientific methods and justification.
Or, the two fields might be non-overlapping - any beliefs they happen to share are assigned to one or the other, or made metaphorical. Or any number of devices in fact; there’s more than metaphorizers out there - not surprisingly, there are as many as there are ways to not speak literally.
The opposite of the robust believer seems Haught’s position. He says somewhere in there that ‘every] belief of theology is revisable. That means to me that Haught’s willing to metaphorize away any theological teaching whatsoever. Note how he describes the Gospel. That it’s a false characterization of the theology of the church who pays him? Not important now. It’s better used as evidence for the third position.
