"There is no heaven; it's a fairy story"

[fluffnik]

ChrisGB said:

fluffnik said:

I don't hold ideologically to naturalism but I don't see any simplification in adding anything supernatural; I see no reason to reject the null hypothesis regarding the supernatural.

Well I am flabbergasted.

Me too!

ChrisGB said:

You have just argued yourself to exactly my position, then denied my position. It is astonishing. You are doing exactly what I was saying was evasive and inconsistent. The only reason you are saying the universe has no purpose where you are presumably saying erosion and evolution do have a purpose (what is it?) is because you have presupposed naturalism, and therefore have to treat it as a different sort of question, which is evasive and inconsistent.

My previous attempt at illustration was clumsy, it was late...

I'm not ascribing any purpose to erosion or evolution; they're mechanisms.

I'm not saying that the Universe has no purpose I'm saying that we have no reason to ascribe any purpose to the Universe.

Perhaps I should have typed:
Chris: Why not nothing?
fluff: Why should we ascribe purpose to the Universe?

Over the years many different human religions have posited many different creators with many different motivations who have created many different versions of the Universe in many different ways.

It is far from certain that this process exclusively human - it's a big Universe...

How do we select which (if any!) divine motive assigns purpose to our universe?

ChrisGB said:

You either have to say "it is just so" because of a presupposition of naturalism, or you allow the simplest answer, a perfectly simple being. Supernatural can't be null if it explains everything and is itself totally simple.

Nope.

We know that the Universe is just so with ever higher resolution.

We increase our understanding of how it got to be just so daily.

We don't know everything yet and we recognise that there may be limits to our knowledge.

We have yet to encounter any supernatural agency.

Tales of the supernatural have added not one jot to the sum of human knowledge.

ChrisGB said:

An extra-natural source / origin of the conditions / laws that allow the beginning of everything is more reasonable than "it just is so".

Nope, it just don't.

[enioldjoe]

At least Professor Richard Lewontin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lewontin ) was up front about his presuppositions.

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen."

[IainT]

mattnunn said:

IainT said:

mattnunn said:

IainT said:

mattnunn said:

Kant died 100 years before Godel was born. I do hope this helps. I'll happily discuss his Critique of pure Reason if you wish to invoke a particular line of enquiry, although I doubt you do, he was very big on the idea of time and space being materially unreal. Either way it's not relevant here.

Gödel's OA suffers from the same basic flaws that Anselm's does. Sorry if that concept passed you by, I'll type slower next time.

Which is what? Are you sure it's a logical flaw and not just a difference of opinion?

The logical flaws in the OA have been covered, Kant's particular disagreement is covered on Wikipedia.

Let's look at Axiom 1, it stands on Gödel's definition of "positive properties" which, he goes on to define, according to wiki, as "positive in the moral aesthetic sense".

Given, as has been discussed above, it's possible to show properties that are context-dependant the assertion is doubtful at best.

.

Not true.

I assume we're reading the same wiki page, the example of the shirt and it's colour should make it very clear. The colour of shirt is a property of the object shirt (any softies following this discussion will see now why Godal's work is as important as Von Neumann's in bringing us modern day computing languages), the value assigned that property of the object is not known but the property of colour is applied to all shirts, unless the shirt doesn't exist in which case the entire conversation in negated as nonsense.

Do you suggest shirts don't exist? That would be a position of predjudice and opinion. Not logic.

Godel's OA is very clear in not making the assumption that Shirts exist.

The whole point is that a value is being assumed. the value of 'maximal greatness' in Anselm's terms or 'positive moral asthetic' (as opposed to negative moral, or immoral).

They assume the shirt is green.

[TheHeretic]

enioldjoe said:

At least Professor Richard Lewontin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lewontin ) was up front about his presuppositions.

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen."

In its full context.

http://www.drjbloom.com/Public%20files/Lewontin_Re...

[IainT]

enioldjoe said:

At least Professor Richard Lewontin ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Lewontin ) was up front about his presuppositions.

"Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen."

Got any good evidence of the supernatural?

From there, got any good evidence that it's god?

From there, got any evidence that it's the god of the bible and not the Koran? Or Thor?

[Nick M]

mattnunn said:

Godel clarifies that he means positive to be moral aethestic or pure attribution, not good or bad, they are judgments not properties.

Which is his definition, rather than something which could be tested in some meaningful way, no ? So why is one man's definition any more valid than another's ? It just happens to be that Godel's argument neatly supports a belief, and while it may 'prove' a logical argument, it doesn't actually prove anything in the real world.

mattnunn said:

Taking alone the moral aethestic, it's clarified that it is independant of the structure of the world, i.e without reference. Good and bad are real world judgments based on real world morality, we're not talking about the real world here, this is theory - mathematics.

Would it be fair to summarise this as saying that Godel's argument is but one of an infinite number of possibilities ? Ergo the changes of it being an actual proof associated with what we actually experience are greatly diminished ?

[Nick M]

ChrisGB said:

Belief in a "beyond nature" origin of everything is much less silly than a belief either that there is nothing to explain ( a la Fluffers)

I'm not sure you can say 'much less silly' - both are equally valid points of view to hold, and one requires nothing in the way of convoluted logical arguments to support it.

ChrisGB said:

or that nature explains / creates itself. These are both obviously at the very least incomplete, a less charitable poster might call them delusions.

And what's your issue with an incomplete explanation ? Why the rush to fill 'we don't know yet' with something 'unknowable' ?

ChrisGB said:

And if you are reading this far rather than typing already, then consider my small selection of arguments for god's existence posted a few days ago, of which only mistaken conflation of argument from degrees of perfection with refined OA has been taken up. Where are the replies out there to the books that trash Dawkins, Hitchens, Harris and Dennett such as Peter Williams' A sceptic's guide to atheism or Edward Feser's The last superstition: a refutation of the new atheism..?

Because you were positioning the OA as a proof of god, and the arguments were being considered on their merits.

The other works are heavily built around opinions and biases, and from some quick research (I could not, in all honesty, say I have read them in full) they appear to be the religious equivalent of the US presidential election, i.e. based more on trying to undermine the opposition than pointing out the positives you have to offer. I have little time for such shallow attempts at 'refutation'.

Edited by Nick M on Wednesday 3rd October 05:56

[Nick M]

ChrisGB said:

Well I am flabbergasted.

Join the club...

ChrisGB said:

The only reason you are saying the universe has no purpose where you are presumably saying erosion and evolution do have a purpose (what is it?) is because you have presupposed naturalism, and therefore have to treat it as a different sort of question, which is evasive and inconsistent.

But erosion and evolution don't have a purpose - they are just the mechanism by which things, such as gorges, happen. They are our way of explaining how things came to be, but we don't need them to have a purpose. Does a gorge, caused by erosion, have a purpose ? No, it is simply the product of physics - particles acting on other particles.

The same can be applied to the universe - it has no purpose, it just 'is'.

ChrisGB said:

You either have to say "it is just so" because of a presupposition of naturalism, or you allow the simplest answer, a perfectly simple being. Supernatural can't be null if it explains everything and is itself totally simple.

An extra-natural source / origin of the conditions / laws that allow the beginning of everything is more reasonable than "it just is so".

No, it REALLY isn't !! It is adding complexity where none is required, because your simple answer in turn requires an acceptance of something which cannot be proven one way or the other. It requires faith.

Atheists choose to go with a simpler solution, which is to not believe in something which is EXTREMELY unlikely to exist (for again there is no proof, but neither is there a need for proof...). That non-belief creates faith in the unlikelihood of the existence of gods.

[Nick M]

ChrisGB said:

As for free thinker, I work with a few Malaysians and enjoy their gently mocking use of English too!

[Strangely Brown]

ChrisGB said:

I have said above that you need to make a distinction between knowing that something exists and knowing its nature / essence / what it's really like. I think this is an obvious distinction when applied to a person, even more so when applied to God who we don't see and observe as closely as we can a person.

But if God is unknowable, then how can you know its "nature / essence / what it's really like." Indeed, if it is unknowable, how can you know anything at all about it, ever?

ChrisGB said:

I think this renders the problem of theists believing in unknowable god entirely a pseudo- problem

pseudo |ˈsjuːdəʊ|
adjective
1 not genuine; sham: a pseudo Georgian facade.
2 informal pretentious or insincere: his lyrics sound like pseudo intellectual rubbish.

Synonyms: bogus, sham, phoney, imitation, artificial, mock, ersatz, quasi-, fake, feigned, pretended, false, faux, spurious, counterfeit, fraudulent, deceptive, misleading, assumed, contrived, affected, insincere, pretend, put-on

By pseudo, I assume you actually mean something else? Whatever word you meant to use, it's all just mental masturbation. God is whatever you think it is and whatever you want it to be. i.e. It's all made up. Hmmmm, maybe you *did* mean pseudo?

ChrisGB said:

Plus of course what ever we deduce from God's existence is supplemented by revelation, God communicating something of what he is to us, but there too, that doesn't mean we understand what he is like, we still only speak in metaphors and analogies.

If it is unknowable, how do you know that the alleged revelation is a revelation at all? And even if it were possible to know that it is indeed a revelation, thus contradicting the unknowable, any meaning that is assigned to it is still all just made up and whatever you want it to be.

This is all the very definition of fantasy and, if it were anything other than religion, it would be pretty good grounds for committal.

fantasy |ˈfantəsi, -zi|
noun ( pl. fantasies )
1 [ mass noun ] the faculty or activity of imagining impossible or improbable things: his researches had moved into the realms of fantasy .
• [ count noun ] a fanciful mental image, typically one on which a person often dwells and which reflects their conscious or unconscious wishes: the notion of being independent is a child's ultimate fantasy.
• [ count noun ] an idea with no basis in reality: it is a misleading fantasy to suggest that the bill can be implemented.
• a genre of imaginative fiction involving magic and adventure, especially in a setting other than the real world.

Edited by Strangely Brown on Wednesday 3rd October 11:38

[mattnunn]

Nick M said:

mattnunn said:

Godel clarifies that he means positive to be moral aethestic or pure attribution, not good or bad, they are judgments not properties.

Which is his definition, rather than something which could be tested in some meaningful way, no ? So why is one man's definition any more valid than another's ? It just happens to be that Godel's argument neatly supports a belief, and while it may 'prove' a logical argument, it doesn't actually prove anything in the real world.

This is a primary failing of language, philosophers attempt to use common language rather than make up words and or symbols as science and maths do. It fails regularly, you just have to accept here that the way Godel is using the word Positive is abstracted from it's everyday meaning, it's related but not the same.

My point for taking this turn is to highlight the constant mantra from atheists that belief in a metaphysical reality is illogical or irrational and that a logical positivist or empirical approach to the "exploration" of knowledge and reality is the only way.

Whether it is the only way or not it's not without paradox, contradiction and confusion. What you see isn't always as real as you think and vice versa.

Nick M said:

mattnunn said:

Taking alone the moral aethestic, it's clarified that it is independant of the structure of the world, i.e without reference. Good and bad are real world judgments based on real world morality, we're not talking about the real world here, this is theory - mathematics.

Would it be fair to summarise this as saying that Godel's argument is but one of an infinite number of possibilities ? Ergo the changes of it being an actual proof associated with what we actually experience are greatly diminished ?

Perhaps, you could also say reality is an illusion, I wouldn't live my life by it for fear of turning existence into a hall of mirrors, but at times it would do no harm to consider it. But Godel's argument is logically sound, and rigorous, which either undermines the foundations of logical thinking or points toward it containing a truth.

[Big Al.]

New thread here

http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...