Omniscience and quantum mechanics

[Wiccan_Child]

Well you can do this already, but you simply infer a different outcome than theists. Logically the makeup of the universe favors an intelligent designer, it doesn't need to be God at this point, it could be the Predator for example. With an appearance of design you feel it's not because of a designer, because...?

Because the appearance of design doesn't equate to actual design. Lots of things look designed but aren't. There's a difference between the appearance of design, and actual, genuine hallmarks of design. For example, the eye looks designed, but a careful analysis of it shows that is, in fact, an evolved system. As far as I've seen, ID is based on faulty statistics and personal incredulity.

Honestly speaking I don't think you will accept that. I think you would feel either A) You were hallucinating or B) Someone is doing some pretty impressive sky-writing.

Not the writing is in all languages and has existed for all of recorded history. Perhaps the writing contains scientific or medicinal truths, or extols the truth of a particular religion (Swedenborgism, for instance), or unambiguously details future events in a way that precludes self-fulfilment.

Well this is again something you can do already. You can check what the Bible says and if you find an issue with it you can research it. I mean, is there something that you can think of at the moment that is problematic to you?

Off the top of my head? The historicity of the Flood and the Fall. God's lobotomy between the OT and NT. God being all-merciful and all-loving here, but directly slaughtering hundreds there. The supreme injustice of the Fall. Geocentrism. The ineffective cures for leprosy. The order of Creation between Genesis 1 and 2 (and, indeed, the Creation account itself).
I know these peculiarities have long treatise 'solving' them, which generally boil down to "it's a metaphor", but I've yet to find satisfactory explanations for them. I'm happy to discuss any of the above, but I fear we'll quickly have huge posts flying back and forth if we overextend ourselves .

That's not to say I'm a stubborn ox: I used to think the "Bible says pi is 3" argument was valid, till someone pointed out that it probably referred to either a thick-rimmed bowl, or an approximation.

Well this is unlikely to happen even if we for the moment grant that Christianity is the ultimate truth and reality, because people have the ability to choose and it's a rare thing when everyone chooses unanimously and choice is central to Christianity's focus on a relationship with God.

Nonetheless, such a phenomenon would be pretty persuasive.

At this point, I think that's just an outright lie. There are so many things that point in this direction, not least of which is a book detailing just such a being but you yourself have a myriad of reasons for not accepting not just some of these, but all of these things.

Indeed. You may consider there to be things pointing in that direction, but I don't. For example, the mere existence of a book describing such a being isn't convincing in the slightest. J. R. R. Tolkein wrote at length about ents and orcs, but that's hardly proof they exist.

Well I think it's obvious why, because you are the ones saying that everything we do bring forward is not good enough, at which point logically it's a good move for us to ask, "Ok, what IS good enough?" and usually the answer is nothing. You are going to read that and likely think that isn't true or scoff at it, but really I saw this illustrated so pointedly in a debate I watched between William Lane Craig and I think it was Christopher Hitchens. Craig asked him earlier in the debate what he thinks of personal testimony, and Hitchens said it's next to worthless, people hallucinate, see what they want to see, conspire and lie and so on. Later in the debate Craig asked Hitchens what evidence he personally wants that would convince him. Hitchens went on to describe a scene where he walked out one morning, somewhat similar to your fire in the sky one in fact, where God steps out from behind the clouds in person, points a finger at Hitchens and commands him to stop his incessant logical hoop-jumping and bow down and worship Him. Craig then asked if Hitchens would not not think he was hallucinating and Hitchens said yes, he probably would think that he was. Craig then went on to say that is his entire point, no evidence is good enough. Largely because he feels that there is a element of pride in this debate now, in that to concede a point would be to lose face. It's become an academic conquest, rather than a quest for truth.

Hardly. The fact remains that's entirely possible that, given the nature of the question, it's quite right to say that no evidence is good enough. After all, I may genuinely be hallucinating. If I see God beckoning me over a cliff, but no one else does, I'm hardly going to believe my eyes. That's why we prefer empirical evidence: it's objective enough to preclude hallucinations. That is, if it is a hallucination, then all of our percieved reality must also be a hallucination, at which point nothing we do matters.

Anyway. Flaming words is all very well and good, but do they stand up to scrutiny? If no one else can see them, I'm probably mad. If everyone else can, and we agree on all the details, and we can go up and stick a thermometer in them, and they allow us to read at night, and so on, then it's probable that they're real.

So I think Hitchens was agreeing that subjective evidence for God is fundamentally flawed, since hallucination and delusion are very real, very probable phenomena that can't be ruled out. On the other hand, objective evidence that can be repeatedly, empirically scrutinised is above par.

Now I know you've said you really want to know, but I guess I'm just not sure if I believe that really. I don't think there is anything we can offer, because your predisposition will not allow a divine foot in the door. And if you really feel you aren't predisposed then I would ask my appearance of design question again and I would say to think carefully on your answer and not specifically or only, in light of Christianity or God because I think it's really easy to show disparities there.

Indeed. I remain unconvinced by ID, though I welcome a discussion on it if you wish.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Also, in two weeks yesterday, this thread will be a year old. Yay, thread!

 

[Harry3142]

Since God set all things in motion, including the mathematical formulae that we call Quantum Mechanics, I'd say that he has a few billion years on us in deducing its puzzles.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Since God set all things in motion, including the mathematical formulae that we call Quantum Mechanics, I'd say that he has a few billion years on us in deducing its puzzles.

If he made the universe to obey quantum mechanics, then he made it so that the position and momentum of particles exist according to the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. That is, the uncertainty in a particle's position is related to its momentum; thus, the OP asks what God precisely knows. If quantum mechanics is true, he can't know both position and momentum exactly; there is some fundamental 'blurr'. So what, exactly, does he know?

 

[Digit]

There's a difference between the appearance of design, and actual, genuine hallmarks of design. For example, the eye looks designed, but a careful analysis of it shows that is, in fact, an evolved system. As far as I've seen, ID is based on faulty statistics and personal incredulity.

Well, yes and no. Whilst some things can look designed, but may not be, I don't think the eye isn't a good example of that however. To determine if something is the product of intelligent design you have to ask if there is a high probability of it occurring naturally, and does it exhibit an independently given pattern. For example if we find an axe on the beach, we know that chances of such an item occurring naturally are incredibly low, and it matches a given independent pattern. I'm not hung up on saying the eye is designed or not, I was talking about the universe and it's 'settings' as they were and are. They match an independent pattern - in that we know what settings are required for complex life, they also match the improbability requirement in that such settings to occur naturally are so improbable as to fall into the realms of practical impossibility. The most obvious and simple explanation is to say that the universe was designed to support complex life.

Not the writing is in all languages and has existed for all of recorded history. Perhaps the writing contains scientific or medicinal truths, or extols the truth of a particular religion (Swedenborgism, for instance), or unambiguously details future events in a way that precludes self-fulfilment.

Wiccan_Child, I have to point out that what you are asking for here is dangerously close to the Bible - possibly on purpose? Anyhow, this is precisely my point really, writing in the sky isn't enough, it must have existed for all time, it must be in all languages, it must extol truths and etc etc. If we were to live in such a climate and culture, I would venture you would find further reasons to doubt the all knowing fiery sky writing. It won't end Wiccan_Child, surely you have to see that what you are asking is not only unreasonable, but also insatiable? Like the patient who thought he was dead, when the doctor had him convinced dead people don't bleed, he pricked the patient and the patient said, "Oh... so dead people do bleed!" there is nothing, that will convince you because, and I may be going out on a limb here, I don't think you want to believe in God. As audacious as that sounds, it doesn't seem too far fetched a theory considering others I've spoken too. The idea is a scary one for you as it is for them, shrouded in ignorance, stupidity, oppressive rules and weird practices and obligations, and I think most of all, you find it irrelevant as you feel you can live quite happily without this idea of God.

Off the top of my head? The historicity of the Flood and the Fall.

Well depending on what you mean by 'the fall', I would say that neither are central to the Christian faith. The fall is central only in respects to the outcome, not the mechanics, and so if you have issues with talking snakes, then you can read and study those passages and I think you will find a conclusion you can accept. There are many views on both and I find some weaker than others.

God's lobotomy between the OT and NT. God being all-merciful and all-loving here, but directly slaughtering hundreds there. The supreme injustice of the Fall. Geocentrism. The ineffective cures for leprosy.

Ok so some of these seem to be 'God and evil' related, others like Geocentrism are, in my opinion anyhow just red-herrings, the Bible doesn't teach Geocentrism, the early church did, but Galileo - a Christian mind - fixed it, in accordance with the Bible. Leprosy I can't remember the specifics but at this stage in things I really don't think it's that important.

The order of Creation between Genesis 1 and 2 (and, indeed, the Creation account itself).

The order is identical and the passages don't deal with the same thing. Genesis 2 is not a re-count, it's a reference.

I know these peculiarities have long treatise 'solving' them, which generally boil down to "it's a metaphor"

I think that's a gross over-simplification of things. As I was telling someone else the other day, you can't arbitrarily decide what is and isn't a metaphor. There are methods and ways to divine what the passages and texts are talking of and in what forms and using what linguistic techniques. Things like the placement of subject, object and verb, things like word use, sentence structure and so on. To be honest, I find the entire process pretty tedious and boring, so I tend to find someone who seems like he has the right of it, and go with what they say. Not just a random someone, I mean a scholar, professor and theologian.

That's not to say I'm a stubborn ox: I used to think the "Bible says pi is 3" argument was valid, till someone pointed out that it probably referred to either a thick-rimmed bowl, or an approximation.

Well not stubborn perhaps - but unreasonable certainly, I would venture. I mean, you want giant, eternal, localized, truth-extolling fiery-sky-writing before you will consider belief in God. This totally aside from the culture and world that would create, where such a thing wouldn't actually be that special, since it's been there forever not to mention how impractical that is, or in fact how close that is to the Bible itself, sans the fire of course.

Nonetheless, such a phenomenon would be pretty persuasive.

Well I don't agree, and if you think about it I don't think you even agree. These things become quickly trivialized and taken for granted. I think you place too much emphasis on unimportant things like some sort of magic-proof-bullet, and overlook what has been given to you already in the form of the Bible. I know you have issues there, but it seems like they are not unsolvable, they are specific and a few are quite pertinent - I mean if you wish to be academic you can pursue things like pi being 3, rabbits chewing cud etc, but I think they will all end up as your inquiry into pi being 3.

Indeed. You may consider there to be things pointing in that direction, but I don't. For example, the mere existence of a book describing such a being isn't convincing in the slightest. J. R. R. Tolkein wrote at length about ents and orcs, but that's hardly proof they exist.

This is an arbitrary analogy. Atheists are famous for doing this. You are trying to say, "People write about all sorts of things, doesn't mean they are real." and that's arbitrary, a fantasy book is not the same as an historical account - you may ask why is the Bible an historical account rather than a fantasy book and then you need to look into the authors, how they wrote it, why they wrote it, the culture at the time and their claims and historical evidences. I mean, none of the things you hit on are very small subjects to be honest, but your method of discerning what is valuable knowledge and what isn't, is way wrong. You say you aren't convinced by a book saying God exists blah blah etc, well that's fair enough, but the very nature of this, collection of books really, is such that it carries a lot of weight with it. Out of all our (mankind's) ancient historical documents, it's the most well-supported and substantiated that there is. So if you are unconvinced by a mere reading, at the very least it demands to be taken very seriously. I also don't think it takes a rocket-scientist to see the virtual truths in it and it's message, ie hope and salvation. Those are things to desire certainly. Every wrong righted, every tear wiped clean and so on.

Hardly. The fact remains that's entirely possible that, given the nature of the question, it's quite right to say that no evidence is good enough.

If you believed this, you would not be here. Clearly there is evidence you will consider, but to say that you should not be the ones to define it, is wrong and I think you know that. If I want a drink, I specify what drink I wish to receive. If you want evidence, you specify what sort of evidence you want, it's as clear cut as that.

After all, I may genuinely be hallucinating. If I see God beckoning me over a cliff, but no one else does, I'm hardly going to believe my eyes. That's why we prefer empirical evidence: it's objective enough to preclude hallucinations. That is, if it is a hallucination, then all of our percieved reality must also be a hallucination, at which point nothing we do matters.

I like the way you put that, and I agree. I have no objection to preferring empirical evidence, but I do object to believing it has a monopoly over things. It does not, it has weaknesses and flaws, it can be wrong, it can be misleading, and it can be interpreted different ways and finally it has absolutely no ability to provide results for some specific things.

Anyway. Flaming words is all very well and good, but do they stand up to scrutiny? If no one else can see them, I'm probably mad. If everyone else can, and we agree on all the details, and we can go up and stick a thermometer in them, and they allow us to read at night, and so on, then it's probable that they're real.

Sure you can, but you saying you want fiery words is analogous to the scientist saying he wants a black-hole in a box, or a time-machine, or whatever specific personal proof he thinks and feels is best.

So I think Hitchens was agreeing that subjective evidence for God is fundamentally flawed, since hallucination and delusion are very real, very probable phenomena that can't be ruled out. On the other hand, objective evidence that can be repeatedly, empirically scrutinised is above par.

Well you can watch the debate yourself, he was specifically asked what evidence he would accept for belief in God. He gave it, and then was asked if he had that evidence would he think that he was instead hallucinating, and he said yes. I mean, I don't think I can make my point much clearer.

Indeed. I remain unconvinced by ID, though I welcome a discussion on it if you wish.

Well I've asked/asserted my point right at the top of this post again I think.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Well, yes and no. Whilst some things can look designed, but may not be, I don't think the eye isn't a good example of that however. To determine if something is the product of intelligent design you have to ask if there is a high probability of it occurring naturally, and does it exhibit an independently given pattern. For example if we find an axe on the beach, we know that chances of such an item occurring naturally are incredibly low, and it matches a given independent pattern. I'm not hung up on saying the eye is designed or not, I was talking about the universe and it's 'settings' as they were and are. They match an independent pattern - in that we know what settings are required for complex life, they also match the improbability requirement in that such settings to occur naturally are so improbable as to fall into the realms of practical impossibility. The most obvious and simple explanation is to say that the universe was designed to support complex life.

I'm not so sure we do know what settings are required for life. As it stands, we only know of life on Earth. Indeed, since we ourselves are alive, it stands to reason that, wherever we find ourselves, the universe must be conducive to life, whether by design or chance.

Further, I would appeal to life's versatility in that life isn't that hard to make, for the same reasons it's not that hard to win the lottery - the only obstacle for both is making a single quantity very large indeed. For life, it's the abundance of semi-organic molecules (ammonia, nitrogen, etc). For the lottery, it's the number of tickets you buy.

So, I wouldn't say that the universe is suited for life, but rather that life is suited for the universe. It also doesn't help that we simply don't know what, if anything, the universe could be like. Is it even possible to change the settings of the universe?

Wiccan_Child, I have to point out that what you are asking for here is dangerously close to the Bible - possibly on purpose?

Yes - I was taking claims used to justify the authenticity of various religious texts. I don't believe the claims are true, but, if they were, they'd certainly be persuasive.

Anyhow, this is precisely my point really, writing in the sky isn't enough, it must have existed for all time, it must be in all languages, it must extol truths and etc etc. If we were to live in such a climate and culture, I would venture you would find further reasons to doubt the all knowing fiery sky writing. It won't end Wiccan_Child, surely you have to see that what you are asking is not only unreasonable, but also insatiable? Like the patient who thought he was dead, when the doctor had him convinced dead people don't bleed, he pricked the patient and the patient said, "Oh... so dead people do bleed!" there is nothing, that will convince you because, and I may be going out on a limb here, I don't think you want to believe in God. As audacious as that sounds, it doesn't seem too far fetched a theory considering others I've spoken too. The idea is a scary one for you as it is for them, shrouded in ignorance, stupidity, oppressive rules and weird practices and obligations, and I think most of all, you find it irrelevant as you feel you can live quite happily without this idea of God.

Well, I'll grant you one thing: it's certainly audacious . I've never understood why theists think atheists are afraid of God, or even of belief in God. Why would we fear an all-powerful being who created us and loves us? If nothing else, I would prefer it if there was a God, since then I would have someone to blame for all the bad things in the world. And even if I was afraid of there being a God, I wouldn't let that stop me; I'm afraid of many things, but I don't close my eyes and pretend they don't exist.

Well depending on what you mean by 'the fall', I would say that neither are central to the Christian faith. The fall is central only in respects to the outcome, not the mechanics, and so if you have issues with talking snakes, then you can read and study those passages and I think you will find a conclusion you can accept. There are many views on both and I find some weaker than others.

Ok so some of these seem to be 'God and evil' related, others like Geocentrism are, in my opinion anyhow just red-herrings, the Bible doesn't teach Geocentrism, the early church did, but Galileo - a Christian mind - fixed it, in accordance with the Bible. Leprosy I can't remember the specifics but at this stage in things I really don't think it's that important.

The order is identical and the passages don't deal with the same thing. Genesis 2 is not a re-count, it's a reference.

I think that's a gross over-simplification of things.

As your own explanations above demonstrate, it's not. The Fall? A metaphor. Verses supporting geocentrism? Metaphors. The cure for leprosy? A metaphor.

As I was telling someone else the other day, you can't arbitrarily decide what is and isn't a metaphor. There are methods and ways to divine what the passages and texts are talking of and in what forms and using what linguistic techniques. Things like the placement of subject, object and verb, things like word use, sentence structure and so on. To be honest, I find the entire process pretty tedious and boring, so I tend to find someone who seems like he has the right of it, and go with what they say. Not just a random someone, I mean a scholar, professor and theologian.

I find most theists will deem something a metaphor if a literal interpretation is demonstrably wrong. For example, most Christians interpret Genesis as allegory, since a literal reading doesn't sit well with them - it jives with what they know about science, or God, or what have you. Whether or not the authors intended for that to be the case is another question. Personally, I think Genesis was written allegorically, while things like a flat, unmoving Earth were intended to be taken literally.

Well not stubborn perhaps - but unreasonable certainly, I would venture. I mean, you want giant, eternal, localized, truth-extolling fiery-sky-writing before you will consider belief in God.

Extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence. And besides, I already consider God - I just consider him non-existent.

Well I don't agree, and if you think about it I don't think you even agree. These things become quickly trivialized and taken for granted. I think you place too much emphasis on unimportant things like some sort of magic-proof-bullet, and overlook what has been given to you already in the form of the Bible. I know you have issues there, but it seems like they are not unsolvable, they are specific and a few are quite pertinent - I mean if you wish to be academic you can pursue things like pi being 3, rabbits chewing cud etc, but I think they will all end up as your inquiry into pi being 3.

You asked what would convince me, and I gave you some examples off the top of my head. Perhaps they wouldn't, in hindsight, convince me - as with the flaming words example, I had to refine it. The point is, if God is an omnipotent being with more knowledge and power than I can conceive, it is not impossible for him to convince me of his existence. After all, I'm convinced of your existence, Digit, and I've never even seen you!

This is an arbitrary analogy. Atheists are famous for doing this. You are trying to say, "People write about all sorts of things, doesn't mean they are real." and that's arbitrary, a fantasy book is not the same as an historical account - you may ask why is the Bible an historical account rather than a fantasy book and then you need to look into the authors, how they wrote it, why they wrote it, the culture at the time and their claims and historical evidences. I mean, none of the things you hit on are very small subjects to be honest, but your method of discerning what is valuable knowledge and what isn't, is way wrong. You say you aren't convinced by a book saying God exists blah blah etc, well that's fair enough, but the very nature of this, collection of books really, is such that it carries a lot of weight with it. Out of all our (mankind's) ancient historical documents, it's the most well-supported and substantiated that there is. So if you are unconvinced by a mere reading, at the very least it demands to be taken very seriously. I also don't think it takes a rocket-scientist to see the virtual truths in it and it's message, ie hope and salvation. Those are things to desire certainly. Every wrong righted, every tear wiped clean and so on.

Sure, but that doesn't mean it's true. Like I said above, I believe what's true, not what I want to be true. The Bible may have a nice message, it may not, but that's irrelevant: all I care about is whether it's right. Thus far, I've seen nothing that suggests it's right about anything other than the mundane.

If you believed this, you would not be here. Clearly there is evidence you will consider, but to say that you should not be the ones to define it, is wrong and I think you know that. If I want a drink, I specify what drink I wish to receive. If you want evidence, you specify what sort of evidence you want, it's as clear cut as that.

Not really. There are theists who proclaim the Bible (or the Qu'ran, or whatever) is demonstrably true - it is them who made the claim of a demonstration, not us. It doesn't matter what evidence they present, so long as they present genuine evidence.

I like the way you put that, and I agree. I have no objection to preferring empirical evidence, but I do object to believing it has a monopoly over things. It does not, it has weaknesses and flaws, it can be wrong, it can be misleading, and it can be interpreted different ways and finally it has absolutely no ability to provide results for some specific things.

Nonetheless, it works. I've yet to see an alternative to acquiring knowledge that isn't hideously flawed. For example, 'spiritual revelation' is hopeless on two counts: first, it is in no way guarenteed that the 'revelation' isn't just a construct of your mind, and second, even if we grant that the revelation is indeed from a spiritual being, there's no guarentee that said being is actually telling the truth - a capricious entity is no more unlikely than a helpful one.

Sure you can, but you saying you want fiery words is analogous to the scientist saying he wants a black-hole in a box, or a time-machine, or whatever specific personal proof he thinks and feels is best.

Indeed. You asked what would convince me, and I gave you a (rather spontaneous) answer.

Well you can watch the debate yourself, he was specifically asked what evidence he would accept for belief in God. He gave it, and then was asked if he had that evidence would he think that he was instead hallucinating, and he said yes. I mean, I don't think I can make my point much clearer.

Meh, I'm not a fan of Hitchens at the best of times. Now Richard Dawkins, or Stephen Fry, or Sam Harris, I can watch them till the cows come home.

 

[Digit]

Oh God it's finally happened, I had to split it into two-parts o.o

Part Uno!

======

I'm not so sure we do know what settings are required for life. As it stands, we only know of life on Earth.

You work with what you have, not with what you haven't. What you are doing here is like a scientist saying, "Well I'm not sure what I can do with these results, because I'm only working with Earth's periodic table, there could be entirely different systems on other planets we've not discovered yet." I hope you see how this is an irrelevant line of inquiry. If we discover life elsewhere then we factor it in to things not prior.

Further, I would appeal to life's versatility in that life isn't that hard to make, for the same reasons it's not that hard to win the lottery - the only obstacle for both is making a single quantity very large indeed. For life, it's the abundance of semi-organic molecules (ammonia, nitrogen, etc). For the lottery, it's the number of tickets you buy.

Ok well I would not be knowledgeable enough to comment on whether it's easy or difficult, though I do hear this claim a lot and yet we still haven't managed it ourselves. Anyhow, my response to this is that it too is irrelevant. An axe isn't hard to make, but that doesn't mean it isn't designed for a specific purpose.

So, I wouldn't say that the universe is suited for life, but rather that life is suited for the universe.

Well, ok. But that's the same thing. You just call it by a different name to try and reduce the implications. It's like saying an axe isn't suitable for chopping wood, wood is merely suitable for being chopped by an axe - it does nothing to address if the axe is specifically designed by a designer or not.

It also doesn't help that we simply don't know what, if anything, the universe could be like. Is it even possible to change the settings of the universe?

Again, this is irrelevant to whether we see design or not. I get the feeling you are lost in a see of possibilities which is awesome to behold, but doesn't help you focus on a single issue. :>

Well, I'll grant you one thing: it's certainly audacious . I've never understood why theists think atheists are afraid of God, or even of belief in God. Why would we fear an all-powerful being who created us and loves us? If nothing else, I would prefer it if there was a God, since then I would have someone to blame for all the bad things in the world. And even if I was afraid of there being a God, I wouldn't let that stop me; I'm afraid of many things, but I don't close my eyes and pretend they don't exist.

Well there are a few things here:

I've never understood why theists think atheists are afraid of God, or even of belief in God. Why would we fear an all-powerful being who created us and loves us?

Because it changes things in a very large, very drastic way. Also what about all the weird things Christians do? Talking to invisible entity's, tithing, prayer, abstinence from sex before marriage, eating symbols of Christ's flesh and body and even going to church are, for a non-theist, things they really, really don't want to do. I know, I was a non-theist once. In fact even a few years into my Christian life a lot of those things felt like rituals without meaning, and I didn't really like them or understand their significance or power. Suddenly your entire life changes - a non-theist can choose whether he wants to start thinking about his actions fully, or not. A theist has no choice, as he is commanded to do so. He is told to test everything and only hold on to the good. What organisations do you support, where do you buy things from, do you donate both money or other substantial things like blood. Where do you eat, where do they source their meat from, are the animals treated well and so on. Also how do your actions convey your beliefs to others, do you pirate things and exchange them, do you have sex outside of marriage, what messages do these convey to people who are both Christian and non-Christian alike. Sin can be both by action as well as representation. The more you think about these things, the more areas of your life begin to change and the impacts on an atheist's life are immense. So that is why I and others whom I have conversed with here openly, have expressed a very strong resistance to belief in God, not because of the evidence, but more perhaps for the impact.

If nothing else, I would prefer it if there was a God, since then I would have someone to blame for all the bad things in the world.

Unless you have some sort of divine cause view where God is responsible for everything by nature of having created the first human, then this is grossly unfair. I don't really think it's relevant, but to me it's at least telling that you say you would at least have someone to blame for the bad, yet don't mention anyone to praise for the good...

And even if I was afraid of there being a God, I wouldn't let that stop me; I'm afraid of many things, but I don't close my eyes and pretend they don't exist.

You may not close your eyes and pretend they don't exist, but those are usually tangible known things. Such as being afraid of spiders, no one who is afraid just closes their eyes and pretends there are no spiders in the world. So this is not analogous, you are talking about something that leaves room for doubt as to it's veracity and in this case a fear of change or fear of impact will harden you against that change and acceptance of things which may lead to it. Bertrand Russel, an atheist, said it best, when he said a man will readily believe that which conforms to his own viewpoint and will only accept another if the evidence is overwhelming, and that is where you lie at present. However, that being said, I do think the evidence for God is overwhelming, but that brings me neatly to your next point.

As your own explanations above demonstrate, it's not. The Fall? A metaphor. Verses supporting geocentrism? Metaphors. The cure for leprosy? A metaphor.

Whoa there Buck Rogers. Of course it's an over-simplification. Look what you just did, slapped a 'metaphor' label on everything, even things I didn't comment on specifically. I mean how can you say it's not an over-simplification when in the same breath you do precisely what I'm accusing you of? o.o;

I find most theists will deem something a metaphor if a literal interpretation is demonstrably wrong. For example, most Christians interpret Genesis as allegory, since a literal reading doesn't sit well with them - it jives with what they know about science, or God, or what have you.

Once again, I will repeat that you cannot do this. You cannot simply choose to interpret something in a specific way when it's context is vanilla/neutral. Most Christians have studied the opening passages and have come to an understanding that it is incredibly probable that it is an historical account of creation from the perspective of God that has been simplified given the enormity of the actual time-frame and complex processes at work in addition to the language used. Now really, this is too hardly crucial, let's say Bob in 500AD believed it was an actual eye-witness account of the creation of the universe and mankind, well, so what? There is nothing hinging on it, and when we expand our knowledge later on and understand more about biology and astronomy and come to feel the things described need a lot of time, and we revisit the texts and restudy them to verify our beliefs and find the time-frames don't align, and find the word used for 'day' in other areas of the Bible where it's used in reference to varying lengths of time and so on, and we refine our understanding of scripture, again, so what? That is just how things work, it's progress towards ultimate truth and all the while those followers of Christ and God are no worse the wear for it.

Whether or not the authors intended for that to be the case is another question. Personally, I think Genesis was written allegorically, while things like a flat, unmoving Earth were intended to be taken literally.

Well you are arbitrarily assigning interpretations to texts, which is a fallacious method to employ when trying to ascertain the ultimate truth which you expressed you wish to know. Why do this, is my question?

Extraordinary claims required extraordinary evidence. And besides, I already consider God - I just consider him non-existent.

Well, let's assume I grant this initially, in which case I would say that - as long as you don't employ fallacious methods - there is incredible evidence available, starting with the universe, as the Bible says, "The heavens declare God's glory." There are also good reasons for not viewing it through a single empirical lens as I stated, it is imperfect and it can be completely wrong and misleading and lastly, there are things it has no ability to determine whatsoever - ie science is totally blind to some truths. However as you may guess by now, I don't accept that extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence, why? Why does the evidence have to be super-amazing-fantastic to be believed? In fact science is completely guilty of the opposite, of positing completely extraordinary things without any evidence - maybe you remember dark matter, the cosmological constant. The cosmological model we had actually didn't work at all, and to make it work, scientists required some sort of constant in the universe, and boom, there you go, dark matter. There was no evidence at the time for it's existence and no reason to think it existed other than the fact that our cosmological model was broken. Now you could say well they were right to do so, as since they discovered dark matter and everything is back in working order, but this isn't the point. You cannot place requirements on evidence, you need to work with what you have.

 

[Digit]

Part Duo!

=======

You asked what would convince me, and I gave you some examples off the top of my head. Perhaps they wouldn't, in hindsight, convince me - as with the flaming words example, I had to refine it.

Well I hope you get a sense of disembodied deja-vu here, since this is precisely what Hitchens did and then also said, "Well, maybe that wouldn't convince me." Just take a second to re-read that and ask yourself if your refined version would really convince yourself. It's a rhetorical question really, because I think if you were honest you would find an endless sea of revisions and this totally discounts the sociological impact of such giant fiery-sky-writing, the actual social climate would change and in such a universe where this writing exists, I would wager you would be there, or some simulacrum of you, claiming why it wasn't good enough.

The point is, if God is an omnipotent being with more knowledge and power than I can conceive, it is not impossible for him to convince me of his existence. After all, I'm convinced of your existence, Digit, and I've never even seen you!

I'm shocked you've not clicked on my photo...

Well, probability-wise people talking to you over the internet is not uncommon, so you have little reason to doubt my existence. I think the issue here is that you believe God should convince you, when the Bible says precisely the opposite. It says draw near to God, and God will draw near to you. It leaves that choice open. You want a definite sign, something that will leave no doubt whatsoever, I would ask who are you to demand this, when even Christians such as myself suffer doubts? I would also venture that God doing so, would violate our free-will and ability to choose, as C.S. Lewis put it, "You cannot choose to lie down, when it's become impossible to stand up."

Sure, but that doesn't mean it's true. Like I said above, I believe what's true, not what I want to be true. The Bible may have a nice message, it may not, but that's irrelevant: all I care about is whether it's right. Thus far, I've seen nothing that suggests it's right about anything other than the mundane.

Well, I think this is dodging your previous claim, you said that Tolkien wrote about mystical beings which don't exist, and you don't believe that they exist just because they are written about. Well nor should you, unless Tolkien said that they exist in which case you should start putting that claim to the test. Which is my point, in context the two things in question are completely different. One is a book claiming to be an historical account of God's interaction with mankind and the other is a book claiming to be a fantasy story.

As to your comment about only mundane things being mentioned in the Bible, I think this is just a case of a very shallow reading of the Bible. the Bible is not an arbitrary book, it's a manual for life, with commandments, parables and teachings on how to live in relation to others. It teaches ultimate humility, ultimate sacrifice, ultimate love, ultimate compassion and ultimate truth. In fact, I would say there is nothing mundane in the Bible. In fact scientific studies into sociology and human interactions recently discovered that taking revenge on someone for being wronged, actually makes you feel physically worse, than actually being wronged. Not only that, but it has negative mental and emotional impacts too, I was amazed to read this, and just felt great confidence in God, knowing that when He said that evil begets evil.

Not really. There are theists who proclaim the Bible (or the Qu'ran, or whatever) is demonstrably true - it is them who made the claim of a demonstration, not us. It doesn't matter what evidence they present, so long as they present genuine evidence.

I think you are dodging the claim again. You said that the onus should not be on you to claim what evidence you will accept, whereas I said it is and gave the drink example. If you wish to claim something different, in that if someone says the Bible is demonstrably true, then it's up to them to present evidence, well I don't disagree - but I cannot help you if you will not consider any of that evidence.

Nonetheless, it works. I've yet to see an alternative to acquiring knowledge that isn't hideously flawed. For example, 'spiritual revelation' is hopeless on two counts: first, it is in no way guarenteed that the 'revelation' isn't just a construct of your mind, and second, even if we grant that the revelation is indeed from a spiritual being, there's no guarentee that said being is actually telling the truth - a capricious entity is no more unlikely than a helpful one.

Well this is two things. First up I didn't claim spiritual revelation is reliable or the best method, so I don't really feel compelled to comment on that, secondly, in regards to empirical method I think William Lane Craig says it well, from 1:15 onwards: YouTube - Dr. William Lane Craig humiliates Dr. Peter Atkins please forgive the title of that video, I didn't name it or think it's very respectful. Anyway, I hope you can see how I don't disagree that scientific method or empirical data are not reliable, I just feel that giving them a monopoly is pretty much summed up by saying that specialization breeds weakness. Ironically, if the early church had studied the Bible closer and listened to Galileo who had done that AND used scientific method, there would never had been that fiasco.

Indeed. You asked what would convince me, and I gave you a (rather spontaneous) answer.

Ok well I appreciate your honesty in that regard, I am quite happy to give you all the time in the world to come up with a more robust answer, but if you take a moment to think about it, I would be quite surprised if you feel there is any point as currently, I don't think there is any evidence that is acceptable, and this is putting aside the entire free-will issue I raised earlier.

Meh, I'm not a fan of Hitchens at the best of times. Now Richard Dawkins, or Stephen Fry, or Sam Harris, I can watch them till the cows come home.

I'm horrified you mention Dawkins! o.o; I feel at least Hitchens is sincere, and to be honest I feel he really does have genuine issues with God and evil, most of his other issues he doesn't drive home and is willing to give or take on, but when it comes to suffering in the world, he really makes his point and I can empathize with him. Dawkins though... [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]... cmon, really? I tried to read some of his books, and this criticism is most notable in The God Delusion, where he really came across as frothing at the mouth and kind of rabid, like, it was a good few pages in before he had finished insulting God, and delivered his first argument. I can't remember it offhand, but it was one of those:

1) This.
2) That.
3) ...
4) Profit!

Things, where 'profit' == 'God therefore doesn't exist'. I just couldn't muscle through the rest, and I'm also not that hung up on the idea of evolution being the mechanism by which we were created. Also Hitchens can be genuinely funny and charming at times, and he will go anywhere and debate anyone. He did a panel debate, 4 Christians at a Christian convention and him, which I had a lot of respect for. Whereas I've seen Dawkins propositioned on numerous times to debate for example William Lane Craig who is my current hero, and he has declined each time. Once he said he don't think it will look good on his CV (you should really see who Craig has debated to put this into context lol) and the second time he said he doesn't debate Creationists or people who are 'simply good at debating, they need to have done something. I'm very busy.' and for something with his mouth, I really think that's just cowardice, as he knows he is going to get schooled.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

1 of 2

You work with what you have, not with what you haven't. What you are doing here is like a scientist saying, "Well I'm not sure what I can do with these results, because I'm only working with Earth's periodic table, there could be entirely different systems on other planets we've not discovered yet." I hope you see how this is an irrelevant line of inquiry. If we discover life elsewhere then we factor it in to things not prior.

Indeed. So it's fallacious to argue that life is impossibly specific, when we don't know the extent of what constitutes 'life'. Perhaps very specific conditions are required for life to arise naturally, to the extent that an intelligence is required. Perhaps the conditions are so broad that life is virtually inevitable on every rocky planet in the entire universe. We can't comment on that possibility, even though it's very tempting to: we just don't know enough.

Ok well I would not be knowledgeable enough to comment on whether it's easy or difficult, though I do hear this claim a lot and yet we still haven't managed it ourselves. Anyhow, my response to this is that it too is irrelevant. An axe isn't hard to make, but that doesn't mean it isn't designed for a specific purpose.

True, but neither evolution nor abiogenesis are specifically arguments against design, in that sense. Rather, they explain how things could naturally form. That an omnipotent being could have poofed them into being is neither here nor there: no one disputes that.

Well, ok. But that's the same thing. You just call it by a different name to try and reduce the implications. It's like saying an axe isn't suitable for chopping wood, wood is merely suitable for being chopped by an axe - it does nothing to address if the axe is specifically designed by a designer or not.

I disagree. Saying wood is suited for being chopped by axes implies that the axe came first, and wood was reformed for a specific purpose. Saying that the axe is suited for chopping wood implies that the structure of the axe came after the structure of wood.
Likewise, saying life is suited to the universe implies that life adapts itself to whatever the universe happens to be: the latter precedes the former. Saying the universe is suited to life implies the universe was specially made for life, or is specifically set up to be conducive to life.
But perhaps this is just a pointless, semantic quibble.

Because it changes things in a very large, very drastic way. [snip for brevity] So that is why I and others whom I have conversed with here openly, have expressed a very strong resistance to belief in God, not because of the evidence, but more perhaps for the impact.

I don't doubt that belief in God changes you. Depending on which deity or religion you convert to, various rites and rituals become meaningful. I used to be Wiccan, and I still carry the hallmarks, if you like. I salute the Sun, kiss the Moon, I have a greater appreciation for nature, etc. I'm not afraid of ritual, since I know full well the appeal they can have.

Unless you have some sort of divine cause view where God is responsible for everything by nature of having created the first human, then this is grossly unfair. I don't really think it's relevant, but to me it's at least telling that you say you would at least have someone to blame for the bad, yet don't mention anyone to praise for the good...

Because the good is by human hand. God's inaction allows evil to happen, but his inaction doesn't allow for good to happen (should I praise him for deigning to allow doctors to heal people?). We punish people when their inaction causes evil, but we don't praise them when it causes good. If a parent beats a child twice a day, would you praise them for not beating them a third?

You may not close your eyes and pretend they don't exist, but those are usually tangible known things. Such as being afraid of spiders, no one who is afraid just closes their eyes and pretends there are no spiders in the world. So this is not analogous, you are talking about something that leaves room for doubt as to it's veracity and in this case a fear of change or fear of impact will harden you against that change and acceptance of things which may lead to it. Bertrand Russel, an atheist, said it best, when he said a man will readily believe that which conforms to his own viewpoint and will only accept another if the evidence is overwhelming, and that is where you lie at present. However, that being said, I do think the evidence for God is overwhelming, but that brings me neatly to your next point.

I do so enjoy continuity

Whoa there Buck Rogers. Of course it's an over-simplification. Look what you just did, slapped a 'metaphor' label on everything, even things I didn't comment on specifically. I mean how can you say it's not an over-simplification when in the same breath you do precisely what I'm accusing you of? o.o;

Are you saying you interpret any of those verses literally? The four corners of the world, the bird blood curing leprosy, the flaming swords guarding paradise? You're an intelligent individual, and I daresay you recognise them as being at best parables to convey morals, and at worst simply false. In other words, metaphors.
Yes, it's a simplification, but I don't think it's overly so.

Once again, I will repeat that you cannot do this. You cannot simply choose to interpret something in a specific way when it's context is vanilla/neutral.

Nonetheless, most Christians do. Most Christians I have talked to argue that nature is the ultimate expression of God's word, and how we interpret the Bible should reflect this: if an interpretation is at odds with God's created reality, that interpretation is demonstrably wrong (e.g., geocentrism). This assumes that the Bible is indeed God's word, and that the author's intent reflects this. Thus, deducing the author's intent must involve the natural world: we cannot say the author intended such-and-such a verse to be interpreted as a literal, historical account, if such an interpretation is at odds with reality.

As an atheist, I don't really care how people interpret the Bible, but it's an interesting psychology nonetheless.

Most Christians have studied the opening passages and have come to an understanding that it is incredibly probable that it is an historical account of creation from the perspective of God that has been simplified given the enormity of the actual time-frame and complex processes at work in addition to the language used. Now really, this is too hardly crucial, let's say Bob in 500AD believed it was an actual eye-witness account of the creation of the universe and mankind, well, so what? There is nothing hinging on it, and when we expand our knowledge later on and understand more about biology and astronomy and come to feel the things described need a lot of time, and we revisit the texts and restudy them to verify our beliefs and find the time-frames don't align, and find the word used for 'day' in other areas of the Bible where it's used in reference to varying lengths of time and so on, and we refine our understanding of scripture, again, so what? That is just how things work, it's progress towards ultimate truth and all the while those followers of Christ and God are no worse the wear for it.

If you recall, my original point was that an inerrant, infallible, scientifically and medically accurate religious text supported by all archaeological fields would be good evidence of a divine author (with some added caveats). That the Bible isn't an example of such a text is of no concern to me.

Well you are arbitrarily assigning interpretations to texts, which is a fallacious method to employ when trying to ascertain the ultimate truth which you expressed you wish to know. Why do this, is my question?

Why interpret verses? So that I might better understand their origin. Ultimately, I don't believe the Bible to be divinely inspired, or authored, or whatever, so I don't believe interpreting it in the right way won't reveal and 'hidden truth'. Perhaps I'm wrong, and perhaps it will. But so might the Qu'ran.

Well, let's assume I grant this initially, in which case I would say that - as long as you don't employ fallacious methods - there is incredible evidence available, starting with the universe, as the Bible says, "The heavens declare God's glory." There are also good reasons for not viewing it through a single empirical lens as I stated, it is imperfect and it can be completely wrong and misleading and lastly, there are things it has no ability to determine whatsoever - ie science is totally blind to some truths. However as you may guess by now, I don't accept that extraordinary claims do require extraordinary evidence, why? Why does the evidence have to be super-amazing-fantastic to be believed? In fact science is completely guilty of the opposite, of positing completely extraordinary things without any evidence - maybe you remember dark matter, the cosmological constant. The cosmological model we had actually didn't work at all, and to make it work, scientists required some sort of constant in the universe, and boom, there you go, dark matter. There was no evidence at the time for it's existence and no reason to think it existed other than the fact that our cosmological model was broken. Now you could say well they were right to do so, as since they discovered dark matter and everything is back in working order, but this isn't the point. You cannot place requirements on evidence, you need to work with what you have.

The difference between dark matter and God is that dark matter is not nearly as mysterious as popular culture makes out, and it is very much in the bounds of science. Dark matter is a prime example of scientists doing what scientists do best: positing testable hypotheses for natural phenomena, and then going out and actually testing them. If the cosmological model is true, then dark matter exists. If it doesn't, then it's not. That's a testable fact, entirely within the realm of scientific inquiry.

You say that science is blind to some truths. Well, what truths? Anything which potentially indirectly influence us can be subjected to scientific scrutiny. Ghosts, if they exist, can be scientifically studied. Magic, if real, can be scientifically studied. Even God and miracles can be scientifically studied. Science isn't antithetical to the supernatural; it's indifferent to it. So what truths is science blind to?

 

[Wiccan_Child]

2 of 2

Well, probability-wise people talking to you over the internet is not uncommon, so you have little reason to doubt my existence. I think the issue here is that you believe God should convince you, when the Bible says precisely the opposite. It says draw near to God, and God will draw near to you. It leaves that choice open. You want a definite sign, something that will leave no doubt whatsoever, I would ask who are you to demand this, when even Christians such as myself suffer doubts? I would also venture that God doing so, would violate our free-will and ability to choose, as C.S. Lewis put it, "You cannot choose to lie down, when it's become impossible to stand up."

I don't see why that's an issue. God never gave me a choice about what I believe the colour of the sky to be, and I don't seem to be any worse for wear because of it. I don't think God should convince me of his existence. Rather, I don't think I can be fairly punished for disbelieving in God, least of all by him, when he steadfastly refuses to demonstrate his existence. If God wants me to believe in him, he's welcome to make his existence known. If he doesn't, then I guess it doesn't matter whether I do or not.

As you say, I can readily observe the existence of other people. Descartes' demon aside, that is proof enough for me. Is God incapable of doing the same? Is he unwilling, or indifferent, or reluctant? I consider the appeal to free will to be bunk, since I don't consider irrefutable proof to be a violation of free will, nor do I consider free will to be all that important. Mathematics have irrefutible proof; I cannot in all intellectual honesty deny that 1 + 1 = 2. Has my free will been violated? Am I an unthinking automaton?

In other words, why is it so important for God to hide his existence from us? And even if it is, why would he then turn around and say "Oh, by the way, you need to believe I exist if you don't want to suffer forever"? Admittedly I'm focussing more on Christianity with that latter point, but it's an interesting complication to the whole fiasco: not only does God refuse to prove he exists, he demands we believe in him anyway.

Well, I think this is dodging your previous claim, you said that Tolkien wrote about mystical beings which don't exist, and you don't believe that they exist just because they are written about. Well nor should you, unless Tolkien said that they exist in which case you should start putting that claim to the test. Which is my point, in context the two things in question are completely different. One is a book claiming to be an historical account of God's interaction with mankind and the other is a book claiming to be a fantasy story.

Indeed. But that alone is again not enough to prove either one is write. The author's intent doesn't affect its veracity. I don't doubt the author of Romans 1 wasn't intending to write fiction, but that doesn't prove the text to be at all true.

As to your comment about only mundane things being mentioned in the Bible, I think this is just a case of a very shallow reading of the Bible. the Bible is not an arbitrary book, it's a manual for life, with commandments, parables and teachings on how to live in relation to others. It teaches ultimate humility, ultimate sacrifice, ultimate love, ultimate compassion and ultimate truth. In fact, I would say there is nothing mundane in the Bible. [

I disagree. The Bible talks of Egypt, Israel, the Hebrews, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, King Herod, King David, King Solomon, etc. All of these things are mundane and not immediately spiritual: Egypt is just a place, Herod was just a person. The Bible weaves them into stories involving spiritual things, sure, but they themselves are quite well evidenced. There is no doubt that there really were Pharaohs, just as the Bible describes, but there is considerable doubt as to whether the Red Sea was parted by the hand of God (or staff of Moses).

So the Bible talks of a great many mundane things, most of which have been independently corroborated by contemporary documentation, archaeological evidence, etc. But what strikes me is that the spiritual things, the mana from heaven and so on, aren't corroborated by the evidence.

I think you are dodging the claim again. You said that the onus should not be on you to claim what evidence you will accept, whereas I said it is and gave the drink example. If you wish to claim something different, in that if someone says the Bible is demonstrably true, then it's up to them to present evidence, well I don't disagree - but I cannot help you if you will not consider any of that evidence.

I'll consider any and all evidence put before me as objectively and sceptically as my squishy brain will allow. But I can't guarentee that I'll be instantly swayed to a different point of view. It's rare nowadays I see or hear a new argument for God, and I've studied and discussed the previous at length for the entire time I've been at CF.

Well this is two things. First up I didn't claim spiritual revelation is reliable or the best method, so I don't really feel compelled to comment on that,

No, it was just something I thought someone might claim as an alternative to empiricism.

secondly, in regards to empirical method I think William Lane Craig says it well, from 1:15 onwards: YouTube - Dr. William Lane Craig humiliates Dr. Peter Atkins please forgive the title of that video, I didn't name it or think it's very respectful. Anyway, I hope you can see how I don't disagree that scientific method or empirical data are not reliable, I just feel that giving them a monopoly is pretty much summed up by saying that specialization breeds weakness. Ironically, if the early church had studied the Bible closer and listened to Galileo who had done that AND used scientific method, there would never had been that fiasco.

I would argue that the scientific method alone would have been sufficient. As for the video, Craig lists logic, Descartes' Demon, morality, aesthetics, and, bemusingly, scientific theories, as five examples of rational beliefs that cannot be scientifically justified. I'll go through them in reverse order:

1. Scientific theories are scientifically justified. I don't know how else to say that. Craig claims that the foundational assumption of relativistic mechanics - the consistency of the speed of light in all inertial frames - demonstrates that science is founded upon unjustified assumptions. Well, no: scientists make these assumptions, draw predictions from them, and then go out and test them. Lo and behold, the predictions hold. eventually, we might prove them wrong and have to come up with a better theory.
   I might point out that this is in stark contrast to religion; religion makes dogmatic proclamations of truth and then refuses to budge. There's a reason we have 13,000+ Christian denominations, rather than a single, malleable church.
2. The aesthetic value of something is a human abstraction, a nebulous concept used to refer to a great many things. We can't scientifically deduce the aesthetic value of things because things don't have an intrinsic aesthetic value: it's all in our heads. Indeed, if we knew enough about a person's brain, we could probably predict what they consider to be aesthetic.
3. Morality follows much the same as aesthetics. It's not that it's a rational truth beyond scientific inquiry, it's an ill-defined abstraction. If it's relativist and/or subjective, then there's nothing for science to deduce: morality doesn't exist. If it's absolutist and/or objectivist, then there are hard and fast rules that science can deduce: "Murder is wrong", if objectively true, is a statement known to science.
4. Descartes' Demon is a genuine philosophical problem, and Craig's treatment of it is sloppy. One can either see there being a total lack of evidence, in which case there is no rational stance either way, or one can see there being an abundance of evidence, in which case science itself tells us that the Demon probably doesn't exist.
5. Craig got this one right: logic is beyond the purview of science. But this is a nuance of the definition of science: it's a methodological acquisition of knowledge about the world we live in. The truth of logic is not empirically justified as empiricism presupposes it. We know logic is true because it's self-evident, because it cannot be any other way.

In writing that, I've refined another of my beliefs. Science is a subset of rational and logical thought. Since science is the logic and rationale of the physical world, non-scientific logic and rationale would involve things wholly separate from the physical world. Logic governs the world, but is not specific to the world. Science is descriptive, extending empiricism with logic. Logic itself is prescriptive, telling us what can be, not what is.

And don't worry if none of that makes sense .

Ok well I appreciate your honesty in that regard, I am quite happy to give you all the time in the world to come up with a more robust answer, but if you take a moment to think about it, I would be quite surprised if you feel there is any point as currently, I don't think there is any evidence that is acceptable, and this is putting aside the entire free-will issue I raised earlier.

The 'evidences' I made up are notably non-existent; there are no flaming words, there is no unified religion, etc.

I'm horrified you mention Dawkins! o.o; I feel at least Hitchens is sincere, and to be honest I feel he really does have genuine issues with God and evil, most of his other issues he doesn't drive home and is willing to give or take on, but when it comes to suffering in the world, he really makes his point and I can empathize with him. Dawkins though... [wash my mouth][wash my mouth][wash my mouth]... cmon, really? I tried to read some of his books, and this criticism is most notable in The God Delusion, where he really came across as frothing at the mouth and kind of rabid, like, it was a good few pages in before he had finished insulting God, and delivered his first argument.

The book gets better as you read it. In his The Greatest Show on Earth, my beef with the first chapter was his talk of 'theorum' and 'theorem'. That bored me to tears. The rest is very good, though.

I can't remember it offhand, but it was one of those:

1) This.
2) That.
3) ...
4) Profit!

Things, where 'profit' == 'God therefore doesn't exist'. I just couldn't muscle through the rest, and I'm also not that hung up on the idea of evolution being the mechanism by which we were created. Also Hitchens can be genuinely funny and charming at times, and he will go anywhere and debate anyone. He did a panel debate, 4 Christians at a Christian convention and him, which I had a lot of respect for. Whereas I've seen Dawkins propositioned on numerous times to debate for example William Lane Craig who is my current hero, and he has declined each time. Once he said he don't think it will look good on his CV (you should really see who Craig has debated to put this into context lol) and the second time he said he doesn't debate Creationists or people who are 'simply good at debating, they need to have done something. I'm very busy.' and for something with his mouth, I really think that's just cowardice, as he knows he is going to get schooled.

I've seen Dawkins debate, and I find him to be far more clear and precise than Hitchens. He is blunt and to the point, and there's nothing I love more than succinctness. His objective to debating is more to do with his reluctance to legitimise the Creationist position. By engaging in a one-on-one debate, the audience sees the two positions as being scientifically on par, when they're not. And that's all the Creationist wants: to be seen as being on par with science. If it can do that, it can infiltrate schools as science.

 

[Digit]

Oh God, it's late, I will reply tomorrow. :>

 

[Wiccan_Child]

Oh God, it's late, I will reply tomorrow. :>

Silly yank, it's only 5:47pm!

 

[Digit]

I'm armed with pizza, let's do this!

=======

Indeed. So it's fallacious to argue that life is impossibly specific... *snip*

The argument is that we know what conditions are needed for the life we have and see on Earth to exist. As I said you have to work with what you have, otherwise we may as well throw our hands up in the air and all be agnostics claiming it's impossible to know. It's not impossible. We are here. We live. We know what we need to live. We know the makeup of other planets in our system and we know the makeup of entire regions of the universe. We also have some pretty crazy equations as to the construction probability of the universe with these conditions, and we can build models based on adjustments in those equations that show that even the smallest of changes create a universe of solar radiation, completely uninhabitable to life as we know it.

It's worse than magic to claim that there may be other life and as such we cannot be sure of what we know about THIS life and THIS universe.. If you can do that, I can say, there may be a God, and we are on neutral ground again, completely fallaciously I should add.

That an omnipotent being could have poofed them into being is neither here nor there: no one disputes that.

First up, whether evolution is or isn't an argument to design is irrelevant as I believe God could very likely have setup the initial conditions and let things run a course he predetermined. So I see no conflict there. Secondly whether life is easy to make or not is also irrelevant and doesn't speak as to whether a being designed it or not. Lastly no one is saying that God magicked everything into existence. I am saying that the mechanics and precisely 'how' everything has been created and came to be, is at this point unknown. However, there are trademarks of design all over the place, and as such it makes sense to believe that it was created by a designer 'somehow'. We are still free to pursue the 'somehow' part. This is the argument you haven't addressed yet. You are bringing up all sorts of issues that are totally unrelated - though interesting. Address the argument -> If something looks designed, we should attribute that to a designer. The idea that there is an appearance of design can hold up in some situations where something looks similar to something we know to be designed. But it requires pre-knowledge of a design, which we do not have about the universe. We are simply finding incredible information about how things are:

A) Suited perfectly to allow us to live here.
B) Balanced within tiny margins where a variance of any measure would result in not only no life, but a universe unable to support life whatsoever.

I disagree. *snip* wood axe universe stuff... *snip*

Well I think we can agree this is semantics. I mean, in some instances there is an importance to distinguish order, and I can grant and agree to that - however I could easily say that on a theistic world-view I agree, the tree was made to be cut, and that life was made to live in the universe. That doesn't actually diminish my previous point at all, and now it still remains to see how you respond to the original claim I made, which is that the most simple and obvious answer is to posit the universe was made with intent to support complex life and I hope I don't have a sense of deja-vu when I read your reply as you bring up the things we've addressed already. :>

I don't doubt that belief in God changes you.

I'm not sure you got my point, it's not that it changes you, it's that it is seen as an unwanted change - people know that by being Christian there are absolute standards they are held to. I honestly think that foreknowledge is restraining people from honestly and openly considering things. It took a lot for me to put that stuff aside and just consider things on the base informational merits alone. I grant I could be wrong about this, perhaps it doesn't apply to you but I still feel you are unnecessarily resistant to some arguments put forward. That however could be because they have large scale ramifications I guess. I don't mean to be personal, but after you talk to non-theists for a while, as I'm sure is true for you talking to theists, you start to see patterns - sometimes ones which aren't actually there.

Because the good is by human hand. God's inaction allows evil to happen, but his inaction doesn't allow for good to happen (should I praise him for deigning to allow doctors to heal people?).

Oh! Right. So, God is only responsible for the bad things in our universe, not for any of the wonders of our universe, or our planet, of life, the human body, of our minds, personalities and character, the elements, atmosphere, environment and such. Oddly, it's only since man came along that the planet has gotten so messed up. I saw an interesting diagram once, where it showcased a pyramid of life on earth, man was at the top - he was the only block you could remove entirely without there being any negative effects on the planet at all. Any other species you removed would wreck havoc on an ecosystem. I have to say, that this is your atheistic world-view lying to you. Mankind does bad things, as well as the good - God only does good. It's easy to sit on the outside and think, well, that earthquake killed 50k people but I would simply ask why do people keep going and rebuilding homes over giant fault-lines? What about the tsunami's? Well we have warning devices, we could put more money into them, but we don't because we want to spend it on giant hotels in Dubai and massive New Year's Eve fireworks shows. I don't think it's even remotely easy to make a case for God being evil unless you switch off your brain-organ and I think you are a lot better than that. This is all completely discounting the fact that there may be morally sufficient grounds for these things to happen - do you know that the parts of the world that are experiencing the most disaster and most hardship? India, Africa and China are where the most disasters are occurring and where the strongest Christian growth is. Why is that? Well, Christian missionaries are there, because they are compelled by their faith and God to help those in need. They rebuild, teach and educate and give those people in those nations hope and a strong foundation to continue on. Where is atheism? Atheism isn't there. Atheism is a world-view for the strong only, for those in power, luxury and who are content, it doesn't give the weak anything. An atheist approached me once and started telling me about his world-view, I asked him quite bluntly what he is offering and he summed it up as freedom, the ability to think and act as I please and live in peace. I said, "What you are offering me is a brick, and I already own a mansion. Sorry." and that was that.

We punish people when their inaction causes evil

No we don't.

If a parent beats a child twice a day, would you praise them for not beating them a third?

No but that is an absurd analogy. We don't punish people when their inaction causes evil. I see people walk past homeless persons every day, hundreds of them, they aren't punished at all. Can you even think of a single instance when someone's inaction causes evil and they are punished for it? The only things I can think of are potential crimes, where people are considered aiding and abetting, and that isn't the same as inaction.

Are you saying you interpret any of those verses literally? *snip* examples follow *snip*

Well at least we are making headway here and you are agreeing it's a simplified view. I want to raise a point here which is that just because something is a metaphor, or allegory - does not make it a simplified view. My assertion about overly-simplifying things was in regards to arbitrarily branding something as a metaphor without testing or investigating it.
As to your passages let's see:

The four corners of the world is a saying we use to this day, I don't really feel I need to go into that do I? I mean, if I say I took a moonlight stroll, do you think I mean the moon actually is a source of it's own light - or do you think I mean I just went out and walked at night when the moon was up and that's how I could see? Should I say, "I went for a sun-light-reflected-by-the-moon stroll, last night." ? :>

The leprosy thing is just wrong, the passages aren't talking about a cure at all. Why do you think they are? They are talking about Also I am lead to believe that the disease known as leprosy in those times is not precisely the same as we have now - don't quote me on that, as I've not looked into it heavily, but anyhow the passage talks about the cleansing of the person after the disease has been cured and yes I think that's a literal account of what people believed they should do.

The flaming swords I'm not sure, it could be someone with a literal flaming sword - or not. I can look into this more if you want, but I think regardless of if I think it literally true or not it doesn't really matter since flaming swords are not impossible to create? Let me know either way. I can imagine them looking cool enough, and I see no reason that God wouldn't find them just as kick-ass looking.

After I've given my views, what do you think of these passages now? Still want to believe pi is 3?

Nonetheless, most Christians do. *snip*

Umm... ok, well, why do you feel the need to champion their method of interpretation? Also the geocentrism issue is another example of the scripture not saying what you think it does. We can talk about that more if you want. But my main question here is why, just because other people make ad-hoc/arbitrary assertions, do you feel it gives you license to do so? If you don't feel it gives you license to do so, then why is this even being brought up? I don't care what other Christians do, I will happily talk to them as I talk to you or anything and put forward my views and the ways I reach them and then we can see whose methods stand or fall.

This assumes that the Bible is indeed God's word, and that the author's intent reflects this.

No. It doesn't, this is another thing that atheists continually do. You don't assume that what is written is true. You test it. You take what is written, you see what the words mean, what the language says, what historical and cultural context it is in and then you gather all the facts you can about it, and form a conclusion. The true conclusion is that which accounts for everything written and explains it in the simplest manner. Taking your Tolkien example, if someone wrote that it is a historical work, and we just assumed that what they wrote is true, where would we be? Well, performing all manner of mental gymnastics because there are numerous articles from Tolkien himself detailing how he created the world, the characters and so on. So clearly by testing something's claims we can determine if it's accurate.

Thus, deducing the author's intent must involve the natural world: we cannot say the author intended such-and-such a verse to be interpreted as a literal, historical account, if such an interpretation is at odds with reality.

This is a huge point now: Yes we can. Actually it's the only way to do it. This is really important, it doesn't matter what is said, whether they are talking about an ancient race of fluffy pink elephants or Ghengis Khan - if it's written and presented as historical narrative, that is how you interpret it - just because something is positioned in that context, ie as historical narrative, doesn't mean it's true. It just means they thought it was when they wrote it.

As an atheist, I don't really care how people interpret the Bible, but it's an interesting psychology nonetheless.

I have a lot to say on the subject as my views have been refined a tremendous amount since I started, thanks in no small part to the various people who have written about this subject.

That the Bible isn't an example of such a text is of no concern to me.

I don't think you can make that claim, as we've already seen there is a lot wrong with your understanding of the Bible and it's texts, I mean just take the leprosy example or the pi = 3 example - granted you aren't so hung up on that at the moment.

Why interpret verses? *snip*

I'm starting to feel like I'm wading through a train-wreck here. Look, my question was "Why assign arbitrary interpretations to text?" not "Why interpret verses?". The difference being that you are just not applying any credible method to deducing the truth, about what they say. Given that you yourself claimed to be after the ultimate truth, this is just sloppy, why is there a double-standard or an element of complacency here about this? The onus is on you to pursue it wherever it may lead, not stop when you reach an arbitrary conclusion. Secondly the language in this quote is telling to me, you don't really know what divinely inspired means, and unless I don't understand you, you don't feel it important to apply a credible method of understanding to it. I mean, should we just stop this conversation here then, as that's tantamount to saying, "I don't really care." in my eyes. You can of course apply the same methods to the Qu'ran, and I think it will reveal the flaws in it.

The difference between dark matter and God is that dark matter is not nearly as mysterious as popular culture makes out, and it is very much in the bounds of science.

Again, this isn't the point. The point is that science, which appears to be your god, went right ahead and posited something with no evidence of it whatsoever, in order to complete a cosmological view that was basically broken. This is the criticism leveled at Christians the entire time, in regards to when faith is (incorrectly) interpreted as believing without evidence.

Dark matter is a prime example of scientists doing what scientists do best *snip*

Really? Let's say no one found any evidence of dark matter for 5000 years, but it actually existed the entire time. Then what? This is the problem you face.

You say that science is blind to some truths. Well, what truths?

In part 2.

 

[Digit]

Silly yank, it's only 5:47pm!

It was 4:30am when I posted that :o Despite what the CF clock says. Iwill do part 2 later on, hang 10.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

It was 4:30am when I posted that :o Despite what the CF clock says. Iwill do part 2 later on, hang 10.

I waited and waited but you never came! So I'll do part 1 instead

 

[98cwitr]

The clock is based on the viewer's time zone...

 

[Wiccan_Child]

I can't remember what we've covered before, and I get the feeling I've said some of this before, so bear with me if I've had a senior moment...

The argument is that we know what conditions are needed for the life we have and see on Earth to exist. As I said you have to work with what you have, otherwise we may as well throw our hands up in the air and all be agnostics claiming it's impossible to know. It's not impossible. We are here. We live. We know what we need to live. We know the makeup of other planets in our system and we know the makeup of entire regions of the universe.

We know that life can live in Earth-like conditions, sure, but that doesn't mean we can say that life must live in Earth-life conditions. Looking at Earth-like planets is a good way to find alien life, since we already know that Earth-like planets can harbour life. But that doesn't mean other planets can't. We just don't know if a 200°C, methane/sulphur atmosphere could ever harbour life, so we can't speculate either way.
So, given that we don't know just how versatile life is, we can't say speculate on how probable it is to form naturally.
So, we can't say that life is so unlikely to occur naturally that it must have been created by an intelligence.

If I find a computer program and run it, and it outputs '5', what can I say about the total range of outputs for that program? I can only say that '5' is a possible output. That could be the only output, or it could output any integer, or any real number, or any random sequence of ASCII characters, or what have you. It's fallacious to say that '5' is the only output; rather, it's the only known output. Likewise, that Earth is the only know inhabited planet doesn't mean Earth is the only planet that can be inhabited; for all we know, life could arise naturally on every rocky and gaseous body in the universe.

We also have some pretty crazy equations as to the construction probability of the universe with these conditions, [snip]

I disagree with those kinds of models. First, it's not known if the foundations of those equations are even changeable. Second, we don't know enough about them to know just how the variables interact. Third, and most importantly, they're fundamentally futile: we exist. The sheer size and variety of the universe guarantees that almost every combination of salinity, pH, gravity, atmosphere, temperature, etc, exists somewhere. So, even if life requires very specific circumstances to occur, we shouldn't be surprised that if does occur somewhere, since there's almost certainly going to be somewhere that just so happens to meet those criteria (by sheer chance, not intelligence). Further, nor should we be surprised that we live in a fragile balance of physical properties: we can only exist in one of those very rare places with the right properties.

If I deal out a shuffled deck of cards, the odds that I deal out those 52 cards in that specific order is mind-bogglingly small (specifically, 8x10[sup]67[/sup]), so small that I will bet everything I own that that specific order will never be dealt again. But, nonetheless, that order was dealt. So simply being an improbable occurrence isn't good enough, which is basically where teleology falls down.

However, there are trademarks of design all over the place, and as such it makes sense to believe that it was created by a designer 'somehow'.

Well, I think that's pretty much the crux of our disagreement: you say the 'trademarks of design' are evident, I say they aren't.

I honestly think that foreknowledge is restraining people from honestly and openly considering things.

Well, all I can say is, as an atheist, I genuinely don't consider the ramifications of belief in deities when I consider believing in deities. All that matters to me is whether or not such a belief is justified. The whole rigmarole of Christianity is, firstly, unnecessary (I don't need to become ordained within the Catholic Church to believe in the Christian God, nor indeed do any other rite or ritual - belief, so I've been told, is enough), and, secondly, irrelevant (if I had to become a priest, so be it).

Oh! Right. So, God is only responsible for the bad things in our universe, not for any of the wonders of our universe, or our planet, of life, the human body, of our minds, personalities and character, the elements, atmosphere, environment and such.

If he exists, he is indeed responsible for the bad things in the universe. That a man makes a pretty painting doesn't excuse him from child abuse.

I have to say, that this is your atheistic world-view lying to you. Mankind does bad things, as well as the good - God only does good. It's easy to sit on the outside and think, well, that earthquake killed 50k people but I would simply ask why do people keep going and rebuilding homes over giant fault-lines? What about the tsunami's? Well we have warning devices, we could put more money into them, but we don't because we want to spend it on giant hotels in Dubai and massive New Year's Eve fireworks shows.

... I want to believe you're joking, I really do.

Are you really saying that the suffering caused by in Port-au-Prince is our fault for not investing? That the mass death at Pompeii is humanity's fault for being technologically primitive? That the all-powerful being in the sky who could literally do anything at any moment with zero cost to anyone, that this being isn't morally culpable for sitting back and watching these things happen?

You say man does good and bad things, sure, I accept that. But you say God doesn't do anything bad! If he exists, he is guilty of negligence - he lets us suffer. We would condemn a man who wilfully and knowingly lets his child burn to death, and we should likewise condemn an all-powerful being who wilfully and knowingly lets us suffer.

I don't think it's even remotely easy to make a case for God being evil unless you switch off your brain-organ and I think you are a lot better than that. This is all completely discounting the fact that there may be morally sufficient grounds for these things to happen - do you know that the parts of the world that are experiencing the most disaster and most hardship? India, Africa and China are where the most disasters are occurring and where the strongest Christian growth is. Why is that? Well, Christian missionaries are there, because they are compelled by their faith and God to help those in need. They rebuild, teach and educate and give those people in those nations hope and a strong foundation to continue on.

Which is all well and good, and I commend the efforts of those people, but that hardly bolsters the veracity of Christian beliefs. Besides, what does this have to do with 'morally sufficient grounds' for these disasters? Are you saying that God allows such tragedies to occur, just so Christians can do charity work?

Where is atheism?

Atheism is a minority demography that doesn't have a unified, tax-exempt church to fund its relief efforts. The Catholic Church can pay for missionaries and charity trips - atheists are disparate and organised. But I'm not going to sit here and wheedle out excuses for each and every atheist who dared be anything less than a paragon of humanity.

Atheism isn't there. Atheism is a world-view for the strong only, for those in power, luxury and who are content, it doesn't give the weak anything. An atheist approached me once and started telling me about his world-view, I asked him quite bluntly what he is offering and he summed it up as freedom, the ability to think and act as I please and live in peace. I said, "What you are offering me is a brick, and I already own a mansion. Sorry." and that was that.

Well, lovely. I'm quite surprised an atheist would just walk up to you and start waxing philosophic, but there you go.

No we don't.

Criminal negligence is a fairly solid grounds for imprisonment. If I do not provide food for my child, and he dies of starvation, my inaction caused the child's death. Are you saying that I wouldn't be help responsible for my actions? If I walked past a burning house and saw people screaming for help inside, would you still consider me perfectly innocent if I did nothing but watched them die?

No but that is an absurd analogy. We don't punish people when their inaction causes evil. I see people walk past homeless persons every day, hundreds of them, they aren't punished at all.

There are three things to note here. First, the logistics alone make such a law unenforceable. Second, there is considerable disagreement as to how we should treat the homeless; there's no consensus that not giving money to the poor is inherently evil. Third, in a welfare state, one could argue that we already are giving them money, by paying for shelters and things with our taxes.

Well at least we are making headway here and you are agreeing it's a simplified view.[snip]

I think you've quite spectacularly missed what I was trying to say. I wrote quite a bit on each separate bit, but I'm just going to cut-and-paste the main bits. Ahem:

So a distinction must be made between what we're calling a metaphor: the modern Christian's interpretation of the verse, and the original author's intent. I believe Genesis was meant to be taken metaphorically, while I believe the leprosy cure was to be taken literally - they really believed that it would cure leprosy. However, since this is demonstrably false - it doesn't, in fact, cure leprosy - a modern Christian should therefore consider the verses to be metaphorical (perhaps God was simply emphasising cleanliness), or simply false (not everything in the Bible needs to be dripping in meaning, literal or metaphorical; some mundane stuff may have slipping in during transcription).

Basically, I was referring to how modern theists treat a piece of religious text, not how the authors intended the text to be treated. I think this is an important distinction, as the leprosy-cure thing shows: I believe the authors of Leviticus genuinely thought it worked, and they wrote it as a literal guide. Obviously, the cure doesn't work, so the authors were wrong. But the theist ascribes mystical significance to the text, so they have to decide just what God meant by that particular passage - which, again, depends a great deal on how they view God's influence on the text of the Bible. Did God author it all? Did humans copy it verbatim? Was it the compilation of an oral tradition, with inevitable 'additions'?

We can discuss the author's intent till the cows come home, but I'm not really interested in that - I think we're discussing enough already . What's of more interest is how the theist tackles this: she, after all, believes the text to have more significance than other pieces of the text. For instance, the Christian places great importance on the Bible, but not on the Qu'ran.

I'm starting to feel like I'm wading through a train-wreck here. Look, my question was "Why assign arbitrary interpretations to text?" not "Why interpret verses?". The difference being that you are just not applying any credible method to deducing the truth, about what they say. Given that you yourself claimed to be after the ultimate truth, this is just sloppy, why is there a double-standard or an element of complacency here about this? The onus is on you to pursue it wherever it may lead, not stop when you reach an arbitrary conclusion. Secondly the language in this quote is telling to me, you don't really know what divinely inspired means, and unless I don't understand you, you don't feel it important to apply a credible method of understanding to it. I mean, should we just stop this conversation here then, as that's tantamount to saying, "I don't really care." in my eyes. You can of course apply the same methods to the Qu'ran, and I think it will reveal the flaws in it.

My point is that I see no reason to consider the Bible to be any more significant than the Qu'ran, or the Vedic texts, or the Kitab-i-Aqdal. I see no reason to plough through every single text that was ever written in the hopes of gleaning some higher knowledge, if only because there's a lot of religious books in the world, and very little reason to suppose any of them are of interest.

To me, the books detail the religion and philosophy of that particular culture, and usually their history, rites and rituals, laws and taboos, myths and legends, etc. In that, they are interesting. But theists of various camps ascribe some 'special' meaning to them - for instance, some Christians claim the Bible (KJV only, of course) to be 100% literally true and free of error. Such a claim goes beyond my rather secular and (if I may say so) guarded belief.

Again, this isn't the point. The point is that science, which appears to be your god, went right ahead and posited something with no evidence of it whatsoever, in order to complete a cosmological view that was basically broken. This is the criticism leveled at Christians the entire time, in regards to when faith is (incorrectly) interpreted as believing without evidence.

Hardly. As I said, dark matter isn't that mysterious. There is evidence for its existence, which is precisely why it was posited to exist in the first place. It's exactly the same process that lead scientists to posit the existence of Neptune - though not directly observed, there was substantial evidence that a planet existed beyond Uranus.

Really? Let's say no one found any evidence of dark matter for 5000 years, but it actually existed the entire time. Then what? This is the problem you face.

I don't understand the question. If no one found any evidence for dark matter... that's a statement, not a dilemma.

 

[Wiccan_Child]

The clock is based on the viewer's time zone...

That's the joke

 

[Wiccan_Child]

*shameless bump*

 

[Chesterton]

The human species has evolved to consider certain things moral, in that the 'gut feeling' that something is 'just wrong' has an evolutionary origin (e.g., protecting our young is felt to be 'right', and that feeling has evolutionary origins). That doesn't mean the theories and principles behind evolution can be used to deduce morality, mind you, just that our gut feelings, our instinctive sense of morality, has an evolutionary origin.

When survival is threatened, we experience fear and aversion, for ourselves and even for others. That's understandable, but I don't see how that could lead to the evolution of abstract concept of "right". If we stand too near a cliff, or if a tiger approaches, we will experience fear. That's understandable. We are averse to the thought of eating dirt or tree bark; the taste is not appealling, because there are few or no nutrients in them. That's also understandable. But the concepts of "right" and "useful" are distinct. To mesh them as you do is like meshing the abstract idea of justice with the physical feeling of a hunger pang.

If I'm standing too near the edge of a cliff, I may experience feelings of fear and aversion to falling over. Other people observing me, through empathy, may even feel similar feelings for me; a stranger may feel an emotional urge to say "Hey mister, be careful there!" If I were to fall over the cliff and be killed, other humans will pass judgment on the action; they will say I was foolish, but they will not say I was immoral.

Now imagine I'm on the edge of a cliff, and someone pushes me over. The result would be the same - some injury or death to one person, and the non-survival of one person's genes. But humans would not say the pusher was foolish, they'd say he was bad or evil.

I say we would never have come to perceive a difference between "right" and "useful". The outcome is the same: if a man goes over a cliff, his genes will not survive, whether he falls due to his own negligence, or due to the intent of another person. I can understand how we might naturally come to feel fear and aversion for such an event, but I cannot understand how we could come to feel injustice and evil regarding such an event. If our moral ideas were wholly programmed by mindless nature, we would speak of "utility"; we would never have come to invent the idea of "morality", of justice and ethics.

It can't. It's just a collection of molecules. But the evolution of genes is such that the survival of genes is promoted. Those genes which just so happen to code for their own survival are, of course, the ones which survive. So, over time, the genes which survive are ones which are 'selfish' - the gene isn't literally consciously selfish, of course, but it's 'selfish' in that it codes for its own survival, even at the expense of the host organism.

And when I say a gene 'survives', I mean another copy of the same gene exists in the genome of another organism (usually the direct offspring of the host, but not always; lateral gene transfer between bacteria, kin selection between social animals, etc, are other ways).

Anyway, genes don't literally 'want' to do anything, but the traits they code for are such that they increase the probability of themselves being copied into the next generation. This, to us humans, is succinctly (if inaccurately) summarised as the gene being 'selfish' or 'wanting' to 'survive'.

But you would say my consciousness is just a collection of molecules like serotonin, right? So do molecules start "wanting" when there's some certain amount of them, or some certain configuration of them?

And I just realised that 'genes' + 'is' = 'genesis'. Proof of God, perhaps?

Um...yes, absolutely! Plus, they say "gene" comes from "genus" which is also related to "genius" which = procreative divinity, inborn tutelary spirit, innate quality.

Which is a testament to just how ingrained they are in our society. But consider: we would applaud the man who got close to, and assassinated, Hitler. Isn't that backstabbing? We applaud soldiers who go out and kill people for a living, but the families of the civilians they slaughter would condemn them as murderers. Morality is quite relative. We can be convinced of all sorts of things, sadly.

I agree it's a testament to how ingrained such feelings are, but that doesn't go to the origin of the feelings. I specifically mentioned a "selfish, back-stabbing man". A man who risked his life to kill Hitler for the good of others would not be doing so merely for his own self-interest.

I think Singer is too post-modern for his own good.

Well, too much for someone's good, anyway. Not his own.

I think you have both the right and the moral obligation to do so, if the alternative is an eternity of suffering.

The act of murder determines when you go, not where you go.

Perhaps they do. Perhaps they don't. Either way, their behaviour is governed (or, at least, heavily influenced) by evolution.

I agree with your "perhaps", but either way, evolution may in turn be governed by God, as gravity and everything else may be governed by God.

It's distinctly human, I'll give you that, and it's one of the more puzzling aspects of an all-natural worldview (which I subscribe to, if you hadn't guessed ), but I think it's just that: a puzzle.

Well as I've said, your naturalistic view of it creates a puzzle, I think my spiritual view of things solves the puzzle.

Way back when, lightening and volcanoes were absolutely baffling. We had no idea how something like that could happen, since there was nothing like it in our experience. That doesn't mean it's godly, just god-like.

I don't know, but I imagine England might have an equivalent to this: In America, every prospectus for certain types of financial investments must by law include language to the following effect - "Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results." It's a wise admonition, and if you think science is on a trajectory to figure everything out, based on the fact that in the past it's figured some things out, you could be right or wrong, but you're just speculating.

But can we? Can we discuss what sadness feels like, what salt tastes like? Can you describe the colour blue to a blind man? Qualitative experience is wholly subjective, and the notion of philosophical zombies just blurs the issue further.

I think we do it all the time; in everyday conversation, and across time and place through literature, music, art, etc. I think the idea of p-zombies proves it in a negative way - we wouldn't have to speculate on what it's like to be other-than-human if it weren't for the fact that we all do know what it's like to be human. I've read philosophers who've wondered what a human ultimately is, but I've never read a philosopher who wondered what it was like to be human. And whatever any philosopher says about the human condition, he assumes other humans will know what he's talking about. Otherwise, he would be similar to a man trying to describe a color to a blind man, which would be futile and no one would even attempt it.

They are amoral inasmuch as there is no Absolute Authority telling us otherwise... though this comes dangerously close to precluding God. To clarify, a wholly natural, evolutionary basis for morality precludes an absolutist source of morality: actions are just actions, and evolution has wired us to favour certain actions over others. We feel that murder is bad and altruism is good, but that's just serotonin in our brain; it doesn't reflect some ethereal connection to the Platonic Form of Good, or some such.

At least, assuming a wholly natural, evolutionary origin of morality. Perhaps the widespread agreement that murder is wrong does indeed arise from a magical connection to Plato's Forms.

You're not precluding an absolute authority, you're just claiming the authority is serotonin. The difference between the Platonic Form of Good, and the "serotonic" form of good, is that the former would be true if it exists, and the latter cannot be true in any sense, because the latter is matter, and matter cannot be true or false.

This view of being under the control of chemicals places us in the same position as if we were brains in vats. You say bad is not really bad, it just feels that way. Red is not really red, it just looks that way. All is illusion, and you turn meaning into non-meaning. Again, the "cardinal difficulty" buried within that view is that it must apply equally to the reasoning capacity which you use to arrive at that view. If you say "2 + 2 must equal 4", you have to stick to your guns and remind yourself that "that's just the chemicals talking." You can't attribute everything to the evolution of your brain except the one thing (reason) which happens to "seem" most real to you.

I often see religious people accused of believing what they want to believe, of seeking comfort in arbitrary beliefs. The materialist lays himself open to the same charge, with an important difference being that the religious could be right, and the materialist cannot be right. There could exist a truth which provides comfort; there could not be a brain chemistry which dictates that truth is not really truth, and still call it truth.

Yeah, but those things are themselves real. The rock is real inasmuch as it is the name we give to a collection of individual things, which are themselves real. The sensations of solidity and redness, though, only exist in our heads as a conceptual aids. What causes those sensations is real (e.g., the EM field that stops our hand at its surface, the light bouncing off it, the molecules that give rise to scent, etc), but the sensation itself is just in our minds.

It's like the number one. It's real inasmuch as it's a valid concept, but it's not real inasmuch as It isn't floating out there in space somewhere: it's just a concept.

I don't understand. How do you determine that the things which atoms comprise aren't real, but the things which comprise atoms are real?