Atheists: Why does theism still exist?

[KCfromNC]

Ex nihilo, loudmouth, not ex materia.

And the evidence for this claim is?

 

[variant]

No, testability applies to a specific form of knowledge, and not all knowledge is testable. That's why we have a priori truth, and a posteriori truth outside of the scientific realm. This is a very important point.

And again my head is spinning: are you using "testable" in a scientific sense, and if not what on earth does it mean to say "testable"?

That's because I mean testable in the broader sense.

You don't have to test a concept in the objective scientific sense to be able to test it, that is why I didn't say "scientifically testable".

Science is just methodological thinking, it comes from more basic rational patterns of thinking that are still there whether or not we would have ever thought to systematize it.

All things that you can claim to know have to have some way of telling whether they are true, that is what knowledge is.

If truth of your claim can not be discriminated from falsity you do not have knowledge.

Your test for the plausibility of Gods existence is that it fits into your metaphysical interpretation of the universe, this does not really help as your metaphysical interpretation of the universe is just as questionable (or more) as your assertion of God.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

Misguided accusations of "scientism" are frequently made by people who refuse to have their assertions subject to any sort of scrutiny, philosophical or scientific. Asking someone how they know something to be true is not scientism.

That's because I mean testable in the broader sense.

You don't have to test a concept in the objective scientific sense to be able to test it, that is why I didn't say "scientifically testable".

Science is just methodological thinking, it comes from more basic rational patterns of thinking that are still there whether or not we would have ever thought to systematize it.

All things that you can claim to know have to have some way of telling whether they are true, that is what knowledge is.

If truth of your claim can not be discriminated from falsity you do not have knowledge.

Your test for the plausibility of Gods existence is that it fits into your metaphysical interpretation of the universe, this does not really help as your metaphysical interpretation of the universe is just as questionable (or more) as your assertion of God.

This is a point I've been trying to drive home for years, with believers of all stripes.

Although I think the assertion that 'supernatural' beliefs are not subject to scientific scrutiny creates a litany of problems for Christian theology in particular, I am willing to grant the assertion for the sake of argument.

However, you don't get to just stop there and continue making claims about the 'supernatural' without substantiating them. The only thing that's changed is that you've bereaved yourself of the privilege of using science as that means, by categorically writing it off. You still need to answer basic ontological and epistemological questions, such as,

-What is the supernatural?
-How is information about the supernatural reliably gleaned?
-How is the supernatural discernible from nature?
-How does the supernatural causally integrate with nature?
-How are supernatural experiences discernible from imaginary experiences?
-How are contradictory supernatural assertions resolved?

All without stealing any groundwork from science.

That would do for a start, and very few theological minds have even tried.

 

[variant]

-What is the supernatural?
-How is information about the supernatural reliably gleaned?
-How is the supernatural discernible from nature?
-How does the supernatural causally integrate with nature?
-How are supernatural experiences discernible from imaginary experiences?
-How are contradictory supernatural assertions resolved?

All without stealing any groundwork from science.

That would do for a start, and very few theological minds have even tried.

I think it would be quite impossible to not steal ANY of the groundwork from science, as, in my previous post I said there is a broader rational basis for scientific thinking.

 

[Eight Foot Manchild]

I think it would be quite impossible to not steal ANY of the groundwork from science, as, in my previous post I said there is a broader rational basis for scientific thinking.

Well, that's just more rudimentary epistemology for them to clarify. How far does this write-off of science go? Is it merely the means - experimentation, corroboration, etc. - or is the very concept of demonstrability being thrown out? It sure sounds like the latter, sometimes.

I'm very glad these aren't my problems.

 

[Received]

Why don't you apply the same standard to the Goddidit hypothesis? Whenever scientists offer a naturalistic hypothesis for the origin of the cosmos theists are quick to dismiss the hypothesis out of hand because it does not rise to the highest epistemic standards. Yet their own hypothesis is subjected to no such scrutiny by them.

Because by definition the origin of the cosmos implies not-cosmos, which is either nothing or an actor who caused it to be. Or the cosmos has always existed (in macro- or quantum- form), which opens up logical problems with infinite regresses, *and* it offers no predictive validity; it's just a mathematical model that's really a philosophical assumption.

So it's not just Goddidit that's a bias, but rather a perceived logical necessity. Only something like God (or whatever we want to derisively or not name it) has the characteristics needed to explain why the universe is what it is. All other "natural" explanations presuppose a universe that always exists (assumption with problems) or that was caused out of nothing (assumption with problems). God is an assumption in a similar sense; it's just the idea of a creator (in a deistic sense or whatever) has fewer problems given the (meta)physical requirements with regard to the origins of the cosmos.

 

[variant]

Well, that's just more rudimentary epistemology for them to clarify. How far does this write-off of science go? Is it merely the means - experimentation, corroboration, etc. - or is the very concept of demonstrability being thrown out? It sure sounds like the latter, sometimes.

I'm very glad these aren't my problems.

If you remove all tests that would show your ideas to be true or false it would relegate the questions you are addressing to pure theory.

The problem being that pure theory just explores possibilities and never resolves any questions to the point where you could call it knowledge.

 

[Received]

Well, firstly, this strategy of referring a concept upon itself - if spontaneously used to attack one particular view - is disingenious. While if consistently applied to everything it means epistemological nihilism. Do you really want to go there?

Yes, I do. Let's do it, or at least admit an impasse. Before we do it, I want to know if you're capable of saying "impasse".

Secondly, and more importantly, "falsifying falsification" isn´t even a meaningful expresssion - unless you mean "falsifying a particular attempt at falsification" - which, of course, can be done. "Falsification", however, isn´t even a statement; demanding it´s falsifiability isn´t right...it isn´t even wrong. It´s word salad.

Falsifying falsification doesn't have to be taken completely literally, but the idea still stands. And remember that I'm speaking of falsification as the only standard for determining truth. So if that's the case, then you must ask, "was this previous statement falsifiable? No. Well, how did I come about in creating it," which opens up other criteria or standards for determining truth.

Thirdly, and even more importantly: as you keep ignoring conveniently, at no point I didn´t demand the falsifiability of "supernatural" claims. I explicitly stated several times that their falsifiability can´t be demanded. We are in complete agreement in this point.

Don't blame me for being incredulous that we agree on things.

What, however, I have been demanding is: Your method/standard that allows for the very distinction in "truth value" between different "supernatural" claims.

Different supernatural claims with regard to what?

 

[variant]

Because by definition the origin of the cosmos implies not-cosmos, which is either nothing or an actor who caused it to be. Or the cosmos has always existed (in macro- or quantum- form), which opens up logical problems with infinite regresses, *and* it offers no predictive validity; it's just a mathematical model that's really a philosophical assumption.

So it's not just Goddidit that's a bias, but rather a perceived logical necessity. Only something like God (or whatever we want to derisively or not name it) has the characteristics needed to explain why the universe is what it is. All other "natural" explanations presuppose a universe that always exists (assumption with problems) or that was caused out of nothing (assumption with problems). God is an assumption in a similar sense; it's just the idea of a creator (in a deistic sense or whatever) has fewer problems given the (meta)physical requirements with regard to the origins of the cosmos.

Our ideas on "how the universe started" (if that is even the question) are as poorly worked out and understood as your God concept, so using one to promote the other is quite frankly hilarious.

It follows in a long line of other ideas where we didn't understand things and thus attributed them to the supernatural.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

Because by definition the origin of the cosmos implies not-cosmos, which is either nothing or an actor who caused it to be. Or the cosmos has always existed (in macro- or quantum- form), which opens up logical problems with infinite regresses, *and* it offers no predictive validity; it's just a mathematical model that's really a philosophical assumption.

So it's not just Goddidit that's a bias, but rather a perceived logical necessity. Only something like God (or whatever we want to derisively or not name it) has the characteristics needed to explain why the universe is what it is. All other "natural" explanations presuppose a universe that always exists (assumption with problems) or that was caused out of nothing (assumption with problems). God is an assumption in a similar sense; it's just the idea of a creator (in a deistic sense or whatever) has fewer problems given the (meta)physical requirements with regard to the origins of the cosmos.

In what way does Goddidit present with fewer problems? It seems like you're trying to explain one mystery with another mystery. That doesn't make for fewer problems; it makes for more because now you're making assumptions about the second mystery as well.

 

[Received]

The "creation" you are describing here differs greatly from the "creation" we are familiar with. If the creator cannot be constituted of the same "stuff" as creation, then how is this creator able to interact with his creation?

How can spiritual stuff interact with physical stuff?

Well, here's a serious philosophical problem that Hume brought up a few hundred years ago: how can physical stuff interact with physical stuff? Seriously.

Regardless, let's not let another subject with its own considerations negate the progress we've made. It's better to offer a solution that we don't understand how it works than no solution at all. Cf. all the problems of physics, for example.

We often hear this claim of "other ways of knowing" from people like Deepak Chopra. What are these "other ways"?

How about from people like intro to philosophy text authors? Why Chopra? That opens up a level of ridicule (IMV), which indicates to me a degree of ridiculousness you have toward the possibility of other ways of ascertaining things.

Things can be known a priori, a posteriori, empirically (experience), emprically (scientifically), intuited, and probably a few others. The standard you're talking about (testability) applies to the fourth one alone.

How do you know?

Ah, because if you create everything, you previously have nothing? His example was more explicitly ex materia because he was talking about, I think, creating cars, which is using material in such a way to create a "new" thing. We're not talking about this with the cosmos. We're talking about *everything*, including the material we could even think of using to create cars.

 

[Received]

Misguided accusations of "scientism" are frequently made by people who refuse to have their assertions subject to any sort of scrutiny, philosophical or scientific. Asking someone how they know something to be true is not scientism.



What standard are you offering? From what I've read, your "standard" permits us to claim anything, including the existence of invisible fire-breathing dragons. If anyone asks us how we know that such a dragon exists we can simply accuse them of "scientism."

Scientism means only testability (i.e., science) is the legitimate means to ascertaining truth.

And I've made my epistemological claims clear in a previous thread: http://www.christianforums.com/t7779806/

 

[Received]

Our ideas on "how the universe started" (if that is even the question) are as poorly worked out and understood as your God concept, so using one to promote the other is quite frankly hilarious.

It follows in a long line of other ideas where we didn't understand things and thus attributed them to the supernatural.

You have a skewed sense of humor.

And no, it's not like that at all. You're thinking I'm positing God as a natural hypothesis just because. I'm claiming there are logical and metaphysical (infinite regress) requirements that make an eternal universe impossible (which means a universe that always existed in macro form, e.g., big crunch, or one that always existed in quantum form, God help us), and lead us to the absurd conclusion that we have to give up the principle of sufficient reason (i.e., our basic understanding of causality) to accept a universe without a creator (which doesn't necessarily mean a personal God). Let me state that again: we need to give up our faith in basic reasoning to accept a universe without God along complicated eternal universe lines. That's no different at all than "Goddidit".

 

[Received]

quatona, you'll have to let me know how much my previous response encapsulated what you were trying to articulate at post 125. It's no good asking me to respond to one post, then pointing out how I should respond to a previous one which has significant overlap with the one you just posted.

 

[Archaeopteryx]

How can spiritual stuff interact with physical stuff?

Well, here's a serious philosophical problem that Hume brought up a few hundred years ago: how can physical stuff interact with physical stuff? Seriously.

Regardless, let's not let another subject with its own considerations negate the progress we've made. It's better to offer a solution that we don't understand how it works than no solution at all. Cf. all the problems of physics, for example.

But we do have some understanding of how physical stuff interacts with physical stuff. There's a scientific discipline devoted to the study of this exact topic -- physics.

How about from people like intro to philosophy text authors? Why Chopra? That opens up a level of ridicule (IMV), which indicates to me a degree of ridiculousness you have toward the possibility of other ways of ascertaining things.

Things can be known a priori, a posteriori, empirically (experience), emprically (scientifically), intuited, and probably a few others. The standard you're talking about (testability) applies to the fourth one alone.

Like variant, I agree with using the term more broadly to refer to a way of distinguishing the truth and falsity of a claim.

Ah, because if you create everything, you previously have nothing? His example was more explicitly ex materia because he was talking about, I think, creating cars, which is using material in such a way to create a "new" thing. We're not talking about this with the cosmos. We're talking about *everything*, including the material we could even think of using to create cars.

Yes, and how do you know that (creatio ex nihilo) is what happened? His example is relevant because the "creation" you are referring to is significantly different to the "creation" we are familiar with.

 

[Received]

That's because I mean testable in the broader sense.

You don't have to test a concept in the objective scientific sense to be able to test it, that is why I didn't say "scientifically testable".

Science is just methodological thinking, it comes from more basic rational patterns of thinking that are still there whether or not we would have ever thought to systematize it.

All things that you can claim to know have to have some way of telling whether they are true, that is what knowledge is.

If truth of your claim can not be discriminated from falsity you do not have knowledge.

Your test for the plausibility of Gods existence is that it fits into your metaphysical interpretation of the universe, this does not really help as your metaphysical interpretation of the universe is just as questionable (or more) as your assertion of God.

Then please don't use the same term that has very specific connotations in terms of science.

What I'm getting from this is that "testable" means "being able to tell if something is true." Well, that's what knowledge means.

 

[Received]

But we do have some understanding of how physical stuff interacts with physical stuff. There's a scientific discipline devoted to the study of this exact topic -- physics.

Then you really have to read the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. He beats causality down there, saying that because we never observe something causing another thing, we therefore only assume it or project it onto things. The alternative (which Nietzsche has advocated multiple times) is that there really is no causality at all, and that all things are in a flux. You can find this problem clearly enough the more you look at experimental problems in determining what causes what; the closer you look at these problems, the more you realize that we can only really get to more and more precise correlations, given that there are so many complicated variables with things that determining X causes Y is impossible.

I'm not saying that causality doesn't exist, just that on a very basic philosophical level (which physics glosses over, being physics and therefore showing how thing work with certain assumptions in place that are questionable on a philosophical level) there are basic problems of causality and how one thing causes another that don't negate our everyday willingness to accept them as such. Likewise with spirit interacting with the physical.

Like variant, I agree with using the term more broadly to refer to a way of distinguishing the truth and falsity of a claim.

And unlike variant, I believe in using terms that don't overlap with one another, giving one the sense of science when you really mean all the methods I articulated in the post section you just responded to.

Yes, and how do you know that (creatio ex nihilo) is what happened? His example is relevant because the "creation" you are referring to is significantly different to the "creation" we are familiar with.

How do I know that the universe hasn't eternally existed in some form?

 

[Archaeopteryx]

This is a point I've been trying to drive home for years, with believers of all stripes.

Although I think the assertion that 'supernatural' beliefs are not subject to scientific scrutiny creates a litany of problems for Christian theology in particular, I am willing to grant the assertion for the sake of argument.

However, you don't get to just stop there and continue making claims about the 'supernatural' without substantiating them. The only thing that's changed is that you've bereaved yourself of the privilege of using science as that means, by categorically writing it off. You still need to answer basic ontological and epistemological questions, such as,

-What is the supernatural?
-How is information about the supernatural reliably gleaned?
-How is the supernatural discernible from nature?
-How does the supernatural causally integrate with nature?
-How are supernatural experiences discernible from imaginary experiences?
-How are contradictory supernatural assertions resolved?

All without stealing any groundwork from science.

That would do for a start, and very few theological minds have even tried.

Many apologists seem happy to sidestep these issues. They are satisfied with having made an argument that simply ends in "God exists," and leaving it at that. Whether the God that their arguments purport to establish bears any resemblance to the God they actually believe in - the personal creator God of the Bible - is given over to a merely cursory contemplation, if it is contemplated at all.

Then you really have to read the Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding. He beats causality down there, saying that because we never observe something causing another thing, we therefore only assume it or project it onto things. The alternative (which Nietzsche has advocated multiple times) is that there really is no causality at all, and that all things are in a flux. You can find this problem clearly enough the more you look at experimental problems in determining what causes what; the closer you look at these problems, the more you realize that we can only really get to more and more precise correlations, given that there are so many complicated variables with things that determining X causes Y is impossible.

I'm not saying that causality doesn't exist, just that on a very basic philosophical level (which physics glosses over, being physics and therefore showing how thing work with certain assumptions in place that are questionable on a philosophical level) there are basic problems of causality and how one thing causes another that don't negate our everyday willingness to accept them as such. Likewise with spirit interacting with the physical.

So because our understanding of physical causality is incomplete, we can completely ignore the question of how the supernatural causally interacts with the physical? Is that what you're saying? It seems that you're eager to sidestep the issue.

How do I know that the universe hasn't eternally existed in some form?

No, that's not what I asked. You know what, never-mind. I suspect I'm only going to get the same answer I already replied to on the previous page.

 

[Received]

So because our understanding of physical causality is incomplete, we can completely ignore the question of how the supernatural causally interacts with the physical? Is that what you're saying? It seems that you're eager to sidestep the issue.

Not quite. I'm saying that we don't understand physical causality but still accept it in practice, so there's no problem with the spirit "causing" the physical or us not understanding it as a barrier to accepting this realm as metaphysically necessary (i.e., required for the creation of the physical universe).

No, that's not what I asked. You know what, never-mind. I suspect I'm only going to get the same answer I already replied to on the previous page.

Too late. Let's try to have a dialogue here.

You might see where I'm going. Asking how I know creatio ex nihilo happened is in a sense uncovered in this very question: if you create something from nothing, there was previously nothing. I relate this to the universe by saying that the universe either didn't exist (nothing), which means creatio ex nihilo, or (assuming creatio ex nihilo can't be the case) that therefore the universe existed eternally in some form, from which we can say the universe as we know it was created ex materia from some mysterious quantum world "before" time and space as we know it. So it's either ex nihilo if the universe was truly bought into being from nothing, or ex materia in that the universe has always existed. No other options. And the latter has extremely problematic metaphysical considerations, notably the problem of an infinite regress, which if true doesn't "allow" for the present moment -- or we have to go as far as suspending the principle of sufficient reason, meaning we give up trust in our basic sense of causality and our faculties to allow for an infinite regress. But the moment you do this, you're reaching out with faith for something that not only has no evidence, but is also counterintuitive and against our very basic faculties. THAT is much more faith-requiring than posting God as a necessary metaphysical cause of all that is.

 

[variant]

Then please don't use the same term that has very specific connotations in terms of science.

What I'm getting from this is that "testable" means "being able to tell if something is true." Well, that's what knowledge means.

I'm using the words to mean what they mean.

So, how do we test for God or the supernatural?