God: the best possible explanation (moral ontological argument time)

[DogmaHunter]

So a nonmoral cause, or no cause there to be moral or optherwise in the first place, as in Sarterianism (?). leading to "abandonment" to oneself, the ultimate existential freedom....???

I'm sorry, I really can't make any sense out of that sentence.

However, the choice of words "nonmoral cause" raises a question... Why must any cause have any moral impact at all? You are begging the question here. It's as loaded as it gets.

You seem hell bend on anthropomorfising (no way spelling is correct on that one - you know what I mean, right?) this cause of the universe. Assuming off course that the word "cause" is even appropriate in this context. Most likely however, it is not.

In any case, I don't get why you are so hellbend on attributing/imposing moral values on the thing / event / whatever that brought the universe into existence. I just don't get it. You are making statements about things you couldn't possibly know anything about. It is completely inappropriate.

Neither benign or malign, but neutral with ethics emerging (with novel properties) with evolved life, human life in its present(ed) form???
Very well put, Dogmahunnter. Good points.

Same as above. I'm not really understanding your sentence.

Morality is simply a non-factor here. It's a non-issue.
I don't see why the "cause" of the universe should have "moral implications" any more then the cause of rain, mountains, solar formation, etc.

Some things simply "just happen". No cosmic reason, no cosmic purpose... but just the nature of reality.

Let me take an example from the quran. When talking about mountains, it employs teleological language. As if the mountains have a "purpose" for being there. But that's simply false. Mountains might have an effect on things like climate etc simply because they exist. But when asked "why do they exist", the answer is not "to influence climate". The answer rather is "because tectonic activity beneath the surface is pushing the land up".

And it doesn't do that so that mountains could influence climate. This phenomena has its own explanation in terms of mechanism, not in terms of higher purpose.

And yes, I know the quran doesn't state that the function of mountains is regulate climate. It's been a long time since I've read it, but if I remember correctly, it hints at mountains existing as some kind of stabalizer for the ground or something?

In any case, it (incorrectly) attributes specific puprose to them.

 

[Paradoxum]

Iamglad someone has humility to (hypothetically)seesome sense inwhat i say.

I don't think ontological argument are generally good though.

I agree. Maybe there are things that arecontingently preferable, and things which are necessarily preferable. Contingent things to contingent beings like us,and necessary ones to (take a deep breath) "god like" entities. The contingent relating to a posteriori entities, andthe world of appearances, and the necessary a priori,the absolute truth...? Just a vuage surmise.

I think I understand what you're saying, but I don't know what you're point is.

IIRC catholic, seeker, unitarian, humanist, then monotheist (unity), then humanist again, now a muslim.

You need to pick a side.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I'm sorry, I really can't make any sense out of that sentence.

However, the choice of words "nonmoral cause" raises a question... Why must any cause have any moral impact at all? You are begging the question here. It's as loaded as it gets.

Well if it affects us in morally relevant ways it has a morally relevant impact, by definition. Whether it was known or intended or not is another dispute.

And it doesn't do that so that mountains could influence climate. This phenomena has its own explanation in terms of mechanism, not in terms of higher purpose.

And yes, I know the quran doesn't state that the function of mountains is regulate climate. It's been a long time since I've read it, but if I remember correctly, it hints at mountains existing as some kind of stabalizer for the ground or something?

In any case, it (incorrectly) attributes specific puprose to them.

Are you not going in circles here, using scientific naturalism to prove the natural attitude is the right one? Its not teelological. Why? Because its natural. Why? because theres no God ruling over creation. The end step seems to take us back to step one (Its not teleological).

 

[FireDragon76]

Your argument sounds like a combination of ontological arguments and Kant's arguments from morality. I'm not sure it will persuade most people, but I do believe that if there is no ultimate good to life that has the characteristics attributed to God, there's not much point in being a genuinely virtuous person, since in this life, living a virtuous life is no guarantee of being happy.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Your argument sounds like a combination of ontological arguments and Kant's arguments from morality. I'm not sure it will persuade most people, but I do believe that if there is no ultimate good to life that has the characteristics attributed to God, there's not much point in being a genuinely virtuous person, since in this life, living a virtuous life is no guarantee of being happy.

Well it depends on how you define virtue.

IMO it relates to "rational attraction to being" and is an intelligent response to our evolved situation as "morally embedded" creatures. Meaning life has variable value for us, and its not virtue just to unthinkingly adopt a certain "holy code", and call it a day, but rather th recognise the sanctity of life (ie guarding it with rules and prohibitions) from a secular perspective.

We have the capacity to respond to lifes value (constituted by having evaluational emotions as part of a life-world, basically) in an appropriate way or otherwise, and to either then flourish or suffer the consequences through intelligent, adaptive, reasoned life promotion or life denial.

I think that a lot of the holy books actually get morality, from such a secular viewpoint, but the followers just think its a beyond-rational or super-code sent from above, with some "higher function" but little fundamental bearing on real world affairs. I think thats wrong - religious wisdom isnt just about the next world but life's sanctity and our response to the structures of the "systems" (cultural, natural, perhaps supernatural) we respond to in this one.

 

[True Scotsman]

If God is defined as the most excellent being, the "summum bonum" in latin, then if he is regarded as the cause of existence, then what better explanation could there be?

Moral objectivists regard preferability as an objective feature of existence, or at least of certain choices for psychial beings. Well, I loosely suppose that the "summum bonum" is the preferble choice, a priori, as the universal cause. Now, should such a being exist?

Of course it should, in one sense at least, as that would be the better alternative. Because if it didnt perhaps we would be subject to a relatively more cruel and arbitrary fate, all such alternatives being lesser in preferability...

Abduction means:

"Inference to the best explanation."

The term is usually uised in the philosophy of empirical science. Does it have a cosmological cum moral counterpart?

No because God as an explanation is metaphysically impossible. You have it backwards. We don't define things into existence. Definition is the final step in concept formation not the first. All valid concepts start with sense perception. Since God by definition is supernatural, we could not have formed a concept of it objectively, by looking outward at reality. No it is a product of the imagination and exists only there in the minds of believers. It is an invalid concept. It contradicts everything we know about the fundamental nature of the universe. There is no logical way to infer the supernatural from the natural objectively. Inference from nature can only lead to the natural.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Well if it affects us in morally relevant ways it has a morally relevant impact, by definition. Whether it was known or intended or not is another dispute.

I'm sorry, I really don't see how the nature of the mechanism that produced the universe has any kind of impact on any social construct at all of a species on this little blue dot in this small corner of the milky way.

Are you not going in circles here, using scientific naturalism to prove the natural attitude is the right one?

No. I'm pointing out that humans have a tendency to attribute purpose and meaning to phenomena even while it's inappropriate to do so.

If you are going to ask why mountains exist while having a priori beliefs of what the "purpose" of mountains is, you probably are going to come up with the wrong answer.

Its not teelological. Why? Because its natural. Why? because theres no God ruling over creation.

False.
If you wish to include purpose in the explanation of mountains, you are going to have to demonstrate that a purpose (any purpose) exists in the first place. You can't just go ahead and assert it and move on from there.

It's actually the complete opposite of what you said.
It's theists that say "there's purpose. why? because god gave it purpose." And that is what they believe on faith. I don't use faith when trying to come up with answers. I'm content saying that I don't know when I don't know.

But to assume purpose given by a god, one must first assume a god. I don't assume a god. I don't see any evidence of such a god, so I operate from the assumption that there's probably no god. I can't include variables in my explanation for no reason...

For example, there's no reason to include a god in the phenomena E = mc², so why would we? You can say that E = mc² + G (G = god). But when you work it out, G will equal zero and have no impact at all.

So if I don't have a reason to include a God in any explanation about anything... why would I? By including "purpose" in teleological ways, you already are beyond that point even. You've already assumed a god exists and that he did stuff.

The end step seems to take us back to step one (Its not teleological).

You never handled step one. You just asserted a god and moved on to step 2.

 

[Gene2memE]

[FONT=&quot]This is begging the question and attempting to define God into existence.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot] [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Even if we grant that a “most excellent being” exists, there is no logical reason that such a being should be either regarded as the cause of existence, the source of morality or even the cause of anything.[/FONT]

 

[GrowingSmaller]

No because God as an explanation is metaphysically impossible. You have it backwards. We don't define things into existence. Definition is the final step in concept formation not the first. All valid concepts start with sense perception. Since God by definition is supernatural, we could not have formed a concept of it objectively, by looking outward at reality. No it is a product of the imagination and exists only there in the minds of believers. It is an invalid concept. It contradicts everything we know about the fundamental nature of the universe. There is no logical way to infer the supernatural from the natural objectively. Inference from nature can only lead to the natural.

Not sure, do you say that all those "intecessory prayer experiments" are a priori invalid? Say I prayed for the spontaneous cure of 1000 cancer patients, and it happened, are you saying that we could rule out without further ado any supernaturalistic take on this phenomenon?

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Dogmahunter do you positively know God does not exist? If not how can you presume naturalism to be sooooo true. "There is no purpose" entails "there is no God". You know that, how?

I accept you can use rules of thumb but they are by nature probablistic and therefore probably problamatic to any dogmahunter, in that you cant make a dogma out of a probability, especially an empirically untestable one (unlike weather forecasting which is a potential empirical science, atheistic reasoning aims at the transcendental, misses, and claims it was not a sin but a bogus range in the first plece)...

 

[True Scotsman]

Not sure, do you say that all those "intecessory prayer experiments" are a priori invalid? Say I prayed for the spontaneous cure of 1000 cancer patients, and it happened, are you saying that we could rule out without further ado any supernaturalistic take on this phenomenon?

The arbitrary is inadmissible. There has never been such a thing as the spontaneous cure of a thousand cancer patients. Occasionally one does spontaneously go into remission but that is natural. There's no sense haggling over studies because the concept of the supernatural is invalid. There is no way to logically infer a supernatural realm by looking at nature. That is purely subjective imagination. We can all imagine a being who can cure a thousand cancer patients by wishing it so but in reality wishing doesn't make things so.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

Ok so God can be imaginesd to have an influence, if its imaginable its conceivable or possible (as the philosophers tell us?).

 

[True Scotsman]

Ok so God can be imaginesd to have an influence, if its imaginable its conceivable or possible (as the philosophers tell us?).

No because imagination has no bearing on what is true. We can imagine something that breaks the laws of nature but that is all we can do but we don't find it in the real world. I can imagine a square circle but that can't exist in reality. Knowledge of the world is not gained by looking inward but outward. Its the primacy of the outer over the inner that we can observe literally everywhere. We never observe the primacy of the inner over the outer.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Not sure, do you say that all those "intecessory prayer experiments" are a priori invalid? Say I prayed for the spontaneous cure of 1000 cancer patients, and it happened, are you saying that we could rule out without further ado any supernaturalistic take on this phenomenon?

First of all, such a thing has never happend. And I'ld put money on it that it will never happen either. Not even if you get a billion people to pray at the same time.

Secondly, correlation doesn't imply causation. You need to actually demonstrate the causal link - not just assert it.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Dogmahunter do you positively know God does not exist?

I'm as "certain" that god doesn't exist as you are certain that leprachauns, undetectable 7-headed dragons, Thor and Zeus don't exist.

Which comes down to "as certain as I can be". Which is not 100%, but pretty close.

If not how can you presume naturalism to be sooooo true.

100% of the natural phenomena that we investigated and solved turned out to have natural explanations.

0% turned out to have "supernatural" explanations.

Once again, I'm as certain as I can be. Which is not 100%, but pretty close.

"There is no purpose" entails "there is no God".

Disagree. I don't see why a god couldn't (or wouldn't) create a space-time continuum, simply because he can. For no particular reason. We humans can (and do) engage in purposeless activities all the time. Why couldn't a god?

You know that, how?

I can't know what is unknowable. You can't either.

I accept you can use rules of thumb but they are by nature probablistic and therefore probably problamatic to any dogmahunter, in that you cant make a dogma out of a probability

A dogma hunter hunts dogma's. He doesn't adopt them. If there is something I believe dogmatically, please point it out so I can correct myself. Thanks.

especially an empirically untestable one (unlike weather forecasting which is a potential empirical science, atheistic reasoning aims at the transcendental, misses, and claims it was not a sin but a bogus range in the first plece)...

Atheism is a single position on a single issue. It's not a claim. It's the response to a claim. A claim for which the burden of proof lies with the theist, not the atheist.

 

[DogmaHunter]

Ok so God can be imaginesd to have an influence, if its imaginable its conceivable or possible (as the philosophers tell us?).

I guess that's one of the reasons why philosophers have lost their relevancy in today's scientific landscape.

Things that are conceivable or possible are not interesting, because those things are infinite in number.

I can for example conceive of an undetectable 7-headed dragon that created the universe and everything it contains yesterday with all our memories implanted. It's certainly possible as well.

It's also possible and conceivable that we live in some kind of Matrix and that we really are physically hooked up to machines that keep us alive like room plants.

But obviously, it would be a waste of time to consider such ideas when investigating the scientific questions of orgins of life, the world, the universe.

What is interesting to science is not what is possible or conceivable. Rather, it's what is plausible. And, that might not necessarily be conceivable.

Before quantum mechanics, it wasn't conceivable that anything could be in 2 places at once. But particles can.

Before Einstein, it wasn't conceivable that time wasn't a constant affected by gravity and speed.

To quote Krauss: "to say that something is inconceivable, just means that you can't conceive it". It doesn't say anything about it being true or not. You don't know what is sensible in advance. You don't know the answer before asking the question and investigating it.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

I had a "NDE" once, in a car and a saw (hallucinated?) the grim reaper hovering by in the mist. The very next instant the car was nearly obliterated by an until then unseen (in the conscious mind at least) truck hurtling carelessly up the motorway. It luckily brushed by.

Ok theres an natural explanation: cultural expectations forming the basis of the vision, subliminal awareness of the oncoming truck, projection of the "reaper" by unconsicous processes.

But it still seems uncanny to me that such things were all so neatly correlated. A non scientific explanation is it was the angel of death. Stuff like that has left me open to religious interpretations, and until you perhaps experience from the "inside" you may only have "theoretical knowledge" rather than "knowledge by acquaintance". A bit like the Marys room scenario, but with religious visions rather than ordinary experiences.

So maybe the God idea excites me, it is a key to the mystery, a benign force that I can hope in and look to with trust - in an otherwise randomised and "absurd" (to borrow a hint of existentialism) multiverse. You may say that appeal to unpleasant consequences doesnt disprove an idea, though.

But if there is just no reason for all this, excepting the unfloding mechanics of the big computer which floats in hyperspace and has no cause, it kind of saps some of the energy which makes - or can make, depending on personality etc - life enjoyable.

Perhaps thats part of the function of a "God instinct" - it reliably prevents existentialist blues and the greywashing of experience by reason?

 

[DogmaHunter]

I'ld dare to say that the only people who are negatively affected by the idea that there is no god who's watching their every move and who provides anything and everything to make the universe work the way it does... are people that have been submerged and indoctrinated in religious theistic thinking since birth.

I find it very hard to believe that someone's mood is actuallynegatively affected by a realising a certain mechanism that might have brought the universe into existence 13.7 billion years ago is unrelated to some god.

I think it's more a matter of "everything I've believed all these years has been a big whopping lie". I think that is what has an emotional impact.

I like to compare it to someone who finds out that he's adopted. It's not rare at all that this triggers some type of identity crisis. Not because anything has objectively changed about his life... Because it hasn't. He grew up in the family he grew up in, his life is exactly the same today as it was before he found out. But still, the idea of having believed all those years that his parents were his biological parents is upsetting to that person upon finding out that he was wrong all that time (or that his non-biological parents lied to him about it).

I don't know of a single theist who turned atheist and who then took up the philosphy/worldview that nothing matters and that everyone can do as they please "because we are all gonna die anyway".

I only see theists claiming that that is what would happen. But actual theists who abbandon their religious beliefs, don't seem to agree with that. I even know a lot of ex-theists that would tell you that their life has more meaning now then before they turned atheist.


Having said all that, I'll use a little infamous quote from Professor Dawkins to close this post:

"What is comfortable does not matter nore is it interesting. What matters to me is that which is actually true - regardless of my emotional response."

 

[KCfromNC]

Ok so God can be imaginesd to have an influence, if its imaginable its conceivable or possible (as the philosophers tell us?).

No. For example, I can imagine you never wrote this post. Not surprisingly, my imagination doesn't change the reality of the situation.

 

[GrowingSmaller]

No. For example, I can imagine you never wrote this post. Not surprisingly, my imagination doesn't change the reality of the situation.

I think in modal logic it is possible you never wrote it, even if you did, because its not a necessary truth that you wrote it but a contingent one. But i got a text book and gave up at page two. Just like its possible it wont rain even if it actually does. But there isanother use of "possible" where you are right, hence an idea called the "modal fallacy" which mixes the two up. AFAICK anyway.

http://www.logicallyfallacious.com/index.php/logical-fallacies/128-modal-scope-fallacy