You ask where my knowledge comes from on which I based my assumptions. I’d say from high school biology class, and from reading books on biology and anthropology over the last 30 years.

I don’t “get” your second question, that my side note that a mechanistic, clockwork explanation for human behavior seems cold and sad must come from a tangible or perceived source. I agree with Paul, in that our emotional responses are not the same thing as tangible, empirical reality. I was just trying to say that I take no glee in believing that there could be an evolutionary, behavioral basis for our emotional responses.

emotions are a behavioral response that aid in natural selection. Sadness over the loss of a relative is a response, and more appropriately the desire to avoid sadness by preventing the loss of a relative, would have an outcome in natural selection;

Where does this knowledge come from? You assumed it, but assumptions must be rooted in something tangible, perceived or experienced. What can you point to as your source for this knowledge?

I agree that it seems cold, and sad.

Here it seems your knowledge of “cold and sad” comes from a tangible, perceived or experienced source rather than an assumption. The thing that immediately jumps out at me is this knowledge conflicts with your assumed knowledge above – at least to me it does.

A person dying, on the other hand, is a real thing, which can be verified to someone else.

We perceive a person dying, which is real and can be verified to someone else, and then we may perceive an emotion, sadness, which is a qualia and which can’t be verified to someone else (the experience of it, that is – we may verify to someone else that we are crying, but the crying isn’t the emotion or the qualia)

I think I understand now — you’re wondering how do we know how to have any emotion following a perception, I think. And how do we know that having a sad response is because the response is sad, as opposed to something else. (That I think is unknowable — our emotions are about as purely subjective an experience I can imagine.)

I’m not well-versed on the topic of knowledge nor emotion, so I don’t even know what the debating points are on that one. As a skeptic, I would make an assumption that emotions are a behavioral response that aid in natural selection. Sadness over the loss of a relative is a response, and more appropriately the desire to avoid sadness by preventing the loss of a relative, would have an outcome in natural selection; organisms that had the capability to experience sadness would presumably take steps to avoid it, much like organisms that can perceive heat would avoid circumstances that could burn it.

That’s my guess for a naturalist explanation of the origin of emotion. I’m sure there are better ones, but I thought you were wondering what my first conjecture, as a skeptic, would be, so there it is. I agree that it seems cold, and sad.

Sorry I haven’t chimed in but I’m not sure I really understand the question. As a skeptic I am happy to speak on behalf of my people, although I suspect that I may not yet know the party line.

Fortunately you only have to speak for yourself.

My questions are about subjective perceptions and their link to reality (perceived existence, sadness, morality, justice, laws of logic, God, etc). Specifically, how can a person *know* (not assume) these perceptions are rooted in reality? Fundamentally, my questions are about knowledge – where and how you get it, how you know you can trust it, etc. You may not be the skeptic reference in my question but feel free to answer anyway.

Q1: When we get sad due to a death in the family (as one example), does it mean we perceived something that isn’t part of reality, or does it mean we perceived something that was, in some way, truly sad and truly part of reality? To clarify, I’m speaking about the one reality we all share, so the laws of logic apply.

Q2: To the skeptic that says it’s the former, where and how do you get the knowledge used to conclude this?

Sorry I haven’t chimed in but I’m not sure I really understand the question. As a skeptic I am happy to speak on behalf of my people, although I suspect that I may not yet know the party line.

Tom,

Yeah, I agree that God’s non-existence would negate the resolution of my requirements, but I still think it’s productive to debate the arguments for the requirements I listed. Why? Because I prefer a world in which modern science and religion can coexist, and I believe that proposals like yours make this harder. If only you could see the error of your ways, if only…

I’ll do what I can to read the Evidences section of the site and see to what extent the requirements I raised have been resolved here. I’ll come back when I have more questions.

In 1930, the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, in an effort to alleviate the effects of the… Anyone? Anyone?… the Great Depression, passed the… Anyone? Anyone? The tariff bill? The Hawley-Smoot Tariff Act? Which, anyone? Raised or lowered?… raised tariffs, in an effort to collect more revenue for the federal government. Did it work? Anyone? Anyone know the effects? It did not work, and the United States sank deeper into the Great Depression. Today we have a similar debate over this. Anyone know what this is? Class? Anyone? Anyone? Anyone seen this before?…..
- Ferris Bueller’s Day Off

When we get sad due to a death in the family (as one example), does it mean we perceived something that isn’t part of reality, or does it mean we perceived something that was, in some way, truly sad and truly part of reality? If skeptics are going to choose the former rather than the latter then I don’t know what else to say. What knowledge-base does the skeptic draw from in order to reason their way to this conclusion? I’m genuinely curious to hear some responses.

Detailed answers for (a) through (d) would far exceed the capacity of a comment thread like this. We’ve addressed them in the Evidences category of posts. (See also the same category in the legacy section of the blog.)

Not that I’m expecting you to go read all that now–I’m just pointing out that we’ve worked on it, and there’s stuff there for anyone to look at as they have time and interest. Of course there are other books and websites as well.

Tom, I agree with your last post in that I think that debating the evidence for God’s existence is largely immaterial to this discussion.

What I think is material are the arguments in favor of your assertion that it is correct to “reject SOME scientific interpretations that disagree with Scriptural interpretations.” This philosophy requires, I think, that there be very strong (commensurate with scientific theory?) arguments and evidence that:
a) Scripture contains explanations of the natural world that are better or equal to the ones than science currently does;
b) Scripture is intended to be a means for understanding the natural world;
c) correct Scriptural interpretations about nature can reliably be attained, starting with agreement that Scriptural interpretation should be used to reject some scientific interpretations; and
d) other religions cannot make similar assertions to establish the primacy of their interpretations of the natural world over that of science and/or your Scriptural interpretations.

I don’t believe it’s an indictment of God to say that you could be wrong about each of the conclusions you have reached in my requirements above; I believe you have acknowledge as much on various occasions.

In other words, I don’t think you need to provide strong evidence for God’s existence to recommend what you have in this post and your comments. I do, however, think that you need to provide persuasive arguments for the requirements above if you want to have your philosophy promoted and not opposed by the likes of me. (And I don’t mean you have to have answers now for the requirements I listed above, but I do think those are fair questions that ultimately need to be answered, and answered well.)

Yes, thank you for the correction. I should have said no “actual” scenarios, or no “possible” scenarios, or some such.

There are simply no imaginable scenarios in which that is not true.

There are plenty of *imaginable* scenarios to counter what you said above – all are true only because they are imagined true - but none that are based on the knowledge of reality we have today. We know nothing about uncaused beginnings or angry unicorns, but we know of inductive logic and inductive logic can get you to an uncaused beginning if only you start with *real knowledge* instead of imaginary knowledge.

“Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of ‘touching’ a man’s heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it.” – Chesterton

 
There’s a difference between insults, rudeness, and mere bluntness. Time does not always permit the political gymnastics that soften the blows of reason. With that in mind, I think everyone (everyone) involved in this or any other similar thread needs to take a deep breath and get over themselves. Something we write is going to be misinterpreted from time to time. Other times, what we write is going to be taken to a conclusion we might not like. Both of those are opportunities to either note a flaw in our own argument, or to correct a flaw in the other person’s response. Neither is cause to get our dander up in some kind of “ya done me wrong” way.
 
There is a categorical difference between the statements, “you’re wrong / you’re being illogical / you haven’t thought about this / that’s not true / that’s not accurate, etc.” and “you’re an idiot / you obviously can’t think / how stupid can you get, etc.” If the other person isn’t being insulting, then take attacks on your arguments (or even your tone, ironically enough) as such, and not grievous stabs at your character. Acting otherwise is just an upside-down version of ad hominem.
 
There’s been nothing said here that’s an insult to anyone. Some of what’s been said may well be wrong, a bit egotistical, or irrational itself, but not anything worthy of complaint. In short, get over it and get on with it. If you’ve got the stones to confront the tough questions, you can keep them attached long enough to handle contentious answers.

The assumption that every effect must have a cause is much like the Law of Non-Contradiction. There are simply no imaginable scenarios in which that is not true. God is not an effect, and He can’t be an effect. He is the necessary starting cause of all other causes. I understand your question about “God’s beginner”, but that’s a common misunderstanding of the argument.

You can’t have a chain of causes going infinitely far back, either in time or sequence. There has to be a beginning point, and causality is the same. You have to have an un-caused cause somewhere. It’s not debatable, really. If the chain of causes was infinite looking back, then we’d never get to the present, because of the infinite distance from there (then) to here (now). There HAS to be something to start the cause-effect chain, and that first uncaused cause is God. It can’t be the universe, since we know that the universe had a beginning (it was caused). Asking “well, who caused God, then?” misses the point of the idea, which is that there HAS to be some starting point.

As far as the likelihood of God, we really only have two options: a planned universe or a random one. That alone makes God far, far, far more likely than no God. This also folds back into the causal argument above.

Yes, I would like to know how you see this.                                            

 I have the feeling that this harshness is just a subjective, personal interpretation of the facts (ie. the examples you would offer). Since our conclusions differ, and I’m certain that equivalent data could be gleaned from your comments and Paul’s as well, I doubt that you have a uniquely superior vantage point from which to judge  objective harshness.