Get Ready for the “Day of Reason”

My friend Blake Anderson and I ran into P.Z. Myers, biologist and famed atheistic blogger, who asked us, then added, “Are they ridiculing you here? They should be.”

Is ridicule automatically “dehumanizing”?

Pianist/comedian Tim Minchin sang a song mocking the Pope, with 72 instances of the F-word in it.

“I want to make people realise that being angry about being mean about the Pope is completely inappropriate in the context of talking about child abuse.” “That song’s actually an examination of what we find offensive. It challenges people who find that language more offensive than the pedophilia.” – Tim Minchin

Richard Dawkins openly urged the attendees to mock Catholic beliefs.

“…if necessary.”

Tom,

I want to affirm to you today what a very valuable book True Reason is for me on my spiritual journey and in my amateur apologetics, dialoguing with atheists on the internet, which I feel to be a calling, a mission. My treatment on these blogs is very nasty and personal at times. It seems to be difficult sometimes for atheists not to “go for the jugular” rather than engage intellectually with the issues and the challenges that the truth of Christianity poses to their worldview. I have the sense that many of them feel that they have very high stakes in these debates in not only “winning” the intellectual arguments (which they often don’t fully engage) but in humiliating their Christian interlocutor, who they see as the opponent.

The comfort I have is the knowledge that even if/when I’m a total flop in one of these discussions at explaining or defending Christianity, I’m just me and I am not Christianity. Christianity itself is untouched and undiminished by my mistakes and failures. And interestingly enough, I gain tremendous insights into my faith whatever the outcome in terms of “winning” or “losing” a debate on a particular point. And, in addition, I always return here to be reassured that your moderated and rule-governed blog is a forum where intelligence, civility and good will can be found.

God bless you and your ministry. JB

Tom –

I’ve made it my purpose to treat everyone here as fully human. Do you deny that? Answer me, I say: do you deny that?

No, I don’t deny that’s your goal. I’ve seen you police it a bit inconsistently from time to time, but that is your goal. However:

Then do a google image search for “reason rally signs,” and answer me this: were they committed there to treating religious persons as fully human? Were they? WERE THEY?

For the most part, yeah. (First hit.) Many humorous, but the harshest ones were reserved for the Westboro Baptists. Same with a general Google Image search. You seem to be taking a minority of the signage and rhetoric and painting everything else with a very broad brush.

I don’t judge ‘pro-traditional-marriage’ types based on sound-bite signs and quippy slogans with unsupported assertions and dehumanizing concepts. No, I go over the arguments, at tedious detail, as you know.

Tom –

The verbiage from on-stage supported the verbiage in the signs. P.Z. Myers supported it face-to-face with Blake and me.

If the proportions were anything like the signs from the search you asked me to do, I’m okay with that. Seems comparable to any big meeting with lots of diverse voices. I mean, let’s face it, Leviticus 20:13 is a death threat.

You’re wrong this time, Ray. You’re obviously wrong.

It’s clear you think so. I haven’t seen anything so far that supports your claim that people were “dehumanizing” believers, though. That’s a significant step up from mocking or even calling people “dishonest, disturbed, or dumb”.

But you really, really, really have to find something to disagree with in everything I write.

Counterexample: yesterday. You do seem to to exaggerate the level of opposition you face at times.

Ray’s day isn’t complete without his daily dose of disagreement.

Tom,

The Reason Rally (and New Atheism in general) is an effort at creating an ingroup/outgroup distinction for atheists in response to society’s general dehumanizing of atheism. It is a moral movement based on loyalty and oppression which carries “Reason” as a flag. Since it’s a moral movement, reason must occasionally take a backseat to moral judgement. You will not find reason best displayed at a rally or moral movement of any kind (but you will find loud and sincere moralizing), nor does criticizing the lack of reason at a rally have any real bearing on the reasonableness of atheism (or Christianity). Rallies are social things for people.

(the poster formerly known as DJC)

Tom – In some situations, yes. And remember I said ridiculing ideas (arguments and claims), not people. Sometimes pointing out the ridiculous in an argument helps to snap out of an impasse or highlight the gravamen.

Do I think it benefits proselytization (doesn’t matter whether it is Christian or atheist variety)? I think it benefits a good argument in some circumstances. BTW I don’t care what benefits proselytization, and a denial of claim is not necessarily an intrinsically proselytizing act. It is a rebuttal to proselytizing in most cases.

Keith – do you think the New Atheist movement is helping to reduce the discrimination you are talking about, or making it worse?

Keith,

You’re conflating persecute with discriminate.

Perhaps next time you can provide the citations from Wikipedia and read the sources to verify that they actually show what the contributor thinks they show.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discrimination_against_atheists

So does this mean atheist are bellicose as well? Or does it show that people of all beliefs can be rude and unproductive in their speech?

https://atheists.org/image/billboards/Myths.jpg

I suppose atheists get a rough deal in parts of the US. For example, it surely must be difficult to be a professing atheist in small town America.

However, it’s difficult not to conclude that some atheists seem to be less concerned with “society’s general dehumanizing of atheism” and more focused on the marginalisation and eradication of religion from the public square. P Bog, Jerry Coyne and P.Z Meyers are obvious examples of leaders in the New Atheist movement who I think of as being defined largely by their anti-theism. People like this are really part of a hate movement.

And if I could continue the above thought. What do you propose as a solution? Should there be a law that makes everyone respect the opinions of everyone else no matter what that other person believes or espouses. In other words, should it be illegal to hold certain beliefs or opinions? I can’t imagine another solution, can you. And yet we see that becoming a reality here and being espoused here regarding a number of beliefs from AGW to homosexuality. And I’m not talking about descriminating against people for their beliefs I’m talking about just having the right to disagree or hold a contrary opinion. If you’re going to be concerned about something it would seem a more worthy cause. After all, it’s what we see today in N. Korea and we saw yesterday in the China’s Cultural Revolution and in Stalin’s Soviet Russia and in Hitler’s Germany.

bigbird @23:

I think the New Atheist movement reduces discrimination: when the discrimination is under the radar, nobody even notices it. The New Atheists gave us visibility, at least, and there are lots of us coming out of the atheist closet.

To uh, continue to steal from that other previously marginalized group:

We’re here! We’re non-believers! Get used to it!

toddes @25:

Forced to concede. Conflating persecution with discrimination is admittedly confusing, because it’s so darned rare to find them together.

It obvious that when you are committed to something you are passionately committed to it, Ray. But the problem is that I’m convinced you knowingly employ some very disruptive and tedious tactics stifle meaningful, on topic debate.

I think I’ll be saving save us both further trouble, Ray, when I say that for the moment I politely refuse to discuss anything with you. Comment #30 was just too rich for my taste.

Hi Ray,

Most all of the Middle Eastern cultures, including Mesopotamia & Babylon, worked on a system of reparation. Leviticus is not a legal document; it’s an admonitory morality piece. It is intended to show how the morality of a “crime” is perceived. There are 10 or 15 acts that the OT says are deserving of death, including mouthy teenagers. In most cases these were not punished by death, but other things by the discretion of the judge. We know this because of the context of several other things, including the direction that pre-meditated murder HAD to be punished with death and not any other substitution. It’s the only one of the “death penalty” crimes that specifies this.

This is not an OT excuse/justification/apologetic. This was the modus operandi of the contemporary cultures, not specific to the OT. They all listed crimes worthy of death, and all of them accepted substitutes.

This is a criticism of the text that needs to die. It’s based in a misapprehension of the cultures because of modern mores. Things like substitutions are not spelled out in such a high-context document because they were rightfully assumed.

If someone were to use Leviticus as a rationale or justification for killing someone, they are completely in the wrong according to the context of the OT. Maybe you know this and don’t buy the scholarship, I dunno, but I thought I saw this spelled out on this blog. Maybe it was another one.

Cheers,
Dave

Tom –

Further, even if someone were to die as you propose, it wouldn’t be the result of Lev. 20:13 [Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)] . It would be the result of a misinterpretation thereof.

So, since Dawkins at the Reason Rally specifically said to mock beliefs, not people, and only “if necessary”, if other people did something different, he’s off the hook?

a fringe person picked up by the media

Like people who hold up signs at a rally?

Who is the person or persons that I’ve dehumanized according to all those categories?

Which of them do you not think applies to PZ Meyers? Or Richard Dawkins?

Conversely, which atheists at the reason rally said all those traits apply to all believers?

Tom @41:

I think this is what you’re asking me — correct me if I’m wrong — but
the First Amendment is often (usually?) the rule used to limit those actions: for example, courts have ruled that handing out Bibles in school violates the First Amendment, it’s religious coercion.

On what basis should we decide what’s a protected right and what isn’t?

Inevitably, a court decides. There’s a long history of US courts limiting religious practice in this country. However, until recently, it’s almost never been Christians who have seen limits to their religious “freedom”. (I say almost never: interracial marriage is the only one I can think of, and by 1967 when the Supreme Court ruled, I think most Christians were already culturally on board with the change, so it didn’t have the effect gay marriage had/is having.)

Tom @46:

I agree courts don’t always make the right choice (and there have been huge mistakes in hindsight, who can forget Dred Scott), but I’m not sure how else to answer that question.

Courts decide, so judges/juries decide, judges are elected or appointed by elected officials, jurors are selected randomly from the voting population, so “we the people” decide for a period of time until a future group of “the people” decide to change their collective minds?

Sorry, I know you’re making a point, but I’m missing the thrust.

birdbird,

That’s the first time I’ve heard it claimed that so-called New Atheism is a moral movement! What an interesting twist.

I doubt it sees itself as primarily a moral movement, but I think any time you see people focusing strongly on ingroup/outgroup distinctions and on being disliked/oppressed by others, that group is using moral intuitions as a fundamental driving force. (Even sports sometimes qualifies, here, when the my-team/your-team distinction becomes strong enough to evoke real animosity. Anger, contempt, disgust aimed at people are fundamentally moral emotions.)

I suspect that any “general dehumanizing” of atheists in recent years (not that I’m aware of any, but I’m not in the US) is almost entirely a result of New Atheism,

No, well before the New Atheists. I’m thinking of this 2014 Will Gervais study that finds that people intuitively judge immorality as representative of atheists. The most fundamentally dehumanizing effect is to see a class of people as intrinsically immoral. Note I’m not blaming this on Christians but rather on society and cultural and historical ways of thinking about morality (since even atheists are prone to the fallacy utilized in the study).

G. Rodrigues @26:

I’m going to agree with you both.

When it comes to reasoning about metaphysics or philosophy in general, I find theists better informed and their reasoning generally better.

When it comes to reasoning about natural or formal sciences, it flips and the atheists are better informed and their reasoning better.

@DougJC

I’m thinking of this 2014 Will Gervais study that finds that people intuitively judge immorality as representative of atheists.

“These findings demonstrate a prevalent intuition that belief in God serves a necessary function in inhibiting immoral conduct, and may help explain persistent negative perceptions of atheists.”

It seems reasonable that belief in God does inhibit immoral conduct, ceteris paribus.

That doesn’t say atheists can’t be moral or even that they are less moral than theists overall. But, for example, the likelihood that an atheist is a nihilist is surely higher than a theist.

BillT @56:

Are you hypothesizing that willingness/ability to adhere to beliefs is connected to their objective nature? That if one believes morality based on an objective standard, one is more willing/likely to adhere to that morality?

Are you hypothesizing that willingness/ability to adhere to beliefs is connected to their objective nature? That if one believes morality based on an objective standard, one is more willing/likely to adhere to that morality?

Keith,

Absolutely. And I believe this based on the fact that I believe in morality based on an objective standard (and a sovereign God) and regularly don’t adhere to it. Further, I used to believe in morality not based on an objective standard or a sovereign God and pretty regularly didn’t adhere to it either. But I do know that those times that I do obediently follow the prescriptions of my moral understanding I do so because, and only because, of the gratitude I have for the sacrifice paid for me. Nothing can regularly force my obedience. Not fear of a sovereign God or my own willpower or even my care for others. When I do that I give it in gratitude for the grace I’ve received.

Jenna Black,

Not that study, I’m referring to a 2014 Gervais study, not 2011.

BillT,

Atheists are just people who, by their own free, will have chosen a worldview.

Of course; who suggested otherwise?

You’re free to choose atheism but other people are’t free not to agree with it and it’s conclusions

Of course not; who suggested otherwise? I’m just saying it is perfectly natural to dehumanize atheists based on the assumption that atheists are intrinsically immoral.

Grow up.

Why the personal attack? What did I do to you?

It’s no coincidence that they picked the same day as the day of prayer, May 7. They want to perpetuate the myth that faith is opposed to reason and figure that people will see it as an either/or day of celebration. I’m not willing to play along so I will be celebrating both.

Keith,

It may have escaped your attention but I said nothing about the law. Your attempt to correlate law and morality has nothing to do with anything that I wrote. You statistical interpretation of incarceration rates is similarly outside of and unrelated to any point I was making.

@Keith

Are you hypothesizing that willingness/ability to adhere to beliefs is connected to their objective nature? That if one believes morality based on an objective standard, one is more willing/likely to adhere to that morality?

No, not exactly. I hypothesize that if you believe that everyone is judged by God for how they adhere to his standard, one is more likely to adhere to such a standard than if you think morality is a convenient social construct.

@Keith:

You can’t hang with the science crowd when you disagree with them on the fundamentals.

Which is a very scientific attitude…

Anyway, and just to repeat my rather modest point, while your experiences are what they are, so are mine. And in my experience, while atheists love to proclaim their undying love for the Lady Science, in fact they more often abuse her like a strumpet.

The most absurd thing about this whole incarceration rate proposition is the notion that how people self identify religiously has anything to do with their commitment to a faith. The prison population is predominantly African American. African Americans predominantly self identify as Christian. Does anyone really think that their self identification has anything to do with an actual commitment to Christianity as a faith especially coming from a population of convicted felons! On the other had, people who don’t practice any religion at all and haven’t been in a church maybe ever don’t regularly self identify as atheists (per Tom’s point above). It’s a moniker of the educated elite who are quite obviously under represented in the prison population. Utterly pointless discussion and as red a herring as we’ve possible ever seen around these parts.

Tom – Sorry, I didn’t get “gracious in manner” from your reports above and this comment, or this posting. Perhaps you can see my confusion. Apparently he’s got a winning smile or something.

Culture and childlike – I already said ‘lack culture’ is too vague to be useful. Childlike… well, ‘simple’ might do.

Of course, here’s the interesting thing. Apparently, if you haven’t said all five about someone, you haven’t dehumanized them. And if some people on this site say some of them, and other people say others, then no dehumanization has taken place.

But if you can gather a collection of signs at the Reason Rally, all from different people… that means atheists are dehumanizing believers. (Though I gotta admit, hard to find one that says #1 about believers. I’m not even sure what it’d look like.)

Jenna –

I think that distrust of atheists stems in part from an inability of believers to understand how they conduct their moral reasoning and ethical decision-making without reference to the moral principles that stem from a belief in God

This recent study suggests that at least a significant component of that distrust results from the fact that atheists remind believers about death. (Of course, this’ll need some replication before it’s really established.)

Tom @78:

I’m not sure to what supposition you’re referring; I linked to the Nature paper on brain wiring differences.

Also, your link in @78 is borked.

Tom @83:

No science, entirely anecdotal (and why I littered it with “I think”, “I suspect”, “it may”).

I can say, without question, it was true in the religious communities in which I was raised.

GrahamH @74:

I’m the wrong person to ask, I’m personally relatively weak in the area. If pushed into a corner, I’d guess the KCA is the best regarded by people in the field.

G. Rodrigues probably has a better answer.

Keith @70

I’ve not seen any studies that are both legitimate and conclude that atheism makes one a more law-abiding person. I’d be interested to read if you know of any that fit that bill. Please do send links as you are able.

But I completely agree with you that all groups are susceptible to confirmation bias. I’d not meant to say anything in contradiction of that.

Rather, I was pointing out the particular flavor of confirmation bias that seems most common to the New Atheists: speaking for science in the way that many religious people claim to speak for God.

There seems to be a certain belief without evidence here—not about the facts, but about what conclusions can be drawn from those facts.

I wasn’t really thinking of any specific instance of this, but there are a great many examples: the idea that the Libet experiments contradict free will, Krauss claiming that science overturns Aristotelian logic, the claim that evolutionary explanations of a moral sense settle the question of whether or not there are moral truths outside of that sense, etc.

Frankly, the entire project of claiming that a “scientific worldview” is somehow automatically atheist is not something that science has ever tested—or could ever test. In calling their metaphysical conclusions “scientific”, the New Atheists are definitely claiming to speak for science.

The point isn’t that the New Atheists are the only people who are biased. This is clearly untrue.

Rather, the point is essentially a secular version of “shouting loudly doesn’t mean you speak for God”. Christians are (and should be) told this frequently.

I endorse that, but I also wanted to endorse the idea that speaking for science, when science itself is silent, is no more rational.

The science lover in me hates it.

Billy Squibs @90:

Thank you for your kindness! Sometimes I’m better than other times, I fear… 🙂

I read Tom’s use of “intrinsically” as a physical quality; obviously, your reading makes sense, and of course I’ve read Dr. Harris’ op-ed on Dr. Collins.

Consider an easier case than Dr. Collins. Dr. Kurt Wise, a well-known creationist author, who has written:

Although there are scientific reasons for accepting a young earth, I am a young-age creationist because that is my understanding of the Scripture. As I shared with my professors years ago when I was in college, if all the evidence in the universe turns against creationism, I would be the first to admit it, but I would still be a creationist because that is what the Word of God seems to indicate.

My guess is we can agree Dr. Wise is a worse scientist than an imaginary person identical in every way to Dr. Wise with the single exception that our copy of Dr. Wise would renounce YEC should sufficient evidence present itself. In other words, commitment to dogma makes one less of a scientist (regardless of the dogma).

As a naturalist, my ideal self would carry no dogma (although of course I inevitably do). As a religious adherent, I choose to carry some specific dogma.

Do the religious have more dogma than the non-religious? And now we’re back to my reading of Tom’s paragraph.

Doug, RE: #61

Thanks for pointing out that I responded to an earlier study (2011) by Will Gervais than the one you were talking about, the 2014 study. Sorry about that. I have now given a quick review to the Gervais 2014 study and see that he either never read or did not heed my recommendation or perhaps, the concept I talk about does not lend itself very easily to empirical investigation.

Gervais states that this is the conclusion of his 2014 study in the abstract:

“These findings demonstrate a prevalent intuition that belief in God serves a necessary function in inhibiting immoral conduct, and may help explain persistent negative perceptions of atheists.”

It seems to me that Gervais has merely chosen a different research (data collection) method to investigate the same phenomenon without revising the theoretical construct of his hypothesis: the possible causes or sources of prejudice against atheists. Unfortunately, the methodology he uses inherently brings out prejudice but IMO, doesn’t tap into a more important reality: The thing that atheists have going against them is atheism.

And Ray, RE: 79, thanks for the link to the article that you referred to. I also took at look at it, and draw the same conclusion. References to atheism automatically raise concerns and questions about atheists because atheism is puzzling and threatening to many people, especially surrounding issues of how we face and deal with death, since belief in God gives us a paradigm for reasoning and spiritual/emotional grounding in dealing with death.

I, in my own research about atheism and engagement with atheists have not found that a greater understanding of atheism helps much in overcoming prejudice against atheism (the worldview), although it does humanize atheists. I am finding these days a lot of defensive statements coming from atheists about how “involuntary” their atheistic belief is, which is a sort of am “It’s not my fault I’m an atheist” argument, usually followed by claims that there is no evidence for God’s existence. I don’t get it. I cannot imagine any Christian making the argument that we are “involuntary” Christians who have chosen of our own free will to be followers of Jesus Christ. Is the “involuntary” atheists’ argument designed to defuse prejudice against atheists?

And let me step back a bit on my criticism Ray as you do point out correctly that laws placing limitations on people based on one’s beliefs are not appropriate. Apologies Ray if I’ve conflated DougJC “class of people” with your position.

BillT –

And how many times have we heard the same thing from Ray.

I’m gonna say ‘never’, unless you can come up with actual quotes of my actual words to that effect. [Edit: I see you backed off on that one. Fine.]

BillT,

You speak the truth. One of the glaring contradictions in atheists’ arguments is this: The claim that they are atheists because of their rational assessment of the evidence, while simultaneously claiming that there is none. This claim is also framed this way: I followed the evidence where it led me when I became an atheist, but there is no evidence. This includes that accusation that we Christians are just refusing to see the evidence against the existence of God (cognitive bias) while themselves not seeing the contradiction in claiming that there is or even can be evidence of something that (allegedly) does not exist or that is non-existence itself, such as Krauss’ “nothing” that created the universe.

All of these contradictions, IMO, stem from a fundamental misunderstanding of what monotheism is and an obsessive preoccupation with the question “Does God exist?” without having clearly conceptualized either what is meant by “God” or what it means for a so-defined God to “exist.”

Jenna @101:

I’ll bite:

What is monotheism, what is meant by God, and what does it mean for that God to exist?

Tom,

My friend Blake Anderson and I ran into P.Z. Myers, biologist and famed atheistic blogger, who asked us, then added, “Are they ridiculing you here? They should be.”Pianist/comedian Tim Minchin sang a song mocking the Pope, with 72 instances of the F-word in it. (I didn’t count them, someone else did.) Richard Dawkins openly urged the attendees to mock Catholic beliefs.I’m not Catholic myself, but I can see the difference between that and an actual reasoned approach to persuasion

Quite the tone.

72 F’s and two not unpopular leaders knowingly inferring that such tone occurr.

Love isn’t easy – nevertheless reason and logical lucidity inform us that such means and such ends are in fact properly valued. I applaud your patience.

Doug, RE: #106

Please allow me to clarify. I would like to see a research methodology that focuses on people’s concerns about atheism (an ideology, a worldview, etc. ) rather than their prejudices against atheists (people). Such research, if it is possible, might help people make distinctions that enable them not to label and stereotype because no matter what people think of/about atheism, atheists are not inherently more moral or more immoral than any other group of people associated with a particular way of thinking. But, as I say, such nuanced research is difficult from a methodological and epistemological point of view.

Keith @93

I promise I’m not chasing you; you just keep raising interesting points.

As a naturalist, my ideal self would carry no dogma (although of course I inevitably do). As a religious adherent, I choose to carry some specific dogma.

Do the religious have more dogma than the non-religious?

By this modern use of the word dogma, I find myself suspicious of the idea that any group has more of it than another.

Rather, I’d reword the first paragraph quoted above to this:
The ideal self for any person would carry no dogma (although, of course, we inevitably do). As adherents to specific worldviews, we each choose to carry some specific dogma.

That is, I don’t see any more dogma in the quoted section about creationism than I see in John Searle’s comment that the suggestion that there is more to reality than the physical “is not a possible thought for us” or Christopher Hitchens’ confession that he never doubted his atheism.

We each have our commitments and biases, of course, but I see no reason to think that these are particular to the theist. Personally, I find nothing in naturalism that is particularly contrary to dogmatic thinking—it is only contrary to the dogmas of other positions (but this could be said for any form of dogmatism).

Jenna @108:

I agree atheists and the religious alike have a multitude of descriptions for God, we all impose our vision of what God is, and I agree that’s a huge problem in understanding each other’s beliefs, the labels don’t expose the nuance.

Then you lose me in If atheism were true, atheism would not exist. and … there is nothing to say about non-existence. We can have long discussions about things that don’t exist, obviously. Would you or BillT please explain this part to me, like I’m five? 🙂

Then you say Is the “existence” of a one unifying source of everything that exists really in question?

Yes, it really is in question.

There’s no evidence of a unifying source of everything, how could it not be in question?

It sounds like you’re heading toward some version of Kalam or First Cause argument, and there are many excellent posts on the web where people explain why they don’t find those arguments convincing.

Tom @88&89

Thanks for the link. I think I understand the point you are making. Theistic philosophical arguments have been honed expertly over a long period. The strategies employed are impressive.

Example: I think Thomistic metaphysics offers solutions to problems that are only problems if certain other Thomistic arguments are accepted. God is the nominee for the unmoved mover (if you need an unmoved mover). However, the need for an unmoved mover has to be established by something like Aquinas’s First Way. But this already presupposes a particular metaphysical perspective. So, you need the argument to accept the metaphysics and you need the metaphysics to accept the argument. A pretty tight hermeneutical circle!

But there is no need to accept the metaphysical presuppositions or acknowledgement of the alleged problems its trying to solve.

BTW that reminds me: I read Feser’s book the Last Superstition just as you suggested. It was a good read actually. He seems to be more mindful that his scholastic arguments and natural theology be recognised as more respectable than the so-called New Atheists make out. Fine. But he does concede that it is another matter whether the reader finds the arguments convincing. I don’t because I don’t see the metaphysical necessity of some of the arguments, but interesting enough and he made a few dollars out of me so a satisfactory transaction.

Jenna –

Is the “involuntary” atheists’ argument designed to defuse prejudice against atheists?

Well, it is a response to a common misconception about atheists, yes. The Romans 1:20 notion that atheists don’t really disbelieve in God, deep in their hearts. That they do believe, and ‘protest too much’. That they are atheist not because they are actually convinced, but because they want something or are afraid of something or are angry or something.

It depends a lot on what is meant by ‘choose to believe’. There’s a spectrum there. I mean, you drop some furniture on your toe and break it, you don’t choose to believe you’re in pain!

On the opposite end of the spectrum, there’s things like, say, the idea that the universe is too big for there not to be extraterrestrial life somewhere. There’s no solid evidence for it, just some suggestive calculations and estimations. Believing it’s at least likely – and believing it’s not likely – are both rational options, given what we currently know. (So is believing ‘we dunno, have to wait on more data’, of course.)

Consider, say, someone who doesn’t want to think their spouse is cheating on them. And then they find someone stranger’s underwear in their bed. They don’t choose to believe in the affair, at that point they can’t help but believe it. Like Groucho Marx, “Who are you going to believe, me or your lying eyes?”

So when an atheist says they don’t choose to be atheist, they are countering Romans 1:20. They are saying, “Based on what I’ve seen, I can’t support the idea that God exists.”

Ray, RE: #116

“…unicorns, dragons, leprechauns, fairies, superheroes, faster-than-light spaceships …” do not exist in a material, physical form. A discussion of their non-existence is quite unlike a discussion of God’s “existence, because no monotheist claims that God exists in material, physical form. To make such a claim is idolatry. Monotheists reject idolatry. If you want to discuss whether or not God exists, the discussion must be about God’s existence as spirit/Spirit.

John 24:4 “God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.”

Let’s take the unicorn as an example. There is no element of an imagined unicorn that does not exist in nature. A unicorn is an imagined recombination or assemblage of existing elements in the natural world. The name “God” is a label for existing elements, forces, phenomena, relationships in nature that are deified in/through monotheism. Everyone has an understanding of the meaning of the term because we experience God as Spirit and share these experiences with each other, which builds and affirms our understanding of God. Point me in the direction of a single person who “believes in” unicorns as the Creator of the heavens and the earth.

The fact that we can imagine God is not evidence or an argument that God does not exist. On the contrary, our human ability to imagine and conceptualize God to form an understanding of God is strong evidence for God’s existence in the ways that God and only God exists.

Jenna #117
Ray’s disagreements/objections/pushbacks are often presented in the form of horrible analogies. Arguments for God are nothing like arguments for Bigfoot.

Jenna –

do not exist in a material, physical form

They don’t exist at all, except as ideas in people’s heads. Those ideas don’t correspond to anything out in the real world. (Consider this extended dialogue from a novel.)

The name “God” is a label for existing elements, forces, phenomena, relationships in nature that are deified in/through monotheism.

I suspect G. Rodrigues would object to that characterization.

The fact that we can imagine God is not evidence or an argument that God does not exist.

True, and I never said that. What I said was that the fact that we can imagine God is not evidence or an argument that God does exist.

Ray, RE: #121 & 122

You make this claim: “The fact that something can be conceptualized in some manner in no way indicates that it is instantiated in the real world.”

This comment further illustrates the problem that atheists face in arguing that God does not exist. To not exist, as you state, means that there is nothing in the real world to which the concept corresponds. God is the name for that which monotheism deifies. In order to convincingly argue for God’s nonexistence, the atheist must argue that there is nothing in reality (physical and/or spiritual reality) to which any conceptualization of God in/through monotheism corresponds in reality. This is a very tall order.

Please allow me to give you a micro-example from polytheism, which I have used to illustrate the concept of deification (which I’m sure we can agree exists): Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain. If you argue that there is no reality that corresponds to that which Tlaloc is a deification of, then you must argue that rain does not exist.

If you as an atheist argue that God does not exist, then you are arguing that there is nothing in reality to which anything that monotheism deifies corresponds. Since I am limiting the conversation here to the deification of God as the Creator of the Universe, then the atheist must argue that the Big Bang never happened, or that there is/was no cause of the Big Bang, because according to the current understanding in the discipline of physics, the Big Bang is the first event in the formation of everything that exists (energy and matter) in the universe. Since the concept of God as Creator encompasses all of the knowledge we have of cosmology, to claim then that there is nothing in monotheism’s conceptualization of God as Creator that corresponds to anything in reality, atheists must deny everything we know to be true scientifically about the Big Bang. You are welcome to try, but I don’t think that your arguments will be very convincing.

Then you lose me in If atheism were true, atheism would not exist. and … there is nothing to say about non-existence. We can have long discussions about things that don’t exist, obviously. Would you or BillT please explain this part to me, like I’m five? 🙂

Keith,

Given the mess I’ve made of a bunch of discussions on this thread so far it would be more than fair if this were a bit of a comeuppance. But if not, I’m flattered you thought of me and will try not to muck this up too much. And thank you Jenna for this thought to begin with as I think it is profound.

“…unicorns, dragons, leprechauns, fairies, superheroes, faster-than-light spaceships …” All of these things are variations of things that exist in reality. Even in the case of leprechauns and fairies there are elements of the natural in these mythical, supernatural beings. (For explanations of the mythical, supernatural, see: Tolkien, JRR)

However, I think God is different. God supersedes and precedes anything natural. He is a being that has no equivalent, no parallel, no possibility of knowledge of except in his existence. He is nothing like anything that exists. Our knowledge of him comes from our observation of our existence and our being and our quest to comprehend it. This certainly cannot be seriously said of the above list.

So, if God doesn’t exist just why would we conceive of him. Now, I admit that given that we do conceive of him makes this hard to accept. After all, we don’t know of the things we can’t conceive of and that we do conceive of him makes him seem as ordinary as “…unicorns, dragons, leprechauns, fairies, superheroes, faster-than-light spaceships …” But he isn’t. The things that he explains are outside of everything.

So the question again is, how is it you’re objecting to the existence of something you should have no knowledge of except for its existence. Can you offer a reasonable reply?

BillT @ 125:

If God is “nothing like anything that exists”, then how do you think about Him (not “of Him”, “about Him”)? How can He have no familiar qualities, no equivalent, no parallels, and yet you can still think about Him? It seems you claim there’s no word for rain, yet you continue to talk about the weather.

What does it mean to conceive of something that is entirely outside of human experience and sensory perception? Is that even possible?

And we know how the brain stores/processes information; if you did have that knowledge, how would your brain physically store/process it?

@Jenna re#118

…so what sort of evidence of God is the atheist asking for/demanding?

and

As for the case of Christianity, we Christians have no problem with being asked about our own experiences of/with God as evidence of God’s existence.

Have you got anything better than “personal experience” as evidence? I take that to mean some sort of personal revelation or communication with God?

So if a person comes to accept a conception of God, and an adherence to a certain religious creed through personal experience; it is not just atheists you need to worry about. Many other religions, and Gods, and even mutually exclusive Christian creeds (and definitions of God, faith, morality, etc..), are justified the same way.

Now they can’t all be right. They are either all wrong, or you are right. Forget atheists, how you explain or convince others that their personal experience leads to the wrong conclusions is quite a difficulty.

Those who rely on “personal experience” should acknowledge this fact and accept this introduces material doubt as evidence, even if they feel strongly about their beliefs.

For those of us who have not experienced this “personal experience”, you have to acknowledge we can only have a fruitful discussion in terms of an inter-subject form of evidence and reason. And you can not rightly expect otherwise without otherwise appealing to motives, fears or emotions (like the offer of an afterlife as an inducement, or threat of hell as a form of coercion).

Simply stating “personal experience” is about as fruitful a form of dialogue as dealing with a petulant child who stamps their feet and simply asserts “I know I am right!”.

@GrahamH:

However, let’s say I am ignorant or am not endowed with your intellectual strength or missed a point in Feser’s tome. You are welcome to point me to some web page that you feel clearly demonstrates the MUST in this metaphysical necessity.

Feser’s book “The Last Superstition” is an entry-level book. I have your word that you read it; Your words also show that you do not fully understand it. What exactly would the multiplication of references achieve? If you really do want to understand it, my suggestion is to try again. At any rate, I do not know (as in I am ignorant) of any more suitable or more newbie-friendly book on the topic.

If you can believe we share a moral code, how difficult is it to believe we all share a God-shaped hole, and we all imagine a God to fill it?

And just why and where does this God shaped hole come from? For what reproductive advantage? We just evolved it for no good reason. And no, constructing an evolutionary explanation as to why we’d end up this way isn’t a better explanation nor does it better match the facts as we know them.

And none of your questions are on point either. The differences in religions are about either an incomplete view of God or cultural and intellectual differences. People are atheists because God gave them the free will (another thing you wouldn’t have without God) to reject him. And I’m not sure I understand your third point.

And please, we’ve been through the whole “evolved morality” (Hauser) thing here. If that satisfies you then it does. It however doesn’t explain objective morality as we know it. And the trolley scenario is interesting but not that informative on the topic at hand.

BillT @133:

The God-shaped hole comes from evolution, of course: we’re hard-wired for religion in the same way we’re hard-wired for (and I mean this literally, not pejoratively), imaginary friends and to see cause-and-effect where none exists. In other words, we see design everywhere and attribute it to non-existent actors.

I’m sure we can agree cause-and-effect is useful, it’s just humans developed it past the point of correctness, and now we see it where it doesn’t exist. Imaginary friends are part of our ability to predict the behaviors of others and helps in the construction of larger social groups. There’s a lot of information available on this, if you’re interested, for example here.

Once there’s a naturalistic explanation of why we imagine God, why would I prefer it? Because it requires no supernatural explanation. Because it’s testable. Because it has explanatory power and can answer other questions. None of those are true on the other side: “God does it” historically has a terrible track record at being the right explanation.

Finally, when Jenna assumes a unifying source of everything, or you assume free will, respectfully, you’re presenting belief as fact. There’s no evidence either of those are true. I agree there are arguments you can make for both, but the physical evidence that exists is all on the other side, and for me, the physical evidence outweighs the arguments.

Keith, RE: #135

You say this: “I agree there are arguments you can make for both, but the physical evidence that exists is all on the other side, and for me, the physical evidence outweighs the arguments.”

You contradict atheism with this statement. Atheism is the belief that God does not exist (is non-existent). There is nor there can be no evidence, much less physical evidence, of a “something” that doesn’t exist. So if you claim to be an atheist based on “the physical evidence that exists” and how “…the physical evidence outweighs the arguments” you are speaking epistemological gibberish.

When I experience order in the universe, Keith, I’m not experiencing something that randomness can produce. I therefore am not experiencing something that the unguided forces of nature can produce. I therefore am experiencing guided forces (aka design) and not imagining God.

BillT,

Quite alright, no problem.

bigbird,

That’s a good point and gets to the main problem, in my view, with comparing atheists (or non-religious) in general to the religious in general. Atheism (or non-religion) does not have a set of moral teachings inherent in atheism (non-religion) while religions always have a core set of moral teachings. To best compare religion to non-religion in the pro-social or moral context requires a non-religious view that also has a core moral philosophy, like humanism. This is where the most fruitful comparisons would come from, in my view. The study you report (Stavrova/Sieger) seems to measure the moral effect of an intrinsic religious orientation– which are people who are sincerely religious and moral for its own sake, not through coercion, not to impress their group, not reluctant, but wholeheartedly engaged– against the non-religious of all stripes. But what about the non-religious that are also sincerely moral without coercion, not to impress, wholly engaged, etc., but don’t identify with a religion? These are likely to be found supporting humanist philosophies and values and would likely be just as moral as the intrinsic religious set I would expect.

Jenna @140:

I agree there cannot be physical evidence of “something” that does not exist, but my agreement is based on your choice of the word “of”, I would disagree if you used the word “for” or “against”, instead.

So: there can be physical evidence “something” does or does not exist, and that is independent of whether or not the “something” actually does or does not exist. Physical evidence “of” something that does not exist is not possible, anything appearing to be such evidence must be a mistake.

Is that right?

The statement you flagged in @137 was ““I agree there are arguments you can make for [free will and a unifying source of everything], but the physical evidence that exists is all on the other side, and for me, the physical evidence outweighs the arguments.”

Note I chose the word “for”; I see no problem in saying there is physical evidence against the idea that free will exists; where is the contradiction?

Keith, RE: #143

I find it to be quite odd to claim that there is physical evidence against an abstract idea/concept/construct like free will. What do you mean?

Keith,

The function of neuro-electric and chemical activity in the brain in reference to consciousness and the mind seems to me to be rather ambiguous and hard to interpret, but then, I’m not a neuroscientist. But a general principle that I apply in looking at studies of brain activity is that the mind has control over brain activity. See the research of Andrew Newberg, for example.
A dictionary definition of free will: the power of acting without the constraint of necessity or fate; the ability to act at one’s own discretion.

I don’t really see where it gets anyone to argue against free will as a concept. I would suggest that you look to our criminal justice system for a pragmatic “definition” and the concept of mens rea to see what is meant by free will. Mens rea is a legal phrase used to describe the mental state a person must be in while committing a crime for it to be intentional. It can refer to a general intent to break the law or a specific, premeditated plan to commit a particular offense. Basically, we do not hold people morally or criminally accountable for actions over which they have no control. The concept of free will works the same in examining morality and moral accountability.

These are likely to be found supporting humanist philosophies and values and would likely be just as moral as the intrinsic religious set I would expect.

Doug,

If I may. (And I hope I’m getting your point here.) The issue isn’t nor has it ever been whether atheists are “as moral” as theists. The issue is whether atheists can explain why they should be moral. Just behaving well isn’t enough if you can’t explain why your behavior makes sense.

SteveK @150:

I have no idea what that means…

Did you know the phrase “regularity without deviation” appears nowhere on the entire indexed web, according to both Google and Bing?

Once this page is indexed, you’re going to have a moment of fame.

Good to know.

Pick any long-term, repeatably ordered reality you’d like. Do unguided forces cause this?

Jenna

My personal experiences of/with God may not be evidence to/for you of God, but they most certainly are for me

Sure I understand that. However, you have to admit, “personal experience” does not lead to a convergence on the truth, but a divergence of mutually exclusive claims. I think anyone reasoning honestly, must have some doubt whether they are actually experiencing God, instead of wishing/thinking they are experiencing God. An impartial observer would surely come to that conclusion as the most likely explanation.

It seems conceptually only one step away from all those people who kill and do horrible things because they state with conviction that “God told them to do it”. Do we believe them? Hopefully not.

SteveK @156:

I’m not trying to be difficult — I’m trying to make light of the fact that I haven’t a clue what you mean by a “specific order of regularity without deviation”, or a “repeatably ordered reality”.

Five examples really would help.

GrahamH, #155

I don’t understand your cautions about a person’s own spiritual experiences of/with God as a source of knowledge about God in relationship with God. The speculations of an “impartial observer” about another person’s experiences of/with God are worthless. And I sincerely doubt that anyone who speculates about other people’s experiences are “impartial” in doing so.

There is quite a credible body of research on spiritual experiences that you might want to investigate before engaging in speculation of your own.

Tom @163:

I was unclear; what I meant was there’s no evidence a part of the mind exists that can’t be damaged by physical damage to the brain. I agree “certain observable expressions” is a subset of all expressions, but we’ve never found a single part of the mind that can survive physical damage to the brain.

I do understand the radio analogy: but when morality, sense of self, and religious choices are changed by brain damage, we’ve moved beyond where the brain can be analogous to broadcasting hardware.

It’s not that unconscious mind/brain can learn. It’s the unconscious mind/brain takes action and the conscious mind/brain creates an experience that you “remember”. That’s wildly different from “learning”.

The incoherence — “incoherence” and not “incompleteness”? I’m not aware of “incoherence” in monism?

Anyway, the “incoherence” of monism isn’t evidence for dualism, any more than the incompleteness of gravitational theory is evidence for geocentrism. If there’s evidence for dualism, I’m not aware of it.

And, yes, we’ve run over this ground before — we need a list of conversation tags. 🙂

G. Rodrigues @164:

Yes, there are powerful arguments, and I’m sure I don’t know them all (perhaps I don’t even know a good subset).

Thanks for the pointer to A. Mele, it looks interesting.

@Keith:

Yes, there are powerful arguments, and I’m sure I don’t know them all (perhaps I don’t even know a good subset).

I can drop the “powerful” qualifier for the purposes of the discussion. Since you said “I know of no evidence indicating dualism might be true” — which is a pretty strong statement — and since dualism has always had very able defenders from Plato down to our own day, the natural question that popped was what arguments, if any, you knew. Now you seem to acknowledge that “there are powerful arguments”, and you are even sure you do not “know them all”, so I do not know what to make of your words.

@Keith:

I’m saying “arguments” aren’t “evidence”.

Ah, I think I see where the confusion is.

So a couple of things need to be said. First an apology is in order because the mixup is probably my fault, as I did not explained myself fully. As an excuse, never thought I had to, since what I am about to say is quite elementary. There is no such thing as “evidence” apart from an argument, for evidence, qua evidence, only is evidence when it features as a premise in an argument (inductive, deductive, abductive, etc.). To say that the data collected at the LHC is evidence for the existence of the Higgs Boson is to have mounted an argument (the specific form of which need not concern us now) that connects the such-and-such-was-seen-at-the-LHC to the proposition the “Higgs boson exists”. So to say that there “isn’t evidence” for dualism and at the same that there are “powerful arguments” for it is a contradiction in terms.

“Repeatable” said SteveK to Keith.

The dictionary isn’t enough for the Skeptic for such a word, as he was baffled by the evening tide and the rising sun, lest all of physics testify – evidence of the Theist’s immaterial and timeless, but then the dictionary just may be enough for some other word of his liking, if the nuance demands, and then it isn’t. …and then it is….. and then…..

Smoke and mirrors.

Unintelligible solipsism and self-negating presuppositionalism awash in a cloud of smoke swirling by winds of we know not what.

Keith,

It’s not you per se.

Rather, it is the predictable pattern at hand. The last – and only – safe-house of Illusion awash in an unintelligible solipsism annihilating “I Exist” even as a self-negating presuppositionalism circles the wagons.

It’s the pattern. Not you. You’re actually quite engaging and challenging prior to said safe-house, said Cavern free of logic’s incessant inquiries.

“Repeatable” patterns of natural forces confused you – you claimed.

Dictionary?

And now argument as such is fused to logic as such is fused with observation.

And you’re back to the dictionary again.

“Not sure what the importance is of not finding a phrase in Google. I mean, “nailed another Googlewhack” isn’t found but I can understand what you mean. I think you’re just being difficult.”

d,

Briefly:

The Theist’s (well, the Christian’s) regression there to Person, or, if it helps, to Being, finds seamlessness amid the simplicity of Self/Reason-ing/Reason-s/Volition – and so on. Whereas, the “as-if” flavor of “fake joints” which the materialist posits on all such fronts he posits because he is forced to such stopping points given his a priori / presuppositions. There’s more but that’s the brief idea of it. It’s not at all obvious that reasoning/reasons are incoherent within the “Self” or within Person (Etc.) as we move within Theism’s paradigm

As this thread is subtly revealing, there is nothing the materialist will not happily trade away – including trading away logic for a safe-house named illusion – should the alternative land in Person or in the stuff of Being (….Etc.). Reasons and Choice find the same problem in such trading: “Contingent upon X” is a concept the physicalist cannot escape – and that is in part why simplicity – or seamlessness – or “singularity” seems incoherent to him. It’s therefore a bit ironic that so many philosophical naturalists are of late desperately seeking to escape the very shape of “contingent” and/or “change” as such lack explanatory “oomph” in the end. One can only go on describing for so long – sooner or later one must seek to explain. That’s in part a different topic but it does tie into the fundamental nature of – shape of – the problem at hand.

All the while the Christian’s paradigm finds that Reason-ing is, and Reason-s are, along with various other contours of such ontological real-estate, quite in-play there within the simplicity of Being.

Ray, RE: #182

This comment of yours for me represents a considerable step forward. You now agree with me that the “problem” between monotheists and atheists is NOT God’s existence, but God’s deification: how God is conceptualized for veneration and worship. IOW, you don’t think that monotheists should worship God, not that what we worship does not exist. You realize, of course, that this is an entirely different discussion than talking about whether or not God exists, with a very different departure point. What is it about deification (worship) that you object to? Can’t you recognize that this is merely your expression of a personal, subjective preference for how other people should behave from a cultural, social, and personal perspective that has nothing much to do with our understanding (or lack thereof) of the Big Bang or how you yourself choose to view and relate to reality?

Progress!

Ray,
Given the continuous link of cause/effect, and the fact that this same chain always produces rain, in what sense are you saying the production of rain is undirected? In my mind, undirected means that’s it’s possible for something other than rain to be the result.

Ray, RE: #184

We are making progress, IMO. You are correct that what monotheism deifies is whatever/whoever caused of the Big Bang, not the Big Bang itself. This is made clear in Genesis 1:1: “in the beginning, God (Elohim) created the heavens and the earth.” I know of atheists who respond to this argument by arguing that the Big Bang had no cause. This, I think, is because it is very difficult to support an argument that no cause of the Big Bang exists, simply because we don’t completely understand it.

Rain is also caused, and Tlaloc, the Aztec god of rain, is, as you point out, the deification of the powers, processes and concert of causal factors that create and control rain, with the objective of human beings having influence over these (for the Aztecs expressed linguistically and conceptually through the name Tlaloc) to achieve an outcome of (to supervene for) favorable conditions for human survival and prosperity.

So now let’s set aside polytheism and examine monotheism and the deification of the all the unified concert of forces, powers, processes and causes of the existence of everything that exists under the linguistic and conceptual name or label “the Creator.” The deification of the creative forces that bring into existence and sustain the existence of everything is a concept of a “super” power or “meta” power that is simultaneously outside and above nature and totally present, inside and integrated into nature and into the physical, as expressed by the terms supernatural and metaphysical. We have evidence that this power or force that we call “God” (by many different names) sometimes acts or supervenes in ways that are “super” or “meta” actions and does so in ways that are purposeful and intentional (expressing and manifesting a will) in interactions with human beings. Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits (1959, 2004, p. 16) in his book “God, Man and History” calls these experiences “encounters” with God:

“The foundation of biblical religion, therefore, is not an idea but an event—an event that may be called an encounter with God….If the encounter is experienced in reality, what need of proofs? If, however, the encounter is not part of possible human experience, what use all proof?”

Ray,

Clouds don’t want to precipitate. Snow doesn’t decide to fall in an avalanche. The Earth didn’t choose to shake in Nepal a couple weeks back.

This is true, but since we already know that clouds and snow don’t decide to do anything your answer is already obvious.

I’m asking a question with a less obvious answer. I’m asking you to explain in what sense the process is undirected from the perspective of causality? If you think it’s a causally directed process, what in nature is responsible for those non-random forces?

Giving dualism its due.

“I have been a materialist about the mind for forty years, since first I considered the mind-body issue. In all that time I have seen exactly one argument for mind-body dualism that I thought even prima facie convincing. And like many other materialists, I have often quickly cited standard objections to dualism that are widely taken to be fatal,
—notoriously the dread Interaction Problem. My materialism has
never wavered. Nor is it about to waver now; I cannot take dualism very seriously.

Being a philosopher, of course I would like to think that my stance is rational, held not just instinctively and scientistically and in the mainstream but because the arguments do indeed favor materialism over dualism. But I do not think that, though I used to. My position may be rational, broadly speaking, but not because the arguments
favor it: Though the arguments for dualism do (indeed) fail, so do the arguments for materialism. And the standard objections to dualism are not very convincing; if one really manages to be a dualist in the first place, one should not be much impressed by them. My purpose in this paper is to hold my own feet to the fire and admit that I do not
proportion my belief to the evidence.”

GrahamH & Jenna Black present an interesting development in the arena of true reasoning:

JB’s stopping points and GrahamH’s stopping points converge – J.B. motioning towards the semantics and linguistics of God – though actually she never left them – and GrahamH motioning towards the Skeptic’s only other option: the semantics and linguistics of illusion.

Illusion, or Delusion, or Imaginary contours – and so on – the illusion of Cause/Effect, the illusion of Temporal Becoming, the illusion of Change, the illusion of Potentiality, that dishonest oddity in the Arrow of Time, and – yes – the illusion of all that can be called the mind is, as described earlier, the last – and the only – safe-house for the Skeptic. All the previously mentioned arrows – including the arrow of time – aim at the semantics of God and therein all such arrows just must be – the Skeptic tells us – ultimately fraudulent.

It is ironic that the phrase “Contingent Upon X” is so troubling of late to the philosophical naturalists who for so long have clung to that phrase – unable to break free of the fundamental shape of all that the physical sciences can reach. It is ironic because now we see the Skeptic’s trepidation at the futility of such means and ends – and hence of their scient-ism – to actually explain anything at all in the end. As all the evidence points to the Meta-Uncasued-Cause – known all long from eons past in a peculiar oddity known as the Hebrew – to what is in no way contingent but utterly necessary…… only that…… can in principle be the ultimate terminus of explanation – and that such just may be the case after all is just too close to everything which sums to the Theist’s truth predicates. It will be God or it will be Illusion – and the former is unthinkable to the Skeptic and that is why we find GrahamH. here doing what all Skeptics are of late doing: diving into the last – and only – safe-house of Illusion awash in an unintelligible solipsism and self-negating presuppositionalism – immersed in an ocean of imaginary contours as they boldly boycott any need to cohere with reality – else God. And so too it is with perception, and so too it is with brutally repeatable experience, and so too – finally – with all that is the mind in the absurdities of eliminative materialism as the Skeptic gives all of us what can only be an unintelligible “assurance” that he has – he insists – in his metaphysics “somewhere” what can only be an unintelligible proof of said illusion. We wait endlessly for him to present said proof of said illusion though it never does surface – instead we only see the Skeptic’s dive into said illusion – never the illusion itself – as said dive brings us to his last and only safe-house. It is there in his safe-house that we find the Skeptic franticly trying to free himself from his own mind – lost somewhere in his Cavern of illusion immersed in his muddled maze of an unintelligible solipsism annihilating his own “I-Exist” as he himself is forever intoxicated with a self-negating presuppositionalism. Yes it is there – and there alone – where we will find the Skeptic anxiously rummaging through his pile of absurdities seeking his last – and his only – refreshing reprieve from logic’s relentless inquiries.

“Did the universe have a beginning.” While all the evidence is pointing to the affirmative……. “Carroll’s answer was, “We don’t know”……. He says we don’t know if the universe had a beginning. His skepticism is based upon the fact that we don’t have a quantum theory of gravity yet to describe the earliest split second of the existence of the universe. The hope here, I think on his part, is that such a theory of gravity might enable us to save the past eternality of the universe. All the evidence that we do have points to a beginning of the universe, but the hope is that if you can find this quantum theory of gravity then that might serve to avert it. I think that there is an epistemological issue that is in play here when he says, We don’t know. When he uses the word “know” he is using this in a very strong sense to say we are not scientifically certain. But that does nothing to negate the fact that the evidence makes it highly probable that the universe did have a beginning. You don’t need to have certainty about something in order to say where the evidence points and which conclusion is probably true. Even Lawrence Krauss, you may remember in our dialogues in Australia, said that if he had to decide he said the universe probably did begin to exist, even given quantum theories of gravity. So our uncertainty about how to describe the first split second of the origin of the universe doesn’t necessarily negate the fact that the universe is finite in the past. I think even if we don’t know that with certainty, nevertheless we have good reason to think that the universe is finite in the past even given a quantum theory of gravity…… Alex Vilenkin, who is a very prominent cosmologist at Tufts University, in 2012 gave a lecture at a conference for Stephen Hawking’s 70th birthday in Cambridge University where he surveys all of the attempts to avoid the beginning of the universe which the evidence seems to predict. What he shows is that none of these scenarios is able to actually avoid the beginning of the universe. The evidence indicates that classical time and space (that is to say, time and space not taking into account quantum effects) have a beginning. It goes back to a boundary point. Either there was something on the other side of that boundary or not. If not then that boundary just was the beginning of the universe. If there was something on the other side of that boundary then that, Vilenkin says, was the beginning of the universe.”

Touching on M-Theory / String Theory, and so on. Vilenkin – no friend to Theism – comments “It is said that an argument is what convinces reasonable men and a proof is what it takes to convince even an unreasonable man. With the proof now in place, cosmologists can no longer hide behind the possibility of a past-eternal universe. There is no escape, they have to face the problem of a cosmic beginning.”

The Skeptic will have none of it.

We thusly observe his bizarre procession dressed in his royal regalia faithfully sacrificing his own mind atop that strange altar of eliminative materialism as we all stand back in awe – beholding the Skeptic’s sacred fire and holy fumes effervescing full and final absurdities.

A sonnet emerges…..

Illusion, Delusion, Imaginary contours – the illusion of Cause/Effect, the illusion of Temporal Becoming, the illusion of Change, the illusion of Potentiality, that dishonest oddity in the Arrow of Time, and – yes – the illusion of all that can be called the mind is the last – and the only – safe-house for the Skeptic. All the previously mentioned arrows – including the arrow of time – aim at God and therein all such arrows just must be – the Skeptic tells us – ultimately fraudulent. Thus it will be – not God – but – instead – the Skeptic franticly trying to free himself from his own mind – lost somewhere in his Cavern of illusion immersed in his muddled maze of an unintelligible solipsism annihilating his own “I-Exist” as he himself is forever intoxicated with a self-negating presuppositionalism. Yes it is there – and there alone – where we will find the Skeptic anxiously rummaging through his pile of absurdities seeking his last – and his only – refreshing reprieve from logic’s relentless inquiries.

@ G. Rodrigues

The simple fact that the Kalaam is discussed, its validity probed and the cogency of the premises evaluated is proof proven that it is perfectly meaningful.

It seems many atheists are completely unaware of the considerable volume of academic discussion Kalaam has generated over the last 30 or so years.

The number of “2 minutes to prove Kalaam wrong” videos and blog posts seem to confirm this impression.

As WLC says, if you’ve disproved Kalaam, publish it – journals would be eager to do so.

SteveK –

This is true, but since we already know that clouds and snow don’t decide to do anything your answer is already obvious.

Dude, I didn’t bring up the idea of rain gods.

I’m asking you to explain in what sense the process is undirected from the perspective of causality?

When did I say that? Which of my words gave you that impression, in particular in light of what I wrote in #186?

Ray, RE: #196

You ask these questions: “I’m not quite willing to move on so fast. Do you believe in Tlaloc? If so, in what sense? Do you think there is a mind that “create[s] and control[s] rain”?”

Let me ask you this first: What does it mean to “believe in” Tlaloc? Please think of this in terms of what it might have meant to the Aztecs to “believe in” their god Tlaloc, their deification of rain. The Mind (with a capital M) that creates rain is the same Mind that created the laws of physics (laws of nature) that control/cause rain is the Mind of the Creator who created everything.

Polytheism is the worship or deification of separate processes of nature and some human characteristics as separate and individual gods. Each god of a polytheistic religion is a god of something: rain, the sun, the moon, love, etc. I’m not sure that to “believe in ” these gods meant to polytheists that deification created an entity other than the invisible forces and processes that prayers and supplications were intended to influence in their favor. Since I don’t know a single polytheist who I can ask about this, I don’t know how I would find out.

So, I suggest that we move on to monotheism because I am a monotheist and everyone I know, except for my atheist friends, are also. I also believe that monotheism deifies unity, unification, oneness (the mono part of monotheism) in a way that is profoundly different from polytheism.

The encounters with God of which Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits are experiences of God’s revelation of Himself to us, collectively and individually. Of course, reports of encounters with God are not the experiences themselves. This statement seems to me to be so obvious as to be trivial.

But the collected body of experiences or encounters with God of the Hebrew people is to be found in their Holy Scriptures, as well as their response to these encounters and their relationship to/with God as they understood God and lived out this relationship through their culture and religion. The other source of such reports is the witnessing of living Christians who are your friends, neighbors and perhaps family members. So I don’t think you can claim to be without a source of reports of such experiences, even though you may not have encountered God yourself.

@Ray

Pheidippides, whose famous run gave us marathons, is recorded to have met and spoken with the god Pan while racing to Athens from Marathon. Do you accept this report as evidence for the existence of Pan?

There’s no historical record of Pheidippides’ famous run from Athens to Marathon – it’s thought to be an invention by the Greek writer Lucian 600 years later.

However Herodotus records a much more impressive run from Athens to Sparta and back (to ask the Spartans for assistance against the Persians). Writing about 50 years after the event, he writes that Pheidippides claimed to have spoken to Pan during this run.

As WLC says, if you’ve disproved Kalaam, publish it – journals would be eager to do so.

Isn’t this what is being claimed now? I was listening to Unbelievable recently and in it the atheist/ agnostic guest – a knowledgeable layman – claimed that the latest research suggested that the universe did not begin to exist. Even if this research was later found to be questionable the Kaalam was still a “bad” argument because we simply don’t know. My knowledge of the science is poor at best but I would have thought that not necessarily being able to demonstrate that the universe had a beginning (over against other live options) doesn’t make it a bad (or incorrect) argument.

Thoughts anyone?

(The RSS feed is down at the moment but if people are interested the the episode, Has the Big Bang gone bust? Phil Harper & Jeff Zweerink (4/10/2015), can be found on iTunes – https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=267142101)

scbrownlhrm, RE: #204

Beautiful words on the Word. Thanks. JB

@scbrownlrm

Briefly:

The Theist’s (well, the Christian’s) regression there to Person, or, if it helps, to Being, finds seamlessness amid the simplicity of Self/Reason-ing/Reason-s/Volition – and so on. Whereas, the “as-if” flavor of “fake joints” which the materialist posits on all such fronts he posits because he is forced to such stopping points given his a priori / presuppositions. There’s more but that’s the brief idea of it. It’s not at all obvious that reasoning/reasons are incoherent within the “Self” or within Person (Etc.) as we move within Theism’s paradigm

…

All the while the Christian’s paradigm finds that Reason-ing is, and Reason-s are, along with various other contours of such ontological real-estate, quite in-play there within the simplicity of Being.

There really isn’t anything “seamless” that I can see in appeals that “regress to the person”, or “being”, or singularities that can easily or obviously dispense with the problems that arise when trying to account for the will.

And its not just non-theists who think so. Whatever “Christian paradigm” you speak of isnt universal. Calvinists, for example, tend to not only be compatibalists but also determinists. Often they stand well beyond that line, and are incompatabilists with respect to non-deterministic views of the will.

In any case, they recognize how difficult it is to actually make an accounting of the will that contains both non-arbitrariness AND independence from prior state.

No “retreats to illusions” are necessary to recognize these difficulties. I’m not sure what you think one must “give away” to call them out or otherwise consider them unresolved.

@d

he doesn’t really aim to outright disprove the Kalam, but merely to show that its pillars aren’t as well supported as many think

Yes, it’s not an argument I would use. I was surprised he didn’t mention the A-theory of time though.

Kalam:

A few thoughts……….

If the Naturalist’s goal is to escape the absurdity of illusion – and hence the unintelligibility of all his final statements – we don’t find any hope for him whether or not Kalam turns out to be true.

A little unpacking of radioactive decay and of QM and causality are helpful in revealing a bit of why that is the case.

While Kalam is nothing more than an averaging of available evidence as pointing to a space/time beginning, it turns out that that is not the critical problem for the Naturalist – if his goal is to avoid illusion on all fronts. Though, as of now, it is true that available models fail as they seek to escape such a convergence – failing to find coherence with reality. It’s that pesky bit about “failing to cohere with reality” that keeps getting in the way – proofs of illusion come cheap but never seem to succeed. As commented on earlier, the Arrow of Time – and so on – ends as utterly fraudulent – illusion – as reality is we know not what – the dive into illusion emerging as all that is Mind ends in said absurdity. Hawking’s move to the imaginary is a move forced by all available evidence – because if reality is as all available evidence paints it to be – well then there is no explanation within the reach of all of our physical sciences – within the reach of “scientism”. That’s a bit too much for the Naturalist to tolerate – and so he makes his escape into illusion – coherence with reality no longer required. We find the Skeptic frantically seeking to free himself from his own Mind. We wish him luck. On the epistemology of the word “know” as to space/time having a beginning: “Carroll’s answer was, “We don’t know”……. His skepticism is based upon the fact that we don’t have a quantum theory of gravity yet to describe the earliest split second of the existence of the universe. The hope here, I think on his part, is that such a theory of gravity might enable us to save the past eternality of the universe. All the evidence that we do have points to a beginning of the universe, but the hope is that if you can find this quantum theory of gravity then that might serve to avert it. I think that there is an epistemological issue that is in play here when he says, We don’t know. When he uses the word “know” he is using this in a very strong sense to say we are not scientifically certain. But that does nothing to negate the fact that the evidence makes it highly probable that the universe did have a beginning. You don’t need to have certainty about something in order to say where the evidence points and which conclusion is probably true.”

Granting the Naturalist his past-eternal universe solves nothing for him if his goal is to escape the absurdity of illusion as his final stopping point. A brief quote from the link: “Furthermore, what “allows us to speak the language of causes and effects” has nothing essentially to do with tracing series of events backwards in time. Here again [the Naturalist] is just begging the question. On the Aristotelian-Scholastic analysis, questions about causation are raised wherever we have potentialities that need actualization, or a thing’s being metaphysically composite and thus in need of a principle that accounts for the composition of its parts, or there being a distinction in a thing between its essence or nature on the one and its existence on the other, or a thing’s being contingent. The universe, however physics and scientific cosmology end up describing it — even if it turned out to be a universe without a temporal beginning, even if it is a four-dimensional block universe, even if Hawking’s closed universe model turned out to be correct, even if we should really think in terms of a multiverse rather than a single universe — will, the Aristotelian argues, necessarily exhibit just these features (potentialities needing actualization, composition, contingency, etc.). And thus it will, as a matter of metaphysical necessity, require a cause outside it. And only that which is pure actuality devoid of potentiality, only what is utterly simple or non-composite, only something whose essence or nature just is existence itself, only what is therefore in no way contingent but utterly necessary — only that, the classical theist maintains, could in principle be the ultimate terminus of explanation, whatever the specific scientific details turn out to be.”

If there ever is a model which *successfully* escapes the beginning of space/time we’ll be sure to hear of it………..but models come cheap – plugging in imaginary illusions and declaring coherence just hasn’t summed to success.

How can it?

And besides – as noted – even if successful that still doesn’t solve the Naturalist’s far more pressing problem.

BillT –

If you ran from Athens to Sparta and back, you’d probably think you’d spoken with Pan, too.

Hey, try fasting for forty days and nights. You’ll see things, too. 🙂

Homer’s histories of the Trojan War record that gods actually went out onto the battlefield and personally fought humans and other gods.

Except, of course, “Homer’s histories of the Trojan War” are mythology and were written many hundreds of years after the “events” they describe. Even given the reality of a Trojan war these accounts are and always were considered mythology. (Even Wiki agrees with that.)

@Ray

So yeah, he wasn’t a historian. Of course, if that alone invalidates his account, I guess we have to ditch the Old Testament, too.

The genre of Home is mythology, and as BillT points out, it’s always been considered to be mythology.

Much of the genre of the Old Testament is history – it claims to be history and is written as you’d expect history to be written. There’s not much comparison (except for certain poetic portions, prophecy etc).

But if Pheidippides had written down the account himself, you’d buy it? Or are there other relevant considerations?

Secondary sources aren’t as reliable as primary sources. So if Pheidippides had written down the account himself I’d have to take it more seriously than hearsay (I doubt given the timescale that Herodotus spoke to Pheidippides). I would be willing at least to accept that he had an unusual experience that needed explaining.

@scbrownlhrm

Well, I’m struggling to figure out just how to respond here, since well – the kind of apologetic template that turn every minor point into a race to the fundamentals ceased to impress me years ago… but simply put – my point is.. the various theist accounts of the will *suck*. But don’t feel bad. Most others do too, though some suck a bit less than others.

If you are somehow confident you have this “free will” thing buckled down and settled… well its not me suffering from fits of illusion.

bigbird –

The genre of Home is mythology, and as BillT points out, it’s always been considered to be mythology.

So long as we accept Wikipedia, then mythology is the body of stories which [a people] tell to explain nature, history, and customs”. And Herodotus is called the “Father of History” because, as I said, he was the first to systematically gather sources and analyze them critically. Most of the OT, including the ‘historical’ parts, were written and collected rather before then. Indeed, by that measure they are not written “as you’d expect history to be written”.

Secondary sources aren’t as reliable as primary sources.

Oh, to be sure. A report of 500 people witnessing a miracle isn’t anything like 500 reports of seeing a miracle. And even with a secondhand report, I accept that Pheidippides had an experience that needed explaining. I just don’t see any need for an explanation beyond what BillT proposed. Of course, the same family of explanations works for a whole lotta miracle reports.

d,

A helpful look at proper semantics:

“God Without Parts: Divine Simplicity and the Metaphysics of God’s Absoluteness” by James Dolezal

@Ray

Herodotus is called the “Father of History” because, as I said, he was the first to systematically gather sources and analyze them critically. Most of the OT, including the ‘historical’ parts, were written and collected rather before then. Indeed, by that measure they are not written “as you’d expect history to be written”.

Just because Herodotus is called the “Father of History” doesn’t mean history wasn’t recorded before Herodotus, and that it is not recognizable as history.

The Illiad is myth, and has always been regarded as myth. Read the very first page and it’s obvious.

Then read Numbers, Kings or Chronicles for comparison. If you’ve never read them, first look at Numbers. They primarily consist of genealogies, accounts of regimes, and realms of statistics.

The genres are obviously very different and the latter reads as you’d expect recorded history to be written – an often dull reporting of facts.

A report of 500 people witnessing a miracle isn’t anything like 500 reports of seeing a miracle. And even with a secondhand report, I accept that Pheidippides had an experience that needed explaining.

A report of 500 people witnessing a miracle is better than a report of 1 person witnessing a miracle, particularly in a public letter circulated while many of those 500 were still alive and able to refute such a claim. Obviously, 500 individual reports would be far better.

I don’t accept at face value that Pheidippides had an experience that needed explaining, as there are no reports of the incident made in his lifetime, either by him or anyone else.

bigbird –

The genres are obviously very different and the latter reads as you’d expect recorded history to be written – an often dull reporting of facts.

Yeah, well, it’s a little more complicated than that. There seems to be some historical basis for the Iliad; we’ve actually found Troy so far as we can tell, and there are artifacts that indicate battles there. There doesn’t seem to be the same support for, say, Exodus. Archeology just hasn’t turned up anything that corresponds, in Egyptian history, and the record is pretty complete.

Quite a few elements in the Old Testament are indeed historical, for a range of values of ‘historical’. Teasing out which is which is not at all simple, though. It’s also well-known that the scribes of the time were prone to, well, cooking the books when it came to even things like records and genealogies.

I don’t accept at face value that Pheidippides had an experience that needed explaining, as there are no reports of the incident made in his lifetime, either by him or anyone else.

Well, Herodotus’ account was written within 40 years of the events. So, pretty much the same timeframe as the Gospels, and closer than some.

@Ray

one report of 500 people is not as good as 500 reports.

Yes, but we do have other reports of Jesus appearing to various people as well.

The 500 people at once claim is useful to refute accusations of hallucination – there is no such phenomenon as mass hallucination.

When it’s made in a letter to people about 800 miles away from those 500 people, checking up on the claim is a bit harder than placing a phone call today. Not at all impossible, but it would imply a substantial preliminary commitment.

That’s also true, but making such a claim in a letter circulated amongst the early church would have quickly destroyed Paul’s reputation if it were false.

When it’s made in a letter to people about 800 miles away from those 500 people, checking up on the claim is a bit harder than placing a phone call today. Not at all impossible, but it would imply a substantial preliminary commitment.

We had this discussion recently with Ophis and there are two elements here that need to be taken into account. First, Paul’s claim about the 500 witnesses should be seen as an example of the kind of apologetics Paul used in his sermons generally. Paul is holding up both these specific eyewitnesses and really any and all of the eyewitnesses (both believing and non-believing) that were available to verify his claims. He’s challenging his listeners to to verify the truth of his claims.

Second, travel in the 1st century Roman empire was relatively easy and safe. This was assured by the Roman authorities as it was necessary for commerce and by extension the wealth of Rome. How prevalent it was is shown by the archaeology of the area where it is estimated a million people a year traveled on the Via Mare, the coastal road through Palestine, which was less than a day’s travel from Jerusalem.

People could travel and did travel all over the area. Really, only a small percentage of people from any area Paul visited would have had to make the trip to verify his teachings and return with the relevant information. This was probable as a regular part of their lives even without that specific goal as an incentive. Paul’s extensive travels themselves speak to the availability of travel routes both by land and sea throughout the ANE.

What an interesting development.

The Skeptic seems lost.

Asked for explanations on two fronts, he offers none on either. To feign a petition in the general direction of MeV, the laws of physics, numbers, weights, measurements, and other mathematical shapes as explanatory is misguided given that said laws of physics and said forms are perception’s mathematical models – abstractions which carry no capacity in causality. The topic of transposition begins to emerge as we find here a method in which “…a system which is richer or has more elements can be represented in a system that is poorer insofar as it has fewer elements….” – inferring there the fundamental shape of reality on the one hand transposing to mind/abstraction on the other hand. J. West astutely observed that, “while mathematical instantiations are a feature of the universe, the universe isn’t reducible to them.” The Skeptic here cannot tell us anything of such instantiations – and we find this to be the case whether we turn outward to the tiniest of particles and the faintest of rain drops or whether we turn inward to the brutally inescapable experiences within being. The Skeptic has no explanatory plausibility for the former – levied by SteveK – nor for the latter – levied by Jenna Black. He just shrugs his shoulders all the while thinking he’s articulated a proof of an incoherence in their inquiries as he replies, “I’m not at all sure that the question is coherent.”

Given his tool box, it is not surprising that the request for logical lucidity within one’s general T.O.E. does in fact seem incoherent to the philosophical naturalist. The mind-dependent abstraction of MeV and the illusion of causality and what not – being illusions – truly are non-entity and therefore – we’re told – to even ask what of MeV or why of cause/effect and what not is incoherent, just as also, the illusion of experiences and what not within being – being illusions – truly are non-entity and therefore – we’re told – to even ask what and why of being and what not is incoherent. We find the Skeptic frantically seeking to free himself from his own mind even as he engages in his benevolent service to mankind in freeing us from our own minds as well because – you see – truth matters.

And so the Skeptic just chants the same thing over and over:

MeV. MeV. MeV. MeV.

Indeed, MeV finds perhaps his appeal to Idealism or perhaps to Platonism or perhaps to Illusion in his own self-negating solipsism or perhaps to Useful Fictions in his own self-negating presuppositionalism or perhaps to Mind itself as his T.O.E.’s ontological stopping point. Of course, Idealism and Mind are in various and peculiar contours quite friendly to the Theist’s general T.O.E. even as Platonism, Useful Fictions, and Illusion are quite unfriendly to the Naturalist’s general T.O.E. – if it is the case that we desire logic’s lucidity. And it is the case that we desire logic’s lucidity in one’s truth predicates pertaining to the fundamental shape of reality.

@bigbird

Given that we don’t have any viable, comprehensive theory of consciousness (AFAIK), it’s hardly surprising that accounts of the will aren’t very useful.

I’m interested to know what you think the less sucky ones are.

I tend to like accounts based on Frankfurt hierarchical model or compatibalist reason-responsiveness models the best. The make the most sense to me.

No matter what, no compatibalist account of the will can get fully away from objections noting that we are not the *ultimate* source of our choices, though. But one can certainly dispute that it doesn’t really matter much (as many compatibalists will do).

And of course, one can also dispute whether the alternatives are better. Contra-causal accounts of free will can all be caused fits from some version of the disappearing agent problem, which to me, actually put them in a worse position, at least when it comes to matters on how our models of the will should inform our models of justice, and punishment, etc.

But nobody really has a *good* position here 😛

Miracle claims then simply were not evaluated on the kind of basis they are now.

However, what the research shows is that modern people (especially liberals) are far more amenable to unusual beliefs (ESP, etc.) than the population from even a fairly short time ago. For ancient people (especially Jews) the idea of an incarnate God was an anathema. The idea you float above that ancient people (who were very traditional in their beliefs) were more likely to believe in miracles or fail to evaluate them carefully simply has no basis in fact.

Your belief that you stand on ‘shoulders of giants’ is wholly irrelevant to whether ancient people were more likely to believe in miracles or fail to evaluate them carefully. Not sure what the other stuff you wrote has to do with what I wrote. I didn’t accuse you of believing in UFOs, nor is that relevant, nor did I say they had no heretics at all, nor is that relevant. Your the one who made the claim that “Miracle claims then simply were not evaluated on the kind of basis they are now.” It isn’t true.

Ray, 2000 years ago people knew just as well as we did that dead people remain dead – in fact most people would have been far more familiar with death and its consequences than we are. Science has made no difference on grasping that basic fact about human beings.

The historical and philosophical perspective of “miracle” may be helpful. Its introduction reads, “Modern skepticism concerning the gospel miracles first asserted itself by denying the miraculous nature of the events. Soon, however, the historicity of the events themselves was denied. Behind this skepticism lay the broad conception of a Newtonian world-machine, the arguments of Spinoza against the possibility of miracles, and the arguments of Hume against the identification of miracles. Counterpoised to these attacks were the defenses of miracles written by Le Clerc, Clarke, Less, Paley, and others. An assessment of the debate shows that, contra the Newtonian conception, miracles should not be understood as violations of the laws of nature, but as naturally impossible events. Contra Spinoza, admission of miracles would not serve to subvert natural law, and the possibility that a miracle is a result of an unknown natural law is minimized when the miracles are numerous, various, momentous, and unique. Contra Hume, it is question-begging or invalid to claim that uniform experience is against miracles.”

Hume actually has several points and a previous commenter’s appeal to the “evidence” of new age occultism, eastern medicine, homeopathy, 419 scams, truthers, North Korea, and so on echoes Hume’s “fourth point” which seeks to preclude any investigation by asserting that the miracles of various religions cancel each other out. The essay touches on such a question-begging sort of straw-man and notes that Less, Campbell, Paley, and etc. argued fairly convincingly against various proposed “specific examples” of “other” purported miracles and comments, that “….it still remains an empirical question whether a miracle supporting a counter-Christian claim is equally or better attested than Jesus’ miracles and resurrection. There is no way to settle the issue apart from an investigation.” ~ It is a peculiar affair because the very sort of anti-intellectualism which Scientism must embrace in order to argue ipso facto against layers of reality beyond material/particle – beyond what “it” can “see” just is the failure of reason itself and that failure just is the very “some-thing” which the Skeptic feigns to lament all the while he is unable to free himself from his own incantation as he just cannot afford to *ultimately* abandon said failure even as his entire chain of presuppositional IOU’s deconstructs the very plausibility of his own paradigm – and thus of his own a priori bookkeeping. Indeed, the very freedom to – at bottom – be the very Self that is the end of the line who ultimately chooses this morning’s OJ on the right rather than coffee on the left is – must be – in large part fiction because, you see, Scientism. As we’ve seen in this very thread. The Skeptic’s dive into his last, and his only, safe-house of illusion will meet us at the point of Miracle just because that dive is the very some-thing by which and in which the Skeptic just does meet us everywhere.

The Theist is mistaken to think the Skeptic has a problem with Miracles per se. No. Not at all. It is in fact far more problematic than that for what troubles him most is in fact reality period and hence we find him in his fateful dive into his safe-house – in his quest to free himself and us – racing to discard the tragedy of all that is mind.

No way, no how, would it have been implausible for ancient peoples to think a person was raised from the dead even if they weren’t, just as it isn’t today.

d,

Though you identified a bunch of conspiracy theories, cults, etc., I didn’t see one there where people believed a person was raised from the dead. So your point there probably backs up mine that modern people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories, cults, etc. However, I don’t see where you’ve shown how or where false belief in a resurrection is part of this either in modern or ancient times. That people today believe in conspiracy theories, cults, etc. says absolutely nothing about ancient people and their likelihood to believe in a resurrection.

G. Rodrigues,

Couldn’t agree more. And, of course, their reply ignores some basic facts as I alluded to. Conspiracy theories, cults, etc. survive because the facts of which they consist are both numerous and inconclusive. There is always wiggle room. However, resurrections rely on one fact and one fact only. The presence of the resurrected. There have been other religions that posited a resurrection. Where are they now? In the dustbin of history. Why? One guess.

But one religion that posited a resurrection did pretty well. It made it’s reliance on a resurrected savior central to it’s validity and even stated that without this it should be considered a false teaching. Further, it’s main evangelist went out and challenged those he spoke to to seek out witnesses to this event. How did this religion do? One guess.

It is worth noting that there was no pagan conception of bodily resurrection in the ANE. There was a wide disparity of beliefs about bodily resurrection amongst Jewish groups.

Early Christianity had no such disparity – they had a clear, focused belief about bodily resurrection that had the unique aspect (not found in Judaism) of transformation of the body. More here from NT Wright.

…was that ordinary, non-miracle involving conditions, can plausibly give rise to all types of extraordinary beliefs, including a resurrection that never happened.

Ok. I’ll buy the first half of that statement. Care to fill us in on the resurrection part.

Wasn’t really anything to “refute”. You offered an unsupported conclusion, I disagreed.

d,

It’s simple.

We don’t typically believe people when they speak of a resurrection. No one “typically” does. I know you want us to believe that dead people coming to life is something Mankind “for the most part” really does “typically” believe. But the evidence is against that assertion of yours.

You assert that resurrection is included in this “typical” arena of fixed-false beliefs so a few “unwarranted” examples would be helpful.

They do exist, and they are anything but “typical” – past or present. Though today’s trauma bays may make it more believable today – given that science shows such “happenings” to be, well, though “impossible” yesterday, quite “possible” today though rare. Knowledge of reality is a funny thing.

But wait:

If you are merely siding with Hume’s point that a previous false belief in X (X being resurrection) ipso facto grants that X’s (resurrections) ought not be investigated then it suddenly becomes obvious that you’ve accomplished nothing. We’re not surprised given that you believe that we are not ultimately in control of our choices – that the “ultimate” end of the line are factors other than the Self – the Self being therein – on essence – but fiction.

That brings us to your own assertion of all of humanity – of all that is the mind – ipso facto engaged in the fixed, false belief of another sort of something.

Just as you’ve not supported the former (X’s), so too you’ve not supported the later (illusion of Self at the end of the line in volition).

Rather – all you’ve done is foisted your own a priori.

An a priori which doesn’t cohere with reality as we know it.

For just this morning it is I, me, and not some other “something”, which freely chose to have some OJ rather than some coffee.

That you disagree with such a pervasive belief makes me quite suspicious of your approach to what counts for warranted belief. In fact – it seems there is very little that can count for warranted belief given your a priori conclusion my own Self was not the end of the line in this morning’s choice of beverage because – you know – scientism.

Where resurrection is concerned you seem wedded to something a bit unknown. Sort of like in the OJ/Coffee thing. Very bizarre.

We don’t typically believe people when they speak of a resurrection. No one “typically” does. I know you want us to believe that dead people coming to life is something Mankind “for the most part” really does “typically” believe. But the evidence is against that assertion of yours.

If such a thing were to be reported it seems we’ve two options:

1) Discount it out of hand ipso facto because – you know – scientism. Sort of like your odd tie-in to some sort of illusion or fiction in the Self as the *ultimate* end of the line where volition is concerned. The Self just cannot be “that” because – you know – scientism.

2) Investigate and find out the most plausible explanation of the assortment of collected information in each given case if such seems warranted.

People clinically dead for hours have been coded and brought back to life – various circumstances making such amendable. But had “d” been back there 500 years ago and told of a day when such “happenings” would in fact transpire then “d” would have shouted his “typical” rant of scientism.

And he would have been dead wrong.

So #1 or option 1 above is unreliable given that it cannot see what it cannot see. That it ultimately eliminates *reason* itself is another topic for another day – we’ll just grant the physicalist’s “as-if” for now.

So what do we do?

We investigate and find out the most plausible explanation of the assortment of collected information in each given case if such seems warranted.

You collect testimonies of people in the trauma bay.

And so on…..

And so on….

d,

Dead people come to life.

Like it or not.

To go a bit further from comment #255:

You collect testimonies of people in the trauma bay.

Right?

This is the beauty of Theism – it has no artificial cut-off on possibility as it knows quite well that it cannot see all of reality – that there is more out there than we presently perceive. Reason, the principle of sufficient reason, inference, and so on allow the Theist to succeed where the Skeptic fails.

Case in point:

500 years ago:

Trauma bay “happenings” reported as either presently happening or as a prophecy about tomorrow’s happenings:

Such “happenings” inside of the reality we call mind’s perception would have been – 500 years ago – say, described as, say, “do-able”, or as “done” or as “prophecy about tomorrow”.

Basically: In reality a dead man can rise back to life.

It’s a claim made on the shape of reality.

500 years ago.

In the audience are two investigators:

1) 500 years ago: The Skeptic wedded to scientism – all that I perceive is reality – and reality cannot transcend what I perceive – and even my own perception (volition, etc.) is itself illusion, and “therefore” this business of dead people rising from that deadness is just nonsense. “No investigation is warranted because – you know – scientism and illusion. It does not matter what the testimony of folks in the trauma bay sums to – because scientism – because reality is an array of ad hoc artificial “as-if’s” making up an ad hoc collection of broken seams”.

2) 500 years ago: Theist wedded to his God: Reality is far wider, far broader, than that which we perceive. Such “happenings” of dead people? Well, I don’t think so but – since our knowledge of reality is not omniscient we’ll have to do some investigation. If the testimonies sum to something peculiar – well we’ll take it that far. Theism certainly does not “preclude” such odd happenings – but of course reason, inference, the principle of sufficient reason (and so on) will all way in, reality being seamless.

500 years ago the hubris of scientism just does cause it to sum to a conclusion that turns out to be dead wrong. No pun intended. It wasn’t science that got it wrong – but rather that a priori metaphysical commitment of scient-ism where the fundamental shape of reality is concerned.

That’s the beauty of Theism’s humility over and above Scientism’s hubris. Theism permits itself to be counted as something less than all-seeing and is therefore open to whatever trail Reason, Inference, the Principle of Sufficient Reason, Logical Lucidity, and so on begins to reveal, to unmask. The a priori when investigating reality is very simple: “More than we can ask or think”.

So we talk to witnesses – we investigate – and if does not seem to add up well then so be it. If it seems to add up and perhaps even coheres with other parts of reality well then so be it. We certainly won’t take it farther than we ought to. The Trauma Bay today does not “prove God”. It only speaks to the part about was-dead / now-alive contours. The “impossibility” of 500 years ago turns out to be quite possible after all.

500 yeas ago the Skeptic would have discounted the reports out of hand.

And they would have been wrong about the shape of reality.

500 years ago the Theist would have done what they did 2000 years ago and what they do today:

Collect evidence – look for seamlessness – for coherence – for plausibility.

@d:

Wasn’t really anything to “refute”. You offered an unsupported conclusion, I disagreed.

Now this is truly hilarious. The power of wishful thinking at its best: first deny the conclusion, then deny that there ever was an argument for the conclusion. And then top it off by commenting on the gullibility of others. Truly hilarious.

If there is anyone here hurling unsupported conclusions (as everyone else has pointed out by the way) it is you. I gave an argument, if you cannot recognize it the problem is yours and yours alone.

G. Rodrigues –

If our cognitive faculties are so unreliable that false positives are drawn all the time, then they are also unreliable in that false negatives are drawn all the time, that is, cases where the evidence is proportional to make belief warranted, but through intellectual vice and blindness the conclusion is not accepted. In other words, there is little comfort for the skeptic since the principle is so general that ends up being self-refuting.

Well, there is at least one ‘symmetry-breaker’. For clarification, the principle is, as Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. put it, “Certitude is not the test of certainty.” Passionate belief in something is not evidence that the something is true.

The evidence being put forth in this specific case for Jesus’ resurrection is… that many people passionately believed that he was resurrected.

There are a lot of people who passionately believe in Bigfoot, and testify to witnessing an anthropoid in the woods. There are people who passionately believe they were abducted by UFOs and point to scars they say they received from alien exams. For both of those cases (and many others, like, say, the early followers of Mohamed or Joseph Smith) we ask for evidence beyond passionate belief.

G. Rodrigues (@261),

This doesn’t seem to address the issue, which is this:
Both Christians and Materialists have a particular view. Any argument against the general reliability of the human mind is an argument against both of these views (indeed, all views). It is not a reason to abandon Christianity and embrace Materialist Atheism.

Personally, I completely agree that “[c]ertitude is not the test of certainty”. All I would add to that is that it applies as much to the modern, western, materialist view believed in by atheist critics of religion as it does to Christianity.

The evidence being put forth in this specific case for Jesus’ resurrection is… that many people passionately believed that he was resurrected.

Are you not aware that this is a strawman?
You are free to disagree with the arguments in favor of the resurrection, but be careful to disagree with them—not a completely distorted version of them.

I would also agree that we should ask for evidence beyond passionate belief. And, again, would simply like it to be applied to all sides.

That is, I’d love to request evidence for a materialist view of ethics and meaning in life. Personally, I’ve struggled with quite a bit of doubt in my beliefs, and would be open to changing them if someone can give me evidence for this worldview that is superior to the evidence I’ve received for Christianity.

In fact, I’ve asked quite a few people, on quite a few occasions, and have only remained a Christian because no one seems remotely able to present this evidence.

In case that wasn’t clear, this is one more time asking:
Regarding your answers to life’s big questions, what evidence is there that this view is superior to all of the others?

G. Rodrigues –

This is a completely ridiculous way of describing what your interlocutors have said.

Sorry, I don’t see it that way. We started talking about the notion of ‘deification’, got onto reports of encounters with supernatural minds, I pointed out lots of pagan reports, made an offhand reference to the difference between secondhand reports of lots of encounters and lots of accounts of encounters.

That got into Paul’s report of 500 witnesses of the resurrected Jesus, and its reliability. I brought up pious frauds and such. Establishing a resurrection is a big job, and testimony alone isn’t going to do it.

Ray,

Medical records in 1st century reality / genre of communique.

Comical.

Try “reasoning” through it all again on what counts as evidence. We know we bring dead bodies back to life…. yesterday’s “impossible” is today’s reality – but such is our (limited) perspective.

Time has a way of changing such definitions… quite friendly there to the Theist’s landscape…. I’m sure they’ll change yet again…. in Time…. as such things always seem to…

While Mind atop Matter is present in 1st century reality as in today – neither God nor 1st century folks seem to have had medical records – neither having need of such.

Perhaps you want to investigate things that exist and base your conclusions about feasibility on them.

Instead of comedy.

Ray @264
A cell phone video camera can make it easier to tell if a miracle event occurred? Interesting theory considering that I though cameras only recorded physical data and were not capable of recording the divine hand of God. Is this an iPhone feature?

Now this is truly hilarious. The power of wishful thinking at its best: first deny the conclusion, then deny that there ever was an argument for the conclusion. And then top it off by commenting on the gullibility of others. Truly hilarious.

If there is anyone here hurling unsupported conclusions (as everyone else has pointed out by the way) it is you. I gave an argument, if you cannot recognize it the problem is yours and yours alone.

I don’t have anything against simply stating conclusions matter of factly, as long as it is without the expectation that others should just accept it or be persuaded. It’s a perfectly legitimate thing to do. Anyways… Changing tracks (omg, no argument was provided for that!)

The unreliability of human minds in various kinds of conditions or circumstances is a fact… one that we all have to deal with. None of us are obviously entailed to a total skepticism, even when we reason generally about that fact.

Sometimes its just plain and simple ignorance, other times its deeper, and rooted in our psychology, biology or complex culture structures. And often, there is no pathological psychosis and people may be otherwise as rational as anybody else, except for that one thing.

A cursory glance at some of the things people have believed and why, and what they have sometimes done as a result of those beliefs, should instruct us just how far it can go. Remember the Salem Witch Trials? Very instructive indeed.

I don’t see any principled reason to say “a crowd who believes they witnessed a resurrection that never happened, is just a step too far”.

(By the way, ever heard of Sathya Sai Baba?)

And I haven’t really said anything stronger or more specific than that (I haven’t even specifically referenced the 500).

On the other hand, what BillT seems to be saying is quite a bit stronger – that under no possible circumstances, could a group of people be deluded about having seen a resurrection. Forgive me, but I find that horribly unbelievable.

d,

“a group of people be deluded about having seen a resurrection….”

And this appeal echoes Hume’s fourth point, that any occurrence of a false belief in an X ipso facto grants that X’s do not occur, gets you no exactly nowhere. Particularly since you already know that Minds outside of dead bodies can and do bring dead bodies back to life. Yesterday’s impossibility – viz. scientism’s mechanism of investigation – finds said mechanism deceptive viz. its own a priori.

Your approach simply discounts the testimonies of the people in the trauma bay out of hand on scientism’s hubris.

The Theist’s humility, however, finds that it is feasible to investigate – and if does not seem to add up well then so be it. If it seems to add up and perhaps even coheres with other parts of reality well then so be it. We certainly won’t take it farther than we ought to. The Trauma Bay today does not “prove God”. It only speaks to the part about was-dead / now-alive contours. The “impossibility” of 500 years ago turns out to be quite possible after all as it turns out that the living can and do bring dead bodies back to life after all – that such just is in fact a part of reality’s fundamental shape – granting once again yet more plausibility to the testimonies of the many that God raised Christ from the dead.

That is why we collect the testimonies of those in the Trauma Bay and then hold them up to scrutiny – looking for plausibility and so on.

It’s called reasoning.

d,

The historical and philosophical perspective of “miracle” will take you to Hume’s point.

If you agree that prior unwarranted beliefs about resurrection brings you no benefit at all in discussing the Theist’s position on X bringing Y back to life – well that is good progress on your end it seems.

It’s good that you do agree with the Theist – then – that Minds outside of dead bodies bringing dead bodies back to life is a factual contour of reality. The syllogism of “X brought Y back to life” fits in quite well with the stuff of Testimonies, the stuff of Evidence, the stuff of Reality.

We know that Mind can interrupt Matter in such peculiar fashions.

On Theism’s humility, such merely reveals that the Theist was and is always happy to investigate reports of the Trauma Bay, of Mind’s Perception, and so on. While the hubris of Scientism discounted such lines out of hand ages ago given its a priori commitments, the Theist merely followed the evidence to wherever it would take him hand in hand with logical lucidity, principle of sufficient reason, warranted plausibility, and so on, given his humility – that is to say – given his concession that our eyes cannot in fact see all of reality “right here right now”.

Which, again, is the “why and how” of the Theist “knowing” long before those of Scientism (etc.) that the syllogism of “X bringing the dead body of Y back to life” is perfectly coherent inside of our own particular reality.

It’s nice to see that you agree that such a sentence structure of X/Y fits in quite happily with reality.

“God brought Christ back to life from death, having released him from the pains of death, because it was not possible for him to be held in its power. This Jesus God raised up, and we are all witnesses of it.”

SteveK –

A cell phone video camera can make it easier to tell if a miracle event occurred?

If someone says they saw a saint levitating, but the video doesn’t show that, which one are you going to go with? And do you mind answering my question from the end of #264?

Debilis –

That is fine, but leaves this view on par with Christianity with respect to the “no evidence” claims (assuming that there is no evidence for Christianity, of course).

As I pointed out before, “It’s entirely possible to be unsure of what answer is correct. Indeed, it’s even possible to be sure a particular answer is wrong while still not being sure what answer is correct. Consider a suspect cleared of a crime by DNA evidence. That doesn’t mean you automatically know – or believe you know – who the actual perpetrator is.”

When it comes to things like the origins of the universe, I say with confidence, “I dunno, and it doesn’t look like anyone else knows yet either.” There isn’t enough evidence for a positive answer, though some models (e.g. the ‘steady state’ model) have been ruled out.

@Ray Ingles:

This is a completely ridiculous way of describing what your interlocutors have said.

Sorry, I don’t see it that way. We started talking about the notion of ‘deification’, got onto reports of encounters with supernatural minds, I pointed out lots of pagan reports, made an offhand reference to the difference between secondhand reports of lots of encounters and lots of accounts of encounters.

I cannot comment on the particulars (although that “deification” there does make me suspicious), but, and to give back the apology, sorry it is ridiculous. You are missing the all-important qualifications. No serious apologist has ever made that argument, in that specific form; and if they did, or even if such an argument was made in this very thread, then I will gladly join you in denouncing such an argument as ridiculous.

That got into Paul’s report of 500 witnesses of the resurrected Jesus, and its reliability. I brought up pious frauds and such. Establishing a resurrection is a big job, and testimony alone isn’t going to do it.

The reliability of St. Paul and the 500 witnesses has absolutely no relation with the reliability of other witnesses, in other cases. None at all. You are either applying a general skeptical principle, which is self-refuting, or begging the question.

On the other hand, the second sentence is highly significant (but not unexpected; after all, it is not like this is not a rehashing of old discussions). The Resurrection is an *historical* event; testimony is the *only* possible evidence for it. So you are saying that no matter how good the evidence you will never accept it. Great, we know where you stand (we already knew that, but bear with me. I am going to rehash an old point). But once again, for this not to be a double-standard, either you are applying a self-refuting skeptical principle or begging the question.

On the other hand, maybe what you really want to say is something different. Maybe in the back of your mind, your reasoning is as follows: resurrections are impossible (pick whatever modality you have in mind), therefore the reports of resurrection are not veridical. In other words, a skeptic may have certain priors, embodying a conception of what is possible or not, and since a resurrection is impossible he may always punt on *any* evidence for it and come up with any explanation, no matter how ridiculous or implausible, precisely because the alternative is not only implausible, it is impossible. If we take this to mean that the Resurrection cannot form a *probative* *independent* argument for the existence of God, then I tend to agree; the rational case for the Resurrection depends on a prior case for the existence of God and for the possibility of resurrections. But anything more, it falls either on the Scylla of self-refutation or on the Charybdis of begging the question as outlined above. Furthermore, someone else (maybe because he has different priors) may well be on his epistemic rights and accept the resurrection, and therefore it as direct evidence for the existence of God.

bigbird –

I imagine you’d swiftly discount any video evidence of a resurrection as a fake, for example.

Well, not any video evidence. Tampering usually leaves traces that can be detected. And if the event is captured from a couple different angles, ideally with slightly different technology, tampering becomes exponentially harder. Although:

Can you honestly imagine a scenario where you might find yourself believing in a resurrection without personally witnessing the event?

I asked SteveK what it’d take for him to buy a modern resurrection. I’d really like to hold off on my answer until after he’s had a chance to tackle it. E.g., is there anything he finds deficient about this one? What would he need to buy into it?

You’re thinking of Athens to Sparta.

Thanks for the second correction, there’s a software bug in my brain about that. Like how some people have words they constantly misspell.

bigbird –

Of course [passionate testimony] can [establish the truth of something]

There was a specific context in which I was making that statement: “There’s also the principle that the more unusual or unexpected the claim, the more evidence is needed to establish it.” See below.

That’s how courts of law largely operate – on the testimony of witnesses.

I was jury foreman just two months ago on a rape case. (I always seem to get the fun ones – the previous time, it was a murder trial.) The results of the rape kit – including DNA evidence – the photographs of the crime scene, and the recording of the 911 call were pretty crucial during the deliberations.

Testimony had its place, too, of course. But then, it’s generally accepted that rapes happen. If someone had been trying to establish that Bigfoot raped them, testimony alone – however passionate – would be unlikely to sway a jury. Would it sway you? If not, why not?

Ray,

Non-resurrection has not been the sole experience of every person.

Especially young males.

You should try dealing with reality as it actually is rather than as you wish it were.

Ray (@281),

Greetings once again (and otherwise diving right in here),

I am aware that you’ve claimed this before. I simply disagree.

This is not to say you need to be 100% sure of your position (I’m not 100% sure of mine—far from it). Rather, it is to say that you take a particular approach to life.

There is an enormous difference between claiming uncertainty about a particular trivial fact (“I don’t know who the twelfth Prime Minister of Britain is”) and claiming neutrality on day to day life issues (“I follow no working answer to basic questions of morality”).

Whether or not the origin of the universe belongs to the former category, one’s personal attitude toward morality, meaning in life, and (therefore) religion is definitely in the latter. It is no good simply to claim “I dunno—so you can’t expect me to defend a view”, then go on behaving as if materialistic relativism (or whatever) were true. That’s simply insulating one’s approach from criticism.

More than that, the chief defense of atheism is based on the claim that there is “no evidence” for God’s existence. I’m not convinced that there is no evidence. But, even if that were true, isn’t it perfectly reasonable to ask “okay, so what is the evidence for relativistic materialism”?

I don’t see why not. Why is it so important that we not ask ourselves whether or not the lived beliefs of atheists have any evidence to support themselves? It seems to me that people who reject “belief without evidence” would agree that we should check on that.

And, if we don’t, it does seem that we’re throwing out the idea that we should reject beliefs without evidence. Would you agree that it’s perfectly valid to answer the problem of evil with “I dunno, but I’ll just go on praying, attending church, and trying to convert people to Christianity while we figure it out.”?

I see nothing wrong with that response that isn’t also wrong with “I dunno what the evidence for materialism is, but I’m going to take a relativistic approach to morality, post blog comments about the validity of atheism as a view, and argue that theists should give up their beliefs while we figure that out”.

Basically, there’s a lot that I don’t claim to know. But life forces me to make calls. I believe that I should always be open to changing my view. But “I dunno, but I’m going to keep on just as I am and disregard that argument” is the opposite of that. In the words of Lawrence Krauss, there’s no view that isn’t subject to question.

@ scbrownlhrm

The historical and philosophical perspective of “miracle” will take you to Hume’s point.

As I always understood it, the meaning of that Humean point was to question the evidential power of miracles with respect to the particular doctrines they are leveraged to support, not anything like your syllogism (eg. Bible Belt American Trauma Bay patient X has a “miraculous” recovery, and therefore Jesus – Meanwhile, Middle Eastern Trauma Bay patient Y has a “miraculous” recovery, and therefore Allah). But I could be wrong there, though either way its not really important, since well.. I’m not citing Hume to support anything I say, nor endorsing anything like your syllogism.

If you agree that prior unwarranted beliefs about resurrection brings you no benefit at all in discussing the Theist’s position on X bringing Y back to life – well that is good progress on your end it seems.

I haven’t really moved any distance from my original point on this topic, in this thread… which was, that people (psychologically normal or not, or contemporary or ancient) can come to hold very extreme delusions. And depending on the circumstances, those delusions don’t seem to have much, if any, upper limit to how far off the rails they can be. Citing other examples of human delusions do not constitute fallacies with respect to this point, but instead serve to be illustrative, supportive examples.

If that’s something you can agree with, well… then we ARE making some real progress here. And if you can come this far with me…

Maybe then you can come far enough along and *really* demonstrate some of that “theistic humility” and entertain the idea its that plausible that a person or gaggle of people could come to hold the conviction that they witnessed a resurrection, when in fact, they did not.

It’s good that you do agree with the Theist – then – that Minds outside of dead bodies bringing dead bodies back to life is a factual contour of reality. The syllogism of “X brought Y back to life” fits in quite well with the stuff of Testimonies, the stuff of Evidence, the stuff of Reality.
We know that Mind can interrupt Matter in such peculiar fashions.

If you hope to reach somebody who tends to sympathizes deterministic naturalism, you’ll have to do more than state that physical matter affects other physical matter… that antecedents produce their effects.

On Theism’s humility, such merely reveals that the Theist was and is always happy to investigate reports of the Trauma Bay, of Mind’s Perception, and so on.

This word “humility” oddly (or maybe not so oddly) keeps preceding these other words, that smell of something very unlike humility. But maybe its warranted? Maybe its true only Christian theists honestly investigate strange near death phenomena in trauma centers, and only they have a sincere orientation towards truth seeking. Or maybe its more like a resurrection delusion (or maybe a resurrection delusion delusion 🙂

To be honest here, I’m struggling to find much in your replies, that are connected in any way to mine, especially the syllogism. On the Hume tangent, you seem to reply as if it was my own view, and not merely a clarification what I understood Hume’s point to be.

But there is this bit:

It’s a wash. So we’re back to investigation as warranted where a priori starting points are concerned.

If we’ve come to the point where we can all agree that a particular a kind of delusion – one whose contents include a false belief that someone rose from the dead – is not especially remarkable within the existing landscape of human delusion or even sits quite comfortably within it… then indeed, we’ve slightly shifted a priori starting points for many.

For those people, when launching investigations into individual instances, the landscape of plausible explanations that ought to be accounted for, considered and weighed, has expanded by at least one.

Maybe you’ve already been at that starting point – in which case, none of this is very relevant to you. But have a re-read through the thread, I think others are not.

d –

To be honest here, I’m struggling to find much in your replies, that are connected in any way to mine, especially the syllogism.

You’re not the only one. Since scbrownlhrm never actually replies to me, I no longer bother replying to scbrownlhrm.

d,

On the Hume tangent, you seem to reply as if it was my own view, and not merely a clarification what I understood Hume’s point to be

I specifically differentiated your claim (….we agree that people have false beliefs about this or that X….) from Hume’s (different) avenue of seeking traction against the Theist when I stated this:

“Hume made a similar case along the lines of different miracles of different religions canceling each other out. Your point – though a bit different – is just as fruitless in finding any traction for the Skeptic’s syntax along the lines of X brought Y back to life”.

If you’re unsure what the word “different” means there perhaps we can re-state it if you think it will help – given that you seem to think it means “the same”.

If we’ve come to the point where we can all agree that a particular a kind of delusion – one whose contents include a false belief that someone rose from the dead – is not especially remarkable within the existing landscape of human delusion or even sits quite comfortably within it… then indeed, we’ve slightly shifted a priori starting points for many

I agree – as now that we know it is possible (in the real world) to bring dead bodies back to life we can certainly agree that the Skeptic does tend to cling to his delusions of what the real world is like. Your statement is therefore a good description of the Skeptic’s a priori ruling out long ago what science has now proven to be true, what the Theist has known for ages. The Skeptic – before any investigation – had ruled out the very possibility of dead bodies being brought back to life – had ruled out without investigation the feasibility (within the real world) of “X brought Y back to life”. Whereas, the Theist – knowing that his eyes cannot see to the end of reality – collected evidence, collected the testimonies of physician(s), and, following the evidence – rules out some cases as utter nonsense (based on the evidence) while ruling in others as “maybe’s” (based on available evidence) and ruling still others to be (based on all available evidence) real events.

Modern science has affirmed, thankfully, that dead bodies can be brought to life given that (per Theism’s a priori) death is not defined by the state of the body proper – but rather death is defined by the ability of – the reach of – living person(s) outside to un-tie deaths various knots.

1) As our abilities change – so too “death”.

2) The body stays the same.

3) Physicians do not violate laws of nature

Those peculiar items turn out to be – as we’ll see – very friendly to the Christian’s a priori and very problematic for the Skeptic’s available “options” of “reasons” to reject the possibility of Christ’s resurrection.

A bit more trouble for you now emerges based on all this (new) information about reality, about the body, and about death’s definition:

It is a peculiar fact that all definitions in all situations in all medical decision making in such surreal moments (of coding a dead body) do not land on brain scans nor even on the state of the body proper, but, rather, on the abilities of – the reach of – living person(s) outside.

Curiously that direction of defining reality is predicted given the Theist’s descriptive, the Theist’s prescriptive of how and where death and life interface.

Why is this trouble for the Skeptic?

Because we all know now, thanks to science, two more things: A) that that is how death is actually defined thus agreeing with the Theist’s a priori and B) that the syntax of “X brought Y back to life” is not merely plausible but is a factual contour of reality’s shape.

The skeptic then is left with only one question: “What sort of Persons exist?”

The even-handed treatment of historicity finds the Skeptic in unfriendly territory – and so it seems (perhaps) that his only other option is to rule out the resurrection of Christ for only one reason – the a priori of the non-existence of God – rather than on the resurrection’s feasibility within a world such as ours – with bodies such as ours. Death is defined – we now know thanks to science – not on brain scans or even on the state of the body proper, but, rather, on the abilities of – the reach of – living person(s) outside –thus leaving the Skeptic with those abilities of said person(s) outside.

To argue then against Christ’s resurrection the Skeptic cannot appeal to science nor to death’s definition – for in the Christian God we find a Person which need never violate any law of nature just as physicians never violate any law of nature – (though today’s imbuing dead bodies with streams of molecules and energy would have seemed spooky ages ago) – and Who has abilities (necessarily) which house far more reach than we in 2015 currently house.

This then brings us to a point made by another commenter earlier when he states this:

“The Resurrection is an *historical* event; testimony is the *only* possible evidence for it. So you are saying that no matter how good the evidence you will never accept it. Great, we know where you stand (we already knew that, but bear with me. I am going to rehash an old point). But once again, for this not to be a double-standard, either you are applying a self-refuting skeptical principle or begging the question. On the other hand, maybe what you really want to say is something different. Maybe in the back of your mind, your reasoning is as follows: resurrections are impossible (pick whatever modality you have in mind), therefore the reports of resurrection are not veridical. In other words, a skeptic may have certain priors, embodying a conception of what is possible or not, and since a resurrection is impossible he may always punt on *any* evidence for it and come up with any explanation, no matter how ridiculous or implausible, precisely because the alternative is not only implausible, it is impossible. If we take this to mean that the Resurrection cannot form a *probative* *independent* argument for the existence of God, then I tend to agree; the rational case for the Resurrection depends on a prior case for the existence of God and for the possibility of resurrections. But anything more, it falls either on the Scylla of self-refutation or on the Charybdis of begging the question.” (G.R.)

Of course we now *know* (thanks to science) that “X brought Y back to life” is a factual contour of the real world – leaving the Skeptic to pick between his two evils.

That is to say:

1) Simply that we now know that death is not defined as the state of the body proper – but rather by the abilities of – the reach of – person(s) outside – as the real world – science – has unfolded in such a way as to affirm such to be the case.

2) Simply that the body proper does not change – the variable being the abilities of – the reach of – living person(s) outside.

Such leaves the Skeptic not with science on his side, not with observational reality on his side, but only with the question of the sort of Persons which exist – and thus his only “good reason” to rule out Christ’s resurrection is an a priori of No-God, as it seems apparent that an even-handed application of historicity is (very plausibly) too strong for him to overcome. G.R.’s two evils – then – box him in.

@scbrownlhrm:

You keep having wholly unrelated arguments with some phantom you call ‘The Skeptic’, in replies you clearly addressed to me. Maybe some contours of reality got crossed somewhere or something.

d,

The last paragraph can be taken a few ways, so:

In short you’re left without observational reality, without science, and even without the definition of death in your favor – rather – the only item you have left IF you mean to reject “X brought Y back to life” in any sort of “out of hand” fashion is the (a priori) question of what sort(s) of Person(s) exist?

Agree.

Of course its simplified now that the only key variable left is the sorts of persons involved, as observational reality, science, the ever changing definition of death, and no need to mess with the laws of nature all affirm the coherence “out of hand” in syntax of the form “X brought Y back to life”.

G.Rodrigues wrote:

Maybe he is a charlatan or a simple deluded fool.

* The bone-to-pick that follows is not meant to be argumentative towards you – its just its a very common thing I see, and I’m taking this opportunity to get on my high horse for a second, here.

Caution should be advised when associating words like ‘fool’ and other pejoratives with ’delusion’, unless its decisively known that ‘foolishness’ is the source. It tends to reinforce strong and usually unfounded linkages between delusion and blameworthy flaws of character. We shouldn’t assume that kind of link, in the same way we shouldn’t link broken bones with foolishness.

The frat guy who jumped from a hotel balcony into a swimming pool several stories below, broke his leg from blameworthy foolishness. On the other hand, the guy whose leg broke from the impact of a falling tree branch, deserves no blame. Merely seeing a guy with a broken leg gives us no cause to assign blame.

This can be particularly relevant to worldview debates when in a very literal sense, one side is often claiming (either explicitly or implicitly) the other side is deluded about some things. The negative linkage has distorting effects on both sides. The so accused feel personally attacked, and all the kinds of instinctive defenses that come along with that are raised. For the accusers, it inclines them to senses of superiority, aggression and recklessness.

I hope that resonates equally well, with atheist and theist interlocutors.

And it can also be particularly relevant when actually discussing the actual phenomena of major delusions and whether they possibly occurred (delusion in the more medically inclined sense, not simply a few minor false beliefs, sense). All those same kinds of feelings are likely to arise when delusion has blame-associations, whether you or I are the subject or not. But really it should be debated as neutrally like we might debate whether someone’s leg was broken or not.

*high horse dismounted*

Careful with ever changing definitions of death there, scbrownlhrm – as “death” definitionally contracts, “life” expands. Take it far enough, and your syntax becomes incoherent.

The point I keep waiting for someone to raise is Christ’s resurrection was not, in fact, the most miraculous event of the week: Christ was only one of the many people raised from the dead.

In fact, “many” people were raised from the dead (Matthew 27), raised and subsequently visited friends and relatives.

The Bible isn’t even clear Christ was the first raised from death, others may have preceded His resurrection.

Only Matthew relates the story, no secular writer noticed.

What happens to the people that were raised, anyway? (I imagine lawsuits to revoke inheritance: “Yeah? Well, I have to die for him to inherit, and I’m right here! Look at me! So the house is still mine, right?”) I would also expect them to show up in subsequent Christian ministry: “Yes, I was dead for 20 years, and then I miraculously came back to life!” That would be a powerful testimony.

In short, there’s a substantially bigger evidentiary hill to climb than one dead person returning to life; for a few short days in Jerusalem, it was a relatively common event.

What we know for sure is that arguments from silence are notoriously unreliable. It might be that no secular writer noticed because there were no secular writers who had the experience.

I agree with this, and want to emphasize it, since we see similar arguments from silence with respect to the 500 witnesses, and even have in this thread – (e.g. there’d be a record of at least one coming forward to offer counter-testimony).

In other words, if its not a violation of reason for a Christian to kick-back, reason from the general to the specific miracle case with little or no investigation, using his priors to aim his conclusions on the matter towards worldview self-harmony…

… then its not a violation of reason for the a skeptic to kick-back, reason from the general to the specific miracle case with little or no investigation, using his priors to aim his conclusions towards worldview self-harmony.

@d:

In other words, if its not a violation of reason for a Christian to kick-back, reason from the general to the specific miracle case with little or no investigation, using his priors to aim his conclusions on the matter towards worldview self-harmony…

Besides what Tom said, first, you are missing some important qualifications, not only in the comment you quoted, but perhaps even more importantly, in a previous comment to Ray Ingles where I explicitly countenanced such a scenario. For example, depending on how you present the case, it is false that the reasoning is one from “general to the specific miracle case”. Furthermore, as I explicitly pointed out, if it is the priors that are being used as defeaters then the discussion is no longer about the resurrection, but of something else — and the skeptic looses again (grin). Second, if the Christian is using the same bad arguments and double standards, then well, he is using the same bad arguments and double standard and that is it.

d,

It’s not obvious that anyone really disagrees. We can take caution a step further and thereby be more complete: Prior (specific) claims about (false) X’s certainly gives no rational justification for total skepticism on X’s (generally). Cautioned investigation and warranted belief are not mutually exclusive. Of course, X’s that are demonstrable at some time, T, move higher up “out of hand” in our list of permissible options.

Whatever *could* have happened is irrelevant to what indeed happened,

You stated, quote, “The Resurrection is an *historical* event; testimony is the *only* possible evidence for it.” I was countering that historical events can leave lasting physical traces. Heck, that’s even alleged to have happened with the Resurrection specifically! A supernatural event could leave even more traces, especially for a guy with – allegedly – eternal life. Christ’s body supposedly exists right now, somewhere.

So I’m not saying that “no matter how good the evidence” I won’t accept it. I’ve given several examples of evidence that I would accept. And as I’ve said before, I certainly don’t ask for anything more than Saul of Tarsus got.

I’m pointing out that (a) testimony has a positive, but far from infinite, evidential value[*], (b) physical evidence has a higher evidential value than testimony, and (c) the more unusual the claim, the more evidence is required to establish it.

([*] We’ve been finding more and more how unreliable eyewitness testimony can be, and we’ve been getting better at pulling information out of physical evidence – recall how fingerprints affected the justice system.)

The threshold for a supernatural claim is high. Testimony is not of zero value, but by itself it’s not high enough to clamber over that threshold. Everyone applies this already, to most of the miracles of other religions.

@Ray

I’m pointing out that (a) testimony has a positive, but far from infinite, evidential value[*], (b) physical evidence has a higher evidential value than testimony, and (c) the more unusual the claim, the more evidence is required to establish it.

I’m not sure you’ve considered how much you rely on testimony for almost everything you know. Pretty much all your beliefs will have been derived from what you’ve been told.

We’ve been finding more and more how unreliable eyewitness testimony can be, and we’ve been getting better at pulling information out of physical evidence – recall how fingerprints affected the justice system

And what does physical evidence in court rely on? The testimony of experts. It’s of little value on its own.

In fact the entire scientific enterprise relies heavily on testimony.

Jenna –

I don’t think that this metaphorical “razor” of the simplicity of explanation can get any sharper or simpler than monotheism

As Einstein put it, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler.” When it postulates something entirely different from the material stuff we see and the eternal ‘can’t not be true’ of logic and mathematics, that’s kind of a stretch. C.f. Daniel Dennett on ‘greedy reductionism’, or why Behaviorism is wrong.

But science is simply not an epistemology that is equipped to study the transcendent, the metaphysical, the supernatural, the spiritual.

It is equipped to look at the interface between those things, and the objects of its study, though. If matter and energy does stuff that matter and energy can’t do, we can at least establish that something weird is going on. What about the Shroud of Turin?

And if “the spiritual” does not in any way affect what the materially observable does? Isn’t that the kind of chin Ockham’s Razor was meant to shave?

Jenna –

Certainly Einstein’s theory of relativity doesn’t draw such a distinction.

You mean, between ‘spiritual’ and ‘material’? Are you saying that souls are limited to the speed of light, too?

But God can make exceptions to the general order of things when he deems it important.

If science can study the order, it can certainly at least notice the exceptions. Especially if they leave lasting traces. (Unless, of course, they are deliberately arranged so as to be unconfirmable.)

Therefore, it is the naturalistic worldview that violates Ockham’s Razor principle but forcing its proponents into all sorts of complex and contrived explanations for events that don’t fit this paradigm.

…if, in fact, such events actually happen. I haven’t seen good evidence of such. And certainly none have happened to me or mine.

Ray, RE: #329

So you acknowledge that you limit your worldview to verification by “what has happened to me and mine” and the evidence that you yourself and you alone have seen. That being the case, why do you believe anything that is known through science? Your epistemology is incapable of giving you any understanding of reality outside your own limited range of experience, so what possible good is it to anyone else? Is this really the way you operate on a cognitive and on a spiritual level?

[Me and Mine] = [Kg & Nanometers] = [Scientism]

More aware Materialists avoid the dance……final elimination ensuing….

Ray, #332

I don’t understand what you are getting at when you ask what the word “and” means and with the rest of this post. If you think I’ve misunderstood something you have said, please say so and explain how it is that you think I have misunderstood.

What I am noting is that you seem to believe that miracles do not and cannot happen (because of your belief that there is no God) and that therefore, all reports of miracles are false. This you say you base on the fact that you yourself have never experienced a miracle nor has anyone related to you (“me or mine”).

What I still wonder about that I don’t think you have really addressed is why you distrust and reject testimony of miracles from people other than your relatives and close associates (strangers) but seem to accept scientific theories and studies as well as historical accounts and analysis I’m sure, that also come from people other than your relatives and close associates and are also outside of your own experience. (I’m sure you don’t claim to have personally witnessed the Big Bang or to have witnessed President Lincoln’s assassination.) The point here is that your rejection of miracles is the consequence of your own cognitive bias and is not based on the credibility of the witnesses to miracles or their/our competence to distinguish the miraculous from the ordinary.

Please consider these questions regarding the resurrection of Jesus: Do you believe that Jesus’s disciples and followers who were witnesses at the grave site and who saw, spoke to and interacted with Jesus resurrected were not competent to determine that a miracle had occurred? If not, why not? I ask these questions because the real issue here, IMO, is whether or not THEY were competent to make this judgement based on the evidence (the total, full and complete evidence) that THEY had. Only if you or anyone else can concede that they did can we move to the next step: judging the credibility of the testimony to these events, or IOW, are/were they telling us the truth about what they witnessed? If you have concluded that their testimony is not truthful and trustworthy, why isn’t it?

I am attempting to get you to look at the testimony and the evidence for Jesus’ resurrection while distancing yourself, if you can, from your own cognitive bias against miracles.

d RE:#336

Please consider this fact. When a person is questioned to find if s/he is eligible to serve on a jury in a particular case, the presumption of the law is that the citizen IS competent to serve unless s/he is shown not to be, usually because of bias or prejudice. My questions to Ray are based on the assumption, presumption that any ordinary person who is not biased or prejudice is competent to discern the difference between ordinary events and miraculous events. It is bias or prejudice that disables accurate and true discernment of the miraculous from the non-miraculous.

As in a jury trial, it is the attorney for the prosecution or the defense who must disqualify a juror who is presumed to be competent. Atheists have not disqualified (impeached) the witnesses to the events of the resurrection by showing any reason why they would have been incapable of judging the events they witnessed, nor have atheists impeached their testimony, despite their attempts to do so. Whether or not atheists find the testimony to be convincing is really beside the point, since obviously atheists have a strong bias against miracles, believing as they do that miracles cannot happen because allegedly there is no God who can perform miracles. This prejudice disables their ability to examine the evidence without bias, although otherwise they are capable of discriminating the miraculous from the non-miraculous. This is why atheists’ arguments against the resurrection are unconvincing.

Jenna –

I don’t understand what you are getting at when you ask what the word “and” means and with the rest of this post.

I’m sorry to have to parse the English so explicitly here, but apparently I need to. I’m not trying to be insulting, I’m trying to explain something I thought I made clear.

Here’s what I wrote about miracles: “I haven’t seen good evidence of such. And [emphasis added] certainly none have happened to me or mine.”

Note the “And”. That implies that I’m talking about two things. The subject of the first sentence, and “certainly none have happened to me or mine”. In other words, whatever the first sentence means, it does not simply mean “certainly none have happened to me or mine”.

So, I don’t doubt miracles simply “base[d] on the fact that [I myself] have never experienced a miracle nor has anyone related to [me].” And I never said I did.

Now, if you don’t understand what I’m talking about when I say, “I haven’t seen good evidence of [miracles]”, you could ask for clarification on that. But at least acknowledge I said it.

“The Materialist” (her name is Shawna, she lives just up the street from me 🙂 ) doesn’t have to think such experience doesn’t exist, just that it must be carefully interpreted. Like, say, a sunrise – it sure looks like the sun is moving up over the horizon. We eventually figured out that wasn’t the case.

Carefully interpreted in materialistic terms – otherwise it would not fit within that worldview. But upon doing the work of careful interpretation, the worldview becomes filled with illusions – things that are perceived as real but have no ability to fit within the worldview. Christianity doesn’t have that problem.

@Ray

There definitely can be a ‘right thing to do’ in life, in a very similar way to how there can be an objective ‘right move’ in chess. You can’t get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’, but you can from an ‘is’ and a goal.

Of course. But that’s just shifting the goalposts 🙂

Where do moral goals come from? If we make them up ourselves, we are back to relativism.

Ray (@340),

In order to accept experience as being something meaningful, you have to accept it as being related to some kind of outside world, though. But I’m not really worried about it – I think it’s just two different ways of phrasing the same principle.
In one sense, yes. But my point was that trusting experience is epistemologically prior to belief in an outside world. Yes, that belief immediately follows, but the point is that experience is why we believe in the external world (as opposed to believing that there is some kind of external world is why one decides to trust experience—that latter would be fallacious thinking).

This is a significant distinction to make if one is interested in arguments from evidence.

Debilis:
As to Ockham’s Razor, that follows from the law of averages and rational reflection on experience.

Ray:
Not at all. As I noted in the essay, there is literally no limit to the number of explanations one can spin for any finite set of data. And, by definition, all those explanations account for the data equally well. (If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be ‘explanations’!) So how do you pick? Even if you limit things to two ‘complete accounts of the data’ – on what basis do you pick which one to go with?

Essentially we have proposed two options:
Yours seems to be something like: “there is no valid answer, so let’s just axiomatically (and arbitrarily?) go with Ockham’s Razor”.
Mine is, more or less: “Given our experience, the simpler one’s tend to be less prone to logical errors, and easier to test. Let’s start with those.”

That is not to say that one can’t propose other conjectures. It is to say that experience tends to weigh against complex conjectures. But, if you are proposing that we reject my explanation and demand that Ockham’s Razor must be accepted without support, then I need a reason why that is false.

What your response here does instead is point out that Ockham’s Razor is not actually an air-tight logical principle. But 1) I knew this already (it fits perfectly with my view), and 2) that fact does more to undercut than support your case.

“The Materialist” (her name is Shawna, she lives just up the street from me 🙂 ) doesn’t have to think such experience doesn’t exist, just that it must be carefully interpreted. Like, say, a sunrise – it sure looks like the sun is moving up over the horizon. We eventually figured out that wasn’t the case.

I agree.
However, a case would still need to be made. To reference your example, we now believe that the sunrise is due to the rotation of the Earth because someone made a strong positive case for it (many someones, in fact).

What we don’t have, however, is a strong positive case to reinterpret mental, moral, and other non-physical experience. Simply offering conjectures about how such things could actually be physical is not enough. The solipsist can offer conjectures on how the physical could actually be mental, after all. We need a positive case.

But, quite the contrary, we not only lack a good positive case, but we actually have a good case that other experience (particularly mental experience) does not reduce to the physical (more on that below).

But sometimes “I dunno (and you don’t, either)” is the right answer.

Clearly it is the “and you don’t, either” that is the significant part of that response. If you could show that all of the cosmological arguments are either based on faulty premises or in invalid logic (that is, show that theists don’t actually know), that would be a perfectly valid response.

But, until we can do that, this isn’t one of those times when “I dunno” is the right answer. It is simply dismissing a question because the materialist doesn’t know the answer. It doesn’t remotely mean that other people don’t know it.

Far from “I dunno” being a blocker to changing one’s view, it’s usually the only thing that allows a change of view.

I would disagree here. Dismissing an argument with “I dunno” is refusing to follow the evidence where it leads. “I dunno, but refuse to accept the answer on the table” is no less dogmatic than “I do know, in spite of the argument against.

Rather, those who make progress are those who look at the weaknesses of their views, not those who dismiss questions they can’t answer.

Let’s try it another way. There’s a difference between a suggestive hypothesis and a knowledge claim. Do you grant that?

I completely agree.
Depending on definitions, I’m not making a knowledge claim. At least, I don’t claim certainty. I am, however, willing to grant a position that is more plausibly true than the alternatives on offer.

Given that almost nothing is certain in life, this seems a reasonable approach. But, I suppose I’ll wait to see where you’re going with that before I elaborate further.

Thankfully, I haven’t said anything like “that demonstrates that God exists”, so that’s just a fanciful hypothetical, not a cutting rejoinder.

I agree that you have not, but this doesn’t speak to my point.

Rather, you can’t dismiss claims about God’s existence based on outside considerations of miracles and a magical view of the supernatural. This is what the argument for materialism was doing. It is fallacious in doing so, whether or not one agrees that God has been demonstrated.

As such, I see no reason to accept that argument.

Er… not to me. If the mind is a reality in the sense of a process, something the brain does and not a ‘substance’ the brain has or communicates with, then that wouldn’t apply.

If you are going to take a physicalist view of mind, then you need to defend that view as more plausible than the alternatives.

And, I hasten to add, the alternatives include more than the idea that the mind is a ‘substance’. Actually, I’m not a cartesian myself (I lean toward hylemorphism, if that is helpful). Certainly, Russel (whom I cited) was not a cartesian. Neither is Searle, Chalmers, Rosenberg, Churchland, or any of the other experts in the metaphysical status of the mind who would reject this view.

So, if you are going to claim that these people are simply wrong, that is fine, but I need an argument. Simply claiming that they are is not a reason to think so.

If, however, you are going to take a position more like “I’m not claiming that they’re wrong, but there’s this other possibility, so I’m going to remain a materialist”, this would simply be close-minded. It’s another iteration of the “I dunno (even if the experts do)” fallacy.

As to “Haldane’s Error”, there is a difference between dismissing an explanation one dislikes (which, incidentally, is committed by materialists as easily as those who reject materialism) and offering specific reasons why the concept of the physical cannot include certain traits that the mind is known to possess.

But, if you are simply unaware of those reasons, let me know. I’ll explain further.

And in my essay, I answered. There definitely can be a ‘right thing to do’ in life, in a very similar way to how there can be an objective ‘right move’ in chess. You can’t get an ‘ought’ from an ‘is’, but you can from an ‘is’ and a goal. Reread the essay with this distinction in mind.

My trouble isn’t that I’m unaware of that position; it is that I disagree. I was, very specifically, not asking whether there were objectively better ways to go about achieving one’s goals. I agree that the materialist can explain such things.

Rather, I was asking whether there was such a thing as a moral ought. This is not the same of the conditionals of which you are speaking (“If you want to get paid, then you ought to show up to work” and the like). Rather, it is a metaethical question about whether the goals themselves are objectively good.

You are free to answer that question as you’d like, but the point is that it isn’t addressed by science (it is a different paradigm altogether). I’d like to see what evidence you have for your answer to that question (not to the similar questions that you keep answering).

As to “the meaning of life” – take a look at this short essay (not mine, but expresses things well), then we can talk.

I did look at the essay.

My initial response is, again, that it never clearly answered the question. It spent a lot of time rhetorically attacking theistic answers (unsurprisingly, without ever abandoning the first-person approach to meaning that theistic positions on meaning specifically reject—no wonder the author isn’t impressed by the result).

But, as far as I can tell, the essay’s response to the question of the source of meaning was one of two things. Either it was saying that life has meaning, but wanted to halt all inquiry about what might explain that fact—or it was claiming that that meaning was purely subjective. The latter is simply to answer my original question with “no, from an atheistic standpoint, life is objectively meaningless”.

We can get into why theism is a better explanation, but I’d first want it clarified which answer this essay was meant to represent.

BillT,

Ray believes game rules were developed by the game’s creator but that we get to decide/agree upon on life’s rules. Because there is a ‘right thing to do’ he thinks that’s the way life ought to be and that is or should be binding on humanity. But it isn’t unless those ‘right things to do’ come from our creator. If we’re the ones making up the rules then we can change them.

BillT,

You make a good point. I’m wondering whether it might be important to distinguish between rules that cannot be broken (invalid moves) and the strategies we have freedom to choose within those constraints.

E.g. the inventor of chess didn’t impose a rule that says “you must always sacrifice a pawn for a queen”. It’s left up to the player to decide and accept the consequences.

In life we seem to be free to choose our strategies (e.g. whether to look after others or to hurt them), but we do not get to choose the consequences of our actions nor can we contradict the laws of physics (perform invalid moves).

But fixed external constraints – like, say, the laws of chess or the laws of nature – are not internal to an actor.

Ray,

I get you say this but I don’t see that you back it up. “(T)he laws of nature” isn’t a meaningful term in a discussion about morality. It’s a valid term in a discussion about the physical properties of the universe. However, morality isn’t one of the “laws of nature.” Morality is a set of rules that are either established by the creator of life or don’t exist. It’s only a “fixed external constraint” if it’s fixed by someone with the authority to fix it. Your worldview doesn’t have such an entity and though you can talk a good show about laws of nature and fixed external constraints they’re a fiction in a universe without someone with the authority to establish them.

Rick,

I’m wondering whether it might be important to distinguish between rules that cannot be broken (invalid moves) and the strategies we have freedom to choose within those constraints.

I think my above explains some of this. There are really no “rules that cannot be broken.” We all have free will. We can all choose to do whatever we like (See: Bundy, Ted). The only question is whether we are breaking the rules set forth for us and can thus be held accountable before man and God or not. Like I said above, morality isn’t anything like “the laws of physics.” Accepting and practicing moral standards isn’t a “strategy.” It’s a commitment to accept God’s authority in your life.

Jenna –

I conclude, and I believe, rightfully so, that not having “seen” any good evidence of miracles and not having experienced a miracle or miracles are in fact equivalents in this context.

Sorry, you conclude incorrectly.

I can look at the evidence that others claim for miracles. And I have to integrate that into what I know about the world from experience and what I’ve learned from other sources. I also have to integrate them with the multiple incompatible miracle accounts of other religions and worldviews. And the increasing ability to document events in new, detailed, and impartial ways that somehow hasn’t documented miracles.

All that plus I haven’t encountered any miracles despite the claims from many that they are surprisingly common.

bigbird – It’s not a whole thread, it’s one comment. If you’d read it, you’d know the distinction between what I’m talking about and “established societal norms”.

BillT,

Accepting and practicing moral standards isn’t a “strategy.” It’s a commitment to accept God’s authority in your life.

When I talk about a “strategy”, I am talking about (1) an action taken through (2) a decision in pursuit of (3) an objective.

We don’t strategically choose to accept the laws of gravity. There are no decisions, so it’s not a “strategy”. But we do have (some) choice in how we behave towards each other. There is also an objective, otherwise we would not have any idea how to make those moral decisions.

If you still think that “accepting and practicing moral standards” isn’t a “strategy”, how are you defining strategy?

Rick,

It seems we’re getting into definition issues more than ideological ones. Strategy to me is a set of plans you adopt to succeed at a particular task. It’s changeable at a moments notice and holds no particular truth or value except in its utility. Accepting objective moral standards that are revealed by the creator of the universe is a bit more than a strategy as the quote you referenced states.

And no, morality isn’t what we do in reaction to or “how we play” given the laws of nature. Like I said the “laws of nature” don’t really apply here. They are used to describe the physical universe. Morality isn’t part of the physical universe. It’s a commitment to accept God’s authority in your life and to accept the duty you owe to the rest of humanity bound together in his creation and made in his image. Morality only exists as a validation of the intrinsic value of every person who is part of that creation.

BillT – They are two different things that are both external to the actor. Does that help?