Philosophy and other pseudo-intellectual spoutings

[TANGODANCER]

It's not "trying" to show any different. It's just trying to find out. Given that, so far as he existed, Jesus was a human, of course he "came" to bloody Earth. He was no more likely to rock up on Venus that you, I or anyone else was, was he ?

Well, I know it hasn't been officially Dawkin or even Einstein approved, (main sources for the "Prusecution") but the only record we have of it all states that God created the "earth". Not the planets, galaxy or any other title, but the "earth", so far as is known, the only planet capable of sustaining life. This itself is complex enough, because if you chucked me in Brian Hey lodge with a weight round my ankles, I'd die from drowning in the water. Catch a pike or whatever, throw it on the bank and it would die from "not" being in the water. Apart from a few clever entities like crocodiles, otters, seals and hippos etc, this general rule applies that here are two contrasting cases. Now I know that for any of my argument to be accepted you have to believe it was created by God anyway, which you don't (the whole crux of the argument), so this just takes us back to the mulberry bush. In other words, we've got exactly nowhere at all.

Disclaimer: In no way am I saying that science and from it, modern technology is anything less than awesome. That it hasn't been able to explain away God and creation is the main case for the defence, although none of that is exactly what religion is about.

Pax Tecum.

[Bruce Rioja]

Can I just point out here, in case anyone's unsure, that Richard Dawkins is an absolute throbbing cock of a man, entombed in self-importance whilst at the same time being completely full of shit?

As you were.

[Hoboh]

Can I just point out here, in case anyone's unsure, that Richard Dawkins is an absolute throbbing cock of a man, entombed in self-importance whilst at the same time being completely full of shit?

As you were.

Agree he's like an atheist Tony Blair!

[KeyserSoze]

Come on guys it's nearly christmas.

Thanks for not writing 'Xmas', but you could have granted it its capital letter !!

Could have, but did not. #freewill

[thebish]

Can I just point out here, in case anyone's unsure, that Richard Dawkins is an absolute throbbing cock of a man, entombed in self-importance whilst at the same time being completely full of shit?

As you were.

I think that's always worth pointing out... (to be fair!)

[TANGODANCER]

In reply to Bobo, Pru writes:

I like, by the way, that the best source you could find to back yourself up was Word on Fire, a website that proclaims to be "Proclaiming Christ in the Culture". I'm expecting a balanced view, then.

Whoa, careful there Saphire, most of your own history of morality views, No God views, and much else are right out of the pages of Dawkins's The God Delusion. Hardly proof of much except his views. Just thought I'd mention it.

[Prufrock]

Except, and this is genuinely wonderful, at the point science realises it doesn't know, guess what it says? (Clue: it's not "God must have done it"). "We don't know" is not the same as "Anything could explain this, and should be given equal weight as any other "theory"* because you can't say it's definitely not true".

Seriously, the best thing that my parents taught me that I don't think they would have taught me had they been religious (not to say no religious parents would teach their kids this, just that mine wouldn't have) is that it's OK not to know. You don't have to fill the gap with a benevolent old man, and you can still give a preference one way or the other, but it's fine to just say "I don't know".

*#1 contender for most misunderstood word ever. And not to blame Bish, the pedantry of mathematicians is entirely to blame.

Ahh - this is good. We're making progress. Science would probably say "We don't know", I agree. Science is a little all encompassing in this context and often Scientists don't agree about things they don't know - but we'll let that one ride for a minute. That isn't the same as "Anything could explain this", I agree too, so what they tend to do is look at all the possibilities and give them a probability - which covers off your "given equal weight bit". So where I believe we'd get to is that Scientists might well at the moment give Higgs-Bosun a high probability (which when they find it, will lead onto the next question) and God a very low probability. Which is entirely different, than someone arguing the case that it couldn't possibly be the lower probability answer, because science has a higher probability answer. Which is exactly what most people who don't believe in God incorrectly, generally content when referencing Science...

Why have you called it "God" though? This potential original force/spark/whatever, or "God" if you want, is something you'll be hard-pressed to find anybody serious would discount as a possibility, even if they think it's unlikely. The only reason anyone calls that "god" is to try to take a point; it's not the "god" of any Bible or modern believer. That requires a lot more. To get someone to accept that this initial force is a possibility gets you nowhere near proving or showing it in anyway likely that this "force" is a conscious being, that it's still around, that it cares what happens, that it is moralistic or that there is an afterlife in which it judges us for our sins.

Atheism doesn't mean rejecting ideas far removed from any modern "god" that might be back-dated and re-labelled "god" to try prove a point ("ah, so you can't say god definitely doesn't exist" "Well, I can't say what you've conveniently now named "God" doesn't exist"). If there's a religion out there that says god created the stuff and put it in the big bang then left it to its own devices since and buggered off, then they might have something (for now at least) - a sort of Deism Max. That's the road successive popes have started down, but they can't get away from the whole consciously cares what we do now, demands worship, cares who we have sex with and how, and judges us in the afterlife bit. That's the bit that atheists consider so unlikely as to be discounted as a possibility, which isn't the same as what you were saying.

You seem to have moved onto one of your more favoured tub-thumping grounds with this post.

We started discussing that something had to just exist (or didn't). Prior to everything else.

You can't explain that, nor can scientists, nor can I.

You have a likely theory (I think, but happy to be corrected) that suddenly something started to exist. From nothing. Or it was here from a concept called "forever", but we don't know what happened in forever minus 1. I think you assume nothing because forever is infinite - which is a mathematical and philosophical convenience. It's as makey uppy as God, because apparently no one can ever find it, see it, reach it etc. I'm pushing a point, but it's a valid one.

There is an argument that there isn't a God (leaving religion out of it for a moment). Some people believe there is, some people believe there isn't

There is an argument that stuff just occurred allegedly from nothing (at some point in time). Some people believe this occurred, other people say "not good enough, what happened before anything existed"

They're both about as believable as each other, depending on your viewpoint.

There’s not too much of that I’d disagree with but to break in into parts:

So, we know that stuff exists now, and that means one of the following two options must be correct:

Either, there has been stuff forever and you could never go back to a time when there was no stuff; or, at some point, if you go far enough, you’ll get to a point where there was no stuff. Obviously, if it’s that one, then, between that point and now, some stuff appeared.

My own hunch is the former but I claim no evidence or authority for that and completely accept that people could think the other. That’s a genuine “we don’t know and can’t really have a proper stab at saying what we predict”.

My point was this – if you introduce a third party or original agent, be it a “god”, or a force, or in sci-fi parody someone in a different universe flushing a toilet and creating this one, or whatever it is, you’re still left with the same problem with regards to the original agent. That original agent itself has either existed forever, or at some point it came into existence.

So in whichever of the first two scenarios, one of which must be true, you go with, this 3rd party now requires an extra assumption. So in scenario 1: Either the stuff that makes up the universe has existed forever (one assumption taken at face value); or, an original agent created the universe (one assumption taken at face value) and that third party itself has existed forever (a second assumption).

In scenario 2: Either the stuff that made up the universe appeared independently (one assumption taken at face value) or an original agent created the universe (one assumption) having itself appeared from nothing independently (a second assumption).

As a rule of thumb when weighing up those two things it makes sense to go with the one that requires fewer blind assumptions. It’s certainly not a proof though, and no-one would claim to be an atheist on the basis of that one thought experiment. Just because it requires another assumption and so seems less likely in no way means it isn’t true - sometimes the complicated thing is the true thing.

So if by “god” you meant a third party or original agent that acted as a creator/catalyst/ source of the universe deep in the annals of time before the Big Bang, and so before anything we can really have a proper stab at having evidence for, then I don’t see how you can find anyone sensible who would say that this “god” can’t have existed (though as I’ve said I still think it’s less likely). I don’t think you’d get Richard Dawkins to say that it can’t have existed, and I don’t think you could have got Hitchens and certainly not Einstein (who wasn’t religious but wasn’t an “atheist” either) to say that.

What I do think is that there is no reason to call this thing that an atheist would have to accept could exist, “god” other than to try to make a point that isn’t there. No religion I am aware of posits that^ as its god. The nearest I can think of is deism and that’s still nowhere near. So if someone wants to think they’re landing a big blow by going back to a time we necessarily don’t know about and introducing an agent we can’t by necessity deny, and calling that agent “god” and saying that it could have created the conditions that led to the Big Bang and all that followed, then great!, but it doesn’t get them anywhere in arguing that there is a God who cares about what we do, who created moral agency to judge us by, who cares who we have sex with and that we pray and subjugate ourselves to him. And when it comes to describing oneself as an atheist, it’s the gods that people put forward that are rejected, not any notion of anything that could later be described as a “god” but which is utterly irrelevant to our lives. That’s still a god some people believe in, which is fine, but when I reject that god I’m not relying on an evidence-less thought experiment.

[bobo the clown]

Haven't you got some ambulances to chase ?


I gave up at "There's not ..."

ffs.

[Prufrock]

It's not "trying" to show any different. It's just trying to find out. Given that, so far as he existed, Jesus was a human, of course he "came" to bloody Earth. He was no more likely to rock up on Venus that you, I or anyone else was, was he ?

Well, I know it hasn't been officially Dawkin or even Einstein approved, (main sources for the "Prusecution") but the only record we have of it all states that God created the "earth". Not the planets, galaxy or any other title, but the "earth", so far as is known, the only planet capable of sustaining life. This itself is complex enough, because if you chucked me in Brian Hey lodge with a weight round my ankles, I'd die from drowning in the water. Catch a pike or whatever, throw it on the bank and it would die from "not" being in the water. Apart from a few clever entities like crocodiles, otters, seals and hippos etc, this general rule applies that here are two contrasting cases. Now I know that for any of my argument to be accepted you have to believe it was created by God anyway, which you don't (the whole crux of the argument), so this just takes us back to the mulberry bush. In other words, we've got exactly nowhere at all.

Disclaimer: In no way am I saying that science and from it, modern technology is anything less than awesome. That it hasn't been able to explain away God and creation is the main case for the defence, although none of that is exactly what religion is about.

Pax Tecum.

It absolutely has been able to explain away creation as put forward by the Bible.

[Prufrock]

In reply to Bobo, Pru writes:

I like, by the way, that the best source you could find to back yourself up was Word on Fire, a website that proclaims to be "Proclaiming Christ in the Culture". I'm expecting a balanced view, then.

Whoa, careful there Saphire, most of your own history of morality views, No God views, and much else are right out of the pages of Dawkins's The God Delusion. Hardly proof of much except his views. Just thought I'd mention it.

No they're not. Evolution didn't come out of the God Delusion, nor did the Big Bang, nor did the discovery of geological clocks, or that the earth orbits the sun, or that the sun is bigger than the moon or any other piece of evidence that undermines the content of the bible of the dogmas of the church.

Some stuff in books is true, but it's not gospel just because it's *in* a book

[TANGODANCER]

All I'm hearing is "the brave music of a distant drum" . Sorry.

[Montreal Wanderer]

In reply to Bobo, Pru writes:

I like, by the way, that the best source you could find to back yourself up was Word on Fire, a website that proclaims to be "Proclaiming Christ in the Culture". I'm expecting a balanced view, then.

Whoa, careful there Saphire, most of your own history of morality views, No God views, and much else are right out of the pages of Dawkins's The God Delusion. Hardly proof of much except his views. Just thought I'd mention it.

No they're not. Evolution didn't come out of the God Delusion, nor did the Big Bang, nor did the discovery of geological clocks, or that the earth orbits the sun, or that the moon is bigger than the sun or any other piece of evidence that undermines the content of the bible of the dogmas of the church.

Some stuff in books is true, but it's not gospel just because it's *in* a book

Is the moon bigger than the sun? Good heavens - they look the same size to me.

[Prufrock]

Ahem

Well, THAT idea definitely didn't come from the God Delusion.

[Worthy4England]

Except, and this is genuinely wonderful, at the point science realises it doesn't know, guess what it says? (Clue: it's not "God must have done it"). "We don't know" is not the same as "Anything could explain this, and should be given equal weight as any other "theory"* because you can't say it's definitely not true".

Seriously, the best thing that my parents taught me that I don't think they would have taught me had they been religious (not to say no religious parents would teach their kids this, just that mine wouldn't have) is that it's OK not to know. You don't have to fill the gap with a benevolent old man, and you can still give a preference one way or the other, but it's fine to just say "I don't know".

*#1 contender for most misunderstood word ever. And not to blame Bish, the pedantry of mathematicians is entirely to blame.

Ahh - this is good. We're making progress. Science would probably say "We don't know", I agree. Science is a little all encompassing in this context and often Scientists don't agree about things they don't know - but we'll let that one ride for a minute. That isn't the same as "Anything could explain this", I agree too, so what they tend to do is look at all the possibilities and give them a probability - which covers off your "given equal weight bit". So where I believe we'd get to is that Scientists might well at the moment give Higgs-Bosun a high probability (which when they find it, will lead onto the next question) and God a very low probability. Which is entirely different, than someone arguing the case that it couldn't possibly be the lower probability answer, because science has a higher probability answer. Which is exactly what most people who don't believe in God incorrectly, generally content when referencing Science...

Why have you called it "God" though? This potential original force/spark/whatever, or "God" if you want, is something you'll be hard-pressed to find anybody serious would discount as a possibility, even if they think it's unlikely. The only reason anyone calls that "god" is to try to take a point; it's not the "god" of any Bible or modern believer. That requires a lot more. To get someone to accept that this initial force is a possibility gets you nowhere near proving or showing it in anyway likely that this "force" is a conscious being, that it's still around, that it cares what happens, that it is moralistic or that there is an afterlife in which it judges us for our sins.

Atheism doesn't mean rejecting ideas far removed from any modern "god" that might be back-dated and re-labelled "god" to try prove a point ("ah, so you can't say god definitely doesn't exist" "Well, I can't say what you've conveniently now named "God" doesn't exist"). If there's a religion out there that says god created the stuff and put it in the big bang then left it to its own devices since and buggered off, then they might have something (for now at least) - a sort of Deism Max. That's the road successive popes have started down, but they can't get away from the whole consciously cares what we do now, demands worship, cares who we have sex with and how, and judges us in the afterlife bit. That's the bit that atheists consider so unlikely as to be discounted as a possibility, which isn't the same as what you were saying.

You seem to have moved onto one of your more favoured tub-thumping grounds with this post.

We started discussing that something had to just exist (or didn't). Prior to everything else.

You can't explain that, nor can scientists, nor can I.

You have a likely theory (I think, but happy to be corrected) that suddenly something started to exist. From nothing. Or it was here from a concept called "forever", but we don't know what happened in forever minus 1. I think you assume nothing because forever is infinite - which is a mathematical and philosophical convenience. It's as makey uppy as God, because apparently no one can ever find it, see it, reach it etc. I'm pushing a point, but it's a valid one.

There is an argument that there isn't a God (leaving religion out of it for a moment). Some people believe there is, some people believe there isn't

There is an argument that stuff just occurred allegedly from nothing (at some point in time). Some people believe this occurred, other people say "not good enough, what happened before anything existed"

They're both about as believable as each other, depending on your viewpoint.

There’s not too much of that I’d disagree with but to break in into parts:

So, we know that stuff exists now, and that means one of the following two options must be correct:

Either, there has been stuff forever and you could never go back to a time when there was no stuff; or, at some point, if you go far enough, you’ll get to a point where there was no stuff. Obviously, if it’s that one, then, between that point and now, some stuff appeared.

My own hunch is the former but I claim no evidence or authority for that and completely accept that people could think the other. That’s a genuine “we don’t know and can’t really have a proper stab at saying what we predict”.

My point was this – if you introduce a third party or original agent, be it a “god”, or a force, or in sci-fi parody someone in a different universe flushing a toilet and creating this one, or whatever it is, you’re still left with the same problem with regards to the original agent. That original agent itself has either existed forever, or at some point it came into existence.

So in whichever of the first two scenarios, one of which must be true, you go with, this 3rd party now requires an extra assumption. So in scenario 1: Either the stuff that makes up the universe has existed forever (one assumption taken at face value); or, an original agent created the universe (one assumption taken at face value) and that third party itself has existed forever (a second assumption).

In scenario 2: Either the stuff that made up the universe appeared independently (one assumption taken at face value) or an original agent created the universe (one assumption) having itself appeared from nothing independently (a second assumption).

As a rule of thumb when weighing up those two things it makes sense to go with the one that requires fewer blind assumptions. It’s certainly not a proof though, and no-one would claim to be an atheist on the basis of that one thought experiment. Just because it requires another assumption and so seems less likely in no way means it isn’t true - sometimes the complicated thing is the true thing.

So if by “god” you meant a third party or original agent that acted as a creator/catalyst/ source of the universe deep in the annals of time before the Big Bang, and so before anything we can really have a proper stab at having evidence for, then I don’t see how you can find anyone sensible who would say that this “god” can’t have existed (though as I’ve said I still think it’s less likely). I don’t think you’d get Richard Dawkins to say that it can’t have existed, and I don’t think you could have got Hitchens and certainly not Einstein (who wasn’t religious but wasn’t an “atheist” either) to say that.

What I do think is that there is no reason to call this thing that an atheist would have to accept could exist, “god” other than to try to make a point that isn’t there. No religion I am aware of posits that^ as its god. The nearest I can think of is deism and that’s still nowhere near. So if someone wants to think they’re landing a big blow by going back to a time we necessarily don’t know about and introducing an agent we can’t by necessity deny, and calling that agent “god” and saying that it could have created the conditions that led to the Big Bang and all that followed, then great!, but it doesn’t get them anywhere in arguing that there is a God who cares about what we do, who created moral agency to judge us by, who cares who we have sex with and that we pray and subjugate ourselves to him. And when it comes to describing oneself as an atheist, it’s the gods that people put forward that are rejected, not any notion of anything that could later be described as a “god” but which is utterly irrelevant to our lives. That’s still a god some people believe in, which is fine, but when I reject that god I’m not relying on an evidence-less thought experiment.

I was rather hoping for maybe a couple of lines. I'll have a read in a bit

[thebish]

It absolutely has been able to explain away creation as put forward by the Bible.

only if you believe the bible is making an attempt to describe how the world began. but then - if that's what you believe, then I suspect you're one of those people who has no understanding of the different types and purposes of literature. (which would be a surprise given the wide range of reading you claim to have done.)

[thebish]

My point was this – if you introduce a third party or original agent, be it a “god”, or a force, or in sci-fi parody someone in a different universe flushing a toilet and creating this one, or whatever it is, you’re still left with the same problem with regards to the original agent. That original agent itself has either existed forever, or at some point it came into existence.

So in whichever of the first two scenarios, one of which must be true, you go with, this 3rd party now requires an extra assumption. So in scenario 1: Either the stuff that makes up the universe has existed forever (one assumption taken at face value); or, an original agent created the universe (one assumption taken at face value) and that third party itself has existed forever (a second assumption).

In scenario 2: Either the stuff that made up the universe appeared independently (one assumption taken at face value) or an original agent created the universe (one assumption) having itself appeared from nothing independently (a second assumption).

no. no extra assumption needed, as already quite clearly explained. nice try!

[Prufrock]

It's not "trying" to show any different. It's just trying to find out. Given that, so far as he existed, Jesus was a human, of course he "came" to bloody Earth. He was no more likely to rock up on Venus that you, I or anyone else was, was he ?

Well, I know it hasn't been officially Dawkin or even Einstein approved, (main sources for the "Prusecution") but the only record we have of it all states that God created the "earth". Not the planets, galaxy or any other title, but the "earth", so far as is known, the only planet capable of sustaining life. This itself is complex enough, because if you chucked me in Brian Hey lodge with a weight round my ankles, I'd die from drowning in the water. Catch a pike or whatever, throw it on the bank and it would die from "not" being in the water. Apart from a few clever entities like crocodiles, otters, seals and hippos etc, this general rule applies that here are two contrasting cases. Now I know that for any of my argument to be accepted you have to believe it was created by God anyway, which you don't (the whole crux of the argument), so this just takes us back to the mulberry bush. In other words, we've got exactly nowhere at all.

Disclaimer: In no way am I saying that science and from it, modern technology is anything less than awesome. That it hasn't been able to explain away God and creation is the main case for the defence, although none of that is exactly what religion is about.

Pax Tecum.

It absolutely has been able to explain away creation as put forward by the Bible.

only if you believe the bible is making an attempt to describe how the world began. but then - if that's what you believe, then I suspect you're one of those people who has no understanding of the different types and purposes of literature. (which would be a surprise given the wide range of reading you claim to have done.)

That's precisely the belief put forward by Tango in the quote that I was responding to, which I've restored for the sake of fairness.

Also, whilst people can and have argued that it's actually an allegory, or something else, I don't think anyone who assumes it is to be taken literally can be said to have no understanding of the different types and purposes of literature. It seemed to many people as if it were meant to be taken literally for centuries until it became convenient for it to be simply symbolic, once it was obvious it wasn't literally true.

[Prufrock]

My point was this – if you introduce a third party or original agent, be it a “god”, or a force, or in sci-fi parody someone in a different universe flushing a toilet and creating this one, or whatever it is, you’re still left with the same problem with regards to the original agent. That original agent itself has either existed forever, or at some point it came into existence.

So in whichever of the first two scenarios, one of which must be true, you go with, this 3rd party now requires an extra assumption. So in scenario 1: Either the stuff that makes up the universe has existed forever (one assumption taken at face value); or, an original agent created the universe (one assumption taken at face value) and that third party itself has existed forever (a second assumption).

In scenario 2: Either the stuff that made up the universe appeared independently (one assumption taken at face value) or an original agent created the universe (one assumption) having itself appeared from nothing independently (a second assumption).

no. no extra assumption needed, as already quite clearly explained. nice try!

Yes there is. You need an extra assumption to get to "God created the universe". Assuming you're talking about this:

you have outlined two positions:

1) the matter/universe/god has existed for ever
2) there was nothing and something came into existence

your first position already includes God - so no extra assumptions about God are required
your second position seems to need an initiator - in your model - it could be God or it could be summat else - whichever it was would be an extra assumption.

so - EVEN IF - your bastardised, misunderstood and misapplied misappropriation of Occam's Razor was a valid venture for this kind of proposition - you have failed even to get it past base 1.

My first proposition includes god, but not the universe, so you need a second assumption: that god at some point in his eternal existence created the universe. Unless you believe he is part of the universe and it was also there, with him, from the beginning, in which case fine, but then he can't have created it, which was the point in the first place.

The second proposition can't have an initiator, that's the point, because who made the initiator? And if there was a someone who made the initiator, who made them? At some point, unless something is truly eternal (see Prop 1) the very first thing must suddenly have popped into existence without an initiator. If that's god himself rather than the universe, you then need a second assumption, as above, that he then created the universe. Unless he came into existence along with the universe in one assumption, but then he can't be said to have created it, which was the point in the first place.

[thebish]

That's precisely the belief put forward by Tango in the quote that I was responding to, which I've restored for the sake of fairness.

Also, whilst people can and have argued that it's actually an allegory, or something else, I don't think anyone who assumes it is to be taken literally can be said to have no understanding of the different types and purposes of literature. It seemed to many people as if it were meant to be taken literally for centuries until it became convenient for it to be simply symbolic, once it was obvious it wasn't literally true.

in which case - your argument is basically a straw-man argument. (which is very Dawkinsesque)

[Prufrock]

Can I just point out here, in case anyone's unsure, that Richard Dawkins is an absolute throbbing cock of a man, entombed in self-importance whilst at the same time being completely full of shit?

As you were.

I think that's always worth pointing out... (to be fair!)

I think there's plenty ammo for that up to the being completely full of shit bit. It annoys me that his attention-seeking trolling means there are plenty people who'd be put off reading his books which are really brilliant science books, the sort I wish I'd had when I was 13/14. They're not dumbed down but they're well-explained, and his enthusiasm when he's talking about what he does like rather than what he doesn't is infectious. I'm currently reading The Greatest Show on Earth and there are more digs about lawyers than religion . Even the God Delusion is nowhere near as strident as he appears on TV. I guess he thinks attention sells books.