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God of the gaps. Really ?

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The arguments for God’s existence are based on positive evidence and logical inferences. Not gaps of knowledge.

God of the gaps and incredulity, a justified refutation of ID arguments? https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1983-gaps-god-of-the-gaps-and-incredulitya-justified-refutation-of-id-arguments

125 reasons to believe in God

https://reasonandscience.catsboard.com/t1276-125-reasons-to-believe-in-god

There is no evidence of Gods existence. Really?

1. The universe and biological systems appear designed. Therefore, most likely, they were designed.

2. The universe is like a wind-up clock, winding down as if at one point it was fully wound up and has been winding down ever since. That means, it had a beginning, therefore a cause.

3. Laws and rules of mathematics and physics are imprinted in the universe, which obeys them. The fundamental physical constants, the universe, and the earth are finely tuned to permit life. Hundreds, if not thousands of constants must be just right. Who/what finely adjusted these parameters to permit life?

4. Cells ARE literally factories. Biological cells ARE an industrial park of millions of interconnected complex factories, full of machines, production lines, computers, energy turbines, etc.

5. Cell factories have a codified description of themselves in digital form stored in genes and have the machinery to process that information through transcription and translation into an identical representation in analog 3D form, the physical ‘reality’ of that description.

6. DNA has the highest storage density known, stores the blueprint of life, has information encoding, transmission, and decoding, and translation machinery.

7. Humans are moral beings, and have conscious intelligent minds, able to communicate, use language, and objective logic. Morals, the mind, information, and logic, are non-material, non-physical entities.

Comments
Vividbleu @59,
Finally logic is only a negative test for truth. It can tell us what is false but cannot in and of itself what must be true.
Great point! Logic can only bring us to the point of a reasonable hypothesis that we can test. For example . . .
I established myself in a fairly remote country house and entertained my imagination with various means of transport. Here is how I betook myself to heaven. I attached to myself a number of bottles of dew, and the heat of the sun, which attracted it, drew me so high that I finally emerged above the highest clouds. But the sun's attraction of the dew drew me upwards so rapidly that instead of approaching the Moon, as I intended, I seemed to be farther from it than when I started. I broke open some of the bottles and felt my weight overcome the attraction and bring me back towards the earth. - Cyrano de Bergerac
Finally, I climbed aboard and, when I was securely settled on the seat, I tossed the magnetic ball high into the air. The chariot I had built was more massive in the middle than at the ends; it was perfectly balanced because the middle rose faster than the extremities. When I had risen to the point that the magnet was drawing me to, I seized the magnetic ball and tossed it into the air again. - Cyrano de Bergerac
-QQuerius
January 20, 2023
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Relatd at 92, you kind of made my point. He did all those things for specific reasons. How is not explained, just that he can. But the why reasons are the powerful lessons.AnimatedDust
January 20, 2023
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One last point. When PM1 says that faith in God “cannot make a difference to how we live...", besides being false if one accepts revelation, is of course not an argument against the existence of a transcendant God. Lamenting our limited knowledge of God says nothing about whether God exists or not. And this was supposed to be a response to me saying that creation, by virtue of being an intentional purposeful act, provides a reason by definition. Our knowledge, or lack thereof, is irrevelant. The creative intention is itself a sufficient reason. I think it's quite clear that it doesn't refute what I say. Faith in the transcendant God does offer the only possible reason for existence, otherwise, anything and everything exist for no reason at all. Either option is ultimately a matter of faith. PM1 happens to have chosen the latter option, which is fine. But one must realize that it's a faith that brings with it absurdity. An absurdity that Nietzche, Sartre, Camus and many others had realized. No appeal to ad hoc pantheistic neccessity can change that.Jblais
January 20, 2023
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PM1@
A reason that cannot be known, cannot make a difference to how we live. It is epistemically and motivationally idle: it cannot function as a reason for why we should do one thing rather than another, or believe one thing rather than another. We might have faith that there is a reason, but if we cannot know it, then it is our faith that is guiding us, not our reasoning.
And your assumption that there is no reason for the universe is also an act of faith. And I would argue that this assumption is actually a case of blind faith, given that its validity hinges on the reality of some multiverse fantasy.
And when it comes to one’s personal choices, then sure, faith is fine.
Yeah, go right ahead multiverse boy. Have faith that this universe exists because everything that is possible exists. That’s just fine, you irrational one.
But it becomes a problem when one’s choices affect other people who don’t share one’s faith: if one is unable to give reasons for one’s choices, then others cannot consent to actions that affect them.
You have a lot of explaining to do. Unfortunately for you not everybody buys into the multiverse nonsense.Origenes
January 20, 2023
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PM1 at 93, Since the Bible is rejected then only men - certain men - can be consulted. And that's it. Man has two choices: He chooses himself. He chooses God and learns who he really is. God is infallible, human beings are not.relatd
January 20, 2023
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I should add that even if one doesn't find any revelation presented in religious traditions convincing, that would still not be in itself a reason to reject monotheism. There have been plenty of theist philosophers troughout the ages that affirmed monotheism without adhering to any particular religion.Jblais
January 20, 2023
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@89
Only the observable matters.
Up to a point: yes, accounts ought to be constrained by models, and models ought to be constrained by data. That's not to say that everything of significance is measurable and that if it's not measurable, it's not important.
This is a dangerous position to hold and contradictory to right reason.
I'm not a strict empiricist or positivist. I'm fine with logic and mathematics precisely because they do not concern what exists.
Since God cannot be studied by science then He is mostly fictional or does not exist.
I am fine with whatever it is that reason can establish about God.
Again, you reject the words of the prophets and the reality of Jesus Christ as described in the Bible.
Oh, absolutely, 100%.PyrrhoManiac1
January 20, 2023
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AD at 91, Oh the Bible is big on "how." God creates from nothing. As God, He needs no pre-existing material to work with. Jesus, as God, multiplied a small number of loaves and fishes to feed a large group of people. He raised Lazarus from the dead. God, as God, can do this.relatd
January 20, 2023
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PM1 @ 88. You're a victim of your flawed reasoning. You state as fact that those reasons cannot be known. An open minded reading of Scripture provides those answers. And when you reason about that, all the blanks get filled in. (notice I said reason, not accept as blind faith, which is what you will accuse me of having, while you're the one commiting the contradictory to right reason as Relatd just said above.) You're dismissing the Bible because you demand the how questions answered. The Bible isn't big on how. It is very big on why. And it had to be understandable to every human, of all ages of human existence. That's why you need to drop your current cultural lenses, and open your mind. That would come with true humility. You're on a very flimsy skeptical scaffold, preventing your questions from being answered, because you're asking them wrongly. The Bible isn't written TO you. It's written FOR you. Humble yourself, and become wise.AnimatedDust
January 20, 2023
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@88 OK let me try to summarize what seems to be your position: 1) Because the transcendant God cannot be directly observed, studied, or compared, our knowledge of Him is limited to revelation 2) Because our knowledge is thus limited, we cannot be sure of what His reasons for creating the world are 3) Therefore, faith in God "cannot make a difference to how we live. It is epistemically and motivationally idle: it cannot function as a reason for why we should do one thing rather than another, or believe one thing rather than another." This view seems to be completely dependant on rejecting any revelation. After all, the point of e.g. the Christian incarnation, is to give us knowledge of who God is and what the ideal way of being a human is (Jesus' way) and the point of all this (love). If one accepts it, it certainly does make "a difference to how we live" and is certainly "epistemically and motivationally" transformative and "it can function as a reason for why we should do one thing rather than another, or believe one thing rather than another." So your view seems to dismiss that kind of revelation a priori and prefer a worldview that ultimately offers no reason at all for why we exist. I think this is getting everything backward. Indeed, before dismissing all/any revelations, you should first decide whether theism or atheism/pantheism/naturalism is the most coherent worldview, and then look at what the different religious traditions have to say about God and the way He reveals Himself to humanity. Not start by dismissing revelation and then say that because our knowledge of God is limited (because revelation is deemed useless), therefore He doesn't exist, which seems to me like a strange way to reason.Jblais
January 20, 2023
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PM1 at 88, Only the observable matters. This is a dangerous position to hold and contradictory to right reason. Since God cannot be studied by science then He is mostly fictional or does not exist. Again, you reject the words of the prophets and the reality of Jesus Christ as described in the Bible.relatd
January 20, 2023
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@80
I don’t understand why you think that. A reason is a reason and creation, by virtue of being an intentional purposeful act, provides a reason by definition. Our knowledge, or lack thereof, is irrevelant. The creative intention is itself a sufficient reason.
A reason that cannot be known, cannot make a difference to how we live. It is epistemically and motivationally idle: it cannot function as a reason for why we should do one thing rather than another, or believe one thing rather than another. We might have faith that there is a reason, but if we cannot know it, then it is our faith that is guiding us, not our reasoning. And when it comes to one's personal choices, then sure, faith is fine. But it becomes a problem when one's choices affect other people who don't share one's faith: if one is unable to give reasons for one's choices, then others cannot consent to actions that affect them. @81
If you see a painting, you may not know the detailed motivations of the painter, but you would certainly not claim that because of this lack of knowledge, therefore the painting may exists for no reason at all!
Indeed I wouldn't. But that's because I can draw upon general knowledge about human nature, based on millennia of observation and inference as well as my own personal life-experience. I can know that the artist was a human being much like myself, whose senses and body were similar to mine in many ways. And in many cases, even knowing fairly general truths about history and culture allow us to make educated guesses about why an artist chose what to create and how to create it. A few weeks ago, I saw an amazing exhibit about a Renaissance Venetian painter named Vittore Carpacchio. I had never heard of him and knew nothing about his life. But knowing that he lived in Venice during the Renaissance, and knowing something about that time and place, allowed me to appreciate his art. (I was particularly struck by his 1502 "Saint Augustine in His Study".) But we cannot do any of that with regard to a transcendent Being -- we cannot observe Him, study Him, compare Him with others His Kind (since He has no kind), etc. We have at most only that which He reveals of Himself, and we cannot know why He reveals Himself where, when, and how He does.PyrrhoManiac1
January 20, 2023
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PM1 re: Spinoza, have you ever considered the possibility that your alignment with Spinoza is nothing more substantial than that you are Spinozan because of your personal preference of what you want the universe/God to be? That's what it seems. He articulated something, and your preference is the singular criterion of its objective truth. Building castles in mid-air, are we?AnimatedDust
January 20, 2023
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Origenes at 84, Not to be overly critical of PM1 but the Bible is foolishness to him. Some uneducated shepherds wrote it. God's will is also a mystery but God can and does exercise His will. Isaiah 55:11 "so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." It is difficult for some, like Seversky, to see God as anything other than a man. Yet both he and PM1 will make comments about God while lacking any comprehensive knowledge about Him.relatd
January 20, 2023
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Let's bow down and worship men since worshiping God is out of the question. That's all that's going on here.relatd
January 20, 2023
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Not all realities that are possible can be brought into existence at the same time. For instance, Spinoza’s God can easily conceive of a multiverse that contains 40.000 chairs in total. However, He can also conceive of a multiverse with 40.001 chairs. What is Spinozas’ God to do here? He is all-powerful and brings compulsively into reality what is possible. However, both multiverses cannot be actual at the same time. It seems that He has to make a choice ...
PM1@ But God can do everything that He can conceive of. Hence God cannot make choices.
Well, He can conceive of both multiverses, what is He going to do?Origenes
January 20, 2023
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A little trip down memory lane,
Origenes: "Does rationality require a person who is in control of his thoughts?" PyrrhoManiac1: "No, I don’t think so." https://uncommondescent.com/mind/the-thought-that-stops-thought/#comment-771052
Game over.
(1) rationality implies a thinker in control of thoughts. (2) under materialism a thinker is an effect caused by processes in the brain (determinism). (3) in order for materialism to ground rationality a thinker (an effect) must control processes in the brain (a cause). (1)&(2) (4) no effect can control its cause. Therefore materialism cannot ground rationality. per Box UD
Moreover, besides PM1's claim being logically self refuting, it is also contradicted by empirical science. Specifically, it is now found that, for decisions that matter, there is no 'readiness potential' in the brain. In short, we are in control of decisions that matter. i.e. We are in 'control of our thoughts',
New Brain Research Supports Free Will - Denyse O'Leary - January 19, 2023 Excerpt: Decisions that matter are a small but important subset of the ones we make every day. But they are also precisely the ones where we consider free will to be important. In 2019, a research team studying brain patterns found a way to test a distinction between important and unimportant outcomes: "They presented participants with a choice of two nonprofit organizations to which they could donate $1,000. People could indicate their preferred organization by pressing the left or right button. In some cases, participants knew that their choice mattered because the button would determine which organization would receive the full $1,000. In other cases, people knowingly made meaningless choices because they were told that both organizations would receive $500 regardless of their selection." ( - Alessandra Buccella, Tomáš Dominik, “free Will Is Only An Illusion If You Are, Too” At Scientific American. (January 16, 2023);) And then the researchers discovered a surprising thing: “Meaningless choices were preceded by a readiness potential, just as in previous experiments. Meaningful choices were not, however. When we care about a decision and its outcome, our brain appears to behave differently than when a decision is arbitrary.”,,, Abstract: The readiness potential (RP) — a key ERP correlate of upcoming action — is known to precede subjects’ reports of their decision to move. Some view this as evidence against a causal role for consciousness in human decision-making and thus against free-will. But previous work focused on arbitrary decisions — purposeless, unreasoned, and without consequences. It remains unknown to what degree the RP generalizes to deliberate, more ecological decisions. We directly compared deliberate and arbitrary decision-making during a $1000-donation task to non-profit organizations. While we found the expected RPs for arbitrary decisions, they were strikingly absent for deliberate ones. Our results and drift-diffusion model are congruent with the RP representing accumulation of noisy, random fluctuations that drive arbitrary — but not deliberate — decisions. They further point to different neural mechanisms underlying deliberate and arbitrary decisions, challenging the generalizability of studies that argue for no causal role for consciousness in decision-making to real-life decisions. - Uri Maoz, Gideon Yaffe, Christof Koch, Liad Mudrik (2019) Neural Precursors Of Decisions That Matter — An Erp Study Of Deliberate And Arbitrary Choice Elife 8:e39787 https://evolutionnews.org/2023/01/new-brain-research-supports-free-will/
bornagain77
January 20, 2023
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Providing a possible cause for something, cannot be interpreted as giving up on the idea that things have causes.Origenes
January 20, 2023
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If you see a painting, you may not know the detailed motivations of the painter, but you would certainly not claim that because of this lack of knowledge, therefore the painting may exists for no reason at all!Jblais
January 20, 2023
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"A reason that we cannot know might as well not be a reason at all." I don't understand why you think that. A reason is a reason and creation, by virtue of being an intentional purposeful act, provides a reason by definition. Our knowledge, or lack thereof, is irrevelant. The creative intention is itself a sufficient reason.Jblais
January 20, 2023
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@77
On the contrary ! Having faith in creation is having faith in the PSR ! Again, the fact that we may not know for sure the exact reason doesn’t change the fact that creation entails that there exists such a reason by definition.
A reason that we cannot know might as well not be a reason at all.PyrrhoManiac1
January 20, 2023
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PM1@ 76 Can you elaborate? Faith provides us with a reason and a cause for creation. The PSR informs us that everything must have a reason or a cause. How exactly does faith amount to "giving up on PSR"?Origenes
January 20, 2023
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"That’s why the whole doctrine of Creation must take refuge in “faith”, which amounts to giving up on the PSR." On the contrary ! Having faith in creation is having faith in the PSR ! Again, the fact that we may not know for sure the exact reason doesn't change the fact that creation entails that there exists such a reason by definition. Moreover, monotheistic traditions hold that God is truth, goodness and beauty, and so the reason seems to be very plausibly to bring about free moral creatures capable of appreciating and striving for these transcendentals and thus come into contact with God. Which seems perfectly reasonable.Jblais
January 20, 2023
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@75
That’s a huge IF. Creation entails a purposeful intention i.e. a reason, by definition.
But not one that is knowable by us. That's why the whole doctrine of Creation must take refuge in "faith", which amounts to giving up on the PSR.PyrrhoManiac1
January 20, 2023
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Bornagain77 @73 Is it certainly not just you. Jblais makes the whole PM1/Spinoza/multiverse collapse like a house of cards.Origenes
January 20, 2023
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"...if I’m right about what the doctrine of Creation entails, then that too violates the PSR. " That's a huge IF. Creation entails a purposeful intention i.e. a reason, by definition.Jblais
January 20, 2023
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Is it just me, or is Jblais really taking PM1 'sophisticated' philosophical ramblings completely apart as if it is child's play for him? If only PM1 would honestly listen to him.bornagain77
January 20, 2023
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"After all, we can imagine a winged horse named Pegasus. That’s easy enough! But is Pegasus really possible? Spinoza would certainly say that to really conceive of Pegasus, one would need to know how the bones and muscles of the wings attach to the body, how the brain is organized for controlling the three-dimensional movement of flying as well as ordinary horse movements, and how Pegasus is either able to conform to the laws of aerodynamics or else what it is about Pegasus that allows him to violate the laws of aerodynamics." That example is irrelevant because that would refer to an example of nomological (physical) necessity at best while the issue at stake is one of logical necessity. A necessity of that kind is a truth that obviously hold in all possible world. We can't conceive of a world in which 2+2=4 isn't true. That's why no one asks for an explanation for why 2+2=4 (once they know what "2", "+", "=", and "4" mean). Because it is obviously necessary, therefore no further question arises.Jblais
January 20, 2023
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"But your power is limited by something — your will. You have the power to do something, but your will restricts that power from acting." I'm sorry but this doesn't make any sense. You can't claim that the will and the person are two different things and that one can somehow "block" the other. That's incoherent. The "you" and the "your will" in your second sentence "YOU have the power to do something, but YOUR WILL restricts that power from acting." refer to the same subject. If I choose not to exercise one of my power, that of course doesn't deprive me from that power. It just shows that I'm in control of my powers ! It's actually the opposite that would show a limitation. If I can't control my powers, I'm obviously not all powerful because that would mean that something beyond myself (beyond my will), decides whether my powers are used or not...Jblais
January 20, 2023
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@69 I definitely don't think it is obvious that the world is contingent. The sheer fact that we can imagine the world as being other than it is, doesn't show that it really could have been other than it is. After all, we can imagine a winged horse named Pegasus. That's easy enough! But is Pegasus really possible? Spinoza would certainly say that to really conceive of Pegasus, one would need to know how the bones and muscles of the wings attach to the body, how the brain is organized for controlling the three-dimensional movement of flying as well as ordinary horse movements, and how Pegasus is either able to conform to the laws of aerodynamics or else what it is about Pegasus that allows him to violate the laws of aerodynamics. Without all that (and much more) we're not really conceiving of Pegasus, we're just imagining him. The lesson from this is, not everything that we think that we're conceiving of, we are really conceiving of. It might seem as if Pegasus is possible, if we're merely imagining him, but when we really focus our minds on everything that it required for Pegasus, we realize that Pegasus is not really possible. Likewise, I think it would be a mistake to assume that the world really is metaphysically contingent just because we can imagine things having been otherwise.
That project failed completely in my opinion. Faith is unavoidable. You have to commit one way or another without ever having an absolute proof. Either the contingent world has a reason for its existence and that reason can only come from a transcendant intentional creative act, or there’s no reason for its existence (violating the PSR).
But if I'm right about what the doctrine of Creation entails, then that too violates the PSR. So the PSR would end up being violated regardless of whether or not the world was created by a transcendent personal God.PyrrhoManiac1
January 20, 2023
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