For years I have been bemused by the website called The Skeptical Zone. Every few months I go over there and peruse the posts. And I think to myself, if they are so skeptical, why does practically everything they say line up with the received dogmas and conventional wisdom of the early 21st century Western intelligentsia?
Do they not know what the word “skeptical” means? Are they going for ironical?
But in a flash of insight today, I finally figured it out. The key is in the quote from Cromwell at the top of their homepage that serves as the motto for the site:
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that you may be mistaken.
All of this time I mistakenly thought that they were using the aphorism the way Cromwell intended as in “We should bear in mind that each of us is fallible; it follows that each of us should always allow for the possibility that even his most intensely-held beliefs might possibly be mistaken.”
No, that is not it. It all becomes clear when you realize that they mean their motto quite literally and when they think of it they think of it this way:
I beseech you, in the bowels of Christ, think it possible that YOU may be mistaken.
There you have it. They are skeptical all right. They are skeptical of everyone’s views but their own, which they hold with a breathtakingly dogmatic tenacity. It all makes sense to me now
Imagine that and all the while I thought it’s just a bunch of leftest hippies angry at God for giving them free will.
It took you til now to figure out that the skeptics are skeptical of skepticism?
Do you really think that Cromwell allowed for the possibility that he was wrong?
The motto is certainly consistent with their zero-concession policy.
I cannot speak for the others at TSZ but that is certainly how I read Cromwell’s aphorism.
I am an a/mat 2.0. – an atheist/agnostic/materialist (physicalist). I believe the observable universe is a material phenomenon – whatever they may be. We know things by their individual natures and it is by studying those natures in a methodical and rational way that we learn about the nature of the universe as a whole. I believe that any phenomena that we currently label ‘supernatural’ – if they are found to exist other than in our consciousness – will be found to be of a material nature.
I also admit quite freely that I could be wrong. In fact, being human and fallible, I am almost certainly wrong in some respects. I admit that there could be an intelligent agent of some sort behind life and/or the universe. We could be living in something like the simulation in The Matrix. There could be a god, even the Christian God. I cannot rule any of that out and if I were persuaded that any of it were true I don’t think I would have too much trouble adapting to it.
The questions I would put to the contributors here who hold different beliefs is could you also concede that you could be wrong? Could Christians concede that there might be no God, that we are accidental products of a material universe, that we were not created according to a purpose in the mind of some supreme being? Could you abandon those beliefs and live with the alternative or would that be both utterly inconceivable and intolerable?
Seversky,,,
“Could Christians concede that there might be no God, that we are accidental products of a material universe, that we were not created according to a purpose in the mind of some supreme being?”
Where is your evidence? And, (pretending that you have a free will), can you accept that there is a God if shown otherwise? Or is that utterly inconceivable and intolerable (‘repugnant’) for you?
As you can see when we remove the artificial imposition of the materialistic philosophy (methodological naturalism), from the scientific method, and look carefully at the predictions of both the materialistic philosophy and the Theistic philosophy, side by side, we find the scientific method is very good at pointing us in the direction of Theism as the true explanation. – In fact it is even very good at pointing us to Christianity:
As a Greek i know the root of the word skeptical, it comes from the Greek word ????? which means thought. When someone in ancient Greece was skeptical he was even for his own beliefs, that’s why Socrates said “I know that i know nothing”.
Materialists – Atheists on TSZ are not skeptics since they have their own unshakable dogma of materialism and they won’t let it go because it has replaced their need for a religion, no matter what the 21th century science says, for them there is only one explanation for their existence “They are random cosmic accidents that nothingness spewed without free will or purpose”. They can’t let it go since that would make them a psychological wreck. They are not skeptics they are hardcore believers.
Seversky you said
If God doesn’t exist then the Universe came out of absolute Nothingness, assembled itself through Randomness and we are here due to Luck, can you prove me that Nothingness, Randomness and Luck exist when everything follows Determinism? How do you expect me to believe what you said when these 3 lack any evidence?
Andre #1
You have a very droll wit, Andre!
Your #6 BA – magisterial apologetics !
Axel
look at the awesome material we have to work with. Thank you for the compliment.
bornagain77 @ 6
Both contenders for the crown in cosmology – Big Bang and Steady State – were naturalistic/materialistic (nat/mat) theories
The current age of the universe is estimated to be around 13.82 bn years, somewhat older than the 6000 years predicted by one theistic faith.
Theism covers a number of faiths. Not all of them hold that God is sustaining the entire universe from second-to-second.
Non-locality in quantum mechanics (a nat/mat theory) does not necessarily imply that the universe is dependent on something outside itself for continued existence.
Consciousness is not observed to exist apart from a physical substrate. A living brain exhibits consciousness, a dead brain does not. The signs of consciousness that were once exhibited by a dead brain have so far proven to be unrecoverable in all cases.
The “observer effect” in quantum physics is produced by measuring instruments as much as by any human observer. It doesn’t support the claim that consciousness is what holds reality together.
Both Newtonian mechanics and relativity are nat/mat theories.
None of the theistic faiths that I’m aware of make specific predictions about the rate at which time passes.
Psalm 90:4 – “For a thousand years in thy sight are but as yesterday when it is past, and as a watch in the night.” refers to God’s perception of time.
2 Timothy 1:9 – “Who hath saved us, and called us with an holy calling, not according to our works, but according to his own purpose and grace, which was given us in Christ Jesus before the world began,” concerns salvation.
Neither make any prediction concerning the speed of light.
Observations and calculations have shown that, if certain fundamental physical (nat/mat) constants varied from their observed values by even a small amount, the universe in which we live could not exist. The vast majority of this universe is unremittingly hostile to organic life such as ourselves. It is a huge leap of faith from those observations to the conclusion that this entire universe was created just for us.
Nat/mat estimates concerning the prevalence of life in the universe vary considerably. Our planet could certainly be unique, not just “extremely unique” (is that like being ‘a bit pregnant’) in the sense that there is no other exactly like it that we know of. On the other hand, astronomers are finding plentiful evidence of planets around nearby stars so it’s certainly possible that there are other planets similar to Earth which bear life. Any theistic prediction that the Earth is unique as a home for life is in serious danger of being proved wrong.
Nat/mat observations find evidence of life stretching far into deep time, tailing off billions of years ago and completely at odds with a special creation event 6000 years back.
The simplest life found on earth so far is not necessarily the earliest life ever to appear on Earth. Its relative complexity does not contradict the hypothesis that much simpler forms existed earlier or support a claim that they were created by a god.
The nat/mat theory of evolution predicted that the “unfolding” of life would proceed in small, incremental steps but allowed that the rate at which it could happen could vary considerably. The 20-25 mn year Cambrian Explosion was a period when it happened a
lot more rapidly but there is evidence of life preceding it. It was not the original creation event described in Genesis.
Nat/mat theory holds that fossilization is a very rare event but even so there many transitional fossils have already been found. Theism makes no predictions about the frequency of fossils, transitional or otherwise, in the geological record.
It is estimated that new species are being discovered by science at the rate of 15000 – 20000 per year. The rate of speciation can vary hugely, new species of large animals taking hundreds of thousands of years to appear while new bacteria or viruses can emerge in just a few years. One study cataloged some 1400 human pathogens of which 87 were characterized as “novel”. If evolution occurs, there is no reason to think it has stopped now.
Nothing in that research contradicts Darwin’s original claim that it was a question of degree not of kind.
Nat/mat still predicts that much of our DNA is ‘junk’. The ENCODE researchers were heavily criticized for overstating their case. Thesim said nothing about the existence of DNA, let alone how much of it night be ‘junk’
Nat/mat theory always held that more mutations were detrimental than beneficial if for no other reason than that there are many more ways for something to go wrong than to go right. With the advent of neutral theory, the majority of mutations are held to be neutral or nearly so, a much smaller number are detrimental and a much smaller number still are positively beneficial, all of that being dependent on circumstances.
As noted before, theism made no predictions concerning the existence of DNA, let alone the relative frequencies of neutral, detrimental or beneficial mutations.
Nat/mat argues that morality is subjective. Theistic faiths simply argue that the morality dispensed by their chosen deity overrides all others. That doesn’t make it objective. The claim that morality is somehow embedded in our genes or in the fabric of the universe is nonsense.
As noted above, quantum theory is a nat/mat theory. It just deals with nat/mat reality on the very smallest scales. It lends no support to the concept of a transcendent soul which at best is poorly-defined and at worst is incoherent.
JimFit @ 8
I don’t know how the universe originated but I don’t see that invoking a God helps. If we cannot get Something out of Nothing that also applies to God so our universe must always have been around, in some form or other, for as long as God has existed. But if the Universe can be eternal, in some form, with God then why not without God?
It’s more than that, Barry. TSZ’s mission is not really to defend science against what they consider pseudoscience but specifically against their number 1 enemy: Christianity. They like the expression, “the bowels of Christ” for a reason. It’s a putdown of Christianity.
TSZ is a typical reactionary, anti-Christian, atheist bozo site. Why atheist bozos? Because they weren’t taught that science is not advanced by criticizing others but by criticising science. Science should embrace criticism and welcome it. Instead, they erect a fortress around it: it’s us versus them. The whole thing becomes an exercise in intellectual incest, thus giving birth to all sorts of monstrosities. It’s pathetic and it stinks.
Seversky at 12
as to:
you state
Contrary to what you believe, Fred Hoyle’s Steady State Theory was developed directly in backlash to the growing evidence for a Big Bang, (in fact Hoyle first used the term ‘Big Bang’ as a derogatory term to express his disdain for a creation event. Hardly a philosophically neutral position) (of note Hoyle later became a Deist or maybe even a Theist).
Moreover, Einstein’s greatest blunder is where he, philosophically not scientifically, added a constant to his General Relativity equation to reflect his naturalistic belief that the universe has always existed.
Eddington philosophically wished that he ‘should like to find a genuine loophole’ to the ‘repugnant notion’ of a creation of the universe.
All these philosophical reactions to the evidence for the Big Bang were derived solely from the naturalistic/materialistic philosophy of believing the universe has always existed.
Even the atheist Carl Sagan reflected this naturalistic belief that the universe has always existed, years after the Big Bang was accepted science:
To this day atheists fight tooth and nail against a beginning for the universe. This is reflected in Dr. Craig’s repeated defense of the Kalam cosmological argument against atheists who refuse to accept that the universe has/had a transcendent origin!
Moreover, contrary to what you believe, only the Bible was correct in its prediction for a absolute beginning to the universe.
For you to try to co-opt the creation of the universe as a Naturalistic ‘prediction’ is nothing less than sheer intellectual dishonesty of the highest degree!
as to:
you state:
No Theistic worldview except the Judeo-Christian worldview hold that God created and sustains this universe. Muslims ‘borrowed’ the concept but also teach things that are inconsistent with that belief (Hugh Ross)
you then state:
That is sheer intellectual dishonesty on your part. Quantum non-locality demands an explanation that is not reducible to space-time matter-energy.
as to
you state:
You are willifully ignoring millions of testimonies from Near Death Experiences which directly contradict you claim that consciousness has never been observed apart from the temporal body.
you then state:
Decoherence is falsified by interaction free measurement experiments.
as to:
you state
I did not mention Newton, but he would strongly disagree with you that his work supported a non-Theistic worldview.
If you think of the eternity of Special Relativity as ‘natural’ I’m certainly not going to argue with you:
you go on to state:
So God has a view of time that is certainly compatible with special relativity and it is not a prediction how?
you go on:
Actually, before time existed God’s first act of creation was ‘Let there be light’, so how about Genesis 1:1-3 and 1 John 1:5 to boot?
as to
you state:
actually, no it is not:
as to
you state:
get back to me when you have some real evidence and not promissory materialism. The odds of life on another planet, even excluding the 10^40,000 chance of a simple self replicator ’emerging’, are fantastically prohibitive:
as to:
You state:
Actually, finding life on earth as soon as it was possible, is VERY antagonistic to materialistic claims that life ‘randomly emerged’ from a prebiotic soup:
as to:
you state:
It certainly does not confirm your hypothesis either. i.e. the score is Evidence 1, your hypothesis 0
as to:
you state:
That is simply false. Darwin himself argued that the Cambrian Explosion was problematic for his theory. And the ‘problem’ of the Cambrian Explosion has only gotten worse, not better, since Darwin’s time. The hypothetical transitionals that Darwin hoped would some day be discovered simply have not shown up and more new phyla have been discovered alongside what was already known for the period, thus exasperating what was already conceded as problematic by Darwin.
I did not deny life preceded the Cambrian, in fact I just used the extremely early emergence of photosynthetic life as evidence against you
as to:
you state:
Actually, both the fossil record and the Bible are clear on ‘reproducing after their kind’
you state:
Cataloging new species (mainly insects), that were not cataloged before is certainly not evidence for speciation.
Your claim that new species of bacteria or viruses can emerge in a few years is just plain bogus. In fact, Lenski’s 25 plus year experiment with e-coli is exhibit A in Behe’s paper ‘The First Rule’:
as to:
you state:
That answer is simply a flat out lie of the first order. Such stark relief in metal capabilities directly contradicts Darwin’s prediction.:
as to:
you state:
And you are still completely wrong:
you go on:
They overstated nothing. If anything they understated it. The genome is fantastically complex and we have just barely scratched the surface of it yet:
you go on:
actually:
as to:
you state:
Neutral theory is a joke, and reiterating the fact that random mutations are almost always detrimental does nothing to alleviate the fact that it is crushing to neo-Darwinism:
as to:
you state:
Yet:
This following study shows that objective morality is even built/designed into the way our bodies differentiate between hedonic and ‘noble’ moral happiness:
And although a ‘instantaneous moral compass’, and the nuanced genetic response between noble vs. hedonic happiness, is pretty good for establishing that “there are moral laws of the universe just as abiding as the physical laws”, the following studies go one step further and shows that our moral intuition transcends space and time:
There is simply no coherent explanation that a materialist/atheist can give as to why morally troubling situations are detected prior to our becoming fully aware of them.
as to:
you state:
Hand waving the problem away does not make the elephant disappear:
S @ 13:
That would be true if God were part of the universe. Now, i am not going to spoon feed you this. You need to exert some effort. Now that I’ve given you that clue, tell me why your observation is a non sequitur.
Seversky, “The questions I would put to the contributors here who hold different beliefs is could you also concede that you could be wrong? … Could you abandon those beliefs and live with the alternative or would that be both utterly inconceivable and intolerable?”
This certainly was my question when I was in my teens. I was raised in a Christian home. But I had to wonder if I was merely Christian because that is what I had been taught. I considered Darwinism very seriously. As such I do see your question as fair.
I have amassed a great deal of evidence that has rooted me thoroughly in the belief both in the existence of a God that cares about me, and in that God being the Christian God. If you could truly usurp my mass of evidence, well, I would be prepared to abandon my faith position. I ask you this, however — must I limit myself to the findings published in recognized scientific journals in my analysis, or do the events that surround my own walk through the world count? If the latter counts, and it certainly does for me, then you have a huge challenge if you seek to get me to change my position.
Seversky
Your argument can be rephraced like this
“If God is Eternal and doesn’t need a cause why then the Universe can’t be eternal?”
Simple, because it has been proven that the Physical Universe cannot be past eternal.
The Borde-Vilenkin-Guth Theorem states that any universe, which has, on average, a rate of expansion greater 1 that system had to have a finite beginning. This would apply in any multiverse scenario as well.
http://arxiv.org/pdf/gr-qc/0110012v2.pdf
Why God? Because God is a Consciousness and Consciousness is the only thing that we know it precedes Materialism
Four intersecting lines of experimental evidence from quantum mechanics that shows that consciousness precedes material reality (Wigner’s Quantum Symmetries, Wheeler’s Delayed Choice, Leggett’s Inequalities, Quantum Zeno effect):
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1G_Fi50ljF5w_XyJHfmSIZsOcPFhgoAZ3PRc_ktY8cFo/edit
This video summarizes the arguments against Materialism
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4C5pq7W5yRM
So how? How did an immaterial Mind created matter, time and space? What if i tell you that not only we have the answer but a human being already did what God did?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVl1Hmth3HE
bFast, well said.
I Finally Figured Out TSZ’s Motto
Meanwhile, over at TSZ, they are still struggling to figure it out.
Seversky @ 12
“The current age of the universe is estimated to be around 13.82 bn years, somewhat older than the 6000 years predicted by one theistic faith.”
The bible does not predict this, if you beleive it does, please quote the verse.
bFast and ba77, well put as usual.
Cheers
Sev, it seems my recent response to another dismissive materialist applies to you:
http://www.uncommondescent.com.....of-theism/
I suggest you respond to the multiple converging lines of evidence as presented at first level.
KF
PS: BA77, JF et al, some good stuff.
Seversky : We know things by their individual natures and it is by studying those natures in a methodical and rational way that we learn about the nature of the universe as a whole. I believe that any phenomena that we currently label ‘supernatural’ … will be found to be of a material nature.
Well I’m no philosopher but — is it not true that to know a thing by “its nature” is to know how it fits into nature and how it itself is an expression of nature, or at least the picture of nature held by the would-be knower?
And is it not true that nature had a beginning?
Nature having a beginning at the big bang logically points to a nature generator. The nature generator cannot be described or conceptualized in terms of “its nature” (as in the above referenced “thing”) unless you invent some logical tour de force that would make you famous for logically proving that nature created itself. (as the multiverse would-be inventors are trying for, now and forevermore)
So if my modest delving into logic has any relevance, then the nature generator would obviously not be nature but superior to nature. The etymology of the word ‘supernatural’ is just that – an adjective for something superior to nature, as would be any theoretical, logically conceived nature generator.
And so to categorize the supernatural as somehow fitting into one’s materialist picture of nature is wishful thinking, based on no evidence or consistent logical overturning of thousands of years of thinking by humans of all cultures.
I realize this is scary stuff for materialists. But that is why materialists are what they are, they are scared of their origin. It’s as much a psychospiritual issue as one of philosophy.
I once heard a Jewish thinker, who for many years had been an ardent anti-Palestinian, defending his newfound thinking wherein he seemed to have some “pro Palestine” rhetoric. He said something along the lines of this: in the morning, when I wake up, I think of my people I’ve lost… and I HATE the Palestinians; then as I begin to go on about my day, I don’t hate them anymore and I begin to think ‘maybe, even with all the hurt, we can really live in harmony and coexist in love’; and then later in the day I begin to think things will never change and I might hate them again.
This is the most honest internal dialogue. This is the human experience. People who say that they live in constant absolute doubt of God are disingenuous, sad, or not experiencing the breadth of what it is to be human, where we many times experience the presence of something almighty which many would call The Almighty. And people who preach that they never experience bouts of serious doubt aren’t being honest or aren’t experiencing the breadth of human experience either.
At this point, anyone who takes the label of skeptic probably isn’t, because they would by necessity not commit to a label with a groupthink set of connotations. Shermer has tried to wiggle around it by calling them “provisional” truths. That is, they stand until something better comes along. But sadly, “skeptic” nowadays does tend to boil down toward this: I made up my mind; I will not change my mind; I’m right; there’s nothing more true or interesting to know; now YOU ought to know I’m right, but worst case scenario at least be open to all of my rightness or you’re a closed-minded, inbred, bigoted, unscientific, backwoods, uneducated, evildoer ignoramus who deserves to have his rights and children taken away.
Cross @ 22
No, the Bible does not predict that specific age but a number of prominent Biblical scholars, among them Archbishop James Ussher, have calculated various ages around that value which Young Earth Creationists accept as authoritative. If you disagree, you should take it up with them.
kairosfocus @ 23
Your arguments were discussed in the commentary to that OP. We can go over it point by point again if you wish
groovamos @ 24
As I said, my version of naturalism holds that, in simple terms, we learn about the world by studying the various natures of things. We learn about a dog by discovering the properties and attributes that makes it a dog and not a volcano. By the same argument, a ghost, if such exists, will have properties and attributes which make it a ghost and not a container ship. That is its nature and as such, if it exists, it will fall in the realm of natural things. The same would apply to a god.
And I need hardly point out that thousands of years of thinking has led to beliefs in thousands of different gods or spirits over the millenia, not just one. They can’t all be right but I’m still waiting to be persuaded what makes yours or indeed any of the them the true one.
It’s no more scary than Lord Sauron or The Borg or any other fictional entity.
What I see believers fearing is the possibility that there is no God and, hence, no hope of life everlasting after the death of the body with all that entails. It is a bleak and, for many, an intolerable prospect.
Being skeptical means never having to admit you’re wrong.
I remember the mindset.
jw777 @ 25
It is easy to be bigoted about a group. It’s when we start putting a face on them, seeing them as individual human beings just like the rest of us with all our strengths and weaknesses. That’s as true of skeptics and believers as it is of different races or cultures.
Actually, I think it’s the other way around. I yield to no one in my sense of awe and wonder when I use my imagination to try and envisage the sheer size and age of this universe. I don’t need belief in the Christian God to aid me. In fact, if anything religions are constrictive because everything must be forced to conform to their dogma. I see believers on this blog resisting the possibility that there might be intelligent life elsewhere in the Universe because it undermines one of the tenets of their faith which is that man is uniquely the pinnacle of God’s creation.
I’m not denying that there are so-called skeptics who think like that and come across as just as bigoted in their way as the fundamentalist believers they oppose. I’ve also known plenty of Christians who are nothing like the stereotypical fundie or the narrow-minded talking-heads who are all too often the unacceptable face of modern American Christianity on TV and radio.
It’s also true that, over the millennia, skeptics and atheists have been reviled, oppressed and murdered on various pretexts by “closed-minded, inbred, bigoted, unscientific, backwoods, uneducated, evil… ignoramus[es]” In some places, they still are, judging by the three secular bloggers in Bangladesh who’ve been hacked to death recently by gangs with machetes. It seems that religion can often act like a sort of amplifier, it can magnify the good of which people are capable but it can also magnify the evil.
Seversky @ 26
“somewhat older than the 6000 years predicted by one theistic faith.””
“No, the Bible does not predict that specific age but a number of prominent Biblical scholars, among them Archbishop James Ussher, have calculated various ages around that value which Young Earth Creationists accept as authoritative. If you disagree, you should take it up with them.”
Archbishop James Ussher does not represent the only view of “one theistic faith” you are arguing against a strawman.
The source document “the bible” does not predict an age for the earth, genealogies, even incomplete ones can only guess at an age for “man” not the earth.
It is fully consistent to believe in Creation and not a young earth (as I do) so this is not a good basis for your skepticism.
Cheers