Quotes of the Day: Atheists Are VERY Religious

_{Barry Arrington

September 1, 2016

Intelligent Design}

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This exchange between Phinehas and HeKS brings it out as succinctly as anything I’ve ever seen:

Phinehas says:

The thing that fascinates me is how atheists are shown to have prodigious faith in something eternal with god-like creative powers [i.e., the multiverse]. It’s almost like they have no issues whatsoever believing in a god, just so long as it doesn’t bear that particular label.

HeKS replies:

I tend to think that it’s because they don’t want that eternal thing with god-like creative powers to also be personal and have the ability to ground and impose moral values and duties on humans.

As the multiverse has demonstrated, atheists have no problem at all with faith in something that is unseen, intangible, outside of the physical universe, eternal, capable of bringing about unlikely effects we can’t fully understand, and that cannot be falsified through any conceivable scientific experiment.

The only thing they insist on stopping short of is something that is intelligent and that can ground moral values and duties … and probably they stop short of the former only because of the latter, as suggested by the willingness of some to accept the idea that we’re living in an intelligently designed simulation created by other contingent physical beings based largely on the same scientific evidence theists point to as suggestive of God’s existence, which they had denied suggested design until the simulation hypothesis came along. Neil deGrasse Tyson is one such example.

Comments

WJM, yes testimony can be evidence under strictly controlled conditions. Without those controls, testimony is highly unreliable.Pindi_{September 2, 2016
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Pindi, when you misrepresent your opponent, it makes you look dishonest.ScuzzaMan_{September 2, 2016
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Scuzzaman, when you give in to the tendency to personally denigrate your opponent it makes your argument look weak.Pindi_{September 2, 2016
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Yes WJM, testimony is a form of evidence. And when the testimony is rebutted by physical evidence, then those testifying are given one of two special english designations to describe them; they are liars,or they are dillusional. Which judge would toss out the blood stains, the fingerprints, the gun shot residue, the scratch marks, the DNA, in favour of four good Christian eyewitnesses? The physical evidence always trumps testimony for one very good reason; humans are awful at remembering events accurately. When those events become second, third, and umpteen hand recounts, then toss them, they are valueless as anything even approaching presentable, varifiable, evidence. Kind of like the written, rewritten, authored, multiple-authored, translated, retranslated, interpreted, reinterpreted, updated, reupdated, modernised Bible.rvb8_{September 2, 2016
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Pindi Your "tends towards proof" apologetic is misguided and wrong. I certainly would not want such a confused person representing me in a law court. In such contexts, it is not merely common, but near universal that conflicting bodies of evidence are presented for the judgement of the court and/or jury. Yet your definition a priori excludes one such body of evidence, without even knowing its content, because of the two conflicting bodies of evidence, only one (at most) can possibly convict you of its truth. Yes, Pindi, you a priori exclude one body of evidence without even knowing its content! That is what you did when you said there's no evidence, and you did the exact same thing when you said there's no good evidence that convicts you, although you gave the distinct impression you think you were modifying your previous error, and then you protested that you're not deliberately lazy and willfully ignorant. Let me just note here that the evidence on these last questions is not of such quality as to convict me of the truth of your claims.ScuzzaMan_{September 2, 2016
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Oh dear. First he admits he's a troll, then he consciously misrepresents his victims.ScuzzaMan_{September 2, 2016
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Pindi said:
You look at the list of items you laid out and say they amount to evidence of God. I look at them and say they don’t. You say I am lying or intellectually honest. I really am not. And yes I really do think about a lot of these things. Deeply. So I’m not stupid, a liar, or intellectually dishonest.
Is testimony a form of evidence? Have people testified that they have experienced god in some way?William J Murray_{September 2, 2016
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Everything that has been said here about moderation policy is correct. Some might say that, 'well then why don't you piss off, and go and talk to those of similar views?' The answer to that is simple; intellectual rigour! I loath 'echo chambers'. When I find them I like to indulge my ability to rouse a response. (I also visit townhall.com and breitbart news.) The 'proof' of God's existance presented here would not pass for proof in any decent court of law: 'Your Honour, here is the evidence for the Prosecution; that God does not exist. He appears to be missing in action your honour, his physical presence is yet to be established, He has left no measurable residue, there is no evidence of impact, especially if we remove the very human tendency to anthropomorphise every gust of wind; nothing your Honour.'rvb8_{September 2, 2016
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Thanks HeKS, I appreciate that. And yes I agree you are generally slow to resort to accusations of dishonesty and stupidity. My response to you is no doubt coloured by some of the things other commentators say about me. Vitriol is never pretty and often takes me by surprise when it's directed at me. But I guess that's the Internet. .Pindi_{September 2, 2016
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Pindi, Don't get me wrong. I fully acknowledge that I've suggested that you're intellectually lazy on this subject matter. You have essentially admitted this in saying that you think the idea of God is so far fetched that it's not worth giving much consideration. I've seen nothing yet that would cause me to reverse my view on this point, your assertions that you think long and hard about these issues notwithstanding. If you back up your claims with some reasonable arguments then I'm open to changing my mind on this. In terms of the intellectually dishonest tradition, you may or may not be participating in it intentionally and with knowledge of its intellectual dishonestly. On the other hand, you may have just been taken in by the narrative. That comment does not constitute an accusation or definitive claim. Whether or not you're intellectually dishonest on this subject matter is an open question that I haven't really developed an opinion (unlike the laziness issue). As for the comment about lying about the evidence, as I said, that statement was simply the first thing that popped into my head when I read your assertion that I had a problem with you coming to a different conclusion when my issue was that you were misrepresenting the facts. Consider it more of a hyperbolic expression intended to make a point rather than an accusation that you are intentionally lying. And, BTW, just because I say I agree with the thrust behind a particular comment in someone's post doesn't necessarily mean I see everything precisely the same way they do. A review of my comments on this site over the past 2 years will show that I'm much slower than some to make accusations of stupidity and dishonesty on a personal level. In fact, it's quite rare. I think you are taking my comments more personally than I'm intending them. Again, so far you've led me to believe that you are intellectually lazy on this issue, in spite of your claims to the contrary. Nonetheless, it has not been my intention to suggest that you are stupid, an intentional liar, or necessarily intellectually dishonest (even on this issue) and I'm sorry if my comments have led you to believe that that's what I was saying.HeKS_{September 2, 2016
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HeCKS, Well you have conceded the accusation of intellectual dishonesty in your comment above. You think that offering the possibility that I might be engaging in an intellectually dishonest tradition, is not an accusation of intellectual dishonesty? In post 17 you said "its a matter of demanding that people actually do the thinking part and asking that they at least try to deal with the issues honestly". What's that if not an allegation of laziness and dishonesty? In post 13 you accused me of being lazy and also of lying about the evidence. In Barry's comment which you endorsed, he accused me of being staggering stupid, an embarrassment to a first year law class and that I am a liar. You may not realise you are doing it, but for people like me posting here, we are subjected to a barrage of emotional and insulting comments and insinuations. That bit of it get boring.Pindi_{September 2, 2016
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Pindi, Before I bother answer the other stuff, you keep saying stuff like this:
You say I am lying or intellectually honest. I really am not. And yes I really do think about a lot of these things. Deeply. So I’m not stupid, a liar, or intellectually dishonest. And yet I see the world differently to you, and draw different conclusions. Crazy, huh?
Where are you getting this from? Where did I say you were stupid, a liar or intellectually dishonest? In one of my comments I offered the possibility that in denying the existence of any evidence for God you may simply be engaging in an intellectually dishonest tradition of making such claims. However, I also offered the possibility that you might be ignorant of these lines of evidence. At no point did I say you must be stupid, a liar or intellectually dishonest simply for having a different opinion. And yet for some reason you keep bringing this up, post after post, acting not only as though I've made the claim that you have to be stupid or a liar if you disagree with me (which I haven't), but also as if that were essentially the only thing I've said to you.HeKS_{September 2, 2016
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Hi HeKS, I didn't say evidence was the same thing as proof. I said evidence is something that tends to prove something. If a piece of evidence has no probative value, then how is it evidence? Or what is it evidence of? And by the way, the word proof doesn't necessarily imply certainty to me either. There are different standards of proof. You look at the list of items you laid out and say they amount to evidence of God. I look at them and say they don't. You say I am lying or intellectually honest. I really am not. And yes I really do think about a lot of these things. Deeply. So I'm not stupid, a liar, or intellectually dishonest. And yet I see the world differently to you, and draw different conclusions. Crazy, huh?Pindi_{September 2, 2016
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F/N: as a start point, being. Candidates can be possible or impossible, the latter such that core characteristics stand in mutual contradiction so no such entity may exist in any possible world. Think square circles. Possible beings would exist in at least one possible world. Of such, contingent beings depend on on/off enabling causal factors that if off in a possible world would block the beginning or continuation of existence. Think, a fire i/l/o the fire tetrahedron used to fight such. Then conceive of beings with no such dependence on external enabling factors, i.e. there is no possible world in which they do not exist. For example try to see how a world could be without two-ness in it thus also the abstract contrast A vs ~A (which is foundational to rationality). That is necessary beings are root-level elements of the framework for a world to exist and no possible world can be without such. This addresses the "far fetched[ness]" of the concept, necessary being. Now contrast non-being, a genuine nothing. Such hath not causal capability and were there ever utter nothing, such would forever obtain -- so much for the rhetorical trick of pulling a world out of a non-existent hat. Further to this the immediate consequence is, as a world manifestly is, SOMETHING ALWAYS WAS AT WORLD-ROOT LEVEL, a necessary being, root-cause of existence. The issue is, what is the best candidate. Especially in a world with morally governed, evidently responsibly and rationally substantially free beings -- or else rational discussion evaporates. KFkairosfocus_{September 2, 2016
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I'm intrigued by the following:
Pindi: I just regard the God hypothesis as so far fetched as to not be worth spending too much time on.
It seems to me that Pindi is suggesting that there is a commonsensical alternative to the God hypothesis. I would like to know what that is. One thing is for sure: it's not materialism. Nothing is so far-fetched as a universe from nothing and particles in motion which self-organize into human beings by sheer dumb luck.Origenes_{September 2, 2016
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PPS: Simon Greenleaf in the opening salvos of his treatise on Evidence:
Evidence, in legal acceptation, includes all the means by which any alleged matter of fact, the truth of which is submitted to investigation, is established or disproved . . . None but mathematical truth is susceptible of that high degree of evidence, called demonstration, which excludes all possibility of error [--> Greenleaf wrote almost 100 years before Godel], and which, therefore, may reasonably be required in support of every mathematical deduction. [--> that is, his focus is on the logic of good support for in principle uncertain conclusions, i.e. in the modern sense, inductive logic and reasoning in real world, momentous contexts with potentially serious consequences.] Matters of fact are proved by moral evidence alone; by which is meant, not only that kind of evidence which is employed on subjects connected with moral conduct, but all the evidence which is not obtained either from intuition, or from demonstration. In the ordinary affairs of life, we do not require demonstrative evidence, because it is not consistent with the nature of the subject, and to insist upon it would be unreasonable and absurd. [--> the issue of warrant to moral certainty, beyond reasonable doubt; and the contrasted absurdity of selective hyperskepticism.] The most that can be affirmed of such things, is, that there is no reasonable doubt concerning them. [--> moral certainty standard, and this is for the proverbial man in the Clapham bus stop, not some clever determined advocate or skeptic motivated not to see or assent to what is warranted.] The true question, therefore, in trials of fact, is not whether it is possible that the testimony may be false, but, whether there is sufficient probability of its truth; that is, whether the facts are shown by competent and satisfactory evidence. Things established by competent and satisfactory evidence are said to be proved. [--> pistis enters; we might as well learn the underlying classical Greek word that addresses the three levers of persuasion, pathos- ethos- logos and its extension to address worldview level warranted faith-commitment and confident trust on good grounding, through the impact of the Judaeo-Christian tradition in C1 as was energised by the 500 key witnesses.] By competent evidence, is meant that which the very-nature of the thing to be proved requires, as the fit and appropriate proof in the particular case, such as the production of a writing, where its contents are the subject of inquiry. By satisfactory evidence, which is sometimes called sufficient evidence, is intended that amount of proof, which ordinarily satisfies an unprejudiced mind [--> in British usage, the man in the Clapham bus stop], beyond reasonable doubt. The circumstances which will amount to this degree of proof can never be previously defined; the only legal [--> and responsible] test of which they are susceptible, is their sufficiency to satisfy the mind and conscience of a common man; and so to convince him, that he would venture to act upon that conviction, in matters of the highest concern and importance to his own interest. [= definition of moral certainty as a balanced unprejudiced judgement beyond reasonable, responsible doubt. Obviously, i/l/o wider concerns, while scientific facts as actually observed may meet this standard, scientific explanatory frameworks such as hypotheses, models, laws and theories cannot as they are necessarily provisional and in many cases have had to be materially modified, substantially re-interpreted to the point of implied modification, or outright replaced; so a modicum of prudent caution is warranted in such contexts -- explanatory frameworks are empirically reliable so far on various tests, not utterly certain. ] [A Treatise on Evidence, Vol I, 11th edn. (Boston: Little, Brown, 1888) ch 1., sections 1 and 2. Shorter paragraphs added. (NB: Greenleaf was a founder of the modern Harvard Law School and is regarded as a founding father of the modern Anglophone school of thought on evidence, in large part on the strength of this classic work.)]
kairosfocus_{September 2, 2016
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Pindi, could you first please ground your far-fetched "I" hypothesis on your evidently evolutionary materialistic premises? As in kindly ground an "I" that is not merely a delusion tossed up by neurological electrochemistry conditioned by the utterly non-rational. Apart from that, tossing the rhetorical grenade "far-fetched" in regards to the reality of God does nothing more than try to excite an emotional reaction and imply the well worn ploy that atheism is a "default" view. When you ground "I" on evo mat premises, then there is someone to talk to; someone who subtly implies we are bound by an oughtness of getting things right, which points to responsible, rational freedom and moral government. Which then requires grounding this on your premises of evo mat . . . which simply cannot be done. In short I have called your unified, rational oughtness governed, conscience instructed self to the witness stand and it speaks in ways that undermine your view and point to the root of reality being a necessary being IS capable of grounding OUGHT. A big clue in itself. KF PS: As one of the pro-theism arguments, you can try out the fact that I am here to discuss with you at all -- rather than what in my native land, we would call a duppy. For, absent a miracle of guidance in answer to prayer of surrender by my mom 40+ years past now, I should have long since been dead. And this is only one of many, many direct experiences of God in action that have positively transformed my life and that of millions across the globe and the ages (which is itself a strong sign such experiences are not delusional). In short, your "far-fetched" also has in it the insinuation of grand delusion on a scale that would indict the general credibility of personal experience and eyewitness testimony and record. Which is yet another form of the utter self-referential incoherence of selective hyperskepticism.kairosfocus_{September 2, 2016
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Pindi,
I just don’t see the point in denouncing those who think differently to you as fools and liars.
It's not a matter of denouncing people who think differently as fools and liars. It's a matter of demanding that people actually do the thinking part and asking that they at least try to deal with the issues honestly. For example, you just said this:
You guys are maybe getting a bit hung up on semantics. I guess by “no evidence” I mean “no good evidence”. Or maybe it’s the way I define the word. To me, the word “evidence” means something that tends to prove something. I don’t see the big bang etc as tending to prove the existence of God.
Well, the fact is, words have meanings and those meanings work to convey ideas and certain narratives. The lack of semantic rigor on this particular issue contributes favorably to the treasured atheist narrative that people who believe in God are superstitious idiots who accept his existence purely on blind faith. In reality, however, saying that there is no evidence for God's existence is very different from saying that you don't think the evidence for God's existence is good, especially when you've given no particular description of what you think makes evidence "good". Of course, some light is shed on the distinction when you say that you think "evidence" essentially means "proof". Well, "proof" suggests something that can be held with certainty, and so this raises the question of what kind of "certainty" you're talking about. Are you talking about absolute certainty, or are you talking about moral certainty? The nature of reality requires that humans must generally settle for the latter on most issues of importance, as there are precious few things about which we can be absolutely certain on the basis of confirming proof. Theists think that the totality of the evidence for God's existence easily and most definitely rises to the level of providing us with Moral Certainty. If you, instead, are demanding evidence that is capable of providing you with absolute certainty and are determined to withhold your belief in its absence then I think you need to ask yourself whether your hyper-skepticism is equitable (i.e. applied to all aspects of your life) or selective (i.e. applied merely to those things you don't want to believe). P.S. If you want a description of Selective Hyper-Skepticism, see the beginning of my comment here. There you will also find a link to a description of Moral Certainty.HeKS_{September 2, 2016
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You guys are maybe getting a bit hung up on semantics. I guess by "no evidence" I mean "no good evidence". Or maybe it's the way I define the word. To me, the word "evidence" means something that tends to prove something. I don't see the big bang etc as tending to prove the existence of God. I am not being lazy and I am not a liar. I just regard the God hypothesis as so far fetched as to not be worth spending too much time on. Again you will probably call me stupid or lacking in intellectual rigour. And maybe that's true. Maybe all the millions of people around the world who think like me, many of whom are definitely not stupid or thoughtless, are wrong, and you are the ones who have it right. Or maybe none of us are right. I just don't see the point in denouncing those who think differently to you as fools and liars.Pindi_{September 2, 2016
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rvb8 #4
groovamos and HeKS, all of the things HeKS listed, except for the starting point of the universe have competing, and better theorised natural answers.
My claim was that there is evidence for God's existence. My claim was not that there is absolute proof for God's existence or that God is the only conceivable explanation for the things listed. As such, this comment from you would be completely irrelevant to my point even if it were true. But then, it's not true. And, in fact, it's untrue on both counts, in that not all of the items in my list have competing "theorized natural answers", and where they do, those competing natural answers are typically worse, not better. Consider the list again... – The origin of the universe (including its matter, energy, space and physical laws) in the finite past You didn't try to assert that there was a better competing naturalistic theory for this, so I won't spend time on it. Suffice it to say that Krauss' idea of a universe from "nothing", in which "nothing" is the quantum vacuum, assumes the prior existence of all the things to be explained and doesn't answer the philosophical issues involved. – The fine-tuning of the physical laws and initial conditions of the universe in a way that allows for the existence of intelligent life – The fine-tuning of the universe for discoverability – The fine-tuning of our solar system and planet for both life and discoverability In response to these you said:
HeKS uses ‘fine tuning’ three times and roles his eyes at the ‘lack of evidence for God’argument.
Actually, these three list items mention fine-tuning four times, because they are referring to four different categories of fine-tuning. The fine-tuning of the laws of physics and initial conditions of the universe are a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for life to be even possible anywhere in the universe. The fine-tuning of our solar system and planet for the existence of intelligent life, which includes a few hundred factors, is also necessary, but would be useless and in many cases impossible without the fine-tuning of the universe itself. The fine-tuning of the universe for discoverability refers to the fact that the values of the laws of physics fall into an even more narrow range than the already inconceivably narrow range necessary for life, but instead fit within the subset of that life-permitting range that also allows the universe to be scientifically discoverable to intelligent beings. This, however, would be useless if our own planet and solar system were not also fine-tuned in terms of their position and composition so as to also be conducive to scientific discovery Now, in order to account for the fine tuning of the laws of physics and initial conditions of the universe, some appeal to a staggeringly expansive multiverse birthing off child universes in which the values are randomly determined, which they try to derive from some undetermined hypothetical connection between the purely theoretical concept of chaotic inflation and the much-maligned string theory, which is also purely theoretical. It would take an unimaginable number of universes with randomly determined values to have a 51% chance of getting a universe that falls into the life-permitting range of our universe. But that would just be the beginning, because then you have all the other factors needed to make intelligent life possible at the level of the planet and solar system, all of which the atheist requires to have occurred by chance. The number of additional universes required to also get all these factors at the right values would dwarf the already unimaginably large collection of universes that have to be postulated just to explain the fine-tuning of the universe itself. And what reason do we have to postulate such a massive collective? Only that we need the probabilistic resources to explain the seemingly designed qualities of the cosmos by reference to chance alone. But in addition to all of the problems that could be raised with the multiverse idea, we have another problem that is presented by the fine-tuning of both the universe and our planet and solar system for discoverability, which is that the characteristic of discoverability is not necessary for life and so it cannot be accounted for by reference to an observer selection effect at either the cosmic or the planetary scale. Were we just a random member of a multiverse, we would have no reason to expect that in addition to being in an incredibly unlikely universe that is capable of sustaining intelligent life, we would also be in an even more unlikely universe that is conducive to scientific discovery. So the multiverse doesn't offer an alternative naturalistic explanation for this fine-tuning, unless we just want to throw our hands up and say that the multiverse explains literally every conceivable state of affairs as being the product of chance alone, destroying the foundation of science in the process. Furthermore, as an explanation for the fine-tuning of the universe, the multiverse is highly ad hoc. Even Andrei Linde, who is responsible for the Chaotic Inflation theory that is sometimes appealed to as a possible means of getting many universes with different physics readily admits that any aspect of the theory leading to universes that have laws and constants with different values is purely speculative and that it's the fine-tuning itself that gives us any reason to accept the speculation as possibly true. So the competing naturalistic explanation for fine-tuning is ad hoc and explains either too little to match the explanatory scope of the God Hypothesis, or else it explains too much and undercuts science and rationality. And this in addition to the various other problems with it that have been raised (e.g. Boltzmann Brains, need for the multiverse itself to be fine-tuned, etc.) – The origin of life, which is roughly the equivalent of the origin of biological information There's a better, viable, naturalistic theory in existence? Nope. Uh-uh. I don't think so. No naturalistic OOL theory seems viable so far. If they've made any progress on OOL it is in finding out how much more unlikely it is on naturalism that was initially thought. Might they come up with something viable in the distant future? Perhaps, but as an argument, that's a cheque that nobody has to cash, and this is a discussion about the actual current state of the evidence and our knowledge, not about undated naturalistic promissory notes. – Various events in the history of life that seem to show a large-scale influx of biological information that cannot be accounted for by any proposed mechanism of biological evolution that we are aware of. (Best explained by reference to God when taken in light of preceding items) I'm not even going to bother discussing this one since it gets talked about here all the time. – Various other events in history that seem best explained by divine intervention and that would not be expected on naturalism or materialism (such as evidence supporting the resurrection of Christ). The primary competing naturalistic theory is that hundreds of people had shared group visual and auditory hallucinations. That can only be considered a better explanation to someone who has an a priori and unwavering commitment to the non-existence of God and the impossibility of what, to us, appears miraculous. – The apparent existence of objective moral values and duties, which people can’t seem to avoid invoking even while denying their existence (i.e. sneaking it in the back door after booting it out the front door) The competing naturalistic theory is that objective moral values and duties do not exist. Verbally denying the existence of something while being unable to personally live as though that thing didn't exist does not count as offering an alternative explanation for its existence. No viable alternative to God has been found for grounding objective moral values and duties, and yet countless atheists believe and live as though they exist. – Various aspects of the mind, including the apparent existence of free will, the apparent existence of a rational consciousness capable of accurately perceiving external events and reasoning on them in a reliable way, the ability to have subjective experiences, and the ability to have thoughts that are about things. And again, the competing naturalistic theory is that these things do not exist. Claiming that we don't have free will, that there is no subjective observer, and that we cannot have thoughts that are about things and so can't have rational consciousness capable of accurately perceiving reality or rationally deliberating on evidence is not an alternate naturalistic explanation for any of these things at all, much less a better explanation for their existence than God.
The God creation belief, equally raises the problem of ultimate origins, as does the Big Bang. Your ultimate cause, very sorry, needs a cause. Your ’causeless cause’ tedium is just that unsupported faith.
And yet, prior to the realization that the universe had an absolute beginning in the finite past, atheists were perfectly fine accepting, as a brute fact, the existence of the universe as an uncaused entity that had existed temporally into an infinite past ... and they are constantly trying to return to that view. This is not just the atheistic equivalent of the theist's uncaused God. It is actually much worse, because even the theist doesn't posit God as existing temporally through an infinite past.
Fine tuning, is a poor way to describe the natural constants that govern our universe, and if they are so fine tuned why didn’t God make the constants nice round numbers? Was He constrained by something? His own creation perhaps?
What a bizarre argument. The values aren't fine-tuned because they are astronomically more precise than simple whole numbers? You know, do you, that a super-intellect would only use "nice round numbers"? It's strange that you think the universe ought to be mathematically describable at all on naturalism. Also, of course God was constrained by his own creation. It is a simple fact of physical instantiation that starting points constrain end points, that pathways constrain outputs, that present choices constrain downstream options, that functional coherence constrains the relationship between parts. I'm not sure why you would find any of this surprising.HeKS_{September 2, 2016
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Rvb8
groovamos and HeKS, all of the things HeKS listed, except for the starting point of the universe have competing, and better theorised natural answers.
You have made a claim here. I would be interested in you showing better theorized natural answers to HeKS's arguments.bill cole_{September 2, 2016
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Pindi #5
Wow HeKS that was a bit of a rant.
Was it? It seems to me that it was merely an eye-rolling list of some of the lines of evidence that you had just said didn't exist.
Not sure if all of those lead to a personal God? Why get so worked up about it?
I'm not "so worked up about it". I'm simply bored of hearing the same obviously false claim repeated over and over again by people who want to win the debate by lazily claiming that there's nothing to discuss and that theism is the same thing as fideism. It's not. The evidence has brought us to a place where, as Bernard Carr so elegantly put it, "If you don’t want God, you’d better have a multiverse." So, the question is, why would you claim that there is no evidence for God's existence? Why wouldn't you simply say that you are personally unconvinced by the evidence? Are you truly ignorant of the fact that such evidence exists? Or are you merely partaking in the intellectually dishonest tradition of recasting theism as fideism unworthy of serious consideration?
Why does it bother you so much that someone comes to a different conclusion to you?
The problem is not that you come to a different conclusion. The problem is that you falsely deny the existence of evidence that must be considered in coming to a sound and rational conclusion. In response to this statement of yours, Barry responded in #10 with almost precisely the same words that occurred to me when I first read your post: You are free to come to any conclusion you like, but that doesn't mean you're free to lie about the evidence.HeKS_{September 2, 2016
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rvb8: The God creation belief, equally raises the problem of ultimate origins, as does the Big Bang. See this is the conceit of you guys, believing that science (which is to say your own logic) is unlimited in its scope. It is obvious that naturalistic science applied to the human mind is a miserable failure, with not the ghost of a clue (intended word play) as to the etiology of any mental illness. Same goes for the existence of the First Cause and any 'why' associated. Sorry but just deal with it. Philosophers for millenia have dealt with it very well. Why you want to be born and grow up and think it will reveal itself to your conceit that you might call 'science' says much about your personality, as does the idea that this is a "problem". This is 'science' masquerading as philosophy. Your ultimate cause, very sorry, needs a cause. Says you based on nothing but that conceit put forth above. Your ’causeless cause’ tedium is just that unsupported faith. That science can go where it fails miserably and can somehow succeed instead of fail is the ultimate delusion, supported by the above assertion regarding human consciousness and naturalism. You just keep making the same ontological mistake over and over and over, and after a couple of centuries or more of failure you get success? And you want to bring up faith? This can be nothing but blind faith. So you might consider a little more care and humility regarding your philosophical prowess.groovamos_{September 2, 2016
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Atheism is an untenable position, logically speaking. There's just too much evidence and good logical argument otherwise. It also has no practical value - it doesn't actually gain you anything in any practical sense. It doesn't even offer or promise anything meaningful or worth striving for. Furthermore, atheists act as if there is a god that grounds objective morality anyway, in contradiction to their intellectual position. Indeed, atheists must live and act day to day as if most of what the hold to be fundamentally true about our existence is in fact false. They act as if free will exists. They act as if there we have a supernatural capacity to override physical processes and not only discern true statements about reality, but reprogram our physical brain to admit those truths upon good evidence and argument. If atheistic materialism is true, nobody has any capacity to know or understand any truth; we would just be biological automatons doing and saying and thinking whatever happenstance interactions of chemicals produced. Understanding a truth as true would require some kind of supernatural ability to look at a chemical result from the outside and assess it's truth without that assessment also being a haphazard chemical process. Atheistic mterialists have no such recourse in their ideology. So, one wonders what an atheist can mean when they say "there is no evidence for god"? As a self-identifies haphazard interaction of chemicals, how would they know if there was or was not any evidence? They cannot know, they can only think what the chemicals happen to produce. They could just as easily be a fanatical muslim or a jellyfish in the ocean imagining the whole thing via chemical luck. What would a happenstance bag of chemicals hope to accomplish by telling another bag of chemicals that the effects of their chemicals (belief in god) is "wrong"? How could a physical effect of interacting chemicals be "wrong"? Wrong in what sense? The first bag of chemicals cannot mean the second bag is wrong in any metaphysical sense, or in any objective truth sense. All the first bag can be doing is just saying whatever its chemicals dictate whether it is true or not. The first bag of chemicals might as well just be making magical incantations, burning incense or sending the second bag of chemicals a voodoo doll as attempt a "logical" argument based on "evidence", because who knows what physical interaction might actually end up having the effect of changing the other bag's brain-state we call a "belief"? This is the self-defeating nonsense that is atheistic materialism. A lot of sound and fury signifying nothing. We might as well be trees making rustling noises at each other if atheistic materialism is true. Atheist materialism = biological solipsism.William J Murray_{September 2, 2016
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Pindi,
Wow HeKS that was a bit of a rant. Why get so worked up about it?
Because it is frustrating dealing with the same staggeringly stupid "there is no evidence" objection over and over and over. That's why.
Not sure if all of those lead to a personal God?
Beside the point. Can you not see that? You said there is "no evidence." HeKS point to a lot of evidence. Do you not understand the basic conceptual difference between "evidence that does not convince you" and "no evidence." I think I read somewhere you are a lawyer. If so, you understand that people put on evidence that does not convince juries every day. That does not mean there was "no evidence." If you are a lawyer, why do you make obviously wrong statements about evidence that would embarrass any first year law student?
Why does it bother you so much that someone comes to a different conclusion to you?
Again, beside the point. You are welcome to come to a different conclusion. You are not welcome to lie.Barry Arrington_{September 2, 2016
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rvb8
all of the things HeKS listed, except for the starting point of the universe have competing, and better theorised natural answers
Congratulations. You utterly, completely, fundamentally missed the the very simple point HeKS was making. Pindi spewed out yet again the "there is no evidence" canard. HeKS shot it down for what must be the millionth time. Yes, any child can understand that there is at least some evidence for the existence of God. That the evidence does not convince you is, for purposes of what HeKS was doing, totally irrelevant to his point.Barry Arrington_{September 2, 2016
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"...all of the things HeKS listed, except for the starting point of the universe have competing, and better theorised natural answers." rvb8 Patently not true and saying such reveals an ignorance of the debate that is astounding for someone claiming such expertise. Yes there are other explanations but they are not "better," and the origin of life from non-life alone makes a powerful argument for God but together they are inescapable except for those willfully intransigent. You remain willfully obtuse in spite of the evidence -- not for the lack of it.Florabama_{September 2, 2016
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rvb8- I would like to hear your better theory for the origin of life,and I assume it is a theory and not just wild speculation. Now please don`t reply with the old there are so many to choose from just quote one or two that don`t suffer from fatal flaws, or from in the future we will discover.Marfin_{September 2, 2016
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Pindi: Why does it bother you so much that someone comes to a different conclusion to you?
The problem with your conclusion — "I just don’t see any evidence for it" — is that in reality there is evidence for the existence of God. For instance, there is testimonial evidence of interactions with God. You may want to argue that this particular type of evidence is not compelling, however, that doesn't equate with "there is not any evidence". You are a lawyer. Why is it that we need to explain this to you?Origenes_{September 2, 2016
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Wow HeKS that was a bit of a rant. Not sure if all of those lead to a personal God? Why get so worked up about it? Why does it bother you so much that someone comes to a different conclusion to you?Pindi_{September 2, 2016
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