are you an atheist?

H8 theists, such arrogance!

Wow, sure glad they got a Christian to clear that up for me, it was all so obvious.

AP: One presently rather popular argument: fine-tuning. Scientists tell us that there are many properties our universe displays such that if they were even slightly different from what they are in fact, life, or at least our kind of life, would not be possible. The universe seems to be fine-tuned for life. For example, if the force of the Big Bang had been different by one part in 10 to the 60th, life of our sort would not have been possible. The same goes for the ratio of the gravitational force to the force driving the expansion of the universe: If it had been even slightly different, our kind of life would not have been possible. In fact the universe seems to be fine-tuned, not just for life, but for intelligent life. This fine-tuning is vastly more likely given theism than given atheism.

It always comes down to the anthropic principle, doesn't it?

Rather than treat them as some ancient potentate might — e.g., having them boiled in oil — God responds by sending his son into the world to suffer and die so that human beings might once more be in a right relationship to God. God himself undergoes the enormous suffering involved in seeing his son mocked, ridiculed, beaten and crucified. And all this for the sake of these sinful creatures.

I’d say a world in which this story is true would be a truly magnificent possible world. It would be so good that no world could be appreciably better. But then the best worlds contain sin and suffering.

Yay, ritual filicide! Nothing evil about that.

In the British newspaper The Independent, the scientist Richard Dawkins was recently asked the following question: “If you died and arrived at the gates of heaven, what would you say to God to justify your lifelong atheism?” His response: “I’d quote Bertrand Russell: ‘Not enough evidence, God! Not enough evidence!’” But lack of evidence, if indeed evidence is lacking, is no grounds for atheism. No one thinks there is good evidence for the proposition that there are an even number of stars; but also, no one thinks the right conclusion to draw is that there are an uneven number of stars. The right conclusion would instead be agnosticism.

Even that cloying blowhard Dawkins considers himself an agnostic.

no one thinks the right conclusion to draw is that there are an uneven number of stars. The right conclusion would instead be agnosticism.

This is a really poor analogy for god/no god

a very clever sophist, this guy

He takes the position that a belief in god is the rational default and any flaw in the atheist argument results in the default position prevailing. That's not a very impressive trick. It's the sort of thing high school debating teams indulge in.

Also he apparently believes in a cartoon God that can only do good, so he may as well be talking about Santa Claus rather than anything beyond the scope of human experience.

This is a really poor analogy for god/no god

Agreed. I think if you put the even/odd number of stars analogy on one end of the spectrum and the teapot-orbiting-the-sun analogy at the other end, the best analogy would probably lie somewhere in between.

I think it's more like a teapot orbiting alpha centauri. I can't really know that there aren't tea-drinking intelligent life forms on some planet near alpha centauri who shoot pointless things into space for their own amusement.

(or if there's some good reason to believe there's no life at all near alpha centauri, then just pick a further-flung star)

you also can't really win the argument the way he sets up the rules, because without a clear definition of what god is, how can you point to evidence of its absence?

I just like that Mr. Sophist does not even consider the possibility of a spontaneously-arisen orbiting teapot.

I think his definition of God is pretty much the traditional definition from Christian theology, which is why the existence of evil is a problem for him. He pretty clearly wants to defend the possibility of that type of God existing- he doesn't seem to be making an effort to start purely from the evidence and try to come up with the best-guess model based on that.

xp

For me a better analogy is something like: Do right and wrong objectively exist? I.e., something that will probably never be resolved by science.

That would be a good analogy if he were arguing honestly

I don't really see how he's not arguing honestly. Like any philosopher he makes an argument and either it persuades you or it doesn't.

he comes from the William Lane Craig school of disingenuous arguing so fuck him

How is he "disingenuous"? Are you implying you have access to his private thoughts and he privately doesn't believe in the arguments he's making?

yes

It may be the accepted "traditional definition" but I'd be pretty surprised if the authors of the Bible agreed with it.

authors of the Bible oft didn't agree on anything....even the Synoptic gospels aren't that well aligned.

Even if true, I'd suspect he's hardly the first philosopher to use a convenient argument even if he's not personally 100% sure of its "truth". That's kind of neither here nor there as far as usual philosophical practice goes. The focus is usually on the arguments not on the state of mind of the person making them. xxp

Plantinga definitely isn't WLC awful. He knows his philosophy and he isn't marching it out just to mystify the reader. Still, it's hard to reconcile the Plantinga who gets anthologized in serious metaphysics collections with the Plantinga here who waltzes past dozens of objections while proving in three paragraphs that evolution leads to skepticism.

Do right and wrong objectively exist? I.e., something that will probably never be resolved by science.

Right and wrong objectively exist as multivariant ideas, not as single, whole and absolute platonic ideals.

xp Right, among other things, the "traditional" definition of God is not even coherent. So you're already starting from shaky ground if you're trying to argue that there's evidence that it doesn't exist.

I suspect that Plantinga's analysis of the content of belief vs. the neurological manifestation is somehow flawed, but it's an interesting problem. I'm always in favor of raising interesting problems.

a brilliant person who starts out wanting to prove god's existence can find a way. But I have yet to see a brilliant person actually start from neutral and arrive at god.

But I have yet to see a brilliant person actually start from neutral and arrive at god.

Lots of brilliant people have claimed to do this: Descartes, Pascal, etc. You can obviously argue how neutral their starting position really was.

Would you accept non-traditional definitions of God? Or do they have to prove the traditional God exists and nothing else can be tolerated?

Pascal's Wager is the classic example of not starting at neutral.

yeah was just gonna say. his bet-hedging started not just with an assumption of God, but an assumption of the Judeo-Christian one at that.

btw guys this movie will end all these arguments:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMjo5f9eiX8

final scene is Gary Gutting sobbing and tearing up his decades of publications.

I think there are plenty of decent argments for belief in god that are irrespective of any evidence of its existence.

I Think where most of this falls down is the supposition that an argument is needed in the first place.

that's the whole reason I don't get the apologetic movement. Well, I mean I 'get' it but I think it's the wrong angle. In the end, nobody's stance on religion is going to be wholly based on holistic data (shaky or not). I get that it's a response to the 'yay science' crowd but like, I have plenty of intelligent believer friends who present arguments that are internally sound (just not for me, personally).

anthony flew went from hardcore atheist to theist if we're still looking for examples

the fine tuning argument is p crazy, memorably dissed as being "like being amazed that the holes in a cat's fur line up perfectly with its eyes"

ha

kinda glossed over this part of Christianity, missed its hilarity amongst all the details/weirdness thrown at me since this basic one: God had a son! Where did he meet Ms God? Did he have any daughters? And aw man total bummer, he had to have him killed. If only he could create things or something...

First, if materialism is true, human beings, naturally enough, are material objects. Now what, from this point of view, would a belief be? My belief that Marcel Proust is more subtle that Louis L’Amour, for example? Presumably this belief would have to be a material structure in my brain, say a collection of neurons that sends electrical impulses to other such structures as well as to nerves and muscles, and receives electrical impulses from other structures.

But in addition to such neurophysiological properties, this structure, if it is a belief, would also have to have a content: It would have, say, to be the belief that Proust is more subtle than L’Amour.

In order for this thing we label to be a belief, it must be a belief. uh ok?

i think he's saying belief has to have two components - a neurophysiological property and the interpretive content. obv there aren't any proust neurons

both of those reside in the brain's structure/activity, idgi

i think what he's saying is that there is no theoretical technology that could distinguish between a proust is more subtle neuron and a fellini is more boring neuron - the neurons create a condition in which such beliefs can be framed but they exist in this more metaphysical dimension that aligns w/ neurology

a) that's a very simplistic way to view the brain, and b) yeah I see no reason to jump to the conclusion that their must be a metaphys dimension to them.

fwiw my belief in the singularity compels me to believe all brain data is ultimately upload-able. i don't think this is a problem re belief in god.

to me just sounds like more of the old "we don't quite understand how this all works exactly...so must be some ~magic~ involved"

the "god of gaps" as I heard a rabbi once describe it