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.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 10 February 2014 20:29 (ten years ago) link
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.
― o. nate, Monday, 10 February 2014 21:21 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Monday, 10 February 2014 21:25 (ten years ago) link
(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)
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Monday, 10 February 2014 21:26 (ten years ago) link
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?
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Monday, 10 February 2014 21:27 (ten years ago) link
I just like that Mr. Sophist does not even consider the possibility of a spontaneously-arisen orbiting teapot.
― Ian from Etobicoke (Phil D.), Monday, 10 February 2014 21:30 (ten years ago) link
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
― o. nate, Monday, 10 February 2014 21:32 (ten years ago) link
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.
― o. nate, Monday, 10 February 2014 21:41 (ten years ago) link
That would be a good analogy if he were arguing honestly
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Monday, 10 February 2014 21:46 (ten years ago) link
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.
― o. nate, Monday, 10 February 2014 21:49 (ten years ago) link
he comes from the William Lane Craig school of disingenuous arguing so fuck him
― Lesbian has fucking riffs for days (Neanderthal), Monday, 10 February 2014 21:51 (ten years ago) link
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?
― o. nate, Monday, 10 February 2014 21:52 (ten years ago) link
yes
― Lesbian has fucking riffs for days (Neanderthal), Monday, 10 February 2014 21:54 (ten years ago) link
It may be the accepted "traditional definition" but I'd be pretty surprised if the authors of the Bible agreed with it.
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 10 February 2014 21:56 (ten years ago) link
authors of the Bible oft didn't agree on anything....even the Synoptic gospels aren't that well aligned.
― Lesbian has fucking riffs for days (Neanderthal), Monday, 10 February 2014 21:57 (ten years ago) link
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
― o. nate, Monday, 10 February 2014 21:58 (ten years ago) link
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.
― jmm, Monday, 10 February 2014 22:00 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Aimless, Monday, 10 February 2014 22:03 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Monday, 10 February 2014 22:05 (ten years ago) link
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.
― o. nate, Monday, 10 February 2014 22:10 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Monday, 10 February 2014 22:12 (ten years ago) link
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.
― o. nate, Monday, 10 February 2014 22:14 (ten years ago) link
Would you accept non-traditional definitions of God? Or do they have to prove the traditional God exists and nothing else can be tolerated?
― Emperor Cos Dashit (Adam Bruneau), Monday, 10 February 2014 22:15 (ten years ago) link
Pascal's Wager is the classic example of not starting at neutral.
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Monday, 10 February 2014 22:17 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Lesbian has fucking riffs for days (Neanderthal), Monday, 10 February 2014 22:18 (ten years ago) link
btw guys this movie will end all these arguments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bMjo5f9eiX8
― Insane Prince of False Binaries (Gukbe), Monday, 10 February 2014 22:47 (ten years ago) link
final scene is Gary Gutting sobbing and tearing up his decades of publications.
― Merdeyeux, Monday, 10 February 2014 23:10 (ten years ago) link
I think there are plenty of decent argments for belief in god that are irrespective of any evidence of its existence.
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Monday, 10 February 2014 23:19 (ten years ago) link
I Think where most of this falls down is the supposition that an argument is needed in the first place.
― tsrobodo, Monday, 10 February 2014 23:29 (ten years ago) link
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).
― Lesbian has fucking riffs for days (Neanderthal), Monday, 10 February 2014 23:30 (ten years ago) link
anthony flew went from hardcore atheist to theist if we're still looking for examples
― ogmor, Tuesday, 11 February 2014 00:32 (ten years ago) link
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"
― ogmor, Tuesday, 11 February 2014 00:46 (ten years ago) link
ha
― selfie bans make dwight the yorke (darraghmac), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 00:47 (ten years ago) link
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...
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 01:17 (ten years ago) link
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.
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?
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 01:36 (ten years ago) link
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
― Mordy , Tuesday, 11 February 2014 01:40 (ten years ago) link
both of those reside in the brain's structure/activity, idgi
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 01:42 (ten years ago) link
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
― Mordy , Tuesday, 11 February 2014 01:46 (ten years ago) link
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.
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 01:49 (ten years ago) link
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.
― Mordy , Tuesday, 11 February 2014 01:51 (ten years ago) link
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"
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 01:54 (ten years ago) link
the "god of gaps" as I heard a rabbi once describe it
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 02:53 (ten years ago) link
i.e., "Now we know that the earth revolves around the sun, but we still don't understand X, so...GOD"
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 02:54 (ten years ago) link
they'll just about always have the "yeah sure ok humans can explain the ins and out of things, but God put it all in motion"
― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 02:57 (ten years ago) link
"...that was before he decided to settle down and have a lil god of his very own..."
My main defense against the inerrancy crowd (which is shrinking) is the pure number of differing Christian sects. For a divinely inspired book (their words), it's a lil telling that several billion believers can't come to a consensus on some pretty significant things like WHETHER HELL IS REAL
― Lesbian has fucking riffs for days (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 03:23 (ten years ago) link
In my mind atheism has a kind of "origin myth" of the moment when an early ocean traveler had been to enough different islands to realize that people believed a variety of different things equally fervently
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 03:33 (ten years ago) link
i am starting to think that being an atheist is psychologically harder than having faith in some sort of spiritual something, especially vis a vis coping with loneliness and loss.
― tɹi.ʃɪp (Treeship), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 03:34 (ten years ago) link
Def is for me
― Lesbian has fucking riffs for days (Neanderthal), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 03:41 (ten years ago) link
I have had this fascination for a while with the modern idea of "belief" as separate from knowledge, which seems to be the level on which a lot of "theistic scientists" (i.e. actual scientists who are religious, not intelligent design people) believe. I imagine there was a time when this kind of "belief" virtually did not exist, because if your religion was the only knowledge game in town, it was as literally true as anything else you knew to be literally true.
So today, perhaps to maintain the kinds of spiritual comforts that you're referring to, Treeship, we have this category of "belief" that exists outside of verifiable knowledge for the skeptical who still want religion. Yet I find sort of a paradox in that kind of belief for me, because for me to truly believe I feel like I have to let go of my skepticism, but I can't fully let go of my skepticism without some kind of empirical evidence. So even though I rationally understand the idea of accepting religion without taking it as literally true, I can't put myself into it. Also because that kind of "belief" requires you to choose a faith, but when all faiths seem equally untrue in the literal sense and true in the metaphysical sense, I have a hard time committing to one faith.
― Burt Stuntin (Hurting 2), Tuesday, 11 February 2014 03:42 (ten years ago) link